Begging
I didn’t want to be where I am today. I didn’t want to take the journey I knew I was going to end up taking before I got here. A year before I ended up houseless, I told my psych nurse I didn’t want to lose my house, but she didn’t take me seriously, and here we are.
Yes, this place is beautiful, but it’s not where I want to be. I like it here, it’s pretty and special and filled with beautiful people, kind people, scary people too though. Liars are here. I see them for what they are, and I stay away from them, but they’re here, present in my life, as a warning of what could be if I don’t pay attention.
No, this isn’t where I want to be. I have to work hard to get out of here so I can go to the places I want to go, and that’s a challenge I am finally willing to accept, but only because I finally have the support I need to get where I want to go. The support I had to beg for, fight for, cry for, and manipulate my life to finally get here.
Trust & Faith
When I was thirteen, I had a dream that 2Pac and Biggie came to visit me. This was before I started to listen to their music; it was only years later when I remembered the dream that I remembered distinctly seeing them walk down the stairs of my apartment building. I’ve been hooked on 2Pac’s music for decades since.
There is more to this universe than I understand. More than I can comprehend, more than I can convey to you, my readers. But what I know is this. There is something special about life when you live with mental health issues. If You get lucky and have the support you need, life with mental health issues can be beautiful and not that bad. I know this; I’ve seen it.
Oh sure, I still struggle; oh sure, I still cry; oh sure, I still worry, but I also know I am loved. I also know I am strong and can get through this until I can go where I want to go.
I’m not ready to give up yet. I didn’t want this, but I do want to keep it, until I can go where I wanna go. See how I keep repeating that?
Manifestation & Work
People always talk about manifestation because it works, but it doesn’t, as they say, work overnight. Unless you’re very lucky.
Recently, I told some friends I really wanted to go to Whistler; I wanted to just be there, in the space of being in the mountains. So, on a whim, we drove up to Whistler a few weeks later. It was a beautiful example of manifestation, but we still had to drive to get there. The drive, was the working part that most people forget about.
Sure, you can want something, but if you don’t work for it, you don’t get it, and even when you do work for it, you still may not get it; thus, the feeling of failure repeats.
It’s the getting up and continuing to try that matters. That’s how manifestation works. The more you desire, the more you fight, the more you demand, crawl, scream, and beg, and the more you get what you want. Some people just have to snap their fingers; it’s harder for the rest of us. But it’s also sweeter, more rewarding, and much more appreciated when you have to give everything to get what you want.
Gratitude
Not everything comes overnight, but we have to be grateful when it does come. In 2023, after losing more than 10 million people worldwide to Covid alone, I’ve become a lot more…gentle with the folks around me than I used to be.
I’m more grateful for the time I get to spend with folks, but I am equally grateful for the time I get to spend with myself. These days, because I’m in a healthier place because I’m in a healthier space, I can make room for more without fearing that more is going to take over. So I’m grateful for that.
Fear
Fear has controlled more of my life than I would love to admit. It’s hindered my ability to feel myself, to embrace myself, without shame or guilt at the fact that I like to embrace myself and not care what others think. Lots of people think I’m confident, but the truth is that I am cripplingly shy.
I’m an introvert who will circle around you for weeks before I gather up the courage to say hello, as my neighbors recently found out. And yes, we’ve made friends, but unlike my past relationships, these newer relationships are built on respect, trust, and understanding of deep, complex trauma.
That means I don’t have to fight my trauma alone anymore. I told you in a post a few days ago this healing, beautiful place is fucking weird. I’m not used to it. It smells good, there is always cannabis, and people protect your peace for you, so you don’t have to do it alone.
It’s fucking beautiful. I keep saying this because I am not as afraid as I’ve been in the past, but also because when you have FINALLY reached a place of true healing, there are few words that match what you are seeing other than beautiful.
On IG I’ve been capturing photos of the beauty I’ve been seeing just to prove what I am saying.
I am actually living life, and I am not just writing about it. Fear is not in control anymore. Not always anyway.
I can ask for help, I can ask for support, I can ask for whatever I need, and if someone can provide for me, someone does.
I’m here, and it’s fucking real, and yeah, it’s weird because I’m this 40-year-old single Black chick, who beat all the violent statistics, and really shouldn’t have.
The fact that I should have died many times is ever present in my mind. I think about all the girls who didn’t make it out, who ended their lives violently, who never got the chance to come back and fix the wrongs in their life. I am well aware that I am privileged to be alive. That’s had a huge impact on my mental health.
Survivor’s Guilt Is Real and Traumatic
I spent a lot of time hoping other girls would come forward, only to realize they couldn’t. It wasn’t that many of them didn’t want to; it was that they didn’t have the opportunities I had to get out of gang life. A life that was, in many cases, chosen for us, foisted upon us, and unrelenting. In the violence, the trauma, and the resulting PTSD.
I never wanted to be there in the first place, so at the first chance, I ran. And I am not looking back anymore.
I’m moving on, and as much as I hurt for the girls that are still there, I know I can’t help them if I don’t get healthy first.
Healing
When you’re focused on writing a book about healing, you aren’t doing the routines that you’re talking about because you’re too busy getting them down on paper for other people. When the book Uncomfortable II Fundamental Foundations for Mental Health Content Creators was finished, I could only focus on how miserable I was. Because I hadn’t been taking care of myself.
Meanwhile, I’ve been writing “In Case of My Death…Burn The World Down,” And it’s been a completely different experience. This time, I had to take breaks. I had to stop writing to pack up my clothes and move to the next hotel or hovel; I had to move immediately.
So, I didn’t have the energy or the wherewithal to focus all my energies on writing.
So, this experience has been completely different. It’s a powerful book that I am very excited about, and all of this leads me to say that I told you, it gets better.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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If you’d like to read more of Devon’s work, check them out in the following publications.
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 
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