My thoughts are coming from an odd place after a very emotionally fucked up day and I will not excuse them. This is a safe space. I built this space for safeness. I’m telling myself these things to help convince myself to publish this entry after I write it. I really feel like raw words are important, the act of pushing unfiltered thoughts out into the world is overwhelming but therapeutic. I want everyone to feel they can and should push back with their own by letting their words fly.

I have consumed three donuts and a mug full of Chocolate Therapy ice cream (edited to add:) over the course of a six hour period. I am wrapped in a quilt, painting my fingernails, smoking cigarettes, and dabbing my body with ointments and oils. I much prefer turning to sweets, science fiction thrillers, and other forms of self indulgence than the alternative - that certain path to destruction.

As addiction and substance abuse is so prevalent in my family, indulgent self-care has literally saved my life. I have had close calls with addiction - it is an ever-looming presence - but I have mostly managed to keep it at bay within my own life.

This is the first time I’ve ever acknowledged these things and it feels so right to express, like I kind of knew it for a long time but needed more perspective to comprehend it.

Instead of a cycle of self-destructive hell made worse by my clinical depression and anxiety, I actually allow myself the guilt-free beautiful pleasure of being a fucking sloth - because I’ve damn we’ll earned it.

I work hard, I play hard, I love hard, I feel hard. I absolutely deserve punctuated days of soft and sweet lackadaisical luxury and will attest to the fact that time you enjoy wasting is not time wasted. It is important and vital to mental wellness.

I hold onto cigarettes as a bittersweet vice that I’ve maintained since high school. I claim no reason to defend my habits. I inhale 3-5 a day, some days none, some days more. I’ll go days without thinking to light one up. I’ll try going a few weeks without. I’ll smoke two packs over the course of a weekend. Today, I’ve had three.

I eat sweets. I eat all kinds of food and my eating habits are sound, but on the days I need to be kind to myself - I am particularly sure to include chocolate. (FYI - The Balanced Movement proclaims October 7th - 14th as Treat Yourself Week. Treat. Yo. Self.)

My addictions could be something else. They could be destructive, harbored in bottled up pools of mentally ill fuckery; the kind that smells of bourbon and bad dreams. But they aren’t. They consist of indulgence, smokey vices, foods, grooming, and good films. They are my own, they are for me, they heal.

I am so fortunate to be able to express, feel, understand, comprehend, treat myself, treat others, and love until my ribcage swells out from the pressure of my overzealous heart.

There are much worse ways to exist in this world.