Don’t Lose Hope

In small parts of the world I have experienced so much and still so little. Many ways of living, suffering, and surviving have stood before my eyes. Hesitation weighs heavy as I consider that I may, inspite of having seen so little, have seen more and had more to absorb about life than the average soul. This saddens me, deeply.

Deeped is my knowledge in the pain of (wo)man. Traveling in a near gypsy-like manner exposed my mind to many worlds. Historically, the domiciles which I have resided in range from the filthy basement of a million dollar three bedroom house with a yard in one of the richest areas of the country, to leaves on the ground in the woods and many things inbetween. This granted opportunity and gave way to the experiences of (not in chronological order) icicles on the inside of windows,

sleeping on concrete,

going years without an actual bed,

staring at the ground itself through holes in the floor around toilet,

collapsed ceilings,

massive mold,

bugs on my face and crawling around my body and rustling the leaves near my head keeping me awake,

waking up to being rained on,

running in the woods to get out of predator territory and away from a natural predator as a child trying to find a safe place to sleep,

sleeping on a moldy and all bodily-fluids covered mattress,

how cold it can surprisingly get sleeping in a car,

the headaches from sleeping under a bridge,

staring through a tiny scratch in a narrow frosted window to see the sky and grass,

getting dizzy on the sidewalk by passing cars by being locked up for so long,

being timed warped into new technology to get caught up on upon being released,

my dad walking out the door and never coming back leaving me alone in a house in the woods far away from any civilization,

various drugs and an OD from existentially tripping balls off of cough medicine.. everything is numbers, it all has a code, everything is meticoulsy designed beyond our comprehension and there lives a color we have never seen before and won’t until we die,

bondage,

various forms of rape and sexual harrasement,

my own depths of depravity in attempts to escape reality,

severe illnessess,

starvation,

training for the marines,

being a fetish model both runway and still photography,

Domming and being mentored to Dom other broken souls,

waitressing,

being a secretary,

being a stock girl and truck pusher,

working construction,

eating and breathing fire,

being a car saleswoman for a day,

learning the seven deadly virtues of broadswording,

parties from rich to poor,

the ‘backstage’ of performance venues,

dumpster diving,

foraging,

an underground secret society that I left,

horrific mistreatment of animals in every setting,

the life completely fade from human eyes,

performing life saving CPR,

seeing too many dead bodies some of which were dismembered,

throwing somebody through a first-floor window,

attempting and failing to kill my mother as a child for the revenge of so much abuse and neglect while the 911 operator hung up on her thinking it was a prank… she deserved some of my wrath but, certainly not to be hung up on and ignored by an emergency help line while I had my hands around her throat laughing maniacally at her helplessness for what she did, allowed to happen and lied about to CPS,

watching my dog get hit by a car and holding her as she died wagging her tail so happy to see me,

my mother not allowing me to attend my grandfather’s funeral because it would be ‘disrespectful’… I love him and he loved me,

my father having sex with my ‘friends’ and giving a pregnant woman and my underage friends fentanyl,

poor schools,

raising abused and neglected children who weren’t my own,

losing the flesh and blood inside of me,

being medically abused and neglected,

discovering long lost family and being rejected after growing up with no relatives except for grandpa who died when I was young,

becoming disabled,

evictions,

… this really doesn’t cover much at all.

For all that I have experienced, I have witnessed too many of the same experiences and more in the lives of others.

Life is chaos.

For all the bad I see, the diamonds in the rough of humanity glow vibrantly for me.

We are insane creatures with the power to maintain sanity if we so choose and help each other to do so. For the most part, we don’t.

All walks of life suffer and all walks of life ignore and marginalize the suffering of others, even if it is identical to their own in many ways and even caused by the same reasons.

The world has been so cruel to us that we are afraid to truly reach out for help, accept help, and give help. In many ways, many are blind to what help actually is.

Help looks like the light in a child’s eyes when you actually see them and guide them with love and wisdom when they have otherwise been abandoned.

Help looks like the light in the man’s eyes as he thanks your saving his life from a hospital bed even though he later kills himself.

Help looks like fighting fear and putting your hands and lips on a blue-grey naked body to try and bring a life back, against the odds while not admitting defeat.

Help looks like giving away your first Christmas tree with someone special to a family in need so some kids can have something for Christmas instead.

Help looks like those kids whose eyes light up and jaws drop when getting your Christmas tree to keep, insisting that you stay and decorate it with them.

Help looks like offering a hand to someone eyeing something out of their reach at the store.

Help looks like checking in on the old lady next door and making sure she is eating by bringing some food she enjoys when you visit.

Help looks like smiling warmly and sincerely at someone who is not smiling.

Help looks like speaking up when someone is being hurt.

Help looks like defending the defenseless.

Help looks like encouraging and challenging one another to be better than we are while accepting who we are without judgemental bias.

Real help looks like love.

It helps to have hope.

If we fill the world with real help, we fill the world with love.

Never stop loving.

Never stop helping.

Never stop trying to be helped if you need it. The problem isn’t that you need help or how much help you need but, that there is not enough or adequate help in the world so the odds are against getting real help quickly. Keep fighting the long tough and rough battle, my warrior friend. A warrior you truly are. You will get there. The world will get there.

Don’t lose hope.

It helps.

Nice to Myself.

Time to be nice to myself and lay out my strengths before me and this dairy that nobody knows exists.

I have incredible self control until my PTSD takes over. I am not weak because I have PTSD. I survived and that took enormous amounts of strength!

I am incredibly kind.

I stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

I am both empathetic and sympathetic.

I keep my hardened heart open.

I deeply enjoy helping others even with the smallest of things.

I have immense passion and reverence for Earth and everything that encompasses her wilderness.

I love to love.

I love to console and comfort.

I am creative.

I give good hugs and handshakes.

I am a deep thinker.

I am able to change my position when presented with new information.

I work hard to forgive.

I am able to forgive.

I am great with kids and animals.

I value all life, even life I do not agree with or like.

I believe in rehabilitation over persecution.

I like to sing, whistle, and hum.

I handle physical pain like a pro.

That’s 20 things so far…

Common Sense

Imagine a lush Earth without people and our creations.

Now add one adult person in an area abundant with life who is brand new or who has total amnesia without recollection of language or even the sky and land; a person with a completely fresh look upon the world.

The circumstances here are that this person is hungry and never sees animals eat and is never attacked.

What would that person do to eat?

I am certain that person would surmise that that stationary thing next to himself that smells good and has that aesthetically pleasing thing dangling from it that smells enticing, would reach for it and eventually take a bite.

I am also certain that person would not, instead, even think to take the effort to bludgen, strangle, or fasten a tool to kill and eat any of the animals that are before him.

He would not kill, even for food, without an external influence suggesting this to him.

He would instead seek companionship, isolation, or a combination of the two aforementioned from animals, at his will.

–

With no prior knowledge the fruit is designed to allure creatures to eat it.

For humans, the animal is not.

Looking at meat and getting hungry is a trained response.

Eating meat becomes an addiction.

Eating meat makes us feel good for a variety of reasons.

Just like with drugs, we have withdrawel symptoms (sometimes quite severe) should we quit eating meat abruptly.

One must wean themselves off of meat slowly to avoid these symptoms as much as possible.

Weaning off meat takes longer than any other drug to avoid symptoms.

What is an addictive drug to one species may not be an addictive drug to another species.

Meat is an addictive drug to human species.

Addictive drugs can provide benefit to people.

Meat provides short term benefit with hefty consequences that extend beyond and also includes oneself.

Humans do not require meat to thrive.

Humans do thrive from eating only fruits or fruits and vegetables.

Eating meat, once aware of the price paid and addiction caused, is a self-destructive behavior.

Seek help.

Help is out there.

We aren’t all blinded by our addictions.

I relapsed.

I am about 2 weeks sober.

My brain, heart, and free will are bigger than my addiction.

I used to be fanatical about meat. I drooled like a baffoon for it and would glady kill for it.

I wised up.

I learned about the true costs of my addiction.

Now I am fighting my addiction one day at a time.

You can fight your addiction too.