see to my soul

[alighthouseofwords]

I am learning everyday to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me.

Tracee Ellis Ross

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

waif: a person, especially a child, who has no home or friends.

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

it's almost 6am. i have a court date in less than 4 hours so i have to wake up in 3. it's so fucking fucked up i was just biking in a park at night but i'd run into the cop before and "talked back" to him so he gave me a ticket for breaking park curfew... and now i have to go to court for the first time and idek what i'm going to say. fuck it this system is so messed up 

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

telling your stories is great. we should all be able to tell our stories freely. to have our stories listened to and affirmed by others. but in this society some people have more to lose by sharing their stories, expressing their feelings and troubles than others do. not all narratives are met with acceptance. and that sucks a lot. i want a library of the stories that were kept in, suppressed, closeted.

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

i had a breakthrough last night. it came as i was trying to fall asleep (as, i've realized, many of my more significant thoughts tend to do). i gave up trying to fall asleep and as i tried to do other things b/c i was feeling too tired to process the idea i had a bit of an anxiety attack, so i just spent the rest of the evening engaging in self-care. i got a burrito from Chipotle, watched the Glee episode "On My Way" and sobbed as soon as Karofsky's locker scene started and throughout "Cough Syrup," and took a bath since i had the house to myself for the first time all summer. I don't want to psychoanalyze it too much, i just want to try to state the truths.

truths:

i have madness within me

it could—with some validity—be labeled as a combination of mood/anxiety disorders

i've been living in denial of ^^ truths, seeing them as trivial and selfish

i've been suppressing my madness in a genuine effort to be a better, more empathetic person and that's only turned me against myself and made me a weaker warrior

functioning with social anxiety as a social justice warrior is rly rly hard, esp. when you don't acknowledge it as a real thing

(e.g. i made a facebook post about chelsea manning and afterward wanted to disable my facebook b/c i felt rly judged and unsafe and that was a big part of what triggered my feelings of panic)

i need to allow myself time for effective self-care and healing without feelings of guilt or shame so i can engage in Self-care (healing the world)

p.s. glee soothed me so much like wow i love glee so much

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

ok i'm sry but i just feel like everyone's ideas of right vs wrong, health vs pathology, etc. is just so fucked up so i don't care how this sounds but getting trashed is a form of self-care for me. it's cathartic to lose control for a bit, to have an adventure, to be in altered state of mind where i don't fucking give a shit about how words come out and shit like that. if you drink a lot of water the hangover's not even that bad and i just wake up feeling ready to start again. it has gotten me into trouble a few times and strained some relationships but i've learned from my mistakes

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

those nights when you black out and embarrass yrself but forget all about it and then someone starts to tell you something you said/did and u want to ask them all these questions but then realize u don't wanna know

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

journal

I barely saw Lilly and Mary all summer but in the small amount of time i saw them they shone a lot of life into my life. Lilly and i had a long conversation by the fire at her camp. I articulated the revelation that despite all my anxieties (most of which are directed at past regrets) i wouldn't want to change anything about myself/anything i'd done. Our lives, our beings are such intricate combinations of everything we've experienced that if you changed one thing who knows what else would be different...in a way everything would be. And i wouldn't want that. I actually do like the person i am right now with all of my flaws and failings. 

While affirming everything i said, she reminded me to not take myself so seriously all the time. As Nietzsche said, to be a thinker is to live a life of "prodigious difficulties." Part of being queer for me has always been seeking to dwell in tensions, and that can be mentally draining. But it's good to remind myself that even though the subjects i think about are of great import if i'm failing to make sense of them as quickly as i'd like to it's not so big a deal. Finally, she said probably the most self-affirming thing anyone's ever said to me: she acknowledged that i question myself more than most and told me that i was doing really well. I take a lot of comfort that at least one person thinks so. 

Mary also said some heartening things when i saw her at Austin's. I told her i was nervous about going to school because i hadn't changed all that much since i took the leave of absence. She told me that it's hard to force change and to remember that i'm only human. :) Anyway I just wanted to record those wonderful moments to memory.

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

clarity

i talked her out of suicide a couple years ago

she's home now from a semester in australia we'd kept in touch but now that she was home she'd found better people to hang out with (all of whom had also once been significant people in my life)

now we're taking a trip to boston together me to visit my grandpa who's recovering from a heart attack her to visit a friend in harvard

i tell her i felt depressed yesterday after the end of my favorite series like i didn't have a story

she replies in affirmation proud of her story arc counter to my lack of one

and listening to her speak on my perceived emptiness i realized the repulsiveness of that untruth and the toxicity that has spoiled our relationship since she "grew up" leaving me in the jungle of adolescence

i am  after all millions of stories coalescing into one

as we all are

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

I've said/done some fucked up shit while super drunk. Last weekend i cried to a high school acquaintance and her 2 friends that i bumped into about how it sucks to be trapped in ur body ur whole life; tonight i learned that when i blacked out at a fam reunion like 2 months ago i had a pathetic "nobody likes me" self-pity fest in front of my aunt; and the most extreme example would have to be trying to jump off a ledge of one of my college buildings explaining to the strangers stopping me that i was going to paradise. My parents found out about the latter two incidents (case #2: my aunt talked to them about it; case #3 the administration of my school did) and i like never feel comfortable talking to them so i do this thing where i let them talk for me and then agree with them once they've explained something for me in a way that reflects what they hope to be true and so anyway they said something about alcohol making you say/do things that aren't the real you and i was like yeah totally. But i actually don't buy that... I don't totally buy into the "drunk words are sober thoughts" idea either... I just don't really believe in a "real self." People like to say "that wasn't the real me," "i wasn't myself" as if who they are is some kind of essential being detached from what they say and do not to mention all they've perceived and imagined... You can drink to oblivion or take any hallucinogen, you can act or perform, you can do something atypical or unexpected or contradictory, but you can never be anyone other than you. This truth is a trap from which there is no escape, that is until you stop seeing it as a trap and learn the true definition of self with all its vastness and possibility. idk so anyway i do not believe that substances like alcohol cause us to cease being ourselves but rather shuffle everything in our minds—everything that makes us who we are—while lowering our inhibitions or causing us to lose control entirely to more unpredictable results. 

[jamescookjr]

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

when i found out she was estranged from her parents i immediately identified with her and totally understood the despair she must have felt when they were shot before she ever had a chance to resolve things

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

i always find it interesting when 2 significant boys in my life are adjacent to each other on fb chat. i think about how their lives intersected with mine in similar/different ways and think about how weird it would be if they ever crossed paths or do so in the future or if they do know each other how we all ended up where we did with the relationships that we have

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

things that are hard

getting out of bed in the morning

going to bed at night

speaking

opening emails

replying to texts

answering the phone

staying focused on anything for extended periods of time

doing anything that doesn’t provide immediate relief

being kind to myself

being kind to my parents

making personal changes/convincing other ppl to change

being honest to myself/others

forgiving myself/others

holding on

letting go

school

work

life

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

and like the thing was it was just a hangout with some beer so i couldn't get drunk i was just stuck with uninteresting ppl and uninteresting conversation feeling anxious & self-conscious & uncomfortable esp. after Mary left. this might make me sound like i have a problem and maybe i do but alcohol is awesome and when i start i want to keep drinking toward the point of self-annihilation (that's a drastic way of putting it but idk that's the word that came to mind when i was thinking earlier tonight). if for some reason i can't do that i'm likely to feel down unless i'm engaged in (optimally one-on-one) conversation with someone/ppl i care a lot about or am doing something i love. i can't do parties sober/tipsy.

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

let's play a game called how long can u stay at a party even tho ur having a miserable time

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

reclaiming the word pathetic

it's interesting and revealing that the root of the word pathetic means feeling and is the adjective form of pathos (a highly respected word in English literature) but has such negative connotations. like no surprise...everyone knows how stigmatized it is to express our emotions in this society. but fuck that. it's okay to be vulnerable and seek the attention and pity of others. you're allowed to be pathetic!!

[whisperingwhilebombsarefall-blog]

I'm feeling pretty good tonight. A little down, somewhat tense but that's a given. Let's use this energy to do some reading/annotating on The Promise of Happiness, work on that letter to Denis, equip my self-care toolbox, and organize my music. I think i'll use the dice method. 

the promise of happiness

music

letter

self-care toolbox

tumblr

person