An Open Letter

Situation – S is taking time out of midterm week to go across the country with a relatively new friend for their birthday.

Thoughts – I wish someone did something similar for my birthday. I think it would mean the world to me and I would cherish the thought forever if something similar happened to me. This kinda feels like a reminder of what’s about to come and how miserable I will be on my birthday again.

Feelings – Honestly, I just feel like crying. I feel like a younger me sitting on that bathroom floor crying since what else was I supposed to do.

Behavior – It gets worse, and the pull starts to creep in.

Thoughts – Realistically it’s not like she planned this for the other person, and it could just essentially be an excuse for a fun trip with new friends. This is important because it points out how this isn’t like the status quo for a birthday or anything like that. And regardless I am the one in control of my days, and so I can plan something nice for my birthday for myself that doesn’t have to include others.

Feelings – I still feel like I’m mourning my childhood, but at least I’m not there anymore. I also don’t really care about S since I can at least separate that information from what depression wants to leverage against me.

Behavior – Yeah this time of year will still suck, but at least this is one less piece of pain alleviated.

I don’t like the idea of S reading this, since I think I’ve hit the point where I have to somewhat carefully portray myself to them. Unfortunately, I don’t think they really understand some things and so I’d rather just not have to deal with that can of worms. But also I guess I kinda do think about this in terms of other people. I always think that everyone has their own tragically bad childhood, but sometimes people don’t. Everyone has their problems, and ironically enough I think a lack of those problem is another problem in itself, but having the conversation with S was kinda painful. S didn’t understand how they were making me feel and when I would try to explain that to them they would get kinda aggressive and there was not much chance they would be able to listen to what I had to say, since they were saying “I understand what you’re saying and I can read emotion and tell what you’re feeling” no matter what. Today they mentioned how they were going across the country for a few days as a trip for a coworkers birthday, during midterms week. That sounds sick and I’d hope that they’re getting along well if that’s happening so quickly lol. But also I do feel sad because I’m thinking about how my dreaded birthday is coming up soon. 21 days. I wish I could skip it. I wish somehow S could come visit for it, I miss him. I feel like if V was not super far away we could do some stupid fun shit and that would be a blast. Same with A, he’d prob be down to do something fun. I’m kinda worried about A, because I don’t want her to be bogged down with all of my shit. I just hate this time of year. I wish I was allowed to have friends as a kid. Birthday parties would have been great. What else can I do but mourn this shit now, it’s not like I’ll ever be able to have another childhood. It’s kinda sad to think about how the thought of childhood is terrifying to me. Nostalgia just kinda feels like a concept that I’m aware of, but I never really feel it for the same things everyone talks about. I’ve never had nostalgia for summer, since it’s just been me locked in my room physically isolated from everyone else. Covid was honestly nicer than before since other people were also online. I tell myself that the benefit of this is that I’m good academically and financially well off, but I can’t help but mourn the lack of a family. I’d gladly trade money to have a family. I get an angry kind of sad when people talk about family stuff, or when they lean on family for support; what am I supposed to do? I’ve poured myself into school and studying because if I’m focused on something else and my brain doesn’t stop moving I don’t have to think about the rest. I become so incredibly bitter around this time of year, it’s not fair I don’t have a family while everyone else I know does. I would give so much to have childhood me not become who I am. I wish younger Anshuman was loved, I can’t even bring myself to ask for the love to be unconditional. I realized recently in a therapy session that to be loved or liked I didn’t even need to be anything, I just needed to give space to someone else. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to understanding unconditional love towards me, since for the first time I didn’t think I had to provide something to get it.

S kept rubbing in how she had a secure attachment style and wasn’t insecure about being loved, and that cut so fucking deeply. I’m sorry that it hurts me this much and I’m sorry that I didn’t have parents that hugged me, told me they loved me, or anything like that. Instead, I had one essentially absent parent and another abusive one. I’m sorry that was the hand I was dealt as a kid and how now I can get hurt by your actions. You keep saying you don’t know what to say since it feels like I’ll just be hurt, and I wish others just understood I don’t want to be this way. If only I could make them understand that I’m not upset at them. I wish I wasn’t difficult. I wish I was less.

Today I felt comfortable. I don’t know what’s going on.

I haven’t hit escape velocity yet, but I was closer. It’s a nice feeling to go lightheaded from the g-force; for a little bit, all that matters is staying on the road and conscious. Today was bad enough that while on call with friends I got so stressed and overwhelmed that I just went nonverbal for like 40 minutes. I played guitar for a bit and when I came back I just couldn’t speak, so I sat quietly in call. Sometimes I just get blindsighted by things and it hits me out of nowhere. It’s like that tweet “you people can’t do anything” (@ adhd people struggling with like Halloween costumes or something lmao). Don’t even sweat it man. Don’t even trip.

I just got back from clubbing with A, N, S and a couple other pkmeople I didn't know before, and it was so much fun. I have to be a little bit careful about what I say because I do think that A will see this sooner or later and I don't want to scare them off, but I think she's super cool and definitely someone that I get along with really well. I think if I was friends with her I would definitely get a crush on her, and I'm so lucky that I get this head start of already starting off kind of like that. I'm excited to see where this goes.

So I finally checked my due dates, and by some bad luck I have a 22 page paper to understand and present on Monday, I have to create my glove controller project for my physical computing class on Monday also, and I have to finish creating the automated CVE VM thing by Tuesday. Also, the competition for the robotics team I’m mentoring is this Saturday, and Halloween is tomorrow. Also, CLEOPATRICK IS ON WEDNESDAY SO I NEED TO BE DONE BY THEN!!!!!!!! I had to tell the robotics team I won’t be able to make it since its a full-day competition, so that’s at least one more day I have to work with, but for the first time this quarter, I need to lock in. I’m kinda happy and excited, since I get to go all out and milk as much dopamine as possible out of doing homework tasks and stuff like that. I almost finished the full CVEX today, and I have a few pages left on the paper. My glove is also mostly physically made just a few more wires to soder onto the threads and then I got the RPI working so I need to write the socket code and the actual interface on the computer. I live for this stress.

I stayed up today after my Jiujitsu class (which upset me) and had a beer and decided to try to solve the CTF’s for my computer security class. I finally had a breakthrough on the first one (I had to hijack 3 environment variables and overwrite a system command to trick it into giving me a protected file) and that was an insane rush of dopamine. By then it was time to sleep, but I wanted to just peek at the second question and I was slowly dragged into doing the entire question once I figured out the encoding scheme was something I could easily reverse with cyberchef. I finished both questions and the feeling I have right now is bliss.

I think as much as I don’t want to think about it, I need to bridge that mental disconnect between writing to this blog with the intention of it being private combined with the reality of how I have it attached to my discord and how several IRL people know of it. I’m only really able to fuel this honesty today by playing Moonlight on the River – Mac DeMarco.

I think I’ve been under a lot of stress for a while now. Every few days my Dad sends a text and asks me if I’m all good, and I just respond with I’m ok, just very tired. And that’s because that’s how I’m feeling then. I think navigating that weird liminal time period of not having consistent friends to reach out to fucking sucks. S hasn’t really been online much because he’s busy with his own life I guess, and L has been busy with school and doesn’t really get on much. T has his computer broken but either way, our schedules don’t line up too much. Same with even F. I get to play with A fairly often which is nice, but he’s a pretty impersonal person so I don’t know much about his personal life and I kinda mirror that. IRL, S and L have definitely drifted apart from me and I think both of them have kinda tightened their circles and it’s just happened where I’m out of the zone of convenience and so what can you do about that. I’m a little bit grateful for that, since because everything got so bad that was enough of a catalyst to push me to forcibly socialize out again from scratch. I went and talked to some people at the gym, and the first person was a bust, and I was kinda just resigned to that. I saw another person who seemed really friendly and spotted me but they left before I got over the anxiety of asking them to exchange numbers or something. When I finally saw them leaving, I just laughed because it was another reminder about how an opportunity for something great can be there but fear of whatever may hold you back from that beautiful future. The next day I decided out of nowhere to go to the gym at a time I probably shouldn’t have, and I ended up seeing her again. I told myself this was a sign to stop being a pussy and just go try to be friends with people. She was also happy to exchange numbers since we both wanted another gym buddy and so we did that, and we talked a bit about other stuff over text. I asked if she was interested in gymnastics and she was also a beginner and so she came along today. I signed up to carpool again and I met another person who was also pretty friendly after getting to know her a little bit, and so that’s another friend now! After that, I had martial arts, and then after that L came over and we fucked around in VR and then rocket league for a bit, which he was fully new to. It was fun.

I keep forgetting how easy these insurmountable challenges can be sometimes. I’ve been sitting in this weird little loneliness pit for a while now since I’ve felt like some of my newer friends have moved on while I’m stuck in limbo, but a really nice benefit of the life experience I have is how I’ve done this before and I’ve shown myself how I can do it again.

And now I guess to the part that I’ve conveniently tucked behind a wall of safe recollection of the good parts of today. I think A is an incredible person, and I can’t think of anything wrong with her. But at the same time, I’m still almost afraid, and I feel this kind of fear and anxiety makes me want to just avoid it. After dropping her off I was as close to blushing as I think I can get, and I didn’t even play any music, but just drove back in quiet. I was thinking about her while falling asleep, and I felt peace. I don’t want to say perfect since I think that word puts pressure and is overall just bad to describe someone as, but from our one date A was someone who I found myself happy with I guess. As in I was happy on that date with her, I didn’t feel like I was making someone else happy in the people-pleasing way I’m trying to avoid, but I actually enjoyed that. And she did too! Meaning she enjoys my attempt at being myself, or at least as close to it as I can get. I’m almost worried I’m doing this super weird meta-dance of trying to imitate myself not imitating anything. How weird is that?

All of this made me think about how I may have swung the needle too far, I used to identify with the anxious attachment style, but I may have gone all the way to avoidant. I’m a little bit afraid of intimacy now, and I think it’s because there’s so much stress behind it. I almost don’t know how to act around it, and especially since I’ve been changing so much mentally these last few years I almost feel like I’ve been dropped into a game without the tutorial. I want to sit in this safe little zone that I’ve carved out for myself, and I never want to leave this dirt hut. I find myself automatically rushing to these thoughts of interactions or intimacy, and I just can’t think about how they will go since I don’t feel like I have enough experience to actually form an opinion from. This is like explore vs exploit, and I have 0 exploration on this path, and so I’m terrified. What if I get traumatized for a few years like has happened in the past? This kinda feels like someone just started driving and on their 4th drive they got in an accident and broke their arms. That’s enough fear to be terrified of that for the rest of their life, or at least it feels that way to me. I’m afraid of this unknown because I don’t know how it will go. This fear manifests itself in these avoidant behaviors and I end up miscategorizing them as small little minute traits that I find issues with. This clouds my judgment on everything so badly and I’m a bit afraid about that. I am however happy that I can write these things down here and feel this way, since this means I at least have a path to go down and explore with my therapist, but also with just independent research and introspection I guess. Maybe I should do some CBT here.

Situation – A is someone I want to go on more dates with. I think I like them.

Thoughts – What if we emotionally get more intimate or something like that and it’s something I fuck up? Or what if we have such fundamentally different childhoods that the scars on mine are something she can’t overlook. Or what if she’s just not interested in me. Or what if something flips in my brain that makes me no longer like her this way.

Feelings – I feel fear, and I feel anxiety. A better way of saying that since words don’t do justice is I feel like a small child being crushed in from all sides. I feel like I’m in a safe place but at the same time no one can stop what’s happening to me and I just need to resign to this fate. It’s this feeling that no one can or will come to stop this impending doom.

Behaviors – I’m horribly fucking anxious overall for the next few days, and also I start to associate this with A. I may ruin the opportunity for something great because of anxiety brain.

Thoughts – We hit it off, the same way I would hit it off with a friend that would be super fucking close to me. Or at least it started off the same way, but this also has the potential to blossom into something even more than that, an experience so rich in life that it’s worth the pain and risk to try for. At the end of the day, I can classify all of those fears into a few consequence categories: rejection, traumatic experience tainting the future, and reverse deus ex machima.

For rejection, who cares lmao. As you were telling N earlier today, there’s virtually no consequences to things like this in life. You can just force yourself to go to a few events and then if it sucks, then don’t show up again! What is the possible consequence for that other than a story and getting stronger at that rejection? This one’s not a real concern man, cmon. On top of it, I’m pretty sure she’s physically attracted to me, and even if she wasn’t that’s fine! I think growing up ugly has given me the benefits of understanding my worth in other ways. But now also I have the incredible boon of loving working out no matter what, but that dragging the consequence of being muscular and all that. Plus, the confidence has to be, honestly, most of it. Even in the vain sense, if she doesn’t find me attractive other people still will, but that doesn’t even matter.

For traumatic experiences tainting the future, I just need to ask myself am I a pussy. And then immediately rephrase that question into do I want to be a pussy, and my answer to that is no (not fully sure about the first one lol). I was trying to learn how to do a backflip today and I just started jumping with the pads on the floor without a spotter, and I almost landed it! My first time trying that was with a spotter and I landed on my eye which hurt like a bitch, and I also did land a few times even today badly which hurt. But I just went did something else or sat down for a bit, and then sent it again. I also go to Jiujitsu consistently even though I get hurt or bleed enough where I don’t even find it as a special occurrence. I’m not someone to be afraid of chasing after things I find worth it, even with the risks. This is something worth sending it for, and the fear here is of my mind trying to extrapolate this experience forwards. You already have enough bad experiences, what’s there to lose lmao. It’s not like you’ll ever be SA’ed as a 12 yr old again so only up from here king!

And finally the reverse deus ex machima. If by some divine intervention things fail and it’s not something I could ever have prepared for then lmao what the fuck do you expect me to do about that? Should I never get in a car because final destination already covered what could happen there? No that’s fucking stupid. You won’t die, and you won’t end up any worse than you started before. But you could end up way way better. Tell me that’s not a sweet fruit worth jumping for.

Feelings – I feel peace, and I feel the joy of being human. I’m still a little bit scared, but instead of anxiety that’s almost like an excitement. I’m excited, how beautiful of a shift that is.

Behaviors – I’m more confident, I’m happier, less anxious, and just excited to see what life has to offer. I am who I want myself to be.

I’m happy you spent like 40 minutes on this one Suman. I’m glad you took time for this, and more importantly put the effort into it. Also please note how CBT helped so much. I feel happier and I was able to actually process things without the depression mind trying to speak over my thoughts constantly. I hope that reframing of it helps you do it more. Love you bud.

It's 1:30 in the morning and I should really be sleeping since I need to pick people up tomorrow, but my first date with A was incredible. They were so interesting and funny and I also felt super comfortable just being myself around them. We basically picked out a Halloween outfit for each other and then went to the abandoned school to take photos. I had a wonderful time and I really can't wait to see them again. Plus they're even prettier in person which was insane.