Are These Our Lives?

Last night I had dinner with a friend I haven’t been on best terms with for a few months now. There is a long list of reasons, miscommunications, indirect communication, being passive-agressive (plenty of this on my part mainly I would say.)

Sometimes we just don’t talk. If we communicated honestly, sincerely, and lovingly we could build our relationships stronger and more beautiful. We just walk away from so much good over the possibility of stress, and what we percieve to be mountains which we should be able to talk through. I remembered why this person and I were so close, and how much we’d relied on each other and been there for eachother, and it hurt me to think of the wasted few months.

I guess I realized that we’re all we’ve got.

Thoughts You Should Read

So I figured I should also explain why I’m doing a lot of this writing lately. January was a really intense month overall (accidents, personal issues, a friend/mentor’s death, new job) and it really pushed me to want to deal with the stress in negative ways, and I realized that I didn’t want to be self-destructive, so I looked at different options, and am following those roads to see were they lead me.

One thing I’m doing is this. Maybe I’ll compile all this into a zine at some point or some sort of completed writings? Maybe I’ll just leave it here, who knows, but this has been really helpful for exercising out some of my feelings towards things.

Another thing is photography, I’m using my flickr account to upload stuff I’ve taken. So check those out every few days cause I’ll be uploading almost daily.

Another is playing music. I’m writing more songs for Rat Poison, lyrics are nearing done, and we’ll be ready to play soon. I got asked to jam with some righteous folk in the next week or so, and I’m writing some acoustic stuff as well.

Another is working with some APOC folk to restart some actions and get some inspiring stuff going

around immigration and cross-racial solidarity. I’ll be putting up bulletins as things start

happening that people should know about.

Anyway, my main issues I struggle with are depression and negative thoughts, and a really big problem with anxiety.

Pretty much since I was a kid I’ve had a hard time with anxiety and stress. Looking back at my writings and stories I wrote when I was a kid I can see it now a bit more, but as I’m getting older it’s becoming more and more of a problem. The anxiety, non-stop worrying, and distressful feelings/thinking are a real problem, which I think can be managed through group and individual sessions and self-reflection/time with friends and loved ones, and communicating with people more openly even if it is hard for some of us to get out how we feel or our concerns or whatever they may be.

But these issues, they are actually hindering my social relationships, causing me to have problems with people I care about, and to be unhappy with myself as well. So for those of you who I care about who I’ve hurt or made feel uncomfortable, or stressed, or overwhelmed, or just anything negative, I’m sorry. But it’ll be better, that’s why we learn and do stuff from that…right?

The idea of not knowing what is going to happen causes me an unbearable amount of distress and anxiety. For example, if you say “harj, I want to talk to you about something later” I start sweating, then start assuming that I’ve done something wrong, then it snowballs and spirals downward to the point were you hate me and want to stop having me in your life, and I’m an asshole; and I can’t sleep or eat until I know what it is you wanted to talk about in the first place. It’s not always this drastic, but it too often is.

 In the end it may’ve been that you just wanted to clear up when we were hanging out next or that I hurt your feelings and you want me to know so I can try not to do it again.

Apparently this is not really that unheard of and there are whole therapies for it, which is exciting.
For a better reading on that, check this out:

http://www.answers.com/topic/pure-obsessional-ocd

So I’m switching therapists one last time, mainly for comfort reasons. The CBT therapist I was seeing just didn’t feel right, and I found someone now who fits, and costs me a third of what I was paying before because it’s in a pretty rad low cost clinic. It’s actually going to be DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) which is mainly used to treat people who are bi-polar or borderline, but it is becoming apparently the new movement for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder as well, and a whole host of other mental health related issues, because it seems to be CBT+ a few other cool things. Check out the wiki on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavioral_therapy

take care.

love,

harjit

I want my friends to be happy and taken care of so bad I’d give them my arm if they lost theirs. Sometimes this clashes with other people’s needs, and comes off as overbearing. A friend and had a conversation earlier about being allies, but how hard that can be when we are intersecting class/race/politics/gender and the hybrid of each of those we each are. How complex our identities are and how are we going to work together, let alone love each other?

For example, I really like to make my friends feel taken care of, feel loved, and not have to worry about things. It’s how I have lived because of the nature of my ‘friendships’ with ‘friends.’ Those friendships were all based on being a service and an emotional support group, but getting none myself.

I feel like a lot of times I’m still trying to win over those of you who apparently I already won over (?), who are already my friends and loved ones.

Stupid huh?

Sometimes I squeeze/love something to dead (like Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, sigh)

Can’t help it, but I’m working on it (woot woot for CBT). This can be a problem, because some of my friends don’t want to feel like I’m trying to buy their friendship or being overbearing, and it totally leads to a conflict and clash:( Some of my womyn friends don’t want to feel like I’m trying to buy their love, or feel like a kept woym, some of my other friends don’t want to feel like they have a brown friend buying them stuff all the time because it’s just uncomfortable, sorry.

So if this is part of our lives, (are these our lives?) we gotta talk about these things, so we can work it out. I really do think just communicating (lovingly) often, regularly, and honestly will lead to a lot of this stuff being worked out. I think we gotta make sure first and foremost to support each other and make sure we know we are loved. A lot of this comes out of insecurity, and communication can help alleviate that

Sometimes I have a hard time believing I have friends that are so incredible. . I have a hard time sometimes understanding why you all would love me in the first place, I mean, I’m pretty fucking weird, I have all these weird issues, I don’t know. It may sound totally weird, but I appreciate thou very much.

Tuesday January 30th:

I woke up this morning early (5am) and started writing this clarifying thought that helps me explain a lot of my interactions with mental health. It’s probably not perfectly written, but they are thoughts, written at an early hour, and I’m trying my best to make sense of them. Let me preface this by saying I ran into a Buddhist friend last night who gave me all sorts of advice on healing, etc, which was really interesting, but he said our dreams say a lot about us, and how we dream and what we think of when we awaken can be really important towards healing and figuring out problems in our lives.

So continuing:

I am frustrated and angry with myself over the last 11+ years of not being able to handle depressed or sometimes suicidal thoughts.

So sometimes, when someone I care about or love has these feelings, I start seeing myself, I transfer my frustrations onto them, because I’m seeing myself and my own inability to even be strong enough to ask for help like this person has (which takes so much) and to cope with how I feel sometimes. I am sorry for this, and I promise to be here for you.

This gets mistaken for me not being supportive, or not understanding how the person is feeling. It is actually the opposite, it is the frustration with myself for still feeling terrible a lot even for all my “stay posi” quoting. I am just so frustrated with 11 years of uncontrollable thoughts, hospitalizations, depression, suicidal thoughts, etc.

I think this has to do with my A-personality also, I’m constantly looking to be approved by others, to seek that. It’s why I take a lot of space, but have been trying to step back more and more and give space to others and just listen.

Now that I see this transfer for what it is, I can deconstruct it a lot better and figure it out. I feel relieved, not only for myself, but for my community and loved ones. Who come to me for support sometimes, and all I can offer them is my timid responses so I don’t cave in with them, because I’m so afraid of looking weak.

Often I feel selfish for even bringing this stuff up, in our culture, it isn’t really allowed to be talked about, and those who do are seen as being self-centered, and talking about themselves too much. Any sign of weakness means everything goes wrong. It’s why a lot of my extended family has less respect for me, because they found out a hint of my issues and rumor spread that “Harjit da damag karab hogya.” (Harjit’s a crazy person now.) I have to live up to this really strict standard, and so I try to fake it.

Sometimes it makes me feel totally selfish for complaining, I mean, what do I have to complain about? I’m a nice-bike owning, white-collar worker with great friends.

But it’s out of my control. I know it’s a little late in my life to finally own up to this, that most people understand they can’t control how they feel for the most part and can work with their depression, and I do, but I feel like I need to start believing it if I want it to get any better.

I feel like making it public makes it easier. I don’t know were this will end up, or what’ll happen with it, but I feel like I need to write it.

I’m afraid, of being stigmatized, ridiculed, feeling bad about myself for being “ill” by societal standards which I’ve been trying to live up to and by default expect others to. So to those of you who I’ve done this to, or made to feel unsupported, I am really sorry. I think/hope this makes it better.

I don’t feel this way all the time thankfully. For the most part I can cope, I am happy, I bike, I love living, I love life, I love all of you who I wrote this for. It’s just something that exists in my life that’s always there. I’m not trying to come out and tell you all I’m secretly suicidally depressed at all times, but I am saying I feel quite depressed quite a lot and try to hide it or turn it into something else.

But I think being honest and open will help with the healing, I know that keeping it all hush for the most part hasn’t helped at all.
Love,
Harjit

Starting CBT Tomorrow.

So tomorrow I am starting Cognitive Behavioral Therapy/Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. I am very excited about this, because it is a pretty directed therapy designed to actually confront and deal with your issues. i have issues around being panicked, space, taking power, feeling powerless, fear, all of these things, and my readings have shown me that this should be quite helpeful. I’m glad I have it in me to be pro-active right now and go after what I need to feel better.

I gotta deal with the inner cop, the inner-policeman and authoritarian that comes out sometimes in my need to feel control over things or people because I’m so afraid and terrified of being powerless again like I was my youth. I’m not a control-freak, but I definitely have some issues to work on around power and control. But we all have stuff to work on, right? heh. (nervous laughter)

I’ll let you know how my first session goes.

So for those who knew him, Peter Morse from the Harm Reduction Council (as well as Bound Together, the bookfair, and a whole host of other awesome projects/groups) died recently. I just found out yesterday. I have an email from him two days before his death, helping me get into some classes and really step into this world of harm reduction work. I know I have a lot to learn, and he had been helping me each step of the way. I I didn’t know him well, but he was a sincerley amazing person who helped me out a lot in the short time we were friends.

So let’s all be careful out there, life is a really interesting thing, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more committed to living life to it’s fullest after last week’s accident and this.

His Obituary:

Peter H. Morse, Jr. 36, a pioneer and leader in harm reduction policy and practice, passed away on January 13, 2007. Dr. Morse was fiercely committed to protecting the health and well-being of drug users and their communities by reducing drug-related harm. His work in these areas has helped make harm reduction part of public policy and public consciousness. As the Naloxone Distribution Program Coordinator for the Drug Overdose Prevention Education (D.O.P.E.) Project of San Francisco, Dr. Morse helped to forge a groundbreaking partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Health to provide naloxone at needle exchange sites throughout the city. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that counters the deadly effects of overdose by heroin or other opiates. Dr. Morse helped establish and advised numerous syringe exchange programs throughout the country. He has been a member of the advisory board of the North American Syringe Exchange Network since 2001. He was currently serving as the advisory board chair for the Homeless Youth Alliance, an agency that provides critical services, including syringe exchange, to homeless youth in San Francisco. He was a member of the Injection Drug User Taskforce of the California HIV Planning Group, and was appointed to the San Francisco HIV Prevention Planning Council Substance Use and Structural Interventions Committee. Dr. Morse currently worked as the Project Coordinator of the Harm Reduction Coalition Syringe Exchange Technical Assistance Program and was working to expand syringe access in California. He was a longtime volunteer at the San Francisco Needle Exchange, and before that at the syringe exchange of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center when he lived in New York City. He was also a member of the Moving Equipment Syringe Distribution Collective of New York City. Dr. Morse also worked as an interviewer, counselor, and project coordinator for University of California San Francisco’s UFO Study, a hepatitis prevention focused health study of injection drug using youth. Dr. Peter H. Morse was born in Royal Oak, Michigan. He was educated at DePauw University, and received his doctorate in history from Binghamton University in 2006. In his research, he worked to understand the role of race and gender in the formation of political identity by members of radical industrial organizations in the United States during the early twentieth century He was an avid bibliophile and political activist, and was a member of the Bound Together Anarchist Book Collective. Dr. Morse was also a DJ, bringing electronic dance music to people in New York City, San Francisco, the Nevada Test Site, and Black Rock City, Nevada. Pete Morse is survived by his partner of 11 years, Liz Turner. The couple lived in Berkeley, California. He is also survived by his parents Pete and Patty Morse of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; his sister Carrie Morse of Washington, D.C. and his brother and sister-in-law, Dan and Meredith Morse of Berkley, Michigan. A Service will be held on Saturday, January 20, 2007, at 3:00 PM, at The Sullivan Funeral Chapel, 2254 Market St., S.F. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to: Tenderloin Health/Homeless Youth Alliance, Attention: Mary Howe, P.O. Box 170427, San Francisco, CA 94117.

So a friend of mine called me on his way home from DC more excited and positive than I’ve ever heard him. Maybe not ever, but in a really long time at least.
The DC anti-war demo had turned into an amazing feel of hope and action for him, which protests I know don’t normally do for most people. If you look up dc indymedia, you’ll see why. SDS/anarchists/IWW’s/whoever else stormed the US Capitol steps, led a breakaway snake march through the city of DC, did some other direct actions and nothing really happened to them at all. It was a lot of younger people, which really rose his spirits, and his voice, the way it sounded, the joy and jubilation gave me the same energy he felt.

I was in a class a while back were we were asked about these exact moments. The moments were life actually seems fulfilled. I think anyone whose done any sort of action knows what I’m talking about here. We were asked to each present one of these moments from our own lives. That’s how we sorta started the class, and I think it showed that we all know that there is something better out there, because we’ve felt it.
If you read George Katsiaficas’s “Global Imagination of 1968″ he talks about how this same thing was worldwide in the 1968 era. How feels spread in what he calls the eros effect throughout the world. Really inspiring because we know it’s possible, we’ve all felt it. I got it if you want to borrow it.

A little thing that I personally experienced was last night, I went to Gilman. I go to Gilman all the time, but last night was a punk show and I got to see GO! play. They are an old hardcore band reunited. The interesting thing is the crowd at this show was really a lot of younger kids. Brad and I were probably some of the oldest dudes there, which I thought was really great. I saw kids fall and get helped up, kids dancing, swinging eachother, hugging, I saw some happiness and joy and it raised me up.

So I’m writing this because of yesterday.

I was riding my bike when I fell and a car tire narrowly avoided my head and I saw life/death in a really clear cut.

I don’t really know how to articulate all of this, but the car swerved and missed my skull.
That’s really weird to me, it’s hard to put together.
I mean, right now I could be in a morgue, and I died with grudges? With stupid petty shit? I’m sorry to my friends who this applies to. I have friendships that I’ve put stuff into that wasn’t positive, and that was totally a waste and a distraction and drama. We gotta stop that.
We’re all we’ve got. We are us. We need to stick together, and stop the bullshit.
What happens when Bush bombs Iran and they get nuclear back at us?
Do I really want to go with petty grudges.
Life is too fucking short for that kind of bullshit.
I have a close friend who I’ve been friends with for a long time. There were long stretches were we didn’t talk. Looking back, I see it as wasted time. We let petty shit get in the way of a loving relationship.

I’ve even considered forgiving the fuckers who made my life hell when I was a kid, but I’ve decided to stop short of that for now at least.

I can’t hold that hate in my heart anymore. I’ll save the hate for the fascists who deserve it, the asshole presidents, the assaulters who hurt my friends and loved ones, the feds; not for my friends who have faults. I have faults, you have faults, we all have faults. I’m not going to use yours against you for the rest of your life if you won’t do the same.

Personal Thoughts.

So for some reason my personal thoughts are appearing on a myspace blog, but…

For some time, I’ve been thinking about why it is that I am so damn helpful to people. I mean, I like helping friends out when they need it, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I know it becomes over the top to them.
I’ve been thinking about it for a few years, and it fluctuates. Mainly it’s because I care a lot about my friends and want them to be cared for. Often times, they are stressing out and I feel like stepping in just because it will relieve the stress of the situation for them, you know? Like if someone is having a really hard time figuring out how to do something I just offer to help with it because I can see they are getting visibly distraught over it.Often it’s not a big deal thing, but am I disempowering them?
But at some point I feel like I put myself out there too much and then my niceness just becomes nice but too much. And I think it has to do with a fear of abandonment. See, growing up, my friends were my friends as long as I was good to them. I think I’ve written about this before but I feel like writing it again.
If I stopped being good to them, they’d stop being my friend. So I gained this slave mentality. This mentality that I existed to make others feel loved and without fear. Sometimes I feel like I slip into this because I am afraid of not looking helpful, or not appearing to care.
So if your my friend, and I start doing this, I got a favor to ask.
Just tell me.
It’ll help us both out of we just communicate “hey harj, you’ve been really helpful, but I got this, it isn’t yor job, I need to handle this.” And I can take a step back and reflect and feel appreciated but not worry so much about it.

“Friendship”

In my life, my experience has been that most of the time I tell a white friend some stuff that they are doing in regards to race, or just overall our relationship that hurts or bothers me, our friendship suffers instead of grows.

It’s like I can’t open up and say what is hurting me or bothering me without losing the friend, so my options are to keep my mouth shut and just deal with it, or risk losing the person.

When I was younger my friendships growing up were contingent upon this fact, that I would shut up and not have any problems with the way I was being treated. If I did, I was basically being uppity, and looking back I feel like their mindset was probably “shit, I could just discard this dude.”

A lot of my friendships have been this way. I have been treated very disposabley.

So now, at 24 with all my radical “anarchist” friends; I still feel that way.