#recovery-is-possible

[findmeinthefallair]

The healing and lasting love of a mom

[catmask]

in nicies news though one of my closest friends saw an old picture of me compare to one of me now and complimented me on how ive gained weight and look much healthier now and im

[lelif]

on getting better

?// ?// call your mom, noah kahan// letters to friends, family and editors, franz kafka// call your mom, noah kahan// september affirmation (Don’t Be Afraid), Keaton St. James (@boykeats) // @smuktvejr // ?// ?// 'east boston, 1996; night walk' in god's silence, franz wright// ending, jonny bolduc// listen, tara bray// the haunting of hill house, shirley jackson// little red cap, carol ann duffy// @daisies-on-a-cup// evermore, taylor swift// @angelwarm// long story short, taylor swift

[casiesart]

“Your new life begins here.”

[daily-reminders-that-ur-enough]

There are often two choices in a situation: there is the easy one that will make you feel comfortable at the moment, and the hard one that will make you feel better in the long run.

It is always up to you to decide which choice is which. You have autonomy, you are allowed to make a choice that feels easier. So often, there are situations that feel unwinnable. Situations where one must pick between "do this thing that will kill me slowly, or do this other thing that will kill me slowly". And that sucks. And I am sorry.

In the moments that you know the difference between the easy choice that will ultimately make life feel worse, and the choice that will suck at the moment but ultimately make you feel more free, remember the difference between the two. It's up to you to choose which one you pick.

I'm just here to tell you that the choice that feels difficult, be that leaving (home, church, an abusive relationship), or working through (telling someone about your working conditions, your struggles, deciding to let other people help, deciding to recover) is possible.

You are strong enough to make a choice that feels better, even if it is the more difficult option at the present moment

[tendonart]

[cherryred-xoxo]

Hot girls have a healthy relationship with food!!!

[kkoct-ik]

i dont remember why i drew this

[toskarin]

glass houses and all, I've made bad deals in my time and I've failed to consult IP lawyers in cases where I probably should have, but putting your entire codebase up as collateral on a loan that you're paying more or less entirely through someone else's charity feels like it really shouldn't be fucking Plan A

[cleanaf]

TAG SOMEONE WHO NEEDS THIS !!!

[abhainnwhump]

Caretaker leaves little notes around the house to remind struggling Whumpee to do things like drink water, sleep eight hours, eat regularly, and bathe.

[lousydrawingsforgoodpeople]

honestly, i don’t know if this is true, but my friend roberto said it and i wanted to draw it. pick ur own pack.

[aestheticemi01]

Small reminder;

That battle that is going on inside of that mind of yours can be one of the loneliest battles to fight.

Therefore, do not be ashamed to reach out. Ask for help! I know it might seem very scary to let people know what is going on inside of your mind, but once you start doing it, it will get easier. Bit by bit, it will feel less intimidating.

[blatantlynotokay]

Toxic @na Work Environment

My job for my entire life has pretty much been to be a model. I started off as a runway model when I was a teenager. Then I went onto commercial and print for a while, which I still do. I was an atmosphere model for quite a bit and now I am a model bottle server in a high profile city. It would be a lie to say that my various professions and pressure to be thin and beautiful, has not affected my @na throughout my life. If anything I feel like it fuels it every day.

At my job pretty much everybody has a 3d. Well, none of us really talk about it blatantly other than a lot of the girls are on Ozempic even though they are 18-22 bmi who mostly just rave every day about how much weight they’re losing. It’s always so interesting. How fellow Anna‘s interact with each other when we know that we both have a 3d but never really talk about it.

One of my coworkers, we’ll call her Audrey, is always talking about how full she is and how much she ate in the day and how hungry she is and how she wants to order food but never actually orders food and none of us have ever seen her eat. Audrey is 5’8” and weighs 112 pounds. I know this because she’s told me before and I know she doesn’t eat and she knows that I don’t eat, but still every time we work together we talk about how much we’re craving certain foods or how we just ate certain foods. (Lie) I know it and she knows it but we never really talk about it. That’s all we talk about all shift is food. It’s nice to food fantasize with someone and I sure she feels it too.

In fact, I’ve worked at this job for almost 4 years and I honestly don’t think I’ve seen any of my coworkers eat. Not the model ones at least, the men always and my boss always eats, but she’s quite heavy. In fact, anytime that I ever go out with my coworkers, if we ever do go out for food. They never finish their food or if we go to a bar they’ll get a side of fries, but really only eat two or three and continue chain-smoking or chain vaping. It’s such an interesting thing to be in that environment, where everybody knows, but no one talks about it. I wish we could talk about it. I wish I could tell them how hungry I was. How little I ate that day I wish they would feel comfortable enough to tell me how they are. But we just talk about how much we love to Pad Thai and are definitely gonna order chicken wings as soon as we get home.

I am pro recovery. Block don’t report

[furiousgoldfish]

Abuse is so over-stimulating for the brain, after you've been thru it long term, small stimulation that would usually change someone's mood or at least peak their interest, just doesn't feel like anything. Your brain keeps inventing extreme things like it wants them to happen and it's just because it's so used to overstimulation that it's now craving it in order to give you bits of relief and engagement.

It's just so damn draining to live like that. Having to keep ignoring that craving and worrying you'll give into it or feeling bad for the craving in the first place. Having weird impulses or fantasies and having to keep quiet so people don't get freaked out. And it's literally because of nothing you did. It's just because the aftermath of abuse is hell on earth.

[oldguardleatherdog]

The Anniversary: Once More, With Feeling

This year's reflection on the 23rd Anniversary of September 11, 2001.

Now it's the 11th, the 23rd Anniversary of that day.

Each year, I approach this day with caution: I never know how it's going to affect me or in what manner it will manifest, and some years have been brutal, but the past two have seen more blessings come my way than brickbats. The passage of time has helped, as have my ongoing PTSD therapy sessions provided by the World Trade Center Health Program.

This time, I feel as if I'm controlling the event far more than it's controlling me, and I think that's due in large part to the performance art collaboration with the guys in Berlin (the queer performance collective ONCE WE WERE ISLANDS, who are now in Finland north of the Arctic Circle making amazing art and performance on the Finnish government's dime) that's been going on for more than a year, including a three-month research intensive called "Finding Animal" (https://www.oncewewereislands.com/Finding-Animal) over the winter.

Last summer, after they extended the offer of collaboration, they proposed that our work together should focus on how I returned to life and art after losing my Lower Manhattan home that day, along with my entire performance archive and any record of it - it was as if Animal J. Smith had never existed, no record that I had done or been anything at all. I was shocked at their proposal, to be honest, but their idea for collaboration was persuasive: that my story was bigger than just me, that it had resonance in a larger way about the survival and meaning of queer art and artists, about whether it's possible to recover from the worst thing in the world. So, as our work continues, I think that my being compelled to examine my long road back as both participant and observer through a performative/creative lens has synthesized much of what I had left unexamined, forgotten, buried, denied, absorbed, leading to clarity about who I am today, how it affected, shaped, changed me, and whether I have in fact "recovered" from this giant detour, this dinosaur-extinction-level meteor that got dropped on my life plan.

I don't have an answer yet, I'm still writing and making art about it, but as I mark 23 years today, I can say that sticking it out all these years has been the right thing to do, that I intend to continue waking up each day and engaging with life.

I am alive, and I am fine.