haptalaon | (no subject)

It's also an example of how health and magic interact in a really complex way.

I'm revising centering and grounding at the moment, those long neglected basic skills, and it's making me wonder how (and if) I can tell the difference between a health flare or a shutdown, and an energetic need to ground. Are they indistinguishable? Could I understand my intense sensitivity as like, an aura thing? OR can experienced workers tell with time and practice the difference between the shakes which mean they balanced out their spoons wrong, and the shakes which denote some kind of psychic drain?

This, I suppose, is legitimate justification for the idea that "no mental ill health in magic". Usually, when I see the idea expressed, it's a poorly understood image of the mentally ill as people who hallucinate a bunch. But the inability to distinguish "magic effects" from "just my everyday dissociative time-blind gender-weird sensory hell" is, I think, a good reason to require people with health stuff going on to be stable or at a certain place.

All the same, raw deal for those of us whose health oddities are indelible parts of our experience. If I can't do magic until Im stable, then I can't do it

And because stable is defined around the abilities of able-bodied people, then there are these unanswered questions like: suppose I habitually use grounding techniques for things which are in fact my funky mental health. Will this have an untoward health effects? Magic effects? I think it will work, because grounding and centering is yer basic mindful, breathing, focus on the moment, relaxation visualisation every therapist thinks they're the first one to ever teach you. So is doing it magically meaningfully distinct? Will there be consequences for confusing the two?

On a fifth hand, I'm reclaiming autism as changeling children/indigo child bullshit as an empowering stance - or trying to, I guess - like, maybe I'm this drained all the time because I'm some kind of energy nexus? That would be cool? Probably? Maybe I'm sensitive to certain foods and fluorescent lights because I'm actually a spirit entity who, like a moth, is disoriented by such things. Maybe that's more fun than being A Disable, and there's no harm to it neither. I'd like to be a moth.

But when I crash out after serious magic, as I often tend to do, it's maybe foolish to spend time adjusting my circling and energetic techniques and worrying i got hit with a counter-curse, when it's probably just an executive function crash from having successfully executed so many micro-actions in sequence.

Probably the worst thing about my job in the past year is how bloody disabling it was - I feel like I've been exhausted permanently by it - and how disabled I was made to feel - like, there's a whole lot of hope and joy I had in the future and others which feels...very far away, and like I probably won't be able to recapture fully.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Letting you know I'm reading along and thinking

You may be an empath, and yes, that would mean sometimes you get drained of energy by others, or particular type of situations (so could indeed be an energy nexus).

I think grounding and centering is a good and helpful thing to do, for most folks. It's also helpful for magical practices.

My stuff is physical with a side of neurological (migraine, in my case) rather than mental health, but:

1) I have learned I can tell the difference between 'this is a body thing', 'this is a magical thing' and 'this is a magical thing that is also a body thing'

But it took having a fair bit of data, of a kind that is, I think, riskier to build up in group work but also faster (because there are more sources of input, you are not necessarily the one in control of deciding what's happening in the ritual, may not know all the details in advance, etc.) I built a lot of that database while I had some health issues, but not all of the current set, so the risks were a bit less risky.

2) I am a huge proponent of 'one variable changes at a time' in figuring this stuff out.

So I don't try major new magical techniques when the health stuff is flaring. I stick to the stuff I'm confident about my reaction to. When I've had periods where the health stuff is extra shaky, I don't add new stuff until it's reasonable stable (whatever that 'stable' turns out to be, but a month or two of 'ok, this is how things are working reliably right now, and here's what isn't.)

When I do try a significant new magical thing, I make sure I've got time after for recovery (that usually means doing it on a Saturday, and not planning anything I have to do on the Sunday.) Unless I have a big negative reaction, I also plan on trying a new class thing a couple of times over a month or two with those precautions before I put it into regular rotation - that helps me get a much better sense for 'is it me or is it the new thing'.

2b) I take really good notes.

When I'm adding something new and substantial, I make a note of how I feel before I do that thing (mentally, physically, focus, body, any sensations or aches or whatever). I make notes right after, and then usually at a minimum a few hours later (before I go to bed, for example), the next day, and a week out. Plus any other time that makes sense. That helped me sort out a lot of what was going on, when combined with a "What was I doing in the rest of my life/how was my sleep/what was the weather"

3) I differentiate between stuff that is pretty likely to be harmless (routine energy hygiene - centering, grounding, cleansing are all things widely advised in very similar formats in many sources, both medical and otherwise, and for an extensive period of time without many significant precautions) and things that are more complex (rituals that are a more one-off and hard to repeat, like initiations or specific magical timing things) or that have more risks (triggers for things I know my body sometimes throws fits at like certain kinds of incense or movement) or are just plain newer or different in ways I don't have a good sense yet.

I am generally in the camp of 'if I feel weird, try centering, grounding, shielding, and cleansing and see if it helps'. If it's an energetic weirdness, one of those should help. If it's a physical thing, it probably won't hurt (especially if combined with 'sit down and have something hydrating to drink and maybe some suitably grounding food'.) None of those things will aggravate my medical stuff, either (except maybe the food, but it's usually really clear to me if that's the case.)

4) There's also whole sets of magic I don't do because I don't feel like I have good data to sort out the implications and I have an insufficient safety net (there's some things I'd feel more sure about if I had a coven of initiates, or a partner I shared my home with who could pick up household slack for a couple of days. Having neither, there are things I don't do.)

I mostly believe that nasty magical effects of the more deliberate form are not terribly likely to happen if you aren't going after other people with that kind of thing, or making commitments you can't keep, or other things that open you up to consquences. So a lot of my magical work is slow-build relationships with powers and entities and so on, with some give and take of favours and activities, but nothing where a failure is likely to turn critical. That takes a whole set of possible issues off my plate.

(I have been in a couple of situations where I was on the edges of if not cursing, certainly someone stirring up energetic things I was connected to - but it was usually really really clear in that case it was coming from outside me and my direct actions, and it was annoying but functional to ward it out.)

Um. I probably have more thoughts too, but some stuff!