How can I help you?

quotemadness

Let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.

Marc Hack (via quotemadness)

quotemadness

A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.

Osho (via quotemadness)

And it turned out that I was all right. It turned out it was all right with me to be human, to have hungers, to have needs, to take space. It turned out that I had a self, a voice, a whole range of values and beliefs and passions and goals beyond what I had allowed myself to see when I was sick. There was a person in there, under the thick ice of the illness, a person I found I could respect.

Marya Hornbacher, from “Eating Disorder Recovery” (via lifeinpoetry)

arpeggia

For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one’s own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes

Milan Kundera; ”The Unbearable Lightness of Being” (via arpeggia)

victoriajoan

You will feel your bones getting lighter. You will feel more and more at risk. You will think her shining drains you of meaning, but it is a journey you must take.

Linda Gregg, from The Sacraments of Desire (via victoriajoan)

nightshadequeen

The reality is, if we want things to get better in our lives, we have to be willing to try something different! Fortune telling gets in the way and convinces us “this won’t work because…” But the truth is that until we try, we won’t know. We may try a new skill and it doesn’t work either, but at least we tried. We can now add it to our list of skills we already know don’t work, and move on to try something else.

Jeff Riggenbach, PhD LPC. The CBT Toolbox: A Workbook for Clients and Clinicians (via nightshadequeen)

canaryquillastrology

“Pisces comes to recognize her need for self-respect and achievement. She likes subtly applied power. She comes to see her anger as an outcome of earlier feelings of helplessness, inferiority, or powerlessness. […] When the Pisces Woman learns to use anger as a constructive force, when she regards it as real and universal, when she acknowledges both its positive and negative powers, when she acknowledges that as a mature woman she has choices in her emotional life, she becomes an integrated, independent woman.”

- Judith Bennett, Sex Signs (Pisces)

Mason smiled weakly and nodded. “Okay. I’ll do it. If you promise you won’t leave. I’ll promise to give this thing a go. I promise I’ll give it my best.” He meant it. He’d try his hardest, if she would be by his side.

Ariel nodded with him, and then pulled them both up to their feet. “I am not going anywhere. As long as you need me, I’ll be here,” she told him.

#totally dead #mason

“Thank you. Truly, I– It means the world to me.” He meant it. Everything she was saying, and had been saying for the past hour or so - made him feel comfortable. It made him feel as if though he could do it, she gave him strength. When she cradled the side of his face, he looked at her, his eyes gentle. He nodded slightly. “Okay. If you say so. Just… If you ever need to talk to someone who.. You know, isn’t a therapist or something like that, I’m here for you. I want to help you too. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe we could end up helping one another in all of this. Maybe we’ll help each other heal.” He leaned in and pressed a quick peck on her cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“If you really want to thank me, you keep up the good work,” Ariel told him. It had been a spontaneous, chaotic session, but it had taken them so far. Leaps and bounds ahead of where they’d been before. There was real hope in the words they shared.

She grinned at his kind words, and the peck on the cheek. “Anytime, Mason. And thank you. Now,” she said, nodding at him brightly. “You ready to keep fighting the good fight?”

#mason #ALL THE FEELS

“I’m pretty sure I’m the one who should be honored here. No one wanted me. They– They said I was a lost cause.” He swallowed and looked at Ariel. “But you.. You were different. You are different. And I’m really happy you are. Because… I need someone who won’t think I’m one. Someone who thinks I’m actually worth the fight I’m going to be putting up, because we both know I won’t be easy to work with.” He laughed awkwardly. He nodded and it made sense. “Okay. That sounds good. Hopefully.” He swallowed and looked at Ariel. “But.. What about you? You say you’re here to help, and I know you will do anything for your patients, otherwise you wouldn’t be here with me. You wouldn’t do everything you’re doing right now. Anyway, I– What I wanted to ask, when you’re busy helping everyone else out - who is going to take care of you?”

Ariel felt a surge of mixed emotions -- pride and joy and even an aching want, a need for him to recover, to give him the world, because she could feel that deep sadness and hurt, all at the same time. “You are absolutely worth the fight, Mason. Without a doubt. One day you’ll be saying that, too,” she whispered, worried that if she spoke louder, her voice would be choked by her heart.

She cradled the side of his face gently, smiling at him all the while. “You are a great person, Mason. I am more proud of you than I could say,” she told him. “You are such a kind person, and it takes a rare kind of strength to hold onto that goodness after fearing so much pain. I’m fine,” she assured him. “You guys aren’t the only ones in therapy. Plus I have one very cuddly black cat. Thank you, for asking. I truly appreciate it.”

#mason

Mason swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, I– I’d like that.” He responded honestly. And he did - he did want all of that. He wanted to be able to live with it, he wanted to be able to move on but not forget what happened that night. But right now, he couldn’t see it happening anytime soon. He smiled weakly and nodded. “You know, I’m really happy I went to you. That I have you,” he said and swallowed as he looked at their hands in which she squeezed. “I don’t think I’d be able to keep going if it hadn’t been for you.” He thought of Olivia, and he loved her - he knew he did. But it was all different, Mason needed Ariel; he had come to realize. If it hadn’t been for Ariel, he wouldn’t be able to keep it together. Without her, he probably would have gone on a rampage and killed a lot more people than necessary. And he felt as though he owed her his life for that. “I do want to get better. I just don’t see how I’m going to do it.” He swallowed and looked at Ariel - she was truly a strong woman, and someone Mason admired greatly. He nodded and cleared his throat awkwardly. “But, how did you do it? How did you– Let the good memories outshine the bad ones?” he asked, honestly curious.

“All you have to do is ask for it,” Ariel said. “It’s already in you, we just have to find it.” A grin spread across her face, and she feel the burn of tears in her eyes but she held them back. “I’m so happy you came to me, too, Mason. I’m honored, I truly am,” she told him, squeezing his hand once more.

“That’s why I’m here. To help.” She took a deep breath, and actually broke their gaze for a moment, staring across the hallway while she thought. “Time. A lot of time. A lot of breakdowns in my kitchen. I had to replace my glasseware, twice. But one day I woke up, and I could think about the hospital without crying. I could actually look at the couple of sonograms. It still made me sad, but… they could make me happy, too. I chose to look at them in a new light. One day, you’ll see things in a new light, too. But first your eyes have to adjust to the dark so we can find the switch.”

#trevor

“I know this is stupid of me to say, but… I don’t– I don’t want the pain to go away completely either. I don’t want to forget what I did,” he said and swallowed. He was so confused. “I- I don’t want to forget what I did because if I do, then his– his life would have been a waste. I can’t do that to his parents,” he mumbled and shook his head. “I can’t bring them more pain. And that’s– I don’t want them to know that I’m walking around, acting as if nothing of this has impacted me. I don’t want them to think I’m not thinking about their son every day. He’s in my head every second of the day.” He listened to Ariel and nodded faintly. “But why? Why me?” he asked and shook his head. “I knew I had trouble with my anger. I shouldn’t have gone out that night. When he– I should have turned and left. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I jumped him. I slammed his head against the ground and strangled him. It might be my condition, but I still did it. You keep talking about choices, I had a choice that day. I should have left.” When she put her hands on top of his, he looked at them and as soon as he heard her say how she had lost a baby, his eyes went up and he looked at her. “That’s– No,” he said when she said that she had killed her body. “You didn’t kill her!” he said and grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze. “It’s different. You couldn’t– It’s not your fault your body didn’t–” he said but stopped, knowing why she had told him. She wanted him to see the similarities. Mason sighed and pushed one hand through his hair, pushing it back. “Okay. I- I get it,” he whispered quietly.

#trevor #sleep is for the w e a k

“Not at all,” Ariel whispered. “You couldn’t forget him if you tried, Mason. You will always have those memories, and these ones. But you’ll have the power over them and not the other way around. They won’t hurt you anymore, they’ll just be a reminder you can examine any time you want to, without all this pain.”

She smiled and shook her head slightly. “I never said you’d make all the right choices in life. I just said that the choices you’re making now, the ones you made when you came to me and said you wanted to get better, those are the choices people should judge you by. Because they’re the ones that matter, they say the loudest things of all,” she said,squeezing his hand.

“Shh,” she whispered, holding up a hand. “I’m not telling you that because I’m upset. I’m telling you because I was upset. For a long time. I still feel that pain today, and sometimes there are moments when everything seems bleak and hopeless. But then I remember that I’m alive, and that I can still make other moments matter more than my darkest memories,” she smiled broadly at him, a genuine smile despite the sadness wavering in the very center of her eyes. “You can do it, too, Mason. You are powerful enough to forgive yourself.”

Mason sat on the floor in front of Ariel, his chest tightening at the words Ariel was saying. He felt a tear slip through the cracks and he cleared his throat as he lifted his hand, brushing it away before he focused on her again. “It’s not a choice I should be able to make,” he mumbled quietly and a quiet sob left his lips and he grabbed the side of his head. “I took a man’s chance of having choices. I– He can’t grow up and fall in love, he won’t be able to fight with his wife and have angry sex afterwards. He won’t be able to have kids. I took those choices away from him. Why should I have a chance of making mine?” “It’s not my fault? Come on. How can it not be? I had my hands wrapped around his throat. I’m the one who pushed… I’m the one– How can it not be my fault?” he asked, his voice shaking as he stared at her. He didn’t get it. “I just don’t get it,” he admitted. “I don’t get how when it was my hands that stopped him from breathing, that stopped the oxygen to come to his heart, how can that not be my fault?”

#oh god i know #i just #i dont know how these feels jumped out at me at 7am #mason

“Because you are still alive,” Ariel told him. “And acting like him, acting like your dead, it’s a waste of the breath left in your lungs. That man can’t make choices anymore, but you can. And that makes it your responsibility to keep making choices. This pain, right now, it soothes you because it’s all you had, but one day it’s going to pass It will be a memory you can draw strength from, and you will come out on the other side not unscathed but alive.”

She kept her gaze steady and calm. “When someone dies of cancer, we don’t blame them for having corrupt cells. We don’t blame diabetics for their inability to process insulin. So why should we blame you for being a victim your disease? The chemicals in your brain are off balance, it’s a physical problem. Do you blame that man’s heart for stopping his chest? No? Then why would you blame your own sickness and injury?”

She paused for a moment, then placed her hands over his. “A few years ago, I lost a baby,” she whispered, her voice holding the same rhythm, the same calm cadence. “My body wasn’t equipped to carry a fetus to full term. I had an ‘incompetent uterus,’” she said, a small smile on her face, one hand drifting to her stomach. “I killed my baby, because my body wasn’t built for her. But even though I am directly responsible for the ending of a life, I know, deep down, that it was not my fault. We can only play the hands we’re given, Mason.”

Mason listened to what Ariel said, and deep down, he knew she made sense. He knew what she was saying was the truth. “Forgiveness? I’m never going to be able to forgive what I did. The anger, as much as I don’t want it to be, is part of me. It’s going to follow me around, it’s like a boomerang, when you throw it away, it’ll still come shooting back.” He swallowed and shook his head. “What if it doesn’t heal? What If I can’t stop pulling off the skin as the wounds heal? It’s– It’s not as easy as that, Ariel,” he said and looked down at the floor, his chest tightened and he took a deep breath, although it made him almost break down. “It might not bring their son back, but it’s still going to make them feel better. They’re going to know that their son’s killer, the one who pushed his hands around his neck so hard he stopped breathing, is getting what he deserves.” He swallowed. “Sometimes I wish they had just done it,” he said, surprised at himself that he had actually said it out loud. Sure, he had thought about it on a regular basis, but he had never really said it out loud. “I wish they had put me in the chair.”