ON Addiction

Like my last topic….There are many types of addiction. What’s yours?

One of mine, is color…..Beautiful, Vivid, Strong Color. Yes color, acrylic paint, watercolor paint, color pencils, pastels, paper, markers, you name it I’m wanting to buy it! As long as I can produce beautiful pages and or canvases, I just ache to posses the colors, all of them! I am also pretty addicted to making books and all the little tags and pockets to make them each very interactive! I also feel like every sale is calling my name and I just have to purchase more pretty papers……now that being said and only calling out two of my addictions, I will now say I have become much less obsessive over purchasing all the “WANT” things simply because living in a 26 foot by 8 foot box leaves very small spaces not supportive of collecting much of anything!

Now there are Drug addictions, Food addictions, alcohol addictions, crime addiction, and oh so many more….. and NONE of them are any less hazardous than the other depending on severity, and that is the strongest key with addiction. Severity.

I know someone so addicted to buying toys that they have no room for anything else in their life, they have shut out their partner, their kids, their siblings, and still they do not even consider themselves addicted, but the addiction is a thrill, to buy a toy for 50 cents and sell it for 50 dollars? To them is worth blindly losing everything.

At the heart of all addiction? Is to feel good…….to be cooler, or better, or make the most money, or climb higher, either on the ladder of success or the mountain where no one else can reach the summit, I’ve seen it so much in my life I almost cringe at making new friends, as I have grown weary of competitive friendships and most want someone to compete with, and my goodness but life is to short to live in constant competition, not to mention what happens to the ones who feel like they don’t measure up, because for every winner, isn’t there a loser?

Now don’t get me wrong, goals are important, motivation, and success are pretty much a necessity to move us, to accomplish something we have to want something, if you want to be warm, you build or find a shelter, if your hungry, you want to hunt for food. The only time competition is regretfully necessary is when there isn’t enough to go around.

Ok ok, I’m going astray…..my whole point here (there are SO MANY points concerning addiction) MY point is, I beat my own addictions back, and the hole that I am constantly STILL trying to fill is finally shrinking…….I feel the NEED to buy new color (things) less now than ever, I found out that the cure to Addiction? Is Loving Yourself. That’s it. I have tried my whole life to be someone I’m not, to fit in or buy something to impress others, that I simply got lost.

I am finding out your respect for yourself in this life is phenomenal at taking the stress out of living, and that the most difficult part is admitting to yourself that you are having issues and are trying very hard to pretend everything is ok when in your heart you know it’s not…….

On Suicide

There’s more than one type of suicide and that’s never really discussed…..there’s a suicide when your high or drunk, there’s suicide when your depressed, there a scared suicide, there’s angry suicide, then of course there’s terminal sickness suicide.
All are dangerous, some still live, some die, and some only vacate the brain and leave a living body behind….. I have considered suicide many times, I think it’s a thought that many folks have but very few discuss if they are very serious, however if one openly discusses the thoughts of suicide then it’s probably a cry for a need to be filled ,or the terminally ill who may need a person to talk to about it.
I’ve never called a suicide hotline, I guess I just felt like if I said anything I would be thrown in a hospital to keep me from committing suicide and if I truly ever decided on suicide, no one could stop me….. so I never really discuss the subject, I just tuck it away,ya know?

I often wonder how other folks deal with the dark thoughts that arrive from time to time, my mom got put in a nuthouse a couple of times in my life, and I decided then I would never let anyone know I thought about it, and all she did was say, like she often did, “I should just kill myself!” But when you say that, sometimes strangers take you seriously….. she was bipolar and refused medication so she was always very emotional anyway, growing up wasn’t a joy and was never easy by a long shot.

The reasons I wanted to kill myself…..
1. the only actual attempt I made was when I was 15 and I couldn’t see any other way to get away from my mom, and being bullied in school. I only always want to school to get AWAY from my mom being mean, so when I got to high school and the KIDS became mean….. well, I just didn’t want to do it anymore, I used Asprin because I heard there was nothing to use as an antidote, however all I got was a weird fuzzy head feeling…… I suppose I didn’t use enough although I took everything in the bottle, I never counted them but it was a handful……
2. The only way to get away from my mom? Move in with a guy……..who turned out to be abusive physically and emotionally, but by this time I had kids……so before I made a second attempt I thought of my kids not having their mom so I made him leave, and he said no at first, then I told him while he was sleeping I would cut it off and choke him with it and he didn’t stay……
3. Well……life is hard, and through the years there have been a few times where the burden was very heavy, I have been homeless, I have been beaten, I have been raped, I have been exhausted, and it still occasionally crosses my mind……

BUT……for now I have found peace, I live in a camper, by choice, and when the world feels too heavy we move the camper for a new view, I know not everyone could or would live this way, but it soothes this soul to be a gypsy.

I don’t have earth shattering, mountain moving answers for depression and or suicide…..but I can say that when I stopped looking for answers outside of myself and started looking inside? I found my peace, and there are some that helped me turn and start looking inside and that was Dr Wayne Dyer, Carl Jung, The Tao (pronounced Dow) among a few others I can list if requested, and who can say if they help any others ? But I’d like to think so?

Just Because You Don’t See It Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t There…..

We Are all On life’s uncharted  journey, And sometimes we get lost. There are no Maps to follow…..

We Arrive and Leave this world alone. OUR Journey is ours, if we are lucky, we find individuals to share our journey with, but only for a time. We somehow must find a space that is our own to be in, so that when we are alone we don’t forget that we are still individuals and on our own journeys, and that while we may share a time and a place….with friends, lovers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, children, ect…..we still begin and end this journey without our Earthly Besties.

I am an Artist, some dance to Music, I have always made art to It,  lets begin to Uncover……The Space Between!