actually, i CAN Blog

 I saw the face behind my eyes, a stranger's skin, familiar lies.  In the depths of my drinking, it felt like something inside me would snap without warning. One moment, I was calm, even in control, and the next, it was as if a stranger had hijacked my thoughts and emotions.  The changes weren't gradual or subtle they were sudden and jarring, like being yanked from my own body and replaced by something unrecognizable. Those closest to me saw it, too, their reactions shifting from confusion to outright fear. My bizarre thoughts and unpredictable emotions surfaced without warning, sending a chill through the room before I even understood what I had done.  At one point, they were so disturbed by what they saw that they even suggested performing an exorcism to rid me of whatever was overtaking me. I wanted to tell them they were wrong, but deep down, I wasn't sure they were. Growing up Catholic, the idea of an exorcism wasn't as far-fetched as it might sound to others. T...

  In the first days, when the breath of God still hung fresh upon the void, light poured forth and named the world good. But the dark watched in envy, its hunger growing beneath the veil of shadow. It longed not to rule the heavens, but to touch the souls who would walk the earth — to leave in them a trace of its own quiet power. And the Almighty, who knew that choice gives birth to strength, decreed that the dark should have but one move. One gesture to stake its claim. So God allowed Satan one act before we were born. And he chose the simplest, most lasting sign — pressing his finger to our upper lip, leaving the small indent as his mark. Then he whispered: “shhh.”  Don’t speak. Don’t tell. Don’t. It is the quiet scar we all carry — a reminder that life will test you, silence you, and demand you choose whether to stay hushed or to speak anyway. https://open.substack.com/pub/timmy2bits/p/the-philtrum?r=5yul19&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=fal...

FO U N D AT I ON: LE AR N I N G T O EX I S T WI TH OU T T H E CHA O S Nobody talks about the identity crisis of healing. You spent years being the person who drank, the one who numbed, the one who disappeared when it got too hard. That identity was more than just addiction—it was your structure, your ritual, your way of moving through the world. You knew how to exist inside destruction. You knew how to build your life around the next escape. And now? Now that the crutch is gone—who the hell are you supposed to be? There’s a misconception that once you remove the addiction, life will naturally rearrange itself into something whole. But addiction wasn’t just a habit—it was a framework. It dictated your relationships, your choices, the way you coped, the way you existed. Without it, there is no automatic reset. There is just the blank space where it used to be. The hardest part of stopping isn’t stopping—it’s waking up the next day and realizing you don’t know how to live inside the q...

Breaking the Cycle of Negative Thinking: A Guide to Overcoming ANTs What Are ANTs? ANTs, a concept popularized by Dr. Daniel Amen, are the automatic, negative thoughts that creep into your mind, often during moments of stress or self-doubt. These thoughts can take many forms, such as believing you’ll never be good enough, catastrophizing a small mistake, or assuming others view you negatively. Negative thoughts can feel particularly overwhelming because they feed into emotional sensitivity and a tendency to overanalyze situations. When these patterns of self-criticism or regret take hold, it can feel like you’re trapped in a loop of self-defeating thoughts. Stress and negative emotions can amplify this loop, making it even harder to let go of these thought patterns. For some, these thoughts may even feel engaging because the brain becomes hooked on replaying past mistakes or dwelling on potential future problems. The Role of Dopamine in Negative Thinking These negative thoughts, while ...

There's a storm inside me, ravenous, unyielding, tearing through marrow and bone. It howls my name, shaking the walls of a house already crumbling. No light reaches here. No sound but the crash of waves, the gnash of despair against the cliffs of my soul. I reach for the blade like a lover, its cold kiss a promise, its edge a choir of sirens. "Let me free you," it sings, and I listen because nothing else will. The sting is a hymn; it drowns the storm for a moment, but the silence never lasts. Each etch I draw, a map- a desperate attempt to chart what cannot be spoken, what cannot be seen. But the ink runs red, and the map leads nowhere but back to places where the wreckage began. I sink deeper, my hands shaking, my breath heavy with the weight of shadows. I think, maybe this is all I am: a body breaking under its own weight, a canvas for pain, a vessel for despair. But then— a flicker, faint as a candle's breath. A whisper rises, not from the blade, but from somewhere...

For so long, I thought the moments of light were illusions—temporary escapes from a reality I couldn’t face. But as I stood in the clarity of my own truth, I realized the dream was never the lie. It was the fear of believing in it that kept me trapped.

The graveyard holds the silent echoes of unfulfilled potential—the wealth of dreams that never saw the light of day, brilliance that never broke the surface. It’s not the world’s banks or towering skylines that house the most untapped riches. It’s the rows of headstones, the cold ground beneath them, cradling forgotten ideas and ambitions that perished in the hearts of those too afraid to act. In the graveyard lies the unwritten novel that could have changed the way we see the world. There’s a melody buried that might have stirred souls for generations. The blueprint for an innovation that could have redefined entire industries lies dormant, sealed away by doubt. The graveyard is heavy with the weight of what could have been—but never was. But here you are. Still breathing. Still standing. The soil beneath your feet is not yet ready to take you. That gnawing fear, the one that convinces you it’s safer to stay quiet, to keep your ideas tucked away—it's a lie that feeds the graveyard...