1.25AM thoughts in Journal

reminder to be gentle to myself.

allow myself to feel. remember the pain, and give myself permission to heal. acknowledge it and sit with it, but don’t let it consume you. “you are more than memories and violence”. i want to be more than what i feel i currently am.

i forget to move my body. to experience things. to go places. fear has taken hold of me for so long and i yearn for a new start, a new life where i don’t have to feel so broken all the time.

but perhaps i’m not broken at all. perhaps the broken people are the ones that hurt me. i have reacted in a largely, biologically suitable way. it’s about survival. and i will survive this. as i always have.

the biggest issue is the sudden crying, whenever a particularly painful thought or memory intrudes my space. i understand the crying is a triggered behaviour. it’s something that helped me growing up, allowed me to feel and express. now it is more often a nuisance. i can’t say much about the past anymore without welling up in tears. a defence mechanism maybe, designed to protect my psyche. “stop, no more” it’s saying. i know i have to push past it now though. i have to keep talking about it. i can’t keep burying flashbacks and acting like it never happened. it has done me more harm than good. i need to talk to a therapist about it again. let it out.

i’m not sleeping well again. the bed is no longer ‘safe’ for me. i can’t sleep without the tv on and everyone says that’s bad but it’s the only thing i know. if i play music my mind won’t turn off. white noise irritates me. i had two very bad panic attacks last month & the month before in bed and it has ruined my security there. i can feel myself tense up when i think about lying down. i need to feel absolutely exhausted, i.e. about to drop unconscious, before i can get in. i’ve been falling asleep on the couch the entire week, only around 2-3am. it’s almost 1.30am now. this guide tells me i need to sleep at a ‘normal’ time to beat my depression. like as if i haven’t tried. when my ex assaulted me in my old bed, i never felt safe in it after he left. it felt metaphorically stained. i thought once i destroyed it and sold off the mattress that i would feel better. it was a naive sentiment. the fear still remains. the fear of having trust betrayed, of having your dignity taken. i know J would never do that to me.

i want to know what it is like to fully trust someone. to feel completely at ease. my friend reminded me the other day of a time where we took MDMA and danced in a gay club, and i’ve never felt so wonderful and euphoric in my life. just pure unbridled joy. he held my hands and we smiled at each other and at the time i said, “this is what it must feel like to not have anxiety.” we laughed at the time but it’s bittersweet. i don’t remember a time where anxiety didn’t control my life. where it didn’t dictate my every move, my personality, the people i kept as friends, the time i spent with my family, the romantic partners, everything. anxiety has had it’s insidious claws inside of me now for almost two decades. it is exhausting. it breaks me down everyday. there is almost never a moment of peace. what the fuck does self-love and self-peace feel like? i truly have no idea. i have never experienced it.

so i want to feel it. i want to be relaxed. okay with myself, with the present, with the past. it’s a skill supposedly. i can only try.