Are You Healed, or Are You Distracted?
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Fundraising for the Kids Help Phone with sunflower seedlings
The distinction is hard. Is this progress, a stage of grief where you can be distracted and excited for some aspects of your life - leading towards acceptance & joy again? Or are you avoiding your pain with work that takes you away, mentally and physically, from what you should be processing?
Fundraising for the Run For Women('s Mental Health) with handmade paper roses
- If someone is actively suffering, it is uncomfortable and we can distance ourselves from the situation, judge them - maybe help should we want to feel charitable and wildly generous/humanitarian.
- If someone is actively better & thriving, we can feel indignant, zoom in on their flaws, try to tear them down a notch - or applaud them/rejoice in their success, again should we want to feel like wonderful, unproblematic people.
We don't want to hear that someone is "just okay", or actually pretty depressed but they have to still get up, get to work, pay their bills, pretend they are fine. That in between isn't abrasive enough to let us judge, but it also is uncomfortable enough to be unsure what to say or do.
This applies to suicidal thoughts. Everyone wants to jump up and judge or valiantly rescue a person about to jump from a tall building, but no one has a long term solution to their ever grating pain of daily life. If someone acts depressed we belittle their feelings, call them drama queens, tell them to exercise and cheer up, as if that magically helps. No one wants to intervene meaningfully until it is too late - medical professionals and supports alike.
People will also judge the way you cope, to stay away from that danger zone - spend too much, drink too much, shop too much, eat too much, indulge too much, get too many tattoos... We're all just trying to survive out here. Is it reckless? Heck yeah. It is impossible to find the balance of You Only Live Once (YOLO) and Be a Responsible Person (without wanting to blow your brains out from the monotony). Of course substances and addictive behaviours are only a crutch, but do people want you to stay here long enough to get better or not? Something has to give.
The will has to come from you.
That thought alone seems insurmountable. There is nothing anyone else can do when you are in that spiral, all we can do is watch from the sidelines and cheer you on. It is even worse to BE in that spiral and KNOW the only thing you can do is care for yourself and wait.
Is this progress?
Is this hope?
This applies to suicidal thoughts. Everyone wants to jump up and judge or valiantly rescue a person about to jump from a tall building, but no one has a long term solution to their ever grating pain of daily life. If someone acts depressed we belittle their feelings, call them drama queens, tell them to exercise and cheer up, as if that magically helps. No one wants to intervene meaningfully until it is too late - medical professionals and supports alike.
People will also judge the way you cope, to stay away from that danger zone - spend too much, drink too much, shop too much, eat too much, indulge too much, get too many tattoos... We're all just trying to survive out here. Is it reckless? Heck yeah. It is impossible to find the balance of You Only Live Once (YOLO) and Be a Responsible Person (without wanting to blow your brains out from the monotony). Of course substances and addictive behaviours are only a crutch, but do people want you to stay here long enough to get better or not? Something has to give.
The will has to come from you.
That thought alone seems insurmountable. There is nothing anyone else can do when you are in that spiral, all we can do is watch from the sidelines and cheer you on. It is even worse to BE in that spiral and KNOW the only thing you can do is care for yourself and wait.
Is this progress?
Is this hope?
Is this an addiction to numb the pain?
Is this wise?
Is this harmful?
Is this wise?
Is this harmful?
Am I going to be okay?
No one can answer these things for you. And having mental illness or incredible grief makes it difficult to trust yourself. But the most I can say is - find something you love, and let it kill you. Throw yourself into what feeds your soul (actually feeds it, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, NOT just a numbing agent for as long as the high is there) and do it like you'll die tomorrow. Because if we're going to be here, damn it, we're going to enjoy what we can and we are going to make our mark.
You're not just here to pay bills and hate yourself. Let's find something better to waste our time on.
No one can answer these things for you. And having mental illness or incredible grief makes it difficult to trust yourself. But the most I can say is - find something you love, and let it kill you. Throw yourself into what feeds your soul (actually feeds it, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, NOT just a numbing agent for as long as the high is there) and do it like you'll die tomorrow. Because if we're going to be here, damn it, we're going to enjoy what we can and we are going to make our mark.
You're not just here to pay bills and hate yourself. Let's find something better to waste our time on.
-Joei Gowing
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