если боишься - не делай, а если делаешь - не бойся.
I'm breaking my December Diary tradition for the first time since 2016, because something's been on my mind a lot lately. And if you think it's the pandemic, or any of the other biblical prophesies in progress, then you're out of luck. I've been saying it for years that our timeline has been cursed since 2012, so none of this is really news to me personally. I do think about these things quite a bit and act to help as much as I can, but ultimately, I don't want to talk about it more than necessary, because at this point I have very little hope that I can change anything, or that anything might change for the better in general.
However, hope itself is on the agenda for today, along with other... unnecessary feelings.
You see, I started seeing a therapist about a month ago. Not my first time, to be clear; I've seen therapists and even a psychiatrist before, good and bad, for various reasons. But this time, it's a little different. For if in 2012 (ha) you were to mention the name "Akira," people who knew me would immediately think something along the lines of chaotic, dumb... and feeling a lot. Whether I was a good person or a shitty one, the emotional compass within me that I blindly trusted was my defining quality.
But recently, I haven't been feeling much. Or rather, I can't identify my feelings. So I disregard them, in myself and others.
If you know me well enough, and if you at all care, it's not that hard to guess where this is coming from. There are really many layers to this matryoshka. The earliest ones come from my childhood, in which I was constantly emotionally manipulated by my family, and only later realized how traumatic that experience had been. Emotionally driven decision-making wasn't really something valued, or at times even respected, within my friend group as I was growing up, so I conditioned myself to think that I was by default not as good as others. To further feed this mindset, my emotional compass had eventually led me in a terribly wrong direction, which resulted in bitter disappointments and the irreversible shattering of my life-long, character-defining values (to be clear – I don't regret any of it). There is a reason my partner is the least emotional person I know – there is, of course, the aspect of being complimentary, which is great, but there is also the hard-to-swallow truth that emotions make me uncomfortable these days. Maybe they always have, to an extent.
When I got injured last year (almost a year ago now, but feels like much longer than that) and had to drop out of volleyball along with a bunch of other things that made me happy, I almost entirely shut everything out. Aside from enjoying playing with my team, I physically need to exercise to prevent myself from falling back into the pit of depression. It's just the nature of the dopamine and serotonin produced, that's all. I have the Seasonal Affective Disorder so fittingly abbreviated as SAD as well, so surviving the winter proved to be pretty difficult. I knew I had to get through this, and the only way to do that was to focus on the recovery process, on what I had to do. It helped a lot, and I don't regret it, because at the time it was the right and the healthiest thing to do. But looking back on it, there was a lot of repressed anger, which I'm only now starting to understand.
Getting reconnected with what I feel is surprisingly difficult. Last year, I made some good friends – so good, I thought at the time, that they might just restore my faith in humanity. In February, that friend group faced a conflict that would eventually break us apart. I needed to know how I should act, but I had no idea. "Just do what you'd usually do – just do what you feel is right," I thought to myself. But I didn't feel anything, or I couldn't figure out what I felt, so instead I acted the way it made sense to me. Emotions weren't even pushed aside, they were just undefined and thus treated as non-existent, and reason took the wheel. Sure, the people involved were also not terribly mature, but my lack of compassion and absolutely blank brain when it came to "well, what does your soul voice tell you?" didn't help either. I did what made reasonable sense to me, I thought, so it's not my fault. People are just a big disappointment. Nobody can be trusted. Emotions are stupid. Needless to say, it didn't end well for anybody – and at the time, in my mind, it only further solidified the truth already molded by years and years of experience: feelings = bad. Shun them. Fix them. Make them make sense.
And so... here I am today. Things have never been this clear to me, and yet I am so confused when it comes to people and myself. It's like over the years, my personality did a complete 180 and now I understand what it feels like not to be me. I thought it was superior, but it isn't. It's just entirely different, that's all.
"Do you feel hopeful?" – my therapist asked my out of the blue the other day, trying to connect some dots in her notebook on the other side of the screen.
"Definitely not," – I said. – "But it doesn't really bother me, not being hopeful. Hope just doesn't make sense to me."
It turns out I am afraid of feeling vulnerable, so I prefer not to feel at all. And boy does it make sense. So much sense.
To be honest, I don't know how it will go from now on. Maybe this is just my new reality – I'm actually surprisingly fine with it. You can't expect to stay the same person forever after all. Perhaps this shift in my personality is something I can use to my advantage. Or maybe, it's always been there, always been a part of me, repressed and ignored. That's entirely possible too.
Or maybe it's just trauma I need to address. It doesn't feel that way, but then again, you don't always know when you have trauma.
I have a very neutral outlook on this, and I feel at peace. I will just try to do what's best for me. The only difference is that, when I was younger, I knew exactly what it was (or so I thought). But my mental compass is broken now, so I have no sense of direction and need help in that department, which I'm getting. On the bright side, I got something else in return, something new and exciting to explore.
I may not be hopeful, but I think I feel okay.
罪の最後は涙じゃないよ
ずっと苦しく背負ってくんだ
出口見えない感情迷路に
誰を待ってるの?
白いノートに綴ったように
もっと素直に吐き出したいよ
何から
逃れたいんだ
…現実ってやつ?
However, hope itself is on the agenda for today, along with other... unnecessary feelings.
You see, I started seeing a therapist about a month ago. Not my first time, to be clear; I've seen therapists and even a psychiatrist before, good and bad, for various reasons. But this time, it's a little different. For if in 2012 (ha) you were to mention the name "Akira," people who knew me would immediately think something along the lines of chaotic, dumb... and feeling a lot. Whether I was a good person or a shitty one, the emotional compass within me that I blindly trusted was my defining quality.
But recently, I haven't been feeling much. Or rather, I can't identify my feelings. So I disregard them, in myself and others.
If you know me well enough, and if you at all care, it's not that hard to guess where this is coming from. There are really many layers to this matryoshka. The earliest ones come from my childhood, in which I was constantly emotionally manipulated by my family, and only later realized how traumatic that experience had been. Emotionally driven decision-making wasn't really something valued, or at times even respected, within my friend group as I was growing up, so I conditioned myself to think that I was by default not as good as others. To further feed this mindset, my emotional compass had eventually led me in a terribly wrong direction, which resulted in bitter disappointments and the irreversible shattering of my life-long, character-defining values (to be clear – I don't regret any of it). There is a reason my partner is the least emotional person I know – there is, of course, the aspect of being complimentary, which is great, but there is also the hard-to-swallow truth that emotions make me uncomfortable these days. Maybe they always have, to an extent.
When I got injured last year (almost a year ago now, but feels like much longer than that) and had to drop out of volleyball along with a bunch of other things that made me happy, I almost entirely shut everything out. Aside from enjoying playing with my team, I physically need to exercise to prevent myself from falling back into the pit of depression. It's just the nature of the dopamine and serotonin produced, that's all. I have the Seasonal Affective Disorder so fittingly abbreviated as SAD as well, so surviving the winter proved to be pretty difficult. I knew I had to get through this, and the only way to do that was to focus on the recovery process, on what I had to do. It helped a lot, and I don't regret it, because at the time it was the right and the healthiest thing to do. But looking back on it, there was a lot of repressed anger, which I'm only now starting to understand.
Getting reconnected with what I feel is surprisingly difficult. Last year, I made some good friends – so good, I thought at the time, that they might just restore my faith in humanity. In February, that friend group faced a conflict that would eventually break us apart. I needed to know how I should act, but I had no idea. "Just do what you'd usually do – just do what you feel is right," I thought to myself. But I didn't feel anything, or I couldn't figure out what I felt, so instead I acted the way it made sense to me. Emotions weren't even pushed aside, they were just undefined and thus treated as non-existent, and reason took the wheel. Sure, the people involved were also not terribly mature, but my lack of compassion and absolutely blank brain when it came to "well, what does your soul voice tell you?" didn't help either. I did what made reasonable sense to me, I thought, so it's not my fault. People are just a big disappointment. Nobody can be trusted. Emotions are stupid. Needless to say, it didn't end well for anybody – and at the time, in my mind, it only further solidified the truth already molded by years and years of experience: feelings = bad. Shun them. Fix them. Make them make sense.
And so... here I am today. Things have never been this clear to me, and yet I am so confused when it comes to people and myself. It's like over the years, my personality did a complete 180 and now I understand what it feels like not to be me. I thought it was superior, but it isn't. It's just entirely different, that's all.
"Do you feel hopeful?" – my therapist asked my out of the blue the other day, trying to connect some dots in her notebook on the other side of the screen.
"Definitely not," – I said. – "But it doesn't really bother me, not being hopeful. Hope just doesn't make sense to me."
It turns out I am afraid of feeling vulnerable, so I prefer not to feel at all. And boy does it make sense. So much sense.
To be honest, I don't know how it will go from now on. Maybe this is just my new reality – I'm actually surprisingly fine with it. You can't expect to stay the same person forever after all. Perhaps this shift in my personality is something I can use to my advantage. Or maybe, it's always been there, always been a part of me, repressed and ignored. That's entirely possible too.
Or maybe it's just trauma I need to address. It doesn't feel that way, but then again, you don't always know when you have trauma.
I have a very neutral outlook on this, and I feel at peace. I will just try to do what's best for me. The only difference is that, when I was younger, I knew exactly what it was (or so I thought). But my mental compass is broken now, so I have no sense of direction and need help in that department, which I'm getting. On the bright side, I got something else in return, something new and exciting to explore.
I may not be hopeful, but I think I feel okay.
罪の最後は涙じゃないよ
ずっと苦しく背負ってくんだ
出口見えない感情迷路に
誰を待ってるの?
白いノートに綴ったように
もっと素直に吐き出したいよ
何から
逃れたいんだ
…現実ってやつ?
-
-
17.05.2021 в 00:50Штош. Несмотря на смещение дат, ты всё ещё поддерживаешь традицию писать один пост в год, чего не скажешь обо мне)
Много воды утекло, и утечёт еще больше.
Я тоже начал работать с психологом. Мне нравится) Если захочешь, потом дам ссыль. Он трансгендер, но не думаю, что тебя это смутит.
Смотрю, ты японский осваиваешь... Аж завидно) Я тут по осени второй заход к нему делал... Ну хоть азбуки выучил полностью в этот раз. Глядишь, еще годика через два до десяти считать научусь))
Безумно жаль, что случилась травма. Сочувствую и обнимаю.
Как ты сейчас? Как прошла зима? И вообще? Надеюсь, хотя бы не хуже, чем окей?