I know some of you all mean well (and perhaps some of you do not) … but please…

Please actually read the about me page. If you can’t make it there I’ll quote :

“Mostly, though, this space is about me. All about me. I live my life day to day. I do the best I can with what I have at any given moment. Some days I am happy and healthy and wise. Some days I most decidedly am not. I reserve the right to keep this a safe and sacred space for myself. Discussion is welcome as long as everyone understands this: You do not have to agree with me. You do not have to like me. You don’t even have to read this blog.”

Edit: I added a bit to the About Me page that warns that if I have “venting” in the subject line probably just best to leave it alone and not comment. That my Leo in Mercury comes roaring out of the cave and barks if not bites.

Do not, NOT, tell me how you think I should feel. When I’m upset don’t tell me I should feel sorry for the other person and move on. You are violating sacred space when you do that. Your comments will not be approved.

Perhaps this doesn’t tell you much when I say I am a sober alcoholic so I think perhaps I need to elaborate on what that really means.

I started drinking when I was 13. And smoking too. And by 16 I was taking anything I could get my hands on, drink it, smoke it, snort it, screw it. By 18 I added inject it to the list. See, somewhere in my life two things happened. The obvious, 1) that I loved the effect that mood altering chemicals and eventually sex gave me, and 2) that somewhere I started feeling that me, just as I was, was no longer okay, that I had to change, to act the way others thought I should because I was fundamentally not okay. And to do that to one’s soul, well, I chose to numb out. That I had to act the way YOU thought I should. Not the way my very loving heart and my very capable brain told me, but what YOU thought. Feh. I felt walked on and somewhere in there I began to think I deserved it and started to not only accept it but to encourage it.

My ex husband told me once that I would NEVER quit smoking and that my writing sucked. Go do your little dance in hell now Joel.

I heard many times from parents, teachers, lovers, husband, etc., that I needed to do this or that to be better or what have you. I spent YEARS being invalidated. I drank because it made me feel better. Drinking and drugging, and yes, sex, saved my life. Absolutely. My first suicide attempt was at the age of 11. ELEVEN.

Those activities stopped saving my life in my early 30’s and they started killing me. It was very difficult for me to accept that the one friend I knew I had, that had saved my life, that was my rock, had turned on me and was now killing me. That I had to give it up, overnight, and do and be someone else some other way.

I’ve spent almost 13 years discovering who I am. 12 years in recovery doing some very difficult and very worthwhle work. When was the last time YOU did a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself and then told someone else all your sad little secrets? How many times have you done that? I am not better than you because I have done this numerous times. I’m just saying that do not for one moment think I have no experience with mental health, mental illness, and recovery. I’ve spent 12 years discovering that my feelings, my thoughts, my actions are just fine. I am a good person. That it is okay to be angry or sad or, dare I say it or do it, JOYOUS. To vent my feelings. To speak my peace and move on. As long as I don’t build a house or camp there in that spiritual wasteland, I can visit for a couple minutes. It is incredibly healthy to vent feelings instead of drink over them, deny them, screw them, or stuff them.

I am just fine. Fabulous even. And I’ve never ever been happier. Because today, instead of stuffing how I am feeling and trying to change how I feel, I feel my feelings. I experience them. I express them. And I move on. It is a very healthy way to live my life. I do not dwell. I express and move.

If you see me writing the same posts over and over and over about the same sad lines or behavior and it’s becoming really obvious that I can’t move on from some very deep hurt, that I really am bogging down AND AND AND you are a friend who I speak to outside of this blog, PLEASE, write me privately. Tell me you are worried. Tell me you love me. Offer to help.

BUT DO NOT EVER EVER EVER tell me, in my own blog to not feel my feelings, that I should change my feelings or my actions, that you have a better way. That I should be nice. Fuck nice. Nice nearly killed me. And then so did anger. Today I believe I have a pretty darned good balance. I feel so many different emotions in the course of one day, I know I’m okay. To be able to be angry for 10 minutes and not have it change the fact that I’m happy today? Is a Gift from the Divine. I? Am Divine. Just the way I am. And so are you. But trust me, we will get on better the less you try to mold me into what you think the Divine looks like.

This IS my life right? Who is anyone other than me, the person living this life, to declare what lessons I need to learn? I would rather fuck up royally and learn a good lesson than allow a total stranger to dictate to me who I am, how I should feel, etc.

You want to validate me? Great. Otherwise, save it for someone who needs it. I? Do not.