mhe

my thoughts where you can see them, my public journal, my coping mechanism and just me broadcasting my human experience…

[myhumanexperience]

07-8-26 00:56

I’ve always dreamed of being an artist just like the ones I look up to. The ones that inspire me are bold in the way they express themselves. They are immersed in their craft and absolutely unafraid to fully commit to becoming the art that they create. It’s real, it’s tangible, it’s visible. They are so dedicated to their unique vision and honor it without seemingly paying much attention to what the world is doing around them. Maybe they were once considered weird or silly or strange but now they’re not because they just continued being themselves, they make you believe in what they’re doing. You can’t shut that down.

It creates such appeal. Everyone can’t look away because they gave into what makes them different and special. It makes everyone want to be like them. I want to be like them. Just like that. Just completely in my own world like them.

I’ve not given much thought to what makes me special. What I aspire to be like; the artists that most catch my eye, funnily enough, are almost the opposite of what I am. Im not sure what makes me unique or special because I’ve always wanted to be the same. I didn’t want to be left out, I didn’t wanna be alone and consequently I never took pride in what made me different. I often wondered why I couldn’t be like others. I just wanted to be liked. I tormented myself for being who I was so much that I can’t say who that is now without second guessing if it’s rlly true or not. In order to learn about myself, I have to analyze by comparison. In comparison to this person I am…

I don’t know how to stand alone in who I am.

Ive never liked who I was so why would I honor that. I always second guessed myself and I wish I could say I’ve always been someone who was incorruptible but that isn’t true.

I am pliant, vacillating, and passive. I need approval, acceptance and validation. I’m afraid and easily deterred at the threat of judgement or potential embarrassment. I feel WEAK and stupid. I hate that I spent all my time crying over why I couldn’t be like them. I still do it. When I see something I like, I want to be like that. I always want to be like something else. Never just me. Or at least that’s what social media does to me.

Maybe I’m just thinking about who I am way too much. Do the people I look up to even really think about who they are?

I hate that I want something so much but it just feels like I have all the qualities and the stuff that goes against it. It just feels like what I want might not be right for me or something.

It just makes me question whether or not I actually even care about art. Is it really something I even want?

[myhumanexperience]

Thoughts

Dec 18, 2025 23:26pm

Im 100% holding onto a possibility. I have to let it be enough. I’m so scared that it’ll all be worse. I’m scared it’ll all lead me to a dead end.

I absolutely cannot see beyond this. I’m just trusting that there is something there. That everything I’m afraid of is nothing more than just that, a fear.

I feel like I’m being pulled between fear and despair. The future and the past. I feel I can’t trust either.

[myhumanexperience]

It’s like the scent of oud and rose. It’s leathery and rubbery and a bit unsettling. The air is piercing. The buildings are hollowed out and empty, leaving ample space for a curious mind.

I feel like I could dress up every day here. I feel like an artist here.

A melting pot. Nothing like I’m used to.

A space that allows everything hidden in the corners of my mind to settle and sometimes dissipate. I feel separate here.

A space to interpret myself and decide. I can create myself here.

I think of lots and lots of music, like this song. In fact, this video, this very specific version of the song that was only played on this night, is exactly how being here makes me feel.

Maybe it isn’t the place itself, maybe it’s what I created. Maybe these things are already in me, they just needed a place to be felt and explored and embraced.

I love it either way.

You inspire me Chicago. You make me feel like like I’m living and breathing and moving.

[myhumanexperience]

Thoughts

Dec 16, 2025 11:49am

I was driving to work. At a stoplight, I watched a car go by. A lady was driving, she was pretty and had some cool circle-shaped sunglasses. She was smiling and seemed to be talking on the phone with someone. Something about her had substance.

I thought about a different life. I watched every person in each car pass by after that and wondered where they were going. I decided that their lives were probably a lot more interesting than mine.

[myhumanexperience]

My Pink Unicorn

I have a pink unicorn. She wears flowers on her head. A blue ribbon on her tail and she has has white fluffy hair. She loves butterflies. She’s my best friend.

When it used to get too loud, she would cover my ears. When I cried, she wiped my tears away. She absorbed them and took everything that hurt me with her. When my heart grew cold with fear, she was always there to warm me up. She always cares about me. She followed me and made sure I was safe. She never judges me, she sees me as the girl that I was before all of it. She loves me and she listens to me. She always forgives me and she washes away my shame and guilt. She asks me if I’m okay. If I wasn’t, she would hold me until I fell asleep. Just like she did when I was just a baby.

My unicorn always waits for me. Even when I leave her. It makes me sad to leave her. I don’t want her to feel alone or abandoned. I promised her that if the house ever went up in flames, I’d take her with me first. I’d never leave her. I feel scared when I think about not having my pink unicorn. I don’t like to think about what I would feel if I lost her. I really hope I never lose her. I don’t want to think about that anymore.

I need her. Forever. Even when I feel safe and okay.

[myhumanexperience]

The Ebb and Flow/Residual Pain

Sometime it hurts. Right in the center. It’s icky, weighted, full but hollow at the same time. I feel it travel up my throat and it sits there.

When it’s safe to do so, I allow it to exist. I give it space and let it take the front seat.

I haven’t always been so conscious like this. In fact, this feels brand new.

I normally become consumed by the ache. I begin to question and doubt. I feel the fear and it begins to create a cast around me. I get stuck there. Like one would in a dark tunnel without a light source.

This time I can see it and let it pass by me. I can give it room. I don’t have to fixate on the dread. Because it is dreadful. It’s a lot of things. But it isn’t everything.

I have a lot to be sad about. A lot a pain to feel. It could be any one of the things that my heart just can’t let go of. I guess, I’m allowed to be sad. I’m allowed to be depressed. It’s all real. But it isn’t all that makes me. That’s hard to remember. There’s a sort of romanticization to this. When your heart knows nothing else, you start to find too much beauty in the pain.

Anyways … I’m noting that I’m not being consumed by this pain I feel. I’m not afraid of it as much and I’m letting it exist as it is, not as all the things it could be.

Im trying not to think about tomorrow too much. If I do, I might take these feelings with me. Maybe that’s okay though? Despite the profound loneliness it makes me feel.

I think we’re gonna be okay. The day time is just as real as the night time. They can exist in my life at the same time.

[myhumanexperience]

Thoughts

When I’m here, nothing seems to matter more. My desire for more of it hits me and I start to ruminate on what I wish I had. I wish for an escape and I become sad thinking that soon it’ll be gone. I’m not sure if I could survive another winter season.

Im doing my best to be here. To sit in it. When im here, it all dissipates. It all feels almost trivial. This feels bigger than me and it lets me be a part of it.

I’ll hold onto it for now

[myhumanexperience]

Consuming

I’m carrying everything at once. I feel I must. It feels so heavy and it paints my view.

I know it isn’t telling me the truth and my perspective is skewed. My gut tells me to not trust everything I think. It tells me to look for evidence and the flame. Hold onto it.

I’m finding it hard to trust the flame. I’m finding it hard to believe in anything other than this. I’m losing all sense of wrong and right. Maybe what’s wrong and what’s right plays no part at all. It’s all so disorienting.

It’s hard to walk on crumbled ground with nothing but a flame. I don’t know if I’m walking at all; pain seems to be my only way of knowing.

I’m slowly being swallowed by everything. I’m becoming numb to the flames warmth.

[myhumanexperience]

Childhood Passions & What Still Resonates: Part 4

(Our Humanness & Hopes of Being Free)

11:25 - 13:20

"We've been taught too, that like, rage or hatefulness, you know, there's not a beauty in it, but it lets you know you're alive; you're feeling something."

"I had physical pain in my body for years and I realized it's because I didn't let myself be angry... so I think rage and anger is something we should let ourselves feel but it's just like keep it to yourself. You know, use it, that's what I wanna do."

I am extremely fascinated by our species and how vast our emotions are and how complex we are. I find so much beauty in our inevitable humanness. I have so much to say about how fascinating we are and began developing this yearning to create space for honest and deep acceptance of our emotions. I feel that we confine ourselves too much emotionally and shame each other for the things we all mutually experience. We just seem to work against ourselves, and I wish we handled each other more gently and less judgmentally. I feel we don't appreciate our emotional and mental power enough. We are extremely powerful beings and there's endless beauty in that.

I appreciate it so much when others express this appreciation for humanity and emotion and I appreciate that Miley seems to be actively aiming for that with her art. I aspire to do that.

I want to be able to fully embrace my extremes and maybe not see them as extremes. I'd like to believe we're all pretty emotionally extreme, some of us maybe just express it more aggressively or feel simply more inclined to express it out loud at all. I have always felt very confined, and I dream of having the freedom and self-acceptance to live so passionately again. Like how I did when I was a kid. I hope to use all that I feel to create art and write. I hope to create a community of people that feel as deeply as I do and are so loud about it. I don't know how that would happen, but I hope it does.

[myhumanexperience]

Childhood Passions & What Still Resonates: Part 3

(Losing My Sense of Safety)

3:50 - 6:18

"I mother me"

"I don't have my mom with me the way that I used it and now I just go, 'what was it about her that made everything better?' And it was safety...Cuz' I knew any situation that I was in that I didn't feel safe in, my mom would get me out of it or make it better. Figure out what it is that would make me feel that way and her help me adjust it...Now, I just imagine, 'what soothed me so much about her?' and then I just do it for myself."

Her connection to her mother and how she ties safety to mom is something that I resonate with deeply. I was extremely attached to my mother and my sense of safety growing up was very much tied to my mom. Now that I'm older and unfortunately, not as close to my mom as I used to be, it's become a real crisis. It feels like the ground under my feet is just crumbling and I've been left with no ground to walk on. My mother is alive and healthy but in a lot of ways, I've lost her and I'm too angry and hurt to connect with her the way I used to.

There's a lot to my story but one thing to note is that I was always a very anxious child. I was born with a million worries, and my natural state was often scared or concerned. I don't know why I was so severely attached to my mother, but I know that she was my safety. Losing her was losing everything that made me feel safe. I just cling onto someone else. In my case, it's my boyfriend. Having such intense anxiety, I have become very dependent of him. Losing such a big part of my sense of security, my dependency has become a lot worse. I'm too afraid to be left alone and I'm afraid to do things alone out of fear of my anxiety. I'm afraid that if I depend on myself, I will be alone. I'm taking this deep loss of security as advice to find security in myself as opposed to just clinging onto someone else. I've learned that depending on someone for my sense of safety only makes me more scared. What will I do with myself when they're gone? This is something I thought about with my mom as a kid. I'm doing it again as an adult, but this time with my boyfriend.

Miley talked about coming to terms with the fact that her mother is mortal and one day she might have to live without her mother. I learned that that's what 'The End of The World' is about, but that's beside the point. She expresses how that thought used to shatter her and she realized that she needed to find a way to accept it and be for herself, what her mom once was for her.

It just got me thinking, what was it about my mom that made me feel so safe? What is it about my boyfriend that makes me feel so safe? How can I do that for myself?

Anxiety is such a huge part of my identity that I can almost barely even imagine what it would be and feel like to be able to depend and rely on myself for safety and security. How crazy would it be to be able to depend on myself. The pain it would take to get there scares me so much that I sometimes forget I'm already in pain. I can't imagine not feeling this way forever sometimes...most times.

[myhumanexperience]

Childhood Passions & What Still Resonates: Part 2

(Finding Comfort in the Uncomfortable - Anxiety edition)

3:05 - 6:18

"Because now I learned that I'm in control, which is probably why I said... ["ask me anything!"] ...then...The worst that happens is I just leave the room and say, you know, I'll be right back and then just don't come back."

She says this in response to being asked if he would say "ask me anything!" in interviews now as this is something she would say in interviews back then.

What a revolutionary idea it is realize you actually are in control for someone with a whole lot of anxiety. A joke...

It wasn't so much the thought that we really are in control that was anything of impact to me. There's nothing to be found in logically knowing something but not feeling it. That's a different kind of work.

I guess what was new to me, was her sort of acceptance that deep discomfort and unsafety was bound to happen, and she trusted that she was in control enough to get herself out of it. She's a celebrity, everything she does is under a microscope. Her deciding to get up, leave, say she'll be back and then proceeded not to come back, can get twisted into so many things. The public will make it about anything BUT her feeling unsafe or uncomfortable in a situation. It won't be a valid enough excuse for the public eye. Regardless, she'll still do it. That was inspiring to hear. Aside from dealing with the anxiety itself, on top of it, I'm afraid of how I'll be perceived all the time. I will stop myself from doing something I need to do to feel better simply based off of what I think people will think or say about my actions. I'm afraid of the embarrassment and I move with a lot of hesitation. I'm afraid of how it will reflect off of me to act upon my boundaries and I'm extremely people pleasing. This absolutely makes me feel like I am NOT in control.

A little more on the part that I noticed a sort of acceptance in her words. She said, "I give myself a mantra, don't run". Anxiety is all about wanting to run, obviously. With very basic fear, you become afraid, your mind and body will want to do anything it takes to get you out of it. You go as far as avoiding things that you know will make you afraid and it begins to feel like you start to avoid everything. You might start to avoid the things that help you grow out of fear. Standing in the face of fear isn't something you're born with. Especially not if you've always known yourself to be an anxious individual. Everything in the world is so scary that it only makes sense to not exist in it. It was freeing to hear someone talk about not running and hearing them say it so plainly that it makes things feel like it could be easier than your anxiety tells you it is. It brings back some of my vitality. There was something reassuring in knowing that maybe one day I won't feel the need to run anymore and avoid situations that might make me feel unsafe. That maybe one day, I will have enough trust in myself to show up in these situations and feel safe in the fact that I can get myself out of anything if I need to. That maybe one day I won't feel trapped by my fear of embarrassment and need to people-please.

[myhumanexperience]

Childhood Passions & What Still Resonates: Part 1

Miley was my star. Hannah and Miley were home. I think they still are. She is one of the few positive memories I have from when I was just a little girl. I never forgot but I guess I sort of...abandoned her. I've recently found myself revisiting the memories I created with her. Her music and what I loved about her so much. Having an idol as a kid, naturally, you don't pay mind to the artist themself. It's the music, the character, etc. Nonetheless, they become a part of you. I always like to think that my love for Hannah and Miley was a lot deeper than just a phase. I like to think it meant something more to love her. It was like an untouched desire. Recently, it's felt like a lost version of myself. Maybe even the realer version of myself. I don't cling on to a lot of music artists. My interests are fleeting. But there are a few things that feel like a molded part of me. There is substance within these things. Like some part of me that is left unsaid or unexpressed. Something that I can only currently access by identifying with these things.

Miley...Hannah, was the me before all of the conditioning and the shame. Before middle school bullies and deeply ingrained self-comparison. That little girl is loud, bold, raw and deeply emotional, extreme in the way she handles herself. She believes in everything too much and her passion for everything seeps out of her pores. There's a certain vitality, a constant sense of excitement and a limitless freedom to her. Nothing is too much, and she is not too much. She wants people to see her. To love Hannah/Miley was to be this girl. I lost a lot of this girl. I like to believe that even as kids, we connect to some things as way to unconsciously express ourselves. I think I might also believe that we know ourselves as kids, we lose ourselves for a long time, and then we come right back home eventually. Like it's a circle.

I came across this interview today and watched it. I was so happy to find how much of her resonated with me as an adult. I wrote down some of the things she said that really stuck. I figured I'd separate them and dive into them in the next few posts....