Therapy Tactics - Relapsing

Relapsing is the reason why I have written so many poems. Like I said in the beginning, poetry is like an emotional time capsule. You can go back and see what you've felt and how you've handled it. The important part being that you have handled it before which means you can do it again. In this way writing poetry can be more useful than talking it out. Talking it out is important for immediate processing with immediate feedback and support, but writing it down is providing yourself with future therapy.

You are your greatest enemy and your greatest ally. You might have hurt yourself, but you also stopped yourself. You might have hurt yourself again, but you can also stop yourself again. You're the only one with the power when it comes to relapsing. You can have friends who help and support you, but it's ultimately up to you. It's not easy. In fact, it's one the hardest damn things in the world. We all wrestle with ourselves, but it's not alway so physical and painful as relapsing.

But relapsing means you have already survived. You have already defeated your demons. You can't always vanquish them. They keep coming back from time to time and sometimes they win. And that doesn't make it any easier, but your poetry time capsules can. It's not a pep talk. It's not you can do better next time. It's acknowledging that this is hard. That you've already been hurt, that you've been hurting all this time. It didn't go away. It may never go away. And you know that. You embrace that. You embrace the pain and the comfort together. The pain of yesterday can become the comfort for tomorrow to ease the hurt of today.

This is relapsing. This is the two steps back after the three steps forward. It might seem like you're undoing all the progress you've made, but it's not. Every time you fall down is a chance to get back up quicker. It might be years, but before you know it, you'll regain your balance and forget that you fell so many times. You won't forget that you fell. It's important to remember your lowest points so you can see just how far you've grown. But the further you advance, the smaller it looks. The pain is there, but it's not tempting anymore. It's an isolated memory not an itching thought.

Seeing other people recover and working with them is important. But it means so much more to go back and read your work and see how much you have recovered. That you turned your bane into beauty and you can do it again. And grow your portfolio at the same time. I look back through my hundreds of poems and feel all the pain I felt, but it hurts less each time. And the more you write, the more you can see your growth. Some of my most painful poems aren't my first ones. They're the ones in the middle. Growth isn't a straight line. Sometimes you get worse before you get better, but you have to stay the course. It's better than just giving up.

Keep up the fight. Keep writing. Spill ink not blood. Choose to live to at least tomorrow because something is better than nothing.

I Think I Love You: Part 2

I Want To Know You Love Me

It was only a couple months later that I realized I really liked this new girl at my school. But Ariel didn't really like that I also liked guys. She might have been more confused that I was. I had a girlfriend in junior high but that was my attempt to “force” myself to be straight and to cover up the little crush I had on Elijah before we were friends. I did like Lily but not as more than friends. But I liked Ariel more than I had liked Dustin or Elijah. But I screwed it up by being honest about my feelings. I wrote just as many poems about her than my secret crush on my straight best friend. I stuffed some notes into her locker. Because I could. Because that was normal. And I desperately wanted to be normal. But normal is both relative and overrated. For me, liking guys felt more normal. She was the exception. The one I would “go straight for.” I had hoped that Elijah would be my friend again when I told him I liked a girl now, but he burned that bridged with no hope of reconstruction. 

I lost my best friend, my boyfriend cheated on me, and then my dream girl straight up rejected me. So I gave up on relationships and “Snapchatted" back every guy who flashed me a smile and dropped his pants. But all I really wanted was to hear the "I love you’s" even if they were void of love. It's not like I was going to hear it from someone who actually loved me because they had all abandoned me. So eventually I decided that if I was going to keep screwing around, I might as well fuck up my life all the way. Literally. I thought having sex was normal. I thought sex was the ultimate expression of what love should be, and I so desperately wanted love. So I thought I could skip straight to that climax, but it didn't feel normal for me. Even kissing felt wrong like it was against my nature. With a little soul searching and research I figured out that I'm pan-romantic asexual. So now how am I suppose to find someone who's as fucked up as I am who would also be ok with a sexless love life?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm even capable of love. My girlfriend, my best friend, my boyfriend, my dream girl. I don't think I was in love with them as much as I was in love with the idea of being in love. Everyone seems so desperate to find love. It’s what all the books and movies are all about. So I thought it was normal for me to want it too. But it took me fucking up one last time to finally be in a place where I’m ok with not being normal. And I'm really ok if I never find this love everyone else is chasing after.

    
I’m more than ok with being single. I no longer feel the need to measure my happiness with “I love you’s.” In contemplative retrospect, I was happiest when I was with Elijah, my best friend, you know, before he was bigoted. He never said “I love you.” He didn’t have to. I knew he loved me by his actions. I’m not looking for another Dustin who’s just as screwed up as I am. I’m not looking for another Ariel so that I can feel normal. I’m looking for another Elijah, a better Elijah. A true best friend. Someone I trust and love enough to share my every secret. Someone who will never give up on me. Someone I’m willing to fight for. 

Our hormones tell us that we can find love in sex. Our parents tell us that we will find love in marriage and giving them grandchildren. Society tell us that we can find love in romance and relationships. Our friends show us what love really is. I’m a 21-year-old senior in college about to graduate and enter the “real world.” I don’t need to hear “I love you’s” anymore. I need to see it in my friends who will stick by me till the end. It's not the love I always wanted. It’s the love I always needed. 

Soul Sharing - Relapsing

I've relapsed so many times. I lost count of how many times I've attempted suicide after the 6th grade. I've lost count of how many times I've cut after that one week I cut 10 lines on each arm and leg each night. I've can't remember how many meals I've skipped or forced myself to throw up.

I've never been one to write down or remember important days or milestones. Birthdays and holidays aren't even that big of a deal to me. But I wish I could remember the last time I've cut, the last time I threw up on purpose, the last time I seriously considered suicide. I'd through myself a party every year, hell, every month. When something has so much power over your life for so many years, that victory, every victory however small the increment, is worth celebrating.

Relapsing is one of the worst feelings in the world. Even if it's only after a day, I've been trying to stop. I've been trying to be better, to get better. And then I lost myself to myself. I felt so defeated, hopeless that I'd never fully recover. No one else can know how much effort I put in to not doing something that was my default therapy. No one else even knows that I screwed up again, or even in the first place. No one else knows and that's what makes it so hard. It was all on me. I didn't have a sponsor. I didn't have anyone. It was the world against me. But I just had to be that much stronger. And I'm not strong. I became strong. I found a courage inside myself that I didn't know was there. A courage, a strength that's in all of us. We just need help and time to find it again after so long of forgetting it for whatever reason.

I'm only a few years clean. Maybe less for certain things. The pain, the memory, the temptation are all fresh. I still have to be careful. I still have to guard myself, my heart and mind. I have to keep a careful watch my emotions. I have to know my limits and avoid certain situations. I'm good and getting better, but I'm not completely free. I may never be. But at least now I know I can win.

Miley Cyrus and a Call to Action

"Nobody's Perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has those days." Yes, that's Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana). Lately it seemed like Miley was having some of those days for quite some time. I liked Hannah Montana because it was Disney and I like Disney. You can say what you want and judge all the questionable activity of Miley, but there's more to the story. You can read the story here at The Daily Dot and Out Magazine. But basically Miley came out as non-binary (but not explicitly genderqueer). Hence, my avoidance of pronouns.  On a social level it's wonderful to have such a famous young icon for non-binary children/teens to look to. Not necessarily emulate everything, but that they now have a voice, a face, that the world can't ignore. Furthermore Miley started a charity The Happy Hippie Foundation that "rallies young people to fight injustice" and is dedicated to helping the homeless LGBT youth.

So this really got me thinking. All these issues that I've been writing about (identity struggles, depression, mental illness, suicide, self-harming, etc.) are more than just feelings to process or conversations to be had. These are as real as the air you breathe and food you eat. They are a constant and daily occurrence whether in your life or a friend's or the person you see on the street. In the side bar to the right I have a small list of different hotlines and information under Helpful Resources. I'll continue to add to it as I come across more resources, but that's for when you're on my blog, on the internet. What can you do when it's that person on the street that needs help? Directing them to my blog or any other online resource isn't the best option. When you're outside in the real world, you need immediate access to real people who can help in real time.

I live in NYC and I see people in need every day on the streets and in the subway. And then there are so many more than simply don't show any immediate physical signs of needing help or don't ask for it. Life is hard. And I'm not rich. As much as I would like, I can't even give a quarter to every single person I see in need. And it breaks my heart to the point where I've gone numb and blind. And we New Yorkers are always in a rush. We don't have the time. We don't think we have the time. Sometimes all it could take is one phone call to save a life, and I'm not talking about 9-1-1. At the very least give a smile. Treat them as the equal human beings that they are.

I challenge you to add these numbers and address to your phone contacts. It takes a few seconds now, and by tomorrow you'll forget that they're there. But when the time comes you'll be prepared to step in and make a difference. I'm doing this right now with you. Here are some NYC information and some of the links have information for other cities as well.

Homelessness:
Covenant House New York (homeless, runaway, at-risk youth)
460 West 41st StreetNew York, NY 10036(212) 613-0300

Bowery Mission227 Bowery, New York, NY 10002(212) 674-3456

Domestic Violence: Safe Horizon Hotline: 800.621.HOPE (4673)

Suicide/Crisis: The Samaritans: (212) 673-3000

Human Trafficking Hotline: 1 (800) 373-7888

Artistic Tips - Repetition Repetition Repetition

Repetition is a really useful literary device. Repetition is a really fun literary device. Repetition can be a really annoying literary device. Repetition is useful in creating a specific rhythm, connecting lines or ideas, making a phrase stick out as memorable, and making it easier to memorize. Repetition is fun because it makes it catchy and it's easy to get into both as a writer and a reader. Repetition can be annoying if it's overused like probably by this sentence you're annoyed at the repetition of the word repetition.

Here's a quick glossary of different types of repetition.

Anaphora - repetition of the first part of a sentence
Epistrophe - repetition of the end of a sentence
Refrain - a phrase, line, or group of lines regularly repeated throughout a poem, usually at the end of a stanza

Alliteration, assonance, and consonance are repetition of sounds which I have defined in last week's Artistic Tips.

I use "I am" and "I'm" as anaphoras for the first and fifth stanza (also "I can"). Stanza 2 and 6 are the same stanza. This is loose definition of a refrain since it's only repeated twice and is an entire stanza in such a short poem. In a song it might be considered the chorus. But in the theme of the poem of relapsing, the same exact words carry a different meaning because of the change in context. "It" in stanza 3 is an example of an epistrophe. It's an excuse to rhyme a word with itself. But it also works well because of the assonance in "damn" and "had." "Good" and "golden" are an example of alliteration, and "better" and "embolden" are an example of consonance.

"Relapse"

I’m good. I’m golden.
I’m better. I’m embolden.
I can do this. I am steady.
I am driven. I am ready.

Day after day. Step by step.
I’m working hard to rebuild my rep.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
But I will do my best to not be vexed.

Damn it.
I had it.
All together again.
I had found my zen.

Now I’m back.
Exposed to attack.
It all happened so very, very fast.
I thought the last time was really the last.

I’m not okay. I’m broken.
I’m battered. I’m choking.
I can’t do this. I’m shaking.
I am trapped. I am breaking.

Day after day. Step by step.
I’m working hard to rebuild my rep.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
But I will do my best to not be vexed.

It's all in the initials - Who Am I? (part 5)

Ok so here is where I’m edging closer to darkness. Now I’m going to preface that I love my family and have actually cleared up this issue, but here are my unfiltered thoughts.

As you may have noticed, my initials are DW. Now I think most of you might remember the PBS show Arthur, and that he had a little sister called DW. Anyways let’s just say that I was around 5 years old. So here’s the traumatic childhood experience. My mom and brother tease me about having the same initials as the girl on the stupid PBS show. I’m a little kid and easily upset and offended. I tell them to stop but they don’t. Little did they know that in that moment I was deeply scarred. I’m trying to be a boy as best as I can even though I’m not as good as it as my older brother. And all I’m hearing is that as hard as I’m trying I’m still like a girl and that’s something to laugh about. Oh and why in this situation am I like a girl? Because my freaking name. You fucking gave me the initials DW. I had no say in the matter. Even linguistically my first name has only one rare female counterpart. So you’re telling me that because this fictional character goes by her initials that makes my initials feminine. That’s just stupid bullying. But wait, here’s the kicker than makes it so much worse. I don’t think they knew I overheard or that I was old enough to understand, but a while back I heard them say how my mom wanted one boy and then one girl. So as the little son who’s pretty damn good at counting, let’s see my brother came first. One boy, check. Then came me, oh fuck, I’m not a girl. Are you saying you want me to be a girl or that you would rather have a girl than me. So I was a mistake? Not like a oops where did that baby come from or a bastard/love child. Nope. They wanted another child, they just didn’t want me because I was the wrong gender. So you can see how that can screw with a five-year-old struggle to be a real boy and the potential (and eventually realized) psychological repercussions those careless but very sharp words were. Maybe the worst part, the part that made it all too real, was that they picked out a name for the her that wasn’t me. Abigail. It made me feel like I killed me twin sister in the womb. Like I killed this Abigail. Except she was never there. It was just me. DW. So for the longest time I resented being called by my initials even when all the guys in high school went through a phase were they called each other by their initials. (So another way I wasn’t able to be one of the guys.)

So let this being a warning, a cautionary tale if you will, that you should be careful what you say to or in front of your child at ages that you think they won’t remember because maybe they won’t but what if they do. And as you can see I took something that might have been small for my parents, but it was freaking the biggest bombshell of my little lifetime. And I think I did an ok job at explaining why I was insulted in being called a girl. It was screwing with my gender identity. It wasn’t this patriarchal dictation that being like a girl is bad thing. Totally a feminist here. And I think I’ll keep saying this, but girls are freaking awesome. And this whole story came back to me recently because this BuzzFeed article popped up on my Facebook newsfeed: 23 Times D.W. Was The Realist Bitch Who Ever Lived And I am now completely proud to be have been compared to this little girl from a PBS show.

Poetry - Relapse

Relapse

I’m good. I’m golden.
I’m better. I’m embolden.
I can do this. I am steady.
I am driven. I am ready.

Day after day. Step by step.
I’m working hard to rebuild my rep.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
But I will do my best to not be vexed.

Damn it.
I had it.
All together again.
I had found my zen.

Now I’m back.
Exposed to attack.
It all happened so very, very fast.
I thought the last time was really the last.

I’m not okay. I’m broken.
I’m battered. I’m choking.
I can’t do this. I’m shaking.
I am trapped. I am breaking.

Day after day. Step by step.
I’m working hard to rebuild my rep.
I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
But I will do my best to not be vexed.

Therapy Tactics (self-harming) - How TV Saved Me: Don't try this at home (part 2)

This is how a Canadian show saved my life. Degrassi was one of the many, many shows I wasn’t allowed to watch. I also wasn’t allowed to go to movie theaters, not even to watch Winnie the fucking Pooh Bear. So because I knew my parents were simply wrong on that account, I decided I should throw out all the other rules too. Degrassi was on TeenNick so I saw all the commercial while watching regular Nick shows (also wasn’t allowed to watch Spongebob or Drake & Josh). So yeah, if case you didn’t know Degrassi is basically a high school soap drama, but shows real life problems and situations. It’s not Disneyfied to always have a magical happy ending. There’s a school shooting. Someone dies. The school mourns and it shows every stage of grief. A girl gets pregnant. We watch her struggle between choosing to keep the baby or have an abortion and how her friends and family react. So it is pretty hard to find a tv character that you can relate to 100%, but with so many characters I was able to relate to a few different characters that covered all my major bases. There were two bases that were not covered anywhere else in my limited knowledge of the whole world. One, there was a gay guy. Now days that’s not a huge surprise. Maybe not on Disney channel, but most shows now have at least one token gay character. Even Friends had a Lesbian wedding. But here was a gay guy about my age who struggled with coming out. His parents were homophobic. They kicked him out when they found out he was gay. I had that fear from the beginning. So that meant a lot to me to see someone facing the same real world shit I was dealing with. And they even follow his story with the all the normal struggles of dating. The same things you see on every show with straight people. It’s really not that different. It was refreshing to see that I have a chance at finding love and all its pain and suffering just like everyone else.

The second and more time sensitive and extremely controversial thing was seeing someone on screen self-harm. I hadn’t tried that yet.

Super Gender Roles - Who Am I? (part 4)

Like I said I was an inquisitive and imaginative little kid, but I was different. I liked superheroes. I really liked superheroes. Even before I had real friends, I played make-believe which now that I think about it is basically Live Action Role Playing, but when you’re kids it’s more socially acceptable which is something I learned on my own as I transitioned into junior high. At the time I was really into X-Men and Teen Titans, but all the girls had the super cool super powerful powers. Jean Grey and Raven have telepathy and telekinesis. Starfire can fly and shoot lasers. Shadowcat can walk through walls. Storm can control the freaking weather. Even the Invisible Woman has the best powers of the Fantastic Four. There was even an episode of X-Men Evolution that was basically an anthem of girl power and I loved it. What could the boys do? Anything the girls can do but with severe limitations in comparison. Professor X has telepathy but not telekinesis and is in wheelchair. The Thing, Beast, and Nightcrawler all hate their appearance and try to hide it. Cyclops needs his special ruby glasses to keep his powers under control.  Robin doesn’t have any powers (but I still loved him, and wanted to be him for Halloween, except we weren’t allowed to celebrate the only day it would have been socially acceptable for me to go outside in a cape and a mask). Spider-Man was my absolute favorite: smart, witty, fast, strong, thwip-thwip web shooters swing from the skyscrapers of NYC. If I had to be a superhero of my gender, I would want to be Spider-Man, but when it came to creating my own superhero, I chose all the powers that the girls had so I also adopted some of their other attributes when I imitated their powers. Like Kitty’s like total valley girl accent like totally.

Soul Sharing - Cutting Words

Walkthrough of "Cutting Words"

Why do I let words hurt me

More than these cuts and bruises

I bleed and bruise

Because I choose

To control some hurt

Make all else feel inert

There are so many reasons why people cut themselves or other forms of self-harming. One major reason is for control. You don't hurt yourself because your life is so great. You hurt yourself because you're already hurting and you can't control it. When you inflict pain upon yourself, you finally have control. How much pain. What kind of pain. To start and stop the pain. And the current pain, even if it's just temporary, makes you forget all the other pain in your life.

Why do I seek approval 

When I don’t approve of myself

I need to be wanted

Because I am haunted

Of being alone enough

That suicide won’t be a bluff

Cover up with sleeves to hide the scars even in the summer. When you're that depressed, you need to find comfort in other people. And if you don't then who knows what you might do on this path alone.

Why am I jealous of friendships

When I know that they all have to end

I know everyone leaves

Taking my treasure like thieves 

The only thing I desire

Is to not fall for another liar

When you rely on others for your sanity, you usually need them more than they need you. You tend to take everything personally and everything hurts more when it doesn't work out. It feels like they're stealing your happiness when they leave because they are your only source of happiness. And that makes it harder to open up to new friends since you're afraid of going through that painful process again.

Why do I feel a need to bleed

When I know I won’t live much longer

I live from day to day

Not knowing what to say

If anything at all

How badly I want to fall

Self-harming isn't the same thing as being suicidal. You might feel like you're in so much pain that you want to die. But you don't really want to die. You want to get better, but you don't know how. The only way you know to keep going is to self-harm. It's a way of self-medicating. It's a temporary solution that gets you to the next day. Well, it's not really a solution since it doesn't address the problem and because of that self-harming on its own will not get you to a place of healing. Without talking or working out the problem in a healthier way, you might just get to the point where you do want to die.

Picture Poem Project Please

I'm now accepting more submissions for my picture poem project! Send me a picture via email at hashtaghashtagnofilter@gmail.com or vie Facebook message me on my Facebook Page with some keywords or themes you would like me to incorporate into the poem. See my growing gallery here for examples of what it will look like. And with more submissions I can keep updating the Picture Poem of the Week on the side of my blog, and if you would like I can link it to your website, Facebook page, or whatever you want.

How TV Saved Me: Tune in to find out (part 1)

I always felt different. Too different. I had so many secrets but no one to share them with. No one I trusted. I don’t think I knew more than a hundred people until I left for NYC. I think I’ve more than tripled the number of Facebook friends in just these three or four years of college. So my only outlet pre-internet/social media boom, was tv shows. But back then they still didn’t have a lot a diversity. There was no one I could really relate to. So what I have to say in this post might sound completely stupid, but this is how TV saved my life.

So by now you know I was suicidal since I was about 11 and entering the 6th grade. TV was my life. The life I wanted. The life I couldn’t have. TV was my escape from this miserable reality. I still kept up with whatever superheroes shows were on. I think Teen Titans was still big and Smallville was in its prime. But I was also totally a Disney kid. If it was on Disney, I wanted to watch it. Same with Nickelodeon. I also watched a lot of (probably too much) detective murder mystery shows. Now like I said this was before Netflix had online streaming. You know when Blockbuster was still big (if you’re old enough to remember that; damn I’m getting old). Anyways you had to wait a week and stay tuned at that “same Bat-time” on that same “Bat-channel” if you wanted to see the next episode. If you missed it, that was it. You had to wait for the right re-run if you wanted to catch up (so archaic and medieval, right?). Before the DVR we used a VCR with tapes that you had to rewind to watch or else you’ll run out of tape, and then there was the danger of recording over something you haven’t watched yet.

Ok so here’s where you might start judging me.

Artistic Tips: Stream of Consciousness

Stream of consciousness is just free writing. Writing without thinking. Thoughts. Feelings. Put into words. Not necessarily complete thoughts. Just ideas that flow together. One thing leads to another like links in a chain. Not all are created equal. Some are strong and hold. Other are weak and break off. It might not make sense to anyone else, but it still creates a picture. It's a raw, pure form of poetry extremely open to interpretation. It doesn't have to rhyme, but it helps it flow better.

Scars remain

I remember the pain

The blood stain

The pouring rain

The smiles I feign

The fears that reign

Good old memory lane

Feeling insane

Shackles, the mental chains

The beating of the cane

Alone against the grain

The nightmare bane

The energy wane

Emotions drain

The burdens I retain

Artistic Tips - More internal poetic devices

Here's a quick glossary of poetic devices you can use within a line.
Internal Rhyme: words that have the same ending sound that's not part of the line-ending rhyme scheme
Alliteration: a group of words strung together with the same beginning sound (constant or vowel)
note: beginning with the same letters does not guarantee alliteration
Assonance: a group of words with the same vowel sound anywhere in the words
Consonance: a group of words with the same constant sounds anywhere in the words

(I'll make a video for this eventually although it might not be until after I graduate.)

Poetry - Scars Remain

Scars remain

I remember the pain

The blood stain

The pouring rain

The smiles I feign

The fears that reign

Good old memory lane

Feeling insane

Shackles, the mental chains

The beating of the cane

Alone against the grain

The nightmare bane

The energy wane

Emotions drain

The burdens I retain

Poetry - Cutting Words

Why do I let words hurt me

More than these cuts and bruises

I bleed and bruise

Because I choose

To control some hurt

Make all else feel inert 

Why do I seek approval 

When I don’t approve of myself

I need to be wanted

Because I am haunted

Of being alone enough

That suicide won’t be a bluff

Why am I jealous of friendships

When I know that they all have to end

I know everyone leaves

Taking my treasure like thieves 

The only thing I desire

Is to not fall for another liar

Why do I feel a need to bleed

When I know I won’t live much longer

I live from day to day

Not knowing what to say

If anything at all

How badly I want to fall

Life Before and After A Suicide Attempt

Although I think suicide is the most important struggle since it's permanent and it's also what I used poetry to help me process the most, I decided not to lead with it but instead some of the major contributing factors for me. I don't think someone commits or attempts to commit suicide for just one reason. I didn't try to kill myself just because I was stuck in a massive depressive episode for years. I didn't try to kill myself just because I was gay and that wasn't acceptable in the Christian environment I was trapped in. I didn't just try to kill myself because I didn't feel like I could ever be the man I was "supposed to be." Yes, all those things pushed me closer to the edge, pushed the knife a little deeper. But after all that I tried to kill myself because of society and not just the one I locally lived in. I was 11 and I didn't want to grow up to be a teenager because teenagers are idiots. I should know now that I've crossed that bridge recently. But I saw them on TV, in books, in my life, (I'd say in movies but I wasn't allowed to go to those), and I so desperately did not want to be one of those. Aside from the aforementioned, I had lived as great a life an eleven-year-old could live. I was fully content with dying and escaping the future torment. But I'm here now so that obviously didn't work out. Before I knew it I was a godforsaken teenager. Puberty, honestly, wasn't that big of a deal for me. It hit me rather early for a guy and I was like ok. The hard part was that I was like ok I like guys, how do I stop? I had a couple best friends who I called my Lights. As long as I was around one of them I was ok. But at night the depression hit hard and fast. And unless you're familiar with that level of depression, it's too hard to explain in any way that isn't a face to face conversation. But one by one my Lights went out for different reasons. But by then I was already almost done with being a teenager. And I had become the monster I was trying so drastically to avoid. I had lost most of my innocence, not that any of us are innocent to begin with. I decided my freshman year of high school that I had to get as far from this homophobic environment as possible and as fast as possible. And I was too afraid to ask my parents to let me go to a public school, and I couldn't even play the financial card since my mom worked at the school so it was practically free. I honestly just wanted a place to get away from the same people I knew since I was 5 and saw six days a week none of whom I could trust. And yes, I was hoping to meet a cute guy or any non-hetero so I knew I wasn't alone. Because I don't know what's lonelier than being the only inmate living in a prison with no bars surrounded by wardens who preach love but would hate me if they knew who I had a crush on. So if I was going to be stuck in this system till I graduated, I might as well move up my release date. And who needs a sophomore year of high school anyways. I'd make a joke about a "wise fool" but that's etymologically incorrect.

Remember when I went to a mental hospital?

Therapy Tactics: Suicide Triggers

Dear Friends and Family of loved ones who are suicidal,

So I'm 21 now and have had about a decade of consistently thinking about suicide so I have some advice to tell you on how not to treat people who might be contemplating suicide which could be anyone so really this is how not to treat people.

1. Suicide is selfish - I was thinking I would remove the burden that is me from this godforsaken world. I was thinking a funeral would be cheaper than a mouth to feed daily. Give my food to those starving children you use to guilt us to eating our vegetables. I actually wrote in one of my suicide notes that I don't want a funeral. Not that I had much at 11, but to give everything I have to charity. I don't want to be remembered. It would have just been easier if I were never born. I never asked for life.

2. Suicide is a mortal sin - I'm not a theologian but I think that goes against Once Saved Always Saved and it's saying that we can do something so bad even God can't forgive us. Is jumping on a grenade to save others a mortal sin or a heroic act? It's suicide by definition of intentionally killing oneself.

3. Suicide is an irrational and hasty action - Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's not. Suicide notes are a clear sign that the person has been thinking about it for some time. I was 11 so it would be easy to assume that I wasn't thinking or didn't really know what I was doing. But I did. I thought about it for months. It consumed my waking thoughts. Haunted my dreams. Like I said in the first point I had a written quite a few suicide notes before I lost track of how many times I attempted. Humans are amazing at rationalizing what others perceive as irrational. We have many reasons for most things we do even if other people don't understand them.

4. Suicide jokes - Just don't. It minimizes our pain, past or present. You're laughing at us. And the closer you are to us especially if you know, the harder you're shoving us to the edge even if we've made it a decade away from that edge.

5. Never ever ever tell someone to go kill themselves - We might just do it. We might just be waiting for someone to push us over a line we couldn't bring ourselves to cross.

6. Don't make it taboo - If you don't make it a safe place to talk, then we're not going to talk and for me writing was enough to get me by but we all don't have those outlets and they're never a perfect substitute to genuine human loving and understanding connections.

7. Never ever shame anyone for it - Making depressed people feel bad about themselves is like handing us a knife and telling us which way to cut.

These are all things I've personally experienced people say. Not all of them directed to me, and none of them aware of my situation.

Behind the Poem - Suicide Triggers

"Suicide Triggers"
Trigger Warning? Where do I start?
It gets better, but it never stops.
What I write; my whole life Is not for the faint of heart.

I’m a fan of starting the writing process with phrases like “where do I start” or “what am I doing.” I sort of got it from a Relient K song that starts with “Should I start this song off with a question?” And I’m a huge fan of Relient K and I’m sure they influenced a lot of my work subconsciously, and I enjoy writing parodies of their work. Ok but psychologically that kind of phrasing places the reader into a similar mind set as the writer. And “it gets better” is a pretty popular phrase from the campaign It Gets Better Project which actually personally helped me a lot seeing all those celebrities (some of whom I’ve crushed on) standing up and reaching out a hand to people like me. And along with the trigger warning theme from the title and first words is that the story I’m writing about my life isn’t for everyone. Some people who might be struggling could have a negative reaction (a trigger) and that’s the last thing I want. So please be aware of your situation when you’re reading or that of anyone who you might point towards my work.

The knife stopped twisting, but the scars remain,
On my arms, my heart and my mind.
They heal but I still feel Every cut every pain.

Yeah, I cut a lot and still have a lot of scars, but not all of them are physical or visible. My heart, both the stress on my body and my ability to connect with other people. My mind, well that’s where the triggers are involved.

Soul Sharing - Suicide Triggers

So this topic is really the heart of this blog. This specifically is why I decided to blog. There really just isn't anything much available to help with dealing after suicide attempts. So I decided to use my story to put something out there for others like me. 

So the biggest suicide trigger was a couple months ago watching tv. Basically there was a girl (middle school age?) who threatened and attempted suicide, and then when confronted admitted it. “Sometimes I just want to die.” It just hit me so hard. That was exactly how I felt at around that age. But when I threatened, no one took me seriously. Suicide has a way of blindsiding everyone. People don’t notice the signs because they either don’t know what they are or chose to ignore them because “So-and-So would never do that.” Well, I was certainly the last person you would expect to be suicidal at such a young age and for so many years consistently, and I guess I am really good at hiding everything really well. No one knew I was cutting everyday and night for a year or so, and in places more visible than my arms. But that’s another story for next week's topic of self-harming. This one is really about dealing with triggers. Triggers are anything that brings back all that pain so you feel like you’re experiencing it all over again. It’s a more common term for things like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or any type of assault. 

But really triggers could be for anything. And if you are recovering from something more serious, then it’s very important to know your triggers and how to avoid them and cope with them the best way possible. And again that’s going to vary from person to person. But tv scenes like the one I described are one of my more common triggers. I’m not going to stop watching tv to avoid any possible trigger. That would be letting the trigger win. Sometimes you just have to confront it in a controlled environment. It helps for me to be alone and just cry it out. When something this heavy hits me so fast, everything kind of stops. I get disoriented and I fall onto my knees or curl up into a ball. I’ve learned not to fight it, but let it run its course. Usually for few seconds to a few minutes, but in the past it could have been hours. The more I would try to fight it or deny it, the more I would think about it. Crying is very therapeutic. I’ve cried many times until I ran out of tears, and then cried some more. As a guy who was never really very masculine, I felt like I had to train myself to not cry in front of people so if I was with people or in a crowded place, I’d run to the bathroom or just leave and walk it off. 

So that's my summary of suicide triggers. I'm constantly reminded about suicide, but I'm not suicidal anymore. I don't think about killing myself. I remember having tried to kill myself. And sometimes it's a shock to my system. Attempting suicide is a traumatic experience that I just have to find a way to live with. In the next post I'll walk through the poem and the specifics stories behind the lines.

Picture Poem - Only a Tattoo

Photo by Beckah Jackman

Poem by David Wright

"Only a Tattoo"

I locked my heart and gave you the only key

The torch of our love is the the only light I need to see

The touch of time only tests our relationship

The canvas of our love only grows as time tightens its grip

It’s only a tattoo

It’s only a symbol of how much time I spent with you

Artistic Tips - Internal Rhymes and Irregular Lines

There's a lot more to say on this poem in the Soul and Therapy sections, but every poem is also an example to learn different styles and techniques. In this poem I use internal rhymes to make up for irregular line length.

This poem is written in tercets with an ABA rhyme scheme and no particular meter. (There might be one I used subconsciously. If you can figure it out, let me know! Refer back to some of the earlier Artistic Tips to help you identify and count meter.) 

The seemingly random capitalization in the last line of every stanza indicates where it could be a line-break making it a quatrain. I chose not to do that because I didn't like the rhyme scheme of ABCA and that with most of the stanza the line lengths would look incredible irregular. People often say that poetry should be focused on sound and rhythm because it's meant to be spoken. I highly disagree.

Imaginary Self - Who Am I? (Part 3)

As I left off in part 2, when I was little I wanted to be a prince. This was the start of my imagination adventures that I still go on to escape the boredom of reality. It's why I have always seemed so content in silence and so patient. I never really had imaginary friends. I had an imaginary reality that I entered to entertain myself. And it was all in my head, I didn't tell anyone or verbalized the dialogue running through my mind like I was directing and acting in a tv show. So I could be getting a haircut or just sitting on the floor staring at unplugged fan and no one would know that I had left this reality. The only physical thing I really did was use my two fingers to run as my characters were moving. For this post I'm going to psychoanalyze my four-year-old-self and see how this fictional world I created reflected one of the fundamental aspects of my personality and how that made me vulnerable to depressing and suicidal thoughts.

So the first character I created was named Silver. He was a prince with yet-to-be defined magical powers and his weapon was a whip. But instead of this being my imaginary friend, he was my idealized self.

Poetry - Suicide Triggers

Trigger Warning? Where do I start?

It gets better, but it never stops.

What I write; my whole life Is not for the faint of heart.

The knife stopped twisting, but the scars remain,

On my arms, my heart and my mind.

They heal but I still feel Every cut, every pain.

I don’t remember how many suicide attempts I’ve survived

Except that it was my favorite after school activity

From eleven to seventeen Poison laces any memories revived.

Suicidal memories have replaced suicidal thoughts.

It’s Russian roulette without a bullet.

There’s no pill for this ill but No Demons to be fought.

The trigger gets pulled and I fall to my knees.

Can’t breathe. Clutching my heart. Cloudy mind. Numb.

These tears are for fears That will never escape me.

Life progresses in either fast forward or slow motion,

Like life is passing by as reality constantly shifts

Triggering torment that I can’t forget Causing a caustic nauseous notion.

How the hell am I suppose to live with myself everyday

When the man in the mirror was my past potential killer?

I forgave him to save him But now what are we suppose to say?

It was Faith and fellowship that pulled me through

The proverbial fire that was my personal hell,

But it’s Grace and faces That pull my triggers too.

As much as I want to, I can never forget 

All my short comings, how far I’ve fallen;

It’s combined with how high I’ve climbed It’s a problematic set.

So anything can be my trigger at any time. 

I’m still learning how to cope with this post traumatic stress,

But every day proves another way That I can survive.

7 Reasons People Attempt Suicide

1. Pressure. To be perfect whether from personal goals/desires, to impress loved ones, or to keep up with society, school, or work.
2. Bullying. For different in any way from LGBTQ+ to race/ethnicity to religion
3. Low Self-Esteem. Feeling worthless or useless. Feeling like a burden with nothing to offer.
4. Depression. From mental illness or circumstances.
5. Escape. To be free from unbearable pain whether physical, emotional, or mental.
6. Loneliness. No support from friends or family. No one else to live for.
7. Abuse. Physical or emotional abuse at home or anywhere; past, present, or fear of future abuse 

The 7 Suicide Songs Poem correlate roughly to these 7 reasons but with overlapping issues because there's almost never just one thing that makes you try to kill yourself.

5 Statistic on Teen Suicides

1. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death for ages 10-24
2. More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic long disease combined
3. Every day there are an average of over 5,400 attempt by kids in grades 7-12
4. Four out of five teens who attempt suicide have given clear warning signs (that's 80%)
5. Females attempt suicide more than three times as often as males; but males die by suicide more than four times as often as females

Statistics found at the Jason Foundation from the 2013 CDC reports.

For more statistics on suicide in general with graphs and stuff check out the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Suicide Songs: Saturday

Saturday was Sally’s one year anniversary 

From when Sally was rescued from the most perverse adversity.

Sally was twelve when she ran away

Thirteen when she was pimped out every day.

Four, five, maybe six men a night

Sally was too drugged up to remember or to put up a fight.

By seventeen Sally was her captors’ best selling product.

Sally graduated to the busy streets earning quite the profit. 

Eight high-end regular clients from all walks of life.

Sally walked away wondering how many of them had wives.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

Ten minutes later Sally barely survived her insurgency.

Eleven hours later she woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed.

Sally was arrested for prostitution. A teenager who was barely fed.

Charges were dropped and Sally was released onto the streets.

After twelve months with no one to help her get back on her feet,

Sally almost went back to her pimp. The only life she knew.

But the memories were too much so in the next life she sought refuge.

Suicide Songs: Friday

Closing time. Say goodnight. Lock up.

Same routine like every other Friday.

But today was the last check Luke would pick up

Luke told his co-workers he would be ok.

And no one wanted to believe that it was a lie

Twenty-four years doing the same thing every day

Luke had always been too proud to man up and cry

It wasn’t the best job but it was more than decent pay

It was more than a job. It was what he loved. It was his entire life.

He was married to his work so he never bothered to look for a wife.

Money wasn’t the problem. He had a comfy retirement fund.

Finding another job wasn’t the problem. He was well qualified.

But his accident and the damage could never be undone.

Behind a computer at a desk, he knew he would not be satisfied.

So as everyone was leaving from the front door

He took the elevator up. Limped up one last set of stairs

One last check. Felt nothing in his core.

Said goodbye to his love then jumped into the air

Suicide Songs: Thursday

Lucy wasn’t feeling so lucky last Thursday. 

Her friends were no longer jealous of, or interested in her life.

She had everything and then lost everything in just one night.

A handsome husband and two beautiful boys.

Her high school sweetheart. Her pride and joys.

Her reason to smile as she laid down her head. 

Her reasons to wake up early and get out of bed.

Money can’t replace happiness. 

Insurance can’t fix faulty seat-belts.

It can’t cover the cost of the immense pain she felt.

She was drowning in all the paperwork and all her grief 

She was left alone to pick out three coffins of three different sizes

And no one was left to comfort her cries in her crisis

There wasn’t a bottle deep enough to grant her relief

There wasn’t an ocean wide enough to drown her sorrow

But her bathtub was just the right size to forever avoid tomorrow

If she could have had the support to stay afloat for a few more days

She would have discovered on her own that she was too late

It was too late for her boys, but not for her little girl

Suicide Songs: Wednesday

Andrew only walked through the quad on Wednesdays 

It’s the one day his roommate didn’t drag him to the cafe

Wesley was nice enough to Andrew so he had a hard time saying no

He would say he wasn’t hungry but Wes would still insist that he go

But he reluctantly went because he needed Wes to force him to eat

After class they walked around the quad to avoid to the sunny heat

Andrew was too depressed to eat on his own

When he did try, he would vomit before he went home

Next semester Wes had practice on Wednesdays so Andy skipped lunch and cut through the quad 

It was the quickest way to get back to his dorm, but he nervously gave everyone a frantic friendly nod

When he got home, he threw out half of his food so Wes wouldn’t suspect

He left crumbs on his bed and at his desk in case he ever tried to inspect

Andy told Wes he was anorexic and depressed over the break

He was trying to get better but the best he could try was to fake

Wes was nice but he wasn’t enough

Life was getting unbearably tough

Andy wrote a note for his roommate

Left a voicemail telling him to come home late

Locked the door. Said a prayer.

Tied the knot. Kicked the chair.

Suicide Songs: Tuesday

On Tuesday Brittany was teased for the last time.

She had the word slut carved into her arm.

No one ever suspected that she self-harmed.

She wore long sleeves but a short skirt

All the guys thought she was a tease 

And all the girls thought she was  a flirt

She was a virgin, never even kissed a boy

But that didn’t stop the lies that could not be appeased

She said no to the quarterback who tried to use her like a toy

He told everyone she slept with the entire team

And he told her he would rape her if she didn’t agree

She was scared and alone. Her mom was an alcoholic

Her step-dad abusive. Her cuts were simply symbolic,

A physical manifestation of all her emotional pain.

She wasn’t clinically depressed. She was completely sane.

She just cut too deep. 

And fell fast asleep.