Probably Up ALL Night

It's almost 3am and I don't feel like sleeping yet.
Hard to sleep with a lot on your mind and I know you can relate.

Need meds to sleep, anyway, should take those soon. 
Got hooked on those from when I went to the hospital.
They are pretty much sedatives and they seem to give them out.

When I used to take it, before, I didn't know it was those.
The reason I was always exhausted.

Back in high school I was hooked on caffeine pills. 
Someone introduced me to those for studying...
It was kind of like that episode of saved by the bell
when Jesse gets addicted to those.

"I'm so excited! I'm so scared."
Plus probably had BPD for a very long time...
Way before I was diagnosed, and probably could have used
mood stabilizers much sooner.

At the same time, when learned how, 
one can stabilize their own mood. 

Always been easy to react until I realized some things.
1) I don't have to react
2) If I do, I get to choose how I will IF I will.

That's the difference between reacting impulsively
And giving yourself the choice because you realize you have a choice.
Just have to give yourself a choice.
Like a parent gives a kid a choice.
To ourselves, though.

THIS is why I have much more control over myself
than most people give me credit for, seriously. 

Because although I have been known
TO TELL IT LIKE IT IS TO THE MAX
WHILE BEING PAST MY LIMIT.

I also know there is a limit. 
Which means I am AWARE that there's only to a point I will go
BECAUSE I GET TO CHOOSE
WHAT THAT POINT IS
OR IF THERE IS ONE AT ALL.

If there is one at all meaning that it doesn't have to reach a point.
That was the point if one at all.

But most people won't ever get ME
let alone why I actually get THERE.
Even though they'd probably be PAST THERE
If I had taken them THERE.

I've actually held a lot of things in. 
I've actually still been doing it.
Maybe bad habit, but instead of just holding it in, 
it's PROCESSING IT.

This is the key thing. Processing.

Honestly, writing is it for me. Makes some things easier to process.
Because even if I'm still speaking in general terms.
It's easier to break thoughts up into words. Then read it.
Reading my own writing's like "listen to yourself.."
All the cringe pity parties I used to throw myself. 

Even though I was in my feels pretty bad for lots of reasons...
It's that I hadn't back then, what I gained over years since then.

Here's the thing I learned. What was preventing me from processing
A CRAP TON OF THINGS I NEEDED TO PROCESS
WAS THE FACT THAT
I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO PROCESS IT.

Here's what I learned. The acronym WAR.
Witness it, Acknowledge it, Release it

Witnessing, is the actual experiencing of the experience itself. 
Which most people get stuck at
because wtf do you do with certain experiences?

I've been through things that are so intensely wtf
that you don't even know HOW to feel about something
because you don't even know what to think about it, 
let alone how to think about it.

Acknowledging it is the actual thinking and feeling about it.

Releasing, most people get stuck here, too. If they even ever acknowledge.

But, trust me... On this...
"What goes unacknowledged cannot be changed."
Without that part, the processing, in the middle.

That's what I've had a hard time with.
Because how do you know how to think about something, 
let alone how to even feel about it?

When something is wildly wtf?
Even beyond measure wtf?

Writing's been that, for me. 
Because at least I can write about it
and maybe someone might know how they would. 

Maybe because I was taught not to react emotionally,
or even not really feeling like I actually could with anyone.
Even if I was allowed to.
It's a horrible feeling. Writing helps with that.

So many things I wasn't allowed to do
that I wasn't taught something pretty important.

There was a huge chunk of my life, I wasn't happy. 
I was so used to all those feelings, constantly, all the time. 
That I couldn't remember how it felt, to feel happy, or feel okay-ish.
Then I was thinking about it. 
I realized that I could just give myself permission to.
I could just let myself feel it. Couldn't I just let myself?
Maybe that was the issue?
That I wasn't letting myself feel other than
what I was used to feeling for so long.
I was the one not letting myself, feel, those things.

Make any sense?
I only ask because I don't know if the ways I try to explain
actually makes any sense (because of how I think).

Goes back to the wildly beyond measure wtf moments.
BECAUSE THEY DON'T MAKE ANY SENSE
UNTIL THEY DO, To some degree.

It makes me think of a convo I had about how people
are the way they are and why they do as they do.
A friend told me: "Sometimes it's better not to know."

Kind of like the thing I was going to write about...
About the poignant thing said to me, once:

Trying to figure something out
when there's nothing to figure out
is enough to drive anyone crazy.

That stuck with me.

Y'know you never know where you'll be
and how it'll get to you, but often it does if it can.

Two examples: 

I took a walk downtown. 
Someone had taken a black marker
and written this on a wall... The outside of a building...

"If a saint can have a past. A sinner can have a future."
Of all places to read that?
And I was there to witness it.
Not the writing of it, the existence of it,
but the substance of it.

"Some of life's best quotes
are written in bathroom stalls"

Another example I saw:
A video where these two strangers are talking on Omegle.
One guy's gf was sitting within the frame, in the same room. 
AND SHE LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE DUDE'S GF.

And he's like freaking thinking buddy's gf is HIS gf
BECAUSE THEY LOOK EXACTLY ALIKE.

And he called HIS gf and thinking he was going to call buddy's gf.
To prove once in for all, showed pictures of him and his gf.
Buddy agreed looked JUST LIKE HIS GF in the pics, 
but buddy's gf was like wtf? I never met this dude.

Then they were like, wait... How can she be here?
We're in different STATES, DUDE!!!

Well dude gets his gf on the phone because he has to know
WHY THEY LOOK SO MUCH ALIKE.

Turns out they were actually TWINS.
Imagine finding out, that way, that you have a twin?

But if info needs to get to you, that was an example of that.
I ended up going to my folks because I needed to know and to go.
Info, when you need it. But often we don't get to choose how we get it.

A lot of unexpected WAYS that can be discovered. 
Unexpectedly. 

Was I expecting to realize anything that I did?
No, because I hadn't realized, yet.

None of it ever crossed my mind, before. 
That's the point of it...
Because it never crossed my mind. 
To cross it across my own mind lol.
That's how sometimes it's got to happen or it won't.


My step father was telling a story about a scooter he got.
The guy wanting to offload it...
Because it made a dent in his Maserati.
Imagine this: *Italian accent* "I pay YOU to get it OUTTA HERE!"
I think my step father was just happy to get it for free
because it was pretty expensive to buy one.

Did ancestry once. I'm 3% Italian. 
I told an Italian man this, once. He says 3%?! Nothing.
He's a good guy. A neighbor of a guy I knew.
I'd help him with things from time to time.
Whether it was replacing the battery in his smoke detector
or whatever else. He'd give us slices of Italian bread.

And the deli was brought up to me, in conversation. 
My neighbor was saying how a good place for sandwiches
is a place called "Frank's"
and I told him that it's also a deli
because you can ask for a weight of cuts and they'll sell you cuts.
That's where I bought salami.

We'd use Italian bread, salami, babaganoush. 
Is you don't know what babaganoush is... It's a type of dip.
It's like a hummus made of eggplant instead of chick peas.
So we had those, a lot. 

But I felt like I was taken for granted in that.
When you do a bunch of things for people, 
not for anything back, not about that...
How do I explain this? 
but become expected to
because they get comfortable with it, let's say.

That's the thing, too.
Don't have to let anyone get too comfortable, period. 
Because when they are...

Someone put it like this:
"My grandma always told me that if you make a bed too comfortable
they'll never want to leave it."

But these are instances where these people
need to be BOOTED OUT OF THAT BED.
Because it was the bed I made, for them.
The bed they keep wanting me to make for them
As they are laying in it.

Here's an example of how I can try to explain it. I'll try.
Someone I had staying with me...
He got back, tired, long day.
Says: "Let me get some rest, and I'll cook for us."
Then he texts me from the other room, My bedroom
That he was just going to go back to bed and not cook for us
as he had said he was (didn't ask him to)
cooked or him (didn't as me to).

I just got miffed that I'm the one who's bed
he decided to just stay in
and gives me an excuse to stay in
after he told me he was going to do something
that I would have looked at as the least I could do
for someone who gave me their room to sleep in. 

I made it comfortable for him by giving him the room to sleep in
and also made it comfortable for him to give excuses
when if it was important to just
show "hey, you matter at least THIS much to me."
And THAT right there is pretty much what I wanted.
Pretty much it. 
To matter at least "this" much.

But what I meant by too comfortable...
How they think they can just treat you. NO.TF.YOU.CAN'T.
Just those 4 words. Well, 5... But...

And that goes for A LOT.
That goes for the impenetrability factor.
This is also important, at least to me.
When you have the choice to either let something 
REALLY GET TO YOU.
REALLY JUST... in otherwise 'destroy' you.
Emotionally, mentally...
That's the mantra. That's the key.
Just: No.Tf.You.Can't

As in "it" is "you" in the scenario.
Not you, you, but the... analogy.

It prevents it from inflicting the damage it could have.
The suffering from that damage.
Because it doesn't have to with: No.Tf.You.Can't

And that's pretty much what I've had to do with a lot of things
I could have very easily taken to heart.
That didn't get to damage me in any way.
Because: No.Tf.They.Couldn't. 
So.They.Just.Don't

Which is what I wished the younger version of me had. 
So I give whatever version of yourself you are, that.

Because I really let a lot of things almost destroy me.
When I finally got out of my head about them...

One thing here...
It's hard to get your head AROUND something
when you're stuck in it. 
I mean stuck IN your head.

I know this because I spent YEARS stuck in my head over things
I spent YEARS... STUCK.
Because I was stuck IN it, I couldn't get AROUND it.

The only analogy I can think of is getting a vehicle stuck in mud. 
You can't get the TRACTION you need to get out.
Because of the nature of the terrain. 
Can't get traction on mud. 

Knowing, that you need to get OUT
WANTING to get out, then actually getting out
are all stages of getting out. 

To get out, TRACTION. 
What type of traction? 
Attraction? Some might ask that.
It's not that. 
It's SUBTRACTION AND DETRACTION.
***But not distraction...*** (distraction may as well be denial)

Subtraction... Is knowing what to subtract.
And the difference between the two. 
And when you know the definition, it gives you a clue
as to how it could be utilized. 

(I don't know why the word utilized is utilized
when we can easily just use the word used).

I digress...

As an example... In the analogy...
About the vehicle being physically stuck
and needing traction for the wheels to grip onto the ground
to be able for the vehicle to drive itself out.
(not drive itself, but you get what I mean).

In the case of certain things, they can drive themselves
if you don't drive them. 

I don't have a driver's license so I suck at driving analogies...
But I meant that to be able to get out, 
those are the 'tractions' you use.

Subtract and detract. Especially things that have become compacted.
Maybe in the sense that you subtract layers. Layer by layer.
Maybe you subtract yourself from certain equations
that you don't need to actually be in. 

And when you don't need to be in...
It's separate. The separation of you from it.
In whatever equation it is... WHAT MAKES YOU NOT A PART OF IT.

And what makes you NOT a part of it...
Isn't a part of YOU.

Because it is NOT you and you are NOT it.
Not this, not that, not it. 
And it's not YOU.

And you don't have to have ANY part in it.
Because it doesn't have to have ANY part in you.

Does that make sense? The way out?

The equations are whatever metaphors you need to use.
To illustrate any points that need to be illustrated. 
Because sometimes points need to be illustrated
for us to get a look at it. 

Otherwise, if we didn't, it could be hard to see it
let alone imagine it.

Those are the keys of the day.
You obviously have to get OUT of "the mud"
to "drive" "around" "the mud"

Otherwise what? You'd stay stuck in "the mud."
And the whole point, being, that
1) you get OUT, but 2) you GET TO get AROUND.
Call it circumvention.