Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Connecting with the cosmos, and becoming sXe

I see drug use as a form of the sacred. A way of connecting with the cosmos, moving outside yourself and gaining greater awareness than you might otherwise have.  Marijuana helps with pain and seizures, and made a big difference to me.  Psychotropics engage parts of the consciousness and the brain which are normally disengaged.

That said, I have made a conscious decision not to, anymore.  I do not drink, because it interferes with my seizure medication.

I don't think we make enough space for the magical in our spirituality anymore.  There is no room for personal experience, for mysticism, and for experience.

My transcendent experiences were pretty much all positive, I was either with good friends at wonderful, community events, in loving homes, or outdoors in the beauty of nature.

The worst that happened was that I got sunburnt.


Monday, November 28, 2011

Pretty boys

They're pretty, young, handsome, perfect, able-bodied, well-loved, social, have families that love them...

In fact, the young men in Get Up's new 'It's Time' campaign for equal marriage have only one obstacle to their idyllic life - marriage inequality. 

And that's the problem with this campaign which is entirely lacking in intersectional analysis of any kind.  I can hear the advertising agency now:

Shouldn't we include a person of colour?
Don't make it about issues.

But don't gay people have problems with their families?
Families will love them when they conform to societal ideals.

Aren't we making this unrealistic?
We want to make it simple for people to understand.

Aren't we making them too perfect?
They should be likeable, you know, TV likeable.

The message:
Gay people are just like us, only gay.  All they need to fit in is marriage rights, and then they'll be as close to normal as possible, and stop all this messy, sexual identity politics nonsense.

Some of us are republicans, or not, some want 2.5 kids, some want a house in the suburbs, some are urban, some rural, some want to be single, and have sex in tearooms and bathhouses, some want to pay for sex, some want a multitude of partners, some want a multitude of relationships, some want monogamy, some polygamy, and the variety is endless.

Marriage equality will be true when all queers can get married, in the ways they want to get married.

Legal rights offered to those conforming widens the gap further, strengthening pressure from family and society for gay couples to marry and conform in the way that common-law heterosexual couples experience it.  But queer relationships have a history of not conforming to the status quo, and encouragement to conform to a heterosexual model stresses queer relationships more than heterosexual ones.

I think that perhaps the pressure of producing children on childfree couples might be a similar one.  Childfree couples live a life that is radically different than what is considered "normal" within heterosexual culture, and the pressure to conform by producing children requires not only that they push back, but also explanations, many of which are intrusive and personal.

I was married.  I wanted to be.  It made a great deal of difference when I was in hospital, and when I was sick.  Saying that my wife was there, was vastly different than saying "my partner", or "my girlfriend."  Regardless of the comfort level of the hospital staff, there is a certain level of respect that is required legally when someone is a spouse.

It's very different.  I'm scared of being different again, but I still understand that it is not acceptable to take a privilege at the expense of someone else.  Some privilege I cannot help but have.  I can be aware of those, and notice them, and deal with them, and do what I can to mitigate the impact of that privilege on others.

I can still try not to grab for things which others do not have.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The second time

I had been having trouble with being tired, and being out of sorts a lot.  Couldn't figure out what it was, exactly, but it seemed like I was just short tempered. 

That day, I felt dizzy while walking down the stairs. I passed it off as jitters about going out, needing to eat.  It wasn't the first time.

Less than half an hour later I came to, sitting on the sofa, surrounded by firemen and paramedics, having just had my first tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure, and then heading to a local hospital.  It was New Year's Eve.  I spent it in the ER.

That was the first of the seizures, and the first of the strokes. Altogether, there were 3 strokes, and 5 or 6 major seizures, and innumerable minor ones.  They figured out it was Lupus, with blood clotting disorders, central nervous system involvement, seizures, obviously, and I got a bunch of new medications. 

That was the second time I was given a 50% chance of survival. 
That time it was surviving the next 5 years. 
I have 13 months to go.

It would take another two years to figure out that the short-temperedness had to do with being in pain, because I have excellent internal mechanisms for blocking pain, and gritting my teeth to get through what I have to get through.  It just doesn't leave much room for interpersonal interaction.

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

The first time

The car is dark.  I remember blurry lights, and it feels like it's raining. It might not have been, but that's the sensation.  The man driving is very very angry, but also very kind to me. He is angry at the passenger, who is the Dean of Students at my boarding school.  I am passing in and out of consciousness in the back seat, and he keeps reminding me to stay awake, gently, saying my name.  his voice is kind, not like the others here, who do not like me.  I am different.  I disrupt their ideas of "nice".   I have always  disrupted people's ideas of nice.  There was always more to me, more to be seen, more going on. more.

I don't remember arriving at the hospital. I do remember drinking activated charcoal - yeuch. And lying in a hospital bed, alone, with an IV, and that steady drip, and everyone being very kind.

That was the first time I had a 50% chance of living through something.
On that occasion, it was through the night.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

Judge Adams, and being triggered, again...

I watched that seven and a half minutes.  It took forever, and it alternately felt like my heart was breaking, like I had gone back 25 years, and like I was losing my mind.

So, yes, it was triggering. The out-of-control impotent rage of an adult who has been defied, and feels no other recourse.  The bombardment of questions once the subject/child has been broken down and is willing to apologize. "Yes Sir", "Yes Ma'am", but really these are not the sounds of obedience, beaten in, they are the sounds of calcifying rage and hate.

The initial shock and horror at being dehumanized, screamed at, handled roughly, told to leave, or threatened with being disowned is replaced with gradual acceptance of a way of life which includes uncertainty and fear. 

POWs come back damaged because of being confined, shouted at, terrorized, beaten, being subjected to confusing and illogical routines of punishment and humiliation, a lack of privacy and autonomy. 

There is a reason why we see C-PTSD as a crossover in abuse survivors and veterans. It's the ongoing nature of the trauma, and the inescapable nature of the situation that do the worst damage. Survival becomes automatic, and escape an impossible dream.

It's not the beatings that do the worst damage, honestly. It's the terror. I was scared of losing my home. I got sent away a lot, and got terrorized by the people I got sent to as well. None of them laid a hand on me, but similar tag-team verbal abuse happened on those sleepovers, and I won't ever get over that.  Having two grown-ups attack you, discuss you as if you don't exist, devalue you, and then have you beg for the right to debase yourself and apologize.

Yeah, it's all too familiar.  I'm glad she got the word out, and I hope she sees justice done. 

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Day 20 – the one that broke your heart the hardest

J,

The longer this goes on, the deeper my understanding.

It wasn't that you broke my heart, but my heart did break that last year.

I needed things to be over. It wasn't fair to either of us for me to continue like that.

I had a lot of issues - rage, pain, fear, hate, self-loathing, shame - none of which were your problem, and all of which came screaming to the forefront when I got sick.

It's not like things weren't bad because of what we were each dealing with already, but having what felt like a death sentence dumped on top of that made trying to keep things under control feel pointless.

I am so sorry.  I did not see it.  None of it was so consciously thought out, but "what was the point of trying to be nice, when there was a decent likelihood of being dead in the next few years?" was my thinking pattern.

It is something I still struggle with from time to time.  I have a year and two months left on my 5 year deadline.  (50% chance of living through the first 5 years of Lupus, remember?)

I am just learning to talk to someone about what it takes to express needs as someone with Lupus.

I could barely manage it before, although I did, sometimes, it wasn't great, and I wasn't a great listener, and I had all kinds of problems, but any added vulnerability, and it threw me for a loop, and left me lost, panicking, and full-on claws-out.

I see that.

Needing is scary.  Really needing is petrifying.

I really am sorry that I wasn't able to find words to talk to you. Sorry that I hurt you.

-me

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Day 19 – someone that pesters your mind, good or bad

D,

I miss you.  We were friends, and a kind of family.  We were close.  I fucked that up by being judgmental.

I do comprehend that, I also could not see that there wasn't any discrepancy between what I was doing, the kind of messy I was, and what was going on with you. It wasn't my place to say anything. Not remotely.  Expressing concern, maybe, but that's all.

It's been such a long time. I wish there was some way to fix it.

-me.