Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. BlueSky: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
does anyone else have those moments where they just fall in love with being alive? like, maybe you’re in art class with soft music and you realize that this peaceful feeling is a part of life that you love and you want to just keep forever, and there are so many other parts of life too that are so wonderful and maybe existing isnt so bad after all
is this what being not depressed is like
no, this is what recovery is like. this is what being depressed is like, and it’s why we stay. because even when we’re sure this is it, this is the last day we can put up with it, this is the last hour, the last second - some part of us remembers these moments, and thinks - what if tomorrow has one of them.
i used to joke i have bad days and worse days. i almost never do well. i feel like i keep barely a nose above the water.
but in those rare, rare, rare seconds where the waves stop for one second and i catch sight of something other than dark, i see it. the way a rose looks after a rain. how my mother smiles when she knows it’s my favorite meal that’s cooking. my best friend looking over his shoulder to flip me off again. the bike i rode at 7 and crashed at 17. a little bug struggling with five little legs - but walking, walking.
recovery isn’t smashing into these moments and realizing it’s finally happened, what those people said is true and it “all gets better”. recovery is remembering those moments and deciding - i want them back. it’s looking for them. sometimes it takes hours. sometimes days. sometimes months without any sight of them. but you look, you search even when you’re too tired to keep your eyes open, because you promised yourself … tomorrow. tomorrow will be the day we find one. a four leaf clover we know is our sign, the rainbow, the wishing well - the way out.
and when you find one, they get easier. four leaf clovers always grow in the same patch, after all. and your eyes get sharper. you figure out what makes any small part of you happy. you figure out that you might not be happy, but it’s good enough to stick around to watch the way oil looks in puddles and how she always cries at new year’s. and it might not be blisteringly, soul-crushingly happy in the way other people seem to feel things - in that mind-numbing wordless joy that shines in them, that glow i’m so envious of, that effortlessness - but it will be like this, just quiet, a moment of rest, of the shouts dimming for a minute, a peace.
it’s easy to say “i’m depressed, i’ll never be happy.” maybe. i hope not, because i’m still looking. and in these moments i’ve rediscovered that i am funny, that i like the color pink, that kittens and puppies never fail me. in these moments i’m still depressed, still me, still fighting an illness that wants to end me. but i’m fighting. i seek these moments in every second i get because i’m here and breathing and after all this i’m going to be pissed if this gets the better of me.
maybe i’ll never figure out how to feel effortless and free. but i know that i feel love when the music is blaring and my hands are out the window and i feel love somewhere on the beach and i feel love watching salamanders wake up in the mornings. it’s not other people’s love, it’s far-off and it’s distant and it might not be “normal”, but it’s goddamn important to me.
i didn’t wake up better. i forced better to come fight me. i’ve been walking towards recovery since i was 19. five years later and no, i’m not cured, but i see a lot more of these moments. or maybe they were always there, and only now am i realizing what i got in front of me.
and when it’s been bad again? when i’m not even breathing? when it’s been months since i felt anything, when the stress is too much and the sky is dark and the moon in me has fallen silent? i say: hang on. tomorrow might be the day we find it. tomorrow might be worth the fight.
destroy the idea that parents (especially fathers) are entitled to complete respect and obedience from their children and can never do any wrong. destroy totalitarian parenting at all costs.
if you tell someone ‘no’ and they respond with “FINE……….” or “guess ill be all alone….” or “its okay im used to having my hopes crushed…….” or any of that guilt-inducing passive aggressive fuckery, cut them straight out of your life because you never deserve to feel bad for setting boundaries or speaking your mind.
Let’s see, off the list I’ve had 14, and I’ve had others that aren’t on the list. More as a result of drinking tea and experiments with foraging, rather than Being Fancy.
Always eat all the allium (garlic/onion/chive) blossoms. I can’t even figure out what kind if wild allium was around where I grew up but I used to eat them by the bunches. They’re some of the easiest plants to identify wild, too, because if you smush them they smell like garlic/chive/onion. We used to find them when we mowed the tall grass down because you’d suddenly be in a mist of onion-scented air.
@fannibalgrowingcircle should I do a Gulf Coast foraging post? You can eat basically everything that grows native in Louisiana, it’s ridiculous.
Friendly reminder that Vincent van Gogh willingly checked himself into an asylum so that he could get better, resulting in him creating some of the most iconic paintings of his entire career, done in the asylum, when he was being treated 24/7, because he finally didn’t have to struggle with his demons and could instead focus on his muse, WHICH WERE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS!
Remember this little insignificant painting?
How about this one?
Check this one out:
All of these and more were painted in the asylum when he was receiving treatment for his mental illnesses and I know I just said that but I said it again and I’m saying it a third time until you dramatic abled assholes understand!
VINCENT VAN GOGH
- KNEW THAT HE WAS MENTALLY ILL
- WANTED TO CHANGE THAT
- WENT TO AN ASYLUM
- GOT THE HELP HE NEEDED
- PAINTED SOME ICONIC MASTERPIECES AS A RESULT!
SO DON’T YOU DARE COME OUT HERE WITH THIS, “I WISH I WAS DEPRESSED SO I COULD BE AS CREATIVE AS VAN GOGH” BULLSHIT BECAUSE EVEN HE KNEW THAT HIS DEMONS WERE HARMING HIS WORK, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, HIS HEALTH, AND HE DID EVERYTHING WITHIN HIS POWER TO FIGHT THEM EVERY SINGLE DAY OF HIS LIFE, UNTIL THEY ENDED UP WINNING!
