Everyone who wakes up each morning at a 7 or above on a pain scale.
Everyone who needs memory aids that people with dementia use and you have done every day for months or years.
Everyone who hasn't been able to sleep in a decade.
Everyone who is caring for a loved one who is suicidally depressed or in chronic pain or has another health issue while they themselves are struggling with the same (because there is nobody else but you and the buck stops here.)
For everyone who can't tick off something on their to do list every day despite giving it their all.
For everyone letting people down and pushing people away because they don't have the energy to explain why we're doing what we're doing, why we don't call or write, why we don't show up, why we don't have show more progress or change.
For everyone doing everything they do with a toddler on the hip, or another adult's responsibilities on top of their own.
For those who do everything via text because the phone makes you break out in a cold sweat and you haven't left your house in years except to see a doctor or run a unavoidable errand.
For everyone who measures success by whether they took their meds that day or remembered to eat.For those who live in filth despite being obsessively tidy because they just don't have enough energy to do the things society demands they must do to exist and being in a clean home or a clean bed or clean clothes isn't as important to society as being at the office by 9.
But it is. It really is for you. And you can't have that because you're sick and you're tired and you're sore and you're doing it alone.
For whom bathing is both a source of relief and terror. For those who can't settle down or be at rest because everything is happening so fast and it's been half a decade since I was in top of things.
For everyone who hates themselves for being unintentionally hurtful to people you really care about and who have lost more friends than they have birthdays to it. For those who have no hope of cure or care or help or hope or who have forgotten what it's like to be home because they haven't had one for so long.
I know.
Because this is my truth.
To the terrified and silenced and alarmed and angry. I'm Sorry. We are listening. We are changing. We want peace. We will fix it. Give us time. This is harder than anything I have ever done in my life and I raised children as a child so that's saying something.
I want peace. I desperately want peace.
But today I need you to please acknowledge that right now as it stands the community is in a state of very civil civil war.
Our parents, exhausted, wash up here seeking refuge. Our autistic adults, weary from years of suffering warily give them shelter. Our various traumas foment and fray at the edges and we snarl at each other, suspicious always of the slightest sign of two-facedness or judgment after so many many slings and arrows.
For everyone who cried today. And yesterday. And the day before. Or who lost their tempers at someone they adore and berated themselves after... I know.
Because #metoo.
The hardest thing about ending this tension is admitting were all party to it. Admitting we're all perched on our seats nervously listening for shots fired. Some become addicted to the high of chaos. Some cannot walk away when they know better. Some come here when they damn well know it's a bad idea but ...they cannot stop wanting to come home even if home is a slugfest.
Home was a slugfest for so many of us. We couldn't recognise a peaceful home if it kissed us on the nose and bid us rest.
I bid you. Rest.
Not because I am good at this. Because I'm bad at this. I know the cost of glossing over the advice to stop. Lie down. Play a blockbreaker instead of answering your messages. Make tea and sit in the green and let your mind be stilller than usual.
No I said Stiller, not still. I know you. I hack your lives for my day job so I know still is laughably illusive.
But just a little less driven. Just notice the pattern in the carpet for a minute. Or count all the items in your windowsill. Take your time with making the tea. Notice each step. Add a plop of honey, or a pinch of cinnamon and rest in the aroma. Or plop a weighted blanket over your head for a minute and just sit in the total dark.
Because it helps. Not like whoops everything is roses kinda help. But the I actually had a day today I kinda remember. And lived in. I actually was in my own life today. I mattered for about 2 minutes 30 seconds. I existed.
Because you matter guys. I spend my life carefully perusing your most intimate struggles and try to figure out the one most impactful piece of advice I can give in the 1 or two minutes I have for each of your posts and replies as I make my hundreds of interactions and comments each day.
I stop to like your posts because I need you to know I do read them. They filter into my brain like a fish into a net, and spill out once or twice a month into posts like this one where I pull in everything small little dollop of feeling you evoked in me and I let it flow out into a post.
Am I bombastic? Scary? A force that looms?
Possibly.
I joked with my friend last night that I'm an orbital cannon being used in close quarters. When I express dissaproval it often seems like people think a wrathful god has spoken. Much of what I say is infused with a stentorian tone I never actually put there.
I guess many of us fear the voice of authority. It never brought us anything good. Abuse usually doubled up as discipline. At least in part we project our own fears and traumas onto those around us and like the titular zombie of Dolores O'Riordens 90's anthem we're still fighting in our heads. I know I struggled for years not to hear shellfire whenever there was thunder, metaphorically speaking. Some days the shellfire still wins.
But it does no good sayin' we all need to toughen up, straighten up, fly right and just be nice. Because every now and again someone here actually does drop a shell on someone else, usually as part of friendly fire. It's part of the nature of advocacy that you are in a state of being personally challenged to step up ALL THE TIME.
When I ask a member to not do something, I'm generally after a ceasefire. Someone just got hurt. I'm not often angry. I just need it to stop because you're hurting someone, generally not me.
I shall have to do more to be gentle. Learn to whisper what, before, I spoke. so perhaps to you it sounds like I spoke instead of shouting. I come from loud people.
But you need quiet and I mean to give it to you.
If my efforts fail, please feed that back to me or another moderator. We genuinely are listening. I've been feeling this rise up for 6 months now. I just needed to finish moving and put my bits in order a little so I could spill forth this thing.
In closing: Peace. Security. Learning (and later on, a bit of a challenge).
Those are my priorities.
Love
Chris
Everyone who needs memory aids that people with dementia use and you have done every day for months or years.
Everyone who hasn't been able to sleep in a decade.
Everyone who is caring for a loved one who is suicidally depressed or in chronic pain or has another health issue while they themselves are struggling with the same (because there is nobody else but you and the buck stops here.)
For everyone who can't tick off something on their to do list every day despite giving it their all.
For everyone letting people down and pushing people away because they don't have the energy to explain why we're doing what we're doing, why we don't call or write, why we don't show up, why we don't have show more progress or change.
For everyone doing everything they do with a toddler on the hip, or another adult's responsibilities on top of their own.
For those who do everything via text because the phone makes you break out in a cold sweat and you haven't left your house in years except to see a doctor or run a unavoidable errand.
For everyone who measures success by whether they took their meds that day or remembered to eat.For those who live in filth despite being obsessively tidy because they just don't have enough energy to do the things society demands they must do to exist and being in a clean home or a clean bed or clean clothes isn't as important to society as being at the office by 9.
But it is. It really is for you. And you can't have that because you're sick and you're tired and you're sore and you're doing it alone.
For whom bathing is both a source of relief and terror. For those who can't settle down or be at rest because everything is happening so fast and it's been half a decade since I was in top of things.
For everyone who hates themselves for being unintentionally hurtful to people you really care about and who have lost more friends than they have birthdays to it. For those who have no hope of cure or care or help or hope or who have forgotten what it's like to be home because they haven't had one for so long.
I know.
Because this is my truth.
To the terrified and silenced and alarmed and angry. I'm Sorry. We are listening. We are changing. We want peace. We will fix it. Give us time. This is harder than anything I have ever done in my life and I raised children as a child so that's saying something.
I want peace. I desperately want peace.
But today I need you to please acknowledge that right now as it stands the community is in a state of very civil civil war.
Our parents, exhausted, wash up here seeking refuge. Our autistic adults, weary from years of suffering warily give them shelter. Our various traumas foment and fray at the edges and we snarl at each other, suspicious always of the slightest sign of two-facedness or judgment after so many many slings and arrows.
For everyone who cried today. And yesterday. And the day before. Or who lost their tempers at someone they adore and berated themselves after... I know.
Because #metoo.
The hardest thing about ending this tension is admitting were all party to it. Admitting we're all perched on our seats nervously listening for shots fired. Some become addicted to the high of chaos. Some cannot walk away when they know better. Some come here when they damn well know it's a bad idea but ...they cannot stop wanting to come home even if home is a slugfest.
Home was a slugfest for so many of us. We couldn't recognise a peaceful home if it kissed us on the nose and bid us rest.
I bid you. Rest.
Not because I am good at this. Because I'm bad at this. I know the cost of glossing over the advice to stop. Lie down. Play a blockbreaker instead of answering your messages. Make tea and sit in the green and let your mind be stilller than usual.
No I said Stiller, not still. I know you. I hack your lives for my day job so I know still is laughably illusive.
But just a little less driven. Just notice the pattern in the carpet for a minute. Or count all the items in your windowsill. Take your time with making the tea. Notice each step. Add a plop of honey, or a pinch of cinnamon and rest in the aroma. Or plop a weighted blanket over your head for a minute and just sit in the total dark.
Because it helps. Not like whoops everything is roses kinda help. But the I actually had a day today I kinda remember. And lived in. I actually was in my own life today. I mattered for about 2 minutes 30 seconds. I existed.
Because you matter guys. I spend my life carefully perusing your most intimate struggles and try to figure out the one most impactful piece of advice I can give in the 1 or two minutes I have for each of your posts and replies as I make my hundreds of interactions and comments each day.
I stop to like your posts because I need you to know I do read them. They filter into my brain like a fish into a net, and spill out once or twice a month into posts like this one where I pull in everything small little dollop of feeling you evoked in me and I let it flow out into a post.
Am I bombastic? Scary? A force that looms?
Possibly.
I joked with my friend last night that I'm an orbital cannon being used in close quarters. When I express dissaproval it often seems like people think a wrathful god has spoken. Much of what I say is infused with a stentorian tone I never actually put there.
I guess many of us fear the voice of authority. It never brought us anything good. Abuse usually doubled up as discipline. At least in part we project our own fears and traumas onto those around us and like the titular zombie of Dolores O'Riordens 90's anthem we're still fighting in our heads. I know I struggled for years not to hear shellfire whenever there was thunder, metaphorically speaking. Some days the shellfire still wins.
But it does no good sayin' we all need to toughen up, straighten up, fly right and just be nice. Because every now and again someone here actually does drop a shell on someone else, usually as part of friendly fire. It's part of the nature of advocacy that you are in a state of being personally challenged to step up ALL THE TIME.
When I ask a member to not do something, I'm generally after a ceasefire. Someone just got hurt. I'm not often angry. I just need it to stop because you're hurting someone, generally not me.
I shall have to do more to be gentle. Learn to whisper what, before, I spoke. so perhaps to you it sounds like I spoke instead of shouting. I come from loud people.
But you need quiet and I mean to give it to you.
If my efforts fail, please feed that back to me or another moderator. We genuinely are listening. I've been feeling this rise up for 6 months now. I just needed to finish moving and put my bits in order a little so I could spill forth this thing.
In closing: Peace. Security. Learning (and later on, a bit of a challenge).
Those are my priorities.
Love
Chris
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