Dance of the Heart
each night the heart breaks
not knowing what new day brings
dance like it’s your last
This is my entry for this weeks Haiku Poetry Challenge BREAK and Dance.
There are details in the prompt on how to write a Haiku.
© 2014-2022- Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.
To the artificial us, the expected supposed to be, and to humanity begging to shine through, I give you one piece of advice. Cry. I began this thread of idea to speak to the men of the world and their need to cry, in order for them to release all the pent up fears, angers, humiliations, and confusions, but the audience later broadens to be all inclusive.
Through this release through crying we, as men, might avoid the catastrophes we inevitably create for ourselves. Catastrophes created by fear of failure, anger and humiliation leading to obstinance and inflexibility. Confusion of not knowing what to do with all these feelings we’ve been told and ingrained with not to let show, let alone to allow exist inside of us. Again, the fear of that confusion because if we have these sensitive thoughts, feelings, and reactions then people might think we are more woman than man.
But, as I thought of how men in society should support man to cry, I thought also of how women should let us cry as well. Then I realized that society doesn’t allow women to cry freely without judgement either. Crying is seen as weak. Crying by a man is often thought of as showing their feminine side, as though having a feminine side is a bad thing.
This led me to the thought of why we still refer to behaviors as feminine or masculine.
I believe crying and laughter are the two most powerful healing and coping mechanisms every person has available to them, and it’s free to do either. No prescription necessary or diagnosis required.
Just as men are seen as weak for crying, so to are women. I believe that view along with that about men has led to many wrong decisions in the 20th and 21st centuries that caused great losses. This is not just an opinion I have about the U.S. but one for all countries around the world. Some even worse than America itself.
Many of us have or will experience a life altering trauma. We’re afraid to admit it, afraid to show we are scared or hurting or completely lost. A good first step is to let yourself cry. It works. I speak from experience.
So to humanity, I once again say…cry, and cry often. But also remember to laugh just as much. It’s all about balance in ones life to have a good and healthy life.
Cry like a man?
Cry like a human.
Cry like a babe calling for the need of telling the world it needs relief of something.
Wash away the poisons of loss
of grief
of fear
of anger
of the loneliness of being you.
Cry from no one listening
of no one noticing
you are no longer the you they know or you recognize.
Cry…so you can then breathe…and laugh once again.
Usually when I begin writing a post I open my trusty Word Document with a grain of an idea and begin typing. This time I am sitting here waiting for something witty to discuss. Okay, so maybe witty is pushing it a little. Sometimes I am inspired by social media, not to write about a topic discussed but by how that makes me feel about an underlying problem or feeling I observe.
It’s been several minutes now, and something keeps coming to mind, a daughter. I don’t have one but through the years I seem to borrow daughters of other people. As a teacher and youth director at my church it was bad, as in every girl from the age of 16 and under was my child.
I’ve done well in my later years, being a good father figure to children out there that didn’t have a father or didn’t have one that was emotionally present even though in the house. It’s a painful thing.
After I lost my memory I also lost some daughters. It seems things just weren’t the same for them. I get it and I don’t blame them. It’s a painful thing.
But now I’ve borrowed another one and it’s been a good thing for me. She’s a good one. Somehow, I always fall into these wonderful young ladies who are smart and talented. Of course, it’s still not real. I don’t know, I just feel like there is this void inside that needs filling and I keep grabbing on to these wonderful people to support and encourage. That’s what I really love to do. That encouraging and supporting feels so good to do for someone. But, of course it’s not real, is it? It’s a painful thing.
Of course, some people are going to say I need to just be happy with what I have, and believe me, I love my son, B. For those of you that don’t know about B, I call him that because he’s my (B)oy. Yep, not putting his name out there, not even on Facebook with people who already know about him, not even a picture of him.
B is super smart, always on the equivalent of Dean’s List at his private college prep school. He has amazing promise on the trumpet, according to his band director, and even the director at an event including all the local schools’ best musicians performing together took time to point him out specifically. I just wish he would practice at home, but he doesn’t because he worries he’ll bother my migraines. I have them 24/7 since the concussion.
So yes, I have a great son. And I am perfectly fine with that and happy with that. The thing is that it just feels like something is missing. I have a feeling that one day that void will no longer be a problem, but for now, I’m borrowing a brilliant (G)irl who is the exact female version of B.
Well, that’s a little more personal stuff about me and how all that internal stuff works for me. A lot more than I planned but once I start writing I usually don’t back down. I go with it and share it. Fearless to a point. Honest to a fault. (Oh yeah, I don’t lie in my writing, just so you all know. If you read it here, it’s Truth.)
Catch y’all next time.
PS
Of course I came up with a topic as I finished this.
Ever had someone say “Depending on your opinion I would have to ask what you’re thinking?”
I have and my response has been silence in the past because I just don’t care enough about the person’s thoughts on what I think, but now I decided to share my opinion about what I’m thinking.
If I or you have an opinion, it really isn’t up to someone else to question it. The only time that even becomes a thing is if you are in a debate. Sorry, but my life isn’t a debate with anyone. You ask, I give, you receive. That’s pretty much it.
I give in a gentle manner. At least to start with. I haven’t really “gone off” on someone, as they say. Or at least not in the traditional sense of the word.
Last week I gave two prompt words in my Haiku Challenge, Free and Think. You are free to think whatever you like. If we had thought police we would all be in jail. We all think some pretty whacked out stuff.
Could you imagine there being “Hate Thought Laws”? I mean think about it. “Man, I really think the president sucks.” The next thing you know you have someone in dark glasses and a suit at your door.
It’s not the thoughts that matter. It’s what you do with them. I may not like someone, but as long as I don’t do anything to them or speak in a too harsh manner then I’m good. I may say I don’t like someone. I don’t have to say why. But if I don’t and that person is of a different ancestral background than I am, can you guess what people will say?
Even if I say “I don’t like the guy because he’s a jerk,” people are still going to think what they want to. For example, I am not a big Obama fan, okay, I’m not an Obama fan at all. I’m from the South, I’m a white skinned male in his 40s. Guess what people will say my reason for not liking Obama will be.
Of course people would be wrong. But you know what? They have a right to think what they want to. Thinking is good. I get a lot of problems solved that way, a lot of issues with people sorted out that way. Thinking through things and even having an argument with someone in your head will save a lot of trouble with people.
Most of the time when I do that I end up realizing how silly something was to begin with. It’s a coping or therapy really.
Thinking is good. Policing my thoughts isn’t. Keep your filthy paws off my private thoughts. (Okay, so the Grease homage there didn’t work out quite right but I tried.)
Much Love, Success, and Respect
Ronovan
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
There’s a saying that goes something like, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” For about two years I’ve kind of laughed at that phrase. For some of us, when something is gone we don’t even know what it was which means we don’t miss it.
I’ve been fine with it. I go through each day with a new loss flittering away and I feel fine. That’s because I don’t know what flitters away. Okay, so I know something is likely being lost. I’m aware that memories are lost.
Normally I don’t stress about it because stressing leads to other problems. Recently a memory loss, a huge one, became evident—with vigor.
I’ll explain an “other” problem for a moment. Depression. Well, I don’t know that it really needs to be explained. We all know what depression is. When a memory goes away and I then have people forcing that memory back in my head, or trying to get it back in there, things happen. The brain snaps. I actually at some point feel a pop in my head. I am sure it’s not really anything physical, only a psychological representation of what is happening.
When that happens, Ronovan is gone for a time.
My huge memory loss recently led to such a situation. I would think things were going fine, then wham, another hit from a different side. Lulled into things being okay. Wham, another hit. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.
Now, here I am, depressed, physically ill, and looking for the learning lesson of it all.
Memory problems make for a bad emotional entity. They also make for a bad relationship of any type. You wake up and you don’t know if that person who is your friend, spouse, significant other, father figure is still going to be that for you.
Who is it fair to in that situation? As I’ve been writing this I’ve been sorting through it all. I suppose the best thing is if it’s a repeat offender status thing, cut and run if the situation allows for it. I know live in family members can’t do that but there are things you can do.
Accept the memory loss person (MLP) for who they are, knowing what is possible.
Be supportive in the efforts of the MLP to handle it. Think for a moment about this. You wake up, or are even going along writing or watching a video and then—WHAM—you don’t know what day it is, or what city you are in, or who that person in the other room is. Ever wonder how a person handles that each day?
Think about being in the middle of a sentence and forgetting who it is across the table from you. In this age of internet and digital conversations and friendships it’s even more difficult to remember without those constant physical/visual cues.
People might find it surprising that I wake up and have forgotten the people in my house. Or I will go through one of those situations above. My body goes through a routine each morning and I discover what my problems are and I just go with it. I’ve told myself in letters not to stress, that I am normal. This is normal for me. I tell myself to begin to write something from a list of projects I’m working on.
Sometimes memories will come back or at least enough of a familiarity to make things fine or functionable. Yeah, another of my made up words.
What about the other person, the person forgotten?
What would I do if I were on the other end of this?
I honestly can’t answer that with an all encompassing solution. I think patience is part of it, understanding, and you know maybe even just cut and run. I know people balk at that last one but it is an option. But that is the option people will focus on here because it is seen as the uncaring, cold idea and how could I even think of telling someone to do that if a person cared about the MLP or of the MLP cares about the person.
I’ve been living with this for two years. You get to the point, where after having written about it, thought about it, and lived through it, you cut through it all to the heart or heartless of it all and give solutions.
And what about the MLP? Should they keep trying to remember, opening themselves up to an emotional tug-of-war to then either go through the loss again, perhaps not knowing it, or then being shut off once a connection is established again?
What do I do?
I have no one answer for myself. Perhaps I should, it would make my life easier. Can a person live a life, a healthy life mentally without people? I suppose they can but I’m not that far gone yet.
Now, for those who look at my writing and things I share each day and think I seem normal and I have all these friendships and all, the MLP has tricks they use to get by. Don’t call out the MLP for this if you still want to be a part of their life. At least they are trying.
I’ll tell you one trick I have. It’s called the Ronovan Writes Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt Challenge. No, that’s not a plug for my challenge. I am telling you about a trick. There are people who do the challenge every week, and that means I read their work, usually at least twice, think about it, review it, see their names, and all of that every week. It doesn’t work for each person because of lack of regularity but when I see the name I know it’s familiar and once I get to their site things come back.
MLPs have sensory/emotional impressions of people if not actual memories. I know by a name, if it has been around me long enough, if that person is someone that is positive for me or negative, if that person is a friend or foe, if that person is emotionally good for me or a life drain.
When you hear that old saying about first impressions, it’s true. Make a good first impression and good last impression as well. You are asking, “How do I know when that last impression will be?” Whenever you leave the communication presence of someone, that’s your last impression until the next time you connect with them.
Well, this has been a longer message than I had planned, and I’m not sure if it is even what I had intended, but it is what it is and that’s all that it is. So, as I have just now read back through it, you might find it surprising I forgot about half of what I wrote while I was writing this. But again, it is what it is. I’m not to blame, you are not to blame, there is no blame.
Oh, I just remembered why I was writing this. Seriously. That big recent memory loss I had, like a mind wipe almost, took some important people away and broke things. Hmm, never mind. You know, I’ve tried. I think I will just deal with the depression of it all, come out the other side, and say I am what I am. It’s all I can be. Even if I don’t like it, I have to accept it or wind up on the 6 o’clock news.
Much Respect
Ronovan
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
Dear Me,
You will go through a lot of strange moments in your life. I’m not going to tell you what they are because I wouldn’t change anything that has made me who I am today, not even the bad moments. But I do have some advice.
There are so many times you will ALLOW others to bring you down. Your heart will break, be crushed. And that’s okay, I won’t tell you who by. Go ahead and fall in love. Love. Pour your heart into it. When things don’t turn out the way you like, don’t LET it almost destroy you. Use those moments to perhaps write. You want to be a writer but may not know it yet.
Always have hope. Keep it in mind that life exists tomorrow. All those disappointments have happened and are over. You make your future today. Love, work, life? All of those moments of trial and agony? Yes, you will feel it in the moment but don’t let it eat you alive to spiritual and emotional death.
But do experience those emotional moments, they will help you in the future to handle other moments. You will become someone who can understand others with the same moments in their lives. You will be able to help people and want to help them.
Love hard. Don’t go halfway. But take your time to know who you are about to love hard. And when you know its the right person, love hard in every way. Make that person know your love is a tangible thing that exists even when you are not in the room.
Loving hard might mean you fall hard and are broken had but the experience of love filling your heart, your soul, your entire being is worth every moment. Even if it’s for a day or a week, experience it. It’s worth every it.
That’s my advice today. Let those moments of agony go and use them to make you better and love hard with everything you’ve got.
Let’s connect.
https://twitter.com/RonovanWrites
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ronovan-Writes/630347477034132
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RonovanWrites/about
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”~Mark Twain
“Dwelling is a house you live in, not a situation to waste your life on.”~Ronovan
I had great plans for writing today. I ended up with something else. Great or not is not for me to decide. I write, you read. Opinions are made. Words are put down in either situation, planned or not, the results may end up the same. I personally am okay with whatever happens.
A day meant for creating a biography of my inspiration for wanting to become a teacher, Sidney Poitier in the movie To Sir with Love, along with quotes from his autobiography lying next to my notebook and me, turned into a day of pain that many would call unbearable. I can laugh at that phrase.
People say they went through unbearable this or that. I like to ask, “If it was so unbearable, why am I am speaking to you standing up, instead of speaking over you lying down?”
My sadistic joy comes from the looks of puzzlement. Looking to the quotes I put forth at the beginning today, and my presence here in writing this article, what my opinion is on the unbearable pain I have gone through over the past few days, and specifically the past 24 hours should be apparent.
My Fibromyalgia is an ugly animal. It is one I have come to know and respect. Never become too comfortable with an animal, even a pet. Once you do, something will happen. A new trait comes out. Or maybe something totally unrelated. Hopefully to find out soon.
What have I done today?
Why sleep? Sleep don’t hurt. But also, I need sleep. What I did today was make progress in many areas and rested as much as I could. Rest isn’t something I don’t normally do. Even while succumbing to Chronic Fatigue it isn’t rest I am getting.
Even now while writing this article I have stopped several times due to the pain. I rarely ever stop because of pain. An article that should have taken me 15 minutes has so far taken me over two hours.
I’ve enjoyed it. Thinking is a great pastime for me. I love to get thinky, as I like to call it. This past year and half has allowed for some great thinky times. Every day I have a thinky moment. At least one. Usually more. That’s one reason I blog. I like to use those thinky times as inspiration for articles. Be grateful I don’t put all those moments on the blog.
I mentioned earlier that I was happy with whatever the results of the article might be today. Why? I wrote. That’s why. Did I write well? Not really, but I wrote. And that is a positive day to me.
Remember to connect with me at one of the following. Well, at least one.
https://twitter.com/RonovanWrites
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ronovan-Writes/630347477034132
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RonovanWrites/about
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
A Blogging Tip today? I know, it’s an unusual day for one but with a recent hashtag thing I started I’ve been visiting more blogs lately and have noticed a few things, okay, two things.
I’ve discussed one before; Add your website/blog site to your Gravatar.com site . . . PLEASE!
This one may seem a bit odd if to you if I am actually reaching another bloggers site and reading their posts/articles. However, if I read a great and intelligent comment by a blogger and want to try and follow them, I click their name or image and I end up at Gravatar.com. That’s normal. But once there all I see is a picture. Sometimes an email address is there. That doesn’t help to get someone to follow you unless you are wanting a pen pal.
You should be putting links to your blog, twitter, facebook, and/or any other link you want people to connect to you with. I’ve missed the chance to follow dozens of bloggers since I began this site for the simple reason of their being no way to find their site.
Below is the gist of the post I wrote back in August and was one of my most popular post for a long time.
So PLEASE:
Addition to article-There has been mention of About.me in the comments, which I have replied to. Gravatar.com is a site that allows one to link to sites such as WordPress and you can follow blogs and the like and comment as yourself rather than as a guest. About.me is a larger animal. Although Gravatar can do some of the same things it is nowhere near what About.me is. For details on About.me you can visit an article I wrote about it on my LitWorldInterviews.WordPress.com site.
https://litworldinterviews.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/how-to-about-me/
There is something that will annoy some visitors to your blog.
Too many clicks to get to the reason they showed up.
You put out that you have an article, but it’s really another click or two away. This comes about because:
Here in WordPress, we have something that makes an old post renewed a little more courteous. But why will some not use this or refuse to do so?
Not everyone is like this. Not even the ones I’ve visited lately. Some people just don’t think about it or may not know about it. But,
The next time you are in your post editor and you are wanting to create a post:
Good Reasons For Copying a Post
You can change the name of the article. I just wanted to say that and not assume people would know it.
If you do copy an article for the sake of sharing an old one you may want to consider one courtesy to do;
If I am copying for the sake of updating information, if it is information that is important that it be current, I update it in the old article as well. People link to some of my articles at times and I want to be sure anything they are sending people to me for is as accurate as possible.
Those are the Two Tips for Today. Hope you find them helpful.
Remember to follow me in the following if you can:
@RonovanWrites Google+ Facebook GoodReads
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
First of all, THIS IS NOT A SELF SEEKING PITY POST! I am simply sharing as therapy here. I share to let others see that we are all the same and have the same things happen or similar things happen. Even the positive people of the world have screwed up lives at times. So PLEASE do not take this as a pity post.
Seeing that tomorrow is my day for a positive post I am getting myself ready for it now. The past few days have been those days where I want to simply sleep all day.
I’ve been on the verge of:
A lot of people look at me and think, just rest. “You do too much.” “It’ll be okay.” “You’re under stress.” But they forget a few things about me. Old Ronovan isn’t all okay up there in the noggin.
It’s been a while since I’ve been on the cusp of debilitating depression. Depressed? Yes. Hide in my room and not come out for any reason whatsoever? No. I think it’s been maybe a month and a half or so.
Recently I’ve lost memories of friends. I get emails from them and have to wing it. I don’t want people to get upset with me, because I hope things will come back. I read back through previous emails from them to get an idea of things and then come up with a decent reply.
You know, the bad part is there are people I wish at times would just disappear that don’t. Do you have people like that?
What people don’t get is I do so much in order to keep out of depression. But then I get in to so much and border on letting people down and then the depression begins.
So why am I saying all of this while wanting to get ready for a positive day of posts? You gotta get it out of your system.
Know what I mean? You have those friends like that? They like to wear their problems and not get rid of them. It’s like they are so happy to be down. I share and get it over with. blah
It’s difficult to be a friend of mine in the sense of like a outside of blog friend. Like in email and chat friend. You don’t know if I am going to be normal one moment and completely not handle situations properly the next. There is like a wire inside my mind that overheats and as it does it doesn’t want to work right.
You know like on the dryer in your house. Sometimes a part will heat up and it will actually just get hotter and hotter. That’s my brain. I can feel it at times doing that. But it feels more like an icepick scratching and scraping away at a spot, trying to make its way deeper inside my brain.
That’s when I enter the, “I’m sorry” zone. I apologize for everything and then I disappear. I’m not gone for good, but I need to shut down and try to patch things back up and cool the brain down.
I hope my friends are reading this so they will understand me better. If not? I guess I will keep going through the cycle. You do what you have to do, right?
See you all tomorrow for Be Wonderful on Wednesday. I’ve got the bad out and can now go for the good. You can even look at this as positive. I do. I shared it, I didn’t wear it. And I’m not hiding.
Oh, a cool thing today. My son is in the fourth grade and recently they took a reading test to see their level of reading. He sort of blew it off not realizing what it was for. His level came out to be half way through the 8th Grade and he was second highest in his grade. He so needs to learn each test is a test no matter what it is. Geesh. Imagine what he might have done. Anyone surprised he’s an advanced reader?
Remember to find me and follow me at @RonovanWrites, on Google+, and on Facebook.
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
Last week in Sorting Your Life’s Junk I talked about how the way to being a positive and wonderful me, well a better me, was how I like to place events and thoughts into Mental Folders. I called them:
By doing this, I am able to sort through things quickly and move on. It’s a habit. A reflex, if you want to look at it that way. Just like driving a car. You see something brake in front of you, you don’t have to think about it, you hit your brakes to stop something bad from happening. This is the same thing. By sorting those events or interactions into folders, those emotional/mental energy vampires/leeches/parasites don’t have a chance to latch on.
But you are probably thinking to yourself there are still things in the folders and you are likely to thumb through those files at some point. Ignoring the negative things doesn’t work. I like the adage or phrase “You got to own it.”
Eventually whatever it is must be taken care of. Due to a concussion I’m not allowed to drive at the moment. I’ve driven 7 minutes in the past 18 months. And that was an emergency. Am I happy?
I guess you need to take a look at happy first. Everything that needs to get done in my life gets done. So in the grand scheme of things, not driving is not a major problem for me. I have filed it and dealt with it. I’m okay with it.
Does being okay with it mean I don’t miss the ability to get up and go whenever I want to? No, of course not. But I own the situation, I understand it, and I handle it. It does not get me down.
I knew you were thinking that. I’ll use my Fibromyalgia. It was discovered that the debilitating pain that I had been having for more than a decade was Fibromyalgia, which runs in my family. Walking is difficult. Sleeping is difficult. Sitting is difficult. Lying down is difficult. Maybe you see where this is headed. Combine that with migraines that are 24/7 and things are bad. By 24/7 I mean they never stop, just vary be intensity.
So what do I do about that? What do I do because I miss ball games and school events of my son? I deal with it. I have a son and one to be proud of. So I can’t do everything I would like, I am still proud of him and tell him that and show him every chance I get. And he knows it. Does it get me down at times? For a moment, then I shake it off.
That’s one thing we have to remember, positive doesn’t happen 100% of the time. It’s just like anything else, it’s what you do with it. I had an old pastor friend say to me once that you can look at a woman and see she’s beautiful, just don’t turn around and watch her walk away, that is where the bad part comes in.
What’s in your folders is the same way. You see it, and you deal with it. Sure, it will hit you and you might have a moment of problem but then move on and don’t look back. It’s done. It’s over.
As time goes by and perhaps the problem comes up again, you will eventually have developed the habit. File, deal, and begone. The most positive people are the ones usually who have gone through the most junk.
Being positive has its advantages. You begin to see the positive in many situations you never saw before. You see beauty where you only saw ugliness before. And you give words of encouragement when you at one time yelled or ignored.
I’m positive positivity will bring positive things to your life.
For the next in my Positivity Day series, it’s not really a series but just me focusing on being positive, you may want to read The Importance of Being You. It’s kind of neat to see how someone grows and where their thoughts carry them on a subject in order. Do they grow or not?
Join me and several other blogger friends as we start #BeWoW Bloggers. BeWoW means Be Wonderful on Wednesday. Be Positive, Encouraging, Inspiration, and Uplifiting. If you like something positive you read somewhere, or you write something yourself, Tweet it with the hashtag of #BeWoW on Wednesday and we see it and ReTweet it and visit it ourselves to be encouraged. If you don’t like to Tweet, then share the link to that article you have or you found in a comment here so people can find it that might not normally do so.
Much Respect and Much Love to You,
Ronovan
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
Year of Renewal. That’s what my theme for this year is. In reality that’s a theme for every day. For someone who has days that are very routine oriented, who needs days that are very routine oriented I surprisingly find myself starting over a lot.
Just when you think things in your life are possibly, just possibly on the right track—Boom! But that’s okay. If you look at my life, I’m kind of accustomed to things never being quite where I need them to be or like them to be or maybe it’s just that life is not where I expect it to be.
First off, I am going to say that everyone is different. No two people have the exact same things about their depression. They may be similar enough to be helped but they are all unique. Also, how they are helped will vary. What I discuss here today is about me and what I know and have discovered through my adventure through this thing we call life.
Depression is something a lot of people think they understand. A lot of people are wrong. For me, a conk on the head, the loss of all my memories, and a ton of pain without ceasing plays havoc with my abilities to cope at times. Don’t get me wrong, I do fairly well. Sure, I talk about depression and life situations at times, actually not near as much as I once did, but I do so to share with others so they can see there is a bright spot, a way through, an ability to overcome. I do so in order that people who don’t understand can understand about someone in their life that may suffer from depression. And by the way, I can’t stand the word cope, but it might pop up at times today.
For those of you who do suffer from depression know that life is not over. That’s something to tell those who support you and give you sympathy to the point of enabling you to be depressed even more often. That makes it sound as though depression is something one can turn on and off like a garbage disposal. No, but once you are in a bout of depression what is your motivation to come out of it if those around you are doing nothing but giving you pity?
That being said, you do need time to handle it. And no one, no matter what, can force someone out of a true bout of depression. I am not speaking of sadness, I am speaking of depression.
Being Mr. Positive about my life is a pain in the backside at times. Don’t get me wrong, I am fine. I really am Mr. Positive. I’m not dead. I could be and probably should be. But I’m here rambling away. But let me tell you one thing about depression.
For those of you who experience depression I’m here to say I know how much it sucks. There is a line you are trying to not be sucked over but the quicksand of that part of your mind just keeps pulling you in. We all get jerked over that line. And let me tell you folks who haven’t experienced depression, I’m not talking about grief and sadness, you do get jerked over that line. One moment you are fine and the next it’s literally like a switch has been flipped. One moment one side of the line, next moment the other side of the line, yes, sucked over. Sucks. I used that word for a reason after all.
When I enter the suck zone I am fortunate that I can come here and write about it in some form. Normally it’s a poem. I don’t feel poetic today. In fact my long form poetry may be on hiatus for a while. I’ve been struggling lately. As an example there are times when I open a page to type and the tears begin. It may even be my opening email to write someone and the tears begin. It doesn’t matter what I am writing, they begin. But how do I keep going? I want to go into me for a bit more here and I will tell you later on how I keep going. But now a bit about the for real me.Because me is the best example and the most thorough example I can give.
For those out there who are professional therapists or whatever, I am not using these things as identifiers but simply as contributors to something I am talking about. I identify myself as positive, constructive, and creative things. So don’t fret and chill a bit.
That’s a list of some of the problems I have. There are other things related to them I have and also those caused by the medications I must take but I don’t want to take up the whole article with all of that. One thing happening right now is as I type these words it feels as though with each keystroke I am jamming my fingers into nails and needles. But my escape from all of my troubles is writing.
Looking at that list, do you think my bouts of depression are simply moments I want to just wallow in self-pity? Or do you perhaps see things that can overwhelm someone to the point of breaking for a short time until recovery takes place? I admit if you are having a bad time in life sometimes you do want to just wallow in that downer time, acknowledge, and own it and then move on, but that’s something completely different.
Look at an athlete. Let’s say you have someone participate in the Iron Man Triathlon. Following that event, after pretty much every muscle group has been used and spent, they need a time to recover. No one questions that. Well, the brain can be exhausted as well by various stimuli that force it to work overtime and then it needs to shut down and recover. So think of depression as the after effects of a mental marathon and the time it takes to come out of a bout of it is that cool down, rub down, and however much rest needed to recover from it.
Another aspect similar to the Triathlete is exhaustion. Depression is so mentally draining you feel like you can barely move. I compare it to having the flu. You do not want to move. For me it intensifies the physical pains because I am not able to put my mind on other things. I focus on me and notice what is wrong with me more. Normally I do everything possible to ignore the pain.
In addition to the list above depression is also part of everything. It goes along with the memory loss and the Fibromyalgia. Oddly, Fibromyalgia is not a life threatening illness. The depression part of it is. Just call the life threatening aspect a side effect.
Although the brain takes over and will shut everyone and everything out, at some point I’ve learned to handle things for the most part and take preventative measures. I partly do this by closing myself off from negative stimuli as much as possible. Those negative stimuli primarily relate to the media. I am also fortunate, in a way, that I spend my days in a little room typing away at writing novels, articles, and interviews a good portion of my waking hours and can just crash whenever the pain is too much or the Chronic Fatigue hits. This also helps with some of my physical ailments and allows me to be able to function at least somewhat normally, or at least appear to do so for my son.
Something people don’t understand about the seclusion part during a bout of depression is, it isn’t intentional or something I am even aware of until afterwards. My mind takes over to heal itself.
But then I get slammed by something. In those moments I shutdown and I don’t just mean my laptop. My brain shuts down until it can handle it. With the responsibilities here in Blog World I am not able to shut down as much as I need to but then again work is work. Responsibilities are responsibilities and when you agree to do something then you do it.
Amnesia is an unusual part of the package in my life. Throw in the short term memory problems as well. There are things I don’t remember at all from before my accident. Let’s be completely honest, as far as people, you could probably number them on one maybe two hands. That’s out of decades of my life. I’ve learned to mange that at times, but it does overwhelm as well. No matter where I am a wave of not knowing will sometimes hit me.
Now to the short term memory problems. Here in my home it is not as much an issue because people simply work with it or around it. Well, most of the time. Thus the need for routine. For breakfast I have about two options I make. Two for lunch and for dinner I eat what I am given or if not given anything I revert to one of my lunch options. I was never one for enjoying the same thing over and over, or so I am told, but now I eat the same thing. There have been days where I had the same thing for each meal and didn’t know it. It’s one way to save on the grocery bill.
But how does short term memory problems contribute to my depression? First of all, I don’t remember things from a short time ago, even during the same day. But the biggest problem and really it is part of the first problem is people. I am accused so often of neglect by people. Why do you not talk to me? Why do you ignore me? Why did you stop being my friend? Why are you a jerk? Why have you made my life so upsetting?
Now, as time goes by I develop ways of dealing with these messages. I file them in the T folder. Yes, that may sound harsh but the truth of the matter is if a person does not know me well enough or cares enough about me to understand my situation well enough to, and I hate to say this, just go with it, then there isn’t anything I can do about it. If I remember I remember if I don’t I don’t. And one sure fire way to guarantee me not remembering is to send a message including phrases like those in the previous paragraph. You may tell me you were the most important person ever to me. I don’t know my mother or my father. The only member of my family I know is my son. Step back and reflect on that for a moment. Put that into perspective.
But those that persist trigger the depression, they tip my brain over that line into the suck zone. The exhaustion zone. The I ain’t here no more zone.
And the saddest part of it all is it’s not about me. It’s about them. They will never recognize nor acknowledge they have anything to do with it. Nor will they simply accept whatever the new way things are and go with it and leave the petty remarks in their pocket.
For some people they deal with a combination of everything I go through and then go to work each day. Imagine having depression and not being able to tell your boss. It’s not something you can control, and it may not even interfere with your work but guess what happens when you tell your employer. A great deal of the time you end up with a label, a stigma, a pink slip, a demotion, a new job at home without a paycheck but done so in a manner as of it being downsizing or they suddenly find all these things that have never been wrong with your job performance before. So guess what? Handling depression gets even more difficult. Yes, it’s difficult for me for certain reasons and it’s difficult for others for other reasons.
Do you want to know what the biggest problem with depression is? People. People not treating you as a person and just letting you do what you need to do to work through it. I have people who think talking a lot will help me. Okay, so I am depressed, my brain has shut down. It simply wants to rest and you then want to get in my safety zone and turn on the fake happy and talk like a crazy clown?
I’ll end that part of things there.
What do I do beyond medications and preventative shutting out of the negative parts of the world? I turn to God. I have medications for pain, migraines, and I think one that does a double duty job on something plus is also a depression thing. It’s not specifically for depression but one of the alternate uses is for it. But all of those things together don’t work. Pain is still there and life goes on. The one thing that can bring me peace of mind and put me on an even keel is the Word of God.
One of my favorite verses, one I have shared before is “He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”~Psalm 46:10
You see there isn’t really a specific verse that says “If you are depressed do this.” Instead the Bible tells us what to do as an everyday practice.
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”~Philippians 4:4-7
And I know there are other verses about praying without ceasing and the like.
That’s tough. Let’s not sugar coat it. Let’s not make it sound easy. When you are being torn apart in the middle of a bout of depression it is difficult to find the energy to even say a prayer. I won’t lie to you about that. But you don’t have to. You see, I know my Bible. Oddly that is something I didn’t forget. I don’t HAVE to necessarily say a prayer or even praise God in the way you are thinking to be pulled out of depression or be made at least at ease enough to ride through it. Knowing God is there is enough. Since I believe in Him so strongly, just the thought of Him is enough.
A Year of Renewal. Plans don’t always work out the way you think. I think having that word Renewal is appropriate. This isn’t a tips article. It’s what I do to survive. It’s what I do to find peace. And with that in mind, this will be my last article on this subject or these problems. If you ever find yourself with questions, refer to this article, I’ll even put a link to it on my About page.
Be seeing ya,
Ronovan Writes
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
My plan for the week was, let me actually rephrase that, I wasn’t going to write a Haiku this week. In fact there was no plan for poetry at all in my foreseeable future. It’s not that I have given it up or don’t like poetry, it’s just something I am not feeling right now. I’m not a poetry mill. I’ve been there and done that.
Writing poetry, at least for me is about tapping into an honest place and sharing honest things that can be tender places in the heart that shouldn’t be touched. Even when I write a funny poem it doesn’t begin that way. It begins serious and turns humorous out of defense. Defending the tender places.
Some reading this are likely about to hurl. They don’t see how poetry is that big of a deal or how it can really be any more than a few words to rhyme about puppies, clouds and rainbows. True, some poetry is about those things, for that writer. Perhaps those things have meanings for them. I don’t know where the inspiration came from so I can’t say good or bad.
However, even though poetry was not in the heart for me this week, which is a requirement, even though I didn’t want to go there a friend expressed a hope I would write something for the challenge I host each week. How could I not write something when so many faithfully participate each week?
Do not fret, my heart,
While you beat slowly for now,
The chill of loss fades.
Much Respect
@RonovanWrites
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2015
ronovanwrites 