Exhale

↑ ↑ ↑ this is really important!!

Wow I actually really needed to hear all of this.

i admire people who could’ve turned cold after everything they’ve been through but still chose love anyway. there’s strength in that

loneliness in the age of the internet is a strange creature to grapple with. how can you say you’re alone when the whole world is at your fingertips. how can you say you’re not when you’re watching the whole world continue to exist as if you don’t matter for being in it. every missed party and missed opportunity lit up in high definition. every memory you’d rather forget. it would be so easy to just pick up the phone, right? send that message. but still, that fear: what if you try and nobody wants to listen?

those who truly care about not abusing others and not causing harm take it as a priority to learn how their behaviour affects others and take other’s feedback seriously! they don’t accuse you and laugh at you when you tell them their jokes hurts your feelings, they will not belittle you twice if you tell them once that it made you feel bad, they will not tell you what you should or shouldn’t be feeling, they will not compare you to others to tell you what you should be like! they will not turn the other way when you’re showing symptoms of anxiety, depression or panic, they don’t look at you like you’re a freak if you don’t act socially acceptable all the time, they don’t tell you that you’re making shit up or that your problems aren’t real or aren’t as big as you make them, they listen to what you say, they actively make sure they’re not hurting you! a person who cares about not abusing will not do self justifications or excuses, they will stop doing whatever hurts you after they get the first clue that it’s causing you pain! anyone who would ignore your protest and do it twice know exactly what they’re doing, and is doing it on purpose. Once they know how their behaviour is affecting you, they know what they’re doing when they repeat it. If they insist they have the right to repeat it, you can turn your back on them. It’s a red flag.

abuse they said would be a bad word, a slime in my mouth that grew overnight that spread in calla lilies on me, on this body he prized. they didn’t tell me i’d love him. they didn’t tell me that when it was good, it was sky good, lick the moon good. he was proud of me and i could die in that moment. when he was happy he wrote it in big letters, in dinners and movies, in perfect romances. they didn’t tell me it would be so easy to see it was my fault - i even thought i was the abusive one: after all, didn’t i hurt him? didn’t i let him down? it was my fault i had friends that took up my time. that i went out once a week, had fun alone at night. it was my fault i had family and work and other things to pile in between us. i was already so unsure of myself. so convinced i was burden before i even met him. all he did was point out the truth of what i already knew was happening: that i was manipulative, ignorant, selfish, cruel, unwilling to do the work to save us. i thought i was drowning him. i couldn’t stop the ugly melting off of me. i told him i was trying, i was trying, i was trying. i thought i was the broken part. i saw how good we were when i was behaving and i knew if i could just be better, undo the sticky parts of me, unscrew all the screwy, if i could unwrite the burden of my mental illness and untie my hands and skewer myself on perfection: i could bring it back. i could make it good again.