Written by Dana Smith
When I realized I’d committed to making all this public I was over come by a feeling that tightened my shoulders and clenched both my jaw and butt cheeks. This was all after the process of writing it, which made me feel sporadic and disassociated. Writing this blog forced me to pull myself from my story, extract the essence of my reflections from past life shaping experiences. These reflections were hard to face then and are hard to say now. To write it I had to process it, to process it I had to have lived it.
I had to extract the essence of my reflections from life shaping experiences
In this process of course I relived a lot of pain, however I got a chance to remember the good times that were buried with the hard. Pulling pictures from Facebook was a roller coaster of draining and energizing sensations. I say all this to say I’m so glad I chose to share and I appreciate your presence and witness to this journey (in whatever space in time).
Some parts where harder to talk about than others. You might have wondered what I meant by ‘self harm’ and ‘eating disorders’ (we all want to look at the train crash). Was it picking, nail-biting, cutting, binge eating, anorexia, bulimia, all of the above? What is the trigger? Well I’ll tell you this the trigger is all too real.
Days in the bed, depressive moods, lack of motivation, mental blocks. These are all things I deal with to date. I have no answers sway, I need a therapy (fuck stigmas). I’m learning to care for my body and deter from thinking that leads me towards harm. I work to see myself as I am and not as intended.
I see my struggle to say no, I see how that hurts my integrity
I see my struggle to make time, I see my energy lessen
I see my struggle to stay a float, I see my self drowning
I see and I try and… the music helps
I’d like to believe its getting better, better all the time
I appreciate you taking the time to follow a journey though my complicated feelings in my adolescence and through my development. I had to write it to let it go, but I had to share it because too often we do not. Some times the story with no end is the truest.
Confession: All my art comes from processing my personal experiences and I process all things differently, sometimes life gives me what turns into a song, other times life gives me what comes to be a chronicle. I hope that the folks who read my blog take from it the truths I lived. I hope opening my heart helps another opens theirs.
Express
In all the things and all the ways
I find comfort in expression, in all my days
Photography: Mahdi Gransberry