Tag Archives: fear

bipolar, Change, Corona Virus, current events, Death, depression, fear, memories, Mental Illness, Pandemic, Self Care

Honor Your Pain – Then Set it Free

August 22, 2020 Sue St. Blaine 2 Comments

I am writing today with a heavy heart. My beautiful California is burning.

This article is not about politics or environmentalism, these are covered elsewhere. I want to talk about pain and grief, about loss, not just of these precious forests, but identity and heritage, and the need to mourn.

I am a native Northern Californian with a long history in San Francisco so I have been up and down the North Coast all my life. There is nowhere I feel more alive than in the mountains and trees. My pulse skips a beat when I touch the bark of a living thing that can be 2,000 years old. These are our antiquities, our pyramids, our castles, and they are here in my backyard. They are part of me, as surely as the Pacific and the cable cars. I am proud of our woods and forests.

Choking on smoke in my home, knowing that some of my friends are evacuating and waiting to hear if they are ok is heartbreaking. Big Basin is burned, no idea yet about the ancient trees there. So much more; too much to list here.

Everyone has a touchstone, something they feel deeply about. It could be your place of birth, something built by your distant ancestors or a particular animal you associate with your home. It is anything that fills you with some pride, peace, memories, something that embraces your heart.

If that thing is taken from you, if it is destroyed in some way, it can hurt very deeply. It can cut to the core of who you are, and it can indeed cause you to grieve. That is human, it is a human reaction.

And it is legitimate.

Redwoods sea — Take a moment and breathe. Just breathe.

As of this writing, 174,290 people have died in the U.S. from Covid-19, according to John Hopkins. They leave behind family, friends, children, people who love them, rely on them, children who are now orphans, scared, and alone. I can’t even conceive of this pain and the bills that go with it.

Chris and I are healthy, our families are healthy, we are holding on just fine. We are not directly affected by the fires other than the smoke. The likelihood that it will his San Francisco is near 0. (I’m not going to tempt 2020.) But that doesn’t mean the pain of watching the state I love, the parks where I’ve spent so much time, the trees I hold as part of my identity isn’t real or less than.

All of our pain and losses can easily be measured against a greater pain, most of the time. My grief is less than a corona virus death. Worry about rent is less than being homeless. Being homeless is less than living in a war zone, terrified every moment, every time there’s the whistle of a bomb, with no idea where it will land. Compared to that, our day to day problems are small.

“People have it worse than you.”

Please stop saying that. It’s hurtful, scolding, self-righteous drivel that helps no one and can do damage. We are all doing the best we can, and we all face hard times. We need to hear soft things if possible, just “I care, I’m here for you, that’s awful.” Later, time can be spent trying to figure things out, fix them or come to peace that there is nothing you can do about it, and try to let it go, try to find comfort whatever that means to you.

As of this writing, there are 174,290 people dead, leaving families to mourn in a way that I can’t begin to understand. So in that respect, “some people have it worse” is objectively true, and I think it’s good to acknowledge that to ourselves, in our own time.

One’s own pain is not less than. Your pain, fear, and stress are real to you and meaningful to you, as mine is to me. It’s not a contest. I’m mourning this loss, even with the knowledge that everything will heal.

We hear this a lot, those of us with a mental illness. “It’s not so bad, others have it worse, just snap out of it.”

I’ve written about this before but with everything going on I believe it’s worth repeating.

Your mental illness is real. It is physical.* It is not something we can “snap out” of or simply change our attitude and be happy. It’s simply not, and telling people they are faking or otherwise demeaning them or diminishing their pain is dangerous. No, it’s not covid. It’s not a child in a cage ripped from their parents. But it is real and it can be debilitating.

This is a hard time for everyone. Fear, worry, the desire to go back to “real life” are all there. I understand and I feel it too, of course. Recently, every now and then, when the wind was just right, I could hear the Golden Gate Bridge scream from some four miles away. Not a sweet, gentle sort of whistle, no. It was a high pitched, piercing sound like a tin piccolo, non-stop, as long as the wind blew that way. (For the record, they had installed some barriers for the bike path, and had no idea they were putting in an amelodic one-pitched harmonica for a giant grade-school band.) It was a perfect metaphor for 2020; even the bridge was having an existential crisis.

I don’t know when the fires will be contained. I don’t know how much we are going to lose. I don’t know when the Shelter-in-Place will finally end, when I can go to dinner and a movie, or travel to another country. But it will end eventually. We will go back to some kind of normal. We really will.

On October 25th Chris and I will celebrate 20 years. I planned to share the milestone with friends and laughter. That isn’t going to happen, but we are healthy and we will share it at home together with our friends electronically. Not ideal, but still a celebration. Life will go on, and trees will regrow, but for now, I mourn, I ache. For now, part of my heart has been bruised.

I personally at 52-years-old have never seen a year like 2020. Not in my wildest pessimistic dreams did I imagine this train wreck. Being powerless is hard but also an exercise in letting go. Honor your pain, it’s real and it matters, but don’t let it own you or destroy you.

Do as the beautiful bridge did…scream, but stand tall, and blare your fog horns when you need to. Ok, that last part doesn’t apply but you know. Fight.

If you are alone at home, please reach out to your friends and family. I’ve included a couple of resources as well if you need them.

* There is always debate about the nature and cause of mental illness. I subscribe to the belief that it is physical and genetic, based on my own experiences, observations, and discussions with doctors.

National Helpline
SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.

https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

National Suicide Prevention Hotline
We can all help prevent suicide. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.
1-800-273-8255

Home

bipolar, Change, Corona Virus, current events, depression, fear, Mental Illness, Pandemic, Self Care

Emotional Care During the Pandemic

March 16, 2020 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

I want to check in on you and see how you’re doing.

Here in California, like so much of the country and world, we’re under a State of Emergency, and San Francisco just announced Shelter in Place for three weeks starting at midnight. Schools, bars, restaurants, all events are closed or canceled. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade is canceled, Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan Town, huge events people love and look forward to. Places like the Castro and Balboa theaters, much loved, providing entertainment for decades, are closed. There are businesses that will not survive.

It’s scary, and people are on edge. I was on the bus last week, and my throat was dry from the dust billowing up during packing and sorting. I coughed once, and the 15 or so people on the bus all turned to look at me. So I very quickly took some gum, immediately swallowed wrong, and coughed three times, which got to my nose and I had to pull out a tissue. The stares turned fearful; I was hoping I wouldn’t get kicked off the bus. These people aren’t mean or ignorant, they’re scared. I am too.

So what are you doing to take care of yourself? I assume you’re washing your hands, not touching your face, avoiding crowds, all of those physical things. These are all important, vital actually. But what are you doing to take care of your mental health? If you are scared, or stressed with children under your feet who can’t go to school, or worried about elderly parents, other family, whatever is going on for you, however it is affecting you, it can be overwhelming, especially for those of us with a mental illness. We have to take an inventory of it, sit with it, own it, and accept that it is not irrational to feel like we do, it is perfectly reasonable. It is a scary time, it’s ok to be scared.

So how are you?

My therapist’s office closed, all therapy must be done via teleconference. I had my first meeting today. It was odd, a little awkward at first, but I settled in quickly, and it went well. I have that luxury, I’m grateful for it, but not everyone does. So how can we take care of ourselves?

First, don’t minimize it. I said it already, but it’s important. You are not being irrational, you are human. It is scary.

However, try to not dwell on this and spin yourself into a bad place. I like to stay informed, but hitting refresh on your browser and reading updates all day is not healthy. Be aware, sure, but do a search for kitten videos or elephant babies playing with ducks, whatever you like.

Remind yourself, this will pass. Depending on how old you are, you’ve been through SARS, H1N1, AIDS, maybe even smallpox or polio. It will be ok.

If you have coping mechanisms you use, by all means, do that. If you don’t, now is a fine time to find them. For me, I love art, writing, playing little match-3 phone games, marathoning spooky shows, and trading verbal jabs with Chris, who is also here of course. Crazy Legs is thrilled to have his humans home. But time to sit quietly and breathe, close your eyes and just “be” is time well spent for anyone, but for us, it can be incredibly important. It can be the difference between coping during a difficult time and falling into a major depression.

Which brings me to my last point. If you are by yourself in your home, please find a way to reach out to a friend, on the phone, through social media, whatever works for you, but please don’t let yourself fall into a pit, which is so easy if you are isolated. Eat, sleep, keep clean, and do something fun to take your mind off things.

I’ve included a resource here for you in case you are feeling overwhelmed and need help. You’re important, and we need you here.

National Helpline

SAMHSA’s National Helpline is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

Abuse, Anger, bipolar, childhood, depression, Family, fear, Mental Illness

Nurturing Little Humans – Creating Healthy Adults

November 5, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

Say what you will about Facebook, it can serve as an enlightening peek into human opinions, I said, as a master of understatement.

A friend shared this picture a while ago. She commented that she’d prefer her children feel comfortable coming to her, so if they did something stupid like drink at a party, they would feel safe calling her for a ride rather than try to drive impaired. There will be consequences for drinking, but they made a mistake that can be fixed, rather than a potentially devastating, life-changing decision.

The first and fast response, from the father of a small girl, was one word – BULLSHIT!

His argument eventually boiled down to he is the boss, he is the authority, his child fears punishment, and his child obeys because she is afraid. He actually said, “I would rather be feared than loved.”

I suspect he will get his wish.

I am not a parent, I knew decades ago that it would not be good for a child or me. I like children, but motherhood was not a good idea, since mental illness is heavy in my family, and I didn’t want to hurt a child during either a manic or a depressive place. I wasn’t willing to take the risk. It is precisely because I like children that I chose to not have them. What my mother did was due to her illness, and a response to all of ours. Nothing that happened was due to malice on her part, it was a reaction to an illness that was not her fault, an attempt to turn a blind eye to how absolutely broken we were. She did not set out to be abusive.

This man, however, not only set out to be abusive, he bragged about it. “My child is afraid of me, as she should be. I would rather be feared than loved.”

I’ve had parents try to shut me down by saying, “you’re not a parent, you don’t know, you can’t have an opinion.”

If we’re talking about proper bedtimes, getting the child to eat some damn food – “What do you mean you want mac&cheese with no cheese, but still with orange color, OMG I’ll just melt an orange crayon on it then” – (that’s a direct quote, by the way,) the headaches my friends suffer, then no, I don’t understand, especially since I never see it because I’m auntie and I get perfect behavior. Sorry parents, that’s the way it is.

So with everyday struggles like that, I agree 100%. But if you belittle them, demean them, call them stupid, or hit them when you are angry, that’s very much my business. It’s everyone’s business. (I’m not entering into the debate about physical punishment as a concept, strictly of objective abuse.)

Now, a parent is absolutely going to screw up. My friends are good and wonderful, loving and intelligent parents, but sometimes that child decides he absolutely will not wear those red socks and forcing them to wear the red socks is the worst affront to a human person in the history of the world and if you don’t give me the yellow socks I swear to the old gods and the new that I will scream so loud your ears will bleed, and you will be late to your job, and now you have to feed me the food I will not eat! NO! Now I want to orange socks! (That quote is exaggerated for comedic effect, but only just.)

child abuse — **A toddler is a toddler, no matter how long the nose.**

In such a situation, the parent may overreact. We are all of us human.

The thing is, the little child is also human, and wants to be understood and has an ego and a need to be heard and can’t yet communicate what they want. They have bad days like we all do.

Overreacting is not necessarily the bad thing, as long as we’re not talking about actual abuse. Going back to that child and apologizing and then talking about it can help a hurt, possibly angry child feel validated and respected. It also sets a good example of human behavior, yes adults make mistakes, parents are not infallible, might is not right, and you have an absolute right to be human too.

No, I’m not a parent, so the regular day to day frustrations I can’t speak to. But this, I certainly can. We all can and should.

I don’t believe that anyone is irredeemable. The potentially abusive father there can absolutely find a better way, make amends, and become a better person.

He could decide to work with his child, to change his fear-based approach to parenting. He could do all of these things, and I would applaud him.

But for that little child, it could be too late.

Children look at the grownups around them for guidance, to learn how to be adults and what to expect from adults.

A little girl with an abusive father, she may grow up to believe that’s what she deserves, and there are plenty of men who will agree with her. She may internalize the lesson of fear he is bragging about, and take from that low self-worth, or respond with anger. At the very least, she will put in her heart the fear and pain from physical and emotional abuse. This is the place she should feel safe, and the first man in her life.

Little boys can learn might is right, and bully the children in school and later, their partners. They can also be filled with a heartsick pain that may not be addressed since they were most likely raised to believe that men should be strong and asking for help is weak. That’s toxic, and it’s how unhealthy men are made, and it’s how abuse is passed on. We all suffer, society suffers, and the man who believes he cannot ask for help is in pain. A little boy is no less worthy of protection, safety, and humanity than a little girl.

This father bragged about causing her pain and fear. He bragged about it on a public post.

These are about the biggest red flags that can fly. A parent who is comfortable enough to loudly and proudly proclaim this, I fear what goes on behind closed doors.

No, I’m not a parent, so I can’t comprehend the day to day frustrations and power plays and envelopes being pushed.

But I can watch out for them, I can look for red flags that are visible from space. I can speak out. We all can and should.

Children are not playthings, they are not going to obey commands or do anything to please you at all times or submit to your authority without question.

You’re thinking of a dog, and you shouldn’t have one of those either.

childabuse 4 — **“I don’t think so, buddy.”**

fear, Halloween, Mental Illness, Scary, writing

Imprints in the Fog – A Halloween Tale

October 31, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

Hello! It’s Halloween, my favorite holiday, so I thought I’d share a spooky story.

Some of this is true; the history, location, thing I found, the man I met. Otherwise, this is a work of fiction. Happy Halloween!

A disturbing thing happened yesterday.

I decided to go for a walk out by Land’s End, where a long, twisty trail runs through flowers, trees, hillside. Off to the right as I’m walking is the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the foghorns. Since it was foggy and lovely, the horns were playing their tune, such a perfect day.

I kept walking down the familiar narrow path until I got to the long staircase to Mile Rock Beach. It’s a tiny spot, covered in logs and rocks, just a little spit of sand really, but very beautiful, and I had it all to myself.

I perched on some driftwood and watched the waves crash; it fills my heart to see that. Honestly, I’ll take a rocky ocean with dramatic waves over a calm blue sea any day of the week. After a while I walked over the wet, slippery rocks that join to another little beach, and I found the strangest thing.

There are a lot of old WWII remnants around the City, Fort Point I guess is the best known, but there are random machine gun nests and gun turrets in the Presidio and around, so coming up on a ruin of some sort is not really unusual. But this was different.

It looked like a building that had collapsed from erosion, also not uncommon here. Every now and then you may find a tombstone from one of the old cemeteries, back when they moved them all to Colma. Except they didn’t always move them, some of the tombstones were repurposed, the bodies forgotten. Now and then, they turn up. Renovations at the Legion of Honor went poorly, at least for whoever found the first coffin, and the anonymous fellow no longer Resting in Peace. It’s all part of our spooky history.

But this baffled me. It looked like it had been a bathroom, judging by the tile. The graffiti told me I was far from the first to find it, and a decaying vulture had been there for a while, but I still felt like an intruder.

Since I have photos, I won’t spend too much time describing what it looked like, but what happened, I couldn’t capture on my phone.

My mind has been cluttered, in fact, I went on this walk to clear it out a bit, so when I heard someone say my full name, Susanne, I whipped my head around to see who was there, and how did they know a name I haven’t used since I was about 11? Occasionally when hiking out here, I’ve come across a man who lives in the brush. The first time I saw him, he was standing by his tent, holding a couple of plastic gas cans that I assume he filled with water somewhere. We both froze, each afraid of the other’s response. I just walked slowly away; he passed me a little while later in another spot. I’ve seen him a time or two since then, but I’m relatively certain he’s corporeal. I wonder who he is and what he has seen out there in the trees and fog.

After a scan of the beach and it’s many hiding places, I convinced myself that my ears played a trick on me. “It was the waves crashing, that’s all. Sussssannneeeeee…a wave, that’s all.” I poked around the ruin a little more, and I found an intact room, plumbing fixtures still attached, one small porcelain sink, but no toilet or shower. I expect they had been on the other side.

I tested the floor, and it was solid. I started to imagine, who used this room? Was it military? It looked like it, and that wouldn’t be uncommon here. But where did it come from? I know the area well, and there was no structure like this up on the cliff. What kinds of things did they worry about, what kept them awake at night? What made them blissfully happy? If this was a WWII bunker, how did they deal with the stress? Although the City was one of the best places they could be during the war.

It hit me as it does sometimes. Most of these soldiers could have been my sons. Now, they’d be 90+ but then, just kids. Just kids in this tiled box in the fog and the horns.

“Susanne….”

I heard it again. I turned too quickly, slipped on the slick tile, and landed awkwardly on my left thigh. I sat there for a moment, very aware how defenseless I was, how vulnerable, when I heard a rustling in the trees, and the sound of feet trying to navigate the moss-covered rocks. My heart was pounding, and I breathed with my mouth open, so I wouldn’t make as much noise. From where I was I stared directly at the dead vulture, all the feathers on its wings splayed out around a neatly picked ribcage. I wondered how often it feasted on human flesh. I couldn’t shake this morbid thought as the squeak of rubber soles got closer, and the pain in my hip got sharper, the fog turned so thick it was light rain, and I couldn’t see much through my glasses. I thought, “That poor vulture won’t get to enjoy me.” I and covered my mouth and laughed quietly at the disturbing thought.

Just then the footsteps stopped. Slowly, and now soaking wet, I scooted down the floor to the opening, braving a quick glance. My heart raced and pounded like a timpani, deep breaths couldn’t calm it down. All around me, going about their business, men made of fog and shadow, wearing uniforms, dissolving in the wind, and reforming, going about their day in silence. I sat with my jaw hanging, in terror and fascination. And then one of them turned and looked directly in my eyes. He saw me. He reached out his hand and said, “Susanne.” then dissolved as the fog billowed, and reformed slowly in front of me, body wafting in the breeze as he regained form, not two feet away, beckoning me to join him. “Susanne.” was all he said. Although frozen, I felt my hand reach back to him, when the fog horns went still, and the little beach echoed with the sound of one lonely trumpet playing “Taps.”

All of the soldiers, including mine, looked around with sorrow in their cold, empty eyes, and then a look of quiet acceptance passed on their faces as they faded into the fog and the horns returned.

I got up as quickly as I could and realized I would be able to walk across the rocks. As I arose, I saw a figure near the cliff, but he was human. A gust of wind cleared the air for a moment. The young homeless man who lives in the brush was standing there with a battered trumpet tucked under his arm. He stared at me for a moment, saluted, and started the climb up the cliff.

Whatever happened to those boys, so many decades ago, I hope they have peace now. That this was just an echo in time. But since there is a sentry with a trumpet, I expect they come back now and then.

I wonder if anyone has ever taken that boy’s hand?

bipolar, depression, fear, Mental Illness, Self Care, Stigma

Own Your Truth to Help Others

October 7, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

It’s normal for me to be extremely honest about what’s happening in my life, that’s how Nightmares and Laughter is designed. But my life is only a framing device for the real point of this page. I started it specifically to try and help others like me. In other words, I am the scene, you are the story. Since I was in a really bad place the last week, I’m hoping it can be useful.

What’s happening is not going to stop anytime soon, (the building is being sold, vulture lawyers and buyers will try to bully all of us, and may try to kick us all out.) I cannot stand this sort of unknown, the constant fear, I don’t feel safe, will we lose our home, how badly will they treat us, how ugly will this get? I know I will see the other side, but right now, I’m scared, and I don’t like that. It is just the cherry on the top of a number of other sorts of stresses so it just broke me. Chris was on a much-deserved vacation, so getting a letter with several lawyer’s names listed and vaguely threatening wording was too much. I fell apart for like a day and a half. What I’m describing is human, it’s normal, it’s perfectly ok. We all break sometimes, there’s no shame in that. I’m saying this to you, as well as to remind and convince myself.

But we had a tenant meeting a neighbor organized, (the lawyers do not want people talking to each other, they want us scared and unaware of our rights,) and it very much helped.

During the meeting, we all said what our biggest concerns were. Mostly they were similar; Chris and I would most definitely have to leave San Francisco, the city we love, and possibly the Bay Area. This infuriates me as a 3rd generation NorCal native, I can’t even afford my hometown, but I digress.

One of my dear neighbors is having a very hard time. As she was speaking my heart ached both because really, she has it worse by far, and also because I want to help. That’s my mission on this page, and that is what I want to do in real life.

Some of you know that Belle Chapin is a pseudonym. I started it that way because I was nervous about self-revealing, about what that could mean to my future, especially as I look for work, what it could mean in general due to stigma. I leave it that way as sort of a firewall I guess, between trolls and my identity, but I’ve mentioned it several times, and of course, posted photos of myself, so that’s sorted.

reach out 2 — Yes, I love Halloween, but this picture was taken in June. That’s Ermastus.

Now, I’ve done so on this blog. I used my real name on my book. The circle of people in real life who know is getting larger. But I didn’t know quite how comfortable I was with it until yesterday when that lovely woman was speaking, and I told her without thinking that I have bipolar disorder and I understand mental illness so please contact me if you need to.

As soon as that left my mouth, I pulled back inside. My inner monologue went straight to “Oh shit! I said that out loud, in front of humans.” I tried to get a grip on what this meant, what I had done. The toothpaste will never go back in the tube, so whatever someone brings to the table is how they will see me from now on. I don’t know many of these people at all, so unlike telling friends they will not be seeing it from a place of affection, but just strangers who live in my building. I have no control over what they will think of me or take from this. But the words simply left my mouth with zero thought other than explaining common issues that could be helpful. If I had told someone trying to get sober than I’ve been there, it would be the same. And what if I had? Would that feel different?

Actually yes, it would. I would have been more comfortable having announced, so to speak, that I’m an alcoholic, than that I have a mental illness. I think that’s worth looking at for all of us who fear stigma.

I mentioned I’m looking for a job. It’s common now for there to be a spot to enter a website. I’ve thought about linking to this blog. I’m proud of it, I’m happy with what I set out to do, I’m a decent writer, and I hope I have helped some people. But so far I haven’t, not once. Why not? Why shouldn’t I?

Because I’m afraid, is the short answer. Still, after all this time, I can’t bring myself to do it. And yet yesterday, in the middle of a room of people, many of whom are strangers, I reflexively blurted it out. It simply felt like the right thing to do to offer help.

I am the scene, you are the story. I set the plot, and you, my readers, who are largely strangers, take whatever you need, want, or not, and tell your story. That’s what I want, that’s what Nightmares and Laughter is supposed to be. But I can’t help a larger number if I hide away afraid. If I can’t bring this mission into my real life, how can I be of service? What if the person I’m listening to is too afraid to talk about it, and my revealing to them is a comfort, they’re not alone, I’m there for them. That’s the mission of Nightmares and Laughter. How can I fulfill that if I am afraid?

Stating it head high, matter of fact, unflinching, could illustrate that there is no shame in it, it’s nothing to hide, nothing to hold quaking in your heart. If I can’t do that, I am not true to myself and no help to anyone else.

I feel better now having found out our rights, and what exactly is going on with the building’s purchase. I feel better knowing we are not in immediate danger. Getting out of my own head and reaching out to someone else helps. We are not alone. Someone cares. Having the sword above our heads is a dreadful place for me, but I’m back on my feet. But last week I was not. I started an article in the midst of it, but it will wait until I have a clearer head to edit.

I leave you with this advice, when you are depressed, or in whatever state you find yourself, watch that internal monolog. Mine gets really ugly and vicious toward myself. Does yours? Someone said to me once, “If a friend came and told you they were feeling those things, what would you say to them? Would you tell them they’re stupid and worthless?” No, of course not. What would you say to them? What would you do? Nurture? Affirm? Would you talk softly to them? You are worth all of that and more.

Here are two resources for you, if you need them.

National Helpline

National Suicide Prevention Hotline

We can all help prevent suicide. The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.
1-800-273-8255

Home

Camp, childhood, fear, Halloween, Humor, memories, Mental Illness, Scary, subconscious

Halloween is Coming!

August 21, 2019 Sue St. Blaine 2 Comments

Is it Halloween yet? Trick question, it’s always Halloween.

When the chill comes into the air and the days get shorter, Chris and are giddy waiting for everyone else to start putting out spooky things and black clothes and Addams Family memes. Then we put on our best boots and long coats, go to the Halloween stores and skip across the parking lot singing “It’s the most wonderful time…of the yeeeaaarrrrr…..”

A few years ago we were picking out some serving dishes shaped like skulls and a nice print for the living room. A young lady working there asked us if we needed help. “Can I help you find anyt….oooooh, you shop here for all year, don’t you?” We giggled prettily and skipped away. Yes, we do shop there for all year. Our goal is to be Gomez and Mortica and I think we’re well on our way.

fear 5 — Every home should have a plague mask.

We love the fog belt in San Francisco, where there are many ravens hopping around being ravens, crows forming murders, fog horns singing a mournful song to the sea. Sorry, got lost in thought.

It’s normal to enjoy being scared, or Stephen King would be a copy-editor. As adults we know these things can’t really hurt us. But it gets us right in the fear receptors, something deep inside, whatever it is that scares each person. A big one for me is dread, what isn’t seen. I don’t like jump scares, I like the gut squeezing build-up, or the just barely perceptible mumbling or the thing that morphs into a menace that shouldn’t be.

fear 4 — If you know what this is, you’ve seen one of my favorite scary movies ever. (The Haunting, 1963 if you haven’t.)

As an adult, I know that none of this is real but as a kid, oh it’s serious business. This happened when I was about 7 or 8, and it was one of the best moments of fear-imprinting ever, so I share it with you. (Fear-imprinting may not be a thing, I just thought it sounded cool.)

We had gone to visit an aunt who lived outside Chicago in a huge old three-story house, with dozens of closets to play hide-and-go-seek, and a giant basement. As a girl in a one-story ranch house with no basement in suburban California, this was utterly alien to me. But as bizarre as the basement was, it was the furnace, a coal furnace, that blew off the top of my vivid imagination head. I had never even conceived of such a thing, and except for a steam locomotive, I’d never seen coal used as fuel.

One day, I went to the basement alone, it must have been a game of “Truth or Dare.” I pulled the chain of each bare light bulb as I went down the stairs, step by squeaky wooden step, and down onto the cement floor of this otherworldly space, and walked slowly forward, my eyes on my feet. I could hear my heartbeat and very little else. A few more steps and then…I looked up.

And there it was, this giant beast. It was staring right at me! It had many red, rectangular eyes, angry eyes, but its mouth! Huge, gaping, glowing yellow and white. I stood, unable to move as it fixed its red eyes on me, as it frowned its open-mouth frown. What do I do? All I knew is that it was going to devour me messily with a great deal of noise that no one would hear because I was way down in the basement which was larger than my entire house. After a lifetime fit into a minute or two, it hissed at me! A long, cat-like hiss. I was going to die.

fear 3 — It didn’t look like this, but this one looks like Bender from Futurama and that’s funny.

I have no memory of running through the paths of boxes, Christmas ornaments and forgotten toys to the stairs and up, but the next I knew I was in the brightly lit kitchen. I told my older sister and brother what had happened and they responded exactly the way an older sister and brother would, they laughed themselves dizzy.

I had kept my eyes on my feet because a long-accepted rule of kid-lore states, “if I can’t see the scary thing, it can’t hurt me.” The rule includes the subset “if my limbs are under the covers it can’t get me.”

Is this really kid stuff though? Is it any different than horoscopes or T.V. psychics? It’s a very small step from “there’s a ghost in my closet” to “there’s a ghost in my closet, call the Ghost Hunters.” It’s the same need, I think, to be afraid of something we know deep inside can’t hurt us, but we believe just enough to be afraid.

fear 9 — Ermastus is offended by the stereotype, quite frankly.

Anyway, when you watch a scary movie, especially a slasher type, there’s always that moment when someone does something that makes you think “No! Don’t go there, do go toward the sound, you dumbass!” Then you’re annoyed because nobody would ever be that stupid, I mean, who would ever be that stupid?

Um, about that.

Chris and I were visiting friends in Petaluma. It was a cold night and there was steam coming out of a manhole cover, that’s normal. But we got closer and heard what sounded like both metal scraping and a sort of growl. Did we – A: Cross the street with some urgency B: Note it, and walk around it or C: Walk right up to it, stand on either side, lean over and say “ooooh, what’s that noise?”

C. We did C. We would have been dead before the opening credits. Now when we watch scary movies and someone says, “Nobody would ever be that stupid.” we just sort of glance away and munch our popcorn. Yeah, nobody would be that stupid.

Sometimes as a skeptic I get called on to help someone logic out of a situation they can’t explain. Sometimes that answer is very, very funny.

Imagine this setting. A big group of us are camping beside a river. It’s dark, some people are getting as crazy as near 50-year-old people do. (Wooo hoo! We’re gonna stay up until 11 tonight!) We weren’t really roughing it though, there was a building with toilets and showers.

So I’m sitting there near the fire, and two of my dear friends run down the path from the bathrooms, linked arm in arm, scared and laughing, wanting me to go with them to check out a ghost in the bathroom. Ok, fine. I set down my sparkling water, and off we went.

As we walk into the bathroom, my girls are giggling but also scared (I really should have messed with them.) “So it looks like your ghost has great taste, it carries a Louis Vuitton bag.” That was the first clue. Ghosts don’t have jobs, how can they afford to buy stuff? Think about it! Anyway, I moved further in and I heard the “ghost,” who was a woman, by herself in the shower, and was in fact moaning.

No ghost, just a woman with little shame and a lot of stamina.

So we laughed that release of tension laugh, and we talk about that to this day. So yeah, it’s not just kids who do this, most of us do to some degree or another.

One doesn’t have to be Gomez and Morticia year-round like we are to love Halloween. It’s just fun, it’s fun to be something or someone you’re not, just for a night you give yourself permission to be silly or play pretend. It’s not just for kids, dammit! You can go play too! Go look for the creepy monster in the basement, do the mind-numbingly stupid thing and lean over the manhole that clearly contains a chain dragging monster waiting to break free, or investigate the ghost with a designer bag and needs that just can’t wait.

It’s August 21 as I write this, just a little over two months until the big day. I do love Christmas, but it’s a different animal. I try to be a little Dickensesque and keep Halloween in my heart all year. Play, laugh at absurdities, be nice to kids, and never, ever go toward the creepy sound in the attic barefoot, dressed in a flimsy nightgown and carrying a candle.

bipolar, brain, dream, Dreams, Mental Illness, nightmare, subconscious

The Monsters in Our Minds

April 29, 2019 Sue St. Blaine Leave a comment

I have heard there is a scholarly debate around whether “subconscious” is a legitimate or even helpful term.

I thought I’d peek at this from the viewpoint of an enthusiastic layperson, as pretty much a thought exercise. This sort of thing is fascinating to me, how the mind works, how my mind works, how to better understand and make friends with it. I’m curious what all of you think as well.

What started this was a terrible series of waking dreams and hallucinations I had for a few months last year. I was writing it up to be a three-part article but realized it was outside the scope of what I’m trying to do here, so I’m going to make it a short story instead. I feel that by writing it out, I take power away from it. Plus it’s just objectively scary, and I think it could make a good story.

Anyway, these visions stemmed from my own mind, from my own fears and loathing, a creature made real from my subconscious. It was from that dark, repressed place in the back of our minds where things we haven’t dealt with lurk and wait to leap.

It is part of me, yes, but not consciously, something behind that. Something I can’t control until it’s addressed.

“The unconscious contains all sorts of significant and disturbing material which we need to keep out of awareness because they are too threatening to acknowledge fully.”

https://www.simplypsychology.org/unconscious-mind.html

So I found that the term “subconscious” was being reframed in some circles. That the idea of a separate part of our minds that could hide dark or even dangerous thoughts was essentially the equivalent of “the devil made me do it” and needed to be removed as a concept. I don’t generally defend Freud, but I bristled at this right away.

sub mind 8 — **“You question me? I am beside myself!”**

Many years ago there was a fairly heated debate in one of the bipolar groups I was in, regarding how we refer to ourselves – “I have bipolar disorder” vs. “I am bipolar.”

Although I wrote this off as nit-picky, I do think they each made interesting points.

The pros and cons came down to this; “I have bipolar disorder” indicated that it was not who we are. We are standing next to it, maybe even holding its hand, but it is only part of who we are and does not define us. But those opposed to it felt it was being held at arms distance, that it showed a degree of shame, as in, that’s not really me, it’s this thing I won’t hold. This is dangerous, it was said, because it allows for “the devil made me do it.”

“I am bipolar” says I own this, it is part of me and I’m not ashamed. It is not arm’s length from me, it is part of my being. But those opposed to it felt it was making it too front and center, that it was made to be a defining trait that could become a crutch.

Honestly, I have no dog in that semantic race. I see the points on all sides, but I think it is a waste of our time. It seems like an excuse to not deal with bigger issues like, how do I get this creature out before it engulfs me, for example.

But I think that conscience vs. subconscious is valid to look at. It got me thinking about where our dark thoughts live, and how we disavow them.

This thing I saw even in the daytime, was a clear manifestation of my inner doubts and loathing, feelings of worthlessness and burden. I created it and gave it flesh. I figured it was those feelings and fears lurking in the box in the back of my rational mind that had been ignored for too long and burst out and had to be destroyed by, in my case, a ritual that involved my husband, incense, a symbol of success (my book) and screaming “Fuck you! I’m not worthless!” until my throat hurt. But everyone is different.

The debate around the subconscious, or the Id, as I understand it, involves the arms-length argument. If I keep my demons a separate part of my mind, I have no control over what happened, in any real way. In any way that I could stop.

The devil made me do it.

sub mind 9 — **My subconscious, generally speaking.**

I never felt that creature wasn’t part of me, I know perfectly well what it was. But I also don’t feel good about owning it. It was so horrible and so present that I was afraid I had lost my mind for good. I was afraid that it was the beginning of watching myself slip slowly into absolute insanity from which there was no coming back. I was starting to think that this “thing” would literally kill me.

It could not physically do so, but could I die basically of fright? And if I did, would it essentially be deniable suicide?

But if I embrace it, if I stop referring to my demons as my subconscious, if I remove that word and concept, would that be healthier? Or would it hurt me more, would it make it too present in which case it could stroll back in faster? And can that even be done, the way the brain is wired? We can’t keep all of our thoughts in the fore of our minds, it’s simply not possible, I don’t think.

I don’t have answers to any of these questions, as I said, this is really just a thought exercise.

So many thoughts are bubbling up, so many feelings are being addressed, but so few answers. I will, of course, run all this by my therapist, and I might write another article once we talk about it. But in the meantime, I want to see what you think about it. I’ve seen that some of my followers on this blog have initials after their names, I’m always excited to hear professional insight.

Whatever the subconscious is called, however it’s conceptualized, I hope that I have calmed it down for the foreseeable future. The thing that crawled up my bed, the thing I saw in the daytime, the thing that hated me with fire and wanted me dead, scared the hell out of me. I would very much appreciate never seeing it again.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: