Anxious Dungeon Mistress In Training

Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it.
— Judy Blume

Starting new things can be terrifying for most people, anxiety turns that up to 100. However after months of listening to play podcasts like The Adventure Zone, Roll to Fail, The Broadswords, and ExQueerience Points I got one of my friends to listen to one. She loved it, got another of her friends, and now we’re starting our own D&D campaign.

Forest Fires of the Mind

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
-Fredrich Nietzsche

Does anyone else with anxiety and depression ever feel like their life has become the embodiment of this Nietzsche quote? I hope it’s not just me.

You Mean, You Can’t Read My Mind

Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people…but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us.
– Steve Maraboli

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
– Carrie Fisher

I don’t get resentment. I can’t help but feel it but at the same time, I realize it’s pointless. It’s the results of expectations not being met and a lack of communication. Both of these things I’m guilty of so really the only person to blame is myself. 

What I Still Need to Remind Myself of After 32 Years

And finally this question, the mystery of who’s story it will be. Of who draws the curtain. Who is it that chooses our steps in the dance? Who drives us mad? Lashes us with whips and crowns us with victory when we survive the impossible? Who is it, that does all of these things?

Who honors those we love for the very life we live? Who sends monsters to kill us, and at the same time sings that we will never die? Who teaches us what’s real and how to laugh at lies? Who decides why we live and what we’ll die to defend? Who chains us? And Who holds the key that can set us free… It’s You. You have all the weapons you need. Now Fight!

-Sweet Pea from Suckerpunch

This post was inspired after reading this one by Justin McElroy.

The Great Detangling of Grief

In the eye of a hurricane
There is quiet
For just a moment
A yellow sky

-“Hurricane” from Hamilton

It took me three days to start writing this post. I kept stopping myself either consciously or unconsciously because I’m in a place where my anxiety is winning. It keeps whispering that no one wants to read another post from me talking about my pitiful struggles and that the world is shit so shut up and get to work. I mean I know it’s only partially wrong. I can’t help anyone if I’m drowning. “Put on your mask before helping anyone else”, right? If me talking about this helps one person not feel alone then it’s worth it. If it helps me feel better that should also be worth it but hey baby steps.

Let’s Try Something New

Poetry is an act of peace.
–Pablo Neruda

Sorry I went quiet for a month. Life got a little… crazy. But here’s something a little different to make up for it.

Ramble

… Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
–  Reinhold Niebuhr

I used to be a pretty good planner. I could organize outings with my friends at least once a month with some or every weekend with others. I’m not 100% sure what changed in the last year but it has. I’ve gone from being a Remembrall to needing one, I keep saying I’ll plan something and either forget or it’s so very far out. All this to say at some point I’ve fallen into depression again.

Let Your Pride Flag Fly

All of us who are openly gay are living and writing the history of our movement. We are no more – and no less – heroic than the suffragists and abolitionists of the 19th century; and the labor organizers, Freedom Riders, Stonewall demonstrators, and environmentalists of the 20th century. We are ordinary people, living our lives, and trying as civil-rights activist Dorothy Cotton said, to ‘fix what ain’t right’ in our society.
-Senator Tammy Baldwin

Remember when I challenged myself to do one thing that scares me a week? That’s not going very well so I’m going to modify it a little since recent weeks have been high on anxiety as I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone more. I’m going to write on here more as this happens. Writing out what I’m thinking and feeling helps me to process it when I don’t feel like I can talk to any one person about it. I don’t usually because well it scares me. I feel like I’m whining because there are so many worse things in the world than whatever is wrong with me. I hope by writing about it helps to break that idea. So here goes. 

Emotional Forces

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
-Buddha

You must unlearn what you have learned.
-Yoda

So like many white-collar workers, we have to create a Development Plan, part of mine was raiding some soft skill training to fill empty time. The first course I took was on emotional intelligence. One of the parts that stuck with me is needing to balance emotional intelligence with intellect. WOW, this sounds boring. Are you still reading? Please still be reading, I promise there’s Star Wars talk ahead.

Anxiety and Forgiveness

I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, everyday, whenever you remember a shortcoming, a flaw, you have to tell yourself “That’s just fine”. You have to forgive yourself so much, until you don’t even see those things anymore. Because that’s what love is like.
― C. JoyBell C.

So I missed reading. I’ve been writing so much that I’ve been abstaining from reading fiction out of fear of losing the voices of my characters. Then I had a brainwave to give nonfiction a shot and it’s been going great. I plugged my way through Ghostland by Colin Dickey. (Which is highly recommend, it’s a great wealth of history and thought-provoking topics.) This week I started Smoke Gets In Your Eyes And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. I expected gallows humor, insider insight into the death industry, and the like. What I didn’t expect was for it to open a can of worms of introspection for me.