#anxiety/depression i could tell i'd been dealing with since i was like 15/16 bc it was just painfully obvious lol

[foreverxdaydreaming]

life's just one big bruh moment after another

[undyinglantern]

the two biggest revelations out of this so far are the, 1: my father has always had a poor handling with me in regards to anxiety. as young as 14 or 15 he was asking why i'd spend so much time in my room. and for the longest time, i used to think it was just because that i had strict parents that i had ended up like that; after all, i was never allowed to go out. i couldn't even stay back at school for a bit after the day had ended because if i showed up home even 5 minutes later than usual (i was, surprisingly, allowed to walk home instead of being picked up), i would be questioned about it. by sophomore year of high school i had completely stopped asking for permission to hang out with friends because i'd grown so accustomed to being shut down, and as a result i stopped being invited a majority of the time as well. i think there were only one or who occasions where i was allowed to do things with friends, and that wasn't until senior year (the only one i can remember for certain is being allowed to go to the mall and theatre with a group of friends one time). but if i look back on my childhood, i was always "shy" and easily exhausted/overwhelmed when surrounded by people. i would hide in my room when we had guests over all the time. one distinct memory that's probably the worst is going to a family gathering (party. latinos and their large families and how they like to blast the music at full volume. that sort of deal) and being so overwhelmed by how loud it was. i had headphones and tried to block it out with my own music but it wasnt working. i repeatedly asked if we could leave but the answer was obviously no. eventually i started crying and it wasnt until a little after that that my family decided that maybe we should leave after all. i couldnt have been more than maybe 7 or 8. but i'm an adult now and i should have toughened up already and he still doesnt understand so that recent attack i had in public must have been the straw that broke the camel's back for him.

the second this is more silly, really. i may only have been 15 up into 16 but i really did like this guy. using the word love in a romantic context still feels strange for me, and i was left embittered to the concept for a long time afterwards, but maybe that is what it was. i'd never quite experienced that intensity of emotion before or after towards for anybody else. but again, i am always the one getting in my own way, and i would always shut the conversation down when he would try to bring anything up, so nothing actually happened between us. i just find it funny how it all started with a slip of a comment i made to a friend that "hey, hes kind of cute." and they were like well we're gonna tell him at the start of lunch since his 4th period class was in the classroom next to the one we were in. and i couldn't do anything to stop them so instead of walking with them i just ditched them once that period ended to head straight to the cafeteria to get food on my own and catch back up with them after. and then the next day, thats when he started hanging out with our group. i mean, it couldve been a coincidence still since he technically sort of knew a few of these people, but i never spoke up to find out otherwise and the timing feels too on the nose for me to think otherwise. and -again- nothing ever came out of this because of the way i am, but there were like innocent moments moments of intimacy like hugging and hand holding and teasing like you would typically expect from kids. but i guess i was just too reserved and stuck in my own mind because it was only maybe 2 or 3 months after he started hanging out with us that he started dating someone else instead. and they werent a fling or anything either bc this started junior year and im pretty sure they were still together even after we all graduated (i was too lost in my depression and prone to dissociating at that point to keep track, really, but thats another story). this is all in the past now so i can talk about it now but i've always been haunted by the thought of if things still wouldve turned out the same if i wasnt so shut off from people in general. again -and i cannot emphasize enough how much i know i've mentioned this before, but its such a tiny moment that really stuck with me- this one time when i did lag behind after school and we were all sitting down in a circle on the floor in the shade and just chilling or whatever, i dont remember what prompted the moment, but i still remember another one of the guys saying how he wished he could crack open my head and read my mind (or along those lines) and motioning in the air as if shaking my shoulders. so maybe it was partially my own fault. but at the same time, that was a short amount for them to become official too. or maybe i never really figured out how dating works, especially when youre that young.

maybe being on the internet from such a young age isnt the best thing for everybody but personally i am thankful for this documentation so i could have some retrospect. heavens know i wouldnt have felt safe enough to have written down as much as i did into a physical journal instead. and if the way i reacted to re-remembering kpop was anything to go by, its that without writing things down there would have been large gaps of my life i simply wouldn't remember (for better or for worse).