Enough of that "stand up straight" / What nonsense / "No," I said, my face close to the ground, "I'll stay as I am."

 I think I figured it out.

I think I have finally pinpointed what has been bothering me these last couple of months.

I have been thinking a lot (and I mean a lot) recently about other people's inability to fathom, let alone respect certain aspects about my life. I've written about it here and here, and you are free to go back and read those as a refresher, with all of the applicable trigger and content warnings. I am sure that Freddie in the Gatorade (or whatever it's called) and the eclipses also have something to do with it.

I realize that I think what fundamentally bothers me about this the most is that most people cannot support me where I am. People tell me that want me "to be happy," but they do not want to recognize my version of happiness. They tell me they "want to see [me] happy," which, of course, is fine, and a natural thing to want the people whom you care about to be happy. I AM happy, for the most part. I am just not their definition of happy.

And when I tell you that this isn't something that I would naturally think of on my own, I mean it. I am not sitting here hemming and hawing over this all on my own. I only start to think about it, start to doubt myself, when other people bring it up (excessively). Instead of supporting me in ways that matter, they make me doubt myself. They make me feel like there is more wrong with me than there already is.

They make me feel like nothing I do or accomplish is good enough. They make me feel like I am defective and broken--more than I already do.

I am not an insecure person; I am very well-aware of who I am and what my needs and wants are. I don't feel inadequate, and when I do, I take notes on it and try to be better in areas where I lack. And if I am not good at something, then I accept that I am just not good at it. I am not immune to the excessive projection of other people's insecurities onto me. I am not immune to the constant, relentless nagging about how I should be doing this, how I should be doing that, how I am "running out of time," etc.

I am going to be perfectly honest, I am not immune to the sadness of never being afforded anything resembling a normal life with normal, healthy human experiences. I am not immune to the "what ifs"--what if I hadn't been abused as a child, what if I hadn't been stalked all of those years, what if my first boy friend didn't take advantage of me, what if I DID get to go on cute dates, what if I wasn't some unhealhty obsession or a racial f3tish, WHAT IF someone just loved me, in any way, that was normal, healthy, and and and and and and and and and---

All of these comments about how I am "running out of time" just really hammer home that I never got to be a young person who got to do normal things or experiences. You know, when one of your only experiences is one of your friends getting drunk, asking you to marry them, and then becoming violent when you say no, I feel like most people on this God forsaken planet would like, "you know what? I am good, fam."

But at my CORE I don't need or even WANT these things, but I feel terrible because I am constantly being made to feel that I do and that there is something wrong with me because I don't.

I don't care about "finding someone." I am sorry that me not doing what other people think I should or need to be doing is so disappointing to the people I care about. What hurts me the most, more than anything about this, is that the people I love don't love me enough to love me where I am, as I am. I have had to accept that this is my life, this is where I am, this is who I am, this has been what I have been given. I want the people I care about to love me. I want to be made to feel like my accomplishments on my own are enough. I want to feel love and supported no matter what I do with my life. 

I just....

I am so tired of giving everyone in my life endless, loving support no matter what they want to do or are doing, and they meet it with reminding me that I am doing everything all wrong. Why can't the people I love the most in this world love me the way I love them? Is that so much to ask?