I flipped. I felt uncontrollable rage build up like a tidal wave for a second or two and then I lost it. Daughter had the right to do what she wanted. She didn't have to do anything. Why did she think she could demand like this?
I have no idea where the fury came from. I just know that at a deep, deep level it was wrong for her to ask for something she wanted like that. You don't do that. You can't. You're not allowed to have what you want and you mustn't ever ask. I mustn't ever ask. My chest freezes and my mouth hangs open wordlessly if I do, because I'M NOT ALLOWED TO.
Friday, 28 June 2013
Rage.
I had a really odd reaction a while ago, before the divorce and still living at home. We were sitting on the sofa - me at one end, wife at the other and my daughter in between. Mother swung her legs up and put them on daughter's lap and asked her to massage her toes. No sooner had she started than mother said, "You can play with my hair instead, if you like."
The warehouse
A conversation a while back prompted this one. I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the subject of feelings and emotions, trying to find an adequate way to describe my perception of the world. I'm a great believer in analogies, but this one has defeated me for some time. The best I had been able to come up with was that describing feelings for me was like asking someone who had been born blind to describe 'red'. However, that really was a little too simplistic and missed out a large portion of my reality. It failed in as much as it ignored the existence of feelings or emotions that were impossible to describe: the blind man is not even aware of colours, other than through other people's descriptions of them, but I am aware at some level of emotions and affects.
There's a warehouse very close by. I can see into
it sometimes; I know there are things there, but I can't enter it. I don't know what the things are in the warehouse - they're shapeless, covered over with tarpaulins or stacked in dark corners. I can sense them, and sometimes they affect me, sometimes not. Some of the things that stack up in there are harmless and it doesn't matter to me that I can't go in and do anything with them. Some things come and go of their own accord and their part of the warehouse is self maintaining - never so full that it causes problems. Some things that stack up are toxic: I can feel their effect like radiation through the warehouse walls. I get tense. Yesterday, my blood pressure was at a crazy level, I had a headache that made me feel ill. I experienced stabbing pains that made me think of an old surgery and it felt like the wounds had opened up again.
If I try to describe what's in there, I can't. It feels like someone sitting on my chest and at the same time as though someone has gone through my mind and removed all the words that relate to what I'm trying to describe. All the synonyms are gone, all the concepts. I'm left gesticulating emptily, waving my hands to illustrate a concept I can't see. It's always accompanied with a sense of slight panic and une
There's a warehouse very close by. I can see into
it sometimes; I know there are things there, but I can't enter it. I don't know what the things are in the warehouse - they're shapeless, covered over with tarpaulins or stacked in dark corners. I can sense them, and sometimes they affect me, sometimes not. Some of the things that stack up in there are harmless and it doesn't matter to me that I can't go in and do anything with them. Some things come and go of their own accord and their part of the warehouse is self maintaining - never so full that it causes problems. Some things that stack up are toxic: I can feel their effect like radiation through the warehouse walls. I get tense. Yesterday, my blood pressure was at a crazy level, I had a headache that made me feel ill. I experienced stabbing pains that made me think of an old surgery and it felt like the wounds had opened up again.If I try to describe what's in there, I can't. It feels like someone sitting on my chest and at the same time as though someone has gone through my mind and removed all the words that relate to what I'm trying to describe. All the synonyms are gone, all the concepts. I'm left gesticulating emptily, waving my hands to illustrate a concept I can't see. It's always accompanied with a sense of slight panic and une
Stress. Generally.
I guess I don't deal well with stress. On the face of it, that's actually very counter-intuitive for most people who know me, as externally stress doesn't phase me. In fact, the more I read and understand, the more obvious it becomes that a 'normal' reaction to stress for me would be a very healthy sign. It would be a way to discharge the emotions. That's what normal people do, I understand. It doesn't much matter how they do it - whether they kick and scream, go manic, get drunk, whatever - they're discharging it.
I don't do that, because I don't have a mechanism to. Or maybe I do, but it's been represssed. Who knows.
What I do is outwardly nothing at all, or close to. I just absorb whatever the world throws at me, and I have a huge capacity. So I am a model of serenity in the face of stress. What I actually do is tend to dissociate. In fact, it works like this: people think they know me, but what they think they know is just a mask. My life is lived from inside one of the masks from classical Greek theatre - I can see the inside of it, and I look out on the world through the eyeholes. But don't ever be fooled into thinking you can get to know the person behind the mask, because if you ever prise it away, all you'll find underneath is another mask.
Haha! You can't trap me so easily, you stupid people. Because inside that mask is another, and another. And eventually, there's nothing. And I am watching from a vantage point half a metre above, behind and to the right of my right shoulder. I am, of course, invisible. I am an invisible, disembodied, emotionless entity, doomed to drive a meat robot by remote control for everyone else's amusement. Trying to pick a reaction that will be approriate to the situation, plan a course, but all the while without a map or a set of rules.
Most of the time, it's okay because one can infer the simpler rules. It's just when things get emotionally stressful it sometimes goes a bit wonky, because other people just don't seem to respond in any kind of predictable way. Or at least not one I can make sense of.
Summer 1975
Actually, I have no idea if it was 1975 or not, but it might well have been. It could have been anywhere from 1970 to 1975 or so, but that's not important. It is summer, and my cousins, aunt and uncle are round. We (the kids) are in the kitchen and my uncle is outside in the garden. Without any warning, he appears at the kitchen window having been hiding underneath it, squashes his nose to the glass and sticks his tongue out. This is hilariously funny, and all the kids collapse giggling. I just feel slightly melancholy. I wish my dad were funny, or did stupid stuff, or joined in, or even noticed us.
The Sunday Roast
Sometime in the 60's
I never had much of an appetite as a kid, but for some unknown reason my mother took it into her head that I either wouldn't or couldn't eat roast beef. This was the 60's, and home life didn't get much more traditional, so every Sunday lunch involved a roast, more often than not beef. Cooking in those days was rather less health conscious than it is now, of course, and a roast involved lots of saturated fat. In fact, by the time the joint was cooked, it was positively swimming in fat and the juices were poured off to make a gravy that could fur up arteries at a hundred paces.
A side effect of the cooking process meant that blood from the joint ran out into the extra dripping that the joint was usually covered with, basically frying it in the process. This produced a disgusting collection of greyish globular matter that drifted about on a lake of saturated animal fat. Mother deemed that this was a suitably nutritious alternative to the beef that I apparently wouldn't or couldn't eat, and it was accordingly served to me along with roast potatoes, two veg and Heart Attack Gravy.
It was bitter and had a vile, rubbery texture, but I was regularly told that I preferred it to the beef and so I reluctantly ate it. One Sunday, however, I really wasn't very hungry and didn't want to eat it. But this was the British Middle Class in the 60's, so leaving the table without eating my lunch* simply wasn't an option. Eventually, however, the dishes were cleared. I was left to sit in the middle of the dining room on a peculiar half-size slatted folding chair staring into the fireplace as a penance, while my parents glared at me and each other disapprovingly. I'm maybe 6 at the time, and develop a screaming headache that begins to make me feel queasy, but I'm not allowed to speak. Through the tears, the room starts to take on a strange distorted perspective. With hindsight (and for the first time, as I write this) this may be my earliest memory of Micropsia (or is it Macropsia?), also known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, which I have always found rather funky but this is not a pleasant event.
* Not that middle class, I guess. We were Northerners, so it was Breakfast, Dinner and Tea for us. "Lunch" is merely a later affectation on my part.
I never had much of an appetite as a kid, but for some unknown reason my mother took it into her head that I either wouldn't or couldn't eat roast beef. This was the 60's, and home life didn't get much more traditional, so every Sunday lunch involved a roast, more often than not beef. Cooking in those days was rather less health conscious than it is now, of course, and a roast involved lots of saturated fat. In fact, by the time the joint was cooked, it was positively swimming in fat and the juices were poured off to make a gravy that could fur up arteries at a hundred paces.
A side effect of the cooking process meant that blood from the joint ran out into the extra dripping that the joint was usually covered with, basically frying it in the process. This produced a disgusting collection of greyish globular matter that drifted about on a lake of saturated animal fat. Mother deemed that this was a suitably nutritious alternative to the beef that I apparently wouldn't or couldn't eat, and it was accordingly served to me along with roast potatoes, two veg and Heart Attack Gravy.
It was bitter and had a vile, rubbery texture, but I was regularly told that I preferred it to the beef and so I reluctantly ate it. One Sunday, however, I really wasn't very hungry and didn't want to eat it. But this was the British Middle Class in the 60's, so leaving the table without eating my lunch* simply wasn't an option. Eventually, however, the dishes were cleared. I was left to sit in the middle of the dining room on a peculiar half-size slatted folding chair staring into the fireplace as a penance, while my parents glared at me and each other disapprovingly. I'm maybe 6 at the time, and develop a screaming headache that begins to make me feel queasy, but I'm not allowed to speak. Through the tears, the room starts to take on a strange distorted perspective. With hindsight (and for the first time, as I write this) this may be my earliest memory of Micropsia (or is it Macropsia?), also known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, which I have always found rather funky but this is not a pleasant event.* Not that middle class, I guess. We were Northerners, so it was Breakfast, Dinner and Tea for us. "Lunch" is merely a later affectation on my part.
Billy Elliot
1968, I think. This one is painful, even 45 years on. It's Year 1 at school and at break we all go outside and play in the playground, unless it's raining in which case we all stay in the classroom. So of course, it's raining and there are 40 odd 5 year olds being rowdy, clowning around, making a noise. It seems odd these days, but we were just left to it - no teachers supervising.
In the midst of the hubbub, yours truly decides to be the comedian. Make everyone laugh. Be the centre of attention. Be popular. Say something funny. "Guess what I do after school?" Hushed expectancy. "I go to ballet!" Haha! Hillarious! What a wit! What a card!
No, just an odd silence for a moment. Then the chanting starts. "Xxxxx goes to ballet class, Xxxxx goes to ballet class..." in that way that only a horde of vindictive 5 year olds can.
Billy Elliot is just a movie. In 1968 that stuff just didn't happen, and I was a freak. Self confessed, and fair game. Amazingly, 5 year olds don't get bored with a simple chant, even after 15 minutes. Every time it rained. For a year. Remembering it even now feels like someone twisting a knife in my guts.
In the midst of the hubbub, yours truly decides to be the comedian. Make everyone laugh. Be the centre of attention. Be popular. Say something funny. "Guess what I do after school?" Hushed expectancy. "I go to ballet!" Haha! Hillarious! What a wit! What a card!
No, just an odd silence for a moment. Then the chanting starts. "Xxxxx goes to ballet class, Xxxxx goes to ballet class..." in that way that only a horde of vindictive 5 year olds can.
Billy Elliot is just a movie. In 1968 that stuff just didn't happen, and I was a freak. Self confessed, and fair game. Amazingly, 5 year olds don't get bored with a simple chant, even after 15 minutes. Every time it rained. For a year. Remembering it even now feels like someone twisting a knife in my guts.
Dar Dar
It is 1996, May at a guess. So there are 19 months between our kids, and not long after the youngest was born, our eldest latched on to an old doll that had been hanging around (literally) in the bedroom. For those that were around in the 80’s it was a stupid doll from Athena or somewhere similar – a simple beanbag body, a huge round head filled with kapok and a cheesy slogan on its chest: “I love you sooooo much!!!” It hung from a wardrobe door handle, for some unknown reason, and she adopted it and called it Dar Dar. The spelling is phœnetic, to be honest, as she wasn’t quite two years old and couldn’t advise us on the correct spelling.
Thereafter, she and Dar Dar were inseparable. Dar Dar had a label sewn into its side (we never did definitively determine Dar Dar’s gender), and she used to hold the label while sucking her fingers and go to sleep. In fact, it was impossible for her to sleep without holding Dar Dar. We went shopping one Saturday morning in Windsor, and when we got back to the car and started to load up the kids and the buggy, we couldn’t find Dar Dar. Fortunately, No. 1 Daughter was asleep, so we assumed that Dar Dar was somewhere in the car. We stopped to check on the way home, but there was no sign. Anyway, we pressed on home to get the kids lunch, and I drove back to Windsor to look around.
I searched the car park, and the entire length of the high street, asking in every single shop in case someone had picked up Dar Dar and handed it in. No joy. No joy at the Police Station, either. This represented something of a problem, as bedtime that night would be challenging, to put it mildly. Fortunately, we had plenty of photos of Dar Dar. So I phoned home and left instructions that if she wanted Dar Dar, she was to be told that he (let’s just assume ‘male’ for the sake of this blog, OK?) had gone to see the Queen in Windsor and would be back next day. We’d worry about bed-time later.
Next stop, the craft shop. Fabric, suitably coloured fabric paint, and a small donor kapok filled cushion. The rest of the afternoon and early evening is spent distracting No. 1 Daughter before getting her to bed with promises that Dar Dar would be back next morning. How hard can this be, then? Cut the fabric to shape, mix the paints, paint on and iron to ‘fix’ them, sew the pieces together and fill the body with rice. Stuff the head with kapok and attach to the body. Job done. No, wait! The label! So one of my shirts is cannibalised and the label cut out and sewn to Dar Dar’s side. Hey, it’s only taken us till 2 am. Dar Dar is sat on the floor outside No. 1 Daughter’s bedroom door and we go to bed.
At about 7 the next morning, we’re woken up by the sounds of a small person getting out of bed. We freeze, wondering if the plan will work. There’s an excited cry from outside our room: “Dar Dar!” We’ve got away with it! And the ‘new’ look? Well, Dar Dar needed new clothes if he was going to meet the Queen…
Thereafter, she and Dar Dar were inseparable. Dar Dar had a label sewn into its side (we never did definitively determine Dar Dar’s gender), and she used to hold the label while sucking her fingers and go to sleep. In fact, it was impossible for her to sleep without holding Dar Dar. We went shopping one Saturday morning in Windsor, and when we got back to the car and started to load up the kids and the buggy, we couldn’t find Dar Dar. Fortunately, No. 1 Daughter was asleep, so we assumed that Dar Dar was somewhere in the car. We stopped to check on the way home, but there was no sign. Anyway, we pressed on home to get the kids lunch, and I drove back to Windsor to look around.
I searched the car park, and the entire length of the high street, asking in every single shop in case someone had picked up Dar Dar and handed it in. No joy. No joy at the Police Station, either. This represented something of a problem, as bedtime that night would be challenging, to put it mildly. Fortunately, we had plenty of photos of Dar Dar. So I phoned home and left instructions that if she wanted Dar Dar, she was to be told that he (let’s just assume ‘male’ for the sake of this blog, OK?) had gone to see the Queen in Windsor and would be back next day. We’d worry about bed-time later.
Next stop, the craft shop. Fabric, suitably coloured fabric paint, and a small donor kapok filled cushion. The rest of the afternoon and early evening is spent distracting No. 1 Daughter before getting her to bed with promises that Dar Dar would be back next morning. How hard can this be, then? Cut the fabric to shape, mix the paints, paint on and iron to ‘fix’ them, sew the pieces together and fill the body with rice. Stuff the head with kapok and attach to the body. Job done. No, wait! The label! So one of my shirts is cannibalised and the label cut out and sewn to Dar Dar’s side. Hey, it’s only taken us till 2 am. Dar Dar is sat on the floor outside No. 1 Daughter’s bedroom door and we go to bed.
At about 7 the next morning, we’re woken up by the sounds of a small person getting out of bed. We freeze, wondering if the plan will work. There’s an excited cry from outside our room: “Dar Dar!” We’ve got away with it! And the ‘new’ look? Well, Dar Dar needed new clothes if he was going to meet the Queen…
The station
It's 1976 or maybe 1977, and it's sometime in July. It's a Wednesday afternoon and it's blisteringly hot, the middle of a heatwave. I'm on my way home from school, standing on the platform at the station, waiting for the train and I'm overcome with a sense of ennui, for want of a better word. This is such a vivid memory that it's almost surreal - the colours are so bright, the light has a clarity that is almost painful. Dust hangs motionless on the air, sparkling in the crystal sunlight, and I can taste that dust in my mouth still.
The trains were old - probably dating back to the 1930's - with sagging upholstery and a smell of burned insulation. Whenever you sat down, the faded seats sent up a cloud of dust that hung in the air for a lifetime. That same dust was everywhere, even outdoors in the station that day, and the smell of burned insulation with it.
I stood at the very end of the platform, almost under the road bridge, at the end the train approached from. The rails started to sing as the train approached, still invisible round the slight bend, then took on the peculiarly characteristic hissing as the pick-up touched the section of live rail that ran through the station. Almost immediately, the yellow, squat cab of the train appeared, leaning slightly to one side as it followed the curve into the station. It was maybe a hundred yards away, still running quite fast.
I stood at the edge of the platform, feet on the white line that marked the boundary; the drop. The sunlight flashed off the windows of the cab as it approached. The world slowed as it approached a cusp, everything focused in that instant. Poised on one foot. A step forward, or a step back. It really made no difference at all.
A moment of infinite time passed and the world turned onto a new course. A step wasn't taken, but the option had been there, had been real. More real than anything in the world for that instant in time. The train slowed and stopped, and I got on. The memory of that instant goes with me like a halo of warmth, of glaring, powerful reality. I cling to the feeling, drawing endless comfort from it because it makes me feel infinitely alive.
The trains were old - probably dating back to the 1930's - with sagging upholstery and a smell of burned insulation. Whenever you sat down, the faded seats sent up a cloud of dust that hung in the air for a lifetime. That same dust was everywhere, even outdoors in the station that day, and the smell of burned insulation with it.
I stood at the very end of the platform, almost under the road bridge, at the end the train approached from. The rails started to sing as the train approached, still invisible round the slight bend, then took on the peculiarly characteristic hissing as the pick-up touched the section of live rail that ran through the station. Almost immediately, the yellow, squat cab of the train appeared, leaning slightly to one side as it followed the curve into the station. It was maybe a hundred yards away, still running quite fast.
I stood at the edge of the platform, feet on the white line that marked the boundary; the drop. The sunlight flashed off the windows of the cab as it approached. The world slowed as it approached a cusp, everything focused in that instant. Poised on one foot. A step forward, or a step back. It really made no difference at all.A moment of infinite time passed and the world turned onto a new course. A step wasn't taken, but the option had been there, had been real. More real than anything in the world for that instant in time. The train slowed and stopped, and I got on. The memory of that instant goes with me like a halo of warmth, of glaring, powerful reality. I cling to the feeling, drawing endless comfort from it because it makes me feel infinitely alive.
A word of warning
A bit of a warning. Apparently, my thought processes are a little strange sometimes, and have freaked people out. There are going to be some posts here that some will find disturbing or even downright frightening. I just want to say that they aren't. Not to me, anyway. They're just normal and the way I am. Some of the things I describe that others have told me are frightening are experiences I found intense, overwhelming but above all comforting. Don't say I didn't warn anyone.
Why bother blogging (again)
Well, I did use http://randomaccessmemory.org for a while. It was a fabulous concept, but never really seemed to take off and then disappeared for a bit. I tracked the domain owners and it seemed they'd moved servers but goofed the IP/DNS bit. Anyways, they got it back on line, but it looks like the database links were broken in the code as it it just throws errors. Shame, really, I liked the place.
I still wanted a place to dump random thoughts. Possibly (probably) being Alexithymic means that I very rarely talk about stuff, because I just "don't have the words" - it feels like someone's sitting on my chest when I try to speak to people but very occasionally I get a rush of words that I need to write down. Mostly it's memories that I can't talk about. So here goes again. Since this was all originally done 3 years ago, Google acquired Blogspot and I'm locked out of the old blog...
I still wanted a place to dump random thoughts. Possibly (probably) being Alexithymic means that I very rarely talk about stuff, because I just "don't have the words" - it feels like someone's sitting on my chest when I try to speak to people but very occasionally I get a rush of words that I need to write down. Mostly it's memories that I can't talk about. So here goes again. Since this was all originally done 3 years ago, Google acquired Blogspot and I'm locked out of the old blog...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)