wtfimqueer

[wtfimqueer]

My soul is in need of a good interior designer

[wtfimqueer]

i’ll stop being crazy once everything goes my way forever

[wtfimqueer]

Alain de Botton, Essays in Love [transcript in ALT]

[wtfimqueer]

“How long they choose to love you will never be your decision.”

— Drake; Thank Me Now

[wtfimqueer]

“You never realize how much someone means to you, until you mean nothing to them.”

— William Chapaman

[wtfimqueer]

I have one month to figure out who I want to be by the time I turn 30.

[wtfimqueer]

How am I expected to sleep with such a premium level existential crisis in my head?

[wtfimqueer]

[wtfimqueer]

Beau Taplin, Desire

[wtfimqueer]

I was just listening to some music I enjoyed in college. As I heard the lyrics, I remembered who I was then. Emaciated. Drunk. An addict. So very lonely. Self-centered. I began to feel disassociated and separate like I did when I was in my early twenties. I thought about each time I almost didn't make it until the next day.

Then, I realized it's been ten years. I'm not that person anymore. I'm sober and older. So, I turned off the music and walked into the cabin that I own in the mountains that I love. I told my three pups that I love them and listened to the water run as my fiance showered downstairs. This is the life that broken person stood up and built. It feels like an accident...like it happened by chance...but that's not true. I built this with the help and support of my loved ones and the universe.

I am deeply imperfect, but life is far from the hell it used to be. I'm glad I stuck around for these ten years.

[wtfimqueer]

It's weird that life exists so blatantly at night. Like, I feel at night. I process my feelings at night. I remember who I want to be at night. I understand who I truly am at four in the morning.

But these fuckers at work want me up and functional at eight. That's rude, guys.

[wtfimqueer]

You know, I don’t talk about things like this on here, but it’s time. 

I am so incredibly angry, and disheartened, and exhausted. 

You guys don’t know this, but I’ve struggled with an anxiety disorder (and a panic disorder) my entire life. It started when I was 7. I’m now 29. It’s been a while. 

It affects things like eating, traveling, socialization, general happiness, shopping, loud situations…honestly, there are more things that trigger my anxiety than things that don’t. I live in a constant state of stress and anxiety. 

Most people don’t understand this. They think they have felt anxious or get stressed in certain situations, so they expect me to cope in the same ways they do. But they don’t understand it. Let me break it down for you.

I’ve had four breakdowns in my adult life. Why? Who the fuck knows? Once it was from travel. Once it was from partying too much. Once it was from a fight with a friend. It can come from anywhere at any time. And, when this happens, I am out of commission for a YEAR. I’m not shitting you. 

I lay on the couch and try to breathe through every waking second. I can’t see people. I can’t go to the store. I can’t work. I panic when the sun comes up, and I panic when the sun goes down. I panic when it storms or the lighting is a little off. 

These breakdowns destroy my life, and I have to build it back up. It’s a nightmare, and I live in constant fear that the next panic attack could be the one that destroys everything I have fought so hard to build. 

Anxiety has manifested itself in physical symptoms for me as well. I have had TMJ for thirteen years from grinding my teeth. I have a specialized form of eczema on my hands that is stress induced. My muscles are so tight that a massage feels like agony. I’m exhausted all the time.

I have done everything right, guys. I’ve been to therapy for two decades. I’ve taken my meds, on time, every day. I’ve meditated. I’ve studied Buddhism. I’ve challenged my fears and survived them. Still, this is my life. It is joyless.

And now, I have a job that I love. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m so good at it, you guys. It pays me (almost) like I’m a human. And you know what? I had to lie to get it. 

When I was interviewing, my boss told me that we have quarterly retreats all over the US for teambuilding. He asked if that would be a problem, and I lied. I did. I said, “No problem.” You know why? Because it ticked off every other box I had. It’s remote. It pays enough. It’s my dream. I thought, “I’ll figure something out before I have to take one of these trips. I’ll get better. I have to.” 

Well, it’s here. The company has announced that they’ll tell us where we are traveling to within two weeks. And guys, I am so defeated. I am so angry. I can’t tell them who I am because jobs don’t give a fuck about mental illness. 

If I had an illness that manifested physically, you know, besides the sweating, shaking, hyperventilating, vomiting, eczema, headaches, malnourishment, and exhaustion, then any job would be happy to accommodate my illness. But they can’t see it. It doesn’t show as a broken bone or an open wound, and it doesn’t receive the same treatment.

I spoke with my dad about it today because I was so deflated. He said, “I don’t want you to use this as an excuse.” And you know what? I apologized to him like a fucking idiot. I apologized. For being ill. THAT is how deeply ingrained shame and dismissal of mental illness is. I feel like shit because I’m sick, but I’m not allowed to be sick. 

I’m stuck in this loop of self-hatred. Why is my life like this? Will I ever actually experience joy? I don’t think so. I really don’t. It’s been so long and nothing has changed. I feel hopeless. I won’t harm myself because it won’t fix anything, but God do I feel like it. 

I’m tired of being punished by myself and the world at large. I deserve more than minimum wage and shitty jobs with no chance to progress and grow. I am talented and driven; I’m just ill. I can’t quite do everything everyone else can, but that doesn’t mean I’m useless. I have value. I am so fucking tired of throwing myself into tailspins to make the outside world happy and destroying myself in the process. There has to be a space for us. Someone, make a space for us. It’s literally a matter of life and death.

[wtfimqueer]

It is 1:39 am, and, though I should be sleeping, I am too in awe. When the clock struck midnight, I turned 29 years old. Instead of feeling older, I feel more myself. A spiritual path, an opening up of existence, has been laid before me. I am blessed to stumble blind and uncomfortable towards the answer. My therapist said I may be having an existential crisis, but I told her she was wrong. I'm ending an existential crisis, one that I've lived in for as long as I can remember. I am living the answer.

Y'all, it is mystifying. I, the world's largest skeptic, once the most passionate atheist, now know that I was wrong. I don't know what's out there. Honestly, it feels like it is right here in simultaneous and intertwined existence.

Earlier, I placed my thumb and index finger together to form a circle and allowed myself to just play. My thumb circled the index finger over and over in a self-soothing massage, and, when I finally parted them, I felt a cord of energy snap. They were linked by something I couldn't see, and I had given power to it by feeling it.

I have ignored or misunderstood my intuition my entire life. Recently, I have allowed it to creep into my logical brain. It is real and has been grabbing me by the face, screaming with joy at finally being acknowledged.

Roots are growing from my chest. I can feel them just as I feel an unfolding within myself.

I am grateful, and alive, and uncomfortable, and afraid, and so very willing.

[wtfimqueer]

this is basically what coming out is

[wtfimqueer]

Today, I got Chinese takeout and was so hungry that I stood at my kitchen counter and devoured it like a goblin.

Then, I was so tired from my frenzied feast that I left it on the counter, uncovered, and watched Boy Meets World for two hours in a heap of loserness on the couch.

Come at me.

[wtfimqueer]

maybe i will talk to the sea she’s as angry and as gentle as me

[wtfimqueer]

“She felt dangerously powerful, she loved, she knew love, everything else paled.”

— Anna Delbee