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blueseasonalyou · 4 years

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something new - May 23,2020

hello world! am trying to clean up my life and get some answers in areas i’m uncertain of. thought I would finally share some of my thoughts and ramblings so I can look back later and see some of those thoughts categorized here. TW; i’m just venting and bitching a lot about life.

@me If you don’t bother asking or finding answers to the questions you need in order to live your life best - who can you really blame? It takes energy and it definitely isn’t easy, but if you want better of yourself - do better. disclaimer, @anyone who I have hurt from my ignorant and numb ways, I am sorry for my carelessness. I am trying to do better and I finally feel comfortable in my identity. Thank you to those who have been patient and are still with me. Anyways.

Today I googled “what are your responsibilities as an adult” and wanted to share them for anyone else who has had a rough idea and may be curious, but has never thought to actually search this themselves. Psychology Today bucketed these 6 useful headings below

Rationality

Formulating and Implementing goals

Equality in Relationships

Active versus Passive

Non-defensiveness and Openness

Personal power

The excerpts below are for me to reflect back onto. If you’re interested hearing my words scroll to the very bottom.

“As an adult, own your life and destiny. If you remain a child in your adult life, you look at the world around you as dominating, controlling, and dangerous. That’s a miserable life.” The major deterrent to living an adult existence lies in the fear of growing up. This includes the fear of breaking imagined connections with parents, being alone, standing out as an individual, having a strong point of view, recognizing one’s value and confronting the inevitability of death, the ultimate separation from self. To live like a child in an adult world is itself a defense against death anxiety. In one story, a woman revealed how, in an attempt to preserve the illusory connection to her parents, she recreated her father in her husband and her mother in close female friends. She went on to describe why she held on to her identity of being “the bad child” for so many years. To hang on to this old identity with all my might, for many years, was so compelling … why? All I can answer to this is remaining a child, although miserable, is farther away from the agony of aging and death. So the compelling draw is hard to let go of. Of course, I still have my moments of childish reactions, but I’m learning to catch them, notice the almost physical feeling that comes on, and stop it before I engage. I will make mistakes, but I plan to forge forward as an adult, and search instead for equality. Nonetheless, this leaves me very alone. And the aloneness leaves me anxious, and sad … but it’s real. And life as an equal, although painful, is fuller. And I’m ready for the challenge. In summary, living in the child mode is largely chaotic and dysfunctional, whereas living one’s life as an adult is generally more adaptive and successful. Retaining a child’s frame of reference has numerous disadvantages: For example, people who operate from this perspective often find it difficult to formulate their goals and priorities in life and tend to feel helpless and victimized. They blame others for the problems they encounter rather than taking responsibility for how people react to them. In reality, people largely determine the course of their lives and determine the way that others respond. Lastly, reacting to life in a childlike manner can be quite emotional but often lacks a depth of genuine feeling. MAY 21, 2020 - MONTREAL I haven’t prioritized the time to put into words how I’ve felt since I transformed my internal and external presenting identity, career, physical home, support system, and self-acceptance. Wow. Mouthful- huh? No wonder it always felt too big to tackle. I feel more alive in the last year than the last five years of coasting in university. I thought that was just how it goes. You have structure, you have a certain assumed end vision, perhaps it was lazy to not think bigger but when you are processing so many new opportunities, fear of failure and being kicked out, and stimuli - its a fucking lot. Thursday, May 21 felt like a turning page. It’s summer in Montreal and finally inching closer to my 1 year anniversary here. I moved right after Toronto Pride because a close friend got us the opportunity to walk with her company. Hot take, marching with a corporate company at Pride where you have to be semi-conscious of how you are presenting your identity is not the most pride-esque thing. If you’re confused, imagine being high or any form of intoxicated around your manager. Not sure this flies with every manager and its understandable. I think the neighbours are fucking again. Or they are literally hammering. Who knows. Back to me, why am I googling adult responsibilities? I feel like i’ve been in child mode the entire last year. The psychology today piece actually really helps summarize a lot of my instability and confusion. Let me explain before you judge. I had an adult mode saved, I did. I had an adult mode saved with 5 years of leadership opportunities from a university I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at. I have zero regrets with my university experience, I really do. I sought out all the things I wanted to try but the one thing always creeping at the back of my mind was hating myself. I thought that was just 2008 news, who cares. I let it stay numbingly in the background and focused on any external stimuli. I never thought to question my gender, or presenting identity because I never thought I resonated with the queer/non-binary/trans/any kind of queer people I saw represented (which was the extremely limited characters on glee). This was never talked about in a Chinese Canadian household. If anything, the more i reflect on my childhood the more I am able to objectively see the surroundings I had are not "normal;”. They just are. They are one timeline, one version, one culture, one kind. The fact I was surrounded by people smaller than me (literally physically observation of weight) were just life decisions. Wasn’t intentional and it really in fact fucked me up with weight insecurities. BUT the great news is that these were just life decisions. Not right or wrong, I am pivoting now and trying my best to balance a new big kid job, create a new support system, work on my family relationships to forgive and let go of years of inflicted trauma, and breathe. (David told me recently my future me will thank myself for sorting myself out now so I can enjoy the rest of my life. I hope so). I am working back on myself and trying to relearn which parts of me and my personality I loved without the self-hatred I anchored so much to my physical identity. Another friend recently shared a piece on displaced anger. I think that really helps summarize this displaced hatred I have been struggling with for so long. Fuck shame and certain messaging we are bombarded with by media for instilling this at such an early age. Heartbreaking.

I haven’t shared this with anyone but I think to this day my sister’s unconscious mistakes of ignoring me and not supporting me when I needed her most have fucked me up the most in adulthood. I struggle communicating with my deeper relationships because this was never encouraged when I was younger. Coming out and wanting to talk about girls was never met with excitement or enthusiasm. I don’t care if you didn’t know how to talk about it with me, was I expecting too much to see some degree of interest or care?

I can’t separate how much of me needs to validate this explanation and the part of me that needs to just grow up and get over it. Maybe its a combination of both. I’m a pisces that was surrounded by 3 capricorns, can we give me a break?

I’m getting irritated and impatient with myself as i write this. I feel like there is just so much shit it pains me and I don’t know how to share. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I pushed people away so I could sort myself out without any other overwhelming variables or complications. Now so much has happened, who has the time or patience to hear this? I’m tired. This is the third official city i’ve made a home out of and its been the hardest one yet. I think i am also realizing I made most of my friends out of people that don’t initiate or invest similar amounts of energy into me as I do into them. I never held it against them, but growing up is just internalizing and understanding you really don’t have unlimited time. I should let some simply fizzle out. Bleh. Anyways, relearning how to be me that isn’t positive and bubbly all the time. This is 100% me overcompensating for my high-functioning depression that used to leave me feeling numb or indifferent. I don’t know how to reconcile the two huge pendulum swings of emotion. I don’t want to be stepped all over and I want to be assertive without fearing its bossy. I want to be me and I need to give myself some time to explore that.

Apparently in Denmark, the friends they grow up with are the friends they stick with for pretty much life. Didn’t know it is very North American to have friends in university and separate friend groups from other areas of your life. Beginning to think this is too exhausting, I’d like to simplify this!!!!!!!!!!!

Final thing. I think a large part of my struggles come from not being honest or vulnerable with my new family about the shit I endure because i’m so used to dealing with it solo. Thus, they only really hear the highs and wins. This makes it really tough on me sharing when asian culture includes ‘saving face’ and suppressing emotion to be private. The environments I put myself in simply accomodate this outdated preference. Anyways, thank you Tumblr for being a space for me to release all of this out. No wonder I have terrible headaches, who the fuck wants to deal with thisss.

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