self – Page 3 – Blue Ink Alchemy

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Merely A Setback

Art by ArtDoge

Been feeling the Blizzard bug nibbling at me lately.

As much as I would love to dive back into Azeroth and prepare for the new expansion to World of Warcraft, there are a lot of things I need to take care of in the real world first. Things have been quiet on the YouTube channel (save for someone having fun with the dislike buttons – you go, whomever you are! *big grin*); despite picking up a new microphone and finally getting Balthazar in a running condition, I haven’t produced a new video for the last couple of weeks. This past week was a six-day workweek, and I’ve been having bouts of insomnia every night of it, yet haven’t had much energy to be overly productive outside of work.

Hooray! I’m depressed again!

There are times when depression leaves one with enough energy and motivation to go about some basic tasks – feeding myself, taking a shower, getting to and from work, being on my game at work, etc – but beyond that, one has very little in terms of both of those things. There are others when victims of depression don’t even have those to go on, and I’ve certainly had my bouts of building a blanket fort and curling up inside. But this is not one of those times. This depression, be it the usual pervasive mix of hindsight and contrition, or seasonally affected, is merely a setback.

Likewise, losing yet another home, having my car sit in a non-street legal state, and playing perpetual waiting games with potential oaths of upward motion are all merely setbacks.

I’ll keep doing everything I’m able every day. I’ll find a new rhythm. I’ll move to a place of my own. I’ll return to writing fiction, to vlogging, to streaming Hearthstone, to truly loving life. I’ll learn to cope with my moods and thoughts in an active amd positive way, as opposed to merely in hindsight with a mix of nostalgia or contrition. I’ll learn to love myself – fully, truly love myself every single day.

Thank you for bearing with me in the meantime.

The New Diagnosis

April 22, 2016 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

First things first: the vlog returns next week. Balthazar is back up and running, things are smooth there, and I have plenty of spoons to illustrate the Spoon Theory for folks who are unfamiliar. So, stay tuned for that.

At the expense of being blunt: I trigger people.

People’s feelings are not invalid. Nor are their triggers. Bad experiences take all forms, be they an early childhood trauma or an extended period of abuse or neglect. And if a triggering incident happens, regardless of its intent or motivation, you have every right to speak up about it. No one can or should blame you for it.

And if they do, they’re an asshole. Period.

Being told I triggered a friend is how I discovered my borderline personality disorder.

The two biggest red flags are pretty severe abandonment issues and, tied to that, flashes of irrational rage.

Now, thankfully, training and experience (especially over the last few months) have helped me see that rage as irrational, pull back from it to reclaim space for myself and my own health, and analyze its source from an objective standpoint. I have, for the most part, curbed my knee-jerk reactions of pushing people entirely out of my life when they trigger these things (because I have triggers too). I may back away, but cutting things off entirely has never been my style in the first place. The people I care about deserve to have their space, as well. And I hold some for them on my end. Because they deserve that, too.

There are other lovely elements of garnish BPD has sprinkled on my bipolar that I’m now aware of: extreme emotional connections & reactions, self-torture (previously self-hatred), and periods of intense mood on either end of a cycle. I’ve also gotten geared for self-harm or become suicidal when bad news or a low point of a cycle hits, and in hypomanic states I am reckless and impulsive.

You know how I’m doing better? My last hypomanic period was pretty fucking baller, and I made zero horrible decisions.

Now, like bipolar, BPD has no cure. And it’s also one of the most stigmatized disorders in the entire world. It leads directly to places of self-harm and suicide, and coupling it with bipolar aggravates both of those things. Left unaddressed and untreated, it is a death sentence.

It’s hard not to feel like a monster when you become aware of this aspect and realize people see you, perhaps solely, through that lens. That you cease to be a person worth caring about, and become simply a disease to be eradicated.

I try to forestall those feelings. To imagine others complexly. To realize that their perspective is neither willful nor their fault; that this part of me, nor any other part of me, makes me a monster, or unworthy of affection, or bereft of recourse in terms of recovery or mitigation.

Note the word “try” in that previous paragraph. I do not always succeed.

In the past, when I’ve fucked up, I’ve asked for, and in some cases anticipated, forgiveness from friends and loved ones. I ask that the courtesy of understanding be extended to me. It’s very helpful to me when it is, as I do my utmost to expound upon the motivations behind my behavior, the role played by my head weasels, and what my intentions might have been.

Not having the courtesy extended to me has, in the past, hurt me deeply.

And there are times when I have not extended that courtesy to others. Which is unfair and extremely selfish.

I’m meandering away from my point.

The point is that as much as I do my utmost to put myself in another person’s shoes, there are times when others cannot or refuse to do that for me. And that is okay. That is what they need to do. I do not blame them, nor do I hold onto the anger that wells up from the irrational and instinctive portions of my Shadow. Those emotions are there to protect me from hurting. That is their root. Hot feelings of anger cauterize wounds, stop the bleeding, shove away sources of pain.

Their result, however, is something that is neither constructive, nor helps me build or rebuild healthy relationships.

I’d rather live with the hurt.

This is something else I should file under “shit I should have known a year ago.”

But. Life goes on. The world won’t stop turning. Nothing gold can stay.

Best I can do is go on in attempting to do things with kindness, take care of myself, and internalize whatever it is I learn every day, by myself, for myself. That’s how I keep from swimming in my own bullshit. From returning to the status of being a garbage human. From utterly failing those I love, even if they’ve had to let me go.

I Am My Own Ex

April 1, 2016 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

“If you treated a partner the way you treat yourself, would you tolerate it?”

Short answer: no.

Long answer: I’d dump my ass the way I was dumped.

Long nights of contemplation and bouts of fighting back tears have reinforced that I was not abandoned out of a lack of love. It was limits of tolerance being exceeded. We often see in one another potential, our ability for growth and change, the people those we love could be given the right environment. I created the wrong environment for Eurydice. In point of fact, I made it a toxic one.

I would not be able to see this if I have just hopped into another relationship. I do not want to create another environment like that for someone, anyone, that I love.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

I no longer hate myself. I no longer want to kill myself.

I love myself.

I just don’t like myself very much. And if I could, I’d dump myself.

I am my own ex.

And my harshness towards myself, the puritanical way in which I seek justice for the wrongs I’ve committed, creates a toxic environment for myself.

This is why I need therapy. The medication merely helps me recognize and arrest the extremes of my shifts in mood and thought patterns. It doesn’t happen immediately, but it does happen. I do have awareness. I can hold onto the mast when the storms come, rather than being swept into it. I can see the storm coming. I can’t stop it, but I can weather it better than I ever could.

A little voice – my contrite head weasel – tells me it doesn’t matter.

I lost the dearest part of my heart and I will never get it back.

As I said in a rather maudlin bit of Tumblr art, I understand this. It was a gift. And Eurydice can keep it. Or throw it away the way she did me.

I just have to learn to live without it.

I love myself. I just don’t like myself. I am my own ex.

I want to like me. Even in the midst of my anger and sorrow towards this gap between who I am and who I’m trying to be (and, thankfully, the increasing distance between who I am and that thing I was), I want to make things right. I want to appreciate myself on a consistent basis. I want to treat myself the way I want to be treated, the way I want to treat those I love. I want to never lose sight of love, to base all of my interactions on love, and live in love every single day just as much as I am living my truth, naked and unashamed of it, consistently and transparently honest with myself and those around me.

I want reconciliation. I want closure. I want reassurance that love still exists, that it’s still possible, that it’s going to be okay.

I’m holding back tears as I type this because it all feels so impossible and far away.

Okay. Deep breaths. Game face. I can get through this.

I have had experiences where an ex and I have slowly, carefully, gotten back in touch with one another. Repaired some damage. Forgiven one another. Acknowledged that love does not fade, even as we as individuals grow and change.

Reconciliation with myself has never been a goal before. Because I was never honest with myself to realize the environment I make for myself or the true nature of my relationship with myself. But I have to make it a goal. I have to be on better terms with myself. By myself. For myself.

This has to be a goal in therapy.

It won’t stop me missing other people. Friendship. Intimacy. Partnership.

True love.

“Missing people is a constant state of being.” Furiosa (the person I call Furiosa in my life) said that. Or something like that.

She and I don’t talk much anymore, either.

I know the people who still do talk to me mean well. That they are trying to support me. I do appreciate the love, and the spirit in which such support is given.

But for the people who have abandoned me, no. It is not “their loss.” They are not villains or cruel people. They should not be demonized for taking back space for themselves. They should not be cast as evil beings out to hurt me. I refuse to subscribe to that narrative. Please do me the favor of not hating the people who’ve hurt me. They didn’t do it out of spite. They did it to protect themselves.

I am left with pain and loneliness. I tell myself, rationally, that is the extent of the punishment I deserve. There may be some hope at some point in the future of things getting better. Of divides being bridged. I can’t let go of that hope. I fight to hold on to any scrap of hope I can, day and night, like I’m running out of time.

Being stripped of everything else, of every comfort and every piece of Josh-that-was, this is who I am. I do not know how else to be.

And someday, at some point, I’ll learn to like myself again. Reconcile with myself. Forgive myself.

Thank you for bearing with me until then.

I wish everyone I still love could have done that. But I understand why they didn’t.

I wish they would understand me. But I understand why they won’t.

I wish for just one kind word. But, cancerous as it is, I understand the silence.

I will learn to live with it.

I have no other choice.

The Open Letter

March 28, 2016 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

This is Josh. The real Josh. The Josh that should have been here all along.

The Three Gratitudes

Thank you for reading this. So much of this has needed to be said… well, written… for a very long time. Garbage and bullshit has clouded so many of my perceptions, caused so much projection of anxieties and catastrophic conjecture, and it set myself and those I love up for failure and heartbreak. In the last few months, so much of the opposite has happened that I feel warranted in writing this letter.

Thank you for honesty. For my own part, I’ve taken it as my charge to be completely, consistently, transparently honest, with myself, and with everyone around me. This can get awkward at times, but better this than letting fear and grief and unchecked wild emotions and myopic head-weasel-influenced thoughts overwhelm the truth of myself, the truth I denied for so long, the truth I now own.

Thank you for bearing with me. There are so many things that can make me, and have made me, unbearable. Approaching relationships from a place of ignorance and impatience. Breaking trusts. Breaking hearts. Shattering something breathtakingly beautiful. Intent does not forgive action, but I have never intended to cause pain or suffering or discomfort in anything I’ve said or done. I do not deny the part I played in so much going so wrong. I accept the responsibility for what occurred. I bend all of the powers of my mind to be better, to do better. I complexly imagine those hurt by my actions; especially the actions of Josh-that-was.

Throwing Away the Garbage Human

We, all of us, who survived the devastation of lies being revealed and wonderful constructs full of potential melting down, are still moving away from the disaster zone of Josh-that-was. You, me, all of us had to come face to face with the fact that I was falling so short of the tenants that, even then, I desperately wished I could adhere to on a daily basis, because of self-deception and ignorance and fear. And all of us, including myself, were right to discard and abandon that garbage human.

It was a being full of anxiety and impatience. Too often subscribing to “carpe diem” in a way that could only lead to ruin. Possessed by a fear that if someone ended a conversation, went to another location, so much as left the room, that they might never come back. That the same thing would happen to them that happened to Jen – an abrupt, violent, inexplicable death that leaves a deep and festering wound that takes a long time to heal, if it ever does. That fear was so woven into the character of Josh-that-was that every action, every intention, every word was built on unsteady ground, and every seed planted was done so in topsoil far too attractive for head weasels and maggots of that old wound to ignore.

That is unfair to other humans. That is too impulsive, too self-destructive, and ultimately leads to dishonesty and devastation. That is why I regard Josh-that-was as an other. In the kindest terms, that thing was a bad shed. Old dead scales clung to me as I tried to grow and change, and that growth was stifled and misdirected, incomplete and painful, and I struggled even to breathe, let alone be rid of that which I no longer needed, had long outgrown, and should not have allowed to shatter and burn so many things that still hold a place in my heart.

In unkind terms, I took Josh-that-was, put it on its knees, fired two rounds (honesty and determination) into the back of its head, and buried it out back. Because FUCK THAT BULLSHIT.

I apologize. That was intense. I do not want you to feel uneasy reading this. I no longer wish to harm myself. I simply feel that I have gone too long without making it absolutely clear to the people I love where my rational mind is at, even when it goes to dark places, perhaps even especially then. I feel that I owe you insight as to how I am more earnestly and deeply dealing with my Shadow. I feel that I should explain what it means when I say I am learning to love myself.

Being My Own Partner

I have to see myself as a complex individual worth loving, the way I see you. I ask myself: “If I would treat a partner in the way I’m treating myself, would they tolerate it?” Basically, I am trying to see myself as my primary partner. Engaging in active self-care. Forgiving myself. Learning about myself. Focusing on good moments, and moving past bad ones, rather than encapsulating an entire day with the label of “good” or “bad”. And, perhaps most importantly, being honest when I feel afraid or angry or grandiose or depressed or anxious.

Fear drove so many of my bad decisions. Even now, it’s a serious part of my thought process. I’m afraid of repeating past mistakes. I’m afraid of people I love getting hurt. I’m afraid of always being seen as something monstrous, in my own eyes or in the eyes of others (oh, I’ll get to that). But so many of those fears have no real foundation. Past performance, after all, is not an indication of future events. Considering how much I can and have accomplished to heal and recover – my medication is as it should be, I have therapy lined up, my vlog series is yielding positive results and I no longer hate myself nor long for an end to my existence (mostly to satisfy the perceived wishes of those I’ve harmed) – I have no reason to let those fears take control of my words and actions. While I am circumspect with what I say, how I behave, and the things I decide to do, I work to adopt circumspection not out of fear, but out of respect for the boundaries of others, and just as importantly, respect for my own.

Even if I don’t have a solid idea of what I want, outside of a few basic things, I do have a solid idea of the core thing I require to get whatever it is I decide I want. And that is to continually grow and change. To work harder to forge myself, temper myself over and over again, even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard. To love myself like my life depends on it.

Eurydice admonished me to do that very thing.

You know what good writing is. A good protagonist is never static. A good villain very often is.

Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

The thing is, to some of you, I am the villain.

We all cope in different ways. We all deal with loss and grief however our current state of mind requirest in order to at least begin healing. For some of you, that is retreating into a place of solitude to collect and parse thoughts and feelings. For others, it is launching off in an entirely different direction in an attempt to escape or dull the pain. And for a few of you, it is changing the narrative, past and present, and casting those who once were the strongest and most beloved of allies to the vilest and most insidious of despicable traitors.

All of that is okay.

Let me reiterate and emphasize that, point for point.

It is okay to not talk to me.

It is okay to leave me in your dust.

It is okay to make me your villain.

Granted, none of these are things I’d want for myself regarding you, if I were given the choice. But the choice is not up to me. It is up to you. You, as an individual, as the sole sovereign of your own mind and heart and soul, make the choices you feel are best given the information you have. You have the right to invite or disinvite me into your orbit as much or as little as befits your comfort zone. None of your feelings, none of them, are invalid. And when you make a choice that puts me at a distance, even if it means to paint me as the villain in your mind and pushing me out of your heart, that is your choice. You have every right to make it. And as much as it might hurt me, as much as it might keep me awake at night, as much as I long to do something, anything, to make things right between us… I cannot hate you for it. I cannot swear out warrants against you for hurting me. I do not resent you, nor do I wish you ill.

In fact, you know what? I am fucking proud of you for taking back space for you. Even if it was from me (which you had every right to do, see above regarding me being a garbage human back then).

Strange, maybe. But it’s the truth. And you have been owed that for a long, long time.

“That’s all you had to say.” “Okay. ONE MORE THING-“

I am determined to not rely on any person or any one thing to keep me moving forward. At the end of the day, I am the only thing I can rely upon. I must believe in the me that believes in myself. Yes, I know I just referenced Hamilton and now Gurren Lagann is coming up again. It does that. I’m not apologizing. As much as I say I am done with escalators, at least in terms of relationships (and mostly in terms of transit centers, I need the damn exercise), I am still focused on drilling towards the heavens, even if I’m just digging my own grave.

I love you. I appreciate you. I am thankful for you.

You mean a lot to me. You always will.

Even in the midst of all of the sound and all of the fury of Josh-that-was, I have held fast to the strange and contrary notion that I do not give up on the individuals that I love. Ever. EVER. Relationships have suffered and died, often as a direct result of Josh-that-was, but as individuals? You and me? We are worth believing in. I still do. I always will. Even if we never speak again.

You may have put me at a distance. You may have broken off what connections we’ve had. You may have disappeared into the mists.

All I can do, as someone who loves and respect you, is howl at the world and the moon and the mists, and wonder if you can hear me.

I will not demand your attentions. I will not make a mountain out of a molehill between you and me. I will not chase you. I will not make presumptions, hold onto how Josh-that-was saw you, or expect anything from you in my daily life. I am all I need for that. I have to be. By myself. For myself.

But you and I are alive. And where there is life, there is hope. As much as it might be foolish, I foster the flame of hope deep within the Pandora’s jar that contains all of my shit. It’s all together, in one place. All of my anxiety and depression and ghosts and grandiosity and fears and rages snarl and gnaw and claw at one another to be the first to pop out. And hope is at the very bottom. Where my inner child cradles it like the tiniest of candle flames. I stand over that child to keep the other shit at bay.

Because hoping without action may be a mistake, but hope itself is one of the most powerful forces in the fucking universe.

Back To The Future

Do I hope that you and I will talk about all of this? Yes. Do I hope that, if you and I are estranged, we will reconnect at some point? Yes. Do I hope for a tomorrow with you so, so much better than anything we could have imagined, for one another as individuals? Yes.

Do I expect any of that? No.

My only expectation of myself is that I will keep on living. By myself. For myself. Growing and changing and moving into the future, one day, one moment, one step at a time.

My expectation of you is that you will live.

You will do similarly for you as I do for me. Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Improve yourself. And be yourself, for yourself.

You are wonderful. You are beautiful. And you are worth it.

To once again call back to Hamilton, “that would be enough.”

My door is now and will always be unlocked for you. Even if it seems or feels closed. I do not expect you to knock on it. I am fine in the solitude and quiet. I’m thinking. I’m feeling. I’m growing. I am Josh. I am myself. And I am pretty damn cool when I’m not swimming in my own bullshit.

But let me just close with this.

If you ever want to, if you ever feel ready, whenever that might be…

Speak, friend, and enter.

Even if it isn’t in this life, I hope to know you again. I hope this finds you well. And I hope you take this as it is intended – with honesty, with determination, and most of all, with love.

I am and always shall be your friend.

Josh

Zone Control

March 11, 2016 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

Paradoxically, talking about comfort zones makes me uncomfortable.

Not because they are strange things, or because I don’t understand them. I do. I know consent is a vital, essential thing, and you cannot and should not cross into someone else’s comfort zone without that consent. When you do, apologize and back out. At least, if the offended party tells you directly. They may take other action if they feel deeply uncomfortable or threatened. Or simply slam the metaphorical door in your face. And that’s fine. At the end of the day, we must take care of ourselves on an individual, internal level. And that can mean avoiding the external to whatever degree we must to maintain or reinforce our comfort zones.

All of that is comprehensive and understandable to me. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.

My relationship with me, my own comfort zone, and how it’s interacted with others… those things do.

Josh has been one of those people who’s stumbled headlong into someone else’s comfort zone, crashing through a wall Kool-Aid man style if the Kool-Aid man was a well-meaning but ultimately destructive doofus. That’s probably the kindest I’ve been to Josh when regarding his mistakes. I do feel that, for the most part, his heart was in the right place, at least most of the time. While it doesn’t change the fact that Josh made bad decisions regarding getting along with other people, trying to imagine him complexly helps me not want to dig up his corpse and shoot him again.

The othering of my past self is something I’ve been working on. The more I change, the more I examine myself, the more I become acquainted with everything inside of me from my Shadow to my action matching intention to (I’m getting to it) my comfort zone, the more I feel the distance between who I am now, and what I was before. And because of my actions, because of the influence and insight of those I love, because of my stubborn refusal to swim in my own fucking bullshit for one second longer, that past self, that Josh, is a thing. A corpse. A creature, an individual, that I kicked to its knees, shot twice in the head, and buried in an unmarked grave out back. Josh-that-was. He is no more.

I am very uncomfortable referring to who I was and what I did before in the first person. It fucks with my comfort zone.

When I catch myself doing it, some of the emotional creatures – the “head weasels” that appeared regularly in Innercom Chatter (which I really need to get back to doing) – start crying out more loudly. Anxiety, contrition, depression, and anger all claw and squeal for my attention, to buy into whatever it is they’re selling. The idea that I have not changed. The idea that I still need to be punished further for what Josh-that-was did. The idea that sustainable happiness, sustainable Relationships, sustainable peace, are things I will never truly know. The idea that I should just get out of the sight of everyone I know before I do something else fucking stupid.

These feelings, not invalid, come from honest places, deep and dark ones. I do my utmost to not act on them, as those actions would have consequences, while the feelings themselves do not. I keep telling myself that.

I worry that’s more of my own bullshit talking.

Then I remember that just admitting that I have these fears, these worries, in a broadcast as loud as I can make it to anyone willing to listen places me apart from a lot of people. I’m focused on the path in front of me, the one I walk by myself. I have people in my corner, as well as their own corners, shouting support as loud as they can to make sure I can hear. And I shout it to myself. Sometimes in a whisper, sometimes at the top of my voice. Whatever I need, when I need it, however I need it.

Sure, I’ll have moments of discomfort. I’ll have bad moments where I lose sight of my goal. I’ll stumble and pinwheel my arms to keep myself from falling into that threatening but inviting stream of flowing self-deceptive antiquated childish bullshit that still runs beneath all I’ve worked to build within myself.

But this is within my comfort zone. This is something I can and will control. I will continue to be honest, clearly and immediately and consistently honest, growing and nurturing the things that matter to me, reaching out to those I love, and making damn sure my footing on my path is certain and that, at the end of the day, I love myself like my life depends on it.

I no longer care if the world knows what my secrets are.

And I am not throwing away my shot.