#on coping

[bebemoon]

“give yourself and others compassion for the diverse ways we experience and express grief. whether you are weeping, posting, distracting, praying, strategizing or raging, your heart deserves tenderness.” —dr. thema (drthema on twitter)

[suggestingsuggestions]

you and I hold grief like an untended fire  hoping it will burn itself out and ever surprised when the flames kick up, knee high and sparking ever an altar to our own undoing my red-wolf-violent and your pale-hare-fragile at odds, at length, at the daybreak of our fabricated sun embers like fireflies on the frost-laden horizon  Saturn in retrograde  How we claim that we are not the people we used to be every seven years a new frame, untouched by the far past shed selves like a mausoleum, brickwork littering our home there is no reset, minutes on the clock never to be rewound  you cannot disown the past, creature of your own making cannot unslit the throat of the kneeling calf  bloodred and open like my awe  You are, as ever, yourself, and that is not reason enough for me to forgive you. 

AN OPEN FORUM FOR THE BUTCHERS OF DECEMBER // 0097

[dreemmachine]

on coping

this morning i went outside and sat on the edge of our garden bed in the sun with my coffee. i finished reading katie bennet’s zine “jesters in king city” and admired her writing while listening to a crow imitate the cooing of chickens down the street. i thought about how nice it was to momentarily release myself from any responsibilities. it was a necessary moment of peace, something kind that i realized i could do for myself.

i am searching for equilibrium. so many of my good work habits have been temporarily lost to the vacuum of a newfound excess of time. i’m writing this from the small space of clarity that exists after a panic attack, when suddenly self-care becomes an imperative activity, instead of something less defined to find the time for.

there is a global trauma occurring right now. things are not okay, and i am having a difficult time relating with anyone who seems unaffected by the state of things, or wants to go on as if everything is business as usual. acknowledging just how colossally not okay things are right now is the only thing allowing me to take the space necessary to keep my head above water. and i’m not even doing a great job of that. sure, i keep myself occupied most days. it’s not that every waking moment is difficult. but this ever-present backdrop of anxiety is causing my mental illness to present itself in ways i haven’t encountered in many years. it’s as if there’s someone behind the scenes in my psyche, snipping threads i thought i’d wrapped up neatly long ago. the source of this internal work and the reason it needs carefully tended to are one in the same. and that’s challenging, to say the least. i’m exhausted, and quite frankly, a little embarrassed. but the compounding shame of wanting to be strong and realizing i am soft is of little use to me. i’d like to trade it for resilience instead. 

[sadisticnstoned]

Would like to take this moment to say that people cope in many different ways and it’s not right and makes you a horrible person to belittle and take apart and insult those ways of others jus because they are not the same as yours.

[hurricanenostalgia]

Depression and anxiety fight over who’ll eat me up first. How do you communicate that you’re scared for your well-being when the only person keeping you here is the same person who’s trying to tantalize you to take second glances at the exit signs you ignore on a daily basis? How do you communicate that as much as you have fought to love yourself that you are too tired to keep fighting? How do I keep finding the strength to continue when I am so exhausted of fearing for myself the next day? I’m scared. I cant run away from myself. Where do I hide? How do I keep myself safe? 

How do I make it stop without making it stop?