Introspection is weird. You can be going about your day, not an off thought in the world, but then you pause to do some menial task and your mind starts wandering. Some days it goes on an adventure outward. Some days, it decides to do a deep dive into your psyche and then you’re suddenly overanalyzing yourself. I find myself doing this a lot lately, as I struggle to heal, and deal with my ever changing health and mental health.

I’ve been quiet on this blog. On social media. On anything that anyone other than the people close to me can see or hear. Hell, sometimes I’ve been quiet there, too. I spent so long walking on eggshells the past few years, I’ve been struggling to figure out how to stop, even when I know I’m safe.
I apologize when I’m a mess. I try not to be an inconvenience to those I care about when I’m having a bad mental health day. I still find myself overthinking everything I say, do, and might say. I think I’ve been afraid to post anything that might upset someone, anyone, even though this blog and my social profiles are my space. Even though the time I spend with those I’m closest to now is safe space. I don’t want to think that way anymore.

I think like that a lot, lately. About how I do things, why I do things, why do I think the way I think? Honestly? I’m so, so tired of thinking about it all, constantly. But self analyzing, deep thought, its what shows me the things I need to heal from, that I likely didn’t realize I needed to until now.
I’ve felt more myself in the past 8 months than I have in the past 8 years. To say that, with that much truth behind it, is insane. You don’t realize how much of yourself you’ve suppressed over the years, until you feel like you’re able to let yourself go, be the weird, strange person you enjoy being, and discover that people love you even more for it. But to process everything from the past few years, to realize how much you’ve been through? That’s terrifying.
The voice in my head screams at me regularly. Reminding me of all of the things I have to heal from. Some days I’m really good at drowning her out. I know her thoughts are insecure, and irrational, and wrong. But this week I’ve realized… if the voice in my head can be that loud, why the hell can’t I be? What am I afraid of?

9 months ago, I lost my Dad to cancer. 3 weeks later, I ended a roughly 7 year relationship to someone I had planned on marrying over a year before. To a lot of people, I probably looked insane. That’s a lot of huge change, in less than a month. I realized after I lost Dad, that I had been holding onto something that I should have let go of a long time ago. When we got Dad’s diagnosis in early fall of 2020, suddenly my entire world changed. So I desperately clung to the one constant in my life, no matter how unstable it was. I knew then that what I was holding onto could fall apart at any moment, but at that point, I don’t think I cared.
When my Dad passed, with him passed a lot of things that most little girls dream of their dad being around for. For me, the realization that Dad was no longer around for a lot of the big moments to come hit me extremely hard, and I felt something fall apart all over again. The illusion surrounding my relationship, engagement, and planned wedding shattered. Part of me had been hoping that somehow things would get better, and my dad would be there to walk me down the aisle. It took my world crumbling to realize just how unhappy I was, and then I realized I wasn’t afraid of change anymore.

I’ve been quiet, because I think I’ve been afraid. Excuse me when I say F* that. I stayed quiet when a post was made, basically implying that I had been cheating, that the person I’m now with was the reason for me ending my relationship. Its easy to blame other people if it means you don’t have to take accountability for the person you are, for the things you said to the person that you were supposed to be there for more than anyone, the day of her father’s memorial. That entire afternoon will be one I never truly forget. I stayed quiet when people I was told I was a bad person for wanting to work things out with and remain friends with, were manipulated into taking sides. Suddenly, those people aren’t the terrible, shallow people I was told they were. In the end, the only thing I feel is bad that they’re also that easily manipulated. I’ve stayed quiet as I process the mental trauma, gaslighting, reactive abuse and overall manipulation I allowed myself to be subject to for so long. I’m never going to be that person again, and I’m done being quiet.

I’ve done a lot of healing in the past months, but I’ve done it in quiet. Letting bits and pieces show through from time to time to the outside world. I still have a lot more healing to do. Bits of myself to regain. Intrusive thoughts, defensive mechanisms and trauma responses to work through. Parts of my brain to rewire. I’m still learning how to let myself be authentic and to say F what people think of that. I still have to remind myself daily, that its OK to not be OK sometimes, and its okay to still feel broken sometimes.

The last post I made on this blog was in January, entitled “a mess,” and I’ve been quiet since then. Guess what? I’m still a mess, grief is still messy. I’m still processing how to go on with my life without my dad here to see the life I’m working towards, the life I want to build with the people I want to build it with. That won’t change for a long time.

Me, the part of me that cares what the world thinks, and my silence? That will.