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a poem for pulse by Jameson Fitzpatrick

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✦ little fluffy moth linocut ✦

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I just read your piece on mindfulness, I was really touched by your authenticity in sharing how much it just sucks to exist in the world as an autistic person. I relaize I had defensively rejected the idea of mindfulness without really stopping to learn what it's really about, and your article was so enlightening. Your honesty in sharing how rough a time you had really drove home the fact that mindfulness is really about completely immersing yourself the rawness of the human experience. Personally, I find joy easily and I find that I'm often mindful about the positive, appealing, beautiful aspects of the world. I have a much, much harder time dealing with discomfort and suffering (except in kink!). I have a tendancy to shut out everything uncomfortable, especially painful stimulation, "negative" feelings, and the people around me. Your piece inspired me to challenge myself to be mindful while overstimulated, triggered, and extremely anxious in a grocery store (aka hell on earth). Spoiler alert: it really really sucked. But, I definitely processed a lot more of what was going on in my mind, and my body. I noticed how tense I felt in my chest, and learned how it took hours for it to dissipate. I noticed how busy it was in the store, and how the narrow aisles and close proximity to other people made me agitated and scared. I know now what will happen if I go there again at that time of day, and can adjust my plans to shop there again accordingly. I noticed the ache of the trauma shrapnel in my mind, and I percepted that just beyond my reach parts of me were processing and feeling really difficult things. I know that if I listen enough I will learn what is going on, and be able to process it consciously. The last thing I noticed was at the check-out. At this point I was desperately trying to escape so I was practically flinging my items into my backpack. I was completely overwhelmed by the chaos I felt in my being. But when I paused to pay, my attention shifted outwards. I realized how kind the cashier had been to me. I knew from her body language and tone of voice that she understood that I was having a hard time. She was so empathetic and kind during such a short interaction, at the end of her shift, towards someone who could barely look at her. I was so touched, and have thought of her every day since. Thank you for your article. I can't wait to notice, and feel, and learn more, into perpetuity.

Wow. This is beautiful. This is exactly how I experienced embracing mindfulness to better understand my own sensory issues and overwhelm, after years of rejecting the idea as stupid, woo-woo, and unpleasant. Attending to all the ways in which your environment is disabling you is PAINFUL, but it really can generate a ton of insight. When we know exactly what is triggering us, and what is moving the needle up and down, we can self-regulate by making tiny adjustments that make the painful a little more bearable. And then we get to appreciate little oases of peace and grace, like the one you experienced with the cashier. So lovely. Thank you for sharing this with me. <3

Here is the piece, for those who didn't see it:

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🍉 ❤️

AP Photo / Studio Samadi Palestine 1996

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whatever. WHATEVER.

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Focusing on what’s rooted in reality has reduced so much of my overthinking time. If a friend is already out of my life, there’s no point dissecting our interactions from back when we were friends. If I already broke up w someone, there’s no point thinking about the could-have-beens because they will never happen. If I’m into someone but it wouldn’t work for whatever reason, then it just doesn’t. Something just is or just isn’t. There’s a lesson to take from everything but I also don’t want to use that as a catch-all excuse of getting into the weeds for something when the weeds have already been cut off and it doesn’t even matter anymore

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Focusing on what’s rooted in reality has reduced so much of my overthinking time. If a friend is already out of my life, there’s no point dissecting our interactions from back when we were friends. If I already broke up w someone, there’s no point thinking about the could-have-beens because they will never happen. If I’m into someone but it wouldn’t work for whatever reason, then it just doesn’t. Something just is or just isn’t. There’s a lesson to take from everything but I also don’t want to use that as a catch-all excuse of getting into the weeds for something when the weeds have already been cut off and it doesn’t even matter anymore

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Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies

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✦ Rainy day apartment details ✦

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㋡🥀

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diet culture people make me feel like i’m going crazy. you want me to take an experimental pill that destroys my appetite?? you want me to remove part of my stomach??? you want me to stop eating bread and rice, two of the staple foods most inherent to humanity????? why exactly? because my stomach is big? because you don’t like the way i look, and you think it’s reasonable to tell me to carve pieces off of myself and try random drugs and ruin my own life so i can look more visually pleasing to you? and you somehow don’t see how absurdly cruel and selfish that is to ask of somebody???? while pretending you care about their HEALTH????????????????? FUCK YOU!!!!

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Tell me when you get bored. A story about doses. [x]

I posted this on twitter and had a variety of aggressive ableism thrown my way.

This is a story about changing what I can in spite of what I cannot for the comfort of my loved ones. The thing that others find to be hurtful about me is that I like to spend time in silent solitude. People who love me often feel hurt that I tend to solve my own problems instead of leaning on them.

When we spend too much time together, people find my neutrality to be concerning, and it becomes too much for people to be unable to read me.

To show the people I love that I enjoy their company in ways they can understand, I pool my energy together to be high-energy, peppy, and social. Since this is not my natural state of being, it takes effort, which can only be expended in small doses. I amplify the things people like in me while filtering out everything they dislike about me when I am in their company.

I change my behaviors for those I love, but at the end of the day, I cannot change my neutral state of being, which is the thing that they want most out of me.

This is a story about me accommodating people in the best way I know how, not the other way around. I would truly appreciate it if people don't misconstrue this anecdote as me asking for dismissal of hurtful behavior when in reality, people find hurt in the fact that I simply exist, and I must change for them.

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Enoki Stars 🌟⭐🌟

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more space mushrooms on my Patreon

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