Validating the invalids

 Acceptance— I'm awake and aware but the light can be blinding.

I'm stripped down on my knees;  I take my stripes—I take the pain, I take responsibility,  I lean in for more,  I bear my old scars every-time I'm chained to the whooping post.  I seem to like the pain 'cause the lashes are many and I do it so much.

The cross is heavy. 

The validation of stigma: its gawd-awful to admit— I'm too much a part of the problem as well. My attitudes, I draw too fast, shoot from the lip, from the hip with loaded emotion. My boots are filled with holes and I eat a lot of crow. This is why God invented Salt... to make the truth a little more palatable, cauterize the open wound.

When awareness wakes me up like smell' salt:  kicks my teeth out, punches out my grill... omnipresent— giving hard lessons, brain matter splattered on the canvas... that come from stink'n-think'n, old ideas, the devices that pinned me every goddamn time.  

Those Oh Fuck's! —Oh Shit's!— I didn't see that before—in me—or you.  Now what?  God I hate recovery sometimes.  It gets real, it gets different... then real goddamn different. It never ends being different.

 I'm as stupid today as I was thirty years ago about some things in life, in people, because of this thing called progression of illness-progression of recovery. The "ism's."


Once upon a time, in another century, people use to say I had a "short fuse." That's what they called it. 

"Don't piss him off, his fuse is short."  I guess I was sensitive and had a chip on my shoulder... just seen too much shit, whatever.... radioactive.  Everything always ends badly when playing with fire and short fuses.

A moment of suppressed anger can prevent a day of sorrow.... suppressed, not repressed.

Fire and short fuses... what's even more stupid;  people who love to fuck with people who are already too tight— its funny for the antagonist, 'til you knock their ass' into a new plot twist... going from comedy to serious dromedy... one goes to the hospital one goes to jail.

Collateral damage seems so benign, compared to wreckage at heart. Guilt and Conviction fly their sorties, drop their bombs and leaflets into the theater long after the battle has been won. Such is an imperialistic attitude of gratitude.

The double tap.

This PTSD has proven to be awkward, cumbersome, for a man who has been in recovery for three decades and still walks on the razors edge like an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.  Time changes everything...time takes time. Life continues to be Life, but she does give up her secrets along the way and we do get wise, stay flat-footed,  if were lucky, pay attention.

I experienced much the same stigma thirty years ago when I admitted "I was powerless over alcohol and my life became unmanageable." Don't know what the big revelation there was, 'cause everybody knew I was a drunk... including me. Seemed acceptable then, maybe tolerable...maybe certain over the top entertainment.   Some shit never gets old.

But when I sobered up with awareness... I resonated different,  being around family or friends who drank, did dope— was like having to take a piss like a race horse, pinching off my pecker, high stepping around the house looking for a corner to piss in, listening to Metallica. 

Drunks in their cups can be unlovely creatures, 'tho their always last to know... when the party's over.

Normies can be equally disgusting.

Normies who drink booze to excess or use, are like people who eat tacos... so what?
They eat too many, they just fart the next day, all damn day, so what, they go to work with Gas-X.

Addicts are different... if one feels good, ten will feel better—for a while...forever, some die proving the point by day's end.

I can hang with some normies,  but I find myself in deep thought wondering just how long it's going to take that dude to finish that twelve-ounce, now... warm beer.  What the hell ya doing.... finish the goddamn beer already.  What's the point of going to a bar for just a beer? That's like going to a whorehouse for just a kiss.

People who smoke cannabis medicinally, responsibly... I can hang with that, the resonance is on a completely different plane... we can reason and feel, remember it the next day, learn something from it.

Like eating strawberries, I couldn't get enough of the booze, made an absolute pig of myself, had a serious allergic reaction— started to break-out in spots;—spots like Snohomish County Jail, King County Jail... detox centers ad nausea.

Dear God my moral fiber was falling out the seams of my flesh... how cumbersome I felt, how commonality magically changed its color about the people I loved and hated overnight.  I being the "sick baby,  they being the well parents"— I'm the problem, your the solution. Blind leading blind.

Black-Sheep.

The transparency in people with untreated addiction and mental illness can be disturbing... especially when its projected— after being in recovery for so long.  Its utterly,  physically painful at times.

Suffer me with your drunken, social-slippery stupidity— intrusive "other-side" you aught not to hide,  please... just that I may know, who you are, who you are not— when your sober tomorrow.

Broken glass.

Here's the deal; 

—If your open about your recovery, your illness—how could any one person, people, group or family... ad nausea,  not look at you differently?  Jesus Christ, lest they be in a coma or you.

I mean, if your candid.. and that doesn't mean exhibitionism, you aught to be a bug-light for every fucking weirdo-bug on the planet... this is a good thing, as messed up as it feels. Who likes to see their own reflection in another ugly bug who's about to be vaporized?

Validation... why do I see a gold tassel hanging off the side of a black Graduation Cap when I use that word?  Probably 'cause I ain't never wore one, and that's what it must mean right; "validation" is a cap and gown, with all the other shinny badges and ribbons you get for being good boys and girls and doing it right.  Get those goodies and your good to go... right—

Validation:

Validating that my diagnosis is correct, accepting that assertion-fact, fitting the criteria... that my history lines up, cumbersome; my robe and cap come from another kind of University that most my peers have died from in its instruction, certifiably— locked up in addiction and mental illness....one way or another, stuck in the same institution...its just nobody' got around to burying them or me... yet.

The island keeps getting smaller as it sinks, while the raft gets bigger.

Validating I aced the ACE test... then looking for the body bag to scoop up all the toxic shit to stuff it into, take to the crematorium...collect the dust afterword and flush it down the toilet.

Validation of how I feel.... as a man, as a father, as a husband, about self, about others—the vibe I pic up from people, maybe give away, and why, is made known...'cause that's real and change starts with me.

Strong men are supposed to boast their strength and not weakness in this world it would seem... save all the crazy outspoken fuckers who actually made a difference in this rotten ass world, they admitted their weakness... they knew they needed help and were constantly reaching for instruction and understanding, they didn't know any better and grace delivered.

I have a role to live up to right... I'm bullet-proof.  

Validation of what I feel is real.... Inner-Peace comes from Inner-Tension.  I'm not crazy...yet,  but you damn well may become that way trying to understand my plight.

Everything, whether you or I understand it or not, rational or not, is real, if it is happening to you its real 'till its not.  I don't need someone to take my temperature and then tell me how I feel, I know how I feel, I'm a big boy... don't make me prove it by having a tantrum.

"Gossip(lose talk in sacred circles) barbered with enough self-righteous indignation(I know the way and their not walking it), is a polite form of character assassination." (your an invalid).

Meaning;  it can be subtle, openly secret, overt... covered in sheep skin under the pretense of "caring" and wanting to help— "clarify," but people like me have a heightened sense about participation mystique and who is practicing in it, and its usually feels toxic, very toxic, because it touches the one thing that hurts most with us, and that's trust of our own center, our core, the one thing that has kept us alive, and were not willing to part with.   

When the stigma(fear)of being mental raises its ugly head... invalidation creeps in,  likes to dictate the measure of my stride, while I tip-toe on the tightropes... of socializing, of seeing, of feeling the reflections of outward expressions...bouncing off the waves of stigma... real or imagined.   

I begin to pay close attention to each step I take, every move I make,  I'm an expert at walking through mind-fields.

We don't know shit about what others feel inside—whatever the compassion, and need not speculate the malady based on our limited knowledge and experience, to think we can help, and especially need not give opinions— your not qualified to spoon-feed others solutions if ya haven't done your own math first.

The problem with being honest about feelings with others is that we can't schedule our feelings into a calendar that's convenient for them or self, the feelings need to be processed now, when they rise, not later, that's the whole point of honoring psychic crisis'... its urgency, its lesson, it reason.

But we don't have time or ability in the race of daily living, to have a heart to heart, do we, lest we stop for a moment and feel the backlash of life go strait up our ass. The cost of delay;  invalidation. Negation generally comes into the picture of such distant close conversation— expression of thoughts, feelings, emotions, to one another get lost in the shuffle. Another stone in my back pocket. 

I think people just get tired of hearing your shit and they tune you out... I call these kinds of people "Bobble-Head People."

(I'm talking, you hear me, but your not listening... implying you are, obvious to me your not....your not present, and I'm not being heard and I need to be heard, there's a big fucking disconnect here and its wasting my time)

—maybe out of convenience, avoidance, redundancy, fear or worse... this goes on so much it makes me nauseated when I feel invalidation form up under my feet. Dr. M.Scott Peck Has wrote a bit on the requirements for listening well and just how difficult it is for most, honestly... impossible for some.

Sharing your thought life with another, your experience is the beginning of all relationships. I would surmise its the cement we turn that bonds relationship true and right.

Keeping your thoughts and emotions at a surface level... is isolation, makes for weak bonds.

People do speak to one another, just not sure there is any real evidence of communication.

pek.