~IllaRouge

Haven't posted here in a year. Huh.

I've felt myself in an emotional limbo as of late, which is slightly contradictory given my erratic behavior on social media. I'm a mess. Depression has had higher highs and lower lows, but I've been more productive, probably due to my medication. Anxiety is constant: that may never go away. OCD makes it difficult to move on from what should be trivial things. I'm thinking I need to talk to my therapist about a bipolar diagnosis. Oh, and a different therapist thinks I should get tested for ASD, which makes the most sense out of a lot of things I've heard in recent years.

My relationships are all over the place. I'm trying to maintain work relationships, but those are often bogged down by the fact that we all need to work on our respective studies. I don't need to vent my laundry for my personal relationships, but they've been strained, to put it lightly. It's one of the most difficult times in my life, and I'm both fighting to maintain connections that make me happy and dealing with others being fully absent.

Concerning the latter, I wonder if it's just me or if I should expect more. This absence makes it difficult to be around folks and projects that I'd like to contribute to, but the full dissolution of this relationship wouldn't help. I just want things fixed.

What I'm realizing from my own recent struggles is that I haven't got a good grasp on happiness. As someone that struggles to identify and respond to emotions, I'm not really sure what makes me happy. I know what makes me maintained, but I don't have a handle on what fulfills me.

I want to disappear, in a productive way. I need a vacation, but I'm poor; I need time, but my program doesn't have that.. I'm financially tied to my current path. I make little spaces for myself, but I feel the walls closing in. Part of me is moving forward, though not all of me. I'm discovering things about myself; I don't really have the ability to share that with those I care about, as I continue to build and rebuild these relationships. I worry that those I love have given up on me.

I've experienced a lot over the past summer. I had to take care of my family without help for over a month. I'm facing financial strains. My sisters' mother died, and I went through that alone, for the most part. I couldn't go home for the funeral because of my housing situation. I think I hurt someone, and they hurt me back. Then, silence.

But I haven't given up on me yet. It's easy to want to do. I notice myself wanting to be muted more, through alcohol, dark and silence, food, ignoring things that might otherwise be good for me. I need to fix these things, and I feel motivated to do so.

I'm angry. I'm not even sure if you'll read this. I'm relatively certain you won't. But I'm mad. That doesn't mean I've given up on you. I'm not sure if you've given up on me. Whether you have or you haven't, there's an emptiness. It's difficult to fill that with hope when I don't know one way or the other where we stand. I'm trying to fill that space with self-respect, but that's not what that empty space is for. I can build parts of myself up so I can sustain myself. I reserved that space for you. I want to pull a spunky corgi into the mix, tell you all the things she'd tell you, how you've been an asshole, how I miss you, how I'm getting better and want to build a good thing. I am telling you that, but I'm doing so with a bit of tact, I hope. I'm a different me, but I'm still a me that's been hurt while I see others being held up and treated with kindness.

I need to be kinder to myself. I deserve respect. I deserve to respect myself. I'm so willing to self-sacrifice for the sake of others. I can't expect that from others, nor can I expect this to be a sustainable path forward. But I can expect fairness.

And that's what I'm worth.