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Artist: @mapartche

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i cannot hate myself into a version of me i will love.

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many such cases

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Being plural is like

Woah I’m glad that breakdown is over, I hope no one saw that.

The fucking Grinch: Yeah

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forgive yourself for things you did when you didn’t know better, for things you think you could have controlled but realistically couldn’t, for things you can’t take back. let yourself heal without reopening the wounds to punish yourself every time you’re reminded of your regret.

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And if all I manage to do today is make one person feel lighter, then I have done enough. And if that one person today is myself, then I have still done enough.

This world is heavy; it's okay to put it down for a moment.

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one of the most important things i’ve learned in therapy is that when you’ve experienced prolonged trauma in your childhood, pleasure feels uncomfortable. like, not that you don’t feel it, but that when you do feel it there’s an impulse to make it stop, because it’s extremely unfamiliar. and pleasure can mean many things, as simple as feeling cozy, and as complex as feeling loved. the neural pathways for feeling good have not had a chance to develop, and the neural pathways for feeling bad are quite practiced. feeling good, too, takes conscious practice.

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I believe you if your memories are confusing.

I believe you if you don't remember anything.

I believe you if you remember everything.

I believe you if some details in your memories changed over time.

Memories are confusing and complicated. But whatever the case, I believe you.

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Everything went fantastically and I love this horse more than anything in the world already (other than my cats).

The guy doing the actual therapy was really great -- I was honest about the DID, and I was honest about what's been on my mind lately, and what kind of injuries I've been dealing with. He's an ex-military medic who has Seen Some Shit and was absolutely unfazed by anything I brought up.

It's a little more... feel-y? Than I'm used to with therapy? At the end he had a deck of horse art cards and asked me to find one I "felt" and I pulled out a herd of horses and we went through why that one felt any particular way, and I talked about being a system and how it often feels like a herd of uncontrollable horses I'm worried will stampede at any given moment, kind of thing. But that's fine, it was nice to just. Be honest for once and let myself get into that narrative mode, I think.

But the horse is great. I got to go around and meet all of them, and eventually she was sort of nudging all the others away and chewing on my sweater for attention. The guy said she had a history of being too curious for her own good, got injured once trying to escape an enclosure and needed two years of care to fix her leg, and she'd been rescued from a meat auction, and I was immediately just like... yeah girl, I get that. Talked a bit about the times I ran away and ended up with more injuries than I'd started with.

And it is true what they say, about horses picking up on feelings. I started talking about my history in really loose terms, started getting overwhelmed and anxious, and she started mouthing at the guy's jacket a bit. So the guy walked me through like, now watch, see how she's yawning and passing that energy through her, see how she's settling down, and now you can do that with her and ground a bit again. And he was. Correct? I'm not gonna get into emotional regulation theory via equine assisted psychoanalysis on this blog or anything but it worked and I'm surprised and really, really want to go back already.

So I think it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna keep trying.

Also she is so pretty look at that face 😭

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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.

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trauma so bad my coping mechanisms have names and pronouns