Jane Says

September 16, 2019September 16, 2019 Athena Dion2 Comments

Why does it feel so fucking bad when it’s exactly what I need? Because progress means change, and change FEELS TERRIBLE. At least, it does at first. Change of any kind is stressful on the body and psyche. What you have to focus on are the results. Yes, this feels shitty right now, but what might be the long-term benefits of allowing myself to feel some shittiness right now?

I’m scared to death to be suddenly working 5 days a week while homeschooling my autistic child. But, I’m not gonna give up on the homeschooling, that’s one thing I am willing to make the biggest sacrifices for, I believe that much that it’s the best thing for my son. But the thing is, homeschooling is fucking expensive. I pay taxes for the public school system, but I buy all of my books, pay for all of our online subscriptions for various educational resources, pay for all of our field trips, extracurricular activities (physical education, art, music…)…

What I’m really coming to right now is an understanding that my feelings are very often exaggerated from a normal emotional response to common situations. Because of past traumas, I am braced mentally and physically for the expectation of the worst. From other people, from situations, from whom I had believed to be god, from the universe at large, and from myself. My entire being, at some point, became overconsumed with a sense of tragedy and heartbreak. The human psyche can only take so much abuse before it alters itself to just help you get through the rest of your life without risking going through it again. You make yourself really, really, really small. You squash your own talents and intelligence so you don’t risk being brought back down. You don’t want to expose yourself to chance. Your entire life eventually becomes ‘how not to get hurt again’. And then you live in that mode.

And then there’s the other part of you. The part that wants to live. It keeps fighting with that other side, trying to find some level of freedom. You live this internal struggle that the smothering side always wins.

Even with all of the wonderful changes I’ve made lately, I still feel clenched like I have a glass torso. This tension actually runs from the top of my head to the muscles in my ankles. Something still has me blocked. I still can’t trust.

This post inspired by Jane Says by Jane’s Addiction.

Image by Steve Miller from Pixabay

Plush

September 11, 2019September 11, 2019 Athena DionLeave a comment

My body can never relax because I never actually feel safe. In any given situation I will see a reason to judge myself or worry about something that may or may not ever happen. My mind will always find something terrifying about every single situation I find myself within.

There are voices of a thousand judgmental, hypocritical assholes living in my head, and I believe them as if theirs are the only true opinions that count. The tricky thing is, they are AUTOMATIC. I don’t literally hear them. In reality, I feel what they say, and react to it, without even acknowledging that a negative thought had crossed my mind.

This self-damnation happens constantly without me even realizing it. Then I wonder why I’ve felt depressed and anxious for decades, why no psychotropic medications seem to help. I am not chemically imbalanced. I am not in need of mind-numbing zombie meds. All I have needed to do is just ACKNOWLEDGE IT. I had to see my true reality clearly. I had to accept it.

This is extremely hard to do when the thing you need to accept is that your mother doesn’t love you, and that she never will. Our culture puts so much pressure on children to honor mothers. But this well-intended cultural expectancy is based on the idea that mothers are infinitely loving and giving as our hormones are built to harness within us. Yet, we all know how disgusted we are to hear about a mother killing her own children. We know there are horrendous instances where this doesn’t hold up. And a lot more of these instances involve sadistic abuse rather than outright murder, which, unfortunately, can also feel like death.

Please stop saying to people, “Yeah, but that’s your mother! She gave life to you!” Not all women who give birth are mothers. Let’s get that clear right here and now.

This post inspired by Plush by Stone Temple Pilots.

Image by andrea candraja from Pixabay

Fade Into You

September 9, 2019September 9, 2019 Athena DionLeave a comment

I still reject myself within my own mind. I still discount myself, to my core, as a ‘less than’ person. Even though, logically, I can tell I must be interesting and attractive based on the response I get from other people (mostly men). Yet when people tell me I am beautiful I still assume they must be saying it to be nice, as if they would say it to anyone just to make them feel better. I live in this dichotomy where my inner life does not match up with the outer reflection. For large portions of my life, five or more years at a time, I diminished myself into the smallest space I could fill because that’s all I thought I deserved.

The very woman who brought me into this world was the one who made me believe I never should have been in it. She did not want me to be alive. She resented me because she couldn’t finish high school, because she was forced to be connected to my dad for the rest of her life, even though she’d divorced him; because I ruined the ‘perfect family’ she was trying to portray with my stepfather and half-siblings.

I finally understand, after five years of reflection, wondering how she could have let me suffer silently with depression and suicidal tendencies, which she knew about, but disclosed to no one. She wanted me to go through with it. Maybe not consciously, but on some level she was hoping she would get to cash in on that ‘poor mom who lost her daughter’ thing, look like a fucking hero, and then get to carry on with her plans for the perfect family.

The woman never praised me unless it was over something that would make her look good. I was expected to make straight ‘A’s, meaning if I got a ‘B’, or god forbid a ‘C’, I would get scolded and accused of slacking off, but my sister and brother were praised for their mediocre report cards. She pushed me so hard, and yet never seemed interested in reading anything that I wrote until I wrote a fucking poem about her.

But the thing is, I’m actually over her. That’s, I think, what had to happen to ignite the true healing of the wound. I have actually mourned the loss of the woman I thought was my mother. The fantasy that I had of a mother who would someday connect with me, and acknowledge some of the pain she caused me, has died, and I have finished grieving the loss. I know now that she can’t. It’s not personal, it’s not by some curse put upon me by the universe. I just so happened to be given life by a narcissistic teenage mom whose father was a pedophile. I no longer see her as my mother. I see her as Ronda, the woman who raised me with less passion and love than most foster families would provide. In fact, it was much, much worse because this woman was not just indifferent to me. Not only did Ronda not love me, she actively hated me and blamed me for ruining her life.

Now that I’ve accepted that, into my bones, now that I understand how very little control I had over the circumstances of my own upbringing, I can now undo the self-sabotaging habits that this fact created through most of my life. Now I realize that, as an adult, I have the power to change. I can and will be better because I want to be, and no one can stop me but me. I have finally begun shedding the skin of my childhood.

This post inspired by “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star

Love It If We Made It

March 4, 2019 Athena DionLeave a comment

I must admit that my intentions with this blog are not purely to share my story and help those who can relate. I’m gonna lay it right out there. I want to make money off of you. The fact of the matter is that I’m probably not going to make any positive change in this world as a poor person, so I have to stop being poor.

Meanwhile, in the sky up above us, there is some asshole riding around in a private jet, drinking champagne and snorting coke off a hooker’s ass. The money that he’s wasting in an hour on animalistic frivolities could feed an entire village of starving children for the day. For me, it could make the difference between me being able to take a stress-free breath for once. That’s the world we live in. I can’t even imagine living in a world where everyone could be financially comfortable because human greed is so deeply rooted that the wealthy will almost always selfishly ignore the needs of the less fortunate. There are a few amazing exceptions, but never enough to improve the overall situation. It’s going to take more than a handful of the ELEVEN MILLION millionaires sitting pretty in our country to want to help mankind rather than sit on their dragon hoards.

Of the three people living in our household, all three needed dental surgeries within the last two years, and my son was evaluated and received therapy for autism. So, that’s a third of our income spent on medical bills on top of the premiums we pay each month just to HAVE insurance. We had to take out loans and credit cards that we just can’t pay. If you are living off even less, I REALLY, REALLY feel for you. Poverty feels like every opportunity is always just out of reach, and every second of every day is spent worrying about how your family’s needs will be met today and tomorrow. Poverty is an all-consuming stress that you just can’t escape. That’s why poor people break laws, that’s why poor people use drugs, that’s why poor people ‘milk’ the system, that’s why poor people try to sneak into other countries. That’s why when poor people finally strike it rich, they blow all of the money before they can blink.

I don’t want that to happen to us. I want to do the Sam Walton thing, and continue to drive the same older model cars and wear the same thrift store clothing… but not feel guilty when I buy groceries because the money came out of our mortgage payment, or it’s going to trigger an overdraft fee with the bank that we can’t afford. I’ve been so worried about money for the last 7 years that I can’t remember the last time I was able to take in a full, relaxing breath. It’s about finally pulling my family up out of poverty. It’s about me, my husband, and our son being able to move up to the next level of living.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not JUST about the money. I also have finally realized that I’m not gonna live forever. And I don’t want to die with all of this left inside of me. I don’t want to waste any more of my life wondering why my mother couldn’t love me. Why my brother and sister just let me and my son go without even a conversation. I know now that it was their loss. I just haven’t forgiven myself for all of my anger. I hate that I feel anger and violence over the things that have happened to me. I resent it so much, which just makes the anger worse. I’m bitter inside. I can’t help it. Life has really left a terrible taste in my mouth, the bittersweet of finally having the family that I’ve always wanted, but having our freedom and patience eroded by poverty. I am so fucking tired of being broke. I’m so tired of my son missing out on things just because we don’t have the money. I’m done with it. I. Am. Done.

I’m learning that you have to believe in yourself a whole hell of a lot to make it in this world, because there are hoards of people who will try to bring you down and hold you back, just out of sheer habit. Getting support from others is so hard because we are all so involved with our own agendas. The sooner you start being your own champion, your own cheerleader, your own warrior, the sooner you will find success. No one else is ever going to drag you to it. That’s why we respect and live in awe of celebrities. Because we all know how hard it is to believe in our own selves. It’s the hardest thing in the world to truly believe in our own capabilities. Most of us find it easier to live and die in mediocrity. Those very select few push themselves past the self-doubt, into the elusive realm of genuine confidence.

The advice we all heard growing up doesn’t help either. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Don’t burn your bridges. Interpretation: don’t take chances. Don’t risk. Play it safe because you’ll probably fail. Sometimes you should put all of your eggs in one basket. When you really, really believe in something. Yes, you might fail. If you do, you will learn. But if you cower away from living your passions, you will risk living a lifetime half-assed. This is your one life. Time is of the essence.

Quarky is my masterpiece. I’ve turned a business into my work of art. Quarky is my proof that I have finally learned to trust myself. Quarky is my belief that everything will finally be okay. How ironic is it that I’m edging closer to failing my Entrepreneur class at APUS because I’m too busy building my business that I’m not doing my homework? I’ve been so obsessed with this idea that I didn’t want to entertain other ideas anymore. I’m on fire right now, and I’m using the momentum. I’ve been in bed, literally, for a week straight doing nothing but creating ads and adding product to this store. I told my son we are taking an early spring break from his homeschooling because I wanted to get my Quarky Shop to making money again. When it hit big a couple of years ago, we would celebrate every time I made a sale with dancing and running high tens. Then when it slowed down, it started costing me money each month just to keep it open, and I thought about shutting it down. But my son told me not to give up on it. So, I didn’t…

I’m not a scientist. I consider myself to be a scientific philosopher. Science is everything that we think we know, for sure, but it’s not everything. New things are being discovered and proven by science all the time, and the possibilities of what may be proven in the vast future are almost beyond human speculation. For me, science is even better than religion at inspiring personal beliefs about the meaning of life and its mysteries. I find my spirituality as I marvel at the beauty and wonder of the universe.

The known and the unknown mingle together to create our realities. Welcome to Quarky.

This post inspired by “Love It If We Made It” by The 1975. I think this is the music we should be sending into space. Listen here.

Click image to purchase song.

I’m also gonna throw this suggestion at ya. I haven’t read very far into it, but the last few weeks, whenever I read a few pages or a few paragraphs, I have felt more like a badass each time.