This is my first blog post. I’m finding it difficult to come up with something to write. The idea of sharing my thoughts, of showing myself to you, I find that terrifying. I’m more comfortable with writing about fictional characters than I am with writing about me. There’s such a fear of vulnerability, and my behavioral response is to shut down with nothing to say.
For as long as I can remember I’ve written my thoughts down in a journal. Not always consecutively, sometimes not even sensically, but it’s been the place I knew I could return to when I needed to sort out my feelings. There were no boundaries in my childhood home, so the safest place for my deepest and darkest desires, secrets, and thoughts weren’t shared in my journal. They remained locked and guarded inside my head. Other private thoughts were unshared with others, except for my diary.
“Dear diary, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m really happy with you. I can tell you anything, and you won’t have remarks or criticism. You won’t say anything at all, and that’s ok.”
My first diary is this really cute notebook with a group of Dalmatians who are free to run and play around outside. What I really liked about it were the scented pages. To this day, when I open the notebook there’s that faint whiff of innocence and uninhibited dreams.
As a child I wrote about whatever happened to me that day. My mother’s cooking, my dad’s arrival from work, a trip to the store. One-line sentences to describe my day. Sometimes friends and family wrote me little messages in my diary, per my request, which I would enjoy reading afterwards. Then there’s strange bantering that I no longer understand, only a faint whiff of that scent left.
As a teen most of my diaries were filled with silly musings on a tv-show or rock band I loved, cringeworthy thirsting over celebrity crushes or—far worse—real live crushes, wild stories I wrote and imagined myself in, or laments about how no one understood me and my teen angst, goodbye’s to lost loved ones, angry words from painful experiences usually caused by my parents, and a yearly mention of my younger sister’s birthday.
Then I stopped writing in my diary for a long time. I had nothing to say.
I’ve reread my journal entries as an adult. In fact, I did so this week as I wondered what to write about in my first blog post—what to tell you about me. There’s six diaries in total from my youth. In them I wrote about my need for escapism (through music, tv-shows, movies, writing stories, partying when I was older), because my home life wasn’t that great. My teenage angst about not being understood? It wasn’t just teenage angst.
The most painful discovery I made is how I can pinpoint the emotional abuse. My father laughed at my failings (coming in fourth during a Rhythmic Gymnastics competition for example), and ridiculed me in front of my extended family. My mother constantly compared me to my cousins who, in her eyes, excelled better at school and didn’t talk back to their parents.
My thoughts and opinions didn’t matter. I just had to obey and do well.
My parents didn’t know how to understand me, so they tried the next best thing: to control me, to shame me, to dismiss me. And it was suffocating. I have, to this day, such a yearning for freedom. But the older I became as a young adult, the more unrealistic that freedom seemed. So I shut my brain off and ignored my feelings. My escapist coping mechanisms were so effective that I didn’t notice the depression creep in:
“I graduated from high school today. Thank God. I needed to. I’m finally done. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I did… but I can’t stop feeling sad.”
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“Been a bit down the last couple of days… I don’t know why…”
All my conscious effort went into pursuing my studies, because all of my worth was tied into being a student. I did that for a long time. I found writing again through papers and essays, and a total of three theses. I started a blog about beauty and makeup, because I needed an outlet for my creativity and academia didn’t cut it. I was a functioning depressed person until I was no longer functioning—until I was no longer a person. My body wouldn’t cooperate with me anymore, too tired to keep ignoring all my buried pain.
I needed help. I went to therapy.
That was a few years ago. I’m not done yet. I’m still writing. I’m writing fiction again. I’ve created many short stories, and I’m working on my first book. I’ve also started journaling again. I’ve two diaries now. Still not writing consecutively, but I try my best to keep it sensical. The first is full of motivational and therapeutic strategies to continue my healing; in the second I write one-line sentences to describe my day.
“Cooked dinner for myself and my partner.”
“Did Yoga at home for 30 minutes.”
“Let my feelings come out when they needed to. It felt good.”
“Went to boxing class.”
“It’s ok to slow down.”
Nothing grand. My current diaries feel less silly now that I’ve reread my first, which was full of dreams and one-line sentences. It shows me that there’s nothing wrong with being where I’m at right now. The little things matter. The little things remind me I have worth, always.
So I’ll keep on writing. I know I have a voice. I’m working on what I have to say.