people sometimes compliment me for being open and soft, despite my bluntness, because i often seem very willing to hear people out and type long messages. i don’t accept compliments partially because i can’t do that consistently—i’ve gotten into many arguments with people i heavily disagree with—and partially because that comes at the cost of resources that aren’t mine. if being forced to work or study forty hours a week (not including long commutes, chores, paperwork, familial obligations, etc.) is normal—if following a strict schedule set out by other people is normal—then the freedom i have now, to organise my own time and talk to people when i’m not doing well in college, is an undeserved privilege that exists only at the kindness of my parents and teachers (and in a sense society and the economy) and can be taken away at any moment. in other words, the little good i do—which, as people have lectured me before, pales in comparison to real charity work—isn’t even a true personal sacrifice, just an indirect symptom of my circumstances. and because this is my choice, i must bear responsibility when i inevitably hurt people.
more specifically, i think this is a two-pronged privilege. the more obvious one is time: because i have a lot more time in my day, most of which i waste reading or watching mundane stuff anyway, me giving someone an hour isn’t as meaningful as a super busy person making time in their schedule for a loved one. so when people think it’s really nice that i can just sit with them for hours and talk about trauma or ERP or morality, it isn’t because i’m a particularly open person—it’s because i can just sit there and put on some YouTube in the background and tell them to take their time figuring out how to explain their complicated thoughts.
but the less obvious one is about mental stress. and i don’t mean this in the appropriated capitalist dichotomy that “mental health” is about enabling you to manage everything and accept suffering as a part of yourself—i mean this in a literal way that life is inherently painful and stressful and exhausting. that’s partially because work sucks, but also because many people live with abusive families in badly-maintained houses with unreliable utilities, having to juggle health problems and money worries while dealing with race and gender discrimination, political polarisation, and high crime rates. it’s difficult enough for them to even speak to people they want to talk to, let alone keep in mind the way they speak. not to mention that everybody’s dealing with a boatload of trauma nowadays.
i try to consciously choose how i talk. i have to, because i’d be a screaming burning throbbing scribble otherwise, or just instinctively abusive. i try to focus on the other person, asking questions and throwing out compliments without pushing them or assuming anything. i avoid words with negative connotations or statements about someone’s nature. i try to relativise my statements and contextualise them in my past with the appropriate humility and uncertainty. i throw out things i’ve heard about to give people the option of progressing the conversation. i even use certain more expressive words and emoticons just to appear softer and more feminine. i’ve even written down a few algorithms to formally express how i talk.
but it doesn’t really matter, does it? i’ve never been important to anyone in a relationship that isn’t a trauma-ridden situationship. people criticise my overthinking for being insincere if not manipulative, and lambast my styles as projecting flawed social norms and forcing fake affection onto others. i know i’ll never be able to hold a long-term relationship for a litany of reasons. so i just go around discord, entertaining everybody i can, until i eventually break.
am i simply too sterile? i feel like i do not deserve privacy—that, to some extent, nobody does unless they have something to hide. and then that creeps into my actions and messages as i constantly second-guess myself, asking what i should feel and say, and mentally preparing myself to be humiliated on a pillory one day. i know i’m capable of bad things—of not recognising that i’ve done bad things—so this isn’t simple unfounded anxiety. so it’s just… an obsession with what i should be. with the idea that even my emotions aren’t mine, but something i’m obligated to return to anybody that asks—something i’m obligated to feel in a proper way, otherwise i’m just a femcel with internalised misogyny and violent ideation and rape fetishes and zoophilia and paedophilia and a general disconnect from life, just shlicking my slit to fantasies that are not mine.
and yet i’m scared of being what i should be, because i don’t want to lose myself. i don’t want to feel pain. i don’t want to lose the way i’ve been shaped.
and yet i want to die.