Brave Sabrina

Please go here and show Sabrina your support. The comments on this video are so disgusting and cruel! This young woman is brave and deserves our support.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: M is for Music and Mental Illness

A to Z Blogging Challenge: 

M is for Music and Mental Illness

by

Illsa Gorrey

Hello, everybody. This is going to get kind of ranty, so before I start, I'll just say this. Anyone who reads the Undead in the Netherworld blog consistently knows that we utilize music a fair bit on our posts. You will also notice that a lot of the soundtrack music is hard rock and metal. That's because our stories are more metal than everybody's! ;-)

Winky face so nobody gets all butt hurt and bent out of shape. 

KHEL 666 is our Multimedia blog, so we feature a lot of music there. A lot of that is hard rock and metal too.

We sometimes use music to drive a point home or to illustrate what we're feeling on Crazy Town in Looney Land (one of our Dropout Loser Quitter Blogs that didn't finish the A-Z Challenge.)

We might feature music occasionally on Poetry of the Netherworld. Because music is, after all, poetry in an instrumental setting.

This entry is going to be cross-posted over all of those blogs. Lazy? Whatever. We have other projects and problems. Sometimes we get lazy.

So before I start the rant, here is a playlist of relaxing music. This is the kind of music we listen to while editing, trying to meditate, or just because. We're eclectic here.

"You sound angry, Illsa. So you're not going to whip out the Death Metal on our asses?"

Nope. Not today.

Everyone involved with this series of blogs has a mental illness of one variety or another. Most of the participants have bipolar disorder. We met culling through mental health sites and found each other. Not all of our team members participate in the blogs very often. We have kind of a core group who are frequent participants. You'll see a lot of Tempest, a fair bit of me and Lily. Opal has been fairly active this month as well. Cie Cheesemeister is generally in the background, editing or creating her photoshop images. She doesn't directly post very often these days.

We are all broken people. We are not your happy go lucky chasing dreams and love types. That ship done sailed long ago, that train done left town. We are older, we have been abused, we realize that dreams don't tend to come true for people like us. We're waiting to die, we're just trying to make it more interesting while we wait.

I have discovered that I really hate certain words. Don't give me the "they're just words" schpiel. Let me call you a cuntbag and tell you "it's just a word." But think for a minute what your immediate reaction to being called a cuntbag is. Yeah, words have power. It's one of the reasons why bullying is so destructive. So let's put the "they're just words" bit to rest right now.

"Lazy" is a word that I hate.

I used to apply it to myself, anytime I was lying around so inert that I could barely get up to do anything. "Get up you lazy, stupid bitch! Get up!" 

I was experiencing severe depression. I knew I was sad and miserable and had "no reason to be." I should have been able to "just get up." Or so I was told.

"Loser" is a word that I hate.

Many people are unable to become successful in life. There is too much onus placed on being some sort of superstar. Not being able to achieve a certain measure of success does not make a person a loser. I think there are plenty of really talented people who never become successful or famous.

"Quitter" is another word that I don't like.

People quit things for a variety of reasons. Maybe they give up too soon, but branding them with a label is never good. Many people have enough negative labels applied to them. Perhaps more like negative millstones. I know that all the negative terms that come to mind for myself weigh heavy on me.

Our M of the day is Music and Mental Illness and an admonition to put yourself in someone else's shoes before you apply a label to them.

Peace.

Favorite Musicians of the Netherworld: Bon Scott

9 July 1946 – 19 February 1980

I was just 15 years old when Bon Scott died. It devastated me. AC/DC was my favorite band, and let me confess a little something to you. I loved Bon. Yeah, I know how cheesy that sounds, but I did.

Talk about a match that never would have worked out in reality, that would have been it. But I loved him anyway. I had always been a good Catholic girl, but when I hit my teens, I started to go a little wild.

I wasn't wild with boys, contrary to popular rumors that I had eight abortions by the time I was fourteen. No, seriously, that was a rumor spreading around about me. I don't know how it started, because I was incredibly naïve about sex. I thought a blow job was blowing in someone's ear, and I wondered why the hell anyone would find that activity enjoyable.

I knew how babies were made, but I was scared to death of doing the act that made babies. I didn't want a baby, and I had heard that it hurt like hell to have sex the first time. (At this point I still believed that pain with sex for women was because of Eve and the original sin, and I hated the bitch for it. What I didn't admit was that I was also pissed off at God for being such a douchebag as to do this to women because of Eve being an asshole. Believe me, I was very indoctrinated.) Nonetheless, I did daydream about doing said act with Bon Scott, and I figured I was going to hell, but I liked him (and AC/DC's music) so much that I figured my immortal soul was a small price to pay.

When I found out that Bon had died, I walked through the little Peyton Place town that was home to me and my misery, feeling terribly lost. Nobody in that town understood me. My parents didn't understand me either. I felt like I was an alien who had been lost from another planet and ended up in this fucking miserable place. I was very bullied and very lonely, and I felt like I'd just lost the love of my life. Well, I had, though he didn't know he was.

Bon was known as a nice guy, even if he was a bit of a randy sort. I would dream about him sometimes. I like to think that maybe he felt a little sympathy for a silly, unhappy girl who had a huge crush on him. Maybe he wanted to show me that I had a friend after all. Who knows. The older I get, the less I know.

Though Brian Johnson is fabulous and I can't imagine anyone else filling Bon's shoes, there will never be another Bon Scott. He was one of those people that just can't be imitated. I think one reason Brian worked out so well is because he wasn't trying to imitate Bon. He was just trying to do the best damn job he could.

Brian believes that Bon came to him one night in spirit and stayed for about an hour, helping him finish the songs he was struggling to write. He has said that he doesn't like to talk about this much, because people think he's crazy when he tells this tale. I don't. But I am kinda crazy.

So today, if we'll have a moment of silence for...

Nah, that's not the way we do it in the Netherworld!

If we'll turn it up to 666 and drive down the Highway to Hell, that's the way to honor Bon Scott in a fitting way!

Ronald Belford Scott: Never imitated, never forgotten. Rock in peace!

Songs to Edit (and Dream) by

Here are some songs that I'm listening to while giving Rose's manuscript a going-over. You may find that they also go nicely with some of the forthcoming posts on the Undead in the Netherworld blog. Yeah, I cheated and read ahead! That's a dirty little admin privilege. ;-)

You will find that the admins of the KHEL 666 and Undead in the Netherworld blogs are an eclectic lot. We're like Colorado weather. If you don't like one post, just wait a few minutes, and one you like will surely come along!

I have Rose, Cie, and Lily's permission to speak about this issue, so I am not breaking a confidence. I am also keeping things fairly superficial while expressing my feelings on the matter.

Rose is a fine writer. Lily is also a fine writer. Neither of them are very conventional in their approach.

Lily stopped writing because of personal attacks after she released her book, Eternal Death, Lost Beneath the Surface.

Rose revised the manuscript, but she found the process of writing a book for publication absolutely onerous. She also came under attack by some of the same individuals. She has said that she will not write another book.

I think it is a very sad and discouraging thing that this world often causes people to give up large parts of what makes them who they are. People believe that if they don't conform to a certain standard of beauty--both physically and personality-wise--that they should hide away. They come to believe this because if they do not conform to such standards, they tend to undergo bullying.

Counter to what many think, bullying does not end with school. It continues every day in magazines which tell girls and women that if they aren't less than a size 6, they are fat and ugly. To a lesser degree, young men get the idea that if they don't have washboard abs, no one will ever want them. As a counselor, I often work with people dealing with the backlash from these unhealthy messages. Eating disorders are a very common problem.

Fat and ugly are not the same thing, by the way. Yes, there are larger people who are attractive. I've never thought of myself as particularly attractive, but my fiance, a fellow who stands five foot nine and weighs 145 pounds, finds my six foot two, 325 pound red-haired self attractive, love handles and all. Who am I to argue with him?

On the personality end, people are told that if they don't conform to the 2.5 kids, white picket fence, heterosexual family unit where Mom and Dad work nine to five at an office, there is something wrong with them. And woe betide anyone who may be living with a mental illness. Anyone with a mental illness is made to feel so fatally flawed as to believe that they are not allowed to find happiness.

Sensitive people in this society are targeted for bullying. This is what happened to both Rose and Lily, both of whom are highly sensitive women with a history of mental illness. When they tried to break out and express themselves, they were shot down.

Cie Cheesemeister is much the same. She edits the posts that others create and she creates some of the graphics. Once a very prolific blogger, she rarely interacts any more.

Admissibly, I'm only a sometime participant in this little venture, but I hope that in some small way my support will help my more talented friends realize that their voices are worth sharing.

Just had to get that off my chest.

Never take away a person's hope. It may be all they have to live for.

Peace,

Adam

 

Thorns and Self Injury

 

Thorns is a very cool song written by the band Demon Hunter about the topic of self injury. It might bring some comfort to someone who is suffering.

I have a history of self mutilation. It is a very complex issue. It can be correlated with conditions such as borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder (both of which I have) or with abuse. My parents were not physically abusive (there was sometimes inadvertent psychological abuse, because they were very perfectionistic.) I was bullied mercilessly in school. That was the trigger, in my case.

I don't believe in everlasting damnation, as it happens. It  it makes no sense to me that a divine creator would condemn its creations for not believing in it. I don't think that a benevolent higher power has the egotistical need for worship. That would be on par with me flushing my fish down the toilet because it had the audacity not to call me by a certain name when I fed it.

Any higher power worth its salt would be too evolved to require worship from lowly beings like ourselves. The Bible was written by human beings. It is partially a historical account of life at the time when it was written. It is fallacy to try and take it completely literally. Just my humble opinion.

Peace.

Cyberbully

I watched the 2011 film "Cyberbully" this morning. The movie had a happy ending, which often real life bullying situations do not. 

I had a hard time getting through this one. I don't know if I would have survived if there had been this additional avenue of bullying when I was a teen. As it was, I was bullied. One guy from another school, whom I had gone on a date with once, spread a rumor that he got me pregnant and I had an abortion. I was only 15. I was still a virgin. I remember him trying to grope me and me saying no. He didn't even get in my pants, let alone get me pregnant. But the rumors that I was a "slut" persisted.

I was a big girl (who turned into a big woman.) At five foot seven, I weighed 180 pounds in a world where any female who weighs over 120 is considered "fat." I had broad shoulders, moderately large breasts, a big butt, and chunky thighs. I didn't have the kind of big breasts that push straight out in front, I had the kind that spread to the side. If I wore a pushup bra, I'd have had cleavage up to my chin. I was modest, however, and tended to wear baggy shirts to hide my breasts. It didn't help much.

I had friends among the stoner crowd. The popular kids picked on me for my less than fashionable attire. My family wasn't rich. I couldn't believe how shallow these morons were, but it hurt anyway.

When I tried to kill myself, I did not get support from my mother. As I lay there in the E.R. with my wrists bandaged, she railed at me about how stupid I was for doing something like that and told me to stop looking for attention. The counselor at school gave me no help when I told her what was going on with me. She basically told me I needed to toughen up. 

I guess I was a lot smarter than I thought I was at the time, because I got through high school with mostly B's even though I was constantly ditching school.

While watching Cyberbully, there were times that I started breathing hard and my chest started to feel tight. I thought I was going to have a panic attack and felt like I might have to stop watching. I'm 45 years old, and all those feelings from those awful years came flooding back to me. In a way it felt like being raped (another thing that I have experienced) only on a psychological level. I remember feeling like trash, like I was worthless, like I deserved what happened to me.

To this day, I still have a lot of trouble believing in myself or my abilities. I still see myself as unattractive. I don't know if any of this will ever change.

I know that the filmmakers were trying to impart the message that violence does not solve anything, but the part of the movie where Lindsay the Bitch Queen and her Chief Bitch Crew are in the bathroom and Taylor (the bullying victim) comes in and they berate her for crying? I would have started swinging my shoulder bag at those cunts. None would have gotten away unscathed. I would have been suspended for school and I would suddenly have been the villain. But that is the way it would have gone down.

Bullying kills. Bullying also hurts many years after the fact. Bullying destroys lives. Isn't it time to put an end to this social evil? 

Bullies

I am tired of bullies ruining other people's lives. 

The ugliest thing is being a sanctimonious, judgmental, bullying prat. Hateful people who are seeking a scapegoat need to look inside themselves and see why their hearts are so empty of basic decency.

Bullying fat people is not "for their health." It is done to fill an emptiness in the bully. They feel the need to make themselves feel superior to someone else.

Before you point the finger at someone else's shortcomings, take a good look at yourself.