TeeDree

I feel like I am growing closer to getting to the truest source of my pain. I just can’t quite reach it. Idk what it is that is keeping me away from accessing it. There is so much I have done to avoid truly feeling my feelings I don’t know how to reverse it. I don’t know how to feel deeply. I keep things on the surface. The chances of drowning in the shallow end are a lot smaller than in 12 feet. I don’t even know how to get to 6ft. I can’t access it.

Having a complete and total emotional breakdown from something seemingly not that important has given me the opportunity to really address the things I thought I was over. Months ago my therapist discussed with me repeated traumas and I heard what she said and agreed but did not fully process what she was saying. I have acknowledged that I have had a lot of traumatic experiences and that they shape who I am today but I didn’t realize that that are truly unsolved. Having this recent trigger what incredibly eye opening. After crying and crying and not eating and obsessing, I started to realize that the things I was saying to myself had absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. These are things that don’t even really make sense. This is not logic, this is feeling. Old feelings that I have suppressed. I think what I need to do is start cataloging these traumas that I have experienced. Noting them and looking at them individually so that I can finally move past them. So that in the future, vulnerability doesn’t instantly trigger all these symptoms. 

If I could get out of my own head, I could get out of my own way. The lack of trust I have in myself is astounding. I’m really trying to train myself to make informed decisions and trusting myself enough to not need a cosign. I am a thoughtful person almost to a fault. I am not going to make a decision or come to a conclusion without borderline obsessing about it first. So then why after all of this, do I need to ask someone else to agree with me? This tendency is so destructive to my progress. This and how often I talk myself out of doing the things I enjoy. I don’t do the things that I think will bring me happiness. I’m too tired or it’s going to take me too much time.... to do the things... that make me happy? That’s fucking wild. The amount of time I spend doing nothing is absurd. And, I don’t even realize it. So much time scrolling. So much time pressing play on a scree, , it’s really ridiculous. I need a reset desperately. 

My cousin asked me yesterday if I think about Jaleel a lot. The question surprised me because I thought the answer would be obvious. I think about Jaleel every hour or every day. He is always on my mind. Always. Sometimes it’s remembering something funny. Other times it’s thoughts that invoke immense sadness. But more often than anything it’s an automatic thought of something I should do for him or something that he can do for himself or something that he needs. And this is followed immediately by the reality of the fact that he is gone. At times, it feels like he’s still here and I just haven’t seen him in a while. At other times the fact that he is not here is so present in my mind that I can barely manage. I love Jaleel the same way I love Charlotte. That is how much he means to me. I thought everybody knew that. 

lol. So much of me is trying to not get reactions from people. So much of my personality is based in how I can not catch the attention of anyone. How can I not stand out? How can I hide in plain sight? I’ve spent my whole life dimming my own light. 

It is an immeasurable about of pain. It is a loss I cannot process. The idea of looking at this person who I carried on my hip until I physically could not... the idea of seeing him motionless in a casket is crippling. I cannot process this. I don’t know how I am expected to live through this. He was never supposed to go before me. 

There is no way to prepare yourself to lose part of yourself. Jaleel is part of me. He means so much to me. So much of who I am today is because of his existence. He was the first experience I had with completely loving someone more than myself. The idea that I will never see his smile again, or his little head nod or hear his laugh, truly breaks my heart. I don’t know how to be the person I was before. I don’t know how to heal or if I even want to heal. I don’t want to get used to his absence. I don’t want to move on. I don’t want him to become just a memory. I just hope he knew how much I love and adore him and I hope he knew how much he was a part of me. 

Coming to terms with my feelings is something that is always quite difficult for me. It has taken me years and years to admit to myself that attachment and love I have for a man that I have insisted on treating poorly. I wonder if I could have come to this realization without all of the ugliness that has taken place on both ends. Fear has stopped me from truly exploring the possibilities of this 14 year long .... thing. But the love wound is open and bleeding uncontrollably. 

I don’t know what it is that he likes about me. What about me that he finds attractive. It scares me. It makes me think that I’m crazy. That I’m feeling a connection that isn’t really there. But the eye contact between us makes me feel something very different. I feel exposed when he looks at me. Like he is looking through me and into me in a way that no man has before. I feel naked in those moments. But the not knowing is frustrating. All of the things that I know to look at as signs of attraction, he does not do. He doesn’t kiss me. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t compliment me, he doesn’t call me. These are all the things that tell me he has no interest in me beyond what I can do for him. But he listens to me. He cares a lot about what impression of him I have. He pays attention to my mannerisms and responses. So much so that he knows when I am about to come before it happens. Am I crazy? Am I falling in love with someone who does not love me? Does he have to love me for me to love him? Where can this really go? I see the fragileness in him. I see the person that has been beaten by life. I just want to be a safe place for him. That is not entirely true. That’s not just want I want to be but it is very important to me. I want him to know that he is safe with me. I want him to know that I would never try to hurt him. I hope sincerely that he would never try to hurt me. I must be crazy. I have to be to feel this way about someone who knows everyone genetically close to me. Someone who has seen me at so many stages of life. Someone who has seen so many ranges of emotions in me. Am I seeing what I want to see? I have to question myself because I know that I tend to attach myself to people simply because we have been intimate. Is that what I’m doing? I honestly don’t know. I have trusted him so deeply that the first glimpse of betrayal felt like a full heartbreak. I cried from deep within my spirit from what felt like actual pain. Something that many would look at as an extreme overreaction. But it was a genuine emotion. I want to tell him all of this. I want to tell him everything but fear is keeping me from bearing my whole soul. How can I tell him anything without knowing how he feels. I don’t even know what he likes about me. I don’t even know if he finds me attractive. And that scares me.

Trying to stop myself from overthinking is like trying to freeze time. The more exposed my emotions are, the less my mind is able to logically process the simplest of encounters.

I've never experienced anything quite like this before. It's different in a good way.

Why do I fall so easily?

There is so much shit in my house that has been given to me. Some of it is shit I need but for the most part, it’s clutter that someone else did not want and somehow thought I would want or need. An assortment of small decorative candles, a closet dehumidifier, an array of bags, cowboy keychains, literal loose sheets of paper, blankets, biased opinions, frustrations, flawed ideals... so on and so on. Somehow I have allowed myself to be a catch all for shit that I don’t fucking need. 

I feel so stifled by security. Caged. Living but limited.