#that's why i'm staying quiet

[exospherethoughts]

This isn't about you, but it's something I wish I could talk to you about, and I can't because if I try to then it'll be a wall of text I send you and it will be ignored. Or met with some short "thanks for sharing" type message. Even if you asked to call me, I don't think you want to do emotional vulnerability with me anymore, so the void gets this instead.

I wish my mind could grasp onto solid feelings and thoughts, but catching fleeting ideas or keeping track of a single coherent thought process is much akin to attempting to juggle thirteen wet thin bars of soap whilst rattling off the periodic table of elements in order. To communicate any of those bars of soap in a sensical and terse manner is practically impossible. It's highly frustrating to live inside my head, and when I think too hard about it, I want to tear my hair out. I'm trapped in a mental prison and I have no way of reaching out between the bars to talk about it or even just hold someone's hand. It's as though the version of me in my head is completely separate from that which everyone in the real world perceives, and when I let myself be consciously aware of that disconnect or try to reconcile the two entities, I run into walls, I feel trapped, and I panic. There is no way out.

Yet here I am, desperately trying to communicate it anyways. None of what I just wrote adequately describes what I've been experiencing my entire life (although it's been getting worse and worse lately as I become more aware of it), but I am trying. Maybe one day I'll land on the right combination of words for it. Probably not, but I can try.

I wonder how much of this summer I'll remember. Will it be lost to the depths of my mind like every other summer? Is it really just summers that are bad, or am I just telling myself that because I don't want to admit that every single month of my life ends up fading away so quickly, it's like my life only started two or three weeks ago?

What strange plane of existence is my mind on? Today was objectively good. I spent time with someone I really enjoy being around, they have been *incredibly* generous with their time and knowledge, I was productive today, I went outside, I got to do some crosswords, my smoothie this morning tasted good, I socialized with some fellow grad students, it was an objectively good day. I should be happy. I should feel connected and valued and appreciative and like I matter. But when I was walking home, I felt empty. The version of me that walks around and talks to people and makes facial expressions did all those things today. The version of me that exists in my head was holding her breath all day, for who knows what reason. Despite having felt like I was mentally present all day, it was as though that was a false perception, because once I was alone it was as though I was being set down after being tossed around in a hurricane, I had to catch my breath and felt overwhelmed by the day. But it was a good one. Why do I feel overwhelmed by a good, straightforward day? Why did that only kick in after I was alone and on my way home? Why did I think I was present in reality only to realize at the end of the day that I was as disconnected as ever?

Is it perhaps not that I am really disconnected in the moment, but that External Me is present in reality and Internal Me is not, and when I am alone, External Me goes away (except for the part that goes through the motions of making tea, cooking dinner, and typing on my computer right now), leaving Internal Me to take over the majority of my mind? Is it really just an issue of Internal Me not being the one who is experiencing any of the things I say or do every day, and External Me has no real short or long term memory, so whilst I may be "present" in the sense that I am doing everything I can to experience things in the moment, I do not remember any of those things as if it were really me there? Is that why all the memories I do have feel like stories someone else told me rather than memories of my own experiences?

Is that why, when I think of anything we did together, any time we spent together, my chest feels devoid of any emotion and my mind plays out vague images as though from a film? Is that why I keep finding myself sobbing on my bathroom floor playing music I know used to make me feel love or longing or heartbreak or joy or warmth or safety or forlorn about you, desperately trying to feel any of those emotions again, closing my eyes and imagining myself in those memories, searching for a shred of reality to cling to; but instead finding only grief for the lost parts of those memories? The lost parts... the important parts. The parts that made them *my* memories. The parts that made me feel something rather than remember a description of what I was feeling. The parts that kept your face and voice crystal clear. The parts that made them feel real.

It's funny how this wasn't supposed to be about you, but we ended up here anyways. Sometimes I wonder how I know I love you, the you sitting on the other side of the planet texting me once a day (if I'm lucky), because to my mind you've already turned into some distant character entirely separate from the person who I fell in love with and spent so many dozens of hours talking to.

Then I look at the mug on my desk with so many dried flowers in it, all picked for you. I notice how every time something good, or happy, or painful, or funny, or interesting, or mundane, or anything happens, I want to text you about it. I think about how I do grieve the lost parts of those memories, rather than being indifferent to them. I see how I have to exercise so much self control to wait until next week to ask you to call me (I really want you to ask first). I find myself running down the same paths we used to walk together, letting your ghost haunt me, wishing I could go back and do it all over again, just to hold your hand and hear your laugh and listen to you talk about your day.

I may feel empty, I may not be able to reconcile the you on the other side of my phone screen with the you I knew here and love, but I would be doing myself a disservice to deny how I feel about you. Even if my mind cannot grasp that you are still the same person, even if my mind cannot remember any of what we had as reality, I think my heart knows. It knows and it grieves for my mind because it knows how much my mind is missing out on. It knows how wonderful those memories are in full colour and emotion and reality, and it is in pain because without my mind to remember them for it, it cannot relive them. It cannot miss them properly. It can only grieve.

And so I sit here, ribcage hollowed out, grieving something I know I've lost but cannot fully experience the pain of losing because it does not seem real.

It is a kind of torture I wouldn't wish upon anyone. My entire life is going by and none of it has felt real. Not you, not any of the time I've spent with friends, not any of the time I've spent with my parents, not any of the trips I've gone on, not any of the things I've learned, not any of the music I've played, not any of the places I've seen, not any of the things I've said or done. I don't even really know who I am, I don't know how others perceive me, I look in the mirror and see a stranger staring back. I see a body but I do not comprehend that I am inside that body. I know when I speak my voice comes out but if I listen to it, it does not sound like me. I know I interact with people but those interactions are like watching two other people interact, neither of them seems like me. I don't know who I am and none of my life has felt real. At least when you were here, I had moments of feeling real in the moment, I had moments of feeling loved and safe and I felt like I could be completely myself with you. It was the closest I've gotten to feeling like Internal Me was the one existing in reality in a very long time. But apparently it wasn't close enough, because you are now another lost part of my memories.

The worst part of it all? Despite sitting here, typing away, trying my best to line up my thoughts in a row, grabbing at any ephemeral emotion I can, it still doesn't come anywhere close to properly conveying what I'm experiencing.

It's one thing to suffer. It's another to suffer knowing you cannot make anyone else understand your suffering.

[4ddi3addie2005]

Before I went to bed I saw the Youtube notif that TADC was going to Netflix and it INVADED my dreams so vividly I have not had such an episodic sequential serialized cohesive dream in months it was literally its own chapter its own short story

[canisonicscrewyou]

I'm being so brave today (working with someone who makes emotional regulation HARD + makes me hyper aware of everything bc they. don't do anything)

[itstimeforstarwars]

It is so hard sometimes not to send work emails that are like

Hello all,

Genuinely what the fuck.

Thanks in advance,

S.B. Gremlin

[beeholyshit]

Oh my god

[cookinguptales]

if you want to know where I am on my "dealing with wwdits s5" journey, I've got like six long meta posts in my notes on my laptop that I just haven't posted. lmao

I'm. workin through it.

[mossbabie]

🚰

[pointless2theend]

I'm so tired

[piplupod]

every day i see people talking about things that I simply do not understand no matter how much I look into it and think about it and try to figure it out. i cannot tell if it's brainfog and fatigue or if I'm just ,,,, incapable of being intelligent enough for it all :[

[iero]

Having a post-concert crash right now and I’m trying to will myself to stay awake for the next several hours because I’m terrified I’ll oversleep and miss my train back home in the morning, but I also need to clean up this AirBNB for check out and I can’t will myself to get off this couch to do it... Girl help. 

[apollo-zero-one]

Man I can't believe I had the chance to go to a performing arts school up through middle school and I fuckin quit after 6 months just because I got bullied. BRO YOUR HOMEWORK WAS POETRY!! YOU HAD TO PRACTICE DANCING TO COTTON EYE JOE AS YOUR BIG UNIT TEST. GYM CLASS HAD A CIRCUS UNIT!! YOU HAD A WHOLE DAILY CLASS ON IMPROV!!! YOU FOOL!! YOU ABSOLUTE IMBICILE!! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN A YOUTUBER!!! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THOSE TWEENAGERS GETTING LOADED BY MAKING SHITTY YOUTUBE SHORTS IN 2008-14!! But noooOoooOOOoo little miss Noellie (who WANTED TO GO!! who worked SO HARD and sent in an application essay and did an INTERVIEW to get in!!) couldn't handle disruptive classmates or little scuffles and petty grudges and general Attitude of the other students and cried to mommy to put her back in public school. I am EATING MY HAIR over what Could Have Been. I COULD BE SOMEONE'S ANNOYING YOUTUBER!! I could be a DISGRACED DISNEY CHANNEL STAR!! I could be an America's Got Talent winner! A mild to moderately successful comedian! I could be making short films!! But no no no precious thin skinned baby me heard a few new cus words and watched a teacher get heckled and begged to give up The Dream in favor of?? Quiet math tests?? I am such a fucking quitter I quit everything the second it gets too hard I always take the out as soon as it's offered what's my fucking damage.....

[luvevee]

It's pretty annoying having to scan basically every artist for i/cest shit in any media that has siblings because most of them hide it on alt accounts/platforms/sly tags and that's a big reason why I'm too burnt out on reblogging art

[curiosityjams]

*

[jayswing101]

For anyone who has sent me a message anywhere in the last few weeks and is still waiting on a reply - I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten about you or anything. I've just been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately and like I'm having a constant migraine but without the pain, and the TV at 70 volume my grandma has on 9am-11pm every day isn't helping things. I'll get back to you, I promise! I'm just gonna be a bit slower about it than normal 💙

[sanjarka]

maybe my parents did a few things wrong, maybe i'll always be angry about said things and maybe i'll never move on but at least i'm allowed to show that anger to them. i get to be honest and tell how much it hurts sometimes.

[taegularities]

I'm not a writer so I'm curious. Does interaction really influence writing and motivation so much? Ever since i started reading here i have seen so many writers talk about this so i am just wondering

hmmm i'd say the answer to this is both yes and no. idk, it's a bit complicated. so like, we get new ideas and then write them for ourselves, bc writing is a hobby and excites us. sometimes we've no clue whether readers will like that fic, but we still put it out bc we like how something turned out. but interaction definitely helps. i mean we post a fic, so people can read it. so if nothing comes back, it feels very discouraging that we worked on something for so long and anticipated response and nothing happens, yk? so if you can, do support your favs.. it truly makes their day, i promise that <3