No Praise Like Home

You know how trauma workbooks commonly offer a warning to stop, to practice self-care, and to return to a chapter at a future time if any material in it becomes too triggering? I have never paid much attention to those warnings, even during those years when my mistrust of the system was so intense that …

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Messages in a Bottle #15: Sharkna-Don’t-Mess-with-Me

After a few blessed days of rain, it has resumed being entirely too hot to live, and my creative juices are currently leaking out my ears and puddling on the floor. But, at least my brain is only melting, rather than being constructed entirely out of (presumably also melting) cheez whiz. I am fully lucid …

Long Walks and Candlelight Zen-ers

I sometimes think my Partner missed his life’s calling as a therapist, but whenever I mention this to him he reminds me that the only “people” he wants to be observant of and “people” with on a regular basis are me (and maybe the cat, who is unofficially a “people,” too!) As I’ve said before, …

Messages in a Bottle #14: If You’re a Poet and You Don’t Know It…

Traumaversaries are weird. I have learned that it is entirely possible for me to feel stressed, anxious, rejection sensitive and floaty for days with no overt understanding of why I am feeling this way - even throughout events that should otherwise be fun in present-day 2019 - because my subconscious mind still remembers what my conscious mind …

Trust in Mental Health Treatment #5/Where’s Whoopsie #19: Ire of the Storm

The reason I am awake at 4am is below. It is also, apparently, in the papers (or, at least, the digital online copies of the "papers" since it's 2019 and I don't remember what any dead-tree paper looks like outside of my intimidating sketchbook...) I've been noticing an uptick recently in the number of media …

Offer What Light You Can

Content Warning: I began my Reality Journal on March 7th, 2018. Astute readers might realize that, if we are almost to the one-year anniversary of the creation of that journal, we have already passed the one-year anniversary of its inspiring event. I can somehow concurrently not remember enough details of that night because of dissociation …

Improv #14: Sing the Moment

*Knock knock* “Who's there?” “The Perfect Moment” .... .... “The Perfect Moment who?” “It’s too late. You already missed it.” I could use this post to say something vaguely motivational like “feel the fear and do it away” or that it’s possible to “seize the day,” even with chronic physical or mental health challenges. I …

Messages in a Bottle #11: Scheissegeist

Content warning: mentions of past abuse and medical crises. Mentions of the 9th Circle of Hell. Zeitgeist means "spirit of the times." It is the idea that you have to judge the past by the understanding of those of its day, not necessarily by modern conceptions. Scheissegeist...well let's just say that is a term for …

The Trolley Persecutor

CW: keeping secrets about child abuse, descriptions of child abuse, discussions of death and systemic abuse, swearing, and standard "never go to the 9th Circle of Hell" trauma. I've said before that I'm open to being challenged on even very sensitive topics on this blog, as long as basic trust and safety is maintained. One …

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Secrets…

CW: keeping secrets about child abuse, the aftermath of systemic abuse in the present day, family secrets, intergenerational trauma, swearing, and standard "never go to the 9th Circle of Hell" trauma. I've run away from this topic for a good three posts now, but I guess it's time to return to our regularly scheduled shit …