I made this artwork the summer of 2024 on my balcony of a sublet. Today I am 54 days without smoking any weed which was a form of self medication I was using for years. I was never high at work or if I had anything important to do, I told myself that made it okay but I was still a daily user. Today I feel new level of depression unlocked. 54 das clean. look at this artwork I made a few years ago and it haunts me that I still feel the same way even though so much has changed. 

I have had mental health issues my whole life and I think I am starting to understand that the mental health issues I face are a bit different than what I think many people are experiencing. For as long as I can remember I have been experiencing intrusive thoughts. Typically they are about violent and graphic things involving me. 

I will jump off the cliff. I will climb the bridge. I will skateboard down this hill. I am chasing something I have never been able to reach. My life flashes before my eyes so constantly that engaging in behaviour like this feels like safety. Proof that I am still alive. Experiencing these things sober is a new terrain park for me. When I am weed free I am more reckless. There is nothing to numb or distract me from the intensity of the feelings. I guess when I was a kid I was experiencing them sober aswell but heres the thing. Since I have been assuming a quick death was inevitable for me for so long that reaching adulthood feels unreal. Where do you picture yourself in the future was always a ridicoulus question to pose because I barley pictured myself being alive.In more recent years I have come to a very satisfying conclusion that this is *very* different from being s*icidal. I am not s*icidal. I wont describe the multiple graphic ways my brain suggests unaliving myself on a daily basis because that is unecessary and they scare me.The point is that they scare me. I am not comforted by the idea of not being here anymore. I am reminded by this on the rare occasions someone reminds me what it is like to actually be s*icidal. To actually want to rid yourself from the earth. I love being here. I love being and making and to my own detriment I love thinking. I occupy this space when I am mentally ill where in one side I feel almost completely normal and then the other side is imposing on me, physical symptoms and ideas I can’t believe my brain has conjured. Today I am feeling almost okay. I am experiencing numbness in my extremities and frequent graphic images but I have a relatively clean home, I ate eggs this morning and I do not feel like smoking weed. madeleine is winning.