I hear it said often that healing isn’t linear and I think we try our best to internalize it when we hear it. I don’t think you can really internalize it until that line isn’t where you want it to be. It’s an easy concept to understand when that line is high or even level. When that line is going downhill faster than an Olympic skier- that’s when you have to make peace with it. It’s hard to make peace when you’re fighting an internal war.
One of the many characteristics of my disorders is black and white thinking. I think that’s what makes accepting this even harder. It’s such a dichotomy and there’s no room for dichotomies in black and white terms. I have worked for years at maintaining many shades of gray. There are times when I can’t maintain and the shader dials turn one way or the other. Sometimes I hate being so self aware. They always tell you that being able to admit problems are the first steps… but I’m not sure that works the same way when the chemicals in your brain are this screwed up.
We’re riding more on the black spectrum right about now. It tends to happen. I’m fighting with not only wonky chemicals in my brain but hormones that just can’t get their shit together. I’m trying my best to keep both sides in check. And sometimes that’s about all I can manage for the day. So anything beyond baseline existing may not happen. Mostly everyone would tell you that’s okay. Except me. If I were someone else talking to me, I’d tell me to give myself grace. Easier said to someone else than to self-practice.
That’s a bit of a theme. I’m always much more willing to give everyone else more grace than I do myself. I’m trying to work on that and view myself much more objectively. Self hatred is that childhood blanket I haven’t quite been able to throw out yet. I’ve made progress, I don’t sleep with it every night or carry it around all the time. It’s tucked in a box in a closet. Always close enough to reach for though.
I’m trying to remember who I am behind the issues and the self imposed sentence of working life away. Keeping myself so busy I didn’t have time to think gave me a purpose. It also gave me a death sentence. Art has come back to a point. And it feels a little bit more like home in my own head. This is the first step toward writing more consistently. I think that was the most at home I ever felt in my own head was when I could cough everything up onto digital pages. I want to have the energy to get up, do my makeup, and get onstream. I’m working my way there. It’s hard to be on camera when I’m having trouble looking in mirrors. It’s hard to speak into a microphone when the sound of my own voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I’m realizing however the chalkboard is just my own self doubt. If I take that away, it’s just sound in air.
In Progress 