Journey through Faerieland

Music tends to have a strong impact on my mental state. I often listen to songs on repeat that seem to suit either my current feelings or what I want to currently feel. What I relate to in the song isn't always obvious (what the song is actually about). Often the synesthesia impression I get from songs alters their meaning for me, so a song that should be cheerful I associate with something gritty and unpleasant, or something "sad" will seem dreamy and fantastical.

Today I've been anxious, though I don't know over what specifically. Lately when I'm anxious or angry I want to listen to Maroon 5 because their songs are often fast-paced and match my racing thoughts. Sometimes I will listen to just one or a few repeatedly that most fit this pattern. For their softer songs I often feel very nostalgic, which can fit the reasons why I'm currently upset, so sometimes listening to those also feels appropriate for the moment.

Tori Amos I have mixed feelings over. I intuitively like her and started liking her when I was suicidal, so sometimes I listen to her when I'm very depressed and want to fix my life but simply don't know how. I also get reminders of her now in accordance with a person I don't get along with. That sounds rather depressing, but I actually feel like I'm reclaiming power over my life/my likes when I ignore this upsetting person and still listen to Tori Amos in spite of those lingering memories. Tori Amos' music also is one of the types that sounds like it comes out of a strange, surreal fairy tale to me, so I often listen to her when I'm peaceful and in an otherworldly mood or trying to be creative.

Fleetwood Mac I usually want to listen to when I'm in a jovial mood and they are still my favorite band. Their songs just have a tendency to make me happy. For the slower and sadder songs I feel deep reminders of people whom I have feelings for as are being described in the songs. I deeply relate to this group's music and Stevie Nicks' independent music.

Michelle Branch I often listen to when I'm sad and want to feel surrounded by beauty and love, even when my dreams are unable to be filled (I really like her song "Breathe" when I'm happy and "Sweet Misery" when I'm sad over a friend).

I've gone through phases with lots of music, fitting all my different needs and moods and emotions. Artists like John Denver, Cat Stevens, and Simon & Garfunkel seem to best represent my "world" as I idealize it and succeed in living life as I want to live. When I'm sad yet still myself, or happy and able to spread the happiness. I could post about so many artists and songs here so I will just leave this for now. I have very intense connections and patterning, and within the realm of music alone this is potentially a very long-winded topic.

So far today I've felt happy and hopeful. I feel relaxed and actually not on the verge of death! Maybe part of that is because I feel a bit more at peace with some aspects of my life. I have so many wonderful things in my life, but when something triggers me, I feel emotionally destitute, completely abandoned. I can be patient, I have things to focus on for now. I don't want to waste more time on petty cruelties. My life will unfold like other people's lives do. I just have to make the best of every opportunity.

I hope my Year of Mourning has ended, but I don't want to sabotage myself by saying that:P For at least this moment in time, I feel as myself again.

And I didn't take Klonopin or anything.

I read a little more Emily Dickinson today. Here were two poems I currently really relate to. Though I like most of her poems, and how she makes everything so alive and visually vivid.:-)

( 2 Emily Dickinson Poems )

If I can emotionally feel comfortable with a reasonable amount of independence, if I can tolerate being alone, if I can calm myself and not allow my moods and existence to be swayed by others, it is much easier to trust others. Or at least, much easier to trust others without risking great danger to my psychological wellbeing. I'm not referring to actually dangerous situations and being naive, just living your life alongside others instead of so intertwined that whenever the other person makes a mistake or needs to make a change, your life also changes to an intolerable degree. You become out of control of your own life.

If I know deeply that someone is good and pure within themselves, like I try to believe everyone is, somewhere hidden inside themselves, this view doesn't have to change just because a person isn't perfect or perhaps doesn't do things exactly to my preference. I can live my life, try to improve myself, and somehow find a way to be happy living my own life. I can try to assist the other person as much as I can and as much as they want me in their life, but my life will continue, regardless. There are good things, regardless. And those good moments with the person, while in the past, are still a part of eternity. I have faith that some people are wonderfully good, and they don't have to be perfect or fulfill my every wish to be intrinsically pure. Even if I suffer, they are still good, I just need to learn to cope. And if they make many mistakes or don't even know what they are doing, while maybe I have to continue on my life, and maybe they don't want my help at all, my image of them doesn't have to shatter. After all, I'm aware of all my mistakes, failings, and inability to fulfill everyone's dreams.

The difficulty is reclaiming all the wonderful things I shared with people now distant from me. The music of Tori Amos is one of those things for me. I must not allow it to become tainted by my sorrow. Maybe someday the situation will alter itself enough, and everything going on right now will seem whimsical and well apart from what's important, anyway. But for now I must struggle. But I do still have my faith in those I love. And that is a place to start.

Sometimes when I get very depressed and self-loathing I want to do whatever I can to make myself at least "look" normal in specific ways, even if I will never actually feel beneath the surface what others feel with this "normal" behavior. I sometimes think if I force myself enough, maybe my senses and emotions will eventually deaden enough so the situation is at least less impacting on me mentally/physically. I can feel like a burden to those around me, wondering what they think I expect of them. As if they need to cater to me specially because things are intense for me or just plain different. When I second guess myself, though, I tend to behave in worse ways and don't feel like myself at all. I feel I end up making worse ethical decisions with worse ethical repercussions. At least this seems the pattern so far.

But there are always a few people around me that I see living according to their own personal truth, even if it's not commonly understood by most others. Sometimes I even see people that are doing exactly what I want to do, and maybe they sometimes second guess themselves at times, but their actions still reflect what is in their heart. No matter how depressed or worried I get, I can't give up. I can't control other people or my environment even, in a number of ways, but I can choose what I decide to do. Even if what I do or my intent gets constantly misunderstood, the people whom are most emotionally important to me will at least make the effort to understand. I see those around me living as I want to, no matter the drawbacks, no matter the bad things that happen, and I must do that too. Otherwise I would regret it terribly. Maybe by some this would be seen as "not moving on" or deranged or unhealthy, or whatever else. But denying my true self and true feelings and experiences will just keep hurting me, like it did before. I just have to learn better coping skills, and continue on living my life according to what I value and what I truly feel.

I often need to remind myself of this when I try to imagine someone observing me from outside...

Usually my feelings are very clear to me. Everything about my feelings, thoughts, emotions, wishes, body reactions, actions, etc. tend to collapse in one point. My emotions and reasoning can be complex still, but everything aligns, which probably adds to the perceived intensity. Lately I have had more mixed feelings and confused perspectives than I am accustomed to. It's not exactly that, though. It's not that things are hazy and muddled, but that separate, intact lines of emotions and thought patterns exist just as coherently and sharply as usual for me, it's just that there are multiple intense patterns at once. It feels like I'm living in a bunch of parallel universes simultaneously, and I'm aware of the fact. The narrative of my life breaks down. Nothing makes sense. The patterns are shattered and intense shards haunt me from different directions, different patterns of thoughts and feelings matching different patterned perspectives. I can't figure out which is more realistic, which is more truly myself. But they can't really coexist in any way that isn't incredibly incapacitating and painful. There are just strange, violent pieces everywhere.

I used to be considered a very stable person, until around age 19. People used to remark upon this as an actual personality trait of mine. Even from 19 onward, I have gone through periods where I would consider myself reasonably stable like I used to be (albeit, "stable" and "happy and living in good circumstances" are not equivalent). But then something becomes chaotic. And I'm always hypersensitive no matter what, so that exaggerates and complicates everything. Even when I'm relatively stable, I'm still very hypersensitive, it's just that my hypersensitivity can be quite predictable.

I saw this similarminds personality test on my friends list and I retook it again (I have it somewhere in my journal from a couple years ago). For me on this test, the one score that can change most drastically is "stability," which I find ironic... I think they changed a few of the questions on that test.


( Quiz )

I wish there were a personality quiz out there based on this book, but I have yet to find one. I would make one myself if I were better at that sort of thing.

The Brother's Karamazov is my favorite book; the characters (or at least a number of them) actually make sense to me. Their emotions and behaviors and thoughts more closely reflect my own than almost any more recent books I have read. Craziness is just a part of existence. Of course, a lot of the characters are opposite of me in personality, but that also is more easy for me to understand, and I run into internal conflicts with these kinds of people all the time. I first read this book seven years ago, and Alexei is still my favorite literary character ever, I think; I really like people who remind me of him. I have always felt really driven to possess more of Alexei's characteristics. However, I have always felt I'm more like Katerina, especially in my less virtuous traits. In my most crazy moments I even felt like I must be like Liza, but most of the time I relate much more to Katerina. I first identified with Katerina when I was seventeen and in the years that have passed since then my behavior has only mirrored Katerina's behaviors even more (though that was not done consciously!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov
http://www.novelguide.com/TheBrothersKaramazov/characterprofiles.html
http://www.novelguide.com/TheBrothersKaramazov/themeanalysis.html

It seems now like strong emotions are discouraged. People can seem so jaded or try to handle feelings and emotions in such a distant and pragmatic way that emotions and feelings get washed out of existence. I usually try to analyze my thoughts/feelings/emotions/behaviors in order to make myself calmer or to act in more reasonable ways, but it doesn't work for me. I've just read a ton of times that somehow reasoning is supposed to help. Analysis can sometimes keep me from doing really crazy stuff, but usually I can think myself into anything. I'm an extremely emotional person and my emotions largely dominate my perspective in one way or another. Often I do wish I could somehow numb my emotions so I could be more productive, but at other times I'm actually proud of them, even if they do seem crazy. I relate much more to Dostoevsky's characters than most real-life people.