chunks of flommus
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a self-preservation tactic

I can’t stand the term “broken” when applied to people. Especially in self-talk.

You’re not broken, you just have maladaptive shit to work on that you learned to be okay with because it was less painful than the alternative of whatever caused you to think and behave that way, and even after you found yourself out of that situation, the behavior you learned had become your new sense of norm so you still follow it and fall back on it when life becomes hard.

You aren’t “broken.” That’s both a harmful and pointless narrative that doesn’t serve your current self, your growth, or your future.

It only feels comfortable because you’ve lived in the pain for so long, and people are capable of finding comfort in any situation if it goes on long enough. It’s a self-preservation tactic.

But you’re not a goddamn wind-up toy with a snapped spring.

Yeah, accept your feelings. Go ahead and feel them fully. Your experience of trauma is valid, and to have trauma that recurs and hurts is a completely normal human experience – but you are not so hurt that you can never grow again.

It’s so easy to ignore the fact that the story you tell yourself and others is heard by your own ears, processed by your own auditory nerve, and becomes cemented in your own association of self.

In the same way good marketing associates products with emotions like desire and joy, through repetition, so too do the words you repeat about yourself (and let others speak of you) market themselves to your own subconscious.

You are not “broken.”
You’re just human.

—david loret de mola

Flommist David Loret de Mola is a Grand Slam Poetry Champion of Sacramento with Sac Unified Slam Team and Zero Forbidden Goals who has represented the City of Sacramento in the National Poetry Slam, and 100 Thousand Poets for Change in Salerno, Italy. Copyright © 2019 David Loret de Mola. Painting source.