Loud Mouth Brown Girl

If you are struggling with mental health issues, one of the things that I now realize helped me to get better, was deciding that I was and am going to get better.

I know that sounds simple, but it’s really not. You have to decide, every single day, that you are going to make today matter. And that’s not easy. Some days all I want to do is curl up in bed and sleep until the sun goes down, but the voices in my head won’t let me do that.

Yeah, I said it. I hear voices. I can admit that now, and often they are negative voices of my past, reminding me that I don’t deserve to be happy. Often times they are voices of people who used to matter to me, voices of people whose ideas and beliefs I thought I shared.

I have to work really hard to drown them out and I think that’s why I smoke so much cannabis. It helps me to filter out the shit I don’t want to hear, from the shit I need to hear.

Cannabis – for me but not for everyone – gives me space and time to fucking heal.

I have to decide though, that I am going to slow down on how much cannabis I consume because it’s time to start -truly- dealing with my trauma.

That means I can’t hide from it the way I do with cannabis anymore. It means actually talking about – out loud – and acknowledging – out loud – what was done to me, and by who.

I am fucking terrified of the next few phases of this journey, because it means putting and deciding to put, a spotlight on myself, and genuinely, authentically, telling my story.

It also means responding to dumbass questions, and genuine curiosity about how I survived. The truth is – and I am saying it here first – that, if they hadn’t drugged me as much as they did, I wouldn’t have survived.

It’s true that abusers know precisely how to victimize because they learn it from other abusers. The cycle of abuse that I was stuck in for so many years, is not mine alone. There were many, many children, who were harmed by the same abusers that I was hurt by.

I used to hope that one day we could come together and support each other, but I think after so many years of doing this alone, I have to much resentment and rage for me to be able to do that with them.

I wish them well, but I have no interest in having a healing circle with folks who were willing to let me drown, so they could remain safe.

I’m physically exhausted, and I shouldn’t be. I’m only forty one years old. I am in the prime of my existence, but because of everything that was done to this body, I am wiped the fuck out.

And still I have to keep going, like many of you. So as you can see “Deciding to be healthy,” isn’t as easy as just making the decision once. You have to keep deciding every single day, over and over and over again, that all the little things that frustrate you, fill you with anxiety, depression, and anger, aren’t going to be your undoing.

Fuck it’s difficult being an adult. People just assume that everyone is going to “Adult” the same way because they managed to figure out a system for themselves that works, but what happens when you dig down through the layers of survival instinct?

Most folks get up every morning, shower, make coffee, have breakfast, get ready for work, move on with their lives and repeat. That’s a fucking cycle, but is it healthy? That is entirely dependent on the person living in that cycle.

There could be a million tiny things that add up to huge problems that they aren’t dealing with or don’t know how to. So they become overwhelmed and before you know it, the cycle is broken and it’s not healthy anymore, they’re just laying in bed not getting out, day after day.

Deciding is an action. It’s a physical, emotional, mental, spiritual act, and one that you must practice every single hour of every single day. Even when you don’t realize that’s what you’re doing.

Deciding is also a practice, it’s not something everyone gets right the first time. Take smokers, raise your hand if you’re a smoker who “Decided” to quit, more than once, more than three times, more than six times, more than ten times.

Yeah, exactly. It’s a practice, and it takes effort, it takes a conscious effort to decide, and that’s not something that everyone is always capable of, all the time. I suffer from crippling indecision, which is precisely why I don’t drive.

I don’t know what kind of car I want, and since I can’t decide, I’m deciding I am not going to buy a piece of shit, until i can afford something I really want.

I’m just not going to drive, life is much easier without a car.

Some decisions are easy to make, others are much more difficult, and that’s why we must give ourselves and those around us grace, when they are struggling to decide.

The mind is a beautiful thing, but it’s also the literal Wild Wild West of the body. Every single brain in the world operates in ways that other brains can’t comprehend. And the only way to know how every brain in the world works is to study every brain in the world, which is a near impossible task.

So again. Give yourself grace. Give those around you grace, and remember that deciding is all about where you are on the health spectrum.

Sending all my love,