Month: August 2016

Hate Mail

As mentioned in the last entry, I’ve been meaning to write about hate mail. 

I’ve never pushed this blog too hard. I post it on facebook and on my twitter feed, that’s about it. It’s personal in nature and not for everyone, and I figure if people are meant to find it they will. It gets 2500-3000 hits per month, which is already more than I ever imagined it would.

I like being a small fish in a big pond. As much as it appears that I love attention, which I do, I only really like attention that I can control. Meaning I love attention from friends who love me, I’m terrified of attention from strangers who hate me. 

When things were heating up with Cycle Sluts from Hell I loved being on big stages playing to large crowds. I loved the exchange of energy that comes with a good show: people wanting to touch you, the fists in the air, the feeling of being all powerful, the feeling of connection. My id dancing with your id. I did not like one on one conversations offstage with people asking me about myself and my band. I felt too exposed and would usually crack jokes to deflect attention. When out of my element, I often came off cold and bitchy, which still happens sometimes. It’s a defensive posture. i was so shy as a kid that I literally couldn’t get words out. I wanted to speak, my mouth wouldn’t work. In adulthood it manifests into a sort of insular way of behaving toward strangers. Many people I know have anecdotes about how coldly I behaved the first time they met me. I do a lot of apologizing. 

But now I’m grown up and better equipped to not be an asshole when a new person tries to talk to me. Although my sister still hisses, “Be nice!!” under her breath when making introductions. And with the maturity of age you would think that I would be a little thicker skinned. But I’m not. Any little bit of not-nice mail sends me into a nervous tizzy. I have people out in this world who dislike me, but I know most of them and I think they’re jerks too. And I don’t have to hear from them. And that’s the way I like it. 

So cut to the meltdown or whatever I can call the last year and a half. From the outside it looks like I left my amazing, hilarious, loving, handsome, kind, generous partner of 13 years for no reason for a boy young enough to be my son. If I had money I’d probably be driving a new convertible sporting the female version of hairplugs, whatever that might be (long blonde extensions?). This guy knows…




That’s from the outside; the truth is far more complicated and agonizing. But the end result has been the same. I couldn’t write, sleep, was manic and drinking too much, acting out. Some of Drew’s friends hate me. I can see people giving me the side-eye when I’m out at shows, predatory women stalk my blog and facebook page looking for ways to get to Drew. My family clucks and discusses crazy me over dinner. I’ve always been the crazy one, no matter how hard I try to be good. I’m like a much sluttier and less chipper version of Maria–no asset to the abbey whatsoever.




The jig was up. I finally had confirmation about what I’ve always secretly believed to be true– that I am a psycho, faithless, off-the-rails, selfish piece of shit unworthy of love.

And because I was bleeding this self-loathing out of my pores, bits of mail started rolling in to substantiate the energy being exuded. In the space of a few weeks, and at my lowest point, I got a facebook message that stated that I should eat shit and die. I got an anonymous comment on the blog, from someone who clearly knows me, calling my writing maudlin and juvenile and advising me to take a break from writing altogether. And lastly I got an email from Drew’s sister stating that he hates me, that my behavior was ugly and despicable, my friends mere mindless groupies too afraid to tell me the truth about my low nature. 

That last one put me in bed for two days. It was actually Drew who talked me back into a vertical state. And Drew that I keep talking to about what happened. How did we get here? Who am I? Who are you? Why am I destructive? Am I hateful? Why do you love me? How do we find our way to peace after all this devastation? Then my mother sent me that email I posted in the last blog and the fog lifted. I am burning off shit that I’ve been carrying my whole life. I have made the choice not to rise any higher with my writing or (in the past) with my bands because I have felt unworthy and fearful of exposure. 

This isn’t maudlin. I don’t feel sorry for myself, I’m grateful to finally get clarity.This is life and I am writing about it because I think most of us feel the same way and we need to talk about it. We need to come clean and support each other. 

I love that line in the Black Crowes “Cursed Diamond”, I’ve quoted it here before: “I hate myself. Doesn’t everybody hate themselves?”




One day recently I freaked out on Drew. I’d been clinging to this notion that he was perfection and I was the opposite. I’d been dragging around my Catholic chains and apologizing all day, every day. My bad, my bad, my bad, I am bad, I am bad, I am bad. He said some things about his new girlfriend that set me off and something clicked. I felt like Travis Bickle. This is a woman who would not take it anymore. He wasn’t perfect. There were a lot of things that he did/wasn’t doing that helped create and exacerbate our dysfunction. He was half of the equation. I wasn’t evil, I just didn’t know how to fix it in the moment. I wasn’t raised viewing healthy relationships. Neither was he, so we both went to our comfortable, fucked up corners and I was the one who finally said it couldn’t go on the way it was. What a revelation. And what a gift to be able to talk to someone so candidly after so much damage and sadness. We are speaking more deeply than we have in years.

So, for the first time in my life, I feel ready to start working on steppng into more light, and I’m ready to face outside internet hatred without ingesting it like sweet antifreeze. Maybe that’s the lesson in this excruciating chapter. I am a cursed diamond, which is way better than being the garbage I thought I was. So tell me you hate me in an anonymous email and I will counter that with maybe you’re not so great either, and I have a whole crew of mindless groupies who would beg to differ. And that’s pretty cool.

Much love to you my friends. All your flaws and foibles are what make you interesting. Perfection is boring and it doesn’t teach us anything. Don’t let the haters tell you any different. 


Photo by Don BlackCat

Mom Wisdom

I’m back! Kind of.

I had a whole half a blog written about various bits of hate mail I’ve received over the last few months, but I scrapped it. I’ll get to that eventually.

It’s been impossible to fully explain what I’ve been going through for the last year and a half because I haven’t understood it myself: blowing up my life, blowing up Drew’s life, confusion, darkness, drunken excitement, anxiety, guilt, guilt, guilt. Spinning like a kid does looking at the sky and then realizing that I couldn’t stop, the clouds were spinning me, unable to slow down or see or even feel the ground.

The movement is finally slowing enough to begin to feel a modicum of peace. Drew has a new “friend” and is happier and we are talking almost every day in a deeper way than we have in years, and this has freed me to focus on myself and how I got here. I have cried every day for weeks, but it feels more like a burning off of old sadness than a current depression. It’s difficult, painful, but do-able. I’ll get to all that later as well if it seems interesting enough.

In the meantime, this morning I received a most profound, generous, and beautiful letter from my amazing mother that brought with it much clarity. Ordinarily I wouldn’t post something so private, but I think that many of my friends will be able to see themselves in some of what she’s saying. I will also post a link to a radio interview she did if you want to know more about her.

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Mare,

I am being guided to write to you about the childhood things you are trying to clear.

You were always even as a child, very intense, very creative, and very bright.  You did not blindly accept everything but tried to conform because you were the child and I was the parent.  It was apparent early on that you needed structure, and I was still very catholic and could only give you what I knew at that time which was reflected in the structure as I was taught.  This did not resonate with you and so you accumulated a great deal of guilt and confusion over not resonating with what I was telling you. My energy at that time was not your energy, but you tried.  You were a very nice person, but often acted out and still do in defense of yourself and your own feelings– little sensitive girl tried very hard to be something she was told  she should be, but didn’t feel. 

When we carry in cellular memory a lot of some energy, like guilt, it will pop out in all our life experiences because it is right there ready to activate.  Many of your experiences of late have caused it to the surface as the easiest emotion to access which in turn then causes you resist and feel like a failure. As you recognize this, you can say; “Oh you again”  and then just move on giving it no power.  True power, needing no defense, comes as we realize who and what we really are, our true nature for it is already within us just awaiting our recognition.

I am very sorry that I caused so much confusion for you growing up.  I was going through a great deal of confusion myself.  My world wasn’t working and it was my journey as well.  I have discovered that we choose our families to be born into that will activate the energies we need to clear.  I came in to a very catholic family in order to move beyond it.  I have memories of being in convents and monasteries.  It was time for me to move on, but when you were little I had not yet done that.

You choose to be my daughter in order to clear and move beyond an energy of superiority brought with you from lifetimes of being privileged. (this is channeled information)

We have balanced each other in many ways.  You opened me to so much especially when I would go to NYC.  You were always polite and kind to me even when I was so out of sinc with where you were. I learned to love all the characters and see how narrow my world had been.  I think I have helped you to understand who and what you really are on deeper levels. 

What you are clearing  now is  the accumulated guilt about who you are in comparison with  some concept of who you think you should be in order to be accepted, spiritual, lovable, a good person etc. etc.  This has been reflected in seeking validation from men, from friends etc.  Real validation can only come from self.   When a person realizes that they already are that which they seek– perfect manifestation of Divine Consciousness, the need to defend, explain, protect etc. the small sense of self just dissolves.

We all seek love and acceptance because that is what we are made of, but each can only seek according to the level of their state of consciousness. You sought it in drinking, partying, affairs, etc. thinking that these old solutions would work, but you are in a new place now, becoming aware that these things are outgrown defense mechanisms.  

You are right where you are supposed to be.  This is a graduation, a shift into a new and higher state of consciousness in which you can be yourself and feel good about it.  We can never lose who and what we are, with all our talents and individuality, it all just shifts to higher and better forms.

I hope this helps you understand what is going on right now.  I love you very much.  When you were a baby I used to just sit and look at you, such a beautiful child.  It is time for you to love you as well.

Lots of love,
Mom


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If you want to know more, this is a radio interview she did a few years back.


Gratitude, gratitude.
Hope this summer finds you healthy and happy my friends.

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