Is it a trauma or not? To me, it kinda feels

Found a "5 (subtle) signs your mother is a covert narcissist"

1. When you are making her look good, she glows. When you are struggling, she peppers you with criticism and questions

Yes, and no. The first part is so accurate, she will brag to everyone and hold me singing "what an amazing daughter I have". When I am struggling, she will not exactly jump to criticism and questions but more on how she has gone through all that and she cured herself by saying how she's made of gold, and has psychic powers to heal with just hands and words - and if these techniques don't work, then I don't want it enough. Another way is how, if I'm sick in any way or going through a bad luck period, suddenly she is too and it's all about her

2. When she gives you gifts, there's always strings attached.

She gives me the gifts she bought thinking about her, then gets upset if I don't like it or it's actually something that hurt me. When I give her a gift, I tend to give it thinking about her and stress out for days, to have her say for a second "omg I love it, thank you!" and then throw it in a corner. Leave it in the dinning table for months, hidding in a drawer for years.

3. Despite outward appearances to the contrary, your life must take a back seat to her needs

Oh yeah, and I bet once I move out on my own, it'll be hell. If I don't visit her and her evil friends, suddenly I don't care at all. But problem is, I'm stubborn and I don't agree without a fight, it's both a curse and a blessing. Though she doesn't say to the face, she just pouts.

4. When you question her or ask for clarification, she becomes immediatly defensive and fires back at you

Accurate. The typical "I KNOW I'M STUPID" "I KNOW I AM UGLY, NO NEED TO POINT IT OUT" "Yeah yeah go ahead SAY I AM TERRIBLE", that even my dad is tired of dealing with.

5. When your boundaries about your personal life is not respected

Reason number one why I don't share anything. Like said above, I'm stubborn and this is a point she knows she won't win. No wonder her family calls me rude and sneaky.

Am I overthinking things? Am I demanding too much?

Today went to buy a swimsuit because a store was having a good sale, as I picked some my mother said she would go - and followed me into the store. I gave my initial 'look around' to see what they had and she asked me a couple times "try this, why don't you grab anything". When I explained I am first giving a look and then see what I really want, she walked off from place to place, and when I grabbed a couple pieces to try, she went off store. As I was trying, I wanted an opinion on this full body suit and opened the curtain a bit since was a small store, I could see the entire place. She was gone. Maybe I demand too much. She never actually goes into the dressing room or wait, she rarely stays in a shop for more than 2 minutes. But I felt sad when realized the dressing room in front had what seemed like a daughter trying out something, and a mother holding up the curtain to cover fully and grabbing her other sizes. I had to hold the curtain with my purse and other shopping bag.

My mother actually showed zero appreciation for me selecting her some songs she asked for. She has been asking my dad for months now to make her a playlist, but he had trouble coming up with songs she liked so asked me. When she said she liked an Ed Sheeran song, I quickly replied had all his albums and she would probably love his earlier songs.. no comment. I organized them in a new pen drive and went to give it to her, while they were watching a show in the living room. She just turned around and went to sleep, which is her way of ignoring a situation.

She got upset over how there was a news on a mother (with same age as she has) being murdered by her son (same age as me) and kept saying out loud "she has same age as me!! same age as me!!". I was in my room doing yoga, so only heard the loud comments. When finished, went out and saw the news, while she got up and walked out to the balcony. I was confused until they mentioned the ages on TV, and asked a couple times what she meant, but she never replied or talk TO me. I'm still a bit "what" by this, since makes zero sense. And I have paranoid tendencies, jeez.. I used to associate numbers on car plates to wether people around me were going to die or live, but I tried hard for people around me not to notice them. So if this is some kind of paranoia... I don't know anymore

Also the usual, got up today with her asking me how much a ticket cost to go downtown. Of course my dad and I were confused and asked why, because we're all three home which is rare, so no need for buses - and she yelled "you know really well why". It's not even 8 am. She is upset at us asking why, even though we aren't awake enough to remember tomorrow she wants to visit my grandfather.. like always.. As if it isn't normal. But seriously, waking up after a confused dream to a "HOW MUCH IS A BUS TICKET, HOW MUCH" still with my hair in a mess, eyes barely opening and needing coffee, is the highlight of my week

Maybe I complain too much

Maybe I read too much into things

Maybe I will one day actually make a list of all 'you had to see it to believe it' things my mother has done or said. I feel bad when say it's highly possible my mother has a mental illness and NEVER will get help because.. society logic is someone doesn't harm themselves therefor all dandy and cool.. but also have to kind of joke about it, or I am the one in pain.

First of all - seriously, have to start appreciating people more often. I'm thankful for the support in the trauma sub-comm overall, and feels nice to know people understand and care. I can't really talk about these things besides in therapy, and even that's not enough time to discuss half of everything. Looking back, I first made this thread because I was going back into a REALLY depressing period and 2017 was "one" of those years where half of year was "okay dandy and cool" and half of year "drowning in depressed crap". 2018 is "slightly" better, but believe me, slightly means a lot lol

Second, have to kind of "check-in" with how it is to be home with both parents. It's not bad, I did expect more negative reactions from my mental health. So far, I've managed to avoid one anger outburst and full blown panic attack (well that one meant be being in my room hyperventilating, rocking back and forth, while squeezing plasticine and doing grounding techniques but hey it worked.. ). But did have a few crying sessions, one middle of beach. We were supposed to go for a picnic yesterday, but sadly I got sick and was in bed all day. My immune system is crap - I am still a bit sick, my nose is better and so is my sore throat, but headaches come and go. I felt bad, I really wanted to go, but risking getting worse wasn't part of my plans.

Also, just one more week with my dad home. After that, it's just me and "mother". No good. No good. Have to find things to keep busy outside home, but with my luck she may take all mondays, wednesdays, fridays and maybe even tuesdays to go visit her old 'sweeeet' father (the only reason she isn't doing that with my dad home, is because he is 'forcing' her to spend time with us). Then it's my birthday and just hope this year goes well.

On positive side:

I FINALLY got a haircut. Kudos to my dad. I never would've gone if he didn't actually stop by a hair salon and said "go", while going to get a hair cut as well.

I may buy some semi-permanent dye to dye my hair before birthday. Thinking on some green or blue, or may go for a darker purple. Last year tried a purple, but wasn't dark enough. I don't trust me taking care of my hair enough to manage permanent color, I already feel ashamed to admit I only wash my hair once a week because have no more mental energy lol

Installed The Sims 3. It's been interesting and fun. Being sick and playing sims does bring good memories from being a teen.

Did go to beach (despite crying session) and wore my new swimsuit and felt good.

Avoided a self-harm relapse. Hurray to me

*** long rant ahead but with sorta of a point towards the end.. also, I mention animal death so, scroll down if that upsets you? Idk***

Was watching a report on dogs and something a lady said, brought a memory and I'm almost crying. She was saying how before her dog passed way, it looked at her as if to say "save me"

Not sure if have talked about it before, but probably did. My cat died 3 years ago, due to a terminal illness. The last 2 months she was alive, part of me knew she was probably dying but I was in denial. And because we didn't have money to go to a vet, we just kept hoping she'd eat another food. I feel bad saying this, but my cat had stopped eating in mid June and we only took her to a vet in end August when she stopped drinking water.. over money.. Psychiatric medication is expensive, let me tell you.

Moving on, most of my days that summer were about sitting beside her and trying to make her eat or make sure she was breathing. Many times I started crying when realized she was in pain when I touched her back or picked her up, getting in arguments with my parents over how expensive vets are. I wouldn't leave my house at times, or as soon as got home would go looking for her. Often I got that look from my cat, the "I'm in pain". I can't explain how I knew it was that look, I just knew. I'm in tears just remembering it.

When we finally saw the vet, after 2 sessions she told us it was terminal illness and gave us time to decide: put my cat to sleep or see if treatments help keep her alive for another month. The next day we went there to visit her, and as soon as the vet opened the cage to say "she hasn't eaten yet nor moved" I went on my knees to touch her and my little Luna started meowing and trying to walk as if to say "take me with you, help me". I think the vet was the most understanding possible, since technically you couldn't visit pets after 7pm and she let us stay near the cage until near 7:45pm to say our goodbyes, with an hysterical 21 year old crying like a baby

**** somehow end of long rant into a 'more positive' long rant because I'm still me ****

I have 'overcome' it in some way. In a strange way, grieving her passing, helped me cope with my grandma's death too. Yes.. Only in my 20s did I overcome my grandma's death when I was child.. And to be honest I probably have vented this story a thousand times, but with time I've realized the only way my mind overcomes stuff is by being repetitive. The only thing that helped me cope with bullying flashbacks was typing typing typing writing writing. If I stopped 'talking about it', even if to myself, I got flashbacks and nightmares. If I forced myself to forget it, to keep it in, to "not be a bothered", I'd go in panic attacks everytime someone touched me. After spending an year in therapy talking about same thing, I realized I didn't need to anymore. It's why I kind of don't get upset if people are repetitive around me when something hurts them, because I know worked for me. Well if people on other side weren't invalidating.

I just had to type this out, honestly. My birthday is coming up, it's by itself a triggering time where I can easily go into depression and I don't want to. Like, that's the thing I don't want to. My life is somehow coming together, it's scary, it's overwhelming, it's terrifying truth be told but that's what progress is. That's what recovery is. It's scary. It's overwhelming. It's terrifying. But also good. Like when I started therapy with my current therapist, I used to hate feeling happy - it felt scary, I used to say how if I felt happy I instantly panicked about what could hurt me, and had to work on next full year on "accepting happiness". Great, it worked. And now I'm scared of feeling pain, but hey it's a progress.. though I doubt I will one day be without fears. I don't believe you can be without fears, it's technically impossible

If you haven't read Divergent, even if you don't like YA, it's a great book (the first one) on fears. On how they're NOT A BAD THING, once you push away the sappy romance and the fact Tobias is a great person and Allegiant was Veronica's Roth totrture to us for no actual reason besides her own personal delight *moving on* Technically in some way was about fighting fears, controlling them to make yourself stronger by fighting the weakness. But in truth, they never go away. Because as soon as you conquer one, another one comes. Human nature. Also, there's a line where they say "Fear doesn't shut you down, it wakes you up" or something along those lines to a character, and that line to me.. is thought provoking. And there's the fact it's the girl helping the boy face his trauma even though that's not mentioned besides in between the lines, and the fact it's about someone trying to find their place and thinking they have to just be one thing like everyone else tells them to, but in the ends finds out it's okay to be a mixture of things and throughout the story it's actually shown that just being one thing is actually the flaw and not being a bit of everything - and that to me, is why I love those books. Okay, back to point

I don't know my point. I should go sleep, it's going to be 1 am soon and my early bird tendencies tend to get a bit confusing if I stay up. All I know is some people may think I look for the hidden meaning on sappy YA books, but in truth I hate romances and cutesy dramas and if a story doesn't have a hidden meaning in a philosophical way, I lose attention. I do need to get reading more, but my concentration has been terrible these past few years. I used to read a lot when had friends, but then lost all of them and lost my passion to read too.

Made a new thread and thought wouldn't use this one, but.. it's nice to keep things separated. This is my messy unorganized thoughts, the other one is more structured? Moving on, was a tough day. Not the worst, but the fact weekend won't get better from now on, neither will the month.. I am numb, my mind knows shit is about to go down

As I was singing happy birthday for a family member, I remembered: no one will be actually be around for mine. I could be the selfish type and give out hints, but I didn't. I don't want to have spotlight on me and thousands of questions about friends which I have none of. So had to pretend a smile while everyone was happily eating cake. Maybe it's my problem, I should've been the "umm so my birthday is in x days, yeah x days!" but I hate that. I hate when people do that, so I refuse to do it myself. I then noticed no one included me in their conversations. I tried to get included but was like no one had space for me. Like always. Was about to cry when my aunt started talking how she hopes her issues don't rub off in her daughter (mental health). It made me really respect her, I respect someone who admits they got issues and don't want to damage their kids - it makes them aware. Not like my mother. Also almost cried when my aunt told me cliché advice "tell yourself it's your best day, tell yourself this is the best day of my life". Sorry? No. That is WORST piece of advice in my opinion. It creates a cycle of not accepting pain and pushing it away, instead of dealing with it

To anyone reading: there's nothing wrong in saying "today is just a crap day, today is the worst day. Let me cry it out, yell, break something. Better days will come, but today is just B A D" - really nothing wrong. This idea of "positive thoughts will attract positive things" does work, but has a huuuuuge limitations. Number one being, life isn't positive. Life is realistic. There's good, there's bad. And there's balance. (yeah I'll make this bold because this and realizing I was emotionally ignored/neglected were like the two most important things in therapy for me - and may help someone else)

My mother is pissed, half of the day was talking about death, funerals. My grandmother died, there's a whole drama going on. Family arguments, threats, hate being thrown around. I won't go in detail, because that in itself is private and I respect certain privacy - but it's just.. stressful. I don't even want to imagine what the funeral will bring, I joked saying "oh I'll have to keep my camera fully charged, this may be youtube material" but it's just me trying to make mood light. As my dad said, my place in family is to be in middle, the mediator, the one keeping people somewhat sane. Believe me, that's not a healthy place to be in. I hear from all sides, it made me good on noticing who is right, who isn't.. but made me paranoid and unable to trust, because no side is good.

I have never been to a funeral, but might go this time. I thought my biggest problem would be the memories of my grandma's passing when I was a child, but no. I keep having memories of it, true, but noticing the drama is my worst problem. I don't have energy to mediate all this. At least there aren't flashbacks or bad dreams, at least I'm over that grief but I am numb. I get unaffected by people I am not "connected emotionally" to dying. Some people think it means I don't care, because I don't look sad. But if it's someone I connect to, it's like the world is crumbling down. 0 or 100 - that's me

Mothers are supposed to care and look after you when you are sick. Nope, not mine. I'm just pissed because of many reasons, especially how she likes to brag to family members and her friends how "oh yeah (my name) is who reminds me to take medications, I am just so stupid". Yeah you are, but people go and say it's my job to remind her. Because that's a child's job.. moving on

The funeral was.. normal? It only hit me when we got to the morgue before and saw the casket and the body. Memories from my grandma started popping up, and from my teachers death. I had to go out when started remembering everything, and how for some days after hearing my teacher died by suicide, I tried understand how. All I was told was police found her car in an abandoned place and that led them to the body. My little child brain started imagining all ways. When we got to the church was when it hit me. But then someone read about "love you, grandma" and I just found myself having flashes of memories on my mind, pushing tears away because "this is not about her, this is not about me, no one would understand, don't cry". So instead I kept squeezing my fingers and hands on each other.

Then the parade to the cemetery came and I can honestly say derealization happened. I was tripping on my own feet and the person in front, going out of line, going back to when I was 8 years old, back to 'now', back then back now. It's hard to describe it.

I blocked out all emotions. All. Every single one. It was only way to push memories (or flashbacks, in some way it was more like 'emotional flashbacks') - to tell myself "this isn't about you, this is about them, others, you have no right to be crying now about something in past". When got home, I was numb. 100% numb, so much that felt I was a shell. It got worse on the day after. I was still that way today. On tuesday I thought I was about to cry, but no tears.

I just can't cry. I know crying would help but I physically can't. I flipped the switch to block out emotions temporarily, and I broke it. Today I felt a bit better, but I haven't been sleeping well for almost a week now, so my back is hurting and feel exhauste.

I just don't know. I feel bad for how my mind turned this on past, I thought I was over the grieving situation, but I wonder if that's the thing with grief and losing people who you cared really about.. you can learn to live with it, but no matter what, pain is there.

Also, just remembered: on my next therapy appointment, I have a lot to mention. Like a lot.. I should probably go in and just say "hey! A lot of shit went down, so I'll give you the brief summary because that ought to take the whole hour"

I tried to write this at least two times. On both (if not more..) I ended up feeling worse than I did, and cursing more than writing. But today I did write a "letter to my mother". Depression is hitting hard this week, it's like a wave but today has hit the hardest. Not sure this helped, I am completely numb to life this whole day, so will see how it goes later.. Maybe it's long, by the way. Not sure.

*******************

Dear Mother,

I could spend my days listing examples of how you have hurt me, be it directly or indirectly. With every fake smile and 'you are perfect' without looking at me, you made me drown in lies that would haunt me. Please, don't ever tell someone they are beautiful, perfect, amazing without meaning it - it can just destroy someone's self-esteem as much as being told they aren't those things. Giving a gift just for the sake of giving it, doesn't make it the best gift ever.
Please, listen. Properly listen, actively doing it not passively and then saying the actress on TV is so 'good'. Please understand that the day you told me you would try to spend more time with me, meant my world. To then be greeted with all the same normal behaviors, broke my heart. Please, understand. Me saying my childhood was difficult doesn't mean yours wasn't. Me saying your family ignored me doesn't mean someone didn't ignore you too. This whole narrative of 'what about me' only perpetuates the hole between us, does not build a bridge.
You may think pretending everything is fine will rebuild something that wasn't ever there. But it won't. Twigs and branches aren't as steardy as ciment and brick. Telling me how bad your childhood was, won't make me appreciate the things I lacked on.
It is not a childs job to take care of their parents when they are sick. Do not use it as a way to broadcast how "amazing" I am. It was never my job to remind you of medication or look after wether you ate or not, when I was 10. It is not a childs job to be a family's therapist. It was never my job to be around adults and told to fix their problems, or listen to your TMI warning details about my birth or sexual life.
A mother's job isn't to carry a baby for 9 months and then only take credit where credit is due, and hope for best. A mother's job isn't to pray their baby is healthy but don't care when the toddler wants a story. A mother's job isn't to laugh when people threaten the childs safety or emotional well-being, because "it's a joke". A mother's job is to care, put them first no matter what - not in the back pocket for when the right crowd approaches.
I had a bad childhood. Not a terrible one, not a good one either - a style of childhood I wouldn't wish on anyone. Call things for their name. Though in part most of the blame could fall on you, it doesn't all fall on you. But on circunstances, family members, finances, and maybe other factors. The problem is. A good mother will see beyond that, admit what they did wrong, change what they can, and grow with time and the child. In my eyes, you aren't the best mother you could be. If you could? Yes. If you tried? Maybe. Did anything change? No. Is there still time to change? My heart is too hurt for something small to fix it, but I wished yes. In therapy I am told there isn't much hope, unless you learn to watch in the mirror. But little old me still hopes for her little mommy to return. The one I didn't meet.

I am sorry I am a mess to handle. Sorry I yell, make scenes, freak out and curse. Sorry I said I hated you. If I meant it? Yes. But shouldn't have said it. Just hope someday you will have the maturity to tell me "sorry" and mean it. Change it. Because there is a reason I don't spend much time alone with you, I am trying to avoid the reactions I apologized for. Though sadly doesn't seem you are willing to mature that enough. Hopefully one day you will. Because I have lost all my mother figures, trying to find the one people claim lives with me for over two decades.

Signed,
Your Daughter

******************

I had the idea to try again when days ago, "Brave" was on TV. I love cartoons, especially Disney. I was resting on the couch after applying some ointments, and my mother had just sat down in the dining room. At first I thought she was doing something else, maybe reading a magazine but when she laughed a bit at a scene in the movie, I noticed she was watching.

It wasn't as much as the situation, but how I thought. It just felt like a metaphor. She is there, she is watching - but she isn't there, nor is she watching. The way our living room is, if you are in the dining room you can't really see the TV properly (especially not on the furthest chair as she was). But still, she pretended to. Instead of getting up and moving to a closest place, she stood there, at a distance just to say she watched it. And when ended.. got up. When the interesting part is over, she goes. She takes a nap, turns around, goes to another room. It feels stupid how much this can hurt. I don't think I can even list everything that she has done that has hurt me, because somethings I just have bits and pieces on my mind. Like it's blocked. So I go over the same examples. And now, we seem 'okay'. To my dad's eyes at least. Because I know my limits, because I walk away before shit goes down, because I stay in my desk 8 hours in a row with back pain or walk around doing nothing in town, just to avoid her, if I have to. And that's not "okay". But it's damage control.

These past family stresses, including saturday and sunday which were absolute shit and worse than previous weekend, have ruined my mental health. On saturday I broke down crying in front of my dad, over what to him felt like nothing. Since was almost 11 pm and I was crying he thought trying to ignore and distract me, would help but didn't. I'm entering a depression period and just holding on because my mother is home and now we have plans for my cousin to spend a night with us. I couldn't say no, I only see her once a year and this is our last chance, plus some events make me feel I owe that small thing to her, at least

But I don't know if can handle that without completely breaking down. I just don't want to ruin her life. I don't know if I can go this week without doing something harmful to manage all this shit happening inside my mind. It's just a TERRIBLE month. And these past two weeks, days have been from bad to worse, increasing gradually.

This is why I hate being around my family. Just two weekends in a row plus both parents home for a month, and I'm a complete mess.

These days were terrible. My cousin stayed more time because my life sucks, and I got 2 hours of sleep the first night, on the second one was worse. I was in bed until 4 am starring into the nothingness, until started crying and got up, went to sleep in the couch. I hate being touched and seems a lot of people in this sub-community could agree with such trigger? Well, sleeping with someone is worse, call it being selfish or whatever, but having someone touch me as I sleep is big trigger. I rarely sleep well with someone near me, I wake up multiple times and feel shaky (unless I completely trust the person and I am mentally well). Problem is, my family has this habit of making me sleep with my cousins because "family time".

And last week had enough, when I mean I cried, I mean ugly cry that you have to force yourself to be silent to not wake up anyone, and your muscles cramp up in your jaw. Anyone else gets those? I do. They suck.

When my dad woke up before work and found me on the couch, under a blanket and with just a decorative cushion as pillow, at first got confused and laughed a bit. He tried not to make a scene, because of my mother. Just told me to sleep well. Long story short, I couldn't. Had to handle some legal problems and at 11 am had a severe panic attack. One of those I haven't gotten in.. ages. Where your whole body shakes and your crying makes you suffocate.

I later that day told my dad the truth why I slept on the couch, he got serious after that. He now sees my "hate being touched" as serious, after jokingly touching my neck and triggering a panic attack. In his words "last time someone makes you do this". It's stupid my family is able to manipulate me into doing these things, but I can't handle seeing a child ignored by their family especially mother.. and maybe they sense it, and feed off it. It's why I was the family babysitter since 9 years old, they knew I liked children and took advantage of it. It's funny, on my own birthdays I was the babysitter

My birthday wasn't the worst, but was bad. More because of my mental health, all this shit just brought up a depressive episode and I am just hoping things get better. My therapist is going on vacations, I really don't need this on my back now.

A rant on self-esteem/not having relationships/fears:

Yes.

It's long. Beware.

Kinda feel bad that haven't ever had a romantic relationship being already 24. It's a sensitive topic for me, mostly because of the replies people give, the typical "oh but you're a sweet girl/guys must love you/you're lying/you have too high expectations". As someone who up until was 18 got bullied in school by boys, verbally, physically and sexually assaulted.. it's not like I grew up feeling comfortable to go up to someone of opposite sex as a teen or even now and say "hey" without fear. But people don't understand that. People don't understand how certain expressions hurt. I also have tokophobia (fear of pregnancy) and apparently fear of sex, and don't know where those come from. I suspect it's a mixture of my mother being WAY too open about intimate stuff when I was a child and the short incident with sexual assault + how guys at my middle school (which had students from 5th-12th grade and was mostly older students) handled me by spreading rumors. I mean, by the age of 9 my mother had described to me in detail how my birth was - and how most women went through labour.

Yesterday me and my parents went out for ice cream, and near the place there was a marriage parade with cars honking and I commented how if I were to get married, I would want to do that 1920's style car ride. My dad laughed "you'd need something else first", and I laughed "two actually, the man and money" to what he replied "I don't know which one is harder for you". I tried to laugh it off as a joke, because probably he meant it as a joke, but sadly given I was told since I was a child how unloveable I was.

My aunt was the main person to do this. Shame me on my teeth, thighs, face, hair, whole thing. Saying I better hope a rich man feels sorry for me when I was just a child. My family used to praise my cousin over her "beauty" and shame me, saying I looked like a boy, calling me disgusting. When I tell someone this they usually reply "oh yeah I got that too, all girls get that so get used to it". Really? You're going to down play it on "it's a girl thing"? It's an emotional abuse thing. It's not normal, not everyone gets this. Being called ugly one time when you're a teenager isn't same to being kicked down stairs because a 15 year old boy said you're too ugly to be human. Isn't same to have your aunt publicly shame loudly in a busy beach how disgusting you are, and have people stare at the scene. Or having your own picture circulate in the school computers with people constantly laughing because the file said something like "ugliest girl". Yes, guess what those things are traumatizing when you add up all the rest. People normalize being called ugly as if it's a normal aspect of life - and it may be at times, because not everyone is kind or has same eyes, etc. But that doesn't mean it's the same scenario for everyone

And yeah, I do try to build my self-esteem. I have been working on it for YEARS. I didn't develop eating disorder behaviors because I thought not eating/binge eating was cute, but because I hated myself so much that food was TORTURE. I didn't spend half of my teens applying 10 layers of make up because I liked it - no, no one likes sweating heavy foundation at 16. It was because I hated my face that not looking at it, was EASIER. I didn't spend hours looking in the mirror because loved myself, but to see if my face would change. I guess you could say I almost had body dysmorphia, and my only way to avoid going donw that hole is to not think about it. To not even look in the mirror, to not even go on the scale, to not look at sizing scales or go search on google "calculate my beauty" or "how ugly am I". I HAVE been doing that for past 4 years and guess what? I feel a bit better but not that much. Because it's not just the fact I was called this or that, but the fact people I was told to trust (adults) brainwashed me enough to think I am not worth love. Because for more percentage of my life I was told I was unable to be loved than able to. So much that small jokes about it being hard for me to have a boyfriend hurt me. So much that people asking me why I never had one, leave me in tears. I am or wish to be sure that once I can put those words I heard as a kid, behind.. once I can 100% trust I won't be pushed or laughed at by a group of guys when I interact with more people.. once I can teach my mind that it's safe, that people won't hurt me just because I am me - things will change. But seriously, do people know how hard that is to change? I am not going to erase 2 decades of hurt in 2 months or 2 years. It's mathematically impossible. It's like expecting one day of rain to fix a 10 year drought - do you know what happens if that scenario was true, geologically speaking? If in one day were to rain enough to fix a drought, you're talking landslides and recipe for a terrible natural disaster. That's not true growth, recovery or progress. That's recipe for relapse into old behaviors. That's what I have tried for past 10 years and have failed at, because never works.

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RANT OVER, I didn't even re-read this, I don't know if there's typos or makes sense. Just putting it out, and log out