What behaviours are ‘normal’?
When I was 10 I realised my parents didn’t like my behaviour.
And by behaviour I mean how I would cry a lot, and how I would make a lot of loud noises because it ‘felt good’, and how I would bite literally everything.
I would bite my arm, my shirt, the couches, my bed, random things, my parents, my big brother. It was how I communicated best.
I don’t know how long I did that for but I started minimising all of these behaviours in little ways, slowly working up to only doing them when I was alone. I bottled it all up inside me and then when I was alone, free to act without /hurting/ or /confusing/ my family or strangers, I would fall into prolonged states of mind where I just squeaked, or meowed, or hummed and bit things and scratched things. Be it myself or anything in my room.
I felt on edge when my room was my only safe place to behave comfortably, to communicate comfortably but I managed. For the most part.
And then I started sharing a room with my girlfriend of the time. And suddenly I couldn’t completely shed this ‘human facade’ that I wore everywhere else. I had to have it everywhere.
The only exception at that point was in the shower where I would whisper-scream from the pain of it. It was agony.
But I couldn’t just be me in our shared room because I was told I was ‘annoying’ or my bites meant something else, everything, every way I communicated meant something else so I stopped.
For 18 months.
And after 18 months, when we broke up and she moved out. I forgot.
I chalked up the memories to ‘childish acts’ and I shut down all my behaviours, only letting the ‘cute’ ones back around friends but only when at my house. So I could squeak but not in public because it’s ‘weird’.
Now, the behaviours are coming back and each attempt to smother them causes dissociation or nausea... but letting them happen is scary.
I’m so used to the fear of hurting others, the fear of even having the slightest possibility of hurting others, that I’d rather make myself sick than let myself not hurt.
I’m... trying to get past it.
No, I’m not going around biting people, I ask first (mostly just to my partners).
I managed on wednesday to only feel a little guilty for letting my mind be without restraint. Maybe I’m getting there.
I don’t know.