It happened!! For people who have been reading this blog, it finally happened. The girl that had meant sooo very much to me last year had finally reached out! I cannot tell you how happy I was!! Yep, was. Ok, let me explain how this all started and hopefully by the end it’ll make some kind of sense.

She had reached out to me through a mutual third party, and she had asked them to pass a message to me. In the message she mentioned that she took responsibility for our separation and that she was really sorry for the fact that we hadn’t spoken.  After getting this message, I ended up responding to her through the same mutual party and setting up a time for us to talk and when we spoke again I…I can’t even explain how happy I was. I teared up at my keyboard. Having her back on speaking terms with me felt amazing! And I let her know that I missed so so very much, and she had said that she had missed me. We spend the entire evening talking and hanging out until almost 3am and I admit that I have not been that happy in a long, long time. It just felt so awesome to have that connection back, that part of me that had felt so hurt and abandoned felt soothed and calm for the first time in quite a while.

But then it started happening. And I’m not sure if I’m holding onto a grudge or it is that small part of my self worth that is bothered. See eventually we spoke about what happened and maybe it was the way it happened, or the way she explained it but the way I approached the issue of, “What had happened” was that I more or less left the door open for any kind of explanation without trying to back her into a corner. Because I understand that sometimes it’s hard to tackle really heavy subjects when you’re just reconnecting or rebuilding a friendship. But she did offer a reason which was her anxiety. She had mentioned that she got stuck because it had been a while and that her anxiety only made everything worse, which I get. So I accepted what she offered, no questions asked.  But I think that was the problem. Because after a couple weeks of talking, I realized that I still had questions and a lot of hurt. 

As of right now, we still talk everyday.  Obviously, it’s not like it was before and that is totally ok.  Not like it’s bad, it’s just different, and I think that’s a good thing. We had been in almost constant contact with each other previously, and while that was ok with me because I cared so deeply for her, I have a feeling that it took a toll on her because she was in a relationship. And when she initially expressed that she had feelings for me, we had a talk about how I never wanted to ruin or effect her relationship in any way. In my head we were just too people who had feelings for each other, but I understood that she had more feelings for her boyfriend and she did not want to do anything to endanger that. However, in retrospect I’m not sure that kind of “understanding” is sustainable. At least not the way I handled it after what had happened.

And if any of you are wondering what happened, well I was in a very bad accident and I think when that happened it inadvertently forced my feelings for her to the forefront, which in turn caused her to really think about and face her own feelings for me. Think of it like this soft subtle music that we were both listening to suddenly became this loud, blaring noise that obscured everything for me, and I think to a certain extent, for her as well. The end result was that I think it was just enough pressure on her to run away. I know it’s pointless at this juncture in time, but I wish with all my heart that it had ended differently. I wish I had never gotten hurt, and I wish I had never heard her cry when I had gotten home from the hospital. I wish I would never have known how supportive she could truly be when she cared about me. I wish she hadn’t of been there with the nurses and had helped me when I was confused and hurting and most of all…alone. I wish I had never known these things because maybe then it would make forgetting the pain she had caused when she just suddenly stopped being that person so much easier. Because to experience her as the opposite kind of person was one of the most confusing and excruciating parts of our separation. It made no sense to me since one of the reasons I grew to care about her so much was because of how caring and how openly supportive she was of both me and my feelings. But to see her so…unkind and uncaring towards me made me doubt her as a person, and it made me doubt my own judgement. Was she really this kind and caring person if it was so easy for her to just walk away in my proverbial darkest hours?

Now don’t get me wrong, I have forgiven her. Because I understand that forgiveness had nothing to do with her. Instead it has everything to do with my own peace. But it’s the memories that bother me. Memories of my own pain that her ghosting or abandoning me had caused. Now I’ve put an extraordinary amount of effort into just trying to move past all the pain but it’s in trying to move past so much pain that has given me cause to wonder: Is there a point where in forgiving someone for so many things, you start to overlook your own self worth? Because isn’t there a correlation between how much you are willing to overlook vs how much you value yourself? Or am I just being crazy? Because at the heart of everything I feel like that may be what’s bothering me. It’s presenting a dilemma that I am not sure how to solve, because I’m not sure what emotion is driving this discomfort. Is it me just not forgiving everything and holding onto the sheer amount of pain they’ve caused? Or is it that the amount of pain they’ve cause is just too much for me to be ok with?

And please, don’t bother saying, “It’s up to you James…” because I know!! Trust me I know it’s up to me. Just keep in mind that I have never cared about someone this much. I have never been open and vulnerable with anyone, so I’ve never experienced these types of feelings or emotions. The way I normally work is simply not to get involved emotionally with anyone, but obviously that’s not healthy and that is one of the things I’m working on. To be open and vulnerable with someone while in a romantic relationship instead of just avoiding vulnerability or relationships. Yet, this person completely caught me off guard because…it was sooo easy to be open with them and care for them. When I spoke to my therapist about her, my therapist had described what I had felt as, “The closest to feeling to what unconditional love feels like for you”. Which was heartbreaking and wonderful all at the same time. So yes, I know the decision of how I handle it is up to me, but what I do not know is how to tell what emotion is doing what so I can ultimately make that decision.

In a weird way you know what this feels like? Have you guys ever seen a picture of where salt water meets fresh water? It’s like this funny natural phenomenon that creates almost a solid line along where they meet. It’s like on one side of the line is this crystal clear water, then on the other side is typically this murky brown cloudy water. That’s what I feel. One on side is the clear cut way that I’m used to dealing with people: No attachments. No feelings. No mess. But on the other side is this cloudy situation where I care about someone so very much, but there is something about it that I don’t understand and that doesn’t make sense to me. Because I want to learn how to forgive and I want to be at peace and the thought of being without her in my life in any way, shape, or form not only disrupts that peace but is almost physically painful. At the same time however, I also realize that sometimes there really is just too much pain to overlook.

So I’m not sure on which side of the waters my emotions are.

I am not good. I feel terrible. I want to type something, but I’m afraid to say it here even within the confines of this blog’s anonymity. Because of the level of honesty required to say it. And no, before anyone freaks out, it doesn’t involve anything like murder or stalking or anything super crazy like that. What I feel is that somehow I’m mentally withdrawing from my friends, the few that I’ve made over the span of years. The ones that I’ve fought my own mental illness for, and its over something I don’t quite understand.

So for those who are just reading this blog for the first time, the reason I started it was because I had gone through a lot of heavy hitting bad things in 2020, not to mention that I had not dealt with anything that had happened in my childhood. The end result was a crippling depression. I literally couldn’t get out of bed, I wasn’t eating and I was counting the pain meds that I had to see exactly how many I had to take so I wouldn’t wake up again. Now, I had never experienced something like that, but thankfully I had a group of three friends who I had leaned on pretty heavily while this was happening.

However, sometimes I’m not sure if this was a good thing. I opened up so much to these people and told them everything, everything that I was struggling with.  But now…now I almost feel that in opening up that much with them, it almost feels like I changed their perception of me. See, in my group of friends I was the one everyone came to. For their problems and for their frustrations because despite whatever crazy I have going on in my head, when it comes to struggling or knowing how to deal with emotional pain, I can take on a lot. I can empathize pretty well with people and I know all the steps to being mentally healthy because I’ve had them recited to me before, I’ve even had them written out for me on paper.  Do I follow them?  No, not in the slightest. Not because I didn’t want to, but lets just say that if mental health is anything like physical health that I’d always be able to lose the weight but never keep it off. So I can listen to you, provide a sympathetic ear, and even tell you that I recommend a therapist because they are a great resource to have for your emotional healing and well being. All without doing any of these things for myself, and while I am always near my own breaking point. But I won’t tell anyone that. Because that would make me look like I couldn’t take on their pain, and that makes me feel weak. Is this healthy? Nope. But is this how I functioned on a day to day basis for years? Yep.

But this past summer my depression was so bad, and so enveloping that I ended up doing two things I never do with my friends. I cried in front of them, and I told them my problems. After several months I got a therapist mostly out of guilt because I felt like if I kept going to my friends for help and for my emotional ass talks, they wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore. And no, none of them actually said that, but I think some of them were frustrated with me on occasion and on others I feel like some of them tried to avoid me a time or two. Not to mention there was this particular person I cared tremendously about that just straight up ghosted me, so I was both hurt and afraid that would happen with any other of my friends.

That was almost a year ago and to be fair about six months ago I just disappeared from my social circle to try and heal and not drive my friends crazy. But what just happened with my two of my friends is making me feel…both terrified and almost ashamed for being so completely vulnerable to them. So, as most of you know, I’m a gamer. And most of my friends I hang out with or talk with play the same games I do, but I had stopped gaming all together when I dropped out of sight from my friends. I really did just kind of go full hermit mode. Fast forward almost six months and I start sending out some messages and dropping a few calls that I might be coming back.

I am just not sure on if I should stay around because gaming is painful. The memories surrounding gaming only brought back thoughts of sadness, isolation, abandonment, and pain. The ironic part is that gaming, for me, was always kind of an escape. And yes, I fully acknowledge that at times, it was an unhealthy way to not deal with whatever was happening in real life. Yet, what was happening presented such a conundrum because now the place I usually escape to, was suddenly because the place I needed to escape from. And I hate that. I hate that I can’t just log into a game and lose myself in it like I usually do. I am frustrated by the fact that the people who I considered my friends seem to occasionally take the approach of, “out of sight, out of mind.” And that hurts. It hurts because I know my friends are not my therapists, but on the same token, on a level I can’t explain it almost feels like even though they know I am not involved with gaming at the moment, the invites to do things in game slowly and inevitably stop. Then it’s feels as if you’re slightly forgotten because they’re continuing on like normal, meanwhile your normal is nowhere near the same.

And lets not get things misunderstood, I am in no way blaming my friends for how I feel or saying it’s their fault that I’m not getting better. What I am explaining is how the natural process of life moving on with or without you can seem isolating and painful. No one prepares you for that. No one tells you that when your friends stop coming around through no fault of their own, even that can seem like such a painful process because it makes you and your pain feel unseen and unwanted. And that pain leads to feeling like a burden. Because in my head I think, if they stop calling, if they stop hanging around you and stop inviting you to things it’s because they don’t want to be around you. Because when things really mattered even the person I trusted and had been open with the most ghosted me. So isn’t that proof that being vulnerable and trying to reach out is too much of a burden for people? That truly letting people know just how sad you are, is not something that anyone wants to deal with?

It’s just too much. Right now, thinking and overthinking and trying to figure out if my friends are just, “putting up with me” or are they  genuinely trying to help is exhausting. And again, it’s not my friend’s fault. It’s just that from what I’ve been shown, being open and vulnerable despite whatever anyone says, only results in loss. In a loss of respect from your friends, a loss of friendship, a loss of feeling like your friends truly want to game with you.  It also adds this uncertainty in the friendship where before there was none. It’s like you suddenly don’t know if they’re including you because they really still want to, or is that you’ve become that depressed person who has no one else to game with. And I don’t want to be that. I want my friends to enjoy their games, I want them to be happy with the people they include in their gaming and that includes me. I just…I just feel like I need to leave because I want them to be happy.

And I know that I’m not.

I’m writing this blog in the middle of a very bad habit I’m trying to break. It happens in two phases and it is completely mentally exhausting. To give you guys a bit of background story, there was a girl that I met last year and…this was a difficult one. I normally have trouble being very open when it comes to my own personal feelings. But not with her. With her I…I felt like I could tell her anything, anything and somehow I knew that she would never judge me for it. I told her that I was scared of being this open, that this kind of vulnerability did not come easy for me, but she always encouraged me to be open with her without ever pressuring me. So I trusted her. It should also be noted that she had admitted that she had feelings for me that were not platonic, even though she had a boyfriend.  This happened right around the end of May. 

Now even though I knew she had a boyfriend I want to make it clear that I never EVER tried to cross a line that messed with her relationship. Yes, I fully admit we probably skirted it a bit, because I understand that good morning/good night/sweet dreams texts and messages throughout the day may not exactly be purely platonic.  However, it was never sexual.  When I first met her, I didn’t know she had a boyfriend and when I found out she did, I really did try to stay away from her.  I went a full week without talking to her, and I was miserable.  I couldn’t be away from her, which was a feeling I had never encountered.  The actual emotional need to feel connected to her was so incredibly strong it was like…gravity.  At the same time, it wasn’t like an insane, hot n heavy, purely physical need.  I mean, sure there was some moments of tension and flirting but the main reason why I truly fell for her was because being open and vulnerable with her didn’t just feel natural and so very easy, it was peaceful.  It was like the parts of my soul that were scared, hesitant, or angry were finally calm with her.   

Imagine all your life in every relationship you’ve ever had you feel this…thing that prevents you from really connecting with your person, no matter how hard you try it’s always there.  Then all of a sudden you meet someone and talking to them, and opening up to them, and showing them parts of yourself that terrified you to show to other people just seemed easy.  It was always just talking though, despite how easy it was I never tried to push anything further with her. I never tried to sext her or cyber her. It was always messages or sometimes calls and telling each other stories or coming up with funny scenarios or just normal friend stuff. Like expressing support for one another when we were having a rough time or just completely dumb subjects discussed with an ironic sense of severity which made them ridiculous and awesome at the same time. Like who would win in a fight? Stuart Little or Ratatouille? Or Mercy or Ana?  She picked Ratatouille btw, I picked Stuart Little.

Additionally, I never wanted it to be awkward when she told me she had feelings so I let her know that it was natural to have feelings with someone, but it was how you act upon them that makes the difference. And we both agreed that we would never act on any of the feelings we had. In my heart I remember this moment because it was all I could do to not express how much I truly cared for this person. That I, through the course of us talking every day over the past several months, had very likely fallen in love with her. I never wanted to pressure her. I knew her boyfriend and no, I didn’t like him and it wasn’t because I was bitter or jealous. Over the course of this person and I talking I had witnessed how he treated her and without any bias, I can say that it was unkind at the very least. At most it felt like gaslighting and manipulative behavior. I mean sure, he had moments where it seemed like he cared but the times where he didn’t seemed a lot more frequent in my opinion. For example, there was one instance where she had gone to him to try and express that she had felt hurt because he had forgotten about her for several hours on his birthday. Yes, you read that right he ghosted her on his birthday for several hours despite the fact she had woken up early for him. And when she tried to express her hurt his response was that she should know better, and that of course he loved her and if she thought anything different then it was her own mental illness attacking her. When she told me this, I cannot explain to you how much effort it took for me not to jump on a plane to where he lived and punch him in the face. How fucking dare you take your shitty behavior and make it about her mental illness. Fuck outta here with that shit man.

Yeah well. You get the point. Fast forward a couple months and when I was going through the absolute worst depression of my life…she ghosted me. To say that her ghosting me broke my heart would be the understatement of the millennium.

Now that you know the backstory, here’s what I’m struggling with currently. There are days sometimes even a week will go by and I don’t think about her. And I mean at length, I still think about her everyday but its more like in very small things that flit through my brain like her favorite ice cream when I’m at the store or when I see a black leather jacket because black was her favorite color, and she loved leather jackets. But as quickly as the thoughts come, I try to push them out of my head. I focus on the now and being present because that’s what I’m supposed to do right? Despite the fact that I still miss her terribly to this day and when she stopped talking to me it actually felt like my soul was being ripped in half. But now? Now I shake my head and try to think of something else. Anything else. But then it happens…I hear that she was in a channel alone with some person in discord or that she was hanging out in a game with another person, even if these things were done purely as friends and it’s like this wall of anxiety just hits me in the face.

For days I’ll be shaking, and I won’t want to eat, or even though I try on a daily basis not to pay any attention to her whereabouts, now out of the blue it’s like when I see her little light on discord I get like this wave of emotion where I simultaneously want to yell at her, “How could you do that to me? How? When you knew how much I truly cared and trusted you?”.  At the same time I want hug her, and hold her, and comfort her because I remember that this was the same person who cried when I got home from the hospital because she had been so worried about me. Then I’ll swing to the complete opposite direction and I get so angry at myself for thinking about her at all. I get frustrated because all it took was the mere thought of her having the same kind of relationship with another person and all of a sudden I become hyper aware of where she is, what game she’s playing, who gets on and off at the same time her and then I’ll start seeing everyone, even my friends, as a possible suspect like, “OMG you got on the same game at the same time!!  Before you know it, I feel like Jim Carey in that movie, 23 or Russell Crowe in, A Beautiful Mind. Not that I have, nor ever will, go anywhere near the depths of craziness those characters experienced, but the point is that I feel that way. I really do start to feel crazy.  Me, a physically healthy college student is literally feeling like I should have one of those stupid boards with all the strings attached to it trying to decipher who she has been hanging out with the most in some basement I call, “The War Room”.  Again, not that I ever have nor ever will, but being this emotional when I normally am not emotional at all is just fucking aggravating and like I mentioned at the beginning of this story, it’s completely mentally exhausting. Especially when I typically just have trouble connecting on a romantic level with anyone. Any time I start “seeing” or even “talking” with other people, not even dating because I can’t fathom being that close to someone emotionally, the thing I typically hear is that they want me to open up more to them. But with this person, all that has to happen is for me to hear she might be getting close to another person, even if it’s purely platonic and all of a sudden I feel ALL THE EMOTIONS. Anxiety, fear, hurt, anger, sadness, pain, loneliness but most of all I feel a sense of loss. It’s like…I’m grieving.

And I’m terrified of that feeling. Because to me, loss is permanent. Loss means that I may never talk to this person again.  Loss means that I won’t get a chance to try and fix things with her, or maybe even in the future have something that was not possible because of timing. And I can’t bear that. I can’t bring myself to be ok with the thought or the possibility that I will never see or talk with her again. That thought is enough to feel a sadness so completely enveloping, it is something I have only experienced in the worst parts of my depression. And I…I can’t do that. I do not know how to process that amount of pain. Yes, I know in other posts I talk about the amount of crazy that happens to me with new friends or while I’m getting to know someone and that is all very real. Yet, for me it’s like apples and watermelons. One feeling is borne out of anxiety through not being liked, bullied, abused, picked on, and all these emotions that are based solely on my past experiences, which means I can work on them. With the help of my therapist I’m learning new ways to give myself credit for the things I’ve endured and realize that I’m a person that is both worthy and capable of making friends.

But this. This is…something that has, quite literally, never happened to me. In fact there was a scene in, WondaVision I saw recently that nearly brought me to tears. It’s when Vision says, “I’ve always been alone, so I don’t feel the lack. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve never experienced loss because I’ve had no one to lose.” That is my situation in a nutshell.

I want more than anything to understand what happened. I want to understand how she could seem like such a kind and compassionate person, which is why I cared so deeply for her, then leave someone at their worst moment and not seem to care? And I know, I KNOW people will say that the whys or the hows don’t matter, that I just have to move on. And I can’t explain it but in the quiet, most loving depths of my soul, I just feel that somehow we aren’t finished yet. I can’t express it any better.

Sometimes however, that feeling is so frustrating because I have so many unanswered questions. And I do want to be clear that I’m not pining away for her. I’m not huddled up in some hovel hoping she’ll talk to me. I have been with other girls since this happened and even though the thought kills me, I understand she is with someone else. I just have this feeling in my heart, and in the back of my mind no matter how much I’ve tried to get rid of it, that we’ll get our chance several years in the future. And I’m ok with that. So I don’t think about it. Except when someone says some offhanded remark. Then the above mentioned problem happens. But even though it saddens me to think of us not talking for years, that is still better than never. Because even now, almost a year after this happened…the thought of moving on and never having her in my life again…well let’s just say that if it took a city for Wanda Maximoff to grieve and process her loss, I’d probably have my own island somewhere.

I hate this. Ugggghhhhh!!! I hate this sooo very much. This happens every time I try to set a boundary or remove someone from my life, not because I’m trying to be a terrible person but because I am trying to practice not putting up with things that are not healthy, and it’s soo completely frustrating. I’m not sure if there is a psychological term for it but it feels like the emotional equivalent for when separation anxiety and buyer’s remorse got together and had a kid.

Ok, so let me explain because I’m really trying to figure out if this is like a trauma response or if it’s one of those really annoying personality traits. For example, I recently made this blog post about a girl who I recently stopped being friends with. The TLDR version is that I took her mental illnesses and anxieties into consideration through whatever she was doing. Gaming, real life, venting, literally anything we did. I had her back. She started off kind of doing the same for me, then just stopped. When I would get frustrated because I was feeling badly due to her lack of concern, I was called oversensitive and accused of trying to change her.  Whatever. So I just stopped being her friend. But here’s the thing that annoys and frustrates me to no end.

I feel bad. I feel bad because I’m not this person’s friend anymore. I feel bad because even though I know I wasn’t being unkind by setting boundaries and despite the fact that I know I wasn’t the oversensitive person she tried to make me out to be, I think about the distinct possibility that I hurt her. And yeah yeah, I know I’m not supposed to feel bad. I know that most people might say, “Oh well..” and never look back, but holy fuck do I feel bad. That’s why I mentioned it’s like buyer’s remorse and separation anxiety got together and came up with this masochistic form of guilt that makes you long for the thing that hurt you. And it’s terrible because it creeps up on me. Now granted, one of the things I’m working on is how I set boundaries because most of the time it goes something like this: I let things go, and build, and build, and then I try explaining but I’m nervous because I don’t want to upset them so it comes out awkward or at least I think it does. Then whatever we talk about still doesn’t change for some reason so the frustration builds more and more until I end up exploding on this person. So here’s where I should be happy right? I have literally bought myself a ticket to peace, free from their shit and away from their drama. Yes!! I should be ecstatic right? And for a couple days I am. Blissfully so. I don’t think about them for days and I even rethink how the argument went so I could’ve gone off on them somehow “better” telling myself things like, “Yeah I should’ve said that!” or “Yeah that would’ve been funny!!” Continue reading “Avalanches and Inner Peace Island” →

It happened again. I started to make a friend which I was very excited about. I met her back in early December and we instantly had that “old souls” kind of vibe.  At least, that’s what it was for me.  It started off like it normally does where I got past the initial friendship stage pretty seamlessly, and then when it came down to the actual-get-to-know-you stuff that happens afterword when it normally falls apart for me, well…this time it didn’t. So I became hopeful. Which turned out to be a mistake. A huge fucking mistake.

So after the initial friendship stage comes the part where we talk and get to know each other a bit more thoroughly and usually that’s the part that turns me into a nervous wreck. Even though I’m working on it I’m still pretty anxious and I still kinda drive myself crazy when they don’t respond or answer my text but like I said, I’m working on it. Anyway this time we’ve exchanged social media and we’re messaging each other every day. Not in a romantic way of course, all of this is strictly platonic. Yet we’re snapping each other every day, we’re playing online PC games together, we’re talking about real shit, and then…something happened. Her mother passed away from covid. Now when her mother passed away there were several big things that happened as a result. She was moved out of the house  where she was living and her relationship status went from having a live in BF to being a long distance relationship as the house she was moved to was in another state. Not too far way, but about a five and a half hour drive.

Now obviously I was there for her. In fact, I was there when she first got the news that it was time to say goodbye to her mother. I held her while she cried and I was checking in on her pretty often. This happened back in February and for a while she seemed almost withdrawn. Like she wasn’t showing any kind of emotion in front of any of her friends, except for me, and even that was pretty limited. But I never judged her, everyone shows emotion and grieves differently, I was just glad she felt comfortable enough to show emotion with me. And on the few occasions she cried I was always there for her. Even on days when she would tell me, “Hey I’m logging on the game and I just want someone to play with” I’d drop everything and rush home to play a game with her. Keep in mind that I don’t have a car so anytime I say I “rush” anywhere it’s somewhat of an exaggeration.  But still, you get the point. Continue reading “Cilantro, Ukuleles, and Change” →

So when do we stop and take a look at ourselves and wonder if we’re the toxic one?  I’m serious.  Is there ever a point where you sincerely try to figure out if a situation is fucked up, or if you’re fucked up?  And is there a definitive way to figured that out?  When I think of this question there is a certain person that comes to mind. I was in jr. high school and there was this girl I knew by the name of Helen. She was kind of an oddball but I think I was, in some way, attracted to her. Not like a crush kind of attracted, but looking back I think I was more attracted to the intellectual energy that she had if that makes any sense. She was an oddball in that she was was whip smart but was not shy about speaking up in class and showing it, almost like she didn’t care about being THAT GIRL or classified as “The Smart Kid”. Overall though she was pretty quiet, and she had kind of a goth vibe to her but wasn’t super into it in jr. high. I mean by high school she was pretty into the black clothing, black doc martins, and sheer black skirts that went over black pants or outfits similar to that, but in jr. high she wasn’t that committed to it yet.

I think it was her drive that was like a magnet to me. She was the polar opposite to what I had been taught my ideology about school or education should be.   Which was that according to my parents, I did not need to go to college. Therefore I didn’t really try at school. I mean if college was taken off your list of options, school seems almost like a waste of time. According to my parents, after I graduated I was either going to be a missionary or go and live at the headquarters of our religion where I would meet a man to marry. Of course now I cringe at the thought of any of those options. *makes gagging noise* In any case, Helen was so smart and so driven it was like…showing me how much I could be if I just tried. I hung out with her as much as I could. I walked her to her classes, whenever I needed help or missed a class assignment I called her for it. Then we’d talk on the phone for a bit and part of what made it so cool was that she was a pretty private person and I enjoyed the fact that I seemed to be the only person she was close to. I wasn’t allowed to talk with people from school growing up unless it had to do with class, so a lot of our phone calls had to be under the guise that I was calling her for homework or something other than just hanging out. And she understood this so it was almost like she was my partner in crime. It was awesome. Continue reading “Deep Sea Blue and Self Worth” →

So yesterday morning I think I had one of the worst starts to my day in a very long time. Ironically, I ended up laughing more that I had in a long time. Hear me out. See here’s the thing, one of my unhealthy traits my therapist had tried to get me to see was that sometimes what people with anxiety or depression do is catastrophize. Thankfully she also showed me there is a way to combat that, which is to practice gratitude. This is one of the simplest concepts to say, but for me, it still is one of THE most difficult to put into practice. Here’s why: Everything about my life has in someway reinforced that I don’t belong, that people don’t like me, that I am not wanted, and that I am nor will I ever be good enough. These are thoughts that are hardwired into my brain like paths in the tall grass that have been walked over and over. Nothing grows there and when walking through this particular field of my thoughts it’s easy to find because the tall grass covering the path has been repeatedly beat into submission.

The same principle applies to your thoughts. If we are told over and over that we don’t deserve happiness or love, then we won’t feel worthy enough to even look for it, let alone keep it should we stumble upon it. And on the off chance there might actually be someone that comes into our life, it’s pretty likely that the relationship will not be a healthy one. Most likely we will be so shocked that someone actually loves us, we build our entire lives around that person and will do, say, and give anything to keep them. That’s what makes us prime targets for people to take advantage of us. And this pattern is set on repeat. So it becomes normal for us to suffer. It becomes normal for us to think that every bad thing that happens in life is somehow proof that we don’t deserve good things. That we don’t deserve a chance at happiness.  In our personal life, in our professional, or academic life. It doesn’t matter in what area of our life we’re talking about, none of those good things are what we should have and we honestly believe that.  It’s automatic thinking for us because there is a pathway of pain and rejection already defined for us.  And it’s our own minds that have been repeatedly beat into submission.

Continue reading “Walking Through Sprinklers” →

No, this is not just a funky title, I really do have a question that I really would like an answer to. When I was younger, around the second grade, I remember having my first crush. Her name was Jeanette. Its strange to realize how small details stand out so much about someone specific.  It’s like part of your brain already knows this person will somehow be significant in your life so it chooses to embed them in your soul. I remember I loved how she always smelled like her super fruity strawberry lip gloss and how her nose would crinkle when she laughed, I remember I could pick her voice out of an entire classroom full of kids, and how she always wore tennis shoes with the dresses that she wore. I obviously didn’t know I had a crush on her at this young age I just thought of her as someone I always looked forward to seeing. Then one day I remember I was excited because I had gotten new shoes. They were blue suede Nike that had that kind of swoosh that changed color depending on how you looked at it. I also wore my special t-shirt that made me feel extra cool.

So I was walking up this long hallway my school had. It went along the asphalt that had the four square and dodgeball lines and looped around the classroom buildings. I remember it was in the morning so there was still dew on the grass and the sunlight lit the open hallway in a way that made it almost seem like the cream colored columns were glowing. I remember she had a light pink dress with a white square in the middle and that she wore her long brown hair up in a bun that day. She walked right up to me and said, “I’m sorry James, but I’m afraid I’m gonna have to hate you.”

Continue reading “A Question About Jeanette” →

So this post is a little different. Most of the time I have a writing assignment from my therapist. I get a subject or even like a broad topic or area of my life and I expand on that. However, this evening I find that I’m just…frustrated. And this frustration has led to a kind of spiral of thoughts for me. I circle back to an instance last summer where I met someone and without going into much detail about what exactly happened, I will just sum up by saying that we met and we talked for about five months. Then things got complicated and I took a step back, I let her know so I wouldn’t ghost her and the agreement was made that we would always be friends. Well, fast forward about a month and I was in the middle of one of the worst depressions I’ve ever experienced. I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t taking care of myself, I wasn’t getting out of bed. Prior to our break, this person was my best friend so I had thought I could reach out to her, and that in turn she would value our friendship enough to be there for me. Long story short. She wasn’t. In fact, she ended up ghosting me two weeks after I told her what I was going through.

Continue reading “Solar Urticaria” →

So I’m a bit late with this blog because last week my therapist gave me a writing assignment that I was totally not ready to do. But in a good way. When she said it, I think she kind of laughed because she saw my face. It must’ve looked something like when your favorite hoodie comes out of the washer a different color than when you put it in. Like a genuinely confused, what in the ever living fuck are you talking about face. So what was this writing assignment that threw me off so badly? It was pretty simple. Write about something you are good at. I think my response was, “What do you mean?” Like she had just given me some cryptic hidden message I had unearth.

She repeated it with a smile, “I want you to write about what you are good at.” Now if she had asked me to write about things that are painful? Cool. Physical or Emotional? And how extreme do you want me to go? Cause I’ve got everything. No seriously, I got you. But happiness or things that make me happy because I know I’m good at them?? Um….yeah…about that.

Continue reading “Invisibility” →