30 Days of De-Objectification: Heavy Metal Angel

Per Yngve Ohlin, AKA Dead

January 16, 1969 - April 8, 1991

30 Days of De-Objectification:

Heavy Metal Angel

The tragic tale of Per Yngve Ohlin, vocalist for the Swedish death metal band Morbid and the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem, evokes strong emotional responses. Per suffered from severe psychological disturbances. Reading about him in the chapters translated into English from Blod Eld Död, I have the feeling that he may have been autistic. He would become greatly upset if disturbed while performing a task. Despite his intelligence, evidenced in his thoughtful and provocative song lyrics and his clever though disturbing artwork, he did poorly in school.

After Per’s parents divorced, he changed schools. His previous classmates were used to his unusual behavior and were generally tolerant of him. His new schoolmates bullied him, and, on one occasion, beat him so severely that he ended up clinically dead. Following this event, he became obsessed with death and referred to himself as not being alive. The head trauma he incurred from the assault may have caused him to develop Cotard Syndrome, a rare condition in which a person believes their body is dead.

Although he has been gone from this world for twenty-seven years, Per continues to be exploited, both by those who insist on seeing him as some sort of icon for evil and those who look only at his physical appearance without seeing the very troubled human being behind the flowing blond hair and the striking, angular face.

Per was obsessed with occult imagery, but he wasn’t truly evil. He was angry at a world which had caused him grievous harm. Many of those who attacked him probably identified as “good Christians.” It’s no wonder that he wanted to be the opposite of his attackers or that he dreamed of being able to exact revenge against those who injured him.

As for the idea of Per being some sort of sex god, there is no evidence that he was ever sexually involved with anyone or that he even had any interest in sex. There have been fantasies written about him by a certain contingent of horny female fans, usually postulating him as some sort of vampire king or demon lord. I wish I could say these fictions were worthy of their subject. Most of them are poorly written and I wouldn’t feel right about quoting the explicit and ludicrous scenarios postulated therein.

Worst of all, there are still people who see fit to share the actual, post-suicide image photographed by Per’s former bandmate, Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth. My opinions of Aarseth are not exactly favorable, but I became somewhat more sympathetic to him after viewing interviews with his former bandmates and schoolmates, Kjetil Manheim and Jorn “Necrobutcher” Stubberud.

Regardless of my personal opinions of Euronymous, photographing the corpse of your housemate, even if you weren’t particularly kindly disposed to him, is unconscionable. As the surviving members of Morbid said on the liner of their 2011 release, The Year of the Goat, “No thanks to the distributors and buyers of the post-mortem pic. Fuck you.”

Those words of wisdom sum things up perfectly.

With love and respect,

Cie

Wordless Wednesday: In Memory of Per Yngve Ohlin

January 16 1969 - April 8 1991

Wordless Wednesday

A to Z Blogging Challenge 2014: A is for Acrobatics

Look at these people. Just look at them, doing things that if I did would end me up in the emergency room for sure.

I envy people who can do things like this. I am able-bodied at this juncture of my existence. I can walk, albeit sometimes painfully. I can groom myself and feed myself. I am capable of learning basic skills. However, I do not have a graceful or talented bone in my body, and I am anti-flexible.

In my next life I want to be acrobatic, athletic, and artistically talented so I can be amazing!

Oh yeah, and it would also be nice not to have a trifecta of mental illnesses.

~The Real Cie~

Faycin's Films: Fathers and Daughters

When he's not Fightin' Round the World, Russell Crowe is making movies. He's actually one of my preferred performers, and this looks like a wonderful drama. addressing important subjects such as mental illness. I look forward to seeing this one!

~DJ Faycin~

Blink 182: Adam's Song

I love this song, and not just because my name's in the title. ;-)

I love that they bravely took on the topic of depression and suicide ideation. 

I think that sometimes just having one's feelings acknowledged can make all the difference.

There's no shame in seeking help.

I struggled with depression and suicide ideation into my forties. The depression still comes on at times but I've learned to cope with it better and it seems to resolve more quickly. I don't take medications. I think learning good coping skills is key, but I would certainly never put down anyone who feels that they need medication. Taking medication in no way makes you a weak person.

One size does not fit all, each of us needs to find the way that works!

Love,

DJ Adam

If I'm Living on Borrowed Time, Do You Think I'm Gonna Waste My Time Conforming?

Current age: 62 and has no memories of his accomplishments or his family and friends.
Age at onset of dementia: 55 (and fuck you, Universe)

Lewy Body Dementia discovered post-suicide Age: 63

The Real Cie's aunt: probable Lewy Body Dementia, age of diagnosis: 72

Me: Age 49, will be 50 on February 15.

TRIGGER WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IDEATION

Here's what I'm noticing. This kind of shit seems to be happening in younger and younger people. I'm not a scientist. Nor am I particularly given to believing in conspiracy theories. The Illumin-Naughty seem as likely to exist as the Illuminati, as far as I'm concerned. But I do see a pattern.

I think our world is polluted as fuck, and it's killing us in various and horrible ways. I think all the people succumbing to these shitty forms of dementia have been poisoned by our toxic environment, and it isn't going to get any better anytime soon.

I evidently have a genetic trigger for this shit, and I have been thinking. I may be living on borrowed time. And if I am, I'm going to off myself when I get the diagnosis. I've taken care of people with dementia for all but five years since 1988. I am not putting myself or my son through that shit.

Given that there's a fair possibility that I'm living on borrowed time, do you know what the fuck I'm not going to do?

Care about a bunch of rules set down by a bunch of stodgy, imagination-impaired, heartless, inflexible assholes. 

Believe as I do. Don't believe as I do. I really don't care. But don't fucking tell me how to think and feel. I was never going to conform to your standards anyway. Given that I may only have five or ten years left, I'm going to conform to them even less.

I have an open mind about metaphysical possibilities. I'm not going to close my mind because my beliefs make some people uncomfortable.

I love what and who I love. If you have a problem with that, take a look in the damn mirror as you point your finger at me. Then take a look at the three fingers pointing back at you.

I'm actually not afraid of this possibility. I'm pretty stoic about it. I've had suicide ideation pretty much all my life. I'm not afraid to die. My life hasn't been an easy one. Sometimes I think the easiest thing in the world would be to down a whole bunch of pills with a butt ton of alcohol and just let the world fuck off at last. I'm sick and tired of hearing what a fuckup I am echoing in my damn head all the time.

I'm not doing it today. So don't get your hackles up searching my URL to try and find out where I'm located. This isn't a "right now" suicide note. This is a "if I'm diagnosed with dementia I'm offing myself" note. Because fuck that shit.

So anyway, if I believe in the possibility of ghosts and incarnate people communicating with each other and maybe even becoming friends or falling in love, who the fuck is anyone else to tell me I can't believe that? 

If I believe the personality survives the death of the body, who the fuck is anyone to tell me I can't believe that?

If I believe in an afterlife, but not an afterlife that adheres to some particular set of dogma created by a bunch of stodgy old fucks to control the masses, well, that is what I believe. If it brings you comfort to think of me frying in a fiery pit because of my beliefs, perhaps you're the sick fuck, not me. 

If I believe in reincarnation, how the fuck is that hurting you?

People are always so all-fired hot to tell other people what they should and shouldn't think and feel. I've had it up to here with that shit. None of us knows for sure what happens after we die. My theories are as valid as anyone else's. More to the point, I don't shove them down anybody's throat. 

I guess my point is this. I don't know if I'm living on borrowed time or not, but I damn well could be. Do you think I'm gonna waste that time trying to please anybody by conforming to their particular reality? I can't live your damn reality, nor do I want to. I can only live my own. 

Stop trying to tell other people what to believe, think and feel. As long as what you're doing isn't hurting anybody else, it's nobody's damn business.

One thing I aim to do. When I do get to the other side, whenever that is, I am going to give both of the dudes pictured a great big warm hug, because they both touched my life for the better and both pulled me through when I was a very sad, lonely, and bullied teenager. I wished both of them could be my friends.

I totally shipped "Mork" as my best platonic friend back in the day, and you will never guess which band was Mork's and my favorite. When you're a sad and miserable twelve or thirteen year old, that kind of thing can mean a lot.

When people judge another person's reality based on their own set of experiences, they do the person they're judging a great disservice.

Both Malcolm Young and Robin Williams taught me a lot. The biggest thing they taught me is that having compassion is the most important thing. As neither of them are conventionally attractive, they also taught me that true beauty is in the soul. Not that either of them are ugly, but neither of them would ever be considered "hunky" by any stretch of the imagination.

Both of them struggled with depression and addiction issues. These are certainly things to which I can relate. 

These are beautiful people--truly beautiful people, not Hollywood hyped beautiful on the outside hollow on the inside glamour seeking glory grabbers. If I do end up being one of the many succumbing to the horror of dementia, at least I will know I am in glorious company. I love you Mal, and I love you Robin. And I do not give one single fuck what anyone thinks of that statement.

I guess I've said what I need to say. It pretty well boils down to this. Quit fucking judging. You do not know what another person is going through or what they have been through. Since you haven't experienced their life, you aren't qualified to judge it.

I can't live as if there's no tomorrow, because my Last Day may be here sooner than I ever would have imagined. I have to get what I can done in what time I may have left. I'm not wasting that time conforming to anyone else's bullshit standards.

~Cie~

Wordless Wednesday: We Love You Angel

Original Eye in the Sky image credit:

Copyright: zadvinskiy / 123RF Stock Photo

Photoshop manipulation to add Lewy Body Dementia awareness ribbon:

DJ Cheesy

Silly Sunday: Fits for Bipolar As Well

Long as you can keep on keeping on, sometimes the best thing to do is laugh at the effed-up hand you've been dealt. I know that's what I like to do whenever possible!

Bipolar disorder messed up my life in a lot of ways before I learned how to manage it.

I'll never be normal, but, meh, normal's overrated!

Stay silly, y'all.

~DJ Rose~

Review of Naruto #629

This young man does an excellent job with his review of this episode in the Naruto series.

Naruto is a Japanese manga, which was first published in 1997. It was later made into an anime, which ran from October 3, 2002 to February 8, 2007.

The folks from Monday's Music Moves Me reminded me that it's Labor Day in the U.S. I'm going to do something a little different and dedicate this Sad Songs collection from Naruto to my kindred spirits who labor on in a life with mental illness. 
Every member of the KHEL 666 Krew lives with mental illness. I have type 2 bipolar disorder, and I know that what comes easily to normal people is often a struggle for those of us who are mentally ill. For us, staying alive can be a struggle, and not everyone wins the battle.

We've all heard the well-meaning advice. "Just cheer up. Just stop that stinkin' thinkin'. I know just how you feel." 

The problem with the last one in particular is that if the person saying those words doesn't have a mood disorder, then they really don't know how it feels.Think about how you felt the last time something really bad happened to you. Sometimes we feel that way for what would seem to be no reason at all. It can become impossible to perform optimally when just getting out of bed is a struggle.

We've also heard things which are far less well-meaning. Lazy. Crazy. Stupid. Words like this certainly don't help. In fact, this kind of stigma causes people living with mental illness to remain ostracized and to be ashamed to seek help. In some cases, these words even kill.

It seems like many creative people struggle with mental illness. In fact, the same areas of the brain responsible for creativity are also heavily involved in conditions such as bipolar disorder, so there is a strong correlation. However, not all creative people are mentally ill, and not all mentally ill people are creative.

Creative pursuits can help people with mental illness cope with the difficulties they face. I wish I could say I was artistic, but I'm hard pressed even to draw stick figures. I like to write because it gives me an outlet for my emotions, and, for a time, takes me away from a life which has been very difficult in many ways.

Whatever your Labor in this life--whether you have a mental illness, a physical handicap, or are simply trying to keep on keeping on in this sometimes harsh world, I wish you well today and every day.

Peace,

DJ Helena

Cross-Posted to:

Crazy Town in Looney Land

KHEL 666

My Friend Mork

July 21 1951 - August 11 2014

The post below is simply a cut and paste of responses, one made as a comment on a blog post, one made as a reply to a comment on a blog post created by two Team Netherworld teammates. I wanted to share these thoughts of mine to illustrate what Robin Williams, and specifically his character Mork, meant to a troubled young woman in need of a friend.

I was eighteen and started my one semester living in a dorm at C.U. Boulder in 1978. I had a very hard time adjusting. I drank a lot and did drugs. I was sexually assaulted by an acquaintance. I ended up attempting suicide.

Robin Williams' funny portrayal of Mork helped me heal more than counseling did. I loved Mork. I felt like he wouldn't have judged me. I daydreamed about him being my friend. Not my boyfriend, but a platonic friend. I wished that Mork could be real. I sometimes drove past the Mork and Mindy house.

I don't know how I couldn't have seen that Robin was suffering from depression. He was one of my favorite people. I know there's nothing I could have done. I just feel a bit ashamed for being so oblivious.

http://thewildpomegranate.com/2014/08/12/when-the-wild-things-cry-part-ii

I survived a suicide attempt made at the age of 18. I wasn’t treated as badly as some friends have reported being treated when being placed on a psychiatric unit, which is pretty amazing for the time (1978.) However, I did feel like I was condescended to and viewed as less than human.

My first introduction to Robin Williams was the same as for many people, the Mork and Mindy TV show. I was a lonely young lady and I sometimes daydreamed that it would be wonderful if Mork could be my real life friend. I had a pair of rainbow suspenders to try to remind me to see the positive things in life. I cried and cried when I heard of Robin’s passing. How could I have no idea that someone who meant so much to me, even if I didn’t know him, was suffering so? The tears of a clown, I suppose.

http://dothedead.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/the-netherworld-welcomes-robin-williams-and-a-little-angel

Mork and Robin forever reside in the Netherworld and in my heart.

Love always,

DJ Dolly

Social Blogger Post #1: Meet DJ Illin' Illsa

The Social Blogger blog hop is hosted by Anna of Herding Cats and Burning Soup. Click here to check out her most recent post. I'm going to follow her format for a first Social Blogger post.

I'm DJ Illin' Illsa. Here are five items of interest about me. There will be a quiz later! ;-)

• Like the other members of Team KHEL 666/Team Netherworld, I live with mental illness. I have type 2 bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and PTSD. I also have OCD. As I commented at Anna's blog: I don't have food issues and I'm not a germophobe. I have trouble throwing things out because of an overwhelming anxiety that I might need it later. I have boxes and bags of crap that I sometimes force myself to go through. It makes me very anxious. Also, I'm a picture straightener, and I can't stand to see mismatched pushpins (two different colors.) It drives me crazy! So yes, I have a touch of OCD! In addition, although I'm not afraid of any numbers, there are certain numbers that I like particularly. If I have to make a choice between ten items, for instance, I'll choose the fifth or the seventh.
• My father died in a motorcycle crash when I was fifteen. He was just 38 years old. (Would have been 38 in 2 weeks. He died on July 16. His birthday would have been August 2.) It's strange to me that I am now older than he ever got to be. His death was devastating to our family. I acted out a lot after his death. My older brother tried hard to be the "man of the family," but he was only seventeen himself. I was hurting a lot, and I was out of control. I have since thanked my brother for everything he did during that difficult time. (P.S. I love you, Hank.)
• My real surname is Göring. Yeah, like the Nazi leader. You can imagine the shit I got for that growing up. I chose Gorrey as a pen surname because I love the quirky and creepy cartoons by Edward Gorey. 
• I love to write horror and sci-fi. I write the dreaded fan fiction along with the other members of Team Netherworld, but our fan fiction is unlike any other. It's quirky and unique, just like the people writing it. We take characters from movies and television programs we love, or we take the characters out of movies we hated but we liked the characters in spite of how terrible the movie was. Some of them are visitors to our realm, The Netherworld. Such visitors include Harry Potter and Dr. Who, often at the same time. Some of them are fugitives, refugees from their own crappy time and bad dimension (Alien 3, Alien Resurrection.) Some are characters whose time came to an end in the material world. (Tony Soprano, J.R. Ewing.) We also have an ever-growing roster of original characters. Our "for public consumption" blog is The Netherworld. Our deep cuts blog is Undead in the Netherworld.
• For the longest time I had a big crush on Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss) but I was dismayed to find out that he's kind of an idiot in person. So it goes. To any rate, he's played some of Team Netherworld's favorite characters, and I have to respect his acting chops.

Here are five items of interest about KHEL 666:

• While we rather obviously love the heavy metal genre in all its varied forms, we also love other kinds of music. This is a very eclectic blog, and all tastes in music are respected.
• Satanists are not what most people think, but in spite of the name of the blog, none of us are Satanists. KHEL 666 was the call letters chosen for The Netherworld's most popular radio station. The "HEL" part of the call letters refers to the Norse Goddess of the Underworld, Hel. The "666" refers to the theatrical and often tongue in cheek or hyperbolic usage of the number 666 by heavy metal bands.
• We don't allow bots to spider our site. This might limit the number of potential visitors, but we have also found that it limits the number of potential trolls. We would rather have a small, friendly following than have lots of hits but also lots more crap from trolls.
• KHEL 666 was founded in 2006. It was first referenced at our now archived blog, Rattling Bones Undead Musician Magazine. The blog you see before you was founded in 2012.
• The main DJ's for KHEL 666 Radio Netherworld are Bill S. Preston and Ted "Theodore" Logan for the KHEL 666 Morning Crunch (6 AM to 10 AM), Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar for the KHEL 666 Lunch Hour (10 AM to 2 PM), Beavis and Butthead for KHEL 666 Rush Hour (2 PM to 6 PM), DJ Eddie Head for Evenings with Eddie (6 PM to midnight) and DJ Badass Brittney of the famed Naked Gymnastics for Jesus with Brittney's Bitchin' Witching Hour (midnight to 6 AM.) The weekend DJ's are varied, but include Evil Ed and Chachi Arcola. 

Thanks to Anna for hosting this fun platform to allow our visitors to know us a little better. Now, we'll have to see how many of them stick around and how many of them run off and hide, quavering in fear!

~DJ Illin' Illsa~

Sending you off with a classic tune from DJ Eddie's band, Iron Maiden.

Young Noble Feat. Rip the General: Smoke the Pain Out

TRIGGER WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SUICIDE IDEATION

You may be saying to yourself:

"Petra, how the hell can a middle-aged white broad relate to what these guys are saying?"

Let me tell you.

I've never experienced living in the ghetto or losing my friends to gang violence. I lived in suburbia--the run down part, not the new subdivision. School violence consisted of fist fights. My school was pretty damned homogeneous. There were a few Latinos, a couple of black kids, and a couple of Asians. For the most part, we were white as white could be. So no, I have not experienced the culture these guys are talking about.

What I do understand very well is this line:

"I smoke the blunt to take the pain out and if I wasn't high I'd probably try to blow my brains out."

I got called Pothead Petra back in the day. My fellow smokers said it with admiration. Those who think that "users are losers" said it with disdain.

I wasn't stupid. I got good grades. I was Goth. I was theatrical. Sometimes the darkness welled up inside me and threatened to consume me. I was sure the Devil was coming to take my soul. I thought I was so bad, so wrong, so filled with original sin that God had rejected me and this is why I felt so bad all the time.

At other times I felt like there was a wild beast inside of me that was trying to rip its way out. This beast really didn't want to harm anybody (although if some of the sneering ones had gotten in its way they may well have lost their heads.) 

The Beast was bored of the lame ass crap that the school was cramming into our brains. It wanted to tear out, jump through the window, and run off down the highway in search of the nearest rock concert. It wanted to drink wine and dance naked and maybe have sex if it found a particularly appealing fellow, but honestly, sex didn't much enter into the thought process. It was mostly about having carefree, wild fun--about being able to at last express what I was feeling inside.

But I couldn't. The wild me wouldn't be accepted, and certainly the gloomy, melancholy, anguished me wouldn't be. So I drank and I smoked. The others who smoked with me seemed to like me well enough, but I don't think they understood me.

I didn't understand me.

I graduated high school, went to college, met a guy, got married, had kids, got divorced, had lots of shitty relationships, trusted the wrong people time and again, and hated myself. A movie was always playing in my head that I desperately wanted to come true. It hurt like all the fires of hell that it couldn't.

It took me what may well be more than half a lifetime to start accepting myself.

Before writing off people like the guys in the video, take the time to try and understand where they're coming from. Take the time to try and understand the circumstances they come from.

Users are not always losers.

I always hated that damn PSA.

I'm no longer Pothead Petra, and I haven't been for a long time. That doesn't make me some kind of saint. 

I now understand the nature of the beasts within me. There's a psych diagnosis for that. It doesn't mean that the things I felt are invalid.

Until we can all start to open our hearts and love a little more, to really love and accept each other, people are going to have to smoke or drink or shoot up or pop a pill to take the pain out. And it's not right to judge them for feeling like that's what they have to do in a world full of pain. 

We can hope that one day they don't feel the need to do those things any more. What we shouldn't be doing is using words like "loser" to describe these actions. Being an addict or hurting so much that you can't see any way except to dull the pain with substances does not make a person a loser. It makes them a soul in need of compassion. 

There's enough harshness in the world. Let's try to understand our fellow travelers a little better before we point fingers and cast judgment.

Peace,

DJ Petra

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.

Flash Friday 55: Sleep Pod

Sometimes hope flies away on ghostly butterfly wings, which have been crushed multiple times.

I want to fly away with hope.

To cocoon myself until it's safe to wake up

And be who I really am.

But I don't think that will ever happen.

Eveyone likes clowns.

No one likes the freak behind the mask.

 

Share your stuff here if you want. It's a writing game by a fellow by the name of G Man, and he does it every Friday.

 

Cross-posted to:

KHEL 666

Torrid Tempest

Undead in the Netherworld

 

Note:

I don't really want to come off as an asshole to people who may be "meeting" me for the first time, but the first one who tells me I "need to be on meds" needs to go jump off a cliff. I've been bipolar probably since I was 10 years old, though I wasn't diagnosed until I was 38. I don't need any armchair psychologists trying to analyze me when I'm expressing myself during what happens to be a drop on the mood disorder roller coaster, thank you very much.

To those who might have appreciated the work, sorry for the defensiveness. It's something that I've unfortunately become rather accustomed to.

 

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!

Pain and Mental Illness

Steven wrote a poem about pain to go with his insightful painting. I wanted to share my response.

I live with chronic low-grade pain (which I almost spelled "pane.") What color would it be? Muted red, perhaps. On a good day, light pink. Like my mental illness, I'm used to it. Unlike my mental illness, there is never a question that I would get rid of the pain if I were able.

The mental illness has affected the way I think, and I have had it all my life. I sometimes think if it were taken away, I might not know how to deal with the world as a "normal" person. 

Just like some people who have been blind all their lives have trouble navigating the world if by some miracle their sight is restored. I am blind to what it is to be "normal."

I also wanted to respond to Adam's very kind post in which he mentioned my struggles.

I was initially discouraged by the asshattery of other people. Then I overcame that. Now I'm discouraged by the publishing process. It is NOT FUN! It is expensive and time-consuming. It probably doesn't help that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. I hate being my own publicist. If you can't afford to have a team helping you promote your work, and you don't enjoy doing this sort of shit by yourself, woe betide you.

So, yeah, I don't know if I'll ever publish another book. I'm going to get the one I'm (still) working on out there, but that might be it. I don't expect to get a huge readership for it, not nearly enough to cover the expenses of getting it published. 

And that's currently where I stand.

 

 

 

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

 

The Tragic Story of Badfinger

The tragic story of one of my favorite classic rock bands.

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.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

I don't have this to the degree that these people do, but I've always thought that I was quite ugly.