Lately I've been dealing with a lot of anxiety/OCD issues. It's hard for me to call it OCD b/c I don't allow myself to act out, but simply resisting urges causes a lot of stress for me. Sometimes I feel like I can't focus or retain basic things said to me for long periods, or after a long day at work I simply want to zone out, collect my thoughts, rethink my day.. my mistakes, what someone said, how it made me feel, what I wish I said, over and over. I tend to latch on to one thing and it becomes the thought or feeling of the day even if I keep it inside.
I try my hardest to fight what makes me feel slightly nuts, yet there are times it is so hard to not give in, yet there is no giving in. I at one point fully believed in my OCD urges, yet as I've gotten older I've realized I should resist doing them. It's been some time now since I consistently acted out urges like flipping switches, counting steps, rewriting things over and over until I feel like it's ok to stop, etc. They were so bad that most of my day was ruled by acting out whatever my mind told me was of utmost importance. I was so scared to talk about it at all for fear of going ot the nut house, yet thankfully I quit lying and admitted to my family who saw how strange I was acting that I needed help. Some Drs helped, others made me never want to seek help again.. I still tend to lean towards the latter. I still feel the urges though the command of what is vague. It feels like anxiety but not exactly.
I needed to get this out.. at least that I've been struggling. I know no one reads my blog anymore, but I wanted to record this in this moment. I've allowed OCD to do a lot to me in regards to thoughts on my self worth. I think my poor outlook on my value is what really hurts me anymore. It's hard to let go of that past. It's hard to hold onto a positive outlook on myself when I think of the crazy things I've done or believed simply because my mind told me so. How can I trust myself again? How can I believe my intuition again? That gut feeling is what I felt every time I acted out. What do we have if we don't know if that still small voice is truth or crazy mental mind?
I try to be a light to others. I try to always have a smile on my face, be the positive for someone else, inspire hope, the happy ending, that things will always work out... I believe and see the potential in so many people yet when I look at myself I simply see how flawed I am and all of the many mistakes I've made. Some people trip and make a graceful comeback. Some people are so full of confidence you want to give them a good smack in the face and tell them to snap out of it. I hope to exude from the inside that effortless grace, that belief that I am capable. Today it may not be very strong, yet I've overcome so much already. It's just this journey now which has me feeling weak.
Much love,
Mark
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
8\5
It's been some time since the last time I wrote in here. So much in my life has changed. It would be hard for me to explain it all in one sitting. Friends have moved far away, some have kids, full time jobs, lives that take over all the spare time we had to enjoy. I'm in my 30's now, WOW! I have a job I've been at almost 2 years which is totally different from what I use to do. I miss my clients, but I don't miss some of the dynamics. Thinking back on the whole marriage topic....
On August 24th 2013, I married my best friend Kyle. It's been an amazing year yet I have to say that not much seems to have changed relationship wise. I guess when you've been with someone for over 6 years, it's hard to think a ring changes everything. We've been working on this thing for a while now It's not like we're eighteen and just starting our adult lives. Yet there's a sense of completion, like it's for real finally. I guess that's a relationship change.
Another would be how open I am about my relationship with Kyle now. I don't think I've really talked about it on here before. There's been times when I've thought about saying something, yet I really don't like making a big deal about it. I don't make my sexual preference the main focus on my life and it doesn't help I spent so long closeted. Since opening up more about all this, I lost a few close people, but I'm thankful for everyone else who has stayed by me even if they don't agree with how I live my life. We find so many other places to find common ground and I love them so very much.
I find it funny that I'm more open about this aspect off myself yet generally I find nmyself to be a more private person... possibly leading up to several years of not keeping up with a blog... or perhaps the fact personal blogs have gone through their more popular time and aren't the huge craze.
I know when it all happened, or at least a big contributing factor is when I lost my mom. I hate to say it but truth is truth. I went through a hard period before I found my footing again, but there is some thing, or rather some one stolen from me and I'll never fully recover.
On August 24th 2013, I married my best friend Kyle. It's been an amazing year yet I have to say that not much seems to have changed relationship wise. I guess when you've been with someone for over 6 years, it's hard to think a ring changes everything. We've been working on this thing for a while now It's not like we're eighteen and just starting our adult lives. Yet there's a sense of completion, like it's for real finally. I guess that's a relationship change.
Another would be how open I am about my relationship with Kyle now. I don't think I've really talked about it on here before. There's been times when I've thought about saying something, yet I really don't like making a big deal about it. I don't make my sexual preference the main focus on my life and it doesn't help I spent so long closeted. Since opening up more about all this, I lost a few close people, but I'm thankful for everyone else who has stayed by me even if they don't agree with how I live my life. We find so many other places to find common ground and I love them so very much.
I find it funny that I'm more open about this aspect off myself yet generally I find nmyself to be a more private person... possibly leading up to several years of not keeping up with a blog... or perhaps the fact personal blogs have gone through their more popular time and aren't the huge craze.
I know when it all happened, or at least a big contributing factor is when I lost my mom. I hate to say it but truth is truth. I went through a hard period before I found my footing again, but there is some thing, or rather some one stolen from me and I'll never fully recover.
Friday, May 16, 2014
5\16
Seasons come, go, and roll around again. The tides rise, subside, and meet back to their designated places. Just as any flower, we bud, grow, bloom to our peak and slowly decline and wither. I say this simply to say it's amazing how time pushes us all onward to never meet the same day twice. This is the time, place, and the moment we have. Another is not promised, for better or for worse, this is what we are given.
Back in April I celebrated my 31st birthday. I'm still unsure what to feel about my early 30's yet, but a voice in my head is telling me I'm not as young as I use to be. This slightly scary notion has been a constant companion of mine since it first occurred to me not long before my personal celebration of birth. When thinking about what I've accomplished in life or what I have yet to do, I know there's something in me that wants more. There are so many things I'm grateful for: my wonderful spouse, a good job, great family and friends, etc. Yet there is a feeling.. a longing to leave a deeper impact. Lets call it a living memorial: a famous painting.. or two, or a hundred, a great novel for the ages, founder of an invention that positively changes the course of everything for years to come,or find a cure to take the fear out of some deathly disease! Maybe though, I'd settle for just one person who would tell who I was and not simply leave me to be buried too deep by the sands of time.
Longing to be remembered after one's passing is something aligned with our finitely mortal selves yet it can not be guaranteed to last or even occur. I think of a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley entitled Ozymandias,
"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Whenever I read this interestingly human piece, I am reminded how silly and futile such goals of remembrance are. I begin to think of goals more in my direct control. When pondering more attainable feats, a list rolls. It rolls through my head and in my imagination I can see them all like a full horizon all around me full of rolling hills and a few daunting mountains.
I see some easy to obtain hills ahead.. even trekked over a few recently, yet then there are those mountains. They seems to hard to attain, can be unforgiving, unrelenting, even wrathful if I take a wrong footing. My mountains are the hardest, heinous, challenges. I'm reminded of the evil mountain in Mordor only some of mine are more dark, scary, 10 times fuller of more monsters and ghouls ready to track me, find me, pull me down, and ensure I never reach the top. One of the most sinister peaks I call self-deprecation.
A friend recently told me that self-deprecation is much less attractive than being egotistical. I was slightly struck back by this interestingly true statement because I am my own worst victim and abuser. After a moment of pondering what she said I smiled at her and told her I'd try to watch what I say. Yet it's almost been a week and her comment has clung to me. I don't know the beginnings of my self loathing yet I do remember having these strong feelings of worthlessness as a child. In my earliest self-deprecating memories I think of times when I'd get scolded from my mom. I'd not blame her, my sister, think that the fault lied somewhere else. I would become angry with my own flaws. I was the problem. I was the reject. I'd run in my room, cry into my pillow, telling myself how stupid I was. Full of anger, poisonous thoughts seeping, tainting my inward image. So when kids at school would reject me, my step-father would tell me how dumb I was, people I cared about walked away, it wasn't their fault either. They were so right. The mess up in the equation was me.
Having such a long history of self-anger, self-doubt, self-pity (?) even, it's so hard for me today to see past the dark fog to form even a less distorted image from what others around me think of me. Truthfully, I believe myself. I believe and even magnify my short-comings and even now I've turned this into more of a self loathing blurb. My outlook affects every aspect of me. It hinders me in my art, my performance at work, my love life w/my spouse, friendships past, present, budding, or future. I am truly poisoned.
So the question I ask is, How do I purposfully overcome this
Back in April I celebrated my 31st birthday. I'm still unsure what to feel about my early 30's yet, but a voice in my head is telling me I'm not as young as I use to be. This slightly scary notion has been a constant companion of mine since it first occurred to me not long before my personal celebration of birth. When thinking about what I've accomplished in life or what I have yet to do, I know there's something in me that wants more. There are so many things I'm grateful for: my wonderful spouse, a good job, great family and friends, etc. Yet there is a feeling.. a longing to leave a deeper impact. Lets call it a living memorial: a famous painting.. or two, or a hundred, a great novel for the ages, founder of an invention that positively changes the course of everything for years to come,or find a cure to take the fear out of some deathly disease! Maybe though, I'd settle for just one person who would tell who I was and not simply leave me to be buried too deep by the sands of time.
Longing to be remembered after one's passing is something aligned with our finitely mortal selves yet it can not be guaranteed to last or even occur. I think of a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley entitled Ozymandias,
"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Whenever I read this interestingly human piece, I am reminded how silly and futile such goals of remembrance are. I begin to think of goals more in my direct control. When pondering more attainable feats, a list rolls. It rolls through my head and in my imagination I can see them all like a full horizon all around me full of rolling hills and a few daunting mountains.
I see some easy to obtain hills ahead.. even trekked over a few recently, yet then there are those mountains. They seems to hard to attain, can be unforgiving, unrelenting, even wrathful if I take a wrong footing. My mountains are the hardest, heinous, challenges. I'm reminded of the evil mountain in Mordor only some of mine are more dark, scary, 10 times fuller of more monsters and ghouls ready to track me, find me, pull me down, and ensure I never reach the top. One of the most sinister peaks I call self-deprecation.
A friend recently told me that self-deprecation is much less attractive than being egotistical. I was slightly struck back by this interestingly true statement because I am my own worst victim and abuser. After a moment of pondering what she said I smiled at her and told her I'd try to watch what I say. Yet it's almost been a week and her comment has clung to me. I don't know the beginnings of my self loathing yet I do remember having these strong feelings of worthlessness as a child. In my earliest self-deprecating memories I think of times when I'd get scolded from my mom. I'd not blame her, my sister, think that the fault lied somewhere else. I would become angry with my own flaws. I was the problem. I was the reject. I'd run in my room, cry into my pillow, telling myself how stupid I was. Full of anger, poisonous thoughts seeping, tainting my inward image. So when kids at school would reject me, my step-father would tell me how dumb I was, people I cared about walked away, it wasn't their fault either. They were so right. The mess up in the equation was me.
Having such a long history of self-anger, self-doubt, self-pity (?) even, it's so hard for me today to see past the dark fog to form even a less distorted image from what others around me think of me. Truthfully, I believe myself. I believe and even magnify my short-comings and even now I've turned this into more of a self loathing blurb. My outlook affects every aspect of me. It hinders me in my art, my performance at work, my love life w/my spouse, friendships past, present, budding, or future. I am truly poisoned.
So the question I ask is, How do I purposfully overcome this
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Drawing Challenge Day 1: Draw Myself
Recently on Pintrest, I came upon an interesting 30 day art challenge that I've decided to get into. The 1st challenge is to draw a picture of yourself. After several attempts with different mediums, I decided on a simple pencil drawing that I complemented it with a bit of color as I experimented with my prisma colored pencils. With set daily goals of something different to draw, I plan to help this kick start me into being even more active than I've pushed myself to being currently. I'm up for the challenge! :D
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
The New Year '13
Happy belated New Year everyone! So many months have gone by without me placing an entry. Since my last post, my life has made a few turns. They've all been positives though! The biggest one is a change in my career. What a transition it has been! I've not completely made the change mentally, but it is slowly coming to me and I'm looking forward to whatever the future holds. Life is full of constant change, some occur more startling than others, but it's true. Even though I know life is change, I was amazed at how much I my life by how much as I read through my own blog. I saw entries about my once barren apartment, the ever evolving garden on the deck, getting Max and Fanta, and seeing them grow up, posts on vacations taken, the tragic loss of my mother, and posts of finished and unfinished art. Upon the last entry, I realized the purpose of this blog and how it has become a victim of one of my greatest flaws, my self criticism.
Sadly, I've let it be hard to confront. I've allowed this self created demon to get in my way, hinder me for so long. I've often times not completed projects, leaving them to collect dust in a drawer or closet. In this new year we're in, I've challenged myself to take on these feelings and overcome them. I'm tired of letting them keep me from my passions and I plan to use that same determination I had losing weight onto my new focus. To kick off this new challenge... After 6 months of in-completion, I finally made the piece I posted in my last post a completed work and gave it to my friend 2 days ago who made a small scene at the coffee shop upon receiving it. She even cried tears of joy! I'm happy she enjoys it. :) I look forward to this new year and what I intend to create out of it!
Sadly, I've let it be hard to confront. I've allowed this self created demon to get in my way, hinder me for so long. I've often times not completed projects, leaving them to collect dust in a drawer or closet. In this new year we're in, I've challenged myself to take on these feelings and overcome them. I'm tired of letting them keep me from my passions and I plan to use that same determination I had losing weight onto my new focus. To kick off this new challenge... After 6 months of in-completion, I finally made the piece I posted in my last post a completed work and gave it to my friend 2 days ago who made a small scene at the coffee shop upon receiving it. She even cried tears of joy! I'm happy she enjoys it. :) I look forward to this new year and what I intend to create out of it!
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| Something to remember!!! |
Friday, July 27, 2012
A Few Paintings I've Done In July
This past week I've worked on two projects. One is a recreation of a painting entitled, "Krahe" by Rudi Hurzlmeie. The other was created out of a failed attempt of successfully creating the background of my forementioned project. I'm content with the outcome of both so far. The koi painting has been completed and I ended up gifting it to someone. The other is, as of this moment, still in this undone form. I hope within the next week to be done with everything but the crow... I fear painting the crow, but I will accomplish it!!!
Saturday, May 26, 2012
There's A Snake In My Boot
I've been working on a project for some time helping a young friend of mine decorate his room. I did the mural in the previous post for him, painted, and now I'm working on decorations. I'm on a slim budget so I've been finding inexpensive projects to do that will hopefully pull everything I'm doing together. Last night, Kyle and I were busy for several hours working on most of the items seen below. The only thing not done last night were the bird houses. I had alot of fun doing the signs and so did Kyle. He did the green sign and also helped paint the stars and the colors on all the signs. I'm contemplating on making a whole bunch of the signs and the chicken wire frames to sell. I also tea stained an American flag as well. It's not as dark as I'd like so I'm going to try coffee staining it next. No pic, sorry!
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| This little kitten is the newest addition to the family. His name is Targ and he is a handful! Kept knocking down my display! lol |
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