#mood

 

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BLISTERING 

RAGE

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You really haven't thought about this

You really haven't thought about this. You might have given it some thought, but you really haven't thought about it at all. You haven't considered the very many ways that all of the everythings you've done have interacted, how they have torn great strips, ripped thick bleeding slabs away from everything I have and everything I can do. 

You really haven't thought about this. You haven't thought about how long I've been doing this, how deeply it has cut, and how long that wound has lain open, bleeding, oozing, weeping even after you have tired of the sport, looked away again and again, while everything I have leaks away. 

You really haven't thought about this. You haven't thought about how long I can keep doing this. (I can't. I actually can not). You have stripped too much away and now there is nothing left, no fuel, no motivation, nothing left at all to keep me going. Not now, not tomorrow, not next week. Not ever. You have used me up, and now there is nothing left, not even to cross the finish line, not even to start. 

You really haven't thought about this. You haven't considered the resource that I am, the value that I provide, not only to you but to the entire ecosystem in which you exist. You haven't thought about how, in tearing me to tatters, you are shredding your own advantage to nothing. You have used me until I am empty and you can use me no more. 

I will not your travel your paths. I will not meet your people. I will not gift to them as I have so abundantly gifted to them with all of my everythings, this whole, astonishing expanse of time. 

There is nothing you can do about this, until you do something about it. So do something about it, before I am so empty that I am gone.  

58

 

                That god forbid that made me first your slave

                I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

                Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave, 

                Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure !

                O, let me suffer, being at your beck,

                Th' imprison'd absence of your liberty, 

                And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check    

                Without accusing you of injury. 

                But where you list ; your charter is so strong

                That you yourself may privilege your time 

                To what you will ; to you it doth belong

                Your self to pardon of self-doing crime. 

                        I am to wait, though waiting so be hell ; 

                        Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well. 

Shakespeare, Sonnets.

Ungilded

It is difficult for me to express in words the depths of the depression I am feeling. For as hard as things are for me now, the truth is they have been hard for a long, long time. Not weeks, not months, but years. And this difficulty compounds across the many spheres of life. It creates other barriers, erodes other joys. How many family celebrations have I missed? How many opportunities to see the people I love have passed, while I am unable to step beyond the tawdry limitations of my strangled budget? Tonight, I was unable to attend a dinner, which should have been a pleasant social respite, because I didn't have the wherewithal to pay for a cheap meal. That might have been acceptable twenty or thirty years ago, when I was first making my way in the world, but I have worked too hard and given too much for this to be acceptable, even for one more day. It has gone on for too long. 

But there's a deeper level to my despair, and it's this. For every apparent loss, there has been a wound. And the wound comes from my awareness of the shared knowledgeable sentience of my plight. There is an entire community out there who has seen me struggling under the onslaught of multiple challenges and who have, invariably, turned away. Not just persons, but whole groups of people, many of whom have witnessed small affronts committed upon me but who know so much more about the more insidious actions that have been manifested against me. And some of those are people who told me they would have my back. Who said they asked much of me because they would give their own measure of service and sacrifice, and because their own efforts would ensure, if not my gain, then not my loss. 

But loss is my constant companion. I wake up every day and before I am even out of bed I am confronted by the vast hole of everything that I was told, reassured, promised, even guaranteed, would be there for me. Not just a job but an income. Not just a house but a home. Not just a move but travel, to see my people and to holiday to all those places I've wanted to go but never ever been able to. Not promises, but people who care enough to turn up for me. Even the most basic amenity of healthcare, dental care, clothing, footwear, physical fitness, social interactions, are all utterly out of reach without the support that I should rightfully expect, and was promised. And this endangers my wellbeing, and therefore my safety. 

But the deeper harm is the social harm. The constant absence of care from those who are well placed to give it but who do not, repeatedly. My life has become devoid of even the smallest acts of generosity or consideration, and replaced with a poorly mechanised series of transactional failures against me. I am exploited, daily, in every imaginable kind of interaction, and nothing has been given in return. Nothing. 

Nothing is worth this kind of sustained deprivation. No cause is great enough or important enough to warrant this sustained assault on my basic material sustenance and wellbeing. Even this blog, this most private part of my existence is, like all other aspects of my existence, scrutinised for evidence of unturned screws that can still be set to squeezing even more from me, repaying my generosity with injury and insult in the manner calculated to cause me the greatest pain. No doubt, the tone of persecutory paranoia macerating my writing will be particularly satisfying to those of you who have measured your own successes by the extent of not just my failures, but the disproportionate (and utterly unconscionable) losses that I have incurred, personally, and every type of lasting damage that it has caused. Because it has caused lasting damage. For years. YEARS. And just because you only know about the more recent months, doesn't mean you're not responsible for the excessive damage that your own action, inaction and intolerable lack of compassion, dedication and basic human decency has wrought in compounding ways on top of every single thing that has already been done to me. If anything, the ease of your victimisation says more about my astonishing capacity to persevere than any kind of cunning or skill on your part. 

Nothing is worth this. It has gone on for too long. I have given too much for too long and now my answer is no. No more. You will have nothing more from me until you have made good on all of your promises, past, present and future. And I'll get on with the daily business of surviving my depression, anguish, and the actual physical pain and illness that I have no money to get treated. 

(P.S. Because, again, the pain is keeping me awake. Just so you know). 

It wouldn’t be so bad

 

... if you hadn’t made all those promises. 

... and if they hadn’t all turned out to be lies

... and if they weren’t all acts of betrayal

... costing my health, wealth and years of my life

This is a serious question.

It's Mental Health Week (somewhere in the world, anyway) and to mark the occasion, I have composed an essay, of sorts, based on my recent experiences. It's called 

This is a serious question.

An essay, of sorts, on suffering, and when enough is enough, or becomes too much. 

Being brief and powerful, it seemed like something I could print on coloured paper, and put in coloured envelopes, and leave in certain precincts for people to find, read and contemplate, by way of raising awareness of mental health issues, and the supports available to them. Like an anonymous act of public service. I once heard senior organisational leaders opining that such a thing would be a useful tool to create a sense of importance and urgency around the issues of mental health in their workplace, and to stimulate acts of individual and collective duty of care. My essay, of sorts, meets all the criteria. Good writing, tick. On topic, tick. Timeliness, tick. Personal angle, tick. Relevance to that work place, high, tick. Low cost to implement, tick. 

But then I took a break and read it again. (Good mental health practice, right there). Did I mention it's based on my own recent experience? It is, to be honest, quite confronting. (Hence its potential impact). But do I want to be setting that free to work its chaotic magic in the hearts and minds of its audience? Now that it's written, it's always an option, I guess. But even with the careful language I have chosen and the deliberate structuring of its message, it is confronting. Potentially triggering. And I do not wish to stimulate any more suffering than that to which I have myself been exposed. That is part of my duty of care, my moral obligation to ensure the safety and wellbeing of others. I exercise that duty of care, it seems, even when it has not been exercised towards me.  

So, please take a moment to appreciate the generosity of my motives in writing such a piece, and admire my restraint in not circulating it widely at this most pertinent time. Perhaps my discretion and good judgement will inspire others to consider what actions they can take to assist those members of their own communities who are suffering for want of basic actions of care and access to otherwise inaccessible support. 

One of these days

One of these days, my story will be told. I will tell it, or it will be told, by someone else who cares enough to give it voice. (Oh yes, there is someone who cares for me enough to do this small, huge thing). My story will be told, and its audience will be astonished, first, and probably disbelieving, until the incontrovertible evidence is made plain, as plain as my story when it is told, by me or by someone who cares. Because it is a plain story, there are no fantastical embellishments or wild speculations, merely a line of words, sometimes straight and sometimes meandering, just like the path I have trodden. These words, being plain, will carry all the weight of that which has occurred, and finding their audience, they will bloom as understanding. And the disbelief will be made into realisation, as the jolting shock of horrified comprehension ebbs away, until what is left is witness to this story, this plain story that is my story, told by me or someone who cares for me, and a sincere apology will be made.