Fuck Art; Let's Dance

From time to time I make it rhyme but don't hold that kind of thing against me- Oh well, what the hell, so it won't sell. What I want to tell- is what's on my mind: 'taint Dishes, 'taint Wishes, it's thoughts flinging by before I die- and to think in ink.

“I think we consider too much the luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.”  ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

I don't like cheese

and the icing on poptarts makes me queasy

I love brussel sprouts and peas

"The best thing about your smile is the only person who can control it is you." 

My friend said this to me this a few weeks ago and at the time I laughed and told him it was cheesy but ever since I've been thinking back on it and realized how true, and yet hard to remember, it really is! No matter what happens, YOU are in control of how you react to the things around you. YOU are responsible for your feelings and your actions, even if everything around you seems like it's falling apart. So no matter what, smile, and be positive, because that's one thing no one can take away from you! If you're not smiling, it's YOU that is choosing not to, no one else is making that decision for you.

It kind of reminds me of Job, in the Bible. (Alright, we all know I'm not religious, but I DO admit there is a lot of wisdom and good moral teachings in there if you read it the right way.) If you don't know the story, here's a quick summary: God loved Job, because he was a good christian and lived his life the way God wanted him to. Well, Satan made a bet with God that he could turn Job away from God, but God disagreed, because he knew how strong Job was in his faith. So Satan just threw everything he had at Job and basically made his life as shitty as possible in an attempt to get Job to forsake God. But through it all, Job stayed strong in his faith and trusted in God. In the end, God restores his previous happy life, and obviously there is the promise of heaven after his death.

At one point, his wife tells him to curse God and die (whoa), but he responds, "Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?"

Now if you ask me, the whole premise of this story is fucked up. Like, seriously God? Kinda rude of him to just throw Job under the bus like that for a bet. Who cares what Satan thinks, isn't he kinda of an asshole? And seriously rude comment about "foolish women." But anyway, the idea behind it is that, as a human, you're going to experience bad things, but the world that throws that bad stuff at you is the SAME world that gives you all the good stuff. If you CHOOSE to be positive and have faith, whether it's in God, another higher power, or just the laws of the universe, you are doing everything you are capable of, and that in itself is something to rejoice over, or at least be content with.

You can't change how people treat you, or the things that happen to you, but you CAN change how to react to those things, and how positively or negatively you view your life. That is why there are people living in poverty who are as happy as can be, and billionaires who suffer from depression. Your mind is stronger than you think!

No matter how much money you make, how many friends you have, or what awesome lifestyle you live, your actual happiness really comes down to your own personal mindset. Sure, having money and friends and awesome experiences can make it EASIER, but only because having those things helps lower your anxiety levels, so you have more time to reflect on what you DO have, other than what you don't. However, you don't HAVE to have those things to be happy.

Personally, I have a lot more to worry about now than I had a year ago. I have more responsibilities, more bills, more expenses, and more uncertainty about my future, but I am also MUCH happier. Why? Because the past year has taught me that I ALONE am responsible for my attitude. People don't put me in a bad mood, I put MYSELF in a bad mood because of how I feel about their actions or words. We need to stop blaming others for our misery, and take responsibility for our own emotions. That doesn't mean you have to be happy all the time; that is unrealistic. OWN your emotions, recognize them, understand them, accept them, and let them go. Be content with yourself, and always be grateful that you are lucky enough to have been given a chance to exist in this beautiful universe, even if it is but a fleeting moment within the infinite. 

Have you ever heard a piece of music that just gave you the chills or know a song that makes you smile every time that you hear it? Well...

Duende (Spanish):

I wrote this a few months ago, but just got up the courage to post it somewhere public :)

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I’ve been reading about all this controversy that’s arisen from these recent mass shootings: Gun laws or mental health? What is more important to preventing these tragedies? Well, I’m no expert on gun laws or statistics, so I won’t try and argue that one, but what I do know about, and what I know IS important, is the stigma against mental illness. I’m not saying it’s more important than gun control, just that it is something we should be talking about, and trying to fix.

This stigma, to me, is the root of all evil in the mental health world. Insurance companies don’t want to pay for treatment of illnesses such as schizophrenia. Why? They are more than willing to pay for cancer caused by too much tanning or fast food or smoking, but not a biologically inescapable mental phenomenon?  People assume that mental illnesses mean the sufferer is weak, worth less than the average human, and a drain on society. Abraham Lincoln, Virginia Woolf, Beethoven, Isaac Newton, Ernest Hemmingway, Winston Churchill, among hundreds of others. Were these people drains on society? Mental illness doesn’t mean you can’t accomplish great things, it just means that the road to success is going to be a little bit tougher, more rocky, and maybe even scary. People also assume that mental illnesses are uncommon, and that the people who suffer from them are easy to spot. This isn’t true at all, and I know from personal experience.

Since I was 15, maybe earlier, I suffered from mood swings and insomnia, reckless self-destructive behavior, and impulsive decision-making. I come from an awesome family; I had everything I needed and more, and parents who would have done anything for me. There was no abuse or other environmental issue that caused this behavior; there is no one to “blame.”

I dealt with most of this for a long time by myself. I never told anyone, not even the guy I ended up dating for over 3 years, that I cut myself, or made myself throw up, or mixed pills and alcohol, or drank bottles of cough syrup trying to numb myself. I was good at hiding it; I was the girl that was always smiling and energetic, no matter what. I had good grades, was almost too involved in extra curricular activities, and had plenty of friends and a great social life.

When I got in college, things changed. Maybe it was the natural course of the disease, or the added stress of having to be more of an adult. Regardless, it became harder and harder to keep up this façade of having my life together. I began seeing a doctor and they prescribed me a variety of medicines: sleeping pills, mood stabilizers, SSRIs, but nothing changed. I continued to act out more and more; I had a 4.0 GPA my first 2 years in college, then suddenly I was dropping out of half my courses and nearly failing the rest, resulting in my 6th semester GPA dropping to a horrifying .5.

My school advisor, who is supposed to be there to help me out during college, did just the opposite.  She had always seemed to really like me; I was, after all, a star student and she appreciated that. My junior year I sent her a long e-mail telling her why I needed to drop all the courses, and she saw my grades. Did she reply? No. She instead immediately transferred me to a new advisor.  Apparently, without the grades, I wasn’t worthwhile to her anymore. She didn’t want to deal with me; and she sure as hell didn’t want a slowly self-destructing student to ruin her perfectly picked group of over-achievers.

My parents were mostly completely unaware of what was going on. I never went home and when I did I knew how to act. My friends, too, were either unaware, or they were engaging in the same behaviors as I was, so even if they were aware, they didn’t see the problem with it. I was alone. No one who cared about me knew what was going on, and the ones that did know, and should have cared, didn’t.

At the end of the summer before my senior year, I took a bunch of hydrocodone and drank a couple bottles of wine. I was at my friend’s house when I suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing. I was rushed to the emergency room and ended up staying the night there.  I was obviously pretty out of it; I couldn’t form words very well and my eyes were closed for most of the time, but I kept hoping, deep down, that one of the doctors would see the scars on my wrists and get me help. I even have a tattoo right above the scars, which one of the doctors asked me about, but he didn’t mention the scars. My cry for help had gone unheard, and still, I was alone.

Around the same time I was put on a new medication, and for a while it was working. I felt calm and happy, like I could be normal again. Eventually though, it started to show it’s true face, and it was not a pleasant one. I thought I was having a panic attack; I didn’t sleep for five nights straight; I cleaned my whole house and started ten projects at once; I heard voices and saw things out of the corner of my eye constantly, making me jumpy and nervous; I didn’t eat which led to me losing 10 pounds in less than two weeks, my only caloric intake coming mostly from alcohol.

Finally, about a week into my senior year, I was hospitalized again. This time, for much longer. After not sleeping for nearly a week, I lost it. All I wanted to do was sleep, and it felt impossible. One morning, after I had dozed fitfully for an hour or so, I had had enough. The first thing I did was take a sleeping pill, following by a glass of wine. 30 minutes later and I wasn’t tired. I took another one. Still, I didn’t sleep. So I proceeded to get completely smashed, hoping that the alcohol would knock me out. It didn’t. So I took the rest of my sleeping pills and locked myself in the bathroom and began cutting myself all up and down my wrists. I blacked out around that time which kept me from cutting deep enough to do much harm. My roommates found me, called my parents, and I was hauled off to the loony bin where I was diagnosed with Bipolar I.

Now I am on lithium and I’m doing much better. Yes, I still struggle with the bad habits that I gained over the years, but I don’t think about suicide as much or cut myself just to see the blood that reassures me that I’m real.

What helps more than the medication though, is having a support system. I don’t feel alone anymore. My good friends and family know the secrets I kept for so long, and they are okay with them. They don’t judge me for having those feelings, but instead try and help me change them to something more positive. It was scary, at first, opening up to people about what I had done, but after I was done I felt much more at peace with myself.

I’m sharing this story with you because I want people to understand that mental illness isn’t something foreign. I hid all these things about me for years, and no one ever suspected a thing. Having a mental illness doesn’t confine you to a group of “crazies” that run amok killing people. Yes, when left untreated and ignored, the consequences of extreme cases can be horrible, but it can be avoided.

One thing we can clearly see with these people who commit mass murders because of a mental illness is that they were isolated. They didn’t have a support system, and even the people who saw there was a problem didn’t feel comfortable saying something or getting involved. This is a lot like my own situation, although for me my feelings of hate were directed inwardly towards myself, instead of at the world or other people. The reason I didn’t have a support system is because I was too afraid to speak up, and tell people how I felt and to ask for help. I didn’t want to be weak or seem like a negative Nancy, because that is the stigma we’ve put on mental illness. The problem with this stigma that we have towards mental illnesses is that people can’t talk about it. They can’t find that support system, because the repercussions of admitting their illness would be too much. When you keep a secret for so long it becomes harder and harder to talk about until it feels like a lie when you say it out loud. Just like I acted out by sending myself to the hospital, these people act out by committing these terrible acts of violence. If someone had helped these people earlier, or they had better access to a support system without a stigma, could these events, just like my trips to the hospital, been prevented?

That makes me

Want to lie down in the grass

And pretend to be

A single blade

and if you close your eyes

does it hurt?

And if you close your eyes

Will you bleed?

Don’t look at me

There is nothing to see

Don’t look at me

  All these little people

to my left and to my right,

thinking they know faces,

think they’re in the light.

  Want to feel somebody,

want to feel the night.

Want someone to tell us

Every thing will be alright

  Come on baby hold me,

hold me till it’s right.

Hold me till the morning,

Find me in the dark of night

Find me where there is no light

Find your soul and bring it here

To the place you hold most dear

Inside your mind, inside your heart

Pretty girl with the broken heart

Don’t fall apart, don’t fall too hard

Eyes wide open, soul on fire

Burning like a funeral pyre

Opening doors to find a light

It’s much too bright without the night

  And inside me is a ghostly creature

Can’t find escape, my skin is not broken

Searching blindly through acid rain

Looking for something,

Puzzle pieces strewn across the floor

Screaming from behind closed doors

Everyone said they would be happy

Everyone said

But the pieces got mixed up

Forming pictures that made no sense