Massages and Old Souls

So my parents and I went on an excursion to Leavenworth, Washington. My mom scheduled massages for the both of us at the hotel. Lately I've been noticing a lot of things have centered around the subject of massages. I've never had a professional massage before. I went in, not knowing what I was going to do with my mind during the massage. I could practice mindfulness, or I could search for answers in my relaxed state of mind. I decided on the latter.

Something about the setting was more conducive to looking inside one's own mind. I try to do it at home sometimes but I never get anywhere. So first I concentrated on what I was experiencing physically as the masseuse massaged my back. Then I thought about petty issues in my life, and tried to let my brain drift to the correct answer. I didn't get very far with this, and without meaning to I advanced to examining the Core Issues.

You know, I have to be careful about what I say on here because my parents and people in charge of my treatment read this. I worry that if I say anything that doesn't indicate that I agree fully that my "mental illness" was strictly the result of a chemical balance that could have been avoided, people will view me as confused and delusional and in need of a med change/increase.

That said, I got some answers that I'm not entirely sure are true but might be true. I'm sort of like a teacher. I don't know if I've mentioned it but I absolutely believe in past lives and reincarnation. I already knew that I'm an old soul. I've been told this by unreliable sources but I didn't need to be told because it was something I just intuitively knew. So anyway, I knew I was an old soul but I didn't realize the extent to which the issues I face were designed to help other people. I got a better idea of the role I played and it sort of made me uncomfortable and left me with feelings of self-pity and I left the massage place with a lump in my throat like I was about to cry. Is this what you're supposed to get out of massages?

This wasn't a typical low though, because I wasn't left thinking I was a pathetic loser who would be better off dead. That's usually what chemical lows are like for me. I started writing a blog yesterday but I stopped and decided to hold off on it to see if this feeling lasted. I wake up today and I realize that these things still seem true to me. I don't feel self-pity anymore, it's kind of cool in a way.

I'd like to get more massages.

Weight Loss Secrets

So I've lost ten pounds recently. For some reason, I feel like I've finally figured out how to make it work. I've struggled with my weight all my life. Not that I've always been heavy, in fact I've been extremely thin before (blame the drugs). I've never had a full-on eating disorder but my attitude towards food hasn't always been healthy. I've had success dieting, only to regain the weight shortly afterward. But I feel like I got it now.

So this advice might not be advice you've never heard before, but I've noticed that most people go about it all wrong. Losing weight isn't about what you eat. Or how you exercise either, actually. Currently I go to the gym most days, but I just do a small amount of weight training and that's it. Yet, I've lost ten pounds in a little over a month. So it's not about what you eat. It's about your attitude. Don't think of yourself as being "on a diet." You only need to make minor changes to start losing weight. The slower you lose the weight, the more likely you are to keep it off. So what I decided was, I was only going to eat in the kitchen/dining room/front room where the dining table and chairs is. Not in front of the TV. This is the biggest change I made. So if I was watching TV and I wanted to eat something, I had to leave the TV to go the dining room and eat it. Rather watch TV? Then don't eat. Not only does this cut down majorly on mindless snacking when you're not all that hungry, but it keeps your living room a lot cleaner too. That's a bonus!

Maybe it also helps that I don't have a real taste for junk food. When I'm hungry I crave fresh food with veggies and protein. You've got to retrain your taste buds, you don't eat that shit for awhile you stop craving it. Also remember, excessively cutting calories will come back to bite you because it slows down your metabolism, and you can't keep it up forever eventually you'll eat more and then the pounds will come back really fast. This is what happened to me over spring break this year, I gained like five pounds even though I wasn't eating a hell of a lot because before that I had been skipping meals or eating 210 calorie protein bars in place of meals. Sure I lost weight then, but it all came back and then some. Now it's gone, though. What's most important is to have a laid-back attitude toward what you can and can not eat. Don't make certain foods off limits, but don't eat when you don't really want to. Actually, this is something I'm working on. Like I'll be eating a plate of food, and I feel obligated to clean my plate even though I don't really want all the food on it. I'm afraid of throwing out food.

So anyway, I'm actually kind of amazed at how easy it's been to lose weight now, especially since I'm not on any new drugs.

Motherhood

A few days ago I somehow got it into my head that I was pregnant. Sure, I have an IUD crammed up inside of me but there is a 0.7% chance that that will fail. Plus, it wouldn’t have been immaculate conception or whatever because I had had sex exactly once since my last period. At the risk of irking out some people with period talk, because I know it is a sensitive topic for some, my period had tried to start earlier in the week, acted like it was going to and then just stopped without actually happening. I think I’ve heard that pregnant women can have some spotting but not an actual period, and I thought that was what that was. Not only that, but lately I’ve been having these wild urges to pee more often than normal. Oh God, I was pregnant.

Thinking about yourself like you are pregnant brings about a change in you. I started to feel all mother-like, and that added to the belief that I was pregnant, which made me feel even more mother-like. It was a vicious cycle. I felt like there was a person inside me. Sure, I’m pro-choice, but would I really get an abortion myself? I don’t think so. I’d have to have this baby. And once I carry it to term, I wouldn’t be able to give it up for adoption, I’d definitely want to keep it.

This could have been a good thing. I had wanted change in my life. Having a baby wasn’t exactly what I had had in mind, but it was certainly change. I thought about baby names. If it were a girl I’d name her Emily. But it wouldn’t be a girl, it would be a boy, so the baby would be named Zebulon, which is a pretty awesome name for a boy.

My biggest problem was that I wasn’t financially independent. Sure, I wasn’t mature enough emotionally either. I mean, I was way too selfish to be a mom. But I always thought that having a baby is what makes that change. I remember nights at stable talking to night staff. The guy who was working the night shift at stable once told me that becoming a parent is weird, because suddenly there is something you love more than yourself. So I’m going to be naive and say I think I could handle it. Not that it wouldn’t be hard, but I could get through it. Of course, there are some people who aren’t fit to be parents, and having a kid doesn’t change the fact that they are selfish as fuck. But for some reason I don’t think I am one of these people.

After telling my mom and my sister that I was probably pregnant, I went to bible study, which takes place at my apartment complex. A lady brought her kid there, a little boy who was probably younger than two. He came over and touched my leg. I smiled at him. Later, while we were discussing the bible, the little boy became fascinated with my bracelet. And then my watch. I flashed the light on it for him. He laughed. He was extremely fascinated with my watch. He was carrying around a highlighter. I took it from him, and spun it around in a circle on the coffee table. He laughed like this was hysterical. I did it repeatedly and every time I did it he would laugh.

The next day I made an appointment to get tested. I got dressed, first putting on one of my Lane Bryant maternity-style tops from my fat days. Then I changed my mind and put on my Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show shirt. I sat and drank my coffee and contemplated deeply. Was I really pregnant? I realized that deep down I knew that I wasn’t. I walked to the doctor, which took between thirty and fourty minutes. When I went to pee, I noticed that I had started to menstruate. I peed in the cup anyway and waited in the waiting room. The lady called me in and acted kind of weird and told me I had my period and that meant it was negative and that it was a waste of a test. So that was the end of that. I was relieved.

So anyway, now I’m free to continue to pursue my dreams without the burden of a child. I am happy with this outcome.

Morally Right vs. Socially Acceptable

Yesterday I got a little caught up thinking. I was thinking about how people judge people based on things they do because they deem them socially unacceptable. I was thinking about how what's socially acceptable doesn't always line up with what's morally right. And I was thinking back to my Moral Relativism post, in which I talked about how I read an article about moral relativism. The example the article gave was that there are two people from different cultures, and one person thinks hitting people is morally wrong and the other thinks it's an acceptable way of asserting dominance, and both are morally right because morals depend on the culture. That's moral relativism I guess. And I was thinking about how stupid some people must be, to think that something being morally right or wrong depends on if it's socially acceptable or unacceptable. Yeah, that's all morality is. How stupid some people must be. So I called up my dad and told him that I wondered why some people are so stupid.

Anyway, the thing that got me started was I was thinking about my sister, and how she called a certain unnamed person a loser because they did something kind of strange. Now, I can remember one occasion when I did something similar in the past, because I knew someone who did something that was just so lame and I knew that most people would consider it lame so I called that person a loser. The point is, I have since realized that that was wrong. So anyway, what I don't understand is why certain people feel the need to shun people who do things that might be considered socially unacceptable. These are things you rise above. You feel the desire in your heart to be good and be the better person. So I guess these people don't feel the desire in their hearts to be good. Either that or they are ignorant, and they think that when people do certain things they are indications that the person has a wicked heart and deserves punishment. Not only that, but it is their responsiblity to punish them. Anyway, when I was writing this I got thinking about something else so I don't know if that was coherent.

As for myself personally, I don't hold things against other people unless I take something they did personally. And I know it's not right to take things personally, and for the most part I don't, but I'm not perfect and sometimes I find it hard. I'm kind of going off topic here, this was supposed to be a post about what's socially acceptable versus what's morally right.

So an example of this is promiscuity in women. There is nothing morally wrong about a girl messing around with a lot of guys, as long as there is no infidelity going on. At least, as far as I can tell there's not, if the girl is okay with it she can do what she wants to. But then there's the issue of respect. You have to control yourself or else people thing negatively about you. That said, you throw the word slut at me and it is the most meaningless insult. When someone says that, it says more about them then it does about me. For girls in particular it means they are insecure. For other people, it means they are conformists not just with their actions but with their minds. Because in my opinion, it's okay to conform somewhat to society's standards in order to be respected, but it's not okay to judge people who haven't. And that's what I think.

They're Called Drugs

Sometimes I wonder what it's like to be other people. What it's like to NOT turn 19 and become delusional. I mean, it would be wrong to assume that other people haven't had events happen to them that rocked their world. I wonder what it would be like if it were something normal like a loved one dying or something. I don't even know what that's like. I've never had someone I was really close to die.

So, for the most part, I don't even care anymore that other people don't understand. Because, whatever, the future is coming. I've never even explained certain things to them, because there are certain things I don't like saying out loud.

People come up with the most asinine examples of why there is something wrong with me. My sister mentioned that when I was a teenager I didn't want to leave the house. They're called drugs, Kristen. You take Adderall and you aren't that hard to entertain. You can just sit there and think about things and be marvelously entertained. The drugs used to make me so high. Now they only change my mood slightly.

And then my mom talks about how when I was a teenager I had an eating disorder. They're called drugs, Beev. Mostly anyone who has ever taken Adderall knows that at least when you first start taking it, not only does it suppress any feelings of hunger, but your desire for food completely vanishes, and the idea of food is disgusting. And it raises your metabolism, so the pounds start coming off. I don't have the personality type to be anorexic. Hunger drives me crazy.

But I've realized that I can't be a hypocrite and not practice what I preach, which is love and forgiveness. Yes, I'm like Jesus in a way. Is it okay to compare yourself to Jesus? Someone told me it was once so I believe that person. Of course, I used to believe I was Jesus.

Jesus and Victimization

I love that moment when I’m struck by inspiration.

Today I would like to talk about Jesus. One time my roommate told me that since she grew up Catholic, she had Christianity ingrained in her, or something along those lines. I told her that I had Christianity ingrained in me too. No, I wasn’t raised Christian, or any other religion fof that matter. But because the story of Jesus is a timeless tale that enjoys ingraining itself in people.

The story of Jesus’ death and rise back to life is the timeless part. So here we have this guy who is completely innocent in every respect of the word. He is ridiculed and murdered gruesomely. Then he rises again, and boy does he show those fuckers.

It’s a nice story for people who feel like the victim, especially those who are the target of ridicule. They see themselves as innocent. The innocent one is the one who has to suffer. This is a theme that is powerful to people. That’s why the story of Jesus ingrains itself in people. Not because it’s a true story. But because it has literary power.

Feeling victimized is a sign of immaturity. People haven’t reached maturity unless they can see the faults in themselves. Jesus had no faults. Jesus could not see the faults in himself. Therefore, Jesus was immature.

Thank you for your time.

The Rational vs. the Emotional

There was a time when I wanted to become a philosopher, for whatever reason. I was volunteering at the Humane Society, so I would walk a dog, then sit at the table inside and write. I would sit in the closet at the house and write. That was back in the wonderful day of Geodon. When I say wonderful, I am being sarcastic. The reason I mention it is because the Geodon would make me cycle bipolarly. I would write about how I was supposed to see the truth when how I felt about things would change so much. How are we supposed to know the truth when how we feel about things is the result of chemicals?

You are supposed to think logically and rationally about things, not emotionally. Still, I found it impossible to separate how I felt about something from logic. I don't know if you even can. I mean people might claim to, but if you feel certain about something, it seems to me that that certainty is an emotion. Everything you experience is colored by emotions. At least, that's how it seems to me.

My belief in spirits started out as something that wasn't backed up by anything rational. Actually, it kind of was, but that's besides the point. The point is that it felt to me like spirits existed and watched over me, and I had been previously unaware of it, but the spirits were okay with the fact that I didn't believe in them, they were still there for me. Later, the spirits' role in my life became something I couldn't ignore.

But I think in general, people often feel too certain of things. A healthy dose of doubt is a good thing. It causes you to question, and questioning is good. Always question everything. However, this constant questioning leaves you lost and groundless. There are somethings I hate questioning. I hate questioning my own judgment and conclusions/ability to think rationally and my memory. The idea that I can't trust my own memory scares the shit out of me. So most of the time, I don't question these things.

I had a dream about my mom awhile ago. It was about my mental illness. I asked her if she could try to see it from my perspective, to consider what I was telling her, and she said no. She had already made up her mind, and there was nothing I could do to change that.