artemis-corvus

[artemis-corvus]

Morning Gratitude Jot

This morning I am grateful for having landed a job that provides me some joy and fulfillment. I am grateful for my hard-working husband that may have his issues, but does his best to provide and care for me. I am grateful for our stability financially, and the effort he's put into maintaining that. I am grateful for the warm weather to feel the sun on my skin. I am grateful for animals that make me stop and remember to be present, loving, compassionate, and thoughtful. I am grateful for people who inspire me to be better, more disciplined, and more intuitive. I am grateful for my mother-in-law who loves me despite the flaws she has seen in me. I am grateful my parents are still alive. I am grateful for our home, our soft blankets, our access to food, water, technology, and hot baths.

[artemis-corvus]

[artemis-corvus]

Sophia Joan Short

[artemis-corvus]

How We Learn to Love

I am not exactly sure when I decided that to love and be loved was to be consumed, to willingly feed, to surrender your identity and peace of mind for the ego of another. There is perspective now, to the marriage of my parents, that makes me realize that the dynamic went first one way then the other. My father took all of the shattered self-esteem and desperation for approval that my mother offered in the form of openness to infidelity, namely by way of prostitutes, until she couldn't take anymore. Whatever he and her life did to her, she then turned on me, and before I had the vaguest notion of my own footing I was commanded to be a life raft, a living beacon of her success and goodness, a breathing trophy that owed all of my victories to her. Now, they love me with guilt and shame. I am the broken result of a broken family of a broken marriage of a broken life. I am the revenant.

I am the cum stain on a grey t-shirt with the design of a sailing ship and glitter from a middle aged whore raping felon released into a basement alone with 15 year old me in Maryland. I am the violet and crimson of bruises from angry paternal hands that saw me as a shadow in the corner of his eye. I am the sweat of too many hands that saw me body a a proving ground because my head and heart were too broken to tell them no and I thought maybe it meant I was pretty. I am whispers and giggles and mocking stares pointed at my back because I tried to speak out and when I couldn't take the pressure, I took the fall. I am scar tissue from filthy razor blades that promised to make me feel just a little more than nothing at the low low price of wanting to hide parts of my body for decades to come. I am the fear of failure so powerful it perpetuates the paralysis that results in failure until I don't try because then it can't go wrong. I am the loneliness of desperation so deep that I sit perpetually on the precarious precipice of limbo between looking inward and outward, finding that fraction of a breath between where my skin meets the rest of the world because I don't know which will hurt more, knowing what the world thinks of me, or thinking about what the world knows of me. And if I fail and lean too far forward or back, somehow I'll still wind up at the bottom of a beer can.

Allow me to be a tragedy today, let me bleed it from my pores like I've got leeches on my flesh, and hope that tomorrow's sun will burn off just a bit more of the remnants so I can shed those hollow yesterdays.

[artemis-corvus]

farewell

[artemis-corvus]

Even in the mystery, life can still be meaningful, even in the smallest ways. Notice the flowers that are growing on the window sills. Notice the way the clouds move slowly through the sky. Notice how meaningful movement is happening all around, waiting to be realized. - Morgan Harper Nichols

[artemis-corvus]

Overflow.

Let's talk about it, I said to my head, staring down the inside of my skull like a shell-shocked vet at the graveyard of a minefield. Let's talk about it, I whispered, and I knelt to the ground and my hands dug into the earth and they whispered to me of my pain, of how worthless these miles of dirt would be, how nothing good is left to grow since I let it go.

There's a name for it, delayed grieving, but I don't know how to do the catching up in bite size pieces, when I try to open the flood gates the tide pushes me over and I drown in knee-jerk coping mechanisms of self-destruction. I wish I could talk about it, but every time I try my soul leaves my body and it's like watching someone else read their grocery list, "Rape, death, divorce, neglect, abuse, betrayal, shame," and these rocks of theoretical revelations don't so much as make a ripple on my face to my own disgrace.

I never know if I ought to thank my brain for the multitude of blank spaces and missing memories, the nightmares I usually don't remember and the faces that have gone blurry. The times I gave a piece of myself away to survive, but then I realize I'm full of holes and I don't know why, and that's about as helpful as a drawer full of containers with no lids. You don't heal from wounds you can't find.

I do know that trying to fill the emptiness of soul with manufactured spirits is putting a band-aid on an amputation and you better believe you're going to wake up just as damaged, but now you've got an infection and the doctors are gonna tell you they got the medication but what works for one may not work for you may come with side effects may take some time to work may need additional dosing oh and small chance of suicide.

We don't have to talk about it yet. I lift my hands out of the earth and turn it over, tilling the soil. We just have to make it until the next growing season and maybe do it without blowing up. Turn the next patch, one handful at a time, while the sun goes down on my mind that's too tired to talk right now but my body can still work and that has to count for something.

[artemis-corvus]

May the small things you are cultivating right here continue to grow with time. - Morgan Harper Nichols

[artemis-corvus]

I spent too much time bored today. Lonely. Thought about smoking, almost started hatching a plan to get away with it ASAP. I need to work on that idle time, I'm just not sure with what. What do I want to learn? What do I want to improve on that I can actively do so with free time, that will provide me some pleasurable feedback? Am I capable of finding pleasure in hobbies, or do I have to survive until some of my head chemicals level back out?

This boredom. This boredom. It terrifies me.

[artemis-corvus]

Turning your life around? Coming out of a funk? Getting over a breakup? Need to reignite your spark for life? Need to feel in control? Want a boost of confidence? Dealing with low self esteem?

Where to start:

Exercise every day

Skincare + makeup of personal preference (yes this includes not wearing makeup at all if that is your personal preference)

Hair done

Showered and moisturized

At least one hobby you engage with on a daily/frequent basis

At least one skill you are developing on a daily/frequent basis

If you haven’t gotten a 7 day workout streak and completed the other bullet points on this list yet, stop moaning, get to work, and kill your distractions.

This is level 0.

[artemis-corvus]

[artemis-corvus]

[artemis-corvus]

[artemis-corvus]

A Plan Hatches?

I have a little seedling of a goal and I'm holding it in my palms with a panic for letting it grow. It's hope, it's ambition, it's commitment, it's self-control, it's all these things I loathe, or better said, fear. But maybe it deserves a little sunlight.

My fixation is currently on two things, mainly. One, is starting to work again. Two, is Paul being gone for a few days. As of now, I have a bit over a week before he'll be leaving - let's put drinking on the back burner of thought for now (bold move, I know) and focus on the nicotine addiction. Maybe, just maybe, if I can intensively focus on going cold-turkey while I have Paul home to support and distract me, I can build up enough self-esteem, positive routine, stronger coping skills, etc, to be able to survive those couple of days and starting a new job with collapsing weakly into my addictions. I'm not going to obsess with the long term or future of control and quitting - just getting through those couple of days and getting successfully employed.

I feel good when I indulge in a bit of marijuana, at least at the start of my day. I'll likely lean into that, it makes mindfulness a bit easier, but I have to be very wise about evaluating if it's fool proof or if it can also spiral into anxiety etc and if I have the skill and strength to harness it instead of letting it turn me towards the bad shit.

This is just a baby thought. But I woke up, had my coffee, and did a good yoga practice - I noticed before I started the yoga I had a horrid knot of anxiety in my chest, the kind that was breathing different, and by the end of the practice I had eased that tension and regained control of my thoughts. I feel like I am learning to reinhabit my own brain ACTIVELY, instead of just being an observer of whatever chaos my impulses lead me to. It's daunting, and it feels vulnerable, but the alternative offers NOTHING. Only darkness, the hope for access to substances for escape, hunger, loneliness, shame. A hit of dopamine that turns into a seven-fold consequence of regret and sickness. Nothing I do when drunk is ever productive, helpful or contributive to my happiness and fulfillment. So let's just plant this little guy and I hope letting myself have some optimism will give him some much needed light.

[artemis-corvus]

Darkness Discovered

I had a moment today where my husband told me he might be heading out for a little bit today. My gut clenched up, my anxiety spiked, and some wheel in the back of my head started to turn trying to figure out how and what destructive behaviors I could accomplish in his absence.

But I recognized it.

And now I'm sitting here trying to think it out, flesh it out. It's not happiness, or joy I feel when he's leaving. It's immediate stress and anxiety because I don't trust my own self-control and I don't want to BE "bad", but I have unfortunately leaned too heavily on those methods of escapism and coping, and now they're are programs and wires crossed in my brain. It sucks, but this feels like a significant realization - maybe when he tells me he's going to be away (I'm going to be alone) is the moment I should start putting up guards, practicing coping skills, addressing my stress. Finding things I want to do that won't harm anyone like watching a show, making a great snack, doing writing, playing a game. I think about those things with a much gentler excitement and anticipation, but it's more gentle because it doesn't ramp up my anxiety or have consequences. I think sometimes I need to pay more attention to when I feel that knot in my chest, and consider what I'm doing, what I've done, my environment, things like that.

For now I will make an effort if he goes out today the shamelessly seek harmless distraction and put some effort into being really cognizant of this thought and moment. He's going away for a few days in a couple of weeks, and it would do us both wonders to feel like for him, he's not coming back to a self-destructed disaster, and for me to feel like I'm going to spend the whole time obsessing about getting into trouble, stressed out with fighting the thoughts or figuring out how I'm going to obtain alcohol or smokes, feeling dirty and shameful for trying to hide it and having no control, feeling physically sick, and then stressed about him coming home and finding out.

This feels good, I feel better having given this thought bones. Let's keep it growing.

[artemis-corvus]

soleoado  

[artemis-corvus]

Now is the time to discover more of who you are. There is more to your story that is worth exploring. - Morgan Harper Nichols