Sometimes you notice how terrible some of the things people did to you are only because you say them out loud.
I was sat at the kitchen table with my flatmates and we were sharing a dinner, a moment, an illusion. I like to call myself an introvert but sometimes I think it’s just an excuse to avoid situations that are not a hundred percent pleasant. I then try to convince myself that it’s impossible to live your life by only experiencing pleasure around people. And yet... when I am alone it’s not always nice, but when I listen to my intuition and only spend my time with people I actually care about, even the difficult moments become worth writing about; not as a way of exorcising the bad energy, but because it’s actually interesting to write about, because it’s inspiring, not because there is nothing else left to do to attempt at happiness.
So we were eating together and mostly I was happy I could chew and listen, it’s always interesting to listen to people even when they are boring. You catch glimpses of another reality. My flatmates are not boring but they are different from one another to a degree that makes the meeting point only possible with a bit of small talk, - and to me, anything that is not neuroscience or stories about mental breakdowns is small talk - . When I get a chance to talk with them one on one, the connection gets better until M will say something like “Oh I have this trans friend, and I don’t mean it in a patronising way but perhaps it could be helpful to talk to, I’m sure they’d be happy to” because I am talking about how my ex partner got scared of the word “trans”, of the very existence of me in his life. Or B will say “what is it, are you afraid to fart in your sleep or something?” when I say that I struggle to sleep with other people, so I then have to make him feel uncomfortable by saying “no it’s more like... PTSD stuff, you know.” I then tend to walk away nonchalantly. I eventualy forget about it. And I forget about myself and my issues until they bubble up on a Monday morning I hoped I could dedicate to reading. I thought I was good at emotions.
I came up with “sometimes I feel like I am autistic” and they all looked at me puzzled. I had to explain that I deconstruct every word, every object and situation; I take things for what they are literally and I probably learned how to interpret the hidden, how to read between the lines, it didn’t come to me naturally. It is exhausting to be in my brain but I like it very much. It’s just... I don’t drink water, I drink H2O; I don’t look at the sky, I look through the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and I then start thinking about the ISS and the humans in space falling between sunsets and sunrises every ninety minutes.
“Nah” K smiled at me with that expression that suggests we are all humans and doing our best. He’s very good at that. Very nice neurotransmitters, I mean, good human K.
At some point before M moved out, we had another of those attempts at being united, and the food was good, I really enjoyed that part. M was talking about how much she packed, and saying how stressful it is to move and collect all the things, and choose what is worth taking. I said that I became really good at that and I now didn’t possess many things and in case of a fire I would exactly know what to grab quickly and regret nothing. Just objects. But I wasn’t always like that, I used to have so many meaningful items of sentimental value. It’s just, my ex N and I would fight quite often, and by fighting I mean he’d gaslight me into tears and sometimes even get aggressive, so I learned how to pack my essentials very quickly and fuck off: analogue camera, film rolls, pair of socks, pair of panties, glasses and kindle. Wow, that was some tough shit right there. I didn’t realise until I said it out loud, and I was searching for K’s reassuring smile, but even he wasn’t smiling this time.
I now wonder how much of me is made of something that doesn’t scrape the bottom of human decency. People were really mean to me at one point and I didn’t even know. It’s a continuous and exhausting realisation that I am bits and pieces of someone else’s anger, projection, sadness, fear. And I keep taking these layers off and each time I am surprised that there is something left underneath.
This morning I woke up with a memory of me at nineteen, crying in Laura’s car as she was driving me home; Andrew was in the passenger’s seat. Andrew is an ex of mine and I was probably not over him at the time. The night started at a goth club and I was hanging out with the guy I was dating when Andrew came to me to ask if I’d feel uncomfortable by him kissing Laura, who was a friend of mine. I looked at myself sitting in G’s lap and thought that it would have been unfair of me to say “actually that’s fucked up”. So I said “not at all” and started to kiss G. I’d sometimes glance at Andrew and Laura and it hurt to see his hands on her ass. Eventually I got drunk to the point I couldn’t even walk properly, and Laura of all the people decided to give me a lift despite Andrew going home with her. I was sitting between the back seat and the passenger’s seat, right behind Andrew’s back, and I couldn’t stop crying because I thought I was not worth the bliss of ignorance, I was not worth a night out without the imposed urge to deal with my past and my feelings. It felt so unfair.
They were talking to each other about Japan and all the wonderful things they discovered. I was never into Japan but that’s not why Andrew and I broke up. Eventually him and Laura fell off and she gave him Chlamydia because she also slept with F who I knew had issues with his penis because someone else who was sleeping with him told me. I didn’t even feel triumphant. I just felt like I wanted to be angry... but I could only feel sad.
It is difficult to feel angry at people when you see where their bullshit comes from. You see their emotions in bright colours, you see a rainbow in the midst of a summer thunderstorm, you see beauty. You understand. But I’d be damned if I didn’t want to feel some deep terrifying stupid anger once in my life. I wonder how it is to feel that way, to let it out fast, to break something without thinking and not in just a desperate attempt to gain attention.
I think about N a lot and I still struggle to call him a piece of shit because his past life was as dark as mine, although for some arcane reason I didn’t grow up to humiliate people and strip off their will to live. But there were good moments, or I would have left as soon as the first time his father showed up in our little studio flat to stay with us for a day or seven, - another reason to pack up quickly and get the fuck out of there -. One time we were out for drinks and we had a fight because N spilled my cider over my expensive Armani sweater. And I didn’t have much money, and I had to work hard as a model for Rokit, and they could only pay me with a voucher to spend on their ridiculously expensive items. So I got angry for a fraction of a second but he gaslighted me by saying that I thought a sweater was more important than him. I still don’t know how that happened. Eventually I apologised and explained that I didn’t have many expensive clothes, and that was also a good quality sweater you know. He never apologised for spilling the cider on me... We were walking home, it was cold and my sweater was still wet and it’s always windy as fuck on the East Way; on top of everything, my second hand boots were hurting like hell. I felt rage, I completely lost it; I think I wanted to kill N. I took my shoes off and threw them on the other side of a fens and I shouted that I was tired of being poor. He just stared at me speechless and then offered his shoes but I told him to fuck off and walked bear feet instead. I think that was the closest I got to anger. It was glorious. I also didn’t really tell him to fuck off, but I thought about it very loud and that was more than I have ever allowed myself.
Recently someone said I was “speaking from a fucking privileged position” because I wondered if people who were ignorant of a better life, could feel truly unhappy. Me? Privileged? Dude I come from fucking Kazakhstan, the only privilege is that I didn’t kill myself at the age of sixteen because if I was raped at seven years old, it was because I did something wrong… at least that was what I thought. I rephrased my question by adding more details, saying that sometimes unhappiness just arises and you don’t know what it is and you start searching for something; other times you compare your life to the life of those who have it better, and you realise you can have more, you become unhappy. He seemed to come down but I am not sure he understood; regardless, that didn’t give him the right to rage at me in something that wasn’t even a debate yet.
On my way home my hands went numb and I breathed myself out of a panic attack. I decided not to overanalyse and come down first, and then it was a bit confusing because I didn’t know if someone has just been mean to me, without even knowing me, or if I was triggered because I have complex PTSD. My conclusion was “both”. And I asked myself “do I want to deal with this now? And is it worth it?” The answer was “no”. It was incredibly humbling and reassuring to have that conversation with myself and allow myself to feel anxious, worried, even scared, and then have the strength to protect myself without shutting down. I of course talked about it with K, Lucy and Conor, and they gave me some meaningful feedback, but I didn’t need their worried expressions to realise that something was not alright, and it was the first time that I knew my worth, and the worth of my time, energy, and peace of mind.
I still don’t feel safe in my own bed, but I’m getting there, and I am a little bit less sad than before, I am a bit more... angry. I am so proud of myself for allowing these emotions to thrive, unapologetically and yet... gracefully. I intend to harm no one, and that awareness makes me whole. That awareness makes me different from the ones who harmed me, and I feel no more guilt from removing those ugly layers of trauma.
myself by Pedro Terrinha