If it is not broken

[Spideysenses]

Odd never tried to justify his violence towards me. He thought that no-one would believe me over him . So.

[Spideysenses]

After...
after...
after...
after all is said and done. Knowing? Wind your neck in. Move on? So die quietly? Now that I have found my place through my writing, my career is only beginning. To lose oneself is to find oneself. Harbour. To build lie upon lie on sand will lead to your home plunging into the ocean. Cannot fight fire with fire.

[Spideysenses]

The fighting was always followed with: I hae higher principles than most men that you winna get.
The violence towards me was never offered an explanation or an apology. Put up (with being treated like dirt) AND shut up, was his tireless view. You may as weel nae hae a femly. Where the f else will you go?
He knew that he couldn't get away with an extreme physical attack. A self-harm scar is distinguishable from injuries caused by a beating. I've never self-harmed.
He would squeeze my arms hard and then push me over most times. Bruises fade. Threatening me and instilling fear and making me feel small, piling up and piling up. He would spit in my face while saying try and hit him knowing I wouldn't.
He was someone who bottled up his emotions. That made him dangerous when he was not getting what he wanted. I wasn't going to be around when the ticking time bomb went off. He didn't realise quite how strong he was. He would never move for me so his anger was not going to dissipate. I had to leave. I was not going to cave into him.

[Spideysenses]

There is no heavier burden
Than an unfulfilled potential

[Mr. Nobody]

That cloud up there in the sky was huge,.. it's clarity was extraordinary, it seemed solid, like you could touch it, and it's purity was unquestionable, rising high, like a great mountain, full of majesty and wonder,..
It was turning stronger and stronger hues of rose, now pink, now lilac,. Each colour reaching your heart more and more poignantly,.. insisting you go out to meet it,

The silent thunder of greatness was in those clouds,
The silent power of grandeur was thundering in your heart,.
Why must it pull at my heart, teasing me into this wondrous evening sky?

The light show wasn't over,.. the birds saw to that, their tentative chirps and subduing calls were fading, becoming more infrequent and subdued with the fading colours,.

There was an emptiness about this part of the evening, a calm sliding into the inevitable night,
An assured capitluance to the void of the late evening,

The colour and vibrancy of the day had given over to the effacing slumber and recumbance of the night,

He loved those colours,. The deeper they went, the more his heart was moved and captured, caught in their net of beauty,

You can only be silent when faced with this homage to life,
You can only be silent and allow your heart to feel what it feels,..

One day, this would be your last sunset, and it wouldn't pain you any less to not be able to touch it or capture it somehow,.

Just to observe doesn't seem to be enough,
You want to live those colours, breathe that silence,
and then, maybe, as the colours fade, so you will too, and all that will be left, will be the vast infinity of space.

[Spideysenses]

You would pick the lazy option. The easy way out. Writers are not lazy. I took the riskiest and most uncertain path there was. It seemed the only life where I could be myself and be happy in what I was spending my life doing. Anything worth having doesn't come easy.

[Spideysenses]

So many freshly baked foods and bread at the supermarket have palm oil. Looks like I may need to get my bake on. I never had the personality fit for retail. Women have to juggle so many hats in life. I didn't have a family who accepted me how I was guiding me to play to my strengths. My father wouldn't take me to choose the new dog. Choosing his friend's daughter to go instead. It stung. It hurt. I felt unwanted. I wasn't going to live my life for a person as cruel-hearted as he was.

[Spideysenses]

This is also my home. I will put up a fight to remain here.

[Spideysenses]

I think if I wasn't into Ian Rankin and other authors of mystery thrillers as a youth I'd have made my way through Stephen King's books. I liked many of the film versions immensely. Misery, the Shining, Children of the Corn, DreamCatcher, IT, Mist, Shawshank Redemption. To be fair, I was never a reader of Horror. Only Poe and Lovecraft. I think I'd watched enough on TV, that I needed to read other genres. My life was hectic once my sport took off. And then when I started working. I did not have much peace at home either. I should start with the GreenMile. It is still one of my favourite all-time films. Horror is so difficult to do well. To come up with the idea and execute it well. So to be able to write the volumes of books S . King has published, then I am evidently a snob when it comes to Horror and fussy with Sci-Fi. I liked Haruki Murakami enough to read a swathe of his novels. I like the subtler style. The young me missed the boat with Stephen King it seems. I had so many other distractions. TV and video games. Martial arts and Running/athletics. Music. Art. I read the Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption short stories.

[Spideysenses]

I realise there are times to tell white lies. Sometimes if you know the truth you should not say it. Sometimes a person is not ready for the truth. I can judge this instinctively more times than not. I am aware of who is not on my side.

[Spideysenses]

I still could have had a professional career after rehab at eighteen. I was going to do art at a local college and then apply to art school. I only switched focus to art because my upbringing made me fearful of expressing emotions in English work. Of course, teachers were frustrated with me. They knew I had potential. That I was intelligent. I think after the meltdown most of them realised that it was not an attitude problem that was the root cause of my rebellion. But I didn't apply myself so I don't think it was ever clear what I was and wasn't capable of. I could have started my own business after Horticulture. If we moved I would have had a better job at the drop of a hat, while I still had the gusto of youth. And that was the bottom line. But what if I didn't need to? Was it running? When a person runs their business reputation and word of mouth are of huge importance. Would people say I had turned my life around or would I be attacked? Would those in competition smear my name like the bully of an ex-coach tried to do to me?

[Spideysenses]

I've never thought about how bad toxic positivity could be. Does it only affect the person who is running from the truth or does it have further reaching repercussions? Poisonous gossiper types can be ignored once they are rumbled. When their lies or speculative meanderings do not sit well they will take their leave. So once it is evident that someone is suffering from toxic positivity

[Spideysenses]

Being in a terrible mood every day after work was not normal. But I had witnessed him in full force when at home with family, reducing his sister to tears and taking his temper out on whoever was in his path. I would think that it was sibling rivalry and being in a busy house with a large family. But that wasn't the explanation. It was the excuse. It was him with the issues.
He changed jobs when I gave him a nudge. When we moved in together I got the full brunt of his post-work moods. He would never admit to being tired due to the skeletal staff work system. He'd nod off on the couch. He would say it was because he was doing nothing and had the life of a dog because of me. He blamed everyone else for his issues denying his violent volatile temper. I said: join that football team. Eventually, he threw it back in my face, insulting me. There were days he would come home from work, or he would be in when I finished work or college and he'd say: "I've been thinking... that you need help. You need help."
No. He was exhausted from work. I had every right to feel like I wasn't where I was supposed to be. But I did not take it out on someone else as he did. He was not mentally sound of mind.

[Spideysenses]

I had worked hard to let sleeping dogs lie. He was the one fanning the flame. I needed a purposeful career where I had the chance to grow and use my brain. I was stuck and trapped. I had no one to trust after being in rehab for a month. I didn't have many beforehand. Friends. Mentors. Family. All of them were out for themselves. Had their own troubles and lives to lead. I know I had the worst luck. I was fine going it alone as a writer. But getting a job, where I stay is clearly more about who you know than what you know. Word travels fast in smaller communities. Did smaller mean tight-knit? It didn't feel that way to me. I never thought that I could make the impact I created with wildfire. That being here would become my saving grace. It worked against me after eighteen. This time it was completely different. I can't explain the rush of emotions I felt. I'd escaped and made it out. No, not yet. I'd have to stay in limbo. The way out drawing closer. Just knowing it existed was enough for me to carry on years back. Removing the doubt.

[Spideysenses]

Having had mental health treatment (prescribed one pill and rest) was not the reason for being the victim. It was the stigma that follows that made me a victim. The conspiracy theories. Old flame was an opportunistic bully. He didn't have to read a book, to realise that people know that most - especially women - who have been in treatment are victims and not perpetrators. Perpetrators of violence go to prison. Victims are treated in hospitals. That is a double-edged sword. Being in the hospital had saved my life - from suicide- and simultaneously, may potentially have ruined my future chances of getting my life back. Tying an elephant to my back. And a millstone around my neck. Give some people an inch and they will take a mile. What if I were not the type to etch the lines in stone? He had ruined my years of hard work and toil. Knocking me back to square nothing. Luckily as an artist, I wasn't afraid to burn the past and start over. To lose oneself is to find oneself.

[Spideysenses]

You are young just walk away and be glad that they will be someone else's grief now. I wish that could have been possible. Being a writer is not a real job? It is hard to be self-motivated. Dealing with uncertainty. Once you start with an idea, stopping is not possible. I have had go over and over to perfect it. Digging deep to find sources and strength. Knowing that writing is the only way to have a life and to be seen again. I almost resigned myself to believing that a meltdown was inevitable. A breakdown is never inevitable. Many things that happened in my life were never supposed to have happened. I was supposed to have had a career before the meltdown and I still can now. Time to believe in my cause.

[Spideysenses]

After note:

Growing up I always found myself protesting and asking why do I get the blame for something I haven't done ....constantly? I couldn't take it anymore. Constant criticism and blame. Constantly being made to feel not enough.
I was lucky to have someone. To have any job. I was lucky to be alive? Lucky to have received proper mental health treatment? No one should be pushed into taking their life by their own hands. What did I have to feel lucky about? Count my blessings? After being in the psych ward, no one counts their blessings. Especially number thirteen. I'm beginning to think that I may be able to retire from fighting for mental health rights altogether and just write. Get a house with a garden and a dog.

[Spideysenses]

How could I stay with a person who tried to make me feel and believe that I needed fixing but was unfixable? The first time didn't need to happen. A family who cared would not have left me at the mercy of a system that counted on rolling a six over and over. I wouldn't have had a breakdown without a past. My life played a bigger hand. I might not have made it without art. My art. My writing. No one saved me. I always knew I had to find the way out of the misery alone. My way.

[Mr. Nobody]

Kompt, zaffort, strachden,..... shizt en flintzen.

[Spideysenses]

They need to apply themselves. There must be a reason. Did "not of my blood" have no reason other than trying to be the hard nut? Sometimes there is no reason. I think that is true sometimes. Sometimes something will happen that is out of your hands and not your fault. There is no concrete reason. An accumulation of chance and luck. Wrong place. Right place. Time. Some people are bad. Rotten. Evil. Psychopathic. An Internet attack friend of a friend. That was enough to send anyone spiralling. Here I was trying not to be forced into the role of an enabler to an alcoholic after escaping an abusive relationship. I'd handed my notice in, the floor would be wiped with me with no leg to stand on. And someone drags up a painful childhood memory and plasters it online. That car I bought was fit for the scrap yard. I almost crashed because it wasn't picking up speed. It was done. I saw the rash. Poison tongue..
Femly tack care oh their own. Nae yours. Well dear..hunny bunch...if you knew what it was to be the scapegoat in a family. If you didn't see women as the weaker secondary sex. I wondered why I'd ended up with a man who was still a playground bully. He threw temper tantrums. He would say "take it back" for crying out loud. He would blame the outbursts on his friend's making him "quick with comebacks." I did not say anything derogatory to him in need of a "comeback!". I would refrain from saying he needed to grow up. If I did I would apologise. I'd cry more times than not. He was not a man you wished to upset. He was unstable and volatile through not facing his own issues. He fought less when he was with me. He was a complete hooligan before I met him. Us women always think we can change and help people and forget about our own fallibility. When I asked him a question such as he must have wanted to stay together for a reason, one reason, his answer would make me feel worse and I'd wish I hadn't asked. So I stop asking. I stop wearing heels. Then make-up and nail polish. Then I stop trying for jobs. Going to a fitness class or the gym. Not rebuilding friendships that had become acquaintances. Stop. Slow motion. Standstill. Stuck. I did everything. Selfish. Greedy. Possessive. Violent. The threats and blackmail.

[Spideysenses]

I made it further in sport than I ever thought I would. Through hard work and sacrificing time out with friends. Through dedication. My brain was my stronger suit. I was taking any old job and going to college to give my brain the nourishment it needed. I was asked what I wanted and hoped to do afterwards and I'd give an unambitious answer. Up crops ward four. But these are well-intentioned questions. Genuine interest and kind intrigue. It was a never-ending cycle. Take a course for the sake of keeping going and switching to another dead-end job with no prospects. I had no meaning. You got top grades and trained with the Olympic team, you are easy to speak to and your writing is REALLY good so what happened to your ambitions? Here it comes. Ward number fou-wer. I was made to feel like I owed him. I couldn't do it anymore. I said I don't think I can go through this again. Without wildfire, I don't know where I would be so the regret continues to fade.

[Spideysenses]

True wealth is of the heart and mind

[Spideysenses]

I thought of you when I read this quote from "Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances" by Neil Gaiman -

"Introduction I.

There are things that upset us. That’s not quite what we’re talking about here, though. I’m thinking rather about those images or words or ideas that drop like trapdoors beneath us, throwing us out of our safe, sane world into a place much more dark and less welcoming. Our hearts skip a ratatat drumbeat in our chests, and we fight for breath. Blood retreats from our faces and our fingers, leaving us pale and gasping and shocked. And what we learn about ourselves in those moments, where
the trigger has been squeezed, is this: the past is not dead. There are things that wait for us, patiently, in the dark corridors of our lives. We think we have moved on, put them out of mind, left them to desiccate and shrivel and blow away; but we are wrong. They have been waiting there in the darkness, working out, practising their most vicious blows, their sharp hard thoughtless punches into the gut, killing time until we came back that way. The monsters in our cupboards and our minds are always there in the darkness, like mould beneath the floorboards and behind the wallpaper, and there is so much darkness, an inexhaustible supply of darkness. The universe is amply supplied with night. What do we need to be warned about? We each have our little triggers

The sandman is being made into a series. It has big shoes to fill.

[Spideysenses]

You always have to have it worse. How do you think I ended up needing a stay in the hospital? Did your mum tell you she couldn't stand the sight of you and to get out of her effing sight all the time? Tell you that your bedroom wasn't yours but the room they paid for and let you stay in and say you'd look back and thank them for just putting a roof over your head as it was more than your father had ever done. Turn your grandparents against you. Tell people never to have kids, especially girls. Give your sibling everything. Ignore you when you got your exam results. Laugh at you when you said you were going to take all three sciences? Spend all the money they made in the pub. Ignore doctors who gave a positive prognosis and tell everyone you had something "wrong" with you that must come from your blood father's side. Have a stepdad who said they wished you'd been in hospital rehab years earlier so they could have tried to get rid of you. He was really saying that the Doctors may have listened to them (their lies) over me if I were a child or minor. Was your blood father a piece of work like mine? Didn't come to see you being born at the hospital and sat at home because he wanted a boy and not a girl? This was before his health failed. Do you want me to tell you about the teachers who made my life a misery. How was I supposed to get a good job when I couldn't get a reference from a teacher or depend on my family even though I had top grades? I was there in "thone place" because I pushed myself too hard. You need a reality check.

[Spideysenses]

I don't like Horror films. Not modern horror. I still watch TV series with supernatural and horror elements. I think it's because there is more opportunity to develop characters. See their humanity. How they change. For better or worse.

[Spideysenses]

Those who mind don't matter so turn the other cheek. Until the time is right.

[Spideysenses]

Fairy dust. I'm not putting you for your test until you can see the opening before me. You do this for a living? I don't care about the sweet pea plants and what's growing in the garden. A deer from every single gateway? If you need a smoke go and have one instead of wasting my time and money. When I trust my instincts and change I almost crash swerving a pothole because I'm using the instructions the old one has taught me. The new one says: you are overthinking it. Just drive. You know how to drive. I pass the first time.

[Spideysenses]

Was I mentally strong enough to rip off the stitches after six months of leaving the relationship? No, because it was not only the relationship that had left my nerves and esteem in bits. He had pushed me to the edge. It was my whole life to blame at the end of the day. There were seismic events. Not only a thousand small paper cuts.
I had figured out I'd been scapegoated by my family. That it was not bad luck. The job situation was partly bad luck. Ignorant clicky people. Work not suited to me. My life was bad support. No support. It takes a community to raise a child. My mentors and teachers made my life more difficult. My friends were not much better. Out for themselves. I did the right thing. If there are a thousand grains of rice on the negative side of the scale and only a smattering of encouragement on the positive side, then what could I do to rebalance myself? Art therapy wasn't going to cut it. I needed something new. To go forward and know I had a future. I couldn't carry on as if nothing happened but I couldn't live in the past either. Forwards and back. Under and up again.

[Spideysenses]

It is not complaining when there is something that needs to change.

[Seagull]

Originally Posted by Spideysenses

It is not complaining when there is something that needs to change.

But maybe 603 posts on a thread doing nothing but complain isn’t helping things. Is it really cathartic, surely it’s just keeping you stuck in a repetitive negative cycle?