#mavp

[grotesquenholy]

It seems like no matter how much I try and work on my own perceptions of mental illness, I’m still terrified of the implications of being honest with my partner about my depression. I am so so scared that one day my need for affirmation will be too clingy or too much and then they’ll leave. I’ve been feeling poorly today because I’ve been trying to work on my thesis, take care of my mom, watch my nephews, and like.. exist, and it’s too much for my brain, so sometimes my brain inserts really shitty things about how my partner doesn’t give a shit about me, and it cites bullshit things as evidence but it makes me feel awful.

 So I told him and I told him I loved him and that I wanted him to be home, (but not in the like, I want his time away to go quicker, because I don’t, I don’t want his trip to be over, I know he’s having a marvelous time and he deserves that), and that I made some stuff for him (mostly i got a zine printed and binded and I’ve been hand making other zines)  and he didn’t respond and my brain went on a JOURNEY and I felt selfish, selfish for telling someone I love who is having the time of his life that I didn’t feel good. 

Then it spiraled into the other ways I’ve been feeling insecure in this relationship as a result of my depression. 

See most of my trauma has existed within interpersonal relationships, so my depression uses my romantic relationships to fuck me up. 

For example, my brain uses intrusive thoughts a lot to make my success and management stutter. 

Some thoughts from this past week have been:

- he’s going to find someone better

-he’s already forgotten about you

-there’s someone else

- He’s going to come back and not love you anymore

ALL of them are bullshit, but they all require extra mental energy to combat which uses my energy faster than usual and leads me to burn out and feel like utter shit and worry about things like loving him too much. 

So I’ve been concerned about loving him too much and suffocating him. I’ve been so worried that one day the poetry is going to be too much or that the touches are going to be too much or just the words, in general, are going to drive him away. And I’m examining from every angle, and I can’t find anything that’s unhealthy, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong all the time and that hurts. And it’s fucking exhausting. 

He’s so different from me. He’s not the I wrote you ten odes and a zine type, which is GOOD, I don’t need someone like me I don’t love him because he’s like me, I love him because he’s him. But what it does is it allows my brain to determine that he finds all of the emotional shit I do annoying or that he just tolerates it and although he’s told me he likes it, my brain is ADAMANT that there’s a breaking point/boundary and that I’m regularly toeing the line. 

And every time I think of scaring him off I feel the weight of losing him and it is fucking horrifying, it’s absolutely petrifying. I would be utterly devastated. One of my tools for coping with my depression is acknowledging that I’ve been through some really horrifying stuff and that really nothing can really wreck me. Nothing. But god, that belief has faltered a little. I know it’s not true, like I know no matter how heart wrenchingly miserable I will feel, I know I will get better, but the fact that he feels so important that I put a question mark next to the power of my resilience says a lot, a lot more than I want to admit. 

And the fact of the matter is that I don’t feel that bad, like there have been times in previous relationships where a person has been gone and I felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest and hung up in the backyard. It doesn’t feel awful that he’s gone. I trust him and I trust our relationship.

I just think that he doesn’t communicate the love that I’m used to receiving well over the internet and I’m missing that feeling of being loved. And I’m trying to fish it out, but he’s not taking the bait and I’m too ashamed to go “can you say you love me please because my depressed brain is playing baseball with my feelings for you” I’ve been walking around with this ring of words all week and I changed my wallpaper on my phone and it makes me all feel awful (see above on loving him so much he runs away because im terrifying) 

I know my depression has helped make me the loving, compassionate person that I am. I know that it’s allowed me to learn what good healthy love is and reflect that in my relationships. But I am resentful, of the happy moments and feelings it deprives me and of the dark shadows it casts over beautiful things.

My relationship with him is a beautiful thing. It has brought out this side of me that is determined to be good and right and wonderful. It has brought me such comfort and peace. He is such a good man. He tries so hard to make me happy and he listens and he learns and he teaches me and forces me to grow. I hate feeling bad about this amazing light in my life. I’m not a fan of my depression and how it distorts my outlook. I deserve to accept this love that i have. I deserve to believe he loves me just as much or even if not as much, that he loves me enough. 

It makes me sad to feel bad about him. I’m so worried that it’ll seem like my sadness is about some shortcoming of his. When it’s not. I just want love and he gives me love, but right now that love isn’t prioritized and it shouldn’t be and my depression is utilizing the moment to play games. 

I hope I find a way to tackle this long before he gets back or it’s going to be a long couple of weeks. 

I know it's not my fault. Like I know that people who have experienced trauma have a constant or a more constant presence of cortisol and this means that my brain is more likely to react to threats (real and imagined) with a stress response. But still, I'm working on responding to these intrusive thoughts appropriately.

[grotesquenholy]

I feel lucky. I am so loved, so blessed.

I have collected the best humans, like the world is so fucked up and I have these beacons of hope and light and love in my life and fuck, man, I go through a lot of shit but if I’m burdened with the shit I’m burdened with because I get the people I get, I’ll take it.

And there’s a new person in my life and he just makes me feel good and I want to soak in this. I’m so fortunate

[grotesquenholy]

I’m trying to write poetry again and I’m trying to be vulnerable again and I’m trying to be kind and empathetic without being too nice again and I’m trying not to be scared of important things again and I’m trying to embrace fear and what it symbolizes again and I’m trying not to run again and I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying again and again and again.

[grotesquenholy]

Things I’ve learned about myself in the past year

1. I like attention. It’s a way that I feel cared for and loved. Attention comes in forms of how are yous, and hey how’d that thing go, and how has your day been? There’s a surprising lack of that in my life.

2. I hate not being asked how I’m doing by people I am constantly providing emotional support for. I do not provide emotional support because I demand it in return, but hell, a check in every once in a while in a relationship that’s supposed to be mutually beneficial would be lovely.

3. I’m grossly affectionate.

4. I’m so honest it’s unsettling.

5. There’s a picture of me next to the definition of open communication. The MINUTE I have a problem I want to talk about it. 

6. I’m steadfast.

7. I’m giving.

8. I’m a bit too sensitive for my liking.

9. I can make just about anyone laugh.

10. I love with an intensity that’s not meant for all, some people bask in it, some people find it suffocating, it happens.

11. I’m a nurturer. It’s the core of my being. I love being cared for. But caring for people is something I consider necessary for a successful existence.

12. Did I already mention I’m super sensitive?

13. Sometimes mental illness is rough for me, coping is easy when you make it a habit.

14. I have a tendency for isolation and distance when upset. It’s something I need to try and work out.

15. I like affirmation and validation. 

16. Although I know feelings do not come in matching sets, I worry about forcing myself and my feelings on people. So if I express more than the other person, I worry I’m overpowering their presence. 

17. I’m incredibly sensitive.

18. I like physical affection. I crave it. All forms of intimacy are important and I value emotional intimacy most, but a hug and hand holding and back rubs can break me and I appreciate that. 

19. I like quiet, but mostly I like music. There is very little I find more relaxing than my record player on while I’m in bed trying to organize my thoughts. Well maybe in bed with someone not needing to organize my thoughts would be more romantic. 

20. I’m super sensitive. 

[grotesquenholy]

I want to explore intimacy with you in every dimension I can

[grotesquenholy]

One thing I’ve noticed as someone who is neurodivergent is that when I develop healthy habits I have a tendency to act as though I have completely gotten rid of whatever the issue was

For example, I used to be excessively insecure. This was the cause of a lot of issues with jealous, anger, and other generally not fun feelings. However, I took several steps to make sure that these feelings did not control my actions or relationships anymore.

But I’ve seen myself pretend as though I’m supposed to be absent of insecurity, as though it’s not a natural part of being human. The issue becomes that I try so hard to appear neurotypical that I equate healthy with the absence of things like insecurity and jealousy. I think that people who do not have mental health issues never experience the bad things, which is incredibly false.

The truth is I just learned how to manage these things and my reactions to them so that they impact my decisions and more importantly my interpersonal relationships.

I spent a little while thinking that I got a free pass since I worked so hard on being confident and got knocked flat on my ass this week when I had to come into contact with a few issues I still feel insecure about,. 

Everyone is insecure, everyone experiences jealousy, we all just have different abilities in dealing with them and managing them. 

[grotesquenholy]

Ohh, thinking about that tattoo brings me such nostalgia. I read a chapter of The History of Love aloud to two of my flatmates when we were in Verona.

Mostly, it reminds me of the time when I realized how soft and fragile and scared I was. 

Sometimes it seems like I’m cursed with a heart that bleeds a little too much, but I’m fragile, I’m made of glass, and I’m still brave enough to try and hand my heart to people. How is that anything less than spectacular?

[grotesquenholy]

Sometimes I forgot to think of my symptoms of mental illness as symptoms and start hating myself for having these things make up my general state of being and that sucks.