witch witch you're a bitch

my first cantaloupe from #mygarden 😍😍😍 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl3NhNMn9Jj8pikxfdZ8D0kMmW8FOwe_ooYyEg0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=f6czl0xn6of7

Happy Leo Season y’all! 🦁♥️🦁 I’ll be 32 in a couple of weeks, and despite my asshole brain’s machinations, I feel like I’m finally starting to hit my stride. I am learning to quiet the raging waters of doubt in my mind, lashed to my rowboat of trust in the universe and the intentional vulnerability I cultivate. Some people dread growing older. But the more I age, the less hold shame has on me, and the less likely I am to fall back when the world attempts to silence me. As a woman, as a survivor, as a mentally ill person, as an abortion care worker, I am finding my voice and my place in the world. I may only have a rowboat, but the sun keeps me warm and the sea feeds my soul. #leoseason #mentalhealth #vulnerability https://www.instagram.com/p/BlwAOqon86OR2e0XNFsZ3IBimMd_1ifE5D9Tl80/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5gy3o3jhbvqn

I can always tell the status of my #mentalhealth based on how fast I go through bubble bath. This past week I’ve gone through half a bottle. When I’m doing badly, taking baths becomes literally the only thing that makes me feel this tiniest bit better. At its worst, I’ll take 10 to 13 baths a day, at which point I make them tepid and about a half inch deep, because before I’ve even finished one I know I’ll need another sooner rather than later. Right now I’m in the stage of making them scaldingly, painfully hot. It gives my brain something to focus on other than the thoughts racing through my mind, unceasing and cruel. I wish I could wash myself all the way out of my body. Slip down the drain and make my way to the ocean. https://www.instagram.com/p/BlrGyPcnxTLpq8krNM-N9aybmtx74CNKqUHuLk0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1895vfa6rvgvc

I’ve been thinking a lot about how my mental illness tells me that the life I’m living is too small. Sometimes it’s going back to my childhood of being “gifted”; when praise was constant and easy to come by, and the dreams adults had for my future all seemed so much grander than my present state of being. Sometimes it’s a matter of simply feeling claustrophobic in my own brain, my own body. Trapped in my mind by invasive thoughts; trapped in my home by debilitating anxiety. But when I dig my fingers into the warm sandy dirt of #mygarden, I don’t feel trapped anymore. Raising plants and veggies from seed, tender and cautious, and then the pride that comes when they grow big and bright, and they feed my body along with my spirit. When my hands are warm and my fingernails dirty, my world doesn’t feel so small anymore. . . . . #mentalhealth #gardening #gardenwitch #kitchenwitch

I sat in silence as this incense burned all the way down. I surround myself with noise constantly – TV, music, podcasts – because when silence falls, anxiety and depression jump at the chance to fill the void. Today, instead of drowning them out, I am sitting with them. The cruelest, nastiest things that my brain could possibly tell me rise with the smoke and dissipate. Breathe in, breathe out. And for a moment, that is the only sound. #meditation #mentalhealth