You know what?
I've been incredibly ill-content. Malcontent. Not content...lately. Nothing holds my interest...nothing excites me to where I say, "yes! I want to go do that!" I've been in a zombie sort of state. Like....I'd rather be staring out into space than looking at my phone...none of the videos I find on youtube can hold my interest, nothing I try to plan out really feels like it is actually going to happen...and it's all escalated to a point where I overthink too much and freak myself out and just generally feel like I'm unhappy and needy and afraid.
I hate it.
But I think I'm expecting other people to fix this. Like, if I spend more time with them, then I'll feel better. But this can't be correct. Because no one else is responsible for how I feel. If I'm mentally healthy and secure in myself, things that people say won't affect me. And I can't expect people to make me feel better about myself, because there's absolutely nothing they can do or say that won't get filtered through my lens of how I feel about myself.
And right now it's not too good. So. Gotta fix this.
Do I go back to therapy? I never actually got any therapy. I think maybe I ought to look into that. I can't expect to fix myself without any help from someone who actually knows what they're doing. I need tools. Proper methods to apply.
Alrighty.
I think I might just do that.
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Monday, August 14, 2017
epiphany?
I think I may have come to a realization, after reading a psych article online about how people's childhood experiences can shape their perception of themselves in the future.
When I talk to others, I've always said my parents were so supportive of me growing up. Or I've told myself that (even though I've always complained about not being allowed to do stuff.) But underneath it all, I always told myself they were great parents (which they were) and that they wanted what's best for me. And they tried to do that. But it seems like...this was how:
Growing up, I wanted to do gymnastics, ballet, and figure skating. I wanted piano lessons. I begged to be signed up for them. We couldn't afford any of those. My mother did try to have an older lady from the church teach me to play the piano, but that lady refused to let me learn at my own pace, which was actually very quick, and that ended almost as soon as it began. When my grandfather gave us money to buy me ice skates, it was spent on ski boots instead (I had no skis) which I wore as regular winter snow boots, and I got made fun of by people everywhere I went for that. When I was around nineteen or twenty years old, my father told me he'd always wished I could be like the little girl who currently lived across the street, athletic and pretty and active, but that I'd shown no interest in that.
REALLY?
When I spent years studying biology and struggling in chemistry with the hopes of one day becoming a neurosurgeon, my father suggested I become a reporter. I didn't like that idea. When I finally settled on science journalism as my career, he said "You see? And I told you to be a reporter all those years ago." He said he never thought I had it in me to be a doctor. A pilot, yes. Something technical like that, he knew I could manage, he said. But not a doctor.
When I wanted to be in a relationship (that I'm currently in) with someone I've known for yeeaarrrss, my father told me they're not for me, told me that God has told him my husband is really in Norway, and told me that I have my heart in a cage and I'm "going to cry when I find out about his secret life."
That's made me question every single aspect of everything with this relationship and even when it's going well, I worry about something horrible possibly popping up in the future or what if I'm setting myself up for heartbreak?
When I had the opportunity to get a piano for free (something we were never able to afford) from a website called freecycle.org, my father said 1. it was probably broken, and 2. it was probably terribly out of tune and if we hired someone to tune it they would probably break the strings and it would be no good. I pushed ahead and got it anyway, and there was nothing wrong with it. We got many years out of it and I was able to actually start getting piano lessons.
My father tends to blame circumstances and other people instead of taking the initiative himself. When he's had ideas for inventions, ever since I was a child, he would rely on me to jumpstart getting the process done. Ideas for a movie, I should write the screenplay for him. I should find out who to contact. I should do all the work. I DON'T KNOW HOW! What if he didn't have me? Who would he blame for lack of success then? He blames his family members for a whole lot of things to do with his lack of success. And maybe he's justified. But for me, I didn't see those experiences. I just grew up seeing him question and dismiss everything before even giving it a chance. And I think that has caused me to be insecure. In a lot of different ways. When I do want to give things a chance, I get told no, it won't work out.
It's gotten to where now, when I'm working on projects or doing things, I don't tell him. When I want to do something new or go somewhere or there's something I like, I don't tell him. Why? Because I'm afraid it'll be shot down. That I'll be told it's sinful, somehow, or wrong. Or just a bad idea. Or that if I do it, I should do it with the purpose of making money, not for fun. That sucks all the joy out of a project. Then, because he doesn't know what I'm doing, I get told that I'm not measuring up, that I'm becoming worthless, and that I don't do what I'm supposed to.
I've expressed before how because of my father's fixation on Christianity and end time events, I grew up terrified that I was sinning and would go to hell. I used to cry myself to sleep being afraid of that. That the rapture would happen and I'd be left behind, a ten year old girl, for having disobeyed her mother.
Maybe that's the root of my insecurity. Maybe. Maybe that really is it.
I know my dad only wants what's best for me. But now I feel like I'm incapable of doing things. I literally just get afraid of actually trying. When I sit down to write my novel, I feel guilty that I'm not writing the screen play for my dad's movie idea.
When I think about moving out, I think to myself that I can't, because how would my dad buy a house without me?
I was shocked, a few months ago, when my father said something to me. Something good. Something like praise. My god-sister, a 19 year old girl who we baby sat since she was six years old, told us she was getting married. (She was still 18 at the time.) I sent her a long text, encouraging her to stay in it for the long haul, explaining that you can't just call it quits when times get tough or you find out something new you don't like about the person. It's a commitment. I read the text to my father, and he said something along the lines of that he didn't know I was capable of thinking like that, and now he knows he doesn't have to worry about me anymore.
Maybe he has no idea what he's doing. Maybe adulthood is just an illusion, a shadow cast over smaller humans to make them subservient.
I just have to remember that it's all a learning process, non-stop. Everything. And if something doesn't work out, well, figure out what went wrong and try differently next time. Eventually I'll figure it out, and if I don't, well, at least I'll figure SOMETHING out before I die.
When I talk to others, I've always said my parents were so supportive of me growing up. Or I've told myself that (even though I've always complained about not being allowed to do stuff.) But underneath it all, I always told myself they were great parents (which they were) and that they wanted what's best for me. And they tried to do that. But it seems like...this was how:
Growing up, I wanted to do gymnastics, ballet, and figure skating. I wanted piano lessons. I begged to be signed up for them. We couldn't afford any of those. My mother did try to have an older lady from the church teach me to play the piano, but that lady refused to let me learn at my own pace, which was actually very quick, and that ended almost as soon as it began. When my grandfather gave us money to buy me ice skates, it was spent on ski boots instead (I had no skis) which I wore as regular winter snow boots, and I got made fun of by people everywhere I went for that. When I was around nineteen or twenty years old, my father told me he'd always wished I could be like the little girl who currently lived across the street, athletic and pretty and active, but that I'd shown no interest in that.
REALLY?
When I spent years studying biology and struggling in chemistry with the hopes of one day becoming a neurosurgeon, my father suggested I become a reporter. I didn't like that idea. When I finally settled on science journalism as my career, he said "You see? And I told you to be a reporter all those years ago." He said he never thought I had it in me to be a doctor. A pilot, yes. Something technical like that, he knew I could manage, he said. But not a doctor.
When I wanted to be in a relationship (that I'm currently in) with someone I've known for yeeaarrrss, my father told me they're not for me, told me that God has told him my husband is really in Norway, and told me that I have my heart in a cage and I'm "going to cry when I find out about his secret life."
That's made me question every single aspect of everything with this relationship and even when it's going well, I worry about something horrible possibly popping up in the future or what if I'm setting myself up for heartbreak?
When I had the opportunity to get a piano for free (something we were never able to afford) from a website called freecycle.org, my father said 1. it was probably broken, and 2. it was probably terribly out of tune and if we hired someone to tune it they would probably break the strings and it would be no good. I pushed ahead and got it anyway, and there was nothing wrong with it. We got many years out of it and I was able to actually start getting piano lessons.
My father tends to blame circumstances and other people instead of taking the initiative himself. When he's had ideas for inventions, ever since I was a child, he would rely on me to jumpstart getting the process done. Ideas for a movie, I should write the screenplay for him. I should find out who to contact. I should do all the work. I DON'T KNOW HOW! What if he didn't have me? Who would he blame for lack of success then? He blames his family members for a whole lot of things to do with his lack of success. And maybe he's justified. But for me, I didn't see those experiences. I just grew up seeing him question and dismiss everything before even giving it a chance. And I think that has caused me to be insecure. In a lot of different ways. When I do want to give things a chance, I get told no, it won't work out.
It's gotten to where now, when I'm working on projects or doing things, I don't tell him. When I want to do something new or go somewhere or there's something I like, I don't tell him. Why? Because I'm afraid it'll be shot down. That I'll be told it's sinful, somehow, or wrong. Or just a bad idea. Or that if I do it, I should do it with the purpose of making money, not for fun. That sucks all the joy out of a project. Then, because he doesn't know what I'm doing, I get told that I'm not measuring up, that I'm becoming worthless, and that I don't do what I'm supposed to.
I've expressed before how because of my father's fixation on Christianity and end time events, I grew up terrified that I was sinning and would go to hell. I used to cry myself to sleep being afraid of that. That the rapture would happen and I'd be left behind, a ten year old girl, for having disobeyed her mother.
Maybe that's the root of my insecurity. Maybe. Maybe that really is it.
I know my dad only wants what's best for me. But now I feel like I'm incapable of doing things. I literally just get afraid of actually trying. When I sit down to write my novel, I feel guilty that I'm not writing the screen play for my dad's movie idea.
When I think about moving out, I think to myself that I can't, because how would my dad buy a house without me?
I was shocked, a few months ago, when my father said something to me. Something good. Something like praise. My god-sister, a 19 year old girl who we baby sat since she was six years old, told us she was getting married. (She was still 18 at the time.) I sent her a long text, encouraging her to stay in it for the long haul, explaining that you can't just call it quits when times get tough or you find out something new you don't like about the person. It's a commitment. I read the text to my father, and he said something along the lines of that he didn't know I was capable of thinking like that, and now he knows he doesn't have to worry about me anymore.
Maybe he has no idea what he's doing. Maybe adulthood is just an illusion, a shadow cast over smaller humans to make them subservient.
I just have to remember that it's all a learning process, non-stop. Everything. And if something doesn't work out, well, figure out what went wrong and try differently next time. Eventually I'll figure it out, and if I don't, well, at least I'll figure SOMETHING out before I die.
Wednesday, August 9, 2017
the reinvention of self
Who is the person I want to be? Clearly I'm no longer the person I used to be...
I found a quote on Pinterest the other day and it rang really true.
So, I may as well remake myself.
I want to be an artist and a writer. Those are the only two things that really make me feel happy or fulfilled. The two things I turn to when I have nothing else to fall back on. When my world is falling apart.
I want to be the woman (not girl...I may as well not be a girl anymore, after all I've been through) who is beautiful and secure in who she is. In who I am.
The woman who is a published author. Who creates beautiful art. Who is in tune with nature and ...sometimes I want to be the boho hippie who isn't afraid to walk barefoot and other times I want to be the classy minimalist who sips a latte in a coffee shop. There's nothing wrong with being both, is there?
Sigh. I don't think I can make myself into someone. I think I'm just going to be whoever it is that I'm becoming.
I dunno.
I dunno.
I found a quote on Pinterest the other day and it rang really true.
I want to be an artist and a writer. Those are the only two things that really make me feel happy or fulfilled. The two things I turn to when I have nothing else to fall back on. When my world is falling apart.
I want to be the woman (not girl...I may as well not be a girl anymore, after all I've been through) who is beautiful and secure in who she is. In who I am.
The woman who is a published author. Who creates beautiful art. Who is in tune with nature and ...sometimes I want to be the boho hippie who isn't afraid to walk barefoot and other times I want to be the classy minimalist who sips a latte in a coffee shop. There's nothing wrong with being both, is there?
Sigh. I don't think I can make myself into someone. I think I'm just going to be whoever it is that I'm becoming.
I dunno.
I dunno.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
this is stupid
all my posts are about him.
But that's because most of my thoughts are about him. If I could draw you a diagram of my brain, 95 percent would be taken up with his name, and the remaining five percent would consist of missing my mom, figuring out how to pay off my bills and random sci-fi stuff. And I'm pretty sure that's not healthy.
See, the trouble is, all my emotional barriers are gone. I only have the mental ones left - the ones that when the emotions kick in say "no! Don't feel this! Too strong! Bad idea!" but can't actually successfully build the emotional walls back up.
I haven't felt this strongly about anyone, ever before, which is why it's scaring the crap out of me. The level of emotions that I feel are levels that I feel could push someone away. It makes me feel clingy. So to try to counteract that, I try to go as many days as I can without asking to hang out. In the past, it seems like it takes about a week of not seeing me for him to request that we hang out just for the sake of hanging out...not for us to team up for work. And anyway, if I'm always coming to see him, there's no need for him to initiate it.
I tried. I tried really hard. It's on my mind so much that I made a little list in my phone, to keep track of how often we see each other and whose idea it was. I try not to have the amount of days I request to hang out surpass the number of days he does...to date, we're even. I just don't want to be so available that I lose all appeal. Or that I appear too easy. Or that I seem slutty in his mom's eyes. Like, oh, why is this girl always over here?
Am I overthinking it too much?
I don't think so. I mustn't be dependent or clingy. I mustn't annoy people. Or make them tired of my company.
If I were to get married...wouldn't my husband see me every day? Lord. How would I deal with that? I think that everything I'm going through mentally now is the same way it would be with anyone. Me being afraid to be clingy. Me worrying that I don't have what it takes to keep someone interested.
Do you hear how pathetic I sound? Stupid little insecure girl with no real relationship experience who wants so desperately to be loved because she sees what everyone else has. I never wanted to be this way. But I guess it's a product of my personality (aquarius, INTP female) and upbringing (sheltered, Christian, isolated). You have someone who values independence and logical, unbiased and unemotional thinking above all else, who was taught that boyfriends are bad and relationships should only exist within marriage (like seriously, if someone doesn't propose to you by the second date, all they want is to use you and therefore you're not a christian anymore). Raised as an only child. Practically never allowed to go out and play with other kids in the neighborhood, because they were "bad influences." And then anyone I've ever shown interest in or who's ever shown interest in me has been shot down verbally...I've been told to hold out for some imaginary person in another country. Maybe they do exist. I have no proof that they don't.
All I've done is talk myself in a circle. I have tears of frustration in my eyes now.
What do I believe? I'm not the same person I was a year ago. I'm drastically different. On the inside. Everything I thought I knew or was sure of has been ripped apart. It's like I'm trying to put myself back together, these puzzle pieces, but I've lost the box..the blueprint for what I'm supposed to look like.
Everything I do, I feel guilty about it. If I stay out late, I feel as if I'm doing something wrong. Even planning to go to Spain with Nia feels somehow wrong. As if I shouldn't be allowed to do that. As if I'm not old enough...as if I need my father's approval for everything. I even feel like, if I were to make enough to move out...to get my own apartment, if I didn't have to worry about him wanting to buy a house and worry about him being lonely without me or what to do about the cats...I'd still feel like I was doing something wrong by moving out. How does that make sense? It doesn't. But it's still how I feel. See why I hate emotions?
It's probably a very bad thing that I'm still living at home. For my emotional state. In a lot of ways, it's like I live alone, because I hardly ever see my dad. Our schedules are opposite. He leaves very early in the morning, before the sun comes up, and when he comes home in the afternoons are the times I'm leaving for tutoring...and then I usually will go and do uber afterwards or hang out with Cal until the wee hours of the morning.
I just went and looked at the NYC affordable housing website. Why does it feel like I can't do it? I think too much and act too little. I did the math...figured out how much I would need to make in a month...per week...to afford the rent...and then pictured myself moving out of here and leaving my dad and thought of how he would feel and...came back to this tab to continue writing.
If I leave my dad and focus on myself, only on myself, then will his life have amounted to nothing? He doesn't have a house yet...my mother didn't help him to buy one. I think he's counting on me. But I don't want to be thirty and still living under his roof. I need to know how to take care of myself. By myself. This all feels so hopeless. I've always felt such a sense of duty to my parents. Not because they've said I should...but because I've seen how much they've struggled, so how could I not give back? When I was working at the school and getting a decent paycheck, I took it upon myself to buy groceries for the home, because why should I be living there and not contributing at all? I know some of my friends who when they got a job, they would only buy things that they wanted and put in the fridge, and then get annoyed when someone else would eat it. That doesn't sit right with me.
But I wonder if I'm taking it too far...this sense of duty. Would I be selfish if I decided I want to live on my own? Before my father has managed to buy a house? But I can see this being a never-ending story. Because when he does, I can totally see myself not wanting him to be all alone in a big house...lonely...when he finally accomplishes it. And then I'd feel like, well, I have a house to live in, so why should I go anywhere else? And I'd be stuck forever.
I want to run away. Not in the childish sense, no. I just feel like hopping on a train and going to the city and sitting in Central Park and being by myself...not here! Not where I am now! I want someplace different.
I also need to do laundry. I'm running out of clean clothes.
Sigh.
But that's because most of my thoughts are about him. If I could draw you a diagram of my brain, 95 percent would be taken up with his name, and the remaining five percent would consist of missing my mom, figuring out how to pay off my bills and random sci-fi stuff. And I'm pretty sure that's not healthy.
See, the trouble is, all my emotional barriers are gone. I only have the mental ones left - the ones that when the emotions kick in say "no! Don't feel this! Too strong! Bad idea!" but can't actually successfully build the emotional walls back up.
I haven't felt this strongly about anyone, ever before, which is why it's scaring the crap out of me. The level of emotions that I feel are levels that I feel could push someone away. It makes me feel clingy. So to try to counteract that, I try to go as many days as I can without asking to hang out. In the past, it seems like it takes about a week of not seeing me for him to request that we hang out just for the sake of hanging out...not for us to team up for work. And anyway, if I'm always coming to see him, there's no need for him to initiate it.
I tried. I tried really hard. It's on my mind so much that I made a little list in my phone, to keep track of how often we see each other and whose idea it was. I try not to have the amount of days I request to hang out surpass the number of days he does...to date, we're even. I just don't want to be so available that I lose all appeal. Or that I appear too easy. Or that I seem slutty in his mom's eyes. Like, oh, why is this girl always over here?
Am I overthinking it too much?
I don't think so. I mustn't be dependent or clingy. I mustn't annoy people. Or make them tired of my company.
If I were to get married...wouldn't my husband see me every day? Lord. How would I deal with that? I think that everything I'm going through mentally now is the same way it would be with anyone. Me being afraid to be clingy. Me worrying that I don't have what it takes to keep someone interested.
Do you hear how pathetic I sound? Stupid little insecure girl with no real relationship experience who wants so desperately to be loved because she sees what everyone else has. I never wanted to be this way. But I guess it's a product of my personality (aquarius, INTP female) and upbringing (sheltered, Christian, isolated). You have someone who values independence and logical, unbiased and unemotional thinking above all else, who was taught that boyfriends are bad and relationships should only exist within marriage (like seriously, if someone doesn't propose to you by the second date, all they want is to use you and therefore you're not a christian anymore). Raised as an only child. Practically never allowed to go out and play with other kids in the neighborhood, because they were "bad influences." And then anyone I've ever shown interest in or who's ever shown interest in me has been shot down verbally...I've been told to hold out for some imaginary person in another country. Maybe they do exist. I have no proof that they don't.
All I've done is talk myself in a circle. I have tears of frustration in my eyes now.
What do I believe? I'm not the same person I was a year ago. I'm drastically different. On the inside. Everything I thought I knew or was sure of has been ripped apart. It's like I'm trying to put myself back together, these puzzle pieces, but I've lost the box..the blueprint for what I'm supposed to look like.
Everything I do, I feel guilty about it. If I stay out late, I feel as if I'm doing something wrong. Even planning to go to Spain with Nia feels somehow wrong. As if I shouldn't be allowed to do that. As if I'm not old enough...as if I need my father's approval for everything. I even feel like, if I were to make enough to move out...to get my own apartment, if I didn't have to worry about him wanting to buy a house and worry about him being lonely without me or what to do about the cats...I'd still feel like I was doing something wrong by moving out. How does that make sense? It doesn't. But it's still how I feel. See why I hate emotions?
It's probably a very bad thing that I'm still living at home. For my emotional state. In a lot of ways, it's like I live alone, because I hardly ever see my dad. Our schedules are opposite. He leaves very early in the morning, before the sun comes up, and when he comes home in the afternoons are the times I'm leaving for tutoring...and then I usually will go and do uber afterwards or hang out with Cal until the wee hours of the morning.
I just went and looked at the NYC affordable housing website. Why does it feel like I can't do it? I think too much and act too little. I did the math...figured out how much I would need to make in a month...per week...to afford the rent...and then pictured myself moving out of here and leaving my dad and thought of how he would feel and...came back to this tab to continue writing.
If I leave my dad and focus on myself, only on myself, then will his life have amounted to nothing? He doesn't have a house yet...my mother didn't help him to buy one. I think he's counting on me. But I don't want to be thirty and still living under his roof. I need to know how to take care of myself. By myself. This all feels so hopeless. I've always felt such a sense of duty to my parents. Not because they've said I should...but because I've seen how much they've struggled, so how could I not give back? When I was working at the school and getting a decent paycheck, I took it upon myself to buy groceries for the home, because why should I be living there and not contributing at all? I know some of my friends who when they got a job, they would only buy things that they wanted and put in the fridge, and then get annoyed when someone else would eat it. That doesn't sit right with me.
But I wonder if I'm taking it too far...this sense of duty. Would I be selfish if I decided I want to live on my own? Before my father has managed to buy a house? But I can see this being a never-ending story. Because when he does, I can totally see myself not wanting him to be all alone in a big house...lonely...when he finally accomplishes it. And then I'd feel like, well, I have a house to live in, so why should I go anywhere else? And I'd be stuck forever.
I want to run away. Not in the childish sense, no. I just feel like hopping on a train and going to the city and sitting in Central Park and being by myself...not here! Not where I am now! I want someplace different.
I also need to do laundry. I'm running out of clean clothes.
Sigh.
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