frustrated

I am not a news hound but there are items that catch my attention and hold on for good.

A couple of weeks ago, a Toronto Police officer shot and killed a mentally disabled black man on the streets of a residental neighbourhood. He was being held at a nearby hospital for a 72 hour assessment and somehow escaped and was found roaming the area in a hospital gown, no shoes, holding a pair of scissors in each hand. Those were his only weapons. There was an outcry, a vigil, but still no answers as to why the officer reacted the way he did – three shots point blank at a lost and disoriented man. After he had been fatally shot he was tackled to the ground and restrained. Read the article if you like.

Not weeks later, another mentally ill man went missing from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. This man, George May is white, has been convicted of murder and institutionalized at the above. It was not his first time escaping from a psych facility and both times, an alarm went up, police were involved, and he was returned presumably unharmed. The police involvement however differs in that when May went missing the police were called in to help find him and bring him back.

I try not to call racism unless I have really thought about it but RACISMRACISMRACISM!!

more later when i am not so frustrated

catching up: Asking for Help

There have been a few unposted-posts over the past few months that, in my hiding never made it here.

Here is the first one: this is a note I wrote to friends when I first really began to ask for help with building a sustainable and loving life. A lot of what I heard back ( I was surprised and tickled at the response I got) was that this was an important message for us in activist, oppressed communities to learn in order to practice taking care of each other, and to reaching out to get that support (unedited):

**swearing, ableism

Hiya, so most of you know that I’m a sicko, recently I got my “official” fibro diagnosis – whatever that means. It puts some medical validity to what I have been experiencing and self-advocating for two years but of course doesn’t change the truth of my body.

I know so many fucking fierce crip warriors and am pretty much the luckiest for that. But right now, I am on my couch where I have been all day. And I am weeping.

There are days when it feels like I can manage my ten million responsibilities and commitments, but more often than not I am just pushing myself too hard, setting myself up for a crash. I am feeling really vulnerable and aimless and without resources right now.

In lighthearted moments I can joke about becoming a member of the fibro club and laugh with my friends about crip life but it fucking sucks and there is no other way to put it.

For the past two weeks I have been fostering this amazing little dog named Adam. He was shot and left for dead at the side of the road, but was rescued and rehabbed and now is a spunky love monkey in a wheelchair. I felt so connected to the idea of fostering/adopting a crip dog for pretty obvious reasons and I have fallen in love with his guy. I know very deeply, down to my marrow what it is like not to be loved and I don’t wish that on anyone. I just wanted to love up these dogs that people thought were worthless and to convince them they are not. Aside from the realities of taking care of him, which turned out to be a bigger task than I was informed of, I hadn’t really anticipated how fucking triggering it would be to be out with him and have every single person who walked by frown and pout and say “awwww poor guy” and then proceed to ask really invasive questions about him, his history, health and other things that just weren’t their business. A few people have even made comments about how shitty it must be for me to have a dog like him. And every time, I feel it two-fold. Once for him, for how little people expect of him because of his disability. And I feel it for me, because they are the same invasive inquiries I get when I am out with my cane. Adam LOVES his wheelchair. Every now and then he goes over to it and licks it for a while, and whenever I am putting him in it, or even bring it into the room he loses his shit because it makes him so happy. Like my cane, his device makes it more possible for him to participate in an ableist world. But it still stings.

I feel aimless, because the dreams and fantasies I have had about my life are getting smaller and narrowing into “needs” instead of “wants”. 

Everyday I am tired/sad/sore and sometimes that can be a hard combination to plan around.

I want to go to Iceland and walk all over the black rocks and mountains and drink vodka with bjork until 6am, I want D and I to go to Scotland and wander around the country looking for sheep to pet. I want to build my own house somewhere and fill it with cats, dogs, goats, bees, pigs, cows, children, lovers. How on earth does that happen when walking the 6 steps it takes to get into my apartment leaves me winded?

I work for a great mom who hires me to take her baby out for a few hours so that she can stay home to sew and nap. When I head out with the little guy I am always a little jealous that I can’t be home doing the same thing.

My loves are my writing my art and my people. It is very painful when my body and brain won’t allow me to do the simple things that make me happy.

So, how do you do it? How do you find ways to sustain yourself through sustainable effort without amping up the burnout?

Things I want to do:

finish my quilt

start another one

apply to grad school

go to grad school

write a book

write another book

perform and talk words and feelings with people

fuck with frequency

find my purpose

Things I do now:

pushpushpush

collapse

repeat.

I hear and appreciate it when loved ones tell me to slow down. I know that it would probably, well maybe, be good for me. But how can I slow down and keep up with the basics like food and shelter? Add in all of the other elements that make me who I am and it doesn’t leave a lot of room to just rest. In my dreams I wake up refreshed every morning; feed the cats; feed the dog(s); feed myself. Spend slow time outside walking my pup letting her sniff whatever she wants because we aren’t in a rush. Then I come home and spend the day writing/reading/sewing/napping/eating. I have a magic job that pays enough but doesn’t suck my soul or fragment by body. I have time and energy for community, in all the ways that can look like. With my magic job, I can get sick and not have to choose between taking care of myself and staying out of overdraft.

I’m not looking for a quick fix or a spell to make things fine. I have a lot of love in my life that I couldn’t live without. But in terms of practicality – I need help and the best way I know how to ask for it is to reach out.

I’ve made myself very vulnerable just now and ask for your compassion and respect around responding (if you choose to) and sharing any info with others.

Thanks for reading this far.

xo

coolname

It’s An Injury

**trigger warning: language around non-consent**

“What’s wrong with your leg?” he called with a drawl I couldn’t place. I claim injury and push forward on my three legs. Harmless really, just an invasion of privacy. From then, I feel each stare and pause more acutely and wait, wondering if another brazen passerby will push their enquiry into my intimacy.

Hair and makeup. Bright red lipstick to match my nails. Blue and red on the sparkly dress I wore to feel beautiful. Blue and red on my sparkly cane I wear because, because.

My cane. I tried to get the prettiest one the store had in stock at the time. An accessory is an accessory, mobility device or not.

Maybe if I hadn’t had it tonight more people would have wanted to dance with me. Or would have looked at me with friendly recognition instead of something between confusion and pity. But I did, and people kept their distance. I danced anyway.

I tried not to notice throughout the night how the bartender was looking at us. Me and Mango being beautiful and happy together without the need of his gaze.
He touched my arm to give me my drink; to tell me he thought my phone had fallen out of my purse. Ignore, try to ignore.

The music was house which wasn’t for me so I readied to leave after downing my vodka tonic. I reached for my sweater and I saw him come towards me. I didn’t want or need anything else so I readied to say no thank you.
He came in close. Closer than he needed even though the music was loud.

“Can I ask you something?”

Ok, I guess.

“Why does a fine young thing like you have a cane? What happened?”

One question at a time. I straighten up as much as I can, stick out my chin try and being strong and reply that I am young and fine and have a cane.

“But why?” he pries further, the heat of his breath still too close to my face. Behind me, a cement beam and I am not sure where else to back up to. “Is something wrong, I mean you’re young and all so did something happen?”

You don’t deserve my story I think, throat running dry and my eyes blur at the startle of emotions and words not to say. I fumble, mumble “injury”.

He didn’t hear me, asks again.

“It’s an injury!” I lie, yelling over the bass competing for real estate in my pounding chest.

Unprepared I turn to burning stone when, without warning he swoops me into some kind of embrace; like this confidential exchange requires even less space between our mouths to continue. Pressed against my ear I can feel his close-cut stubble on my face. His arm is around me in a half hug and all of my synapses are firing too loudly for my voice, my body, anything, to protest.

“Well the good thing about injuries” he says gayly “is that they get better”.

After dispensing his sage wisdom he pulls away, perhaps expecting more conversation or a “You’re so right! Thanks for the hope, Brother!” from me.

Instead I nod curtly, I think I say something. One word acknowledging that I heard him in a tone that says – we’re done now.

Turning away, my grip on the handle of my aide tightens and I don’t even know if I can lift it to help me get away from him. It is matter of steps back to my seat, I don’t make it before my cheeks dampen and I crumble, sobbing that I need to go home.

Not many minutes before, an enthusiastic, gorgeous, fag-tastic boy beauty crouched down to inspect my cane and exclaimed with admiration that my cane matched my dress. It was charming. It felt good.

Next I was crying into bare, caring shoulders. Arms embraced and hands patted my legs. I let go of my cane and turned away from it, not wanting to look at this object that could at once uplift, lift, hold me up and then next mark me as Other in addition to my skin my gender my sexuality. His untethered questions confirmed the whispers of feelings I had had all night trying to dance: I would be cute/hot/confident but this object pushed people away who don’t want to take the minute to see the all of me. And now, I just do not want to be the all of me.

He reminds me, shakes me out of my euphoric California daze. In the microcosm of my life filled with queers and crips and enchanting differences, my sitting, limping, cane-leaning self is all part of the package that gets loved.

Oh but out here in the looming largess of oppression I am still made to feel less-than. And I remember that it is still I fight we have to win. And I’ll fight, and I’ll write, and I’ll yell and yell back. But for now, I am going to let these tears fall.

I should not have to work this hard, and I should not have to be this brave, just to be.

Trust Issues

Continuing my search to find a therapist. It has been over a year now since my counsellor of three years announced that she was closing down shop and that we had only one session left. I’ve (mostly) recovered from the desperation of that moment but still have not been able to find someone new. I live in a big city so one would think that finding someone to talk to wouldn’t be so hard. But finding someone affordable (or free) as well as somone working within a compatible modality/politic is not so easy. I have met about half a dozen or so counsellors, each time having to uproot and unearth the reasons for me wanting to be there.

Eventually I put myself on some waiting lists for no-fee counsellors through a couple of health organizations in the city. Both of which take months to get a call. I finally got connected with someone after waiting only about three months. I asked for really specific things: person of colour, feminist, queer positive, disability positive, there was probably more.

 

So we met.

 

First appointment I knew it wouldn’t work, but didn’t want to jump to conclusions. I called the switchboard and asked – what happens if I don’t like who you matched me with? I was told that I am required to meet with the counsellor three times before I can get someone else. How do I get someone else? I ask, thinking that I would either go back in the system or have to start from the beginning. No, the therapist I am kicking to the curb has to refer me personally to someone else on the list. And if they don’t? Tough luck. Some bureaucracy bullshit right there.

 

Ok, second appointment.

 

Filling in the intake form “for your file”, she said. Answering personal intimate questions about my life and ‘history’ and I ask if it is possible for me to get a copy of the questions and the answers I give – no. Then she looks at me and smiles knowingly saying first that this isn’t a criticism but “I’m sensing that you have some trust issues.”

 

Seriously? just because I want to have access to my OWN information makes me have an issue? Being curious about the whereabouts and access to extremely personal information that I am confessing to a virtual stranger makes ME have an issue?!?

 

The worst is that I don’t even know if its worth going back on the waiting list because I will just have to do this process all over again.

 

It is tiring and saddening it lots of ways to continually recount traumas and grievances to a stranger with no real investment in caring for those secrets. In the beginning, they just want to know all the points so that they can make decisions on treatment.

 

She kept asking about diagnoses and it made me want to scream. I explained that her constant responses to my own descriptions being “have you been formally diagnosed?” was irritating and triggering. Frustrating as well because often peoples own descriptions of their experiences with mental illness or invisible disabilities are invalidated by the lack of a diagnosis. Shouldn’t she know that? Isn’t that part of her job? She even put one of the terms I used to describe something in quotation marks because it hadn’t been confirmed by a psychiatrist. She kept saying she was wary of using terms that hadn’t been verified by a psych. I reminded her that she has the power and ability to refer me to the psychiatrist on site if she was so unsure about my terminology. But no she’d only do that in special cases when she felt that the client presented something she couldn’t handle herself. Well thanks. Just keep your quotation marks then.

 

One more appointment to go…

 

m-