i like to speak today about bad things..about painful things..about things we do to ourselfes...well..thats not true..i wanna speak about how i dived into my own destruktion...and how i went down the road of hurting myself.....just an hour ago i recieved an email from the editor of "feigenblatt magazin" (which is a wonderfull german magazine) and he told me that he accepts a piece i send him a while ago for their next issue..that piece is called "subkutan"...and even though they loved it from the start at "feigenblatt" it gave them a hard time because the piece is horrible long...and even though i hoped and hoped that they publish it..now that they accepted i m kinda afraid...why i am afraid? because its not a fictional piece..its an essay about what might have been the darkest 3 years in my life...i wrote about the last serious relationship i had...about the magic which where involved..about how this fairytale went bad...and about what happened with me after we didnt lived happily ever after...i wrote about a year where i couldnt have sex because i couldnt stand the skin of someone else..because i couldnt stand or bear to be close to someone who wasnt her...i wrote about how i went down to the bottom of every bottle..how i drank and drank and how i throuw up in the bathrooms of fancy restaurants just to go back to the table to drink some more...how i dived into the embrace of drugs and medication ...how i cried and cried...how i started to have sex again...how i went into the darkness of anonymous meanless sex...of bars and bedrooms..how i left hotels in the early morning...how i crucified myself on the thorns of selfhate..how i sometimes felt like shit an dstill went out again in the evening..how sex became the answer to all my prayers for salvation..how i searched for my lover..a lover i called miss X because i hated her real name and never spoke it out loud until the day we broke up...i wrote about this and much more...and soon everyone can read it...and now i m afraid...i m afraid what people will think of me...what my friends and family will think when they read that piece..i m afraid of facing my past everyday for 3 month on the shelves of the supermarkets and booksstores...
..so tell me about you..tell me about the dark places you have been...tell me about a bad habit you had and you survived...
18 comments:
Sometimes our experience is painful, indeed. It seems to me truth is what matters — if this is the truth of your experience, that will resonate with the truth in everyone.
And that, it seems, may be one of the reasons we write, and create in other ways. Thank you for sharing your truth — this may support others in ways you wouldn't even imagine and may never even know.
Congratulations on supporting yourself as well, which it appears happened somewhere along the way. I am so glad your light is shining through.
And congratulations also on the publication.
Thank you for sharing your truth. We all deal with loss and pain in different ways. I'm not sure if anyone should be judging anyone at anytime, but most certainly not during their darkest hour.
I think you're very brave for facing the demon and expressing your thoughts. And yes, like Em pointed out above, maybe your truth will help someone else get through a similar pain and lessen their load.
Congratulations on the publication. That's wonderful.
Big hugs.
Danielle- If I can't write about my darkest hours, it is because I do not have your courage. We are humans. We face things that we can't face. We do whatever we can to escape them. We crucify ourselves on this nail or that. We ask people to drink our blood and remember us in that. We beg forgiveness. We suffer. And then, we wake up and we see the light is shining again and we can say names out loud.
You are flawed. So are we all.
We hold our arms out and say, "Come here. Me too."
Bless your heart. Bless your heart. You make art out of suffering and that is something.
Oh Danielle, I absolutely agree with everyone. The truth is important. Your experience, and your honesty about it, may well resonate with someone else, and may give them strength and hope. Your past - the good and the bad, all of your life experiences - makes you the man you are today. And it sure seems like you've turned out pretty damn well!
Don't worry about those who may judge - those people are always out there and there's really not much you can do about it. They don't live your life - it's YOUR life. Your own self-acceptance is the most important thing - and surrounding yourself with people who love and accept you is the next most important thing.
There have been people in my life who have reacted negatively to things I've done, who have been full of judgement, who think I'm a bad person, a "sinner." But, you know, there are just as many people who are accepting, who are supportive and understanding, who see me now and know that I am in a much better place in my life, having gone through what I've gone through and survived!
I think we all go through transitional experiences in our lives. These experiences can be very traumatic. But, in my case, I feel like I've learned so much about myself. I know who I am now, and I'm finally comfortable in my own skin, with my own thoughts. I've got to believe that all life experiences can have meaning and value and can bring growth and understanding.
Anyway - for what it's worth, I think that to write truthfully and with genuine emotion, especially about those really tough transitional periods, shows great strength and integrity. Congratulations!
Danielle, I have been to those dark places in my writing, though I've rarely simply written exactly my experience, but have folded the experience or feelings into a fictional story.
I have also written pieces that I have been more nervous than excited about being published, because of what I have expressed in a story.
It is a very different thing to face the issue head on as you have done, and I commend you for doing so. I think this will be a good thing for others who have gone or are going through such experiences.
Congrats on the publication, and all the best to you.
@ em
thank you
yes, somewhere along i found my own light again...which is also because backthen i got a lot help by my friends and family and when it seemed like i hit the hardest moment they where there to build me up again....
@ neve
hey ! yes, maybe you both are right about that someone finds a lil help in this essay...which of course would be way better as when people just feel entertained by it...what ever is meant to be eh?:-)
@ ms moon
wonderfull as ever:-)
i think its the only way to make true art ..to take what touches us in good or bad ways and analyze it and turn it into our own art....
and you no courage? that is something i so not can imagine...your daughters must have their strength and courage from somewhere and i m sure they dont have it from the chicken..so dont be shy:-)
@marina
marina so good to see you are back!!!and you are such a awsome example because your historyb is still ...like when the paint is stilll wet??...and you just leave a certain stage to make it your past and emberace a new part of your life which is such a wonderful thing...and if they call a wonderful person as you are one a sinner i dont wanna know what they would call me after reading that essay..:-)
@ craig
ah i knew you would come along with something wise:-) you really "enriched" my posts with your comments during the last half year and i m happy to see that you know that place where one writes about his own dark past..no matter if inbetted in fictional work or in essays...the form dont changes the inside ..:-)
Hey D,
Wow. Well, it is no wonder you are feeling anxiety... putting your most vulnerable and tender time out into the world ... that is something that would certainly give the strongest of us pause.
But I think that you gain respect by it, because you survived it and found your way out. If I were your family, I would be proud.
I grieved the death of my father for many years without knowing I was doing it. I am plagued with ADD (ineffective type), so my youth was pretty dark and dramatic. Drinking, drugging and dating the wrong people... hell, I was the wrong person and I didn't even know it! I've had drinks thrown in my face, puked in people's bathrooms and drunk dialed more times than even a drunk should. Not pretty. But I survived, and made something beautiful. My lovely boy, Harley. And you made art, which I have always wanted to learn to make and have not.
You're fabulous. It will be ok... Remember to breath!
Peace,
pf
Brave.
I suppose it doesn't matter how low you sank, it's whether or not you get back up again, and how...
and look. You're doing it.
Congrats on the acceptance... Ms X will read it? And then maybe, maybe she has a story too, that you might be able to hear one day.
I don't know.
I like the person you are, with this history included?
@ petit fleur
ah..see we shared that road..
and you are a great example on how petit fleurs can grow from the dark and hard asphalt!
@ jo
there you are:-)
i dont know if miss x will read it..and i dont know if i really want her to...but chances are that we will never know..but indeed..she might have a story of her own on this whole thing
but i m happy that the person i am ..the person with a past..is a person you can like..that gives me a good feeling..:-)
I'm not able yet to do that, to write about the darkest hours. Or I won't. I started the blogs to do this. I edge close and then I do what I have always done, I pull back, I soothe, I bring myself and others up from the deep black pit of despair. Because that is what I was trained to do. It was a survival mechanism. It got me from A to B to C. And now I don't need it so much anymore. But old habits are difficult to discard. If I am making sense to you.
I am inching closer to these things. Doing surveillance on them. I will get there eventually.
@ glimmer
you followed me home:-)
thank you for commenting so trhoughtfully
and i m sure you ll get there..to write about all sides of your glimmering personalety!
Daughter and I have written a book together sharing our journey into hell and back. I ached reading my daughter's words of pain and anguish and wondered about sharing hers and mine with the world. We have been out there doing just that and, damn, if we all aren't just human beings trying our best to make our way together in this world. We write and speak about mental illness and have so many people tell us their own story...a story they were afraid to share with anyone. I personally think that truth is freeing. I look forward to reading more of your blog!
@ cinda
thank you for your coment
that book project sounds awsome--mental illness is still a huge taboo in our western society..still a subject which shouldt be spoken about!
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