Cptsd, Books, and Created Spirits

Today, I discovered something. Namely, that I do not particularly like living in other people’s worlds.

What do I mean? I mean reading. But not the usual kind of reading. I mean, there comes a point when the reading is too engrossing, that you start feeling the story live around you. I hope im not the only one to experience this, because it is unsettling. Even more unsettling is the fact I have no control over where the story or setting will go. So I try and read faster to rip off the bandage and get it over with. But that usually just engrossed me more, and I sink deeper into this world.

It almost feels like a mist around me, today. The feeling, the aura of this novel I’m reading. In an esoteric sense, I suppose one could say the created soul, the Grigori of the book has been summoned. But it bothers me.

It really, truly, bothers me because the only stories where I want to live and feel myself in and around me are ones I can control, at least to some degree. Where I can halt the pain. Where I can truly enjoy myself without too much fear. There is uncertainty in every writing or true artistic endeavor, I suppose. But I like to imagine that I, the author, am in control of the art.

But in the past few days I have sprained my wrist rather badly, and so have been reading others novels instead of immersing in my own. In fact, I’ve done more reading in the past 24 hours than I have in a month. It has been fun, but rather unsettling. I feel like if I push the envelope, I will be bridging two worlds, that one I live in and the one I am reading about.

Thinking of it in terms of a created spirit, a Grigori, makes sense to me now, but it is still unsettling. I sort of feel like the silver tongue in Inkheart, who could create things by reading them aloud (or so I recall of the story). Truly, I am sure, there are many spiritual ramifications to this, from the neopagan perspective as well as an authors perspective. But I dont want to go there too much.

I like reality, but I also enjoy my own fantasy worlds. Today, while being all cozy, I realized that I truly enjoy immersing in my fantasy worlds and half living in them. I say half living, because they are all I think and breathe for half a day, or a quarter. They fill my mind and obsess me. They bring this aura to me, this presence of joy. It makes me feel accompanied, loved, and surrounded by magic. But it saddens me to realize, as I did today, that the only tasks I am truly successful at are ones that involve sinking into these fantasy worlds. Tasks related to reality and observing it, like cleaning, I am terrible at.

Maybe I am looking too much into things, but maybe I am not. Cptsd makes me often want to escape, to run away, to forget. It has made me sensitive, I suppose, but also makes me… unreal at the same time. I feel, because of my memory loss, a disconnect from the past. Like it didn’t actually happen to me. At the same time I feel a void where my memories should be. In a sense, I feel forever young because I am not aging because I have so few memories and ties to reality.

Anyways, I am writing this purely because I wanted to share. If you are out there an have lived something similar, this bridging of worlds between books and reality, please let me know. I’d like not to be the only one. If you read this and find it curious, I’ll admit that it is! But please don’t just think “oh thats weird” and move on. Entertain me a little, and think on what ifs and ramifications with me. Discuss with me, I’d greatly enjoy it.

In any case, I wish you all the best. Have a lovely day 💗

Discussion on Mental Health and Paganism – Where are the Disabled Folks?

I saw an article the other day, in a free pagan magazine. Yay! It was about mental health and paganism. Wow! I was so excited!

Yay, yay, yay, I thought as I first saw the page-long article. Something interesting to read! Finally, some in-depth something on the topic!

Uh, yeah no. After a few sentences, then a quick skim-through, I was instantly depressed. Because apparently, just because we say ‘merry meet’, we’re a welcoming bunch. And the fact that we do fire gazing? Wow, that, like, taps us into ourselves and allows us to be grounded and shit. And the way we say ‘so mote it be’? Well, that allows us to accept things as they are. So, basically, (according to this author) we pagans are well equipped to deal with mental health issues because of these three things.

I was floored. What. The. Fuck.

This article, in my personal opinion, was like saying you get your vegetables from a pumpkin spice latte (Hint: there’s no pumpkin in most pumpkin spice lattes). I mean, really? Really? Not only was this a super-shallow discussion on the topic which failed to acknowledge SO MUCH of the discrimination that happens in neopagan circles, it felt like it was written by someone who had NO knowledge on the topic.

Now, maybe that person does have lots of insights and experience, but that their one article was just poorly written. Because really, it felt like a lazy slap in the face. It was just like a cotton-candied fluff of an article saying ‘don’t worry, it’s all fine, we’re the best, and here are my poorly-researched reasons as to why’.

Ughhh. Here, let me recap for you: most pagans don’t believe in medications, which are essential for most mentally ill people. Most pagans not only demonize psychiatric medication, but they also straight-out prohibit people taking certain medications from entering into their circles. Oh, and many pagans think mental illness ‘doesn’t exist’, so it’s all fake and we don’t really need clinical help. We should just, go trip out with a shaman or something and tada, we’re all cured. (this is a simplistic recap, by the way, but it would be a HUGE rant if I got into details about it).

I guess my point for this article is to vent, and to really say -> please don’t brush off this topic. It’s a real, vital, topic. It’s not something to be taken lightly. It’s meaningful and deep, and has repercussions for people’s mental health. To claim a hostile environment is, in fact, safe, juts because you haven’t experienced the discrimination as a non-mentally ill person is… flabbergasting? To put it nicely.

Also, why is it that there are so few wide-spread articles on paganism and mental illness from seriously disabled mentally ill peoples? Why is it that the articles I find are from people who had mild depressive bouts, not people who are schizophrenic to the point of a disability, crippled by anxiety to the point of a disability, or people with uncontrollable OCD? Why don’t we get people talking about their experiences as Wiccan or pagan in a psych ward?

It feels to me that our discussion, which should be written by very disabled and chronically ill people, is instead being discussed by abled and at best temporarily incapacitated people. Even the course I’m taking on self-healing at Woolston is not led by an ill person, but instead by an abled (to my knowledge) practitioner, and I find it shows in their approach. I really wonder how the discussion would look if we instead had all the disabled and chronically ill through mental illness folks sitting at this table. If you do have resources that are written my disabled folks, especially blogs and such, I’d love to read them. But for now, I’ll just grump and brood in my corner.

Writing a Book?

Yeah, I know, wow. The author wants to write ANOTHER book. But, hear me out here, this one would be about *drumroll* -> me.

Me, my story, my vulnerabilities, my lived experiences. My spiritual experiences. Now, my knee jerk reaction is that this seems incredibly selfish. After all, what I’ve gone through is not necessarily that interesting for anyone else than me. And besides, I have shit for memory. My memory is like a blended fruitcake that was then strained. Only chunks remain, and they ain’t sweet anymore.

But – would this be useful for me? Would this story help me heal? Would it force me to come to terms with things? I don’t know. I hope so. I feel – I don’t know. Having been told by my psychiatrist to get in tune with my emotions struck a chord in me. I’ve upped my medication, yes, but I want to up my inner game as well. I want to gain some inner strength.

So my question to you all is, have you done this before? Have any of you written out your experiences as a therapy, and shared it for others to read? How did that help you? Was it difficult? Did it really help, or was it just mush?

And finally, I’d like to ask you, my faithful readers, how you would like me to go about this? Would you like snippets posted here and on other sites? Or should I just focus on writing it all, then decide what to do with it? How would you go about writing a book about your life, especially if your brain is something like a mix of swiss cheese and apple pudding as far as memory retainment goes? What would you like to know about me? Ideas on what to focus on?

Magic and Mental Exhaustion/Depression

I saw my psychiatrist recently. When she asked me how I was feeling, at that instant, I couldn’t tell her. Even when I was tearing up, I couldn’t get in touch with my emotions. Well, she said, time to get in touch again.

And so I’ve signed up for an emotional healing course at Woolston. Long story short, we were doing a fire grounding exercise and it made me feel sick. But the important thing was that when I did the next exercise, I realized that I didn’t have the inner energy to shield myself.

Now, a little idea clicked within me then. Maybe a bit dumb, but it bears laying out for those of us with magical lifestyles. And that is that: when you’re mentally/emotionally exhausted, you won’t have the energy to draw on for energy/magical practices.

Be it writing into a candle, or reaching down into the earth, I found that it was inaccessible. I did not merely feel tired, but I had no energy to reach within to tap into. The pool inside was empty, to the point of making me feel sick when I tried to expel/use some.

Alright, so? What’s the use of that?

The use of this is, if you are depressed and chronically ill/fatigued, do magic that doesn’t require you to have any inside of you. Wield the magic of the runes, of the woods you live next to, or what have you. But if you feel dead beat tired and emotionally spent, you might just have no energy, and your spell work may hurt you more.

So be wise, and be a vampire! I’m joking, of course. But really, try and find passive ways of doing magic and grounding. Ask the gods for aid, use elemental magic, and do grounding techniques that don’t require you to output energy first.

Currently I am trying to do grounding and body check ins (as is instructed in the class) and I shall see if any more insights come from that.

I hope this helps someone.

A Dark Horizon…

I am writing this in what feels a stolen piece of time, a writing ‘on the sly’, like I am hiding from someone.

The truth is, I am hiding from my mental illness. I woke up today, and could not function. I had hit near-rock bottom. I could not shower, wash the dishes, or perform my usual tasks. Knitting plain stitch felt difficult. After dragging myself around the house for a few hours, I went back to bed. I napped.

Mercifully, I felt better. I cooked, showered, prepared the dishes to be washed tomorrow morning, and wrote (because that’s another part of my essential tasks, haha). Now, I feel like I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want this burst of feel-good to end. I’m afraid that my illness is creeping back, seizing my life in its grip, and taking over again. I’m afraid of having to go into the hospital, if I keep backwards sliding. I’m worried about the pressure of keeping it all up is placing on my already sick wife.

I know I’ve been through a lot lately. I’m grieving, my social worker says. It’s hard, and understandable. But the anxiety, the brain fog is returning. The strange non-pain in my head that means I can’t think has come back. The strange compulsions (eat the candy bar or you’ll DIE!) are making a comeback as well.

I never wanted this to happen. I’m worried I’m already at too high of a dosage of abilify to amp it up to combat my symptoms. I don’t know what my psychiatrist will say when I see her this coming week. I’m worried there’s nothing to do but rest.

I don’t like feeling like this. I don’t want to be here again.

But you know what? In all this, maybe as a compulsion, maybe as a window of hope, I actually have an idea on how to begin writing a non-fiction book I’ve been wanting to do for years now. Maybe, just maybe, something good will come from this.

Anyways, thoughts and prayers are appreciated. It’s rough right now.

Killing Characters and Grieving (spoilers?)

Maybe this is dumb. But I’ve had a rough day, struggling to keep my head above water, and then – BAM! a character up and dies. Whoosh!

What was a dramatic and happy scene took a morbid turn, and (I don’t want to spoil it for anyone) let’s just say I am now minus some very loved characters that I did not expect to go without.

As a lgbt+ person, I think I feel more when a character of lgbt+ stripes dies. I… just wish everyone could live happily forever after. And though I know death is a part of life, it hits me harder in stories than in real life.

I don’t know why. I don’t really understand it. I was told of the suicide of someone I knew, and it felt very – ah? Oh well. I knew it was sad, but I didn’t feel sad. I felt a sense of respect towards them, for their choice, and felt that they had crossed through the veil. That was all.

But when a character dies? Oh my. I mourn. As I have told y’all, the last time one of my characters died, I took three days to recover. Now, I’m seriously hoping it won’t be that long this time. I already feel like a train wreck, was already anxious, and now? I feel upset in an unwordable way. I feel distressed, disturbed, like something is wrong with my world. All this because a fictional character died – in a world of my own creation.

I really don’t understand why my character deaths bother me so much. Is it because something is over? Is it the end of some part of me? Or what? I truly don’t understand, and would appreciate some insight, if anyone has any. I know other authors get upset over their characters, but this feels like … a notch or three higher. Like, it’s worse than when someone I know dies. It’s so strange, and I can’t explain it and don’t understand it.

Anyways, everything is alright in my life. I’m almost done this novel, and am (as usual) debating what to do with it. I’ve been scolded recently by loved ones because I’m apparently ‘sitting on a gold mine’ by not getting myself traditionally published. They seem to think I really should, but – the fact is that I really struggle to get paperwork and stuff done. I’m in the throes of some right now and it’s not pretty. I’m barely getting it done. I really don’t feel like I could manage to stay on top of a publisher’s demands. The thing is, I know that self publishing can work, and make more money than traditional publishing. But… am I doing it right? Agh. I – just wish I could settle my mind and know that I’m doing the right thing.

As you can see, I’m a bit upset today. A bit off kilter. I just want to do what’s right for me and be successful so I can care for my loved ones but I feel like such a failure. At least I’ll be making a little bit of money – if I can get students to take my course, which I’m doubting anyone will sign up for.

Anyways, I’m going to go and rest. Maybe paint or draw. I wish you all well, and hope you all have a lovely day/evening. Much love ❤

Life Update – Teaching!

Yes, that’s right! I have a job! Teaching!

I have been lucky enough to land a job teaching at a local pagan school – ‘Runes et Magie’. I’ll be teaching about Discernment! Yayyyy!

I am so excited for this (sorry if I’ve already told y’all, I can’t remember if I have yet or not)! I have been working SO much on the course, putting it all together and making a PowerPoint presentation to go with it and making an exam and all that good stuff. It’s exactly what I want to be doing – so it should be a good thing, right?

Well, yesterday, I spoke with the head of the school about my class. She was super nice. It went super well. After hanging up with her, I almost called a hotline, I was so wound up. So anxious. So, so, upset at myself for my minor fixes that I’d noticed needed to be done in the course. It was awful. I received another call from a relative, again a positive thing, and I could barely hold it together. I was a wreck. I sat down to watch TV for several hours, and the room began to spin. I had to lay down almost two hours early from my usual bedtime.

Today, I was no better. I woke up to care for the dogs, fed them and took my medication, then went back to bed until 4 pm. I literally spent the day in bed because I felt so fragile. Now, after taking a walk with the wifey, I feel alright. I can still sense the fragility there, but I’ve got a lid on it now.

All that to say that – I can barely do this teaching thing. I think I can, but only because the lady in charge is SUPER NICE, and that it’s something I LOVE doing. My anxiety about it is just ready to slip out of control and to sink me all over again. But, I think I can do this. I think if I’m careful, keep myself calm and rational, I can do this.

I may not be having as much time to write, though. I’m not sure I still want to post my writings here, even. I – I am not sure how I want to balance my author and teaching sides, actually. I am giving up on writing as my main source of income, and deciding to relocate it as a passionate hobby. I just don’t think I’ve got what it takes to be a full-time author, no matter how much I like it. I’m just not ‘breaking through’ to a yuge audience to make a zillion dollars. That being said, I still want to write. I still want to draw. I love getting feedback and talking about my story with people. But … How will I do that? How will I balance the writing and teaching? Blah. I’ll figure it out.

Anyways, I wanted to give y’all a little update. I’m anxious, but life is going very good! Hopefully you will still keep getting writing posts from me, or at the very least life rants. I hope you all are doing well ❤

Struggling Today…

It’s terrifying, really, how quickly we can go downhill. How one seemingly tolerable incident can *boom* send you spiraling down. And it’s so hard to stop the spiral.

I wish I had some wisdom to impart today, but I’m not sure I do.

I managed to take a shower, which almost set me in tears. I am more functional than I was earlier on. Napping helped. But really, what do you do when you feel like you’re just slipping downwards?

Well, what I’ve learned with my social worker, is to focus on what you can grab on to stop the sliding, even if just a little.

Don’t focus on how shitty you feel. Focus on what might make you feel a little better, even just a little.

For me, it’s music and colors. So I forced myself to listen to music and color and draw in a cute birdie. Yay!

Altogether, I am sorry to be pitching so much moodiness out here into the void, so to speak. And yet, I really enjoy being able to be honest with people like this. It’s freeing to just expose the wound to others and say ‘here, I’m hurt’.

Maybe that’s something we need to do more of within paganism, speak our truths and pains. We do seem to be a vocal bunch, but I don’t know. Do we really talk about our nitty and gritty? I don’t know. To be fair, I’m not entirely in the loop as to who’s talking about what.

Oh, and one last thing. Where are the discussions on the fallibility of deity? I’m researching it for a course I’ll be teaching… and all I found was Christian crap. Anyone out there talking about the limits of the deities and spirits? I’d love some links if anyone has any.

In the meantime, I’m really reconsidering what to do with my birdies. Not that I want to stop doing them, but I’m wondering if making them a pagan project was too narrow for them. Maybe I should just leave them a non-pagan thing, and leave them as a cute little project.

What’s spawning this consideration is that I have a link that may be able to get my children’s activity book into a schoolboard, but the books would have to be a little less religious. A thing I’m not sure would be bad. Maybe just nature-centric would be enough for them. I don’t know. Thoughts?

Here is the picture I drew this afternoon. I hope it makes you smile and brings you some joy. Thank you to all of you for your support ❤

More Updates!

Hi everyone! I’m sorry if I worry you, but I’m still not well. I think it’s because yesterday I had to call a victim’s advocacy group in order to try and get myself psychotherapy… Long story short it was stressful. Anything to do with the past is stressful for me.

The worst part is that I know that it’s ok. It’s just a phone call. I can see the connection between it and the past – and yet I still get all worked up and anxious and can’t stop myself from experiencing it. Ugh.

Writing helped. Talking helped. Painting digitally helped. But I’m still fragile. It frustrates me so much to see that the past still affects me so much, nose-diving me straight into an anxious mess.

Oh well. Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and kind thoughts, I appreciate them. I sincerely hope that you all are doing well and that you and yours are safe ❤ lots of love.

I’m dropping here a picture that I worked on today. It’s not perfect but what the hell, I like it. It’s of Rebella, who I’m sure is going to be super important in the story and an utter pain for our MC (who still needs a name).

A Publishing House for the Mentally Ill?

Hey everyone! So, originally I had a very boring post set up to post about how I don’t feel like writing Chaos & Kuryo’s story today. Real thrilling, I know. BUT! Then I was asked for a guest post about publishing and wham! Not only did I write up a post about self-publishing and mental illness (two of them, actually), but I had an idea! A very interesting idea, if you ask me.

Here it is: Wouldn’t it be epic (to say the least) if I was to start a publishing company dedicated to the fiction stories of people with mental illness?

I mean, hear me out. I know there are a bunch of writing collectives out there like ‘the mighty’ and ‘the bipolar writer’ blog. But where do we, the mentally ill, publish our fiction? Well, probably indie, you see. But that’s a space wherein there’s already a TON of neurotypicals out there, publishing stuff that neurotypicals want to read. So where is the space dedicated to the mentally ill people’s fiction?

I don’t think we have one, simply put. We’re just starting to have spaces to talk about getting better and expressing our experiences. Our fiction, as of yet, is still mixed in with everyone else’s.

But, here’s another thing. I’m quite sure that people with mental illness have pretty bizarre and interesting ideas, which would make for very unique and interesting stories that step out of the ordinary. I think this could really be a fun initiative!

Sad fact: I have no idea how to go about making this happen. Anyone, any ideas? How would one go about doing this? Is this something that anyone would be interested in participating in? Give me your thoughts!

Photo by Bilakis on Pexels.com