feelingsfortheworld

[feelingsfortheworld]

June 27th, 2023

I just want to LOVE SOMETHING for the purpose of LOVING IT, not for the purpose of KEEPING ME ALIVE. Why is everything sacred but I’ve found that my whole life it’s near impossible to worship things without darkness. This is why the things I love have hurt me. This is why they always will. Sure I have a big fucking heart but it’s hollow for me. I love, I love deeply, everything but myself. That’s why I feel like a shadow of a human being. I don’t feel human. I’m not good at “being.” Even in the perfect world where everyone loves you, and everything works out, you wouldn’t survive being hollow for long. I know that I think that I’m not enough. I hope that everything else is enough, for now. Until I fill my heart little by little, all by myself. Nobody and nothing is going to save me from my darkness. Nobody but the person I hate the most. Isn’t it weird how normal it’s become to look in the mirror and smile while knowing that you’d exchange your life and your body for anyone else’s in a split second, that you’d start over your whole narrative, that you would rather be a brainless embryo than this shell of a person. I’m lying to my reflection. I don’t think she can see how hollow I am. But at this point, everyone can probably sense it. It’s sad to think that the only times I’ve ever truly loved myself were when I barely had the conscious experience of reality. When I was a child. A child. I was 12 when I stopped loving myself. I was 12 when “being kind” meant nothing in regards to my own person. I was 12 when I lost my grip to a strong will to live. My childhood ended the first time I killed myself in my own head. The little girl was gone the second I crossed from my seemingly endless health into the threshold of being sick. Pills and therapy. Blades and blood. Numbness and exhaustion. The happy little baby is never coming back. I can only do my best to make her proud. To chase my own childishness and have no doubt in the world that dying is not an escape but a bad, horrible, unthinkable truth. I know there was a time when I could talk about deep feelings, like queerness and suicidal ideation, as faraway topics. I was safe in my home and my body. I was safe having champagne problems. They were the last times I was actually safe in my existence, before death became an option. Before life lost its meaning. Before I had to fight every single day to stay. Little me would protect me now. If I was drowning, if I was bleeding out, if I was falling she wouldn’t have to think twice about doing everything in her power to save me. Could I fucking say the same? How much of me would fight like hell? And how much of me would let go? 

[feelingsfortheworld]

June 13th, 2023

Good morning. I’m so tired. I woke up at 3am AGAIN and I know this anxious knotting feeling all too well. I started a pilates challenge, which is nice. I have nightmares often. I am so terrified of losing people that I love. I just teared up watching a video about anger on Headspace because it’s true that as a black woman, anger is different. Anger needs to be monitored and stuffed away for fear of being “too emotional” or “dangerous.” The truth is, practically all of my strongest forms of anger are fueled by an even stronger, overwhelming depression or sadness. Yeah, I am pretty emotional. It scares me. My ex and I always said that we wish we could switch; she gets my emotional depth and I get her indifference. Because when you fucking think about it, who’s better off? The sociopathic manipulative serial dater? Or the lovesick obsessive empath? No. My capacity for emotion is my biggest weakness and biggest strength. A fatal flaw that turns me inside out. Yes, of course I despise her, and I hated the way she treated me, and the way she was able to remove herself from my social media accounts within a day of us cutting contact. But I don’t think I could even imagine what it must’ve been like. Cutting me out for good so easily. And the ironic part is that I obviously still am me, and harbor all of these emotions, and it makes me super cautious about doing anything like she did. I don’t want to get hurt; that’s where I need her heartlessness. I don’t want to hurt people; that’s where I use my empathy. But that’s not how it is, is it? No. Instead I suffer with being absolutely terrified of both hurting and getting hurt. Flashbacks. I’m just sitting here remembering 8th grade summer when her hair was short and we could talk for hours about anything. What the fuck. How? Why? She made me the happiest but she made me the saddest. And now she’s nothing but calories and Wellbutrin. Nighttime. There’s this one angle when I look up where I get a searing pain in the back of my neck, and it’s even worse than the usual neck and shoulder pain. I wish I could just stretch it out, but I’ve tried. Eh. Probably worse from stress or something. Everything wrong with me always goes back to my mental health, which does make sense, seeing as that’s my brain. I called my parents today. Normal. Happy. I was calm and didn’t say anything concerning. I passed the eating question, got praised for my commitment to exercise, and talked joyously about my job. It’s not like I’m hiding a debilitating depression from them, but what good would it do to worry them, especially when anything that would “help” would probably make me feel worse. God. I sound like a suicidal 12 year old again. Thinking, no, knowing that everyone was better off without me, even the people that brought me into this world. I’m just. Existing. I feel empty. But not really. Just a little hollower than usual. My stomach started hurting randomly two different times today. I thought it was the excess of coffee that was keeping me standing, and it probably was, at least partially. But I have this nagging feeling like when I felt randomly nauseous when I started talking to my ex again. Nothing was really wrong with me. Well, nothing I exactly wanted to hear. Learning that my loss of appetite and weight loss was chalked up to anxiety and some deranged empathy was just sad to me. That’s it? No underlying cause? No secret illness? No tapeworm eating me from the inside? No. My doctor said “if we can’t fix the mood, we can’t fix the food.” And I think I just sat there numbly, knowing that my mental state is and has always been my hardest medical obstacle. Fuck, it landed me in the ER. Gave me some scars. Mental trauma. Of all the things that could’ve been wrong with me, I dreaded hearing the answer that I think I already knew. You’re losing your grip again. 

[feelingsfortheworld]

June 12th, 2023

Hello. I feel kind of numb this evening. I don’t know. I listen to my stupid playlist about bad love almost every day on the way home from work. Because that guy basically ghosted me. He hasn’t replied since May 31st. What the fuck? And I know he’s active on his phone; he posts stories and views mine with no shame. I don’t know. I can’t help but feel like I did something wrong by letting my feelings just exist, even internally. But I don’t actually think it’s my fault this time. I debriefed everything with my friend, and I didn’t do anything severely out of pocket. He just…stopped. Why? Does he have a new girlfriend? Is he playing with me? Is he just busy? Is this what he wants with the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” approach? Most likely, he just doesn’t give enough of a fuck and thinks I’ll be fine being ignored. My friend says he’s scared of commitment, or runs away easily. And to that I say, I didn’t indicate any sort of commitment? Just feelings maybe. Maybe it’s a depressing fantasy to think that he got scared of his feelings for me and sabotaged it intentionally. More likely he wanted to let me down in what he sees as “easy,” which is just plain indifference. I haven’t cried yet about it though. Because it’s really not that deep. This is probably better for me anyway. It’s the universe telling me, “you need more time.” I didn’t want anything, not truly, not realistically. And now I don’t know if I can even safely fantasize, because how can I romanticize him when he’s already proved himself to be not communicative enough for me? I can’t compromise myself until the end of time. I can’t believe I’m gonna show up there on Saturday, not even knowing if he’ll give me a second glance. It makes me miserable. I’ve been kind of a resigned type of miserable/depressed today, and for the past few weeks. It’s really sad, I feel lonely with my thoughts. I would love it if all my stupid medications made me feel better than this. What a nightmare. 

[feelingsfortheworld]

June 2nd, 2023

I guess I have to start my bedtime journal entry now. I’m trying to be up a little later to see if I can fall asleep more easily. I want to do a pilates challenge I saw on TikTok. Honestly, I need to detox from social media a little bit. At least cut down my consumption. So many posts are very specific and relatable to how I’m feeling and what I’m going through. It’s so accurate, from the product recommendations that I absolutely fall for, to the “glow-up” tips, to the insanely depressing quotes that pertain to my exact situation. I don’t know. I’m focusing on myself. And flourishing. I was on a call with some of my friends today, and one of them said something really important when I started talking about how much I was doubting myself because of that guy (not because of him, you know what I mean). She said when you like someone else, you have to work TWICE as hard on yourself. I loved that idea. You have to focus on yourself. And I do. I have to work on my self-worth and negative self-talk, and do my best not to self-sabotage and go into a spiral about depressing things. I know it’s bullshit when people tell depressed people to just “be happy,” but honestly, I don’t want to be the kind of person that is only happy when they’re miserable. My high school friend was talking to me about that. Some people absolutely wallow in their sorrow. And a lot of getting better is actively working on yourself. Being in therapy, engaging in self-care, journaling. It’s all helping me. Me. I need to love me. I can love me. And I should start by being kinder to myself. Let the fear you have fall away. It’s going to be alright. It is. Meditating, focusing on the things I love to do instead of making myself sad, it’s the little things. And I know that balance is important. Especially when I have a history of having all-or-nothing thinking. I am still allowed to be sad. And accept my emotions. RADICAL ACCEPTANCE! Yep, there it is. My therapist's favorite DBT skill and one that I really think will help my overall emotional habits. We can’t fight willfulness with willfulness. Fight it with acceptance.

[feelingsfortheworld]

May 27th, 2023

It’s kind of funny that it takes me about a month each time to come back to journaling. To the illusion that I’m taking care of myself. Eating sucks. I want to feel ok. I want to lose weight, I have to. I’m so incredibly scared. I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of my therapist, who's actually making sure that I’m alright and not killing myself slowly with my goddamn need to be skinny. To be pretty! To get validation and make up for the fact that I’m black. I’m ugly. Unlovable and unworthy. I can’t rest so much of my worth on my weight but in some way, that’s my sense of control taking over. I couldn’t control that girl tearing me to pieces, but I’ll control the wonderful gift of horrible eating habits from her. I fucking hate her. I have so much rage and pain and distress inside me. I almost died because of her once, I can’t do it again. God, I’m losing it. I’m nervous. I think if I get this internship that I interviewed for, I won’t see my family for the rest of the summer. Why am I doing this? Well, I have to learn how to exist and function without them. They’re leaving, and I won’t be able to see them easily at all. I can’t go home when I break down and need to rest because I’m so emotionally and mentally exhausted. I needed that four day break second semester. What am I going to do when they’re so far away? Control, control. Control. There’s just too much in my brain. I hate all of it. I don’t know why I feel like this, I mean, I do. It’s been my reality for almost as long as I remember. I hate having chronic mental illnesses. Why the hell can’t I just have NORMAL, AVERAGE happy chemical levels? It’s not fucking fair, to me, to my family, to my friends, to ANYONE who’s ever come into contact with me, or depression. Why me. I am SICK and TIRED of feeling so upset, so often. That’s what I always say though, don’t I? When it all gets too much I scream that I’M FUCKING TIRED. Tired. Exhausted. Done, with everything. No escape. I want to breathe, I want to experience life in the way that I want to. I wish I could.

[feelingsfortheworld]

April 26th, 2023

There’s no ground that doesn’t give way.