Lydia Voorhees @elleslid - Twitter Profile

I painted this self portrait from a photograph the New York Post and Daily Mail ran over and over again alongside horrible stories about me. They averaged about 3 stories a day between them for years. The image came from their complete theft of my digital life. In the photograph I am in the worst stretch of my addiction. Exhausted. Contemplating how I could end everything. They published it over and over because they believed it showed something disturbing, something degenerate, something people would recognize as evidence of whatever they were accusing me of that particular day. I set out to paint it because I wanted to take back what they were trying to steal from me. It wasn’t just the image they had stolen. They had stolen thousands of images. They wanted to steal my humanity. Their portrait was of a monster. My portrait is of a man being reassembled piece by piece, bit by bit, pixel by pixel through the hard work of recovery. A portrait of someone worth saving. Someone worth forgiveness. For all of me. Past. Present. Future. Gratitude for all of it. The images they meant as weapons are no longer weapons to me. The man in them is no longer theirs to describe. He is mine, and I love him. We do recover.

HunterBiden's tweet photo. I painted this self portrait from a photograph the New York Post and Daily Mail ran over and over again alongside horrible stories about me. They averaged about 3 stories a day between them for years. The image came from their complete theft of my digital life. In the photograph I am in the worst stretch of my addiction. Exhausted. Contemplating how I could end everything.
They published it over and over because they believed it showed something disturbing, something degenerate, something people would recognize as evidence of whatever they were accusing me of that particular day.
I set out to paint it because I wanted to take back what they were trying to steal from me. It wasn’t just the image they had stolen. They had stolen thousands of images. They wanted to steal my humanity. Their portrait was of a monster. My portrait is of a man being reassembled piece by piece, bit by bit, pixel by pixel through the hard work of recovery.
A portrait of someone worth saving. Someone worth forgiveness. For all of me. Past. Present. Future. Gratitude for all of it.
The images they meant as weapons are no longer weapons to me. The man in them is no longer theirs to describe. He is mine, and I love him.

We do recover.

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elleslid retweeted

Hunter Biden

@HunterBiden

5 months ago

Things the recovery industry will not tell you: 1. The drug worked. That is why people use it. Not weakness. Not moral failure. A neurological event so complete and persuasive that any honest account of addiction has to start there. The problem is not that the drug fails. The problem is that what it does is unrepeatable, and you will burn your entire life to the ground trying to get back to a place that no longer exists. 2. Shame is not guilt. Guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. Guilt is appropriate. Shame is a cell with no windows. Most people use the words interchangeably. That mistake is lethal. 3. You cannot shame someone who has already named the thing you are holding over them. Say it first. Say it in plain light. The weapon drops. 4. Guilt can coexist with self-respect. Shame cannot. You can hold the damage and the dignity at the same time. I know because I live there. 5. Radical honesty does not give you back who you were. It hands you the clean slate of who you always wanted to be. The mask comes off. The cartoon other people drew of you stays on the page. 6. Nobody gets clean on a winning streak. 7. You have to be almost self-delusional in your forgiveness of yourself. (Go watch Chase Hughes) 8. The greatest sin was not the chaos. It was the absence. Being unavailable to the people who needed you. 9. Sustainable recovery starts with one thing: honesty with yourself. If you love an addict and want to help, that is the only door in. 10. I am only an expert on my recovery. Nobody is an expert on anyone else’s.

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Lydia Voorhees @elleslid

5 months ago

@Mariners Is there no end to the depth of our defense this year?!?🤯🫶💙💚💙🔱🆙

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Lydia Voorhees @elleslid

6 months ago

@DKramer_ We went nutz at the stadium. Plus the cute smirk on his face coming into the dugout was everything!

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Lydia Voorhees @elleslid

6 months ago

@TridentTrue There was no weird vibes in the stadium, only good ones!

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Lydia Voorhees @elleslid

6 months ago

@MarinerMuse It was low key embarrassing yesterday until the end. Thankfully the Royals have been having the same type of season so less jeers and more commiseration.

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elleslid retweeted

Seattle Mariners @Mariners

6 months ago

💐 REPOST TO WIN 💐 We’re giving away a Mother’s Day Prize Pack, thanks to the @MarinersStore! All you have to do is hit that repost button for a chance to win.