The daily YES

Can I, can't I?

2012-01-27T12:42:00.000-08:00

CAN I, CAN'T I?

I've been searching the internet to see if there are any nurses/caregivers with mental health issues. I was relieved to find out that indeed, there are. Obviously, it requires a lot of work and support and maybe ain't doable for me personally, but we'll see about that. At least it isn't completely off the table.

And I can picture that for myself, I guess. With good counseling. And/or medication. That someday. Maybe. I'll get there.

But right now? I am conflicted. I think I should leave this job. Get better, I don't know, somehow. Get diagnosed, treated, counseled. Then, maybe, see if I can make it.

And sometimes I think I should just leave social services for good. Or any other job with responsibility for vulnerable life.

I am holding this question for the time being, sitting with it. Can I work as a caregiver, can't I?

Whatever answer I'm gonna get to, I know now something that weren't true yesterday: that IT WILL BE ALRIGHT. As long as I have insight. And support.

I know that if I end up a helping professional, I will always have to be very careful and constantly work to maintain "sanity". And I am okay with that.
And if I end up realizing that's more than I am capable of, I can picture myself doing any other kind of job, being a translator could be great perhaps, but really, whatever would be adequate to my capabilities.
I can totally see myself as a janitor or factory worker, and happy. I know that it will be alright either way. I just need to be aware of my issues and capabilities and work, be humble, be disciplined, and move, with appropriate support, towards the right decisions for me.

Also, the things I yelled at myself last night, that I was a vulture attracted to disability in order to maintain the lie that she was fine, that I was prejudiced against people with mental health problems and dehumanized these people? I am not taking those back, just putting a question mark there. Not trying to exculpate myself, really, just ready to, with brutal honesty but without self-flagellation, search my soul.

Light at the end of the tunnel already?

So, all in all, maybe it's just me trying to see some kind of a light at the end of the tunnel, quick, but I do think that I am getting a bit better.
Before? When I was unwell? I used to survive on Courtney Love.

These days it's Ingrid Michaelson.

To me, it's a good change. Yes, I am all over the place, detached, out of control and drowning in emotion. But still, weirdly, okay, somehow.

Well, apparently, my symptoms are definitely no better. They are worse, if anything.
But I have a different attitude. I can't actually come up with a worst-case scenario that I am not okay with. I can picture myself living alone for the rest of my life, going to counseling, perhaps hospitalized a couple times, perhaps medicated, hopefully holding down a job of some kind, or not. None of that seems awful, anymore.

Yesterday I wrote about my "greatest fear" all my life has been "going crazy". The image of myself, wild, checked-out, both dangerous and vulnerable, people staring, completely unaware and unable to control myself.

Today, it's different, the image is different. Having mental health issues is just having mental health issues now. Nothing horrifying about it. Challenging but manageable. I think what I was REALLY so terrified of was the thing that I was but couldn't see - destructive/dangerous or at least weird/embarrassing, without realizing that.

I gained insight into my condition lately. That's a huge thing. I am surprised about what a relief it is. Just yesterday, it was so fucking heavy, I fought not to realize, not to see. But now, I am okay. I will work on this. I am glad for being able to realize it, even though I can't do/don't know how to do anything much about it yet.

I'm going to be fine. Even if I am going to be, you know, NOT fine. I know that deep down, I will always stay me, and stay positive.

***

Also, let me tell you how today went. I've never felt as embarrassed as these past couple of days before (and trust me, I know embarrased). I am so unbelievably awkward. Just utterly unpredictable. I don't do dangerous things, or rude, nothing like that. I just say some super-weird stuff. I have extreme derealization, it's like floating somewhere, not really in charge. Like I am just witnessing my own actions, no, that's not accurate, like I am just observing my own thoughts, or, like, like I was thinking, acting, through a thick layer of something. All seems blurred and unimportant.

Not yet, but I'll get there

2012-01-26T13:02:00.000-08:00

I don't see how to embrace having mental illness. Like, at all.

This is a fab campaign, I have seen it previously thanks to Noel, a person I deeply admire, and loved it, shared on fb and all, while it was still about the other people for me, while I still was invested in this issue (mental health prejudice etc.) only as an ally and supporter (I thought).

But now? Rethink mental illness? Not there yet. I want to beat myself up, to think I am alone in this, to dehumanize myself. I know, whiny and stupid. But it's my process. I will get there. But right now, it's too raw yet.

It's so fucking confusing. I have anxiety, social and generalized, altered judgement, impulsivity, mood issues, don't read social situations well and most of all, I feel divorced from reality. That in itself is challenging and sometimes it paralyzes me. It's like a permanent bad trip (not like I ever did any drugs ever, it's just how I think a bad trip would feel). And in that state, you have to reflect on your state? Assess it accurately? See a doctor, get help, manage your own treatment? I just feel so scared, so completely unsheltered and at the mercy of others. I have very good reasons not to trust myself to take care of myself. I have no one else to trust to take care of me. I will get through this, but right now I can't see how, at all.

And I have so much shame. Me, who used to see herself as the perfect miss empowerment and disability rights. I am deeply, deeply ashamed for being a person with mental health issues.

I thought I hated myself before... I haven't even SEEN myself before, and this is where everything goes to hell

2012-01-26T12:31:00.000-08:00

You know those question, growing up, deemed to reveal things about your personality, the things you put up on personal profiles of all kinds, "What is your favorite color?", "What's your biggest dream?", "What's your greatest fear?" etc.? I always considered those questions dumb and never had a favorite color etc. but I were always 100 percent positive about my greatest fear.

No, it's not spiders or sharks. Heights, vampires or the dark don't come anywhere close either. Or even losing a loved one. I've always been most afraid of mental illness. It used to mean to me becoming out of control and destructive and somehow reduced.

It's a phobia, it's an obsession. Most of all, it's internalized hatred, fear of self, a coping mechanism where I, subconsciously, swore to keep a door inside of me locked shut, whatever that takes.

I have tried working with people with schizophrenia and related conditions. I have lived with a person with bipolar disorder. I couldn't do it well and left after a couple of months. I took it too personally. I identified with those people and feared them in an irrational and most objectifying way.

The closeted bully archetype, kind of, although I wasn't bullying anyone except my self.

Because I am mentally ill. I know it and I don't believe it, I don't want to admit it and I need to admit it. And it's turning everything, my self-perception, my worldview, upside down.

I am only ever allowing myself to realize it the past couple of weeks and it's all very raw and confused, torturous.

I am thinking, foolishly perhaps, that any illness or disability I would be able to cope with without having to compromise who I think I am. Except mental illness.

I need to make steps towards undergoing the diagnostic process, soon. It's looming over my head, terrifying. I don't want to. It feels like a death to me. I don't want to be "crazy".

You know why that is? Obviously, it's because I objectify people with mental illness, because I hold so much prejudice towards that.

I know that I need to accepts this as a challenge, to confront my own prejudice and change my thinking.

I keep having this thought that I somehow deserved this for my pride and self-importance and my deeply rooted mental health prejudice. Of course I know the causality is reverse, but this thought keeps coming to me regardless.

I know that I need to make adjustments. Maybe accept the fact that I will never be what I dream of being - a competent professional caregiver. I know that the reason why that is my dream is that it's a way of separating myself from people with disabilities, to say, look, this is who they are and this is what I am. There are SO many things wrong with that and I am filled with rage and disgust against the person who has this thought process. And that person is me. I don't want anything to do with that person. But I will, somehow, have to help her evolve and grow away from her prejudice.

Not at all how I hoped this year was going to go. But it's where my blogging and thinking is taking me. And it's the reality. (And I hate it.)

I will have to find a healthy source of a positive identity. A realistic career path. I don't know how to accept myself. But I know that I will. And that I will find joy, somehow.

...when suddenly... stuck and sorry and self-loathing, as I should be

2012-01-23T10:24:00.000-08:00

I need to be honest now, and it's hard stuff.

When you look at my life, or even just at my blog, what do you see? You see a person who needs to be taken care of. Unpredictable and out of control. A crazy person.

Not a person you would trust with your disabled child.

Yes, I am gentle and caring and respectful. Most of the time. I mask well. I cope well. I perform well. MOST OF THE TIME.

But this summer, for one split second, I wasn't. I wasn't caring. I was the opposite. I was abusive.

I slapped a teenager's cheek. He was biting me and wouldn't let go, 5 seconds, 7 seconds, deeper and deeper. I can take bites anywhere, but not into the neck. Not that time. I slapped his cheek to make the bite stop. It worked. And I was horrified and so, so sorry and disgusted with myself.

There's no excuse. I can't do this job. Can't be allowed to do this job. That's just the truth.

And I have no idea how to move on from this. No idea in hell.

YES no.3 - a walk

2012-01-22T07:32:00.000-08:00

I had to work today and yesterday and every day this week, well didn't really have to, but it's a stupid coping strategy I used to use for the past couple of years because I couldn't cope with free time, I always freaked out. I still rarely have any free time ever and sometimes I think it is for the better.

After work I just wanted to take a nap but I made myself go for a walk as my today's YES to life. I live within walking distance to this absolutely ridiculously gorgeous nature reserve, it's so damn beautiful it trips me out in a weird way but also pulls me in somehow, I don't know how to describe it, I felt more surreal and hyper than usual but less anxious and generally okay. I still had depersonalization but it wasn't awful like it sometimes is, it was just there.

But it was scary to, in the way over-the-top emotions are scary. I am thinking that I get why some kids with severe disabilities have such a hard time coping with overstimulation even when the stimuli are pleasant. It's like being flooded, swept away with impulses, helplessly swayed. It almost hurts and it definitely is scary. I can see how some people with disabilities go into seizures when they get excited about something.

That is why I so often settle for the numb. Of course it's not the same thing, as I don't think (although sometimes I do consider the possibility) that my issues are as much neurological as they are, you know, mental (and of course my issues are about 1000 times less severe as those of the people I have in mind, please don't think I'm claiming to know how hard these kids have it, I don't and I have nothing but immense respect and admiration for the heroes that folks with severe combined disabilities are forced to become).

I have mood issues, both ways, I get manic easily and lose control and then I keep going until I crash and the higher I went, the harder I fall. Which is basically why I tend to get so disgustingly passive and negativist and wallowing in depression, because whenever I try to "get well", I get a little too well, I get manic and ecstatic and perfectionist, like I always overshoot the center. And I can already feel that happening, I went from super-blue on Thursday straight to manic, only slept for 4 hours last night and am thinking 1000 miles a minute.

Still, the walk was great, it made me feel healthier/saner, even if it brings it's own issues with it, I am excited to keep doing this every day. Like, what else is there to do? Stay down? I'm not going to. Even if it means I get crazy and do unbelievable mistakes and embarrass myself and than crash super hard like I did before, like I did every time I tried to pick myself up, I have to try, try again.

YES no.2 - a play

2012-01-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

Buying the Unbearables book yesterday was such a great thing, it made me so happy because I haven't treated myself to anything other than junk in a long time. It made everything better, the thoughts, the anxiety, the discomfort.

So, I decided to stick with it and do something life-affirming every day. The one thing I actually am good at (although it's so, so much different after this summer's mess up when, in a split second of being blinded with physical pain, I slapped a young man with autism and behavioral issues who happened to attack me and cause me considerable pain and I can't forgive myself and maybe I shouldn't and maybe I shouldn't be allowed to work with this clientelle anymore, I don't know and I can't bear the thought of leaving a job I love but I doubt my capabilities and feel guilty, for good reason, every day *EDITED TO CLARIFY: Yes, I did hit a client. He is heavier and stronger than me and he was sinking his teeth into my neck. I gave him a slight slap on his cheek to break off the bite. I didn't "lose it" as in went raging at the kid. It was a failure. Period. It happened because I was playing superhero and over-estimated my capabilities by far. Yep. And it is never, ever, going to happen again. Ever.*) is my job. And if I were a client of mine, that's the action plan I would write regarding my quality of life - do some tiny little pleasurable thing every day.

So I went to a student's performance of The Forest by Alexander Ostrovsky. It was the best thing in the world, I almost forgot how much I love both theater and the 19th century Russian realism. It felt like a part of me coming back to life. All those things I used to care about, in those periods when I was "better", books and drawing and jogging and all, I really should get back to that and stick with it.

YES no.1, a dirty book

2012-01-20T15:16:00.000-08:00

Somehow I got over myself today, if only for some time. I treated myself to a book of actual kink - The Unbearables Book of Sex. Thats a long way from trying to read something that I care about among the lines of mainstream junk (like Twilight or Glee).

It feels like a deep inhale after holding my breath for ages without realizing it.

I am a queer person, and a person with her own ideas about how to live her life (often in the realms of the alternative, whatever that means).

So this year, I am not trying to fit my round self into a square form. Just not interested in that anymore.

Major personal manifesto coming up.
I don't want to be what I described on Thursday.

Last night snapshot

2012-01-19T15:33:00.000-08:00

4:30 AM: Dream seeps away like water down the drain when you suddenly pull the plug. Acceleration, spiral, gurgles.

I had a baby again in that dream - this time the baby kept growing smaller and smaller in my arms until I could barely catch hold of it with two fingers, slipping away like a dream when you suddenly wake up. Accelerating, gurgling, spiraling until it´s all gone.

In the dream I felt kinda horrid but still warm, loving a thing I was losing.

Half-assed

2012-01-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

I don't have diagnosable autism, just find some noises hard to take, my attention span extrapolates between fleeting and lingering, am easily overwhelmed and don't read social situations fast enough. I always KNOW that I am awkward, but mostly have no idea how to behave correctly.

I never hardcore broke down, just have been experiencing depersonalization for as long as I can remember and have mood issues and attacks of something I can only describe as extreme obsessive guilt. It's not really debilitating, just restraining.

I didn't grow up in a hardcore abusive family, just a weird one.

I was never hardcore bullied, just ridiculed and excluded.

I never went homeless, just got really REALLY close.

I never was an involuntary prostitute, just a cam girl out of despair for a couple of months.

I was never raped, just attacked once (while hitchhiking alone at night, yes, I know, but I was desperate to get to my family for Christmas and had NO money) - I managed to fight him off, get out of the car and run.

I am not really damaged or broken.
But I am also not really okay.

It's weird, going through life like this. One foot in. Half gone.

-----------------------------
Jesus, girl, just pull yourself together. And I do, and I function all right. It's just that I would like to be fully here and have control over what I do and how I come across, and that is probably never going to happen. As petty a problem as it is, I am obsessing, or rather dramaqueening about it tonight, so I thought I will just put it into words and make it visible so I can be done with it sooner.

I must seem really disgusting now. Please know that I truly an mad at myself for this pity-party.

But maybe this is my blog and I am allowed to throw myself as many pity-parties as I want to. Maybe all that matters is whether that works for me, whether I wouldn't be better off actually doing something to untie the knots. But as you can see, I am unsure about everything. Half-assed about everything. Even about whether or not to live my life or rather wallow in self-inflicted and half-imagined pain.

Escapist TV pisses me off, but I can't afford therapy either

2012-01-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

Looks like I have a popculture blog now. When did that happen?

So, Glee. On one level I just freaking love that shit. You know, fun and song and dance and escapism and the sense of "inclusive community". And I like it's take on gay youth (where is that kid from the Glee Project with his drag queen shtick, though?).

BUT

I HATE the "self-diagnosed Aspergers" thing. Really, that one was just WAAY out of line. Self-diagnosed = made-up and Aspergers = rude and obnoxious? Yeah, gotcha. Real funny.

And I am not sure about the wheelchair jokes. They piss me off, really. But then I go and think, well maybe I'm too easily offended. Maybe it's okay to joke about disability, no? And of course it is. The stuff Sue Sylvester tells Artie is no worse than what she tells all the other characters... I think?

But some things I really can't get over. Like, whatever was this about??

Really, WTF?

I get the physical humor of it, I think.
But I can't get past two things I feel are built into that scene:

1. Many paraplegics can swim, actually. Saying "hey, this is funny, a wheelchair kid in a swimming pool", which is what the scene is basically about, is ignorant and stupid. I can imagine the writers thinking about that scene, going "okay, but what about Artie?" and that pisses me off. Why can't they just have him swim?

2. Wheelchairs are not glued to their user's butts. Sometimes people get off them, you know? Why the heck would anyone roll a chair into the pool?? The chairs are not parts of their body, just like disability, while for some an important source of identity, is not ALL they are. Can't we see Artie transfer into the pool? Can't we get a glimpse of the actual reality of living with a disability? *Edited to add:* Well of course we can't. I can't picture it, can you? It's like that would cross a line, right? Like we got used to seeing them gracefully rolling around in their chairs, but we are never going to see this on TV:

Maybe I should just stop watching TV.

The problem with Twilight, take 4

2012-01-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

I take popculture seriously. Coming from where I come from, there's no way for me not to.

I am drawn to blockbusters and not just because I like the sociology of it. I like participating in this shared experience of being a fan. It makes me feel warm :)

And it helps me understand. Feel.

I take popculture seriously because I believe that when we tell ourselves stories, it's everything but simple or unimportant.

The whole history of is nothing else but storytelling. Not just the "big" history. Everything we do, everything we believe, everything we are.

Stories are what we, as cognizant creatures, are made of.

And I am drawn to it, and find it heartbreaking, how we seek salvation in re-writing our stories. How we want to write ourselves into a fairytale, where our self-sacrifice (as if we gave up our lives, at 18, for a man, for the idea of love, for a baby), our pain (as if we had all our bones broken, our blood drunk), our experience of being dominated (as if we were a mere human in a world of super-strong, super-beautiful and super-virtuous vampires) and violated (as if he who professed to love us threatened to kill us with his desire if we get too dirty and sinful) was going to PAY OFF in this afterlife of eternal perfection, beauty, grace, superiority, youth, virtue (and freedom from all things ~~human~~ icky like eating, shitting, sweating or cumming).

True, Twilight is not a clever story. It is wrong, dangerous, button-pushing but it doesn't know that about itself. It is not meant to carry a message. And that is precisely why it is so powerful to me. It doesn't restrain itself, doesn't police, doesn't aim. It just speaks. A raw masturbation. A true portrait of how we are and how we want to be. An authentic scan of the pathology.

To move forward, of course, we need to tell ourselves a whole another story, one put together with imagination and wisdom and courage. To me, Twilight is a story that helps me understand the way we are written now. And how we need to re-write ourselves.

The problem wit Twilight, take 3

2012-01-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

I´ve already said that

1) Twilight has an erotic nature that goes largely unreflected and therefore has a potential of appealing to consumers in powerful ways without them noticing.

2) It´s imagery conveys a hatred against the female body (which is described in positive ways only after it gets damaged and destroyed in almost every possible way and reconstructed dehumanized, infertile and sexless).

3) Another problem that I have with Twilight is that it is basically a kristian story that pushes the "values" of body-hatred and ascetism.

4) Then it also pushes a blame-the-victim logic. Edward wants to kill Bella not because he is a vampire but because her blood smells super good. It is her responsibility not to tempt him. If he killed her, it would have been because she was too attractive/dirty.

Or is it sheer gynophobia?

2012-01-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

On second thought though, when I think about the images of what is happening with Bella's body... It just looks, you know, not even kinky anymore. SNUFF. Like she, always the object of desire, gets pregnant, starved, bruised, ribs, pelvis and spine broken, cut, bit, stabbed in the heart with a huge syringe full of spunk-looking substance and then she's dead. And only then she rises again, even more desirable, dead.

Is Edward Cullen a stone butch top?

2012-01-13T05:59:00.000-08:00

I am fully functional again but have the tell you, the 5 days of my illness did leave some long-term consequences.

That is, it saw me watch Twilight movies :)In other words, I used it as a justification for doing something I generally view as essentially negative and even self-harmful.

At the beginning I was going through some hard stuff. It wasn't just that I was exhausted, like I often am, from juggling a full-time job, part-time job and school. I've also felt really shaken and self-conscious after getting caught up in these series of petty failures (starting with a major professional failure this summer that I haven't processed, I just kept messing up - from lost cell-phones and wallets, forgetfulness, being late, fucked-up paperwork to very nearly fucking-up a kid's medication, I increasingly felt non-competent and not-in-charge). But the biggest thing was that I had just really crazy anxiety, depersonalization and obsessive thoughts, like, the real CRAZY type, the kind I haven't experienced since 2006.

I got overwhelmed with all this. I saw no options and felt that I literally couldn't afford to even work a little less, let alone seek some kind of therapy. I didn't have the courage or clarity to say stop and do something, get help or find the real problem and fix it so I just kept going, in the survival mode.

And then I went down with the flu. (I briefly tried to keep going while ALSO having the flu, didn't work out well - that one was when I almost fucked-up that medication.) I had to call in sick and reschedule all test and just stay home and take care of myself.

My intuition is that that could have been just what I needed - to be able to just curl up and lick my wounds in solitude for a couple of days.

But because I was so caught up in my problems, that kind of confrontation with my feelings and conflicts and that kind of emotional healing didn't happen, wasn't accessible.

What happened was I, instead of emotional healing, went for emotional sedation. I went as far as to admit I was having problems and needed to take care of myself.

And that I used as a justification for doing something that is my biggest addiction, something I lust after although I view it as negative, not useful and, at least in my case, harmful.

That is, escape into fantasy worlds where I can get away with my psychoses and pathologies, in fact receive validation for them, revel in them.

That is, essentially, a place where I can hide and put my process to ice and really just avoid life.

Secondly, I also go into these worlds to get off. To have my buttons pushed and receive a toxic mimic of un-earned, un-worked-for and un-processed gratification.

All this to say, I watched the Twilight movies.It worked, as I knew it would. It gave me what I wanted. It took me away from me. I was thrilled. Cheap-thrilled. I loved it.

I think what attracts me to stories like that is what I call the secret club factor. The way Bella is unconditionally and fully included into the Cullen family. That BAM there are vampires and SURPRISE they really like you and you can just ditch your old life and start over as someone cherished, someone better and special, start a new life full of purpose and clarity thing.
It's an identity/purpose thing, a laziness thing, a self-doubt thing and an arrogance thing.
I mean, becoming part of a family of beautiful and virtuous vampires is essentially what I, deep down, dream about.
To be lifted, purified, saved, appreciated, celebrated, needed, accepted, chosen, special. And to achieve. Both without working for in in any way.

It's how religious cults work. I should know. The aforementioned meltdown of 2006? It had much to do with jesus christ. Recovering from it, I read up on the sociology of psychological manipulation and did a year-long research project on religious cults in our city. I think that's the only thing that helped me not fall prey to a destructive cult.

And this all comes down to the fact that I am horrified of being rejected, of course.
And very much out of my center.

But I don't think I'm alone in that.
What scares me is the mass success of the Twilight story.

But I need to get out of this somehow because I need to function again :).

I decided to try and analyze Twilight.

At first I thought I could get out of it with hands clean. (I am the girl who swore she read Harry Potter as anarchist literature, after all!)

I tried to persuade myself that Twilight was queer. That it worked as a story that advocated for poly (like when Bella negotiated to have both Edward and Jacob stick around and support her) and for the kinky/queer/BDSM (obviously, I thought).

But I just couldn't allow myself to fool my own head anymore.

It was one thing to get off on a problematic piece of pop culture.

But letting it pass as something consistent with my beliefs and politics was a whole another one.

So I finally made myself think, and write what it is that I am so attracted to Twilight, and why.

But first let me clarify: I consider the Twilight saga to essentially be the author's SM erotic fantasy. With a touch of poly, too.

I do think Paige Schilt has a point. Yes, I think some people might read the story and be empowered by "it's unabashed description of teen girl lust and kinky queer subtext".

BUT, for a lot of people, I think it just reads as something else, something much more problematic.

I mean, a stay-at-home Mormon mom? Writing her ABSOLUTELY UNPROCESSED SM erotic fantasies into a story?
Having MASSES of young adults MESMERIZED by said fantasies in equally ABSOLUTELY UNPROCESSED ways?

You'd think, good for her? Good that she's found an outlet for her subconscious desire? Really? Wouldn't it be "good for her" to rather be able to actually realize her fantasies (both as in, bring into consciousness and bring into reality)?

Or good to have thinly-veiled queer writing get popular? Really? Why can't we have openly queer writing instead? Why does it have to be "disguised"?

The story itself - it just doesn't hold together very well. It's more like things happen, plot twists for the sole purpose of serving as a vehicle for all the tortured sensuality. Meyers obviously is a good stylicist, but not a great story-teller. She doesn't have to be a good story-teller though, apparently. I don't feel that the storyline is what's important in the books/movies.
I think that we read it for the captivating, suggestive style, for the emotional and sensual trip. Which mostly consists of sexualized adoration (objectification) of Edward, lust, tension created by delaying of sexual gratification and pain and danger implicitly or explicitly tied to sex. For that reason, Twilight just sounds like erotica to me.

I think Twilight is erotica that doesn't know it is erotica.That creeps me out.

Of course I am fiercely sex-poz and kink-poz. As long as it's consenting adults. As long as it's just sex. As long as it's processed. I get BDSM, I do. BUT - this one is tricky - I guess I am critical of practices that give one person authority over another. I think that sex should be just sex. Kinky sex should be just kinky sex. You know? I think BDSM is DIFFICULT because of the danger of abuse and dominance. (And no, being sub does NOT mean wanting to be abused and/or dominated!) I think BDSM is something that HAS TO BE PROCESSED really well.

All in all, I think Twilight is pushing emotional, sensual and sexual buttons of young women in dangerous ways.I think it works as a vehicle for various problematic ideas like male dominance, sexphobia, fetishizing virginity, anti-abortionism, objectification, the one and true love, etc.

And I think that is unfortunate, because I would LOVE to see kinky literature out there being received well and related to.

I may be the only one thinking this, but I don't think the Bella character is all that anti-feminist. I think Bella is a great sub in a way. She is not subservient to Edward, really. She just does what she wants to do. She is guided by her own feelings and desires. When she decides to commit herself to Edward, when she chooses to turn into a vampire, when she wants to risk her life having sex, when she proceeds with a pregnancy that is killing her - those are all HER decisions, ones she has to fight for against mostly everyone around her. And the reason for her self-destructive behavior? Not self-loathing. Bella is driven by passion. She is crazy-intense, reckless, self-destructive. But certainly not subservient or weak.

Anyways, when young girls identify with Bella, they generally don't pick up her self-righteousness but rather her take on relationships, abortion etc. I mean, Bella might not be oppressed. She might be just kinky. She might be even feminist. But she remains an awful, awful role model. Also, Twilight might be just a harmless adventurous and sensual fantasy. But it remains a dangerous, dangerous piece of mass entertainment.

2012-01-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

A get-over-yourself song:I am not really well at all right now. I am down with the flu, but that's not what I mean.Guess I'll just try and "snap out of it".

2011-12-29T16:04:00.000-08:00

I haven't been feeling well. I had some free time during the holidays. So I have been watching Glee.Now, I understand the function of escapist TV shows. How they can lull us, help us stay in denial, tells us that "everything's gonna be fine". In a largely secular world, popculture takes over religion's job. (In being the opium of the poor, and more.) That's just how large highly hierarchized groups of humans roll.Yet I engage in it. On some level, if I could, I would ONLY ever watch TV shows and never do anything else, ever. Seriously.The more I watch it, the more insensitive I grow towards the problematic parts of it. I just crave the warmth and fuzziness. But this here is still hard to buy into:Maybe because I'm jealous for not having had the middle class "western world" teenager experience (but honestly, how many people do have that?). Or because the agephobia sickens me?Or because it's just a really stupid thing to do with my time, getting all ecstatic about being young and privileged. Anyways, that particular performance just pisses me off.

2011-12-29T08:15:00.000-08:00

I want to say this: I have a mental health problem.

And this is not another one of the "I am lost and powerless and have no idea what's happening to me" posts.

It might be true, yep, I have all kinds of overwhelming emotions about my state. But my attitude has changed. I am no longer interested in being the victim, the sufferer. I OWN my insanity now, baby.

What I mean is that I know what's happening with me. Perfectly well. I also know that there are no quick fixes. Maybe no "fixes" at all. I do know what I need to feel and function as well as possible. I know that it will get better again, albeit temporarily. And in the meantime?

Suck it. I am what I am and there's nothing wrong with that.