Some Emotional History

I have images in my head that I will never get rid of.
Mom was raving and crazy .....screaming ......... and she grabbed her hair .....hand fulls, and stared pulling it out, there was blood and chunks of skin... and she was screaming, asking me why I was trying to kill her.


It was difficult for me growing up... starting in about junior high, continuing through college.... I was constantly troubled by things that I didn't talk to anyone about openly.

I loved my parents, I trusted them, I enjoyed spending time with them.... we were close.

But

There was an instability growing inside of my Mom. She was kind, thoughtful and giving a lot of the time .... most of the time. But, she had extreme mood swings that she did not seem to be able to control. As time passed the episodes went from occasional to frequent and from sad internal depression, to absolutely fucking violent fits ending in destructive behavior. Physically she only tortured herself, but she didn't have the same discretion when it came to verbal assaults, or attacks of guilt.

She seemed to think that the world was conspiring against her. At some points Dad and I were on her team... and the world was against all of us. Those were the good moments. However, as time passed, and she got worse, every half heard conversation I had with Dad became a plot to harm her. Every journal entry I wrote was an insult (... she was wonderful about giving me the respect of not reading my Journal... I trusted her completely ... and that meant so much to me. but what she imagined filled the pages was terrible, much worse than anything I had actually written). My unavoidable maturity also became an issue. Every stage of Independence for me was like a step away from her.... and she knew that someday I would leave her behind. I tried very hard to convince her that she was wrong, that I was loyal.... sometimes even truncating my own growth.... but eventually it was a self fulfilled prophecy... by H.S. I was doing just about anything to stay out of the house.

I wanted to run away so many times....... but I couldn't hurt her that way, or my Dad, and I was pretty useless when it came to independent survival.

Living with Mom, and her insanity was damaging to me. .......................
She would have hated to hear that, I believe that she loved me...... and she would have apologized .... and felt guilty.... Because when she snapped back in, she always regretted her lack of control.


....I rejected what she said... that I was the cause of this- that I was killing her.

BUT

......... I also believed her. Inside I felt like a horrible horrible person....

I would tell myself that she was sick and unhealthy .... and I would legitimately forgive her..... but I didn't really let that logic apply to myself.... it was more difficult to forgive myself.

Also, I had my own adolescent awkwardness to deal with, I was fat and weird and felt out of place. When I was about eleven I went from being a tom boy hanging out with the guys ....the only girl partner they were happy to get when we would square dance in gym - to a burden... and I lost most of my friends as dating and crushes took hold. I was angry and indignant and sad.... and lost....

I always hated school... but when I started Morse Jr. high.... it was horrible. I started lying and not doing my home work and hiding my report cards.... and I became exceptionally fearful that my parents would come to the school ......
Unfortunately, I think my Mom thought that I was getting older and was embarrassed of her .... that was never it. I thought that someone would pull them aside and tell them that I was terrible......... and a bad person.

Things got much worse at home .... Sometimes she would sit on the edge of her bed, hug a pillow and cry for hours without any reason (that I knew of). There were nightly battles over what to have for dinner.... and daily wars about what I would wear to school. and she would starve herself for days until she got sick... and then blame Dad and I. She started telling us that she had written down how we were trapping and torturing and killing her ....and that they would find the notes after she died and blame us.

The part that I have left out or over looked here is that in between her episodes she was sweet and nice and intelligent, and the person that knew me best. I always trusted her.... and I always believed ....even though I was being stupid.... that when she apologized she meant it and that there might be an understanding reached that would end all of this.
However
I was forming in an odd way because of this.... I became harmful to myself in minor physical ways....and I was always convinced that I was dying for one reason or another. I finally settled on the personal myth that I would die when I was 26... I slept very little most of the time .... and then other times way too much.... and I was positive .... no doubt in my mind that I would end up exactly like her. insanity was my future.

......... and although I was oddly confident in other ways..... I still felt like inside I was shrivelled and black and horrible.... and just not a nice person at all. When people would say that I was nice... I was baffled, and I just thought they didn't know me well enough. They didn't know the evil shit in my head ....the anger that I hid .... the dreams that I had ...

I had difficulty getting close to my friends... I would start a friendship off with no expectations of them... I would be accepting of any type of behavior.... but then I would slowly become hurt and judgemental.... feeling that they had betrayed me. Sometimes they had .... other times I held them to impossible standards of loyalty. I felt like I laid traps and played tricks the way she did. That created huge problems for me ... because I was fairly conscious of it at the time ... and hated myself for doing it. Sometimes I would be treated horribly and not have the confidence to react.... I thought of myself as sneaky and deceptive. Other times I would push people away because they weren't as loyal as I wanted them to be. I was waiting for one person that I could open up to and tell everything. Someone who wanted to know everything.
I needed help.... it was all way over my head and I didn't see just how far away from getting control of the situation I was. I needed an adult or a professional.... looking back I see that. It was unreasonable to expect anyone my age to be able to handle the situation alone. But I never really asked for that help. and I moved on living that way until college.
When I met Joe freshman year at MIAD I found what I needed. I think it was his blunt uncompromising honesty that I found most attractive... It was harsh, it was antisocial.... he was almost belligerent with his silence .... but when he opened up it was wonderful.... and warm, and no one but me really saw it. Pathetically it made me feel special being in such an exclusive partnership.
However, Mom became drastically worse. It wasn't that she disliked Joe.... but between my new interests at school and Joe I think she felt like I was distancing myself from our household.....and I was.
BUT-
there were also things I didn't know.

I knew that my Moms biological father had abandoned my grandmother when my Mom was a baby..... I knew that she had a rough time because of that. I also knew that Mom felt like the world hated her because she was fat.... I knew that she felt that she had been robbed of something because she never went to college ....
But I didn't know that she had a child that she gave up for adoption... I wouldn't find out until after her death.

The first summer that Joe and I went out was a wonderful whirlwind.... I couldn't tell you what my parents thought about us at that point.... I just didn't care.

When school started again...... it was really different. Joe and I had the worst year of our relationship.... and didn't know how to react to one another when we had separate interests and responsibilities. Mom was frantic....like I had never seen her because she thought I would get pregnant and drop out of school... I was only sleeping about five hours a week and I was having some personal crisis... I felt useless as an artist. I remember that year as the year I cried all the time. ....... I thought it was the first stage of my depression/insanity kicking in.... so crying made me cry.
But most things evened out......
Unfortunately part of healing myself did mean pulling away from Mom.

I have more to say .... on this.... I think I always will... I don't think I will ever resolve this 100%,
but I have said enough for now.

Related post: Old Stuff
Mom- (old site)

Tolerance

There is a person that I work with that seems to like Hitler.... he does not seem too fond of Jews.... Hates Israel..... doesn't love Hmong people , and seems to have many negative opinions based on race . ....... and it confuses me to say that in general I like him....
I feel like I should go into detail about why.... I wouldn't want anyone to assume that I agree with his opinions.... he certainly knows that I do not..... but why isn't important ...
The thing I am stuck on, is that for the majority of my life, I would have been appalled by his vocalized thoughts and avoided him, shutting down communication with him completely.....and that would have been a mistake. I have gained a lot from his friendship.
When I started working in a factory, I was amazed by the culture I found myself in.... and not in a good way..... There were people who quoted the Bible and openly spoke about how disgusting homosexuals were... people had pick-up trucks with confederate flags....there were women who wanted Harry Potter banned. I felt lost, and annoyed.
But .... as I spent time with them, they- became -a name- and an individual, and even if I sharply disagreed with their views ...to the point that I wanted to scream and yell and change their minds ...... I found some part of them that I was fond of............ I was able to see some of the ways I was monstrously intolerant and misguided myself.
I love idea of tolerance, I thought of myself as a tolerant person............................but somewhere I became incredibly rigid about what was an acceptable opinion and what was not. Even though I was kind when thinking about different generations...and time periods....I held people to impossible standards if (in my opinion) they should have known better because they had access to Sesame Street.
Am I older and wiser.... or have I given up the fight?

People could think I am Horrible because
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I don't want to neuter my dog.
I eat meat.
I think that "under God" should be removed from the pledge.
I think prostitution should be legal.
I love the word Cunt .... and have a raunchy evil sense of humor.
I believe in, and would vote for the legalization of gay marriage.
I still call things gay when I am joking around....
I say black instead of African American
I am fat
I am short
I am female
I like porn
I download mp3s and ignore copyright law on occasion
I like the prequels
I buy a lot of things and am a materialist

.........
you get the idea...

?????
this is getting too preachy... I am on some imaginary soap box. I guess I could add self absorbed to the list.

I need to calm myself down and be more open to people...

I have made the mistake of piling negative qualities on to my assessment of a persons worth that are not deserved because I don't care for one thing that they stand for.
example:
A homophobe can be prompt and articulate. I shouldn't deny that, or I am fictionalizing them to the point that I am creating a demon, and just dismissing them.... limiting my understanding of the people around me.
Ultimately I could box myself in if I close all doors and opportunities.

fat face

Patterns 2

I have been sitting on the couch for a long time.
I have wanted to pick up the lap top next to me, but I didn't. I was too busy drawing my patterns.

...In my head, the topic of this post changed about five time while I obsessively filled the blank spots on my piece of cardboard.

I wanted to stop. I had other needs besides this blog ... I had to pee (I still do) I was kinda hungry, I was thirsty (I have a soda right next to me) but I just kept filling in spaces. So now I am going to write about my fucking patterns... and how they make me feel simultaneously cheap, unique, and crazy...... but I am going to go pee first.

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This is a list of Inspirations, whys, and Maybes




-When I was in Grade school I went to a neighbor's house. Her sister went to the same school as I did, but she was a year ahead of me (that was impressive) . She was doing her art homework. She had a mimeographed sheet with a triangle on it. The instructions on the sheet asked her to draw a straight line connecting one side of the triangle the point of the triangle, making two triangles. Do this as many times as you can .... and then color in each triangle a different color.See how many you can make.
She had like six.....
and I was sure I could do better. So at home I kept drawing triangles within triangles until they were so small I couldn't bisect the triangle without filling it completely with my pencil .I didn't obsess about the color portion of the assignment. I have never been too interested in color.
( Joe actually thinks I am slightly color blind, because I keep calling everything, from blues to yellows to browns- green)





-I love filling in the loops in letters..... oaqRp




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-Mom gave me a piece of paper one time and told me to scribble on it ... when I was done I was supposed to look at it and fill in some of the areas and make images out of the random shapes.



- I had a book about codes and cyphers that I liked a lot. So, I was into inventing codes for a while ..... I wasn't any good at it though ..... mainly I looked in the dictionary at the foreign alphabets or did simple numeric equivalents and letter shifts------ a=z b=y c=x ..... but I also had some terrible but creative ideas. I wanted to learn how to knit so that I could make a sweater having knit=dot and pearl = dash .... and then I would write my message in simple Morse code.
But I don't know how to knit.... and I don't know Morse code... and there isn't a real demand for that sort of thing....I had some WWII spy shit in my head.
I also designed alphabets with concepts like gravity and wind direction. I would imagine things leaning and falling off of letters.................
anyway ........................
How this relates.... I hid messages in my patterns. For example one vertical line was an A one horizontal was B two vertical was C and so on.... BUT ...even I can't retrieve these messages.... I make up the rules at the time and don't record them... I don't really want the messages to be readable , or important ... I just like rules.

BREAKING NEWS..... We just got a red ring of death on our 360...mother fucker..........


Back to patterns-




-They calm me in almost every situation.... I don't handle anger well... or tension... and I will get stuck on a single thought and not be able to move forward.... a negative thought just plays looped in my head. Drawing a pattern snaps me out of that sort of negativity. I think I become so involved in them that they override everything else.... Seriously, I get a little weird with them .... sometimes Joe will say something and I won't even hear him .... There are times that I can't sleep because I feel like I have more work to do..... It is driving me nuts that I am not finished with the one I am working on currently....


O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O


Why do they make me feel cheap?

I have a strange adversarial relationship with my creative talents. Writing and drawing are important to me...and my identity. I draw my patterns for myself...but.....
someone once pointed out, art is communication, if this were all just for me I wouldn't need paper... and I have a fucking blog..... so I must desire communication on some level.....
????
Am I being dishonest?

... I have noticed a link....
When I feel unspecial or vulnerable my Journal comes out.... I could be charitable to myself and say that I use my journal and my drawings to sort things out, and I wouldn't be lying.

However, what if something uglier is also true, what if I do it to impress others .... and assert my abilities when I feel I have been underrated...
It makes me cringe....
I feel like my patterns are one step further down that path....
Sometimes I worry that they are superficial zip-a-tone that I throw over any image, because I know tiny details are impressive.
I don't feel that way when I am working on them..... but...........
... when people like them I get kinda sick feeling.... like I caught them in a scam.... and when I try to squirm away from compliments, I think they feel I am being falsely modest.... but usually I just start feeling like I want to throw up, and in my head I wish I wasn't so obvious or needy.

But... if I never got any compliments I bet I wouldn't feel very good either , as long as I am being honest.

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I like illuminated manuscripts and the first ornate letter in a fairy tale book.

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Repetition excites me




I have this counting thing I do.
Once again this is about rules..... I will give myself 50 lines to fill a space, or 5 lines in one direction before I can change direction. I create rules for just about every segment I work on. ...........and I get myself into some weird predicaments. For example, I will give myself 120 lines for a space, at 89 lines I will visually be satisfied, but, I make 120 lines anyway.......because I have to .........those are the rules.

I guess the obsessive nature of my rules is where the crazy comes in.
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In grade school we were often given large sheets of news print. We would fold them into sections, and separate the sections with dotted or dashed lines ..... Then draw pictures in the sections. One time the teacher said that we could be creative with the lines .....have like a dot-dash-dot , or dash- dash-dot.......
I spent way more time and energy on the lines than the pictures.




If you have ever played the Tron video game you might know what I mean.... I start drawing a line ... with my only rule being I can't cross over any line I have drawn already.



I guess that is enough about patterns.