An Open Letter

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.

I'm right now sitting on her bed while she's taking her contacts out. I helped her install a Minecraft client. A month has passed since we started being boyfriend girlfriend, and it hasn't felt like that in the best way possible. I actually feel like myself around her and I actively want to see her and I enjoy just being in her presence. Honestly I didn't think this was possible for myself, I kind of thought there was something so fundamentally wrong with me that I couldn't click the way I am right now. I guess I just want to say I'm grateful for that. I'm so lucky to have A.

Finally booked everything for Japan, and on advice from my therapist I asked if I could get first dibs on things in Japan because I planned everything. That was smart. Oh well, super tired. Gn!

I ended up driving the entire day to go pick up S from SD airport, and finally, we reached home. This feels surreal because it feels like he’s been with me so much, and since I feel so comfortable just in the same space as him. This is nice. I’m excited, tired, and anxious. Hooray!

S comes over tomorrow and stays with me for a few days before we leave to Japan! I'm kinda terrified because it's actually happening but I'm so excited to see him again. It's crazy he's my best friend and I've only been IRL with him once in 8 years. I'm so excited to see L and A again and also finally meet T irl! I just can't believe its happening.

This time I stayed up to finish the 3 days of questions I’d fallen behind on. I’m slowly relearning C++, but holy shit I have forgotten so much. I need to grade finals tomorrow, and I’m a bit worried because turns out I need to pick up S from San Diego, not LAX. Because of that I now need to leave at 9 in the morning, and that was supposed to be the morning I could spend with A, so we will have to sadly cut that short. I’m a bit stressed with everything if I’m being honest.

I bought Balatro today, and started watching prison break while playing. I looked at the clock and it’s almost 9 hours later. Jesus christ the rumors were true this game is crack.

I hear their voice and hearing them talk to people reminds me of how they talk to me. My first gut reaction is being upset, which I think is irrational and weird, hence why I'm writing this right now to try to peel that away. Might as well cut to the chase here.

Situation: I hear friend at their job speaking to others and hitting it off with co-workers, who are also friends to them.

Thoughts: I feel the scarcity of love, and it feels like it's a statement of me being replaced or not good enough to be a friend.

Feelings: I feel a strong tightness in my chest, and it's threatening to just bottle all of this feeling down until I don't want to go past here anymore.

Behavior: I fight a battle that doesn't exist and I just hurt myself.

Thoughts: For example A, I barely talk with him anymore but if I was able to get a job with him I'd be so fucking happy. Or if I had a weekly thing with him that'd be amazing. But I don't, and that doesn't have anything to do with him – I still love him. I'd rather make the most of the proximity that arises rather than be bitter and misinterpret the absences of it. Holy bar.

Feelings: I still feel a residual pain, but that's to be expected since this is a horribly longstanding scar that scarcity of love well attributes. I feel like I've taken off the weights I've placed on myself and covered up.

Behavior: I enjoy the time I have, and I fight circumstances to get closer to a healthy attachment style.

That actually helped a lot, thank you CBT. I texted A and purposefully just didn't text about anything in particular, just to talk. V has reminded me you can just is that. All right time to distract myself and reset before breakfast!