gingersnappen’s ramblings👩🏻‍💻

Let’s begin with the event that brought me to cups. It’s not particularly triggering or horrible in comparison to many others’ issues here, and it wasn’t particularly as impactful as other events that have occurred in my life, but it is what pushed me over the edge to be here. I’ll write an vague account of what that was so that I have a record of details before I forget.

So, I’m lucky to be privileged, and my family takes education really seriously. After a few years of public school I applied to a private school and from there was expected to go to a private high school. All of this was preparing me for college. I’ve been getting ready for college essentially all my life. I got into a prestigious boarding school where I dedicated myself to extracurriculars, improving the community, and having ok grades. I had trouble - which is how I got my ADHD diagnosis - but it was, overall, very good for me. I learned a lot, made good friends, and grew to be an independent person.

COVID hit during the end of my junior year. We went fully online and my grades plummeted. I had to move out of my dorm, back home, where I couldn’t get used to a new routine and environment... even when I went back in person in the beginning of this school year (Fall of 2020) I was doing horribly. I started to notice that I was trying really hard and dedicating almost all my time to my studies but it had nothing but a negative effect. I would sit down to do work, and then freeze up, unable to write or solve anything. When I sought help, thinking perhaps I needed executive functioning help that was tailored to my ADHD, I was accused of cheating by the school administration (I’m asking for help, and my grades are going down, how did that turn into cheating I don’t know) and threatened into a medical leave. If I didn’t agree to go to the mental hospital then they would make me go in front of the discipline committee for cheating. Terrified of being punished for something I didn’t do, I decided to go to the mental hospital in the hopes they could help. Obviously they didn’t because inpatient mental hospitals are mostly for those who are at risk of harming themselves... and I spent a long two weeks there as the only person without depression. I spent more time supporting others than getting support.

At the mental hospital they gave me a depression medication, Zoloft, to treat anxiety. I don’t have chronic anxiety and they didn’t diagnose me with it.. Zoloft made me tired and unable to sleep, but I had to take it, because they wouldn’t discharge me if I didn’t try it. The only anxiety I had was normal situational anxiety stemming from the fear of not being able to go back to school. My fears were realized when I was discharged and my school told me they wouldn’t take me back under any circumstances this year. They then cut contact with me.

I’m still reeling from the feeling of betrayal from this event... as a senior, I thought I would graduate this year as one of the most active student leaders, who had contributed so much to improving the school and supporting the student body. Who would have known that the head of the mental health awareness club would have been kicked out for mental health reasons? I began to regret asking for help, as it only brought more trouble for me. After being discharged I secretly weaned myself off the Zoloft and had to go get screened for psychosis - and I don’t have it, don’t ask me why they accused me of psychosis when I was merely asking for ADHD help, because I don’t know either. After typing all of this it seems like some weird story I made up in a fever dream... I wish that were the case.

Where am I now after the events of that badly written summary? Well, to avoid having to be held back a year for asking for help, I enrolled in the local public school. It’s not the same quality I’m used to but I’m just grateful at this point to have a school to go to. The colleges I’ve been preparing for all my life? Well, I’ve lost hope I’m going to a good one. My transfer to the public school reflected badly on my application and college admissions officers were concerned I wasn’t mentally stable enough to attend their school. I only got into two safety schools, one of which is my state school. I’m trying to keep my head up and be grateful, as at least I can go to college still and maybe think about transferring to different colleges later, but it’s hard to stay positive... I’m so tired of being sad about my crushed plans and I wish I could just get over myself and get on with my life. I’m so lonely in this new environment at school with no friends and I don’t feel like a senior at all. Not to mention that hearing questions about my school situation and college plans are a constant reminder that I’m falling behind my peers, struggling because of something I can’t control.

I still haven’t figured out how to fix my study issue, and I blame myself for that constantly. My adults aren’t happy with me about it and think that I’m becoming a delinquent, and it’s hard not to believe them when they tell me I’m destined to be homeless. I’ll probably skip graduation this year because it’s now meaningless to me... and my self esteem is at an all time low. Stupid past me shouldn’t have asked for help. :/

well, that was quite the disorganized tangent! I’m not used to talking about myself. Maybe I’ll get better with time. Thank you for reading if anyone is reading this but I highly doubt anyone will. Maybe I’ll rewrite this in notes in a better way but I’ll post this unfiltered rant version here for now. ❤️

@gingersnappen Hi! My name is Brittany and I am a stranger who wanted to read your post simply because reading other's thoughts makes me feel less alone and human. It seems as if you may be under alot of pressure from other's or loved one's, as if they may want you to follow the path they chose for you, and as if you don't have a choice. Your story reminds me of my college days. I had tried to go to school at 18 but as I was getting older with more responsibilities, I reached a point of saying "Why am I doing this?". At 27, I did finally finish College but in your situation, you may have to be brave and really think to yourself: what are you really going to college for? Is this my life path? Is this what I want to do? What do I want to do with my life? What is it that ( Your Name) really wants? I am so sorry you had to deal with such misfortune and just know that you do have a choice in your life no matter what anyone tells you. Never be afraid to use your voice, never be afraid to stand up for yourself. I hope this helps and I hope you post again soon. Take care of yourself❤🌻

Hello again.

I’m beginning to grow increasingly annoyed with myself, and it’s causing me to have a short fuse with others who remind me of myself. It’s not great, and ever since I recognized it, I tried to reel myself back in and be kind as well as keep some distance. I remind myself that it’s not them: it’s me. I shouldn’t go around correcting other people whose situations I don’t know even if I feel as though I’ve been in that situation before and even if I recognize someone else’s questionable thought processes.

What else...

Last night I got random calls from former roommates at my previous school and roommates from the grippy sock factory aka mental hospital. It was nice, and I felt cared for. But, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being separate - isolated yet clinging on to our connection. I think they missed me. I missed them too, but didn’t have the courage to call.

I also had a weird 10 or so minutes where I started questioning my sexuality yesterday. That never happens; I usually just come to random realizations of “oh I’m ace” and I tend not to ruminate on them. I wondered if I’m not just ace but also aro because I find myself disgusted by clingy relationships where partners care for one another so much but seem to neglect the fact that there is a whole other world out there. It’s nice to see them care for one another for about five seconds until I feel creeped out and want independence. Is this because it’s out of my comfort zone or because I’m not ready? Is this something that’s not being aro but a preference for having space? Is it because of my desire to achieve my own goals through my own hard work and because I don’t like relying too much on others? Or am I reminded of past romantic relationships with clingy exes when I see other similar relationships? Who knows. I pushed the thought out of my mind until now because I know I don’t have an answer. Why bother overthinking it when I a) don’t ever feel attraction for anyone, or haven’t yet and b) don’t even want a relationship now anyways? There are more important things for me right now.

Like I imagine a good number of people do, I cringe at my past self. It’s easy to point out mistakes after you’ve made them and learned better. Oh well. I try not to let my past define me, even though it created me. That doesn’t make a whole ton of sense 🤨 but ok then past me from a few seconds ago.

my internal monologue goes igudhjsjdhejjrjrjf 🎢 😀✌️

oh yeah, my cousin (the one who tried to do something potentially triggering and then ended up in the hospital) got a cat and a tattoo! Her brother aka my other cousin bought a house on his girlfriend’s credit since his sucks and he’s coming back here in two weeks. I haven’t seen him in person in probably five years or more. Hopefully I can visit them both soon ❤️ I wanted to end on a positive note so this entry was all over the place, oops. It’s ok, this is my thread after all, and I can do whatever I’d like to! (:

I have no idea what I’m going to do about college.

The deadline for a deposit is looming, and I don’t know how to choose. I am ok with going to both the schools I was accepted into, I guess, but I can’t bring myself to try and decide between them. I think I need to stop avoiding things when I don’t like it: it’s such a hard habit for me to break. Maybe I’m not looking seriously into the two colleges because it would make things more real. I’d have to accept that I didn’t have a chance at the schools I dreamed of going to because of things both in and not in my control. I feel awful about myself and I hate wallowing in self pity so I choose to avoid, instead.

I guess I could ask for help. Explain that I’m stupidly avoiding everything because emotions are hard and I don’t want to come to terms with the fact that my plans were postponed if not ruined by poor choices and self destructive habits. But I avoid that too, because I don’t want to admit that I’m struggling. I would rather support others or do something, anything, other than seek support for myself about this. Besides, how can others support me? Tell me more executive functioning skills and strategies I already know? Tell me to sit down and “just do it” ✔️ (no I’m not sponsored by Adidas)? That’s not helpful to me. I need to drive myself to do things.

No, it’s not just that I need to drive myself. I also need to be in an environment like I was at the boarding school where I feel the passion others have for learning, where I’m at home and motivated to work for my goals to improve myself and get my money’s worth. I’m not in that environment anymore, though. So what else will help? I’m tired and burnt out but I can’t be burnt out and avoiding forever. The solution keeps shouting out at me: “just do it!” Go and overcome your ADHD, your mental health issues, your emotions, your laziness, everything standing in your way and keep pushing through forever and ever. Keep trying and you’ll get through it, it will get easier with time. You just need to jumpstart your engine and as soon as it starts rolling you’ll be as good as new again. Ignore the expectations you feel from others because of your race and your gender and your very existence. No, I haven’t gathered the strength or motivation to do that.

Sure, I could do self care. Try and get that motivation of mine up. But I have tried and I’ve been trying. There is a time limit on how long I can be burnt out for before there are severe consequences and that time limit ended a year ago. Severe consequences, hooray, made my attempts at recovery even weaker and now I’m completely running on fumes.

All I can do, in the end, is to keep trying. I hope that you, dear reader, will keep trying too, if you are also struggling with something. We can do it together, separately. (Do you see how this is another unintentional example of avoidance, where I try to support others again instead of me? I mean my words of support though.) I guess this is the end of my rant: if I continue I’ll just be talking in circles. Thank you for reading/listening. ❤️

I can be so impulsive that it becomes a problem.

To counter that I try to think things through before taking action and that can also be a problem, especially since I tend to overthink and then miss opportunities or destroy my own chances due to overthinking. For example, I don’t reach out to listeners often because I want to make sure I actually would benefit from a conversation with one. But then if I reach out and the listener doesn’t support me I feel bad for wasting their time and my time as well for believing I had found someone who would give me quality support. I have a habit of trying not to reach out to listeners I am familiar with on my L because I’d like to keep professionalism, so I opt instead to use “connect now” or browse listeners to find people. That can be a problem as I know a lot of good listeners on my L, so the list of active high quality listeners who I haven’t met and talked with extensively on my L is rather short. Eh, oh well.

I was debating for a time over deleting this entire thread as ranting here isn’t helping me any more than ranting in my private journals, but hey, I gotta force myself to keep trying things out of my comfort zone. I don’t have much else I want to say here so thank you for reading, and I hope you have a nice day or night (: (it feels strange to be able to address someone as if they are reading - 😀 I hope that wasn’t creepy haha-)

I’m actually so ready to delete this thread but the fact that I’d have to bother people about it to manually delete it is preventing me 😀 Arghh I guess I’ll try to make use of it - 🥲

I have to decide tomorrow what college I want to deposit my money into and I don’t know what to doooobsvhdjhdjs every time I try to look into them I feel such ardent self hatred but I need to decide, I can’t avoid it and then not go to college at all. That would make me feel worse.

I debated whether or not to talk to an old friend about it but didn’t want to bother him. The feeling of ✨pure inadequacy✨got in the way and I resisted the impulse. I keep trying to find listeners to talk to but I can’t find anyone, I either know them on my L or they don’t respond. Why listeners take “connect now” requests and then don’t respond is beyond me, don’t accept the request if you’re not gonna say anything. It’s understandable if people from browse listeners don’t reply but not replying after accepting my chat request yourself, really? Maybe I should resort to messaging the ones I know, it feels uncomfortable though.

Ok whoever reads this ridiculousness and upvotes without replying, thank you? I wonder what you are thinking (not pressuring anyone into replying, don’t if you have nothing to say) but uh thanks for the upvotes, strangers 😮❤️ sending motivational vibes to everyone who needs them (: that’s all for now, take cats! 🐈😀

I’m so burnt out 🥲😀✌️ the only thing keeping me from dropping out of school and giving up on everything until I feel better is the knowledge that failing this year means repeating another year and dragging out my burnt out phase for longer. I’m so done with everything dhdhhfjds 😀 I’m not in crisis though! I just really want to sleep through the next year and wake up refreshed. Nothing has been helping me get back on my feet, and I keep getting worse and worse no matter how hard I try to reverse things. I hate that there is a time limit for me to stop being an idiot and get on with life. I’ve passed that time limit and the longer I procrastinate on healing the more consequences I get; the more consequences I receive, the more burnt out I get; and thus the cycle continues. I try to remind myself that healing is not a straight line. I can’t improve by beating my mind into shape. But I’m not improving like this either, so what am I supposed to do? Grr. None of this makes sense probably but oh well. I tried to get this out in writing in case it would help me think of a new idea or see things from another perspective but it hasn’t and I feel no better or worse than I was before. Wonderful.

I may as well try to end on an attempted positive note. Argh, this is starting to look like some sort of pathetic virtue signaling to show at least someone on this blasted planet that I’m trying my best, as if their acknowledgement of that would make me feel better. Wait, nonono, I shouldn’t say things like that. Pretend you didn’t read that and I’ll try that again because that wasn’t positive at all (,;

Alright 😀 if I’m not feeling better I may as well try to do something productive and say things to make *you* the random reader feel better. Thank you for donating your time to this thread, I have no idea why you are here, but you are appreciated. If there are things that are troubling you, I hope you will have the courage to seek out support if needed. I’m not going to lie; that support won’t necessarily solve all your problems. For me, most recently, it made things worse. I’m still trying to hang on though, and I think you have the strength to too. The support you find may make things better for you, and take some of the burden off your shoulders. Keep reaching out and someday you will find something to keep you going and help you through the hard times. ❤️ I’m still looking for that light and I am determined to find it. We can do this together (: ❤️❤️

Or none of the above cheesiness applies to you if you’re not in a situation that would benefit from hearing those words 😀 in which case I say: I don’t know your situation (actually I don’t know anyone’s situation, anyone who is reading this lol because I don’t know you) but I sincerely hope you are doing okay! If not, my heart goes out to you, I’m not sure what to say but I’m sending optional support and hugs to you. That was bad but oh well, self given B- for effort. (:

I was a fool for not realizing this earlier. Avoidance isn’t that different from giving up. It’s merely less assertive. I hate how my brain keeps deceiving myself, how I keep using self destructive habits. I tell myself I need help. But help and change are different things, and I haven’t found any type of support that pushes me to make a positive change. I feel as though my thoughts circle down slowly into the drain until they overflow and scream “Just do it!” Why can’t I? Or maybe I can, so why am I not? Stupid, idiotic me. I may be standing in the way of my own ‘success’ - it seems so simple, get out of your own head, ignore yourself - and yet I am not. If that isn’t the way, then what is? This is supremely confusing. My talent for overthinking blows things out of proportion. This is how I am, though. Is that what I need to change? Or is it something else? Is the necessary change even within my control? What is it that I want? So many questions with no perfect answer. Being mindful is not enough. Being enabled to change, and then actually changing, might be enough. What will enable me? I have absolutely no clue. I am tired of looking for what will enable me. I tried enabling myself and getting outside help too but no, I am still here, stuck in this loop. Trying to tackle simplicity with a complex solution. Just do it, yeah sure. I would have done it already if I could, if I knew how, if I only - something. Something missing. When can I find that something, or even better, stop asking “if” and ✨just do it✨ like everyone including myself says I need to? What is going on in this hopeless, ungrateful, confused mind of mine.... I’d like help, please. What the *** is wrong with me.

Extremely curious what replies, if any, I receive for this nonsense. I’m being a brat, wanting things I can’t have and not getting over myself when I should. That is how I see things. Is there another perspective that will help me become a functioning person again?

I am ashamed of my existence. I am ashamed to even have the audacity to feel ashamed about my existence: why should I feel that way when there isn’t a solid reason why I am ashamed?

I’ve seen others worry about whether others hate them. I’m hardly ever worried about if someone hates me, because I believe my existence is so insignificant to them that they wouldn’t care at all. Why would they hate me? If one were to oversimplify things, there are three main ways one could regard another: with care, with distaste, or with indifference. If they hate me, so be it. But most likely people regard me with indifference even if I am concerned about how they view me, so there is no reason to worry. I realize I am privileged in having this mindset, and I am glad that I don’t feel the need to worry as strongly as some others do about how people regard me. I think I used to worry, but I somehow came to the above realization and stopped obsessing over what I now feel are foolish things, like how others view me.

I am confused about how a certain person in my life seems to think I don’t carry enough shame. I think that’s a flawed perception of me. Of course, I could carry more shame. Things could be worse. I am, however, acutely aware that my current levels of self-blame and shaming are rather unhealthy, and the fact that I hate myself - no, I disregard myself completely as I don’t care enough to hate - to the very core screams at me constantly. But that person is not in my head, nor are they me, nor can they read my mind, so originally I didn’t blame them for not recognizing my self hatred. When I tried to communicate that I did deeply loathe myself, that person didn’t believe me, and that is what I dislike. I don’t want to argue with someone about whether or not I hate myself, shouldn’t we focus on something else like how I can stop hating myself instead of whether I actually do? Admitting that I dislike myself isn’t easy, you know. Do they think I want to be this way? Why would I pretend to hate myself?? I guess they could think I’m trying to seek attention but like,,, no??? If I was an attention seeker wouldn’t I be screaming “I hate myself, now change my mind” from the rooftops to try and fish for compliments? I feel like I’m victimizing myself and I hardly ever talk about my self hatred with my support system because I don’t think I’m worth the attention, and I’m only saying this here because no one has replied recently 🤦‍♀️ I don’t need any more shame in my life thank you, I wish they would keep their stupidity out of my face so I can work through my own already pre existing emotions. Let me heal without additional foolishness please, I don’t expect life to be perfect but I will not tolerate unnecessary shaming. Why are they so set on shaming me more anyways? What do they gain from that? I know they’re not gonna feel better about themselves after shaming me so what is it that makes them do this?? Confused.

I don’t understand why they are shaming me but I feel there must be a reason, it’s hard for me to accept if there isn’t a reason. The reason doesn’t even have to be good, I can accept flawed logic. When I ask why they think I need more shame they say I don’t have enough and we’re brought in another loop, so I guess I need to learn to accept it. Somehow, for an unknown reason, they feel I don’t have enough shame, and somehow they feel it is their responsibility to instill said additional shame, and that is how things are, I guess. Why am I even complaining about this...

Anyways. Wow, I’m quite wordy. Hopefully this will post without giving me a warning message like it did yesterday, my last post that never got posted must have triggered some censor but I couldn’t figure out which part made cups think I was in crisis. There was something else I wanted to say but my adhd said vroom vroom *** and threw the thought away, lovely. Thank you dear neurodivergent brain. I’m gonna stop talking now haha, there are too many words already that I don’t even recognize or relate to anymore and I don’t know why 😳😬

I wish to be small. Not necessarily young, but small. Then I can hide more easily.

Shy. Wedging myself into corners and small spaces feels more like a hug the more solidly restricting they are and the closer I press myself into the floor. As long as I focus on the feeling of fake solid support in a positive sense and don’t become panicky from claustrophobia and the desire to get out. It seems ridiculous that I feel... little, I guess. I’m going to be a legal adult soon. Why am I like this.

I wanted to say this in the safety of a closed room with no one else but me in it. But when the room closed I was kicked out too by the app and now I am here, in a slightly more exposed place. And I no longer can indulge my desire for smallness here, it feels wrong. I get the feeling that I need to get back to reality and be mature. The small version of me doesn’t fit this side of cups and actually I’ve never expressed this before ever let alone in a way that others can see so I guess I’ll get off and wedge myself in a corner again. If I can even get back in the mode of feeling small. Must go back to hide, goodbye.