boop

I don't know how much of the equation comes from my Bipolar, ASD, CPTSD, or lack of proper socialization during my teenage years.

I know social media doesn't help. We get bombarded with curated lives, and I can't help but ask myself "why have I never been invited to join these people i studied with? Why am I being left out? What did I DO WRONG?"

I struggle with just having casual friends. I'm scared I care too much. I don't know how to do the in-between caring and not giving a shit. One home was filled with lies, disappointment, harm, and abuse. The other was filled with acceptance and reliability.

I don't want to be defined by my mental illness and my trauma, but its hard to explain to people how having to work through it left me struggling socially and left out.

Whenever I get asked how I am, I always respond with "could be better, could be worse" because I dont want to say the truth: I fear im a disappointment that will never redeem himself.

I say this all knowing that I am in the heavily depressive state that seems to always trigger around my birthday. I'm expected to be happy, but happy about what? Its the anniversary of Oupa's death, a painful reminder that Papa won't ever call again, a fuckton of milestones left unreached for yet another year, it's me at my very worst. Emotional pain that manifests physically, a desperate attempt to keep away from self harm to distract me. Worst is the dreams. They torture me, showing me what should have been if the world had been kinder.

I feel comfortable writing this out here because the odds of someone who would recognize me from this is negligible. Especially because Ive learned to grin through it.

I have friends closer than family, but how do you tell them what you need is to just be held until you fall asleep? That i just want to sit on the couch and have them absent mindedly ruffle my hair like Papa use to when I was a kid? How do you say that without being weird?