Spiralling.

One day, maybe I'll get to write some posts about other things than mental health....but not today. 

Yesterday, at the shops, I had an anxiety attack. Which was new to me. I'll often get anxiety at the shops (I'm not sure what from exactly, I've had it for years now), but this was more intense, and resulted in some quite obvious stimming to try and calm down. Those who know me well might be surprised that I actually have stims. I've been a bit more free with expressing them over recent years, but they're usually happy stims. I've rarely had anxious ones. 

But these were. I was repeatedly grabbing onto my left arm with my other hand, and repeating that motion for probably about half the time that I was at the shops. Mentally, and emotionally, I was not in a good place. And as I mentioned in a previous post, I haven't really been in a good place for a while. 

There's part of me that thinks I should probably be in mental hospital at the moment. That I should have been there months ago. Most of my energy these days is poured into keeping me together. What does that mean? Kinda a lot of things. It means not letting the various fears and anxieties I have take over. It means trying to do simple things like keep myself fed, and watered, and rested. It means getting myself out of bed for work. It means working up the willpower to actually go to work. It means trying not to dwell too much in negative emotion, and not let things spiral into feeling suicidal, giving up on life. Some little things, some big things.

But I keep getting more and more burnt out by life, and by work. And it keeps draining more and more energy. Which means I have less and less ability to hold shit together. That's meant a lot more forgetting things, and head empty moments. A lot more needing to just rest. A lot more needing to just do things halfway, or not at all. A lot more times of feeling depressed. And now, things like the anxiety attack showing up, and anxious stims.

Many days, I find it harder and harder to find reasons to keep going with life. It feels absurdly difficult. Like I'm living on challenge mode, and it just gets harder as you go. I am still finding joys amongst everything, and they help - but they've become a brief and fleeting respite from the normal fare.

Going to go bigger now, and talk beyond me for a bit. 

In a world of abundance like we have today, with access to so many resources - this shouldn't be happening. People shouldn't have to choose between financial stability and mental, emotional, and physical health. But so many do, every single day. In countries that are supposedly rich, and wealthy. That's not even getting to the state of things in poorer countries.

We need to get better at looking after people, on a structural and systematic level. Personal level is great too, like, look out for the people around you, great. But these systems need to change. Because they're slowly killing so many people, who can't see any way out.

The other week I felt like I was coming out of it. I was like, "Wow, I'm feeling great! I'm feeling really happy and laughing and positive and everything! I can't remember the last time I felt like this!" I think it lasted maybe a day before that started to fade. I've been in survival mode for a very long time now. I would rather like not to be.

I don't have a neat bow to this. Don't know if there are any.

Contemplating Commendations.....

I can't resist a good alliteration, y'all. It was this or Reflecting On Rainbows.

It's now been almost a week since my Fringe show came to a close. It feels strange now for it to be done. I put the application in so many months ago, thought I might only get one show, ended up getting two shows, and in such a great venue - it's all pretty amazing.

Even more amazing is that I have found out today that the show has been nominated for a Fringe award in THREE different categories! Which is insane. (The three categories are Music, Theatre, and Musical Theatre, by the way. My show wasn't really Theatre, but I'm not going to complain!) I knew going in that these were good songs, and good stories, and that they needed to be shared. But to have so many people that came along giving me great feedback, and then being nominated for three awards, is pretty amazing. People were saying things like - these songs should be on radio; I could see these songs in a musical (spoiler: I did start writing a musical about queer faith, which some of these songs would feature in, but it has been on the shelf for most of this year); I need to hear this as an album; you should perform this in other spaces; this made me cry; I loved that so much; those songs were incredible; and many other things.

It feels incredible to hear people saying these things. Because this is what I love to do. And more than that - this is my thing. Like, I have fingers in a lot of pies. Anyone who knows me will know that. There are so many different things that I do, and enjoy doing, and a decent number of things that I do well. But this - this is, more than anything else, my thing. Singing songs, telling stories, of my own journey, and connecting to other people through that. Whether that's to build understanding, or relationship, or empathy, or some combination of these; this is what I want to be doing. With, like, most of my time and energy 😅 But, you know, capitalism and money and survival and all that. Jobs are very good at soaking up a lot of time and energy. And ADHD is very good at not letting me focus on one thing.....

But I want to do this more. I want to do things like share Rainbow Religion with more people, more than the fifty-ish that showed up across two performances. Part of that will happen through getting the recording up online, and sharing it that way. But that's also not quite the same as doing it in person. So I guess, putting the call out there - if you know of a place that might be interested in having a show like Rainbow Religion, hit me up. Admittedly, I might need them to have a piano or a keyboard there, my keyboard is.....a bit out of action at the moment 😂 (I don't know where the power cord is for it any more, and it is rather old). But yeah. I'd love to bring this to more people. And I'd love to record these songs, with more instruments, get a proper band happening for them, that sort of thing. I even have music video ideas for a couple of them (like, one is a full on dance video, one is a freaking claymation weird thing). Write more songs. Share them. Do more of all of this.

Because we need more people sharing these sorts of stories. Stories from queer people, from trans people, from neurodivergent people, from people that have gone through shit and are happy to talk about it. The stories in Rainbow Religion have been about dealing with religious trauma, and growing up in the conservative church; and from the reactions that I've had, it feels like this is something that resonates with a lot of people. And that makes sense to me. I think particularly the generation I'm from, and around it, many of us were brought up in church. And there's a lot of stuff that can come out of that, that's not really great. But this isn't the time to do my show over again! I'm just glad that these stories are resonating with people. And I'm glad that what I'm doing is having an impact. So thank you.

Not A "Real" Christian...

This week, I'm performing my show, Rainbow Religion, as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival. There's been a lot of work that's gone into it, and a lot of stories that I'm sharing as part of it. But the topics that I'm talking within are massive - things like religious trauma, spirituality, queerness, deconstruction and reconstruction, moving away from toxic theology, integrating identity and belief, the overlap of so many different things. And so there's a lot that's going to get missed, it's a continuous story that I'm telling and sharing, in many ways. I feel like I've learned so much in so little time, but a couple of years is still a lot to try and distil into one hour. Because that's more or less what I'm doing, telling the story of the last couple of years, and what that experience has been like for me, and the challenges of that, and why I've done what I've done.

And it feels like much of what I'm talking about is going to connect and appeal to a lot of people. I don't want to try and imagine how many people have religious trauma from years gone by, and for various reasons, but I imagine it's a significant portion of the population. Certainly, most queer folks have it to some degree, because religion has done a rather good job of setting themselves up against us for the most part.

But there's also people that will see what I'm doing and get angry. And that will ask questions, or point fingers. And I understand that. People who will ask - "How can you say you're representing Jesus if you're saying that divorce is okay? Or that homosexuality is okay? Or that sex before marriage is okay? Or that porn is okay? Or that being a sex worker is okay? The Bible is clearly against these things! You can call yourself something else, but don't say you're a Christian." And I could ask right back - "How can you say you're representing Jesus when you're hurting those that are vulnerable, and in need? When you are the oppressor? When you are turning people away from the church, and away from God, and saying they are unwelcome? When you are bringing death, not life? This is opposite to everything Jesus did!" But arguments don't solve anything. And my intent isn't to burn bridges - it's to promote understanding, and to help people to heal.

There will probably always be divides, and extremes, and arguments. But we can hope to head towards a future where we don't have to fight to live as ourselves. Radical idea, right? One day, maybe.....