Stress and Self-Injury

I read something the other day about how self-injury takes many different forms. Obviously there's things like hitting or cutting oneself, starving oneself -- but the article also mentioned people who constantly push themselves to the limit, the people who stay up late for no real reason, the people who will exercise to the point of utter physical exhaustion.

These are all me.

I took eight courses -- a maxed-out course load -- for two consecutive college semesters. The first one left me extremely bitter and I wound up emotionally dead. By the end of the second one (which was this past semester) I was suicidal because I could no longer withstand the mental pressure in the corner I had backed myself into. But even then my perfectionism was relentless. I stayed awake for 65 straight hours at the tail end of that second maxed-out semester writing papers and editing them mercilessly (though given the amount of sleep deprivation I was working under, there was no way I could possibly have been editing very well). And through that hellish 65 hours -- during which even the director of my program started commanding me to go to sleep because he could tell that I wasn't -- the question that kept screaming through my head was, You idiot, why do you do this to yourself?

Going farther back: I've always been a night owl -- since I was two months old, according to legend -- but I was about fourteen when I started consistently staying up past midnight. Usually I was reading, writing, or listening to music. Even now when I stay up late that's usually what I'm doing on some level. But why? All of these things could have waited till morning in most (if not all) cases.

This past summer I discovered another outlet for my self-hatred: dance. I would practice tap dance for one half-hour, every day, with zero breaks. If I took a break longer than one minute, I would have to practice for another five. It was merciless, but I had nowhere else to vent my anger and hopelessness so I turned it on myself. If I couldn't execute a step perfectly, I would do it over and over again, shaming and guilting myself until I did it. I would get to the end of that intense half-hour practice and literally collapse, half-dead from lack of oxygen. More often than not I was in tears, from exhaustion, frustration, and from the harsh words I would tell myself to prod myself to keep going. Looking back, that was probably not healthy. I was still mourning three deaths, two divorces, a cancer diagnosis, and a wholesale family split. I was still so bitter at God that I was telling other people not to bother praying because it didn't work anyway. I was working a physically demanding full-time job (which honestly was the least stressful part of my life). I was still physically recovering from the sleeping-four-hours-a-night-eating-one-meal-a-day life that I had been living through my previous semester of college (the first of the two overloaded back-to-back semesters).

Reading the aforementioned article made me realise just how much of the behaviour that mystifies even me comes from a place of self-injury, a place of trying to prove myself, to get attention. I'm trying to either earn love and acceptance from somebody -- anybody -- or destroy myself trying. If I destroy myself, if I drive myself so far down that I end up dead, maybe then somebody will feel sorry for me. Maybe then somebody at my far-too-early funeral will finally clue in and say, 'We were too hard on her. We should have made sure she knew we loved her.'

See, very early on in my life I hit on something that inspirational viral stories on Facebook would later exploit -- if you slog through adversity and still make something of yourself, people will love you. In fact, this is the only way to get people to even notice your existence. So my generation overloads themselves beyond reason, beyond sanity, so that they can 'brag' about the long hours and the hard work they've put into something -- because surviving intolerable levels of stress or hardship is the only way to get anybody's attention anymore, and you can only get love and acceptance if you have some tiny piece of someone's attention. What I would do was emphasize the bad things in my life when talking to people so that they would be more in awe of the insurmountable odds I was facing. This, of course, may (sometimes) inspire admiration but does not (ever) inspire friendships. People saw me as a complainer, and I suppose that's a legitimate claim. But instead of changing my self-destructive habits, I burrowed further into them. And I found myself getting angry that they were not putting me (visibly) at death's door as quickly as I wanted somebody -- anybody -- to notice me and really truly show that they cared about me.

If You Buy Different Pointe Shoes...

22 June 2016, 3.37am.

In the spirit of the If You Give A Mouse A Cookie books, I have written a fine piece of literature on what happens if the dance store is out of the pointe shoes you've been using for the past five years and you decide to buy a different, 'comparable' pair because you've already driven an hour in rush hour traffic to get to the store and feel it shouldn't be wasted.

If you buy different pointe shoes...
They will have those ridiculous elasticised drawstrings that are about as useful as an umbrella in a wildfire (the point of a drawstring is to pull something tight. The point of an elastic is to stretch. Am I the only one who sees the oxymoron here?).

If said pointe shoes have the aforementioned ridiculous elasticised drawstrings...
The shoes will slide off your heels with every single relevé, necessitating that you stop, pull the heels of your shoes back on, and continue -- until the next relevé, when you have to stop and pull the heels on again. (Consider that in your average minute-long warm-up exercise, you can have up to thirty-two relevés.)

If the shoes slide off your heels with every single relevé...
You can't break them in. (Think about it. How can you soften and manipulate the shanks of the shoes when they are not in contact with your foot because they're flopping around because the heel has slid off again?)

If you can't break them in...
You must find a way to break them in. This means doing anything possible to keep those stupid heels on your feet.

If you try to find a way to keep the heels on your feet...
Since the aforementioned ridiculous elasticised drawstrings are, as previously established, completely useless, you will try rosin inside the heel of the shoe.

If you try rosin...
It will do absolutely nothing because it turns out the heel of the shoe is not actually in contact with your foot, which is why it keeps sliding off in the first place.

If rosin does absolutely nothing...
You will tie the ribbons even tighter.

If you tie the ribbons even tighter...
Your ankles will bruise spectacularly. This will also severely exacerbate the ankle issues you have been having for five months and entirely remove your ability to plié.

If your ankles threaten to break under the tension...
You will try sewing elastic on the shoes.

If you try sewing elastic on the shoes...
You will, due to your busy schedule, end up writing an overdue letter, showering, and sewing the elastic on your shoes almost simultaneously at 2.30am when your pointe class is at 9.15am.

If you end up sewing elastics on pointe shoes at 2.30am...
You will inevitably stab your thumb with the needle and bleed all over the shiny new pointe shoes (which are only shiny and new after three weeks because you have been unable to break them in because the heel keeps sliding off so you can't actually manipulate the shanks with your feet...).

If you have to pause to wait for the bleeding to stop...
It gets even later.

If it gets even later...
You are now sewing pointe shoes at 3.30am with black spots floating in your vision and cursing everyone who has ever said that dance life is easy.

Moral of the story?

For dancers: If they don't have your size in your shoe, don't buy a new brand/style. Just go home and nurse the dead ones you already have for another week or two until they get your size in again. And next time, ask when you call to book the appointment if they have your shoe in your size because if not, you're not coming in. It's just not worth the hassle (and expense, and time) trying to find another shoe that fits right.

For non-dancers: Don't ever tell a dancer that their life is easy. If you do and they punch you in the face, don't say I didn't warn you.

Happiness

So it's nearly 2 am.

I'm still on the computer hanging out on the NaNoWriMo forums despite having to work tomorrow and not getting nearly as much choreography done yesterday as I'd hoped.

And then... and then...

The furnace clicks on!

My day is made.

Why I Don't Have A Nine-To-Five Job - The Practical Reason

For the past month and a half or so I've been seriously contemplating sucking it up and getting a *shudder* nine-to-five job. After all, college and (hopefully) three or four extra dance classes do not pay for themselves.

Of course, in order for me to work a nine-to-five job, I have to actually be slightly conscious at nine o'clock in the morning (actually, it would have to be more like 7.30 to allow for the commute).

So last week I put my abilities to the test.

Our church was hosting their children's day camp that week and I had been pressed into service as Official Event Documenter (translation: photographer). The camp ran from Monday to Friday, from nine till noon. This meant I had to be at the church at 8.30. Which meant I had to be leaving the house at eight. Which meant I had to be awake by 7.30.

In order to do this, drastic measures were required. I forced myself into bed by 12.30 am every night. This meant I accomplished approximately half a page of choreography over nine days (I've been known to do six in one day). Over the course of the week, my mental capacity deteriorated greatly. I don't think I've ever felt so stupid and unproductive in my life. By Thursday I couldn't focus on anything for more than two seconds. Every time I tried to do something productive I became narcoleptic. Basically, I was a zombie.

Last night was my first night in over a week that I didn't have to be up at a certain time the next morning. So, like the rebel I am, I went straight on through till 4.30 am before going to bed. Sure, I didn't wake up till 11.30, but I've already gotten three pages done on Glory To The King (among other miscellaneous household tasks) and was contemplating doing some more choreography once I publish this. You can get a lot done in fifty minutes.

So basically, either I get a 9-to-5 and be a zombie for the rest of my then-cursed life, or I keep looking for something slightly less square-peg-in-round-hole and can then continue with the work God seems to have called me to do.

You Know You Need To Go To Bed When...

...you're making a playlist and humming Fool's Gold and you wonder what that song would have sounded like if John Schlitt had sung it.

And then you remember John Schlitt did sing it.

That's when you need to go to bed.

Music Day

Since Canadian Thanksgiving is on Monday (usually I don't make such a big deal out of Thanksgiving, but this past year has changed my perspective a lot), I decided to feature a thankful-type song.
Naturally the first one in my head was a Petra song (look at the Music Day tab just under this blog's heading and you'll see what I mean), but there's also a very nice Silverwind song of gratitude as well... actually, two, now that I think about it. (There's more, but I struggle with indecisiveness enough without consciously looking for things to be indecisive about.)
(Now that I look for one of the two songs on YouTube I find more good thankful Silverwind songs...)
(And a Petra song. I CAN'T GET AWAY FROM THEM!)
(Yes. It's late. I get a little daft when it's late.)
(This is why I do most of my writing at night... then I'm too hyper to notice (or care) if it sucks.)
(Neither of the Silverwind songs I thought of are on YouTube. I should just put them on myself.)
(...If I wasn't so lazy... er, that is, if I didn't already have a thousand things to do. Like go to sleep and do this in the morning.)
(Well, later in the morning.)
(You know what I mean.)

Anyway, the song's on iTunes and that's the main thing. Now that they've switched to a minute and a half long preview, that gives you a pretty good idea of whether you'd like the song anyway (even if it takes entirely too long to preview albums now).

Title: Thank You Lord
Artist: Silverwind
Album: By His Spirit
Year: 1985
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here.

I have always loved Betsy's voice and in fact, it was thanks primarily to Betsy Hernandez (of Silverwind) and Agnetha Fåltskög of ABBA (similar sound, completely different outlook), that I taught myself to sing. My dear childhood friend could tell you stories... many were the times when she'd grab me by the shoulders and say 'Will you STOP TALKING about MUSIC?!?'

Obviously I didn't -- I just redirected it.

Oops...

I only just realised I completely forgot Music Day this week. Terribly sorry -- my entire week has gone out from under me and I've lost track of what day it is (staying up till three in the morning most of the week may or may not have had something to do with it...).
Providing I don't forget again, Music Day will continue as scheduled on Friday, 2 September. (September already? Good grief.)