Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

I’ve moved my blog to Live Journal, mostly because I can pick and choose who sees what which for me is a good thing to do. I’m too lazy right now to pull all of this, but I know I seem to get read a lot here, so please come visit my new home. Ravings seemed quite right for a while, but I am hopeful that I am moving to a place in my life where bipolar is not my primary identity. That may change again, but for now, things are good… Come see my new place:

Out of the Light and into the Dark

(well I didn’t say I was moving into all sunshine and roses!). If you are one of my regular readers, give me a shout via email and I’ll give you more access than the default public one.

Thanks for being so loyal…

- the witch

I have awoken from the dream. Like all dreams it was bittersweet. It was the most beautiful, and like a previous post at the end I did crash and crumble, moreso than I have in a long time. But only because I flew so very high, even if for so short a time. The dream awoke me to the passion beating in my heart, the desire that lives in my soul, the buried love and wants and needs that had so long ago been put away, forgotten.

I loved. I do still love. Yet, I found a soul that is not yet ready to go down the path I am walking. For a brief shining moment he loved me deeply and with his entire being, but it was not meant to be, whether it was a choice he made, or something that was flawed. It matters not. Through the confusion, the miscommunication that increased as things became more difficult, I still saw what we had.

And for that I am grateful. For now I know that while that dream has ended, I am awake and alive. And awake I shall find what it took a dream to realize I still wanted and needed. Tremendous passion, tremendous love, the gift of total submission, the joy of giving, playfulness, wonder, laughter…. love.

And with the awakening, I was shown that there are others who stood in the shadows waiting to show me their love. I am loved beyond measure, and in many ways for the first time in my life I have found family that means more to me than anything else in the world. I would walk into a fire for them, stand at the gates of hell, bare my soul and give all that I have - just as they would for me.

Crash and burn? Yes, there was some of that. But as a phoenix I have arisen to a more beautiful now. Even without the illusion that was him.

Tags: love, relationship, change

I have been told on more than one occasion, for several years and by several different people that I overthink things. Recently, I shared that with the new guy in my life and he laughed. Hard. I guess he agreed. It’s not that it surprises me when I hear it, or that he agrees completely. It’s just that I am struggling with the whole concept. On the one hand I have an analytical mind - I mean I am growing up to be a scientist - how could I do so without being very thoughtful and contemplative. Add curiosity, introspection and perfectionism to that and you have me.

I’m not completely unhappy with that, it is the way I’ve been as long as I can remember, and frankly it’s saved my ass many more times than I care to count. As in all areas of my life I hit a dichotomy there You would think with those qualities that I would be quiet with my thoughts until thinking things through. However, I am not that way, partially because the thinking takes not only thoughtfulness, but writing and talking out loud, and sometimes (frequently) even sleeping.

Yes, my brain still works things out while I am sleeping. Some of the biggest work problems I have get solved in my sleep. Some of the deepest insights I have had into emotional work I’m doing are in the mornings. So turning my brain off is not a simple task, since it works hard even when I am asleep. I have never been able to even start to comprehend the possibility of not having thought - when people claim they are not thinking of anything at all.

However, on the other side of this is the fact that analysing things has brought me a great deal of stress and unhappiness. I certainly ran intellectual circles around all the bad that happened in my life growing up so I never felt it. Then I ran the same circles around my therapists who wanted me to work on those same feelings. Only a few therapists have been successful at breaking me of that - and thus therapy hasn’t been very effective.

I try to see all points of view, and understand all that happens to me, and always have to ask the “WHY” of things, when even intellectually on a conceptual level I understand that for most things there is no why. But I’ve based my life, my faith, my worth, everything on rational thought out reasons. I am comfortable there. So when interacting with others, when there is so much that really has no answer in a why?, I keep coming at the question in different ways trying to work it out like a puzzle. Like an experiment that has a conclusion one way or another. When I can’t figure it out from one angle, I try another. As I get more information I change my reasoning based on new data. Sometimes, I even change myself to fit more of the picture I see emerging so that I can fit in, be who I need to be. I give up my identity to allow myself a rational answer to things that are not rational. Yep, fuck myself up and over…

Self knowlege is only a good thing if you can put it to use by changing what you don’t want. I don’t want the stress of having to figure everything out anymore. But I don’t know how to turn off my brain from needing that information. After all, when someone asks me why I want to study physics I answer that I want to understand the universe. I think most people think I am joking, but I’m not. I truly do. And yes, I have that much ego given enough room to let it out. But I can’t even really give answers to the “whys” in my own life… And trying hurts me. It keeps me from being grateful for all that I have.

Ok, even this is overthought out. But I’m working on it…

I need to write, I want to write… yet it feels like in my head my words falter and fail. I know that much of what I am feeling is likely chemical, some stupid neurotransmitter misfiring in my brain. But we know so little - does that happen first, or does shit happen and then the chemicals make it worse? I don’t know.

I know that I feel like I’m on the precipice again. Not the beautiful one that I wrote about just a while ago, or maybe it is and I have different eyes. I want to wrap myself in ice again, and I am fighting it. I think that is the discomfort and unhappiness I’m feeling. The normal reaction I have to feeling exposed and as if I have risked myself and my soul is to close myself off. To back down, back away, turn my back and even run away if I need to. I fight within myself because I don’t want to.

I want to believe that I am worthy of love, of being told I”m beautiful, of having good feelings and warmth. Because of circumstance I have no control over I have stopped being in a place where I can accept that and feel like I have to question everything. And the questioning is making me despair. I doubt myself, my judgement, my ability to care, my ability to give anything to anyone and simply want to just disappear.

I really don’t know where these feelings come from. It is certainly nothing anyone has done. And nothing that I feel that I have done. What I really want I can’t have right now. What I really need I don’t know.

Fear, the thing that sucks. External fear is nothing. Someone threatening me, a fear of something external - those are nothing. The fear that we are not worthy inside, that we have no value, that we are only a burden and should not bother the people in our lives… that is fear. That is the circle of black descent that there is no venturing out of. That is the precipice I’m standing on. I can hear my therapist, my friends, saying that I need to just choose to realize I am a good person. That I deserve to be happy and have wonderful things in my life. I wish it were that simple. There have been times in my life when everything was crumbling around me and I had the choice to be happy. Here I am now with so much that is good in my life and I don’t see that choice. I only see the approaching ice.

And finally the fear of bipolar. I am too crazy for people to stick around. My moods scare people off, and ultimately I am again alone.

Today is black. The world is black. I just want to cover up in my bed and let it all go away. Float in the nothingness where there is no pain.

————————————————————————–

Heaven bent to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight

Truth be told I’ve tried my best
But somewhere along the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
And the cost was so much more than I could bear

Though I’ve tried, I’ve fallen…
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here
And tell me I told you so…

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
The lonely light of morning
The wound that would not heal
It’s the bitter taste of losing everything
That I have held so dear.

I’ve fallen…
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here
And tell me I told you so…

Heaven bent to take my hand
Nowhere left to turn
I’m lost to those I thought were friends
To everyone I know
Oh they turned their heads embarassed
Pretend that they don’t see
But it’s one missed step
You’ll slip before you know it
And there doesn’t seem a way to be redeemed

Though I’ve tried, I’ve fallen…
I have sunk so low
I have messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here
And tell me I told you so…

- Sarah McLachlan, Fallen

The sermon at church this morning was about life as a dance. How we chose to share, or not, our life experiences with those around us. How we can chose to dance the joy and bare the pain, but in tune with the music of the universe we are meant to dance. I think that has always been true to me. I use dance as a metaphor frequently for what is happening in my life, particularly with other people. We chose to dance, or not, with this or that person.

How does that fit with my life now? I don’t know. The steps have become complex and sometimes difficult. It is a new dance for me. I have grown in ways that I would never have forseen just a few short years ago, making me both more aware of the “me” that is an individual, and at the same time more open to the “we” that can happen when dancing the same steps. I yearn deeply for the person for the “we”. I don’t believe it to be out of need, or codependency, or anything unhealthy. I believe it to be the real me standing up finally to find a person to dance with who can meet me step for step, who shares the visions of what can be, with whom I am unafraid to bare that pain and sorrow.

All of nature, all of everything that we consider that is a part of our reality dances a dance. The seasons, the moon, the planets, the stars, a river, a lover’s kiss and caress, as well as the evil in the world; hatred, prejudice, lies, deceit. It is all a part of the rhythms that make up our lives and keep us either in step, or when we walk away, quietly (or absolutely terrifyingly) disjointed, uncomfortable and out of sorts with everyone and everything around us.

At times I feel the music and I dance. At times I have a partner, and at times I dance alone. Sometimes it is literal as the music causes my body to move and flow and I feel the creation of the universe rise to revel in consciousness of the beauty of my body. Sometimes it is as simple as returning the river flowing through me, sometimes a rapids, sometimes a brook babbling quietly. Whenever I try to close off that source I feel cut off from the world.

Right now I am fighting with that river, that torrent, that music of nature inside me. What I see as possibility and love may not be there at all, may go away tomorrow, may not work, and as in a previous post, the flying I experience may end up in a jumble of tangled me as I hit the ground. We dance a dance of advance and withdraw. The steps I’ve done before do not fit with this dance, and I feel discomfort of stumbling along in an unfamiliar rhythm. I want to let go and tango with the universe and my feelings and fly in the moment. Sometimes when I do, my partner steps away and I trip… it is in those moments when I question my own heart and whether it beats in tune with the universe, or if I should withdraw from the dance to keep from stumbling again. In fear of the what might be, I question the what is. I thought I had moved past that, and here again, like a ghost it haunts me.

I’ve learned that putting up the walls, and the nets to keep from hitting the ground protect me from pain. They also protect me from joy. The comfort me in the numbness of cotton, wrapped around me like a blanket, and keep me from the echo of years past when this is not of that time. There is something about that numbness that becomes as familiar and wonderful as oblivion. It also protects me from my depression/mania cycles. I’ve also used a comparison to floating in ice, in being surrounded in it, a hard shell of protection that no one can break. Not even me. As the steps become more complex and unfamiliar, I find myself wanting very much to build the ice around me again. I’m safe there.

But it’s lonely and painful, and it burns. It burns out all passion and dance left in me. And I don’t want to go back there. And if that is true, than I must chose to stumble and fall as I learn the new tango of the universe. A different rhythm, a different beat than before. The stage where I dance is full of cracks and rough places. I feel the joy of the dance and then stub my toe. This is hard, and difficult, and I am not sure how I will end up… the running of the she wolf inside me who runs with the universe because she can, or the jangle of limbs and torn flesh that flung itself out and fell.

Tags: romance, love, life

Today (finally) I went back and looked at the answers to the question I asked, that was actually picked for a world forum. I describe the project and what its meaning was in my August 28th entry (last year) if you are interested. My question was:

Where does the line between personal freedom and social responsibility towards the common good fall? Who gets to decide?

One of the things that evolved from that is I was thinking in terms of actions that are personal ethics (abortion, glt equal rights, the right to make choices in our society that have no effect on anyone but ourselves) and while all responses to the question involve ethical considerations, most of the answers came more in the economic sense of the American themes of “take take take” without regard to the others in our communities; our world. If you want to read the answers (and there are some interesting ones) go here:

http://www.droppingknowledge.org/bin/posts/focus/18773/2833/false.page

“When a change comes, some species feel the need to migrate. They call it zugunruhe. A pull of the soul to a far off place. Following a scent in the wind, a star in the sky. The message comes calling them to gather together in hopes they can survive the cruel season to come.”

————————————————————

Taken from Heroes

There is a movement. It is coming. Our world is changing and things are happening. All you have to do is look outside your window, turn on your tv, listen, really listen to what is going on around you. We can’t go on like this. Violence, hatred, “insert-word-here”-ism, abuse, neglect, poverty, war, on and on and on.

I was talking to a friend tonight about her job. She is an angel. She works in a resident treatment facility for abused and neglected boys who are not in the legal system, but who need homes and care. We were talking about those boys, those children.

“I want Santa to fix my tooth”, one little boy put on his Santa list.

“I am sorry I keep hurting you but I don’t know what else to do”, another teen boy wrote to her.

Everywhere I turn I see it, the whispers of a change to come, a revolution, something signaling a new era. I have always believed in Gaia. And frankly, it doesn’t really matter whether I or any one else believes in Her. The earth’s ecosystem is alive, and while not conscious in the way humans define intelligence, it is delicately balanced in a way that only an intelligence could explain. And humans are a virus. We are an alien body in the system. And she will win. Gaia will not die, but instead will either kill us or make us impotent to hurt Her any more. We adapt, of course. Just like bacteria. But the bacteria adapt because Gaia needs to thin us before we harm Her irretrievably. Plagues, famine, new viruses, super “bugs”, everything just keeps getting more and more virulent. We wage war by destroying our own home, and She tries to rid Herself of us before we kill Her.

Not that I don’t trust human kind to kill itself off in a fit of complete idiocy. I’m sure we are quite capable of self destructing. Global warming, nuclear waste, biological warfare development, war, terrorism; all of it. I guess in a way I just wonder who will suceed first. But I also know that I see people around me awakening, being drawn, feeling new powers, having new ideas, joining together. We’re here for a reason. I keep asking my friend, “why? why Denver?” What brought me HERE. We don’t know. But here we are.

Waiting

Watching

Ok, so it’s been much too long since I’ve written. Thanks to all of you who faithfully kept coming back to check on me. I’m ok. I’ve just had lots of stuff going on, besides which for a while there I felt like i couldn’t write. I write about stuff going on in my life, and when the major “going on” has to do with the boyfriend you’ve given your url to, well there are issues. Lesson learned. Until I know I”m mated forever, my boyfriend/lover/friends will not read my blog. Period. Bad idea. It stiffled me and kept me from doing my usual rambling way of working things out in front of the whole anonymous world.

But as you can tell I’m back so obviously things have changed. We finally called it like it is and went back to being friends who date occasionally. We were never really more, although for a bit there I think there might have been a chance. It got squashed, first by him, and then most definitely by me. It culminated over the holidays in a couple of very big misunderstandings making me realize that this just was not working. Really, I was just stating out loud what we were living out. We barely talked during the week, had no commitments to doing anything or even seeing each other on the weekends. Those are not the ways of people who are dating, let alone in a relationship. This was, I think, fine with him. It was not for me.

In the end, he summed it up well. I want someone to be in love with me. And I do. But there is so much more and that would be another example of not being in the same world as him. I love him to death but we just don’t live in the same reality. I don’t just want to have someone in love with me. I want to be in love. I want to be romantic and silly. I want to go out and stay in. I want to talk for hours about philosophy and spend the night dancing in a club. I want to ride on the back of his bike. I want him to tell me I’m beautiful and mean it. I want him at my side when we’re together somewhere. I want to be part of a set… As I wrote to a friend, I want a knight in shining armour, not to rescue me, but to match the Queen that I am inside.

So I’m back - finally. Back to myself. Back to being alone (although again in reality - it is no different than last week - just the perception of what it was versus reality). I’m only as alone as I want to be. And I don’t want to be. I’m inviting lots of friends into my life. I have lots of people I love to be with. And I’m happy that way. And I know he’s out there. Looking for me just like I am looking for him. We’ll bump into each other soon…

Report on the klonopin: failed. Miserably. Too much stress, likely due to B and I as well as the holidays… maybe some time later. For now I’m back on the full dosage. I got down fine to 1/4 dose (1/2 a pill a day) and then completely felt freaked out. It was affecting my entire life; work, home, family, friends. Once I realized that I just went back on it for now. I have time and I will leave it behind at some point.

Another news flash: I did something that definitely is one of the top 5 events in my life over the holidays. M and S both went to New Orleans over Christmas break. I took vacation. For those of you not in Denver, we have been dumped with snow. Repeatedly. Ad naseaum. Well the 2nd storm was rolling in, I was on vacation with no children (gods that almost NEVER happens) and there I was about to be stuck in the house. So I booked a plane for San Francisco, and escaped. I spent 3 full days and 4 nights in the beautiful city I love. And remembered that I loved it even more than I remembered… I could spend forever there and not get full. Haight-Ashbury, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate, Chinatown, Japantown, Market Street, it was amazing and wonderful. And I want to go again. I took tons of photos. I had so much fun. I was by myself in a huge city that I love doing whatever I wanted however I wanted whenever I wanted. And I felt so much better coming back. It was like I was a different person.

So hello everyone. I survived. I am here. I am writing again. I have so many things in my head to write so I’ll be back often again now that I have time.

I’ve been going out with a guy for just over 6 months now. I’ve written about it frequently as we’ve gone through issues and communications trouble. And I have not written much at all in the last month, mostly I guess because instead of writing I’ve been living. Life has been really good. It’s not that I don’t have a lot to write about, but things have whirled by and I just haven’t had the time.

Several weeks ago I started to look hard at the relationship between B & I. As you grow up, I think you are taught to take the relationship that has started between you and another person, and instead of seeing where it goes on its own, crush it into your container of what you believe the relationship should be. For the beginning of the relationship I was confusing doing that with defining what I want to have as a primary relationship - how that looks to me. I felt as if I was asking things of B that he didn’t want to give. In my frustration that he wasn’t meeting those needs we had hours of difficult conversation. Somewhere in the last few weeks I got clarity about things.

It is not that I can’t have everything I have always dreamed about in a relationship. What doesn’t work is taking someone you feel a lot for, and trying to make them match that. I didn’t believe that I could have the man I have dreamed of. It was a combination of thinking that he just couldn’t exist, and that I didn’t deserve him.

After watching The Secret I realized that what has been inside me all along about the world being one we create as we go, not just figuratively but LITERALLY. We live in an agreed upon design. That wall is solid because we’ve agreed that it is solid. It is an agreement we’ve made, just as are all the other agreements we’ve made along the way about reality. But if we create it why are we sad, overweight, unhappy, unfulfilled, uncreated… on and on. Why are we sick or tired?

And it hit me. I don’t have to be. That can be my reality if I want. It can be my reality that I don’t have enough money, or that I can’t go to school, or that things don’t work out for me, or that I can’t have the man of my dreams. Or I can have all the money I want, the man of my dreams and the life I want. It is my choice. I control the reality I live in. Radical concept for our world, but one I’ve believed all along, and the reason I’m in physics. As a friend said last night Quantum physics touches meta physics. Things are not what they seem, and what we believe them to be make them what they are. Sounds like doublespeak, but it’s not. Truly we have learned scientifically that our observations in some ways determine the outcome of the experiment.

So, what does that mean about the relationships I have now, and in particular about that between me and B. Well as I discovered a few weeks back it doesn’t have to mean much at all except for a change in my perception. He is a wonderful guy with a big heart. I adore him and have learned a great deal from him. I can value this relationship as it is, and still realize that it doesn’t fit into my needs of what I want in a long term relationship. Do I enjoy spending time with him? Absolutely. But in the end, squeezing him into the box of the man of my heart will only hurt him and me. And truly I know in my heart that I am not that person for him. I don’t make him sing, don’t make him feel truly alive. And that is what our mates should do.

While I have shared a lot of that with him, including saying that I didn’t believe our relationship to be one that would be permanent, I feel like I need to get completely clear this weekend. That I have been opening myself up to the universe and seeking the man who I am looking for. And for the first time in my life he isn’t a dream. He exists. I will find him. Because I am creating a reality where not only what I need, but what I WANT exists for me, here and now. I don’t have to “work hard” for it… That is another myth. Life is beautiful and bountiful. The universe has more than enough of everything, since everything just comes down to being energy. And I am ready to have in my life what I desire most.

So as I sit here on the brink of knowing the conversation I must have, I also know that he already knows. I have pulled away a great deal already. Pulled away isn’t the right term. I have adjusted my perspective and stopped demanding he fit into my view of reality. His is different. There is no judgement in that. We just have different ways of seeing the world, and they just don’t mesh. So much so that even our communication about the things that matter, as well as stuff less important is difficult. It is almost as if we are speaking different languages. When I say apple he thinks orange.

This experience has taught me a great deal by allowing me to compare and contrast it to previous relationships. I see that I’ve lived my life full of choices, and that those choices show what I believed I deserved, and who I was. This relationship showed me that clearly as I walked down that path again, got resistance and instead of pushing harder, stepped back and looked at what was happening. It taught me to be clear on what I really want, and that yes, it is ok to want all of those things. More importantly, B did teach me about talking, face to face. About communicating within a close relationship, even when it isn’t fun or pleasant or you need to say things that might be scary to say. This relationship, B, taught me to be true to who I am, to speak up about what that means, and to know inside that not only can I have what I want most, but that I do deserve it.

Six months, and so much learning. So much growth. And now the time of recreating my world has begun. From what I have seen in my own life and the lives around me, when you really ask for something - there is no time delay - it’s there… So I know things will work fast to align themselves with what I want.

Life as ok. Last weekend was amazing. I saw what I had asked for and gottten. What I manifested in my life by asking. And I spent the entire weekend happy. Everything went so well. So well in fact, that I am stepping down (FINALLY) my klonopin. Yep, the highly addictive drug that kept me from jumping off high buildings, kept me from feeling the wires running through my body and twisting me into knots, I am finally working on the goal of eliminating it from my life. It is only possible because I’ve lessened the anxiety in my life, and learned to cope with what is left. So on Sunday I took only 3/4 s of my dose (yes I have the permission of my pdoc). Next week I will take it down to 1/2 and as long as everything keeps going well, I will be done by Christmas and no longer addicted. My gods that is such a relief.

As I was walking out of work tonight I was thinking about the sermon that our Minister had given last Sunday. No, I was not there, but a friend was. She told me that he talked about the word “disabled” and what it means at its roots, as well as what we do when we label people that.

I could be considered, because of bipolar to be “dis - abled”. My son certainly fits the bill. But what does that mean? “Dis” - the opposite of, in opposition to; “Abled” - capable, fit…

I certainly don’t see my self as the definition of that word. And I don’t think I would see any one else as that either. As Kirk apparently spoke to, we each have gifts and weaknesses. We are all able, and disable to do different things in our lives. It is what makes us human, and helps us learn and grow. It is what gives variety. So why when it is a physical, sometimes visible thing, does that make us suddenly less capable than others.

Why do we have to have labels, categories, reasons, barriers, separations, walls, hatred, prejudice, fear…

Why do we separate ourselves on opposite sides of things, feeling all the differences and none of the sameness? I don’t know. But I know that it makes for a lonely life…

I am glad I no longer stand alone and that I have found people I love, and love the people I’m with.