LS Harteveld

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

It was a moment of recognition when I glossed over the blogpost I wrote you two weeks ago, in preparation of our previous call.
And perhaps it was meant to be that the interval between the calls is shorter this time, two instead of three weeks, because this week’s blogpost is, as I realize now, a direct sequel to the previous.

Where the previous post, “Something I really want”, was a bone deep analysis of why I could rationalize why the medical world was not the manifestation of evil, but every time I blinked or God forbid went in;
I ended up hating it with a vengeance.

And although I stabbed my pen straight into the black malignant heart of the system itself, not its participants, that did nothing to control the visceral levels of hate that I had tapped into without knowing how to turn it off.
The longer I thought about it, or felt into it, the more I was convinced the medical system had been spawned straight from the gates of hell.
All thoughts which were, in psychological terms, not very helpful.
To put it mildly.

The pathway out was not found, but I did make a beginning stating that the medical world was standing between me and something I really want (the title of the post).
That the only explanation I have, for hating it which such vigor, is that they are a direct threat to what I find important in life.

And this week, when I open a new post “The Sorting Hat” I realize this is nothing short but a list of characteristics that are important to me.
All directly opposing to what the medical world offers.

Had I had this list, I could have explained point-by-point why the medical world itself was in direct conflict to what I valued.
Something which I am not going to do in this post, I am dropping the subject of medical world and will round it off to “consider death over entering a hospital”, but it is good to see that disturbing post I wrote two weeks ago finding some closure after all.

It’s not a happy ending, but it is a respectful stand-off, where I can see that some people, organizations and aspects of life, cannot be befriended of let into your life, without losing your soul.
The devil always makes you a good deal, offering the thing you want most, we know that. Does not make cutting a deal with it, a good idea.
Does not mean the hospital is evil incarnate to everyone;
Just means it is to me.

So now that I have identified where the gates to hell lie according to my own and very personal values, let’s progress to The Sorting Hat!
What is it, and how does it work?

The Sorting Hat is what I made after taking your workshop yesterday, so technically you are the only person I do not have to explain this to.
But for the sake of readability, I will.

The Sorting Hat, as taught by you, is a list of characteristics you can measure your different projects or areas of interest with.
Using the Sorting Hat, you assess if you want to take them on board, and how;
And you can identify if they are (still) pleasing to you, or if you have gotten stuck in them.

For example, let’s say “Fun” is on your list of sorting criteria.
Then before saying Yes to something, you should think:
“Is it fun?”
And if not, yet you still feel you want to continue:
“How could I make it fun?”

And for projects or areas of life that have fallen by the wayside, or that have lost their spark, you could ask:
“Is it still fun?”
And if not, but you still want to keep it on board:
“How can I make it fun?”

I came up with a list of six sorting criteria.
One very generic (6), one very specific to manage writing and posting for social media (3), and four directly applicable and identifiable. 

the Sorting Hat

criteria for projects and life

1. Does it feel sexual?
2. Is it a physical, offline experience, that could have taken place in the 20th century?
3. Can the post be created within 90 minutes including making a Canva?
4. Am I answering a need or want, from someone I care about or from a group or audience with whom I feel connected?
5. Does it make me money which people have given freely and happily?
6. Will this be a wholesome and satisfactory experience?

More often than not, projects can only be ticked off in one box. For example, to start making money from sexual experiences would be, uhm, well a whole different ballgame for sure!
So it is not the case that the more boxes are ticked, the better.

It is a priority list, if “one” (feels sexual to me) is hit, all bets are off the table, and in retrospect, I think I could even say that my endgame is to have my whole life be about 1, 2 and 3.

That although I love the connection with others, fulfilling their need, having them pay me (have clients), that the only way this is all going to work, eventually, is if I don’t have to leave the box of 1. it feeling sexual to me and/or 2. it being a physical offline experience that could have taken place in the 20th century or the box of 3. writing and posting something in under 90 minutes flat.

That numbers 4 to 6 are little more than pacifiers, to identify if something should even be taken on board.

But that ultimately all projects and areas of my life will be put on the line  by the ruthless Sorting Hat who will assess if they have the potential to;
Grow into 1. something that feels sexual;
Be reorganized into 2. a physical offline experience;
Or
If it can be done writing posts, created in under 90 minutes flat.

And the mighty Sorting Hat will have only one verdict for the ones;
Sucking my soul and vagina dry and failing to score on feeling sexual;
Or the high-demanding ones causing digital file forming and black holes of endless communication;
And will show no mercy for the ones demanding infinite studying of boring as fuck areas and writing long-ass reads.

It will know exactly, what to do them;
To throw them back into the same pits of hell, where they bloody hell came from.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

This letter is a bit redundant, since I need to have figured this out by tomorrow night, when I have an appointment with my psychologist.
By the time you and me have our call, it will already be done, and all the insights from our call and in particular your contributions to which I am already looking forward to hearing because you’re always so good at seeing things I miss;
Those things will need to be squeezed in, or added on, to a train already set in motion.

My psychologist and me are tackling a list of problem areas for which I need strategies, in order to navigate them the rest of my life.
One of them is my inability to deal with hospitals and medical staff.

There is something required of patients which I do not have, that in all probability goes way beyond being able to handle all the inaccuracies, flaws and contradictions in different departments and their opposing messages, and comes down to other patients having some kind of ability to emphatically connect with the professionals themselves, instead of only seeing a sea of red flags in an organization whose logistics would barely pass to move garbage bags around, let alone patients.

An even deeper thought on this, is that other patients may even find comfort that personnel in the hospital is trying so hard, and so emotionally involved with all the people going through;
That what I see as dysfunctional, disturbed and alarming, is experienced by other patients as a bonding experience between the hardworking staff and the worried patients.

Instead of as a sign you’re being thrown in front of a bus.

One of the many racing thoughts I had on the subject was how unbelievable I think it is that everybody, and in particular people with a background in medicine or psychology, find it remarkable that I used to “settle” for a man who was only a lover, who never chose me, and they deem it as something I apparently had some sort of special skill set for, in order to handle such an unsafe relationship.
That I had a secret way to handle holding myself up, in such a challenging environment of a non-monogamous affair.
Where your lover is doing the non-monogamous part, and you are just left to grit your teeth.

Which by the way is something I never did (grit my teeth).
I was delighted that he was so energetic and adventurous and I would submit myself in a heartbeat, to lifelong weekly hospital treatments including snappy receptionists, double booked appointments, broken agreements, ineffective exams and being informed on having life-threatening diseases, if it would bring him back. 

But it shows that during the 9 years of our affair I have been on the receiving side of sympathy, whereas going through this medical mill – and I’m technically speaking not even going through exactly because I took myself out of the loop and I am now in the purgatory of an unanswered thread of messages that was supposed to direct me to another department but that will no doubt be forgotten, unless I bring it back from the dead-I receive nothing.
Everybody seems to be under the impression going to a hospital is an entirely neutral experience, and that it can only be a disease, or an invasive treatment, that are worth mentioning en sympathizing with.

So having an affair is supposed to be challenging, but being in a David and Goliath type of conversation with an organization that seems unable to get even one appointment booked in without gaslighting you, is I don’t know… normal?

That is some fucked up shit, Sara.
And the only reassurance that gives me is that, apparently, I do possess an impressive set of acquired skills and special talents, because almost everybody has admitted to me that they could never have been so patient and so loving in such an insecure relationship style, and be able to deal with such a difficult man for so long. 

It’s just that my talents seem to be absolutely useless, in a hospital.

And what is needed there, in all likeliness, is the same thing that is required to start and maintain lifelong monogamous relationships.
Which by the way, are also skills I have proven to possess, for 17 years total.
I just very consciously chose not to engage in those anymore, because that is not how I want to live my life.

But just saying, Sara; I AM versatile!
How is it possible that I can both rock a longterm relationship, as well as a complex affair for almost a decade, yet I completely bottom out in the most simple phase of medical treatment?
We’re not even in the treatment.
I have not even made it to the exam, I didn’t even get that far.

It feels like everything in the hospital represents neglect, aforementioned gaslighting, and sadism in forms even Marquis de Sade had not thought of.
I think he would be particularly pleased with the added gaslighting effect, and acknowledge his sadists being so forward in their torture and their killing had left so much on the table in terms of psychological pain, where the victims would be told they were not actually tortured and that there was no pain, and that they were exaggerating.
And right before the victims were murdered, and some acknowledgement of pain had to come, he would have the sadists say that sometimes things just need to be done, and that it had been a joint decision. Where the decision of course would have been something like, do you want me to cut of your ear or your left labia; you know- something that really fucks you over.

Okay, enough with the illustrative de Sade spree, and back to the subject at hand;
How is it possible that throughout my life, I coach myself through having this festering evil of the medical world as the authority on our physical existence, and replace it with the generally held assumption that these are well-intentioned professionals who are deeply invested in our physical well-being;
Only to be proven wrong time and time again?

Or, well no, I’m making it too easy now, it’s not that inside the four walls of an examination room there is malice;
It’s everything in between.

The toxins are in the very fabric of the system, the communication, the organization. They’re in the in-between-ness. The evil is not present where one doctor or one nurse is responsible.
In fact, I totally agree that if you are dealing with ONE doctor or nurse, or a guard or a worker walking the hallway at that point, but not behind their computer;
Then you do meet that good side.
Then you do relate as humans, and it’s a beautiful experience.

But as soon as you blink your eyes, it’s gone and they’ve thrown you inside the system again, where no one is responsible.
You’re back in the dungeon of Sodom.

So tomorrow night, I need to have a setup ready for my psychologist, that includes how I want to tackle my complicated relationship to the medical world.
And as I’ve already briefly mentioned, as a psychologist she is one of those people who acknowledges my strength in certain areas, yet she seems to almost gloss over this problem.
She acknowledges its toxicity, or lets not put words in her mouth but she acknowledges that it is toxic for me, yet sports the attitude that since I need them, I need to find a way of dealing with them, implying that it is in some way doable. 
Or maybe I implied that as well, by placing this item on something as down to earth as a list of actionable items.

I made the list on one of those fake-it, pretend-this-is-easy, optimistic, coaching-myself-through-this, moments.
When I now know, this is something that if it is to be solved, needs to be centered as My Main Quest.
And that I should not have put it on a list, in such a downplayed way. That was out of integrity, and did not do justice to the suffering it has caused.
And even Andy Warhol knew he’d die if he was ever admitted to a hospital, or maybe “again” admitted to a hospital, after his shooting.
Either way, he was right.
Most likely he died of neglect, in a hospital bed.
Just to say, being afraid of the hospital is not something that has a history of being turned around that easily. Whereas the stories of people avoiding the hospital only to then die in them, in a sloppy and tarnished way, on wrong medication and preventable mistakes – let’s just sum it up as “in an unsatisfactory way” although death itself is indeed rarely satisfactory-
those examples are numerous.

So what I had just casually thrown on the list as one of the points I need to “figure out”, was actually a mammoth task, that usually does not get done.
Being afraid of the hospital is an indication of your lifespan, and the point  where your life will end.
It is not a movable target that you can push forward.

So without any positive examples, and facing a problem that is way too layered to tackle in one sitting, the most obvious solution then becomes;
“What do I need to do, now that I KNOW I can never go to a hospital without risking my life, just like Andy Warhol did?”

And indeed, that still may be the most effective solution to tackle it. It surely has a higher chance of success at becoming a useful guideline for my life, than learning how to accept or how to manage getting medical assistance.

But I saw something else as well.
Something far more interesting and compelling!
Something juicy, lurking in the shadows of this mundane, uninteresting problem of getting tantrums every time I even think of having to get medical help.

And this interesting thing can be divided into two;
1.This clash can only be caused by the hospital blocking something I really, deeply care about, or something I aspire to. The hospital is blocking something I WANT!
What is it? 
Explain with the aids phobia thing of the 80s.
And
2.This clash is about POWER!
It is about authority, and it is about who rules my body. It is about boundaries, and about being sloppy with them, and it is about not having stepped fully into my own physical power and authority, and therefor being angry when someone violates its boundaries, when the truth is, I am not protecting my body, as if my life is depending on it.
Which it is.
Explain with the medical world/ yoga world and even performance art, analogy.

Point 2 first!
Why is this a sign of a deeper lying boundary problem?
And what does performance art and the yoga world have to do with it?

This came to me in a yoga class, when I realized that the similarity between the profession of yoga teacher and the medical world, is that we are one of the very few who deal with the body.
We don’t just need a functioning body, in fact in theory we don’t;
But, the body is our area of expertise.
We know more about the body than others, we experiment with it. We are in an ongoing conversation and learning process with it. It never ceases to fascinate us, and we love to, very coarse way of saying;
We love to get our fingers in it!

Well, I never touch my yoga students, but you get the idea.

Maybe you could say a medical professional has a more literal relationship to the body, whereas a yoga teacher has a more spiritual relationship to it.
We only recognize one ailment; lack of awareness.
And we only have one medicine; awareness.

And a performer, any performer but in particular performance artist Marina Abramovic, also has this intimate relationship to their body.
Their body, their presence, IS their work.

So what I recognize now, is that I have not decided yet where the medical world fits in here. And if it does, which aspects of it.
Although judging from the rest of this post, it is coming to me now;
I can only deal with professionals who are not part of a system.
Who have their own secretary or receptionist, but who are not part of a system where no one is responsible anymore.

Okay, that was relatively easy 😉
Except of course in the Netherlands, that does limit my medical possibilities tremendously.
Where I live for example, we only have eye doctors in the hospitals.
So if I would exert this rule, I would not have eye care.

But I do think this underlying power struggle, and how it is caused by the way care is organized in The Netherlands, and not by the individuals, does take the sharpest edges off of it.

And that medical care is by definition different if your job too, is to know the body. Either because you are in health care yourself, or because you are a yoga teacher, or you are Marina Abramovic.
Your body is a lot more personal to you.

Now the first one:
What is The Want, the medical industry is blocking?
“Explain with the aids phobia thing of the 80s,” it says.

So in the 80s, I got an anxiety disorder from the aids education. I found there was no way to navigate my sex life, staying within the safe sex threshold. It took me absolute decades to unpack what went down there, and it is still a work in progress to be honest.
But it comes down to the fact that the unnuanced labeling of sex as either safe (you’re a good and responsible person) or unsafe (the label implying you’re taking a serious health risk, that could have easily been prevented) was masking an unwillingness or an inability to have a conversation about the innate risks, tied to ones natural sexual orientation.
For example if you are a homosexual person or someone who wants to have multiple partners, then your baseline risk is a lot higher.
The conversation should therefor always be worded as the safest sex for you, or the safer options for you, within the natural expression of who you are.

The word “safe sex” implies that we all have an option to be 100% safe, when the only real option to be safe, for anyone, is to not have sex at all.
In other words: the words safe and sex, simply do not belong together.
The act of sex itself, already implies a risk.
I know I’ve used the term gaslighting at least twice already, but I am using it again, because the word safe sex is the very definition of gaslighting:
It was suggested we could have sex and be safe at the same time.
An impossibility, and that’s just covering the physical risk of disease, and not even the risk of being harmed in other ways.

We were gaslighted, which in itself would have been enough to develop an anxiety disorder, but I discovered that in my case there was even more:
The safe sex campaign blocked something I really wanted.
My access to a free sex life.

I gave up, and I gave in!
No hero’s journey there.
I didn’t free myself from monogamous relationships until I was in my 30s.
The safe sex campaign effectively blocked my access to my own natural sexuality, and I had monogamous sex WITH a condom, because that was all the stress I could take.

And I can tell you that if you are wired for more free spirited sex, and you have known that since childhood, then sex in a monogamous relationship, after its first six months or so, becomes stale.
I may have many skills, but keeping sex fresh within monogamy, certainly isn’t one of them.

Of course it isn’t.
My skill set is designed to support my sexual nature of having sex with new men, and to have those men be exciting and adventurous!
For that, I have an infinite amount of dedication and enough talents to cover for the both of us.
You just bring us the meat of excitement, and the bones of pleasure, and I’ll get the table in order, consider it done.

So when the safe sex campaigns hit, I had more at stake.
Where monogamy, obviously, is where the majority of us seem to be ending up and choosing for again and again- even when people are well beyond their child bearing years they continu to come back to it – it was never my flavor.
I knew I was born not so much “for more”, but definitely born for something different.

And when I found the road blocked by the Safe Sex Brigade, I realized I was never going to reach my destination. That I didn’t have the strength to fight the enemy of government, and health care, and my parents, and everybody taking sides with this whole idea of safe sex (which was at the time: everybody!), all standing together.
I was just a 16 year old girl, facing an enemy she could not compete with because it was all around her. Evil, was in everybody, around her.

And I let the fear for the people around me consume me.
I have called it an aids phobia, but when I chose my own path, in my 30s I recognized it as social phobia.
I had not been afraid of the disease, I had been afraid of people.
And still am.

I did get a little bit further in, when I was in my 30s, and reclaimed my sexuality. I got the sex life that I had aspired to. But I didn’t do it by conquering those people from the 80s, nor did they change that dramatically.
Maybe they were a little less stubborn in their belief there was such a thing as safe sex, and maybe my age which was closer to 36 than to 16 at the time, had given me a little more wiggle room, than when I was in my teens and my parents worried sick about me.
But in the end, despite aids being treatable since the 90s, not that much had changed.

But I navigated.
Even then, I did not throw over, and I did not conquer. I wasn’t a sexually revolutionary in any way. I didn’t rock the boat even when after 20 years I did rise above the safe sex warnings and chose to honor who I was, sexually.
Maybe it was a hero’s journey, although it was a modest one.

So although I have not connected all the dots, I think my current clash with the medical world, can only be explained as originating in this conflict that started when I was 13, 14 years old, ready to start my sex life, and then aids arose and I saw the sexual ocean I had been looking forward to jump into, being blocked before my very eyes.
They claimed it was poisonous.

And what I have been doing as an adult was only swimming in the guarded area, and between the lines.

I don’t know why I associate being in the medical world both as a violation of my sexual identity, as well as a direct threat to restoring my sexuality after the breakup, and to making the transition into having a healthy sex life in midlife and beyond.
Don’t know why I feel as if letting “those people” back into my life, is not just a slippery slope to being cock blocked, or in my case pussy blocked, all over again, exactly as they did to me, in the 80s, but means risking my life.

That “safe hospital” does not exist anymore than “safe sex” does.
And that No Hospital is in my case the best choice, just like No Sex was that to some gay men in the 80s, who found they were at too high a risk of dying because of it.

Because the truest thing I have to say about this continuously growing crap pile of bad experiences in the medical world, is that I feel I will die if I let them in.

They will murder my sexuality and then they will kill me.
Just like they did with Andy.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

I could have literally copy pasted my previous letter to you (“How I lost Lauren“), because it feels like in the field of reviving my alter-ego self Lauren Harteveld, surprisingly if not disturbingly little was done.

The urgency of needing to save myself, take measures with lightning speed and in a timeframe that would take the breath away of the bravest one, with potential consequences as severe as costing decades of your life if you get it wrong, and in all probability still capping your life by years if you get it right;
Took over.

And every measure, every restraint, every worldly, accountable commitment a reason for Lauren to not want to live. 
As all is way too vibrant for a shadow self, a mystery self, or even a whisper of real self, to exist.

There is currently only space for that which can be rounded off, defined, quantified, or squeezed into the tightest of forms.
There is nothing here that I would call A Life. Let alone something luscious enough for Lauren to want to return.
There is only the blinding brightness of reality.

So yeah: I could have just copied the previous post.
Nothing much has changed, as far as Lauren goes, or as far as interesting, sexy, luscious things to write about goes.
If anything it got worse, for there are now so many things which when I think about them – and these can be images, visuals, or neutral language, explaining medical risks or body parts – that are etched in my memory and when they float by I shiver and cringe! 

Yet I chose not, to repeat the previous title or the content of that post.
And focus on the tiny rays of sunshine, the flicker of light that I couldn’t even promise is really actually there, but that I choose to see.
I choose to believe in a future where Lauren can come back.

First of all, a very positive development, is that I have experienced so many heartwarming cooperation. So many people, both in my personal life, professional life, as well as people who are there to help me, who are all going the extra mile for me, and I wouldn’t yet say “committing” to helping me, because they are just as baffled and unsure how we’ll make this work as I am;
But for now, they are definitely on board and they have declined the escapes I provided for them.

Now although this is absolutely not a reason for Lauren to return, it does make the life “real me” has, and will be having, so much better.
I’m not going to think too long about what would have happened if that army of positively responding people had not been there, but it would have made things a hell of a lot harder.

And the second positive thing, is that my medication is working.
It’s not a miracle drug though, and I have already absolutely bumped into limits, and will probably need a life-long commitment to a lifestyle cross over between an athlete and senior-citizen!
But providing I manage to crack the code, and get myself in check, the medication will be able to provide a very firm foundation both under my physical as well as my mental health.

And then thirdly, I can feel my sexuality return.
Slowly!

It’s not earth shattering yet, and it is “only” solo, and only a return of physical sexual strength. So I am not developing new romantic interests, nor am close to existing romantic interests.
They hold their distance, and so do I.
With this body, that didn’t have sex for over a year and that seemed to have gone through so much, I am not sad there isn’t a candidate for a real affair.
Just a little online flirting, or sometimes just knowing someone is there;
It’s enough.

I have lost about 5 kilos since a year ago.
The largest part of it was unintentionally, but since twelve days I have a daily walking routine and it seems to consistently be shaving off a little each week.
Although it scares me I will be breaking a spell by saying it out loud!

But my body slowly losing the weight I put on in all those horrible years, feels good.
I knew dieting or forcing, was never going to be my thing. I knew I needed deeper healing, and that there was a cause for the weight gain. That fighting it would make it worse.

Seeing the scales going down, my routines settling, and my body restoring with a little pharmaceutical help, feel like the first steps of creating a life Lauren would want to return to.

Like a ship has left the harbor, the sails have been hoisted, and we are on our way.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

What should have come as a surprise to no one, least of all me (a diarist who has taken introspection to industrial strength levels) still managed to caught me off guard;
I have lost Lauren, the lived identity of who I truly am and have been since 2007.

But for now we’d have to refer to Lauren (Lauren Harteveld) as a  simple pseudonym. A means to an end, of being able to keep a personal blog, without having it tied to my real name.
Lauren is now a hallow writer’s name, that no longer belongs to my real self.
After initially having survived a series unerotic, uninteresting, reality based years (serious mental health issues, my lover breaking up, the Covid pandemic, lover coming back, more Covid pandemic, more mental health issues, six years of insomnia, being diagnosed autistic,  and since March this year the kicker: menopause)
She has finally made the decision to run for the hills.

There is literally nothing in my life anymore, that is even remotely interesting to her.
This is my first login to WordPress, for her account, since my last letter to you three weeks ago.
Technically I do not even need her name as a pseudonym anymore because I don’t actually write as her anymore.
Aside from my letters to you.
Nor do I have time to publish her books, or curate old material. Which is an activity that would be ideal, for these times when “she” does not have anything new to write.

So in all fairness, it was not just that my life has become totally dull (although that definitely was part of her departure).
It was also because the past weeks have been extremely busy, and then the events as described in my last letter to you unfolded.
Leaving me to investigate the territory of Hormone Replacement Therapy, consulting specialists, and so on and so forth.

I really jumped at this opportunity to finally get to the root cause of all misery of these final years, and although my serious study and involvement with Hormone Replacement Therapy was of course done to save Lauren, to get her life back;
It ultimately became the thing that broke it.

She really is nowhere to be found.

My physical ailments keep expanding, the number of medical visits and specialists multiplying, yet the part of me for whom I do it all, no longer has a part in it.
She’s done waiting for what by now seems like a time that never comes.

I know I need the basics in place if I want to have a physical, sexual second half of my life; The only part Lauren is interested in, and then she writes about it.

But here I am, struggling to keep my life afloat while also needing increasing amounts of time taking care of my neurological problems,  post-menopausal health, dental maintenance for my aging teeth, physical exercise and other self-care routines.
And my mental health has stabilized since I started seeing a psychologist, but it has not improved.

Although I’ve always been able to keep some spark of being her alive (which, considering I see Her as my real self, is not a luxury!), the past three weeks, with the menopause/hormonal breakthrough and all the research and cognitive work it took to get that ball rolling, seemed to have been the tipping point.

There is a saying in medical world;
“Operation successful, (but) patient deceased.”
To illustrate that you can treat disease, but if you kill the patient in the process, it’s not effective.

I feel I am heading for that outcome myself now.
The operation of saving my life, physically, will be successful. But the essence of me, Lauren Harteveld, will no longer be there to enjoy it.

In December 2023 my lover broke up, or left, it was messy.
And although I could feel it coming from as early as February 2023-
he was still in my head, throughout the year.

When I thought of him, I felt like Lauren. I was in that energy. It (the affair)/ he, was what kept Lauren alive.

And although logically, I can see Lauren Harteveld was there before I even knew him, so there is no reason her life is tied to him, in reality the affair, which lasted from December 2014 to December 2023-
was the final thing keeping her alive.

She no longer wants to live, it’s that simple.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

What I am about to share is the result of us having to cancel last week, and postponing our call.

If it had taken place at the moment we intended it to, I probably would have written you that I would have loved to have a conversation about the conflict of interest between creativity and art, and business and entrepreneurship.
Because I did recall you speaking about it, offering very profound insights, and offering to pick it up in our next call.
I was eager to hear what you had to say.

If we had had our call last week, I am almost certain I would have asked you to let me know what wisdom you had, that I had not.
I usually do not get any further than being jealous of non-creative people, because at least they CAN build a business, without constantly knowing that-it-is-not-THE-work!
That the business is just there to support our creative endeavors, and to give us a place in the world.

Even in the age of social media, the art studio and the writing desks are still the loneliest places in the inhabited world.
For us, pretending to be normal, run a business, and see a fellow human once in a while, serves many purposes.
But there never seems to be the option for us, to only do one thing. We’re constantly torn between the lonely, creative purpose work, and the hobbit-like joy of having a business.

However that whole topic was completely blown from my radar, when the bomb of bombly insights dropped on what the f* has been happening with me over the last four to six years or so, when I definitely lost my mojo.

Now, partially, it will probably require a series of specialists to check me out for neurological problems, eye problems, and a sinus problem which has made me wake up feeling horrible, every day, year after year.
At least I think it’s a sinus problem, that is actually also new information through an article a friend sent me.

But the sinus problem is of course not the bomb of bombs.

No, the big revelation is that my autism, of which I still do not have the official diagnosis (which is probably a good thing, but more about that later) but I do have a psychologist who helps me analyse the havoc my life has been, through the lens of autistic burn-out-ish / high-sensitivity gone wrong;
That this may be directly connected to going through menopause.

I effectively wasn’t autistic, until my hormones dropped.
I was unbothered, by a lot of things that do bother me now. Not bothered by the subtle things, like the mood swings of others, nor the big things like sensory overload.
My senses hardly ever, got overloaded, until a few years ago, and now my thoughts are OUT LOUD.
Well, at least they are in my head.
Together with other memories: Music, dialogue from film, conversations.
I hear them all together, and often with visual images too.

And at night when I close my eyes, I see visions, cartoon-like or AI- generated movies that never happened, and of which I see nothing that is based on my actual life.

However, none of these things were familiar or known to me in the years prior.

So I started Googling and found that although it is very new, pioneering research with massive hiatusses at places where we would have preferred some hard data;
Women not being diagnosed until menopause floors them, is a known phenomenon.
And one with a very simple explanation:
Progesterone, a hormone that starts to drop before oestrogene even does, is the hormone that dampens signals from outside.
It is, in short, the hormone that makes life bearable for women. 

In my opinion progesterone taking the edge off your sensatory experience, also explains why women seem less “autistic” than men.
We’re on drugs 😉

Or at least we were, until menopause hit.

So in other words, this whole story has convinced me to go all in on getting hormone replacement therapy.

I will also give it my all on clean eating, because chocolate, coffee and sugar, do rob you of your final woman strength (and worsen hot flashes);
But as an autistic person, I simply need a lot of additives in order to get things done.

Writing you this letter, required a cup of chocolate and sugar coated peanuts!
And writing you is something I LIKE DOING!

So although I totally understand why medical professionals in the Netherlands, need you to clean up your diet, and step on it with regard to exercise and so on;
I am going to play the autism card here, that I need many of those things just to survive.
Which is not a lie.

For comparison;
They point out how (instead) women should seek solace with each other and take massages.
I find few things as stressful as being in a group of women, but taking a massage would be one of them.

Just saying:
For the neurotypical woman it might be feasible to go clean but I need my coping and my comforting, and I will not be shamed for failing to be perfect in that area.
Nor wait asking for supplements.
In particular not because I found out something shocking, related to this as well:

Contrary to other women, I have always done better, when I was on the pill.

My most violent panic attacks were when I was 15, before I was on the pill. And second half 20s, when I quit.
I had that last one pinned, I immediately blamed coming down from 10+ years of being on the pill, for the heavy backlash of panic attacks.
I felt god awful and couldn’t even sleep alone.

However, what I failed to see then, was that it was not the backlash of quitting with the pill;
It was me getting back to my natural state, which I had also had at 15.

Looking at this from this angle, you could say that autism or not;
I have never felt as good as when I was on the pill.

And the same thing is happening now;
My menopause is not causing anything, any more than stopping with the pill was the cause of anything.

Whether it is because I need more sedation, as an autistic person;
Or whether it is that I didn’t create enough progesterone from myself, to get the natural sedation any and every woman needs in order to survive;
I have a history, of thriving on artificial hormone supplements.
And being totally lost, without them.

Maybe if I had not gone on the pill so young (I was 16), and had not stayed on it for so long (over ten years);
And maybe, if I had gotten proper help those tough years after I quit;
I would have taken this menopause more seriously, a few years down the drain sooner.

I thought I could handle it, I really could.

And even the past couple of rotten years, I only blamed menopause for the hot flashes and the hot nights (but not in a good way).
I didn’t see that since 2018, I have had every possible sleeping disorder linked to menopause.
I didn’t see I could no longer bear seeing old  friends, with many whom  I split up.
I didn’t see that my bitterness and disappointment in life, and also the grudge that I had to think soo deeply about economic and social structures, in order to find my way through them;
That it was all because I was going through menopause.

Up until then I just closed my eyes and winged it!

Basically, I feel I have already lost half my life.
With reading all these articles about menopause and the need for proper bedtimes, and no coffee, and no sugar, and no benders, what else is there to say than that you are already with one foot in the grave?
Even the message to non-autistic women is in my opinion a horribly bleak one.

I no longer know if I am an autistic woman, or a non-autistic woman. And in my opinion, it isn’t even relevant anymore.
But I am happy my psychologist is waiting with her final diagnosis, because now she can include my findings.

Because I do know this:
I have always, done so much better with artificial hormones, than without.
And I am not just going to do whatever I have to, to get them;

I am going to hold on to them.
For dear life.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

There is a new Bon Jovi documentary coming out, in April. In the trailer Richie Sambora says: “I’m excited. What are we gonna do? Are we gonna tell the truth, are we gonna lie?”
Which is exactly how I feel, although I’m pretty sure I am not excited.

Disappointed.
Frustrated.
Angry.
Excited? Not so much.

Because I burned myself, again, in the real world.
Something I’ve done how many times now? More than twenty times within the six years we’ve known each other?
And that’s probably a low estimate, that if you spread it out over six years, means I only burned myself every quarter.

The truth is, I STILL believe in having a place in the world LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.
With friends, with connections to the city where I live. Offering something local too.

I so much believe in the value of connection and local, real life things.
And when it comes to teaching yoga locally;
I would sign up immediately, if someone taught classes with this energetic vibe.

“The energy of the band, undeniable. Like a freight train coming at you.”

With this thing, this X factor, that is as undeniable in the entrepreneurial world as it was in Bon Jovi in the 80s.
This life-bringing force that will shock-start any heart that has given up beating, because it got so taken down by the depressing micro-managing of it all.
By the smallness, required to be allowed in, in the local community, and in the yoga community.

The past few weeks I had a vision of how we could change the yoga industry, and make the world a better place for everybody;
Teachers, students, local communities.
I could see it all so clearly!

And then I had four to six weeks, packed with appointments in the real world, including yoga people;
And it was like the life was drained right out of me.

Instead of moving the ball forward, I think I actually lost students, lost friends. And I know, I lost my desire to do anything, at local level.
And that hurt, because I have become nostalgic for my life as a fulltime offline yoga teacher, 15 years ago.
When I wasn’t a blogger/writer yet.

I had been writing under the name LS Harteveld, but it was all offline, and I posted it on a Dutch social medium.
I didn’t even have a website until 2010.
Life was simple; Both for my writing as well as for my yoga.

And I wanted that for myself again, to just run my classes every week. A slow, uneventful, existence as a yoga teacher.
And because I now had insight in where the profession of being a yoga teacher, had taken the wrong turn (worldwide! not just here), I thought I had cracked the code to get it right this time.

A recipe that would allow me to run my classes, without any fancy marketing. (including any additional blogging)
As well allow all other yoga teachers to do the same.
We would all be allowed to live our offline lives, and to give that serene offline energy, back to our students.
It would be heaven.

Until I clashed so hard with everyone around me, and I realized I was just not made for this.
I really, and I mean REALLY, need to rise to that absolute highest level of, yeah of what?
Of being a writer?
Of being an international mentor?
Of being an online marketeer?
What exactly?

I think the most positive thing I can make of this, is by comparing it to Frodo leaving Middle-Earth for the Undying Lands.
He had saved the world, but, as he explained to his friend Sam, it could not be saved for him.
He could no longer live there, the injuries he had  affected him too deeply and could not be cured on the earthly plane.
But at closer look, you can also see that he had been affected mentally. He lost his swagger, on Mount Doom.

I think I knew this would happen when I heard myself explain to someone why I had abandoned my work of helping the yoga world thrive;
That I am, the writer LS Harteveld.
Then, I am the writer under my real name.
Then I am the entrepreneur under my own name.
And only then, a yoga teacher, someone with an interest in the craft. And that last bit could be wishful thinking. Part of me suspects I am zero yoga teacher, that it was the idea, of being a yoga teacher.
And that the clashes came from my ideas colliding with what everyone else wanted (their) yoga teacher to be.

Which then in turn, sparked self-hatred.
As if I wanted to cut everything yoga teacher out of me.
I am still not completely over that. 

I have invested so much in setting up my yoga business again. And part of me still wants to go all in on this, in particular because I know how much value it would bring both to me, as well as to my students!
It already is.

But every time I bump my head and meet resistance when I pursue the bigger yoga vision behind it, I immediately fall back to a deep resentment of not doing my actual purpose work, which is being a writer and being an entrepreneur.
And I just want to burn it all.

And after understanding how beautiful the profession of being a yoga teacher is, as beautiful as the Shire itself, that is just so deeply disappointing.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

The only blogpost I have frequently revisited over the years, is December 2022’s 7 Values, 7 Deadly Sins.
Which also means I never actually revisited anything, until recently.

But this week, I was in for a very unhappy surprise:
My values have changed.
Which, in my opinion, is about the worst, fu**ed up thing one can have to face in ones lifetime.
Well, this time it was me, apparently, who came to the conclusion she didn’t have her priorities in order.

The original order of my values was:
1.Love 2. (Sexual and financial) Freedom 3.sex
4. self-expression 5. body 6.fun and adventure 7. status

Initially I just moved Body from number 5 to the top, at number 1;
Because if I fail to take care of my body, nothing else is going to get done anyway.
I also limited “2” to financial freedom, removing the idea of sexual freedom. After all, Sex was already on 3, and to me the idea of financial freedom was intrinsically linked to it being the gateway to sexual freedom.
What other reason could one have?
Except, apparently, a lot, because no one I know say they want to be financially free so they can be sexually free.
But I am not most people.

So that was that, or so I thought.
Just some light moderations.

Until I realized that my top two values were actually not even on the list.

My top value “1” was being offline.
Being offline is not as strict as it sounds, and basically stands for me for not being sucked into scrolling, refreshing my news tab, or checking notifications.
They stand for having autonomy.
Although this autonomy is of course most easily attained by simply staying away from a computer entirely.

But it was clear to me, that tossing time down the drain online was presenting this huge liability spending time on whatever it was my so called “top values” were.

And this is the same underlying line of thought, that brought me to my new number 2, which I will reveal in a minute.

Just a quick reminder that at this point the original number one (Love) had dropped 3 spots.
One,  because Body went first. And then another two places, because I inserted two new priority values.
Having Love drop three places?
That’s a serious shift, in priorities!

The second new priority value I inserted, after being offline (1), was living in a clean house.
Making “Housekeeping” at large, my number two must-do, every day.
And since “being offline” is not actually an activity, but rather a lack thereof, you could say that “Housekeeping” became my Top priority, overnight!
😱

And that from someone who in December 2022 already felt like a softy for the last-minute addition of “Love” at number 1, when I just knew it should say Sex.
And now in 2024 I have *counts fingers* five other values more important than Sex!
😱

Sex is now on number 6, which aside from the kinky alliteration, is a disgrace. In particular for me as a diarist and erotica writer, who has not had sex in over a year.
Which comes as a surprise to no one, since I apparently have at least five better things to do.

New list of Values

1.Being offline
2.Housekeeeping
3.Body
4.Love
5.Financial Freedom
6.Sex
7. Self-Expression
8.Fun& Adventure
9.Status

The new set of 9 Values, and their specific order, are exactly right.
I would die of chaos and stress, for example if I would have fun and adventure (8) before 1-5 have provided me with stability.

So I think the biggest change since December 2022, is that I realize that the fun things;
Sex (6) Self-Expression (7) Fun & Adventure (8) and Status (9)
Are only fun, when 1 to 5 are in place.

But also:
One to five are completely boring!
I may just as well find my casket right away, because as much as I love the peace of living offline;
The serenity of living in a clean house;
The unconditional love I feel for all the animals I take care of, and that I feel for my family and all of my friends and yoga students;
As much as I absolutely adore the hustle of being a creative and am head-over heels in love with marketing, selling and the lifestyle of an independent;

They are STILL not what makes me tick.

It’s like now that I no longer have a lover, and dating and looking for one seems to belong to a lifestyle from an era that is long-gone and I do not feel compelled to redo;
I have lost my reason to live.

I have lost, the reason to get one to five into place. Without “6” there is no reason to, and contrary to my years before I had my lover, I don’t feel like “wasting” time meeting new men.
That time is behind me, and my lover, the man who changed it all, did not come to me through a dating site nor social media.

And without the 6 of Sex, I do not particularly care for 7 “Creative self-expression including writing”, not for 8 “Fun and Adventure” and not for 9 “Status” either.

I have known for long, that in theory, I lost something when I got into my affair all those years ago.
I lost the simple, pure connection to my own body and to my own sexuality.
Resulting among other things, in a loss of enjoying yoga, the way I had enjoyed it for over 15 years at that point.

Instead, my connection to my own body and to my own sexuality, became synonymous to being with him.

So I knew that now that he is no longer in my life, the logical way out was to detox from that dopamine sex-infused rush that had been the affair, and to pick up enjoying my own body.
In peace, not in a close to a decade long, spectacular sexual affair.

But I really, honestly, a few weeks in and I don’t think that is possible.
I have been way to optimistic.

And now with the Values thing, just looking at that top 5 makes me gag, and not in a choke me when you take me from behind, kind of way.
It’s so vanilla, it’s so boring.
And – like I said – that’s while enjoying all the things that are in that top 5!
But it’s just the lack of excitement, that makes the idea (I will get back to this) of actually starting to live according to my top 5, repulsive.

I know so, because this top 5 is how I have actually been living my life for the last five years! My top 5, is not a conceptual idea, of how my life would look if only I would commit to these top 5;
This has been actual my life for years.
The worst years of my life, when I lost everything.

Disclaimer here that I did not live according to value 1, “offline”. But I think we all became a bit unregulated in that area, since the pandemic.
And unfortunately, my life seems far too broken to be fixed with a digital detox.

I discovered a new “simple life” self-help channel on YouTube, very easy going guy. And I saw one of the other videos which I have not watched yet, having something in the title like “It didn’t fix me”.
I can relate to that.
Simplifying my life, by focusing on 1 (offline), 2 (clean house), 3  (Body) and 4 (Love)?
It has not fixed me.

And maybe, in hindsight, I don’t want to be fixed AND I don’t care for a simple lifestyle!
There!

I don’t care if I know that before my lover, I had a life of simple pleasures that I can no longer enjoy, because I have grown accustomed to having Big Sex.
I’ve changed.
I don’t want to go back to a soft, simple life.

So!
My initial plan, the noble idea of internalizing my sexuality and finding pleasure again in the small things, in yoga, in my own body and sexuality
– it needs to go.

And I need to find a way to make number 1 to 5 of my squeaky clean values, rebellious, sexual, dark and unpredictable.

I need to find a way, to turn them into sins.
Preferably deadly ones.
😱

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

This is a letter to my creativity coach Sara
Before our call I always give her a headsup.
.

Dear Sara,

I’m not writing you last minute, as I intended to in order to make sure any new (medical) developments were included;
But at a sunny, calm Sunday where it’s noon and I am still in bathing robe behind my computer, having done nothing productive nor memorable, aside from watching a documentary Mr.Big and me watched on what in hindsight would be one of our last real dates.

Before he turned away and let the promise of another life, one more fulfilling for him, take over.
There I was, alone after nine years that had left no traces. Something I found both sad, to not have it acknowledged, as well as a thing of beauty.
The invisibility had been painful during the affair, and that was definitely something I had to come to terms with really quickly in order to not be swallowed by it;
But now, in the end, it was a blessing to have our affair not be grounded on the material or relational plane, in any way.

The substance from which it had been made, did not leave marks. Unlike what I have experienced to be true from relationships I have witnessed, ours had not contained any aggressive ingredients.
It’s tempting to say this was because there was no power play, but there was a lot of that.
But in a way that enticed us both, we were always in a game together. We knew who had lost and who had won a day, or a conversation.
There was an unnamed game of power, perpetually going on.

But we never fought over resources, not even over time.
And when it ended the material, visible side of it, was painless.
There was not even a fight, not even a proper breakup.

The invisibility of the affair, and how it ultimately helped me and kept me from any harm happening over the breakup, was not the whole story.

Forced by the violent nightmares of December (“Dark and Unknown Forces“), the heart complaints that started quickly after the breakup, and the awareness that dark forces were starting to find their way into my life at a speed I could definitely not afford;
And all that after having been left in the dark, figuratively, for eleven months in 2023, the eleven months after the date where we watched the documentary;
It all urged me to give up my resistance much quicker than expected.
Including my resistance to him, or that there was anything to discuss or to get back on.

I am not saying it would not be possible to experience new levels of separation, of grief, of shock, should certain things occur, or if he would actively do certain things.
I am just saying;
Those things have not occurred.
They are not here.

All that is here now, is an affair that has ended without leaving a trace (not counting my heart, which is now under doctor supervision).
And a question of how to “move on” with my life, in a peaceful way. A loving way, that not only does justice to how I have behaved in those nine years, but also how he has behaved.

Not counting the first six months, when I had not found my way yet at being a secret mistress and he had not found his way around having a mistress either;
I have always been on his good side.
Which took effort from us both.

To let an affair die out over the course of 11 months, dismiss all opportunity to talk about it, and to pretend nothing has changed and that there is nothing to discuss, is both annoying as hell, not to mention terribly time-consuming;
But it was also very “Us”.

In a way, the eleven months were part of the same game we’d been playing all those years before, where I never confronted him, nor did I make him responsible for my feelings;
And he never picked a fight with me, or did ugly things.

The ending was as respectful to each other, as the whole affair had been.
And as could be expected, after nine years our game had ended in a tie 😉

So when then this month of January, my health deteriorated quickly, and the darkness set in, of course there was a brief moment when I thought I should toss everything out that reminded me of him, draw a line, move on.
Make space in my life for a new man or a new lover.

An understandable phase, but it was inauthentic and I was mimicking what others would have done. For me it was not a healthy, but a vengeful scorned woman mindset.
So I threw nothing out, of the rituals or the tiny objects or items of clothing that reminded me of him.

Instead I made my peace, embraced everything we had had, and expanded it to the lifestyle it had represented for me.
Not only were the dates we had, my peak performances – no one has ever seen me like that, nor would I know who would ever see me in such a state of power, competence and of sexual confidence – but I had always had the ambition to uplevel my whole life to those few hours I occasionally had with him.

My body, my home, my life, my business;
They were all to be drawn from that blueprint.
An effort I made halfheartedly at best, when we were together. Before I got distracted, and my daily life fell back to being a shadow from what I knew it could be.

And so inner-peace came, much quicker then I expected.
And I realized that although he is no longer here – and although yes if he wanted to or if certain things happened, he could still hurt me- I do know what I want now.

Not another man, not a life that is built afresh, independent of the past nine years.

But the body, home, life and business, I had hoped all those years to magically click into, now that I knew what I had tapped into being that version of me, with him.

That it is time, now, to fulfill that longheld promise.
To myself.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living