Berharap

to have failed is a sign you tried…. the mistakes, the relationships that didn’t make it, the job you didn’t get, the plans that fell through…. you tried, you lived, you loved.

Kuju Flower Park, Japan

astrailor_jp

I'm still learning about addiction and all the different ways it can cripple someone, but from what I've gathered so far, addiction is basically coping tools gone wrong. Someone is dealing with something that feels like too much, so they reach for whatever they can in order to feel less trapped, less afraid, less angry, less overwhelmed, or feel anything at all (among many other things) and they end up trapped in a cycle that they thought they had control over. A lot of the time it can come with intense guilt and shame, especially if the people around them disapprove, because they know it's not good for them and they just can't stop. It's their body, it costs money, they're a person with their own autonomy, they should be able to just walk away from it right? Unfortunately, there's usually way more going on that most people can't see from the outside

the problem with addiction is not that it's pleasurable. it's not "having too much fun" disease. it's not even a requirement for addiction that you have fun at any point in the process at all and to be honest it is incredibly common that no pleasure is gained from substance use. imagining that addiction is about pleasure does two things: 1) demonises feeling good (there is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy/comfortable/etc), and 2) frames addicts as people who Like Having Fun Too Much. it's simply not useful to frame things this way as well as just fundamentally not being true

Something really not talked about with trauma disorders is the paranoia.

Being scared and jumping to conclusions when people stand a little too close to you, not believing people’s compliments and thinking they have hidden motives, not believing when people tell you they like/love you, thinking that strangers you see on the street want to hurt you, etc.

i think there’s actually nothing better than being randomly told “I love you” after doing something characteristically stupid. Like what do you mean I’m a lovable person and I just did something silly and you thought “of course you would do that. I love you.”. No better feeling

i think what bothers me about a lot of "girl power" narratives is that they function on the implicit idea on the idea that women can become worthy of respect. and i happen to think that really caring about women means believing they already are worthy of respect. that historical seamstresses and soccer moms and forgotten sisters and sweet polite little girls and someone's weird grandma matter just as much as the warriors and politicians, even if they, personally, never accomplish anything "cool."

what is your eye color. what is your favorite color. what is the color that appears most frequently in your wardrobe. what color is your favorite blanket. what color is your water bottle.

cadoodles

Sometimes little pleasures in life are loadbearing. Whenever someone is like "If you'd just give up tea and coffee and sugar and--" im like I'll stop you right there. Because if you finish that sentence i am going to kill everyone in this building and then myself. If i have to face the horrors of the world without my little jar of caramel flavoured instant coffee i am going to go full American Psycho. Believe it or not, my main priority in life is not to have perfect teeth or be an Olympic athlete or look like a supermodel, but to actually enjoy living, because I spent far too long not doing that and it royally sucked. And boy, some people don't like hearing that. Particularly dentists

I once heard somewhere that the opposite of dysregulation is self expression

Any time that our emotions feel like they're out of control, or we feel empty and hollow, or like we're anxious or scared or shaking and tense for some other reason, or we're so apathetic to everything around us that it's hard to get ourselves to do anything, that's emotional dysregulation. A lot of people think that the opposite of that is just nothingness, but I heard somewhere once that the opposite is actually self expression, like writing about it, talking about it, painting about it, anything that lets those feelings be seen and expressed and felt and released.

I wonder if that's why art can be so healing. I wonder if writing just a little something about it whenever I have the energy for it, could maybe help.