Bandages in my brain

[brightlotusmoon]

So, stuff.
My body and brain have been up and down in normal chronic pain ways, and now that I'm medically on the autism spectrum with Nonverbal Learning Disability, my doctors and therapists can focus on more specific treatments for the sensory and communication issues, and I no longer feel I need to justify why I do so many weird and fucked up things that make people angry. I'm not gonna use any of my disabilities as an excuse, because I find that revolting, but I will merely say, "Look, I'm super neurodiverse and I have issues, so just hang on a minute while I get my brain in order, okay?" I don't think I have ever been neuro-typical.

I've been venting on Facebook more than LiveJournal, which i find backwards, but I have so many friends on Facebook who are immediate and who know exactly how it is. I refuse to leave Livejournal, since it has been my home since late 2001, so I plan on writing here more and more, copying between here and Facebook.

So, I have been in a major depression episode for several weeks now. It has been quiet and lurking, like a huge tar pit, and every so often a creature rises with flashing claws and strikes and I break down and my insides begin screaming. It happened last night, while Adam and I were eating the rabbit stew he had slow-cooked. I randomly, suddenly began sobbing in heaves into a napkin, and Adam placed his hand on the back of my head gently - it's a gesture he does to Mikey to let Mikey know he is there and to guide Mikey in his blindness, and he's been doing it with me ever since we met. Adam began massaging my neck and shoulders, and then I began gasping and rasping "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry..." and Adam asked "Why?" and I gestured violently at my body and rasped, "THIS. I just... I just... I can't. I fucking can't. I can't even eat a whole meal with out..." and I sobbed again and he held me and held me, and I cried about how broken I was and that i was a horrible housewife and how I couldn't do the things he needed me to do sometimes, and he said, "Honey, it's okay. You are so important. You pay our bills, you make the appointments, you keep the house from exploding, you remind me to take of myself. I bring in the money. I may break my back doing it, but you're already broken and it isn't anything you did, and that's okay. It's all okay. Everything is okay. I love you."
We had moved to the couch, and I cried and cried while he held me, and Jupiter came over and sat like a sphinx on us and purred with his entire body and we pet him and scritched him, and the creature in my brain faded.

Adam needed to wake up around five in order to go to his IT/AV shop in Virginia and then to New York for a job overnight. We went upstairs and prepared his luggage and had sex that comforted me and made me happy with the afterglow jokes, and then later, Luna came over in one of her precious rare moments and settled between us on a small pillow to purr us to sleep.

I still have this weird lump in my throat from... so many things. I still need to print out that form that my new psychologist needs for insurance and such, and on Friday, our second appointment, we may try hypnotherapy. I'll tell her about the spectrum thing just so she keeps it in mind. I think we'll get along just find.

I sent back the forms to get Medicare Part B, and once I'm enrolled at the end of the year, I shall enroll in Part C with Aetna, and then things should be cheaper for me. Next week will be the dentist and then the pain physician.

I still need to eat more.

And then... and then, there is this. Found and shown to me by the magnificent naamah_darling, it is the absolute ultimate expression of what I've been calling The Spear Theory (as opposed to the spoon theory).

Always. Forever. I am my shield and these are my spears. Because spoons can only do so much. The spear theory leaves me scarred and shattered and covered in the blood of my pain monsters. And after I recover and refresh there is a new set of shiny spears waiting to be hurled, broken, stuck in the bodies of my pain monsters, and repeat.
And as I rest and recover, spoons are there to help feed and nourish. But there will always be more spears.
I am a pain warrior. A warrior in an old way.
http://internal-acceptance-movement.tumblr.com/post/61136577036

And Naamah's thoughts:
http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/633319.html

It is too perfect.

Comments

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

It can be lovely and agonizing at the same time when our loved ones respond to our brokenness with such love and grace. <3

I know that "I'm sorry" and "I can't" feeling oh too well by far, and it's a sorry place to be. I am sad that you're there, and hope you find your way out soon.

You are necessary. You are miraculous. You are wolf's breath and smoke that was books from the Library of Alexandria and air that vibrated with dinosaur birthing cries and held aloft steppe eagles as they hunt hare and fox, you are starstuff and skin that has felt firelight and you have drunk water that washed over the backs of elephants, you are the rain borne on the wind from farthest shores, and flavorless fragments of a hungry ratsnake's skin cast off in the grass of some distant field where cattle graze. All of that, little pieces of the world finding their way into you. Extraordinary things. Our bodies, our brains, may not be the wondrous vehicles that we wish they were, they may not function with perfect grace, even when we love them. They are frequently sources of pain, fear, and frustration. But you are all of those tiny things, and more, and you are not extraordinary because of those things. They are extraordinary because of you. Because of your mind and heart and vision, and your ability to see things and know things, and weave connections together that others cannot see. All of these things came together, somehow, to make you, and that makes those things incredible. You possess magic. You elevate all that has gone into the making of you, because you are utterly, painfully unique. And that will not end the mad weasel-dancing of our brains, no, but it gives some beauty to it all, and is a place to rest our thoughts when it seems like all that has gone into the making of us is failure, insufficiency, and dust. We are things the world has made, as amazing and imperfect as we may be, and we can only ever be as it has made us. We can't be anything else, only work with what we are. Thankfully, we're amazing, despite being ill-suited for some, or many, things. Sometimes I feel like a mistake. I have heard people say that god doesn't make mistakes. I don't believe in god, but I don't know if I believe in those sorts of mistakes, either. If we're mistakes, we're extraordinary ones. I will agree to "flawed", even "broken", but never to "worthless" or "unworthy". Over the way we are made? No, I don't accept that. My brain tries to eat me on a regular basis. I often wish I was not what I am. It is frustrating and awful and terribly inconvenient and sometimes utterly embarrassing, but it doesn't make me lesser than any other person made of saltwater and the breath of komodo dragons.

I have to remind myself of that so often. But it's truth. I would say "never feel sorry for being broken sometimes" but that's not a thing that anyone can just do. I'm awful at it. I think it's just . . . part of the deal, you know? We will always have those moments. I will just say that in those moments, believe those who love you above yourself, because those who love us can see the sheer unlikely glory of us in a way that we are helplessly blind to, no matter how we try to see.

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

There's awful things in the world -- murder and poisons and disease and parasitic worms and runts that don't make it -- and bits of those brush off on things that brush off on other things and eventually find our way into us just like the beautiful starlight and dust from luna moth wings do, and some people might argue that it makes being, somehow, partly a lioness a little less impressive . . . but . . . I don't think that's true. I think all those little darknesses that come to us just from being in the world are important, too, though the things themselves are often things that should not be, and which benefit no-one. But we're made, a little bit, from darkness, and that makes the fact that we fight so hard and bloody so many spears so extraordinary. Part of us is battlefield air, or dust kicked up by lethal volcanic eruptions, or water washed through the bones of the drowned, and yet . . . we still make art, have dreams, love one another, laugh at "that's what she said" jokes. We have our darknesses, some we make and some we are issued at birth and some that's accidental entirely, and sometimes I think that the most important work someone broken like me can do is transforming that darkness into something we can use, something we can live with. Not into light, but into something familiar, that holds no more fear. I am not grateful to the world for handing me darkness and pain, but it's undeniably taught me things I can now use against it. I am grateful to myself, and to the good parts of the world, for making me strong enough to learn those things, and keep fighting. I am grateful for friends who remind me that people are amazing, and I am therefore amazing too, because I am a people.

Fierce Jandar icon because spear theory is fierce. <3 again. I am feeling entirely too philosophical for my own good. I could just say "You are amazing. Listen to your husband and your cats."

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Woman, how are you made of such poetry in human form? My gods, I could never hope to express thoughts the way you do.
You are on the top of my list for beta-reading some of my writing, because I need you.
Oh my gods, Amanda, I cannot express how much I NEED you. Your words make me feel so... precious. So belonged. So accepted. So wondrous. How do you DO that?

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

I may dress it up like a princess in pretty words, but the gist of it is I just speak the truth. Or what I think it is. But there are times I know I am right, and "you are awesome" is one of those.

*hugs*

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

*purrs and wags and hugs*

[oneonthefence.livejournal.com]

Hey, just don't forget who came up with those spears you use to fight with... you've just expanded it far more than I did! (I remembered it, though, because I was away for the day when we had the discussion, and I'm so rarely ever away!):

http://brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com/1520669.html#comments

We created it together - I always liked the piercing notion of spears over spoons or shields - but it's yours now. I don't fight with spears. I think I just - fight? It's different for all of us. So much changes in a year or two, as it should. Spears won't help me with my current illness, but they WILL help you every single day. And that's a good and powerful thing. And a necessary thing. Keep with them.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

OMG, thank you for finding that link, because I have been looking for it EVERYWHERE, because I wanted to name you as co-creator but I needed reference first. <3

[oneonthefence.livejournal.com]

Oh, no worries. I had it bookmarked from when we first discussed it. But I don't know where the original thread about spears is... maybe on my journal? Or slightly before that link I had bookmarked? I don't know. My brain! But I am glad people still speak of spears. :) <3

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I'm really hoping it catches on as an alternative to the spoon theory. Apparently, even able-bodied people are using spoons now! It's become very popular.