#i don’t just blindly trust strangers — if anything my vice is paranoia | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ghostiboos · 2 years

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When I was growing up, I had this “bad” habit of locking doors.

I would go in a room — usually “my” room (until I didn’t have locks anymore) — and I would immediately lock the door behind me. I didn’t even do it on purpose most of the time, I would just do it subconsciously because it made me feel safe.

It made my parents so mad. Mom would always shout “Why is the door locked again? Let me in! What are you hiding in there??” That always scared me.

I tried to break the habit, but it was muscle memory, and I kept doing it on accident, which made my parents think I was being willfully disobedient. They benevolently “believed” me that it was an accident sometimes, but only when they were in good moods.

And then there were the times when I couldn’t take it — I couldn’t breathe, I needed to lock the door even though I knew that I “shouldn’t” — and I would make a conscious and guilty decision to lock it on purpose.

I would sit on my bed, curled up in a ball, and I would finally feel safe, but I always had my ears trained on the door, holding my breath at the sound of footsteps and listening closely for even the slightest rattling of the knob.

But then I went to university.

Don’t get me wrong, my freshman setup was awful (I’ll spare the details), but all at once, the door-locking habit was broken.

It’s not that I trusted my roommate or the other students on my floor — I didn’t — but for some reason, that absentminded flick of my fingers every time I closed a door just ceased to exist.

Yet moving back “home” with my family over the summer, it somehow returned without me even noticing.

Back and forth every year, locking doors at “home” and forgetting to at uni, I never realized the pattern until now… I don’t think I let myself realize it. That happens a lot. I think my brain tries to protect me that way.

And here I am again, staying at “home” with my “family,” and it’s funny.

I don’t even have a lock on “my” door anymore, but the muscle memory is still there — every time I close it behind me, my fingers flick across the knob where the lock should be, and I don’t even think about it.

#i don’t just blindly trust strangers — if anything my vice is paranoia #i don’t really even trust people i know #but the fact that i somehow ‘trusted’ strangers with respecting my space and my boundaries more than my own ‘family’ and my own ‘parents’…#my mom always asked me if i felt ‘safe enough’ living in a dormitory with a bunch of strangers… but if im being honest-#living in dorms was the safest i’ve felt living anywhere. and i did not feel very safe — i just felt. safer somehow #what a thing to realize on a tuesday morning #text post #how do i tag this #i don’t wanna tag it like. ‘domestic @buse’ or anything cuz i don’t claim that #uhh #unsafe living environment #growing up queer #neurodivergent #ex christian #in the closet #closeted

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