T.M. Shannon

Hi everyone,

Yes, another while between posts. Honestly, it wouldn’t be me without the mental illness, the addiction, or the vaping and doomscrolling getting in the way of things (and sometimes sucking monumentally).

Still, it’s good to be back at the helm in time for Happy Blogday – 1 year as a .com on the 9th! Not to mention had a look at setting up emails and, why do you use crappy email where I have to set up a separate SMTP service, WordPress? C’mon, you’re better than this!

Anyway, I’ve got the electro cranking, really loving dark cyberpunk music, and playing CP2077 – new update and a DLC coming – so on that happy note, I’ll get to the content!

Content Warning – discussion of addiction

Yalla Habibi!

Arabic for, “Come on, dear,” this is crashing against my shoreline like the storm surge that hit Bondi Beach a couple of weeks back… and I persist slow, glacial, edge of the seat for a star collision in 300 years in all matters book.

Working some Fridays hasn’t helped much. Nor has the lacking motivation, that boredom/distraction, and going shooty bang-bang on choombas and gonks in Night City.

I thought the ritalin was going to be the fire under the posterior, but while it’s improved productivity, job enjoyment, concentration, and not getting narcoleptic doing the visual lane checks, progress is by inches on the off days while I’m aching to write when I’m at work.

So, I figure it’s just plain WIP fatigue, especially being a re-write/re-structure to get the book into reader’s draft territory when I’ve been so so soooo long on the project. Personally, I’m taking what I can get and being happy with it, but a little more productivity would be nice.

But as you may have noticed with that link just above, I’ve posted the revamped first scene of Three Ways in one chapter, just on 8 pages formatted – down from three chapters over 15 pages with the power of summary.

The “real conversation” was my show don’t tell mistake. Sure, show sadness in tears, anger in motion, kissy kissy in glorious amour, but that getting to meet you conversation? That’s bog standard and boring, as my manuscript assessor said, so breeze over it.

I gotta say I’m hesitant about it, and not just because of stealing ideas or getting scraped for AI (this just in, Meta’s been tracking even our incognito data without telling us – bad Zuck). It’s ye olde imposter syndrome saying, “Not good enough,” “You’ll never likes.”

And it’s been right. I posted on Bluesky and LinkedIn, got some likes, but no comments on the page as yet and very few viewers.

I suppose that’s par for the course, much smaller community and hard to peck into the audience at the moment, more to be done there. On the whole, it’s still early days for me without content to sell to people, and it’s a case of the book will be done when it’s done.

Okay, it goes to an editor next after I let that darling partner of mine have a run through, don’t want to punish the editor, the darling partner is sort-of pestering me for chapters, and I’d like to tease her with the hot stuff and the delicious food.

Onward and upward, though I wish the word and page count would go downward. Chunks to go out the second half, though. Wish me luck.

Please Don’t Be Another Forty Years

But yeah, that wilderness I’ve been jaunting in isn’t a nice place, though having despaired frequently I’m not as shame-spiralling in heading off most of the addictive triggers, plus I’m very thankful for what the Higher Power has dragged me away from.

It’s just… I can’t shake this one thing, well two, and I don’t seem to have much way to avoid it as it’s triggering from when I wake up, no let up, no escape. This wounded yet mischievous inner addict/child is still ruling the roost, and yeah, I’m at a loss – and letting that Melkite priest down.

No, I’m not letting that priest down. This is a dark, twisting, diabolical road I’m walking, and countless times I’ve been dragged away from the rope I need to hold onto, just like now. But I see it again, and I’m crawling back to it.

But after forty years of my life in this conundrum of Bipolar 1 and ADHD on a bed of schizophrenia with addiction reduction, I don’t want to go another forty dragging myself through this mud. And yeah, that means getting back to it, possibly in spite of the wounded inner child/addict.

I got a clue today, not bad for Pentecost. If you don’t know the story, Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11 (courtesy of Catholic.org) has the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and them doing their first sign and wonder – telling the Good News in many different languages.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s huge – you’re Galilean, and 50 days after the Resurrection, a week after Jesus’ ascension to Heaven, you’re talking to Parthians, Medes, Cappadocians, Romans, Cretians amongst others in their native language and ready to proselytise.

But Father didn’t touch on that in the homily, which I thought was very weird. Signs and wonders, yay, right? Not quite, and I’d fallen into the trap of the people who were only there for the loaves and fishes, not for what it meant, promised, or sought to spiritually change.

That’s not a biggy, though, kinda just that first moment before it sinks in.

Father reminded us that, until Pentecost, the apostles were in hiding. They were scared what happened to Jesus was their present fate, and it’s hard to say if there were people looking to harm them or not. But throw in those tongues of fire, and they were spurred to leave shelter.

And that’s where it hit, along with the discussion of hope in today’s reflection. What am I afraid of? What’s got me hidden in a room after the approach to Church, Christ, has retreated while the addiction takes precedence?

The Inner Fear

Took me going to my Sunday meeting to articulate this: I’m scared.

The addiction and resultant shame are a comfort blanket, a badge of honour. It’s the coping mechanism that has gotten me through my life, through a lot of twists and turns.

It’s also the action of a dopamine deficient, mischievous inner child rebelling at being quiet, putting myself in a corner, making a small target of myself in a hostile environment. That high the addiction gives, though worn with great pain, makes the inner child powerful.

But while the power comes from darkness, the inner child stained by it and not knowing any better than demand more, it frightens me that I’m trying to end it, and I feel I’m not going to heal the inner child but kill it instead.

Somewhere in recovery it’s going to lift, or at least I’ll become Simon of Cyrene, but right now it’s like I’m about to smash my face against a mirror just to spite myself.

It doesn’t help I hate the addiction, so much of it thankfully gone, some of it sent to the Higher Power, but the most insidious remaining, and the inability to shake that is disheartening – but I don’t know if I hate the inner child for the actions or causing them.

I’m not despairing this time, just a little disappointed. But it’s time to get out of this wilderness and somehow find the power to get back to other meetings, park myself behind the Step 4 preliminary questions, fight the recalcitrance to do outreach again, and live.

As always, it’s a daunting project, the shame aching for another hide-away, but I’d rather do something and slip than slip and do nothing.

Happy Pride and Catch You Later

It’s the 9th now, and Pride is in full swing, so thanks all on Bluesky for sharing your parade photos, messages of support, news of resistance and the S.H.I.T. the community is facing – I hope we beat the bastards.

Not much more to add, I’m going to park myself behind the WIP for a bit, then reload that CP2077 save and redo my perks, I gotta do some damage.

Wherever, whoever, and however you are, take care and keep fighting even if you slip,

T. M.