I thought I found home

[pman]

A lot of me feels like I have nothing left. I thought I found a life that both honors my authentic happiness and has space for healing and growth and change. But perhaps it was never there to begin with. I’ve just been reaping the benefits of someone who was unlucky enough to fall in love with me, and get stuck in my chaos and my rigid structure. I think I’m autistic. Because this keeps happening. The structure of my brain, the way I see things, the way my life has to be so that I don’t kill myself feels like a one way street of overgrown weeds made of intergenerational complex trauma. I never want to hold that over someone. He doesn’t deserve to bear the burden of that worry, the burden of all my weird idiosyncrasies, the structure that no one but me feels comfortable in, all my behaviors that are impossible to read and feel volatile and random, yet feel so natural to me and my inner world. I thought I found it. I thought I found home–where all the struggles and the pain was healthy, towards good. Where I can speak freely of what’s going on in my heart and be heard. I always feared he’d be too good to be true. Too kind, too forgiving, too loving, there was no way any human can be that kind and accept me truly, in the long term. No way that this perfect pure man would be able to face, witness, and understand the same darkness that I’ve spent my whole life fighting. I had hope that I could live and thrive on this path. I feel like a drug that keeps sucking helpless victims in. I’m pretty, talented, smart, and have such huge feelings of happiness, passion, and care for others. But I’m also a broken fuck that infects those who get close enough with this darkness that I’m trying so hard to heal. I can’t go back to Washington. It’s too cold. I can’t go to my dad’s. I can’t go to my mom’s. My sister has moved on. My brother is a chaotic sweetheart but he has his own journey. My other brother is dead. I have 1 or 2 friends here that I’m actually close and comfortable with, but I can’t ask anything more of them. Did I do this on purpose? Have I been isolating myself this whole time? Or is this just capacity for me? My tiny little soul feels like it can’t handle anything but can handle the whole world at the same time. I’m tired. I wish I could drink, I wish I could smoke, but I can’t bring myself to do that, to escape that way. I can’t will myself to be anything but honest and authentic, or it makes me not want to live anymore. This life isn’t worth living if I can’t be my true self. But my true self doesn’t seem to fit anywhere. I’ve dissociated for 12 years of my life. It’s just too painful to live that way. I thought I found home. I thought I found home. But my home is just an unlucky beautiful soul who got sucked into my madness.

12.21.22

[Sita]

hi friend,
You’ve shared a lot of very well-written expressions here. Would it be helpful to you to seek a diagnosis? sometimes getting a label and a name can help soothe us, and get us started on a path to better and more-appropriate support and learning to get to know how to maximize this thing called life.

Would you also consider therapy or counseling to help address of the trauma you’ve encountered?
I hear your struggles, and I am so thankful you are here with us. Please, share as much as you need to help yourself cope. I know the feeling you’ve spoken of, self-love is a magical thing, a true superpower, a literal superpower. I hope that you can find some affection for the cool and wonderful parts of yourself, your character, abilities, thoughts.

You matter, just as you are, and you have value as a person. There is no need to be perfect, since that doesn’t exist. All humans have the capacity for wonderful things, you and me included!! We’re here for you!

[ManekiNeko]

From: ManekiNeko

your words are so beautifully written. Intergenerational trauma is a heavy burden, my friend. It affects us more than we know and sometimes understand. Perhaps there is more to unlock there, perhaps there’s answers to the why’s. Have you talked at all to a professional about that?
sometimes our actions speak to self preservation and we can’t always control them until we start to unlock the reasons why we need that control. Nobody would ever be too kind or too loving or too forgiving of you, because you deserve that. You aren’t just a being set out to seek to hurt others, your life is precious and holds the complexities of pain that’s been given to you undeservingly.
you’ve listed some really wonderful attributes about yourself! Your intelligence and compassion is so needed and you deserve to live freely and use those to your full potential. You’re incredibly cared for.