As
I sort of did last year, I, again, want to do a recap about my past
year. Because I'm turning 22 today. Which is scary. And ridiculous.
To misquote Taylor Swift I am not
feeling twenty-two. Whatever that feels like, anyway.
Well,
I feel like I'm no where where I need to be. I haven't grown up as
much as I should have. Things that happened in my child- and
teenagehood still bother me a lot and I feel like I should be done
with this now. I'm not.
Mental
Health wise I'm better and worse: I'm doing a lot for self-care,
which is wonderful, and, which is actually pretty amazing, I haven't
had a depressive episode (that lasted longer than two weeks) all
year!! I still have depressive moods that last up to two weeks but
they're not as bad as they could be. But my anxiety has increased and
I'm not sure what to do with that. I went to see a therapist but I
didn't feel like I could do the necessary things for him to be able
to help me (like talk about actual events that trigger these emotions
or go outside with him and point out what's going on inside my head).
I'm not sure what I'm gonna do now.
Something
good that's happened this year: I've started studying psychology this
year!! It's online classes but it's the real deal with a real degree
at the end :) I'm so glad I'm doing it and loving it so far!
Making
life choices is really hard. I still don't know which dreams to keep
and which to give up on. I kind of want to quit studying law. But my parents
are against it and I'm not sure if I would regret it if I did
actually quit. For my other dreams... Well, it's hard to keep faith.
I've written a book which I thought was great, but all it has
received is rejection. I've sent in poems, stories, books to
competitions and they were all rejected as well. I don't deal well
with rejection. At all. Any kind of rejection makes me question my
whole being. It's hard to keep writing and to keep sending things in.
I love writing but I don't want to keep getting rejected. I also went
to quite a few singing auditions this year and none worked out. I
didn't know it would be so hard to get a role, even at Uni. I've
started thinking that I may be overestimating my singing abilities.
Because of all this rejection I've started getting 'the nerves'
before any kind of singing in public. I always love singing on stage,
no matter what, but before and after are an absolute nightmare. I get
incredibly nervous which I never used to do. Waiting is horrible
then. And afterwards I over-analyse everything. I've also started
crying everytime I sing a song alone in my room. I guess it's because
I feel like I have to give up on this dream and it's breaking my
heart. It's because I'm alone and no one hears or is interested in
what I'm singing. I guess it's because no one cares.
Sorry
for all the whining! :O
Lots
of good things have happened as well. But a lot of things aren't
going the way I want them to. But it's okay. I mean, I'm alive! And
I've actually found some kind of love for myself. It helps me fight
the dark thoughts and keep depression at bay.
About
a year ago I found out I was bisexual. Which makes it sound like I
went to the doctor and he was like 'Here are your results! You're...
drum roll please... bisexual!' It's not like that. I guess 21 is
quite late to realise this fact about yourself (though some people do
so a lot later). I suppose I just never dared to really give it much
thought. When I was little I didn't know bisexual was a thing so I
thought I might be a lesbian, which didn't make sense, either, so I
decided I was straight because it fitted my family's world view. I
started questioning this a few years back but never really landed on
anything. This is partly because I'm actually attracted to very few
people and was barely attracted to anyone for years. It's also
because I never kissed anyone or had a boy- or girlfriend, which has
a lot of reasons (and none of them are that I'm just a horrible
person :P) so I thought I didn't have the 'right' to a sexuality at
all. Then I thought I might be asexual because of all these things.
But I'm not. Soo, yeah :D Not sure you needed to know that :D But I
have been dealing with all the issues related to this this past year
so it should be in this post. Y' know, homophobia in my family and
society, thinking about how to ask a girl out when you have no idea
what their sexuality is and don't feel comfortable sharing yours yet,
coming out, not coming out, all that stuff.
But time for some positivity now: I moved to a new town and I was terrified, because there were no flatshares available so I had to get a flat on my own. I was so scared that I was gonna get depressed. But actually, I turn out to be a rather supportive roommate to myself :D :) With all that self-care going on I'm doing okay! Yay! And the town is great. There are lots of lovely people and I've made friends really quickly :) I've also become more optimistic this past year and started seeing things more positively in general. I've also become more what I'd like to call 'emotionally independent'. I used to get attached to 'a best friend' and my entire mental health would rely on them. It hasn't been like this for about five years but how I felt really still depended on what other people did. Of course other people still have the ability to make me feel better, or worse, I mean, that's just completely normal. But over the past year I learned that I could be a friend to myself. I'm the person who gets what's going on inside my head. So I should be the one who's understanding, because I'm the one who does understand. Right?
Well, anyway. There are a lot of things I did right this year. A lot of happy memories made. A lot of fear and sadness and desperation. But also a lot of love, strength, kindness, and faith, and visits from that thing with feathers.
