I've never been shy about sharing the fact that I have always been mentally ill. That's not to be confused with the fact that it isn't fun to be mentally ill. Dare I say? It's a wretched experience, and I would have never chosen this for myself, let alone choose it for someone else. Of course, mental illness is not a choice, because if it was, again, I would not have chosen it, especially to the extent with which it altered my life.
When I think back to my childhood, I can pinpoint exact moments where I was having panic attacks or anxiety attacks. Ironically, it wasn't until middle school that I heard the term anxiety related to me, or rather, related to what was "wrong" with me. I put that in quotes because I have been learning to not view my illnesses as something that is wrong with me, rather, something that is different about me. Anxiety in itself is very unique despite its commonality.
In my early years, anxiety manifested itself in me via stomach aches and a general sense of wondering if everyone else felt the same way I did. Spoiler alert, they did not. Who knew?! Now, as much as I would love for this to serve as an outlet for my anxiety troubles of the past and use it as exposition, I do fear that I have enough self awareness to recognize that the anxiety I faced as a child was not solely related to a chemical imbalance in my silly little brain. And those other factors, while important, are best explored with my therapist first. They also… don't totally relate to the point I want to make with this post.
So, what is the point? For some, the title would allude to the fact that I'm "better" now, at least in some capacity. And, if I'm being honest, I wouldn't argue with that statement. I think the phrasing of it is often difficult, as I would hardly say I am healed, with an emphasis on it being something in the past, but I am also not the same person I was last year. And thank goodness for that.
My final year of high school was hardly one that I look back on with fond memories. Don't get me wrong, my years of middle school were far worse, but after three incredible years of high school prior, my senior year felt very annoyingly unpleasant. I lost all of my friends (let it be known that I am aware that people come and go, and it is hardly in my best effort to continue yearning for those relationships when they weren't healthy for me then), and I lost some family in more permanent senses. I dropped out of high school. Kind of. I did online work. Somewhere along the line, my unmedicated and unmanaged anxiety disorder went, as I like to call it, doki doki panic. No relation to the game. Believe me, it was hardly as fun as Mario 2.
Fast forward to 2020. The Covid Years. In terms of what it did for me… I originally pegged the years as something that was the best for me - everybody was staying inside and everyone was just as anxious as I was. Well… I sure as shit thought they were! The lockdowns gave me a chance to continue my education online without it being as burdensome as it was previously. More importantly, the lockdowns enabled me to ignore my mental illness and the damage it was doing to me. And I use the word enable in a very negative connotation.
There was a period in 2022/2023 where I didn't leave my home for 132 days straight. It wasn't that I was counting the days… Life360 was. Oddly, it wasn't a wakeup call. It was something I was proud of. Until I wasn't. In early June of 2023, I ended up in the Emergency Room. Twice. Within the same week. The first time, on a Tuesday, I went because I thought I was having a heart attack. I wasn't. I was just anxious.
Now, before I continue, let's address something. I was in and out of doctors and hospitals as a child for a lot of things. So many times, I was told that nothing was wrong with me, and that I was just fat, anxious, and born female. However, both of those turned out to be true! Turns out, I can be a fat anxious afab person and also have chronic illnesses and disabilities. Wow! But, with the scenarios I'm going to discuss moving forward, there was a clear difference. Yes, there were physical symptoms of my intense anxiety, but they were anxiety. Anxiety doesn't cause dislocated bones… my hEDS does. You get me?
Anyway. I went back to the hospital on Friday of that same week. This time? I had a collapsed lung and I couldn't breathe and I was going to die. I had worn two necklaces every day of my life, one which came into my life in 5th grade and the other given to me when my grandfather passed. I had never taken them off. In this moment, though? I felt like they were suffocating me. I took them off. In actuality? I was having an anxiety attack. I had just become so accustomed to being in a constant state of anxiety and fight or flight that my body had overloaded itself and was fighting back. I had always been a hypochondriac before then as well, which clearly didn't help. Thousands of dollars in unpaid medical bills and 2 days later, I went to the clinic in hopes of getting a prescription for anti-anxiety medication. Up until that point, I had been vehemently against being medicated. Oddly, it wasn't because of general social stigma, but rather, the scary stories my family told me. Keep in mind, my family has never been medicated for any of their mental illnesses.
I got a prescription for Lexapro, and I rode that high for all of three days. I can sit here now and say that I feel like I didn't set myself up for success with that, spending hours obsessing over the side effects, which absolutely made them worse when they came. But at the same time, I cannot deny the severe, scary and sudden onset of suicidality, which is something I hadn't dealt with in about a decade. That was enough for me to quit Lexapro after three days. But, I didn't give up. I was so desperate to feel anything other than constant panic that at that point, I was willing to try every single SSRI on earth if it meant one day I'd feel better. I lucked out, though, meeting my psychiatrist, who I owe everything to. She treated me like a person, and was fair with me, while also not letting me cop out of things. She worked with my fears and sensory issues, cultivating a treatment plan in my own hands where I started super small and worked up in doses, all in liquid form because I've never been able to swallow a pill. And when I say small… lord, do I mean tiny.
The dose I started on was… are you ready for this? 20 drops. Imagine 20 drops of water. In those 20 drops, there was a total of 4mG. Obviously, that was not enough for me to get balanced. I knew that, and she knew that. But still, she let me start there. I was on that for a week. Over the course of a month, I worked up to taking 10mG, a whole 50 drops!! I thought that was a crazy amount. Still, it wasn't enough. I was feeling better for sure, but not better enough. So then, over a week I graduated up to 20mG, which was 100 drops! 5 times the amount I started!! Insane! I felt great for the month I stuck to 20! But… still not right. Then, I took another week to get up to 30mG. 150 total drops… or, up to the top line of the drawing of the spray on my Invader Zim shot glass, which I take my meds out of now, daily. I have been on 30mG for almost 200 days. 196, to be exact, at the time I'm writing this. And now, here we are, on the third page of my ramblings, where I am barely getting to the point.
I wish I could say something other than "I woke up one day and everything felt different," because I don't want that to be an expectation about medication. I struggled a lot with trying to figure out if it had worked, when it would, what I would feel like, etc. It's different for everyone. For me, I can remember waking up one day feeling different. It felt like I could conquer the world, I could do anything. But not in the same way it felt when I had manic phases. It felt free and in my hands. I didn't do much with that feeling, though. I knew myself enough to know that if I dove in head first and failed, which was inevitable, I would quit trying altogether for a very long time. So, I was gracious with myself. The 150 of the last 200 days have just been me doing small bursts of exposure therapy via going to the grocery store, over and over again until things felt right. It started with going to a store that was simply down the road from where I live. Then, it was going to stores a little further away. Eventually, stores on the other side of town. Then, wandering off in the store alone, knowing my family was only a few steps away. Then, I graduated to being in the mall by myself with my family at the shopping plaza across the street.
A few weeks ago, I went to the dentist. I have not been to a dentist in over 10 years. I went in alone, I was alone, and I was okay. Yet, my family was in the car waiting for me outside. I was so incredibly lucky, too, to have the people that worked there be people who were willing to work with my anxiety and make small accommodations for me to feel safe and okay.
A week ago, I went to the doctor's office. It was just meant to be a general kind of check in. I love my doctor, she's a wonderful, kind woman. She told me that I was due for a pap smear, my tetanus shot, and my HPV shot. On top of that, I had asked to get labs done in order to get some stuff checked out for my own piece of mind as well as at the request of my psychiatrist. I was given several chances to say no to anything; we talked it through, she asked, she asked, and she asked again. Yet, I said yes. To all of it. I didn't feel pressured to. I wanted to get it done. Now, let's not confuse that with excitement, I was hardly excited to be spread eagle in front of a resident as well as my PCP, but it wasn't bad. If I had to, I could do it again as often as weekly. Thank God that that's not the case. I got my pap, I got my shots, I got my bloodwork. I got a sick ass bruise from the lab work too!
A few days ago, I put the rubber to the road, literally and figuratively. I've been working on getting comfortable driving again, as I had stopped driving the same time I stopped leaving the house. I didn't forget how to drive, but I wasn't comfortable doing it. Over time, I got a little better. Thursday, I put my necklaces back on. I got in my car. I drove myself to the movie theater. I saw Shrek 2. I was completely alone for the entire experience. Was my anxiety going doki doki panic? Yeah, kinda! I was shaking when I was putting my press-on nails on. My teeth chattered as I walked out to my car and switched into my driving shoes. But the second I turned the car on and took a deep breath, it all came rushing back to me. I was okay. I drove myself happily. No anxiety. I wobbled across the parking lot in too-tall heeled sandals and made it to my movie… a little late. I walked in in the middle of the Despicable Me 4 preview. It wasn't a packed screening, but I wasn't alone either. Well, I was, but I wasn't. Then, the movie ended. I hobbled out, went to the bathroom, and realized I had just conquered so many fears of mine. I've never been to a movie alone, even in my "good times" growing up. I walked out of the bathroom and allowed myself to sit and take photobooth photos alone - another fear of mine. Well, fear is a bit strongly worded, I have nothing to be scared of in that sense, but rather, I worry about being judged. But, God. It felt incredible. I felt like everything I ever wanted in life was mine. Is mine. I took my silly model shots (which I am obsessed with, if I may add), and then I got in my car and drove myself home. End of story.
Am I healed? Not by a long shot. I still get anxious. I still have moments where I feel like I can't do anything. There are absolutely days where I would rather lay in my bed all day and relish in that safety and comfort. But there are other days, so many other days that I am okay. I am better. I am healing. I am growing. I am becoming the 23 year old I want to be, even if that changes from day to day. Last week I wanted to be a cowgirl, and so I was. I got all dolled up as a cowgirl. Thursday, I wanted to dress the way I would have if I was 23 in 2004 going to see Shrek 2. So I did. And y'know what? Nobody cared. Not in a bad way, but in the way that I am not the target of the world. Nobody was out to get me. Only I was out to get me. Nobody cared that I couldn't walk that well in my 4 inch platform sandals. Nobody cared that I was driving 3 miles under the speed limit sometimes and 7 over at other times. Don't do that, though. Nobody around me knew or cared that I had spent 132 consecutive days in my home. Nobody around me knew or cared that I went to the emergency room a year ago. All they knew and all they cared about was that I was there. Now, that isn't to diminish my story or lessen the value of it, by any means. Rather, it is solely to explain that the things I spent days, weeks, YEARS of my life worrying about… didn't matter.
I''m 23 years old. I can do whatever I want. And if there's anything to really take away from this, it's that I've earned that. It's taken me 23 long years to get here, and a lot of that was bad. A lot of it was unmedicated. A lot of it was wrong. But, through all 23 of those years, I've healed from some things and grew from other things, even if there were other things happening. Now, I'm 23. I've grown and healed from 5 lost years of agoraphobia and anxiety. Next year? I might have to heal from dropping out of community college and the things that come with that. But for now? I'm excited for my next adventures. As of the time I'm writing this, I'm planning on going to the gym and starting to take care of myself in that sense. I'm planning on taking myself thrifting without the cloud of judgment from my mother following me. I'm planning to just go with the flow, knowing I've drowned before but still surfaced.
BIG HEAVY SIGHHHHH
I'm struggling a lot with labels in every aspect of my life right now and it's manifesting itself in places I wish it didnttttt this sucks ass and a half!! When it comes to my website specifically tho (bc I try to keep my personal stuff in the pawed-cast) I'm really stuck on that stupid ass label "Y2K". For one, I don't believe in that as a label or as an aesthetic (which opens the door to my hatred of aesthetics and societal pressure to fit into one and all that jazz), and for another, even if I were to like it and want to fit into it, it comes down to the fact that true "Y2K websites" were not polished and minimalistic and visually appealing for the world, but rather, visually appealing for the webmaster. And in my journey of struggling with labels, I'm also struggling with labeling myself as a webmaster because when I think about my next theme and stuff in general, it is all... easy? but visually like... what I want to see without worrying about it being "social media pretty".
Really, the culprit of all of my conflicting feeligns right now is social media... hate that nasty bitch!
And no, not in the sense of "anti-aging" skincare products and how stupid those are, or in a weird, dreadfully existential way like questioning the point of life (though rest assured, that has been sitting in the back of my mind for what feels like eons). Actually, I'm not even sure what I mean. At the time of writing this, I'm three and a half hours away from being 23 years old in my timezone. I'm already 23 depending on where you are.
I mentioned in my StatusCafe that 23 feels the exact same as 22 but not at all the same as 18 and that's what got me thinking about writing this. To be fair, when I turned 18 it was… not the best day of my life, if I'm honest. I was at what rock bottom was for that time. (Lord, how much farther I could fall!). Looking back on my 18th birthday, I remember very little, and I think I'm okay with that. But I can also, with confidence, say that turning 23 feels so different. Now, that isn't to say that I'm going to watch the clock change from 11:59 to 12:00am and be a completely different person. Believe me, I let go of that expectation a long time ago. But, I am different.
The last few weeks, I've been talking with my therapist about what adulthood is and what it's supposed to feel like. Spoiler alert, there are no answers to those questions. When I turned 18, I was legally an adult in the United States. I could purchase cigarettes (at the time) and I did so just for the thrill of it. I could vote. I was recognized as a legal adult. But I still felt like I was 14. When I turned 21, I sat at home and watched a movie. Still, I could legally buy alcohol. I feel like I was putting a lot of pressure on those "milestones" as determining factors of adulthood. Perhaps the reason I don't feel like an adult is because none of those milestones applied to me.
I grew up in a rough neighborhood. Not one where I had to fear for my life growing up (ironically, that fear came well into my late teen years!), but one where it was clear that, for lack of better words, the struggle was real. Every single girl I went to elementary school with now has at least one child. Most of them had their first in their early teen years. This isn't judgment, though, I saw how things were and how their lives played out, and it would be hypocritical for me to cast judgment on them knowing that I became subservient to my own environment. It is, however, an observation.
I'm a lesbian. I'm asexual. I'm madly in love with my girlfriend who I refer to as my wife because I want to spend the rest of my life with them. I have known from the youngest of ages that I never wanted children. That only became more apparent as my then untreated mental illnesses ran my life into the ground on several occasions. That hasn't changed for me. Well, it has and it hasn't. Emotionally, I'm in a place where I think it would be stellar to have a child. Not right now, by any means, but one day. And one day, maybe the following will change. I cannot have a child. Not in the physical sense, though that terrifies me as well, but in the sense that given my genetics, both physical and mental, and how I deal with the world, I don't know that I would be a very good parent. And as a child who deserved so much better than what I got, I can't continue the cycle and deprive a child of that, too.
Those same girls were or are addicts and alcoholics. Again, not a judgment, just an observation. I have my own addictions, and it isn't a contest of who's worse off. We're all fucked. But in regards to my earlier point of smoking and drinking, even in the non-addiction sense, they met those markers before we were even allowed to get our learner's permits. That doesn't make them adults, that makes them 14 year olds with addictions. Not to say that addiction in itself is a marker of adulthood either, but rather, I've seen the "gateway" so to speak as a marker for my whole life. Well, at least until my naivety wore off and I realized that I was the odd one out not engaging in all those behaviors.
So where does that leave me in terms of milestones and markers of adulthood? Wanting children certainly can't mark that, because while my mind has changed to wanting a child, that doesn't make me feel more adult. My dislike for the taste of alcohol coupled with my fear of its interactions with my meds certainly doesn't make me less of an adult than any of my peers who like to have a drink every now and again. Smoking wouldn't make me an adult. My own mother smokes and there are times I look at her with bewilderment at the fact that she, too, is an adult. Turning 18, 21, hell, even 23 doesn't make me an adult. Mentally, at least. And for me, at the very least. It's taken me a long time to get comfortable with the idea of aging in ways that aren't what I expected.
When I was 9 or so, I watched my neighbor's teen daughter in amazement (and perhaps… unrealized homosexuality) because she was everything that a teenager was to me at that time. She did her makeup and straightened her hair and read books and had a phone and a purse. When I turned 13, I did my makeup and straightened my hair and read books and had a phone and a purse, but I didn't feel like what I envisioned she felt like. I didn't embody that aura that she had. I felt like a 10 year old in makeup with straight hair and a book in my hand. Not to say that I was pretending to be into reading and all that, because I was, but it still felt like I was acting, if that makes sense. Yet, at the same time, due to some stuff that doesn't really need to be revisited or spoken about on the internet, especially in my safe corner, I was being treated like an adult by a lot of people without my best interest at heart. 13 felt the same as 12 but not at all the same as 8.
When I turned 15 and went off to high school, I had never felt more like a child in my life. I still was a child, actually. I still played with dolls, though I was too old to trick-or-treat. I still covered my walls with posters and drawings, but I insisted on wearing the skimpiest clothing I could find. I couldn't skip class and leave campus because that was breaking the rules and I was a good little girl, but I could absolutely skip a pep-assembly by sitting on the bathroom floor because that's what rebels did. Turning 15 felt the same as turning 14 but so different from turning 13.
And then, I turned 18. We come full circle. I spent my 18th birthday alone, walking around Target and then going home. Empty handed at that. Turning 18 felt the same as turning 15, but so different from turning 13. I was given more freedom from the world and seen as someone who was ready to make decisions that determined the rest of my life. It seemed as though my peers were ready for that. Hell, even stalking through their social medias (although completely falsified, I know), makes it seem like they got it right. I dropped out of high school with one semester left and finished online. I enrolled in community college late, going back on my promise to take a break because I got bored of not doing arithmetic. I dropped out of community college.
I turned 21 a year after I quit my job at the library. I enrolled in university. Things were going great and for a while there, it felt like I had maybe caught up to my peers. God, how stupid of me to think so. Despite only being 2 years ago… I don't know. If I looked at my 21 year old self right now, I would recognize them, painfully well, but they wouldn't me. I'm not the same person I was at 21. I don't know if I'm a good person, necessarily. I'd like to think I am. Or at least, trying to be. I'm better, though. Mentally… I've hit the absolute bottom (or what I hope is the bottom) and I've climbed my way back up. I'm still climbing. I'm still catching up. And while I give myself grace for that most of the time, I'm sitting here watching the clock countdown to midnight and wondering what comes next. Am I supposed to wake up tomorrow knowing? No. Obviously not. To quote one of my favourite movies, "I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it." Though, I don't know if that's true for me. It's more along the lines of saying, "I often give others very good advice but I very seldom mirror it." There's a lot of things I still have to work through, both personally and with my therapist as to why I can't mirror it, but what matters right now is that at least I'm aware of it. Self awareness, the dark mistress praying for my downfall… how she's won many times but desperately begs for more now that I no longer allow it.
So I'm 23. I have a Bachelor's degree. I'm a scientist. I'm madly in love with the person I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with. I'm terrified of a death I once yearned for, so much so that I prayed to Gods I'm not sure even existed, or cared to hear my prayers if they did. I indulge in "childish" things. I'm dependent on medication. I'm having to re-learn how to be a person after I lost myself. I'm 23 years old. And I don't have a fucking clue what that means, what comes next, and when I'll feel like an adult. But the fact that I made it far enough to see 23 means that I did something right along the way, even if I didn't know it at the moment. So maybe that's just it. Maybe I'll never see the moment and I'll look back in some time and realize that I did something right. Which means I am doing something right. And that's all I can ever really ask of myself, right?
woof. that was a lot. LOL. I didn't plan on writing so much, I really did intend for it to be somethinng that goes here, but... oh well. I really like how it came out. I miss writing for pleasure like that. I'm excited to get back to it.
YKNOW WHATS SO FUNNY THO... I intended to write something short so it could go here because I was saving my long ramble to be about season 1 of greys anatomy because I'm gonna start rewatching soon so I can talk about it but here we are. LOL! 20 seasons worth of a grey's anatomy rewatch WILL be coming soon though. Imagine Mike's Mic's Glee video but 90 times longer and about "the white woman's one piece" as my friend called it when I mentioned I was watching it. Anyway. It's m'birthday. Cool beans.
A few weeks ago, when I was in therapy, I brought up how I was told that I was selfish for the majority of my life. This statement took them by surprise a little bit because we were talking about how, as a child, I was deemed selfish for having needs. The silly thing is, all children have needs!
One of the things they said to me that stuck with me a lot is that selfishness is only valid if it includes a gain for someone that causes a detriment for someone else. And so, as a child, gaining the meeting of my needs is not something that causes a detriment to others, and if it does, that isn't my fault. I am not the first nor the last child to have a need. And yet, I find it incredibly difficult to ask for anything because the very idea of asking for something is selfish.
And while I can sit and agree that perhaps asking for extravagant items while being ignorant to the economic state of the world during my childhood may not have been a stress relieving activity, I can sit here and know that it wasn't selfish. It wasn't a need, it was a want. And of course, we don't always get what we want.
I wanted to talk about this today because something peculiar happened earlier. My neighbor has a child who was born the same day I was. I pity her and I do pray that middle school treats her much more kindly than it did me, as having an April Fool's birthday was a very easy target for the mean girls of my era. I digress.
For the first time in many years, I blew out candles on my birthday. This is because said neighbor and her children brought me a cake and flowers and sang to me and let me blow out candles. It felt foreign to me, but I really did enjoy it. It's a fond memory I have now. As a result, I agreed that it would be a nice idea to get the girls something in return, partially as a birthday gift for the older one, but also a little treat for the younger one; I was an only child, yet I am all too familiar with the concept of being left out of things. And so, we went to Target to get some goodies. Begrudgingly, I put the $80 lego set back on the shelf, because my mother was right - I would buy it, build it, and then it would gather dust on the shelf. $80 is a lot of money to spend on a dust-covered decoration. It was a cute set though - a lego technic set of the sun and the earth and its rotational pattern. I've always loved science. Once more, though, I digress.
As we walked through the store, I tossed a mere four things in the cart: a mini brand ball, $5.99. A Kerroppi stationary set. Another few dollars. A hello kitty blind bag. Finally, a tin of mints that I had been buying as import items from Korea for the last few years. $2.99. We walked to the self-checkout, and while I was hardly bouncing in my steps, it was still a nice day, all things considered in the morning. And yet, when we get there, my mother fills her arms with $50 worth of things for the girls, leaving my four items in the cart. Confused, I asked about it. She said, "Oh, I thought you were buying them for yourself. I'll buy them for you for your birthday, though, if you want." My birthday has passed. She didn't get me anything for my birthday to begin with. I paid for dinner. I bought my own gifts.
It upset me, clearly. Now, I'm not one to cause a scene in public. I have anxiety as it is, lest I draw more attention to myself by being the 23 year old crying over a tin of mints. I sit here, typing this, still upset. Bitter, rather. I've been labeled as jealous and selfish. I disagree. I am not jealous that the neighbor's children are getting gifts from my mother. I'm hurt that she will go above and beyond for others but has abandoned me for the better part of my life. Perhaps it's because I wasn't the child she wanted. She's tried her best to shape me into what it was she wanted me to be - a clone of her, with anger issues, a carefree attitude and violence in tow, masqueraded as fearlessness and a desire to party. Yet, I ended up the anxious, homosexual academic overachiever. There's a part of me that fears that she holds a grudge against me for becoming my own person which is completely opposite of what she wanted. It is selfish of me to be my own person.
But, it isn't. Ironically, a skill I've mastered is being able to logically work my way out of things, thought-wise. I say ironically, because that same part of my brain spent the better part of my life malfunctioning and telling me that every given moment that I feel even a little off, I'm having a medical emergency, or if I didn't do something right the first time, a catastrophic event would happen to me. The latest of which? If I don't turn my humidifier on before 1am, an airplane will crash into my room. But what I mean by logically working my way out of things, interestingly, is that I find a way to justify things, even if they aren't necessarily true. For example - it is indeed selfish of me to ask for a tin of mints because I'm making the situation about me and not about giving to others. I've been given everything I could ever want growing up - a roof over my head, food in my tummy, and a bed to sleep in. How selfish could I be, asking for a treat when I am undeserving of it!?
Which brings us full circle, I suppose. Who is to say I am undeserving of a tin of mints? Who determines that I am undeserving of being celebrated, for big and small things? I earned my Bachelor's degree. That is something worth being celebrated and praised for. I lived another year. In my mind, that is also something worth praising. Yet, here I sit, with 3 less dollars in my bank account because I wanted some mints. It isn't about the mints. It's about the idea of selfishness. It's about how I have been given the burden of making sure that my mother's happiness is constant and above my own. It is about being told that the emotional burden I pose by forcing my mother to parent me - to act on the choices she made - is selfish as it is causing her a detriment, emotionally. But the emotional burden I carry of being, well, a burden? Is selfish because it is all about me. I am no stranger to the knowledge that I grew up an only child. I grew up with the privilege of not having to share things or people or holidays. I am painfully aware that I got what I wanted from my grandparents - they spoiled me rotten. But I am also old enough to know that we all make our own choices. My grandparents chose to buy me things and treat me like a princess. My mother chose to have me. I chose to be the person I am today, and I will likely choose to change over time to be whoever it is that I want to be at any point in the future.
Therapy has done wonders for me, and I have come to many conclusions about many things, but something that I'm presently working on that I felt was worth sharing was that I am not a selfish individual. I do not ask for things with the knowledge or assumption that it will come at a detriment to others. I do not take pleasure in causing problems to others with my needs and wants. I am a person who is allowed to want and need things. It is not selfish of me to make choices that are my own. It is not selfish of me to simply exist. I am not selfish.
i am so frustrated FDSHJKFDSKJL i thought i set myself up for easy updates on this page bc like... it seemed like it... my code is SO fucked at this point. none of my uls have li tags ?? but if i put them in it looks wrong but if i leave them out it looks right but also wtf is going on bc that is NOT how code should look...
god i dont even know anymore fhajdksf I don't want to redo my entire code cos i actually really like how this looks for once and i feel like... who cares anyway cos its mostly for me anyway but like DAMN man... its always something!!!
I'm writing this with the intention of it being a puppy chow entry because I feel like I don't have a lot to say, but that's always how it starts and then suddenly I'm several thousands of words deep. I also feel like I get a lot more serious and like… professional? When I end up writing pawed-casts which I really like, but I dunno… we will see where this ends up.
So, I dropped out of community college last week. I feel… conflicted. That feels like the right word. I already have a Bachelor's degree (which I am beyond proud of), so why do I need an Associates? I don't, really. And it also doesn't make much sense to go backwards like that either, if I'm being honest. Five years in uni just to go back and do two more years to get an associates of general education? To each their own, but that feels counterproductive to me and I'm finally seeing that. I also think that the whole reason I enrolled in community college in the first place was because I wasn't ready to let go of being in school.
I'm in a very privileged position where I'm not being pressured to get a job out of necessity, and for that I am very grateful. However, I feel like there's always been this societal pressure on me to follow that very crafted path in life. It's funny, though, because when that path was first presented to me, I was in the fifth grade, and I wanted to be a biomedical engineer. I didn't have a clue what those words really entailed, but it made the adults around me ooh and ahh… which I adored hearing. I loved praise. I love praise.
Ironically, I found myself in middle school the next year and any dreams I had past the age of 14 were nonexistent. I won't delve more into that, it was sad and dark time in my life, and I've worked very hard to move past it, so there's no need to re-live it just to prove a point. What felt like several eons later, I found myself in high school, and things were looking up again. Yay! I joined theatre because… of course I did. What else does a semi-closeted queer person do in high school, if not join theatre and/or band? I was not graced with the ability to learn an instrument (shoutout to my aging viola gathering dust in the back of my closet…) but I was graced with the ability to run the tech department like the Navy. Well… not that bad, but I like to think of myself as the sole tech department… I was, for the most part. Not only did it come naturally to me because of my fondness for technology (which, sans Python, I can learn just about anything overnight), but I also had so much fun. I loved doing it. And it was at that point where I seriously considered a career, nay, a total life path in theatre. I looked at going to art schools, I looked into jobs for techies… needless to say, though, as my high school theatre career came to a close, so did my dreams of pursuing it forevermore. Don't get me wrong, I would love to do it still, but I am also painfully aware of reality in this moment.
And so, I found myself in community college for the first time after I graduated high school. I sat and I thought to myself about what I was good at and what I liked doing. I've been told that those are the two ingredients for finding a purpose in life. I must admit, I have never really dreamed of employment. I still don't. Then again, I'm not really sure what I dream of, right now at least. I didn't finish community college the first time. I transferred to a university and worked for a year in the public library. Then I quit my job to "focus on school," when really… it was because my unmedicated anxiety had manifested itself in a fun, new experience - derealization and depersonalization. If I'm being honest, too? I feel like watching Bo Burnham's Inside triggered that for me. I'm okay now, though!
Anyways, I "focused on school" and I actually did finish. I graduated this past December with my Bachelor's of Applied Sciences… I'm a scientist!! I guess the little fifth grade version of me wasn't too far off with their ambitions. But here I am, April 8th, 2024. I had two months left of this semester, but I dropped my last class last week. It wasn't that I didn't like the class or that I was doing poorly in it like the first few classes I dropped. I was the only student acing it! I love math! But, when taking a good look at where I am in life right now? I was less in love. I'm 23 years old. I have never in my life taken a summer off of school. The longest breaks I got from school were the mandated ones in spring and winter. And even then, those drove me batty because I felt like I needed to be doing something at all times. Something academic, that is.
I've always been good at school. I could count to infinity if I wanted to from my first day in kindergarten. In first grade I could tell you the entire history of the terracotta soldiers. In second grade, I was reading Twilight. I should not have been reading Twilight. In third grade, I was already doing long division for fun. By fourth grade, my teachers didn't know what to do with me because I was doing work for sixth graders, but given my emotional needs that weren't being met, I wasn't allowed to skip grades. Thank God, too. If middle school was as hard as it was for me when I went at the same age as my peers, imagine how much worse it would have been if I was the only 9 year old. I digress. In fifth grade, I had a lot of free time, which I filled with listening to classical music and realizing I was a lesbian. I look back on those times very fondly.
Every summer that came and went, I was reading or doing worksheets and having a grand time. I wasn't necessarily robbed of a childhood, I would say. Not by academia, at least. That's an issue for my therapist and I to unpack, though. Middle school and high school were the same; my summers were full of summer homework which I tried to prolong when I finished within the first week. And then came graduation. I said I would take a semester off. I lasted two weeks. That summer following my high school graduation, I helped other children with their summer homework, so I wasn't really free then either. Despite starting late, I kept going. And I kept going. And then? Five years gone in the blink of an eye. I have a degree. What now?
I couldn't let go of school. I still don't think I have, honestly. I have dropped out of community college, yes. Yet, I find myself yearning for algebraic equations and worksheets. It's what I knew. It's what I've excelled at for my entire life. Now, I sit in a position to figure out what my life entails next, or rather, at all. I have to figure out who I am, and not cling to who I was. I was the poster child for excelling in school. That can't be my identity forever. There are only a few things that I've carried with myself that ring true to who I am: I'm a lesbian, I am genderfluid, I'm great at writing essays, I am incredible at math. I love writing. I like reading. That's it. Who am I outside of school? I think that's what I have to figure out now. Dropping out gives me the chance to do that, but I am oddly terrified to take the plunge and do nothing for a while.
I don't want a job right now. I don't want one ever, but we all know how that goes. I am beyond fortunate enough to be in a position where I'm not in need of one right now. So what do I do??? Wrapping my head around the idea of doing nothing is… kind of terrifying, honestly. I've played a lot of Stardew lately. I'm learning how to make maps on Hammer.exe. I'm trying to be the person I imagined myself as when I was a child, and learning to adjust that to my unique situations.
So I've dropped out of community college. And I'm terrified. I'm excited. I'm losing my mind. I'm drowning in boredom. I'm living, I think. And I think that might be enough for me to keep going and figure it out, even if it takes me forever and I never figure it out at all. College in any capacity isn't for everyone. It was everything for me. Now it isn't. What is? Hell if I know… but I suppose that's the beauty of where I am in life now. Time to find out. And of course, two thousand (or so) words later… here we are. Another Pawed-Cast entry… but I had a good time writing it… so instead of changing it to be what I want… I'll adapt. That's what I'll do. Here. Now. Tomorrow. Next week. For however long it takes me until it isn't an adjustment and just life.
