09/09/2024
good morning yall. today is my birthday and i feel really, really strange about it. like, really strange. i'm grateful to everybody who has said happy birthday but in some weird way i wish everybody would leave me alone. i've been feeling so suffocated for the past few weeks while simultaneously feeling completely and utterly alone. what the fuck is that all about? i cant seem to find the balance of isolation and togetherness that i need. maybe it's because all of my closer relationships all of a sudden feel so strained or fake. everything has changed.
i've made friends here with my roommates, some locals, and other people in my class, but none of those friendships feel real. now nothing feels real. even the friends i had before this (or were closest to) don't feel real to me anymore. it's so hard to talk to them, and in some cases things have changed between us, and i just feel completely isolated again. i find myself looking around and asking "where did everybody go?" as if they all just turned to sand in my palms. everything feels so remarkably lonely. i can handle loneliness, and have been preferring it recently, but it hurts more when i don't get to choose it. it has just been thrust upon me (honestly, in a few cases, by myself.) i have been living so thoroughly the 'sex, drugs, & rock and roll' bullshit that nothing i do really feels good anymore. whenever i drink i end up making out with somebody, which i legitimately enjoy doing, i wake up with the worst catholic guilt known to man. i don't let myself hook up with people anymore for the same reason. that's how it is with drinking too. i feel like if i let myself have a good time or let loose i wake up the next morning feeling so remarkably guilty for letting myself be happy.
i don't know what i can really do to find joy when i feel so suffocated by the friendships i do have (by no fault of their own) and i honestly just want to be alone all the time. i don't respond to messages anymore, i don't reach out to people, and i feel ashamed to even be percieved in public because i'm positive i'm embarrassing myself in some way or another by just existing around other people. i feel like my only option is to opt out of any social interation to avoid the pressure my brain naturally associates with it. i think i should probably see my therapist again soon. i see her every week which is really good for me, but i think things have just gotten worse no matter how hard i try.
i'm turning 20 today and that might be a big part of why i'm freaking out so much today but i don't know. i'm still going to try and do something nice for myself before my first classes. i'm going to take a shower, put on some clothes i feel pretty in, maybe do my makeup a little bit, and then take myself out to lunch. i deserve something nice on my birthday. for now i'm just going to keep to myself and stay off my phone/not contact people. it's just too much stress for me and i don't want to do it today.
forever yours,
willow