kylemdoty

[kylemdoty]

Shop the latest photo from GreyDotArtShop on Etsy

"Relaxing with my hooded robe, which makes me feel like a Catholic monk, after starting my Etsy shop. Spy kids is on TV and I'm reading Under the Dome by Stephen King."https://etsy.me/39l7qs1

[kylemdoty]

Looking out for your own mental health sometimes looks like waking up before the kids, sitting in the sun a bit, and doing some reading and poetry writing.

Take care of yourself, and the bad days may not be as hard.

#poetry #saturdaylook #saturdayvibes #saturdaymotivation #writing #writersofinstagram #writers #Mentalhealth #Mensfashion #menshealthawareness #menshaircuts #wellnesslifestyle #selfcare #books #reading #journalingcommunity

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

This is my currently reading, or about to start reading, shelf in my office. ⠀

⠀

What's on your reading list rn? ⠀

⠀

#books #bookshelf #reading #santabiblia #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #mexico #espanol #catholic #horror #StephenKing #psychosis #saturday #SaturdayVibes #weekendvibes

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

Some nights you feel like fighting a cosmic battle. Usually, it's when your dominate hand is weighted down by the perfect balance of Glenfiddich in a tumbler. In that moment, in that headspace, you're man against "the wrath of the whatever from high stop the thing."⠀

⠀

#night #edison #lights #backyard #barefoot #man #men #menshealth #mensmentalhealth #mentalhealth #poetry #anger #sky #fight #write #writersofinstagram

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

Growing up, I wanted two things: to be a meteorologist or to be a pastor. Neither one happened: I figured out you needed math to foresee the weather and you needed to fit into a box to lead a church. ⠀

⠀

I traveled after high school and while laying on a dock on Lake Amatitlán in Guatemala, I had the idea to be an English teacher.⠀

I started college after getting married and entered as a freshman with two kids and one on the way. ⠀

In college, I found I was good at two things: academics and writing poetry. ⠀

⠀

I was raising a family though. Some clips in lit mags didn't pay the bills. I still had to work. Restaurant work fit my school schedule and promised quick money. ⠀

⠀

Being a server meant l had to meet strangers in a loud environment, be unnecessarily friendly, and keep orders organized. Many nights I found myself in the dry storage gasping for breath, dizzy, and praying for help.⠀

⠀

Anxiety and depression have ruled my life since I can remember: I've isolated myself, stressed out and angered my family, and have made myself sick because of it. It can crop up at any time and anywhere. I can bottom out, fast, where fear of whatever paralyzes me and little to nothing makes it go away. ⠀

⠀

I'm on a path of healing. It's taking time. But three things remain constant: the support of my wife, writing poetry, and faith. ⠀

⠀

If you anyone who is struggling with anxiety and depression, be a friend, offer an ear, and try to understand. ⠀

⠀

#anxiety #menshealth #men #masculinity #depression #therapy #psychology #restaurant #college #academics #poetry #writing #zennioptical #fashion

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

#poem #night #humanity #Contemporary#art #graphicart #poetry #Writer #today #inspirational #feelings #instaart #love #truth #universe #man #men #selfawareness

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

I've fought against myself for as long as I can remember. My patience is often limited, I feel that most days I'm annoying, and I have a tendency to be too clingy--to pick someone and rely too heavily on them. I often feel like I'm a third wheel, someone's annoying little brother tagging along without the emotional capacity to leave and just...be alone. ⠀

I trust too easily: I think a person is good and means well when they don’t. The opposite is true too: I often don’t trust the ones who are best for me. ⠀

Rarely do I like the way I look; I'm often uncomfortable in my own skin. I’m not as masculine or stoic as I’d like. I want to be the quiet, reserved, strong type--the Jack Ryan, but I’m no hero bad-guy fighter. ⠀

I isolate, a lot. I dig in deep to keep from being hurt. And to ensure I'm not hurt, I cut people out to a degree that’s borderline maniacal: blocking numbers, deleting chats and profiles, trashing pictures, editing everything until there’s no proof that any relationship between me and that person existed. It would be impressive if it wasn’t a sad truth. ⠀

Slowly, I'm taking healthier steps: I’m learning to love my body: I'm embracing my brain; I see a psychiatrist; I’m trying a therapist; I exercise; I take my medication; I practice moderation; I practice thanksgiving; I attempt to be intentional and calm when I want to rage.⠀

⠀

This is going to take time.⠀

⠀

Some days are going to be good, others failures. I fear the failures that will come and how they'll set me back. I’m scared to go on this journey and find that at the end....I’m still just me. ⠀

So I'll tell you this: since this is a one-day-at-a-time thing, just for today I’m going to choose faith that God’s got me where he wants me, and I’m protected and loved in the most unforgettable Heavenly way possible. ⠀

⠀

#selfaware #depression #today #masculinity #men #menshealth #betterhealth #selfimage #poetry #writer #writersofinstagram #fear #scared #mentalhealth #trust #catholic #christian #cosmos #heaven #time #fashion #image #self #poet #confession #vulnerable #empath

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

I've heard of people who lose limbs and vehemently swear they can still feel their arm or leg; they'll insist it tingles or itches.

There's a horror that crossed their faces when they look, wild eyed, that they've not been duped: their limb is missing.

It's called a phantom limb—one you insist is there but is not.

When youvet been possessed and used up by another, there's part of them who will not leave ever. They get inside you and fester. They rot there until some days you aren't sure if it's you staring at sunrise or if it's this phantom person who still has control over you, who still pulls your strings like a marionette even though back then you were only 11 and now you're 36.

#abuse #poem #phantom #Mentalhealth

#Psychiatrist #art #artist #florida #Doctoral #pain #hate #fear #battle #vulnerable #Therapy #international #roday #monday #presidentsday #book #sale #reflections #memoir #trending

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

[kylemdoty]

My Zeelool frames came!

Inspired by Dan Levy in his performance in Schitt's Creek, I wanted a pair of thick, black, chunky frames.

While we all know David Rose isn't real, his character resonated with me because of how he approached the world with such trepidation, yet such courage and determination to make his mark and make the aesthetic around him better.

As a person who struggles hard with anxiety and depression, I often find it a challenge to go out into the world. A trip to @target

can be excruciating or ordering through a drive-thru can ruin my whole day and erode what self-confidence I had been nurturing.

I'm a creative person, but anxiety and depression can severely limit, if not break, my creativity or confidence to go out and do good.

Watching the fictional David Rose choose to put his wild neuroticism aside sometimes and elect to step out and dominate, galvanized me to do what it takes—big or small—to put one foot in front of the other and choose success.

Glasses by @zeelool_men (Brandon)

Shirt by @designsbybrattz

#poetry #schittscreek #zeelool #men #masculine #wild #aloof #rebel #etsy #anxiety #depression #writing #success #today #publish #trending #story #glasses #danlevy #davidrose #roseapothecary

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

People hurt one another. Sometimes it's nothing: feelings get hurt or egos get bruised—nothing to write about, not really. Other times people hurt you in a way that alters the outcome of your life. One minute you're a relatively white trash kid living in a trailer home; and the next you're staring at yourself in the mirror wondering who the monster is that's looking back at you.

That's what abuse does to a person: it makes you look at yourself as the one who did the bad thing. It makes you wonder why the person who hurts you won't talk to you. When they are quiet, and when they aren't doing any abusing, they are in your mind shifting things around because they've moved in and have made themselves at home.

You're crushed under the foot of the monster until you muscle up the courage to not be possessed anymore or until the other person gives up and moves on.

And the whole time you lay at night in your bed that seems to swallow you up whole and wonder if the monster is in some way willing you to stand up and scream for your freedom.

I really was standing in the kitchen making coffee and looking out the small kitchen window when a message came across about my cousin. He'd been jailed for something terrible.

In a way, this poem traces its roots back to my first collection titled Hush, Don't Tell Nobody, a poetic memoir centered around a singular tragedy that would eventually snowball into this book, Violence: Metamorphosis.

#reading #monster #creative #artwork #drawing #instaart #moodboard #quotes #artsy #tumblr #awareness #Poetry #Writing #Abuse #Trauma made with #hashtagBuddyApp @hashtagBuddyApp

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

My younger days were confusing. It was more than just the average "finding myself" anxious confusion. This was bottom of the soul stuff.

I experienced depression for the first time. I coped how one coped when they are early 20s, lonely, and broke: I tried anything to make me feel happy.

I had a few people in my life who I leaned on often. Mostly, I think it was a mistake. It's hard to defend the term friendship when everyone's trying to figure out the same things in life.

The thing about doing anything you can to feel happy is that it rarely works. I was the odd man out in most social settings, and to this day that's still often the case.

I've never felt at home anywhere except maybe for the time I spent in Turkey. Mostly I feel like I'm living outside myself screaming at myself to just get up and DO SOMETHING USEFUL.

#poetry #poem #today #high #turkey #painkillers #depression #mentalhealth #devastated #young #writersofinstagram #daily #poet #vulnerability #black #suicideprevention

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

Depression is real. Anxiety can be debilitating. It doesn't always look like being sad in a dark room or obsessively cleaning the bathroom. It looks like overworking and overeating. It looks like telling yourself you'll never write another sentence worth publishing. It can look like writing 3,000 words of perfect prose only to delete all of them because they aren't perfect enough, or you fucked up some punctuation in one sentence and maybe you fucked it up somewhere else too, so why keep writing? If it's not perfect, why try?

Depression and anxiety bleeds into relationships too. You get hurt once, that's their fault. Twice? Three times? There must be something wrong with yourself. So you close up, you isolate: removing the cause must alleviate the symptom. You push people away. You keep everyone at a distance. The more you're pursued, the more you dig in.

If you push them away, and if they keep coming back, maybe they'll be the ones to stay and not hurt you. But there's the question in the back of your mind: is that true?

Seeing the psychiatrist helps, but the meds can make you tired and cause unwanted symptoms. The drug to help you sleep can cause strange dreams: eating charcoal like potato chips or visiting an old childhood neighbor who caused family trauma. It's a dance trying to find the right prescription coupled with the labor of faith.

Here's the thing with depression: a good day can make you forget what the bad ones feel like. A good day is like a gift.

And you never forget to go to bed and thank God for the kids, and the wife, and the cats that race up and down the hall. You even thank Him for the giant dog who snores too loud a few feet away in her kennel.

#menstyle #beard #instafashion #mensfashion #modeling #mensstyle #glasses #picture #photos #fashiongram #moments #trend #fashionformen #blackandwhite #Anxiety #Mental #health #Mentalhealth #Depression #Psychiatrist #Therapy #Night #Book #Writing #Author #Poetry #Poet #Today #catholic made with #hashtagBuddyApp @hashtagBuddyApp

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

#poetrycommunity #poet #writer #today #schittscreek #danlevy #booklover #books

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

Growing up was difficult. I don't remember a lot of warm memories. There was something like love growing in our three bedroom mobile home, or before that, the apartment building that turned into the projects while we were living there.

My dad wanted a daughter. He'd had four boys from one of his previous marriages and wanted a girl child. Mom had a son from her previous marriage, and dad didn't accept him because he wasn't "his own." Mind you: mom was required to accept dad's sons of they came around.

But dad wanted a girl.

When I was born, dad was living in Texas selling insurance; the job wasn't going well. To be a salesman, you have to be personable and at least pretend to care about others. Dad is robotic, and from what I'm told about his younger days, he was pretty wild with a mean-streak.

When mom called him to tell him I'd been born—a cone head-shaped boy because the doctor literally used forceps and a plunger to pull me out of the darkness of the womb, dad told mom that my plumbing was wired wrong; I was supposed to be his little girl named Megan.

Whenever he got the chance, dad reminded me that I was really supposed to be his little girl, Megan, but I was born wrong. "He's just like a little girl," he'd quip to my mother if I did something, as a boy, that didn't line up exactly with his toxic idea of masculinity.

I tried out for, and landed a spot on, the sixth grade basketball team.bwcause dad had played basketball when he was a boy. Apparently, he was good at it back then. I was just okay, and mostly I was uninterested.

Basketball was supposed to make dad see me as the boy I was born. I never made a single shot, didn't win the game for us ever, and only finished the season because I wasn't allowed to quit.

Dad stopped calling me Megan when I was about 18.

Bad things happen, but you can turn them into art of you allow yourself. My latest poetry collection Violence: Metamorphosis captures the emotion of the everyday violence that goes into the metamorphosis of life.

Link in bio for details about the book.

#confessions #abuse #dads #childhood #trauma #poetry #poet #writer #writersofinstagram #today #authorsofinstagram #stories

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

Violence: Metamorphosis explores the everyday violence that goes into the metamorphosis of life.

#today #florida #poetry #publishing #kindle #amazon #violence #mentalhealth #2021 #sale

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)

[kylemdoty]

It's where I read and where I rest. Each night before the pill my psychiatrist prescribed so I can sleep peacefully kicks in, I do two things: I read a few pages of some book and practice Spanish using Duolingo.

Usually, I read multiple books at a time; I have several going at once. Right now it's a little Catholic theology mixed with some crime drama, a Stephen King, and a memoir about a guy learning how to cope with heartbreak and learning how to drive in Mexico City.

The language learning is good for brain cognition. Some studies show that studying a language helps stave off dementia and alzheimer's.

Also, I have nobody to speak Spanish with right now, so @duolingo helps me retain my knowledge.

Currently reading: The Institute by @stephenkingofficialpage ; Touch and Go by @lisagardnerbks ; Crossing the Tiber by Steve Ray; Jesus the Bridegroom by Brant Pitre; and Interior Circuit by @franciscogoldman

#books #rest #psychiatrist #sleep #bedroom #bed #light #mood #night #mexico #cdmx #mentalhealth #duolingo @duolingoespanol

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kyle Doty (@kyle_m_doty)