Maybe I don’t have a soul

Let me feel what I want

Story of a lost lover:

You say you never wanted to hurt, and then made me catch feeling just for you to run away, and then come back when you felt it. You said you wanted to protect me from you and that you would end up hurting me but I never thought you would be malicious with it. Playing games, leaving and coming back, choosing when you are enough for me and when you are not, without listening to what I had to say. Why did you have to put words in my mouth and not listen to what I said? Was I not clear enough with my feelings? Was I not clear enough with my words? Why did you have to choose what I was feeling instead of just listening? I tried to be healthy, and you decided to be the opposite, loosing something that could have been great for both of us!

Story of a love declaration:

You said you liked me, but proceeded to tell me you wanted nothing. You said you liked me, but when I told you I just wanted a friend, you decided to tell me you could make me falling in love with you. You were maybe trying to make me feel special, but you just made me feel like I was a stupid challenge for you and you getting me meant more than listening to what I wanted. Why couldn't you just listen and tell me that our friendship meant more? Am I just a game, a conquest?

Story of a messed up friendship:

I asked you if you were fine and you got mad at me, and then decided we were fine without talking. Getting mad was not the problem, but discussions don't end by avoiding them, if there was a fight, we need to resolve it not act like it never happened. Now you live in this conviction that we are okay, but I cannot trust you enough to have a conversation with you about what I feel, or what I am scared for about our friendship, because I am scared of pissing you off. And I just stay there playing your game, keeping everything inside, and loosing trust in our friendship, and you don't even see it. Why couldn't you just talk to me about it? Why couldn't you just acknowledge that I maybe also had unresolved feelings about it? Am I that unimportant in our friendship for you to see it?

Story of a difficult supporting friendship:

We talk every day, and everyday I become more silent about my issues and listen more and more to yours. I know you care about me, but why can't you see that when I don't come to class because I can't stand straight I do not have the energy to read about all your texts about your problems and answer to them all day? Why can't you see that when a guy I really cared about just broke up with me the night before, I do not want to listen to you about how amazing your date went that day? Why can't you see that for however much I want to be there for you, sometimes I have issues too and need to focus on myself and not on you? I know you care, but sometimes I feel like you don't see me, that I am there for you, while I am standing in front of you, dying inside and you won't even realise. Am I that good at hiding my pain, or are you this clueless?

Why did I wrote this stories, because sometimes, I just feel like people that are around me do not really see me, or care about me. They say they do, but their actions speak louder. I am a people pleasure, and I am loyal to the core, so when I love someone, whether it's friendship, family or something more, I will stick around, be there for them, and do whatever I can so that they feel supported, loved and not lonely, but most of the time I am the one ending up feeling lonely and used and unseen. I think partly it is my fault, I still do fake a lot how I feel, to not worry people, but I also know that I am not that great of an actor. So is it all in my head, or some people really don't care as much as they say about me, and care more about what they can get from me?

I had been holding this in for a while, hopefully if someone feels the same, they will at least be able to relate, stay strong and try to focus more on the people in your life that do see you, instead of those that just drain your batteries.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul

Why are you mad if I care?

I am the kind of friend that will come to you and ask you if you are okay when I see a shift in your behaviour, I won't ask for an explanation on why or what is going on if you don't want to talk about it, but I will ask you to tell me how you feel. I think that if you are friends with someone you should care enough to ask when you see that something is not normal. Moreover since I tend to be very empathic, so I will be able to tell if something is off and by saying you are okay, you won't be able to fool me. So why do some people get mad, if you find the time to go towards them and just wonder if something is not okay and if they need help. I get it I tend to lie a lot about being okay, but with my friends I will most likely tell them the truth, not always explaining it, but just sometimes saying I am not okay, but I don't want to talk about it. It doesn't take much effort, and even if I choose to still lie, because I don't feel confident saying that, I would never get mad at someone for asking me how I feel. I would never be mad at someone because they cared, and I would not behave cold and poorly for a day or two until I feel like behaving normally again, and act as if nothing ever happened. It is not okay to be like that, it is not okay to make someone feel like they did something wrong for caring, and it is not okay to behave poorly and then act like nothing happened. That is just a way to loose people, because no one wants to walk on eggshells with their friends and feel like they can't care, at some point they will just stop to. I don't know how long I can handle this behaviour from others, I just feel so done with everything. I just can't handle people having a 180° shift in their behaviour and act as if it is normal. You want to be mad at me, be mad, don't be passive aggressive, I overstepped a boundary, say so, don't shut me off, communicate, that is how things are solved, not by anger, miscommunication and faking everything is okay. Stop making a fool of me, all of you, I am done being in a real life soap opera! I don't want to be the kind of person that doesn't care, and I am fighting with all of myself not to be, but I feel like I am loosing my will to care day by day, and I am scared of loosing it completely.

Truth is that love and caring spreads, so keep caring for the people that surround you, you are wonderful souls, that have the power to change the vibes around you, so use it to inspire someone to care, instead of discourage them to.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul

What if I am unlovable?

When someone asks you if you wanna exclusively date them, it is always a situation that fills you up with emotions. Some good, some bad, and some that you do not understand, and then you have to sum all of them up and make a decision. What goes through my mind is mainly fear. “What if this doesn't work out? What if the other person is more interested than I am? What if I end up ruining everything like I always do and people get hurt? What if I get attached and then the other person realises that I am not worth it and leave? What if I don't have any feelings anymore to give? What if, ..., what if, ..., what if, ...”

Therefore my first instinct is to run away. It makes things easier, for me and for the other person, they don't get the time to get attached to me, so the rejection won't hurt too bad; and I don't have to discover that someone else will leave me, as I feel everyone always does, and I don't get to disappoint someone else.

Maybe the reason I run away from love is because I have this deep fear of being unlovable, and since when I love, I love with my whole soul, I am afraid of actually giving it a chance, to protect myself. I think I said it before already, but I guess that from what I know love comes with a lot of expectations and duties, and I don't think I can handle them. I think that love is conditional and the only type of truly unconditional love I know, is the one for a child towards its parents. A child will have to be gone through serious trauma to not love his parents in general, and will fight until it isn't able to anymore to always love them, and still with adulthood this love can become conditional. All other kind of loves are for a reason. A parent loves a child for a sense of purpose or has some expectation of what the child must do or grow to be, a lover falls in love with some aspects of another person and often more than enough, with the relationship more than the person, a friend loves another for a sense of community and so on, you can always find a reason why someone loves you. The problem is that when there is a reason, if you don't reach the requirement of that reason anymore the love fades away. I am pretty sure that sooner or later I will break under the pressure; I won't have anything left to give, therefor I won't be able to reach any of those reasons and people will leave me.

I know those are fears and that I should just let myself go, but what if I fall, and this time I won't be able to get up, I have been hurt many times, I don't know how much I can survive anymore, and I don't know if I have anything left in me to give.

So now, when a person that I am attracted to and have a great time with every time I see asks me to asks me to actually start something serious, the only thing I can answer is “can I think about it”. Do I have the strength right now to take this leap of faith in something I do not trust, do I have enough inside of me to be able to give some away, do I feel loveable enough not to become toxic, or will I just destroy this person?

Hey everyone, I am so sorry if I haven't been writing anymore, I have been very busy with my studies, and just in a weird place in my head lately, in a few days I will talk more about this, but for now since Valentines day just ended I wanted to do a blog about love, hope you all passed a great day and that you are taking care of yourselves.

Lots of love, Maybe I don't have a soul

Numbness

Today I want to talk about feeling numb, because that is how I have been feeling the last few days. It's just like I can't feel anything lately. If I am sad it doesn't feel like it's hitting me, if I am happy, I smile for a few seconds, but then the feeling is gone, and if I feel mad I don't have the strength to express it so I just let it go. Sometimes it is comforting to feel numb because at least the bad feelings are not so harsh, therefore I don't feel so anxious when I am in a numb phase, and the only anxiety I can feel is the physical one, not the mental one, which feels less heavy. But on the other hand, everything becomes so much more difficult to do, because I have no motivation and no will to do anything; everything requires so much effort. It's truly a weird feeling, it's like nothing is there but so much is there at the same time. It feels unnatural and I can't wait for this phase to end, even if it means I will be overwhelmed by the feelings, but it's here so I just wanted to acknowledge it.

Sorry if I am not writing as much lately, it's hard to find the motivation, but I hope you all are doing okay.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul

I am mad...

An emotion that comes up often for me is anger. I am mad for so many reasons and I try to repress it so much, since it doesn't feel justified, but today I want to say all the things I am mad about. I am mad that I have depression, I am mad because I technically should be happy, but I am not. I am mad that I can't even say that I am sad, because sadness is a feeling that goes away, but whatever I have doesn't. As I think Jim Carrey said one day: “depression is your body saying fuck you, I don't wanna be this character anymore”. Why would I not want to be my character??? I am mad because I work so hard to be the best version of myself and it never seems enough. People will misinterpret my action and think I have bad intentions behind what I do; people will get advantage of me; people will manipulate me; people will abandon me; so yeah I am mad. But most of all I am mad at myself because I am never enough for myself. Rationally, I know that I am a pretty good person, I wish I had a friend like me, because even if I am not perfect I always try and I always have the best intentions in mind; so why am I not able to be f****ing proud of myself. I am mad that even when I do good things and fulfil my goals, all I can see are my mistakes. I am mad that I don't wanna live anymore. I am mad that I feel like I am not strong enough since I am struggling; I am mad that I feel like it's my fault that my mind is sick. I am also mad that no one can see how bad I feel. People will tell me how good I look and how healthy I look when I am just dying inside and it makes me feel so mad and unseen. I am so mad that I feel so alone. I am just so mad right now and I don't really know how to deal with it.

Hope this can make you express your anger too.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul

I am not my depression and anxiety.. or am I?

Sometimes it is hard to understand who I am and if I actually have a personality outside of my mental illness. As I said before sometimes I feel like I am living two lives, which also means that I feel like I have two person living inside of me. I know that I come up as a really extroverted and full of energy person at first when people first meet me; but then with time people can see more of my true self, which for how crazy and stupid I can be, is a type of person who is quite grounded and realistic. My mental illness leads me to some change in my behaviour sometimes like for example: I am very impulsive and fearless usually, but when I am in a bad mental period, it's like I can't make any decisions. But those really drastic changes in my behaviour don't make me doubt as much who I am, because I got used to recognise my patterns and knowing that these behaviours don't actually come from me, but from this sick part of me. On the other hand, sometimes I feel like if I had just one of the two person I would loose a part of me, the part that developed some coping mechanisms which I use so much now that I think became part of my personality, like my dark humour, my sarcasm and my ability to joke about myself, which in some way make me a better person. So sometimes I want my conditions to be a part of who I am.

This scares me a lot because. It's like for how much I wanna get better, sometimes I am scared of getting rid of those bad thoughts, and these battles that continuously go on into my head, because I am scared of who I will be when I will have just the healthy part of my brain in my life. I don't know if it's because I am so used to my bad thoughts, but I feel like the fact that I am never proud of myself, pushes me to be better; the fact that I easily feel responsible for my mistakes, forces me to be humble; and the fact that I know that no matter how I happy I seem on the outside I could be dying in the inside, helps me to better understand that everyone has their own battles, which is why I tend to be a kind and empathic person. Sometimes I am so scared of working on my self esteem because I don't wanna loose my compassion. I feel like that is a part of the journey of healing that no one talks about: the fear of getting better. I know that what goes on into my head is not normal, and it is not healthy for me, but what if once it's gone, there is nothing left of what I like about me? What if the parts I like of myself are so tightly linked to me not being okay, that I'll loose all of them when I'll actually be alright?

I just wanted to share this fear of mine with you guys, so that if it ever happened to someone else you know you are not alone. Remember though that it takes courage to do the things that scare us. So even though sometimes it's comforting to staying in our mental illness, because we know it so well, and we know how we think with it, but don't know what will happen once it won't be there, healing is the brave choice and at the end of the day, healing doesn't mean changing who we are, but just becoming a healthier version of ourself. Therefore we can only become a better version of ourselves, since we will find a way to stick to the qualities we like about ourselves, without though the unhealthy loops we are stuck inside right now. So be brave and try to work on your healing journey every day.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul

Happy

I think happiness is what everyone search for, but most people don't know or haven't tried to understand what would make them happy. I think that basing ourself on the feeling of happiness to be able to say that we are happy is too unrealistic because feelings come and go, and we can live a happy life but still have bad days. So what would be my happiness? I think that I will be able to say that I am happy when my mind will be at peace, which I think will happen the day I will come to an understanding complete enough of my mental health which would allow me to be able to live most of my days living in the moment and being able to control my mind from getting stuck in the past or stressing about the future. I think that more than being able to full-fill my goals, like being a doctor or hopefully finding love one day, that is what I want: finding my peace of mind. Because I know that I am very stubborn, therefore I will attain my goals one way or another, and I am independent enough to find joy in not having a lover too, but I know that no matter how hard I try, until I don't find my peace of mind, I can't fully enjoy my achievements and I will always look for something more, hoping it will give me a sense of worth. Nothing will ever be enough to give me this feeling though, I have to first work on finding it independently of my achievement and then aliment it by full-filling all of my dreams. I am now choosing to see happiness as a goal, because I am going to work really hard to get it and once I will have it, I will work to keep it. I am going to get to my happiness, to my peace of mind and no one will be able to stop me, people can only slow me down.

Think about what is the one thing that you need to be happy, and start working to get it, you will get there too I know it.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul

Self harm ... why did I do it?

I would like to start by saying that I never actively tried to kill myself, because I never found a plan that would suit my requirement: my suicide looking like an accident. And for the longest time I also stopped myself from self harming, because I didn't want to worry whoever was close to me, in particular my parents. But in the end of 2019, my depression got so bad that mentally torturing myself was not enough and I decided to hurt myself by not eating when I was supposed to, or as much as I was supposed to, pretending I wasn't hungry. Luckily, I stopped before actually putting my health in danger, but I had lost over 6 kilograms and I am a rather thin person, so even if it was not under the minimum healthy limit for me, I came close to it. Then I used another couple of methods to self harm in ways that were not physically noticeable, like smoking cigarettes until my throat was hurting, or purposefully training until my whole body was hacking, even more when I was hurt, like when my back problems would be present. I am not sure that at the time I fully realised what I was doing but later on I did, and I know now that I was using these methods to punish myself whenever I would feel guilty. This is the first reason I think someone would look for ways to self harm, when someones does it, I think that the want to give themselves what they think they deserve... pain.

Another reason though, maybe the most painful of the two is the one I discovered this spring. At some point this year I was so overwhelmed by my anxiety and my depression, that one day under the shower, I was staring at my arm, wanting to cut into it, probably like I never did before, that I started scratching it in the region I wanted to cut, and I scratched until I saw red spots appearing on my skin. The red spots were a bit of blood, nothing too bad, just a bad abrasion. Afterwards though, the pain felt comforting. In some ways it was like I was finally feeling something, even though it was pain it was something; in some others it was like all of the mental pain I was feeling was finally justified, it was finally real because it had become physical, and it was a way to refocus all of my mental pain in one single point, instead of having it go all around my mind and my body, since depression and anxiety also make me have physical pain like heartache and migraines. It was liberating. It felt somehow releasing even considering how much it hurt. So then I did it again in zones that were more hidden since the arm was too noticeable. It was also easy to hide it to my parents since in September 2021 I moved for university and when they saw me again, my bruises were just scares at that point and I could lie to them about the scares.

I felt very ashamed though afterwards, like I had done something so wrong, this is also why I chose some spots that were more hidden when I did it again after my arm. Now though, when I look at my scares I feel kind of proud, proud that that is all I did to myself and I am still alive and fighting and they became a reminder of the fact that there are gonna be moments when I am not gonna be well at all, but somehow I will survive, a reminder of a place I will fight not to go again. I am also proud of the fact that these are now scares, which mean I was able to stop hurting myself physically and let my bruises heal; this gives me hope about the fact that somehow I will also find a way to stop hurting myself mentally.

If you ever did harm yourself, or are doing it right now, I would advice you to search for support, it could be in a friend, a medical professional, or an anonymous post somewhere. I would like you to remember, that it is understandable that you did it, and you don't have to feel ashamed, those scares might also become one of the parts you love the most of yourself, because they are a sign of a lesson you learned, and a phase you lived, you need to let them become scars though, because hurting yourself physically might feel comforting but it doesn't help you heal, and it doesn't help anyone else. I hope you will allow yourself to heal and realise you don't deserve punishment.

Lots of love, wish you the best

Maybe I don't have a soul

What if my heart stopped... would you even miss me?

Sometimes I feel like people don't actually care how I feel, but just if I am alive. What I mean is that people will check on you if you get yourself into obvious dangerous situation, and once they know that you are, they stop asking. They don't ask themselves why you would put yourself into these situations. It's fine, it's not there responsibility. But why would they care about me when I am in danger, if when I am obviously dying inside in front of them, they will avoid asking how I feel, or avoid talking to me at all. It feels a bit fake. It feels like they think it's there responsibility to know that my heart is beating, and that's why they ask, to have clear conscience. Am I alive though, just because my heart is beating? Can't you see that my soul is slowly sliding away, and I will soon be just an empty shell walking around?

I am a genuine person, so when I care about someone, I don't just want them to have an heartbeat, I want them to be alive inside and out. Therefore when I check on someone, I also check on how they feel, even though the answer might be bad. So I am sorry if I think you don't care about me when you just care about my heart beating. I am sorry if I feel this is hypocritical. I am sorry if I don't actually think you are worried about me, but just about how my death will impact you. Answer to me, if my heart stopped, would you even miss me, or would you just miss the comfort of seeing my face around knowing that you might be responsible for it, since you checked if my heart was beating. If I am alive it is not thanks to you, it is thanks to the friend that asked me how I was feeling, that asked me where I was when I disappeared, that made me talk when I stood in silence, that hugged me when there was nothing else to do and it is thanks to me for fighting my demons. So if you want to check only on my physical health, do so, if it can clear your conscience, but when I will be dead, don't pretend you miss me, and excuse me if I don't think you are my friend.

Sometimes I feel like people asking me how I feel is just a form of politeness, if you feel like me you are not alone.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul

Smile and put on a happy face

The joker once said this sentence “smile and put on a happy face”. I think I miss being a kid and not really knowing what this means. When I saw the Joker movie in 2020, I was in a pretty bad phase of my depression and I remember just hearing this sentence eco in my head for the rest of the movie and for the few days after, and sometimes this eco comes back. This responsibility, this duty to seem happy even when we are not. Happy is the standard. If someone is not happy, there is a problem, and people start thinking that they are somehow ungrateful. “Why are you not happy, you know how many people wish they would have what you have”, they say. But how can I explain to them that I am not happy, because even though I am blessed I still face a lot of challenges. When I try to explain it, they will tell me: “It's not a big deal”, “Why are you so negative” and so on. And I just wanna shout “BECAUSE IT MATTER TO ME, AND IT HURTS ME”, instead I shut up, nod, smile and say “You're right I was worrying for nothing” and return to my silence. The fact is that this world is so focused on seeing things so black and white, that if it is not a matter of life and death, or at least from the common point of view, it is nothing important. But for me, when something bothers me enough to feel bad and not just numb it is a matter of life and death, and having to smile and put on a happy face just worsens everything. I would like to express myself, express my sadness as much as I express my happiness, express my indifference as much as I express my enthusiasm, express my numbness as much as I express my energy; I am instead left here with this mask, this smile and no one sees my tears. I wish it was different but it's not... so I smile and put on a happy face.

Lots of love,

Maybe I don't have a soul, but I have a smile on my face