positiv?

― Charles Bukowski

(freedom)

days of incomprehension, denial, crying;

days that started and ended with antidepressants;

20 books;

11 months of working out, 5 workouts a week, periodic runs;

11 months of journaling, 261 Word pages, rare meditations;

7 museums;

6 months employed at the best job;

5 cities;

2 devil kittens;

2 movings and a comeback to my favourite city;

studying QA, Python, and web development;

thousands of small steps in order to prove to myself that I can do everything;

fulfillment of my wishes, self-care;

learning to be in harmony with myself, trust myself, and keep promises to myself;

One year and a day ago, I felt so terrible, so it’s almost funny to recollect now.

Funny. One year and a day ago, I went outside for a walk and listened to music, and with a feeling of having my life totally crashed into a million pieces, I felt an irrational relief: it had finally come to an end. Finally, a new era in my life started, which had to be better.

One year ago, I had to come back to my father’s place and spend some time there. I was broken, unable to think and make decisions, tired and exhausted. It was a necessity: to come back to the place I didn’t want to live in, to be under a parent’s guidance, to live in circumstances that weren’t meant for me and made me feel bad.

The first four months are vague in my memory. I took antidepressants. I was fucked up. I was in pain, in fear, with anxiety kicking in. I worked in a job that I hated, and that made me feel even more shitty. I cried my eyes out. Every day I dreamed about being somewhere else.

Last year, in October, I gritted my teeth and started working my ass in order to change something. First time running in the streets. First workout. First journal entry. I started to study. I got two kittens.

Since October, every day has been a day when I became better, smarter, and stronger. Bit by bit. Endless amount of days when I proved to myself that I could do things I considered impossible to be done before.

Yes, a lot of things didn’t work out. But so many of them did!

I indulged in self-development, self-knowledge, self-improvement, self- something something. I accepted the fact that I’m a loner. I grew comfortable with being alone on my own. I visited many places and collected a great deal of new experiences.

I got to know myself better. I realized my non-negotiables and which types of people shouldn’t ever be in my life. I will not let unworthy, negative, and uninitiative people into my circle.

In 2022, I read one book since 2019. Since then and before September, 2023, I had read two books. Since September last year, I have read twenty books. I can read books again.

I journal my days, so no day ever will get lost or forgotten.

I work out so I can feel strong and in shape. I even grew some muscles. I can go in the streets and run.

I can code a program that will print the Fibonacci sequence.

I found satisfaction with my professional work. I found a stable job, which I adore.

I stopped whining too much and started being more compassionate about myself. I broke out the self-hatred loop. Now there is more self-compassion and self-acceptance in my life.

It was a good year. (And the next one is going to be even better.) If not for the hell I’d been into, I wouldn’t be where I am now. 

I don’t know if some wounds can actually heal one day. I honestly don’t know.

It doesn’t get healed. As if I’m always gonna feel like a child on a playground whose mother said: “I will abandon you. I will find a better child, better than you.”

Almost twenty years have passed since those words. But every time something pulls me back to that playground. Every time this ugly fear comes to life, it settles with anxiety in my chest and makes me cry.

Yesterday, one year ago, was a very important day in my life.

I can’t forget it or cross it out of my memory. And that’s a good milestone to compare to what has changed since that day. With all the changes, it feels as if my old personality has died.

One year ago, everything was steadily going down. My plans for last year were to make it the best year of my life. Instead, it turned out to be the second worst.

Last year, I returned to my favourite city, planning to live my best life. I got a stressful job that I quickly escaped from. I lived in a depressing environment with terrible conditions. I was in a relationship with a person who showed me over and over that they were not the right choice for me. And over and over, I ignored my pain and turned a blind eye to red flags and mixed signals. I was naive and thought that we could get through everything together because we loved each other.

With all of the above, my deep-rooted problems with self-esteem and self-worth came to the surface. Anxiety and fears returned to me. I dreamed about antidepressants. My sleep was bad. I cried a lot and sobbed even more. I didn’t believe in myself. It was hard for me to get out of my room. Dim, unnoticed days passed by. I hated myself and desperately tried to cling on to the person who, as I thought, loved me. I waited for him to feel alive, valuable, and treasured. I waited for another person to start living my life. When I was with him, all bad things were temporarily pushed away. Funny escapism.

One year ago yesterday, I met him. It was a week when I had, for the first time in my life, a trip to another country to meet with him. It was a week from another life, as if on another planet. My anxiety was almost gone. I felt no pain, just an explosion of positive emotions: joy, happiness, love, comfort, and a lot of new experiences. It was the best week in my life, and I will never forget it. But then I came back to reality.

For some time, I thought that everything would be fine. And then everything crashed, and I had to collect myself piece by piece. To reach the current point in my life, I have been working hard on self-improvement for a long time.

I am happy. I feel extremely good. I live my best life. I wake up with joy in the mornings. Every day, I become better, smarter, and stronger. I prove to myself every day that I’m neither stupid nor weak. Because I am not. I don’t hate myself anymore.

I wrote these to myself one year ago. All the changes that you crave in your life are real if you tell yourself that you can make them.

You don’t need another person to love yourself. You don’t need someone else to explore the world around you, go on adventures, make new discoveries, travel, and have a good time. You can do things that you dreamed of doing, but alone.

You can love yourself and take care of yourself. Don’t wait for others to give you that.

You can love your job and love what you do.

Self-improvement is real.

Don’t wonder if you are worthy of other people. Better wonder if those people are worthy of you.

The question “What else can I do?” after every small step and every new attempt at trying something new was the right question.

You had to go through hell in order to be where you are now.

The discovery of my adult life: it turns out that you don’t have to hate your job. It turns out it can be agreeable to work in a collective (yay, remote job my remote job) and do something interesting and enjoyable at work. Wow. Total wig flew.

It can be interesting and entertaining at your job. You can be willing to work at your job. Wow. Was it always possible?

After a very long job search, a few workplace changes, and a protracted period of my career difficulties and general instability, I have found a place to stay, where I can hopefully be safe from burnout and where I can grow my professional skills.

I’m extremely proud of the fact that I got their offer. It’s one of the biggest achievements of this year, considering that I totally didn’t believe in the possibility of me getting out of the job I hated.

And one more discovery that I made before signing a contract: if you want to change your profession and leave a field of work that you don’t like at all, you need to pull yourself (and your ass) together and start working really fucking hard. Sign in to some courses, they don’t have to be paid; do something as an amateur; read and study something related to a topic, so you can say at job interviews not how badly you want to work in a different sphere, but: “Here, look, I do this and that; I study this and like it so much.” You need to show up, basically. The attitude towards your person instantly changes.

(Sorry, I’ve spent most of my working life in a field where there was something like, “Oh, you have a lasting experience there? OK, you are hired.”) And I’m still shocked that nowadays, in order to get an offer, you have to go through the seven circles of hell / to sell yourself to a HR manager, then to a manager of a HR manager, then to a manager in the head of a department of another manager / to show one thousand of your achievements, your motivation to work, your motivation to develop your skills, and your motivation to have motivation. All of that really exhausts you, and if refusal goes after refusal, you may involuntarily feel like giving up.

Job searching in general is hard. As if you have an additional job in transition from one workplace to another. If you are looking for a job now, I wish you strength and success. If you want to change a profession and leave a job that you don’t like, I believe in you.

I have always thought that something is wrong with me. Since my very childhood, I have felt as if some screws are missing inside of me, as if something is off from the very start. I have always thought that I’m worse than others.

For my parents, I did everything wrong. They thought I could have done better and differently. I had to earn their love. Views different from those of parents were disapproved in the family. Instead of talking with words through the mouth, we had passive aggression and coercion; my mother also used physical violence. From the side of my parents, I hadn’t had enough support and acceptance, and that’s what still hurts me. Non-acceptance from the closed ones, who should have loved their child as is.

I was bullied in school; I was considered weird. From the attitude of others, I began to feel like I wasn’t like them. Like I didn’t belong. Later, I started to compare myself to others, which made me fall further into this abyss. I couldn’t fit in with any company; I've always been on the sidelines. Most of my communications with others have been going through the internet; I don’t have friends in real life, off screens.

Eventually, I started to think that’s how it should be. When you can’t fit in, it’s easier to pretend that you are a loner, staying on the sidelines while others run. When everyone has someone more interesting than you. When everyone can spend a weekend with someone, share a coffee and some shopping time, and you… well, you are alone. You go anywhere alone, and you do everything alone. Chronic loneliness on the atomic level.

When, instead of feeling safe at the house that should have been your home, there was a huge desire to be somewhere else.

When, most of the time in your life, self-hatred eats you alive, and you think how good it could be not to be yourself. If only you were someone else and not yourself, a mess with a bunch of traumas, pain, and low self-esteem, as you are.

When you leave every time they try to capture a group picture in order not to leave your trace. When you dream that everyone who has ever known you before will forget about your existence.

When, in order to prove to others that you are worthy, you get yourself into trouble.

When, due to feelings of loneliness and lack of love, you break yourself over and over again.

I have managed to change my life greatly in the past few months. I’m proud of what I have achieved so far. But recently, my mind rolled back, making me feel the same as before. I spent so much time trying to change, to become a better version of myself, but in the end, it was still inside of me. There is a huge feeling of inferiority. The impression is that someone like me doesn't deserve love. As if everything I do is just an attempt to plug the hole in my chest, an attempt to distract myself from who I really am.

There is so much work ahead of me. Years of therapy, maybe, before I actually start to feel differently. Maybe those wounds will never heal completely; I don’t know.

As usual, I would like to draw a conclusion in the end, but I just want to hug everyone who, at least to some extent, feels like me. Who struggles with trauma, pain, loneliness, and a feeling of global inferiority.

Recently, I have agreed on what is causing me inner discomfort. I didn’t give myself time to think it through and ask what it was that I really wanted. And, after I had agreed, my body gave me a hint that my decision wasn’t the best: it became hard for me to breathe, and anxiety and fear reverberated in my chest. I sat there with discomfort and generally felt bad.

When I listened to those signals and cancelled the plans, I was flooded with immense relief and safety. It was as if relief filled every cell in my body, willing my anxiety away. I breathed deeply and bathed in that relief. I felt good.

Through the years, I got better at recognising my body’s signals, but it’s still a work in progress. It’s hard because most of my life I ignored not just my body but my emotions as well. Was on autopilot. Nobody told me that living through negative emotions is okay. Don’t be angry / endure it / it needs to be this way / through “I can’t” / through “I don’t want to.” Really, why pay attention to your own discomfort when we were born to endure things and work our asses out?

For me, the fact that emotions and feelings may kick into my body became a discovery—that there is such a thing as psychosomatics. That negative thoughts, people in your environment, and surroundings may affect a body more than an actual illness. At least for me.

Lately, I’ve been meditating in order to soothe my anxiety.

In one of the meditations, there were words somewhere along these lines: “Try not to take things personally.”

And it was like my eyes had opened.

I’ve been pondering this thought for quite a while. If my family tells me hurtful words and doesn’t believe in the possibility of success for me, it’s not about me but about reflections of their fears and unrealised dreams. It’s about them never doing things they, perhaps, always wanted to do.

All their advice and the words “It’s the right thing to do” are mostly about what they think would be right for them, not for me. How they think it would be good for them, not for me.

If someone insults you, it’s not about you but about the reflection of the inner world of another person. If someone screams at you or behaves aggressively or rudely towards you, it’s about the other person, their behavior in public places, and their attitude towards other people, not about you. It’s about the level of another person’s emotional maturity and self-regulation, about a lack of upbringing, respect for other people’s personal space, and so on.

I think that people unconsciously put every person they interact with into a certain category and then behave according to how they think they should treat each category. Family / friends / close friends / good acquaintances / just acquaintances / colleagues / strangers / people we are not interested in / assholes.

And from time to time, the categories get updated, and people get rerecorded from one category to another: when we got to know a person better, something happened in our lives, we parted ways, or our views on life changed.

Of course, when people serve you shit on a plate and want you to eat it, it’s very unpleasant. But it gets a bit better when I think that the vast majority of their actions have nothing to do with me at all but reflect their inner world and their beliefs about the external world.

The hardest thing is to accept.

Accept that something didn’t work out. Accept that you deserve better but can’t get it at the moment.

And to separate yourself from your failures. Don’t scold yourself when, again, one more time, things don’t work out. Don’t howl in hopelessness and desperation. Don’t put your head down; keep your posture and go on. Never give up. Fall, get up, and continue your journey to your dreams, no matter how far they seem to be.

Failures bring me back to the depression period. Back to the person who could tirelessly say hateful words to myself. It’s hard to live through. And scary. It’s scary to almost cry, to feel how emotional seesaws start to swing again, and to hear these damned thoughts in my head: “If I had been another person, all would have worked out. If I hadn't made mistakes in my past, all could have been all right.”

It’s hard to feel harmony with yourself when life reminds you of your mistakes again and again. Throws those reminders right into your face, laughing, as if punishment for those mistakes wasn’t rough enough, as if I have to spend the rest of my life in self-reproach and pain.

I thought my wounds had healed and I forgot things that I went through, but no. It still hurts badly. Too much pain.

If you are in pain now, I’m hugging you. If you feel like you can’t change your life for the better, if you feel lost and don’t know what to do, I want to tell you that it’s gonna pass. We are gonna get it through.

I know how hard it is sometimes not to identify yourself with the mistakes that have been made, but we are not our mistakes. We are so much more than our mistakes, failures, and traumatic past.

I spent this Valentine’s Day alone. I ordered a pizza, bought some tasty snacks, lit a candle, and hopped into bed to watch a movie. And that was good.

I finally learn how to be alone, fully, for a long time, without the chase for someone else’s love or the intention to feel my own significance and uniqueness through the prism of a romantic relationship. Without desperate, broken, “I want pleasepleasepleaseplease to be loved.” Be loved by someone else, not by myself, because before, all I could give to myself was self-hatred. Be appreciated and supported by someone else while I destroyed myself from the inside with negative thoughts, anxiety, and self-doubt.

I want romantic love, of course; I think everyone wants love and a reliable partner that gives us a sense of goodness and safety and with whom we could spend a life. But… not now. People come and people go, and the only person who is gonna stay in my life forever is myself. And that’s the most important thing.

I’m finally able to feel a sense of happiness about being single. Progress. I don’t know how many months or years it will take for me to actually heal, but now I can at least say that all was for the better.

Now, for the first time in my life, I live completely alone: not in my relatives’ house, not in a dormitory, not with a love of my life, not in a rented room, around people in my space that I don’t know. I’m alone now, not because someone else has left my space for a short period of time; I’m just… alone. Because that’s what I want, and that’s how it’s comfortable for me.

I rented an apartment, and I take care of myself, focusing on self-development and trying to get back to the creation process. I do what I want and what I need to do. I spend a lot of time with myself to get to know myself better.

I’m learning how to love myself and build a relationship with myself. I make promises to myself, and then I fulfill them. I change my life for the better. I take care of myself. I try to give myself time to rest without pushing myself to my limits. I listen to myself and take care of my comfort. I praise myself. I’m giving myself the love that I spent on others before.

In any relationship: friendly, romantic, or familial.

As the new year began, I made a new rule for myself: don't be the only one who carries a relationship. Don’t be the only one who shows interest. Don't be the only one who suggests things or who cares about the other or the entire relationship. I highly recommend it; it feels great. Because if one horse is dead or not moving while another tries to move a carriage, it won't go far.

As I see it, any relationship is about two (or more) people who are interested in spending time together, who want to spend time together, who can invest in each other emotionally, who can support each other, be active, and suggest something to the agenda of the day. People who (everyone!!) need this. The answer is no? To hell with this shit, then.

There was a time in my life when I tried to reach an emotionally unavailable person. At the end of our relationship, I felt as if I were a beggar, humiliating myself to make a living. “Please, spend some time with me.” “Please, give me your attention.” “Please, give me your love.” I had the initiative all the time as if I were the only one who needed it all and the other person wasn't. I had follow-ups, but no first steps. No initiative, no something that I didn't have to ask for.

All in all, passivity? No interest? Fuck this shit.

I made a rule that I could take things into my own hands three times. I can take the initiative once. Twice. Okay, I can even try for the third time. (But do I need to, really?) I can take the initiative and watch their reactions. No initiative in return? Fuck them and goodbye. There will be people in my life who are interested in being there and who want that.

Be sad. You are allowed to, and sometimes you need to.

Embrace sadness, and embrace yourself. Sit with your sadness as with an old friend. Breathe deeply, ventilating your lungs from sadness.

It shall pass. It’s not forever. Nothing is forever, and, among all the things, sorrows.

Lately, I’m not trying to fight or oppress my sadness. I do stuff, I live, and then it strikes. “Hello there,” I say, “let’s have a sit.” I sit with my sadness; we sit together. We can be there for a long time, and then relief inevitably comes.

Pill 1.

Nobody can save me except for myself. My life is in my hands. My wellbeing and my happiness are in my hands.

Romantic relationships won’t save me. Family won’t save me. Therapy and medications won’t save me. Friends won’t save me. They can help, support, and guide one on the right path, but the metamorphosis is on me. I can’t wait for others to fix something that’s my responsibility to fix.

I don’t deny how powerful the influence of other people can be when it comes to healing, therapy, and the search for and acceptance of oneself. What I’m talking about is that the wish of saving or changing oneself must come from within in the first place.

It could be so easy if another person could wave a magic wand and solve all of my problems, but no. I am the person who will solve all of my problems, and no magic will be there, just tons of hard work.

Pill 2.

It’s not enough to want something; you need to pull yourself together and work your ass off. And then work your ass off, work your ass off, and, again, work your ass off.

“I want, I dream”—those words stay in our minds, in our heads. And you need to take action, try, make mistakes, learn, try, and make efforts [repeat x times] in order to make your dream come true.

When I treated my depression and when suicide thoughts were my normal kind of thoughts, I made a promise to myself. I promised that I would survive, that I would make it through and endure everything, that my life would be happy and great, and that I would be happy one day.

Even in my darkest times, I had a sparkle of hope in the hidden corners of my heart: everything would be all right sooner or later. I was drowning, and that thought was my straw.

My mantra was: I feel bad now, but in the future things are gonna change. Although every new day became “now,” now was bad, and my bright future was still far away. I felt as though I’d been on a pause for years, putting my life in the “later” box. I’ll do it when I feel better. When I become an interesting person, I’ll sign up for dancing or drawing classes and make new acquaintances. I’ll start it when I’m ready. And my favourite: I will relax when I’m done with something (and then another something, another something, another something). And so on.

I delayed my “all right” to the better times instead of trying to make it “all right” at this very moment.

My hope drove me to the problems I’m currently working on. From time to time, I’m not here.

My thoughts are either in the past or in the future. There have been pain, mistakes, and regrets in the past. The uncertainty of the future scares me so much that I feel anxious about it. I’m not good at letting myself relax, allowing myself to rest, because my brain, out of habit, thinks, “Not now.” Now I have to do ten thousand tasks, I have to decide on something, I have to rush somewhere, and the amount of things I need to do often feels threatening and overwhelming. Rest? Nah, some time later. Thus, constant exposure to stress, tiredness, and the inability to fully relax.

I try to live at the moment now. Good music to start my day with after I turn off my alarm. A movie in the evening. The taste of green tea in my cup. Happiness because my bed is soft. Feeling of love when I give a pat to my cats. Skincare routine. The delight of physical exercises. My breath during a meditation. It turned out that meditation can help me soothe myself a little bit. Here and now. Close my eyes and breathe. You are only here and now.

“What can I tell?” I thought at first. I’m ordinary and average; I’m like everybody else. Yes, but at the same time there is more to it than that.

Recently, I came to the stunning realization that I matter. (At the age of 25, but you have to start somewhere.) I’m important. I matter. My story is unique; I have stories to tell; I have my hopes, dreams, pain, and fears. I have a life. I had my ups and downs; there were good times and times when my life was falling apart.

I matter. More importantly, I matter to myself.

If it had been one or two years ago, I’d have said different things to myself. I’d have said much worse things; I’d have been meaner to myself. In addition, I had been drowning in self-hatred for such a long time; most of my life I was ashamed of myself, and I totally didn’t believe in myself. I thought I couldn’t do anything, so I didn’t do anything. Moreover, I thought I wasn’t gonna succeed and that I was unworthy, so I failed, and I was treated as if I were unworthy.

There will be kind words here, for myself and for you. The words we all need to tell ourselves more.

I love you. I’m proud of you. I believe in you. We are gonna make it through.

Look at yourself in the mirror, look right in the eyes, and say those words to yourself. You went through a lot; you had a whole life behind you with its delightful moments, wondrous discoveries, and bright moments, as well as pain, unpleasant experiences, desperation, and doubts. You are right here, right now, after everything that happened to you; you are a fine work of art, a masterpiece. And that’s amazing. You are breathtaking.

Here I write about my thoughts and feelings. This blog is about finding yourself and about relationships with yourself. Rupi Kaur wrote, “you must want to spend the rest of your life with yourself first,” and I feel these words on some spiritual level.

This blog is about the idea that every voice and every story matter. Your story is just as important as mine. You are the most valuable asset you will ever have. You have yourself.

This blog is my voice, and I will be glad if, maybe, you start to understand yours a little bit more because of the blog. If you doubt yourself (as I sometimes doubt myself), I’m here to say that you got this.

We got this.