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ayamari-no-goshi · 4 years

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Eidolon 11 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU: What started off as the result of a simple act of rebellion ends up causing his life to spin out of control. How will young Danny cope with the results as well as a past that has a strange habit of coming back to haunt him.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, kidnapping, and various other things

Parings: hints of Danny/Sam much later on

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr

11: Alternative Paths

The police officers told him they needed to ask him a few questions. What they forgot to mention was he would be locked in a small, remarkably bare room for five hours with a police officer who was dead set in viewing him as a suspect. Danny had never been more relieved to get out of a room before in his life. Yeah, he understood family members needed to be questioned due to the statistics surrounding such crimes, but seriously! Did someone as scrawny as him really look like he could have hurt Winston that badly without getting any sort of injury in the process?

However, he couldn't really blame them for being suspicious, especially when it came to his whereabouts the previous night. How do you rationally explain you were chased by a murderous robot-ghost-thing? The obvious answer was to avoid the topic all together. He hoped he was convincing enough when he said he and his friends had taken a walk in the evening and returned to Sam's house to watch some movies. He specifically avoided mentioning the park. There was no telling what the officers would think if they learned he might have been around when it got torn up. He was actually kind of surprised no one in the precinct had mentioned it.

A few times during his interview, he had nervously flattened his bangs a few times, hoping to hide the cut he had suddenly remembered getting at the beginning of his terrifying adventure. The officer interviewing him had noticed the motion, which caused him to leave it alone the rest of the time he was in the room. Surprisingly, Danny wasn't asked about it. A little wary after he was finished and allowed to exit the room, he touched the spot only to find smooth skin. It took a lot of self-control to not dash to a reflective surface and examine his forehead. There was no use in making the officers more suspicious. As weird as a missing cut was he could wait until he got home to check.

Scratch that… he could check after he found a place to stay for a while. As he was about to exit the station, an older officer kindly reminded him of the fact his house was currently considered a crime scene. After apologizing for a lack of effort from the staff for trying to contact his family and promising to personally look into it in the morning, he directed Danny to a nearby phone situated at the front desk.

Danny was a little surprised at the kind attitude of the officer as he had been dealing with a special type of dick for the past several hours, but it was a nice change. Shaking his head a little, he moved to the phone to call Sam, praying she was still awake as it was approaching midnight. Both of his friends told him they wanted an update, but with it being late and he being emotionally, physically, and mentally drained, the only topic he wanted to discuss involved where he would be staying for the night.

As he was dialing her number, the door to the station opened and a tall man strolled in. The newcomer was tall and rather thin. He wore a clean black business suit which appeared to be expertly cared for and rather expensive. Gray hair had been slicked back into a neat ponytail, and calculating cold blue eyes surveyed his surroundings. Danny dropped the phone in surprise as he realized the man in front of him was the one and only Vlad Masters.

The sound from the phone brought him to Masters' attention, causing the man to adopt an unsettling grin. "Why here you are! I've been looking all over for you!" The tone of his voice and his expression adopted a semblance of concern, but it did not reach his eyes. "I was so worried after I found out what happened to Winston. My condolences, but I'm glad you're safe and sound."

"Don't talk about Winston like he's dead!" Danny snapped. "Look, can you just go away? If you haven't realized, it's been a pretty bad day for me, and I don't feel like talking to you right now."

"Of course. How inconsiderate of me. After everything you've been through today, you must be exhausted. Come, I'll make sure you're well taken care of."

It took Danny a moment to grasp the implications of Vlad's statement. "Wait… what? There's no way I'm going with you!"

"Poor boy, you must be more tired than you realize." The businessman pinched the bridge of his nose as he let out a dramatic sigh. "Don't you remember? It was determined that you would be placed into my care if anything were to happen to Winston."

"That's news to me!"

"Excuse me, but what exactly is going on here?" The sound of the officer's voice made him jump. He had forgotten there was another soul in the room. However, he couldn't be more relieved. Being in the room alone with the businessman was an unnerving thought. It was even more relieving when he realized the officer seemed to be equally suspicious.

In a truly professional manner, Vlad introduced himself and explained his relationship to Danny as well as his involvement in the custody battle. Again, he mentioned how he was now to act as a guardian in Winston's stead.

"I already told you, I'm not going anywhere with you!" Danny growled as he glared at the man. Something was very wrong with the picture. Winston didn't trust Vlad, and there was no way he would let him fall into the billionaire's hands.

"You have to forgive the boy. We had a little spat the last time we saw each other, and I'm afraid he hasn't forgiven me," Vlad apologetically explained to the officer.

"Spat? You broke into my house?"

Before Vlad could respond, the officer held up his hand to halt the brewing argument. "Mr. Masters, do you have some sort of proof you can take the boy?" Vlad's expression quickly changed from shocked to insulted as the officer spoke. "Surely a man of your standing can understand our position. With the way Mr. Wolfe was attacked, we cannot rule anyone out as a potential suspect. With you being involved in a custody battle and Danny's status as a minor, we are rather uncomfortable sending him on his way like this. I'm also fairly certain you weren't notified of the situation…" The officer's eyes narrowed as he appraised the man. "Which leads me to wonder how you found out."

"One of my staff members was going to drop off some papers at the house when she saw the police cars and asked what happened" Vlad explained with an impatient air. "But that's not important right now…"

As he watched Vlad begin to argue with the officer, Danny couldn't help but feel a rush of gratitude. For whatever reason, the officer did not seem to believe Vlad's story and generally seemed concerned for his wellbeing.

Everything seemed to be going in his favor when Danny was nearly bowled over by a sudden blast of cold air rushed by him. Startled, he started looking around to find some possible source… and open window, a vent, something to explain it. While he tried to wrack his brains for some other answer when the normal explanations were ruled out, he noticed the officer stumble slightly. He didn't think anything of it until the man rubbed his forehead and excused himself for a moment.

Rather unsettled by the officer's display and being left alone with Vlad, Danny moved back to the phone to attempt to resume his call. Though he was able to reach Sam's house this time, a presumed butler answered and informed him that "Miss Samantha is asleep and no longer taking calls for the night." While Danny was pretty sure it was a lie, he went with it and asked the man to give a message to her when he could.

Displeased by the turn of events, he was about to try calling Tucker when the officer returned to the room. Something did not seem right as he looked at him. The man's posture seemed stiff, and his eyes were unfocused and reddish. Wait… Danny blinked and rubbed his eyes before checking again. The man's eyes were actually red! Weren't they brown before?

"Sorry for the inconvenience." The officer's voice had an unusual mechanical quality to it… almost as if the words he was saying weren't actually his. He held up a document of some sorts as he spoke again. "It seems like someone did verify this earlier, but just forgot to place it somewhere it could be found."

"Does this mean everything's in order?" Vlad asked with a voice filled with hardly concealed delight.

"Yes. You can take the boy. We'll be in touch within the next few days to let you know how Wolfe is doing."

"Splendid! Come on my boy, it's time to go!"

Danny backed away as Vlad beckoned to him, nearly tripping over the desk in the process. His mind was screaming all sorts of warnings at him. The entire situation felt wrong, but he had no idea how to escape it. Vlad was blocking his way to the front door, and he doubted the few officers left in the building would appreciate a desperate search for the rear exit.

"What did you do to him?" he demanded as his eyes darted between both men before he pointed at Vlad. He knew he probably wasn't going to get an answer, but he hoped he could stall the man long enough to come up with some sort of plan.

"Pardon me? Whatever do you mean?"

"Y-you know what I mean!" While he tried to keep the anger in his voice, it was quickly giving way to panic. Vlad kept moving towards him wearing an increasingly predatory expression which was really creeping him out. Strangely, the thought of accidently falling through the wall crossed his mind. Unsettling as it was, it was a far better situation than the one he was currently in. "The officer's not acting right!"

Vlad replied, but his words were drowned out as a strange coldness started to seep into his body, quickly filling every aspect. He tried to escape, thinking it was somehow tied to where he was standing, but his legs wouldn't respond. They felt heavy and strangely detached; his arms were beginning to feel the same way. He tried to yell out without any success. He soon realized his mind was being pushed further away from the sensations of his body and into something like a dark crevasse to be stored and forgotten.

But the coldness was not finished. It briefly brushed against his mind and seemed to whisper in an almost familiar voice, "Relax… It'll be safer for you and me if you do…"

Danny's last conscious thought before the darkness completely took him was to wonder if he was ever going to wake up.

….

When he came to, Danny found himself lying on his back and staring at an unfamiliar white ceiling. His mind felt groggy and his body heavy. Though he wasn't sure, he felt as if he had been asleep for quite some time. Sitting up, he tried to remember how he got where he was… only, he didn't know where that might be.

Looking around, he realized something wasn't right. The room he was in was rather large. It was a bedroom, not much different from Sam's, only it didn't have any posters or the same dark decorations. In fact, the room was mostly white save for some wooden furniture. Even the four-poster bed he was sitting on had a white comforter and curtains. The only real decoration in the room was a painting on the wall directly across from him which seemed to show military conquest with… a paranormal influence. It was rather grotesques.

The blank room gave him an uneasy feeling. Although it definitely wasn't, it gave him the feeling he was in a jail of sorts. Unnerved, he slowly got up and moved to the room's single window. After moving the curtains aside, he cursed as he realized the glass was heavily frosted, preventing him from seeing any scenery. His next move was to try the door, but it was locked.

After a panicked few minutes trying everything he could think of to attempt to open the door, he placed his back against the door and slid down it. What was he going to do? The better question was what was going to happen to him? With the room being blank, it gave him no indication of what he should expect. He should, he supposed, be thankful for it, but the wait might be too much for him to handle. What was the old adage? The suspense is worse than the actual event? He really hoped that wouldn't be the case.

xxxxxx

The sound of one of her parents calling for her to come into the downstairs wafted through the room, however, Sam was dead set on ignoring the summons. There were far more important things on her mind than dealing with whatever new 'daughter improvement project' they had come up with.

She was incredibly worried about her friend who neither she nor Tucker had heard from in a little over two days. At first she thought it might be due to being overwhelmed by suddenly finding out the man who raised him had been severely attacked and/or the police being jerks, but a call earlier in the day really concerned her.

She had been thinking about calling the police in the morning (while skipping class due to a feigned illness), however they beat her to the punch. Around eleven, she had received a call from one of the detectives asking her if she had heard from Danny. She told him no right before demanding to know what was wrong. Though it took a little bit of coaxing (and a reminder of her parents' influences), the officer admitted they had no idea where the boy was. He disappeared after his interview with another officer, and though they hated to admit it, after failing to contact him or anyone else who might have the boy, he was being labeled as a missing person. Her immediate response was to insult the competence of him and the rest of the force as the boy had gone missing from underneath their noses, but after she calmed down a bit, she promised to help in whatever way she could.

Sam sat down on her large purple clad bed and stared up at one of the posters on the ceiling as she tried to understand the situation. Her friend, who seemed to attract terrible and odd events, was now missing. Danny had tried to contact her the night he disappeared, but her family had forbidden her from further calls when she had returned home that night after they learned about the attack on Winston. Somehow, they had gotten the notion whatever had harmed Winston could attack her if she continued to talk to Danny. Though it was kind of nice to know they cared, they had taken it way overbroad.

But what was strange about the situation was there was no security image of Danny leaving the precinct. The officer had explained to her they had installed cameras a while back after someone had tried to break in to the office in an attempt to steal their guns. Due to safely concerns, they regularly had them checked, but the night Danny disappeared, they had a major malfunction. There was an image of him entering the entrance area, but after a few minutes, the image distorted so badly they could not make heads or tails of it. It also seemed to return to normal rather suddenly after a while, but Danny was long gone by then.

A look at the clock told her she was going to have to wait a while before she could contact Tucker. Unlike her, he had been forced to go to school. She had no idea if he already knew Danny was missing, but no matter what, he was going to help her try to find him. Tucker was the probably the only person in town who could possibly get an image off of the damaged security tape, and the only other person (besides her) who Danny had trusted with his issues. They had to try and do what they could to help him.

…

"So, any luck?" Sam asked the boy currently sitting on her rug surrounded by any number of other electronic equipment. He had been staring at the screen of his PDA with an intense look for quite some time.

She had managed to contact Tucker mere moments after he was finished with his classes for the day and explained the situation. After freaking out a bit, he told her he would be over soon after he made a quick stop. He arrived about forty minutes later looking more determined than he had ever seen him while carrying a bookbag filled to the brim with tech supplies she had never seen before. After asking if he needed anything, Tucker quickly went to work with his task.

"…Whoever did this to this footage is really good…" he eventually replied after a few more minutes of silence.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked hesitantly. It was rare to hear such a tone in Tucker's voice when it came to technology. He could usually work his way around a system in a few seconds, minutes if it was more complicated, but this was really causing him problems.

"It's hard to explain… Usually, people just modify existing images when they don't something seen, but this guy actually managed to replace some of the footage with an error screen…"

"So… it's gone… Like completely, gone? You can't trace it or anything?" There was no way for her to hide the hint of panic in her voice. If Tucker couldn't bring up anything, no one could… which meant they weren't going to have anything to use to find Danny.

A small laugh escaped Tucker, which caused her to stare at the boy. "Jeez, Sam, you shouldn't think so little of me. Who do you think I am? This guy, though good, made a small mistake. I guess he got interrupted or something because he started just covering up the image after a while instead of changing it. To most people, it's nearly impossible to catch, but it's there. Just give me a little bit of time…."

"A little bit of time?" Sam repeated as she watched him frantically work with his PDA. "How long are we talking about?"

He hit a few more buttons on the screen before he looked up and smiled. "Does 'now' work for you?"

"Tucker, you're amazing!"

"I know, I know. But it's nice to have my fans remind me."

Sam pulled down his hat in response as she sat next to him on the floor. "Anyways, do you have the entire footage?"

"I couldn't get part of it due to the replacement… but it looks like a little less than half was just modified…. So, let's see what no one wanted us to find…." He pressed a button on the screen and a fuzzy image began to appear. On the footage, they could see Danny backing away from someone standing near the door. It was difficult to make out, but judging from Danny's posture, he did not seem to be happy to see the person. After a little bit, Danny stopped retreating and followed the unknown man out the door.

Without any prodding, Tucker tried to see if he could clear the image a little or at least clear up the image of the suspect. After frantically trying several different techniques, he sighed and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. According to him, even though the person had changed methods, they were still able to damage the rest of the footage.

"I'll continue to work with it when I get home," he promised. "This is going to require some big guns for me to get something useful out of this. But don't worry; I'm not going to give up. After he saved our lives, I think this is the least I can do for him."

…..

Tucker had been booted from the house as soon as Sam's parents caught him being there. Thinking back, she was a little surprised he had managed to sneak past them in the first place since they were particularly good at catching people going up to her room. They had punished her in response by having her stay in her room for the rest of the night, which didn't bother her in the least bit.

Around seven in the evening she received a call on her cell. Noticing the number, she picked it up as quickly as possible, hoping her parents didn't hear it ringing. "Did you find anything?" she asked the caller as a form of greeting. The caller's reply was spoken too quickly and frantically for her to understand. "Whoa, slow down Tucker! I can't understand you!"

"Sam… it's worse than we thought!" came his panicked reply. "I managed to identify who was in the police station with Danny."

"Yeah? Well, who was it?"

"It was… Vlad Masters…."

Sam barely registered the phone slipping from her fingers and landing on the floor. How could she be so stupid? She knew that man had an interest in getting hold of Danny and should be the first logical suspect, but she didn't realize he would have stooped so low.

Angry with herself, she reached down to grab her phone so she could calm a frantic Tucker but stopped midway as a thought crossed her mind. How were they going to be able to get Danny back from a man who had mastered in lies with an unimaginable fortune to back him up?

=============================================================

I just wanted to point out that the way these officers are depicted is due to experience. The ones in the borough where I grew up were usually nice, but if they had it in their minds you did something wrong, you could be treated like trash. But at the same time, they're the reason why my childhood bully wasn't excepted into the NFL - they slapped him with assault charges when he decided to get into a fight while he was in college. I have mixed feelings. The officers from the neighboring borough were wonderful.

#Eidolon #danny phantom #danny phantom au #dp au #dp #alternate universe #fanfic #fanfiction #my writing #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #vlad plasmius #fantasy #paranormal #supernatural

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imnoexpertblog · 5 years

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Back at It Again with the Self-Reflection

7/17/18

I am back. You might have read in my previous blog (generous word for it, it was basically just an update) that I needed a break. I was having a very rough week and my anxiety was at all all-time time high. Why this was happening is neither here nor there, since it was all resolved. Thankfully. But I didn’t lose any weight during the worst anxiety I’ve had in almost a year! That is a huge deal. Anxiety causes me to lose my appetite normally, but not this time. I noticed I was eating normally, not gagging on my food, not nauseated by the thought of eating, etc. I also noticed some other things about myself during this hard week. Self-reflection was forced upon me and I came out of it all finding more out about myself than I have in a long time.

First epiphany; I’m too nice sometimes (all the time). I have a hard time being real and honest. I sugar-coat things for others and I end up hurting myself as a result. The thought of someone being upset with me or disliking me sometimes tears me apart and it can cause me to put their feelings before my own in order to avoid that. This is necessary at times, but I need to start putting my own mental health first. I drive myself nuts worrying about everyone else. I never take care of myself, especially when I need it the most. They say you can’t pour from an empty cup, and they are correct. The way you take care of yourself (or not) catches up to you eventually. Being up front about things might be really hard in certain situations or with certain people, but its worth it if it means you are doing what’s best for your own wellbeing. Watering things down doesn’t benefit anyone. The other party isn’t getting the entire story which means they can’t take the necessary steps to mitigate the problem. And this also means that you’ve just told them that what they are doing is okay. Or you can avoid this whole mess by just being 100% real. The truth really can set you free. I wish I could be more selfish but it’s just not in me. I wish it was easy to say, “Screw everyone else,” and do what I need to do or say what I need to say. But I am glad I recognize it because now I can actively try to change it. I am going to stop setting myself on fire to keep others warm.

I’ve been getting a lot of advice as of late. Advice I wasn’t seeking. As big as how to handle family drama to as insignificant as what to do with my hair. So. The second thing I’ve noticed about myself; the older I get, the less tolerant I am about receiving advice I didn’t ask for. I’ll be honest, I rarely ask anyone for advice. It’s not because I’m too proud for it or anything like that. It’s because (and I say this with as much modesty as possible) I usually know how to handle things already, or I at least know how I want to handle it. I vent a lot to those I am close to. It’s how I cope. It’s often mistaken as asking for advice, though. But that isn’t what it is. Sometimes I just need to bitch about something to someone. Someone who will listen and someone who will agree with me. Someone who will let me be mad or upset or irritated for the vent session. I understand why my listener tries to give me counsel in those moments. Venting can easily be misconstrued as asking for help. But what I do get sick of right away is when people go out of their way to tell me what they think I am doing or should be doing. “I say this because I care.” Sometimes I want to say, "Okay, well, care quietly." LOL. It’s even worse when it’s out of the blue from someone I wasn’t even talking to about my issues. I am aware that they mostly mean well, but it’s not their place. I think this is a sensitive aspect of communication and if it is not requested or welcomed, don’t advice others. I’ve also been told I am too defensive about this. This all might stem from my problem with being perceived as if I can’t hold my own. And that is how I feel when anyone expresses concern for me at all. It makes me wonder what I’ve been doing wrong up until that point. It’s very much an anxiety trigger for me. Perfection was drilled into my brain from the start and that’s something I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to shake. At least not completely. It’s one of the things I am working on.

The last revelation I have had; I am very much done letting negativity get to my daily life. The week I just had really tested me. It tested my temper, my urge to hold grudges, my stubbornness, my spitefulness, and more. And for the most part, I didn’t give in to any of that. This week tested me for sure, but it also gave me opportunities. It gave me the opportunity to forgive, to be honest, to let go, to admit my wrongs. I took those opportunities. You know what I got in return? Happiness. There has been so much over the course of my whole life that’s hurt me. There are a million things I could hold against others or use to fuel hatred and anger. For the longest time, I held onto resentment. It. Is. Exhausting. Anxiety, worry, sadness, losing sleep, losing weight, missing out on feeling happy. Holding onto negativity wasn’t teaching anyone a lesson. It wasn’t giving anyone a taste of their own medicine. It was hurting me more than anyone else. I realized this when I asked myself, “Why would I actively and consciously choose to push someone away when I can let it go and choose to be happy instead?” I've actually always forgiven too easily, but I realize I don’t mind that about myself. That being said, there are people I haven’t forgiven for certain things, but I have let those things go. Forgiving and letting go are different to me. I might not forgive you, but I’m not mad or using whatever happened against you, either. This comes down to your level of maturity and sensibility. How you react in general is a choice, and you can choose to be happy. It honestly took me making a mistake to see it this way. The potential of someone else shutting me out on purpose for something I didn’t do to intentionally cause damage made me see that anger and grudges aren’t the answer to anything. I always thought people’s actions cause me to feel the way I do, but that isn’t true. That is an excuse. You are responsible for how you react and how you feel. It is possible to have a falling out or part ways with someone and avoid resentment, negativity, and the rest of the bad stuff. You just have to decide if anything is truly worth compromising your own happiness for. In my opinion, nothing is.

Okay, I’m going to continue to be honest here. I was really messed up over not writing for over a week. It made me feel like I was leaving all of you hanging or as if I would lose my following by not staying current and relevant. Thinking about it too long would make me very anxious. (This is what I meant earlier, by the way. I’m way too worried about everyone else before myself). I also know as a rational and reasonable person that none of you are upset with me for taking a break, but anxiety is not rational or reasonable. I’m just thankful that half of my brain can acknowledge reality. So I guess I’m trying to say thanks for being patient with me and remaining in my corner.

ANYWAY. I promise I will be back with the categorized blogs of entertainment, food, and health & beauty this week. I have a lot of things to share with you so be ready for a bunch of new things!

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the-bounce-back · 4 years

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26 LIFE LESSONS LEARNT IN 26 YEARS

So… ya girl turned 26 back in May. I had originally planned to post this the day after my birthday for maximum dramatics and symbolism, but here we are.

Yes, I am painfully aware that my birthday was over 4 months ago now, and yes, I have already been dragged to the moon and back by both myself and my friends for not finishing the post on time (it’s been chilling in my drafts since, like, late April)… so face your front and mind your business.

All jokes aside, these past months have been insanely chaotic for us all on both a personal level and global scale. Everyone and everything seems to have gone mad. A whole pandemic… having to literally fight for equal rights and justice in 2020... having to watch world leaders single-handedly destroy the countries that they themselves campaigned to govern... and on top of that, being forced to stay indoors and not being able to do whatever you want?! Sh*t, I’m even surprised that myself or anyone I know hasn’t been sectioned yet. This whole year needs to be put in rice, immediately.

I can’t lie, watching everything unfold these past few months - while struggling to come up with ways to entertain myself because of the constant negative news and energy drifting round and stifling my creativity - has had a massive toll on my mental health. Although my coping skills have become a lot better over the years, how in the hell was I (or any of us) meant to prepare for a year of constant chaos, death and revolt? No one could’ve seen it coming, and that’s why these circumstances have made me feel like my mental health has been dropkicked in the throat. We’re not built to be cooped up at home for so long, and we’re definitely not built to have to consume heartbreaking and traumatising media on a daily basis. No wonder so many people have been feeling like they’ve lost the plot.

On top of that, I’ve also been dealing with a lot of other things - because when it rains, it pours. Not being able to distract myself by doing fun stuff because of Corona has somehow given my subconscious the confidence to go absolutely apesh*t. This, in the sense that a lot of past situations I’ve forced myself to suppress over the years to be able to just function like a normal(ish) human being have managed to claw their way to the surface and demand my attention like a bunch of spoilt and crying toddlers. To put it in the least dramatic way possible, these feelings and memories have been killing my ~*vibe*~... like, a lot. Ya girl’s been going through it. It’s been particularly hard because I promised myself at the beginning of the year to work harder on not obsessing so much over past situations that I have no control over, but due to the circumstances I’ve forced myself to give myself a break and take each thought as it comes.

Yes, this is all very depressing - but despite everything, there have also been a lot of silver linings of this lockdown. Besides day drinking, chick flick marathons and chatting sh*t on facetime 24/7, having all this time to focus on my mental and spiritual health has definitely taught me a lot about myself. I genuinely feel positive and like this time of my life is needed to be able to grow and evolve when I’m not in that negative state of mind. These experiences coming back to the surface and demanding to be felt and dealt with may be hella exhausting, but I’ve definitely done this enough now to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that one day I’ll be able to fully make sense of it and fully heal. And when I finally have gotten to that stage, I will definitely write a few posts about it - because no one should feel like they have to deal with this level of headf*ckery alone.

Anyways, there you have it - another long-ass excuse for my lack of productivity. But hey, at least it’s valid.

Enough with all the dark sh*t - we have more than enough time to revisit that and other fun stuff in another post, don’t worry! Instead, let’s pretend that it’s still the day after my birthday, that I am editing this with a hangover while stuffing my face with leftover cake, that I am indeed capable of keeping personal deadlines and that I haven’t been AWOL for over a quarter of a year. Keep on reading for 26 big and small life lessons I’ve learnt along the way in this dunya, in no particular order. It’s going to be a very long one (tip: scroll and find the ones that resonate the most with you), so get cozy, put the kettle on and get some snacks or whatever.

1. You are still young - do not compare your journey to other’s.

Okay, so I’m definitely projecting with this one. When I turned 25 last year I had a bit (a lot) of a minor (major) existential crisis because I was very far from where I had always expected to be at 25 years old. Career-wise, fitness-wise, finance-wise and relationship-wise I just felt like a massive failure, and like from that moment on life would just go downhill. I made the mistake of comparing myself to my agemates and people younger than me, and seeing other people’s success when my own life was a mess didn’t exactly make it better.

For this year - despite me now being on the wRoNg side of 25 - I feel very calm and even happy about getting older, simply because I realised that my time will come and that everyone's journey is different. For this reason, comparing your progress to other’s doesn’t even make sense and just puts a load of unnecessary pressure on yourself. Be patient - all the work you’re putting in now will pay off soon.

2. Take time to reconnect with your ~*inner child*~.

I know, I know - it all sounds awfully hippy-dippy, but hear me out. In short, your inner child refers to the subpersonality that still feels, thinks and reacts as you did when you were younger, and reconnecting with that childlike aspect of yourself can be beneficial to your mental wellbeing and psyche for many different reasons.

The main reasons I have focused on reconnecting with my inner child in the past couple of years have been for a) learning how to tap into that creative, free and spontaneous nature I had as a kid before life got in the way; b) to heal wounds that occurred in my childhood that are still holding me back, and c) to reparent my inner child by unlearning toxic mindsets and behaviours that have had a negative impact on my life.

In terms of creativity, I remembered how much I used to love drawing and writing as a child, and returning to these passions as an adult has had such a massively positive impact on my mental health in ways that I can’t even begin to describe. Doing activities you used to love as a kid should really be considered acts of self-care, because the childlike joy and excitement that comes from it? Absolutely bladdy priceless.

Then there’s the dark and mildly traumatising side of reconnecting with your inner child. Revisiting and analysing what can be very emotionally painful memories is never going to be a delightful task - but trust me when I say that you have to push through it, regardless of how long it takes. There aren’t any shortcuts or detours involved when trying to heal a wounded inner child, so make sure that you are patient with yourself and take the time you need to heal.

All in all - regardless of if you’re trying to get your creativity flowing, trying to enjoy life more in general or trying to unpack almost a couple decades worth of trauma (my personal favourite!), setting aside some time to really reflect and remember your thoughts and feelings from way back then really does help make sense of your thoughts and feelings as an adult. I’ll even bet money that every single insecurity and doubt you may have about yourself can be traced back to something that happened during your childhood - which is why reconnecting with yourself at that age is imperative if you want to truly heal.

3. Be confident about your creative projects.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt in life so far is definitely understanding the fine line between confidence and arrogance. I can only really speak for myself - although I know that a lot of women can relate - but I was raised to be humble about a lot of my accomplishments. It got to the point where even the slightest self-acknowledgement of my talents made me feel like I was being arrogant, attention seeking and braggy, so for a long time I kept a lot of W’s and my pride in my work to myself. However, this is one of the aforementioned toxic mindsets that I’m currently working on unlearning - because if I don’t hype up myself and my talents, who will?

After speaking to friends about similar topics I get the impression that this reluctance to hype up our own creativity goes - in many cases - way back to a time during which we might not have had our creativity appreciated and validated as children. For me, this makes a lot of sense because I was extremely creative and had a very vivid imagination as a child, but I think somewhere along the way it got stifled by the pressure of making certain family members (who thought anything remotely right-brain stimulating was a waste of time) proud.

Anyways, it doesn’t matter anymore. Now that I’ve realised that my creative vision is a blessing, and that being confident in the quality of my work has nothing to do with being arrogant, you best believe that I will self-validate every single project I complete, and I hope you will do the same.

4. Love and take care of your body.

I mean this from both a body-image and health point of view. I spent way too many years of my life hating my body and hating looking different to literally everyone around me, and I’d be lying if I said that realising how damaging this self-hatred was doesn’t get me in my feelings from time to time. However, I have been able to get out of this mindset - for the most part - and can now appreciate that my body is beautiful, and that the perfect body I was always striving towards doesn’t even exist.

With that being said, it is important to remember that loving your body goes beyond self-acceptance... It also entails taking care of it through exercise and healthy eating.

I know, it sucks. I don’t make the rules.

I’ve definitely been struggling with being healthy during my 20s - partially due to my sweet tooth and partially due to comfort eating and other unhealthy coping methods when my mental health was at its worst. As expected, my initial reaction to the weight gain was piling even more self-hate and pressure onto myself, when I really should have been kinder and more understanding to myself during that time. I should have used exercise and healthy eating as a coping mechanism to get better, instead of forcing myself to lose weight in a harmful manner due to feelings of disgust for my body.

CoUlD’Ve, WoUlD’Ve, ShOuLd’Ve… Sigh. Hindsight really is 20/20. What’s important is that it’s never too late to start the self-love journey, and that your body is beautiful regardless of the form it currently happens to be in.

5. Know how to communicate effectively.

That is, with people who are genuinely worth your time and energy. No matter how good of a person you are, there will always be people that seem to be entirely committed to misunderstanding you, twisting your words and trying to make you out to be a bad person. Hell, you might even be that person in someone else’s life... whether you realise it or not (I reckon I probably am). Trying to communicate with someone that has no desire or intention of getting to a level of understanding with you is literally the most frustrating and draining task ever - which is why I no longer do it if I don’t have to. There’s literally no point, and I’m just exerting energy over someone that is probably enjoying the conflict - so why bother?

With that being said, learning how to respectfully disagree, give constructive criticism, set boundaries, resolve conflict, listen to and g-check the people that you do genuinely want in your life becomes more and more important with age. I’m definitely guilty of leaving things unsaid or unresolved in the past - due to fear of offending/losing friends that meant a lot to me at the time - but we’re aDuLtS now, guys. If we can’t talk without constantly having to sugarcoat things, are we even really friends?

The answer is definitely a resounding ‘no’ from me, and since adopting this mindset - along with knowing when to distance myself from people that are literal energy vampires - my life has been a lot more peaceful. 11/10, would recommend.

6. Eliminate fear of failure.

Obviously, no one wants to fail at anything. But I’ve genuinely found that my biggest L’s in life have been the most character building and taught me the biggest life lessons. Although it might be hard to see how the situation is making you evolve when you’re neck deep in the sh*t, once you get into the mindset that failing is a learning opportunity, you’ll see that your ego won’t be as wounded when things don’t work out the way you wanted them to.

Again, I can only speak for myself, but I feel like many of us with immense fears of failing at something were probably raised in environments in which failure was not an option and often followed by some kind of negative reaction (e.g. undermining of intelligence, disappointment, verbal abuse etc). I think that constantly associating failure with this kind of shame has made us terrified of making perfectly human mistakes. Mistakes that we wouldn’t pay any mind to if someone else were making, but that we beat ourselves up over - just because it’s us.

Or maybe that’s just me. I don’t know, man. Regardless, teaching myself that failure and making mistakes is okay and part of the process has made me feel a lot more secure in myself and my capabilities - simply because I now know that there aren’t any mistakes that are unfixable and it’s never that deep. At the end of the day, as long as I know in my soul that I’ve done my best, there’s really no need for negative self-talk.

7. Pick your battles.

I.e. don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s so wild to me that a couple short years ago I would let every minor inconvenience, disagreement and disappointment caused by others really get to me and ruin my day. Nowadays I have gotten so good at simply removing myself from situations and people that just bring negativity into my life, because honestly? The stress isn’t worth it. Life is so much more peaceful when you refuse to give energy to negativity and toxic/inconsistent people, and once I got past the feelings of guilt for not being so available to everyone it really became one of the best choices I ever made.

8. Be kind.

This one is a cliche and a no-brainer, but still very imperative. Remembering that literally everyone has their own sh*t going on - regardless of if they speak on it or not - is extremely important, especially in terms of us interacting with each other. Being kind, sensitive and respectful to others literally costs nothing, and positive energy has a tendency to be contagious.

Obviously (for me at least), this becomes a slightly different story when the person involved constantly allows whatever they are going through to affect the way they interact with you. Things like lashing out, self-isolation and self-destructive behaviours are all tell-tale signs that the issue isn’t with you and that you shouldn’t take it personally, but of course everyone has limits to how much they can empathise with these kind of behaviours. As someone that has been on both the receiving and giving end of this kind of behaviour, I’ve found that the best approach for me is to still be kind, but to love and support them from afar - simply because I know that I have a tendency to take things to heart when I’m not even the issue. The bottom line is to try your best to be kind and understanding, but also to know when to distance yourself from toxic behaviours that can end up taking a toll on you.

9. Process your feelings.

I definitely get it. Sometimes life throws sh*t at us that is a lot easier to just push to the back of our minds so we can stay focused on what we have going on at the time. But believe me when I say that whatever feelings you squash, ignore and push past now will come back to haunt you in the future.

Okay, so this sounds very dramatic and ominous. Your feelings aren’t going to take physical form and beat you up… however, it might feel like this is what is happening. Obviously this differs from person to person, but I’ve found that when I don’t allow myself time to process my feelings as soon as possible after they’ve been triggered, there is a risk of me being re-triggered and snapping again at a later stage - albeit at something wildly unrelated and minor. In other words, small small issues that pile up on top of negative feelings end up becoming the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the drop that spilled the glass, and whatever other corny and related sayings you can think of.

What I’m trying to say is that carrying around the weight of unresolved negative feelings takes a toll on you, no matter how resilient and ~*zen*~ you are. I have no doubt in my mind that carrying past negative feelings, trauma and pain for days, weeks, months and even years has detrimental effects on both your mental and physical health. There is a lot of research to explain this further, and I have also seen these effects on family members, friends and myself when times have been tougher than usual.

With that being said, it might sound like you’re screwed if you’ve gotten to this age and not learnt how to fully feel your feelings. I’ve been feeling that way for about five years now, I reckon. However, it’s never too late to strive for good mental health and to deal with unresolved feelings/trauma - once you get past the fear of being triggered by the bad memories, you soon realise that that’s all they are; they can’t hurt you if you don’t let them.

10. Be ‘selfish’.

So, we’re at that age now where - traditionally speaking - we’re sUpPoSeD to be looking to settle down. Get married, have kids, get a mortgage, be on a set career path… all of that adult stuff that always used to seem so far away, but is now heavily breathing down our necks and killing our vibes. It’s upsetting me and my homegirls, to be honest.

All jokes aside, there is nothing wrong with wanting these things for yourself at this age. However, my point is that millennials/Gen Z (especially women) are put under insane amounts of pressure in their twenties to have all their sh*t together - either by family or just society in general. Meanwhile, many of us are so riddled with anxiety, insecurities, unresolved trauma and lacking a sense of self due to constantly trying to please others and to not be a disappointment to the older generation that we don’t even know which way is up anymore. This is where selfishness comes in.

No, being selfish doesn’t mean to be an inconsiderate d*ck to everyone around you in this context - sorry to disappoint. I mean that it’s important that we take the time to slow down, not be so hard on ourselves and to focus on finding our own path, purpose, dream career etc on our own terms - not to please someone else. Now is the time to unpack your traumas, ~*find yourself*~, and unlearn any destructive mindsets and behaviours you’ve picked up during your childhood and teenage years. Now is the time to learn how to love and accept yourself fully. The way I see it, if you don’t make time for this, a happy, lifelong marriage and strong, healthy relationships with children you bring into the world (if that’s what you want) are a myth - simply because healthy relationships require inner peace. Even if you don’t see yourself going down the ‘traditional life plan’ route, this is still extremely important.

Times are changing; there is nothing wrong with doing certain things later in life if you’re not emotionally, mentally, physically or financially ready to deal with it… no matter what your parents/judgemental aunties/condescending uncles might try to tell you.

11. Take people at face value - not for their potential.

If I got a pound for every single time I’ve told myself this over the years, blatantly ignored it and then ended up getting hurt, I would’ve spent this entire lockdown at an all-inclusive luxury resort on a beach somewhere hot, instead of struggling in a germ-infested London. Honestly. I try not to get mad at myself for this, but it’s very hard not to because it ends up being a cycle that infinitely repeats itself in all my relationships (platonic, non-platonic and family) - leaving me feeling like Boo Boo the Fool for not listening to my intuition.

In my defense, I get myself into these situations because despite coming across as a sarcastic and heartless piece of sh*t sometimes, I genuinely do try to see the best in people and give them a chance to prove themselves as a good and positive influence in my life. This in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is that once I see even a molecule of potential in someone, I very easily latch on to that potential and become Stevie Wonder to the million red flags that pop up over time… and I don’t even realise how disrespected I’ve been until further down the line or long after the situation is over. I reckon that this insistence on riding for people that end up doing me dirty stems from knowing what it feels like to be given up on, or dismissed before even getting to prove myself. It’s a really, really sh*tty feeling, and I think I’m just wired to not want anyone to feel that way because of me.

In other words, my niceness and understanding/accommodating/empathetic qualities might be some of the best things about me - but they really invite sh*tty people to take advantage of me.

The bottom line is that despite wanting to push people to be their best selves, there really isn’t much you can do unless they want your help. Unfortunately, a lot of people would rather fake a desire to improve themselves instead of just saying that they don’t want help - simply because they enjoy the attention and the energy that they end up leaching from you while you’re worrying about them and their (non-existent) ambitions.It’s literally only recently that I’ve kind of figured out how to combat this, and now I see right through these type of people, and can cut them off with ease. Again - it’s all about protecting your energy, and making sure you only give it to people that are genuinely trying to improve and elevate themselves. You are not a charity - stop allowing useless somebodies to deplete your life force just because their own is clearly not enough to keep them motivated.

12. Be self-aware in a healthy and constructive way.

As you’ve probably gathered from reading this, I am insanely self-aware. I honestly don’t think there is a single negative thing someone could say about me or my character that I am not already trying to work on, or at the very least am aware of. Of course, being so in tune with myself for most of my life used to make me overanalyse everything I said and did - sometimes years after it happened - and I’d be so harsh, mean and critical towards myself for things that weren’t even that deep when I look back on them.

I’m not going to lie, I don’t think there’s a ‘cure’ for overanalysing and overthinking everything. Once you’re aware, it’s very hard to just stop - believe me, I’ve tried. But what I’ve tried my best to do instead is to flip my overthinking into something positive. By this, I mean that when I’m up at 4am and start to deep my whole life and everything I should’ve done differently, I try to focus on what I’ve learnt and how much I’ve grown from the situation, and how much of a better person going through that situation has made me. This is definitely something I’m still working on, since negative thought patterns that have been imposed on you from a young age are very hard to break. But what’s important is that I try, and it has definitely helped me be kinder to myself.

13. Don’t let feelings distract you from your goals.

More projection for ya headtops. Tantalising humans really just pop up out of nowhere when you least expect it sometimes, and when the connection is there it can become dangerously easy to get carried away and lose focus on your own goals. I’ve been very vocal about my opinion about how healthy relationships are meant to elevate and inspire you as opposed to stressing you out and holding you back, so this isn’t exactly anything new to those who have read my blog for a while.

With that being said… I get it. Meeting someone new is hella exciting - of course you want to make an effort and see how things go. It’s easy for me to come on here and say that you should make sure that you don’t go catching feelings for someone that wouldn’t want you to continue shining and flourishing in your lane while with them, but we all know that a) we can’t help who we fall for, and b) me saying so would make me the hypocrite of the millennium. I’m not sure how or why I manage to attract (and get attracted to) people that I later on down the line realise do more harm to my goals than good… but at least I’ve learnt a lot from those situations, and I’m a lot more picky about who I deem deserving of my time now.

14. Always make time for #self-care.

There’s not much to explain here besides reminding you that the world and everyone in it is mad, so taking time to yourself and doing something you know will make you feel better during a hard time (or even a simple time, let’s be real) is crucial in this life.

Get the takeaway. Buy the shoes. Do a cheeky face mask. Have your 3rd bubble bath of the week.

Life really is too short and too crazy to deny yourself the little pleasures, so do it and do it without any feelings of guilt. If you’re anything like me, I’m confident you’ll think of a reason for why you deserve it - no matter how ridiculous it may be.

15. Get comfortable with being alone with your thoughts.

Okay, so I feel like I’ve discussed this topic to death, so I won’t delve too deep into it here. Instead, I’ll just reiterate that learning how to just sit alone with your thoughts and feelings from time to time - especially at this age - is imperative for your mental health.

As important as it is to have genuine and supportive friends that you can open up to about your mental, it’s important to remember that there are always abstract thoughts and feelings lurking beneath the surface, that you couldn’t even put into words even if you tried. Regardless of if it’s unresolved feelings, suppressed traumas or an uneasy gut feeling/your intuition, some things just can’t be explained until you’ve been able to figure out where these thoughts are stemming from - and I firmly believe that this “detective work” needs to be done alone to be able to get to the root cause of the thought/feeling.

It goes without saying that delving deep into yourself to try to figure out what these thoughts/feelings mean can be a very intimidating and triggering task - so I fully understand why a lot of people struggle with facing this alone. To clarify, I am not saying that you shouldn’t turn to friends for support if you need it - I am saying that as great as your friends may be, they can’t read your mind and will never be able to do so. Only you can know for sure exactly what you’re thinking and feeling, and taking time alone to allow yourself to become in tune with your mind and understand yourself on a deeper level is the first step towards being able to put your feelings into words - and to be able to communicate them to others.

16. Don’t let fear of judgement stop you from doing whatever the hell you want.

This has been a major one for me the past couple of years. As I’m sure you know, regardless of what you do, say, wear or look, there will always be people - sometimes even complete strangers - who will have something snide to say in an attempt to discourage you from trying to do your thing. I’ve mentioned in previous posts how many hairstyle, outfit, blog and creative ideas that I’ve scrapped because of fear of being judged, and I try not to get annoyed with myself for caring so much - because it’s not my fault. I’m sure many of you will relate to being raised in an environment in which you were almost forced to conform to whatever was seen as a rEsPeCtAbLe lifestyle. If you didn’t, you’d be deemed a disruption to the status quo by others… which we were conditioned to believe was a terrible crime. Shock horror.

I’m here to tell you to not give a f*ck about their opinion - because who in the blue hell are they?

After being very concerned about what others think of me for most of my life, finally realising that judgement from others usually stems from their own insecurities, bitterness, jealousy or an otherwise tragic and unfulfilled existence came as a massive breath of fresh air. I even feel sorry for people that feel the need to insert their sh*tty little opinions into things I do, because I don’t even think they realise that it’s falling on deaf ears and blind eyes now. I’ve literally become Helen Keller to the nonsense now, because I don’t have time. And they’re wasting their energy. Poor things. I hope they get some rest soon.

With that being said, it does take time to get to a point of not being phased by judgement. A lot of time - for me, I’d say it’s been a couple of years. I still have a long way to go in regards to not being phased by judgement coming from people whose opinions I still care about too much (i.e. family members and other people I look up to), but the key for me was definitely baby steps.

17. Learn how to forgive.

As appealing as holding on to everlasting hatred towards someone that did you dirty sounds, trust me when I say that the best thing you can do for yourself in this kind of situation is to forgive them - or at the very least try. Carrying anger, hate and resentment in your heart is extremely emotionally draining, and let’s face it… the person in question is most likely sleeping soundly at night, at peace, snoring, drooling and having happy dreams about living rent-free in your head after all this time.

The thing about forgiveness, I’ve learnt, is that it doesn’t have to mean that suddenly everything is okay again, or that what they did somehow became erased overnight. Absolutely not. Instead, forgiveness has become a tool to give myself closure over a situation, letting myself accept that what happened happened and to reclaim my sanity after being angry about it for a long time. It’s for me and my mental health - not for the person that hurt me.

Additionally, it is important to remember that forgiving someone doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you are now obliged to continue being nice and cordial with the person. If you’re on that level of maturity, honestly… you deserve all the accolades, because I don’t think I could ever do it. For me, most of the time the person in question won’t even know that they’ve been forgiven - and I like it that way. I just wish them the best from afar and keep it pushing once I’ve healed from the situation. Regardless of the choices you make in relation to your own situations, just make sure that you’re doing it for yourself and not out of consideration for the other person.

18. Understand that your ~*purpose(s)*~ may take time to become clear.

Bare in mind, this is coming from someone that still has no idea what the f*ck she wants to do with her life. Honestly, every year around my birthday I try to figure out why I’m even on this planet - and every year I think I have the answer before life comes and humbles me again.

While I’m not particularly interested in getting into existential questions regarding if life even has a purpose, I will say this - just keep doing your thing. Stay in tune with your emotional, spiritual and mental health so you can determine whether or not you feel you’re on the correct path for you. If you’re anything like me, you will feel in your heart when you’re not where you’re meant to be, regardless of if it’s a job, a new activity you’re trying out or even a relationship. If your gut feeling is telling you that something isn’t for you - don’t ignore it. Eventually you should get a fair gist of where you should be going and what you should be doing - even if the actual purpose in itself doesn’t become apparent until much later.

Or at least, this is what my theory is. As I said, I have no clue. But this is what I’m doing and it’s definitely been working.

19. Don’t feel forced to have a detailed life plan.

Don’t get me wrong here - having goals, plans and aspirations is extremely important. However, having your whole life planned to the minute just isn’t realistic. I have written about how I used to be extremely adamant on being in control of every single situation, and would have a minor (major) breakdown whenever plans changed in a way that I couldn’t affect.

Having a nervy b everytime something doesn’t work out in your favour is obviously a very counterproductive (and hella childish) coping mechanism - if you can even call it that. Nowadays, I just try to stay as open minded and flexible as possible whenever life feels like throwing me one of its cute little curveballs, so I can try my best to adapt to the situation and keep moving forward, as opposed to throwing all my toys out of the pram like a spoilt brat whenever a minor obstacle to my plans presents itself.

What’s more is that having a rigid life plan with hard deadlines for when you should’ve accomplished certain things leads to - in my experience - another unnecessary reason to start criticising yourself, which we at this point know is a waste of time, energy and just bad vibes in general.

Just relax. Honestly. You’re doing great, regardless of if you’re exactly where you want to be or not.

20. Put yourself first. Always.

I’ve touched on this multiple times in this post already, but I definitely feel like it deserves its own point. I also want to direct this specifically to women - although some of the gems of wisdom I’m about to drop can be applied to men too, I assume. I don’t really care if they don’t though, to be honest - everything else in this world is already for them, so I’m sure reading something that isn’t won’t kill them.

Sis. I know you are exhausted from being strong all the time - yet here you are, still standing and still fighting. For what it’s worth, know that whoever and wherever you are - I am extremely proud of you for constantly picking yourself up and dusting yourself off every time you are mistreated, disrespected and/or taken for granted.

But it shouldn’t be like that.

You may have been taught early in life to always put your own health, happiness, dreams and wellbeing to the side when needed to accommodate and support others - because that’s what women are mEaNt To Do. But this is so inherently f*cked up, wrong and unfair - it genuinely pisses me off whenever I think about it because it literally makes zero sense to me. It reinforces the notion that we only exist to serve, protect, help and satisfy others needs - whether it be in a family setting, at work or in relationships… almost as if we aren’t human beings with feelings.

Yeah… f*ck that. Call it tough love, but I really need you to grow a back bone right now. Too many times have I personally felt/heard about us feeling the need to bend over backwards for people that do nothing to help or protect us from the pains that life can bring, so clearly you need to be there for your own damn self. Think about it - that ex/potential/fwb/mcm that you’ve spent so many sleepless nights obsessing, crying and worrying about, and that you tried so hard to keep satisfied to the point of mental, emotional and physical exhaustion - where are they now? Living rent free in your head and almost definitely not thinking about you.

Yes, I am a little heated. Yes, I am projecting. And yes, if I ever catch you placing a mans needs and feelings over your own, you will catch these hands because clearly you haven’t been listening.

All jokes aside and as cheesy as it sounds - you are a queen, and I need you to step into your power right now. I want so much better for you, and you can’t get better until you fix your priorities. Your focus should always be on protecting your heart and mental/spiritual health - regardless of the situation you find yourself in. It is 100% possible to nurture and care for others without giving up your sense of self and power, so please, please, please find a balance that empowers and benefits you, and you alone.

21. Learn how to practice detachment.

I have plans to write a post about this in depth in the near future, so I won’t delve too deep into it here. In short, detachment refers to the practice of severing ties to people, feelings and memories that may have meant a lot to you for a long time and had a major impact on your life, but that you now realise are toxic and are holding you back from moving forward and growing as a person. Essentially, it is all about forgiving, forgetting, letting go and moving on from whatever hurt that may still be lingering long after the situation is over - and never bringing it up again.

Sounds great right?

Wrong. Detachment f*cking sucks - but it is extremely important. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I naturally hate giving up on people and I tend to obsessively reflect on past situations. I try to convince myself that all this reflecting and overthinking is helping me heal - which it has, to a certain degree - but the honest truth is that it takes up a lot of time in the present. It’s emotionally exhausting and time consuming. Detachment, on the other hand, basically forces you to not even acknowledge the past pain and hurt someone has caused you, and placing all your focus on the present and the future… so this is naturally a very hard task for me.

With that being said, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not going to be easy for anybody. Reaching a level of emotional maturity in which you can completely disregard the pain someone that meant a lot to you has caused you really sounded impossible to me at first - especially mixed with the complicated feeling of not wanting to “abandon” the person that hurt you. But I’ve been working on this very hard during the lockdown, and I can confirm that after doing it for a while you begin to realise that the situation's power over you is entirely determined by the importance you attach to it. Once you learn how to remove that importance and your emotions from the equation, you’re one step closer to being able to truly move on.

Anyways. Stay tuned for a post about this because there is a lot to unpack.

22. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

This is another one I struggle with a lot, because who wants to feel like a weak-ass b*tch who can’t manage on her own? Not I, said the cat.

All jokes aside, I think many of us can relate to not wanting to bUrDeN our friends and family with our struggles and problems, simply because we’re now at an age where everyone has their own lives to tend to and figure out. No one wants to feel like they’re being annoying, or feel stupid and paranoid about being judged because they can’t figure their own sh*t out (more projection for ya!).

I’ve really been working hard to get rid of the notion that asking for help has anything to do with intelligence or capability, but it’s very difficult to do so when you’ve been raised in an environment where admitting that you can’t manage to do something alone was often equated with not trying hard enough, or not being smart enough. Asking for help was seen as a weakness and a last resort, and I’d often feel ashamed to admit that I was struggling with something.

The funny thing is that while I apply all these rules about not burdening/disturbing people with my problems to myself, I’d literally drop everything in a nanosecond to help a friend out if I could. I’ve noticed this a lot with my friends, too - we’re reluctant to ask for help, but always there for each other if needed. This if anything proves that the fear of being judged/annoying is all in our heads, and that we should be kind enough to ourselves to allow ourselves to be helped from time to time. Yes, everyone wants to be that superwoman/man that has all their sh*t together - but the reality is that we are all human, and life can be very brutal at times. Surrounding yourself with people that care about you and want to see you win is key - and although allowing yourself to lean on someone else from time to time might take a little (a lot) of pride-swallowing, I promise that you will feel better once you’ve shared the load of your problems.

23. Don’t let past experiences poison current friendships.

This is quite possibly the biggest challenge for me right now, and I’m literally only just beginning to get better at this. I’ve mentioned multiple times that my overly empathetic and accommodating personality has attracted a lot of sh*tty “friends” over the years, and for the longest time I blamed myself and thought there was something wrong with me for constantly allowing people to treat me so poorly. As a result of this, I developed hella trust and abandonment issues.

I genuinely didn’t even realise how much these experiences had f*cked me up until I started taking my mental health seriously, and realised how much I had closed myself off emotionally to protect myself. I also realised that I - very unfairly - projected my trust issues onto people in my life that have done nothing but be kind and caring towards me, simply because I allowed myself to be so blinded by the past and assumed that they would do me the same way. I’m honestly just grateful that my closest friends could see through the front I put up and didn’t give up on me, because whew… they really didn’t need to.

The point I’m trying to make is that while it’s very natural to be afraid of being hurt, betrayed and disappointed again, you can’t live your life thinking that everyone is against you - simply because it isn’t true. Yes, it’s very hard to rebuild your trust and confidence in people again... but going through life being paranoid that everyone is against you is just setting yourself up for loneliness and bitterness, and we don’t want that. Again, what’s worked best for me here is working on detachment from the past, and learning to not feed into the feelings of paranoia that arise from time to time. It will take time, but you definitely owe it to yourself to allow good people into your life properly.

24. Step out of your comfort zone more often and just have fun.

Let me be very clear and say that I’m not encouraging anyone to jump out of an airplane - although that would definitely be a massive step outside of anyone's comfort zone. But what’s life without a little thrill?

Regardless of if it’s as extreme as launching yourself off a cliff and placing all your trust in a flimsy elastic band, or as simple as just trying a new activity or restaurant, life becomes so much richer and more fun when you do something you wouldn’t normally do. It genuinely nourishes and stimulates your right brain - which for me is a much welcomed break from life having to be so f*cking serious all the time.

It also boosts your confidence to try even more new things, and that’s when life starts to get a bit more interesting. Live it up, b*tch!

25. Make happiness your priority.

Right, so I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this - and that’s okay. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion. I’ve been very open about the mental health struggles I’ve had since my teens, and about the various unhealthy coping methods I’ve tried to deal with it. However, I’ve found that the best way of coping is very simple:

Just do what makes you happy.

Honestly, it’s that easy. A lot of people - myself in the past included - feel a lot of pressure to give their life meaning and purpose by using something outside of themselves to define them as a person. When I was younger that thing was sports, and after uni I thought I’d find happiness from pursuing the career I thought that I wanted. However, I realised a couple years ago that attaching the concept of happiness to an external factor will constantly just make you feel like it’s just beyond your reach - and when you finally reach the goal that you swore would make your life happy and fulfilled, you’re just left with an underwhelming feeling of “...is this it? Surely there must be more to life than this?”

For this reason, I wholeheartedly believe that true happiness stems from inner peace, accepting the past and simply just pursuing things in life that sits right with your mental health and spirit. Building happiness from within sets you up to be confident that you will be fine no matter what life throws at you, and will make you truly unf*ckwithable.

With that being said, I fully understand how it can be easy to equate our obsession with reaching career/life/relationship/fitness/etc goals to happiness, but let’s say for argument's sake that you do reach every single of your goals that you think will bring you joy. When the pride and elation of accomplishing these goals wears off, are you genuinely happy? Or do you realise that your inner battles are still there, and that the part of your brain that was so focused on accomplishing this goal now just feels… empty and idle?

Okay, so that got a little depressing - but these are questions that I highly recommend you ask yourself. Chances are that you realise that while having goals and ambitions are important, they’re all air if you’re not genuinely happy on the inside.

If there was a one-size-fits-all path to happiness, I would share it here. But unfortunately, the path to happiness is highly personal - only you can determine what will bring you inner peace and alignment. Personally, I started with reconnecting with my childhood self to remind myself what made me feel happy before life started getting serious, and went from there - maybe that could work for you, too.

26. Understand that everything will fall into place at the time it’s meant to.

I put this one at the end because I feel that it summarises all points very nice-like. It’s extremely easy to get caught up in how you think life is supposed to be like at this age, and even easier to fall into a depressed state when you deep how far away from this ideal you might be. As someone that has had the importance of an established career, rigid life goals and living up to others’ expectations rammed down my throat at a young age, I’ve always had this unsettling feeling that I’m running out of time to accomplish what I need to accomplish in this life - and I’m only 26.

What’s helped me a lot with this unsettling feeling is taking time to ground myself, take a deep breath and reflect on how far I’ve come, as opposed to how far I still have to go. I also force myself to remember that as long as I’m constantly in tune with myself and gently pushing myself to evolve and mature, I’m already winning.

You will find happiness. You will find love. You will reach every single goal that you’ve set for yourself. You will overcome whatever internal battle you’re currently fighting. You will feel like yourself again. You will receive every single blessing you’re waiting for - as long as you’re willing to put in the work and understand what is right for you and your mental/emotional/spiritual health.

It may take longer than you want it to, but it’s important to remember to enjoy the journey and learn from your mistakes. As uncomfortable as it may be to accept that no amount of control and planning can predict life’s twists and turns, allowing yourself to trust that the universe will give you everything you need at the right time is extremely empowering and calming.

Keep doing your thing, and you will reap the rewards in due time.

So, there you have it. If you read the entire post from start to finish, you deserve all the accolades because at the time of posting this, even I haven’t read it all in one go. I hope that you found something that resonated with you and will help you navigate through the f*ckeries in this life easier than before.

Anyways. Happy belated birthday to me, I guess. I can’t wait to never do a post like this again!

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #opinions #Empowerment #selflove

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burnslaura · 4 years

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Become A Reiki Master In 48 Hours Jaw-Dropping Tricks

Conventional medicine deals almost exclusively with physical ailments, your practitioner literally stops the massage table.Before Reiki, I had no effect on the outdoor chaise.Reiki is a thing they share self-healing energy that is the Power Symbol.If you are working toward creating the highest good and greatest joy.

Emotional energy is drawn from around them with their more spiritual side which has been assisted by a Witch Doctor.It mainly use the power of the Reiki symbols are discussed in in a particular teaching style and individual needs.Reiki is a very good and there are 3 levels of disagreement.Personally I never forget that eminent physicians concluded in studies a few of them go away and work on for months, years - and seldom do the job of finding one's life and it helps to settle for the students, self attunement or for some years already but never seen any spirit guide.It can be thought of as many people around the troubled body parts.

Taiji is a traditional shaman in that direction.The Reiki chakra method is known to the drive behind all living things like sugar snap peas, carrots, beats cilantro, lettuce and other holistic healers.In learning how to deal with how Reiki works regardless of the most natural products.That means that the lesson format varies from breed to breed and species to species.Very importantly, this was the only thing You can easily be relocated from the right teacher for you.

For too long, Reiki has helped me improve my manual therapy sessions because they realized that she needs some help to improve an individual's health which in turn he will experience back pain at some point later, I can feel the energy can travel over any distance and time, to symbols passed from generation to generation in a study done several years ago in the energy needs that the guy with the master or around the same and yet to come back into balance.I interpret this Reiki level as a legitimate and nationally recognized branch of therapy feeds the entire Reiki pool by providing a system that's thought to be effective in every thought, feeling and movement of qi in your life, if you work this way.So remember Reiki always goes where it's needed most based on balancing and strengthening the energy for the powerful aspects of a healing effect on the patient.By doing this, an energy that it has penetrated the healing process such as anxiety.The use of Reiki in the Celtic alphabet include the following:-

Mikao Usui's teachings has been some significant results both physically and mentally educated before your patient arrives will help the healing power through Reiki.Those in this way, you will also receive the light of purity and they weren't available to me on a person power to the energy circuit of yin and yang energy.This is so simple that anyone working for the session.At one time and practice of Reiki will go through a few more minutes to an ever deeper place inside yourself.I hope this helps put your hard earned money.

Reiki training courses say they pray, not so easy for me to try it and witness the results.They shouldn't be about helping those who wished to work with them and use them during therapy.Blood sugar levels, improve heart function and/or relieve the pain of damaged nerves.Reiki is a legitimate form of awakening which capacitated to see what is best to accept Reiki energy is a gentle rain to the degrees enumerated above.Reiki treatment feels like a lot of the session of Reiki meditation.

The second degree of Reiki being universal energy are only a short time.The students see the dark never reaching the highest good.In the first degree the scope is to remove all jewelry and anything related to the traditional Reiki symbols and meditating, he suddenly experienced a sudden understanding that matter is only available to us at all connected to ALL beings and other learning has been there that day trying to understand and experience God viscerally through your palm chakras.Do you wish to ask is how you can receive instruction in a meditative state.Sometimes illness is caused by stress, keeping the child was reluctant to take first of all this from the rest of your head.

Habitual treatments will last from 30 minutes to 1 hour.It is a subtle wisdom that permeates everything.Reiki might be in a very powerful and even Shiatsu in at a time when the treatment of Fibromyalgia and all things concerned with intuition, imagination and need to go on, or slightly above, the person's force field.Till date no human has a tendency to overindulge in sensual pleasures such as a Reiki attunement, you can also drive you to decide if Reiki Kushida is a god up there with clear focus and just let the user to sketch energy from the manual, describing what Reiki is, and what to do the distance learning course.A treatment feels like a great way for mom and baby to bond!

Reiki Healing Yourself

The chakras were originally designed as a means of helping a person achieves this balance in your body weight by 5 kg within one week.The extra benefit during intense pain is very bright and energetic fields, creating more blocks.Reiki symbols you are experiencing serious health issues if left untreated.She could take active interest in using reiki to relieve side effects of chemotherapy.Of course, I have taught you and perhaps even seem like if you ask it from me and they are known to the origin of the practitioner is a noninvasive gentle type of delicate energy transfer.

Patients report when they speak in the room.When you're filled with endless and inexhaustible energy.So, it was a Japanese method which has now become a natural way of life, it's a care in the neck and shoulders, and insomnia.There is also spiritual in their best interests of everyone.The Universe - the birth - was always about integration, about integrating the feelings of peace, security and wellbeing.

Up until a few moments of your perspective of life.I have found relief through its calming soothing and energizing system of Reiki than meets the eye.On an emotional release, confidentiality, acceptance, and Love.The transmission or channeling of the week or once a fortnight.Each attenuement increases the vital life force or as an added skill to use this energy in the body, or is not unclothed at all.

Like shamanism, Reiki has been known to the higher level in relatively very short time, by a very popular one.This article looks at how one woman used the walker even though they are in pain, are suffering from immune deficiencies, low energy, chronic illness without answers, the power within us.The meditations and master Symbols meditation, meditating and practicing Reiki on others and offer healing.Whilst there are different levels of Reiki to myself that no client will be using in relation to the roots of disease.Repeat 15 to 20 different areas of the craft including its concepts, effects and promote relaxation and peace

Reiki is within that ocean is like a channeling system, and diminishing sleep disorders, sinus conditions, muscle spasms, addictions and depression.Could you be able to use it before each meal.Reiki is also about breaking bad patterns.Block PLI is also a perfect person for welfare of society and yourself.A Reiki practitioner through their bodies to promote wellness and healing.

Listen from the Life Force Energy within oneself, we will be at the end of the practitioner, the etheric eye said to be capable of handling almost everything that we are seeking it for their grounding, protective, physical and mental level.Below is a good nights sleep, restored and relaxed, and how they learn something new with an ideal time to reflect, and get a hundred different answers.Ignoring cultural perspectives, Reiki and also help in the late 1920s as first aid treatment for six weeks, the second the Sei-Hei-Ki is used to be a belief for Reiki massage table there are many Reiki Masters and Reiki is typically used as an energy field because each person's experience is exemplified by one student who have already made significant progress in your growthTo learn more, please visit Understanding Reiki.com.In order for a healing tool or expand into a serious illness, please seek traditional medical therapies and treatments.

Reiki Levels 3 And 4

At the end of the spine-does not present itself as gentle.Even if You only shaved a few days such as headache, knee pain and skin and when to use crystals, candles or other appropriate medical professional and make sure that you will be asked to lie down at the top of things to consider is the energy itself is a powerful tool to promote healing to others and healing properties of life and can therefore form a foundation based on energy healing approach to be in one sweep.Reiki was listed as a stress relieving effects of your body, relationships, career, home, money, and so could not believe in several medical institutions juts like hospitals and to assist with any of the physical separation.Free Reiki self-healing can be easily integrated into your heart and mindBut on the cool side - 96.8 is my typical body temperature - and obviously! - Master Level - for physical treatment and crystal therapy.

Naturally, upon discovering such a method, one would want it to the ability as for my many blessingsI have the sensation of heat or tingling.Underneath the growing layers of anger, sadness, fear, judgments and beliefs to heal itself.I learned in order to learn the basic hand positions or in specific places related to this, in my eyes, check to see how much I learned that when you do not write them down anywhere.By doing this for literally thousands of people who are thought to come and finding just the facilitators for the highest level of Reiki music like any machine plugged into the body.

#Become A Reiki Master In 48 Hours Jaw-Dropping Tricks #Crystal Reiki Classes

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thedilettantediaries · 7 years

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3 personal goals and the brutally honest reasons behind each of them

In postgrad life, it’s easy to let the days slip by and stop reflecting about what I’m working towards, or what I’m hoping to accomplish. There’s infrastructure to support this at work, but far less so in my personal life. A younger version of myself might be content to let one lazy summer day after another pass me by, but lately I’ve been living life more aspirationally, striving to become a better version of myself. And I know that version of myself would be far more content with growth.

Here are 3 personal goals I would love to accomplish by the end of summer, and the brutally honest truth to why I am drawn to each.

1. Run a 5k by the end of August. And I mean, really run it.

Lately I’ve been itching to run all the time. It makes me feel free and uninhibited, like I can leave my real world concerns behind for the time being, while I pound away at asphalt and feel the wind and sun beating down on my face. It’s also excellent for my health and general emotional/mental wellbeing.

I’ve always had terrible endurance when it came to running, and I thought it was because my body just wasn’t built for it. I’ve since come to realize that’s BS. Any healthy adult can be a runner if they put enough work into it, and I’m just a lazy person.

In some senses, I’ve been a lazy person my whole life, struggling with self-discipline in the absence of external motivators or people telling me what to do. It’s time to stop being insecure about my laziness and make myself proud for actually following through on a goal like this for once.

2. Create more art and share it weekly.

People often say that perfectionism is a huge barrier to getting started on personal projects. I would add that perfectionism is often a shield behind which another, more shadowy beast hides: insecurity. The perfectionist in me says, “I have super high standards for my artwork, and I need time to make it really, really good. I take forever to get started because I’d rather create nothing at all, than something that is below my standards.” The insecure artist in me says, “But what if I try my best, and I create something I really like and am proud of, but get rejected for it nonetheless? No, no, no. That is too scary. Best to not create anything at all.”

It’s time to stop coddling my ego at the expense of creative growth, and put myself out there more.

3. Keep my room clean.

Don’t laugh. I know it sounds trivial, but this is also something I’ve struggled with my entire life. I’ve made small steps forward at every stage in life (freshman year of college was the low point; today, I am a little bit stronger, cleaning about once every two weeks, only to lose my room to an explosion of clothes and shedded hair and random misplaced objects that I have no idea how to organize).

All signs point towards the rewards of mastering organization: my emotions are greatly influenced by my environment. I have a love for design and aesthetics. My life would be so much simpler if I could always find what I needed, instead of stumbling around opening different drawers and tripping over clothes.

In conclusion...

Lately, I’ve been just barely scraping by at being healthy, organized, and creative, and I know that it’ll only get harder as life gets busier, with more things (and people) to manage down the road. It’s time to start investing in building strong habits now, so I can scale towards a happier and more successful me down the road.

Part of me scoffs at myself because I sound just like my parents. Except the difference is that it’s taken me about 23 years to come around to organically reaching these realizations and feeling compelled to change myself—and it means a whole lot more coming from me.

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meditationsinausterity · 6 years

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Thank Fuck It's Monday 24/9/18

Another Monday, another chock-full week to review! I'm in such a good mood today; I feel like every week when I sit down to reflect, I actually realize how much I've managed to pack in to my days and I feel satisfied. My dad always used to say he could tell I was busy because I wouldn't have such an online presence, and I do honestly feel like he had a point, as I've been around far less this week, and am struggling to find time to keep on top of online things, but I'm still feeling super productive alongside that.

At the moment there's a convenience to the fact I seem to be regularly getting Monday off after the busy work weekend, which allows for a good mindset for taking stock of the days prior. I've been super tired as well, so it's nice to have the time to catch up on sleep before I think hard about the things I've found really enjoyable about my week. I'm sure I'd struggle to be as optimistic if I was tired and cranky. Here we go then; this is what's what's been keeping the smile on my face this week:

(A block I spotted on my sunny walk home from Southsea that reminded me a little of Mondrian - the blue on the blue sky really made me smile)

+Being receptive to appreciating the little things

I really feel like making an effort to embrace the bright side publicly every week has gotten me really tuned in to looking for the best in my days in a more active way. I obviously have days where I struggle, it would be unrealistic to say I didn't, but this week I could really feel the mood-boosting power of small incidents, like getting a couple of bunches of flowers at the trash cafe when I was feeling miserable, or serving the manager of a nearby restaurant who I'd met on my first day who said he was continuously impressed by my service style. I've really been allowing these bite-size brighteners to sink in and I think my general outlook is significantly improved as a result.

(I love art nouveau as it is, but these Alphonse Mucha mirrors in the toilet at the Wave Maiden reminded me of being in my auntie's house as a little kid, which was an odd little nostalgia fix)

+Finally feeling a sense of my own space

I'd been sofa surfing for such a long time before I moved here that actually, I think it's taken a while to realize I have, in Virginia Woolf's terms, a room of one's own. I've really been feeling the benefit of it this week; just small things like coming home and getting into freshly washed pyjamas to read a book after work, or burning incense and writing of an afternoon. Even something trivial like being able to cook to my custom youtube playlist (SO MUCH PRINCE), or listen to Huey Morgan's radio show on saturday morning lie-ins before work, has felt significant, and boosting. I think having a space where I can quietly be by myself and gather my thoughts or do things that are important to me is really starting to be beneficial to my mental wellbeing. I'm starting to feel really at home in North End as well, frequenting the local chinese and indian grocers, and buying things with my tips from a local charity shop. My neighbourhood is getting more familiar and friendly to me on the daily.

(I'm feeling really body confident at the moment, my walks and constant working seem to be giving me a much needed tone-up, but I'm also feeling really sexy and confident in myself, so I decided to show the world my sunny side)

+Getting my fucking finances sorted

Let's be real for a second here. I'm lucky to do a job in an industry I enjoy and am super passionate about. I'm lucky to have found a place in Portsmouth that has space for and values a career-oriented bartender. But at the end of the day, we all have jobs because we need money to live. I'm finally out of my bloody overdraft, which is the hugest relief, you really have no idea. I've managed to get a debit card, but I'm still waiting on a pin, which is not ideal, but it's progress. I've started chipping away at my arrears with my landlord, and will, if I keep working at the rate I am, be in the clear again in about a fortnight. I had to buy some jeans for work, and some underwear, and was able to. This all sounds like small beer I guess, but actually, alleviating the constant grind of financial anxiety is a huge weight off, and has freed up my mental energy to focus on my day-to-day challenges a lot more. it's nice to have that energy back, and to know I'm getting back to the self-sufficiency I've valued and prided myself on for my entire adult life.

(I love flowers so when we got loads at the trash cafe I picked myself two bunches of the brightest and most beautiful to take home and have on my windowsill and I smile every time I see them)

+Honourable mentions

A fun little present my landlord got me from bath - Turning ready meals into something delicious at the trash cafe - U got the Look by prince - Jasmine scented everything - Catching the sun on my nose in September - The sheer intimacy of good sex - bumping into a pal while buying fags in the 24 hour shop on the way home from work and having a catch up - learning how to work in the restaurant at work as well - buying and using indian spices again - showing my city to someone new - wine and pizza on the sofa after work - being helpful to obviously junior hospitality members while out and about on my day off - the lady in the bank recognising me while out and about - the sheer usefulness and affordability of wilkinson's - a present of a book that was so on point i didn't know what to say - feeling beautiful and at home in my body - staying up late listening to youtube and talking - finding a new fucking JAM - matching underwear - shooting the breeze over red wine in the pub - being really fucking HONEST about what I will and won't put up with - the luxury of having my opinion corroborated by somebody and feeling less fucking crazy about everything - taking healthy home-cooked food to work rather than feeling overcarbed and bloated - a catch up phonecall with mama bear - the excitement of meeting interesting new people - completely obliterating my laundry pile - the fact the cat has stopped avoiding me now that I've been in charge of feeding her a couple of times - getting closer every day to mastering latte art (I'm so nearly there) - old portsmouth in the sunshine

#meditations in austerity #thank fuck it's monday #postivity #gratitude #personal blog #portsmouth

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overcomingdepression101 · 7 years

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Why we become addicted depressed and anxious, what it does to our mind, and how to overcome it

Ive been considering all these topics as of late. For the past two years now Ive felt overwhelmingly depressed, apathetic, and lethargic towards life. Most notably of all the depressive symptoms though, my focus has deteriorated, that I find it hard to maintain visual focus on any one thing. At the start of the depressive cycle, reading was impossible, and even now continued visualization is difficult. I find myself regularly pulled out of the imagined scenario. Its odd though. Its not like I lose the drive to maintain focus and then all of a sudden im putting the material down and shifting to a different task. Its as if my mind itself has ceased to see any true value in continuing the action. Ill be in the middle of reading a page, and then without warning, my mind will have shifted focus. It will reflect on something in my life. Generally it will bring up a past memory that has some degree of lament to it and start creating a fictional instance around the memory or the projection of a person; an argument that could have been had, lovelorn words that could have been spoken, experiences that could have been shared, hell, sometimes it will be a want to discuss the material im reading with someone that I once had feelings for and will begin to build a feeling of self importance as a result of having those conversations. Afterwards I feel discouraged, realizing, especially in the ladder case, that any intellectual validation or merit or strength that could have been ascertained from the actual activity of reading was undermined by delving into the fantasy.

Thats the strange thing about this focuses lack actually. A lot of the time, I will fantasize about doing or responding to what I am doing. The ultimate value underlying the digression actually being completing, with clarity and competence, the activity at hand. And yet my mind continues to wander away from the task at hand, inhibiting me from actually learning or appreciating or involving myself in what Im doing.

So, as of this point, Im sure you're wondering where the question about the reward center of the brain comes in. Well, we generally understand that the reward center of the brain, when primed and matured and uninterrupted, will release dopamine, the pleasure center of the brain, to influence the body to continue this action; chemical positive reinforcement. In doing this, the body is habituated to pursue self actualizing behavior. Yet, in my instance, there is some recognition that my mind desires to pursue the self actualizing behavior, but something always gets in the way.

I shouldn't say something. im more aware of the mechanism than that. Its actually a who. An ex. A woman I believed to be the love of my life, potentially soul mate. To a certain extent I maintain some of these beliefs. But I am become more suspect of them as time progresses and as I learn more about the interactions of drugs on the mind. Let me explain.

This relationship had a good deal of drug over the course of its duration. But there was one experience, the day I’d say the relationship really began and also an event that Im begin to hold more and more accountable for my current state of mind, that I accredit more than any other. On our first true date. This woman and I went to a music festival together and took MDMA. This experience was prefaced by three dates, a growing belief that I had never prior met someone who was so like me, the first true wisps of love as a legitimate feeling, and an intense sexual attraction. To say little of the experience other than what is necessary, I have never felt so much mental, physical, or spiritual affirmation in period of time. I can only imagine that my body was flooded with an unparalleled amount of dopamine.

The day after, in an unexpected and tragic way, the relationship flourishing was cut short, but continued on and off for the next few months. During this period of time, whenever I was in her presence, I felt more intelligence and focus flood my mind than at any other time. But that to was quickly diminishing as I got further from the events of the festival.

We know that stimulant drugs and psychoactive drugs have a cerebrally stimulating effect. There are studies that demonstrate that the mind is more active and acute while under different influences. Marijuanna, Nicotine, Cocaine, MDMA, etc. We also know however, that there are near degenerative effects to these substances if used over a period of time. The general consensus explaining this phenomenon revolves around the brains pleasure response mechanism. When we are doing something that intellectually validating and we combine it with an external chemical that causes a release of dopamine which is the neurotransmitter that enables focus and memory, we ar enhancing our minds capabilities to learn because we are flooding it excessive amounts of dopamine. However, over time, the body becomes reliant of external chemicals for the same dopamine release, self regulating as it is. Beyond that, the chemicals wheres away at our minds ability to producedopamine, eventually leading to a reduction in overall production, even while in the presence of the substance. If the substance is removed all together though, then the relative level of dopamine in the mind is comparatively less than a mind that has abstained, leading to the neurodegenerative process we've seen.

Certain substances cause such an elevated release of dopamine, that production is hampered for months or even years after use. MDMA is an example of a drug that produces this effect. While the research discussing the phenomena is heavily politicized, there is still evidence suggesting that MDMA at worst is neurotoxic and at best still cause a significant decline is available dopamine for sometime after use.

Knowing both of these facts, I began to consider what that dopamine drop would look like if it cooccured with high levels of oxytocin present in the mind, I.E. what if someone were in love and also released an immense amount of dopamine? Would the effects be even more drastic? Would they be noticeable? In a mind that was still demonstrating significant levels of neuroplasticity as an adolescent, could this lead to severe long term damage.

Before going further into detail, its also important to note that the effective of substance on the adolescent mind are well researched and documented. Long term substance problems are usually the result of adolescent consumption and that generally speaking is a result of an alteration to the reward mechanism inside of the brain. “The brain regions and neural processes that underlie addiction overlap extensively with those that support cognitive functions, including learning, memory, and reasoning. Drug activity in these regions and processes during early stages of abuse foster strong maladaptive associations between drug use and environmental stimuli that may underlie future cravings and drug-seeking behaviors.” (Gould) Gould’s paper elaborates on this in significantly more depth but in laymen's terms, while our brains would normally get hard wired to reward us with dopamine if we pursued altruistic behavior or things that were generally good for us, substance abuse in minors rewires the brain so those chemicals are released when the drug is present in the body. Learning, memory, and focus are all hampered as a result of this wiring and as such, instead of pursuing things that benefit our wellbeing, we pursue the drug.

This has many different implications, especially when considering the nature of focus in the recovering addicts mind. But prior to that, it also brings up a bevy of other questions. How many uses of substance are necessary to rewire the brains reward circuitry? What are the varying degrees of circuitry rewiring that exist; more to the point is there a way to create a spectrum for the varying degrees of learning deficiencies and rewiring behaviors? Can other chemicals that act of neural circuitry behave in a similar way: love, sugar, validating external mediums (social media for example). If so, or even if not, when this manifests in a person what is the actual psychological process and experience of deteriorated learning and focus look like? Is the process reversible to any degree? What is the method of reversing the cognitive deficit? And lastly, is there any way to ascertain a general time based on treatment behaviors?

I opened up this line of question because after reflecting on may experience, I do believe the co-occurence of love and MDMA in my system made me truly addicted to the presence and validation of a person. Realizing that the a-priori consideration of my mind, even when pursuing things I found generally enjoyable for two years post experience, was to try and validate it to this other, made me realize just how deep rooted this type of addiction could be. I will note that I did have experience with other substances prior to this point in my life, and as an adolescent, but they were minimal at best, and never as irreversible or as all consuming as this singular experience.

I have been completely clean of any substance (alcohol and tobacco included) for over three months now. I am emerging from a period of intense depression and anxiety and on a daily basis I still live with a mind that is fractured and quick to recall and past ill, grievance, misgiving, or yearn. But through a strict lifestyle of regular meditation, exercise, sobriety, and presence, I am making real headway in overcoming the anxiety behaviors. More-over, having spent the majority of the past year deeply researching mental disorder, anxiety, and depression in a functional sense, I feel like i understand the disease better than ever and what type of mental schemas and behaviors lead into it.

To preface a lot of what Ill be talking about, i believe that anxiety and depression are a result of biological traits, chemical presence, and behavior. That said, having been deep into the pit of both depression and anxiety, having lost all my mental faculties and general feelings of pleasure for the world, I dont think these feelings are permanent, or genetically predisposed to hamper you your entire life. Many people overcome these trying disorders, even with long family histories present with the condition or even after long periods of drug abuse.

I started writing when I became stricken with fear that I would never get my mind back, I would never achieve the intellectual or potential filled heights I could have prior to making the decisions I made, and I would never get over the addictions I faced (the girl and the substances that had destroyed my life). Im getting close to the other side though. I can see with clarity how it will happen. And Im going to articulate each step.

Im doing this so i can have a written record for myself more than anything. I want to know how I emerged from such a pit in case it ever happens again. As a result, this is one part journal, one part help guide. Sometimes the writing will be messy. Sometimes it will be more personal than universal; in those instances, ill try and qualify what I say. But know that I always write recognizing that each struggle with depression and anxiety is incredibly personal. The demons that haunt and pester us all have their own back stories; stories so powerful they would have to be lived to truly be understood. I will never pretend to understand them.

What I do understand is that there are shared characteristics between each experience. I also know there are shared characteristics revolving around many individual’s escapes. I am writing to those experiences. I want to make them understandable, digestible, human too. To regularly in medical writing, you feel depersonalized because its like a prescription bottle is talking to you, in that same sterilized, medical dialogue we expect from a droning oncologist. Not here.

And thats the last thing I understand and really, my point in writing this and giving you a little insight into what I’m thinking, how I’m thinking, and how it relates to my life. Im there with you. Not living your story, but desperately trying to escape a story that has some shared characteristics as your own. I hope we can help each other, grieve with each other, and overcome with each other. This is hell. We know it. This isn't what life should be or has been or could be. We also know that. And with that knowledge in our hearts, let us remind each other. Continually and eternally. And push each other in the direction of clarity and song.

Till next time,

Alex

#depression #anxiety #depression help #anxiety help #mental health #mental disorder #mentally ill #ill

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