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Taken from the wonderful Nullibicity
I wanted to try an experiment--a project. It's purpose isn't to depress or trigger--rather a reminder that you're never alone in this world.
Maybe it's a stupid idea, but I feel that if we spread our stories, people will realize that our thoughts and feelings aren't so different after all. It will be known that we are all capable of change, and growth, and recovery, and that the bad things and traumas in our life do not define who we are capable of becoming. To raise the dA love, and the awareness that we can (and will!
) be each other's support nets, if needed. So! If you'd like to participate, I want to thank you for being one courageous human being. (Maybe letting me link your stories here, if you want to join me, will help create a complete world of pain, healing, and recovery, casting away the isolation that people feel. I can't change the world completely, but I can change it one handprint at a time. Even if I'm the only one participating in this project I've made, I hope that it could offer hope and inspiration to at least one of you!)
Really quick, a quick, encouraging note: You are you--completely and 100% one-of-a-kind, and loved for it. I don't really know if I should, in fact, be doing this, but I've heard so many stories detailing loneliness and isolation, and recently I've been seeing journals that just break my heart. you're never alone. Never. If you feel that way, please note me. I would love to introduce myself anew and get to know you for the beautiful person you are.(:
For all of you experiencing the hopeless pit of depression, or the tornado of anxiety... I wish I could hold all of your hearts up. I wish I could take these two hands, and join them to yours... I wish I could show you how worthwhile you are--how bright your future should and could be... because I know what you're going through.
In the effort to give you any scrap of courage I can, I want to share my story with you. If it inspires you to share yours as well (even if it's only with a friend), that is the most fantastic thing I could have hoped for.
After I read her journal, and a couple of others, I decided, against my better judgement to participate in this. It is hard for me to write this as I tend to keep people at arms length. The reason being, I feel that if no one is able to get close, then no one can hurt you. I've learned that sometimes, this isn't the way to live. So here goes:
I was raised in a deeply religious home. My mom (who is my hero, and number one fan) led Bible studies and Ladies Prayer meetings, my Dad was and elder and played in the Worship Band. The first real house we lived in was in rural Virginia. I fell in love with the forest, and spent days at a time in nature. It was so peaceful, so serene. As a kid, I was intelligent, always placed in advanced classes, always doing extra credit, always placing in the schools spelling or geography bees. Because of this, a lot of the kids picked on me or degraded me, and I learned that by under-achieving, I could fit in more easily. I was shy and awkward and sensitive, and really, the teasing and bullying didn't lessen. When I was 12, my dad started disappearing for days on end. When he was home, he and my mom were fighting all the time. I remember laying awake in bed at night listening to them scream at each other. I thought for sure they were going to get divorced, and that somehow me and my siblings were the cause of it. Later that same year my dad went to prison. We wouldn't live together for 6 years after. During that time, Mom worked long hours at the school where she teaches, and we were left to mostly our own devices. Dinner was whatever we could find in the freezer. I found out my dad was convicted of breaking and entering, grand larceny and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. When he got out of jail, he was placed in a group home, and was court-mandated to attend AA and NA(Narcotics Anonymous) meetings. During this time I grew more and more withdrawn and was prone to bouts of rage and violence, which really stemmed from me not being able to understand how a loving father, a Christian no less, could steal from and abandon his family just so he could get a fix. I lost faith in humanity and in the church. I questioned how a kind and loving God could allow such things to happen. My grades suffered because I stopped trying. I started smoking cigarettes to deal with the stress I put myself under. I got in fights, a lot of fights, and I broke my hand in three places during one of them. I got suspended from school for theft, and again for beating a kid with his own tuba. I figured if it was okay for my dad, it was okay for me. Kids found out my dad was in jail and they said all sorts of horrible things about him and I, both. This only led to more fights. I started believing the only way to deal with things was with my fists. My temper grew uncontrollable. I got in arguments with my mom who was only doing her best, and I spent several nights outside. Once I slept in a tree, because my own stubborn pride prevented me from going back. We moved into a low-rent house in a bad neighborhood and I fell in with some unsavory people. I grew depressed and sullen and began cutting. I gauged my ears to 00's because the pain helped me know I was still alive, and the physical pain of both gauging and cutting helped to dampen the pain I felt inside. Those were dark days, and a large portion of it I've blocked out over the years. My senior year of high school, my dad moved back in with us. I resented him, and I resented my mom for allowing him to come back. I was so full of rage and pain and hate that I began contemplating taking my own life. I tried once. I had a butcher's knife to my wrist and started to cut, when my dad came in. He knocked the knife aside and body slammed me into the floor. We were at each others throat constantly. He demanded respect I didn't have, and I just wanted him out of my life. We fought physically just once. I pushed him over the stairs and he threw me into several walls. I graduated high school with a 2.8 gpa, because I only coasted through. I remember being angry that he came to my graduation..I felt like he had no right to do so, since he hadn't helped get me there. After I graduated, I started drinking, and it was a slippery slope.
At 19, I moved out into my own place with a friend, and a girl I was dating at the time. My grandmother was diagnosed with CoPD and started carrying an oxygen tank around. I started drinking heavily then. I drank twenty to thirty beers a night, and smoked large quantities of marijuana, to try and numb the pain of existence. I invited me friends to party at my house, and with more people came more drugs. I switched from beer to whiskey, from pot to pain pills and cocaine and ecstasy. I lost my job because I couldn't stay sober long enough to work. My girlfriend left, for which I do not blame her. I was a horrible person and impossible to live with. I moved back in with my parents early the next year, and began dating a girl I met on the internet. A month past my 21'st birthday, I moved to Arizona to live with her.
I thought that the new place and new friends would help me forget the pain I carried. I was wrong. She was a lovely woman, one I thought I would be with for years to come. We rented a house and moved in together. I was working then, and doing odd jobs in my free time with her step-father, a man I greatly respect and admire. He always tried to help me, both in life and in my relationship with his daughter, and I learned a lot from him. I still couldn't stop drinking, and many nights I was too drunk to even go to bed with her. We began to fight, mostly over my behavior. She became jealous and paranoid and I did nothing to soothe her fears. In February of 2010, my dad had a heart attack. He was in the hospital, in ICU and my mom called and told me I needed to come home. I thought he was going to die. All of a sudden, all the pain and hate I had harbored for so long no longer seemed to matter. I was so afraid that he would die and that I would never to be able to tell him I forgave him, or ask his forgiveness for my own selfish behavior. I went home that night, amidst the worst snowstorm in Virginia history. He survived, though it was close for a while, and after I spoke with him, two weeks later I flew back out to Arizona. My grandmother died in April of 2011, and I flew back home for her funeral, filled with profound sadness. My brother had lost 80 pounds, which I later learned was due to a crack cocaine addiction. I lost my job in July of 2011 and we broke up in September of that year. I traded in a diamond for a handful of glitter, and it's my single biggest regret to date. I broke her heart and mine, and it was hard to wake up some days. I moved back to Virginia, full of pain and anger, and I picked up where I left off before. I drank myself into a stupor almost every night, and it's a wonder I'm still alive. For almost a year and a half I was drunk, every day. I stole from people, from stores, from my friends so that I could drink. I began to take pain pills in large numbers so I could be numb. I lost friends and teeth and sometimes my mind because of how drunk I would get. I picked fights with people I called friends. I walked home drunk more often than not, and sometimes I didn't make it. I'd fall asleep in ditches or down some lonely country road. Sometimes I'd write poetry, on those rare occasions I was sober.
In December of 2012, I decided I had to quit drinking. I was banned from the New Year's Eve party all my friends went to, because of how I acted when I was drunk. That was the beginning of the end. I went home, had one drink with my brother, and went to bed. I woke up on January 1st, 2013, and decided I wasn't going to drink anymore. I began to write more and more, bleeding my pain out onto paper, rather than burying it in whiskey. I quit doing hard drugs and only smoked weed on occasion. I worked a handful of jobs, from flipping burgers to driving a tow truck. In March of that year, I got on a greyhound bus and ended up homeless in Branson, Missouri. In April, I had a friend come pick me up and I began work, editing her novel for publication. That was a very rewarding time. I had no access to booze or drugs of any kind, and my head became clearer than it had been in a long time. I wrote a lot, and when the editing was finished, I called a friend up I've known for 11 years and moved to Amarillo, Texas in June of 2013. I've stayed pretty much sober since the beginning of 2013, though I will have a drink or two on occasion. The alcohol no longer controls me, I control it. The people I live with now are amazing. They love me, and I them. I trust them, which is a rare thing for me. They helped me to understand that even when shit goes bad, even when we fight and say horrible things to each others...at the end of the day, we are family. And if we don't have each other's back..who will? I've finally beaten my desire to run when things go bad, though it still nags at me from time to time. Mom and Dad have been married for 30 years, I flew back home for their anniversary celebration, and it was wonderful. Dad continues to struggle with health issues, but he's as stubborn as I am. I have two tattoos, one on each hand between my thumb and index finger. One says "All men die" the other says "Truly Live". These are a reminder to me daily that everyone has dreams they can follow or squander. We can do what we want with the days we've been given. I'm spending mine on the business of living.
Please know...You are never alone.
-J
I wanted to try an experiment--a project. It's purpose isn't to depress or trigger--rather a reminder that you're never alone in this world.
Maybe it's a stupid idea, but I feel that if we spread our stories, people will realize that our thoughts and feelings aren't so different after all. It will be known that we are all capable of change, and growth, and recovery, and that the bad things and traumas in our life do not define who we are capable of becoming. To raise the dA love, and the awareness that we can (and will!
) be each other's support nets, if needed. So! If you'd like to participate, I want to thank you for being one courageous human being. (Maybe letting me link your stories here, if you want to join me, will help create a complete world of pain, healing, and recovery, casting away the isolation that people feel. I can't change the world completely, but I can change it one handprint at a time. Even if I'm the only one participating in this project I've made, I hope that it could offer hope and inspiration to at least one of you!)Really quick, a quick, encouraging note: You are you--completely and 100% one-of-a-kind, and loved for it. I don't really know if I should, in fact, be doing this, but I've heard so many stories detailing loneliness and isolation, and recently I've been seeing journals that just break my heart. you're never alone. Never. If you feel that way, please note me. I would love to introduce myself anew and get to know you for the beautiful person you are.(:
For all of you experiencing the hopeless pit of depression, or the tornado of anxiety... I wish I could hold all of your hearts up. I wish I could take these two hands, and join them to yours... I wish I could show you how worthwhile you are--how bright your future should and could be... because I know what you're going through.
In the effort to give you any scrap of courage I can, I want to share my story with you. If it inspires you to share yours as well (even if it's only with a friend), that is the most fantastic thing I could have hoped for.
After I read her journal, and a couple of others, I decided, against my better judgement to participate in this. It is hard for me to write this as I tend to keep people at arms length. The reason being, I feel that if no one is able to get close, then no one can hurt you. I've learned that sometimes, this isn't the way to live. So here goes:
I was raised in a deeply religious home. My mom (who is my hero, and number one fan) led Bible studies and Ladies Prayer meetings, my Dad was and elder and played in the Worship Band. The first real house we lived in was in rural Virginia. I fell in love with the forest, and spent days at a time in nature. It was so peaceful, so serene. As a kid, I was intelligent, always placed in advanced classes, always doing extra credit, always placing in the schools spelling or geography bees. Because of this, a lot of the kids picked on me or degraded me, and I learned that by under-achieving, I could fit in more easily. I was shy and awkward and sensitive, and really, the teasing and bullying didn't lessen. When I was 12, my dad started disappearing for days on end. When he was home, he and my mom were fighting all the time. I remember laying awake in bed at night listening to them scream at each other. I thought for sure they were going to get divorced, and that somehow me and my siblings were the cause of it. Later that same year my dad went to prison. We wouldn't live together for 6 years after. During that time, Mom worked long hours at the school where she teaches, and we were left to mostly our own devices. Dinner was whatever we could find in the freezer. I found out my dad was convicted of breaking and entering, grand larceny and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. When he got out of jail, he was placed in a group home, and was court-mandated to attend AA and NA(Narcotics Anonymous) meetings. During this time I grew more and more withdrawn and was prone to bouts of rage and violence, which really stemmed from me not being able to understand how a loving father, a Christian no less, could steal from and abandon his family just so he could get a fix. I lost faith in humanity and in the church. I questioned how a kind and loving God could allow such things to happen. My grades suffered because I stopped trying. I started smoking cigarettes to deal with the stress I put myself under. I got in fights, a lot of fights, and I broke my hand in three places during one of them. I got suspended from school for theft, and again for beating a kid with his own tuba. I figured if it was okay for my dad, it was okay for me. Kids found out my dad was in jail and they said all sorts of horrible things about him and I, both. This only led to more fights. I started believing the only way to deal with things was with my fists. My temper grew uncontrollable. I got in arguments with my mom who was only doing her best, and I spent several nights outside. Once I slept in a tree, because my own stubborn pride prevented me from going back. We moved into a low-rent house in a bad neighborhood and I fell in with some unsavory people. I grew depressed and sullen and began cutting. I gauged my ears to 00's because the pain helped me know I was still alive, and the physical pain of both gauging and cutting helped to dampen the pain I felt inside. Those were dark days, and a large portion of it I've blocked out over the years. My senior year of high school, my dad moved back in with us. I resented him, and I resented my mom for allowing him to come back. I was so full of rage and pain and hate that I began contemplating taking my own life. I tried once. I had a butcher's knife to my wrist and started to cut, when my dad came in. He knocked the knife aside and body slammed me into the floor. We were at each others throat constantly. He demanded respect I didn't have, and I just wanted him out of my life. We fought physically just once. I pushed him over the stairs and he threw me into several walls. I graduated high school with a 2.8 gpa, because I only coasted through. I remember being angry that he came to my graduation..I felt like he had no right to do so, since he hadn't helped get me there. After I graduated, I started drinking, and it was a slippery slope.
At 19, I moved out into my own place with a friend, and a girl I was dating at the time. My grandmother was diagnosed with CoPD and started carrying an oxygen tank around. I started drinking heavily then. I drank twenty to thirty beers a night, and smoked large quantities of marijuana, to try and numb the pain of existence. I invited me friends to party at my house, and with more people came more drugs. I switched from beer to whiskey, from pot to pain pills and cocaine and ecstasy. I lost my job because I couldn't stay sober long enough to work. My girlfriend left, for which I do not blame her. I was a horrible person and impossible to live with. I moved back in with my parents early the next year, and began dating a girl I met on the internet. A month past my 21'st birthday, I moved to Arizona to live with her.
I thought that the new place and new friends would help me forget the pain I carried. I was wrong. She was a lovely woman, one I thought I would be with for years to come. We rented a house and moved in together. I was working then, and doing odd jobs in my free time with her step-father, a man I greatly respect and admire. He always tried to help me, both in life and in my relationship with his daughter, and I learned a lot from him. I still couldn't stop drinking, and many nights I was too drunk to even go to bed with her. We began to fight, mostly over my behavior. She became jealous and paranoid and I did nothing to soothe her fears. In February of 2010, my dad had a heart attack. He was in the hospital, in ICU and my mom called and told me I needed to come home. I thought he was going to die. All of a sudden, all the pain and hate I had harbored for so long no longer seemed to matter. I was so afraid that he would die and that I would never to be able to tell him I forgave him, or ask his forgiveness for my own selfish behavior. I went home that night, amidst the worst snowstorm in Virginia history. He survived, though it was close for a while, and after I spoke with him, two weeks later I flew back out to Arizona. My grandmother died in April of 2011, and I flew back home for her funeral, filled with profound sadness. My brother had lost 80 pounds, which I later learned was due to a crack cocaine addiction. I lost my job in July of 2011 and we broke up in September of that year. I traded in a diamond for a handful of glitter, and it's my single biggest regret to date. I broke her heart and mine, and it was hard to wake up some days. I moved back to Virginia, full of pain and anger, and I picked up where I left off before. I drank myself into a stupor almost every night, and it's a wonder I'm still alive. For almost a year and a half I was drunk, every day. I stole from people, from stores, from my friends so that I could drink. I began to take pain pills in large numbers so I could be numb. I lost friends and teeth and sometimes my mind because of how drunk I would get. I picked fights with people I called friends. I walked home drunk more often than not, and sometimes I didn't make it. I'd fall asleep in ditches or down some lonely country road. Sometimes I'd write poetry, on those rare occasions I was sober.
In December of 2012, I decided I had to quit drinking. I was banned from the New Year's Eve party all my friends went to, because of how I acted when I was drunk. That was the beginning of the end. I went home, had one drink with my brother, and went to bed. I woke up on January 1st, 2013, and decided I wasn't going to drink anymore. I began to write more and more, bleeding my pain out onto paper, rather than burying it in whiskey. I quit doing hard drugs and only smoked weed on occasion. I worked a handful of jobs, from flipping burgers to driving a tow truck. In March of that year, I got on a greyhound bus and ended up homeless in Branson, Missouri. In April, I had a friend come pick me up and I began work, editing her novel for publication. That was a very rewarding time. I had no access to booze or drugs of any kind, and my head became clearer than it had been in a long time. I wrote a lot, and when the editing was finished, I called a friend up I've known for 11 years and moved to Amarillo, Texas in June of 2013. I've stayed pretty much sober since the beginning of 2013, though I will have a drink or two on occasion. The alcohol no longer controls me, I control it. The people I live with now are amazing. They love me, and I them. I trust them, which is a rare thing for me. They helped me to understand that even when shit goes bad, even when we fight and say horrible things to each others...at the end of the day, we are family. And if we don't have each other's back..who will? I've finally beaten my desire to run when things go bad, though it still nags at me from time to time. Mom and Dad have been married for 30 years, I flew back home for their anniversary celebration, and it was wonderful. Dad continues to struggle with health issues, but he's as stubborn as I am. I have two tattoos, one on each hand between my thumb and index finger. One says "All men die" the other says "Truly Live". These are a reminder to me daily that everyone has dreams they can follow or squander. We can do what we want with the days we've been given. I'm spending mine on the business of living.
Please know...You are never alone.
-J
I published!
So I finally published a book of my poetry. It's available in paperback and e-book at the link below. Im working on an audiobook as well, where you can hear me read all the poems, and i'll update this as soon as thats finished. My love goes out to each and every one of you who has ever supported or read my poetry. This is the culmination of a life's work, and it wouldnt be possible without yall. https://www.amazon.com/Consequences-Walking-Circles-Jesse-McVicker-ebook/dp/B093TKGMQW/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+consequences+of+walking+in+circles&qid=1619977671&sr=8-1
Farewell, Friends
I've been wrestling with this for the last month. I love the poetry community here.. I've been on DA for 14 years, 3 months, and 22 days. I've grown from an 18 year old alcoholic man-child into someone i'm proud of, more days than not. My growth as a poet is just as apparent as my growth as a person. It's been a long, tangled ride, and some of you have witnessed the entire journey. I want you, my watchers, to know that I couldn't have done it without you. Your sympathetic ears, your support and well wishes, your faves and comments and llamas made the difference and have allowed me and pushed me to continue to write, continue to hone my words
Week 3, Day 1- Day/Night
This whole week's theme is opposites. They say that opposites attract, and if that's true, then it is the truest for today's topic. Not only do they attract, one would not be without the other. Day relies on the Night for a time to rest , and Night relies on Day to bring light back into our world. I personally prefer the nighttime to the day. There is something so beautifully serene about full dark, the soft winder whispering, the cold, judgmental stars shining down with arrogant stare. It is in the deepest of nights that I find myself searching deep within, for outer sight is gone. My ears are attuned to the voices of the wood, my nose inhal
Feature!
Congratulations to #ofsweetserendipity's Get Exposure Contest:
SlowSlickSnails http://slowslicksnails.deviantart.com/
This lovely poet has a way of taking words, and twisting them to make one think, sure that they have missed something. I'll be featuring a couple of his works here.
Temponaut
by =slowslicksnails, Apr 29, 2013, 2:43:41 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Traditional Fixed Forms
Sundays: no one's butterflies are
going to affect the wavelength
of the sun magnifying ants
(nothing will happen anyway).
Rewind, the air wrinkles into
sundays: no one's butterflies are
stuck on weeping quicklime (not yet)
that doesn
© 2014 - 2024 MozartsNemesis
Comments2
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I couldn't agree more with the comment below mine. This society today shames the sharing of experiences, and the expression of one's vulnerabilities. It almost traps us within the walls of ourselves, and the required courage to come out and share yourself like this is immense. I am so grateful you created this, because reading it inspired me. I cannot detail the hope, encouragement, and love this journal entry gave me. Too often I forget that people have suffered their own mishaps, have overcome their own shadows, and have done good in too many places left unnoticed. Seeing into the interior of people like you... it takes my breath away. It deepens my will to see the good in every single person. It burns my fire to keep trying to connect, despite how my experiences and scars have warned me against close relations. Thank you.
I am just so very grateful you chose to partake in this. To be honest, I felt foolish after having posted mine... but when the stories started pouring in, I could do nothing but sit, cry, and feel this sense of love so big, I was in disbelief. You are wonderful. You are inspiring. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, for what you have in you--your word, your soul, your actions--is a gift. Perhaps you will--or maybe already do--regret posting this, but I think if it could be an inspiration to even a single person, then that is something absolutely remarkable. I truly believe having the power to touch people is the greatest result and gift. So I thank you for touching me, and for keeping my eyes open to the insane good in people.
You've been through so much in your life... to keep wanting to be hopeful and to keep wanting to try for bigger and better things... it's amazing. Shamefully, I'll admit that sometimes I don't see the point in hoping or trying. However, it's because I felt alone... sometimes, it's so easy for me to feel like the only one struggling, because so many have built farces and masks and facades that keep everyone separate. Perhaps these walls are also the culprits sometimes in how we feel dysfunctional feeling some of these sorrows. So I thank you for reminding me that hoping is the greatest thing I can do--the best thing I can keep striving for. I really, really appreciate that. More than you'll probably ever know. and just, wow, you are an amazing person. I really hope things continue to get better, and I sincerely hope your light keeps burning strong and stable.
Much love, and thank you so much, again! It was a remarkable read, written by a lovely, lovely soul.
All my love,
Kelsi
I am just so very grateful you chose to partake in this. To be honest, I felt foolish after having posted mine... but when the stories started pouring in, I could do nothing but sit, cry, and feel this sense of love so big, I was in disbelief. You are wonderful. You are inspiring. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, for what you have in you--your word, your soul, your actions--is a gift. Perhaps you will--or maybe already do--regret posting this, but I think if it could be an inspiration to even a single person, then that is something absolutely remarkable. I truly believe having the power to touch people is the greatest result and gift. So I thank you for touching me, and for keeping my eyes open to the insane good in people.
You've been through so much in your life... to keep wanting to be hopeful and to keep wanting to try for bigger and better things... it's amazing. Shamefully, I'll admit that sometimes I don't see the point in hoping or trying. However, it's because I felt alone... sometimes, it's so easy for me to feel like the only one struggling, because so many have built farces and masks and facades that keep everyone separate. Perhaps these walls are also the culprits sometimes in how we feel dysfunctional feeling some of these sorrows. So I thank you for reminding me that hoping is the greatest thing I can do--the best thing I can keep striving for. I really, really appreciate that. More than you'll probably ever know. and just, wow, you are an amazing person. I really hope things continue to get better, and I sincerely hope your light keeps burning strong and stable.
Much love, and thank you so much, again! It was a remarkable read, written by a lovely, lovely soul.
All my love,
Kelsi