DBG.RIP

DBG.RIP: Omamori/Memento Mori

  • Too Fast, Too Close

    Apparently there’s a “Too Fast World” theory of autism. I guess the idea there is that autistic people’s central thread is we kind of process incoming information more slowly, so the pace that works for neurotypicals decidedly does not work for us.

    That not only deeply resonates with me, but — it’s occurring to me now — it might actually play in to the uptick in diagnostic rates. Think about how overwhelming the world is starting to feel to basically *everyone* these days! The deluge of information is probably revealing a lot of autism that might otherwise have flown under the radar.

    Another thing I learned recently is that people in the spectrum might have a higher incidence of something called mirror-touch synesthesia than the general population. Would that explain things like how, for example, if I see a gob of phlegm on the ground, I feel like it’s in my mouth? Or, if I read about some sort of blood-borne illness, I feel like I’m being injected with it? I wonder if there’s also a high OCD/mirror-touch overlap…

    Brains are so weird!

    In other news, I’m finally contacting wedding planners! <3

    One thing I really loved in my first session of the drawing class was the idea of “enjoying the sensual pleasure of mark-making.” I think that’s how the teacher put it. I feel like that’s really closely connected to my insight about making art in the spirit of some of my other self-regulating, almost stim-like activities, such as laying out all my medicines in the pill organizer. I was pretty freaked out about the class, and whether the teacher would, I don’t know, judge and reject me, I guess? But I ended up really enjoying it! I took some propranolol to help myself over the anxiety wall, and I think that was a really good call. I feel like I have a lot of physiological residue from all the school-related trauma, and maybe that kind of helped my body be in the current situation, rather than being stuck in a situation that is now gone… It’s interesting.

  • Happy New Year!

    (I hope. : )

    Seems like a good time to make a record. A record of recent events. : )

    So, let’s see… C. & I took the train! It was really fun. This environment might actually be too distracting for journalling… We’ll see. I also don’t have very long, because I have my first day of my new art class! I want to go over there with plenty of time, so I can find the room & get settled and everything. It’ll be a first for me. : ) I feel remarkably prepared. AND, I notice, as I was writing that, my brain supplied, “And even if I left something out, it’ll still be ok.” Thank you, therapy. < 3

    In any case, the train. It turned out to be a bit hard to sleep on the train, harder than I expected, in any case, but I think that’ll improve with experience. Everything else about it was pretty great, though! With the possible exception of the washing facilities… But at least they were just ours while we were there, even if they were undoubtedly contaminated before we got there. : )

    But the pace was great, the scenery was great, the food was pretty good, sitting with other people in the dining car was anywhere from fine to actually quite fun. It was cool having a lounge in Portland, too! I love how into lounge-based luxury C. immediately got after our experiences on the Berlin trip. 😅

    And being there was pretty ok, too. I feel like our interactions, overall, were not super hard to take. And, when they were, I was able to be sad, and have C. next to me. Even if I didn’t want to tell her what I was sad about, because I felt like it would stress her out. : P But, it ended up that they *did* give us one deposit instead of two after all. I wonder what happened in the background about that… I got so stressed about it after I heard what I thought was M. advocating for doing two. I came up with a lot of stories about why she wanted to do it that way. I wonder if I even heard what I thought I heard, or if it was that D. overruled her, or she changed her mind, or what… I don’t know. I’m glad I got to practice being sad about a thing I felt sad about, rather than trying to numb out, in any case, and that it turned out not to be a thing after all was an amazing silver lining… on a thing that was already good? I don’t know if that’s still a silver lining, but… yeah. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    In any case, better get my half-cat to go & pack up. : ) More soon.

  • Agency

    Last week in therapy I mentioned a belief I have around the futility of my own actions. Two beliefs, actually: one, is the belief that what I do will not have the intended outcome, but instead some dire, undesired consequence; the other is that I just have no ability at all to impact my circumstances/the world/my Self/etc.

    Paradoxically these can even operate simultaneously. The outcome is that I have a very hard time believing in my own agency. This can manifest in many — sometimes surprising — ways. An example is my License Plate Numerology OCD symptom. What I’m looking for when I look for omens in the license plate numbers is some indication of what will happen to me, because I can have no [positive] impact on it myself. So, I have to rely entirely not only on external circumstances, but external circumstances that are entirely arbitrary and nearly opaque.

    I think this is why it’s been one of my most durably difficult symptoms.

    I also realized that, in thinking about the uncertainties of the world, I have the impulse to “find a safe place,” rather than to create a safe — or, at least, tolerable — place for myself. It feels like something I’m subject to, something that’s out of my hands except in terms of availability, and my ability to take advantage of that availability. I think this is one of the deepest reasons “Having Money” feels so important, and on such an existential level.

    It’s probably also related to my tendency to react to stress with catatonic shutdown, though I haven’t yet articulated to myself exactly how… I guess it’s a matter of already feeling so ineffective that any additional constraint, such as my impending death or incapacity [time; ability] feels like a total, catastrophic collapse.

    Again, relatedly (I think), is the whole abandonment melange situation I got into recently with my grief not only around Tabi’s death, but around having no Parent figure to share that with & seek comfort. Maybe what’s related there is the feeling… I’m not sure.

  • The Barn

    C. & I are sitting, rather jet lagged, in The Barn, on Invalidenstraße, Berlin. I’m drinking a cappuccino made with their low caffeine beans, which are really, impressively delicious. C. is laughing at cat videos, and posting pictures. We’re across from a beautiful, old-looking building — maybe sandstone? — I wonder what the history of that one is…

    As we were walking around yesterday, on our perhaps-somewhat-too-long trip to the Spree-side café, Zimt & Zucker, we passed a building that looked scarred by war. It reminded me of what this city has been through. In my current, body-clock-addled state, it’s a little hard to remember where I am, and what has happened here.

    It occurs to me sometimes, in a flash, though.

    And so much architecture is just beautiful! I love the scope and scale of these cities of Europe — so much older and grander than our little American cities.

    There’s great people watching here, at the big window of this coffee shop. : )

    * * *

    It’s a little embarrassing to be so bad at the local language, and to be unsure of how, exactly to initiate interactions… Does one just start speaking English, and hope for the best? That’s generally been my approach. I keep retrospectively cringing, though. : P

    But, I also keep recognizing words, and even putting together meaning from word combinations I might not have specifically learned, yet! The world feels open to me. : )

  • Getting To Know My World

    I feel as though — in some ways, at least — I’m interacting with my life more, interacting with my world more.

    It’s strange: just spending a lot of time Being With a place, like our upstairs deck, has put me in touch with bugs, birds, squirrels, light, wind… The Big Tree… so many people and things, and in so many new & more fully realized ways. I’m not sure I really even understand it yet.

    But that massive flock of crows…

  • Teaching The Dog To Bark

    There’s apparently an idea in dog training where, if you want to teach a dog not to bark, you first need to teach it to bark.

    Maybe there’s a similar opportunity with my Dark Veil. Maybe if I can learn to be in the Dark Veil, I can also learn to lift the Dark Veil…

  • For Whom?

    As I was emerging from sleep this morning, I had what I think might be a pretty important realization: there’s all this wonderful stuff in the books I *already have,* just waiting for me to open it up and discover it!

    The deeper layer of that has to do with how — every moment of every thing I do — I feel someone else looking over my shoulder about it. I have become convinced that whatever I do — even whatever I think or feel! — is, in some fundamental way, *for* somebody or something else. Whether it’s something I do at the bidding of the OCD, or to fulfill my Role Self, it’s all extrinsic motivation.

    Well, I have *intrinsic* motivation, too! So, fuck that shit. I’m going to open some of those books!

  • Cankers (?)

    When I found that high-quality CBD oil “cures” my cankers… I’m not sure I can even describe the relief I felt. But now, I’m not so sure. Is it possible I’ve just driven them down a different nerve? Is whatever caused my cankers the same thing that now causes my tinnitus? I’m really afraid it might be. And, I’m afraid the consequences might be more dire even than with the cankers.

    Also, can the CBD oil “cure” this, as well? On what level is it acting, physically? Is it acting on contact — topically — or systemically? Or, not at all? I suppose this could be a coincidence?

    This all fits into a problematic narrative I have of what I suppose could fall under the “no free lunch umbrella”; I fear that solving one problem is not actually solving it, but displacing it to another area, and that the displaced version of the problem will often actually by worse in some way than the original… Too many fairy tales, perhaps? It’s pretty suck.

  • Dérive

    Interestingly, I think one of my problems is that, if I come up with an idea that excites me, I often assume it’s an original idea, and, therefore, miss out on opportunities to commune with my ideological forebears and colleagues, to benefit from their insights and organization of ideas, and maybe even to have community in their midst.

  • Intention

    My intention is not to elicit sympathy; it is to elicit shared understanding.

Got any book recommendations?

So do I!