Thorns II

click for a fun travel article

*many years of thinks later*

I may owe some of you an apology. I need to do this before time slips away, if and when it ever does. I know a couple of people cheer that sort of thing on, demises and so forth, and I'm pretty sure at least one person somewhere out there has a little effigy of me stuck with pins, at the very least. You guys are the people I'm apologizing to.

I was raised under the belief that we must suffer in this life to win rewards in the next, or the afterlife, or whatever that is. Thanks to the parents who raised me, this belief was elevated to the art form of suffering for the sake of suffering without promise of any reward at all, although I'm sure they'd say that's not what they meant. My thinking became so efficient that I could even logically prove why this was a necessary ingredient in any kind of salvation of the soul, to go on against all the odds, to go on with no hope, because clinging to faith out of fear is the opposite of the love through thick and thin that we are supposed to be learning in this life. Begging the question of what love even actually is never came up in my family.

I learned by my thirties that the more I suffered in life, the more and faster I seemed to be learning things. Deep things. Things that floated over other people's heads. They could talk the talk, but they didn't live the life, as it were. As my eyes started to open I started seeing people all around me trapped in a duel existence, caught in an unending repetition of ups and downs, positives and negatives. Life is great, life sucks, I'm happy, I'm miserable, on and on without even realizing that they created the causes and effects of these ups and downs themselves.

Did I create my own sufferings? It was a tall order to grasp that I created much of my emotionally and physically crippling life. Not all of it was on me since children can't really override parents and get to better health care or make healthier emotional decisions a priority, but somewhere in all that flux, I became a powerful little person. I learned at a very young age how to manipulate my mom, how to outfox my dad, how to step up or step back when my siblings needed me, how to handle classmates. A few people who've known me nearly my entire life can testify I could be pretty mean in an ugly sarcastic kind of way that I mistook for being funny.

I'm not good at socially manipulating people, and I'm also not good at recognizing how I affect other people. Part of that is autism spectrum, but I'm not posing that as as excuse. I'm saying that I learned to use power because of it. My presence alone is powerful, and I know how to use it. I may bumble along, yes, and I may look like a ragamuffin without a clue, certainly, but I can go to each moment in my mind and find the pivots that changed every interaction, that forged every path. I can say someone had an impact on me, but I can also say I very definitely impacted other people. I seem to have a gift for noticing how causation works even if I don't have a clue how social skills really work. I can mimic those, but people who can use them naturally often don't seem to notice the ripples back and forth around them, and they are flummoxed.

There was a time when I knew of a few people who could do quite a lot of emotional and even physical damage to me if they knew where to find me. I could see no help for it, living blind and never knowing if pain and affliction could be around any corner. My child could be stolen, my house set on fire, my head torn apart with a bullet. These were very real fears in my life. I didn't know what to do about that until another person came into my life who presented the problem more metaphorically. I became a target in a weird popularity contest, I had to deal with fallout and consequences, and other people were afraid to give me enough information to make that stop. One person even told me they were afraid because that person could do hex spells or something. That made me stop and think on a whole different level.

I've spent a lifetime studying anything and everything relating to why we are here, what any of this means, and I concluded years ago that karmic justice, if there is such a thing, has to be about much more than an eye for an eye if it's to actually work. Karmic justice is about everything backfiring until we learn from our mistakes. It's not enough to learn to share what we feel or what we've learned- we must learn to share what we feel about what we've learned.

Karmic justice is very personal. If someone is targeting me, I cannot wish them harm back and beat the system or win the game. What we see on TV with all the shooting everyone up to get the bad guys isn't justice. Real justice is about the bad guys learning something. And basically, real karma is about embracing that we're all bad guys in the first place. We're all here on this planet to learn the same things in the end. There are some that create whirlwinds of havoc all around them while they walk in the calm eye of power, and then there are others who screw that power up just by walking into the room. Guess which person I wanna be.

If I have an enemy that wishes me harm and goes to the trouble to research where I am in order to hurt me, what I wish most for them is the loveliest distraction- a happy life. I hope their lives are so good that I'm not even a speck in their horizon. I wish them good food, loving family, loyal friends, great jobs, and all the awesome that goes with that. I realized along the way that when I pray for good for those who would do me wrong, I help my own life to be better. It took a long time, but I learned to stop wishing for death and woe on people I was afraid would do terrible things to me.

If I have an enemy that wishes me harm and goes to the trouble to spend hours haunting my web presence with their negativity and possibly even going to the trouble of uttering curses and doing mean things to inanimate objects in my name, what is it I wish for them? I had never thought of that before, and it kind of makes me laugh, but it's very real and I feel bad for them spending so much time, because basically my life has already sucked far worse than just about anything they could ever wish upon me. Of course, no one used to know this until I started publicly blogging. But seriously, what is it I wish? What do I pray for these people? After some reflection on myself as a presence, I decided I wish for them to learn all the wise things I have learned, and at the risk of being selfish, that would include suffering.

I grew up on the bible, and there are several bits in there about heaping coals of fire on other people's heads.

http://biblehub.com/proverbs/25-22.htm
http://biblehub.com/romans/12-20.htm

It's difficult to be pious without being arrogant when you look at it like that. Wishing other people good so God will find them in the wrong is what that boils down to. It would be more honest of me to simply be selfish and wish other people harm when they harm or intend to harm me, wouldn't it? Some would more eloquently point out that it means the cosmos gets the vengeance for us, just let go kind of thing. The honest would simply say we all get what's coming to us.

I have lived the sort of suffering that accelerates this learning curve, and if the meaning of life is about learning all this, then I suppose I should wish that enemies of my presence to also experience this accelerated learning. So, since God and the universe are much bigger than our tiny little specks of existence, I assume a prayer to That Presence to be far more powerful than another person making word combinations over a wrecked up doll, not because I have more power, but because That Presence does, and all I have to do is ask, given that it's within the parameters of what I am here to learn. Perhaps for anyone who could do me actual harm, as it were, since negativity is actual harm as much as anything, it would be pertinent for them to receive that same harm back to themselves so they can learn to understand why we are here in the first place. Like, perhaps I'll receive harm, but that should also be reflected back- what they create they also receive. They are, in effect, harming themselves. If I take damage, they take that damage as well. And so they may learn even faster, perhaps what they create to send out can be reflected back doubly.

I actually prayed for that protection. I prayed that to the most powerful being known to anything that's ever lived. I prayed that I keep learning and that my enemies learn as fast or faster than me.

I've never really shared this before. It seems a bit arrogant, as I'm writing it all down, but since it was between me and God, it was more a private pact. I must stand up to morality and positivity and confess it now if that is not to backfire upon myself, as well. I do not pray lightly. I have come much too far in this life to think I can get away with cheating.

So, in light of the #transparency I started on my last Pinky blog, in the event it really is my time to go (since I've had to abruptly face this week how close a shave this might still be), I feel like I owe some of you an apology. If you have wished me ill at any time, you have quite probably been through some challenges you didn't expect because of it. I do believe in One more powerful than us all, and I do believe this whole world experience is set up for karmic justice as part of a learning program (this goes back to my bluejacky days on xanga), and since I believe that, then I believe I must come clean and say that was my fault. If you felt your jaw clinch and your eyes burn reading that just now, then you know you also brought this upon yourself, and that if you try to wish more harm upon me, you'll be on the very edge of your own mortality. Because look where I am now, laughing on the side of a cliff, and you are holding my hand. I'm not saying you have the power to push me off a cliff (and I know that little thrill you just got thinking you could take me with you), but that maybe I'm the one holding you still on the cliff, because I prayed for you. Something to think about. Power goes both ways.

Thorns is an armor enchant that reflects damage back to the attacker.

life imitating art imitiating life

click for fun romp thru 'chronic illness demotivational posters'

Those crack me up, lol.

So I finally made it through the rest of the Patrick Melrose miniseries, by the last ep they stopped being so subtle about the idea that the elite of the world are dying out and their children are done with their head games as they have their own children and realize how awful the generation above them are. I've been going through the same revelations myself through my own years. I think they did a really good job with the show.

@bonenado is home with me this week because scary big stuffs, so we're off and on hitting the DVR in between other things. Slammed through the last of the 12 Monkeys, and I've decided I'm going to buy that series and slam marathon the entire series over again sometime. I don't waste my money on entertainment, so that's a big deal. I really don't have the time to sit and watch TV, so I'm barely keeping up, but HUMANS and The 100 are caught up.

The more actual medical documentation I find on Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the more thankful I  am for the weird synchronicities in my life that led to me even bringing it up with a doctor, because one sentence not being said at the right moment could have changed this path entirely. One particular info document to doctors mentions that expected mortality for untreated RMSF can be as early as 8 days, and people can take months and years to recover from the rapid damage even on antibiotic. That 5 day window is critical to staying ahead of the level of damage that causes 'neurologic changes' among a long list of other very nasty things. I have purposely pulled back just in case something spirals out of control and I don't have any more time to deal with explanations, contacted key people about current activity changes, and now this is here for everyone else. I've been in low grade fever all week, started having the headaches yesterday (brain inflammation is a huge risk with my autoimmune history), and still having difficulty walking on the affected leg with the swollen knee. The fatigue is unreal.

As far as we can tell, onset was around June 11th, BUT IF the sudden blood pressure surge 2 weeks before was part of it, I could be about a month in, and that would mean the critical antibiotic window was missed. The doxycycline *will kill* the RMSF germ, yes, but I could already have damage that could still become life threatening, or at the very least, make the summer feel much longer and more arduous than my normal spoonie summer with allergies and temp changes from AC and heat. I was already living with nerve dysfunctions and arthritis, and both the RMSF and doxy can kick off an autoimmune flare at any time, if I'm not already in one. Treating could get tricky. Best I can do is rest rest rest.

Still on the game server every day. Sorry if I'm slow to see private messages coming in. I know I had a lot more to do online, and I still have plans galore I want to get to, but it's important right now to keep my positivity focused for better healing. In the old days I crawled through coding and tweaks on bad days. I may be getting back into that, and THAT, basically, is what built my web presence in the first place.

Myke, Barry, Sam, Riv, Sploit, Vicki, Lisa Marie, Holly, #Snarkalecs, Matt, Aaron and Mel, Dylan and Dawn, all the Scotts, Mike B and his bois including the boss, movie gang (my rock), moc, fandom friends, everyone who lurks me and I know you're there watching my blunders and boofs and picking back up again- I love you. If I go through another brain crash and it's a slow climb again, I'm putting this here so I'll remember Pinky Robot euphorias started with you guys showing #aspienado how to hang out without blowing up the webs.

never boring

I have had several intelligent discussions lately about some really cool ideas and ways to make them happen, and even what makes me happy. I have enjoyed other people's company in several ways that makes me feel good about life.

Maybe I was needing that.

I might be in for some deja vu here in a bit, lol

I've lately had the luxury of doing some comparison thinking, experimenting with projecting possibilities on my own brain and trying reactions on for size.

For example, after the things I've already lived through, the traumas and illnesses that have taken me down into shards that I've spent years cobbling back together, what would be more shocking to find out I must live through next, and whether there is a comparison at all between something like rocky mountain spotted fever vs something like cancer in any of its various stages.

I'm lucky. I accidentally discovered a tick, accidentally wound up at a doctor follow up for something else within a decent range of finding that tick, and quite accidentally wound up on immediate treatment for something I wouldn't have suspected in the slightest even though I was obviously being affected.

And then to find out up to 70% death rate before this particular antibiotic was invented, and in the short time up to morbidity, a very miserable slide into the depths of hell that include inflammation in the brain, along with capillary fail all over the body and particularly lungs and other organs being damaged along the way.

People finding out they are in the first stages of cancer would live longer than I would without treatment.

Given my health and genetic history and my age, I'm lucky I'm alive right now as it is. So far I'm not terribly sick, no. So far I'm not suffering horribly like I could be without treatment. I'm very blessed and very lucky. But this is nothing to blow off like it's a piece of cake. Yes, I'll be fine, but, as with any length of cold or flu, yes, I will be a bit worn out and apprehensive, and I think I deserve that appreciation of circumstance. I've been very thankful for the handful of people who have actually understood the weight of this new challenge. There is no cheating on this life test.

Several long time agos, a friend here or there fussed about not being told something after finding out, like their feelings were hurt not to be on some kind of contact list about something important. If I contact someone personally about something scary and feel blown off, I don't waste my time on my feelings over that. I simply pare down the list. Apart from that, all my stuff is public, and anyone can check on me at any time. I understand that all our plates are full and sometimes we can't deal. It's ok.

If you're checking in to see how I'm doing, though, thank you, I've been having chills for about 24 hours along with the usual pain of aching all over that comes with any germ warfare. My knee is bendier and easier to walk on now, but still a bit gooshy with fluid near the tick bite. MRI today will let my doctor know whether any real damage has been done. My understanding is that doxy, while an excellent treatment, can't work miracles against some of the damage that can happen very quickly. That I have to do on my own over time as I heal.

I keep asking why we chose this planet, it's so toxic out there... lol. Guess it's really pretty, though. Hope you guys are having a great week. 💖

what one little dot can do

click for wiki

Positive on the first part of the tick panel coming in. I've been on doxy for 3 days and got enough immediate relief the first 24 hours that I was able to start bending my knee again, and today was able to get out again and walk around Walmart. Feeling super drained now, though, and yesterday it felt really good to blow the day off and not really do much but play on game. Can only guess at how bad this would have gotten if I hadn't been seeing my doctor for follow up on something else. I got lucky, because I wouldn't have gone in as quickly otherwise. My knee had been swelling and my leg going rigid for at least a week before I got on antibiotic. Looks like it can be pretty serious.

This is my second tick disease. I'm a Lymie from way back, and back then I was untreated. I'm almost in a disbelief state, just cruisin on spaceout spaz. I mean, what are the odds? I so rarely go outside, and this was the first and only teeny weeny tick I even found on me. I never even thought of a bite being by a swollen knee being the cause. And now I'm running into articles about people winding up with amputations and worse. Eek.

As you can imagine, my incoming work pile is on hold. My brain is already gone for the day, and I feel like I have a virus draining me. I just wanna curl up and sleep, and I just might as soon as @bonenado gets back and takes over Bunny sitting.

In the meantime, Bubble Guppies.

:edit: Adding my fave Bupple Guppy song.

how does this even all mix together

Started yesterday.

 😂 omg, got to this part of the vid and rolled, I was doing this crap back in the late 70s whenever I'd get ticked off at someone in high school.

And what made it even funnier was no one ever expected it was me. I did stuff all year long to so many people and never once got caught. I can't say what all I did yet, but this is one reason why I derailed all over that school, staff and students alike. Don't tell me I'm in a triple A school and make me watch a kid OD in a hallway after a teacher supplies him, one of many things not kept terribly secret, yet never coming up in question.

I'm still waiting on a test that'll say whether or not a tick bite next to my swollen knee is the cause of this problem I've had for the last week. Today I had to very strategically park within a few steps of a shuttle pick up, 'walk' a few steps to a desk to ask for wheelchair transport assistance across and up 3 floors of a very big building, that kind of stuff. I can barely walk at all. I've had bad knee problems, but never like this. The x-ray turned out fine, still hafta schedule an MRI. I can't think of a single thing I did that might've fried my knee out. It started clicking with every step one day, then swelled the next, then my entire leg went rigid, and of course then I had no control over balance without a very complex overcompensation maneuver with every step, and finally last night I just flat couldn't even sleep any more. I finally saw and removed a teensy seed tick near the swelling area, couldn't even tell it was a tick at all because such a little dot and nearly left it there. Didn't itch or anything. After I removed it the rigidity in my leg has eased up a bit, but my knee is feeling a bit destroyed after having to walk all over a clinic to lab and imaging and back and forth from the car. No shuttle or transport service at the clinic, as it were.

At any rate, I'm cautiously on doxycycline just in case. I already carry a positive marker for Lyme from when I was younger, but there are others so the doctor ordered a full tick panel.

6 Tick-Borne Diseases That Are on the Rise

Tick-Borne Diseases Are On The Rise. Which Ones Should You Watch Out For?

Moving on to another vid.

Now it's today.

Finally braced myself and watched the second ep of Patrick Melrose this afternoon and triggered so badly that I hated the whole world for a solid hour after it was over. I had to keep reminding myself I choose not to hate now. I couldn't believe how easily triggered I was by stuff in the show completely unrelated to my own experiences, but I think the common blaring point was how much I identified with being utterly alone with so many adults around who could not only see the truth of what was happening, but literally made it worse by pushing all the wrong buttons and then abandoning the circumstances any way they could. Avoidance, passive aggressive displaced blame, anger and lashing out on a child, and the undercurrent of fear if anyone started even attempting to talk about it. All that I know very well.

Personally, I learned at a much younger age that I couldn't trust ANY adults, because they were either all stupid about playing the head games or they were manipulating with their own agendas. To see the world that way from such a young age, to never actually feel safe and comfortable with people who were automatically understood to love me, to lay awake so often at night throughout my life simply just thinking about the actions we all go through compared to the words we say and the meanings those words are supposed to have...

Right now I smell hamburgers and french fries because I cooked them, and then I retreated away into my room while the others are eating. I haven't eaten a hamburger on a bun in nearly 4 years now, and I can't even remember how long it's been since I've had french fries, 6 or 7 years maybe. Sometimes it's hard being allergic, sometimes I don't care and it doesn't bother me. This year has seemed harder for some reason.

I'm trying not to feel negative and failing a bit this week. It's one thing to share information or compose thoughts about feelings, it another thing to dump and be toxic because that's a self pity mode. I think my swollen knee is wearing me down. I feel like I'm grinding around on it trying to keep up. The laundry and dishes are still caught up. The bathrooms are clean. I'm hiding in a corner on doxycycline hoping this isn't a real tick disease. Life has sucked enough being a lyme carrier for years.

I'm too tired to cry. Even if I'm not really sick with something, I feel so tired. I know a lot of people are having problems with the heat and humidity and too much rain or not enough rain, bugs and allergies, and that's not even getting into money problems and world junk grinding us all down. I know I wasn't feeling this glum until I watched that show today though. I wonder how many people really go through that kind of hell as kids. I can't help thinking what a dirty, rotten world we live in, and yet when you look around, it's so beautiful. Humanity is the saddest story in the universe, and yet we find ways through the sad and some of us huddle together for spare bits of happy floating around on the webs. I am so, so glad we don't live on a gross, ugly planet. Can you imagine how even more depressing that would be? Did you notice today that it's pretty out there? Maybe see pix float by on your devices? I feel like we're really lucky that we're on this world, even though so much of it seems like a drag on our souls.

Doxy gives me headaches, and that is definitely being a drag right now. It usually lets up a little after a couple hours. I'll be ok. I just hope I'm not a drag on anyone while I'm like this.

One thing I've noticed is that I definitely got past that doorway I was stuck in so long. And I look back at how real I was the entire time. I really was. I never once lost my way, my focus, my drive. And I can see it's all still here, and it makes me laugh to myself. I do feel good inside, I really do. All this stuff on the outside is just distraction bummer. On the inside...?

This is me. All I have to do is remember to look in once in awhile and see myself.

I think my life needs pretty pillows

click for pretty

A week ago I made a to-do list for this month. Two of those things are done, another got started, and the rest shoved aside. Today I added another thing and contemplated things I let drop off the list a year ago.

My lists are defeating me. My inbox is a hilarious sham. My aspirations to conquer so much seem like a pipedream.

And yet, I am thoroughly enjoying some pizza nachos and spacing out.

Today is a good day. I'm enjoying doing chores around my house while I listen to youtube stuffs.

spare parts

I was looking for a Spongebob "4 Days Later" time card on youtube and ran into this and decided it's the best ever.

It's time to admit I may or may not have destroyed that knee. Walking is touch and go, and trying to stay off my leg is ridiculously challenging. Not in the mood to discuss it further except to say I really miss fly. Life is not minecraft enough.

So out of all those seeds Bunny and I planted, this is the lone survivor and thriver.

We went from a very late 25 degree hard frost to a very hot 80 degree drought in two weekends flat, and after that it rained so much and so hard that everything just drowned, including a pot of petunias. I've never seen petunias drown before. But this guy said life is awesome and surged forth.

And those turned into zucchinis and not the cantaloupe I could have sworn it was, and today we ate the biggest one, which we nearly didn't see at all because zucchinis are sneaky.

And of course we got sneaky back and picked the nice small one hiding near it before it could go all Jurassic on us.

Here's a splat of joy. You're welcome.

I feel like I'm getting an insane amount of work done both online and off, but it's not the kind of work that people generally notice, and my knee is threatening abdication so it's clearly an insane amount of work. I've been laughing back with HA, what you fail to understand is that I have a spare knee! Your threats are useless! And my other knee goes *wut*...

The list grows. The work patiently waits. I get a little distracted here and there, but it's all good.

bouncy bouncy

click pic for memes

Fastest backfire ever. I didn't even try to imitate that last vid, I just watched it. I can barely use my right leg today between quads and knee locking up. And it's not even really painful, just muscle lock and off track kind of thing.

Honestly though, I think I worked through a hell of a lot of stress in the psychologist's office yesterday. It started right after I left. Psychoneuroimmunology is a real thing and I have the monocytes showing up on earlier blood tests to prove it. Or, as one person in the medical field has mentioned, I internalize my outer environment, and another noted that I am hyper reactive to both my inner and outer environments.

I feel life full blast and I try to stay chill. It's like the meme 'dying inside', but it actually manifests. It's like my life is an artistic expression of the human condition. If the aliens don't take me, I'll dramatically stumble and cry, "But I'm an artist!"

If I had a twin somewhere I could claim to feel the repurcussion of her leg being slammed in a soccer game. Yeah, that's it. That.

so bizzy

So. Much. Stuff. Time to untangle and get all over and have a great summer come hell or high water.

my own eyes

I had occasion to log into my instagram today, I'm terrible to ever go there. While I was waiting for something, I popped open the only 8 pics I have there one by one, and ended with this one. And then I got to wondering what was going on that day, so I checked with Pinky blog. Suddenly these last two years feel like they've flown by me, even though they've felt very grindy and slow along the way.

Great tech talk today on the phone. That originally started even longer ago, and here we are on the brink of actually doing what we wished we could years ago. Considering I could barely talk tech on a phone 6 years ago, my brain is screaming HUZZAH!!!!!

I'm living so many different lives. I have a rabbit running around my house now and juggling so much stuff, I just never dreamed I'd get this far. I'm thriving in game, I'm holding my own on projects (albeit a little behind, but when am I ever not?), I'm dealing with my stuff and not killing people any more (metaphorically), and I'm actually keeping up with life better than I used to even with all this other stuff going.

I caught myself switching just before the end of May. I know I switch so I can deal, I've always known it, but I actually caught a switch sliding in and out taking over for a few minutes that felt like I remembered all the things, and it was like our eyes met briefly on the slide out, and then I was just going along again not exactly knowing what it was that I knew for a few seconds. I'm pretty sure I was able to catch that because I finally broke through with the #we post scheduling this spring.

I know, right. You can imagine all you want, but it's actually a bit jolting to realize you are looking into your own eyes like that, and it happened so quickly I barely had time to latch onto it enough to remember it.

This weekend as I was going through a big sack of old things, I ran across a copy of a very old note I wrote to a friend around this time of year many years ago, and it captured the sad so well. If I had run into that note first before I made Pinky blog, I might never have made it back out here and no one would have heard from me again. I realize now how pathetically blind I always was and why my psychologist said my narcissism was a cushion against suicide.

I was told "You know where to find me." I wound up repeating that back years later without even realizing it. I looked everywhere, and I didn't know. Years later I have looked everywhere and found myself.

I know now why I am sad, and why I still look everywhere.

I see my psychologist tomorrow. It's been a couple of months.

14 days

I promise I won't do that a lot here, just checking on the transition from the last blog. And yes, I know I'm way behind on stuffs, but it'll get here. Been a crazy couple weeks. I'm not even rolling yet and this isn't bad, so transition went a lot better than I thought it would. Thank you guys for switching tracks with me. 💗

I told moc fam I'd be back on server after a break and I've got 15 minutes left, so quickie stuffs. Tomorrow is the last physical therapy day for awhile, taking that down really easy this week and it's up to me to stay on track rest of the summer. Primary care follow up yesterday from hospital last week, they're going to set me up with ambulatory 24 hour blood pressure monitor, those are kind of new, we'll see how that goes. Got my second holter monitor in 2 weeks mailed back today. Blood glucose has been fantastic, most of the pain coming back down nicely, adjusting pretty well to slight increase in the gabapentin dosing, and goal is to keep it steady. Don't get dumb and knock myself out in the heat or overdo anything, just nice routine and focus on more healing.

Positivity. That is my challenge! Negativity hurts healing. Positivity (being a calm person that doesn't gut react into blame or self pity) is a very good way to live. It's been hard, but I'm getting there. Funny, though, don't look too deep behind what makes this look fun.

what I'd like to see in mandela effects

Mandela effects have been all the rage for awhile, and I'm sorry, I can't get into the sign and logo changes and trying to get evidence because that is too transitory anyway. These are a few things I'd love to run into people sharing about mandela experiences.

I don't remember my countertop fitting my height so well. What? We have variable countertop heights across all housing? When did this happen?

I saw a pink gremlin on the way to work today. Who restores a Gremlin and paints it pink? *laughs* Wait, that's a thing? Gremlins are back? What do you mean what do I mean?

I'm telling you, novelty footies are a THING, I'm not crazy!

Looks up all this stuff online, hundreds of people are getting together like conspiracy researchers trying to prove the world was different...

Actually, I'm only up because a nightmare was even crazier. Something about terrorists. Wait, I tweeted. Here you go.

I didn't mention the part about how they were getting rid of humans by mixing their DNA into linens and curtains being stripped out of old houses and put through a big grinder and then being remade into other products, so everything around us was becoming actual, real human product. *gag*

And then I dragged out of bed for a few corn chips and a lot of youtube and I think I'm done. I just watched a vid detailing how a dog's entire brain was literally and very laboriously desectioned onto silicon slides so it could be loaded into a server and exactly reassembled into computer space, and then it was uploaded into the cloud. We actually literally have a real brain copied into the cloud. A human volunteer (terminal) is already under way. Also, brain implants have been here for awhile, and some of them can switch your despondence into joy in the blink of an eye. I'll take one of those, please. Been in line a very long time for a brain chip.

By the way, I've blurbed here and there about brain chips, mostly at SyfyDesigns. Oh look, nearly 50K now. I should be back over there blurbing. I just ran off and let that sit there around 25K.

Well, guess I did quite a bit on old Pinky blog, too. Here's a tag search in case you can't sleep, either.

Oh man, ran right into a good going back to sleep vid. Here you go. I think I can go back to bed now.

pinkyblue

I've had a little time to think today about how intense the last 8 days got, especially after another brief breakout last night that has me in another 2-day holter. This is old hat, I've done overnight, 2-day, 7-day, and month fairly regularly over the last 2 1/2 decades, and every time it happens there is a settling into new med dose period where I have little minor breakout burps after an initial big one. Except this last big one took 2 days to wrestle back down out of emergency status range. Kinda like with diabetes, there is a set of ranges they consider imminent even if the patient isn't aware it is, blood pressure has its own ranges of 'anything could happen without warning' when you get above or below a certain range.

Over the years I've heard it all about panic response (out of a dead sleep, that's hilarious), acute anxiety (without warning while I'm having a good day?), pain response (we do watch that, and it's not logically consistent or predictable), and of course they check for anything physical going on, too. My blood work is pretty great for someone my age, I pass all kinds of tests with flying colors, and still I get these outrageous break out blood pressure binges after months of good control.

But. I do have to look at what I've been doing lately. I have been deeper tissue restructuring on top of finally dealing with one of the biggest PTSD trauma events in my life, which basically boils down to medically condoned self harm during a mental crisis, and it dawned on me during another ER run last night this is what it really looks like. Is it much of a stretch to connect that to the worst uncontrollable blood pressure break out I've ever had? The timing is exquisite.

Something to talk about with my primary doctor during follow up tomorrow and my psychologist next week.

I DVR'd the Patrick Melrose mini series on Showtime, but didn't start watching it until the first episode today. I was alone in the house, and every nuance triggered the hell out of me from the very start. I've never done hard drugs like that, and I've never been abused like that character was, but I have been through other abuses and spent many years on very addicting medications, and my life started out being treated for withdrawal as a baby. I have never not known pain in all the forms it takes in humans, physical, psychological, spiritual, emotional, medical, mental, traumas in my own experiences and all around me both hidden and ignored, and I felt so synced to Patrick Melrose split into pieces while barely maintaining a false cover of normalcy. All those people around him who knew he'd been miserable but had never ventured into finding out why, glossing it off for clichéd reasons, and especially an old girlfriend winding up shoving him off like a freak instead of really noticing or listening, and he was even begging for help.

I grew up self medicating, but it wasn't alcohol because we never had any. I didn't know that a lot of kids were doing that all around me in school, getting into medications and liquor cabinets. Did they start at three years old? I OD'd when I was around 3. No one even knows what to say to that. I was on phenobarbital since babyhood, found the love of my life in codeine around 12, and graduated into round the clock drinking and chain smoking after a divorce. I rarely bring up the brandy bongs because people get the wrong picture. I was a workaholic without a real emotional connection to anyone, and I moved along from one addiction to another to another to another, and part of that migration has included pain addiction. I am very, very good at pain addiction. I have literally used it to get off med addictions. I have used therapies as a coping mechanism because they focus pain. I get high while I heal, the more bruising, the better. I noticed this last week that I was craving the needles. I had so many people putting needles in me. My left hand is half black and blue, my stomach has a very bright purple circle as big as a silver dollar. My arms are tracked up and bruised in half a dozen places. Not one needle was used to administer a pain med or muscle relaxer or anything relieving like that.

I love pain. They started noticing this in physical therapy about 3 years ago. It's become a topic of interest with my psychologist. Lately I can't help noticing that the more emotional pain I feel, the more physical pain I crave. Funny I never noticed that before. I can look back on my life and see years of it now.

I have no idea if that dynamic can trigger such a horrible blood pressure breakout. I spent the last two months rolling out scheduled blog posts about dealing with some horrible stuff in my life, creating a survival narrative, and right as the last of it was ending, and my mind finally started feeling more free than it has ever felt, my blood pressure exploded and my life diverted into more than a dozen needles and a lot of tests. During that time, the deep tissue area we've been working on in physical therapy for 6 weeks also exploded into searing pain along nerve pathways and referred into muscle strings and bundles. The pain was severe, and I laid there loving that I was feeling it and feeling lots of needles all over and mandatory fasting for almost 24 hours, and I never once felt sorry for myself.

This song won't stop running through my mind.

I think I still have a lot of healing to do.

high speed slacking

Welp, was wanting chicks, but we got a rabbit. 😂 It's cool though, kinda looks like a hell bun.

It's house trained and everything. 👍

Life kind of exploded on all of us over the last few weeks. Like 3 *grown* grandkids piled into granny's house next door (bets on which squatter gets the house when she dies *cough*breaksahiptrippingoveradog*cough* because that just sounds bad with 2 tiny kids and 6 dogs and granny sleeping on a couch now) and of course one of them gets the kind of work injury that shattered arms, so someone's gotta hold his blunt now, or whatever he does. And has to feed him, bathe him, and help in the bathroom. Hey, I'm only suggesting an entertaining narrative. And then I wind up in observation in a cardiac wing because too healthy now and doing #allthethings. Ok, that really was a stretched story, I'm only halfway healthy because still need to lose more weight, even though blood work is still really good compared to old days. I told someone in a clogged up line at Walmart that I'm blaming everything on solar flares this year. EVERYTHING. Spill your coffee? Stupid solar flare. Miss your exit? Dang it, solar flare! Get the day wrong for your dental appointment? Solar flare fried my brain.

So this works now.

Myke did that. He did so much magic that I honestly don't think there's anything he can't do. I wish my brain was that spiffy. And it's so cool to say "I have this tech guy". One of these days I need to get my butt back over there to his place and rock out some more content. I'm not proud at all about causing this massive swoop. 😁

I'm a slacker now. I'm slacking. *runs off to check on supper cooking*

~#~#~#~#~

Threw darts at the DVR during dinner and landing on a McGyver, so I saw how he found his dad (score since I didn't watch the previous 2 seasons) and then left. I'm sorry, some of those shows just can't hold me still that long.

~$~$~$~$~$~

What a night. I really should just sling this out there and go to bed. I've done a dozen other things already.

I'm in a great mood ever since the hospital, can't tell if all the extra meds kicked off another euphoria or what but I'm loving it. Let's celebrate.

super pinky

Nearly 4 years later, I suddenly notice I can put more on my mobile. I fixed up both Pinky blogs a bit, probably be adding more soon. Much more shows up beneath posts now.

Had one of those sudden diversion weeks, no laptop for several days, and now I feel outrageously behind in everything. Which is weird because I'm suddenly getting so much done again.

STOP DROP AND ROLL FOR MAJOR DIVERSION INTO STUFFS

Ok, I'm back. Power point on stuffs-

• More LittleLexx.net discussion about nameserver updates and which domain registry to use.
• Currently behind posting last weekend's #latenightmovie chat and there's one tonight, so that's piling up, lol.
• Started a super cool moc wither fight storyboard post, need to pick up where I left off and get that out.
• Game server party pix post from the end of May needs to get done.
• Not even going to list real life stuff.

The hospital stuff from the other day is best sifted down to powering through poor pain management 4 days ago till I set off an outrageous breakout blood pressure that had me almost too delirious to call 9-1-1. It happened in the shower, and I can tell you from experience that the 5 minutes you might spend trying to decide whether to get on the phone for rescue or put underwear on first can be really fuzzy, I can barely remember it. BP was 228/121 on their arrival, and the nitro helped only about 20 minutes before it broke over 200 again. Got a 12-lead, showed a blip so they gave me a shot to dilate my veins, got worse, another 12-lead and the fastest CT I've ever been rushed through, another 12-lead, and bam, up to the 4th floor. From there it was overnight fasting for stress test imaging, and THAT stuff is also supposed to dilate veins and bring blood pressure right down. Mine was only down to 187/102 after all that previous stuff, and when it held steady as a rock out of spite, the entire room went silent. They almost never see that happen. After that was additional meds and another overnight monitor, and finally down enough to go home.

So I'm on double my regular BP med plus another BP med that is double what I used to add during breakout episodes in the past, and with nothing else warranting action presenting during testing and monitoring, I was given the all-clear. If they'd seen anything, I would've been sent to surgery immediately. During my stay I had two shots in my stomach, I think for precautionary blood thinner, several IV pushes and cups of pills, some of it precautionary. I can't even imagine what might've happened if I hadn't made the call. I had no idea my blood pressure was so high, didn't even feel that. All I felt was the initial pain stab and then utter delirium. I could have wound up with a major stroke or even a heart attack just from runaway blood pressure over a nasty pain spike. The veins around my heart were in danger of becoming inflamed or developing clots from the pressure. I've had a number of breakouts that have been ER monitored, but I'd always been sent home after 4-6 hours. Not this time.

Goal now is solid pain management, so the gabapentin doses are going back up. I missed a physical therapy appointment during all that, and since I've been getting extreme deep tissue shred and massage on shoulder and all around shoulder blade, that nerve center was definitely on full blast. All it took was one move to spike some really nasty pain and set all that crazy blood pressure off, and naturally I should be on muscle relaxers and nsaids and possibly even a steroid, but my poor body is so med maxed out I just can't keep that up any more. I'll need to finish out my therapy appointments light, and no more power shopping the groceries and hauling all that in myself during the summer heat. I'm also relieved of after school kid duty for the summer, so I need to get back on taking daily naps, or at least taking an hour off to lay down. I'm going to push my carpal tunnel surgery further out, there is no way they'll use anesthesia until I can control this on my own for a few weeks.

The rest is up to me. I'm tightening up an already pretty focused diet because I've gotten slack. I had made the most beautiful homemade coffee ice cream. Got home and threw it out. Ice cream isn't worth that kind of suffering and cost. Back to the diabetic diet combined with cardio diet, 30 minutes of exercise every day, and monitored caloric intake.

To all those memes going around facebook that say chillax and live your life because we all die in the end- yeah, you can choose to coast out really miserable at the end. If I had lived that belief I'd already be dead several times at an early age, and coming back from early immobility sucked bad enough. That's a bunch of crap and a lie. They want you to die lining their pockets with the tiny little bit of money you've barely got. There are CEOs making 6 figure salaries talking about food dyes and sugar and how to make profits and get their raises while people in poverty eat and drink themselves into a hellish misery. Do they care that their products do that? No. I haven't had a real autoimmune flare up in at least 3-4 years now, longest I've ever gone, and this blood pressure thing could have easily kicked off into an autoimmune response sparking pericarditis. That would have sucked so bad.

I think what bothers me most is my sleeves feeling tighter...

Super Pinky can't happen on a 12-lead.

#we

April was a daily rollout of the storyboard in videos on the recently retired pinkyguerrero.blogspot.com, May was a daily rollout of the words added. It has taken me years to figure out my 'problem' (as people say, what is your problem?), and now I feel done with that.

Since opening my blog brings up the entire rollout backward, I will transfer all of it here in one place forward for easier reading, since so many readers attempted to read post to post backward this last week, even though I never link shared any of those anywhere.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Every April is horrid for me, every year. For over 30 years I didn't understand why. Pinky blog started unraveling the mystery, filling in the holes, sorting out the misplaced feelings and nightmares, the secrets I kept from myself. Each day last month auto posted a pre-scheduled video, a sort of montage of placeholders for feelings I couldn't quite pin down for years, like memory cards. It helped to let my intuition choose the vids and order them without thinking or writing. After I completed that task, I realized I can see my own storyboard now.

April first always started with a buried memory that I couldn't see. She was blond. I subconsciously became bluejacky and pinky in public blogs starting in 2007, pinkybluejacky in some places, like pinterest. You can read in this article about the terrible day that I buried for 30 years. My head puts things like this together behind my back, connecting dots before I realize what's even happening, and then I go Ohhhh....

Something else happened around that time that made my memories very difficult to deal with. I'd been ejected from a violently flipping vehicle a few months before (I think? Was it the same year?) or the winter after (I srsly cannot keep that timeline straight in my head at all), and I may have suffered a concussion that was never properly addressed (ya think???), along with other very serious injuries (nearly bleeding to death internally, shredding soft tissue down to the bones all over my body). Between a difficult childhood (none of us yet knowing I am autism spectrum) with difficult parents (bless their hearts, I can't even, and one day I've gotta), and my friend being brutally murdered, my memories are still like hash through a wood chipper. Far too much trauma, so I simply shut down once I got the call. But I still vividly remember the accident, and I've never forgotten what happened during the NDE. I may be sharing that soon.

In retrospect, nearly my entire emotional support for about 10 years of my life had come from my friend ever since the 5th grade until April 1981. I never realized or understood anything about our relationship (aspienado) until this particular video woke me up many years later in 2010 (by then I had already separately been Bluejacky on a blog and Pinky in a chatroom), and I started trying to cobble that shattered part of myself back together. She was everything to me, but even then I didn't know this was about her, deeply confusing it with a more recent friendship that had dropped off. My public Bluejacky blog skipped the year 2010 after writhing with dealing with my mom's death right on top of my own legal disability hearing the year before. I went underground, and nearly disappeared from the internet.

I'll never forget running into this song. I watched it over and over, tears streaming. The part with the black apple tore through me like a little cannonball. It's like seeing the big picture, the before and after, the going on into the future. By the time I saw this I had already started dealing with remembering the murder, but I intuitively placed it in the queue last month onto the day before that horrible anniversary, like I was making a bridge for myself to be able to cross.

April 1, 2015 I started cracking open. The ugly memories started leaking out, or as I put it, all that colorful candy flying in slow motion out of a smashed pinata. Three months later all the subconscious stuff started spilling out and I was finally on my way to truly emotionally healing. But April 5th is still very, very hard. I had repressed that memory for 34 years.

And after April 5th passed, I always felt lost and floaty inside without knowing why, and I latched hard onto repetition and super focus so I wouldn't feel crazy, never understanding why I felt like that. This playlist is an example of a coping mechanism.



Looking back now, I can see that the night of the horrible phone call was the last time I closed the door on my mom, never really to open it again. After a difficult childhood through which I was very rarely asked personally if I was ok, I saw that question in her eyes and simply just shut all my emotion down, turning my back on her, and going back to bed, quietly tucking what I'd just heard into a very dark place and making it not exist. The next day I burned all the letters my friend had written me after we moved, and walked on as if she hadn't existed. From then on, any time my mom made a big deal about anything else that ever happened, I simply went deeper into the dark until my entire heart was swallowed up and I lost myself. My life turned into anger and hatred, and I really took it out on my poor mom. After a failed first marriage to a guy who turned out to be a mentally ill pedophile, I became a hardcore drinker and went places in my life most nice people don't even think exists except on TV. I know I would never have gone down that path if that murder hadn't happened.

And from there I just didn't care. I nearly drank myself to death. I hung out with a major underground drug distrubutor and his girlfriend, living a double life with a normal job and getting to know a few people in the seedy underbelly of a big city. I didn't feel anything, wasn't afraid of anything, and all I cared about was my job and alcohol, which was probably my salvation since I turned down a sweet offer managing my own interstate drug trafficking team from California to the midwest. I had left my child with my mom during this time, thank goodness, and in three short months passed up two amazing opportunities for really good jobs (local police and hospital administration, go figure) before I finally got so sick from the alcohol I had to quit and come home.

I recognized myself as Hatter in this movie. During my dark night of the soul, I was very capable of hurting and not caring. Even with a solid moral upbringing ground into me from birth, I was cold and ruthless inside. I didn't even pretend not to be, but since I didn't use foul language, dressed simply, and remained about as immaterial as it gets, most people didn't equate me with savagery, much less a shadowy manipulator of events. Fortunately, someone came along and woke me up to other possibilities.

Ideally, inside my mind, I wanted people dead. I wanted them in pain, and I wanted them out of my way. I walked a very fine line with my intellect, and it wouldn't have taken much to snap me into a veritable supervillain. In retrospect, I feel I can empathize with people who go to the dark side. I've felt the process, and I know how easy it is to cross that line and not be able to come back. I walked right on that line for years, but I never quite stepped off into that dark side.

Well, you know what happens to people who shut down and don't empathize. I grew so pathetic that even when I started straightening up and getting back on track, I couldn't keep friends. I stumbled around so awkwardly with social interaction once I let go of the hate as a way of life thing, I went through friend after friend, unable to understand what I was doing wrong, unable to slow the inevitable disaster. I still hadn't been diagnosed autism yet, and the world of caring felt treacherously slippery. I think I know how John feels in this series. Very few people really look at John.

And then there it was, that friendship that clicked. I didn't know it was even happening. I knew something felt different, but there was so much other stuff going on both in real life and online that I couldn't untangle any of it. I knew I needed a 'home', I knew I needed people, but I still didn't know yet how not to crash the world around me. And of course, the explosion was everything that beautiful tragedy should be, and naturally I was the catalyst for a powder keg of fun and chaos. The difference this time was my heart unexpectedly shattering.

As I felt the last of the party and another friendship slipping away, I jolted awake with a lightning bolt spearing a bigger picture vision into my brain that lasted only a heartbeat, the insight I was never born or gifted with, just out of my grasp. It was too late. My head and heart screamed as the last of all of it slipped through my fingers. I've been through several deaths and a divorce before and since this particular event, but never in my life did I feel such intensity in a heady grip of euphoria and then drowning in sorrow and sadness. I realized this is what I'd been looking for my whole life, and without a doubt, it was my fault I lost it.

For the first time since my best friend was murdered, I felt like I had found a friend I could click with. For the first time in my entire life, I was beginning to form my deepest autistic feelings into words, learning how my words were both my weapons and my tools, realizing how words flick other hearts and burn other souls, realizing I can't do this by myself, and I do need another person who will help me see myself, help me grow, help me find my potential. In all my other relationships I was still apart, merely partnering or caregiving, but not soul sharing. I couldn't imagine going through the rest of my life so empty, now that I had awakened to it.

Part of waking up to the pain of loss was also waking up to my autism getting in the way of playing the social game right, and that being the reason for my friendship history being so abysmal. I can't fake and pretend, I can't live lies, I can't ignore discrepancies and inconsistencies. I question everything, and I make social interaction so awkward for other people. I didn't realize for years how I affected people around me everywhere I went. I seem to have a charismatic personality, and people seem drawn to me, yet I can't keep deeper relationships, I can't seem to keep trust, and sooner or later, friends either slipped away and shut down contact or outright let me know we couldn't be friends any more without telling me why.

Years of never having proper closure doesn't mean much to someone who is emotionally shut down, but waking up to an abyss of not getting desperately needed answers during no closure nearly did me in. I begged my doctor to send me to a psychologist down the hall, and my very first statement walking in was I need help talking to people. Obviously I could talk heads off, and obviously I metaphorically eventually killed every contact, so obviously I wasn't doing something right. Honestly, I would never have sought out that help if I hadn't felt like I was desperate to know why I was hurting so badly from another loss. That had never happened before. I had been given leads in this friendship to follow and adapt, and even when I tried I just couldn't. The very thing I'd rebelled against my entire life had beaten me down, and from this loss event I surged into deeper writings about self, masks, social solutions- years of public blogging that have given me a deep lurker cult following. As I have agonized and learned, others have watched and kept pushing me out into my little spotlight.

The very first part of healing is honestly assessing and accepting one's self. I committed to years of work with my psychologist, learning all the hard stuff about myself that ripped my soul up. I peeled back the layers very slowly, almost methodically, learning how to see my naked soul. I am mean, cruel, colder than dry ice at my core. But was I really born like that? Is that autism, or is that the result of living with autism in the family I had? I have a sociology degree, and nature versus nurture was heavily debated for several years as we peeled back everything I'd ever learned about Maslow's heirarchy of needs, about Durkheim's social psychology theories, plunging into philosophies that included Nietzche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, shredding the tunnel visioned religion and politics I grew up with, really looking at my parents as children with their own parents.

And I cried.

For the first time in my life, I cried for other people. I felt so bad for my parents as children that I wanted to scoop them up and save them, so bad for my mom as a young mother that I wanted to go back in time and hug her and tell her everything would be ok. I had spent my life being enthralled with the sciences and science fiction, but never knew the passion behind it until I stripped myself down to my naked soul and found who I really am. I'm not cold at all. I learned to be cold to stop the pain. I'm not mean and cruel, in fact, I'm so soft inside that I cry very easily every single day now, but as a child I learned to be mean and cruel so I wouldn't cry, because some of the stories I share now are so sad, that even though I couldn't feel what I was saying when I first started writing them, I have been assured they bring tears to people's eyes. In the meantime, I learned that above all, I am a survivor where others crumble, and that I can not only still learn and adapt, but I can make decisions to become who others need me to be. With that in mind, my goal with my psychologist has been to never again feel that level of loss and pain out of my own ignorance.

Part of healing and accepting myself is embracing what I really love. I know I need other people, I know I love all that crazy scifi out there, surely I could find my way back out into a place I could fit in without blowing it all up... I started practicing. Everywhere I went, every day, I became mindful of interaction, how I present, how others might see and react to me. I practiced smiling and making eye contact even just buying toothpaste, I practiced seeming like a pleasant person in lines at the post office, I practiced summarizing my thoughts on the phone and in doctors' offices instead of rambling, stuff like that. It was very awkward, lol, but I kept at it till it got easier.

And I especially practiced online. I practiced making my paragraphs shorter. I practiced interacting on social medias. I practiced talking to my kids. You heard me. I actually practiced how to interact better with my own kids. I practiced all this with the intention of still retaining my own integrity, my own personality, my own ME without any masks. I learned to be an actor. It's not the same as lying, but it *is* learning how to pretend well. The goal is to increase satisfaction levels in all parties involved, kind of like a game. The better I play the interaction game, the better all of us feel about each other. Lol, yes, I turned social interaction into a game. 😁 Over time, I'm getting pretty good at it.

Over time, with help from my psychologist, I am learning that my childhood was much more difficult and painful than I initially thought I was realizing. The trauma was bad enough without my friend's murder complicating it, plus my alcoholism and new experiences on the edges of the underground. I had a lot to sift through, filter down, come back from. It became about much more than learning how to keep a friend. This has become about a childhood fantasy about revenge, or an adult fantasy about getting even somehow. This is about why the world is the way it is, and what can I do to change that.

And then I found them. My People. To say I was elated was an understatement. I hope I never ever lose them. They are my rock, and I need them every day. It's a lot of work balancing all the things I need and all the things other people need back, but I am delighted trying to keep up.

Once I was settled into the swing of being part of a group again, that old void started gnawing at me, and over time it chewed me up so much that one of my friends commanded me to go make contact again. It had been years. I practiced all this time, but my nerves were a mess. Should I? I put it off over and over. I sort of attempted. I pulled back and let it dangle. I had never felt afraid like this, never felt this kind of anxiety over another person like this. But I couldn't finish moving forward without that friendship, that one person who had somehow snuck past my unconscious defenses and clicked into a spot reserved for only one who could never come back, unintentionally ripping the old wound open and leaving me helpless like no one had ever done. I knew I couldn't finish healing until I had at least tried to heal that. It was very scary. I used to scoff at other people feeling embarrassed or nervous. My turn.

It wasn't as simple as getting a friend back, I found out. We did patch up, yes, but we grew in very different directions over the years, and we are both learning and adjusting and it's taking time. I have learned every bit as much from this entire friendship debacle and getting back together as I have learned from being married for more than two decades. I have certainly learned more than from any other friendship I've ever had, mostly about myself- my skewed or simplistic expectations, my misunderstandings, my lack of foresight even though I'm very good with foresight with my spouse and children. I'm not very good at intuiting what a friend really needs or wants from me. I'm not able to be the person I was hoping I'd be. Still, I don't want to let go, or simply settle. What do I want? Where is forward from here? And I think she may be feeling the same way. I have definitely grown much better as a person for the efforts, again, so much more than without her, in so many ways she'll probably never understand or comprehend. I am learning. That is phenomenal after a lifetime of social stagnation. In the meantime, I have surged into all new territory with my psychologist. Some of my buried childhood memories are surfacing, and I am more determined than ever to get my 'revenge' on a brutal world that teaches people all the wrong ways to 'love' their children. This world is so broken.



Planning revenge takes a bit of obsession, I'll admit. To properly pull off the kind of revenge I can find satisfaction in, especially the broad scope part, I had to do some pretty deep thinking. What will be required of me executing my strategies? For one thing, I'll have to climb out of my comfort zone into a very uncomfortable spotlight. If I'm going to discuss my personal history and feelings with the world at large, what will this do to the people I care about? Will they stop talking to me? Is stepping out worth the risk of losing family while I'm still learning to keep and grow friendships?

Believe it or not, the hardest part was believing I could do this, not because it felt so unreal, but because I had become so disabled I could barely even piece together a single sentence. This idea of a book felt like something I'm making up, creating a patchwork of truth from slippery memories I had locked away and had really never talked about before. I quietly watched other authors launch from near oblivion into fair bits of success, and realized the goal absolutely must be success or I might never have another chance to get past the sticky pull of my depression, much less the plethora of daily challenges. Every day through bitter tears of crippling pain, crushing depression, and most of all alone, I whispered "I can do this." And every day I have made some kind of progress, sometimes a millimeter at a time, sometimes feeling so fail I could barely imagine going on, but believed I must even if there was no hope and people might think I'm only making up a lie. Because it is my truth.

Through the never ending haze of overwhelming interruption, I learned to develop some very stimulating patterns of thinking, and repetition slowly honed my sword. This had the odd effect of surging me forward with a passion that felt like my soul exploding, and from there it got much easier.



Since then it's been about learning to own my truth. I don't have to apologize for being born on this earth, or for standing up for what I need. I am who I am who I am.



Along the way, I learned that one of my deepest needs to feel recognized and validated in any part of my life is something I'm supposed to get in healthy relationships. Learning to embrace that it's actually ok to own a skill set was one of the hardest healthy things I've ever done. This runs completely counterintuitive to the guilt I was raised to harbor over every little thought, word, or movement in my existence. The freedom to be is kind of like realizing you can stand there with the fridge open if you want to.

After the guilt part goes away, life gets more fun. I started asking myself- What do I really want? And then I'd ask- What am I willing to do to get that?

Basically more than anything, I want to write. I. Love. Words. Words are an endless game and thoughts never stop, and I happily thread and sculpt ideas into stories amusing myself, so why not do that out loud? Why not put those words into something I can hold in my hands? Why not make words that can be held in hands all over the world?

As for what I'd be willing to do... Going public as a real person was one of the biggest decisions I ever made in my life. I think I thought harder and deeper about that than I did about getting remarried, lol. Making myself available for people to contact, standing alone in scary spotlights at the height of depression spells, literally listing my flaws. I am willing to do these and more, despite a developing paranoia (that my psychologist kept insisting wasn't really social anxiety) and a solid history of public humiliation.

Fun? I said fun, didn't I? Well, I think deep down I long to go skydiving, so why not take the same level of risk writing? Why can't writing feel edgy? The best writing is the scary stuff, like confessing your soul and then wobbling away feeling sick after hitting 'publish'.

When I originally thought of writing as a full time hobby/art/possible living, I didn't envision the live blogging I do now. Well, these 'we' tagged posts are scheduled, but you know what I mean.

I never feel alone on the internet, and trackers show me I very rarely am. This blog gets hit so continually that it feels like a hangout, maybe on the exclusive side because lurkers come and go freely without other people knowing they're here. As reclusive as I've been in the past even with my internet history, I like feeling that I'm not alone. I guess like with any sport or challenge, you really don't want people seeing the fails, but knowing someone still shows up regularly even after the facepalms has been so inspiring that I have been able to surge far past my originally intended platform goals. Until I experienced this, I never even envisioned it. This was pure accident.

I'd love to propose the idea of 'lurker engagement' as a great assessment tool. I don't think this is utilized well in general analytics. I've had statistics classes in 3 different fields of study (math, geography, and sociology), and if there's anything I'm good at, it's trends over time. When you use engagement to assess blogging needs, include the silent returns. They may not 'engage', but they are definitely engaged. I have 600+ documented returning readers that clocked over 10 returns each, and a fifth of my readers spending 20 minutes to over an hour at a time reading and clicking through more posts while they are here.

You heard me. Yes, documented. Those of you throwing in the towel need to stop that. On the outside it looks like I average 30-40 hits a day and very rarely get comments. I'm not 'engaging' my audience. On the inside, people are keeping this window open and clicking 'next', and apparently quite a few have me bookmarked. It's about learning how to read your analytics. You are not alone. Don't stop just because you can't see people reading what you write.

But more than reaching out, I want to be part of. Every mind I touch becomes part of my existence, just as every mind that has touched me has incorporated me into theirs. Standing up and reaching out is a very big deal now in a world so saturated with repetition and lemming behavior modification. More than ever it's important not to be like everyone else, molded into easily herded sheeple. The dreams we see on screens don't have to belong to bank accounts. We don't have to break corporate ice to spread our dreams.

Someone told me once they could make my dreams come true. I was so floored that anyone could even say that, presuming to know what my dreams are without even asking me.

The only person who can make my dreams come true is me, and I know now that I will stand alone to get them. It's ok for real life to bump us around and we curl up and hide a little, but I cannot go back to sleep with the blue pill, and I will not be quiet. I refuse to be forgotten and not missed, just another autie who fell through all the cracks of society...

9 years ago this weekend, or, the aspienado spawn event

#aspienado

And now it's up to me.

"This is ten percent luck
Twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure
Fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name"
by Fort Minor

I nearly didn't put this song in the storyboard. This one holds the angst I need to finally just get over so I can finish what I need to get done. I embrace that hanging on to a wisp of a could have been is what motivated me and got me this far, but I must allow that it's time to grow up and move on. I can't help, in fact probably will always need, remembering that my spark was fanned into a driven flame by those who are very real and outside the complex world going on inside my mind, and I will always be thankful that I was able to wake up more to what I could be even under mountainous duress and through devastating fail. I will be ok, and I am ok, and all is right in my world.

I ended my storyboard with a new direction I'm going, away from introspection toward creation. I've cleaned my closets, purged my doubts, faced my sads, and now I just want what I want. I want to do what I came here to do. I, we, all my selves from all my survivals have come back together and we all see now why we are here and where we are going. I am looking forward to a more emotionally healthy future and a joie de vivre I haven't felt in a very long time. I don't have to feel strong to be strong or feel brave to be brave. All I have to do is be me, live my life, say my words, and love my people. I'm done with being angry and hating, and I never want to be like that again. Being born autism spectrum into a judgmental family history rife with rigidity and guilt is my superpower now, and I will never fall through all the cracks and be lost again. I'm here for everyone to find, and God or the heavens or the universe or whatever is bigger and better than us bless all the eyes that read my words. Thank you for finding me, and I hope it helped. I know the nights get pretty long.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This is the first time I've been able to cobble together a coherent timeline of events in my story. I live with a shattered sense of time orientation, and writing in a decent enough format has never come easily for me. This is practice.

I'm very thankful to a world of fandoms teaching me how to put words to feelings that I wasn't in touch with via fanvid smashing, fanart smashing, and an occasional fanfic. Emotional healing can take years, even without added traumas causing multiple PTSDs and cognitive and social challenges like autism spectrum.

As I've mentioned time and again on the now retired Pinky blog, I blog for myself, but very grateful for lurkers showing up and sometimes latching on, and especially the ones who quietly keep pushing me back out here saying I'm on the right track.