Mental Health Support

Nobody in our family died on the streets, even the sorts who talked only to ants crawling up and down the trees.

I'm an ant whisperer too. The ants and I have a treaty. The ants can have the compost heap but not the kitchen. Our organic gardener treaty has held for more than a decade now.

My dysfunctional grandma understood hot metal, dogs, horses, and when she was young, hot horny sailors. Nobody else. Beyond that she was insane. My siblings and I went with it. She was gentle with children. We couldn't understand why adults expected anything more of her. Grandma was what she was. No reason to fight with her. I was a homeless guy living in my car and she sent me a hundred bucks a month for food and my post office box. My only "real life" then was in my post office box and an internet connection some other crazy person had given me. (I first logged onto the internet in 1979. I've been here since.)

My grandma's "career" was shipyard hot metal, the "luck" of a World War II Rosie-the-Riveter. She got a job and worked it well until she retired.

Beyond that my grandma's life was a never-ending catastrophic soap opera. Without family she'd have died on the streets as a mean, mean, mean nasty old bag lady. She was nasty. She could kill or castrate a man with her tongue. Her mom, OMG, she could cut apart small mammals and fish for dinner faster than you could see her hands move.. My most likely relative to have killed a man and called her friend the county sheriff-coroner to clean up the mess and file the proper paperwork.

All the women in my family are strong wild American west. For the men it's a wild, often terrifying, ride.

A quarter of my grandma is in my genes. The other 3/4 of me is similar, none "normal." Rocket scientist, Hollywood, and artist.

But nobody in this world is "normal." They all just pretend, some better than others.

In my world it's always okay to be yourself so long as you are not a danger to yourself or others. I've always been "mostly harmless;" a danger to myself more than others, even when, as Dr. Who says, I don't know what I'm doing.

When I was in middle school I used to simply walk or run away whenever things got too heavy. My mom and dad figured I'd be home for dinner, and mostly I was. Two of my siblings ran away from home at sixteen. I just quit high school for college. I'm not so courageous But I think my feral childhood spared me a lot of grief. Every damned waking and dreaming minute of my life is a "trigger."

The only thing possible in my world is to "be yourself."

You've accomplished good here on DU, HereSince1628. Leave or stay, that will remain.