An Open Letter

Tonight me and C went on a bar crawl, and he was drinking since noon (we left at midnight). He was incredibly drunk, and after the first two bars he was struggling to stand upright. The third bar we found was an all you can drink for just about $7 per 30 minutes, and we drank about 3 each until the thirty minutes was up. He went to the bathroom and I was talking to the waiter about her life and her experiences, as someone working the night shift at Japan. She was incredibly interesting, and I hope I don't fuck up her name as “iiya”. She was Korean and had lived in the Philippines and was currently in Japan for 6 months to a year on a work visa. She ideally wanted to live in Greece, funnily enough in Illios (from overwatch lol). It was fascinating to hear about another person's perspective so drastically different than my own, but right as we started to talk about the cultural pressure to be attractive she asked about C and if he was ok in the bathroom. He didn't lock it (thankfully) and was passed out on the floor of the bathroom. I had to cut out conversation short as he couldn't stand up and it was time to go home. I was sad I couldn't learn more about her perspective, but safety was more important. Honestly part of me wanted to get him to sit on the barstool and to keep talking but he's more important to me. We were somewhat of a walk from our Airbnb and so I had to support him on our walk back.

We got home with minimal sleeps from him, and I got to share the experience with L and A. But with that context out of the way I think I have a bit of space for drunk introspection. I've been weirdly afraid of A because of how much I trust her for lack of a better term. With her I have someone to tell things to, and also someone I feel comfortable asking for support from. It's kinda terrifying because what if I get used to that and then it goes away? I don't want to scare A off potentially by using this term so liberally, but let me at least preferace this: I have love for my friends, and also just generally everyone as a whole to varying degrees. That being said, I've loved A in a very gradual way. I was afraid of a firework relationship where it spikes and fizzles out, but as time has gone on I've cared for her more. I keep seeing things in Japan and just wanting to get her them. I just want to protect her and make sure she's happy I guess. It's that stupid hero complex, or being overly-compassionate, whatever you call it.

I don't know why I'm like this if I'm being honest. I care too much about other's feelings, and I struggle to prioritize my own. In an ironic twist I almost need someone to similarly take care of me, by regulating my own feelings from empathy alone. The alcohols taking a downturn as I'm starting to feel bad about myself. I wonder if being aware about the scientific effects on neurotransmitters lets us ignore them. Maybe me being aware of this lets me ignore it's effects. But at the same time there's a heavy pull for me to hate myself and I'm not sure why. I want to verbally abuse myself and give myself more reason to hate myself. I don't think I do but not from lack of effort. I hear both A and L whispering, but not enough to decipher what they're saying. I don't mention I can just them because I don't want them to feel perceived and I want them to enjoy this limbo rather than breaking it by acknowledging it. Another example of being overly compassionate. I don't know, I miss A however. I feel like I end each post in that vein “I don't know”. I do know, I just want to stop typing. How hypocritical I am, what a silly little creature.

I’m right now settling into our final Airbnb in Shinjuku. I’m pretty tired and running out of time on this trip so I want to try to get as much shopping done as possible tomorrow. I keep seeing things and wanting to get them for A instead, and so my luggage is basically more her stuff than mine it feels like. But I’m happy with that. It feels weird that I can’t really get much stuff for friends since they’re all either too far away, or with me on this trip lol. Let’s see how this goes.

Today I had some of the worst panic attacks of my life, for several hours I couldn't consciously move, I was shaking and hyperventilating all while jumping trains to try to get somewhere I didn't even know. That's over now at least and it's back to normal, and CBT worked. He paid me back and everything worked out in the end, anxiety just fully took over me. I hate it but it's over.

Today we were supposed to all try snowboarding, and I paid for the rentals since normally I pay and others pay me back. After we all got kitted up and were ready to go, I went and bought the lift tickets for everyone. While we were putting on the boards and going to the lift, A fell and started complaining. I was on edge from the whole trip and other things and so I reminded him about the thing we talked about yesterday about how saying something sucks or you hate it makes you enjoy it less and ruins it a bit for others, and I asked him to not complain about stuff like that since this was my first time doing snow stuff and I'm already stressed and we paid and I want to enjoy it. He said he doesn't care and kept doubling down on how he hates this, and in the moment because I was stressed I said “fine if you hate it so much just go back” and something along the lines of I'll pay for his share. Immediately after I realized how much the costs were and backtracked on that, and said I'm not paying for his part (within seconds – and this part does upset me because technically I did say that for a few seconds before changing, but I think everyone's said things while stressed and heated). After that he said fuck this and started walking away and yelled “I'm not paying”. This was something we had all agreed upon, and he was excited to do, and he was ready to pay for his rental and had no objections and gladly took the lift ticket. This immediately set me off and ruined my day since he basically told me to go fuck myself and since my credit card is on file and I already paid, I'm stuck paying for it. The rest of the day didn't help as it went pretty shit also. One person was emotionally overwhelmed and negative and my first time trying to snowboard I had to stop and play therapist even though I was teetering on an anxiety attack the whole day. Another friend rammed into me on his snowboard hitting my elbow, and I was terrified I broke something. Through three layers he gave me a massive bruise and a pretty big gash and it hurts to touch it at all. The rest of my body also got beat up in several different ways, and I'm just fucking tired man. I've spent the entire day trying to fend off a panic attack. I can't sleep right now because my mind keeps catastrophising. I could cancel his plane ticket if he doesn't pay me back, or cancel his checkin and remove the weight on his carry on. I could intentionally recuperate costs from places where he put his card on file since he got the hotel room for tomorrow. I hate my mind sometimes, and I don't say that word lightly. My brain led me down a tangent of how I could kill us all while driving the rental car to Mt. Fuji. I don't want to think these stuff. If I try to stop thinking I realize God knows how many minutes later that I'm thinking about a physical escalation from if he tries to get my passport while I'm sleeping, and Anxiety leads me down the path of eventually just thinking about killing him with a chokehold. I don't want to think any of these things, I just want to sleep. I'm ashamed to admit it but for the first time in my life I used substances to avoid a problem. I got a large beer once me and C came back from the mountain, and for a bit I felt fine. Then I napped and woke up after a bit and went by myself to get food and drank another large beer. Then I came back and drank a canned beer in the hotel lounge. I said I'd never use substances to avoid a problem, but I'm just telling myself these are tangentially unrelated and not because I don't want to face what happens. I can't sleep because I'm filled with thoughts of horrible outcomes and losing a safety net I've had for almost a decade now. I'm praying this ends. I hope CBT can help.

Situation: S said he isn't paying for his share of the snow stuff.

Thoughts: This is something I cannot tolerate and no matter what I am getting my pound of flesh. I need him to pay for his share instead of others being footed with the bill.

Feelings: I feel betrayed, hurt, and horribly overwhelmed.

Behavior: I go nuclear and fully blow up almost everything, like the trip, the friendship, the server with all of it's memories etc. I can't stop catastrophising.

Thoughts: Maybe his hernia started acting up and he's super overwhelmed. He will probably pay me back, and if he doesn't that's something we can figure out later as a group. There's no time constraint on that.

Feelings: This couldn't stop all of the anxiety, but at least hopefully it's a step. I still feel pain in my chest.

Behavior: Everything doesn't go nuclear.

I wanted to say that I struggle with distilling myself down into a word or an identity, but I think maybe the opposite is true. I think I fixate on a specific term that I think I should be and I inevitably fall short of that and I just beat myself up about it. I've never thought about it like this but I guess I do that for the term happy. I feel a little bit alone and I feel like I haven't been perfectly happy as I'm kind of stressed even though I'm on vacation with my friends for the first time ever. I keep beating myself up because I'm not enjoying it as much as I think I should be and I feel like it's a waste. I guess I don't think there's any middle ground between happy or depressed I'm so afraid of the latter.

I have like 4 hours to sleep tonight, And I woke up an hour in because I realized I forgot to write something today. Here it is.

I got somebody absolutely gorgeous photos and I'm fucking exhausted I'm about to go pass out.

I'm again very exhausted but I feel better today. I got a lot of cute stuff and I found myself constantly buying small little presents for A, and thinking about her. As sweet as that is I think it's a little bit interesting how little I bought thinking for myself but I guess it's because whenever I see this really cute stuff it reminds me of them. I don't know if that's a bad thing that I don't get this for myself also.

My phone's a bit low and I'm really tired so I won't write much, but I'm a bit both overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time with it all. I know I'm running on not much sleep, and also no Adderall but I just feel scared that I'm not enjoying this as much as I should be.

I keep seeing this life and thinking if I'd be happy in it and I don't think I would, and that scares me that I can't even romanticize it.

So I’m staying up since we’re heading to LAX at 3 AM for the international flight, so I guess time to do some good journaling, right? I mean today I definitely need it. I’ve been horribly stressed with this trip, because I’ve had to plan everything and I’ve been doing things like driving everyone around constantly, figuring out arrangements and handling all of the logistics. If I’m being honest, the others haven’t really been helping and specifically L has been actively making my stress much worse. Today it was too much and I kinda shut down at one point, because they were just constantly repeatedly ignoring boundaries and challenging them, and I just was so exhausted and tired I wanted to cry. It is incredibly draining and difficult for me to set boundaries and ask for those things, and to have them just blatantly challenge them to my face constantly really hurt. It feels like I have no defense or voice, since no matter how important something is to me they don’t respect that the same way the others do. I know that they’re just young and immature, but still it’s absolutely nightmarish for my anxiety. My chest has been hurting and very tight for the last few hours, and I just can’t really be around them right now. I don’t want to be a dramatic person and so I’m not bringing this up or talking with anyone else from the group about it, but this shit really hurts me. I’m going out on several risks for them and they’ve taken everything I’ve done for granted and have been putting me at a lot of danger and risk, and if I knew that they wouldn’t respect my boundaries, I wouldn’t have done these stuff for them. Let me go ahead and do some CBT and then send them hopefully a constructive message.

Situation: L is pushing my boundaries and making my anxiety much worse.

Thoughts: I am powerless and there is nothing I can do to protect myself from a potentially hellish outcome.

Feelings: Absolute crushing anxiety, my chest feels cramped and is in a lot of pain, and it’s hard to breathe.

Behavior: I’m panicked, I feel terrified and even just sitting here alone quietly away from them I’m close to a panic attack.

Thoughts: They are a young and immature person, and they just don’t understand what they are doing. Regardless they will soon be out of the position where they can hurt me with their actions, and most of the risky parts are over.

Feelings: Still stressed, but I don’t feel powerless. I also don’t feel like I’m about to have an anxiety attack.

Behavior: I can send them a message that may help, and also I don’t have a panic attack.

Ok wish me luck, time to have chatGPT help me edit a message to send them.