Overdue Update

Last time I wrote was about a year and a half ago so I figured it’s time for a brief update. I graduated in December. I was pretty depressed and anxious. I went off to Malaysia after I graduated with 2 of my best friends from college who had been with me since the first day. I stopped taking my meds while I was there.

I was diagnosed with ADHD somewhere in there, which explained so so much of my entire life, struggling so hard in school and never being able to quite make it, being completely paralyzed with fear when faced with large assignments that required my full focus, feeling stupid and lazy and worthless. It feels a little too late, since it came once I was finished with school, but it’s good to be able to name the thing I’ve been struggling with all these years and realize it’s not just a personality defect.

I got married. It’s been almost a year since me and Em signed the paperwork, self uniting in holy matrimony. They got into a PhD program in York, England and we didn’t want to break up. We got married to make getting a visa easier. I had mixed feelings about it for sure, and it didn’t help that my mom treated it like a huge deal even though I didn’t necessarily see it that way. I messed up as well because I didn’t tell my sister. But she found out anyway. I still regret that even though she’s forgiven me. Even though it was a difficult decision because it is a big commitment, I’ve come to appreciate and cherish it. I recently told Em that even if our worst fear came true and we had to divorce, I would have no regrets about getting married because moving here and being married to Em has made me so happy. Our relationship is stronger than ever now, and it especially helps that we won’t have to be long distance for an extended period ever again.

I got a job. After I graduated, I was in such a state of flux because it was unclear where I would be in the next few months. Em hadn’t graduated yet and they were only just starting to apply for jobs. A lead I had branching off a first semester internship fell through after the woman I had worked for left me hanging completely after saying there was work I could do with her. I wasn’t able to really begin applying anywhere due to all the uncertainty. I worked as a barista. In the summer I applied for the visa and worked as a server. The visa went through and I was so relieved. Being here with no job was excruciating. I would wait in the flat all day for Em to come home. I would plan to go to the gym but put it off hour after hour, hating myself more and more. Finally, I got a call back from the University (where Em studies) accepting me into the temp pool. That temp job pulled me out of a dark place. It gave me structure, a way to occupy my time and stabilize my financial situation. I started actually going to the gym because I now had a concrete routine instead of endless hours stretching ahead of me. I started planning my meals, incorporating healthy foods rather than just eating what felt comforting. I felt more confident and capable. The temp position turned into a direct appointment, which came with a nice raise (though I still don’t make much). It’s just an admin job, but I’m happy to be there for now, and hope I can move on in time to something better.

I’m pretty lonely. I made some friends at a queer woman/gender group, one of which I’ve gotten very close to, though unfortunately she’s moving to London soon. I couldn’t keep up going to this group though, even though I’m pretty lonely and isolated (as I think many recent graduates are) it is really more of a support group and I found it very emotionally draining at times. I’m happiest when I meet up with other cool, well-adjusted young people, but I’m really struggling to meet and befriend people like that. My work is full of middle aged women. I have never ever really had any hobbies, so it feels hard to join any sort of club.

So where I’m at now: Less depressed/anxious than before. Married. Ex-pat? Happy with my job, but also it’s boring. Exercising regularly. Wish I had more friends.

I should probably find a therapist here.

Hope you are all well

the apartment smells like piss

because whenever the next door neighbors throw a party, some bros pee in the back stairwell instead of walking literally 1 foot out the door to pee in the goddamn grass or something.

I’m depressed still, and more anxious than I’ve ever been before, they say the meds should kick in around the first week of november and to watch out in case I stop sleeping because that means mania and that means bipolar but it’s ok i can just stop taking the pills that I want to help me and go back to normal

I’m sleeping at night and in the daytime because when I get too anxious or bored the only thing I feel like I can do is go to sleep

I feel like she doesn’t want to hang out with me right now and that makes me sad I guess that we can’t just spend time alone together

I need to get a hobby or something, damn.

I want to apply for this fellowship but I’m too scared to ask for a letter of recommendation or write the application or send it in

I guess I am a perfectionist because I avoid new things out of fear of not being good enough and I don’t try out of fear of failing

I love myself too sometimes and I’m really really trying but it’s really hard and I feel so isolated and bored and fearful so much of the time

I wish I had a more positive way to end this post. I'm working on it.

Run on sentences

I’m pretty depressed right now. And anxious, because how could you have one without the other? I didn’t have a job or internship at the start of the summer, and I spent the end of my last semester seriously stressed out and trying super hard to find something and ultimately failing. And coming home not having anything to do felt really fucked up in a way I’ve been feeling on and off since the end of Sophomore year of college. And then I got this job (a place that rhymes with “fuck and punny”) and I thought it would fix the sadness that came with unstructured time and feeling like a failure for not holding down a job. But of course, that’s not how depression works and it turns out that working as a server is actually as hard as everyone says it is. And it’s bringing in stress and bad feelings and sadness in new ways I hadn’t anticipated. And all this time I keep thinking that I’m just bad at coping with stuff or I’m lazy or whatever reason that this sadness is entirely of my own making or that it’s what i deserve. And I need to remind myself that it’s possible that maybe my brain just isn’t working the way it’s meant to? I’m seeing a psychiatrist in two weeks. My mom recently told me that when I was 9 she put me on antidepressants (first of all, wtf) and they made me act crazy. This is relevant because when her father died and she went on antidepressants, she became manic and discovered she had bipolar disorder, which she’s been coping with all her life. So it scares me a little to move towards a path of medication. JK, it scares me a lot. What if it uncovers this latent disease that I’ll then have to cope with on top of being depressed. And that’s to add on to all the normal anxiety that comes with considering medication for depression. But overall, I’m sick of being in pain and hating myself and feeling like there’s something really wrong and broken deep inside of me that will eventually cause everyone I love to leave me. Yikes.

Long update: study abroad, growing up, growing pains, moving forward

I’ve been waiting to write here again since about halfway through study abroad. Every time I tried to write though, it was too much, too sad, too whiny. I always wanted to just sit and type, but nothing seemed to come out right. Even now, my writing just feels rambly, but I feel like It’s more important to get my feelings out there than create some sort of nice, well-written “piece” tied up nicely with a happy ending. Anyway, I had a really hard time in Spain. At the start I felt great, traveling around, taking easy classes with the program, getting to know the people on it. But once classes at the university started, I got super depressed. I was living alone with an older woman. She was amazing, and I feel lucky I got to meet her and live with her, but I wasn’t used to living in such a solitary way. I’d lived with my family before or at school surrounded by friends. I didn’t do well being alone for so much of the day, especially since I’m not very good at actively planning my alone time. I started to feel like a failure whenever I was alone, just wasting time and feeling miserable. I didn’t take time to plan things for myself that I could enjoy so I just would scroll through the internet aimlessly, forgetting to eat until I was so hungry I felt sick. I also began to feel super paranoid about my social interactions with the people on my program, thinking I was acting weird and everyone could tell and they thought I was weird. Just this kind of social anxiety I’d never encountered before. This was all combined with my struggles being in a long-distance relationship. It was hard for me to be apart from my gf, since she’s not always great at reaching out/letting me know she cares when we’re not physically together. I found my classes stressful, and felt bad that I didn’t know anyone in the class. Days went by with me eating (sometimes hardly anything), going to class, coming home, sleeping, and feeling worse and worse.

Eventually I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. Everything was all too much. I got to a point where I felt desperate and wrong and broken. Like no one loved me or would ever love me again. Like I would never feel ok again. Just depressed. I had felt this way a bit during the end of my last semester and also over the summer, but this was different. Then, I felt stressed from school, my job over the summer wasn’t super rewarding, and I didn’t have any friends there. But Spain was supposed to be fun. I was actually really enjoying parts of it, and I didn’t feel like there was anything actually wrong. But there I was, super depressed. And that made me feel even worse, like I wasn’t allowed to feel sad on this super amazing experience. It was so traumatic and draining and difficult, and I just wasn’t really in a place where I had the support I needed. So, eventually, I sought out a therapist.

She was able to help me kind of unpack everything that was going on. I was able to realize that just because the people on my program weren’t bad people, and they were nice enough, doesn’t mean that they were the kind of people I actually like hanging out with, and the short time we had together also prevented any actual deep connection from forming. I misread these small factors as something being deeply wrong with me. I felt that I couldn’t make friends or that there was something wrong with me for feeling bad in the larger group, when really I just need a few people with who I can have a really deep connection, and without that, I start to feel really alienated and weird and anxious. I was also able to realize that I had been making myself feel bad for the fact that my gf wasn’t giving me the attention/care I needed. I would make excuses for why she was ignoring me or not talking to me, saying she was just busy or very stressed, then when we did talked, I got upset at her when she said nothing was wrong, because if nothing was wrong, why didn’t she want to talk to me? I was able to talk to her though, and she was really receptive, especially because she knew it was a problem she had had in the past. I felt bad for not realizing it sooner, and punishing myself for feeling sad that I needed her more than she needed me, but really, I had to realize that I deserve to have someone who talks to me and checks up on me and makes me feel loved and wanted. And it’s ok to ask for that from your partner. It’s funny, because in my past relationship, I was so good about asking and telling and demanding what I needed, but because I was in a situation where I already felt incapable of being alone, I interpreted this as just another way in which I was fucked up, asking too much, being too weak and needy. I had to realize for myself that what I needed wasn’t asking too much. It’s reasonable. It’s necessary. That realization felt really powerful to me.

The funniest thing my therapist ever said to me is that in my life, all I want is a building where all my friends and family live in the same place, my gf and I share an apartment, and everyone I’ve ever loved is just a short walk away. But this building doesn’t exist, my life will never work out that way. I’ve gone to school 6 hours from where I live, made friends from all over the world, my gf’s family lives across the ocean, and many of my friends from home have plans for the future that will take them far, far away. So moving forward, for me, it’s important to put my energy into the friendships that make me feel happy and not waste time trying to get everyone to like me.

I’m still unsure of where to go from here. I know I still have a long way to go before I’m 100% ok, especially since being aware of things is only a small portion of actually getting better. I broke down when I was in paris about to go to my gf’s house for christmas. I got really really upset over a small thing, I still carried the insecurity I had about our relationship that I had built up over a semester of being apart from her, even now that we were together again. I apologized for getting upset, saying I hadn’t been feeling myself. I began to sob heavily when I tried to think back to the last time I felt like myself and realized it was before I even went abroad. I guess after that, I felt like I could start to leave behind everything that had made me unhappy abroad. With her family, I could just relax. I could be myself and be with her and not have to impress or make friends or feel like I was being judged. She was physically there and I was reminded of how much she loved me every morning when we woke up next to each other. I felt safe. And now I’m home, I’m with my family, I can try to see some of you. I’ll go back to school and see the friends I’ve made there. But I feel like this whole experience has left me torn open. I know it was important to learn these things about myself. To try to listen to what I need and give it to myself. To treat myself with kindness. To put work into the friendships that matter to me. To ask for the things that I need. But I still hate how weak it made me feel, how powerless and utterly alone I felt. And I have to be careful to try to avoid going to that place again, but also, if I find myself there, to be kind and patient with myself, the way I would be with any friend who was going through a hard time.

5 years

This march was the 5 year anniversary of my sexual assault. At fifteen, it happened at an incredibly formative time in my life, a time that is already so hard. At that age, there's so much work to be done to be ok with being a person, with becoming yourself. There's so much stress and self-hatred even for those of us who manage to magically escape trauma free. But when you throw that trauma into the mix, there's so much more work that needs to be done in order to be able to love yourself and accept the person you are as valid and worthy of love. I had meant to make a post here a month or two ago talking about how far I had come since then. I've genuinely grown so much as a person. I went from being a sad and broken girl who hated herself to a confident and happy woman. I have so much love in my life and a bright future, and I'm genuinely happy with myself and my life. I'll never forget the moment my senior year when my father told me, after a very rough time in my life, that he was glad to see me so happy again. But trauma isn't something that leaves you, despite time and distance and hard work.

He sent me a friend request on facebook today. I saw the name on my screen and immediately began to sob uncontrollably. I had no idea who to go to, my gf was taking an exam, and so I had to decide between seeking out someone who knew about my trauma but who might not be free or someone who I'd have to tell my whole story to. I'm thankful that that someone was there for me, she's one of my good friends who luckily lives right upstairs from me. She made me tea and held my hand while I cried and listened to my story with compassion. After I was able to stop crying, all I felt was intense anger. How dare he. After 5 fucking years, after all the work I've done to heal, he's lived his life free of consequence. He likely doesn't realize the upheaval he caused in my life, the pain, the isolation he caused me. I blamed myself for over a year for what he did. I felt worthless and alone and broken. And he thinks he has the right to my life after all this time. He is nobody, an insignificant man, but with this simple action he made me feel powerless and small again. I feel such intense hatred and a deep, deep sadness. When he had sex with me after I told him I didn't want it, he killed a part of me. Another part of me died again while we sat in silence and he made me tell him that I loved him. And today, by seeking me out, and having the audacity to try and connect with me without awareness of how I'd already died, he killed me a little bit more.

Warning: gross lovey feelings

I scared Em the other night when I told her that she was probably never going to be in a place with as many queer girls or as few cis men again after she graduated. It really is special being here, especially as a queer person. Just the knowledge of my own queer relationship combined with the existence of at least 4 queer relationships I’m aware of between people in my year (In my year!) is enough to make me smile.

She said I had a kindness that is rare. She said I was perhaps the most well-adjusted person she’s ever met.

We went to the farmers market and bought a huge loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese and apple butter and raw honey. We sat on the floor and listened to the Beatles w/out being concerned abt how cheesy it was. We cut the bread into huge slabs and covered it in butter and the cheese and the apple butter and drank wine and were just so so so happy

The snowstorm was the most snow she's seen in her life, we spent the day together playing in it, pushing each other into it, sledding, and drinking hot chocolate. The next day we walked into town to get sushi, it's not the best sushi in the world, but in the moment it was perfect.

We went to reading terminal market and stared at all the food on display, then to chinatown for almond bubble tea and hand pulled noodles

I like sitting in my room on Sundays with her, letting the light come in through my window, working on our own homework.

Writing this, I'm realizing food and sex are the pillars of our relationship.

She smokes and I don’t and it’s ok, we still have a really nice time together.

9 months between summer+study abroad is a long time to not see her in person. 9 months. That’s terrifying. I could conceive+give birth in that time. What the fuck.

I had been thinking about the idea of some kind of open relationship while abroad. She brought up the same idea to me the other day. Something about not wanting to miss out on the "full experience" or whatever the fuck. Idk. It’s a while away. Like yeah it makes sense and it’s what we both want so why does it make me feel kinda ehhhhhh?

I know how stupid this sounds but I honestly don’t want to ever stop spending time with her.

When I see her future, she’s working at a physics lab somewhere discovering how to harness fusion energy or whatever she talks about really excitedly to me that just goes straight over my head. I see myself graduating and moving back in with my parents. Like, she possesses an ability to deal with working towards her future that I’ve never been able to do without freaking out and shutting down. She applied to a large number of American universities/colleges from a school where there wasn’t a college counselor, where classmates are currently married with children. She’s applied to physics internships all over the world. I’m not doing any of the things I’m meant to be doing to prepare for my future. What the fuck even is a cities major. I just have a lot of trouble imagining a happy future apart from the context of other people. Like happiness is living somewhere nice close to my friends. Also, like, I know how harmful and Bad it is but god, when I think about my future happiness, I just think about her. Idk, it’s all just scary. I think everyone’s scared about the future at this point in their lives. Just so much uncertainty. I'm trying to remember to stay in the present.

Maybe more to come. Stay tuned.

Don't do drugs kids

So I've been talking about weed with people irl since I got out of school for break. I had smoked w Em a handful of times. At the best, it makes intimacy really intense. Beyond that though, I usually find it to be relatively boring, it makes me feel kinda slow and dumb, not necessarily in a bad way, but I don't particularly like myself when I'm like that. At the worst, like the last time I smoked with her, I got too high, and felt a deep sadness for about 30 minutes and just was crying for no reason. I was feeling kinda eh about weed in general, and like I wanted to distance myself from it, especially based on my own moral compass. But also I felt bad for feeling that way because Em really likes to smoke and it's something I wanted to be able to share with her. Over break though, I reflected + talked to my therapist about it, and began to kinda get over the moral part. I kinda thought of it more like alcohol, something I would do with her every once in a while as something fun. Getting back to school was great. I was so happy to see her after break, I didn't stop smiling for hours. On sunday evening, she asked if I wanted to smoke w her and a friend, and I said yes, thinking it would be fun. I guess I smoked too much again or maybe I just reacted badly to this type of weed but it was worse than any negative experience I'd ever had smoking before. I felt very intense, specific emotions with no basis. I felt as though I had lost a loved one. I felt a deep discomfort within my body. I saw her face distort into something unrecognizable. Each of these waves of emotion came and went like a rollercoaster, but the worst was the fear. I felt extreme terror, like something awful was coming for me. I just remember sobbing loudly, while Em had no idea what to do and just tried to talk me out of it. The fact that I could have been made to feel such extreme emotions for no reason really freaked me out afterwards, and made me question my own emotional reality. I feel bad because it was so scary and upsetting. I feel bad for making Em worry so much about me, and feel that fear of not knowing what to do. I feel bad because I was so ready to have smoking be a nice, fun thing for us to do together but now the thought of smoking again makes me so scared. I feel bad because I haven't really been myself since and I'm a tiny bit scared that after that night, something broke inside me and I'm going to be depressed/anxious/terrified forever.