Tag: social media

Schrödinger’s Happiness

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Do you remember life before the internet?
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I remember life before the Internet very well, but whether we were happier?

I cannot say.

I have learned, certainly, that there are limits on how much happiness the Internet can bring you. I’ve also learned that sometimes when you cannot find friends in your own area, you need to cast a wider net. Life before the Internet has been idealized as utopia, but it brought the smartest minds in the firmament together.

That’s been a long time gripe of people my age, because In the Beginning,™ only smart & truly dedicated people were on it. This is not because America Online didn’t exist. In those days, most computers did not come with modems and you had to get that working, first. If you managed to install your modem correctly, then the install software for AOL, CompuServe, and a few other smaller players could get you up and running fast…. but even then, you were running a modified version of the Internet; none of those companies told you that once you were connected, you could download Netscape Navigator or use Internet Explorer to get out of the curated version of the Internet those companies presented.

People my age were the first to go through this ultimate transition from offline to on. We’ve seen every iteration culturally, because of course the military had ARPANET to be able to talk to each other years before…. but we were the last generation to go from completely analog (free) to not being able to leave the house without some sort of device (tethered). Most children do not have that now, because even if children aren’t allowed a cell phone, they’re generally allowed a wi-fi device and they are sometimes given away by their schools.

In my fifth grade classroom, I could not have known that this was the case while I was playing The Oregon Trail. I could not have known that the computer was the red flag to all of this, that people would take desktop computing so seriously that they made an entire society around your computer in your pocket. And in fact, the newest Samsung devices are designed to be both your desktop and your phone using the “Dex” interface. Android is designed to be your one stop shop for all computing needs because God forbid you go a single moment without your electronic babysitter.

Electronic babysitters crept up.

First it was our beepers. Then it was our cell phones. Then it was our cell phones with access to our e-mail and a terrible web browser. Then it was smart phones. Now, it’s smart phones that can connect to your computer monitor and become a desktop.

There is no more room in our society for “dead zones,” which for me used to mean going on hikes in the Columbia River Gorge where my phone and GPS were no use. Not having access to those things doesn’t generally make one panic. It makes everyone around you panic. In that way, I do miss life before the Internet. People had more tolerance for it taking a half hour to get a call back. Now, it is expected that you are available for everyone’s every need all of the time.

The flip side is that I knew I was queer when I was 10 years old in Texas, so by the time America Online rolled around, I was ready for it. I didn’t have queer friends where I lived, but I had them in lots of other countries. Before I had the Internet, I was indescribably lonely. It wasn’t the echo chamber you see now, because Internet Relay Chat and America Online were not curated so that you only saw the news your side of the Congressional aisle wanted you to see. The schism took years to complete. It was easier to get along with everyone when we all had differences of opinion on funding, not whether only white, straight, cis, male people deserved to be American. White, cis, straight women are encouraged to be people as long as they understand they are nothing more than their husband’s pets.

Yesterday (Memorial Day), the current American society pissed on the graves of everyone who fought to eradicate fascism during WWII while the rest of the world scratched their heads at our “unique” antics (read: insane). That would not have happened if the disinformation campaign by Russia had not been running for many years. It’s all connected. Ignorance is bliss in this case. Not only can your device create a complete profile of your likes and dislikes, the information is forwarded to the government. Notice I didn’t say “our government.” You actually don’t know which one is mining your data, which is another reason to long for 1985. Sometimes, it’s the good guys, like CIA and NSA.

I may be rancid butter, but at least I’m on your side of the bread. -Jim Mattox

Sometimes it’s our collective enemies, like Russia and China. The American president has oft been accused of cozying up to them because he wants that kind of authoritative power… and he’s doing his best to get it while throwing the rest of us under the bus. Ukraine has been put in an impossible situation, Finland and Poland are preparing to be next. However, it is hard to get the average American to consider the Ukrainians, Poles, and Finns. It is hard to get the average American to care about more than the price of eggs, especially when they will believe a lie easier than the truth. What is more plausible? That the American president can wave a magic wand and bring down the price of anything, or that prices fluctuate and it has very little to do with the current president at all? Generally, when we are talking about the economy, we need to look at who was the president eight to 12 years back.

Democrats spend time cleaning up after ideas like Reaganomics, but the trickle down theory hangs on like a bad penny.

Poor people are still waiting for Reagan’s theory to work, and he’s been dead for years.

The gaslighting put forth by the Republican party is that it will, if given long enough. Meanwhile, greed envelops the nation and somehow the cup which is supposed to overflow keeps getting larger to accommodate more wealth. That message was the predominant one before the advent of the Internet, because Reagan’s “Morning in America” was all the rage. In this way, life has not changed one bit. Instead of Michael Deaver (known as “The Wizard of Oz” for the packaging of news content on the administration and sending it straight to the station to make Reagan look competent) and his bag of tricks, we have an entire party, along with its own news channel, trying to tell us there’s nothing to see here. It’s not a different message. It’s just a different scale. You’ll all be richer and better off if the greed of the billionaires is allowed to run unchecked.

Instead of three television stations, though, we have social media and a 24 hour news cycle….. along with foreign actors that are willing to help spread that message because it brings about more destruction in the unity of the country. There is no way to get a break from your news being tailored to you so that you only believe what you’re allowed to see.

The only answer is to unplug.

Rising with the Sun, Writing with the Moon

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had a lot of coffee yesterday and today, so I decided to write in the evening instead of in the morning. I am thinking about going back to mornings already. There’s something fun about it, and I think my readers have gotten used to a certain time I post…. at least by 0700 most days and sometimes earlier. Today was a celebration, though, and I wanted to have it to myself in some ways. I published it on both my personal and professional Facebook pages, but I haven’t said anything here yet. I’ve had a thousand followers for a few months now, but that was e-mail and WordPress combined. The badge was getting a thousand followers within the WordPress community itself. That alone is fantastic, and I’m so proud of myself. This week, though, I’ve been recognized as one of Facebook’s Rising Creators, which if I keep going at this rate, I’m going to get some of Mark Zuckerberg’s money. It’s not a bad plan.

I like how I just write what I want to write. You show up when I don’t feel good and when I do. You show up when I’m experimenting with AI to see how smart they are. You stick with me when I’m in my Doctor Who and nerdalert phases. It’s wonderful, because I get to have a full range of emotions and I’m applauded for being so brave.

It’s what helps me get through the rough times when people don’t like what I write. I’m not responsible for their reactions, but I have to keep reminding myself of it so I don’t spin out.

Autism causes depression and anxiety when you can’t communicate well, so I’ve found solace in being able to find the answers on my own.

Previously, my self-esteem was so incredibly low that I was afraid to take up space in the world, and now I’m creating a riser.

I, reddit

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I had Carol make up a fictional AITA post for me to answer…. Let’s see how I do.

Title: AITA for getting upset over my girlfriend’s social media habits?

Post:

Hey Reddit, I’m in a bit of a weird spot and could use some judgment.

So, my girlfriend “Liz” and I have been together for about a year. Things are great when we’re together, but there’s this one thing that’s been bugging me: her social media presence.

Liz is pretty active on Instagram and Twitter, and she’s always posting about her life, which I think is cool. But, here’s the kicker—she never posts about us. Like, ever. No pictures of us together, no relationship status update, nothing. It’s like I don’t exist in her online world.

I’ve brought it up to her, and she says she likes to keep her relationship private, which I can understand to a point. But it feels off to me, especially since she’s so open about every other aspect of her life. It makes me wonder if she’s hiding our relationship or if she’s not as serious about us as I am.

I got pretty upset the last time we talked about it, and now things are tense. AITA for being upset that my girlfriend doesn’t acknowledge our relationship on social media?

Oh, fictional person. I’m so sorry this is happening to you even though you are not real.

I have the exact opposite problem, which is that when I include my friends in my online world, I only matter when I praise them. As in, the writing is good because they look good. The writing is bad because they look bad. There has only been one exception in this case, Supergrover, who said that she gets something out of my work whether I paint her in a bad light or not. The rest of my friends sincerely wish that I would portray them as angels all of the time…. that even if they grossly mistreat me, it doesn’t matter in the slightest because the fact that I wrote about them cancels it out. That I told someone what you did that hurt me absolves you of any wrongdoing.

So, the fact that you’re not being included and you want to be is all kinds of weird for me. I do not have this problem. However, I can empathize. Supergrover doesn’t have a blog, but if she did, I’d be mad if everyone was in it but me. That I hadn’t made enough of an impact to rate.

The most important thing for you to know is why you want to be on her social media. If you’re feeling left out and you express that, what are you going to do if nothing changes?

What are the consequences?

How long are you going to take the pattern of being left out, believing that she’s a “private person,” if she has other friends plastered all over Insta without you.

People do not say what they mean.

You might want to start doing your own social media thing that’s different from hers so that you are including her in your world. See if it feels natural to you before you criticize her. Maybe she’s telling the truth. Maybe she wants to break up with you and won’t tell you.

Either way, the time to move is when you receive no answer and no change for longer than you’re comfortable.

You need to say “you are hurting my feelings by excluding me,” and be prepared for a conversation you didn’t think was going to end the way it did. Standing up for yourself often looks like earth shattering fear. If she doesn’t want to share pics with you on social media, you can’t make her. You can only decide how long you’re comfortable being hidden away.

Feeling like a secret.

I Think We’re Going to Need a Bigger Blog

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

According to WordPress, my stats are booming. It feels so validating and I’m impressed with all of you. You obviously have such good taste…… I don’t understand how the web works because I chose to stop thinking about it a long time ago. Therefore, I cannot crack the Facebook algorithm for love or money and right now I hate them.

However, what is clear to me is that of course I’m going to be successful on WordPress. It’s full of old timers like me. We’re the last people standing, which was actually my point about “taking over for Dooce.” Because we started within a year of each other, I want to carry on her institutional memory by being the manic rambling spiral she set out to be.

I know my beautiful girl finds this terrifying, and not because she’s afraid of more readers. She said that Dooce didn’t used to be a shitty writer, but she is now (referencing that she didn’t like the influencer/ad thing). I told her that it was her job to tell me when to retire and she could just resend that e-mail.

Meanwhile, I accept donations and I might monetize some stuff later on, but I really don’t have that level of trust capital yet. As I told Bryn, the web site itself will always be free. There just might be more stuff on top of it that you can access through other means. It may be as simple as just saving some entries for people who subscribe, because I don’t necessarily need this as a full time job, but I’d like it. Right now I’m building an audience and trying new things. I feel like it’s bold enough right now to say that you can give me money if you want to, because I am not living Comfort Eagle.

Although my hat IS on backwards and I’ll show you my tattoos.

Today is tomorrow and tomorrow is today…. yesterday is weaving in and out.

LOVE LOVE CAKE.

I love cake by the ocean, too. And apparently you guys noticed………… Source? Biggest day for likes in the history of this blog. Yesterday.

It reminds me of Weeds….. “you don’t sell shit. Drugs sell themselves.”

Extrapolate.

In any case, I just came to say how grateful I am to all of you, because my life looks bigger than it did on Wednesday.

Leveling up has been obtained through time blindness and tumbling into rumination. Playing to my strengths. That’s fucking weird because it seems like things are going well.

A Tribe That Would Have Me

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The title comes from “Kitchen Confidential,” the Anthony Bourdain expose that set The New Yorker and then the world on fire. It’s how he describes the brigade, and how I use social media. Many people do not think of this when it comes to me, but it’s easier for people who aren’t neurotypical (ADHD, Autism in particular) to connect on the internet because we have enough clinical separation to express our emotions. In public there is no delete key. You have the option to go back and erase your angry paragraph, and it’s a damn shame most people don’t use it. Intellectuals are caught between two ideas…. the internet is a place of wonder because we can share so much knowledge, and the person who decided everyone should be on the Internet should be handed their ass on a platter.

Even the way I use social media comes from a different place than most people. I helped power the Internet. I was one of the first account administrators in the nation for distance learning. I helped professors take their offline courses and turn it into media content before anyone really knew how to do that. It was 1999. I was part of the team that wrote copy for the Information Technology Daily News at University of Houston, our journalism club of three or four depending. This was 2000. In 1999 was when I started learning unix, Linux, and VMS/VAX (yes. I had an account on jetson. Touch me. Inside joke, talk to your parents.). I can tell you why I thought Fedora was difficult and Debian wasn’t. I have slowly turned into a curmudgeon who doesn’t want to learn CentOS because I’ve picked a team. It doesn’t limit me in any way. Debian (Ubuntu) in some form is the most popular distribution. I chose the underdog (for the time) and I was right. That means something to me.

I was on IRC. I know the reasons behind what you think is funny. I was an early adopter. I can’t keep up now, but I was part of the wave of people who did it first. I read Slashdot and Kottke religiously. It’s one of the reasons I’m hardcore pro-Finland. Anyone who can produce a programmer like Linus Torvalds is okay in my book. The only thing we disagree on is desktop. I like Cinnamon and Mate (like the tea), he likes KDE. It’s all the same shell, the commands like you’d use in DOS. I don’t care if you don’t want to know computers and just want to click a button. I can launch programs as fast as I can think on a keyboard. It’s only now that I’m beginning to be irritated by it in the general sense of going the Microsoft route and choosing the option that launches slowest for everyone if you don’t have the newest and fastest computer. It used to be the best way to put life into old hardware, but you don’t know that unless you’re willing to do the deep dive on which desktops hog memory (KDE, anything but vanilla Gnome) and which ones don’t (Mate, lxde). It’s too much work. What I don’t like is that the alternative only has one desktop, so if you’re a DOS person, Windows is irritating as shit and there’s nothing you can do about it, die mad.

I don’t like being handheld through goddamn everything and not being able to turn it off without installing hacks like OpenShell. It replaces the whole Windows 10 interface with something more reasonable, like easy access admin tools and turning on old school Explorer. In linux, I am free to wipe my entire computer if I wish… while I’m still on it. I just can’t reboot. 😛 In the beginning, everyone was like “fuck it. They’ll rebuild. Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.” So, whenever Windows trys to configure things for me I feel murderous toward every single Microsoft employee who ever lived, even though 2000 was great because there was so little difference between running a web server that I could afford to be operating system agnostic. Every OS sucks, it just sucks according to your personal definition of what would make things easier… a phrase with many transitive properties.

With Windows, I’m in the place where I can’t afford to go bigger, so I have one drive dedicated to it because I like older games like Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas. I know they’re all Bethesda games, but that’s just a coincidence. I liked Fallout 3 because I could navigate without a map. It was a smaller version of DC, I just had to learn quirks instead of directions. My brother-in-law introduced me to Skyrim, but Oblivion wrecked me. The priest as Christ writ large in Bethesda-speak. The Lone Wanderer is also a Christ figure, so that’s probably why I love the game so much. I can think about that world in terms of what’s best for it without thinking of my own problems, translating interactions between personal and in-game. Communication is therefore a two-way street because it informs me about my real life, this creation of who I wish I was. I have never played an evil character. I have tried so many times just to see what would happen, and I have rejection sensitivity disorder and can’t go there. Watching people actively hate me is bad enough in real life. I choose to live in the real world instead of being the characters’ god. I use cheat codes in everything because I just want to see the story, choosing to act like an intelligence officer instead of killing everything I see. In Skyrim, I use the invisibility spells and potions more than anything else so I can steal what I need before I get unalived.

Here is the one commandmant in Skyrim that should not be ignored under any circumstances. Do not kill a chicken.

Here’s what I won’t do. I won’t kill the other Christ figure in Skyrim, a dragon, either. I have never even watched the video. I have never blown up an entire city in Fallout 3 just to see what would happen, getting to rule the violent Capital Wasteland with even bigger violence to keep things calm. Even in a video game, I can’t be that mean… unless someone starts a fight with me. I will damn sure finish it.

I have a very loyal personality, with teeth and claws. No one in my inner circle would dispute this.

I think that where I get the most hung up is with friendships with women, because to be a woman is to be a fixer/pleaser who serves at her husband’s pleasure, according to the men that wrote the system we live under today. Therefore, because I know what I want and say it, I come across as demanding. In reality they could have asked me for anything, they just don’t, and not because they don’t want it. They’ve been taught not to want anything.

I can give what I require, and asking for it doesn’t require getting it. I just might not come to you again. I also don’t realize I’m asking too much if you don’t tell me that and instead, expect that I think you’ll be what I need you to be at all times with no thought for your needs at all. In a way, that is true. I am not reading your mind and thinking of all the things in it. I am calculating my responses based on what you need, and trying to figure out how we can help each other with the least amount of effort so that neither one of us feels put-upon. We’re a team.

So whether you think I’m the holy or the moly is generally dependent on your ability to tell me what you want, because I tried for so many years to read minds and I am, in fact, terrible at it. I have had too many relationships with Type A ballbreaking bitches (in a good way, truly) on purpose not to accomplish two things… feeling totally run over in most conflicts and learning how to stand up for myself, but only after everything else didn’t work. I have managed to pick the wrong tack in most relationships, because I had and continue to struggle with rejection sensitivity disorder. Over time, the symptoms have changed. At first, it was feeling like I needed to do everything someone said to keep them happy so that I didn’t get rejected. Now, it’s shutting down emotionally and not creating new relationships so that I don’t have to worry whether someone is happy or not. My world doesn’t break apart when someone is (generally rightfully) angry with me. I either push someone away first so that the story can’t be that they left, or won’t open up at all without significant evidence that I am wanted.

I am also hugely capable of telling you what my love language is so that if you want to say something, I’ll hear it. I don’t like walking-the-tightrope anxiety in trying to figure out if something is up and when conflict is going to hit so that I can prepare for every eventuality. I am an INFJ. If there is conflict between us, it causes me physical pain. My emotions are large and I am not medicating them away as much (I still take them; just different doses). Too much serotonin and I’m not really in touch with me anymore. We just chat at the office.

I’ve been this angry the whole time. I’ve been furious since I was born, because I have not lived a moment of my life without trauma. My mother said I cried all the way through physical therapy when I was a baby and I wish I could tell her that history repeated itself when I hurt my back a couple years ago. Again. Not one moment of my life has gone without me being physically or mentally seething with rage at myself.

I had a college doc say that he’d really never seen anyone with self-esteem this low… and that wasn’t after a session. That’s after I took an electronically graded personality inventory.

Now, it’s time to take that information and figure out why, letting myself feel the anger and process it out so that I’m not constantly a time bomb. I self destruct so easily it’s like a magic trick, because I cannot navigate the system as female, queer, and physically disabled. This is not to say that I am incompetent. This is to say that my voice isn’t as loud as others. They get what they need without asking because the system is built for people who already fit in that box…. which is white, cis, and straight (most of the time).

It is hard to be a person that wants to change something and is routinely ignored. This is micro and macro. Everything from speaking my love language to minorities in the system in general.

Personally, speaking my love language is not giving me gifts. They’re great, but I’d rather hear about your emotions. If we are in conflict and you send a gift, it’s not that it doesn’t matter. I just won’t connect those two things and automatically infer what you were trying to say. In my world, only the words “I’m sorry” actually mean you are. If you treat me differently after a conflict than you did before, I’m going to sense it before you even say anything because I’m excellent at reading body language. I’m good at inferring things from text…. and you can only push me away emotionally so many times before I decide that when you say fuck off, you mean it.

Equally easy to let go when you’re the one I go to with issues, but you’re not the one who comes to me. I don’t divine problems, but I feel when there is one. For instance, saying that you’re exhausted by what I need when you’ve never given me a chance to refill your energy stores so it doesn’t feel like that. If you handle conflict by saying “I’ll deal with this on my own,” how am I supposed to know that I’m doing anything wrong?

Additionally, freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. This is with all my friends, including you (plural). I don’t think I’m untouchable. I think I’m being honest about what is true according to the filters in my brain. It is entirely subjective and doesn’t take into consideration anyone else’s feelings because I assume that if you have a problem with me, you’ll say what it is and we’ll work it out.

By far the biggest reason that I won’t work things out (generally) is when we are in conflict and I have heard you, but I don’t agree with you. Generally, when people disagree with me, they turn very pedantic. There are many things I need explained to me like I’m five, but emotions aren’t one of them. I’ve been feeling the emotions of the whole world since I was born. The dark side that no one will tell you is that INFJs are very, very prone to addiction, because they’re trying to numb out everyone else’s feelings. I absolutely feel your emotions that deep, I’ve just learned how to handle it (most of the time). Handling it comes from saying the thing I’m most afraid to say, because when I set boundaries, other people do, too.

It’s a negotiation, unless I feel that the conversation will end with only you being happy because I gave up everything. I know what that looks like and I become a shell of myself. I will become frightened of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, breathing the wrong way. I will bleed internally so you don’t have to, which has been great for my partners over the years because they never had to figure out how they felt about anything.

That is doubly problematic in close female relationships, because both halves of the relationship do the same thing to each other unto time immemorial.

“Being Loud on the Internet” is just my way of having a voice. Spilling out how I feel about relationships so that hopefully it accomplishes healing my flaws and failures while pointing you in the right direction of finding yours. I don’t need you to try and make me happy. I need you to make you happy so that we can stand in each other’s stage lights.

Now I’ve Done It

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Once the Facebook scanners find you, it’s all over but the crying. Like I said, there is no recourse because “there aren’t enough people to manage content.” So, an Evangelical Christian came at me like the brain dead idiot into which she has willingly transformed. It was epic in terms of how close she was to getting the point. It was smacking her in the face the whole time. It was like my hand was on her head and she was windmilling her arms. The entire thread has been taken down, but ended with “you go and learn everything by rote…. come back to me when you have an original thought.” She came back with “is that the best you’ve got?”

Oh dear God.

I thought I was safe because my words were originally a bumper sticker. I said, “No. Jesus loves you, but I think you’re a bitch.” #bumperstickerwisdom And that’s how I got banned for a month less than two days after I got banned for a week. Between this and trying to win a cooking contest, I really feel like I’m getting my full use of the words “inciting violence.” But maybe not as much as I want, because if I’d come back at her with an original thought, I would have been in hell, not Facebook Jail. I am so mad at being cut off from my family and friends for that long, but I have absolutely no choice in the matter.

Aaaaaaanyway, these people drive me insane. They think the Bible is all about learning facts. Facts and the Bible are not really compatible after 2,000 years. Not only is it leaving science and medicine to their own devices by taking it literally, they’re missing out on a wealth of information spiritually by not taking it seriously. No true Jesus scholar would agree that learning your faith by memorizing scripture is a good ideea. It’s better to learn concepts.

My analogy for this is cooking (again).

I am a professional cook, yet I have only one true recipe. Even that was a wild guess at how much spice to put in the dish as I worked backwards. That’s because I understood the concept, but didn’t write down the facts. I innately know that fat supports heat, acid cuts fat, sugar neutralizes acid, acid neutralizes salt. Witth those combinations, you can make damn near anything. It’s all about choices. Let’s take one. Acid. Are you going to use citrus or vinegar? Well, how much fat are you trying to balance?

It is directly akin to my reading of the Bible. It comes in bites, I chew on it until I can swallow, and then I pass on my understanding, just like I did with the whole “concepts” thing. I had to cook thousands of times until I rose above the facts… so as it goes with the meticulous study of a book…… and it’s amazing how much The Bible and Le Guide Culinaire (Escoffier) have in common. The take home message in a professional kitchen is Old Testament “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” RAGE. Way, way before that, in order to become the best of the best, you work your way through the Luncheon Lectionary (yes, I did just make that up). You don’t read Le Guide from cover to cover, although you can. You skip around depending on what you need.

There are two types of people in the world. Those that can extrapolate assumptions from incomplete data…. #bumperstickerwisdom

Wrinkles in Time

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

As I have said previously, I suffer from more than one mental illness and I have cerebral palsy. I have also said that in my reading, I have learned that cerebral palsy can create mental illness, so my physical and mental maladies are most probably related…. and always have been, because my CP was caused by what doctors call “insults in the delivery room.” To me, “insults in the delivery room” is a really nice way of saying “we fucked up.” And they did, but my mom & dad were too nice to sue. I was joking with a friend a few weeks ago that the only reason I wish they had is that the hospital should at least have to pay for all my ibuprofen. 😛

Mentally, I know that it is at least a chemical imbalance even if it’s not CP-related, because there is nothing in my history that would have created these illnesses situationally. Even my emotional abuse as a teenager wasn’t the cause. I was depressed and anxious long before that, as well as clearly ADHD by the way my IQ and my grades were inversely proportional.

As with all ADHD kids, it’s not about IQ. It’s that they can rarely handle things like remembering to turn in assignments on time, take coherent notes so that they make sense later, and create habits to make it better. I mean, I bought every single school supply I thought would help and had amazing ideas for organization. But I couldn’t stick to them for more than a week. I had so many calenders that were “Anal Annie” organzed when they started and the rest completely blank.

The “taking coherent notes” part was particularly challenging for me, because in classes like Language Arts and Reading, I was much better at sitting there and listening, later able to remember with excellent recall what had been said… but my teachers couldn’t stand that I wasn’t writing anything down, thus actually hindering learning. I could not multitask listening and writing at the same time, a disaster in math because not only could I not do two things at once, I didn’t understand what was being said, so even if I did have excellent recall, it didn’t translate into “being able to solve my own problems” (little math haha for you there).

By the time I got to college, I could type as fast as I could think. Instead of trying to decide what was important, I transcribed every lecture. That way, I wasn’t really multitasking. I was writing, and then I would “go to class” later when I was reading the transcription.

Believe me when I say that this was only successful because I type between 75-80 wpm, and 100 on a very good day. You can’t do what I did if you type slower than that, because you might be able to ask a college professor to repeat something once, but not constantly.

In terms of depression and anxiety, I remember clearly the summer between fourth and fifth grade that I was chastised mightily by both parents for sleeping all day and hardly ever putting on real clothes. I’m not sure whether they knew I was depressed, or whether they thought I was acting typically for a person my age during school vacation. As a future fifth-grader, I didn’t know words like “depression.” I just knew I didn’t feel good a hundred percent of the time. I resented the hell out of literally being dragged out of bed and into real clothes, going to the library or whatever else it was that was planned for me that day. I was okay once I got there, but the will to go was non-existent.

What I Know for Sure™ is that when I am on a down, as an adult I have exactly the same symptoms. I can and do keep all the appointments in which my presence is required. With anything that is optional, I am usually in bed…. sleeping not because I am tired, but to escape. It is the easiest way for me to receive peace. In fact, I am generally not asleep in the classic sense, but wandering through my subconscience, trying to work out whatever it is that’s setting me off.

So, to put it mildly, emotional abuse didn’t cause my mental illnesses, just heightened my reaction to it. For people with mental illness, especially ADHD (I am not hyperactive, but the DSM does not differentiate anymore), sensory perception is higher than it is for neurotypicals, often to a large degree. What might have been contained in a fireplace burned down a forest.

But if I had to pick an absolute worst part of being so neurologically atypical, it would be my relationship with time. The only thing I remember with startling clarity is how long it’s been since my mother died. Everything else is malleable. It’s lucky that I was born in Texas, because I learned early that “the other day” will cover a multitude of sins. In Texas, “the other day” could have been last week or 20 years ago.

It’s not that I can’t remember dates by rote memorization. It is “how long has it been?” or “how long in the future is that?” My memories seem to be organized by how much I think about them. If something touched me/cut me deeply, it feels closer. If it wasn’t that important, it’s further away. I can easily mistake something that happened years ago for something that happened last week, and vice versa.

Things also change places in the Z-axis of my mind. If I haven’t thought about something in a while, it goes further back. Then, the memory pops back up and all of the sudden it’s like it happened yesterday.

That is the main reason I think I will never truly get over some of the things that have happened in my life, whether it was by my own hand or someone else’s. Some days, hurt is so far away, and some days, it is extremely loud and incredibly close.

Joy works the same way. Sometimes things that have made me over-the-top happy seem like it was just yesterday, when in reality, it was years ago. I am grateful for social media in this respect, because my Facebook posts and shares are all timestamped, as well as my blog entries. Timestamps are the one indelible thing that help me understand linear time.

The rest is just wrinkled.

Nothing Stays the Same

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I wanted to wait to post my next entry until I actually had something to say. I know that not updating my blog reduces traffic, thus dampening my quest for world domination. On the other hand, I don’t want to be one of those people who doesn’t take time to think before writing…. anything will do, because it’s not about craft, it’s about attracting views, visits, likes, and followers. I feel like I have enough already. Not believing I have enough just leads to verbal vomit for its own sake… and to me, that just doesn’t cut it.

I mean, I’ve always been the type to just lay out everything on this web site and let people make their own decisions about what they read, and when I post often, it’s because having something to say comes along that frequently. It’s organic, never forced. Lately, I’ve realized that most of my ruminations are just continuations of things I’ve already said, probably more than three or four times. I promise that I am not regurgitating content. It’s the way my brain works.

I think about a problem right up until I don’t. The interesting part (or, at least, it’s interesting to me) is that I tend to start a couple of steps back and rehash, but when I’m thinking about something a second (third, fourth, fifth, 17th……) time, the overall arc is the same and different small details jump out, often changing the course of the dialogue… conversations that happen between me and me. Though Shakespeare was not talking about discourse with oneself, he might as well have been. The play’s the thing… especially in moments where I’ve caught myself red-handed…. infinitely more scary than feeling caught by anyone else. I’m better at kicking my ass than you are. Write it down.

I’ve scared myself for the past couple of weeks because I make it a point to look at my Facebook memories, and along with all of my funny memes is this mountain range of emotions. Note to self: more peaks, less valleys.

WordPress propagates to my author page, which means that I am equally stupid and brave enough to post things to my own profile. If I skipped doing so, old entries wouldn’t appear at all. It isn’t about torturing myself- many, many more readers click through from my profile because I’ve been on Facebook for 10 years. The “Stories” page has only existed since 2015, and as of right this moment, only has about 100 followers. After a decade, I have 745 friends and 38 followers. The platform is exponentially larger. My Facebook profile propagates to @ldlanagan on Twitter, and my author page to @lesliecology. Again, I have more followers on my own Twitter feed than the feed for my web site… the difference is that @lesliecology is nothing but a WordPress feed, and @ldlanagan is everything I post on Facebook, period. My profile is public, and my Facebook statuses are generally longer than Tweets, so anyone can click through to the original post.

So there’s the setup as to why I wanted to separate out my blog entries from my Facebook profile/Twitter feed, and why it hasn’t worked out.

Scaring myself the last couple of weeks has been about entries from four years ago, starting with PTSD as a teenager and it unraveling my thirties into divorce, losing a good friend, and so much compounded mental instability that I needed more help than my friends and family could give. Poet Mary Karr gave me the phrase “checking into the Mental Mariott,” and I’ve used it relentlessly since.

Joking about it covers up deep wounds, and that’s why I write about them instead of speaking. When I am writing, I have a bit of clinical separation. I can look at the land mines without detonation. I cannot say the same is always true for reading. Occasionally, I feel the distance of having grown as a person, so that the entry feels like it was written by someone else. More often, I am remembering every tiny detail about the setting and the arc of the story. Then body memory kicks in, and if my heart and brain were racing in the moment, I feel it again; it doesn’t matter how much time has passed.

It isn’t all bad, though, because I write in equal measure about how good I’m feeling, and those excited butterflies also return…. sometimes, but not often, in the same entry. The other plus is getting to decide if what was true at that time is still true today, and as a rule with some exceptions, it’s not. There are truth bombs that hit me just as hard now as the day I wrote them, but for the most part, this blog has been dynamic, and has changed just as often as I have (which is, like, the point).

Whether I’m reading an up day or a down, it is exhilarating to see that few things stay the same.

I will always have the regular, boring adult problems… and at the same time, my life is bigger than that. Managing Bipolar II, remnants of PTSD (anxiety, mostly) and ADHD so that I am not a ball of negative crazy keeps it interesting. I emphasize “negative crazy” because I don’t know anyone who isn’t crazy in a positive way. I am not attracted on any level to the mundane. Regular people with big dreams are often lumped in with “crazy,” because most people don’t dream big.

Even my dreams have been adjusted. I am still dreaming big, but the focus is not on starting my own church anymore. Perhaps in the distant future, I’ll think about it again. But right now, when I enter into any church building, consecrated or not, “my mother is dead” becomes an ostinato.

From Google Dictionary:

Ostinato

os·ti·na·to
/ästəˈnädō/

noun: ostinato; plural noun: ostinati; plural noun: ostinatos

a continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm.

“The cellos have the tune, above an ostinato bass figure.”

Even the sentence used to illustrate the word is appropriate, because you don’t just hear bass. You feel it.

I have written before that she’s everywhere I look, because over our lives together, I cannot think of an element within church life where she was absent. I cannot think of a single thing that was all mine until I moved to Portland and began preaching at Bridgeport UCC.

I have always been the Mary. She was the Martha.

There was no judgment on her part. I just mean that I have always been the thinker and she has always been the actor…. Actually, I take that back. My mother was one of the few people I’ve met in this life that had extraordinarily creative ideas and the ability to execute them, which is rare.

Few people manage to live on the ground and in the air at the same time (it’s a miracle I can tie my own shoes).

In Luke 10:41-42, Jesus is speaking to Martha, who has complained to him that (I’m paraphrasing) “Mary’s just sitting on her ass while I’m doing all the work. Can’t you go rattle her cage?” And Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away from her.” He actually says this to the woman that invited him and his entire crew into her house and wants to feed everyone. Now, I don’t know whether you’ve ever cooked and served for 16 (fairly certain Lazarus was there- unclear), but I can see Martha’s point and I get a little bit irritated with Jesus. It’s not that one part is better than the other. Thinking is not better than doing. Doing is not better than thinking. They’re just different mindsets, and the evening wouldn’t have been possible without both.

I am certain that Mary and Martha need each other. Martha is grounded, and keeps Mary from floating away. Mary reminds Martha to look at the stars once in a while.

So when I think about the work I did to investigate starting a homeless ministry in Silver Spring, what comes up for me is that my Martha is no longer with us. It rends the mental tapestry I created, and I descend into darkness.

I am still excited by theology of all types- Abrahamic, Eastern, you name it. But right at this very minute, I’d rather spend my time thinking and writing, sometimes posting sermons on this web site rather than waxing philosophic in front of a physical crowd.

What I do not know is whether I will always feel the same, or whether my time is not yet here.

What I do know is that the fight has left me. I am too mired in grief to get passionate enough to affect change. In fact, I wouldn’t say that I’m extraordinarily passionate about anything at all. When my mother died, so did several pieces of me. I know for certain that it would have been easier had I gotten to see my mother live a long life and there was no aspect of “dear God, they took her too soon.” I knew I would be sad when she died, but I was completely caught off guard by the rage at getting robbed.

Embolisms make great thieves who never need getaway cars.

I am still grieving the future that I thought I would get, and piecing together a new normal. It’s a good thing that on this day next year, I’ll read this again, and perhaps that new normal will have some structure. The concrete has been mixed, but I think I added a little too much water, because it just. Won’t. Set.