An Open Letter

Hey, I’m gonna have to be a bit careful to not turn this into a pity party for myself. In about a month it’s going to be my 22nd birthday. Since it’s two days after Thanksgiving this year, it’s over the break – no one will be here for it. My parents want me to come home, but I told them I don’t want to again, as I think I’d rather be alone here, than alone there. They said if I had plans with friends they understood, but I don’t have any of those either. Everyone’s gone for my birthday, and regardless I don’t really expect anyone to do anything.

Last year a few other people and I threw a surprise party for two friends, and it was amazing. Their friends came up and all hid in their apartment, and when they came home they all jumped out and surprised them both. We all gave them presents, and it was a nice night. I will say a part of me died inside there, as I felt such longing for something like that. When I sat down to journal this, I wanted to say how I hope I can have a surprise party before I die. Maybe when I’m older, and if I have a partner or someone like that to organize it and do that for me. But I don’t see that happening for a while now, if ever.

I feel pretty bad because I know several friends who have mentioned their love language is giving gifts, but I know they won’t do anything like that. When I was young my parents wouldn’t let me have any birthday parties or have friends hang out, so I ended up just ‘celebrating’ by myself. At least once my parents even forgot it was my birthday. My dad (who I love) even put the wrong birthday down at the bank, and I had to get that fixed recently.

For my 16th birthday, my parents let me have a birthday party. I invited my friends, and I got some candy and a $20 set of poker chips from Target. At some point, my best friend at the time started crying about something trivial, and the rest of the night was everyone else comforting her, and I ended up getting excluded. I don’t play poker, but I bring those chips with me every time I move, and I am incredibly protective over them.

For my 17th birthday, I asked my dad to drive me to the beach and let me sit in the car alone for an hour. He went and walked on the beach, and I listened to music out loud for the first time, and also just cried.

For my 18th birthday, I was the only person in the freshman dorms, as everyone had gone home for Thanksgiving. My mom told me it wasn’t worth it for me to come down, so I stayed there the entire week. I think I left the dorm a total of twice. I would get out of bed around 6 pm, and go to bed at midnight, finally falling asleep at 2 am. I don’t think I even took a single shower or had a single meal the whole week. I just ate trail mix when the pain got bad enough, and maybe a bag of chips.

For my 19th birthday, I had a close friend and I was able to have my first-ever (and only) sleepover. We watched a movie, ate candy and then I slept on her couch and she went to bed. She got me a pink sash that says “birthday bitch”, and I have it in my box of sentimental objects still. She gave me a little bottle of pills, and inside of each was a small written note. Some were jokes, some were kind words. I have it in my hand right now. I read two of them and tears are starting to come.

For my 20th, I was alone again back at home. I don’t remember if anyone told me Happy Birthday or anything like that. My present to myself was I took a glass bottle and threw it as hard as I could behind the hill by my house. That was my first time littering, and I wanted to do something wrong because I was sick of always being good and feeling so alone.

For my 21st everyone was gone again, but I had a belated birthday party. I spent about $50 of my own money getting stuff like cake, food, snacks and invited friends over. No one brought any presents, and a friend was supposed to wingman me with a girl I had a crush on. He ended up flirting with her and they’re still dating to this day.

My 22nd is coming up soon, and I don’t want it to. I wish I was one of those people who didn’t care about their birthdays, but I can’t help it. I wish I had a party, I wish I had people sing for me or think about me. I wish I had people give me presents so I could keep them for as long as I could, so I had something to remind myself of happy moments. I think for next year I’m going to try to order packages or small presents throughout the year and have them delivered on the 25th so it’s like I’m getting presents. I also want to go on something like Reddit and offer people money to send me something like a postcard, or something like that so I can at least have something this year. I don’t wanna spend it alone and empty like normal.

Hey.

One thing I learned a while ago was the 5:1 rule. For every one bad interaction, you should have 5 good interactions – and magnitude or intensity doesn’t matter here. This is used as a litmus test to recognize whether a relationship is healthy. I thought about this because of how I felt hurt again today. I had to ask you to check, as you said you removed me from your close friends on Instagram, where you post updates about your life. I was right; you didn’t re-add me, and you seemed coerced into doing it. I have given you a lot of benefit of the doubt, this time included – I want to think that you being quiet was you feeling bad for forgetting, or maybe you were focusing on doing it. But I don’t know how many times I can give you the benefit of the doubt, as at some point I think I’m deluding myself.

It would have been so much easier to believe these thoughts and not feel like you still want to push me away if you had shown you felt any sort of sympathy or remorse for this mistake. It would have been perfect if you had said something along the lines of “I’m sorry, I genuinely forgot. I know this is a hurtful thing, but this genuinely was a mistake I made, I’m sorry.” but I also don’t know if I can ever expect that out of you. It would have been great to even hear an acknowledgment that it was a mistake, but there was none. I don’t know what else to believe at this point.

You also said “and after I have processed this conversation more I will extend a better apology”, but that never came. The conversation ended up being me again preparing the right way to bring it up to you to make it as easy as possible for you, and you again didn’t follow through with your word. I don’t know what to feel anymore.

You’ve been an incredible friend, I used to think about how you’re one of the best friends I’ve met – but I don’t know what to feel anymore. I feel like you hurt me again and again, and you never seem to regret it or care about it enough to change. I know you’re putting in some effort, but I wish you understood how much effort I’ve put in. I don’t want to have to plan out what to say, or to have to constantly try to open communication. Today when we were going to call, part of me wanted to not because of how anxious I felt.

I feel trapped in the cycle of doing too much, and pushing myself to be a good friend, and it all gets taken for granted. I feel hurt that I always try to be thoughtful and mindful of you, and it feels like anything I ask of you is instantly forgotten.

I hate to write this, but I loved being friends with you. But recently things have just gotten worse, and I don’t know if this is ultimately something I would feel comfortable with. I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to interact with you ever, but I find myself no longer trusting you to give me that respect in several different ways, and arguably more concerning – I don’t feel comfortable talking to you on anything past a surface level. I miss my old friend, that person valued me and cared. I kinda don’t know who you are anymore.

I think if nothing changes when you finally respond, I’m going to start pulling away. I’m tired of reaching out to you and feeling more hurt by your indifference. I’ve tried, I really have.

Every night I have a list of things I do for my mental health, and one of them is going over a list of affirmations. One of the things I have written down is “people have feelings for me”, and for some reason for the first time ever I kinda believe it. I love my sense of humor, and I love the person I’ve shaped myself to be. I can’t think of any huge glaring flaws I have that would make me incapable of being loved, or desired.

I can somewhat accept the idea that someone could love me, and want to be with me.

That’s an incredibly weird feeling.

Today was a good day. I was going to say nothing great happened – but who is the judge of that if not me? I hit a new PR, I decorated my room, I did some nice things, I got a new candle, I finished my assignment, and I talked to a lot of friends. I was driving back home just now and for some reason decided to listen to C418.

I had an overwhelming feeling of being loved on that drive back. How many people worked hard to give me all those great memories of playing Minecraft as a kid? When I think back to my childhood I don’t remember much, but I always fixate on the bad parts. I don’t often think about how colors looked so vibrant the day I ran out of school after dropping off a coded love letter in my crush’s backpack (we dated for a year with romance that would put Hollywood to shame). What about the times I would talk to friends about League, and how we planned out new strategies to do when we got home? What about the time we went on a tour of my online crush’s town for hours, as she explained the stories from all 1000 people living there?

When I look back at my life, I always seem to find myself sad about things I’ve lost, or things I’ve never had. I want to change that, slowly but surely. I find myself falling in love with life again. I finally visited the top of my parking structure, and just felt an overwhelming thought of “I’m glad I’m alive.”

I think it’s dangerously easy to romanticize suffering or struggle, but life wasn’t meant to be a punishment for you. There’s so much beauty and magic in so many mundane things. Every song I listen to is a kiss from someone across the world, who made that for me to enjoy. Every taken parking spot is a person who has a turn at a slightly more convenient life today, and maybe they need it.

The world can be cruel, but oh-so beautiful at the same time. Is it not a gift to wake up in it every day? I think if I truly was faced with the reality of dying, I would beg god for another chance to experience heartbreak, wonder, confusion, joy, grief, and everything else again. Sorry to the people I’ve hurt or wronged before, but I also don’t think I would change a thing even if I had a choice. The seeds I’ve planed have borne fruit and oh god are they sweet. I love you man ♥

Hi again. I remembered an older post I wrote, and I went back to try to read it again. I ended up going a bit down memory lane reading my older posts, which is something I haven’t really done before. God this shit is so cringe. Everything always seems so much better in the moment, but looking back I can’t help but notice all the points where I try to write like a real writer. Maybe it’s better if I just speak with authenticity and really just write down whatever I think, without trying to say it as a person I’m not.

I swear my brain has gotten worse at making sentences, I end up second-guessing if what I even say is coherent nowadays.

Hey. For the last two months, I’ve been fairly depressed. It isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, which is a godsend in its own right – but I just haven’t felt joy for a while. Today I did. I pushed myself pretty hard working out my legs, even though I had to stop squatting due to a health complication. Afterward, I ran on a treadmill until I couldn’t anymore. Then I walked for a tenth of a mile and then ran the same distance.

By the time I got off the treadmill, I had to lay down and was grabbing my left ankle because it hurt so bad with the kind of pain where nothing gives it relief, and you just have to ride it out until it stops rearing its head. My face was grimaced, but also smiling intently. I felt proud, and I felt alive again. I know it was just endorphins, but in that moment I finally felt like myself for the first time in a while.

While biking back home, I was dancing and drumming in the air. Music made me happy, and the cold air on my sweat-drenched face was blissful. I felt pure joy. I went home and put in tremendous conscious effort to do several tasks that I hadn’t been able to do for almost weeks.

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At some point last year I figured out that one of my greatest tools for fighting depression was overexerting myself. Of course, there are several other things to it, but this was a huge thing for being able to regulate my mood, and overall give me a better baseline dopamine. Around two months ago, I stopped running and doing such heavy cardio for some reason or another – and I eventually stopped altogether. Now that I’m virtually fully recovered, I’m going to force myself to stick to this – originally it required a lot of discipline, but I know how it gets easier if you don’t slip up, so I’m going to vow to myself I’m going to do that now. Today I was able to do a bit over half a mile, and I plan on getting that much farther.

Recently I’ve lived life in a pretty angry, depressed, and resentful way. I remember how I used to do this, and I see a lot of this in other friends – but I think I’d like to reclaim the worldview of being grateful and falling in love with everything.

Everything will be ok. It just may be different.

I don’t want to explain why I wanted to find this image so badly, but I remembered it about a week ago and I spent a few hours trying to find it again. I finally found it through coincidence, and it felt like someone gave me a hug.

Maybe things will be ok. I always ask god for harder times when I’m fine, and for relief when I get harder times. I find out over and over again I am loved, and maybe it sinks in a bit more every time.

If I’m going to be honest, I’ve felt like shit for at least a month now. Something feels different today, as there’s no anger – just grief. I would always think I held no regrets, and that if I died now, I would have done it the same.

I do have regrets.

I wish I was hugged more. I wish I was told “I love you”, and I wish I was allowed to express emotion. I wish I wasn’t alone all the time, and I wish I wasn’t pushed online to interact with humans.

I wish I wasn’t taken advantage of as a child, and I wish someone was there to stop it from happening again. I wish I had someone who watched out for me, and who was there for me when I needed it the most. I wish I had someone who checked up on highschool me who would sit on the bathroom floor for hours at a time in agony.

I wish both that someone would give me genuine sympathy, and that I could also accept that.

It’s strange to long to be held in a way I never was – what am I missing?

A bit earlier today I watched a YouTube video of my favorite content creator playing the game Before Your Eyes. Within the span of about 5 minutes, I found myself crying.

There’s something incredibly sobering about seeing a parent struggle. I’ve always thought about how it’s a parent’s responsibility to give a child a good life and to be an appropriate parent for them, but it’s pretty gut-wrenching to see a parent lost. It’s a weird feeling to see someone blind to their own mistakes lay the ones they love down on railroad tracks. It doesn’t make it any easier when the train hits them.

I guess it all just boils down to my own childhood, doesn’t it? This is my blog after all, it’s not like this is written down for anyone else. I’m sorry she had to see her grandmother hung at a young age, but I also wish I didn’t have that pain passed onto me. I wish she was somehow unnecessarily strong enough to handle that pain and trauma and prevent it from being passed onto me. But it also wasn’t fair to her. I find myself blaming her less and less, when I think back to the neglect all I see is a traumatized little girl watching her dead grandmother, and god knows what else happened to her to make her so afraid of men.

I’m sorry that happened to you, but I’m also sorry about the things that happened to me. It’s not fair to you, but it’s also not fair to me. It is unfair to ask you to somehow handle all the generational trauma passed onto you, but I also wish you decided to confront that pain before it manifested its way onto me.

I feel like I push myself so hard to process things and to grow as a person mentally with the hope of giving a child a good life. I want to finally break the chain of suicides and stop the pattern of hurt. I’m afraid now though, as watching the game unfold, she loved us so much. Yet she hurt us the same way too. I fear what I do is not enough, and I fall victim to the same trap of my parents, and those before me too. Maybe I shouldn’t have a kid.

As much as that hurts to write, I think I need to consider that possibility for me to be able to consider having one in the future – I need to be confident that if I have a child it is because I think it is good, not because I want to prove I can stop this chain.

“I killed a plant once because I gave it too much water. Lord, I worry that love is violence.”

― José Olivarez, Citizen Illegal

I’ve had friends talk about how it’s hard to stay motivated to go to the gym, but for me, I don’t think it was hard with a certain realization. When I started going to the gym, I was horribly depressed. In the past, I would spend weeks without leaving my room and would just spiral into self-destructive tendencies until I would end up with a suicide scare. I was pretty desperate to do anything to stop that cycle, and I was trying everything I could find.

What I ended up telling myself was that I either force myself to go to the gym regardless if I was in pain, fatigued, depressed, busy, or any other excuse – or I end up killing myself because I am not strong enough to fight it. Then it became simple, it’s either force myself to do something shown to help depression no matter what, or just kill myself because I can’t even do that. If I am incapable of doing something so simple as that, I honestly don’t deserve a shot at life. That’s all it was, self-preservation in some sense.

Honestly, these are some of my favorite days while reflecting. The days where I don’t dance, smile or laugh. The days where I just keep my eyes on the floor and avoid any interaction. I love violently disregarding consequences and forcing my body to do what I want it to. About a week ago I tried to hit a PR on deadlift, and I failed 355lbs. I just couldn’t lift it enough to lock out. About 3-4 days later, I tried again, and at first, I couldn’t even get the bar off the ground before my back hurt too much. I took a second to rest, then told myself I didn’t care, I was going to grab it and lift it no matter what happened. Just look.

I love realizing my body is shaking, and feeling that pain in my throat and jaw from clenching so hard. I love beating the shit out of my own body in this way, as my way of getting even. I usually tell myself these days “Either kill yourself or kill yourself” as a reminder of how if I don’t destroy myself, I’ll probably end up killing myself anyway. God romanticization of suicide is nice ♥