Growing Is Shit

 As many bad days begin, I feel like it has been a while since it has gotten to this level. I've begun writing again in my journal, here and there, whenever I feel like I have the capacity for it. Or if writing it out somewhere else didn't work. Though I am now on my way to being 27, it just shows you that your fucking mental illness doesn't go away with age. The only difference is, I am much more aware and better equipped to deal with them than I was before. And to be fair, bad days and worse days are often rare in-between nowadays, now that my life are in a pretty good condition.

It goes to show that your condition DOES get better with a higher quality of life. Well, generally. 

At least I'm glad it happened on a weekend so I don't have to deal with it on top of work.

To be honest, it started since last night and continued on throughout the day even after I opened my eyes from a restless sleep. I know I should be letting myself feel my feelings and sitting with them instead of running to my coping mechanism of intellectualizing them but I feel like I've sat with them enough to the point of crying every few minutes. The sporadic mental breakdowns are almost reminiscent when I was trying to heal from the break-up with That Person. 

A lot of things have been running around inside my head since last night, and each time something new begins, another mental breakdown occurs. It's fair to say that I have been having an anxiety attack each time a new train of thought runs in my head since last night. 

At first it was the thought that I would never meet someone who would share my viewpoint in life romantically, because it seems that every where I go, babies is a thing people would want to have. I felt quite disappointed, for whatever reason. As if the thought of an unknown party who is yet to be in my life has already disappointed me. I do not want children. That is something very unlikely to change for me. I refuse to undergo the pain of pregnancy and birth and raising children, and that is my personal choice for my own body and my own life. For some reason, the thought that "even if I meet somebody, it seems like they always end up wanting kids." made me so disappointed.

But then I sat with that for a moment, and eventually that train of thought went away. Because who cares if the people I meet are incompatible with me? In the words of Ariana Grande ; thank you, next. 

Then I had a mental breakdown over how no matter who I want to keep in my life, I won't be able to keep them because of the differences between my family's values and mine. That even if I DO find someone who fits into my life like a puzzle, I won't be able to keep them because my family would never accept anyone who isn't Muslim and identifies (and born as) male. The discrepancy between their values and mine would become a harsh grating distant noise between whoever I choose to keep and myself. Because I imagine, if the person I want to keep truly loves and wants me, they must know how much I cherish my family. I imagine they would want to be included among the family dinners and family outings and family gatherings, but if my family never approves of who I love, that will just hurt them. And in turn, hurt me. 

I know it's all a theoretical issues that has not yet happened, but these issues HAVE happened before. My past relationships were all, by my family's standard, non-acceptable. This is one of the reasons I refuse to entertain the thought of marriage. Because the huge discrepancy between what my family would approve, and my own happiness. 

My family would never allow me to "marry" or even "date" a non-muslim or non-male. My relationships are just something I've always had to keep separate from my family, not by my choice. But by their standards. It's also one of the reasons I can't live around them, eventhough I love them and miss them. I love them, but they will never approve of who I love. I love them, but they will never approve the parts of me that I hide, for the sole reason of knowing how their reactions would go.

If I had introduced That Person to them all those years ago, would things have been okay? I don't think so. I would have been disowned, abandoned. Thrown away. I guess That Person knew it too, and it was fair of them to cut off our relationship early after 2 years. I never resented them for it.

I sat with that for a while, and let it pass.

After that, I had another mental breakdown in the shower because I was sad and tired over how much I needed to be strong for myself in order to keep on surviving. I'm not in my villain era, I'm in my soft vulnerable weak ass marshmallow era, because all my fucking life, I never had the option to NOT be strong. Throughout my fucking childhood and my fucking young adulthood, I NEVER had the option to be weak, because if for one moment I slip up, I wouldn't be able to protect my siblings. I wouldn't be able to maintain the house. I wouldn't be able to keep my grades up. I wouldn't be able to not kill myself. Now that I finally have the space and the energy to just live for myself, I finally can allow myself to be weak, like the child I was supposed to be, rather than the soldier child I was. 

I hated the situations that made me strong. I hated how I HAD to be strong. I hated how I was MADE to be strong. I was sad for myself. I was sad for my child self. The strength I had couldn't make me proud of how I got it. I couldn't have pride for my strength, because of what was sacrificed in return of that strength. 

All I want to be now, is to reclaim the softness, and weakness, and vulnerability I should have had, before trauma took it away. All I want to be now, is a soft squishy jellyfish that is so fragile, I will break on a wrong touch.