on self-love and recovery (Patreon)

Lately I'm just really feeling the color. It's in the background of the new video I have rendering for you right now. It's on my face in the stalled Libra sex signs reading that I'm still thinking about. It's the color of the syringe they gave me to rinse the holes in my damn mouth... The last one being a vastly different shade, though (the infamous medical green).

I'm doing ok, the swelling isn't really bad and I'm through the worst with the soreness. At this point I want to give a shoutout to the awesome team who made the whole thing very quick and painless. Didn't even take 10 minutes from when they started. The only problem I have is with the pain medication I was given. You see, while everyone told me I should lay low and take some time to recover, no one told me that the medication would make me so fucking groggy I couldn't do anything if I wanted. They gave me high dosed ibuprofen and boy, oh boy... I was a sleepwalking confused zombie the whole day until it started wearing off. So now I take half, twice a day to keep the soreness at bay. It's only really worth mentioning when I'm eating which is all the time. Somehow, having an uncomfortable mouth gives you a weird kind of oral fixation. 

I stayed up last night editing this video that I meant to do earlier in the night but had to quit because I couldn't stay awake for shit thanks to the meds. Needless to say, I did end up getting a new charger. It was a bit of a hassle with there being over an hour between my surgery and when the mall opens in the morning, especially while my mouth was filling up with blood every 10 minutes. I'd like to think it was worth it. I did get to play a little bit of Sims between all the compulsory sleeping. And we all know a little bit of Sims is never enough. Time passes 10x faster when you play the Sims, it's a scientific fact. 4 hours feel like 20 minutes. This cursed Illuminati game has the power to warp time so as to trick you into pulling allnighters playing it and you don't even notice. It's like Sailor Moon S1E8 where they gave school kids those Illuminati brainwashing floppy disks to rob them of their life energy and turn them into Dark Kingdom corporate zombies - only this is the West where no one gives a fuck about school so we get computer games instead. Well played, Queen Beryl, well played. 

So I'm getting better at this self-love thing. You'd be surprised how much of loving yourself just comes down to not being a total ass to yourself. You know, the opposite of what your parents did. Unless you're the lucky 0.1% who had caring parents, then hot damn it must be good to be you. But for the rest of us it's a learning process to treat ourselves better than our parents treated us. I still have this thought in the back of my mind saying "the least you can do is clean the whole damn place!" - echoes of my mother's voice on the rare occasions she would let me stay home from school when I was sick. Not to rest or get better or anything, no, to clean my damn room. "No! We're not doing that anymore!", I stare it down until I can't hear it anymore. I tell myself it's ok to rest and be selfish. I feel bad for telling off an aspect of me who doesn't know better, but I don't stand for abuse. I hope my intentions reach it and that the relief I feel is my system feeling safe in my care. Abuse is not love, no matter at whose hands. And it's hardest to accept for those who we want to believe love us so much. If it makes you die a little inside, it's abuse. If you feel this, stop. Reassess what you're doing to yourself. Don't support these thoughts, don't engage in this behavior. You are at the giving and the receving end of everything you do to yourself. If you don't want to wind up hating yourself, don't give yourself shit. Don't let anyone else give you shit. You know what the hardest part to get over is when you've been abused? All the people who knew, or should have known, and did nothing. Don't be one of them. The moment you don't stand your ground, don't defend yourself, don't take action when action could be taken, you are siding with your abuser. And that's hard to forgive. So very hard. 

I strive to make my internal world a safe and peaceful place. And for now it takes not holding my flaws against me and not beating myself up over things not being over and done with. The moment you embrace yourself in your mess, you undo a lot of the suffering you took for granted. Suddenly, the vision of the life you always wanted doesn't seem so far off. And the answer to the question whether you can permanently feel the way Garnet feels doesn't seem so hypothetical. She doesn't live the way she does because she is made up of different atoms. But because she doesn't entertain the thought that something is so god awful about her that renders her completely and utterly unlovable. I'm sure not having been around for childhood helps. But having gone where I've gone, it just doesn't seem impossible to have what I want. I could see myself feeling good about myself, too. I could see myself having an appropriate amount of self-confidence. While I'm in over my head in things that need sorting out, I know now that's not a requirement for self-love or self-worth or any of the things that matter. And now, I think I can get there.  

The End.

//Ally