#i have spasms often which makes art and writing really hard | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

vancafreader · 3 years ago

Text

Fine Art Comics of Canada: Sixties to Seventies - Heart of London, Snore & More by Robert Dayton

Part One: The Heart Of London

There was a time where artists were making vast ripples away from Toronto and other outsized hubs. London, Ontario was such a place, all eyes were on it in the late 60’s and not Toronto. The Heart Of London comic book from 1968 was actually an exhibition catalog, an overview of the art that was happening there at the time. Organised by The National Gallery of Canada, this exhibition traveled from London to Toronto, Kingston, Edmonton, Victoria, Charlottetown and, of course, The National Gallery H.Q. itself in Ottawa.

This catalog/comic book consisted of fumetti, comics done using photos for the images. Fumetti was most prominently used in the 60’s by Harvey Kurtzman in Help and Playboy, prolifically in numerous Mexican comic book melodramas, and in Italian comics featuring the masked master criminal Satanik. Heart Of London’s particular fumetti is further stylized by heavily contrasted processing causing colours so bright that they make everything heightened artifice, buzzing as if emanating from a higher plane of being.

Cover of the Heart Of London catalogue

The Heart of London logo in Pepto-Bismol pink is rendered somewhere between Archie and underground comix titles. Above it, The Comics Code of Authority symbol -a comic book mainstay of the day implying that the work is of safe moral quality- has been altered to “National Gallery of Canada”, the institution that made this comic book and exhibition happen. The cover features what appears to be London public workers, perhaps? These men in yellow hard hats casually stand in front of a store with a Coca-Cola logo also coloured Pepto-Bismol pink, Pop Art style, at the city’s main intersection in what very well may be the heart of London.

The comic opens with a quote placed above a looming Brutalist parking lot, huddling various small businesses below it. This quote contains the phrase “heart of London” but it is rather self-deprecatingly not about London, Ontario but London, England in World War One. Sharing a name with London, England has often made this Ontario city the butt of many a joke, ie. “I live in London… (long pause) Ontario” with its population being just over 200,000 in 1968. Named in 1793 by Lord Simcoe, Upper Canada’s first Lieutenant-Governor known for starting the abolition of slavery, he was also fervently British, his vision for Canada was for it to be like England which he looooved, desperately (but stiffly) wanting this particular London to become Ontario’s capital. Alas, Toronto was chosen instead. Related, always related to everything: the term “cosmic consciousness”, the higher state of consciousness, was coined in London in 1872 by Richard Bucke, a psychiatrist and head of The Asylum For The Insane, after he received a blinding vision, illuminating him. Besides being active in asylum reform, Bucke was heavily involved in the arts -the vision occurred after an evening spent reading Romantic poetry as well as poems by Walt Whitman, who he later befriended. Yes, London, Ontario is an eccentric place.

The artists involved in the Heart Of London show were part of what was known as “London Regionalism”, a loose-knit movement of artists who were adamant about residing in London, away from Toronto or New York. Artist Greg Curnoe helped establish some of the very first artist-run centres there. He was an early member and huge proponent of CARFAC, a Canadian organisation that fights for artists to get paid and paid fairly for their work. CARFAC was founded in London by Heart Of London artists Jack Chambers and Tony Urquhart -along with Kim Ondaatje.

Besides Curnoe, Chambers, and Urquhart, the eleven artists in Heart Of London included John Boyle, Bev Kelly, Murray Favro, Ron Martin, David Rabinowitch, Royden Rabinowitch, Walter Redinger, and Ed Zelenak. They are all profiled in fumetti form talking about their practice through speech balloons and captions, along with quick biographical details. Many of these artists were known for their inventiveness, they were influenced by a variety of subject matter -including comic art- without falsely delineating these influences into false boxes of high or low art. They didn’t just make work in the visual art field either. Along with a Hart Of London work-on-paper, Chambers made an experimental film with the same name in 1970. This film intensely shows brutal shots of an abattoir in Spain interspersed with London scenes; it has been described by Stan Brakhage as “one of the greatest films ever made.” Both Curnoe’s Heart Of London painting from 1967 and Jack Chambers’ 1968 work-on-paper Hart Of London are in the show.

Noted curator and historian Judith Rodger told me that Curnoe’s Heart Of London piece depicts The Forks Of the Thames downtown, “arguably the heart of London” near many of the artists’ studios with Greg’s studio as the main hub or heart of it all. As for the idea of a comic book catalog, it was a mystery until Rodger guided me to Katie Cholette’s PhD thesis Memory and Mythmaking: the role of autobiography in the works of Jack Chambers and Greg Curnoe which states that it was the idea of William Bragg, assistant to the director of The National Gallery’s extension services. Cholette’s paper quotes Bragg from the Sept 29, 1968 New York Times’ Arts Notes column, “…The idea was to make a kind of scrapbook, to talk as a group, not individuals. Their work is kind of echoed by the comics—it’s really their bag […] Everyone likes to read comics once in a while, anyway.” Due to its uniqueness, the catalog garnered a lot of press for the show. Beverley Lambert (Bev Kelly in the show) says, “I think we all thought it was pretty neat and it was funny. It got people’s attention.”

When I talked to artist John Boyle about this comic book catalog, he said right away, “It’s too bad that Greg Curnoe isn’t with us anymore, because he was really interested in comic books. And he always did comic book or comic-like drawings from the time he was a little kid.” In the book Greg Curnoe Life And Work, author Judith Rodger’s description of his 1963 painting Myself Walking North In the Tweed Coat could be ascribed to many of his works. “The flat, vivid colours; schematic outlines; and text all come from his love of the comic book.” As well as the inclusion of the name of the newspaper strip Mary Worth in the piece. Another colourful painting casually inserts Dick Tracy into the frame as a representative of one of his interests. Curnoe’s series of cut-out collages were often shaped into cartoony and anthropomorphic forms.

Curated by Pierre Théberge at The National Gallery, Boyle readily notes, “Both Curnoe and Chambers talked up all the other artists who were around in London, and ended up persuading Théberge to have a group show to get a sense of the whole London art scene.”

The comic book itself doesn’t give William Bragg’s name at all, nada. The designer is credited: Roger Duhamel, FRSC, Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationery, a federal government official, as well as the design firm: Eccleston + Glossop International. All of the photos, however, were done by the late Don Vincent, of whom Boyle says, “He was a friend of ours, of all of us. And a really terrific photographer. And he documented the whole London scene as it unfolded taking photographs all the time of everybody in this show and just of London, his whole life was photography.” Vincent’s work also appeared in 20 Cent Magazine, a delightfully scrappy local art magazine started in the mid-60’s with many of the people in the show, including Boyle and Curnoe, contributing writings and drawings. 20 Cent Magazine sold for 25 cents, ha! Vincent also photographed The Nihilist Spasm Band who are regarded as the first noise-rock band; this amazing, mind-blowing, intense and milk-spurtingly funny act was founded by the late Greg Curnoe, with Boyle and Favro (playing unique guitars that he builds himself) as still very active members over fifty years later. They are unique cultural ambassadors bringing such songs as “No Canada” to the world, having performed in Japan and in Vancouver at The Western Front with poet George Bowering guesting on guitar, and have had a documentary made about them by the late noise artist Zev Asher.

In one of Heart Of London’s comic book panels about Boyle an early issue of the four color MAD sneaks its way in. I asked him if he read MAD, “Yeah. Although that is from the designer. I read MAD, although not madly.”

A very young Boyle states in one of his panels, “The day I can truly defile myself in public, I will have accomplished everything, and I will no longer have a need to paint.” Reflecting today he says, “I still think that actually, and I think I may have succeeded. Because I do still have the need to paint. But I don’t have the need to show it anymore, or to get applause or approval from anyone. And I don’t know how that arose in me. But I kind of had a fair amount of attention and approval and acceptance and shows in fancy places and meeting important people and pleasing art administrators. And I kind of reached the conclusion that most of them aren’t worth pleasing and their opinion was not as good or not as important as the opinions of other people that I happen to know. And I thought they made a lot of mistakes and people that they chose to support. And also, their approval was very fickle. They were very fickle about it because as soon as fashions would change, their eyes were directed elsewhere and the people they thought were geniuses today were no longer geniuses tomorrow. I did kind of lose my enthusiasm for the art world, but not for painting. So, I was mistaken.”

The final pages of this catalog feature a few reproductions of pieces from the show itself, including Bev Kelly’s window paintings which, with its window panels, adapt quite easily to the comic book form, comparable to an ornate and mysterious painted comic page. The layout, however, was a bit fast and loose with one of her works being printed sideways. In her fumetti section she says, “These windows aren’t ‘real’ windows, they are still paintings. They don’t have sashes and you can’t see through them. A real window is to look through, these are to look at.” Painted on canvas, the window pieces used lumber to make the frames of the paintings, carved to look like the ribbed mouldings of window frames.

Bev Kelly was the sole woman in the show and when I asked her about this she said, “I’m very happy that they didn’t concentrate on this issue that I was the only woman. I didn’t want to be known as an artist because I was a woman.” Having recently moved to London from Saskatchewan with her husband, they were warmly welcomed by Curnoe and she would go see The Nihilist Spasm Band play every week at The York Hotel. Her first solo show was at The 20/20 Gallery in London.

She spent the first two years of her life in Biggar, Saskatchewan where the signs read, “New York Is Big, But This Is Biggar.” Being in London changed her notions of places like New York being the absolute cultural mecca. Beverley says, “There was a really vibrant cultural community there. You know what a regionalist Greg was. He really believed, as a lot of writers do, that you should write about what you know, or you should do your art about what you know, including where you live and so on. And, of course, when I started on the windows that was right out where I was living. The first ones were of my house and then I walked around and took pictures of various houses that I thought looked interesting. When I got a studio in London above one of the businesses downtown I used some of the windows there as inspiration for my works. And then when I went back to Saskatchewan, I was very into that, looking around at what is there where you live. I even got a grant to travel around small-town Saskatchewan and look at the local -in air quotes- ‘folk art’ or untrained artists, let’s say, just painting odd things on their house or their property or whatever. So, I went and I did interviews, took pictures of them, and I imagine I must have produced some kind of a report on it because I probably had to for my grant. So that led me into being more observant and looking more at where it’s from and what is around you and that you don’t have to go to some huge, big place to find art.”

Bev Kelly was her married name and she returned to using her original name, Beverley Lambert in the 1970’s. Lambert did a series of three large lithographs for International Women’s Year in 1975 on women’s issues dealing with real news stories that happened on the prairies. Many of these prints were donated to many women’s centres across the country. She has also worked in clay doing an entire main street based on the fictional Saskatchewan town in the humour book Sarah Binks by Paul Hiebert. Beverley Lambert currently resides in St. John’s, Newfoundland where she makes art and is active as a conservator.

Flip the comic over and it is the same but in either French or English depending on where you first started reading!

Boyle comments, “Last night, my wife and I were looking at the Heart of London catalog. She was amazed that this was a National Gallery touring show with a lot of artists who became major artists in the country. And it looked like they were trying to spend as little money as possible by making this skinny little comic book-like thing on newsprint and I think there’s a large measure of truth in that. Because, again, I remember when Greg Curnoe had a big one-man exhibition retrospective at The National Gallery and the catalogue that they did for him was kind of a minimal thing. It was like a paperback book with one colour reproduction and a number of inferior black and white reproductions and basically a list of artworks in the show. And in the same year, The National Gallery did a big one-man exhibition of Donald Judd, the American sculptor, and his catalogue was a huge coffee table book that weighed about 15 pounds and was three inches thick and loaded with colour from beginning to end. And that just, I think, represented a specifically Canadian problem.” When I mention this to Hairy Who member Art Green he responds, “Well, of course, because they’re trying to impress their betters in New York, so you get a job at The Whitney or The Museum of Modern Art. Canada has been an incubator for museum directors since forever.”

Hairy Who catalog page by Art Green, courtesy of the artist

This style of catalog for Heart Of London corresponds nicely with The Hairy Who, another such grouping of artists around that time who were part of “The Chicago Imagists.” Their three Chicago art shows starting in the mid-60’s were accompanied by comic books that also doubled as exhibition catalogs. The Hairy Who weren’t very aware of the underground comics scene then just barely getting started, they chose this method out of creative necessity, printing a glossy catalog was cost prohibitive. Green explains, “And the printing was expensive and not very good. And we didn’t want to have a show that was called ‘Six Recent Graduates’ or something unexciting like that. And so, we realised we all liked comics and we all knew how to do colour stripping because we’d taken silk-screening courses, we figured out we could do it. And it was cheap.”

Delineating further, The Hairy Who made playful art inspired by a wide range of neat stuff. The London artists were well aware of The Hairy Who. In fact, The Hairy Who were even going to show in London at The 20/20 Gallery. Boyle notes, “20/20 was kind of a precursor to the art in the so-called artist run centres, most of which aren’t run by artists anymore. But anyway, it was one of the first and it was all sponsored by local people in London. And I don’t think it lasted longer than a couple of years, but it was a terrific gallery while it lasted.” Many of the artists in The Heart Of London show were active in 20/20, which lasted from 1966 to 1971. Greg Curnoe discussed the show with Hairy Who artist Karl Wirsum, who in a letter to Art Green wrote, “Well, if they go ahead and publish a comic book, that would be all right.” Green notes, “He may have thought that the 20/20 Gallery was more well-funded than it probably was. But it was on, we all agreed to do it. We were looking forward to it.” Green himself left Chicago for Canada in 1969. The 1968 Democratic Convention had transpired and as Green puts it, “Everybody was angry at everybody.” He was dissatisfied with his teaching job there as well, so when offered a job at NASCAD, the art school in Halifax, he leaped at it.

Alas, the show didn’t happen. In a letter to Art Green, Curnoe writes, “We had to cancel The Hairy Who show and a lot of us were disappointed.” Boyle notes, “I suspect that it got caught up in the death throes of the gallery. And they would have had to cancel whatever exhibitions they had coming up.”

Green notes that both London and Chicago are far enough away from the more major centres that artists can, “…be free to go their own way because there’s not much at stake partly and nobody’s paying attention. And I remember the first time I had been in London, we were driving on our honeymoon to Halifax where I got the job. And I thought, ‘I’m gonna stop here and get a Canada Dry.’ I’m driving down what’s the main street that runs north south and pulled into a corner store. And I said, ‘Do you have Canada Dry?’ ‘No, but we got America Dry.’ I have never before or since seen a bottle of America Dry. I bought it and it wasn’t as good as Canada Dry. And, and that’s not a dream. I mean, I have never seen it ever again. But that made me say, ‘Wow, this is a weird place.’”

While Green was teaching at NASCAD, Curnoe came for what Green calls, “One of his annual excoriations, if that’s a word, he would rip them up one side down the other in public, for being a Canadian art school with no Canadians teaching, hardly any, and all yanks -and it was true! And so anyway, they would invite him and it was almost like a ritual. He would be in the public, there’d be 400 students there and Greg would just rip the place apart. I had known Greg, I heard about the show and so on, and we got along fine. And afterwards he’d come up to me and say, ‘Well, how did I do?’ ‘Greg, you’re doing great, but you do realise I’m a yank’, but I agreed with him 100%.” Both Curnoe and Green commiserated on how Canadian art was neglected at the school. “If he had been in Chicago, Greg would have been a member of The Hairy Who or maybe started it. But he was more political, he had to be, and Chicago, the politics were so acidic that you wouldn’t have wanted to be to be involved in it, unless you went in full immersion. And we were decidedly unpolitical. Although we all agreed on the politics of it. We were a collective in the sense that we wanted people to collect us.” On this, Art Green is a tad glib, having made art responding to and criticizing Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Both Art and Greg would visit with each other in various Canadian cities: Halifax, Vancouver, Toronto. “Nobody appreciated Greg in Toronto, they went out of their way to un-appreciate him. And luckily, they did put a put up a pretty nice retrospective after he was safely gone.”

Of London, Green notes, “I think that for a period of time. I don’t know how long it was maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours, maybe a few months? Maybe a few years. London, Ontario was most interesting art scene and literary scene in the whole world.”

The propensity for great art still ran in the water there, the stream flowed, there was a continuum and a recognizing of that history. London has some great galleries including Forest City Gallery, founded by Jack Chambers and Greg Curnoe, where The Nihilist Spasm Band plays every Monday night.

In 2013 The London Museum held the group show L.O. Today with artists Jason Mclean, Marc Bell, Jamie Q, Billy Bert Young, Amy Lockhart, Peter Thompson, and James Kirkpatrick. Many of these artists are a part of the Canadian Psychedooolic art comic movement that began in the 1990’s, captured and collected in the book Nog A Dod, edited by former Londoner Marc Bell and released by Conundrum/PictureBox. Much of the work in Nog A Dod occurred in Vancouver with a couple of these London artists relocating there, immersing easily, doing a lot of collaborative drawing and art books with other Vancouver based artists. Yes, ‘Canadian Psychedooolic’ was named after the fact by Bell, but we weren’t thinking of ourselves as a movement or a group at the time. Yet all of these art books had an unfettered comic wildness, funny, and expansively playful. And Nog A Dod got out there, impacting and influencing a lot of artists the world over. Furthering the connective tissue, in 2003, The Western Front in Vancouver put on an art show featuring ‘documents and ephemera’ from musical acts The Nihilist Spasm Band, The All Star Schnauzer Band (a somewhat fake band as mail art project involving Bell, Mclean, and Thompson) and July Fourth Toilet, a Vancouver based group that often involves many Nog A Dod and Nog A Dod related artists, including yours truly occasionally wearing outlandish semi-functional semi-nude costumes specially designed by Jason Mclean. The show was curated by Jonathan Middleton, who is now Executive Director at Art Metropole, a Toronto based artist-run centre dealing primarily in artists’ publications.

Getting back to Greg Curnoe. Released in two parts in 1970, The Great Canadian Sonnet contained numerous images by Curnoe. Described as a “Beaver Little Book”, the format was modeled after the popular Big Little Books, distant cousins to comic books so named for being small, square and thick. Big Little Books were marketed to children and featured popular comic, cartoon, radio and film characters of the day in text-based stories with illustrations on every other page. Some Big Little Books had flip-it cartoons in the top corner so one could make the character move. With its second volume The Great Canadian Sonnet does this as well, stating “See ‘em move – just flip the pages” on the cover and, sure enough, in the corner a spot rolls up a hill-like abstract shape transforming into a medley of human faces.

Written by poet David McFadden, Curnoe riffed off lines in his text creating a great many detailed pen-and-ink drawings for the book with titles that included “Proud Possessor Of Meaningful Pain”, “One that will be Truly Loved by the Prime Minister”, and “The Empty Universe” which featured a drawing of a tin of apple juice and a packet of bird seed -the book’s drawings contained many such absurdist pairings. The Great Canadian Sonnet was published by Coach House Press who were -and still are- known for releasing all manner of experimental works including poetry, prose and beyond. Both volumes together weigh in at over 400 pages, with every other page being a drawing by Curnoe.

Many thanks to Jason Mclean, Marc Bell, and Judith Rodger for their immense help with this piece.

Thanks as well to Art Green for use of his respective artworks.

Part Two: Scraptures, Snore and More coming tomorrow, Friday, August 20!

Robert Dayton

www.robertdayton.com

www.patreon.com/CanadianGlam

#comicsjournalism #canadiancomics #theheartoflondon #hairywho #nihilistspasmband #vancaf #vancouvercomicartfestival #robertdayton

9 notes · View notes

miqojak · 4 years ago

Note

💍, 📓, ⚖️, and 🤕!

💍 Does your OC have a specific item that is priceless to them but may (or may not) be completely worthless to someone else? Is there a story behind this item or is it just because they like it so much? I’ve had this ask before, and every time I get it, I wrack my brain. I still don’t think there’s any one item she values above the rest. She’s materialistic, sure, but if her house burned down...she’d save her sketchbook? In the end, she was raised in a nomadic tribe as a kit, and stuff is just stuff. You can’t always take everything with you - junk bogs you down. She likes her stuff...but the only item of incredible import to her is really her sketchbook, as it's more of an extension of self, than an item. 📓 Write a typical diary/journal page by your OC! (or if you’d rather not, describe their journal. Do they keep one, why?) Jak doesn’t keep a journal! She has only really started learning to read/write this last year, and is finally starting to be halfway decent at it (much to her chagrin). Her version of a ‘journal’ is her sketchbook! She has picture perfect recall (when she puts the effort into wanting to remember a thing), when it comes to her sketches, and it’s...a good way to sort of show how she sees things differently, or how she processes the world. She’s visual - words are fleeting and unimportant, ultimately, to her. She’d probably find the notion of a diary/journal stupid - then ANYONE could just read your inner mind?? She doesn’t even readily allow just anyone to see her art, either, for that reason. As for what’s in it...strange depictions from her mind. Lots of jackal themes, lots of death themes.. Lots of sketches of people important to her - which is really only one person, now. She tore out and burned all the art of her ex’s, because she wants them out of her life for good...and that was as close to burning them alive as she could get. :P ⚖️ What is the biggest crime your OC has committed? Are they a thief, a cheat, a liar? What is the smallest, most petty crime they’ve committed? Or do they not do crime at all? Jak is indeed a thief, and aspires to be the best thief; a cat burglar of renown. She’ll cheat/manipulate without batting an eyelash, but she does not outright lie...ever, really. If she had to, she would. But she finds it uncouth and lazy. Anyone can make up some bo-shite, but it takes finesse to manipulate words and weave the truth into something it isn’t...without outright lying. The most petty crime...I mean, she was a pickpocket for a long time, but if I had to rank ‘most petty’ and took ‘petty’ to mean being petty AND it’s a small crime...she loves to do B&E’s. Yes, you know the Dane Cook skit. She loves breaking into random people’s homes and trashing their shit - or, just...rearranging things, move them a little. She gets off on knowing that she’s creating chaos - that, when those people get home...they will no longer feel safe in their own ‘den’, as she would term it. Knowing that these people won’t be able to rest easy, that they will be looking over their shoulders and asking questions for weeks to come, maybe moons? It really gets her. She loves that shit. She’s in control - she’s making ripples in a pond that will spread, and spread.

Most heinous crime...thus far is probably straight up murder. Last year, she had a hard time adjusting to the DRK soul crystal, and well...we all saw the canonical Fray ask for blood as payment, with the WoL (well, if you’ve made a DRK you have). Now imagine someone even more deeply emotionally disturbed than the WoL getting a Fray; she struggled to control these deep and volatile emotions that the power stems from, because she tends to refuse to face her emotions and cope in a healthy manner, so she lost control a ‘few’ times. In fact, Starlight before this recent one? She just...murdered a couple in their home and draped what was left of them on their Starlight tree. She’s gruesome, when the time for careful control has passed. 🤕 What is the worst injury your OC has ever suffered? Do they have any scars or lasting physical reminders of it? Do they get sick often or have any lasting medical conditions?

Well, theoretically the worst injuries are from her backstory - her time in a Garlean war camp/prison/detainment facility/concentration camp, whatever you want to term it, they tested a lot of medical finds on the captives therein, and torture was regularly part of life. She has a lot of mental hang-ups due to that, but I’ll say that since I’ve been writing her, the worst injury she’s had was getting caught in a 3v1 in an alleyway trying to protect someone else...and she took a flaming sword to the back that split her from the inside of her left shoulder/neck, down to just the top of her right buttock. Extensive healing got her back from a pretty bad place, but she has a nasty scar down the length of her back, now, and she’s kind of annoyed about it. She can’t put a full-back tattoo there, now, unless she incorporates the scar!

That said, the scar still gives her trouble at times, but she doesn’t bring it up with anyone, really. But it was a big wound, and hastily healed, so there’s absolutely times she has muscle spasms, or it aches. I’ve wondered about writing something about it, in fact! She doesn’t like being touched, but she’s debating a masseuse to help her handle this angry scar on her back...

#thanks for asking!#crime cat #she loves some petty crime #also some BIG crime #all crime is good crime #injuries

5 notes · View notes

joe-england · 5 years ago

Photo

Working on this last Zebra Girl book is hard. It’s taken a lot of my focus, I haven’t had the motivation to simply make art for months. It’s depressing, but my muse finally perked up when I got the strange urge to do like I never do and draw serious. I’m going to bare my soul here. Okay? I want to be honest. That’s me up there. Notice the baggy jeans, hanging from my belt because I lost weight years ago and I tend to wear old pants that are too big for me now. I’m fairly slender at this point, but I’ve still got a slight spare tire I have yet to shed. See? Well, I may have taken liberties with the ears and such. More to the point, you may know that my brand is “Obsessive Thoughts”. I chose that term as a label because it’s not just a name, it’s a lifestyle. I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the tendency to… well, to compulsively obsess. And not about important things, usually, but in response to a universe full of gremlins. You feel like you have to do certain things, like it’s necessary to do them, like you’re holding the world together, and dropping the ball will have urgent existential consequences. It’s a persistent source of stress. So I’m going to describe my perspective, and bear in mind that on a conscious level I’m well aware of the inherent nonsense. But I want to get this out into the open. This is what some part of my psyche tells me is happening, if not all the time, then for most of my waking hours: I move through the world surrounded by contaminants. I must constantly be on guard against spiritual infection. I dodge, react, and cleanse myself through tiny rituals performed hundreds of times a day. Nearly every part of my body is involved in a clumsy dance. Repetition of movements is cleansing. I move haltingly as my extremities catch on contact points which demand my instinctive tactile attention. My fingers mostly lead, forced to twitch and touch and straighten and flex, casting towards acceptable directions (I observe the spasms as I type this very sentence, words punctuated by stops and starts as a fingertip lightly taps an extra key, or jerks to the side, or briefly hovers in place, or just wriggles a bit towards empty space, all obeying some ritual I can no longer decipher). Like guns, pointing them in the wrong direction at the wrong moment risks compromising myself since they relay the sickness. They are primary soldiers but also prime targets, and they must hide themselves whenever deviant sights or sounds threaten my purity. Objectionable surfaces must also be avoided, such as pictures of people I don’t like. I have to touch some things. I have to avoid touching others. My feet do their part too, tapping the front boards of stairs as I climb them one by one or intentionally bumping a crevice or some panel around my desk in order to banish the bad mojo running through my system. I scuff the bottoms of my shoes as I walk to insure that the ends of my being make appropriate contact with separate boards of wood or concrete panels, whatever I happen to be walking on at the time. Meanwhile, up top, my head is kept on constant alert, my eyes a busy terminal of positive and negative input and output. Abstract moving imagery tends to be a threat, for If a subversive pattern appears before me I must vibrate my sight by summoning pressure through my skull, defeating its hypnotic effect (and a diminutive voice in me frets even now that I am spilling my secrets to the tired old conspiracy running its tendrils through all electronic devices). Meals are more of the same. If dirty energy ever infects my food with stray data (for instance, if an offending name is uttered while I’m looking at what I’m about to eat) then I must negate the pollution by holding the offending morsel up to my eye and matching its transparent double image against an acceptable surface to banish the corruption before I allow it in my mouth (a technique which also applies to my fingers, and which happens often when I watch the news during meal times, horrid politicians constantly threatening to invade my essence with their ugly souls). Whenever a contaminant aura does slip inside of me then I must cough it lightly out, willing it from my guts and off the tip of my tongue. Noises issued from my throat contribute to regular maintenance, further warding against evil spirits. My nostrils serve a likewise function now and then. Similar duties are assigned to my knees, my toes, my elbows, or whatever piece of skin is ever exposed to undesirable elements and conscripted in my never-ending war with the invisible forces. Beside my shuffling feet, my shadow must also avoid contact with any and all acknowledged threats, including my own dialogue. Any word uttered risks assigning its deleterious quality to any part of me caught in my sight at the time of its mention (spoken or otherwise). This includes the insides of my eyelids, which often disrupts my efforts to sleep at night as I must force them open to expunge toxic names that cross my mind. The campaign extends to inanimate objects, which constantly suffer the touch of my overworked fingers “wiping off” phantom sediment, or which serve as conduits for various energies, or as goal posts which must sometimes be met before an arbitrary time limit has expired (for example, a turning point in a song). This was worse when I was a child, and had to race onto a carpet or couch whenever a toilet began to flush. I thankfully managed to shed some of the more overt habits over time. But it should go without saying that the very inner monologue running through my brain must abide by its own arcane set of rules, because words and names cannot be used carelessly, even in my thoughts. As for that, two particular words have special functions in my mental arsenal: “Not” and “Narf.” “Not” is a mantra, since it is a pure expression of expulsion, and I throw it constantly at negative influences, especially bad imagery or text that gets out of hand. Conversely, “Narf”, a noise coined by a cartoon lab mouse named Pinky, is a safety mechanism, since it means nothing, thereby safely absorbing any malign concept and allowing me to make idle unspoken noise without risk. Both words are subject to distortion as the situation requires, ghosting through the roof of my mouth in various ways, shapes, and forms, a single altered syllable sometimes called into play, expressed through the smallest push of saliva hitting my teeth. “Nt, nt, nt. Tt. Unt.” I could go on. Looking at this stuff, it’s hard to believe that I’ve lived with it my entire life. Typing it out really makes it sound crazy. I don’t want to be insensitive to other people with issues like this, but it’s hard not to have that reaction when I put it into writing and recognize that this is what I’m actually doing all the time. I always knew it was odd, but I always figured that I would grow out of it, and when I didn’t I just tried to mitigate it. And I thought I was doing alright, because it used to seem worse! I beat it back when I was younger, and my ego encouraged me to accept what was left as part of my genius, or something. But looking at all this, I find myself wondering if I didn’t just make it more subtle through complexity. Or maybe it’s only gotten worse with the stress of the past few years. I don’t know. But I want people to know about this. Now I’m not sure why I always tried to keep it to myself. I feel like bringing it out into the open might help, might serve as a spark to finally burn away the web and let it all go. There are definitely people out there who have it worse than I do. Maybe you’re one of them! We all have our crosses to bear. And like I said, I’ve managed to cut some of it off. But now I think it’s time I started fighting it again. God only knows how much of my time I could get back if I wasn’t twiddling my fingers. Hey. Thanks for listening.

-Joe

#self portrait #obsessive compulsive disorder #mental health

13 notes · View notes

prinzessmetal · 5 years ago

Text

Welcome to my blog. I want to write about some things that I don’t feel comfortable getting into on other platforms as often as they are happening. I want a place to talk about my health struggles in hopes that it will help people choose themselves and their bodies. If I had known 10 years ago the medications and episodes that are part of my life now it might have helped. If someone hurts you and tells you that you can handle something you don’t feel like you can please seek help even if you just tell a friend rather than internalize that. Trigger warning ahead: abuse and health problems. When I was in elementary school I asked my parents to homeschool me. I wanted to do acting full time and I wanted to do music when I was old enough. This is what Judy Garland did according to a bio pic so it was probably a good plan. I had a lot of crazy almost moments. I auditioned for Hannah Montana and Hermione and got pretty far in call backs. I got called in by the guy who signed Britney. My old manager dated Lana Del Rey before she released anything and told me my music was too depressing like his girlfriend’s and I would need to be more uplifting or I would end up like her. I worked from when I was a kid until now. I enjoy telling stories and making art so that some insignificant feeling of mine can blossom into something beyond me. I think a lot of entertainers have a similar set of needs. There’s people who happen upon it and there’s people who live and breathe and die for it. Maybe there’s a hole to fill or they feel things so deeply they want to get it out and set it free. This was the complete focus of my life. Except for love. I wouldn’t trade my work for anything except for a man threatening to leave. I have always been scared of that feeling and I have done some pretty predictable things to avoid it. Dyed my hair, paid for parts for a moped, moved across the country, and allowed another human with a lower iq and no job to break my heart over and over again. I did that several times, I mean, what are your 20’s for? I think a lot of women spent their 20’s feeling like they were raising their boyfriends. But, I stayed when men crossed lines that aren’t just normal and routine and those things ended up hurting me. When I was 19 I moved to Nashville to record an album. My music manager and my boyfriend were both control freaks with a lot of rage. I was “not like the other girls.” At 19 I was a manic pixie repressed dream. I was terrified to be too much or not enough and I was raised to be sweet and soft. I couldn’t imagine yelling back or ruining someone’s wants with my needs. My inner child actor didn’t know how much adult was too much adult. I looked about 13 and I felt about 60. One day my boyfriend was screaming at the top of his lungs and I was concerned about the neighbors hearing it. I had recorded with session players that day in the studio and I didn’t explain to him (as he found from my posts online) that some of them were more attractive than I had let on. I am not sure what level of graphic I will get into on this blog but I will say for now it “got worse.” My mom happened to be calling when this was going on and my pocket answered and she overheard. She flew out a few days later and wanted to know if I was okay. I lied and I told her that he was never like that and he had been under a lot of pressure trying to find a new job. I didn’t want to lose him for whatever reason at the time felt like the end of the world. Some nights I would go for drives to get away and cry to “Razzle Dazzle Rose” by Camera Obscura (great song to drive and cry to) until I had a headache and I would head back home when he had fallen asleep. In the mornings he was always extremely sorry and a completely different person who “would change.” At the end of this relationship I started getting chest pains. I think I went to an ER and was sent home with anxiety. I thought it was weird how badly anxiety hurt my physical heart and odd that it was deemed okay. But it seemed likely true as I was 19. Over the next few years I dated different people some like the first guy and some gentler. I was raised around anger and big highs and lows and angry people thought me to be comforting. I tried my best to avoid mistakes and things that caused problems because I didn’t feel I had the stamina i just wasn’t sure why. It often caused that chest pain I didn’t understand. At 24 my body started not feeling like itself more consistently. I often had chest pain and missed heart beats (pvcs and pacs) and my body hurt a lot for no reason. I felt rushes and I would feel dizzy and faint and out of breath. I was given a variety of names for all this. I had dysautonomia, POTS, autonomic dysfunction, “a weird nervous system” or just anxiety. I read all about different conditions but I didn’t know what I had but I knew my body wasn’t well anymore. I spent the next couple years being known as a hypochondriac. “Nothing is wrong with your heart Molly.” I still associate the hospital’s hold music with the mantra “it’s not your heart” that was routinely on the other end of it. I eventually gave up. I must have had some psychosomatic issue and I was probably crazy and I wanted to start living again. I was tired of chest pain with no cause and angry boyfriends ruling my life. I wanted my music to have a chance and I worked harder than ever. I also experimented with night life and smoked a cigarette or 2 or 3 and I got a few hangovers. I was a normal 20-something. Finally the homeschooled neurotic girl was kind of fun or I became some version of myself I was meant to be had I not taken some wrong turns or slept with the wrong people. I remember people would say to me “I can’t keep up with her she’s wild” and I was thrilled I had never been particularly fun I had always just been working or isolating myself with some guy. Neither cause helped the other and I had nothing to show for the last few years but I felt alive for the first time since maybe grade school. I let myself be free. One day I ate a friend’s edible and I had what I thought was a traditional panic attack. My heart was racing and I wanted to run away from it. A normal bad reaction to edibles. But my heart hurt for days. I couldn’t keep up with my (tall) boyfriend at the pace we normally walked and it was hard wearing the shoes that I did and I started avoiding the stairs. I was out of breath and in a lot of pain and it kept shooting down my left arm. I went back to my (famous and respected) cardiologist and she said not to come back to the clinic anymore as it was causing her team and myself to falsely believe that my problems were cardiac in nature. Except it turns out that I have heart disease. It took 6 cardiologists and a lot of ER visits to get any answers. I’m a young woman trying to get her life set up and I have heart disease. I hear over and over “it’s not your heart” and the hold muzak playing louder and louder and my boyfriends telling me to stop making up chest pain to get away from their rage and my music manager telling me it was stage fright and my old therapist telling me it would go away if I did the work inside my mind. I have Prinzmetal Angina. It got out of control after a bad car accident and a traumatic and stressful month last December. My coronary arteries were spasming shut and I spent January-June getting a lot of stern looks and speeches about anxiety from doctors and nurses all while I really just needed Calcium Channel Blockers and various forms of Nitroglycerin. I intend to pursue my music and art. I’m in a band and I am not going to change and become the normal picture of chronic illness which generally neuters people. I’m still young and intend to stay in touch with that the best I can. Some days I can take over the world and some days I have to stay in bed and some days I need to go to hospital for extra nitro and morphine. A lot happens behind the scenes I don’t always know how to share on instagram and twitter so I made this blog. I like to share my art in those places which I consider to define me more than how my body is not working. But, it’s a huge part of my experience and I would like somewhere to share it. I don’t normally feel comfortable talking about my bad dating choices and abuse but I think it’s important for people to know that the damage from it can be very real. Prinzmetal Angina was just studied with relationship abuse as being traumatic enough to cause it. I think we downplay how bad abuse hurts us and tell people to just get a grip. Maybe if I had read this when I was younger I would have treated myself differently and chose more carefully who I let near me. I hope you enjoy this blog and take care of your body and appreciate the days you feel free. Xo Joon

#prinzmetal #heart disease #dysautonomia #lupus #joon glume

15 notes · View notes

veliseraptor · 6 years ago

Text

2018 Fanfiction Round-Up

Total Year-Long Wordcount: According to my spreadsheet, it’s 523,355 words, which does also include some essay writing and original fiction but is by and large fic.

This year I wrote and posted: Roughly, 119 fics? This is not, probably, a correct calculation, as it probably includes multiple chapters of Life in Reverse/Halfway House as separate fics, and the entirety of like the restless sea (not all of which I wrote this year), but I don’t feel like doing more math. It’s almost 12 pages on Tumblr.

Overall Thoughts

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? A little less than last year, but on the other hand...idk, I don’t tend to think about my year in terms of how much fic I’m writing while I’m in the middle of it. Honestly if I did I’d probably be a happier person who was less often like “OH NO I’M NOT WRITING ENOUGH.” That’s what’s nice about this meme - it really provides me with perspective.

So, like, technically I wrote less than I did last year, and that is not surprising considering the shape my life took this year (job meltdown, new job, three weeks of bedbug crisis), but...I still wrote a lot, especially with all of that considered, and wrote a lot better, I think.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? WELL I DIDN’T SEE MYSELF COMING BACK TO DOCTRINE OF LABYRINTHS IN FORCE BUT HERE I AM WITH FIVE NEW WIPS

What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest? Man, I don’t know. There are a number of things that I’m pleased that I did for different reasons? Like, Will to Live feels like an accomplishment. But do I count finishing Life in Reverse for this year? Or the fact that I think Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains remains one of the better written things I’m putting out (also possibly the best title)?

Maybe I’ll settle with it’s the season of possible miracle cures because that fic has been six years in the making and I finally got Steve and Loki married and it was the sappiest thing ever and I stand by it. Also I made myself emotional while I was writing it, which is usually a good sign.

OH NO ACTUALLY how could I forget? I think it’s the enemy of my enemy. I’ve missed writing Clint and Loki, and that fic was so fun to write, and now I want a whole AU of it. I’m like. Deep into a second chapter and have no idea where it’s going but I’m going with it.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them? I sure did write a lot of second person. I feel like that doesn’t count as a risk per se, though, because every case where I did it...I did it because it felt like the story needed to be in that point of view? I mean, I wrestled with off to the races trying to write it in third person limited like usual and it just...really wanted to be in second person. So basically - does it count as a risk if it wasn’t something I chose to do?

Otherwise...I feel like I’m not a very adventurous writer most of the time. It’s one of the things I don’t love about myself as a writer.

From my past year of writing, what was….

My most popular story of this year: Cutting out Life in Reverse and Halfway House, as fics that are ongoing and skew the scale significantly (especially the former): based on hits it was escalated almost to an art. Based on kudos, Reckless Self-Endangerment, and based on bookmarks the same. That...actually really surprises me.

Most fun story to write: Probably Will to Live. That fic...took me totally off guard and just - spilled out of me. It was a joy to write from basically start to finish, and other than a plot hole hiccup that was resolved with some invaluable beta help, really just...came together almost on its own. And it was, truly, so many things mashed together that I’m into. I haven’t ever written that much Thor POV, I don’t think, and that really caught me by surprise as far as how much I enjoyed it, too.

Story with the single sexiest moment: I feel like...hm. I’m not sure. I guess it depends on whether we’re going with “conventionally sexy” or “shit I shouldn’t be into this sexy” because those are two different answers. But I do feel like the sex in An Ever Expanding Circle is definitely up there.

Most “Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story: I’m still pretty sure nothing I do will ever live up to the bar set by The Vivisection Mambo, but...escalated almost to an art probably is up there. I mean, it was definitely the story where I was most “holy shit what am I doing” while I was writing it. Though making love with his ego was also pretty damn dark and also...had a much more downer ending than I was originally planning.

Actually, though, I feel like the worst is probably One Wrong Turn because of the set up (Remember This Cold AU) and where I went with it as far as breaking everyone involved (except, as usual, the Grandmaster).

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: uhhhhh. I always have a hard time with this question, because I don’t really know what it means? My perceptions of characters tend to shape how I write a fic, not so much the other way around. I guess maybe - oh, no, I’ve got it. It’s only one part in one story, but writing Shuri in Breathing Room gave me a better understanding of her character, I think, than I have before. Which is mostly down to @portraitoftheoddity, so I don’t know if I can actually take credit for that.

Hardest story to write: God. So many stories are hard to write in so many ways. always ready for a war again was definitely a challenge, as writing stories from a different character POV usually are. I struggled a bizarre and moderately hilarious amount with how fluffy the wedding fic ended up getting; I thought I might be going too far. (That’s such a me thought to have.)

Oh - writing like 500 words of Mildmay’s POV was absolutely one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my writing career. And I’m going to keep doing it. Whoops.

Biggest Disappointment: Myself, for the fact that despite having 41 pages written, I’ve only managed to successfully post two chapters of Tear My Castle Down.

Biggest Surprise: Other than stumbling and falling face first back into writing for Doctrine of Labyrinths as a fandom? Possibly writing Crimson Peak fanfiction. I didn’t see that happening. Otherwise...the number of new kinks I wrote for reason of Frostmaster definitely caught me off guard.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: I feel like everything I wrote for Loki/Grandmaster this year could be called “unintentionally telling.” It’s like...if you’ve been following me for the last few years, this might not have been something you were aware of, but hoo boy has it been there.

Favorite Opening Line(s):

Loki had a smile like an air raid siren: attention grabbing and screaming danger. (untitled)

His first memory was a silver mask with rectangles for eyes and mouth, looking down at him. “Attempt four-hundred and thirty-two,” it said, “success.” (how you gaze upon my bones)

When it was over, when all was said and done, the dust settled, the universe rebuilt, Steve walked away. (blackbird singing in the dead of night)

Away from Allerdale Hall, Lucille felt as though she’d disappear. (we too (three) could be glorious)

You were born with two names. (always ready for a war again)

Favorite Line(s) from Anywhere:

1. Loki slipped in and out of consciousness, clinging to life. Held back from the edge like he was a ship at anchor, wood groaning at the pull of the rope. He could almost see death, a reef where the waves broke, that he could break himself on. (your blood like ice)

2. The Void was not empty, as everyone had thought. The Void was full of monsters. One of them found Loki, and plucked his body out of space, and forced him back to life. He mended Loki’s fragmented consciousness with all the gentleness of a carpenter hammering together pieces of wood, and when he was a rough approximation of whole the being who had found him told him who he was, and what he wanted. (the years after the fall)

3. He pressed the thumb of his right hand into the palm of his left. The gesture felt familiar, and yet when he actually did it, strange. Someone else’s hands. Someone else’s lungs. (down to the bone)

4. Loki’s stomach sank. He recognized the feeling. It was the one that meant he was about to do something stupid because of Thor. He hadn’t felt it in a while, and he didn’t appreciate its return. (Captive Audience)

5. Your people bleed names. Names torn away by force, broken lineage, and even when you’re free the names you get aren’t really yours. I am N’Jadaka, son of N’Jobu, you said, and thought you were taking your birthright, but it wasn’t yours. You’re too much Erik Stevens, too much Killmonger, too much American. You don’t belong here. (always ready for a war again)

6. The Grandmaster did not just make his point (I own you, everything you are is mine to do with as I please). He hammered it home, wrote it in Loki’s flesh, crucified him with it. He pulled Loki apart, cooed over him and promised to put him back together only to break him down further into smaller and smaller pieces, and it occurred to Loki that up until now the Grandmaster had been merciful. (it’s a mean world that I’ve known)

7. As it was, even with the windows open he was still trapped within the confines of his skull - a far deadlier snare than even the cruelest jailor could devise. (Stitching)

8. “Getting yourself killed doesn’t prove anything,” Thor said, finally. Loki snorted.

“Wouldn’t it, though?” He said, eyebrows raised. “Everyone loves a good self-sacrifice. I wrote a whole play about it.”

Thor’s expression spasmed again. Still not amused. “I would rather have a living brother than a dead hero.” (Reckless Self-Endangerment)

9. In the winter, she thought distantly, they should go to the Alps. There, the snow would come down clean. (we too (three) could be glorious)

10. “I wonder,” he said, “if hounds hunt wolves with such alacrity, for envy of their freedom.” (Will to Live)

11. Loki's nostrils flared. "You say we," he said, "but I am not a participant in this. And you still do not understand. There is no making this better. This is what it is. My pain is part of its design, its purpose. And even if it were not, even if you somehow could prevent the binding from hurting me at all - it would still be a binding. You still own me. Coat that in honey as you will, but that will never be anything but wormwood." (Tear My Castle Down)

12. Thor. Even thinking the name was like a wound, so he held it there, letting it dig in. Could he, he would open his chest and carve Thor’s name on every one of his ribs. (half a league onward)

Top 5 Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated:

The scene from making love with his ego where the Grandmaster loses his temper with Loki and flexes those cosmic powers.

The Steve/Loki wedding from it’s the season of possible miracle cures.

Thor and Loki cuddling in we don’t know where tomorrow ends or drown my woes in a lake of fire.

Any part of the Steve/Loki/Thor smut from An Ever Expanding Circle.

The scene from I am frail, be you forgiven with Loki holding Thor’s hands, one on his heart and one on his neck.

Fic-writing goals for 2019:

Well, last year I said my goal for 2018 was finishing Life in Reverse so I’d be like “goal for 2019: finishing Halfway House!” but that is just plain not realistic. So, uh, on the more realistic front:

write and finish the next Remember This Cold plot-fic

be less scared of self indulgence

write less fic and more original fiction

get another essay published on Tor.com

try to chill out and remember that if you take breaks it doesn’t mean you’re worthless

#2018 year in review #sometimes i write things #fanfiction round up

35 notes · View notes

completingclara · 5 years ago

Text

Since it's my birth month, April is an important month for me. Rather than simply celebrating my birthday, I like to focus on contemplation and aspirations. I'm not a big goal-setter because I almost never achieve the goal; then I pile on the guilt and negative self-talk making the whole experience pretty shitty. I like to set intentions for my life and work on manifesting what I need.

This year I’ve been given a really unique opportunity to dig deeper into my usual soul searching because I’ll likely be out of work for the entire month (a daunting yet liberating thought). It seems incredibly serendipitous that this month’s content focus in my sobriety group is self care. I’m aware that a lot of this focus on self-care right now is in response to the COVID-19 pandemic but I can’t shake the feeling that the universe has sent me a gift (see notes).

Before I left work to practice self isolation, my everyday was filled to the brim with stress. I was so stressed out that I was essentially a mindless robot alternating between high-stress work mode and disabled (I’m talking hours of TV and phone games). Having such an unhealthy level of stress is toxic to our bodies, our inner-selves, our emotional wellness, and our social connections. The thing is, before I abruptly left that so very toxic bubble I didn’t even realize I was that stressed! Two weeks later and I realized “oh god, I am so mother fucking relaxed!” in a way I haven’t felt in years. Not being on that emotional roller coaster of emotional highs and lows (and numbing) allows the room for intensive self care and reflection.

As Walt Whitman says, “I contain multitudes.” The multitudes of my inner-self are vast and I want to meet them all with compassion. With this gift of time, I choose to get down into the subterranean of my inner world as an act of self care. I’m going to open the windows and doors to let out the unspoken, unrecognized things of who I am and I’ll ask them questions. I won’t write down all the things I want to ask myself (because it is endless) but the most pressing ones are listed here:

What is the dream (or dreams) that you stopped believing in? What do you feel you’ve missed out on because of fear? What was laying beneath that fear? Who is the voice of your inner-critic? Would you subject your loved ones to that same voice? What truly brings you joy without judgment? What drains your emotional or physical energy?

Self talk is something I’ve been working really hard to shake up. We’ve all got an inner voice that pops up every time we make a mistake. How many of you have heard yourself say something like “I’m such a fucking idiot” or “I mess up everything I do” or “no one loves me” because of that mistake? Probably every single one of us. For me, maybe for you too, I didn’t realize that voice was on all the time whispering soft negativity throughout entire days, weeks, months, years.

Holly Whitaker (Tempest Sobriety School) talks a lot about talking to yourself like you’d talk to a small child. As an act of self care and reflection I’m going to be using that voice intentionally throughout every day. It shouldn’t been so hard seeing as I use that kind, loving voice with actual small children for my work and yet I do struggle to be kind to myself.

While rationally I know that I’m deserving of compassion and understanding just like the kids in my class, my negative self-talk has been so deeply ingrained that it often happens without my noticing. For the next month (at lest) I want to begin paying attention to my self talk and using my Loving Teacher Voice on myself.

I’m also going to be challenging my intense perfectionism during this time as I focus on making space for self expression. I tend to be a little bit obsessive in my life which is really just a coping mechanism for anxiety and ADHD. I used to think I was simply “detail oriented” but it goes much further than that. The anxiety that ensues from doing an activity that I deem “not right” is so strong that it’s made me totally abandon many parts of myself where there could have been growth. I see this very clearly in my passion for art.

I’ve always said to people “I’m really passionate about art but I’m not an artist because I’m no good” with a laugh. That is a perfect example of both negative self talk and my obsession with perfection. There’s a deeper layer to this perfectionism that’s rooted in my trauma from growing up with undiagnosed ADHD - which is a topic I can process another time. For this April, I’m going to be practicing acceptance as I follow Morgan Harper Nichols’ #MakeThingsApril challenge and Jo Franco’s journaling prompts. Which also means accepting if I don’t do the prompts everyday or forget to post them without guilting myself. My intention in doing these challenges is to explore what might add joy to my life so if at any point this exploration becomes a negative experience I’m going to stop and remind myself why I’m doing it all.

Lastly, I want to spend time this month reflecting on my physical being. My body and my health has been a trigger point for me my entire life. I’ve been told my entire life that I was a hypochondriac or that I was simply making everything up. Within the last couple years, I’ve begun to explore the possibly that I might actually be ill which has lead to a series of diagnosis. Self-doubt is by far the most pervasive aspect of living with chronic illness and needless to say I’ve got bundles of it. Getting diagnosed lifted the veil from my eyes so I was able to see myself clearly thus allowing me to believe myself and my body. It has been so fucking freeing to say the words “chronically ill” in reference to myself.

Now I’m in what feels like a whole new world. I’m able to actually recognize and accept what’s happening in my body rather of ignoring it or forcing myself though it. That’s a huge step! The next step is finding what works for me instead of attempting to force myself into what I’m “supposed” to do. There’s about 53 million things that I could adjust to better suit my body but I’m going to focus on exercise.

Typical exercise for something with my diagnoses can cause sprains/strains, auto-immune reactions, joint pain, muscles spasms, and severe fatigue which is why (even before I was diagnosed) I stopped exercising completely. Now I get to explore new ways of moving that won’t make me feel like shit so I can be active once again. The things I’m most looking forward to? Expanding my yoga practice with tips from others who share my condition and learning myofascial release techniques.

I’m really looking forward to spending more time with my most vulnerable bits. Using journaling and art as reflection and self care is a really great tool and I don’t think it will come easily. It’s easier to sit in the stress and anger and using distraction as the only coping mechanism. I don’t want to be distracted from my emotions or dreams or passions or traumas anymore. I want to feel them all and grow because of them. Self care is intense and self care is not my default setting. I’m expecting there to be bumps in the road throughout this month — emotional hurdles, trauma processing, inner-child healing. A little bit of pain doesn’t scare me though. After all, “if it’s to heal it has to hurt”.

vimeo

As a practice of imperfection acceptance, I’m going to post this (novel length) journal entry without revision, editing, or proofreading. 100% unfiltered thoughts copied down for self expression and care.

I love you, I accept you, I cherish you,

I thank you for reading,

Clara

#makethingapril #2020

0 notes

sarahburness · 6 years ago

Text

How to Honor Your Sensitivity (Because It’s Actually a Strength)

“The opposite of sensitive is not ‘tough.’ It’s insensitive. Sensitivity is a gift. Let’s nurture it, not squash it.” ~Glennon Doyle

I would run no matter how much snow and ice there was, no matter how tired I was or how much my joints hurt. Even if I was hungover. It didn’t matter. Sometimes I would be in incredible pain, but I wouldn’t stop.

I worked as a tree planter in the summers and got paid per tree. I would push as hard as possible, sometimes planting as many as 3,000 trees in one day. And, not surprisingly, I had my first back spasm at age twenty-one.

That’s how I lived my whole life in my early twenties. Pushing. I barely had enough time to get everything done with college, volunteering, and a part time job. I would consistently end up exhausted.

On top of this, bright lights and loud noises easily overwhelm me, but I pushed through that too. I didn’t really want to go to my friends’ loud parties, so would drink to the point that the loud noise didn’t bother me anymore.

Years later I learned I was a highly sensitive person (HSP) and it all made sense. HSPs are sensitive to loud noises, bright lights, and other people’s emotions.

And because HSPs only make up 15-20 percent of the population, it sometimes seems like the basic needs of quiet, space away from family members with big emotions, and soft lighting are self-indulgent or greedy. So HSPs often push through their sensitive nature.

In my twenties, despite my sensitivities, I pushed through. I didn’t feel like my life was worth much unless I was highly productive, getting good grades, and pleasing my friends, family, professors, and pretty much anyone I met. I was determined to be perfect, and it was killing me.

It finally came to a head during my first job after college. I was working hard to please my supervisors, co-workers, and the youth that were our clients. It was my dream job, but I ignored my own needs as a highly sensitive person to the point that I couldn’t do it anymore. I was exhausted and didn’t want to get out of bed in the mornings. I quit but I didn’t know what to do.

Are You Highly Sensitive?

Does any of this sound familiar? If you sometimes push through your own needs it could be a sign that you’re highly sensitive. Other signs you’re an HSP include:

You feel the tragedies reported on the news very deeply

You sometimes get overwhelmed by beauty—a breathtaking view or the kindness of a friend

You’re sensitive to bright lights and loud noises

You’re highly empathetic

If someone’s in a bad mood, you feel the energy in the room

Sometimes when a coffee date gets cancelled, you’re ecstatic that you get to stay hiding under the covers

You love creativity whether it’s music, dance, photography, writing, visual art or interior design

And when an HSP tries to fit in, it takes a lot of energy. Ignoring your sensitivity will leave you drained. You’ll end up exhausted without much to give.

What Happens When an HSP Ignores Their Sensitivity?

HSPs often end up ignoring their sensitivities because they’re pressured to do so. Whether it’s a cubicle where you can hear 100 other people talking or your group of friends that want to meet in a noisy restaurant as an HSP, you’re constantly being asked to ignore your sensitivity.

And so many HSPs end complying and pushing through. You don’t want to disappoint your friends or inconvenience your boss, so you say yes even though your nervous system is over stimulated. Or other times you want to save money, so you’ll share a hotel room with your noisy and emotional cousin even though it would be better to have your own room.

The problem is, when your nervous system is constantly over stimulated, you end up exhausted. Your exhaustion might start out small, but if you continue to push, you may end up with a complete breakdown like mine. And because I’ve been through it, I really don’t want this to happen to you!

The good news is that it’s possible to protect your sensitive nervous system. It takes time and practice, but step by step, you can start to take better care of yourself and not worry about other people’s expectations.

How HSPs Can Heal After Years of Pushing

1. Rest when you’re tired.

The first and sometimes most difficult step is to get some rest. If you’re determined to fit in, you’re probably exhausted. You’ve been going and going and going and never stop to take a breath. You could:

Take a five-minute walk outside

Look out the window and breathe

Nap

Make time for meditation

Take a day completely off to recharge

Spend time in nature

So start small and see if you can schedule even five minutes today to be quiet and rest.

2. Learn about your sensitivity.

The fact that you’re reading this article means you’re already on track to completing this step!! The more you learn about your sensitivity, the easier it will be to take time to rest, to say no to that overwhelming party invitation or to walk around downtown wearing giant headphones playing white noise to block out the sound.

And it doesn’t matter whether it’s through reading or podcasts or watching videos. Whatever format you like best will get you on track. Some of my favourites include the Highly Sensitive Refuge website and the Introvert, Dear podcast which is hosted by an HSP.

3. Honor your needs.

I know this is difficult to do especially when there are other people involved, but as you begin to honor your needs, you’ll begin to get your energy back. You’ll feel calmer, more relaxed, and more excited about life.

And so, even though it will involve some difficult conversations with your friends, your partner, you family and co-workers, I promise you it’ll be 100 percent worth it.

When I was in a new relationship where my partner was definitely not an HSP we would have a lot of conversations that went something like this,

Sweetie, you have to remember you’re dating someone sensitive.

If my blood sugar crashes, I won’t be able to recover.

I’m getting really overstimulated by that music.

It would really help me if you just sat quietly with me for a minute.

You can send your loved ones articles to teach them about highly sensitive people and what’s really happening for you. And sometimes, you just have to explain it to them step by step.

Some common HSP needs include:

A slow pace of life

Beautiful spaces

Time in nature

Deep and meaningful relationships

Time to cry and feel your emotions

A good night’s sleep

Physical space after a conflict or challenging discussion

Nourishing food

And yes, I get it; it’s hard to ask for. It’s taken me a decade but I’m learning to take better care of myself and now am able to share my supportive nature more fully with others. And you can too.

The less you worry about fitting in and the more you can take care of your HSP needs, the more you’ll be able to bring your sensitive strengths forward to make the impact you were meant to make.

Your Sensitivity is Your Strength

As a highly sensitive person, you have the real gifts of empathy, creativity, attention to detail, and bringing quality into everything you create. Because of this HSPs like you make the world’s best writers, therapists, coaches, interior designers, actors, caretakers, and artists.

According to an article by Jim Hallows, famous HSPs include Nicole Kidman, Edgar Allen Poe, Leonardo Di Vinci, Bob Dylan, Princess Diana, and Mother Teresa.

You’re meant to protect and bring forward your sensitive strengths.

By taking care of yourself you’re not being a diva. You’re not being selfish. You’re not being greedy and you’re not crazy. You’re being gentle with yourself so you can share your beautiful, powerful sensitive strengths with the world.

About Bryn Bamber

Career Coach Bryn Bamber helps people like you find a career that’s aligned with your goals. Her Burnout to Brilliance program teaches you how to make small shifts that will free up tons of energy for the things you really love. Start today with your FREE Checklist: Decrease Stress and Get an Hour of Your Day Back!

Web | More Posts

Get in the conversation! Click here to leave a comment on the site.

The post How to Honor Your Sensitivity (Because It’s Actually a Strength) appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/honor-sensitivity-actually-a-strength/

0 notes

usnewsaggregator-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Viet Thanh Nguyen Is The Pro-Refugee Voice America Needs To Hear

New Post has been published on https://usnewsaggregator.com/arts-culture/viet-thanh-nguyen-is-the-pro-refugee-voice-america-needs-to-hear/

Viet Thanh Nguyen Is The Pro-Refugee Voice America Needs To Hear

When it comes to the Vietnam War, Vietnamese refugees in America and the Vietnamese diaspora, Viet Thanh Nguyen has written the book ― a few of them, actually. It’s little wonder the MacArthur Foundation chose to honor him among its 2017 class of Fellows, commonly referred to as “MacArthur Geniuses.”

An academic and a novelist, a critic and a short story virtuoso, Nguyen has written about the experiences of Vietnamese-American people and their roots in Vietnam from seemingly every angle. His debut novel, a darkly comic spy novel set amidst the Vietnam War, garnered him a Pulitzer Prize. He followed up with a collection of haunting short stories, which move away from the conflict itself to the experiences of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants.

Nguyen, a professor of English and American studies at the University of Southern California, has also published works of acclaimed nonfiction. His most recent nonfiction work, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, critically examined the cultural memory and artistic memorialization of Vietnam throughout the world ― particularly calling attention to the dominance of American narratives of conflict, and the diminishing effect this has on our collective memory of other cultures, populations and their suffering.

His work has acted as a blazing ray of light illuminating a whole world of human experiences in a publishing industry often dominated completely by white American voices and perspectives ― and his breakout has arrived at a particularly vital time, when a wave of anti-refugee and nativistic rhetoric has gripped American politics.

We reached out to Nguyen ahead of the MacArthur announcement to talk more about his impressive body of work, the current political moment and what he hopes to do with his hefty grant from the MacArthur Foundation:

How did it feel to be a Genius Grant recipient?

It felt like a shock, a big surprise. I had to sit down for a little bit ― actually, through the entire length of the conversation.

Just a huge honor, but also a moment where I had to think very much about how lucky I was to get this, given how many other important, good, great, fantastic writers are out there who could have gotten this award, and all the others in previous generations who did not get this, but who were doing incredibly important work that made it possible for me to publish my own book.

Are there any writers that you look back on ― that you’ve read or that you’ve built on ― and think you really couldn’t have done it without them?

If you think about the people who’ve won the MacArthur, there’ve been so many writers who I’ve enjoyed reading and who’ve inspired me. People like Junot Diaz and, I think, Edwidge Danticat.

And then I think of myself, obviously, as an American writer, but also very specifically sometimes as a Vietnamese-American or Asian-American writer. I think back to the fact that Asian-American writers have been writing in this country, in English, since the late 1800s. Those early writers must have been very lonely people, because [there were] only one or two or a handful of them. But the work of writers like that, like the Eaton sisters from the late 1800s, established a tradition that made it possible for someone like me, more than a hundred years later, to publish a book that people at least would recognize as something they understood.

What do you have planned next? What are you going to do with the grant?

I haven’t really thought about it that much, but I have a blog that I do, that I edit, called Diacritics.org, and it’s devoted to the politics, art and culture of the Vietnamese and their diaspora. I’ve built it up over several years and unfortunately, in the last couple of years, because of the Pulitzer, it’s just been sort of moribund, because I don’t have the time. I want to use some of the money to hire an editor to take over that site because what it does is to create a space for writers like me to talk about these things that are important to us.

You’ve written about the Vietnamese diaspora and refugees and the Vietnam-American War both in fiction and nonfiction. Why do you keep writing in both? What draws you to each form?

I think my first attraction was always to fiction, ever since I wrote my first book when I was in the second grade. I became a scholar because when I was in college, I was just better at that, and I was realistic about what I could do. So I became an academic and a critic.

Both of these things, nonfiction and fiction, have remained important to me, because I think they can accomplish different kinds of things. In my case I wanted to try to understand the Vietnam War and the refugee experiences and the United States from both of these kinds of perspectives ― nonfiction and fiction, scholarship and art.

But I think the last thing is simply that I’m just someone who’s easily bored, so as soon as I’m done with something, I like to do something different. That’s one of the things that working with nonfiction and fiction enables me, which is this sense of constantly experimenting, and being an amateur, and also setting myself up for potential humiliation because I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s how I learn, by trying to keep on being a student and moving between these different disciplines.

I recently heard Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie say that she’s found American literature is resistant to overt discussions of race and politics, that there’s an expectation that art should be separate or if it discusses politics it’ll be really subtle. What do you think the role of literature, and fiction particularly, should be in political life?

Well, I think generally she’s right, about speaking about American literature as a whole. There are certainly American writers who are political, they just either tend to be in the minority or they are actual minorities, racial minorities for example, or sexual minorities and so on.

I think that’s important to point out, that the political traditions of American literature have often fallen to African-American writers, for example, or Asian-American writers. I think because for us, we see that it’s hard to separate politics from everything else in your life, including art. Separating politics is not a luxury that many of us have. That’s one of the things that I think the MacArthur has been really good at doing, at least when it comes to writers, is recognizing writers who don’t see a separation between politics and literature, or see that you can use literature to be both something that’s artistic but also political.

I’ve always been a person interested in the possibilities of art and politics intersecting, and been frustrated that so much of American literature, especially by people from majority populations, however you choose to define that, have been very quiet on that issue. It is definitely something I find exciting to do, but also sometimes you feel very lonely because other American writers and American audiences sometimes just don’t want to hear it.

Your book The Refugees arrived at this time when a lot of people were talking about refugees and whether they would be and should be made welcome in America. It’s a very visible issue right now, but it’s also not a new issue. What do you think are the long-term, historical misunderstandings that Americans have had about refugees and immigrants and their place in our country, and do you think that’s changing?

I think on this issue, as on so many others in American society today, the United States of America is contradictory, and these contradictions go to the very origins of American society. The earliest settlers in this country from Europe and so on were classified as either immigrants or refugees, and yet at the same time American history has a long tradition of nativism and exclusion and racism directed against newcomers of various backgrounds. So we’ve, for a long time, been a country that’s embraced the mythology of the immigrant as being crucial to who we are, and yet periodically we have spasms of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee feeling.

Of course, I think that is obviously what’s happening today. We’re in one of those xenophobic moments. But at the same time, it’s not a complete victory for those forces who are opposed to migrants and refugees. There’s a substantial number of Americans saying that refugees and immigrants should be welcome here and do make us better, and so on.

There are misunderstandings that arise in American society around this idea that refugees and immigrants only come to take things from other Americans, when, in fact, I think most economic studies indicate that they actually contribute more. We should look at other countries that are completely restrictive on issues of immigration and accepting refugees, and see that they suffer from a lack of cultural diversity and tolerance.

We’re just in a moment of conflict and it’s unclear what the resolution is going to be, but it’s obviously critical for refugees and immigrants like me to speak up about it. Again, going back to the question of politics and the role that politics plays in the lives of writers ― we have to. Those of us who are refugees and immigrants or who support them, we have to use every tool at our disposal, including our writing, to speak up about this.

I’m the most stressed out about politics I’ve been since I’ve been born, I think.

There’s been this big push to say we’re a nation of immigrants, but then there are Native Americans who would say, “We weren’t immigrants. We were invaded, we were colonized.” How do we grapple with the fact that this country is both made up of immigrants and refugees, but also people who were colonized?

That’s absolutely right. That, I think, is part of that ― when I say America is a contradictory place. These are part of the root contradictions. That’s why it’s crucial for those of us who are immigrants and refugees to not only privilege the language of coming here and settling down, as if these were only positives. If we have any success, it’s made possible by participating in this original history of settler colonization.

The smartest writers I know, people who are recognized by the MacArthur but others as well, they make these connections. They don’t settle simply on one narrative, where the immigrant comes here to make it good, but they also talk about the immigrant in relation to other populations in this country, including Native peoples and African Americans.

Your work really deals with these historical contradictions and injustices of America. There’s a strong urge among many on the left right now to say that this is worse than it’s ever been, and “now more than ever” we have to protect people. Is this an ahistorical framing? What’s your reaction to this vision of the Trump era of the absolute nadir of American life?

I think it may be the nadir within, at least, recent memory. I’m the most stressed out about politics I’ve been since I’ve been born, I think. But I think that, going back to this notion of contradictions and root contradictions, that they’ve shaped American society from the beginning. Then you have a sense that American history has moved cyclically and that there have been moments in American history when things have been worse ― slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction ― and the fact that those issues are actually not over, as we see with Charlottesville. It means that these historical things we might want to think are over and done with are actually not.

The election of Donald Trump right after the election of Barack Obama, to me, speaks exactly to the fact that we in the United States are still dealing with a history that goes back hundreds of years, to issues that are still unresolved today. It feels pretty bad to those of us on the left, but that’s only because those contemporary issues are revealing that the U.S. has always been driven around race and class and gender and sexuality, and we are now being forced to look directly at that contradiction, whereas at certain more luxurious moments in American history, they’ve been submerged, at least to the eyes of the mainstream.

Speaking of the submersion of history, one thing I loved about The Refugees was this fascination throughout with the idea of haunting, and the past returning in this ghostly form ― by memories, guilt, even literal ghosts. Why do you think you return to this conceptualization of the past as a haunting?

We came here as refugees, and one of the things that happened to my family was that not all of us made it. I have an adopted sister, my oldest sister, and she was left behind to take care of the family property. I was 4 years old, so I actually have no memory of her. When I was growing up, we had one family picture of her ― a black-and-white, wallet-sized picture ― that my dad managed to carry with with him.

I grew up with this sense that we have a missing person in our family. Don’t know why she’s not here; not really something I could talk about with my parents. I did feel haunted by that. It felt like there was an absence in our family. I thought often about who she was, what her life was like, why’s she not here. To me that felt ghostly. I knew that that experience was actually very common, and that we were at least fortunate that she was alive. There were so many families I knew that had literally lost people, not just left them behind but that had died through one experience or another.

To me, ghostly hauntings were very real in the lives of these refugees that I knew. It didn’t take very much empathy to think that this was also true for some of the other people who were refugees and had fled from dire circumstances as well, who’ve all left behind things or people or identities.

Is that a framework you think we should be looking at America through ― this American history where so much has been ignored and submerged for so long?

As the sociologist Avery Gordon has said, ghosts are a figure of injustice ― that some injustice has happened in the past and a ghost returned to demand that justice be done. To achieve a genuine reconciliation with the past, to put those to rest, you really have to address directly what that injustice was. I think so much of American history has been the refusal to do justice to the injustices. We haven’t substantively corrected these problems.

There have been certain attempts to deal with the legacy of slavery, for example. Half the country, apparently, or at least a third of the country, doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal what happened, now, and that’s simply not true. I look at the example of Germany, the Holocaust ― horrific thing ― but the Germans are actually much better at confronting their past in both literal and symbolic ways than Americans have been about their own past. So as long as we’re not able to deal with it as a society, our past will keep coming back.

In American culture, we tend to assume a default white audience, and there can be this pressure for writers of color to explain things to white people, or educate white people, or make their narratives accessible. Is that a pressure you feel? Do you think about your audience when you’re writing?

As I was learning how to be a writer, it was a big issue for me. It’s a big issue for many writers ― who the audience is. It’s an issue for writers of color, minority writers, but all writers agonize, I think, or at least are aware, that their fate is in the hands of others. Who’s going to read this, who’s going to buy this, who’s going to publish this.

But it is a problem that’s exacerbated for writers of color, or anyone who’s not defined as mainstream or part of a majority, because we’re not the ones in power. So we can’t necessarily assume there will be something in common between us and the people who make these decisions to publish.

As a younger writer, I did write some of those stories in The Refugees in a state of anxiety, thinking about this issue. And it was very liberating after finishing The Refugees, when I started to write The Sympathizer, to think, I’m done with that. I wrote the book that I thought, in The Refugees, that was a little more oriented ― not just towards Vietnamese people but to whoever I thought was in charge of publishing. To give all that up, to give up all that anxiety with The Sympathizer because I simply didn’t care anymore, and to write for myself and for an implied Vietnamese audience, thinking then that everyone else who read this book would be in the position of an eavesdropper, was really liberating.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Check out a complete list of the 2017 MacArthur Fellows here.

Original Article:

Click here

#america #needs #nguyen #refugee #thanh #voice

0 notes