Said With Love

Have you ever felt just absolutely dumb? Simple minded? Silly? Senseless? Like you know NOTHING?

I feel really silly right now. As I do most of the time when something affects me enough to write about it.

My current reality doesn't feel like it's mine. Have you ever felt like that? I'm going day to day, not really doing much, but not feeling too concerned about it. I get my school work done, I go to work, I have good days, I drink my overpriced coffee, and do simple tasks. I feel stuck a little. Like I want to do so much but I'm not ready for it all yet; like it isn't my time yet, and I find myself dreaming about when my time will come.

I've been pretty absent on social medias lately - I've felt really disconnected from most things like that - disconnected from sharing. I decided one day that I wanted to disappear, not in a I-want-to-die way, but just... only exist to a select amount of people and live my life in secret. I even made a new private instagram to start over, yet I haven't even posted on it very much. So I've been wondering if that was really my issue.

Now that I've thought about it, I think I haven't wanted to share much is because I haven't been very well. Honesty time - I've lost weight. I went through a break up. School seems pointless. Anxiety is a killer. Depression sleeping is a silent bad habit. My identity as a queer woman is very confusing. Therapy is draining and frankly, sometimes pretty annoying.

(Side note - other parts of my life are doing very well and I am NOT complaining, just giving some examples of stress)

I haven't wanted to talk about my shit lately. Which is completely fair, I think. I've been SO open about the last year of my life through months of treatment, an ED, depression, bipolar, relationships, and I sort of felt that once I was starting to "get better", I would let people down if they knew I was getting bad again. I don't care about how many followers/supporters I have, but some of you mean a great deal to me. Your encouragement and love and kindness - it's all super cool. But what I'm trying to tell myself is like, in the nicest way possible, it all almost doesn't matter? It means a lot to me, of course, but my incredibly dramatic and confusing life battles are all mine and no one else's.

I stalked myself on Instagram yesterday and reflected on the last year. I posted good and bad days, days after treatment that I only had one smoothie for the day and that was it, days I forgot to take my meds, days I felt like shit, days I felt on top of the world, and I didn't care because it was a journey of progression. Like I said, I've been scared to post about my struggles now because I didn't want to let anyone down. Some people, even family, have thought that because I went through months of treatment, I was supposed to be okay after that. But most of you know, that's not really how mental health and EDs work. It definitely comes in waves and the will for recovery changes every single day. But on the other hand, my social media is for me, right? I shouldn't care if I share my life story on it, because the ones who care will show me and the ones who don't will unfollow me. I want to be able to look back on my socials and see/read the beautiful and crazy and depressing and wonderful things that happened and assess where I'm at in the present moment in relation to that. It's for me, a modern day scrapbook of moments and words in time that made me feel something.

A friend of of mine asked me what I do when I want to focus on myself. She is going through a break up and wants to focus on herself (the cliché line) but she didn't even know what that looked like. I realized I needed to take my advice too:

"I think for me, it’s not caring what people want to do. I’m going to do what I want to do, every single day. Sometimes it’s deleting social media or setting time limits on your social medias, maybe posting whatever you want of socials, maybe it’s reading more, maybe it’s journaling, maybe it’s trying every single local coffee shop in your city, maybe it’s spending a ton of time with friends, maybe it’s taking baths with candles and bubbles, maybe its family time, maybe its finding new music, maybe its bike rides or walks in your favorite park, maybe its creating art, maybe its an entirely new hobby every single week to keep yourself on your toes, maybe its none of these and something you make up on your own, or maybe its all of these each week. It looks different all the time. It isn’t one magical thing and I think that’s whats fun about it. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, as long as you’re doing what you want to do. At least for me, I lose myself in relationships, I focus on what they want and how much time I’m spending with them or how much I’m talking to them and I forget that’s its me too. It’s me, them, and us together. 3 separate things, and I forget about that. The thing is, it’s up to you. This time is yours, no one else’s. So literally whatever you do, it doesn’t matter at all, as long as you’re actively making that decision because it’s something YOU want to do. If someone asks you to do something and you don’t want to, say no. if you want to, say yes. If you make a list of things to do tomorrow and you wake up and don’t want to do the first thing, don’t do it. Move onto the next. Do what you want to do and do it with enthusiasm. Enjoy it because why wouldn’t you? Life is so long, or so short, but either way you look at it, you don’t want to waste it being told what to do, right? Nothing in life matters besides connecting with your people and enjoying your time here. That’s it. So basically to sum it up, use this time to make every single decision you’ve always wanted to do. Take weekend trips, save your money, buy clothes that make you feel good, buy the good coffee, do literally WHATEVER you want as long as it’s healthy and helping you progress."

So really, what I'm getting at is - none of you matter, said with love, in a good and healthy way. I'm going to share or not share, based on what I'm feeling at the time. I'm going to do absolutely whatever I want. Thanks to my people (close or distant) for supporting though, you know I love you. Always. This is my ride, you know? But thanks for taking a seat and pulling out the popcorn; it gets a bit entertaining at times, I know. Even I have to take a deep breath and laugh it out.

Nice to chat with you again. Hope you're doing well.

Love it already,

Tess