Dark secrets of repair kits

Feb 3, 2019Feb 20, 2019 Maria Magdalena HulderLeave a comment

Where do I find the beginning of heaven? Can I find it where the swinging treetops stop, where the swallovs are dancing their airballet with the last summers litter of chickens? Is it at the highest of mountains, over the rainbow, above the next hilltop, or is it where the grass sprouts in freshly sown soil warmed by the april sun? Are we in that case allready in heaven? Is heaven barely space between planets and stars? Is heaven a physical condition like ecstacy, happiness, or satisfaction? Is heaven peace of mind? Is heaven something that is, like strawberries with cream, a delicious, home-baked piece of pie, a skydive, new driver licence, or straight A’s at the final exam? Or is heaven something that is not, like the absence of sorrow and suffering? Can I find the beginning of heaven at the end of my own personal hell? Or is heaven all of this? If heaven comes after hell; if heaven comes after all of this, what will there be after heaven? More of heaven, or nothing? Just vacuo?

I saw Nirvana in a tube of glue in my fifteenth summer. I was introduced to the dark secrets of the repair kits in the backyard of a local gas station right next door to the stadium where I for many years had jumped both high and far, and ran an endlessly number of rounds on red, brick coloured gravel. At school we had been through more than one period of awarness to the danger of drinking, smoking and heroin addiction, but never had any adult had a serious chat with us about sniffing glue.

We had plowed through books such as Hard Asphalt and We children of Banhof Zoo. I was terrified of heroin. I was terrified by the bare thought of becomming a junky or a drunk. I was scared to death to end up like Ida Halvorsen or Christiane F.. I would never have touched heroin. I still hadn’t got the taste for alcohol, but I let my self convince by the innocence of a substance anyone could buy at a sporting goods store without id or permission from home. No warning from parents nor teachers. Highly recommended by the school’s very misguided slut. We found what we searched for in that tiny tube. Some found excitement. I found Nirvana.

I traveled to the music from the rotor blades on a helicopter I couldn’t see. Somebody gave me a plastic bag with a few drops of glue, I put it against my lips and breathed in and out a couple of times. Then the helicopter arrived and took me away to the most peacefull place.

It was the most delightful of all delightful glades in the mildest of all mild forrests on the most wonderful of all wonderful summer days. The sun was shining through the crowns of birch trees and made the sky shimmer as a ballroom queen, and the leaves of the blossoming aspen was shivering of excitment in it’s summer green. The legs of the birch trees stood proud in their youth; smooth and white as snow, rough and black as charcoal. The ground was covered in soft and warm grass, uncut and disheveled, bright green and sweet. Somewhere between here and there a creek was trickling her melody accompanied by birds arguing over territory. A kitten blinked lovingly at me, and I laid down and let my self be filled with perfected peace.

Then it was over as soon as it had begun, and I was back in the shadows in the filth in that backyard next to my childhoods stadium of glory which was now a part of my past. Forgotten like my innocence was buried in the ground of an hallucination. My mind and soul was screaming for more, and my heart was filled of longing for what I would never experience, never feel again. And God knows I tried. I searched everywhere, or at least at those weird, hidden places were I most likly would find what I was longig for. In an old, abondoned truck. In a playhouse at a neighbours house. In my own bed. At school. In someones caravan. In someone else’s garage. The last place I searched was in the tower of some playground equipment in a small town in southern Germany. There I found something else. A big raven with shiny, black feathers and ancient eyes came flying over my head and landed on my left shoulder. Suddenly my search was over.

One year later I finished secondary school. I celebrated somewhere between completely wasted and comatose.

Hitting rock bottom

Jan 5, 2019Jan 14, 2019 Maria Magdalena Hulder2 Comments

Day 45, august 29. 2017

You might think that falling asleep using your doormat as a pillow because you couldn’t find the keys which slipped through your fingers and landed on the floor two feet from where your head hit the doormat the night before, is what’s called hitting rock bottom, but no! Unless this is something that occur more than once or twice in a lifetime, this is only a sign of a night at the local pub that got slightly out of hand, with friends whos partyfactor is a little over the top. No, I hit rock bottom years before my cheek hit my very uncomfortable doormat.

It’s suprisingly easy to hit rock bottom when you feel abandoned, lost and lonley. Especially if your emotions, and not to mention your ability of judgment is sedated with substances you can buy at the liquor store, the farmacy and those slightly more sleazy parts of the open market.

Take a good look at this picture! This was taken years after my heart, mind and soul was ripped apart at their seams and spread with the winds like the violence of a hurricane within. It was years since I was wandering in the dark searching for something, anything that could give me a clue about who I am. I guess that’s what’s called an utterly, devastating identity crisis. When this picture was taken I was on my way back on track.

I had found the first little piece of my self in an article about Judas Iskariot, of all things, in National Geographic, recovering from a spontaneous pneumothorax, (just google the damn thing!), at the intensiv care at the Akershus University hospital. Yes, I was very high on morphin at the moment. I was also wasted the entire eight weeks when I graduated with three straight A’s at my bachelor-degree, but that’s not the point. I didn’t lose my self to drugs. I lost my self to bullies and psychopaths.

Nevertheless… I had managed to graduate some subjects as math, science, history, english etc. and was at the moment studying at Oslo Met to become a teacher of art and craft when I hit rock bottom. Yes, I’m saying I was on my way up when I fell down, again, and hit rock bottom. I guess that’s how recovery from shit happens; ups and downs and ups again. I hit rock bottom somewhere near Trondheim. This was the point where I asked my self the big question «WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING???». The picture above is a consequense of me hitting rock bottom. Or rather: rock bottom hitting me. Really hard. In my face. It was when I announced my departure, (from the rock bottom), that he hit me. With a howling biip at a decibel equal to a rather big kindergarden ringing in my left ear, I considered burning the house down with the rock bottom inside, but I decided that I wouldn’t spend one more minute of my life on the rock bottom, especially not in jail. As mentioned earlier I can’t have kittens doing time which again would make me very unhappy. This photo has kept the rock bottom at a proper distance of minimum two hundred and seventy miles ever since I published it on facebook, so my worries about a lack of cats in my life was fortunatly proven wrong.

Wether I pour gazoline over a mans head and set him on fire, or not, doesn’t really have anything to do with what he has or has not done. It all depends on my ability to control my self, my urges, to analyze the consequences of my actions and choose my life, and my future over the exquisite satisfaction of his sudden death. I hit the rock bottom because I chose not to listen to my own judgement. Those alarming bells ringing in my ears, and those red lights blinking behind my eyelids. I deliberatly chose to ignore them. Deliberatly in that sence that I had been manipulated my hole life not to believe in my self. I came to some brutal conclusions that summer. Took some unsentimental choices. Burned a lot of bridges. Then I started the hard work it is taking back control of one’s own life.

Stress managment. Coping strategies. Mindfullness. The sound of these words bring me to the edge of hyperventilation. Just a smack on my lips of these expressions, and I feel my muscels tighten all the way from my butt to my eyebrows. Because if I want to learn this, I have to get in touch with my feelings, which each and every singel cell in my body is protesting against. I have to sit down in my all so brave psychologists office and dig up every little shitty feeling I have buried with the rotting corps of my lost soul. Anger and hate. Fear and sorrow. Insecurity, shame, vindictiveness. Jealousy and loneliness. Every little feeling this poor wretch has denied since nursery stage shall be dragged to the surface and analyzed, one by one, and then I have to learn how to cope with them. Makes me feel like a pussy in front of Trump; defenseless and vulnerable. My shrink has spent two years only to make me sit still long enough to finish one such exercise. She’s very patient that lady, but we did it. Not because she didn’t give up, it’s her proffesion after all, but because I didn’t give up. I made the decision to stop oppressing my self. To care for my heart, my mind and my soul. To acknowlege my feelings because my life is shaped by them.

Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to have a beer and don’t give a fuck.

Anger issues

Dec 10, 2018Oct 20, 2019 Maria Magdalena HulderLeave a comment

Day 40, august 24., 2017

I need change! When I woke up yesterday morning with my head resting on my not so comfortable doormat with my keys, which I couldn’t find the night before, lying on the floor two feet from my face, and the steaming fresh morning paper at my feet, I thought to my self that it’s time to change.

I’m seeing a shrink. I both adore and hate her. The last therapist I had didn’t get it. Or maybe he did. He was so scared of me that he cancelled all our appointments. Or at least that was what I thought, but as the matter of fact he wasn’t a shrink at all. He was a specialist nurse. He didn’t know what he was doing. Not in my case. That was probably why he cancelled all our appointments. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but that wasn’t what I was there for. To meet some nice guy. The shrink I’m seeing now knows her thing. She’s not afraid of anything. That’s why I love her. She’s constantly asking me to get in touch with my feelings. I don’t want to get in touch with my feelings. That’s why I hate her. She’s asking me what I’m thinking of, and then she’s telling me to connect with my feelings. I’m thinking about beheading somebody with a handsaw, cut off every finger after breaking every joints, skin somebody alive and soaking them in ammonia, crush someones head with a baseball bat or just turn the knot on someone. Litterally. But I can’t do that. Because then I’ll end up in prison, and as a prisoner I can’t have a cat, and without a cat I’ll feel so god damn miserable. I guess that’s what they call anger issues.

I feel like being some where between totally wasted and comatose, but I don’t have time for that, because I have expectations to fulfill. I have appointments. I have to meet people. I have to smile, to hug, to make everybody laugh, even though I would rather lie on the couch with my cat sleeping on my face and drown myself in his vibrating, fury, little body and never get up ever again. I feel like being a prophet of doom, who fires off frightful prophecies and writes divine manifestos nobody understands, but I’ve been there. I’ve done that. It was exhausting, and I lost all my friends because everybody thought I was insane, but I wasn’t. I was seriously incorrectly medicated. I didn’t even need meds. What I needed was sex. Loud, sweaty, physical love and a pat on the shoulder now and then from someone who said «Just relax! You’ll be allright! You’ll survive!», but there was no one there. Everybody were gone. Every single one of my camerados were locked up. In jail. For violence. For murder. For drugs. Everyone who understood me was locked up way out of my range. It was seriously, fucking depressing! At that point I really got to feel in touch with my emotions. All by myself. All alone. Perhaps I should write a book about that. About getting in touch with my feelings. Or maybe I should just get a lobotomy and be done with it.

I want a horse, but most of all I want change. So I’ve decided to take 365 sober days. Days I’ll spend working on my emotions and experience new stuff. I did well at first, but then I messed up again. I honestly didn’t believe I would do a hole dried up year just with a snap of my fingers. It takes time to change a way of life. To get rid of bad habbits. It takes a lot of effort to learn to deal with your issues without drowning them in mood regulating subtances no matter if you buy them at the liquor store, the farmacy or at some of those slightly more sleazy parts of the open market, but I have to pull myself together. You see; I’ve signed up for a course in Japanese. I don’t have any particular purpose with it. I just saw and ad on facebook and suddenly I had signed up. I doubt that I’ll regret it. I don’t know if I can complete, but I need to clean up my act and sharpen my senses. When you fall asleep on your doormat because you can’t find your keys lying right in front of your feet, it takes a couple of days before your senses is anything near being sharp. Two days ago I embraced my doormat. From now on I’ll embrace the change!