My Name Was Matthew Blake Atkinson

This is the one that I haven’t wanted to write. The one that has fucked up my head all day and that’s been brewing in my brain for weeks. I’ve kind of alluded to it a few times, but let’s just piece it all together. We’re at least 90 days into the Covid crisis in the US. And the president has no plan. We’re first in cases. First in deaths. And the president has no plan. That’s by design, because he’s not on our side. Every day in his press conference he has some new, outrageous statement for people to get distracted by. He’s the “total authority”. Or “everything we did was right”. Yesterday he suggested injecting disinfectants or ultraviolet light into the body. He’s the court jester. Juggling insane lies and ridiculous claims. As long as our eyes are on the constantly moving balls, we aren’t focused on what really matters. And what matters is the president is running a for-profit pandemic. How much time has he spent grieving for those who have lostloved on...

“Because we won't all be here this time next year. So while you can take a picture of us.” Polaroid Picture by Frank Turner. That song got me tonight as I was cleaning. Matt, you don’t clean. Look bitch, okay yes…actually…you’re right. I don’t do a lot of things. Like, for example…six weeks ago i didn’t do something called getting mad at pandemics, but times have changed. And frank’s song made me realize that yet another reason that I’m mad at this invisible pandemic is because I usually get an indescribable feeling from writing about my normal mental problems. And I cannot seem to write myself out of this shit. The pandemic keeps growing and I really didn’t need my problems to be supersized. I could write all day, every day and the pandemic would still be winning and Trump would still be yelling, “I’m not the trauma. You’re the trauma.” at me and everyone else with a brain. But, worse than my first world problem “oh poor me, I can’t write to keep myself sane” is seei...

Worst case, you wake up from a nightmare sweating, short of breath, disoriented only to have this comforting thought bring you back to good: it was just a dream. It took me 30 plus days of quarantine to finally realize why it’s so hard to get up every day…our current reality is the opposite. Dreams are one of my only places for comfort. When I wake up, I’m back inside the nightmare that is pandemic 2020. We’ll have these recurring dreams where we’re falling to our deaths, but we hit the bed and it is one of the best feelings you can have. I didn’t die! Now, every day I wake up it’s like I’m further into a free fall into the inevitable death of my mental health. Real life is a recurring nightmare. And I’m just over here trying to be Ralph Wiggum. I’m a Viking clip .  So, logically each morning I’m Team Ralph trying to get back to whatever I was dreaming instead of continuing to live out this recurring nightmare. Back to bed? In! Real life? Can I take a pass? Not re...

I finally got to bed on the night side of 3am and felt like it was a pretty big accomplishment. It wasn’t. I was wide awake a couple of hours later. I tossed, turned and played trivia crack. The sun rose. I didn’t. I don’t know how much I slept, but I know this feeling from depression sessions past. It’s a feeling of helplessness. And I don’t know if most people understand it, but it took a great deal of effort just now to not get back into bed. It’s 8pm. I’m not tired, but I’m exhausted. There’s comfort under that comforter. But, what I needed to do was keep moving. Reaching out to friends has been a great help, but tonight writing felt like my way out. the thought that got me started was my grandma. She abused me when she babysat. And I assume the feeling of powerlessness that I often get in life stems from that. It wasn’t fair. The one tasked with keeping me safe, harmed me. And that’s the state of our union. The president rapes the truth daily and the result is...

I read today about one of the debates between trump and hillary. She railed him for being Putin's puppet. Trump eloquently responded, "no puppet. you're the puppet." clip here .  It's constantly been his go to move. He’ll do something immoral/illegal/unethical/unpresidential, but will accuse someone else of the same. he's the "i know you are but what am i" president. he accused doctors and nurses of complaining about a lack of life-saving supplies, because they wanted to be on tv. But, trump is the one continuing to get air time and brag about his “tv ratings” months after he should have muted himself so that the rest of us could listen to the truth from the actual experts instead of the self-serving lies of our president. doctors and nurses are risking their lives without supplies and he’s accusing them of trying to get tv time. he projects his mistake of not making sure we had more than enough supplies on a national level on to others...

Beautiful by Eminem “Lately I've been hard to reach I've been too long on my own Everybody has a private world Where they can be alone Are you calling me, are you trying to get through Are you reaching out for me, like I'm reaching out for you I'm just so fuckin' depressed I just can't seem to get out this slump If I could just get over this hump But I need something to pull me out this dump” I just put my Quarantine Spotify playlist on shuffleplay and that’s the lyric that got me. I love those moments where you’re going through life and realize there’s a soundtrack that’s already been written. And really, that’s a perfect way to look at all of this. Hard times happen. all over the world. This could end up being America’s hardest time. Tbd. But, we don’t need it to break the all-time record to know that it’s getting to all of us. this quarantine is making our minds bend in ways that they haven’t had to. it’s been prosperity. And exc...