So this week for my #LostLoveDiaries series I talked a lot about the things that I am celebrating, and I haven’t really taken time to do that.
Even when I wrote my book it wasn’t a big deal to anyone in my life – people saw that it was un-edited and figured that it wasn’t really a huge accomplishment, or at least they treated it like it wasn’t a huge accomplishment, and that hurt.
But to cover my feelings I kind of went along with it, and didn’t complain too much that people weren’t really celebrating me as much as I wanted them to.
That being said, I’ve been rubbing the hurt in by not celebrating the fact that I wrote a book about my lessons, I put that shit on the record, I designed it, I packaged it, and I put it out there into the world like a report on my experience so far. It wasn’t my “best” writing, but it was my best for the moment, and I am really proud of that.
Instead of asking why no one else this week, I’m starting to remember that I didn’t really stop and actually enjoy the fact that I am now a published author. I am working on book two and for a moment I was like “this has to be different from the first one,” and to a certain extent that’s true, but the first one is still selling, at least once or twice a week.
It’s not what it’s not, but it is what it is, is my mantra for this week, because I don’t care that it’s not selling like hot cakes. I didn’t expect it to, I expected to publish a book, that was the fucking goal, and I accomplished it.
Everything else is and has been icing on the cake, so why am I not celebrating the fact that I accomplished that shit?
The answer to that is entirely because other people made me feel like writing and publishing my first book, wasn’t a big deal.
I hate that. I hate that I realize that one more time I let other people’s opinions of me affect me to the point that I felt like I was sitting at the bottom of a cavern watching everyone else get rescued while I am deliberately feeling left behind.
Behind what? Behind who? I am not competing with anyone else in the entire world. I nominated myself for a Mental Health Blogger Of the Year Award, and honestly even if I lose so what?
Not a single one of those blogs are not like mine. We’re not on the same level, we’re not even in the same real categories, because we are all approaching the conversation about mental health from vastly different corners.
They are on the level they are on, and I am on the level I am on, and for the first time in my life I don’t care about what anyone else is doing, because I’m too busy doing what I am doing.
I say that, HOWEVER, this is not a constant state of mind, it’s one that I weave in and out of as if I am learning to drive for the first time.
Years of caring what other people thought or think about me is still woven into my psyche and it’s going to take years to get rid of that mentality, but now that I am “FULLY” aware that this is how I end up feeling depressed and anxious, I can remind myself that I am learning to pull back from that mentality.
This is one of those “oh there it is moments,” as if I’ve left this thought on the shelf before and just forgot that I used to think this way as a child.
I remember once my auntie Carol fixed my very favorite acid wash jeans for me, the knee had completely blown out and she replaced it with a patch with my initials. I liked it, I thought it was cute, it had a bright red heart and a yellow and green flower, and I designed it, and I thought they were now the coolest pants I’d ever owned. Because they had my fucking NAME on them.
I was thirteen. No one liked my design, and because of that I never wore those jeans again, I “lost” them, and that was that.
I hate that I didn’t keep those jeans, because those were my majick jeans, my special jeans, and they were destroyed by the opinions of others, and my own inner self hatred that I got because people had worked so, so, very hard, to convince me that I should hate myself.
Now I realize that the only reason they did that was because they were intimidated by my greatness, and when I look at how far LMBG has come in the last four years, I am starting to see some of that greatness inside of me and I am fucking terrified of it.
For the first time in my life I am starting to recognize that everything that I’ve been through, and everything that I have experienced or sacrificed was not for nothing. Yes it sucked, and yes I wish it hadn’t happened, but because it did I can now do all the things that I want to do, free of guilt or shame for moving on from the past.
I like legit want to close those doors. There are a lot of people in my former life that I never want to see again, that I have absolutely zero interest in being around, and that’s just the way it is. They were horrible awful and selfish people who would rather beat me down with violence than lift me up with love, I don’t need that shit anymore.
I close those doors with a force that scares the crap out of me, and every time they open up I’ll shut them back down again. I’ve touched the fucking bonfire, I’ve stood in the heart of the volcano, and it’s hot, uncomfortable, ugly, and it hurts everything about me.
That’s what publishing my book meant to me, that’s why it was so important that I published Uncomfortable that way, but I couldn’t convey that before. I wasn’t aware enough, I just knew that I needed to get it done.
Now that it’s done and I have finally taken a moment to look at that book, I’m like “damn, I did that shit?” and yeah I’m intimidated because now that I KNOW I can do that, the question is “what else can I do?“
When you come from a place as dark as trauma is, you really get intimidated by yourself, it’s like realizing you have super-powers, and at first it’s super cool but it’s also like “shit I can fly, what if I suddenly fall and die?” like do you think Superman ever thinks “I can get killed by a rock,” like if you don’t know what your kryptonite is, then…are you afraid? Or are you afraid all the time? Because I’m afraid all the time.
They raped me, tortured me, kidnapped me, beat me, drugged me, and I’m still here….the question “what else can they do to me?” is fucking terrifying, because that shit was bad bad bad bad…I almost died, a couple of times actually…like I can’t really imagine anything worse, but I bet God can.
Part of me wants to think I’ll behave, but then I remember behaving didn’t get me where I am today and I like where I am today, so honestly…you can make me promise to behave as much as you want, I probably won’t.
I don’t think I have it in me….I would have made a terrible slayer for the Council anyways.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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