Hi, it's been a while. This is going to be a but of a ranty waffle, but as I said it's been a while...
I scare myself sometimes. Some thoughts are so overpowering its hard to tell what's real and what's not. It's been a long time since I've been able to write anything down. It's been hard to be honest with myself like I had been doing before my break away from the blog.
My motivation has been shot to pieces. Before this was really helping, but something happened that made me stop. I can't really tell what it was, my brain just stopped me from articulating how I've been feeling.
The darkness has been overwhelming, the inability to function properly has been excruciating. I've wanted to open up here so much and be honest but somehow the darkside has been winning.
I think about death a lot now. Not suicide though. I don't have that in me. I don't want to hurt anyone more than this disease has already caused me to do. But I'm getting so tired. Because of this though I've made some huge steps. I have a therapist now. I finally got there. It's both uplifting and difficult. There's so much hidden in me that bringing up things old and new has helped both confuse and make sense of so many things. I've taken that first step into battle, and I have no desire to retreat. I need to face the past, present and future and take power of my life again. I want to live. I want to live my life to its full potential. I know I deserve that. I live wanting other people to live their lives and I need to realise and hold onto the fact that I want that for myself.
I look at pictures of when I was little, Smiling and laughing, but now unable to recognise that person in me anymore. I want to meet him again. I want people to see that in me again. I don't want people to refer to me as someone who "used to laugh so much when you were little". I want to laugh now, I want to feel it through every little bit of me. I want my eyes to open and my muscles and stomach to ache from happiness and not from anxiety and tension and not being able to eat or hold food down. I don't want to be how I am now. But that doesn't mean I don't want to be me.
There are hurdles getting in the way. I thought I was making some progress the other day. I felt good for the first time in however long. I'd found an inch of confidence and I liked it. Then I left the house and got mugged on the way to see my therapist. FUCKING. TYPICAL. The experience threw me two leaps back and took away those feelings I had finally picked up after such a long time instantly. At first I felt that the universe must have something against me, that it's telling me that I'm not allowed to feel those positive feelings I was experiencing at that time. Every time I've been mugged (four times now, "Lucky Pete" they call me), I've felt really good beforehand. The spiral my brain goes down every time tries to convince me that the world is against me and that I deserve to be unhappy.
But that's not right. As much as the demons inside me try to make me believe it. It's stupid, horrible, bad luck. It makes me disillusioned with the world and society yes, but I shouldn't let it cause me to judge myself. I'm vulnerable at the best of times and I don't need a piece of utter scum to make me feel even more so. I will in a natural, "I've just been violated and it was FUCKING SCARY" way, but I can't let it in a "Pete" way. That complete and utter shit is society's problem. Yes I am part of society, but I have my own problems I need to concentrate on.
I was petrified of writing any of that, but I'm glad I did. Feel like I'm able to take a little step towards getting that leap back. So maybe I'll be hopping around here again a little bit more... if you're lucky.
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label society. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
We get what we give each other.
At the weekend I attended an extremely inspiring talk on happiness. One part of it that is standing out for me today was a point made that we differ from animals in the way that we have power over our own emotions, that we have some sort of control.
It is a valid view. We are lucky as humans that we have some sort of ability to be in charge of how we feel. But one problem with it is that sometimes emotion has the power to control us. Sadness can be a difficult emotion to keep under your hat and happiness can be slippery and hard to keep a grip on. I liken it with learning to drive in a way. I never have and the longer I leave it the more wary of it I get. I have it in myself in theory to drive a car, but actually facing up to it and doing it is a different kettle of fish.
I have made a step forward on that front this week however (not on the driving front unfortunately, though that is in the works). I am starting to realise that I do have the ability to do happy things, appreciate what I have and that there are other people out there with similar and far worse problems than me who are able to accept things and be positive about their lives. I don't want people to look at me as a glum pessimistic individual. I want to contribute to other peoples happiness which in turn will make me happy and will hopefully encourage other people, being strangers or friends/colleagues to do the same for me. Society would be a better place if we all dedicated some time to each others happiness.
What I learnt from this talk from the weekend is that the term "well-being" isn't good enough. It's not concerned with happiness, it doesn't have to get that far. It means that as long as people are "okay" then no more effort has to be made. Of course we all want people to be okay, it's a damn site better than being shit BUT the problem with being okay is that it can be a steep slope down to being low again. However if we're able to be happy as individuals and together then the gradient down is far less immediate and far easier to climb back up.
I've got a lot of learning to do about myself and the lack of control I've had in regards to my emotion my whole life, not just in recent times. Of course I can be happy, and in a complete non-egocentric way I think I deserve to be. I've just got to grab the happy part from inside me and have fun with it more often. I think that it's important that we can be sad when appropriate, hiding any emotion away when it's there can be a dangerous thing, but it doesn't mean it should be in control and it doesn't mean we should give it all our time. The reason it takes over is that when we've had a taste of happiness, we want more. We don't want it to not be there and when it takes a rest that gives sadness a chance to take the lead. If we work together though and keep passing the happy baton to each other hopefully we'll never run out of energy and then we can beat the gloom to the finish line.
"The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up" Mark Twain
p.s the talk was by Richard Layard of www.actionforhappiness.org / @actionhappiness and arranged by the School of Life www.theschooloflife.com / @TheSchoolOfLife check them out and follow them. They're good ones.
It is a valid view. We are lucky as humans that we have some sort of ability to be in charge of how we feel. But one problem with it is that sometimes emotion has the power to control us. Sadness can be a difficult emotion to keep under your hat and happiness can be slippery and hard to keep a grip on. I liken it with learning to drive in a way. I never have and the longer I leave it the more wary of it I get. I have it in myself in theory to drive a car, but actually facing up to it and doing it is a different kettle of fish.
I have made a step forward on that front this week however (not on the driving front unfortunately, though that is in the works). I am starting to realise that I do have the ability to do happy things, appreciate what I have and that there are other people out there with similar and far worse problems than me who are able to accept things and be positive about their lives. I don't want people to look at me as a glum pessimistic individual. I want to contribute to other peoples happiness which in turn will make me happy and will hopefully encourage other people, being strangers or friends/colleagues to do the same for me. Society would be a better place if we all dedicated some time to each others happiness.
What I learnt from this talk from the weekend is that the term "well-being" isn't good enough. It's not concerned with happiness, it doesn't have to get that far. It means that as long as people are "okay" then no more effort has to be made. Of course we all want people to be okay, it's a damn site better than being shit BUT the problem with being okay is that it can be a steep slope down to being low again. However if we're able to be happy as individuals and together then the gradient down is far less immediate and far easier to climb back up.
I've got a lot of learning to do about myself and the lack of control I've had in regards to my emotion my whole life, not just in recent times. Of course I can be happy, and in a complete non-egocentric way I think I deserve to be. I've just got to grab the happy part from inside me and have fun with it more often. I think that it's important that we can be sad when appropriate, hiding any emotion away when it's there can be a dangerous thing, but it doesn't mean it should be in control and it doesn't mean we should give it all our time. The reason it takes over is that when we've had a taste of happiness, we want more. We don't want it to not be there and when it takes a rest that gives sadness a chance to take the lead. If we work together though and keep passing the happy baton to each other hopefully we'll never run out of energy and then we can beat the gloom to the finish line.
"The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up" Mark Twain
p.s the talk was by Richard Layard of www.actionforhappiness.org / @actionhappiness and arranged by the School of Life www.theschooloflife.com / @TheSchoolOfLife check them out and follow them. They're good ones.
Saturday, 22 January 2011
If only everything...
When it comes down to it I'm an idealist. I know what I want the world and life to be like, I am also aware it would be extremely hard to make it a reality. As quoted by Josie Long (who originally said it escapes me at this very moment) the world would be a better place if we were all just a bit kinder to eachother. It'd be nice wouldn't it?
I LOVE William Morris, I love everything he stood for and believed and I love that he wanted the best for the world. I love that he was as worried and disillusioned about the world as I am. He knew what the world should be like but was realistic enough to realise that we have already gone too far to achieve that without complete change.
He said that "Fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death". We need to be able to work together for the greater good. We don't all have to get along or like eachother, we just need to be able to work as a unit so we all can benefit from the good things in life, be able to enjoy our working lives and detach from them when we're away from it and be able to enjoy and appreciate life outside work.
The trouble with today is that we have too much and we don't know how to enjoy it. We're spoilt and that essentially leads us to finding disappointment in too many things. We concentrate too much on what we don't have as opposed to being grateful for all the good things we do have in life. I know how hard is is to see that sometimes though. Life sometimes doesn't seem fair, in fact a lot of the time it doesn't. William morris knew that and that stopped him being happy too. When we know happiness and equality are possible it becomes even more frustrating that those things aren't everywhere already.
There are too many obstacles and self obsessed people in the world, but so many of us aren't like that. We are individuals yes, with our own needs and wants, but so many of us care about the people next to us whether we know them or not. I truly believe there are more decent than terrible people out there and more of us need to have more faith in each other to think this too. From there we can take a step towards an ideal world and overcome the crap and the sadness that's shoved in our faces everyday.
But until then there's no harm in a bit of dreaming, is there?
I LOVE William Morris, I love everything he stood for and believed and I love that he wanted the best for the world. I love that he was as worried and disillusioned about the world as I am. He knew what the world should be like but was realistic enough to realise that we have already gone too far to achieve that without complete change.
He said that "Fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death". We need to be able to work together for the greater good. We don't all have to get along or like eachother, we just need to be able to work as a unit so we all can benefit from the good things in life, be able to enjoy our working lives and detach from them when we're away from it and be able to enjoy and appreciate life outside work.
The trouble with today is that we have too much and we don't know how to enjoy it. We're spoilt and that essentially leads us to finding disappointment in too many things. We concentrate too much on what we don't have as opposed to being grateful for all the good things we do have in life. I know how hard is is to see that sometimes though. Life sometimes doesn't seem fair, in fact a lot of the time it doesn't. William morris knew that and that stopped him being happy too. When we know happiness and equality are possible it becomes even more frustrating that those things aren't everywhere already.
There are too many obstacles and self obsessed people in the world, but so many of us aren't like that. We are individuals yes, with our own needs and wants, but so many of us care about the people next to us whether we know them or not. I truly believe there are more decent than terrible people out there and more of us need to have more faith in each other to think this too. From there we can take a step towards an ideal world and overcome the crap and the sadness that's shoved in our faces everyday.
But until then there's no harm in a bit of dreaming, is there?
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