#so this friend of mine who struggles with depression started isolating themselves and stopped talking to me

[mamamanguito]

it's crazy how not talking to someone you were really close to for like a month and a half can do to you

[thessalian]

Thess vs Despair

So it’s the two-year anniversary of my having to self-isolate for Covid symptoms, way back at the beginning of the pandemic. And now, two years later, I look at a world - or at least a country - that is pretending that the pandemic is over while cases rise and the elderly get the worst of it again, and it just adds to the depression.

Because there is depression, however much I can at least cope with it these days. Or maybe it’s more that I can survive it, because it doesn’t feel like I’m coping. P&O ferries just fired 800 people via Zoom (taking cues from Activision Blizzard, apparently), and the only reason that was possible was Brexit, because we’re not beholden to EU employment law anymore. More of that is going to come, and it’s all just going to get worse. Employment in this country is going to become a tenuous, untenable thing. When you add the soaring inflation, the energy price hike, the National Insurance contribution hike, the council tax hike, the increase in food costs ... it’s probably no wonder I’m depressed. I have to live in this.

What made it even worse for me today is that apparently Boris Johnson is starting a “two-year election campaign”. With Ukraine eating the news cycles, everything he’s done is being swept under the rug - his role in Brexit, his flagrant breaking of lockdown rules by holding illegal gatherings, his government’s horrible track record as regards refugees even now... I mean, that last one has been a thing that makes me physically sick. He won’t waive visa requirements for refugees (or rather, Priti Patel won’t, but since he’s been protecting her and her horror show for years, it’s down to him in the end), but his government’s saying that the people of Great Britain should house and host those who do manage to get visas. Except ... no. No, there are uncountable empty properties around London alone, kept empty by buy-to-let landlords to keep the demand for rental properties high and the supply low so that they can keep charging exorbitant rents, and they want people who are bent double with the weight of soaring costs of fucking everything to house refugees? No talk of the government helping with the costs that entails, either. We should definitely take more refugees than we have, but this fucking government needs to stop shunting the costs of these things to people who have less and less money every fucking month. You want the brownie points of taking in refugees? You give them a place to live and money for food, instead of making them suffer the indignity of reliance on the kindness of strangers who’re struggling to feed themselves.

And then there’s the net zero thing. He’s already been looking like backpedalling on that one, and now he’s talking about “net zero dogma”. “We’ll get to net zero”, he says. “Of course we want to save the planet”, he says. But he pitches it as a choice between Putin taking over and ... well, fracking and reopening the fucking coal mines. And this is apparently conservativism. We should have been investing in renewable energy from the get-go, but the only thing the Tories were interested in ‘conserving’ was their money, and their friends’ money. So instead we’re looking like dropping net zero entirely with Johnson saying, “We’ll save the planet eventually” without remotely understanding that if we don’t do something now, there’s not going to be a planet yet to save! Rising sea levels and this fucking government are going to turn the UK into Rapture, and I don’t like it!

Also he’s attacking Labour by adding fuel to the “war on woke” and labelling Labour the “cancel culture brigade”. Because the House of Commons in general and Prime Minister’s Questions in particular has looked like a particularly vituperative subreddit for far longer than there’s even been the internet, never mind Reddit, and we’re just taking it to the next level now.

The worst part of it all? Johnson is a campaigner. He’s not a Prime Minister. He can’t govern. But he can campaign. This is why every week we see pictures of him in a high-viz jacket or a lab coat, interrupting the daily routine of some place of employment or other for photo ops. I’d love to think that people won’t fall for yet more of his crap, but somehow people still see that greedy, cowardly, ineffectual faff-merchant as “just this loveable man of the people you could have a beer with”, and they vote for him for that. Well, that and the fact that he appeals to their raging xenophobia.

I’m going to have to watch that rumpled pile of horse manure campaign for two years, when he should be fucking governing. And when he does govern, it’s to the detriment of the people of this country in general (excluding the very wealthy ones) and me in particular, as I am a queer disabled person and we don’t tend to survive very well in these sorts of conditions. And gods help me, he might actually win, because our First Past The Post bullshit makes the Electoral College look even-handed. I’m probably not going to die of this. I’m just probably going to wish I would far more than is reasonable for any thinking being.

I know Trump’s probably going to run again in 2024. Please. For the love of all that’s holy, do not let him back in. Him or any of his ilk. I am living what would happen if Trump or anyone with his mindset got back into the driver’s seat of the USA. I know Biden’s not perfect. In fact, I know he’s objectively not even particularly good. But I can tell you truthfully that it is better than this. We are waving good-bye to food standards, employment law, our universal health care system, an awful lot of people who are going to die of a variety of causes that can be summed up with ‘abject poverty’, and the future of the entire fucking planet. Please; it’s bad enough here, and I am not the kind of asshole who wishes the shit they’re going through on others just because they’re having to endure it themselves.

[doomedandstoned]

Doors To No Where Drop Rowdy Grunge-Punk-Desert Spinner ‘Darkness Falls’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Review by Billy Goate

Before us is the latest record from Santa Cruz heavies DOORS TO NO WHERE, a band new to these pages but which has played alongside many of our favorite West Coast acts, including KooK, Worship, and Year of the Cobra. As May is Mental Health Awareness month, it's good timing to be introduced to 'Darkness Falls' (2021). "This came to me during the pandemic," says frontman Marc Lewis. "I was watching so many folks struggling from all walks of life. Struggle isn’t biased -- it can hit anyone."

The album lyrically was a concept album in a way on the topic of mental health and its impact. I'm truly passionate about this and want it not to be such a taboo thing to talk about or seen as a sign of weakness.

Composed during the pandemic's most clutching moments and recorded with Aaron Cooper of Pylon Productions, the album features longtime collaborators Marc Lewis (guitar, vox), Marc Prefontaine (bass), and Pete Testorff (drums).

"Lie, Lie, Lie," dashes off to a furious Foo Fighters pace as we begin the record, with Pete Testorff's fervor and panache paving the way for Marc Lewis to deliver the three word chorus with all the snarl of a man who just wants to break his rusty chains and run.

"The riff in Lie, Lie, Lie," Marc tells Doomed & Stoned, "was written off something I heard Pete doing one night during sound check. He was playing his whole kit and then doing those snare hits you hear at the beginning of the song."

There's some nice give-and-take between Marc Lewis' guitar and Marc Prefontaine's bass that betwixt the introduction and chorus. I didn't pick it up at first listen, but it definitely grabbed me the next several spins through.

The grungy lyrics match the pissed-off spirit of the music, as the song mourns the loss of a common reference denominator for truth, warning that in its absence there is division, calamity, and ruin. "Together we rise, together we fall." Marc amplifies these powerful moments for us:

This track centers around the idea of false power and how someone could start to believe their own lies and self-hype, while others could fall for it. It can become a toxic relationship or even a cult kind of thing.

It may be hard to remember this far into this surreal "pause" in our world's history, but we too were afraid, alone, and angry for much of the pandemic's wake -- especially in those uncertain early moments when we followed the spread of this strange disease from China to Italy and onto the shores of Seattle and New York.

Darkness Falls by Doors To No Where

The aptly named "Fade" comes next, presenting at a doom's crawl with a sombre arpeggiated motif that summons the spirit of Trouble and Saint Vitus. Or you might hear a twisted, doomed-up variation of Metallica's "Enter The Sandman" in that low-end omen. "Fade was built of the rolling riff and bend," Marc explains. "I wanted it fat and raunchy." Certainly Pale Divine and Dirty Grave come to mind as I seek to match the mood with bands of similar spirit.

Then comes the pained chorus: "Run, run baby," which Marc illuminates in a very personal light:

"Fade" is about a friend of mine who is no longer with us. She was a larger than life personality that was loved by all. She played the personna and role of the happy-go-lucky person. She thought that's why people loved her and why they were friends. She was actually really struggling with mental health and depression though. She would behave in a way that she thought people wanted her to behave, while she was actually suffering. Those around her did not realize her pain or that their influence was making things worse. For years she would self-medicate with drugs and alcohol and that was celebrated by those around her.

I had started to see signs of her pain and tried to reach out. Unfortunately, I was too late. Any time anyone would reach out for help, she would disappear. The chorus line “disappearing one” is a reference to her pushing away and hiding from help. When she passed (sucide) everyone spoke of how special she was and how much they loved her. I was angry and sad. Why didn't more folks try and help her? My perspective was that coddling her addictions and self-medicated escape helped her to the grave.

The lyrics “We all love to see you fade, but don’t you go away” and “We all love to see you soar, but don’t you fade away” are references to the idea that sometimes humans are selfish in their relationships. Meaning that someone may give me the attention and things I need without me being aware of the sacrifices the other person is making.

"Worship The Machine" is another hefty doomer, with some wild guitar noodling contrasted against a rhythm that is quite machine-like as it dances stoically along its predestined chordal path. "Worship The Machine was written to be heavy and groovy," the band notes. "We wanted it to have a certain feel that pushed hard, while still having that chugging along kinda vibe." Closing in on the three-minute mark, Pete turns loose on the drums like a man possessed and the intensity continues when the rest of the band joins in, taking us right across the finish line to a crashing conclusion.

Darkness Falls by Doors To No Where

"I wanna live, but I'm dying" are words I can certainly relate to, not just in 2020, but in 2021, where the lingering impact of such a global (and personal) disruption is still very much a struggle on the daily. Turns out, my intuition was not far from the lyrical intent: "This song is all about the addiction to social media and how it corresponds with one's self esteem, mood, and self-worth. The social media world has become this giant machine and some are literally addicted to it. It creates this tool of status. I think it has truly impacted how people feel about themselves and others."

"Got Mine" is up next and this one is the most punkish track yet. It reminds me a lot of Soundgarden's periodic forays into punk, with songs like "Nazi Driver," "Never Named," and "Kickstand." On this point, Marc is clear: "Got Mine is influenced by the fact that I love old punk rock. I love the energy and the attitude. We wanted it to be loose but with tight stops and control." As to its meaning, we're told:

This song is about a revolution with the main character being selfish and self serving. So the character is done with the revolution or fight once their needs and wants are met. They are not really looking out for the cause or to tackle bigger issues for the good of humanity. They are actually looking for what is best for them. The chorus refers to a cold heart and lack of empathy.

Darkness Falls by Doors To No Where

All you lovers of southern sludge will dig "Policy" with its Goatsnake meets Acid Bath groove and sassy guitar lead. Speaking of Soundgarden, I really dig the Kim Thayilesque breakdown and stinging solo two-minutes in, though some may draw parallels with Crowbar here. These are all, of course, points of reference to try to do the near impossible: put the emotional experience of one listener (e.g. yours truly) into words. In the end, it's up to you to listen and find a favorite of your own. For my money, "Policy" is where it's at. Check out the fantastic dual guitar interplay two-and-a-half minutes in! Down, eat your heart out.

"Policy" is another riff I wrote to play off of a groove I heard Pete do during warm ups. It's got a swing to it but punches hard. Almost a heartbeat if you will. The solo was a direct result of playing the drums.

This track touches on letting toxic people go from your life. At what point do you stop investing in someone's negative energy? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. It is the idea of surrounding yourself with people that want you to be the best version of yourself.

Up next: "Who Died", which summons all of the band's talents. Beginning with bursts of rapid-fire guitar picking set against a zombie-like beat and chorus, the song has something of a swampy feel. "I won't follow you!" Mr. Lewis shouts defiantly. I wasn't sure where the song would progress from there, and almost thought it was concluded at the false stop barely two-and-a-half minutes in. But the song rallies and the band pulls out its full force, with what sounds like the addition of the synth to present a layered effect that amplifies the intensity. I think this could have been developed even further, but sometimes brevity is the most appropriate option for a song.

"Who Died" was written off the chorus and intro. Zeppelin kinda riff. It's all about feel and giving the riffs room to breathe. This track is about the concept of thinking for yourself and not being an easy victim of mental or physical abuse.

The reverberating echoes of organ-sounding keyboards greet as "New Monster" takes its place next. We get our footing pretty quickly with a kind of "We Will Rock You" bass motif, but the song gets stranger and stranger as the seconds tick off. As with the previous track, there is a sudden atmospheric shift accompanied by furious strumming and ending on the swirling guitar theme we started with.

"Here we are, same ol' thing, round and round, 'ever again...I wanna run, I wanna breathe, I wanna live." This is, for me, perhaps the most relatable song on the record, lyrically speaking. This one especially gave off strong Prong vibes with its strong vocal lead, robust drumming, strong bass play, and industrial guitar feel.

"New Monster" was written in isolation and was originally an acoustic song. Even though the tempo is upbeat it's a dark and murky riff. We wanted the end out of the breakdown to hit hard. I imagine it building like a wave in the ocean.

Another track focusing on mental health with the idea of perseverance and to keep fighting, "New Monster" is the idea of not being perfect is actually perfect. We are all just floating on a giant rock in space and going through this thing called life together.

Darkness Falls by Doors To No Where

At last, we reach the record's namesake "Darkness Falls" -- the gem of this eight-pronged crown of thorns. I've always thought it was a great name. Darkness Falls is also the title of a 2003 movie about a malevolent tooth fairy, though I see no compelling reason to connect the film with either the song or record. I may not be too far off the mark, as Marc Lewis explains:

This concept came to me during the pandemic. I was watching so many folks struggling. All walks of life were struggling. Struggle isn’t biased and can hit anyone. “Please, please shine for me” and “Please, please glow again” reflect on how badly I wanted things to be better. For things to be ok. How I wanted those I love to be happy, safe and loved.

As it stands, Doors To No Where does a superior job of fleshing out the notion of "Darkness Falls" than previous contenders in any medium. The song stirs up a smokey, mysterious Near-Eastern ambience. Four minutes in and it's confirmed: there is indeed a synthesizer at play on Darkness Falls but its hypnotic effect in this song is interrupted by a screaming riffstorm and a gut full of churning bass. This song would make a great companion to "What The Hell Have I" by Alice in Chains. It also pairs well with Portland band A//TAR, whose metaphysical music we've also debuted in these pages.

"Darkness Falls" is special for another reason: Bob Balch of Fu Manchu and Big Scenic Nowhere was a guest on the album closer. "Him and I worked together on the track," Marc reflects. "He is a pro's pro and added so much to the vibe of the song. His playing and tone are phenomenal.

The new album Darkness Falls by Doors To No Where releases to the public on Friday, May 21st via Desert Records (pre-order here). This is its world premiere c/o Doomed and Stoned.

Give ear...

Doors To No Where · DARKNESS FALLS

Some Buzz

Featuring Marc Lewis (Guitars/Vocals), Pete Testorff (Drums) and Marc Prefontaine (Bass). Doors To No Where have been making music since 2010. Their sound is heavily influenced by Santa Cruz and the local beauty it offers along with the rich history of music. Doors To No Where have been called a stoner rock band but also touch on elements of punk, doom, metal and even grunge.

Growing up on a skateboard and surfing has played a huge part on the influences of the sounds Doors To No Where like to include.

The band has toured in and been honored to share the stage with bands like, Mondo Generator, Fatso Jetson, Fu Manchu, The Melvins and many more.

Doors To No Where will be releasing 'Darkness Falls' (2021) via Desert Records on May 21st 2021. The fourth studio album features eight tracks and a special guest appearance from Bob Balch (Fu Manchu). Staying true to their roots, 'Darkness Falls' is a combination of desert rock and punk influences. The band tracked and recorded the album in the unusual quarantine times of Covid-19.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[homieno]

PSA for everyone

 I know with everything that’s going on right now we are all feeling very stressed and a lot of us are feeling quite lonely. I haven’t seen anyone talking about it but i feel it’s important to acknowledge that this pandemic is going to cause a spike in suicide and suicide attempts. And just a downfall in mental health in general! This is a service post and I’m reminding and urging everyone to stay safe and not let the depression win. Though we are separated, we are all in this together. 

TIPS FOR STAYING BUSY

-Crafts! I work at michaels and since this outbreak has started we’ve been super busy, everyone is buying craft supplies for themselves and their children and it’s a very valid thing to prioritize! So keep yourself busy by learning a new skill or craft, or practicing one you already know! You’re isolated remember so it doesn’t have to be good! it’s for yourself

- Reading! I’m assuming the Fic content is going to skyrocket soon with everyone being stuck at home so we should be able to keep ourselves endlessly busy with that but also real books! There is something so comforting about holding a psychical copy in your hand and getting lost. Romanticize it; curl up with your favourite blanket, a candle and a cup of tea (or coffee or water) and get lost in a story. Get lost in another life that isn’t this one right now. 

I really like to use a site called ambientmixer when I’m reading or writing. It lets you pick a place in the world and it plays the background noises making it seem like you’re in that place! I usually put on the hogwarts library or coffeeshop and it’s very subtle 

-And on that note as well! Writing!! Write stuff down, write about anything. It doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t have to be an entirely well structured plot line, it doesn’t have to be posted. Write for yourself, do things for yourself in this time. It’s easy to get overwhelmed at a blank page but just remember you have all the time in the world right now. 

-Learn something new; a new language, a new skill, anything! Try and dedicate a little time to it each day, and make sure it’s something that makes you happy. Love Space? Try and learn some things about stars and galaxies. Love mythology? There are infinite online resources and stories. We’re all going to come out of this as much more interesting people this way. 

-Clean clean clean. Hey, it’s still spring right? That’s the ultimate time to do a big deep clean and this way it doesn’t have to be an entire day committed to cleaning your entire house. I know for me knowing i have so much to do in such little time makes me tired just at the thought of it. So take this opportunity and space things out, as little or as much as you want. But I think this is very important because a big trigger for a lot of mental and emotional stress is the environment we live in and it’s more important than ever to have a calm space. 

Here’s a link by another tumblr user about cleaning when it seems overwhelming

-Redecorate! We all know the feeling of when we were kids and we’d move our room around and feel like a new person. And quite honestly we all need that feeling in our lives every once in a while.

-Start a new series, or rewatch an old loved series. While it’s important that we don’t spend our entire time on the couch let’s also be real, we are the netflix and chill generation and we’re just lying to ourselves if we don’t think we’re gonna spend a day or 5 binging TV. So pull up your streaming site, pick a good show, grab some snacks and come back to this post in 2-5 business days. 

-Meditate. I find that people often associate meditation with spirituality and higher power stuff, which yes in spiritual practice meditation is very important but that’s mostly for it’s ability to calm and center people. It’s going to be very easy to find yourself overwhelmed and anxious when you’re alone with your thoughts 24/7 and meditation can be really beneficial. It’s very simple too and not as daunting as you might think! You can find a quiet space and sit or lay down, it can be done on your bed if you’d like! And you can play some soft music (without lyrics or something soft like a coffee house playlist), or listen to a podcast even, this can be done in silence also! You don’t have to do anything other than stay still and try and focus your thoughts. To stop them from becoming entirely overwhelming. There’s so many good videos for breathing exercises and some really good guided meditations as well if you’d like to be told exactly what to do. The purpose of this is just to ground yourself and give yourself some time to be calm and have control of your thoughts.

Here are some links to videos:

1 

2 

3

Now I can give you all these tips and ideas for staying sane but we also need to face the fact that when you’re struggling with mental illness as so many of us are it’s impossible to just ignore those thoughts and feelings. It’s very important that we reach out before things get too hard. I’d also like to say that if you’re feeling depressed or anxious and you need to talk you don’t have to be planning on attempting suicide or hurting yourself. Help lines and crisis lines are for anybody and I know you may be feeling like your issues are bad enough to reach out but they are! and you should reach out before they get worse! My DM’s are also always open to people who need to talk, I am not a professional but I’ve been there myself and I know sometimes it can help to just dump all of your problems into someones inbox, let that be mine. 

Here are some Crisis and help lines that can help save a life:

Crisis Service Canada 1-833-456-4566 and you click on the link for more information and the instructions for Texting a crisis line

National Suicide prevention Hotline 1-800-273-8255 (United States)

Europe Hotlines

Crisis Textline UK

AGAIN! These crisis lines are not just for suicidal people, it is important to reach out if you are feeling mentally ill and you need help. You do not need to be standing on a ledge in order to ask for help. 

Stay connected with your loved ones during this time and try not to isolate yourself more than you already are. Text and call your friends, connect with new people online (but be safe)

Do happy things!

Write your best friend daily letters and give it to them at the end of this whole thing and let that be something to look forward to, create something for someone else and let that be a drive to make it through this. 

Everybody please do everything you can to stay safe during this hard time and do not be afraid to reach out! Your feelings are always valid and you are not being needy or annoying for wanting to talk to people all the time and wanting attention! Those feelings are valid! You are not being dramatic if you’re feeling super depressed or anxious! Your feelings are always Valid! I love you all and I’m so sorry this is something we are going through.

This virus is an attack on our Physical health but just as importantly it is very much so affecting our mental health!

Please feel free to add things in order to provide more resources and help for everyone!

[prinzessmetal]

Welcome to my blog. I want to write about some things that I don’t feel comfortable getting into on other platforms as often as they are happening. I want a place to talk about my health struggles in hopes that it will help people choose themselves and their bodies. If I had known 10 years ago the medications and episodes that are part of my life now it might have helped. If someone hurts you and tells you that you can handle something you don’t feel like you can please seek help even if you just tell a friend rather than internalize that. Trigger warning ahead: abuse and health problems. When I was in elementary school I asked my parents to homeschool me. I wanted to do acting full time and I wanted to do music when I was old enough. This is what Judy Garland did according to a bio pic so it was probably a good plan. I had a lot of crazy almost moments. I auditioned for Hannah Montana and Hermione and got pretty far in call backs. I got called in by the guy who signed Britney. My old manager dated Lana Del Rey before she released anything and told me my music was too depressing like his girlfriend’s and I would need to be more uplifting or I would end up like her. I worked from when I was a kid until now. I enjoy telling stories and making art so that some insignificant feeling of mine can blossom into something beyond me. I think a lot of entertainers have a similar set of needs. There’s people who happen upon it and there’s people who live and breathe and die for it. Maybe there’s a hole to fill or they feel things so deeply they want to get it out and set it free. This was the complete focus of my life. Except for love. I wouldn’t trade my work for anything except for a man threatening to leave. I have always been scared of that feeling and I have done some pretty predictable things to avoid it. Dyed my hair, paid for parts for a moped, moved across the country, and allowed another human with a lower iq and no job to break my heart over and over again. I did that several times, I mean, what are your 20’s for? I think a lot of women spent their 20’s feeling like they were raising their boyfriends. But, I stayed when men crossed lines that aren’t just normal and routine and those things ended up hurting me. When I was 19 I moved to Nashville to record an album. My music manager and my boyfriend were both control freaks with a lot of rage. I was “not like the other girls.” At 19 I was a manic pixie repressed dream. I was terrified to be too much or not enough and I was raised to be sweet and soft. I couldn’t imagine yelling back or ruining someone’s wants with my needs. My inner child actor didn’t know how much adult was too much adult. I looked about 13 and I felt about 60. One day my boyfriend was screaming at the top of his lungs and I was concerned about the neighbors hearing it. I had recorded with session players that day in the studio and I didn’t explain to him (as he found from my posts online) that some of them were more attractive than I had let on. I am not sure what level of graphic I will get into on this blog but I will say for now it “got worse.” My mom happened to be calling when this was going on and my pocket answered and she overheard. She flew out a few days later and wanted to know if I was okay. I lied and I told her that he was never like that and he had been under a lot of pressure trying to find a new job. I didn’t want to lose him for whatever reason at the time felt like the end of the world. Some nights I would go for drives to get away and cry to “Razzle Dazzle Rose” by Camera Obscura (great song to drive and cry to) until I had a headache and I would head back home when he had fallen asleep. In the mornings he was always extremely sorry and a completely different person who “would change.” At the end of this relationship I started getting chest pains. I think I went to an ER and was sent home with anxiety. I thought it was weird how badly anxiety hurt my physical heart and odd that it was deemed okay. But it seemed likely true as I was 19. Over the next few years I dated different people some like the first guy and some gentler. I was raised around anger and big highs and lows and angry people thought me to be comforting. I tried my best to avoid mistakes and things that caused problems because I didn’t feel I had the stamina i just wasn’t sure why. It often caused that chest pain I didn’t understand. At 24 my body started not feeling like itself more consistently. I often had chest pain and missed heart beats (pvcs and pacs) and my body hurt a lot for no reason. I felt rushes and I would feel dizzy and faint and out of breath. I was given a variety of names for all this. I had dysautonomia, POTS, autonomic dysfunction, “a weird nervous system” or just anxiety. I read all about different conditions but I didn’t know what I had but I knew my body wasn’t well anymore. I spent the next couple years being known as a hypochondriac. “Nothing is wrong with your heart Molly.” I still associate the hospital’s hold music with the mantra “it’s not your heart” that was routinely on the other end of it. I eventually gave up. I must have had some psychosomatic issue and I was probably crazy and I wanted to start living again. I was tired of chest pain with no cause and angry boyfriends ruling my life. I wanted my music to have a chance and I worked harder than ever. I also experimented with night life and smoked a cigarette or 2 or 3 and I got a few hangovers. I was a normal 20-something. Finally the homeschooled neurotic girl was kind of fun or I became some version of myself I was meant to be had I not taken some wrong turns or slept with the wrong people. I remember people would say to me “I can’t keep up with her she’s wild” and I was thrilled I had never been particularly fun I had always just been working or isolating myself with some guy. Neither cause helped the other and I had nothing to show for the last few years but I felt alive for the first time since maybe grade school. I let myself be free. One day I ate a friend’s edible and I had what I thought was a traditional panic attack. My heart was racing and I wanted to run away from it. A normal bad reaction to edibles. But my heart hurt for days. I couldn’t keep up with my (tall) boyfriend at the pace we normally walked and it was hard wearing the shoes that I did and I started avoiding the stairs. I was out of breath and in a lot of pain and it kept shooting down my left arm. I went back to my (famous and respected) cardiologist and she said not to come back to the clinic anymore as it was causing her team and myself to falsely believe that my problems were cardiac in nature. Except it turns out that I have heart disease. It took 6 cardiologists and a lot of ER visits to get any answers. I’m a young woman trying to get her life set up and I have heart disease. I hear over and over “it’s not your heart” and the hold muzak playing louder and louder and my boyfriends telling me to stop making up chest pain to get away from their rage and my music manager telling me it was stage fright and my old therapist telling me it would go away if I did the work inside my mind. I have Prinzmetal Angina. It got out of control after a bad car accident and a traumatic and stressful month last December. My coronary arteries were spasming shut and I spent January-June getting a lot of stern looks and speeches about anxiety from doctors and nurses all while I really just needed Calcium Channel Blockers and various forms of Nitroglycerin. I intend to pursue my music and art. I’m in a band and I am not going to change and become the normal picture of chronic illness which generally neuters people. I’m still young and intend to stay in touch with that the best I can. Some days I can take over the world and some days I have to stay in bed and some days I need to go to hospital for extra nitro and morphine. A lot happens behind the scenes I don’t always know how to share on instagram and twitter so I made this blog. I like to share my art in those places which I consider to define me more than how my body is not working. But, it’s a huge part of my experience and I would like somewhere to share it. I don’t normally feel comfortable talking about my bad dating choices and abuse but I think it’s important for people to know that the damage from it can be very real. Prinzmetal Angina was just studied with relationship abuse as being traumatic enough to cause it. I think we downplay how bad abuse hurts us and tell people to just get a grip. Maybe if I had read this when I was younger I would have treated myself differently and chose more carefully who I let near me. I hope you enjoy this blog and take care of your body and appreciate the days you feel free. Xo Joon

[windowinto]

Social Media

This post is just a thought vomit post: The feeling that I’m feeling is quite strange. As if I cannot show the world the things I genuinely appreciate. Social media terrifies me in every way possible to the point where it is entirely toxic. I constantly live in this panic or fear where everyone is laughing at me or judging me. I feel as if social media is a place where I should be able to express myself in whatever way I want to. Sadly that isn’t the case for me. As much as I would love to show the world or anyone who has an “interest” in following me, whether it’s a mutual “oh I know you ill follow or add you” thing, whatever, the things I love dearly and hold close to my heart. For instance I love Elliott Smith a lot and would love to share my love about him but I feel as if people will make fun of me for enjoying the beauty that is his music and self. I get so terrified or think “what is the point” or “who even cares?”. Social media is so strange and I feel like it has me pinned to the ground sometimes. It is always in the back of my mind. For the last few years I have consistently been on and off social media. I’ll have a stride of confidence and post on social media consistently but it never seems to last before I delete everything, Instagram, twitter, facebook. Ill start with Instagram and why it really scares me. With Instagram, I feel very pressured to upload pictures in a timely fashion. It’s almost a personal blog or a perspective from my eyes to share with the people who decide to follow me. There are people who follow me and will never interact with my posts when I do decide to post something. It makes me wonder what is the point in following me if you don’t like anything that I’m sharing, not in the sense of the actual like, but enjoying what I post? I would rarely post anything on Instagram, I turned my Instagram that is now deleted, into a page for my art. I was scared to share things I have created. Showing people something I like, a window into my brain, for them to judge, even though I have gotten good feedback on my art, at the end of the day I still think its not good. Yet another reason why I am afraid to post on social media. I have little to no ego or confidence in myself. Before my Instagram was my art page, I would sometimes upload selfies only because that is just, what we do nowadays? It felt like I had to fall in line and I felt this pressure to show the world how I was changing as a person. “ooh look at me” but in my head there is nothing to look at. I struggle with body dysmorphia. I look in the mirror every day and see someone completely different. It isn’t just a “I feel ugly today”. It is a brutal battle of one day I feel okay but 30 minutes later my face feels rearranged. I know it’s a very common feeling to never see what others see in yourself, but I look in the mirror a lot and can never figure it out. I’m not sure why, I just try to take time to really understand my face because too often I don’t understand it at all. My face is very A-symmetrical and I feel to be beautiful you must have good face symmetry. My face has twist and turns, which most people might not notice, maybe they do. It is just something I really struggle with. Some days I feel normal, my face looks fine, but some days it feels like someone took a blender to my face. The thing with mirrors and phone cameras you only see the mirrored version of yourself. That is what you are used to. So seeing pictures of me that aren’t mirrored throws my head into a fucking spiral of insecurity. I tend to avoid pictures with people or having people take pictures or videos of me because all I can do is watch the video or stare at the picture for hours wondering what other people are going to think of me and my contorted face and body. I know that no person is perfect and we all have our imperfections, but exposing mine to the world is terrifying. Pictures are different. They give people time to dissect and focus on your imperfections for as long as they want. People terrify me. I’ve been bullied when I was younger and I have been made fun of over the years for looking certain ways, dressing certain ways because I’m not what they want me to be. I just want to be myself without judgement. Being able to be genuine and to not be made fun of for “trying too hard” or “trying” to have a certain look. I always get thrown under certain labels and its so frustrating. “haha you are a sad boy” or stupid remarks as if I’m trying to be anything but myself. I am terrified to be myself because it will never be good enough for anyone. I have been around a lot of toxic friend groups where they even make fun of their best friends. They make evil remarks or judge them for having a stride of confidence or trying new things. I love when people express themselves or try new things instead of staying in the same box that people put them in. It just seems others like to make fun of people for trying something new or pushing the boundaries of what is “them”. Self exploration is a beautiful thing that everyone should focus on every now and then. We should all try to expand on ourselves and strive for the best versions of ourselves. Who likes being the person stuck in a box? Where is the fun in that? That is just a perspective of mine but I always feel forced into this box. Which is a big reason I stay away from posting pictures of myself because if I post a picture of myself I am either “cocky” “too confident” or “trying too hard”. I took a picture of myself. That’s all I did. I had no intentions other than to just show people hey this is what I look like today and for once I don’t feel like my face was hit with a tornado. With Instagram I feel if I don’t post frequently or become inactive then people will start to not care. I’m not sure why I have this feeling of wanting people to care, but that’s how social media feels to me. You follow me for some reason, maybe because you care, who knows. There’s certain people who like to look down on me because I’m constantly changing and they might of liked or are used to a previous version of myself. Some people don’t like change. People also get so wrapped up into other peoples lives which is also another reason why I don’t like social media. Instagram is full of fake pictures and perfect people. Sometimes I feel like I have to be perfect or have a perfect picture for it to be “Instagram worthy”. I don’t understand what is a right and wrong picture to post. Sometimes I want to post everything, sometimes I don’t. Some people get so wrapped up in their “aesthetic” or “online image” and its not them what so ever. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea of me, I would much rather have someone make a judgement of me in person rather than a post on the internet. Intention and tone are hard to grasp on the internet unless you already know that person really well. With twitter, It feels the same as instragram but instead of pictures it’s tweets. I used twitter like a journal of just random things. Random feelings, random thoughts whether they were serious or just goofy. I didn’t try to appeal to anyone, I just kind of posted whatever I wanted. Over the last 4 years of on and off social media usage, there has been a few instances that make me scared of letting people know on the internet what is going on in this complex head of mine. With the first instance, I’ll bring a bit of context. I was about 17 or 18 at the time, my memory with age and time is always so bad so I’m not exactly sure when. I was going through a really rough depressive episode. I stopped hanging out with my friends and isolated, didn’t get out of bed ever, didn’t even play video games. It was really bad. I would also tweet about my feelings, which there is a stigma on posting about being sad on the internet because everyone is sad sometimes or all the time and just wont admit it, but will laugh or judge you for having feelings like a human being. “Wow look at this dude, he is so sad? Go get a therapist sad boy” but are the same people who do the same things they are complaining about. It’s weird how it works. Makes absolutely zero sense to me. People will hide their sadness behind vent accounts but on their “main” act like they aren’t sad. Which there is nothing wrong with that, but don’t judge others for being sad. Maybe they need someone, but you are too afraid to be that someone or “don’t feel like dealing with it”. I finally broke free from the death grip of depression and finally decided to hangout with some friends. It was the current E3 showing off all the new games. We were all having a good time discussing new games and seeing all the new titles. A game came up and I simply said “I heard that game isn’t that good” and a friend of a friend in the room said “of course you think that, you hate everything”. Stunned I replied “how?” and he replied with “you are constantly tweeting about how sad you are and how you hate everything”. Ill admit I had some sad tweets but I never tweeted or talked openly disliking anything. This guy barely knows me at all just so you know. We have mutual friends, have hungout a few times, skateboarded in the same group of friends. Clearly he had bad judgement on me. My eyes scan the room to see all of my “close” friends at the time. They all were just as stunned as me and nobody spoke up. I said proudly, in which this is true “I haven’t tweeted anything sad in months actually, feel free to go look at my tweets” he replied with “well good for you then”. This will stick with me for a really long time and this was maybe 5 years ago or less that this happened, like I said I’m bad with time and memories. I still think about it all the time. Goes to show, be careful what you say, it might stick around in someone’s head for longer than you think. Apparently one of my friends told him afterwards “Dude, he JUST started hanging out with us again and you had to do that”. Although I’m not sure if that is true or not. I would then to go on to delete my twitter and stay off social media for about a year or so because I was so terrified of others having this same outlook on me. Because if someone I barely know can have this judgement of me, then someone else surely can. To this day it still messes with my head and is also a big reason I have been off and on with social media. The next instance is from 2 almost 3 years ago. I was talking to the girl of my dreams, a girl I had a crush on for years. We got along wonderfully, shared the same sense of humor, there was a connection there that I couldn’t explain. But even then I would still struggle with my depression. Even in the happiest of times I still had these dark depressive moments. Which I have to explain that, my mother who had raised me without my dad, had battled cancer for 4 years only for it to take her life in 2012, which turned me into an anxiety riddled depressed kid. I would disappear, walk away, disassociate, have these dips in moods even in public. She didn’t really seem to understand or has never really had to deal with something like this before with someone. I completely understand that I was easily too much for her to handle. It’s really hard to find someone who understands or cares enough to stick around. Unfortunately my depressive episodes lead to the demise of our short “relationship”. We were not dating. We got into an argument and I told her how I was feeling and how she made me feel like she didn’t care. She sent me a long text message about how I’m too sad to deal with and I’m too much to handle. She told me all I do is bring everyone around me down and that I am a sad negative person. I am just summing it up, I don’t want to go into detail. This destroyed me more than any other words have before in my life. We were young and she didn’t understand the power of what she was saying. This threw me into a spiral of a year long depressive episode that I could not control. I didn’t talk to my friends about how I felt or my family because I was afraid to bring them down. I still struggle to this day with opening up about my feelings because of this but I have gotten better about it. But I was scared to just tell people that I was sad. I became so focused on faking this image to not let a single person know how I truly felt. It was hell every day holding in this whirlwind of feelings. I felt like I had to hide all of my feelings and that my feelings weren’t valid. I felt as if I wasn’t allowed to feel sad. I would get so mad if I ever got sad. I would tell myself no. Which it kind of worked, it kind of helped me get better in a sense but I think its important to feel sad now. Its important to process those emotions instead of ignoring them. But this also made me stay off social media for another year or so. But this year of no social media it forced me to learn a lot about myself. I was going into young adulthood and trying to understand the world and figuring myself out. A lot of self-growth was made in this time which I am kind of thankful for. But this was a huge reason why I struggled so hard with social media and how people perceived me. Also another reason why I struggle still because words like those tend to stick with you. Twitter is such a strange platform. I still don’t use it to this day. All because of judgement. Not even about sad tweets this time, just fear of self-expression. Goes hand and hand with the way I feel about Instagram. People thinking you are trying to hard or people just not giving a fuck. Social media is so weird. I feel that I am also missing out on a lot of possible friendships because of not using social media. A friend of mine said “you aren’t putting yourself out there, no one can find you if you are in the shadows” which I feel is very true, for friendships and possible relationships as well. Okay so onto facebook… I grew up in the prime of Facebook. I was there for all the changes and updates and when it first really started to blossom into what it was. This was before twitter was even popular. I grew up with sending everyone friend requests and the bliss of making random internet friends. Not caring about what you post and just having a good time. I think before I stopped using facebook when I was around 15 or 16 and I moved to twitter completely, which felt better for the way I felt, I had around 2,500 friends on facebook. Well that is definitely not the case now. Facebook is a weird strange place filled with old people and family members who haven’t cared about me for 10 years that send me a lovely friend request. I have such bad anxiety about facebook friend requests. It is so incredibly hard to explain. I initially made a facebook for the soul purpose of adding friends on xbox so I could stay in contact with them when we weren’t playing xbox. And then of course I started popping up in peoples suggested friends on facebook. I was friends with maybe 20 or less friends, very close people. Then my friend requests started flowing with people I know who I wasn’t close with. I left some people in what I like to call the friend request purgatory for LITERALLY 3 FUCKING YEARS. I was so scared to accept it and let them into the things I liked and would share on facebook with my close friends. I slipped into a music “scene” and made some friends in this specific scene. There was a guy in a band that actually got signed to a big label who I thought was really cool and funny who I thought hated me, he sent me a friend request and I left him in the purgatory for a whole year before declining the friend request. Just because he lived a whole 3 hours away and was way cooler than ill ever be and I didn’t want him to find me weird or a fucking loser. So I just never accepted it. I am not sure if he ever saw it pending for so long but I did change my profile picture in that time and I am sure he seen that. I feel really bad about it and it makes me cringe with awkwardness. I am not that bad at socializing and id like to think of myself as a funny and nice person. I feel like I am easy to get along with. But now I am no longer apart of that “scene” if you even consider me being “apart” of it. I just went to local shows and really enjoyed the music. That’s is my main problem with facebook. Random people I do and don’t know sending a request “HEY LET ME IN I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND” but… do you actually or do you think we are just mutual and wanting to network. Facebook is a weird place. Especially local selling communities. I live in the Midwest so there are racists and homophobes left and right. In conclusion of this awful mess of a post I just wish I could feel normal. To feel more understood. God forbid I ever tell anyone I feel “misunderstood” without being made fun of or not taken seriously because that’s just what people do now. I understand that the world is full of assholes and judgmental people but, there is also people out there that care and are good people. They are harder to find than the people who suck but they exist. You just have to look a little harder or just be patient. A dear friend of mine told me that I should just be myself and whoever doesn’t like it can just fuck off because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what other people think. But to just appreciate the people who do care. I try to focus on those points and to let myself realize everything will be okay if I just stay genuine and true to myself. People will always have something to say and dislike, all you can do is keep on truckin’ and keep doing what you want. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is your own happiness. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Sometimes you have to just not give a single fuck. Maybe one day I will come back around to social media and finally come to terms with it. Who knows? But for now I am working on it one day at a time and will eventually ease back into it. Still very scared of it all, but progress is progress.

[andromeda3116]

It was ten years ago, today.

I remember. Ten years ago, a teenage girl committed suicide. When I received the text message with the news, my first reaction was appalled, righteous fury: this is a really sick April Fool's joke, how dare someone play this prank.

It was not an April Fool's joke.

I remember. The last time I saw her, I thought "something's wrong" but I dismissed it. We weren't exactly close, that gray area between acquaintance and friend, we'd talk if we ran into each other, hey how ya been?, but I'm sure I didn't cross her mind much, and for the last year or two of her life, she didn't cross mine much either. It happens. Different grades, different lives. People move on. No hard feelings.

I don't know what led her to it, I don't know what she was thinking before she did it. I don't even know why it struck me the way it did; maybe it was because I remember thinking that something seemed wrong, and I didn't do anything about it -- or was that hindsight? Did I actually think, at the time, that something was wrong, or was I just trying to remember the last time I saw her, if there were any signs? Was I just trying to find blame, some sense in the senselessness? Maybe I did think it at the time, or maybe it’s just memory trying to find answers. It doesn't matter anymore.

This post both is and isn't about me. I cried, I grieved, but I didn't come home for her funeral. We weren't close. I was at college four hours away. It happens.

But something cracked in me when I read that text. I'd struggled in the past, but I believed it was in the past, I really did. I'd moved out, gotten some independence, had a plan for the future. I was coming out of my shell. I was happy, I had a social life, I went to parties. I was going to Be Someone. The stress and breakdowns of senior year were just being sixteen, seventeen and placing too much pressure on myself to succeed.

I was wrong. It lurks. It waits. And all it takes is one hit, in just the wrong spot, and the whole structure comes crashing down. And did it ever crash down. It took almost exactly one year to fall to the point that I had to withdraw, and another to finally hit the bottom.

It wasn’t her fault. I was never not someone with depression, with ADHD and all its associated neuroses, I was simply someone who could compensate for them, until I couldn’t. The day was always going to come when I couldn’t do it anymore. It was just the catalyst. Maybe it would have gone differently if she hadn’t done it, I don’t know. When I wonder what the world would be like if she hadn’t, I don’t think of myself. She was kind, the first one in the new youth group at the new church to be friendly to me, to make me feel included. She was funny, outgoing, vibrant. Her death was a huge loss, and the effect it had on me is irrelevant to the tragedy of it. I don’t mean to imply otherwise, or twist things to make a tragedy all about me.

But this post is about me, and it’s about the things we forget when we get lost inside ourselves. Because the path her death incidentally sent me spiraling down almost led me to the same place, and it took me a long time to understand why.

It's taken me ten years to rebuild myself, my personality, from the bottom up. I'm still not back to where I started. I don't think I ever can be. Part of me didn't come back from that place, and at some point I had to just… let go of it. There is -- and will always be -- a ghost-version of me in the back of my head, who didn't fall. The ghost is perfect. The ghost is always happy. The ghost does all the things I dreamed of at eighteen and has all the things I meant to have now, ten years later.

Everyone has at least one, I suppose, the thing that splits their lives into "before" and "after", and the person in the “before” is simply… gone. Or at least changed in some irrevocable way. It happens, it goes from now to yesterday, to last year. Time passes. The world turns. The ghost goes on like nothing happened, and the real you -- well, eventually you learn to stop comparing yourself to it. It doesn’t really go away, but it gets quieter. You close the door on it, move on from it, but it’s always there, in that room, and you always know it’s there, and every now and then it screams and bangs on the wall, and --

Well, you live with it. There… really isn’t another option. You live with it or you die from it; there’s no cure, no pill a doctor can give you to make it go away. Believe me, I tried.

But this post also isn't about me.

This post is also about people, about the world, about you if you're still reading this. You, who think, either consciously or idly or just as a general feeling in the back of your head, that no one would really care if you were gone, or that they’d be better off if you removed the burden of dealing with you from their lives. You, in the darkness of a bad night, wondering why you even bother.

She was a classmate and a friend from church, one of the people who came and then went from my life, the people I simply drifted away from. No drama, no fights or falling-outs, we parted on good terms and waved at each other in the hallway and then went our separate ways, because that’s just how time moves people around.

And yet her suicide was the sudden wind that brought my house of cards crashing down. And its aftershocks linger to this day, the fact that I’m even writing this, I idly scroll through Facebook memories and I see an old picture of myself, an old status update, timestamped ten years ago, and it reminds me.

Of myself, and of her, and the horrible holes that we can leave in the lives of other people, when we forget that we have the power to.

The point to all of this is that you are never an empty space. Your presence, your absence, the news of what you’re doing with your life, for good or bad -- more people are affected by it than you can possibly imagine. We’re all connected in a billion intricate ways, the loss of the one ripples through the many.

The point is, your loss would never be nothing. Even the awful stories you hear, the old lady who died in her apartment and went unfound for years -- someone opened that apartment door and felt a horror they would never be able to un-feel. Someone read that story and called their grandma to tell her they loved her. Someone heard about that lady and decided to check in on the neighbor they hadn’t seen in a while.

No one lives in a bubble, totally self-contained, only affecting themselves. We’re all connected to one another, we know it, we joke about it, six degrees of Kevin Bacon and “it’s a small world after all” and “lol same” -- but we see it everywhere and so we don’t see it anywhere. It’s the truth that hides in the background radiation of everyday life, all the ways, big and small, that we bounce off of each other. We see so much of it that we never look at it.

So take a look. Remember. You’re never the only one you affect. Your life is never worthless. And, consequently, you’re never really alone, with your sorrow or your joy or your love or your rage or your indescribable pain or your terrible hollowness. Everything we do has an effect on the people and the world around us, some in tiny ways you’d never think to notice, and others in huge, life-changing ways you can’t take back or do over, for better or worse.

I didn't mean to write this much, and I don’t have a real conclusion to this post that turned into an essay, except this: depression is horribly, horribly isolating, it tells you that no one cares and it tells you that they’d be happier without you and it tells you that you’re all alone in your little world in your head, but it is lying.

It is a liar. You are never nothing.

[tiredstarryeyes]

2011

This is incredibly long overdue. I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now, but fear has always stopped me. It’s a relief to finally feel and hear my voice, regardless if it’s only in written form. Warning: Mention of DV, suicidal thoughts, and depression. 

When I was 18, I had a roommate that was in a physically violent relationship. I heard, and at times witnessed these acts, for roughly a year and a half.

I had just moved to Sydney to start my journey as an Actor, and I was scared shitless, broke as hell, and so naive it was pathetic. After a mere few weeks, I was all of sudden thrown into the deep end of adulthood, and faced with the choice of standing up for myself and this victim. It really didn’t hit me at first. The weight of what was really going on. It’s a part of my life that I’ve not talked about, a trauma that eventually chipped away at my psyche, and turned my mental state into mush. It’s safe to say because of this, I now have a love-hate relationship with my past, as it’s something that I will always be in therapy for, but I’m not ashamed to admit the struggle. I’m not the only one in this world who has been through something like this, and definitely not the only one who has been through depression and trauma.

The reason I stayed, was because coming home and starting again, would mean that I had failed. My biggest fear in life. I had planned to move out of home since I was 15. Worked at a crappy part time job for over 3 years and saved every penny I made. People at the bank knew me by my first name, praising me for being so diligent with my money. I auditioned for a school and got in, so did my best friend at the time with hers, respectively. Everything about the plan was put into motion, and then here we were, ready to start our new lives. Thinking back on it, I was just young and dumb and selfish, yet understandably, I was also in shock. Having been so isolated and protected from the harsh realities of the world, then immediately faced with this type of responsibility, I simply could not cope. I’m ashamed to admit I sat in mostly stunned silence until it was over, then just went to sleep. I remember everyone waking up the next morning, exchanging awkward small talk, ignoring the bruises, and pretending nothing had happened. The repercussions of telling my family, and sticking up for myself and this girl all at once, stuffing up my best friends plans as well, was seemingly too much to bare. I had no experience in the latter, so I drowned within the uncertainty of it all. I think I was in denial as well, but I really had no idea what to do, so I simply did nothing.

Sadly, because of this, all good memories of my first apartment, my early 20’s, and living out of home for the first time, are tainted with sounds of screams. 

Before I sound like more of a wet blanket, I know that everything happens for a reason, and I’ve made this part of my journey the reason for my strength and resilience, and that’s something to be proud of. 

As they they say with trauma, the mind may forget, but the body doesn’t. The PTSD, PTD, anxiety, depression, and emotional triggers that came from this experience, didn’t just go away once I left. Doors were slammed in my face, things were thrown, people were slapped and beaten, furniture was pulled to pieces. It took five years to talk about it without crying, and I still do to this day at times. It’s a trigger for so many things, and I still feel guilty over it. I think I always will to an extent, and I’ve had to work really hard to be at peace with that. If it had affected me this badly to just see and hear it, I can’t imagine what internal struggle and pain was inflicted to the person at the other end of those fists. The aftermath seamed worse than the actual event, and that was a hard thing to accept. I walked around angry for too many years. Too much time wasted hating the world for what was happening to her, how I couldn’t just get over it once I finally bit the bullet and crawled back home. Rather than enjoying my life, like so many people told me to do, I know I let the experience, and my reaction to it, rob those years from me. 

I eventually did call the police after a few months, though.

I asked her one morning if she was scared. She said yes. So I kept going with the questions. I asked her if she wanted it to be over. She said yes. I asked her if she wanted to leave this person. She said yes. I asked her if she was afraid. She said yes. I asked her how long it had been happening. It was way longer than I expected or could wrap my head around. I told her that I had heard everything and that I was scared too. She said she was sorry and we both hugged and cried and fell to the floor. I’ll never forget that moment. Two bits of broken pieces finding each other on dirty carpet. A mess of feelings. Both numb and drained at the environment we were in, feeling stuck and desperate to get out. I made a pact with her and told her to scream for me next time things got heated, and when she did, I ran in and got her just as I had promised. We waited in the dark and I called the police. A few weeks passed, and we went to court. I was standing there in front of the double doors, ready to go in, my scripts clutched to my chest for the acting class I’d have to attend afterwards, (because I moved to Sydney to become an Actor, and a court hearing wasn’t going to stop me. That was my thinking process while in the midst of losing my god damn mind, naturally.) standing there willing to testify for what was right, was one of the scariest moments of my life, staring at the judge in the court room, full of other people who didn't give a shit if I was having a meltdown or not, including the police officers, though are we surprised?  

Then, sadly, nothing really came of it. Except my $30 check for making an appearance. The officer then gave me their business card and told me to send them an email if I needed anything. Like a fucking email was going to stop someone from getting beaten up? But lol ok you do you boo.

Relationships like that are messy and complicated and don’t make sense unless you’re in it. I get it now in retrospect, as I’ve put up with bad behaviour and my fair share of narcissism from men, so I get how hard it is to break things off. 

Boy, do I get it. 

I’ve spent the last 9 years of my life putting myself through therapy because of what I didn’t do, because I didn’t reach out, living in fear. When I couldn’t stop ruminating over the guilt and self loathing and self pity of not making better choices, not feeling I was smart enough, good enough, worthy enough of anything in life because I let this happen. 

One night, thinking about what happened in that room, I drank too much wine, blacked out, and told my doctor I wanted to go on antidepressants the following morning. I was sick and tired of not feeling like these thoughts were coming from my own brain. It didn’t feel like mine and I didn’t feel like me. I was on them for 8 months.

I can’t deny I’ve never thought about not being here either. What this world, my family, or what my friends would do if I were suddenly no longer here, had started to cross my mind a lot in those days. I don’t have those thoughts anymore, but I have had them clear as day, and it has to be said.

I remember the moment it felt like my thoughts were finally back to how they were before it all happened. That moment in the movie when the character is called too adventure, before it all goes to shit? That alive, happy person full of hope and ambition. I wanted to be her again, and I finally started to recognise the old me in this moment. 

I remember breaking down in the shower at the gym, during the fourth day of taking Citalopram. Sobbing happy tears because I finally recognised this thing in my head that was making me think and navigate my consciousness again. Like I had woken up from a bad dream. I literally felt the imbalance of chemicals changing over in my brain, re-wiring itself so I could finally function again. 

This memory, is why I am who I am, and I wear my mental illness that at times seams non existent, but at other times is emotionally and physically debilitating, really fucking proudly, and everyone else can as well. Apparently 1 in 7 people in Australia suffer from depression sometime in their life, so this is not a rare occurrence, just a rare conversation topic to be had because of the stigma against mental illness. 

It’s 2020. Let’s change that. 

I write this because these dark parts are the realest, rawest bits of myself that I relate too more than anything else. They give me strength and drive and motivate me to always do better for my past self who hated herself too much. 

Also, not a lot of people may fully understand the fact that I have depression and anxiety, without really knowing the extent, nor how it came about. I guess it’s because I lost my younger years to this very rough and draining experience, so I think I’ll always appear young at heart and seam more innocent and plain than I actually am, as I’ll always feel like I need to make up for all that lost time. Watching everyone else live through their early 20′s so positively. Because I never did, and this may possibly be my anxiety talking, it may affect how people perceive me. In the Acting world, seaming younger than I am has worked to my advantage, but in reality, people may misunderstand and judge me for it, too. I just hope this post will help make people understand why I have not had certain experiences, and to not judge other people if they have been through the same. There is always more to a person. To sound cheesy as fuck, we are all just the tips of the Icebergs above the water, and you may never know what's been endured beneath the surface of someone, or why they are only showing you certain parts of themselves because there’s not a simple answer for it, and that’s not a bad thing. They are not lazy, boring, or inexperienced. I am not an open book, and I don’t care if you can’t find the patience to try and understand why. 

Depression, to me, feels like this:

It’s like a dark storm cloud that follows you over your shoulders everyday. I can’t sense it on the good days. But, when it’s there, I struggle to see through the fog and it’s like I’m suffocating or choking. When it’s triggered and starts to rumble, all of a sudden you can feel it tingling down your spine. It’s similar to a foreboding like feeling that is all encompassing and knocks you around, mentally and physically. It’s like a presence that gets more difficult and heavy the longer I ignore it. I usually have an inkling that something has been triggered, even if it’s not obvious right away, and I soon come to know that I have some work to do for myself over the following weeks when I have this certain feeling.

If I don’t have the time to reflect however, (in my case, I was filming for my first TV show a few months ago, and didn’t want to focus on anything but the work, and boy did I pay for it afterwards) the storm always becomes louder and I become more lethargic or more sensitive or angry, and it feels like my limbs are constantly dragging me towards the ground. I’m exhausted when I wake up because my anxiety hits me at night and I can’t sleep. And then the cycle repeats itself and I am, a mess. It can be a very temperamental thing when you’re out of your routine. It’s also hard sometimes to differentiate between having off days and feeling down, which is fine, but then if I’m waking up and realising it’s been a week and I can’t stop crying, that’s a warning sign I’m on the precipice of an episode. I know then that this is the beginning of just a bad few weeks, and I need to figure out how to get out of this dark place in my mind. 

The last few months, it’s been my anxiety that’s gone and unsettled me to my core, and after a few sessions of therapy, some Valium, keeping my boundaries up, I’ve mentally been able to reset myself, and can look at life more clearly for what it is. 

This year has been stressful for the entire planet, but I think it was probably a mixture of self doubt, paranoia, staring at the age of 30, maybe, and feeling more isolated than I actually am because of covid. Many reasons I’m sure I’ll figure out later, but I stopped crying a few weeks ago, and don’t feel down anymore, so it’s going to be a good month rather than a hectic one. There’s also a lot to look forward to as well now, and positive thinking is feeling less like a chore. (You know you’re out of the storm when feeling happy ain’t draining! Am I right!)

One thing that has helped is the BLM movement here in Aus, and connecting more to my heritage. Unpacking my childhood in relation to that is going to take a bit more strength, but I know more about my people at this point in my life then I ever have before, and it’s helped shaped my identity and made me feel more closer to myself. I know now, it may always feel like there are missing links to an eternal puzzle that may never be completely put together, or understood. But, I know that's not my fault. It’s because of what this country did to my people. Their voices were taken, their lives erased and destroyed, and thus, were not given to me to learn about and pass on like other generations had the privilege of doing. 

I feel like we are louder and stronger than ever before, but that’s probably because we have had no choice and have never given up. 

At times, all I can do is read about them online, listen to my friends stories who have lived with culture around them, watch our movies, read our books, and feel something I cannot name. That’s not to say I have not experienced racism. I have, and do and always will, and I already feel fear for my future children because it is inevitable. But, I find comfort from the fact that I know this essence of myself has been, and is always going to be there inside me to help make me strong. No matter who I am or what I become, my Aboriginal identity will always be something I can treasure and protect and claim no matter what someone may think of me. I can talk to my ancestors however I want, defend my people whenever I want, because it is no one else’s journey but my own.

[enchantechante]

22012017 0509

its 330a and i woke up crying.

im still drunk, so i feel like i can be honest now.

i have been trying to ask myself what hurts. everything. everything hurts. and i dont know if im having a depressive episode in the middle of the night or if im just mourning bc my family is back home watching my gma die.

idk if i just have so much unforgiveness in my heart that it just wakes me up out my sleep.

all the demons i need to feed.

i cant remember the last time i spent time with someone who wasnt in their phone. and its becoming hard to distinguish if its a nervous habit or if people rly just rather be in their phone than be fully present w me.

speaking of things that make me feel non essential, i think certain people need people around like a fidget toy. to deflect their nervous energy or something.

esp me.

spending time w me is rly nice for some people bc i can easily have a full conversation abt someone else and be engaged. bc i love ppl. very specifically and devoutly. and ppl can feel that. and i think for people who neglect themselves, my genuine attention quenches something deeper for them.

like an itch they cant seem to scratch on their own.

and for a while ive felt like im a good stepping stone for certain people until they get ahold of themselves, heal and are able to give that genuine attn to someone else.

which is natural i guess. to finally acknowledge i was never all too memorable (to them).

but thats when you can feel good abt something like never speaking to your best friend again.

when you remember how disposable they made you feel.

you’re finally free to find someone who can treat you how you treat them.

even if that person is just you.

and they finally get it and agree to let the friendship die and its like watching everything, all of it, the pain and the pleasure, float off into outter space.

and the terror of when are they gonna hurt you again isnt lingering over your head. you can breathe a little deeper knowing theres one less person whos going to try and tear you down mentally again.

even tho it “wasnt always like that”.

tell me, how many times does someone need to tell you they used to try and make you feel stupid on purpose for you to day dream abt how to get free from that? (not them, as a person but THAT. whatever that thing is that lets “loved ones” go to sleep hurting so our egos can thrive)

if its possible to “bring the abuser out” in a person, i guess i do.

or for him i did.

call me old fashioned but i cant refriend ppl i know need professional psychological assistance and have not yet received it.

but thats nothing new.

i feel free now tho. & that is new.

sad but mostly free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

since christmas ive started struggling w suicidal ideology again and i see why my therapist made a huge deal abt self care.

bc once you learn to take care of yourself, there is always undoubtedly one person who can back you when you need it. who can love you as you need it.

who you will never be too clingy to. or easily ignored w someones dash/feed/phone/txt.

me loving myself came out of necessity.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

i smoke. i drink.

but watching my family suffer, watching them die as she dies, hurts so deep ive stopped enjoying it.

there is nothing chemical or otherwise that can take this away.

i still do it.

but in the way ppl who hate their jobs drink coffee. bc its the only not-so-shitty part. it could be freshly ground & columbian imported.

its just another thing to make the empty feeling inside feel a little less empty.

except my shitty job is living rn.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

i dont give people the opportunity to call me “clingy” twice. after the first time i enjoyed your presence and you felt mine was excessive im gon get the fuck on. its becoming hard to distinguish if he just wants to be around bc he’s used to me being around but when we’re actually out, if im beside him clingy.

it makes functions my boyfriends gonna be at w me feel like im going out by myself.

bc who gives someone the opportunity to call them clingy twice...

not in a relationship.

(or anywhere rly).

the race to be at a friends house as soon as i get home. or in another room. the constant desire to be entertained, we cant just sit and actually, you know, just be w each other.

things i enjoy bc i actually like my bf as a person.

theres are ways to be here and gone.

for me to tell you “i miss you” and youre sitting right across from me, in a room where no one else is talking. and im not soft spoken its just one of those here-and-gone things.

i asked him if he heard me tonight and he said he didnt.

i said it wasnt important.

cause it doesnt feel like it is anymore. - - - - - - - - - - - - -

my friend and i are talking again.

and thats the only plus i could give today. the only thing that didnt have a fucked up underside.

i think its hard when youve accidentally hurt someone you care abt and you want to rebuild the friendship you gotta consider why ita such an uphill battle.

but its worth it bc of who he is.

he had so much to mourn. and be angry abt. so much to try and make sense of. and bc he matters to me, i did my very best to understand at any given moment since i hurt him i could be encountering him at any stage of grief.

some of how he feels isnt so much personal to me as it is also apart of unpacking what every thing thats transpired meant to him.

and bc i love him, im patient.

and i will apologize for the rest of my life if i need to. hes too important to not understand how important he is to me.

it means a lot we got to talk today.

- - - - - - - - - - -

also got great advice from bestables. whos subtle love keeps me from feeling like im falling apart from too long. bestables could txt once a week.

bc she gave me love that grew. and we both tend it often and regularly.

bc what she built by design is self-sustaining (sured up w love, trust, understanding, consistency, pure intentions, grace and forgiveness - all that good best friend stuff) she can leave and come back.

she knows how to say or do just a few things here and there, bc she knows me, that keep my heart full.

she is my living example of how to use love to keep a person strong rather than leave them weak (which i think is an over romanticized state to be in bc of “love”).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

i deleted a young woman i used to talk to.

and she reached out this evening and we had a v nice talk. she & i have only had a few nice talks, and flirted a bit. but she got some rly dark news.

and she stopped talking to me. which im fine w but it was hard seeing her pop up on fb talking and flirting w all of her other friends.

so i just tried to make a graceful exit and im surprised she noticed.

im kind of at the point in my life tho where if someones gonna be my friend i need them to come on w it.

mentally i dont think i have the energy for one-sided friendships rn.

also: this isolating myself shit? its clutch af.

why? bc ppl rly suck rn. & im so v fragile.

ppl still be like, “how are you?” and if im bein honest i just say “not good.” i feel sick but like its in my heart/mind.

[timclymer]

Understanding Depression and the Subconscious Mind

On 15 May 2018, “6 Minutes Medicine” a medical forum publication on the Internet published an article titled “8 Facts on the dark side of doctoring- Dealing with the elephant in the room”

It was a plea by a specialist Head and Neck Surgeon at the Combined Annual Scientific Congress of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the New Zealand College of Anesthetists stating that “We know that there is an elephant in the room, but we really don’t know what to do with that elephant. Doctors are struggling and they are struggling quietly.”

He produced the latest statistic s on this issue based on a BeyondBlue survey of more than 12,000 doctors: “1 in 5 has been diagnosed with or received treatment for depression. 1 in 4 has had suicidal thoughts. And 1 in 50 has attempted suicide. Females are at higher risk. The specialty hotspots for suicide are general practice, emergency medicine and anaesthesia. 1 in 2 are emotionally exhausted. 1 in 6 or 7 are not effective due to burnout. Of those experiencing burnout, 1 in 2 describe themselves as highly cynical.”

I have been writing on the mental health issue for a while stating that it is simply a disorder of perception. It is only the degree that determines the point at which it becomes a clinical disorder of behaviour and action. But the medical profession is not listening.

From the statistics above it is clear that the medical profession is also suffering from a disorder of perception like many of their patients. When it comes to mental health they do not want to look at themselves for fear that they might have to change their directions. Yet unless they realize that we are hypnotic creatures and our perceptions create physiological and biochemical in us, all our research work will only prove to be just chasing shadows not the substance.

We must acknowledge the fact that our hopes and fears and desires affect our perception of reality. Our perceptions lead us to think in a particular way thus affecting our thinking. Our thinking process is hypnotic. It is made up of words and sentences. It influences our subconscious mind positively or negatively depending on the type of words we use; meanings or beliefs do not matter. Now our mental and physical health depends on our immune system which is directly under subconscious control. So it is the subconscious mind that is the elephant in the room and the way we influence it is what we should be addressing.

As I have said before, how one feels at a given moment depends on how one is stimulating one’s subconscious mind. When you are happy it means you are stimulating it positively; when you are depressed and miserable it means you are stimulating it negatively.

If we look around us every one of us is an ego tripper and a time traveller. From the moment one is born, one starts acquiring an identity. One is given a name and then everything we do becomes I, Me and Mine. This self-centred action leads to possessiveness which in turn leads to thinking in terms of “My house, my car, my wife, my husband, my kids etc.” One does not realize that when we go through life this way acquiring wealth, knowledge, power etc. it is a self-isolating process. This process leads to building a mental wall round us. On day sooner or later, depending on the circumstances and one’s conditioning, unless an individual becomes aware of it, one will surely find oneself totally isolated, totally surrounded by this wall and totally alone.

This is the dark side we refer to when our perceptions create a very gloomy picture of reality where there is total despair and everything in life becomes meaningless. This of course is a distorted picture of reality which an individual acquires through self-centred thinking and lack of self-knowledge. Please understand that our thinking process is a hypnotic process and we are constantly hypnotizing ourselves. Under this hypnotic spell the ego is liable to talk himself or herself into taking extremely stupid actions.

If any of you find yourselves in this precarious situation, my advice is not to take yourself too seriously. The wall you have built around yourself is of your own making. It is in your mind. You can break it down and go beyond it just by becoming aware of it in the first instance. Awareness is the weapon you use to dehypnotize yourself. Once you can make that perception that it is a self-created barrier it will melt away. It is a wall you have built through ignorance. You are a part of this universe and the timeless reality. As you clear up your perceptions, you will realize that is there is a whole world beyond the cocoon you have created. However if you withdraw into your shell, you will only be reinforcing that wall.

Verbalizing our feelings is a habit we have acquired in our thinking process. We use words and sentences to express our feelings and as a means of communication. Now these words can have a powerful hypnotic effect on the way we feel about a situation.

Please let me explain how words intensify or give form to your feelings. Suppose you are very angry. You start expressing your anger using words such as “I hate that so and so etc… ” You will find that if you keep using negative words and language you can become quite emotionally upset, and liable to act in a destructive way. But if you did not verbalize your feelings and just tried to understand and stay with them, you will find that they have no life of their own. The feelings will just melt away. Yes it is the words that activate your feelings. Try to maintain the feeling of anger without saying anything in your mind and see how long you can maintain it. You will find that without words your feelings have no substance.

Another habit of the ego is to keep analyzing the negative experience you may have had. Well my friend if you keep analyzing the situation, you will become even more miserable. This is because once you use words it gives form to your feelings and it will activate the thinking process even more. You will be going round and round in circles like a squirrel in a cage. So my advice is stop analyzing. If someone does not want to talk you, don’t ask yourself why etc. You should say in your mind “If you don’t want to talk to me, I have no time for you either. Good bye and good luck.” You will be amazed to find yourself instantly free of the negative feelings.

As we are all ego trippers and time travelers, sooner or later we can expect the dark curtain descending on any one of us out of the blue. If you think you love someone and it is causing you heartache, clearly your perception is distorted because love never makes one miserable. Love always makes one happy. It is your selfishness and your ego that is making you miserable. Learn to understand what love is. When you; love you are always a winner because when you love you never possess a person. However if you possessed someone, it is not love. You will have a feeling of loss attached to it. Love and possession cannot coexist. That is the fundamental law of the mind. Please learn to understand what love is and how your ego tries to manipulate it. Love cannot be manipulated. Once you clear up your perceptions of love and possession, you will be amazed to find how open and free you will feel.

Do not depend on the world to make you happy. You have to make yourself happy. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and regretting. Life is never meant for regrets. All the experiences in life, the good and the bad, are all good for you. They teach you a lesson in life and should make you a better person. Learn from those experiences, make amends and move on. Make the whole world your oyster not only your little shell.

So my message to the medical profession and to all the people who are suffering from depression, anxiety etc. is very clear. If you don’t wish to become one of the statistics in a mental health survey like above, please do not ignore the elephant in the room. Be willing to change your perceptions and harmonize with your subconscious mind. Ignoring the facts will not make them disappear.

Source by Mal Mohanlal

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/understanding-depression-and-the-subconscious-mind/ via Home Solutions on WordPress from Home Solutions FOREV https://homesolutionsforev.tumblr.com/post/185585111045 via Tim Clymer on Wordpress

[homesolutionsforev]

Understanding Depression and the Subconscious Mind

On 15 May 2018, “6 Minutes Medicine” a medical forum publication on the Internet published an article titled “8 Facts on the dark side of doctoring- Dealing with the elephant in the room”

It was a plea by a specialist Head and Neck Surgeon at the Combined Annual Scientific Congress of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the New Zealand College of Anesthetists stating that “We know that there is an elephant in the room, but we really don’t know what to do with that elephant. Doctors are struggling and they are struggling quietly.”

He produced the latest statistic s on this issue based on a BeyondBlue survey of more than 12,000 doctors: “1 in 5 has been diagnosed with or received treatment for depression. 1 in 4 has had suicidal thoughts. And 1 in 50 has attempted suicide. Females are at higher risk. The specialty hotspots for suicide are general practice, emergency medicine and anaesthesia. 1 in 2 are emotionally exhausted. 1 in 6 or 7 are not effective due to burnout. Of those experiencing burnout, 1 in 2 describe themselves as highly cynical.”

I have been writing on the mental health issue for a while stating that it is simply a disorder of perception. It is only the degree that determines the point at which it becomes a clinical disorder of behaviour and action. But the medical profession is not listening.

From the statistics above it is clear that the medical profession is also suffering from a disorder of perception like many of their patients. When it comes to mental health they do not want to look at themselves for fear that they might have to change their directions. Yet unless they realize that we are hypnotic creatures and our perceptions create physiological and biochemical in us, all our research work will only prove to be just chasing shadows not the substance.

We must acknowledge the fact that our hopes and fears and desires affect our perception of reality. Our perceptions lead us to think in a particular way thus affecting our thinking. Our thinking process is hypnotic. It is made up of words and sentences. It influences our subconscious mind positively or negatively depending on the type of words we use; meanings or beliefs do not matter. Now our mental and physical health depends on our immune system which is directly under subconscious control. So it is the subconscious mind that is the elephant in the room and the way we influence it is what we should be addressing.

As I have said before, how one feels at a given moment depends on how one is stimulating one’s subconscious mind. When you are happy it means you are stimulating it positively; when you are depressed and miserable it means you are stimulating it negatively.

If we look around us every one of us is an ego tripper and a time traveller. From the moment one is born, one starts acquiring an identity. One is given a name and then everything we do becomes I, Me and Mine. This self-centred action leads to possessiveness which in turn leads to thinking in terms of “My house, my car, my wife, my husband, my kids etc.” One does not realize that when we go through life this way acquiring wealth, knowledge, power etc. it is a self-isolating process. This process leads to building a mental wall round us. On day sooner or later, depending on the circumstances and one’s conditioning, unless an individual becomes aware of it, one will surely find oneself totally isolated, totally surrounded by this wall and totally alone.

This is the dark side we refer to when our perceptions create a very gloomy picture of reality where there is total despair and everything in life becomes meaningless. This of course is a distorted picture of reality which an individual acquires through self-centred thinking and lack of self-knowledge. Please understand that our thinking process is a hypnotic process and we are constantly hypnotizing ourselves. Under this hypnotic spell the ego is liable to talk himself or herself into taking extremely stupid actions.

If any of you find yourselves in this precarious situation, my advice is not to take yourself too seriously. The wall you have built around yourself is of your own making. It is in your mind. You can break it down and go beyond it just by becoming aware of it in the first instance. Awareness is the weapon you use to dehypnotize yourself. Once you can make that perception that it is a self-created barrier it will melt away. It is a wall you have built through ignorance. You are a part of this universe and the timeless reality. As you clear up your perceptions, you will realize that is there is a whole world beyond the cocoon you have created. However if you withdraw into your shell, you will only be reinforcing that wall.

Verbalizing our feelings is a habit we have acquired in our thinking process. We use words and sentences to express our feelings and as a means of communication. Now these words can have a powerful hypnotic effect on the way we feel about a situation.

Please let me explain how words intensify or give form to your feelings. Suppose you are very angry. You start expressing your anger using words such as “I hate that so and so etc… ” You will find that if you keep using negative words and language you can become quite emotionally upset, and liable to act in a destructive way. But if you did not verbalize your feelings and just tried to understand and stay with them, you will find that they have no life of their own. The feelings will just melt away. Yes it is the words that activate your feelings. Try to maintain the feeling of anger without saying anything in your mind and see how long you can maintain it. You will find that without words your feelings have no substance.

Another habit of the ego is to keep analyzing the negative experience you may have had. Well my friend if you keep analyzing the situation, you will become even more miserable. This is because once you use words it gives form to your feelings and it will activate the thinking process even more. You will be going round and round in circles like a squirrel in a cage. So my advice is stop analyzing. If someone does not want to talk you, don’t ask yourself why etc. You should say in your mind “If you don’t want to talk to me, I have no time for you either. Good bye and good luck.” You will be amazed to find yourself instantly free of the negative feelings.

As we are all ego trippers and time travelers, sooner or later we can expect the dark curtain descending on any one of us out of the blue. If you think you love someone and it is causing you heartache, clearly your perception is distorted because love never makes one miserable. Love always makes one happy. It is your selfishness and your ego that is making you miserable. Learn to understand what love is. When you; love you are always a winner because when you love you never possess a person. However if you possessed someone, it is not love. You will have a feeling of loss attached to it. Love and possession cannot coexist. That is the fundamental law of the mind. Please learn to understand what love is and how your ego tries to manipulate it. Love cannot be manipulated. Once you clear up your perceptions of love and possession, you will be amazed to find how open and free you will feel.

Do not depend on the world to make you happy. You have to make yourself happy. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and regretting. Life is never meant for regrets. All the experiences in life, the good and the bad, are all good for you. They teach you a lesson in life and should make you a better person. Learn from those experiences, make amends and move on. Make the whole world your oyster not only your little shell.

So my message to the medical profession and to all the people who are suffering from depression, anxiety etc. is very clear. If you don’t wish to become one of the statistics in a mental health survey like above, please do not ignore the elephant in the room. Be willing to change your perceptions and harmonize with your subconscious mind. Ignoring the facts will not make them disappear.

Source by Mal Mohanlal

from Home Solutions Forev https://homesolutionsforev.com/understanding-depression-and-the-subconscious-mind/ via Home Solutions on WordPress

[amazingpaperart]

Teen Depression and Suicide

Teen Depression and Suicide It's never easy to think or talk about teen depression and suicide, but talk about it we must. I have experienced the loss of two very special boys in my life to teen suicide who were the sons of very close friends of mine.  Recently the data of a new study on teens and suicide was presented. The results were published after surveying 5000 teens and their parents from the Philadelphia area. One of the most important findings is that 50 % of  parents whose teen had reported suicidal thoughts on the survey had absolutely no idea their teen was depressed.  A dad who lost his 15 year old son to suicide says this: “My son Will was afraid to say ‘I’m not OK’ because I didn’t talk about these things with him,” he said. “He didn’t want me to see him as not OK because he worried that would be disappointing to me. And that breaks my heart.:  "The night before, Will studied hard for a test he was supposed to take that day. He was going to get his driver’s permit that weekend and get his braces off the following week. Those were big events in his life that he was preparing for, and his parents had no inkling that their popular, athletic son was contemplating suicide." https://www.huffpost.com/entry/parents-teens-suicide_n_5c38dfc4e4b0e0baf53d3748?fbclid=IwAR2c8s6-IuJbcCruDvHXrwd4H0ndvS_Hi-Jn7HebZFqk3u3fjYvV3InmGzc&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=main_fb

 I have had a number of calls recently from parents worried about their teen, trying to figure out whether their teen is just having growing pains, or is in a real depression. Teens love to dump on their parents, giving them their most angry, their most sad, their most anxious and fearful feelings. This is the good news. Think of it as colic. When the bad stuff gets expelled, then sleep and peace can come...until the next time. A young comic, Kevin Breel, (see link below) is a young man who has struggled with depression for many years, he is now in his 20's, and no one knew. He describes living a double  life; excellent student, amazing athlete, active in the theater program, had a thousand friends, everyone loved him. And as he describes it, he was a moment away from suicide. His depression was not a result of a bad breakup, or a bad grade, but chemicals in the brain that just couldn't make enough of those feel good chemicals that keep us feeling stable. 

Everyone understands the bad breakup sadness, but depression that is biology based gets short shrift in our culture, but it is the one that has got to be discussed. 

 Teens are feeling their feelings in ways they have never experienced them before. The intensity comes from an adolescent brain that is over activated in the area responsible for emotion, and literally from having some of these feelings for the first time. Without experience and a history that would have given them a game plan to deal with these feelings that are overwhelming, they are vulnerable to feeling like they might never go away. The first break-up, a humiliation on a soccer field, or a stage, the embarrassment of doing something or saying something impulsively stupid in front of your peers, the disappointment that someone you like doesn't like you back, the worry that they are disappointing you in some way, being sexually harassed and feeling powerless to stop it, or any one of a million other things can feel like a catastrophe.

So your kid comes to you in a rage, in a tantrum, sobbing uncontrollably and you feel helpless. But they are coming to you. Like a sponge, you absorb every drop of emotion. You can't sleep, you can't eat, you live with a pit in your stomach that your kid is in pain. But here is the thing, now that they have dumped it all on you and you have so graciously sopped it all up, they are free to go out and enjoy life again. Rinse and repeat!

When is it time to worry? The dumping is a good sign. The emotion is a good sign. They are working it out.  It may be hard on you, but at least they have an outlet. The worry should start, if they are not talking, isolating themselves, and really seem to have lost the up and down nature of teen life. Up and down is good. Staying down is not, or never getting down are both red flags.  If you see your teen spending increasing amounts of time alone, in their room, avoiding family and friends, you might say something like this: " I have noticed recently that you seem more down than usual. You seem to be spending a lot of alone time in your room away from us and your friends. I get life can be complicated and difficult and sometimes overwhelming, and you might like just getting away from it all. I used to do that to sometimes. But I worry that you are not giving yourself a chance to talk about it. If you don't want to talk to us, I understand, maybe it would be helpful to talk to a counselor. I don't want to bug you, but I love you, and want you to work out what seems to be bothering you. I'll check back in with you in a few days, and we can talk about a plan." You will probably get a "leave me alone!" but don't let that deter you. Keep checking in, and letting them know that you are concerned. Eventually, you may just have to make an appointment and make them get in the car.

And conversely, if you have the teen who is almost manic in their ability to manage it all, grades, extra curriculas, friends, etc, make sure you do a check with them as well: " You know honey, you always look like you are so in control of your life, you put a lot of pressure on yourself, I just want to check in to make sure you're OK with it all." Open the door, let them know that that kind of pressure cooker life can mask other feelings, and you just want to let them know you are available and can handle their down moments. 

Seeing your teen be in pain is the worst. Giving them a safe haven to express it is a gift. I would watch this video with your teens, and open the discussion.  https://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_breel_confessions_of_a_depressed_comic?language=en Please share this with friends who have teens.  Everybocdy needs help talking with their teens about this difficult subject.

from Joani's parenting tip of the day http://joanigeltman.blogspot.com/2019/01/teen-depression-and-suicide.html via Blogger http://babylifepower.blogspot.com/2019/01/teen-depression-and-suicide.html