everything's still romantic right?
Nov. 11th, 2024 01:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_seclusioni have been away for a while because things took a turn to downright awful for the last year, and it's only now that i can keep my head above water on some days instead of drowning every single day.
i am writing to get this off my chest; to speak to an audience of one (me), because sometimes that is the only way i know how to do it. i have tried to justify the horrors and the feelings and the emotions to myself for so long, but when your thoughts have become your harshest critics, sometimes you need compassion from others to learn to be compassionate towards yourself too. i was hyper-independent for most of my life; i refused to ask for help because i didn't want to be a bother, and kept everything locked away because i didn't think it was worth sharing. then my world collapsed, i finally began opening up to my best friend, and she said please reach out because we want to help you. i've been trying to make that a habit since.
they say trauma is not what happened to you; it's what happened to your inner world because of what happened. it's what happened that went unwitnessed or unexpressed. i have been diagnosed with complex PTSD as well as your run of the mill PTSD from a multitude of things, some which happened last year, some which happened in childhood.
i used to think trauma stems from events, so i never thought i was traumatized. it turns out trauma can also happen as a result of neglect and having to hide yourself for extended periods of time; now i understand that i've been deeply traumatized my whole life. it is why i am opting to write this now on a blog instead of my journal: i am hoping i am not alone, and if no one else fully understands what i am going through, then at least it is seen somewhere, and maybe one day someone will see it and not give me any pity but say: well shit, she survived. so can i.
last year I came out as lesbian for my birthday. It was a gift and a symbolic new beginning. inside i hoped it would lead to allowing me to a life that i could live as myself. i said that no matter what happens, i am doing this for myself -- regardless of what anyone else around me might say. that is what happened, but i have not yet built the life where i can live as myself just yet. instead i lost the old one, and i am in the process of... processing everything, and finding what the foundations must look like before i start building.
i don't even know where to begin.
last year i came out as lesbian and started hanging out with a girl i knew in passing from years ago and really liked. one reason i decided to come out was because i really liked her and wanted to date her, but i also didn't want to be in the closet and have my parents find out and trouble her should anything happen. so i came out to deal with that baggage outside of any potential relationship; my coming out and the consequences of it are my responsibility to bear, and not anyone else's. so i did.
that has always been how i have lived my life: my struggles are my responsibility. i have found solutions for my problems no matter how long it takes. i have found them with or without support, but in recent years i have found that it is easier to weather storms when you have support. that is what i have looked for since: support.
coming out caused a few issues: my previously good relationship with my biological father became particularly rocky and i was afraid i would have lost a good friend. both have been resolved since, but not without some difficult discussions first. but i'm jumping ahead.
i don't think my parents took my coming out seriously until i started dating the girl i liked. my mom had to adjust -- she was afraid i'd cut my hair short and become super butch -- not that there is anything wrong with that, but i was a bit struck by how frightened she was of that possibility, and she told me that that was probably what my father was afraid of. he was afraid that my being lesbian would lose him his daughter. that was a long discussion because i have never been particularly feminine, but i certainly became more so after coming out, especially as my now ex-girlfriend was the more masculine one between us two. but i assured her that i'm still her daughter, just dating women.
my dad however -- things got so bad at home to the point it became intolerable. he couldn't look at me in the eye on most days, and i was dealing with an incredibly high-stress job that was becoming more stressful by the day, so i decided to move out. everyone around me was shocked, but i explained that i just needed to live closer to my office, that i wanted to be closer to my trapeze studio, and frankly, i would also be closer to my ex. but the real reason i moved out was because i couldn't bear to be in the same house as my dad who couldn't even be in the same room as me.
i moved in august, and it was supposed to be a celebration of many things. but living alone has its own adjustments, and i moved to an area that was not particularly quiet and had trouble sleeping due to the noise. i used to live in the province, and the noise of the highways unsettled me, but it was fine. i moved to an apartment in the city with parking and its own amenities; earlier in the year i had taken up the offer of working in a very well-known and renowned international humanitarian organization in what to many in the industry is a dream job; i was finally out as a lesbian; i was traveling the world; i was still doing trapeze; that same month, my ex and i got together. i traveled with my ex to watch the distant worlds concert in september together, and everything felt so good. for all intents and purposes, i was thriving.
i was adjusting to living alone, i was adjusting to new boundaries with my family, i was adjusting to life in the city, i was adjusting to being a girlfriend for the first time in a decade, i was adjusting to being gay, i was adjusting to working in a similar but different industry. it was a lot of adjustment. i also injured my toe during trapeze, so i was also adjusting to not doing trapeze or being able to really work out. but like, it was kinda working. i was high-key anxious all the time, but things were going alright, right?
it's like you're living the dream but you're not living your life.
then october came and i cannot begin to illustrate how quickly my life unraveled over the next three months.
what people don't understand about working in high-stress industries, and particularly in humanitarian aid response, is that you cannot separate yourself from the stress, and stress compounds with each tragedy. my dream job quickly turned into a nightmare with no escape.
following the outbreak of the war in gaza, in addition to already existing emergencies, i found myself working truly ridiculous hours once again, stressed beyond belief, and unable to escape it my job was to uphold internal safeguards to ensure that whatever goes to the assistance of civilians in the war can not be in any way shape or form be misconstrued now or later. while i had been in due diligence for over 7 years in total by then (!), to do due diligence in a corporate setting vs in a humanitarian setting vs in a war-adjacent setting is very, very different. the organization worked hours and hours and hours just trying its best in some truly impossible conditions sometimes, and none of us were sleeping well in our department. how could you when everyday you can see the consequences of failure? how could you when you know your colleagues are risking their lives to help, or are risking their lives simply because they cannot escape? how could you when you are trying your absolute best to help only to face wall after wall -- in the face of resounding helplessness because your mandate dictates you must help but you are finding yourself stymied at every turn? every pack delivered in those days was a miracle and the product of some painful negotiations. above all: we must be neutral, because we must remember we are here to help everyone. no matter what we feel individually, we must put all of those thoughts and feelings aside because we must help those that are most desperate for it. the rage i felt in those days was indescribable. the helplessness was even worse.
probably in line with the adjustments i was already going through, the stress was enough to completely shut down my digestive system and three doctors had no idea what to do with me or how to diagnose me. i made multiple inquiries with my doctors, found new doctors, had to initiate a few procedures that did not require hospitalization to restart it, and was told about possible testing to figure out what is wrong with me would be available in in Bangkok, Thailand. it was a test for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a bacterial infection of the small intestine that can be difficult to treat depending on the kind of SIBO you have, and can also easily recur. SIBO is unfortunately the kind of bacterial infection that could develop into a chronic and even life-long illness if untreated, but so much of its symptoms mirrored mine that i was relieved and terrified. treatment of SIBO is two weeks, but it takes 6 months to confirm that it has been effective. i cannot begin to overstate how exhausted i was by this point of everything going wrong in my body, but also terrified.
i mentioned it to my mom -- whose response was to say, well you can just do it next time you're in Thailand, right?
that one sentence, and a subsequent discussion with my best friend about parental support, threw me into a trauma spiral that i did not recognize. it felt like abandonment from my parents - to be left alone to figure out my own health issues which i had been battling since 2022, to not even be offered any support -- and it made me rethink my entire relationship with my family, which i had to start unpacking with my therapist, and it brought to the forefront some childhood wounds about abandonment, money, health, and hyper-independence, and neglect. but also, jesus christ the cost of it was so much -- it was more than a month's rent and half of a month's salary to just be able to do the testing, so the financial consideration of it was also something that stressed me the fuck out. i told my parents that i had booked a medical test in Bangkok after I get back from Geneva and that it was really expensive; the response was "okay, well, have a good trip" -- and then nothing.
did i also mention that this entire time, i was alone? my best friend lives in thailand, my other best friend had just gotten married and moved to singapore with his wife, and i had very few people i could trust about these things. i relied heavily on my ex for support at the time, because frankly, here, I was alone. i told her upfront that some things were happening and it may affect our relationship due to how i react to certain things, and she was understanding at the time, telling me to speak what's on my mind instead of hiding it from her. i was very grateful, because dude things just sucked.
and then my organization said i have to do a two-week trip to geneva, switzerland for training on top of an already strenuous workload, and what was once long hours just became truly batshit insane. 12h workdays for a month straight when that work also involves uhh human atrocities is... well, there is a reason i have a PTSD diagnosis. also i had no overtime pay because we are doing it To Save The World. :) pay your third world NGO workers holy SHIT
on top of all of this, i was trying to work out boundaries with my family and balancing schedules. most of my life was out of whack and i was tending to everyone else's needs and desperately trying to find time for myself and with myself -- i'd given up trapeze at this point, and was desperate to find time to train without having to give up responsibilities to friends, family, work, and my then-girlfriend. i also have a specific trauma of long trips during relationships because none of my previous ones worked out after the trips happened. i expressed this to my ex, who was surprised and ultimately thought it was quite silly, and we worked out some agreements on how to stay in contact and keep going. however, i did not communicate this as well as i could have.
during this time i also received a report which i knew would be trouble, because the subject of it was one that had given me a supreme motherfucking headache in the private sector -- and i came under significant pressure to finish the work quickly and pass a recommendation that would allow the organization to accept donations from them. please note that at this point the war has continued over seven weeks i believe, significant infrastructure had been destroyed, and our entire budget and all our resources were going simply to try and keep people alive and safe. but there were significant enough findings that i had to find ways to either push back with strong enough justifications for why we could not accept a significant monetary donation that could fund us for at least another 2 months, or find work arounds to do so. it took me three weeks to write the report, with the ultimate recommendation being: no.
the immediate feedback, delivered through unwritten channels: make it work.
the unwritten message: rewrite the report if you have to.
i have worked in due diligence long enough to know a political move when i see it, and how to cover your ass because a situation has a potential to boomerang back at you in five years and you're going to have to take the blame. i thank my previous boss in my first ever industry job for teaching me the importance of CYA and how to read people to filth if i have to.
thinking about it still gives me anxiety. i understand why they said make it work; we needed the money. the war had just passed its height. we needed the money. but my findings were enough for me to have to tell my boss to tell his boss that there is no way in hell we can accept it because if it gets out, the harm to our reputation would be far more than the monetary aid promised from donors and from people. it would go against our ethical and moral framework because the findings were that bad, and the discussions around those findings were polarizing and subject to significant judicial action. but i was under equally significant pressure to make it work, because it was one of those handshake agreements between high officials.
to be clear: the organization does not endorse corruption in any way, nor does it turn a blind eye to issues by default. however, new organizations without due diligence backgrounds often do not have the systems or the discipline in place to properly follow due diligence SOPs from the get-go, and this was one such case. i respect the organization so much, which is why i decided to fight against the donation so hard that it cost me my sanity.
as i worked through this specific report, i was in geneva doing training, trying to figure out a due diligence framework for my department that would encourage the adoption of its discipline throughout the organization, and working through other headache reports, doing less war monitoring thankfully, meeting new people, and trying to keep my head up while i froze my ass off because it was 10C when i landed and getting colder by the day. i spent three weeks in switzerland freezing, trying to work, trying to meet old friends and new, extremely stressed because my digestive system cannot handle european food -- i could not handle bread and cheese, and where was I? in a country know for bread and cheese. girl being in gruyere was torture lol.
through this all my relationship with my ex went to shit, and so began what became six weeks of stonewalling and icing out. i was trying my best to keep any connection with her, but there is only so much you can do when a person simply does not have the bandwidth or the desire to keep a connection going but won't tell you that that is what's happening. i burnt her out from the relationship because i was just an anxious mess with negative news all the time and she was going through her own issues but didn't tell me what they were or that she had any issues with me being a ball of stress all the time and tiring her out because we just kept having hard conversations at the middle of the night. that was my fault, and i apologized to her when she told me all of that before she started icing me out in geneva. i needed more than she felt she could handle or give, she was overwhelmed, and to be fair i think she tried her best but if you can't communicate it, then what? silence is hardly an answer here, and yet that was what happened.
"i know it's hurting you but i don't know what else to do about it." those were the exact words she told me as i stood on a platform in geneva waiting for my train to zurich as we fought for the first time over a misunderstanding about a date and time to catch up. i thought we had agreed we would catch up, but turns out she had another thing going on; we hadn't spoken for two weeks; i wanted to say hi; she didn't want to speak to me. and what was a misunderstanding became a fight. we no longer understood each other. those words still haunt me, one year later.
what i had to recognize is that sometimes not making a choice to do something is also a choice. and for my ex to know that such treatment was hurting me even if she did not intend to do so and not doing anything to change it is still a choice. whether or not she intended to hurt me is immaterial, because impact always trumps intention, and she knew and acknowledged that hurt but still let it happen.
to not do anything is also a choice. it's just the choice to not do anything.
the choice to not say anything even when knowing silence is the equivalent of stabbing me in the stomach and letting me bleed out, is still a choice.
on the upside, i now know how to cry between high-level meetings in the bathroom of an office and emerge with my makeup still intact. my officemates, when they found out about the breakup, were so surprised. "i had no clue!" good! i didn't want any of you to. turns out i'll sacrifice my sanity before i sacrifice my professionalism, because i was trained to be ruthless about my professionalism by my own mother. i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. i'll talk to my therapist about it. (it's probably not a good thing).
upon return i did try to see my ex but she was always too busy; we were barely talking at this point. i told her i have a few days before i leave for Bangkok to do my tests, i told her the time and day of my tests, but still nothing but an i'm really busy, and the one day she said she could, she bailed anyway. i saw a mutual friend instead, who offered to grab breakfast with me and who i ended up confiding in, and her small act of kindness helped save my sanity.
because behind all of this, even before i left for geneva, i wasn't sleeping well, i wasn't adjusting well to the isolation of living alone and having to make all my medical decisions for myself with no support, trying to keep sane from work and trying to just battle an anxiety spiral every single day about work and my medical issues. i told my best friend about my testing dates, and she immediately took a day off and told me to send her any pertinent information about diets etc so she could prepare.
i flew to bangkok, and went to the hospital with my best friend. my friends, even the one whose friendship i was afraid i'd lost, reached out to me constantly through the day, wishing me well and asking for updates. the mutual friend who i went to grab breakfast with was texting me all day asking for updates and trying to keep me in good spirits. my parents sent me cursory good luck texts. i was diagnosed with methane SIBO, which is the one that is harder to treat. i heard nothing from my ex-girlfriend.
the feeling of sitting in a hospital waiting alone is something i would never wish on anyone. i am so grateful every day for my best friend, because without her i would be dead. even before this i was already avoiding the balcony of my condo unit, afraid i'd act on impulse and jump. on those nights i would call a friend in singapore, call my friend in canada, call another friend in the UK, call another friend in the US. piece by piece these problems would be something i could handle. altogether, it became unbearable. most days, the reason i didn't jump was because i knew my best friend would be so pissed at me lol
my ex-girlfriend and i broke up soon after, obviously, because i'm not that dumb. i did say i would leave her life once we break up because that's just how it is sometimes. i've remained friends with some exes, but those are exes that didn't work out because of circumstances, rather than... a breakdown in a relationship. to be asked to remain friends after being hurt is a little like twisting a knife one more time. i would have loved her friendship. i just couldn't bear to keep a knife in a wound. i don't hate her; i never blocked her anywhere and she can text if she wants, but i know she never will. but a person that is okay with seeing you hurt is not a friend, and i have enough trust issues as it is.
i'm not ready to be responsible for your trauma, is what she said.
but my trauma was never anyone else's responsibility, and i never asked her to be responsible for me. my hardships are never anyone else's responsibility. i will continue to find solutions for my own problems, because that's how life works. but i've learned that i need support to go through the hard times. i don't need anyone's pity or sympathy.
sympathy is a knife, is what charli xcx said, and i have already bled too much. i have too many knives. you can keep yours.
i just didn't think you'd take it so personally, is what she said.
you stonewalled me for six weeks, how else was i supposed to take it? was my reply.
but relationships are personal, is what another friend said, horrified, when i told her what happened, almost one year later. it is true. relationships are personal, and i am only a person.
it's taken me a long time to get over the shame of the breakup because of that sentence. i thought it was wrong for me to feel so hurt, to have taken the absence and the silence so personally. but i've also learned that there are people willing to give you that support and are willing to trust you with frank assessments of their capacities because they want to keep you in their lives without resenting you, because they trust you, because because they want to see you get well, because they want to see you through the hard times until you can smile again, because they love you and care for you. it was only two days ago that i realized i don't want to be friends with someone who would rather protect their comfort at the expense of my emotional safety, at the expense of my hurt. it was the same time i realized that i shouldn't be ashamed of still being hurt when i trusted her with my vulnerabilities; the shame does not and should not lie with me.
i never returned to the condo i moved to. my therapists said i am a physical threat to myself, so i had to move back in with my father despite it being very, very difficult between us. the report was overdue by two months but i still didn't pass it, because i could not find any workarounds that would excuse the findings. i had a fight with my boss about it, who agreed to not make me rewrite the report after i presented a strong enough case of why. but pressure continued from his boss, and i knew something was terribly wrong.
merry christmas, by the way. christmas was godawful that year. i had to smile and pretend nothing was wrong when everything was horrific.
through this time, mutual friends decide to have a tea party (she was invited but couldn't go due to genuine reasons). then my aunt died on the same day and i just about lost my mind driving down a national highway after my ex texted me something and i spiraled on the way to see my aunt for the first viewing after she passed. i hadn't seen my aunt in months. i replied to my ex a full month later because i was so busy tending to my family and trying not to die, but she never replied. aNyWaY
and also one of the friends i was talking to and relying for support through this time sent a voice note laughing at me and calling me stupid for getting hurt because i was having the kind of day that had my therapist regularly checking on me because i had to go back to my condo where all my things were left in a time capsule, which my ex had her stuff in, and which seeing would make me want to off myself again. i genuinely wanted to die. but in that moment of hearing her laugh saying i'm sorry it sounds terrible but it's also so funny -- i also realized then that i need better friends lol and i need to stop minimizing my own pain for the sake of other people's comfort.
i had friends all around the world to talk to, and they saved my life. however, the first time i got to talk to another person in the flesh, another queer person, about the breakup, was one month after. the first time i got a hug was a month after. i don't know how to describe the feeling of isolation, because no matter how many words come up on a screen, no matter how comforting they are, sometimes what you need is a hug. it turns out all i wanted through the past three months when my life was in the shitter was a fucking hug, but i couldn't get it from anyone. (ETA: i appreciate all words on screens though, i love you all very much, especially those i cannot physically hug right now).
since then, i'd had significant talks with my therapists that resulted in the decision to drag my entire family to family therapy. i moved back in with my dad, and we had talks about my sexuality and being an out lesbian. we've since moved past it and gotten closer, but he has accepted that i still have significant hurt over what happened and we're working on it through family therapy and through individual discussions. the others however... let's just say that things have to get worse before they get better. if they ever get better.
i quit my job in january of this year, and made the decision to leave my career of nearly 9 years behind. i don't know what i'm going to do, but in a weird way, coming out helped me realize that the industry i was in was not one i wanted to be in after all. i used it as a mask to hide my sexuality from myself, and truly excelled in all aspects because i was running away from me. but once i came out, i lost the desire to stay in it. besides, with the war and everything going on, my medical doctors saw the stress as something that would result in me dying early.
when i got my SIBO diagnosis, my doctor said that the stress is killing me inside and causing my systems to shut down. when i told her i can't just leave my job, she said: okay look at it this way: you can stay in your job and have money but you will die very young, or you not have money for a while but you will live until you're old.
another doctor in october said: you are 33 years old. you shouldn't be living like this. this industry will kill you if you don't leave it. choose: a career or being alive?
do you know how terrifying that is to hear?
i quit the job but also not without making a decision to alert organization about the report i was working on and the circumstances surrounding it. that was my last act for the organization i so deeply respect. between the stress, the moral issues, and reporting the issues -- there was simply no way i could continue. i've been unemployed since on doctor's orders. minimum one year, they said. i need to rest and discover what i like and simply stop being so stressed. so now i'm unemployed and also incredibly broke. it turns out my salary wasn't enough to cover rent, living expenses, training, utilities, and my medical expenses. i've been living with my father ever since.
i was talking to a friend in canada at the time. i was updating her about everything and saying it's been rough, and she burst into tears on the other end of the line. i panicked, thinking i'd done something wrong and was too depressing again and was ready to never talk about it again, but when i asked her why she was crying, she just said, i just wish things would ease for you.
another friend said the same thing: i just wish things would ease for you. you deserve better than anything you ever got. it's been two years of bullshit for you. i just wish things would get better.
on the days i've wanted to die since, everytime i thought of hurting myself, i would remember my friend's voice as she cried for me and how we cried together, and i promise myself i could never hurt myself because i never wanted to make her cry again. to this day i cry thinking about it. i never want to hurt her like that. i never want to hurt my best friend who has helped me through so much. i never want to hurt any of my friends that kept me alive by giving up on myself. it's the only reason why i could go through everything in the last year.
oh and then my lung collapsed from the stress. i was supposed to see bump of chicken on my birthday in sapporo, and i had booked the flights and won the tickets with the help of my friend. but my lung collapsed and i was confined for five days, put on outpatient monitoring for two weeks, and had to rest for another two. i couldn't fly to see bump of chicken, which was a lifelong dream, and that was enough to make me want to die. but i thought of my friend crying on the phone and i couldn't do it.
during this time my friends all sent me messages of concern. friends who i wasn't even close to yet sent me food, and that friend who i thought i'd lose when i came out came to visit me in the hospital in between work calls. another friend dropped by, and i heard months later that some friends from my trapeze studio were planning to drop by but i got discharged early. friends abroad all monitored my progress.
i also found out from another friend that my ex had seen that post of me being discharged. she said nothing then. that's why i know she'll never reach out. i nearly died and she said nothing.
i learned it doesn't matter how much they say they care, because if they don't show it or you don't feel it, if they don't at least try to make sure the care is felt -- it doesn't matter, because your emotional needs are not being met. that's what i had to learn too. it can't always be you trying to adjust, trying to communicate, trying to make sure the other person feels cared for even when your care is not wanted. you have to speak to make sure your emotional needs are met.
relationships are personal, and hell is other people. but through it all, i've learned that i would rather keep my heart open to the possibilities of love than close myself off again. i just have to be careful about who i trust and who i love, and to believe people when they say who they are.
i've learned a lot in the last year about myself, about becoming a person. i've learned to cry, i've learned what i want and need in a relationship. i learned about boundaries, what real friends look like. what support looks like. what love feels like. i've learned that i'm so beyond burnt out that the thought of writing anything causes me to freeze, that i can't read anything past a few pages a day. i've learned that i no longer want to go back to my old industry.
i've learned that there is nothing in my old life that i want to go back to -- that instead i would rather have friends come into this new life with me. there is nothing but the ashes of who i once was, a burnt forest damaged by a volcanic eruption stands in place of the world i used to have. someday that forest may return but it won't be the same, because i am no longer the same. instead i'm growing a new garden, a new forest, trying to remember that the most fertile soil comes from the ashes and life grows and persists despite the horrors of any eruption. i know this because i have witnessed it with my own eyes: after the volcano exploded, we suffered through mud for a while. but two years later our gardens have never been more vibrant and beautiful, the fruit yields more plentiful than ever. i can only trust that i will be the same.
when i heard the line, it's like you're living a dream but you're not living your life, i felt it was exactly what happened to me last year. (brat is such a banger album, i wish 2012 me had it back when i was going clubbing.)
i had been living a dream for most of my life, but not living my life. it was a dream that others dreamed for me: a perfect daughter who would rise to the top of the corporate ladder, who would be employed by a big multinational, would be financially stable and healthy and pretty, who would have a husband and child, and everything would be fine. i tried to live it, but my world imploded because i wanted none of those things.
instead, i've spent the last year in three kinds of therapy, taking medicines to balance my body and return to it. i'm underweight but trying to regain the body mass i've lost, trying to look like a person again. i have no job, no career prospects in mind, and definitely no money. i'm relying on my father for support of all kinds, and to be so dependent on another person has brought me so much shame after i have lived my whole life trying to be fully independent. i have no girlfriend, i'm an out lesbian at 34 which is deemed ancient in these young circles, and having a hard time finding other lesbians like me. it feels like failure after failure, one after another.
but it's not been all bad. in the last year i've spent most of it crying but also as a result getting to know myself and what i feel, being brutally honest with myself and learning to take accountability and responsibility for the part i play in my own suffering. i'm learning at a much harder rate to give myself grace and compassion, because i never grew up learning to be kind to myself and instead learned to be my own harshest critic.
my friends have taught me what love is like -- to feel loved and supported when you have nothing to give, who have taught me to love all parts of me, even the ones i deem shameful. they have taught me about love, and taught me to love. i've gotten to know more people in the last year, people who i hope will become friends as time goes on. i've learned to slow down, to stop attaching to people just because they give me a minute of attention. i've learned to stop avoiding my feelings and instead embrace them. i've listened to so much music, traveled to see so many places and met so many people, healed parts of myself that i didn't know needed healing. i am cringe, but i am free.
i've gone back to trapeze and i've promised myself never to give up something i love to make space for other people in the hopes they'll stay. i've learned instead to make space for people in my life in ways that don't sacrifice my space for myself, for those that show consistently that they actually genuinely want to be in my life. i've learned that i need kindness, compassion, consistency, clarity, and reciprocation to feel safe and loved, and i need that in all my relationships. i've learned that critique and discipline can come with kindness and compassion, and i don't have to stay in spaces that shame me into improvement, because that simply doesn't work for me.
i've learned i need to feel safe, and i'm working towards that. i am learning to build a home in me, and even if i can't do it perfectly, that's okay. i'm learning, and healing, and growing. i have friends that love me, parents that are willing to work things through if it means that i stay in their lives. i am learning that i am enough as i am, and anyone that thinks i am too much or not enough can either step up, or step out of my way.
i refuse to feel shame for my passions or the intensity of what i feel or the intensity of who i am ever again, because that intensity kept me alive and kept people by my side. i'm learning to become who i am, through the growing pains and all. i've learned that there are some days where i will love myself and other days that i will not be able to look at myself in the mirror without crying, but that's okay. it is just what it is, and i'll be okay.
one year on from the tragedies of the fall of last year -- there are more days that i smile without crying now, more days that i go without thinking of the hurt of the last year and all that it encompasses. i still often feel like i blew up my whole life, and often live paralyzed in fear of the future because i don't really have one at the moment. still, i am trying to remember that i left a life i didn't want, and am now trying to build a life which i do. 今僕がいる未来に向けて: i am walking towards a future with me in it. i am a completely different person now. i'm stronger, but hate being called that. i am infinitely sadder, but hope that one day this will give way to an infinite happiness as well. but i know now beyond doubt that i am also so much more loved than i could ever begin to imagine.
i hope there will come a time where i will smile and laugh like i used to before my whole world fell apart, where i am working on things that i love and truly enjoy and am getting paid well for it, where i won't be afraid of loving someone, where i will also be loved for who i am in totality, and not loved like a trophy or a toy until they see what it took, what it takes, for me to shine brightly. i hope there will come a time where the burdens i carry will be treated with care instead of disdain, where all sides of me will be loved.
i hope i will one day be treated gently.
until then, i am trying to give myself the love, grace, and compassion for myself as an individual, as a human being, that i was not shown through my life. i no longer wish to convince other people to love me. i am trying to teach myself that which i have never learned for myself, however imperfect. but i am trying, and i think that should be commended. i am, like everyone else, trying my best.
so you see, upon everyday faced
there's a million shades to express the definition of grace
but the method i choose is my prerogative
there's so much love in me i got to give.
if you've made it this far, thank you. i love you.
anyway is arcane s2 any good?
i am writing to get this off my chest; to speak to an audience of one (me), because sometimes that is the only way i know how to do it. i have tried to justify the horrors and the feelings and the emotions to myself for so long, but when your thoughts have become your harshest critics, sometimes you need compassion from others to learn to be compassionate towards yourself too. i was hyper-independent for most of my life; i refused to ask for help because i didn't want to be a bother, and kept everything locked away because i didn't think it was worth sharing. then my world collapsed, i finally began opening up to my best friend, and she said please reach out because we want to help you. i've been trying to make that a habit since.
they say trauma is not what happened to you; it's what happened to your inner world because of what happened. it's what happened that went unwitnessed or unexpressed. i have been diagnosed with complex PTSD as well as your run of the mill PTSD from a multitude of things, some which happened last year, some which happened in childhood.
i used to think trauma stems from events, so i never thought i was traumatized. it turns out trauma can also happen as a result of neglect and having to hide yourself for extended periods of time; now i understand that i've been deeply traumatized my whole life. it is why i am opting to write this now on a blog instead of my journal: i am hoping i am not alone, and if no one else fully understands what i am going through, then at least it is seen somewhere, and maybe one day someone will see it and not give me any pity but say: well shit, she survived. so can i.
last year I came out as lesbian for my birthday. It was a gift and a symbolic new beginning. inside i hoped it would lead to allowing me to a life that i could live as myself. i said that no matter what happens, i am doing this for myself -- regardless of what anyone else around me might say. that is what happened, but i have not yet built the life where i can live as myself just yet. instead i lost the old one, and i am in the process of... processing everything, and finding what the foundations must look like before i start building.
i don't even know where to begin.
last year i came out as lesbian and started hanging out with a girl i knew in passing from years ago and really liked. one reason i decided to come out was because i really liked her and wanted to date her, but i also didn't want to be in the closet and have my parents find out and trouble her should anything happen. so i came out to deal with that baggage outside of any potential relationship; my coming out and the consequences of it are my responsibility to bear, and not anyone else's. so i did.
that has always been how i have lived my life: my struggles are my responsibility. i have found solutions for my problems no matter how long it takes. i have found them with or without support, but in recent years i have found that it is easier to weather storms when you have support. that is what i have looked for since: support.
coming out caused a few issues: my previously good relationship with my biological father became particularly rocky and i was afraid i would have lost a good friend. both have been resolved since, but not without some difficult discussions first. but i'm jumping ahead.
i don't think my parents took my coming out seriously until i started dating the girl i liked. my mom had to adjust -- she was afraid i'd cut my hair short and become super butch -- not that there is anything wrong with that, but i was a bit struck by how frightened she was of that possibility, and she told me that that was probably what my father was afraid of. he was afraid that my being lesbian would lose him his daughter. that was a long discussion because i have never been particularly feminine, but i certainly became more so after coming out, especially as my now ex-girlfriend was the more masculine one between us two. but i assured her that i'm still her daughter, just dating women.
my dad however -- things got so bad at home to the point it became intolerable. he couldn't look at me in the eye on most days, and i was dealing with an incredibly high-stress job that was becoming more stressful by the day, so i decided to move out. everyone around me was shocked, but i explained that i just needed to live closer to my office, that i wanted to be closer to my trapeze studio, and frankly, i would also be closer to my ex. but the real reason i moved out was because i couldn't bear to be in the same house as my dad who couldn't even be in the same room as me.
i moved in august, and it was supposed to be a celebration of many things. but living alone has its own adjustments, and i moved to an area that was not particularly quiet and had trouble sleeping due to the noise. i used to live in the province, and the noise of the highways unsettled me, but it was fine. i moved to an apartment in the city with parking and its own amenities; earlier in the year i had taken up the offer of working in a very well-known and renowned international humanitarian organization in what to many in the industry is a dream job; i was finally out as a lesbian; i was traveling the world; i was still doing trapeze; that same month, my ex and i got together. i traveled with my ex to watch the distant worlds concert in september together, and everything felt so good. for all intents and purposes, i was thriving.
i was adjusting to living alone, i was adjusting to new boundaries with my family, i was adjusting to life in the city, i was adjusting to being a girlfriend for the first time in a decade, i was adjusting to being gay, i was adjusting to working in a similar but different industry. it was a lot of adjustment. i also injured my toe during trapeze, so i was also adjusting to not doing trapeze or being able to really work out. but like, it was kinda working. i was high-key anxious all the time, but things were going alright, right?
it's like you're living the dream but you're not living your life.
then october came and i cannot begin to illustrate how quickly my life unraveled over the next three months.
what people don't understand about working in high-stress industries, and particularly in humanitarian aid response, is that you cannot separate yourself from the stress, and stress compounds with each tragedy. my dream job quickly turned into a nightmare with no escape.
following the outbreak of the war in gaza, in addition to already existing emergencies, i found myself working truly ridiculous hours once again, stressed beyond belief, and unable to escape it my job was to uphold internal safeguards to ensure that whatever goes to the assistance of civilians in the war can not be in any way shape or form be misconstrued now or later. while i had been in due diligence for over 7 years in total by then (!), to do due diligence in a corporate setting vs in a humanitarian setting vs in a war-adjacent setting is very, very different. the organization worked hours and hours and hours just trying its best in some truly impossible conditions sometimes, and none of us were sleeping well in our department. how could you when everyday you can see the consequences of failure? how could you when you know your colleagues are risking their lives to help, or are risking their lives simply because they cannot escape? how could you when you are trying your absolute best to help only to face wall after wall -- in the face of resounding helplessness because your mandate dictates you must help but you are finding yourself stymied at every turn? every pack delivered in those days was a miracle and the product of some painful negotiations. above all: we must be neutral, because we must remember we are here to help everyone. no matter what we feel individually, we must put all of those thoughts and feelings aside because we must help those that are most desperate for it. the rage i felt in those days was indescribable. the helplessness was even worse.
probably in line with the adjustments i was already going through, the stress was enough to completely shut down my digestive system and three doctors had no idea what to do with me or how to diagnose me. i made multiple inquiries with my doctors, found new doctors, had to initiate a few procedures that did not require hospitalization to restart it, and was told about possible testing to figure out what is wrong with me would be available in in Bangkok, Thailand. it was a test for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a bacterial infection of the small intestine that can be difficult to treat depending on the kind of SIBO you have, and can also easily recur. SIBO is unfortunately the kind of bacterial infection that could develop into a chronic and even life-long illness if untreated, but so much of its symptoms mirrored mine that i was relieved and terrified. treatment of SIBO is two weeks, but it takes 6 months to confirm that it has been effective. i cannot begin to overstate how exhausted i was by this point of everything going wrong in my body, but also terrified.
i mentioned it to my mom -- whose response was to say, well you can just do it next time you're in Thailand, right?
that one sentence, and a subsequent discussion with my best friend about parental support, threw me into a trauma spiral that i did not recognize. it felt like abandonment from my parents - to be left alone to figure out my own health issues which i had been battling since 2022, to not even be offered any support -- and it made me rethink my entire relationship with my family, which i had to start unpacking with my therapist, and it brought to the forefront some childhood wounds about abandonment, money, health, and hyper-independence, and neglect. but also, jesus christ the cost of it was so much -- it was more than a month's rent and half of a month's salary to just be able to do the testing, so the financial consideration of it was also something that stressed me the fuck out. i told my parents that i had booked a medical test in Bangkok after I get back from Geneva and that it was really expensive; the response was "okay, well, have a good trip" -- and then nothing.
did i also mention that this entire time, i was alone? my best friend lives in thailand, my other best friend had just gotten married and moved to singapore with his wife, and i had very few people i could trust about these things. i relied heavily on my ex for support at the time, because frankly, here, I was alone. i told her upfront that some things were happening and it may affect our relationship due to how i react to certain things, and she was understanding at the time, telling me to speak what's on my mind instead of hiding it from her. i was very grateful, because dude things just sucked.
and then my organization said i have to do a two-week trip to geneva, switzerland for training on top of an already strenuous workload, and what was once long hours just became truly batshit insane. 12h workdays for a month straight when that work also involves uhh human atrocities is... well, there is a reason i have a PTSD diagnosis. also i had no overtime pay because we are doing it To Save The World. :) pay your third world NGO workers holy SHIT
on top of all of this, i was trying to work out boundaries with my family and balancing schedules. most of my life was out of whack and i was tending to everyone else's needs and desperately trying to find time for myself and with myself -- i'd given up trapeze at this point, and was desperate to find time to train without having to give up responsibilities to friends, family, work, and my then-girlfriend. i also have a specific trauma of long trips during relationships because none of my previous ones worked out after the trips happened. i expressed this to my ex, who was surprised and ultimately thought it was quite silly, and we worked out some agreements on how to stay in contact and keep going. however, i did not communicate this as well as i could have.
during this time i also received a report which i knew would be trouble, because the subject of it was one that had given me a supreme motherfucking headache in the private sector -- and i came under significant pressure to finish the work quickly and pass a recommendation that would allow the organization to accept donations from them. please note that at this point the war has continued over seven weeks i believe, significant infrastructure had been destroyed, and our entire budget and all our resources were going simply to try and keep people alive and safe. but there were significant enough findings that i had to find ways to either push back with strong enough justifications for why we could not accept a significant monetary donation that could fund us for at least another 2 months, or find work arounds to do so. it took me three weeks to write the report, with the ultimate recommendation being: no.
the immediate feedback, delivered through unwritten channels: make it work.
the unwritten message: rewrite the report if you have to.
i have worked in due diligence long enough to know a political move when i see it, and how to cover your ass because a situation has a potential to boomerang back at you in five years and you're going to have to take the blame. i thank my previous boss in my first ever industry job for teaching me the importance of CYA and how to read people to filth if i have to.
thinking about it still gives me anxiety. i understand why they said make it work; we needed the money. the war had just passed its height. we needed the money. but my findings were enough for me to have to tell my boss to tell his boss that there is no way in hell we can accept it because if it gets out, the harm to our reputation would be far more than the monetary aid promised from donors and from people. it would go against our ethical and moral framework because the findings were that bad, and the discussions around those findings were polarizing and subject to significant judicial action. but i was under equally significant pressure to make it work, because it was one of those handshake agreements between high officials.
to be clear: the organization does not endorse corruption in any way, nor does it turn a blind eye to issues by default. however, new organizations without due diligence backgrounds often do not have the systems or the discipline in place to properly follow due diligence SOPs from the get-go, and this was one such case. i respect the organization so much, which is why i decided to fight against the donation so hard that it cost me my sanity.
as i worked through this specific report, i was in geneva doing training, trying to figure out a due diligence framework for my department that would encourage the adoption of its discipline throughout the organization, and working through other headache reports, doing less war monitoring thankfully, meeting new people, and trying to keep my head up while i froze my ass off because it was 10C when i landed and getting colder by the day. i spent three weeks in switzerland freezing, trying to work, trying to meet old friends and new, extremely stressed because my digestive system cannot handle european food -- i could not handle bread and cheese, and where was I? in a country know for bread and cheese. girl being in gruyere was torture lol.
through this all my relationship with my ex went to shit, and so began what became six weeks of stonewalling and icing out. i was trying my best to keep any connection with her, but there is only so much you can do when a person simply does not have the bandwidth or the desire to keep a connection going but won't tell you that that is what's happening. i burnt her out from the relationship because i was just an anxious mess with negative news all the time and she was going through her own issues but didn't tell me what they were or that she had any issues with me being a ball of stress all the time and tiring her out because we just kept having hard conversations at the middle of the night. that was my fault, and i apologized to her when she told me all of that before she started icing me out in geneva. i needed more than she felt she could handle or give, she was overwhelmed, and to be fair i think she tried her best but if you can't communicate it, then what? silence is hardly an answer here, and yet that was what happened.
"i know it's hurting you but i don't know what else to do about it." those were the exact words she told me as i stood on a platform in geneva waiting for my train to zurich as we fought for the first time over a misunderstanding about a date and time to catch up. i thought we had agreed we would catch up, but turns out she had another thing going on; we hadn't spoken for two weeks; i wanted to say hi; she didn't want to speak to me. and what was a misunderstanding became a fight. we no longer understood each other. those words still haunt me, one year later.
what i had to recognize is that sometimes not making a choice to do something is also a choice. and for my ex to know that such treatment was hurting me even if she did not intend to do so and not doing anything to change it is still a choice. whether or not she intended to hurt me is immaterial, because impact always trumps intention, and she knew and acknowledged that hurt but still let it happen.
to not do anything is also a choice. it's just the choice to not do anything.
the choice to not say anything even when knowing silence is the equivalent of stabbing me in the stomach and letting me bleed out, is still a choice.
on the upside, i now know how to cry between high-level meetings in the bathroom of an office and emerge with my makeup still intact. my officemates, when they found out about the breakup, were so surprised. "i had no clue!" good! i didn't want any of you to. turns out i'll sacrifice my sanity before i sacrifice my professionalism, because i was trained to be ruthless about my professionalism by my own mother. i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. i'll talk to my therapist about it. (it's probably not a good thing).
upon return i did try to see my ex but she was always too busy; we were barely talking at this point. i told her i have a few days before i leave for Bangkok to do my tests, i told her the time and day of my tests, but still nothing but an i'm really busy, and the one day she said she could, she bailed anyway. i saw a mutual friend instead, who offered to grab breakfast with me and who i ended up confiding in, and her small act of kindness helped save my sanity.
because behind all of this, even before i left for geneva, i wasn't sleeping well, i wasn't adjusting well to the isolation of living alone and having to make all my medical decisions for myself with no support, trying to keep sane from work and trying to just battle an anxiety spiral every single day about work and my medical issues. i told my best friend about my testing dates, and she immediately took a day off and told me to send her any pertinent information about diets etc so she could prepare.
i flew to bangkok, and went to the hospital with my best friend. my friends, even the one whose friendship i was afraid i'd lost, reached out to me constantly through the day, wishing me well and asking for updates. the mutual friend who i went to grab breakfast with was texting me all day asking for updates and trying to keep me in good spirits. my parents sent me cursory good luck texts. i was diagnosed with methane SIBO, which is the one that is harder to treat. i heard nothing from my ex-girlfriend.
the feeling of sitting in a hospital waiting alone is something i would never wish on anyone. i am so grateful every day for my best friend, because without her i would be dead. even before this i was already avoiding the balcony of my condo unit, afraid i'd act on impulse and jump. on those nights i would call a friend in singapore, call my friend in canada, call another friend in the UK, call another friend in the US. piece by piece these problems would be something i could handle. altogether, it became unbearable. most days, the reason i didn't jump was because i knew my best friend would be so pissed at me lol
my ex-girlfriend and i broke up soon after, obviously, because i'm not that dumb. i did say i would leave her life once we break up because that's just how it is sometimes. i've remained friends with some exes, but those are exes that didn't work out because of circumstances, rather than... a breakdown in a relationship. to be asked to remain friends after being hurt is a little like twisting a knife one more time. i would have loved her friendship. i just couldn't bear to keep a knife in a wound. i don't hate her; i never blocked her anywhere and she can text if she wants, but i know she never will. but a person that is okay with seeing you hurt is not a friend, and i have enough trust issues as it is.
i'm not ready to be responsible for your trauma, is what she said.
but my trauma was never anyone else's responsibility, and i never asked her to be responsible for me. my hardships are never anyone else's responsibility. i will continue to find solutions for my own problems, because that's how life works. but i've learned that i need support to go through the hard times. i don't need anyone's pity or sympathy.
sympathy is a knife, is what charli xcx said, and i have already bled too much. i have too many knives. you can keep yours.
i just didn't think you'd take it so personally, is what she said.
you stonewalled me for six weeks, how else was i supposed to take it? was my reply.
but relationships are personal, is what another friend said, horrified, when i told her what happened, almost one year later. it is true. relationships are personal, and i am only a person.
it's taken me a long time to get over the shame of the breakup because of that sentence. i thought it was wrong for me to feel so hurt, to have taken the absence and the silence so personally. but i've also learned that there are people willing to give you that support and are willing to trust you with frank assessments of their capacities because they want to keep you in their lives without resenting you, because they trust you, because because they want to see you get well, because they want to see you through the hard times until you can smile again, because they love you and care for you. it was only two days ago that i realized i don't want to be friends with someone who would rather protect their comfort at the expense of my emotional safety, at the expense of my hurt. it was the same time i realized that i shouldn't be ashamed of still being hurt when i trusted her with my vulnerabilities; the shame does not and should not lie with me.
i never returned to the condo i moved to. my therapists said i am a physical threat to myself, so i had to move back in with my father despite it being very, very difficult between us. the report was overdue by two months but i still didn't pass it, because i could not find any workarounds that would excuse the findings. i had a fight with my boss about it, who agreed to not make me rewrite the report after i presented a strong enough case of why. but pressure continued from his boss, and i knew something was terribly wrong.
merry christmas, by the way. christmas was godawful that year. i had to smile and pretend nothing was wrong when everything was horrific.
through this time, mutual friends decide to have a tea party (she was invited but couldn't go due to genuine reasons). then my aunt died on the same day and i just about lost my mind driving down a national highway after my ex texted me something and i spiraled on the way to see my aunt for the first viewing after she passed. i hadn't seen my aunt in months. i replied to my ex a full month later because i was so busy tending to my family and trying not to die, but she never replied. aNyWaY
and also one of the friends i was talking to and relying for support through this time sent a voice note laughing at me and calling me stupid for getting hurt because i was having the kind of day that had my therapist regularly checking on me because i had to go back to my condo where all my things were left in a time capsule, which my ex had her stuff in, and which seeing would make me want to off myself again. i genuinely wanted to die. but in that moment of hearing her laugh saying i'm sorry it sounds terrible but it's also so funny -- i also realized then that i need better friends lol and i need to stop minimizing my own pain for the sake of other people's comfort.
i had friends all around the world to talk to, and they saved my life. however, the first time i got to talk to another person in the flesh, another queer person, about the breakup, was one month after. the first time i got a hug was a month after. i don't know how to describe the feeling of isolation, because no matter how many words come up on a screen, no matter how comforting they are, sometimes what you need is a hug. it turns out all i wanted through the past three months when my life was in the shitter was a fucking hug, but i couldn't get it from anyone. (ETA: i appreciate all words on screens though, i love you all very much, especially those i cannot physically hug right now).
since then, i'd had significant talks with my therapists that resulted in the decision to drag my entire family to family therapy. i moved back in with my dad, and we had talks about my sexuality and being an out lesbian. we've since moved past it and gotten closer, but he has accepted that i still have significant hurt over what happened and we're working on it through family therapy and through individual discussions. the others however... let's just say that things have to get worse before they get better. if they ever get better.
i quit my job in january of this year, and made the decision to leave my career of nearly 9 years behind. i don't know what i'm going to do, but in a weird way, coming out helped me realize that the industry i was in was not one i wanted to be in after all. i used it as a mask to hide my sexuality from myself, and truly excelled in all aspects because i was running away from me. but once i came out, i lost the desire to stay in it. besides, with the war and everything going on, my medical doctors saw the stress as something that would result in me dying early.
when i got my SIBO diagnosis, my doctor said that the stress is killing me inside and causing my systems to shut down. when i told her i can't just leave my job, she said: okay look at it this way: you can stay in your job and have money but you will die very young, or you not have money for a while but you will live until you're old.
another doctor in october said: you are 33 years old. you shouldn't be living like this. this industry will kill you if you don't leave it. choose: a career or being alive?
do you know how terrifying that is to hear?
i quit the job but also not without making a decision to alert organization about the report i was working on and the circumstances surrounding it. that was my last act for the organization i so deeply respect. between the stress, the moral issues, and reporting the issues -- there was simply no way i could continue. i've been unemployed since on doctor's orders. minimum one year, they said. i need to rest and discover what i like and simply stop being so stressed. so now i'm unemployed and also incredibly broke. it turns out my salary wasn't enough to cover rent, living expenses, training, utilities, and my medical expenses. i've been living with my father ever since.
i was talking to a friend in canada at the time. i was updating her about everything and saying it's been rough, and she burst into tears on the other end of the line. i panicked, thinking i'd done something wrong and was too depressing again and was ready to never talk about it again, but when i asked her why she was crying, she just said, i just wish things would ease for you.
another friend said the same thing: i just wish things would ease for you. you deserve better than anything you ever got. it's been two years of bullshit for you. i just wish things would get better.
on the days i've wanted to die since, everytime i thought of hurting myself, i would remember my friend's voice as she cried for me and how we cried together, and i promise myself i could never hurt myself because i never wanted to make her cry again. to this day i cry thinking about it. i never want to hurt her like that. i never want to hurt my best friend who has helped me through so much. i never want to hurt any of my friends that kept me alive by giving up on myself. it's the only reason why i could go through everything in the last year.
oh and then my lung collapsed from the stress. i was supposed to see bump of chicken on my birthday in sapporo, and i had booked the flights and won the tickets with the help of my friend. but my lung collapsed and i was confined for five days, put on outpatient monitoring for two weeks, and had to rest for another two. i couldn't fly to see bump of chicken, which was a lifelong dream, and that was enough to make me want to die. but i thought of my friend crying on the phone and i couldn't do it.
during this time my friends all sent me messages of concern. friends who i wasn't even close to yet sent me food, and that friend who i thought i'd lose when i came out came to visit me in the hospital in between work calls. another friend dropped by, and i heard months later that some friends from my trapeze studio were planning to drop by but i got discharged early. friends abroad all monitored my progress.
i also found out from another friend that my ex had seen that post of me being discharged. she said nothing then. that's why i know she'll never reach out. i nearly died and she said nothing.
i learned it doesn't matter how much they say they care, because if they don't show it or you don't feel it, if they don't at least try to make sure the care is felt -- it doesn't matter, because your emotional needs are not being met. that's what i had to learn too. it can't always be you trying to adjust, trying to communicate, trying to make sure the other person feels cared for even when your care is not wanted. you have to speak to make sure your emotional needs are met.
relationships are personal, and hell is other people. but through it all, i've learned that i would rather keep my heart open to the possibilities of love than close myself off again. i just have to be careful about who i trust and who i love, and to believe people when they say who they are.
i've learned a lot in the last year about myself, about becoming a person. i've learned to cry, i've learned what i want and need in a relationship. i learned about boundaries, what real friends look like. what support looks like. what love feels like. i've learned that i'm so beyond burnt out that the thought of writing anything causes me to freeze, that i can't read anything past a few pages a day. i've learned that i no longer want to go back to my old industry.
i've learned that there is nothing in my old life that i want to go back to -- that instead i would rather have friends come into this new life with me. there is nothing but the ashes of who i once was, a burnt forest damaged by a volcanic eruption stands in place of the world i used to have. someday that forest may return but it won't be the same, because i am no longer the same. instead i'm growing a new garden, a new forest, trying to remember that the most fertile soil comes from the ashes and life grows and persists despite the horrors of any eruption. i know this because i have witnessed it with my own eyes: after the volcano exploded, we suffered through mud for a while. but two years later our gardens have never been more vibrant and beautiful, the fruit yields more plentiful than ever. i can only trust that i will be the same.
when i heard the line, it's like you're living a dream but you're not living your life, i felt it was exactly what happened to me last year. (brat is such a banger album, i wish 2012 me had it back when i was going clubbing.)
i had been living a dream for most of my life, but not living my life. it was a dream that others dreamed for me: a perfect daughter who would rise to the top of the corporate ladder, who would be employed by a big multinational, would be financially stable and healthy and pretty, who would have a husband and child, and everything would be fine. i tried to live it, but my world imploded because i wanted none of those things.
instead, i've spent the last year in three kinds of therapy, taking medicines to balance my body and return to it. i'm underweight but trying to regain the body mass i've lost, trying to look like a person again. i have no job, no career prospects in mind, and definitely no money. i'm relying on my father for support of all kinds, and to be so dependent on another person has brought me so much shame after i have lived my whole life trying to be fully independent. i have no girlfriend, i'm an out lesbian at 34 which is deemed ancient in these young circles, and having a hard time finding other lesbians like me. it feels like failure after failure, one after another.
but it's not been all bad. in the last year i've spent most of it crying but also as a result getting to know myself and what i feel, being brutally honest with myself and learning to take accountability and responsibility for the part i play in my own suffering. i'm learning at a much harder rate to give myself grace and compassion, because i never grew up learning to be kind to myself and instead learned to be my own harshest critic.
my friends have taught me what love is like -- to feel loved and supported when you have nothing to give, who have taught me to love all parts of me, even the ones i deem shameful. they have taught me about love, and taught me to love. i've gotten to know more people in the last year, people who i hope will become friends as time goes on. i've learned to slow down, to stop attaching to people just because they give me a minute of attention. i've learned to stop avoiding my feelings and instead embrace them. i've listened to so much music, traveled to see so many places and met so many people, healed parts of myself that i didn't know needed healing. i am cringe, but i am free.
i've gone back to trapeze and i've promised myself never to give up something i love to make space for other people in the hopes they'll stay. i've learned instead to make space for people in my life in ways that don't sacrifice my space for myself, for those that show consistently that they actually genuinely want to be in my life. i've learned that i need kindness, compassion, consistency, clarity, and reciprocation to feel safe and loved, and i need that in all my relationships. i've learned that critique and discipline can come with kindness and compassion, and i don't have to stay in spaces that shame me into improvement, because that simply doesn't work for me.
i've learned i need to feel safe, and i'm working towards that. i am learning to build a home in me, and even if i can't do it perfectly, that's okay. i'm learning, and healing, and growing. i have friends that love me, parents that are willing to work things through if it means that i stay in their lives. i am learning that i am enough as i am, and anyone that thinks i am too much or not enough can either step up, or step out of my way.
i refuse to feel shame for my passions or the intensity of what i feel or the intensity of who i am ever again, because that intensity kept me alive and kept people by my side. i'm learning to become who i am, through the growing pains and all. i've learned that there are some days where i will love myself and other days that i will not be able to look at myself in the mirror without crying, but that's okay. it is just what it is, and i'll be okay.
one year on from the tragedies of the fall of last year -- there are more days that i smile without crying now, more days that i go without thinking of the hurt of the last year and all that it encompasses. i still often feel like i blew up my whole life, and often live paralyzed in fear of the future because i don't really have one at the moment. still, i am trying to remember that i left a life i didn't want, and am now trying to build a life which i do. 今僕がいる未来に向けて: i am walking towards a future with me in it. i am a completely different person now. i'm stronger, but hate being called that. i am infinitely sadder, but hope that one day this will give way to an infinite happiness as well. but i know now beyond doubt that i am also so much more loved than i could ever begin to imagine.
i hope there will come a time where i will smile and laugh like i used to before my whole world fell apart, where i am working on things that i love and truly enjoy and am getting paid well for it, where i won't be afraid of loving someone, where i will also be loved for who i am in totality, and not loved like a trophy or a toy until they see what it took, what it takes, for me to shine brightly. i hope there will come a time where the burdens i carry will be treated with care instead of disdain, where all sides of me will be loved.
i hope i will one day be treated gently.
until then, i am trying to give myself the love, grace, and compassion for myself as an individual, as a human being, that i was not shown through my life. i no longer wish to convince other people to love me. i am trying to teach myself that which i have never learned for myself, however imperfect. but i am trying, and i think that should be commended. i am, like everyone else, trying my best.
so you see, upon everyday faced
there's a million shades to express the definition of grace
but the method i choose is my prerogative
there's so much love in me i got to give.
if you've made it this far, thank you. i love you.
anyway is arcane s2 any good?
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Date: 2024-11-11 12:00 pm (UTC)Here’s to healing and many more years of being here. <3
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Date: 2024-11-11 12:01 pm (UTC)You are phenomenal and have been through so much and you're still here and still beautiful and talented and thoughtful and I love you.
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Date: 2024-11-11 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-11 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-11 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-11 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-11 11:55 pm (UTC)