every so often i think about coming back here to post. i usually don't do it, as evidenced by the, uh, lack of posts. i grasp onto some truth that could be useful or fun to share, but then it becomes ingrained and sticks out in my mind less as i move onto the next thing. but this time i'll actually post. prolly. given that i'm writing here, it seems pretty likely, and all this uncertain text will feel kinda silly assuming i actually do post. poster moment.
speaking of "moving onto the next thing", for a long time i've been looking for the answer of who i am. on my best day, it's someone euphorically happy with the life she's living. and on my worst, it was someone who felt so distanced from the world that she had to consciously choose continued existence. but both of these answers are only describing the contexts and details surrounding who i am. they aren't the real answer.
i've thought a lot about this and will give one momentary mulling among many. they say culture doesn't feel weird when you're in it, and my above contextualization of finding my identity may suffer from the same lack of outside perspective. who says there has to be one real answer? who says i have to know it? who says i can know it? i have assumed these parameters to be true, but why?
the theme that keeps coming back to me in my self-analysis is vulnerability. it's something i struggle a lot with. i have a hard time accepting my vulnerability to other people in particular. when i do acknowledge vulnerability and it's a good kind (think like comfort), i sometimes desperately try to maximize the sense of... that role? of belonging? something or other. and when it's a bad kind of vulnerability, it cuts me up inside like nothing else.
a big takeaway i've found is that i've been repressing myself real real deep for a long time, and with one visible motive: not burdening other people with having to deal with me. it sounds like a silly mental paradigm when i spell it out like that in a vacuum, but it's one i haven't been able to dispel, and there's reason for that. part of the reason is my eccentricity: those of you familiar with me may understand i'm an odd sort, if you haven't grasped it from this very post. but even that understanding exists after my unconscious and sometimes conscious self-repression. i seem to often end up as an "outcast among outcasts" so to speak. for a simpler and lower-stakes example (i'm acutely aware gender and sexual identity is not everything and am only providing one example), i consider my gender identity somewhere between female and demigirl, my sexual identity ace but definitely gray-ace, and my romantic identity pan/omni but heavily leaning lesbian. being queer is already unusual, but even within that sphere i occupy complicated and divergent positions on gender/sexual/romantic identity. and i'm still leaving out critical details that make the first two in particular considerably more complex. (as one might guess, finding people i deeply relate to/would consider role models is/was a heck of a challenge.)
observations can be made on that specific situation and the broader reality, that of me being "abnormal", it underpins. am i overly valuing rigid labels, out of a desire for stable structure or out of not knowing any better? is it healthy and/or sincere to use "different" as a significant part of one's identity? does the thought of abandoning stable structure, past habits, or a self-identification of "different" make me "vulnerable" in ways i'm not comfortable with? i've certainly thought about these questions. but i've also thought of questions that might be even better. like: what are the root of these situations?
one that has jumped out to me is my relation to religion. right now, i'd put myself somewhere along the lines of theist or deist, but i used to be a real for sure protestant christian as a kid, it being how i was raised and all. i didn't grow up in some intense fundy household. my parents are pretty liberal, and while my grandmother is real fundie, we all are aware of it and in disagreement. still, my past experience with religion shows ways in which my head got messed up, whether caused by the religion or no. i was a real literal kid, so the conceit of christianity as i knew it was "believe in jesus = good result after death, being a good person means wanting good outcomes for others, so being a good person means wanting others to believe in jesus." those of you familiar with these brain traps might recognize this as an extremely detached and impersonal way of defining "good person". this definition comes in part from a place of empathy, of wanting good for others, but it only actualizes that empathy on a surface level. all that matters is just changing one opinion in a person's head, not getting to know them or forming deep bonds or nothing.
as i said, i'm not necessarily saying this dangerous root is religion's fault. those weaknesses might've been where my head went regardless of religion. as kids, we don't know as much about the world, ourselves, and interacting as others, yeah? we make mistakes, all that jazz, and this is the sort of mistake that literal, precocious, well-meaning, and flawed kid me would make. still, this open-mindedness about my own role doesn't mean i'm not bitter about the idea of shallow interpersonality and the warped self-role that took root in my mind. there's this webcomic i like where a kid who got raised real fundy starts to learn the flaws in her conception of the world, and at one point she goes something like "it's like i got raised wrong on purpose, as some sort of cruel joke". i don't feel like i got raised wrong, on purpose or otherwise. no parents are perfect, but i have a lot to thank mine for. and yet, that statement really made me stop and relate to something pretty hard: not to being raised wrong, but to starting out on a wrong foot in a way, whatever the cause of that may be. i've made a lot of strides in my interpersonality and communication and self-understanding, but it's been painfully clear i've been fighting against a history of weakness in these areas, and there is still a ton of room for improvement.
having to dig in and improve from this weaker self-position reminds me of another reason, besides eccentricity, behind my difficulties with avoiding repression and accepting vulnerability. sometimes, interacting with others is the only way to improve these weaknesses, yet while you interact with them, you expose them to your weaknesses. in those cases where i've been willing to make myself vulnerable, i've oftentimes felt been less socially competent or thoughtful or wise than others, which has caused friction and hurt, and that's not even getting into serious failures of mine. as i've become more socially aware, understanding how my weaknesses affect others has often made me feel inferior and anxious. it's my responsibility to be socially competent when having serious social interactions, and what does that say about me if i'm a liability who can't pull their own basic weight, am i right?
but that's a bit overly pessimistic, isn't it? i've come to believe so. growing is good, and accidental pain to others is a pretty unavoidable part of life. further, i have things people like about me, given that sometimes people talk to me more than one time! i won't embody all of these desired attributes at once, but i can make a positive difference in others' lives in more ways than explicit sacrifices with the explicit purpose of helping them. being myself can be enough, so long as i don't use that as cover to avoid responsibility for my smaller and serious failures, and i acknowledge that continual improvement on my weaknesses is part of who i am.
still, though, i must be careful of framing "being myself" as something that can be valuable to other people. just like everyone on this earth, my existence has inherent value of its own, and i'm the only one who can truly let it flourish. ugh, i'm still talking in this detached-morality coating–see how pervasive this stuff gets? anyway. i'm getting kinda tired of compromising how i feel about myself in reaction to what's "normal", what draws attention for deviating from what's expected. i know that even this compromise has potential for quite "abnormal" behavior, but i'm fed up with how much i'm compromising myself. i'm getting deeper and deeper looks into parts of myself i never would've accepted or actualized this much a mere couple of years ago, and internalizing and actualizing these parts makes me feel just so happy. i'm not going to give that up, and i'm not going to give up chasing more.
if anything jumps out to you here, feel free to engage or ask me questions here and in discord... i just can't promise i'll respond. it might be too personal, i may not enter the right mood for good talking about it, or i might just be too drained and busy. nothing personal, i promise. if you're close, i'll of course respond, but no pressure for you or anyone else to reach out, sincerity mode, i genuinely do feel good about the future
a bonus question for making it this far: Will You Snail?
