lost a sister to sudden illness when I was 6, my aunt (my motherā€™s twin) to suicide when I was 15, and lost my mother to suicide when I was 23. iā€™ve learned that life definitely keeps you on your toes, and that plans should all be held with an open palm. the best you can do is appreciate with upmost sincerity what you have in the moment, trust in your ability to weather what may come, and believe that wherever you might end up on the other side of things that you can still change the direction you choose to go. nothing is permanent except for the memories of the experiences you share with loved ones and the consequences for yourself and others of the choices you make. also get yourself well mentally and emotionally, stay on that journey of healing. the scars of unhealthy grief run deep and transcend generations. also tell your mamas you love em especially if they raised you right šŸ«¶šŸ«¶
Jul 18, 2024

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My dad passed earlier this year, so Iā€™m still grieving. But the best advice I could give is to: 1. Feel your emotions. If youā€™re sad and want to cry about it, cry. If youā€™re missing them, thinking of the fun times you had together and do something in their remembrance. 2. Donā€™t look for comforting from people who donā€™t get it. Some people donā€™t get it until itā€™s happened to them. Some people will never get it. No point in explaining your feelings to them while your in the middle of grieving. 3. Just keep going. Iā€™m sure your uncle doesnā€™t want you to wallow and stand in place forever. Iā€™m sure he would be more proud to see you continue your life and be great. ā™„ļø
Aug 18, 2024
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this is not in any order of importance 1. Have post death stuff sorted out - idk wills, burial plans etc. we didnā€™t have all of it figured it out and it caused a lot of arguing and strain during an already difficult time 2. Try to split certain responsibilities between you and your sister + anyone else who is helping 3. Ask people around you for help!!!! Fr!!! i Had friends that offered to help but I also Learned to ask for things especially when it came to something that was really traumatizing to me but like wouldnā€™t be to them like a friend picked up docs from the hospitals for me or another arranged for the medical equipment to be taken from the apartment 4. Find a grief / support group - I felt very crazy during and after she died like my old life was gone and I couldnā€™t relate to so many people in my life. Grief group helped me understand the universal parts of the grief experience and that I wasnā€™t like a bad person and shit 5. Ask all of the questions and have all of the hard conversations - you wonā€™t be able to and even small stuff I find myself upset that I didnā€™t ask and also had conversations about things that were like resentment filled idk 6. In like a literal sense idk what time of pain your mom is in but my mom loved those electric heating pads I also just listened and gave her whatever she wanted like idk she got really into blue jelly beans I went out and bought a bag and sorted out the blue ones for her Iā€™m very sorry youā€™re going through this!! If I can help with anything or answer anymore questions pls reach out šŸ’˜ be prepared for it to feel like youā€™re in a different parallel life idk it was like that for me and other people I know who went through similar things
May 25, 2024
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Play music, if she likes it. I second telling jokes. If possible, invite friends or other family to come say hi and tell stories. Don't be afraid to ask for help, people sometimes have a hard time knowing what to say and genuinely want to do something to feel useful. Something easy to ask for are homecooked meals for you and your sister. Ask the nurses for help and advice. Try your best to take care of yourself, especially when it comes to sleep. And I second taking your time to feel the grief and leaning into honest and the weirdness. Speaking of weird, listening to Alan Watts lectures helped me, both in becoming more comfortable with death and thinking about how beautiful life is. I can't remember which ones, but maybe something to look up if you feel drawn to it. I went through this with my dad and can honestly say while it was the hardest thing I've been through, I am ultimately grateful for the experience. I don't think I'll have a greater privilege than taking care of him and being there with him. I won't say it's harder or easier than a sudden death, because it's all pretty brutal. But not everyone gets the chance to be there. Sending lots of good thoughts your way Katrina
May 24, 2024

Top Recs from @royallmonarch

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I consume a lot of music regularly, and a huge part of keeping a fresh diet of new listens going is having enough sources of recommendations that arenā€™t an algorithm that either 1) reinforces your existing listening patterns, keeping you stagnant in your tastes, or 2) platforms whoever paid enough to push their product to the top, serving you something that may not inherently be of inferior quality, but may not align with your tastes, may not be exciting beyond just being a new release, and realigns your current listening habits to be more in line with what the average user on the platform is also listening to ā€” which socially might have benefits but which creates a homogeneity of consumption that can become bland since youā€™re listening to something really just because itā€™s the next product on the assembly line to have its public moment and not because anything about the music actually captured your attention. the current landscape of streaming is designed to keep you at an all you can eat buffet where you take whatā€™s served to you, and as a result a lot of us have forgotten how to look at a menu and order. so what does taking a more active role in your own music curation look like? for me, itā€™s meant not using streaming as a primary listening platform. I mostly use my local Apple Music library on my phone that I curate with the vestigial iTunes Library framework thatā€™s still a part of Apple Music on my laptop. probably going to find an alternative soon since apple seems to be cutting integration progressively. I like this method because it forces me to choose what to sync to the limited storage space I have, forcing me to take inventory of what I actually listen to and what I can offload. the files I get are mostly from Bandcamp or Soulseek depending on whether itā€™s available for purchase or entirely unavailable online (as is the case for a lot of electronic music that was on vinyl only, which is where soulseek comes in clutch). I also have freedom here to change the ID3 tags to better sort and organize, rate, change track info, and track my own listening data. Bandcamp and other music purchasing platforms are great because 1) it reshapes my relationship to music away from consumerism and back towards curation. I have to pay actual money for this thing now if I want to use it, so iā€™m forced to consider its value (usually iā€™ll stream a release first to gauge my interest). 2) having to spend money helps me to course out my meals so to speak, as iā€™ll buy a few releases iā€™ve accumulated in my cart over the month and cash out on Bandcamp Friday when 100% of my money is actually getting to the artist (TOMORROW IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY BTW!!!), and between purchases I can actually chew and savor and digest my last orders, they donā€™t get swept up in the deluge of new releases. my plate is full until iā€™m done and then I order more. also for the times of the year like now when new music isnā€™t coming out as regularly I take time to find older music that I would normally overlook while keeping up with new drops. currently very into early 80s/late 70s music with early digital production, kinda stuff that would evolve into synthpop and dance music. so how do you know what to order? for me, Iā€™m getting recs through trusted curation platforms. whether itā€™s bandcamp daily, yā€™all lovely folks here on PI.FYI, friends, or most importantly musicians who I follow on socials that share their tastes through posts, stories, playlists on steaming, interviews, etc. I like this last one especially because itā€™s kind of like a musical game of telephone. if I like an artist and they share their interests and influences itā€™s like every layer in this process is stretching my palate further from the sound that I was originally interested in and into a new territory that has some shared DNA but would never have been recommended to me by an algo because thereā€™s no shared category or label between them, only the musical influence and interpretation of it made by the artist. as an example, I was a huge Skrillex stan, he signed KOAN Sound to his label, they collab with Asa who collabs with Sorrow, Sorrow takes huge influence from Burial, Burial makes some ambient adjacent stuff and takes huge influence from 90s rave music and drum and bass and 2000s rnb, now iā€™m listening to Brandy - All in Me, William Basinski, Aphex Twin, none on whom would get recommended by Spotify to me from Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites. LAST thing iā€™ll say ā€” because in yappin about this iā€™m realizing how actually passionate about this subject I am: MAKE LISTS! playlists are cool, but they can flatten your music into vague categories of ā€œvibesā€ and ā€œaestheticsā€ and encourage picking one-off songs from artists that you never form an active audience relationship with. I make a practice of making my own year end lists of top 25 albums (plus some honorable recs and top individual songs) and keeping them in a notes doc that I regularly update and rearrange over the course of the year. this forces me to consider the actual relationship iā€™m forming with what iā€™ve ordered for myself. did I like it in the moment but it didnā€™t have staying power? is it slowly growing on me? it also encourages taking albums as a whole. maybe I liked one or two tracks a lot but the rest wasn't resonating. thatā€™s ok! maybe I rank it lower but now iā€™ve actually taken time to consider it, itā€™s in my library, and maybe (quite a few cases for me) something I ranked like bottom 5 albums becomes a retroactive favorite from that year as my tastes evolve. also 25 albums to take with me from each year is really more than you'd think, i struggle sometimes to even find 25 that I formed a true connection with. I think the biggest thing the itunes era ruined that led into now is the single-ification of music, the ability to separate the hits from the deep cuts. albums are meant to be taken as a whole, and then once you've really sat with the whole you can find what actually stuck. even then I like to keep the whole around because soooo often iā€™ll write off a track that yeeeears later I come to love. trust the artist, they made it like they did for a reason. aaannyyyywayy TLDR: get recs organically, be more active in deciding your listening patterns, fr*cken pay artists yall, trust the artist embrace the album, really consider what you consume
Feb 29, 2024
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iā€™m not gonna go into the state of politics in this country, frankly I enjoy that this site has been a politics free space for the most part. with that being said, resigning to despair and the feeling of powerlessness serves only the status quo. inaction is not the solution, nor is waiting for the government to be what you want it to be. politics over: hereā€™s the rec be the change you want to see as much of a cliche as this saying is, iā€™ve grown to believe in it with my full being as iā€™ve gotten older. for the things you have control over, for the practical needs that you can meet within your community, for the little things you can do every day to ease someoneā€™s burden or generally be a pleasant interaction in someoneā€™s life: bring to the world what you feel it lacks. where you live there are likely already communities that are arising to support each other and call for change. seek those out if thatā€™s a motivating notion for you. participate as much as you are able and as little as you please, every bit counts. being a visible and tangible example of how the agency we all have can create something better will motivate others to find their voice. a lot of people feel like you, but even a few in action is better than multitudes in despair. community is so key, and the world we live in has created a situation where isolation is the default so that individuals are forced to rely on the market or the state to meet their needs. how much better would it be to have neighbors and friends as a support network, mutually exchanging their time and resources to strengthen the communtiy and invest in relationships that benefit the whole. the moment we all realize that we can do for each other what the world tells us we need to do ourselves, the stronger we will be and the more we can come together and enact real change from the bottom up, rather than being divided in pleading for a top down approach. this may sound revolutionary because we have become so detached from community that we cannot envision the changes in our model of living that would have to be made, but itā€™s sooo not that deep, and it feels more like investing in the good in others than sacrificing personal comforts. it can look like: - shopping at a local business vs a corporate chain, get to know the staff, get to know your fellow patrons - spending time with friends, there doesn't need to be a reason or occasion. make meals together, drive together to go do something, maybe literally just be in each others presence as you do daily life, share each others sacred presence amidst the mundane - give things you donā€™t need to a friend who does, exchange clothes, exchange favors, share knowledge and resources, lend a skill or a craft, donate things if you donā€™t know someone who can use it, exchange things and experiences without the need for monetary incentive - create things together, make art together, share and exchange media, try things for the joy of experiencing them without the need to be ā€œgoodā€ at it, - grieve together, worry together, talk out negative feelings, commiserate, support, encourage, motivate, share your accomplishments, celebrate together - get to know your neighbors, why is everyone in isolation while in such proximity? - get off that damn phone if it makes you feel bad, you wont miss out, the world happens outside of it, unlearn FOMO - enjoy nature, go on walks, get outside, sweat and run and jump and see the sky - remind yourself that life is about what happens right now, donā€™t be concerned with what could be or what was if you are unable to affect it in the present. - go to a concert at a small venue for an artist youā€™ve never heard of, bring friends, donā€™t preclude experience for the perceived necessity of entertainment - unlearn grindset, but also unlearn bainrot. donā€™t fester in your down time. rest can be active, activity can be restorative. your time is precious and you will meet your need for purpose and direction by literally choosing to pursue a ā€œmeaninglessā€ hobby in even what little time you may have vs scrolling and taking psychic damage. - learn to enjoy the abundance of freely available joy in this world, we have been tricked to believe that money is the sole provider of a happy life idk iā€™m just becoming mindful of what brings me life in this world and so much of it is available to me solely by seeking it out instead of idleness in my free time under the guise of ā€œrest.ā€ so much if it comes from seeing the divine in others and creating bonds and relationships and support networks. so much of it comes from enjoying beauty and art, and moderating and savoring that experience vs endless consumption and media gluttony. the world through a screen is bleak, the world in front of your eyes can be beautiful, the system is broken but you and everyone you know has some untapped agency. anyway imma get off my soapbox, go catch a firefly or sit around a campfire with the homies. youā€™ll be glad you did.
Jun 29, 2024
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not because you met someone or anything but because you take psychic damage every time you doom swipe on there and you probably never liked being on there in the first place and why does everyone seem to have a wack helen keller take and feel the need to put that on their profile like itā€™s cute?? time to do it the old fashioned way and mix and mingle at the sock hop or however our grandparents did it. after all, you just being around and living life is gonna be a better pitch for why someone should date you than those same 5 photos and your two-truths-and-a-lie prompt.
Feb 22, 2024