#sometimes dread fills me when i see one cuz im like ''what did i do now''

[superchat]

Hey fathör. Genuine question. How do you get like okay with the idea of like "it's better if I'm alone"? Cause I really resonated with some of the posts you've made talking about that but like the idea of being alone also kinda makes me scared. Like how do you get over that feeling?

uhmmmmmmm, im not the best person to ask cuz i have Problems and have had zero therapy in my life. im on no medications and have no diagnosis i am confident in saying i have, other than general depression but even then i dont know the extant that i have it, or the ways i feel it or deal with it.

generally the feeling doesnt go away. for me itts an unhealthy battle of "will my selfishness win or my will?" cuz its always conflicting feelings of "i dont think i should be friends with ppl cuz i can be shitty and im not mature enough for them" vs. "i am lonely and want to talk and connect with ppl" and eventually my selfishness wins and i start talking to ppl again even tho i cant justify itt to myself so

ive always been kind of a solitary person, or someone who enjoys their alone time. over the years its gotten more? worse?

humhumhum i noticed a ttrend over time where i like. get in like, a better mood and then act like an ass in some way or another and that will knock down my self esteem and stuff

last year was very eventful in a lot of bad ways and after it ive had enough things settle in my head that its okay to stay away from others for my own good as well as theirs. i kind of live in a constant "i dont think im being a good enough friend" while also feeling very exhausted as if im doing a lot but like really, im not. after many months this is still the case so i think itts just the new standard for me

[cyanpeacock]

Realtalk(tm): The Continued Brainprocessing of Fucky Shit

it’s a long one boys but they all are atm

like jinkies scoob i have been Avoiding So Much with les drogues. avoiding so much like, wow, shit, I Feel So Empty Around People Who Were In My Life. but yes, very necessary to dissociate from this shit for a period while i adjusted to the possibility of, oh, wait, this really is My Apartment? this... i can Live Here without being Disturbed or Attacked? still adjusting. but without les drogues this time.

im continually coming to terms with like... ok, so, i have been and sometimes still like... engage in emotionally and physically abusive behaviour towards my own body, and to other bodies around me? 

and also, i am coming to terms with, this does not strictly mean i am An Abuser Forever full stop (i.e. Bad Person, Irredeemable, Disgusting, Abhorrent, Should Be Euthanised, etc).

this is reflective of, emotional and physical abuse has been so normalised to me as a young individual, that i have been repeating patterns of behaviour i saw routinely growing up, not even understanding why that kind of behaviour is hurtful or how i could do stuff differently. and that kind of makes me go, oh shit. dude, what the hell? that’s... that’s actually, yeah, that’s one fucked up upbringing. it really Was that bad. 

even regarding like The Voices In My Head(tm), my reaction historically was just like, scream at them? yell at them? injure the body somehow until they shut up or it passes out? 

which, uh, oh. that’s totally what my mother did when i was displaying “unreasonable” or “irrational” emotions as a small thing. rejecting then snapping then shouting then smacking until i either ran away to cry alone and injure myself more (emotional abandonment; reenacting and normalizing physical punishment) or went very numb and quiet and compliant like a Good Child (dissociative reaction/freezing; fawning). 

now like i am aware of these structures and this history Right Now. but still frequently i do get into the old frame of mind where it’s like, “you’re being stupid. you’re overreacting. you’re being melodramatic. Other People Have It Worse. Just Don’t Think About It” which, yeah, that’s introjected from a number of adult figures in my life. very very unhelpful, but when you’re a kid, you’re looking to adults for structures to implement to help you navigate your own life. when those adults are emotionally unhealthy... Yeah. this happens.

and right now, i’m like, uh, what the hell? it’s not a dick measuring contest, you’re telling a kid in pain that they’re not allowed to express their pain?

like i’ve talked abt this before probably but it’s an incident that reminds me how fucked up the whole situation was and is. when my school found out i was self harming in like y7 (so like, 11-12yo), because i’d cut so far down my PE shorts didn’t cover the marks, my PE teacher legally had to get the school to call home. and like, i fucking Begged her, please don’t, a call home is gonna make things SO much worse for me. but ofc the law is the law especially when it comes to teaching, and the call home got made. and later that evening my mother bust into my room with NO warning and fucking screamed at me, “You Selfish Little Cow.” 

like i went numb as hell. i don’t really remember clearly what she said after that but it was a whole tirade. stuff about how i was a brat and going to get her in trouble with social services and how i was ruining the family (implicitly, her life) and causing trouble, and how i ought to Think About What I’d Done. i was thinking/feeling, oh my god, she’s beating me again. i’ve ruined everything for everyone again. this is all my fault. i’m responsible, i’m the one to blame, i should have hidden it better. i’m not allowed to talk. i’m not allowed to feel. i’m supposed to be Quiet and Good and Do School and Not Annoy Anyone and Behave. i’ve failed. i am a failure. I Am A Selfish Little Cow. 

i think i tried to commit after she left? but like, in that way where you’re so numb and out of it you can’t actually physically pull together the methods, despite the mind wanting No More. 

and like i’ve been going to visit the woman that DID THAT TO ME. smiling and telling her about my life while Really Fucking Avoiding Telling Her Any Details About My Life. hesitating in pain and then adding “xx” to the end of the text messages i felt like i was obliged to send her. trying to convince myself “she’s my mum, i’m not gonna get another one, i should call her, it’s not so bad, we can talk about... uh, talk about politics, or religion, or, uh, her dog, or my siblings...” COMPLETELY fucking avoiding the fact that, like. this is the Same Person who caused me all that pain, and i don’t feel safe or secure talking to her about important details of my life, or my emotions, or, well, me. i hide and go Nothing Is Wrong! :) I’m Doing Fine! :) 

and! it really does seem like she’s not, you know, as cruel as she was with me, with her other children, at least since after i ran away. but no amount of that can actually change MY memories of growing up with her? my more-or-less programmed Make Her Happy reaction to her physical body? i can’t just, you know, conveniently forget those Things that Hurt Me to engage with her for her happiness. because, well, Her Happiness is not My Happiness, although i was lead to believe that was so. and, when i’m Conveniently Forgetting those things (i.e. my emotions at the hands of an abusive relative), i’m not behaving with the proper regard for myself as a person, and by extension i’m missing pieces of how to properly engage with other people. 

i don’t wanna like, mask the in between spaces of utter dread and anxiety and total blankness with Everything Is Totally Fine. I Am Functioning. Yes I Did Well In School This Year. That’s All That Matters. What Have I Been Doing? Oh You Know. The Usual. (without ever saying what The Usual is, because, yeah, when i’m in that Mode, i don’t fucking know what i do at home! idk how i spend my time! My Function Is To Avoid Conflict). 

because, uh, yeah, academically, sure! i am functioning, sort of! bodily? uh, well, i’m SLOWLY learning how to properly feed myself, and sleep without chemicals, and stay clean, stuff like that. socially? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. okay, fuck. that’s the one i can’t... figure out, like, at all, on my own. how do i... where the fuck do I even start? i’m not even okay enough with Myself to navigate the social world without passing inappropriate judgement on potential peers. i see people who might, Might, be friends, and my brain goes POTENTIAL THREAT REGISTERED. SELF: SIGHTED. ACTION: HIDE. DO NOT APPROACH. FLEE IF CONTACT INITIATED. 

SO LIKE. my issue now is, i totally know that like... these patterns of behaviour are not My Fault, don’t make me Useless, Bad, Bratty etc, if i sit down and write about it, frowning on-and-off for hours. but, i can’t actually implement these regulatory thought processes in realtime quickly enough to... meet new people and enjoy it? on like, a social level? even on a professional level i have to wait for a good day, and switch off like, chunks of me to get the Task Completed. and uh, talking to friends isn’t a Task process, it’s supposed to be a Leisure process?

i’m quite capable of filling my time and navigating the world quietly, alone! there is a surprising amount i can find to do. but hypothetically i’d really like to, like, meet people, and not talk about “haha dude I’m so sick right now. let’s smoke another blunt,” because while it was... uh, reassuring? and i suppose fun? for a while? to meet other people dealing with life pain like that, that sort of thing gets really mutually toxic.

like, i’m in the process of quitting drugs altogether, and drugs tend to go hand in hand with that social space. daily use, even second-hand smoke, is not something i can be around any more. weed was great for ages, but now like, the drug basically told me “nah g i’m not for u any more”? - as in, it was not helping me any further, i could feel this, and i just... smashed the pipe i’d smoked out of since living in the YMCA, deleted my dealers’ numbers, and withdrew. goodbye ganja! I Keap The   B o m g   In My Mind Now

i was offered like, support from a local drug addiction charity? people fucking pushing me and pushing me to go there, actually. but like... i step outside the place and the ground is carpeted in fag ends. there are cheap booze shops like 5 minutes walk away. it felt like the kind of place where something heavy would come up in group, and i’d be with the people who peel away afterwards to chainsmoke, get a couple litres of cheap voddy, then somebody pulls out their second phone to get a baggie of the good shit once the booze hits? like it could easily just drag me back down. this is a thing i gotta discuss later, and more privately. that kind of group Not For Me.

i’d also like... started Really noticing the whole undercurrent of like, anger and judgement and denial and impermanence in the we’re-all-mentally-ill-here social spaces i used to hang out in? and i’m aware that i was participating in that too, and that while it was good to begin with and for a long time, it really isn’t good for me any more. actually tbh i go Completely Wack upon returning to those people and places now. which, fuck, like, if the person in question happens to be reading this, i’m very sorry. and yeah, sorry doesn’t cut it, because that must have been Fucking Alarming from your perspective, and i wouldn’t have done it if i’d been in my right mind, and i wasn’t in my right mind, and currently can’t be around so many triggers, and yeah your lifestyle being triggering to me is NOT your fault at all, which is why all i can really do is a disappearing act. cuz there’s no conversation that can even make a goodbye feel right, fucker that this situation is. rip. 

so yeah uh. my issue now, is Establishing Trust and Healthy Social Connections. that is, trust that someone is gonna like me for, the collection of things i like and do and say and am? uh, or even several people? 

this... is one i can’t figure out Alone, because, well, it concerns social relations. and i have very little confidence in social relations, because, well, they’ve either been painful, or centered around painful experiences. and i’ve been told that when i’m really truly enthusiastic and happy about something, i’m overwhelming and annoying to others? so i put the brakes on like crazy if i start feeling “too” happy and end up going Appeasement Mode to get out of the social situation as quickly and smoothly as possible.

and uh, what, i don’t even know the collection of things i like and do and say and am. i don’t... Know all of those things at any one time. how, uh, what? what am I. you know. the usual ??????????? flippy haze. 

i mean! i’m getting better at talking Within myself. i REALLY try to talk slowly with kindness and understanding of context to myself and the voices in my head now, and figure out solutions to pain and problems that don’t involve different kinds of pain or avoidance? but i still lapse into like, you know, Augh Jesus Christ I’ve Heard This One Before Why Do I Need To Have This Discussion Again, and frequently i can’t find a viable alternative for avoidance, because i get overwhelmed easily and that makes EVERYTHING worse. and i haven’t figured out how to take my foot off the brake pedal, either, even though i’m not always pressing it. I Need It There For Now Or Else The Car Might Crash u kno. 

so, like, what? i guess i just keep, talking kindly to the voices, and also to myself? practice until it becomes the default state of being when a trigger pops in? this requires patience, and also booting away people who refuse to have patience with me. unfortunate, necessary.

the thing about IRL conversations, is they happen so QUICKLY, and like, i don’t have enough time to calm the brain down from every trigger that pops up! because like, it can be a facial expression, a movement, a word or phrase, a tone, something in the periphery, something behind me, an internal sensation. it’s SO much information my brain is scanning urgently for threats, and my brain scans harder the more a person knows me, because a person who knows you can deal WAY more damage than a stranger. 

so... yes. this is the part i require assistance with. Hrrrrrrmmnhghdfgjnh.

I SUPPOSE. perhaps now the university have stepped in to arrange a case review with the NHS, they can really push for the kind of support i need. which, yeah, it’s long-term one-on-one trauma-focused counselling or therapy, and also some help with social interaction???? not repeated crisis team referrals, not some 12-week DBT course, i’ve literally been off finding DBT skills and employing them on my own because the waiting lists are so fucking long, and not a 12-week psychodynamic course, because i’ve been seeing a psychodynamic counsellor on and off for four years privately, and the work is nowhere near a conclusion. shit, i’d be satisfied if they could just somehow secure funding for me to keep seeing that guy specifically? he’s REALLY helpful to me, literally like my fucking role model for non-toxic masculinity. and i’m not ready for like, group social skills work, Yet. but soon, you know? only when i’m like “okay, yeah, i really do think I can handle this without my health going backwards again” - which, i need more within-myself security for that. 

also better mood monitoring would be nice, i.e. seeing the same damn person, who actually knows my case, instead of a different person every time saying “I’ve just quickly had a look at your case notes”. because if i go low again this winter, then my “depressive disorder NOS” is bipolar, and i’ve been mismedicated from the beginning. and yeah honestly like? as soon as it starts getting dark and cold, I get inexplicably sad, even with plenty of indoor light and warm clothes and whatnot. but yeah we’ll see about that.

anyway This Shit Wack. Im Done.

[haunt-me-x3]

Lines from songs that make my chest hurt "this is my body, the only thing that i own entirely" "miss you perfectly, like a dream" "i remember becoming winter, haunted by light / true love turned to sickness in my body, trembling all night" "The world is ending inside you, let it love you to death" "We cant change this place the way it changes us" "My concept of happiness is completely based on fiction / accustomed to disappointment from the human condition" "Im looking at pictures of myself smiling with people i dont talk to or even talk shit on anymore" "Im waiting on you to get better, even if that means nights spent in the outpatient center" "I cant bear to see him, like this again" "Maybe i should get some sunlight, but its just some yellow burden to me" "Shadows settle on the place that you left, our minds are troubled by the emptiness" "I am forgetting to be someone" "Whatever i did for you last year i cannot do again" "there is very little left of me, and its never coming back" "Theres no doubt in my mind that if you could you would try to crack my ribcage open and pull my heart right through" "Someday, ill toss all your presents, and bury the letters left unsent" "If you be my star, ill be your sky, you can hide underneath me and come out at night" "I live to let you shine" "I was just 16 years old when i first lost my mind, in the summer metro ride, to the faceless ghosts inside" "Im not getting better, but i take these drugs i should, every night i sleep and hope i dream of something good" "Am i real to you? Can you even feel me?" "I am your ocean" "And i ask why? Why do we die?" "How can you be happy when you wear all black?" "I feel violent all the time, inside of me" "You ache through the days, cause youll never mend your ways" "Maybe human's not such a bad thing to be" "Shes not eating again, shes not eating again" "We've got your back, whatever thats worth" "I had a friend who had made a flag day, blood on their hands from shards of a heartbreak" "It wont get better, that doesnt mean its gonna get any worse" "If theres one thing i could never confess, its that i cant dance a single step" "She imagined everything i said in falsetto, the only way to justify my childish despair" "Absence makes the heart grow fonder, fondness makes the absence longer" "I am learning to love, i am learning to let myself be loved" "Isnt it obvious to you?" "Im just a brain with a pet body" "I guess its not surprising but its spring and now i should leave" "Change my mind so much i cant even trust it, my mind changed me so much i cant even trust myself" "It pulls all on down my sore feet, i wanna go back to sleep" "We kiss on the mouth but still cough down our sleeves" "Remember through sounds, remember through smells, remember through colors, remember through towns" "In that room when i first knew that i could love you" "I am listening to hear where you are" "I wish i could save her in some sort of time machine" "Tired of being awake, take all yr klonopin" "You were never supposed to leave, now my heads splitting at the seams" "Nothing happens, no one tries, pull the trigger on my mind cuz lifes a fucking bummer" "I dont like how things change" "Flowers are born to die, let the pain be" "I hate my mind and im stuck here in it" "Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist, so keep on loving, keep on fighting, and hold on, hold on....hold on for your life" "Brain never stops ticking, sometimes an on/off switch would sure come in handy" "My passion is spread too thin, its just like, i love...everything" "Somethings not right, shadows appear, i close my eyes...is this real life?" "I need your glow to glow" "Oh my god... youre in my head" "wanna be haunted, wanna be loved" "when i was younger i didnt have any fun" "you dont like me anymore" "He creeps into my bed, he fills me with dread, but everything is fine" "if the water takes me in the end, ill let myself drown" "Theres so much we could do if i wasnt dead" "i am not myself, havent been in months" "No one is invincible, everyone is immortal" "Everything feels cold when you lack something familiar, there was light trapped where the sun was... this is harder than i thought" "Try to find your way out to a city so big that it is bound to keep your secrets" "Wake up, is this a dream or reality?" "Let the air and fairness in this achey atmosphere erase the fear of coming off too strong" "left to find a reason to twist those thoughts so dry, one of us is always leaving, pile cans up to pass time" "I know i cant handle anything without losing my mind" "She is beautiful, but she dont mean a thing to me" "Only you can change yourself" "Home doesnt have an address" "they say you gotta pray if you wanna go to heaven, they dont tell you what to say when your whole life is turning to hell" "jesus christ im not scared to die, im a little bit scared of what comes after" "you ruin everything you touch and destroy everyone you love" "i want to feel more than just sorry for myself" "I used to be a better person" "Im breaking down in anybodys arms" "What a tragedy, you and me" "wonder what i would write, for a reason, if i just stopped breathing tonight" "Eyes that burn so bright they make me pure" "I slept all day, i awoke with distaste" "she bruises coughs, she splutters pistol shots" "im learning how to be here and nowhere else" "on your machine i slur a plea for you to come home, but i know its too late, i should have given you a reason to stay" "But i wish i still felt the same now, but i am emptier than ever somehow" "I cant abide by rules which are not my own"