I have wanted to write something in such a long time yet this website has remained largely unmanaged for a while now and it’s a shame. I remember once going through and looking for blogs and writers I used to follow only to find they were no longer writing and I would hope that wouldn’t be the case for me. So many times I’ve said ‘this is just a hiatus’ or that regular posting would resume soon but I really don’t know when that will be. All I know is right now I need to write something for me.
I have always loved and wanted to write. I have written poetry and song lyrics and followed creative writing prompts. I have sketched out my favourite quotes, I have highlighted pages in (digital) books full of words that give me some kind of meaning, something to hope for perhaps. I have started so many stories. I will always aspire to be that fantasy fiction writer. My words here might not be beautiful or clever but I hope they hold meaning. I have always wanted to write with the goal of helping someone get through something that feels a little bit hard. Because writing when I have been in pain has been so cathartic.
That is where I am right now. I am in pain. And I am so very tired of it.
“We do not get to choose when in our lives we feel pain,” said Matthew. “It comes when it comes, and we try to remember, even though we cannot imagine a day when it will release its hold on us, that all pain fades. All misery passes. Humanity is drawn to light, not darkness.”
Matthew Fairchild, Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare
I feel like a shell of the person I thought I was. I feel like I am completely lacking in my own personality and living without a sense of identity. I feel like I have spent so many years building up various personas to wear in front of every person I know and each one of those masks is just a piece of my spirit I’ve cut away from myself. Now I’m left with these scattered paper thin, crumpled pieces of me with nothing left to stitch them back together. I feel incomplete and disconnected from everything. I feel both too much and not enough at the same time.
I want to believe that this too shall pass, one day. That things will again feel lighter and brighter. That I will have something back that defines me, that I can be proud of. But I have spent so many years thinking one day things will be better, or easier and that I should only struggle a little while longer. I am so tired of struggling and fighting every day to be liked, to be accepted, to feel valued or appreciated. I am so worn down from years of not fitting in, of being the weird one, of questioning what is wrong with me.
“…all the tears women shed, they leave no mark on the world…”
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Enough to ask for a diagnosis for ADHD and Autism which I received in the last few months of 2022. There is nothing wrong with being autistic, or, in my case AuDHD as I have seen it put for a combined diagnosis of the two. There is, however, something wrong with living as long as I have, not knowing, and struggling with so many things. With thinking I’ll grow out of these behaviours. With thinking I can’t be a real ‘adult’ because I can’t cope with so many basic things normal adults can.
I am incredibly grateful to have had these diagnosis but it hasn’t really changed much. The ADHD meds are helping with some things, yes, certainly impulse control at least but everything else is still up to me to fix and cope with. To learn new ways to ‘unmask’ and to cater to my own boundaries and my own needs but how I am supposed to do that? I am so tired of having to justify and explain why things need to be a certain way or why I need to rest after a social occasion even if it’s one I’m looking forward to. I’m so tired of panic rushing to look for headphones before going shopping because listening to heavy metal blasting in my ears makes it easier to deal with the people, the too bright white lights, the constant changing placements of food I regularly buy and the grating noise of voiceovers and checkout beeps and conversation.
The embarrassment of having to explain that I have to wear socks in *every* situation because ‘sheets on bare skin make me feel a bit weird’ – read, actually causes me pain if it’s cotton. Feeling so stupid for zoning out of a conversation and having to ask someone to repeat themselves multiple times because ‘sorry I wasn’t listening’ when my inner monologue was screaming at me about something I’d forgotten but refuse to tell me what. All the times I have interrupted my way into a conversation to be told to be quiet, to wait my turn, how rude I am, when all I wanted was to remain relevant. It’s left me with this crippling anxiety for being ignored with leaves me feeling like I am the most awful person.
“She waited to change, and I waited to change, and we both wanted what we couldn’t have.”
Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater
I know I have no choice but to continue trying to live. To continue clawing my way through life with broken bloody nails if I have to. I do not know what the future holds. I don’t know how I’m going to cope and manage but I hope I find a way through this. I feel that is at least one, small redeeming thing about me is that I do still have a slither of hope left that one day things will be not so full of pain and struggle. I think right now it’s too much for me to ask myself to be happy when what I really wish for is ‘okay’.
The last few years where I’ve pulled back from writing and engaging with friends I’ve met through this web space I have been escaping into books and video games which have helped keep my mind occupied from my own thoughts for some time. Thankfully I have also met some people through those hobbies or interests some of which have become very dear friends who I have tried to be my most honest self in front of and haven’t been immediately rejected for that despite, I’m sure, at times being a little strange and difficult to tolerate. It is, I think, the bonds we make through pain and suffering that lead to finding some solace and not feeling quite so alone in the darkest of moments. It’s just really very sad that we have to suffer and struggle alongside each other.
I’m not going to go back over and edit this but I have exhausted myself in writing this down. I feel a little less cluttered in my mind for letting the words, and tears, come out onto this page. With added book quotes for good measure because sourcing photos for this seems like a process I can’t do right now. The thing is I’m just proud of myself for writing something. It may be messy and probably full of mistakes but it helped.
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