#iwould suggest avoiding this post altogether)

[bokettochild]

I'm just posting this to rant at myself, it's literally just me rambling about my issues

I usually try not to do this but I need to get it out there somehow and journals just make it feel more bottled up.

For your own sakes, there is no need to read this, I just am writing everything below the cut as a form of therapy for myself.

Have a lovely day everyone! And please take care of yourselves and do something that you love!

(Bambina, if you see this, you're not allowed to read it, okay? I'm telling you this to keep you safe, alright? Just scroll past and I'll hug you when I get back to the house, alright? Also, i'm working on another story for you <3)

I just want to write how I feel because there's a lot going on and no one really cares to listen to my problems, since I'm supposed to be the one listening to theirs. (There's a reason my siblings call me the family therapist).

If you bothered with looking down here, stop here. I'm just pretending to be heard, but I don't want to make other people upset or sad or feel obligated to help. And diaries aren't doing it for me. So I'm trying this.

This is just a vent post.

For your own sake (and mine I guess) just let this disappear. I just want to pretend I'm getting it out where someone can hear it, but I don't actually want people to listen because it's pathetic and it might hurt feelings and it might make others feel sad, which I don't want

I am tired.

I am in pain. My hands hurt, my joints hurt, I'm sure at this point I've developed arthritis, even though I'm only 20. But I'm not all that surprised.

I want to go home and rest, but I can't because my co-worker ditched on me and never showed up to relieve my shift, so now I'm working both of our shifts and have to stay here until closing time instead of getting to go home to my bed and a real lunch. Instead, I ended up having to sit on the floor of our back room and eat fast-food for lunch, because I didn't bring a lunch because I thought I'd be home by then. And we don't get chairs. Or a microwave. Or even a fridge. My boss said she's look into it, but that was months ago. So we just have to sit on the floor when we aren't working. and while I welcome getting to sit, it still hurts my joints and my back now hates me and never really stops hurting.

I want to go homer, and I want to cry, and I want to get a hug, but none of those are options because I have to stay at work, my body can't handle crying for more than a minute because it remembers that I'm not supposed to cry because then people get mad at me, so I taught myself not to. And I can't get a hug because the only hugs I get most days are from people who come to me to get one.

And I hate it.

I hate that all I'm good for is giving. Because I'm running out of things to give. all the people in my life want me for is so that I can give them time, money and attention.

I love them, i do, but I can only talk people down from suicide so many times, and talk them through depressive states, and convince them to not self harm, and reassure them that they're loved so many times before I eventually have no more energy to offer help. I'm pushing, but there's no more energy and I don't know when I'm eventually going to stop answering the phone or replying to texts. I don't want to not care, but GOSH DANG IT would it be nice not to need to! Not to have to worry about keeping people alive. Or helping them feel loved. Because they feel like SHE hates them, or doesn't care, or only tolerates them because SHE birthed them.

Pities sakes! I love them, but there's a problem when HER children call ME mom! I don't mind it! But she should be the one parenting them and offering advice and helping them cope with grief and their feelings of inadequacy, after all, SHE helped cause those problems in the first place! I'm tired of cleaning up HER messes and helping raise HER children! I'm tired of standing in and filling every role that's empty and being what I can't have because I don't want the rest of them to go without!

I'm tired of being the listening ear for everyone around me and yet being told I'm too loud when I talk (it's not my fault my hearing sucks)! Sometimes I wonder who was the one the doctors told I was deaf (I'm not, I can hear, just not well).

I know I talk loud, and I laugh louder! I know that my existence is a bother! That's why I tell them I'm shutting up! That's why, when SHE says my name in THAT way, i already know what she's going to say. 'I don't mind you singing but I have a headache right now' or 'It's too loud right now, I need you to be quiet' or 'I have a migraine'. I get it, those are valid, but you don't need to tear into me the moment I know what's coming and respond in kind. No! I'm not trying to be rude and impudent, i just know based off of experience what you are going to say, because you always take the same tone when you say it! You say it the same way every time! You don't need to scold me at the breakfast table for telling you that I would shut up, because that's what you wanted! You got mad at everything I said afterwards! That's why I was trying to shut up! Because you don't like what I have to say and I'm too tired to get yelled at again!

Honestly, I can't wait to go. I can't wait to leave. I know SHE won't let me until I'm going away to school, because if a suggest it (because I've tried) SHE will go on and on about how much I must hate her and the family because I'm trying to avoid them and that must be why I spend so much time at work- even though I spend so much time at work BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WILL TAKE THE SHIFTS! And I've tried cutting my hours, I did! I agreed to work here for maybe 20+ hours, NOT 40+! This was not something I was intending on happening MOTHER! I didn't get asked. I agreed to 30+ for the holidays, and they inched it up until I didn't realize and now they won't drop them but i have to keep the hours and I can't quit because it was SO HARD to get hired the first time and if I ever want to escape to someplace I feel safe so I can maybe find HOME than I need the money!

I know SHE wants me to think of that house as a home, but it isn't, it never has been. Once upon a time, I called the place where we lived HOME. Because I had a friend there, i had my horses, I had my space and I could run around the property for an hour when I felt lonely and I could brush the horses and talk and sing as much as I liked and tell stories and no one would care because they couldn't hear me and I was alone with my thoughts and the animals and it was NICE! It was safe, even though I knew the pigs would bite me if I came too close and the horses could kick me and the cows liked knocking me over. But I knew what to expect at least! I knew what I was risking. i wasn't wlaking on eggshells to avoid making HER mad! I wasn't dancing around teh wrong words so I didn't make the rest of them depressed. I didn't have to think or feel outside of what I chose. i didn't have to put on a GOSH DARN FAKE MASAK OF A SMILE! I could cry! I could sing! I wcould write stupid poetry and by an angsty teenager and let myself wallow while hiding in the hay and it was okay! Yes, I got yelled at for being outside so long, but it was worth it!

I don't have that now! There's a tiny yard that THEY can see every inch of. There's a house with no room I can go too to get away because I don't even get a real bedroom! I just get a boarded off part of HER workroom where my bed and clothes could fit but I can't even get in the door without tripping because there's hardly any floor! There isn;'t a real wall, just a thin board that everyone shots over, and I can't sing or talk or think out loud because it annoys HER when she's in there and I'll get teased or questioned or yelled at by everyone else because that's a family space, don't be so loud and dramatic, we're trying to exist too, and you can't make us leave becausde THIS PART isn't your room, that part is. So stop being loud and singing because we hate it and you're always off key- but how the heck, prey, must I get on key when my throat closes when I hear you walk near and I can't hit the notes and I'm scared to sing because you'll tell me to stop being so loud?

I hat that room, I hate that tiny little space that feels like a cage where anyone can and will barge in whenever they want, and where it doesn't matter what time it is, my mom will still talk to me over the walls at ! A.M. and get mad when I don't come out to look at what's she's working on it and compliment or congradulate her on it even though all I want to do it read my silly little fluff-fics and listen to my music and be allowed to get away into my head because the world is too small!

I don't want top be in taht house where my mind follows everyone and I have to tune into their emotions and I CAN"T STOP LISTENING TO EVERYTHING and there's too many people talking and needing and wanting and I CAN"T DO IT ALL ANYMORE!

I want to love them and i want to take care of them and I want to have moments where we're family and do things together and tell jokes and laugh and share special moments that I can tell my friends about. But there's no friends to tell, just my ex-boyfriend, and there's no happy family moments because the moment SHE walks into the room we're all waiting like soldiers on the parade ground for her to break whatever moment I finally carved out and give us all orders.

I can't even sit with mi bambina for a hot minute and read her a story without having to freeze and wait to see who's walking into the room, to have to make sure it's not anyone who will listen in and get mad at me for liking Zelda, or writing fanfics, or for saying stuff like 'bull-crap'. I can't sing in my own room unless they're out of the house. I can't focus when I'm at home, even when I have a pile of homework to do. I can't focus because I know I'm going to be called and they're going to come in and they will need something and my brain is listening, always listening, I turned it on to listening so that I could be there for others and maybe they'd be there for me too, but now I can't NOT listen and it hurts! It makes me want to cry and scream and throw things and run the other way! But I can't run, because I can't leave the house unless I'm going to work; I can't go on a walk because I'm a girl and people will take advantage of me, and I can't go places unless SHE takes me because she gets mad when I tell her I'll take myself and acts like I'm trying to run away from her (I am, I want away, i want to go away and find someone who cares) but I don't want to have to deal with her huffing about it for a week. But when I let her take me to places, there's a time limit, I'm running on her time, i have to be near her, come back to HER, It feels like being on a FREAKING leash and I just want to wander! I just want to spend time, not worry about wasting hers!

But I want to get out from under HER eyes, I want to go to a place and spend time. BUt there's no where to go and no one to go with because ther aren't any people who want me for anything more than what I can give them. All my siblings are making friends and don't need me as much anymore and I STILL DON"T KNOW HOW TO! How do you talk to people? How do you make them not think you're pathetic? I'm one out of two people in a family of twelve who isn't neurodivergent. I DON"T KNOW HOW TO TALK TO NEUROTYPICAL PEOPLE! I don't know what things they like and can't recognize the memeds they use or the movies they watch or the games they play and I hate politics and I hate not knowing what to say. I hate feeling stupid, and I know he never tries to make me feel dumb, but the one dude I'd almost call a friend is just a literal genius and I never know how to talk to him and I can only track half of what he says and he's dumbing it down for me and I know it and he's really sweet about it but I still don't understand and I feel so awkward when I can't say more than ten words at a time to him and I DON"T HAVE A CRUSH ON HIM even though they think I do.

And I hate that every time I'm near a boy everyone thinks I like him but I just TALK LIKE THAT! I'm not flirting, and I don't feel attraction that way and there's so many turn offs (this one's allergic to fur, this one's got the same mental illness as the sibling who bullied me throughout my childhood and made me hate myself asnd the people around me and I'm scared he's really like she is and is just going to use me; I don't hate mental illness or the people that have them, I'm so, so used to them, but I'm scared that I won't see I'm being used again before it's too late). I'm used to having to compete for attention, used to having to be perfect and amazinga nd gosh darn it Dad! I know you said I'm Mirabelle and not Isabella but do you kjnow how much her song resounds in my soul? Do you know how amazing it is to think I don't need to be perfect to be loved? Do you know how much I looked to her, saw myself, and just wanted to cry? I know you see the mask of teh sister who brings the family together, the little Tweety Bird that "lights up the room with her smile" and who you made you cry when you realized that she was bullying a sibling, even though you didn't know that was how we curvived. You didn't know that we had to hurt each other so that someone bigger wouldn't hurt us, you didn't know how we would tear each otehr down and struggle to stay perfect in the eyes of our bully so that they would show us love instead of hurting us by having the other help them. YOu don't know how much I had to force myself to drop in order to hold my sister and care for her and help her and love her after years of us being pitted against each other. You don't know what it is to promise myself I'd be what no one would be for me! You don't know what it was to force myself to push away my insecurities so I could encourage my rival and help her feel better and make her smile. You don't know how much my hands hurt when I'm hold them and stroke their hair and soothe their pains, Do you know what it feels like to strain your muscles to give a message? Hoping someone would show you some love for all you did for them? Do you know what it is to pour all of yourself into the people around you only to have them drop you the moment they're allowed into the world I was never let to see, even though it was the only thing I ever asked HER for?

No, he doesn't. he doesn't know any of that because his siblings and he were actual siblings with inside jokes and teasing and games and stories, while the only stories I can tell are ones where I blush at how stupid I was or feel like crying because I miss that time so much.

I know they don't know, but I can't tel them because that will hurt them and I'm past hurting others so someone will love me. I saw what that did. I know how that hurt my siblings, i know how it damaged things, I know how hard it was to convince my sister that I do love her and think she's talented and beautiful after I stood my and let myself be party to hurting and insulting her so that our bully would like me instead of her, knowing if I failed that she would be the one hurting me instead.

I let go of that, i walked out, I stopped competing for love, and I won't do it again, but man would I like to have someone try an dlove me a little. Not for what I can give them, but because they just want to be around me. Not because they have an idealized version of me that my parents have painted and I have to follow around them, but because they see me as I am and love that and want to spend time with that, not the silly mask my parent's carved and i have to wear.

I know it's silly, probably selfish, but that's the truth of it.

I know I should ask God for help, but I've been doiung that for years, and- well, he made us to love other people right? He won't be mad if I ask him for a person too? I know He satisfies all needs, but is it wrong to ask for a human too? He's right there, I know, I think I can feel him sometimes, a hand on my shoulder when I walk through a dark room where my sister says she sees ghosts, sitting with me when I study in corners of the house where everyone else sees spirits but i can't feel or see anything.

But is it wrong that I want a human too? I don't think he'd mind me wanting to actually feel a hug, or a hand in my hair- he made me loving those things, surely He doesn't mind me asking for someone to give it? We aren't made to be alone, He said as much "It is not right that man be alone" so why am I? Why can't I make a friend who will love me and who I can love and who I want to give my time and love too, who I can trust to not throw it in the dust and stomp on ot or make fun of me?

I know I'm broken, but am I really so hard to love that every human I meet just turns the other way?

Why are the only people who want to spend time with me other than mi bambina the boy who needs more than I can give and the guy from church who's mother is trying to force one of us to marry him? He's nice, sure, but she wants him to get a wife that can take care of him because he's mentally disabled, but he's like ten years older than me (or more?) and I can't even tell her I'm demi because than she'll mention it to HER and SHE will yell at us for being anything that's not strictly cis/hetro. She says she loves my trans brother, but she only yells at him and makes him feel unloved and he doesn't like being near her anymore because she never has anything nice to say that doesn't sound judgemental somehow.

I am lonely, i am in pain, i want a hug, I want to go home, i have spent an hour typing out my woes and I am drained, but I know that they are in the house and will talk and chatter and NEED from me when I get back, and all I want is to curl up and cry and drink some cocoa and let myself be and not worry about the deadlines for school or that my only phone contacts are my family members and co-workers (and my ex) or that I don't have a way to escape it.

......

I think that's enough.

I sincerely apologize to anyone who read this far, I'm just tired and emotionally worn out and needed to feel heard. I couldn't just write in a journal because it still feels bottled up, so I wrote this because it makes things feel like there's someone listening.

I'll be okay, so don't worry. I've made it 20 years, I can handle a little longer until I'm graduated and can go away to art school. I just needed to get everything off my chest and pretend there was someone listening.

If you did read this, than please make sure to take care of yourself and drink some water and stretch, because even if one of us is hurting, you shouldn't have to as well.

Gosh I hope there is no one reading it though...that would be awkward.....