Swimming Through The Seas And Struggling To The Surface…Venting And Random Thoughts

A Frosty Morning At “Black Rock Sanctuary” – Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

 

@ 4:34 PM – Challenging day again.

Doing what I can to process things and maintain something of a more healthy perspective and balance. The challenge is that the underlying emotions are still seething and boiling beneath. Unless I feel cornered and prodded, I’m not one who acts out. I turn inward and retreat from the world. I disassociate, cutting myself off from the world and live, submerged, drowning, deeply within a realm of all the memories and experiences which press down upon me. It’s like being at the bottom of the ocean; the darkness, the pressure of intense emotion crushing in from all sides, disoriented, aimless drifting with no point of reference. Alone, deep in the dark, cold waters.

I took a walk this morning. I really didn’t want to. I don’t want to do anything. I find it difficult to do anything – whether or not it’s a healthy, positive choice or a self-destructive one. I have difficulty making the effort to do anything. It really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. At times like these I have to say that I really don’t care…one way or the other.

Yet I did talk myself into walking this morning. I suppose that is something. But the purpose of that was to “be active” in order to process all which lay deep within. Physical activity is supposed to help process the pent up “fight or flight” energy of things amassed in those subterranean depths. It may be, but there’s a lot seething and boiling down there and a tea pot whistle doesn’t let much out at any given time. I don’t explode, I turn inward and writhe. I know – I’ve seen all to clearly – physical violence and striking out at others. I’ve seen and been exposed to the consequences. That is not an option as I know it doesn’t help…I thus chose to turn within. I shut down externally and completely turn within.

I’ve been in therapy for over twenty-five years. Some therapists have been helpful and skilled, others have only made things more difficult. With some I didn’t follow beneficial recommendations, with others I would have been better not to listen or go to them at all. Though it may not seem it, I am in a better place than I was thirty years ago. The trauma is something I experienced from before I could stand. Such things are not resolved through positive thinking or a six week therapeutic program. This is a life long journey. A challenge to the very nature of reality I was raised, nurtured and programed within.

Keep your “just think positive” advise to yourself. It reminds me of a Billy Joel song “Pressure“…

Now here you are with your faith
And your Peter Pan advice
You have no scars on your face
And you cannot handle pressure…

All grown up and no place to go
Psych 1, Psych 2
What do you know?
All your life is Channel 13
Sesame Street
What does it mean?…

Don’t ask for help
You’re all alone
Pressure
You’ll have to answer
To your own
Pressure
I’m sure you’ll have some cosmic rationale
But here you are in the ninth
Two men out and three men on
Nowhere to look but inside
Where we all respond to
Pressure…

My life has been a bit different than the “just think positive” crowd. I appreciate well meaning, positive folks who don’t understand the advise that they try to give. I grew up a bit different. I grew up in the Overlook hotel, with room 237 wide open.

WARNING! This is a very disturbing clip (Overlook Hotel)

That’s the “G” rated version I lived with every day. That doesn’t show what happened before. Nor does it show what happened after. Those are things which can’t be shown. Those are things which none could understand unless they lived it.

***

I need to stop myself. I know that I’m just “feeding” that darkness and giving it more power. I know all too well that this has been part of the problem. I digest what I feed myself and that only nurtures what I become.

As I’m writing, I can see and feel my deliberateness in manifesting all that I was taught by all the people I should never have listened to (or believed). Yes, there is a pull – in fact a craving – to continue down that path of thinking and feeling, but I also know where that takes me…and I know that isn’t the “inner core” of who I am.

I’m certainly not any “shiny happy person.” But I’m grimly determined to slay that Minotaur and find my way out of the maze.

Yes, I struggle with pain. Yes, I struggle with the darkness. But I have always had a vision that there is more to it all than that. This vision comes from that “inner core” of who and what I really am. If such a reality doesn’t exist, I will it to be so within myself. Somehow, I’m too damn stubborn to let go of the dream…even if I live my days in the nightmare. I’m not special or enlightened, I’m just too god-damned stubborn to quit on a way of life and being which I believe to be more real than my pain and the surrounding darkness.

I get angry with life, myself, other people, and I allow myself to be controlled and manipulated by the mere memory of things. I become angry and despondent and then I try to strike out at the world the way Xerxes tried to punish the sea. Within myself I command that darkened sea to be lashed with whips and for chains to be cast upon it. But like the wrath of Xerxes, how helpful has that been? Not so much, but that is where I focus my anger…upon inanimate waters.

I’m sure I seem all over the place, but I’ve been working on this entry for some hours now and trying to feel my way through my day.

The first part is raw, blind emotion. The second part, my struggle to swim to the surface. I’m reaching it now and gasping for air, before I’m pulled back into the depths.

I am Spartacus! I will not quit. I will not yield. I will not submit (even though the struggle might kill me). I refuse to give in to the darkness. I refuse to abide by the assumptions I’ve been taught.

I will…not…yield. I will become the man I’ve seen in my dreams…the man I am meant to be…the man who I truly am.

*****

Sorry for the weird entry. Knowing you are all out there has helped and writing to you has helped me struggle through this stuff today.

I wish you all peace and a sense of repose.

Theseus

P.S. Here are some vids that came to mind while I was writing this…

Corey Hart, “Never Surrender”

Evanescence, “Wake Me Up Inside”

Puddle Of Mudd, “Blurry”

Nickelback, “Burn It To The Ground”
I know this is a drinking song, but I couldn’t find anything with this much energy which seemed to exemplify my determination

Blind Melon, “No Rain”
A bit of a druggie song, but is as mellow as I strive to be.