August 13th - It's never as bad as you think. The art of introjection.

I don't like to admit this, but sometimes I spiral. It's what the kids today call a "toxic trait". I'm not clinically histrionic, and few people actually are, but I definitely have a, um, flair for the dramatic, shall we say? My anxiety (yes, this time it's clinical) hijacks my brain and I go into this terrible all-or-nothing thinking that paves way for introjection. I hear what I want to hear when I get feedback or bad news and, basically, whenever something undesirable happens, like if I get negative information, or someone hurts me, I internalize it as a 'me' thing. I fully take it on and absorb it as a reflection of who I am as a person. Like somehow I caused it. And then I go into this weird, self-abnegating, rejection of self. Sometimes an act of introjection feels better than actually understanding the truth of the situation, however simple or complex or nuanced it may be. Like maybe it wasn't just the right time. Or maybe there was nothing I could have done. Or maybe I gave it my best shot but it wasn't part of the lesson I was supposed to learn this time, like there's something more important I was supposed to gain from an impossible situation instead of simply getting my way all the time. Self-compassion, she likes to come in go in this head of mine.

Sometimes I just want to believe I'm bad. I mentally flog myself and I listen to manic singers who go on to take their lives sing sad songs and I tell myself nobody understands me except for maybe the songs themselves, because music is a mirror for all our struggles, after all. But the truth is, whenever I get into a deep conversation with a friend, which is quite regularly, or even a stranger, most recently at a child's birthday party where I knew not a soul, I find myself being wildly vulnerable and others reciprocating vulnerability to the point were I realize I'm not so fucking special. That kind of scares me because I can't use it as a mask. Everyone has darkness. Everyone struggles with the way the world is versus the way they think it ought to be. And they keep on going. They realize that it's not constructive to tell themselves these stories of shame and being self-deprecating. That there's always love to be found and fought for. That there's always another door to go through. That you can hold space for the fact that something hurt you in ways you thought you could never be hurt, but that there were beautiful components to it before the shattering of everything. Before it all went to shit, it was real and pure and that can't be taken. That nothing terrible that happens to you is worth paying that much rent in your head. That you're worthy even when you make mistakes, act like the most childish, lost, confused version of yourself. That you deserve freedom.

And mostly, that you don't deserve to suffer. Nobody does. Not even the villain you've tried to convince yourself you probably are. She's just a make-believe character in a self-created melodrama. The real you? She's a bit of an anti-hero, but she's redeemable. Every single time.