heyyyy the next podcast episode comes with a big trigger warning.

some loose midnight musings (updates, reflections, etc) because y'all know how I get down.

hello, internet friends!

CW: mentions of suic!de designed to contextualize the next episode of Threadings. Nothing graphic; use of plain language to discuss suicidality. this begins at bullet point three.

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it is, in a shocking twist of fate, the middle of the night. I be trying to convince myself that 4am feels just like 11pm in terms of manic work in the dark and… that is just simply not true. there is no need to lie. words still find me at our most honest in the middle of the night before bed. it’s like my fingers type out everything we cannot hold onto for tomorrow. I put it on a page and call it a day. hi, how are you? I am sad (that is not news). here are some loose well-wishes I fished from my brain like coins at the bottom of a fish tank.

—a quarry of thoughtless ponderments entitled: I am finally (finally) well enough to gain weight—

• my off camera life is really just beginning to stabilize and then I go and announce to the world that I am a sex worker. weeeeeeeeeeeeee

• i made a whole video answering questions about stripping in a way that is a delightful amount of honest. wow I am never this honest on camera!! it was lovely and freeing. It’s behind a paywall because I feel like the Internet At Large can be… weirdly… cannibalisistc (?) of strippers and our experiences. Not even just the internet, but real life too. I say “oh I’m a stripper” and it’s immediately omg haha what’s the craziest thing that ever happened to you?

  • idk… assault? probably the assault(s). what do people imagine that i’m going to say when they ask dumb shit like that? anyways. if you want more honest thoughts like that, it’s a smooth $5. i be goin to the farmer’s market and buying myself fresh veggies, so I thank you all for your continued support of me.

    skincare, stripping, tea.

• I usually post the podcast on Sundays, and this week is late because I have been traveling. I came to see my sister win an award (!!!) and it was very worth it, but it does mean I’m a tad behind in my readings, writings, editings, re-writings, readings, uploadings, backtrackings… all the minute of making sure I am making art that I am proud to share with you. I apologize for the tardiness as much as I can (while also assuring you that I will be tardy again someday).

• The next podcast episode is also a bit tardy because I wanted to warn you all well in advance that I talk about my experience as a teenager, which is very deeply informed by the fact I attempted to kill myself. I am also honest in that just because I continued on with life does not actually mean I wanted to be here. I did not have the will to live until very recently. Y’all were actually so correct about that frontal lobe stuff??? omg.

  • also, year 23 beat my fuckin ass. if you are 23 or under, please just hold on a little bit until those front gears really get grinding. I am telling you: everything about 24 feels different.

• in either case. I talk about suicidality and also what it was like being passively suicidal while also being viral on TikTok and like… building a following of people that cared about my well-being even while I very much did not. I was working on it. This was actually not the first time I had eyes on me while attempting to balance the precarity of life and death in my personal life, so I dive into that as well.

• I think it’s important to talk about the realities of suicide ideation, especially as a mental health professional. I am doing so in writing because it feels more permanent, and because when I was fifteen I really enjoyed reading the blogs of random strangers on the internet. It would have meant a lot to me to have stumbled a cross a young adult person who struggled like I struggled and told the truth. my brain was not zapped “better” because I got older. Survival and love were a habit that cemented themselves into something better, helped cement me into something a bit better.

• that’s all. just a short little, “hi. proof of life, hope you’re well.” i’m attempting to be well and stable amidst a lot of stressors in my life. I am beginning to feel good. I am beginning to let go of things I just… need to let go of. It is really difficult to be in a season of life where I have to indiscriminately and unabashedly choose myself, however I am also grateful to have lived to a point where I find myself someone worth choosing. I know I heavily critique the politics of deservingness because it doesn’t really end well, and as someone that has previously thought I really wasn’t worth much at all, i’m intensely grateful to feel like I have substance to me. And substance that I find… beautiful. worth keeping.

okay that’s alllllll love youuuuu have a good daaaaaaaaaaaay

ismatu g.