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The last week of * (42) – what is success anyway? #Mondayblogs

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This is 43? Quite honestly, I’m not entirely certain how I feel right now. There are so many different things that I’ve been thinking about. How we measure success. What we consider ‘worthy’ work, when we think about our lives, and how we decide to measure what we’re doing. Like water over rocks, we often smooth away the knowledge we don’t like and find a way to let it settle. And time, like water down a hill, never stops.

Judgement – my own worst enemy

Self-judgement that is. And I think that’s true of all of us. We’re ALL our own worst enemies when it comes to deciding if we’re ‘doing what we’re made to do’. Which in itself is a loaded sentence. I really hate the whole “we’re human beings, not human doings” concept. It distils and negates a lot of the struggle we all have with the needs and responsibilities, the wants and the necessities we all carry and balance. I’m a human being. I am.
What I am right now?
A little bit stressed, a lot melancholy. Because I’m judging myself against a list of things that I just can’t expect to meet.
What I can say though is that I’ve achieved a lot that isn’t ‘obvious’. I was discharged from therapy, and told I’d successfully completed the work they wanted me to which is…awesome. I went into recovery care with the local unit over seven years ago. I moved two years ago, this week, to the unit the county over. I’ve put a commendation about Dr C. and my nurse, M, with my MP, I feel that strongly about their care. The whole NHS should be praised, for the last few years, of course, but the team that cared for me over the last few years especially, since just after my 40th birthday, are people that went above and beyond and made a real change to my life.

The grain silo, Being Human and more…

I’ve talked about these essays but never finished them. Some are actually in ‘And Miles to go before I sleep…’ and expanded upon. So, along with the retrospective coming for the rest of this week, and looking forward over the weekend (the blog is going to be busy), but I’ll be releasing the essays ‘The Grain silo’ and ‘Being Human’, along with the pre-order link for ‘And Miles to go before I sleep…’ over this week. I’ll maybe even get to talk about the major business project we’re launching. On Saturday or Sunday, I’ll release our sort of calendar, and aspirations we have. And they are aspirations. Not deadlines. Not must do’s. The pre-orders are fixed, but.. other than that, we’ll adapt. And the we in this case is my beloved, my family, my friends and I. Being Human isn’t to be alone. And I’m not.

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

In the wastes, on the curves

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bird s eye view of roadway surrounded by treesThe last few weeks have not been the best for me, but by far and away, the things that hurt the most are, if I’m honest, the way a few friends have reacted to my boundaries. And how, from there, pulling in to defend myself has been ‘abandoning’ them. And how that’s left me with issues with all sorts, from what I do from here to my religious outlook, to how I move on.  I don’t think I’ll address all of it here, it’s a bit complex.  The two bits I want to touch on are boundaries, and being out in the barrens.

Boundaries 101

I’m actually fairly odd in the sense that I don’t ‘like’ boundaries for myself. I feel that it’s very artificial to tell someone you ‘can’t something’ that isn’t basic human decency. And that, I hate to say, was my first mistake. The rank bitterness alongside that first mistake and trying to understand why people behave this way has been painful. Adding to the depression that was already settling on me, I’m really struggling to deal with anything right now, but, as I’ve been asked to write some mental health books if I get through this bout of crippling misery. But it’s made me evaluate a lot of things, and why my life isn’t ‘right’ and it all comes back to routine and boundary. Both of which, my brain seems to process much the same.

On the curves?

Honestly? There’s another word for what happens when I lose everything, whereas this is kinda like where I end up when everything is gone and I’m left to clean up a mess or three. And there are many versions of this place.  There’s the one I deliberately create when I need to move on from a bad place, and have to destroy it to cut ties.  There’s the one that happens when I’m sick and can’t tend my stuff, and then there’s this one… This version of it though is kinda worse. Because it’s a bit of both. In an irony, I’m honestly not sure even *I* really understand, when I’m sick and come off routine, that’s when the trouble really starts.  Free spirit and all that, I still need a pretty firm framework. And currently… I’m not sure I know what to do.  I feel horrible, if I’m entirely honest.  I’m not exercising or eating regularly, I’m not sleeping correctly.  I’m disrupted understandably, because of the changes in the house (we’ve still got our BED to replace).  And I feel a bit like a brat, if I’m honest, but we’ve changed so much in the last month and a half, and it’s been a lot of ‘I don’t really get the choice’ belonging disposal, as the garage flooded/was damaged.  Again, I’m well aware I’m lucky.  It’s not everything I own.  It was a LOT of my books though, a lot of stuff we moved and stored (I’m now learning that storing in the garage is not for cardboard boxes.  So, we’re converting what we are storing out there to plastic tubs.).  It was stuff I’d protected when I left my ex.  It was mine.  It’s gone now.  I don’t feel happy (Marie Kondo lied) – but I’m so overwhelmed, all I can really say was it was books, and some other ‘stuff’.  Because at some point, to keep dealing with the garage, I had to just stop paying attention.  So, I’m a little bit miserable, if I’m honest.  I do really feel like of everything that went, it was old toys and lots of my things.  It’s not *accurate*, but it’s been something I’ve learned over the last year – there’s a difference between what I know, what the reality is, and how I feel about it.  And that I’m not – really – right or wrong.  Just sad. We then did the conservatory, the dining room (converting it to my office, in part), and we got brand new couches (I’ll share some before and after photos once we’re all settled properly).  But, for someone that doesn’t *like* change, it’s been a lot for me to deal with. And it’s stirred up stuff I really don’t like. This is where I say ‘no more’.  Not no more change, just no more slipping schedules, no more ‘skip exercise, can’t be bothered’. No more accepting that I have to feel this way.  We do, most of all, get to decide how we react and change things, if we can, and quite honestly, I would be remiss in not trying.  I’ll be stuck within the limits of my spoons, of course, but I think some of this is…inertia.  So I want to deal with that. Maybe it’ll turn out all I have is the spoons for this, maybe it’ll turn out that I’m just tired and not doing as well as I could because I’ve accepted that.  I honestly can’t say on that score.

But…there’s more…

The thing is, this time, I’m going to talk about it, and whether what I’ve learned this year works, starting from about as close to ‘base’ as I get.  And, quite honestly, though I’m not in a place of complete ‘clear board’, I *am* close enough that I can maybe get this to work. I’ve still not decided exactly *how* I’ll be talking about it. Whether it’ll be a blog, or vlog, or a mix, but, as I’ve also been tagged to talk mental health for a series of books, and burnout is a real thing that often leaves people in barren areas a lot like this,  so maybe this isn’t quite so self indulgent as it feels, and I should be less self-conscious.  There are other elements to this, such as our complete inability to remain pregnant, which I don’t think is exactly helping my state of mind, but mostly, I’m just struggling to find my way, and I want to do something about that, even if that something isn’t what others think of when they think of the stuff I’m talking about.

To start?

To start, I’m going to do something about my wake/sleep cycle.  And eating regularly.  And, I’m going to see about exercising daily.  That’s the framework.  Everything else, like work and writing will still happen, and fit in around the other stuff… but….that’s what I’m going to focus on for a bit. Hopefully in time to start back at uni, who knows.

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Starting Monday armed…

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Well kinda. While we were home, Tempus mentioned that the lightsaber company he’d used and was really impressed with, was running a really good sale (he got his May 4th), so I sprung for one.
Believe it or not, that’s the same hilt, just one had a flash, one didn’t. Comfortable, CNC milled, mine is bronze/silver, while Tempus has a single tone silver one. They’re designed for a duelling system called Ludosport. While I may not join my partner for training, I do like the idea old designing a routine to exercise (and ness about). It is, of course, missing its blade. But only because I wanted to get this photo…
Feels appropriate from #Pridemonth.

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

AtoZ delays

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I’ve been posting to all of the blosgs that I either run or help out on because, quite honestly, I’ve hit a wall. I wish I could say something positive, because of all things, I’m really trying to get my mindset to better places and thinking in better ways about things, but as I said in G for giving in, it’s not always negative.

Societal versus compassion

I guess this is something that clicked recently, along with some of the concepts I’ve finally worked out about toxic negativity in the people I’m around, and about how my saying ‘no’ isnt the same as being negative, and that anyone that pushes back when I say no to preserve boundaries for my health, whether they agree or not, isn’t compassionate, nor understands what I mean by toxic negativity. The thing is though, if I were talking about this and a friend asked me, I’d say with compassion and care, that it’s ok, society’s pressure to be always achieving is partially linked to captialism (I’d argue that daydreaming is productive, but others would say no, and it’s often described as a bad thing, not a good, even for writers.  ‘Being bored’, a bugbear of mine, is another one of those things that’s often talked about now as something of a luxury.  A first world problem. But, honestly? I sometimes think we describe being still and stopping as ‘boerd’ because it’s an alien concept to us. And none of that self-talk is compassionate. Not really.

Sitting still, and stopping

I was, as I always do, trying to meditate this morning and it hit me that my mind KEPT wandering to the fact that I feel like I’m so behind. No matter how gently, how often I pulled myself back, I saw that thought, inherently ‘judgemental’, inherently negative, and I couldn’t reframe it.  I’m behind because I’m tired, I’m not well, I’m struggling. A lot of that is possibly to do with the fact my brain made an audible snap when I worked something out, metaphorically, and the shockwaves from that ‘click’ is just making my head and heart hurt. It changes how I relate to people, and I don’t like that, but it’s… important. There’s another blog coming, because there’s books to touch on, and more, but the biggest thing is my brain just isn’t as compassionate to certain toxic negativities. Nor how people in my circle of friends sometimes bounce off that. So. I thought about it. I can reframe this. I can gently let go of the expectation of doing the AtoZ during April. The planning and research aren’t going to waste, and neither are the friends and reading I’m getting to meet and do while I’m joining in too.  But, this is my last AtoZ post, except, maybe a summary on May 1st of the stuff I did get done.

Live, Thrive, Survive with Bipolarbears - Live, Thrive, Survive with Bipolarbears - text by Kai

A new normal? #atozchallenge

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I suspect this isn’t the article that many people are expecting, as I’m not going to be making my predictions on what things will look like when the world settles down after the pandemic, and vaccines and everything else. Instead, I’m going to be talking about my new normals, because in the last 18 years, I’ve had a lot change (oh yes, this site is 18 now. It can legally do a tonne of stuff in the UK and US. Scary no?)

Normal – a loaded word

The real reason I wrote this specific post was I was thinking about doing A for Aspergers and I had someone jump all over me with ‘actually, Asperger was a Nazi, the community was moving away from that,’ and I was thinking ‘but I’m part of that community, news to me!’, so instead of just talking about one aspect of what I’m thinking, I’ll be touching on the fact that I’ve gone from being diagnosed as bipolar in 2003, to…much more in 2021, including aspergers.
And how ‘normal’ is a completely loaded word. (well, I’ll be doing that in N for ‘setting on a washing machine’) later on the month.

Here comes the new boss, same as the old boss

The thing with diagnoses is they’re just labels that let people broad stroke know what may or may not happen on interaction with them. They aren’t, for example, the be all and end all (as one psych student once told me, ‘nope, if i were to guess from your file, I’d never have got ‘gestures at me’. And that was the part my GP choked on his coffee cause he was sitting there innocently allowing me to corrupt…well… correct really… med students. I was, when I started this blog, bipolar. Might have had a soupçon of anxiety tossed in there, but no, I was bipolar. Up, down, 60 days with a five day variance on my cycle. You could set your watch by me, apparently.
Except. I’m not.
Not any more.

The new is a bit of a shock

So, the new actually snuck in. I was first decided NOT to be bipolar because bipolar and borderline personality were so easy to mix up. And we argued that no, I was not borderline. Even when they tried rebranding it to EUPD (I’ll explain why in E is for ‘if you dare say that again, I’ll scream’). And do you know, the only person that can actually explain it doesn’t like to use it anyway. So, five years of arguing about that, being discharged and sent to a neighbouring county and meeting Dr C and nurse M and life is good again.
Dr C has changed my diagnosis to ‘CPTSD with traits of EUPD, anxiety, (pseudo?)psychosis, historic bipolar’ and is pretty sure I’m mildly on the spectrum. Mostly because I’m really, specifically, hardcore focused on the use of language and its myriad shades. My vocabulary causes issues, put it that way.

Mouthful right?

What the new normal actually is though is me meditating more (yeah, I’ll talk about my complex relationship with that later too), being mindful, and recovering. Because the five years leading up to me getting help, from 2014-2019 were when I stopped leaving the house. Which is why there’s whole sections of this AtoZ devoted to bullying, psychosis and less cheery subjects. As for the lockdown? I live in the UK and it’s getting to me a bit now, but when it started it was pretty much ‘ok, I hear this is an instruction for you. It’s a description for me.’. I’d never have wished the confinement my psychosis makes me impose on myself on anyone else, but that’s where we are right now, I guess. What’s your new normal? Anything changed you might wanna discuss?

Live, Thrive, Survive with Bipolarbears - Live, Thrive, Survive with Bipolarbears - text by Kai