8 April 2022, 6.47pm.
Let's make a list of the things that make me 'negative,' shall we?
- 15ish years of childhood emotional abuse and manipulation by somebody in my household.
- 2004: only childhood friend moved two countries away and did not keep in touch.
- 5ish years of bullying and emotional abuse in junior/high school -- from Christians.
- 2009: first suicide attempt.
- 2014: aunt and uncle ugly-divorce.
- 2015: second aunt and uncle ugly-divorce.
- 2015: best friend dies. Found out through Facebook five days later. Unable to go to funeral due to distance and short notice.
- 2015: nine-year-old cousin dies.
- 2015: entire extended family implodes over some stupid financial dispute and aunt and uncle's divorce.
- 2016: grandfather dies. I was the only grandchild who didn't get to say goodbye.
- 2016: church gaslights and backstabs me.
- 2016: entire church leadership board tells me God can't love me because I'm 'too negative' and because I'm an artist.
- 2016: college best friend ghosts me. When asked, said I'm 'too personal' (whatever that even means).
- 2016: strung along and then ghosted by a guy I really liked.
- 2017: all my friends stop talking to me. Literally every single one of them.
- 2017: second suicide attempt.
- 2017: very good friend attempts suicide and is hospitalised for some time. All while I get told I'm being 'too needy' and 'too negative' when I share my struggle with similar things.
- 2018: strung along and dumped by a man.
- 2018: best dance friend dies suddenly.
- 2015-2019: bullied by EVERYONE at college for being 'too negative' over all these deaths (current tally: four in two years, plus extended family dissolving and church abuse concurrently).
- 2018: college program director who I admired and respected told me I wasn't trying hard enough despite knowing I was practicing 10 hours every DAY (60 unpaid hours training, tuition, and experience PER WEEK. For five years).
- 2019: eating disorder develops, third suicide attempt.
- 2018-19: voice teacher verbally abusing and gaslighting me because I improve so slowly.
- 2015-2020: unsuccessful job hunt. Applied to literally THOUSANDS of jobs across three provinces. Landed maybe three interviews and zero jobs.
- 2019: moved to a new city, landed a part-time job, was sexually harassed and stalked by my supervisor.
- 2020: two good friends die literally within 24 hours of each other.
- 2020: finally landed a job I loved. Lasted 30 days. Then Pandemic shut it down.
- 2020: in-laws refused to let me plan my own wedding; even resorting to screaming matches when I tried to insist on anything that I, the literal bride, wanted. Also they publicly dragged my father's name through the mud in an attempt to get their way (my father is probably the most honourable human being to walk the earth, next to Jesus).
- 2020: fourth suicide attempt.
- 2021: finally got into therapy, therapist told me I wasn't trying hard enough and that I was too stubborn and too sad.
- 2022: three good friends ghosted me. The only one to respond to my request for clarification said I was 'too much' for her.
- Present day: constantly screamed at by customers, gaslighted and lectured by my in-laws for existing, and told by people who are supposed to love me how stupid I am. Am saddled by unexpected debt in the thousands, rising cost of rent, and gas prices so high that I literally cannot afford to drive to my job, let alone visit my family several hours' drive away. I am not making enough at my full-time job to pay the bills and the debt.
I didn't choose any of this. Not one single thing on this list was something I chose or even had any say in.
You know where all of this pain went?
Nowhere.
It's all still there inside me. It does not shrink. It does not dissolve. It does not go away. Nearly thirty years of intolerable pain still teems in my soul, just below the surface. There are only distractions, never relief. And even distractions wear thin.
We are told to reach out when we are going through tough times. So that's what I did. But it turned out -- every single time -- that the amount and intensity of pain I was carrying exceeded the willingness of the people around me to help me.
Oh, they try to frame it as a them problem while subtly blaming me... 'you're too negative' is the honest version that some have been ballsy enough to actually say, but more often the phrase is more like 'I'm just in a fragile place right now and need to cut down on sources of stress in my life' or sometimes they just ghost me.
99% percent of these people -- ninety-nine percent -- had told me WITHIN THE PREVIOUS TWELVE MONTHS that it was okay not to be okay and that they would be there for me. And without fail, every single one of them has either outright abandoned me or severely distanced themselves from me.
Do you really think that this insane amount of pain is a choice? If you can't bear even the smallest amount of pain that I show you, how on earth do you expect me to bear the full weight of it by myself? Do you think I'm superhuman? News flash -- I'm not. Why do you think I reach out so relentlessly? Why do you think I put so much of it on others? Because I can't carry this anymore.
When this pain finally, mercifully kills me, know this -- not a single one of you do-gooders 'did the best you could.' You didn't do a damn thing. You left me to shoulder all this pain alone. You knew the pain I was in, and you left me alone to be crushed to death under the weight of it.
I did not choose any of this. And you lot only added to the burden.
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