Reality is raw.

Yesterday I wrote a blog about a very real experience. It was undeniably raw.  It was supposed to be. 

I was bleeding truth. 

Many of you sent messages of concern.  Some came directly to me. Others went to people close to me.  

The message that I was not ok spread quickly through every part of my life.  

Those who know me well understood the honesty in my story.  They read what I wrote.  REALLY read what I wrote.  They felt the pain, but understood the beauty I found in the moment. They allowed themselves to focus on each word until the very end.  They knew I was in a good place. 

Those who don’t know me well saw only the pain in my story.  They couldn’t see past the hurt long enough to process my actual words. They had convinced themselves that I must have been in a bad place. 

I don’t know where you fall on that spectrum.  I’m not sure if even you know.  While I appreciate the concern, I assure you, there is no need to worry. 

I am very honest about my process. 

I am quite comfortable with my truth.

I am incredibly pleased with the individual I’ve grown to become. 

I’m very much in love with my life. 

I. 

AM. 

OKAY. 

I believe that story needed to be written.  So, I wrote it.  It was raw. It was real. It was beautiful.  

It’s a truth we are no longer used to. 

I saw a quote the other day that made me think:

“There is no such thing as a bad picture, sometimes that’s just how your face looks.”

It stayed with me. 

We live in a world where we control how others see our reality.  We create profiles in order to collect “friends”, “followers” and “likes”.   We post happy faces. Filtered faces. Good times. We leave out all the rest as if it never existed.

I remember when I was a teenager. When taking pictures involved having to get film developed and printed.  You would be excited to pick up the pictures at the store.  You’d sit around with your family or friends and scroll through them, one by one.  You’d laugh at the horrible ones.  Those awful pictures made some of the best memories. 

Now, they are deleted instantly.  Retaken until we finally get it right.  We deny ourselves these memories because we don’t want evidence of anything shy of perfection.  

Reality is no longer real and we have just accepted THAT as our new reality. 

My story was raw. 

It had to be written. 

I wrote it because I want people to see that real still exists, regardless of the images of perfection we are bombarded with daily. 

We don’t always look perfect.  We don’t always smile. Not every moment is a good one. 

We breathe.

We hurt. 

We cry.  

We love. 

We lose.  

But our lives don’t always need filters. 

Emotion is not something to fear. Pain is not always something to be concerned about. We all experience it.  We’ve just become so used to feeling it alone. In silence. In private. Far away from the reality we feed the rest of the world.  And because of that, we forget that others feel it too. When smiling pictures turn to tears, we panic.  When life gets real, we worry.  

Yesterday I wrote a blog about a very real experience. It was undeniably raw.  It was supposed to be. 

I was bleeding truth. 

 

 

I was bleeding truth

I’m in a strange place.

Even the familiar, seems unfamiliar.

I feel like I’m frozen in time, while the rest of the world zips by me on fast forward.

Do they see me?

Do they know I’m watching them?

I’m distracted by everything.  Everyone.

I’m searching for distractions.  Distractions that will make me feel something.  Anything.

I’m numb.

Last night, I found myself curled in a ball on the floor of my bedroom.  I collapsed into myself.  Crying.  Sobbing.  Screaming.

Alone, thankfully.

Even for me, it was scary to watch.

I needed that.  Oh, how I needed that.

A moment of clarity.  A moment of truth.  A moment of strength.  A moment.  An instant.  It was not weakness, quite the opposite.  It was the result of having had to be strong for so long.  Every part of me was oozing strength.  Courage.

I was bleeding truth.

34 years.  So much pain.  I unravelled.  Came undone.  Allowed myself to feel everything.  Slowly, then all at once.  I removed my distractions and just felt life.  The overwhelming pace.  The never ending search for happiness.  Peace.  Love.  Success.

I asked myself what it was all for.  I asked questions and I allowed myself to answer them.  Truthfully.  Without distractions.

Just me and my heart and my mind and my body and my soul.

I was bleeding truth.

There are two other moments in my life where I found myself in this way; one was the day I tried to kill myself 17 years ago.

I was 17 years old.  Beautiful.  Tortured.  Sitting on my bed, in a house that was no longer mine.  One that never felt like mine to begin with.  I didn’t know who I was anymore.  I was so lost.

I was bleeding truth.

I stared at the pills for hours.  Hours.

My radio was set to play the same song, on repeat.  The same song over and over.  Every word a reminder.

I had pills.  I had water.  I had pain.  I had nothing and everything.

I was bleeding truth.

The first pill was the hardest, it took me hours to swallow it.  The rest went down easily.  One by one.  One pill, one sip of water.  One pill, one sip of water.  If I stopped the routine for even a second, I might change my mind.  One pill, one sip of water.  One pill, one sip of water.

I was bleeding truth.

My sister found me.  I remember her eyes.  The look of terror.  Fear.  I still can’t forget them.  She was the first person I truly loved.  My constant.  I saw in her eyes, what her life would look like without me.  I couldn’t put her through that, no matter how much I hurt.

I’ve never fought so hard to live as I did that day.  Being rushed to the hospital and everything that followed.  I found my truth.  My purpose.  My hunger for life.  My love.

I was bleeding truth.

The end of my first 17 years was filled with both life and death.  The day of my birth.  April 12, 1998.

Here I am, 15 days shy of the end of my next 17.  Suffocated by life.  Surrounded by death.  I find myself on the floor, crying.  In a house that no longer feels like my own.  My radio set to play the same song, on repeat. The same song over and over. Every word a reminder.

Without even realizing it, I had painted a scene that was familiar.  Comfortable.  The last time I knew what it felt like to be desperate to live.  What it felt like to find my truth.  My purpose.  My love.  That meaning.  That hunger.

I came undone in order to come back to me.  I rid myself of distractions in order to reconnect with my truth.  I fell apart only to come back together again, whole.

I was bleeding truth.

I know what it’s like to be afraid of my own mind.  But I am not afraid.  I’m fucking fascinated by the way it shows me exactly what I need to see, when I need to see it.  I thought for a second I was losing myself, but I was simply being shown the way to find myself again.

When I eliminated the distractions, I was able to find clarity.

Today, I make the decision to disconnect in order to reconnect.  I’ve decided to unplug myself from social media.  From Facebook.  From Instagram. When we focus to much on the perfection others portray publicly, we believe that to be reality.  We forget that we are not alone in our pain.  Our struggles.  I want to experience the world as it is, not as it appears.

For a while anyway.