california psychotherapist

Katya Mills, LMFT #129963

journey into the light

there there 

dry your eyes

the darkness drains from the sky

see how you were so certain?

so terrified 

the thoughts how they

lied

#katyamills

i stayed away

all the way back to ancient history, i mean my personal teenage daydream, i stayed away from the opportunities the crosswalks the celebrations the teachers the smiling faces. i could see them but i could not approach them. they were there waiting for me all those years but i harbored social anxiety and a strong feeling i did not deserve anything good in my life. so it was personal justice i exacted on myself, the better part of my twenties. then i hit the thirties and got a taste of freedom from my vices and moved to california. then the question of owning my identity arose. this would require courage and resolve. i could not conjure it up. i needed a plan and i got online and got with community and developed one.

i put together a career move that fit my strengths and values. i was working so hard full-time school and job with a serious commute two hours each way. i still hadn't put it all together, i mean, anxiety and depression and dysphoria were my lot. i had a few friends but mostly isolative. the pressures grew and i got heavy inside my head and i slipped up. you feel like all is lost. it can turn you against yourself. i was lucky to survive. i made it. i finally got it together. prayer and meditation. running and writing and self-publishing. finding my queer community. social work and therapy. giving and receiving. family. friends. owning all the narratives of my identity. reaching out to help others. dialing into my life again feels so great. i thank god.

my chemical free life minus coffee

two weeks back i saw a window and took it. gave up coffee. a storm system spread across my sky. i got sick but nothing compared to dope sick 7 years ago. just a mighty headache is all. now i start my mornings with triple leaf green tea and a smile. against all odds. i live and love my chemical free life. i can hold my head high again. i can look you in the eyes again. i worked so hard to get here. dear God, i am down on my knees...asking how can i be of maximum use? thank you for opening my eyes.

book status one

I have put 50 more hours editing into my novel over the past month. Meanwhile i have been inspired by and contributed to 4 chosen communities across this 3 year arc, to coincide with the journey of the lives of my characters. The Q+ Friends. The social workers. The creatives. And the community recovering from addiction. What a time it has been.

2003-2013

i moved to california from chicago hoping to renew my life. i was always looking 4 the energy to carry on. depressed and reluctant 2 try antidepressants after all the pills in china failed to help. some good people helped me get through the day by days. i got a job and sold my house in illinois. i bought a truck and read some books. i could not write anymore. not without cocaine and bourbon with milk. believe me, i tried. i carried a deep sense of self-betrayal (though no longer self-medicating and destroying myself). a better life was waiting to receive me. my demons were not done with me. i read more books. i walked around and thought. i enrolled in graduate school to study transpersonal psychology. i read William James and Carl Jung and Bill Wilson. i wanted to make a difference in my community. i had to teach myself to be responsible all over again. i had to be alone. to write without putting anything in me. just a cup of coffee or tea...ten years later i found the courage to really live.

headlines. worrylines

Being rather tired I forgot where I was going and lost my way, and tasted the tongue of confusion, pitched along to suspension like seeds in a raspberry jam,  a name stained by headlines,  a lengthy thoughtful smoke. They would never find me here. The worry lines began to disappear. No use frettin on gettin nowhere when there was a fire to be made to boil water over, and keep warm by. I mapped my memory tracing lines of your facade with the heel of my boot, in the shadow of a hanging falcon's talons. They scratched below the eyelids shutting out the light to protect us. We would find a plot of land and marvel at the countryside. When clashing on the ground in the air in the water under the earth, your mouth might betray you. Best to stay silent and wait. Still, you're too much, you know. A little south and uncoordinated, so near, so dear to me. Sweet like sugar.  - Katya

sacrilege

Tonight i have little to say. i am very tired and need sleep. so i am sending you a video my boyfriend made a few weeks ago when he spotted me @ mile 25. i ran past him because i was in my rhythm and meditation, and i had thought about breaking stride but to do so was sacrilege... 

after Tosh stopped filming, i surprised him by coming around the other side of the police car, where we had a sweet embrace. see how the heart prevails over that which is sacred? sometimes nothing can get between the love we have for one another.

believer

They cannot hold a candle to you.
This must mean that you are bright.
For who would hold a candle to the sun?

You stay in your room.
You are a strange one.
They do not understand.
How could they?

The seasons are going round again. The harvest.
No one sees it anymore.
Like you at your work.
If they saw, would they believe?

I will walk beside you.
The journey will be long.
We can make it and more tolerable
If we sing a song.

-KatYa

a star obsolete

I am so sad and there's nothing I can do, well that's not true, I can do my nails and take a shower, I can get dressed and go to work, I can glue myself together and hope that it will hold, yet, sometimes I feel I am headed for a break, like just the other day when my world had turned grey and I fought back the tears and so misunderstood, it took all that I could not to go back and fight, but to give up on the chance to make things all right... yes, it was right around then as I pulled to the curb, slow-cooked my head and sat there disturbed, as the breeze off the delta came whipping around, that I said to myself in a scared voice asking god, is it gunning for me, my psychotic break? Will I sink to the bottom of this salt water lake? I could feel my heart was not into the commitment of losing my mind to starfish and brine, I could feel that my heart preferred to stay sad maybe shocked after my spirit got clocked and devastated so quickly, after such a good run before sands got so shifty.

The only big difference I saw from the past, the last time a friend dropped me hard on my ass, was my own situation how far I have come, 'cause back then I was full of nonsense and chewing gum, unable to work and basically done, no longer young, cold-spirited idle and sometimes suicidal. And the friend and ex-lover whom I lost at that time, carries all those qualities still so I can see through her how I have changed, how that is no longer me. But I don't need to look back anymore or compare, I don't need to be faced with a mirror and stare, to know how I have stretched for my dreams to this place, it's written in my eyes, it's visible in my face, but more essentially woven into my whole character, and though I may fall back upon self-treacherous times, in a moment subdued by a flashback or heartache, and go into madness and anger and venom, and say things I long since stopped saying, and panic and fear and confusion can enter the room... I am essentially goodness and warmth and white light, by noon I will have come out of the darkest of night, and back to my senses and self and clarity, the departure of all fear, weakness and irregularity, where in the cool silence of my study I see, my journey is there, patiently waiting for me...this may not be so, but I hope so to dream of a chance to shine if only to be a lighthouse standing tall, for all the ships out there heading straight for disaster, may I at very least be a star obsolete to guide you, an aster.

Journal # 04.07.15

I was busy landscaping indoors when some giant teak speakers began to hum. They were so large I could not see them. I was not at home. The humming soon inspired me. I decided to gut one of the speakers, so all was left was a large and very handsome teak box. I affixed the proper postage and an address overseas, then pulled the side off the other speaker for a cover, in reverse chronological order. I lifted the box on to my back and dragged it outside to where the mailbox was situated. I brought a blanket, pillow, gallon of water, and some breadcrusts from the pantry. I left a reasonable amount of cash for all the items, and a note on the coffee table.

Stingray'15 by KatYa

 'For one handsome teak box, borrowed for necessary and genuine purposes.'


I seated myself in the center of the box, on the pillow. I wrapped myself in the blanket. The food and water beside me. I leaned as far forward as I could reach over my legs, and situated the cover over the box, then used my staple gun to fasten it from the inside. Then waited. Some time in the future, in the dark with some light to hold on to at the edges, they shipped me to a distant land. And this is how my journey began.

the light of future's present past

the quality of light
in the middle of the night
something hard to see
a candle dance
maybe


the lux
the quality
in the middle of the day
maybe less remarkable
than the light at night
in may

i once saw northern lights
purple green and blue
i once saw you
in my life
you and me and
me and you

the quality of sunshine
against a dark and dangerous sky
is just the kinda thing i need
so real so true
like you

the quality of lightless day
imprisoned in the mind
when all the world is simply shit
all the world
and mine

the quality of coming through
a really painful time
a midnight blue
an abstract lime

this is the quality
falls between us
still
i cannot help
loving you

i love the light
in darkness cast
the light of future's
present past

the eye of lighthouse
three sixty round and down below
the waves besmashed
down and round
ago

i see reflections
of the rocky rolling ocean spray
all day in lemon
squeeze

when contemplating all i've loved
and some who
gone away

i ask your hand
across dark land
across dark land with me

i ask your hand
across dark land
across dark land and sea

before the light diminish
quick!
before the light?
i ask of you

come with me now
come
please