I know I told this story before but last year I was having complications with a surgery and I just broke down in a public place and I was trying to gather myself, sitting and leaning on a wall when this girl in cowboy boots approached me and sat down and she asked what was wrong and I told her it was medical issues and she said “I understand, I have to have my foot amputated next week” and it shocked me out of crying and I was like “wow that sucks!” And she said “yeah.” And then she just touched my arm so tenderly and told me “I promise you that this problem will have its place, and everything is going to work out.” And the way she said it just made me really believe her. She said. “We’re just gonna have to cowgirl up.” And then she stood up and walked away and I’d call that a genuine encounter with an angel but the truth is there is a lot of goodness right here on earth in humanity and it’s shining and pure.
Okay but “this problem will have its place” is genuinely inspiring
THAT REALLY STRUCK ME because I’ve always hated the tired rhetoric of “this happened for a reason” and this feels like a more genuine, comforting take on that. Not “it happened for a reason,” but “this will find its spot in your life and your future that it fits into in a way that will eventually work out even though it sucks that it happened.” Love that.
Tag: recovery tag
so this might seem dumb but its helped a lot instead of saying “i wanna die” in normal conversation or like in my head in response to minor inconveniences like even as a joke, saying “i wanna go to bed” has like. improved my life tenfold no joke
this is ok to rb btw
Honestly, this was one of the things I did to combat my suicidal thoughts. It sounds really weird, but it actually helps!
recovery is a choice tbh choosing to leave behind coping methods you KNOW are unhealthy & try to work towards a healthier cycle of thinking & healthy coping methods is something that you choose to do
lets stop romanticizing self destruction as a coping method & isolating yourself & self deprecating memes
like sure those are all ways to cope but in the long run theyre doing more damage to you than any good
communicate with ur friends, challenge your maldaptive thoughts, try to clean ur room, watch a show you like, take a shower if you can, go for a walk if you feel good enough, remember to eat & drink enough & take your meds
it really is the little things like that that can help in the long run
@asmrdiscourse thank you for reblogging my trend alert post with these tags, because tbh this is something i needed to hear
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver (via wellconstructedsentences)
please be gentle with yourself. you’re trying. if it’s taking you longer than you thought to achieve something or get somewhere that’s okay. try not to compare yourself to others too much because not everyone gets to where they need to be right away. you’re alive that’s what matters. keep trying. you’ll get there.
I’m pretending all the time to be, kinder, stronger, funnier, more sociable than I am. I guess we’re all like that but it just feels so inadequate.
What’s the difference?
I know it sounds flippant but… certain things are fundamentally performative. And other things are so close as makes no difference.
Kindness is performative. Actions are kind, and people are kind by performing those actions. You can’t “pretend” to be kinder than you are, you can only perform kindness or not perform kindness, and choosing to perform kindness is always worthwhile, no matter how much you may second-guess your motivations.
Strength is so many things. It takes strength to pretend a strength you don’t feel. And the way to achieve strength is to exercise it, so long as you do it in enough moderation to not strain or break anything. Being able to affect strength when necessary while being able to put it down again when that in turn is necessary is healthy. Everyone starts weight training with the littlest weights. It’s not fake or pretending to do what you gotta do in any given situation.
Funniness lives in the interlocutor, not in the speaker. It doesn’t matter how funny you think you are (or think you are pretending to be) – that’s not how it’s measured. At what point are you “pretending” to be a musician if the music still gets made? And often what it’s tempting to describe in first person as “pretending” is more accurately described in the third person as “practicing” – which is of course the way you cause things to Be.
Sociability is also performative. Pretending to be sociable is just…being sociable, despite a disinclination towards it. It’s making an effort towards something you value. So long as the effort is not so great that it backfires into resentment, there’s no practical difference.
Qualities or activities or whatever are no less worthy because you have to actively choose to perform them. If anything, the worthiness lies in the act of choosing. It’s not “pretending” – it’s agency.
tl;dr: ain’t nothing wrong with “fake it till you make it.” A plastic spoon* holds just as much soup as a “real” one
* I keep wanting to talk about semantic domains! Artifacts are defined by their utility, whereas living things are defined by their identity. So plastic forks are still forks, but plastic flowers aren’t flowers. So there’s two pep-talk messages to take away from this: (1) for certain things, the distinction between “fake” and “real” isn’t a relevant one so long as they still get the job done, and (2) the purpose of a living thing is to be the thing that it is. The idea of a “useless person” is as semantically nonsensical as the idea of “pretend kindness” (or fake cutlery).
You’re gonna survive. And good things are gonna start to happen again. And one day you may even look back and even this will not be such a bad thing.
i'm very gay. i'd like a few dollars. 