Fragmented

I feel lost. Like I've forgotten who I were and I'm only slowly rediscovering myself. It's easy to forget who you are, in a world that gives you a million choices but no real options. It's easy to forget the bigger picture when you feel like you are just a haphazard collection of fragments, a puzzle of details that make an incomplete whole. I've forgotten how to be alone without being lonely. How to be a friend without being exhausted. How to listen to my intuition without coming across as selfish and proud and lazy.

How is it possible to feel so conflicted? Like you are torn between yourself and others, hell, like you are torn between your selves. Why does what I need have to oppose what I can have? Why can't I allow myself to just want what I want?

Why is it so hard to just answer your own questions to yourself?

Why can I never rest for a single moment? Why do I always have to feel like I should be doing something else? Could be doing something else...? Why can I never let myself feel what I feel, do what I do, and think what I think?

Do other people even consider these things? Are they just happy where they are, never questioning, never wondering; or are they just repressing their unhappiness so they can fit into a society that has no place for them?

Or am I just assuming that everyone else is a misfit just because I am one?
But surely, no one can feel at ease living?

Because if they can, I am living in an illusion and nothing is real.
POET IN THE JAR

Succubus

A succubus, a vampire,
Nestled in your heart.
Infectious, like wildfire,
It's tearing you apart.
Lover's whispers,
are lover's chains
They speak of blame,
And corrode the same.
They're half-forgotten playthings,
that are rusting in the rain.

A succubus, a parasite,
Feasting off your heart.
Disastrous, like dynamite,
Like god-forsaken art.
Friendly warnings,
Are friendly lies
They speak of demise,
And blinded eyes.
They hint of half-forgotten truths,
that you bury in denial.

A succubus, a devil's work,
Occupies your heart.
And you can't see how you are hurt,
When it's driving us apart.
I'd tell you so,
But you'd never know
How I tended to your scars.
I'd ask you why,
But you would lie,
And retreat into your heart.

Retreat back to your succubus,
I'll retreat back to the stars.

Interview With A Gryphon

I can barely recognize this manuscript after this many remakes. It's interesting that what started out as a couple of amateur novels would end up spawning what may be my most intriguing story yet, and still have so little in common with the rewritten result. I basically just took the elements I enjoyed from the originals, refined them, fleshed it out, and created a new world. A few of the characters have remained, but even they are not the same. I wonder if this is what it feels like for "real", published writers, as they go through edit after edit, seeing their story grow and come to life. I guess that's where I'm struggling at the moment - I have a lively, populated world; and I suppose in a way, I have breathed life into it - but the characters are still a mystery to me. Even with a plot structure and assigned character drives it's hard for me to actually sit down and type up the narrative itself. It feels like it just won't be as easy as just creating the scenery... like this is where the real challenge lies. I have begun drafting the opening scene, but it lacks the Ooomph! that I feel it should have. In fact, every time I try to write any of the story itself, I kind of lock down; convinced it won't come out the way it looks in my mind. I have to work through and around this writer's block somehow. Even though this isn't my absolute favorite work, the work that I will never stop honing - that would be Chasing Ella - this is still a story that I began years ago, and it's a bit daunting to take it on. I have so many scenes in my head, so many images of the world... I want to do it justice.

On the other hand, the reason I changed so much of the world and story, and the reason I restructured the story to fit in an interactive project, was so that I wouldn't be too attached to the original ideas. It was so that I could cut down on the scope, rid the loose ends, and write something that might actually be thorough, from beginning to end.

And so, I am not hastening the project. I'm letting it sit there, in the back of my mind, as I keep polishing the details, as I wait for my muse to come to me, as I wait for my muse to point me in the right direction. To show me the characters, the people, of the world, not just the scenery. My muse has already shown me the tone and setting of the opening scene, and has even allowed Belleforte to speak, clearly, so I would hear him. Belleforte remains the only character that I have written of so far. He's the only character that already has a finished scene down; and that scene is still far off in the story. But since he is the one I can hear, since he is the voice that has spoken to me - I thought he would be the best character to start off with, as I go through an exercise I read about just earlier today.

The writing tip basically encouraged writers to type up a dialogue with their character, asking them questions, and then see how they would reply. It wouldn't be part of the story itself, but it might help a writer see his characters in a different light, and relate to them. Basically you could ask them anything. So, here goes... my first direct talk, to Belleforte, a wonderful, wonderful creature of wisdom and pain.

Character interview
With: Belleforte

Q: Who are you?
A: I am Belleforte. I am a Gryphon of the Mountains, and a scribe.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I am of another world.
Q: Not the Inlands?
A: Not of this continent.
Q: Can you tell me of your homeworld?
A: The Inlands is my homeworld... It is where I have lived, and where I have served. Though I do not stem from this continent... there is no other world I know that I could call home.
Q: Do you remember where you come from?
A: (pauses) I... do not speak of this.
Q: Why is that?
A: It is dimmed to me. Dim, and painful.
Q: Are there any other Gryphons?
A: I would like to believe so.
Q: But you can't be sure?
A: I have yet to meet my Gryphon brothers. In the scriptures of the Peak, there are many depictions of us - of my brethren. They were drawn, and collected, before I came into being, suggesting that from the beginning, I was not alone. But the very same scriptures speak of war, and atrocities performed against us... The scholars agree that the last of my brothers fell to the sword, used as pawns in the wars of angels, and men; hundreds, and hundreds of years ago.
Q: What else can the scholars say about your kind?
A: They say we preceded angels. They call us their distant cousins; in their raw, primitive form.
Q: You don't seem raw, or primitive.
A: This is what the scholars believe. I... (pauses) I came late, into this world. I am not my brothers.
Q: You don't want to be compared to them?
A: I would rather say I am not an elder, like those who came before me. I am different. I may very well be a deviant.
Q: Could the elder Gryphons speak, the way you can?
A: It is not mentioned in history. I have no theories of this.
Q: All right. Let's say you are the only Gryphon that we know of, in the Inlands. What is your purpose? What's your job?
A: (pause) I can not say my purpose. This is something every sentience contemplates. It is a question without answers. It can only be answered by finding yourself where you need not formulate the question.
Q: Very well. What about your job?
A: I serve the angel I travel with. We search for someone we have lost. We will search until we have found him, or until we die.
Q: Why do you need to find this person?
A: We have a debt to pay.
Q: You're traveling the entire continent, for someone who has disappeared, just to pay off some old debt?
A: (pauses) It is an important debt.
Q: Who is it that you're looking for?
A: (pauses) A friend.
Q: All right. Last question. What do you hope for the most, right now?
A: (looks off into the distance) That our search will not be meaningless.

Well, that was a new experience. I really felt like Belleforte came through as his own person in this passage. He's rather mysterious, isn't he? And he talks very formally, probably because he's a scribe. Belleforte is one of the most shrouded characters, while being so distinct, all at once... He is my personal favorite.

We'll see if I dare to try this exercise again soon, as my muse points me to the hearts of the others...
POET IN THE JAR

Back To Brittle Balance

It took me most of the week to get myself balanced again after visiting my folks and family back home. It was an emotional trip in many ways, and over just two days, I went through feelings of anger, helplessness, joy, pride, frustration, love and anxiety. I don't think I had quite realized how bad things were at home, what with my sister being pregnant and now left alone, and my folks having to work more and help more, as a result of that. One thing I often forget when I go home, is that I'm an adult now - I may be a dysfunctional and struggling such, but I have integrity. I try to look at things from afar, to get a scope of things, I try to put myself in other's shoes, to be aware of the nature of their pain. I want to help, but there isn't a hell of a lot I can do from here. There wasn't a hell of a lot I could do while I was down there, either, really. Mainly because I was a bit of a wreck. I played with and looked after my niece, and that was the best part of the trip, I love that brilliant, smart little kid. Although perhaps not the most productive part. That was something else entirely.

I don't exactly remember the last entry I wrote about the ADHD/ADD thing, but let me just mention that for a bit. While I was home I finally worked up the courage to go talk to my mom about it, and ask her to help me with some of the forms I got to fill out. I had carefully rehearsed what to say during my six hour drive down there, a perfect speech, honest and from the heart, rational and motivated by fact and observation. But of course, when it was time to actually say this to my mom I forgot every word of it, and something like this went down instead:

"What was that form you needed help with?"
"Here, it's a... I'm going to this psychologist and I need to fill this out..."
"Why are you going to a psychologist?"
"I'm being investigated for ADHD..."
"Why would you?"
"Because... I think that's why everything was always so hard for me."

This was nowhere near the speech I had so carefully prepared, and thus I felt like I wasn't making myself justice. But I still rather wanted to tell her face to face, than on the phone, and I pulled that off, at least. She was skeptical at first but eventually started asking me questions about it and as I answered those best I could, I felt like she began to connect the dots together. What seemed to be the deciding factor in this was when she asked me if Johan thought the same as I did and I said yes. Yes because he is the one person who sees me daily, and he knows my behavior like the back of his hand. Then I pretty quickly detoured from the subject again, because I didn't wanna make this visit all about me, it was, and ought to be, about them, my sister and niece in particular.

The day before we had this conversation my mom was very angry with me, saying I had no idea how hard it's been on them, and many other things. I'm usually able to act very controlled and calm during arguments with her because I know that's the best way to make her rationalize, but she chose a bad time to argue and I couldn't control myself. I said that I knew it's been hard, I realize it's been hard, that's why I'm here, I'm here to help and to make everyone feel a little better. It's pretty much always been my job to do this, until I... until I moved away to develop my own life. I had been driving for 6 hours during a heatwave to get there and I wasn't happy to get yelled at for asking how I could help. But I managed not to say anything about how I'd been feeling. Anyway, all I'm saying is that although they think I have no idea how their lives have been (which I do, I can't stop thinking about them, worrying for them, I've called and texted twice as frequently, even, just to make sure they feel like someone cares), they have no idea how my life has been, either. With my family, it's always been OK to be upset or stirred up by external influences; but internal influences, like my ADHD, well that's just a struggle you pull through, that's just something you bite into and endure. I don't think they realize how much introspection can fuck you up, even if they all do introspection, they rarely turn the radar onto themselves. It's simply hard to try and justify any kind of mental instability to them without any concrete reason to point at. I guess what they're going through right now might be an exception from that, though. It's hard to believe one person's wrongdoing can affect several others, so severely; it's even harder to understand how this one person doesn't see this extent of those actions. There are no words for that betrayal. It's the kind of letdown that would spark a war in Game of Thrones. Luckily, our House has a saying, just like the Houses in the books, and it's a saying wise to remember, if you ever decide to cross us:

We are strong. We stick together. We never give up.

Seems like suitable words to close this entry with. See ya around.
POET IN THE JAR

Allow Me To, Briefly, Elaborate

Oh. Hi. Right. Like so many times before, I shouldn't actually be doing this right now. I should be lying in bed in my pyjamas wandering off to dreamland to the tunes of sad Swedish pop rock bands by about an hour ago. Otherwise I'm gonna be a wandering zombie going to work tomorrow morning. But I feel like today was a bit of an achievement, and I did say I was gonna follow up somehow to the whole situation with my suspected ADD/ADHD condition. God, suddenly I wish nobody will be reading this. I haven't even been very frequent on the blog. I've started another blog, revived a visual novel project and drafted out it's whole plot since I was last frequent in the Jar. I've even had time to work at my new job for over a month now. It's awesome, by the way. The thing is though, I have been writing. I have been writing like fucking crazy since I started working. I have time to write on the train, all of a sudden. It's like having tiny writing workshops with yourself every day on the way home from work. Anyway, I haven't written much of any creative value; it's all just been venting my frustrations into an analog notebook and none of it is ever meant to be read by anyone. It's not like this blog. I feel safe writing here, but there are always limits to how exposing I dare to be, no matter who did or didn't visit this blog for the past six months or whatever. Hell, even just a while back now, I discovered I hadn't written on this blog for over a year, and I thought it had been like, two months, tops. Sometimes I'm good with math, and sometimes I'm completely oblivious.

I can sense your awareness that I am stalling. And yeah, you're right. So, to the point.

About two weeks ago, I found out that instead of going through the general healthcare, you can call directly to the psychiatric ward of the hospital and thereby submit yourself for treatment, or something along those lines. I'm not sure how to explain all this in English. Then the doctors and psychiatrists and whatever look over the notes from the phone call and then they decide whether they should call you in, or if this is an issue worth adressing, or whatever. So today I finally gave them a call, a week after I saved the phone number in my contact book. It took fortyfive minutes to talk the nurse, she was really nice and sweet though. So now I have to wait until they go over my notes and wait for them to call me in. Hopefully they will, and then maybe I can finally move on with my life in the right direction.

Anyway, that's pretty much everything I had to spill, unless you will allow me to, briefly, elaborate on an idea that I actually did make something creative out of, or at least, I'm planning to do so, soon. I'm writing on a story that I'm dedicating solely to the small online magazine SPARV, who has published my stories in each of their issues thus far (Visionären in Summer 2013 & Ornamentexpressen in Winter 2013/2014), a support I truly appreciate in an otherwise narrowminded and outdated publishing industry. Editor of the magazine and the creator of the writing tip site Författartips, Christian Wåhlander, recently announced they will be accepting entries for an autumn issue. I already had a vague idea of a short story and I decided I'd write it out fully fledged and not submit the story to any other magazine or publication than SPARV for the forementioned autumn issue. It'll essentially be a surreal drama, with sci-fi element, and account for what might happen when an ordinary man discovers electrical panels and robotic reinforcements in his body.

Sleep tight now, I'm off to dreamland where I'll always belong.
POET IN THE ALIAS-GENERATING JAR

Bounty Hunters

I'm chasing a monster, a legendary beast
The solid form of fear and failure
Like a shadow, like a wisp of smoke
It teleports, it manifests
Deep in the dark roots
Of my thoughts

You're chasing another monster
The one who passes for success and ambition
The one who passes your time
And keeps you occupied
It's easier, easier than our common enemy
Easier than chasing the inevitability of time

While you have the tools to fight your battles through,
I'm still wondering how to kill my monster, too
Because I'm not trained in your ways
I've only just identified my beast
I wasn't taught how to turn my weaknesses into strengths
The way you were

Somehow I'd like to think I've got the advantage over you
I've seen my monster many times
I've encountered it my entire life
And I don't delude myself I can defeat him
We share some kind of symbiosis, him and I
He taunts me and mocks me,
Relentlessly disregards me,
But he lets me ride on his highs,
And at rare occasions rewards me,
Encourages me

I don't think you've ever seen your monster
You're tracking him down blindly,
Driven by reasons you don't understand
I can see it so clearly,
I can see it in your eyes,
I see everything there is to see,
That's how I was trained,
That's how I am,
That's me

I could list a million ways we were different from eachother
Everyone chases monsters,
That doesn't make either of us unique
But your target, and mine,
were once brothers in arms
And that doesn't make us unique
But it makes us united

Maybe if I taught you how to see
How to live with a monkey on your back
You could teach me your ways too
We don't have to chase monsters alone
We can go together through the darkness
We can bargain with beasts
And learn how to use magic
Until we've reached a state of ease and order

I'm chasing a monster, different from yours,
And you're chasing a monster, different from mine,
But you and I, we're not really that different from eachother
You and I are both bounty hunters
In a world of unseeing eyes
And unsympathetic hearts
If we're ever going to claim our rewards
Joining forces is where we should start
Our diversity will strengthen us, if we let it
And give us peace, if we let it
Together, we can adapt to the harshness
And laugh at life again
Laughing with the monkeys still clinging to our backs
We'll respect them, and make use of them
We'll adapt to them
We'll take the money
We'll take the magic
We'll take the laughter
And we'll let our monsters live

_________________________________

I found this poem unpublished and unfinished among my drafts. It seems like it needs more work, less repetition, more polish... but something about it still speaks to me in some primitive way, and I doubt I'll ever do more work on it, so here goes. Whoever interprets this the way it was intended wins a mystery prize of my own devising.

POET IN THE CONFUSED AND BROKEN JAR

You Hate Me Until I Hate Me More - Is That Your Idea Of Karma?

I'm getting really tired of the online negativity surrounding ADHD. I've been to a wide variety of Swedish blogs on the topic lately. It's the second stage of trying to understand the condition I suspect I have. First I just read research and general overview information, and now I've moved on to reading people's personal experiences and debates. The general feeling I've gotten out of it so far is that there is this widespread notion of ADHD persons not really being "sick". There isn't a single blog I've been to that hasn't encountered this notion during their history of either being diagnosed or being close to someone with a diagnose.  And that tells me many things.

I'm not an expert. The more I learn about this illness, the more questions I want to ask. Still, a single search on Wikipedia or Google and a quick five minutes of reading gave me a general overview of it, enough to make me realize many myths about ADHD are unmotivated. If I could learn that in five minutes I don't understand why anyone else couldn't bother to check their facts before wasting everyone's time on uncalled-for hate comments (and by anyone, I mean those who keep the myths alive, online and irl). It would literally take me longer and use more of my energy to write a comment of their hateful calibre than it took me to initially research the topic to begin with. I don't really get what anyone who doesn't have ADHD gains from pretending they know what ADHD is - and how to deal with it. I'm up to my ears in these stereotypical comments to the extent that I feel I need to take a breather so as not to start tracking down IP adresses and barging in to people's houses. I'll be armed with some compassion to try and hammer into their heads.

However, as real life goes, I'm gonna blog about my frustration instead.

Here's the main fact I want to underline: if you don't have ADHD, you don't know what it's like to be us. You're not our doctors and you're not gods. STOP ACTING LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT'S BEST. We know that we're terrible at things. We can have a hard time sitting still, distract you, talk way too much or jump between topics. We can miss appointments, misplace objects, or lash out at you over a petty detail. Is this why you hate us? Are we all that one annoying kid in class to you? How do you think it feels to BE that annoying kid? To do and say and forget things even when you really try to focus; and then spend hours every night beating ourselves up about it because we feel out of place, we feel dumb and failed and, yes, hated. Even when we're only surrounded by people who love us!

Let's sort some things out and illustrate:

1. ADHD isn't one single diagnosis. It's an umbrella term for three different types of disorders falling under attention and concentration problems. Two people with different types of ADHD can be as different as night and day. One could be that annoying kid in class never sitting down, always running around. Another could be restless inwardly, racing thoughts with resulting migraines. Hating on ADHD because you've encountered one type of it is like hating on worms because a snake once bit you.

2. ADHD is believed to be caused by a chemical disturbance in the brain. The substances and bloodflow in the brain are abnormal, which causes forced behavior. Blaming ADHD on bad parenting during childhood is like saying a worm could have been a bird, if only its worm mom and dad had taught it how to fly.

3. ADHD is not all bad, and isn't only about restlessness or forgetfulness or disorganization. High intelligence, ability to multitask, curiosity and creativity are all positive traits associated with ADHD. Just because someone can't fit into the 'norm' of paying attention over time, listening patiently or just not fiddle with things, they are dumb? Viewing all ADHD as stupidity is like Einstein said, judge a fish's ability to swim by how well it climbs an oak (something like that).

I could go on, but I'm growing weary. My main point was just this. There is general hatred and distrust in ADHD afflicted persons in society today. It is often questioned as a legitimate condition despite originating from a chemical brain malfunction. It frustrates us because we know we are capable people, high achieving, we just need to feel accepted and encouraged. With this common notion against us, we can never feel accepted and encouraged. The more we fail, the more of the "bad" sides of ADHD will come out, and we'll feel bad for THAT, and feel like failures again; and it's repeated again and escalates, and no one who ever "has to" deal with us benefits from that. Not you, either. By badmouthing us and hating on us you are only fuelling us to hate ourselves. (Is that what your goal is? Because that's psychopathic).

That was a rant, and not even in my native tongue as I'd planned; but I'm a little scared to show my face publicly anywhere near those comments on the Swedish blogs. Anyone know any not so hateful blog in English about this topic, please share. I need some encouragement.

I'll be blogging about this myself for a  while now, so I can deal with everything I'm feeling.
YOURS TRULY,
POET in the BRAIN TRAIN CART