To everyone out there struggling, there is hope.

R and S are the first initials of my attachment figures from 8th and 9th grade. 

I had some really huge realizations lately as I was looking back on old screenshots and messages. I hadn’t cleared inbox of another platform since December of 2022, so I decided now would be a good time to do that. Many members went inactive and never came back to the site. I’m guessing it’s because they forgot about it or took to more mainstream social media platforms. I hope they’re doing okay. As I was looking through our messages, which were conversations and updates about our lives, I realized that almost all of my messages were about R and S. Doing theater with R and every interaction I had with S took up most of my messages. My attachment figures were the only thing in my life I could see, the only thing I cared about and the only thing that brought me happiness. It was like my attachments to them was a huge wall in front of me and it was the only thing I could see, I couldn’t see past it on either side because it was so massive and intense. In some screenshots from CS, I was venting about how terrified I was to go to high school. This was on May 15th, 2022. I wrote, “So I’m in 8th grade, and I go to high school next year. I’m terrified. The building is huge. It has 2,400 students. I’m scared because people in my grade don’t like me. They bully me a lot. I’m scared it’s going to be the same at high school. Also, my friends are 7th graders. I’m in 8th grade. They’re not coming with me to high school next year. Just the thought of it literally makes my heart race. I’m terrified of losing my 7th grade friends. They’re my world. They’re my everything. I don’t know what I would do without them. I would feel so alone. That’s how I’ll feel at high school. I’m terrified of starting all over. I’m autistic. Making friends is exhausting and hard work. I cried about it last night. My friend comforted me, and I felt better temporarily, but the fear is coming back. I have one particular close friend/crush. I dread the day I won’t be able to hear her tell me she loves me. I dread the day her hugs aren’t so readily available when I need them. I dread, I dread.” I’ve come so incredibly far since that day. I have many friends at my high school aside from those friends I was talking about and I’m genuinely enjoying myself. Yes, freshman year was lonely, especially the first half. I basically only had S the first half. I quite literally knew 3 people there who didn’t dislike me when I first arrived. The particular friend (at the time also crush) I was talking about isn’t my friend anymore. She left me. When she left me, it felt like the world was ending. I literally shook and cried for hours and was unable to form coherent words. It was unhealthy how attached to her I was. All the empathetic and encouraging words in the world could barely do anything for me, I was stuck underground, and it was dark. It felt like I would never be okay again. I felt like I would be permanently broken and damaged, stuck in this excruciating pain. It was my worst nightmare by far, and it was real. I thought about her all day every day, I dreamed about her nearly every night. And now, I still think about her most days, but only once or twice. I let myself sit in it for a bit, and then focus on other things, things that are going well for me. If I really talk and think about her, I will cry, but I’ve accepted the fact that she’s gone and she’s not going to come back. I’m at peace with her being gone. It took a year. But the first time I went through this, with my first attachment figure, it took three years. This is progress. I thought I would never be okay again when she left, and now I know that I can handle whatever comes my way, no matter how painful it might feel, I will get through it and find happiness again. Now, I’m able to see past my attachments, I’m able to acknowledge that I will always love more intensely than most, and still focus on my own life, recognizing that it is my own life, not theirs. I was so horribly terrified of R and S leaving me, that when they did, I thought (not on a mental level, but on an emotional level) that I would die. It definitely felt like I would die. But now I know that no matter what happens, no matter who stays and who doesn’t, I will be okay and I will be happy again eventually. It will hurt for a while, and I will take time to grieve. But I focus my energy on my goals, life, and self because it’s too precious to waste on stress, anxiety, and overthinking. I am letting go. I am finding peace. My trauma damaged me badly. But I have the power to change my story. And it is so worth it. For the entirety of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grade, my attachment figures were all I could see, all I could focus on. I’m ready to put that behind me. I’m ready to close that chapter of my life. There are bigger and better things waiting for me. There’s a whole world waiting for me outside of my attachment figures and I know I’ll be okay no matter what happens. I’m creating my own happiness independent from them. I still have attachment figures, and I might for a while, but my relationship with my current attachment figure is much healthier than it was with R and S. I still have a fear of abandonment, but I trust myself enough to know that I’ll be okay no matter what comes my way. I was stuck. I was stuck for a long, long time. For as long as I can remember, more than four years, my attachment figures were the only things in life I cared about and the only things that brought me happiness. I thought that if they left me, I would never be okay again. I thought I would be stuck in the horrible pain forever and I would never be able to rise above it. But now I know that the pain isn’t as bad as it seems, because it does end. Not because I didn’t love them, but because I can miss them without needing them in my life. I wish I could tell my 8th and 9th grade self that I would be okay when R and S left me. That I would truly, truly feel okay again. That I would be happy again. That I would find happiness outside of any attachment figure. That I would be enjoying my life. Every time an adult told me, “It gets better, it gets better, just stick around, just wait and keep doing the work you’re doing, it gets better,” every time I didn’t believe them, every time all I knew was the awful hurt, I wish I could have known that I would be able to love healthily one day, and much sooner than I thought, and it would be even more wonderful than I could’ve ever imagined because I was stuck and I would become unstuck soon because I am strong and brave and I can do hard things. I wanted to end myself so many times. The pain was too much, it hurt so badly, I couldn’t do it. Or that’s what I thought. I didn’t think I could do it. For every time I wanted to give up, for every time I came so close to ending my story, I am so grateful I didn’t. Because that was just a chapter, and there was more to my story. Because if I had, I wouldn’t have seen today. I wouldn’t have seen the day I am truly at peace with letting people leave if they want to leave. I’m not saying this because it’s easy. It’s not. It’s not easy. It’s *** painful to live in the *** of your own traumatized brain. It’s *** exhausting to fight through every day, telling yourself you’re okay, you’ll be okay, when you didn’t believe it. It gets better. I promise, one day, after sitting in the dark for what feels like a whole eternity, your whole life, you will see sunshine. And it will feel warm and blissful and it’ll feel like your entire self can finally breathe again after all that trauma, all that fear, all those years. When R and S left me, I wrote entire pages about how horrible it felt, how terrified I was, how miserable each and every hour felt. I don’t read through them all, it hurts me too badly to feel that pain of my younger self. But I do recognize that that’s not what life is for me anymore. One day, you’ll be able to look around and see that it’s not so scary anymore.