#I’d give my kidney to experience the final route for the first time again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

creepyscritches · 5 years

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So, I think I’m ready to lay my cards on the table. Bad news that I’m turning good with as much strength that I can muster. This got a lot longer than I planned, so I’ve tucked it beneath a readmore.

Last month my new job ran out of enough sustainable work to justify continuing my recent hire and gave me the axe on the last day of my first 90 days. It really shook me up and hit me hard in my professional self esteem to say the least. On top of the panic of losing a steady income at a new job I loved, I also lost my healthcare that same day, which to someone with a progressive autoimmune disease...that’s scary. They didn’t plan this to happen and it was unfortunate all around and left me with glowing references to aid me in my job search. I still see them as a loving group of people, but things happen and life happens.

Aside the shock, I’ve been dealing with a lot of embarrassment and shame that logically I know is unfounded, but that’s just how you react to this kind of stuff sometimes. This is why I’ve been pushing my Ko-fi and the wonderfully kind help all of you have given me has really kept me in a good place emotionally and that’s honestly more valuable than any money sent to me. I have pretty constant self harm and suicidal thoughts that surface multiple times a day for the past 10 years and to actually feel a genuine flood of warmth is just...idk it’s something that always feels unattainable, so when someone gifts me with kindness it’s an out of body sense of gratitude and vitality. Honestly, thank you.

The day I got home after losing my job, I asked for a bunch of requests and being able to connect with all of you and have fun drawing really was a miracle in how calm and reassured I felt. I know a lot of you follow me because you enjoy my funny art and I want to attest that I love making things that you love. Seeing excited comments or tags on my art really warms my heart and I feel a drive to make people smile even when things are dark for me--making happiness for people is my deepest form of self care. I’m glad y’all are here and I’m glad I can make you smile or laugh with my silly sense of humor.

My response to emergencies is usually to become numb and efficient; to be cold, calculating, and logical in an endeavor to resolve issues and tie up loose ends. Usually in situations like this, I only have to maintain this for short bursts like an emergency call or acting as a shield while I extract someone from a toxic environment, but this is more long term and it’s possible to weather me down if I keep focused on just the giant problem of finding a job.

Because of this, I’ve forcibly stepped back and observed the entirety of my circumstances and found that this period of unemployment has given me a real opportunity to address things I’ve shoved to the side out of fear of dealing with them.

I got my mantra of “Be kind to yourself” tattooed over my left arm’s self harm scars in braille as a physical reminder to myself to treat myself like I am compelled to treat others. I’ve found myself running my fingers over the braille more and more recently and had some deep talks of encouragement with myself to take the first steps and observe what makes me better and to finally open up little by little and ask for help personally--to allow myself to be vulnerable. It’s not scary to be a shoulder for those who need it and to share my experiences with those who come to me for help with self harm, trauma, suicide, and abuse. It’s instinctual to be the warm safety these people need, but it’s personally terrifying for me to put myself in the role of the one asking for help.

I don’t think I’m a rare breed of person at all when it comes to being kind and offering guidance and dispelling fears of judgement, but this idea that when I finally come to someone that I’ll be judged, seen as lesser, and horrifyingly put in the same light I see myself in in someone I love’s eyes halts me in my tracks. It’s crippling mental illness, I know, but an illness is characterized by the fact that it can grip you against your will. Whether your kidneys fail or your legs slowly stop or your mind tells you you’re worthless, it’s out of your willpower’s control and that knowledge is exquisitely maddening and devastating. My fears are results of a diseased vital organ and that’s an immense weight to push past. I can only hope to crawl before I walk and aspire to eventually run, even with musings of how to kill myself later that day fogging up my vision.

I know art makes me happy. I know people smiling from my efforts makes me happy. I know crying with relief despite the walls blocking me from crying makes me happy. I know when people tell me they love me and miss me when I’m gone makes me happy. I want to know what else makes me happy; not just entertained or distracted, but truly warmly saturated with goodness.

Cooking for friends makes me glad I’m here and when my mom excitedly calls me just to hear my voice makes my emotions positively radiant. Having vacuumed carpets, freshly scrubbed bathrooms, and a spotless kitchen brings me joy, but I’ve learned a cluttered mayhem of art supplies and sketches at my work space makes me inspired and encouraged, so I accept some messiness is good for me while I need to remember that I feel great when I muscle through cleaning other aspects of my home. Hiding my shortcomings or misfortunes from people makes my gut feel full of sandpaper, but I’m teaching myself person by person that confiding in loved ones and being vulnerable truly only makes me feel weightless and that things are going to be okay.

I opened up to my mother about how frighteningly severe my mental illness is last week. She knows I’ve struggled with self harm for over a decade and that I have problems with taking leaps, but I’ve kept my scarier symptoms closely guarded from her my entire life. I finally told her that I can’t remember a day I haven’t thought about killing myself, even if I had been having a fun time. I told her that I can’t stop a constant barrage of thoughts that tell me I don’t need to be here, that I’m a waste, a failure, or that I’m just disgusting inside and out. I finally told her how helpless and scared I feel constantly and how I’ve been convinced I’m going to be my own cause of death since I was 10 or 11 years old. I’d never laid myself bare like that and I finally confessed that’s why my countless therapists haven’t been able to help since I couldn’t bring myself to admit the ugliest parts of myself and instinctively protected myself behind a shield of compensating and presenting as a successful determined prized student or career woman instead.

She treated me like I treat others who come to me with the same fears. It felt like a wall shattered and I could see the outside world for the first time. It felt like...I don’t know how to put it...like the world actually did include me in its count and it was faulty logic to think I’d always be the one left out of situations good or bad. She helped me look for some potential therapists and even offered to pay for my appointments, and she acted as a second opinion on possibly exploring the disability route for all this. But most importantly, she didn’t cry or panic like I’d always been afraid of making her do. She was the stability I need and held my hand through decisions and tasks and affirmed that my state is something unbelievably difficult. Idk, she just really made me feel strong when I feel so weak, you know?

I keep looking for things that make me feel happiness even in small amounts where it never was before. This week I discovered that hanging all my wall art makes me feel at home and glad to be awake to see it all. I spent about 30 minutes marveling over my mother’s incredible cross-stitch art that I’ve had in every home I’ve lived in since I was born. My favorite is an enormous jaguar against a black background, slinking from behind foliage, and looking piercingly to the distance behind the edges of the frame. I’ve loved it since I was little and I can’t believe I forgot how much warmth it gives me.

Looking around my home I always think about how much I love cacti, succulents especially, but have never bought any since I can’t keep plants alive to save my life. Sometimes the simplest answers are the last you think of: artificial plants. Even though I don’t have the money to do so now, I’ve been building wishlists of potted cacti, succulents, ivy, and flowers and mentally placing them around my home and I feel happy just imagining that I can have that environment eventually.

While mentally mapping out the plants, I realized I don’t ever hang my own art I love creating. In high school I used to make giant wall pieces but stopped when I moved out on my own, but now I think I’d like to feel the satisfaction of making a big piece and actually displaying it, even if it’s just for me to enjoy. There’s an exhilarating adrenaline rush to realize I can buy some canvases and create the big pieces of lounging felines and animals again and there’s nothing stopping me from spending a small amount of money on some canvas.

This whole time I’ve been looking for work, I’ve been mainly trying to be truly happy. I’m making little steps, but I feel amazing and full of life like those permanently thriving artificial cacti I’ve been fawning over. I’m going to be better, even if I stumble backwards, I’m going to always remember to put my foot back down and take another stride.

Times are rough, but I truthfully feel better than when they were good.

#creepy chatter #i'm trying to peel away all my bandaids and i'm feeling lighter with each one #this is okay to rb by the way--i'm not shy about this

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