Outrageous Orange

[outrageousorange]

We are so alive to the idea that it’s patronizing to be thought of as younger than we are; we forget that it is also, at times, the greatest privilege for someone to look beyond our adult self in order to engage with— and forgive— the disappointed, furious, inarticulate child within.

The Course of Love- Alain de Bottin

[outrageousorange]

Heavy emotions today...

[outrageousorange]

With every beat, my heart chips away at the bone cage that has trapped it for years. It yearns for release from the constant onslaught of heavy emotions that weigh it down and keep it quiet. I wish that I could let you go, to grant you all that you desire, my heart. Most days I wish for the same freedom that you so desperately fight for, for the lightness of simple, uplifting emotions. I wish I could set you free, but a life without a heart, is that really a life at all? So I beg you, heart of mine- stay. I will do my best to calm you when you are restless, and soothe you when you are afraid. And I hope, dear one, that together, you and I will find peace.

[outrageousorange]

Constantly on the verge of tears

-an aesthetic

[freedfromthepain]

[outrageousorange]

After a very long day or travel, hiking, gasping at scenery, catching my breath, hiking some more, stoping to rest, drinking loads of water, and then hiking even more, my day was made by the most incredible view I have ever seen. All the sweat, all the tired muscles and joints, were all worth the beauty I was able to take in from the top of Storm King Trail on the Olympic Peninsula. I am beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to do this and to have the most amazing weather to experience the best Washington has to offer. Pictures to come, but now… I need pizza (at The Strait Slice Pizza Co.)

[outrageousorange]

Holidays can be hard. They are most often portrayed as a wonderful time of year full of love, and giving. A time to be together with the people that you love. A time to reflect, to give thanks, and to recognize all the good things that surround you each and every day. Unfortunately, that isn’t how it is for everyone around the holidays. It isn’t always like that for me.

I love my family. I love them more than I could say. That doesn’t make me immune to the difficulties that can arise when you spend time with relatives. For my extended family, Thanksgiving the our big holiday. We all spend the 4th Thursday of November together and allow Christmas to be reserved for our immediate families along with our relatives on the other side of our family (This is my father’s side of the family). That being said, Thanksgiving is a huge affair for us. Our family has grown to around 25 people, and we take it very seriously. Everyone has the specific items that they always bring. At least one person will always be late. Several people will stop by after already having attended a thanksgiving meal that day. And often, there is a surprise visitor, someone we didn’t think would be able to make it. For a very long time now, Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday because of all these reasons, and so many more. However, so many years now, this has been changing.

With my better understanding of myself and my brain, I think I have finally accepted the fact that even though I love my family dearly, and enjoy spending time with them, its not all good. More and more I find myself zoning out when I’m with them. I get so lost in the madness that we create. I can’t find where I belong. And if I’m honest with myself this started a long time ago. When my cousins started bringing girlfriends and boyfriends, then fiancé/es, spouses, and eventually children to Thanksgiving dinner, I started to feel disconnected. With the exception of my oldest cousin, we are all within 4 1/2 years of each other. 6 cousins all born within 4 1/2 years of each other. We were close. We are close. I guess seeing them fall in love over the years, left me feeling that I was doing something wrong. Why haven’t ever had a boyfriend to introduce to the family? Seeing them seemingly grow up faster than me left me feeling out of place. This leads to anxieties and worries about myself, about my future, and about what my family thinks of me. 

Thankfully, I still enjoy spending time with my family and always look forward to thanksgiving dinner, but I also know now that my evening will be tinged with anxiety. I am able to minimize the effects of anxiety to a few hazy moments lost in the din of 25 people trying to tell a year’s worth of news in one evening, but I believe that it is occurring more often now than it used to, or perhaps I am simply more aware of it now. I think worse than the lost moments are the moments when my family remind me that its ok to be on the path that I am on. I know they are just trying to reassure me, but it comes across first and foremost as a remind of how different I am. Two of my cousins are planning when they want to be pregnant next, and I’m planning a vacation. One cousin is getting ready to start a new career doing something she loves and I am trying to not get fired from my ‘for now’ job. My younger cousin is mapping out when and how he will buy a house, and I’m just hoping that I can make it through a year with the same roommate. My life is in such a different place than all of theirs, and I know that there is nothing wrong with that, but how am I supposed to fit in with them when we have nothing in common?

I guess I will just have to find solace in the knowledge that I belong with them, if only in the fact that we share the same blood. They will always be my family and I will always love them, no matter how crazy. And I truly feel blessed to have such a large and loving family. 

[outrageousorange]

Why is it that 90% of music ever written is about love or heartbreak? How have we come to a place in this world where almost everything that we hear on the radio is either about a relationship, or about how much it sucks when we lose a relationship? There is a song out there for every single outcome between two people. Unrequited love, messy love, perfect love, lonely love, lost love, imagined love, destructive love...I could go on and on. What about a song about how hard it is to live through your twenties? Any come to mind? I’m sure there’s one out there somewhere, but you would have to hunt it down. 

Don’t get me wrong. I think that music is a great way to release emotion, and I understand that anything to do with love probably has a lot of emotion attached to it. By all means, write a song about your heartbreak, but how, as consumers, have we allowed that to take over the wavelengths? 

In other forms of art, we look to the human condition for inspiration. We create poetry about fear, paintings portraying depression, sculptures depicting achievement. So why not music? Why has something consumed en mass, fallen so far from adequately representing the human experience? Is it the simple idea that sex sells? As humans we are constantly affronted by love, sex, attraction and the like. It is everywhere we look. Maybe this constant onslaught of intimacy has given us all a complex. A love complex. We need it, we strive for it, if we don’t have it there is something wrong with us. With all these ideas in our heads, whether we recognize them or not, no wonder songwriters can’t do anything other than turn out sappy ballads and raging breakup songs. They don’t know anything else? and why would they want to make anything else, when the public so readily and greedily demands these types of songs? The artist gets to let out the emotions that have been thrust upon them by society, the masses get to revel in the fact that they aren’t the only one feeling how they are feeling about love, and the industry gets a fat check. Its a win win win. Except when the masses wake up and feel emotions about other things. song writers try to write about their worries but they are denied by the man. the masses are denied a song that would truly speak to them and are either left in the dark about their lives, or left feeling alone in their fears. 

I’m not sure where this is going. I understand that there are lots of songs out there that are NOT about love. But I am frustrated by the inaccessibility of songs about the scary parts of our lives. I want to switch on the radio and hear a song about depression, followed by a song about how hard it is to be yourself when you don’t know who that is. Maybe its time we start demanding that from the music industry. I think I will. 

[motivation-and-fitness]

We all have a fire within us.

Sometimes the fire is small – just a little flame.

Sometimes the flame flickers and it’s scary as hell and it feels like you’ve lost your spark.

Feel your fire.

Let it grow.

Let it consume you until you’re an unstoppable wildfire.

Feed your fire.

[outrageousorange]

There's this little man and he lives in my head and he whispers lies to me. I'm not sure when he moved in, but he's been here for a while. He has set up his home with a sturdy foundation built on falsities muttered by media and peers. He has been here so long, that I find it had to separate where he ends and where I begin. He has become a part of me. But enough is enough. I tell you Liar, I do not wish to hear what you have to say anymore. You have poisoned my mind long enough. You may have built a home, but I'm still in charge, and I'm handing you your eviction notice. #anxiety #yourenotwelcomehere #themonstersinourheads #recovery #itsalongroad

[wordsnquotes]

No one likes to see people in moods of despair they themselves have survived.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (via wordsnquotes)

[sleevesofgrass]

We read books and highlight the lines that speak to us, we listen to music and tattoo the lyrics that touch us, we turn to poetry and learn the lines that become us; we’re all hopelessly inept people, struggling in vain to coherently express ourselves. We know what we want to say but we don’t know how.

reasons why i write /// ehnigma (via sleevesofgrass)

[outrageousorange]

Arrogant boy, Love yourself so no one has to. They're better off without you. (They're better off without you.) Arrogant boy, Cause a scene like you're supposed to. They'll fall asleep without you. You're lucky if your memory remains.

Therapy- All Time Low

[outrageousorange]

Thoughts on learning about, battling, and defeating depression

In the heat of battle, it can be hard to remember that you are in the lead. You so easily lose sight of the incredible victories you fought so hard to accomplish. When your back is against the wall, when you’re pinned to the floor, when you are cornered, it feels like the end. You have to hold strong. You must keep fighting, because if you don’t, you will never notice the back exit, you will never see the trapdoor and you will never remember the escape maneuver. But, if you can hold out, the answer will come to you, and in an intense moment of greatness, you will overcome the enemy, and you will set yourself free.

[outrageousorange]

That’s OK

Sometimes you have good days. Sometimes you have bad days. Recently the bad days have been a bit more intrusive than I am used to. In general, my depression kind of sneaks up on me. Over the course of, say, a week or even a month, my mood drops slowly, bit by bit. I usually sense the decline. I notice that things that should make me happy, just make me frustrated. As I slide down that slope, I know where it leads. I am acquainted with the darkness that waits for me at the bottom of the pit, and while I never enjoy that journey or the place it takes me, there is a sort of comfort in the knowledge of what comes next. I’m sad, I hide, I cry, I’m angry, I reach out, I’m happy again. On and on this circle goes. Every few months or so, I experience the highs and lows that come with being a deep feeler. But now, things have changed.

Since the event that brought me to seek out a therapist, the bad days have changed their ways. It’s like before, they could mask themselves behind the stigma and the pride in order to get away with their actions, hiding in plain sight. Now that I have given them a name and recognized them as a part of my life, they have gotten scared and have begun searching for new ways to taunt and torture. 

Today was a bad day. It snuck up out of nowhere without much provocation, and it torn me apart. From the moment I woke up, I was accosted by terrible thoughts and feelings of loneliness, fear, anger, anxiety, worry, and stress. I didn’t know how to turn it off. How can you? How do you turn off something that is in your head? Because, in effect, those things in your head are YOU. How do you fight yourself without ruining everything you are? I fell victim to the new tactics of my mind and the worst part is that some piece of me didn’t want to fight it. So I watched it overwhelm me. I sat back as it ripped away all the good and left me cold and empty. 

In retrospect I understand what I should have done. I should have gotten up and made myself breakfast. I should have opened the blinds, and put on happy music. I should have reached out to someone to talk about the horrible things in my head, but I didn’t. I let the badness consume me, and thats OK. In learning about my depression and anxiety, I am NOT going to do everything right. I’m going to struggle and fall move backwards, but none of that matters as long as I am trying to get better. 

Today I’m not ok, and that’s OK.

[outrageousorange]

Scared of my own image Scared of my own immaturity Scared of my own ceiling Scared I'll die of uncertainty Fear might be the death of me Fear leads to anxiety Don't know what's inside of me Don't forget about me Don't forget about me Even when I doubt you I'm no good without you

Doubt- Twenty One Pilots

[outrageousorange]

Guys, therapy was rough today...