(no subject)
Jul. 5th, 2001 10:24 amI've had an interesting night... sleepless again, though. I want to stay up to write, but I don't think I can make it for another few hours.
I was thinking earlier...
*My illness is a paradox. I have a lot of leisure time as a result of it, though some of that leisure time is spent laid up and lately a lot of it has been spent sleeping (my schedule seems to be 16 hours of sleep followed by 20 hours awake... I hate it and it's very hard to break, as you can probably tell from the attempts I've made over the past week).
*That leisure time allows me more time to spend on what self-help books so gooily call "self-discovery". That is, I have lots of free time to mull things over. Plenty of free time. More free time than you can shake a stick full of free time at. Free free free free time time time time. (have i made myself clear?)
*So as a result of being ill & therefore having time to think, I've developed a lot of perspective on a lot of baggage I have - no, not the zebra suitcase. So much of what I'm tormented or embarrassed about really doesn't matter. Grace is not withdrawing and not dealing with anything that reminds me of past pains... grace lies in surmounting them, shaking them loose and not being too bothered by anything I cannot change. On top of that, I'm not too caught up in any particular obsession. Obsessions for me usually take the form of rigidity (which I now rigidly attempt to keep in check...), or very unhealthy relationships.
*What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I'm probably the most mentally healthy I've ever been.
However, there is one area about which I am not mentally healthy... and it's a doozy. My damned illness, and limitations and failures it's contributed to. (It's not the ONLY area I'm not mentally healthy about, it's just the big glaring bad spot.)
*So without my illness, which I know fucks me up psychologically in certain ways (one of which is that it is a handy contribution to my avoidant personality), I would not have had the time to reflect on those other levels.
*Fuck. Circles. That is smoke you see coming out of my ears, and the loud BANG! was my brain derailing.
Another thing I was thinking about is the fact that I'm probably going to have to choose real soon here between my Two Loves - art and writing - neither of which I think I'm particularly wonderful at, but both of which other people think I'm good at and both of which I desperately enjoy doing. Both demand near-complete devotion, and I don't have the time or energy for both. I think it is a curse or at least a wide ironic streak that I should be multi-talented just enough to keep me from doing ANYthing as well as someone with one major gift... I have a load of minor-to-moderate ones and a few that pull out ahead of the pack. And I wish I knew what to do with it all.
I was thinking earlier...
*My illness is a paradox. I have a lot of leisure time as a result of it, though some of that leisure time is spent laid up and lately a lot of it has been spent sleeping (my schedule seems to be 16 hours of sleep followed by 20 hours awake... I hate it and it's very hard to break, as you can probably tell from the attempts I've made over the past week).
*That leisure time allows me more time to spend on what self-help books so gooily call "self-discovery". That is, I have lots of free time to mull things over. Plenty of free time. More free time than you can shake a stick full of free time at. Free free free free time time time time. (have i made myself clear?)
*So as a result of being ill & therefore having time to think, I've developed a lot of perspective on a lot of baggage I have - no, not the zebra suitcase. So much of what I'm tormented or embarrassed about really doesn't matter. Grace is not withdrawing and not dealing with anything that reminds me of past pains... grace lies in surmounting them, shaking them loose and not being too bothered by anything I cannot change. On top of that, I'm not too caught up in any particular obsession. Obsessions for me usually take the form of rigidity (which I now rigidly attempt to keep in check...), or very unhealthy relationships.
*What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I'm probably the most mentally healthy I've ever been.
However, there is one area about which I am not mentally healthy... and it's a doozy. My damned illness, and limitations and failures it's contributed to. (It's not the ONLY area I'm not mentally healthy about, it's just the big glaring bad spot.)
*So without my illness, which I know fucks me up psychologically in certain ways (one of which is that it is a handy contribution to my avoidant personality), I would not have had the time to reflect on those other levels.
*Fuck. Circles. That is smoke you see coming out of my ears, and the loud BANG! was my brain derailing.
Another thing I was thinking about is the fact that I'm probably going to have to choose real soon here between my Two Loves - art and writing - neither of which I think I'm particularly wonderful at, but both of which other people think I'm good at and both of which I desperately enjoy doing. Both demand near-complete devotion, and I don't have the time or energy for both. I think it is a curse or at least a wide ironic streak that I should be multi-talented just enough to keep me from doing ANYthing as well as someone with one major gift... I have a load of minor-to-moderate ones and a few that pull out ahead of the pack. And I wish I knew what to do with it all.