dumbkombuchakid

[dumbkombuchakid]

I’m finding more and more that mindfulness and awareness play a massive role in everything. All the growth I’ve undergone has been rooted in cultivating those skills in myself. 

Getting curious instead of judgmental, asking questions and being objective, letting go of outcome and expectations. All of these things seem tiny and maybe insignificant on paper; but in practice have made all the difference for me.

This past Thursday, I met with my therapist (as I usually do on Thursdays) and she told me she was proud of me. I am so grateful for that feedback, for her helping to contribute to my awareness of myself. Awareness extends beyond the present moment, it encompasses patterns and trends and habits and intentions and consequences. It informs decisions and aids processing and understanding. Awareness is the key to it all.

She commended me for staying in wise-mind while telling her about a situation that was upsetting me. She noted that though I had the opportunity to allow my emotions to take control, to pull me into a spiral, I made a choice to remain in control. That’s not what I would’ve done a year ago. That might not even be what I would’ve done a few months ago. Her providing that feedback about my new patterns and trends, specifically my ability to abstain from following old, maladaptive patterns and trends, brought that new data into my awareness. It’s very difficult to be cognizant of your own patterns. It requires parallel processing of data about several versions of yourself in different but comparable situations across a timeline. That’s not a skill that comes naturally; that depth of data about each version of ourselves just isn’t stored. 

I am proud of myself. I’m proud of my ability to say that I’m proud of myself; proud of my capacity to believe that I’m proud of myself. For the larger majority of my life (I’m talkin 1st 19 years) I refused to allow pride to penetrate my consciousness. I grew up fearing that I’d slip into narcissism and lose who I was, instead developing into some spawn of my father; a figure I’d associated with all things self-centered and antisocial. Any shred of pride or self-esteem was too great a risk; I’d rather be humble and miserable but secure in my pro-social self-appraisal. I vividly remember the day I felt true self worth for the first time. It was in june, a month before I’d turn 20. That day came a few years after another significant (in hindsight) day when I began working with my current therapist. I fear I may accidentally catalog the past several years here for the sake of clarity and continuity, but the main takeaway point is that I’ve undergone immense growth, all a result of my own innervism.

Innervism is a term I’m borrowing from Elizabeth Lesser, the author of the book Cassandra Speaks. It refers to inward awareness and intentional growth. Tuning in to tune up. If not for facing the things about myself that I didn’t want to get true, I’d never have reached a point where I’m able to act with intention and display a self of whom I’m proud.

I’m far from perfect, and I’ve made a personal vow to never stop growing, learning, listening, and adapting. I will never reach my final form; there is always room for growth.

My point in writing right now is to address some of the cognitive behaviors I’ve noticed myself exhibit when in relationships. In the beginning, when things are wonderful and new and affection has a strong presence, I latch on. I start to fantasize about the future and how my life could play out with this other individual by my side, treating me the way they do at the beginning. 

This tendency to idealize based on that first impression, that best-behavior scenario, extends into the period when things begin to slip. When the negligence begins, when manipulative tactics begin being employed. When I am expected both to change myself and also to unilaterally accept the other’s lack of change. I am projected to grow into a mould that aligns with their current state, rather than the two of us developing into a new shape, together.

Internally, this is accompanied by a fear of communicating my feelings. A hesitation to go against the grain and a tendency to shrink and abide by these new terms of engagement. I get quiet and small and they become all powerful. I am aware of the red flags and harm and damage and yet I remain docile and strive for perfection in their eyes.

This is how I’ve always done it, it’s how I’ve been conditioned to behave in relationships. I’ve been conditioned to accept that A) there will be a power imbalance and B) it will not favor me.

I no longer accept that. Today I did something that past me would not have done. 

A few important things to note about the situation that allowed me to make this development are that:

1. my “picker” is getting pickier. I’ve always fallen into relationships with narcissists in the past, not because I chose them, but because they chose me and I only knew how to go along. This time, in my current relationship, I made a choice as much as they did. The quality of their character actually had a chance to play a role in deciding whether or not the relationship was worth pursuing.

2. I trust them. I trust that they care about me and want this to work. I trust that they want me to be happy and healthy and that they’re willing to grow.

We didn’t talk much today because he had a big day of doing things that I won’t get into, but then tonight when we did finally get to talk, we spent a long time discussing his day in depth and then never shifted to talking about me. Instead, he started multitasking and doing other things and talking and singing to himself. I told him if he wanted to do those things that was fine, but if we were going to be on the phone that I wanted to him to talk to me, to pay me attention. This didn’t actually turn a result, which hurt me.

Eventually, he got tired and said he was going to turn in, and wished me a goodnight. I said goodnight too, without my typical enthusiasm or affection, and he noticed that those were missing. Instead of asking why though, he simply told me to say it like I meant it, since he didn’t believe me. He has a tendency to make jokes when I’d really rather he be serious, and I’ve stopped laughing along and instead stay true to the tone I want to be received. I don’t want to diminish the weight and value my thoughts and feelings deserve. I’ve decided to not accept less than I deserve.

We hung up and I journaled a bit and felt myself getting worked up, and this is where I did a few things I’m proud of.

I called him back. He didn’t answer, so I recorded a snapchat video and told him how certain aspects of our conversation made me feel, and how I had realized that if I didn’t tell him then he’d have no way to know that those things had hurt and upset me.

This was honestly terrifying, and sending it (and not getting an immediate response) made me feel a whole other type of awful. 

I decided to set a timer for 15 minutes and meditate. During my meditation, I focused on a few things. I repeatedly reminded myself that I must let go of outcome; remind myself that I spoke only about my feelings and my feelings deserve to be heard. Silencing all the spiraling thoughts about the conversations that could follow was hard, and I noticed the colors in my awareness shift as more potential outcomes forced their way in. I repeated the mantra “I deserve love” to myself and focused hard on not allowing expectations or theories about what could or may happen in. Those things aren’t real, they’re imagined. I forced myself to choose to refrain from processing events until an event actually occurred.

15 minutes passed and I felt a little lighter. Part of me still really just wanted to cry, but then eventually I got a notification. He said he was sorry, that it was more of a mental hiccup than a true representation of how he feels.

I thanked him - intentionally rerouting from a typical path of saying “it’s okay” in response to an apology. I then wished him sweet dreams and told him we’d talk tomorrow, and I meant it.

It was uncomfortable, I’ll admit. It’s never fun to confront something that hurts you, especially when it’s something or someone that you don’t want to lose. During my meditation I had to remind myself that if someone doesn’t value my feelings or have respect for me, then they aren’t the person I should be with. That’s terrifying - holding people to a higher standard. Choosing to not accept less than what I deserve is something almost completely foreign to me and is fucking scary, but it’s also sort of exhilarating. The idea that mutual respect is now a requirement, that my partner needs to give a shit about me and express that through their behavior is something I deserve. I never used to think about myself as deserving anything - at least not anything good. But now? I put so much effort into who I am and how I treat others. I’m a good, kind, caring person. I know that I am because I do it on purpose. I think that qualifies me as deserving someone who treats me the same. 

It’s 5am now. My sleep schedule is off kilter in a big way. I’m going to finally stop and allow this day to end. I’ve already made a to-do list for tomorrow and I hope the day brings joy. I appreciate you reading what I have to write; it helps me to do this and I hope it helps you to read.

Goodnight and sweet dreams, remember that you deserve love.

[dumbkombuchakid]

after soul

So I just watched the movie Soul. It’s new as of the current moment and it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen if not ever, then for sure in a long time. It gave me a whole new perspective- which sounds cheesy, especially because it didn’t really present me with anything I hadn’t heard before or considered before. It presented everything in such a way though that it really gave me a new appreciation for life. For every little moment. Deciding what actually matters to you and taking advantage of those things. For example: when I’m typing on a  computer keyboard, and I’m getting things right and the thoughts are flowing and the keys aren’t sticking and my eyes can flit back and forth between the screen where the letters are stacking into words and the lines are clumping together to fill the page and it’s automatically formatting everything all on its own without any conscious thought on my part and my hands on the keys, hopping from square to square, my middle finger hitting the i key and the k key and my index doing arguably the heavy lifting a lot of the time but everything just flows so naturally and again it’s all without much conscious thought on my part. even the spelling, i just think “word, that’s the word i’d like to say” and my hands are like :aight dude let’s make it happen we got u” and they make it happen. wondrous little dudes my hands are. i really looked at my hands in the shower a few minutes ago. they look so young. sometimes i feel so old but my hands, man. look so damn young. my right hand is bigger than my left hand; i noticed that today too. I’ve thought about the whole bilateral body plan before and how incredible it is that the human body just makes TWO of almost everything and they just fucking MATCH. like that’s INSANE. imagine having to make duplicates of everything you’ve ever made. and then being scrutinized heavily based on how well you did. For the most part, our bodies (I think) pretty much have our backs. My legs are roughly the same length, my feet are close enough to the same size, my arms hit the same general region of my legs when down at my side. I’m so impressed. That’s so impressive. Again, no conscious thought. So many things like that go unnoticed. What a crime. It’s funny though; the few things that the body really only has to make one of are always the unique things. Noses, bellybuttons, penises. Always so unique. But for some reason, less celebrated when they are unique. Scrutinized even more than the things we’ve got two of. Maybe it’s a cancelling out thing? 

I’ve gotten off topic. The point is, I’m not sure what comes after this life. I’ve got theories about theories and potential whatevers but ultimately; I just don’t know. What I DO know is that I’m here now. Only now. All that exists is the present. So I guess I made a bit of a vow - to myself. To live every moment. To tune in and accept it all because in a moment it could all be over. Nothingness could follow. That’s one of the potentials. This might be all there is. So I’m gonna qwork it, basically. Gonna live it the fuck up. Gonna finally finish that painting and move my body and put on makeup and cute outfits and sing and dance and write and draw and make things and think new ideas that I haven’t thought before. Gonna finally finish fixing my resume. I’m making a vow to quit procrastinating. To value the present moment. I don’t want to leave things unfinished.

I think I really believed that there was something after this and somehow because there was something out there after this, it was fine if the “this” was miserable. I’m not going to accept that anymore. There might be something after this, there might not, but I doubt I’ll ever get a second chance at this exact moment so I better enjoy it. 

I’m not sure where I wanna go after that thought, I honestly think it pretty well sums it all up. It’s not the prettiest or most full-of-literary-genius conclusion but it’s effective, if abrupt. That’s all for now. I think I’ll be writing more going forward. Looking forward to it all. Love you.

[dumbkombuchakid]

the moment

I don’t want to cheapen the moment

the moment I want with you

the moment when your breathing slows and your chest rises and falls

but you can’t feel the air moving through your nose.

the moment when the world disappears

and your fingers trace the hems of my clothes.

when your gaze dances with my body 

taking in every inch

every movement

the moment when our eyes move without direction

from my eyes

to your lips

to my neck and your shoulder

the moment when your hands get bold

when you reach out and touch

when you slide your fingers under my shirt and feel the heat of my back

when you breath in and lean in and pull me close

the moment when you look in my eyes and I look in yours and your fingers buzz with anticipation

the moment 

when my hands reach up to rest on your chest

my fingertips tracing your collar bones

and you start to lift the bottom of my shirt and I raise my hands over my head

and slowly

like curtains raising before a stage

you reveal me.

the moment when time unfreezes and our hands get hungry

the moment when I slide my hands up your back under your shirt and you meet me there, pulling it over your head from the back

and we push and pull closer

our skin touching, our hands racing,

ravenous

needing to touch

needing to feel

needing to trace every ripple and bulge of every muscle, every bone

our breath shared, air moving in and out in unison until I look up and you look down

and our lips finally meet

and suddenly time stops again

I feel my eyes shut as you take over my every sense

that moment

when we step together

crossing over that line

that grand reveal, unparalleled by film

I don’t want to give that up

I don’t want to cheapen the tender and erotic

I don’t want to craft a preview

choosing my best angles and selling them to you on a screen.

I want you at the premiere.

I want you to pick your favorite scene.

I want to paint a masterpiece with our hands and our minds and hang the memory on my wall.

I don’t want a teaser.

I don’t want a sneak peak.

We deserve to make our lives into art,

we deserve to romanticize it.

We deserve something unforgettable, unforgeable.

Something that good, that real.

That moment;

for that, we’ll just have to wait.

[dumbkombuchakid]

hell

this week has been so difficult. it’s been the culmination of several progressively worsening weeks. I’m under a horrible load of stress from school right now and my time is not my own because I’m also working a ton. Not to mention I’m fucking gaining weight and hate the way I look. Trying to deal with the fact that I am shaped the way I am and that I can’t do anything about it over night is really really hard. It doesn’t help that I want to eat all the time, seeing as that’s pretty much the only way I can get my brain to release any of the happy chemicals. I’m so goddamned unhappy. I have a consultation tomorrow with some doctors to see if TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) might be a good fit for me. One of the *best* parts about having bpd and bipolar 2 is that any type of medicinal or alternative [to therapy] treatments are less effective. It fucking sucks.

There’s a song in the show Avenue Q called “it sucks to be me” and not to complain, but that’s my fuckin song right there. It absolutely sucks to be me. Sure, being me has its perks; I’m hot, smart as shit, funny as hell, objectively thin, I’m not hurting for money, I have a job that I enjoy, I’m multitalented, I have a really wonderful companion animal, my friends are fucking incredible.

okay after listing all that it’s a bit hard to rationally complain about anything, but I’m gonna try my damndest anyway. I’m miserable. Lately I feel like I can’t do anything right. I hate my body. My family history is brutally fucked up. No matter what good things happen I feel so overwhelmingly sad. I’m just so exhausted of living. I’m so tired of it. I’m also fucking hungry all the time. All the damn time. And I’m so motherfucking fat. I hate my body so much. How the hell am I supposed to reconcile being nonstop hungry and also filled to the absolute brim with self loathing?? 

My hands ache and my wrists ache and my back aches and my legs ache and I’m in just intense mental pain and it’s driving me fucking mad. I spent the last hour of my shift at work yesterday praying that a drunk driver would take me out on my drive home. I prayed to any higher power that could hear me that I’d die on my way home and prayed that it wouldn’t be my fault. I prayed that someone else would get blackout drunk and that the higher power would tell them it was a good idea to drive and that they’d hit me and I wouldn’t survive, or I’d be stuck in a coma for long enough to give me a fucking break. I prayed for my next life to start. I prayed for this one to end. 

But then I got to thinking about how I haven’t written a book yet; how I haven’t told my story. How the world hasn’t benefitted on a grander scale from my existence. I have an uncommon mind and an uncommon need for the world to know. An uncommon need to cause positive change in the lives of many; the lives of people I don’t and never will know.

I want my name to be known. I’ve always wanted my name to be known. Life right now is hell but I still want that. I’m not finished. I wan’t desperately to be done but I know that I’m not.

[dumbkombuchakid]

regrets

My dad traveled a lot when I was really young and then when I was 12 he left. I never really thought of this as a negative thing or as something that could have caused more suffering because he was abusive and I lived in fear before he left, but I realized the other night that my dad was the parent who pushed us to be excellent. He was the one who had goals for us and wanted us to be excellent. My mom was a wreck while I was growing up and I had to take care of her, which already was a responsibility a child shouldn’t be saddled with, but in addition to that she didn’t push me. She was fine with subpar grades, she was fine with me being average. I was so busy with managing my depression that I didn’t work hard at anything else. 

I could have been excellent. I could have been so many things. My figure skating coach told me I could’ve gone to the olympics but my knees went bad and no one could figure out what was wrong with them so figure skating was off the table. Dance was off the table. I rode the bench in volleyball.

My writing and art skills only developed to the level they did because that was all I had, they were my only escape and salvation. I went from a kid with two parents who pushed her and wanted her to be great and two siblings who were there to help her become who she was supposed to be to a kid who was alone, with one broken parent and a lifetime’s worth of trauma and too much responsibility and it fucking ruined me. It absolutely fucking ruined me and now I don’t know how to go on. I don’t know how to go on knowing what I am now is a fraction of my potential. Not to say where I am now is all that unimpressive or bad but... I could have been so so much more. I’ll never be so so much more. I’ll never get back those years.

[dumbkombuchakid]

a good storm

at 7:43 I sit on my floor and listen.

outside, the wind blows 

it ruffles through the branches and trees

tickling all the autumn leaves

they’re swept away and when they hit the ground

a forest symphony starts track 1: rain sounds

I want to lay in the middle of the road

bundled up in a hoodie or coat

i want to feel the cold wind blow

i want it to chill me to the bone

i want to feel the sharp stretching feeling

of goosebumps rising up all down my arms and legs

each hair singularly stiffens and stands 

a pointy suit of armor made of a thousand glass strands

thunder cracks and the symphony cries

flutes and violins sing the way the autumn wind sighs

and in the middle of my road I lay and weep

rain soaks through my clothes and chatters my teeth

the sky turns dark and my shadow dissolves

to the tune of the storm pounding the street

i stare up at the sky and watch every raindrop

while perfect bulbs of water drip down my cheeks

my hair beneath me swims and floats 

comfortable on the pavement in the middle of the road

no headlights approach

nor passing voices rise

and in my rainsoaked bliss finally I close my eyes

[dumbkombuchakid]

I want to write poetry but I don’t think I can make these thoughts pretty

I have such a huge weight on my chest right now. I’m stressed out and overwhelmed and I can feel it doing damage.

I was doing so well. I have come so so far and grown so much and learned so much and truly have gotten past things I never thought I’d get past. But now I’ve found myself in a situation that is draining me. A friend of mine is in a very bad place. She’s struggling so much right now with everything and she has so few people looking out for her. I feel like I’m one of her only people right now, one of her only good friends. I want to do whatever I can to help her get through what’s she’s going through but it’s too much for one person to bear. 

Something I’m not proud of but am too self aware to ignore is that I’m having trouble being sympathetic towards her. Not so much trouble that I’m entirely unsympathetic, I absolutely feel for her and understand what she’s going through; but it’s different because I’ve been exactly where she is and I got myself out of it. I’m on the other side now. I got the help I needed and put in so much hard work, I still work so hard to be okay. I think the difficulty is seeing her in a place that I know how to get out of and watching her not be able to. I can see the things that are in her life that are causing problems and I know that a few small changes could change everything for her, but it doesn’t feel like my place to tell her these things. It kills me watching her struggle, watching her fight this thing.

I feel arrogant when I think about it or listen to her talk about it, and I’ve noticed judgmental thoughts pass through my mind. I don’t want to be judgmental or arrogant, I don’t think I’m high and mighty for finding success in therapy and my battle against mental illness. I don’t consciously think that at all but subconsciously? I can’t deny it. 

I want to be there for her, I know she needs someone to just be there, but I am exhausted. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t think she’s going to pull herself out of this any time soon.

I am trying to get my compulsive eating under control but I think the stress from this situation is contributing to that issue. I need to be able to focus on myself but right now I feel so stuck and trapped and scared and worried and all of those thoughts and feelings rush through my body and my body tells me to eat. There’s just so much to juggle and I feel utterly without wisdom. I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know how to make myself start tasks or get things done. I’m worried the negative energy that now takes up so much space in my life is going to throw me into a hole and I’ll get trapped in my own crisis and be completely useless.

I feel so alone right now. I’m her only person but she’s not in a place where she can be what I need, so I spend a ton of my time trying to support her while I slowly fall apart. I just want someone to wrap their arms around me and hold me and tell me it’ll all be okay, because right now I do not feel okay.

[dumbkombuchakid]

An update on dealing with compulsions

The whole ‘name it to tame it’ principle is one that I believe in firmly, and about a week ago I finally faced the reality of one of the things I’ve struggled with for a long time; compulsive eating. For a long time I thought it was stress eating or maybe I had a binge eating disorder, which I guess could be farther from the truth, but the truth of the situation is that it’s a compulsion. It’s something I usually don’t want to do but for some reason have to. It’s something my body makes me do when the environment fits. 

Living at the mercy of environmental triggers sucks, feeling like I don’t have control over when I do something, especially something like eating, has caused a lot of emotional and physical turmoil for me. I discovered recently that the compulsion is easier to resist, or rather isn’t triggered, when I keep my kitchen clean.

Since I realized this, I have kept my kitchen clean. By forcing myself to clean up after myself immediately I managed to keep the compulsion at bay. However, the past several days have been particularly demanding and right now my kitchen is a mess, and I just spent the past several hours eating.

It’s the kind of thing where I don’t even know if I was hungry. I don’t know if my body [nutritionally] wanted what I gave it. I just know I had to eat.

I’m currently in my bathroom avoiding the entire space, giving myself some time away from that environment to get my head straight and to reset in general. 

It’s at the top of my to-do list to clean up, because I know it’s what I need.

That’s knowledge that’s supremely valuable; knowing what you need. Dealing with any kind of problem is infinitely harder if you can’t see the path to recovery. It takes a lot of focused and intentional awareness to figure out what helps, it’s a level of awareness I’m grateful to be capable of. I know it helps me exist more intentionally and less compulsively if my kitchen is clean. I haven’t always known this or even really always faced this compulsion as what it is.

I’ve been told multiple times by professionals that I might have some level of OCD. The way the compulsions and behaviors have presented in my life have changed as my environment has changed and as I’ve gotten older, which is something that has actually prevented me from facing my problems as compulsions. I thought that if I had compulsions that they’d be consistent and unrelenting, but I think that might be a flaw in how I’d been viewing human nature.

The one real constant in life is change and growth, it’s inhuman to not develop or change. It’s a constant I’ve learned to embrace.

I think society expects consistency, for us to behave and perform at the same level regardless of the time that passes or the way our environment changes. I think we also internalize a lot of that and forget that we can incite change in ourselves. We expect ourselves to stay the same in how we feel about things, how we think about things and how we approach things even when our situations change or as we gain new information.

Part of that is confirmation bias, we’re choosy about the information we let into our heads so we can be consistent; that kind of change can be uncomfortable so we avoid it.

I got off topic there, went honestly a little too deep for my head to manage right now. Cognitive change is something I’d like to write about in the future though, maybe look into ways to make it less uncomfortable. 

For now though I’m going to focus on keeping my kitchen clean so that I can stay in the driver’s seat of my life. Feeling out of control is definitely a motif in my life that I’d really prefer to extinguish - which isn’t to say that I need control over everything, but there are certain things that I absolutely prefer having control over and if there’s something I can do to increase the proportion of time that I feel in control? I’ll absolutely do it.

Remember to forgive yourself and to abstain from judgment, life is hard enough without you being your own critic. Choose to be a friend to yourself.

[dumbkombuchakid]

most of the time when I come on here to write it’s because I feel like I’ve figured something out or I’ve reached some new conclusion that I think can help me or anyone else like me. I don’t know that today is the same.

I suppose in a way I have reached a new conclusion recently, but it doesn’t feel like a success or something I wanna be proud of. I feel like lately I’ve been less than human, like I’m a creature of habit to the point where I’m not making choices, I’m carrying out compulsions. I eat compulsively, check my phone compulsively, feel compulsively. I feel like someone else has been in the driver’s seat and I’m just along for the ride. In my own body I don’t feel in control. It makes life so boring, so uninteresting.

I think there are a few ways I can go about righting this; I can start paying more attention to my body, to the signals it is sending me, I can start noticing what choices I truly have in every moment, and I can start deciding how to divide my time rather than watching it pass me by and occasionally hurling myself into its stream hoping I’ll catch my footing and be able to keep up.

It feels sometimes like I’m checked out from the passage of time, like I’m not moving with it but rather riding the current, unchanged and ungrowing, not developing, not expanding, not learning and becoming my future self. I think time is what we make of it, because it’s the one thing that we didn’t invent for ourselves. We created society, we created money, we created the education system, we created all forms of singular participation. If you stop participating in everything, if you laid down and just breathed, alone, unspeaking, unlistening, just still. Performing only the functions that automate themselves in our bodies, time would still flow and pass. It’s a strange resource; one that’s seemingly inexhaustible but one that can also have limits placed on it, one that we can lose if we aren’t tuned in. I think I’ve lost a lot of time because I haven’t been tuned in. I haven’t had my hands out to catch it when it came my way.

It’s such a waste, to let time slip away. Sure, more time will come, but the lost time is gone and with it I’m sure are missed opportunities.

Time is good too because it’s predictable for the most part. We can schedule things and stack them and we can choose to exist and participate in timed activities. But it’s a choice, and as I’ve said I don’t feel like I’ve been making choices.

I’m kind of a control freak, in a way that doesn’t really make sense. I’m so obsessed with control that sometimes if I feel like I can’t have 100% control I’ll submit completely, and I’ll just let it carry me in hopes that it’ll drop me in the right place at the right time.

Time is also shared, we don’t each get our own stream of it. My time is your time is his time is theirs, and we can choose to exist in the same moments or not.

Today I’m going to stop wasting it, stop letting it slip away unnoticed and unaccounted for. I’m going to start using it consciously and intentionally.

Even this, sitting here typing away takes time, and this is how I’m choosing to spend this moment. This is the moment I want to be in, this is worth the amount of time it requires.

I will take some time to care for myself too, I’ll take a shower and get dressed. I’ll take some time for my education, finish a study guide, watch some lectures. I will tune in to every moment and then instead of having to leap into the stream of time and try to catch up I’ll already be matching its stride, falling in step naturally as if I’d been there all along.

I don’t know if anybody reads the things I write here, maybe they’re just for me, my own little diary on the internet. If anyone is reading, I hope it helps you the same way it helps me. I feel better at the end of this moment than I did at the beginning, and already I have grown a bit and learned a little through this passage of time. I chose to monopolize some time for myself and for what I wanted to do and because I’ve been here the entire time, I’ve grown. I am more now than I was, and I plan to keep building.

That’s how you become what you want to be. Tune in. Pay attention. Walk alongside time and don’t wait for it to take you somewhere. Use it as a vehicle but place yourself in the driver’s seat. We will never get this exact moment back, so we may as well use it for something we want to do. 

[dumbkombuchakid]

“it doesn’t have to be like this”

that’s what he said to me after I hung up the phone, after I said “fuck you.”

It doesn’t have to be like this. He invalidates my entire reality. My truth is *false*. He calls it “revisionist history” I call it my perspective. He doesn’t seem to understand that there could be more to me than meets the eye, that maybe, just maybe I know what I am thinking, how I feel, why I do the things I do and why I’ve done the things I’ve done. He spent the entire phone call telling me that I didn’t feel the way I told him I felt, that I wasn’t thinking what I told him I was thinking, that I knew things that I didn’t know. 

“You knew I’d never hurt you”

I didn’t. I was terrified.

“You weren’t scared, you could never come into my office if you were scared”

And yet I did. I knew he hadn’t ever hit me but he only got angrier and I didn’t know how long I had until my luck ran out. I was brave. I knew all of us were scared and I knew he was mad. I knew I could talk him down.

I knew if I told him we all felt badly for whatever we did to upset him and make him angry and yell and if I just sucked up to him then he’d calm down and the storm would pass. I knew I could and I didn’t know if anyone else could so I did. I took it to be my responsibility.

I spent years carrying that weight on my shoulders. I was a kid. I remember the last time I tried it, the first time it didn’t work. The one time he caught on that I wasn’t being genuine. He told me it couldn’t be all ducky. Maybe that time he was mad at me. I think he was mad at all of us. I think that every time we let him down it damaged something inside him. I think his identity was so reliant upon us excelling, upon us being extraordinary, that any time we weren’t, or any time we did something he didn’t like, it just burned something deep inside him. All he can see is his perspective, other people failing or making mistakes.

I don’t want to feel the way he has made me feel time and time again ever again. I don’t want another person to ever tell me the way I am feeling. I don’t want another person to ever tell me what I’m thinking. I don’t want another person to claim to have some insight into my cognition, my behavior when I am telling them exactly what I feel, what I think, what I know, why I behave the way I behave. I am an honest and genuine person. I am an open book, often I overshare. I have many flaws but dishonesty is not one of them. Ingenuity is not one of them. Lack of clarity is not one of them. I have spent years learning to read myself, learning to catalog my behaviors, learning to detect my patterns before they have the opportunity to take over and cause damage. I know myself. I trust myself. I do not trust him.

I’ve never trusted him; something he of course doesn’t believe (ironic, isn’t it). I never believed him when he told me he loved me - not the way someone who feels loved would. I knew he valued me. I knew he was proud of me (at times). I knew I was excellent, I knew I was smart and artistic and charismatic. I knew these traits made me valuable. 

I always felt more like a possession than a person. He loved me the way people love their favorite shirt. If I was clean and ironed and properly pressed then I fit where he needed me to fit and I made him look good, I made him feel good. 

That’s it I think, I’ve never had that realization before. That I didn’t feel like a person, I felt like an object. I felt like something he had to gain or lose. Is there such a thing as a trophy daughter? If there is I think that’s what I was.

Maybe that’s why I got so lost when it came time for me to become my own person. I didn’t have anyone to please or anyone to impress. With no one telling me what I was supposed to be to earn their love I had no idea how to function.

Luckily I figured it out eventually, how to be a person even when I’m alone. Even when there’s no one watching or keeping score. No investors to keep interested in the product.

The way he speaks about me, even to me, makes me feel less than human. It makes me feel like I’m just a set of achievements and accolades. And maybe that’s my problem and not his, but that doesn’t make it any less real for me.

[dumbkombuchakid]

Interpersonal relationships

These are not my strong suit. These are really really not my strong suit. Historically speaking my relationships consist of either someone else taking advantage of me or me getting overly attached too quickly and scaring them away. In my romantic relationships I’ve mostly attracted narcissists who say all the right things for like a week or two or three and then gradually they withhold affection or attention and so I change to fit their increasing needs and demands until I’m not me anymore and I bend myself to fit into their life and somehow when I’m in it it doesn’t matter that I’m the only one who has to change and then at some point they lose interest or they get bored or for some reason or another it ends. In other cases maybe I realize that it’s not healthy for me and they don’t want anything to do with someone who isn’t easy to manipulate or control so then it ends. The worst part though is that after the fact I miss them. I always miss them. I think about them all the time for months, years after it ends even when it only lasted a short amount of time. Because my emotions are huge. My feelings are oversized. Everything inside me is too big for this world and I have to learn how to siphon the acceptable bits of my personality out into the world so that people will like me or accept me. It sucks, having to change or shrink to fit in, to be accepted. Because honestly, even once I’ve changed and shrunk and turned myself into something I don’t recognize I’m not really loved. All I’ve ever wanted to be is loved. I feel shitty saying I’ve never felt loved before because I know my mom loves me, I know a handful of people genuinely love me, but I think the few relationships where I was supposed to feel love but didn’t - my relationship with my dad. I never trusted his love for me. I still don’t - I don’t think it would be wise to. He isn’t a trustworthy guy. It’s strange, because I was the favorite in a lot of ways. Maybe I showed the most promise, I was the most well-rounded. I had brains but also had natural social skills. I always felt inferior, I never felt like I was enough. I never felt like I would live up to whatever standards existed and I didn’t believe my dad loved me. I didn’t believe my dad loved me and then my dad left. My dad left and he took my brother and suddenly I had one parent and no siblings. I didn’t believe one of the people who contributed 50% of my DNA gave a damn about me and then my situation proved me right. My mom wasn’t okay. I remember I had to be the strong one. A lot of the time I still am the strong one. I help her compose texts to my siblings now because I’ve gone through so much therapy that I can pretty much play therapist. I had to be the mom and I was just a kid. I felt like I had the entire world on my shoulders and I couldn’t shrug it off, I couldn’t set it down for a moment and it fucked me up so badly. My mental abilities suffered. My grades suffered. My desire to be alive suffered. If I hadn’t been forced to go through all I went through then I think a couple things would be true; I think I’d be an absolute brat, and I think I’d be wicked smart. I think I would’ve had incredible grades. I think I would’ve topped the charts and kicked ass from the getgo. I would’ve been the one to watch. Instead it took me until college to even discover that I’m worth anything, that my brain is a powerful machine all on its own and I just have to let it run. I never let myself believe a single good thing about myself. And why should I have? My own dad didn’t fight to stay in my life. My own dad. He didn’t fight for me. More often he fought against me. He’s always been the villain in my story and I don’t think that’s entirely false because I think that maybe if I had been able to believe in my own value, my own capacity to be loved by another, then maybe I wouldn’t be so fucked up now. Maybe my depression wouldn’t come in waves because I find out that a boy I dated for barely a month doesn’t think about me 5 months later. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like crying at random times. Maybe I wouldn’t struggle so much with my body image that I intentionally don’t buy food that I know I’ll binge eat. Maybe if I felt loved from the start then it wouldn’t have been such a challenge for me to ever love myself.

I worked so so fucking hard on my personality. On the things I can control. I worked and worked until the person I presented to the world, with my words and actions and conscious choices, was someone I was proud of. Someone I was proud to be. Someone who I could believe is worthy of love. I worked my ass off to override all the things that came naturally that I didn’t like and somehow I still feel so goddamn alone. Somehow people still don’t love me. And that’s not to say that I need everyone to love me - I don’t. In a lot of ways I think it’s important that not everyone loves me because I strive to be the same person no matter what room I’m in and no matter who else is around. I am genuine and real and true to myself and my values and still I feel so unloved. 

People say you have to love yourself before you can be loved by another and while I’m sure there’s some truth to that, I am so fucking tired of being the only one who can see that I’m worth loving. I’m a good person. I’m smart and funny and kind and I make choices that I know are moral and right. I don’t pick fights unless I am 100% sure I’m right. I stand up for what I believe in. I stand up for people who need someone to stand up for them. Not to mention I’m pretty and thin and have long soft hair and I’m clean and try to smell good and I dress well and I put effort into myself. I put effort into damn near everything I do and literally all I want is for someone to just fucking love me. I don’t need the world. I don’t need money. I don’t need fame, I don’t need all the bells and whistles and extras. I just want to have someone who loves me, who I can trust, who isn’t going anywhere. I can count on one hand all the people who have been there for me unconditionally and most of them aren’t my biological family. My dad isn’t on the list, my sibs aren’t on the list, I don’t even know if I can put my mom on the list. Ainsley has never left me and Kate has never left me and I trust that Ava will never really leave me. I feel incredibly grateful for those people and fuck maybe I’m asking for too much but none of those relationships are the kind I crave. None are the kind of love that I’ve felt starved for my whole life. It’s like being hungry and nothing fills you. Nothing quite hits the spot.

I feel like I’m starving and I don’t know if it’ll ever go away.

[dumbkombuchakid]

nothing hits quite like the real deal

This past week I finally got to do something I’ve been waiting [in reality] for months to do and in a lot of ways, years to do; I moved into my very own apartment. I live by myself with my cat and it’ll really just be us against the world for at least the next 12 months. My mom, my dad, and my brother all were up here for various lengths of time (my dad is still here, in a hotel) helping me get moved in and settled and tonight is my first night all alone with Granola in the new place. It’s a little weird, and I think it’ll probably get a little lonely at some times, but for the most part I’m incredibly excited to be on my own. 

Right now, Granola is acting really bizarrely and all around seems kinda freaked out and I’m worried I’m under-feeding her. I bought a cool little machine for her that automatically dispenses food at programmable intervals of time throughout the day and something about it just doesn’t seem quite right. I’m going to continue to observe and see if things change - updates to come (maybe).

I’m not going to write much and I wish I had more to say of real value. This has been a wild week. It’s been really weird being around my dad. He’s definitely got a challenging personality to deal with and that’s not something I have a ton of experience with, at least not within the past 8ish years. I wish I could remember a little more of the good from childhood, I wish I believed it’s all there. The issue is, I think I’ve always kind of disliked him as a person. His personality has always been an issue for me - I think. I don’t have a ton of super clear memories from childhood (I mean I have plenty, most of which are traumatic in some aspect, but in terms of day-to-day life as a kid) and that makes it super difficult to form a relationship with this guy now. He’s a stranger to me in so many ways and the fact that I don’t feel like I have positive history with him combined with the fact that I don’t really find him all that pleasant to be around makes it admittedly hard to want to work to have him in my life now. He seems to have plenty of positive memories from my childhood, and so I’m trying to just trust and believe that, but I cannot find them in my head. I think there’s something in me that doesn’t want to find more memories.

I need to empty Granola’s box and then get to bed, it’s been a hell of a day. 

I think I’ll write more frequently going forward. I’m sure there will be more to process and unpack as I continue down this crazy journey that is growing up. 

[dumbkombuchakid]

acknowledging my feelings and trying to do something about them

I’m desperate for new habits; for a consistent routine. The problem is, the routine I want to be easy isn’t easy - yet. I need this routine to become habit, I need it to be effortless. Actually, I want it to be. Technically I guess it isn’t a need, if it were a need I think lots of other things would have to be true that I don’t think are true and what I have to accept is that if I want my life to be a certain way, it is going to take work and effort and I’m the only one who can make it happen.

I hate responsibilities. Hate them. I think if I had someone wandering through life with me to remind me when to do things and when not to do things then maybe I’d be there already, but I don’t have anyone like that. It’s just me. It’s all on me.

 My plan is this - I create a routine to follow every day and I use alarms on my phone to keep me on schedule. I’m going to draft it here.

Wake up: 5:30am

reminder for then: you don’t need to be super awake yet. take some time to stretch and hang, loosen up and feel energy coming into your body.

After 15 minutes, go brush your teeth and wash your face. Reminder for this time: everything you’re doing is kind toward your body. Your body deserves this, even if it feels different and uncomfortable. The discomfort now will pay off in the future.

Now is the time to exercise. Cardio is the most important thing for your body type. This will be easier when you’re at school and have a gym to go to. You can ride your bike to the gym, check out a locker for the day and even go straight from the gym to class if the time works out that way. You aren’t at school yet, so go for a run or a bike ride, get your blood moving and your heart rate up. Running is going to suck until it doesn’t anymore. Don’t be afraid. Your body will thank you later and you will feel better after, even if starting is hard. When you come home, pick a couple things to do 3 times. Maybe that means some kind of squats, a plank, some push ups, some crunches, whatever mix of exercises sounds good. Do 20 or 30 somethings, and then do 20 or 30 more, and then 20 or 30 more. You are strong enough and you have the time. This time will not be better spent any other way. 

That’s an important thing to remember; this time will not be spent any other better way if it isn’t spent like this. This time may instead go to waste or toward something that isn’t healthy or mindful. Be curious about the way everything feels. 

I do feel a bit proud of myself because for once instead of choosing to start tomorrow, I started today. I did several things that I usually omit right away tonight instead of telling myself I’d do them tomorrow. No time like the present, right?

I don’t want to eat breakfast, fried food, or sugar anymore. No more of any of that.

Tomorrow morning hopefully it won’t be raining and I can try running. I know I used to love running, so hopefully I still do and just haven’t been able to in a long time. I’m scared of running, because my knee hasn’t responded well lately, but I think it’s time to push myself. It’s time to face that fear and run through the pain.

When I’m back at school I’ll have to find more running routes, pretty routes, maybe along the water. A running buddy wouldn’t hurt too.

I also need to make more time for Granola, she deserves more attention than I’ve been giving her.

I just created several alarms in my phone at specific times so that I will stay mindful all day and on routine. I’m going to go to bed soon now, maybe read a bit before I fall asleep. No more screens. I want to read more going forward. Read more and embroider more maybe.

I’ll keep you updated, sorry this was so disorganized. If it’s any consolation, I feel much better after writing it and think it helped.

Goodnight beautiful, you can do this! You can do anything!

[dumbkombuchakid]

I swear I’ve made progress, but still I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror. I’m not happy with the way I am shaped, and for some reason I literally just keep eating? Like I know diets aren’t the way to go, it’s a lifestyle change that needs to happen. But what do I do when my lifestyle is already pretty slim? Like I exercise pretty frequently, I’m vegan, I avoid sugar for the most part. For a while I cut out bread, which I can easily do again. I can be more strict about sugar. I think it’s really just going to come down to me making myself skip breakfast. I’ve been eating in the morning consistently and I think that’s the issue. Three meals a day is the norm in america but I want to be fucking skinny so I need to figure out how the hell to stop eating so much. It’s too much. I would try just sleeping in so that my day literally only has the space for two meals, but Granola wakes me up so damn early. I don’t think it’s realistic to try to go to bed much earlier either and try cutting out dinner. I don’t know. I think it might be easier once I’m at school. I’m really looking forward to that honestly.

This is kinda sad. I’m not fat, I know that, but like... I just want to be thinner. I like myself so much more when I’m thinner. Even now when half the models stores use and shit look pretty much like me, some even bigger. That’s how I know that’s not where the insecurity started. If I just wanted to look desirable then I’d probably be happy. I wish that was all I wanted.

[dumbkombuchakid]

lines of prose sometimes sing through my head

a composer playing tunes casually,

passively,

unheard by others if i leave them unsaid.

if i rotate the dials on the dash in my mind,

if i tune in to turn them up

the closer lens makes the image blurry 

and the song becomes all too easy to forget.

I rush to rewrite, 

to record

and to share

whatever I can remember of the composer’s piece.

but it morphs and often fails to compare

the new words rattle the room where the others brought peace.

the lady who sits so sweetly in my mind

never says a word out of line

her tunes and melodies always perfectly rhyme

and rhythms tick and tock in harmonious time.

the beauty sits on a throne of knowledge,

she knows all, she has secrets to share.

she’s seen the universe and understands its intertwinings

she has the passion, the means, the desire and cares

she can deftly assess any situation at hand

she’s smart and clever and kind

and yet for so many years I’ve denied

that she is in fact me,

it’s my mind over which she resides.

I am the lady in the front left side seat

my hands turn the wheel,

the pedals are pressed by my feet.

I had to learn to like myself

to believe I was not just like everybody else.

And now that I do,

I truly can’t wait

for my life to take shape

and to help the world change.

[dumbkombuchakid]

July 18, 2020

yesterday was one of the most boring shifts I’ve ever had at work. We had no tables for a while and the weather was terrible. Hot. Humid. Still. It was like we were all baking in an oven with a mug full of water off to the side to help whatever’s cooking retain its moisture. Classic St. Louis weather, truly. We have a heat index in the 100s (F) for this whole weekend and because of that, I personally have low expectations for how many members are going to want to come and sit outside to eat overpriced and unhealthy food prepared by some idiot 22 year old who thinks he’s all that. 

We didn’t have a single table until at least 7, and even then we just had the one table and it wasn’t mine. My manager told me if no one showed up by 8 that I could go home. 8 o’clock rolls around, BOOM two people show up. 8:15 BOOM two more. 8:30 BOOM two more. Suddenly I’ve got three tables, and I”m fuckin exhausted. Had already been yawning uncontrollably, eyes droopy, the whole nine yards. First table is two women, both order drinks but only one orders food; she gets a cup of vichyssoises, which, according to the chef who makes it, is disgusting, and a side of fries with honey mustard. Second table comes, they sit on the other patio that faces the pool. It’s a lady and her husband, fresh off a game of golf, and bless this woman because it’s July 18th and she told me this was the first time she’d been out to a restaurant since the beginning of COVID. I bring them their wine and the gal gets a steak with the starch du jour and the man gets our fresh fish of the day with the starch and veg of the day. 

Now at this point the weather has cooled down immensely, it had rained earlier and we’d all spent so much time just sitting inside with the doors closed that it was freezing in the snackbar. I had taken to hanging out by the kitchen with my arms under the heat lamps where they put the food once it’s prepared and this meant I got to watch the chefs cook. When I tell you the first ingredient in everything at this restaurant is butter... oh my god. The fish? cooked in butter. The beets? cooked in butter. The steak? cooked in butter. The garnish for the steak? A literal hunk of butter, just sitting on top. Anything that has the potential to be healthy or prepared in a health-conscious manner is instead saturated and smothered in butter. 

this is unfinished but life got in the way. It happens.

[dumbkombuchakid]

Why aren’t we getting better?

I’ve bonded with so many people over having a hard life, over going through shit. It’s undeniable that poor mental health can create community, to a point where I almost feel like it’s trendy to be depressed. It’s cool to have anxiety. It’s exciting to be mentally ill. It makes you attractive to a certain group within our society. Maybe this isn’t as big as it feels to me, because it’s the group I’m exposed to, it’s what I see online and in my relationships, but I don’t see people excited about getting better. We 😗✌️our way through life and brag about how many pills we take every day and how many hours a week we spend in therapy, but I don’t see people celebrating the progress they’ve made.

I’m shocked every day at the progress I’ve made. I’ve seen myself reach and surpass so many milestones that I never even knew were possible for myself. I recently (within the past 6 months or so) let go of all the anger I held toward my dad. It’s hard to not label him as abusive, to change that label to something that takes into account his perspective and experience as well as my own. I assigned the blame for most of the things I’ve struggled through and fought my whole life to him, which might’ve been unfair but honestly it’s hard to say. Growing up, I conditioned myself to associate him with bad things. I was talking to him yesterday and the metaphor I used was if you were living in the wild, the things you remember about fruit that makes you sick or can kill you are that it can make you sick or kill you. You don’t remember that the fruit’s aesthetically pretty or has a sweet taste. You don’t remember the satisfying burst of juice or crunch that comes from biting into it. You don’t remember the sweet aroma from the flowers that bloom from the plant. Remembering those things can put you in danger, because if you focus too heavily on how sweet the poison fruit is, you might get sick or die. I don’t have a lot of memories from childhood. I remember being scared, I remember being angry. I remember my dad starting fights, I remember feeling like I was always disappointing him. I remember how anytime I told him I felt a certain way that maybe didn’t align with his narrative he’d tell me I was wrong, and invalidate me and my feelings. I suppressed the good memories, and the ones I held onto I tainted and stained, so the good was so mixed with bad that they weren’t good memories anymore. 

It wasn’t until this past christmas when I was watching home videos that I realized I didn’t have the whole story in my head, that he loved me, that he tried his best to care for me and protect me from all the bad in the world. I had no idea. I had no idea at all and then I realized that all the good memories that I was missing were still stored in his head. I had 3/365 days playing on repeat and he had the other 362. He remembers the good times. Not only that, he remembers the bad times differently.

I thought he hated me, I thought I had turned out so rotten and aligned with my mom that I had lost a place in his heart, that I didn’t believe I had ever had a place in his heart. I assumed he had turned his back on me just as much as I did on him and I was wrong.

I’m now trying to edit my narrative. I’m trying to create a space in my heart for my dad to be my hero, to be my best friend, to be something that I’ve only seen in movies or on social media. I’m going to try to clean up the good memories that I do have, and search for more that are buried somewhere deep in my mind.

I was the favorite, hell, I might still be the favorite, and I had no idea. I am loved and cared about and I had no fucking clue. The thing is, I couldn’t have known until now. I had to reach some milestone in my own journey before I could even think about tearing down the walls I’ve spent my life erecting. 

I’ve struggled with depression, anxiety, panic, eating disorders, and general self-loathing for years. This past year, I’ve overcome so much.

I have self worth now, I realized that I matter. That my whole life people have told me that I’m something special, that I’m meant to do something important and that my heart is pure and good and I think I assumed that that wasn’t valid, that I shouldn’t take any of that too seriously because I was also raised at a time when kids got participation awards and every kid got told they were special. I assumed it was the same thing, and that I shouldn’t believe it too much because I was no different from anyone else and why should I get a pat on the back just for showing up. It took me until I was 19 to realize that the people who have told me my whole life that I’m special weren’t saying that to everyone. They meant it for me. It wasn’t a prize just for showing up, it was because I had, in some way, earned it. I had showed them that I was something unique and special. I never thought I mattered before, but literally like two weeks ago I realized holy shit, what if they meant it. what if they’re right? 

I still get depressed, I haven’t beaten it, but I’ve learned how to live. I’ve learned tools and tricks and methods to reorganize my cognition, to recognize patterns of behavior and play an active enough role in my life that I get to decide how much power to give my depression. 

I’ve made incredible progress against my eating disorders. I still struggle with thoughts and judgments but I’m able to take control over myself now and be kinder to myself. 

I have a personality disorder; I have borderline personality disorder. It’s not something that’s wrong with me, which is why I don’t love the title “personality disorder.” It’s actually very organized and predictable, a variation of personality that has key markers and traits that are visible in lots of different people who are borderline. It’s marked by having essentially so much empathy and such big feelings that it can cause problems. There’s a special kind of therapy (dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT) that was designed to help people like me function more effectively in society, in our relationships, and on our own. I’m so much happier and comfortable in my life after learning the things I have in DBT that I feel incredibly grateful for my success and sorry for the people who still play into the ~it’s cool to be depressed~ dialogue that our society facilitates.

I’m getting better. I have a chance now to have a dad who loves me and wants to be my hero and my best friend. I have a shot at a relationship with my brother and my sister. I’ve been able to help my mom make progress too in her own journey through life.

I feel so good and happy and something inside me still says “don’t get better, stay trendy, hold onto the pain.” I’m not going to listen to that voice, and I want to make it cool to get better. I want to make it cool to learn new skills in therapy and effectively use them when our lives demand it. I want it to be trendy to make so much progress in our recovery that we’re able to get through things that would’ve been traumatic a year ago with ease. I want to stand on my own mountain and look out over all my experiences and know that I am better where I am today than where I was yesterday, and know that I can continue to climb. I want to see all my friends climbing their own mountains and reaching peaks. I want to see them look out over their own paths and feel proud of the progress they’ve made. I want to make it okay to not be okay but to also make it okay to be okay. I want to make it trendy to be proud of our own progress.