#Go Fix | Opening Our Mouths about Suicide Prevention Awareness

Sharing our stories is a powerful force of awakening. By sharing our stories we share with others how we, too, have felt alone, have felt vulnerable and have felt low. And by sharing our stories, we make it okay for other people to share theirs, to open their own mouths and to talk about the hard stuff rather than the fake pleasantries. By sharing our stories we unite with one another, feeling stronger and connected, able to love and be loved even more effectively. By sharing our stories we open ourselves up to other people’s kind blessings, their gratitude and their inspiration. We create a cycle, a wavelength, of love. And that love is necessary, no, sufficient, for preventing yet another loss of life from  suicide on this rock floating in space that we call Earth (or Midgard, for Thor fans ;)).

That’s the core for this new hashtag, #Go Fix. My dear and wonderfully loving and caring friend Imani, someone I’ve come to know within my short stay thus far on WordPress, has created this lovely hashtag for us to further expand the topic of mental health issues and suicide prevention awareness.

She wants us to start a revolution; a caring, loving revolution where we each, as human beings, look out for one another. Where we choose to be kinder, gentler, happier. Where we choose to spread love rather than hate, and that we reach out our hands to the strangers who feel their mouths are sewn shut from the horrors of depression and suicidal ideation. Let us, one by one, show each other that we are caring people, willing to open our souls and tell our stories of how we have survived, and are continuing to live, despite at one point in time being in that dark vortex. Or, for those who haven’t been suicidal, show too that you care, that you’re willing to have a conversation about suicide prevention, about mental health issues, and that you’re ready for society–all of our societies to change.

Let’s unite together and in one strong, unwavering voice, announce to break the silence. (Or fuck the silence, as I like to say). Let us spread the #Go Fix with our messages of strength, courage and hope.

Because life is worth living. And if you are feeling suicidal out there on this large, large rock of ours, I encourage you to reach out to someone and talk about how you are feeling. As Imani has suggested, I will too, that you can reach out to me if you need it. Send me an email from my contact page, I will be happy to chat with you and honored that you are showing your strength and courage.

Because suicide is a permanent action to a temporary crisis. Because everything in life changes. Because feelings are temporary. Because YOU are worthy of recovery and your life is worth living, and your story is worth sharing.

Take the day hour by hour, minute by minute. Practice your positive coping skills. Make a list of things you love and enjoy, make art, practice art therapy, build your #Recovery Home, attack the shit out of this #Go Fix by sharing your thoughts and using your voice. By being alive, you have a voice within you, stronger than you realize and more necessary than you are aware of for this discussion.

Spread awareness. Make a difference. We may not be able to stop the hate, the crime, the wars on this planet, yet if we each do our small part, we can make a powerful difference in just one person’s life. And the ripple effect from that? It could change the world.

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With that prep out of the way, I’d like to share some artwork I did for this #Go Fix, as well as some quotes about suicide prevention I found via Google and my own Reasons to Live that I made up last year. (and hasn’t been updated since–not yet, at least).

My 64 Reasons to Live:

1. Making art
2. Having hope
3. Reading fanfiction
4. Watching movies (Marvel–i.e. Thor Ragnarok comes out in Nov. 2017, and I gotta stay alive to watch that motherfucker)
5. Getting an education (Bachelor’s degree)
6. Becoming a mental health therapist (Master’s LCSW)
7. Being inspired and receiving hope from the stories of others who have struggled with mental illness and have come to manage their lives again
8. I want to make it to the day where I am grateful that I am alive and that I am doing well. I want to live through this difficult time to make it to the day where I’m glad that I didn’t end the pain. Where I can say I’m here and better for it.
9. Laughing with friends
10. Going shopping

11. Hanging out with friends

12. Nature and all its beauty and glory

13. Coloring books

14. The sprinkles of rain

15. Morning dew on grass.

16. Drawing

17. Finding/Discovering more coping strategies

18. LIVING again

19. Getting better

20. Making progress.

(Apparently I have more reasons to live than I remembered! I wrote on the back of the cards too!!!!)

21. Helping others

22. Giving people compliments

23. Receiving compliments

24. Spontaneous conversations with strangers

25. Making new friends

26. Relating; CONNECTING with people

27. Watching birds

28. Seeing the stars at night

29. Laying out a blanket over grass on a sunny day and just being

30. Experiencing moments of calm, bliss and relation

31. Coloring

32. Feeling emotions

33. Scented markers, pens, etc.

34. Candles ❤

35. Subway chocolate chip cookies

36. Ice cream 🙂

37. Being creative

38. Inspiring other people

39. Having an impact on other people’s lives

40. Jamming to music (Shawn Mendes – Stitches)

41. Realizing how far you’ve come

42. Recognizing your value, importance and significance.

43. Who would wear the sparkly pants?

44. Being a positive glow for others who have yet to shine.

45. Organizing

46. Fuzzy/fluffy socks

47. Colors / color combinations

48. Cute purchases

49. Stickers

50. Candy: Skittles, M&M’s, Reese’s Fast Break

51. Beef stew

52. Potatoes. All of them (well, not all)

53. Spreading mental health and suicide prevention awareness.

54. Finding a cause to be passionate about and devote time towards.

55. Photography Club Exhibitions

56. Painted nails

57. Crafting bracelets

58. Beads. All of them

59. DeviantART community, friends, art

60. Joking with friends

61. Being Open to Learn; Willing to Listen

62. Early morning quiet before others have awoken

63. Video games

64. Childhood memories

My Thoughts:

It’s very, very interesting to have this opportunity to look back on the artwork I made, the notes I wrote, the reasons to live that I listed, and find so much of who I am today, of how I convey myself on this blog, there within the notes and art and papers.

I guess it just goes to show that the light within your true self, that may dim and get damaged as you go through difficult trials, can, under better circumstances, create a POWERFUL stream of light that extends beyond you and out into the galaxies.

I genuinely could not have imagined a year ago that I’d be sitting here in my room, at a lovely desk by the way, recording my long ago list of reasons to live and typing them up onto a place where I share so much of myself with the world around me.

I find it just fantastic and amazing that I’ve already begun to incorporate so many of my reasons to live into my life–maybe that’s what Recovery is truly all about. Again, it just goes to show how FAR we can travel from–from a darkness so toxic to a brightness so blindingly beautiful and hope hanging from the tree branches like apples. 🙂

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Finally, my drawing for #Go Fix:

I knew I wanted to use a quote for this piece and do some colorful flowers and such in the background, leaving the majority of it blank white space. I got more into the swirls and dips than I thought I would, as it turns out, but I got myself to finish the floral atmosphere at the top and have the swirls surrounding all of the page.

The quote is something that I wrote on my DA account in a journal when I began to feel better, and chose that rather than self-harming or attempting suicide, I’d choose for that moment, to show myself kindness, compassion and self-love. Hence, the saying above!

I didn’t always like how this was turning out, but I like it more as a finished product. It is a beautiful piece with an even deeper meaning and memory behind it. And the #Go Fix is written all down below. 🙂

I hope you all have enjoyed this post!!!! ❤ Keep holding on. ❤ ❤ ❤

Lastly, the slideshow of this work in progress:

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Stay safe, my friends! And spread the word about this mission wherever you go!!!! 🙂

Gift Art #4

:3 I has finally done it!! I has made the 4th gift art, whooooooo!!!!

This gift art is fooooorrrrr mlbradford!! Whoooo! Woot Woot! *applause*

I got the idea in my head when we were chatting one day. 🙂 Like, a few weeks ago. And I’m making this post now because I got lazy and skipped the support group this evening…:S

But anywho, here is the gift art!

I have titled this piece:

Psychedelic Dandelion

Up close shot of the dandelion.

Image of the little seedlings drifting off.

I used Staedtler marker pens and watercolor to create this piece. 🙂 I don’t have any of the WIP as I just gotter done this evening and I was IN THE ZONE listening to scary stories and everything 🙂

I’m happy to finally get it done! I’d been procrastinating on it for a while because I wasn’t sure I could produce as good of an image as I thought. BUT that was a load of bullshittery, as I feel it came out pretty cools! I’m still finding my niche with watercoloring, I can see some of the beauty in this piece with the colors with that fading break of white in between the rich, bold color (I tend to go for rich, bold color rather than the classic watery watercolor effect, even though I aspire to achieve that, too). So yeah.

Hope you enjoy it, bruh!!!

*salutes* Greetings from across the pond 😉

Queen B.E’s Gift Art – #3

I finally did it! I have successfully created, crafted and produced the delicate birthday gift art for my most loveliest friend, I Sing the Body Electric! This marks gift art #3! If anyone has ideas or would like the next gift art, send me a comment my way or I’ll be picking through my followers 😉 And probably some of the people I follow too. 🙂

 

So, let’s show the piece! I’ve got a lot of photos of it 🙂

FIRST! I’ll link to the reference images I used:

1. Flamingo 1
2. Flamingo 2
3. Cinnamon Bun

Now, we’ll get into the completed piece:

A title for this piece is harder to come to mind, but here’s what I’ve come up with:

“The Essence of Body Electric”

Flamingos are B.E’s favorite creature, and as two badass bitches, we’d have matching flamingo costumes–the better to peck people with! 🙂

In the background are cinnamon buns, which is one of our many inside jokes together. ❤ And the rest of the background I used my glitter paint for because Queen B.E makes me smile and feel loved and happy and honored to be someone who has gotten to know her. She is a warrior, an emotionally raw human being, who has been through some awful tragedies that were never her fault and were dealt by hands that were meant to protect her. She is a fighter, though, and she is a SURVIVOR. Her posts are unedited, flawless accounts of human survival through the toughest shit imaginable. She is a wonderful, caring, honest human being, and I genuinely recommend following her as she is amazing and will give to you her honest truth, without fear or shame. She is an honorary soul here. ❤ ❤ ❤

Here are more pictures!

A central shot of the flamingo. ❤

Up close shot of the cinnamon buns and glitter.

A close up of the shine of the glitter from my bedroom light ❤

Another perspective of the flamingo

And here are some of the WIP pictures! (Note, the flamingo is as pink as above my phone just didn’t pick up on the pigment)

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Welp! That’s all from me for this post!! I’m going to do another post in just a few minutes about some teachable recovery stuffs. 🙂 Starting with some art therapy work I have!

I hope everyone enjoys the different style of this post! The slideshow option is pretty cool and oh, I should mention, I used watercolor, glitter paint and metallic pens for this piece! It was quite fun to make, although I pushed it off for a while since I was a bit intimidated by it! My first ever flamingo drawing! ^^ I’m learning how to carve out a style of presentation for these gift arts, so it’s all a work in progress!

Anywho, I hope this can cheer up my Queen B. E ❤ ❤ ❤

 

Sending you positive thoughts and many hugs, hun!! ❤

Stay safe everyone. 🙂

(Also, if you want to get one next, let me know!! I will be more than happy to make you something. :))

To Live with Purpose + Gift #2

June 2nd Prompt | Purpose

It is now nearly 5 in the afternoon. Today, I have overpowered the day.

I made a new scrapbook page last night, which is fun, and my room is looking more barren, which is a good thing (I tend to keep a lot of clutter on the floor).

I made a post this morning on here, tackling my issues coming to light and a daily prompt from…a few days ago. Tehe!

I’ve been caught up with my messages here since yesterday, although I have many comments left to write. I think the writing block is dissipating, which is lovely. I’m planning on making some comments tonight. I’ve taken a few naps today, got out my summer clothes from up in the attic (or, more so, my Mom did) and I have to do the dishes later, but that’s not so bad. I think I’d like to read some tonight, so I’ll have to carve out an hour for that. I’ve made my second gift art for Shouting from the Mountain Top which I’ll be showcasing at the very end of this post. 🙂 I did that as I listened to a bunch of Trisha Paytas’ haul videos and other Youtube chatter.

I’m almost playing around with the idea of doing some photography tonight… I need to shower, too. And maybe, if I can, I will spend some time doing creative writing…. I feel the need to create, but create what I’m not sure.

I also need to practice through my IOOV presentation for tomorrow. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned but this month I’m doing IOOV presentations at Samaritans (tomorrow) and Carney Hospital in Dorchester onnnnnn the 13th. On Monday I’m going up to school for non-work study application stuff and a meeting and therapy. Then Tuesday is finally the OCD support group night. I bet I’ll be able to read a lot while I’m there, too. 🙂

The officially unofficial idea for the summer involves me having a 12 hour job up at school, for a couple to three days a week. Also attending therapy. And waiting for the partial hospitalization at the OCD-Institute for some time in July. And, more likely, also taking a summer psychology statistics course beginning July 18th. I would like to email the professor who’s teaching it just like I’d like to email professors about a directed study, but I keep pushing it off, annoyingly so. -_-

I get to see dogs tomorrow though!! 😀 That is exciting.

I will be on a time crunch for the IOOV presentation, so I’m hoping finding the location isn’t too tricky!!!!

 

Additional Fancy News:

1. Including today, it’s been 6 days so far on my third recovery stint from self-harm.
2. I’m hoping to bring more of my experiences and teachable moments to Recovery to Wellness, as well as more book reviews, which I have out like 9 books from the library at the moment, 😀
3. Oh! I was nominated by B.E for the Liebster award, I’ll probably fill that out tonight. 🙂
4. I’ve made it to 50 followers! I’m hoping to do a little art piece about this too, that you’ll see later in the week! 😀

 

Now for Gift Art!

This gift art is for my friend, Shouting from the Mountain Top, whose blog link is highlighted up above! She is a wicked soldier, battling her demons (of which there are sadly many) and kicking ass as she continues surviving each day, each minute, each second. She is a wonderful, caring human being, whose been knocked around by life a lot, but who I know can make it through recovery and to a life she is happy to live for. ❤ Send her some love!! ❤ ❤ ❤

Here it is!!!! Full, complete version, close ups to follow! =] I do enjoy doing these two page spreads. 🙂

 

So, for this piece, I was definitely thinking of doing something involving a mountain top, and at first was going to do that mountain a bit brown-ish in the middle, until I thought, why not just do it to the side going up? So, I did! I used watercolor and a Stabilo fine point black pen in this piece. I did a darker green then a lighter green overlay for the mountain, and a darker blue then lighter blue overlay for the sky.

There’s a cool little person who’s technically not wearing a shirt but kind of is (they definitely have a skirt though!) looking out into the light/sky and yes, that cup looking thing is their hands 😉

I was trying to find some good quotes to include but didn’t like too many of the ones that popped up on Google, or didn’t feel they fit with SFTMT, so I made this one up! I hope you enjoy the quote and the drawing!! ❤

The cloud has a strip of pearlescent white and gray! And there’s a sun shining through 🙂

I titled this piece: “A Soul’s Teaching”

 

Here is a picture of what it looked like as a WIP:

I had fun with the font, too! I don’t usually explore too many styles of fonts but I wanted something different and snazzy for you, hun! ❤

 

Okay, that’s enough from my mouth for this post! I have a couple more posts I want to knock on out before the end of tonight ❤

We all have a purpose here, in this life. Yours, too, can be found with some self-discovery and love. ❤

 

xxxxxx

P.S.: B.E, you’re next! 😀

New Artwork + Gift Art

Heyyyy everyone!

Sorry I’ve been a bit absent the past couple of days! Don’t worry, I’m doing well. 😀 I had to get more fillings done at the dentist yesterday (blegh!) and then I hung out with my friend Jeanine, and that was lots of fun. We went to Barnes & Noble, got some yummy frozen yogurt and did some drawing/coloring time together. 🙂 Twas very, very fun!

And I was super exhausted afterward so I went to bed relatively early last night, which meant missing out on blogging here!

Today, I spent the majority of the day feeling tired and napping so there’s that! And then I just didn’t have the interest or motivation to really blog or answer messages, my mind was a smooooooth landscape so I didn’t really have much to be saying!

But, after trying out some reading (a new book, yes) and not finding that very fulfilling either, I decided to clean/organize my room. That was around four pm or so.

I organized through this semester’s past schoolwork, tossing out things I don’t find necessary to keep, going through older schoolwork stuff I’ve kept and have since tossed out, going through my old therapy notes (thought records) and recovery packets (information of DBT stuff and mindfulness and pro-recovery resources), cleaning through folders, setting aside notebooks and a folder for the fall semester, converting my new pink basket my Mom got me to a art holding place, working on my Motivational Binder annnnnd yeah. 🙂

A LOT of organizing, and I love it! My floor, on one side of my room, is pretty spotless now, which is very satisfying.

I want to really work this summer on my Motivational Binder, as it’s something I want to loosely or specifically define and then gather up my tools to creating it and putting it together. I just didn’t find the stuff I had in it to fulfill its true potential, so I’ve taken out a lot of that and now it’s waiting to be filled up. I think I’ll do some scrapbook like stuff for it, and use it as a way to motivate myself and inspire me–like a vision board. 😀

 

BUT I want to show you guys, in this post, some of my latest artwork stuffs and a gift art piece I did for my friend Kai 🙂

So, some recent artworks by this dandy snazzy dandelion:

This piece was inspired by a little shed out in the woods at MSE that I took a picture of on my phone last June. I will include a picture of the original, too 😉 Done with watercolor!

One of the positive messages I gave out in May. Done also with watercolor. I gave out 9 messages and got 3 rejections that month!

Drew this cool chick with watercolors and her boobs are actually looking like boobs here, yay! Not sure what her name is. :3 Ideas?

This is the picture I used as a reference!! =] From around June 2015

 

Okay! Basic art update out of the waaaay. Tis time for the gift newwwwssss!!!

So this gift drawing is for my friend, Kai, as mentioned previously. It took me probably about 4 hours for me to do, and I used watercolor and acrylic paint! I’ll be upload multiple perspectives, far away and up close photos of it! So, without further adooooo:

Kai is a super awesome young man who you should totes follow because he’s lovely and wonderful and an inspiration. ❤ He’s been through a LOT of life so far, so send him some love, encouragement and many little sparkles of happiness! ❤ ❤ ❤

 

As shown above: There’s the first (slightly darker toned) version of the full piece, followed by a slightly lighter toned photo of the full piece. Then the bottom of the picture in a close up and the top of the picture in a close up. I was trying to capture the sparkly luster that’s in the colorful stream, since I use regular watercolor then a pearlescent coat over it.

The concept of this piece and the making of it involved: When Kai and I discussed what we sketch, I mentioned how I’ve not done a lot of work with cityscapes, so I decided for his gift I’d play with them. His favorite quote is also: “It’s okay to be a glow stick, sometimes we need to snap before we shine” So I wanted his building (the big blue, gray, pink one) in the middle to stand out, tall and brave (like him!) as it represents his soul and how he lights up the sky. There’s the starry night behind the buildings growing darker as the sky goes up and initially I was just going to involve a lighter form of the sky around his glowing soul, but then I wound up adding streams of color. Ideas shift after all!!

Here are some pictures as this piece was forming:

I’ve titled this piece: “The Glow of A Soul” =]

 

Hope you all get to enjoy this!!!

If you’d like me to draw you a gift or do any type of creative outlet for you (I do creative writing, photography, bracelets, drawing, scrapbooking) let me know! I’d love to make this into a little project of sorts!! Feel free to comment about it or send me an email from my contact page 😀

My next gift project will be for: Shouting from the Mountain Top

 

So, stay tuned over the weekend!! =]

(Bonus news: I’m doing a presentation this Sunday and June 13th for IOOV, yay!!! I’m hoping I can see the doggies for a bit of time before I head out on Sun, but that will await further contemplation. Hope you guys have been good!!)