What is going on in my head....?
I've had a lot of friends ask me if I am ok. Other friends saying that I have left them behind. Some saying I'm not myself anymore.
Here are my answers:
I'm surviving.
You could say the same reversed.
Well, I'm in the final years of my 20's, I'm still figuring myself out.
I'm closing a lot of chapters in my life and it has me internally focused. I don't see what is wrong with that. At the same time, viewing how I have been as of late can make me understand why people are concerned.
I've become very reserved.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still loud and obnoxious, but it isn't as frequent and only in certain settings.
The quiet comes to one thing: I'm breaking through a lot of trauma and internalized narratives that are not serving me and I am trying to rid myself of. I'm stuck inside a vortex and I am working on removing the things that are swirling around and hitting me as they pass. The two big topics this centralizes around are my eating disorder and my sexuality.
I've had my eating disorder since I was 13. It has been my oldest companion. It lets me over indulge in many foods I enjoy and is right there to remind me that I don't deserve it and should now starve myself. When my friend decides I have starved myself appropriately, she pushes me to over indulge in foods not great for me and the cycle repeats.
She goes on vacation sometimes. During those moments I have full and proper nutrition. Meals full of protein and veggies, things I can actually chew and process. Food doesn't have morality and my body gets into a healthy rhythm. But she always returns making the idea of chewing like lifting 500lbs each time my jaw extends.
During a bout this Spring, I realized that soups have become a safe food for me, meaning it is something I can handle even when my jaw is strapped to the weight bar. I learned that if I cook chicken tender enough, I can stuff it into a sandwich on white bread because soft sandwiches are another safe food in my mind- especially pb&j.
I've also started to give my body an extra boost in the mornings with supplement shakes. I make a shake with super greens, vitamin D, iron boost, and more, and then top it off with matcha so that I can energize myself to get through the morning. I created this habit so that when the weight is too heavy, I can still get some base nutrition.
I've taken all this knowledge and started to prepare for her to return. She has been on a long vacation but I have realized she has still been sending me letters my body has been listening to, even if my mind didn't know she was about. I feel ready to take her on for once. I have compiled safe foods that will feed my body what it needs, not solely relying on basics to get me through until a reprieve. I've started valkyrie training to make my body strong as well. This friend is no match anymore to the systems and help I have put in place. At least, I'm hoping so.
Then there is my sexuality- something I am not ashamed of. Or so I say.
I introduced my writing name a year ago and still have done nothing with it. The idea of being judged around this concept is one I cannot stand. I know the root goes back to the incident that happened when I was 5 years old and how it long impacted my life. Narratives of me being broken, how I shouldn't discuss such a thing, how I lost family because of something their son did to me. It stacked up. Even as I chipped away, the wall grew, almost as though the energy I put into breaking it down actually aided its growth.
I spent years being the naive girl who didn't fully understand what happened to her, who didn't understand how my body worked (thanks public school 'sex ed'), who lived in a society where women taking charge of their pleasure was viewed in such a low and disgusting way. Add in dating as a plus size single mother in a world where men think spit is lube and that you being aroused and 'loose' means you've taken a lot of dick and are just too stretched out.
Let me go slam my head into a wall for how many guys have actually tried to tell me that in person.
While I haven't done anything writing wise, I have grown in my self worth the last year- especially the last four months. After another failed relationship that left me feeling unwanted and 'too much', I decided to tough love myself as if I was one of my friends who comes to me for help.
I'm not insatiable, I just haven't been having good sex.
It isn't wrong that I want sex at a higher level than the men I have dated.
It isn't too much to want someone who enjoys the things I do- both in every day life and behind closed doors.
It isn't too much to want someone who can communicate.
It isn't too much to want someone who won't string me along.
Being a big girl does not make me less deserving of pleasure or fun than other sized women.
I could keep going. The session has led me to a Summer where I have had the best r rated moments of my life- and I'm never going back to how it was. As those moments occurred, I dove into my trauma more and actually started to see the wall crumbling.
I started reading smut. Smut, not romance. The difference being the level of detail that goes into the sex scenes- if any. No one lets you in on the fact that smut books can actually be really healing and validating in your personal journey and preferences. You start to realize you aren't so alone in experiences, and your preferences aren't freaky, but indeed NORMAL.
If people don't like that specific trope or kink, they can just go to their next book. No harm, no foul. Even if someone hates how a book is, there are usually ten times more people who love it and have good things to say over that negative review. Worrying what people would think and the reviews have been a big reason why I haven't shared, but these realizations this last month alone have helped me to step forward.
This isn't even everything that has been rambling inside my head in regards to breaking down these traumas, but I hope it helps people to understand where my head has been.
I working on breaking down the old and building up a new and better me. Someone who can tackle her internal enemies and move past repetitive habits that have kept me from living the life I should be living. I'm not saying I'm magically cured or that everything is better now as I have had some breakthroughs, but I'm definitely not the person I was in April.
I'm not truly sure how to close this blog out. If you can identify with either things, if you need someone to talk through a personal trauma you are working through, my inbox is always open- both here on the site and on Facebook.
Things can improve, we just have to stop, take a moment to identify an issue, and choose to work at it. It doesn't have to be all at once, we just have to start.