Down, but not out. I am digging deep, putting more effort each day into getting well. Physically, pushing my body, my muscles to heal. The hip surgery set me back, I’m older and the fight to get back to my old energy level is very hard.
But I’m not going to take this aging thing lying down! Which is, literally, what my mind is telling me to do. There is a heaviness to my limbs…the word for how I feel is CUMBERSOME.
I joined a Weight loss app for a 3 week trial. I am fighting the negative voices from my childhood about my weight. NO! I refuse to go back to being slovenly, to not caring, to eating entire bags of cookies in half an hour, then wallowing in guilt and self-loathing for weeks. NO!!
I CAN get well, I AM fine now. My energy is returning, I am improving, exercising, tracking my food, my mood, my steps. Being accountable feels good. So, now I rest. A good day, doing good things.
I am GRATEFUL today. Thank you , my God. For your Son, Jesus. For forgiving me…for loving me. I CAN do this. I AM doing this!!
Oh Joyful heart, where are you today? From so much light I now feel only pain.
Where did my optimism run away to hide,
Why now this dread that cannot be denied?
She thought she had come away unscathed, from the turmoil, the abuse
…and rage.
But disease was just below the surface all along, and now the Piper must be paid…
Oh senseless one, unreasonable and blind, don’t mind your feeble, fluctuating mind, because as your marbles leave you, they are cast: to the wind and to infinity, at last.
She had packed up all her winter clothes, put away her childhood toys, went to bed under many uncertain memories
¡TRIGGER WARNING! This post deals with domestic violence, physical assault and ptsd flashbacks. Please use discretion!
Ah, dear husband of mine. How you never leave me. I can remember your last punch like it was yesterday. Dear previous boyfriend; thanks so much for hitting me in the face so hard that you broke the hard contact lenses in both of my eyes. Oh, and for the chipped front tooth.
Dear Ex-Fiance, the lovely memories of you stalking me never leave. I can still hear your trucks engine idling outside my bedroom window at 4 in the morning. A few weeks later you murdered your Dad, and yourself…
And dear Husband of mine, how often I still hear your calling me “Stupid Bitch”, and can still feel your knee across my neck as my vision faded to black. I was sure I was dead, and I was glad. I would never again have to see the evil hatred in your eyes… But no, I wasn’t dead, I had six more years to live with you, memories of being stabbed, shot at and beaten unconscious. Oh, the memories…
But I’m still here, after all this time. I’m alive, and my abusers are not. Maybe some still live, but I am free, and I am strong and I am beautiful.
My God saved me from all of them.
So, when the flashbacks come, and come they do…I know to hold on. Hold on tight to my faith. Hold on tight to what I know is real, and turn off the sights and sounds that rise up to try to torment me.
My God loves me, and has put my feet on level ground. He has given me the priceless gift of a clean conscience, washed clean with the forgiveness purchased thru the life blood of his perfect Son. I am free of the chains of addiction, of abuse, and of my own self-loathing. I am grateful. And free. Today was a hard day, in that the flashbacks came out to play. For whatever reason I was triggered , for a while. But this day is over, successfully lived. I can rest me weary eyes and start fresh tomorrow…
Head in the Clouds c. SusanTMartin2023
I thank God for relieving me of the abusers, the abuse, the sickness of thinking I deserved the terrible mistreatment I endured.
It is a good feeling to care about myself…
It has been a long road, including years of therapy and hard work.
I hope I can help others find the courage to heal.
***Trigger Warning* This post contains adult subject matter such as mental illness and loss of life by one’s own hand***
ANOTHER FRIEND GONE:
She is young, strong and beautiful. A gymnast, so good that she teaches the sport to younger girls. Not long out of high school, not quite an adult; just shy of 21. Working an interim job while she figures out which direction her professional life should go- perfectly normal for a young woman…right?
To all outward appearances Katy seems perky, energetic and happy. Her easy laugh and warm greetings endear her to all she meets; she makes friends so easy. She couldn’t have a bad day; she’s at the top of her game as a young adult…right? I mean, isn’t she?
I think to myself, what a lovely young woman, she’s got everything going for her. I envy her youth and vitality for a minute, then I’m swept up by her joyful personality. I am now counted as a friend, too. She loves my cats, all animals in fact. She loves all animals. She also enjoys talking about food; preparing it, learning new recipes. She always asks us what we had for lunch or dinner the day before, to the point that I commented once that it was an obsession of hers. I was half joking, and a little annoyed. I realized right away that I hurt her feelings, so the subject was changed and we are fine again, all is well…or is it?
Then I learn the truth. Katy is not fine, all is not well. She is battling a huge monster, one that I am all too familiar with. I can’t believe it, but now I recognize the signs.
You see, I was in a locked psych ward once. I was young, skinny, pretty. Going to Community College in Pittsburgh. Happy, lots of friends, getting through my last year of high school. A steady boyfriend. Sure, I liked to party, and it all seemed fine to my folks. But it was not fine inside me.
I was severely depressed, and an alcoholic: a full blown addict. I hated my appearance, and would make myself vomit to keep from gaining weight. I would think dark and deadly thoughts and had attempted suicide more than once. No one understood , I never let them in. I put up a fantastic facade while I was dying inside. I had been molested as a child, raped at 13, was pregnant at 15 and my Mom had insisted I get an abortion, which she set up the day after I told her. I was so sick and sad, my boyfriend was abusive and I jumped out of his moving car one night when he wouldn’t drop me off at my house.
At the emergency room the Doctor noticed how dilated my pupils were; the dam broke as he gently questioned me- I told him everything. He helped me talk to my Mom about my drug use, my depression, being suicidal, the whole sad situation. I remember her and I at a Friendly’s, eating ice cream afterwards, how shocked she was. She had no clue. She was busy all the time, so was Dad ..how could they know???
I really worked at getting well in that stint at the Psych ward. Thirty days of intense therapy and I stayed clean for a few months after. But the mental illness and addiction raised their heads and followed me for another 17 years.
I’m alive now at 59. Clean, sober and correctly diagnosed as Bipolar. I take my meds and treasure my life.
But dear Katy is not alive. She took her own bright and beautiful life yesterday. The pain was too much. I’m so sorry, Little Sister.
I wish I could have helped. I wish you were still alive, just one more day. One more chance to choose living. Because it DOES get better, my dear friend. It would have, and you would have looked back one day, maybe with your new baby in your arms. Looked back over the dark days and thought, ” I’m so glad I didn’t take my life that day. I would have missed all these beautiful days since…”
You would be so grateful that you waited a moment, said a prayer, told someone you were hurting, made that phone call, put that syringe down, listened to that tiny voice inside saying, ” Save me, please!…”
Please, if anyone out there reads this , if you are contemplating suicide, please take that moment to stop and think past the immediate pain. Give the future you a chance at finding joy in living. Just stick around one more day, for Katy. For your Mom, or best friend. For your cat, or for your kid brother. For some other lost soul to hear your story some day…
Slinking out, an arm entwines/ while in my head a dream unwinds /My vision blurs as visions come/ I feel speech slide off my tongue/ It floats away unheard, unread/ I swim out further, the sea my bed.
Octo-eel emeralds, such glistening fish/ you filet the flesh, I’ll eat, we’ll wish/ Wish to rise on yonder shore/when sirens’ call can drown no more.
Someone I loved floats slowly by/ now I feel that last goodbye/ People are beautiful when they drown/ soft hair floats just like a crown/ glorious flaxen, warmest brown. Their clothes billow/ they sink down.
Turquoise water-clear as conscience/ I see way back in my past/ teaching me your strange science/ my heartstrings lash me to your mast/ we must batten down the hatches for the tide’s receding fast!
My grief runs to blackened sea/ Do you ever think of me?/ I miss you too, more than the last/ Has any other bait been cast? Will my arms endure this battle ? Will this vessel be rent in two?/ I will never know the answer/ till love runs me through and thru
Soon we will finally have peace , enough for everyone, everywhere. No more fighting or hatred. Love will prevail, goodness will triumph. And I will be with my loved ones again.
So I will hold on, just a little while longer. ALL the prophecies WILL come true. And I will be with you, again. Forever.
DOOR MURAL , 2018DETAIL, DOOR MURAL, 2018DETAIL, DOOR MURAL, 2018SHED MURAL IN PROGRESSMural Idea, 2016SHED MURAL PROGRESS)Reaching Out, acrylic on canvas, Work in Progress, Susan T. Martin 2017Last Years Insights II WINNING Entry!A long way from painting on bridges, but I still long for a blank wall!!
Mural painting is fine art today. Just as great frescoes in the days of Michelangelo, and centuries before, large scale art is an artist’s dream. Is that why children inevitable write in crayon on the playroom walls?
I am sure of this: As long as I have been able to appreciate fine art and my burning desire to depict what I see thru it: I have wanted to paint murals. At times, in my youth, I exercised this need, painting in spray enamel on any available wall in the dead of night. “HELLO WORLD!” in six foot tall red letters over a grinning, fanged 30 foot tall caricature, scrawled on an underpass along I-95 southbound. Painted in 1985, before the Interstate had even made it to West Palm beach. Ah, what satisfaction to drive by it in the backseat of Dad’s Mazda, grinning silently.
These were days before I heard of graffiti culture, I was a transplant to the largely undeveloped east coast of Florida an hour north of Fort Lauderdale. These were the days when the County Sherriff had bricks of coke and bales of weed being dropped on his private airstrip a few miles north of my house. I hung out with a bunch of dudes who owned a race car shop, building mid-engine Mustangs and drag racing on Glades Cut-off Road.
Before Race-day one weekend, the boys let me use all the leftover spraypaint in the shop to paint huge murals of fire breathing dragons and heavy metal chicks everywhere. I was high on life, and probably paint fumes and Columbian gold. What a rush, the guys all in amazement at my grand design. Now I was a real artist, a legend at the shop, “The Girl Who Painted Barrel Road “. Now I knew how Michelangelo must have felt when he unveiled the Sistine Chapel for the Pope! (Unveiled it? How, exactly?) Well, anyway, it felt cool.
FASTFORWARD NOW, 25 years clean and sober, a professionally recognized fine artist in my own right. Now living in St. Petersburg, Florida which hosts the annual “SHINE” mural festival, an event which brings mural artists and fans from all over the globe, and I’m still dreaming.
I know it will happen, I will have a wall to call my own. I will keep pushing, keep striving, keep believing. After all, I was born on the sixth day of March- the same day as Michelangelo!
Out of the Gutter Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.