Sometimes it feels to me like I am something that has been broken apart and I am trying my hardest to put the millions of little pieces back together the way they belong. Problem is, there is no picture to follow, the edges are rough instead of straight and tidy and the colours kind of blend together. There is nothing solid to use to guide the placement of the pieces. Some people would be ecstatic - just put the pieces wherever you want and make something totally new! However, what if the pieces don't fit where you think they should go? What if there are some missing or damaged and you don't know it yet? It is only by painstakingly putting the pieces back together one by one that you start to see the shapes and outlines of the pictures. It is only by fleshing out sections and images that you start to see the patterns and where they belong in relation to each other. Sometimes they fit together smoothly, sometimes there are gaps, but you don't know how big the gaps are until you start to find the edges of them again and make them smaller, bit by bit.
There are some that complain it is taking too long. Shouldn't you know by now what the picture is supposed to look like? Shouldn't you have more done? You think you know the answers to their questions and their impatience, but that very next piece changes what you think you knew and you are left wondering again.
The other problem is that you are traveling over a broken road as you are trying to place these pieces back together. The journey is not smooth. Every time you manage to fit a piece into place, the bump in the road makes you pray that it didn't get knocked back out of place and you have to find it again. Sometimes, it stays put and you can move on to the next section; sometimes it moves and changes the image; sometimes it falls out altogether and you have to find it amongst all the other pieces still waiting their turn to find their place to belong.
Once in a while, another passenger will come along and offer to help. "Why don't you try this piece here?" they say. Sometimes it fits and the two of you find a couple more before the other person has to move on as part of their own journey. Sometimes, it doesn't fit and you are left frustrated and wondering what help the other person really was.
Then, there are those that either accidentally or deliberately disrupt the picture and damage your work. Sometimes, it is a good thing. It shifts things around and you find something you missed before. Sometimes, it destroys a section you worked so hard for! Was it meant to be? With the destruction, how do you know if it was the right picture or not? Maybe you made a mistake and the destruction will help you fix it, even if you didn't know it was wrong. Maybe it was right and the damage ruined the picture and you have to figure out how to make it work again.
It is said that the Japanese do not fix broken pottery as North Americans do. Americans will either throw the broken pieces away and decide whether to replace the original object and with what, or they will try to glue the pieces back together to never show the damage that was done. However, the Japanese will fit the pottery pieces back together and fill the cracks with gold lacquer. It is supposed to be a way of honouring the scars as part of the history of the object instead of hiding them, while making a unique piece. Broken roads are often repaired in the same manner until such time as they can be replaced. Even then, they often still go in the same direction, with the same curves and twists and stopping points as before, just a new surface that will eventually wear down as the old one did.
I think there is a lesson to be learned in that process. Is it necessary to fit all the pieces exactly how they were before so that there are no scars showing? Is it necessary to throw out the broken pieces and forget they existed, that they held meaning and even in the breaking, that they had a story and a lesson to share?
Or is it possible to put the pieces back together in a way that honours the past and still makes room for the complete object to have meaning in the future, too?
I am afraid that only effort and time can answer that question. How much effort and time are you willing to put in before the piece is finished or will you give up just before you finally see the result?
Tuesday 27 June 2017
Wednesday 14 June 2017
Coming back to the circle
As I came here to write some thoughts down today, I found myself reading my old entries from 5 1/2 years ago and seeing a lot of the same issues, in similar forms, to what I am dealing with today. I can see some progress from what I wrote then, but I can see also see where the old "one step forward, two steps back" has been still haunting me. I hope I can make some advancements that will stick this time. Meanwhile, here is the newest entry.
For a person who has been battling depression for nearly a year, major depression for at least 6 months and suicidal ideas for the last 2, constantly being told that everything they do is wrong, all of their ideas are jokes, and everyone else is always right is not much fun to live with.
To someone struggling to rebound and survive ongoing abuse, in more than one form, being called a disgrace, a waste of space, a failure at anything or everything that ever mattered to them and disgusting, especially in front of peers and those they respect or feel responsible for, is a very traumatizing thing to endure.
A person who has had their self-esteem, confidence and self-worth destroyed, either bit-by-bit or in large chunks, just loves to be told that they have "shit" for brains and is incapable of being a decent human being. They absolutely (do not) adore being told that they are trash and deserve whatever hate and abuse is heaped on them by anyone who feels like it. It makes them (not) want to try so hard to do anything at all the next time and (not) keep fighting to find where they belong. (Brackets only inserted for those who are not big on sarcasm).
When a person spends hours on a project that they enjoy and is so proud of the accomplishment, not only of the end product, but of the achievement of finishing it, all it takes is one person to say, "No, you did it all wrong, let me do it," and then proceed to change everything about it to destroy any sense of accomplishment or achievement. All it takes is one, "Let me change this one little thing," to make everything unrecognizable and once again destroy that sense of achievement. It takes just one, "What were thinking? You can't do it like that!" to destroy any sense of pride in one's work. A troubled person has a very hard time being motivated to bother trying at all if they are going to get just negativity for their efforts.
It is said that failure is a learning experience. You learn from your mistakes and you move on to try again. But there has to be hope that somehow, sometime, it won't be a failure anymore; that at some point, there will be success. Without that hope, something a depressed person often lacks, it seems that success is an abstract thing that will never happen, so why keep beating a dead horse by continuing to try?
The worst feeling is when you finally bring yourself to a point where you come out and admit your shortcomings and ask for help, knowing that someone is going to take advantage, just to have your worst fears (and strongest beliefs) confirmed when no one responds, or worse yet, walk away or tell you no, that you don't deserve it. You get told over and over again to not be afraid to ask, but when you do and you get the worst kind of response - you're not in a hurry to ever do it again. It compounds the already overwhelming feelings of loneliness and makes you wonder just who will be there when you need someone for the really big things. That's when you wonder, "What If?"
What if I wasn't even here? Would life go on? Would anyone even notice or care? Would I be missed? Would things actually be better without me since I can't get it right anyway? And we've cycled back to the beginning....
For a person who has been battling depression for nearly a year, major depression for at least 6 months and suicidal ideas for the last 2, constantly being told that everything they do is wrong, all of their ideas are jokes, and everyone else is always right is not much fun to live with.
To someone struggling to rebound and survive ongoing abuse, in more than one form, being called a disgrace, a waste of space, a failure at anything or everything that ever mattered to them and disgusting, especially in front of peers and those they respect or feel responsible for, is a very traumatizing thing to endure.
A person who has had their self-esteem, confidence and self-worth destroyed, either bit-by-bit or in large chunks, just loves to be told that they have "shit" for brains and is incapable of being a decent human being. They absolutely (do not) adore being told that they are trash and deserve whatever hate and abuse is heaped on them by anyone who feels like it. It makes them (not) want to try so hard to do anything at all the next time and (not) keep fighting to find where they belong. (Brackets only inserted for those who are not big on sarcasm).
When a person spends hours on a project that they enjoy and is so proud of the accomplishment, not only of the end product, but of the achievement of finishing it, all it takes is one person to say, "No, you did it all wrong, let me do it," and then proceed to change everything about it to destroy any sense of accomplishment or achievement. All it takes is one, "Let me change this one little thing," to make everything unrecognizable and once again destroy that sense of achievement. It takes just one, "What were thinking? You can't do it like that!" to destroy any sense of pride in one's work. A troubled person has a very hard time being motivated to bother trying at all if they are going to get just negativity for their efforts.
It is said that failure is a learning experience. You learn from your mistakes and you move on to try again. But there has to be hope that somehow, sometime, it won't be a failure anymore; that at some point, there will be success. Without that hope, something a depressed person often lacks, it seems that success is an abstract thing that will never happen, so why keep beating a dead horse by continuing to try?
The worst feeling is when you finally bring yourself to a point where you come out and admit your shortcomings and ask for help, knowing that someone is going to take advantage, just to have your worst fears (and strongest beliefs) confirmed when no one responds, or worse yet, walk away or tell you no, that you don't deserve it. You get told over and over again to not be afraid to ask, but when you do and you get the worst kind of response - you're not in a hurry to ever do it again. It compounds the already overwhelming feelings of loneliness and makes you wonder just who will be there when you need someone for the really big things. That's when you wonder, "What If?"
What if I wasn't even here? Would life go on? Would anyone even notice or care? Would I be missed? Would things actually be better without me since I can't get it right anyway? And we've cycled back to the beginning....
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