why do i want do cut myself rn, anyway?
Feb. 4th, 2024 02:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xx_gothaggot_xxSo, for the past few days I've been experiencing a rather sudden decline in my mental health. Mainly due to gender dysphoria and the impeding threat of moving in with my parents and having to actively fight for the little freedoms I've managed to find while living away from them instead of enjoying them in secret.
For the sake of today's little vent, this culminated in a very strong urge to cut myself today night. It's not the first time, definitely the closest (as in "holding the blade against my skin and lightly brushing it between my leg hair, questioning if i should or not apply the actual pressure needed to make a cut" close). Regardless I decided not to go through with it. I've seen multiple friends put themselves in actual danger when they least expected due to going a bit too far with this kind of coping mechanism, so I should know better than to trust myself to cut with any kind of "prudence".
It made me question, though, why did I even want to cut myself in the first place? It's not like any distressing situation had happened, I literally had just gotten out of a pretty fun voice call with some of my closest friends. I didn't have a very good day at all, but I should have had time enough to calm down at this point.
The conclusion I came to felt silly, so silly I at first refused to acknowledge it (which is maybe the reason I was able to stop myself at all in the first place, such a silly reason wouldn't ever take me too far). In the end I had to accept that I wanted to cut myself as a way to prove my suffering is grand enough, that I was as deserving of concern as anyone else.
You see, I have a tendency to surround myself with people that have rather poor mental health. No friend of mine seems to ever be free of some kind of deep trauma, which makes sense, like attracts like and what not. But this does have the side-effect of making it so I'm generally the most positive/optimistic person in whatever group I'm in. Due to this I managed to convince myself of some kind of special happiness I seemed to have that proved itself fake in due time.
Truly, I am deeply unsatisfied with my current state, I've always been. Deprived of myself, I seem to lead an incomplete existence, a life which hasn't been mine for any of my years. My inability to act on my desires and responsibilities like a normal person, to look at myself as a being separate from my parents, to allow myself the vulnerability I ACTUALLY wish for; those really don't help either. Through trying to be a perfectly mature child, I not only failed on my mission, but also made myself into a childish adult, unwilling to engage with my emotions honestly. I expect myself to be able to deal with my problems alone. I get offended when offered help or advice. That's stupid and, although not my singular fault (I was raised to be like this after all), embarrassing to notice. Not to mention the traumas which preceded and proceeded all of this.
Regardless, my spirits stayed up. I have been keenly aware for years of this specific dissonance inside my mind. I simultaneously felt deeply unsatisfied with my life and truly ecstatic to be living it. I never understood it and probably still don't, at least not fully. I do though, understand it a little better.
What has always kept me happy are the simple pleasures of life. Eating, sleeping, playing, listening to music. These are all things we deeply enjoy, but I specifically made them into the meaning of my life. It couldn't be any different, really. I was raised by my parents, leaders, and honestly by my social standing, to see these not as necessities, but as special blessings. After all, not everyone has access to these. I'm granted many privileges others die while dreaming about, even if these "privileges" are things as essencial as a fulfilling meal or caring parents. This idea was essencial to my social and especially religious upbringing.
I relate such pleasures so deeply to spirituality; talking about the songs I love as "religious experiences" and seeking that specific kind of trill; thanking God so earnestly for the blessings of the day each night, for the comfortable bed I lay on, for the warm blanket I cover myself with, for the nice clothes I used while hanging out with the angels I call friend; all because these ARE religious experiences to me. Being mindful of these and grateful for them was always an essencial part of my existence, and that's what I somehow never connected.
So it's to be expected that I'd be unable to accept being sorry for myself, earnestly facing the level my dissatisfaction as anything other than sinful. Even if I experienced the same traumas, the same sadness, the same hopelessness as everyone that surrounded me, how could I ever freely vent about it with actual gravitas; how could I ever feel enough intense emotional pain to actually choose to deflect it onto my body; how could I ever sit with any of it for more than a few minutes without ending my thought process with "well, looking at the bright side..."
I didn't want to acknowledge I had any reason to be sorry for myself, so of course I'd have trouble acting sorry for myself. Of course I'd feel fortunate while still knowing how deeply I didn't want to live as myself anymore. That's the exact impulse I was raised to have.
Funnily enough, this never seemed to affect my relationship to art. I felt justified in speaking of such feelings through music and poetry, because then I'd be at least making some use of them.
Soon enough those became my only earnest outlets. Which I somewhat dread at this point.
So why did all of this make question my own pain?
I know myself. I know my fears. I know my sadness and my rage, so why would I ever consider them meaningless just because I never actually went through with any of my self-destructive wishes?
I'm rather embarrassed to say this, but my mind was brought back to one specific video essay I saw on youtube. In it, the person gave advice to fellow artists, as someone with experience creating art, and teaching art. The specific section that came to me was one about chasing the indications of success rather than success itself. What that means in the context of art and creation does not matter to us right now, rather, what that means in the context of suffering does.
I felt, for a moment, that cutting myself, like I'd seen others do, would be a way of proving to myself that my suffering was the same as the others around me. It would be a way of rejecting this conception of self-pity as sin and show myself that I feel just as much pain as everyone else. But I did have to admit. That's such a stupid idea. I shouldn't be comparing my own suffering to anyone else's anyway, let alone wanting to prove whether it's equal or not.
So I want to stop lying to myself and to others. Accept I am unhappy and enjoying some privileges which should actually be treated as necessities won't really change that. Maybe then I'll be less annoying about all of it.
For the sake of today's little vent, this culminated in a very strong urge to cut myself today night. It's not the first time, definitely the closest (as in "holding the blade against my skin and lightly brushing it between my leg hair, questioning if i should or not apply the actual pressure needed to make a cut" close). Regardless I decided not to go through with it. I've seen multiple friends put themselves in actual danger when they least expected due to going a bit too far with this kind of coping mechanism, so I should know better than to trust myself to cut with any kind of "prudence".
It made me question, though, why did I even want to cut myself in the first place? It's not like any distressing situation had happened, I literally had just gotten out of a pretty fun voice call with some of my closest friends. I didn't have a very good day at all, but I should have had time enough to calm down at this point.
The conclusion I came to felt silly, so silly I at first refused to acknowledge it (which is maybe the reason I was able to stop myself at all in the first place, such a silly reason wouldn't ever take me too far). In the end I had to accept that I wanted to cut myself as a way to prove my suffering is grand enough, that I was as deserving of concern as anyone else.
You see, I have a tendency to surround myself with people that have rather poor mental health. No friend of mine seems to ever be free of some kind of deep trauma, which makes sense, like attracts like and what not. But this does have the side-effect of making it so I'm generally the most positive/optimistic person in whatever group I'm in. Due to this I managed to convince myself of some kind of special happiness I seemed to have that proved itself fake in due time.
Truly, I am deeply unsatisfied with my current state, I've always been. Deprived of myself, I seem to lead an incomplete existence, a life which hasn't been mine for any of my years. My inability to act on my desires and responsibilities like a normal person, to look at myself as a being separate from my parents, to allow myself the vulnerability I ACTUALLY wish for; those really don't help either. Through trying to be a perfectly mature child, I not only failed on my mission, but also made myself into a childish adult, unwilling to engage with my emotions honestly. I expect myself to be able to deal with my problems alone. I get offended when offered help or advice. That's stupid and, although not my singular fault (I was raised to be like this after all), embarrassing to notice. Not to mention the traumas which preceded and proceeded all of this.
Regardless, my spirits stayed up. I have been keenly aware for years of this specific dissonance inside my mind. I simultaneously felt deeply unsatisfied with my life and truly ecstatic to be living it. I never understood it and probably still don't, at least not fully. I do though, understand it a little better.
What has always kept me happy are the simple pleasures of life. Eating, sleeping, playing, listening to music. These are all things we deeply enjoy, but I specifically made them into the meaning of my life. It couldn't be any different, really. I was raised by my parents, leaders, and honestly by my social standing, to see these not as necessities, but as special blessings. After all, not everyone has access to these. I'm granted many privileges others die while dreaming about, even if these "privileges" are things as essencial as a fulfilling meal or caring parents. This idea was essencial to my social and especially religious upbringing.
I relate such pleasures so deeply to spirituality; talking about the songs I love as "religious experiences" and seeking that specific kind of trill; thanking God so earnestly for the blessings of the day each night, for the comfortable bed I lay on, for the warm blanket I cover myself with, for the nice clothes I used while hanging out with the angels I call friend; all because these ARE religious experiences to me. Being mindful of these and grateful for them was always an essencial part of my existence, and that's what I somehow never connected.
So it's to be expected that I'd be unable to accept being sorry for myself, earnestly facing the level my dissatisfaction as anything other than sinful. Even if I experienced the same traumas, the same sadness, the same hopelessness as everyone that surrounded me, how could I ever freely vent about it with actual gravitas; how could I ever feel enough intense emotional pain to actually choose to deflect it onto my body; how could I ever sit with any of it for more than a few minutes without ending my thought process with "well, looking at the bright side..."
I didn't want to acknowledge I had any reason to be sorry for myself, so of course I'd have trouble acting sorry for myself. Of course I'd feel fortunate while still knowing how deeply I didn't want to live as myself anymore. That's the exact impulse I was raised to have.
Funnily enough, this never seemed to affect my relationship to art. I felt justified in speaking of such feelings through music and poetry, because then I'd be at least making some use of them.
Soon enough those became my only earnest outlets. Which I somewhat dread at this point.
So why did all of this make question my own pain?
I know myself. I know my fears. I know my sadness and my rage, so why would I ever consider them meaningless just because I never actually went through with any of my self-destructive wishes?
I'm rather embarrassed to say this, but my mind was brought back to one specific video essay I saw on youtube. In it, the person gave advice to fellow artists, as someone with experience creating art, and teaching art. The specific section that came to me was one about chasing the indications of success rather than success itself. What that means in the context of art and creation does not matter to us right now, rather, what that means in the context of suffering does.
I felt, for a moment, that cutting myself, like I'd seen others do, would be a way of proving to myself that my suffering was the same as the others around me. It would be a way of rejecting this conception of self-pity as sin and show myself that I feel just as much pain as everyone else. But I did have to admit. That's such a stupid idea. I shouldn't be comparing my own suffering to anyone else's anyway, let alone wanting to prove whether it's equal or not.
So I want to stop lying to myself and to others. Accept I am unhappy and enjoying some privileges which should actually be treated as necessities won't really change that. Maybe then I'll be less annoying about all of it.
