Reflections: pt 1

A few years ago, I unknowingly began my healing journey, which started with a lot of mental breakdowns, memory errors, and very little motivation to live my life the way I really wish I could. To this day, I have a lot of trouble finding the balance between too much social media and living in the real world. I suppose that shows how much millennials have been affected by technology in ways that we didn’t truly see coming. Technology and social media have their good sides and their bad sides, but in my case, if it weren’t for social media, I wouldn’t have run into a post that forever changed my life. I came across the account for The Holistic Psychologist, a post about learned behaviors and patterns we get stuck in. From then on, I began to dive deeper into what makes us who we are, how our brains are developed, and anything that may have affected me throughout my life. I wanted to find out anything and everything so that I could begin to help myself with figuring out the coping mechanisms I needed to learn for my individual story. For this paper, I will be focusing on memory errors, reasoning, emotional intelligence, and motivation.

“Thus, traumatic memories become harder to recall as time goes by; and they sometimes contain errors, just like all memories do. Traumatic memories are also better retained if they’re rehearsed (thought about) once in a while.” (Gleitman, page 330). My memory malfunction, as I like to call it, became noticeable to me every time my mother would point it out, she would nag me about my lack of memorization, which would in turn just leave me feeling disappointed, especially after my mom would say it in such a negative connotation. There were also times when she would bring up a memory from my childhood and I had no recollection of it, even though I was old enough to remember. An even more alarming time for me was when I ran into a friend at a supermarket and asked me about a time we hung out for a musical event at a cafe. It was then that it hit me, I couldn’t remember a big chunk of my late teens. As much as I tried, I couldn’t remember a lot from that time in my life. When I began going to a therapist, they mentioned to me that this can happen especially during traumatic times, and also to people with anxiety. She had expressed in simpler terms that I could understand at the time, that when you’re going through a lot of stress, it may be hard to focus and may also cause a lot of memory loss. In 2019, I went through a traumatic miscarriage and surgery, and just as the book mentioned, I intentionally stored this memory in a room, inside a hallway of doors, never to reopen ever again. The event was too traumatic for me to ever want to deal with again, and even now when I remember a tiny bit of it, I can only recall very few details, and even then, I try to shove that out of my memory as quickly as possible. “There are, however, some striking exceptions to this broad pattern. Researchers have documented many cases in which people have suffered through truly extreme events but seem to have little or no recall of the horrors.”(Gleitman, page 331). In recent events of my personal life, my brother was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, which is of no surprise to me, seeing as the environment in which we were both raised. He struggles a lot with learning coping mechanisms to deal with his trauma and finds himself dissociating often in ways that even he doesn't understand.

I’ve learned that I myself have been dissociating throughout my entire life, a survival mechanism I took on as a child when I was struggling to deal with my real life in a harsh unstable household that dealt with an alcoholic parent’s rage. I’ve also come to learn that I’m not the only one, which makes me realize that there’s much work to be done in the field of psychology, and I want to be at the forefront of this research. It’s beyond important to me to be able to help others fight their demons, or at the least, learn how to dance with them. My previous career line was as a graphic designer/social media coordinator, which in general encompasses being creative in a high-level functioning workplace. That didn’t reflect how I wanted to help people in this world, so my main goal is to help others heal through art, and teach others how art has helped me in my darkest times.

I served myself on a platter and I still didn't get laid

How I served myself on a platter, didn’t get laid, and became aware of my own toxic behavior

I served myself on a platter. I DM’ed him on social media and said, “Come out and play.” Just plain and simple, I didn’t even think about it twice. I was sitting at a restaurant eating pho with my best friend, sick as a dog, and I was only in town for one more day. Prior to clicking ‘send’, I had been debating on how to ask him to hang out without appearing too desperate. A part of me was feeling spicy thinking about the thrill of the chase, and another part was also feeling very much like an adolescent child knocking at your neighbor’s house asking if they could come out to play. So that’s what I did, I typed out, “Come out and play.”

It wasn’t until after I had sent the message that I felt like an idiot for dangling my cherry right in front of him like that, great… The message had already gone all the way into space and right back and had probably already notified him that he had a new message. “Jay has sent you a direct message.” Oh no, oh no… With steam hitting my face, the only good news here was that my pho had arrived at my table and it was soothing all the right places in my body that had succumbed to my sickness, something I was secretly hoping this guy would do to all those other places too, if you know what I mean. I opened his direct message and it read, “When?” Umm, okay, ladies, if a man responds with a one-word reply do you even bother continuing to talk to this unsocialized creature? Clearly, they lack education, which is a huge red flag, it’s as if they responded with, “k.” I spiraled so fast into different realities that it made me dizzy. Or was I just feeling that way because I was sick, and more than likely dehydrated? Ugh, his response made me cringe, he asked when, so now this meant I was supposed to reply with an answer, one I was not prepared for at all. It started to sink in, did he think I sounded like a floozy? Oh my god, Oh My God, OH MY GOD!!

What started as something purely innocent and genuine, was a live grenade in somebody else’s inbox, and I was intrigued enough to fuck around and find out. Hell, if it was already out there holding space, what kind of person would I be to deny it of its destiny? Boy, am I dramatic or what? Curious is more like it. Let’s cut to the chase, I ended up telling him, “I’ll pick you up at 7 and I’ll take you to my favorite place.” He agreed. Relief. Gah! I was so excited to show him one of my favorite places, but even more elated with how forward I was, and proud of myself for the mere fact that when you want something, all you have to do is reach out and let yourself have it.

I refused to tell his guy, who apparently has 3 names on his birth certificate, where I was taking him, but my god, he wouldn’t stop staring at me when he got in the car. I was starting to get anxious, thinking, “his eyes are going to pop out of his head if he keeps staring at you like that.” “You smell like smoke, were you smoking? Wait, are you a smoker?” Yikes, that’s another red flag. Okay, I’m sensing a pattern…

I ended up finding out he was indeed a smoker, but he was “trying to quit”. Yeah... sure, you work on that, I thought. We arrived at one of my favorite Tiki bars in town, and we ordered a Scorpion Bowl. Oh yes, my friends, we did. Gin, 3 different types of rum, and vodka. We talked about our art and what drove us to create. This, the same guy who began the night with 2 red flags, had made me realize that he was all heart, and the only thing was that we didn’t speak the same mating language if you will. I was very much used to the STOMP! STOMP! “I AM MAN!” type of mating ritual, where the peacock shows his tail full of the brightest colors, but this was different, and definitely very intriguing, my cup of tea. We ordered more drinks and found ourselves joining a Janga party when we opened the secret door of a phone booth. The party of new friends we met that night named us Cali and Tennessee. We were both a little timid and a familiar energy oozed in the air as we shot each other heart eyes throughout the night. This was the last thing I remember about the bar.

I woke up in a pitch-black room. Not a single light in sight and I didn’t see any windows either. I immediately started to panic, I didn’t know where my phone was and I couldn’t see a thing in front of me. I spoke out into the darkness before me and in response, I heard a silent groan that said, “Hey, I’m here.” I found my phone on the mattress I was lying on, turned on the flashlight, and pointed in the direction of his voice. He was lying down on some kind of cushion on the floor in a corner of the room. I was confused. I was tucked in with a blanket and my clothes were still on and my shoes were on the floor. This dude who I had known less than 24 hours said he brought me to his place because there was no way I was driving home in the condition I was in when we left the bar. I was still so perplexed by the fact he hadn’t thrown himself all over me.

Looking back, I realized I was used to dating assholes and people who didn’t respect boundaries, and here was someone who didn’t even try to take advantage of me. What was this? Was this what respect and decency look like manifested in man? Clearly, I didn’t know what it looked like or sounded like. I only understood it was a new concept I’d never been introduced to prior to this exchange.

My parents never had a sex talk with me so the only way I learned about sex was through the things I heard my friends talk about in school, and from every boy who ever dared push my boundaries. Maybe chivalry really isn’t just in the movies, huh? I want to say in retrospect, these behaviors taught me to believe that men only show interest in you when they step right over a boundary, not knowing that every time will play out differently than the last. This is when I began to connect the dots and became aware of experiencing the same type of situations that left traumatic imprints in me, which in turn, have manifested into disregarding my own body, time and time again, treating it like a disposable item. At the time I didn’t understand there was a fine line between disregarding your body and taking control of your body, and allowing desire and pleasure to exist and engulf my world was all I was seeking. The duality in my nature kept confessing silent whimpers yearning for human contact. Disappointingly, he walked me to my car after having tucked me into bed and here I was, going back home to my own clean sheets and the will to multiply tucked right back into my jeans.

Being the "fixer" and learning the hard lesson of letting go

There’s been so much heaviness in my life lately, my family has been going through a lot, and I’ve been learning to navigate these waters in a whole new way. Letting go of the wheel and allowing it to steer me in the direction it's meant to go. As the oldest sibling, (and being a Cancer), my go-to response for most situations dealing with my loved ones is to: protect, and nurture, “I am the fixer, I will take care of it”. …but in cases when it's not up to you to fix things, it can be unbearably hard to watch others suffer, and it's hard to let go when there’s so much you wish you could do to help.

I allow myself to give grace to others and myself, lots and lots of patience, and learn to spread the ever-abundant loving energy we all possess collectively. An immense and powerful energy I now recognize can affect the tiniest of seeds, allowing myself and others to have it.

I think about little P, and how much joy she embodied, and how wild and fierce she was. Today, little P reigns supreme in my rewilding and continues to teach me lessons forgotten.

#happinessisonlyrealwhenshared

making space for the things that ignite my passions and fully submerging myself into the type of life I want to live

When I first met Graham I told my friend Samira I felt like this guy could read me like a book. I'm a very guarded person, so feeling like I had no curtain to hide behind was pretty overwhelming, but I allowed myself to be open to change and love. This came after a series of unrequited love, lots of self-sabotaging, and vowing to open up to someone new. At the time, James, his brother, had just gotten diagnosed with brain cancer and I was very weary of Graham's intentions, so I bluntly told him I was scared this was just something good in his life he was leaning into because the other part of his world was looking grim at the time. I was afraid of getting hurt and I was transparent about it. Who was I kidding- Graham and I spent every day since we met talking for hours every night and he would drive 2, sometimes 5 hours with traffic and rainstorms to see me on a weeknight when I had had a rough day. It's rare that we are not together, and to some that sounds insane, but like one crazy hippie before me said, "But I can be alone without Yoko, but I just have no wish to be. There is no reason on earth why I should be without her. There is nothing more important than our relationship, nothing. We dig being together all the time, and both of us could survive apart, but what for?". We are very much individuals who like our own independent time and somehow we've synthesized so naturally, as soon as we part we quickly ooze right back together. This, I've noticed doesn't sit so well with others, and can be quite hard to comprehend if you've never been in such a devoted partnership.

Recently, I was working a job where I was told by a coworker I would eventually join my bosses at conferences in Las Vegas, and I replied with, "Are these mandatory?" Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely a team player, but I knew the kind of people my bosses were, and I was choosing not to be around their energy any more than I had to. My coworker voiced to me, "Well, they're not mandatory but why wouldn't you want to go party with them?" This was coming from someone who was constantly trying to win over our bosses' approval at all hours of the day. I was setting my boundaries and said, "I prioritize my personal time and that cuts into my family time, and plus, I love being around Graham too." That's when shots were fired from her cubicle and she cut me with, "You need to be an individual and do your own thing too." My head spun so fast, and I immediately disregarded her uninformed statement knowing damn well I'm very much my own person and love having my own time. "This is the type of trap the workplace wants you to get stuck in," I thought. 

I refused to subscribe to the rhetoric of giving someone else complete control over my time, becoming yet another robot in their assembly line. I've done that long enough to want to choose otherwise. I spent all of my twenties doing anything and searching high and low to reach society's expectations, even when they didn't fit into my own. That's one thing society fails to announce or educate, we are not One Size Fits All, and we can't all fall into the same trajectory and expect the same outcomes. I understood right then and there this conversation was dead the second it began, she was drinking their Kool-aid and was tied to a paycheck that looked a lot like a noose from where I stood.

It was reaffirming to me that I had chosen and concretely decided what was most ardently important to me, letting my actions speak for themselves. I've been relentlessly following my heart and making space for the things that ignite my passions that allow me to thrive, and fully submerging myself into the type of life I want to live. Being intentional day-to-day has proven to be the way to become more aligned with my own truth, who I am, the things I want to chase and attract, the freedom I desire, and the joy and love I want to harness in my everyday life. Don't ever let anyone define what your morals and ethics may look or feel like. No one knows you better than you.

Cheers to many years of learning to surrender to love, being gentle, being tender, and most of all, being kind despite learning the opposite behaviors prior to this magickal ride. Making space for one another, for myself, accepting we are human, and allowing for vulnerability on a recurring basis has really cracked me open to receive more of the love this realm continues to churn out. Here's to cultivating more of this together through our many lifetimes to come💖

Just like Honey:

My account is becoming a Joshy appreciation Instagram, but I can't help but express how grateful I am to have found someone who not only listens to my qualms but also helps me wrestle my demons and allows me to bloom in the darkness. My parents always told me I was like a feral cat (I was more misunderstood than anything), but it's so liberating and nurturing being encouraged to follow the wild within by the man I chose to be my husband.

Show a little bit of tenderness: my greatest love quest was the one with myself, and my best relationship yet

Showing kindness and tenderness towards myself has been quite the journey. I’ve been in a snowball of transformation, one I didn't know began years ago. It’s hard to love yourself or even care for your own self when you’ve been the emotional punching bag for an addict parent your whole life. Creating new behaviors and beliefs for yourself outside of the narrative that was appointed to you by said parent, or caregiver can be daunting and even a strange concept. The trauma that once was is no longer a part of your daily life, so how do you stop from self-sabotaging when the hurricane has been long gone? You start at the beginning and intentionally learn to love yourself because no one has taught you the most valuable gift you can give yourself. “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” -Audre Lorde • small note I’d like to add, addictions don't always come in the form of alcoholism or drugs, sometimes they look like repeated patterns, like being addicted to the pain and dark places where you feel safe and sense of normalcy, sometimes they look like a parent who’s addicted to “fixing” broken people, sometimes…

going head first and enjoying the risk

It was our last day in Mexico City, we slept through our alarm and slept through our doorbell as our host kept ringing it at 6 a.m. We raced to leave our bags at our airport lockers and raced again to catch an Uber to be able to make it to the pyramids and back before our flight in a few hours. Somewhere within all the chaos, we were able to enjoy a beautiful sunrise and spectacular colors all over the city. And yet we still managed to be the first ones at Teotihuacan. We walked along the Avenue of the Dead and climbed the Pyramid of the Sun, known to be the largest in Mesoamerica. Crazy that they still allow people to climb these, even found a dog just hanging out at the top, and still wondering how the hell he got up there since the steps are too steep even for me. Man... Mexican dogs you know, si se puede! This place was incredible. #mexicolindoyquerido

My beautiful unborn child: Grief, phantom motherhood, and the greatest of these is love

My beautiful unborn child. Ive never experienced anything so wonderful and yet so devastating. I went in for my 16th week checkup and the doctor couldn’t hear a heartbeat or see any blood flowing through his body. It was clear to the doctor my baby was no longer mine. My due date was Christmas Eve, when we saw his size on the monitor his due date no longer read the same. His little life stopped at 12 weeks and 2 days. My heart keeps breaking and my body still hasnt even recognized I’ve miscarried, I’ve felt no physical pain and my body still feels very pregnant. My heart is torn and i have no words but to cry. For the last 4 weeks I’ve been walking through life with a dead baby inside me and it breaks my heart that I didn’t even know it and couldnt do anything or even know when it happened. The hardest thing was seeing my little baby frozen in time, knowing that by this time he’d be swimming around in my belly and not letting me sleep at night. My little piece of heaven, made intentionally, not by accident. Only earthside briefly but forever my little buddy with me everywhere i go

If love was made for two

I keep going over and over the same thoughts in my head. I keep feeling guilty for trying to make this work when my heart just isnt in it anymore. In reality, youre the one who let me slip, so why do i feel like im the one who is giving up? I invested so much time and gave out so much love, in a way im really glad this didnt ruin me bcos quite frankly- i dont know if my heart could take it this time. I conquered and i learned so many tough lessons that i couldnt have met other than with you. You were a long summer in my love cycle, and fall is creeping in. Although i may not seem as torn as i felt previously, i continue to question whether im doing the right thing- for myself. Ive seen infatuation come and leave the glimmer in your eye so quickly, and i begin to realize that i stole it from you and i wont set it free. I will never share it, i will never show it. If love was made for two- why do i keep losing?