Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul
Through book events, poetry, and creativity, we dive a little deeper into humanity.
Just an afterthought in your mind
when I hold something you need.
Otherwise we never meet eyes
and you despise the likes of me.
Never will it come to an understanding.
This cycle will never end.
Since I’m the trash you take out and forget
the moment my usefulness ends.
Lately, I don’t know if it is because of the age group we have reached or if it is something else, but there have been more and more suicides in our community. When I say community, I am meaning friends or family of our peers or our peers themselves. Maybe it is because of Facebook and the better access we now have to what is going on in people’s lives that we are more aware of this sad and tragic occurrence happening more often. I really don’t know if it truly is more common now, or if it always has been, but either way it always comes as a shock that shakes us to our core. What I do know though is that the pain the victim feels is real and that it is a hard and difficult struggle between life and themselves in those moments before they decide to take their own life or decide to continue living. I know it is difficult for many to understand and that the concept or thought of taking your own life is unfathomable, but people do at moments deeply feel like the world does not need them and that everyone around them would be better off without them. There are moments that people feel too worn down and weak mentally to keep carrying on the road that they are on and see no other way out of their pain. These are three poems I wrote the day after I found out that there was one suicide attempt and one successful suicide that happened on the same night. It frightened me more so than usual because that same night I was also struggling like I have many times before. It was and still is eerie to me that in a small area so many people were feeling and contemplating the same things. I feel like I can manage the thoughts decently enough since I have battled them on and off for many years. After awhile for me it just becomes a nuisance and a focus on the duties in life I have and need to complete, because what helps carry me through is all the things I know I still need and want to accomplish and that I want to be around to hold my children for as long as I can. Also looking at all the times that I had thought the same thoughts and have come close to the same dreadful end along with the fact that I am still here helps pull me through knowing that it gets better. The more you fight it, the stronger you become towards those thoughts in my belief.
I Was Almost You
I was almost you…
I saw your name today and realized I never knew you,
but yet I did.
We were in the same place last night.
We were lost in the same unforgiving darkness
willing to take a life.
We were both struggling hard
trying to hold onto any amount of breath we could breathe.
We were trying to forgive ourselves,
trying too hard to please.
For a moment the thought flickered across our feeble minds,
but that moment was too long for you,
that moment was your time.
Now today I’m alive and breathing my normal breathes.
Shocked that you were in the same place as me.
Yet, I never would have guessed.
Maybe if we could have called out to each other,
desperate souls trying hard to see.
I would have found you
and you would now be alive with me.
I look to the face this morning
of my little baby girl
and realize that no amount of darkness
should be allowed to take us from this world.
Why Without Goodbyes?
It’s crazy how common it is,
the thing that flashes through my mind.
To give up when you still have fifty years to live.
To give up and take your life.
I cannot understand how hard it is,
even though I’ve visited more than twice.
Why it is never completely possible to fight it.
Why we give in without goodbyes.
I don’t get why when we are in the deepest of our lows,
how hard it is to realize that we have so much more time to grow.
That in that amount of time things can get better than we even believe.
Why do we not ever give it the chance?
Why do we not take our time and breathe?
Monster in the Town
Was there something in our town last night?
Something searching for souls.
Something trying to dive into the weakest of minds,
trying to make people let go.
Who knows how many people tried to come to their lives’ end.
I know that at least one succeeded, and that it almost had my head.
Everlasting Rest
She’s weak, she’s tired.
There’s nothing no more.
She’s helpless and lost,
once called a whore.
She eats, she pukes,
no more her best.
She’s dying, she’s slipping,
everlasting rest.
Had to return to the sad stuff from the past today, especially since last night was an extra hard night for me. But the good thing to come out of the sad past is looking at it and realizing how far you have come and that you had made it even when you had thought that you wouldn’t. So if you ever think that you can’t make it now or if you have a relapse, you can remember what you had made it through before and know that you have it in you to do it again.
Lately, I have been having such a hard time even looking at some of my sad poems from my past. So here are two more nice ones for the week ❤ And isn’t this picture wonderful and amazing!!! Crazy the beautiful and odd things you see out in the country, even just on the drive home.
Mixtures
A bloom, a blossom.
A farewell, a goodbye.
A hello, a dying flower.
A smile, a guy.
All come in mixtures,
some sad and some gloom,
but when all put together
people are happy as loons.
Dependent Love
She’s happy, only when she’s with him.
He warms her heart, and she lets him in.
Protects her soul from doing horrible things.
He is her life, the reason she breathes.
I love you so much,
words can’t express.
Your eyes, your voice, your heart,
things I won’t forget.
You make my soul complete.
Make my life worth while.
Without you things would be,
worse than they have for a while.
I want you here with me.
When we dance, dreams come true.
Never want you to leave.
I swear I’m in love with you.
A light poem for today ❤ One I made in high school ❤
I’m going to keep on the happy stuff this week because what is better than when you are sad and trying to get out of a funk than writing happy things? 🙂 This week has been pretty emotional and hard. Maybe I will make it evident later why it has been, but that isn’t important right now. So I will leave you with kind of cute poem that I wrote when I was younger before I met my husband. I’m not positive if I was dating anyone at the time, but I guess I made my own little brief happy ending with whoever was in my thoughts at the time.
They went through heartache
in pain and in grief.
They separated for a while,
but then realized what they need.
He needed her.
She made him smile each day.
She needed him.
With him, nightmares go away.
They finally came back
to each other “they do”,
and now they’re happily married
ending their doom.
So the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with in my whole life so far has been an eating disorder. I fought, lost, and dealt with it for nine long horrible years. I finally was able to beat it, if you can call it that since it still lingers, and have been “clean” for almost two years and eight months now. It is seriously amazing how different you view things and how much easier it is to enjoy life and everything around you when you are not fighting for your life against your body and your mind. I am beyond thankful to my husband because without him I seriously would not have been able to make it this far. He never gave me an ultimatum, but just stood by my side, gave me stability, and was there to comfort me and talk to me when I needed it, even if that meant countless hours of talking me through the same things over and over again. Now I am more happy with myself than I have been in my entire life, and I am beginning to love myself and see myself as a friend instead of an enemy. So, here are some of the poems that I did while battling the disorder near the beginning. To give you a time reference it all started near the end of seventh grade or in the summer after seventh grade when I completely stopped eating and would work out until I would pass out. I had many scares and even would pass out on the side of the road during a run. That was scary because before then I’ve never seen a road come up to meet you in the face before you blacked out, but then without even knowing that it was a thing I started eating again and throwing up. Which landed me in the hospital after a while when I wasn’t able keep water down anymore. My blood pressure was 70/40 and I weighed 92 pounds. Then I was sent to rehab, which didn’t do anything for me because I was the only one in the place with an eating disorder, and as soon as I got out my mom took me out for pizza, and then on the way home I had her pull over and I threw up again. After that everything went from there with me even eating food out of dumpsters sometimes and wasting any money I could get a hold of to buy food from gas stations at one or two in the morning while everyone was sleeping and finding anywhere I could to hide to binge and purge. I would do it at family gatherings. I would do it when friends and family were were just in the other room. Anywhere and anytime I could find, I would do it. Sometimes it would even get way more than up to twenty times a day. Once I could drive, well then that didn’t help at all, and it was nine beyond horrible years that this went on that I wish I could take back. But now I weigh around 140 pounds 🙂 sometimes even 145 if I do a super heavy weight program for a few months, and I feel healthier and happier than ever and am super ecstatic to be as far away from that nightmare as I am now because I never thought I would be.
She’s so confused.
So lost in her head.
Thinking weight is what matters,
so she’s sinking in dread.
She knows she’s killing herself,
but she just can’t quit.
She feels bad with what she’s doing,
but see’s no way out of it.
Shes scared to eat anything,
yet wants it so much.
Getting into everything
and making it come up.
Why can’t she control herself?
Why can’t she just quit?
There’s so many people praying for her
trying to get her out of it.
But she knows she can’t do it,
unless she helps herself.
She has to learn to eat
and stop swimming in doubt.
She wants a good future,
but know it will never come
if she keeps going down this road
not finding a way up.
(A second poem I wrote in my journal right after that)
It’s such a mix-up,
Which way should I go?
Should I go with my fear
and let everything show?
Should I not eat at all
in worry of weight?
Or should I have it all?
It’s never too late.
I could purge it up later
and go out for a run.
Ugh… I want chocolate,
or do I want none?
Ugh! What’s with my mind?
Why can’t I think?
Can think only of food.
Can do nothing but freak.
No, I can’t have anything.
Got to lose weight.
But come on, it’s delicious
it’s got to be fate.
I know I’m addicted.
Addicted to food,
but I’m also scared of it.
Could that happen too?
Why am I all three?
Why not just one.
Why do I have to starve, binge, and purge?
Why can’t I be none?
(Poem I have done after “beating” the disorder for more than a couple of years. I’m afraid it will always be there waiting for me, but with knowing that I know that each year I just have to get stronger in my mind, with my self image, and with my relationship with myself.)
It lingers
awaiting
awaiting the fall.
Will you give in
and just lose it all?
Will you let all your hard work
suffer in disgrace,
when you pick up the infliction
and lose all your faith?
(A picture of when I was admitted to the hospital. They brought in a dog to try to raise my blood pressure.)
Regaining Lost Aspects: Mind and Soul 