Christmas Eve, Eve, Now, And Zen.

Six years ago today the Social Security Administration after horribly traumatizing and an already traumatized woman who was living in fear, even terror, most of the time, had this same woman involuntarily placed in a locked padded room staring at the possibility of being there through Christmas.  This was after letting her drive in hysterical tears from the SSA office, to her therapist's office, where her therapist managed to get her calmed down enough that she wasn't ready to take her own life.  This also involved having her take double her usual dose of tranquilizer and sending her home.

Still, the SSA sent the local police to her house with the lights on with orders to either take her to the hospital, or supervise her until EMS could come pick her up.  She was given no choice. Either go to the hospital willingly, or wait for EMS.  She went with the nice policeman and was locked into a padded room.   She sat in that locked padded room as people came wandering in and out, asking her questions and trying to decide if she was a danger to herself or anyone else.  She managed to get released and not have to spend the holiday locked up, but that damage was done.

It's now six years later.

So she lives in a different kind of fear. Yet she does a marginally better job of managing that fear.  It's good not to be locked away on Christmas Eve, Eve.  By the same token she sometimes wonders if she might be safer locked away.  Not safer from herself, but from the kind of dark, lunatic, fringe that doesn't seem to be the fringe anymore.  People everywhere are becoming increasingly dangerous and hostile over things they cannot control and know little or nothing about.  Conspiracy theorists are popping up everywhere, not just on the far right, but everywhere. And they have conspiracy theories about conspiracy theories.  It's bedlam.  This includes Facebook, especially Facebook.

So while she does her absolute best to stay calm, present, and focused on what is, and is not real, and treating everyone with love, compassion and empathy, many people just go completely off the reservation trying to spread insanity to her.  The anger, pain, and lack of stability makes her wonder if she might not be safer in a locked room with no access to (self proclaimed) seemingly "normal" people who suddenly turn into mindless zombies ranting about things that may or may not be real, all while they refuse to see what is plainly before them.

On Facebook, she's become particularly adept at completely blocking people when it becomes clear they are interested only in being right, and shoving their own brand of rage down her throat.  She's not suffering fools gladly anymore and that's a big change from then.  She's a whole bunch more Zen.  Mainly because it's a defense against the growing madness of entire classes of people who have come unhinged.

She's taken to blocking friends of friends because they have lost the ability to manage their own impulses and have to be right about something that had nothing to do with the topic at hand.  Meditation and an eye on history that many seem to have lost keeps her from losing what little of her mind is left, keeps her focused on this moment, and helps her to see that quite often what she might once have thought was her own shortcoming really has nothing to do with her.

If you engage fear, let it smolder within you, and fan that smoke into flames you will succeed in setting yourself aflame for no good reason.  If you wish to burn yourself down on a heady dose of the toxic soup of misinformation, lies and pure full on paranoia, I will say a silent prayer to the universe for your lost soul, and go back to my own life, trying to make the best of it I can with what I have to work with.  The woman above?  Yeah, that was me, and I spent the day locked inside my own little corner of reality staying away from dangerous people as best I could.  I blocked someone else's friend so that I cannot see his posts, and he cannot see mine, because he's set on setting himself on fire.  I wish him well with that, but want no part of it.