Just Say FUCK NO to Suicide!

I did not know till I looked up crisis line numbers for this post that this is National Suicide Prevention Week. We are actually in its final days and so though late to the party, I have something to say on the subject of wanting to end yourself.

I've been working on an article with tips and the what not on how to survive a deep dark depression, knowing the subject intimately, I thought I would share how I manage this feat over and over again.

Today I have only one thing to say...KEEP BREATHING! Call for help when you feel you can't and accept the help given as sometimes we fight an inner battle with life and death leading to fighting the very help we asked for. Ok, that’s actually three things…but try to imagine someone taking your life, would you fight for it? If so, there is a part of you that wishes to live no matter what. I know that sometimes it’s more than we think we can bear…but we do! Some of us cycle this over and over again and live despite how easy it would be to take all the drugs the psychologist has so conveniently prescribed us.

I also recommend finding a tether. Mine is my daughter. I go through a mental list of people who likely would be impacted by my death and how they would react and proceed with their lives. My daughter is the one being I know who would be damaged by my leaving. It is my responsibility to live for her, I made a deal with the Universe to give birth to her and you just don’t go and break a bond like that. So find your bond and believe me, most everyone has one and that bond may not be of the human variety. It could be a cause, a pet, a message meant to be given by you and only you. It can be ANYTHING. Hell it could be a tree in the forest you love, so tether you to it and when you come to your precipice, tug on it and know this is why you stay.

I will not lay claim to know this will work for everyone, I am sure there are people it won’t.  When you’re depressed it’s fucking hard to see opportunity, you only see what’s wrong, and that perhaps it’s just fucking time to say goodbye. And if this is the case for you, finding a reason to live is harder, but if you have spun down into this place and came out the other side before, it means you know how to survive, that your will to live is stronger than your will to die. Managing this makes you one strong mother fucker! You stared death in the face and said ” nay…I have shit to do, some other time perhaps.”

So just keep breathing and share your tales of survival with others. The more people talk about suicide the less taboo it becomes. The more we talk openly about it, the less alone we all will feel. I have no idea how many die because they share their feelings to friends and family and were met with discomfort and no words of support because they didn't know what to say. The crisis line can be a tether in those moments. If it is only for that moment when you need someone to listen, they are there for you, so please make the call.

Be Grateful...Breathe...Repeat

Grateful Thursday

I used to do this as a list and I think I will get to that next time. For this first one though, I think I want to keep it big picture and simple.

I am grateful that I NEVER GIVE UP!

Never giving up means I get to discover magic in places no one would dare look. I am not saying this is the way one ought to live, I am saying that it is mine, and I am grateful that though it be terrifying, I never let go of my lovely tether and decide…no more.

This first Grateful Thursday post is brought to you by a meeting of endarkened minds, the introduction to a forever-friend I never knew I had, and that I have so much more to learn and share. Sharing is caring and I intend on caring a whole fucking lot, all over the fucking place.

Get ready world, I am coming back…

Photo: my own from Belize during the dry/fire season.

Back the Fuck up Buttercup...

This is just fucking silly. Happiness is not in the wings waiting for you to feel nothing so it can fill in. We feel a great many things both nice and not so nice. These feelings are not killing our happiness, we simply are NOT happy in the moment.

We find our way to happiness, it is not a given. Most of the time, for most of us, this takes concerted effort. To me memes like this one, though intended to be uplifting, can be the polar opposite for those of us still struggling with balance in our enlightenment. There are also the ones just touching a toe in the pool, still feeling afraid and angry, happen upon a sweet tidbit like this and think "fuck! I just killed an angel!" See to some in the fragile state (the gooey cocoon stage) of enlightenment, a message like this can seem fatalistic as one braves their inner dark terrain finding feelings to match.

We need more voices voicing realities rather than ridiculous ideologies that no one can live up to. And why oh why do more not see that this is just a side way step to the right away from Christianity. Stick an eagle feather in your cap and call yourself a white-lighter.

Which by and by…is okee dokee by me, just please refrain from wrinkling your nose in distaste at the knowledge that some of us are in the muck and glory of this gorgeous planet called Earth and finding our way through the dark... naturally.

Goddess Am I

The mind is the birthplace of the imagination, it is here where our feelings are processed making truth that it’s the ones that “act” upon the imaginable, that change the world. Waltz intent right into the world of form and you are making shit BE.

If it were that simple for everyone, humankind on a whole would know there are no differences between us as a race AND all that we survey. In turn the human race would come to the natural conclusion that we all are indeed….deity.  

Winter Is Coming....

There can be no doubt at all, that I am mad as a hatter at present. I’m way deep in it and all I can do is silently scream into the quiet room as I blast music into my brain via ear buds. Winter is fast approaching and I feel that if I am still here when He starts his frosty march…I will just lay down and let him take me into the slumberlands.

I need movement. I am statue-ing into what I'm sure will not be a pretty forever face. My pain will be for all to see and not just the bits I allow access to. As it is my body swells with raging discontent observable to any watching the downward spiral I presently ride since my return to the states.

I need an intervention, but since I make it impossible to dominate me long enough for that sort of thing to be utilized, I shall do so for myself by sending me on retreat. I go to write and to be alone and to chisel off the icy marble attempting to stiffen me into the above mentioned, forever face.

This is not how this story ends.

Babble posts are better than no posts at all.....

Waiting is not my strong suit. Patience is not in my vernacular. Even with a knowing that I would indeed wait with no patience for it at all, I still fell into a puddle in the basement, in my bed, with my iPod firmly linked to my brain. It’s my new coping tool…do nothing but listen to music and figure out the mysteries of the Universe. One day I just know this will be of consequence, for now it feels like limbo on steroids.

Oh and have I figured some big shit out! But it’s as per the usual, hard to put into words readable by other, you know, humans. But I will tell Jana all about it and she will figure out the little tidbits that sound insane to me and make a sense of it. I do so love her for that. I need a decoder ring sometimes and she can be that for me and for this gift I want to kidnap her and take her with me…plots have plotted.

The one thing that is clear and easy to communicate is the release of more control that I insist on attempting even when I know there is nothing for it. I watched me fall into the puddle from an outside place and wondered why I was bothering. It seemed out of date and rather redundant. Still I did it for I had no other avenue at the moment to flow my inertia upon. I mean what do you do with suspension other than get comfy cause its fucking happening.

So this time I paid painful attention to every infliction and regret I set upon myself. I have it all stored up looking to never go into repeat mode again. I know I can alter how I react to these moments. I mean I did! Never did I go into the suicidal ideology moment, well not authentically. I heard the words and they fell flat. It might actually now be boring to want to die knowing I will never fucking actually do it. I live because I fucking cannot allow me to die. That is a FACT, so why fight it. See…I am letting go.

Can I have my Love Cookie now?

My Eating Disorder Has Bipolar

Epiphanies are such lovely moments that if realized and materialized can indeed be life changing. Today I finished what was started on Monday when I went to a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. I asked the Universe and even declared on Facebook my intent of gaining tools and not long term talk therapy I have always found of little use at all. Well it’s exactly what I received and yet has taken nearly a week to work out the kinks.

So me being me and not at all conventional took the advice of the therapist literally and if that is not what she meant, well she told the wrong girl to think of her eating disorder not as a part of her (this is dangerous), but as an entity separate and whole from her. Give it a face, a body, a name...and so I did.

I had just a few days before Monday watched the cartoon movie Rise of the Guardians. Which is odd in and of itself since I only watch such films with kids about and have never done so alone, in my basement, and in a not so good mind space. I asked myself often, “what the fuck are you watching this for?” but ignored the question as I laid there like the sloth beast I can be, not caring enough to change the channel. However late Monday night after pondering what the therapist had said, it came clear to me why the fuck I did indeed watch that movie. Her name is Cupcake.

She is a large boyish girl in a tutu who is for a minute or so in the film, a rather unhappy girl. But Jack Frost sends her a magical snowball to the face and is transformed into a happy girl who plays with the other children rather than beating them to a bloody pulp. Or that is how I saw the way her character could have gone, but this is a kid film, not a Michelle film, so no blood. As you can see Cupcake from the movie and Michelle in the 5th grade, well there is some resemblance.

Now I was not a fat girl, I was a big girl. Being half Swedish I looked more football player than dancer, even though I was never good at sports, and actually a good dancer. Which in my twisted mind, makes the tutu fit. And so Cupcake becomes the imagery for my eating disorder...a disgruntled girl who looks like a boy and because of her size, intimidating, but really is kind hearted and innocent.

The rest of my week I start to converse with Cupcake when I wanted more food than was necessary, for which she would pout, and I admit to caving more often than not. This yesterday led to a rather large binge leaving me discouraged and witless as to how this was going to work. Today being what it is, a new beginning. Me not being one to not seize opportunity, communed with cigs, the sun, a very green smoothie and Tori Amos when above mentioned epiphany hit me straight to the…heart.

Earlier this morning I reposted on Facebook a bit about the heart chakra in various forms of dysfunction and was impressed how accurate it was and that I indeed had freed me from a good deal of said symptoms of a closed and or out of balance heart. So when I’m sitting there having a convo with the Sun and listening to Tori, I realize suddenly that the problem with Cupcake is that she is not ‘dark’ enough to be MY eating disorder and yet she fits so well at the same time! I’m running a conversation in my head that leads me right to the perfect imagery. She is not nasty enough to say “FEED ME” carnivorously, Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors is!

Seymour is the dark aspect of my eating disorder and Cupcake is the softer cuter side of it. She is me as a little girl wanting to fit in and Seymour is the end result of wanting to feed the big fucking gaping hole where mother should be.  Then Tori starts to sing Upside Down.

My head swims and my heart opens up (like the Queen Anne Lace flowers I’m starting at) even more because I know I once again found my answers with a tool from a third party and of course…its fucking polarized.

Cue Tori with Crucify.  Yes indeed “… my heart is sick of being in chains”.