shmoomer-blog

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It's fine

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This is my best friend Kepler. He's 12. He's been sitting like that since I met him when he was 8 weeks old. Usually his hair is longer but he had a haircut. He's really nice.

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Limits

They feel good sometimes yeah?

Limited to 3 colors we are forced to create a whole new palette

Limited to one album and we hear notes we never would have heard. I miss that.

Too much saturation is creating a shallow puddle of boredom. It's self imposed. Like choosing to be jaded? I need to pull back and remember how to feel deeply again.

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I feel so hyper and angry. I think I just permanently cut off a friend. I can't. Is this just mania? I wish I could scan my head with an app and it would tell me what's happening. Fuckin fuck I'll just scream in the tumbler void cuz it's safer here

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We are way past due for a Rainbow Brite live action movie. Make it 3D

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It's so frustrating explaining over and over that yes logically I know ghosts and monsters aren't real but I fucking see and hear them. They are real to my brain while it's processing what I'm experiencing. Our realities are not the same. It's all relative.

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I'm 42 now. The number 42 is good. It's the meaning of life according to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and it's the angle that light hits water droplets to make rainbows. So it's my rainbow year. If I make it to 84 that will be my double rainbow year. But for now one rainbow. I'm so hypomanic I could scream from adrenaline and sound sensitivity. I'll start my rainbow year after this....

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Never realized how much mental institutions affected me till I went to a normal hospital to visit someone and found myself terrified to go through any doors and hallways for fear of getting yelled at..

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The paranoia has me thinking that if someone moves or stands up after I move or stand up that they are messing with me and trying to make me crazier.

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My friend handed me a pumpkin and asked me to paint it like a minion so I did. I never got in to those movies but this thing makes me laugh when I look at it. Painting pumpkins is fun. You should try it. I used acrylic paint and did a white under painting before adding color.

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The lows are so low. I just fired my therapist and cut ties with all my friends. It’s always just a matter of time isn’t it. Before you destroy your whole life. I always warn people it’s perilous to love me. They never believe me until it’s too late.

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Nature knows what’s up when it comes to color combinations. This is a blossom from a Peruvian apple cactus. Sometimes I get lucky and the flowers are still open in the morning. The deep red with the electric yellow green makes my brain explode.

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“Going for Walkies”

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“Baby tooth”

Digital self portrait with the intention of becoming a painting. They say you find yourself in your 40s. I lose baby teeth in mine.

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I want us to start discussing the more difficult parts of synesthesia. I almost feel guilty for bringing up the negatives but I don’t want there to be misunderstanding of the condition where the hard parts get swept under the rug. I’d love to hear other’s thoughts on this.

I can only speak on my own experiences here so please bare with me and forgive me and tell me if I say something insensitive.

Synesthesia is not something that can be turned on and off. It’s not a choice. It’s more than just strong associations. These are senses/experiences that feel as strong and real as the other 5 senses So let’s face it, it can become incredibly overwhelming.

And after decades of having every single letter, number, word, note, song create vivid realistic images in my mind I start to wonder why we aren’t talking about that side of it more. The images aren’t always nice. When I listen to music, I have to decide if I’m up for the video in my head that’s going to come on, because it isn’t a choice. With music in particular, it causes me to feel and smell the experience as well as see images. And it’s usually the same video for the same song. I can’t just change it once I’ve heard it. In the same sense that the number 6 is light orange for me. It just is.

Some music I would otherwise like isn’t an option. Bands like the foo fighters create an unbearable tv style static in my head with so many of their songs that I have to leave the room when my partner turns them on. Sometimes I have to turn certain hozier songs off if I don’t feel like wandering through scarlet caves and drowning in a pool of blood while I scream and reach for light.

Some stuff, like numbers having colors, is generally fun unless I’m trying to explain why we can’t use certain numbers in designs because they have the wrong “tone”. These are symptoms I’ve had since I can remember. It’s like living in at least two worlds at all times. Sometimes many more. It’s jarring. There’s what’s going on in front of my eyes, and what’s going on my mind due to what my eyes and ears are processing. I’ve been working with my psychologist to try and get a handle on being able to ground myself, because that’s how overwhelming it can get. In fact synesthesia was getting so overwhelming that it’s the main reason I went back to therapy. I think having CPTSD and schizoaffective disorder exacerbates the issue.

All this being said, I wouldn’t change what I have. If synesthesia left me it would feel like i was mentally blind, and it would be awful because I don’t know life any other way. I just want to be more honest about it.

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Do other people on the schizo spectrum find it easier to be with a group of people rather than being one on one? In a group I can pretend I’m watching t.v. or I can zone out. But being with one person requires me to pay attention and talk and try to act like I’m present and it’s draining and then I feel guilty for being weird.

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I made some things out of paper and light gels. I love transparent colors in simple shapes. It’s like I can breathe when I look at them. Like the jumbled mess in my mind has been organized and I feel like I’ve come up from being underwater. I keep carrying these around with me and putting them in whatever room I’m in. I think I need to make lots more.