the mess of me and processing

I meant to go running. I'm in the clothes and ready to go, all the way down to the shoes.
But I started painting instead. And as I paint I am thinking of all I have learned about myself and life through my recent painting practices and how it has helped me process and let go of things...
Then suddenly I have the pressing urge to write about it.
So the canvas and paint, and even the container of water, all still sit on the floor while I come on here to type it out.
I am embracing my crazy and accepting me for who or what I am in this moment. I have the time and the space to do that right now. In this moment and I am in a safe and comfortable space. so why fight it?
It is nice to have this space.
I am glad that I am safe and comfortable in this moment.
In the picture I am painting I see texture and color that is interesting to me, engaging, but still a bit uncomfortable in it's current form.
My paintings are messy
colorful and blended
rarely are their harsh bold straight lines
there are clear lines and boundaries but so often they are blended and integrated.
Integrating and combining so many colors and textures. I love the colors and textures.
So very often I paint sideways, at an angle.
So much of it doesn't make sense.
I blend colors that are not meant to be blended and I very often don't clean my brush before switching colors.
I am rarely trying to paint something specific. I just let what ever come out.
The brush may speak to me, and the colors. But nothing is very intentional. just playful, learning, exploring and curious.
I don't like a lot of what I am painting or I find it uncomfortable. I look at my creations often and think "that is really ugly" or "that was a mistake"
so I keep going.
Until it no longer looks like a mistake
or until it makes sense to me
or until I just feel done for the time being.
Occasionally something comes out rather quickly and the picture tells me it is done.
I am not always done at that point so then I paint something else or revisit a previously abandoned piece.
I am not a skilled or talented artist but I love and enjoy this process. I love and enjoy my work. I have even hung some on the walls.
and even though others may think I am odd or may not care for my art I am happy with it and
they make sense to me.

A picture that told me when it was complete. The harsh straight lines are not my work but rather cracks in the wood  that is its canvas. 

The problem is Italy

December 3, 2018 7:45am. The appointment was scheduled for 7:30.
"I'm surprised to see you" he says
"The problem is Italy" I say "I am supposed to take my kids in a week and I need to make sure that I am stable. I need to make sure I am okay."
"I meant everything that I said" he said.
"We agreed to a clean break" he says
"There is no such thing as a clean break from my side of this" I say and I know that so many of the things he said were neither confirmed nor denied but rather implied, so how do I know what he really meant? It was open to interpretation and I was not in my right mind. That much I knew. Which meant that my interpretation was not likely accurate.

The rest of that day, that conversation was me fighting for me and trying to understand but also be okay enough to take my kids to Italy in a week. It would be just me and them for the first 10 days, I needed to be okay, which meant I couldn't hear the things that started to hurt too much... and maybe I was protecting him, fighting for him too. I couldn't let him say and/or I couldn't hear what could get him most in trouble.

But Dr. Cheri was not interested in my best interest; he was most concerned about himself. Protecting himself, no matter the cost to me. At least that is how I feel now. It was obvious then that he had lost objectivity and that something had gone amiss but I did not realize just how unconcerned he was with my wellbeing and how willing he was to sacrifice me to protect himself; a false assumption on his part, likely fed and/or guided by ill founded rules, policies and procedures that he felt obligated to follow or that he knew he could utilize to cover his ass.
In waking up, these realizations are hard hitting and difficult to maneuver. Yet I am supposed to, alone and branded. That is one thing. And I think I can, think I am, just to be hit again and again, by symptoms, by realizations, by psychology, by relationships, and by reality.

And now these are coming in the mail. A reminder that I was not okay. I was not as responsible and my mind was... something else... while in Italy. I had forgotten about their driving rules and the typical time that would have been spent preparing and researching was spent trying to stabilize and understand what was happening to my head and my heart and why I was behaving like I was manic.
I needed help.
and I asked for it.
I begged for it.
I was turned away
in the most heartfelt and yet heartless way.
How is that even possible?
I don't know, but it sure as hell hurts again.
And the gold that he left me came at far too high a price. Maybe I would opt to give it back if I could.

...I want you out of my heart.
You are costing me so much
and you are tearing it apart,
even still.

Indulgence

I have many thoughts. a lot of the time. and my old therapist, who broke me, and then was a total jerk about it, and even had me exiled from the very place and help I needed, who may have been manipulating me, who definitely took advantage of my caring, and who let me know in the most solid way I am not worth his time or energy, but whom I oddly still care about and strangely trust on some level told me to balance my thinking with doing. That is not exactly how he said it and in fact a friend that I briefly had, may deserve to be credited more, so in this silly over processing moment I hope I can see a way to redirect my thoughts from terrible beloved old therapist to other places and other sources so that my heart can more completely heal from the hole that he left in it when he said I could keep him there and then took himself away before finishing the work I had paid him for.
Which actually transitions right into the real reason I came to write today.
Indulgence
I am learning a lot still about therapy and therapeutic relationships and I am sure it is not terribly surprising that I am skeptical and not too trusting of the whole industry right now. As part of training for my job the therapist that I now work for had me listen to some podcasts. As I am listening, trying to learn for the sake of doing my job I am so bitterly reminded of the mess I am coming from and it is a bit of a challenge. They were good and informative podcasts, but I also see some problems.
One of the issues I have is this sense of safety, security, acceptance, non judgment etc, that a person is supposed to get from therapy. It is supposed to be there safe place where they can confess all of themselves and become their true self, with the loving nurturing acceptance of the therapist. The crap their parents screwed up on and their parents parents screwed up on, that they all didn't really screw up on because they also need this divine therapeutic acceptance... So nobody is really at fault as long as we are working to achieve self and get in touch with our own truth... with a therapist of course. That part is crucial, you know. we need their acceptance.
and there is something to this
yet there is some crossover her and even some hypocrisy
and lets not forget
$
It all comes at a price. You get the acceptance and non judgement, but only for a price.
Are you following?
It is beginning to feel something like the indulgences of the Middle Ages
Yet I am going still, to therapists. Is this an indulgence for penance? Will I break another therapist?
Will I ruin more relationships with my questioning of this industry and it's integrity?
You tell me.
I think the balance is tricky
Am I paying for healing
or is this indulgence?

...If I keep you in the shards of my broken heart you are not likely to come out unscathed.

keeping my head above...

Very occasionally this blog gets read. I don't really know by who or why, But I will say it is just enough to keep me going at times.
I am struggling.
The only thing keeping me here, physically here, today is my kids.
 I don't want to screw them up
I don't want them to believe that they weren't enough.

and I don't really feel like writing anything else. Which is why I am. I don't think my feelings can be especially trusted right now. so I'll write and see what comes out
Sleep is my safe place.
and that is what I want to do again
I am mad at my family.
 I am hurt and I feel isolated and alone.
I feel like the more I try the worse I make things
I give up
too much
I try to numb with tv and stupid games on phones
Kids do that to
too much.
Control is an illusion
we have none.
And yet so very much
I think I'll go run now because that is at least something I can do that will help me in some way.
While it also breaks me apart at the knees.
Building bones while breaking me down.
But I learned, I think from my physical therapist, that hard core female athletes have the bones of 70 year olds because their bones are reabsorbing the calcium, but exercise and weight bearing exercises also build bones.
Balance can be so tricky.
good night again

Black holes and accountability

I feel angry with a lot of people today. I feel angry and hurt. I feel alone, even though I am not. I feel so many things and  I try to let myself feel them sometimes. Sometimes I try to avoid or ignore. Sometimes I try to distract and often I try to redirect.
I even try to numb occasionally. But it seems to me that numbing too often leads to some of the most unhealthy and destructive behaviors. Yet that statement includes a judgement and judging is bad, even though that label itself is also a judgement and down the rabbit hole of thinking I go.
Or is it a black hole?
Black holes are fascinating.
They are so powerful they suck everything in. They are literally pulling everything into themselves  turning them into absolutely nothing.
I think people who are truly "open minded" can turn into black holes. Open to everything, turning themselves into literally nothing.
But then again, we don't actually know what is on the other side of a black hole.
So away I go into my black hole.
Then I think it is time to sleep
again
too much sleeping
because that is a safe escape.
My safe place.
But something else I came here to mention, remember and process
My friend, who is a therapist, and works at a similar facility mentioned the kids he worked with complaining about him not trusting them. His story went something like this:
a kid will complain, "you don't even trust me" to which my friend (the therapist) will reply "of course I don't trust you. I don't even know if I can trust myself. I make mistakes too. And when I do you hold me accountable, which is what I am doing with you. So maybe that's what we do, hold each other accountable."
A "we are all in this together" kind of approach.
It's the gist of the conversation. Friend did a much better job at the story, but this is what I have to offer right now and my processing is slow and interrupted by my self pity and self deprecation I suppose...
still reinforced by the confirmations of abandonment from people who were supposed to be in this together with me.
I have to get over them
all of them.
But I am admittedly a bit stuck.
so redirect. attempt again. try to see the good in me.
Try to see what surrounds me. and try to find peace and beauty in every little moment.
try to believe I am worth my time.
Try to still have relationships and somehow figure out how to do that with out sabotaging. Without doing whatever it is I do to contribute to the reinforcing I suspect is always just around the corner.
Are somethings just too broken?
Not worth fixing
not worth holding accountable?
am I?
Judgement
time to stop
not productive
not helpful
good bye

A Void; the Treachery

Avoidance;
my treacherous friend
you lull me into a comfortable secure place
 but it is false
a lie.
I am not secure and you will come back to bite
harder and much more viciously
than if I had I faced the discomfort early on.

So avoidance
how do I avoid you?

-Assessing-:
Wisdom in waiting
letting it play out -Seeing how things play out
patience
ignoring bad behavior

Or is it the treacherous familiar friend Avoidance?

Ever analyzing
never sleeping
(not entirely true -though sometimes it feels that way.
and feelings are funny, because they can seem so real even though they are not always entirely true... or is it real?
Feelings, you funny fantastic fantasy...
that dictates so much of me)

the bottom

I am blogging from work.
a thorn in the side
of the girls who want a pecking order.

Low man on the totem pole, is holding you up
peck too hard and he'll let you go
you'll blame him for failing to hold you up
though it was you that chopped him out