InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "That's the ticket!"

raisedbymoogles (raisedbymoogles) wrote,
@ 2008-01-30 22:22:00

Current mood:	contemplative
Current music:	Girl's Got Rhythm - AC/DC
Entry tags:	art, depression, magic, mood

In which Moogle wins a minor victory over her Issues.
It happens to me sometimes, especially at the end of a lazy weekend. My inner drill seargent makes a temporary alliance with my brainmonster, and they start busting my metaphorical balls, in concert, about all the Productive Shit I could've gotten done that I didn't. It's like an evil cheerleading section. "Homework, washing, looking for a job! Lazy fatass, rah rah rah!" The result is usually a late night feeling sorry for myself on nights when I desperately need to get some sleep.

This past weekend was a doozy. Not content with the guilt trip, the Brainmonster brought in its old friends Hindsight and Terror-of-the-Future sometime around twelve-thirty in the morning. "Now we can really have a party!" said the Drill Seargent. And they did.

The result, I'm ashamed to say, was a quivering ball of moogle jelly on the bed. Sometimes not even pills are enough to stave off the inevitable attacks. Anxiety attacks are nothing new, and I try to put them in perspective - they mean something needs to change - but I haven't had any this bad since just before I left college the first time, and that option isn't open to me now. So I curl up on the bed, and sweat, and clutch my heart. Crying helps relieve the pressure a little, but the twisting pain in my chest is still there and I can't squeeze out any more tears.

"I just want some peace so I can go to sleep," I mutter. "I've got to do something."

Cutting occurs to me, for a moment. I've done it once in my life, and it was one of the hardest things I've done. Ultimately, though, it's too late to go rummaging around for a knife. I do have markers, though. Once when I was having one of these jags I wrote insults on myself with Sharpie, careful to stick to places that would be covered by clothes. This time I'm armed with forty colors and Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. This time I'm not going to do the Brainmonster's work for it. Maybe everything it's telling me is true, but I'm quite frankly sick of its shit.

I've been peering at Norse runes lately - as far as divination goes I like Tarot better, but as a tool for prayer or casting I see them like a set of keys. Quick, specialized. I don't really know if what I'm doing now is magic, but it's something. Something constructive, something empowering, if only in the sense that it reminds me I'm not the slave of my most vicious voices.

Purple's my favorite color, so the rune for good fortune goes in purple on my right shoulder. The rest go down my arm from there: wealth in green, love in pink, comfort in orange (I'm not sure there was any logic in that one), travel in yellow, health in blue, and healing in a darker blue. As I write, I imagine my right arm - my dominant side, the hand I use to draw - glowing with white light, a cleansing power that banishes the darkness inside me.

As a final seal I draw a circular protection rune on the back of my right hand. It's messy, since I was drawing with my left hand, and the black ink blazes against white, winter-roughened skin.

Perhaps what just happened was a spell of a kind. Or a prayer. It's hard to separate the two sometimes. Or maybe it was just an artistic 'fuck you' to the voices in my head. Either way, it looks like I've accomplished something this weekend after all.

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megpie71
2008-01-31 06:04 am UTC (link)

Congratulations on the victory. Sometimes the ones against the inner demons are the hardest to win.

One thing I've found helps me, when faced by the Perfection Monster and the Salesdemon for Suicide, is to remind myself depression has a physical dimension as well as a mental one. It takes energy to work past the depression, which means on a bad day, I'm not going to be able to do anywhere near as much as I would on a good day. Instead, I write a list of what I *have* accomplished, at a level of detail which seems appropriate to the day in question (on a good day, "get up" encompasses a whole heap of actions; on a bad day, it gets broken down to "get out of bed", "have a shower", "get dressed" etc; on a *really* bad day, things start at "open eyes" and move on to things like "put on bra: left tit" and "put on bra: right tit" - on really bad days, everything's like moving through chest high treacle anyway, and I figure even the smallest accomplishments are worth recording and rewarding).

Oh, and being reduced to a quivery pile of goo isn't something to be ashamed of. You were being ganged up on - you mention what, four different demons? - and that's overwhelming. Good for you for finding some reinforcements to come in on your side.

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	raisedbymoogles 2008-01-31 06:14 am UTC (link)
	That's actually a good idea. And dude, I spent most of the weekend playing video games, so that's a whole lot of accomplishments right there! Beat several bosses! Beat the Hades Cup! Didn't even use the GameFAQs guide for Jafar! Go me! :D (Apparently Jafar gets motion sick. I used this to shameless advantage.) (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ferdelance 2008-02-04 05:02 pm UTC (link)
	I am amused that you have an Inner Drill Sergeant. I don't think I've got one; or if I do, he's the cheerful heavy-drinking retired sort whose only aspirations in life are to have another drink and pat a few bottoms. :D Maybe my Inner Drill Sergeant should come by and teach yours how to really throw a party? Then he'd pass out around 1 AM and leave you in peace. (Reply to this)