#writingastherapy

Sunday Morning Paper August 12th, 2020

Patience

August 11th, 2020

They think writing saved me. It didn’t. It opened me up. Cut me open. Made me look at the parts of myself I buried so deep I forgot they had a pulse.

I wasn’t crafting a brand. I was trying to stop myself from disappearing. I was stitching myself back together with sentences I wasn’t sure anyone would ever read

People don’t get what it costs to return to your own body after years of living like a ghost that still had to smile for photos. They don’t understand what it takes to sign your name on something when you’re still relearning that you exist.

I didn’t publish a book to impress anyone. I published it because I needed air.

Because breathing hurt less when I put the story somewhere outside my own ribs.

I Wrote Myself Back into This Body Out Now

I think I'm going to kill myself.

Dramatic, I know, and the superstitious side of me fears the very power I might be calling upon by writing it out. Thoughts are ephemeral, but to write it –more than even, to voice it– feels prophetic, and entices destiny.

Now I just sound pretentious. I suppose that's because I never write for myself. No, every word and thought is drawn with the notion of someone else reading it someday. Understandable, considering I live my life as if ever watched and ever judged. Breathing is permitted but never freely given. And I've never quite managed to catch my breath. Such an existence begets a want for oblivion.

But death is messy, and never dignified. 

i kind of want to write a book. like a collection of diary entries. i’ve seen a lot of influencers (mental health ones) do that and les va bien. i think this could become a great thing. even if it’s just me whispering to myself. maybe that’s my greatest strength.

like, maybe that's the thing that i can or will do that will awe people. except, in a perfect world (although perfection is not as great as it sounds to be, it comes at a great cost and frankly, it's an illusion, it doesn't exist), my family wouldn’t be hurt by me putting my thoughts out there.

because i never would've had them, or at least it wouldn't pain them to hear them. in a perfect world, i would have never had a single suicidal thought pa empezar, and i would be free of all this. and i would know.

i’ve always thought and swore that i would know if i was suddenly somebody else, a person with none of these mental illnesses. i would just know who i used to be, that i had it so much worse before, and that now this is my postre, my dessert in life.

i would just look back to that sad, troubled, stunted girl and say ‘’it’s so good i’m not you anymore. and i never have to be you, ever again’’. to be perfectly fair, i don’t hate myself completely. i just want to leave this faulty iOS i'm running on behind. it’s not it.

also, i don’t really know how to write. i know there’s a rhyme and reason, a method to doing this, but i'm just letting my thoughts flow. and i need someone to see them. i need this to be public. and anonymous.

i have always been held back from expressing my true self because of the ick of being perceived. so yeah, i'll just, write here, i guess. i've started many, many things that i've never, ever finished. i have adhd.

but by attempting to do all those things, i have seen what doesn't work for me. i've always thought and felt that it's ridiculously big the pile of things that don't work for me.

it's like putting all your effort digging into ross's dress for less huge piles of clothes on the floor (*la* ross, iykyk) to find one good blouse. you end up so tired. so so tired. and the rest is trash, kinda.

I’ve been that person — showing up to work with red eyes and a steady smile. Nobody asked. Nobody noticed. But I kept showing up.

Not everyone who moves with love has lived a life full of it.

Some of us smile because we had to. Because crying didn’t fix anything and silence didn’t save us. We show up because we remember what it felt like when nobody showed up for us. We give, we encourage, we love — not because the world did right by us, but because we promised ourselves we would be better than what we survived.

And that choice? That daily commitment to rise above bitterness? It costs something.

Don’t confuse softness with simplicity. Don’t mistake kindness for weakness. Don’t assume grace is given because life has been easy.

There are people clocking in every day with battles you’ll never see. People who fight to keep their peace while standing in rooms that try to rob it. People who hand out hope while quietly rebuilding themselves. And the reason you don’t know it is because they don’t perform their pain. They carry it, process it, and still choose light.

But make no mistake — that light wasn’t handed to them. It was fought for. It was prayed for. It was bled for.

The smile you see? Might be stitched together with grief. That patience? Learned through betrayal. That gentleness? Earned through fire.

So when you meet someone who still believes in love, in kindness, in connection — despite everything they’ve been through — understand who you’re standing in front of.

Because those people? The ones who lead with love despite being taught every reason not to — those are the ones you should never play with.

They won’t tell you how strong they are, because they don’t need to. They don’t wear their wounds like a trophy — they wear them like armor.

If you’re lucky enough to stand beside someone like that:

Don’t gossip about their softness.

Don’t test their peace.

Don’t underestimate their grace.

Instead:

Ask how they’re really doing.

Respect their boundaries.

Match their energy with sincerity.

Because that kind of soul? Doesn’t just survive. That kind of soul transforms. And that kind of love? Don’t come twice.

Artwork created by MJS using the Dream App Journey With Me Give me just one day to show you what journeys can begin. Let yesterdays be forgotten as we’re engulfed in this ultimate sin. Let the mind look past what the heart cannot see. Let love be your guide when it comes to me. Artwork created by MJS using the Dream App Viaja Conmigo Dame solo un día para mostrarte qué viajes pueden…