And If You Look To Your Right, You’ll Find The Epitome Of… chaos

Trigger Warning: Mentions of Self-Harm and Suicidal Thoughts

This tour chronicles the epitome of- Mayhem-Ataxia… chaos. This is a story of the chaos within a hidden wild woman falling prey to sinister diseases of the mind. So PSA to all you freaks of nature tagging along for today, this is a tour of darkness. So buckle up, and keep all emotions locked away tightly as we move through this dense chasm together. This is a story of poisoned bedlam constantly brewing within. Look to your left and you might see my monster. Look to the right and you’ll find that epitome within me.

Before I discovered solitude and a haven in alchemy, herbs, shadow work, and elixirs, my spirit was homeless. I was a vessel of false serenity, bent to the will of inhumane hierarchies built on a bed of fear and anguish. And I thought about death all the time. This is how my ultimate toxic relationship began, in the crevices of my life; the black mass germinating in the corner of my room, engulfing me in its opaque matter, determined to blackout my light.

See, my monster had done several things to me and for me. He’s broken me down while pointing me in a different direction. He’s grasped my hand and introduced me to an extensive dance with death. And he tittered with me, twirling me around at the edges of an infinite abyss.

He sat at the edge of my bed when it was too hard to get out of it that day. He lurked at the back of my neck when my mind raced a mile a minute about how much work I had left to do for the week. He taunted me when I overthought about how much energy it would require of me to get out of bed just to take a shower. He hovered above my head leaning in on the nights when my pillow became my only closest friend because it held my screams, my tears, my prayers, my pleas, my dreams, my mind, my disease- yes disease. Mental illness is my disease. Affliction- afflictions manifesting in my brain, irrational spontaneous decision making, thoughts swirling around like scribbles…

Mayhem

Ataxia

chaos. noise.

As we make our way further down this soot drenched rabbit hole, through all the noise, no one would’ve guessed that this me existing before you, writing this- is in a dark pit of pain unaware of how to live and breathe and exist outside of chaos and far away from my monster. So when asked about one of my most unfiltered moments of my life where I shine through the most, this is it.

I want to smile, just to smile. And to laugh and to enjoy that laugh.

I spent years opening up and knocking down the walls around my weak and fragile heart, allowing undeserving people to rip it to shreds. And my monster stood beside me through and through. All the while I wondered what I could’ve done better, what I should’ve said, what I should’ve looked like, what I could’ve improved. But my tormentors- they got to be happy with someone else while I was stuck with my monster. How dare they?!

Now, for the blessed unafflicted souls partaking on this tour, to the ones who don’t know this particular kind of suffering, with grace I ask you to imagine this.

You are in a room. No windows or doors. All the walls are mirrors. The floor is black. Feels infinite and yet like it’s closing in on you. A chair appears in one of the mirrors and you see yourself just sitting there surrounded by the material things and people you used to love. This room starts filling with water. It gushes everywhere rushing in. And you can’t stop it. And in the mirror, the things you used to love begin to float around you as you sit waist-deep on looking. You and your reflection both start to float. The water rushes in faster. You float. The things you love, you love, you love, consume you. With eyes shut, these things and loved ones don’t seem so far away. With eyes open a demon appears in the mirror, stoic and amused staring right back at you. Eyes shut! Now you fight. You don’t want to drown. You dive under for an exit, you don’t want to drown. You pound at the mirrors with all of your might, but for each crack, the mirror repairs itself. You swim up. You reach for the ceiling and it’s enclosed. Breathe! The water slows down. You close your eyes and give way to the current. You are still in a room. You sink to the floor, the blackness eating you whole. You are still in a room. Now with no ceiling. You smile as the water gushes over your face. Water fills your nose and you cry in relief. You are in a room. Fragile being you must rage on, you chant to yourself. You are in a room. This can’t be hell, this is one of the darkest recesses of the mind. You are in a room, tossing and turning feeling like you’re fading away when in reality, your power is untapped. You are in a room and it finally clicks that the answer to your escape lies in your understanding of personal chaos. Now wake up freak of nature. This tour has been a treacherous task. The human frame can only handle so much. So diamond mind, please don’t shatter just yet.

I think about that room; the nightmare of drowning in my own life. With this through the looking glass take on reality, feeling like I’m so far off course. I think about my demon, feeling him win and shuddering at the thought of my weakness.

This depression worsened over the course of sixteen years. I was stuck on a loop of offering up fake-happy auto-responses, lies, and dissociation. After several thoughts and planned out ideas for the perfect ultimate dance with death, on the day my demon actually aided me in trying to take my own life, enough was enough.

My repose with fawning with oblivion tasted closer than ever. This was just one wicked way to fall apart:

On Thursday I ate Thanksgiving dinner and played the role of the good funny older sibling and daughter. On Friday I slept away the loud voices screaming at me to really feel the pain with oversized joints, too much wine, and Xanax. On Saturday I balled for 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 23 seconds. On Sunday, I screamed aloud because no one but the birds could hear me on those lonely isolated south campus apartments; only those jet black ravens knew the sound of a tortured soul that day. On Sunday, through blurry eyes, I held a kitchen knife to the center of my wrist and went into my yard to scream and smash bottles like a coward. On Monday I called a HopeLine before going to class. On Tuesday, I ignored all calls and consequences. On Wednesday I never felt more alone. There was a phantom of me somewhere in this body shrieking to the top of its ghostly lungs, begging whatever force to release itself, to release me… And the voices, so many voices, all of them just different versions of me. And I balled at the thought of all of the stories in my head that hadn’t yet been told to the world; they all caught up with me. On Thursday I couldn’t muster enough energy to fake all the love back to others around me. And on that day the real monster hiding in the base of my belly, the same one standing over my shoulder, made his grandest appearance. But I was half a mind and a world away...

I wailed at the shadows confined around me. The side effects of my most deadly cocktail of chaos yet had surfaced and death never felt so adjoining, so placid, so tantalizing, so freeing. What could be done when you don’t want to die, but you just don’t want to exist like this any longer? As an ambulance arrived and the blue lights started to flash all I could see was white.

We’ve reached a point in the tour where if you look to your right you’ll find the epitome of disintegration.

From the paramedics’ flashlights to the fluorescence of a frigid hospital room, the achromatic gleams made me dizzy and my pallid mind felt like it was melting. Then came the one-hit-wonder: a Narcan shot. Those fluorescent lights showed brighter and I really felt my veins for the first time! I felt my blood coursing through me, and I whimpered at the mere thought of how much of my power I gave away. I enabled him to throw me in a chokehold with my own thoughts. And he pushed me to this fringe, yet he wasn’t even holding my hand through the worst of it.

This part of the tour requires your graces again. See, I’ve been in a relationship these past 19 years with the ultimate fuckboy known as major depressive disorder. Something he’ll invite anxiety and CPTSD over to spice things up in our relationship. This emotional roller coaster of whirling thoughts and regrets engulfs this toxic place. See depression has a way of curling up close to you at night, holding you and whispering to you that this irrationality is just, and that the world is a cyclical as you think, and that no one loves you, and that you should suffer for it and I one of many freaks of nature in our folly become a pawn to the game of a diseased human mind. See, he wraps his hands around your throat and chokes you until you’re blue and all the while you begin to smile because of this low, this pit you’re in with him. My monster, your monster- is the only home we’ve ever known.

Hospitalization was a lengthy trial of coming to terms with why I lacked a connection between my mind and presence with reality. I had to dig deeper into why I ran so far away from too many of my gaping wounds!

Music and good kush turned into a steady remedy. In particular, a trio of unalike artistries: Ambar Lucid’s “A Letter To My Younger Self” Clams Casino’s “I’m God” and Mount Kimbe’s “Blue Train Lines” featuring King Krule

Firstly, hospitalization for psychiatric conditions only offers card games, bland decaf coffee, and regional cable. So one of the first things I did was run to my phone and rediscovered the magic of SoundCloud. On a rabbit hole venture, Lucid’s song quieted my soul. I reclused, not to hide from the world, but to work on myself and my comprehension of the universe and all its wonders that I hadn’t fully adopted. It was the birthplace of my personal career as a bruja, my most awe-inspiring decision. Thinking of my younger self, I would’ve wanted her to always know she could be so capable and dynamic. So I became the version of myself I couldn’t stop daydreaming about. A bruja of West African, Caribbean, Indigenous, and Latin descent! A mentally ill, immensely traumatized Black woman conquering her demons and refusing to give a single fuck about what her depression has to say about it! I became a ruthless healer coexisting with strands of my shadow self.

Then months later on a random Tuesday morning while getting for class my senior year, Clams Casino’s absolute banger wrapped me in a tight and warm embrace filling my aura with a medallion and honey-hued yellow. I remember spotting myself in my bedroom mirror, turning to crank up my speakers, and closing my eyes letting the full sunlight beam onto my skin as I swayed and dipped and sprung with each beat drop. One of my most immaculate moments. To feel like I was meeting myself for the first time and giving myself nothing but utter tenderness. A kindness I had nostalgically craved for too long. That day I felt like a million jagged pieces within hand finally learned to coordinate, not for peace, but out of my redirection of energy; the self-discipline to crave change!

And finally, on a day when I could look at the scars on my wrist and comfortably took my anti-depressants, I dived into the raw voice of King Krule on Mount Kimbe’s track. I traced the lines of my scars, fearlessly and unyielding, shedding not a tear. I stepped from my shower and entered my bedroom, as the randomized playlist ushered in a buildup that instantly linked to my moment. Instead of the hairs standing up on the back of my neck because of my monster, I felt placidity. I acknowledged the bruised parts of my spirit, returning to reality once I gave time to that part of myself. And I never felt more care than in that instance.

Mayhem.

Ataxia, and

proper chaos!

Now breathe fellow freaks of nature. This tale of hopelessness had reached its end in a past chapter of this life of mine. And that hurt still stings. But the chapter of healing has begun. In this fresher journey, I’ve discovered that when you leave your abuser life transforms into a reconstruction of the spirit and existence, apart from the parasite that nearly destroyed you. But when you coexist with your abuser, the tug of war ensues. And some days I triumph and some days he rears his head in. But the willingness to fight, the desire to redeem me, the ability to understand the complex repair of the soul, therein lies my victory.

I shall not be pitied, I shall not be ostracized, I shall not stop believing in the chance to overcome and find some semblance of constant peace. We all deserve a Pax Romana in this age of disaster and consistent obstruction of living. One day I will live and not just survive- maybe we all will. And maybe, we’ll hold tender care for ourselves, heavy in our own hearts.