She said I needed to manifest
more
because I have stagnated
moreMaybe if I stopped doing
less
and ceased believing
lessI and we and everything
would flow towards
better outcomes
more or less
words
I don’t remember. I don’t fucking remember much of the events which have led me around myself for 40 fucking years. When I say I don’t remember, I mean that I don’t have a visual recallable representation of a lot of my experiences from childhood. I just know what it felt like, I just know the fear and the anxiety, the wanting to leave, the wanting to get the fuck out of there, the but not knowing how to. And I have incorporated these experiences into my psyche, they have become a part of me, they have contributed, overwhelmingly to all the negative attributes that are haunting me to this day. My self-esteem is so low, I cannot imagine anyone but friends and family, saying that my writing is any good. My ability to connect with other human beings, is somewhat immature and awkward, though few people seem to actually see through my cloak of (false) confidence. My relationships are rife with struggle, misunderstandings and an inability to properly communicate both my needs, wants and my hurts. It feels as if I am living in a bad dream. One where I am stumbling around in my old apartment but I can’t find the door, I can’t get out, I can’t get anywhere. There is a slight blurring at the periphery of my vision, a mild disorientation, everything is dark corners, there is no where to go, the stink of animal fear is palpable and coming off of me, my desperation is obvious to the me that is the witness of the dream, my lack of options, obvious, the need to get out feels insurmountable and overwhelming. But I cannot turn away, I cannot wake from this life of self-reproach, I cannot numb myself enough with drugs or sex or porn or TV or music or books or the games on my stupidphone or meditation or the creation of art. I feel like I am the walking wounded, the living dead, a man living out his pain, in every expression, every heated word, with every breathe and there does not seem to be an end in sight. Every now and then, the Millwood bridge seems like the right place for me. I feel I have many stories inside on me that might be interesting to relay or cautionary in theme to share. Here is one of them.
However, I do remember much to my surprise and my misunderstanding when I first heard about, learned about the symptomatology of various forms of mental illnesses, I was taught that there are both positive and negative symptoms or effects of having diagnosis’ such as schizophrenia or bi-polar. When I first heard this I thought, “Oh, wow, there are positive symptoms, positive effects, of having a mental illness”. From the medical model, what it really means though, is that having negative symptoms means, that something has been taken away from you, something is lost to you as a result of this confluence of brain function, emotional response, range and intensity of emotion which all converge to change the way you present yourself, your being, the way people have known you to be, something that was there, has now changed, is now gone. These can be activities you were once interested in, sports, hobbies, aspirations, goals, social functions like the ability to trust, the ability to form intimate relationships, that ability to lead a “normal” life, those are some examples of negative symptoms, negative effects, something lost. The positive symptoms, the positive effects are things that are added on, things that were not already there but have shown up in the period before the diagnosis, often leading to the diagnosis. These can include hearing voices that others don’t hear, responses like severe paranoia, seeing things that others do not see, anxiety and social phobias, and depression both mild and major, these are all positive effects, things that are added on to who you have been know to be by others and who you have known yourself to be.
if i could
would i change
1 second of this
shit and horror
or would i simply
know that i am
exactly where
i need to be
and accept
this gift of pain
this discomfort
from yesterday
and all the
days before
would i deny
you your pain
only so i
wouldn’t have
to watch
you suffer
anymore
this dream of ours
this nightmare
of perpetual
disquiet
i can’t imagine
loving anyone
as i love you
yes this fucking hurts
and we both know
our pain is here
to show us how
to get to peace
in this
uncomfortable position
this bodhisattva posture
if i know that i
am all potential
that means that
you are too
I was lying in my bed, trying to hide, pushing my face between the mattress and the wall, trying to make my small body as small as it could possibly be. I could hear his footfalls, casually, determinedly, coming up the stairs. My body became frozen, my mind started drifting, I was barely still in the room. Trying to be as small as I could, trying to disappear between the mattress and the wall. I’m on my stomach hoping to protect, my cock, from his large, rough hands. I lay there. Still. Barely breathing. Heart pounding. I could hear him going into the bathroom, which was at the top of the stairs and shared the wall with my bedroom, the wall that I was trying to jam myself into, between it and the mattress. I could hear him urinating in the toilet, the splashing, the force echoing in the small room on the other side of the wall. Then I heard the toilet flush and I knew that he was coming for me next. The tap in the bathroom ran for a moment and I heard the silence resulting from the light switch being flicked to down, shutting off the bathroom fan. A couple of footsteps, the turn of my doorknob, a peak of light hitting my downward cast tightly closed eyelids. I knew what was about to happen. My shallow breath was almost non-existent. My body felt rigid with fear. As he entered the room there was a palpable smell in the air, of him, I don’t remember if it was a subtle aftershave, applied hours earlier or the scent of the soap he had just used to wash his hands, but there was a smell which followed him in, that I both longed for and feared, simultaneously. With a click the door was closed again, shutting off the momentary glow from the hallway, plunging the room back into darkness. He walked a few deliberate steps to the edge of my bed. I was on the bottom bunk in the room I shared with my older brother, who was somewhere else in the townhouse as this was happening. I could feel the mattress sigh, as he sat down on the edge on the bed. I lay frozen, pretending to be asleep. Somehow I hoped that if I was asleep, he would just leave me alone. I could feel the covers come off my shoulders, rolling silently down my back, all the way to the midpoint of my legs. I wasn’t cold. I wasn’t feeling, anything really. I was numb and my desperate mind was starting to go somewhere else. I was still trying to jam myself between the mattress and the wall. The fresh air from under the bed flowed into my flared nostrils. I was starting to breath harder, as I knew what was going to happen next. Then I felt his heavy, damp, cool hand, lightly rubbing my back, midpoint just beneath my shoulder blades, slowly in counter clockwise circles, his large hand ran across my slightly framed back, down my lower back, all the while an intense fear gripped me, a feeling of horror a feeling of no control. I did not want this. This is not what I wanted. Yet I still confusedly thought this man was looking out for me. I thought that this man had my best intensions at heart. I thought that this man could be trusted. I thought this man loved me. I thought I loved this man. The attention and affection he showed me, was missing from anywhere else in my life. My father, god knows where, drinking, fighting, writing. Bouncing from one freelance reporting gig to the next, one Annex rooming house to the next. Spending the rest of his time in dank watering holes in downtown Toronto, at war with his various landlords, at war with the demons from his past. My mother, she cared for me, she looked after me, she made sure I was clothed and bathed and fed, but she left me with this man. She turned a blind eye to what should have been obvious. Herself lost in grief and unspoken trauma. She didn’t see my distress. My distress when I pleaded with her not to go out and he sat on the living room couch with my brother. “Oh don’t worry about it”, he’d say, “he’ll be fine, he’s always fine after you leave, he just misses his Mommy, when she’s gone“. But that wasn’t it. And I had no words, I had no way, I did not know how to say what was really going on. I had no frame of reference for this experience. I was o afraid of losing the benefits of this relationship. I was so confused about the feelings in my body, the feelings in my heart, the way it made my head feel. I was so confused about the price I was paying for his attention. There were so many mixed messages from this prick, so much attention, so much affection, so much “but if you don’t”, “then maybe I won’t come around anymore”, “maybe we won’t do all those other fun things”. “You know, if you don’t, if you won’t, I guess you won’t need me as a babysitter anymore”.” “I guess you won’t need to go out, to the movies, to the playgrounds, to the parks, the pools, the gyms, on the boat, all those things that you enjoy so much”. And he showed me, what no one else in my life was showing me. That I mattered. That I was considered. That I was cared for. That I wasn’t just some piece of shit that no one really gave a fuck about. But even then I knew this wasn’t right, I knew that this shouldn’t be happening. And I could feel my pajama bottoms, slowly being pulled down. I could feel the cool air on my ass as I tried, still in my mind to disappear between the mattress and the wall . And I was gone.
i oscillate
between 10
and 50
i oscillate
i am timeless
wisdom
i am
nothingness
the dysfunctional self
the learned self
the self that clings to self
how does one become selfless?
how does one release ones grip
on a false sense of self?
we were taught to identify
we were taught to become
we were taught so much
that has perpetuated our
separateness
and while i can know this
from deep within
i still feel stuck
i still feel frozen
by what i perceived as my abandonment
by others
and continually
by myself
the struggle to forgive
me
the struggle to accept
them
i see it clearly
in one moment
i fight against it
the next
trying to integrate
all this knowing
trying to remember
all this forgetting
the block
the pain
the shame
the hurt
fuck
all this hesitation
all this not living
spinning out
old scenarios
spinning wheels
in the muck
dying every moment
a little more
a little closer
to the end
but still living
from that 10 year old
that boy
afraid
that boy
confused
no one there to notice
him start to slip
start to stop
not to care
becoming all that he could
becoming inurred
outcome confused
outcome unknown
by the not breathing deeply
the not feeling deeply
just numb
struck dumb
as the words just don’t
describe
the inner turmoil
the inner lack of function
always running
always avoiding
letting anyone in
letting anyone know
his horrible truths
and i have written
these same fucking words
in so many ways
please let him out
please let him heal
fuck that
there is a way
i have said
i am tired
but really just fed up
with an overtaxed
sympathetic nervous system
holding all the negative energy
of our collective trauma
conversations have finally started to change
and this is allowing me to
grab this moment
and put words together
in ways i have never been able to until now
i have felt like i have been writing
the same lines
the same pain
for so fucking long
trying to find a voice
that has been shut down
and shut out of the most important of conversations
a healing is happening
voices are coming out
the reality that my pain
is your pain
is our pain
is finally emerging
the truth of a culture
so far in denial
of its disregard
and indifference to other
is becoming more obvious
me too, you too
for so many now
it has become
us too
i have been flinching
tripping on fear
my whole life
afraid of even
knowing my own
history of abuse
hiding in pseudo
romantic relationships
with my fellow
shut downs
wondering why
they don’t show up
and not knowing how to
myself
as children we learned
that we were
somehow broken
somehow wrong
and where others
left their childish things
i’ve brought mine along
for this ride through hell
wearing it as my crown of thorns
more self harm
more dead eyes
not sure
where i
go
from
here
I am angry because these motherfuckers set me up. I am half a century into this and in a stunted relationship that is disconnected emotionally, spiritually and sexually and I don’t know that I have what it takes to navigate theses rocky shallows with my heart hanging out, still beating and spraying blood all over the carpet. I feel like I am a raw nerve in the back of a mouth unconsciously and absently being tongue fucked. Sharp deep stabs of pain, uncoiling like a tightly wound spring through the thin strand of stubborn flesh keeping it in an unnatural position, keeping it from letting go. Crying doesn’t stop the pain, the salty tears only sting and shutting down or responding in anger (which is really just a response to fear) isn’t and certainly hasn’t been helping. I am continually reminded of my failure to produce the art, which I have convinced myself, all my life and more so over time, is what I have to give back and that belief perpetuates the pain and the hollowness that is deep inside of me, that which leaks into all my relationships with women, the original wound perpetuated by the mother. I can still hear my brother tell me that our mother sexually abused him. At the time I only allowed myself to think, “that’s the schizophrenia talking”, but something inside me rang that as true. So I put it aside, simply because, what the fuck does one do with that? And I just thought I was hurt because she didn’t know how to love, didn’t know how to show up for me the way I wanted her to, didn’t show up the way I needed her to, so here I am looking for love in all the wrong ways and wanting desperately to be wanted. To feel wanted and the only time I recall feeling wanted was by that son of a bitch that played me, baited me, used me and fucked me, all when I was still too young to have known what that felt like. So I wanted him, because he wanted me and made me feel special and made me want to show up. Then he stole my idea of god and he took my childhood innocence (if it was still intact by that point) but he took also away so many opportunities for me to be myself because he hurt myself so deeply, so indifferently, so fucking permanently, that I am still trying to process it. The me that is me when you see me, is but an inverted reflection of who I would have been if not for the horror and dysfunction of this imperfect co-creation of our divine and impermanent selves.
i am tired of feeling like a failure, tired of treading water, panting into the abyss, thinking if i wasn’t so tired, i would be and do all that i dream of, but what do i dream of, what would i be if i got out of my way, allowed others to flow into and around me and accepted their gifts and let them in to touch my heart, a heart so heavy with so much hurt, so much pain, so much fear of further breaking, it’s like i’m sitting back, not moving, afraid the duct tape will lift, the bits of string unknot or that the crazy glue will finally chemically breakdown and loosen its grip allowing all the pieces of my broken heart to fall, unprotected, unhinged, unloved, lost to tumble into the chasm and i will see that, i do not exist and all this pain and strain of holding it all together has really been for nought, nothing but a fucking waste of time and effort and life, holding this position, holding on to the fear of further hurt, holding on because it feels that at every turn there has been some motherfucker wielding a 2 by 4 and smacking it into my forehead every time i turn a corner, out on my ass again or is that just a belief, an irrational undercurrent, thrust upon me by a childhood of heart break, an inappropriate sexual introduction, emotional disconnection, numb and struck dumb by the vagaries of this life at an early age and the ongoing struggle to heal these wounds, a stubborn man still acting as if his abuser is behind the bedroom door.
believe it or not, i was once a sensitive child
seeking love, attention and affection
from a father who was rarely physically present
with anything but alcohol and his own pain
my mother was there and provided
but never developed the tools
to deal with her loses
when i thought that those things had finally arrived
the price was high, the damage
present to this day
i took in this lack of nourishment
and tried as i might to find
the missing pieces
through peers that were as damaged as me
drugs and alcohol came early
anger and rage both suppressed
and released in unproductive ways
last Friday i found myself on a mat
breathing
breathing
the centre of my chest
frozen, locked up
images of those relationships
came into my mind
and i tried to feel the pain
the grief
that has lain inside of me
for as long as i can recall
instead of feeling
the stunted child has
protected
has locked away and pretended
that he can keep these wounds at bay
that he can prevent their recurrence
this has prevented my vulnerability
this has keep me in a stance
of self-protection
of keeping others at arms length
i have a tendency to become emotional
when i can relate to the pain of others
i can feel what they may be feeling
or what i believe it would feel like for me
but most of the time
i have avoided those feeling
and prevented them from emanating
from inside of me
friday i had a glimpse
of this pain
looking at it
i felt and wept a little
but the block is still there
the block that feels
omnipresent
this block keeps others at a distance
prevents eye contact
when expressing my truth
prevents real vulnerability
this is what i want to move
this is what i want to change
this is why i am here
as we heal from the wounds
that have so long defined us
as we move from the patterns
that we have clung to & lived with
we can accept ourselves
with much deeper compassion
we can learn to forgive
all that we have resented
we will move with the fluidity
that is our true nature
we will start to love all of it
as our own creation
you can i can we can
have a good future
the following is a speech i gave on friday to a group of 25 students in my speaking with confidence elective.
.
.
What I want to talk to you about today is an issue that has been close to the core of my reality for a very long time. It is one that I have been drawn to in media reports and in all honestly has occupied so much space in my mind that I have at times questioned my own sanity. It also happens to be a topic that no one really wants to talk about.
My name is Bryant and I experienced sexual abuse over a three year period between the ages of 6 and 9.
I do not see myself as either a victim of or as survivor of sexual abuse, but simply as one who has experienced it, all the while being acutely aware of its impact and how it has shaped the reality I have experienced.
I could talk for the next hour about the impact of this experience in my life, but that is not what I am here to do today. I am looking to start a conversation that will hopefully allow you to think about having a conversation which could move us as a society to have a larger conversation because in my experience as far as the subject of Childhood Sexual Abuse goes, we have either been not having a conversation or have been having the wrong conversation. Continue Reading
the following is a research essay I did for a first year course, Canadian Social Welfare, in 2010 at George Brown College in Toronto.
While my directional analysis could have been more focused and provided more in the way of solutions, I still feel that it is worth posting here.
.
.
Childhood Sexual Abuse and Its Impact In Canada
The perpetuation of child sexual abuse in Canada has far reaching effects and consequences for its victims, its perpetrators and Canadian society as a whole. These effects are systemic in nature and include: the trauma of the individual, the family and the community to the added burdens that it places on all of society economically, judicially and through the need for added social services. I am going to illustrate the current ramifications of child sexual abuse and what is and is not being done to prevent it from occurring. Ultimately I will suggest some structural issues that I believe need to be addressed in order to move towards improving the social impact of this issue.
what is the weight of past experience?
disconnect
uncertainty
anxiety
depression
abuse
apathy
criminality
pain
frustration
anger
hurt
isolation
dispair
distrust
fear
abandonment
suicide
paranoia
low self-esteem
pessimism
what is the answer to the weight?
patience
perseverance
focus
desire
optimism
love
joy
belief
balance
how do we lose the weight?
one moment
one breath
at a
time
watching someone i know slip and fall into a place that i so easily could have ended up
does make me appreciate so much more what i have and risk losing
by not keeping a focus on moving beyond the pain
that this reality has thrown into my path
but we owe it to ourselves
to do what we can
to heal
despite the fear
despite the built in desire
to perpetuate that which was imposed
upon us by others and which we certainly had a choice
to bring into this reality as a way in which to recognize and own
our own divinity by accepting the truth of who we are and working damn hard
to breath that in in every moment of our existence no matter where we find ourselves in the moment
chris- i send you both peace and love
and a strong desire that you do not lose sight of all that you are and have become despite where you find yourself today.
may the real change
that we seek
become a
permanent feature
in our reality
may the shift
in the status quo
march us a step
or three towards
an equal society
may the failures
of the past
become the lessons
of today
let us grow
let us grow
let us grow
entering into unknown territory
can be both frightening and uncertain
even though the internal need
to shift feels so right and omnipresent
out of comfort
we must always move
for things to actually change
for growth to actually occur
i have adjusted to so much new reality
this past half year
i have so much more newness
awaiting on the threshold
surrender
and awareness
awareness
and surrender
i hope to bring those more deeply
into my daily practice
as we have chosen to be here
we have also chosen this unfolding
this moment
this movement
a lifetime of preparation
millennia of groundwork
enter every moment with purpose
know that all is what it needs to be
peaceandlove
bryant