An Open Letter

It’s official! On 9/20 E became my girlfriend. She’s right now getting ready for bed, and I’ve been somewhat spiraling. I know I’m spiraling and it’s rough but damn. For the first time ever I think I may not be the wealthiest one, and it’s by a far shot. She talks about how she wanted to go to an exclusive 8 course meal for her birthday, and how her family would also pay for me. And how her family would happily treat me and pay for me, even talking about a trip to Hawaii that her brother’s girlfriend has been joining them for the last 7 or so years. I realized I almost feel nauseous at the thought. Let alone a fancy meal, how am I supposed to just accept gifts like that? I don’t owe anyone anything, and I always pay more than I owe. How could I possibly be in debt to someone like that? And then I started to feel it.

I hope that I’m enough, I worry that I can’t live up to these standards that she has never said, and even gone on the record disagreeing with. But my fear is how many things are done out of consolation? It’s funny because I use her own script against her, all without her knowing. She talks about how I’m too good for her, and how she doesn’t understand what she sees in me. And how even when I know that I have all the things she said she feels bad about, I then feel like shit. Like I just worry that I’m not enough to love, and that it’s not enough to make up for the short parts of who I am. I worry about how depressed I get, and how it’s not her fault at all and even the healthiest way I know to handle it, of taking space, would still put a burden on her. She started to ask “how am I feeling” and I acted like I didn’t hear her. It felt like a lie, and so the next time she asked again I told her “don’t worry about it”. I just don’t want her to feel like she can see the burden on me. And so I just sit here crushed by my own stone, and I refuse to ask for help because I fear being too much. I’m nt afraid of the help itself, I’m more afraid of the being seen as too much. And that thought terrifies me. Like I’d love to talk about it but not when it feels like this is a every day thing, and then it’s something that I can deal with and I feel sorry that she has to deal with me enough as is. And I know that I’m spiraling here, but hats all I really know how to do. She talks about birthday dinners and fancy things, while I mention how my parents forgot my birthday. I almost started crying remembering the small fist-full of birthdates that I had. I worry that I am too much, and that is all that I can be. THat’s what my fear is. And so I sit kinda quietly here and hope that I’m not too difficult to be around. Because then I want to hide. I was so anxious in the shower afterwards because I had that same crash which I guess doesn’t come from sex, but rather just the feeling of being alone while next to someone. Not because they don’t want you there, but because you’re afraid to be there. Everything looks like a red flag when you grew up in a burning house. I can’t stress how much I want to be enough, which I know is stupid. She literally tells me how she has the same issue, and how she is afraid that she’s not enough for me. And the funny thing is I get it, because it’s not like it’s her money, and if we compare each other directly I get why she would be intimidated or insecure about that. But then when I compare myself to the life that she was given, I feel like I can’t match up, and it’s one of those asymmetrical things where we can both be right and also wrong at the same time. I fear the fact that I feel different from her. I feel different in such a fundamental way that I am scared that she can never understand me and I can never be like what she thinks of me. How can she understand what it’s like to be so low and have to fight for every happy experience. She said she’s a pretty generally happy person, and then I realize that there are so many different levels to the things I work hard for. I think I’m successful until she tells me about the lifestyle she casually is used to. It’s such a weird thing to be on both sides of the same issue, it’s such a genuine thing to both think it’s silly about how “hey look you have so much of a good thing, and that’s your issue! Just enjoy it!” But also feeling the same dread and the feeling of expectation back on something you can’t deliver. And I get scared and sad because I think I can give reassurance in a way that she can’t. I have the ability to say what needs to be heard in a way that she somewhat lacks, and so I end up feeling worried because she says what’s to me the wrong thing. And then I wonder how I can even be enough. Falling upwards, and hitting the ceiling hard.

I titled the post this because I wanted to believe in the fact that I could be enough. This thought has such sharp teeth, and the potential to shred me, and I want to be able to put my guard down enough to listen to the animal’s promises. I can be courageous, or at least that’s what I tell myself. I want to trust in something with teeth.

She’s coming back after 2 weeks. We had a fight but we communicated so well and it’s solved. All green flags. Can’t wait oh my god.

I sat in the call for a bit with E, hearing her interactions with her family. She has so many good people around her and so much connection and security there. Must be nice. I know that I’m crashing and so I can’t hold anything I feel up to the light too much or it’d show up as just more faulty wiring. But fuck man, I think this is one of my red flags. The fact that it hurts to see people with good families. Or even families. It sucks to see people in relationships with their mothers, especially good ones. It’s weird healing and talking about this in therapy, because I then lose that sense of detachment from it. Before I’d hear someones mom on a call and think “aww thats sweet your relationship with your mom!” and there’s a disconnect between mother, and mother. One is something they have, and one is the thing that I won’t. And when I realize it, the bitterness seeps in and just coats every crevice of my mind. It’s a loathing that I almost don’t want to help. I wish you all knew how nice it was to be able to call your mom for help. Or to go to her when you’re hurting. Fuck you. Genuinely fuck all of you who have good relationships with your mothers. And parents. And siblings, and extended family and all of that. Fuck you for having something I never got to have. I can’t even think about what I’d give because I can’t think about how nice it would be to have a family. It’s not jealousy because I don’t have it. It’s envy, and it’s the color green. It’s a vibrant shade that paints everything and jars me out of whatever situation I’m in. That color isn’t meant to be there, and so neither am I. Fuck you. There’s so much bitterness in me in this situation that I don’t know what to do other than keep it to myself, where it festers. Fuck the people who go back and visit home. I’m 5 minutes away yet farther than they’ve ever been. I can’t get on a flight or call them because that house harbors someone so filled with poison that it kills anything it touches. I have this journal and it’s been cathartic since I can at least say something here. It hurts that E is able to vent to her mom. And I have digital bytes. The worst part is E hearing this would want to support me, and tell me that she is here for me. But I don’t want that pity. Yesterday I benched 255x2 and I wrote on my story that I just never wanted to be that weak again. I didn’t mean in strength. I meant being the fucking kid who got walked over and had no one there for him, who planned on killing himself too many times to count. That kid wasn’t strong enough to handle it, and unfortunately, he didn’t have support. And so I just struggled, drowning for 17 years before I could go to college and try to kill myself properly. I can’t stop mourning all of those years with no memories there. The only memories I have are horrible ones. My earliest memory is when I was in like third grade, and my sister had a jar of some chemical, like nail polish remover, and I asked what that was. She told me it was dangerous and if I drank it, it’d kill me. I couldn’t stop thinking about drinking it. And the memory changed, but it didn’t. I think about sitting in my closet crying on the floor so that no one could hear me, and writing my suicide note. I planned to hang myself over the balcony with a belt, so tomorrow morning my parents would come down and see my lifeless body. And then they’d realize that I deserved help. It’s painful to say “deserved help” like any kid doesn’t. I guess I want to see the best in everyone and think everyone deserves help, since maybe that would mean no matter what I would have then recieved it in my perfect world. But I didn’t, and it made me who I am. It’s a weird feeling when people tell me how kind I am or how good I am, since my first gut reaction is that I try so hard to be, but I still think I’m not. It sickens me that the things I try to do in private, and under any pressure, I bring them up like a receipt showing that I am good. I remember buying the homeless person a meal after six flags, and how I even journaled about it. And then I told N and D it was late at night when, during our conversation, they said “but you don’t buy homeless people food every time they’re at a fast food place”. I was aware I was leading the conversation in that direction. And then like an addict I jump to the needle. I tell them and I then feel that disgust of humility. I feel gross every time D tells others how I donated $50 to IRUSA in her story about M, since I then just confirm more and more than I did that so I could show others. What good do I do if I can’t do it quietly? I’m so desperate to be seen as something good, and something worth loving. Even when it’s not, I feel like it’s all I know how to do. I’m honestly just afraid of guilt. And god I feel guilty now. E is so sweet and they’ve done nothing wrong, they’re struggling even and I’m sitting here hurting because they have a family. Am I supposed to tell her about it? I don’t want her to walk on eggshells around me, but it feels like I’m disingenuous about it whenever I don’t mention it. But also I don’t know how you could possibly not feel guilt or try to hide it if she knew that it sometimes hurt me like this. And so I don’t know any other option other than to suck it the fuck up.

I fear that maybe the people I envy so much are people who somehow learned how to properly set boundaries. When their parents are bad, they can just step away and be safe. And then they can somehow reconcile it. My fear is maybe if they were put in my shoes, they would still have a mother. But I take some sort of shield in the fact that it’s on my parents to teach me and show me that. And fuck, how am I supposed to justify being ignored for months at a time for something I didn’t even do. Being ignored was what I learned growing up, and how to silently just accept what was happening. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair. And that’s all I can really say. It feels so pathetic to write like this, but where else is this supposed to go? I feel better after writing like this, and so that’s what I’m hoping for in the back of my mind as I keep typing.

The wave of emotions has now somewhat passed, and I’m now just sad in the aftermath. It’s a tiring sadness, the kind that just weighs down my spine and my arms. I can type, but I can’t press the keys to stop the music I’m listening to. It’s this weird paralysis. Something between my eyes and the back of my head. I think I face things head-on mentally, but I still mentally detach from family stuff so quickly. It just comes so natural. I don’t want to face grief anymore, I want this dull ache to go away. I don’t know what it feels like to not be injured in this way, and honestly I’ve somewhat given up the hope that it will go away. It’s always just be at best a migraine haze where a family should have been in my mind. I can walk and stand and breathe as a man, just one with this part missing. Something purposefully obscured.

E was asking when the mercy skin leaves the shop, since she wanted to buy it. I immediately bought credits so I could gift her, and turns out you can’t gift lol. So I bought her credits to her account so she could get it. I don’t usually like to spend money on people for gifts, since I am afraid of things being transactional or being used, but this is different. I want to show her that I care about her, and how I really want her to be happy. I feel like I can be somewhat difficult at times, mostly because I get sad or fill myself with self-loathing. Even though it doesn’t affect her because I’m pretty good at being responsible about it, I still feel bad. I want her to feel consistently loved by me, even when I am low. I care about her a lot.

I’m gonna actually do my best to sleep early tonight for the first time fucking ever. But I guess I wanted to write down a little bit first. Today for some reason I sent E a fit picture, she responded so positively I got fully taken aback. It surprisingly hit me really really deeply, and I think the reason why it was because it felt like even though I wasn’t posing or performing to try to look hot or something, she still was super enthusiastic to see it. And that made me feel like she likes me, not me when I’m posing, or me in certain pictures. Like it feels like she sees me and she likes that. And it’s kind of stupid it makes me wanna cry like breathing out a sigh of relief from something I didn’t even know I was holding onto. Like I feel loved. I feel accepted. Holy shit.

I even tried to go to bed early tonight. I guess I’ll keep this short, but I’m happy N came to dance today. It’s weird because N strikes me as a fake-nonchalant if that makes sense, she’s very nonchalant and doesn’t really acknowledge emotions and tries to be opaque with them, but I feel like that’s one of those coping mechanisms from having too many emotions under the surface and not understanding how to express them healthily. I’m a little bit worried that she is crushing on me, since every time I mentioned E and how I’m excited to ask her out she would have small shifts in her body language and demeanor. She also would make these comments that feel like she’s vying for my attention or approval, and I’ve been doing my best to correct that behavior without having to do so explicitly. I really hope that E doesn’t feel concerned at all because I absolutely want E and it’s no question, I want to just be platonic friends with N. I’m really thankful that my therapist gave the green light to ask her out soonish, since that means I can be explicitly clear without having to say it, but I can tell people how I have a girlfriend, and hopefully that lets them down easy. I think it’s such a weird change, I’m not used to being someone that people like, and crush over. J from dance kinda follows me around like a puppy and I’ve even explicitly told her I don’t want her to flirt with me, but I think she keeps trying to get me to like her, and it makes me uncomfortable. I also worry that N may also have a crush on me, which is not reciprocated and so I want her to move on in the case that’s true. Also, having other friends relatively recently show interest in me, it’s been such a weird change. I’ve worked on my garden so much that I attract all of these butterflies now, and I now have the (great?) problem of being worried that E may get anxious. I really hope I can be transparent enough that she feels comfortable and safe there. I can’t wait till she’s in my arms on Saturday, it’s going to be one of those nights where I don’t want to fall asleep but rather just stay conscious with her snuggled up to me.

Lots of updates, hoo boy.

I’ve been here since like 1 AM on a video call with E on Discord, while she’s hanging out with another friend. It’s a bit weird because I’m sometimes just sitting here while they have a separate conversation I’m not involved in. It’s a bit weird because I feel a bit awkward being here while not being directly part of the conversation. I’m tired, but I think I’m happy. I don’t know, I keep seeing things, and I wait for the hammer to drop, but I don’t think it does. I wonder if I am a jealous person. I don’t know how much is intentional or how much is natural. Is it normal for someone not to be jealous at all? I find that I have these little pulls in my chest when she mentions something about someone else, and even though I trust her and feel confident that nothing bad is happening, I get possessive almost. In a soft way, but it’s there. It’s such a weird thing to be in love.

It’s a stupid thing to be proud of but I got high with some friends, and I haven’t done this in forever because of my anxiety. But I wasn’t anxious! Even though things didn’t go great I was fine. That’s such a big relief honestly. One thing I remember was D and N kept talking about a dance video I had and how good it was, and N kept making suggestive comments and I kind of felt uncomfortable. Like to me because I was not wearing a shirt in that video (because I was drenched in sweat from three hours of trying to learn) it felt too slutty and weird. I ended up privating it just now because it feels too much like a thirst trap, and while part of me kind of did know it would be seemed like that, like I felt hot making the video, I feel really uncomfortable when IRL people remember and think of it. There are two outcomes that are terrifying to me for different reasons, one is they’re making fun of me and I’m doing something embarrassing and it’s something to laugh at. The other is they find it attractive and I’m afraid to even consider believing that because that’s both uncomfortable for a platonic friendship, and also then if I believe it if they are actually making fun of me I look even more like an idiot. It’s like an unstable Nash equilibrium, if I accept it as a compliment and they are meaning to complement it, then I’m fine. But if they change their action I end up with a really bad punishment. And I think I’m a pretty weird person and it’s kind of instilled in me that people don’t like weird, and so part of me feels like I’m not actually a friend but rather someone to poke fun at. But I think this is one of those unstable equilibriums where D is genuinely a friend. Because of that I don’t want to shy away and keep my guard up. I like hanging out with her and I’m grateful for her as a friend.

I know I’m struggling with a depressive episode right now so I don’t want to take any thoughts right now too seriously. But I’ve been struggling with feeling attractive or wanted while talking with E. At least physically. I give her a lot of praise and positive feedback which she eats up, and I’m genuine in giving it. But I’ve also told her a few times that I would really like to receive positive feedback, and especially proactively. And she acknowledges it, but it doesn’t ever really come. It feels like she often responds with something along the lines of she needs to spend more time with me. That combined with the fact she said that her attraction is shaped by knowing the person, I end up just feeling like she doesn’t find me that attractive right now. It feels like whenever I try to clear up this uncertainty it just gets worse, almost like she’s saying “heyyyy, stop asking questions you don’t want the answer to”. I think my depression is biasing me a lot, but I feel like I’m just consistently getting the feedback that I find her way hotter than she finds me. God I want to be wanted. I hate this feeling of almost begging for her to tell me if she finds me attractive, and then getting what ends up feeling like a consolation trophy back. It makes me angry in the way that thinly covers grief. I want to yell into nothing about how I AM hot now, and how lots of people find me attractive. I’m not ugly anymore, I’m not too small or skinny, I’m not fat either, and I look great because of this work I’ve put in. I’m worth wanting and lusting over finally, and it’s not a reflection on me that she doesn’t find me as hot as I wish she did. It sucks because I still have hope that she’s just not vocal about it the way I am. That hope sucks because then I have to keep fighting this thought. Or is it just easier to give in? What happens if I just believe that I’m not that hot to her? God it’s too explicit for me to try to ignore it. Time to do CBT, it’s too clear I should be doing that here.

Situation:

E isn’t proactive with her attraction to me, and I’ve brought up several times that I really value someone giving me those positive affirmations, especially proactively.

Thoughts:

She doesn’t find me attractive right now. Out of politeness she gives me consolation prize compliments when I beg, but since she hasn’t been proactive yet that’s evidence that she doesn’t find me that attractive.

Feelings:

Shame, disgust in myself, anger, grief, and I feel pathetic.

Behavior:

I make her less attractive in my mind because it would hurt too much to really care and value someone who I’m just a consolation prize to.

But a better thought would maybe be,

Thoughts: She just doesn’t show it over text remotely the way I am comfortable doing. I know a lot of people aren’t as good as me at going out of their way to say things for other people’s sake. She probably does find me attractive, just doesn’t think to express it in the way I want.

Feelings: I feel a bit sad, but more in an “aw man that’s a shame” kind of way. I feel still like my self image is intact, and it doesn’t hurt the same way.

Thoughts: Aw man, sucks but isn’t nearly as bad as depression wants me to believe.

Behavior: I probably talk with her a little about it so I don’t feel like it’s one sided, and then I’m fine waiting for things to change.

Man I’m happy every time I do cbt, I just wish I felt the urge to do it more when I should.