Liberty City’s Favourite Passenger Princess

not while it’s happening.

after.

when i’ve already reblogged too much, or downloaded too much, or sat in someone’s space for too long like i was trying to learn how to exist through it.

and then it hits me that i did it again.

that i crossed into that familiar pattern where admiration turns into absorption and absorption turns into dependence and dependence turns into this quiet panic of “i need to step back but i don’t know what stepping back even feels like anymore.”

and i don’t think people understand what that kind of shift feels like from the inside.

it’s not just copying.

it’s not just inspiration.

it’s like my brain locks onto something and says “this is a working model of existence, use this.”

and i do.

until it stops fitting.

and then i’m just… left there.

in between versions of myself that don’t fully belong to me anymore.

and i start trying to “clean it up” like i can undo it by deleting, by distancing, by reorganizing my interests into something safer.

but it doesn’t fully go away like that.

because the pattern is still there underneath everything.

the reaching.

the mirroring.

the over-investment.

the way i treat connection like it’s something i have to hold tightly or it disappears completely.

and i hate how automatic it is.

how i can know it’s happening and still slide into it anyway because it feels like relief in the moment.

like finally breathing in something that makes sense.

and then later it becomes confusion again.

and guilt again.

and this weird quiet shame of realizing i didn’t just admire something, i tried to live inside it for a while.

i don’t want to destroy creativity.

i don’t want to become someone who can’t feel inspired anymore just because i’m afraid of what i do with it.

but i also don’t want to keep losing myself in everything i love until there’s nothing left that feels steady or self-owned.

i just want a middle place.

where admiration doesn’t turn into disappearance.

where inspiration doesn’t turn into attachment.

where i can like something without becoming it.

and maybe i’m still learning what that even looks like.

but right now it feels like i keep waking up mid-transformation and realizing i didn’t mean to go that far.

like genuinely. i thought i healed that part of me where i latch, where i cling, where i turn one person into a whole emotional ecosystem and then collapse when it shifts.

but apparently i didn’t “heal,” i just changed the shape of it.

because now it’s not just people.

it’s styles.

it’s voices.

it’s aesthetics.

it’s the way someone writes, posts, curates, exists online.

and i absorb it.

not even intentionally at first. it starts as admiration. then inspiration. then suddenly it’s like i’m breathing through someone else’s skin and i don’t notice until i’m already deep in it.

and it feels good. that’s the worst part.

it feels like relief. like finally fitting into something. like finally knowing how to exist for a second.

and then it turns.

because it doesn’t stay mine.

it becomes temporary. like borrowed oxygen.

and when it fades i’m left with this weird empty “who am i supposed to be now” feeling that i didn’t even consent to.

and i hate that i keep doing it.

i hate that i can see it happening and still fall into it anyway because it works in the moment.

and then there’s the people part of it too.

because i see someone who understands something i understand and suddenly my brain goes “ok this is the anchor, this is the reference point, this is where safety is”

and i overextend. i overtalk. i over-reach. i try to help. i try to connect. i try to make meaning out of something that should’ve just been… normal interaction.

and when it doesn’t hold the way i expected it to, it snaps.

and i’m left sitting there thinking i did something wrong just by caring too much, too fast, too intensely.

i keep thinking i “recovered” from attachment issues but maybe i just moved the attachment into different containers.

people → styles

relationships → aesthetics

dependence → inspiration

clinging → reblogging, mirroring, absorbing

it’s still there.

just quieter.

more disguised.

and i don’t even know how to stop it without feeling like i’m cutting off the only way i know how to feel connected to things.

i don’t want to lose creativity.

i don’t want to lose inspiration.

i don’t want to become empty just to be “stable.”

i just want it to stop feeling like i’m disappearing into other people every time i admire them.

i want it to feel like mine when it leaves my head.