these are short streams of thoughts and true personal experiences.
my disclaimer: the subject matter in some of these thoughts are very sensitive in nature. they include death, miscarriage, mental health, self-harm, eating disorders, rape, suicide ideation, drugs and domestic violence. this may be triggering for some readers. please, i implore you to read with caution, understanding and compassion. above all, seek help and reach out to someone if you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or are in a life-threatening situation.
hello again
there comes a moment in your life where you begin to realize something is off. in the way that things look, feel, taste, or even sound. some distant feeling of weight. an added heaviness to everything you say, think or do. the fog seeping into moments that should be lovely and light become clouded and joyless. as years go by you feel like you are in an hourglass. every day more sand sprinkling in, consuming you until there is no space left to breath. i have felt this way most of my life. there are ways to release some of that fog and heaviness, but it never truly goes away. it just lingers, quietly, making life difficult to be seen through rose colored glasses. with this feeling, instead, you are always seeing life with glasses that have just a bit of fog on them.
checking in
i stopped taking my medication a month ago. no one has noticed. i go to work. i see my friends. i see my family. and no one has noticed. does that mean i am just always so somber that they couldn't see when i felt happier? is it that even in my happier moments i still seem sad? i get asked how my day was? how is work going? what are you up to today?...but no one ever asks the looming question. do you still want to be here? i don't believe it's because they don't care or because they don't love me. i know they do, care and love me, that is. but i also believe they can't bear the response. if i say no, what happens then? i have now put them in a very difficult situation. a situation they much rather avoid. so when they ask how my day was, i respond with an artificial "good." because if they ever did ask the looming question, the one no one really wants to ask, the answer would be: no.
dream job
having your dream job is weird. especially when you are always sad. it's something that people use as a comfort rebuttal when one expresses said sadness. it isn't that i'm ungrateful. but having a career that seems thrilling and mysterious doesn't equate to happiness. i too, was once naive and believed that it did or it could. but it doesn't. you still feel the same except you can now enjoy your sadness in a different location. on the beach, in a hotel or under the eiffel tower. the sadness doesn't stay home. that sadness comes along with your luggage, you take it everywhere you go.
sad friends
meeting people who are just as sad as you is cool. until it isn't. you have a moment of exhilaration where you feel like someone can finally understand and relate to everything you are feeling. you want to hold them and comfort them and express so many thoughts that possibly no one else has been able to understand except them. and then you realize how terrible it is that someone else is experiencing the same thing as you. you ache for them. it makes you more sad. you understand that in difficult times it is hard for you to be consoled. so how can you possibly console your friend? and that's when knowing someone just as sad as you, sucks.
childhood
being a kid is tough. you come in like a tiny snowball that's being rolled down a steep hill, collecting debris along the way to make you into a bigger snowball. i do believe we are born with certain personality traits. and then along the way we collect things we like or dislike and add them to ourselves willingly and at times, unwillingly. sometimes the end result is just a perfectly clean, round, white snowball. other times its a lumpy, rock filled, dirt covered snowball. in the end we are all still snowballs. it's just some of us have had it harder than others. this metaphor is terrible but i hope you can make some sense of it.
happy place
i love theme parks. this brilliant place was created for one purpose and one purpose only: fun. there aren't many places created for the sole purpose of having a full body experience immersed in fun. fun for all ages. these magical places temporarily transport you into another world where the only thing that matters is having a great time. you go and spend the entire day in absolute misery, but because it's a theme park, this misery is worth it, it becomes fun. you leave sweaty, tired, hungry, the kids may be a bit cranky and you probably spent too much money on that turkey leg. but at the end of it, you can't wait until the next time you can return and everyone always asks each other the most important question after a day of such wonderful misery. did you have fun?
tragic
i was born with something called anismus. it basically means you can't take a shit regularly like everyone else. i could make taco tuesday everyday of the week and i will never have an urgent or unfortunate blowout. i could go days even weeks without having the urge to go. it is as uncomfortable as you can imagine it would be. it can't be cured but i have learned to manage it somewhat. so whenever someone tells me i'm full of shit...little do they know, how right they are.
wish granted
i found out i was pregnant on a tuesday. by wednesday i had miscarried the baby. it was unexpected and i wasn't prepared for it. i would've made it work, i imagine, like most people do. but i will never know. there are not many things the universe grants you instantly. but in this situation, it did. i don't know if i am ready for this i had said. and at that exact moment i began to bleed. i hadn't had enough time to process the pregnancy or the loss of the pregnancy or if i truly meant what i was feeling in that moment. i still mourn this loss to this day.
double dd's
(desire & death)
i had just had a very bad break-up and wanted to do something nice for myself. something i had always desired to do but couldn't because i had never had the means to. one day an opportunity arose that would change all that. for the low price of marrying someone who wanted to become a citizen, i was going to have enough money to make my dreams a reality. i figured it was perfect. we were going to help each other make our dreams come true. both getting something we truly desired. completely illegal but i was not in the right state of mind at that time to think about those minor details. my dreams were about to be granted and so were his. it was a win-win situation. the night before we were going to meet to iron out all the details of this dream arrangement, my future husband goes out to celebrate and is tragically hit by a car and dies. i had wanted bigger boobs and he just wanted to bring his girlfriend and daughter to this country to have a better life.
sike-uh-del-ix
the first couple times i took this magical fungus it had little to no effect on me. i took it with the intention of it helping with my depression. i too was a person who would've never seen myself doing such a thing. to me anything like that was always considered bad. i also was not even aware this could be used to treat some forms of depression. i was desperate at this point and a dear friend helped me see otherwise. he had truly done his research on the subject and i felt safe taking this on with him. it took several tries to get the outcome i was seeking but eventually, it did happen. it was life changing. there is nothing in my life that i can compare to what i experienced that day. it is hands down the most life altering and sublime event i've ever encountered. pure jouissance. thank you forever D.
plunder
once you read this one, you may be inclined to immediately victim blame. or wonder how can one "allow" this to happen to them. i don't blame you. i did plenty of self blame after each time this occurred. reflecting and dissecting all the reasons it was my fault and how could i have prevented what had happened to me. the guilt, shame, and self-loathing consumed me. 3 separate times in my life, i was raped. and several times i was harassed and sexually harassed by strangers. i don't feel that guilt anymore. i know it was not my fault and my heart goes out to anyone in the world that has ever experienced this. you should never feel ashamed and you are not alone.
my father and i share the same birthday. what a blessing to have one of his children to be born on the same day as his. i remember when i was about 5 or 6 I had asked my mom if i could celebrate my birthday alone. without having to share it with anyone. my mom scolded me and told me i was a selfish brat and proceeded to tell my father what i had said. he was pretty hurt by this. it so happened that this would be one of the last few birthdays we would share together. our birthdate falls on july 17th. our last birthday together i turned 8 and he turned 34. he died july 31st. july is a month where my father was given life and also given death. i always try to commemorate this month by doing something adventurous and joyful in his honor. i felt so much guilt after having said what i did as a child. kids really don't know any better and can say hurtful things they don't mean. i regret having said what i said. july is a very hard month for me, i rejoice and i grieve. i would give anything to celebrate another birthday with him. i miss my father dearly.
july
speed dating
those close to me would say that at times i am way too nice to people. i love being nice to people, why wouldn't i be? being naive, is a different story. sometimes the lines blur with my niceness and naiveness. years ago i was dating someone i had met through a dating app. he was quite lovely and fun to hang out with. however, after a couple months of dating or so, i realized i didn't want to continue the relationship. i said i was very sorry but the chemistry just wasn't there. when i met him he had just put his car in the shop after having continuous car troubles. so from time to time i had let him borrow my car. this was done out of the kindness of my heart. during the conversation where i was ending things, he asked for one last favor. would he be able to borrow my car, just one last time? my gut instinct was to say no. so naturally, i said yes. i received a phone call a day or two later from him. i could barely understand what he was saying. but i did understand this; he had been in an accident. was safe and okay but my car was now a total loss. he had totaled my car. now i'm not saying never do anything nice for people, especially an ex. however, proceed with caution.
mon amour
i used to be a hardcore francophile. which means i loved all things french. it was an obsession. it has tapered off a bit in the last few years. i wanted to visit paris so badly. i had a couple missed opportunities to go and every time it broke my heart. i thought i'd never get the chance to go. as it turned out, my sister had been working for a company, at the time, that kindly gifted them vacations once they reached a certain financial goal within their work group. vacations where they were able to bring a plus-one. on this specific trip, they had gifted her a london/paris combo. she asked me if i wanted to go with her to paris. i cried tears of joy before leaving, when we arrived and after we left. there are no words to express my gratitude towards her for giving me such an incredible experience. i was as pleased as punch. thank you N. i don't know if you will ever know how much this meant to me.
stalker
you may or may not believe in ghosts or spirits. i'm not here to convince you they exist. i'm just here to tell you what happened to me. i do know that my father saw death shortly before he died. it was a floating black cloak like figure at the end of a hall. one day i just so happen to see this same cloaky figure at the entrance of my bedroom. the bedroom was down a short hall from the kitchen. from the kitchen you could see the door to my room. i was in the kitchen at the time and looked towards my room and saw death. i was probably 15 or 16 at the time. i had known about my father seeing this before dying, so you can only imagine the fear that ensued. i ran into my moms room crying, telling her what i saw. my mother placed 2 rosaries around my neck, had me carry a bible and recite psalm 23 and psalm 91 the rest of that day. i saw this shadowy figure once more, a couple days later. this is when i knew, death was definitely stalking me. i again ran to my mother and cried in fear. we prayed together. i continued to wear the rosaries and read these verses for almost 2 weeks straight. after that, i never saw that shadowy figure again.
succor
i wanted to play the lotto because: broke. i don't normally carry cash, so i had to go to the atm. i wanted to take out $20 but was denied due to insufficient funds. i left the bank dejected. as i was walking on, a homeless man asked if i could help him out. i told him i was sorry, i didn't have any cash on me. he said it was okay and began to tell me a little bit about what he had been going through. it looked like he had just been released from a hospital. i didn't have cash but i did still have my credit card. i couldn't buy a lotto ticket but i could buy food. so i offered to buy him some food and a few toiletries. he kept praying over me, telling me i was an angel for helping him. it isn't that i am an angel. it's just that sometimes when you feel like you're at rock bottom, the universe has a way of reminding you that even though there are some pretty shitty moments in life, there is still hope and life could possibly be much worse.
last dance
so my prom wasn't completely awful. no one asked me and i asked no one. so i went with a couple other girls who also didn't have dates. the dance itself was okay. but everyone was already planning what they were going to do after. the plan was to go to the waterfront (which is exactly what it sounds like) a hang out spot in front of the water. and then everyone was to meet at a designated house for the after party. the girls that i had come with were not interested in going to the after party. they were my ride to the dance, so i didn't have a way to get to the party. another girl i knew asked if i wanted to jump in with her and her date and we could all ride together in their car. fantastic! we made it to the waterfront, apparently very late because we didn't see many people there. they must have all headed out to the party already. so we make our way back to her car and go inside. her car doesn't start. this was 2001, there were no cell phones at this time, so her date had to walk to a pay phone and call for help. we waited for hours for one of their parents to come and pick us up. we never made it to the after party. so, like most teenagers on prom night, i spent it in a parking lot. just not in the way you would think.
solvency
do you know your credit score? i do...now. when i was in college one of my business professors began teaching us about credit. i had absolutely no idea what a credit score was or what it was for. he explained how one could look up there credit score and gave us a scale to let us know if your credit was good or bad. i looked up mine, and it was bad, very bad. i couldn't understand why because as far as i knew i had never owned a credit card or opened a credit line of some sort. upon further research i found something called a credit report. that credit report explains all the reasons you can't be trusted. at least financially. on mine it showed i was delinquent on a credit card for about 2 years. this was news to me. i later found out my mother had opened a credit card in my name in the amount of $600 and never made a payment on it. it was a dark time for me and my credit score. but over the years i have worked very hard to get that credit score up to a number that is accepted by credit companies and is now viewed as "excellent."
swim lessons
i don't know how to swim. my mother had put me in swimming lessons when i was about 9 years old or so. we were at the deep end of the pool, no life-vest, but we did have a kick board. in the pool were the instructor, myself and a couple other kids. at one moment i'm there gripping this kick board with all my life and it slips out from under me. i panic. and when one panics, one sinks. i was under the water for what seemed like years but were probably just seconds. the instructor had not been paying attention to me at that moment and had not noticed. once they did, they took me out of the pool to recover. i never went back again. i had told this story to my ex. he thought it would be a brilliant idea to teach me, a 20 year old woman at the time, how to swim, in the same manner he learned. being pushed into a pool. his father had pushed him into a pool when he was probably 6 years old, and that's how he learned. throwing a kid into a pool is cruel. throwing an adult with full awareness about death, is sadistic. i of course did not learn that time either. the third time i tried to learn i was also let down and almost drowned. so maybe 4th times a charm? i know you're thinking, take swim classes. i have a severe phobia of the water now, however, i did take classes twice a week for 4 weeks a couple years ago. this isn't enough to fully learn but i will try again one day, soon.
what's in my bag?
my sweet grandmother was visiting us in washington state. she had come all the way from the dominican republic. when she arrived she placed her handbag down and told my sisters and i that she had brought us a gift. we were all very little so of course, we were excited. she opens her handbag and out rolls a dead parrot with lipstick on their beak. the parrot had made a meal out of my grandmothers red lipstick. my sister and i were inconsolable. my grandmother kept wondering, how had it gotten the cap of her lipstick off and we were just wondering, why was our new pet dead?
c-monster
in 2013 my dreams came true. i was able to get my long awaited breast implant surgery. the surgery was honestly really easy to recover from and i was so happy i had finally done it. until about 3 years in, my body started to reject the implants. it's what's known as breast implant illness. but really it's your body attacking a foreign object. not every person will experience this, but some do. i was one of those. for over 2 years i had almost every symptom listed on the check list. hair loss, fatigue, body rashes, blurred vision, headaches, food intolerances, joint and muscle pain, lethargy, poor memory, insomnia, anxiety to name a few. it also made my depression much, much worse. i was unable to walk more than a few blocks without being in serious pain. i had to explant in 2017. the mental and financial toll this takes on you is immense. you blame yourself for being vain. to be clear, i don't think plastic surgery is bad. it just didn't work out for me.
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letters
i was bullied in school. kind of a mean girl situation, so it wasn't physical, it was more about gossip and having your reputation ruined. when you want to close some wounds from your childhood, it's been said you should write a letter to someone who wronged you. you can send it to them or not, but at least getting it out will help you heal and have closure. i did this. i was unable to reach out to one of the girls. i had heard that earlier that year she had taken her own life. you would think one would rejoice in hearing their school bully is now gone. but that wasn't the case. i wept for her. i wish i could have given her an immense hug. by the time i had found out that she had done this, i was deep into my own depression. it doesn't excuse the bullying i experienced. but my empathy for what she may have been dealing with was enough closure for me. i pray she is in peace now.
digits
breaking a bone when you're an adult sucks. breaking a bone when you're in middle school or high school is awesome. everyone wants to know what happened. everyone signs your cast. you get your books carried. you basically become a celebrity for like a week. i broke a bone in the 6th grade. we were playing catch during p.e. and while trying to catch the ball, it somehow bounced off my left pinky and broke it. i didn't realize it was broken until i walked over to the teacher and explained to them, that for some reason my finger wasn't going back to it's original place. the horror on their face made me realize maybe this was serious. my pinky was loosely dangling on the side of my hand. my mom had to pick me up from school so i could go to the hospital and get it looked at. i did not get a cool cast. my sister told me by the end of the day she had heard i was in a full body cast from an injury at p.e. i shyly said, no, i just caught a nerf ball (yes, you read that right, a nerf ball) the wrong way at p.e...no celebrity week for me.
tick tock
i used to have 3 fibroids. they had been growing over time and had really started to mess with my menstrual cycles. my gyno had suggested i remove them. i agreed and we scheduled the surgery. in 2018 they took a wire through my wrist (yes, it is done through the wrist....i know), up my arm and down my body into my uterus and removed the 3 fibroids. the risk with having this surgery is you may not be able to carry a child or it will become very difficult to keep the pregnancy. people always tell me i would be a great mother. thank you. i love kids. always wanted them. that was before this surgery. now, when people ask 'but don't you want kids?' i say no. because to say yes and not be able to have them, or continue to have more losses in my life, would break my heart. while we are on the subject...please stop telling women they are running out of time to have a child. you never know the back story as to why they don't have them.
technicolor yawn
i have anismus. (hard time taking a shit, read prior post) there are times when it gets so bad, i won't have a bowel movement for weeks. the thing with this is, i don't lose my appetite. i still get hungry. i eat. it piles up. my abdomen gets distended often. it is quite painful. one day when i was about 16 or 17 years old. i was having one of these bad episodes. it had been over 2 weeks. one of my mother's friends had come over to our house and was listening about my woes. she said, well if it can't come out of the basement, make it come out of the attic. she then proceeded to explain how one does this. so, with a bit of waggling, there was success. and i did feel relief. this one moment would develop into a subsequent 12 year eating disorder. i won't glorify it or make it sound like it helped me, it was futile. but i didn't see it that way in those years. i convinced myself it wasn't bulimia because i didn't do it daily, i would only do this in moments of despair, which wasn't daily but it was often enough to know it was becoming a problem. i honestly don't even think any one of my friends or family noticed, i hid it so well.
imprint
when you're raised in an abusive household it creates an arduous life. this will affect everything you do. more importantly it will create the foundation for how you approach romantic relationships as an adult by and by. i was grateful it never got to the point of hospitalization. but the mental and physical abuse was dispiriting. it slowly chips away at your self-esteem and eats away at your soul. you feel worthless. it also at times, sets you up to fail in more ways than one in life. i am not a parent but i cannot imagine hurting a child. this is one take away i have, all my siblings, we do not harm children in any way because we experienced this and vowed to never do the same.
disturbance
as stated before, i grew up in an abusive household. when this happens, you tell yourself, you will never allow this to happen in a romantic relationship. you will never date someone who puts their hands on you. you don't want to be abused. you know that isn't how you show love. however, deep in your subconscious this isn't the truth. things get jumbled in your brain, your self-esteem is low and you want to be loved. you leave one abusive situation and enter another. is it because deep down you thought this is what it meant to be loved? or is it because there is a sense of comfort in the way you were treated? i don't know. but i know that i entered into a 6 year abusive relationship immediately after i left home and started college. is it what i had wanted? no. is it all i had known? yes.
paradise
this page wasn't created to talk about my job or experiences i've had at work. people always ask for the best (meaning worst) experiences i've had when it comes to customers and what they do. i work on an airplane, so naturally you see a lot of things to say the least. on this particular flight we were flying from north to south, the destination being an island. on this flight there was a little boy probably around age 10, traveling with his mother and his uncle. i didn't ask the details of what had happened to him, but this little boy was missing the upper part of his face. he had his mouth and the bottom half of his nostrils. from nostrils up however, i can only describe it as if his face had been sunken in. no eyes or eye sockets. that part of his face was just not there. so of course, he could not see. the family was very sweet and pleasant but this little boy stole my heart. he was so full of life, just absolutely jovial. he was sitting at the window seat. when we landed he put his face towards the window smiled, clapped with excitement and said "yes! i can feel the warmth and the ocean and the palm trees, it's so beautiful uncle, it's so beautiful." after we deplaned i went into the restroom and cried. i cried, not because i felt sorry for this boy, but because given his circumstances, he was still, by far, one of the happiest children i had ever seen in my life. you try to understand how you yourself can be so depressed when you have it "all" and you feel immense guilt for feeling the way you do. you try to be as jovial and optimistic about life, like that little boy was but you just can't seem to get there and you don't know why you can't. i always think of him on my darkest days. i hope he is still as happy as he was that day.
cupid's curse
i was engaged once. it should've been a happy time but it was not. the relationship wasn't the worse one i'd been in but it wasn't great either. we were together 6 months before he proposed. i have many stories but this one in particular i can never forget. we had just finished being intimate and i had gone to the bathroom to shower. all of a sudden i was keeled over in pain. i had the most sudden severe pain in my abdomen. i could not stand up-right to walk. we ended up rushing to the emergency room. they had clearly seen this before because they were in no rush to treat me with anything. they asked a few questions, took an std test and then sent me on my way. turns out my fiancé had gifted me with chlamydia. i know you're thinking well, maybe you already had it. i assure i didn't. i get tested before every new partner, specifically for reasons like this. my fiancé at the time, had never gotten an std test. it does get cured after a round of antibiotics. needless to say, he was not the man of my dreams.
if you or someone you know is in a crisis. help is available. suicide and crisis lifeline is available 24 hours a day. call or text 988 or call 1-800-273-TALK(8255).
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if you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can contact the national sexual assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE(4673) or go to rainn.org.