Some things

Some things will always scare me.

There are things that we learn from willingly and there are things that are taught to us against our will. Therapists may call them triggers. Future partners may call them baggage. Employers may call them risks.

Some things may always scare me.

There are people you meet who will enrich your life and there are people who will meet you and take a little more than they give. Therapists can call them influencers. Future partners can call them exes. Employers can call that person you were with at the Christmas party last year.

Some things can scare me.

But their impact softens in time and all the lessons are learnt and filed while the Christmas party photos are still on facebook.

Let's not play the mental health card

After the most recent massacre in the US, I have heard a line over and over again that does nothing but irk me.

It goes something like "Let's not play the PTSD card" or "Let's not play the mental health card" or some such card playing statement.

If you stop and really really think about it then you will easily come to the conclusion that a sane person does not go out there and shoot people. Not for any reason. Not outside a war zone or under some perceived threat.

Mental illness seems to be dismissed quite regularly as some kind of excuse.

My theory is that this comes from temporary insanity as a line of defence against murder charges and its overuse in American TV shows with unimaginative writers. It may also come from the idea that being locked up in a mental institution for treatment is some easier form of punishment than the rock breaking labour of real prison.

Either way, those are valid ways of dealing with people in those situations. They are not excuses or made up plot lines constructed to allow bad people to escape consequences.

Mental illness is real. It is not an excuse. It can sometimes be a reason but it is never an excuse.

I mean to take nothing from the people or the families of those who are harmed in such horrible events but I also will not let mental illness and people doing things because they are ill be treated like an escape clause.

Mental illness is real. You may not have suffered it but that doesn't make it a holiday on the beach with cocktails in coconut shells.

Mental illness is not reasonable. You may not understand what it is like for your mind to tell you something that isn't real but it does happen.

Mental illness is not a escape clause. In fact, there is a shadow that hangs over you forever that is accompanied by a pain that you will always dread.  It will go away and you will be well, if you are lucky. It will not dictate who you are always. It will however give you some empathy for the idea that sometimes people are just crazy and sometimes crazy is just people.

Your inability to comprehend something does not mean it does not exist.

Strawberries and Dream

Sitting here eating strawberries has to be the highlight of my day.

That isn't a bad thing, with days becoming simpler. There is a lot of time to think and dream and write. Most of that writing isn't happening online. It is in books with pens on paper on thoughts. It is code in languages that didn't exist last century.

So much has happened this week. It has been a headspin of Exorcistesque proportions.

There have been so many words written and then deleted.

There have been so many words said and then retrieved.

There have been so many moments that simply have to have happened and can't be erased without some major low level formatting.

My biggest learning from this week is more a relearning of something I know and should always known consciously. It is that what I decided will happen is what will end up happening in my life. If I decided something will be brilliant then it is. If I decide it will be a large pile of poo then it ends up that way.

The will makes the path which ultimately leads to the outcome you willed.

This week may have been all kinds of broken and as long as I keep thinking that I am broken then it will keep being this way. I gave something away that was a mistake. No willing or wishing or spanking or swishing will negate that.

Instead, I have to learn a lesson from it and not let it repeat.

Sounds easy, right?