Emotions come in waves
Confident today
Overwhelmed yesterday
Anxious of tomorrow
Grief
perpetuates sorrow
Depression sets in
The days go on to no end
Excitement when you open your eyes
Regret when you close them
Happiness
You choose
Surpress emotions
You lose
Full of gratitude
A receiving attitude
Lust at the sight of a lover nude
Such emotions set the stage
Only to come in waves
The up-to-date version of my life story!
Writing a summary of a life story escaping death while white-knuckling life is a challenge. Lucky you! You made it in time for the third version. I believe everything is better in threes. And I guarantee this snapshot is the best yet!!
I am 42 years young, a Sagittarius, and a horse in Chinese birth year. I am an INTJ/INFJ personality on the Briggs and Meyer, and an empath. I don’t know what my love language is but y’all will be the first to know once I wrestle that unicorn. I am from Louisiana, I cuss to emphasize passion, and I am on an arduous journey called life.
A long list of diagnoses assists healthcare professionals in guessing what is wrong with me. No solution yet but hey, I’ve got one hell of a story!
It is because of mental illness and the stigma attached that I share my personal perspective of life lived from the “ill side”. For that reason (and entertainment purposes), I will list my rap sheet.
Bipolar 1 (rapid cycling)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
Alcoholic (in recovery)
And last but not least, I have my Ph.D. in sarcastic charisma with a Master’s in glitter sprinkling.
I am the middle child of an Irish immigrant and a U.S. military brat. I am the sparkly one in the family but boy do we all shine 😉
My parents are baby-boomers and I am of the (lost) Gen X generation.
So there ya have it, folks!!
How’s that for a life summary?
Enough said, right?
Wrong!
There’s more.
Pssst. Things aren’t going to get suuuppper personal with like details and shit but here goes surface level personal.
Oh, a quick disclaimer: I am not blaming or judging my parents for the decisions they made. Raising children does not come with a manual,
however,
I am a product of, and I quote
“a severely psychologically abusive childhood home”.
I can only imagine what my daughter’s therapist is going to label it.
Yup. If ya dish it out, ya gotta be willing to take it and I am wait’n for it. Just say’n.
If you enjoy this post, check out About Me: The Weird Stuff
I will give credit where credit is due.
I was raised in an upper-middle-class home. I never went without food. We were involved in extracurricular activities. My parents busted their asses to see to it that we got what we wanted (within reason) and my mother made a miserable home happy-ish.
With all of the above taken into account, there is an additional layer of invalidity. Having older and younger siblings not as emotionally scared as myself adds yet another.
My parents divorced shortly after the youngest graduated. Everyone went their separate ways to process the madness. Or were we celebrating? I guess it depends on who you ask.
Months prior to the divorce, I had the joy of telling my parents I tripped a fell on a penis. Not typically the worst news coming from an independent 22-year-old college student unless the penis is of another race. Ah. The life of a white southern girl who could care less.
I survived the life-threatening remarks from my father and went on to give birth to a healthy, bi-racial bundle of innocence. It was somewhere in between being disowned by my father, the divorce, infidelity, and birthing a child that I hit the make-it mode button. I lived my life entertaining and providing for a child all the while disassociated.
Basically.
I’d say that is about right.
I vaguely remember the day when I came to. I said to myself,
“Hey, do you remember riding that cool walkway in the airport on the way to Vegas when you made the decision to not think?”.
A piece of me woke up in that moment. I hadn’t questioned, doubted, or processed a single thought or idea, pertaining to me, in ten years. My make-it mode was overrun by my instinctual mom mode without ever dropping the ball. The transition was smooth.
At the age of 33 I made a decision to not drink an alcoholic beverage.
That day in August of 2012, I was admitted into the psychiatric ward.
For the first time since I was 13, I went four days without a cigarette. This would be my first of eight medical detox(s) from a fourteen-year “functional” run of alcohol consumption. Unbeknownst to me I developed a chemical dependence to alcohol. Not only was I unaware of the risks involving alcohol detoxification, I was not convinced I had no control.
I went on to challenge this notion facility after facility. One year in and out of institutions taught me about my disease. April 20, 2015 I put the bottle down.
I surrendered.
I have not had a drop of alcohol since.
During my inpatient stays I was introduced to medical models of alcoholism. These included opinions from psychiatric professionals. In between my medical detoxes I found myself admitted in the ward. I am fortunate to have found a local facility that allowed smoking. They specialize in behavioral health care. With each admittance I revealed layer after layer of disassociated wonder.
Each day I meet myself where I stand. Some days I triumph, most days, I exist. I would be lying if I said I am not bitter. Daily I mindfully counter that bitterness with gratitude. Some days I am successful and others I am an overripe grapefruit. Ewe.
The best advice from my experience is this:
Most importantly find it for yourself. Who cares how you get there but without it you are sure to sink.
I searched everywhere looking for someone to tell me where to start. I needed a starting point. It wasn’t until I found compassion for myself that I was truly able to begin my journey of healing.
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Rewinding time to 2019. Care to join me?
Sometimes it’s as simple as getting something off your chest that opens up space for better things to enter. I feel that today. Yesterday I was able to push past fear and the result was immediate. Like letting go of a balloon, I let go of the pain I have begrudgingly carried for 17 fuck’n years.
I realize I do not have to carry that kinda weight. Sometimes we just have to accept certain situations for what they are meant to be.
Life takes care of the rest.
It’s moments like this where the universe is nudging me in the right direction that I used to ignore. I knew 2019 was going to bring change. I wasn’t expecting it to be only 4 days in. Normally I want an answer but today it’s ok to not know and its ok it took me so long.
The relationships (2) that I have let go of have reached their expiration date. I am taking the lessons I learned from the two of them and moving into the next chapter of my life. No doubt in my mind they will forever hold a piece of my heart but I no longer allow them to negatively affect me. What was once thought of as lifetime friendships, has come to an end…
I feel a true joy that doesn’t come naturally to me and dare I say I think this is what proud feels like. I also decided there is no reason to waste my time with someone I know is no good for me. Blocking that number added to my sense of liberation. No need to be tempted. With him, I was able to see an unhealthy pattern that I have repeatedly ignored about myself until now.
Learning about myself doesn’t have to be difficult. If I take it all at face value it is simplistic. Stepping out of my own way may become a trend in my life. “It is what it is”, a common phrase that is used, sums it up. Things are the way they are without explanation or reason.
When I sat back in silence and allowed myself to fully feel what has happened I literally sighed relief. I evaluated the possible answers for why I would hold onto something that brought me pain and the only answer I came up with was the fear of losing our friendship. Although we have been estranged going on three years, I have only recently mourned the loss of our close relationship and this finalized it. Maybe that is what brought such relief. The ends were finally tied and burned.
I try not to discuss in depth the circumstances surrounding my child. One because of shame; I am an alcoholic mother and the stigma attached to that is enough to make someone take their life, and two not to give a one-sided perspective. The friendship I have discussed today is the one I had with her father and the pain of him cheating on me, while I was pregnant, is what I have carried. My father disowned me because my child is biracial and in the moments of hearing him say, ” I am mentally prepared to spend the rest of my life in prison for the death of you and your unborn child”, I felt secure because of Kid’s father….until I was told he was cheating on me. My world was shattered, to say the least.
Many years have lapsed and life has treated us kind as parents. He is a great dad and that’s all I need from him. Despite his opinion today, he and I raised an amazing young lady to the best of our ability. We were young, selfish, and wild but our child never went without. She was taught respect, morals, self-love, compassion, and most importantly she knows she is loved.
Funny thing is I feared him finding out about my blog and little did I know he is a fan… he didn’t use those exact words but he did say he has read all of my posts and if I’d say so myself, that’s a fan (he told me I need to get a life, ppsst) 😉 Hi Anthony, Hello Sam.
Life is opening up for me and I for it. I want to step out from behind the curtains and not be ashamed for who I am. I am becoming and that is a beautiful thing. I owe it all to my beautiful, talented, rotten, sassy, smart mouth daughter. She has taught me what unconditional love is. Seeing her love herself is the most inspirational display of courage I have ever seen. She isn’t afraid to talk about her feelings, she doesn’t sweep them aside. She stands up for herself if someone has crossed her boundaries and she forgives wholly. In my eyes, she is the epitome of perfection in its rarest form here on earth. She is balanced and rounded at the same time. Not only does she know her limits, but she also respects them. I speak highly of her not because she is my child but because she is my most influential teacher. All too often when others meet her they want to give all the credit to me and her father but I won’t accept that. She is an observer and with her little eyes has formed her own opinion and character and I couldn’t be more proud. I only hope to become half the woman she will be.
Hmmm …🤔
Medium.
Moderate.
Mediocre.
Normal.
Common.
Grey.
Satisfied.
Average.
Typical.
Nice.
Petite.
Ordinary.
Boring.
Plain.
Generic.
Never have I been … referred to as any of the above. I’ll take that as a compliment 😉
Wellll, Hey!! How tha hell ‘r ya?
my WordPress peeps, pals, compadres, confidants … 😂🤣 Enough already!?
Long time no correspondence.!??!. Although my presence is in the shadows, I am aghast by the frequency in which y’all stay on my mind.
Like, seriously.
Reflecting on my life there is one constant – I torture myself. My thoughts haunt me. Despicable hate words spoken by others, ruminate, penetrating my soul. … That got deep without my realizing it… Sheesh.
As I was saying, (kinda) … My absence from my writer’s life pains me with each eye blink. It is agony yet; why? Why do I run from my artistic medium? No. I am not an author. No. I do not have my doctrine. But, I am a writer. That’s what I do. Or do I? Better yet, why the fuck don’t I? It’s misery in this brain with words-on-a-loop, quick-witt one liners, and dry, sarcastic realities our society accepts at face value.
Forgive me if I lost you but perhaps you caught a glimmer of the patterns of thought that merri-go-round in my brain. I want a refund!!!🤣
I crave a space to vent. I secured my own nook of the web July 15, 2017 and I chose to not hang out here because, lets be honest, it is a choice. In fact, I tried to purchase a different domain name through my Word Press account (it’s a surprise), and it ended up paying my domain name off until 2022. But not the correct domain name. Once I noticed it extended Revenge of Eve an additional year, I immediately requested a refund, to which I received … Of course, it couldn’t be as simple as just that … Now I seem to have lost the domain or the direction of the domain, Revenge of Eve.!! I can’t find the patience to even contact Word Press to resolve the matter. Cue *instant sounding alarm bells* Or one can imagine considering the pride I hold held in my self-taught blogging life.
Meh. Murrr. Blah. Blee. Blurrr.
My freak out moment hasn’t occurred only because I have a receipt, proof of payment until like … Ummm … Mid-2021. 🤔 Further investigation will be necessary. Losing my domain name is an unsettling thought and a motivator.
Little by little I am regaining the wherewithal to link words together to form sentences. I will fight the chains of silence until my last breath. Will any of it add value to another? Maybe. Maybe not but it damn sure helps me.
Letter143 is a series of letters written to myself, my loved ones and anyone else who wants to read ’em!
Pain. It’s relative.
Individuals with individual tolerances
For some, childhood emotional pain prevents them from conquering what it means to adult
And others exhaust personal pain with to-do lists, appointments, work
Add a dose of us who live daily with mental illness
And…what we have.here.today, isss… (yes, Gun n Rose’s lyric)
Pandemonium
Yet in my world,
I am at peace
Speaking in terms of today,
Of course
Me, Mentally is an artwork series sharing creations made by yours truly!
Hey, Hi, Hooooo!! Whaddup, y’all?
In an attempt to overcome my fear of inadequacy, I have begun Me, Mentally, an art series that describes parts of my illnesses that I may be learning to accept, come to terms with, cope…explore.
If you know what’s going on around here, lmk 😉!!
When I sat down to create this piece I gave myself permission to use red in a way that accentuates a female.When I create or brainstorm creative ideas, they are generally fashionista inspired. I am an undercover fashion designer but I have settled for a trend setter…meh. It is no secret, Revenge of Eve is the mastermind of an empowered, lost woman.
Personal insight: growing up we were raised to believe that when a woman wears red it connotates that she is a whore. No, shit. I am for real and guess who’s favorite color is red?? One guess. Yup, mine.
We were not allowed to wear red nail polish. Red lipstick…pst get outta here with that, although, I got away with it wearing performance make up for dance (and painted my toenails 😂 I’ve always been a rebel)!
When I enrolled in my second year of college, I wrote a paper on how color is used to represent certain types of people, further supporting my father’s conformity. Color misrepresentation is more common than some realize and for some reason, my quirky brain picked up on this…and obsesses over it.
Red and blue are two colors I would never pair. I don’t know if it is because it’s patriotic or what but the colors are not two that I particularly care for. So I did it. I pushed past – what may sound ridiculous – barriers. And guess what?!?!? I LOVE IT!
The backdrop is a vintage photo casing. Back in my day…😂😂😂 you would order family photos through a photographer who used hideous carpet and wallpaper to enhance the experience…and charged an arm and leg for the service. This is an 8×10 cover that adorned your order, framing a photo. I will soon add papers to it and make it a notebook/scrapbook/junk journal.
It may sound ridiculous to some of you – the wiring of my brain – believe me, I question it too. But when I create, I don’t. I just do and if I am honest, it comes together into something I’ve grown fond of; my style. **I hope to soon have my first series of journals for sale. There will be 12 available. The series is a complete set with the 13th journal in which I will keep. It has been in the process of being made over the course of six months. I cannot wait to present them to you all ready for shipping 🙂
Oh, one more thang…
I’ve hinted toward the possibility of me having a secret and today I am excited to share that, I, have a boyfriend!! 🙂 It’s been scary but he has made the most of helping me through this transition period from single to in a relationship status. I don’t social media as many of you may know so I figured I could drop a few more personal bombs to keep my voice as human as possible.
What does this mean?
The one idea that keeps me drawn to Nate is his persistence that I create. He supports my healing and encourages communication. Yeah, I said that. He is kinda big deal and I haven’t been the easiest – I’m sure that surprises many of you 😉 but…I am learning some extremely ugly truths about myself but I am accepting them for what they are. Having survived a psychologically abusive home, a physically abusive and substance-abusing environment throughout my adulthood, I decided to cut my losses with the attachments I held with these toxic cycles.
My resistance is weakening and my mental capacity is expanding. It is expanding for growth, for wellness, and for non-biased opinions. Cheers to letting my freak flag fly!😂😂😂😂 no, but seriously, I am learning to fit into someone else life whereas it’s been the opposite experience for me. He has cleared out drawer space, a whole room for my creating space, closet and cabinet space…his home; to accommodate me and my presence. Yes, I am in the process of moving into his home. Eek!!
Finally! I mustered up the courage to show some art 🙂
I thought it may be a good idea to go ahead and start sharing some of my artwork. I know, I know…its about damn time and a year behind !! Your patience means the world to me. You have no idea how much I appreciate it ❤!!
Keep in mind – I am not a professional artist – only a girl trying to learn healthy ways of expressing herself 🙂
The piece I will be sharing today is a collage piece that references my OCD thoughts. I encounter an inner struggle if I am prompted to create. I prefer to freely create yet I have wanted to have a theme or topic for my artistic exploration.
*As I began to create this post an idea transpired, creating a domino effect (keep reading). Feelings of sheer excitement consumed me. For the first time, I have a personal theme for a series of artwork 🙂. I hereby present to you, Me, Mentally.*
Numbers flow through my brain as though they are a river pushing through a mountain range.
For as long as I can remember the numbers have been odd and prime. My obsession with odd and prime numbers doesn’t allow for an even number to invade my thought bubble. Last week I decided I would begin inviting even numbers in (do different) one at a time. Do not judge me – I am wired this way.
I started with the number four.
While it may not seem so to others, me using an even number, is a HUGE leap for me. How so? I will explain to the best of my ability.
My mind has an infinite love for odd and prime numbers, why? Who the fuck knows, regardless, I associate even numbers as bad or unlucky. The result of this has cost me time if anything. It creates frustration in others who may get tied up in my obsession and avoidance of pairs. Many do not even realize what I do. I could go more in-depth, but I will spare you the unnecessary comprises, deal(s), agreements my brain makes with my brain. Yupp – you read that right.
Suffering with mental illness isn’t the easiest of things life may offer. Not only do sufferers not understand the what’s and the whys, but the annoyance of others needing an explanation is tiresome. This day and age mental health is discussed more openly than ever. Do your loved ones a favor by educating yourself about their disorder(s). Expecting an “answer” from them diminishes any progress they may have made. We do not know just as you do not.
Upon closer look you see circles. If you look even closer you will find that some of the circles have been punched out of paper. I layered previously used papers to add dimension. Some I filled with paint and others I left as they are. The circles represent the continuum of obsessive thoughts.
Lastly, I layered torn strips of thick butcher paper.
*Insight Alert* From the beginning of my journey, I decided I would use old household keys – extras laying around with no use – as my trademark.
I used the butcher paper for spray painting the keys on, a backdrop of sorts. This effect left the brown butcher paper where the keys laid.
The key represents the key to my dreams.
I hold it.
You hold yours.
The key to my dreams is buried within me. It’s to be found in my story yet I haven’t sequestered the courage to speak it into existence. I will get there.
What does your key represent??
I am sure we all can agree that we are our own worse enemies. Many of us may belittle ourselves with negative self-talk (guilty) yet we fail to acknowledge the monumental steps of personal progress toward individual growth. This post represents bravery. Sharing my personal creations is something I have withheld for a multitude of reasons but these days, I truly am doing differently.
I have chosen to forgive someone. – like and actually mean it- The miserable Candace would invite the revenge style relationship that does nothing but torment her but not this time. I chose to forgive because I would want someone to give me a second chance. So instead of attaching feelings to the actions of others, I bravely recognize that is out of my control.
I no longer care to control the actions of others rather than gain control of my own. I have wasted too much time on giving others control of how I feel by permitting them to tell me how I feel. I will no longer accept that nor will I take responsibility for another’s feelings.
Writing this post gave me insight into the ways I have grown. By no means do I claim perfection but moving forward is simply that; moving forward.
What have you done recently that has made you proud?
Revenge of Eve 