What You Call Self-sabotage Might Just Be Your Body Saying: "Familiar Pain Feels Safer Than Unfamiliar

i hope you are haunted by every mention of me

i see your name everywhere

you surround me in inconsequential settings

the teacher asks me to read aloud from the article, and the authors name makes me choke

my friend talks excitedly about her new tennis coach, and i pathetically, desperately, think that somehow you have travelled 417.8 miles and learnt a new sport

your name is used in a maths problem and i think this is so daft he could run way faster than that, and i sit there like a fool in the exam hall surrounded by shame and silence and the echoes of you

the curse of having a niche name is that i know you will probably never hear mine

you will never stop dead at 11:24 on the train home because someone has just laughed my name into their phone

you will never read a book where my name is the name of a main character, and wonder if i have read this book too

you will never come across my name spray painted in accusing red, begging you not to forget me

but maybe this is a blessing in disguise

you will never become numb to me

whenever you do hear my name it will be brutal and raw and painful

i hope

your brother will say 'i heard she got a boyfriend' and your mum will say 'i called her the other day and she was worrying about her exams' and your grandmother will say 'she might come visit london this summer'

and you will stop dead in the bright lights of the kitchen and watch everyone turn around you

and you will picture me in my blue room with the purple pyjamas i wore that night i was twelve,

and you will know that i will always be a part of you

“You shouldn’t self-ID as ADHD/autistic, you’re turning a very real mental condition into a trend” Ok then stop saying delulu. Stop speculating on which cluster C personality disorder the criminals you hear about on the news have. Stop saying “schizoposting” and “acoustic” and “is it restarted?” Stop using “psycopath” and “sociopath” as catch-all ways of calling someone a bad person. Stop saying “the intrusive thoughts won” when you bleach your hair and then turn your nose up at people who suffer from very real, very scary urges of physical/sexual violence. Stop saying “I’m so OCD” as a way of calling yourself neat. Stop treating BPD/ASPD/Bipolar as inherently abusive. Stop saying “OP I am living in your walls” without tagging for unreality. Stop diagnosing complete strangers you’ve never met on r/AITA with NPD.

You first. If you don’t want our disabilities to be treated like trends then stop belittling and minimising them. I’ll NEVER judge a person for trying find labels for their symptoms when an apathetic, racist, sexist, ableist healthcare system refuses to. But I will absolutely judge a hypocrite. Which a lot of you are

insanely late update on how this went but whatever.

☑ tune cello

☑ finish job application for local bookshop

☑ print off emails about work experience

managed to sort out log in so i didn't need to

☑ attend both work experience events today

☑ minimum 40 minutes music practice

literally played three chromatic scales and that was it

☑ try make sure i have to to eat lunch

☑ sort out some files from the stuff i won't need next year

don't even have a good reason i was just being lazy

Also went up to the phone store to see if my phone was nearly fixed which I had been putting off, and I bought myself a boba tea to reward myself, no pics because as above PHONE BROKEN!!

02/06/25

posting this to promise to myself that I will actually get something done today

☑ tune cello

☑ finish job application for local bookshop

☑ print off emails about work experience

☑ attend both work experience events today

☑ minimum 40 minutes music practice

☑ try make sure i have to to eat lunch

☑ sort out some files from the stuff i won't need next year

I love you for your post about the “I’m just a girl” phenomenon - my eyes cannot roll far back enough into my skull when I hear someone say it in earnest

thank you! i'm so glad people agree with me on this! whenever i've brought it up to people i hear saying this they just argue thats its not that deep, but i think it is that deep!

studying isn't always aesthetic, and that is totally ok.

not every study session is accompanied by a cool bright matcha and and a perfect messy bun. not all of your notes will be written in beautiful looped cursive and perfectly highlighted.

sometimes the only way you can study is in your pyjamas, sometimes the only place you are sitting down long enough is the bus, sometimes your notecards are tatty and ripped.

you don't always have to be perfectly aesthetic, let go of your performative notes, write notes that help you.

wear things that are comfy and easy to concentrate in.

be gentle with yourself, learn what works for you and stick to it.

When Dostoevsky said, "Pain changes you, but it teaches. That is its mercy." but Kafka said, "Pain changes nothing. It just repeats itself until you forget who you were before it started."

quality over quantity

there's a story my dad always tells me about a man who is trying to cut a huge tree down. and he has been at it for hours, his arms are aching, hes exhausted, but the tree is slowly but surely being cut down. the problem is that he has been going for so long that his axe is really blunt. so another guy comes up to him and asks him why he is trying to work with a blunted axe, pointing out that it is so much easier to take a quick break to sharpen your axe and then start work again. but the man refuses, saying that he is being productive at the moment, and he cannot possibly waste time sharpening the axe because he has other tasks to get onto.

if he sharpened the axe the tree would come down faster, and he would have time for the other things he wants to do.

it is far better to take a 30 minute break, take time to jog around the block, make a cup of tea, eat a quick snack, than to try and solidly work for hours and hours.

yes technically you spent more time working, but you probably would have gotten more stuff done if you took a break and refreshed your brain.

sharpen your axe!!

was it casual when you shoved him off the cliff and then stood over his corpse watching the warmth and light slowly fade from his familiar blue eyes was it casual when his father said you made his son the happiest he'd ever seen his baby boy was it casual when his parents gave you the honor of being the pallbearer when you stood amongst his brothers and carried the corpse you'd made to the hollowed ground was it casual when you were so lost in your own mind standing above his grave that you smeared the dirt of his grave across your chest (you killed him. it doesn't mean you didn't love him.)

the unsent project

i like to browse the unsent projects messages, and make myself feel sad over all the lost love in the world

i search up my name over and over, obsessively

i search up your name over and over, obsessively

they say we reflect the love we are shown

and maybe there is something in that, because when i look up your name there are hundreds of messages

and when i look up mine

there are two

i sent some of the messages to you

and when i scroll through every dark green one catches my eye

and the really pathetic thing is that i don't remember which ones i sent

maybe what we had wasn't so special if i am mistaking others messages for mine

i dont know

but i do know that you probably never search for my name

and you have certainly never sent me a message

sometimes when you look at someone and think “ughhh i wish that was me” what you’re really feeling isn't jealousy. you don’t want to be them. you want to feel like you but braver, freer, softer, louder, whatever they’re reminding you of

we grow up being told to compete but healing girlhood teaches that you can feel inspired without feeling small. you can let someone’s light show you where yours is dim. you can see beauty in someone else and use it as a mirror, not a measuring stick

so next time you feel that burn in your chest, pause and ask yourself: what part of me is waking up when i look at them? what dream of mine are they unknowingly touching? because that’s not jealousy. that’s a version of you (not yet born) whispering “hey! we could do that too <3”