Tally Marks

Becoming a 

psychologist  has opened up my heart space to who I am within. I thought that I was choosing this career in order to save other people from drowning but realized that I leave myself without a life jacket so often. No one is perfect. Not the lady you see in the grocery store with her good looking husband and five children, not the stranger, not your school teacher, your parents, or your shrink. I think life takes tolls on you, making tally marks on the inside of your rib cage, keeping track of everything that has caused you pain and the tally marks add up quickly. Its easy to ignore it though, to push back your pain because society tells you that you are not allowed to feel it, that no one on this damn planet wants to see you vulnerable, see your tally marks. We hide our pain on the backs of loved ones where they cant see them or by pretending we are capable of loving someone else when we cant even look at ourselves in the mirror. We dont talk about the times we cut ourselves on our bathroom floor and our boyfriends turned away from the evidence because they didn't want to believe that such pain exists. We dont talk about throwing up our dinners to be skinny, we dont talk about heartbreak, about 2 am crying sessions, about our addictions to drinking or drugs to numb the tally marks that are being carved into our insides daily. We dont talk about these things until its too late or we become strangers in our own skin, our souls so dark from never seeing day light. I didn't want to be that person, with circles around my eyes and several wounds on my wrists because my tally marks got the best of me. I go to classes daily learning about mental disorders and how to handle crisis's but they never told me how to handle the crisis that was myself. I knew I was not okay but I did not know how to fix myself, to apply what I learned to my own brain. So there I sat, in the small outdated waiting room that only had ten green chairs in it (I know because I counted them over and over again as I waited). The mental health doctor came out and took me into his smaller office where he told me to sit down on a couch next to a box of tissues that were screaming "you will need these trust me". He asked me several questions that no one bothered asking me before such as have you harmed yourself? Do you think about suicide? Whats your family like? I was honest about everything as you should be if you wish for salvation from your own soul. I walked out stronger, with more knowledge and a shiny new prescription for my diagnosis of ADD, depression, and anxiety. No one tells you that it takes courage to admit your defeats, to say you are not okay, to own your shit.  No one tells you that there is light for you as long as you seek help, as long as you scream out "this is who I am! Help me" You cannot hide your pain, your scars, your eating disorder, your drug habits forever. You must bring them into the light in order to burn them. Once I admitted to my pain, it no longer owned my soul, it was weak compared to my light. Do not be afraid to ask for help for pain that seems bigger than you are. Do not be afraid to bring your disorders, your pain, your darkness to the surface and face them. No one is perfect, everyone has their own tally marks. What are yours and what are you doing to own them? Start today, no pain is worth your happiness or your life. End the stigma on Mental Health, talk about it.

Morning Constant

5:10 

every single morning he is out in the bitter air wearing a light grey jacket and slippers a size to big, watching the smoke escape his lips from the tip of the lit cigarette he holds between his two bony fingers. I make it a point to notice him every morning on my drive to work. I watch or him like the world would stop turning and fall apart if he wasnt out on his own personal smoke break. He is my constant, the one thing I can count on to show up and he doesnt even know it. I have never seen him outside of this context. I have never shook his hand never waived, never even asked for his name. He has never noticed me staring for the short second it takes me to pass his house. He has long wavy grey hair that falls upon his shoulders lightly. He is always looking up, always. I wonder what he sees in the sky, what he thinks when he puffs his smoke like a mighty dragon into the dusty air above his face. I dont know what his face looks like due the the way the porch light hits it, casting it into a shadow of nothingness. I  picture him with tired eyes and a runny nose. I want to know what hes thinking and what he sees when he is looking up. Is he talking to some higher power or contemplating his life? It doesnt really matter,  What matters is that he is my 5:10 morning constant. The one thing that makes me look forward to my work drive. The one stranger that reminds me to take the time to take it easy. To sit and contemplate the world when its mostly silent. Sometimes its the people who dont even know that they are making a difference to others that make one.