goodbye with love

it’s nearly been a year since i’ve updated this profile. a lot has changed. please take the time to read everything, and please leave thoughts and good wishes.

things i’ve learned:
• acting on fleeting emotional responses in an already sensitive situation won’t improve the issue, it will only increase and intensify the emotions of everyone involved
• every person has their own agenda. when my actions interrupt—even slightly—another person’s agenda, irritation and frustration is understandable and expected (and just because i’m the cause, doesn’t mean i’m inherently a bad person).
• it isn’t my duty to control other people’s lives, and it doesn’t benefit any of us.
• my body and my consciousness are separate entities. my mental illnesses are simply illnesses and are not part of my personality or adequately reflective of who i am as a person. my consciousness is stronger than the pain my mind causes me.
• anxiety is a natural response to seemingly unsafe situations—it is a byproduct of the human body flooding itself with adrenaline to improve mental and physical ability (in order to accommodate for the perceived “danger”). even though it does more harm than good, the pain i feel is my body trying to protect my consciousness.
• even if i don’t approve, i need to accept every situation as it is. i am allowed to be uneasy.
• everything will be okay in time, if you truly work for it.
• love is the most important thing.

things that have changed:
• i am in a long-term relationship, with the person i plan to marry someday. someone new, someone i wouldn’t have expected to begin changing my mind about soulmates. we’ve been together for almost a year. i have never believed i deserve love, much less that i would find it. i never would have expected to fall in love so comfortably and feel love so deeply.
• love is the only thing that matters. loving others, loving yourself, loving the world you build for yourself. life is hell if apathy is the only option. i learned to love deeply and accept things as they are—i learned to enjoy every moment i possibly can, to fill every day with small things that make me happy, to do everything i can to love and love and love.
• i am much more comfortable with myself—and my emotional control is entirely up to me, now that i am in recovery. i have been in therapy for over four years, and i now have the tools and thoughts to improve myself, and skills to apply them. i talk myself through issues. i am patient with myself. i do things that help me. i wear clothes that make me feel comfortable, i associate with people who make me feel cared for, i have a brighter outlook. every negative thought i have, i quickly neutralize and rationalize with positivity. even before i was ready to recover, i forced myself to do these things—i formed habits. it has been the most helpful tool for me by far.
• i am happy. this past year has been difficult. i reached a year clean from self harm—i reached a year from being hospitalized—someone close to me died very, very suddenly. i have never dealt with grief and am still unsure of how to do so, but i am trying. its unexpected nature was somewhat a wake up call for my anorexia, and i was able to stop myself from its behaviors—almost cold turkey. i realized that because life is entropy, the only way i ever want to live is happily or doing everything i can to get there. death is inevitable, life is only so long and so fast, there is no way to know what comes after. i think frequently about my hospitalization and the way that i felt in that time of my life, and my world was the polar opposite of what it is today. i felt isolated and hopeless, apathetic and burnt out. as of now—i am surrounded by people i love, i no longer hate myself and the world, i no longer will accept death at any given moment. i have drive and compassion and thought and will.

there is so much more i could say. i don’t know if i’ll continue posting probably ever. if i do, it won’t be on this account, because this account’s posts reflect an older version of me (besides this one, of course). i’ll keep it up because this was my journal for a long time, but for now i hope anyone who reads this is able to learn something or pull something of use from it.

sincerely,
lover