Freedom of Speech, Part Two.

A couple of years ago, I struggled with writing and publishing something that I knew would hurt someone.

You can read about that here.

And now I'm struggling again, with writing and publishing again, and what is and what isn't allowed anymore.

I've always been painfully, abundantly transparent in what I write and why I write it.  I take a no-holds-barred stance on my words.  If I'm thinking, feeling, needing them, they're going to come out.  Possibly in person, probably in this blog.  I have written about illness, loss of love, loss of goodness; I have written about books and knowledge and poetry and music; I have written about pain, happiness, secrets, sorcery, and travel.  I have written anything and everything I have wanted to.  Except for that one post that still only exist in my mind and my heart, I have committed myself to openness and honesty- most especially when I write.

But here I am.  Here I am now, in this life that I have, that I have chosen for myself.  And it's a good life.  I have people around me that are good people, people I love, people who are good for me.  I'm living in a place as wild and petulant and changeable as I am.  I care about things; I invest myself in things; I am in what most people would identify as a 'happy place.'

And yet I still struggle.  Every day I struggle.  Badly.  Some days are exponentially worse than others.

Lately I find it's hard for me to look myself in the eye- it's hard for me to look at myself at all- without feeling the current of badness tug at my psyche.  I have a beautiful life that I finally and fully appreciate- but I still struggle.  It's no laughable struggle either; it's not struggling over what shoe to wear (although I have been down that road a time or two) or what really bad Netflix to watch; it's all out tug of war for the health and well being of my brain.

And yet here I still am.  Struggling, in a happy place.

And scared to write about it.*  Because what right do I have to write?  About sadness and madness and the seemingly inevitable creep of self abasement and loathing?  About the stretches of time when my mind goes blank because blank is better than bad?  About the pain and frustration that comes from, once again, turning against myself?  About the fear and the loneliness that is a direct result of the aforementioned illness, knowledge, and secrets.  About the isolating effect of all of the above.

Not only that, but what right do I have to write about the pains, ills, and grievances that so many others have?  Am I toeing the line, the hard line, of complaining?  Of bitching and moaning and just generally woe-is-me-ing?

What sort of right do I have to write any of that?

Freedom of Speech.  Freedom of Expression.  Those rights that I hold most dear are the rights that are most dangerous to me right now.  Open the floodgates and the waters will overwhelm.  Let me use my words and with them I will drown you.

It's a terrible power and an overpowering yearning, this simultaneous need for- and fear of- the blunt abruptness of the written word.

And what right do I have to wield it?  Or feel it?

Until Next Time.



*Which never works- inevitably I find myself coming up with increasingly terrible ways to ease these struggles and assuage my own palpable frantic negativity.