#uhg!

I saw the card temples and I had to, 🪄🎥✨

This was a second one.

I have a lot of feelings about this exchange. Not least of which because it, 1) takes place right after Type admits he wants to date Tharn, and 2) happens while Type is laying in Tharn’s lap while Tharn gently strokes his hair and shoulder and arm... 

Not just because they’re both absolutely the jealous type.

But because Type, Mr “One time and never again” 

Is now at the point where he’s like “Yeah, you wanna have your way with me all night long? Please, be my guest.” 

He clearly enjoys himself from the get go when he and Tharn sleep together, and slowly but surely keeps doing things that Tharn likes, like inviting him to lunch and dinner and going shopping for sheets with him. Whenever Tharn asks for something, he pretty much always gives in, even if initially he says no. He gives in immediately after saying no. The declining to do what Tharn wants is just a token, knee-jerk response. Type always smiles as soon as he gives Tharn what he wants and sees how happy it makes Tharn.

He wants to make Tharn happy, he wants to please him and be kind to him. He just doesn’t know how to do it and doesn’t understand his emotions and...

And in this moment, he knows he would give Tharn anything. And if having his way with Type all night long is what Tharn wants, then fuck yeah, cause that happens to be exactly what Type wants too. 

I always love how these two make up... the “punishment” is always something the other wants.

Like when Type was mad at him towards the end of the series and Type went off and drank with Lhong to talk, and then he gets back and Tharn is taking care of him and apologizing for pissing him off...

Type: Hug me? Tharn: You’re drunk Type: I’m not drunk ... Tharn: Forgive me? Type: No. Tharn: *sadface* Type: Not until you give me a hug.

Boy just really wanted a hug! And of course he was going to forgive Tharn. There was no question about it, he already had. So the payment for forgiveness was just a hug.

Or of course the post-break up getting back together, Type just wants to know what he can do to make it up to Tharn, to have Tharn forgive him for breaking up with him.

The “punishment” for hurting him by breaking up with him is to just get back together with him. And Type is like SO happy, of COURSE he’ll get back together with Tharn, that’s all he wanted. He didn’t want to break up in the first place! 

And frankly, that’s because I haven’t needed to.

Last semester was like a dream. I wasn’t tired all the time. I had friends who needed me and supported me. I had time to pursue the things I enjoy as well as get the things I needed to do done -- most of the time, those two things were synonymous as I enjoyed my studies so much that I hardly cared about the amount of work.

It was new and exhilarating, being there for others, others being there for me... I loved it...

And yet, in the middle of it all... there was this constant sense of... dread?

At first I wondered if it was my false sense of danger kicking in -- living on-edge for 18 years in a household where someone can turn on you in a second can do that to you. Then I wondered if it was the idea that my friends wouldn’t stick around long after college so I had to do everything I could with them while this time lasted, which gave me a lot of anxiety when I couldn’t/didn’t hang out with them. Both of these things are certainly a part of it, but nowhere near the entire picture...

Throughout all of last semester -- and much of my life, really -- I’ve had this sense of... pervading loneliness. At least, that’s what I used to call it. A sense that I would/will always be alone, no matter how close I feel with my friends, because of how “different” I am compared to them.

Trauma makes me view the world much differently, that’s true. And loneliness is a part of it, that’s also true.

But what I feel now... is not loneliness.

Everywhere I go, I see someone I know: a friend, an acquaintance, a professor, a colleague. Almost every single one of them -- all of them -- want to talk with me, be around me. They give me their time, they’re interested in me, they’re willing to talk to me.

It’s something I hardly ever experienced before.

I always felt people were dismissive in high school, too busy in their own cliques to pay any mind to someone on the outside. I never felt like a person when with my family either -- they minimized anything undesirable about my personality to the point that all of my self-worth was based on a few traits: my perfect grades, my virtuous piano abilities, my pragmatism, my self-restraint. These are the traits I focused on above everything else, snuffing out anything that was “undesirable.”

Essentially, I was a non-human.

I was the blank avatar of whatever personality traits others wanted to impress upon me, and I let that happen -- I desired it, in fact, out of the fear of being ridiculed, shunned, and manipulated for showing the “real” me.

Now... people actually see me. I can feel it. It still startles me -- the amount of presence I have in this world. The amount of agency and influence I have on other people, and myself.

I’m not lonely anymore -- I know I’m not just someone trapped on a lone planet of water and ice speeding through the cosmos.

I’m glad for that, and it’s radicalized my world-view to the point that I can’t ever go back -- I’ll make sure of it.

...But throughout this semester, last semester... I can’t shake this feeling inside me.

It isn’t the same as before. It isn’t loneliness -- I know what that feels like, empty, vacant, like a vacuum of endless terror and dread from which I can never escape. It isn’t depression -- that feels heavy, like a rope wrapped around my shoulders, ankles, and gut, constantly pulling me toward the ground from which I can never get up. It isn’t anxiety -- that feels frenetic, chaotic, like my head is pounding with the beat of the clock and my hands can never go fast enough so I just go faster and faster until the clock is deafening and my eyes can no longer focus and I feel like fainting except my breath is too fast and erratic to know what’s happening.

So is it a mix of these?

...

My therapist told me recently that I present myself as a very put-together person; that it’s hard for others to reach out to me because I never show vulnerability; that my writing is the only thing that really conveys I’m struggling (the times I’ve emailed her) because I never show it when we’re in session; and when I do, it’s only after much coaxing and resisting.

I know that.

That’s why I’m hitting myself on the head since I’ve cowered back into my corner of fear, writing this text post now.

It’s all I could do during high school, write stories that helped tame some of the chaos going on inside my mind, slowing the swirling clouds of angst, loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

I still do it: resort to writing what’s on my mind rather than letting someone know...

...Even if I know it isn’t the best thing to do, it’s my first response. I can’t tell someone how I feel in person. I just want to forget; I don’t want to face it; I don’t think the other person would react well, given past experiences.

But it’s hard!

I want to connect with people.

I don’t want to be alone in this all the time anymore.

I’m so frustrated!

I know what I need to do but not how to do it!

I’m tired. I’m just so tired of facing it alone. Not exactly the trauma, but yes the trauma. Not exactly the loneliness, but yes the loneliness. Not exactly the depression, anxiety, stress of schoolwork, of life, of living, but -- all of the above.

Just. Everything.

I’m just tired.