Out out out with the Bad I say. I beg.

I beg with my heart.
and i cannot just say it. i cannot just have you hear it. I beg with the pull from my heart. as if it truly
could pull with light that shines from it.

and can you see it?

can you feel it?

I cannot have you just read the words. I cannot let it only go that far. I want you to feel defeated in my arms so that you can shed your regrets. so that you can unleash that that leaves you empty and weak.
I want you to cry. unashamed, my hand on your face. I want you to let go.


And that's what it feels like to need it as well.
and to be unaware of who to trust in these fragile moments keeps us alone.
all that you are and are made of capable of afraid of it begs to be seen.
with its whole heart.
with your whole heart.


Depression, I believe is that emptiness.
That defeat, with no where or no one to help shed it.
these cuts on our hearts, they quiver. they leave us in pain.


I believe some people are able to cover this up. But I refuse to believe that not everyone has it deep within them.
I believe that sensitive people desperately need it touched and held.
I believe that when you do not receive it in a time it is acceptable (growing up, be that physically and emotionally held) and by acceptable I mean that you cannot pass age 10 break down and cry and hit and scream and verbally hate, so you cannot be held in a loving matter for an "uncomfortable" amount of time.

That is why I also believe in the importance of hugs. and not in the manner of hugs and unicorns and Tinky fucking Winky, I mean truly held as an important child of the universe and being safely vulnerable.

When did that become unacceptable? If you are able to come out on the other side of shame and exposure, truly you can see how delusional the belief that you must hide yourself, truly is.

We don't all need hugs, either. Some of us got plenty of that, but just think if you hadn't? what an odd woman I must sound like.
Duh you might say. Hug your children when you have them. I know you will.
But what about the people who weren't? Think about someone you would consider an unfit mother. You got her? Yeah, just think of how she must have been treated when she was just small. And the pattern continues, forever and ever, until the spell is broken, by being seen and taken care of. and to some, that day may never come. and those are the mother fuckers you gotta look out for.


Maybe there is something to say about past lives and energy carrying on to the next. now this is all Chad theory (not as in I'm the first to think of all this, just that its a maybe in my mind.)
But would that make sense? generations after generations of lack of parental love and guidance, turning these little humans into the same beasts in their adult lives? It seems to me, in order to have this spell broken, you have to face that shit. if you have to feel vulnerable and talk about it. you have to be truly seen. and to seek that out and find is hard to do. because here in our culture it isn't the norm. Isn't that strange now that you think of it?

And for me, in my life, I am scared to have a child because of these things.

Because I drown so far in delusions and depression that I don't want something so sweet to be tainted by that which taints me. because i haven't quite broken the spell.
and for this i have to be okay with it.
I see my peers growing and learning and I see them bearing children and it breaks my heart. I feel mine is still buried too deep.

I am proud to understand this, and I am thankful that my life circumstances have not yet presented me with a the gift of a child. Certainly by the biology and the act of creation I could have been by now. Whether that be by luck, fate, coincidence, or even infertility I am thankful, and not that if something had happened by now I wouldn't be thankful then too, my thankfulness comes to knowing and understanding these things better and knowing that i have the capacity to do so. I believe that in what ever path things could have taken I know that I would learn these things.

Bringing to Light

If I could sum everything up to live in a moment of freedom, I would say, “do it.” Do it. Even if it means sitting in a moment of despair find the silver lining.

Today my silver lining is growth. And the sharing of growth. The documentation of the ups and down of self recovery.

I thought today about the blunders of not feeling good enough. Not good enough for someone else. I am proud today to say to myself, “Sure. We are not in the same spot, and he has made a beautiful name and life for himself. And where I may not be at his “level” yet, or maybe never will be according to timing or whatever comparison sounds the healthiest, I am doing my better. And that is what is amazing. With what has been given to me, I am doing my personal best.” And to me that outshines the comparison.

Yesterday was a full blown anxiety attack. That self-demeaning terrifying “I can’t do anything” pulsating and screaming through any chance of even getting ready that day.

“How am I supposed to talk to people? Or drive? How am I supposed to do anything worldly when my most powerful tool has taken a trip to personal hell?”

It hurt, god dammit. It fucking hurt me. It made me feel like a paralyzed fetus. (Not to offend any paralyzed fetuses out there) It made my eye movement shifty and my perception of safety was nonexistent. As if I’d slipped into a night terror in my waking life.

“What could be so bad?” I would ask myself. In a very demeaning sort of way. It wasn’t as if my life was in danger. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have everything I needed. So what was this? An old brain pattern returning for another hurrah? I couldn’t even speak. I couldn’t formulate a sentence. And how disappointing that I should work so hard to have this creep up unannounced. I had a life to live. I had people, including myself, to cheer up. I had things to learn! Music to appreciate. Things to write, I didn’t have time to spend a couple hours, or perhaps the rest of my life, in this choke hold.

One thing I remember hearing in therapy is that these brain patterns don’t ever really leave us. And where that isn’t exactly a comforting thing to hear in therapy, the second part of that is that these downward spirals eventually start to diminish. They are fewer and far between. They last for shorter amounts of time. And as a human that highly believes in the power of therapy (the right personal kind for your character) I back this up 100%. I still have moments where I don’t believe any of that. and that this time its going to last forever, but alas, here I am sipping a joyous cup of coffee at 7 am at a beautiful outdoor café making silly anecdotes to friends and feeling like a fucking harmony. Ups and downs have been rampaging in my current life but it is a hell of a lot better than a steady flow of down.

Sometimes it takes an extreme jolt to wake you up to the idea that life can be happier and brighter and more meaningful. Sometimes it takes a heavy portion of your life to sit in and wait for a shiny opportunity. But like a dear friend of mine once said to me and a group, opportunities are everywhere and they are endless. There can never be one missed, only another one to take a moment later. We must embrace all of these opportunities. And that is what I am proudly taking these down moments to be. Opportunities. And though they may cause a harsh shift in my body I am going to get up again and work it out. So that the far between moments can be experienced fully and appreciated for what they are. Earned and endless.

Just Some of My Thoughts and a Story

Understanding and learning your emotions and physical symptoms are so vital to growth. I tell you now that I am able to own my story and tell people that I trust what is going on with me it allows me to bring humor to my vampire days (menstruating) energy to my werewolf days (manic) and sweet forgiveness on my days of sorrow (days I want to ocean to sweep me away and become nothing.) Not to sum up dips and hurdles of the human capacity to feel. I am honored to have been given a body and heart that feel so deeply. It allows me then to research and develop more love in to it as well. I realize after being open felt and heard that I require more love and that I have more to give as well. And I do not care what that means. I do not care what media or sitcoms have warped that into. Women are emotional. And its the sweetest gift one can receive. Truly a man, whether that be partner or lover or friend or acquaintance, that accepts and has true interest in this will receive it in its entirety.
One way in which I know I have been gifted this back is that in the winter of 2014 I held two men as they surrendered and poured out. Their tears both shed from the loss of a lover through breakup. One from a man, and one from a woman. And I tell you that the hurt was at the same capacity. It was with the same loss and regret and abandonment. Emotions that had been so trapped with in them. And they were able to be seen and acknowledged. And as I write this I am filled with hope because truly this means love is love. In whatever form. There is no separation therefore there is no need for group debate. I held them until they felt new. And to have connected in this way is beyond the level of typing words or saying or reading. It was truth in its essence and it was felt through the heart. I am grateful to them for teaching me this and seeing me too, then, as safe. This means they felt my heart as well.

I feel compelled as well to speak of one more topic of love. The love of self. The utter importance to self nurture. To hold yourself as that friend as the person in need as you would a child or lover or person in need. I remember as I sat in confusion, being a person that finds it debilitating at times to make a decision, sometimes as simple as dinner and sometimes as devastating as deciding how I feel about an individual. In this situation I was trapped with the uncertainty of personal growth and my hindrance to do so. That is, what did I need to do to make the situation I was in better, or, do I leave because I knew that it would be unfitting for me in my growth? The problem being here that it involved people I loved and a dwindling of self love. I was drowning myself in a way. Snuffing out my spirit which is something many of us do on different levels because we think we "should" be something else. We "should" know better by now. I was contorting myself, subconsciously, and sadly I knew a little too, to fit a culture unfitting for me. And I was going to let it happen because I felt I should know how to fix it. I should just "be" better.
It wasn't until I broke down completely and snapped that I was able to find the courage to ask for time alone. To not be influenced by that heart connection holding me so strongly (to this fellow, this man that I loved. I realize my terms are a little too vague for this story.)  I was able to allow myself to go a little crazy, fill an entire notebook with thoughts, talk to some safe people (my therapist being one of them,) and come to a real true gut decision. A wise mind decision as they say in DBT therapy. I needed to remove myself from this place be strong and say goodbye to someone I loved. I felt relieved and devastated at the same time and this was okay. Because I no longer lived in that place of purgatory. Not to be overly dramatic but if I were to draw that emotion on paper it would involve lava and look similar to Mordor.
It would be a few days until I had to confront the heart space again. To have that person next to me and have to deny the love I felt and it threw me into sorrow. I looked down at all I had done and I looked at my own hands. I thought of these hands that have been used so many times to give care in  and all the love I desperately wanted OTHER people to feel from me, and I gave myself the biggest damn hug and cried and cried and still felt so shitty but I cried some more and I continued to love me. I continued to acknowledge myself and feel it truly from the heart, like the energy was coursing through me like a river of friends, yes I am going that lame with it.
When I saw John and spoke to him it was different. we had an understanding. He cared enough to let me go without any added pressure, and I am very grateful for him in this way. If he had asked me to stay I would probably still be there until my next episode, but we taught each other something huge. That you can still love someone and do what's best for them and let them go. And I didn't feel this guilt that I have felt in the past for leaving a self damaging situation. I felt good about it. We still talk now, but its different. We shared a very special growing lesson and we are forever connected in that way, which to me is just as beautiful as finding a partner for life, in the traditional sense. We had both never experienced someone so willing to allow the other person to be happy and free. We learned to love ourselves regardless. It was a gift. And I am forever grateful for that experience.

I enjoy sharing my stories. I enjoy hearing stories. This is the reason I write. They also bring meaning to the experiences to express them so that they don't stay so tightly within me. I encourage all of us to own our stories and share them and be receptive to others as well.

Cursed by the Lack of the Ocean 

 Hair surrounds my world of vision under a slavery sky
I tip toe in fear, only to remember I'm no longer a child
I was once bound by the womb of a religious sheath
phantom ghosts and vicious words, I was buried beneath
luxurious now are the waves and the weather
 connected so humbly and melted together
In a undeniably twisted fate I became the earth's daughter
the feeling on my skin I became the water
I beautifully flow the way the seaweed sings
no onlookers now I only have my makeshift wings
I breathe in only the sensation I sense in my bones
I have to close my eyes because the rush inside bellows
-and the beauty felt has become more intense than the beauty seen 

Oh, For I am Grateful

Oh, I am so grateful that when you put in the unfaltering effort that the life you seek unfolds for you. The more I research the mind to be happy and fill my thoughts with hope, the more it turns out, as if it were uncovered and shown to me. 

I'm happy to be choosing happiness instead of waiting for it. Its everywhere.

I'm thankful for the people I choose to fill my earthly body's home with. The people and beautiful circumstance in my universe, and to honestly believe that our inevitable course of outcome is to be the product of a great masterpiece we've chosen to accept. That we will remain vessels to the connection in our hearts.

I'm thankful to no longer fear that of which does not effect me in the present and to have the never regretful courage to speak my mind whole heartily and with full focused wisdom that I have had harbored in my soul since birth.

I am lucky to have physical and mental strength. I have the potential to progress in both of these fields and build toward my future when I do so.

I'm happy to carry on only the memories that make me smile, or that enhance the current life I lead. I no longer question my mind's eye, but embrace it as a monumental life and spirit. I do not look for answers that bring me down. I rejoice in the wondrous images of happiness that I once knew, continue to know and hope to find each moment of my coherence. 

I am excited for tomorrow, for I no longer wallow in grief, but celebrate my gifts; my home, my friends, my surroundings, my abilities, my LIFE.

Chandra Nicole Engstrom

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012

1:23 am

This is to be read and remembered daily. It is to be seen in a different light each encounter, as my external life changes, as if recognized for the first time.

The Livelihood of a Swimming Child and a Demon in the Sand

Termites in my bones I can feel them devour
there were onlookers present in my final hour
the "life" was intense and I watched it shatter
lights flickering revealed what no longer mattered
I no longer wait in the house on the hill
I've cheated the game with an impulse to kill
myself as the victim and also the villain
good riddance to me, and the hell I was born in.

If Only Isn't Going to Happen, Hombre

Oh I am at a loss in this world that we live and breathe and breed and boast. I am torn between believing and deceiving and being altogether at ease, (soldier.)

Balance of all these things would be so grand, if only I would open these brown eyes. And when I say open, I mean use them for looking, instead of hiding behind them. Putting up the drywall for my thoughts to marinate and then be useless. How many times must you be slapped in the face before you are awake? You're in a coma really. 

And a rambling I went.

I have spent too much time in the dark, no matter what the time of day. I feel I have been questioning my every move and always want to say that there are deeper meanings, instead of just true meanings. True meanings to uncover. Or on the other hand, not to uncover, to allow in. A realization at it's utmost. And then I literally asked myself, "did I really just discover the meaning of life? To just allow things to happen as they flourish?" And what I mean by that is, not that you as a viewer cannot read and have your own input, is that when you're busy as hell, always trying to get something done, always trying to figure out why you had to go through something, you are just wasting time. And it is present each and everyday until you block it out. And we all go through it. It can be as meek as waiting too long at the drive thru, finally getting your crispy chicken deluxe, get tomatoes on it, though you specifically asked them nicely to remove the god forsaken useless vegetable, dump half of it onto your brand new shirt that you had to search high and low for and with that, your life is ruined. Just absolutely in shambles. And if only you were better taken care of as a child you could accomplish the littlest task with the greatest of ease. If only. "If only" isn't going to happen, hombre. If only is the idea that you can go back in time and change it. Unless you're Marty McFly you are shit out of luck.  If only states that you could change if you weren't already stuck in a definitive path. Paths get rerouted everyday. You have the shovel and pavement to reroute your own.

There is a twist on this whole scenario, however. Everything that I have just typed up is clarity for my own sweet and disturbing life. It is something I wish I could just wake up knowing everyday. A realization only takes place when you haven't been living it. And with that, the drywall comes crumbling down and I am overjoyed. I must practice what I preach. It is only possible to change yourself, once you have innocently  experienced the holes in the earth. The fears of what dark doesn't uncover. The disapointment of a so-called hero's true intentions. Because after you are exposed, you become aware. And when you become aware, you have all the power in the world. You dream for a purpose. Not just to get away.

If one could nurture their younger self, we would be cleansed and caring and oh so understanding of the strength possessed yet buried so deep. I can only hope when I have a child that I would do everything in my power, sought out through the dangers of regret to make that happen for this new to me, yet already existing in a dream, little mind. This new chance to give away the secrets I have learned by locking myself in a room, curling up into a ball and praying to nothing, to feel something. Isn't that what we wanted all along as mothers? Isn't that why we are humans in the first place? Are minds are far too developed to be animals. And that almost makes it harder.  Animals have instinct. We have constant change and circumstance. Animals do not have to think about religion and money, and in saying so, that is obvious, but not an often thought that comes upon me. We are given options, and would like to say that we didn't know that it would hurt. We didn't know that it would be so hard to raise, to give life, to show the way. And because of that, we blame. We blame so hard that it hurts. Well if I may go back to the first thought, is it impossible to have balance? Do we really need answers? Or can we just take it all in and be thankful, yet careful. Prideful yet insecure? Happy, yet questionably so? I think so. And I hope for all that I'm worth that I experience more in my life then I block it out.

We will never have a religion, except to accept. Except to accept. I truly believe if anybody could be missing one quality, one quality, as if any human could be missing a quality, we were all born differently, but if we could be forgetting one trait to shine forth before all others, it would be acceptance. To ourselves, and to others. Don't believe that a god, an entity, a figured out structure, has got it set up for you. Believe in the unexplainable. Believe in a reason to be, because nobody has got it figured out. If you tell yourself something enough, and if you hear something enough, your brain has no choice but to believe it. And to be quite boastful myself, I think that it is tremendous to believe that. I am proud to believe, without traveling, without experiencing enough of outside occurrences, that I would know that. I would know this to be true.

But I can't describe a feeling, some might think too good to be true. Some being myself.
My life is a run-on sentence. And I'm not ashamed to not be the slightest bit disturbed by my dialogue errors.