hsphaven

I thought I’d write a quick post. Nothing particularly eventful has happened, just the same old shit. My physical and mental issues continue to wear away at me, like water eroding rock. I have a new buzzing sensation on my left ankle and the same buzzing sensation on my head which I’ve had for years now since taking Effexor. Yesterday the buzzing and my tremor were particularly bad for some reason. I still managed to upload some new badges to my etsy site which a friend designed. So it was a torturous yet productive day. I can barely do anything these days. I can’t clean up, and there is now a funky smell in my bedroom. Now that I’m not seeing my disability support worker, who used to get me out of the house twice a week, I have nothing to get up for all week. I rarely get dressed or leave the house and when I’m not sleeping I just sit at the computer. I sit on the computer all night as I procrastinate brushing my teeth and going to bed. I then take meds at sunrise so I can sleep. On Christmas at around 9am I took some diazepam and 10mg of olanzapine, the drug I have just weaned myself off from. It seemed to do the trick and I slept all day until 8:30pm. I slept through the picnic my family had planned. So I had no Christmas, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I hate Christmas and was glad to sleep through it.

My sleep isn’t restful sleep. It is full of disturbing dreams, such as my dad dying. I had a nap earlier this evening. Just as I was drifting off I got another myoclonic jerk and smacked myself in the face.

I went to the beach last night with my dad. Even though it was a bay beach the water was agitated, waves almost knocking over my obese father. I went for a solitary walk along the beach and got lost in my thoughts. I didn’t realise how far I had walked. I then turned back, but it had turned dark and I couldn’t find where we were sitting. I didn’t bring my phone or anything. I was overwhelmed by the noise of the raging sea. I started to panic again, and felt like I was stuck in some kind of hellish dream. I then saw a blue dolphin beach house, which I remembered was not far from where Dad and I sat. I managed to find him just as the wind was picking up. Thankfully we were not far from the car as a vicious sandstorm had started. I felt specks of sand stabbing at my skin like shards of broken glass. I worried it would pierce holes in our eyeballs.

My doctor thought the buzzing sensation on my head may be caused by muscle tension so suggested a massage. I got a massage from a Chinese medicine clinic a year or so ago. The practitioner dug her hands into my neck, causing a lot of pain. I have had chronic pain ever since which I notice most in my fingers. It feels like what I imagine arthritis feels like. It has been particularly painful lately. I have an MRI of my neck booked to see what the fuck this practitioner has done to me. I suspect I may have a pinched nerve, which no body has been able to unpinch. The doctor thought an MRI of my neck might reveal what is causing the buzzing sensation on my head as well, but I doubt it will be able to detect much. I am dreading the procedure. I have been to radiology departments of hospitals before and the MRI machines are behind big doors with signs warning people about the radiation on them. I am so sensitive I worry the electromagnetic field will leave me with more issues. I also have hyperacusis and am claustrophobic, so all in all it is a recipe for disaster. I will have to take anti-anxiety meds so I don’t have a panic attack. I was hoping my disability worker would take me as he used to comfort me, but he’s gone off on stress leave now and I no longer feel safe with anyone.

If the neck MRI goes ok, I might get another MRI of my brain, which my neurologist suggested. My brain has always been one of my best attributes. I was school dux. I can’t believe I now need to get a brain scan as there might be something wrong with it. My brain, it seems, is both my greatest asset and my greatest weakness as I now suffer from all these mental, nervous system and neurodevelopmental issues. I didn’t used to have all these issues. I believe my “autism” is actually some kind of degenerative condition. Things seem to get worse and worse as the years drag on.

I first started blogging during Year 8. I still have my old blog. Last night I found a piece I wrote about masks. I was about 13 or 14 at the time and it was interesting getting to know my younger self and reflecting on the things that have changed and the things that remain the same. I talk about being sensitive to noise and feeling a connection to nature, especially water. This was a long time before I discovered Elaine Aron’s work on high sensitivity. Apparently when I was a child my uncle told my mum he thought I was autistic, but my parents never got me assessed. I kind of wish I had of received a diagnosis earlier because, by Year 10, it started impairing me a lot socially. I wasn’t able to go parties and was made to go to school camp, where I ended up having a horrible break down as people were loud and rowdy and I didn’t have my own space. I would accept people’s invites to parties, then bail last minute. When I did go, I would just have a sensory meltdown and have to leave.  A friend gave me a hard time, accusing me of rudely “waking out” of her party, or perving on her boobs because I couldn’t make eye contact. I could never tell her why these things were so hard.

Year 8 was the only year at high school I was happy. I had a small group of friends which sheltered me from the school bullies. My friendship group fell apart in Year 9, though. I ended up moving schools after a lot of bullying which left me crying when I came into class.

I wear the mask I made in Year 8 in a film I made back in 2018 for the Mojo mental health film festival. The film was about BPD. I uploaded it here, even though I no longer really identify with BPD. As I write in the video description,  I no longer wish to use the language of a system that has traumatised me to describe myself. Some labels attract abuse, and some labels, such as BPD, seem to attract neglect. I also feel it pathologises the individual, rather than seeing it as a natural response to a sick society.

Below is the post I made about masks on Nov 25, 2006:

8Alive Masks

I just had my last 8Alive day two weeks ago, and it is sort of sad to think that never again will we be doing this program. I would like to share with you one activity that really stood out for me this week. By doing this activity, I thought beyond the basic idea of painting and decorating a mask, and looked into a deeper meaning where the colours in the mask represent my own personality and thoughts.

To start off with, I would just like to explain where the idea of painting masks came from. If you think about it, people that we know and meet everyday wear masks. Not physical masks like those that you physically put over your face, but masks that hide their true self from people. This mask changes their personality, and hides what they’re really like.

I can remember clearly a true story that I was told before we started painting the masks. This story was a perfect example of how masks can hide what someone’s true self is. The story started off at school, where a mask was hiding someone’s real personality. It was set back in the years when a female teacher went to high school with a guy. This teacher always saw this guy as a really ‘up himself’ person, who was always showing off and thought that he was better than everyone else. The teacher told how she didn’t like people who thought they were so good and superior, so she kept a distance from this guy at her school. However, during the school holidays, this guy turned up in the same camping area with his family, and set up camp next to this teacher, who was also camping with her family. Because this teacher knew this guy from school, she took a big step, and introduced her family to him. After spending a bit of time with him while camping outside school, she found out that he wasn’t so up himself, and was actually a really nice guy. His personality completely changed when he was with his family, and the two of them became very close friends. Now, many years later, this guy who this teacher met back at highschool, became her much-loved husband. During school, this guy wore a mask to hide what he was really like. This mask made him look like a show off, and if this teacher had never got to know him without his mask on, she would never have him as a husband like she does now.

You may recognise this story, which relates to other stories where people’s personalities are hidden by a mask. I know that I actually wear a mask myself, and this is where my choice of colouring came into the mask I painted during 8Alive. Below I have explained all about my choice of colours, and what they really mean.

First off, I painted half the mask with a pale blue colour. Why did I choose the colour blue, you ask? Well to be honest, I don’t actually know why I chose this colour myself. Maybe it had something to do with my interests, as blue is one of my favourite colours. The colour blue has always been a special colour to me. It reminds me of the beauty of nature, and really is a special colour. Some people may say that they have the “blues”, but this did not come into my choice of this colour. I generally see myself as a happy person, so relating this colour to sadness and “blues” isn’t the path I chose to colour my mask as. Well, back to the reason why I chose this colour. Like I said before, I originally didn’t have a meaning behind the choice of blue, but the colour just stood out to me. The beauty inside this colour is just exquisite, and really reflects on the beauty of nature. I often look up at the strong blue in the sky and admire its colour, often wondering how the sky got such a beautiful colour. Another example is the ocean. The ocean, or beach as I know it, has always been a magical place for me, and it also shares the blue colouring of my mask. Just then I did a quick search on Google for “blue ocean”, and up came a whole lot of pictures of the ocean. These pictures were probably each taken from different locations, but they all share one thing in common… the beauty of the ocean. Just by looking at these pictures I can feel the shimmering, glamorous scenery, as if I was right there at that very place. All the shades of blue come together to form one stunning stretch of water which I look at as being a very special, meaningful place.

Talking about shades, I better start talking about the two different shades that I used in my mask. I divided my mask into two halves, and the first half was painting with a pale blue, that I mentioned just above. This half, with the pale blue colouring, represents my life at school. The other half of the mask is covered with the same colour (blue), but it is a darker shade. Now I will explain to you what each side represents. The first side (pale blue side) represents my life at school, and the other half (darker blue side) is my life at home. In each place my personality changes slightly. At school, I don’t feel as comfortable as I do at home. Because of this, I am much quieter, and my personality changes (which is the light blue side of the mask). Most people in my class have only met this side of me, which is hiding my more natural personality that comes out at home.

At home, I don’t restrain the actions that I often stop myself from doing at school. For example, at home if my sister has the TV on too loud, I would yell across the room at her to “Turn the TV down!” This is what is represented by the darker shade of blue on my mask. However, in class, if a TV was on at a very loud volume, I would ask the teacher quietly if she/he would mind turning the volume down. This side of me is represented by the light blue on my mask, which is what most people in my class know me as. The difference between these two responses would basically be the word “please”. At school I would think about what I was going to say to the teacher for a while before I approach her, but at home I would just yell out what comes to the top of my head. The reason for this is probably because I’ve been with my family my whole life, and I’ve sort of adapted to them.

Another example would be when the class starts talking really loud. Some people may find nothing wrong with this, but because I am very sensitive to the volume of noise, this really annoys me. I hate discos because of the booming, loud music, and I hate any kind of loud sound. If you are like this as well, then you would know exactly how I feel. If not, you may find it hard to understand why this bothers me. Well, this has always bothered me. Whether it’s a balloon popping, people screaming, music that’s at the maximum volume level… I get very sensitive to the noise. Well, back to the example. It just happened that yesterday at school, we all had to do a test. Usually, no matter how fast I try to go, I am always the last one to finish a test. Well, it was all quiet and I was working away at this test, and then the sentence that I feared was announced. “I’ve finished!” someone yelled out. “Yes, I’ve finished the test!” Well, I would probably say the same thing if I was doing the test at home with my family, but I know that my family wouldn’t react so much to it. At school, I would quietly hand up the test, and find something else to work on. The thing is, in our class, there are not many people who do the same thing as I do. When more than one person finishes a test, the noise begins. There was talking that followed the announcement, and as soon as someone else finished, they started talking as well. Of course, a pattern began to form. As more and more people finished, more and more people began talking. And when more and more people start talking, everyone raises their volume so they can hear each other, and so on. Meanwhile, there I was sitting there, trying to get through this test. No one had any respect to the people who were still finishing their test, and the more they talked, the more annoyed I got. Anger was building up inside me because not only was I finding the test hard, and because there was a certain time limit for the test, but mainly because I could not concentrate with everyone else talking. They could at least show a bit of respect by staying quiet until the time limit was up. If anyone from my class is reading this right now, you won’t believe it when I say that I really felt like screaming at everyone to “shut up”. And no, I am not joking. I meant what I said, but my light blue mask fought this temptation and won against it. No matter how much I wanted to do this, my mask prevented me from this happening. It would be a completely different story at home though. If this was my sister making all this noise while I was trying to do something such as homework, I would have easily told her to “shut up” in a very angry way. This is what I would naturally do, but because masks are so strong, they can actually block you from showing what your true reaction would be. If you don’t know a person very well, it will be quite easy to hide what you’re really like from them. However, the more you start to get to know a person, the more their real personality will start to unfold.

Now that I have explained the main colours used in my mask, I will explain the colours that I used to outline the features of the mask. To begin with, I outlined the two eyes with half black, half white which represents how I see the world. The white represents all the good things that happen in this world. Friendship, love, compassion, enjoyment and nature all fall into this category. However, with the good there’s also bad, and this is what the black represents. Hatred, wars, pollution, murder and depression all fall into this category. So in this world, there are both bad things, and good things. We like to encourage good things that will make the world a better place.

I have also outlined the nose as well with half black, half white, which is how I smell the world. Once again, the white represents the good smells, and the black represents the bad smells. Good smells include things such as flowers and trees which are mainly natural, but the bad smells include pollution such as car fumes and rubbish that are man-made and help to contaminate the planet.

Finally I outlined the mouth, which is how I word things. In other words, this is what I encourage people to do and not to do. Like the nose and the eyes, I outlined half the mouth with white, and the other half with black. The white side is what I encourage people to do, and a lot of these encouragements I have previously written about on my blog. These include doing things such as recycling, saving water and being compassionate to others that have a good effect on the earth. The black side of the mouth is basically the opposite, which is what I tell people not to do. Not littering, not bullying and not wasting water are some examples, and there are many more examples for both what to do and not to do that I haven’t listed.

Well that pretty much rounds off another long post. Unfortunately this will probably be the last post I write about 8Alive (since the program has now finished), but I will be back to post about other experiences and ideas.