anxiety

blog: life is but a dream

I have very vivid dreams; a lot of the time my dreams are like movies in my head where I’m not represented in them at all, and there’s no deeper meaning. I can tell the ‘mouthfeel’ of these dreams are different. I watch fictional characters react to situations and I wake up thinking ‘damn that would make a great story’. I’ve even tried to write those stories, but there’s never enough meat to flesh them out.

Other times my dreams have very overt references to my life. The kinds of dreams you wake up from and know exactly what they mean, why those themes would have been on your mind, and what (if anything) you’re supposed to take from them.

Then there are others with meanings that are older, deeper, harder to pick apart. Recurring themes that keep popping up in my head; my brain’s way of communicating the issues I struggle with chronically.

One recurring theme I have is around houses and possessions left behind. For example:

  • I will dream I left behind an apartment in the States with a lot of stuff in it (I actually did leave things behind when I moved, and have no idea what happened to it all or even what exactly I left behind), or I dream I am in the US trying to locate or gain access to the apartment I had when I was there last.
  • I enter a building where I used to rent a room and suddenly can’t remember if I got all my stuff when I left, but can’t find which room I used to have so I can check. Or I’ll remember that I DID leave stuff behind, and gain access to the room, but the room will be empty.
  • I’m at my parents’ house which has a granny flat or large garage where my stuff is stored. Sometimes there’s urgency because they’re moving / have moved out of the house. If I go in the granny flat/garage, it’s either too dark to see what’s in all the boxes, or I can see it but it’s all so jumbled up that my mind can’t really process the actual things in the room.
  • I’m renting a new house, when suddenly I realise I still have a lot of stuff at the old house that never got moved across. Or I have access to an old house that I used to rent, and I go there but it’s empty and everything’s different.
  • I’m renting an old house that is literally falling down around me (ceiling caving in, walls with huge cracks in them, water damage and flooding, etc). This is slightly different in that there’s no element of owning material things, but I still include it in my ‘house’ dreams.

In most of these dreams there’s a sense of things that have been left behind but not a clear sense of what those things actually are, so no real way to tell if I’ve lost something valuable or not. And it all revolves around housing, and usually family. Houses in dreams often represent your ‘self’ or how you view yourself, so to me these dreams are about how unresolved issues from my past impact my current sense of self or areas where elements of my past are holding me back.

A therapist would have a field day with me, haha. 😛

poem: knuckles white arm steady

– TW: Depression, Su*cidal Ideation

Depression isn’t always 
Visible scars, it’s not always
Sitting in your bedroom with the blinds drawn, 
In week-old pyjamas, listening to The Smiths 
And fantasising about who would come 
To your funeral. 

Sometimes depression is 
White-knuckling through your day job, 
Trying to push away the negative thoughts 
And just focus on the thing 
That keeps a roof over your head 
And the lights switched on. 

Sometimes depression is 
Sitting in a crowded mall 
Hurrying to enjoy a cappuccino 
Before the cracks appear, 
Fighting a losing battle with the tears 
Everyone else pretends not to see. 

Depression is getting home and collapsing
Because you no longer have to keep the mask on, 
But that was the only thing holding you together.  
Depression is ice cream for dinner 
Because you’re too exhausted to cook. 

Depression is holding your cat just a bit too tight
And crying because their toe beans are so precious. 
Depression is laying on your back 
Staring up at the ceiling and sinking 
Into a warm black hole of molasses 
And burnt marshmallows. 
Depression is being overwhelmed 
Because tomorrow, you know – 
You have to get up and do it all over again. 

Depression is the dark shadow
That spoons you as you cry yourself to sleep. 
It’s the good morning kiss 
Of a day that’s not quite as bright for you. 
It’s the weight of chains around your shoulders 
That no one else can see, chains 
Around your ankles dragging you down into the deep. 
Depression is staring hard in the mirror,
And for a split second not recognising your own face,
Because the person looking back…
Actually looks happy. 

Depression is what keeps your tongue 
Still and your mouth closed, 
Because other people don’t know 
That talking about your problems 
Or popping a pill 
(Which to choose – red or blue?)
Isn’t going to make the loneliness go away. 

Depression is hanging on to the corpse of hope, 
Because you’re too afraid to let go
Of the thought that things 
Could still get better for you.  
It’s in that stab of jealousy you feel 
When you look at others 
And see life, warmth, joy and happiness;
All the things you’ll never be able to hold
Without fucking it up for yourself
And anyone who loves you. 

Depression is not the thing that kills;
It’s the thought of living your whole life this way
That eventually pulls the trigger.

blog: cognitive dissonance – closing the distance

‘Cognitive Dissonance’ – something the Universe gave me to ponder this week. It’s what happens when your statements and beliefs about yourself – who you want to be, what you want to do, and who you expect others to be – don’t match reality.

Like, I want to spend more time on my commute to and from work doing meaningful stuff instead of just sleeping – researching things online, or posting here, or reading news articles, shopping for things, doing a crossword puzzle, etc. I want to go out more, I want to follow my friends on facebook more closely, and text them more regularly. I want to set and maintain a budget. I want to get back on track with my diet, and start making progress on my ‘to-do’ list. But honestly, my life is a mess right now, and I don’t get around to achieving a lot of my goals.

When what we want vs. what actually happens = two very different things, that’s cognitive dissonance. And we feel guilty, hurt, or upset because there’s this massive gap in what we wanted life to be like and what life actually is. The theory is that humans strive for internal consistency, and work to reduce any dissonance or gap between fantasy and reality. We adjust our thinking, try to justify things, make excuses, or flat out ignoring that it’s happening. We create mental stress, because of our belief that things have to be consistent.

So what then… do I just accept that my life is chaos? That I’m never going to get even a 10th of my bucket list crossed off? That I’m always going to be rushing from one thing to the next and missing bits along the way? Or do I bolt everything down and live a life of routine and rigid rules for interaction with others, and try and control my environment as much as I can?

I don’t want my life to be summed up as a bundle of cognitive dissonance. I used to think that if you want to do something, you don’t make excuses, you just make it happen – but the implication  – that if I didn’t make it happen, I didn’t want it bad enough – weighs too heavy on the soul.

I want consistency,  but is consistency really this great prize to reach for if it comes at the risk of mental health and wellbeing?

I guess it’s about finding balance – making adjustments in habit, challenging some of my thinking on what I think “has to be”. And then re-examining my priorities, determining what the “small stuff” is in this big picture, letting go of that concept of “should have” and “must” and living life in a more fluid way.

I think that’s the lesson the Universe is trying to teach me today!