Keeping it real, not always an easy route
There are times that I wish I was as ignorant as ignorant could be. I wish to escape my own mind and turn off the thought process. I suppose it would be fair to say that many people get into these kinds of situations within themselves often. Hence the bustling drugs trade or the mighty business of selling alcohol. These are methods by which people get to escape themselves all of the time and are permitted legally some of them.
SO it is not easy to be in ones feelings 24/7 which when we couple it with a mind that works on a million thoughts per second, well, it simply makes for a place that is not always nice.
There are those of you that know what I am talking about straight away and those that might be still questioning.
Having had a vast amount of experience in my little lifetime, I have learned that experiences bring about knowledge of one kind or another. These experiences and the knowledge do come at a price. The price sometimes then is too much to bear. We might wonder why there are such circumstances as drug epidemics in our streets and why is it that “normal” is nothing like we might think it is? I always revert back in my mind somewhere to the saying of “Ignorance is Bliss”. Think about it with me for a minute. To be ignorant is not a huge insult as many will have you believe, like it means to be rude or something. Rude is when we lack the knowledge of how to perform or act a little classier and so we are rude. Ignorant is precisely that, to lack the knowledge about something. Here is a direct copy and paste from a dictionary
Ignorant
/ˈɪɡn(ə)rənt/
Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated
This brings a state of bliss, another saying is “little amuses the innocent”, and this again brings about a reference to “happy and not knowing” for example.
Lack of knowledge and being innocent can be a happy place.
So how do I get to that place without the use of chemicals or mood altering substances?
As a life rule of my own I do not partake in getting high or drunk or anything of the kind. It has been a lifestyle choice of mine for quite some time now, years upon years. This does not take away the fact that I wish to escape myself though. And a better question is always why do I wish to escape myself and what can I do about it to deal with or face head on my challenges from inside that are bringing about these thoughts in the first place? Are they thoughts or are they feelings?
The feeling of being tired is definitely true though that can be considered physical too. Tired of having to have such thoughts and feelings of sadness can become tiring too. Because I will not allow myself to take any mood altering substances I find myself in a dilemma of sorts. I do not wish to have such knowledge that has come to me by way of experiences and yet I cannot “Un – Know” something.
Sometimes I have heard it said that the experiences in life can be considered trauma, like these things that have affected who we are and how we feel and how we think.
Traumas;
There are many concepts on how to deal with trauma in our lives and I do it on a daily basis. Yes every day from the moment I open my eyes until the moment I get to close them again at night. Sometimes I do get harsh on myself and tell myself that I deserve everything that I experience. Then I do my best to snap out of that thought process as it does not serve me. Though it does bring me to the feelings of wishing to escape and probably best admitted that it not only comes with an escapism feeling, there can also be rage attached. I guess the rage is attached by way of not dealing with my emotional self on a daily basis allows anger to form and then it rap[idly escalates to rage. The feeling I am speaking about is one of those that would bring an image to my mind of going on a rampage, an all out spree of destruction and chaos. Even to get out in the car and put the foot through the floor and screw the consequences. Wouldn’t it be nice sometimes to have a day of that? Like that movie where the purge happens. Everybody goes out and gets “mad evil” for 24 hours.
I do understand that not everybody feels this way and many remain innocent and ignorant for their entire lives and I am so envious. I wish to be in that place.
Would anybody care to guess how much money is made by “Big Pharma” by prescription pill dependency or addiction? And then compare the figures to the underworld and let’s say the cocaine trade? Probably up there in the same amount of billions. Though one is regulated and traded on Wall Street. The other carries a prison sentence. Or alcohol sales, how much are they worth per year around the globe? It kind of suggests to me that, one is permitted to be out of your head if the mainstream powers that be are the administrators of your drugs. In other words, you are allowed to escape if you want for short periods of time as long as it is controlled. Which would defeat the purpose as the feeling of wanting to be out of your head or escape is all about getting out of control and not to be controlled at all.
The trauma that has catapulted me into the areas of feeling like this has been directly related to the loss of my children. There is very little doubt about this in my mind. Some people call it fancy names like “Grief” or being a “Bereaved parent”. Whatever one wishes to call it, it sucks for sure. There is no let up and everyday comes along and the thoughts of my children come up. What would they do now? What would they look like? How would they sound? Would we have fallen out? Would we love each other now?
A funny part of grief is that we think about all the nice times we had and we think about the petty arguments we had and all of the time we are searching to console ourselves and find a nice thought that sits okay with us. We need to find a place of peace and comfort in knowing we weep our tears for the ones we lost and love so much and yet we get angry by not dealing with these feelings. We want to punch a wall and fall down and cry all at the same time. The Chinese I believe it is have some sort of therapy that involves breaking glass, the sound of breaking glass is supposedly able to set off some chemicals in our brains that allow us to release pressures and built up angers that when we hear the sound of breaking glass, we get a release in our brain and the rage subsides. This does sound interesting to me to research some more as it could be a lot less taxing on the body physically and a lot less taxing on the pocket too. Who really wants to drink 40 gallons of fermented anything really or snort 100 bucks an hour?
It is kind of like if I can inflict pain on another I might get some relief from my own pain, this kind of thing does not sit well with me either as I once upon a time brought about trauma for other people by way of violence. So I learned that lesson too early on in life and have known ever since, Violence does not solve anything. Alcohol and drugs do not solve anything either.
So I am all ears as to how you may deal with grief in a proactive escapism way? Talk therapy perhaps? Yes, I can go for that as I have relied upon these kinds of sources for many years and do believe that there is great benefit to be gained from it. I have carried with me for many years the concept of the tongue and what we can do with it is amazing. We get to communicate and discuss and dive deeper into ourselves and discover where the pain lies and bring it to the fore (which can hurt emotionally as well) yet this does not take away from feeling chaotic or the need for escape.
What about when trauma is retriggered?
Trauma may not occur again and again to bring about unhappy feelings. Something new may occur and the feelings come back just the same as your original trauma and then it becomes retriggered. This is another element of life that I wish I didn’t know about. What is left for me to learn? Self mastery they say is a key to peace, I kind of think there is only my own abduction by other beings in a far away world to bring about the absolute to my knowledge and then what would be left to know? Like I said having had a vast amount of experience in life, I gained a lot of knowledge. I was eager to learn as a young child and now as an adult I wish to remove memories and unlearn a ton of stuff.
If you have lost somebody in life that you loved, you will know exactly what I am talking about. Not only a feeling of poor me or feeling down with self. The feelings of loss that become when we lose a child are unbearable. I am serious with ya and I never hold back from expressing this. I was built strong and tough and I never really knew why. I learned from the loss of my children that it was not tough of me to bury one son after another, it was not strong of me to hold them for one last time, their lifeless bodies and look at them in a coffin. This was merely what had to be done. It was not strong of me to sit up at night and look at their pictures and cry to myself while listening to music. It has not been any strength of mine to see other families and daddies with their children and not wish to have the same.
Strong becomes when I do not act on how I feel. Strength lies in not giving in to wishing to escape and cause total carnage and leave all sorts of damage in my wake. Strong becomes when I share the true real and raw here with you today. Strong becomes when I see someone who is deserving of having 7 or 20 bones in their body broken by me and I decide not to. Strong becomes when I write here to bring about a message of how the madness is okay and the loneliness of grief is normal for us all. We share a common bond when we have lost children. That is, that our emotions and our minds will not ever stop and the strength is in knowing that it is okay and that those who walk around ignorant will remain in a state of bliss that we will forever more yearn. Strong becomes when we learn about ourselves and we can see how there are always options in front of our faces. Options to bring out the demons inside of ourselves and unleash them on the world OR we see the option of discussing openly how we feel. Bond with those who know and have had similar experiences as us and can understand how or why we feel so tired all of the time dealing with holding back, fearful if we unleash the lion, it may never stop. These are the real and raw of what it can be like to live your life with grief and miss you children everyday. I share because I know when we read something from somebody who knows what it is like, there is a tiny little millisecond of comfort and we can take one breath that all is okay for that tiny millisecond. That is all we get, little glimpses of sanity and calm every so often.
I put in the work daily on keeping my sanity and practice meditation which has allowed me to find longer seconds and minutes of peace. These have become massive parts of helping me feel the feelings and work through it all of the time. The light at the end of the tunnel is more than likely the abduction ship landing gear and my self mastery will be complete. It is always nice to end a post with a little humour of course.
Enjoy your day wherever you are and read some of my books that I sweated over to help bring about normality to your grief and grieving experience.
A.McNallyauthor.com 