Category: Overexposed: A Self-Love Project.

“That feeling when you lie in your bed wide awake at night, thinking about all the negative things you felt earlier in the day, going into the night, and even at this moment.”

Haha, wow – so relatable! *keeps scrolling to mask the fact that I am seconds away from an anxiety attack*

If there’s one thing that I realize has become a huge problem for me, it’s the fact that find it hard to let things go. I can feel embarrassed, judged, angry or bad about something and it turns into an uncontrollable, “spiraling-out-of-control” series of events.

Which then turns into an anxiety attack. Which then has us completely brain foggy and prone to just shutting down at any given time until this time has passed.

Hi, my name is Liz and I internalize the fuck out of my feelings.

Sometimes I feel like that no matter how much work I’ve done within the last year and a half, there’s always this one thing that I feel reoccurs as an issue within the social situations I am in. I tend to really hold onto things that upset me and even after things are resolved and such, I still tend to keep it within myself and dwell on it for far too long. It’s different than your typical “I feel bad about these things and need to resolve it in order to be better”, it’s more like “I feel hella embarrassed/shamed/judged/upset and even though time has passed, I still feel just as anxious and dissociated as I first was and now I don’t know how to get rid of this feeling without holding in resentment.”

Wow, that was too real.

My internalization of my feelings come from a place of trauma and not being able to express my thoughts and feelings about this without things being threatened or jeopardized. Before considering how I feel and what is going through my mind, I always think of the other person involved and how my feelings can affect their own and how would they react to the feelings and thoughts I am expressing. I’ve been in situations where the people in my life would jeopardize and threaten the integrity of the relationship/friendship whenever I decided to talk about something that may have been bothering me or on my mind. So, I stopped doing it, and I started to internalize a lot of my own feelings about things that eventually turned into built-up resentment. I tend to hold a lot of resentment once I know I can internalize the fuck out of my feelings in friendships and relationships and I understand just how unhealthy that situation is.

I don’t like that I do this, and I’m trying my hardest to learn how to be honest and speak what I wanna say without feeling that things will get ruined or tainted.

Before fixing the actual issue, I will find ways to fix my own behaviors and how to avoid situations like this from happening again (without addressing the fact that perhaps maybe the way the other person handled things wasn’t the greatest way either). Speaking to my therapist about this has made me realize that even with the growth I’ve had in the past year and a half, this keeps on being the reoccurring thing that causes a lot of my anxiety and “setbacks” on my progress.

Internalizing, in simpler forms, is pretty much the act of keeping everything bottled up and dealing with the consequences while dwelling on the what if’s and the overall situation for way too long. You think about it and feel the guilt or shame to the point where it could potentially affect my mood for the rest of the day. For me, I typically sit on it for days on end and sometimes it disrupts my daily functioning until my mind is ready to not let it affect me. One time, I allowed something to be internalized for weeks on end and for those weeks, all I could remember is experiencing high-levels of anxiety and immense brain fog.

Perhaps this is just a response to my personal trauma or stems from a place of anxiety; I just still have such a hard time not allowing things to get to me. It’s taken a lot of personal thought processing and talks with my therapist to finally realize that the majority of my anxiety comes out of this habit of mine that I’ve adapted in my life, and now the only way to let it go or at least improve on this issue is to challenge it.

But I can’t lie, challenging things are such exhausting work and sometimes I wonder if the outcome is truly worth it.

Let’s be honest here: having to face your fears and challenge them always takes more than one try to successfully do it. I find myself trying my hardest to challenge something to improve in that area of my anxiety, but it does nothing but cause more anxiety during that challenge process. This is something I’ve been aware of for awhile, but it’s been extremely hard for me to finally challenge and tackle this thing about my anxiety that feels like has become the core of it, to say the least. The more I think about it, the more I realize that maybe this was the stem of my social anxiety in the first place.

But that’s a conversation to have another day.

Nevertheless, it’s something that I know will take a lot of practice to get the hang of it. It’s going to take time to identify where this adaption came from and how I can stop automatically resetting myself to this mindset when things trigger certain things in me, but there’s nothing wrong if you internalize your feelings and it doesn’t mean you’re a weak person. You’re not this pushover if you internalize your feelings, but it doesn’t serve you when you do that. It just hurts you in the end, trust me.

As the days come closer, I am anxious, stressed, and going through a whirlwind of emotions.

It is December 5th, 2020. I am sitting here, writing this post with the thought in mind that in a month, I will most likely have more information about my next chapter than I do now. I might be in a place where I’m already in the beginning of changing my life around, just weeks away from making possibly the biggest change in my life thus far. I will be entering my 27th year, thinking about the year ahead and how different that will look for me further along 2021.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I’m in the process of closing this chapter of my life.

Last November, I went to my primary care doctor and asked me something I was scared of asking for a really long time: “are you interested in weight-loss surgery?” I told her I was, and I started my journey of this weight-loss program in January. Before the pandemic, I would’ve been scheduled to have this surgery back in July/August. It baffles me that my life would’ve been so different if the pandemic wasn’t a thing. Would I have met the people that I know now? Would I had been in a mentally good place? Honestly, where would I’ve been?

Fast forward to the end of 2020 and I’m nervous more than ever about this process.

This month, I start the month-long pre-op diet; for the next month prior to surgery I have to follow a strict diet in order to prepare my body for the upcoming surgery. It’s been difficult for me to grasp this feeling that my body is going to change and that the way I eat and live my life will be different. It’s been hard for me to even get ready for this diet and it’s definitely been causing me an immense amount of stress and anxiety just… thinking about my reasoning and beliefs in doing something like this.

I’m afraid of my body changing so much, my social situations even change. I’m so worried that once I get this surgery and follow through with it and start to visually look different, I will gain attention from people. I will “look good” and I will “get compliments on how great I look” and I don’t know… that leaves an awful taste in my mouth.

Do people not think I “look good” now? In this body? Weight and everything? Fat?

It used to not bother me as much in the past, but I guess as the time gets closer and the responses I’ve been getting from people around me, it has me wondering just how much I was “in love” with my body. Last year, I started this series to talk about my journey of self-acceptance and loving myself in this body. I started the Overexposed series to remind myself that I should be okay in the body that I have and that if anything, I should love the skin that I’m in, despite how much of it is there. What changed?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the energies around me. Maybe it’s my new expectations for myself. Maybe it’s the fact that I told myself I was so happy with my body but mistaken it for settling for it instead of improving for my own self-esteem reasons and confidence. Maybe the fact that this surgery is just around the corner has got me really in my bag about this.

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s becoming more real as the days pass. I will be saying goodbye to this body in a couple of months, watching her change and look different than it ever has before. I mean, it’s technically still my body. It’s still my skin. Are we really saying goodbye to my body? Maybe just the way it is in its current state, but it’s still me. I still come with the way I am and the things that I like and don’t like and at the end of the day, nothing is changing besides the way my body is built.

But still, it feels like I am saying goodbye to the Liz in the photos that are on my social media platforms, my Polaroid pictures, and the pictures that live inside my camera roll on my phone.

So, I guess this is a goodbye then. Goodbye to the Liz that had to find her self-worth later in life due to society’s outlook on overweight, short girls. Goodbye to the Liz that at times holds a lot of self-image issues because of old photos of her youth. Goodbye to the Liz that I’ve known in this body for the last 26 years.

But man, hello to the Liz that I’m excited to become.

Perhaps I take things way too seriously.

Perhaps I read into things way too deeply and the thoughts linger longer than what a normal person would allow. Perhaps I take words and actions and movements to the heart when really their true intentions weren’t meant to be. Perhaps my anxiety makes things worse than what they truly are, but does that still invalidate my feelings?

Hi, my name is Liz, and I’m a hypersensitive person.

There as no surprise when I first told myself this information. As a matter of fact, I actually questioned just how long would it take for me to accept the fact that I am just a sensitive person. I’ve been this way for awhile; I easily can get hurt by the way people say things, I hold onto things way longer than I should, but I never seem to have people understand this side of me. There is a way I would love for you to talk to me, but even if you can’t, please be considerate and understand when your words or actions hurt.

Perhaps this hypersensitive side of me stems from my anxiety; maybe that’s why my anxiety exists in the first place.

My social anxiety stems from being and interacting in social events and situations. Typically, on good days, I am able to handle being in social situations and I’m able to be myself as much as possible. But, if I’m feeling a little off or if I’m in a situation where I’m exposed and left for judgment, I feel like I can instantly read someone’s comments and remarks wrongly, and hence me thinking about my life choices and shit for hours on end.

Sometimes I have to tell myself that things like that are not made out of malice or with the intention of hurting me, that it’s okay to take people’s thoughts and opinions with an open mind and remember that those are thoughts and opinions of other people, not myself. It’s not easy though. You want others to see that you’re good and that you’re better and that whatever you do or make decisions for are the right ones and the smart ones and when you don’t get that, you second-guess everything. You start wondering things about yourself that you didn’t think to be true prior to hearing them from other people.

I’ve realized that no matter how confident I get or how in tune I become with my mind and my body, I feel always feel this sense of relief when someone says or mentions something positive about an aspect of my life that I’m not normally confident or happy with. My hypersensitivity will always stem from a place of me wanting approval from those around me, and as much as I try changing that, it seems like I’m back to square one. It’s not that I’m being a defeatist, it’s just the fact that I have to accept that I’m just a sensitive person and when things are said of done that hurt me, I have to personally be gentle with myself and take care of my needs and before I can move forward.

Is it weird? Yeah. Does it make me dramatic and can come off as something really annoying? Absolutely. I’ve met people like me that I’ve felt that way towards because I didn’t understand how hypersensitivity works for them. I didn’t realize that these people struggle the same way I do with things that seem minor or just not relevant in everyday conversation.

For me, I think it was hard to see the difference between what were the things that honestly hurt my feelings and need to speak about them versus me being a little sensitive to feedback and opinions of others. I always would react negatively to both and allow those judgments and opinions of others influence my self-image and how I valued myself. At this point in my life, I can’t allow other people to persuade how I view myself and how i go about treating myself. If anything, just have to be aware enough to know the fact that people’s opinions are their opinions, and they don’t mean anything malice or judgmental about it. It’s just the way of life, y’know?

So here i am, claiming my hypersensitivity. Here I am, being aware that I may take things seriously. I don’t mean to, but I will, but I will realize when I do, and I will realize when I’m not. But for the most part, I will know the difference between the two.

“You don’t know what it means to have friends because you don’t know how to be a good one, Liz. It’s why all of them left your life.”

I grew up having a ton of friends. I don’t know how I was able to have these group of friends and be able to keep them for longer periods of time, but I did. Maybe because it was just a lot easier to communicate with people that didn’t have responsibilities at the moment. I don’t know how I literally lost everyone in my life; perhaps it was because I got lost in a boy for the last decade, maybe my social anxiety just got bad; maybe I just changed as I got older and well, adult friendships are just harder to keep.

As I got older and started to find myself and who I was, I started to build friendships with people. I was starting to figure out that I was able to make friends, but I always struggled keep friendships for longer period of time. I never understood why some of the closest people in my life would disappear with absolutely no rhyme or reason, I figured it was just my lack of ability to keep friendships due to my social anxiety, but I’ve come to realize that it may be something that I’m subconsciously doing that isn’t fair nor healthy to do.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I sometimes allow my tainted judgment of people ruin the friendships I make with them.

I don’t know how of why I allow myself to think this way, but I started to realize that I was allowing my feelings and my emotions take the best of me in situations, which then lead me to feel like my friendships with people were now tainted. For example: I am learning through my best friend that even though we may disagree on how we handle things and we will argue about our thoughts and opinions in those confrontations, I shouldn’t allow the things that they can’t control to hinder how I see them or taint the friendship overall. I love my best friend, and there are amazing things about them that I never had in a best friends before, and I think because of that, it allowed me to see that perhaps I was being shitty in some of my past friendships with people and allowed my hurt, unsaid feelings to completely take over the friendship, which lead to resentment, which lead to me disappearing.

I’m tired of disappearing.

I’m tired of not speaking up when I feel like I’m hurt in a situation or like I feel like I’m not being heard, but I’m also tired of allowing every little thing get to me and taking things personally. I know that people say things out of frustration and out of anger, and I know that sometimes the way I may say things or the things that I say may come off as hurtful or defensive. We are all human, and we are all going to react the way we react. It doesn’t mean that when the confrontation is over, we don’t come back, talk things out, and carry on with the friendship. We are adults, and if the friendship is as valuable as we say it is, we will talk things out and see the positive things in said friendship.

I am learning that there are going to be things about me that my friends don’t like, but they won’t see me any differently or treat me or the friendship any differently, so why should I do that to them? It’s not fair, and it’s extremely biased to take those things about my friends and allow them to be deal-breakers when really it’s just a misunderstanding.

At the end of the day, friendships are a two-way street; you treat your friends the way they treat you. If they treat you with respect and they genuinely want the best for you and care about you, then you do the same. If they treat you like shit, you treat them like shit. IT’s simple as that. But! Don’t allow your sensitivity and clashing of personalities influence the overall goodness of a friendship. Sometimes you need that different perspective to see situations in a different light. Sometimes, you need a personality in your life so different than yours to spice things up while learning and doing things that you haven’t done before! It’s so important to have these friendships in life because they bring something exciting to the table, but also you learn how to interact and handle different people within your lifetime.

Don’t throw away your friendships when you feel attacked. Talk about it, understand it, and deal with the uncomfortable nature of these situations for the sake of the friendships.

“I’ve fallen in love with you as a human, and I’m so happy in this friendship. So please, don’t be afraid to show affection to me the way you want to.“

I grew up thinking that if I loved my friends on the same level as those who I crushed on or who I was with romantically, it wasn’t a friendship anymore. It was you, crushing on your friend, feelings attached, and can never go back to having that same “friendship innocence” that it was in the beginning. My last best friend was my first love. I fell in love with my best friend and because of mutual feelings, we could never go back to being just that. We are always now bound to being exes of a relationship; our lives as best friends didn’t exist anymore.

Hi, my name is Liz; I fall in love with my best friends & tend to fuck shit up because of it.

The more I think about my past life and the friendships I kept so close to me, I fell in love with them in ways normal friends don’t do. I love everything about them, and I try my best to nurture and comfort and be a supportive figure in their lives because I have such a deep care for them and want the absolute best for them. I’m not saying I don’t tend to my friends in the same way, but I seem to just be a little more… motherly to those who I love.

I realized just how motherly I was when my ex used to tease me for treating him like a child. Sure, he didn’t mean any harm in it in the beginning until time went on and our arguments had told me otherwise. Nowadays, I tend to hide that quality because I don’t want to come off as annoying to people.

Although I’ve been on my own and discovering my identity for the last year, I’ve realized that this quality that I’ve been shunning away is a quality that will never leave me; I will always nurture and overly care for the friendships I hold dearest and closest to my heart. I realized this when I started to make friends on my own in the duration of the past year; whether it was at work with my co-workers, friends I made in my spare time, or when I decided to become a part of the Kpop community back in June of this year.

The fact of the matter is that once I gain that connection with someone, I automatically get really protective over them and begin to worry about them in ways that may seem a little bit suffocating. I know sometimes my anxiety can be overwhelming for most, but my worry for those I love and my extreme range of emotion I have for them is just how I know to show my own love to others. Some may not agree with it and may think it’s me crossing boundaries, but I’m honestly not the only one that values platonic love ion their friendships.

My current best friend, Ro, is a person that I met through the Kpop community. We instantly connected through our love for Victon, but also just getting to know each other and we came to realize that we have insanely a lot in common. After establishing a really close friendship, I realized that Ro was the type of person that valued their friendships to the same degree I did. We knew what our boundaries were regarding our friendships; we saw our friendships having the same value as most romantic relationships, and possibly because of that, we both tend to not have that many friends that understood it. It was extremely easy to get to know Ro and express the love I have for them because they understood the level of platonic intimacy within friendships. We are able to show affection to each other without it getting too weird; we know our boundaries and we both know it’s all out of platonic love.

In other words, we tell each other “I love you” every single day. We get cute and mushy and personal with one another, and no matter what happens, we always tend to be there for each other on levels most friends I had in the past never been on. The other week, I was in a really bad depressive episode and I was on the phone with Ro. Trying to explain to them what was going on and how I was feeling, a week later they sent me a notebook and a couple of pages of self-care tips as a way to remind me that I am loved and that they are there for me. Vice versa; they went through a couple of bad times within the past couple of weeks and despite our distance, I make sure that matter where I am, I make that time to be there for their roughest days.

Being Ro’s best friend has taught me that it’s okay to have this value in friendships because they are the most important relationships we want in our lives. For me, being in a romantic relationship for the last decade has made me not want to focus this next chapter of my life on romantic relationships. I don’t want to spend my energy on just one person; I want to be able to connect with a bunch of new people and build meaningful relationships within them. I just want to be able to make friends after not being able to have and keep them for the last decade, but I do want to experience a new type of love: a platonic one. Being best friends with Ro allows me to experience what it means to have a platonic love with someone, and it’s made my friendships with them a hell of a lot stronger.

I’m happy that I was able to build a friendship with someone that values the friendship to the same level as I do. To have a friend that understands friendships in the way that you do makes this a lot more easier; it pretty much makes the boundaries for you and allows you to be your complete self around them! It’s made me realize that these friendships have so much more value to me than romantic relationships these days, and they make me the happiest I’ve been in a really long time because of it.

Here’s to platonic intimacy and telling your firneds that you lvoe them to the moon and back.

Chapter one,

I am in love with you. So fucking in love with you, that it keeps me up at night because it’s eating me up inside. I’m happy whenever I’m with you, your smile makes me feel like I’m a teenager again, your positive energy is contagious, and the way you try you say my name makes me melt to this day. I love putting my hands through your hair, skin on mine, whispers in my ear, hands on my warm body, caressing every part of it without making me feel insecure about my weight. We never are the same people in our little world. Every time I wake up next to you, sun peeking in through the wall-sized window and the cars driving throughout the busy city, I see my future with you. I see myself getting ready for work with you on mornings, I see myself making you coffee, helping you agree on your outfit for the day, getting your bag ready with your things, kissing you goodbye until we see each other later tonight. I see you continuing giving me my firsts in life; I see us traveling to California for a vacation under the palm trees, I see myself attending my closest friends’ weddings with you, slow dancing with you in hopes I will one day wear a white dress for you. I am so crazy fucking in love with you, that I know I can’t see the bad things you also make me feel. You make me feel inadequate. You make me feel like my anxiety and depression are meaningless. You make me feel like I don’t deserve anyone else– anything else– in the world but you. You make me feel anxious, scared to be myself, scared to be something you will not be in love with anymore. I am utterly in love with you, but I don’t know how to love myself, and I constantly feel like you want me to love you before I love myself. Because of that, I feel like I’m slipping, like something is coming to an end, like I can’t save this from being the most heartbreaking thing to happen to me. I am in love with you. So fucking in love with you, but I need to love myself before I kill myself.

Chapter two,

“Welcome to the CSI Bookstore; my name is Liz, how can I help you today?” is the best way I could say I’m fine without getting too deep into things. “Hi, welcome to my shitty life, can you see my liquid eyeliner trying to conceal my puffy eyes? There is also mascara to prevent me from crying but hey, when did that ever stop me?” Behind the register, wanting someone– anyone– to see me, ask me at the counter if I’m okay, to tell me everything was going to be okay. I look up to see my co-workers and I instantly smile; laughing and joking around without a care in the world and they see me. One of them is a freelance fashion stylist. One of them is a huge oldies music lover. One of them knows all the latest trends and lingo. One of them is an international student from Honduras. One of them has piercings and tattoos that tell a story. On days that are dead, we get to know each other through stories. I’m able to tell my story; a story that is still continuing but slowly, with time, coming to an end. I’m sharing this story to a bunch a strangers that only knew me for a couple of months; yet, they feel natural. They feel right. They feel like they belong here. “Hi, welcome! I’m Liz, is there anything I can help you with?” is now my default but this time, a smile, a “omg, I love your bookbag, where did you get it from?” or a “omg, you should totally go to my tattoo guy, he’s amazing” and even a “honestly, professors are just doing too much, even when I was a student here” follows along. I laugh from a coworker puts the biggest smile on my face, a joke from another makes me laugh the heartiest laugh I could possibly do. Even a boy that comes into the bookstore has caught my eye, the first one in 10 years. I feel seen. I feel wanted. I feel loved. I feel like I belong. When I leave the bookstore that Saturday afternoon to get ready for a vacation in the sunshine state in March, I wave goodbye to my coworkers, hoping the next week for them is a good one, that I will be back with Florida stories and possibly a Florida tan talking about my experience being on an airplane for the first time. I left the double doors, leaving my presence there, not knowing that I’m also leaving a chapter there; that I’m not coming back as the person I let there as.

Chapter three,

I cannot stop laughing. My laughter is echoing through my small, NYC apartment. I can’t help myself. I type in the group chat a really clever joke about a member of Victon, but someone beats me to it. Twins. I don’t remember my stomach ever feeling this hurt from laughing so much. The chat dies down and I’m able to catch my breath and reflect on how these last couple of months have been some of the best this year. “These people get me, I feel like I belong.” My phone screen lights up with a notification; “saranghae_ro: what are you doing rn? Watch party tonight?” It’s never a dull day without these people. For people I never met in person, I feel the most love for; people who understand a side of me that I hid for 2 years; 2 chapters in my life. In 2 months, I was more myself than I have been in my life. I was allowed to gush over a Kpop idol that I secretly loved for months, a group that saved my life during my grieving process, music that I am able to openly talk about with people who do the same thing. Although being in this new world brings back insecurities and worries that I accept will always follow me into new environments, I am reassured that who I am, in this moment, is perfectly fine. And because of that, I remind them how much I love them. I tell him how grateful to have them in my life. I am thankful for their presence, I am appreciative of their kind gestures, and they are just a part of my overall happiness. I even have a best friend, my first one in 10 years. They are the closest thing to a friend I had in the last two years, the last two chapters. They freakishly share similarities with me, which makes the dynamic even that more interesting. I’m not one to believe in coincidences, but my best friend was meant to cross paths with me, they were meant to be in this chapter to allow me to see that I can be someone’s closest friend, that I was worthy enough to be a friend, to someone, who saw the same value in me as I do them.

But I fear this chapter the most. As easy it was for me to get here, to feel like I belonged, and for once I am afraid that it will slip through my fingers like the memories and the people in my other chapters; the ones before these and the ones that came before. I am tired of my chapters. I am tired of never getting some sort of closure to one chapter; they are always lingering; those chapters are still being told in this one. I am scared this will be another chapter I will lose, that I will mourn, that I will talk about in my future chapters.

That I am nothing but chapters.

I sometimes forget how fast a year can go by, especially when you’re… happy.

Perhaps I spent this year finding myself and getting to know who I am as person that made it fly by, but here we are, in August, realizing that it’s been a year since… well…

Hi, my name is Liz, and I’ve been celibate for a year.

It didn’t really dwell on me until recently thought about… well… the last time I had sex. It wasn’t like a concentrated thought of “damn, when was the last time ya girl got laid?!”, it was more so a thought about my sexuality that made me think wow… I’ve been celibate for a year and my wants and needs for sexual intimacy are still pretty much the same.

I spoke about my decision on celibacy awhile back, but the TLDR version is that basically, my intimacy wants became less sexual and more platonic over the last year. I’ve been building a hell of a lot of friendships this past year, and to finally have people I talk to on a daily basis and connect with interest-wise; I now value those friendships more than romantic ones. I’m allowed to be un-apologetically myself without any strings attached or things being difficult with romantic feelings being involved; it’s just… a friendship.

I decided on celibacy when I lost the want and need to have sex, in all honesty. I started to repulse the idea of having sex with someone else; I mean like, I don’t think of sex and just be like, “eww” – it’s more so the fact at going “eww, having sex with someone is not my thing at the moment.” I can’t picture myself having sex with another person for a really long time, and that’s completely fine. I don’t desire it, I don’t find the importance of having sex, and it’s just something at this given time that I’m uncomfortable with.

It doesn’t mean I stopped seeing things as sexy. You throw me a picture of any of the Victon members being sexy, I will think they are sexy! I mean, Seungwoo on the cover of Men’s Health Korea…

MY POINT BEING: I can still think things are sexy but not find it sexually attracting, or it doesn’t mean I see an attractive person and instantly want to know what it’s like to kiss them or have sex with them or have an instant sexual attraction to them. It just means that within my personal relationships in life, I’m not looking for sexual intimacy because I don’t want them, hence my decision for being celibate.

Although we are sexual beings and it’s just a part (and want) for most human beings, I found myself not thinking about sex or wanting it this past year. I feel like my focuses and energy are on much more important things that it’s just something I don’t dwell on. I honestly forget that I’m celibate and I only remember when I’m asked for the reasons why I stopped taking birth control.

So, in a nutshell: this year has been a breeze, but it does worry me for my future romantic relationships. Although in this given moment, I pretty much deem myself as asexual, I know that when the right one comes into my life, I’m going to want to share that intimacy with them. But how open would I be to having sex again? Will it just be something natural and pick back up again in a romantic relationship? Will I get anxiety attacks in the process of engaging in sex like I did prior to my celibacy? In other words, will I ever see sex has a fun, enjoyable thing you do with someone you are in love with and that loves you back?

I don’t know, and I guess I’m really ready to take those next steps into thinking what intimacy will look like in my future romantic relationships.

Intimacy, to me at this moment, is sharing hugs. It’s checking in on the people who you really care about. It’s reminding those who you love how much you love them and are grateful to have them in your life. It’s developing a connection that is timeless; one where even throughout the chances in each other’s lives that you still manage to be a part of it; no matter how far, or how long it’s been you got to see them (or even if you never them), the foundation of these friendships with people is strong enough and comfortable enough for you to be yourself in.

So, happy one year of my celibacy. I never thought I’d ever come to this place where I would be completely fine without that level of intimacy in my life. I mean, let’s be real, the longest time I ever been without sex was… possibly before I even started having it. So, this journey has been an interesting one to got through, considering this has been the longest I’ve been without sex and out of a relationship. Like, sis is out here doing her thang on her own!

But, I digress.

I’m curious to one day hear about other’s peoples reasoning for celibacy; possibly they found God or they just have a personal and unique experience behind their story. I simply became celibate because of my sexual orientation simply changing and morphing into the person I am now. I was straight & in a relationship, then demiromantic and started to see every gender & orientation romantically attractive, and now I’m feeling more at place being asexual & just connecting with good energies, no matter what they are.

And that’s just my story.

I think there’s something wrong with me.

I feel like normal people in our society have falling outs with the closest people in their lives because they simply grow out of those people; no trauma, no hard feelings, and still have love for each other form afar. Maybe they rekindle in the future, maybe not, but they have the space and opportunity to because their initial falling out wasn’t… malicious.

Almost every close relationship I had in my life ended maliciously and left some trauma behind. Almost every single one.

Hi, my name is Liz and I’m afraid of having close relationships in my life because of the downfall of most of then

I had this thought after having some resurfacing trauma occurring during the end of last month. I’ve had someone in my past reach out to me to offer their apologies to me and I feel like normal people would’ve handled it as “just another message”. Me; I couldn’t breathe. I felt everything come back up like vomit. The memories, the version of myself I left behind, and the anger and resentment I still feel. It all came back, and quite frankly – it set me back a bit.

A message shouldn’t leave me shook like that, and many of these messages from people in my past have left me in the same headspace.

It just made me think: is it me? Why do all my close relationships end in such tragic and negative ways? Why do they have to end with both of us having to deal with some trauma or something? Again, is it me that’s the problem?

At this point, I’ve made some awesome friendships and many of them are getting closer the more we talk; IRL or within the trading community. As excited of allowing these people into my life after not being able to do so with anyone for awhile, it still scares me that I somehow may fuck things up. I might do or say something they’ll hate and never speak to me again or we might just secretly hate me and I just shut down and run away and disappear from people’s lives which yes, that part is my fault, I shouldn’t do that.

I don’t mean to play the victim in this narrative; I know when I’m a part of the problem and I know I’ve caused these same people some level of trauma or anxiety as well. I am not perfect, and I’m trying to tell myself that it’s okay not to be and that I can hurt people too. I take accountability for the things I’ve done, the insecurities I created in other people, and for the things I said out of anger or because I didn’t know how to behave in past situations.

And maybe my past behavior is what causes these close relationships to end so horribly.

But I also know I’m a good friend. I will love you to the moon and back, I will most likely put you even ahead of my romantic relationships because, well, I have a hard time differentiating the two besides one of them involves sexual intimacy which isn’t what I even do anymore.

My point being is that I value the relationships in my life because I don’t have many to begin with. But, even the closest relationships have ups and downs. People have arguments and they make mistakes, but why does it seem like mine never seem that way? Mine are always threatened to end or are hateful; maybe it’s the way I see them?

I honestly don’t know. I just know that because of my past relationships with people, I am afraid to let anyone, romantic and friend, too close because I’m afraid they’ll end all in the same way as they did in the past.

But maybe this new chapter of life I’m on, the one making healthier decisions and reflecting on my behavior and being more self-awareness that maybe this time around my relationships will people will be a lot more healthier. Maybe the version of myself before just couldn’t speak up and handle things cordially, so I just disappeared whenever things got bad. Maybe these relationships in my life finally feel like I’m able to be myself and comfortable to the point that I don’t feel the need to silence myself if conflicts happen.

In this moment in time, I’m so grateful for the relationships I am building because I’m the happiest when I’m being social around people. For someone who deals with social anxiety disorder, it’s definitely weird that one of the things that make me the happiest is being social with other people.

So I hope that I am willing to be more accepting and open to develop close relationships again. I hope I am able to not be afraid of getting close to new people and to not let the judgement of past self dictate my decisions in the present. I’ll work on it, and I hope that this fear doesn’t stay for too long; I’ve met some amazing people in the course of a couple of months.

August has become one of the hardest months to go through for the many memories it carries.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I remember same of the most life-changing things that happen in August that I wish to one day forget completely.

Two years ago on August 18th, 2018, my family and I went to a mass for my grandfather who passed away just weeks prior due to lung cancer. His life span went from two months to two weeks, to then the following day finding out he passed on. I want to say our family hasn’t been the same since then and I don’t think we ever will be; he held us together like glue. Now? Well, we’d be lucky if we see each other twice a year or something. That day, I saw my entire family cry and for the first time since his death, I quietly mourned his loss. I’m not good with death and I always believed my role in the family was to be the strong one, but I was allow to cry and grieve that day. I didn’t. I didn’t grieve my grandfather’s death until I was by myself, in the shower, where no one was able to hear my cries.

One year ago, on August 19th, 2019, the decade-long relationship I had ended in a mutual agreement. Things were said to each other and we both know that our journey together was coming to an end. We had broken up way too many times before to not feel like it was time to officially call it quits. I remember simply asking my ex “what do you want?” and he asked, “from you?” and I just said, “for yourself.” It was the first time that I admitted out loud that I wasn’t in any position to love another person because I didn’t love myself. I knew I was doing nothing but hurting my ex by checking out, and it was my responsibility that I didn’t speak up sooner in hopes I’d feel better or be better. But, your soul just doesn’t work that way. She tells you when it’s time to let go and move on and she sticks to her word.

This happened the late-night before my first day at my first job. I was nervous about starting something completely new and ironically I was ending something that had been in my life for the last decade. I cried over the phone for hours, fearing that I was losing the one person in my life I thought loved me for me. I wanted to work things out, but I also knew that I needed to be on my own for a bit and figure out what I needed for myself. In hindsight, I feel guilty that my relationship had to be the thing I sacrificed in order to do that, but there was reason why it was sacrificed in the first place.

I woke up to then start my first day at my new job at the bookstore. I walked in and saw two people and my manager standing behind the register area, and I simply said, “hi, I’m Liz, ‘m here for the training…” With two other newcomers that day, I simply distracted myself from what had happened the night prior. None of the people at my job knew who I was, I guess I played the role of “normal young adult” well enough to the point that they didn’t know that my first day was the day my relationship ended until I told them once we got close.

One year ago, on August 25th, 2019, I cut myself for the first time since July 7th, 2013. I was on the phone with my ex, again trying to talk everything out and say everything that needed to be said in order to move on. It turned into an argument. It turned into a full-blown fight. I don’t remember the specific details because I used to dissociate whenever I was being yelled at or in a confrontation, but I remember feeling like all I wanted was someone to see that I wasn’t okay, that the way I’ve been acting and the way I’ve been for the longest time was because my depressive episodes were at its worst, that no, my depression wasn’t just the normal routine for nervousness at a new environment, my depression was the kind that those around me are empathetic about because they are afraid they’ll lose them to suicide. I just wanted someone to take my mental health seriously for once, and my scars on my arm was the only visible way to show people I am not okay. In hindsight, it was extremely unhealthy of me, but in that moment when I wanted someone to see me, I didn’t care.

The following day, on August 26th, 2019, it was the official first day of RUSH at the bookstore. Once my name tag went around my neck and I walked into that store to clock-in, I was “Hi, how can I help you?” Liz, not the “I cut the shit out of myself and the bruises are hiding under my sleeve because I’m deeply depressed” Liz.

Two years in a row, I lost two people who absolutely meant the most to me in this world.

My grandfather was the voice of wisdom, even when sometimes his age showed in his beliefs. My grandfather was my grandfather, despite him not being my biological grandfather. He took care of my sister and I since we were little kids; treated us like his own whenever we used to visit him and my grandmother just a block away from our house and eventually in Pennsylvania. He was tough, but he had a heart of gold and he was fearless. If he were to still be alive during this time of self-discovery and emancipation from my past, I believe he would be proud of me for doing something that was fearless. I believe he would still love the person that I am today.

My ex was my best friend before anything else, and to this day it still hurts that in this process of ending our relationship, I lost a best friend. I lost the friend that helped me pay for textbooks whenever I couldn’t cover them. I lost the friend that came to my uncle’s funeral to be by my side for a moment. I lost the friend that I used to support when it came to their wildest dreams. I lost the friend that was an amazing friend, and parts of me wish I haven’t fallen in love and made things complicated with our feelings. Unfortunately, things happen and if you sacrifice one aspect of the relationship, you sacrifice the whole thing, especially when both relationships were so intertwined with one another. I didn’t lose a partner that night over the phone, I lost my best friend.

Perhaps these are just some of the reasons why I’m so afraid to get too close to people. I’m afraid I’ll lose them, I’m afraid things will get complicated to the point you have to let them go, I’m afraid that one day I’ll say “see you later” and it ultimately turns into the last goodbye. I’m afraid of letting people too close to my heart. I can pour out my heart and tell you my history and my story because hey, I’m a writer, I tell my story almost in every post I write. What I don’t do often is let people live in my heart, just because it’s been broken so many times whenever someone moved out of it.

Theses August memories are some of the memories I still mourn, no matter how many years pass by and no matter how much I’m now in a better place. These August memories are some of the moments that make up my being as of today, and hopefully I am able to forgive myself and these memories and move on from them like I’m doing with the rest of my past.