The thoughts I shouldn't say out loud

The overwhelming emotion from last night and right now is fear and frustration. I am scared of being in this alone. I am scared of feeling like I am the only one who thinks about our finances and spending. I am scared of not being able to make small decisions for me or us or even plan for future decisions because I can’t rely on your income or career path. I am frustrated that all we talk about is how much new steps in your career are going to cost but then nothing ever happens. I am frustrated that you are moving forward mentally but they don’t see that as the huge step that it is. I am frustrated that their feelings about your career influence mine because they expect me to be able to make you do things that they haven’t been able to make you do. It is creating all of this anxiety inside me about money and our future on top of what I already have going on in my head about everything else. Having your parents reinforce the idea that we can’t get married before you have your career on track makes me feel all sorts of things. I am already trying to ignore the feeling of not moving forward in my life and our life and what not. But to have people outside of us comment on it makes me hyperaware of the situation and their opinions and influence over you and your life and in connection, my life. It makes me feel like I have handed over partial control of my life without wanting to or being asked. It was just taken. On top of that, I am not even legally bound to you. I am struggling with even trying to have myself have control over my life and now I have handed some of that control over to someone else that is not even a part of this partnership. It is supposed to be me and you. We make decisions together about OUR lives TOGETHER. Input from outside sources is acceptable. But not outside sources making those decisions for us and in turn for me without my request for it or consent to it. I understand that you are their son, but that does not give them the right to make decisions about OUR lives. Especially without me being involved in those decisions.  

10/29/2019 What a question. I am bored because I don't have anything immediate to do. I am drained because of the lack of stimulation. I am frustrated because I feel under appreciated. I am angry because I am under valued. I am sad and disappointed and frustrated with myself for so many reasons. I am unmotivated to change my behavior. I am stressed about my future. I am sad that I am wasting time. I am scared that I will never change. I am tired of feeling like my life is going nowhere. I am sad that I keep making excuses. I am scared of changing. I am scared of not succeeding. I am scared of being a beginner. I am frustrated that my mind and body won't cooperate with what I want. I know that I can't fail if I don't try. I feel like I am stuck in a rut that I have decided is my comfort zone and I am too scared to try to get out of him. I am scared of always feeling like I am not good enough. I am scared that if I try, I will be proven right. I am scared that they will have been right and made the right decision. I am afraid that I will let M down because he believes in me so much and I don't believe in myself. I feel like a fraud because I feel like he loves me more than I love myself. I feel like I am not letting myself feel much of anything today. At least not anything positive. I feel like my hate for myself for letting myself get fat is getting in the way of so much. I feel like it is preventing me from being happy. It makes me not want to dance in front of the mirror. It makes me feel like I have to keep buying clothes because maybe something new will make me love my body somehow in something new. I don't know how to love something that I hate. I want to cry right now, but I am at work. At a job that I hate because I hate my boss. But I don't feel good enough to find something else. I know that happiness is just a feeling and not a destination, but I am struggling to find it at the moment. I feel like all I do is complain and bitch about how I feel and I never do anything to change. I feel like a helpless child in an adult's body. I feel like everyone else knows what they are doing even when I know that is crap. I know there are things that I want, but I don't even know where to start to begin the journey of getting or earning them. I feel incompetent at everything. I feel like because I can't find the motivation to do anything simple like the fucking dishes or the litterbox, I don't deserve anything. I feel like I am punishing myself for being incompetent and unmotivated by continuing the cycle. It is safe and comfortable in its own twisted way. I want so bad to get out of this funk. And honestly, I feel like because it has been going on for so long that I am lying about it being the reason for everything. I feel like a liar and a fraud and a lazy piece of shit. I feel like I have no excuse because other people have it worse. I feel like a broken record. I feel like losing my job isn't an excuse anymore. I feel like I am nursing it. I feel like I never healed and just tried to bury it in order to make everyone else happy and not worry so much. I feel like myself but I feel like a more empty me. I feel like there are still parts missing from before and I don't what is going to help me find them again. I feel like someone with all of the answers but the wrong test. I feel like someone with pieces to a different puzzle. I get this spark of motivation some mornings to make all of these improvements and then that mood and drive gets destroyed by my day at work. I am so tired of being tired of being tired. I just want to get my shit together and get better already. I am wanting an instantaneous solution to a long term problem.

I feel like I am sitting here screaming out ‘what ifs’ at the top of my lungs like chicken little screaming the sky is falling. And that is how I feel. Change feels like the world as I know it crumbling around me and the walls caving in and the air being sucked out of the room. And it is. That is exactly what change is. Upending the constants and comforts of your world to bring about something unfamiliar and scary, whether it is positive or negative. Every big change in my life has led to one of these overwhelming emotional meltdowns of resistance. The worry and fear and unknown scared me more than the opportunities and excitement. I have never understood it. There are people I know that have given up everything to just travel the country alone. That takes courage. Being interviewed over the phone does not. I feel like there is a big brick wall standing in my way every time some big change comes along. A brick wall that extends up into the clouds so I couldn’t even imagine the top of it if I tried. And somehow, I have to get past this wall before I am squished by the wall behind me of time running out and pushing me forward. The panic sets in. The anxiety and panic of not being able to move past this wall in the amount of time allowed. I wish I could suck it up and get over it. Oh, do I wish I could. But instead I sit in front of the wall crying and hitting my head on it over and over and over again as if that will somehow osmosis the solution into my head. Change is hard for everyone, I know that. But for some reason, it feels so freaking impossible for me. Every. Single. Time. You think I would have figured this out by now.

I think maybe you think loving me is enough. Having this overwhelming positive feeling towards me makes everything okay. I think you might not think that you have to do anything except for be yourself. But that is not how it works. We are supposed to be growing, together. I feel this overwhelming feeling that I keep doing everything wrong. I feel like a failure in everything right now. I need you to be my rock. I need support from you. I need strength. I need something more than you are currently giving me. I am spiraling and you aren’t here, you don’t know, I am crying alone feeling everything negative and just spiraling down. I am just overflowing with disappointment that is dragging me down into my depths of negativity. I am angry, I am sad, I am frustrated, I am full of guilt that is not my own.

I wonder if you miss me. Not sometimes, or at random times. Just right now. Right now, in this moment, I wonder if you miss me. You are on my mind today. Not sometimes, or at random times. Just right now. Today, I am curious. Today, I am nostalgic. Today, I am wondering. Today, I wonder if you miss me the same way you said you did and would years ago. Today, I wonder if there is still a place in your heart, in your mind, in your life, that you miss me. I wonder if you saw me today, would you yearn for me? Yearn for my smile. Yearn for my laugh. Yearn for my kiss. I wonder if you would still care. I wonder if you would see me and smile and wish that you knew who I was. I wonder if you would see a stranger. Does time change a person? Does time make us strangers over the course of years? Or does the heart recognize someone no matter how much time has passed? Is there always an invisible string that ties you to someone? I know it would not be worth the risk to find out. I know that as much as I wonder today, I will never make the choice to find out. I know better. I know it is easy to forget the bad in a second. But, I know the second I made that choice, the bad would come rushing back and hit me like a ton of bricks. I know that the good would come back too. I wonder which feeling would win out. I wonder which would hit me first. But, wondering is just that. Wondering is futile. Wondering is childish. Wondering is a wasted act. What happened, happened. I can not let the curiosity kill me. You are not worth the pain. You are not worth the time. You are not worth the risk. This strange pull I feel looking at you now is just... well, I don’t know what it is, but it is definitely bad news that I shouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. I wish you well. But, that’s it. I want nothing to do with you. Having you back in my life would the worst thing I could possibly do. You would wreck me all over again. You are my fucking Achilles heel. You can stay right where you are in my past. Healthy may be boring. Healthy may be safe. Healthy may be strange. But healthy is exactly what it should be. Safe. Playing it safe is not a bad thing! Healthy is happy. Healthy is predictable. Healthy is comforting. Of course that would be strange in the long term when I have never had it. Everything, especially healthy, will feel boring in comparison to what we had. That doesn’t mean I need it back. That doesn’t mean I should go looking for it. That doesn’t mean it was right. I know what’s going on with me is my fault. I know that I am the one lacking fire. I have gotten lazy and complacent with myself. But, that does not mean I need to set fire to my whole life. That is the complete opposite of what I need and want. I need to set fire to myself. I need to reignite my desire. I need to light up my passion. It is about me. It has absolutely nothing to do with you. They are totally different kinds of fire. One is a wildfire of productivity, creativity, happiness, passion, and confidence. The other is hellfire that burns, destroys, ruins, wrecks, and devastates everything and everyone it touches. I know better. Fire is fire. Maybe that is why I have had such a hard time getting myself together. I am worried that I don’t know the difference between the two kinds of fire. I don’t want to get burned again. So it is easier to not light it than it is to try to feel alive again. Somehow fear and fire have been holding me back when they should be driving me. We’ll see how that goes know the I recognize part of what is going on.

When I told you that I am excited that you think that I am insatiable, I really meant it. I love the idea. And to be perfectly honest, it goes to the heart of something that taps into something very emotional for me. I told you that I used to just think that sex was boring. And it was. I also used to think that I just wasn’t going to enjoy sex in the same way the rest of the world does. I understood the connection and the love and the intimacy of it all and I experienced it thoroughly. But, I didn’t crave sex. I thought it was just something I could live without. I thought that because I was told for so long that I wasn’t good at it and that no one would want me, I thought that those things were true. For so long I thought I wasn’t good enough in so many different ways. I had resigned myself to the idea that sex just wouldn’t be a necessity in my life, as much as I wished that it was for other people. You have obviously changed that in a major way.  You make me feel beautiful and sexy and something worth cherishing. I know that all of those things are true in my head, but it is so much different to hear it and feel it and see it from someone else. And I am so scared of that. I want it so bad. It feels so good. I am so scared of having something to lose. I want to fall deeply and irrevocably in love with you. I want my parents to meet you and love you. I want to spend all of my time with you. I miss you the second you leave. I want babies and road trips to new places and laughter and memories and honest to God happiness. And I am so scared of that. I am so scared to want that again. I say that I am really worried about someone getting hurt, and I think that I am talking about hurting you. But, if we are being honest here, I am scared of me getting hurt. ... ............................................................................................................................. Took a pause there. I considered my options and decided to call my mom. So I am mostly better now. This is obviously an emotional thing for me to work through. She said that bumps in the road are okay. She said that you can only keep a wound covered for so long and then you have to remove the bandage to see if it has healed yet. Which may not make sense to anyone else, but it made enough sense to me. She also said that you have to grow to love someone to know that it is real. If you tell someone that you love them within the first two months, it is still infatuation. She also said that taking it slow is the only way know anything right now. My mother is mostly my guiding compass when it comes to these things. She always knows if someone is going to be good for me or not: mother’s intuition. She is always right, too, no matter how much I have tried to resist it in the past. That is why with this relationship I am relying so heavily on her opinion and the rest of my family’s opinion. Basically, if my family does not like the guy I am dating, it won’t work. My family hated my ex and my ex hated them which was a point of contingency in our relationship, and not something I am okay with repeating. My family’s opinion of the guy I am dating is going to be my compass for whether I can fall for this guy or not, whether that is a good thing or not. Maybe it gives their opinion too much power, but that doesn’t really matter. My mind has made itself up in this regard; I don’t have control over it. It is an overcorrection, sure, but if it keeps me from getting devastatingly hurt or wasting my time, I am okay with that. During my last relationship, Selena Gomez’s song “The Heart Wants What It Wants” came out, and it was basically an anthem for me to not give up on the relationship that was obviously bad for me. It epitomized that relationship, the feelings I was having, and how I couldn’t be told anything by anyone, especially my family. My heart wanted what it wanted, everyone else be damned. I can’t do that this time. I refuse to do that this time. My heart doesn’t know a damn thing. I don’t know how to trust it in these matters anymore. It let me hold onto something bad for me for far too long. My mind knew better and endured damage at the hands of someone my heart couldn’t let go of. So I am taking this slow. I am taking this relationship as slow as my heart will allow me to. My mind is in control this time. But when he looks at me like that; when he touches my face and pushes my hair out of my face; when he acts as though he is seeing my body for the first time every single time; when he holds me; I want to fall. That look in his eyes. I know he is all in. That look in his eyes makes me fearless and terrified at the same time. I want to see that look forever. My ex used to have that look.That is what scares me. I am so afraid that I will do something that will cause that look leave someone’s eyes again. Looking at someone who used to have that look in their eyes and knowing that the look has left, that is one of the most heartbreakingly crippling feelings. It is like knowing only sunshine for your whole life and then suddenly experiencing only darkness. That is what my mother doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand that the fear of being hurt comes from seeing the love and adoration and warmth leave someone’s eyes. I was telling her about how I have watched my older sister and her boyfriend fight, and I was flabbergasted the first time because they fought and came to a conclusion and then let it go. There was no stewing or resentment. They had a healthy fight. I have never had a healthy fight with someone I have dated. They knew that at the end of their fight that they would still love each other, no matter the outcome. That look of love never left their eyes. With my ex, I never had that security. He held my heart hostage.With every fight, there was a pattern. I knew how they would end and how they would start again. I never knew when the pattern was over though. Which is what made letting go so difficult, even after the look had left his eyes. There were moments, fleeting moments that I would see that look in his eyes again. I would believe that everything could be okay again. The possibility was always there. That is what makes trusting someone new even more difficult. My only real point of reference is this one abusive relationship in which I learned everything: love, pain, forgiveness, resentment. My other relationships weren’t substantial enough to be reference points. This one relationship was love and loss. So much so that I am afraid to be loved because the loss is so traumatic that I don’t know how I will recover if it happens again. I am still healing from the last one. What if I give in to that possibility of love returning again? What if my good, second chance giving, forgiveness and kindness driven heart doesn’t know when to run again? How will my precious heart be able to cope with that? If I add another wound to the one that is still healing a year and a half later, how will either of them heal at all?

2/6/18 The closer I get to the guy I am dating, the more I think about my ex. Which is weird, I know. But, I am pretty sure it is because so much of my recent history involves my ex, and I want to share parts of myself with the guy I am dating and those parts of my life are so entwined with my ex that I have to talk about him and think about him in order to share those parts of my life. I worry that this is strange and hard for my current romantic interest to endure. I don’t know how to talk about these parts of me and moments in my life without bringing my ex up. My ex was a part of my life for 4 years which is 1/6th of my life at this point. Thinking about and talking about my ex makes me wonder, when I am alone, if I miss him. Which is weird, extremely weird, because I know that I don’t. I think the comparisons between my ex and the guy I am dating make it even weirder. They are so different on so many levels. On side note, I am so tired, all of the time. My sleep schedule is all sorts of messed up which is leading me to nap all of the time which translates into me getting absolutely nothing done in the last week. I am so disappointed in myself and yet, I am still doing nothing about it. I am not sure how to get my shit together right now. I know that I will eventually, I am hoping sooner rather than later for the sake of my grades and my workload. Back to dating, I think my mind is rushing into things and my heart is refusing to catch up. My mind is running away with ideas of planning trips and presents and a future and wanting babies and things that it has no business running away with. My heart is wondering if I am doing this right and feeling the right things or if I am...well, taking advantage of him and using him because he makes me laugh and happy and comfortable and... well, I don’t know. In my previously relationships, I was in love by now. I was heavily infatuated and couldn’t get enough. Right now, I am not infatuated; I am fine without talking to him for hours and not seeing him for days; I am not nervous and falling all over myself to please him; I am not a little girl with butterflies in her stomach; I am not unfocused. I am scared that I am taking this too seriously, that I am missing out on the butterflies and nervousness and giddiness. I am scared that because I am handling this relationship like an adult that I am not getting to feel the “childish” feelings. I am scared that because I am not feeling those “childish” feelings that he is not the right person for me. Which is not something I want to be wondering, but it is definitely on my mind. It is also not something I can really talk to anyone about, especially him. Do you grow to love someone? Aren’t you supposed to fall head over heels for them? Is it supposed to take time and happen slowly? This is so different from all of my other relationships that I don’t know what to do or think or what is going on. All I know is that I miss him when he isn’t here; I enjoy his company; I like sleeping next to him; his eyes are beautiful; he makes me feel safe; he makes me laugh; he makes me feel beautiful, sexy, cute, hot, amazing; I know he wants me. Is that love? Is that love adjacent?

“You be the lines, I’ll be the color.” - Carly Pearce. This is how I feel like we are right now. 1/24/18 Monday night, I let you see inside my dark, broken, still recovering, mid-healing mess of a soul. I let you see me cry for the first time. I let you listen and comfort and hold me. I bared the inner workings of my mind and heart, and you didn’t run. You didn’t think I was crazy. You gave me empathy instead of sympathy. You honored and cherished my trust. You saw my darkness. I let you hear the deepest hidden doubts that I pretend do not exist in the back of my mind. You told me that the only fight you can foresee is fighting over dirty dishes. You told me that you will probably make me cry at some point. You told me that it wouldn’t be perfect. You told me that you hope that you can bring any amount of happiness, hope, or goodness to my life. You told me that what I am feeling and dealing with won’t go away, and that the only thing that can make it go away is time and that I have nothing but time. You told me to work through things kinds of things with you. You told me that all we have is time. You told me that the world wants nothing but good things for me. You told me that the world works in my favor. You told me that everyone around me, even people don’t even know me only want good things for me. You told me that you know better because you have gone through life and these kinds of things completely alone and angry. You told me that I am naive for thinking that this pain and healing will happen overnight. You told me that all I can do is give it time. You told me that it was going to be okay. You told me that I would never date another person as bad as he was. You told me that he was jealous and wanted to ruin me so he could bring me down to his level. You asked me how I thought I ruined him. You asked me what I thought I did that could have ruined him. I didn’t have an answer. You told me that the way I hope others see me is exactly what they do see me. You did and said everything right. You made it easy to trust you. You saw my fears and took them, and said it would be okay. You took me by surprise. And I want nothing more than to have you keep doing that. You told me that you want me to be your co-star, your partner. You said that I could have top billing. And I know when someone asks me, I will be able to tell them the exact moment I knew. What I know, I have no idea yet, but I will be able to look back on that night and say that was when I knew. Maybe I am just jumping to conclusions, and I know that it is too soon and that I don’t yet, but I definitely felt something, and I am thinking differently now for sure. And it doesn’t scare me nearly as much as it should. Because I feel safe with you, and now, I know that I am. I think my mind is probably running away with itself, but I think that is okay. A little crazy is okay.

But that girl, she didn’t know how beautiful and wonderful and full of life she was. She just lived and tried to be that way and herself through and through as much as she could without even knowing that she was doing that. She was so free, fun, and happy even through the pain and the sadness. She still held on to the naive amazing part of her that told her that love was real and to keep trying and being vulnerable and giving every part of herself to this love because that is how love should get to be with the right person. She believed through and through that he was the right person. And that is okay. Because now she is a grown woman who has learned her lesson and guarded her heart. I don’t know if she has held onto that spark that I saw in every recorded moment, but I think that is what I want back, if I don’t still have it. I think that is what I want when I look back at those videos and pictures with longing. I know I don’t want him. I want her. I want her to know how much I love her and how beautiful she is and how wrong everything he told her is.

I want so desperately to be loved. I know that being single has done wonders for me as a person, but I miss being in a relationship so much. Not the worries and having to take care of another person and their needs and wants and dreams. But the feeling of being loved and missed and desired and wanted. I am so jealous of couples snuggling in the movie theater, couples holding hands in the grocery store, couples in general. I am so lonely. My issues are overwhelming and undeniable, but my loneliness is... unbearable at times. I just want to be someone’s dream girl. I want to be that person they have to have. I want to be the first thing they think of in the morning when they wake up and the last thing they think of as they fall asleep. I want to be someone they can’t get off their mind. I want to be someone they can’t get enough of. I am so tired of being someone’s weekend chat that ends when Monday comes. I am so sick of being so forgettable. It has been two months since I joined dating apps. I tell the guys I talk to that I am not looking for anything serious, and I am not. I am not ready to be somebody’s girlfriend again. But I do want something consistent. Something enduring. Something that will last more than a week. I won’t lie, I have physical needs that I would like met, too. Until two weeks ago, I wasn’t ready to be intimate with a man. I had kissed two guys and I craved that so badly. To be honest, that is intimate enough for me, but if there is more, I am up for that too. I just want to be, exist, with someone who is as attracted to be me as I am to them. I want to be wanted. I want to be irresistible to them. I want someone who can’t keep their hands off of me (in a good way). I want them to want every part of me. I want them to want my body, my mind, my everything. I want them to want to know every little thing about me even if I am not yet able to give them that. I want them to want it regardless. I want to find someone who is actually worth my time, someone who acknowledges that I am worth their time. And maybe the idea that I am not ready for something serious is just a lie that I tell myself. Who knows? Does it really matter right now when I can’t find someone who actually wants that from me? I know that I want something real. And, sure, I am terrified to find and have something real, but I can still want something that scares me. If it doesn’t scare you at least a little bit, it isn’t really worth it, right? That fear is of losing that person not of the commitment or thing itself. And, isn’t something real something serious in and of itself?

My mother is judgmental. She is currently making me feel like an irresponsible child because of the way I am handling my grad school assignments. As if I was purposefully procrastinating them. She makes me feel as if I am doing everything wrong in my life. Choosing to be on dating apps, choosing to dress differently, choosing to work on my homework in a way that works for me, choosing anything that she doesn’t think is the way she would do things. All of this is being said out of anger and I don’t want to say things that I might not mean; it is hard to distinguish what is truth and what is anger in my mind right now. But she isn’t going to read this. I am not talking bad about her. That is a technicality that rules my mind. I can’t talk about people because it would be talking about them behind their backs. But this whole thing is just for me. It doesn’t matter if they will ever read it or not. These are my emotions and feelings and I am entitled to feel them. I don’t have to hold them in. Which is a huge problem that I have. It upsets me that I can’t even just feel my feelings when no one will know about them in the first place. I have been told that I am not allowed to feel or be a certain way for so long that I don’t even know how to do it in private either. I love my mother. She is wonderful. But she upsets me. Her opinion is one of the most important opinions to me in my life. So it really hurts when it is not in line with my own. We are so similar, but so very different. I used to think we were basically the same person. But we aren’t. I don’t know if I should mourn the loss of that idealized idea of us in my mind or not. My counselor says that I need to learn to speak up and talk about my feelings when they happen, and I have been working on it, mostly with my mother. But I am so sick of prefacing my discussions of my feelings with her with how my counselor says to speak up. I wish I could just talk about them without her feeling like I am attacking her. I wish I could just talk, period, without her feeling like I am attacking her. I feel misunderstood and I am so tired of explaining myself to avoid the judgment and opinions of others, especially my family. They are pretty much all I have in life, and I want to share everything with them. But they don’t really understand me, and in my mind, for so long, I thought they did. But, really, I am pretty sure I have been lying to myself that they do because I have no one else. I don’t think I have ever felt understood by any of them. And that makes me feel so incredibly alone now. I feel as though I have been lying to myself for so long and reality has been screaming at me to see my pathetic life for what it really is. I don’t know if that is how I really feel, but it is how I feel right now. And that feeling is devastating. It makes me want to give in to all of the darkness inside that I keep at bay on a regular basis. I think I am happy. But there is a small voice that I silence that creeps in some days that just whispers repeatedly that something is wrong. That I am not as happy as I am trying and thinking myself to be. And, I don’t know where that voice comes from: depression, my past relationship, my mother’s judgment, my self-doubt - all of the above? With that voice comes the questions of whether my life is worth it, if I am doing it right, if I should be doing more, what am I doing, and why am I not where I want to be by now. And I know I am not special in thinking any or all of this. And that makes me want to scream! Because I shouldn’t have to have a disclaimer for my feelings. My feelings should be significant in that they are mine. They should override any and all needs to say they are not special or unique. That doesn’t make them invalid! I fucking invalidate my own feelings. No wonder it is debilitatingly horrible when someone else invalidates them. My counselor says that I am really hard on myself and that I need to learn to be nicer to myself. If the rest of the world knew how hard I am on myself, they would realize that their judgment is unnecessary, because anything they have to say is nothing in comparison to what I have said to myself before. I am trying so hard to let myself be and try new things and learn what I like and want and who I am and who I want to be. The judgment of others, my mother included, makes that almost impossible sometimes. Which is why it hurts so much when she says something judgmental. It can halt my entire mental process of what I am trying to do with my life because her opinion matters so much to me. I think, maybe, the reason I have never escaped my comfort zone before is because my mother has created a box in my mind of her judgments and what is acceptable that I don’t know how to venture out of. That box has been used to replicate what my comfort zone should be. It is easier to stay within that comfort zone box than it is to face the judgment of my mother from doing something outside of it. Which is making it very difficult to become my own adult. What’s worse, going back to the fact that I am extremely hard on myself and no one knows it, no one has a clue that all of this is going on in my mind, that this whole thought process is occurring underneath the surface. I don’t know how to become who I might really be without losing the respect and good opinions of those that I love. But, I shouldn’t be afraid of that because if they truly love me, they will love me no matter what, right? I think when I moved to New York, in my mind, that became just a lie I tell myself, because I spent so long feeling alone and as though they did not love me. I think my abandonment issues (I am pretty sure I have them) stem not just from my past romantic relationships, but also from that period of time living in New York and feeling as though I had lost my family forever. Though that was not the truth, I know that feeling has stayed, ingrained in my mind, possibly forever. The feeling of being abandoned. That fear of being completely alone. That reality of being completely unloved by those I hold most dear. I have an irrational fear of losing them which translates to being terrified to fight with them, which in turn leads to the fear of speaking up for myself despite my need to learn to do so. I have now drawn a straight line from one point to another on where my problems arise from. I have broken down my mental process into an analysis of what is wrong. But, the real question still stands as it always does: How do I fix it? I say “fix” because I truly believe that I am broken in some way. And honestly, I was about to write a disclaimer about how I am not broken in a way that others are, I mentally thought that. That is something that I need to stop so I just tried to, but I wanted to document that process of stopping myself and trying to acknowledge that my feelings towards myself are valid, no matter how others are or view themselves. This isn’t about them. It is supposed to be about me. That is something I need to remember. That is something I see as broken within me. The fact that I have to remind myself that my life is MY life, that I am the protagonist of my own story. It is freakin’ ridiculous that I somehow think otherwise. That life just happens to me and I have no control over what happens to me. And there, I just pointed out part of what causes my control issues. I don’t know if there are people out there that just don’t have any issues, but I feel like I have them in excess despite how simple and uneventful my life is. Guess what? I also have trust issues. No surprise there to be honest. I bring this up because I really should have more friends and be telling them this stuff. But I don’t know how to be truly vulnerable with anyone anymore. I have thought by telling guys that I have been in an abusive relationship and that my sisters are sick that I have been being the most vulnerable I could possibly be with them because those things strike a nerve within me and I am scared to share those things. But, really, right now thinking about it, those things really aren’t about me. Those are things that have happened to me. They are parts of my life that exist and that they will have to deal with, but they are not really about me. Those are not things that they would have to deal with that are strictly me. Sure, they might have to deal with an emergency in the middle of the night relating to my sisters. They might have to deal with a breakdown from me comparing my life to my ex’s life. But, the things that will keep me up in the middle of the night: tormenting me, affecting how I think of them in relation to me, causing me to shut down and push them away, locking myself away deep in my own consciousness as though I was locking myself in the bathroom and crying on the floor feeling my life crumble in on itself; the real things I would have to tell them to truly be vulnerable, those are about me. I don’t know how to share them. I don’t know that I will ever be able to. I don’t know if I want to despite how desperately I want to connect with someone else on that level. I don’t know how to be vulnerable like that again. Why?, you might ask. Because I gave myself as completely and fully as one could to my ex. I let him in. I let him in, down to the core of my soul. I told him every little thing on my mind, every insecurity I had, every single solitary part of me that I possibly could. Why? Because I loved him. Despite the abusive nature of our relationship, he was my everything. I loved him with every fiber of my being (at one point in the relationship, not the whole time) As easy as it was to finally cut him out of my life, because I deserved better, as much as it didn’t hurt at the time, because I went through so much pain and hurt already, that vulnerability has ruined me. He took every beautiful, horrible, ugly, imperfect thing I told him in vulnerability and used it against me. He took that gift of vulnerability and turned it into his own personal factory of ways to hurt me. Good or bad, they all hurt. And, as over him as I am, I think I will forever be impacted by his influence on my view of myself. That also speaks to my ability to speak up for myself. I try to be the kindest and most considerate person I possibly can be. I never want anyone to feel the way that I did. By extension, that has caused me to not set limits for myself with others. I fail to protect myself from myself because I don’t want to be him or anything I was like when I was with him. I have taken the idea (according to other people (my family)) that I was a bitch or someone who wasn’t me when I was with him and taken it to the extreme. I am trying to be more me than ever, but only in the terms that would please others. When I am the me that does not fit within those terms, it is only in private, when I am alone with myself. Most people hate themselves when they get to be alone with themselves. While that is true part of the time for me as it is normal in this society, I love being with myself. I feel like my truest self. No pretenses, no false kindness, no need to pretend to be “more me”. The curse of this is that I am an extrovert and need to be around others. My life would be so much easier if I was an introvert. I could just spend all of my time alone, being just me at all times.

You say that you won’t hurt me, in any way. But, it is incredibly naive to think that could be true, in any way. And yet, I don’t know how it will cope if you do hurt me. I say that because if you do hurt me, it means that I gave you the power and permission to do so. It means that I handed you the very knife that will slice through me. I am so fucking scared to open up when I go about saying how open of a person I am. I am so scared to let you in. I am scared that regardless of how long this lasts, that I will miss you, that I will care about you, that I will give you any piece of me, that this could possibly be real enough to devastate me in any way. Because, I am so hard on the outside; I am so guarded and protected and complicated; if I let this be anything beyond shits and giggles experimenting with my boundaries and limits, I will...honestly I don’t know what will happen. The unknown is what I am so afraid of. I am afraid of trusting you. I am afraid of wanting you. I am afraid of giving myself anything that might be something I will miss. I am afraid of letting this be significant to me because it means that I will have let you in, into my life, into my heart, into my mind, into my past because you will have existed in my life and have created a memory of yourself in my life that will be something. Whatever that something is, will be a part of me forever. How am I supposed to live with that? I want this to be easy and fun and simple and forgettable. I say that I want to feel everything to the fullest, that if something is going to wreck me, just wreck me as hard and as much as you can. But, I took away everyone’s power to wreck me. I am in control. I built myself back up, put all of the pieces back together. And if this is something, I will be giving you even the tiniest amount of control. I will be relinquishing some of the control that I have been holding onto so tightly for what has felt like a lifetime since I chose to leave my comfort zone, status quo relationship with someone who was wrong for me and yet the only thing I knew wouldn’t change. Now, in my life of constant change in which I am the only thing I have control over (which is true for everyone and anyone but still), letting someone else have any of that control is terrifying. Thus, you terrify me. You, with your promises to not hurt me, with your implications that there is a semblance of a future for us however short it may be, with your unknownness, terrify me. And I don’t know how to proceed from here except to “go with the flow” and let whatever happens happen, because I can’t run, from life.

I just realized part of the reason behind why I feel like a burden all of the time. With Josh, I was treated like an inconvenience and a burden constantly. I just read a line from a conversation we had in February of 2015 and I said “I hope I didn’t interrupt your life too much.” That just made me tear up because I feel like that just pinpointed my feelings completely. I don’t know if I felt like a burden this strongly before I met him. I know I felt that way in high school, but everyone feels insignificant in high school to some extent. But I think this is a behavior/habit/feeling that I learned and reinforced so strongly when I was with Josh, and then my sisters both kept getting sicker and the feeling just intensified. How am I supposed to fix this feeling? 

My younger sister is going to be living with me in a two bedroom apartment for the fall semester which starts in a month. I am extremely nervous about this. When the idea was first proposed, all I could think of were the good things and possiblities. But now, all of the negatives have been creeping in. Like, how I will have to take care of her, deal with her irregular sleep schedule, her moods, her quirks, and being in close quarters with her all the time. This would scare any sibling, but her chronic medical conditions make the anxiety about it worse. I worry that I will either let myself be held back by her, or be held back unintentionally. I worry that I will not branch out and meet new people. I worry that this will become my life. I worry that I will permanently become her caretaker. Now, I love my sister more than words can express, and taking care of her makes me feel needed and helpful. But I know that caretaking can take a toll and I have already experienced that. I worry that it will overwhelm me and ruin our relationship. I worry that she will deter anyone that could ever be interested in me. I worry that I will never meet someone to date and thus my whole life will be derailed and center on taking care of her because I have nothing else. I worry that I will be sucked into living with her for the rest of my life out of love and obligation and her inability to be independent. I worry that worrying like this and having these thoughts makes me a bad person. I worry that I will never be able to really truly talk to someone about these feelings. 

Money stresses me out. Not always, as a kid I had an allowance and spent it on whatever I wanted. But I never needed to understand the concept of paying for my life. I grew up with parents who are professionals (doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc). I lived a comfortable life. Then I went to college and dated a guy who was not as well off as I was. He was constantly stressing me out about his finances and what we could afford to do based on his shitty spending habits. But that is a different tangent. I am still living a comfortable life. But now I am worried about paying for myself and my habits and my tuition so I can help out instead of just taking my life for granted because you know, I am fucking adult. I should contribute to paying for my tuition. But now, I am nickle and diming the crap out of my brain. I set a goal for how much I want to earn for the summer and I calculate what I have earned every week in relation to what my goal is. I work hourly and I am not a morning person at all. So every time I am late, I lose money. Every time I have to take a day off for family or whatever, I lose money. I am constantly thinking about the money I am missing out on. And it doesn’t really matter. It is just a stupid goal I set for myself. It isn’t necessary. I am not going to not be able to school in the fall if I don’t reach my earning goal. It is just this arbitrary number I came up with from the goal I made up for how many weeks I want to work this summer and how I will make if I work 40 hours every week. But in my mind, it is failure every time I miss out on money. It is me not reaching my full potential. Idk. It just stresses me out way more than I am comfortable with. 

What is beyond ridiculous about all of this is that I know there are real problems going on in the world, and I am just going on and on bitching about I don’t get any attention or fulfillment out of life or people. I feel like a spoiled brat who has twenty dolls while another little girl has none. And yeah blah blah blah, I am entitled to feel heard and loved blah blah blah. Not everyone gets that luxury and I am sitting here squandering it. Which honestly, just makes me feel even worse. And the cycle continues. I don’t feel like I have the right to complain. About anything. Ever. And I don’t want pity, or for someone to understand me. It would just be nice to have the option of being the center of attention. But I know I would just brush it off and give it to someone else, so I should just stop bitching about it.

So completely disregard the entire last post. I spent more than an hour in the leasing office while he was working and there was nothing on his part. I attempted conversations several times. Nothing. But he interacted with other residents that I am assuming he knows and are friends with. He said he is an introvert and that he doesn’t like texting. But yeah, nothing. So I canceled the friend request. I am sure he never even saw it. But I am not going to try for something when there is no obvious interest on his part. I wasn’t interested enough to bother with that much effort. He is younger than me for one. Which equals immature which is the exact opposite of what I want. Sure, he is hot. Sure, something casual would be amazing. But that is not something I am going to find with this guy. Oh well. I will disregard all of this and move on with my day.