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.

Fragments from the train to Boston

“tomorrow is gonna be one of those mornings where you’re just walking around like ‘you have no fucking idea’”.

I want to go everywhere with her
Hold her hand kiss her neck claw at her back bite her lip
I want to melt into her, be enveloped in her arms, become as close as humanly possible

I have this habit of telling my significant others they’d be hot as a different gender and it always makes them kinda uncomfy lol whoops

Sometimes I think I’m gay, but by the time I try the label on myself, it feels so wrong and sad and limited so I know it’s wrong

Em said that’s the same way she knows she’s cis, despite not feeling comfortable with conventional femininity/gender roles, and questioning in the past. For her, femininity is uncomfortable, but claiming they/he feels more wrong. I guess in some ways it’s easier to know what you’re not.

T said if you’re questioning/unsure about your gender it’s probably ok to identify as not cis, since cis people typically don’t spend ages agonizing about what gender they are. This makes sense to me, but I’m cis so Idk I’m not trying to speak out of knowledge/personal experience. I guess I’m just trying to get a better understanding.

Gender is fucked anyway tho I know that much at least ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

She told me about how she told her doctor she was in a dark place and thought she needed help during her equivalent of junior year. He told her it’s normal for young women to feel bad during their time of the month, and to practice breathing exercises. She thought it was funny cuz coming out and saying it, she already felt like she was attention-seeking and like her emotions weren’t valid and he confirmed those fears in the worst possible way. Isn’t it cool how it’s so hard to be a teenage girl and then on top of that no one takes you seriously?

I went to see Fun Home with her on Broadway. I saw the actress who played Alison Bechdel on the way out, stared blankly at her. She said “hey”. I said “.......HEY!” and ran off. I didn't even ask for a picture or an autograph. Em and I laughed for ages

Sunday night I ate indian food and watched kpop videos for over an hour with A and M. Then Em and I watched anime and ate ice cream for the rest of the night.

I smoke weed with her, something I never saw myself doing. I don’t think I’d have any desire to do it without her, but I don’t dislike it as much as the first two times I smoked, or as much as I thought of myself disliking it, which has caused some cognitive dissonance. When it’s not good, it’s like I thought it would be, boring/mildly uncomfortable in the way it makes me feel like not myself. At it’s worst it made me feel like my heart was breaking. But when it’s good it just amplifies my feelings of love. I feel warm and comfortable all over, just so happy. She looks so beautiful and I can’t look directly at her, like staring at the sun. Touching her and being touched feels soft and electric, it goes on and on and on. Honestly, it feels like that already though, it's just to a whole other degree when we're high. There's a part of me that feels guilty for enjoying it so much.

Things I bought since turning 20: ~100$ worth of food, skin cream+essence, powder, calvin klein underwear, a book of shakespearean insults for my brother, a star map, a glass dildo, almond milk, mini wheats, rum, old spice deodorant, Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

"There’s a place I want to take you...
...I’ll go anywhere you want me to"

Update as of 2016: Em def isn't cis! Still incredible uncomfortable with traditional femininity, would prefer more masculine features, but not currently interested in changing pronouns/coming out/pursuing hormone therapy

Lol fuck my rapist for making me tell him I loved him after he raped me now I can't fucking say it when I mean it 5 fucking years later

"What are you thinking right now?"
"I hope I don't get pregnant"
"Don't you have anything to say?"
"Like what?"
"How about I love you?"
------------------------------
"Bye Loki"
"I love you too"
"No, I said "bye Loki""
"oh."
------------------------------
"I love you"
"Yeah."
------------------------------
"I liked your card because I could tell you really love me. I don't wanna say it now because I'm drunk and it wouldn't mean anything but for now, let's just say I really like you"
"I really fucking like you too"
------------------------------
"Bye, travel safe............"
"Yeah. See you soon."
FUCK

Lol

I spent so much time over this summer thinking abt Em. I obsessively replayed moments between us, the good and the bad. I was constantly worrying abt what we were, what we would be. I thought abt her so much and kinda exhausted myself w this obsession. That, plus the 3+ months that have past puts me in a place of relative ambivalence which is interesting? I used to get really excited with the thought of seeing her when I got back to school but now I don't really feel anything. I think this is a good thing, like I found my chill/got over myself. Or maybe I...stopped liking her? I mean better that I've been living my life than obsessing over her, right? Seeing her again should be interesting in any case. Maybe it'll all come rushing back. What'll I do if it doesn't?