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. 🤍

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. 🤍

Sometimes our efforts feel like they remain unnoticed because we don’t always demonstrate how much of an internal struggle they were.

Other times even though people close to us bear witness, it feels like they don’t acknowledge our efforts with the weight we feel they deserve.

And sometimes it’s simply that we ourselves that don’t appreciate our own hard work. We might think “This was going to happen anyway.” or “Well I knew I would do this so it’s not like it was unexpected.”

I am proud of you. No matter what that achievement was for you, you did it. You worked extremely hard to be here. You fought with all you could and you did your absolute best, despite what was weighing you down. You deserve praise and recognition. Take it from me and give it to yourself gently. Good job 🤍

If this is you, I know it feels hard to do when I say be gentle with yourself. So instead, let me say this - reach out to people that you trust and care about. Speak to that one person that has made you feel safe before. Say something to your family. If that feels too hard, speak to your moots, to your friends on discord or instagram. Share your story with strangers in a helpful community. While your experiences are uniquely yours, many people know what it's like to struggle with self-worth, self-acceptance, or self-hatred. You are not alone. And moreover, a lot of these thoughts that you have, maybe someone will challenge them. Maybe they see something different to what you see. After all, how we perceive reality and even our own thoughts is subjective. If someone has told you certain negative things about you that you have come to believe, that was their own opinion. Not fact. And it can be challenged.

You can call me Xin. I’ll be supporting Zenn on this blog and adding my own thoughts and posts every so often. I know Zenn’s gentle words of support on a daily basis mean the world to you as they do to me. For this reason I want to assure you that they haven’t left completely - we just share responsibility for the time being. I will sign my posts, although with time I am sure you will appreciate the difference in style. As always, we aim to stay positive and supportive here on Gentle Words Daily. Thank you for sticking with us and for your patience.

Kindly,

Tired people do not always need instructions. Sometimes they need understanding. Sometimes they need someone to look at everything they have been carrying and simply acknowledge that it is heavy. Sometimes they need someone to sit beside them and say, "That sounds really hard," instead of trying to turn their pain into a problem-solving exercise.

I think a lot of people spend so much time being resilient that they forget how desperately they want comfort. They become so used to handling things alone that when they finally admit they are struggling, what they secretly hope for is warmth. Reassurance. Gentleness. The feeling of not having to carry everything by themselves for a moment.

So if you have been wishing somebody would stop giving advice and just hold space for you, I hope you know there is nothing wrong with that. Wanting comfort does not mean you are weak. Wanting kindness does not mean you are incapable. It just means you are human.

I am sorry things have been so difficult. I am sorry you have been carrying so much. You do not have to justify your exhaustion or earn your right to be comforted. You deserve compassion simply because you are hurting, and sometimes a hug really is more helpful than a hundred solutions.

If you are reading this and thinking, "I do not need advice. I think I need a hug," then this is me offering one.

A big, warm, virtual hug.

The kind where nobody expects anything from you. The kind where you do not have to explain yourself or justify why you are struggling. The kind where you can just exist for a minute and let yourself be tired.

You do not have to earn comfort. You do not have to prove that things are bad enough. If you are hurting, you deserve kindness.

The one who sends the message. The one who checks in. The one who remembers birthdays, starts conversations, asks how everyone is doing, and keeps friendships moving forward. At first, it feels natural. You do it because you care. Because you enjoy talking to people. Because maintaining connections matters to you.

But after a while, you start wondering what would happen if you stopped.

And then one day, maybe because you are tired, overwhelmed, hurt, or simply curious, you do.

You wait. And wait. And wait.

And the silence starts getting louder.

It is difficult not to take that silence personally. It is difficult not to wonder if people actually miss you when you are gone, or if they only think about you when you place yourself in front of them. You start replaying conversations, questioning your importance in other people's lives, looking for signs that you mattered more than the evidence seems to suggest.

The truth is that being forgotten and feeling forgotten are not always the same thing. Some people get caught up in their own lives. Some people are terrible at initiating conversations. Some people assume you are busy, or assume you will reach out when you want to talk.

But even knowing all of that does not erase the hurt.

Because underneath it all is a very human desire: to know that someone would notice your absence. To know that someone would think, "I have not heard from them in a while. I hope they are okay."

If you are carrying that feeling right now, I hope you are gentle with yourself. I hope you do not measure your worth by the number of messages sitting in your inbox. I hope you do not convince yourself that silence is proof that you are unimportant.

You are not forgettable because people failed to reach out. You are not difficult to care about because others were not good at showing it. And you are not asking for too much when you want friendships that feel mutual.

You deserve people who check on you too. You deserve people who think of you when you are not standing directly in front of them. You deserve relationships where care travels in both directions.

I know that sounds simple, but sometimes it really is not. Sometimes there are days where every task feels heavier than it should. Days where getting started feels impossible. Days where you spend more energy convincing yourself to begin than actually doing the thing.

And yet, you started.

Maybe you answered that message. Maybe you did the dishes. Maybe you worked on an assignment. Maybe you made a phone call you had been dreading. Maybe you only got a small part of it done.

But you started.

And that matters more than you think.

I know people often only see the finished result. They do not see the hesitation, the exhaustion, the overthinking, the fear of getting it wrong, or the amount of effort it took just to begin. But you know. You know how hard it was, and I think you deserve credit for that.

So this is your reminder that progress does not have to be dramatic to count. Small steps count. Partial victories count. Trying counts.

I am proud of you for showing up today, especially if it was difficult. I am proud of you for doing what you could with the energy you had. And if nobody else has said it yet, good job.

Suddenly, hospitals become familiar places.

Appointments, test results, medications, phone calls, waiting rooms, and medical terms start weaving themselves into everyday conversations. Entire days can end up revolving around things you never expected to think about so often.

And beneath all of that is a kind of fear that never fully leaves.

Not always a loud fear.

Sometimes it is quiet.

It follows you through ordinary moments.

You can be laughing at something, watching a show, doing homework, talking to friends, and then suddenly remember that someone you love is sick, and the feeling settles back into your chest again.

I think one of the hardest parts is how exhausting the uncertainty can be.

You want answers.

You want reassurance.

You want a guarantee that everything will be okay.

But so much of the time, all you get is waiting.

Waiting for appointments.

Waiting for updates.

Waiting for results.

Waiting to find out what comes next.

And that kind of waiting can wear a person down.

It is also lonely in a way people do not always notice.

Because life keeps moving around you.

People continue with their routines.

Conversations continue.

The world keeps turning.

Meanwhile, a part of your mind is constantly somewhere else, carrying worry that never fully switches off.

You might feel guilty when you are happy.

You might feel guilty when you are tired.

You might feel guilty for needing a break from thinking about it.

But none of those things make you a bad person.

You are allowed to laugh.

You are allowed to enjoy things.

You are allowed to have moments where your mind is somewhere other than hospitals and appointments and worry.

Loving someone does not require you to be afraid every second of the day.

And if you are carrying this right now, I hope you are gentle with yourself.

I hope you remember that you are doing the best you can with something that is genuinely difficult.

I hope you give yourself permission to rest when you can.

To cry when you need to.

To lean on other people when the weight feels too heavy.

Most of all, I hope you know that the fear you feel comes from love.

From caring deeply about someone who matters to you.

And while that does not make the situation hurt any less, it does mean you are not weak for struggling with it.

You are human.

You are scared because you love them.

And that is one of the most human things in the world.

So tonight, if your heart feels heavy, I hope you are kind to it.

And if this month feels more complicated than celebratory for you, I hope you know that you are not alone in that.

For some people, Pride is joy, community, and finally feeling seen. For others, it is a reminder of everything they still cannot say out loud, every part of themselves they have had to hide, every conversation they are not ready for, every place where safety and authenticity still feel impossible to have at the same time.

Maybe you are questioning. Maybe you know exactly who you are but do not have the freedom to express it. Maybe you are grieving years spent trying to become someone else. Maybe you are watching people celebrate openly while wondering when, or if, that will ever be possible for you.

Whatever your relationship with Pride is, I hope you are gentle with yourself this month. There is no deadline for self-discovery, no minimum amount of confidence required to belong, and no version of queerness that is more deserving of love, community, or acceptance than another.

And if all you can do right now is quietly exist, quietly learn about yourself, quietly hold onto the hope that one day life will feel bigger and safer than it does today, that is enough.

You do not have to be loud to belong here. You do not have to have everything figured out. You do not have to become more palatable, more certain, or more courageous before you deserve happiness.

I hope this month brings you moments that remind you there is nothing wrong with who you are, and that somewhere out there is a future where you do not have to choose between being yourself and being safe, where your identity is not something you have to defend, explain, or apologize for, but simply a part of you that is loved as naturally as the rest.

Because technically, people care about you.They say they do.

They tell you they love you. They tell you you are important. They tell you they will always be there.

And maybe they even mean it.

But somehow, when you are actually struggling, when you actually need support, when you need someone to show up instead of just saying they would...the room gets very quiet.

And that kind of loneliness is difficult to explain.

Because it isn't the loneliness of having nobody.

It's the loneliness of constantly being told you are loved while rarely feeling it.

It's hearing beautiful words and wondering why they never seem to become actions.

It's feeling guilty for being hurt because "they care about me, I know they do."

And maybe they do.

But care that is never expressed can feel indistinguishable from absence.

I think people who experience this often become very confused about their own needs.

They start wondering if they are asking for too much.

If they are too sensitive.

If they are too needy for wanting reassurance, effort, consistency, presence.

But wanting to feel loved is not asking for too much.

Wanting someone to check in on you sometimes is not asking for too much.

Wanting care to be visible is not asking for too much.

Because love is not only a feeling.

Love is also a practice.

It is the text message.

The remembered detail.

The returned effort.

The concern.

The consistency.

The choice to show up.

And if you have spent a long time being loved mostly in theory, I hope you know this:

You are not difficult for wanting more than words.

You are not selfish for wanting actions that match affection.

And you are not ungrateful for feeling lonely despite being told you're loved.

Human hearts need more than promises.

They need presence.

So if you are carrying that ache tonight, the ache of feeling important to people in principle but not always in reality, I hope you are gentle with yourself.

Because there is nothing unreasonable about wanting love you can actually feel.

You deserve care that reaches you.