Diana Kurniawan

Father, Have I forsaken you? Why am I afflicted with the mental ailments? When my panic attacks consumes me and leaves me without answers and I gasp for air of the tribulations and desperate need for oxygen? Father, have you not seen my distresses and the hatred of those who hate me and want me to leave this Earth? They come in hundreds and they all pray the same cursed prayers for death of my life. Please Father, have mercy upon my soul and upon my body, mind and health, restore my blessings and restore my mind to peace and calm, as I toil with panic attacks and my work becomes a dreaded occupation. Please help me, so I can work my field and be amongst my friends who love me and care for me at work where I can help the community and heal my life. Have mercy on this servant as I work with my peers and want to complete my mission and purpose to write, pray and labor with joy, so that these panic attacks won't hinder your blessings. Father hear my prayers and laments, as I feel curses over me and into my life from those who hate me and want heartaches and sufferings to harm me. Please cast out demons from my life, my soul, my health and mind so those who do have the powers to offend you with curses and tremors towards me are dumbfounded and avail to nonsense.

Father, help me so I know what to do during these trial times and evening pursuits of labor and mercy so I know how to handle myself. Please help me so I won't be harmed and I won't end my life. Please help my thoughts from spiraling and unknown thoughts of harm towards myself when I don't know what to do during these panic attacks. Please cast out the demons of hopelessness from me. Please cast out panic attacks out of my heart, mind, and soul and even the medications that need to be amended, please guide me through it. Please help me live and help me to live without these burdens of mental ailments although it is a diagnosis, but it doesn't have to be a life burden. Please help me so I know how to handle myself and how I can carry my life and how to carry my illness and how to cope from it. Please forgive me for the things I don't mean to do and for the things I did that was wrong in Your eyes. Help me, God, don't place me in the predicaments of failures and harm. I pray and plead that You will place me in the places of thriving success and to see my growth and my maturity flourish. Please help me, Jesus, to pluck out and cast out the panic attacks from me and the chest I breathe in and out from, to please help me thrive and breathe in love and exhale compassion and to keep breathing in and out for service for You, Jesus. Please have mercy upon me, Jesus, please Father God, hear my lamentations and hear my cry as I suffer these panic attacks during the days and evenings and I cannot function properly without proper breath. Please help me. Cast out these panic attacks from me, forever. Amin.

#JustWrite

Sometimes I hang on by a string, and I could hardly speak of my trauma. It all started when I was abused, since I was young. There was so much fear inside me and I often felt I won't make it in life to be a stable adult. I still felt this way, even now. I just hope and pray that those moments won't spiral and I end with suicidal ideations. For some people, like me, there would be moments when it feels like no one cares. If you do feel this way, dial 988 or dial 911. I don't want you to think that you were meant to leave this Earth before your time. You're important to me, and I have so much compassion for those who have mental health issues.

When I tried to end my life, I almost swallowed all of my pills and another time, I wanted to slash my wrist; but there came a moment when my late father broke the door down when I was in the bathtub, and the earlier time, when my brother slapped my hands from swallowing my pills. There were people who cared about me, and I was lucky. AND.... I know there are people who cares about you.

If you want to end your life, don't. It's a deadly solution for a temporary problem. The thoughts are fleeting and often it comes in spurts, as I deal with PTSD and Depression and I know first hand, how the trauma works. 

Just Breathe, and let it bubble through you and dial 988. At the other end of the phone is a person who cares for you. 

Today is September 10, 2023, and it is World Suicide Prevention Day. I lost friends from suicide (5), and as a suicide survivor (a person who attempted but lived through it), I want you to know that I feel it is more profitable that I lived than died. I have so much to show and to give the world, even when those asshole haters still want me to die and trust me, they come often into the fleeting thoughts, and the memories of the assaults and the bullying still hurts, but don't hang around those thoughts. You are meant to live, not to die. 

Today is special for me, because I survived it and I'm a survivor, and I survived through so much. I love you, and I know you, and if you don't think I do, just let me know that you are a suicide survivor and I already know you by heart. We are kindred spirits, and we need to stick together, to survive together and to be stronger and to live until our last breaths.

Live long and prosper my friend. Dial 988 or Dial 911, and yes....I care.

#JustWrite

My feet had red welts yesterday and my bones were sore. I worked my shift and was part angry for the work, and part grateful for the employment. I felt lesser than with my life, with my dual degree and manual labor job, but my mental health and the assaults prevented me from truly being efficient with a desk job, therefore, so be it. Writing was in my mind the whole time and I couldn't write yesterday because I was so tired, and I felt guilty.

Madeleine Engle once wrote that worship of the craft of writing should be done rain or shine and labor or pain. Those weren't her exact words, but I believe everyone understood that during tired days, it would be the perfect time to worship the craft because the mind works best under the pressure. Well...yesterday, I was sore and cried beyond belief of the pain and the anxiety nearly led me to another suicidal ideation. I was hurting and I couldn't do anything and I fell asleep after the Valerian kicked in. It was to my benefit to sleep and my mind was ready to go into a dream filled slumber. My mind wouldn't have worked properly to compose any sentences right for reading. 

Where should I draw the line? Should I write everyday, even when my bones hurt? I plead to God to give me another choice than write during times like these. To relax for instance and to take a break. I felt I was allowed one, but today, the same thing almost happened but I didn't give in to the pains, instead I wrote, and here was I, typing aways for my 15 minutes of writing, without stopping. The only difference between today and yesterday were the tears and the mental health. I was so tired that I was crying and couldn't compose anything, but today, I was calm, and even now....I am okay.

Sometimes I have to give in to the fact that I wrote my writing with the flaw of my mental health, but what writer isn't? Everyone has some sort of mental health issue, and I won't let that get the best of me. Yet, yesterday, I felt the pains of my hard work and I took the time to rest. It felt right and I was happy I did it. But, from now on...rain or shine, labors of pain, won't stop me. I promised Madeleine when I took the oath of writing. I promised to use my craft to the best of my ability, and to keep going, even when the going gets tough and I had no way out. I promised myself to keep worshipping God through my craft and skills, even when there would be no one else but me to enjoy my own writing. I knew when I wanted to become a writer, this journey would be a very tough and long road. 

I will keep going, and no matter what, with a job was better than without one.

Just write.

The morning promised me a new day and it does often well, but this morning I found myself with memories of her, the woman who broke into my parent's townhome to steal our belongings and my monies. She followed me to Colorado and ended with marrying the man I once loved and it hurts me beyond belief. Her reason was "equality" and "Justice," but where does the justice lie?

Love Thy Neighbor, the verse in the Bible says and I remember that I did not do anything to her, and instead she was sent to me by a lot of hateful people and they all wanted my demise. I have these bouts of memories often and I try to not think of the past and revert to the present moment to help myself and heal. 

The battle goes on each day and each day I meditate to keep those memories away, and to let the bubbles leave me and let go. I realized she took love from me, but I didn't want her to take everything else from me. I will find another love, and I would rather know that I have my sanity and my family intact than to let her take them away too along with my life from self harm. She often stalks me at work and at places I frequent, but I realized that it was all her mental health. I don't want to be her and I don't want to be with her people, whoever they may be. They seemed to be money hungry, lecherous, dirty swindlers and hateful people. I won't want to be with their group and my Father and Mother both told me to let them go, and move on. I have moved on, but memories forced me to let it all out, and meditation asked me to release it unto these pages to let go of the heartaches and the longing for him. I don't deserve to be treated lesser than good. I've been through too much and was hurt beyond belief that I went to the hospital and almost took my own life. I don't deserve to be surrounded by her people and even the man I once loved would want her to be around and to pay her alimony and hurt me in return. 

I am now conscious of the evils that she did and what the man I once loved would be willing to do for her, which is everything. I don't want to be them, and I deserve better.

Love Thy Neighbor, well, I didn't love mine, and I found it self-preserving to not love her and him. They caused me my life and they caused me my mental health and well being. It was with respect for myself that I don't love them, and to keep myself intact and care for myself to not love them. I chose to forgive them, but that's about the bottom line. I want to make sure I will be healthy and be protected from their abuses that they did to me, and protect my own family and our children. We were targeted often in California and I don't want them to keep hurting us and hurting my parents and our children. It has to stop. They came from a place where group violence was a norm and it was to my benefit to not love them. 

It was to love them that I chose to not love them. They needed to learn their own behavior and the evils they did to me. They hurt me and broke into our home and hurt my parents behind their backs, when we were also low income and hurting ourselves from the sexual assaults and the bullying and they kept on. We have to stop loving them, it was too unbearable for us to live with. We needed to help ourselves. Don't get me wrong, I was not prejudiced or racist towards her, she broke into our home and stole our belongings and my money, so it was not about her race, it was about her behavior. She knew she did wrong and she kept on with it. They have to keep away from now on, including starting with me and my memories, and the thoughts of the hurt they caused me. A lot of pain were inflicted by them and I don't want them to inflict pain upon my brothers and sisters. We became smarter and we now know how to help ourselves and to protect ourselves, and it would start with the police department and then the prosecutions with them against us and legal means will be taken towards them and their abuses and even to the man I once loved and their involvements with her. I stopped caring for them and their well being. I was once very cautious of them and what they would want, but now...I want them to go to jail.

The Bitch is the one who spreads gossip because the girl with lesser than normal looks is fat or has a mole on her face. She talks like a bitch because she has no confidence and she has to put you down in the gutter or attack your braids and wear her thongs outside her jeans to show her beauty. The Bitch is the one who talks shit behind your back or in front of you to get ahead. The one who invites you to a party full of men who rape and tells you to get drunk and stay in the living room with those rapists. The Bitch talks shit about other women because she wants men to love her, and sees bad things in others because she wants others to affirm she is superior in comparison to other women. The Bitch be bitchin'....all the time, and she can't seem to want peace unless she gets a line of millionaires wanting to date her. She wants all the men or want all the men to date women like her. She doesn't want to work because she wants her man to compensate for her blow job she gives him at night, and this might sound double edged, but she feels she has to be compensated for everything. She wants men with money because she wants to be the princess and she's too good for work because it might break a nail or she might get tired. She wants his inheritance and yours too, in case you're rich. The Bitch is unkind. The Bitch is good to people with money or good looks. The Bitch is the shame of all women because she's an abusive criminal but she doesn't care and continues to harm hard working women who just wants to be stable. The Bitch wants to be bigger than life itself because she wants her life to matter, but ridicules the lives of others, even yours. The Bitch doesn't stand up for women's rights because all she cares about is money and men with money and sex and fame and more money. The Bitch tells other women to get therapy but won't get therapy herself. She feels other women are insane and needs to get therapy, crazy, or dumb. The Bitch likes her name because it's a compliment to bitches like her. The Bitch gets her name by being a big bitch, but the strange thing is...she loves it.

My eyes throbbed from sobbing after a sip of my half-calf Americano with skim milk at Trident Bookstore in Boulder. Alone at the back corner with my head down I mumbled crazy to myself with my eyes swollen red. Post-traumatic-stress-disorder symptoms often comes when I have inspirations and when I felt happy from a good day. Jesus, The Baristo, came to my table and held my shoulder. He asked, "Did I make the Americano too strong?" I looked into his eyes and said to him, "Are you trying to trick me? To go into Hell?" I wiped my tears with my left hand as my right was covered with snot mucus from my nostrils. "You drank some of the crushed Espresso Beans that was on the bottom of the machine. I need to clean that thing," said Jesus. I threw the cup at his face, and yelled, "You're a nasty coffee maker. Why did you give me suicidal ideations?!" I hated Jesus. Jesus wept. He took my hands and kissed them, then said, "I could make it all go away. But you have to stop drinking water."

I remembered him like he was the kindercare buddy I never kept in touch with. His smile, and that Italian curly brown hair and the naughty laugh. Sometimes a face was to be remembered and whether fondly or not, his face was in my brain this morning soliciting some attitude in me. I fondly remember him. I forgave him, and it wasn't without restraint that I chose to let go. But, he was in another state and I wanted him to live his life. I wanted him to be happy and I was still dealing with my PTSD and Depression and rape trauma. I was in trouble with my own mind, and I wanted nothing else but solitude and hospitalization. I wanted healing and I couldn't be with him, shame to say, but he was semi-perfect and I wished I kept in touch. 

Now, I will have to let go. I wish success for him and I wish blessings upon his life. I wanted nothing more for him then and the same now. I have no hard feelings and I won't recollect the past with some tragic memories of us fighting. I wanted to see him thrive and I hope he is. I hope he's doing well and I hope he will prosper, in any method that he would like. I want his success and I want to see him, even famous, with that good looks of his, I hope he kept running and paddling. I wish nothing but blessings for him. I hope he met God's grace and God's provisions. I wish a wedding with erotic love making for him and his wife. I wish him blessings. How, I would be so proud of him.

Sometimes we wish ill wills for our past flames, but I knew from the first moment I met him that he was special in his own ways. I hope he knew I had a good soul and a good heart, as I wanted nothing but good for us both. It's far too late and far too long for us to meet again, but I hope nothing but good things for him. I never wanted anything more. I pray he has support, hope and joy, and I hope he is well. I hope he lives well and gets on well with his life. I pray to God for him to have everything he needed and his desires to be aligned with God's will. I pray for good and I pray for well in his life. I hope he will prosper. Amin.

#Blessings #JustWrite

Dark were my days in 2007 and darker was my mind with it. There were times when all I had was anxiety, but there was a horizon unbeknowest to me upcoming to my life in the middle of Spring that year. Tucson, yes, Tucson, Arizona, in a Jewish Temple where I met Rabbi Harold Kushner, I realized that God had trespassed all forms of doubts that formed a barrier inside my heart. The Jericho wall fell down, through a rabbi.

At first I wanted to give up, because there was no such thing was belief inside me, and I didn't feel any changes in my heart. But, something tugged at me since I was a wee child, and that was the study of the Jewish culture and religion and racism, as I read the Serafia and felt a little closer to the real thing along with the Bible. It wasn't until I read, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, that I also realized that I needed God. I needed Joy and Hope that came along with it because I thought I was worst case scenario, but with God I was more than just a statement. I wanted more for myself, so I went to Tucson, to meet the him, Rabbi Kushner, and he uttered, "Small Doses of Joy, makes big changes."

I lived it, and treated myself, sometimes for just a Green Tea, and other times, Ice Cream, and yeah....so what with the weight gain, I was raped, who would want me after that, right? Wrong...people started to realize I changed, and my parents told me I was brighter and I tried harder, and I wanted more for myself that just hanging around the house on medication after a hard day at work. I wanted to go to work with a passion, and I wanted to go back to school for my graduate studies. The true statement rings bells in my ears, God Saves, and through Rabbi Kushner, I felt a change, more than I what I could have done alone. I needed his help and his small push towards me. 

Since then, I called it the Kushner Method. Small doses of treats and joys, and satisfactions, and hope in any form, and they are there (trust me) and you can find it anytime. When there were bad news, I look at pictures of funny animals, or when I fell down, I walked another mile to break more calories to lose weight. When the dog bites and the bee stings, and when I was feeling sad, I put on a funny flick on the telly or treated myself to a movie. Then, there I was...bad for a moment, but back for the long haul. 

The Kushner Method worked and it might be harder with age, because it gives us all a skeptic brain, but if one just trusts as a child, it will work. I trusted the kind Rabbi, and until now, I ascribe to his teachings, although I'm Methodist/Presbyterian, and I didn't worship in a Jewish Temple, whose to say I wasn't allowed? God sometimes uses others, and in peculiar ways that the weakest became the cornerstone that was stronger than I. The Rabbi was a holy man I trusted because he didn't want to see harm for me, he wanted healing, even for a gentile. 

I realized I was not alone, because there were about a hundred or more people in the audience, who sought his wisdom and saw him at the conference and bought his books. I knew Brene Brown was his competition, but boy, would she get a run for her wisdom. I love both, Brown and Kushner, but most of all, I do believe in God. Not because I was in a cult of some holy roller with a mission to proselytize everyone, instead I wanted to share my story. I was a survivor and I was trying to survive and I sought help. Now....I would be called a thriver, stable with my job and my heart and mind, and allowing the world to take shape without restraint and fears. The Kushner Method gave me resilience, and I became who I was meant to be, a writer, a beautiful woman and all in the making towards success in my own life, in my own ways. No shame with unbelievers, I wasn't writing this to put you down, but I wanted to share my story about the Kushner Method, and my gratitude for him. 

Thank you Rabbi, if we ever meet again, I will give you a hug.

There is a force beyond me incomprehensibly is forcing me to move forward and I fight it none. I tread on lazily often, but not without the knowledge I am not placing all of my wits to the task, therefore, in seconds, my motive transforms. I don't know why I try too hard to find out what is the force beyond me, to see if it is godly or the latter (selfishness). I end in the same spot of miraculous joy that I never intended to feel. It guides me and tells me what to do and shows me how to write and the emotions I am familiar with, and sometimes I feel like a robot, switching electric currents into my neurons to complete a task. Afterall, aren't we all robots with fleshed out brains? Am I any different, but that is it that guides me? I contemplate prayers and contemplate faith, and know that there is a nonsense that I believe in religion that I surrender to. Yet, others tell me it's dumb or non-existent. 

I don't listen to others anymore when it comes to the knowledge of this force. I just know what to do and how to write it, and here I am writing without an MFA, which usually gives the creative license of artists to write. I have nothing, and started at nothing, a blank page even, but here I am writing. Words spelling out, splurging sentences onto the page although, I never actually say anything or know what to even type until I feel the force moving through the tips of my fingers, letting catharsis release the monsters and sometimes darkness unto the vast cyberspace.

I don't know why but I want to write all the time, and I don't know if other writers feel the same. I can write for hours endlessly for a whole day and even overnight (without coffee) but the lack of sleep will probably end in drueling bliss on my computer. Sleep aside, I want to write for hours, and the adrenaline just pushes me through. I don't why, and I am not sure if there is the ghost of a dead writer inside of me or not, but I feel like a writer, but am I? Can I justifiably proclaim myself to be one when I'm just a small time writer and poet. Do I deserve to call myself a writer when I am not in The New York Times or New Yorker? Can I compare myself to those luckies?

I'm going to keep going, and still write nonsense maybe, but here is me, writing something out of nothing.

#JustWrite

I could have been your mother, aching with my belly immersed in the slime of my cells full of medicine and drugged up placenta. I could have been a druggie with a past with HIV and Herpes, and pushing through the night at the strip show with just underwear and topless. I could have been a woman without a cause driving along the highway with a bloody wrist and a heart broken spirit. I could have been a single mom, asking for dollars and asking for handouts from strangers for just Huggies for exchange of something you'd want in my closet. I could have been worse, but I am grateful. I know my life and I could have been a lot of things, with a lot of things, because of a lot of trauma.

But I am not....not ever and nor will I ever be. I am me, and as my Papi said.....I'm beautiful and kind.

I could have been a shadow in the ghostly house on Sherman Way in Reseda after taking my own life with 200 mg of Seroquel if my brother didn't slap my hands. I could have been a statistics if God didn't intervene and took my show and rode on with it. I could have been writing nonsense that no one cared about, instead my jibberish ain't so and it would be a tragic mistake not to read me because the lessons learned would be priceless and poignant. 

I could have been a porn star after getting picked up in front of the bookstore to pose for Hustler and Playboy when the camera men wanted some quick buck, "And you don't have to do nothing, just look pretty and fuck," or so they said. They could have killed me with the shame. I could have been a wonder woman with a flying cape in my dreams from too much Valerian but it's non-addictive and it was fine, but I was a groggy froggy. I could have won an Oscar for being the most realistic rape victim, because I was one, but now I've survived it all, and I'm making ends meet and learning to write. Learning to be a better woman, learning to be a better human.

I could have been a magician, with disappearing tears. I could make them out of my eye sockets out of the tremors in my brain and they would all fall out magically, then I would wipe them and they would dry up. Voila! They're magic tears. They disappear with just a napkin and I could make more for free out of nothing. It would fall with the slightest jolt of trauma, so just shake up and shoot me and I'll die and no more tears. I would be the master magician, living and dead at the same time, exasperating oxygen till I am no more. I could have been so many things, and so many people, but I am not. I am grateful I am me. I was a lot of things and I was nonsense to a lot for a lot of people, but now I am not.

#My15 #JustWrite