May 23, 2024 – A ramble to fill a deeply lonely void

Heart hurts and I’m frustrated. I harbor so much shame for myself that I cannot even record a vlog for myself without becoming upset and wanting to cry. wild!

It is one of those weeks where I feel like I’m not getting better. I just feel stagnant and alone. I feel nothing but petulant wwith an upset stomach. Angry about things that I cannot change, angry abou thtings I should’ve when I had the chance. Angry about my choices, “good” and “bad”. The choices of others. Angry about the state of my mind, the state of the world. Angry. Angry I struggle to forgive. Angry that it seems impossible to move forward again because I know how awful I am and have been. Angry because no matter what I do I feel like it’s wrong. Angry. Angry. Angry.

I think anger, shame, and frustration would be the top three emotions I have felt in my life if someone were to quantify the way I feel by frequency. The worst part is that I feel bad about that fact. I feel bad that I struggle to feel some other way because that means there’s something wrong with me. Since there’s something wrong with me I feel ashamed, frustrated and angry.

A fucking stupid loop. Endless, self-fulfilling, and suffocating.

I am so desperate to matter that I clung to superficial aspects of myself that seemed the most important because those things are what people identified as being interesting or valuable in me. I dont matter to myself so I made sure I never would. Didnt bother to work on myself when I shouldve. Didnt bother to make good choices because who fucking cares. I forgot my hobbies and forced myself to lose interest in them because who fucking cares and I am not someone that gets to have the luxury of passion or hobbies or fun. I put down my head and threw myself into the worst career I could choose for myself because it was demonstrated as lucrative ONCE by someone I admire and seemed like something “stupid me” could do so thats what I forced myself to do. Now I’m a loser nearing thirty having to start from square one because I decided randomly to wake up one day and I hated what I woke up to.

I say “wake up” but I was concious the whole time. The whole time I gave up on and hurt myself and everyone in my life (maybe). For a long time I felt like a victim. Like it was wholly my families fault that I ended up this way. While the dynamic I grew up in was definitely toxic and unconducive of an adult that would work well in society, I still had the choice to give in or not. I CHOSE to give in and become nothing. With social relationships

I feel disconnected and alone. I gave up on people and i dont know how to come back from taht. I let someone hurt me very badly and let it set the tone for the way I consider people who want to be in my life. I just dont know how get past the fact that I dont fucking trust people for some reason and it sucks. What I do now is be the untrustworthy asshole so that people leave me alone. Either that or I just ghost people wwithout warning once I’m not directly in front of them. Both are cowardly behaviors. Both are so stupid. I can even just tell people “I’m a genuinely bad person, but im in recovery for that. I need time away from people right now” I have to continue to make bad people choices. WHY.

To be completely honest with myself It’s not like any of this is new behavior. I’ve always struggled with social relationships. I’ve always struggled to feel “right”. I’ve never been able to pin point why but not without trying. At this point I’m tired and I think I’m just bad at being a person.

I dont even know how to give up either. I keep persisting and trying even when it feels fucking useless like it does this week. Typical human behavior there though (and I am thankful for it). The need to preserve ourselves despite it making no sense to do so. It’s like I’m trying to save myself even when my legs are caught under a hydraulic press and no longer work. I still think I can run away from what wants to hurt me.

April 21, 2024 – *doing*

The inspiration for today’s post is Thinking A Lot. Not thoughtful thinking where you would come up with the solution you’ve been looking for in a painting or even thoughtful in the way that you know that you’ve got plans to get coffee with a friend next week. Rumination is the best word for the phenomenon. It’s Thinking A Lot in its most inactive and ineffective form.

I have spent the majority of my life thinking about, pondering, and then thinking about situations that are both fictitious and set in reality. Though this has largely been detrimental to my overall well-being and socioeconomic life, there are certain positives to the constant critiquing of every event in my life, and it is bad practice to concentrate only on negative aspects of a topic. I have had the opportunity to have been called things like “self-aware,” and I am often complimented on my social ability. I enjoy intense bodily sensations that coincide with the emotions that I felt during the memories I am thinking about and I can smell and taste especially pleasurable and nostalgic memories. That’s really it for the positives that I can see right now, though. It isn’t good to focus only on the negative aspects of the self, and it is not good to pretend that certain experiences are better or worse than they really are.

I titled this blog post *doing* because I had been sitting frustrated about the fact that I haven’t managed to finish a painting in a really long time, which reminds me that I just don’t make art the way that I used to, which made me realize a connection to my inability to finish almost anything in life. I am not, and historically haven’t been, an artist that finishes their work. This is also true for my involvement in the art community. ( Though it would be a lie if I said that I haven’t tried a few times to establish myself among a group of like-minded artists.)

Because I just finished a 4-hour stint of studies followed by some fun personal character work, I think that a large component of my inaction is that when I feel challenged, I abuse myself instead of grow. While I enjoyed that session, I found my mind wandering to very uncomfortable places that were, unfortunately, very familiar to me. The difference I enjoyed today was the fact that I had a sort of goal in mind at first with the studies, and then found myself able to bully myself back using an extremely valid “I’m unwinding after a study session” excuse. The ability to bully me back came with the ability to reflect on that moment and recognize the way in which I hurt myself, too. Using a relatively innocuous feeling like being challenged as a tool to hurt myself aligns very well with my character’s canon, and nobody is surprised in the slightest. You will find the fact that the first experiences that come to mind when I reflect on this emotion and subsequent reaction are set in my childhood will surprise nobody either. There are many challenges in a child’s life that cover a wide range of importance, and most of mine were imbued with turmoil. The days leading up to tests, quizzes, licenses, and events were terrifying to me. I knew that I wasn’t going to do well or that something was going to happen, and I was going to be treated to rage and violence because this had become a pattern I could count on from a very young age. I don’t remember when exactly I got bad at school, but I think it stereotypically aligns with the year or years my parents split up. I began struggling with school, and my father couldn’t figure out how to help me or cope with his own lack of ability to teach, so he reacted to the situation in the only way he knew how. There were moments in which I performed pretty well academically, I still qualified to participate in advanced-level courses in high school, but I came to find out achievements did not matter in the way I had been told they would as my dad was not around often and when he was he did not care that much about his children. Because I learned that everything I did was met with rage, I gave up. But not entirely. I still want to make stuff. I have always wanted to be an artist, find my expressive voice, and be out in the world PROUD of who I am. So I start stuff. I start a new account. A new gig. A new painting. A new thing. I never, ever, finish it though.

I want to end this with a reminder that there is immense power in recognizing patterns in your behavior, and taking the time to process them is an incredible act of self-love. I love that I have been connected to this sense of wanting to Be and have worked hard to try and be a part of a community that I want to be a part of and do the things I love despite being raised to believe that I should be doing otherwise. When I sit down to make my next study or artwork, I am going to encounter those aggressive thoughts with understanding and love instead of fear. I deserve to meet every side of myself with the supreme gentleness that I crave from the world.

Jan 17, 2024 - Hello again, my journal.

Today was decidedly better than yesterday though it started off on a wonky foot. It was made better by choice of my own!

I woke yesterday to a bit of a cold that completely took my throat and ability to talk away. Chose to stay in low-power mode and start my feeling bad regimen of chugging as much water as humanly possible and re-upping on the ibu and nasal spray every four hours.

 Luckily, that trick works very well as I woke today still feeling not great but considerably better nonetheless.

 I woke at my usual time and instead of my usual cigarette and coffee combo before immediately getting to work, I grabbed a glass of water and allowed myself to play a video-game as that is what I had felt I wanted to do. Allowing myself to enjoy the morning really set me up to have an easy day! The responsibilities that normally feel soul-crushing were tolerable and I found myself thinking more positively.

 It’s a short one today, dear journal, but a positive one!  My goal for tonight’s shift is to soothe myself when I walk into that door and say hi to a few of my coworkers before I go upstairs to put my stuff away. Because I DO belong in social spaces. Because I am someone who does provide good things to this world. Because my night job isn’t that deep and nobody can hurt me.

Jan 15, 2024 - Self Worth

Keeping up with this journal has proven as difficult as any other new habit that I’d like to adopt. Thank goodness. That means I’m truly taking the steps I need to take in order to recognize that the world i much bigger than I’ve accepted it to be, and to build myself up in order to be able to allow myself to enjoy the good opportunities that come my way.  Today I will be talking about feeling paralyzed due to low self-esteem and the some recent realizations I’ve had about life that have seemed huge to me even though they’re common human experiences. I feel that my low sense of self-worth has kept me blind to the world for these last 28 years, and I’d like to believe that this new foray into good self-consideration has lent me the ability to see some details much more clearly that were previously obscured.

 Woof - just procrastinated on this for about three hours. Facing the parts of yourself that you dislike the most but need to change is difficult.
 The only way that I can really begin to speak about the way having a low-self esteem has paralyzed me in life is by speaking on a major realization I had for myself recently.

 My realization was that low self-esteem seems to be a deeply emotional experience that seeps into every aspect of your life. To me, it seems similar to how I understand that my personality disorder works. I was introduced to a version of the world that was inconsistent and violent, so I assume everything in life is inconsistent and violent and respond the only way I had known to even if it was harmful to myself or another person. In terms of self-esteem, I view the world as “too good for me” and this shows up in the way that I can’t seem to stop self-sabotaging relationships and opportunities that would or do bring me joy in my life. I believe that, similar to a personality disorder, self-esteem is something that is instilled in you in your early life by your parents, caregivers, and/or community.

 I feel fortunate to have been able to come to the realization that I struggle with very low self-esteem. For many years I have been struggling to find some way to help myself after being diagnosed with too many things that contradict one another to count. There is no way I have BPD AND Autism. I think i have a low self-esteem and it shows up in the way I communicate with others. Autistic in the way that I avoid others and focus on ideas and objects. BPD in the way that when I am able to ge through the fact that I hate myself and let myself love and be loved I can’t handle that responsibility because it is too new and too exciting for me.

I have spent upwards of 8 hours trying to force myself to write this entry. It has been a day of distraction, I think because I am trying to avoid taking accountability for the way that I feel and investigate honestly why it is that I may be feeling this way. I’m going to call it quits on this one and end it with the thoughts that have plagued me all day. Why do I make myself so hard to love? What is it that I am so afraid of that I will consistently ruin good opportunities for myself? Why do my parents hate me? Why wont my mom text me back? Why does the love my partner gives me not feel right or okay? Why can’t I let anything go?

Jan 12, 2024

Okay, well.... Let's hit the ground running! I wonder if the awkward feeling you get when you start a journal is a universal thing. I'm sure it's a majority feeling in the very least.
I want to start a journal in an effort to organize my mind and learn to better retain memories. I also hope to become better at both writing and typing. If all of my goals fail, in the very least I will have a nice website to scroll through and reflect upon when I am old. I started this journal a bit late because of procrastination. I had insisted on taking my sweet time picking out my theme for fear that the vibe would be off... or something. That is why you'll notice that this was posted on January 13th, 2024 despite what the title of the entry says. If i even care about that detail upon reading back.... If I even read back..... If I even manage to keep this journal going.
JAnuary 12th was an ordinary day. I woke up a little bit late, as it was an off day and I had been up until four in the morning the previous night working on a crochet project. It being early afternoon, my partner was in the middle of a meeting and speaking proudly about the platform his company offers. Since I fell asleep in the living room, i had to quietly stumble my way into the bathroom hoping that i would not be caught like some cryptid in the background of my partners meeting. I should do that less.
We needed groceries and decided to go to the asian market as the majority of the goods we needed to restock on were there. We severely misunderestimated what 18 degress felt like and decided it was a lovely enough day to walk there. My fingers were freezing and my nose was numb but I enjoyed that freezing walk with him. (I love to have the opportunity to walk and laugh with him on the way to pick up groceries for our house. Such a wonderful privelage.) We picked up the majority of what we needed and grabbed a few extra items for hot-pot that was decided upon for dinner. When we got home, I realized that I forgot to pick up the hot-pot base so I had him do a drive by and drop me off to pick up the base really quickly, because there was no way in hell I was doing that walk again. The dinner was magnificent. I had been craving hot-pot for a long while up until this evening so I made sure to eat my fill. It was a spicy hot-pot base that we paired with king oyster mushroom, enoki mushrooms, pork belly and beef short-ribs, noodles, ttebeokki, rice, kimchi, garlic chive kimchi, chives, white onions, jalapenos, and garlic. MY goodness it was a feast to remember.
We watched the movie Pearl to accompany dinner. I liked it. I knew that I would going into it though. Hopefully that bias doesn't have much to do with the overall objective quality of the movie, because I really believe Pearl is one of the best psychological thrillers of 2023. I love the subtlety in its message, and that the message seemed to be about female captivity and rage. How the femme is viewed as unstable or dangerous for deviating from her role. I really identified with her want to escape despite her perceived responsibility in pursuit of her happiness, but every time she gets an opportunity to escape she comes face to face with a challenge that stops her plans in their tracks. My partner and I had a discussion about the movie between us and both decided we needed to watch X again to prove to ourselves that X was truly a sequel to Pearl. Spoiler: It truly is. I then began to think about how I should really start a journal because it really is a bummer that I don't have 25 odd years of journal entries or photos to look back upon. So I got onto WordPress and here we are. I am very much hoping for a long and fruitful journaling adventure, no matter what kind of twists and turns it takes. I hope to embrace my journal as an expressive medium and let myself explore it to its fullest!
ʸᵒᵘ ᵃʳᵉ ᵉⁿᵒᵘᵍʰ. ʸᵒᵘ ᵃʳᵉ ˡᵒᵛᵉᵈ. ʸᵒᵘ ᵃʳᵉ ˢᵐᵃʳᵗ. ʸᵒᵘ ᵃʳᵉ ᵛᵃˡᵘᵃᵇˡᵉ.