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Archive for the ‘Sensory Processing Sensitivity’ Category

October 2nd, 2012 authors, books, creativity, fiction, Kelli Jae Baeli, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, writing No Comments »

Streaming & Quilting: Differing Methodologies in Novelwriting

My partner, Kate,  and I often discuss methodology in our writing. While in general we are very much alike, personally, we do have two completely different methods for writing a book.

Kate has this uncanny, subconscious method that seems to flow from her Muse and out onto the page, with herself as conduit. It seems amazing to me that she can start at the beginning (the beginning!?) and write straight through until the book is done. A linear stream of subconsciousness. No major tweaking of plot points or planting of red herrings {1}, rarely any insertion of missing foreshadowing or details that have to change since something else happened later… When she was working on Building Character, I was amazed to see elements reappear and figure so prominently into the events, when they were hinted at in the beginning, without her even knowing why that particle was in the text she was writing. It’s a little eerie that she seems to have a complete prescience of the story before she’s consciously aware of it, or even writes it. I find that truly amazing.

She is quick to say, however, that she is mindful the whole way through of style and technique and diction and story arcs, etc. The point is, she writes a book from beginning to end, letting it all freeflow, and somehow it comes out brilliantly rendered on the other side. I don’t know how she does that.

And she says she doesn’t know how I do what I do.

I am a more technical writer in my method. My modus operandi is analogous to making a quilt.

I start with one patch of fabric (a character, a scene, a bit of dialogue) and I attach other patches to it, repeatedly, until it becomes one whole cloth.{2}

In my previous AKA Investigations book 2, Also Known as DNA, it began with dialogue. I must have written 100 pages of dialogue before writing much else on that one. I suspect it was a way to allow the characters to tell me the story, since I was already familiar with them and they were more likely to ‘communicate openly with me’–and apparently that method was useful, because it was the quickest I’d ever written a novel (4 months).

Anyway, as I’m piecing together all these parts, I’m looking for the common thread, the repeating theme, the Happy Accidents (elements that appear unplanned, but seem to magically fit into the story). I have this pervasive belief that all things are connected in some way, and it’s my task, in writing a novel, Also Known as DNAto find those connections and hook them up in a way that is credible, and hopefully clever and entertaining as well. That’s half the fun of writing for me: discovering how all those disparate elements can possibly be connected.

In Also Known as DNA, for instance, I noticed the theme of family–those related to you biologically–and parenting, and how everyone can react so differently to what they experience from their parents. So, DNA was the thread. In the 3rd AKA Investigations book, which I am working on now, I have yet to find that common theme. I’m still putting the patches together. I have all these scenes and some of them don’t seem to belong in the same book. But I’ve done this enough times to know that it’s exactly how to create the story for me. I want to find those connections between things that don’t seem to be connected at first blush.

It’s FUN. And writing should be fun at least part of the time.

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{1} have you ever tried to plant a red herring? They’re so wiggly, and won’t stay in the dirt.

{2} I know this metaphor could go much deeper, but I’d need to learn more about quilting to render it well.  Random Thought Alert: I don’t even LIKE quilts. I mean, I like them, conceptually, but because of my SPS, they just seem too chaotic and tend to stress me out. Too many disparate elements crammed together–I like solid colors. I won’t even buy striped towels. But this echoes my need to link and make sense of the disparate elements in the book I’m writing and forge it into a cohesive whole. I NEED to make order from chaos.

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September 30th, 2012 change, creativity, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, Kelli Jae Baeli, Psychology, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, writing No Comments »

Word Count & a Teeming Brain

One writer mentioned on her blog that she hates it when other writers have word count widgets on their blogs. It was as if they were showing off how much writing they got done. She didn’t do word counts herself because there were times when she took writing out and replaced it, and then the word count stayed the same even though she might have had a perfectly good day’s writing under her literary belt.

I have word count meters on my blog, but not for the reasons the aforementioned writer says. I have a word count meter because first, it lets my readers know I’m working on something, and what it is, and second, (and most importantly), it helps motivate ME. It’s not about showing off. That becomes obvious when you realize that I have the same issue the blogger/writer said. I often rewrite from notes in the document. Once that’s done, I delete the notes, and that often makes me break even on word count. So it’s not about crowing that I got so much work done, it’s about motivating myself in any way possible toward reaching a goal. And if you do enough writing, often enough, you eventually get that word count up anyway until the book is completed. So it doesn’t matter if the meter breaks even some days. On other days, it won’t.  I also like looking down at the toolbar in Word and seeing that number rising. Again, it’s about motivation. If I see that I’ve just put down 300 words, there’s a little niggling voice that says try for 300 more…and I usually do.

Hey, whatever it takes.

I have been struggling to get back in my writing groove for a couple of years now, and that’s not something I’ve ever had to deal with before. Until now, I’ve never known what it was like to struggle with writing. But after seeing an article that came up on one of my Google Alerts, and giving it some deeper thought, it finally sunk in on a conscious level that this dilemma has a great deal to do with who I am, physiologically

As a person with SPS (Sensory Processing Sensitivity) or more commonly referred to as HSP – (Highly Sensitive Person) –a moniker I don’t care for as the connotation is misleading–I was reminded of how crucial it is for me to be in control of my environment. I need to have my routines and rituals to comfort me, free my mind from those things that would create a vortex for the creativity to irretrievably fall into (vorTEXT…there’s a joke in there somewhere…but I’m too distracted to think about it). For me, this vortex gets created by chaos, big changes, too many people, too much to do, and missing creature comforts, mostly. This is a sure way for me to become so distracted and uneasy, that I find it almost impossible to tap into either the work ethic or the creativity. And the past few years have been a circus of chaos and change. My chi has been fucked with to the nth degree for far too long.

So I acknowledge the sound reasons why my productivity has waned, while continuing to simultaneously seek solutions and be gentle with myself. It’s a precarious balance.

As I get older, I am more fearful rather than less so. I feel the creep of Age and all that comes stuffed in its pockets. I feel my mortality. Feel how tenuous life is, how precious time is and how inextricably we are caught in the linear-ness of it. I actually get PISSED OFF when I look at the clock and see that more time has passed. How dare it? It keeps ticking away and the only thing that can stop it, is the thing I wish to avoid the most. Irony, through and through.

The article I mentioned refers to a Keats poem which I somehow missed in all those literature classes…but it did speak as if from my own head and heart….

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high grav’d books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to Nothingness do sink.

(c)Isaac Salazar

I have always had a profound fear that I will never live long enough to write all the books I wish to write. I also fear losing my great Love–the One it took me so long to find. Perhaps the only thing I fear as much is just suffering some horrible illness, but even that is connected to the fear of a premature demise. It always seems doubly tragic whenever the world loses great minds, creative people who have given us so much, and as a creative person, I feel a great responsibility to put my work out there. It’s my duty, my one great reason for existence.

Keats’ paradox in the metaphor of the ripened grain–that he is both the harvest and the harvester, is true as well for me. Or for any creative person. I am essentially a book, as well as the creator of the book. I create myself each time I go through this process. The creator and the created.

As a person with SPS, it’s easy to feel apart from the world, and having someone to love is equal parts comforting and fearful. Having that one great love also brings with it the fear of losing that one great love. The proverbial double-edged sword. The sword I hope not to fall upon in my passion to avoid that which frightens me (can you say self-fullfiling prophesy?).

 

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June 28th, 2012 challenge, change, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, Kate Genet, Kelli Jae Baeli, New Zealand, relationships, Sensory Processing Sensitivity No Comments »

Land of New Zeal

Only five more days, and I will be on that flight….The excitement is finally becoming stronger than the fear and stress. Not that I don’t still worry…I’ve never flown to another country before, and dealt with all that entails–like going through customs. I’ve read the Air New Zealand website through and through. All the restriction on baggage and contents, how to check in, what to have ready in zippy bags, how much each can weigh, how big each bag can be. It’s hard to make choices about what to bring when it’s all you’re going to have for a while. If something should be amiss, and they say, “You can’t take that, or your bag is too big,” or whatever, I don’t know what to do because of course I’m only taking a paltry amount and all of it is crucial to me. Just have to hope that doesn’t happen. I have my large cargo/checked bag–pretty standard; and I have a small carry-on rolling bag, and my softside satchel, doubling as personal purse/bag. That’s it. It’s pretty amazing to see your personal requirements reduced to such a small collection of objects. But it does have a way of putting things in perspective. There are things you think you need, which, when it comes down to the wire, you realize you really don’t, or that you can always replace.

I’ve been living like a pauper in this HOT apartment…spending my days on the airbed in front of my computer (which I will mail out the day before, ahead of me). This computer is the only thing that keeps me in touch with my sweetie, and there will be an almost two-day period when I won’t be able to video chat with her all day as usual–see her face, communicate that way (Sounds silly, I know, but we have become quite addicted/dependent on seeing and communicating with each other while we wait for this reunion). I will only have my iPhone and Facebook Messenger until I reach Los Angeles, and then when I get to Auckland, I will have the phone she sent me to contact her between transfers there, in Christchurch and then Dunedin, where she will be waiting for me. And then we will have a wonderful week in a cabin by the water…a fireplace…the gifts we will exchange…and most of all, each other, finally. It is very much like two soulmates kept apart too long, and finally able to absorb each other again. I am living each moment for that.

This whole process has been a real challenge for me, an HSP–every single trigger is present, and still, i trudge forward with complete certainty. There were lots of stressful things to get done in a short amount of time; giving up all semblance of security and routine; selling or giving away or tossing my belongings; selling my beloved Cherryot–my favorite vehicle I’ve ever had; and of course, my two sweet cats. And there’s my crippling fear of flying…I will be on that plane from LA to Auckland for 13 hours…so there will be copious amounts of Xanax.

The truth is, no one can know the breadth and depth of what two people share, except those two people. And we are both quite clear about what we have, and how precious it is. There will be naysayers, and those who speak from their own painful experiences, but unless they have had this, felt it all the way to their marrow, as I do, they cannot and perhaps will not be able to understand it. And I don’t care. As my darling Kate posted recently:

“Sometimes life presents you with gifts of rare value and beauty. After unwrapping them, you don’t look at them and say no, it’s too much, or it must not be real because something this beautiful can only be a deception. You take it and cherish it, value it, and carry it around in your heart where it will never tarnish, no matter what the weather outside.

Jae is such a gift. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve her, but I’m going to make sure she’s safe and loved and happy always. I carry her in my heart.”

Things change when you find true love. YOU change. You are willing to do and sacrifice many things you never would have dreamed of before.And I have had my share of challenges and heartaches and despair…but I have always resonated with this quote, which has become a sort of mantra for me, to bolster my courage when things seem too daunting to conquer:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”(Theodore Roosevelt)

I will ignore the naysayers and critics and be thankful to those who encourage such love and possibility, as I cannot imagine my life without her now, and wouldn’t want to. She is everything to me and I can’t wait to get started on the beautiful life we’ve planned. Love like this is rare, the very odds were so against it ever happening, and so many odd, synchronous things happened to bring us together. Most people don’t ever find this at all, so I will not take this good fortune for granted, especially after the slew of misfortunes my life has been. I will embrace it, leap off that cliff and FLY.

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February 22nd, 2012 challenge, change, Highly Sensitive Person, relationships, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, writing No Comments »

Stupid, Honorable, High-Road Seeking Fool

In a post from a few years ago (two posts, actually, under Going to Denver Because You’re Dead) I chronicled this transition of moving to Colorado to start a new life; again reinventing myself, with the hope of somehow finding my new place in this ever-changing, ever-challenging world.  I got rid of three-quarters of everything i owned, packed a U-Haul trailer behind my Cherryot, and off I went. A journey that lasted 30 hours on many days of little sleep. By the time I arrived in Denver, i was exhausted, lost, and had this sensation of being on another planet. I was not used to driving in big city traffic, with all its interchanges and exits and geographic complications. I didn’t know how to get to this new apartment I had secured for myself by phone and online. I ended up off an exit in a bad neighborhood, worn out, my iPhone battery overtaxed and at that crucial moment, dead. I launched into a full-fledged panic attack, with some unsavory gang-bangers headed my way, and I dug the .25 out of the console and clenched it, hoping i would not have to use it. The gang-bangers wandered off, and i fell completely apart. I couldn’t go on. But then i realized that there was no one to save me but me. It was a familiar feeling. Somehow i managed to calm myself down, wait for my battery to charge, and checked the map against the street signs i could see, and re-route. I tried again to find where i was going, and got lost again. Finally i just stopped in the road and got out and approached the car behind me–several Latino guys in a jacked up car, and just point-blank told them i was lost and needed to find a a certain address. The driver was kind and helpful and told me exactly how to get there, and i did.

After that, i tried to fashion a life. I didn’t know anyone. I used the internet to meet as many women as possible, hoping to make new friends, find dates, and finally that partner i just knew had to be hiding here somewhere. Long story short, I dated 22 women that first year. All of them either I rejected or they rejected me. Then I met one who seemed genuinely interested. I wound up eventually moving in with her, and so began a nightmare of epic proportions that lasted another 9 months. Her mother would NOT move out of the basement as promised, her family hated me, my girlfriend quit her job started smoking pot every day all day, and drinking, (When she had presented herself as a non drug user and not a problem drinker when we met–and knew that was criteria I would not budge on) and not communicating, and hitting me when we had sex, and sleeping all the time, or having meltdowns where she would destroy the house and scream, all the while using my money to pay her mortgage and her truck payment and not paying MY bills. It ended with me calling the cops and she being arrested for domestic violence against me, and then me having to move in a few days, while injured and upset and exhausted.

There was so much more to that process but I’ll skip it all and just say it was another few weeks and months of stress and misfortune before things settled down. [For blogs about this situation, see  Birthday Bash ; Fleeing Field Mouse  ;    Happy Effing Anniversary  ; EXTENDED STRESS Hotel. ;    Trauma Biscuit  ;  The Biggest Lies of All ]

Then I met someone else, four months later. Someone who made me feel things i hadn’t felt in 12 years. I was falling in love with her, and it had only been two months. My hope was renewed. I thought maybe it was my turn. That all my suffering had finally paid off somehow. But she could not feel sexual/romantic attraction to be 24/7–and thought she should. So we’d go platonic, and then she’d change her mind and want sex. I don’t get how someone can have sex with you 35 times in two months, but wonder if she had any attraction. Her attraction, though, she said, came and went, she said, and this became an on-again, off-again trial by fire. I continued to be patient and loving and kind and nurturing, and I made it all about her, and still, it ended. Trying to take the high road, as always, I agreed to be just friends with her, but then i saw very quickly that she could not be there for me. She could only handle her drama. All the while, I was dealing with my midlife crisis of getting older and facing that upcoming 50th birthday, and being reminded at a funeral for her friend’s girlfriend, that i didn’t get to go to my father’s funeral because my selfish petty family never told me he was sick or dead. And they left me out of his obit as a surviving family member. And i sat in that church–me, the atheist, listening to all that stupid blather, and wondering how many people would attend MY funeral. I realized it would not be many. And that also made me profoundly sad that I had gotten to this point in my life and didn’t have the fundamental things I should have by now. I had nightmares about my dad. Nightmares about me in a casket and no one there to say goodbye to me. Nightmares of drowning in an ocean with sharks circling me, and everyone I knew standing on a boat and watching, but not helping me. But she made it clear when I awoke from those nightmares the morning after that funeral service, that there was no room for my pain. She said “I really can’t take any of your negativity.”

But, like the stupid, honorable, high-road seeking fool that I am, I continued to be supportive and wonderful to her, swallowing my own pain…swallowing my heartache over her not returning my feelings, when it had been 12 long years of me thinking I could never fall in love again after that one gigantic heartbreak with the only woman who had been my first and last great love. I put myself aside again, while KR enjoyed my support, but gave nothing back. As long as i remained cheerful and strong and supportive, she was fine. I hoped it would all normalize and equalize somehow, if I was just patient.

Near this time, having not seen my best friend, JH, in two and half years, though we talked every day on the phone, I was looking forward to her upcoming visit. She knew me better than anyone on the planet and we had been extremely bonded for 11 years. She had planned to move here even before me, but I wound up having to go sooner before I lost my mind, being so unhappy where I was. Finally, then, she came to visit. First, in December. It was to be our bonding time. I had so much I wanted to share with her and i needed her more than ever–to talk to–in person. To help me figure out how to get my life back on track. But I introduced her to my two friends CW and KR (whom I had been dating and fell for, but was now just my friend). JH and CW had instant chemistry, and so it then became about them.  I didn’t get that time with JH. But she assured me she was coming back the next month, to do that. Oh, and also to have me design her book cover. And of course, to see the new love interest, CW.

But that 2nd visit was even worse. Out of the 9 or so outings and plans, that were all planned by my best friend, JH–it was me and JH and CW. Or, it was JH and CW. I began to feel like a hotel, and a chauffeur. None of those plans were me and my best friend. My very missed and needed best friend. None of them. After several days of this, I voiced my feelings, and begrudgingly, she cancelled that date with CW that night and we got Chinese food and alcohol and watched a movie, but i never got the chance to talk with her like I’d wanted to for 2 and a half years. Because she preferred the movie, or talking about CW every few seconds. Another few days passed with the same paradigm. All these wonderful plans with CW, or allowing me to tag along with THEM. They had even made plans to go to Vegas in February, and New York in March for the CW’s birthday, which was near the same date as MINE. Finally I could not bite my tongue any longer.  I had literally drawn blood in my own mouth biting my tongue. I told her how it made me feel (Again) and how much I had needed her, and how I had waited for this visit for two and half years.

Her response was, “Why are you trying to ruin my happiness?”

She was MAD. Actually MAD at me for expecting her attention, and some time together after all that time apart. I became so livid, I knew I would say something I’d be sorry for. I told her I was going to the store and would be right back. I spent an hour sitting in my Cherryot in the park, drinking a Hard Cider, smoking cigarettes I had sworn off of; and calmer, ready to have a rational discussion again, I went back.

She was gone. She had packed her bags and was just………GONE. She ignored my texts and my phone calls, (and after over a month, still no response). I even sent her a text that said “You mean I have lost you because I needed you?” I was met with more silence. Her new girlfriend, CW, then became my EX friend, because she ignored me too, except to send me the name of a counselor she had used. She had her own agenda now, and it no longer included me.  In desperation, I tried to confide in KR, and I was an obvious mess, could not stop crying. She said she couldn’t help me, that I needed professional help. No. I needed a friend, and until that moment, I kind of hoped she’d come through finally, in my hour of need. But now, she was the third betrayal and abandonment within a few days. And no word from her either in all this time.

I called my VA counselor and could not get a regular appointment, because there were so many veterans now who needed help and they were understaffed and booked up. How could i be selfish enough to dismiss those soldiers who had their legs blown off in war, and suffered horrible psychological damage? So I called that counselor CW mentioned. I had a quick appointment the very next day and I thought it went well, and i started to feel like I would be okay. But then I got a call from that counselor, who informed me she couldn’t see me again because I owned GUNS. I am a single woman living alone, and only one of those was my usual one…the other two I had acquired quite by accident and never used. So now I was faced with my fourth abandonment and betrayal–by someone PROFESSIONAL, who I went to for help, because I knew I needed it. I tried to reason with her on the phone, telling her that taking away my guns would not keep me from killing myself if that’s what I wanted to do.  There were a million ways to die, and it would have happened a long time ago, if that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t go to her because I was suicidal. I went to her because i was profoundly sad and hurt and needed some help dealing with it. Help my “friends” could not give me because they were too busy walking in the other direction, after their own selfish wants. The email exchange is posted appropriately under the entry the Fourth Betrayal.

I now have this recurring nightmare of being bloody and bruised and broken, lying on the ground, and everyone who ever said they loved me, or were supposed to, are kicking me, spitting on me…walking away….

Now it’s February 22nd. My lease is up here on April 1st. I needed to find another cheaper place to live because I’m paying $1200 a month to live here. With more money, I could make other things happen–like fixing my credit that the last relationship ruined, and finally buying a home to call my own. I found a cheap apartment (even though it was up stairs and stairs destroy my knees), but maybe it was some rare good fortune, and I could just deal with it. Even though I didn’t even trust it; I chose to believe that things might be turning in my favor. Then I found out I couldn’t have my DTV dish there, and I was under a bundled contract with my internet, phone and TV. This, after I had already been packing and putting boxes in the garage for a week. I need a TV more than most people. All this time alone. And all those shows with familiar characters and storylines…it makes me feel in some strange way I have this virtual family…and I can also lose myself in the TV, and it keeps me from thinking too much about how I feel. I need that. I NEED IT like I need WATER and FOOD and SLEEP.

Honestly, I have not felt this degree of loneliness and heartache since 1999 & 2000, living in my van, crippled and fighting Big Brother, when all had forsaken me. It is the same now, lo these many years later. I feel crippled on the inside, and it’s no less harrowing and difficult than being unable to walk without crutches…I am lonely because the cold hard truth is no one loves me. Those who professed to, have forsaken me. My cats are the only living beings who I can say for sure have love for me, and how pathetic is that, especially at my age? My heart breaks from abandonment and betrayal. I have cried every day for over a month now. I don’t think I can ever understand or have any peace about what JH has done to me. It’s just three times the injury that CW and KR are also guilty of the same. Theirs is only a lesser crime perhaps because they have not been in my life as long. But does that really make it a lesser crime? The deed is done, no matter how I turn it. And yes, it does seem that JH’s crime is a capital offense. She and I have been best friends for 11 years…how is it that she can throw me away so easily, and for no compelling reason? She has been the only person in my life I could ever depend on. I would have taken a bullet for her. And yes, I realize that I have had her on a pedestal for some time because of that. I made a decision that i will never again need anyone so much, that when they leave, i can’t survive their absence. But it doesn’t take away the pain.

At the very least, it could be compared to a divorce. But it is also deeper than that. I am grieving over a death. The death of our friendship, at her own hand. And still, it seems more intense than divorce or death. When divorces and deaths happen, there are usually other people there to help support you, hug you, tell you everything will be okay and they love you and will be at your side. But what if what has been lost are all those people? What if you have no family and your friends have abandoned you? how much harder is it to pick yourself up off that hard ground, with no hands reaching to help you? There is no ameliorating force to dull the pain or provide strength. The only comfort and strength to be had has to come from inside the person on the ground. And what if that person is particularly sensitive? what if that person’s heart is tender and bruised to begin with? what if that person was reaching out for help with other pains when it happens? I feel that I have been beaten half to death and reached for my friends and they kicked me, and pelted me with stones. Where will I find the strength for this?

I have begun to make new friends, but that process is slow, and it is much too early to lean on those people, even though I desperately need to. They have been as supportive as they can, but it’s awkward to dump this all on them, since they haven’t known me very long. It’s not what I want to build new friendships on..and truthfully, I don’t expect them to stay around either. I fully expect them to just disappear too).

I have tried to keep busy. I have tried to stay in my left brain. I have ignored every painful thought that bubbles up in my mind. I have done all I know to do, and still it is not enough. I still cry every day. Sob. Bury my face in my sweet cats, and douse them with my tears. The medications I’ve tried are not working. The positive affirmations are not working. I am barely getting by. I don’t want to die, but this is killing me. I want to have hope. I want fortune to smile on me. Isn’t it time? Haven’t I suffered enough? Yet, to think this way is to somehow suggest that life is fair and there’s some balancing force that will reward me for trudging on. The truth is it’s all random. There is no fairness, there is only life, and what comes to you. It has little to do with how deserving you are, or how hard you’ve tried, or how good you’ve struggled to be. where does that leave me?

During this time, to have still another computer crash–which seems to happen every 6 months, is another thorn in my side. I was without a computer for a week, and this is not a good thing for me…it’s how I occupy my mind. But I had to sit in front of the TV and struggle through each minute, each hour, each day….I had to order a new computer and spend money on that which I needed for other things. And I am about to move again, in April, when my lease is up, to a cheaper apartment. I hope the extra money will help me reach at least one of my goals, which is to be able to clean up my credit so I can finally buy a home of my own. So now, in anticipation of that, determined not to injure myself by doing it all too fast, I have been packing up all the things I can do without for the next six weeks. I am surrounded by boxes and debris, the detritus of my existence, the things I carry around with me to set up in proper places to create this semblance of a life, but which has become merely the settings for a stage to serve a fictional play that is my life. Shakespeare said “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts…” quite existential–and that’s how I am feeling. I will turn 50 next month. 50. I am closer to my death than to my birth and I still don’t have a home, a partner…and no one loves me. This statement is usually some lament that is not accurate, but shockingly, it is in this instance, TRUE. There is no one in my life who LOVES me. That’s got to be the worst feeling in the universe. Especially while facing this threshold of getting older. I’m afraid. I’m fearful of too many things, now. Fearful of being ill with no one to take care of me. Afraid of something happening to me and no one will know, or even care….terrified of dying alone.

If I give myself to someone in friendship and love, and am repayed with betrayal and cruelty, then I might respond by withholding the precious aspects that make love valuable…but by withholding the very nature of what love is, I garner no interest in anyone loving me, and so I am caught in my own trap of self-protection. So I either have to choose a life of giving with the very real possibility of betrayal and pain, against the choice of loneliness, but without betrayal and cruelty. Which is the more formidable negative? which pain is greater?

Last night I had the same nightmare, over and over. I kept waking up from it, going back to sleep and then dreaming it again. And though I know, emotionally, that it was awful, I can’t remember a thing about the dream.

I can’t just stop caring. Believe me, I’ve tried. And I just go on caring anyway. I wish there was a pill for that, I’d twist the arm of the VA docs until they gave it to me. Sometimes I need to not care so much. It’s really a burden to care. Caring means it matters, and if it matters, it hurts when things don’t go well.

So today, I made the mistake of trying to correct the failing Internet connection on my computer and when using it wirelessly on My Nook. I called Century Link, and the woman wasn’t making sense, had me crawl under unplug and move to other room after I had to hunt for another phone cable and then when i finally get it hooked up in other room she had disconnected me. I wanted to drive down there, find her, and bash her face in. Not the kind of emotions I like to have.

Then Tom calls about my apartment–I can’t have a satellite dish on 2nd floor where my apartment will be. I’m under contract and can’t get Comcast because I am disputing what they say I owe and trying to be in the class action suit against them. So can’t get their service and couldn’t anyway because I’m under contract with Century Link along with DTV, Verizon. But, he said, he will have apt opening up on top floor, but not sure when it will be available because they’re being evicted and might fight it and that will put me over my lease period–and also I can’t climb that many stairs, my knees will blow and moving, will kill me unless I can pay someone to do EVERYTHING. And the past moving experiences have taught me that I NEVER have the help I need, and I wind up injuring myself to the point where it takes me months to get back to normal.

Tom’s supposed to call back.*

SO while I’m waiting, I couldn’t find my charger for my ear bud, and need it, because my neck injury won’t let me hold the phone with my shoulder like some people do, and I keep dropping my phone and If I hold the phone with one hand, like many people do, my hand goes numb, and I drop the phone that way too. If I break that I’m fucked because an iPhone is not cheap to replace.  I did finally find the charger, mislabeled among all the other thousands of cords and cables, and plugged in my earbud. My only stupid victory in months. And I fully expect it to start smoking and catch on fire.

All the while, I am stressed because I’m stumbling through the chaos of packing…and the place is a mess. I’m about to lose my mind.

I’ve been crying again, feeling lost and alone… popping Xanax, drinking Hot Damn and Mudslides and Hard Ciders. Last night I spent $36 at liquor store–had to walk there because I was afraid to lose my parking spot outside because I’m using my garage for all the packing, and if I return to no parking spaces–which is VERY common here, I will have to then move ALL THOSE BOXES in the garage again to make room, and my back and neck can’t take it right now. Now my knees and hips are killing me, because there’s a big hill on the way up to Ohio street by the liquor store, that I simply HAD to climb to get some damn alcohol to try to calm my nerves, deaden my emotions.

I’m afraid I’ll get cancer because I’m smoking again. And that means I’ll deal with dying alone for sure.

I feel fat. I feel ugly. I feel useless. I feel hopeless. I feel alone.

 

_____

*ADDENDUM: Tom called back and said he couldn’t do it. SO good luck finding an apartment, sorry,,etc. SO back to square one. Square one seems to be my default position

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January 22nd, 2012 challenge, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, Psychology, relationships, Sensory Processing Sensitivity 1 Comment »

The Fourth Betrayal

NOTE: So, in my seeking help when i needed it, for my recent betrayals and abandonments, the counselor i went to see called the next day to inform me she couldn’t see me anymore and for a really stupid reason. I tried to reason with her on the phone, but she had to stand by what she felt was her principals, but which was only LOFTY IDEAS getting in the way of her ability to give the actual care she had sworn to as a medical professional. Finally frustrated beyond words and feeling even worse, i hung up on her. The next day, i got this mail. My answer follows below.

 

Jan 20, 2012

Therapy@[Name Withheld].com

Dear Jae,
Since our telephone discussion did not go entirely well yesterday, I thought I would try to reach out to you via email. I was impressed with your level of honesty, as well as with your convictions about protecting yourself. As I mentioned, I fully understand where these fears emanate from and want to validate them as real and persistent concerns (for us both). On the other hand, as a therapist, and human being who has your best interest at heart, I would be remiss in minimizing the clear and present dangers of having weapons in your home, particularly when you are trying to sort through past and present trauma that exacerbates your hypersensitivity challenges. The boundaries and conditions that I have set in order to work with you are not to disarm or harm you, but are to perhaps protect you.
During our initial assessment, it was clear to me that you are ready for change, and that you have the internal and external resources to continue that process. I wish you ongoing success in all of your endeavors, especially the ones that keep you in touch with your passion (writing), and in touch with other writers. I believe you have a special gift.
I wish the best for you Jae, and sincerely hope that your tireless efforts to find a therapist suited to your needs end in success. The Maria Droste Counseling Center might be able to help you in your search (303) 756-9052.
Kind regards,
[VW]

 

Jan 20, 2012

FROM: jaebaeli

TO: [VW]

VW-

Strange. I just sat down to write to you, as well. Thank you for being the sort of person who follows up. That part is much appreciated.

Now, to clarify, I hung up on you because you had planted your feet and there seemed to be no reason to belabor a point you were incapable of exploring, even when I was willing to compromise. And in my emotional state, I was afraid to let the resulting impact of that escalate. It was best to “walk away.” But I couldn’t do that, because it was a phone call, so hanging up was my way of simply walking away. But I also realized you did not/do not know me, and so I decided I should explain myself in the best way I know how (writing) so that this chapter can have some closure. I don’t like leaving things undone.

Let me just say that I appreciate your stated reasons for the ultimatums you gave me, however, I cannot appreciate, nor accept the underlying truth that keeps those ultimatums from being thoroughly-reasoned-out conclusions. Disjunctive reasoning is a valuable skill that has saved me on many occasions, and I only wish you had been able to employ it as well. I will tell you exactly WHY your conclusions are ultimately not applicable:

a)   I have had guns all my life. I grew up having them as a child, I have a healthy respect for them. I have also, as an adult, always had a handgun for personal protection since that incident in the early 80’s. I have had plenty of emotional/mental provocation to use one of them against myself, if that’s the type of person I am. I have not.

b)   If you were able to destroy or otherwise remove any and all guns from my possession, or even do that also for everyone else in the world, it would not prevent someone from committing suicide, if that is their true intent. There are a million ways to die. If I wanted to die, I could simply fling myself in front of a Mack truck. DONE. Ergo, I firmly believe that guns do not kill people, people kill people.

c)   I made a decision long ago after that attack in Oklahoma, that I would never put myself in that foolish position of being defenseless against the violence present in this world and in some evil people. I was naïve at the time and had no cognizance that such things were truly sprinkled around everywhere, and could actually endanger me. Part of growing up. I will make no excuses for that decision, as I feel it is a wise one, and the right one for me. For me, the definition of stupidity (not insanity) is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. For me to continue my life without protection, after what that experience taught me, would have been the definition of stupidity. I am many things, but stupid is not one of them. You cannot ask me to place myself in danger just to satisfy some erroneous idea you have about proper ethical concerns of your profession, when it might not always apply. That was inherently myopic of you.

I contacted you simply because I needed a friend and my current friends did not step up to the plate (their failing, not mine, as I have always been there for my friends [if they ARE my friends] no matter how uncomfortable it was for me, because I believe that is the very heart of friendship, and it’s also the person I choose to be). You were to be that surrogate friend, until I got my footing again. I did not reach out to you because I was suicidal. That was your assumption. Perhaps you had no way of knowing this because of how I sounded when I left the message—but I am an HSP and I allow myself to have my feelings, and they are sometimes (perhaps too often for my own good) that raw, and that’s the place I was in emotionally. I went to you in the practical sense, because I needed immediate attention, and for frequent intervals for a period of time, and could not get that at the VA because they are understaffed and there are so many veterans who need help. I went to you in the personal sense, because of my feelings of sadness and disillusionment, but mostly to deal with the sense of betrayal and abandonment. Then you informed me you could not see me if I had guns, after I had opened myself up to you in trust, and then exacerbated this by calling my counselor at the VA. Again, more betrayals, in my mind–emotionally. It was not your place to do that. Imagine my dismay when I took responsibility for myself, and was proactive, and the new therapist I reached out to, gave me still another example of those two vexations for my heart, mind and spirit.

This is not the way to gain the trust you so desire of your new patients. And as I pointed out, there’s a flaw in the logic, when you can ultimately do nothing to prevent someone from killing themselves if they really want to die. Your position, as I see it, is to give them reasons not to feel it is a solution, not to throw fuel on that fire.

Thus, open and honest is apparently no longer serving me. I did that with my best friend, telling her how I felt, and she turned it into something about her and betrayed me and our friendship and this has caused me great pain. This is why I needed some help—because the very thing I needed most was ironically the thing that caused the immediate problem.

I have reinvented myself many times, as conditions demanded, and I can do it again. Perhaps it’s time for me to join the masses and start playing those hold-out games, because it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I am (especially as an HSP) much too sensitive to withstand the salvo that seems to naturally result. I will have to start protecting myself more by holding back. I never liked how that felt, but I like very much less the result of my honesty and openness when it seems so many are able to take that information and inflict more harm. I have always blogged, and included in my books, every nuance of what I experience and feel; most directly in blogs—all those entries where I reveal myself in hopes that it might help someone else see that they are not alone in the human experience of isolation, or pain, or despondency, or anger. So I will now be making a private blog—private for ME. Anonymous, without my name or identity attached. That way, I still might be able to help someone else, without putting myself before a Grand Jury who will judge me based on their own biases, and not on the individual truths that reside in all of us. As I’ve said before, you have to recognize your truths in the daylight, before you can find them in the dark. Insofar as honesty with other people goes, I have also always said, I am only responsible for being honest, not for someone else‘s reaction to my honesty. But I can see now, that as honorable and ethical as that position is, it does not always translate well in this world when the result is more damage to ME.

I started my writer’s group for myself, yes, because I needed to get back into my passions and joys, for my own well-being, but I started it equally for the purpose of helping others because I knew that doing that would be good for them. And I don’t like the idea that anyone has ever felt the things I have. I won’t be that ghost that vanishes in their lives when the going gets tough. I will do what I have to do to survive, as I always have, because that’s who I am at my core. But I will not allow myself to walk around without skin anymore.

And I will let go of this idea that there are professional therapists who can really help me anymore than I can help myself. Crisis is the only time I reach out, because I don’t feel I can access those parts of myself when I am in that mode, and I need a steadying presence to help me do that. Friends have been that for me, but sometimes they are not there when that onslaught come around the bend.

I hope that helps to clarify my position on this situation.

Thank you for your time.

Jae

 

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December 26th, 2011 books, creativity, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, humor, Kelli Jae Baeli, Philosophy, politics, Psychology, Sensory Processing Sensitivity, writing No Comments »

Creativity, Intelligence & Depressive Realism

From a Facebook post I made, a thought-provoking subject emerged.

Jae Baeli : “Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

Tina Harada likes this.

Amanda Gulledge
I frowned when I read that so I would feel more intelligent.

Candace Lynn Breaux
Is that why I am unhappy so much of the time? LOL

Jae Baeli
LOL. Amanda–you crack me up.

Candy–probably, yes.

Victoria Bard
love it…so true!

Sandi Partee
hmmm…so does that mean I’m not intelligent? Cause I’m happy as a lark! LOL!

I understand Sandi’s reply was meant lightly, but let me just address the topic of Intelligence and Happiness…

I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, no. There are types of intelligence and there are always variables that affect outcomes. So I would say the quote is a rule of thumb, not an absolute. There is enough data to suggest trending toward intelligent people being unhappy. It has to do with logic, pragmatism, conceptual relativism and other concepts both in and out of the purview of philosophy and philosophical thought. In the most common, if not colloquial sense, though, unhappy intelligent people are more fact-based in their ideation. There is, as such, a condition known as Depressive Realism, where seeking the truth of things–including ugly things–can cause hopefulness and positivity to wane when it becomes apparent that survival is indeed hard, people are indeed cruel and evil, and life is indeed unfair. It’s about rejecting the cognitive dissonance of optimism in the face of negative data.1

The human brain understands the world through patterns. When a new experience appears, the brain wants to match it with a previous experience in order to understand it. Paradoxically, that’s why there is a pervasive belief in society that creative and/or intelligent people are at least partially mentally ill. The pattern does, indeed, exist. But it can just as easily be based on a chicken-or-the-egg paradigm as any other. Does creativity come first, and then depression? Do depression-oriented people seek creative expression? Do intelligent people tend toward a need for creative expression? Clearly, creative people need expression of that creative impulse, they are compelled to communicate it. They also crave freedom and the leeway to think out of the box. Business people with regular white collar jobs, tend toward logic and pragmatism, and have to punch a clock and strive to fit in. This flies in the face of a creative psyche, and so more creative people are drawn to artistic endeavor than more sterile, clinical, restrictive lifestyles in the mainstream. So it might not be that artists are depressed, so much as depressed people fare better in the arts.

The newest research in this regard points to this connection being myth. However, perhaps it is a question of semantics. Which type of intelligence are we referring to? Creative intelligence? Spatial intelligence? Emotional intelligence? Since there are also a great number of divisions in the intellectual paradigm, it becomes a bit convoluted when making an emphatic statement one way or another. For instance, historically, we have known that prolific and gifted writers, artists and musicians have a tendency to self-destruct, either through escapism behaviors like drug use and alcoholism, or, tragically, through suicide. (And this is rather frightening, considering I am an artist, writer, and singer-songwriter. But i think i dodged that bullet pretty well). Many have sought these counter-productive coping mechanisms due to some aspect of being overwhelmed. Whether the “overwhelmedness” is due to the aspects of creative processes, or the realism that reveals ugly truths, is debatable. I think if you have a combination of realism and sensitivity, which usually goes hand in hand with highly creative individuals, you have a Molotov Cocktail of potential destruction. If you know how ugly things are, how unfair, and you are also very sensitive, this can lead to the inability to cope in a healthy way. The burden becomes too great.
Additionally, creative individuals are often alone, since acts of creation generally take place in isolation, so loneliness is a feature within the social psychology of the paradigm. And new research published in the online journal Genome Biology has shown that loneliness can actually make you ill.2 In research of 20,000 genes of both lonely and nonlonely people, the chronically lonely individuals showed 209 changes that resulted in immune changes, inflammation and adversely affected response to infection.

In relation to intelligence, it can be surmised that individuals with high IQ experience a type of ostracization from society, in that they don’t feel like a “normal” person. This can lead to depression, since feeling different and misunderstood can become a divisive aspect between an intelligent person and the less intelligent majority. Intelligent people also ruminate more, and analyze information more, so that it becomes easy to impose feelings of isolation on every situation and interaction. If you combine the conditions of being both highly intelligent and highly creative, the potion becomes a catalyst for depression on a larger scale.

Critics of this correlation among intelligence, creativity and depression will say that studies done have been largely retroactive in that they diagnose well-known creative people of antiquity after the fact. And yet, we understand so much more about symptomatology in the psychological vein than we did when those creative and intelligent people were alive. There is some merit in applying new understanding to the previously misunderstood.

While there are exceptions to the rule, such as intelligent creative people who ARE happy, this condition is ameliorated, in my understanding, by some other coping mechanism; usually, in the form of some voluntary belief system that allows the creative and intelligent individual to ignore the farther reaches of edification–those that would suggest more reason for unhappiness. As a coping mechanism, this is usually very effective, though it could not be characterized as completely entrenched in stark reality. Thus, the individuals who can live behind the cloak of voluntary self-deception are at once more capable of maintaining contentedness. And often, their ability to do so is predicated on the lack of biochemical imbalance that makes positive mindset difficult if not impossible. Yet, there will always be those who cannot accept this postulate, simply because they are not able to experience it. Those who do experience it, will be the ones who have to accept the melancholy that comes with the package: intelligence, creativity, and the propensity, genetic or otherwise, for depression. These individuals might also be unable to reach that rose-colored-glasses posture, no matter how much they would prefer it to be otherwise. This is the quagmire of what is commonly termed Intellectual Honesty. The truth hurts, and some individuals will always be able to choose that mitigation over the often harsh verities of existence.
——————————————————
1this concept is addressed partly in one of my current books “Supernatural Hypocrisy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a God Cosmology” Videos on that blog.
2 http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jan/why-loneliness-is-bad-for-you

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December 20th, 2011 authors, creativity, HSP, Psychology, relationships, Sensory Processing Sensitivity No Comments »

Why not Me?

Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author, Pearl S. Buck  said,

“A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create~ so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.”

And we now know Buck was an HSP – A Highly Sensitive Person, as it is colloquially called by the pioneer in this research, Dr. Elaine Aron, PhD. Perhaps ironically, HSPs also have the ability to be more adaptable than the average person, if for no other reason than we HAVE to be to survive, and I suspect that the HSPs who aren’t able to, for whatever reason, end up being overwhelmed to the point where they can descend into isolation or even suicide. Especially if they have little support from friends or family.

But HSPs are uniquely qualified to problem-solve. They have a unique brain architecture known in the literature as Sensory Processing Sensitivity. There is a difference in what they feel, as opposed to most others in our society. If two people are being poked in the leg, and one is an HSP and one is not, the one who is not HSP will interpret that as a finger poking them, the HSP might interpret this as an ice pick. So while they might be feeling more pain, they are also more motivated to make it stop, and because HSPs tend to be analytical and creative problem solvers, they are the ones most likely to find the solution.

With the Holiday coming up this weekend, I’m having to deal with many of my least-favorite things. No, I’m not talking about shopping or relatives. I’m not doing either. I’m talking about that dreadful set of decisions I have to make, which I not only want to avoid, but wish I could just sleep through.

I am in that mode where I’m fighting off depression and sadness because the holidays are always a source of pain for me. I can’t even recall the last time I had one I enjoyed, and most of them, I’ve spent alone. It’s made worse when I look around me and so many other people I know are all glowing and happy because they have someone who loves and wants them…it makes me feel sad. I’m happy for THEM, but sad for me, because I don’t have that, and haven’t, for a very long time. Even worse, is when one of those happy people is someone you recently fell for, and they didn’t fall for you, but then went immediately into another relationship and DID fall for the other person; and you watch as they say things about that other person you only wanted them to say about you, and they post happy pictures and remove the ones that had you in them. I want to be happy for them, and I am, but it always comes with a sadness. Why couldn’t it have been me? Why can’t I ever find love? And then the tears come, and the scar on my heart gets opened up again, and I sit and bleed…wondering when I’ll find a spark of hope or inspiration again.

So it’s helpful if I can be social with the friends I do have during the holiday season, since I don’t have any family, but it’s often difficult to catch them on holidays, because they have families and established friends to do that with, and I still don’t know that many people here. I’m not going to be on the list of first chosen to spend time with. Am I having a pity party? Hell yes. I feel pitiful. It feels unfair. And I’m once again feeling terrible about it all. Thanks to the wretched holiday season.

Here’s the crux of my dilemma. As an HSP, my Sensory Processing Sensitivity means I’m easily overwhelmed and stressed by certain situations. Some of those are chaos, loud noise and too many different types of noises, crowds of strangers, all crammed together in a small space, driving and parking downtown, drunk people. Now, tell me, doesn’t that sound like your average holiday party at a pub? So I am always forced into this awkward position: I don’t want to disappoint any friend I might have who invited me, but I also don’t want to put myself through it, especially since the holidays are already really difficult for me. And sometimes being among drunk strangers just makes me feel more alone (and there’s the added insult that they are all straight people, and I’m gay–another source for feeling like an outcast–why would I want to pal around with a bunch of drunk straight men? Especially when they’re usually putting their hands all over me–or trying. I have had moments when they run the risk of pulling back a stump).  And then, there’s also the parking issue. The last two times I went downtown to socialize, I got two tickets and also got my car towed (and of course this was after I had to spend 300$ on a brake job–so 550$ later, I’m aware of my aversion to going downtown). Driving downtown is also very stressful to me because there’s too much information pelting my senses–

Turn here? [looking at GPS on iPhone]…oops BRAKE LIGHTS!  Nearly rammed someone…Crap! I need my reading glasses because I’m wearing my contacts…what’s that sign say? I can’t read it! oh, take off my reading glasses…. my hands are shaking…oops, I should have turned there…I’ll turn here OH MY GOD THAT’S A ONE-WAY STREET….[backing up]…STOP HONKING AT ME! I CAN’T have an accident….I finally get a decent vehicle and if I have a wreck, I’ll be so upset…I smell something burning…I hope it’s not something under my hood….SAME FINGER TO YOU BUDDY!….plus worrying about paying for it, and being trapped with no transportation….that screaming Serpentine-belt I need to get fixed…so embarrassing when someone hears it, need to get that fixed, but it’s going to be a couple hundred dollars to do…the noise of it is so irritating…is this where I turn? fuck!  I nearly ran over someone on the cross walk…STOP HONKING AT ME!! Did I bring my wallet? What if I have to park in the street? Do I even have change? DO I NEED CHANGE? Stop Honking at me!!

Welcome to my head. That’s a mild version, too. And only about a minute of time in that experience, but it’s what my head is doing.

Now, compare that to a low-impact or pleasant sensory experience….

Wow…the snow is so pretty and there’s so many trees….know where I’m going…it’s three blocks down on Vance, turn right  then into the free parking area. Got a good space up front….walking into the shopping district…it’s so clean, here… the air smells clean, too…yum, this Juicy Fruit gum smells and tastes so good….it feels good to walk, the rhythm of it is soothing to me…I love all the holiday lights strung on everything here…people look happy, walking along…my life is good….I smell barbeque…and popcorn…mmmm……now I’m hungry, but this place has really good food too, so I’ll just order something delicious….the theater is right there…maybe we could catch a movie matinee tomorrow…oh, that’s my favorite Xmas song…..[singing] “have yourself….a merry little christmas….” just around the corner, my friend waits and we’ll have a drink and conversation, and enjoy our connection…maybe we can sit in front of that fireplace…I love fireplaces…so cozy…I love it when she laughs and smiles…she’s a good friend, I feel lucky to have her in my life…this time, I will hug her and not let go first….I’ll just have a nice relaxing drink or two…if we’re there a while, and I drink more than two drinks, I can just walk home…this is my neighborhood, and it’s familiar and safe…what a beautiful night it is tonight….

See the difference? Having that sensory sensitivity might be bad sometimes, but it can also be extremely pleasant other times. That’s why HSPs are generally highly creative, and spend a good deal of time doing creative things–music, writing, art–all three of which I ACTUALLY DO. And HSPs also need to have some control over their environment and their schedules and their social lives., so that they can create a balance of sensory experience.

So, when I am invited into chaos, I always try to make alternate plans so I can see the people I DO know and care about; but they don’t always want to sit in a quieter place and have a cocktail and talk . I guess I really am odd, because that’s one of my favorite things to do. I want to connect with those I care about or am interested in getting to know. Can’t do that in a loud bar where you have to shout at each other, or when the goal is to get hammered.  And by the time I even GET to that location I’m stressed out. Then I can’t have more than two drinks, because I have to drive home, and I just DON’T drink and drive.  And just when I needed a drink the most. Not to mention I’m really nervous because I know that a lot of people DO DRINK AND DRIVE and I’m afraid one of them will hit me.  Call me a party-pooper, but it’s just not the sort of interaction I enjoy. Some HSPs can handle it better because they’re Extroverted HSPs. For the most part, I am an Introverted HSP. I love interaction like conversation and communion in a soothing atmosphere, watching movies, playing a game…but the more chaos and the less control I have, the more stressful it becomes for me. And I’m so weary of having to explain it, and so tired of being made to feel guilty for being who I am. Is it any wonder that it’s easy to become isolated? Or depressed? Is it any wonder why I question the reason for my existence?

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November 29th, 2011 HSP, Psychology, relationships, Sensory Processing Sensitivity No Comments »

Letter to a Battered Heart

Open letter to a friend whose heart is battered….

I remember that you were there for me when I was going through a lot and had no one. So I will do my best to be here for you, now.

In this life, you have to separate your mental and emotional things, your habits, your beliefs–like laundry. Whites over there, colors over there, delicates there. You can’t throw them all in together or the colors will bleed and what was once pure and white is now sullied. Some things must be kept apart, some things put together, and you always have to cleanse them on the proper cycle and temperature.

My first concern is how you can miss someone who treated you so badly. What do you miss? Missing someone implies that there were good things big enough to erase the bad things, and from what I know of her, there was little that could be strong enough to erase the damage she did to you physically, and emotionally, the betrayal she brought. What is this power she has? Please bottle it for me, it might come in handy. ;0)

You say your biggest fault is opening yourself up to everybody…that you give your all to anybody who needs help. And you just kind of shut down after being hurt so many times.

Well, Honey, I have been hurt a lot too…but look, here’s the deal…Since moving here, I found that I didn’t initially spend much time looking for a quality circle of friends. I’m looking for that, now, yes. (And I believe I have a few). And I’m looking for someone to date regularly, yes, even if it’s not serious, and just companionship and affection. But ultimately, I want a life partner. I don’t do well single. I like having my person to talk to everyday, to share those moments with, to nurture and support and have that returned, for once. I’ve been primarily single for 7 years, with short interruptions of heart-wrenching sadness and betrayal. So I get how that feels. But I won’t let it steal any potential happiness, because life is short. I just know that when you close a door to keep bad things out, you also block the good things from coming in.  I don’t want to be that person.

You say you have tried so hard to open yourself up but feel you are so weird about that. You are terrified of feeling that hurt again. You speak of how your ex was the first person you ever truly opened up to…and you wonder for what? To be hurt?
You’ll never be able to open yourself up until you feel safe. So you don’t feel safe yet. That’s okay. I just hope you won’t close off so much you miss the good ones that might be out there…I know what you mean about the hurt. I felt that way the first time I got my heart broken. (And there have been plenty of other heartbreaks along the way).  But that first one was the worst. I thought I wouldn’t survive. I began to feel hatred for all women, unfairly applying a blanket pre-judgment to every person of the female gender. But luckily, during my darkest hour,  there was this cutie who thought I hung the moon, and she was right there waiting to pick up the pieces by telling me how wonderful I was, that I was her dream woman, and then it didn’t hurt so bad. I could see things in a different light. I realized I DID deserve to be loved and treated with respect and kindness, even though I had just been given an overwhelming example that I didn’t. Even if there are plenty of people out there who are willing to savage your heart, there are good ones too, they’re just fewer and farther between. Believe me, I have lost hope and then tried again over and over. You’ll see that if you have kept up with my blogs ;^)

I’m not sure what it is that keeps me trying. Maybe just that I know myself, know what I want and need, and know that I won’t ever be completely happy until I find that other person who will show me love again. But I won’t settle.  I’ve learned that I’m capable of being blinded by that need and I can’t let it control me. But I know it’s there and it’s strong, and all I can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other and surrounding myself with as many good people and purposeful things as I can.

If you believe that every woman hurts more than she loves, then that means that everyone is bad. And I hope you don’t believe that. You are just sensitive. You feel everything all the way to the bone, as do I. You’ll have to learn some coping skills or this world and the people in it, will destroy everything good in YOU. So, I’ll be your friend.

I know you will, you said,  and part of that scares me….. You said that you were used to proving yourself to women…But you don’t have to prove yourself, just BE yourself. Yet you feel that who you are isn’t enough, and I would ask you– do you LIKE who you are? You say as a lesbian, Hell yes!! but internally…It’s an ongoing battle.  In your eyes, you say, Women are evil…They hurt more than they love...

Lesbians are defined as women who love women. You hate them. Maybe you’re not a lesbian. LOL. I’m just kidding. But really, what about being a lesbian do you LIKE? And then, what inside you is the battle about? What are you fighting? The need to protect your heart at all costs?

Yes…you say.  It is my heart I am protecting… I LOVE everything about a woman!!!

Well it’s your heart, and you have a right to protect it. But protecting it doesn’t necessarily mean hiding it…so your biggest obstacle is fear.

Boy, do I understand that. I have moments when I think I’m just afraid of everything. And then, when push comes to shove, I somehow manage to survive. It’s all those horrible moments of fear that taught me more about myself, and the strength I have inside. We can’t know light without darkness. We can’t understand pain without joy. And we can’t have love without anger.  There truly is a yin and yang to the universe.

One of the most poignant and pivotal moments of that learning about myself came when I moved here…you might recall what I went through to make it happen–many days of hard labor and stress and obstacles, and then 30 hours on the road, and then when I got to the end of that journey, driving into Denver, overwhelmed, exhausted, and irretrievably LOST, I panicked. I came apart at the seams. And there was no one to help me. And in that moment I made a decision. I realized I simply had no choice. I had to find a way to get back on track and find this place I was about to call home. And I did it. Tearfully, shaking, and near insane. But I did it. And because of that, I know that no matter how lost I am, how hurt, or exhausted, I really can find a solution, because inside me is an inner core of strength. You have that, too, my friend. Maybe you just don’t know it yet.

You say,  Every part of me wants what you speak of, what so many others want…

I know. And fear can be powerful. It’s even more so with highly sensitive people. And perhaps, as you say, you are the most highly sensitive person I will ever know.  Maybe so. All the more reason to launch a mission to find some ways to cope, so that you can be happy and fulfilled. You shouldn’t have to say no to yourself and what you really need.You don’t have to. But it IS a process. I know you know that, but you think it’s hard to find a woman willing to work through your “demons”.

Most people don’t have that kind of patience, it’s true. Our society has trained us in recent years to rush through everything. I’m guilty of it sometimes too. But  first, you have to feel safe. And I see you arranging your life into little walls of safety. Boundaries of okayness…but it’s important to be able to discern what is safety, and what is hiding. I think you hide, mostly…and I guess my wish for you is that you can learn to feel safe without hiding.

This song speaks to that in a most poignant and profound way…

 

I\’ll Try — Jonatha Brooke

listen to it…

I did, and just made myself cry. That song just screamed in my head to play it for you.

You say, I’m not ready to give someone my all. That’s okay.  But realize that dating isn’t ALL. It’s just dating. Personally, I wouldn’t want to get serious with anyone who gave me her all, upfront. But no, you say, I’m not quite ready to give myself up again… A healthy relationship doesn’t require that you give yourself up, either. You answer, You don’t think?  I beg to differ…. But you should never have to lose yourself, is what I mean. It should mesh naturally. But you think you have to be willing to give your all. And I tell you,  that’s not something you decide on the front-end. There’s time, and you should be allowed that time to know what you feel, and why you feel it. You are under no obligation to jump into the deep end of the pool, especially after you nearly drowned the last time.

But you’re guarded right now. I can see that. I was hoping you weren’t, since you said you’d worked through it. Maybe you still have work to do? Maybe this is the lie you tell yourself. You still say it’s an ongoing battle…but I’m not sure it has to be. Yet, you can only do what you can do.

Okay, Jae, you tell me, I DO hide. More than I like to admit!!!! I do not ever want to feel the hurt I felt when she left me…

I know, Honey. I have felt that way too. There are few things feel worse than that. When T. left me, it was like she reached into my chest, yanked my heart out and tossed it on the floor, still beating, still bleeding. Here’s one of the songs I wrote about that…see if it speaks to you.

 

The Fall — Jae Baeli

 

…so I know what you feel. And I know how powerful it can be.

But you can get back up again. One foot in front of the other. Keep passing the open windows…

…and I’m here to jerk you back if I see you put your foot on the sill.

 

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November 22nd, 2011 Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, humor, Sensory Processing Sensitivity 3 Comments »

Positive Anchoring, Honesty & Humor

Sometimes we have to come up with clever solutions to problems. Three of my most cherished and successful coping skills have been Positive Anchoring, honesty and humor.
One of the situations that is particularly challenging is being nervous in social situations. For an HSP, it’s doubly hard and it happens far more often. We often find ourselves overwhelmed by that date we have with someone we’re attracted to. We can spoil an entire evening with the handwringing and insecure self-talk going on in our heads. We can spill our drinks, say something insipid or insulting, or just panic, make up a lame excuse, and go home early. So it helps to do some confidence-building before you leave the house.

For instance, when I was in a particularly insecure place recently, I knew that I was broadcasting that mindset at every turn, and this was counter-productive while trying to Win Friends and Influence People.

So I went back to my well-worn technique which I call Positive Anchoring. I got out my trusty dry erase board and jotted down every positive aspect of myself that I felt a potential partner might find a selling-point. Looking at that list everyday whenever I walked by, has helped a great deal, and it forces me to acknowledge the good things about myself. This, in turn, allows me to project a better self-image to those fortunate enough to reside outside my brain. There is no room for modesty in this exercise, and it has served its purpose effectively many times. The trick, though, is believing it. Sometimes the negative voices will speak louder than that list, but I just have to tell them to shut up.

Another situation where I had to find a coping skill against anxiety was when I performed my music solo in front of a crowd for the first time in many years. When I was in my two bands in the 90′s, I did not usually suffer from stage fright, because I had the reassurance of other band members on stage with me. I was not standing there alone under the lights, with all eyes on just little old me. But when I had to perform alone, all my insecurities rose to the surface, and I knew in that moment that I had to either do something quick, or run out of the venue, feeling like a failure.


My knee-jerk response to everything is just brutal honesty. So I said into the mic, “I haven’t done this in a long time and I’m really nervous…” That statement got me some supportive applause. So I continued, adding humor: “I remember that public speakers are often told to deal with their nerves by picturing the entire audience naked…” Titters swept through the crowd. Buoyed by the new acceptance I was feeling through humor and honesty, I met the eyes of a pretty girl on the front row and bobbed my eyebrows, adding, “How YOU doin’?” This brought the house down in laughter, and I was then sufficiently bolstered so I could begin singing and playing the first song.
So Positive Anchoring, Honesty and Humor are key for an HSP (and for anyone else who suffers from periodic insecurity or sensory overload). Failing that, I just take a Xanax.

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November 7th, 2011 Arts, creativity, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, Kelli Jae Baeli, Philosophy, Psychology, Sensory Processing Sensitivity 1 Comment »

Too Much World: A Look at Highly Sensitive People

In an article in Psychology Today,* I again found comfort in the knowledge that there are others like me out there, and my particular brand of weirdness is not “damage” but an inherent brain architecture I am born with. Just like others are born with blue eyes or musical ability.
I speak of those in our species who live with Sensory Processing Sensitivity, which is the scientific term for this trait. More colloquially, it is known as HSP- Highly Sensitive Person, a collection of traits that was identified in pioneering research by Elaine Aron, PhD.
Regarding the nature of HSP’s, Aron tells us:
  • Your trait is normal. It is found in 15 to 20% of the population–too many to be a disorder, but not enough to be well understood by the majority of those around you.
  • It is innate. In fact, biologists have found it to be in most or all animals, from fruit flies and fish to dogs, cats, horses, and primates. This trait reflects a certain type of survival strategy, being observant before acting. The brains of highly sensitive persons (HSPs) actually work a little differently than others’.
  • You are more aware than others of subtleties. This is mainly because your brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply. So even if you wear glasses, for example, you see more than others by noticing more.
  • You are also more easily overwhelmed. If you notice everything, you are naturally going to be overstimulated when things are too intense, complex, chaotic, or novel for a long time.
  • This trait is not a new discovery, but it has been misunderstood. Because HSPs prefer to look before entering new situations, they are often called “shy.” But shyness is learned, not innate. In fact, 30% of HSPs are extraverts, although the trait is often mislabeled as introversion. It has also been called inhibitedness, fearfulness, or neuroticism. Some HSPs behave in these ways, but it is not innate to do so and not the basic trait.
  • Sensitivity is valued differently in different cultures. In cultures where it is not valued, HSPs tend to have low self-esteem. They are told “don’t be so sensitive” so that they feel abnormal.
So each time I find an article about it, I read it with hunger, because it serves to validate me as a worthy human being with special skills that are often misunderstood, but are also responsible for providing the world with some of the greatest, art, music and writing we have ever known. It tends to concentrate itself in creative people, or perhaps more accurately, creative people are more often than not, HSP’s.
In regard toWhy it�s hard to be a highly sensitive (HSP) introvert then, I felt I could have actually written this article–meaning, the author echoes so many of the particular idiosyncratic things about myself that are so hard to explain to others. Some of my reactions are not quite as extreme, but this has only been true in the last ten years, since finding a balance in certain areas; but overall, she describes ME in this article. Like:

“As a highly sensitive person who needs to minimize auditory stimuli, I don’t do well when another person likes having TV or loud music on all the time as background noise. I’m extremely sensitive to other people’s moods; when someone is angry, judgmental or irritated, those emotions come through my skin and into my cells, making me even more uncomfortable. Worst of all, if I don’t have my own space to retreat to and recharge, I’ll eventually have a meltdown.”

I recall one incident at my best friend’s house where I was trying so hard to hear the TV over the other stimuli in the room. My friend was talking on the phone, her ancient, diapered, toothless poodle was walking back and forth in front of me making a smack smack smack nose along with a sound that was like hoo-hoo followed by some grunt one would normally only hear an old man with dementia. Perhaps ironically, I kept turning the TV up louder because I couldn’t understand what was being said in the program I was watching. I even drew a cartoon of this event, and gave it to my friend, which to this day, she laughs about.
The reason for this is, as an HSP, I have a hard time filtering out stimuli. I hear all the sounds at once. For me, this tends to blend into one droning dirge that becomes some version of auditory torture.  Add to that the other senses of sight, smell, tactility, and include being empathic and sensing the emotions of others, and it’s a cocktail for that meltdown she mentions. Dr. Biali continues,

“As an introvert, being around other people drains me (as opposed to extraverts, who gain energy being around other people). That doesn’t mean I don’t like being with others, in fact I love it – but I can only do it for so long before I have to go into my cave and refuel.”

I am this way as well, but it does depend primarily on who those people are. If they are people I know well, who aren’t energy-vampires, then I absolutely ADORE being with them. But even so, I do need recovery time after a highly social event. It’s a precarious and delicate balance and I have had to learn to read myself well, and know when it’s time for me to make my exit, curl up on the sofa in front of the fireplace with a book or magazine, or watch TV. I don’t necessarily have to have silence to recharge. I just have to have control over the content and do something that relaxes me. Often, the best thing for me is to watch a program I enjoy, or journal or paint a picture, or get out the clay and sculpt something.
Biali also nails it with her comments about phones….

“I don’t like being on the phone. The only exception is talking to my husband while we’re apart, or someone else who I’m so similar to that there’s an effortless endless flow of conversation. I dislike awkward silences or pressure to come up with fascinating conversation topics, even with people I know well…What they don’t realize is that I really don’t call almost anyone “just to chat”, unless I have a specific reason that I need to to talk to them – it’s not personal, and I keep asking Armando to explain that to them! Email and Facebook are completely different, I love to communicate that way…”

I can talk for hours with my best friend, but she knows me so well and our conversations are effortless and they flow and they are full of interesting and entertaining things. I do, however always have to have a headset or Bluetooth, because I can’t bear the sensation of being trapped by the phone. It took a while for me to realize that part of my problem with being on the phone was because it was usually plugged into a wall, and I didn’t have my hands free, either, and couldn’t move around. Now, with cell phones, and headsets and blue tooth, I can clean house, or go refill coffee or whatever, while talking, so I don’t feel trapped. I also prefer emails and Facebook and texts most of the time, because I have complete control over that, and it’s not a demand, like a ringing phone can be. Though my first choice will always be a one-on-one interaction with someone whose company I enjoy.Curiously, I am also weird about knocks on the door, or the doorbell. I actually have a stress-response to that, to include a pounding heart and a little trouble breathing, because it’s a sudden, unexpected sound. And it also represents a demand; someone trying to get in, and I don’t know who at that moment…and I have tragic fantasies about it being a robber or a rapist. This is why (since i live alone) I always answer the door with my gun behind my back, if I don’t know the person knocking or ringing.

“As an HSP, I also pick up all kinds of subtleties in people’s voices or comments that make me uncomfortable if they have personal (negative) significance. This intuitive sensitivity works really well when I work as a personal coach over the phone, as I’m able to pick up what’s behind a client’s words and use it to unblock them or help them move forward, but in personal conversations it can be too much information.”

I have the same experience, here, as well. I prefer one-on-one communication, because I have a better chance of picking up on body language and visual cues, so that it’s easier to discern meaning accurately. And even then, if I sense any negativity directed at me, personally, it can feel very much like a wound. That old childhood chant, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me” just simply isn’t true for me as an HSP. Words do just as much harm to me as a physical assault.

In an article by Dr. Aron, she quotes Pearl S. Buck, the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, on the creative mind. I believe that Buck was, herself, an HSP, which is easily seen by her understanding of how we think and feel:

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.”

That is the very quintessence of what it’s like to be an HSP. There will, of course, be variants within any group, because humans are highly individual and influenced by their surroundings and experiences and various other biological and genetic precursors and tendencies, but overall, I feel it is a trait that can be identified quite readily.I believe also, that many, of not most, of the greatest, most influential creative minds throughout history, have been HSP’s. It would explain the propensity toward depression, isolation, oddness but also their ability to zero in on the subtleties of our existence, and create artful representations of what they see and feel below the surface of things. Those creative people for whom we have personal detail are often the ones who could be identified retrospectively as HSP’s. Before I knew about this particular trait, I wrote an article which I posted on this blog, that touches on many of these correlations, called Intelligence, Creativity & Depressive Realism.

The list of notable and historical HSP’s is impressive, and it does tend to draw the highly sensitive people out of the ranks of oddity, and into the light of human contribution. People like:

Steven Spielberg, Dalai Lama, Harry S. Truman, Martin Luther King, Leonardo Da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Georgia O’Keefe, John Coltrane,  Beethoven, Mozart, Morrissey, Tori Amos, Bjork, Jewel, Alanis Morissette, Leonard Cohen,  Kurt Cobain, Michael Stipe, Chris Isaak, Neil Finn, John Lennon, Sir Thomas Moore, E.E. Cummings, Hermann Hesse, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Allen Ginsburg, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Woody Allen, Judy Garland, Jim Carey, Mira Sorvino, Adrien Brody, Melanie Griffith, Kim Basinger, Anthony Hopkins, Drew Barrymore, Glenn Close, Mr. Rogers, Andy Kaufman, Jon Favreau, Greta Garbo, Joaquin Phoenix, Elijah Wood, Kevin Kline, David Hyde Pierce, Anton Chekhov, James Baldwin, Kahlil Gibran, DH Lawrence, Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Tennessee Williams, Janis Joplin, Billie Holliday, Moby, Natalie Merchant, Bob Dylan, Franz Kafka, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Sarah McLaughlin, Celine Dion, Enya, Neil Young, Janis Ian, Picasso, Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt….
With only a partial list like that, it’s easy to see the contributions that HSP’s have made in this world. And thus, more difficult to dismiss them as different, introverted, eccentric, crazy, or in the pejorative sense, too sensitive. Being an unwitting HSP is most likely the cause of many tragic stories in the creative community, and I believe that many of those creatives who escape through drugs and alcohol and extreme behavior, or who attempt or commit suicide are probably HSP’s, simply because they can be so easily overwhelmed, and without healthy coping skills to live in this world, it becomes too much for them.

I have a foot in many creative things. I am an author (I write in 14 genres, but love writing books, and have authored 24 of them to date), an artist (painting, sculpting, pottery, mixed media, photography ), singer-songwriter (over 200 songwriting credits and formerly co-founder and member of two bands). If being HSP means expressing myself creatively, I am definitely a prime example. But long ago, I realized that  this world would kill me, if I didn’t figure out how to exist here within the parameters of who I am. In my younger years, I tested almost exclusively right-brain dominate. So I developed my left-brain over many years, and even elevated my IQ. (For a long time it was believed that you are born with a certain IQ and it couldn’t be changed, but now, with all the research into the neuroplasticity of the brain, we know that intelligence can indeed be increased. I took myself from a 120 IQ to 149). I learned about philosophy and logic and disjunctive reasoning, so that today, I test whole-brain. And I think it’s what saved me. This did not suffocate my creativity, however. In fact, it served to inform and expand this area. But it comes with its own sets of issues. For instance, I can feel one way emotionally, but also feel another way intellectually.  While this can often be a battle of wills inside my mind, and make me feel I have two personalities, overall, it serves to temper me; it offers me some balance that keeps me from falling into the sensitivity void.  It didn’t make me any less of an HSP. It just allowed me to survive. It’s still a challenge to be who I am. As I have said before, Am I too much for the world, or is the world too much for me?

 *If you think you might be an HSP, take the self-test to find out.
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[1] Why it�s hard to be a highly sensitive (HSP) introvert. Highly sensitive (HSP) introverts – misperceived by a noisy extraverted world. Published on August 23, 2010 by Dr. Susan Biali, M.D. in Prescriptions for Life

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April 2nd, 2011 challenge, Colorado, Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, relationships, Sensory Processing Sensitivity 1 Comment »

EXTENDED STRESS Hotel.

My Cherryot was loaded to capacity, with the things I thought I’d need for two months, until an apartment became available.

 

At Extended Stay, I checked in with desk clerk–started to unload, and had to take several things up first (5 trips in elevator) before I noticed that there was a luggage cart in front with a tattooed guy leaning on it talking to another guy. “Oh a luggage cart!” I said. “I need that.” He said he only had a couple of things and rushed off to get his task done so I could have it.

Meantime, I wanted to get the cats out of the Cherryot so they’d be safe and I’m sure they needed some freedom. That cardboard box in back of crate with litter was bound to be hard to lay next to.

I was trying to figure out what to do to get the cats up there safely. I also knew there was a limit of one animal, and so I had to be careful they didn’t see two.

I emptied a small gym bag and tried to put Monkey in it, but she doesn’t like being trapped, and I felt awful that I’d have to zip it up and scare her, and it was a small bag; I was stressing her more. So I dragged out the big red rolling suitcase, emptied it, and put her in it fairly easily, and then rolled her down the walk, through the breezeway, onto the elevator, all the while reassuring her in a sweet voice that it was okay and I was right here and we’d be in the room soon, etc. I always talk to my cats, explain things to them, as if they completely understand the English language.

I put Monkey in the bathroom and closed door, went to get Biscuit. She’s always harder to manage because these travel scenarios wear her out. Again, I discovered she was lying in the litterbox and wouldn’t come out. She did that on my move here in 09. I had to move a bunch more things, just to get that huge crate turned so I could get the door open wide enough, because I had to reach all the way to the back to get her. Monkey just came out when I asked her to, and then I just picked her up. With Biscuit, it was another story. I would have to be aggressive and just grab her and poke her in the case, because no amount of quiet explanation would get her to do what I needed her to do. And I had to be careful she didn’t slip out the door of Cherryot and run away. Horrifying thought for me.

SO she was in there and I asked her not to cry too loud so anyone would hear. Just as we reached the elevators, and passed a maintenance guy, she cried once, and I hurriedly coughed rudely continually, punching the elevator button. Finally the car came down and I rolled her in, and had another soothing conversation with her, for what it was worth. Even told her she was a pretty kitty and mommy loved her very much.

Got Biscuit in the bathroom with Monkey, and knew Monkey would console her, while I went to get the rolling cart and unload the rest. It still wasn’t there.

Mind you, there was a memory foam mattress rolled up and attached to the luggage rack of the Cherryot, along with the litter box with that 35 pound container of litter, and couple other things. I didn’t want someone to steal it. The bed, not the litter. My friends know that my foamy bed is as crucial to me as breathing, because I can’t sleep on anything else without my back going out.

Finally I procured the luggage cart from Tattoo Guy and began loading it up. Hard to do, since most things were not neatly arranged in one size liquor boxes or crates. Had to be creative with stacking since a couple of the plastic tubs had no lids. I had to pull them out of the garden shed thing off the back porch of house and clean them out. Anyway, it took about 4 trips to get it all up there.

The entire time, I am limping because of my injured knee (thanks to my Awful X– as in previous, X–as in crossed out, gone, no longer applicable), and my hands were so sore, and my spine felt like it had hot bricks for discs, my feet were throbbing, and my neck was making threats to rupture a disc again. If that happened, I was down for the count, and I would be completely immobilized. I hoped for good fortune and carried on.

Once in the room, I had intended to go straight to bed, too tired to shower. But then I had to find things and then I started unpacking in increments, and then before I knew it, I had unpacked everything, maybe it was just leftover nervous energy.

During this time, I was on the phone with my best friend Justi, and my spirits were considerably higher because I was allowing myself to feel relieved that I was somewhere I could rest. Make camp. I told her about the fine art of controlling a loaded luggage cart; it likes to spin around at will like a go cart with one bad brake.

Then I can’t avoid the need for food any longer and about 12:30, I hoped there was a drive thru open. Problem was, I seemed to be in a section of the city that was a fast food dead zone. I drove North on Wadsworth, and saw nothing. I was going to use my Mango fast food app on my iPhone to find it but realized that app was lost in the last screwy update I did where I forgot to select to save apps. I searched it and got it again, while still talking to her, and she was on her computer trying to find me a place to get food too. Then I said I just wanted a cheeseburger and fries. Small. My stomach was shrunk. I had already lost five pounds from stress and exertion in the last 6 days.

“There’s an Arby’s on Jewel,” she offered.

“I don’t want Arby’s, I want a cheeseburger. I’m looking for McDonalds and Burger King, because I knew they were open late, too.”

“There’s also a Wendy’s on Jewel,” she added.

“I don’t want Wendy’s because I want fries and I don’t like their fries. Too fat.”

I finally located the Wendy’s though, and drove past it looking for ARBY’s because she began extolling the virtues of sliced roast beef and cheese sauce and seasoned curly fries. I didn’t see it, and my stomach was growling and I was a little dizzy from hypoglycemia. I turned around and went back toward Wendy’s. “Fuck it, I’ll got to Wendy’s. At least they have cheeseburgers.” And then I discovered they had something called a Baconator, with natural cut fries with sea salt. Enjoyed a playful conversation with the order taker and got my goodies. The fries were delish, and when I got back to the hotel and tried the Baconator, it became automatically my new favorite burger, so it all worked out.

The fact that I would post this is perhaps an indication that vanity is not one of my shortcomings.

There was much I needed to do–I didn’t have time to actually let the emotional aspects kick in. I was afraid I wouldn’t get things done if I was blubbering like a two year old. I had paperwork from the court and advocacy group people to go through, information to fill out, notes to take in Daytimer, figuring out my next steps and priorities. I still had bills I needed to take care of, (that my Awful X had failed to pay, though she had used my money to pay HERS for about 4 months while she stayed unemployed). I had to update my bank account info before the bills came due, etc. I started my water distiller and drank what was left in previous jug, so dehydrated. My eyes were bloodshot, and I looked terrible in the bright light of that hotel bathroom mirror. So I graced my best friend with a photo of that and MMS’d it to her.

I looked like I’d been dragged behind a horse. Or at least my EYES had been dragged behind a horse. Or maybe a goat. A large, feral goat.

On the TV the size of a breadbox, I’m sort of watching some movie called Teen Witch about a coven of high school witches. Ironically it was partly about them discovering their powers to take vengeance on those who had wronged them, and I wished fervently for a little of that craft. Then I started watching another movie and eventually fell asleep.

Next morning, fire alarms go off, pulling me out the door onto the balcony muttering what the fuck? It stopped and I went back to bed, then the alarms went off again, just as I was dozing. I went back outside to look around to see if there was any smoke or firetrucks and heard a guest below me mutter What the fuck? which made me think that was quite the appropriate response. My nerves were raw by now, this 6th day of the debacle, with 3 hours sleep, on top of 2 on top of 2 on top of 3, on top of 5 on top of NONE and none. I was certainly not going back to sleep now. I checked to see if my direct deposit had been transferred to the new account from the old one, and it hadn’t. I’m getting more and more stressed. I called the bank and they said it would happen within an hour. So I got dressed and went to the front desk to arrange to pay for another day.

Enter, stage right, the archetype of Rude Managers. Anne, I think her name was. I had missed checkout time at 11. And because my money didn’t transfer to my new account yet, I explained and said the bank was correcting, would be ok within an hour, but she said I had to be out by 3p. She wouldn’t let me pay for another day, even with a credit card, she said I had to pay for the week. I said the agreement I had made with them on the phone was to pay for two nights and then pay for a whole month, for this month and then May, until my apartment was available. She said I had to pay for the week. I said I could pay her cash or use a credit card for one more night and then she’d have over a thousand dollars for me to stay the month, and she wouldn’t budge, she said get out by 3p. Now, this was particularly hurtful and aggravating, because I had explained my predicament to her on the phone, and she knew I was escaping a bad situation. Before walking out the door I said “Just remember, lady, Karma is a castrating bitch.”

SO then I’m freaking out, because now, not only am I dealing with the bank glitch, but having to load the Cherryot AGAIN, with no place to go afterward. I’m not good at feeling helpless or trapped, and this was exactly that situation, in spades.

At Justi’s counsel, I called the Apartments office to see if they had a different apartment that would be available NOW, and if not, a month to month one until the other one was ready. If not, where would they suggest I stay? I was trying to go to the bank while talking to Justi and got so disoriented, I didn’t know where I was. Took me 10 minutes to get the map to make sense on my phone. All the while I’m chanting, I am stronger that her (D), I will get through this. I will be okay. And then I was angry that I was dealing with all this because of her, and for the first time in my life, I used that word I hate so much. I shouted, “She is such a cunt!”

Then I had to pull over and take a deep breath, because I was losing it and I had to keep control in order to get myself out of this situation. I continued to chant I’m okay…I’m strong enough to deal with this, it’s just temporary, I’m okay…

I went to the bank, and they were so nice. They did a credit memo, based on my direct deposit, and made $2000 available to me, in cash. I’m standing there at the counter at the bank, tears streaming down my face, my body throbbing, my knee killing me, desperately needing a drink of water, food and some sleep. I redeposited enough cash to cover the 200 dollar security fee, and $20 application fee I wrote temporary checks for at the Apartments, plus some fees for the cashier’s check. Traded out the other cash for that. I kept hearing that song in my head by Billy Pilgrim: Got my own falling-apart-ment….

SO I left with a sealed envelope of $2000 and felt slightly better. Except for the possibility of being mugged. That would have been the first horseman of the Apocalypse. I tried not to think about it. At least I had money. I’d be very careful. I also had the $300 from pawning my guitar–which i was loath to do, as it is beloved, and a symbol of happier days when i was playing and singing with my band in front of a receptive audience… But strangely, having cash is not always helpful these days. Most people won’t take it. And temporary checks are shunned. And I didn’t have a debit card yet to get to my funds that way.

As it turned out, with the apartments, I didn’t even have to go to the second choice of a month to month or third choice of asking them to refer me elsewhere, because they had an apartment. It was a 2br,  with a private garage – it cost more of course, but just as Justi said, I make more now and can afford it. Plus when I get my storage, I’ll have an extra $135 from not paying that; and my Cherryot pays off in May, so starting in June, that will be an additional $330 per month I’ll have. I was relieved, though still shaky and skeptical…

I spoke with Shelia (had spoken to Kayla earlier too) they all knew the story of what had happened. When I got to the Apartment office, Kayla came out of the far office with her arms wide, saying “You poor thing! Come here, you need a hug~!” and she gave me a big hug. It almost made me cry. She said not to worry, I was home now, and everything would be okay. That also nearly made me cry, because it did feel like home. All the things home is supposed to feel–safe, pleasant, convenient, with supportive people around you.

Before any business was done, Shelia came over to sit with us and the two asked me details of what happened. I talked about more of what I’d been through and details about D’s arrest and that night when she threw the gun in koi pond. They were both rapt. It was like sitting with two old friends. They know I’m gay and they don’t care. They were supportive and encouraging. It felt so good and went a long way to relieve my stress. I said I would be writing all about it.  Kayla said I ought to do a memoir about it. I said I already have a memoir about events 10-14 years ago; I had hoped never to have this kind of thing to write about again, at least not if it was nonfiction, and happening to me; but this is another kind of drama that would work as a memoir, yes. Or I could just make it fiction. They both said they would LOVE to read it.

Kayla rushed through the application process. When I went out to get my banking information, I grabbed the new final proof for Achilles Forjan and gave it to Kayla. She was genuinely thrilled and said she couldn’t wait to read it.

So then, I went back to the bank to get a cashier’s check, and re-deposit the 200 and 20 to cover the temp checks I wrote for security deposit and app fee, and trade off cash for cashier’s check. Always nice to be recognized and waved over to a clerk at your bank–but I wish it wasn’t because I had been in there earlier in crisis mode.

All this, I did without a single Xanax.

I headed over to my new place, feeling relieved, stunned, exhausted and a little happy, all at the same time. I kept thinking, and miles to go before I sleep…

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March 21st, 2010 HSP, Sensory Processing Sensitivity No Comments »

Two Alarm Fires, No Waiting

Around 1 a.m., I had just gotten home from an evening out, and my friend Em called.

While we were chatting, a VERY LOUD alarm went off. INSIDE MY APT….Let me just say, I HATE loud noises. Especially ones that feel like they are shredding my eardrums. I tracked the source to a big casing on the wall above a filing cabinet.  I pulled the barstool over, climbed up, and popped the casing off, but saw no battery. Then i realized it was the doorbell. So my attention went to the wall plate six inches to the left. It had a little round hole, and when i covered it with my hand, the piercing alarm dulled. I just kept my hand there for a few seconds, enjoying the respite from the piercing shrilling. There were two screws. Flathead variety. I ran to the closet and pulled out the tool drawer, but could not locate the flathead bit for my multi-bit ratcheting screwdriver was.  The sound. The sound. That shrilling. Still permeating all the airspace.

I did the only thing any self-respecting alarm-induced psychotic would do. Brute force was called for. I fetched my hammer and proceeded to silence the offender. My head was going to explode if  I had to listen to that screaming alarm much longer. I took the claw part of the hammer and tried to pry the plate off. It was not cooperating. With frustration, and a smidgen of encroaching insanity, I just whacked the plate with the hammer. It didn’t stop, so I whacked it again. It stuttered. I was making progress. Whack! Whack! Whack! 

The faceplate was cracking nicely now, but that sound. That sound. that shrill, ear-bleeding sound was still torturing me. I just started pounding on it until it finally caved in. Until the guts  were beaten out of their metal wall-cave, I saw some square module, attached to wires, but no battery. How do I shut this thing off??? I knew that if i had to make a phone call to some night maintenance number and then wait for them to arrive, I would, by then, be fit for a straight-jacket. My head was already pounding. (My ears have always been sensitive to high-pitched noises. That’s why I don’t use a standard alarm clock, and have avoidance behaviors about other shrill noises. Like screaming children, bagpipes,  tea kettles, and the way some women talk).

I was about to attach the hammer claw to it and pull, but pictured myself being electrocuted–fried up into a crispy critter with no one around to take me to the emergency room.  (my polydactyle cat, Monkey, had opposable thumbs, as I’ve mentioned, but still can’t seem to use them to offer any help in emergencies. Or even with household chores). But that sound. That sound.  I didn’t care anymore. I hooked the wires and got a grip on the rubber of the hammer handle and pulled. Nothing. My options dwindling, I allowed my amygdala to take over and behave in utter primitive stress response; what I like to call: Kill it until it is dead.
I pried and pulled and pounded until finally, finally…the shrieking alarm was dead. Silence. Blessed silence.Except for the echo of the sound in my head.

Sighing, I looked down at the plaster pieces, the broken liquor bottle that had been on the filing cabinet below. The gutted alarm. The precious, demolished and silenced alarm, hanging out of the wall. MY ears were ringing, and then I realized, it was not just in my ears, but outside. I rushed to the door and opened itto the bracing sound again.A larger, louder alarm. The mother-sound of all the baby-sounds, that were apparently connected into all the apartments on the building. I went out to the sidewalk just as the firetrucks pulled up.

Bold as neon, I snagged the firefighter and interrogated him. He didn’t think there was a fire. They were wandering around and considering a trip into the building. I informed them that the outside alarm had gone off before, without the aid of a fire.

I had to go in. The alarm was too much. In my Bluetooth ear bud, Em was asking me if i had a fire plan. Not really. I knew the sliding glass door was  a few feet away from me most of the time. (the sliding glass door with the almost-broken latch….yes. I have some calls to make). And I knew what to grab. The cats. My hard drive, and probably not much more than that except for my iPhone and wallet and keys and such. I realized that it would be a good idea to take care of t hat missing plan.

In my current situation, I didn’t know whether or not to load the cats in a carrier. Or actually remove my hard drive from the computer. After a few minutes of wandering around looking at all the things that were to burn up in the maybe-fire, and lamenting the lack of renter’s insurance, I went back outside for an update. They had found nothing. I studied the roof and facade of the building and saw no flames. Smelled no smoke. Then my neighbors began to gather  on the outside stairs, looking over. I filled them in on what I knew and asked if their alarms were going off in their apartments. Yes. That’s why they were out there. They had been run out by the noise. Em said it was too bad they didn’t have hammers like I did.

Another trip inside, and back out in a few minutes, to talk to the firefighter again. He said that they had found the issue. Someone had pulled the fire alarm lever in the breezeway and broken off the handle. Normally, they would be able to reset it, but it was broken. One of my neighbors had reported to them that the guy living above her had done it. So someone was now busted for causing all this. Or at least, i hope they were busted. If not as an official police arrest, then in the mouth.

Not sure what I will tell maintenance when I call them to repair the murdered alarm in my wall. Maybe that I panicked. Maybe that I had an anxiety disorder and just had to stop the noise. Hopefully, they will be understanding and just repair the damn thing without charging me.

Now, as I write this, it strikes me that this is the second time in as many weeks that I have talked to an arriving fireman. I didn’t blog the other experience. It was minor. But, I had gone to the post office late at night, to try to mail some of my books from their 24-hour package kiosk, and while using the computer screen to weigh and send, realized they didn’t have the media mail option on the machine. I didn’t want to pay $8 to send a book, when i could spend $2. And I had two different books to send. So I decided to come back out to the post office during business hours and do it at the counter. When i canceled out of the program on the screen,  the fire alarm went off. I first glanced around to see if anyone else was there, and peered down the hall, to see the flashing light next to the red alarm.

So I got out of there, just in case the Federal Government had decided to install some protective device that would slam down with metal bars and block all the doors. I get paranoid like that. sometimes.

Outside, I realized as I pulled out of the lot, that I looked like someone leaving the scene of the crime. I didn’t want to wait for some 3 a.m. visit from detectives who wanted to know what i was doing at the post office, just before it BURNED DOWN.  The last thing I needed was a Domestic Terrorism charge from the Office of Homeland Security. So, I stopped and waited, to see if i could hear firetrucks. After a few seconds,  I did, so I didn’t call 911. I turned around and waited, and told the fireman what happened. I didn’t know very much, but  I wanted him to know I took the time to inform them, and I wanted to officially be seen cooperating. Nothing came of it. I guess it was a false alarm too.

Now, this apartment alarm fiasco. The question remains. Why have I been involved in two false alarms?

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February 17th, 2008 Highly Sensitive Person, HSP, Psychology, relationships, Sensory Processing Sensitivity No Comments »

Hope Does Not Float

Sometimes I catch myself crying. I’ll be listening to music, or playing Mahjong, or watching television, and a tear will make a cold streak down one cheek, and then i have to ask myself what caused it. A cheesy commercial? A dramatic scene in a movie? Allergies? Some irritation in my eye? Maybe the irritation is simply the act of seeing through my own eyes. What triggers these moments of melancholy? what veiled emotion slips out while i am paying attention to something else?

My first thoughts always go to the inordinate amount of time i spend alone. Am i just lonely, then? Yes. Profoundly, sometimes. The nature of my life is one of frequent isolation, and most of the time, I’m okay with that. But this tearful reaction resonates with deeper meaning. My thoughts go to all of those in my life, and those now out of my life that i hear about second hand. I hear about them finding love, living in domestic bliss with a partner and a child, and a family, and i know now that my life is half over, and I can only hope to have one of those things. And that’s looking bleaker by the moment. I know that a life of purpose and meaning is something that happens to other people. I create works of art, I write and sing and record songs, I author books and blogs, and I share it all with everyone. I study and i question and I examine, and I try faithfully to understand everything about living in this time-space continuum. I lay bare for all the world to see, the secrets of my soul, the joy and inspiration, along with the wounds of my heart, hoping that it will matter somehow. That someone might notice that i get it–that I really understand. That I am honoring the gifts. That someone might come along and see me. Really see me. But each momentary frisson of hope is only mocking me. And the knowledge is red hot against my heart, that I worked so passionately to conquer those crutches I leaned on so hard in the past, to refuse to be victimized, to be an individual others enjoy spending time with; I taught myself to laugh again, and to see something good in everything i encountered. I learned about human nature, philosophy, sexology, science, spirituality…I made myself available to others for counsel and support. And they sought my counsel. They thanked me. They praised me. And for brief moments it made sense, and it made me proud to be who I am. Proud of the progress I had made. I wanted to be someone also who had something tangible and of value to offer that special someone, but all I become is the one who repairs their injuries, lightswitching their darkness. . . and I am left watching them carry on, revived, while I spend so many nights clenching my fists and fighting against the maudlin memories, the sharp blade of truth against my jugular. I look out the window and whisper, When is it my turn? After years of fervent toiling to fashion myself into a person of character and integrity, I find that these are not qualities in high demand. Perhaps my greatest work of fiction, is that I’m okay with how it’s turned out. That I would apparently have better luck if I had remained damaged.

Hope does not float. It sits on the bottom, weighted by its own lie.

 

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August 1st, 2001 HSP, Sensory Processing Sensitivity No Comments »

Cognitive Dysfunction

(this entry was made before I knew that the problem was I had Grave’s Disease, and my thyroid was dying. It was also before I knew I was an HSP. Between those two, it explains all of it. These symptoms and reactions have been tempered over the last 5 years or so with coping skills)

A new phrase with echoes of old demons. Almost every difficulty I experience these days is directly related to some sort of cognitive dysfunction. I have multiple physical ailments, but the most overwhelming, the most debilitating, seems to be related to memory, concentration, and all the peripheral sub-routines that stem from it. Frustration is a major example of that. I am so disgusted and stressed by the betrayal of my own brain function. It’s as if I have had part of my brain matter removed, or that it is simply atrophied. To wit:

When I am doing something creative, i.e. painting or writing, I move into this “zone” that blocks all the stimuli. I become peaceful, meditative, and pleasant. When I put the creative project away, and have to deal with everyday stressors–bills, busy work, the prospect of moving, the desire to purchase a home, the irritants of other people, noise–I become almost maniacal in my reactions. I have angry outbursts, crying jags, and sometimes, at crescendo, the overwhelming desire to cut myself or mash a lit cigarette into my skin.

When the phone rings, I am flooded with dread. I’ll have to talk to someone. I’ll have to answer questions. I’ll have to deal with problem. I’ll have to feign understanding, pleasantries, interest.

I look up a number in the phone book, turn around to dial it, and the number evaporates from my short-term memory.

I forget when I did things, when I said things, what I did, what I said–even if the event only happened the day before.

I’ve developed aversions and intolerance to certain things. I can no longer stand the sound of silverware scraping a plate or bowl– I have to use plasticware. I am rendered psychopathic at the sound of incessantly barking dogs; shrieking birds; snoring; someone drumming their fingers; the chatter of a friend; the hum of florescent light bulbs; bright lights or sunshine; alarm clocks; those shouting announcers on car commercials; the decline in quality customer service; eating the same thing more than once; anyone controlling any part of my life; anyone asking anything of me…

I can be driving somewhere, and suddenly forget where I’m going. Many times, I’ve had to pull over and gather myself, struggle to remember…

I cannot focus on two things at once. If I am doing something on the computer, and someone is talking to me, I lose my train of thought. I can’t recall what I was doing.

I no longer remember my dreams.

I hear someone talking about something that they experienced in childhood, and I can’t recall very much about my own. When asked what my life was like when I was 10 or 15 or 20–I simply have no idea. Likewise, if asked to remember an event–even, sometimes, memorable ones, I can’t draw that information out.

I don’t visualize things, so that I can retrieve the visualization later. The memory seems disconnected. There seems to be no trigger. If I don’t write down my ideas or thoughts, they vaporize into mist.

I cannot find the right word, although I know it exists in the vocabulary portion of my brain, and so I just stop communicating.

It’s very much how I imagine an amnesiac would function (or not function). And I get so angry with myself; So angry with others for their lack of understanding. I often feel I am being singled out for torture by the Universe or the Powers That Be. I feel persecuted, abused, neglected… retarded. I often liken the function of my brain, with the function of my own computer. My brain thrashes, struggling to pull something from the hard drive, it crashes when too many applications are up at once, it’s buggy and inefficient. The operating system needs badly to be upgraded.

 

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