personal / very long / Bad Things And Trauma And A Lot Of Vulnerability / then something good at the end
i've kind of dropped off the whole internet for like. what. a week? maybe a little less than a week? maybe a little more? idk. a little while.
basically like. i unearthed some stuff. Not Good stuff. i don't know if i want to talk about it here. or if i can talk about it at all. honestly the list of people i feel okay talking about it with is very, very small and kind of weird. idk
i thought about just saying it outright anyway but idk it didn't feel right. i thought about saying it indirectly in a way that only a few people could understand and it's like. idk. i don't wanna burden anyone with myself in general but especially not something so heavy, and like. not without very explicit permission to trauma dump too. idk. i'm hoping i don't accidentally make it clear through context clues if i start rambling on. i've been doing a lot of that, like, internally. just spiralling through all sorts of thoughts and feelings until i'm not even sure which thing is making me upset anymore. i've been trying to rehearse what to even vent out into the world because i'm afraid of oversharing or burdening others with too much while trying to balance my internal need to. say something. to someone. to anyone. and every time i just lose the plot and before i know it i'm just talking about all sorts of shit(i guess take this as a warning that there might be Dark Stuff And Trauma implied later to avoid if you don't want to know my baggage, which is completely fine if you don't. i'm writing this for me and i don't want anyone to feel like they have to read these posts and find out stuff about me that they don't wanna know or something. it's completely fine to not read on, seriously)
so that's why i haven't been like. around in any capacity at all, anywhere. i dissociated from so much for so long and once the big thing broke the dam, everything came pouring out from all sorts of shit throughout my life. it's taken a lot of active processing to even get to the point that i can put a post like this together without completely falling apart. i've been crying a lot this past week. like. A Lot. all that shit i didn't let myself feel didn't go anywhere. it was just waiting
and it's like. so much stuff makes more sense now. why certain things bother me, why i get so pissed off about certain stuff. even how i struggle socially. like i'm constantly afraid to talk to people because i don't want to inflict myself on them or burden them or accidentally say something uncomfortable or hurtful or make them angry or. idk whatever. everything. i'm scared of everything all the time. and it's like. it's, at least in some probably large part, because i struggle to just know where people's boundaries are. and i struggle with that because i was never able to have any of my own. they've been constantly crossed and eroded throughout my whole life in all sorts of contexts. i've never had the context of my own boundaries available to build the foundation i need to understand the boundaries of others. and i don't want to do unto others what was done to me even in the slightest way so i just. keep distant. like i'm some kinda noxious poison and just being near me is enough to harm other people. if i can't see someone's boundaries, how am i supposed to know if they're comfortable being approached? or if taking another step is too much? or if i'm too far away?
i don't know how to start, build or maintain relationships. i just let everyone else set the pace and the distance because i'm scared of fucking it up and making someone else uncomfortable or hurt. and i've been. aware of this. but for the longest time it's just been like "???" like i knew i was like that but i didn't know WHY i was like that that and the fear was too great for me to do anything else. but now i think i can see at least some of the roots of that feeling, finally
and it's. hard. it's hard to not hate myself for it. if i had just somehow enforced my own boundaries and said no and stopped going along with things for everyone else's sake even though some deep and choked part of me was trying to scream how much it hurt and how uncomfortable i was, then i could have avoided all of this. i could have been fine. i could have just said no the whole time. so it's my fault, so i should hate myself, so i don't deserve to feel the anguish i do. it's so easy to think like that. it's easy and it's far more familiar than it should be. and as i type this i'm now wondering how much of that self-hate is even new, or if i had buried it in the trauma time capsule with everything else.
so i've been struggling with that. and other stuff. and the stuff from a few months ago still. man i've really been going through it huh. i'm so tired. i'm so, so tired and i just want. like. i don't even know. just something nice. something that makes things feel just a little more okay. but i still hate myself so much that i don't think i deserve that, and i'm still so afraid of inflicting myself on anyone in any way that even the implication of asking for something from another person is terrifying and painful. even if it's just something as simple as like. a hello. it's taking everything i have to not delete this paragraph just so i don't say that. but like. idk. i think i'm probably just hurting myself like this. no one can live their life without showing vulnerability to others eventually
oh yay it's estrogen time. idk why but i've been like actually craving it for some reason?? like i'm just lying there dead from crying and i'm just like "man i really want to take some more estrogen for some reason"
anyway like. to segway for a sec. i swear this is related to the overall post. but while i was dealing with all of this, and also i had a migraine from crying so much, and also i was pretty stoned from trying to medicate that migraine, i watched that circus show that's been popular recently just to like. fill time. it's pretty alright, i'm really invested in whether or not the bunny admits that (s)he needs estrogen and whether or not (s)he gets it. anyway like
there's a part in the sixth episode(so like spoilers for that i guess i'll try to be vague and not name anyone. or just like skip this paragraph and the next) where a character talks about like. okay wait i have to think about how i'm formatting this because there's actually two parts. i have to actually fire up the storytelling part of my brain to line this up right. okay so like. one character is upset. and she's literally curling up into herself and going nonverbal and only responding with shakes of the head and nods and i already felt this deep sense of "Oh No" because i'm literally just looking at what i do irl. and eventually she says something like "i don't even know what i want. i just want everyone to be happy. and i don't want anyone to hate me." and i'm already tearing up bc like Fucking Same girl. but then the character she's talking to asks "do you hate yourself?" and i just. cry every time. because i do. i do so much and i don't even know or understand why and i just bury it and try to be Normal so i don't bother anyone. and having some version of the feelings i struggle with so much put so condensed and clear made a few things click in my head
and then there's another scene in that episode where another character talks about self-love. "it's not natural, it's intentional". and it's like. i've heard that before in one way or another. i never really understood the idea. it just never completely clicked for me, even if i logically understood the words
but then the other day(no more spoilers it's safe now) i was talking to evies about child me and i like. i forget what i said. i also forget why i was wording it in the third person. but i said the first half of the sentence before pausing and then deliberately using the word "she". and even then it still didn't click. but i was thinking about that in bed last night and then it finally clicked. that's self-love. that's what it means. that's why it's intentional. you have to choose to do it. and when i realized that, i started crying a lot again.
but it's like. i finally get it. that awkward pause, taking the time to stop and not fall into the familiar, old habit of just he/himing my past self out of habit and justifying it after the fact with "well i didn't know at the time", and instead choosing--deliberately choosing--to give my past self the simple and basic respect she always deserved and never got. that's self-love. that's the choice. falling into the familiar mechniasm of self-hate is so easy that it's basically the default. self-love requires understanding, patience, and deliberate choice.
self-love is. choosing to accept that i couldn't have "just said no". to understand my own history of eroded boundaries and accept that i was set up to fail and that it wasn't my fault. to look at the context of everything and knowing i wouldn't blame anyone else in my position, and choosing not to take the comfortable route of blaming myself anyway.
it's forgiving myself for trusting people when maybe i shouldn't have. for letting things that shouldn't have become normal become normal. because i was a kid. and an egg. i was already going through a lot without even realizing it. i was already susceptible to crumbling under social pressures and that wasn't my fault and i shouldn't hate myself for it. and whenever i start to think otherwise, i have to choose to remind myself of that, even if i can't believe those words at the time
it's knowing that i'm going to fail over and over and fall into familiar and painful habits and choosing to accept that instead of spiraling every time it happens. it's knowing that the choice is always there and i can always try to take it and keep trying even if it doesn't feel like it's working at the time. it's knowing that healing is a long and painful process and that's okay, that it's okay to choose to take time for myself when i need it
it's choosing to let myself take up space. it's choosing to trust myself and taking the risks required to learn about others so i can let myself be social without being afraid all the time. it's choosing to take a break when i'm scared and choosing to push myself when i know i can handle it.
it's knowing that internalizing all of this isn't a magic fix, that i'm going to hurt and stumble and make mistakes and choosing to do it anyway because i deserve to be a better and happier person than i am. and even saying that i "deserve" something is so painfully alien to say but i can still choose to say it and acknowledge it. that it's okay to have wants and needs and desires and express them openly.
choosing to love yourself always feels like some big and grand thing in media. or like conceptually in general i guess. but it's not. it's a million little things, every day. and i get that now, because i finally chose to love myself for once. and it was such a little thing, just adding an s to a word. but that was enough to make me realize that it really is a choice, even if it's not always an easy one to make. if it was always easy, i would have transitioned like a decade ago
like. i still feel all the negative stuff i said above too. i'm trying to love myself more, but i still hate myself. i know what parts of myself i don't like and want to change, but it's not as easy as just choosing to say that i am changing them. changing just one small part of myself is still a million choices i have to make before i get to where i wanna be. and not all of them will be easy. i'm still scared of being properly social. i'm still so tired and so worn down
but also i just. idk. i feel like something has been different since last night. i'm starting to see choices i never realized i was making. i don't feel like i'm just randomly breaking down into tears and not knowing why or having a panic attack or constantly spiralling now. i feel like i'm. healing? i guess? that things can get better. that things can change. that i can change
discovering all the feelings i had been burying all my life felt like. idk. like something had been taken from me all that time ago and i only just now fell into the hole it left behind. and it's festering and filled with rot and trying to climb out only scraped the rot away and exposed the still fresh, unhealed wound underneath. i thought it would just hurt for a long time, and that it would just scar over. that the hole would always be there and just hurt a little less over time, like all the other holes my life left behind.
but now it's like. idk. maybe it's possible for me to choose to fill that hole with something else
anyway, uh. i say all that but now i'm like. "is this too much? am i being too vulnerable here? maybe i shouldn't post this" and like i dunno! maybe! but i can also choose to understand that i'm tagging this post as unhappy and putting it under a cut and then still going out of my way to call out that it has Baggage and no one has to read it. i can choose to accept that no one is being forced to read this and that it's perfectly okay to post my own feelings in my own tiny internet space. so i'm gonna do that. as always, thank you for reading