Here and Now

Each fold and sharp crease between thumbnail and stark white paper hisses with outrage refined angles cutting remarks behind a simpering smile shooting baskets with the misshapen wads aim and miss each paper crane is formed from everything she was told she lacked her many failures bent into the correct aesthetic shape forced to acquiesce  throbbing fingers crimp and tuck seething warmth rising with each crumpled mistake these messy pages tell her battled tale... -the lie of perfection Angela Minard©  Artwork by  Duy Huynh

Venus I can't speak anymore of truth of pain without my heart  lurching  into the hollow cave  of my throat I hear the reverberating echo of hate the bitter taste of poison  on my lips seething anger fills my belly You talk and talk and talk about nothing while we all  go  hungry Angela Minard 2016© Artwork by  annadittmann.tumblr.com

Scream Outside my window the white sky is marbled  with veins of charcoal A winter sky in April From far away whispered thoughts drift over the stillness of my body Startled by the sound of my name being called I listen intently holding my breath until I finally realize it is my own voice calling Clamping my mouth tightly closed I breathe purposefully through my nose in 2,3,4 out 2,3,4,5 until the urge to scream disappears Droplets of rain occasionally tap the window as the lyrics to a song by The Clash plays in my head on repeat... "Should I stay or should I go Should I stay or should I go now?" The rhythm is more upbeat than I feel I feel  nothing but still the question without a clear answer So I wait... continuing to breathe in 2,3,4,5 out, 2,3,4,5,6,7 I reach for my phone find your number wait for the...

Where Success is Measured by Failure "Call 911 or go to your nearest emergency room..." where no one will know you  or your history where you will have zero access  to anyone you even half way trust where you will be drugged into oblivion  pharmaceutical numbness; where you will miss work and be forced to lie  in order to keep your job where you learn  to keep your fucking mouth shut vowing that if it ever gets to this point again you will succeed Angela Minard 2016© Artwork~ "Incomplete" by thuyngan.deviantart.com

"Hurt people hurt people." I don't know where that quote originated, but isn't it the sad truth? It is an endless cycle that continues out of anger and unspoken needs. We throw around the word "forgiveness" as if that will solve everything, but it doesn't erase the pain. The more compassion I have for myself, the easier it is to let go of the anger. The pain is a different beast. You have to befriend the pain, acknowledge it, and keep it company for awhile. This I am learning...I can't starve it away, or drink it away. I can't check out anymore. No...I have to be present with the pain, and that kind of makes me mad, and so I return to the anger. I reach for compassion and forgiveness toward myself, again so that I can soften the anger, soften my heart, and it is a process of coming back again and again to loving myself. I'm a novice at this, so I make mistakes. I lashed out in anger at someone that I love because they couldn't lov...

No One Listens We pack our emotions into used cardboard boxes labeling them with permanent black ink without tender care no crinkled tissue paper or newspaper print We haphazardly toss them tape them and try to forget We arrive at our destinations slamming car doors eyes to the pavement seeing nothing shoulders caving in on broken hearts We stride in brightly  wide smiles and cheerful hellos fucking liars hiding behind name brand clothing make up job descriptions dressed up to sound prestigious fancy fucking words flow from our lips We make it sound so pretty, don't we? Angela Minard 2015© Artwork by~ Audrey Kawasaki

This Is Love They will lie pretending to care perhaps believing their own chatter  feigning interest pretty made up stories that you will dream about with breathless anticipation They will leave you dangling in mid-air like a disjointed marionette unable to wipe the sick plastic smile off of your aching face They will tell you that "this is love," and "this is love," until love means nothing but silence, pain, and empty promises This is not love... Angela Minard 2014© Photography by~ Frank T. Zumbach

My therapy and nutritionist sessions were hard this week, and I'm feeling discouraged. Everyone feels like I'm using avoidance types of behaviors, and that in many ways, I'm fooling myself into believing I'm fine, when really I'm not fine. It is frustrating for others to believe that you have a problem, when you can't see the problems for yourself. I feel like I'm trying to eat, but I'm still basically only having one meal a day. My therapist is not happy with my progress when it comes to food. I told her that I've eaten lunch instead of having Boost twice this week, but that doesn't seem good enough. I know that I'm not eating breakfast, and that my calories are still too low, but I'm afraid of adding more food. My weight has basically stayed the same for awhile now. My nutritionist says that my body is used to running in starvation mode, and that it will adjust to added calories. I'm not very trusting of that. I'm trying to chan...

Wants~ To listen and be heard To see and be seen To feel and be felt To make a difference To matter To live in the now To feel joy To grieve To trust To have faith To have self worth To nurture and be nurtured To move on To nourish myself body and soul To hold on To be held Oh, the list is endless, but never the less, I'm working on believing that I deserve those things. I swallow my feelings instead of swallowing food, but I'm stuffed full of emotions that long to spill out, and I'm afraid that they will be too much for me or anyone else to handle. For so long, what I've really been working on is disappearing. On Monday evening, I turned pillows into punching bags, and it felt so good, although I cannot pinpoint what triggered my anger. I suppose I have reasons for my pent up rage, but it surprised even me. I rarely show anger to anyone, instead I become mute. No one was around, so it felt safe to release it. Healing is exhausting, but slowly the weight is lifting. I h...

My emotions bubble to the surface, often leaving me teary eyed and raw. I'm not even sure what these feelings are about. I've had therapy and nutritionist appointments along with the out-patient addiction recovery meetings which are three times a week. I have 4 more weeks to go. I'm already weary and feeling emotionally drained. Thursday night in the recovery group, I started to cry while I was sharing about my week. I don't even know what it was that made me cry. I have a difficult time labeling my emotions, and it is frustrating. That is a lot of what I'm working on in therapy, especially working on anger, which is the hardest for me to admit to or identify. I stuff my feelings down, restricting my food intake to numb and bury the feelings. Now that I'm adding more food to my meal plan, the feelings are returning full force, and it is scary. Most of the time though, the mask is on. I'm cheerful and smiling on the outside, while the pain on the inside aches...

Why do I let the sick parts of my past take over the present, making me sick in the future? This is when I have the choice to make, and it’s really quite simple. “Go over to the refrigerator or the cupboard, and find something to eat.” I’ve been saying this phrase to myself all afternoon, the light fades, and here I still sit, with an empty stomach and a racing heart. There are days when I just will not do it. I can’t even find it in myself to get angry, and I wish that the indifference would frighten me. I need the anger to recover, and I need to eat to feel. It is a vicious cycle, and the kitchen is only a few footsteps away.

I'm feeling lonely. Everyone went to bed, but I'm still wired. I had so much to do when I came home from work, and it has been such a busy day. At school, we are getting a new student after the break, so I was busy getting materials ready for his transition. It is going to be a full classroom with five boys. The new boy sounds like a handful from what I've read about him, but aren't they all at first, until we get to work with them. I love the challenge of my job, but it will be interesting to see how the first week back will be. What am I already worrying about it for anyway? This evening I've been getting the house ready for my parent's arrival, and now that everything is as done as it's going to get, I can't calm down. I'm running on empty, but I can't slow my mind down, and everything feels like a jumble of words running into each other. Oh well, at least I'm not depressed anymore. I'm excited to see my mom and step dad. My mom and I ...

My dad has called a few times since I saw him at my grandpa's visitation. I programmed his number into my phone just in case I gather the courage to actually return his call. I was upset when I thought that he wasn't ever going to call, and now that he has, I'm not sure what to do. This is not me being spiteful towards him, or at least, I don't think it is. I do feel the need to protect myself from anymore damage or unintentionally hurtful words. Mostly I think it is what he doesn't say that hurts the most. He can be so oblivious and self absorbed, and although he is no longer drinking and using drugs, I don't think those qualities have changed. I don't need a father figure, because for the majority of my life, I've had an amazing step-father who more than filled those shoes. I ask myself what is it that I want, and I'm not sure. I know that being totally cut off from him by my own choosing feels wrong. He keeps attempting to reach out, and although ...

Where did this month go? The good days, the bad, the days that I don't remember. The days that I don't remember confuse and worry me. There are days that I'm outside of myself, looking in, as if I'm a stranger. I awaken from a nightmare, and the day slips away into a distant, safe place, and even I can't tell you where I go. There are so many ways to numb my feelings, and I have managed to find most of them. I also don't want them to be taken away, and one by one, I feel that they are being stripped away from me, without my consent. I know this isn't true, and that I have a say. I have a voice that I consistently try to silence. Everyone at work notices that I don't eat, and all that I feel is indifference. I don't even care to hide it anymore. It's not that I don't eat. It's just that it is mostly when no one is watching, and although it's not much, I do eat. I feel a sense of embarrassment that I need to eat, almost apologetic. ...

I've been missing here for almost a week. My emotions are everywhere, and so much has taken place since I last posted. First of all, my grandpa passed away last week. That wasn't really all that emotional. We were not close. After my parents divorced when I was eight, my dad's side of the family fell away. They did not stay in contact, even though we still resided in the same city. I struggled with whether or not to attend the visitation. I knew that my dad would be there, and I had broken ties with him ten years ago. He was a drug addict and alcoholic, and always very narcissistic and self serving. He never payed child support, and yet, always drove the latest Corvette. I did end up going to the visitation with my husband and children. My dad was there, and he cried, and went on and on about how he had changed. He credits his fiance' with helping him to turn his life around, calling her an "angel." Well, we were never enough to give him reason to turn his lif...

Last night I went to my therapy session all fired up and filled with anger. Yes, I think that some of the anger is misdirected, but I let my therapist have it anyway. Instead of returning my anger with her own anger, she was very willing to talk things through, and was actually very proud of me for not keeping all of those emotions inside. That is what I usually tend to do. I am angry at myself for using alcohol as self medication, and I do agree that the behavior needs to stop. She did agree that I am not an alcoholic, but she is concerned with my drinking at all because of the medications that I'm on. She did want me to try a few more AA meetings, but it is not a stipulation for her treating me. She will still see me even if I decide not to go. I also told her that it hurt my feelings that she would want me to take such a strong medication to try and control my behavior. She apologized, but was thinking that if it detoured me from drinking at all, then it might motivate me. I kn...

Sometimes I get so tired of the voices in my head. That sounds crazy doesn't it? The voices...but they do drive me crazy. The eating disorder, the negative self talk, the reframing of the negative self talk...it just goes on and on! I've been learning to meditate, and when that works, it helps a great deal. Yesterday I needed so much to get out of my own head, so I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. I try to visualize a safe, beautiful place in my mind where I can go, and for the first time in days, the chatter stopped, and I could simply be. It was nice, so I need to try to do more of those types of exercises. We did a lot of visualization exercises when I was in treatment for my eating disorder, and it really does work if you can let go, which is easier said than done. I really need to find a yoga class. I was going to try the kick boxing, but I think yoga would help me to feel more connected to my body. I feel so uncomfortable with my body though, that even going to ...

There are days like today when food just seems too complicated,and I'm trying to figure out why that is. This morning I was in the kitchen trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast. I pulled out raisin bread, put it back. Cereal bar, put it back. Maybe I'm not even hungry I thought to myself, grabbed my cup of coffee, and walked out of the kitchen. Maybe it is the hunger that is complicated, and not the actual food. Empty feels good to me, and fullness feels bad, as if I've done something wrong by feeding my body. I feel emotional and teary today, and I'm not very good at naming my emotions or pinpointing the reasons for having them. I suppose I question the whys too much, trying to avoid actually feeling the emotions at all. I think that if I had sat down to a meal this morning, I would have cried, and I don't want to cry. I had a dream about the rape this morning, and thankfully the alarm went off, but the first thing that I wanted to do after awakening was t...

The pavement dissolves into a ribbon of blue, reflecting the sky, and my mind wanders as I stare at the highway flowing behind me. Memories now, and that is all that they are. Not flashbacks where there is no escape. Just memories. I am hypnotized by the road trip, and there is a recurrent phrase that resounds inside of my mind. " I don't want to hate ." I feel those words deep inside of my soul, and I roll them around over my tongue. I'm almost afraid to say them aloud. I tell myself that it doesn't mean denial. Denial for so many years. Silence. Afraid to tell anyone that I was raped. Shame. Blaming the child that I was. Now there is the letting go, and that is what I ponder. Am I ready to let it go? I must be close, because I feel it slowly breaking away. " I don't want to hate ." No, but I do. I hate. I have anger and hate. I know that I will have to let go of the anger and hate to truly be free. I think about how it will feel to let it go, and I...

Life can be so strange and ironic at times. I just finished a poem about the decision that I had made not to get back in contact with my dad, and the next day, my aunt calls, pleading with me to write or call him. She tells me that he has really turned his life around, and that he just wants a second chance to have a relationship with me. I already knew that from the letter that he sent me, but I wasn't so sure that he had changed. I feel like hearing that should make me want to change my mind, but for some reason, it just doesn't, and I wonder if that makes me a bad person. Why am I so unforgiving? My aunt also told me that my cousin will be getting married in November, and she wants all of us to come to the wedding. I would like to go, but that would mean seeing my dad. I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I should try, but something is holding me back from writing or calling him, and I'm not quite sure what it is. You know...that is not true. I think that I d...