not going out / derealization / strawberries
[this post was edited on 7.29.25 and a few long stories were replaced with summaries in brackets.]
tw: contains descriptions of depression, bullying, and unreality
hello only thing I enjoy,
I feel nauseous. I'm pretty sure it has to do with what I'm wearing, but I don't want to change my clothes because that would mean giving up on going out. I was supposed to go to a show tonight, and I was super happy to be invited, but eventually I started dreading it, and around the time I needed to leave I started feeling queasy, and that was almost 2 hours ago.
it's really hard for me to be alone. i'm getting much better. but...you know what...wow...i think it's because of derealization. jesus christ. that has never occurred to me before.
it seems like a lot of my social struggles growing up were caused by me not really believing that reality was real. [insert memory of me "testing" reality in kindergarten by standing up in the middle of class & reciting a scene from The Parent Trap (1998) to see what would happen]
when i was older this often turned into a problem surrounding romance and other people's relationships. i wonder if this was the genesis of my inclination towards polyamory, and if that invalidates it somehow. i would kiss other girls' boyfriends, tell them about it calmly or even excitedly, and be surprised when they suddenly hated my guts. by high school i was so dissociated, for various reasons, that seeking pleasure through sexual stimuli and/or admiration was kind of the only thing worth living for. it was the only thing that could cut through the anhedonia, which meant that nothing else mattered. i was always turned on by the promise of fun & presence of lots of people (think getting swept away by a parade, or crushed into a giant cuddle pile at a party) and assumed that everyone else was both feeling what i felt and thought it was a good thing. it's still hard to remember sometimes.
[insert memory of being bored & clinically depressed in the hallway in the ninth grade and walking over to a flirty senior to kiss him in the middle of his conversation, and how a girl with more clout than me whose whole personality was based around liking him saw it happen, and how to punish me for this behavior the two people i had come out to decided to blackmail me with my queerness, forcing me to stay in the closet to try and maintain my own narrative...yeah it's just as sad when summarized]
you want more? okay, [insert memory of sleeping on an air mattress in college with two brothers and waking up the one i wasn't attracted to and kissing him, when i had finally just had a romantic moment with the other one, who i really liked] why???? i guess because i was bored!!!! no one wanted that to be happening, including me, who was making it happen. using other people for dopamine is a bad habit i only started working on in the last two years or so. it's so normalized. i have so many stories like this in which i cannot tell you why i did something, and especially couldn't then, except that i was daring the universe to show me the consequences, and the consequences were usually AWFUL.
okay. thank you for reading this, silent interlocutor. this is the first time i haven't had any constraints around my writing here - i could literally write all weekend (it's friday night) with no one stopping me. (therefore it's taking on a kind of "insufferable artist penning his unwanted memoirs" quality.) greg is out of town and i'm housesitting for him. what i wanted to write about was how i keep craving, like, a pattern of jaunty florals or maybe strawberries, and how putting on a lip stain and some silver eyeshadow and leaving the house could potentially satisfy that craving. i was going to write that as insurance against entropy—inertia?—against not staying on the couch all night, and then take off what i'm wearing, which is a black tennis onesie that’s compressing all my organs. but it's been at least 30 minutes and all i've done is talk about kissing people and not make my actual point. let's see...
i've gotten used to being at home alone in my house, finally, but i'm not used to being alone at greg's, so it's bringing up some old feelings. a sense that i'm kind of wedged into time & space in a way that doesn't fit, and i need to figure out how to mold reality around me in a way that's comfortable, which i can't. in the past, i would've turned to social media to help me dissociate from this sensation. now i guess i turn to this blog. and i love that. because this is not dissociative at all. i did imagine this being something more polished, but i really love not having a filter instead. last night i listened to a 16-minute rant from a month ago that i meant to transcribe here, about hyperphantasia and my relationship to making art, but it all felt a bit too…pompous. and pomposity is my least favorite thing in the world.
okay, greg just called and i changed into pajamas while talking to him. i suppose that feels better. i described my indecision about going out, and he said "going out does sound nice, but cozy is cozy." i didn't correct him, but what i'm feeling is more like —anxiety is anxiety—
like, leaving the house = social anxiety, body dysmorphia, executive functioning & dealing with logistics. but staying in = what is this silence, and what do i do, and how do i move through it? time stretches out in front of me and it is so, so scary. every moment thrums with possibility yet all possibilities feel out of reach. if greg were here he would have gathered a bunch of junk food and we would be watching an episode of taskmaster and he would pull me to him and fall asleep clutching me all warmly. but i don't want junk food, and i don't want to watch taskmaster without him, and i can't snore softly behind myself. i simply do not know what to do when i'm alone. in times like these i only know how to work or dissociate. existing in space & time without the grounding presence of another is like touching a live wire. i feel like i keep circling around my meaning without reaching it. if you are reading this, and i know you, can you let me know if you understand?
what this blog post should be is a phone call. but i don't have anyone to call. so here we are. i'm happy about it. hopefully next time i will compile some lovely pieces of writing and it will be fun instead of all this. wish me luck!
(editor's note: i ate a strawberry popsicle while adjusting this piece and it's even better than silver eyeshadow. also, pretty funny that the first example of my reality-defying exploits was of acting out a scene from a movie and then every other one was of kissing someone i shouldn't. it's midnight on the dot and i kind of hate this post and i'm TIRED. love you.)