coping mechanisms

April 5, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

it’s so easy for me to fall
in love
head over heels
dramatically
[platonically]
asking for your heart
opening myself up to let you in
welcoming all of you
beauty
faults
talents
salt
my compassion
for your passion
is limitless

but the minute someone says
‘i’ve made a place for you
in my heart,
please come and tell me
of your dreams and nightmares,
your goals and your regrets,
i want to know all of you
i welcome all of you,
beauty
faults
talent
salt…’

i feel the air
absent
instantaneous

my figurative feet frozen
flipping from fight to flight
forever
heart pounding
knees shaking
voice quaking

why can’t i just let myself,
my already fully opened self,
receive what i’ve already given?

why am i always at a precipice
of giving myself over
surrendering myself to others
and never taking that necessary
step/leap/plunge?

i want to
so badly,

but my entire nervous system
screams against it.

so that the minute i take
the minutest step
towards letting someone
see
me—

the minute they don’t follow
100% of my expectations—

i use that as proof
that i never should have trusted in the first place
and that adds one more minute
on the precipice
between giving and receiving,
loving and pushing away
trusting and unjustly feeling so betrayed
that already the freeze feels like an eternity…

someday

it will be

February 9, 2022

/ HJ / Leave a comment

organization
is not my strong suit
and i’ve watched enough tiktoks to know
that i’m definitely not neurotypical
but in which direction?

is my extreme self-reliance on what i can remember
(with mostly successful strategies)
simply a life-long coping mechanism?
is my delving into the human condition
and socializing within characters
a masking tactic that’s been going on longer than i can remember?
or am i simply lucky enough
to have a very, very slight neuro-diversity
that doesn’t necessarily fit into either box
that my parents were kind enough not to force out of me
(or did society hit where my parents tried not to
as it hit in other ways?)

would i ever get diagnosed if i saw a ‘professional’?
almost definitely not.
but
i know my brain doesn’t work the way the ‘majority’ of brains
‘are supposed to’
so where does that leave me?

[alone?]

August 13, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i wish i could find a *thing*
that helped me all the damn time

i have writing
until my mind is too scattered to make any sense of
the thoughts flickering in and out of my brain

i have embroidery and sewing
the fiber arts
until my hand is shaking so much
through an excess of energy
that it seems unintelligent
to have me anywhere near needles

painting could be my
saving grace
calming state
area of expression
but the minute i pick up a brush
i remember how bad i [think i] am at art
and the frustration comes back
ten fold

and i’m still at odds with myself.

[this would be the perfect time
to try to find
a meditation that works for me
but something about my agitation
makes remembering meditation
a near-impossible cogitation

but maybe
today
i will]