#because i barely hear people use the word 'nourishing' when they're not talking about feeding their kids raw milk or whatever | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

casketscratch · 4 months

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i think this place has been good for me in a... tentatively feeding scraps of myself to the blog, and instead of getting my hand smacked or regretting it, it's just. an okay thing. it's like a neutral thing to exist in a space and to have experiences i talk about and that's like. some people even kinda relate sometimes, and that's like. neeeew? i don't want to oversell it and be like tumblr is healing something in me just by letting me exist in the smallest way possible here, b u t:

people relating to me is not an experience i am ever prepared for. even my friends now it's mostly a... as long as i only exist close to them but don't try to connect too much. because i know i make other people uncomfortable. you know? it's not nothing but it's not... emotionally nourishing, either. i know it's not, because i'm trying to figure out ways to connect without feeling scared or sabotage myself by being like "what's even the point, it's too late to try."

this is. i struggle with admitting this enough that i'm having to interrupt myself to unclench my jaw. but it's the ... teeniest, tiniest little attempt to be open and honest. i am so scared of doing that again after the last year, two, three? that i have to actually like. argue with some of our more edgier (affectionate) protectors about doing it at all.

i say teeniest and tiniest but it's been a huge effort to not shut down totally and keep trying. "connect with other people" is apparently our most convoluted labyrinth of internal defenses. (like a labyrinth should be!)

so thank you to this space, i guess? i can never like.

initiate contact, the self-sabotage is mostly like, the hour of "no one wants to hear what you'd say anyway," "you'll just feel bad the whole time," "why even bother think of all the wreckage and people you've hurt behind you." and it works, is the bitch, it hits so hard that it feels like a gatekeeper that turns us all into these little like, "oh he's right, why WOULD we?" because then it's such a disorienting switch i barely remember what i was doing. or trying to do.

(i just typed all tht out and now i'm like oh fuck i got your number, man. we're gonna talk. see, this shit is useful! so many tiny insights)

anyway right yes uhhh.

... thank you. the internet being what it is i always feel like i'm one wrong word or opinion away from being run out. and when your connections to communities or other people are zero, or close to zero, feeling like even your preliminary avenues to try to connect in the first place are traps is really bad. for me. probably for other people but i'm just talking about me.

and then you take all that constant supervision from others and marry it with that internal protector sense of "see i told you everyone is a piece of shit and you won't belong there, either" and enter the canyon of despair. to crawl out of until the next time the cycle happens again.

but i think the scraps feeding bit is working. we're committed to being honest and non-judgmental of each other as possible. it at least seems to work against the endless vigilance and paranoia over, is that an okay thing to say? is someone going to call me out for [long list of discourse points in my head]. can i even talk about my own trauma without upsetting the people who'll tell me it's fake or invalidating their own, is the fact we work with our persecutors even when they're "bad" or "evil" going to start shit, etc. You know... the concerns that all boil down to avoiding feeling shame for stuff we're just trying to figure out.

which means we're like. obliquely managing to work with the alters and fragments who carry the shame that DOES immobilize us and DOES send so many of us to the stars. in baby bites. right here. just like that. where no one's yet ripped our head off or even tried to for not doing any of this right or sometimes having Bad Opinions or whatever.

something's working. and the sleepy meds are definitely working and if i don't stop now this will turn int a 2k word thing about shame and avoidance and freedom and let's just. flop. i'm gonna flop.

#kill the cops in your head #but like really i guess it's something like that huh #system things

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