A Thought Train; Monday, 7th August 2023

Just a head’s up: This writing isn’t likely to be funny, happy, upbeat, or in a voice that has gotten past these things and doesn’t feel down about them anymore. I can’t write in a voice that has ‘come through, learned, and triumphed’ over them because I am still in learning and growing stages about SO much of myself. If you’re looking for a balanced, super grown and awesome writing about growth, this is not it. This is a… poking under the surface thought train of a woman trying to come to terms with herself, her past, her present, and the future she is trying to reach for herself. If that’s okay with you, then grab some tea or something hot to drink before you read. It will hug you as I cry.

Some may find it lame, but I occasionally like to watch silly reaction videos on YouTube. (Will link some of my favorite channels for this stuff at the end.) Sometimes we need to laugh at the crazy things around the internet, and sometimes it’s cathartic to see all the cringe out there. However, I have been noticing lately, as I’ve taken some time for myself away from social media and Twitch, that some of these videos seem to be more like a mirror for me in different ways. As some memes or posts get reacted to, I can find myself in a position where I shrink inside as I see pieces of myself from years past, watching the behaviours that I may not have gone full bore into but was still at the edge of at one time. At the moment, as I write this, I find myself fighting tears. I hate so much of what I have been… So much of what I fear I still am. I hate it so damn much.

Self Love is an incredibly difficult path for me because I, essentially, grew up learning how to hate myself simply because I just couldn’t be what everyone wanted me to be, what I was supposed to be at any given moment from early childhood on. #ForeverTheAnnoyingSibling #ForeverTheWeirdGirl (Good GAWD there’s so much trauma… *sad sigh*) And in much of that, learning how to connect with others like normal people do just… didn’t really happen. Not to excuse any of the cringe I have exuded from birth on (or to blame anyone), but to try to bring a perspective as to why I have been what I was and maybe still am, even if I don’t want to see it. Yes, I realize everyone is cringey now and then, but I have this internal thing in my head that keeps telling me that I am the worst and don’t deserve to have forgiveness for it. Isn’t that sad? Although I don’t really regret any of it (I mean… It’s not like I can change the past and take it back, so there is no real sense in regretting anything), I do feel horrible about it all. But does that even matter?

At the moment, it kills me that my lack of abilities in the interpersonal arena could destroy my future. I mean… Do we not live in a world right now where any awful or cringe thing you do or have ever done means you get torn down without any hope of rebirth? I am so scared that, with all I am trying to do for myself, the future I am trying to curate (which, as fucking annoying as it is, is largely in the public eye), someone will come out and try to expose me for something cringe, toxic, and/or misguided I did at some point in my life and work to destroy any success I manage to manifest. It doesn’t seem to matter how small something might be, people tear you down and tear you apart anyway for being human. As if they have never hurt anyone. As if they have never been horrible in a moment in time. As if their shit doesn’t stink.

There is so much I am learning about myself and why I am the way I am, why I did some of the things I did, trying to understand what was happening when I was going through those pieces of my life, and more. I am trying so hard to process, grieve, and grow through it and redeem myself, but will it even matter if people decide I don’t deserve it because of what I was at one time or things I’ve done that aren’t me anymore? Will I ever be able to crawl out of this deep-as-all-fuck emotional hole I am in because I couldn’t be and will never be a Superhuman?

Most of all, I am so ripped up inside right now thinking of all the hurt and discomfort I have caused from birth on, knowing the pain and cringe I have caused people, especially the ones I love (even the things I don’t know I did). I know I am the villain in some people’s stories, and there is nothing I can really do to change that. But I do wish that the so-called villains in mine knew that they aren’t really villains in any chapter because I can’t help but see the trauma and issues in them that brought it all on. I don’t think I ever really knew how to hate anyone but myself. I honestly still don’t.

My heart just aches so much right now because I want so much to make all I have wrecked better. To heal any wounds and trauma I may have caused. I quell the anger that I’ve provoked. To tell those I have loved and love so deeply that I am sorry. To explain…To talk it out. To set things right. But I am scared, and I know that the chances I will get to are likely so slim it’s all a sliver lost under my skin for the rest of my life.

Now… You know what’s even harder than that for me? Acknowledging that maybe I am not as horrible as I think I am, and that everything bad or negative that has ever happened isn’t all my fault. That sometimes it was both me and the other person/people involved as a collective, or maybe it wasn’t me at all. That even those awful bits of me from my past and in my present don’t cancel out my worthiness to be respected and loved. That my lack of ability to be what some think I should doesn’t mean I am undeserving of love, respect, and success on my own terms. That I shouldn’t dim my light to make myself more acceptable to others.

For lack of a better way to put it:

This shit is difficult as fuck to do, more so than the rest I wrote about.

Perhaps one day I will find my way, even in the face of all of these fears.

Perhaps one day I will finally manage to untether myself and

break this stuffy, rusty cage and run to my future.

Okay. I think I’m ready to leave this thought train now.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be posting this publicly. Perhaps it’s a stupid idea to put myself out there like this. But then… Why not? Maybe someone will care. My sharing could reach someone who needed to know they weren’t alone in these feels, right? It’s more likely that this writing will die in the void of the internet without an eyeball to see it, and I accept that. In complete honesty, though… I really hope a particular someone sees this and can accept my apology.