There’s some pretty big gaps in time, but it’s not too bad. I haven’t been able to look at most of my photos from 2008-2020 since I’ve been in recovery for my eating disorder, so there were some interesting memories brought up here and there, but I’m good.
I think looking at the overall timeline of very brief moments in my timeline kind of help me remember things in order. With PTSD, a lot of my memories from those years are kind of blurred. These photos really helped validate my experiences too.
I only recently learned that I had been seeing life through a fragmented lens. I truly believed I was not thin enough, and certainly never fucking pretty enough. It was never something I was “just saying”, but looking back at these photos, I can tell why people would think that I was making it up. It’s so much more obvious to some one with a healthier mind to see that I was clearly unwell. But I can tell you from the bottom of my heart, I never thought I looked thin. I never liked what I looked like. I have never once felt in my life like I was skinny enough. I never reached my goal, because I was in the hospital before I could get there. My body would just not let me get down to 65lbs, and it seriously tortured me. I was reminded that even at 70 pounds, I was embarrassed by the size of my legs. That does sound absurd to me now, but I felt it strongly then. And I feel it strongly now. Because I will live with this disorder forever. But we carry on.
Of course ED steals the show! So aside from the darker days, observing the timeline made me feel good. I still feel like a failure, and like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, or if it’s even important or am I just wasting time… every single day. And obviously I’m still butting heads with my more critical side. But backing up and looking at all the parts put together in a big timeline leaves me feeling so grateful for everything that has made me who I am today.
I’m where I always wanted to be, but it took me a while to believe that I deserved to be. It’s good to be home ❤
ptsd
To Lost Time 🍻
So, I’m putting together a project involving my photos from the past 20 years, and I’m only 1/4 of the way looking through them at this point in time. It’s a project I’ve been wanting to start for years, but I get overwhelmed when I start going through my pictures, there are a lot of painful memories.
An interesting thing I noticed is that the photos of me seem like they’re not me, and I really don’t remember looking like that. I don’t remember much from those years, which they say is normal with eating disorder patients. Apparently you need to eat regularly for your brain to work! Who knew?
I think back and I’m ashamed of nearly everything. Mostly how I treated others. I hate that my eating disorder was always top priority for me, and I had decided to just wait around until it’d kill me. I hate that I let it take over everything.
Your real life, your relationships, they get blurred so that your disorder can stay in focus, and it’s fucked up. I’m still working on not blaming myself for that. I’m still working on not thinking I’m a selfish piece of shit.
But now that I’ve been working on integrating myself more, and practicing self compassion (barf) I see this person much differently than I used to. I don’t hate her anymore, I’m not disgusted by her appearance, I can’t sit here and pick her apart, because I honestly can’t think of much.
I just want to help her, because I know she’s really hurt, confused and lost. But I also know she is stubborn and likes to learn things the hard way, and get hurt, and fuck everything up on her own damn time.
wtf.
Flashback Blues
You Can Learn a lot of Things from the Flowers
For especially in the month of June! ❤️
poem/digital/06/2026
All the Black
Cat Clyde
”All the Black”
Found you in the trash
Huddled in a corner
Across from me
You held out your hand
Told me not to be frightened
You explained how we’d been thrown away
So I let you take me home
This may be killing us
But at least it kills the pain
If i could soak up all the black
I would soak up all the black
Stayed the night
Told the moonlight I was scared
And that I loved you
And i know you know this life is shit
But maybe I could keep you company
This may killing us
But at least it kills the pain
If I could soak up all the black
I would soak up all the black
This may be killing us
But at least it kills the pain
If I could soak up all the black
I would soak up all the black
Lets roll a joint and walk outside
I miss the sunshine
I miss the sunshine
I miss the sunshine
I miss the sunshine
This may killing us
But at least it kills the pain
If I could soak up all the black
I would soak up all the black
This may be killing us
But at least it kills the pain
If I could soak up all the black
I would soak up all the black
recents
still going strong(-ish?)
I spent the entire hour of my last therapy session trying not to cry while crying my face off. You know, when you’re trying so hard not to, that it makes it so much worse?
I forget that I’m still recovering. I forget that these things take time. And that some days will be really, really hard.
But you just keep going. Always.
Word Association
Just a cool breeze
with an artificial coconut scent.
Body Glitter.
Shitty apartment,
Next to a corn field.
Hawiaan-themed bedroom,
Darkened.
Caved in eyes and
Crooked Teeth.
I can tell you are unsafe, so
How’d I end up here?
Body Glitter.
Lip Gloss.
Jean MF Watkins and
All that Bacardi.
Car crash.
Glass sparkling.
Crying,
Glitter tears.
Screaming at the sky.
Glitter stars.
Looking for God
No one answers.
Staring at the ceiling.
I mean nothing.
Grandpa’s house.
Ice Cream, silent ‘r’
Strawberries from the garden.
The hot sun,
Whiskey and ice cubes rattle.
The dead snakes,
The ones still alive, slithering in blood.
That hot rotten death smell.
His watch,
Ticking with his heartbeat.
His funeral.
That light you saw,
It was real.
You’ve seen it once before
And one time after.
Only once you saw it before,
At that open casket
He didn’t look like himself
That can’t be him.
His dad held his body and cried.
Screamed with a reddened face.
“My boy. Not my boy.”
What is this? Who are we?
I thought we all went to heaven once, but that wasn’t true,
I thought nothing happened then, but that ‘s not true either.
If the truth is only what we make it, how do I know it’s true?
That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?
I don’t know who I am.
One gramma fat and a
Tweety bird balloon.
How long can skeletons survive?
That gross look of sympathy.
Humiliation.
Self deprecating jokes, body shame and
Cancer eating monsters.
I really thought I could save you.
I wanted so bad to save her.
I prayed more than anyone had ever prayed.
I begged.
Pleaded.
That smiling little girl.
“There is no God,” she said.
But we already knew.
The process I used here was to first get into a meditative state.
Once I felt grounded, I took note of my surroundings.
Then moved on to how I felt in my body. How it felt to be in my body.
Once I finally reach a state of, well, I’m not sure what its official name is, but I describe it as a place where it is absolutely silent. My inner stillness, if you will.
Here I sit. and once I pick up on something, like a word, or phrase, I allow my mind to take off without limitation. Whatever comes up, goes down on paper.
Sunday smatterings
As I continue to heal, I’ve been noticing a lot of interesting coincidences that aren’t really coincidences at all. I’ve started to notice a subtle shift in my thinking, less chaotic, almost organized patterns of thinking. Things are much clearer lately, and I’ve noticed a deeper connection between all things occurring in time. There is a subtle magic or mystique about everything, as if I were seeing things through a child’s eyes again.
I’ve been picking up on the work that my therapist has been doing with me is a sort of Jungian concept. I think the official name of it is trigger tracking. It focuses on conscious dialogue with unconscious “dark” or repressed parts to achieve wholeness and reduce psychological projection. His shadow work is just brilliant. I would consider myself an absolute beginner in all of it, but I think that guy knows a thing or two.
There are these little signs that pop up, almost like messages from the universe, and I think we all have the decision to dismiss them as nothing at all, or observe them with curious wonderment. I have always just kept note of them, never putting too much weight into them, but also not disregarding them completely. They’ve been appearing a lot more frequently lately, making these very clear signs that I need to put effort into and pay attention to what they’re trying to communicate.
In any case, it seems I am on the “right” path. It’s only human to question this from time to time, I suppose. And of course, there’s the acknowledgement that what may be the “right” path now, may seem “wrong” at some point in time. And that’s just part of the bigger path that we cannot see. Perhaps? 🤔
Anyway, to put it simply, I’m really happy ❤️ in a holistic way. Have a nice day!
CCN 