Monthly Archive for January, 2007

Not In Aussie’s World

Published
by
Austin
on January 31, 2007
in Art, General Chatter and Therapy
. 4 Comments

this image gives the illusion of nudity

I finally finished the male body I was doing. That took long enough, my goodness. It usually takes me no more than half a day but this stupid thing took 3 days. It’s called Tribulation. You can’t see any body “parts” on the image but if there is even a hint of nudity I’ll always make the picture thumbnail size. If you want to see a larger view click the pic and you’ll be directed to that entry on the art blog. Now, onto other things…….

There are two things that won’t be in Aussie’s world- therapy twice a week & rude dollar store workers.

Therapy– I can’t do therapy twice a week. My goodness I feel like I’ve been through the ringer. Twice a week is too much. I didn’t have the guts to tell him that Tuesday but tomorrow is the day. I have to tell him or I’ll spend the rest of my time at home with fybro flare ups and a body beaten down. I can not do this. I feel like crap. You could bounce a quarter off my muscles they’re so tight.

Rude $ store worker– I decided not to speak to that workers supervisor but directly to him. I intend to tell him very kindly that when I’m in that store he is to pretend I’m not that way we don’t have to go to his supervisor. The guy needs a job and I understand that but I won’t switch stores just because he’s there. So, Friday when I pop in there I’ll address that situation. It’s crazy to think I once took clonapin to manage his presence. That’s crazy. So, Friday I’ll speak to him and see if we can’t straighten this thing out. I plan to put it away after that. The next move is on him. I’d suggest he comply…it’s just a suggestion but a good one I think. Calling me trash, oh I got your trash for you…sure do. No, I won’t be ghetto when I talk to him or even aggressive but he’ll get the point. No long winded explanations just a simple statement ending with a click of the heals and a clear view of my backside walking away.

Onto more important stuff—I feel like I’ve neglected people. I haven’t really been around that much and when I have been it’s been hit and miss. I’ve answered so few emails it’s pitiful. I suppose I’ll be back around soon. I’ve gotta hit the sheets.

Aussie

I’m not your average squirrel but I am an average nut.

Ode To The Cam

Published
by
Austin
on January 31, 2007
in General Chatter and Humor
. 7 Comments

There’s a new digital cam in town, well, there will be in two months anyway. I found a Polaroid at Wally World that will go in the layaway on the 3rd when I get my pennies from the government. I feel so stifled without a camera. It was my therapy, an art tool, fun and games. I was attached to that thing and truthfully it did quite well for quite some time. Like all good cams, it had to go into digital arrest. I tried artificial resuscitation (I changed the batteries to brand new rechargeable ones) but despite all my efforts it couldn’t be revived. That was several months ago. I’ve tried to move on but it’s slow, a process I guess. In order to move on I’ve decided to put a new cam in the layaway. I’ll put down half this month and get it out next month. I look forward to it. Video with voice in either MPEG-4 or AVI, nice mega pixels at 5.1, and it shoots in colour, as well as negative, black & white, sepia, mosaic, blue, green and red. Now, there are better cams out there with functions that others desire over the different types of images you can shoot but this one seems to fit me well. I can’t say I’m disappointed about having the shutter open as little as 1/2000 second and as long as 8 full seconds. I’m sooooo going to love this especially at $99.87.

I have an anniversary coming up. My Independence Day is February 2nd so I don’t feel so badly about putting half down. I can call it an Indy Day present to myself. So no longer will I visit blogs such as Velvet Sacks and Life at Stars Rest and see photos and weep. No more…well, I mean more for two months but after that I shall again post photos. I’ve missed so much record keeping of Bella growing up. I feel almost lost without a cam. Like I said, it was therapy, it was for art work and for fun. I miss it. It’s been too long. Two months isn’t that much longer to wait, not when I know what it is I’m waiting for. Yippee for me!

Aussie

Stepping On My Toes

Published
by
Austin
on January 30, 2007
in General Chatter
. 3 Comments

Stepping On My Toes

There’s a store that a I frequent where everything is one dollar. I get cleaning supplies there and paper products. As with other places I go I know the cashiers and stuff and we talk and mess around and everything. Well, a guy that works there wants to hug me. That doesn’t work. I’m not a touchy feely person. Two times now he’s tried to hug me. The last time I left the store I was shaking inside. I couldn’t catch my breath so I stepped outside while Blossom got her stuff. Today, that guy, the worker in the store, said I was evil because I didn’t hug him. I just passed it off. I use the word evil all the time and most of the time I don’t mean it in it’s literal form but later in the store when he passed me he told his manager I was a piece of trash and to kick me out of the store. It seems odd that someone would say that about a person, especially to their manager. This guy is mild MR and I understand that he is trying very hard to get to know Blossom and me but today’s comment was overboard. It hurt. It was not what I needed to hear.

Therapy went okay. I still feel rather raw inside which is why I think it hurt so much to be called trash. I know he wasn’t trying to be mean. I kinda know the guy, only from working there so I know he isn’t a cruel guy. It’s just that I wish he’d chosen different words, at least today anyway. And yeah, I am making excuses for him. I worked with mildly mentally retarded (MR) to profound mentally retarded adults so I know that his actions were not something others would do. Who actually says to their supervisor, “she’s trash, throw her out of here?” so my point is, even though his words hurt he did not do so with malice. He wants human connection so he wants me to hug him. I can’t and won’t offer him that. I made that clear which is probably why he replied, “you’re so evil.”

When a person steps on your toes it hurts. Even if they didn’t mean to the pain is still there. So I guess what I’m trying to say is even though he did not set out to hurt my feelings he still did.

I have to go to sleep now

Maureen

WordPress Purgatory

Published
by
Austin
on January 30, 2007
in Soapbox and Stupid People
. 2 Comments

I guess I’m spamming myself now! I tried to leave a comment on two blogs today and ended up having my email sent to their spam box. I logged out and sent a comment to my own blog and guess what, that comment went straight to my spam box. This is crazy! What I’m spamming my own blog or something? I’m sending myself fake comments about this that and the other? Good Lord, maybe one of my insiders has a part-time spam job I don’t know about. They better be getting paid for it too or their efforts will be met with strict verbal assaults describing with clear but very un-Christian descriptions of what I’ll do to them if they don’t start making money at this illegal activity. I hate to break the leg of an alter but if I’m pushed to it then so be it. (pointing finger at my nose) DON’T MAKE ME COME IN THERE!

Now why would WordPress have me on the spam list? My goodness! I’ve never done that to anybody. But then ya know, the other day I left a comment on a blog back to back and got one of those error messages from the usually funny error message guy that said to slow down I was commenting too fast. Argh! What? That might be where all this trouble is coming from, I had the nerve to leave 2 comments on a blog that I’ve commented on before. When I didn’t ask her to buy something that is surely to change her life forever the WP program should have released me from the cursed spam category. But nope, they had to do that blogger profiling (that’s the new racial profiling only for bloggers.) They had to profile me like that and now I’m on some list someplace. So, I hope my blogger buddies (the ones I visit regularly who know I’m not a scum spammer)..I hope they check their spam box to recover me from spam purgatory or I’ll get trashed and that comment will spend eternity in spam hell. Oh, won’t someone save my poor blogger soul from spam damnation? Why, why me? I even had to recover my own comment for this entry.

Aussie

From Me to Me

Published
by
Austin
on January 29, 2007
in Dissociative Identity Disorder, PTSD and Therapy
. 3 Comments

From me to me
Monday, January 29, 2007-8:44PM EST

Recently I’ve run across two letters written by a survivor to their inner child concerning their feelings about that inner child. They were quite revealing, very emotional and something I’m sure survivors can relate to. I figured I’d give a go at one.

Dear Little Me,

Back then, I wish the adult me could have been with you. I would have told her she couldn’t treat you that way but I would not have stood guard by your room to watch over you or picked you up when she threw you down. I would not have given you food from my plate or held you when you feared her most because we wouldn’t have stayed. Had I been an adult with you back then I would have used resources available to me to walk out of there and manage on our own.

I know very well that living with her was hell. I know how afraid you were. I know how tired you were. How on earth could you sleep in her house and rest? The song she sang, the one she sang when her heart wasn’t on fire and she wasn’t in the mood to hurt you, that song was never heard enough and I’m sorry for that. I just think that even though your heart could rest when she sang that song that it was wrong to need to hear it just to assure your safety. She was wrong.

You did all the things little girls do to try and make things right. You went to school, you did chores, you said yes ma’me and yes sir. You spoke English the way it was meant to be spoke and stood the way the spine was designed to stand. You even made her cut out hearts to tell her you loved her and you picked wild flowers to stand in a vase. You did all the sweet things that kids do and there is nothing to be ashamed of for that.

I didn’t realize how little you were. I went back to the old house several years back and saw the tree you use to hide in. there was a hollowed out spot in the trunk and you fit in there when the mother was at her meanest. I always thought that tree was huge but when I saw it the size wasn’t that big at all, you were small, very small. The tree in our backyard with a similar hollow trunk reminds me of the tree you hid in, it reminds me of how small you were. It lets me tell you with 100% confidence that you were just a very little girl living with a very mean, huge, cruel woman and nobody on earth can ever say there was anything at all you could do to make life better for yourself.

I could not be back there with you because I didn’t exist. I couldn’t take you away from there because I didn’t exist but I do now and I’m going to use the resources I have available to me to take away what pain I can and nurse what pain I can’t.

Its way past your bed time. You do not have to hold your breath and wait to hear if I’ll sing you the safe song. You can curl up and pull the covers up under your chin and sleep because as I stand here right now I swear I’m not ever going to hurt you. Go to sleep, I’ll see you in the morning. We have a doctor’s appointment about the hurt, it’s one of the resources we have available to us now. Good night, sleep tight, everything’s going to be alright.

Sincerely,
Adult Me

Raw

Published
by
Austin
on January 28, 2007
in Mental Health
. 4 Comments

I think reading blogs today is the wrong thing for me to do. I seem to break easily in the last few days and each word I read I crumble a little more. So I need to take a little break, do some artwork, some housework and things along that line. I feel raw right now, I’m not so much over that one tiny session I had where we went over one single solitary memory. That was an ugly session.

There’s new artwork on the art blog but other than that I really don’t have much to say. I don’t know if I’ll have much to say so I must just do more artwork. I’m wobbling back and forth between tearful and enraged. I need to get a handle and I can’t do that unless I sit back and try and catch my breath.

Austin

Eating For The Future

Published
by
Austin
on January 28, 2007
in General Chatter
. 2 Comments

Eating For The Future
Sunday, January 28, 2007-3:36AM EST

If ignorance is bliss why aren't more people happy?I figure that at 35 it’s not too late for me to really take charge of my health. Certain conditions known to creep up on African-Americans at my age have been on my mind lately. I’d like to avoid them if possible so I’ve been tossing around different thoughts about how to better care for myself with better nutritional choices. I don’t plan to diet but to think about the long term effects of my food choices. Today I got this awful craving for something sweet and I swear I could smell chocolate. There is no chocolate in my house at this time and the closest place it could be is about a block away. I doubt I smelled chocolate coming from the quickie mart but it didn’t stop me from peaking out the window to see if the Hostess truck arrived yet.

I think about my cholesterol levels and about my blood pressure quite often. At this point I don’t have issues with that but it doesn’t mean I should ignore the fact that I can do something to avoid having those issues. In my family diabetes is thick. The only two people that don’t have it are me and my younger brother. A doctor once told me that he thought my food choices helped to stave off diabetes then but my food choices now invite it. I was a vegetarian from the age of 8 until 33 I think it was. I’ve lost some of the good eating habits I use to have. In two years I’ve lost those good eating habits. My how time flies when you’re eating cream pies. Even though it is not possible for me to go back to the life style that I dearly loved I can pick up the good eating habits again. I can long for the Hostess guy but I don’t have to walk over there and buy it. I can just pretend to smell him a block away and laugh while I do it then celebrate because I made a good choice for my future.

A friend of mine has a little sticker that she sends on the back of post cards and gifts. It says not to give up five minutes before your miracle happens. A nice man once put it, “Don’t give up forever for a moment.” This applies to my eating in that I can use such reasoning to walk away from over eating or simply not eating at all. If my goal is to have a healthier future then is it worth it for me to risk that health for one moment with a Twinkie or a Ding-Dong or say hot chocolate cake with thick icing and a side of ice cream with hot fudge topping, nuts and a cherry on top? Okay, I need to stop with that crap because I’m weakening as I speak. My point is, I’ll enjoy it for the moment but in the long run it may come back to bite me. I’m only 35, it’s not too late for me to make strong choices for my future in the way of nutrition. I intend to do that this year. I started about two weeks ago actually. I haven’t frequented said quickie mart to the extent that I use to. Oh yes, and I watch my posture as I sit in my chair at the desk. That’s another thing I started doing.

A goal I’ve kept for awhile now is to dedicated one day out of the week to drink nothing but water. I eat but when I take in fluids on that day it’s water. It’s just my way of making sure I get enough of it. I’ve done that for quite some time so my next step has to build on that. It’s an easy thing for me to do just one day a week, put down soda and coffee and drink only water. I can only hope that whatever my next step will be will be as easy.

While I may look like that lady right now I do not plan to feel like she looks. I swear right here and right now that even though my breasts hang, my butt sags, and my eyes may barely open to share their red streaks with the world I will not add to those things by not caring for myself today.

Austin

PS. Thanks for the card Beauty. It was the perfect picture for my entry.

Hodgepodge

Published
by
Austin
on January 26, 2007
in General Chatter and Relationships
. 4 Comments

Hodgepodge
Friday, January 26, 2007

Well, Dr. T told me today that perhaps my association with Blossom feels safe and that’s why I still let her come around. I started thinking to myself, the next time I date someone I need a plan. I have to get something out of the relationship, have some benefit, something other than a huge headache. So I’ve decided that I will only date senior citizens. Why you say? It’s an economically sound decision actually. See, the senior discounts could save me all kinds of money. I mean to tell you with 10% off here and 30% off there I could really have a nice nest egg tucked away for myself. I could go to Denny’s and order off the senior menu right along with my partner and have her pay. So, when I start looking for someone she’ll have to be over the age of 60 but not over 65. She must be a barren orphan. Why you say? Well, if she has no kids then they can’t interfere in our relationship. If she doesn’t have family then there are no “in-laws” which means I have no mother-in-homo-law. These two major issues cause more break ups than any other relationship issue. She can’t have kids or living relatives. I must be able to verify that they aren’t alive and she has no kids.

She must have a clean bill of SD health. Being over the age of 55 and probably of the mind set that she doesn’t have to be as “safe” as the younger generations she is put in a false sense of security and could subject herself to serious but unknowing harm. It seems one of the fastest growing age groups for AIDS is with senior citizens (they think AIDS is a young person’s disease) so I’ll have to have her tested and see some papers before we can…um…consummate the partnership. So I need a barren orphan with a clean bill of all SD’s and no criminal record. The last thing I need is to find out granny is selling dope to supplement her social security. Times are hard but damn! Okay so, that’s my plan, only date old ladies who will let me order off the senior menus and let me use their discounts so that I can gain financial status in the community. So, in a few months when I’m emotionally stable and looking if there’s a single old lady out there looking for a short chubby black chick I’m your girl. Until then I’m just stuck with how to get Blossom out of my house without worrying that she’ll kill herself.

What Dr. T told me today was sooooo not helpful. I told him I worried she’d kill herself if I told her I didn’t want to be friends anymore. He told me a story about a guy that killed himself for the same reason, getting dumped. That was quite helpful Dr. T, I said. NOT! He kinda laughed but I mean come on. I just said the girl might kill herself and he comes up with an example of someone who really did. Thank you very much, I can see why you have a PhD, you excel in how not to be helpful. Actually, the therapy session went half ways decent so he has kind of redeemed himself. He’s on board for now until he messes up again or until I have unbridled rage and tell him about his unhelpful stories about people that bit the bullet because their friends told them to kiss off.

He asked why I keep her around. I felt so bad about it but I told him the truth. She’s a friend with benefits. I said it’s a dangerous world. To go out and meet someone would mean I’d need more trust in them than I have with Blossom. I’d have to simply take their word for it that they aren’t infected with something. The problem is, I can’t just say to Blossom, we’ve had our time together now get out. I’m just not that shallow. I can’t do the do and then kick her out of the house. Dr. T said, you cant be that hard nosed? Uh, no, no I can’t. I don’t have it in me to roll over and go, “oh, you’re still here?” He laughed. No, I can’t be that cruel. I can date an old woman for discounts but I can’t kick out my friend who comes with other benefits, not without seriously worrying that she’s going to off herself. The issue then becomes, am I really concerned about her killing herself or am I thinking about old mother issues….way back when it was my job to keep the mother alive? Way back when I posted cut out hearts everywhere so she wouldn’t kill herself or wrote her little I love you cards so she would feel loved and not kill herself. Can I risk feeling like I’ve let another person down “again”? Can I risk the confusion in my head between Blossom (now) and responsibility that never should have been mine in the first place (then)? So, the real issue is not Blossom at all but my inability to separate then from now.

So, that is what our next session is about, the need to keep her alive like the responsibility placed on me to keep my mother alive. Boy, it just gets deeper and deeper. That is why I keep her around and don’t’ just give up on her, it’s just another mother issue with suicide. It’s another way I’m trying my best to prove that I’m a good girl. I want to get it right this time. No, the mother isn’t dead but clearly I didn’t get it right because the woman isn’t safe enough to be around. I still hold this guilt that I couldn’t FORCE my mother to love me and FORCE her to not be so unhappy or FORCE her to see me as something other than disgusting and loathsome. The issues just get so mixed together for one large hodgepodge of emotional trash. I still want the old lady with discount privileges though.

Aussie

The James’ On Psychotherapy

Published
by
Austin
on January 24, 2007
in Humor, Mental Health, Soapbox and Therapy
. 2 Comments

The James’ On Psychotherapy
Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 6:33PM EST

clicking this image will take you to Age-O-Matic

James Earl Jones and Old Aussie

From the company that brought you Monk-E Mail now comes Age-O-Matic. The idea is to upload a picture of yourself, answer a few questions about your job and then press preview to see an aged you. You can choose mail or female age progression. I did both but the males were funnier than the female aged Aussie so these are the one’s that got published. Age-O-Matic will serve as an update for this journal to describe the absurdity that is my therapy (Tuesday’s session anyway) So, click the pictures and let James Earl Jones and the late James Brown speak for Old Aussie or simply click the links.

clicking this image will take you to Age-O-Matic

James Brown and Old Aussie

So, I’ll show up tomorrow with the printed off and unedited version of the rant and rave by Destiny and bring it into the therapist. In all truthfulness, I planned to quit. I wasn’t even going to go to tomorrow’s session but I got a bit of encouragement to go back and let the doc know how I feel. I appreciate the feedback from the last journal entry cause I sure was ready to walk away. I need to give this some time, see if we can work this out, see if we can work together and sort through some of the issues I have with the sessions. A few times I’ve left thinking, I really like this guy but other times I think I could simply kick him in the knee and never come back. With those emotions at the opposite ends of the spectrum I can reasonably conclude that I’m not in a position to make a huge decision like stopping treatment with this fellow all together. I need time to get my yo-yo emotions under control to be able to actually see the real situation, is this me or is it him or an even mix of both? That’s still the pressing question.

Austin

A Million Questions- You or Me?

Published
by
Austin
on January 23, 2007
in Borderline Personality Disorder, Mental Health, PTSD, Soapbox and Therapy
. 3 Comments

A Million Questions- You or Me?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007-3:51PM EST

Is he stuck in a rut or am I? Am I unwilling to budge on the journal thing or is his desire to only work in his office reasonable? How does someone who went to Yale buy his first home computer only a year ago? Yes, he went the year I was born but its 2007, what growth has he made since then? And am I expecting too much for asking him to check the journal from time to time? I don’t expect him to read every entry or to try to keep up with the journal, but I’d like him to acknowledge it. Printing stuff off to take in to therapy gets expensive and I’m about out of ink. It’s not as if we talk about it anyway, he reads it then we move on to something else. Truthfully, I think sometimes he’s distracted by Captain. Am I being overly sensitive? Am I trying my best to find a reason to not work with this man? I’m sensitive on the journal issue but am I too sensitive? Is his reasoning for not wanting to check out the journal from time to time due to his lack of experience with the net or is he just the type that wants face to face talk only, the stuck in a rut type? Or am I?

Today’s session I left angry and ready to quit. Yeah, we talked about a memory but truthfully, this safe place I have, I don’t want to pervert its beautiful memory with old ugly ones. I don’t want to associate it with pain so that I begin to resent it. And how different is retreating to this inner safe place from dissociation, leaving is leaving right? I mean, okay if we stop and gather my thoughts, do some grounding type stuff then I could see the point of it all but to go to an inner safe place seems too much like dissociation. Don’t I spend too much time inside already?

On the journal, if he spent a few hours even split over a few days he could get to know me faster and we could move at a pace quicker than now. We could skip the introductions. Hell, if he’s waiting for me to trust him then he’ll be waiting for a very long time.

How do day to day issues fit in with working on old memories? How does minimizing self loathing fit into this? How do I deal with anger issues AND work on one memory for several sessions? It seems so damn abstract, no boundaries, no clear lines as to what to expect, what to do, how to do it, when to do it, what happens after we do it? There seems to be so much more that I would need other than going over one damn memory for weeks. What about the rest of my shit? What about what happens after therapy? Does he want to know what happens after therapy or does he want to only deal with that one hour and that one fucking memory? Before that memory I told him about the dream I had the other night. We talked briefly about the dream then rather abruptly he switched to this desensitization thing. Fuck you! That was a powerful moment, that dream was powerful but nope, we switched really quickly to something I really don’t have faith in. I was proud of that dream but I think he thought I was avoiding. I wasn’t. I happy that I had that dream because it is in dreams that we go over what we truly believe about ourselves. I wasn’t powerless in that dream. That counts…it counts for more than a few minutes with an abrupt shift in gears.

Fuck this! Argh! Twice a week going to do this and not touch on or touch only briefly on daily issues? Whatever!- It’s abstract, too abstract, too up in the air not knowing what to expect. Hell, it’s home, it’s home all over again. I need to know what to expect or I’ll never relax enough to really let him in my head. I can list off the worst of my memories and feel nothing at all. I’ll just be on guard like at home because I don’t know the rules. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t ….. I need a clearer idea of what to do. Abstract only works with a paintbrush. I need something I can grasp. Don’t expect me to trust you and just fuckin follow your lead.

I’m going back to sleep. I can’t believe I “shaved my legs for this” holder of a Yalensis diploma. I had three damn hours of sleep, got up got me ready and Cap ready in 30 min only to make it to his fucking office and be pissed as hell when I got out. Argh! Twice a week like this? Hell no I don’t think so. Fuckin idiot. I’m still doing my therapy day pampering. We’re having curried black beans and rice, spiced sauasges and corn cakes. Tonight is fire place night and a long, long soak in the bath tup with jacuzzi jets and a ton of candles. That’s what ‘m talkin’ ’bout! Therapy may have been a bomb but it doesn’t mean I can’t follow my regular after therapy reward for showing up to the session. I’m going to sleep first though. Three hours and then this has me pretty beat down. I have to calm down before Blossom shows up. I don’t need to spill anger on her.

Destiny