Skellington

SNAFU

I love the Internal Family System as a foundation for doing personal growth in my life. It's really worth looking into (go with books as scholarly as you can follow) because even if the goal is not to follow every step of the method exactly, the framework is really valuable for implementing skills from CBT, DBT, ACT or any other skill based mode of therapeutic education.

The very basic idea behind Internal Family Systems (IFS) is that people are not monolithic. The human brain is very complex and might just craft Parts of a single mind to function in certain ways to increase chances of survival and success. Dr Richard Schwartz talked with a lot of people about this sort of mental paradigm and found that a lot of people show similar patterns in what kinds of Parts they feel that they have and how those Parts function within them and guide or provoke them to function with others in the world.

It may be that Dr Schwartz's questions were presented in such a way that he guided people to conform to his theory, but even if he did, the concepts that he presented and that other people have expanded on is super useful to me in implementing my other mental health skills in real time and crafting opportunities for me to choose different behavior than I might want to habitually perform.

Today I realized that my usual body pain and headache were increased slightly and I felt a slight tightness in my chest. I mentioned it to Spouse and said, “I think I'm getting a cold.” she said, “Take a Test.” I whined. I took the test. It showed me positive for Covid. I told her to take a test and she came up negative. I am isolating and masking whenever she is in the house. She said, “I'm worried.” I asked, “What are you worried about?” she said, “You're sick.” I said, “Oh, yeah, well... that happens. That's normal.”

Later I was thinking about it and Part of me piped up and thought, “I think that this is the point when normal people would say Fuck My Life.” another Part thought, “I don't care for that phrase. It always sounds like a cross between surrender and self-abandonment.” A third Part said, “I don't know if it's the Adverse Childhood Events, the C-PTSD, the PTSD, the Bi-Polar, the BPD, the random psychosis, or what, but at some point SNAFU really begins to mean something deep and true.” A fourth Part said, “Or, it could be the work that we've done in the last decade to find and care for the bits that are hurt or dysfunctional inside and find better ways.” A fifth Part said, “Let's consider this with challenging questions.”

I like to imagine that the fifth Part pulled out a white board and put on their glasses at that point. The other Parts might have pulled up those uncomfortable institution chairs and sat down with long-suffering sighs and soft grumbles.

“The Challenge: Describe the major events that have happened in my life this year.

-Dad finally got a treatment plan for his lung cancer. – Mom's Alzheimer's got much worse and she got violent, belligerent, abusive, and escapist almost every day. – Dad did not react well to this and struggled emotionally because he was unwilling to step away from the situation and unable to adjust to such a sharply contrasting reality tunnel happening in her mind. – Dad had surgery, started to recover, then died. + Lots of people did amazing work at their own jobs helping me deal with the legal and financial aspects of the death. + Our Funeral Director stepped in and made everything about the funeral and burial stuff simple and painless. + We were able to isolate Mom from the whole experience, removing obvious traces of Dad from the house because she didn't remember him and we didn't want to make things worse for her. + We were able to set up our home as Mom's world. Whatever she wanted to eat or watch or do, we did it. – The violence continued and my temper was pushed to the limit multiple times every week. + I learned defensive and restraint skills that kept her from harming herself or me and was able to employ them while making the effort to acknowledge, accept, and support my frustrated and angry sides. + When I did lose my temper, I took the opportunity to say exactly what I was thinking and feeling. Serious cocksucking closure on my end on several topics. – My beloved dog got sick and was suffering terribly so we put him down. This meant losing my greatest support of daily encouragement to do the things I need to do to care for myself. + We traded in our old truck and got a new truck and Spouse picked out the exact vehicle I wanted most instead of the vehicle she wanted most and surprised me with it. – I had to start sleeping in the living room to keep Mom from escaping or getting hurt trying to wander around the house at night. + Switching to sleeping in the recliner has proven to be an excellent change for my back and legs. When dealing with a bad flare I now know that I can sleep in a different shape for a few nights to shake things out. + We got an amazing new puppy who is the light of my life. – Mom became more fragile and started to get sick when standing up. – Cleaning up so much poo and vomit. –/+ Deciding to keep Mom in bed full time and engaging skills gained in childhood for caring for a bed staying person. – The Smell. + Being brave enough to reach out to family to invite them in to say goodbye while she still had enough mirror neurons functioning to seem like she registered communication in a positive way. + Family all commenting on how good she looks and pointing out the care things I was doing well. –/+ Mom died. – More The Smell. + Most supportive Spouse in the world telling me, “Go to Panera, buy everything on the right hand side of the baked goods display.” + Getting sleep. + Amazing Funeral Director and team making the funeral simple, painless, and awesome. – Creepy-ass priest who did the same homily as in February and simply read aloud his whole three pages of notes from the conversation he had with Spouse and me to prepare for the funeral. + Amazing baritone cantor who made very beautiful music for the funeral. – Test positive for Covid 19.

I could go through and count up all the – and +, but at a glance they look pretty even to me. Right now I feel like this virus is some bullshit and I never want anybody else to have to feel like this ever, but my main symptoms of body pain, headache, and fatigue are only about double of my usual ambient level of pain. If I didn't have the test and didn't know the dangers of not resting and caring for myself right now, I'd be pushing through this and getting very nearly my usual amount of stuff done. I'm very lucky that I don't have to push through this to care for others, and that my Spouse is here and is competent to care for me without driving me into resistance and rage.”

And at this point, all of my Parts are fully engaged and are deeply considering this massive wall of text. Like, yeah, some shit sucks all the time, and some shit is cool all the time. My childhood experience led me to expect medical emergencies and crises on a regular basis. As my circle of friends and acquaintances grew I could see it clearly: there is always someone who is in crisis, there is always a medical emergency, a financial emergency, assault, hate crime, mental health, capitalism... Situation Normal really is All Fucked Up.

AND

There is always something beautiful happening. There's always someone listening, reaching out to help, staying present even when they can't help, stepping back when they don't have the resources to behave as they prefer to behave.

Being able to use the Parts paradigm to speak each of my perspectives, thoughts, feelings, and fears about a situation lets me express every one of those things with my full front. I don't have to edit out the wording or the concepts to seem polite or smart. I don't have to pretend things are fine to get along or to earn support. At the same time, I can challenge those experiences in a non-threatening way. Once someone feels fully heard, it can be much easier for them to listen in turn.

Most of the time I find that making space for my angry or frustrated Parts to fully speak their minds about things and acknowledging their experience and their feelings resolves things immediately. “I'm angry and I'm hurt because This Situation.” “It is good to feel angry when someone hurts your feelings because that is a way to empower yourself to stand up and defend yourself. What happened to you is a very good reason to feel angry. It's very cool that you can feel that anger and describe why you feel that way.” And the first part is usually like, “Yeah? It's okay to feel hurt and angry about This Situation?” Like, Yeah, babydoll. Would you like a hug and a glass of water? You're okay, even if you're feeling angry.

It's like the first time a therapist said to me, “That should not have happened to you. You did not deserve that.” when I described one of my assaults. I did full confused mammal, tilted my head to the side, and actually said, “Baroo?” because it had never occurred to me that I did not deserve to be assaulted. I had never considered that I had any right to be angry or sad or upset about that. It sounds so ridiculous until it happens to you, it really does because you can know at the top of your mind that you don't deserve to be harmed and still end up convincing yourself inside, “I should have... instead.” “It wouldn't have happened if I...” because that's how people cope sometimes. Parts of us hold up narratives and maintain operations that keep us surviving even when things are confusing or difficult.

Parts working together can do so much more than Parts working at cross purposes. Using a framework like IFS to establish a system of internal dialogue and discussion has helped me so much.

Right now Parts of me are convinced that “I'm Fine” because I come from a long line of Suck It Up And Drive On folk. Fortunately, other Parts are keeping an eye out and minimizing my activity while maximizing my self care. It's not easy, but the willingness to cooperate and engage compassion within myself has had benefits way beyond any other skill, medication, or mode of therapy that I've tried.

Working like a dog...

I had to put down my beloved Chihuahua companion of 14 years earlier this year. He was a beautiful tiny angry little man who was ready to pull a switchblade on anybody at any time. Still, when I was upset he would convince me to get into bed or lay down and he would lick my face and stay with me until I was okay again. When we were in social situations, he would pick up on my unease and he would act mean to others so that I could get us away where I would be more okay. Losing him was really hard but I didn't want to replace him. I didn't want to grab up the first Chi that came along. I wanted to find a breed and a breeder who would fit my life and get a companion animal who would work with me on myself in the way that I need most.

I was still taking care of P and since Covid restrictions were so good for my mental health, I'm going to do my best to stick by them for a while. Also, I don't want to catch Covid and add to my already impressive list of medical situations. I was willing to get a companion animal who would bond with me and who would need me to be present for an extended period of time.

Honestly, I considered getting a parrot. But I'm 47 and the chances of me outliving a parrot is not great. It wouldn't be right to bond with an animal that could live for seventy more years.

After research and asking around I decided that I would be interested in getting a Tibetan Spaniel. These are dogs that were bred as companion animals and alert animals, who were intended to support people living a contemplative and structured lifestyle, and they are still small enough for me to pick up. I figured that I'd look around for breeders, expecting to find nobody closer than 400 miles and expecting the purchase process to be impossible.

To my surprise there is a breeder about three hours away whose website was solid, whose credentials appeared sound, and who made a point of stating up front that their transactions are heavily based on what pup they believe will be a good match for the humans. I made a note that these would be people to contact if I was still interested in a few months and spent time saving up money.

One day I decided it was time. I went back to the website and saw that they were expecting pups in October and thought I'd fill out their contact form and introduce myself and ask about being considered for a dog. I gave a concise (you know it wasn't brief, but it was concise) history of my family, a description of our living situation, the benefits I'd gotten from my previous dog, and a description of what I'd be looking for in a new dog. I also mentioned that sex and color were completely unimportant as long as the breeder felt that the dog's personality would be a good match for us.

Then we waited. A few days. Email came back and the breeder told us that the puppies would be expected and we'd be welcome to choose one with her, but... she had a gold boy pup who had been reserved from an earlier litter as a potential show dog. She had decided not to add him to her show dogs, and might we be interested in considering him.

We asked about his personality and were pleased with what we read. We saw a picture of him and melted completely. Three days later, Spouse met the breeder half way and brought Kirion home to us.

This may seem abrupt. This may seem unusually fast. Less than a week from inquiry to bringing the dog home? A rare breed, show quality dog?

That's how the universe works.

Tibetan Spaniels are companion dogs the way that Terriers are ratters. The way that Retrievers leap into water. The way that Sheepdogs herd anything that they can identify as a thing that could might be herded. There is no aloofness in that little furry body. There is only, “Hi. I see you.” and “My darling, I see that you are suffering and I am here for you.” and “What if we were snuggling in the recliner and you brushed my fur? Just kidding.... unless....”

I can feel alone, but not at all lonely. I feel no pressure to be anybody, only to be present and aware of my presence. When I dissociate, he doesn't drag me back. He sits in the dissociation with me. When I'm triggered and hypervigilant he doesn't make me calm down, he checks the surroundings for danger and then sits with me in my experience. Sometimes he crawls up into my lap and licks my chin and then rests his head against my neck and shoulder and falls fast asleep. Relaxed, trusting, present.

It has been so amazingly good to have him here. I don't want to be dramatic when I say that he has already saved my life because I would not have died without him, but he has saved certain qualities of my life that are very fragile and under great stress right now.

Training puppies is hard. Training willful little miscreants is harder. Kirion is both. When I call him I can watch him think about it. When I scold him I can see him working on how to make this into a game. He is not obedient, but he is cooperative. After struggling with leash training, I learned something from a trainer and got a long lead. When we walk now he's not heeling, but he is checking in with me and staying with me.

We're struggling with litter box training, too. So I've asked questions and gotten suggestions and after working today and rejiggering his litter box I watched him start sniffing around for a place to poop and then booking to the litterbox to go in there.

I got him a feeder ball that holds food and treats and will drop them out onto the floor when rolled. For three days we've been spending ten minutes or so playing with it together. I'd place a treat under the ball and he'd move it to get the treat. Other treats would fall out. A few minutes ago I saw him sniff the ball and then move it with his paw to make food fall out. He did this for a little while and then moved on to something else.

He's telling me that it's time for bed. That means we case the house, lock the doors, brush teeth, and get into bed. He'll check the perimeter of the bed and pounce on Spouse's head until she grunts and hides under her pillow (she's already sleeping). When I tuck in, he'll come sniff my head and play at trying to eat my hair. I'll grab his chew bone and hold it for him while he gnaws on it. When he is calm and relaxed he'll crawl down and snuggle against Spouse's legs until I stop thrashing around to get comfortable. He'll sleep against one or the other of us but he doesn't push us around to get more space.

In the morning, when I wake up groggy and grumpy that I have to go DO stuff, he'll give me a doggy smile and I'll have to admit that stuff isn't really all that bad when dog is my co-pilot.

Pigments, Part One...

I hang out with people who enjoy studying history for fun. Some of these people go to extreme length to learn how things were made and recreate those things as they were most likely made in certain times and places. This group of people is notorious for two things, praising each other publicly for their hard work and finding new ways to share what they've learned and made. The best example of these is how some of them will make incredible works of fine art and then give them to other people to be given as physical tokens of recognition for work and accomplishment.

This is great because it gives artists a purpose to work for. When you want to make something but have no goal that can be frustrating. Having some established guidelines and goals is a great environment. Also, having a home for your work to go to and knowing that it will be appreciated is brilliant. This way we don't end up with pieces sitting around the house taking up space.

So, there is this whole culture of people who work hard to make beautiful art that will be publicly noticed and will go to a home where it will be appreciated. One of my friends thought I'd be good at making these pieces and got me started on learning the basics. Soon I was looking at historical examples and setting up layouts and working on basic pieces to learn the steps. But where other people aim for the fanciest pages of complicated miniature portraits and sparkly gold work, I kept looking back at Lascaux and wishing that I could make something that is just that shade of red.

Fortunately I stumbled into a class where someone was teaching how to make pigments. I learned that some pigments are dirt. I have never looked back. Sure, there are pigments that are a little more complicated. Pigments made from plant dyes and complicated chemical processes. Those are really fun, too. They don't get me nearly as excited as seeing a bit of red or yellow ochre in the wild and knowing that I have the capacity to make art with it the same way that my ancestors have done.

There are a hundred people out there who want to teach the advanced techniques of art so they can show off their own skill or sell you expensive equipment. I believe that if you can learn the most basic science of making pigment from dirt, you'll understand how to do far more advanced things whenever you want later on.

For our purposes we can define a pigment as a group of similarly colored non-organic particles of a consistent size. Starting with average dirt we need to do two things that one does not usually do with dirt: wash it and organize it. To do both of these we need dirt, water, a container, time, and attention.

We can find pretty dirt anywhere, but places where the earth has been cut away by humans or by water often reveal pockets of pretty red, yellow, or brown dirt. We can collect it however we like and bring it home where we have a workspace that we don't mind getting dirty.

Pick the obviously organic bits like leaves, bugs, or twigs out of the dirt along with any large chunks or rocks. Put some dirt into an empty clear bottle and add much more water than dirt. Swirl it around and pour off the water with any silt or floaty bits. Repeat this until the water pours off clear.

Add more water to the dirt in the bottle and shake it up really well. Set it down and watch how the dirt settles through the water. Big particles settle out first, then the middle size, then the small, and then the tiniest pieces will slowly slowly settle down on top. By pouring out at different stages of this process we can isolate the particles of the most useful size for painting.

We do not want the smallest particles as they will not show the color well. They will appear pale or white once spread out in a layer. We do not want the largest particles as they will look chunky on a surface. By shaking up the dirt and water we can pour off whatever particles are still floating after the desirable sizes have settled. Then we can shake again and pour off the desirable sizes into another container before they have settled and leave the larger pieces behind.

If we will spend time watching the particles of dirt settle and if we experiment to learn what particle sizes work best for our needs, we develop a sense of what we want for any given kind of dirt or painting project.

Dirt, water, time, and attention.

If we take the time to experiment with these things then when we decide to get a nice piece of lapis and spend the energy to grind it up, we'll already know how fine to grind it and not end up with many calories spent and pigment too fine to show any blue.

If you go ahead and paint this pigment on a piece of paper or board it will flake off when dry. Next time we'll talk about binders which are the other half of what makes paint paint. Until then start looking at dirt.

Look at the colors in the dirt. Look at the sizes of the particles of the dirt. Look at how water and dirt work together to sort the particles by size. Feel the texture of dirt and watch how it smears on your skin when you squish it between your fingers.

This is material science and practicing it in the most simple ways can teach us things about art that we won't learn from a thousand books or a hundred teachers.

Transitional Crisis...

In track and field events the coaches always told us to run through the finish line. In combat sports they tell us to hit through the target. There are lots of great examples like that for giving your all to a project and not slowing down as the moment of completion approaches.

At the end of the race, beyond the finish line, you can see the runners turning into flailing terrestrial octopi as they slow their bodies with minimal jarring. When a boxer misses a punch, you can see their whole body jerking forward to keep the shock from yoinking everything from the hip to the fist out of joint.

End of life care is very much like this. Being present as much as possible and providing direct care by breaking up sleeping periods and drinking lots of caffeine right through until the moment when the person's condition reaches ultimate stability and then realizing that my inertia has me tumbling forward with no target for my focus.

Just about this time last year I went and talked with our Funeral Director. Kathleen is an amazing lady who I met when she was tending my brother's final needs. I had called her up because my father had led me to believe that everything was planned. I just wanted to check in with her and make sure we were all organized. Nope. Nothing was organized. So she and I sat down and organized everything. Everything. We got the details set out, chose colors and plans, confirmed their plots, drew up obituaries, and got everything set. When I came home and told my father about this he was a little stunned, but that's okay. I told him I'd thought he'd done it. He admitted that he'd thought he'd done it, but it was finally well and done.

This meant that after Kathleen came and picked P up I only got two calls and two emails from her. The first call was, “How's Wednesday, 10AM?” and the second was “Could we do Wednesday, 9:30?” And the emails were one request for a photo and charitable link and one email to give me the link to the online obit.

Now, a lot of people I've known have chosen some charity that meant a lot to the passed person. That's cool. As a queer person who never had a wedding shower or baby shower or anything like that I've never done a family gathering thing where giving me stuff was the whole point of the day. As a person who was doing home care for end of life for my parents, I have had some pretty serious expenses. For my father's charity, we did a go fund me to raise money for caring for my mother. For my mother's charity we've reestablished the same go fund me so people can send us money.

The family members who have reached out to us to see if we need help have been set to doing jobs like cleaning our gutters, and those who want to send food have been given the name of our favorite pizza place to send us gift cards. I went out after Kathleen picked up P and bought out half of a Panera and we've been living on carbohydrates and tea. I really don't think I could eat anything heavier like that because I feel like I'm doing a combination of the finish line octopus dance and the spinning fall of a missed punch.

The emotional loss of my mother happened some time ago since she had always been focused on keeping my sibling alive and then the Alzheimer's removed any memory of my existence long before her memory of my sibling and I've pretty much been working with her as though I am a stranger to her and she is my care responsibility. I'm not experiencing an “I lost my mommy” moment so much as I feel like someone has evicted me from a garden that I've been tending.

That it was a garden designed by M C Escher and H R Geiger with inspiration drawn from Lewis Caroll and H P Lovecraft that frequently hurt and harmed me and smelled bad and was generally unpleasant to be around did not make it any less MY GARDEN and the focus of my purpose for an extended period of time.

Following through on my frequent promise to myself I have slept a lot since Sunday. Probably too much sleep. The luxury of being able to kick back in my chair or even lay in my BED and put my dog on my chest and become unconscious whenever I want is ecstasy. I can watch tv with the volume above 2. I can put on loud grunge music and wander around the house with no pants on. I've even been able to set up my XBox and play video games in the living room. Yes, there has been naked Skellington butt in the living room while the Battle Theme from Halo clashes with Head Like A Hole... it's glorious. If you're into that kind of thing.

And yet.

And yet.

My mind is not doing well adjusting. I'm having that kind of mental break that feels like someone has slipped me a drug and I'm trying to figure out which one it was while still trying to pass as sober at a party and also making sure that someone is going to get me home safe. My perceptions are wrong and my judgment feels heavily impaired and I feel like I've messed up my meds and my dosages are all wrong. Or, that I'm more drunk than I should be for a specific social function and I need to act carefully so as not to hurt anybody's feelings or do something grossly out of character.

So, I'm not making any major life decisions. I'm taking my meds on time and being sure of my doses. I'm forcing myself to eat proteins and vitamins along with the mounds of carbohydrates. I'm moving around enough to get exercise and stretching my body out. I'm following my hygiene checklist that I use for my bad stretches to make sure that the basics get done.

This is a thing that happens. This is a transitional crisis and it is normal. Because my mind is different than other people's minds, it manifests in a way that might be different than it does in them. I don't know. I've never been them. I'm pretty sure that the carbs thing is common. Maybe other people have wigged out perceptions and judgement and don't admit it. Maybe they don't notice it because their emotions have center stage and they act out by crying or hugging or something. Maybe my disorders amplify the issue and maybe my training in dealing with my disorders helps me surf this chaos with a sense of curiosity and wonder because it's just another mental break and it's a temporary thing and some people pay a lot of money to take drugs and go on meditation retreats or thrill adventures to feel like this and expand their minds.

As confusing and as uncomfortable as it is right now, it's a temporary experience and my meta judgement is keeping me from making big decisions or saying most of the really mean and hurtful things that come to my mind. I even waited until whatever day this is (Tuesday, I think) to essay about it. First I get accustomed to the internal disruption, and then I start to learn how to navigate it. Eventually it will begin to feel normal and then it will fade away.

It may be a few months before I stop coming to suddenly thinking, “I have to...” with the fear that I've forgotten a responsibility but that's not an entirely bad thing while there are bills to pay and thank you notes to write. It always comes back to taking care of myself and being patient with myself so that I have the capacity to engage with others and chose to be kind and compassionate.

I am an entire bag of wigged out crazed weasels right now. But I am an entire bag of wigged out crazed weasels who are in the loving care of myself who understands them, accepts them, and knows that this is not forever and this is not the end of the world. Set a bag of weasels to care for a bag of weasels and at the very worst you shall end up with two bags of weasels.

For now I am content in this transitional crisis with my bags of weasels dancing wildly in my head and eliminating the chickens of despair and exhaustion. It's a lousy metaphor, but an accurate description and I really don't feel like hoping for anything more than that at this point.

Oh that smell...

Some time shortly after I went sober Spouse and I moved home to help take care of my parents. My Sibling had recently moved out into a full care facility so that he could enjoy some freedom of life after 30+ years at home.

Since then I've begun to feel like a psychopomp in training.

This all probably started much longer ago when I was about 14 and my family took in my dying great aunt so that we could house her and bring in hospice for her and let her go comfortably rather than in a hospital or care facility. As a young bookworm, my parents bribed me to sit with Aunt F by giving me new books to read and leaving me to read as long as I was sitting near her. It didn't seem odd to me at the time (new books, hey!) but in retrospect, I don't think it's something that any of my peers did. When she did pass it seemed fairly easy for her, and the Hospice folks took care of everything. EVERYTHING. Hospice rocks. So simple for me.

My Sibling's body started breaking down and I just happened to be with him in hospital when he passed. That was strange, but I let the nurse know and she brought in the doctor. Then I called home and my parents came and Mom totally freaked out right there in the room in front of the doctor and the chaplain and everyone and I thought Dad was going to force choke her with his mind. Minus the rest of the family drama, his passing was very quiet and pleasant and respectful. Apparently very easy for him and very simple for me.

Dad went at the beginning of this year. He'd had a cancer diagnosis and they took out one of his lungs. About a week after the operation his body started to fail. I got him into bed and asked him if I could take him to the hospital. He said, “I don't want to go in there.” So I kept him comfortable and he excused himself quietly while I was out of the room checking on Mom.

Mom, who by this point was full into dementia, had decided she wouldn't sleep with that strange man who is not her husband, and was sleeping on the couch. Once I noticed Dad was dead, I sat up in the living room all night to prevent her from waking up and wandering in. Recognize him or not, finding a corpse in a bed is not pleasant for anybody and given her reaction to Sibling's passing, I didn't want to listen to it. I turned off his electric blanket, opened the windows some, and sent our Funeral Director an email. “Like, honey, give me a call when you get into work. He's in a very stable condition. I want to get a cousin over to take Mom out for coffee before you come in and she gets confused and upset.” It went very smoothly. It seemed easy for Dad. Everyone was great. Reasonably simple for me.

About a week ago Mom began to fail seriously. She'd already been refusing to eat solid food for some months, but had been doing very well on liquid meals. Last week she became unable to rise without going into vasovagal synocope in a very dangerous and messy kind of way. This was unpleasant, messy, and dangerous. Also, I cannot stress the messy nearly enough. We shifted to full time bed care.

Thanks to previous experience with Sibling, Aunt F, and Dad, I've got some pretty good bed care skills. Position changes, range of motion exercises, hygiene, all that good stuff. Also, I can order hospital grade care supplies online and have them delivered! Fantastic!

Things are going pretty well. I managed to gauge the last day that she would have any possible coherence and get her closest relatives in who would want to say farewell. I even got them in individually and spaced out through a day. We even got the house cleaned up and smelling pretty good.

Thing is, I knew that day was coming because of the smell.

That smell.

I can't even call it a smell. It's a pong. It's an essence of badness. It doesn't flow into the nose so much as press against the whole face and sink into the mucus membranes and permeate the skin and gurgle down the back of the sinuses and the throat.

I am so happy that I have left all social media except for mastodon and this collection of essays. My every post would be either a joke in horrible horrible taste making light of biological functions or complaining about the smell.

Spouse sympathizes with my reaction to the smell, but thinks maybe I am a little sensitive to it. Well, I am. Turns out that, similar to the way that some people taste the soap of cilantro, some people have a much higher sensitivity to the scents associated with death. There's a neat little genetic thing that increases reaction to those smells and can also signal a higher chance of having a personality disorder. I'm not saying that I slapped a copy of a scientific paper on the topic along with a list of my diagnoses on Spouse's desk, but I may have sent a URL or two and the statement, “This smell is not bothering me because I'm crazy and I'm not crazy because of the smell, but I am bothered, I am crazy, and the two have a scientifically plausible connection.”

And, you know, I just needed to complain about this in a reasonably safe place. I've found something that really does help. It's called Bye Bye Odor. What you want to shop for is anything labeled “ostomy room deodorizer” It smells sickly sweet at first, but does a surprisingly good job at neutralizing the smell or possibly anesthetizing my senses. The mild weather is helping, too, as I can have the windows open and fans on.

See, I've almost got myself talked around to the, “It's not that bad” stage of coping with bad things through essaying about them.

I'm tired, and I'm stressed, and I'm having emotions that I don't have space or time to decompress as I'd prefer. My relatives tell me I'm doing a good job, but when they say that their tone of voice sounds like it's heavy with guilt that they're not doing more or shame that they fear they wouldn't be able to do it. Maybe some fear that nobody is going to be there for them in this way when they go.

So, I guess it's time to be patient with myself and my own impatience and irritability and tiredness. It's a great day for the stupid seasonal time change. This essay isn't going to have a clean little wrap up at the end of it. This isn't really a complete processing essay, it's more like a scream into the void. But the void is warm, and has cookies.

Stand as a compassionate witness...

I am very fortunate to have a largeish family containing cousins and aunts and uncles who are willing to engage and help each other out. I am also one of the cousins who helps out. We all have our strengths.

Today, my cousin C came over to clear my roof and clean out my gutters. He also repaired a step on the deck. While he was doing that, I went down the street to my cousin R's place and helped him with the leaves in his yard. My mother is dying and as I care for her in the death process, I invited her sister, my father's brother, and a few cousins to say farewell to her while she was still somewhat responsive. One of those cousins helps us with our taxes each year.

I'm also very fortunate to be a member of an international affinity group centered on historical study and experimental archaeology. Since I've been in the group for 29 years, I have connections with a lot of people and with many more people through the people with whom I'm connected. When I meet someone new I automatically assume that we're already “related” somehow in the group. It might be that this new person's teacher's teacher once lived with my teacher's wife so it behooves me not to be disrespectful off the bat as I'll end up getting an earful about it from six other people over the next week.

I think my youngest blood cousin is around 35 and the oldest is 76. In the affinity group, my youngest “cousin” is 15 and the eldest living is in her 90s. Seems to me that it's important to have friends in all of the possible age groups as everyone has something to teach us. Hearing a first person account of Woodstock, the JFK assassination, the fall of the Berlin wall, the great depression, is very different than learning about it from a book or a documentary.

Having a wide range of ages in one's affinity group or family is great, but it does mean that the stages of life are always happening all around. Someone is just learning to drive, someone is entering tech school, someone is getting hitched or having a baby, someone is retiring, someone is dealing with a life altering disease, someone has had an accident, someone has died suddenly, someone is failing slowly with age. My world is not defined by my experience as I live through the stages of life, but by the experience of those around me and my perspective on it; by the experiences that I have and the perspective of others around me.

My uncle C is super uncomfortable around hospitals and doctors. That's okay because his forte is bossing cops around and bullying red tape away. I speak doctor and have the knowledge to care for someone who is drastically limited in capacity, low communication, or dying.

We don't have to be good at everything. We don't have to be a formally trained expert at anything. What we need to do is find ways to connect with the people around us and be mindful of the strategic strengths and weaknesses that we share as a community.

There are a couple of skills that I think are really required for everyone. One of these is asking for help. This is a really hard skill to learn and practice and I think I'll probably essay more about it later. I don't want to get bogged down on that right now because I think that the skill that is most basic is to learn to function as a compassionate witness.

To me, this means observing the people and situations around me without letting my own opinions or fears get in the way. If I see someone who is injured and my mind is fixated on how much it must hurt them and how awful it would be if it happened to me, I'm not going to be paying very much attention to that person. I'm going to be focused on my own fear and that is going to color my choices when I act. If I see someone I don't like get sick, my mind is going to be replaying all of the reasons I think that they deserve to be sick and that is going to color my choices for speech and thought and action.

If I can dispassionately observe the world around me, I have the chance to realize that bad things happen to all of us and it sucks for everyone. I can see the things that happen without getting sucked into any kind of just world fallacy. when I'm not judging myself and others all the time I have the space and the energy to care about things in a way that is not performative or defensive. I'm free from acting out sympathy or empathy because I know that bad things happening is bad and it hurts and we can focus on acting in ways that help things suck less.

At the very least, when something bad is happening, we can think about what we could do to make it worse and then refrain from doing that thing.

Doing this doesn't make us Good People. What it does is free up our brains to observe situations clearly and make more skillful choices.

Even when we see drama online or some troll going off about something, we can notice our own emotional reaction to that thing and greet it with acceptance. I feel frustrated by this person. It must be awfully unpleasant to be in a situation where acting like this person is acting feels like the right or only thing to do. I could engage them and make it worse and upset myself and other people. I could go complain to someone else and get a bunch of people to punish this person with me. I could block this person so I don't see the things they say anymore and focus my energy on people who don't spark this kind of rage in me. I have a choice to see this person as a one dimensional evil entity or as someone who lives a complicated life which is fucking with them until acting like a fool in public seems to be the only way they can survive.

Practicing this with annoying people is great because when it comes to the time when one of your group is dying and you feel complicated emotions about the times when they hurt you or times when you hurt them, you'll be able to set aside those confusions and be present with that person as they have a completely unique and life changing experience. In that moment you'll be able to be with them without all of those thoughts and feelings getting in the way of your perceptions. Your thoughts and feelings will still be there, but they won't interfere with your ability to be there with them and for them and for yourself in that moment.

Every human has inherent dignity. When we can offer our own dignity without condition or fear, then we can honor the dignity of others in a way that makes the whole experience better.

The lion, when not ruled by his hunger, can set the mouse free. The mouse, when unafraid of the lion, can see the thorn in the lion's paw and can pull the thorn out.

If we can remember the simple pure nature of our own inherent dignity, then we don't have to fall into the trap of instantaneous reactivity based on emotion, mood, or prejudice. If we can remember our own dignity, we have a chance to pause and consider the dignity of the others around us. We have a chance to see how we are all the same and we are all hurting and we all have something to offer and something we need.

The compassionate witness can hold space for choices.

The emotionally reactive person doesn't get to make choices.

The compassionate witness can observe those who react to events based on their programming in stead of choices without being drawn into that narrative and playing out the expected role.

None of this is easy. Things suck for everyone. Everyone is hurting and frightened and doing their best. We've all learned programs to run that have helped us survive in the past, but compassion for ourselves and for others can help us unlock that programming and find new ways of dealing with old fears. We don't have to do what we have always done.

We don't have to be who we have always be. We can work to stand as compassionate witnesses and choose to be open to the potential of something different.

Self Awareness in a world of Madness...

Mental health is a serious trip.

Like, one of the ways that I stay sober (the most effective way of staying sober) is knowing that my self-awareness in my madness is way more fucked up than any drink or drug can get me.

I feel like I'm piloting an exploration ship, but my sensors are out of alignment and my processors are running parallel systems of analysis that never agree with each other.

Before I gathered skills from Cognitive Behavioral Training and Dialectical Behavior Therapy I pretty much made decisions by averaging what my processors told me and then rolling 2D20 to make my life choices. It wasn't great. My mind was a turbulent mess and I didn't have any system at all for even existing within myself let alone interfacing with the world.

I was very lucky to have work that was very mission oriented. This allowed me to throw myself into that work, that purpose, and set aside the tiny fact that my perceptions and beliefs about the world were not accurate or much like those of anybody around me. My symptoms were consistent so much of the time I could use a kind of Kentucky windage to dial in my aim on my goals.

As I learned skills from CBT, I was able to set up queries in my mind when things felt unbalanced or too sure about things. Sometimes these skills are taught as challenges, but I find that a kind of command line: Query... works best for getting my attention in an open minded and receptive kind of way.

DBT is the bomb. I sincerely believe that the basic DBT skills should be taught in all schools.

Some people seem to think that because DBT was designed for people with Borderline Personality Disorder that it's an extreme mode of therapy. It can be used as a framework for intense therapeutic study and growth, but it is also a very simple, step by step, user-friendly list of skills for emotional regulation, communication, and problem solving that would might be taught to children by those who raise them.

An extended family living together in a close community where children are surrounded by those who are dedicated to caring for and protecting each other would be a great place for a child to learn these skills. The burden wouldn't be on one or two individuals to be all things and to teach all things to a child. There would be grands and aunties and uncles and cousins who could teach, practice, and display all of the DBT skills.

In a world where the adult to child ratio is often 2:1 at best, and in schools where the ratio becomes 1:30, the main providers of examples on these living skills are going to be other young people who are still developing their brains and their skills by trial and error. In a household where the parent figures are frightening or frightened, this ratio can dip into negative numbers. We end up with a child whose parents are dealing with bigger issues than they can handle and the child ends up developing a very skewed system of perception and processing.

That child? That's me.

However, this child developed the skill of awareness and defensive overthinking to the point that, once they stopped self-medicating with alcohol, they were able to experience the skewed nature of their perceptions and the complicated, glitchy, and unreliable nature of their processing with an intense sense of curiosity and a willingness to fiddle with things until they stop exploding regularly.

As I type this I am experiencing some pretty intense derealization and depersonalization. As always when I notice this coming on, I ensure that my surroundings are secure. I have a perimeter around me that is secure and cannot be broken without making an alarm. I make sure I've taken my meds correctly. I drink some water and see if I need to eat something. I consider showering or sleeping.

Once this is done, I review the present mission. I establish which tasks I require of myself for this mission and I see that those happen to the best of my ability with huge patience for myself and long pauses before I speak or contact another person to ensure that I'm not going to lash out or fawn.

That done, there is very little to do except observe the conditions and accept them as they are.

I trust inertia. Things are likely to be where they have been in the past. If I sit, I am likely to stay in one place. I feel my perceptions warp and fade in and out around me and my connection to my body glitches randomly. I see my hands typing and I remind myself to think, “These are my hands.” They don't feel like my hands right now, but neither do they feel like anybody else's hands. Logically these hands are mine and I live within the body to which they connect. I see my feet and they feel far away so I wiggle a toe and watch it move.

It's so cool that I can control my toes simply by thinking about moving. I don't have to know which muscles contract and which tendons and joints work their magic. I don't even have to think or voice a command. I move those toes. Those are my toes, otherwise I could not do that with them.

And before I get lost in this kind of meditation, I put on Koyaanisquatsi because the visuals are amazing and Phillip Glass music soothes my mind when it is scattered and gnawing at itself like an animal in a trap. I look at the images and watch the physics of mechanical creations juxtaposed with the natural world. The horror/beauty eases the conflict in my brain and I don't feel like I have to fight to hold everything together and be sane because this world is everything but sane and to be sane is to consider this world acceptable.

And then... I sit in the awareness of my own madness as it fits in with the madness of the world around me. I can see plain evidence that people around me behave as though they are experiencing similar symptoms. I am not alone.

We're all here in our own madnesses and we're all part of this world. That's a pretty heavy thing to be aware of all the time, so I try to save it for when my brain is at its crunchy toast stage.

Self-awareness in madness can be the worst thing ever. It feels like me watching me make stupid choices and screaming helplessly, unable to change anything. But it can also be the best thing ever. It feels like me watching me surf the waves of chaos and confusion, reaching out to drag my fingertips along the inside of the curl of reality.

In the end I'd much rather live like this, not knowing when my mind is going to glitch and my perceptions slip, than being absolutely sure of reality and my processes at all times. If I'm not sure, there is always room to explore and learn more. If I'm sure, then all the doors of growth are closed and I might become stagnant and putrid. Yuck.

That's what it's like for me, as best I can describe it right now. If any of that sounds familiar, you might enjoy learning about some DBT skills. I think everyone should make some time to learn about DBT skills. They're great guidelines for functioning in a social environment.

The magic word...

I worked for this one guy at this one place and then he left that job and became a manager at another place. Before he left, he let me know that if I decided to leave he would have a job for me for sure.

The upper management were pissed at me for not undermining him and setting him up for failure before he left the first place, so some months after he left I did resign and talked with him.

The new crew was great. All very professional people and super competent at their work. They were people who had very different experiences of life and education so, in addition to my own work, I also functioned as the editor of important emails, composer of office memos, and generic, “Hey, Skellington... How do you spell ____.”

It was cool because my knowledge and education didn't make me better than they were, but they were aware of what I knew and they were not intimidated by that. Rather, they called on my knowledge to help us all do our work more skillfully.

We were having a rough day one day. Most of the computers had gone down and the one that was both working and connected to the system that predicted our workload for the night was telling me some pretty scary things about what could might be coming down the line to us.

I was seated at the computer, typing away like a hacker character from a 90's film. Six of my coworkers were huddled in around me and we were all looking at the data that was predicting utter clusterfuckage for our evening. When I saw what was happening I said one word very softly.

“Cock.”

All six of them leapt back and gasped, staring at me with real fright in their eyes.

Okay, this was a freight terminal. I was surrounded by cargo handlers, truckers, and those who manage and coordinate with those people all the time. Our language was consistently crass, vulgar, rude, and ungrammatical. And yet they all reacted like I'd committed some kind of sacrilegious war crime by saying cock?

Finally, one of them, the toughest, the secretary who whipped everyone into shape and dealt with people to whom and from whom money and service exchanges were expected. She spoke up in a soft voice. I think her hands were trembling. “B said that if you ever said that word it meant that things are seriously bad and we are really really really in trouble. Skellington, are we fucked?”

I thought about it. I can give a Shakespearean stream of cussing in iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets detailing a person's flaws and the physical attributes of his mother with no time for preparation and for no actual slight. I regularly spouted poetic snatches of vulgarity to vent my frustrations and to add to my physical strength when moving heavy things. And yet, when the very worst happens and I realize that we are well and truly fucked, it's like I see the giant schlong that is boning up my day and I name it for what it truly is. Cock. The discrete point of the piercing that is what means fuck. I name it and I recognize it as real.

B was right. I'm impressed but not surprised that he noticed that and passed on the warning before I joined the team. Because of that warning, everyone authentically knew how bad the situation was and we all buckled down and put all we had into keeping everyone safe in spite of the unrealistic goals and impossible schedule imposed on us from above.

Today has sucked gangrenous balls because I accidentally did emotional heavy lifting last night, got poor sleep, and forgot to take any of my meds until almost 5 PM. I feel tired and irritable, but I also feel heavily dissociated, derealized, and depersonalized. I feel like I'm using mind control to steer the muppeteers who are manipulating the Ur Goh and Skekgra muppets that I am in the world and those two are putting on an elaborate puppet show to get this essay typed out.

I was in the market, far away from my meds, when I realized that I hadn't taken them this morning. I was wearing a mask and I was in the oatmeal section so nobody heard me say “cock”, but I did say it. And when I said it, I saw the point of the issue that was fucking me. Knowing that there was a cause and it was something I would be able to ease soon was great. Knowing that the hole in my reality was caused by the tip of a sword let me see that the whole world was not a nightmare.

There was a perfectly good reason that I felt the way I did and that the rest of the world appeared to be the way it was.

And then, realizing that my mind was altered, I was able to trim my sails and tack into the wind and keep going on with my day.

Staaaaaahp...

The thing about my life right now is that even when I have a very good day, it's still a hard day.

Even when everything goes as good as possible I'm still getting human feces on me, I'm still having to consider my mother's genitalia enough to keep them clean and healthy, and I'm still accompanying her and my very weird cousin on his path to death.

See, the best case scenario in my life involves the death of four people. Two of them are already gone, and I've got two more to go. My function right now feels like it's taking the best care possible of myself so that I can be present with the remaining two for the duration.

Nobody expects this of me. Nobody told me to do it. Nobody dumped this on me.

This is all work that I choose every day based on my values and my resources. It is hard, often frustrating, often smelly work.

But I really do love hard work and I really do have strong convictions in my values around human dignity and How We Treat People. I don't expect others to share those values because they are all based in my lived experience and I do try to remember that other people probably don't have a lot of experience doing things like caring for someone who can't get out of bed, or who lives in an extreme reality tunnel.

I feel qualified to do this work, and I find it very rewarding.

I choose this.

Do you hear a but coming? I hear a but coming. Here's the but:

Even when it's a good day, it's still hard.

Having worked extensively on loading docks, I tend to think of my internal world as something very much like a loading dock. Organized, secure, clean, well lit, and all of the haz-mat is labeled properly and segregated. Much of my emotional baggage is crated rather than compartmentalized. These crates fit together and help make my dock stronger and more secure. When things feel crowded, I simply make the dock bigger and keep my lanes clear and all labels showing from the lanes.

I do things like grieving slowly. Over long periods of time I relax on my dock and uncrate a memory and sit with it while we commune with one another. Same for loving people. Same for working to understand my frustrations and angers. There is very much a time and a place for these things.

When I'm doing the daily work that I am doing now, it's like I'm taking in 200,000 lbs of freight, sorting it, and loading it back out on trucks every two hours for 18 hours a day. Sometimes that's a couple dozen nice neat crates. Sometimes it a gazillion boxes that need to be sorted and hand bombed into trailers. Or stacked on skids and shrink wrapped. I have neither the desire, nor the emotional energy to sit with my feelings and do them anything like the fair kindness they deserve.

I really do enjoy doing a job like this for a couple of years and simply throwing my whole spleen into the work and learning again how to pace myself and get enough sleep and eat right and put my mental health first even in moments of intense frustration and conflict. It's like a really focused period of education. Total immersion training.

This evening my Girlfriend asked me how I was doing. I had time so I typed my day out to her and she was like, “Whoa.” Yeah, I know, right? Then she got really brave and daring and decided to be tender and supportive of me? She offered to give me a bath or brush my hair?

I said, “What I really need and want right now is for you to find me a comfy chair with good reading light, my glasses, and a copy of Heinlein's Friday. Then you will establish and maintain a perimeter and ensure my solitude until I am done reading the book.”

She said, “Yeah. I can do that. I have a copy here. I will hold the perimeter.”

I relaxed about 8000% and nodded. This was good. This was kind. This was asking for what I needed and getting it in the form of acceptance of what I need (I can't have the real thing right now because of distance and responsibilities) and that acceptance of my need was everything.

And then she started offering me sweet, romantic, lovely things that were all really kind and honest and true about myself and my experience in this world. And it felt like I was covered in spiders and scorpions.

“Oh, god, oh, god, you're being kind at me. Please stop. It hurts. It burns us. Faaaaaaack. Give me some fucking humor to deflect this and let me pack it up and deal with it later because now is not the time for me to be feeling squishy and precious.”

I did not say that, but I was thinking it as my buttocks crawled farther away from my laptop.

Like, okay, stipulated: I am good, I am worthy, I am lovable, I am a valuable person regardless of how well I care for others or live by my own standards. Fantastic. We're going to put that on a post it note and keep it as a nice cognitive file and accept that it is true because it is obviously true about every other human I have ever met so it must also be true about me. Grand.

When I think about the kind of affirmations I want to get from others, I think of Farmer Hogget saying, “That'll do, Pig. That'll do.” That is like a harpoon to my heart. It drives past all of my defenses and touches me deeply without giving me any cognitive points to argue.

If you tell me that I'm kind, my brain says, “I choose to behave kindly. I am not inherently kind. if I were inherently kind, my kindness would mean very little. I would prefer to be killing all of you motherfuckers and then fucking the wounded survivors, but I choose to behave in a way that honors your inherent human dignity, cocksucker.”

(I might need a t-shirt that says, “I honor your inherent human dignity, cocksucker.” on it.)

If you tell me, “Well done.” or “I'm proud of you.” or even, “I'm happy to see you doing things that seem important to you.” I shall purr and wriggle around like a puppy. You have chosen to use language that frees up any cognitive arguments and stated your case plainly.

If you tell me that how I treat other people in person is so kind because I focus on the other person and care about where they are at and what they do, I will point out that my PTSD has granted me the ability to see every person I meet as a part of my survival team and I am interviewing them to see how we can best include them in our team. To meet their needs so that we can benefit from their skills.

Are both things true? Yes. I do care about those people. Also, I know that every single being is an asset to a survival team as long as they get what they need to be functional and they have a meaningful part to play in the survival work. Those two things are completely stuck together for me.

I care, and I'm figuring out what part you'll play in my platoon.

So... maybe say, “I like to watch how you engage with people.” and leave it at that.

Staaaaaaahp assigning motivations to my actions! My motivations are byzantine and I'm not always fond of them. Talk about what you can observe and how it makes you feel. Stop invading my cargo dock and pointing to things that I've got in crates for the moment and telling them how pretty I look when I wear them. Those things are in crates for a reason.

Engaging me in conversation and then diving into emotional places that I don't have the energy to traverse at the moment is cruel... and I have no idea how to recognize when that is happening in the moment and communicate clearly and kindly the level of my discomfort and desire to change the subject...

Huh. But now that I've articulated it, I can start looking for that and working on scripted phrases to change the topic when things begin to feel uncomfortable.

Oh, it's so lovely to be the kind of person whose emotions and cognition lead me to ideas like, “I'm really upset about something you said, but you did nothing wrong and it's something that I need to figure out, but if you do it again I'll hit you with a stick, and that will be my fault too, so I apologize in advance. Please move that stick farther away from me. Thank you.”

OKay. Breathe. It's all good. I got it all out on the keyboard and I didn't make things worse in the conversation. I know more about what is going on and characteristics of moments I can look for where I can choose differently than I have been doing. That's a good first step. That's a great first step.

Embracing the love of Eris...

Long ago, when Spouse and I moved in together, we had to come up with a name for our household. All of our friends had names for their places/groups and it makes it much simpler to say, “We're going to the Zone/ the Hus/ the Dorm this weekend” rather than saying, “We're going to see Bob, Jane, and Mary-anne's place” or “We're headed to Louisville to see all that crew.” I asked her what we should call our place and she didn't even pause before answering “Chaos House” and such we have been ever since.

This might imply that we are some kind of wild party house. We are not. We will occasionally have one or two guests or let friends crash when they're in town, but we don't do events at home and we are not heavily into socializing in person (even before Covid made this en vogue). It's really just that there is always something going on and the zaniest things happen at any moment. We can plan for X and suddenly be sideswiped by A-Q, and we roll with it.

We make plans with the full knowledge that something weird will happen and we'll adjust on the fly. Once we were planning for a quiet weekend at home when word came to us that the friend of a friend had broken his leg while traveling and was in the hospital near us. His wife was stranded at the hospital because she didn't drive. Her family and infant were three hours away and she was a little stressed.

We got some mutual friends to pick her up at the hospital and meet us for a meal in a diner where we all sat around, ate, and got introduced. Then we invited her home with us. She felt comfortable enough to accept.

At home, we set her up with a laptop that had a free interface and internet connection. We got her a glass of wine and placed a cuddly cat nearby. We set up a bed for her and clean towels and comfort stuff for her. We clued her in on the weird things about our old house. And then we let her be. We'd made space in the common room, but also space in a solitary room. Then we didn't bug her. We made sure she had power, signal, and access to food and cleaning stuff, and then let her be.

Over the next week we'd get her to hospital to see her husband and took her places she needed to go while accepting her as one of us. She pitched in and did cleaning, but we didn't ask. She shared conversation with us, but neither she nor we felt obligated to entertain each other.

When she had things organized with her family and had the resources, she moved on and lived her life happily. Some years later, she and her husband came out to our place and she cooked AMAZING food while he helped me replace a roof.

This is not a brag on how cool we are for helping out a stranger and making a friend. Almost anybody would have done the same thing if a similar situation arose. They have.* That's how we learned that this is what we do. This is an example of how affinity groups can provide mutual aid in real time. It's an example of how chaos is the thing that brings us opportunities to be engaged with the world around us.

When our expectations are locked in stone, it's really hard to adjust to the unexpected events that will happen. This means that trying to live in a constant state of expectation will inhibit response in an emergent situation. If we expect things to go as planned, we will feel resistance against disruptions. If we expect things to be disrupted, we will become hypervigilant and not be fully present to the joys of any given moment; in time this will leave us less effective when emergent situations evolve.

I am presently writing this while P (my late-stage Alzheimer's mother/child) is resting after getting cleaned up and changed into clean diaper and clothes and my rambunctious puppy is sprawled out on his back in the boneless sleep of the very young. I can hear the washer in the spin cycle as I clean up the latest round of towels and washable bed pads. Soon I will make food for me and Spouse. Soon I will start some beans in the pressure cooker so that there will be soup for supper. Soon I will drink some more water and take my mid-day meds.

I know that at any moment P may call me, the puppy will wake and pull the plug out of this laptop, Spouse will send a pathetic and starving message, or the washer may become unbalanced and start dancing around the room. That's okay. I'm not poised and fearful of those events. Should they happen I will not be resentful of the disruption.

The love of Eris is not that things will always be wacky and wild. The love of Eris is feeling in my bones that order and disorder are the heart of chaos. I don't know what will happen next so I will remain alert and ready without sacrificing this moment for a moment that has not yet emerged. I am engrossed in assaying the ore of my memories and seeing what events can serve as ore to refine into understanding and acceptance. I can do that while changing P, or switching the laundry over, or sorting the dry beans... but in this moment I'm typing out my thoughts and my experiences.

And now Spouse has come inside and we're going to make some lunch together. The Puppy has woken up and is looking around for a new place to nap. Spouse has a meeting at 1600, so we're going to have dinner right after that and then I plan to get up the leaves from the yard. We both know it probably won't happen exactly like that, but these are our goals for the day and we state these goals so that we have somewhere to be walking. On our walk many things will happen. Some of them will be expected, some will be novel.

Either way, it's a beautiful day at Chaos House, and we accept reality as best we can perceive it.

*The husband's half of this story involves two of our mutual EMT friends holding his leg in traction manually for 45 minutes while the ambulance was lost on the way to the accident site. Another local friend works in medical billing and he checked in to make sure that insurance was lined up properly and that funding could happen if it was needed. Four more bystanders made space around the accident and made sure that the people who helped him were competent and were not bothered by looky-loos. The EMTs followed the ambulance to the hospital and took charge of his wife and getting paperwork filled out properly and contact information in case of further need. One of the bystanders checked with a local person to see if they knew anybody who lived in the area who might be able to give support to the family beyond today.