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Shop , Patreon , Books and Cards , Mailing List

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by lovandfear

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Andrea Gibson, from The Madness Vase. [ID in alt text]

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Janmot Louis - Flower of the Fields (detail)

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i am TIRED of the cycle repeating. *repeats the cycle*

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You can't be happy all the time, but this sorrow you are feeling isn't all you have. The pain demands to be felt, but it also tricks you into feeling that it will never go away. But you can find release from it when you start coping with it. Instead of believing this pain is all you will ever feel, believe in yourself and that you can heal. I know you can. One day, this won't hurt as much.

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I am learning to be patient in all matters of life. Breaking bonds constructed of rusted chains. Setting fires that gently warm instead of scorch. Opening my eyes instead of reaching out blindly.

I have spent the better part of this week crying and that is okay. What pain I feel is pain demanding to be felt, and feel it I do. But, heal I will, too.

Not everything in life is going to be something upbeat and memorable; sometimes things happen just so we can learn from them. Call me scholar. Call me hopeful. Call me brave in the face of inevitable change.

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One thing that I always disliked about how people approach mental illness was to frame it as a grand battle, a battle you can lose to.

Obviously, this type of thinking absolutely gets applied to people who have gone through cancer, but I leave it to people affected by cancer to articulate how they feel about this, because it's absolutely not in my lane to talk about that part of this conversation. I talk about mental health because people (at least where I am at) also apply the logic to mental illness - especially if one has "lost" their battle.

It especially bothers me because in many cases, people conceptualize battle as something wherein both parties are full participants, that one participant can only win. Do you commemorate and respect the people who lose battles? Often not.

I know that many times, people use battle euphemisms in order to preserve dignity and (somehow) imply that the illness isn't their fault, but I just don't personally resonate with the idea that illness is something you "win" or "lose" at, that winning means something Grand, Big, and it's something which good people achieve. In my personal experience, it can feel like a battle, but it's completely different in how it operates as a "battle."

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It's really odd to realize that the passivity I hold toward my own self-destruction isn't, as I thought it to be, ingrained into my soul and fate itself, but it's a product of outside forces which themselves were passive toward my destruction. It's odd, because I accepted that my self-destruction was an inevitable consequence of me being alive, being myself, and I never once questioned that because it was reinforced by outside forces. I accepted this "fact," and then engaged in self-destruction even after I was freed from the abusive situations I was in, and it feels almost... sacrilegious to rebel against the "truth."

The passivity you hold toward your own self-destruction is not, in fact, ingrained, staining your very soul. It is not fated that you are to "deserve" harsh, unfair, and cruel treatment, and it is not a natural consequence of you being you. You deserve so much.

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Reason to Live #10513

  The warmth of his hands on mine. – Guest Submission

(Please don't add negative comments to these posts.)

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Reason to Live #11991

    The unconditional love of animal whom loves you more than anything else in the world, even cheese. – Guest Submission

(Please don't add negative comments to these posts.) 

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Reason to Live #12003

    Those flower gardens that have a ton of butterflies. – Guest Submission

(Please don't add negative comments to these posts.)

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Reason 87: The experience of sitting inside and watching a thunderstorm out the window.