Tag: Self care

Aria of Sorrow: Thoughts on Limerence

October 28th, 2025

Limerence is a word I have become familiar with, lately.

It’s a state of mind that involves having intense feelings for a person that may otherwise be avoiding or selective with returned affection. From that, it can even be associated with the more popular term, infatuation.

It’s a creature of chaos. It can take many different shapes partly because of who the object of affection is. The feelings for them can also vary in length, from weeks to years.

It all depends on the person and how or when they realize that they can see beyond this spell.

Limerence is not without its ties to experiences of avoidant people in one’s past, because I have seen it being relative to trauma bonding, too.

And it’s hard to break out of when even subtle words of returned affection can feel like an overdue warm hug. Comfort like that makes it easier to ignore that their actions and words may be as empty as their soul.

No matter what it is labeled, you are better for breaking free of it when it is realized.

The healthy options of moving through it are yours to choose. Therapy always matters, along with physical and emotional habit changes tied to that unhealthy love interest.

The most important thing to remember is to not hurt yourself over waking up even years later to this attachment style. Sometimes, that’s what it takes to help look back and see what no longer suits your present and future.

Perhaps the same can be said of all traumas.

– Kingston Priest
Back to School: A Deeper Understanding of My Craft

June 23rd, 2025

As many people would say, “life be lifing.”
There is a long list of reasons for the unplanned hiatus. One of them being that I started taking a new class about rhetoric and persuasive writing.

Now, any long or short-time followers may wonder what I’m doing in a class for that, years after I started this page and improved my talents through it?

One reason is that I was already taking classes related to subjects talked about on here before. Recent events involving universities had me explore, or reexplore ones I couldn’t afford many years ago.

The class has given me a deeper look into the styles of speech and article writing that has me looking at what I’ve written before, realizing that I had been using some of them before knowing their labels.

It reminds me a lot of what’s been implied and confirmed in other fields of work; that it’s one thing to know what you’re doing, but it’s another to define it on a textbook level so you can project confidence in your work.

Another reason I took the class was to strengthen my resume.

The older I get, the more I want to show that I’m more than just the person with a long-running day job that’s not simply asking for an actual career. Wanting better requires being better, and I have chosen to show it again with continued education.

I’m not without awareness that my experiences may not fast track me into a better position, but I would be a fool to not try. Chances are I could get into something new before I finish this class. Time, combined with effort on my end, will tell.

All of this just to let you know that I am still alive, writing, creating, and reminding myself that I do have time to check in on here. Not just with you, but with myself. Because there is much more to write about on personal and global topics. Parts of it are drafted or noted in a shorthanded way.

I’ll be sure to give this page the full versions once they are ready.

– Kingston Priest
Connection: Taking Time to Rediscover Yourself

May 5th, 2025

There’s something special about discovering how much better you are away from those that may not take in your presence with care.

But it also matters that you’re not so reliant on their presence that you aim to get revenge in some childish manner. The kind that can be the opposite to any claim of healing from past behaviors.

When you’re used to frequent communication with people and it slows down or stops for known and unknown reasons, the choice of addressing it, or re-addressing it, can be circumstantial.

It can also be a time to say to yourself “what else can I do with that time?” “How can I distract myself from needing even the smallest validation of existence from them?”

This may be a chance to reconnect with passions that help you get through the day or weeks. Some developmental, artistic way to self-regulate and remind yourself that the world, or even better, someone else’s world does not revolve around you, and the other way around.

I’ve spoken on this before, so I’m considering this being a reminder to others and myself that it’s inevitable that lives take that shift for a time, if not for good.

Yes, sometimes those shifts can be because of bad actions, but the other ones can be signs of needing to grow and heal (again) until it is time to reconnect.

What happens from that reconnection will set the course for any current or future relationship you’re in.

Kingston Priest
Crisis Zone: Managing the Emotional Rollercoasters

April 18th, 2025

There’s been a lot to write about in the last couple of months.

Time needed to be taken to sit down again to do it with a sound mind and spirit, because as I’ve always done, topics still range from personal to international, often comparing multiple worlds to each other.

Admittedly, I’ve become more comfortable being on video with my views on specific matters.

Doesn’t mean I don’t write what I can even in small quotes, but thanks to my series, it made sense to show my face more often. My way of saying that it’s more than a performance piece.

In-between the points of expressing views in a straight or humorous way, therapy and counseling sessions, and sharing thoughts with trusted people, there’s the mental rest stops I must remind myself of.

It’s important to stay informed without the risk of being inflamed.

For all of us, anxiety and all its other emotional threats have a history of causing mental and physical problems. The world’s state is enough to have them sit and fester in any of us.

Even with the best self-regulation tactics, they can slip in without warning based on how deep the matter is for you.

It does not mean to stop your ways of facing those emotional gusts before they become storms.

Without question, I’ve had plenty of emotional storms to face in financial, social, and racial levels, but I love that I’ve continued to make the time to calm them with old and new artwork, media edits, and making myself and others laugh.

That last one matters the most, mostly because of two quotes that have made the rounds more than before. “Joy is contagious,” and “joy is resistance.”

Making the time to write like this, again, I will claim both.

– Kingston Priest
Back in Action: My Return to Writing

February 17th, 2025

I did not expect to take as long of a break as I did before writing again. It was starting to be so long that I questioned if there was any reason to come back.

Not that I was without things to say, but I was heavily influenced by the world around me in a different way.

Civil unrest. Daily reminders that people are waking up happy to cause or support misery on a global stage. Feeling as if those who had the chance to stop it from getting as bad as it is have abandoned us, hoping they’re plotting against the mess in silence, if at all.

But even all of that is a reminder to control what I can.

Time management is a big control point, as I’m writing this on the first day of my new, slightly earlier shift. Same job as I wrote about a few times almost two years ago. Which is an accomplishment worth celebrating with much-needed time off I’ll be taking, soon.

I will do my best to get back into the groove of writing here, again. It will continue to be my way regulate all the confusion, sadness, disappointment, and rage that seeps in on personal, professional, and public topics.

It will also be my way to continue speaking about joy, success, and accountability. Because while it is important to check in on all feelings great and vile, it’s important to look for the glimmers. The same way Fred Rogers advised us to “look for the helpers.”

Glimmers count as helpers. They will be needed every day. Chances are, being back will serve as being one for someone else, not just myself.

Kingston Priest

P.S. – My “ABC…POS” video series is up and running. If you’re interesting in reading it, go here, as well.
The ABCs of being a POS: Finale [Z]

October 30th, 2024

Zero Regrets (Edited 02/23/2025)

Everything that you’ve learned in this list takes talent to weave into a ball that you and other like-minded people can use to hit others with at your leisure.

It’s a twisted, malicious game, that only some realize they are players in.

But like the focus needed to keep the ball in play, it also takes having no regrets on how it damages your targets.

Unlike most actual sports, though, targets can fight back.

And they will with the same number of regrets that you have about what you’ve done or doing to them.

You might even call them a POS because they’re fighting fire with fire. Or better yet, other elements to snuff the flame you placed in them.

It’s one thing to satisfy the monster in you. It’s another to face the one you made in someone else. A kind that would never do to others what has been done to them.

You, however, may be free game.

If you feel that you’re ready to face them in every way you can, then you’re on your way to being an inspiring POS for years to come.

If you wish to walk differently, go back to the beginning. Then read it as someone who knows what needs to change in yourself. Not to nurse your ego, fuel defensive fire, or hide your bad intentions.

Read it as someone who doesn’t want this to hurt you because it’s about you.

Thank you for your time.

-Kingston Priest

This series is for entertainment and educational purposes only. If you wish to learn more about mental health, abusive behaviors, and support, please talk to your primary physician’s office, or a licensed professional.

For emergencies, please call 911, or call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Us Again: Taking Time to Love Yourself in a Relationship

October 24th, 2024

It takes a lot to grow into a relationship which can last without the gradual or sudden lack of frequent communication.

No matter how physically close or distant the partners are, they can be tested through the act of breaks to learn how to be with themselves.

Either partner can begin to face emotions that require them to be with themselves long enough to make grand discoveries that would not have been possible with their partner actively present and/or available. Especially on the phone or texting.

Of course, insecurities and past traumas, combined with the wrong people in their ear(s), can convince them that the silence can be a sign of quietly quitting the connection, or even infidelity. Sometimes both.

But if your mutual love has stood one test after another related to moments like this, to the point where the only person they would leave their partner for is themselves, those fears are the last thing to entertain.

So, remain patient.

Give both you and your partner grace in this period of individual growth. You are both in your right to miss what you do together. If meant to be, those moments can return with a greater strength than either of you could have ever imagined.

There is no comfort in accelerating its ending just to fill temporary pleasures.

Your future together depends on that.

– Kingston Priest
“The ABCs…”: Part 25 [Y]

October 14th, 2024

“You Hungry?”

Nothing makes food taste better than offering it after you’ve run someone down spiritually and/or physically.

A form of, if not a spin-off to love bombing, it’s the perfect way to mask your inability to apologize for breaking someone’s trust in you.

Don’t be surprised if they refuse to eat with you in later years, if ever again. Their taste buds are one of the few things you haven’t bruised.

-Kingston Priest
Previous: “X”
Finale: Zero Regrets

This series is for entertainment and educational purposes only. If you wish to learn more about mental health, abusive behaviors, and support, please talk to your primary physician’s office, or a licensed professional. For emergencies, please call 911, or call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
“The ABCs…”: Part 24 [X]

October 11th, 2024

“X”

This will be dedicated to “x” being defined as “unknown.”

Because the best thing about being a POS is making sure your marks never know what version of you to expect.

You can be quiet, fun, directive, trustworthy and more with the motive of control at your side.

Many, if not all of what’s mentioned before this point can help keep the mystery alive, while slowly leaking your internal misery.

-Kingston Priest

Previous: “What if I die?”
Next: “You Hungry?”

This series is for entertainment and educational purposes only. If you wish to learn more about mental health, abusive behaviors, and support, please talk to your primary physician’s office, or a licensed professional.

For emergencies, please call 911, or call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
“The ABCs…”: Part 22 [V]

October 7th, 2024

Victimhood

Anything that can be associated under the manipulation topic can relate to victimhood; the act of believing that the wrongs done to you justify how you treat others.

Processing your past and present hurts like this can turn into a routine.

One where you refuse to see things any other way. That other’s suffering is nothing compared to yours.

You might even think that they deserve to feel pain because you did and you “came out just fine!”

Did you? Of course you did! Ask the people around you and don’t be surprised if things get emotional.

-Kingston Priest

Previous: Ultimatum
Next: “What if I die?”

This series is for entertainment and educational purposes only. If you wish to learn more about mental health, abusive behaviors, and support, please talk to your primary physician’s office, or a licensed professional. For emergencies, please call 911, or call 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.