Tag: feelings

Question of the day.

How are you feeling?

My answer:

Very decent really. I got some good sleep, which is much appreciated because lately my brain thinks that when I’m going to sleep, it’s the best time for doing some deep, intense thinking, and then of course it’s difficult to fall asleep. The good thing is that I’m not having a particularly stressful time right now so there’s nothing stressful or scary to ruminate about, so I mostly think about neutral or really nice things, but still, when you’re trying to sleep and are actually tired, such very intense, all-consuming thinking sessions can get slightly exhausting. 😀 But yeah, like I said today I got real good sleep, and am having quite a lot of energy and generally feeling fairly positive about things. I’m gonna do some Welsh learning in a while so that’ll probably further boost my mood. I was slightly headachey in the morning so thought I’m going to end up with a migraine or something, but it went away completely.

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

What are some productive ways to let your anger out?

My answer:

For me, writing usually helps a lot. Other times, I like to listen to music which corresponds with my mood, so when I’m angry it’s either some rock, Finnish works the best in such cases, or anything that I can find relatable at a given moment, either because of the lyrics or something else that resonates with the way I’m feeling. Sofi’s here as I’m writing this and I asked her what she likes to do to let her anger out in a productive way, and she says she likes to watch a movie and eat. When I’m super angry, I’m usually quite overwhelmed at the same time and I find it difficult to focus on things like books, let alone movies, which I always find difficult to focus on, even with the best audiodescription, unless I seriously have some extreme interest in a specific movie. But I can totally relate to eating. 😀 As much as I can’t eat when I’m stressed or anxious, especially when it’s a short-term but intense anxiety, with anger, I like to eat something yummy to make myself feel better. I don’t know how healthy/productive it actually is though, as people say you shouldn’t do that, but it’s not like I binge-eat or like I do it very regularly or can’t cope without it. I’ve written here a lot that my anger is turned inwards most of the time, as my default setting is to repress things, and when I no longer can, I’ve learnt to deal with it by self-harming. I still have urges to do it a lot of the time when I’m angry or just overwhelmed with any other unpleasant feeling(s), and sometimes I’m successful at overcoming them, but sometimes I’m still not. What I like to do instead of self-harming when I’m feeling angry, and what I’ve liked to do from the beginning ever since I started cutting, when I didn’t want to cut myself too much so that it wouldn’t be easily visible to people, is to eat something very hot and spicy. It’s weird how well it can work sometimes. Otherwise, I guess the pretty much classic strategy for dealing with self-harm urges is holding ice cubes in your hands for some time, and I’ve always hard a weird love for ice, so when we have some, I do that too.

How about you? 🙂

How I’ve been feeling lately.

Today, I’d like to write some a bit longer post inspired by a journaling prompt again, as I haven’t done that in a while. It probably won’t be too long or indepth, but I think it’ll be nice to do and also fill y’all in a bit on what’s going on for me. The prompt I chose to inspire myself with is from Listify by Marina Greenway and goes like this:

   Lately, I’ve been feeling… Your state of mind changes over time and through the seasons. Record how you are feeling right now. What is going through your mind? Are you responding emotionally to something that has happened earlier in the week? Are you anticipating your day in a positive or negative way? What does your general state of being feel like? Do this every so often to chronicle your journey.

I typically write in my journal and/or on here about how I’m feeling in a more prosaic form, and I don’t think doing a list will become my typical way of doing it, but I think it could be fun once in a while. So here is my list.

  •    Super anxious. I started feeling a bit anxious last Saturday (in this particular case when I say anxious I mean the sensory anxiety thing, but also generally I was super jumpy and hyper alert) and all that for no clear reason. I have some ideas now as for what could cause it, but given the intensity of the anxiety it seems very inadequate and this sensory anxiety episode has been one of the worst I’ve had in the last couple years. Last weekend and the beginning of the week was particularly awful, now I’m slowly recovering and it’s much better but still far from my baseline.
  •    Excited about MIMRAs (My Inner Mishmash Readership Award) and relieved that I’ve finally sent them out. This is a really happy and exciting process for me and I love the idea so much and that I came up with this, though all the preparations can get a bit exhausting. I am also hopeful that the winners will enjoy their MIMRAs as that’s the whole point of it. I am also happy that Sofi likes her new iPhone which she got from me earlier this week. It was meant to be a Christmas present, but since she chose the colour of it and the accessories anyway I figured I could just as well give it to her right away. Her old iPhone was in an awful state (our parents bought her a used one and it was in a pitiful condition already when she got it, but they refused to get her a new one even though the old one is now barely usable, because Mum says she doesn’t deserve it and needs to have higher grades. I don’t see it as a prize for anything, I think she should have a functioning phone to be able to do her schoolwork from home and not be lagging too far behind her peers with her knowledge and abilities regarding technology. Plus now that she has a functioning, brand new phone which will be supported for a few more years to come, unlike the old one, it should definitely serve her well at least until she’s 18, and then she can buy a new phone for herself, so no one of us will need to bother with buying her another phone any time soon. If she breaks it earlier, I emphasised it to her that it’s entirely her problem, although she does have coverage). She is really enjoying having a functional phone, and Mum now says that it was a good idea.
  •    A bit frustrated and tired. Frustrated with the fact that I’ve really been having a lot of migraines lately. Like, the last few months or so. It was the same last year about this time, autumn-winter, and then it got better, so I’m wondering if it’s some sort of a seasonal thing and if so why that is. It’s really getting in the way of things. The migraines themselves aren’t even all that painful, I’ve had worse and I know people have worse, but they’re really energy draining and make me feel kind of generally sick, so I’m effectively unable to do much of anything while having a migraine, especially that it often gets worse when I try to force myself to do something more ambitious that requires getting out of bed, and they’re more difficult to get rid of than they used to be. The combination of migraine medication and good sleep, or sometimes even just a usual NSAID if I’d take it early enough, used to be enough to get rid of the problem in one day, occasionally it would linger for some longer time but that was rare, while now the meds help rather rarely and it’s a bit like a lottery, at least I haven’t found any connections as to when and why they work or don’t work, and I need much more rest and sleep to make myself feel any better, I also don’t want to take the meds too often. I know it’s like this or even worse for many people who have migraines, but mine were generally easier to handle before so the situation is new to me and I’m feeling a bit clueless, and like I said frustrated because they often get in the way just when I want to do something productive. And as for the tired part, well I had a migraine yesterday until about noon today, and I’m still feeling a bit tired and sluggish afterwards.
  • A little stressed/worried, and a little looking forward to Christmas. Christmas is typically a stressful period for me, as it is for many of us. I don’t really know yet what it will be like for us this year, as we don’t have any specific plans, so typically I’m feeling rather apprehensive. But it’s also generally a nice occasion and I hope it’ll be at least a bit fun and not just stressful like it was last year.
  •    Desperate for a new faza. But that’s been the case for quite some time now and you probably all know about it, I don’t have anything to add to this really.

And I think that’s it. My day, apart from the migraine earlier, has been okayish, and it’s now coming to an end, so I’m not really anticipating anything today except for hoping for a decent night’s sleep. And my state of being feels a bit sluggish, a bit jumpy, but overall rather neutral at the moment.

How are you feeling? Do let me know. 🙂

 

Question of the day (19th October).

What was the first book that made you cry, or at least feel very, very sad?

My answer:

I’ve been thinking about this for a while but can’t think of a book that was the first. While books often affect me strongly and I may easily feel sad if a book is sad, I don’t cry very easily at all because of a book even if I fee like I’d like to be able to sometimes, it’s just a super rare thing, same with movies and music. While on one hand I’m glad I’m not an easy cryer and at least in some part it is the effect of my own considerable efforts over the years of bottling things up, on the other hand I actually envy people who can cry when they’re moved by things as it seems a very healthy mechanism and seems to be generally seen as a very sincere reaction by people. So basically because it’s very frequently that a book moves me very deeply and I find it very sad, but at the same time ultra rare that it would make me cry, I can’t think of one particular example that would be either the first or even just one that would stand out particularly. I remember that the last book that I was crying a little bit when reading it was Maggie Hartley’s book Battered, Broken, Healed that I read last year, when for some unexplained reason one specific thing made me feel particularly sad, namely when the mum of a baby whom Maggie was taking care of at the time was telling Maggie about how whenever her daughter cried at night, her abusive husband wouldn’t let her see to her and how difficult it was for her and for little Jasmine as well. I don’t know why it made such a very strong impression, it’s definitely not my typical reaction even when I hear sad things like this and it’s not the most difficult thing I’ve heard definitely, but it just made me feel so sad I suddenly started crying but only a little bit. I guess I must have generally been feeling down.

Oh, yeah, now I remember a book that made me feel particularly sad, but it definitely wasn’t the first one, actually quite recent, and it also made me feel a whole spectrum of all sorts of feelings and, despite a rather difficult topic of the book, quite a few fragments of it also made me laugh a lot and overall the experience was very positive. It was Room by Emma Donoghue.

So, how about you? Also, are you easily moved by books at all? If so, is it to such a degree that you just easily absorb emotions that are in the book, or does it also mean that you cry easily when you read something particularly moving, be it positively or negatively? 🙂

Rebecca Ferguson ft. Afsheen – “Uncrazy”.

Hey guys! 🙂

I’ve heard about Rebecca Ferguson a couple of times over the years, and I’ve also heard some of her music, but previously somehow it didn’t make a strong impression on me. But recently I’ve heard more of her music and I realised that I actually like her. She has a really cool voice and I love her Liverpudlian accent. I think this song also has great and relatable lyrics. Who’s your uncrazy? For me, it’s undeniably Misha. 😀

Question of the day.

Hi people! 🙂

Here’s my question for you today:

In which way have you surprised yourself this week?

My answer:

Well, that wasn’t a very big surprise maybe, but I couldn’t think of anything else. It surprised me that, the night before last, I was crying in my sleep, because I am generally not a big cryer, or at least definitely not in such situations when I’m just plain sad, even when it’s very sad, or moved by something either positive or negative. My Mum and grandma both have eyes on a very wet spot and can cry about anything that moves them, but I usually only cry when really angry or overloaded and just pretty much physically can’t keep any more feelings inside. I had a dream about my grandma (yes, that same who cries so much) that she was dying. In the morning Mum asked me if it was corona that she was dying of, and that wasn’t clear to me what it was, but it’s possible because she had real trouble breathing. She was lying in her bed and there were loads of people in her bedroom – us, all my Mum’s siblings with their families, all my grandma’s siblings with their families, I guess even my grandad’s family. – She was praying, and we were praying with her. I am often more like an observer than participant in my dreams and see things in a kind of neutral, emotionally detached way, often either from the point of view of someone else, everyone involved or just an observer, rather than just myself. And so it didn’t feel like I was sitting there with them, I was sort of looking down on themm and hearing what they were saying and I was separate from them, I don’t think they could even see me.

My grandma is generally a very melancholic person, a huge worrier and catastrophist and I call her Fillyjonk – like Fillyjonk from the Moomins – but in my dream she was happy – just in a calm, peaceful, quietly satisfied way like I’ve never seen her in real life – usually when she’s happy in real life it’s because she’s moved by something, and then she cries anyway so it’s kind of bittersweet, or at least so it looks to me. At some point though, she started worrying and talking about someone, I don’t remember why, or maybe I couldn’t even fully understand it in the dream, but I know she was worrying about one of her grandchildren and her worries had something to do with school, so I think it could be my cousin who is currently experiencing some school troubles and to whom she’s very close because she’s actually bringing him up no less than his parents as they live very close. So she grew very nervous and worried what will happen after she died, people tried to calm her down, and the more she was nervous, the more she couldn’t breathe, and then she just died.

Then my point of view shifted so that I was more participating in the dream and only then it hit me what happened. The whole room was quiet, everyone was so shocked, and I suddenly started crying like I think I never did in my real life. It was as much strange that, while I do like my grandma and she is a really lovely person, I don’t have that much of a personal connection with her, same as with most of my family, so it was a really strange reaction and I was really surprised even in the dream.

Then I woke up and realised that my eyes were actually wet and that I must have seriously cried in my sleep, and as it was about Misha’s waking time – 4 AM – he was wide awake and curiously peaking out of his bed and had his paw on my cheek. 😀

That was really quite a strange dream, but strange dreams are intriguing, and I don’t mind them if they’re not sleep paralysis, even if their topic is negative. I think it happens to me more than most people I know that I cry in my sleep, but I think that night was probably the most emotional in that respect, and I was wondering about the whole sleep crying thing – since I often find it difficult to cry even when I want to, maybe it’s some sort of release of actual emotions for my brain, and that’s how it’s coping with some shit that I am at the moment unable to get rid of while being conscious and in control. – In any case, I think brain is absolutely fascinating, but sleep is probably even more in a way.

On a slightly different note, today I also had a dream involving death and quite emotional, but no crying. I dreamt that I met some friends online that I was getting along really well with – it was actually a whole family, parents and children, though I’m pretty sure all of their children were grown up already or maybe one of themm was a teenager, but they lived all together somewhere in the countryside, I have a vague feeling that it might have been somewhere in England, because some parts of my dream were in English, also the mummy had a bit of a Scouse accent and I think England was mentioned somewhere in that dream. – And for some reason I moved to them and lived with them permanently. They were really such cool people, I had something in common with each of them, I remember they had a huge house with a huge garden, what I know for sure is that they had loads of apples in there haha and they had a horse, we spent a lot of time together just because we genuinely wanted it, we read books together, actually I think one of the girls was a writer. One guy was called… yes! you guessed it! Jack and he was so funny. I also remember the mother particularly well, she was really smart and sweet. I bonded with them all really strongly and closely.

And suddenly they all got sick with something on the same day, were all really ill, and finally all died pretty much at once so I was absolutely devastated and so sad and missed them terribly. I woke up soon after that and couldn’t shake off that sad, longing feeling, I guess I could actually say hiraeth as they call it in Welsh, which is longing for something that has never truly existed, it usually refers to a place but i think it describes what I felt really well. And for a while I couldn’t figure out why I felt like that either. As it happened, there was also some really sad piece of music playing on my Spotify as I woke up, nothing better than having a soundtrack to your dreams! 😀 Of course I got over it when I realised that it was a dream, but I found it really sad, and when I recall the whole thing I still feel strangely sad as I seriously knew those people, and I kind of miss them. But I really enjoyed the part of the dream when I was with them. Maybe I’ll add them to my Brainworld or something so that they’d feel a bit more realistic haha.

So, how about you guys? 🙂

Answering another of Carol Anne’s questions.

So I decided I’ll answer another of the questions that Carol Anne of

Therapy Bits

asks her readers in her series called Carol Anne Asks. The question she asked us yesterday was:

Are you open with others about your struggles?

So, for me, it really depends what kind of struggles. It’s definitely very difficult for me to express my feelings especially those that I don’t really feel comfortable with, and it’s also always been hard for me to reach out for support, plus my social anxiety oftentimes makes things difficult when interacting with people, also AVPD comes into play for sure here, and makes me feel either like it’s not really fair to burden people, or like it’s not safe to be vulnerable and possibly coming across as pathetic which is something I always want to avoid, or like no one will be able to help or even get it anyway because AVPD makes you feel like an alien of course, but at least my ability to express the uncomfortable feelings and reach out for support have improved somewhat over the years, and it all impacts how open I am with people, so it’s better than it used to be. I also have a wider support network these days which also helps tremendously with any kind of struggles I might have and being open about them. It also really depends on how close I am with the people that I’m around and what environment I’m in because obvioously we’re all more open with some people and less with others for all sorts of reasons. Generally the person with whom I’m most open about my struggles is my Mum, who helps me a lot and I know I can always rely on her for some good advice or more practical help or just some insight. I haven’t been as open with her lately as I normally am or as I used to be because she’s having some yucky problems of her own so it’s more the other way around right now haha, which I don’t mind because I’m happy to help her if I can as well, and I wouldn’t like to make her worry about too much these days. I could never be fully open about my mental health struggles with Mum though. She’s great with practical help, and, as I’ve said many times I don’t know what I would do without her, but when it comes to my brain or generally things like anxiety or depression or whatever like that she doesn’t really get it. It’s not that she’s narrow-minded and struggles with empathy like my Dad kind of does, but I guess it just feels a bit too abstractive to her because she’s never really experienced such things, and I don’t blame her for that she can’t get it. Trying to talk about those things had led to some misunderstandings between us which weren’t pleasant for either side so it’s best to avoid it if possible. Also, we often share our small, daily life struggles with Sofi very openly, although of course Sofi is much younger than me so I have to be rather selective of what and how I tell her. I’m most open about most of my struggles online, because I struggle less with talking about them online, whether they’re really small or bigger, short or long term. Not all of them, especially if they involve other people closely who perhaps wouldn’t like me writing about that, or if I find something kind of difficult to put into words, or if I just think it’s better not to talk about something overly, but I do share a lot of them and I find this very helpful to get it out of my brain and not only in my personal diary but also for example on my blog or in conversation with someone.

How is it for you? Let me know here, or respond to Carol Anne’s post if you wish. 🙂

 

The hiatus is over.

So, as I wrote in the last post and as some of you could notice from my activity on your blogs, my blogging hiatus seems to be over. It’s so great to be back to blogging and connect with you guys! 🙂 I think I wrote you in my last post about all those strange issues with my new computer, which, again, turned out to be caused by the fan that was loose, so the computer couldn’t work properly. Interestingly, when I got it back last Friday, the fan was fallen off again, but this time I didn’t send it to that company again, but my Mum took it to a nearby servicing place. It seems to be fine now, although my trust for this thing has been broken very badly so, while it is a major and stressful change for me anyway, with all those complications along the way it will take me probably even longer to adapt to this new computer and feel confident with it. I have a lot to get used to, and I haven’t figured tons of things yet which is awfully stressful, and there are some that I might just never figure out and will simply have to deal with. I don’t have most of my speech synths – because some seem to have keys that don’t work any longer (including the Welsh and Swedish one which makes my language learning a bit more difficult), I also don’t have Jacek about which I was telling you earlier that I had had that speech synthesiser for years and out of all I’ve ever had Jacek was the best and most reliable Polish speech synthesiser and I simply had a sort of emotional bond with him so to say. After the last time I sent the computer  to the company who helped me get it, I also lost (hopefully temporarily) most other of my voices, because they were doing multiple system repairs, restorations and what not and in all that chaos there have been some licence issues that I’m not able to sort out on my own and will just potentially have to buy them once again which is so totally unfair, especially that I’ll most likely also have to buy myself some other Swedish voice. I can do without Welsh, but definitely not without Swedish. Thus, since I lost all those other synths, I’m also left without a decent English synth which I can deal with but which stinks really badly! Also I have to figure out why my computer doesn’t seem to like virtually any headphones, and they just don’t work exactly properly on it, because while you have them plugged in the sound output can just change at random back to the speakers, or the sound goes somewhere into the space and you can’t hear it neither on the headphones, nor in the speakers. This stinks too, because while my speakers are quite gorgeous, at least for listening to music, I do appreciate my privacy and don’t always want everyone around to know what I’m doing, or even listening to, and sometimes do things which you just need to use headphones for. I hope it’s not some major issue but I probably will not be able to solve it on my own because I simply have no idea what’s the problem here, and, as you can imagine, it can be quite a bit of a problem when you use a screenreader and can’t control whether you are actually able to hear it or not. And oh gosh I do have to get used to all that humming in the background! It’s a trivial problem but it’s really annoying for someone like me who has music on at night while sleeping and so far had only had laptops before. Obviously desktop computers are much noisier. Or at least mine is. I only listen to the music quietly at night, so I can hear it slightly but can still fall asleep and not wake up because of it or something, and it alleviates my sensory anxiety stuff, but now, this way the humming is what I hear predominantly then. I’ve been wondering whether there are ways to quiet it down a bit but I’m quite clueless and I suppose if I won’t get used to it after a while, I’ll have to look for some other ways to have my music on at night, because in this case I’m not up for any compromises. So yeeeah plenty of change and I’ve only mentioned the major things! 😀 Actually for now the whole adjustment process makes it hard for me to see any upsides of the situation, even though there certainly are some. Like, my files don’t get randomly damaged any longer, yaaay! That’s a huge positive, isn’t it? I believe you can get used to everything, and people definitely get used to much worse things which have no positives about them, but I’m really quite curious how long it will take for me, and while my adjustment process is lasting it’s rather daunting.

I thought that since I’m already writing a post I’ll base it on some writing prompt, or a challenge or whatever. And I decided that I will answer the question of Carol Anne at

Therapy Bits

which she posed to her readers yesterday in her series Carol Anne Asks, especially that her question is very general and I haven’t posted in a LONG while. The question is:

How do you feel today? 😀

So, today I feel a bit better than in the last days and weeks, which have been tough for me because of all those tech issues and the whole computer transition thing, but also there has been quite a bit of socialising and general anxiety and stuff. Today I’m still an anxious, stressed, a bit anhedonic and overthinking mess but to a slightly lesser degree I’d like to believe. 😉 I had a headache in the morning, but thankfully it was just very slight and didn’t develop into anything worse and it has vanished after a few hours which was great. I did some Welsh late in the afternoon, which I wasn’t able to do in a serious way for a good couple of months because of my laptop being glitchy and eating up or destroying my files including Welsh files, which felt kind of good but also more stressful than usual because, well, I had to get used to doing it without Gwyneth – my Welsh speech synth – and because I’m generally not doing too well right now which shows up in how well I absorb what I’m learning. I don’t know if I’ve told you about that ever before but my current dominant music crush, or faza as I call it in Polish – on Gwilym Bowen Rhys – is fading slowly but surely, and I am very worried because this has never happened with my crushes before, not before another one came into my life and dominated over the previous one. Now there doesn’t seem to be any other crush on the horizon to replace Gwilym onn the dominant position in my brain. As I’ve often said, crush is such a shallow word but for me a crush means more than it typically does to someone. My crushes/fazas inspire me, fascinate me, boost my mood, help me to develop in new directions, make me want to live, etc. etc.! They feel absolutely necessary for my mental wellbeing and self-development and make a huge difference, and I believe that a decent crush peak is actually one of the best natural medications for depression. So, this is worrying. All my crushes are still there, even when they fade slightly they are there, but they can’t have as much of an influence on me as a crush that is dominant. So I believe that explains why I’ve been feeling somewhat more mentally lousy and anhedonic in the last couple of months and it’s been slowly increasing, and when I feel better I frantically look for a potential new candidate for me to get a faza on, even though I know well that it never works like that when I want to have a faza on someone, I will, it just comes spontaneously. But maybe my brain needs some… inspiration, stimulation, or whatever. 😀 I would love my next crush to be called Jack! So, here’s my request to you lovely people, if there are any musicians, or even literary characters called Jack, or something similar that you know, that you think I might not know but might like, do let me know! If you have any idea, and by any chance that Jack will indeed become my next crush, you have MIMRA absolutely guaranteed! 😀 Seriously. Jacquelines and the like also count. Or if you know a Hamish…

So, yeah, that’s more or less how I’m feeling today.

I missed blogging awfully, so I’m glad I can finally get back to it, although I don’t know if I’ll manage to write daily for now, we’ll see. 🙂

How are you feeling? Let me know in the comments, and go over to Carol Anne as well, or if you want to make a post of your own let me know so I can read it. 🙂

Me and Misha are heading off to Sleepland. 😴

Question of the day.

Hi guys! 🙂

This is my question for you today:

When was the first time you remember feeling really angry?

My answer:

I generally wasn’t the type of a child that would easily get angry, not in my very early years anyway, later it started to look a bit different, when I would bottle it all up and then my brain would suddenly throw it all out at once and I’d feel out of control, but when I was very small I remember I was actually wondering why people get so angry so often about everything, and how do they do it, like as if I didn’t even know how to be properly angry. 😀 Yet my very first childhood memory is all about anger. The first thing in my life that I remember is when Olek was born. I was 2 then, and some people tried to persuade me that children don’t remember things at that young age, but, well, turns out that I do, at least this one thing, maybe because of how intense it felt. Mum was in the hospital, and me and Dad came to visit her. I remember clearly when we came in to the hospital and then we were in a very creaky lift and I was a bit scared because I felt dizzy in it. Mum was on her own in the hospital room and we were both very happy to see each other. Olek, like me and Zofijka, was born through C-section, and she showed me her belly, and I saw the wound and all, it looked horrid, and I remember she had a big needle close to her tummy, I don’t even know what it was for, but, at least then, it looked huge to me and it was all just awful, and I was feeling absolutely, seriously mad at that horrible creature who did that to her, I think good for him that he wasn’t there. I was mad at him for hurting my Mummy, and for taking her away from me. I don’t remember anymore of that, but when me and Olek were kids, we weren’t really like typical siblings – yes we played a bit with each other, and yes we argued like all siblings, especially sisters and brothers do, but I didn’t really like him at all, and I didn’t feel anything positive towards him, I was indifferent to him at best. – And, while I don’t remember those things, my parents recall that I would often come over to him and start to beat him with something, or wouldn’t let him play with me or with my things, or wouldn’t talk to him etc. I was real nasty to him. And we still don’t really have much of a relationship at all, which kinda sucks, and is definitely weird, and we both feel pretty awkward around each other and mostly only talk casually. But I no longer beat him, I’d be afraid to do that as he’s at least 30 cm taller than me. 😀 And it’s not that we don’t like each other now, just don’t have a close bond I guess. But while it seems slightly weird, especially given that I have a much more strong bond with Zofijka who is 10 years younger than me, I guess not all siblings have to have a great relationship.

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

Hi people! 🙂

When was the first time you remember feeling accomplished about something?

My answer:

Well, I guess I don’t remember which one could be the first time… I used to take part in many song competitions and such as a small child, so maybe something in relation to this. I especially liked our local song contest, where I competed with children from a special needs school in a neighbouring town, who were all multiply disabled often including intellectual disability, in contrast to me as I have only one disability per se, and I always won those contests, which wasn’t difficult for me at all, and I guess it wasn’t even that very fair as the jury were kinda biased towards me, haha, so not much challenge at all. So I always came back home from there with a big basket of sweets and we’d have a month or so of devouring horrendous amounts of them every day with Olek. Although now I wonder why they actually got me in there and then always made me a winner whether rightly or not rather than give more chances to the children at that school, and not make them compete with someone who had completely different kind of difficulties than them, I guess some people, even those in the field of disabilities, still think that a disability is just a disability and it doesn’t matter if you’re using a wheelchair, are blind, mentally ill or having a rare disease, it’s all the same for them, which is stupid. At least not all people are like this nowadays.

What’s the first accomplishment that you can remember? 🙂

Working On Us.

It’s week #4 of Working On Us at

Beckie’s Mental Mess

and I’m very happy to participate in this prompts series for the second time. Last week, I was answering the questions for prompt #1, but this time, I found prompt #2 really relatable. It’s a photo prompt, so I couldn’t actually see it, but Beckie described it and the image of a brain inside of a bird cage really spoke to me. I suppose I should include the photo in my post somehow, but since I have no clue how to do it, and am blind, so don’t need to have a clue about pics haha, I’ll just leave it as it is.

I was thinking about that prompt a lot last evening and thought I would make some piece of creative writing but since I don’t feel very creative at the moment it’ll just be a bit of a ramble.

I’ve been fascinated by brain for years, and it’s one of my main interests. But it’s not only that why I found this prompt so relatable. I could say I often feel as if my brain was locked in a bird cage, and unable to get out, just never thought about such a metaphor before. What does it feel like when your brain is locked in a brain cage? For me, among other things, it means difficulty in releasing emotions, there’s no way to get them out, whether you want it or not. Your brain fills up until it’s all full and all the feelings are one big mishmash, so that sometimes you don’t even know what you feel any longer. Things get mixed up, until finally the brain can’t contain anymore, and things start to leak out. But instead of leaking outside in a proper way, instead of being expressed, they spill all over the cage. It’s flooded with stuff that can’t be released otherwise, and the brain is swimming in all the intense feelings. That’s when overload happens, and I start feeling a lot of intense anger that gets turned inwards, so I feel like self-harming. Sometimes, when the flood is really strong, something will spill outside through the grating, but the cage is tall and thick so it’s really hard. The only way for me to get my brain out of that cage is writing. Then, the bird cage opens and it can fly out and feel more free.

Another thing that a bird cage makes me think of in the context of my brain, is the feeling of alienation, or feeling disconnected, or loneliness in the crowd, inadequacy, or however you want to call it. I like being different, and individualistic, and I like being on my own more than around other people most of the time and feel more comfy with it. But when it becomes a bird cage for my brain is when I do need to be with someone, but for whatever reason can’t make a connection with people. Sometimes it’s like you can see other people from there, but there’s no way of communicating effectively. You can only bang on the cage and hope that they will hear you, but even if they will, they usually won’t be able to help you out, or open the cage, or get close enough that you could communicate, or feel the way you feel. Even if they do get to you, you’ve been living in this cage for so long that you can’t even explain to them what it’s like, and what you need, and they won’t understand, because they live out there in the world which is so very different. So after a couple trials, you just sit in the corner of your cage and look out, watching people come and go. Sometimes they’ll glance in your direction in confusion, not understanding why you are the way you are and live in a bird cage, what’s wrong with your brain that you constantly keep it in there. As if it was your choice. Sometimes you might feel desperate, and try to jump over the cage, but that hardly ever ends up well and is risky, you can easily get hurt. Even if you do get out of there in one piece, you quickly realise that you don’t fit in, and lots of consequences come with it. And after so many years of living in a cage your brain just doesn’t know otherwise and has it hard to adjust and be just like any other brain living in the outside world. So after all, you put your brain back into the cage, voluntarily this time, ’cause a familiar enemy is worse than the one you don’t know anything about and don’t know how to deal with.

That’s the way my brain feels sometimes. Well, regularly. Again, writing, for myself or with/to others, is something that helps, to some degree, especially blogging and penpalling is what I’m thinking of.

Also, I think the bird cage analogy works very well in regards to my sleep paralysis experiences too. It feels like my brain and me are locked up in a bird cage with all my dream monsters. I can see the outside world but they don’t see me, and I can’t run away because my dream “friends” are all over me. The only thing I can do is wait for the dream cage to open and flee as soon as possible.

What’s a bird cage of your brain? How does it look like and what does it represent? 🙂

Question of the day (29th April).

What are you feeling?

My answer:

Ooooooh lots of things now. First, as I wrote with my last question of the day post, I’m a bit sleepy and tired from all the steam that my brain has produced absorbing Welsh language for 2 and a half hours. I’m also a little bit frustrated that it’s going so damn slowly and that I can’t seem to understand much without reading the English translation first. I’m also hopeful though, that it’s going to change if I’m going to be determined enough. I’ve been feeling slightly anxious, that is slightly more than my baseline is, I’m fairly anxious on my baseline already I guess compared with most people, but never mind, it’s not a big deal at this point. But, all that is vague and unimportant now!… Just a few minutes ago, just as I was preparing to write this post and go off to sleep, I got an email, that changed everything for me today! 😀 It sounds like exaggerated and exalted but I’m serious about that actually. I got an email from Bandcamp, notifying me of a “new release from Gwilym Bowen Rhys”! For those uninitiated/not remembering such a small yet very important detail in my Mishmashy world, Gwilym Bowen Rhys is my current crush, my dominant crush that is. Yyyyyyyyyaaayyyyy! I only wonder how could I miss that?! I mean, usually, when such things are about to happen, I know about them way ahead, not just like this, at the last minute. Maybe it was something spontaneous though it doesn’t look like that to me. Well that’s not important now but if not Bandcamp being so kind, I’d probably miss it… and that would be a tragedy! So, OK, how do I feel about it? my crushes always make me feel more positive, more creative, ’cause in a way they’re a bit more than my crushes, they’re like my inspirations, fascinations, they are very important to me, even if it’s ridiculous because I don’t know them personally, I don’t think though that’s a good indicator of who/what should be important to anyone so I don’t know if it really is that ridiculous, they keep me afloat on many of my bad days, help me indirectly to develop myself. I feel very intrigued, and much less sleepy now, and am really looking forward to hearing that album. I believe though that if you’re listening to some piece of music for the first time, and it is important to you, you need the right atmosphere for that if you want to be a good listener and a fair critic. Plus I’ve always had a hint of masochistic tendencies, ( just kidding). But I’m thinking whether maybe I should wait with listening to this album, when I have time to really get into it and when I am fully focused and not sleepy and tired. Some actually say that waiting for something nice is actually more pleasurable than the thing itself… The question is whether I can survive so long, with such an overwhelming curiosity. 😀 We shall see. OK but I’m off to sleep now, it’s past midnight already. ANother thing I’m surprised about, didn’t think it’s that late, i had an honest intention of going to sleep early today. Well hope at least I can sleep well. And going to find Misha to accompany me for the night.

OK so, how about your feelings right now? 🙂

Stoicism

This is a very powerful post, to which I can hugely relate as someone constantly trying to unlarn bottling up emotions and living with consequences of doing so all the time for years. If you struggle with similar issues, I highly recommend you reading this. 🙂

New Beginnings

We all have a different reaction to pain.

Some of us react externally, such as jump in shock, scream, cry, or become enraged.

Some of us react, but rather internally than externally. Such as concealing the pain deep within the mind, making it appear as though they feel nothing on the outside but truly suffer inside.

Instead, the outside reaction might just be a smile. Or even nothing at all. Almost appearing as though they are immune to the pain inflicted upon them.

Maybe they want nobody to see them in pain. They wouldn’t want people to show any care for them so they can endure their suffering alone. As if nobody would be able to heal them.

Or perhaps they think people would view them as weak. A pathetic human that could never stand a chance through life. They want to eliminate the possibility of being embarrassed by hiding…

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Question of the day.

What’s the oddest crush you’ve ever had?

My answer:

The oddest?… All my crushes are odd, to say the least, particularly my musical crushes, though, truth be told, I didn’t have many other, I mean, most of my crushes that I’ve ever had are music crushes. Well not crushes really, but as most of you may already know, I think the word crush is closest to describe it, though it feels sort of shallow. But… the oddest… I’d have to make some ranking with the different criteria for what’s classified as odd, and then maybe I’d be able to find the one who was more odd than all the rest. Well, but, I guess from my music crushes the oddest would be the one on Vreeswijk, as it was so intense, and… just… odd… Hm.

Oh, but, other than that, I did have a very odd and a very short-lasting crush when I was a kid, and when I say crush, in this regard I do mean a crush. I could be like 7-9 years old, can’t remember exactly, we were building a new house, we lived in the countryside back then and had a very small house on the same backyard as my Mum’s family – her sisters and parents – and we wanted to build a new house, in pretty much the same location, but on my grandparents’ roof and we wanted it to be bigger. This whole building thing lasted for years, and at one point there was my uncle’s friend helping out with it. I just don’t know when or, what’s much more enigmatic and odd, why, but boy did I get a crush on that guy. I really, REALLy don’t know why! He was just such a simpleton, just nothing special about him at all, he couldn’t even speak properly gramatically and was a bit smelly because he was smoking heavily. He was overall nice, that’s for sure, and had fairly decent sense of humour, and that would be all that I could say both positive and at least somehow remarkable about him. So, yeah, I don’t know why I had that crush, what I do know is that the only person who knew about it was my brother, though I don’t think he can still remember it, even I had to really think before it came to my mind haha. I wonder what was so special that I was seeing in him back then. 😀 And this crush was, especially as for my standards, very shortlasting. Can’t say exactly how much it lasted but I’d say maximum 2-3 weeks. I guess for most kids at that age or slightly older such a shortlasting, intense crush on whoever happens to be new and in the eyesight would be a typical thing, our Zofijka have had like three such crushes if I remember well since the start of this school year, however I don’t think I could call myself typical and such things weren’t and aren’t typical for me, I rarely crushed on anyone in my surroundings and if I did I had to have a good reason behind it, so, in my case, something like this was extremely odd. 😀 Also he was much older than me which especially in childhood I think does make a difference. So yeah, that would be my oddest crush I guess. 😀

How about you? 🙂

Question of the day.

And, finally, the question for today is:

 

When was the last time you cried in front of another person?

My answer:

As you probably already know, I’m not much of a cryer and I hate crying, more so crying in front of others, so I try to avoid it as much as I can. So I don’t really know when was the last time, or why I cried. The only thing I can say for sure is that it had to be some time ago and that the only person in front of whom I ever cry nowadays is my Mum.

You? 🙂

Question of the day.

Is there a film that’s left an impact on you in some way or form?

My answer:

Guess not, or can’t think of any, I’m certainly not a movie expert. Well I guess everything we see or have contact with impacts us in some way, but I don’t think a film has ever impacted me significantly. I loved watching “Rännstensungar” (Guttersnipes) because of Vreeswijk, as probably all of you already know, and I loved “The Six Bullerby Children” when I was a small child because I fell in love with the Swedish language watching it. Other than that I guess the only films that affect me more significantly are such that contain something that is anxiety provoking for me like people vomiting for example. I can read books in which it happens, if it’s not too graphic, but I still can’t stand it in a film without feeling shaky and sick or having to leave the room, I can’t understand why it always has to be so visible and audible and obvious in films, or maybe I’m just overly sensitive in this particular topic. When I accidentally happen to watch such films or be around when someone is watching I am just happy I can’t see.

How about you? 🙂

Janice – “Answer”.

Hi guys. 🙂

The song I have for you today is from Swedish singer Janice Kamya Kavander, known simply as Janice. She’s becoming very popular in Sweden, and there is something powerful in her voice. I am generally not like a big fan of very soul-like sounding voices, except for Amy Winehouse and maybe a couple other people, but I do like Janice and her expressiveness. And I must say this particular song really moved me when I heard it.

It is about, or to, Janice’s dad, who died five years ago. For me, when I first heard her, she sounded rather mature, as her voice is so strong and expressive, but turns out she’s only 24, so she was 19 when her dad died. That’s very early and no wonder it affected her even more than it would affect someone later on in life. And this song is so full of expression, I think it’s hard to not feel even just a little bit moved. There are lots of versions on Youtube, but I like it particularly in the acoustic version, which is only on Spotify, so, again, I have to only give you the link to Spotify.

IsÁk – “Face The Truth”.

Hi guys. 🙂

Recently, I’ve showed you a lot of Scandinavian – Swedish and Norwegian – music, often some pretty new things. Let’s stay in Scandinavia, but have something slightly more exotic today.

IsÁk is a Sami band – from Norwegian Lapland – and they combine Sami joik – Sami traditional singing technique, joik is also a name of song sung in such a style and generally this genre – with modern, kinda synth sounds. Their lyrics, so far, as they don’t have any full length album as of yet, are in English, Norwegian or Sami. The band has gained quite a lot of attention in the Sami environment and on the modern Sami music scene.

The name of the name of the band, as I assume, comes from the leader and vocalist’s surname, she is ELla Marie Hætta Isaksen.

As far as I know, they only have a few songs released until now, and I must say that I generally quite like them but I find this song the best, I feel like the rest isn’t as good as this one, even this song is for the most part in English. Though as you will be able to hear, there is also a part in Sami, and with joik too. So here it is and I hope you’ll like it too.