Daily Drawing #69

Be mindful that your guilt is useless unless you allow it to evolve into something more meaningful […] Guilt is always a crossroad. It can be a gateway to consciousness, or we can obsess over what we have done, wallow in our guilt, use it as an excuse not to grow, and fixate on the idea that we deserve punishment rather than seeing our guilt as a signpost pointing us toward the true path.

Matthew Kelly (The Rocking Chair Prophet, pages 85, 85-86)

Will Wood was right everything is a lot

“It’s okay to not be okay”

Unless it impacts your work performance…

Or your grades

Or how you act

Or if it causes you to say no

Or if you’re harder to be around

Or if you need time alone

Or if you talk about it

Or show symptoms

“It’s okay to not be okay”

Unless you have trauma

Unless you have one of those “scary” mental illnesses

Unless it inconveniences me

Unless you’re undiagnosed

Unless you cry or scream or make a scene

Unless you don’t keep that shit to yourself

Unless you make me uncomfortable

Unless I can’t infantilize or fetishize you

Unless you have hallucinations

Unless you have psychosis

Unless you get angry

Unless I think you’re cringe

Unless you can’t preform hygiene tasks

Unless you’re disabled, or trans, or gay, or not white, or fat, or AFAB, or intersex, or a man… so I guess anyone

“It’s okay to not be okay”

As long as nobody ever finds out.

Our society has a severe issue with performative activism, and mental health is a huge example of this. Every time someone considers reaching out, they run through this list mentally. This is why true activists and resources need to be loudly supportive of all the things on this list. Take the subtext out of your support.

tumblr is like a psych ward except no one gets better

May Sarton, from "Christmas Letters, 1970", Selected Poems

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a journey of pain, growth and persistence