How do you communicate with other people? Well I know how to communicate with other people, but how do you do it meaningfully? I don’t know but I kind of know if that makes sense. I guess I just want to be able to tell people the things that are bothering me or things that I go through without getting overtly emotional. What I’m trying to say is: I want to be able to talk about something without shutting down or completely avoiding the subject all together. This has been something that has plagued my existence for as long as I remember. It’s hard though. It is very hard. I never learned how to do it. I learned to just shut up and take it. It didn’t matter what I said because it wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t have a reason. It didn’t make sense. And it didn’t at the time. How the fuck do I tell you that the reason I’m not preforming well in class is because I am and have always been clinically depressed? Yelling has always worked on Mario so maybe if I just keep on yelling at you for long enough you’ll finally fucking break.

and it did. I broke. I learned to just shut the fuck up and take it. It didn’t matter what I said. Nothing mattered. I fucked up and needed to be punished. I needed to be reminded to just be something that I’m not. I’d get shit for Mario all day at school just to come home to you. Maybe if I had just explained myself things could have been different. But I had come to know your policy. Punish first, ask questions never. I can’t talk to women because of this. I don’t know if you remember this but when I was eight I went over to the neighbors house. This stupid inconsequential 20 minutes that has stayed with me until now. She was talking to me about how she was a women now and needed to wear a bra or something and I just went along with it. What the fuck was a bra? Underwear for girls? As we were about to leave she showed me about her family photo. With this newfound knowledge of the apparel for women, I asked if she was wearing a bra in that photo. She said no and that was the end of it. The next day comes around and I wake up to you telling me that I needed to apologize immediately. about what, I don’t fucking know but just shut up and take it. I was a pervert and needed to apologize for what I was. I can’t let go of that paranoia. Being alone with women scares me on a fundamental level. I’m afraid of doing something again that I didn’t even do in the first place. but more importantly, what I said did not matter. My condemnation began the moment you got it in your head that something remotely involved with me went wrong. I could never talk to you about anything because I feared you. But sometimes I would argue back because fuck you. I would still be in the same shit and it would spice up life. but most of the time I would just take it.

and I was not a saint in this. I did do all those things and probably more. So maybe it was all justified? Maybe I did deserve it. I didn’t do the things that I was told. I constantly questioned your authority. I was and still am a shitty person. I was the common denominator. I was and still am the disappointment of the family. I will never forget that. I can’t. I don’t blame you either. Things were hard. Parenting is hard. You’re human too. I used to be so fucking scared of you. I have anxiety because every time I’d hear your computer boot up. I knew it was coming. You were a force of nature, and you needed to be. I know you hate what part you played in raising us. You were the structure, the forceful hand that kept us on that straight and narrow. You needed to be that for us no matter how hard it was. I think it hurts you even now. I know it does. You’re just a person. I need to keep reminding myself of that. You’re just a person. We’re all just human.

But I don’t want to be this way anymore. I owe it to myself to at least try. I want to be better. And I’m doing everything I can to try and do that. I want to be better. On my last trip I realized things just happen. You can’t explain them away. They happened and sometimes they’re good, Sometime’s they’re not. But most importantly, they happened. No matter how far I try to push it down, it still happened. No matter how far I try to run away, it still happened. It happened. It hurt and still does. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s still okay. I can feel the way that I’m feeling. And I’m not the things that I think that I am. but even if I was, maybe that’d be okay. The only place that I could go is up from there. Well maybe I could go down but I wouldn’t want to. Up. Just go up and be okay. Just be okay. okay with myself. okay with things. Learn and grow. The things that happened will always be a part of you. But wounds heal and turn to scars. And scars fade, becoming a reminder. A reminder to be okay.

Uhhhhh I was about to take this down but I decided not to. I think a small part of me is really worried about how transparent I’m being when I write this. I feel like, although I should express these things, maybe putting it online attached to my name isn’t a very wise thing to do. I’m not sure. Again I think I started this for myself but I’m not sure. I think maybe I wanted people to see it. a very public form of therapy. Whatever. Hello if you are reading this and you are not me. but if you are me and are reading this: uhhh fuck you. Idk uhhh hello as well. Anyways I don’t want to write anymore.