you have not been invited.

everything happens for a reason right?
well what the hell reason would there be for being perpetually trapped?

and we will go back to my prior question...am i addicted to nostalgia? is this why things like this happen to me? is this what i am supposed to learn? cuz i just dont get it.

have you ever felt like life decided for you what you do? like everyday was mapped out before you started it? like any decision you make was already someone elses plan for you? i dont want to get spiritual here - but thats what i'm feeling lately - like i have no conscious impact on my world. maybe that's because i am just waiting for things to happen to me. lately those things dont seem to be so good. maybe having you there -constantly in my life (in my apartment, on my street, screaming from my balcony) without an invitation reminds me I DECIDE what i do. and if this is the case... I NEED to make some decisions FAST before fate makes my decisions for me...

thats the goal...decision making...im on the cusp of something here - its not an addiction to nostalgia - i just realized that the past comes back to you if you stop making decisions aboutt he future..if you stay still long enough the past will come back uninvited. and thats how i know i am not addicted to nostalgia - because this time (THIS TIME) i did not invite you to my party.

decision: "a choice or judgement made about something. 2. the act of making up one's mind. 3. the ability to make quick and definite decisions. 4. to influence the outcome of (a contest)decisively." Collins Concise Dictionary.

now all i have to do is find the question....

what and whom do i want to invite?

when it rains it pours...

the thing about bad days is that sometimes they turn into bad weeks...bad months...bad years. i always wonder when the shift happens...

when do you start getting used to the bad days so much that they seem kinda like good days? when does the even worse days then become the bad days?
can you ever get back to a genuine good day? will you recognize it when it comes?

Why are healing professionals so difficult to heal?

everyone i work with is crazy.
this would be ok if i was talking about the clients. but im not.

now, by the nature of my work i am used to being around all sorts of very complex and multifarious individuals, (adolescents mostly) with sometimes upwards of 10 to 15 previous or current mental health diagnoses. there are eight things that i have come to expect and acknowledge about my workplace:

1) there will always be at least one crisis/conflict at any given moment.
2) human action is never as easy to explain as antecedent and result - people have layers - maltreatment and trauma create a multitude too hard to disentangle and categorize. aka - i will never fully understand what is happening around me.
3) most of my plans will be thwarted.
4) the stories that create individuals are also the ones which destroy them.
5) i cannot (and will not) fix most things.
6) i will cry and i will laugh - and both will bring me to some higher conciousness.
7) i will get spit on, things will get stolen, my things will get broken, someone will flash me, & someone will verbally abuse me.
8) i will cry and i will laugh and each will lead me to some higher form of consciousness both about myself and the world around me.

nothing in my personal life is ever that predictable.

so i guess it makes sense that when all of my collegues meet - we go into crisis (since thats about all that we know 10 hrs a day 5 days a week). but this is not any kind of crisis - this is what we have come to call 'disfunctional politeness'. crisis in a meeting of psychologists, clinical social workers, and art therapists is quiet. i have come to realize that i much prefer crisis that is loud and in your face and which may end up with the mental image of a 14 year old's breasts in my face...but i digress.

Disfunctional Politeness is in effect, nine people in a board room feeling angry, frustrated, and confused - talking around subjects instead of about them...take it from me -its frankly enough to make your head implode. i guess thats the problem with intellect and cognitive ability that is not geared towards socio-pathic endeavors. when intellect is confronted with crisis it gets silent. and angry silence is WAY worse than angry loudness. in the boardroom noone tells you that they hate the way you sent that e-mail or that your a drama queen and get over yourself. instead they say they love the way you can highlight what is brewing under the surface in an electronic note....what the fuck do you do with this? well, i will tell you... you ignore it. silently...you let it fester...until one day you crack and cry for no apparent reason because some kid stole your palm pilot broadcast all the numbers of the therapists around the campus and is going to sell it for drugs...ahh...back to the everyday.... i love predictability - at least it lets out the tension.

so - in sum - this is a message to all those who ponder my treatment meanderings...dont be worried about the kids who steal your car, the kids who graffitti your walls, or the kids who verbally abuse you on the street - worry about their therapists...silently festering and brewing in unresolved conflict...

addicted to nostalgia?!

lately i've been trying to figure out if i have an addiction to nostalgia or if my fate is simply to live with the past consistently in my present. sounds strange? well its really not.

let's start at the beginning (why? because its a very nice place to start). i remember being 19 and moving to another city on my own with the intention of starting "afresh" (whatever that means - as i am slowly figuring out - is a complete falsity - you can never start new - because your old you is always just around the corner...) soon...i had friends from my old life in my new one and basically it was good (or at least the illusion of good) i met new people and the old and new most often meshed. but i kept being drawn home (yes that illusion of a place of comfort and recognition). from that time onward i was an elastic band - going back and forthe between a world i knew and a world that i didn't. finally, i realized that life would be a mix of the two for me - people from my past and people from my new emerging future. i liked it - it felt comfortable but new at the same time. life was good.

then i decided to move - back to the place i had come from. why? well it seemed that things were pointing me in that direction and it felt like i had come far enough to make new out of the old. confused yet? well me too. maybe bolding will help.

back in my old city, i found a new place to live and i felt the comforted reassurance of the old and the new merging together again. but then i realized my ex-boyfriend lived in my new building! i tried to ignore it - deny the very "uncomfortable" realitity that the old and the new dont ALWAYS end up in a comfortable mix. and for awhile denial was a great thing. in fact, i find myself able to deny quite a lot in this new/old world that i am in. but then, my ex started to yell my name from the balcony...and my new world seemed even more distant to me. it seemed like very time a turned a corner the past was there to haunt me; in the gorcery store, around a street corner, walking up to my apartment, and most prominently screaming from my balcony. then, the past got even closer...

bumping into an ex is never a good experience as much as we try to rationalize it as such. but bumping into certain ex's is something worse than others. for 10 years this ex has been on my present mind quite frequently...again denial is a wonderful place to be. as i struggled to see and find my future in the present by ex was always ever present (probably more the way my ex reminded me of who i had been in the past). then i bumped into him and found out he was married. and i realized that while i had been living in the past he was firmly engrained in his own future. i woke up from a long and tenuous delusion - i had been living in the past (in more ways that one) more so than i had realized - this mixing of the past into a present with the old and new was a delusion - a hallucination of sorts - shall i say a dissociation?

needlessto say this has not been a plesent realization and i have been trying to find ways to bring this thought process into the blog catharsis world i have created...and i dont really know if its been that successful. the main theme of this process of past disentanglement is figuring out if i have, in fact, an addiction to the past or if fate simply seems to consistently bring me back there. perhaps i will never know.

does the past ever go away? arn't we all just products of where we have been? can we ever forget and brush off the memories we have and the people who know where we've been? do we really need to? is that healthy? is it inevitable that our pasts get carried to our presents and into our futures?

i find solice in that i will never need a time-machine.