The Art of Making Possible — Nancy Scheibner

Credit to the blogger Middle School Poetry 180 

— with much gratitude from yours truly, because I couldn't find my own copy of this poem. The last four lines of this poem were written on the living room wall of my old flat, but I am sure I also blogged this quote before. The author's first name and the exact spelling of their last name was almost entirely out of reach of my google-kongfu even when I searched in my own bloody blogposts. Rest assured I am going to save this more permanently. The last five lines of this poem have inspired my yearning to always do meaningful work. I hope this poem inspires you in a similar way. Enjoy.  

My entrance into the world of so-calledgr “social problems”

Must be with quiet laughter, or not at all.

The hollow men of anger and bitterness

The bountiful ladies of righteous degradation

All must be left to a bygone age.

And the purpose of history is to provide a receptacle

For all those myths and oddments

Which oddly we have acquired

And from which we would become unburdened

To create a newer world

To translate the future into the past.

We have no need of false revolutions

In a world where categories tend to tyrannize our minds

And hang our wills up on narrow pegs.

It is well at every given moment to seek the limits in our lives.

And once those limits are understood

To understand that limitations no longer exist.

Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free

Not to save the world in a glorious crusade

Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain

But to practice with all the skill of our being

The art of making possible.

 

 

Labels: share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:33 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Week 1 of being on ADHD medication

It was a torturous route that got me there, but I'm finally on ADHD medication, which I started last Saturday. I've since been obsessed with ensuring it works, and in what ways, making sure I have something to report when I have another psychiatrist consultation. Too obsessed actually. I have read and researched so much on ADHD just in the past six days alone. 

At first the doctor wanted me to start on 20mg methylphenidate (Medikinet MR) but I told him that there was an SNRI I took once, venlafaxine, that made me become manic, so he decided to start me on 10mg first. But after a couple days of that, I felt absolutely nothing, be it beneficial or adverse. Because my life is on such a dangerous precipice right now, with complete executive dysfunction, I really didn't want to wait the recommended minimum of one week before titrating to a higher dose or when I next see a psychiatrist. So I decided to take 20mg, and see if that made any difference.

It did, somewhat. Firstly I felt like I had more energy, instead of the usual chronic fatigue that has been plaguing me since I came down with fibromyalgia; and to a lesser degree much of my life before that as well. It was one of the key factors that led the neurologist to my diagnosis, in fact. With the alleviation of fatigue - significantly, though not completely - it became less of a dread to do non-physical home care stuff such as online purchasing,which I can do in bed. It felt that I was procrastinating less; a subjective assessment, because I still very much have ADHD time-blindness. Which leads me to this time-sucking rabbit-hole I ended up in: spending time online researching ADHD, specifically with regards to symptoms I should assess to see if my medication is working. In fact, this boost in mental energy seems to be contributing to my thought hyperactivity. If I can channel it into the right essential self- and home-care activities, it would be useful. But so far it hasn't always worked. 

I know it hasn't even been a week, but time is running out: I need to get my very dysfunctional life in order, and get back to work. This is time-sensitive, because the very trigger that worsened my undiagnosed ADHD so badly, to the point it finally became recognisable, is the stress from J not giving me the rest of my share of the sale of my old flat; I am running out of cash to the point I might become homeless soon. It has been repaid so far in drips and drabs that aren't enough to cover what I need to survive. Therefore I need all my symptoms to improve so I can get on track to making my life work, solving the problems I have right now. I am in no place to do that now; it is hard even for me to brush my teeth and wash my face daily.

Hence my desperation. That's why I say my life is on a dangerous precipice. 

I am thus trying to channel my increased energy towards doing physical self-and home-care activities, like cooking, or showering, or doing laundry. I am trying really hard but that needle hasn't moved yet in the right direction. 

So far I have tried being more aware of time: the ADHD brain cannot perceive time the way normal neurotypical people do. It explains why I can't use digital clocks properly, because it doesn't show me how much time is left till the next hour; and why I am always late no matter how many hours beforehand I start to get ready to go out. So I try to check the time more each day. I am also trying to find a way to become aware of my tendency to hyperfocus and not realise hours have gone by. It is hard to stop when you are in the flow or rabbit-hole, but I am trying to find a way to 'end scene' my daily obsessive ADHD research when I finally realise too much time has passed. This will help me transition to the next task, especially since that task would likely be an essential task like feeding myself near dinnertime. 

I can't seem to feel less dread about the physical activities of daily living (ADLs) yet and I'm stuck: I don't know how to troubleshoot this. I don't know when the CGH psychologist I met a few months ago, before ADHD diagnosis but after the onset of executive dysfunction, to finally schedule me an appointment with her to start CBT. I will ask again for the third time when I have my next consult. It shouldn't take months for me to get help with something that has reached boiling point. So I'm on my own. I have always found it hard to do simple basic tasks, it has just been harder since my separation from J, and then even harder still, when my financial situation has worsened. 

As of now, my clock says 5pm. I need to get myself off the bed and try doing one of those physical ADLs. I can't keep failing every day at this. 

 

Labels: share, state, status, therapy

worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:10 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

Strengths-Based Leadership - from the developers of StrengthsFinder

Years ago I discovered StrengthsFinder and shared it with the important people in my life - J, and my volunteers. Today I re-did my assessment test, to generate a new report, one that is specific to my leadership skills based on the top 5 out of 34 strengths. The site gives the option to use your previous test's results, but I opted to do it again. I reckon the 5 strengths identified now would be different, just like how my DISC profile also does, depending on my life-stage and career path.

What remained the same were my Strategic and Communication strengths. Advice for the Strategic side of me includes:

Make sure that you are involved on the front end of new initiatives or enterprises. Your innovative yet methodical approach will be critical to the genesis of a venture because it will keep its creators from developing counterproductive tunnel vision. Broaden their view and increase their chances for success.

As for my Communication strength:

You have the power to capture people’s emotions and put words to what they feel — sometimes words they cannot find themselves. This naturally draws others to you. So ask questions. Try to pinpoint the key issues people are trying to communicate, what joys or struggles they want to convey. Then give voice to those feelings. Helping people find the words to describe feelings is a powerful way to get them to express and process their own emotions, and it can support them on the way to making a plan of action.

Here are the descriptions of the other 3 strengths now on the top of the list for me:

ACTIVATOR 
By nature, you might admit that you participate in friendly rivalries for fun. Usually you are comfortable letting people know what you do and do not value. Because of your strengths, you are comfortable telling others stories about your personal habits, qualities, experiences, or background. Your forthcoming nature probably enables others to share their thoughts and feelings with you. Driven by your talents, you now and then notice that certain people feel you are a bit threatening. You may use this trait to your advantage when you are trying to influence a particular person to move into action or see things the way you do. Perhaps in your dealings with some individuals, you tone down or moderate your forcefulness. Chances are good that you empower people with your air of certitude — that is, confidence. Your very presence reassures them that they indeed are quite ready and capable of tackling assignments, spearheading projects, or playing key positions on a team. It’s very likely that you occasionally tell yourself that you can make choices with ease. Perhaps your sense of urgency compels you to produce results more swiftly than less decisive individuals can. 

INPUT 
Driven by your talents, you sometimes enjoy life a bit more when you are speaking to people who understand your complicated or technical vocabulary. Perhaps you can quickly describe theories or processes to these individuals without having to explain the meanings of most terms. Chances are good that you might equate language with power. Sometimes you intersperse complicated or difficult-to-understand words in your speech. Not content to use everyday terminology, you attempt to add sophisticated words to your vocabulary. When you translate an esoteric term — that is, a word understood by a limited group — you may discover subtle distinctions between its various meanings. Perhaps this knowledge amplifies the forceful effect some of your words have on others. By nature, you yearn to increase your knowledge by being kept in the information loop. This explains why you gravitate to people who converse about ideas at a deeper and more thoughtful level than most individuals are capable of doing. “Making small talk” — that is, engaging in idle conversation — probably seems like a waste of time to you. Because of your strengths, you notice that you choose to spend time with particularly intelligent adults. Besides enjoying their company and mature thinking, you welcome the opportunity to engage in sophisticated, knowledgeable, and thoughtful conversation. You amass numerous ideas, theories, or concepts from these encounters. Often the insights you gain have proved to be quite useful days, weeks, months, or even years later. Instinctively, you may insert intricate or theoretical words into your academic or professional conversations and writings. Your interest in language partially explains why you enjoy mastering specific types of words and their definitions. While some individuals are required to memorize new terms in classes or seminars, perhaps you automatically commit specific words to memory. Occasionally you describe this experience as pleasurable.

FUTURISTIC
Instinctively, you periodically establish performance targets for the week. Once in a while, you think about what your life could be like in the future. Some of these forward-looking images may motivate or energize you to meet your weekly goals. Perhaps you do better work when you can concentrate on your near-term objectives. Driven by your talents, you are energized by your plans for the coming months, years, or decades. Bringing your ideas to life is an exciting proposition for you. You sense you have the power to transform whatever you think is possible into tangible outcomes. Because of your strengths, you are sometimes filled with hope as you think about the good things you might accomplish in the coming months, years, or decades. Perhaps this reinforces your sense of personal well-being. When you are forced to concentrate solely on current situations, you may become less enthusiastic about life. Chances are good that you channel your mental and physical energies toward what you can accomplish in the months, years, or decades ahead. The question you must answer is this: “How far into the future can I think before my ideas start becoming vague or uninspiring?” By nature, you are a visionary thinker. Your vivid mental images of the coming months, years, or decades often impel you to move into action.


I like how this book focuses on the whats and hows of leaderships based on your natural strengths. The prequels to this book were great for understanding how it makes sense to learn and capitalise on your strengths instead of over-investing in correcting weaknesses. But the contexts were more narrow as they spoke about the impacts of these strengths on our work in general. I have always enjoyed reading books about leadership, since my first one by John C. Maxwell when I was 17 - Developing the Leader Within You. Trying to make StrengthsFinder work for me in the way I lead organisations and projects was less clear from the original books when compared to Strengths Based Leadership.

The book also helps reframe the concept of teams. Building the right team with the necessary diversity of strengths, needs to be more about architecture, than of circumstance. I have just started on Part 2 of 3 in the book - Maximizing Your Team - and I am already whirling in introspection and strategies for action.

Another thing about this book so far, is that it appreciates the people who aren't what were classically known as leadership traits. These members of an organisation who may not be great communicators, but have strengths in creating harmony in groups or meaning interactions with people, are just as important as the ones who always seem to know the right words to use to evoke response. This makes me think of J, who has Harmony as one of this top 5 strengths, and is the invisible glue that holds the organisation together.

Labels: books, me, share, state, status

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:38 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

I am so exhausted; I had a fibro flare-up. Which has made me not only pain all over in the morning when I had to go for psychotherapy, but so much fatigue right now, and I can't see as clearly as usual even with my reading glasses.

I just packed a tiny part of my room - the jewellery boxes, but am otherwise listing down and being as still as possible. I can't even be bothered to put pants on.

I've recently started using an all called Manage Your Pain Lite. It is awesome. I just emailed my physiotherapist my latest pain report PDF. It contains information on my pain scores, what aggravated each time I had a high score, and what alleviated it. It even has cool charts and graphs.





In the free version of this app, which is what I am using, can generate PDF reports but not including the graphs and calendar. Still, the report itself is already very much a good one-glance document. Here are some screenies from the PDF.




Not shoddy at all. I'm still learning to navigate the app, but I'm liking what they have.

OK, I will end here; blogger is making things difficult for me -, I've already written this conclusion paragraph three times. Gonna just go heat pack my shoulders.

Labels: share, state, status

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:50 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

today's #avalonreads

There are some days I don't have enough spoons to do a whole blog post on my daily reading; I will share a quote or picture on social media instead. 

I'm at the chapter of health in Today Matters, by John Maxwell, where he exhorts the reader to make a decision towards healthy habits, and be disciplined in keeping them. His example of how exercise yields no weight loss in one day, but after a period of time, if done regularly, results appear - made me think about my obsession with reading.

I'm beginning to think that reading is helping me heal. The effects are small at first - just like exercise - you won't see any results overnight; you have to keep at it regularly. I still can't articulate how exactly reading is helping me, but I probably will, soon enough.

Reading aside, I do exercise daily. Less cardio nowadays but 18 exercises for specific muscle building as physiotherapy for my injuries, every day. Sometimes I can't even complete half of them all, but then I try to get back on track within the next day or two. No, I don't enjoy it.

John Maxwell does imply - very minimally - that the chapter on health includes mental health. I guess that my daily journalling, doing visualisation and mindfulness exercises, and weekly psychotherapy sessions count as taking care of my mental health.


I am still on Trauma Stewardship by Lipsky and Burk - I highly recommend it for anyone working or volunteering in helping professions which expose you to the trauma endured by our planet, by animals, or by fellow humans.

Today's chapter is on building compassion and community, the third of five recommendations to rebuild ourselves after exposure to trauma in our work. The first way to do so is in creating a microculture. 

I feel this message of community repeating itself through what I read every day in books and online. But the truth is, right now I'm isolated. I'm not able to build a support network at the moment because I've taken a leave of absence from leading our organisations, which means isolating myself from the volunteers. Friends from the past have either moved on or are far too busy with family and work to reconnect.

People who - do - want to connect, I don't feel the same way towards them most of the time. Lack of chemistry? Perhaps I'm not ready to love a friend because I have no love to give right now. And, I've definitely tried to connect with the people I want to relate with, unfortunately they are usually very busy people. I think I will just stick to writing to an anonymous audience online for now, specifically here, Twitter and Instagram (no Facebook because I loathe that platform). Is that a microculture in itself?


Next, from The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon:

Labels: books, pleasures, share, therapy

worldsuponwords by avalon at 4:12 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

#avalonreads daily summary 17 October 2016 | Priorities and Reflection

From Trauma Stewardship, Lipsky and Burk
Serendipitously the part where I am working on in this book is about focus and the part I was working on in Today Matters (below) was also about focus - that prioritising helps us focus on what is important.


TIL: Where we want to put our focus, in itself illustrates that we do have a choice in what we want to focus on, what work, and our lives apart from our work.

From Today Matters, John Maxwell
Reflection is something I've been doing a lot of, prompted by the questions raised in this book, and in Trauma Stewardship. I find these questions very apt as journalling prompts. In itself this book has little value without the reflection you need to do to follow what you read.

QOTD:


From Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami
In the same vein, today's QOTD: "The world awaiting him out there was just too big, too powerful; there seemed to be no place he could burrow into it." But also: "When I was in college, no one in my apartment building had a phone. Hell, I doubt any of us had an eraser."

Fiction brings to us characters we can emphatise with, describes life for us in keenly accurate ways, but also with jest sometimes.        

Labels: books, pleasures, share, therapy

worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:33 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

2016 and writing

I wish I could write well enough to have a Patreon account. Or maybe the missing element is time and not talent. But who, anyway, would commission me to write a poem for them. Nobody pays for poems.

But I am resolute: I will write more. Fight anhedonia, indulge in hobbies. Writing, and reading. Am now reading Margaret Atwood's The Heart Goes Last. Can't be good at writing without reading, can't be a full lover of words without doing both.

Labels: share, status

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:31 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

One Day, I Will Say, "I Am The Executive Director Of A Non-Profit Organisation

I have reached a point where I cannot grow our cat rescue group further without incorporation and staffing, so, that is what we are working towards right now. All of it may not happen sooner than 2014, but it started before today.

Charity work is my career choice, but it is indeed a career, a profession, a job. It is not out of pure altruism that I remain in the path of the non-profit organisation; it is because this is my dream industry, for life.

Help me nudge my dream forward even more in the years soon to come, by clicking this today: http://igg.me/at/elainechiam/x/3820832

And when you click it and it brings you to a new webpage, I hope it will make you either act on it, or talk a lot about it.

Labels: share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 2:00 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

How to make a proper vegetarian soup stock

I am not a vegetarian but I have been trying my best to cut down my meat consumption. I decided to because of health and environmental reasons. Meat is fattier and no, it is not the good kind of fat. If you have already been eating less meat, eating animal fat now will likely give you digestive upset, so it is best to eventually cut it down to nil if you want to reduce consumption of unhealthy fat. Also, it costs the environment a lot to produce meat for our consumption, and I like vegetarian sources of protein anyway. For cooking, I don't need to worry about food contamination from not handling meat properly. So many rules for cooking meat safely, such as not cutting vegetables on the board that was used for cutting meat, making damn sure it is cooked fully. Plus it isn't difficult now to eat less meat because we have so many other protein and calcium choices.

So of late I did a search on making vegetarian soup. Soup is a healthy food choice because it is full of protein without having to eat so much as it is filling. Plus, I really love soup.

Alas the vegetarian soup solutions I found via Google were dismal. Firstly, It always seems to involve miso. I like miso soup, and have just ordered some miso too so I can cook with it. However I am Chinese, so I can't do without my Chinese soups too. Then the internet prescribes hot and sour soups and similar as my Chinese option. Must I? I don't always feel the need for it, and I am Teochew, our soup is clear, not starchy. And J doesn't dig spicy soup anyway. The third option was using coconut milk. I don't see how this is a good idea, perhaps an angmoh notion of Asian soup. The last option I found seems to produce a weak soup that resembles the kind you make with vegetable waste. So, I had to go do some soup inventing.

No I don't know cookery, and I don't follow recipes well. I cook by feeling, and the way I judge my cooking in terms of taste is whether it has all the notes, like in music where you need a variety and bass and treble. So, this is my disclaimer if you don't find my soup invention at all professional to read and follow.

There were a few vegetable soup preparation rules which I read online and followed. 1) Start with cold water. 2) Cut the vegetables in smaller pieces so that there is more surface area from which the flavours can escape. 3) Mushrooms are important, they are the secret ingredient to making flavourful vegetarian soup.

To me, Chinese soup must be herbal to be good. Chinese herbs add flavour of a different kind than vegetables which tend to be light and sweet. So this was one new rule I created for vegetarian Chinese soup stock. Herbs I chose include star anise, dioscorea, red dates and qi zi. You can also try others of course, such as apricot kernels. I do not know the health properties of these herbs. But you should know that star anise is a good addition to vegetarian soup stock. This is because unlike the other herbs, it is not that sweet. Vegetarian soup stock as I discovered tends to be sweeter than meat based soup. So star anise is a good herb to balance that flavour out.

The vegetables that are good for making vegetarian soup stock include cabbage, tomatoes, carrots. Tomatoes obviously make the soup more tangy, whereas cabbage and carrot make the soup sweet. Cut them into small pieces to make the soup more flavourful. I also like using pear or apple, the kind from China. It makes the soup cooling, has a unique flavour (also sweet) and it is delicious to eat when cooked. Other vegetables you can use are more the sort that you cook with, last, before your meal itself, so that it doesn't disappear into leafy bits with no edible girth.

Mushrooms, without a doubt, must be shitake. I buy fresh ones normally, because I also use them in salads and pasta dishes. You can use dried ones. Add mushrooms generously!

You also need the basic Chinese soup ingredients like ginger and garlic. Onion if you eat it too (I don't because it gives me gastric pain). I use whole garlic cloves smashed beforehand, with the skins on.

For seasonings, I added dark soya sauce, pepper, and a dash of salt. The salt is truly optional, but I like my soup less sweet and more savoury, so it had to be. I also added in a Japanese mix of red pepper, roasted sesame seeds, orange peel, chilli flakes, seaweed and ginger. You can buy this pepper mix from a Japanese supermarket like Sakuraya or the Japanese food aisle in Cold Storage. It is the kind you find at the seasonings tray in Jap restaurants next to the soy sauce and wasabi or ginger.  This could possibly be one of the best secret ingredients when it comes to soup seasoning.

I reckon you can make your soup more savoury and spicy without using these seasonings, by adding preserved vegetables to it. Choices like sichuan vegetable, preserved mustard (kiam chye), tang chye, sour plum. I didn't want to go the preserved vegetable route so I didn't try, but you can if you want to! I guess the rule applies too for kimchi.

Put all the tiny pieces of chopped vegetable, garlic and ginger, herbs, mushrooms into a pot. Fill it with water. Boil over low heat for as long as you can. The tomatoes take a while to make the soup tangy, so if your soup isn't sourish yet, it isn't done. When I filled my pot with the ingredients and water it was full to the brim. The soup stock was about 60% of the pot eventually. As it boils the depth of the stock's flavour starts out light and sweet, then moves on to the richness of fish stock, then chicken, and finally the full rounded depth of your regular pork stock Chinese soup cooked by our parents.

So now the soup stock is done! I hope you like it. What to eat it with?

You can make a no-carb soup meal by cooking the stock with tofu, enoki mushrooms, other green veges like spinach and sio pek chye, tomatoes and a little water. You can make a noodle soup too. If you want no-wheat noodles, try buckwheat noodles without wheat. Impossible to find in supermarkets though, so I get them from iHerb. You can also opt for gluten-free quinoa macaroni which will make your soup meal like the macaroni soup of our childhood. If you do want to try buying from iHerb, use my discount code AVA985 and get USD5-10 off your first purchase. If you are not avoiding carbs or are avoiding processed foods then you can eat your soup with rice of course. Add ingredients and the soup stock with some water and boil a nice hearty soup to eat with your rice (think yong tau fu soup you get from the food court).

I totally feel good about this vegetarian soup stock idea. It is as awesome as pork based soups, but it is healthier and lowers my carbon footprint.

Labels: pleasures, share

worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:58 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

#nowwatching The Sessions

In one session, Cheryl asks Mark to think about himself as a six-year-old boy. "Do you blame him for getting polio?"

I think of myself as a child, and all I feel is, I am sorry you were in such sadness. Sadness that numbed, you barely even recognised was there all the time, because it was such a perpetual emotion.

It is like breathing, you don't realise you are until you aren't, or until you try to control it. Everything was shrouded in grey. like the earth was already at its end like it is now, every air space polluted periodically. There was no one to blame, no causal relationship to define it; it just was. Why did you grow up in sadness, Elaine? Now that you know what it was, you realise you missed it completely.

Was it worth it, to have serotonin balanced finally. to feel those two instances in your later life what happiness feels like? Now that you know, you know what you didn't. It was such a primal feeling, happiness. You knew it the instance you tried to define what you felt, because our brains are wired to recognise the emotion. But it never returned and it can never replace all those years of loss. The childhood without happiness.

I need to come to terms that I will never naturally feel happiness, and that it is okay not to. "You are trying to be mainstream when you are not mainstream," says the good doc. Happiness is mainstream, and I am not, and I should not strive to achieve it anymore. I need a new framework. Perhaps the old one, which is not to try and feel happiness. but to not feel sad. That in itself will already be a lifelong mission. The new framework should be to try and live out my life's goals while carrying this eternal companion of sadness. Even the most ferocious dogs can be great friends.

Numbing, ignoring, soothing: things one can do to sadness for alleviation of it. Embracing it even, for it is the muse of the artist. It is the bedrock of the compassionate arts, and I am a compassionate artist in the making even if I have not much further to live.

And perhaps one day, I could make another person's childhood experience the happiness I never did in youth, to make up for all those years without in mine. From chaos came creation, so from sorrow and pain, shall come forth joy.

Sadness, I acknowledge you as my friend, at last. Perhaps I have regarded you with too much disdain, or ignored you until you poured words onto canvas through my pen. I recognise that you are my source of compassion in so many ways, and that you will propel me to change this world I live in. If enjoyment brings motivation to the mainstream, bring me the same in this offstream world of mine. Without you, I would have no pain, but without pain, I would not see the same in another.

PS. Watch the movie.

Labels: share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 3:37 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

cut-up words in a cryptic arrangement they call 'poetry'

Does an artist truly ever paint from the beginning of the canvas like the writer does, from the top left hand corner.

Not always.

Why then do we conform to paragraphical methods that have to appear left to right top to bottom in lines and coherent sentences?

This is why one of the books that influenced my writing style forever is Working Hot by Kathleen Mary Fallon.

Prepare to have your canvas turned sideways a little, and perhaps your brushstrokes abruptly stopped. Find that book and read it.

For posterity's sake, here are some cut-up words in a cryptic arrangement they call 'poetry'.

Labels: share, words

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:10 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

#WhyIWrite: Poetry and such, I suppose

I am not sure whether this is unanimous, but there are people asking me to publish my poetry. I am not ready to do so, unless I die. My friend Eisen has the directive to publish my poems should I no longer be living. But maybe one day I will publish while alive, in the real sense, not in the, "Imma give you a book of letters," way.

There are lots of poems lost out there, given to H mostly. I wrote on all kinds of paper, even on the packaging teabags come in, even on envelopes torn open with my brute fingers after mail sorting. No one is going to find those letters, unless H kept them and is willing to hand them to Eisen post-Elaine-mortem.

Poetry, which I was reminded of by this article, is something I have been neglecting to write. I am so caught up with micro-blogging via Twitter that I have no urgency to journal my feelings and suchlike.

Poetry has its uses for despair. It can carve a shape in which a pain can seem to be; it can give one’s loss a form and dimension so that it might be loss and not simply a hopeless haunting. - Christian Wiman

Even in a physical notebook I don't date my entries and write anything in relation to how I feel for the day and what were the ups and downs of my daily activity. I could never create a spreadsheet of my moods and symptoms for my psychiatrist like some depression patients actually do.

Then I remember something I tweeted with the hashtag #whyIwrite and to paraphrase it I said, because words form themselves into sentences in the air like radiowaves and can only materialise when pen is upon paper.

And if you know me, my poetry is such. I am but an instrument, not in a spooky way, but I find that I am catching words in the air, that is all, that is my poetry.

I was told by the counselor at the psych ward I just spent one week in, to write more. So, with that, I will. As soon as I get this cat off my lap, perhaps.

Labels: share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:00 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

distraught and violated and more

J lost his bag today. He left it at the lift lobby of the government building he works at, Revenue House, where the income tax people work too. Someone took it, and CCTV footage will determine who did when he gets to work tomorrow with the police report he made earlier.

He came home to me, and as he talked to me lying in bed, was about to break into tears. I held him, and he cried. I told him what Jesus said, that in this world we will have trouble, but He gives us his peace. That no matter what right things he does, shit and bad things will still happen to us.

J has been having trouble at work because shit keeps happening. It is related to his whistleblowing on a colleague's corruption and the investigation is taking forever. He is also beginning to feel inadequate at doing his job. This is not the J I know anymore.

I know he will find another good job because he is more than qualified for his sector.

But losing his bag, wallet, and the goverment issued PDA, and the fact that the person turned on the PDA (we could call through but the person kept hanging up on us), it is the last straw, almost.

I have been so unnerved by all of this. J's despondency, what caused it.

Been playing this and it helps.




And apart from music therapy, I medicated according to my panic attack symptoms: my hands had gone numb and I lost my voice. I was momentarily paralysed and couldn't quite move. I am on the verge of tears and the sadness is overwhelming in the realm of wanting to end it all. And so I medicated that too.

 Regardless, a feeling of despondence resides in the air, it is thick and tangible, like the haze that has been plaguing us of late.

Labels: arts, share, state

worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:39 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Poem 410 by Emily Dickinson

The first Day's Night had come -
And grateful that a thing
So terrible - had been endured -
I told my Soul to sing -

She said her Strings were snapt -
Her Bow - to Atoms blown -
And so to mend her - gave me work
Until another Morn -

And then - a Day as huge
As Yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face -
Until it blocked my eyes -

My Brain - begun to laugh -
I mumbled - like a fool -
And tho' 'tis Years ago - that Day -
My Brain keeps giggling - still.

And Something's odd - within -
That person that I was -
And this One - do not feel the same -
Could it be Madness - this?

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worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:24 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

musicshare

Absolutely LOVE this track:

John O'Callaghan feat. Sarah Howells - Find Yourself

I discovered it on Gareth Emery's Podcast Episode 77

Drawn into the backdrop here
You could fade, you could fade away
Bright lights on a starless night
Then a hole in the dying day

Looking at life through a loaded gun
Take your best shot, aim it at the sun
Looking at life through a loaded gun
You know you'll find...

You'll find yourself, you'll find yourself alone...

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worldsuponwords by avalon at 10:13 AM    [ 1 comment | ]

Fly Away.

I am not a Corrinne May fan actually. But I am hoping to be able to play this song when I next pick up my guitar. Which I haven't been doing, though I should.

This is for you.


"When will you be home?" she asks
as we watch the planes take off
We both know we have no clear answer to where my dreams may lead
She's watched me as i crawled and stumbled
As a child, she was my world
And now to let me go, I know she bleeds
and yet she says to me

You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away

Autumn leaves fell into spring time and
SIlver-painted hair
Daddy called one evening saying
"We need you. Please come back"
When I saw her laying in her bed
Fragile as a child
Pale just like an angel taking flight
I held her as I cried

You can fly so high
Keep your gaze upon the sky
I'll be prayin every step along the way
Even though it breaks my heart to know we'll be so far apart
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away
ohh...
I love you too much to make you stay
Baby fly away

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worldsuponwords by avalon at 5:59 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

About Clinical Depression - 2

Symptoms

1. Persistently sad, anxious, or "empty" mood
2. Feelings of hopelessness, pessimism
3. Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness
4. Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities that were once enjoyed, including sex
5. Insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping
6. Decreased appetite and/or weight loss, or overeating and weight gain
7. Fatigue, decreased energy, being "slowed down"
8. Thoughts of death or suicide, suicide attempts
9. Restlessness, irritability
10. Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
11. Persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain

Depression symptoms may be a cause of other illnesses, so it is advisable that all organic causes are ruled out first. Anti-depressants should not be doled out on a whim without first examining other physical symptoms and ruling out other possible illnesses. Depression symptoms should also be experienced over a prolonged period before it can be diagnosed as clinical depression and not a mere 'mood swing' or 'psychosomatic symptoms of stress'.


I experienced all eleven of these symptoms when I went to see my psychiatrist.


Today with medication and trying my best, I only experience:

#1, #2, #3 during some days of the weeks, or some hours of a day, instead of every day and every hour.
#4 is better now than before.
#5 is fully alleviated by medication.
#6 is more than okay. My appetite is fine, too fine that I am getting fat.
#7 is still persistently there. I have to force myself to do things.
#8... is still present sometimes, when I think about things like, what will happen if I never get better and my parents pass on.
#9 and #10 still there.
#11 is gone, I am no longer sick everyday. I however get migraine headaches when I am in tiring scenarios such as social situations, for example when I have to spend time with a group of friends, or when I have to talk about myself or find things to talk about with people.

Labels: share, worlds

worldsuponwords by avalon at 1:39 PM    [ 0 comment | ]

About Clinical Depression, or Major Depressive Disorder - 1

It all started for me when I was perhaps nineteen years old and I slipped past the television set in the living area of my parents’ house in Johor Baru, Malaysia. It was turned on to Channel NewsAsia, broadcasting a programme which was talking about some disease that was affecting more and more people statistically, worldwide, and in Asia. I read the symptoms of this disease, and my immediate thought was, “Hey, that sounds like me! That sounds like what I have!”

That sickness, which is an epidemic now, in Asia and the world, which kills about 15% of all who suffer from it, so it is possibly fatal: major depressive disorder, or clinical depression. And that was me. I realised those symptoms were me, all my life, as far as I can remember. So in other words, I have never been happy, until I started seeking medical help.

For some reason, due to my level of empathy, or perhaps because I started to open up to people more, I started to uncover people around me who either wondered if they too were ill, or were sure they were definitely clinically depressed, either diagnosed or at the time untreated. It shocked me to realise there were so many people in my social sphere that were feeling at least a measure of the grief I had been feeling all my life.

So I decided to write this article about this grieving sickness which Winston Churchill called 'his black dog' of depression. Be it whether you are that person I uncovered recently, or the one who opened up to me, or a loved one of yours has suspected or diagnosed clinical depression - I hope this article helps in some way. I also hope that if you are clueless about the disease and you think it can be helped by 'positive thinking' and 'behaving yourself', then please read this, and follow the links I have placed within this article.

Clinical depression is not normal sadness. We all have times when we feel sad due to situations in our life. We feel sad if things may not go our way, but we usually get up and go eventually, after the problem is solved or after we have ranted about it with a friend. It may be harder, if someone in our life dies, but eventually, maybe years after, it gets easier. If we grew up abused, or witnessed too much of war and death, like troops returning from war often do, we might get depressed too. If you are a woman you probably have felt down before, maybe before your period (chocolate then suddenly seems to help), or after you have given birth. Or maybe you have a thyroid dysfunction. But all these illnesses are not the same as clinical depression.

There are other illnesses that exhibit similar traits to clinical depression. For example: eating disorders, alcoholism, drug abuse.

There are also other two other depressive disorders that are not exactly the same as major depressive disorder, such as, manic-depression (also known as bipolar disorder) and dysthymia.

I am being sweeping about these other illnesses because I want to focus on what I have, which is mainly moderate to severe major depressive disorder, coupled with generalised anxiety disorder.

If you suspect you might be depressed - maybe you really identify with what I write here, or you have been feeling sad or stressed for a long time now, or like I have just written, you feel your sadness is not normal sadness; or maybe you just want to make sure you have a clean bill of mental health. Please take this test now. (Remember this is not a medical diagnostic tool and you should still check with your medical professional if you would like a definitive assessment and treatment.)

In my next few posts, I will cover other aspects of my sickness, such as symptoms used by doctors to diagnose patients, or symptoms you may feel you are depressed like me. I will also write about medication.

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worldsuponwords by avalon at 12:03 PM    [ 1 comment | ]

I Measure Every Grief I meet by Emily Dickinson

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, Eyes--
I wonder if It weighs like Mine--
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long--
Or did it just begin--
I could not tell the Date of Mine--
It feels so old a pain--

I wonder if it hurts to live--
And if They have to try--
And whether--could They choose between--
It would not be--to die--

I note that Some--gone patient long--
At length, renew their smile--
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil--

I wonder if when Years have piled--
Some Thousands--on the Harm--
That hurt them early--such a lapse
Could give them any Balm--

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve--
Enlightened to a larger Pain--
In Contrast with the Love--

The Grieved--are many--I am told--
There is the various Cause--
Death--is but one--and comes but once--
And only nails the eyes--

There's Grief of Want--and grief of Cold--
A sort they call "Despair"--
There's Banishment from native Eyes--
In Sight of Native Air--

And though I may not guess the kind--
Correctly--yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary--

To note the fashions--of the Cross--
And how they're mostly worn--
Still fascinated to presume
That Some--are like My Own--

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worldsuponwords by avalon at 11:56 AM    [ 0 comment | ]

Brain Rules

So according to this book's website, it seems I'm not all that strange and weak when I (1) cannot multi-task very well even though I am a girl and even though I used to be able to, (2) am highly visual-literal and hardly an audio-learner, (3) would rather not be on MSN at work unless I need it. An online excerpt:

Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things.

What we pay attention to is profoundly influenced by memory. Our previous experience predicts where we should pay attention. Culture matters too. Whether in school or in business, these differences can greatly effect how an audience perceives a given presentation.

We pay attention to things like emotions, threats and sex. Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a great deal of attention to these questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?

The brain is not capable of multi-tasking. We can talk and breathe, but when it comes to higher level tasks, we just can’t do it.

Driving while talking on a cell phone is like driving drunk. The brain is a sequential processor and large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. This is why cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes and get in more wrecks.

Workplaces and schools actually encourage this type of multi-tasking. Walk into any office and you’ll see people sending e-mail, answering their phones, Instant Messaging, and on MySpace—all at the same time. Research shows your error rate goes up 50% and it takes you twice as long to do things.

When you’re always online you’re always distracted. So the always online organization is the always unproductive organization.

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worldsuponwords by avalon at 9:27 AM    [ 1 comment | ]