zenn

Feel free to vent in my inbox (asks) or ask for advice. You don't have to give a perfect explanation and you don't have to be "strong" to get heard. This is a space free of judgment where your feelings can exist like they are, nothing more nothing less. I might not have all the answers but my response will always be with care, honesty and gentleness.

There are a few personal and mutual boundaries for safety:

- Be respectful at all times. Hate, harassment, or cruelty will not be permitted.

- I can give emotional support and general advice, but I am not a professional and cannot substitute therapy or crisis help.

- I will not take part in graphic accounts of harm or messages that put me in a position of sole support.

- Care is taken in giving advice, but you are always in charge of your decisions.

- If a question seems too heavy for me I might pull back; and this doesn't imply you are of lesser importance.

Your kindness in this space is appreciated. To yourself, to others, and to me. You can always come and take a break for a while here. 🤍

It doesn't.

No one wakes up one morning and suddenly becomes a different person because someone walked into their life. Real change is far quieter than that. It's almost impossible to notice while it's happening.

It's in the way you become a little more patient without deciding to be. The way your thoughts become a little softer. The way your instinct shifts from protecting yourself to making room for another person. You don't wake up transformed. You simply become someone slightly different every day until, months or years later, you look back and realize you have been gently rewritten.

Not erased or replaced.

Just rewritten in the margins.

I also don't think we realize how much of our identity is borrowed.

We like to imagine that we are entirely self-made, that the person staring back at us in the mirror is solely our own creation. But I don't think that's true.

Every meaningful conversation changes the way we think, even if only by a fraction.

Every person who truly sees us leaves behind a different way of seeing ourselves.

Every act of understanding makes us a little more understanding.

Every kindness we receive quietly teaches us how to be kinder.

We spend our lives becoming small collections of everyone we have loved.

And maybe that's one of the most beautiful things about being human, that we are never built alone.

I have started wondering whether the greatest gift another person can give you isn't love at all.

Maybe it's perspective. Maybe it's meeting someone whose existence quietly dismantles beliefs you thought were permanent.

Beliefs about what connection is supposed to feel like.

About what trust looks like. About what it means to be known.

Not because they argue with your beliefs or try to convince you otherwise, but because they become living proof that another way has always been possible.

Sometimes the strongest arguments aren't spoken.bSometimes they are simply lived.

There are people who leave you with memories.

Then there are people who leave you with a different way of experiencing the world.

Those are not the same thing.

Memories belong to the past.

But the way someone changes your perspective follows you into every tomorrow.

You start noticing beauty where you used to overlook it.

You become gentler in places that were once guarded.

You stop measuring people by what they can give you and begin appreciating them simply because they exist.

It's strange how one person can quietly influence hundreds of moments they will never even witness.

Maybe that's why gratitude feels so inadequate.

Because "thank you" works for things someone intentionally gives you.

But how do you thank someone for the parts they never knew they gave away?

For the conversations they don't remember that you still think about.

For the versions of yourself that only exist because your paths happened to cross.

For the invisible ways they have shaped a life they will never fully get to see.

There aren't words for that.

There probably never will be.

And maybe that's okay.

Maybe not everything meaningful is supposed to fit inside language.

Maybe some people are simply too vast to be explained.

Too deeply woven into your story to be summarized by a paragraph or a letter or even a lifetime of trying.

Maybe the closest we ever get is saying, "I'm different because you were here," and hoping they understand everything those six words are carrying.

Anyway.

This wasn't really just a late-night thought.

It was always about you.

Happy Birthday, my Xin baby.

I don't think birthdays are only celebrations of another year lived.

I think they are quiet reminders that one person's existence can ripple through other people's lives in ways they will never completely know.

You have done that to mine.

Just gently, consistently, and so naturally that I only realized it after it had already become part of who I am.

And if this post has a point at all, I hope it's this:

Some people spend their lives wondering whether they truly mattered to anyone.

I hope you never have to wonder.

Because somewhere in the world, there is a person whose life cannot be told honestly without telling your story too.

I don't think the goal is to stop depending on other people entirely.

Human beings are wired for connection. We all need comfort, reassurance, and support sometimes, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem isn't needing people. The problem is when they become the only place you know how to go whenever you feel anything difficult.

Learning to support yourself usually starts very small.

It might look like sitting with an uncomfortable feeling for five or ten minutes before immediately reaching for your phone. It might look like asking yourself, "What do I need right now?" before asking someone else. It might mean journaling, going for a walk, distracting yourself with a hobby, or simply reminding yourself that emotions don't have to disappear the moment they appear.

Over time, those little moments teach your brain that you are capable of getting through difficult emotions without someone else always having to carry them for you.

That doesn't mean you should stop leaning on the people you love. It just means their support becomes something that helps you stand, rather than something you need in order to stand at all.

Be patient with yourself if this is something you are learning. Emotional independence isn't built by pushing people away. It's built by slowly discovering that you are stronger and more capable than your mind has been giving you credit for.

Aww, thank you. 🫂 That really means a lot to hear. Sometimes the words we need are the ones we are least ready to hear. I'm really glad they reached you.

It's definitely been a bit of a ride lately, haha. A lot of the posts here actually start out as personal thoughts or vents that get reframed into something a little gentler and more hopeful. If something I'm trying to work through can also help someone else feel understood, then sharing it feels worth it.

I can't end myself or hurt myself beyond bites or bruises without scaring people in my life into worrying about me, I still hate myself for being neurodivergent, I'm the only reason why my Mom has two lockboxes to make sure I can't hide knives or pills. I'm a horrible friend, sibling, child, and student, and I can't even quit on life because all those people care about me do much that they'd panic if they realized I'd hurt myself.

I'm an absolutely pathetic character in everyone's lives. Thank you for making this blog. I'm sorry.

Thank you for trusting us with something so vulnerable.

I can really feel how much guilt you are carrying, and I'm so sorry that things feel this heavy right now.

I also want you to know that I understand this feeling more than you might think. I have been through something similar, where I looked at my life and thought, "Nothing is objectively wrong. I have people who love me. Why am I still struggling?" It can make you feel like your pain isn't "allowed" to exist, and then you end up feeling guilty not only for hurting, but for hurting in the first place.

But pain doesn't work by comparing itself to other people's lives.

Having people who love you doesn't make you immune to mental illness. Having friends doesn't erase self-hatred. Having things to be grateful for doesn't suddenly make difficult emotions disappear. Those things can exist alongside each other, even when they don't seem like they should.

Something else that really stood out to me was the way you describe yourself. Reading your ask, I don't see a pathetic person. I see someone who has been incredibly hard on themselves for a very long time. When we are hurting, our minds have a way of turning every struggle into a judgment about who we are rather than recognizing it as something we are experiencing. That doesn't make those thoughts true, even if they feel convincing.

I also wonder how exhausting it must be to carry so much guilt every single day. It sounds like you are not only trying to cope with your own emotions, but also with the fear of what your pain means for everyone around you. That's such a heavy thing to hold. When someone cares deeply about the people in their life, it's easy to start believing that needing help is the same as hurting them. But those are not the same thing.

The fact that your family has taken steps to keep you safe doesn't make me think you are a burden. It makes me think you are deeply loved. People don't protect someone because they're an inconvenience. They protect them because their life matters to them. I know it can feel uncomfortable to receive that kind of care when your mind is telling you that you are only causing problems, but the existence of that care says far more about how important you are to them than it does about your worth.

I also want to gently challenge something you said. You called yourself a horrible friend, sibling, child, and student, but throughout your ask, what I actually noticed was how concerned you are about the people around you. You are worried about frightening them. You are worried about the effect your struggles have on them. You are apologizing for taking up space. Those aren't the thoughts of someone who doesn't care. They are the thoughts of someone who cares so much that they have started believing everyone would be better off if they needed less from the people who love them.

Please don't apologize for sending this ask. You never have to earn support by suffering "enough," and you don't have to justify your pain before you are allowed to talk about it. There is no rule that says only people with a certain kind of life are allowed to struggle.

I know it probably doesn't feel believable right now, but I hope that one day you are able to see yourself with even a fraction of the kindness that the people who love you already see you with. Right now, it sounds like your mind is showing you a version of yourself that is made entirely of guilt, fear, and self-criticism. But you are so much more than the thoughts your mind throws at you on your hardest days.

For now, I hope you can let yourself be cared for without feeling like you have to apologize for it. I hope you can remember that needing support doesn't erase all the good you bring to the people around you. And I hope you know that the version of yourself you are describing here isn't the only version that exists.

I'm really glad you reached out instead of keeping all of this to yourself. Please keep reaching out when things feel heavy. You don't have to carry all of this alone.

TW incest. rape mention, guro mention, suicide mention

I had a best friend I had known for about 6 years. This was someone I could easily communicate with, someone who listened to friends and wasn't co dependant on anyone. They've watched me grow and me to them. They taught me how to be whimsical again, and that I could be loved, and they helped me build my confidence.

The red signs were so small at first I didn't notice them. They started consuming rape / guro games sexually, they got drunk every other weekend, they started gambling more. They told me not to worry since these were old coping mechanisms.

And then they discovered they were a system, I did my best to understand them. But one day the person I knew apperently "died" and a new alter became the 'main'.

They had, apperently, forgotten everything about me, but not their other close friends. When I tried to do stuff with them they started freaking out that I couldn't treat them like the person I used to know. So I stopped.

And then they apperently started to hate me for little things I didn't know about because I didn't give them attention.

And then one day they started to post about, and consume fictional incest to cope, it wasn't in a demonized way. It was romanticized, and specifically brought back memories of incestual SA I didn't even know I had. (They were posting about it publically untagged as a 'rent lowering gunshot' thing).

The thing is, we've had a talk before not talking about this stuff with me. He told me if he ever got into this stuff he'd keep it private because it was something that even triggered him.

I had a panic attack. I later asked him if he got into anything else like underage porn or beastility to not put it in our discord servers or keep it private, at least. This caused him to have a meltdown because he thought I was accusing him of being someone horrible.

He then apperently formed a new alter whose sole existence was to hate me and be an asshole. He also told all our friends that I accused him of horrible stuff and tried to get people to hate me for it.

He apologized, and I explained the situation to them and I tried to move on. I tried to lay down groundwork for better communication because anytime I noticed he was upset he'd avoid me.

He'd never communicate with me. He always found something wrong about me, sometimes it wasn't being interested in his interests, sometimes it was me, apperently, acting too familiar. (I will remind you again that I was the only person he seemed to forget stuff about and continued talking the same to his other friends).

The final cut was when I went into our DMs and I told him I was giving him space to talk about his emotions because I noticed he was being weird about me again, and it was me being a dick for stuff I wasn't noticing I was doing.

I snapped and I essentially told him to stop being shitty about communication. Tell me about your emotions, you don't have to insult me but you're driving yourself into constant meltdowns because I'm doing things you're not telling me about. It's not fair on you or me.

This caused him to have a freakout until the person who was apperently formed just to hate me hardblocked me, for this. I had a freakout, but for about half a year he was messaging me and communicating with me through the block in a shared server. I could never message him and he could only come to me.

It was on and off. He was friendly. Then he went back to ignoring me. Friendly. Ignoring. Friendly. Ignoring. They continued to do this while breaking mutuals on all socials.

All while this happened he continued to use my worldbuilding and lore, for his main favourite OC.

I messaged another friend, alerting them I was going to attempt to message them somehow asking them to remove characters from my lore while I'm being treated like this.

I eventually decided not to, because I knew this would cause them to freak out again and I wanted to leave things amicable.

But I guess they told them anyways, because they left all shared servers we were in, and some mutual friends I was good with suddenly strongly hated me and started being passive aggro and even threatening suicide.

I know I'm better off, that the space left in my heart and love is there for someone better. But I won't lie- I no longer have someone to do all the special things I once did with them, occasionally I still see them around and things hurt once more.

For all I know, the person I once called a best friend is truly dead, they were not like this at all. But I can at least take what I admired from them forward.

I hang out with my other friends. The other day I saw them nuke their Artfight and over at least 50+ pieces they made for me as we chained each other just disappeared. It left me feeling hollow.

I tried everything I could to listen to them, to understand them, against my own moral judgement. But I guess they just regressed so much that it seemed like they would rather explode and destroy everything around them, than talk about issues.

Thanks for listening. It's been hard. It's been over a year, I'm trying to move on so hard, but it seems like we were so knotted together that I keep seeing things that are familiar around me. It's rough I still love and care for them

Thank you for trusting us with this.

Honestly, my heart hurts for you reading it.

Not just because of how everything ended, but because it's so obvious how much this friendship meant to you. Six years is a long time to share your life with someone. By that point they aren't just a friend. They are part of your routines, your memories, your creative projects, your sense of normal. When that connection breaks, it leaves gaps in places you don't even expect.

What stands out to me most is how hard you tried.

Again and again, you chose understanding. You tried to adapt when things changed. You tried to communicate. You tried to give space. You tried to be patient when you were confused. Even when you were hurt, you kept looking for ways to make things work.

That isn't something everyone would have done.

I can also understand why you are still hurting over a year later. Sometimes people talk about friendship breakups as if they should be easier than romantic ones, but that's rarely true. Losing someone who was woven into your everyday life can leave a grief that's just as deep.

And I think there's a particular kind of sadness in missing someone who is still technically out there somewhere. There isn't the finality that comes with other losses. Instead there's this constant awareness that they are still around, still creating, still existing, and yet no longer part of your life. That can be incredibly difficult to make peace with.

Reading your ask, I kept thinking about how lonely it must have felt to keep reaching toward someone who seemed to be moving further and further away. Not because you weren't trying hard enough, but because there are some situations where no amount of effort from one person can repair what's breaking between two people.

I also imagine there are probably moments where you question yourself. Moments where you replay conversations in your head, wonder whether you could have said something differently, done something differently, understood something sooner. That's such a normal thing to do after losing someone important. When we care deeply about a relationship, our minds often go searching for an explanation because explanations feel easier to live with than uncertainty.

But sometimes relationships end not because one person failed, but because the connection itself stopped being something both people were able to maintain.

And that's heartbreaking. Because there isn't always a clear villain.

There isn't always a clear answer. Sometimes there's just grief.

Something I want to gently remind you of is that the good things this friendship gave you didn't disappear when the friendship did.

The confidence they helped you build is still yours. The whimsy they helped you rediscover is still yours. The memories, the lessons, the ways you grew during those years, and the proof that you are capable of caring for someone so deeply are all still yours. None of that vanished simply because the relationship ended.

And so does the growth that came from surviving this.

The empathy you have developed. The self-awareness you have gained. The understanding of your own needs and limits. The realization that it is possible to love someone and still acknowledge that a relationship is hurting you. Those things belong to you too, and they will stay with you long after the grief becomes easier to carry.

It's okay if reminders still hurt. It's okay if there are days when you think you have made peace with everything and then a memory catches you off guard. It's okay if certain songs, stories, characters, projects, or places still bring up emotions you thought you had already worked through. Healing rarely happens in a straight line, especially when the relationship mattered this much.

Six years doesn't disappear neatly, and honestly, I don't think it should.

Some people leave fingerprints on our lives that never completely fade, not because we are incapable of moving forward, but because they genuinely mattered to us. The goal isn't always to erase the grief or to stop caring entirely. Sometimes the goal is simply reaching a point where the memories feel less like open wounds and more like reminders of a chapter that shaped us.

When I read your ask, I don't see someone who didn't try hard enough. I see someone who loved deeply, hoped deeply, and continued showing up long after many people would have stopped trying. That capacity to care has clearly brought you a lot of pain, but it's also one of the most beautiful things about being human.

The fact that your heart still hurts doesn't tell me that you are weak or that you are failing to move on. It tells me that this friendship mattered. It tells me that you invested real love, real trust, and real parts of yourself into it.

And I hope you are proud of yourself for surviving something that very clearly broke your heart, because despite how much it hurt, you are still here. You are still creating, still reflecting, still trying to understand your experiences rather than run from them, and that takes more strength than most people realize.

Maybe it doesn't feel like strength right now. Maybe it just feels like grief.

But from where I'm standing, it looks like strength too.

From a young age, many of us are taught that appearance matters far more than it should. For some of us, believing that goes far beyond just acknowledging that self care is important. Self objectification is what happens to us when we start viewing ourselves as merely a body to be evaluated as opposed to a whole entire person with emotions, traits, desires and dreams. It is influenced hugely by social medial and our social circle. That one show in which the beauty enters the room in show motion, hair blown in the wind, eyes seductive, hips swinging side to side… Those comments we get — “Did you lose weight/gain weight?”, “How do you eat that?”. It can also be internalised into our own perception - “Maybe he or she would have liked me better if I had a butt like that” or “If I lost some weight he or she would finally notice me”. Sometimes those thoughts become “If I became skinny, all my problems would disappear.”

The question now becomes not how to erase those fears and this understanding. I know why they are there with you, I have felt this in my gut. I would never judge you for feeling this way. My only purpose is to remind you that you are a whole entire person. Your value doesn’t lie in the way you look in a swimsuit even if you may be told that in so many words sometimes. Your opinions matter. Your ideas matter. Your interests matter. Those bring you closer to people. Not how you look - that is such a small piece of the puzzle of who you are. Others objectify you. Don't do it to yourself. You deserve better.

That sounds really painful, and I'm sorry you are dealing with that.

I can understand why this would get to you after a while. It's hard enough feeling like you can't be fully honest about the difficult parts of your life, but it sounds like even when you make an effort to share something positive or something you are genuinely excited about, you are not getting the kind of engagement or enthusiasm you would hope for from people you care about. Anyone would start feeling discouraged after enough experiences like that.

And honestly, knowing someone for 10 years doesn't automatically make these feelings hurt less. In some ways it can make them hurt more, because these are people you have built a lot of trust, history, and affection with. Wanting to feel listened to, supported, and occasionally excited alongside by your friends isn't asking for too much.

I also think it's worth remembering that the way people respond isn't always a reflection of how interesting you are or how valuable your interests are. Sometimes people get caught up in their own lives, fall into habits, or don't realize how dismissive they are coming across. That doesn't mean the impact on you isn't real, though.

Since you don't want to end these friendships, it might be worth trying to talk to one or two of them individually if there's someone you feel safest with. Not as a confrontation, just an honest conversation about how you have been feeling lately. Sometimes people are more receptive one-on-one than they are in a group setting.

In the meantime, please don't let this convince you that the things you enjoy aren't worth sharing. The right people won't only tolerate hearing about your interests, they will be happy that you are excited about something, even if it's not their thing.

And for what it's worth, I don't think wanting to feel seen by your friends is unreasonable. I don't think wanting someone to ask a follow-up question, show curiosity about your life, or share in your excitement is asking for too much. Those are very normal things to want from the people you care about. Feeling hurt when those needs aren't being met doesn't make you needy or dramatic, it makes you human.

You sound like someone who cares very deeply about your friends. I hope they are able to show you that same care in a way that makes you feel seen, because you deserve friendships where there's room for both your struggles and your joy. You deserve to feel like people are interested in getting to know you, not just the version of you they have grown used to. And you deserve to feel comfortable sharing parts of your life without worrying that they will be dismissed, criticized, or brushed aside.

And some people use their suffering as an excuse to never take accountability for how they treat others.

Before anyone gets defensive, I want to make something very clear: I am not talking about people who are struggling. I am not talking about people who are depressed, anxious, traumatized, grieving, or overwhelmed. Struggling does not make someone a bad person. Needing help does not make someone a burden. Everyone deserves compassion when they are going through a difficult time.

What I am talking about is the choice to remain completely passive in your own recovery while expecting everyone around you to compensate for it.

At some point, for some people, family issues, trauma, depression, anxiety, insecurity, or whatever else they are dealing with stops being an explanation and starts becoming a shield they hide behind whenever someone points out behavior that is hurting other people.

Because there is a difference between "I am struggling and trying my best" and "I am struggling, therefore nobody is allowed to hold me accountable for anything."

The world cannot revolve around one person's feelings forever.

If every conversation somehow becomes about them, if every attempt someone makes to talk about their own struggles gets redirected back to theirs, if every disagreement is interpreted as an attack, if every piece of advice is met with a reason why it won't work, if every reassurance only lasts a few minutes before they need more, if every problem has to become an emergency, then eventually the people around them stop feeling like friends and start feeling like unpaid caretakers.

And the thing is, most people won't tell them.

They will keep listening.

They will keep reassuring.

They will keep checking in.

They will keep sacrificing their own energy because they care.

And because they care, they will feel guilty for being exhausted.

They will tell themselves that person doesn't mean it.

They will tell themselves that person is just having a hard time.

They will tell themselves that being frustrated would make them selfish.

So they keep giving and giving and giving until there is nothing left.

That is not what friendship is supposed to be.

Friendship is not one person constantly pouring from their cup into someone else's while nobody ever asks whether their own cup is empty.

Friendship is not expecting people to repeatedly solve emotional problems that someone refuses to address themselves.

Friendship is not treating other people as a permanent source of validation whenever discomfort appears.

And before someone says "but mental illness makes things harder," yes, it absolutely does.

It can make recovery harder.

It can make relationships harder.

It can make accountability harder.

It can make change harder.

But harder does not mean impossible.

And it certainly does not mean everyone around them is responsible for carrying the entire burden on their behalf.

The people who love them can support them.

They cannot do the work for them.

They can listen.

They cannot heal them.

They can encourage them.

They cannot make choices for them.

They can stand beside them.

They cannot walk the path for them.

And to the people who have found themselves on the receiving end of this dynamic, I need you to hear this.

I know how it feels.

I know how easy it is to convince yourself that if you just listen a little longer, reassure a little more, or sacrifice a little more of yourself, things will finally get better. I know how guilt creeps in every time you think about setting boundaries because you know the other person is genuinely hurting.

I went through the same thing.

It took a lot of self-reflection to separate my care for my friend from my care for myself.

For a long time, I thought those two things were the same. I thought that being a good friend meant always being available, always listening, always putting their needs first. But eventually I realized that caring about someone and sacrificing yourself for someone are not the same thing.

At one point the two became incompatible.

Continuing to prioritize them meant neglecting myself.

Continuing to carry their struggles meant adding to my own.

Continuing to stay in the same dynamic meant slowly losing parts of myself that I couldn't afford to lose.

And that was one of the hardest things to accept.

Because walking away from an unhealthy dynamic does not mean someone stopped caring.

Sometimes it means they finally started caring about themselves too.

If someone has spent months or years listening, reassuring, supporting, and showing up for another person only to realize there is never any room for their feelings in return, they are not selfish for being tired. They are not cruel for needing distance. They are not abandoning anyone by acknowledging that the relationship is hurting them.

Compassion without boundaries eventually turns into self-destruction.

And if this post resonates with someone because they recognize themselves in the person being described, then please understand that this is not an attack.

It is an invitation to be honest.

To ask whether support has quietly become dependence.

To ask whether reassurance has become a substitute for growth.

To ask whether friends are being treated like friends or emotional caretakers.

To ask whether pain is being managed or turned into an identity.

Because pain can explain a lot of things, but it cannot become an entire personality.

People deserve more than spending years trapped in the same cycle.

And the people who care about them deserve more than spending years trying to rescue them from it.

So please, get help if help is available. Talk to a professional. Learn healthier coping mechanisms. Challenge harmful thought patterns. Take responsibility for the parts that are within your control. Stop measuring progress by how much sympathy is received and start measuring it by the steps being taken toward a healthier life.

Because the goal of support is not to stay supported forever.

The goal of support is to eventually become strong enough that support becomes a bridge rather than a permanent crutch.

And if people are starting to pull away, it is worth considering that they may not be leaving because they never cared.

They may be leaving because caring started costing them their own wellbeing.

And nobody should have to choose between helping a friend and preserving themselves.

I eventually realized I had to make that choice.

I had to choose myself, or lose myself completely.

- Xin

When something hurts, my instinct is usually to avoid it. Not because I don't care, and not because I don't feel things deeply, but because vulnerability feels frightening.

There is a part of me that is afraid that if I let myself fully feel certain emotions, I will break apart and never quite be the same again. So instead, I keep moving. I distract myself. I push things aside. I tell myself I will deal with it later, when I'm stronger, when I'm calmer, when I have more energy.

The strange thing is that avoidance can look a lot like coping from the outside. I can keep my emotions contained well enough that it seems like nothing is bothering me. I can laugh, have conversations, study, work, go about my day. But underneath all of that, the feelings are still there. They are always somewhere in the back of my mind, waiting. They don't disappear just because I refuse to look at them. They linger in the background, taking up space and energy, even when I pretend they're not.

Sometimes I don't even realize how much something affected me until much later. I tell myself I have moved on, only to find that the hurt is still there, showing up in unexpected ways. A small comment hits harder than it should. A minor inconvenience feels overwhelming. A situation reminds me of something. I have been avoiding, and suddenly everything comes rushing back at once. The emotions I thought I had escaped were only waiting for me to notice them.

I think one of the hardest parts of avoiding things is that it doesn't just affect me. Sometimes it affects the people around me too. If I keep everything to myself, other people don't always know what's going on. They might think I don't care, that I'm distant, or that I have stopped trusting them. Sometimes I withdraw when I need support the most. Sometimes I become harder to reach. And sometimes the things I refuse to talk about quietly shape my behaviour in ways that neither I nor the people around me fully understand.

Avoidance exists for a reason. For many of us, it started as protection. At some point, it felt safer to hold everything inside than to risk being vulnerable. And honestly, vulnerability is scary. Letting someone see the parts of you that are hurting is scary. Admitting that something affected you is scary. Accepting that you can't simply think your way out of every emotion is scary.

But I have slowly started to realize that avoiding pain doesn't actually stop it from existing. It just postpones it. The feelings stay, waiting patiently in the background. And while opening up doesn't magically solve everything, neither does carrying everything alone. Sometimes the bravest thing isn't keeping it together. Sometimes it's admitting that you are struggling before you reach the point where you can't hold it all anymore.

- Zenn

When it comes to dealing with difficult emotions, I find that I am fairly self aware - I can follow my own thought patterns and distinguish how certain situations affect me and why. I also think that I am fairly objective when it comes to observing other people’s behaviours and intentions but… that’s only possible when I don’t feel overwhelmed. Sometimes all these patterns and situations overlap, making it difficult to follow, to analyse, to understand and to process. So I would seek help, I would explain my thinking and conclusions and ask for validation or corrections from others, trying to ground my thinking into reality: am I being too sensitive or too lenient? I don’t find it hard to open up, maybe even at all on front of anyone that makes me feel listened to and maybe that’s a flaw. I externalise my feelings and thoughts easily when I’m seeking a solution to something. But the downside of that is that sometimes what I feel is an accurate assessment that doesn’t need external objective opinion is simply… wrong. Tainted by my own lens of perception, smudged by my own experiences and I project. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that everyone is different and they think and feel about things differently to the way I do.

I guess what I was to say is this - opening up can be hard for some people and if you have been in a situation where you have been hurt that way it is completely understandable. But with the right person or people, it’s a valuable reality check. It’s a compass showing true north when looking at reality and other people’s feelings and perspectives. But it’s also a way to navigate our own inner world and ask ourselves the question - do others really see me the way I see myself?

Maybe your family is unsupportive or even abusive, physically or emotionally.

Maybe you have a friend or friend group who dismisses you.

Maybe your partner makes you feel worse about yourself.

No matter what’s happening, I hope you can accept this, even if it’s hard at first: If this post resonates with you, protect yourself at all costs.

Sometimes we can’t speak up because it would put us in danger. We’re told we’re being dramatic or overreacting, or we feel like our emotions must take a backseat to someone else’s.

But no matter the reason, your feelings are not lying. If something feels wrong - even if you can’t put it into words, even if others tell you you’re wrong - trust yourself. Protect yourself by acknowledging your truth.

Let me say this gently: Your feelings matter. Your experiences matter. Don’t deny yourself just because someone else dismissed you. You are your own biggest advocate, so trust your feelings. If something feels wrong, don't ignore it. Get curious about it. Your feelings exist for a reason, even when they are difficult to understand.

Not happy, not successful, not healed, not even okay. Just safe. I wish my chest didn't hurt all the time. I wish my heart didn't feel so heavy, like there is a fist wrapped around it, squeezing tighter every time I think I have finally caught my breath. I wish my hands weren't shaky and I wish I didn't get dizzy every time I stood up. Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to move through the world without feeling as though something terrible is waiting just around the corner. I don't think people always realize how exhausting it is to spend years in survival mode. At some point the fear stops feeling like a reaction to something and starts feeling like part of who you are. Your body learns to stay tense. Your mind learns to expect the worst. Even on good days there is this sense that you should not get too comfortable because something will eventually go wrong.

A few years ago, I had a dream that has stayed with me ever since. In it, I was crying harder than I have ever cried in real life. It felt like every ounce of grief, fear and exhaustion I had ever carried was pouring out of me all at once. Then I saw a golden light. I can't explain it properly because nothing dramatic happened. There was no voice, no revelation, no miracle. Everything just felt lighter. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was no panic. No dread. No pressure to hold everything together. There was only this overwhelming sense of peace.

I still think about that dream sometimes because the truth is that I don't really know what safety feels like. Not fully. My body and mind have spent so long preparing for danger that rest feels unfamiliar. But when I think about that golden light, I wonder if safety is not something grand or life-changing. Maybe it is simply the ability to let go for a moment. To stop gripping so tightly. To allow yourself to sink instead of constantly treading water. To exist without feeling like you have to earn your right to be here.

I want to feel at peace with myself, not because somebody else reassures me, not because my circumstances become perfect, and not because I finally transform into a version of myself that I find easier to love. I want to feel at peace simply because I am human. Because there should be more to life than surviving it. Because I am tired of treating myself like an enemy. Because I want to know what it feels like to wake up and not immediately prepare for battle.

And if you relate to any of this, if your chest feels heavy and your thoughts never seem to stop running, if your body feels exhausted from carrying fear for so long, I hope you know that there is nothing shameful about that. Human beings are not meant to live in a constant state of alertness. If you have spent years expecting pain, rejection, loss or disappointment, it makes sense that safety feels distant. It makes sense that peace feels unfamiliar. But unfamiliar does not mean impossible.

I think healing is often much quieter than people expect it to be. Sometimes it begins with a conversation that makes you feel understood. Sometimes it is a place where you can finally unclench your shoulders. Sometimes it is meeting people who challenge the cruel things you believe about yourself. Sometimes it is realizing that the voice in your head that tells you that you are unworthy is not an objective narrator, but simply one perspective among many. And sometimes it is just one small moment where you realize that for a few seconds, you weren't bracing for impact.

I don't know when any of us will find that feeling completely. I just hope that one day we do. I hope that the heaviness becomes lighter. I hope that peace stops feeling like something reserved for other people. I hope that we learn how to be gentle with ourselves. And most of all, I hope that one day the golden light isn't just something we find in dreams.

Everyone seems to know where they are going, what they are doing, how to keep moving forward. Meanwhile you are standing in the same place, exhausted, wondering why everything feels so much harder than it looks for everyone else.

You want to stay. You want to keep dreaming. You want to believe that there is still something beautiful waiting for you in the future. But at the same time, there is a part of you that is tired. Tired of carrying fear everywhere you go. Tired of hoping and being disappointed. Tired of wondering whether you will ever become the person you have spent so long trying to be.

Sometimes people think resilience looks powerful. They imagine determination as something loud and unwavering. But for a lot of us, resilience is much quieter than that. It looks like getting out of bed when your heart feels heavy. It looks like continuing to care when life has given you reasons to shut down. It looks like taking another step forward while secretly terrified that you are walking toward nothing.

And I think that's why these feelings hurt so much. Not because you have stopped wanting good things, but because you still want them. You still look at the sky and wonder what it would feel like to reach it. You still carry dreams. You still imagine a future where things are gentler than they are now. There is something incredibly painful about wanting something with your whole heart while not knowing whether you will ever be able to touch it.

If that's where you are right now, I hope you know that your worth was never dependent on how high you fly. It was never dependent on how productive you are, how quickly you heal, how successful you become, or whether you achieve every dream you have ever had. You were worthy long before any of those things, and you will remain worthy even on the days when all you can do is survive.

I know it can feel as though you are moving through darkness while everyone else is living in the light. I know it can feel as though you are carrying fears nobody else understands. But there are so many people quietly fighting the same battles. So many people who are scared, uncertain, grieving, struggling, and still choosing to continue. You are not strange for feeling this way. You are not weak for feeling this way. You are human.

And maybe that's the part I find most comforting. The fact that even when people are afraid, they keep reaching forward. Even when they are convinced they aren't strong enough, they keep trying. Even when they don't believe they can fly, they still stretch their hand toward the sky.

So if all you can do today is keep walking, then keep walking. If all you can do is carry your hopes carefully through the dark, then carry them. You do not need certainty to move forward. You do not need confidence to deserve a future.

You only need to be here.

And the fact that you are still here, still hoping, still trying despite everything you have been through, tells me that there is far more strength inside you than you realize.

You brighten the darkest days and warm people’s hearts.

The world is a better place with you in it.

my xin 💗

thank u for ur precious words, sweetheart.

u make my life brighter in ways u don't even realize. i'm so grateful that out of all the people in this world, i found u.

my heart is a happier place because of u.

No 😭 this is just raw, unedited neurodivergent yapping. Unfortunately all thoughts are handcrafted.

I recently saw a video on tiktok promoting a discord server dedicated to harrasing people over fictional characters (this was in relation to the yumeship community if that makes sense). At first I thought the account was ragebait. I decided to join the server as a joke and sent in an application for verification. If I'm going to be honest my "trolling" wasn't really trolling and was just being straight up rude. I proceeded to call the people in the server "edgelords" beacuse they made an entire community dedicated to bullying people and from my world view I saw it as a corny attempt at trying to larp as a "problematic person". I regret doing this because I'm aware that this doesn't make me better than them. The application I sent wasn't very good and contained a few insults. My intention was to poke fun at a community who I believed was ragebait due to obserdity of the idea that people wanted go after others for ships. The owner then sent me a DM. The conversation originally started as passive aggressive comments and just overall being cruel to eachother. Trying to get something productive out of the situation I asked why they did this? They replied with "I'm mentally ill and I love a character so much it makes me sick to think about them with anybody else so therefore I seek out a way to hurt people" I asked a few more questions and suggested they close down the server because what they were doing wasn't healthy. I also asked if they wanted to get better with their health and they replied "no I dont wan help". The rest of my responses boiled down to me saying I can't I wouldn't help someone that refused help. The conversation then diverted back to passive aggression and I eventually gave up and said to them I'm going because I couldn't be bothered to deal with it. They replied with "ok lol" and I left the server. One thing they said to me before we stopped talking was "well you support harrasment beacuse you reached out first you're not any better than us" I took a step back from this because they weren't wrong. I then replied with "true, but I'm not the one making a community dedicated to hurting people on purpose". I don't really agree with my defense here and I think I doubled down. Before I left I made a point to report several messages in the server aswell as the server itself. To further this I contacted discord support in an attempt to get it taken down so no more people could be harmed.

After this situation I've been thinking about it for far too long. I don't want dwell on it because I'm trying to use this a lesson to not do stupid things and not contacting individuals doing bad things for the sake of trying to seem better. I'm typically against the behavior I presented in this situation and am angry with myself that I acted so stupidity irastional. I've done a thing I'm not proud of and I don't know how to remedy it especially since it could've made a already unwell individual worse.

What advice would you give to me? I'm really trying to improve from this situation and I am struggling to move one. (Also apologies if my grammar is bad)

I think the biggest thing I would say is that the fact you are reflecting on it this much already shows growth. Most people don't spend this much time examining their own behavior or asking how they could have handled a situation better. The fact that you are concerned about your actions and how they may have affected others tells me that this situation genuinely matters to you.

Something I have learned is that there is a difference between making a mistake and being defined by a mistake. We all have moments where we act out of frustration, curiosity, anger, impulsiveness, or a desire to prove a point. Sometimes we look back and realize we weren't acting in a way that fully aligned with our values. That realization can be uncomfortable, but it's also how people grow.

From what you have written, it sounds like you have already done the most important part of the process: you have reflected on what happened, thought about your motivations, considered the impact of your actions, and identified things you would do differently in the future. Once you have reached that point, repeatedly replaying the situation in your head often stops being productive. It becomes self-punishment rather than self-improvement.

I also think it's important to remember that growth doesn't require you to view yourself as the villain of every story. It's possible to acknowledge that you handled parts of a situation poorly while also recognizing that your intentions and actions weren't identical to the behavior you were concerned about. Life is usually more complicated than "good person" versus "bad person." Most situations involve people making imperfect decisions for different reasons.

As for worrying that you may have made someone else's situation worse, that's a burden that can become very heavy if you carry it too far. We can influence people, but we can't control them. Their choices, beliefs, and actions ultimately belong to them. You can acknowledge your own role in an interaction without taking responsibility for another person's entire wellbeing or future behavior.

The part of your message that stood out to me most was that you are trying to use this as a lesson rather than an excuse. That's a healthy approach.

My advice would be to take whatever lesson you have learned here and actually trust yourself to carry it forward. If you know you would approach a similar situation differently now, then the experience has already served its purpose. You don't need to keep proving that you are sorry by feeling guilty forever.

At some point, self-forgiveness becomes part of accountability too. Not because what happened was perfect, but because you have already looked at it honestly, accepted the parts you don't like, and decided what kind of person you want to be moving forward. That's what growth looks like in practice.

I hear you.

Knowing that you are neurodivergent can in itself feel like a challenge when connecting to people. Maybe you struggle to know how to make yourself understood or feel like you are missing certain signs in the conversation that seem important. Maybe it even feels like anything you talk about is forced and unnatural, and the words simply don’t flow. You may be asking questions to show interest, but somehow the other side doesn’t seem to recognize your genuine effort. And when people vent, they often don’t expect much back, so the conversation may already feel one-sided.

Making friends can be really hard, especially when you are shy, neurodivergent, or have interests that don’t overlap with most people around you. It makes sense that constantly trying to keep conversations going would feel exhausting.

So let me say this gently: friendship should never feel forced. Conversations flow between people who have shared interests or similar worldviews. Connections happen all on their own, naturally and without much effort: a joke that you both understand, a band that you both enjoy, an experience that has left a lasting memory in each of you. Having acquaintances is absolutely okay. Having friends that you only share a few things with is okay. Deep, lasting friendships happen slowly and with the right people.

One thing to remember is that there are other people out there who may also seek friendship in a similar way to you, people who share your niche interests or enjoy the same hobbies. The key is to find the commonalities. And if meeting new people in person seems especially hard, starting online is completely acceptable. It may seem easier to share our struggles when we don’t see the person in the eyes as we speak. Sometimes the screen that separates us is the bridge that connects us. It works for some, and if it works for you, your voice will attract like-minded people.

One thing that helped me is realizing that friendship isn’t about being able to connect with everyone. Most people won’t be your people, and that’s okay. Sometimes we end up treating every fading conversation as evidence that we are doing something wrong, when really it can just mean there wasn’t much compatibility there to begin with.

I know people always say friendships take time to build, but honestly, some of the strongest connections can feel natural from the start. My closest friendship was like that. We just clicked. The conversation flowed, we were interested in each other, and neither of us had to force it. Experiences like that remind me that the right people do exist, even if they are rare.

So don’t take every failed connection as proof that friendship isn’t for you. Sometimes finding your people just takes longer when you are looking for a deeper kind of connection. You don’t need everyone to understand you, you just need a few people who genuinely do.

Wishing you gentle days ahead. 🤍