Pursuing Peace: June 2014

Hi!

My name is Ty. I'm a 20 year old Colorado native. I'm an artist, a minimum wage worker, and a lover of life. I'm also an assault survivor, a suicide survivor, and anorexia survivor, and a lifetime sufferer of depression and anxiety.

I'm tired of those labels being defining characteristics of who I am. I'm tired of being a victim and a sufferer. I am starting this project because I realized life is too short to waste hating myself and being sad, and then I started to realize that I have the tools to help myself. Once I started to heal, I looked around and realized that there were a lot of other people in my peer group in the same pit I was in. I started to wonder of the things I tried to do for myself might help other people, or at least help them get pointed the way they want to point.

I do not claim my ideas will work for everyone, and I DEFINITELY don't think they're a magic cure. Everything I'm doing and have tried to do has only worked because I genuinely wanted to get better. Depression is kind of like an addiction with how seductive it is, and the only way a person can truly start to heal and continue to do so is when they themselves truly want to get better. I'm hoping that for those of us who want to feel better and move forward, but don't know where to start can maybe some passive direction in what I have to say.

This blog is about self reliance and self-love. I will be posting challenges, things to think about, coping mechanisms I use, and things to brighten your day a few times a week. Take from them what you wish, and feedback is much appreciated. I want to learn from you too!

Thanks guys!

Love, Ty

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Response From a Reader

Reader:

"I just want to let you know that you've inspired me. I've watched you change through your posts and I love the way you try to change the way you look at things. Ya, things can still suck sometimes, but you've done a lot to make yourself happy and I'm slowly learning to do that too. I'm going to try that love poem to myself thing that you did. Thank you for showing me how I can help myself.

Life is really scary sometimes and i just have been needing a boost. I have to fight with myself to try to avoid anxiety attacks and depression. You've inspired me time and time again and I really want to change like that. Maybe all I needed was a mentally distorted buddy... So we could maintain sanity together"

This response means so much to me. it feels wonderful to know that I'm helping someone make it through, and gives me hope that I'm helping more than just her.

I know this isn't easy for anyone. It's not easy for me either, but I promise you, once this stuff really starts sinking in, life is so much more beautiful and easier to get through.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Backstepping

I'm hurting a lot today, and feeling very down on myself. I know I'm not alone.

These two songs really help me, maybe they'll help you.

Perfect by P!nk

Love Me by Katy Perry

I'm sorry I haven't updated much. As I said this journey is a hard one and mine is not finished. I am currently having a really hard time dealing with a breakup, and a lot of my old issues about myself have flared up pretty badly.

I think I am beautiful inside and out. My mind and heart fascinate and delight me, because they are a universe to explore in themselves. Their abilities astound me, like they are separate beings I don't even know all about. I worry that I am too intense, too odd to ever be able to connect with another person whole enough to love me the way I love.

Physical beauty isn't supposed to be important but we focus a lot on it, so it becomes that way. I am anorexic, and though I am even on the low end of a healthy weight for my frame I still find myself picking apart what I consider to be extra pounds. My acne and heavy acne scarring upsets me a lot. I feel like my hair is too thin. Everything I've already been through in my short life has already started to wrinkle my skin and grey my hair. I worry that all of these imperfections will make me too imperfect to be loved romantically.

These things may honestly be true, as every fear and insecurity I have listed has its origin, has its evidence where it got in the way of something, the moment a lover called attention to it.

I'm trying to make myself ok with being by myself because I may be all I ever have. I also know that every relationship I have until I reach that peace will be tinged with at least a little bit of desperation to not end up alone, and that will always add something untrue to whatever love I create.

My mission is to reach a level of peace that allows me to be happy with whatever my fate becomes. I have not come as far as I thought I had, but I have still learned.