#I kinda just set them in the backburner for a while because i wasn't all that confident but i think im doing well | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dzpenumbra · 2 years ago

Text

10/29/22

I had a bunch of different thoughts I wanted to share here throughout the day, but I'm really overtired and spacey right now. And much higher than normal. So I guess I'm just gonna choose the topic tonight.

The most memorable moment of the day for me right now was skating. Yep, I went two days in a row. Today, I went for... probably a good hour, hour and a half. I didn't get there until like 5:30 and it was already getting dark. There was a kid that was just getting ready to leave when I got there. At least I assume, he tried one trick, got his shit and left. Maybe he was just feeling anxious, idk. I just went cruising for a bit. It's such a great feeling just to have wheels under my feet. It's so nostalgic, so free.

I miss the vibration of textured concrete, like sidewalk cement, the cracks and everything. I miss the sound. The cla-clack cla-clack as you cruise down the sidewalk. The whizz of cheap dirty bearings. The hum of the wheels grinding against concrete. Even riding on rough asphalt, while annoying and tiring, is really nostalgic. The roads here were not meant for skating, and it sets your thighs on fire, and they're super loud. But that is a unique feeling, that can bring you back decades.

Skatepark cement isn't really the same. It feels like skating in a parking garage, kinda. Which is cool, and very like... optimized. But like... I kinda just wanna cruise in a parking garage sometimes, you know? And I miss riding on sidewalks and finding cool street spots. I can't even remember the last time I did a street session that wasn't at my old college. I doubt I'd ever give it a try by myself, honestly. It's kinda begging to get yelled at, I guess. And kinda depressing, honestly. But Rodney Mullen does it, so I guess I can't really shit on it too much. I just don't know if it would be good for me. On the other hand... I do it snowskating all the time. So... that's an interesting thought I'll have to come back to. This obsession with sharing these experiences, and if I don't get to experience it with someone else... why bother? Put it on the backburners and get back to it when we have a candidate. Look for other ways to socialize. Maybe it's because my Social meter on my Sim is like... so dark red that it's almost black. And it's gonna take some time to recover that. And patience from others. And patience from me. And practice. Lots of practice.

So maybe I need to think of re-socializing as like... re-learning how to play a song. Taking it bit by bit, not expecting the whole thing to come to me at once, but open to the possibility. Start with small social things, build back into deeper ones. I don't know. I just wasn't expecting to like... have to do all my practice in front of people... and the nature of the social skill is being on display, being in social interactions. So it's not like practicing guitar in my room alone, then sharing it at an open mic night, or on stream. It's like practicing guitar on stream every time you practice. And maybe that's why I've been drawn towards doing that today, to get back into it, to normalize this kind of anxiety. It's a great analogy for what I'm going through with social shit, and honestly... even if I don't stream for money. Even if I have to hang out with young people. I can teach some music lessons on transcription and shit. Which I was drawn to today. And that can be me socializing in front of an audience, and literally learning a new song in front of an audience. Talk about exposure therapy, if I can do that, why the fuck couldn't I go make new friends?!

Maybe I'm afraid of making new friends. New people to like... get pissed off at me when they realize how much time I want to spend with them. How I want to share as much of my life as possible with people who I admire, who inspire me, who share passions with me, who make me laugh. Who I echo, and who echo me - who I resonate with, who I harmonize with. Symphonia Equalitas - Symphony is Equality. That's my tattoo, engraved in my Libra symbol. I believe that shit with all my heart. When two souls are creating a complete symphony together, that is true equality. When they're both mutually fusing their thoughts into a greater whole, something bigger than the both of them. And their contributions mesh so seamlessly that they appear like... like the formation/growth of a crystal, where the dissonance and contrast of their thoughts become shimmering inconsistencies, refracting light and creating rainbow effects. The entirety being compelled towards the most stable state of arrangement, intertwinement of contributions, where they become so uniform they become transparent. They become imperceptible. So... not sure if you could pick up from this analogy... but 1) I worked with polishing two pieces of quartz today to a completely reflective finish, and 2) I'm pretty passionate about human connection and relationships. They're pretty important to me, and I consider them extremely powerful. Symphony. That's where I was coming from, bringing the quartz carbon arrangement analogy in here to show the goal of human interaction. To create an experience that is greater than the sum of it's parts, right? A memory.

All of these insanely intense moments, they're things people really take for granted. They don't appreciate them. I can say this with absolute certainty having been in isolation for a very long time. The absolute wonder that any two beings can create - memorable moments, inside jokes, love, bonding in general. Even the small moments where you just know for a fact that the person you're talking to is on the same page as you? That shit... man... it's like solid gold. And people go through their whole lives just... never not having that. And that's just crazy to me. That they experience this so normally that they would never even conceive of the possibility it might not be there someday. Like... their brain doesn't even have the inkling to ever entertain the thought. It's pretty staggering to me, very alien. They go through life just throwing themselves into more and more intense moments, escalating, pushing the edges. Completely desensitized to the amazing power of just looking into the pupils of another person's eyes and just being in that moment with them. I can not even put into words how alien that is to me. Looking anything in the eyes. Except my cat, I guess. It can be like what looking in a mirror is for some people, it can just kinda freak them out a bit sometimes.

So... I guess I do have a pretty serious anxiety/trauma response around meeting new people. Like... I think that's pretty obvious. And I guess I've been a bit too stubborn to admit it? Like... I can get on stage and improvise guitar but I can't just go out and be an extrovert? I can post my artwork publicly, even sketches I spent like an hour on that I don't like. I can write a stream of consciousness journal and publish it publicly on Tumblr... But introducing myself at the skatepark? Calling the car place to get my service inspection that's like a month overdue scheduled? Why the fuck are those hard for me? I just don't get it! Like I know I feel really strongly against it, it's very clear, I will avoid it if I can (and sometimes even if I can't)... but I can't even really articulate why. Maybe it has something to do with being understood? Saying the right thing? Not saying enough? Not asking enough questions? I don't know. Maybe I'm just very specifically insecure about that? Because I know the whole "I don't want to set up appointments on the phone when I'm tired, high, super stressed, etc. I want to be at my best to make a good impression". I know that whole thing. But like... yeah, I guess this is just an extension of that. I don't know if that's like an actual specific traumatic event? Or just a series of things, like a Pavlovian response to being on the phone after this many fights on the phone? That might actually be it. Crap. And it's affecting my executive functioning pretty bad, because most shit is done on phones nowadays. At least in my life.

Welp, that was a fun realization. Good timing, I've been chatting with the new social worker guy and trying to get him up to speed. Holy shit, okay this was something I wanted to share earlier, lets go down this road, shall we?

So he was asking me a lot of questions about physical sensations, what my panic, anxiety, ptsd attack things feel like when they hit. I really drew a blank. I'm actually drawing a lot of blanks when I write to him. It's frustrating me. Fuck it, the whole concept here is really daunting. Like... I type here every night, I know how much it takes to really flesh out the complexity of an issue I'm dealing with. And right now it's like... a kaleidoscope of different problems, each with writhing tendrils wrapping around multiple topics, concepts, emotions. I have a lot of traumas, repeated ones. And it can be hard to really know where to start with a new person, to really clue them in on how to help me.

It's just like... like looking around my house. There's stuff in piles on the floor in every room. I have dishes piling up constantly. I have laundry either clean in a basket or dirty on the floor. I don't vacuum nearly enough. I dust exactly never. My bathroom is rarely clean. I could be much better with the litterbox. Like... you can tell I need help. But, with that list, how long is it gonna take for me to fill in someone on what I need for help? The second I start to put a list together I just start sweating. I need help with all of it, man. I need help with business ideas, and helping me keep my ego strong enough to actually visualize myself doing art commissions for actual people. Like actually see in my head myself doing custom grip tape for someone, or a handdrawn hoodie design, or cool socks with mandala designs on the ankle, or actually selling a piece of jewelry or something. Helping me keep that dream alive, living, active, residing in my head, and guiding me like a lighthouse. I need help with pretty much exactly that with meeting people too. And dating, helping me date without it ending with me just being manipulated by some traumatized person who is using me to literally just dump their trauma on my lap and then peace out. Like literally. I need help identifying when I need to walk away from people who are draining the life out of me. That's a pretty big one. I think a lot of people can relate on that one.

So... again... I have a lot of shit to ask for help with. That's not even mentioning the sleep problems. The fact that it's 5 AM, and since I feel close to the end here, I'm actually close to going to sleep... and that's early for me. Like... the dark blue dawn light isn't even there yet. And I'm like 98% sure that I'm only staying up all night because I don't feel safe at night alone. Too quiet, too dark. Gotta put on noise machines, live streams talking in the background, music, podcasts, audiobooks, anything. Simulate activity, people around, awake people. It creates a sense of safety at a very primal level for me. But I guess sometimes even that isn't enough. And it's easier to just watch the stream and stay up all night. Or play the game and stay up all night. Or work on the music project and go "shit, the sun's coming up, I gotta go to sleep." I guess sometimes it's easier to do that than to lay in bed and try to fall asleep while I'm afraid.

I say this in complete darkness, laying in bed with my cat by my foot. Typing on a laptop. Air purifier machine humming on half power in the corner. And I'm not like... scared of the dark. I mean I have a nightlight on. This is weird, I must be in denial about it or something. Because I do all the "I'm afraid of the dark" activities, but I don't like... physically feel the fear. Jesus Christ, was that my original point that I wandered off into the mental woods and somehow circled back to?! The social worker dude was asking about physical sensations. Fuck it, I went on the whole "how do I tell him what I need", let's get to the interesting thought. So... now that there's a little lead-in context to my thinking here... I'm clearly demonstrating coping mechanisms for being afraid of the dark, right? Dim nightlight, white noise, sleep music. But I'm not feeling fear. It's not like... physically expressing itself the way it does like... when I see a creeper near something valuable in Minecraft. When I get to the skate park and see a few people there. When I get ready to make a phone call or go live streaming. When I go to the vet with a pet I'm pretty certain has a health problem. Those I feel. Very clearly. And I don't fight the feeling. Anymore.

But a lot of my trauma responses and stuff don't actually have clear physical manifestations. They are much more... like cognitive roadblocks, or conceptual obsessions, intrusive thoughts, catastrophizing. Like bursts of concepts and emotions just kinda bubbling in my head, like a boiling pot. Overwhelm? Like the volume in my head just gets cranked... yeah, it's not really volume, as in gain... it's like... a chorus of lots of busy thoughts. And I guess that can make me physically sensitive too, it very often does. And tense, tension in shoulders, back, jaw. But those are like... constant physical traits for me, they are always present and have been for like half my life, at least. So... it's not like... something I even think to point out. Of course I have wrist pain, I've had wrist pain since I was like 15, like 20 years, everyday. I don't think to mention that.

So I thought it was really interesting that he went with that as like the first question to ask me. As though that's the most common response. Because honestly, it probably is. My way of experiencing these problems is probably not the most common. It's actually probably pretty uncommon, I'd imagine. I think most people I've met have no idea why they hurt, but they definitely feel it. Physically. They smoke weed and they just start feeling like they're dying physically, and I can relate to those feelings too when I'm too high... but for me it's the thoughts that created those feelings that people just immediately detach from, I think. Like instantaneously the primal brain kicks in and says "hey bud, don't think about that, thinking about that makes you want to die, it makes you think this is happening!" <cue primal brain simulating your understanding of what a heart attack feels like> And I guess most people... for them... that's like the worst thing in the world. And they run to the ER, and get weed federally criminalized. But like... for me? It's much more movie-like. It's much more imaginative, cinematic and poetic. When I freak out, it can get like... biblical. Like I walked into a movie or something, which could be so much fun if I fucking viewed it that way. If I could have fun with it, like a haunted house or ghost hunting, or looking for UFOs. But it's usually like walking into a psychological horror movie - which ironically used to be one of my favorite kinds, I'm saying "it's too real now" in my head but I really want to start watching horror movies again. Anyway, back to the anxiety attacks. I guess most people experience them primarily physically, and maybe the physical is blocking the front brain, the cerebrum, the ego, from thinking about scary shit too much by making a distraction. It's a theory.

But for me... it's just fuel for my imagination. Dreams. Inspiration. That's been my fear for a while, and I'm excited but a bit weirded out to explore it, but let's just lightly dip our toes into this tonight before wrapping up. I'm afraid that the combination of my strong emotions (and my deep devotion to preserving and cultivating them) and my dreamlike imagination is the source of both my gift (my art, my music, my poetry, my inspiration) and my curse (doom, panic, trauma reenactments). I'm afraid it's both of them. And that in the end, my goal is backwards. It's not to stop these from happening. It's not to "fix" me. It will be to just... learn to be okay with the big, bad, scary realizations. Learn to capture them in their unique way, instead of running from them. I need to learn how to make art and music and poetry while in a panic state. And be honest with it. I have a feeling eventually that will be a goal. I'm not sure I'm there yet, I really feel I will need help with that. At least in getting started. But I think it will change everything for me.

So once I can confidently, reliably pick up a dream journal and document a nightmare that has me waking up crying or ready to scream... I will be in a place that transcends my suffering. That evolves my suffering into... the centerpiece jewel in what will become a blooming mandala, or an honest metal song or hip-hop song. I can only imagine what my life will be like after that, it seems... very peaceful. Full of constant creation and growth. When I flourish, there is creation, there is growth. When I suffer, there is creation, there is growth. It seems ideal.

It's good to have goals! But they're a bit vague... So I guess I'll just sum this up for my social worker like this - "hey dude, could you help me reach enlightenment? Or maybe point me towards someone who can? Shouldn't be too hard, right?" But that doesn't really address how to make friends, make money or find a girlfriend... so crap...

I'm sure we'll get on the same page in time. But yeah, last thought before wrapping up.

I came up with a new trick today, something I've never really tried seriously before. I was doing a lot of nosestall variations on the small curb-height stair today. I couldn't get nollie nosestall, or nollie at all really today. I'm leaning too far forward and not dragging my back foot enough. I need to clean those up, I'm gonna keep working on them. But I got regular and switch nosestall shove, fakie and nollie BS (I think, I'm still bad with directions for some reason) pivot nosestall pivot out. And a cool new one where I was doing a nosestall and really wanted to transition into a nosepick, but I haven't been able to figure out how to consistently and accurately get the wheel up and over the coping by just trying to pop. And it's a really low ledge so there's not a lot of room to drop your back trucks to get pop before you just hit the ground. So I decided "fuck it, I already have 100% of my weight on my front foot, let's just take the back foot off entirely and wrap it under the nose and toehook the tail up like a casper." It worked pretty damn well. I decided to go for more of a Front crook pinch than a nosegrind position, and tried to get a feeling for toehooking the board to exactly where the heelside wheel locks against the coping, for stability. Then when I started to get that transition down smoothly... ride up, fix foot position, nosestall, wrap back foot, pull up and forward, rotate shoulders and weight to pivot with the board, give a little hop to relieve weight and lighten my front foot on the pivot, feel for the heelside wheel lock, then settle my weight. My balance kept sitting in the backseat every time. I could drop out of it back to fakie, but it kinda just disoriented me and didn't feel as fun. What I did like was going out fakie and then immediately reverting the opposite way, the heelside way. It's a weird kinda rewind feeling, I don't know, it was fun so I stuck with it. No clue what it actually looks like... but it felt cool. And I stuck a few. I was skating until it was almost completely dark out. And there are no lights at the park. I mean... the rest of the park has lights. The walking path has lights. The sports fields have lights. The community haunted house has lights. The parking lots have lights. The tennis and basketball courts have lights. But not the skatepark. So... tough shit skaters? I would've gladly skated there until at least like 8 if they had lights. Really lame. Fucking asshole town. Like... what, you think I'm gonna be hanging out there with highschool kids smoking pot or something? You think I'd find anything entertaining about getting high and hanging out with teenagers? Or you think people are selling drugs? Or drinking? Like... what do you think is happening at the skatepark under lights? And having no lights... helps this?! Fucking non-logic, man. They even have signs up "No Smoking - $100 to $400 fines", including vaping! In a fucking outdoor park! Where they have barbeque pits set up! I swear... these people are just... it's fucking obnoxious. Honestly. It's like they just want to fuck with and control people at this point. It's like people aren't even trying to justify their restrictions anymore, like a shitty parent just saying "because I said so" or something. Ugh.

Welp... I don't want to end on that note... I was really happy about this new trick, and I wish I could've stayed later to get it down even smoother. I guess it'll have to wait for tomorrow, if I grow the balls to go on a weekend. But in two days, I went from being hesitant to go to the skatepark to dropping in and inventing a new trick (in my book). I need to celebrate that. So I want to end on that! :D

It pays off to go outside your comfort zone. And I saw a David Bowie clip this morning saying exactly that. All good art comes from outside the comfort zone. So try something a bit outside your comfort zone tomorrow, it could be your new favorite thing!

#diary #online diary #stream of consciousness #stream of thoughts #spilled thoughts

1 note · View note