An Open Letter

Hey, big dog! I don’t know about you, but I just got out of sitting on the floor of the shower for like 45 minutes just talking to myself. I had this as a status yesterday, but I realized how anger sits next to fear. The more I processed and confronted my fear, I found my anger going away. There were several cool insights I had that I wanted to write about, but I guess might as well stay consistent and just vent again.

I found myself angry, but not at them. I believe in intentionalism, and while trying to understand their point of view, I don’t feel like there was any malice. All I really felt was ignorance and fear. I don’t think they meant to hurt me like this, and so I’m not upset at them at all. But I still do feel upset, and I was trying to figure out who or what I was so upset at.

I don’t think this is a serious issue, I wouldn’t even consider this a fight. But I did ask for some space until my therapy on Wednesday, and it turns out that’s 5 days, which I think is overkill. Part of me guiltily hopes that they feel bad and miss me as a friend, but another part of me also believes that they are fully fine and they aren’t thinking about this at all. I also partially want to give them some time so they don’t feel pressured, so I can know if they actually want to be friends or not – I’d rather be friends with someone who has to think about it for a bit and decides that they do want to be friends. Another reason was I wanted to show them (and myself) how I do not depend on them; I am incredibly resourceful and resilient. I will be okay without them – I only say this because I don’t want them to have the pressure of feeling like I depend on them for anything. I want them to know that I prefer and really want to interact with them and spend time with them, but if that can’t happen I’ll survive just fine.

I was sitting on the floor of the shower thinking about how I was catastrophizing about how they might tell me “Hey with this time to think, I think I’m happier without you. I don’t want to be friends anymore”. Writing this out gave me a huge compulsion to check the friend’s server we have to see if they for some reason left it. I will consciously choose to simply not to do that, the same way I told my friend today to consciously make the decision to fight their own compulsion (hi S!). But yeah, about that thought of fear: I started to think about how I am more or less giving myself exposure to the feeling of rejection and almost a breakup, and I was treating it as an exercise. I know pain like that will happen in life, and it might not necessarily happen in this case – but I might as well hurt a bit right now to understand better and prepare for it.

I’ll close this off as a friend has been waiting for me, but I really want to send a message to them saying “Hey, 5 days is a long time – just wanted to let you know I am not upset at you at all, it is not that serious”, but I think this is me being overly compassionate. This is something I would want, but there’s also a solid chance they are completely fine and not anxious or feeling bad about it at all. I think we are pretty different in that sense, they are a pretty “fuck it we ball” kind of person, so this is fairly likely. I’ll instead selfishly use this time to practice fighting this compulsion. Even if you don’t say it back, I love you

Hey. Shame this is the 20th post in a row of just journaling, might as well preface this a bit: this blog originally was more meant for thoughts and writing, but I’ve transitioned it into a place for me to vent and process things. I no longer recommend reading it, I’m not writing anything worth reading anymore other than my journaling.

I realized I’ve been feeling pretty miserable, and it’s been because I’ve been thinking about the catastrophe situation of the close friend saying “I don’t want to be close friends anymore”, or anything along those lines. I think any indication of the sentiment of ‘this level of intimacy is more than what I’d like’ terrifies me. Immediately I feel like I’ve opened myself up for display, and after seeing that they reject it. I like who I am, so I don’t feel the overwhelming urge to suppress who I am as a person – this could always just be attributed to incompatibility, but this idea makes me horribly sad. I really like the idea of being close with this person, as I feel comfortable around them. But the thought of it not being reciprocated, or not genuine makes it virtually worthless.

I had a compulsion to want to message them something to try to manipulate them or steer them in the direction of “Hey, I’m fine with whatever! Don’t flat-out reject me!” so I could preserve the hope that potentially the feelings are fully authentic. I realized however this was just another compulsion, and if I gave into this I would doubt myself nearly immediately if they actually wanted to be friends with me like that. I think I need to hold out until therapy (Wednesday) before I message them again. I’ve been writing down big thoughts I’ve had regarding this, today in traffic I noted the big distinction I put at the top of this, and also how I don’t want this to be a relationship where I have to second guess if they want to be the friends we are.

I feel almost nauseous because in my mind I can see a fairly realistic situation where they echo the sentiment of not wanting to be as close, and the worst part is I don’t think it’s because of any fault of my own. I think they aren’t comfortable opening up like that, and so they don’t feel they can keep up with how close I’d want to be. That feeling fucking sucks. I guess I probably should also think about the words and how I speak about this stuff, as I have a bad habit of speaking objectively without considering how the connotations might affect the message to the other person. I guess with this insight, I should ask what stuff they are fine talking/doing, and what stuff they aren’t.

I feel pretty shitty because there’s a good chance this friendship ends up being relatively surface-level. In an ideal world, I would want them to actually want to be close to me and want to be able to open up and know more vulnerable things about each other. The thing that sucks is this is something that should be out of my hands, it is up to them to decide if that is something they want. I obviously know what I prefer, but as sad as the idea of them not wanting to be close – the thought of wasting all of it on someone who doesn’t want that is worse.

It sucks because I feel unfortunately good at manipulation here. I think if I explicitly ask them “Do you want to be close friends”, there’s a decent chance they say no because of the connotation in their mind. But if I ask them “Do you want to get to know each other on more than a surface level” I think they would say yes. To me both of these are the same thing, but with drastically different outcomes. I don’t like having the burden of having to consciously choose this now, as it just feels like manipulation. Why couldn’t my mother have just been normal…

Situation: A close friend potentially might not want to be ‘close’, especially if I ask it like that.

Thoughts: I think that this is a rejection and that I am losing a friend.

Feelings: I feel like shit, and I feel alone and unloveable.

Behavior: I sabotage the relationship, and I end up losing a good friend.

OBJECTION! -

Thoughts: First of all, I need to acknowledge the semantics behind this – if I phrase it differently then I don’t think that outcome will happen, this isn’t manipulation this is the whole “maternal” thing I talked about in therapy.

That being said, I would rather rip the bandaid off and know what they want instead of half-assing it and constantly second-guessing it. It would for sure suck if they didn’t want to be close friends, but I’d rather know that than put them in an uncomfortable situation and also be in a relationship that isn’t honest.

If the person I know is them (which I trust them about), nothing drastically bad will change. It might suck a bit, but I think the practical worst-case scenario is not terrible. Just sucks, but not terrible.

Feelings: I feel better, as I realize I’ve been overreacting. I feel still anxious, but a normal amount, not the amount earlier. Also, the compulsion has somewhat become quieter.

Behavior: I take a huge step towards being a healthier person.

785 It's insane how consistently wrong my brain is, and that's a great thing because I sometimes hate my brain

Love you, look forward to Wednesday. You are stronger than compulsion Anshuman. ♥

Hey. It's 2:44 am and my laptops dead so I have to write this with my phone. I just got back from the rave, and am in the Airbnb with everyone else. At the rave they asked “does anyone here like Jojo(s bizarre adventure)”, and played a remix, and I wanted to send it to her. Later I opened my Instagram and saw a club showing it's members and one was named her name, accent and everything. Feels like the universe wants me to message you.

I've been thinking about it a decent amount, on one hand I realized how, for a lack of a better word, okay I would be if we weren't close friends, or friends. It would suck, and make me sad for a bit for sure, but I would be completely ok after some time. That made me feel happy, as I don't depend on you or rely on you.

I also realized I want to be close friends, but if you don't want that, the answers pretty clear; I don't want to be close with someone who doesn't want to be friends like that with me. I think I'll try to be clear and mention how that's an important thing for me – if we are to be friends I want to KNOW you want to. I absolutely hate the feeling of having to constantly second guess if you actually wanted to be friends like that. I never want to feel that again.

And a big thing I kept feeling was how I lost a lot of trust in you. I don't really know how I'm supposed to trust the things you say, when you've both lied to my face with no issues, and also said directly contradictory things to go your path of least resistance. I unfortunately understand why you're like this, which makes it hard for me to be mad at you – but it sucks you haven't realized some important things in life yet.

The thing that hurts me to think about is I don't know what you want going forwards. On one hand, I think it's pretty cruel and unnatural to purposefully be surface friends until you're back in person, and then more or less resume where we left off. But at the same time, I'm somewhat upset at myself for being so willing to jump through that hoop because of my fears of losing a good friend.

I'm pretty upset at myself for still thinking of you as a close friend, as I don't know what I'd do if you tell me you don't want to be close friends. I guess I'll live, but fuck that would hurt.

Hoo boy. So I had a pretty painful conversation with a close(?) friend. Turns out I wasn’t insane, and they have been pulling away for the last month or so. I feel pretty betrayed and hurt, to be honest, as I’ve been sitting here in this weird friendship limbo for the last month or so, all because they were too cowardly to bring it up. I’m pretty fucking sad/mad/hurt because I’ve been sitting around second-guessing myself trying to figure out what is going on, and thinking that it’s a me problem this whole time. Turns out I’m not insane, they’ve been pulling away and also been giving drastically mixed signals. They would both do very intimate things, and things to show we are close, while also neglecting and purposefully pushing towards surface-level interactions when I would try to treat them as a close friend. They have me all sorts of fucked up.

A lot of the issue stems from the fact they would make an assumption, which typically would result in the least amount of discomfort for them, and then based on that would end up hurting me much more. I hold some resentment here, as I think if they thought about it seriously and considered my point of view it would be pretty clear instead of them having a somewhat uncomfortable conversation once, I end up having to suffer and sit in this turmoil for over a month. I hate this so much, the same way I hate how my mother would refuse to acknowledge her problems and instead make me have to deal with that consequence.

My trust feels pretty broken to be honest, as I’ve spent all this time second-guessing what they say, and trying my best to take it at face value without reading into it. Turns out this whole time face value was a lie, and that ended up counteracting a lot of the work I’ve been doing on trying to unlearn painful patterns from childhood. That fucking sucks, I thought this relationship would be something safe and healthy but at no fault of my own turns out it’s been somewhat a lie.

I don’t think they really understand how they hurt me, as the closest apology they gave was an echoing of what they did, and saying “sorry”. I wish they would take a bit to try to empathize and understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of constant mixed signals and nearly exactly the whole ‘hot-and-cold’ manipulation technique. With them constantly oscillating between giving me the cold shoulder and then being intimate and warm, I end up feeling fucking horrible as I have no clue what’s going on. I wish they understood the consequences of their actions, as it fucking sucks.

So my immediate dilemma is I have no issues being open or vulnerable here, even with knowing certain people who read this. My issue is should I still talk about the things that directly involve said people? I think it’s near impossible for me to write with the context that there’s a sizeable chance they read it. I want to say as a person I have no issues being honest, but I think it’s incredibly uncommon for relationships to have that level of full one way transparent communication. I feel like that would negatively impact the people I interact with, as it would be pretty weird to both follow social norms of playing it cool, but then turn around and write about how meaningful a mundane interaction is to me.

In more ways than one, I watch myself turn into myself again and again and again and aga-

I feel like life ends up being a weirdly periodic cycle of asking for change, receiving the change, and regretting it. I basically begged to change this mindset, even considering electrocuting my brain recently – but now when faced with that possibility I feel horrible.

I was biking back from class, and I was thinking about how I genuinely believe no one reads this and the same about my status on Discord. I wanted so badly for people to acknowledge and read this stuff, but now when faced with the possible reality that people whom I wished for do, I feel bad? I don’t get it. Shouldn’t this be something happy, shouldn’t I go cry in a field and listen to sonder piano? I just don’t get it.

Why is it so comfortable to believe that no one cares about me, while also wishing for that to change? I sit here with a blank, as I don’t know what to just vomit onto this entry – I feel like I could talk about the realistic reasons (childhood, duh) or the romanticization of suicide, but I also don’t want to concern anyone as I am nowhere considering that as an option.

I guess I just don’t know why I feel bad about this. I would normally sit here throwing a pity party all for myself, all while harboring resentment I was too cowardly to bring up. But I still don’t even know if coward is the right word, as I feel like I don’t want to burden people with things I can maybe deal with on my own. It’s weird to think I’ve come full circle to the ‘toxic’ ideology of “bottle it up”.

I guess I could vent about how stupid I feel in hindsight, or I guess more angry regarding thoughts I’ve held. Anxiety would constantly remind me how even with one of the only people I’ve felt comfortable going out of my way to ask, they wouldn’t read this blog. I don’t know if that’s even true anymore, as they said they have read it all. I honestly don’t know how much I believe that, mostly due to the fact I can’t prove it, and how I can also come up with numerous “proofs” on why they’re lying to me, or other hurtful outcomes.

Maybe I am addicted to feeling miserable? Maybe I’ve had the potential to feel loved all this time, I just want to stay the same child trying to cry on the bathroom floor for all these years. What a miserable cycle, that always ends in the same place. God, I’m frustrated; I guess I don’t want a happy life bad enough.

Hi! I just got out of my therapy session, but I wanted to write down a couple of things I thought were worth notarizing today.

1. When facing compulsions for reassurance in relationships, ideally you want to reach the point where you can recognize “there probably is a reason, I just don’t know the reason. That’s fine, I’ll trust that there is an explanation”

For me, this was a consequence of the earlier this week small thread of posts about compulsion, and my insecurities around friendships. This made things click easier for me, as a big driving force for sending the message was wanting to know the specific reasoning behind the positive alternate thought I had. I hadn’t even considered the fact that I could just accept that there WAS a reason, without having to know what the reasoning was.

1. I have an (incorrect) belief that in heteronormative relationships, men have to be more aroused or interested in physical intimacy than women. This has been ingrained in me since I was young, so it feels ‘right’, but there are several counterpoints.

For starters, there’s no reason men should be more aroused or engaged than women, both men and women are human. There’s nothing causing men to be hornier than women, at least in every single case. But also, this belief is mostly due to media, as this is how it’s always portrayed in movies and shows. This is obviously a flawed thing to generalize to the real world, so it’s important to make that distinction.

1. At least for me specifically, in situations like the gym where I could possibly make someone else insecure, the proper way to handle it is by treating it like it’s not a big deal.

In being overly empathetic, and trying to avoid potential bad outcomes, this could end up making that happen. It becomes a problem if I try hiding the weights I’m doing, or if I try to dismiss or minimize any compliments I receive. The best way to handle it is to take it at face value and just accept the compliments. I can also just mention things about how I’ve been enjoying it a lot, or how it helps my mental health.

That’s it for now, I had a couple of others but I think it’s probably not appropriate to write them down here, at least now – so till next time! Cya ßig ♥

Heyo me. Today I had (for lack of a better term) a date. We watched Midsommar -which was fucking WEIRD, walked around for a while, and then got food and drove for a bit. We are are currently still texting, and things seem to have gone pretty well. There’s a decent amount of tea there but I wanted to comment on this from the lens of a cartoon a friend sent me.

This resonated incredibly hard, especially growing up when I wasn’t allowed to have or make friends. I had always told myself a relationship would be the end-all goal for me, as I would then never be alone again, or something like that. I have long since learned that this is flawed, but I’ve reached the point where I now want to pursue a relationship again. It’s not easy, and there’s been a lot of obstacles to it. But one by one I’ve been going through and surmounting them. I’ve been putting in a lot of effort, and I’m happy to start to see the results.

There’s a life I see myself being happy with, and I will work hard to make it mine.

Hey, I just got back from 2 hours of tennis and then a mile run/walk, and my entire body is on fire with pain. My tennis elbow is very badly flared up, at one point my hand wasn’t strong enough to keep holding my racket so it fell, so I would take turns playing left-handed when I could. After all that, however, I went out and took turns running until I couldn’t anymore because of pain, then walking until I was ready to run again. It wasn’t too far, but to me, it is a massive distance – given that 6 months ago I couldn’t run more than 15 steps before my leg pain was too much. Oh, and on top of this, I worked out for around an hour and a half earlier in the day and ran 0.55 miles nonstop after the workout.

While running, I was thinking about how I’m grateful for my upbringing being shit in a lot of aspects. Up till this year, I was at the bottom of my peers in strength, endurance, running, etc. I ended up deciding that I was going to change that, I went to physical therapy, started working out, and stayed incredibly strict on myself.

It’s been a bit over 6 months now, and I’ve gotten stretch marks on my body from how I’m gaining muscle too fast for my skin to keep up. I’ve had several people ask me if I’m on steroids, and fairly consistently get recognized as a gym-goer now. My squat/bench/deadlift total 765 lbs, and my goal is to hit 1000 lbs combined before a year.

I think I would be pretty naive to discount my genetics, as they probably are helping me out considerably – given my rate of improvement. But also I’ve been going to the gym 6 days a week, working out for roughly 1.5 hours, with minimal breaks. Then after that I run, stopping at the point of injury. Some days I have to sit down for a bit because my ankles hurt so much. I don’t skip any days, even when I’m violently depressed and barely have the energy to get out of bed. On my rest days (which I have to take), I go on a several-mile walk. I currently also have roughly 8-9 hours of sports (casual albeit) a week. Over the summer I was working at a summer camp, and I was active for 8 hours a day, and right after I would go work out then run. I would burn roughly 4-4.5k calories a day.

My point here is I have worked incredibly hard for the progress I’ve made. I think this work ethic is something I’ve built due to the lack of comfortable discomfort growing up.

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Comfortable discomfort is the term I use to describe when something is not where you want it to be, but not bad enough to the point where you would put in the effort to change it. For example, a relationship that is overall fairly good, but has some kinks you don’t like. Or a job that pays well, but is draining. Things like this suck but often don’t suck enough for you to actually change it.

In this sense, I’m somewhat grateful now how many things in my life were bad enough that I wanted to change them. My mental health was horrible, and that pushed me to give therapy my all. My body was weak, and that pushed me to become strong. I was not socialized enough, and that pushed me to take that into my own hands. I was not enough at school, and that pushed me to become incredibly good at it.

I’m glad how many things I’ve built with my own hands. I’ve worked incredibly hard for so many things in my life, and in a sense, I’m thankful for having a shitty childhood. At this point, I feel like fruits have started to grow from the tree I’ve been tending for years now. I’m glad I get to taste it’s juice now.

I’m honestly fairly tired, so I really don’t want to do CBT – but I probably should. With a close friend, turns out they hadn’t been following me on Instagram this whole time. This was the same friend who didn’t have my number saved for a while. I honestly don’t have reason to think they would do this intentionally, but it’s pretty ripe fodder for my insecurities to latch onto. I guess I can skip all the explaining and just get right into CBT tonight.

Situation: A close friend wasn’t following me on Instagram this whole time, and they were the one who didn’t have my contact saved on their phone.

Thoughts: I could think that they didn’t care about me as a friend and that I was not someone close to them.

Feelings: I would feel pretty shitty. I would feel like this whole time they’ve been putting on a facade, and that they aren’t really a friend.

Behavior: I would sabotage the relationship, and try to reinforce the idea that I am unloveable.

I’m going to take a second to do a quick grounding skill then continue.

Thoughts: In reality, they’ve been an amazing friend. They also are a flawed person, which is slightly unrelated here but something to remind myself of. People can have flaws and make mistakes without them being intentional or with bad intent. That being said, they forget things a lot – this is very likely another one of those things. Yeah it does kinda hurt, and that’s ok – that doesn’t have to equate to the relationship being bad. I think that’s an important distinction, so I’m going to reiterate that. It’s fine that I feel upset about it, but that doesn’t fundamentally change the fact that they are a great friend to me.

Feelings: I feel a bit sad, but not nearly as sad as the thought of them not wanting to be friends with me. I feel like I’m unlearning something toxic.

Behavior: I probably won’t bring it up to them, as I don’t know how well they’d handle the conversation – not for any bad reasons, I just don’t think they would say the proper things there. I can forgive and forget this, and I don’t end up sabotaging a great relationship.

Glad you ended up doing CBT. It’s funny how every time I don’t want to as I tell myself it’s not needed, or won’t help, and every time without fail it does. Thank you for all the work you do for me Karyios. Love you <3