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gray-r-regan · 20 hours ago

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Something nobody talks about but everyone needs to hear:

If you feel as though you need to embellish what happened to you to make it sound worse when explaining it to someone, you are not "attention whoring," "being dramatic," or a compulsive liar (actually, you might be a compulsive liar, but that's related to what I'm talking about, so please feel zero judgment from me and stay tuned).

If people had not already and repeatedly dismissed, negated, downsized and otherwise invalidated your suffering and been unwilling or unable to give you the help you're looking for by communicating the situation, you would never feel driven to make it seem "serious enough" to warrant help.

You started out talking, then you started yelling, now you're screaming, and the world has its ears plugged.

You are escalating your attempts to get the validation, reassurance, the healing that you need, and that is a survival mechanism. That is you being a fighter.

That is the pain in you saying DO YOU NOT SEE THAT I WANT TO LIVE SO BADLY THAT I AM SCREAMING ABOUT IT?

Your addictions and other "negative" behaviors are saying this exact same thing.

They are saying "I will do anything to survive, and right now I have to, because I am not getting the help I need."

The sad truth about this world: sometimes you have to scream to force it to pay attention. You shouldn't have to. Talking should be enough. Saying it once should be enough.

Whatever happened to you was serious. It was terrible. It was wrong. It never should have happened. I may not see you, but believe me, I see you. I do. I know your heart hurts, and you feel like someone scraped out your thoracic cavity with a melon-baller and enjoyed it.

I know your addictions and your numbness came about when you screamed and screamed and screamed and no one came for you and if you are crying, please let yourself cry. You need to cry. You need to beat the shit out of your pillow and scream and get angry at the ones who hurt you and expel that cancer through tears and movement, writing, art, running, kickboxing singing screaming into the void or doing fucking macrame, whatever. Not headbanging. We don't want neck injuries. There are a lot of disabled guitarists out there.

I'm here; I'll wait, please come back, it's going to get better.

The food, the phone, the games, the drugs, the meds, the alcohol -- they're pacifiers. You need something you can't find, something others cannot or will not give you, so you use these because they make it hurt a little less and you are so, so tired of the hurt, and you have to function and stay on your feet, for fuck's sake, you have the kid(s), the dishes, the laundry, school, the dog, the cat, the pet rock to be strong for and take care of, so you needed SOMETHING to keep you from falling apart. I know.

The thing is, it might be all well and good and socially acceptable to quiet yourself like this, because people don't like the messiness of other people's emotions, needs, wants, honesty and healing (that's why they abuse autistic people through ABA), but I want them for you, and you want them, even though you're afraid you won't survive facing them (you will).

What's going to kill you eventually is not facing them. And I know you don't really want to die. You just want the pain to stop. You don't want to be staring down a future where unhappiness and numbness, fatigue and anger are the only things that exist. You want happiness, you want moments of ease and joy, but maybe it's been so long you don't remember what that's like, and it seems like asking for a goddamn pony when your parents can't make rent.

I am here holding space for you, holding your hand or your shoulder if you want or need that, hanging out on the other wall if you don't, and I'm telling you the only way out of the well is through it. Upwards. Through all that shit you're afraid of because you already faced it on the way down. I'm down here with you, telling you the reason no one will lower a rope or a ladder is because they can't -- the well you're in doesn't exist for them, just like theirs don't exist in your world (the only reason I can well-hop is because I clawed my way out of mine, and I'm here because I don't want you to also spend thirty-five point five years doing it, or worse, die at the bottom).

You can give me the reasons you can't climb out, and I will listen.

Again, you gotta survive. Gotta work. Parent. Be a spouse. Avoid the wrath of abusive parents who can't handle their own emotions, much less yours.

I hear that.

And I tell you this:

There is no reason good enough to keep living like this. No person more important than you are. You are equal to everyone from your next door neighbor to Thich Nhat Hanh (he'd have told you the same, kind of is, in fact, and you'll see how if you stick with me), so anyone putting themselves and their wants and needs above you is wrong to do it.

And yes, it's gonna suck and it's gonna be painful and scary to feel all of that. Why else do we try anything to avoid it? Nobody ever taught us we can sit and feel it and be compassionate and kind to ourselves as we work it out without acting on it destructively -- but you can.

The sooner you start, the less of it you'll have to get through, and the faster you can learn to take the new things that come at you and handle them before they can be put away and start to fester.

It's like the flu (I have covid, currenly, for the sixth time. Luckily, you can't catch the plague from an apparition. And I'm wearing an apparition mask, just to be safe). You can't just squeeze the flu into an hour and be done with it. Too much suffering all at once would be too much pressure release, too painful, like heat shattering a pot lid.

You have to let it out through vents, and the size of the vent varies based on the amount of time, energy, space and tools you have on hand at the moment.

But "venting," in the traditional sense, just endlessly explaining to people what happened, or writing it out and cutting the pages with your pen, isn't enough, and the former can inflict trauma on the listener (that's why therapists get emotional regulation training, so they can catch what's coming at them and diffuse it, the way I'm showing you now, because you know what I'm sick of seeing? "This is your problem," followed by "pay me $500/hr and I'll fix it." That's some predatory shit, isn't it? And it's everywhere. No. We're not doing that, my well-bound ghost friend).

Nah, we've tried venting. It didn't work. So now we're going to Vent Productively.

The tools are simple, and the tools are cheap.

1. Compartmentalization.

The reason you're not going to lose your job or get in trouble at school or beat up the shitheads who keep making your life miserable when you start the healing process is that, if you don't already, you are going to learn to put parts of your life into separate boxes. You are going to be a different part of yourself in each box.

Spouse You (we wish we could be all of ourselves in front of the person who is supposed to be our partner, but they are also a fractured human, so we can't, and knowing they are also humans with limits is part of being a good partner). Parent You, which should only ever be part of you anyway, so your kids don't stay stressed, worried and scared. School/work you etc., who doesn't share anything they don't strictly need to know, and gathers the bullshit people throw at them to put it into the last box:

The messy stuff goes in this big box here, here's a gold Sharpie, we're labeling it "HEAL," we're doing some kintsugi, you're gonna be even more beautiful.

2. Writing. Phone. Journal. Napkin. Wall. Digital recorder. Stone tablet.

In this box, the key is to VOMIT. Bear with me.

The VOMIT acronym comes from a YouTube video by author Campbell Walker, who wrote Your Head Is a Houseboat, a fun and easy-to-understand metaphor for Internal Family Systems, which really means looking at all the different parts of yourself and giving them some much-needed group therapy (and throwing a few of them overboard, where a lot of my immediate family find themselves). Cam is a former addict, current healthy and wildly helpful and creative father of two.

It's for journaling, but journaling is affordable, DIY therapy when done correctly.

Vent:

Get all that shit out of your head. Just write. Don't edit. Go until it feels like there's nothing left. Now go drink some water and do something that calms you down, like deep breathing, meditation, stretching, walking, dancing. Put your attention on your body (you're going to be spending more time here than in your head now, so it's good practice. Trust me, it's better out here than in your head, and this is where you're going to have to learn to stay when your brain isn't needed for problem solving or creativity, if you want to stay sane. After a while of keeping up your VOMIT habit, meditating, facing your life with honesty and a drive to problem solve and a determinationto have fun and perform self-care, the inside will be much cleaner and you'll stop breaking your toes on boxes full of what you felt like you couldn't deal with before).

Now go back and look at it all. Write a letter to yourself addressing everything point by point, but here is the one rule: you cannot write from the perspective of your own worst enemy and most self-destructive voices. You must write from the perspective of the kindest, most empathetic, most unconditionally-loving and forgiving person in the universe. The parent you never had.

The person that, if you do all these things and do them for the rest of your life, you're going to become.

This is the part where you finally get the bandages and antiseptic you've always needed. Where you get what that hollow part of you is screaming for. If you learn to validate and love yourself unconditionally, and talk to yourself like a stern, no-bullshit, kind best friend who wants to see you get everything you need and whatever you want (that would be good for you), you'll never feel like you're alone in the world, looking for things no one can give you. Because they really can't. If you don't feel love, it's because the hate and coldness you internalized at the hands of abusive people and inept parents is in the way.

You're holding it up like a backward shield made of glass, and all it's doing is intensifying the burning of all the hate in the world and setting you on fire.

I promise you don't need it.

Put it down.

When people are kind, you do deserve it.

Most of your thoughts are automatic defense mechanisms, and that's all they are. They're little shadow puppets that pop up to replay The Story of What Happened and Why Everything Including Me is Awful, and the very unfunny thing about that?

They do it because they believe if you see it happen enough times, you'll stop being hurt by it.

But you're hurt every time you see it.

So jettison them. Put them in a lifeboat if your heart is made of powdered sugar (it is. It's still in there. It's still soft under the armor, believe me).

When someone tries to hurt you now, instead of holding up a shield that says I KNOW, hold up a mirror. Because that's what you literally are to other people. This is how "mirror neurons" function. We see who we are, or we think we do, through other people's reactions to us. But here's the thing about that: most people are funhouse mirrors. Most of them distort our image, because:

1. They have no idea what's going on inside our heads, our motivations, hopes, dreams, past experiences that explain our beliefs and actions, intentions, etc., and they almost always misread them BECAUSE they're seeing us through that warped lens, so you may do something to be kind, and get slapped and screamed at. Is this an accurate reflection? Accurate information about who you are, and how you should feel? How others get to treat you? Abso-fucking-lutely not, ghost friend. No.

2. Their prejudices. They're bigots, a lot of them. And even if they don't think they are, now science has proven that, at least if you're autistic (and society can't produce an autistic person who isn't traumatized, and what I'm writing here is one big contributing factor), neurotypicals don't like you, and they don't like you on sight. And do you know why? Mirror neurons. Autistic people tend to look at reality WITHOUT a warped lens. That's why we so often create genius works, invent things, spread valuable information, make breakthroughs, HATE LIES -- we don't delude ourselves for the sake of comfort and societal harmony based on lies. They do not want to see themselves so clearly. Looking at us is like putting on your glasses before you put on makeup and recoiling at what you've been judging yourself for. Are we always the image of snow-white clarity? No. We're fallible too. But we're about 99% less fallible, and we're getting sick of being gaslit.

It's not us they hate. It's themselves.

We can and probably should be kind enough to cushion them a little, when we have the spoons, though it should be their responsibility to examine themselves and build confidence. But trying to be a mirror for them that is comforting, rather than jarring, would make all our lives easier in a lot of ways.

And this is why, even if you aren't autistic, you need to realize nothing is personal and everything someone tries to show you or tell you about yourself needs to stick to the motorcycle helmet visor of your mind, and not go straight into your throat like a fat bee to be choked on and cause anaphylaxis. We're going too fast to stop and look for the fugging EpiPen, and also, they're prohibitively expensive, and the United States Government and healthcare systems are shit, so prophylaxis it is, baby.

Later, you can examine it, decide whether you'd like to change yourself to align with what you've been told, or throw it away as garbage coming from someone with a shitty attitude, rudeness, prejuduce, insecurity, jealousy, or bad intentions.

Don't automatically believe ANYTHING. Not what you're told, not what you read, not even what you see. Dwell on it later. Examine it. Fact-check it ruthlessly. Be selective about what you decide to keep, and never get so attached that you can't chuck that overboard at a later date when it's no longer useful. It's not only okay to say, "I don't know for sure, and maybe I never will," it's the most mature, wisest, and only sane possible response to most things.

A long digression, coming back to the next letter of VOMIT:

Obligations

Write down everything you're responsible for, expected to do, want to do, etc. I'm including this because the pain you've been dragging around has made it hard to keep up, hasn't it. Now you're stressed and overwhelmed. It's okay, I've got you.

First step after writing it all down is to realize you are not actually starting from being BEHIND IT ALL. That's a mental illusion. You are simply here, now, looking at it all in a pile, not judging yourself for how you got here (because we know how, the human struggle is how). So drop your shoulders and breathe.

It's going to feel so good to make a plan for all of this, even knowing that, as a human, that plan is going to change and be challenged and you probably won't get it all done, but as long as you're alive you can keep steadily flowing around the obstacles until, like water, you wear them down to pebbles. Either they're going to get smaller, or you're going to get stronger -- that's what resistence and persistence create.

Yeah, this does seem like a lot of work, but you know what? Long-term stress and depression make you forget that you have basically been knocked down, and you are dragging the world's heaviest backpack along the road of your life, and to be able to walk and feel light again, you have to unpack it and stand back up.

It's like cleaning a house: if you're sick, like me, the grime and dust bunnies are going to pile up, and for a while, to rest your body, you have to be okay with allowing that. You have to let go of the guilt that comes with it, because resting is the sensible priority (when you can do it). If you keep going, you're not going to get better, and then everything just gets worse. It's a sign of maturity to know when to take a knee on purpose, and...

...when to get back up and tackle the mess. And once the mess is tackled, we don't want to have to do that again, so we make a plan to do regular maintenance. On everything in life. A little time on everything means we won't have to neglect as much because we're trying to play catch-up all the time on other things.

Yes, this is what that means: We must picture Sisyphus happy. He spends all his time rolling a boulder up a hill just for it to roll back down.

You maintain everything just for it to continuously degrade.

But we do it because we are alive, and we want to stay alive, even when we think we don't, like we saw earlier: "I want to die" is always either a loud cry for help to someone else, or a silent cry for help to ourselves (and only we can finally answer it).

So we're helping ourselves to live, to make friends with the boulder, to make up creative games that make the pushing fun, to use our gold Sharpie and give him a face and call him Bouldy and say fuck you, Gods, I'm THRIVING, AND ONLY A LITTLE BIT OUT OF SPITE.

We imagine him happy. We emulate him. We get creative, because only creativity can save us from this world we created. It's paradoxical but true. There's only one door both ways.

Now, let's use the Eisenhower Matrix. Make a big plus sign on paper, or get four markers, pens, etc, in different colors, or make four numbered headings in a doc.

We're going to prioritize your obligations to ease your mental load, and make them easier to tackle.

And no, life isn't a productivity and efficiency maximization simulator. These are not shackles. You could, feasibly, put on a billowy peasant dress and go live in a meadow if you're at peace with the ramifications of that (I wish I could, I tipped too far past the nonbinary because I had to have a total hysto for medical reasons, separate from transition, and I just wouldn't feel, you know, cute... plus people and animals depend on me to not go lie under an eternal blanket of gaillardia beneath an ancient burr oak, like an open-air temple of silence).

ONWARDS

Category 1: Urgent

There is a deadline, either set by someone else, or by a consequence you want to avoid if this task isn't done by this time/date. Think bills. Homework. Job-related tasks. Feeding the kids/pets/yourself. Taxes. One caveat for this box: if it can be delegated to someone else, it doesn't go here. We'll put it into Category 3 later.

Caregory 2: Important

It matters to you, but if it sits a while, nothing bad will happen. Basically, it's a must, but the deadline is unclear.

Category 3: Important, but Not Quite Urgent

Somebody else can do it, or it won't ruin anything if it just never gets done, or gets scheduled over and over. Your backburner.

Category 4: "Not important/Don't Do."

I tell you now, friend, this common title is a misnomer. This is where All Good Employees, Students, Partners and Parents bury their dreams and subsequently their physical and mental health. Write a book. Play a game. Take a walk. Learn how to cultivate tea leaves. Play the trombone. Learn Spanish. Make a Gorillaz-inspired cartoon band (someday). Don't do this. Those things belong in boxes one and two. You must ruthlessly cut things from those boxes to make room for your dreams, rest, exercise -- these are the things that MAKE EVERYTHING ELSE POSSIBLE. This is the empty cup saying. You cannot pour from it. Your friends come over and there's no fucking tea because you scrubbed the shower grout instead of playing guitar or painting. I know the shower grout needed to be done, but here's where Bouldy and being his creative BFF comes in: get some no-rinse Tilex. Devote five to ten minutes per day to the grout. Put it in your bullet journal, which you absolutely need, and it doesn't have to be ~aesthetic~ and perfect if you don't want it to be, it can just be where you put everything your brain is supposed to work on, not store. Also a good excuse to reward yourself for tasks and good mental habits with stickers, pens, washi tape and stencils. Cishet guys, I'm talking to you, too. It's for your eyes only, if you want anime stickers or little holographic fairies you fucking buy those things. The little beige box society put you in is boring as fuck and sad and we all know it and you are not defined by anything you do not choose to define yourself by from here on out, insofar as your comfort and safety allow. Okay? PINK AND LAVENDER ARE FUCKING BEAUTIFUL, END OF. I LOVE YOU.

Moving on, we take everything in those boxes, and we look at our day, week, month and year and we schedule them realistically. Do not overliad your days. You will want to. You will fail. You will give up. Be the tortoise, not the hare.

Make sure things like the shower grout are scheduled to repeat and be done a little at a time.

Look at each task with a critical and creative eye. Does it even NEED to be done? Do you still care about it? Does it align with your values (you should define your values, by the way, because either they will define you or you will be defined by external forces)? Does it move you towards who and what you want to be? Can you get rid of some things so you have more space and time? Marie Kondo is right: what you own dictates how you live. Minimalism is freedom (if you can afford it...).

Now!

Mindset!

I've been trying not to link to this video, because I don't want to put even more info on you (if you're overwhelmed, save the post, screenshot it, make yourself a phone alarm to come back and take notes if anything here is helpful, you're in charge, it's your well, I'm just visiting) but now I think I should, because he explains the last three letters best.

One caveat: where he says, "How is this the best thing that's ever happened to me," a therapist in the comments suggests, "How can I grow from this?" so you're not just hitting yourself with toxic positivity and downplaying what hurts you.

Vomit Journaling System

Okay. So those are the practical, concrete steps no one tells you how to take on your mental health journey. But I'm telling you, because I know that it isn't a waste of time and energy to show people how to weave ropes and build ladders.

That's how evolution works. That is literally all we're here for -- if you find a way to live a little better, you hand it to someone else, and they pass it down, and that's called evolution.

I don't believe in God, or any supernatural power, or anything, in fact. I believe in nothing, so that I can see everything, without my mirror distorted (we see through a veil, darkly, religion says, plagiarizing ancient Eastern wisdom traditions, referring to mirror neurons in desperate need of Windex and a microfiber cloth, smudged by the bugs of other people's bullshit, things we believe without investigating, prejudices, delusions, all negative thoughts without exception, things we wish were true so hard we almost believe them, and anything else that isn't purely rational seeing without judging, without thinking, without believing or trying to manipulate).

The universe is a beautiful pinball machine full of atoms crashing into one another just to watch the motherfucking board light up.

But WE try to make meaning out of it all, we try to make it all make sense, creating languages and systems and myths, legends, religions, governments, societies, gender norms (gross), books (yay), movies, you name it. All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone, said Blaise Pascal.

All the other animals are already Zen Masters, except, you know, primates, which are our closest relatives and which also fight over shit for no reason.

The pinball machine is what Albert Camus, our friend who taught us about Bouldy, was saying about the Absurd: the universe just is. It's a pure, creative impulse, wibbling and wobbling the way Alan Watts described, in particles and waves, making patterns, dancing, playing, not trying to do anything or get anywhere, just being here, now, and creating, which is the underlying impulse of all of us, since we are those waves and particles, pretending to be humans and animals and ravens and writing desks for a little while, before the clay dries out and we pick up another form, to pretend to be something else, everything another little finger puppet on the hands of what is.

It is not judging you. It does not care who you are, what you do or don't do. It doesn't care whether you're happy or sad (though, in a way, it prefers you to be happy, because that is more beneficial to survival, because creation and survival are the same thing. You can't sin (sin is seeing through that distorted mirror, prayer is calling it what it is, answered prayers are the mental clarity that comes from VOMIT journaling, how's that for absurd, Albert?). You can't be damned, broken, ruined, changed. You're not the finger puppet. We're all the puppeteer. The pinball machine. Playing a game that sometimes feels shitty because feeling good doesn't exist without contrast. Nothing does. And that gets boring for eternity, so we do things. Then we look over the face of the waters and call them good or bad, and that's where all the trouble starts, because it still all just is.

If someone, such as myself, saw you here, now, at the bottom of your well, and knew you sometimes think the most horrible thoughts, that you've done terrible things, that you have acne, a little or a lot of unwanted weight, stretch marks, freckles you hate, a receeding hairline, no skills, no hobbies, no education, no desire to work or live, maybe you're the soldier from Metallica's 'One' and you stepped on a landmine and now you're a torso without senses so you can't do anything ever again --

And still saw you as perfect, as completely acceptable, as just a being who still has the potential to decide what to do next, if I just wanted to watch you and experience you vicariously because I love everything, all experience, good and bad, pleasant and painful, because it's all life, wouldn't you feel free, and unconditionally loved?

That's what the ancient Eastern wisdom traditions were trying to teach. "God," is just a word for a universe that has open arms for everything in it, accepts itself completely, wants the best but doesn't force anything. Unconditional love is that. Wordless witnessing of everything. Mom, dad, look what I can do!

I cobbled all this together to save myself, from resources like Campbell Walker, Thich Nhat Hanh, Alan Watts, Buddhist philosophy, so many books, like Goodbye, Things (Fumio Sasake), The Courage to be Disliked (Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga), Brene Brown, and decades of suicidal depression and daily panic attacks.

Every ladder out of the well is made of the shoulders of generous giants.

Recently, I was consumed by anger so white and constant I felt burned alive all the time. I had been filling up the HEAL box with all the hot coals the world could hand me, my entire life, and not stopping to put them out. Anger has always been a struggle for me. I'm auDHD, I'm trans, nonbinary, bi, ace, I had abusive-negligent parents, I was indoctrinated with religion, I was parentified, I married a seemingly normal person who later threatened to skin me in my sleep and threatened to murder our child, I joined the military thinking I could support my family, most of whom displayed clear Dependent Personality Disorder, and still get away from them, plus (ha ha no) help other people, got so physically and psychologically fucked-up that I'll never walk normally or run again (I loved running, I'm mourning the loss years later), my spine is deteriorating, I got 100% disability through the VA for how severe my PTSD is, and there's a nazi in office... again.

So yeah. I've been consumed by rage.

My entire life.

Obviously my parents just wanted me to shut the fuck up and pay their bills and listen to their problems, so I learned anger = scary and bad.

It doesn't, and I wish I had listened to it back then. I wish I had let my shadow side, the one I picture as the towering gantry of a flower-laden, moss-covered gashadokuro, metaphorically stomp all those people into dust and carry me to a place where I could have started the life I wanted without wasting so many years of it on people who didn't give a fuck about me anyway.

I wish I had seen how deeply that goddamn giant skeleton loves me (thanks, Kate Nash).

That's what your anger and your rage are for. Don't let them be twisted into useless hate for others, which will make you sick, or into hate for yourself, which is the goddamn sock puppets who parrot your abusers words at you again, asking to be made to walk the plank.

Your anger is proportionate to the love and respect that will always be in there, speaking up for you and for others when shit isn't right. It's okay to feel it. It's okay to burn it off in ways that don't cause harm to you or anyone else. Grab the pillow. Buy a punching bag (check Facebook marketplace). Use your journaling techniques.

But don't ignore it. That's where your depression stems from:

Imagine loving someone or something so fiercely, more than anything, or at least every bit as much as... and watching them lie down and be trampled. Watch them give up what they love. Watch them scramble through addiction to escape the one and only present moment they will never exist in -- the only one where they can find the things they've been searching for -- in the past, the future, and substances, never finding it because they are too afraid that being present with you and the razor-sharp but nonjudgmental mirror you will show them of themselves, because in their learned helplessness they still believe there is nothing they can do, and because the voices of abusers will point out flaws that don't exist. Will say fat is something you are, not something you have. That it's disgusting. You're lazy. You're stupid. You're selfish. Whispering lies, like a snake in the ear, driving them away from you to the things you know are bad for them, that they know are bad for them, mostly to, you know, the knowledge of good and evil... the tendency to judge everything, to say it's good or bad, to split it all right in two (thanks, Maynard), and not just breathe and allow it all to be what it is, including themselves. Clear, and without thought. In the body. Present. Loved unconditionally.

Here.

Now.

If you'd like to feel love again, this is how I'm doing it.

Here.

At the bottom of this well.

With you.