*sigh* fucking hell

Last night as I lay in bed after catching a few of the Perseids meteor shower passersby, I wrote a brilliant blog post for this morning. In my head. It was all about being stardust and water; very esoteric and verging on the hippie.

It’s completely gone this morning.

My bro has just left the house for an early morning appointment with his doctors and counsellors. They’re ready to finally prescribe him medication, which I think is a long time coming. The guy hasn’t slept well for like 8 months now. And, of course, they’re requesting he cease all marijuana smoking while trying out the new meds. I understand; they’ve got to know how effective their little pills are all on their own.

But I’m the one who’s gotta LIVE with him.

Yeah. I’m a bit afraid of it. His mania is … well, I’ve never seen another person like him. He’s always wound up. Tight. He always appears slightly menacing, because his body language is ALL mania. He always comes off angry because he always IS angry. Always. I’ve rarely spoken to him about ANY topic and not seen him deteriorate down into an angry tirade. And it’s not like we’ve not been through tough spots with his mania, just like we’ve been through tough spots with my whatever-they’re-going-to-label-it.

I just don’t want to fucking deal with it. I don’t want the extra anger that will come BEFORE the little pills take effect. I don’t want the arguments I’ll have to sidestep and dodge because he’s in no space to discuss anything rationally. Goddamn it! It’s hard enough to deal THIS side some days. Now I’ll have extra stuff pushing me from the outside. Fuck.

I know I’m being selfish here. AND I want to support him as much and as well as he’s supported me. So I’ve got to set some ground rules for myself right NOW, before he gets back from his appointment and BEFORE any of it starts. Yeah. Ground rules. Okay. Here goes.

First thing is, I need a safe spot OUTSIDE of the apartment. Somewhere I can go when he and I are just butting heads and arguing. Safe spot, safe spot….Of course, my head tells me to just use my favorite coffeeshop. Head out on the metro, buy a joint and a coffee and sit amongst strangers for an hour. Not a BAD idea, but I’d like somewhere where I don’t feel the need to spend money just to stay there. Parks are a great option if the weather is good. And certainly I can always just head out for a good walk somewhere. Get some fresh air and movement, change things up. [I gotta insert this right now – feel like a fucking idiot for even trying to list boundaries. I’ve been here before and damn it! It’s really fucking hard. I’m gonna keep going, tho, cause SOMETHING has to fucking work.] And then there’s the library. I can always go and hang out there for an hour. I’ll need to take something in English, of course. My Dutch is still lousy. I might be able to get through a children’s book – something for the 2-4 year olds. But struggling with language when I’m upset is NOT the way to go; it’s like paddling upstream. It’s bloody hard work. My head keeps straying off and ignoring what I’m trying to teach it. So most of the time I don’t push it now when I’m like that. I never get much through, anyway.

Second, I need to be able to communicate enough – or at least KNOW – when my bro is just going off due to his mania. I have to somehow separate his legitimate gripes with his manic rants. Tough. Very, very tough. I’ve only just begun to calmly call him on the trigger words he uses around me. I can’t do it every time, but I AM recognizing when it happens. And when I do bring it up, I can simply state it, not scream it. Loads of fucking progress, good on me! But I’ve got to admit listening to my brother rant – and I let him rant a lot; I know how it feels to NEED to get it out – can be very, very difficult. There are days – weeks, even – when I can’t complete ONE sentence in this house because I am continually talked over and interrupted. *sigh* This has ALWAYS been so hard for me. If one of my biggest triggers is being ignored and my bro’s mania makes him interrupt me all the time…Well, you can imagine. Uncomfortable would be one word. Biting my tongue a lot, at least figuratively. Working real hard all the time to remind myself that it’s HIS health problem that’s causing it. He doesn’t mean to make me feel like I’m being ignored. Doesn’t help that his memory goes to shit, as well. I told him a couple of times about the beer fest coming up this weekend. We fucking DISCUSSED it. He came home the other day all excited and told me all about this supposed beer fest happening this weekend. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! Did he NOT hear me AND himself discuss this same fucking thing 2 fucking days ago? I know he did, and I know if he wasn’t in this particularly bad manic phase right now he might even remember it. But DAMN! It’s hard to take on this fucking side.

Which brings me to my third boundary. I need to communicate with my brother in a NON verbal manner, and I just thought of how. I need a damned red card. Something to hold up while he’s pontificating to let him know he’s crossed the line with me. To stop, cause he’s triggering me. Of course, he’s got to respect that system and work WITH it – and thus, my fear raises its head cause I just don’t know that he can or will do that. We’ve tried other methods, like hanging a sign off my computer saying I’m writing when I’m writing so he didn’t come around my back to see whatever the hell it was that I was so busy typing away at. Didn’t work. The intention needed for me just to do that broke my rhythm. I just want to GO and not be fucking disturbed. Can’t he just STOP walking behind me to see what I’m typing? If I’m typing fast I’m obviously writing SOMETHING and if I’m writing something I obviously don’t want to be fucking disturbed. For me, this is a logical line of thought. For him, it’s screwed up or gets screwed up somewhere along the way because he just. doesn’t. stop. ever. I’ve taken to closing down my writing or gaming or whatever it is I’m actually DOING on my computer when he’s around and bring up nonsense shit I can do with only 1/3 of my brain. Some days I’ve just got to shut down COMPLETELY because even that demands too much attention away from him and if I don’t focus on everything he tells me in a manic phase it later comes back and bites me in the ass because I get accused of not paying attention to him and not caring.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I never expected THAT to crawl it’s way out of me today.

It is truth, tho, so it stands. I DO feel that way. A lot. A lot a lot. It’s something I’ve discussed with him, ranted about to whomever would listen, and still not solved. The way I’m doing it now feels best for me. I just don’t write when he’s around. Since he’s a night owl and I’m an early bird, that’s not terribly difficult. We stick to our normal routines and I get all morning to dither away out here undisturbed PLUS have at least an hour to full on game.

But he was up early, and I feel pressured to write during the time he’s gone ’cause baby! When he gets back my typing out here stops. He got up early one other time I was blogging and I had to warn him off just because I was proofing my post.

I’m really fucking protective of this. I know that’s ok. I wish he’d learn to back off more so I COULD write more, but hey. I get what I get and I guess I’m ok with that. Maybe someday I’ll get a laptop or something I could just sit in bed and write with. Maybe. Don’t know. I like typing at a keyboard. I’m annoyed with the touch screens. Hells bells, I get annoyed with the fucking computer every time auto correct comes on and insists on saying talking rather than talkin’. Fucking bullshit. Don’t fucking try to tell me what the fuck you think I’m gonna say. Fuuuuuuuck you. Boy, the computer hates it when I do shit like that. Red lines everywhere in my posts. Yeah, I know it ain’t really a fuckin’ word in your tiny chip brain but hey! i’m a fuckin’ human an a LOT a time speech don’t sound NUTHIN’ like the fuckin’ written word and why the fuck is that?

I do so enjoy cursing in writing. Don’t know why; I just get jazzed from it. It’s like, more honest. Cause dat’s wat I REALLY be thinkin’. I used to get kind of offended reading some authors who cursed a lot. Well, I still might if I read those stories. They were all character sketches, nothing more. Small pieces of pain splayed out with no morals, no beginning, no ending. I’m not a fan of that kind of writing. Get a goddamn narrative into it, for fuck’s sake. Don’t just give me 2000 curse words and a junkie shooting up.

Goddamn mother fuckin’ cock suckin’ shit of a whore. *pierce flesh with needle*

Nope, don’t need to read that. Seen it. Been there in the ROOM with it. Breathed it in. Almost vomited it up. Don’t need to see it on the page.

Yesterday I was struck by the nothingness of temperature here. It was neither hot nor cold. You would have been equally comfortable in shorts or a business suit. Like, perfection in air temperature. Today is scheduled to be hotter than a mother fucker. So I’m not going out until the fucking sun goes down. Vampira for a day at least. *hiss*

I am discombobulated. Disturbed. Unsettled. I feel the desire to do something DRASTIC. Change it up. I’m hesitant to do that right now. I know it’s my standard knee jerk reaction: unsettled? MOVE! I also know this compunction has led to a lot of pain in hindsight. So I’m trying to let myself feel it but not act on it.

I may need a LOT of marijuana today.

*sigh* fucking hell