I think it's time to come back to this blog to just leave a final, hopeful note. Don't worry, I'm very alive, and I finally expect, and more importantly want, to stay that way.
In the past few months I've not only "cleaned up my act" (stopped smoking/vaping and drinking, for one) but really started to live authentically again for the first time in years. This has A LOT to do with the people I surround myself with -- I've allowed myself to start spending time with friends again instead of isolating myself to me and my relationship (and for the record, that relationship is going wonderfully and is a huge part of my personal development... I love my boyfriend so much, and it's so wonderful to have someone who really does love you -- you'll know it when you see it -- for yourself, really yourself, who you are as a person and what you are as a human. He's helped me so much), and I finally engage sincerely in everything that I do. It honestly sounds fake, going from this to that, but it really did happen.
I've healed so well my favorite color is green again. I've healed so well I let the hair on my hands grow out again. Let me tell you, it's a very, very strange thing to be able to look back on my self micromanagement -- deciding everything about a persona to stick to right down to my favorite color, and hurting myself when I inevitably slip up -- and realize that I don't have to do that anymore.
Things are not entirely better. I still feel hopeless and angry and sad, I still have days where the only thing I can think of is hurting myself. But I'm not always miserable. I can see the colors again.
I know I'm in an incredibly privileged position to be able to develop like this, to be able to surround myself with different people, to have found someone who truly loves me and cares for me and lets me reciprocate that in full. But I really hope the same happens for all of you, or at least those of you who, as I used to, sit in bed drunk and crying at night and wonder what happened to that curious little kid they used to be. It used to kill me.
Now I feel the most like myself I've ever felt. Sometimes that bullshit people say is true, turns out. Things can get better. Good luck, all.