#mentalpod

For a moment everyday I find myself looking around the house for you.

You’re not under any of the three beds.

You’re not snarfing down you food next to fridge.

You’re not at the front door wincing for dad to come home.

You’re not even in your favorite lawn chair that by now is yours and only yours.

On one of your last nights you wandering in my neck of the our little house at 11 am.

I was still awake reading my book as alway.

I made you a bed and propped you head up on your favorite chewy toys.

You were my little reading buddy that night and slept on my bedroom floor for the first time in 11 years.

I’m happy you said you good bye in that way.

I wish I could unsee all the pain you went through.

I wish I could unhear your plea for help as you went into a 30 second long seizure.

I wish I could unsee your stiff shaking body and eyes that at the time looks like no one was behind them.

I’m so sorry you had to go through.

I’m so sorry you lost your ability to walk so quickly and that we put you down after you were struggling to breathe.

I’m sorry you had to die but I hope it was a peaceful release.

You were a good dog and you didn’t deserve to suffer so very much.

I’m happy that you had a good life we’re loved by the Pahl family.

We all miss your underbite, your howl, the way you howl and growl at my dad if he pretended to attack me.

We all miss your pug eye that made you look like you were wearing eye liner, your beagle snout, and the huge grin you’d wear when ever we took you on a walk.

The cliché of the treacherous “friend zone”

That nice guys finish last,

Happy to break it you

Nice guys out there

Is bullshit.

Nice guys do win the race.

Didn’t anyone hear of tortoise and the hare.

Being considerate, genuine, and having a good sense of humor

sends you straight to the finish line.

Be a nice guy

if that is who you actually are.

Don’t be a wolf in sheeps clothing,

pretending to be a nice guy.

I will shoot you down.

No slick, charming

“know the right thing to say” wolves

for this red ridding hood.

I don’t need to you to convince me to look at flowers and take the scenic route.

I don’t need you to try the stupid pick up line and your full proof tips you read out of a wolf’s magazines.

I will run straight to the nice guy lumberjack

before I fall for the tricks of any wolf or fuck boy.

You wolves,

you shitty men

I regrettable shared a bed with would be surprised to know the way to get in to my cape is by not trying at all.

Get to know me are my core.

Laugh with me and show a good time.

Don’t distract me with your flowers and shallow compliments.

I can’t stand your ulterior motives.

Do you wolves think I’m that gullible?

This red ridding hood can see right through you.

I know all you want to do is devour me and spit me out like all the other predator.

Frankly I hate you with every bone in my body cause all you

non-nice guys see me as a

piece of meat.

You’re not even trying to hide you primal hunger. Though

it’s worse when you do.

My wolves names are

The guy who wouldn’t keep hands off me when I asked him to.

The guy who fucked my best friend.

The guys would cast me in role of their side girl with out telling me.

And

The guy who was my boss when I was a 17 year old red ridding hood and would get me high just to eat me.

I wish I didn’t fall for so many wolves. but I did.

They chewed and gnawed on my body to the bone.

So please don’t run ahead of me to devour

my confidence, feeling of self worth, and dignity.

I can’t take it any more.

I need to flip the scale and date more nice guys than wolves.

I can’t keep giving the delectable pastries in my basket to guys that couldn’t care less about me..

I’m glad that I’m at point in my life where I’m finally

choosing the nice guys

over the charming

Not good enough

Not worthy enough

Not perfect enough

Not enough

Not enough

Not enough

These are the words

The judgements

My inner perfectionist

My inner critic

Says to me

She ensures that I never make a mistake

And that I never gets a fucking break

From her

constant stream of self criticism that intensified since I started college

Intrusive thoughts that outline her impossible standards drive me to breakdowns

My inner critic despises breakdowns

She sees them as a complete waste of time

When I have these breakdowns she screams at me

YOUR WASTING TIME

You’re always wasting time

You’re not going to be perfect if you keep on crying !

Let’s just say my inner critic is not the sympathetic and understanding type.

She’s sees my depression and anxiety as defective imperfection.

You know what I want to say to her

Hush

Stop talking

I’ve had enough of your judgements

I am enough

I don’t require your criticism

anymore

The law of attraction

What you put out in the universe you get back.

The way in which we present ourself to world

Our attitudes,

Our thoughts,

Our perceptions

of ourselves and the world around us

return to us like a

carrier pigeon.

Sometimes we aren’t aware of what birds we are send out

that are bound to return.

Somedays I send out

hopelessness,

negativity,

and lethargy

with the thought that depression will always be with me like a

leech sucking me dry.

Someday I send out

fear of isolation,

rejection,

and trust which

traps me in social anxiety.

And some days I send out my insecurities

which depletes my confidence.

Yes they come back to me, they come back to everyone

In the mirror

In our interactions

And In our perceptions.

Fear, depression, and anxiety

like to attach

always

or

never

They say

“ I will never be happy”

“I will always be depressed”

“I will never be loved”

“I will always be alone”

“I will never be perfect”

“I will always fail”

When the sirens of my fears whisper these 

I must to put wax into my ear to drown our their cries of lies

If I believe them, 

If feed that bird,

 it certain to come back to me.

Only I can control

which birds

which thoughts

I feed into.

I’ve been starving some of them

I need to nourish

my self love and confidence and

my ability to trust myself and other.

If I don’t,

You know when you have a platonic crush

Like you want to be friends with a person so much

But you don’t want to force it

But inside you really do because you know how well you two would click as people

On of my favorite moments is when you were complete right

and your gut feeling that you need to spend personal time to get to know this person is

Spot on

It’s the best feeling in the world

And

When you finally get to spend time with this person you been wanting so much to be friends with

And they reciprocate to want to get to know you just as much as you’ve been wanted to get to know them

It’s the damn best

In my opinion it’s slightly better than when you have a romantic relationship finally fall into place ,

because friendship are a different type of intimacy.

It closeness of experiences.

Listening to each other life stories

joys and

struggles

Getting to know them as the complex person they

It’s exciting right ?

It’s when you just know that this person who you’ve been casually talking

Is just going to be the start of an honest fun genuine friendship

I just value these friendship I make along my life so highly because

deep down

I really love people

I just want nothing more but to be a good friend to so many of the people I have big huge platonic crushes on.

Because until college I’ve been so rejected by peers.

I had always had the anxiety that

I was just a stepping stone someone used until they found a better friend.

I was always terrified of inevitable end of the friendship.

Friends bullied me.

Friends never stuck up for me.

Friends stopped to include me all together.

I always thought there was something wrong with me.

As a girl because I faced so much platonic rejection .

But you know what I now realize,

I was trying to be friends with

truly fake

two faced and

occasionally toxic Scottsdale people

who were

mean

spoiled

and so concern with fitting into the Scottsdale standard,

That they stepped on people who were different

like myself to prove themselves as good enough for other truly fake people.

Coming to NAU,

Coming to Flagstaff made me realize that the rest of people,

(Non snottsdale assholes)

Were kind interesting and wanting to get to know me.

It’s insanely comforting to experience a community of people who are just as kind and appreciative of people as I am.

People in Flagstaff are actually nice;

Not just acting nice or polite.

People are receptive to my kind nature and appreciate me for me.

It just warms my heart to make friends with such amazing people.

Who don’t have an agenda to reject me bully me or use me as a temporary friend til they find some one better.

I don’t feel the need to isolate myself from people

anymore.

I finally feel like I can be apart of a community of people that

I don’t need to be wary of friendship.

Nothing scares me except for myself.

I’m scared that I’ll never climb out of this hole in the ground.

I’m scared that I will never get my head above water.

I’m scared that I am inadequate.

that I won’t amount to anything

that my depression will always hold me back.

I’m scared of constantly fucking crying

Regardless of reason.

I have too many breakdowns

They suffocate me.

I really want to fucking scream in this glass box

filled to the brim with ice cold water.

I sick of drowning in my depression and freezing in apprehension

Because of a chemical imbalance.

I don’t want keep drowning myself

Forcing myself to choke underneath the surface.

I want to thaw out of the glacier of anxiety.

I no long want to

Crawl further down this hole I’ve dug for myself to isolate from social interaction.

There this woman I so desperately want to be

She accepts herself for who she is

Loves herself

And is confident is her capabilities

She changes tides and balanced atop the water.

I need to look within to find her

I need to take her hand to be pulled out of this

So if I reach with in

And I will reunite with her

Myself

The self that is strong confident and balanced