[writing-therapy from the inner-things, typed up yesterday or this-today in some early earlier hours]
There’s always so many swirls upon swirls upon swirls all forming their own versions, thinking, telling, all the time, underneath. mumbling music in amongst the fizz. and solitary on-my-own-ness makes it more and more and more. stored-up stories, journeys, thinklings and thoughtlings. i am alive like a dead yoghurt. i am alive like a dead yoghurt that smiles. (i’m partially disgusted by ‘dead yoghurt’, but the sugarclowns like it so i’ll let the dead yoghurt remain)
there’s been so much to process and i don’t know where to start, but sometimes the only way to start is to start, even when that’s not at the start. processing delay is often a thing, but i’m determined not to let important things drift – it’s important for me to process what i have been through. It Is Important for me to Process what i have Been Through. that’s the only way to find resolve. there is no opportunity for resolve if i must everytime-always live in the non-acknowledgement, the shiny-smily PretendThingsNeverHappened. and the purpose of this writelings-typelings isn’t to detail-describe everyrary happening – not here, here isn’t quite the space – but it’s to document the importance of the process: the process to process.
there are reasons why a being in a body reaches overwhelm-overload-overburst. there is more to feeling like your screaming head is falling off – ACTUALLY feeling like your screaming head is falling off, not just as a phrase, as an immersive feeling – there is more to feeling like your screaming head is falling off, than your head being a screaming falling-off head. i refuse to be the pathological core, the one that always needs the cure – although, quite right, if the cure is basic human needs. and i voice that from a privileged view, i am aware, over-awared, but cannot ignore that if a person’s persony needs are not met then they begin to fall apart. and i have never asked for much, at least i don’t think so, but complications make me wonder that i do. a person must feel safe – secure – to be safe: secure. and attachment styles meet brain-files pouring out past happenings, dream happenings, and circumstances get warped when all the other systems fall out of place due to inability to align once things get stranged. it should be obvious that basic nutrition is needed by the brain – basic nutrition, hydration, ventilation. but when functioning falls, so do the circles. dropped-out juggling, poppadoms to the crackled floor.
i think an issue with people not understanding triggers, or panic attacks, or the ocean of anxiety, is that when they have not experienced it they can’t justify or reason with it in a way that is practical or fair. and that brings me some relief, in a way, when people don’t understand, because it means that they don’t have to go through it. but understanding or not, there is a great importance in the processing and resolve. it’s not just, get up forget up and go again – no. it’s only going to build up and up and up from a later starting point than last time. meltdown after meltdown after meltdown. i dislike the word meltdown. because it’s not what it feels like to me – it’s not like i am melting down. it’s more eruption. it’s more heat up than melt down. but i understand the word associations and apply it. the in-the-distance-volcano sizzles and the distant marshmallows peacefully melt down into gloop.
My anxiety-overwhelm often looks like anger. and it does bring anger, frustration-flavoured anger, but mostly it’s the Fear. that’s difficult to communicate. even at this point i’ve got to of over-communicate, it’s difficult to communicate what feels like the most basic – basic is the wrong word here but i can’t see an alternative – needs. it’s difficult for people to get it, when people are different to you and don’t have, might never have, those linked up things – for people to choose to want to understand, even from an ‘i am interested in’ hobby-vibe view. maybe similar to, when i don’t understand watching a rugby match, but ‘understand’ that others do. or when i don’t understand certain life-rules, or job-rules, or relationship-rules, but ‘understand’ why others do. conflicting being-needs is important, too; some people need to dissociate to survive, whereas others need to process and resolve. some people need both things at different times. different things at same-time times. it’s tough for everyone, i know it’s tough, regardless of complex individualised scenario. but i can’t help wondering why one person in a collective must be the pushed-to-the-edge terrorscreaming head’s-going-to-fall-off ill-with-stress person, whilst everything else moves around. and recurring recurring re-occuring. that’s got to be a signifier of something. and that something goes beyond centering-me pathology – the pathology arrives as a consequence, and then i’m the one who gets to be The Ill. 
[image description: digital scribble of a panic-erupting me on the floor in a silver and purple-ish cry-puddle, angry cloud hovering, with a flying-running panicking-me above, lots of scribble swirl emotiony mark-things around the page on a purple and red and grey-ish misty background.]
this scribble-picture got drawn today, but it was actually scribble-processing a thing from a few weeks ago. i had to look at the computer-calendar to find out how long it had been. it wasn’t an isolated incident, it’s from a chain of eruptiony things, but i refuse to just put it down to ‘autistic meltdown’, ‘ocd-trigger overwhelm’, ‘panic attack’, etc – even if it does involve all of those things and more, which it does and was. it wasn’t Only that – it wasn’t just a Reaction Because I Am Like This. it’s more than just the sensory, the anxiety, the misalign. and i crave align. and i appreciate align so much when it appears, SO much, and it does appear, in the most magical of magical ways. but it’s at the expense of all the rest of things, of course. secretly. quietly loudly, inder-body-murmuring like a constant demon-hoover.
[image description: digital scribble-picture of me in the bag-filled blue car surrounded by arrowy things pointing in different directions and question marks. and then me standing staring at a map with scribbly question marks and emotiony-marks, with arrows on the floor facing different ways. and then me with my rucksack on facing some closed double doors with lines coming out of them – like something knows i just have to go through the doors but i’m just standing there stuck. there’s a plant in a pot outside it, scribbling things on the floor and a question mark near my head. yellow wooly scribbles in the background.]
i went on an adventure. i didn’t want to say that, but it happened. and maybe i ‘shouldn’t’ have been going on an adventure, but i need to shut up all the morally chattering, i am doing my best, put the internet-judgy horror-posters in another planetland where i will not attend. the first picture-scribble is a remembering from the night before the adventure, the second one is a remembering of the day of it, a few moments where i got stuck trying to navigate confusing outer-world (and then unstuck). i went a 40 minute drive away for a couple of days, despite all of the intense not-wanting-to-leave-the-house-or-spend-money guilt, because i truly felt it was going to be that or the hospital. i was privileged enough to get the choice, and whilst feeling full of sad-ish guiltyness for that too, i chose to go away, for a couple of days of respite. and it was respite, i went to be with some outdoor water and watch some dragonfly-things and be with the leaves – but it was also post-‘meltdown’ recovery, so it also just meant a lot of time in another bed. and not just recovery from one ‘meltdown’; it was the whole fiery angry-marshmallow chain, from weeks back months back years back, unprocessed layery layery layery layers squashed down into each other like a puff pastry dough-sheet, rolled and flattened. and before the moral-wars begin, i need to say that i had not been anywhere, at all, for a long while. stopped going to the shop. couldn’t go outside because of the panic. my panic, and what panic does to my body physically, and the time it takes to physically heal from those things versus the work i want to need to do. ended up in a room for days and days everytime there was a happening and a recovering. being away helps me to Be. i can’t be here, but i can Be again. i wish others in similar scenarios were able to get away, even just for an hour of a day. i was lucky. am lucky. overlucked by the lucky. and if you’re feeling body-claustrophobic and need to get away but can’t, i can’t get you away, but you can type to me – or type to someone – or type to you. if you can. there might be tiny escapes amongst the typing.
also – i didn’t want to talk about the covidy-things /effects of covidy-things AT ALL but there are important things i need to mention about that. maybe for the next post or another post or something – more delayed processing. or maybe just in my head, or to someone, or not at all. the mask-wearing thing, the mixed-up rules, the shouty-shoutyness about the rules, the judgyness, the FEAR, the harm-causing triggers. there’s so much, and how to navigate that when you are on your solitary own? i need people to help me navigate, i can’t only rely on the version of sense i’ve formed in my mind and that’s not only lonely but also impractical. there’s also the re-remembering how to Person. when it was difficult before. when it’s even worse now because of the AddedThings. re-remembering all of the anxiety things. re-remembering what it’s like to not know how to exit car parks and getting stuck in them for ages. and then re-remembering how to navigate it. re-remembering what it’s like to not be able to go through a door and being anxiousy about it – and then re-remembering how to do it and that it’s fine. re-remembering what it’s like to not know where you’re going when people give you confusing directions and refuse to explain better or guide you – and re-remembering how to navigate. literally navigate, as well as navigating the fear and the feelings of worthlessness/incapeability/incopeability – re-remembering the hows of the happenings, and the after-happenings, so that we can make happenings happen again.
I went to a couple of other nice things after that adventure – this time a planned adventure. there were anxiousy panics on those things too, which is sad because of the way anxiety paints over exciting things. but I am optimistic for being able to go to many more nice things, to paint excitement over anxiety in return this time next time. it’s addictive, even for an indoorgoblin. (and yes, i knowiknowiknow *screams at moral voices*, all of the Things, but i go somewhere then have a big gap in the middle of being in a room before i go somewhere again, and do all of the things i need to do in between for safety and avoidance of harming others, not that i needed to tell you that but i definitely feel like i did need to, because, brain-things.)
oh i also went back to the shop again…….. i still can’t really, just, my mind is, WOAH! you mean to tell me that all this time, people have been going to the shop and getting WHATEVER THEY WANT IN THE WORLD TO EAT AND DRINK? (the people who have access to shops and coins for food that is) and then just… eating and drinking those things?! – the shop, though: there is just so much stuff, it’s so overwhelming – but i was overwhelmed in a not bad way, just in a, i can’t believe there is so much stuff and people are just picking up WHATEVER they want for dinner that day what is this alien word way – WHATEVER they wanted?!?! just pick it up and buy it?! and then actually cook it and eat it. i’m still not over it, it might take me a few times. i bought ice lollies again – Finally!! i want to try to go to the shop once a week again, or once every couple of weeks, or at least out for a drive.
i also have things i want to unjumble about the self-test things, in relation to disordered eating. i know i’m not the only one to feel they need to take multiple tests in case the other one lied, along with all of the general paranoia about that kind of stuff – but there’s something specific about how much fun i find arranging all the test-things, it’s like playing – and, another specific thing about how wrongly-fun it is due to unhelpfully-connected disordered eating reminders. it’s like past disordered eating related patterns prepped me for enjoying doing the self-tests when the self-tests are horrible, which shouldn’t make any sense at all – but non-wordily, it does. learning to live without support and learning to become the support is… . it’s such a Thing, and i don’t always recommend, but the things that have come out of it are amusing upon afterwards-observation. (i want everyone to have the support they need, though, rather than being struggling-scrambled-soup just for the prize of winning some innerland sugarclowns in the name of ‘self-coping’. some things really don’t need to be as difficult as they are – things are difficult enough already!)
and about driving
driving has been so much fear and joy!!!!! so much. the first time, when i went off on the first adventure after the terror-screaming head-falling-off thing, it was like the needing to get away and anxieties of the thing escalating more, overtook the other fears. i shout when i drive, i Shout. i’m silent and quiet for days and days and days (apart from when i overtalk in emails), but then i get in a car alone and it all bursts out of me in an uncontrollable chatter. i had forgotten that, as i hadn’t been driving anywhere for a couple of years, but it used to happen all the time. me-to-me motorway chats and being confused of the stuff that the inner-things decide to exclaim. the first adventure-drive was really really scary. the second adventure was on an early-morning train which i LOVED SO MUCH – i recommend getting the early morning train, the carriage is empty, the sun rising, just – something got restored, i wanted to get on the same train back and then another one back again, it was such a good time!!! even thinking about it now is just, such sparkly joy. i know i ended up having a few peopley panics in the bits in between getting on the train there and getting on the train back, but i would do it again, i will do it again, and now that i’m re-remembering the remembering thing that i described earlier, i know better how to be in a body amongst people and manage TheThings.
the third adventure was in the car, and it was different from the first in that i just felt so… there isn’t a matching word, or words. being able to get in a car and drive for an hour is just…. . when anxiety is there it can be horrible but when it’s a feeling of being able to independent-escape, all of the things begin aligning. I had Polly’s album resonating through the journey there and back, and there was something about the sensory-feel this time that was regulating. and the familiarity of doing that same journey i did years ago whilst carrying all the magic that happened in between. like magnets meeting magnets. it means everything to have had something to guide me towards that journey, to push me out of the house. so so so so much. and also, one joyful thing that day was getting a bit lost wandering around with a battery-dead phone, but still being able to find my car again even when i didn’t consciously remember the way. everything looks different when the sky changes, and when you’re facing the other way. in London there are maps everywhere, but in other places there aren’t. i love remembering finding my way to places, finding my way back to places. and this time it was without a map. it wasn’t far and it doesn’t sound like much, but i felt like i was wandering a video-game (which is what things feel like anyway, but i’ve been in a room for a very long time not going anywhere so had forgotten). i’ve been so anxious for so long, that i appreciate so much these moments of ‘this should be an anxious thing, but it is slow and interesting and let’s see what the universe is offering us here’ magic. they are gifts i don’t deserve, but that i will appreciate with all of my essence and return.
so that’s kind of that. i’ve been working hard to person, trying hard to body, doing the things, trying to manifest further things, creativey self-therapying, alongside the struggle-roll stumbling. yes there has been various glimpses of on-my-own Joy, which brings the hopeful-hopeful hope of more of that, somewhere…. *+*+
but i CANNOT forget the processing, i must not forget the processing. i will not forget the processing.
when i had the urge to output (which is constant-upon-constant these days) and that picture fell out (above), and then the second one (the below the above), i was surprised to see those particular weeks-ago moments on a page, to be faced with them without knowing i was thinking about them. i felt better than i had in a few days, so didn’t know why these things were coming out onto the scribble-page now when they couldn’t before. and that’s processing delay. i could continue to fly with only the joy-bits and ignore all the other-things, in the hope of manifesting more joy and better capability-copability – but those things are there, burying, and the buried things recurr, like resurfacing sand-things launching into the mindskies as whirlpool holograms, roaring with the fizz. and they need me. because how else can they transform?
(‘Be alive, with Us, the Dead Yoghurt!’ exclaims a sugarclown, closing the film lid behind them, but then peering back out of the uncurling corner to ensure that we notice. we notice. i make sure that they know that i notice. they think they’re hilarious. and i value them. i give a purposeful glimpse towards the yoghurt-pot. and a purposeful thanks towards the yoghurt-pot that holds. because for all of the innerland-screaming, yelling over underland trembling, without them i would be unspillable-alone.)
stay patient,
if you can. keep being what you can.
the things have to be the things, for now.
just for now.
and then they won’t have to be the things.
*
Sumita: Unjumbled 