cancer is a word with 6 letters, not a sentence.
plenty of people live through it every year, more survive it than die from it. yet when i tell people i have it ,why do they look at me like i have a death sentence?
more annoyingly, when i try and explain that it is infact very cureable, why do i hear them talk behind my back about how "brave" i am. i'm not brave at all, i'm fucking petrified, but i deal in facts and not myths.
at the same time, i belive that everything happens for a reason. maybe its my own fallacy to look for meaning within meaninglessness itself. but i truely, madly, deeply belive this is happening to me because i didn't learn from it the first two times. i need to let go of the darkness inside of myself and face up to my past. i wont let history dictate my futre, and for so long that's what i've let it do. now i believe that it isnt cancer thats killing me, its like a slow suicide. all those malignant feelings of hate, insecurity and guilt have been hidden deep inside of me for so long that they created this.
maybe my cancer is a reaction to the inner hell that ive been going through all this time. the inner hell that i simply refuse to look at objectively and release. i need to let go, of everything. dave, my childhood, every mistake that i ever made, i need to not dwell on it any more, i need to set myself free. and in doing so, i belive then i will find my cure to cancer.
i dont have cancer. in a way i am cancer. i need to cure me, not a collection of cells.
Monday 31 May 2010
Saturday 22 May 2010
Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast.
I'm not talking about onset or duration. I mean the quality of the insanity, the day-to-day business of being nuts.
There are a lot of names: depression, catatonia, mania, anxiety, agitation. They don't tell you much.
The predominant quality of the slow form is viscosity.
Experience is thick. Perceptions are thickened and dulled. Time is slow, dripping slowly through the clogged filter of thickened perception. The body temperature is low. The pulse is sluggish. The immune system is half-asleep. The organism is torpid and brackish. Even the reflexes are diminished, as if the lower leg couldn't be bothered to jerk itself out of its stupor when the knee is tapped.
Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.
In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins.
Take a thought - anything, it doesn't matter. I'm tired of sitting here in front of my PC: a perfectly reasonable thought. Here's what velocity does to it.
First, break down the sentence: I'm tired - well, are you really tired, exactly? Is that like sleepy? You have to check all your body parts for sleepiness, and while you're doing that, there's a bombardment of images of sleepiness, along these lines: head falling onto pillow, head hitting pillow, Little Nemo rubbing sleep from his eyes, a sea monster. Uh-oh, a sea monster. If you're lucky, you can avoid the sea monster and stick with sleepiness. Back to the pillow, memories of having mumps at age five, sensation of swollen cheeks on pillows and pain on salivation - stop. Go back to sleepiness.
But the salivation notion is too alluring, and now there's an excursion into the mouth. You've been here before and it's bad. It's the tongue: Once you think of the tongue it becomes an intrusion. Why is the tongue so large? Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? Could you remove the tongue? Wouldn't your mouth be less bothersome without it? There'd be more room in there. The tongue, now, every cell of the tongue, is enormous. It's a vast foreign object in your mouth.
Trying to diminish the size of your tongue, you focus your attention on its components: tip, smooth, back, bumpy, sides, scratchy, as noted earlier (vitamin deficiency), roots - trouble. There are roots to the tongue. You've seen them, and if you put your finger in your mouth you can feel them, but you can't feel them with the tongue. It's a paradox.
Paradox. The tortoise and the hare. Achilles and the what? The tortoise? The tendon? The tongue?
Back to tongue. While you weren't thinking of it, it got a little smaller. But thinking of it makes it big again. Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? You've thought these thoughts already, but now these thoughts have been stuck onto your tongue. They adhere to the existence of your tongue.
All of that took less than a minute, and there's still the rest of the sentence to figure out. And all you wanted, really, was to decide whether or not to stand up.
Viscosity and velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.
Something common to both is repetitive thought. Experiences seem prerecorded, stylized. Particular patterns of thought get attached to particular movements or activities, and before you know it, it's impossible to approach that movement or activity without dislodging an avalanche of prethought thoughts.
A lethargic avalanche of synthetic thought can take days to fall. Part of the mute paralysis of viscosity comes from knowing every detail of what's ahead and having to wait for its arrival. Here comes the I'm-no-good thought. That takes care of today. All day the insistent dripping of I'm no good. The next thought, the next day, is I'm the Angel of Death. This thought has a glittering expanse of panic behind it, which is unreachable. Viscosity flattens the effervescence of panic.
These thoughts have no meaning. They are idiot mantras that exist in a prearranged cycle: I'm no good, I'm the Angel of Death, I'm stupid, I can't do anything. Thinking the first thought triggers the whole circuit. It's like the flu: first a sore throat, then, inevitably, a stuffy nose and a cough.
Once, these thoughts must have had a meaning. They must have meant what they said. But repetition has blunted them. They have become background music, a Muzak medley of self-hatred themes.
Which is worse, overload or underload? Luckily, I never had to choose. One or the other would assert itself, rush or dribble through me, and pass on.
Pass on to where? Back into my cells to lurk like a virus waiting for the next opportunity? Out into the ether of the world to wait for the circumstances that would provoke its reappearance? Endogenous or exogenous, nature or nurture - it's the great mystery of mental illness.
I'm not talking about onset or duration. I mean the quality of the insanity, the day-to-day business of being nuts.
There are a lot of names: depression, catatonia, mania, anxiety, agitation. They don't tell you much.
The predominant quality of the slow form is viscosity.
Experience is thick. Perceptions are thickened and dulled. Time is slow, dripping slowly through the clogged filter of thickened perception. The body temperature is low. The pulse is sluggish. The immune system is half-asleep. The organism is torpid and brackish. Even the reflexes are diminished, as if the lower leg couldn't be bothered to jerk itself out of its stupor when the knee is tapped.
Viscosity occurs on a cellular level. And so does velocity.
In contrast to viscosity's cellular coma, velocity endows every platelet and muscle fiber with a mind of its own, a means of knowing and commenting on its own behavior. There is too much perception, and beyond the plethora of perceptions, a plethora of thoughts about the perceptions and about the fact of having perceptions. Digestion could kill you! What I mean is the unceasing awareness of the processes of digestion could exhaust you to death. And digestion is just an involuntary sideline to thinking, which is where the real trouble begins.
Take a thought - anything, it doesn't matter. I'm tired of sitting here in front of my PC: a perfectly reasonable thought. Here's what velocity does to it.
First, break down the sentence: I'm tired - well, are you really tired, exactly? Is that like sleepy? You have to check all your body parts for sleepiness, and while you're doing that, there's a bombardment of images of sleepiness, along these lines: head falling onto pillow, head hitting pillow, Little Nemo rubbing sleep from his eyes, a sea monster. Uh-oh, a sea monster. If you're lucky, you can avoid the sea monster and stick with sleepiness. Back to the pillow, memories of having mumps at age five, sensation of swollen cheeks on pillows and pain on salivation - stop. Go back to sleepiness.
But the salivation notion is too alluring, and now there's an excursion into the mouth. You've been here before and it's bad. It's the tongue: Once you think of the tongue it becomes an intrusion. Why is the tongue so large? Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? Could you remove the tongue? Wouldn't your mouth be less bothersome without it? There'd be more room in there. The tongue, now, every cell of the tongue, is enormous. It's a vast foreign object in your mouth.
Trying to diminish the size of your tongue, you focus your attention on its components: tip, smooth, back, bumpy, sides, scratchy, as noted earlier (vitamin deficiency), roots - trouble. There are roots to the tongue. You've seen them, and if you put your finger in your mouth you can feel them, but you can't feel them with the tongue. It's a paradox.
Paradox. The tortoise and the hare. Achilles and the what? The tortoise? The tendon? The tongue?
Back to tongue. While you weren't thinking of it, it got a little smaller. But thinking of it makes it big again. Why is it scratchy on the sides? Is that a vitamin deficiency? You've thought these thoughts already, but now these thoughts have been stuck onto your tongue. They adhere to the existence of your tongue.
All of that took less than a minute, and there's still the rest of the sentence to figure out. And all you wanted, really, was to decide whether or not to stand up.
Viscosity and velocity are opposites, yet they can look the same. Viscosity causes the stillness of disinclination, velocity causes the stillness of fascination. An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.
Something common to both is repetitive thought. Experiences seem prerecorded, stylized. Particular patterns of thought get attached to particular movements or activities, and before you know it, it's impossible to approach that movement or activity without dislodging an avalanche of prethought thoughts.
A lethargic avalanche of synthetic thought can take days to fall. Part of the mute paralysis of viscosity comes from knowing every detail of what's ahead and having to wait for its arrival. Here comes the I'm-no-good thought. That takes care of today. All day the insistent dripping of I'm no good. The next thought, the next day, is I'm the Angel of Death. This thought has a glittering expanse of panic behind it, which is unreachable. Viscosity flattens the effervescence of panic.
These thoughts have no meaning. They are idiot mantras that exist in a prearranged cycle: I'm no good, I'm the Angel of Death, I'm stupid, I can't do anything. Thinking the first thought triggers the whole circuit. It's like the flu: first a sore throat, then, inevitably, a stuffy nose and a cough.
Once, these thoughts must have had a meaning. They must have meant what they said. But repetition has blunted them. They have become background music, a Muzak medley of self-hatred themes.
Which is worse, overload or underload? Luckily, I never had to choose. One or the other would assert itself, rush or dribble through me, and pass on.
Pass on to where? Back into my cells to lurk like a virus waiting for the next opportunity? Out into the ether of the world to wait for the circumstances that would provoke its reappearance? Endogenous or exogenous, nature or nurture - it's the great mystery of mental illness.
Friday 21 May 2010
i have a dream.
i dream of a world full of green and brown and earth colors instead of pavement and cars and buildings. i dream of a world full of smiles and hugs and beauty, instead of smirks and shrugs and people bumping into eachother without an apology. i dream of a world in which we care about the starving and the poor and the ill, instead of worshipping the movie stars and basketball players and big breasted super models. i dream of a world in which kids grow up loving art and books and nature instead of plastic and tv and lies. i dream of adolescence marked with self-discovery, friendships and joy, not drugs and peer-pressure and bullshit. i dream of adulthood in which people are in happy marriages, holding jobs they love, treating people around them with compassion, instead of fighting with their spouses and working hectic hours in workplaces they despise, living life in a stressed, annoyed mindframe. i dream of a world in which the news reports random acts of kindnesses instead of random acts of bombings, killings, robberies and wars. i dream of a place where we all grow up happy and live life appreciating it. i dream of a life in which we have enough time to appreciate it.
Thomas..
You don't need to know any of this. But the things I don't reveal are the things I hold closest and fear losing the most. I work overtime keeping them veiled and camouflaged. You don't need to know that I walk around all day fearing the things that make me happy, and that I have been doing that for my entire life. Infact you don't need to carry on reading any more of this. Stop right here and walk away, because these are my thoughts, and they scare me.
Firstly, nobody wants to admit this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's because it's all a chain, and a long time ago someone did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on. You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someones' ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end. But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.
I think a person's life is supposed to be like a DVD. You can see the version everyone else sees or you can choose the director's cut - the way he wanted you to see it, before everything else got in the way. There are menus, probably, so that you can start at the good spots and not have to relive the bad ones. You can measure your life by the number of scenes you've survived, or the minutes you've been stuck there. Probably though, life is more like one of those surveillance tapes. Grainy, no matter how hard you stare at it. And looped: the same thing, over and over. That's how my life feels, a neverending cycle of cancer and recovery. Getting my hopes up and having them shattered. Another year, another organ. Another month, another course of chemo. If my life was a movie it'd be so monotonous it wouldn't even make it to Canne's.
Despite all this crap sometimes you meet somebody, And you know that whatever you did before, It must have been right. Because nothing you've done could be too bad, Or have gone too far wrong, because it led you to this person. I don't belive in destiny, but i want to, because i wan't be believe mine is you.
You might think of me as just some girl, but I want you to know that I'm that one girl who took one look into your heart and fell harder for you than I've ever fallen for anyone in my life.
It's amazing to me how you can just say these small little things, one sentence and it changes the way I feelin an instant. Small little words that can hurt me so much or make me fall more deeply in love.
Love scares me. I never really truely loved anyone since i loved Dave, I realise that now, they were all perfectly nice in their own way, but they didn't unhinge my soul. After Dave I guess I didn't have a hinge left. When he died, it felt like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerve endings are still a little raw. After Dave I tried to never, ever get my hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren't as devastated.
I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus energy on something other than the ache in my heart. And for a long time after he died i hated everyoen and everything. But mainly i hated myself, and blamed myself everyday for his death. It's hard living with the daily guilt that you effectively killed the one you love. It changes people. And when Dave died, part of me did too.
But that's all ancient history now. 5 years on and i'm with you.
I read once that the ancient Egyptians had 50 words for sand, and the Eskimos had a 100 words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but language fails me. All I know is that I want to be a girl falling asleep in a boy’s arms and not caring about anything else in the world, except how I feel right there with him. I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It's the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me. I want to be with you. In your arms, in your bed.
I giveyou my heart and that's all I can give you, and if that's not enough, then I'm not enough.
Firstly, nobody wants to admit this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's because it's all a chain, and a long time ago someone did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on. You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someones' ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end. But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.
I think a person's life is supposed to be like a DVD. You can see the version everyone else sees or you can choose the director's cut - the way he wanted you to see it, before everything else got in the way. There are menus, probably, so that you can start at the good spots and not have to relive the bad ones. You can measure your life by the number of scenes you've survived, or the minutes you've been stuck there. Probably though, life is more like one of those surveillance tapes. Grainy, no matter how hard you stare at it. And looped: the same thing, over and over. That's how my life feels, a neverending cycle of cancer and recovery. Getting my hopes up and having them shattered. Another year, another organ. Another month, another course of chemo. If my life was a movie it'd be so monotonous it wouldn't even make it to Canne's.
Despite all this crap sometimes you meet somebody, And you know that whatever you did before, It must have been right. Because nothing you've done could be too bad, Or have gone too far wrong, because it led you to this person. I don't belive in destiny, but i want to, because i wan't be believe mine is you.
You might think of me as just some girl, but I want you to know that I'm that one girl who took one look into your heart and fell harder for you than I've ever fallen for anyone in my life.
It's amazing to me how you can just say these small little things, one sentence and it changes the way I feelin an instant. Small little words that can hurt me so much or make me fall more deeply in love.
Love scares me. I never really truely loved anyone since i loved Dave, I realise that now, they were all perfectly nice in their own way, but they didn't unhinge my soul. After Dave I guess I didn't have a hinge left. When he died, it felt like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerve endings are still a little raw. After Dave I tried to never, ever get my hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren't as devastated.
I learned that getting mad was easier than being sad. Anger was something I could control. I could settle into an easy rhythm of blame and hate. Focus energy on something other than the ache in my heart. And for a long time after he died i hated everyoen and everything. But mainly i hated myself, and blamed myself everyday for his death. It's hard living with the daily guilt that you effectively killed the one you love. It changes people. And when Dave died, part of me did too.
But that's all ancient history now. 5 years on and i'm with you.
I read once that the ancient Egyptians had 50 words for sand, and the Eskimos had a 100 words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but language fails me. All I know is that I want to be a girl falling asleep in a boy’s arms and not caring about anything else in the world, except how I feel right there with him. I close my eyes, inhale, and feel a rush of heat and energy that takes my breath away. It's the feeling of wanting something so much that it borders on an actual need, and the power and urgency of this need overwhelms me. I want to be with you. In your arms, in your bed.
I giveyou my heart and that's all I can give you, and if that's not enough, then I'm not enough.
Friday 14 May 2010
tonight.
tonight i decided not to breathe anymore, but willing myself to stop didn't make it so.
tonight i realised that things would never be the same again, but you've not figured that out yet.
tonight i saw a picture of myself and thought i looked pretty, but behind my eyes i was dead.
tonight i hurt you and felt too sad to make you feel better.
tonight i realised people are disposable, because i can turn a switch in my mind and they're dead to me.
tonight i realised you're my romeo, but i dont deserve to be your juliet.
tonight no matter how much i tried, i always failed.
tonight no matter how many times i said sorry, i knew you'd never forgive me.
tonight i felt so low that i wanted to get high.
tonight i felt so broken that i wanted to stamp on my pieces instead of fix them.
tonight i rot in my skin, a piece of me dies every day.
tonight i know i'm nothing, and theres nothing i can say.
tonight i realised i couldn't live through another day.
tonight my throat got so tight from crying i could barely breathe.
tonight i realised that being remembered doesnt matter, neither does being liked, all that matters is being dead.
tonight i realised i'm selfish enough to do it.
tonight i realised that i need a cure for me, not a cure for cancer.
tonight i waited for the dawn and the sun, but it never came, only clouds and rain.
tonight i found the only way to lose the feeling of sadness is to lose hope entirely.
tonight i didn't cut myself, not because i was strong, but because i didn't want to feel better.
tonight if i killed myself no-one would save me, but it didn't stop me from trying.
tonight i wished that love survives death.
iLy more than life <3
tonight i realised that things would never be the same again, but you've not figured that out yet.
tonight i saw a picture of myself and thought i looked pretty, but behind my eyes i was dead.
tonight i hurt you and felt too sad to make you feel better.
tonight i realised people are disposable, because i can turn a switch in my mind and they're dead to me.
tonight i realised you're my romeo, but i dont deserve to be your juliet.
tonight no matter how much i tried, i always failed.
tonight no matter how many times i said sorry, i knew you'd never forgive me.
tonight i felt so low that i wanted to get high.
tonight i felt so broken that i wanted to stamp on my pieces instead of fix them.
tonight i rot in my skin, a piece of me dies every day.
tonight i know i'm nothing, and theres nothing i can say.
tonight i realised i couldn't live through another day.
tonight my throat got so tight from crying i could barely breathe.
tonight i realised that being remembered doesnt matter, neither does being liked, all that matters is being dead.
tonight i realised i'm selfish enough to do it.
tonight i realised that i need a cure for me, not a cure for cancer.
tonight i waited for the dawn and the sun, but it never came, only clouds and rain.
tonight i found the only way to lose the feeling of sadness is to lose hope entirely.
tonight i didn't cut myself, not because i was strong, but because i didn't want to feel better.
tonight if i killed myself no-one would save me, but it didn't stop me from trying.
tonight i wished that love survives death.
iLy more than life <3
Thursday 13 May 2010
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