totalitas - Tumblr blog

[totalitas]

i guess i just can’t find an aspect of my life rn that i’m actually happy with. the only thing i actually like thats going on rn is that i have a dog, like theres just nothing fulfilling about what i’m doing. but is that because of like who i am or is it because of the people around me? i keep thinking of all these people i have in my life that i just...i meet people and i want to like them and i like them until i actually start talking to them and then i just dont like them anymore. i mean i guess thats just being an adult, you just get narrower standards for the people you keep around, but like jeez. idk i just cant find anyone who has the same feelings that i do abt like anything.

i mean even my fiance is like...god i just cant think of a time i felt like he actually cared about me beyond himself and that really pisses me off because i keep telling him like you have to listen to me and ask me how i feel before talking and he just...cant or something. and i am surrounded by people who just get drunk all the time and get naked and do drugs and i just am so like...i guess i feel weird bc everyone my age wants to just like let loose and do shit and im just constantly grinding. CONSTANTLY. and im trans and fucking hate my body so everyone around me is just...so comfortable in comparison. like the limits i put on myself because im dysphoric are so frustrating and then no one around me understands or anticipates those limits so im left defending myself and removing myself at every turn just to avoid getting hurt and upset. i mean i just cant participate in young life like everyone else and its so frustrating to realize that my youth could be spent cutting loose and instead i have to retreat all the time and write about my feelings. over and over and over. there’s no time either, i feel the pressure to get everything done for my “future” but god i just feel like my whole life has been absolute garbage for some kind of “future” and i never get to have anything good in the present. i legitimately cant fathom it being any different

[totalitas]

its not as if i expected him to remember, but not a word was spoken this august about my dad’s birthday. i get it, its a thing that happens every year. its not a big deal to anyone really. it wasnt a heart wrenching day for me, but i did consistently think about it for 2 weeks, without much despair but definitely with a sense of unease. it’s not as though i expected him to notice that without my prompting but it stung that the month of august seemed to revolve around his feelings of loneliness and inadequacy rather than an open conversation in which i felt heard enough to talk about my feelings. instead i felt tired and pressured, and when i did have struggles they were second place. ive expressed that very often, but i did tell him i expected more of him, and he agreed. i dont know when that will begin to happen. i have my life planned ahead with him, and i dont want to be apart from him. i just want him to treat me kindly.

[totalitas]

i feel weird. i feel like ive been snipped at for 4 days straight. i understand its hard to have someone in the house, so i try to be considerate of that. i just feel like i’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of sharp comments. i think i’ve made some myself, so i suppose i have to call it even at the end of the day. but i wonder if that isnt just me trying to take some blame so i feel like i could affect some change in the future. it’s really frustrating to feel like i’m balancing my partner as well as a house guest. it’s not like i feel it’s easy to have someone in my house, but i have definitely dealt with a much longer more more impolite house guest before and not been irritable and rude to him over it. 

[totalitas]

how do you push through the feelings that seem determined to destroy you? both my mind and body rebel against me. how do you continue to live your life as if the warring souls inside you do not wish to swallow you in sadness? i want to be a smooth river stone, drifting in the current. but i am like a nest of nettle, scraping against my selves.

[totalitas]

i have found that in my quest to be a more honest and open individual i’ve made a lot of mistakes. my most intense transgressions involved refusing to take blame, which occurred at the start of our relationship. i was so focused on my own feelings that all i could say was “you did this wrong.” in the past 3 years i’ve become more adept at describing my feelings with ownership, and recently i’ve become more honest about my feelings as well as my intentions to become a better person.

but there are negatives to being open that i never predicted. being the first to say, “i’m hurt.” often means generating an impression of criticism in another person. “what you did hurt me, i wish you hadn’t done that.” is indeed a criticism, but does that make it wrong? and to be told one isn’t sorry but they are sorry for hurting me...is this an acceptable apology? to me, an apology is accepting that what you did should not have been done. but to say you don’t regret what you’ve done and that your regret stems from the other person’s emotional display? what consists of a realistic and healthy apology?

[totalitas]

pretty crazy that i just had to teach my partner that just saying sorry over and over stops meaning something if there’s nothing that comes after it. like i just had to explain to him why it’s important to acknowledge and say what you’re going to work better on in the future instead of just saying sorry.

and also for what seems like the 100th time i’ve explained that making you statements and then expecting to be validated in the middle of throwing accusations around is really fucking unfair to the other person. i don’t know how many different ways i can say the same thing.

but this is what i mean when i say every time i have a good day i have a fucking bad day directly after. i can say the nicest sweetest shit and he still comes at me with these accusations, and then once he’s off he’s off and i can’t diffuse the situation even if i try to acknowledge it, he just keeps lobbing these you statements and i’m like okay!! OKAY!! i fucking get it will you lay off!! i mean i acknowledge that i don’t handle situations like that well but i also know that if i acted the way he acted in arguments we’d be a lot messier than we are now. i feel like i’m constantly on the defensive when we’re arguing because he’s just always accusing me of telling him he’s a bad person. it’s so tiresome. i feel like i’m trying to communicate with a wall

[totalitas]

let's do a rundown

1.) in the hot tub we are discussing french, i say i was complimented on my french accent in school. he says he's never really heard me say anything in french so i try but can't remember much so i tell him i'll read him something. he says yes and seems interested

2.) i go inside and he takes a shower while i'm looking up fairytales. i practice a little while he's in the shower so i don't mess up a lot while i'm reading to him. he knows i'm practicing

3.) he comes in and i read him little red riding hood. it's quite short, i get into it with voices and gesticulations.

4.) at the end, i prompt him "How did you like it? Was it good?" he's looking at his phone, which he does when other things are happening in order to concentrate, but he responds distantly "It was nice." when i try to get a little more feedback he just says "I liked it, it was nice" distantly again

5.) i say "Are you sure? You don't seem like you liked it." to which he replies that "Just because you're insecure doesn't mean I didn't like it" and explains about his phone being out. i wasn't annoyed but now i am deeply annoyed

6.) I tell him I wasn't even insecure in the first place and he doesn't respond at all. So i get up and get a shower.

7.) when i come back in the room i decide i just want to go to bed because i'm annoyed and he's not engaging with me at all. i start getting my side of the bed ready for sleep and he says "Are you going to bed?" to which i reply casually "I think so, yeah" and then he says "But I thought we were going to have sex?" and i say "Well it seems to me like you weren't feeling very communicative so I decided to let you be." and then he says okay and we go to sleep.

[totalitas]

I don't really know how to articulate what I've been feeling lately. I know that I'm a mentally ill person, that I've been through a lot in my life that I can't even admit to myself, and that I have a hard time loving myself and taking care of myself. I usually try to tell you things after I've formulated a plan for how to fix them, but I've decided I can't do that anymore. It's not healthy and I truly feel like the ability is beyond me at this point. I want to be able to say, "Here's my problem and here's a plan on how to tackle it" every time, but I've got to stop putting the onus on myself to make everything "right."

I guess that's what I want to tell you. That I've been blaming myself for everything. All of the time--I run on guilt. I've been guilty for things that happened that I had a hand in as well as things that have had nothing to do with me. Everything that happens between us, or to us, or in spite of us, I logically know that sometimes things just happen. Sometimes mistakes just happen. But even though I can say that, in my heart, I take on the responsibility for the future. My favorite thing to do is ask myself, "What can I do to fix this?" without asking myself if it's even something I can or should fix in the first place.

I don't think of you or our relationship as a project. You've expressed that feeling in the past, so I want you to know that when I try to fix things, it's because I care and I want to enact change in my life. But I feel like my personality is burning away. I feel like I have spent so long feeling responsible for every bad feeling of yours and of mine that I have been scooping out my insides like a pumpkin to be able to contain all of my guilt, shame, and feelings of responsibility. I am afraid to tell you things, not because I am afraid of things being wrong, but because I am afraid that if I take one false step, everything will fall apart. I spend every moment wondering how you're feeling, if there's something I can do to help you feel good, if there's anything I've done to make you feel bad. My whole emotional life has been taken up by a feeling of responsibility for your moods, your actions, and your feelings.

Logically, I can say that this is because of a mixture of so many different things in my life that have caused me to end up like this. I have ALWAYS been tiptoeing around people, hypervigilent and supremely careful not to rock the boat. I want things to be Okay all of the time because I feel like anything I say or do will make thing not Okay. That's how my life has always been, so it makes sense that I still feel this way now.

[totalitas]

i have spent most of our physical relationship taking cues from a person who can't give them correctly. i have spent a lot of time trying to do what will make someone else happy, without ever having been told how to do that. i have been trying to be what i thought i was supposed to be and failing miserably because no one ever sat down with me and told me how to succeed. that's not my fault. i don't have to feel guilty for being the victim of trauma and of a person who can't articulate their own desires in a healthy way. i didn't do anything wrong. i wasn't selfish or bad, it just was poor communication with a person who never had any positive sexual experiences

i'm with a person who actually has a high libido but doesn't have the mental capacity to enact it for himself. he says he wants things but he doesn't want to initiate all the time. i barely ever want things with him, so he usually initiates when he wants them. so do i just continue to only initiate when i feel like it? why should i have to do something that he wants when i don't want to? i can't compromise my mental health for his needs, but i don't want to be neglectful.

i'm angry and resentful of him because i feel as though i've spent most of our relationship trying to anticipate his feelings and needs without any hints or clues. now he's telling me what he wants and i'm already burnt out on him. does that mean our relationship is failing? i don't want the answer to be yes. if i don't want it to be yes it doesn't have to be right?

i have to be more independent but independence makes me so lonely. even if i'm independent i don't believe i'll get what i want or need from him. if i do everything right by myself and i still don't feel loved or supported by him, does that mean i have to give it up? does that mean our relationship can't continue?

i know that it takes two to tango, but what if i tango as well i as i can and i still can't make it work? and why do i feel solely responsible for our relationship? i didn't feel that way always. i feel really bad about myself and who i am because of the things he has said to me about myself. when i make a mistake he pounces on it. i feel like he's waiting for an excuse so i have to be really good. that's not okay. it's really not okay. i don't know why i feel that way but i know that's the worst way i could possibly feel about the situation

[totalitas]

when i say was sheltered growing up, it's not strictly true because i went to public school and had the internet. it's more like there's no better way to describe the complete alienation i suffered growing up in an ultra religious conservative household. even by conservative religious standards it was stifling. the way i was treated and expected to live was truly TWISTED and it has made me a lonely and fundamentally unrelatable person. i don't know if i can ever forgive my parents for the damaging and traumatic things they unwittingly did to my psyche, and i don't know how to experience myself as a free and autonomous adult.

[totalitas]

i feel death in me. so white hot it burns. so pitch black it consumes me. so maroon it spreads to every inch of my body. coiled tight but heavy like lead. i feel death behind my eyes and in my heart, i feel death against my soul. i feel death in me.

[totalitas]

every touch i've ever felt was haloed in guilt and fear. every feeling deep within me was like a clenching fist, a burning pain, a tearing and rending of my very heart in response to a fleeting wish, a desired touch, the fear of coercion, the pain of empathy. casual admittion of deep seated guilt was the supreme ruler of my childhood. even to this day i have never moved beyond this place of solitude and shame. to acknowledge my cage is painful, but to do so and still feel merely incidental is death. who will stop hearing me enough to listen?

[totalitas]

i want to feel valued. i've come to the realization that all the value i felt with you was to suit your needs and wants. i don't feel satisfied. i feel guilty near you always. everything you've done has been to garner something. i want to feel valued in a way that doesn't ask for anything in return. you think that's what you've done for me all this time, but it isn't. i don't want to be pampered and coddled and i don't want all the attention on me. that's what you thinking loving with no return is. i want to be loved without the strings. i would do the same.

[totalitas]

i want to escape your moods. i wish you would grow a spine. i wish you would develop sense. “why do things never go the way i plan?” because you are so focused on things that dont matter that you forget to plan. PLAN. and when a problem arises, what do you do? you fall to pieces. THAT is why things never go well when you are “in charge.” you can’t accept anything, not even me. 

i dont know who to be with you. i dont feel comfortable being myself with you. i dont feel comfortable being anyone with you. i’m tired of being your mother.

[totalitas]

i'll keep this up as long as i can. but something's got to give. something has got to.

[totalitas]

i suffer and i move forward and i carry the suffering with me.

[totalitas]

i cried so earnestly my eyes began to sting with dryness. the headiness of drinking is gone, and now there is an ache in my nose and over my eyes. only moments ago i was a fountain, overflowed. now i am as a desert, wasted and lonesome.