Goodbye... For Now

Hey, everyone,

     So it's been nearly 2 years... whoops. I checked on this randomly, and I'm like, oh, I never actually made an official goodbye.
     Basically, buckle your seatbelts, it's gonna be a ride.

     With all this mess going on in the year 2020, I've had a lot of time for self-reflection. More than I usually do, that is. What I figured out a while back is that I think of myself as very self-centered, but also have put myself down a lot. Basically, because I can get so wrapped up in my own head, sometimes I think that I don't deserve the friends I've had or have. Which is easy to believe when I was living in an environment where not a lot of folks would acknowledge me, even if I was their friend. Heck, I almost got forgotten in places when I got distracted by some random thing.
     Now, I'm going to talk about senior year because that's the origin of this blog, and honestly, I've barely thought about it since my last post here. It's only come up recently more because, for some reason, I've been dreaming about my old friends, and strangely, the most common one is being talked behind my back again. Honestly, I couldn't give a crap about that now. People will believe what they want, and I'll keep being me.
    At the risk of sounding self-centered, I owe it to myself to let this rest. I'll leave the blog up, and maybe someday I'll write again. But here's my final thoughts as of now, to let this go.
    (Apologies if I repeat myself from past posts, I know I do that a lot.)

     My depression and anxiety kept me from speaking up about how I was actually feeling. This blog was one way I could vent and I changed names so that the general public wouldn't know the identities of anyone. Thing is, some friends knew the people behind the names and took offense to my fears and feelings that I had no outlet for, so I ended up apologizing for a lot, which, honestly, I don't think I should have. What should have happened is I should have been more honest about how I was feeling in the first place, instead of just ducking my head and trying not to offend people I cared so deeply about.

      This quote ("If someone tells you you hurt them, you don't get to decide that you didn't.") is something that's run through my head since senior year of high school. I was told by at least one of my former friends that they didn't hurt me. Which made no sense to me. Because I was hurting and it was their actions that caused it. So like, I was confused and heartbroken and scared because I didn't know if maybe I was just overreacting. Maybe I was like everyone said and too sensitive.

     I know now that I was both right and wrong. I was hurt and pushed to the side and taken for granted. The friends that were supposed to treat me right decided their version of right wasn't something I should have been hurt so deeply by. Honestly, to me, that just proves how little they knew me. I also never got an explanation or an answer for what happened. Part of me still wants something, anything to know why things happened the way they did. The hardest thing to accept is that things just happen. They don't always have a nice and easy explanation attached.
     But I was also wrong. I got mad and lashed out, pushing people away. In my depressed state and full of fear, I could no longer see the good in people I'd been friends with. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should have explained myself more, helped them to see how confused and lost I was. Maybe I should have been more open about how I saw patterns repeating themselves and that's when I finally drew the line.
     I never actually told one person the reason I left was because I knew that they'd talked bad about me again, but acted like I was still mad about senior year so that they could come forward with the new information themselves. Stupid, right? People can't read minds. But in the moment, it was another apology I never got.

     Now I've gone through college, somewhat. I've found out I'm ace and trans. I've gotten a better handle on my depression and anxiety. Mostly I can thank a lot of that to Felix and another of my best friends I met in college. They've stuck by me and I know I can depend on them, no matter how busy we are.
     True, I've got other friends. We chat every now and then, in some cases once a year because I've learned that while other friends are crappy at keeping contact, I'm not innocent of that either. So sometimes you have to be the one to reach out. Because not everyone has Felix's powers of knowing I want to talk and will randomly reach out of the blue.
     I've also learned how to let go of people that are bad for me. Another "friend" in college told me over text that he and other friends of mine made fun of me when I wasn't around. Then I let go of some more recently when they got all fussed I've been supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. In their defense, I don't think they know they're racist. Still, I dropped them anyway. People having rights, or the lack of them, because of something they cannot control isn't an opinion or an argument that we should be having.

     Wrapping this up, I just want to say, I don't hate the people I leave. Sure, I get really angry and pissed at first, but after a while, it aches. I still miss the people I left in high school. We went through a lot together and then... yeah. I don't hate them, I just know for my own peace of mind, I can't trust them how I used to.
     But now I also can't see them graduate college. Now I can't hear about their lives and be so proud of them and their accomplishments. Back in high school graduation, I smiled and clapped the hardest for my friends because we did it. And I was so extremely proud of them, even as I thought my own accomplishments were lesser. I'm still so proud of them.
     Now that's gone. I can't tell them how I feel because I severed those ties.

     Part of me still thinks we'll see each other again someday. Mostly because I've found that's just how the world works. The one thing that's changed is I used to dread it. Or, I'll admit, because I wanted to be petty and be like, "See, I'm not the failure you predicted I'd be."
     But that doesn't matter to me. Not as much anymore, anyway. Now I kind of just want to see how things are going. Know that they're safe and happy and healthy.
     That's all I've ever wanted, really.

     In case you're wondering where the pettiness energy went, it's going into my books. And it's being translated into as many LGBT characters as I can possibly write. One of my old stories from senior year has gone from a hetero romance in the background to girl power lesbians. Because fight me, lol.
    Am I maybe overcompensating for not being able to express myself for most of my life...

     Seriously, though, jumping back. Any old friends who are reading this and I did you wrong without realizing, I'm truly sorry. I know how much it can hurt, and the last thing I'd wish on anyone is for them to go through what I did.

     Finally, I'll leave this blog with Thomas Sanders' song "Recipe for Me". I relate a lot to it and I know others do as well.
     Goodbye for now. I wish you all the best.

-Kay

PS: As of right now, the greater amount of folks I know don't know I'm trans, so that's still a thing I know the folks who know me reading this will respect. And that you very much for that. :)

Another Surprise...

Hey, everyone,

     So, in the last few posts, I've come out of the closet. Very vocally in the last one. But... the reason I haven't posted since is that I've been hiding one more thing. Meaning, any friends also reading this blog still? Don't say anything to anyone just in case they don't know. This is something I'm even more nervous about telling others. Like, I cried after telling Felix because I was terrified he'd hate me (he doesn't by the way, quite the opposite still).

     Anyway... well...
     [deep breath]
     I'm non-binary.
     There you go. There you have it.

     Honestly, I've been conflicted for a few weeks about posting here about this or talking about it since being non-binary is a little bit more complicated for people to accept or understand than someone being gay or bi or ace or something else. Even though those are also still hard for people to get. Depends on who you talk to.
     Either way, to answer some probably common questions:
     No, I'm not trans. I'm not a guy now, but I'm also not all girl. I still go by she/her pronouns and my given name, although sometimes they/them does feel appealing to my ears. Non-binary just means I don't fit in either the female or male binary. I'm somewhere in between.
     Basically, to sum it up by using an analogy I saw in a YouTube video by some queergender (another term used to describe non-binary, though less common because it can be a slur) folks (I think they're trans...? I'm sure about one but not the other), it's like a scale. Like this:
1 = female
5 = neutral
10 = male
     Most days since I've realized, I'll put myself as a 4 or 5. Maybe even a 3. Then there are other days where I'm at a nice 2 or 6. I've been close to 7, but I've gotta say, I'm really not much higher on the scale in that direction? Granted, it has been only a few weeks since I've been ranking and it's not perfect.

     If you're thinking, "well, you've never said anything before or shown that kind of feeling before, maybe you're just confused and following whatever the kids these days say on the internet or in college." Buddy, I have news for you.
     I've always felt this way. Kinda similar to being bi, I squished it down even more so. I hid behind my skirts and feminine clothing because that's what I had to do. That was the social norm of where I was. You look down at what was between your legs or on your chest and there you go. Black and white. And honestly, some days it sucked. Because it was everywhere. Home, school, the store, anywhere. At least, that's what my brain thinks it remembers. I'll say right now, depression and anxiety combined with ADHD sometimes can really warp some thoughts. Not to invalidate anything, though. Feelings and experiences are still important and I'm the only one who can "decide" what I experienced/felt about something.
     ANYWAY, since going to college, I've been able to wear whatever the heck I wanted. So I brought a lot of my clothing along from high school and life and everything. Want to know what I wore the most after that first semester? Hoodie and pjs. The most gender neutral I think any human being can be capable of. Granted some of my pjs visible would be bright pink, but even then I didn't care. It wasn't until I was more aware of what the word non-binary was that I realized that's why it felt sooo much better to me.

     One example of how I know I'm non-binary is something I went through yesterday. It wasn't the first time, but it is the first time I did something about it.
     Now, to start off, recently I had to buy a new swimsuit. I rarely wear one so I didn't care it was slightly too small until recently. When looking in the mirror and wearing it, I loved it. I look really good in it, which is how I felt in it and what other said afterward. I'd usually avoid wearing swimsuits because I didn't always feel that way. After what happened yesterday, things finally connected on why that was.
     Yesterday I was feeling around a 6, nearing 7. I'd tucked my hair in a hat all day (it's quite long and I have no desire to cut it) and was wearing more gender neutral colors and clothing. It didn't bother me that my chest isn't flat, so that was fine. I just wanted to be a person. Then... later in the day, I had to put on a swimsuit. The plan was I was going to go swimming with some people, which I normally duck out on. But the previous night I was excited about it and couldn't wait to wear my swimsuit again. So I had it with me and went and changed.
     Oh my gosh, it was like a living nightmare. Okay, maybe not that bad, but close. It was so uncomfortable with it on and then I looked in the mirror and the feeling got worse. Like, I almost threw up. Luckily, I'd picked out some shorts and a zip-up sweater to go over it to walk to the pool in. As soon as it was out of sight I could breathe again, but I could still feel it, obviously.
     Long story short, I managed to not go swimming without outing myself from the closet and just sat by the pool after changing back. Luckily I've gained a longstanding reputation for not swimming so everyone has stopped trying to guilt me into it. But the whole time I was just thinking about that experience and remembering every other time I would dread doing something similar.
     Today I probably wouldn't be as bad wearing it. I was at more a 4-5 again. But one thing that made me really happy about the past two days is that no one asked about my hat. The one comment I got about it was someone saying "I like your hat and how you've been making your hair 'short' and long." That was probably one of the best compliments I've ever gotten and she didn't even know. (Some of the others being Felix and his reactions to things I do. He fanboys a lot and it's very adorable. Have I said how much I love him yet?)

     This post is long already, so I'm going to end here for now. But I'm going to talk more about this because I'm not what everyone else in this non-binary spectrum/umbrella is. So I'm just going to talk about it and if someone else is similar, hopefully, this helps. And anyone who's just curious how at least one person feels/experiences being non-binary. It'll probably help me a lot, too.
     Goodnight for now, my friends. And I'll also add a song for you. I love this one and this version is a new cover I recently discovered. It's so great.

-Kayla

A walk in the dark

Hello, this is Felix, Kayla's dorky boyfriend.

So despite having accepted the offer to join this blog close to a year ago, I've only just gotten this account setup, and after a few days, I'm finally trying to write something. Brace yourselves for the most incoherent post you'll ever read, cause I write best at 1 in the morning, but nothing makes sense at this hour. If you've ever crammed an essay that's due at midnight, you know what I'm talking about.

On the other hand, this time of day scares me, more than I'd like to admit. Kayla's gonna fuss, cause I haven't told her much about it, but I can honestly say that, as a 19 year old boy, I am afraid of the dark. Or rather, I am afraid of what comes with it. I have struggled with depression for years, and despite having gotten through what I hope it's the worst of it, I still dread laying in bed and waiting for sleep to take me, because I know in the limbo between laying down and sleep, the whispers will come. The voices that tell me I'm worthless, that I'll never amount to anything, that nobody could ever see past my scars.

But the thing is, the dark isn't so scary when someone is there with you, holding your hand. And for years, I didn't have that. The dark was scary, and sometimes even dangerous for me when I started believing those whispers, but then I found someone that would stand with me. And suddenly, there was a light in the darkness.

So I guess what I'm trying to say, is that all of us here have been in that darkness, right where some of you might be right now. And I am here today as proof, not that you can get through the darkness, because I won't lie, no matter how much I improve, I still have stray thoughts, depressing, violent, even suicidal ones, but that you can survive the darkness. You can't get rid of it, but you CAN beat it. You can beat it so badly that when it tries to rear its ugly head, you look at it funny, think "where'd that come from?" and then squash it down again. And maybe it's not the solution we've all been hoping for, but I'll tell you it's a lot better than being stuck alone in the dark.

Like I said, we've all been there, and we are all at various points on our journey I'm the dark. But none of us have to make that journey alone.

~Felix

P.S: The someone I found, is obviously Fluffy the penguin, who is a gift from Kayla, who is most certainly not my wonderful, shining light in the darkness, nor is she the love of my life. That would just be silly. Penguins are obviously superior warriors.

Hi I'm the New (But Actually Old Because 19 Feels Really Old) Blogger

What's up everyone!!

I just spent like an hour complaining to Kayla about how I have no idea what I'm doing or how to blog, so bear with me. I guess the first thing to do is to introduce myself. I'm Violet. I'm 19 years old and I march to the beat of my own drum, like these guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watchv=fRscYVvEFt8&list=PL2J6kLWeTPwVXB5u9SEOAtNjDHyvoc25q

                                               The spandex. The neon. Just everything. 

This wasn't a conscious choice I made, but it's hard to fit in if you don't come from the same cultural background as the people around you. I didn't grow up watching Hannah Montana or High School Musical or Camp Rock, or listening to Britney and Miley and Demi and whoever else. I watched I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver. My first crush was Cary Grant.

I said that like it's embarrassing but honestly, have you seen the man??

                                       Tall, dark and handsome. And so so stylish.

My favorite musicians were Louis Armstrong (thanks, Dad), Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland. If you haven't heard of them, a) who are you and b) who raised you? I'm totally kidding. Also I'm sorry for rambling. My point is, I don't know how to be a cool kid. If I tried, I'd make an idiot of myself. Been there, done that in 8th grade and let me tell you it was not a pretty sight.

Partly by choice, and partly by necessity, I spent a lot of time alone in my high school years, reading books or writing stories and poetry. Needless to say, my poetry was, is and always will be absolute trash. But that's not the point. It was fun.

That's how I met Kayla. We kind of gravitated toward each other, I think because we both felt a little (or a lot) out of place. I don't remember becoming friends. We always just were. Throughout high school we got closer and closer and now I love her so much that I'll need two hearts to hold all the love I have for her. We're in college this year so it's been different, but she's still the first person I think of when I need to talk about something.

I'm like her in a lot of ways. We're both Christian, although I'm Catholic and she's Methodist. We both love Doctor Who and Harry Potter probably quite too much. We like to read and write and make ridiculous jokes. We're similar in a lot of ways that aren't so fun as well. Kayla asked me to join this blog because, like her, I have some firsthand experience in the delightful and thoroughly enjoyable field of mental illness, namely depression and anxiety. It took me a while to decide to accept her invitation, partly because I didn't know if that was something I wanted to talk about publicly and partly because I was afraid it would become a temptation to wallow in self-pity, always thinking and talking about my feelings and my problems. That's something I do all too often.

                                             Actual photo of me on a daily basis.

But I thought about it a lot, and I think I've made the right decision in accepting. Kayla has done a wonderful job of not making this one of those blogs, where people go when they're miserable, hoping it'll make them feel more miserable and therefore feel better somehow. It's not a blog about mental illness, it's a blog about life and everything that comes with it- joy, fear, suffering, happiness, all the ups and downs that everyone has to go through. I probably won't keep within the strict themes of the blog every day, and I hope Kayla doesn't kill me for that, but I can promise you on the grave of my ancestors there will be nothing political. I will try to tie everything I write into the blog themes but some days I might just want to have a good laugh or talk about something exciting I've learned. I've found that those things can help the most.

So, thanks for having me! I hope you'll come back and read more of our stuff and I'm sorry in advance for all the trash I'm about to write. God Bless you all!!

-Violet

Jeremiah 1:5

A New Approach

Hello, everyone.

   So, I should probably admit, I didn't know how to continue here on this blog. Mostly because my life is significantly better than it's been since around a year ago when I first created this blog. Maybe I've said that before. How am I supposed to keep writing a blog about fighting depression and anxiety when most of that has gone away? Well, it's still there, but you know what I mean.
   But I've been told through a chain of friends that maybe I should try talking about how things have gotten better. That after all that fighting and hopelessness, there is a happy ending. How I became the person I've been searching for. A person who has gone through all those problems and made it through. Someone who's proof that happy endings do come.

   Life is not done for me yet. I doubt that I will never go through hard times again very much. There are such things as relapses and there are still stupid people out there who'll make you think you're crazy for having a mental illness or think you're just making things up.
   Still, I want to keep writing here. I want to keep fighting with memories like I created this blog for. Because every day we make up new memories, new moments that make life worth living.
   I watch the show Once Upon a Time and one quote concerning that rings a bell when I think about it:
   "Life is made up of moments. Good ones, bad ones, but they're all worth living. Look for the good moments between the bad ones." -Prince Charming/ David Nolan/ Josh Dallas (all credits go to the writers of OUaT)

   I'm making new memories, good ones that make the bad ones start to disappear. People that I used to be afraid of I can now start standing up to. Even Carmen has mostly gone out of my mind. I know I ranted a lot about her, another reason why I stopped writing for a while, to her  get out of my head.
   Anyway, I know more people, I have new friends with some of the old. People who actually understand, though also those who don't, but then I don't talk to them about this. Mostly because I know there's no use trying to convince a brick wall that they're in the wrong. They'll most likely learn on their own.

   This blog was made to create hope. So, why not start by proving that it exists?

-Kayla

Introducing Me

Hello.
   My name is Kayla. I'm new to this, so let's just start with a random thought. I'll be doing that a lot.

   So, how about my first post is about the title? 'Fighting with Memories' Has a double meaning, huh? Either you're fighting to forget something or you're fighting bad memories with good ones. Let's just say, I've done both. And quite often. I've got to give a lot of credit to my friends and some books that have helped me through it. And are currently helping me.
   Anyway, I'll just cut to the chase. This blog is to help other people like me. People who have depression. People who have anxiety, mostly social. This is to give people, like myself, a voice. I'll be posting stories, memories, advice, and anything else I can think of.
   This DOES NOT mean I will permit any downgrading of any kind. If someone starts putting disparaging or hurtful comments here or other words, it will be stopped immediately.
   But, you can share stories. If you're hurt or need advice and that causes you to complain about another person, causing them to be shown in a bad light, I won't hold it against you. I've done it plenty of times, but there is a difference between that and cyber bullying.

   I think that'll be all for now. So, till next time!
-Kayla