An Open Letter

“Some days I’m Van Gogh’s Starry Night other days I’m his suicide letter.”

Instead of directly talking about the quote, I want to talk about something a bit tangential. I was talking with a friend and he mentioned stoicism. This led me to eventually think about if I could lead a life of indifference would I want that, or to live a life of a constant feeling of ‘fine’. The alternative for me was living in a way where I oscillate around that point, sometimes having amazing moments where I feel full of life, and sometimes feeling horribly depressed. I may be biased as my needle is somewhat biased towards life due to things I’ve done, but I decided I’d rather live a life like that. I could argue it’s to experience more or to truly appreciate the good moments. I know I’ve begged for a nice rainbow after the most subjugating storms – and I guess my reward in that has been for the exhilarating mundane. There are small things that fill me with boundless joy which is hard to describe with words.

Do you remember that feeling of a crush? Where life suddenly feels different – where you notice things you haven’t before, and you feel change in one of the best ways. You can picture everything going right, but at the same time it’s still change and it’s terrifying. That exhilaration is what I feel seeing a cloud lit up in contrast to the other darker clouds next to it. I feel that same feeling when I smell the faint taste of a full forest in a broken leaf from a tree. I feel that love and joy for life itself, in all these mundane things. I guess that’s my rainbow, my reward.

I’m happy to be alive. Today was pretty damn rough, I found out I wasn’t offered a TA position even though the professor had explicitly requested me, and that ruined my plan for my MS. I lost access to my savings account, with all the money I’ve saved working over the last several years. I was incredibly alone in my apartment trying my best to fight off depression, and I won again. I’m glad to be alive.

I guess some CBT couldn’t hurt:

Situation: Going up to a stranger at the gym and talking to them about something random, starting a conversation if they reciprocate, and eventually asking for their contact information.

Thoughts: Guaranteed to fail, and will ruin their day. I also couldn’t possibly get along or click with anyone I meet, so it’s pointless to even try. People cannot be into me, so I am doing them a favor by leaving them alone.

Feelings: Undesirable, lonely, hopeless, and dejected

Behavior: I stay alone, and reinforce my mental idea that people could not like me. Nothing changes, only gets worse.

Now with a bit more optimism/realism

Thoughts: There is virtually no harm in this. If you are respectful about it, then it just comes off as a compliment in the worst case. In the best case, you find the one! The people I click with the most now are people I never would have thought I got along with at all, so every person I see has the potential to be a key person in my life going forward. There is no harm, and everything to gain. Go for it lmao.

Feelings: Silly, I mean if I think about it objectively it’s just so worth it. This is a thought anxiety has planted in my brain, and it is irrational. I’ve lost time to anxiety and other things, so might as well stop losing more now. I feel good and hopeful.

Behavior: I go talk to people! I make new friends, potentially go on dates, and who knows – I might even find a great relationship or even the one! Life’s better.

I’m glad I did CBT, because I logically somewhat knew I should push myself to do this anyway, but wow it feels so much more intuitively correct now. I’m proud of you for sticking with this man, love you nVvious 💞.

I wonder how long my dad would wait, or if ever, to contact banks to get access to the money I have in my savings.

I wonder if online friends would ever find out.

I wonder how hash would handle it.

She once hit me in the lung so hard I fell down and couldn’t breathe. This was right before my tennis tryouts, and my mom saw it happen. She didn’t get in trouble.

She was older than me and would hit me or scratch me with her nails so hard I would bleed. I would get in trouble if I ever tried to defend myself because I was a man. She didn’t get in trouble.

She was in her third year of college. She forgot to pack a power bank and told me to give her mine. When I told her no and she stole it from my bag, she then threw the brick at my head, hard enough to damage the wall. My parents wouldn’t even scold her. Instead, my mom screamed at me and said she should just hang herself because I was begging them to tell her to stop. I left my phone and left the hotel at night in a foreign country, and went to lie down in the dark street so a car would hit me and I would die. My dad had to go searching for me to find me, and he told me he couldn’t tell my sister to stop, and asked me what I wanted him to even do.

I could fill a book with the cruelty I’ve endured at the hands of another person, and not a single sentence would be about a man. My mother would constantly remind me and treat me like a monster because I was born male. What she didn’t realize was I was just a child. I did nothing. Why did I deserve it?

Hey me. To be fully honest, I feel like shit right now. I just moved into my new apartment for the year, and anxiety has been making me its bitch. I started to write down a list of things going wrong, but I ended up deleting them because frankly, it isn’t that bad. I still feel like shit though. I walked around the field behind my apartment for a while trying to figure out some things, as maybe working on some issues of mine would help me to feel better. It sucks that time is the main cure here, and there’s not much I can do for a bit except just ride out the storm.

One thing I was working on today during a walk was a deep dive into an insecurity I’ve had since childhood. This was all spurred on by a close friend who mentioned how a D1 athlete asked them out, and how they were flattered. Honestly, even after processing things and trying to learn more about it it still kinda does feel bad, and that’s fully due to my own issues – not at all because of them. I also am glad they did mention it, I really do value that even though it stirs up insecurity on my end, as I get to better figure out issues I hold and I can start to address them.

Now that being said, one route I went down was on how I felt envious of her having people show interest in her. I know that it also is a disproportionate comparison, as she is a woman, and I am a man – and with heteronormative standards women are pursued, not the other way around. I guess that’s a good point to start some CBT with.

Situation: Female friend receiving attention from D1 male athlete, with them asking her out.

Thoughts: I am undesirable, as I have not been asked out like that. I am still the kid who people couldn’t be attracted to, and they were right all along.

Feelings: Miserable, hopeless, unattractive, lonely, pathetic, and ultimately like a piece of filth.

Behavior: Lose confidence, body image issues again, reject any potential for intimacy, isolate myself from people, and harbor resentment toward others.

Now without the tried and false thought pattern (haha):

Thoughts: There are several things to unpack here:

1. This was one example she mentioned – I have also been asked out by my ex-GF.

2. She is a woman, and in our heteronormative culture, men are not asked out. The fact that I WAS asked out should mean even more!

3. I only very recently had a huge glow-up, and so I haven’t even got to test out how that goes

4. I have had numerous people want to, and have sex with me due to my appearance and body – not my personality. That is quite literally someone finding me desirable

5. I am an Indian man at a very white school, she is a white woman. There is something to say there.

Feelings: I honestly feel pretty silly for believing such an irrational thought, just to continue the narrative of how I’m unloveable and untouchable. I don’t feel upset at myself for this, as I know why and I get how hard it is to break apart from something reinforced into you. But also, I feel better. I feel attractive and desired. I feel like I can be loved, which does feel weird – but in a nice way!

Behavior: I have more confidence, and I want to go and pursue people. I feel like I can genuinely be happy for friends having success in this category. I feel motivated and hopeful.

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Yeah scratch all of this, a friend of a friend who doesn’t know me immediately told me to kill myself because I’m a man. She then doubled down and said how it isn’t sexism to hate men, since men cannot be oppressed, and my friend laughed about it. I know I’m just too sensitive here, but tell that to the women (plural) who sexually abused me or the countless others who were unnecessarily cruel to me, leading to my eventual suicide attempts. Tell me again how I was the monster here like my mom always told me.

I'm pretty sure this was only verbally mentioned in an exurb1a video – but my recollection of the story goes like this:

A rich man goes to a priest to ask on advice on how to do good. The priest tells him to do charity, and expect nothing in return. After a while, the man comes back and mentions how he was going to do charity but had put his name on the donation, and as a result any good he did would be tainted by the desire for accolades, and asked the priest if he would ruin the good act. The priest replied how the people receiving the charity don't care about his intentions, and just care about the support, and told the man to do it anyway.

Does it matter if I have twisted intentions as long as at the end of the day I am kind?

I dropped off a invincible squeaky toy at a friend's house, for her dog who is notorious for demolishing squeakers. I wanted that to be today's act of kindness I didn't tell others about. Honestly I felt somewhat conflicted about writing about it here, and I ended up with the cope that no one reads this and so it's essentially just a journal to myself. That being said, you should have seen how funny it was! I left the toy on their doorstep and knocked and walked away. On it I had a paper saying it was for the dog. When he opened the door, he was so confused – he just went “Hello? What? Who's there? Huh?” and just stood outside for a few seconds trying to figure out what happened. He eventually took the toy in, and I really hope Sadie enjoys it.

I felt good doing something for no validation or reward. But at the same I realized how it was still performative. I mentally couldn't get rid of the thought of him telling her mom, who tells her, who figures out it's me. It feels like a kind act becomes a convoluted plot to get admiration or respect through proxy, all while seeming humble about it. I'd like to hope this outlandish plot doesn't unfold, as I want to be able to do nice things without there being an alterior motive. But damn, I want the reward.

I thought about this too, some things I wanted to start doing this year were things like taking care of gravestones of random people, and voulenteering at a place to help the homeless. A significant part of me wants to do these as part of my gentle protest, but at the same time a small part of me hopes it eventually gets revealed somehow and people recognize how “selfless” I am. It honestly feels pretty sickening to myself that I even think that, and even worse part of me wants to avoid doing it to avoid indulging into that weird fantasy.

It's the same weird feeling as donating to a charity anonymously. Even if I had the finances to be able to do that, the idea of having zero way to prove you did something nice feels bad to me. I love the idea of donating under an alias, but that's because eventually you could show the alias is you and cash in all those kind acts. I feel like this proves to me how corrupt I am. But that being said, I don't feel corrupt when I do my small acts of kindness, where I'm truly not expecting any sort of reward or recognition for it. My line on this is blurry, and I hope I can smudge it over time to the place I want it to be, as lord knows we could use more kindness.

I'd like to be a kind person, but sometimes I don't exactly get where I end and where who I want to be seen as begins.

I dropped off a invincible squeaky toy at a friend's house, for her dog who is notorious for demolishing squeakers. I wanted that to be today's act of kindness I didn't tell others about. Honestly I felt somewhat conflicted about writing about it here, and I ended up with the cope that no one reads this and so it's essentially just a journal to myself. That being said, you should have seen how funny it was! I left the toy on their doorstep and knocked and walked away. On it I had a paper saying it was for the dog. When he opened the door, he was so confused – he just went “Hello? What? Who's there? Huh?” and just stood outside for a few seconds trying to figure out what happened. He eventually took the toy in, and I really hope Sadie enjoys it.

I felt good doing something for no validation or reward. But at the same I realized how it was still performative. I mentally couldn't get rid of the thought of him telling her mom, who tells her, who figures out it's me. It feels like a kind act becomes a convoluted plot to get admiration or respect through proxy, all while seeming humble about it. I'd like to hope this outlandish plot doesn't unfold, as I want to be able to do nice things without there being an alterior motive. But damn, I want the reward.

I thought about this too, some things I wanted to start doing this year were things like taking care of gravestones of random people, and voulenteering at a place to help the homeless. A significant part of me wants to do these as part of my gentle protest, but at the same time a small part of me hopes it eventually gets revealed somehow and people recognize how “selfless” I am. It honestly feels pretty sickening to myself that I even think that, and even worse part of me wants to avoid doing it to avoid indulging into that weird fantasy.

It's the same weird feeling as donating to a charity anonymously. Even if I had the finances to be able to do that, the idea of having zero way to prove you did something nice feels bad to me. I love the idea of donating under an alias, but that's because eventually you could show the alias is you and cash in all those kind acts. I feel like this proves to me how corrupt I am. But that being said, I don't feel corrupt when I do my small acts of kindness, where I'm truly not expecting any sort of reward or recognition for it. My line on this is blurry, and I hope I can smudge it over time to the place I want it to be, as lord knows we could use more kindness.

I'd like to be a kind person, but sometimes I don't exactly get where I end and where who I want to be seen as begins.

Hey, so as a part of a new routine I’ve been doing, I try to journal every day – along with CBT. I think I might modify this routine as I think excessively doing CBT without a reason isn’t that helpful, so I’d rather save it for the bigger thoughts I actively struggle with rather than fabricating issues. That being said, I did want to talk a bit about body dysmorphia.

Thankfully mine is very mild, as it used to be very bad – mostly in part due to my childhood of parents pointing out flaws in my appearance due to a skin condition, and mentioning how people would think I’m diseased or sickly and not want to touch me or look at me. That’s a whole bag of worms, that I realized only in hindsight was incredibly damaging. Maybe the problems started then?

I know I would try to focus on certain aspects of my body that were desirable, and I would do pretty unhealthy things to try to build up confidence and self-esteem in my body which probably isn’t the best idea to publicly post here where people I know can read this, but either way I struggled with body image a solid amount. Eventually, things did get better – mostly in part due to therapy but also because I was mostly just avoiding the issue.

A few months ago I decided to try to work on my physical appearance, from stuff like skin care, working on my body, fixing my diet, hair styling, and my sense of style with clothes. I’ve overall been happy with the changes, but with that comes its problems. Specifically with the gym, I’ve had a drastic difference with my body – where I’ve had many people comment and compliment me on it, even with random strangers mentioning it.

The weird part for me has been how in my mind I haven’t changed at all. I look at myself in the mirror, and don’t get me wrong – I do like what I see to some extent. But I also look at older pictures of me and I see the same me. And in those pictures, I don’t feel as desirable. I still see the kid who was shamed for showing skin or told was a 2/10 by close friends. I see the kid who was told was untouchable by their best friend, who was also their crush coincidentally. Being compared for almost my entire life honestly did leave its scars.

I was working out today at the gym and took a picture to send to a girl who liked seeing my body. At the same time, I saw a larger Indian guy behind me who had great arms. I still see the scars of comparison egging me to tell myself that if someone is better than me, I have nothing worth being happy about. I try to give myself compassion and recognize how these thoughts aren’t mine, but rather that of my upbringing. Still sucks. Guess it’s time for CBT.

Situation: Working out at the gym, and seeing people with different body types and bigger muscles than me.

Thoughts: These people are just more desirable than me, and I won’t be able to catch up to them. Even if I can catch up to them, I should be ashamed of my body until I get to that point, as currently it is pathetic.

Feelings: I feel ashamed, small, insecure, and ultimately unattractive. I feel pretty dejected and I feel like giving up on trying to work on my body, as there are people so much better than me. I feel unhappy.

Behavior: I will hide the body I’ve worked on from people, and also become way more insecure about it. I may also stop working out at the gym, as it becomes a sad experience for me – or potentially turn to damaging PEDs to try to get a better physique.

Now for a better approach

Thoughts: Everyone has their strengths, and there are also tradeoffs. That being said, comparison is the thief of joy. If my body looks some way, seeing another body doesn’t change that at all. There also is an aspect of survivorship bias here, where a lot of the people showing muscle at the gym are people who have great muscles already, and consistently work for them. I only recently started, and I still have ways to go. There are several people who like my body, including me! I can be happy with my body while still working for a better one.

Feelings: In a weird way, I feel proud of myself. I think it’s both pride due to fighting against something I’ve known my entire life, but also pride for the body I’ve built by working hard for almost half a year now. I feel genuine happiness for people with other body types, while also feeling secure in my own journey. I feel attractive.

Behavior: I will keep going to the gym, and also be proud of the work I’ve done and the changes I’ve gotten as a reward. I stay committed to the gym as it is something that does wonders for my mental health, along with other things. I love my body, and I’m proud of the work I’ve done. I feel happy.

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Good fuckin yard, love you Karyios.

There is a group of friends I would hang out with a ton IRL, but over the summer everyone’s been spread apart. We were supposed to play overwatch together, but because of life happening we never did. Right now I see one of them playing overwatch, even though he normally doesn’t play overwatch. He isn’t responding to my messages, and he isn’t showing up on my friends list on the game. CBT time!!!

Situation: A friend wasn’t responding to messages, and playing the game we were supposed to play together as a group.

Thoughts: They are playing without me, they don’t consider me as a friend, and don’t actually enjoy playing games with me.

Feelings: Betrayed, alone, like a loser, and that I’m doomed to be alone.

Behavior: More insecure around them, less likely to reach out or ask to play, and second guess everything they mention to me because I believe they do not want to be around me.

Now to be a bit more practical -

Thoughts: He is maybe just playing with other friends, or wanted to try it out again.

Feelings: Calm, like nothing is unreasonable, secure with friendship.

Behavior: Less likely to be cringe and get upset over something reasonable, more likely to reach out and ask to play in the future, maybe strike up a small conversation. (He also did respond, and was just trying game again).

Man, it really is that easy. Just change. Love you as always racecar E>

Kinda quick, because I forgot yesterday but have been doing better anyway!

Situation: potentially drifting apart from friend

Thoughts: Don't want to lose it, don't know if I will get it again.

Feelings: feel afraid, alone, and anxious.

Behavior: will be way more insecure around friend, will try to force it to not leave. Will not enjoy moment.

And for better:

Thoughts: enjoy the experiences I had with them, I will have more, maybe with them and maybe not.

Feelings: more in the moment, peaceful, less dependent.

Behavior: more independent, and so more secure. Not going to push person away by being clingy! Also more happy and more present.