An Open Letter

I’m starting the hike now, I feel like there’s a solid chance that this is gonna be the longest post I’ve written so far.

My depressive episode I think is finally ending, as I was starting to finally feel a little bit like myself again and I talked to friends and family and I felt supported and better. And then this morning I was working out with a friend and I was supposed to host an event later in the day, and while he went to his car to grab something I looked on Instagram and I saw a friend post on her story. She was at karaoke with several other of my friends, including three of the total five members of our “band”. It was them along with other friends that were in the same friend group, with the exception of one other person from badminton. Two days prior we played badminton, and I did leave a little bit early with another friend, and that is my close friend that is also in the band. Maybe they just set up the plans there, and they didn’t feel like it was their place to invite me or there were already enough people. Maybe it was just one of those plans where it is in the moment with the people there. But I had talked with them earlier and we said how karaoke would be super fun and I wanted to go with them as a band, and I really wish they would’ve invited me. It also stings a lot because these friends both said that they were too busy with work and didn’t have time this weekend and so they wouldn’t be able to come over for board games, and they also wouldn’t be able to come over for band practice. But They were able to go to karaoke just fine, and they didn’t think to invite me to that. Or even mention it. And so I feel like a idiot for trying to invite them and honestly considering them as like my group of friends here, because I would spend a lot of time with them and like we had our group chat and I had felt like I started to have like a group of friends in person that I can do stuff with and now it feels like there is a group of friends it just doesn’t include me. And I know that that is a huge scar that I have from childhood of exclusion and how that’s a big trigger point for me, and so I am proud with how well I’m taking it it seems like, but at the same time fuck me.

This hurts a lot because on one hand I was really struggling for a while and it seemed like I was finally getting a little bit of a break, and I had a chance to get back up but life has just fucking kicked me in the chest right back down. And it sucks because I started to feel that struggle and desperation of feeling like I have exhausted the pool of people to interact with and it doesn’t feel like I’ve made any friend group groups or something like that. And I worry that now what semblance of that I had feels like my fear tells me They don’t really want me as a friend and it feels like it only just confirms this fear that I’ve held in my chest since I was a kid. I just feel like I don’t fit in and there’s no group or no circumstance where there are people that I feel like reflect me and I fit in properly and it feels like everyone else has these nice little molds in classes where they get this situated themselves into and I’m just weird amalgamation of all these weird little parts of a human that come from a lack of community growing up. And now I’m this deep rich person in all of these abrasive ways. And I just don’t know what to do about it. I feel like I’ve been constantly fighting to put myself into spots for community and I just don’t find it and I wish and I have so much envy towards the people that grow up in these circumstances where they get to socialize and not get to be shaped and the things they like are all similar to the people around them like one of the friends that I think doesn’t really like me was at the karaoke and he gets along so well with other men and I’m so jealous because I just didn’t get to crawl like that and I feel unsafe with men and I feel somewhat safe with women and because of a man I just naturally get excluded in certain ways. There’s been several girls trips that have happened and of course I’m not invited to those, and I’m not one of the guys and so I’m not joining them there. And I know that from other people‘s point of view views I understand why I might not be their first choice but at the same time from my point of view I just want to beg God or whoever can be in control of this, and ask them why am I like this. I swear it’s not because I didn’t try or it was because I neglected myself, but I was a fucking kid and these were the cards that I was dealt. I would kill to have a community where I felt like I found other people like me. And I don’t know if it’s vain or something like that but I feel like I struggle with being a gifted person and so it’s hard for me to find people similar to me. And I wonder if it’s partially because I have isolated myself in ways by hosting events at my place and not being able to join them for stuff like dinners afterwards, or carpool with people. Or if it’s because self isolation tendencies or low social battery sometimes make me avoid social interactions, but I just feel like it’s a terrifying thing to consider someone seeing me at my best and still not wanting to be my friend. And I told myself that just because someone doesn’t like you doesn’t mean that there is something necessarily bad with you, but you might not be that kind of person’s person. It’s like that “where you can be the sweetest peach on the tree but someone just might not like peaches. But I feel like I tell myself that enough times that I just feel like I’m not really anyone’s fruit. And I know that’s not true because I do have a pretty sizable amount of friends that I am close with and do really value me as a person, but it feels like they are a bit of the exception. It feels like more often than not because of circumstances I don’t really get to interact with them. And I think that I have become someone who is really rich with character and there are a lot of things that I am grateful for that I’ve gotten because I grew up the way I did, and I think that that is something that will be incredibly appreciated by the right people. And I think this is a bit of the trade-off of if I want to be truly enriching to few people, or to be palatable to most people. And I guess when I frame it like that I really do want to continue to be the person I am. But also I wish that this philosophy the decisions I’ve made all this time would pay off.

I remember when I was a kid I used to bide my time and tell myself that in college my life would be one so beautiful and fulfilling that it would be worth it for me to hang on until then. And so I didn’t kill myself and I kept dreaming about what it would be like to be in an apartment from the outside and be surrounded with my group of friends. And that to be something so normal that I could take it for granted. And for periods of my life I feel like I had that, and it wasn’t everything I hoped it would be because I still am struggling at times and after all look at me right now, where it feels like I have friends but no friend group. And I guess I’m very thankful that I at least have those friends, and those directly are a result from the effort that I put in so it’s not like it was all for a waste. And it’s not like I’m in some small town where there aren’t too many people, but it’s just a bit hard or rather something I’m just not used to. But I can learn. That’s all I’ve done my entire life. And I know that I can do this I know that I can learn and there are resources that I can be that person toStep up and forge these social connections rather than just hoping that they come. And I’ll be honest I wish I didn’t have to do all of this. It feels like I put in so much effort, strife and pain into something that I wish was just given by default. And it feels like so many other people don’t have to struggle with this in the same ways that I do, and I feel like I put in more effort than the people I see, but it just works out for them. And I don’t get it. I told myself things like there must be a reason why I don’t deserve it and this is something to begin with that is deserved. But I very muchthink that this is rather just something that everyone does some extent struggles with in varying degrees. And it’s not at all something that is a punishment to me but rather just circumstance. And it does suck. But I at least have control of trying to make it suck a little bit less by taking things into my own hands.

I feel like after the initial shock goes away a little bit I can tell myself that realistically it’s not like my friends dislike me, and rather it’s just I’m not that close with them to the point where they go out of their way to invite me and I just wasn’t there at the time of making plans and that’s fine. But that doesn’tMean that it is the complete opposite, I don’t want to see things in black-and-white.I can maybe consider it as a data point of how this is currently how they see our friendship, and that really isn’t too much of a surprise. It’s not like I really considered them to be super close friends to begin with, and it didn’t really feel like we clicked past acquaintances and so this isn’t like some close friends went and planned something excluding me. Additionally they didn’t invite my friend who is in a similar boat to them, and we both left around the same time. And so I want to do my best to not take it personally. And I’m proud of myself for having that clarity of mindand resilience to see it like that instead of just giving into the low hanging fruit of negative self talk. And I think the fact that I have the mental clarity to not default into those thoughts is a good indicator of the progress that I have made and for that I am proud.

One of my friends was asking me for advice with talking to a girl and flirting, because he is my age and hasn’t had any kind of partner or experience yet. And I thought it was kind of a compliment the fact thatout of the people he knows I was the person he asked.and I think that is something to be proud of in myself, like given their circumstances I had growing up especially if you could see how unattractive I was personality wise and also looks wise. And how from those things I managed to build myself up into the person that I currently am. I’m fortunate enough to say that I have a pretty sizable amount of experience and I havetaken a lot of work to shape myself in several different ways into a person I am proud of. And I often do come across different self-help reels once in a while aimed towards men which I am very grateful for. But a lot of the times the stuff that they mention to me seems so incredibly surface level or bare minimum, and I don’t want to say that in a discouraging way but rather to just acknowledge that one of the perks of the way that I grew up is how I am able to benefit in these ways. And so when I think back to that earlier friend that makes friends with other guys and is pretty attractive, and successful also, he struggles a lot with women. And I don’t think it’s necessarily in the sense of talking to them, but rather conceptually. He still views women as something fundamentally different, like he will mention or get surprised about how sometimes when I host events there are a lot of women, and it’s something that I don’t even notice, but he’s bewildered by.and I’ve seen this in my Mail friends where they kind of don’t know how to be friends with women and by that I’m more mean to connect in the emotional way or have that vulnerability or awareness around emotions, and I’m not saying that women are perfect at it either.But it is something where I think the fact that I don’t always click with guys is because I have those developmental muscles of emotional intimacy and connection and if the cost of fitting in is losing those things, I don’t think that’s worth it.

And if I keep in mind and recognize the fact that I cannot have one without the other. I cannot have all of the good sides and fit into every single social group even the ones that I didn’t have a huge urge to fit into it until I felt rejected by them. I cannot have all of those things without them conflicting in some sense. It’s almost like breakups, how they are some of the most pain I’ve felt in my life, but because of those gaps left by losing someone so key to your life,you end up filling them often with people so incredible. When I think about some of the most recent friends I’ve made over the last year or so, a good amount of them are because of my breakup. And so these voids left in my heart that I can label as loneliness or isolation, or not fitting in are gifts in their own weird way. Because without them I rob myself of the things that make life so sweet.

Even earlier when I was talking about how I feel jealous of people that grow up in these communities that are polarizing like religion or the south, how they grow up in some mold and they get the benefit of matching other people in that mold. But at the same time I even realized the issue I’ve seen with this because I’ve had this thought plenty of times before, and I couldn’t help with contract myself before I could even say the words out loud. But the issue with this is what happens when that mold doesn’t fit the person you want to be? Or the person that you are. I think about this a lot in the sense of queer people in those situations, because so much of a sense of self and community and everything is just invested into that mold, and when there’s some key part of you it will constantly jott out an irritate and some people can just oppress it for the rest of their lives, but others have to give up essentially everything that they are and what they knowto be true to themselves. And that must be such a horrifyingly terrifying experience to go through. I at least have the fortune of not having too much of a mold that forces me to besome sort of way. I got to grow and be authentic, and foster that sense of self along the way. And while it is potentially nice to be that kind of person that can fit into that mold and be happy with it, they’re very much is the risk of not being that person. And it sucks because the longer you try to hold onto it I think the more it festers and hurts. And soAll of this being said I think I am kind of ok with the path I currently am on. It does still suck once in a while and it hurts, but I think the alternative pain of not being true to yourself is a regret that I have heard voiced several times and I at least continue on without losing time.

I do feel better and this hike is honestly really nice, I miss being in nature like I was in Santa Barbara, and this is pretty close to my house so I’m grateful for that. This is really fucking uphill and a bit sketchy, but I actually quite like it. I am exhausted though and that is nice also. My phone is getting low however so I am a little bit nervous about that but we ball. I do have my wallet on me and so I should be able to at least get back into my car no matter what. After this I can get some Taco Bell and watch some YouTube and I’ll get one of those freezes.

I have a lot of blessings in my life that I circle around mentally butI don’t necessarily address head on. Update it looks like I’m not actually close to the end of the trail and since my phone is about to hit 20% I think I actually will stop journaling here. But thank you too earlier me for setting up this journal and making this a habit, because this is helped me so much. I love you ma’am and I promise you I swear on everything I love that the pain that you go through isn’t for nothing, but these are the pains of growth and out of these come of life so incredibly sweet and rich that if I would look at now I would envy and the work is worth it.

It’s a really weird thing to try to be open about depression when I’m used to childhood or high school where I would just constantly sad post on my private Instagram to friends or with my discord status. And I think that’s not necessarily the greatest way to do it, but at the same time I think that it is important that I learn how to express that I am depressed, if nothing else just so I don’t feel like I have to keep up some kind of mask. I feel like there’s such a big dissonance whenever I hear from people that I am a happy person, and I think part of that is because I really do suffer in silence I’m used to depression being something of shame that I’m supposed to hide and a burden. And I think that they’re very much is such thing as being too open or causing pressure from other people from constantly talking about it with the implication that they need to help you. I posted to close friends today about how I thought about killing myself driving home then had to catch myself thinking that and stop myself, and how I’ve been having to do that for the last two weeks and how it’s super tiring.

Dote – Robin Callaway

Yesterday I cramped I think, and I remember thinking so vividly of the pain. And more importantly I thought of how I let it pass, and sit and endure it. That’s it. Nothing else but to stop pushing it and let it happen. I don’t fear about it never passing or the muscle tearing or it being some big massive problem that I need to fix, but rather just something transient. I don’t push myself or freak out much but rather just do whatever I can to minimize the pain as much as I can to let it settle. Then after a bit of enduring it if it’s bad, once it gets quieter to the point where I’m just afraid to see if it rears back up, I gently begin to test. I still vividly remember the pain but still know that eventually the pain goes away and I just need to test to see if I’ve hit that point yet. And if I do I can softly push a bit more and more all while being gentle, small massages on pain points to acknowledge them and to hear it out. But I don’t need to obey the signals of pain, and often after being heard and getting to speak the cramp fades out, and I can tenderly resume life.

One of the ruthlessly efficient things depression does is convince me it is all there is. If I do not change something, it will permanently reside. It swears by it so violently that it pushes my hand for desperation, to which I try to massage it and fix my life in ways I think it needs. And when I do the things I see in my control, I press the buttons and flip the levers I see and nothing changes, that is when the last trigger I can click floats back into my head, and sits as a comfortable option. It’s something I feel at least in control of, because otherwise I’m trapped to an infinite hell with no escape.

But this could just be a lie it tells me, overplayed, and swearing by its residency. It is more like a cramp than it wants me to believe. Maybe I just need to be gentle to myself and not try to convince myself I’m not in incredible pain, and it’s more just a bleeding out or suffocation that I need to endure. And I can endure it because I know it will end. Funnily enough I won’t even remember it after it ends. So I need to just be a bit kind to myself and not do things that will make it worse, the same way I shouldn’t try to walk or flex the muscle while it needs to be heard. I can almost feed it empathy by acknowledging the sweet moments in life I give it, similar to how grief needs to be fed before it subsides. And so I’m here in a beautiful view on the stairwell listening to the new album I found that is incredible, and I’m not really happy. I feel tired, fogged, exhausted, drained and empty. And it’s ok because this will be part of the meal I feed depression for it to subside. And I will be kind to it since I do owe it for a lot of the blessings I do have now. Adversity causes growth and so I am grateful for that. And I will endure this.

I had the thought of whether or not my life is sufficient enough for happiness or for me to be content. The context for this is on my walk I saw the green grass by my work and it was aesthetically pleasing and I thought about if I should feel happy or at peace from that. On one hand, I know that a lot of things in my life right now are great, and there isn’t much more I could ask for in those avenues. And also I do know to some extent depression is what is currently weighing me down mood wise, and that isn’t always due to some problem that needs to be fixed. Or at least not fully due to that. But the argument against that is complacency and the zone of comfortable discomfort. If I am content with my present circumstances, even if certain things aren’t where I would want them to be, would I just stay as is and not worry about changing anything? And would that cost me a lot more in the future? I do think in some ways depression and the artificial drops in the optimization function going on in my brain led to a lot of the blessings I have now. It’s pushed me to do things like exercise, focus on sleep, learn how to socialize, and overall improve the quality of my life. If I was completely fine always I wouldn’t have ever had a reason to improve in all of these different ways. And so should I continue to accept this artificial perturbations that drag me down, and at what point is it more harm than good? If I had a week to live it wouldn’t benefit me to be depressed but improve the trajectory of my future life. And so at what point does that make it less worth it. And even then is my model flawed to start, do I need to be miserable and anhedonic to facilitate these improvements or is this an excess or unhealthy pain? Selfishly so I don’t want to be depressed now. I want to reject the possibility that these individual moments of emptiness and just negative emotions being allowed through my brains filter actually have value. The same way something like not by default filling downtime with scrolling leads to tangible benefits. Even if I could believe it’s true, in the moment it feels pointless and it goes against my brains circuitry wiring.

I sometimes feel like my brain fades away from me and I’m not fully sure why that happens. I have to trust fully in my automatic processes because consciously I lose function. I want to say I worry about it but for some reason I feel like it’s something I either shouldn’t or cannot worry about. I fear a lot of things in life are like that, but maybe it’s just a coping mechanism I’ve learned from anxiety.

It’s something I don’t want to do as much, but for now I still do. For some reason I thought back to when the guy E emotionally somewhat crossed lines with early into the relationship made fun of my cries for help to her. I do know that it was cringy, but at the same time I realized E didn’t try to check in on me or anything like that when she was made aware of that. And I think regardless of if it’s normal or common, I think I really would benefit from a partner that could push to reassure me that they want to listen and give me that space, not one where I have to plead and consistently coach them into giving me space. I think I do value that enough to need it, regardless of if I think I “deserve” it. And after all I do think that the childhood and experiences that have shaped me into the person I am contribute a lot of positives, and so it’s not fair for me to accept those things but disregard all of the negatives and make those my burden alone to carry. I am not alone, and my partner or friends are never responsible for me, but they are able to support me. I think it will be a really beautiful moment when I feel seen and safe with someone truly, and it’s worth holding on for. I want that experience.

A friend sent me a Facebook marketplace listing for the minions movie fart gun, And I really wanted to rebuild a taser and so I bought the guns for $22. I went to the lady right after the gym and she said I can clearly tell you work out, and I realized that it doesn’t shock me at all that someone says that. Like very clearly I work out I was in my tank top and I am very muscular, and it kind of nice even though it feels scary and like I’m being vain, but it feels really nice too have that positive self image about myself for once. I don’t know why it feels like it’s such an evil thing to have a positive self image.

I had a very long day today with a lot of socialization, and near the end I very much felt myself crashing and I wanted to be alone. What originally was a source of potential conflict instead turned out to be a very deep heart-to-heart with a close friend. I’ve known this friend for two months now, and we have hung out a lot since then but this was the first time I got to really know her in this intimate sense of both of us sharing some trauma. We talked for like two hours, and I realize that I actually feel good. Like I don’t feel misunderstood or hurt, but I actually feel like the opposite. Like I feel really valued, and I feel connected to people rather than isolated. I’m really grateful for this friend and also how my life has started to bare fruit that I have planted earlier

I had a rooftop barbecue and hot tub event with a friend, and L Brought her sister and her sister for some reason is just such a massive dick towards me specifically it feels like. There was only one other guy there, and that guy didn’t really interact with her but it felt like just disproportionately she was being very rude to me, like making comments about how people just must not have liked me for something completely unrelated, insulting the random playlist that was playing on my speaker saying that my music was elevator music, being excessively pedantic with rhetorical questions, when I jumped into the pool as I got up from the water I heard her calling me a fat ass, along with several other consistent just like negs it felt like. I don’t know what this girl’s problem is because her sister is nice, but she is just such a fucking dick it feels like and im pretty confident its not a signal towards me, like it is not a reflection on my behavior as much as it is on her. No one else not even her sister joined with her and other people kind of defended me at different points. But overall just fucking weird from her.

Hey me! This is a little bit different than what I've been doing for the last few weeks, but here is me journaling as I go on a walk outside of my work again. I’ve slept really well the last three nights in a row and I’ve been able to exercise pretty well, and I have had a pretty good amount of social interaction. I’ve also been eating relatively well, and so it kind of sucks that I don’t necessarily feel the greatest. I don’t think I would say that I’m depressed right now but it is a little bit adjacent to that. There’s a very small dull pain in my chest but it’s enough to make it where it feels like I am slightly less than neutral meaning I have a little bit of that anxiety of this feeling not going away.

Going on a walk specifically on this route reminds me a lot of when I first went through my break up and additionally I also saw a Mazda which was something that reminded me of her. Thankfully time does heal a lot, as I don’t really think of her much anymore, and when she does pop up in someway or another it’s something that doesn’t hurt and I can acknowledge the thought goes away just as quick as it came. And I am happy that I feel like I found a friend group that I can text and do stuff with, but then I feel a little bit scared about the fact that I have done the things and filled the niches I thought I was missing and here I am still not necessarily content with my life. And I think the scary part is losing what seems like a solution or control over a problem, and realizing that it’s not that simple.

One of the things that comes to mind if I try to triage what is causing this could be my relationship status. And I will say that I am very grateful that it feels like I’m a different person and I have grown because I have had essentially two relationship prospects that I am content to walk away from because I can recognize that there are certain things that matter to me very much. Especially communication and conflict resolution. I’m very happy that I have started to read the book nonviolent communication because I think that really did help me recognize things I wasn’t aware of before. I did pride myself on communication before and now this only makes it so much better. And additionally I do think that communication is a skill that is severely neglected, and often is the thing that is now a dealbreaker to me. And I remember that an earlier version of myself viewed the problem as a certain emotional skills are something that are very rare, and so the optimization objective is finding someone on the higher ends of the distribution. I think currently it has shifted more to something like finding someone that meets my criteria, regardless of how many people will reach that or how reasonable even that is. And I think the fundamental change that has enabled this is the fact that outside of sex and maybe physical intimacy, I am able to satisfy all of my other niches in life. Meaning I don’t need a partner and because of that I am completely content with the possibility of not having a partner for the foreseeable future. And I know that it is a very cliché thing to say that, but I think in the past I have said that I don’t need a partner but that means that I really do want one though. It’s like saying that I don’t need a car to get to work because I could always walk for four hours, but I very much want a car. But right now I don’t feel like I have any of those heavily burning wants, especially proven by the fact that the current relationship prospects I am content not pursuing them. One thing my therapist pointed out with how one of the people is essentially a much better fit and overall healthier partner than E was, but even with that and knowing that if I was to engage in the relationship it would be essentially better than my last one, I still do not want to pursue it. To me I think that that is a very solid signal for growth, and I’m very proud of myself for that. And I think the thing that I’m very proud of is the fact that this is not a conscious decision that I have to make but rather something where I understand that this person is not at all a bad person, and there are a lot of very admirable qualities about her, but there also are certain things that I don’t see them that I would like to see in my lifelong partner. Like it is a very important thing to me that my partner is able to handle criticisms and take accountability without excuses or defenses, but rather with empathy and curiosity. And I don’t think that this is at all common and it’s a very rare thing, and it’s not that someone is a bad person or shitty communicator if they don’t do those things, but for me I think I’ve learned that that is something that I really really value and for my specific childhood that makes it matter so much more. And I think that I am really growing to fill the cracks at my childhood left me with. And that is something I’m very grateful for.

I didn’t go to the gym today and so I spent four hours making a massive almost 6 foot tall elephant of cardboard as a decoration for my living room until I get furniture also that I can make this stupid fucking joke of the elephant in the room. To the two friends that I showed it to they lost their shit and thought it was the funny as fuck. And honestly I’m kind of just happy that I get to make things that are silly and stupid and I also cooked today, and it was a very super simple meal but it tasted delicious. It was also very cheap to me and I’m happy that I took the time to do it. A made fun of me and was pretty rude because the dish was not up to her standards, and I did voice how it was out of place for her to say the stuff that she did. She didn’t respond super great but whatever I don’t need her to respond in any kind of way.

I think cooking has started to become a little bit of an insecurity for me, because I’ve had a couple experiences now with female friends that grew up cooking that make fun of me for my inexperience. And it feels really unfair to me because growing up I didn’t even get the chance to cook or to do anything like that, because I was forced to do academics 24/7. A mentioned how she would cook with her family and that was a big bonding time for her and I’m really happy for her and I think it makes it exceptionally shitty to me to have it rubbed into my face how I didn’t have anyone to teach me this stuff. And so I understand that I’m really inexperienced and not super aware of a lot of things that might be common knowledge to someone else. And I understand that it might seem to someone else that I’m completely clueless and naïve, but it’s really hard to try to learn these things on your own without help. It’s one of those things where you don’t even know where to start and you don’t even know what you don’t know. I ruined so many nonstick pans because I was cleaning them wrong and that’s something that might seem super obvious in hindsight but how the fuck am I supposed to know that a pan is not supposed to be scrubbed? And I feel really defensive with stuff like this because I’ve encountered a lot of people that just cannot put themselves in the shoes of remembering what it was like to not know something. And this is something that I’ve noticed a lot as a double standard. For the things that I grew up knowing because that’s all I had as a child, I’ve been very conscious about the fact that not everyone had the same experience as I did and so it’s never someone’s fault for not knowing something when it was something they should’ve been taught. There’s no point in shaming them and it’s not fair to do that either I find. And I think everyone agrees with that philosophy until it comes to something they don’t consider it applicable to.