People can get diarrhea when they have the feeling of love!?

Anh left the chat.

I love that every day the internet feeds me with such useful information that I didn’t know I needed. I would never have known that philophobia exists, which is basically an intense fear of falling in love, which is the even more intense, extremely intense manifestation of fear of rejection. What interesting is, the phobia is actually a disorder that has its physical symptoms, such as shaking, trembling, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea, or even fear of death when the individual feels the feeling of love. Besides, those people who fear love can also have different reactions while in relationships which, for some reason, gets me to reflect so much on my past relationships, even though I don’t think I’m philophobic.

One of them is how my fear of rejection plays out in subtle ways: first, my “body count”, not too many but also not few – which I am not proud of. I did engage with some people deeper than I was supposed to but it is not the question. The question I ask myself now and some of my friends used to ask me in the past is, “why did you give yourself out so early?”. I can always give an easy answer of how it was the lifestyle I wanted, or how I wanted nothing more than some physical intimacy to keep me sane. But truth is, I wasn’t always aware that it stems from my fear of rejection. In my brain, sex seems to be a “bad move” if I would like someone to like me romantically, so letting them have that with me on the first date means that I already clear the chance of any emotional attachment for both of us, also meaning no chance for rejection to happen.

Another manifestation of such fear is how I am either very needy or “rejecting” when being in a relationship. I can be needy in a way that I’d immediately build my life around my partner, I’d constantly fear my partner’s feelings, especially feelings towards me (since I always direct things at myself for no reason). If things don’t go my way, I’d turn to be “rejecting”, I push my partner away, I threaten to break up since I fear I would be the one to be rejected, hence, again, I have to first clear the possibility of rejection that I might get. Like a child, I think I’m winning but I’m actually just being an idiot. Besides, it gets worse when I actually love the person. The bigger the love is, especially when the person becomes a part of my soul, the bigger the fear is, the more the fear would interfere in with my life. Imagine losing a part of my soul?! I would lose myself, constantly live in fear, and as a result, the more “rejecting” I’d become – reject my love for them and their love for me. “Love is scary when it’s true”. I learn now that I don’t want to push love away but my irrational fear.

Funny how the past days, love songs triggered me badly. They all sing about how people give themselves away when they’re in love, how their girl or guy seems to be the ones to control their emotions and even their life. This idea got me upset because of how blind and unhealthy it is. But now, as I am writing these lines, I think I understand them. They’re not toxic, love is not toxic. Caring and sacrificing for your person is not toxic. You give what you have. If you only have love, pure love, you give beautiful love. It is the insecurities, the low self-esteem, the fears that are toxic. If you have fears, anxieties, and a low self-esteem, and you do things out of fear and anxieties, your person will definitely feel it. So Anh, please remember: you don’t want to push love away, but the fear, the insecurities, the worries. In all situations, just be. Be kind. Be peace. Be love.

These days I have tortured myself for my stupid decisions. How stupid, making rush decisions that I knew they would someday hurt me to the core. I wish I could grow up and have a vision to protect myself from the outside world. people’s words. people’s actions. Intentional or unintentional.

I never want to blame anyone else other than myself since it is me that let myself fall for anything that ‘sounds’ good. I knew it. I (kinda) knew it from the beginning. Words are just words. Promises are empty. What really killed me was, this is definitely not the first time this happened to me. Afterall, I hope this would be the last time I did this to myself.

Thank you for the lesson. I now know I am more fragile than I thought. I am broken. and selfish. My wounds are open and soon will turn into the scars that forever remind me of my stupidity.

…….

Tonight I cut it open and watch it bleed.

Tonight I face my wounds.

Words

are sharp.

The story is… I dedcided to stay.

I’ve known myself as a dopamine chaser. But not anymore. At least not this time.
I’ve talked a lot about how I would like my love to be – unconditional. I’ve complained about how people expect so much from their partners and then call it “love”. Not to say they’re wrong. But to say that I would like my own definition of love.
Yesterday we almost lost it all. And so today. Surprisingly I felt this strength rise within.
“No, I’m not weak!”
“I want to prove myself wrong.”
“Good thing doesn’t come easy.”
As long as I know I’m not doing this alone, I will keep trying. I will work on myself so I can be happy on my own until that extra pop of colors and flavors shows up neat. Otherwise everything’d be still good.
Even until now, I believe my life is far from being bad. I’m blessed with things that are happening in my life. Everything brings me back to love, life lessons and the journey of finding inner peace.
It’s the slow, compassionate living becoming the theme of my upcoming journey (or at least it’s what I’m longing for).

Since the beginning of this month – May, I was going through hell of an emotional rollercoaster, which I put myself into. I don’t really remember how it started but it seems everything comes back to my unattended inner self that I haven’t found the time to really look into or to heal it.

—————-

These days I feel everything that has been built for the last four months is being shattered piece by piece. I thought I made a good foundation – meaning, if a disaster happens, all it does will be a little scratch on the surface. I was wrong. I deem to have stepped on the wrong foot. I didn’t come in new. I was still the same ‘broken’ soul disguised in this jolly pretentious optimistic facade.

Deep down, I am still that insecure child.

I am weak and I have to admit it.

“How can you ever truly love someone before you love yourself?”

Maybe they’re right. I was never meant to come in any relationship before having fully healed. All I do would be destructive. For the person. And for myself. The way I’ve treated myself has been now projected onto my partner. I’ve infected them with my childish behavior and toxic habit.

It turned out, I was never a decent reliable space for anyone to enter and find comfort.

—————

“I’m peace, I’m comfort, I’m kind”.

I am far from the person I want to become. I’ve become the ‘parent’ that my childhood always feared. Now when I reflect on it, I do fear the person I’ve become now. (passive) aggressiveness. obsession over perfectionism. overreaction. dramas.

I wish someone could teach me the true definition of being supportive. Growing up, what I learned was money, services and pressures. I remember it was impossible to understand why dad came home unhappy about his work and put it on me and my sister, or the time when mom just straight-out blamed the burned food on my ‘low’ IQ level or how I’d never be anything decent in my life.

Well, pressure and unpredictableness were the main themes of my childhood. That’s probably why I don’t know how to react in times of hardship, besides panicking, verbal insulting, and escaping. No matter how much I read about how to be a kind communicator, the manifestation of those techniques won’t ever be genuine unless I can fix what lies underneath.

—————

For some years, I used to think everything will be fine if I can communicate and warn people around me about my potential responses. I only open up when someone is willing to. Truth is, I can’t ask for anyone’s tolerance. People are just as broken. It’d be insane that I demand anyone, even my family, to accept my ugly side while myself not doing much about it.

Would you ask a child to be more understanding of their parents’ sudden mood swings that they take down on the child?

To be honest, I wish I could end the entry with a somewhat direction for my future behavior but it’s not that easy. I want to be more understanding and I want to be understood. I want to be at least stable and then hopefully healthy, mentally. I want to communicate kinder, that even in my ugly mental state, I won’t affect the other person.

But these days, it seems like I’m always in my ugly mental state. Is it the situation that brings this side out of me? Is my mentality ready for it? Will I make it through before resetting everything from 0?

I just want to be normal.

Secondhand loneliness.

I revived old thoughts, returning to my alone aloof habit.

I needed no one. I need no one and I WILL need no one.

But I kinda do.

It’s never about needing someone. How should it have been about then? The unbound boundness?

I am extremely bored. I am extremely overwhelmed. I have things I should get done. First, put myself together. As doing so, I find my very old person. A free depressed soul. I think loneliness looks good on me. It makes me explore things around me so to prevent me from annoying other people.

I tend to cling onto anyone that gives me slight attention. I like the attention. People who mind their own business make me feel nervous. They feel cold to me. I need the attention.

WHY AM I LIKE THIS???

Eventually I am alone. I will soon be single. Who can stand my irrationality.

No one.

Do not find me.

No one has taken anything away —
there is even a sweetness for me in being apart.
I kiss you now across the many
hundreds of miles that separate us.

I know: our gifts are unequal, which is
why my voice is — quiet, for the first time.
What can my untutored verse
matter to you, a young Derzhavin?

For your terrible flight I give you blessing.
Fly, then, young eagle! You
have stared into the sun without blinking.
Can my young gaze be too heavy for you?

No one has ever stared more
tenderly or more fixedly after you …
I kiss you — across hundreds of
separating years.

by Marina Tsvetaeva

translated by Elaine Feinstein

Another milestone to celebrate my existence: today is my birthday!

Years have passed and I am now in my late 20s, meaning some more years and I will soon be in my 30s. Remembering when I was a freshman in college, looking up to the seniors and people I know who have graduated, I always admired the way they carried themselves, how confident they looked. It seemed to me that they must have had their life figured out somehow. I was excited about my upcoming years of university, couldn’t wait to see how the years would lead me to be.

I’ve now reached my 27^th year, and while I am proud of the person I am now, I still feel terrified for what is coming. Like a baby bird learning how to fly for the first time. The world is too big. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I am. Especially about myself. I’ve just started to become aware of my well-being and learn how to be truthful to myself. Knowledge about the self is as vast as knowledge about the world. You can just dig deeper and deeper and will never reach a bottom.

So what did I learn about myself until this point exactly?

1. I have yet to become a good friend of my own.

I made a blog post years ago about being my own best friend, since only I know best about myself, and I is literally the person that will be physically there for me 24/7. At that time, I promised to take care of and be kind to myself no matter what. But being a good, non-toxic friend is not easy. It turned out, that I don’t know about myself as much as I would like to. Plus, I have wounds. I was hurt and then I go hurt other people, including poor Anh.

My relationship with myself has been complicated – on and off. There are days that I feel nothing but love. But there are also days of guilt-tripping, harsh words, and blood. The communication has not been always open and honest. Even though both Anh and I wanted it all to be transparent, we couldn’t always verbalize what we truly feel.

Therefore, today, I want to say to myself: “Anh, I am sorry. I wasn’t kind to you lately but I am here and I will always be here for you. Please don’t give up on me. Let’s learn how to communicate with each other. Let’s learn how to love again.”

2. I need to accept that I am toxic.

Recognizing the positive side, good qualities is obviously essential. But it is only half of the story. Self-acceptance means that you praise the good AND accept the bad. Facing yourself – raw, unfiltered is the very first step of the healing process.

I am so used to suppressing this side of me, unaware of the small disasters it creates. I lied to myself, to other people that I am open to constructive criticism. But am I actually? How do I feel when someone shows me how inconsiderate, and negative I have been? I was told indirectly that I am a hypocrite. If I can’t be kind to myself, how do I walk around acting kind to other people?

“I don’t always bring joy to the world and it’s ok. I am no goddess. I am a human. I have my dark side. Let’s work on that!”

Shadow work is working with your unconscious mind to uncover the parts of yourself that you repress and hide from yourself. This can include trauma or parts of your personality that you subconsciously consider undesirable.

(https://www.betterup.com/blog/shadow-work)

3. I am capable of the extremes.

Past months have shown me how emotions can bring me places, places I’ve never been to in my life. And all it took wasn’t much, because I gambled my life on “it”, one single thing. It was an “All-or-Nothing” bet: you either have everything or lose everything – extreme for extreme. Will I continue to gamble on “it” again? Blank. But am I proud of myself for having experienced something that many people haven’t? Hell yeah!

Besides the pains I now know that I am capable to feel, I am also very well capable of the opposites, whether it is love, care, happiness or even extreme optimism. The range of emotions is what makes me a human. My feelings are raw and I am proud of it.

4. Boundaries save me and save you.

Setting boundaries is teaching other people how to treat you.

Michelle Elman – The Joy of Being Selfish

I always believed that my life can only be surrounded by kind-hearted people who can only make my life better. I still do believe in this reality. But at the same time, I rarely refuse anyone that walks into my life. This could mean a lot of things, one of which is since small, I was taught to put the needs of other people before my own. It wasn’t until recently that I noticed the consequences of it. I want to claim my life back. Badly.

Setting good boundaries doesn’t mean that I stop caring about other people. It means I take full responsibility for my own well-being so others don’t have to. Since I am also a human, I value my happiness as much as I value others’. I am learning to be kind to myself so I can reflect that onto the people around me, especially my loved ones.

….

Hey, I know July 22, 2022, isn’t the birthday that you expected. And I know all you want is good memories that lead you to this day. I am sorry I couldn’t give that to you this year. I am really sorry...

Happy Birthday.

Youtube has been my best friend these days.

During hard times, I watch Youtube for days on end. Clips after clips. Endless dopamine rush that distracts me from feeling my emotions. Crying is surely relieving but also exhausting, and the crying starts to feel useless. Pains seem to keep welling up. I wonder, how the sky used to be so blue.

In Youtube, I search for comfort. Millions of videos about how to get over a broken relationship won’t always give you the best advice but they make me realize that people have it worse. Maybe the pain is incomparable but at least I feel less alone. I’m still sad and part of me still wants to turn back time to fix things, but Youtube people say it is just not meant to be. After all, Youtube is bad but it has so many ‘but’s.

At this point, I ask myself, what I am actually missing and grieving for? Is it a person that I used to love? Is it a deep connection? Is it their open arms that I called home? And I mostly wonder, were they even mine to lose to begin with?

Isn’t it funny how the internet has things for everything. Even your dark deep feelings probably have already been talked and discussed about. You are definitely not the only one who got your heart broken.

…

Today I saw 2222 and it confirmed: I am not alone.