a-place-to-exist

[a-place-to-exist]

when i’m drunk i always wish i could be like this all the time, i’m so happy, happy, happy, free of any worry

i cultivate my lightweightness carefully so that i can get drunk the fastest possible with the smallest amount of alcohol possible

the other night was 83cl of 8% alcohol on an empty stomach (+ a lot of physical activity) to get very drunk (even somewhat nauseous)

my previous therapist once said that my problem was that i thought too much (didn’t use these exact words but that’s what it meant) and i think i agree, i need things that make me stop thinking, i like when i don’t think, i like when i’m just an animal following my instincts and desires, paradoxically it makes me feel more human, because i’m more connected to myself and the world, i’m in my body rather than in my head, i’m a human

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things are going very well

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i wish i looked like that

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girls only want one thing and it’s to stop being mentally tortured

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earlier today i read some advice from a person online that was like, "you need to realize the past doesn't exist, it's only in head, the moment is gone and it doesn't actually exist in the reality, so you don't have to let it define you, stop thinking about all those times you embarassed yourself and focus on the present moment, get rid of the bad memories holding you back to become the person you want to be"

and anyway while showering i kept thinking about an embarrassing moment of my life so i tried to tell myself that "the past doesn't exist, what matters is now," and i focused on the physical sensations of the shower but uh... i immediately realized how flawed the person's argument was. I mean, i guess for regular little embarrassing memories you can stop thinking about them with a little effort, but if you have trauma or deal with dissociation, i strongly advise against telling yourself that "the past (or future) isn't real"... I immediately felt the derealization and i was like, oh no, backtrack, backtrack now... i think it's more anxiety-inducing than anything else.

And of course I don't think the person who said this had people with PTSD in mind but uh. If things were as easy as "just forget about it ! don't think about it ! :)" life would be much much more simple for many people

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had therapy and talked about my perception of my anxiety disorder and how i never really related to anxious representation bc i thought anxiety was an emotion, but for me i'm slowly still realizing it's a state of being, a way to think, to function, something in the background.

today also felt significant bc we talked about my past, how 10 years ago my problems started, we talked about how i'm afraid to ask for help bc i'm afraid i'll be ignored/not taken seriously/invalidated, and how i feel like i need to do things in the "right" way to be accepted/listened to, so not knowing what is the "right" way worsens my anxiety. she asked me to picture a door and like knocking on the door to ask for help but inside people were like "ugh". And asked me what i saw. Everything was compeltely black except for me and the door (very similar to when i first explored my inner world). And I saw the scene from quite far away, i would say at least 25-30 meters. and she asked me if i saw myself at a specific age and it was... it was me at like, 13-14, when it was the worst. And she asked me how i felt about the door and the people inside not listening/helping and the only word in my mind was "abandoned" but for some reason, i didn't say that, didn't want? dare? to say that. So i said, "(very) Sad", "left alone", which i thought was a softer way to say abandoned.

I talked about how when i was a teen things were very bad for me, but i didn't tell her how exactly. I had the feeling she'd have liked concrete examples to better understand but i realized that I am afraid(?) to talk about those things. Not afraid but... reluctant at least. I think maybe afraid because I think it's... too much. I don't know. I don't like making other people sad and they're things difficult to say out loud, maybe even for myself. "What were you feeling at the time?" "Like I was dead, dying, dead." "In so much pain I wanted to die". I think maybe I don't talk about it because I don't have words for it. For me it's images and feelings and memories... Bathroom floor, shower, sleepless nights, cheeks hot from tears, going crazy, clenched jaw, stinging on my arms and legs... I just said, "a lot of suffering and pain".

we also talked about primary school, friendships and non-friendships, and how i was often sick as a child, how my parents had to care for my brother, and the feeling of being a burden... not wanting to be a problem, to be too much, ask for too much...

we actually talked about a lot of things, towards the end i was pretty tired and i hoped the session would end soon. next time we'll do like an overview of what we've talked about ? Which will serve as good closure as I don't know if i'll be able to see her again after that (I might move away, might not, its kinda impossible to plan my life rn). She offered zoom therapy but i just, idk. i'm a "lets meet irl to talk about this" person and i don't think i can feel as comfortable behind a screen

been a little depressed and lovesick and hopeless these past few days

i should make a new therapy appointment but idk when ill be free…

[a-place-to-exist]

therapy tomorrow

I’m not sure what I want to talk about

i recently met with my GP to ask for more meds for anxiety and she said I could go to a psychiatrist and maybe try SSRIs as a long term alternative. And it felt so weird for my anxiety to be taken that seriously because I… like with meds I’ve been realizing how much anxiety actually affects me. This is my normal, so I don’t know what’s not normal, and I don’t take my struggles seriously and instead blame myself. Like the failing is from me and not the illness, because I don’t realize it’s an illness and not an emotion. I think that’s what I didn’t understand about anxiety disorder. It’s not feeling anxious. It’s being anxious. Thinking anxious. Functionning anxious. It’s a lifestyle… A pattern…

I don’t know where I was going with this but yeah ive just. been thinking about how every person is a whole universe that they can only communicate through words and actions but no one will ever be able to know what it’s like to be them and no one will ever be able to know what it’s like to be someone else. I have no idea what it’s like to be someone else. People have no idea what it’s like to be me. And i don’t know. It’s just… weird.

And yeah what I meant to say about my GP is that when she took me that seriously (I told her about how my anxiety is often paralyzing and that’s why I need meds) she said "if it’s that severe[…]" and i thought like oh… it’s severe? (the word she used wasn’t severe exactly). My anxiety right now is not good but it’s INFINITELY tamer than I experienced before. And it just feels so weird that people are taking me seriously now when this is nothing to me (i mean sure it’s not easy but I have had so much worse) because I realized Im completely unable to tell what is normal or not. I dont know what things are supposed to be like. I dont know who id be without anxiety

been a little depressed and lovesick and hopeless these past few days

i should make a new therapy appointment but idk when ill be free…

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"People who have disconnected from themselves discount their feelings by saying things like "I know this is stupid, but..." or "this is such a small thing; I'm embaressed to admit it." Their attitude toward their inner experience is full of shame. Not trusting their inner guidance, they are sheepish about their real feelings. But your inner experience is who you are. It's your job to notice and understand what goes on inside you. To be emotionally healthy, you need to be as available to yourself as you would be with someone you love.

When you disregard your own feelings and thoughts, your inner world feels empty and you start obsessing over other people and external circumstances. You then try to get other people to fill the vacuum left behind by your own emotional self-neglect. This further disconnects you from your inner world, reinforcing the false belief that security and stimulation can only come from outside yourself. Relationships become frustrating under these conditions because you're looking to other people for a validation that is already yours.

No amount of social activity will fill the emptiness where there should be a robust relationship with yourself. When you judgmentally reject your own thoughts and feelings, you create a life of anxious dependency in which no power is greater than someone's opinion of you."

From Self Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson

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ugh, i had a dream because of the fic, and about being sick. I really shouldn’t read things like this

read a fic today that uh, brought back some memories. I don’t know if i can call it triggering but I usually avoid stories like this for a reason. Drugs and self-destruction and self-hatred and lost childhood and lost innocence and wasted life. Brings me back to highschool and middle school and primary school. Being ten and knowing something was wrong, being thirteen and wanting to try drugs to get rid of these feelings, being sixteen and wantingtrying to kill yourself

I feel ridiculous talking about my youth but I want to talk about it to someone who will listen. I still feel so much grief. Ten years ago I was at… one of the lowest points of my life, and my life hadn’t even begun. One day I hope someone can listen to the story of how I was probably born fucked up and not judge it.

Anyway I’m going to spend the next few days with family and then I’ll see the doctor to talk about my… anxiety, and a treatment for it.

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i was thinking i could make a zine about what happened to me

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read a fic today that uh, brought back some memories. I don’t know if i can call it triggering but I usually avoid stories like this for a reason. Drugs and self-destruction and self-hatred and lost childhood and lost innocence and wasted life. Brings me back to highschool and middle school and primary school. Being ten and knowing something was wrong, being thirteen and wanting to try drugs to get rid of these feelings, being sixteen and wantingtrying to kill yourself

I feel ridiculous talking about my youth but I want to talk about it to someone who will listen. I still feel so much grief. Ten years ago I was at… one of the lowest points of my life, and my life hadn’t even begun. One day I hope someone can listen to the story of how I was probably born fucked up and not judge it.

Anyway I’m going to spend the next few days with family and then I’ll see the doctor to talk about my… anxiety, and a treatment for it.

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the way i think about my anxiety disorder now is just that i was too stressed for too long as a teen and it fried my nervous system so now its a bit whacky and pills make it more normal

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been a little depressed and lovesick and hopeless these past few days

i should make a new therapy appointment but idk when ill be free…

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i don’t have a lot of dissociation feelings these days :3c just zoning out but its bc i don’t sleep enough

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maybe i can put it this way: thinking i was autistic gave me community, thinking it's trauma instead alienates me even more

this might sound dumb and entitled but now that i think my symptoms are caused by trauma and not autism, i kind of... hate it. like idk, when you have autism (amongst ppl who know what autism is, probably are autistic, think you have autism too) you can just be like "i'm like that bc i'm autistic" and everyone is like "haha same" but now i have to be like "i'm like that bc xyz happened and now i'm like, weird haha" and it's like. I kind of hate it and it's weird to say so i just don't say it.

i think part of why i clung onto the idea that i was autistic is that it meant nothing changed me and it had always been me. as an individual. and not a result of consequences that i have to explain to people if they want to get to know me on a deeper level. I don't want to explain to people that bad things happened in my life and now I feel like I don't belong anywhere

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this might sound dumb and entitled but now that i think my symptoms are caused by trauma and not autism, i kind of... hate it. like idk, when you have autism (amongst ppl who know what autism is, probably are autistic, think you have autism too) you can just be like "i'm like that bc i'm autistic" and everyone is like "haha same" but now i have to be like "i'm like that bc xyz happened and now i'm like, weird haha" and it's like. I kind of hate it and it's weird to say so i just don't say it.

i think part of why i clung onto the idea that i was autistic is that it meant nothing changed me and it had always been me. as an individual. and not a result of consequences that i have to explain to people if they want to get to know me on a deeper level. I don't want to explain to people that bad things happened in my life and now I feel like I don't belong anywhere