BAD TRIP, DEWEY, BAD TRIP

So I've been thinking a lot today about our perceptions of happiness, bouts of depression and the events that bring on both. It's all about perception. I was listening to Paramore when I caught a lyric that just really spoke to me (again, anyway. This is the lyric that inspired me to get the album artwork from Brand New Eyes tattooed to my thigh.):

"It's all about the exposure, the lense," I told her;

The angles were all wrong, now she's ripping wings off of butterflies.

Which the title in it of itself is part of all of this. Brand New Eyes. I don't know about anyone else, but I honestly thought that butterflies were magical when I was little. I thought that if one landed on you that it was good luck. We build up such idealistic fantasies as children that quickly get ripped apart like the wings off of butterflies and dissected as we get older and come to face the harsh realities of the real world. Which, in a way, aren't really as harsh as we think. It's because our perceptions have changed.

As hard as it is, there is a way to find positivity in any situation. Do not ever get me wrong on this, I know what it's like to be completely losing your mind with depression and anxiety, but it's about perception. And if you want to change your perception on something, find the negative patterns in your life and thoughts. Dissect them. Find your triggers and beat them with a metaphorical hammer. You can overcome this.

For me, it was sensing abandonment. And I could tell when I was sensing it because my throat would get numb and clench itself. It's not the first symptom, but it's definitely the most noticeable. The first would definitely have to be picking at my cuticles, but it's just a constant thing at this point.

The most ridiculous thing about my predicament was that at my worst point, a lot of things made me think people would abandon me. Because I have such a caregiver/mom type personality, I often blame myself for things totally out of my control like a friend being in a bad mood before I even saw them. I told myself that it was my fault that they didn't feel happy. So even when I got a bad grade on a test I would immediately go into panic mode with thoughts about my dad thinking I'm stupid and leaving me out to dry because I'm wasting his money all racing through my head. Even that sentence is jumbled because it made me feel panicky, but I have to talk about these things:

If this post could grace the eyes of any single person that feels like this and it comforts them to know they aren't alone, I can rest peacefully. That's actually why I created my We Are Never Alone series, but that was inspired by a Wonder Years album rather than Paramore. I totally shouldn't get into that though, this novel will triple in length in like two seconds.

TLDR; make a pattern of focusing on the positive and solutions rather than the negative and reactions. A friend once told me that even a bad trip is a good trip because we learn something from bad trips, and that is absolutely no different from life; the times where I was thrown into a situation where I wasn't in control were the times where I really found myself. Without the bad times we wouldn't even know what a good time is.

**EDIT: The work pictured below as well as the Who's Yin? half of my diptych with me and Mary Heather have both been accepted into the JMU Juried Undergrad Show. Yippie!

A cellphone image quality picture of "I'm Putting My Shoulder to the Wheel" from my We Are Never Alone Series.