#You know when someone asks you something بس

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

.

[sherlocked007]

Wake up....

Life woz going seemingly as it used to seem so before a girl a girl i don’t even think she is whot she is a intriguing little butterfly in her own shell but smyet strong enough to make u on your knees a girl suker for litereature aet and exploring but a girl fearing to see even a thunder storm a girl problem being like being mistreated badly thinking only she’s the one with worst parents a girl tht can make u wet ur pants but as sensitive as being broken down by just a shush a slut for deep talks long rides and care people who know random things are so platonically attractive to me like yes let me be your best friend tell me about the history of liquid soap

Lately I've been thinking about why I love and sometimes crave intimate intimacy. Is it a feeling, an idea, an action or all three? I believe I've found a new beauty that living within in: genuinely being able to embrace someone's authentic self while expressing my authentic self. From this type of intimate intimacy a connection is formed; that connection can lead anywhere, but it's then left to other people to decide where. That's what's been making my intimate intimacy with other so bittersweet: they can be okay with a few moments shared and that enough, but then I'm still present either wanting more or nothing at all. Even though I love experiencing the beauty of it, it's just soothing that's a little too complicated for me right now.

So then I ask myself, "How can I still experience this same beauty emitted from the intimate intimacy I love, but within just myself?" My answer is: genuinely expressing myself in a creative way.Being able to embrace and express all of me while still having boundaries in place four a healthy balance with others is my goal. I will no longer crave or expect intimate intimacy from other before myself.

In a dream i saw a narcissist girl moving away away wanting stop but eventually can’t I want to let her go but still can’t control and managed to go after her she sensed me and stop but then started to run abruptly but i stopped her she turned around with and started weeping having tears in her eyes tears like rubies with her dark red eyes depicting the internecine she is going through eacg of her tear like emotions for something incomplete

I grasp her hand she responded equally like snuggling with my finger but again hold my hand with her other hand and tried to unwrap

But she can’t not coz she is not trying best but her emotions are not letting her unwrap i hold her with my both arms and let held until she stopped struggling then i hold his face in between my hands and tried to unmask her but she reacted reacted not in resistance but in a warning manner ignoring her reaction i unveiled her face her eyes dropped like they were defeated defeated in centuries but i lifted her face by her chin gazed in her no momentarily but for as long as i can her lips unsealed and gasp mesmerised and unknowingly i moved moved loser and hugged a hug not romantic but a hug we do let ourselves free i hugged and she responded she put her wait on me like dhe let her self free like releasing her exhaustion anxiety and her fears i held her tightly we both having our own storms but still meeting i can feel her breath heavy nit slow breaths she tried to escape again but still this time i didn’t fear anything instead i kissed a kiss not rmoantic but still have the power to shatter us to the core It was impossible, of course. But when did that ever stop any dreamer from dreaming.

The way she made everything around us disappear. No one will ever consume me the way she did. Sit with me.. sit with me and talk my head off, tell me your intimate secrets.. the things that make you tick. Be my friend and my lover, just talk to me.. deep talks, shallow funny bits.. I want it all with a 🚬 and puffs sharing a same cigarette at a place were we r we no one around us just having a malt in between us no need to observes and guess everything is clear, woth our pants folded upto our knees and partially dipped in a slowly flowing lake just a after a heavy storm that destroyed the whole scene fallen 🌲 covered with mud with a rusty smell that is filling our nostrils a catastrophic storm that destroyed that destroyed everything but still that destruction results in a peaceful situation where one can discuss discuss everything hands in hands starving for a good conversation with a girls who is like a bud a smoll bud but having roots deep down rath meant to be a tree that is going to last last for centuries but fragile fragile and wounded with insecurities and not wanting to grow. A bud present in a mud-hole surrounded by scum and wanted to be the scum but still she can’t probably due to her insecurities or I don’t know whot but still caring for other just like don’t want to let her surroundings let down just for the reason that they let him growth but its not the mud it is.

We ought to have met In another time

In persuit of attainable dreams Below different sky

Upon a different earth

بے ربط لکھتا ہوں بہت خراب لکھتا ہوں میں تو بس زندگی کے عزاب لکھتا ہوں

Like she said in our her first glance:

SLUT SHOW IS OVER GO AHEAD

Shooo shooo

[alexstrick]

Language Learner's Journal: Phone Calls and Timed Breaks

[This is a continuation of Taylor's blog series where she details some of the week-in-week-out lessons that she learns through her Arabic studies and coaching work together with me. For other posts in the series, click here.] 

I haven't written in this space in a bit because I've been taking breaks, both extended ones and daily small ones. At first I was anxious about "wasting" time by taking a sort of staycation holiday, but I'm seeing now it did me well.

Two friends came to visit me around Ramadan, and I threw a lot of my daily habits to the wind to enjoy having them here. One stayed an entire month – having a friend from Rio de Janeiro to pound pavement around this city with me during the unique time which is Ramadan was a fine way to enjoy what is otherwise a rather quiet and still time. I think together we made as many Jordanian friends as I had otherwise made in the six months before she came. We went to multiple yoga classes, including the Indian embassy's "International Day of Yoga," took a makeup shopping spree with two young women we met at Amman's Roman amphitheatre and waded through Wadi Mujib with a guide who seemed happy to have any clients during a slow month. There's something to be said for the "reset" button you can push when you have the novelty and joy of seeing a place through a visitor's eyes. 

Even as I wasn't studying formally and took a month off from classes, I still had useful, spontaneous ways to put my language to use. I got a speeding ticket on the way back from the Baptism site, which taught me some useful new vocabulary words (مخالفة غرامة، رخص). I even tried to argue with the officer that we couldn't see the sign because it was covered by a tree, but I was not successful (that said, the ticket was only 20JOD). During a week-long trip to Greece, a friend who took me to Athens' central fish market told me one of the men working at a booth was Syrian, so I went and introduced myself. It is a motivation super-charger to see how someone lights up to hear their own language when everything else around them sounds like Greek. 

When my trips were finished, I sat down with Alex's "Mastering Arabic" to review and refresh my study methods. I'm doing decently with motivation, a topic Alex covers at length. Learning Arabic has always been a project stemming from intrinsic motivation, something I chose to do for and by myself. I have no hoops to jump through to please an employer or scholarship committee – for now, I define my own success, which usually is satisfaction at being able to make a phone call or recalling a precise and useful word I've studied and putting it to use in the real world. 

"Mastering Arabic" did prompt me to think more about time organization methods, which I had let slide into just some vague sort of maximalism ("I have the evening free and will study as much as possible.") Two methods that have been useful are to divide tasks into discrete parts and then "reward" myself by taking a break afterward. That may mean: Read one story in حكايتهن from the UNRWA and then take a break by chatting on Whatsapp, or make Anki cards for 45 minutes then go do pushups while listening to Despacito. 

I've also made more active use of a language notebook. In the past, I took notebooks to class, but wasn't proactive enough to take it to stores or pull it out as soon as a friend and I part ways. One of my favorite exercises now is to try to recall new words or types of sentences I heard the soonest possible after I finish an activity – that recently included زبيب and شمندر after trips buying groceries, and اخبرني عنك and شو خطة الليل؟ when I listened in on phone conversations. I heard a friend say ...كنت رح اشتغل في محل بس كان عندي مشكلة and jotted it down. I've been feeling that what I lack is many basic speaking forms and daily vocabulary, and as simple as many of these things are, I didn't know them beforehand – I wouldn't have know how to say "I was going to do X" and that it was such a simple construction. I've long been a podcast fan, and now, when circumstances permit, I listen with a notebook beside me to jot down anything new. (My favorite new podcast discovery is عيب، which is in Jordanian colloquial Arabic and on subjects very accessible to me.) I've returned to private classes twice a week with a fabulous new teacher, so I bring her the questions that have accumulated in the days between our meetings. 

Alex is a big proponent of making phone calls, which for me is one of the final frontiers for language learning – it's hard to have no visual cues and introduce yourself coherently when you are a disembodied foreign voice over the phone and ask for things like interviews or deliveries. Thankfully, each successful call boosts my confidence a bit more, though I can't say I'm great – I stutter and stammer a lot, and I speak much more simply than I know how to speak if you gave me a quiet space and time to compose my thoughts. Still, to my delight, I was able to speak several times with a business whose employees I sought to interview, to my landlady to complain that she's been locking our veranda door unnecessarily, and to order food deliveries and try to explain where I live ("between the liquor store and the dukan of fulan"). My comprehension rate is variable – I understand nothing my building's haris tells me on the phone other than a general sense that he is granting or denying my request, but, thankfully, he seems to understand me.

A final reflection on taking breaks: When I was hosting visitors, I had moments of stress about how behind I was getting. I could do some calculation for you about how many words I "lost" by kicking back and speaking more English, Portuguese, and Spanish on a daily basis than Arabic. 

That said, the break served me well. One, it was nice to reflect on what language skills are – not a one-time performance but a world of abilities we keep in our pockets and pull out often at unexpected times. I haven't been in a Spanish class in about ten years, but I still am making friends and enjoying pop music in the language. Many of Alex's techniques are about how to maintain language abilities, i.e., not how to just do well on a test but recall vocabulary even several years from now. 

Two, athletic comparisons have always made sense to me when it comes to tackling this difficult project which is learning Arabic. My Rio de Janeiro guest added a new layer to that analogy when she began to show me what she was learning in her advanced yoga and acrobatics classes back home. My mode of exercise had long been about having time to daydream while I threw my body into motion, muscles and mind unattached while I ran ten, fifteen, twenty miles with little effort and thought. A pushup, on the other hand, or playing a competitive strategy-based sport was always difficult to me. The difference, my guest said, is attention to form and control and knowing that it won't "be natural" and effortless in the beginning. We practiced yoga chaturangas and headstands, two exercises that require total concentration and engagement rather than "zoning out." We also talked about rest. Nobody will run well if they run every day; yoga always ends with a savasana "corpse pose." The rest makes us more energetic and more engaged the next time we work out, pushing forward the frontiers of what one day will become natural for us. 

P.S. – This blog writing was also a timed activity. I went a little over my allotted hour-time block, but still wrote swiftly. Now, I'm off to do some pushups.

[bibo-marwa-blog]

٣. البانك اتاك

٣. البانك اتاك:  اول مرة كنت في الشغل، مكنتش فاهمة ايه اللي بيحصل حسيت ان قلبي من سرعته هينط من صدري مكنتش عارفه أخذ نفسي بدات اتشاهد واقول خلاص كده، هي دي السكتة القلبية اللي بيقولوا عليها. حاولت اهدي واخد نفسي بس كل مدي ضربات قلبي كانت بتزيد كان أصعب أنى أخذ نفسي، حطت راسي بين رجليا زي ما كنت بشوفهم في التليفزيون وحاولت أنظم نفسي واهدي واتشاهد كانت بتاخد ما بين ٣ ل ٤ دقائق لحد ما اهدي وارجع أحسن. 3. The Panic Attack There was this one time when I was at work, and I had no idea what was happening to me. My heart beat so hard and fast, I thought it was going to jump out of my chest. I couldn’t breathe and started reciting my last prayers, thinking 'this is it. This is the heart attack people talk about.' I tried to calm myself and breathe but my heart kept banging, and breathing became harder every time I tried to inhale. I put my head between my legs, the way I'd seen people do on TV, and I tried to regulate my breathing while reciting my last prayers. It took around 3 or 4 minutes until I calmed. بعد الموقف ده مركزتش، عديته وكملت حياتي كانت بتجيلي كل فترة وانا مش فاهمة ايه ده وليه بيحصل، مع مرور الوقت بدات تكتر وتزيد بدأت كل ما اتنرفز او اتعصب تزيد ومدتها تزيد، لحد موت مروة ومشاكل شغلي، مبقتش بعرف اتحكم فيها بدات تجيلي وانا في الشارع وانا في البيت، أصعب حاجه كان أنى مش فاهمة ايه اللي بيحصل عشان احكيه لحد. I let the incident go and went on with my life. But this thing continued to happen every now and then, and I didn't know what it was or why it was happening. With time, this strange attack increased. When I got angry, it became worse and took longer. Until, the death of my friend Marwa and my problems at work. By then, I couldn't control it. It started to come to me in the street, at home, and the hardest part was that I didn't know what was happening to me so I could tell someone about it. سمعت كلام الصحاب وسافرت دهب عشان افصل كانت بتجيلي كل يوم، كنت بقوم من النوم مزعوره مش عارفه أخذ نفسي وبحس ان روحي بتطلع. لسه فاكره اليوم اللي اتعصبت فيه في الشارع من موقف وجاتلي ومعرفتش اسيطر عليها ووقعت في نصف الشارع، لسه فاكره اليوم اللي كنت في الميكروباص واتنرفزت من حاجه وجاتلي وكنت عشان اسيطر عليها لازم ابقي لوحدي عشان اعرف اتعامل، نزلت من الميكروباص وقعدت علي الرصيف ورجليا مكنتش شايلاني ، قعدت ساعه في مكاني مش عارفه اتحرك ، مش عارفه اكلم حد ،مش عايزه اكلم حد، مكنتش عايزه حد يشوفني وانا ض��يفة. I took a few friends' advice and traveled to Dahab to take a breather, but these attacks came to me every day. I'd get up in a fright, unable to breathe, and it felt like my soul was leaving my body. I still remember that day when I got angry in the street, and couldn't control it, and fell in the middle of the street. I still remember that day on the micro-bus when I got so pissed and it came to me and in order to control it, I needed to be alone. I got out of the bus and sat on the sidewalk. My legs couldn't carry me. I sat there for an hour, unable to move. I couldn't talk to anyone and I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't want people to see when I was weak. بعد اليوم ده بدأت اعراض تانية تظهر لي، احيانا لما كنت بتنرفز مكنتش بحس بنصف وشي والموضوع زاد لنصف جسمي. -الكوابيس: هي من اسوء الاعراض اللي كنت بشوفها كانت بتجيلي حتي وانا صاحية زي فلاش باك ، كنت بفتكر كل المشاهد اللي اذتني بالتفصيل . (مروة وهي في المستشفى والأجهزة داخلة وطالعه من كل حته، يوم الغسل وشها وانا بغسلها لسه مفارقش خيالي لحد انهارده ، مواقف الشغل المؤذية والمكالمات المؤذية ، مشاهد الجري من العساكر أيام الثورة ، مشاهد الدم ،الجري والغاز ، صوت الصويت قعد شهور في ودني مبيرحش .....) من هنا بدأت أحس ان المشكلة بتزيد واني لازم اطلب المساعدة من مختص، ومن هنا بدأت رحلتي اني ادور علي دكتور كويس وثقة واني اكسر خوفي وقلقي ان حد يعرف وازاي الناس هتبصلي لما تعرف اني بروح لدكتور نفسي وازاي هفهم الناس ان مش ضروري عشان بتروح لدكتور نفسي انك مجنون او انك مزودها ومركز بالزيادة مع نفسك، انا قعدت بتعالج اكتر من سنة من غير ما حد يعرف عشان كان تقيل علي قلبي ادخل معاهم في النقاش والجدال ده، ماكنتش عايزه ، ماكنتش قادرة . اللي حواليا بدأوا يعرفوا لما انا بدأت ابقي مستعدة أتكلم واقولهم، حتى اهلي. After that day, more symptoms started appearing. Sometimes when I got angry, I couldn't feel half my face and sometimes even half my body.   Nightmares: it was and still my worst symptoms, it happened even when I was awake like a flashback that hit me every day and where. Made me remember every single detail that hurt me. (Marwa’s face at the hospital where the tubes were everywhere, and she couldn’t even breath by herself, her funeral day and her peaceful face, my problems in my previous job, their harassing calls, threatening me. The running from the police scenes in the revolution and the smell of the blood, the screaming, ooh the screaming it stayed in my ears for months. That's when I felt that the problem was getting worse and that I needed to expert help. That's when I began my search for a good doctor, one I can trust. That's when I began my journey to get over my fear and worry that someone would know that I was seeing a psychologist. I wanted to get over my fear of how people would look at me when they knew I saw a 'shrink,' and how I was going to explain to them that going to a psychologist doesn't necessarily mean that I was crazy or that I was focusing too much on what was wrong with me. I spent a year getting treatment without anyone knowing because it was tough for me to talk and argue with people about this. I didn't want to, and I couldn't do it. People only began to learn about what was wrong with me when I was ready to talk, even my family. I learnt that these episodes or states are called Panic Attacks. الكام سطر اللي فوق دول كانوا جزء من حياتي لمدة سنتين والموضوع كان بيزيد بزيادة المشاكل والضغط، ده مش معناه ان كل مريض اكتئاب لازم يجيلوا نفس الاعراض. كل حد المشكلة بتزيد عنده بتزيد بشكل معين وبطريقة معينة.، الحاجة الوحيدة اللي متشابهة ان اول ما الموضوع يبدأ يأثر على جسمك فانت محتاج مساعدة في اسرع وقت. These above lines were part of my journey for the past two years. The issue kept popping up and other problems and pressure increased. This doesn't mean that every person struggling with depression will have the same symptoms because with each person the problem will increase but differently. The only thing in common is that once these panic attacks start to hurt your body, it is then you know that you need help. And fast.

الصورة دي من مجموعة صور مشروعي عن رحلتي مع الاكتئاب ورحلة التعافي، هدفها الأول ان جزء من رحلة التعافي هو الحكي، بحكي لإيماني بقوة الحكي واهميته، اهميته ليا وللي هيقرا. الهدف التاني ان الحكاية ممكن تكون سبب ان حد يتشجع ويطلب المساعدة او ممكن تساعد ان واحد يحس انه مش لوحده ويقرر يحكي هو كمان، مبقولش للناس تحكي زي ما انا بحكي لأني عارفه ومقدره صعوبة الموضوع بس تحكي حتى لو تكتب مذكرات، حتى لو هتحكي لحد قريب.

بحكي لان المرض عمره ما كان عيب ولا المفروض نستخبي منه، لأن عشان تعدي من الاكتئاب محتاج الناس تعرف، محتاج كل كلمه كويسه وكل طبطبه وكل دعوة. بحكي لان مش المفروض نعيش كل الاعراض دي لوحدنا زي مانا عملت في الاول وانا متحسنتش غير لما بدأت احكي

This picture is one of many in my project about my journey with depression, my journey to heal and recover. The first part of this journey is told stories. And I am telling my story because I have faith in storytelling and its importance to me and to those reading my words. The second reason for this is that my story may encourage someone to seek help or even help someone feel that they are not alone and decide to tell their story too.

I'm not telling or asking people to tell their stories the way I do because I understand the difficulty of it, but tell your story even if you can just write it in a diary or journal, even if you're just going to tell someone close to you.

I am telling my story because the disease was never something to be embarrassed about or something that should be hidden because, to survive depression, people need to know. You need every kind word and gesture, every pat on the back, and every prayer.

I am telling my story because we shouldn't live all of these symptoms alone as I did at the beginning.

I only began to heal once I started telling my story. #dont_suffer_alone #Mental_health_awarness_month