Mostly Grateful

 

Base photo by Yours Truly

amazed I'm still here

loneliness and chronic pain

mostly feel grateful

notes

This Haiga was inspired by an older prompt from the Carpe Diem Haiku site.

https://chevrefeuillescarpediem.blogspot.com/2012/10/carpe-diem-preview-3.html

The photo in the base image was taken by me, probably in 2021. My iPhone died in July 2020 and I got a Samsung Galaxy 10, which had a better camera but was a really shitty device. I replaced it with my current Galaxy 21 at the end of 2021, which is a much better device.

Anyway, both the base image and the altered image are my work. If you wish to use the base image or share the Haiga, feel free to do so, but please credit Cara Hartley/Ornery Owl. A link back to this blog would also be appreciated.

I prefer to let my Haiga speak for themselves, but I want to make it clear that I'm not engaging in toxic positivity when I mention being mostly grateful. I used to wonder why those "have an attitude of gratitude" mantras just made me feel worse about things. The reason is because that approach makes a person feel bad for not feeling good.

I don't feel good all the time. Some days are better than others, but it would be a stretch to say I ever feel good. I'm fortunate that my pain levels are mild to moderate. After injuring the median nerve in my left arm at the end of 2017, I endured six weeks of chronic severe pain. 

The only way I could obtain relief was by lying on the arm to make the nerve go to sleep. I couldn't sit up for more than 45 minutes before the pain became intolerable. It was hard to think clearly. The only reason I didn't seriously consider taking myself out was because I was hopeful that physical therapy would help. 

It would have helped sooner if I hadn't had to wait three weeks for Medicaid to kick in. I make no apologies for believing the United States needs a Medicaid/Medicare For All system. There have been many times in my life when I went without care because I couldn't afford it.

My default is chronic widespread mild to moderate pain, which I suppose is connected to my dysfunctional endocrine system because it started after my thyroid decided to immolate itself when I was in my early teens. People with chronic low-grade pain tend to feel tired all the time. NSAIDs don't touch this kind of pain and opiates would be overkill. I get some relief from CBD oil.

What I mean when I say I'm mostly grateful to still be here is I was extremely self-destructive when I was younger because I truly thought I was the most fatally flawed fuckup ever to exist, courtesy of complex PTSD. I spent most of my life feeling this way. Not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck everyone who contributed to my feeling this way. Fuck all of you sideways. I didn't deserve what you did to me. I'll never understand why you did it.

I'm mostly grateful to still be here because I still have a lot of shit left to do. If nothing else, I feel it's my sworn duty to my fellow freaks to stick around and piss off the pretty people with shitty attitudes who think it's fun to use those of us who are socially awkward and/or not conventionally attractive as their punching bags.

 Also, fuck you to every guy out there who ever dared one of his friends to get with the "ugly girl" or who took his friend up on such a dare. I've never trusted any asshole who told me I was "pretty." I always knew they were up to something, and I don't mean they wanted to get into something good. None of these guys thought I was any good. I know for a fact they were no good.

I'm not grateful to the god of any church for saving me. I ceased being a theist years ago. I'm an agnostic deist. I believe in at least the possibility of a higher power. I don't believe it involves itself with earthly affairs. 

If this higher power was responsible for spawning my soul, sometimes I'm grateful for that. Other times I wish it had gotten distracted by a squirrel or a supernova or whatever might distract a cosmic force and forgotten it was going to create me. Then again, that's probably why I'm half-baked. The creator got distracted and forgot to add some necessary components that would have made me more palatable to my fellow travelers on this planet.

Then again, I think most people suck and I'm glad I'm not like them. A lot of people look for any excuse to be nasty in order to make themselves feel superior.

So, yeah, mostly I'm grateful to still be here despite my many attempts to slowly (or quickly) kill myself with risky behaviors and substance abuse, but some days are better than others. Sometimes I wish an asteroid would hit me and sometimes when I wake up I wish I hadn't. 

I'm not done telling my stories yet, so, mostly I'm grateful to be here. Even though I'm broken, I'm lonely and misunderstood, and I'm in pain most of the time. Actually, I'm in pain all the time but sometimes I'm not as aware of it.

This is my reality and my life. I don't apologize for it.

Also, fuck toxic positivity. It's a damn pack of lies.

Ornery Owl Has Fucking Spoken

Image by Ria Sopala from Pixabay

Let your old pal Ornery Owl tell y'all a little story, Kiddies.

https://odysee.com/@deepprogresivehouse:4/432Hz-Lounge--Downbeat-Music-Mix-By-Sinan-Mercenk:8?r=GTwnGJ4fFBQfzuJgpHVpfKBKaC9b8B16

30 Days of Haiga 2021: The Dilemma

 

Background image by Pobble 365

Text art by Ornery Owl (Cara Hartley)

Prompt Used

https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2021/09/14/photo-challenge-382/

Notes

One of the ugliest, most hateful things that people can say about those who commit suicide is that they are "selfish" and "weren't thinking of the people they'd leave behind to clean up their mess." This awful "truism" simply isn't true. Those who commit suicide have reached a point of despair that they can't see a way around.

Those who have never reached this point have no business talking about what those who have reached it are feeling or who they are thinking of. I don't have any on-location friends and I doubt my absence would create any serious unhappiness for my online friends. 

If I'm truthful, my online acquaintances would probably appreciate it if I fucked off. I generally feel that people are putting up with me rather than that they like me.

I often feel that my family would be better off without me. However, I still serve some useful functions, such as half-assed chef, dishwasher, and Uber for the household. When I'm no longer fit for purpose, it's probably just as well that I punch my ticket and save everyone a lot of hassle.

I've always been psychologically fragile and now I'm not worth a gnat's fart in a category 5 hurricane physically. I am in constant low-grade to moderate pain. I was in constant severe pain for about two months and if I wore hats, my hat would be off to those who live with severe chronic pain. If I had to do it much longer, I probably would have sold myself the farm and plowed myself under. 

Those who don't live with chronic pain don't understand that even low-grade chronic pain is exhausting. I've gotten rid of all the people who complained that I never had any energy. They are now decomposing in my locker.

Seriously, I just don't interact with these people anymore. People take things too literally these days, so I feel I need to clearly state that I have never killed anybody. Over the course of 56 years, I've imagined sending many people in a rocket ship to the sun, but I would be a failure as a murderer. I'm a poor liar with a severe guilty conscience. I would be caught immediately. 

I watched a re-enactment of The Picture of Dorian Gray on Amazon last night. Sometimes I think that a Portrait of Pain-Free Cie would be nice. However, I wouldn't want it to be a portrait of young me. Forget the "beautiful" part, because I have never been beautiful. 

I would want my portrait to be of Middle-Aged Curmudgeon me. My portrait's resting bitch face would never rest. It would do me proud.

~Ornery Owl Has Ruminated~

A Portrait of Ornery Owl

Free-use image by Gordon Johnson on Pixabay

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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Carpe Diem #1779 Cliffs of Moher ... a tribute to Jane Reichhold (monody, Senryu)

Image source

in that last moment

I hope that you were at peace

may you now fly free

~Cie~

Notes:

I was previously unaware that Jane Reichhold (1937 - 2016) had committed suicide because the pain of her fibromyalgia had become unbearable. Please click the Fishy banner to find out more about Jane's story.

We will never learn how to reduce the rate of suicide if it is a stigmatized, taboo subject. If people are afraid or ashamed to discuss suicide ideation, then their struggles will remain internalized. The ways that suicide ideation and attempted suicide are currently handled are ineffective and the unthinking and unfeeling diatribe that the surviving family members of a person who committed suicide are subject to are simply shameful.

Any time a celebrity commits suicide, there's always someone sanctimoniously spouting about how "selfish" this person was, and I want to take them aside and shake them and shout: "Hello, you insensitive twit! Did it never occur to you in your moment of self-righteousness to realize that anyone listening to you could have a loved one who took their own life? How dare you be so thoughtless!"

When I was in high school, I had a friend whose brother had committed suicide when she was eight years old. She said that people would come up to her on the playground and tell her that her brother was in hell for what he'd done. I say there ought to be a special spit in hell reserved for mealy-mouthed marshmallows who make such unkind assertions.

I leave you now with this banner that I use as my Facebook avatar anytime a celebrity takes their own life because I just know that the ignorant spoutings are going to elevate at such times.

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 16 + Poems in April 2019 Day 16 & 5: Poetry As the Place Where the Spirit Within Hemorrhages Truth

Image by Enrique Meseguer from Pixabay

You return whenever I write poetry

Troublesome little ghost

Not sugar and spice and everything nice

You mournful, shadowed thing

Troublesome little ghost

Your nights filled with wanting and regret

You mournful, shadow thing

Needing to bleed out your words

Your nights filled with wanting and regret

I allow you to emerge from my cold shell

Needing to bleed out your words

"The poem is the way," I say

I allow you to emerge from my cold shell

Offering truth a way to be set free

"The poem is the way," I say

You need not put on false airs with poetry

Offering truth a way to be set free

Poetry, I think, is ultimate honesty

You need not put on false airs with poetry

Or so it is that I have always believed

Poetry, I think, is ultimate honestly

You need not pretend to be aught but what you are

Or so it is that I have always believed

But there are those who disagree on poetry

You need not pretend to be aught but what you are

You need not present as light when you are shadow

But there are those who disagree on poetry

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

You need not present as light when you are shadow

Sad little ghost, pay no mind to the Poetry Police

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

Bleed your truth as freely as you need

Sad little ghost, pay no mind to the Poetry Police

You mournful, shadowed thing

Poetry, they say, is the domain of sugar and spice

You return whenever I write poetry

~Cie~

Prompt #5

Prompt #16

Notes:

The poetic form is Pantoum. Fortunately, a Pantoum need not rhyme.

The Poems in April prompt #16 was to create a poem with a title starting with "Poetry As..."

The Poems in April prompt #5 was to describe a supernatural creature who is a troublesome housemate. I can think of no more troublesome a housemate than the child I once was who each day laments that the big dreams she had for her life slip further and further away from her grasp, fading into the impossible.

I think the NaPoWriMo prompt ended up eating the dust of the other two prompts.

A couple of years ago when I was doing OctPoWriMo, I almost ended up ceasing participation in poetry blog hops for good when I allowed the troubled spirit who will always be a part of me to express itself and was admonished that my poetry was "catharsis" and I would one day become "a beacon of light in the world" or some such thing.

To me, these well-meaning but inaccurate statements showed two things.

First, that people who are not happy by nature are unacceptable as they are and must become, or at least pretend to be, the sort of person who is "a light in the world." 

Second, that dark poetry (and depressive people) are not as valid or worthwhile as happy, well-adjusted people writing poems about the joys of life and how grateful they are to live under the rule of a benevolent deity in a happy and joyful world where there are no Debbie Downers or Negative Neds messing things up with their dark ickiness.

To me, poetry must remain the domain where you can TELL IT LIKE IT IS, not like other people think it's supposed to be.

Poetry must remain the place where one can hemorrhage one's soul all over the damn place and not have people constantly trying to slap smiley bandages on their spiritual wounds.

Poetry must be allowed to be dark and filled with pain.

During the final years of my nursing career, a statement had been popularized that "PAIN IS WHATEVER THE PATIENT SAYS IT IS." 

I greatly advocate for this belief. It is so much more helpful than awful epithets such as "drug-seeking behavior," which had previously been the dismissive go-to whenever a patient requested pain medication earlier than it was scheduled. 

People who experience high levels of chronic pain do not respond to pain medications the way people who do not experience chronic pain (or who experience chronic pain of lesser degrees) respond to pain medication. A person with high levels of chronic pain could ingest enough pain medication to knock out a large horse and be perfectly coherent, and I'm only being slightly hyperbolic.

FYI, low-grade chronic pain (such as I have) isn't a walk in the park either. I'm tired all the time and have a tendency to experience brain fog and disturbed sleep. My pain levels aren't such that I require narcotics, but NSAIDS don't really help. 

I experienced intense chronic pain for about six weeks when I initially injured the median nerve in my left arm. I couldn't sit up for more than about 45 minutes before I had to lie on the arm to try and numb it. Intense chronic pain is no joke, and anyone who says things like "people need to just push through the pain" or fail to understand why people become so desperate for relief that they obtain medications through illegal channels because the medications they've been prescribed legally aren't cutting the mustard need to get off their high horse. 

At this point, my left arm constantly tingles. I've gotten enough sensation back in my left hand that it no longer feels like a lump of clay, but I was damn grateful for "lump of clay" as opposed to constant searing pain up and down the arm. Physical therapy saved my life, literally. I would need more P.T. to get rid of the constant numbness and tingling, but Medicaid will only pay for 12 sessions per injury. Better than nothing, but ridiculous to put a limitation on the sort of thing which doesn't tend to behave in a predictable fashion.

In any case, just as pain is whatever the patient says it is, POETRY IS WHATEVER THE POET SAYS IT IS.

My poetry need not be "catharsis." It need not lead to me becoming "a beacon of light in the world" to be absolutely 100% valid. The wounded inner self is allowed to express its truth without expectation of transformation.

People with depressive personalities are valid as they are. They need not be drugged into compliance. For some of us, the drugs don't work anyway, or they make things worse. Drugs are not the answer to everything.

I don't need to be like you. 

I am valid just as I am.

Apologies for jumping on ye olde soapbox, but some things cannot be said enough.

The Cheese Grates It + 30 Days of Haiga 2017: Day 29: Desert of Dreams

Click to Enlarge

Original background image copyright Devesh V. Tripathi

Verse and text manipulation by The Real Cie

Thoughts:

The image and the prompt made me think of all the things I planned to do in life, most of which fell through due to fighting with a very misunderstood disease, the prescription for which was pills that made me feel even worse and the edict that I should "just stop that stinkin' thinkin' and be happy for what I have." 

While western society has a somewhat better understanding of mental illness than it did when I was younger, the treatment of both mental and physical illnesses in many countries, including first world countries such as the United States is out of reach for many citizens.

I do not respond well to medications or to this particular aspect of me being treated in a completely clinical fashion. I have often felt that I, as a person, have been ignored in favor of seeking textbook symptoms and outcomes. One of my son's EMS instructors wisely said: "treat the patient, not the chart." This is something that practitioners treating both body and mind all too often fail to do.

I would have done well to learn skills to cope with my particular mental presentation, rather than having wrestled for so many years with failed attempts to turn me into something I am not: a happy robot, gleeful to take my Soma and take on my prescribed role as a cog in the machine.

At this point in my life, I am no longer devastated by not being famous or adored, but I am awfully tired and a bit sad at the way some things have turned out. I try not to feel like a failure. I deliver groceries rather than speeches on the Red Carpet (or what have you) as I accept an award for my wonderful performance or book. 

Delivering groceries while clad in modest attire does not make me any less worthwhile than those delivering acceptance speeches for their grand performances while clad in glamorous gowns or sleek suits. However, I am tired and I ache and I am sad to see so many people I have known both in real life and through their work which inspired me becoming ill and dying. I would like to stop working for a living and start simply living. 

This isn't likely to happen anytime soon, and I fear that what happened to my father will happen to me. Less than a week after taking full retirement, my father had a hemorrhagic stroke which forever altered his life and the lives of his immediate family. He went through six years of decline, including more strokes and congestive heart failure. In the end, he was like a frightened child trapped in an adult body.

I don't want that to be my fate. But I fear a similar fate awaits the majority of us who live in a society which sees people as flesh androids rather than souls operating through corporeal vehicles.

The most humble of us and zir dreams is equal in importance to the most celebrated among us. Perhaps it is time to celebrate the most humble members of society and give weight to their hopes and dreams.

~The Cheese Hath Grated It~

De Agony of De Feet

The work I do isn't in vain

But I still need to complain

My feet are always in pain

The constant aching is really a drain

On body and sole and brain

~Cie~

(Suffering from plantar fascitis)

Prompt Used:

https://patriciasplace.me/2017/02/12/hard-work/

The Quiet Scream of Chronic Pain

 Today's prompt is silence. We're supposed to sit quietly and listen. This is what I hear.

The Quiet Scream of Chronic Pain

It's never quiet

In a body where pain is

always chattering

~Cie~