We need to change the social structure

of what it is acceptable for women to say.

Do you know how cultural standards get put into place? Our monkey brains just process what is happening around us and without even thinking about it we learn and accept what the role of everyone is. We absorb a lot of that stuff on TV, in movies, on the internet and of course in observing the interactions around us. We mimick each other and these roles for people just get drilled deeper and deeper into our heads. And we never even think about it.

I was raised by a bitch. I say this with love and someday I will share my mother and her strength with you. But while it wasn’t always enjoyable it taught me several things.

If you don’t like something Don’t Put Up With It.

But you see that isn’t the acceptable role for women. If you won’t put up with it, you are labeled a bitch. Not putting up with it doesn’t fit the social role of women today.

Women are consistently reinforced in roles that are submissive and told that we are connectors, cultivators, supporters and that we make everyone FEEL better. That is what we are told our strength is. Go to a diversity leadership seminar – that’s what they will say.

Do you know WHY we have to create such elaborate processes for sexual harassment? Because the ENTIRE rest of society is putting women in the role of ‘shut up and just accept it.’ Because the society has told men that its OK to treat a woman as an object to be touched or casually sexualized. That’s their role.

Imagine if society was different. What if the role that women fill included an immediate response of “get your hands off me and keep them off.” or “Don’t talk like that to me again.” Today, a man saying that does not feel incongruous. A woman doing it is a bitch.

Imagine if women didn’t feel even slightly odd or worried about marching into HR and creating a report that could get someone fired because there was no predisposition that suggested that this was NOT the role of connector and a supporter. What if there wasn’t even a whiff of possibility of her own culpability in just being a woman who was present at the time of the incident of her own harassment?

If we changed the acceptable role of women and men – we would stop A LOT of this Creeper behavior in its tracks. Most of it rolls along because men get no immediate resistance. Because women have been socialized to internally cringe, find socially acceptable ways to avoid, to wait until its many layers beyond disgusting to even consider filing a complaint.

The numberless times that women don’t even do more than half laugh and create an awkward pause when some idiot says something creepy is perpetuating the problem, teaching creepers that their ridiculous behavior is normal. And the reason that we do that is because society has taught us to shut up and not make waves. And breaking out of a socialized role is deeply hard. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the particular path of that woman’s life which may add even more barriers to her resistance.

Its a self perpetuating cycle.

Well, I for one, intend to just be the fucking bitch. The rest of the world can just get used to it. Its awkward, its uncomfortable and its unfair. But creepers… fuck em. I’m taking them down as I see them. No prisoners.

Maybe by next generation my bitchiness can be the norm. And no one will think women are being a bitch because they don’t accept it when their boss calls them darling, their coworker asks if they plan to get laid tonight and the guy at the bar tries to give an unwanted massage.

Maybe because its normal to call a man on his creeper behavior we will have fewer creepers in the following generation.

I have a dream of no creepy.

Today the Sun Shines

The Ick is has gone into remission. The Stillness is not in sight.

I have already vacuumed and broken said vacuum. But instead of making that into an epic tragedy in three parts I have decided that it will be a problem for tomorrow and today I will finish the list of tasks.

Today will be another day of timer productivity. I will be a busy happy beaver.

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“You Dress Too Young”

Someone decided that when you are an adult, you are no longer allowed to be frivolous joyful or silly. Such things are for the young. Who decided this???

Then the Judgy Asshats took it a step further and summarily included bright colors, tight clothes, revealing tops, and edgy outfits in the “Too Young” category.

If you feel good in clothing that is predominantly worn by young women, then dammit, wear it! If you love bright colors, glitter and random feathers flaunt that stuff! You want to wear your Star Wars Lightsaber – go for it!

There is no such thing as “too young” or “she’s trying to recapture her youth”. Fuck that view and the backwards ass it rode in on.

If you enjoy wearing the current fads and you feel good in them, then flash that shit around and ignore every small minded bitch who comments behind your back or to your face. Fashion is fun, and the funkier it is the more fun it is.

There is an AMAZING bit of film on 5 women whose average age is 80. They understand. If you don’t, go watch them.

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You might have decided from this post that I am walking around in some wild and wonderful outfits. Alas, this is not the case. My tastes tend toward the conservative and my depression depletes the energy it takes to look fabulous. But I do enjoy glitter, blue nail polish and am constantly considering dying my hair blue.

I do have a 50 something friend who has the lithe body of reminiscent of a teenager. She looks 15 years younger than she is. She works hard at it and she wears clothes and styles that highlight it. And every jealous bitch out there tells her she is dressing too young. Its all about jealousy not about reality.

Living in the Abyss

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I describe living with depression as living in an abyss.

I am at the bottom of a very deep hole, its dark, the sides are very hard to climb and in the middle of the bottom of the hole is a horrible black lake.

Because Depression is not a static condition, where I am in the Abyss describes where I am in the mental illness.

Sometimes I am underwater in the middle middle of a black lake at the bottom of by Abyss. I spent nearly two years in bed without a job and this eventually turned into homelessness. I was underwater during most of that time.

And sometimes I’m on the shore of the lake unable to muster the energy to try climbing the walls. When I first got a job while homeless, this is how I felt.

And sometimes, most of the time these days, I’m climbing up the walls toward the surface. For the last year, I have been trying to figure out a system to get the fuck out of the hole. Or at least spend more time near the top, where there is at least some light.

Sometimes I get to the edge of the surface. I can see grand vistas of normal life before I slip back in. Sometimes these moments only last for a few hours, recently they have lasted for a few days.

I dream of getting out of the Abyss and walking away from the hole. Too far away to fall back in. This is probably a fairytale, but I dream of it anyway.

I always believed in you.

In a particular future.

I hadn’t met you.

I just knew you were part of the sequence of my life.

But the moments kept slipping away.

And the time never arrived.

Fate never sought out our meeting.

And I never looked.

And then the doubts began to echo in silent places.

Uncertainty slipped out of the future,

And into the my life.

Denial of doubt began screaming,

Hiding in the denial of the belief.

But the mobius loop of denial eventually broke.

And now my fated future is recognized as an illusion.

Now that future is merely a world visited and not lived in.

Now my escape is fantasizing about you,

A man who never came.

Because he was never supposed to.

Presidential Material

When faced with the decision about how to cast my vote, I look at it the way I looked at hiring an employee. First I have define what experiences and abilities are needed to be successful at the job.

Then I look at what I want them to accomplish in the position.

Beyond their political stance – I want the person I vote for to have certain character traits and abilities that make them a good President.

The President should consider the well being of the country in the long term as paramount over the considerations of the next election cycle.
The President should have a firm plan of their own vision for the country. Those ideas should be the result of processed thought and education and not vague generalizations. They should have a serious and detailed plan for how they intend to achieve their goals.
The President should be a person of honor. Someone with integrity in both vision and action.
The President should be a practical and common sense person, who recognizes the basic necessity of fiscal responsibility.
The President should have a strong sense of priorities and yet have the flexibility to reorganize those priorities as situations evolve.
The President needs be to a calm and assured person, who will make me feel they have control over any crisis that the country faces and won’t fall apart when things don’t go well.
The President needs to have the ability to rally the public to their ideas.
The President needs to have the political clout and connections to get things done in the legislature.
The President should be smart and educated.
The President should be good at picking great advisers and listening objectively to advice from all sides of a situation.
The President should not be overly religious. I don’t mind if they have faith in some deity, but it should NOT be part of their politics or agenda. It should be personal.
The President should be a compassionate and kind person. It should be noted that I’m not looking for Mother Teresa. I’m looking for someone who recognizes the practical basics of getting compassionate and practical solutions for all people.
The President should be a master of negotiation and the art of compromise.
The President should have some of the same basic fundamental visions about this country that I do. In other words, if they meet all of the above requirements, but they plan to make this country in a direction I can’t agree with, I can’t really vote for them.

The last one means that I have to define where I think the country should go and how important each of the issues is to me. Which is another blog post.

Why I think Marriage is Overrated

OK. I got some pushback on the idea that Marriage is overrated. So I thought I would expand on my thoughts a bit.

This is what marriage becomes:

Its spending all of your waking moments with someone whenever you aren’t doing something more interesting.
Its spending the times when you are tired, sick, annoyed, ugly, smelly, sleeping, burping, farting and generally being an ass with the person you love.
It means being so exhausted from being nice to the rest of the world that you have nothing left to give to the person you married and they get whatever is left, which is often mean.

That is not the recipe for marital bliss.

Here’s the ideal relationship:

Spending time doing interesting things with someone you find interesting. Don’t marry them. Date them.
Going on vacation to interesting places with someone you enjoy being with. Don’t live with them. Go on vacation with them.
Giving your best energy to the person who makes you the happiest.

Yes, But what about Children?

If you want to pro-create, fine. Create a contract and set of rules. You don’t have to be in the same house when you raise the child together. Its just been done that way in the past because it was necessary. Its not necessary anymore. Just like its not necessary to ride a horse to get across town. Times change and you can change too.

Here’s the best part, if you don’t tie marriage to having children, then the father doesn’t have to be the man you are in love with, does it? It can be your best friend, or it can be ANYONE you think you can have a good child rearing partnership with. Tell me why can’t you and your best friend decide to raise a family together? The contract doesn’t have to be with someone of the opposite sex. It doesn’t have to involve the genetic parents at all. Sperm banks are everywhere. Heck, if you are a woman, free sperm donation is available at any bar in America. (Although I don’t really recommend this course of action.) Foster Children are waiting. Adoption is available.

My point is this. Stop thinking like you always thought, and think like an individual with a multitude of choices. Marriage is the most limiting choice you can make.

You won’t have to be trapped:
If you aren’t married or living together you always have choices. You don’t have the trapped, paralyzed, frozen in a life feeling. How many people do you know who are struggling in a marriage or live-in relationship but feel that leaving it is so HUGE.

Its physically huge because there is a move, separating stuff, finding a new space, settling accounts, etc.
Its financially huge your single life may cost you more, credit can be screwed up, and legal costs are high.
Its emotionally huge. You have now made part of your identity this marriage or live in relationship. When you end those relationships, you are negating a part of your identity. That’s really tough and ugly.

Sure, a long term relationship without living together is still going to be incredibly painful when it ends, and some part of you is identified with it, but its not going to be nearly the devastation and loss involved in ending a marriage or live in relationship.

Changing your dating relationship is several magnitudes easier to manage and get over than marriage/live in.

The fun side of the permanent dating relationship:

You look forward to seeing them. There is the tingle of anticipation. When you see someone all the time, you feel lots of comfort, lots of ease. And I think its the death of a good romantic relationship. You can get comfort and support from friends and family. You can get your interest and excitement from your romantic relationship.
Sex is a whole lot more fun when its not a roll over, why not, did you brush your teeth, event.
Attraction is a lot easier to maintain when you don’t see someone plucking their eyebrows, clipping their nose hairs, scratching their balls, pushing up a tampon. These are not things that should be shared. Lets not. Put your best face on for this person. You will feel better, they will feel better and the mutual attraction will last longer.
Fewer bones of contention. How many arguments happen over things like leaving the toilet seat up, how you fold laundry, taking out the trash, not paying attention when you should, being cranky when your shouldn’t, and generally not being nice to your partner. A huge portion of those petty squabbles are eliminated when you are not sharing permanent quarters.
Money isn’t such a weighty matter how many couples have huge difficulties over money management and philosophy. If you remain independent of each other, these issues will largely disappear. They could surface, but if they are not manageable, you are not in a situation where ending your misery will cause you more misery.
Self Development and independence: A great many of my friends have so completely identified themselves with their marriage that they have stopped developing their own interests. Because if the interest does not coincide with their partners interest, its not done. So before marriage there were two large circles of interests one for each person. Those circles intersected on shared interests. So there were three things to talk about each person’s interests and their shared interests. At marriage, they give up unshared interests and suddenly they have a very tiny circle of interests. Life just became boring. This can happen without marriage, but is less frequent. And it can also be that married couples maintain separate interests and pursuits. But its a whole lot easier to do when you remain resolutely independent and don’t sew yourself into someone else’s life by living with them.
Your own space. Your space is your own. Its by you, for you and no one else has to be considered. Permissions for use of shared items – Nope. Consideration of others when guests are invited – Nope. New paint color – Your choice. Clean or Messy – Your choice.

Finally, what’s the big hurry?

If you don’t have marriage as a destination then there is no more desperation. You can actually choose a decent person to be with. No settling. No feelings of there won’t be another one in time. You aren’t getting married anyway. Remember?

Seriously, this is what I really mean.

The real reason why I advocate remaining mostly single: You are you. This is mostly a female viewpoint, but when women get married they become Mrs. And I mean that psychologically. Many women feel incomplete, less than whole, unattractive and generally worthless without a man. Even those who can’t identify with that statement very strongly, feel it at some level because we have thousands of years of culture to reinforce the idea.

Remain single and over time you realize that who you are is good without marriage. That another person is not in any way going to make you a whole person. That support comes from lots of places and expecting support from one person is both unfair and a recipe for disappointment. That you can support yourself financially and there is something incredibly self reliant and freeing in being the only source of your support. That life is not what cultures define, its what you do.

I am not vehemently anti-marriage.

I recognize that there are advantages to it. In fact, I realize that having a supportive spouse would probably have helped me with managing my mental illness. A good marriage is a built in support system.

I realize that its not likely that most people will see my viewpoint. Even the most liberal among us still get married or live together. There are many supportive and enjoyable relationships in marriages. But I think there are times when the marriage is endangering even the strongest of those great relationships. I think my viewpoint is the future. In 150 years marriage will probably be an anachronism in many parts of the world.

Things That Are Overrated

Marriage – I have come to the conclusion that marriage is the death of romance.
Christmas – this is the ultimate over hyped, under performing holiday on record.
Movie Critics – I have rarely felt a similar level of regard or hatred to a movie as the critics have.
Almost any possession before you own it. The act of wanting and purchasing something inflates its value. Once you own it, it loses something.
New Years Eve Parties. Too much drinking with strangers you don’t really care about.
Talent – I am seriously wondering if its even a necessary ingredient for success. Which is not to say that there aren’t talented successful people, its just that there are so many talentless successful people that it becomes clear that its not a requirement.
Safety – For every safe thing we do, we lose a freedom. We lose options, we lose fun, we lose courage.
Central Heat – This was one of my musing the other day. If you grew up with central heat, you think its necessary for survival. But for hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors lived and survived without it. Its comfort, but its not necessary.

The Insidious Cruelty of Positive Thinking

“Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It is the best antidote for anxiety and depression. It is a business asset. It attracts and keeps friends. It lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment. ”
~Grenville Kleiser

I hate this cliched overly simplistic statement with a loathing that seems at odds with its intention. It represents an abysmal lack of understanding of what being seriously and deeply sick with depression and anxiety is all about.

It makes me despair that any of my real life family or friends will ever understand my illness or that they will ever forgive me.

Kleiser is dead but this sentiment keeps dogging us. If I could call up his spirit I would do it just so I could slap the shit out of him. In fact if I could build a field of dreams I would do one just for all the fuckers who built the train tracks to the train station of positivity – I’m looking at you Normal Vincent Peale. And then I would I would just start to rant at them.

Sadly, you will have to do as stand-ins.

I know, I sound like big pile of negativity when I say these things. But idiots spout this crap at people who are struggling with depression and anxiety. Apparently they think its just a switch in our heads. Just turn on the SMILE!

When this is said, there is an implication that because we aren’t turning on that positive switch, this entire illness is just our fault. Its a character flaw. We must actually WANT to depressed/anxious or we would just be good humored!

People think we’re just sad or being downers. ’Just think Positive!’ they say.

Yeah. Thinking isn’t really the problem, is it? Positive, negative, – any thought at all will come and even roost for awhile. But it still doesn’t make any actual movement happen. No motivation is delivered with it. No changes.

No happiness takes root because I think of happy things or funny things. I may laugh, and even smile. I may even feel hope occasionally. But it is fleeting moment and overwhelmed by apathy and despair.

You CANNOT think your way out of Depression and Anxiety. I know. I’ve spent years trying. Depression is a sickness of thinking. Overthinking. Ruminating on things. Cogitating. Sometimes we even have positive thoughts. Shocking, isn’t it?

But these thoughts positive, negative, weird, horrible, funny, insightful… They never actually result in a change in our lives. Because the thoughts live in one place and they never connect to the part of our brain where action happens. Its like there is a big canyon between the idea and the action.

Anxiety will take you into thinking holes that your rational brain can distantly see are NOT issues, but a stronger part of your brain is funneling in an emotional ick with these thoughts and now you are swimming is an sewer of fear and horror. We don’t invite those emotions into the brain, they show up and they don’t go away when we smile. Instead they can start to take over our bodies and then we have REAL physical symptoms of the horror show that is going on in our heads.

Depression comes with an apathy that is so deeply etched into our brains that many people with depression will tell you that it didn’t occur to them that this utter lack of interest was not right. That’s the trick of depression. It makes what it completely abnormal seem like its just normal.

Nor do the random positive thoughts turn all of it into a wave of serenity and contentment.

The longer you struggle against depression and anxiety the more if feels like a monster with endless tentacles that pull you back just when you feel like you might have gotten a foothold to get out.

When you say these sorts of “Smile!” “Be Positive!” things to us, you are showing how utterly invisible our struggle is to you. How our incredible battles with minor things are trivial to you.

But to us, these things, these tiny things that are everyday matters to you – they are HUGE. There are people in the world right now who are proud that they took out the garbage today. That was their triumph. For most people its just one of dozens of everyday tasks they do and so they don’t get it.

People think if we would just smile it will get better. It won’t. Please believe me.

Saying those things reiterates the feeling of isolation and self hatred in the mentally ill. It announces that this is my fault, because if I would just think the right thing this will all go away. But it doesn’t go away when I think positive, so I am a failure, I am not trying hard enough, I am not good enough at smiling.

That’s what happens when you tell someone with a mental illness to be positive.

It’s an insidious and well intentioned cruelty.

Sometimes you just need to see something pleasant.

Life can often be frustrating and frightening and overwhelming and rage inducing. Or is that just my life?

Anyway, when it reaches the point where I want to implode I often want to escape to pleasant place.

One of my hidey holes is Frank Capra’s movie – You Can’t Take It With You with Jimmy Stewart. Try it.

Its like being cuddled in a down comforter but with a movie. Its silly and funny and heartwarming and thoroughly entertaining. I want desperately to move into the Sycamore household and just live there forever. 138120753649508557228_you_cant_take_it_1938_12_8133_0