“I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy, my reality is just different from yours.”

And we’re back, now per usual this is the part where I advise you to get you a drink, or multiple or even get your smoke on.. whatever helps you. If I’m being honest The Tipsy Mami isn’t tipsy by any means for this one but I think it’s necessary. While I’m sober typing this, I’m actually in the middle of getting a tattoo over the scars or my right ankle.. now they’re not JUST scars, that’s actually my go-to spot over the last 15years, when my depression has gotten so bad I’ve convinced myself I’m not good enough and I take a razor to my skin and self-harm.

I’ve touched on my self-harming but never how I’m going to this time around & if I’m being honest I wasn’t planning on writing about it until I was asked why I wanted to cover my scars with the tattoo “why now ..”what’s this being here going to do... is it just cause” & as the needle hits my skin& the adrenaline of a similar pain I’ve felt in that same spot rush through my body it’s become more clear then ever before why I needed to do this, my psyche needed me to do this.

My ankle isn’t the only place I've self harmed but like I said it’s my go to. See, the tattoo covering it is an outline of the Mad Hatters hat.. now let me explain why Alice in Wonderland is my favorite movie so we can get back on track as far as why I’m doing this.. If you’ve ever watched Alice in wonderland chances are you focused on how “trippy” the movie was made.. from the fact that shorty was talking to a rabbit that had a clock trying tell her that time was running out.. shorty jumps down a random hole and let’s her curiosity take over what her reality wasn’t anymore. In the movie each character questions her personal character, they tell her that the person she is and what made her different from who she is trying be (which she didn't believe herself until the end).. that it was Alice that was going to save everyone from the Queen of Hearts and slay the Jabberwocky and peace and happiness would be restored again. The entire movie she has to push herself past her own understanding of what reality is in order to achieve what she was “created for”. Now back to how it all relates, Alice was in the process of going through the motions, in the beginning you see her mother tell her she wasn’t dressed right & Alice rebutted by asking why she had to if she wasn’t comfortable. Alice never saw the world as black or white, there was always a question to be asked and she needed the answer. The problem was that the reality she was living in was holding her back from that, so her jumping down the rabbit hole really becomes her jumping into her psyche, trying to figure out what parts of herself she needed to learn to love and exploit to really be able to get back to reality and be exactly who she needed to be and not just going through the motions. For me, the mad hatter was the main character that kep pushing Alice and believed in her, even in his own chaos he saw the best in her and what she had the ability to become.. he was the one that assured her that even though things aren’t black and white and there’s always going to be someone telling us who we should be, it’s okay to try and figure out who we are without approval. It really wasn’t that long ago I started struggling with the idea of self harming again, I fought so hard with myself, not because there would be a fresh scar or there was a chance I’d have to explain myself but because I didn’t want to believe that self-mutilation was the answer... again. I kept mentioning to those around me that I needed to focus on my mental health; that I wasn’t at that point just yet but if I did get there the same ones around me telling me to go through the motions, to force myself to be someone I'm not and try to feel something I couldn't weren't the ones that would be on the floor in the middle of the night helping me clean the damn mess I had made of myself. In the midst of trying to make my voice loud enough to be heard that I was struggling my own Mad Hatter; Hugo, showed up with genuine concern and such an incredible urge to try and understand my chaos the best way he could.. Hugo is a man of God, he’s a youth pastor in SC with his wife and three kids & this man has this incredible love for broken people.. I’m not sure he’d consider himself an empath but I do believe that he is. For the first time in my life, I cried to him (days before Thanksgiving) mad, I was so mad, I was so hurt that God created me so entirely different from my family that it makes it so difficult for them to even be able to fathom why I feel so deeply. While I could clearly see it on his face and hear it in his voice that it hurt him for me to be so angry for struggling with loving myself, he made sure to remind me that my anxiety and my depression don’t define me. I didn’t even realize it until just now but it’s his constant believing in me and understanding, that while I’m not defined by these things they are incredibly real to me& that even though sometimes they can be overwhelming it’s all in the process of trying find balance in between my psyche (the rabbit hole) & my reality. The more I unpack my (YETAGAIN) healing process the more I’m realizing that in this instance he was my Mad Hatter but I’m surrounded by them.. I’m finding that (once I get the fuck over myself and reach out) I’m surrounded by people that somehow try to help me find a balance between the two and encourage and push me to be/see all I can be even when I don’t see it myself. While the tattoo does cover the scars, if you look close enough in the spaces where there’s no shading you can still see over a decade of self harm and ultimately safe hate& misunderstanding. The Hatter stuck true to himself and made sure to push Alice to stick true to herself. The reminder that my scars, aren't just that.. they tell a million stories and carry a lot of hurt the tattoo symbolizes that I can, not just fight with myself hard enough to push through my internal battles and find my way through but also that in my chaos, there is joy and hope in still figuring out who I am in the reality that I’m creating. It’s instinct to go through the motions and keep everything at bay but the truth of the matter is.. We’re a little mad here. --The Tipsy Mami

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