#if you get the reference then hooray for old internet memes

[twelvefifteencomic]

119 - Putting on Airs

[isa-ly]

OH MY, WHAT’S THIS?

TW: mental health, therapy

Golly gosh, has she really gone and made yet another god damn blog? Yes. Yes she has.

Let me explain myself. I know this is probably like what, my tenth or eleventh online blog that I’ve made now? You would think that I would have a huge and dedicated reader base by the rate and ferocity I create these blogs with, but well, since I forget about every .tumblr.com and .wordpress.com after about a month or two, it comes to no surprise that these unattended digital corpse-pages don’t really have many readers. Should maybe give them a proper burial by hitting that delete button and letting them move on to the afterlife of 1′s and 0′s. But since I don’t even remember half the URLs I came up with, they’re probably just gonna keep peacefully existing in the graveyard that is the the forgotten blog section of the internet.

So. Why another one? Why add onto the pile of aesthetic yet virtually empty “personal” websites?

I’m just going to tell you what my therapist told me: “It seems like you have so many thoughts in your head, it probably feels like exploding.”

Don’t worry, I’m not saying that I’m Miss Big Juicy Brain and too smart for my own good – that’s not what my lovely therapist meant either. The reason she said that to me was because in our latest session, she had asked me to give her a quick rundown of what goes through my head whenever anything emotionally triggering happens to me. I had then proceeded to talk for twenty whole minutes (there go twenty whole bucks, thanks a lot, non-existing public mental healthcare system) about what happened in my old noggin whenever ~A Feeling~ occurred. And I described it in such excruciating detail that I think she stopped taking notes halfway through and just zoned out. Can’t blame ya, Kerstin, twenty minutes of incohesive rambling doesn’t really meet the expectation of a “quick rundown”. Sorry for that.

Anyway, we then proceeded to talk about overthinking, as we have done a million times before. And, as we have also done a million times before, we came to the conclusion that my inner monologue resembles a thirty-meter death-ride water slide, when it comes to the velocity and severity of how fast and far I tend to spiral with my own thoughts.

Now, don’t worry, by now I’ve been in therapy for long enough to know how to safely land back on the floor. However, I did agree with my therapist that my intense introspection does sometimes compromise me in my day to day life, as I will spend days on end in my own head rather than in the world that lies outside of it. That then usually leads to self-isolation and that, in return, leads to even more introspection. Hooray, to unhealthy processing mechanisms!

Alright, enough self-deprication. Basically, the conclusion I came to in that session, was that I’m pretty much the exact opposite of the “no thoughts, head empty” meme. For me, it’s more like “all thoughts, head explode”. And while I’ve been trying to get better at sharing face-to-face what’s going on in my head, I don’t always have the energy to text, call or meet friends and make my brain form words that my mouth then says out loud (which, I realize, is also known as talking). 

I have made progress in that direction but ironically, these thought spirals tend to be the exact reason why I sometimes get into the bad mindset of thinking “Ugh, why even bother sharing? It’s already exhausting enough to just think it. Talking and explaining will be even harder.” And I know that that is not entirely true but listen, change comes in waves and you can’t battle all your inner demons at once. It is important to choose your battles accordingly to your strengths.

So, that is what I’m doing. I am choosing a battle by making a compromise. And making a blog. 

God, how awfully millenial of me. What’s next? A TikTok account where I ironically document my panic attacks over the sounds of Jason Deulos’ ‘Savage Love’? (Hold on, just gonna note that idea down for later...)

Seriously, I realize that this has a certain bobo-esque, self-absorbed cringe vibe to it (did I really just say vibe, this is worse than I thought). However, I also care for and know myself well enough that I tend to downplay and ridicule the fact that I really do have a massive stick up my ass when it comes to talking about my emotions, my traumas and all those pesky, invasive thoughts. And that’s why Kerstin and me came up with the idea of me simply making a blog where I can dump all my thoughts whenever it feels like they are getting too much.

This is obviously not the first time that someone thought of jutting down what’s going through their head. I am self-aware enough to know that I didn’t invent the concept of writing about my life and inner turmoil. YouTubers and ex-Vine stars already did that before me, just look at the list of New York Times Bestselling Authors and you’ll see it for yourself. And if Gabbie Hannah can publish her own poetry book (never forget “Link ... in Bio”), I can damn well make another unknown blog where I share what seems to have gotten stuck somewhere on the way from my brain to my mouth.

Sorry, by the way, if nobody got those weird references. Whenever I’m not busy bashing my overthinking head against the metaphorical wall of fear of my sharing emotions, I spend most of my time watching drama channels explain why yet another book published by yet another unproportionally famous vlogger is yet again unsurprisingly shit. But that’s not the point of this first blog entry, so let’s let the money-hungry world of YouTubers performing figurative self-fellatio rest.

Bottom line: I need to get better at talking. To people other than my therapist, that is. Because frankly, if that poor woman has to listen to even more twenty minute rants of me dissecting my own broken psyche, she’s probably gonna quit her job and then I officially have no one left to chew through my issues with. And that would be quite unfortunate for everyone involved.

So, I want to practice. Try out the whole brain-to-mouth thing, but in a less confrontational way, by making it a brain-to-keyboard thing first. And not just that, I want to make an active effort in setting myself reminders that no matter how deep and lost I am in my own overthinking patterns, I can always put a stop to it and just spew it out onto virtual paper. To get it out of my system, manifest it into something more physical, read through it, recognize what’s lacking and what I need to change and lastly, editing it into something that makes more sense to me and also others. 

In summary, this is kind of just me making my own “How To Talk About Emotions – For Dummies” guide. I expect no one to read all of what me and my sore yet hyperactive mind come up with, but I still gladly invite you to, should you care to see what that looks like. I apologize in advance though, I do tend to over-dramatize and under-estimate the way and amount I write about most things, including my own feelings. 

But hey, maybe by writing this blog somewhat close to regularly, I’ll also figure out a way to talk about my emotions in a way that isn’t filled with unnecessarily smart-assy Big Dictionary Words and pop culture references barely anyone understands. Let’s hope for the best.

After it now took me exactly 1.291 words to explain what could have been explained in about two sentences, I’m finally gonna shut up. “Thank the Lord”, I hear you say. Or ... maybe that’s just my overthinker voice and fear of vulnerability that heard you say that? Kerstin would probably smile and nod proudly now. Gold star for me, yay. Just kidding, I never get any cool stickers for my achievements. Honestly, that whole therapy thing is way less fun than I thought it would be, I just want a stamp that says “Great job!” or “Super cool!” every now and then. Is that too much to ask? Okay, I think I see now what she meant when she said that I seem to secretly rely on the approval of others for personal successes so I can compensate the fact that I never give myself any credit for them.

Phew, that whole writing things down idea seems to already pay off. But okay, enough self-revelations for today. I have no idea how often I will actually write on here and even less of an idea what the topics will be. However, I will always include tags and trigger warnings, so that if there actually is someone who reads through it, they can know what each post is about.

So, yeah. That’s it for now. Brain-to-keyboard to you soon. (Get it, that’s my way of saying talk to you soon, because– okay, yeah, you got it. Right.)

P.S.: Yes, the name of the blog is a pun, let me live a little.