Anonymous asked: After feeling like more than a couple people have misunderstood who I am (like, at my core), at what point do I just stop, look at myself in the mirror, and ask if it's that I'm being misunderstood or if it's that I'm in denial about the person I am?
I'm tired of losing battles with myself. I'm tired of feeling like I'm lost because of what he did to me and my world. I don't know what to do anymore.
-me
Oy, Anon - life’s a real bitch sometimes, isn’t it?
Ok, this is going to sound like the cheesiest thing ever, but I am not an eloquent advice-giver so basically I’d like to know why you’re losing these battles with yourself, because that makes it sound like you’re fighting against yourself, like you’re not on your own side. And then I’d like to ask why exactly you’re not on your own side, because babe, that is the number one place that it sounds like you need to focus on being.
Unfortunately, misunderstandings happen; they’re a bit of a curse of the combination of our social structure and human nature. I think the most important thing to remember here is that you have to put yourself first. Not in an entirely selfish way (though I am of the opinion that a bit of selfishness is absolutely essential to happiness), but in a sense that we need to be aware and content with whom we are as individuals and, honestly?, fuck everybody else. Whether it’s because no one’s opinion really matters except our own or because the reality that we perceive is the only reality there is, I don’t know. I do know that lost, aimless, unanchored, dark, dreary, lonely, abandoned feeling though, and for me at least it took a long time of focusing on myself (wants/needs/interests/insecurities/dreams/perceptions) to finally reanchor myself.
It sounds like you’ve been hurt, and hurt badly. And I’m guessing you’d like all the pain and the anger and the doubt and everything to just go away. And people have probably told you that it will in time, that time heals all wounds. Well, I don’t know about that. I’m not sure if time heals wounds; I think time covers up wounds, scabs them over. Healing is more active; we have to want to heal, we have to actively turn our minds to fixing what’s been broken instead of passively longing for the pieces to just fade away. Sounds unappealingly abstract and difficult (not to mention like a big load of crap), doesn’t it? Well, yeah, it is. It’s hard - so fricking hard - and it’s scary and it takes forever and I’m honestly not sure if it ever ends.
It’s very much about the terribly cliched (for a reason) idea of loving yourself, of getting to know yourself, of taking the time and initiative to inhabit your life. There’s that saying that ‘you’re the only one that has to live with you forever’ and damn if it isn’t true. I know I’m just sitting over here spouting inanities in my geeky little painless life, but if you ever need to talk you know I’m right here.
