#it's more raw and talks about serious topics like self harm through sex and fetishizing oneself as a defense mechanism

[starcolle-archive]

On Being “Fucked Up” (in general & about others) And Working Through It All.

Okay, so, I’ve been trying to write this post for ...a while now. And I might add on the drafts later on The drafts are in the readmore, and although parts repeat what’s said in the “actual” post, I recommend checking it out for further info that I don’t talk about in the post (eg Dom/me Drop and other unexpected topics); anyways, here’s the “stop fucking around and just say what you want/need to say, Ry’n!” edition. (Also, this first paragraph is a link to a google drive folder of e-books/e-workbooks I highly recommend checking out, even if it’s a quick cursory glance, especially “The Autism Relationships Handbook”; please.)

So last year in March, around the very beginning of Covid, I got a “lovely” anon ask that (among other things) said: “glad to see you’re still as fucked up as ever. especially about olivia.” Which to begin with is a terrible thing to say, and something I’m honestly disappointed anyone that knows me would ever consider sending to me.

Looking back on it all, what really got me “fucked up” in the first place was (in 2019) having this well of dammed up emotions, thoughts, desires, what have you, about my best friend who I missed dearly; my best friend who I thought hated me, wanted absolutely nothing to do with me, utterly despised me, loathed me because of what I’d done. And then finding out, no, she actually still cared about me, and missed me greatly; the dam burst and the rushing water of confusion and chaos muddied the thoughts and emotions until it was difficult to discern which were the “present” thoughts & which were the lingering sentiments that’d become unsedimented in the flash flood of feelings.

I’d sent her a happy birthday message as an apology & a wish of good will; in all honesty, I expected her to respond by blocking me. Instead she said she missed me!?

I didn’t know how to respond; a part of me was ecstatic, and a part of me was horrified with myself. I’d spent the latter half of the Fall 2018 semester in agony during our dance class, thinking she wanted nothing to do with me when all I wanted to do was apologize and talk to her again.

When on the morning of our Dance Class’s final exam, I’d spun out on the connector coming from Crestview, literally spinning my van 180 degrees into the dirt, She was the first person I wanted to call. But I couldn’t because she’d vaguely told me she’d blocked my number (I’d tried sending her a text hoping that she was okay during Hurricane Michael; which was shortly after the October Mental Breakdown). I still made it to the final, although solely so that I could try to give her my apology letter, since the teacher was understanding and said I could come in some other time if I wasn’t able to make it (but that’s a different ‘story’ entirely).

But yeah, I can definitely agree that I was decently “fucked up” back then. It’s ironic though, because my interactions with Olivia were actually some of the least stressful parts of 2019; I’d argue comforting actually, even during breakdown(s) of communication due to misunderstandings. Especially when we were making progress, communicating our pain, and attempting to make amends for all of our past mishaps & unintentional toxicity. I don’t think I’ve ever journaled as much/consistently as that period of time; absolutely to understand myself, but also to understand her (in general & specifically so I could be there for her), to the best of my ability.

(I remember telling her I wanted to earn her trust to meet up and talk/apologize in person; I wish she had told me she was seeing someone, because I would’ve told her “Great! All the more reason to meet up; I want to reconcile the past hurt I caused & help you stop yourself from repeating the patterns you had while we were together/were ‘just friends’ & might still be perpetuating. If they make you happy, then I wanna support y’all’s relationship the best way I know how: by being your best friend & being there for you.” ...I remember telling chelli multiple times that one thing I really would’ve loved was, had Olivia and I rekindled our friendship, the possibility of hanging out and going on a double-date with our “SO”s at the time ...also, yeah it’s using me as a guinea-pig, but I feel like seeing if your SO will properly gender a close friend of yours or not, regardless of y’all’s past history, is a pretty good litmus test to see if they’re a decent person/y’all’re even compatible.)

With all that past stuff “out of the way,” I go back and forth on if I’m still “fucked up” about Olivia.

I’m not fucked up in that I’m finally starting to feel like my myself again, gradually meeting new people/making new friends, and having great experiences as I try my best to live my most authentic life.

But I am fucked up in that I worry a big chunk of me will always be missing; perpetually saddened by the fact that I can’t text my best friend things, ranging from “Mr. Blue Sky was playing at work today and it made me think of you :)” all the way to “omfg a customer of mine just told me she’s a burlesque dancer, and it made me miss you and really want to finally watch Burlesque together because I know it’s one of your favorite films, and I haven’t let myself watch it yet/might never watch it because it wouldn’t feel right without you.” (Said customer was in like less than a week ago, and I asked if she rock climbed, since for some reason she gave off that vibe to me, to which she then told me she was a dancer.)

I’m not fucked up in that I’m still figuring out what I want to do with my life, and finally might have an idea of what I actually-actually wanna study.

But I am fucked up in that one of the (multiple; but it definitely wasn’t one of the biggest) issues I had with going to UWF was remembering how (during the conversation that followed my Happy Birthday Message she said) she was gonna be uncomfortable being on the same campus as me; something that we once were (or at least I thought we were) looking forward to getting to do together, regardless of what our relation to each other was.

I’m not fucked up in that I think I’d love to go back to school to get a Masters of Science in Library Studies, and FSU just so happens to have that degree program & is rated “highly” for it compared to other universities.

But I am fucked up in that one of the (again, multiple; this was nowhere near a major reason, but definitely a kinda-nail-in-the-coffin) reasons I moved to Tally instead of Pcola is because I couldn’t handle the thought of running into her and her looking through me as if I was a stranger (it’s tempting to say ‘whose laugh she could recognize anywhere’); part of me had hoped that maybe being in a bigger city/going to the same University we’d get the chance to become friends again, but uh, I don’t want to get in the way of her living her life when she’s told me she doesn’t want me in it.

I’m not fucked up in that thinking about it more and more, being a Librarian really does (hypothetically) suit me well, even better than a (eg: Physics) Teacher would; and so it feels like I might’ve finally found a piece of myself I didn’t know I was missing.

But I am fucked up in that I got the idea to become a Librarian from a Librarian on TikTok, who talked about her experiences as an archivist, and how she had worked with all different kinds of lawyers. It feels like a great deal of Cosmic Poeticism for Olivia to (eventually) become a Lawyer & me to (hopefully) become a Librarian and/or Archivist; which is a nice thought, albeit extremely sad too if nothing were to ever come of it (which is unfortunately very likely; however, the universe/gxd “works in mysterious ways” after all lol), in that maybe we actually were meant to be some kind of partners after all.

I’m not fucked up in that I might be getting a marriage license with chelli so that she can share her (really good & really cheap) health insurance with me ...trans healthcare is way too expensive, and something I haven’t really talked much about (irl & online) is a feeling of being a burden because of me being trans (among other reasons, but being trans is the most “burdensome” imho).

But I am fucked up in that I don’t know if I’ve ever had any actual desire to be with chelli romantically. And despite everything that has happened between Olivia and I, and especially considering all the things she’s said directly to me (then again, half the things she’s said to me have been the opposite of what she’s meant/wanted to actually say; but when you tell me things then make it hard to communicate with you, I’m forced to take it at face value, even when I know I shouldn’t), on some deep level it still feels wrong/a betrayal to Her; something that honestly probably shouldn’t even cross my mind, yet after everything, it does. I know though that even if we were in contact, even if we both allowed ourselves to reach that level of interest in the other again & acknowledged it too, her levelheadedness would recognize that this is the best course of action in the current moment so that I can be my best self. (I honestly have no clue what it’d take for me to regain & allow myself to have romantic feelings for her again, let alone get to such an extreme level as to desire marriage, but I’d love to know the mix of reactions she’d have if she ever read this. Disgusted? Flattered? Confused? Annoyed? Intrigued?)

I’m not fucked up in that I know she’s living her life to the best of her ability, and knowing that makes me incredibly proud/happy/excited for her.

But I am worried that a part of me will always be “fucked up” because I won’t get to be a part of any of it; especially any of her major life events like we promised each other we would. A lot of people (especially cishet men) think that being “just friends” after a relationship is ‘settling,’ but to me, being friends if a romantic relationship isn’t working out/can’t work at that point in time is natural/logical; what’s really “settling” is losing that best friend, especially over a bunch of misunderstandings & miscommunications, and not knowing and/or telling the other person what they can do to work it out.

(This next paragraph was following the thought process of “Okay, as a thought experiment, let’s say I’m always ‘fucked up about Olivia,’ so what? I’m still ‘fucked up’ about Krys in extremely similar yet completely separate ways. But the thing is: I’m constantly working on it, and fuck am I proud of myself for the growth I’ve made and continue to make every single day!”)

No matter what I do to isolate, distance, or even negotiate with my feelings for Olivia, they seem to all be irremovable in one way or another; we truly have to let ourselves feel our emotions so that we can move through them. I’ve accepted the possibility that I will forever be “fucked up … about olivia.” because that’s life. There will always be a corner of my heart reserved for my best friend. But in the way that my heart is a home, it’s a room for her; one that might be mine, but it’s hers to do with. The rest of my heart belongs to me, but there are other nooks and crannies that my friends and other past loved ones can call home too. Very few come close to the size of hers, and none of them come close to the Master Bedroom that is my own, but each one is unique in that they’re incredibly personal; decorated with the hardships and the fondness, the agony and the bereft breaths we’ve shared. Some need cleaning up, some need patching up, and some might need to be renovated entirely, but that’s the magic of it all. Our brains and hearts may have a finite size, give or take, but the home we call our heart is ever expanding!

So uh anyways (now that I’m done tearing up; something I’m genuinely glad to finally be able to do thanks to HRT), you might ask, hypothetical-reader’s-disembodied-voice, “But Ry’n, it’s been nearly a year & a half since you got that ask, why are you just now talking about it?” Well, cause last year was last year and it also followed up the (as I wrote in one of my previous drafts) ‘anxiety-inducing-multiple-toxic-environments-cluster-fuck of 2019’; I was/still-sorta-am-but-also-nowhere-near-as-much-as-I-was toxic during 2019, and I’m disappointed in myself. I allowed the combination of a toxic home environment, toxic work environment, and incredibly-boundary-ignoring toxic “romantic” relationship to get the “better” of me and dilute a lot of the progress I’d made during 2018; like straight up there was a point (or two) where I got so mentally fucked up depression-wise, that I stopped taking my meds, including my hormones, and essentially de-transitioned unintentionally because I no longer had the support system/network I’d spent building up in mid-to-late 2018/beginning of 2019 (which unfortunately happened again during the 2020 quarantine). Yeeeeeeaaaaaahh...

Shit.

Fucking.

Sucked.

On a similar-ish note, have you ever bounced between Puberty & Menopause because your cishet Doc doesn’t want your hormone levels to be “too high” (aka the necessary levels for A CIS GIRL TO GO THROUGH PUBERTY) ? Trust me, it isn’t fun! As a side note, once I’ve been on hormones long enough to have gone through a “full puberty,” I’m legitimately thinking of increasing my testosterone back to somewhere between cis-women’s-high-range and cis-men’s-low-range because I feel like that’ll be more “me” (and among the benefits to working out and such, hopefully I’ll be able to produce sperm again at some point too!). The point being: it’s *what I want/need* and not what someone else wants for me.

But just like getting a Master’s degree, it’s at least a few years down the line, and so I’ll end this post with this TL;DR:

“The love you have for someone will always be a part of you, but please take care of yourself and remember to give yourself the same love you wish you could’ve given/could still give them. If they are actually deserving of the love you wish you could/’ve give/n them, they’d want you to Keep Moving Forward and strive to be your best self. We’ve all got fucked up lives (in general but also because of the last year & a half), and we can try to have open & understanding hearts, but if we don’t communicate & explore the hurt we’re feeling, we may just end up perpetuating it instead of soothing & healing it. Please try to love yourself; I may not know you (or the current version of you), but I know you are so, SO deserving of love, patience, gentleness, and a reminder that you are wanted in this world. I wish I could be a part of your world, but if that’s not possible (like, period or just for right now), I hope you know how much you mean to everyone in your life, as well as me; regardless of how much or how little I may know about you. If you’re reading this, you ARE a good person, regardless of what any inner voice might tell you (remember: you are NOT your intrusive thoughts); things around us might not seem to be getting better, but just by reading this & believing in yourself, I think KNOW you’re getting better. I believe in you. You are loved. I’m sorry. And please make sure you let the people who matter to you know that they do matter to you; you have no idea how much it could mean to them, how much it could help calm the storms their minds weather, the ones that they don’t discuss as they worry it might burden you as well.”

Like, yes, I've been "fucked up" in the past in regards to her, especially since I've been in a near-constant state of Dom/me Drop until recently, so much so that I haven't been aware/let myself be aware until the recent months. (Before any hypothetical readers get any further, I wanna say that although each day brings its own volley of hurdles, I'm doing relatively-a-lot-better & I feel like I'm closer than ever before to finally being happy after all these years.) I think that's been my biggest issue in regards to moving on/through everything that's happened. (Biggest, but definitely not the only one.) Just like how I was engaging in self destructive behavior, or rather: I was self harming without consciously being aware of it all; and it still fucks me up that I hurt the one person I wanted to protect most ...maybe writing about it is a way for me to forgive myself. Also, this entire post is a link to my Google Drive where there are a small group of easily digestible e-books & e-workbooks on recognizing & working through trauma (one of which is specifically about autistic people & our relationships; with ourselves, others, and trauma). I think back to all of the pictures we sent back & forth, and two are burned into my mind the most. The first is of her in her car waiting for her friends: a little disheveled & maybe with some bedhead; pretty much no makeup on whatsoever. And when I got it, all I could think about was how she was the most beautiful person in the world; stunning without trying. Gorgeous. I'm sure a decent part of me would still agree, but I digress. The other is of her, heartbroken, saying how she wanted to kill herself; specifically wanting to drive off the local bridge. I don't think I'd ever hated myself as much until that point in my life; and this is coming from someone who has suffered from intense gender dysphoria, self-blame for the litany of abuse I've endured, all on top of countless years of suicidal ideation. I don't think people can ever truly understand what it means to be "fucked up" until they learn the person you've fallen for, grown to want to spend your entire life with, now wishes they were dead because of the pain you've caused them; the person that made me want to truly thrive and live my life to the fullest now wanted to die because of me? I remember her begging me to take her back, and I wanted to, but what kind of monster would I have been had I actually done it? I loved her (and a part of me always will), and this is what I let happen!? Looking back, yes it was an incredibly toxic & manipulative thing to send to me; and likely was trying to guilt me into taking her back ...despite having the EXACT OPPOSITE effect. But we were both young and didn't have the proper resources to express & explore our feelings at the time. If anything, it's just made me sadder over time for not being able to recognize how to respond; but that's the beauty of hindsight: I know I've grown as a person BECAUSE I know how to & would be able to handle situations like that now. As a side point: I didn't even really want to be in a relationship with Tiff (don't get me wrong, we're still friends & I love talking with her from time to time), I ONLY said yes because of two reasons: 1, Olivia had said we weren't getting back together & 2, Tiff had asked me to be her girlfriend. (Olivia told me she didn't think she could ever love a woman after months of telling me about transphobic comments her mom had made; which tbh given the fact that I'm nonbinary & hella genderflux, specifically I'm never truly a woman except in the lesbian/sapphic sense, her mom wouldn't have had to know I was trans for YEARS. Anyways, I tried talking about it, but there was only so much you could talk about through text. She'd also lied about falling out of love with me while actively forcing herself to fall out of love when all we needed was better communication.) Looking back, I

can say with 100% guarantee that any romantic affection I had for/gave to Tiff was just my feelings for Olivia being misdirected. Kinda like my romantic feelings for chelli, but I digress. I'm gonna insert a post I'd tried writing a month ago, but never felt comfortable posting/refining until now: [It's ironic that right as pride month ends (I'm talking like sometime between like midnight and 1am of July 1st), I finally came across the scene from The Good Doctor with the trans girl. I'd always thought the character was a trans woman, not a young trans girl, in the episode that Kathy had started screaming at the TV about. I feel like that makes it even worse. I know it was years ago, and so I'd like to believe she's grown since then, but that doesn't change the fact that a major part of what lead to my self-harming in Chicago was because of how afraid of her I was (feeling alone and afraid are probably two of the worst feelings to combine; although I imagine a lot of people have learned that after 2020). Maybe "afraid of her" isn't the right phrasing, but Olivia was absolutely afraid of her mother, whether she ever realized/acknowledged it or not, and that eventually caused me to feel unsafe in our relationship. My anxiety was CONSTANTLY telling me she'd leave me because of her mother, which became a negative feedback loop of me pushing her away unconsciously, leading to me consciously fighting with myself & lashing out at her when I needed her reassurance the most ...I was afraid of being abandoned again, and did what fake-male-Ryan did best: push people away for a false sense of control; yes, I do recognize how ridiculous it sounds in hindsight, but I was a traumatized animal doing what traumatized animals do best: lash out in self defense. I wish I had been able to keep my strength when I moved to Chicago; I absolutely had lapses of my self before moving up there, I have one in mind that haunts me heavily to this day (and have wanted to apologize to her for a long time), but for the most part I was decently in control of "Ryan" pre-move. I remember pushing her to look into therapy (which although that Ryan literally couldn't have been as gentle as she deserved, I look back and recognize how I could've been the better person she needed me to be) in the hopes that it'd give her the tools to have a healthier relationship with both Kathy and Hannah. For full transparency, at first I expected to be in her life for a much, much shorter period, and figured I'd try and do as much "good" as I could; I say it like that cause boy was I an asshole at times. But I also phrase it like that because whereas I may have been the one to challenge her, she was the one that put in the work to grow and become a more refined version of herself; I have no idea what she'd be like nowadays had we never known each other, but I'm confident that she'd have eventually grown into herself (I'm fighting my ego here, because I'm incredibly proud of how she'd grown while we knew each other, and I REALLY want to take credit for whatever part I played in it, but like, this is my old best friend I'm talking about here, and so whatever conceitednes I may have left gets washed away surprisingly effortlessly). I wish I'd been capable of handling things gentler, and as such it serves as one of my reminders of why I HAVE TO be gentler with myself & others ...But something about the loneliness, and having my existence as a trans person heavily fetishized (not in the sexual sense, rather in a fear of hate) made me dissociate & decay through depersonalization to the point of having similar effects of early-onset-dementia. It was a groundhog day of self-destruction and I'm not proud of my behavior. I will say though, there were so many things that forced us to drift apart, and yes the environmental pressures doomed us from the start, but that doesn't mean I get off scot-free; the opposite really, because ultimately *I'm* the one that hurt her. Like, it ate me alive when she told me she wanted to die (kill herself? The black & white snaps have been

forever burned into my memory; talking about how I have a black heart & how she wanted to drive off a bridge) because I wouldn't take her back ...actually, that's probably the biggest reason why I refused to immediately take her back; I remember that the *ONLY* reason why I got in a short relationship with Tiff was because she asked me "Well why don't you be my girlfriend?" Not to overanalyze, but Olivia was (has? I have no idea what her life is like nowadays, but one can only hope/pray; see the post a few below this one for more on that) never allowed to be herself, and so I was afraid I'd never get to be myself. I was afraid I'd have to water myself down for someone I don't even care for, but meant a lot to her; the arguably bad thing is that I would've, and probably still would ...and that's what scares me. No, I KNOW I wouldn't; yes a part of me is scared to even think about it, but in all actuality, I would stand my ground. I'm Ry'n Ællin Collistar, and despite constant reoccurring self-doubt, I know my worth, and refuse to shrink myself for the comfort of others. Sure, the situations are vastly different, but the last in-depth conversation I had with chelli's parents were incredibly verbose, and so I'd like to believe that I would've held my ground fairly well had I ever had an actual lengthy conversation with Kathy. But the past isn't for dwelling, it's for learning.] So uh, yeah, like I said in the inner-post, I started writing that at around midnight or so the first day of July. Why am I posting it? Well, the bolded part about knowing my worth is a big part, alongside the other information. Anyways, back onto modern topics. I've started getting squishes (platonic crushes; a desire to be friends with someone) on a number of my new coworkers, and I'm kind of afraid I might also be getting a crush on one specific coworker (what can I say, curvy baristas are my type, I guess). It's nice though, because one of the squishes and I were talking about being flirty with coworkers & still being professional; I definitely wanna pick that conversation up some time. On top of that, because chelli is working for the state (technically it's a federal position), she has incredibly good/cheap health insurance ...but unlike Starbucks, which is more open to people being added to your plan, this is more strict. Which means chelli and I are talking about getting a marriage license so that I can have access to said health insurance (trans healthcare is NOT cheap). Which feels weird. And wrong? I'd never wanted to get married until I'd met & fallen for Olivia. And then I wanted to be married & spend my life with her. And now? Despite everything that's happened between Olivia and I, it still feels somewhat wrong. But I need to take care of myself; if I'd taken care of myself & started hormones sooner, maybe we'd still be friends (or more, but the point is that we'd actually still play a part in the other's life). Again, need to Keep Moving Forward. But it's not only a platonic marriage that's getting to me! I hate how there's a corner of my heart still reserved for Olivia, and likely will be for the rest of my life. Hate in that it used to be the four corners of my world & hate in that whenever I'm trying to do something, that corner screams for my attention. We were watching TikToks the other day, and it was a Librarian talking about her job history. It sounded exciting and something I'd genuinely consider changing my major to ...and then, she started talking about being the archivist for lawyers & helping to put together cases and such, and ...well, I got hit with a lot of feelings. It brought up thoughts of helping a certain lawyer best friend with her cases; her partner in at least one sense. I'd forgotten what it'd felt like to want something that badly, even if it was for a brief moment. Sure, it was a nice passing thought, but then I thought of how ridiculous/painful it'd be to change my major for someone that wants nothing to do with me (it actually sounds cool, regardless of Oli's involvement, and I'm

genuinely tempted to look into it). Not that I'm in school right now ...that's another sore subject. I had a number of reasons why I was hesitant to move to Pcola, but if I'm being completely honest, the final nail in the coffin for moving to Tally instead of Pcola/going to UWF was how Olivia had told me how she'd be uncomfortable going to the same university as me, alongside the potential pain of running into someone that matters immensely to me and yet wants nothing to do with me ...or worse: looks through me as if I was a stranger. Wrapping this post up, I still have no idea what the deal with O A T was; was it really written by her? It was so specific that it feels impossible to not have been. I dont know; it's all a headache, and to be completely honest, it's ridiculous that the corner of my heart still holds onto a shred of hope because of a damn good erotic fanfiction about us and our relationship. Speaking of relationships, I genuinely don't know if I actually am polyamorous; I'd probably enjoy some degree of monogamy, depending on the type of relationship. Anyways, circling back to O A T I'm genuinely sad that it never got a sequel/second chapter. And I'm not the only one, given its number of views, rating, and comments. C'est la vie: always hoping for another chapter, while forging your own story; forever writing walking blindly as we try to shine a light on the path before us. I've tried removing Olivia from my heart so many times that I've come to accept the fact that she will forever have a place in my heart, and possibly my life, and all I can do about it is live my life to the fullest, most authentic version of myself, whatever that may be. And if we ever cross paths again, whether by accident or by her intent, we'll finally get to meet each other as a more true, healthier version of our selves.