Sobering realities of other people's denial.

Lost in a hangover of negativity, everything that was right yesterday now feels laden with foreboding. Sucked into a world not belonging to me, denied connections yet dragged down with them all the same. On the surface, all appears light and laughter, buried deep with intoxication and edible avoidance lay resentment, grief and bitter desire for vengeance.

I felt it all and adopted as my own. I don't know why I didn't leave, again the child too fearful to walk and face the condemnation of being the killer of fun, theirs not mine. Echos of "what's wrong with you?" are once again ringing in my ears. I meant to stay away and would have if not invited under innocently false pretences. Once there it felt there was no escape. Back safely at home, I shall not be going back, of that I am surely resolute. Now to rid myself of the other's anguish and start MY day anew.

Dismantling capitalism from within.

Capitalism can not be dismantled without first dealing with inequality. Capitalism is dependant on exploitation.

I am not your projection.

It's the damndest thing when one is cast in a hateful light when offering respect, honesty and consideration but understanding such projections of anger belong to the giver's past and not for us to saddle ourselves with enables necessary separation of identity. The blurred boundaries, not knowing where one begins and the other ends leads to much confusion in relationships. Overlaps and overspills from past to present, person to person.

It can be difficult at times when we are walking in another's perception, lost in a life not of our making. Self awareness, confidence built on solid foundation that doesn't crumble when shaken as the delusion borne of insecurity surely is, is key to healthier functioning relations.

Live, die, repeat.

From the inside looking out, I imagine you looking in and I regulate my behaviour accordingly. I did not give you direct permission to control my life but permission I gave all the same for reasons that are revealed. My father's disapproving looks were all it took for me to jump inline with the step I instinctively knew he walked. But in my repeated story I see both you and I and learn which self I want to be.

If the handled person you need me to be suits, I play along and defiantly rally against simultaneously until I cheery pick the bits I need to act accordingly in tune with my own step. There is method to my madness, to all our idiosyncrasies and one day perhaps I won't need to recreate the same picture of my past to find my own way or maybe that is my way. The answers to the questions of our lives all lie within us, we simply need to stop looking where we can see and delve deep into the darkness where the light will surely be shone. The worst has already happened, how does it serve to relive the agony over and over again?

Learned helplessness.

I fall into the same disparaging trap you set yourself in the dead of night after the day sets on believing there is future to my dreams.

I learned from ashes a new life could be had, not this helplessness of yours holding back what would otherwise be, and so it becomes my prison too, far removed from you.

I am within you and you are within me.

The one in unrequited love is the fortunate one for he or she sees the raw beauty the other yet does not. We recognise ourselves in the other and the other in us.

Only when both parties are aligned in love for oneself unconditionally will redamancy triumph. We are connected in similarity, energised by our differences in willingness to let such stretch our imaginations toward possibilities.

The respect I have for you is not determined by the lack of respect you give me.

"Let go of anger," they say as I pace back and forth. The frustration in denying a fundamental element of human existence for behind that anger, you see, lay the tears. "Let go of anger," they say as their discomfort with facing their own sadness takes hold. Invite in that which we hate, embrace and love, correct a destructive mental state.

When dark turns to light.

What a strange sensation is to be turned inside out.

The transition from an illusory state of denial and repression to the surrealities of dreamlike existential days. The unreal is so familiar that when faced with the truth of it all the truth is hard to grasp as something real yet real it surely is.

On being loved conditionally.

When we begin life with a perception of not being loved unconditionally or not being important enough we can go through life testing other people's commitment, behaving in ways that may seem incongruent with a need to be loved and accepted as we are. A belief, known or unknown to us, that we have to prove ourselves worthy of love. If only we can get things right, be perfect enough we'll surely find what we need and want the most. Our skins may become thin to what we perceive as criticism whether such is the intent of the giver or not. Always in defence, hiding our vulnerabilities out of fear of being exposed as the unloveable, inadequate person we think we are. This, for anyone not understanding the dynamics of reenacting out our childhood, often alienates us from what we seek, inducing attack and abandonment instead.

We are the people who never quite seem at ease, never quite fit in, from all walks of life, there is no discrimination other than having parents or caregivers who for their own reasons from their own childhood have not been able to emotionally attach. Whilst some children will feel loved there can still be a sense of having to behave in ways other than feels natural to be accepted. The path of non-judgemental self discovery and care can become the parents we wish we'd had. Understanding leads to tolerance and compassion for oneself and others. 'It is not to see something first, but to establish solid connections between the previously known and the hitherto unknown that constitutes the essence of scientific discovery. It is this process of tying together which best promote true understanding and real progress.' Hans Selye. The Stress of Life.

Boundaries.

I hide from you when through your eyes I am hidden from view. My every step interpreted as a projection of you, I am lost, only finding myself in separation.

Respect will be the death of capitalism.

If everyone knew that to be loved and accepted is to be loved and accepted as we are without all the trappings of things money can buy capitalism would fall flat on its face in a heartbeat.

A walk on the Wilde side.

Looking back, I don't think I ever wanted to be in the kind of relationship with any of my boy/man friends that constituted a marriage. I feel easier in male company than with most females I encounter, I enjoy the straightforward robust and quick wit of my male experiences. The complications arise when they read into my desire for their company to mean I want more of a partnership with them. I recognise now that I have gotten lost in their story and only end the entanglement when I no longer feel attracted to their company. How they look has altered for me to fit in with the reality of the situation as I claw my way back to myself.

It seems to me that it's difficult for men to be close friends with a woman without the woman having to sacrifice who they are in the process. Or is that just my experience? I risk losing male friends when they enter a relationship with someone who finds my presence a threat even though in reality I am no threat at all. But that's a reflection of the insecurity within that relationship, not mine. I don't know if it's because of my relationship with my mother that has led to the unease around women or if the women I meet project a lack of trust as they backbite and bitch, compete in jealousy. I'm not competitive, I prefer to be direct in my interactions and perfectly alright with what many perceive as my peculiarities. I find greater difficulty being straightforward with women unless it's a woman similar in attitude as myself. Is it possible for men and women to be close friends without one or the other having a hidden agenda do you think?

Mingling with omnipresence.

Let talk about brain/body health.

How about we stop referring to brain-body connective health as mental health?

A message through time.

In time and space, I reside quite in another place.

We're all mad here.

It's a love and hate story when it comes to my own species. I am both fascinated and disgusted. In awe and deeply saddened that a nature so very full of creativity, ability and beautiful mystery is systematically being destroyed and taking all other life forms in its wake with it. The separation of our existence from all that is natural within us, the belief we can control life is removing us from the very thing we need to survive... connection with it all.

Each generation passes on this destruction in defensive dismissal, quietly resentful obedience swallowing whole any reminder of what they are missing into their own story of denial. It's no wonder we can feel so lost in a world full of confusion. My aim is always to cleeve myself from this tale of delusion to which there have been devastating consequences but ultimately, peace the closer I rebecome at one with the life within and without. I find a slown down balanced pace gently yet with more strength than I thought I could ever muster flowing through the chaotic lost in seeking. Care to join me?

A life on hold.

I'm waiting but not for life to return as it once did. Waiting for the opportunities to change the life I have. Leaving behind the broken friendships that have been merely hidden in locked down isolation.

Slowly they remerge and I am stuck here waiting on, too tired of it all.

Inequality is all our problem.

“At first I thought I should just shut up and listen to black people about this issue. But why would I do that? It’s not their problem, it’s mine. People of colour are being failed by the system.

The white system. Like a broken pipe flooding the apartment of the people living downstairs. The faulty system is making their life a misery, but it’s not their job to fix it. They can’t, no one will let them in the apartment upstairs. This is a white problem. And if white people don’t fix it, someone will have to come upstairs and kick the door in.” #Banksy.

Mirrors.

What role am I cast in the story you tell? How altered my narrative to fit? Am I cruel for letting go not to be lost in your diminished glow? Devalued, cast aside, still I refute your game of seek and hide. Steadfast, honest I remain, how hard it must be to view me in your name. Pushed against a wall of shame, deny your pain of yesteryear. I know what you do, you see, how once I too was much the same. Woken in reminders of me, I witnessed a part I played. How hard it must have been for the others to be stabbed with my deflecting stake.

Defended, fallen in counterattack, provoked to suit memories too old, yet innocently projected we are opportune, provided a way back. I stand unguarded outside your blockade, ready to end this tirade. I have nowhere left to run, will you open the door, let me to your aid?

The shadow.

Derives from beliefs of shame, embarrassment, fear, that the emotions termed incorrectly negative are denied, repressed then projected onto other people as their shame to carry. The only negativity around emotion is the denial leading to all manner of mental and physical health issues for the sake of attachment.

We learn during childhood to suppress emotions we perceive our caregivers are unable to deal with. This then continues throughout life, emotional maturity only occurring when we take responsibility and understand why we behave and feel the way we do. We live in societies very emotionally immature headed by those who exploit this as their levels of immaturity soar above most people's. In short, a turn of phrase; the lunatics have taken over the asylum!

All in this together.

Nature vs nurture...it's our nature to be shaped by our environment. It's in understanding we reshape our perceptions. It's not you, it's not me...it's us in entangled chaos. With one person we may thrive, with another we crash and burn then beat ourselves with the stick handed to us and taken willingly. In separation and identification, we find ourselves.

In trueness to our own nature, in fertile ground, we welcome the other in acceptance of all they are, have been and will be as we do in responsibility to ourselves.

Just let go.

In the garden of tranquillity where the serpent laid its head, I expected myself to feel at ease.

Social murder.

'When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that death results, we call that deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call this deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or the bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live - forces them ... to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence - knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual.' Friedrich Engels The Condition of the Working Class in England 1845

Building from the ground up.

When we are stuck in time, inflexible to the changing world both within and outside as a means of coping, building confidence on sodden ground that can be toppled with the slightest of challenges, no matter how anyone demonstrates their meaning we will only take what we need to mould into our narrowed viewpoint, upholding the fantasy created to keep us safe from perceived harm whether such harm exists or not.

Disconnected from emotions meant to steer our direction, we carry the ever increasing load with heavy hearts, unable to empathise and recognise a fellow traveller when they cross our paths. In loneliness and fear, we quickly latch on to the easiest refuge in the hope that this time we shall be absolved of our burdens, transferring our load onto another which ultimately becomes too weighty for them to bear, in denial of their own search for approval, they break. Alternatively, we can knock down the old house and build anew from solid foundations. Feeling the pain we avoid, ripping to shreds the illusion tearing us apart time after time. The agony of acceptance is rarely as awful as we imagine. With lightened load, we continue through life stong in knowing no storm will evict us but merely have us retreat for a while to shake off the debris in readiness for when the sun shines on us again. We welcome in experiences to expand our world with curious awe.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere.

It's the in between health and ill health that I can never escape. Too unwell to be seen, I'm safe, too well to be regarded unwell, I tread lightly, it can take just one traumatic sentencing for crimes not committed to knock me back to my sickbed. Living with external judgement when not understood is my greatest barrier to recovery no matter how well I treat myself.

Society turns me into a liar when if I tell the truth I shall be condemned with a flick of ignorant assessment. Those who judge on appearances have no idea what strength it takes to live with misled understanding around every corner I turn to heal.