Mark Driscoll and "the call to be different".....

 Why hello there! Tis been a while! 

I've had several ideas over the last few months for blog posts but by the time I get around to actually writing them, *POOF* - it's gone! 

Just last night I was contemplating toxic masculinity and the drive in our culture towards civil violence - these thoughts were in response to the recent Bondi Junction knife attack that tragically claimed the lives of six people and left several more in critical condition in hospital (including a baby....) 

Yeahhh......

Then this morning I wake up to the news that there was yet ANOTHER stabbing, this time in Western Sydney at a church. 

*sigh* 

There is really too much to say on either one of these awful tragic events, so I won't. 

Instead I was also alerted to an interesting little incident that happened recently which has now been nicknamed 'strippergate'..........

Ok so here's the cliff's notes version: 

James River Church holds an annual men's conference at Great Southern Bank Arena on April 12 and 13 this year. On the first day of the conference, a performer named Alex Magala performed on a platform, taking off his shirt, swallowing a sword and then climbing up a stripper pole. Alex Magala is a previous America's Got Talent contestant, a 2-time Guinness world record holder, a member of the sword swallowing association international and is a black belt in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu - the guy has the receipts! To top it off, Alex was the first person in the history of the Olympics to perform on a stripper pole in the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. It can safely be said that the organisers of this men's conference knew what they were getting - it's not exactly secret. And to be fair, Alex Magala is not actually a 'stripper' - he is a stunt performer who took off his shirt and uses a pole as part of his aerial sword swallowing act.  

The next afternoon, one of the speakers, a rather well-known and somewhat problematic pastor named Mark Driscoll, takes the stage to speak and let's just say the guy chose chaos.... he starts by saying that he had been up since 1am praying for the men at the conference until his voice was hoarse, before then roasting the opening act accusing a 'jezebel spirit' of inhabiting the conference. The organiser of the event and lead pastor of James River Church John Lindell then is heard yelling "you're out of line Mark!" - Driscoll tells him he'll 'receive that' to which John then replies, "you're done!". Mark says thank you and leaves the stage to both boos and loud cheers. 

There's already been a lot of theological debate about what happens next - John Lindell gets up and cites Matthew 18, stating that Mark had not mentioned anything directly to John and therefore should not have said what he said publicly. Ehhh I think that's poor theology and I think Lindell is wrong, but that's not what I wanted to focus on when I first heard about this. 

I was actually more interested in what was being portrayed at this men's conference as a whole rather than the issue of the so called 'stripper'. The conference in question is called "Stronger Men's Conference". Promos for the event feature quick cut scenes of men boxing, riding motorcycles, riding bulls, brandishing weapons, lifting weights, hitting punching bags, wrestling, all overlaid with hard hitting rock music singing about being 'ready to fight'. It's a testosterone laden, blood pumping portrait of conflict and opposition. 

Is this Christianity? 

I have felt for a while now that Christianity as a broad faith system is having an identity crisis. For too long different factions have risen and fallen upon their perceptions of what it means to be a follower of Christ, and the problem is, there's an element of truth in basically all of their interpretations. For this church, it is evident that they believe Christian men are to be physically strong, fearless, and ready to 'fight' - and their portrayal of that is quite literal: physical fighting. There's certainly a degree of theological truth in that: after all Isaiah 42:13 calls God a 'man of war'. Others take it more into the spiritual realm with speaking in tongues, laying of hands, handling snakes, etc saying that they're fighting evil spirits - again, there's plenty of biblical evidence for that and there's definitely verses to back that up. Then there are those that put their faith in acts of good will towards others (I'm thinking like, Salvation Army for example) and of course, Jesus himself advocated for this throughout His ministry. There's an element of biblical accuracy in all of these, and yet they're not WHOLE and I fear that this conference has slid down that very slippery slope of trying to be 'attractive' to a section of the male population while forgetting the saviour they are supposed to be emulating. 

If we are to be a follower of Christ, then shouldn't we look to Christ to figure out who and what we should be? 

It is one of the challenges of faith to think of Jesus holistically rather than to pick out the bits and pieces of scripture that appeal to us. I fear that over time the concept of a Christian man has somehow been skewed and twisted into our own distorted vision to serve various ends. Not that this tendency is limited to just men - a distortion of identity has long since been a struggle for women also (of course with patriarchy adding to the confusion question of a woman's role in the church!). 

The other day I was reading Genesis - "male and female He created them" - and I think the question of Christian identity is just one aspect of being a follower of Jesus that as Paul would say we all have to work out 'with fear and trembling'. I find within myself daily the struggle between my own Christian faith and what many would label as 'leftist' ideals of compassion, acceptance, love and tolerance. I sit in that exceptionally uncomfortable place of being personally against abortion, yet being pro-choice (I choose not to, so how can I NOT be pro choice???). I believe in loving ALL human beings, no matter what their gender or sexual identity is, yet this also goes against the grain of what most major Christian sects would have me subscribe. Sitting on the fence is painful, yet here I am dangling either side of some very sharp pickets, not sure which way to land. 

Getting back to Mr Driscoll, I similarly find myself conflicted: Mark Driscoll is not someone I follow, and not someone I trust (this instinct was in me long before he was found to be slightly hypocritical in his own behaviour!) yet I cannot say I disagree with him at least in part. I think this is yet another example of the struggle for identity, and in choosing this as the opening act, it's brought that crisis to the surface. By arguing over Matthew 18 and whether Mark should have said anything at all, we miss the point - the point is not the opening act, but what it represents and how we as humanity struggle to know WHAT following Jesus really looks like. I often ask myself, if Jesus lived today, what would that look like? Would He ride motorcycles or box or wrestle or lift weights? Would He march in anti-LGBTQI+ rallies? Would He stand in the crowd and clap for right wing politicians? I cannot help but think He wouldn't. 

The Jesus I know doesn't do ANY of those things. I don't even think Jesus would attend most churches I've been to. Certainly not the last one I was a member of - I left it after I sang at an Easter service and watched the Easter bunny bounce down the central aisle, giving out Easter eggs...that was enough for me! 

I think Jesus calls us to be set APART from the world - but in a desperate effort to try and 'win souls', we have instead lost that purity of faith. We have become the world instead of being set apart. It's a fine line to walk, believe me I get it, and in a capitalist society where you have to appeal to the masses to be successful, I get that there is always a temptation to get the message right to appeal to the most amount of people. But the question that weighs on my heart remains: in trying to spread the message of Jesus, have we strayed too far away? 

As for myself, I am no longer an attender of any church, and may never be again. I acknowledge that this has taken a significant toll on my relationship with God, and it's very difficult to remain plugged in when I am standing on my own without being regularly around other believers. I YEARN for a community where I am spiritually fed. Yet I cannot go back to being ignorant of the abuses the church has wielded on its members, nor can I reconcile within myself how far away from being a follower of Christ Christians actually are. The God that is preached from pulpits is no longer mine, and therefore I am no longer theirs. The God I love, adore and pray to doesn't climb poles, nor does He stand on a pulpit and judge those who do.

And if I get to heaven and find out that their god is not the God I love - I'm ok with that. 

'Jezebel spirit': Pastor kicked off stage at Christian conference in Missouri (msn.com)

About Me - Alex Magala - Official Site

What happened when Mark Driscoll and Josh Howerton showed up at the Stronger Men’s Conference this weekend – Baptist News Global

Between the Living and the Dead - a Christmas Carol

On the 19 December 1843 Charles Dickens published a novella recounting the story of an old, miserable rich man who was visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve - Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. As a child I was vaguely familiar with this story prior to the Muppets version, but it was really when the Muppets came out with their retelling of the story that I got interested. 

To me, the scariest part of the whole story was not the graveyard scene (although that was spooky as heck to a kid!!) but rather the idea of looking into the window of the Cratchit's home and seeing what life would be like without Scrooge......people talking about him like he doesn't exist anymore, life going on without him, relationships going on without him, the world continuing to turn long after his memory was gone. There's something in intriguing and inherently very painful about the thought that life existed before you and will continue to exist long after you are gone, and that one day you won't be remembered anymore. 

The idea of legacy is one that humanity has always been fascinated with. Pharaohs and Emperors built monuments and sphinxes and statues to try and defeat the passing of time. Donald Trump built Trump tower, artists paint frescos, musicians write songs, poets write poems, authors write books, politicians give speeches, all in an effort to become immortal for their output. It's one of the primary drivers for every person alive that they want to be remembered and immortalised - it is through legacy that we beat death. We subvert the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come by reminding people that we were here.  We all want to cheat death. 

Interestingly I had a similar existential moment the other day. I was surfing Facebook (a habit I've long since wanted to shake and have NEVER quite gotten there despite several attempts!) and I stumbled upon a profile I had long since given up ever finding - that of my stepmother. There she was, in full colour - celebrating her wedding anniversary to my father, water skiing with my brother, celebrating beating cancer (yeah, what the!), videos with two dogs, living her best life. I haven't laid eyes on my mother, my father or my brother in 20 years. Let me repeat that - it's been 20 years. I had heard through the grapevine that she may have left him, but turns out, not so. They're very much still together. 

Of course, this information doesn't shock anyone else but me. It doesn't hurt anyone else but me. It doesn't rock anyone else's world - after all, who cares whether they're married or not, together or not, seeing my brother or not - who cares right? 

I'll tell you what IS weird though.....from the moment my stepmother came into the picture, I at the tender age of 12/13 felt like a stranger in my own home. An outsider. Unwanted. Uninvited. I was an inconvenience, and I was very much reminded of that every single day - BLATANTLY, EXPLICITLY reminded. My father told me regularly that he would be far happier if I would drop off the end of the planet. He told me the whole family would be happier if I just didn't exist. 

And there in front of me was proof. 

It's not like I wish I was included - GOOD GOD NO. 

What hurts though is the idea that they finally got what they wanted. Their abuse, their rage, their manipulation, their HATRED of everything I was and am got them exactly the life they wanted. The end goal was to get rid of me and in the last 20 years they've gone on to live the life that they could have had all along had I never been. 

I've never felt more disorientated, more disembodied - I felt like Scrooge looking in the window of the Cratchit's home, seeing an alternate reality where my name had never passed any of their lips - a life where my existence was just wiped from all memory. A life where I had no legacy at all. 

I wonder whether, in the middle of the night, my name ever crosses their mind. I wonder whether they ever think of me at all. I wonder whether there is any 'blue tinge' to any of those early memories. My stepmother was married to my father around 5 years when I was kicked out of home - 5 years of raising a teenage girl, and all of the complications that entails.....does she ever include the image of me in any of those 5 years of memories? I mean, I was there on their wedding day. I was a bridesmaid. I stood there while they said those vows, I was there next to them when they took the black and white photo she posted on Facebook. Yet it's like it never happened. Like the first 19 years of my life only ever happened to me. I was poison to them - perhaps as much as they were to me. 

I'm told that me dwelling on these things is only hurting me. That's true. I should just let them go to the wind like I thought I had all those years ago. But seeing that Facebook profile has shifted my whole frame of reference a little - I feel like I have to get used to this new ground under my feet now. I'm used to them being 'dead to me' - I guess I just didn't quite account for the reality that I might be dead too. 

Pet Parenting

 This week has been rough on my family. Below is a post I put in a "Parents of Paws (Childless not by Choice)" group on Facebook describing why it's been a rough week and also reflecting upon what it takes to be a parent to furbabies only. I'm reposting this here as it's something I'm passionate about and something that is near and dear to my heart. TW for Pet euthanasia, Grief and Loss: 

Originally posted 22 August 2023: 

Yesterday I lost my 17 year old Maltese terrier Gizmo. We sent him over the rainbow bridge devastated that age and dementia had taken him away from us long before his heart stopped beating. He was my first dog, and amongst the tears I got to thinking......

We really are a brave and intrepid bunch.

Our lot in life is one of unsinkable optimism. We give our hearts in wild abandon to bottomless eyes and snuffly wet noses with the FULL and complete knowledge that our hearts will be broken; knowing full well that the likelihood of us outliving our little ones is extremely high. We do it knowing that we will have to nurse them into old age. We will pay for medications, for heat pads, for special foods, for blankets and coats and special beds, and steps and ramps and vet bills - Yet we do it anyway.

Imagine if parenting children were like that - imagine if you went through all of that effort, that pain, that energy, that LOVE, knowing that 10-15 years down the line you would lose that child, often having to actively MAKE that decision? Imagine then that you sign up to that, over, and over, and over, and over again and each time you will pick yourselves back up, put yourselves back together, take one step, then another, and then another, and then eventually you WILL try again.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of parents out there that DO go through the loss of a child - but imagine if that were basically a certainty?

We subject ourselves to this and give our WHOLE hearts for THEIR whole life, knowing that the end will come and that the end will be unspeakably painful. And we do it knowing that once they are gone there will be a hole in your heart and in your life that you will never ever fill.

It's not something I actively thought about when I brought home my first kitten at the tender age of 21. I sent that beautiful boy over the rainbow bridge just over a year ago having been diagnosed with stage 4 kidney failure about 4 months prior. He was one month shy of 18 years of age. It's certainly not something I thought of when I bought Gizmo at the tender age of 23. But as I get older, and as the wound of childlessness scabs over, its something I think about more and more.

People often tell me that being a parent is the hardest job in the world. Maybe they're right, unfortunately I won't ever have that lived experience. But I do know this - you and I dear reader, are a special breed of human. We surrender ourselves to a selfless, unconditional, pure love that only a pet parent can fully appreciate - but we do so knowing that the flip side of that coin is pain and loss.

And we'll do it again.

And on a personal note:

Goodbye my little mate - until we meet again x

#worthit

The "Check In"

 On the weekend I took my 8-month-old labradaughter Charli for a private dog training consult to assist us with her 'lead etiquette' (I prefer to call it "she's a bloody nightmare on a walk" but hey that's just me!). During that session, the trainer gave us some amazing info and one of these was to be aware of what she called "checking in" - this is what she calls the dog looking around at you and 'checking' on you when on a walk. I've always joked over the years with Indie (my 7 year old lab) that its her way of going "you still there Mum?" but I've never called it a 'check in' per say. The idea is that when the dog is pulling on the lead, you make them 'check in' with you to get their attention and to correct the behaviour. 

This reminded me of a bit of a revelation I had a few weeks ago. There's been a LOT of study into the links between conditions like C-PTSD, Anxiety and OCD, but one thing that I had never connected until recently was the link between WHATEVER my letters happen to be (the jury is still out on that one!) and obsessive 'checking in'. 

For example, picture this - I'm sitting in my living room reading. My husband walks in the room, and I instantly feel the emotional 'temperature' of the room shift. Something is wrong. I know something is wrong because I can feel it in the atmosphere. The words "how are you baby" leave my lips before I know what's happening. He says "I'm ok". I'm not convinced. "What's wrong?" is my next question. "Nothing" is the response. I'm still not convinced. I poke, I prod, I cajole, I banter - I do WHATEVER I have to do to figure out what the problem is. This DRIVE to know what the matter is might SOUND like genuine concern, but really the underlying motivation is one of fear. I'm afraid of the answer, so I need to know. I need to know what I'm dealing with so that I can do whatever I need to do to address it. It's the same reason I don't deal well with being pulled up about something AFTER the fact - I don't deal with that at ALL - being emotionally blindsided was a regular experience of my childhood, and not just in 'big life changing event' kind of ways. I guess this is the legacy of having a father who was an EXPERT at gaslighting. JUST when you are lulled into a sense of security, it's just that moment when you let your guard down that you can be sure the other shoe would drop and your whole world could stop on a dime. 

That level of emotional unpredictability has left me with deep deep scars. 

Another example of this happened to me just this morning - I was working in my home office when I heard my husband drop an F bomb in the kitchen which is way down the hallway at the other end of the house. When I'm a bit emotionally vulnerable, just this alone can be triggering for me - something BAD has happened, I don't know what it is, and I NEEEEEEED to know. 

But do I? 

I stopped myself in that moment and thought, wait, this is my drive to emotionally check in, but do I REALLY need to check in right now? 

Sure I could have hollered down the hallway something along the lines of "what now?" or "what's wrong" but instead I stopped myself and held my tongue. And you know what? He didn't even end up telling me WHAT was wrong. It got resolved without me. I was not required, and if I had been required, I'm sure my husband would have called out to me and I would have dealt with it. But he didn't need me, and I didn't need to know. 

It's yet another insidious side effect of having a lifetime of hypervigilant behaviours that I have to somehow overcome. The roots of C-PTSD run deeper than sorghum in the summertime - I just need to slowly unpick each one and break these habits that only seek to sink their claws into my skull deeper and deeper. 

The Value We Place

 On my way to the post office last week, I passed one of those very artisanal, artsy, boho kind of gift shops - you know the ones, with organic soy candles and perfumes and handcrafted ugly clothing and extremely over-priced tchochkes that are 'locally made' - the kind of shop that sports dried flowers and hay bales and is featured in lifestyle magazines named 'country life' etc etc. You get the picture....

Anyways, as I passed the shop, I noticed a large milk urn out the front of the store with bunches of cotton branches - real dried cotton branches literally just cut off the plant and bundled together. At first I was amused - mainly because I grew up surrounded by the stuff. Not only did I live on a cotton property outside of a small country town, but my best friend's father also managed a cotton gin - if I wasn't surrounded by cotton plants in various stages of growth, ripening and harvest, I was playing in massive piles of cotton seed and getting it throughout ALL of my clothing! My mum would often work the module builder (a massive rectangular machine that makes cotton modules which are kind of like huge building sized bales of cotton) and if the module was high enough us kids could jump into the builder itself and jump on top of the masses of white fluffy cotton. 

(Just as an aside, this is EXTREMELY dangerous, children have died from suffocation in cotton module builders after not getting out quick enough and having the next load dumped on them - DO NOT DO THIS! EVER!) 

So, let's just say that I spent a good part of my young life surrounded by the stuff - that and sorghum, and barley, and chickpeas that my dad would keep in his pockets and chew as he walked amongst the plants. Both properties my dad and grandfather worked were dryland cotton before my grandfather sold up and moved into town, and neither were doing very well. The pests were a constant problem, and we spent more money on chemicals than we made. In the end, selling up was the only thing we could do. 

Upon closer inspection of these bundles my heart sunk into my boots and I let out an involuntary gasp.....these bunches of twigs, of which there were several in this urn, had a little cardboard tag next to them that read....

$39 ea

Say what now?!!! 

Thirty-nine dollars for a bundle of cotton twigs!!!!!!!!!! 

I couldn't believe what I was seeing!!!

As I walked back to the little takeout shop where my friend and korean chicken order were waiting for me, I marvelled at how crazy that was, and how exasperated my father and grandfather would have been seeing that. For two men who literally shed blood and tears to make money out of a struggling cotton farm, it would be so incredible it borders on the insulting. It makes you wonder what all that effort and angst and pain was for when you can sell a bundle of cotton buds on twigs for that kind of money! 

It made me think about the fragile nature of value - both in terms of money and in terms of emotional and personal value. In a westernised, capitalist society that is still reeling from a decade of neoliberalist government value tends to be still very much tied up in how much someone can contribute financially to the economy - it's all about figures and bottom lines. This kind of thinking leads society to a very utilitarian mindset - the greatest good for the greatest number etc etc. It's that same thinking that causes people to often ask of those trying to do some good "why bother?" - if you're only benefitting one human being, what is the point? We often don't see value unless it is in very concrete terms. Heck, one of the central tenets of my job includes the phrase "value for money". It's something that social workers are constantly having to wrestle with: justifying our existence by appealing to this very bottom line mentality while at the same time insisting with all the strength we can muster that there is a value far beyond that of the material. 

And then, why not make it personal - how much do I view my own value? Someone might look at me, much like I look at that bunch of cotton branches and think to themselves - dime a dozen right? If I dropped dead tomorrow, my workplace would replace me and that's the truth. I'm just one of hundreds of workers all doing a similar job all following the same policies and procedures. Value viewed from the outside can often miss what is inside and often it is what is hidden that is most valuable.

And then we have to ask ourselves what we see as valuable at all - does humanity have within itself an inherent value that is unattached to any particular attribute or function? I believe it does - it's the same reason I believe in the work that I do, its fundamental to my Christianity and to my worldview that humanity is made by God and therefore has a value that rises far beyond the earthly. I reckon if you asked most of those in leadership they would agree - however, does what we DO reflect that? Does our societal structures and policies and norms reflect that intrinsic value? 

And if I believe that about others, does that bear out in the way I treat myself? hmmmm 

I'm talking to myself as much as to anyone else - what value do I place upon myself, my happiness, my worth as a human being? And do I link that to what I contribute, or is that just because I am here? It's too easy to see our worth as being tied to what we DO for others, how we contribute to society, whether we are adding to someone or something in some way, but the truth is, if we believe that humanity has a value beyond that, then I think we as a human race would act very differently towards each other. And I KNOW that if I lived in congruence with that belief, I would act and speak very differently towards myself. 

To Rage or not to Rage....

Anger is something I have always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with. By my nature I HATE conflict, and by logic it should follow that I also avoid instances of conflict like the plague because I hate it so much. And yet, I live in this weird dichotomy where, while hating conflict I also grew up in a household with a functioning alcoholic who was also addicted to rage, and thus I never quite learnt how to do conflict WELL. 

Anger is a completely normal emotion, and it stems from a place of pain. While not formally recognised in the DSM V, many experts have agreed that there is an addictive element to anger that can become problematic. In an article by Dr Kurt Smith for Guy Stuff Counselling, Dr Smith explains that when we experience anger, or any heightened emotion our bodies instinctively change on a chemical level - what is often referred to as 'fight, flight or freeze'. When that happens, a large amount of adrenaline is released into the bloodstream, the same chemical that satiates bungee jumpers or skydivers. This chemical has a range of immediate benefits experienced by the person including the immediate relief of stress, an increase in overall sense of wellbeing and happiness, or the dulling of emotional pain (Smith, 2016). Smith also then goes on to explain that anger is used as a protective strategy by pushing threats away and by getting your attack in first when you feel vulnerable or victimised. On an internal level it also presents the person with an escape from having to deal with their own feelings and can be used as a self-soothing technique. That's not to mention the cyclic nature of domestic and family violence, or the self-perpetuating nature of trauma related to DV where the abused partner or child witness goes on to choose violent partners in the future as this is what makes sense to them. 

When you look at all of the ways in which anger can become an addiction, it's hardly a wonder that it's something I struggle with, though I am honestly starting to think I'm not the only one. I feel like we as a global society of humans are collectively becoming more angry. Here's an example - two days ago someone posted up a question on where to buy chokos.....I commented that my grandmother grew chokos in her garden when I was a little girl but that I had refused to eat them. An innocuous comment I would have thought! The response gave me pause - "your grandmother offered you food and you refused it - what privilege!" 

I won't lie, I was a little stunned by this shaming of my five year old self and my first instinct was to lash out at a fully grown man who wanted to be so sanctimonious as to judge a little kid for not eating all her veggies. It took me a minute or two to laugh at the absurdity not just of this guy's accusation but also at my response! What on EARTH do I care if someone I've never met and who doesn't know me from a bar of soap thinks that I was 'privileged' as a child!! After all, he's not actually wrong, I WAS privileged as a child in many ways. Not all ways, but many. I was white. I was middle class. My family all lived close by in a community that was all made up of people who looked like me. I went to a private school. I had friends and toys. It was this privilege that my father also used regularly whenever he perceived his parenting to be in question, often citing that his children were always clothed and fed and clean and provided for; and he was right in that regard, we absolutely were. I was also gaslit, and scapegoated, sworn at, kicked, slapped, beaten, grabbed, pinched, shoved, verbally abused and excoriated and humiliated privately and publicly on a daily basis. But that's for another day.....

My point is, I feel like we as a society have become addicted to the elevation that comes with the judgement of others. It seems like we cannot do or say ANYTHING anymore without someone pointing out how wrong we are, and no where is that more prevalent than in the online world where keyboard warriors can do and say whatever they like with very little consequence. The rising anger though can be seen spilling into the streets however. For example, just last week I was at my favourite coffee haunt one chilly Monday morning last week picking up a quick takeaway latte. As I got out of my car I could hear the council worker with the leaf-blower that is there EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING. at 7am droning away as he always does (a din far removed from anything respectable at that hour of the day) and as I shut my car door and came around the back of the car I heard the sound of raised voices and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Two men had approached said leaf-blowing council worker and were screaming at him with obscenities also not respectable for the time of day - apparently he had gotten a bit close to their brand new sports car and they were, lets just say, less than impressed. 

I did what any self respecting female Aussie would do, I gave them a VERY wide berth and pulled a face at a couple of regulars I recognised already sitting at a table sipping coffee as I walked past.  Poor Mr Council worker was left to defend himself as I, once again, avoided the conflict. 

I've noticed even within myself a growing level of frustration. Long before COVID I have felt the decrease in my own level of tolerance for any kind of discomfort or inconvenience. We are all stretched, now more than ever, and the struggle I am finding for myself now is to keep things in perspective. It's definitely a work in progress for me - the pause is sometimes the hardest part, but I'm learning to reframe my internal dialogue. For example, being slighted in my workplace used to send me into a complete and total meltdown, or not having people show up to my birthday party would fling me into an abyss of despair. Yet, more and more I'm finding that I'm turning my attention inward rather than outward to find a sense of worth and purpose. 

And now, when I think about that fellow who judged little me for having privilege, I no longer feel the need to defend myself, or her. Instead I would tell him that a true awareness of privilege, of positionality and intersectionality in society does not look outward: instead, it looks inward. Social awareness and truly working from a sense of radical social justice requires an honest, sometimes brutal awareness of one's OWN privilege rather than spending time and energy pointing the finger at others. Similarly, an awareness of our own emotional state, whether it be anger, pain, disappointment, frustration or a combination of all of these is far more valuable to ourselves and to others than the expression of these emotions in order to elevate ourselves and to denigrate others. For that reason, I am learning to shut my gob, to not respond, to not engage. If Shakespeare had asked me "to rage or not to rage' my response would have been that instead of lashing out because of the WHAT I instead choose to ask myself WHY - I choose not to rage, but rather to reflect. 

When the Wheels Fall Off....

 I've had a blank draft blog post up for at least 3 days now, and every time I go to write I honestly don't know what to say. The truth is, I find it much easier to wax lyrical about philosophy, or sociology, or pop culture observations of the day when I myself am in a good headspace. Whether it makes me hypocritical or human, I tend to find myself a little speechless when I am going through an episode of severe anxiety or depression. 

The last few weeks I have been white knuckling through, and finally this week the axles gave way and I fell on my ass. When people talk about diagnoses such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, Complex PTSD, etc the symptomology is always about panic attacks, sweaty palms, lack of energy, racing heart beats and thoughts - and don't get me wrong, they're ALL true. 

What I find frustrating is all of the OTHER things that no one ever talks about. Nausea, dizziness and head spins, swollen gums and chronic jaw pain due to clenching, scar tissue around your fingers from picking skin and cuticles, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and the crippling cramping that often doesn't comes until DAYS after an episode, dissasociation and feeling like your head is not attached to your shoulders anymore, muscles spasms, neck and shoulder pain, lack of any kind of appetite, feeling sick after you eat (no matter what you eat!) - I have had and continue to have every single one of these each time my anxiety spikes. It's the stuff that people DONT talk about that often keeps me up at night. It's THIS stuff that plays on my mind. I am on a mental health day today at my psychologist's "suggestion" - and I am sitting here stressing that my boss doesn't believe me - precisely BECAUSE of all the stuff we don't talk about. This is what happens to me when the wheels fall off, and often follows me around like the cloud of dread in the pit of my stomach for days and even weeks following. 

And it sucks. Just to let you know.