[thunderstruck9]

Salman Toor (Pakistani, 1983), Male Audience, 2018. Oil on panel, 42¼ x 42¼ in.

[aquaticsparkles]

[11411111-deactivated20180207]

[foreverlostinliterature]

[s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s]

[neckkiss]

10 Things I Hate About You

[iladyse]

[sweetestwildfire-deactivated202]

take me here

[urgetocreate]

Peter Brown (British b.1967), Christmas, Combe Park, 2019, Oil

[interior-design-home]

[ghibli-forever]

[gothish]

Mist

[lost-moonlight]

[perrfectly]

[foxeia]

Ximena Moral

[beyond-magical-repair]

Emotional regulation to me is: a cigarette or a vape – they remind me how to breathe in regulation to the exhale of the smoke. The nicotine keeps me level headed enough to function but without it I am drowning.

Emotional regulation to me is: “Flight”, it's like I don't have any “Fight” left in me these days. I used to have “fight” in me, I used to be able to catch on to my panic attacks and flashbacks and fight and win against them, now they suck me under until hyperventilation and sweat-outbreaks win. 

Emotional regulation to me is: EMPTY – it's like my personal SD card on emotional regulation and challenging my own trauma and anxiety has been wiped clean and all that’s left is the hiding, the disappearing act and suffocation. My “Fight” goes Houdini and all I'm left with is my own quivering mess. 

Emotional Regulation to me is: Cutting and running before I get hurt. Its fucking people over before they fuck me over. Its survival at the fittest. This is what was ingrained in me since I can remember. Do not trust and be so embarrassed and terrified of ridicule you'll be a good girl and never tell anyone all that has happened. A part of me still thinks I won't be able to trust another soul, no matter how bad I want to. 

Emotional Regulation to me is: Being powerless at times where it doesn’t make logical sense. All while knowing I'm strong and can fight at the same time unable to do it. Freezing and Flighting/hiding my Fight away by seemingly no personal choice of my own.

Emotional Regulation to me is: when the good memories from the past hurt even worse than the trauma. 

Emotional Regulation to me is: not having a strong enough reason to focus on happy thoughts or even if I do rethink, what am I supposed to think about? Unicorns? I can’t hide any of these emotions without toxic-waste-dumping all over people so therefore i don’t leave my apartment much. 

[love]

by Alyssa Berg

[shisasan]

Rachel Monroe, The Sun And The Moon