🚬 😷 🛑

[venusundae]

when something you didn't even realize could triggers the fuck out of you while you're just trying to have fun and you suddenly gotta leave bc you're not about to have a fucking meltdown in a fancy secluded dimlt lit bar smh

february is like. my Bad month. and that's not anything i consciously realized in the years before, but i think that now - with how much progress i have made - it's easier for me to notice that. it's the anniversary of a lot of fucked up shit. and as january went by i kind of quietly anticipated feeling those anniversaries more than i wanted to as they came closer.

hanging out w the vagina monologues gang has been an absolute blessing in my life, truly. especially right now. and honestly, even w all the work i've done on my own for myself that i can take credit for, i know rn would be a much more solemn and grey and cold time for me if i didn't have them as a support group in my life. even if i'm not like explicitly laying down all my struggles to them whenever we chat - or even ever? it's still important to me that they are around and show me they care.

so even tho it had been a cruddy day, i decided to go to the drag show w them. and i knew i was not myself? like before we had even gone down there. i knew i was feeling really off. i didn't know why but that doesn't really matter bc i noticed it and knew something was wrong.

i considered not going to the show. it wasn't mandatory it was just supposed to be fun and we were on campus for rehearsal anyway. but i didn't follow my intuition and i stayed for the show.

it was cute. i didn't regret going. and i knew i would have felt like a melty fuddy duddy who had totally missed out if i hadn't, even tho i could feel i needed to go take care of myself instead.

and so maybe that's something i could stand to be better about. my relationship w these people was more important to me in that moment than doing what i needed to for my own well-being. even tho i knew i'd see them again in literally days time for the next rehearsal and even tho i am (uncharacteristically perhaps) confident in their appreciation of me enough that i could have easily foregone one night of potential bonding for some self care.

it was one of those days where you have to ask the same question five times and nobody is hearing you and you're right here you're right next to them and really nobody is hearing you at all? or wants to answer you? and aren't you already screaming why can't they hear you? and you feel like you're watching from twenty feet away but still all their jokes make you feel like waiting in a dirty bathroom trying to avoid eye contact w your throat closing up around whatever is stuck in it

but i went to the show anyway! and i yelled supportive "wooo"s enough to make my throat slightly sore and stayed in my own little world waving pink and red balloons around that i probably seemed like i was having a good time. and i was. but i wasn't present and i wasn't immersed and i had something mysterious and dark hanging over my head the whole time and that's always been my least favorite way to have a good time.

i went to the show and i went to a dark basement bar that i'd been to before and already knew i didn't like afterward. and it was as loud as any bar full of cowboys, despite the hipster decor, and i couldn't hear my own voice out of my own mouth and i constantly felt like i was literally melting off my seat and then suddenly five people all at once came back from a smoke break and sat all around me and it was all i could smell and as quick as that i was someone i hadn't been in so long and my chin was shaking and i forgot how to smile and how to talk and what niceties were and i had to go i had to leave as soon as possible.

and i am still mad at myself. and i am still embarrassed. and i wish so badly i had held it together in that bar long enough to say goodbye nonchalantly and not cause a dramatic scene. but if i didn't leave as soon as i did i would have been sobbing in a half filled bar bc as soon as i didn't even make it all the way to my car before sickening moans jutted from my throat like thick dark slugs crawling up from my gut. i lost it. i called my mom and she met me and helped me calm down and even tho i was only half aware of why i wept and wept and screamed and choked coughing just sitting by myself in a parking lot for half an hour waiting for her to show up.

i have these corny tattoos on my hands bc i learned -after all the abusers that went through me, after all the blame i took upon myself, and after all the manipulation and twisting and stretching away from my true self that i was put through - that i deserved to take care of myself. that i need to take care of myself. not only so that i am in the best condition to take care of others that i wish to help however i can - the meaning and purpose that i often cling to - but also just to survive.

i need to take care of myself so that i can continue existing. so that i can enjoy other nights out that i'm in better shape for. so that i can keep yelling at art tools for not reading my mind. so that i can keep making dumb puns w david that our dad will keep asking for explanations for bc he can't immediately accept that the joke being so stupid is what makes it funny. so that i can give romeo kisses and let him tenderly pet my face back when i stop petting him and poking my cheek w his lil claws. so i can show my mama the scrying bowl i painted and am supposed to go pick up tomorrow. so i can send sophia beer memes the few times in a while i ever see them. so i can make a million rice crispie treats that aren't for me. so i can laugh so hard i cry and my throat hurts. so i can keep creating and loving and growing and sometimes crying but only when it builds me back up.

i was kind of surprised about it today, when i looked down at my hands and my two little tattoos looked so much darker and deeper and present than even just the day before.