#somehow i unintentionally made a really sick talking heads reference

[chipsoda]

the wood-davers incident

[isa-ly]

HOW TO EMOTION?

TW: mental health, therapy, repression, dissociation

Today’s just one of those days where I’m questioning whether or not I’ve completely lost the ability of functioning like a normal human and kind of feel like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz. You know, casual Friday. 

I know this is a written blog, but since I am also very much a woman of images and metaphors, I shall once again try and elaborate the issue of today’s post by making it into a well-known, kinda dead and yet very accurate pop culture meme:

I am not kidding, this is what I look and feel like in most of my therapy sessions. I’m pretty sure Kerstin would agree with me here, as the topic of feeling, or more like my inability of doing so, has been pretty much been the red string winding itself through my mental health journey so far. I mentioned it briefly in the last post, but I figured since today is just one of those pesky overthinking ones, I might just dive in a bit deeper and try to detangle my knotted thoughts into something a bit more coherent.

I’ve talked about this before to some of my closer friends and honestly, every time I tried to explain it, I just felt like an absolute mad psychopath. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I’m not, but it’s kind of hard to get people to understand what it feels like to just ... not feel. Okay, that sounds a little bit too dramatic, let me try and re-phrase it in a way that makes more sense.

I talked all about the metaphorical elephant and it’s even more metaphorical stake last time and this is kind of the extended version of that issue. The Stake Supreme, if you will. Basically, one of the earliest coping mechanisms that I picked up when I was very young, was to simply swallow down any feelings of anger, rage, sadness or hurt and pretend that they just weren’t there. Now, that’s not really something very unusual, as we generally live in a society that doesn’t leave a lot of room to healthily express or work through our emotions with the crushing weight of professional, educational, financial, social and personal pressure constantly weighing on our shoulders. So, again, I’m very well aware that me pretending that my bad feelings don’t exist, does in no way, shape or form make me a special snowflake.

It does, however, make me a very emotionally repressed and mentally inept snowflake. And that’s not really great either.

It took me many therapy sessions to figure out that what I had used as a necessary protection mechanism for all my childhood and young adulthood, had slowly but certainly turned into the root of pretty much all my current mental health issues. And here I was, thinking that mommy and daddy issues were just a try-hard-to-be-relatable brand that pseudo-depressed people on Twitter liked to use to excuse their shitty personalities. Oh no, am I one of them now? Alright, back to the point.

I’m just going to try to explain, both to myself and you, what happens in my head whenever the aforementioned process of ~A Feeling~ occurs. Where normally, I would experience something that elicits an emotion that I then experience and feel, lately (and by that I mean ever since some of the more severe of my mental issues started happening) I instead feel like the actual emotion gets stuck somewhere between having been produced and actually reaching my consciousness. In a way, to get back to that earlier visual, it feels like I’m the Tin Man. The feeling gets dropped into my empty tin chest and while I try my absolute hardest to actually feel it, it just sits there. Not really arriving, not really unfolding, just existing while remaining completely detached from me. And I continue to feel how you would imagine a man made out of tin and air would feel: hollow.

I’m trying really hard not to make another load of self-deprecating jokes here, as sharing and trying to explain this makes me beyond uncomfortable. Instead, I’m just going to keep going because that’s kind of the point of this blog. When I told my therapist what I typed up there just now, she explained to me that this strategy of processing (or lack thereof, actually), is commonly referred to as repression and dissociation. And that with my history of handling emotions (or, once again, lack thereof), it actually made quite a lot of sense for me to struggle with this.

She then went on to explain that one could imagine it like this: Whenever anything triggers an emotion to be formed (which, you know, happens quite a lot, since that’s kind of all that human brains do), my self-taught mechanism is to immediately replace it with a so called ‘non-feeling’. I know, that word seemed strange to me too in the beginning. What it means is that by having constantly invalidated and swallowed down my own feelings of anger and sadness through the course of my youth, I unintentionally created this perfect, well-oiled machine of repression that unquestioningly does its job without me even noticing. In a way, I somehow mastered the art of literally, fully and completely detaching myself from my emotions and simply viewing them as separate entities to my own mind.

Now, while that sounds like a sick villain superpower, I’m gonna be honest: It kind of fucking sucks. Especially on days like these, where old habits resurface and I once again find myself looking at my own emotions as if they were statistics on a computer, knowing that they are there, knowing that they exist within me, but for the life of me not being able to actually feel them.

That’s yet another thing I also learned in therapy. There are miles, literal continents, if not even multiverses, between rationally knowing you should feel something and actually feeling it. I’m not completely insane and oblivious, I very well know that I am capable of having emotions and that they are there and being produced by many funky chemicals working together in my brain. However, simply knowing this on an intellectual level is no where close to satisfactory if you cannot actually feel it too.

It’s like looking at ice cream, knowing that it’s there, seeing it with your own two eyes, remembering and being able to imagine the taste, the texture, the sweetness and yet never really actually being able to eat it. Never really feeling it melt it in your mouth. It remains an idea, a concept, close to smoke in thin air that you can very clearly see, and yet never really grasp.

And that, as you might be able to imagine (or even relate to, if you’ve experienced it before), is just not a lot of fun, to be quite frank. Emotional repression? Yeah, no, that one definitely gets a bad Yelp! review from me. Wouldn’t recommend. Zero stars out of five.

In addition to accidentally failing to process my own emotions (are you proud of me, mum?), there’s also the other half of the problem which is, as my therapist already mentioned, the dissociation. Now, I want to be clear here: While I’ve gotten quite a few medical diagnoses in my time in therapy, the actual condition of dissociation or dissociative disorder, which is actually a personality disorder, is not one that I ever received. The dissociation my therapist talked about, ergo the one I am experiencing, is more situational and linked to the repression. Funnily enough, it is literally happening at the current moment, while I’m writing this post.

Actually, it’s been there for every post I wrote. It is also there during almost every therapy session and whenever I attempt to talk to someone about my problems or feelings. If you ask me how I am and we get talking about my mental health, you can assume that I’ll be dissociating about two minutes into the conversation. Usually, it’s not something that is very noticeable. At least that’s what I like to believe, maybe it’s also super obvious, like my soul leaving my body, and people are simply confused or kind enough not to mention it. Who knows.

My therapist, however, did notice it, as she let me know after a few sessions, when I first tried to describe what dissociating felt like to me. “Oh, yeah, I can tell whenever it happens. I just thought I’d give you your space until you wanted to talk about it”, was what she had said. Oh, Kerstin. You’re a real keeper.

So, what does it feel like to dissociate? (I once again pretend that someone is asking so I don’t feel like I’m talking to myself about myself). It’s a little hard to explain but here’s what I have told some of the friends I have talked to about it before: Imagine from pretty much one second to the other, your entire head is filled with cotton, kind of like you’re really tired and exhausted and everything that you see or hear doesn’t really get through the thick wool that seems to have replaced your brain. Forming thoughts and staying in the moment gets harder with every minute that passes. There’s this weird pull at the back of your neck and the front of your forehead that kind of just wants you to close your eyes and drift away. Far away to somewhere where it’s quiet and cotton-y and there’s no one or nothing else around you.

It’s not just mental, it’s physical. It feels like your brain hit the shut down button without your consent, like it’s slowly closing the blinds as it gets darker and darker and you just want to fall asleep. Speaking seems to become almost painful, thinking coherent thoughts is close to impossible and following what others are saying is a million times harder all of a sudden. It’s like the world has gone out of focus and you’re trying to sharpen the lense again, to no success.

Actually, I think that a lot of people have experienced dissociative symptoms before. Not to play Dr. Freud here, but it happens quite a lot, for example during panic or anxiety attacks. Some of my friends have told me that it felt like they had suddenly left their body and were watching themselves as from across the room. That’s why often dissociating is also described as an out of body experience. Because in a way, it literally is one. 

As my therapist explained to me, and as I experience it too, it’s comparable to your brain throwing a metaphorical fuse because it’s in danger of short circuiting. My dad would be so proud if he saw me making electrician references (yes, he is a trained electrician, okay). Anyway, what I’m trying to say is: Often, when I’m exposed to emotions (and that includes talking or writing about them), my brain will run a little too hot like an old, wary car engine, and before it gets too close to exploding into a fiery death, it simply flips the switch and disconnects itself from the body and the emotions that are happening in it. Just like the repression, this is yet another safety mechanism that my brain came up with in reaction to me never really learning how to correctly process emotions. So, whenever some of those stronger feeling resurface or leak out, it tries to protect me from them by cutting the connection between the both of us.

In almost every way, it feels like I’m being locked out of my own head and can no longer really use my own brain. To someone who’s never felt that before, this might seem a little terrifying. And I agree that, objectively, it is. Knowing that the grey goo behind your skull has the power to shut out what in the ever-loving fuck is considered your conscious self, is a bit worrisome, to say the least. However, to me, it’s something that I have a) gotten very used to by now and b) in the moment don’t actually experience as something scary at all. I’m disconnected, remember?

Which is also why it’s sometimes very, very hard to get grounded again and find the way back into my own head. Like a bird that’s accidentally escaped its cage, proceeding to go fucking rogue in the living room, then crashing into a wall, all while trying to figure out what the fuck is happening while it’s on the verge of blacking out. I’ll often feel so dull and dizzy that all I really want to do is curl up and stare at a wall until eventually, my mind and body connect again and things are back to normal.

To kind of circle back to the whole theme of this post: This whole dissociation thing is very strongly connected to my tendency of emotional repression. It’s somewhat of a vicious cycle, which is why days like the one I’m having right now, can be a little tricky. It starts with me feeling empty and hollow, bim-bam-Tin-Man, and is usually followed with feelings of isolation and depression, since I cannot seem to get joy, satisfaction, or any emotion, really, out of anything. This then often leads to me trying to force some sort of emotion into myself, struggling to dig through my subconscious in hopes of finding something, anything, and eventually becoming even more frustrated. Aha! Frustration! That’s an emotion, right? It’s there! Can you feel it? I think you can, oh wow, there it is! Oh, wait, no ... no, now my head is getting heavy. Everything’s blurry. Is the feeling still there? Maybe. Who cares, just close your eyes now. So sleepy, hm ... floaty float.

Okay, sorry, that just turned into a weird combination of a badly written slam poem and a pretentious high school theater class rendition of some old play no one has ever heard of. I’ll just use the fact that I’m still dissociated as hell as an excuse for now. Wait a minute ... if I’m this spacey and zoned out right now, how am I even managing to write this post? Huh? Isa? Explain yourself!

Well, I haven’t been in therapy for nothing. It’s been over eight months of Kerstin and me figuring all of this out, finally putting a name and label to it and therefore understanding why it’s there and how it works. Which has helped me a great lot in actually handling it. That’s kind of the whole point of therapy after all, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong: These days where I feel repressed, empty and dissociated, can still be hard and they’re rarely ever fun. They honestly make me want to bash my head against a wall in hopes that that will make it go back to normal.

But since I don’t really favour having a concussion on top of feeling depressed and detached from my body, I have learned to use other counter-measurements to help the process of finding my balance again. Rebuilding that mojo, am I right? This post is already pretty long, so I won’t go into even more detail on all the different methods and mechanisms of bouncing back, but I’ll say this much: I spent a good portion of therapy trying to learn when to push and when to rest whenever I’m feeling dissociated. And yeah, it’s a fine line and I still haven’t fully figured out how to walk it without falling from one extreme into the other.

But take this blog, for example. I know that writing it, actively facing my problems and the very strong, repressed emotions connected to them, will make me dissociate like hell. A few months ago, that would have been reason enough for me to not do it and simply ignore it again. Now, however, after working with my therapist and on myself, I have learned how to push my own limits just far enough in order to, in this case, continue to write even though it feels like my brain is about to burst into a cotton explosion. It’s a give and take, a sort of push and pull I’m playing with my own mind and head. But as time progressed, I figured out the game plan a little better, I learned my own rules and the secret short cuts and cheating methods (because come on, who really plays fair, that’s for boring losers) and the resting time it takes for me to restore my strengths again.

So, today for example, I woke up as Mr. Tin Man, progressed to being a lost, numb and rogue dissociation-bird (man, I really gotta work on my metaphors, this is just getting worse by the minute) and then decided that the best way to counter-act all of it, would be to sit down and write my lovely new blog. Has it helped? A little, yeah. It took my mind off the right things, made some others a bit worse and intense but now, I feel a little more stable and like I managed to talk some sense back into my spiraling, detached brain.

Kerstin, please tell me you’re proud of me. Because as we all know, therapy is about impressing your therapist and not about getting better for your own sake. Pft, who needs that. What do we want? Validation! When do we want it? All the time, because we never got it as a child, so now it’s the only thing we crave in life!

Yikes.

Alright. So, here we are. Since I’m still feeling a little zoned out and dopey, I’m not fully sure if everything I wrote made complete sense. But hey, while this blog is for others to read should they feel like it, it’s still mainly there for me to sort my own racing thoughts before they can spiral out of control. And I think I managed to do that just now. And I know that that feels kind of nice.

Actually, I feel it too.

P.S.: I just had to. A little self-deprecation doesn’t hurt anyone.

[laufie]

here’s a fun story about a creepy dude/stalker i had. it was a strange situation at the time, and i realize in hindsight i should have been much more scared, but it’s been over 10 years so i can just laugh about it now. it doesn’t describe anything traumatic or graphic, but it’s quite eerie.

anyway, i was about 15 or 16 years old at the time, and it had been just over a year since i moved to canada from ukraine. i still used vk (russian equivalent of facebook) frequently to chat with friends, and had an inside joke in my bio about taking LSD. i wasn’t actually taking anything, as i said it was an inside joke.

out of nowhere, this russian dude sends me a pm about how if im really taking LSD i should be able to name some specific formula or dosage or something. i explained to him that it was an inside joke and i know next to nothing about the drug itself, and he laughed it off. we started talking because i noticed it said on his profile that he currently lived in new york, which was a place i’ve always dreamt of visiting. we ended up talking every day about random things, mostly his love of new york and the array of recreational drugs he does.

he didn’t seem dangerous. he never talked about heavy drugs like heroin or meth, and was heavily against them. he was russian of course, as he was in new york only temporarily, so i felt a sense of connection to him, since i was still overcoming the cultural shock of moving to canada. to my mind at that age he didn’t seem like he had any bad motive. he didn’t ask especially prying questions, he was always nice and well-spoken, and enjoyed philosophical discussion. he gave off a vibe of a trustworthy person, which is a note of positivity that would have persisted throughout this whole story...

had he not been 7 years older than me. an important detail that slipped through the cracks at the time - he was 22 when i was 15. i knew he was more mature than me, but as far as i remember, i never actually got to find out his age back then. in hindsight of course, aside from the glaring age difference, he did give off red flags. calling me much more mature than other girls my age was perhaps the most glaring one. at the time. and of course, the constant glorification of drugs.

mind you, this was more than 10 years ago. the internet was a different place at the time. there was no tumblr or twitter or adults that grew up using the internet to tell me to be careful as a minor. people did whatever they wanted to and got away with it. so naturally, i didn’t catch any of the red flags, neither was i even on the lookout for them in the first place.

skip forward nearly a year, my mom knows a lot about this guy, since i’m quite open with her about, well, everything. my mom has always been my best friend. that summer we were planning a 3 month long trip home, to ukraine. him and i thought it would be cool to met up, since by now he was back home in russia. for reference, ukraine is to the far left side of russia, whereas this guy lived on the polar opposite side, on a piece of russian land that is right above japan. he would have to fly across the entire russia to see me. russia. you know, that massive thing? he was perfectly fine with it. i convinced my mom to let me meet him, and she said only if he stays at our place. naturally.

he came for only a couple days. our apartment back home is quite small so with my mom and constant family guests, there was always a pair of eyes on him. it got a little bit strange eventually. he was touchy, but not in an inappropriate way at all. i’m sure it’s not due to his personal decency, and rather because he would most definitely get caught. he would try to hold my hand, or brush my hair off my face, pat my head. things like that. it didn’t go beyond that. but to me, at the time, it was a grown adult man doing it to me, which gave me an unsettling anxious feeling.

on his last day he wanted to go out because he wanted me to try a drug that he had been talking about the entire time i’ve known him. i would prefer not to go into what it is, but it has a heavy hallucinogenic effect that lasts for a very, very long time. naturally he told my mom he just wanted me to show him around, and i was in on the lie. i was curious. my mom was always very strict with coming back home right on time, so we promised her we will be home by 10 pm.

we went out at around 5. and it lasted longer than he promised. way longer. we came home at 3 am. despite the hallucinations being quite heavy and mind-boggling, the effect of the drug didn’t make me feel “out of it”. my perception of time and space was obviously very skewed, but i knew who i was and where i was, and what was happening around me. he didn’t try anything. there wasn’t even as much as an attempt. except, well, when i realized what time it was i rushed home so fast that i was not going to stop for anything. so i’m not sure. maybe the night wasn’t over in his mind yet, but it was in mine. i felt bad for my poor mother who had been worried sick since 10 pm. it was pitch black outside so i went home through a well-lit road that has a lot of cars. now that i think about it, i may have unintentionally saved myself from things getting worse.

i only stopped when we were outside my apartment, because i wanted to focus as much as i could before going in. he sat down on the bench and beckoned me to sit next to him. and he kissed me. i dont remember how exactly it happened but it just kind of did. i went along with it and didn’t say anything after, i went inside the apartment building like nothing happened. it was odd. i didn’t know what it meant, but i also didn’t care, because i wanted to see my mom as soon as i could, ad it was the only thing on my mind.

one look in my eyes and she knew everything. she told me to go to bed. i don’t know what she told him. i’m not sure she said anything. the next morning she asked me if anything happened. i assured her that i was safe. and then he was gone. she didn’t say anything to him. she just dropped him off to make sure he actually left.

after that we didn’t really talk nearly as much. we tried to keep in contact but honestly, i wasn’t as drawn to him anymore. eventually, out of nowhere, he posted some really mean and rude comments under a bunch of my pictures, and i ended up deleting him.

now for the creepiest part. nearly 4 years later we plan another trip to ukraine to visit family. i have some medical conditions with my spine that i needed to get very uncomfortable and painful massages for. my health is one of the main reasons why we took trips back home often. one day about a week or so into my trip i was leaving my apartment to get into a taxi to go to one of those massage appointments. i exit the building and there he was. sitting on the bench and just looking at me. 4 years later. not a word. across russia.

even though it was bright afternoon and a lot of people were out, i was overcome with dread. i awkwardly told him “sorry, i have to go somewhere” and rushed to get into the taxi. he didn’t say anything, just kept looking. on my way back from the massage i called one of my close old friends that worked in the UKR special forces. my mom wasn’t home and i did not feel safe returning. he picked me up and drove me home, and came in with me, all the way into the apartment, the guy wasn’t there anymore. i made my friend coffee and told him about this guy. he promised to drive by once in a while to make sure he isnt hanging out here at odd hours.

later that day at around 8 pm i got a text from an unknown number. “so, are you scared of me now?”.

i closed all my blinds and curtains, locked both entrance doors, and told my female friends not to come visit me, because he knew their faces. yes, i was scared. i was really scared. he didnt say a word to me in 4 years, somehow found out about my trip and just showed up. i wasn’t sure if i wanted to cry or scream. i knew i had to get rid of him somehow. so i responded, making up a story about being really sick and needing constant treatment, and that i made plans with all my friends to leave tonight to go to another city for 3 weeks.

he was angry with me and very upset. he expected a happy reunion i guess. i was very polite to him and apologized, saying i felt bad he traveled all this way only to be told this. he started writing really cryptic things. “i know a secret how to cure any illness of yours, you don’t need doctors, it’s like a code, you plug it in and you become anything”. “i came here to cure you because you’re the only person it will work on”. “i went to your page to ask your friends if your plans are true, but you have them hidden. why don’t you trust me anymore?”

among this he called me. over and over. between every message, a missed call i refused to pick up. eventually i broke down and asked him why is he acting like this. to which he said “because you are the only woman in the world i will ever be able to love this much”. i told him i was with someone and have been for 2 years, and to leave me alone. after a handful more cryptic messages, he stopped for a while. and ended it in a plea to forgive him. i didn’t respond to anything beyond the confession.

thankfully i had no contact with him since then, and as far as i know there have been no attempts from him. however, i don’t use russian social media anymore, and none of them are linked to any of my active “american” accounts, so to speak. so there is no way for him to find me. if you ever wondered why i never make my real name public and always go under aliases, this is largely why.

[koganphrancis]

Ian Used To Do Better Stuff With Vans OR There’s Another Hour Of My Life I Won’t Get Back

This episode was dumb dumb dumb as fuck-and even more pointless than that.  The ONLY redeeming quality in it was that it was completely Terror-free.  Read on, if you dare.  My recap of Season H8 Episode Dear God Why Isn’t It Over Yet-or 11, if you want to keep it short.

As usual, I’ll get the others out of the way as quickly as I possibly can. 

Carl’s still illegally under-aged married, and this week he tells Kasammi, “I don’t think there’s any skin left on my dick.”  Yeah, they made that point last year when they had to keep taking it off after his misguided circumcision.  Not that the show is referring to THAT, of course.  They refuse to acknowledge any plot point that has gone before.  He and Kas take a wild tour through his before the show started past and I have no idea what the point is-is it to show us she’s truly insane because none of the horrors of life on the mean streets scare her?  Or to show us that Generation Z doesn’t experience reality because their whole lives have been instantly posted on screens of electronic devices?  I don’t know and I don’t care-quit trying to be fake deep, Shameless, if you even are.  I can’t tell.  The only (maybe) pertinent point of Carl’s story this week is he tells Kasammi after her hundredth shit fit on the subject that he won’t go back to military school and in the previews for next week it looks like the family (or at least Frank) will try to help him sneak away to do just that.  Yawn.

Debbie loses three toes-Frank chops them off for her.  Before that, Debbie is shown signing her 16 year old self out of the hospital-WHAT?  She’d need a parent or guardian for that.  Anyway, apparently Debbie’s not on any kind of welfare or insurance.  And doesn’t know that Ian could’ve gotten the money for her expensive surgery to attempt to save the toes by going down on the old couple just twice.  What is it with this show and cutting off toes?  They’ve done this before with the body they got to stand in for Aunt Ginger.  I’m so sick of the recycled plot points!

Speaking of which-Snore’s old man is out of prison so Lip gets him to fight him to violate his parole and send him back-did this new writer guy not see Yevgeny’s christening episode or is he just really into plagiarism?  It was such a fizzle to a going nowhere story to begin with.  I think the guy playing Snore’s version of Terry even had some of the same lines but I’m too lazy to rewatch and try to catch them.  If we were supposed to hate this guy like we hate Terry, it didn’t work.  And Lip was no Mickey showing up to defend people that mean something to him either-it was all a weak as fuck imitation.  And it was odd that Lip chose to call the guy out for “beating women” when he lets himself get beaten when he has sex with Eddy.  Who the fuck is he to judge?  Maybe ten year old Snore didn’t get that her parents were having consensual rough sex that got too violent and ended in death-but the show’s not that deep.

Snore’s telling of her mother’s death once again played like someone complaining about not getting the last bottle of nail polish in their favorite shade at Walgreens or something.  If she’s been so traumatized that she can’t put any emotion into the horrific memories that’s fine, but then I would argue that she wouldn’t be terrified of her dad coming after her either.  Snore just can’t emote OR imagine what it would be like to be in that setting, I’m sorry.  

And here’s what had me super pissed-Snore tells Lip she was 10 when her mom was killed in front of witnesses (Snore and her brother-she specifically says they both testified against him) and her dad’s already out on parole?  We don’t know how old Snore is now, but surely no older than 25 (and probably not even that old, but whatever), so the show is saying her dad got out in 15 years max, which is the time Mickey was sentenced to for NOT killing Sammi?  Fuck off.  

Also, why would the cops not even consider the father’s side of the story that Lip instigated the fight?  Lip has Eddy’s niece record the fight on his phone, and after it’s over he goes over to her and asks her how it looks or whatever, and she says Snore’s father threw the first punch.  Wouldn’t the cops question why a little girl was filming two men on a porch BEFORE a fight started?  Snore’s father must have Mickey’s public defender for a lawyer.  Fucking show should’ve shocked us all by having Lip get locked up for premeditated assault.  

Fiona meets with a lawyer (Janice from Friends, but she’s not as funny in this, sadly) and as soon as she said Fiona could lose both the apartment building and the Gallagher house I knew that storyline had jumped the shark and somehow next week all will be miraculously fixed-no way will the Gallaghers ever lose the house, that’s another plot point that’s been done to death.  At first I was thinking they’ll either come up with some fortuitous traffic camera footage showing that the guy jumped off the roof intentionally, or that Hugh Laurie would show up in a cameo as Dr. House and say that if a man “fell” off a roof that high, he’d have a hell of a lot more damage than one broken ankle, but no, the show isn’t going to even get that clever-they’re just gonna have the family cave and be willing to settle with Fiona if they get custody of her dog that suddenly she’s so worried about in this week’s episode.  She’s never shown that level of concern for any of her siblings.  

Frank has a tedious, boring couple of scenes about his “retirement plan”-he has a baggie of 3 stolen Social Security cards and anyone can see a mile off that the cards would’ve just been replaced by their original owners-they’re not like a set of fingerprints and you only get one for life and if you lose it someone else has your entire identity.  THEN they set up next week’s recycled/stolen plot to have Liam and Frank rip off Liam’s rich friend’s family just like Carl and Frank ripped off Liam and Carl’s gay foster dads-it didn’t work then, it won’t work now (and why didn’t Frank do hard time for that grand theft?).  

Svetlana and Vee and Kevin have a scene at a fancy (but not as fancy as the show was trying to tell us it was) bar that was a pathetic echo of both Ian and Mickey’s hotel bar scam AND of how funny the show used to be able to be.  Later Svet goes to humble herself to the other hand whore to find out how she snagged a rich fiance and discovers that the dude she’s about to marry is senile as fuck and Svet is going to step in to replace her, which is what I predicted the first time the hand whore showed up.  I will give Shameless credit for making me laugh unintentionally-since I’ve been picturing the “old rich dude” Svet was going to wind up with as John Wells’ fantasy version of himself, seeing the old dude in an adult diaper and thinking he’s Wells was very satisfying.  

Do I finally get to Ian now?  Do I have to talk about his bullshit?  There’s a scene of him in bed alone while the newlyweds are having sex in the same room, signalling that he’d rather be there than at Terror’s house, LOL.  Then it’s the next morning and he goes down to breakfast with his Bible in hand, but no pills.  Is that supposed to be significant?  We may never know...

He gets to the “Church Of Gay Jesus” and there’s so many “fans” there it’s like Beatles or One Direction footage.  The minister guy gets through the crowd to him with a big young guy and tells Ian the rando is “Bic” and he wants to help (I didn’t know the guy’s name till I saw it in the closing credits, I really thought his name was “Dick” and they were making a “big dick” joke, but no, I guess they were making a “Bic lighter” joke instead).  Ian and Bic instantly have more chemistry than Ian and Terror but it’s unintentional I’m sure-the actor playing Bic probably has taken acting classes and knows to look an acting partner in the eye, instantly making him more engaged than Terror’s ever been in a scene.  

The minister guy tells Ian, “Your life is no longer your own.”  Which first of all, I’m just not buying that all these youths have just been waiting for a messiah to show up and they’ll follow him anywhere, and secondly why was being with Mickey not Ian anymore, but he’ll give away his entire life for strangers?  Fuck you, Shameless.  (and speaking of his entire life, does he never have to go to work anymore?  Also, Fiona turned him down when he asked for a ride to the church-for once she had a good reason, that she had to pick up Debbie-but why is the show acting like Fi does things for him all of the sudden?  She DID give him a ride last week, and that was very OOC of her.)

There’s a kid trying to get Ian’s attention-he needs help getting away from his parents who have hired men to get him back.  At some point in the proceedings some guys jump out of a van and drag the kid into it.  Ian runs to the front of the van before it can pull away and goes all Chris Pratt in Jurassic Park, holding up his arms and not letting it advance.  The unintentional humor here amused me no end.  Then Ian lays down in front of the van and I actually said aloud to my TV, “Just run him over.”  I’m that done with this storyline and this show-just kill Ian off at this point, it’d be a mercy.  

Ian’s there on the ground with his arms thrown up over his head (not that the driver could even see him down there, right in front of the van) and we see that this time Shameless didn’t bother covering up Cam’s real life Sailor Moon tattoo.  SO LAZY.  All the other kids lay down around the van too so it can’t go anywhere  The 3 dudes in the van give up and let the kid get out.

The kid is 14 and the minister guy tries to talk sense into Ian, saying the parents have a legal right to their kid and they, more specifically Ian, can’t keep the kid.  Ian agrees to talk to the kid’s dad who tells him the parents aren’t bigots, they don’t care that their son’s not heterosexual, but he’s been living on the streets, doing drugs, and prostituting himself.  Then the father says, “We believe he may be mentally ill,” and Cameron (and yes, I mean Cameron, not Ian) makes a reaction face to that, but what it means, again, nobody knows.

Ian goes to talk to the kid where they have him hidden away in the Mickey Wedding Venue basement.  Ian tells him what the father told him, and the kid says they keep bringing him to a church (is that Ian’s trigger?  Churches? and if so, why?), plus they have him see shrinks who have put him on meds that knock him on his ass and he can’t get an erection.  He adds, “That’s what they really want-so I can’t have sex with another boy, you know?  Ever.”  Ian says, “Well you can’t stay here.  You have to find someplace where you can be safe, where you can be yourself.”  WHAT?  I don’t understand.  For one thing, isn’t that LITERALLY TERROR’S JOB?  To take runaways and provide them with a safe place to stay and a plan to get their lives back on terms that they can live with?  I don’t ever want to have to side with Terror, but this episode is basically saying that Terror’s way is right and Ian’s way is oh so wrong and misguided.  What the fuck?  Secondly, isn’t that what Ian THINKS he’s doing?  Why is he telling the kid HE has to find someplace safe?  Ian has literally been in this kid’s shoes-he knows there’s no safe places for someone even younger than he was when he got back from the army, living on the streets.  Anyway, after Ian’s lines the kid says, “Will you help me?” but Ian doesn’t answer one way or the other.  

I totally didn’t get this scene-why the writer had Ian say nothing.  I could see if it was to show Ian was getting more and more manic and now is on the downside of that and is becoming too depressed to speak to people-but then where’s his energy for doing anything coming from, plus the story isn’t SAYING he’s manic or depressed, and Cam and John Wells said Ian’s storyline is bold, audacious, great, etc and I don’t think either of them would’ve said those things if the payoff is just going to be that Ian needed his meds adjusted.  And why does Ian maybe believe what the kid is saying and not the dad?  Again, this IS Ian’s story!  Mentally ill, unable to help himself, and unwilling to take his pills!  I wondered why Ian didn’t at least give him a version of the Monica “you don’t have to change for them” speech, or his own “you don’t have to fix me because I’m not broken” speech or why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t he tell the kid, “I’ve been exactly where you are-on meds that were supposed to help but made me feel like crap plus I couldn’t get it up-but that’s because they take time-you need to take them to get stable and then you’ll find what works for you and have no problems having sex again (since apparently Ian’s never had an issue since beating Mickey up at the dugouts).”  AND the kid’s only 14-does Ian maybe want to advise him that feeling like he needs to be having sex that young to the point where he’s willing to run away and do it with anyone might be part of his symptoms?  

Ian COULD be so helpful here, but no.  At this point he is literally putting at risk kids at even greater risk.  

Later Rando Bic shows Ian that the van’s back behind the church.  Ian says, “Get the kid,” like he’s The Penguin and Bic’s his trusty lieutenant.  It was so dumb.  The kid is used as bait, and when the 3 guys jump out of the van Ian pops up behind the group and starts yelling.  “My god’s a faggot!  My god’s a dyke!  My god is trans, a junkie, a whore!’  Then the van blows up.  “We will not be victims!”  

What the hell is he on about?  That’s a serious question.  None of this is making sense.  God isn’t human, so Ian giving the Christian god human attributes makes no sense.  “We won’t be victims” of WHAT?  Gay conversion?  This kid’s dad said he isn’t trying to convert his gay son.  What is all the yelling and the explosion about?  And to get back to the explosion for a moment: That had to be Ian’s brilliant plan, and it just makes me miss Mickey talking him down from stupid shit like that all the more.  Bic is the one that actually lights the fire (get it?  BIC?) but how did they even know that all 3 guys would get out of the van this time?  Based on the first failed attempt to drive off with the kid, wouldn’t it make more sense that one of the guys would stay at the wheel and keep the van running and they’d take off the minute they shoved the kid inside before all of Ian’s disciples could block it again?   Before I rewatched the scene this morning I actually wondered if the story is going to be Ian is guilty of killing one of the guys, but then I saw it again and all 3 did get out-but I still don’t think Bic could’ve seen them from where he snuck around to light it up.  And I bet we don’t see Bic again-he was randomly thrown in because of course Terror wouldn’t have helped Ian carry out any plan that wasn’t his own.  But it’s funny that they couldn’t have him in the episode because everyone, even the shitty writers, know there’s no way Terror could talk Ian out of it like Mickey would be able to.   

In the scenes for next week, Terror shows up and asks, “Is Ian around?” and Debbie answers, “He’s not here.”  Terror says, “There’s a warrant out for his arrest.”  Wouldn’t the cops have gone to Ian’s house FIRST?  Where would they have even found Terror to be asking about Ian since Ian doesn’t officially work for the Youth Center or the Church of Gay Jesus.  More lazy writing, can’t wait for the whimpering end to this crapfest of a season.  

[thisismygrief-blog]

Day 40

My brother has spoken a lot about being angry since my mom’s death a few weeks ago—angry that our mother died, even though he had no one specific to direct his anger toward. He was just mad that it happened.

I’m devastated my mom died, but I’m not angry—I don’t think—about that fact. I would need someone to be angry at, and I don’t really believe in god so I can’t be mad at some all-powerful being. I’m certainly not mad at my mom. I’m not mad at the doctors or nurses, who maybe could have done better, but also were trapped in a ridiculous healthcare system. I’m not even really mad at the system, because it’s such a giant machine that it makes sense it would be so difficult to change. The nonsensicality of my mom’s death from cancer somehow makes sense, and so I don’t know that my anger is about that.

But I am angry.

I’m just angry at the people around me, and at all they do—or don’t do—following my mom’s death, and when faced with my grief.

I’m angry at how isolated I feel. So I’m somewhat angry at myself for putting myself in a position to be so isolated, but I think I’m more angry at everyone else.

I’m angry at everyone who says, “You’re in my thoughts.” Am I really? Really? I find that hard to believe. Because if I were in your thoughts, in any real way, you’d do something. You’d reach out on your own, and not only in response to my call for help. And you’d reach out with more than just a platitude. “You’re in my thoughts” really means, “You’ve forced your way into my thoughts in this moment, via your sad Facebook update, and this sentence I comment now lets me get your sadness out of my system and I won’t actually have to think about you again.”

I’m angry at everyone who says, “Know that I care deeply about you.” I’d know you care deeply if you did something to show me you care deeply—and just saying the words does nothing. I’m angry that you’re trying so hard to pretend you care, and I’m angry that your platitude is more about you—letting yourself feel that you’re doing something kind and good by letting me know you care—than about actually doing something kind and good for me.

I’m angry that when I obliquely reference my needs—I need a fucking hug, you guys, or a literal shoulder to cry on—that people just cock their heads, flash a sad smile, and say, “Aw, yeah.” All the advice says to listen to a grieving person, but letting someone talk at you isn’t listening. Listening—true, active listening—involves responding in some way. Like with that fucking hug.

And then I’m angry that when I specifically request what I need, that request goes unheeded. I’m angry that I have to still tell coworkers my mom died, when a month ago I asked my boss to let everyone know so that I wouldn’t have to answer the unintentionally devastating “How is your mom doing?” question any more. I started falling for someone this spring and I’m angry that I specifically asked him to spend my first motherless birthday with me, explained why the request was so important to me and why it was so difficult for me to be vulnerable in asking, and begged that if the answer was no, he couldn’t, then to please tell me quickly so I could move on from the disappointment—and his only response to my lengthy soul-baring request was, “I’ll see what I can do.” And then…nothing. I’m angry that when, a month later, I told him that he broke my heart with his lack of acknowledgement and empathy, he responded with, “I feel terrible and I don’t know how to fix it.” I’m angry that the focus was on how he felt, with still no acknowledgement of my pain or that there were still three weeks until my birthday and he could fix things by honoring my original request. I’m angry I had to beg in the first place. I’m angry that he made me feel we were closer than we ultimately ended up being; I’m angry that I believed him. 

I’m angry at broken social contracts.

I’m furious that one brother’s workplace sent to the memorial a beautiful, massive floral arrangement and that another brother’s workplace asked where they could donate in my mom’s name—but that my office didn’t so much as circulate a condolence card. I’m angry that all my friends knew when my mom’s memorial service would take place, but only two asked for details, and none showed up. I’m even more angry no one sent me a text message on the day of my memorial, and I’m angry that, when my father turned to me, eyes so sad, at the service and asked, “Are any of your friends coming?” all I could say in response was, “No—I guess I don’t really have any close friends anymore.”

I’m angry that my mother died on a Friday and by Sunday my boss had sent me an email full of work to complete before I officially returned to the office a week later. I’m angry that when I did show up at work, there wasn’t any kind token on my desk to acknowledge why I’d been absent for so long. I’m angry that when my mom got sick, I was told to take off as much time as I needed and that my boss would handle getting my projects assigned and completed—but asking for one full day after getting back to my apartment, so I could be in my own space for twenty-four hours, for the first time in weeks, was too onerous a request. And I’m angry that the most she did was tread water on projects so they’d be waiting for me—critically nearing or behind original deadlines—when I returned.  

I’m angry at everyone who says, “I’m here if you need someone to talk to,” or “Let me know if I can help,” when I want them to just find a way to help. Take me out for a drink. Invite me to a movie. Come over with dinner. Help me wash my dishes. Spend time with me.

I’m angry at all the passivity surrounding my grief. That people expect me to tell them what to do, when I can barely muster the energy to remind myself that it’s been a few days and maybe I should take a shower. I’m angry that the people I love can’t see how much I need them—even when I explicitly tell them I need them!—and that they’re more concerned with letting themselves off the hook than actually doing a single concrete thing.

I’m angry at how alone I feel, and angry that I feel that way because I actually am alone. And that everyone who chimes in with, “You’re not alone!” is only reinforcing that I am. Because where the fuck are you.

So maybe I really am angry at myself, then. Because these are the people I’ve chosen to surround myself with. Because I’ve placed my life’s focus on my job and not on personal relationships. And because the few people I have focused my love onto don’t seem to be worthy of that love, or at least don’t seem to be stepping up when I have nothing to give but just need them desperately.

No one can replace my mom, and I don’t need anyone to try and do that. But I do need other people to help take care of me now that the person who would always take care of me is gone. And I’m angry that no one is stepping up.

But more than being angry…I’m hurt. I’m devastatingly, heartbreakingly hurt that every encounter seems to show me that, to everyone I know, I’m not worth taking care of in any active, I-need-to-expend-energy-to-help-you way. Because I can’t do this alone, I know I can’t. But I’ve never, ever felt more alone in my entire life, and no one is rushing to prove me wrong.

And that makes me so, so angry.