Category: Non-Fiction Books

Breaking Radio Silence – Making Peace

Since my last ‘spiral’ as I call it, I’ve begun writing what I call the ‘master file’ for the ‘Breaking Radio Silence’ project. I’ve got a rough draft of the introduction and have started the first chapter. Now I’ve written more introductions and beginnings of first chapters than I can remember and every single one of them has been deleted or trashed within days of writing them. I’d read back over them and think I was totally going in the wrong direction or worse, that what I was writing was too much for me to handle. Most of what I’d written previously was deleted in an emotional storm, or spiral. Yet what I have now is sticking like super-glue. It’s rough and will need lots of editing but trust me, good writing takes a shit-ton of editing to make it work as well as it should.

I asked myself why I wasn’t feeling the need to scrap yet another attempt at this book like I had every single time I had tried to write it before. And this was the answer that came to me:

I’ve made peace with my decisions in the past, namely the one where I encased so much of myself, my thoughts, and my feelings, in silence.

By making peace I mean I have accepted that I made those decisions knowing what I did back then, and that it was for a very good reason, that reason being that I needed to focus my energy on being my parents’ primary caregiver. For twenty years that was my primary responsibility in life, one that I took on without any regret. And I didn’t see that as a sacrifice because I wasn’t thinking of my future because the present was where I needed to be the most. But it was also a choice I paid a very high price for because closing myself off as much as I meant that yes, I did come off as a cold, unemotional bitch more often than not, and that any attempt to open up was met with skepticism and derision. This is why my parents and I circled the wagons so to speak and created a closed circle with just the three of us.

Remember what I’ve always said about forgiveness, that it’s like removing razor-sharp talons from the depths of your mind, your heart, and your soul, then burning those talons to ash, cleaning and stitching the wounds closed, then putting a bandage over them, and letting time ease the pain. I needed to finally accept that I made the right decision back then to go silent, and that my parents were right in telling me not to respond to shit being said behind my back and to my face. My parents always told me I was doing the right thing by them, and that they appreciated everything I did for them, and loved me for it. They loved me for who I was and told me that and now I remember that more than anything.

But I will also say this: it shouldn’t have been that way. No one should have to close themselves off so much simply because they’re trying to shield people from the worst of what they’re going through. Yes, my parents and I did close ourselves off a lot because of what we were dealing with, the pain and suffering that is the stuff of endless nightmares. My parents and I talked about pain and suffering in private, and yes, we talked about a death a lot. No, we did not acquire any ‘comfort’ in talking about death because of what led up to it. Because the first time my parents brought up death, I walked out of the room. I couldn’t handle it and they understood and accepted that. But that was the only time I ever walked out on a conversation like that.

And as I’ve said before and I will say again now: this book is not an act of revenge or any bullshit like that. It’s for people who have encased themselves in silence and who feel that silence breaking or who have broken their silence, or know they need to break their silence once and for all in order to heal their wound. Because if you’re reading this and feeling any shame, guilt, or remorse for making assumptions about people’s silence or have said hurtful shit without listening to someone first, that’s for you to deal with, or not. And if anyone wants to spew shit at me, I’m walking away because I’ve heard it all before and I’m still alive on this planet. Now I’m just learning how to live each day with its’ accompanying ups and downs.

This book is not a defense of anything, of any decision I’ve made past a certain point. More than anything, it’s an explanation for why I have thought and felt the way I have and what I needed to do in order to learn how to do better in my life. As I’ve said before, too, healing was not in the initial plan at all but it’s something I’m forever grateful for even though it is hard at times. I know the idea that healing can be difficult may seem odd to some people who read this but healing can hurt as you work towards it.

This week I’m working on the first chapter of the book, which starts when I turned forty and told myself I wasn’t doing so bad. But then I will show that it was really a façade, something I tried to create in order to look like I had my shit together. When the mind reaches a stable place like that, it says, “Alright, now you’re in a place to work through all the crap you’ve boxed up.” And yes, that’s how it happens and it took me a long time to realize that was the catalyst for this project, that it started before I even came up with the idea itself.

Breaking Radio Silence – Spiraling Into Answers

At the beginning of this month, I started the National Novel Writing Month challenge and five days in, I began to slow down with my writing. This in turn led to what I call a ‘spiral’. A ‘spiral’ for me is like an endless loop of anxiety overlaid with depression that ends when I hit bottom. What triggers these ‘spirals’ takes time to figure out but this last one was me having to face some things I’ve been dancing around for a long time:

My writing is personal.

Now I know that seems like a simple statement and probably one that you might not think should cause a spiral that ground my writing to a halt. But this thought was followed by another one:

That by breaking my silence as I call it, that someone out there will accuse me of living a lie, of just being nice in order to get what I wanted in life, or to make people like me when in reality I’m just a shitty person.

This thought comes from being told that when I showed any emotion other than nice, biddable kindness, or when I tried to call someone out on their cruel and incentive bullshit that I was a bad person and a liar. Because people who spew bullshit that is cruel and insensitive don’t like it when you call them out on it so in turn, they deflect with that bullshit accusation. And the reason this has been so hard for me to deal with is there is absolutely no truth to it at all. I’m not a narcissistic sociopath, or a thoughtless asshole because I can guarantee you if you ask someone why they’re being cruel and insensitive you’re going to get the same answer no matter how many times you ask the question or in any variation: “I don’t know.” I’ve been afraid for far too long of dealing with that shit but a couple of weeks ago, when I hit the bottom of my most recent ‘spiral’, I said fuck that shit and fuck anyone who ever says this.

What began to pull me out of this spiral was this thought I tapped into my phone at about four-thirty (ish) in the morning:

I have all this potential. Why am I wasting it on anxious bullshit and assholes who aren’t in my life? And if anyone has a problem with this or thinks I’m a fuckup-failure, they can fuck all the way off.

This thought came from the realization that I haven’t completed a novel-length writing project (50,000+ words) in over seven years. Every time I’ve gone after writing something that big I’ve spiraled and hit a brick wall. That brick wall was the thought that my writing, and not just my non-fiction, but my fiction, too, is personal. And being told not to make my writing personal, or too personal, if you will, imprinted on me pretty hard as it came at a time that I will call my shit-twenties and semi-shit thirties. But as I approach the end of my hard-ass forties, I’ve worked through that and now I’m trying to sit down and write it all out once and for all. It feels daunting but I’ve written long stuff before and though I’m out of practice, I know I can do it, hence telling myself I have all this potential.

The reason I’m writing this here and spewing a lot of this out yet again is this: if anyone feels shame for spiraling, hitting brick walls, backing off, or retreating back into silence, it’s okay. Fuck shame and guilt over this stumble because there’s no reason to feel it and if anyone tries to heap shame and guilt onto you, tell them to fuck off because I guarantee you they haven’t even attempted anything big in their life. And if you’re reading this and feeling butt-hurt over being called out for shooting your mouth off over something you have never even attempted before: fuck off and go to the store and buy some Preparation-H. I’m not your butt-cream and neither is anyone else and anyone who trips, stumbles, and falls is not a loser, especially if they’re like me and always pull themselves up and keep going despite the pain.

I’m really hoping this is the last big spiral I will have but I know the possibility exists for this to happen again. Yet I feel stronger than I ever have before because I’ve found the words written on that damn brick wall. Words have power and meaning, and they also make big scary shit not so big and scary once you find those words and say them out loud.

Finally I want to say this: it’s okay to hit brick walls, and it’s okay to spiral. That’s just a part of life and things are going to come up and bite you in the ass or smack you right across the chops sometimes though hopefully in time that will happen less and less. To deal with it, find your words and most of all, let go of shame and guilt you had no business taking on in the first place. And if anyone tries to heap guilt and shame on you, or tries to deflect their own bullshit onto you, tell them to fuck off and don’t stick around to deal with their butt-hurt bullshit-feelings.

Stand or Fall – Cleaning Up the Mess

When President Joe Biden was elected in 2020, he said it would probably take about ten years to repair the worst of the damage not just from the previous administration, but from the last forty years or so. The damage is from forty years of trickle-down economics that gutted the middle-class and damn near brought this country into a major depression in 2020 when the pandemic hit. The damage is also from the fact that the white establishment in this country lost its’ shit in 2008 when a black man, Barack Obama was elected President then re-elected in 2012. Because the only two things the previous administration and Republican-led Congress did from 2016 to 2020 was enact a tax cut that now comprises twenty-five percent of the national deficit and fucked up handling a pandemic that killed a million people in this country.

Since 2021, over ten million jobs have been brought back to this country that had been off-shored for the last forty years. Inflation has gone down, wages are up, and unions are growing stronger by the day. There are massive investments in infrastructure, clean energy, and technology like never before. People are doing better but too damn many of them are ungrateful dumb-asses who can’t make that connection because the press has its’ head up its’ ass in not reporting on this. And Fox News is still on the air so that’s a big part of why this kind of good news isn’t too well known.

And for those of you reading this who voted Republican, ask your Republican legislators why they voted against all this economic recovery. Ask them why they still want to abolish Social Security and Medicare and every other program that benefits people. Ask them what their real agenda is other than death and destruction, and establishing a fascist neo-Nazi religious dictatorship.

In my lifetime, I saw Regan gut the unions, offshore millions of jobs, and create rust belts all over this country. Bill Clinton didn’t do enough in my not-so-humble opinion to address this mess and then Bush, junior decided to start two fucking wars to feed the military-industrial complex instead of fixing shit. Barack Obama tried his best to start repairing the damage and he pulled us out of a potential recession in 2008. But then the dumb-asses of America put a Republican Russian asset into office and damn near brought this country down by 2020. And now people say that Biden isn’t doing enough? Anyone who says that needs to pull your fucking head out of your ass once and for all and decide if you just want to make a mess or not.

When I look at a political candidate, a political party, or an organization I ask just one question now: what is their plan to help people? Is to fix things, invest in things that will help people, take care of people and improve quality of life, and is there a plan to help heal this planet we live on? If the answers to those questions are not only yes but detailed plans, then they have my support. So if you’re a voter who needs guidance this is an easy way to start learning and making better decisions other than a voting for a party of loud-mouth right-wing Nazi performance artists (aka Republicans).

Do you want to help clean up the mess even if you didn’t vote for that mess like I never did?

Or do you just want to shit all over everything and let someone else clean it up while you sit around and shit some more?

Or to summarize those questions into one:

Do you want to be a part of the solution, or just a part of the problem?

In my past, I got shit from people for taking care of things, for cleaning up messes made by other people. Why? Fuck if I know other than just entitled stupidity. Now if anyone tried to pull that shit on me I’d tell them to fuck off. I’m not trying to pull anyone’s head out of their ass here because that’s not my job. I’m just trying to make people think and maybe, just maybe loosen their head from their asshole.

I’m not going to let anyone shit on my compassion, my empathy, and my hope. I’m not going to let anyone shit on me for wanting to do something good, and to build something good that will last for future generations. Shitting all over compassion, empathy, and hope is the biggest mess we have to clean up. Because that’s one of the shittiest things anyone can do and I will not tolerate it in any way, shape, or form. Hence the foul language and anger here because it’s not that I’m pissed off about cleaning up messes. I’m pissed off at people standing off to the side making more messes and being lazy, entitled, good-for-nothing bums.

So in the next twelve months till the next big election in November 2024, choose or lose. Clean up or get the fuck out of the way.

Breaking Radio Silence – I Am an Over-Thinker

I am an over-thinker. Yes, I have been told I over-think things and that it’s not good to do that. It’s just how my brain functions, but also how it was molded to do so by repeated bullshit.

Over-thinkers are people like me whose brains run at hundred-plus miles an hour every single day of their lives. They take in massive quantities of information and stimulation but also they can take one tiny little thing and blow it up to nuclear proportions. We live and breathe anxiety and racing thoughts, and we also live with intense emotions inside us.

So-called ‘normal’ people don’t think at a hundred-plus miles an hour all day and every day, don’t take tiny little things and blow them up to nuclear-level proportions, and most of all, they don’t constantly worry about what people think about them. Sarcastically I’ll say that must be nice but in reality, these so-called ‘normal’ people don’t deal well with this kind of behavior. Because an over-thinker can multi-task in ways that defy gravity sometimes, some so-called ‘normal’ people feel like an over-thinker should be perfect even though each and every over-thinking person is human, flawed, and fucked up.

I don’t know if I’ll ever reach a point in my life where I won’t say to myself, “And if someone doesn’t like this or what I’m saying or doing, then they can just fuck off.’ This thought comes into my mind because I over-think shit and in turn I worry about what people will think. And most of all, I worry about having to push back on someone and tell them to take their butt-hurt bullshit and shove it. I tell myself now I can do that if it comes down to that because there is NO ONE they can go off and tattle to like when my parents were alive. Because yes, when my parents were alive I was deeply afraid that someone would tattle enough to them to where my parents would tell me to be quiet and do nothing or worse, shove me out the door. The thing is as I’ve come to realize with a lot of thinking is that people who do run and tattle and talk shit and act all butt-hurt when someone does push back on their bullshit… they never think about the consequences of their words and actions.

The few times I pushed back on people talking shit I heard this bullshit in response:

“Well, that’s not what I meant.”

And now I will say this in response:

“Then what the fuck did you mean?”

Because if you’re reading this and you’re squirming as you realize you ran your mouth in the past, flipped your lid way more than you ever should have, or just thought you knew better or that you had the right to verbally kick the shit out of someone when there was no reason to do that, ask yourself what did you mean to do? I guarantee you won’t like the answers to that question and you’ll have to deal with them. Most of all, in return you don’t get to tell survivors of your bullshit like me to let it go, or move past it, or not think about it at all. Thinking about shit is what so many of us survivors do because it’s how our brains are wired.

Because yes, over-thinking is a neurodivergent trait. And I want everyone reading this who has been told they think too much that it’s okay to do that. I would rather over-think something and not say anything at all instead of saying something that I would regret later. I would rather over-think something to where I get about as close to perfect as I can. But most of all, I will not be ashamed or feel guilty about over-thinking and worrying about things because that’s how my brain functions.

I want anyone reading this who has been told they over-think shit to work on taking those talons of shame and guilt out of yourself and burning them to ash. I want you to see over-thinking is a strength, and a good quality to have. Yes, it’s a ginormous pain in the ass more often than not sometimes but I want you to see it as a strength, too. I’m writing this to get this train of thought out of my system and to people who I think need to hear what I have to say.

I’m also doing this because for so long I’ve thought I shouldn’t just fire something off and post it.

Well, I’m firing and posting so do what you will. Over-think shit then get it out of your system in a way that works for you. And if anyone doesn’t like that, that’s they’re fucking problem and not mine.

Over-thinker and proud of it.

Stand or Fall – The Price of Dysfunction and Disinformation

This past Saturday, the terrorist group Hamas launched a campaign of terror against Israel out of the Gaza Strip. They launched over two-thousand rockets and invaded over 20 towns and villages in southern Israel. As of yesterday, there were over fifteen-hundred Israelis and citizens from other countries dead and thousands more dead in Gaza and thousands more injured. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu says a state of war exists now between Israel and Hamas. Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States government for its’ extensive ties and funding from Iran and Russia. Their incursion and attacks are being called war crimes but Israeli retaliation is just as brutal with a total blockade and cutoff for the civilians in Gaza.

Now the roots of this conflict between Israel and the Palestinians goes back long before most of us were born so I won’t go into that here. But in the last few years things have really gone to hell between Israel and the Palestinians. And how Hamas was able to launch this attack and why they are so well-armed remains to be uncovered as does the question of how Israeli intelligence didn’t see this one coming. There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle here that we haven’t seen yet and we won’t like we do find when we do.

Where the dysfunction and disinformation comes from is here in the United States. First, Fox News and every Republican asshole claim Hamas is being funded by six-billion dollars sitting in a bank in Qatar which is not true. That money is Iranian and that was frozen back in 1979 and is currently being used for humanitarian aid in Iran. Second, far leftist idiots here in the United States claim Hamas isn’t the terrorist organization that is because they’re too dumb to admit that Hamas has done nothing to help the people in Gaza. And the dysfunction is that the United States has no active ambassador to Israel, and that over 300 high-ranking military promotions are still being held up by one senator, asshole Republican Tommy Tubville from Alabama, and multiple high-ranking diplomatic positions are being held up by one asshole senator from Tennessee, Rand Paul. Both of these bastards have been accused of being Russian assets and right now, their actions are benefiting Russia and not the United States.

Another dysfunction is right now the United States House of Representatives has no Speaker of the House and because of that, only ONE member of the House was able to attend a high-level briefing on the war in Israel, Democratic Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is now working to put a briefing together for the rest of the House. Republicans have two candidates up for speaker, both totally ineffective legislators and potential traitors to this country for their part in the January 6 attempted coup (Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise). Now, for Hakeem Jeffries to be elected Speaker, only five Republicans would need to find their tits or balls and cross the aisle. In all likelihood, if they did the Republican Party would retaliate by primarying them out of their seats. But people are really starting to get tired of Republican bullshit and dysfunction so at this point, anything is possible with the next election for Speaker of the House, which is supposed to take place this week.

Between now and November 2024, if we don’t blow ourselves to Kingdom Come or burn the place down, I think Republicans here in this country are going to get voted out so hard and burned so badly in the next election cycle they won’t be able to sit down for a month. And rightfully so because NO significant piece of legislation has been passed under a Republican-controlled Congress that was a real benefit to all Americans. The last Republican-controlled Congress passed a trillion-dollar tax cut that only benefited the top one-percent in this country and was going to raise taxes on the rest of America. Also, the Republican party is probably much more closely aligned with Russia and neo-Nazi groups even more than we know. And what they refuse to acknowledge is that the vast majority of people in this country and around the world DON’T want to live in a right-wing theocratic dictatorship.

Dysfunction and disinformation go hand in hand and work together. And no, both sides are NOT equally guilty of shit. There are only two sides as there always have been: good and bad. Good seeks to repair, and heal. Bad seeks to destroy. And when the Bad side rampages, the Good side has to put out their fires and take care of their wounded. In the meantime, because of dysfunction and disinformation, people are dying, in Ukraine, in Israel, and elsewhere. I’m hoping we got a handle on the right-wing Nazis in this country who keep threatening violence. Most of all, I’m hoping more and more people who voted Republican are starting to ask some hard questions of themselves, and the bastards they voted into office.

Because in the end, it’s Choose or Lose.

Breaking Radio Silence – Unmasking Myself

A while back I wrote about being unofficially undiagnosed neurodivergent (link to blog entry here) and I want to talk about a big thing neurodivergent people do which is called ‘masking’. Masking is when a neurodivergent person tries to hide certain traits and behaviors in order to try and fit in with other people, mainly people who don’t have those traits and behaviors. My main traits were thinking too fast, repetition, and wanting to spew out a ton of information and be a long-winded, roundabout storyteller. But for me, it also meant hiding my thoughts and feelings.

At this point, I’m hearing a voice inside my head telling me I was lying. To me, lying is when someone deliberately chooses not to tell the truth when they should or deliberately chooses to present themselves in a way that is not how they truly are. I believe that ‘deliberate lying’ as I’ll call it is purely for personal gain without one single thought to another person’s thoughts or feelings. I have kept my thoughts and feelings to myself a lot simply because I didn’t want to be hurt by people. Because in my life, a fair number of people freaked the fuck out sometimes when I expressed my thoughts or showed emotions they didn’t want to see in me. They acted like I was hurting them by being human and I used to think I had the worst timing in the world. Now I know it’s just because when I let my mask slip and showed myself that I was defying them and the role they had assigned to me and they didn’t like that.

I believe I learned how to ‘mask’ from my mother, who in turn learned it growing up in a household where original thinking was not tolerated or accepted. My mother grew up with extremely rigid expectations about how to think and feel and behave and she kept so much to herself in order to survive that hellish environment. Most of all, she learned how to keep her thoughts and feelings silent around her father, my grandfather, who was a raging alcoholic with very unpredictable behavior. My mother tried to raise me differently and not to be so rigid in how to think and feel. But I learned how to keep my shit together and take care of myself very early on in life because my father was untreated bi-polar with extreme mood swings. I grew up thinking I had to be responsible and to be almost like an adult when I was still a kid. Couple that with my neurodivergent mind made for a pretty toxic blend inside me. Most of all, it made me mask my thoughts and feelings so much that I took on a role, a role people in my life were content with, and didn’t handle well when I deviated from it.

I didn’t deviate if you will, from my ‘role’, out of spite or temper or defiance. I deviated because I am human and sometimes my grip and control of my thoughts and feelings slipped or was knocked loose completely. As an adult, I learned how to keep a hold of myself no matter how fucked up things got. It’s why when my father was dying I kept apologizing for coming off like such a cold-hearted bitch.

Understanding myself and why I think and feel the way I do is one thing, but it’s not the hard part. The hard part is unmasking myself and discovering yet another way of breaking my silence. And that it’s just as hard to write about as anything else because of the harsh voices from the past that will always be there in my mind.

But like other people who have broken their silence online and in writing, I don’t do this for myself, or for my ego because any attempt to build an ego inside of me was blasted all to Hell by people who didn’t want me to break out of the narrow role they had assigned me.

Years ago, my father asked me after he’d watched a news report about autism about why there seemed to be so many more cases of autism being diagnosed. At that time, I told him it was because diagnostic tools were improving and more kids were being diagnosed sooner than they used to be. Now if I was asked that question I would say it’s not just better diagnostic tools and greater knowledge, but that neurodivergent people are breaking their silence, removing their masks, and rejecting shame and guilt just for being who they are.

Recently, a study by psychologists revealed that about thirty to fifty percent of the population has an internal monologue going. An internal monologue is when a person thinks a lot to themselves, has conversations with themselves, works through problems and scenarios in their mind, and generally overthinks a lot of shit. Now I have an internal monologue that only shuts up when I’m asleep though it manifests itself in a deep dream state so I can’t quite get away from it even then. But a lot of us who have this internal monologue were going, ‘So fifty to seventy percent of the population doesn’t overthink shit, or doesn’t really think a lot at all? Well, that explains a lot of dumb-ass behavior.’ But this got me thinking that there are a lot more people with neurodivergent traits and masking those traits in order not to piss off those that can’t think their way out of a paper bag on a clear day with a flashlight and a GPS.

But for anyone who feels like they’re wearing a mask and getting tired of it, you can take it off. Yes, you’ll inevitably piss someone off but you’re not responsible for someone else’s bullshit. If you un-mask yourself, you’ll break your silence, too.

Behind the Story – Why Is It So Hard for Me to Write About Writing?

I have struggled more with the ‘Behind the Story’ project than the other two in my non-fiction triumvirate from hell as I call it (‘Breaking Radio Silence’ and ‘Stand or Fall’) because I keep hearing in my mind that writing about writing means I’m being a navel-gazing, self-indulgent, know-it-all. Why would I think that about myself as I try to write about writing?

I think it is because I want this book project to be as honest as the other two which means I’m wanting to be as raw and rough with this project as I am with the other two. And that goes against the grain of how I’ve tried to write about writing because for so long I’ve tried to be more polished, and I hate to say it, nicer and more upbeat. But it seems I can’t really do that because writing means a lot of things to me and has been and is a huge part of my life and who I am as a person. I don’t want to come off like my whole personality is just being a writer, but being a writer is a big part of who I am.

My difficulty also goes back to the first thought that came to me when I came up with this project back in its’ untitled days: my relationship with writing is complicated. It’s complicated because of its’ lengthy history, my beginnings, the battle in my twenties and thirties to guard my writing space and what it’s done to me and my life as a therapy tool. I feel my writing is getting very raw at times, that it is as sharp as a knife blade, yet I also feel I’m getting so much better at it than ever before because I feel I’m being more honest than I’ve ever been. Yet at the same time, I feel that honesty is showing the world that I’ve been living behind a mask for far too long.

I’ve always felt like in my creative world, both in my mind and on the page, that I could be myself without wearing a mask to try and appease people or try to fit in as best as I could. It’s painful at times to realize how much I’ve masked myself and for how long, and that removing that mask is hard. It’s hard because I know there are people who would probably say to me: why remove your mask? Why can’t you be nice and biddable? Why can’t you try to fit in and just put all this creative mumbo-jumbo away and grow up? My answers to those questions are that I guess I’m not so nice and biddable, and I can’t turn off that creative mumbo-jumbo as you call it without turning my brain into mush or living like a smiling zombie. And I have never fit in very well and growing up is nothing but an illusion that you show the world to make people think you know what you’re doing when in reality you’re making it up as you go along. Basically, I’m not ‘normal’, whatever the fuck that is, and have never been and never will be. And I’m alright with that now.

I know this book project, ‘Behind the Story’ may not have as wide an audience as my other two in the non-fiction triumvirate but that’s okay. If someone doesn’t ‘get’ what I’m writing here or thinks I’m a total whack-job for being a writer, so be it. I’m not a scared kid or anxiety-ridden twentysomething/thirtysomething now. I’m a tired, weary, and yes, pissed off almost fifty-something now and I truly understand in order to be fully engaged with my creative side and with my writing that I have to truly not give a single shit as to what anyone might think of me. I can’t be afraid of some well-meaning pearl-clutcher or think that I have to appease them. And most of all, if anyone ever comes at me and says I’ll  be all alone if I don’t tone down my shit then they can just fuck all the way off.

I need to communicate to readers of this project here that I have taken the last of my fucks-to-give and set them on fire. I need readers to know this is not going to be a feel-good book at all. Because like I said in an earlier paragraph here, my relationship with writing is long and complicated. In the last few years writing broke my silence and exposed all my wounds, which I needed to do in order to heal. In the process, I’ve learned a lot about the craft of writing itself and that there are no real ‘rules’ and that things change constantly. So there will be that side of the book, too. But there will be an edge and I’m finally accepting that and making peace with it.

If you come here to this project, my writing book extraordinaire, looking for some feel-good advice, you might catch bits of that from time to time. But if I feel like ripping it up, I will. So if you’re thinking about getting into writing or wondering if this is what you could get into, this is just my story and you have to find your own way of doing things.

So now you can see why writing about writing can be hard for me as I can here as I read over what I’ve written today. It’s hard because it’s a long and complicated relationship, and I’m just putting that together now. I am behind on this project unlike the other two so I’m playing a bit of catch-up.

Stand or Fall – Good Government and Good Economic Policy

This past weekend, the US House of Representatives in an insane rush finally reached an agreement on a temporary spending bill to keep the US Government funded for the next forty-five days. A government shutdown would be a disaster as eight-hundred thousand government employees would go without a paycheck including all the members of the US Armed Forces. Why do Republican-majority Congresses do this shit?

In this case, it was because their mob boss and former President (no, I won’t put his name in here because I NEVER want to give that man any recognition for all the shit he’s put this country through) told them to shut the government down so they could defund the US Justice Department and stop the investigations and prosecutions against him.

My first reaction to this was, ‘Why in the ever-loving fuck would anyone take orders from someone with NO AUTHORITY to give them?’ What in the world does he have on these Republican dipshits in Congress and elsewhere? Is it really that bad or do they honestly think he’s got a snowball’s chance in Hell of not going to jail for his many crimes (ninety-one indictments and counting so far)?

For over forty years the Republican Party has been blasting out a huge line of bullshit saying that government doesn’t work for the people and that they are the ones who can make it work when in reality they fuck things up time and time again. Under Saint Ronnie Reagan the corporate tax rate was slashed to twenty-eight percent, stock buybacks were allowed, and private equity firms were allowed to run wild and destroy every company they bought out. This is the bullshit policy of trickle-down economics that conservative Republican assholes claim is the right economic policy as wealth is supposed to trickle down to the rest of us. What? Like piss and shit trickling out of some rich motherfucker’s ass?

Under the file of ‘every accusation is a confession’, under trickle-down economics and Republican administrations the national deficit explodes like a backed-up toilet because these bastards cut tax rates and therefore decrease revenue but only want to cut spending for programs that actually benefit people who need them, like the poor working class that they created and have kept poor for the last forty years. In addition, they raided Social Security and haven’t paid back one fucking cent to the people they stole it from.

In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign manager James Carville famously yelled, “It’s the economy, stupid!” and he was right. Yet the Biden administration is the first administration since the Johnson and Carter administrations that has truly addressed the real needs of our country economically. President Biden’s Build Back Better initiatives have led to the largest investment in infrastructure since the 1930’s. In addition, President Biden has come right out and said trickle-down economics is total bullshit and that this country was built by middle-class workers and not rich, worthless, lazy corporate CEO’s. He’s supports unions (and last week he became the first President to walk a picket line with the United Auto Workers). All he needs is a Democratic majority in the House of Representatves to finish the work he’s started. This work is only the beginning as it is said that it will take a minimum of ten years to repair the worst of the damage of the last forty.

I believe more people are beginning to question Republican trickle-down economic bullshit because I think the Republican assholes realized this last weekend when about twenty of them broke from their mob-boss leader and helped push through the stop-gap spending bill. I think more people realize the last forty years of economic policy have only benefited one-percent of our population and left the other ninety-nine struggling. Most of all, I think a lot of people are asking: why was the middle-class American dream of days past destroyed?

If you believe that everyone doesn’t deserve a fair chance to succeed in this country, especially black and brown people, sit down and shut the fuck up and ask yourself why. Ask yourself what you truly believe in and try to separate the bullshit from the facts.

Good government benefits all people, not just a few rich assholes like it has for far too long. There is no such thing as ‘welfare queens’ like Reagan preached, and wealth doesn’t trickle down. And we don’t need a military-industrial complex either because those motherfuckers gave us not only Vietnam, but also the shit-shows that were Iraq and Afghanistan. And as for supporting Ukraine, we don’t have boots on the ground there because they can fight quite well on their own. But they are our ally, and right now the only country standing up to Russia and kicking the shit out of them. Because a good United States government is NOT a puppet government of Russia like the previous White House occupant tried to turn this country into so that’s why we need to back them and not House Republican-Russian puppets/assets.

Choose or Lose.

Breaking Radio Silence – Running to Stand Still

You got to cry without weeping

Talk without speaking

Scream without raising your voice

You know I took the poison from the poison stream

Then I floated on out of here

– from the song ‘Running to Stand Still’ by U2 (Songwriters: Paul David Hewson / Adam Clayton / Larry Mullen, Jr. / Dave Evans, lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Int. B.V.)

These lyrics have haunted me and been in my mind since I first heard them in 1987. In the years since I’ve learned the song is about drug addiction, which ravaged Ireland, U2’s home country, in the 1980’s. Now I never got into drugs or alcohol but in a way, I fled into something else: silence.

I only got high once on marijuana at a Pink Floyd concert in the 1990’s because there was enough second-hand smoke where I was sitting to do that though the next morning I had a headache that felt like my skull was slowly being split into two so I haven’t gone anywhere near marijuana since. And I’ve never gotten drunk in my life and I haven’t had any alcohol in ten years because I developed an allergic-like reaction to it believed to be due to my severe seasonal allergies. And finally, despite being overweight, I still have a really bad habit of skipping meals and barely eating some days due to anxiety that still rears its’ ugly head from time to time.

What kept me from getting into drugs and alcohol? Not wanting to deal with people telling me bullshit like I was a good-girl-gone-bad, or that I had no right to go out and party when I had so many responsibilities and such. I just didn’t want to deal with people’s bullshit about me being anything other than the silent, submissive little fatso I was back then. And maybe that was a blessing in disguise but it did a shit-ton of damage to me in the process. My saving grace wasn’t being drug-and-alcohol free, but that I could retreat into my imagination and my writing, though I had to keep my writing as hidden away as much as I could because I think some people in my life back then would have shit some serious bricks if they had ever found out I was journaling and writing shit in order to get it out of my head.

Now I’m not writing here to get back at anyone from back then so take that thought and shove it if that’s what you’re thinking as you read this. This is for people like me who didn’t retreat into drugs and alcohol but did retreat in other ways, like reading all the time alone or some other solitary activity. But I will also reach out to those who have recovered from drug and alcohol addiction because committing to a life of recovery from addiction is one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen in anyone and I completely support anyone who commits to a life of recovery every single day of their lives.

Why I write here now is to show I’m not running to stand still like U2 sang about, but that I’ve stopped running and retreating into silence and instead have stopped to take a stand. I write like this in order to reach out to other people who feel broken, like they’re fundamentally flawed and unredeemable. You’re not broken, flawed, or in need of redemption for things you’ve done that weren’t wrong despite what people may have told you. I don’t think I hit flat-out rock bottom like addicts describe, but I feel like the breaks I have gone through have shown me the way up from the bottom and from the silence.

I recently wrote about how I have been afraid that I want to write ‘too much’, whatever the hell that means, and that I was afraid of dealing with people’s bullshit over that. But in the years since I’ve started blogging with some degree of regularity, no one has come at me with that bullshit. I’m beginning to really think that recovery and broken silence means the rest falls away, the rest being bullshit attitudes of people and being left alone. For a long time, this was something I was afraid of, too, that I was being isolated. I’m not being isolated nor am I isolating myself, especially when I do this. Because although my audience is small, each person who visits my blog is greatly appreciated. And if an asshole or two slips in they can be blocked quite easily because I don’t need to engage in bullshit because I think that’s a way of back-sliding into what I’m trying to move away from and not be held back.

There are times when you do need to be still, to clear your mind and calm your nerves in order to see where you’ve been, and to see where you need to go. But you don’t have to run from, or run to something. You can take things at your own pace and in your own way, and you sure as hell don’t need to try and silence it. Because once silence is broken, all you can do is pick up the pieces and put them back together in a way that’s stronger and better than anything you did before.

So you can cry and weep, talk and speak, and scream and raise your voice… in your own way. Like I’m doing here now.

Behind the Story – Why I Need to Write Every Day

Write every day is a piece of advice that is given by many writers for various reasons. Reasons such as a need to practice and hone your craft and to achieve goals. Mine is much more than that: it’s because I need to write in order to get my thoughts and feelings into focus. For a long time I’ve danced around saying this out loud because writing feels like something I need to do in order to truly live my life.

I will also say this here: When I don’t write every day I start to feel like shit. I start to feel like my thoughts and feelings begin to pile up inside my head into huge storms that I have to work through in order to get myself back in order. When I write every day I feel like I’m organizing my thoughts and feelings every day and am checking in with myself. I’ve hesitated to say this because to anyone who doesn’t have a brain that runs at two-hundred miles an hour like I do, this may sound completely nuts.

Because I’ve got a brain that runs at two-hundred miles an hour, I also deal with terrible anxiety because of it. My mind goes into overthinking-mode as I call it and immediately kicks into top gear if I don’t get it under control. And if my anxiety runs hard enough and long enough, it begins to turn into a form of depression for me as bad thoughts about myself come into my mind (nothing suicidal but just thoughts of worthlessness because I feel like I’m not doing anything constructive with my life such as writing).

I do believe I am what is called neurodivergent, which means I process information and emotions differently than a lot of people. I haven’t been officially diagnosed but I have a lot of traits of neurodivergent people. The ability to think fast, spiral into anxiety, extreme sensitivity to things, and what I feel like is an intense need to do something to focus all that energy my brain expends on thoughts and feelings.

When I first started writing at around the age of ten, I thought it was because I had discovered this wonderful way to escape reality and live in an imaginary world like the books and movies and tv shows I loved so much. I thought it was so awesome I could create my own stuff and that maybe someday I could make a living doing it and not have to be around people so much. Because I have struggled being around people all my life because if I don’t watch myself, I can run my mouth almost as fast as I can think. Which is why I realize writing every day is perfect for me.

I’ve hesitated to put out content because I haven’t wanted to deal with the accusation that I’m putting out way too much. But I’m not putting all that much out there thought I can put out a lot more and not spam anyone. And yes, I can write this fast and edit and revise quickly, too. It’s when I’m in a funk that my writing slows to a crawl and I know there is an underlying issue I need to address.

So for me, writing every day is just as important as remembering to eat regularly (I have a bad habit of skipping meals), walking my dog every day because we both need the exercise, and earning enough money to live on. I’m putting writing on that list of stuff I NEED to do every day. It’s nice that I want to write every day but to me, it feels like something I need to do in order to feel good about myself like eating regularly and exercising every day does for me.

I totally understand what it’s like to have an extremely busy life and not have any time to write at all, to just be so physically and mentally exhausted that you can’t write. So please understand I’m not talking about forcing it when there just isn’t anything left in the tank as my late father used to say. But as I look back on those crazy-busy times in my life, I realize I could have set aside just a tiny bit of time for myself and been a lot better off for it. These days that would be called ‘self-care’ and for me, I think writing is a part of my ‘self-care’ routine.

What if you don’t feel this way about writing, this crazy feeling of needing to write or making it a part of a daily routine? That’s okay. I believe every single person has to find their own way in the world and their own way of doing things. It’s like finding the best time to write, like people who write in the wee small hours of the morning or very late at night. But if you do make writing a part of your daily routine and make it a priority in your life, I believe you’ll feel better, more focused, and get better at writing. Because writing is like any other activity in that you can get better at it the more you do it.

So when I see the writing advice of ‘write every day’, I’ll say do that in your own way, even if it isn’t every day. But I would encourage you to give writing every day a try and to try and find a way to add it to your daily routine and make it a priority. Because I know when I write every day, I feel better as a person, and feel like I’m getting better at this writing gig.