Sabotage, Go Away!

I’m ashamed of my recent behavior. I spent the past few years improving myself. I allowed some negativity to seep away and welcomed positive acknowledgements of myself. I can say honestly that I believe I’m an attractive woman. Even with a petite figure, I consider myself sexy. I used to view sexiness as a sign of curves, which I believed I lack. I have smaller curves but small is still something and it fits my figure. Once I began recognizing these qualities in myself and embraced them, I began to both notice and attract others who saw it in me as well.

As I’m typing this out, I’m having an epiphany. I’ve made progress on a superficial level. Outer beauty only goes so far. There’s so much more to me than what the eye can see. In the past few years, I did more than see what was already there. I became a better person.

I've become empathetic, receptive, and able to help people. Others gravitate towards me and open up to me about their struggles. I offer them encouragement and support. I’m perceptive and personalize my approach uniquely to each individual. I realize the value of self-growth and change. Already aware of diversity and individuality, I know not to force my hand. I’m a dominant personality and have excellent people skills, so the truth is I can manipulate and coerce people to make rapid progress and improvements. But it isn’t the end result as much as the journey, the discoveries and lessons you learn along the way that truly matter. Keeping these things in mind, I make a positive difference in peoples’ lives.

It also allows me to be intuitively attuned, which is essential for me. It’s as much a benefit for me as it is for my friends. Altruism is also a new facet I’ve developed. Being intuitive has also made me more understanding, patient, and tolerant. Awareness really brings these qualities out of me. Impatience, I’ve discovered, is a result of imbalance. It’s a side effect. We have difficulty accepting that we can’t control everything. Intolerance comes from ignorance, a lack of understanding, limitation in exposure, and inexperience. Intuition allows me to understand things at a deeper level, making me patient and tolerant. The apparent struggles in my friends make me more considerate, thoughtful, and generous. I’m inspired to offer them some sort of comfort.

Please know that I’m not trying to roll out the I’m perfect carpet, but I want to bring some balance into my life. I’m so quick to criticize myself and yet I refrain from acknowledging positive qualities. I’m not being egotistical, conceited, or vain; I’m being open and honest. And this weekend has been a demonstration of how I need to embrace all of my positive qualities.

When you have low self-esteem, you’re more likely to reject love or any kind of affection. I’m now more receptive to the attention and idea of guys being attracted to me, but on an intimate level, I still keep myself at a distance. Any sign (I interpret) as his disinterest and I become unpleasant. I’m consumed with negativity and transparent self-criticism. I don’t verbalize them, not out of consideration for others, but because I can’t bear facing the idea of being rejected for being inadequate. Yet everything has energy. So what I’m not articulating is still being subliminally released.

The more abstract and intangible something is like feelings, the more fragile I become. Instead of being open, receptive, affectionate, comfortable, and genuine, I act in contradiction to what I want to keep me safe. I’m rigid in what I hear and glue myself to negativity, unwilling to release myself from it or face the possibility that people change their minds. There’s a guy I like who’s become more affectionate and I can feel his feelings for me deepening, but I remember him withdrawaling. This is a relationship guy who had me and began pulling away. I’m only left believing that it’s because he’s not interested anymore.

Something he said could’ve been interpreted in two different ways and of course I concluded and closed it off as the negative one. He was less intimate but wanted to spend more time with me. He became more affectionate and more open but then he all of a sudden withdrew. When we talked about it, he said he wanted to see me but didn’t want to hurt me and slow down because we were leading towards a relationship and he didn't want to move too quickly. I revealed to him that I thought he was losing interest in me and he said, “No, quite the opposite.”

One can argue that he’s beginning to like me and is taking things carefully. The opposing argument is that he’s withdrawaling because he doesn’t want to end up in a relationship with me and doesn’t want to hurt me. When I wanted to talk to him and call him, I didn’t. He usually makes the effort, so I thought his distance was a desire of his and I didn’t want to counter that with my presence. He thought that was nuts and said I should’ve called him.

When we were around each other, he was fairly affectionate but not as much as before. I suppose if I reciprocated, we could’ve reached that level again. Of course, I withdrew. People observed us sarcastically as the picture of happiness. I was unhappy and did everything I could to almost retain that feeling. I gave him some oranges and took only what I needed. He told me to leave one for him at my place, so he can eat it. It was a gesture that he was trying to warm me up to, but I ruthlessly rejected that orange. How insane is that?

I was snappy and my attitude infected him. I’m not excusing my behavior, but this is also around the same time a few of my friends were going through a hard time. I think I was channeling some of their emotions. Instead of detaching myself from them as I usually do, I felt too defeated to put in the effort that’s required to do just that. It affected my well-being, and I took it out on someone who didn’t deserve it. Now I feel like I’m back to square one. I don’t want to give him reasons to not want to be with me, despite what my self-sabotaging actions may suggest.

If every time we get close, I do something to make even the idea of spending time with me appealing, I’ll be securing a no relationship guarantee. That’s honestly not what I want. And how I’ve been behaving isn’t who I am. Of course, how am I supposed to convince him of that? He only knows what he sees. And once the damage is done, it’s done.

I criticized and obliterated my existing positive qualities. As I was developing new ones, it didn’t occur to me that I’ll once again destroy them harshly because that habit is imbedded in me. I thought I was so hard on myself before because I believed what my parents told me. I thought once I believed in myself that my behavior would change, but unfortunately that isn’t so.

Fortunately, however, I’m aware. No matter what happens with him, he’s already proven himself as a friend for life. Even if I ruin my chances at a romantic endeavor, I’ll always have what matters most - our friendship. I see girls being brutal to my friends and eventually it wears on them and they go their separate ways. My friends look back at those toxic experiences kind-heartedly saying that she’s a good person, but she’s too insecure and it was too much for me. No matter how awful they were to them, my friends always saw the good in them. I’m not nearly as horrible as them (not that it matters because it isn’t a comparison or competition), but I hope no matter what I do, my goodness will always triumph.

This plea is more about self-empowerment than it is about rejection because this is bigger than some guy. This is about my self-esteem. I need to be more secure in myself and know that I’m worth it. I need to be liberated from my emotional imprisonments. Not just for any guy who’s involved with me but for myself.

Driven to the Edge of Desperation, Insanity, and Eventual Motivation, Day 246

After having a severe case of constipation, I found myself glued to the toilet as ants were lurking. All of a sudden I'm finding ants crawling around the toilet seat that I'm sitting on and climbing all over my legs. How bizarre and invasive is that? It's not like I had a jar of spilled sugar anywhere. So where did it come from and why was it even there?

The timing is mind blowing. The weather's been crazy hot lately and that's known to attract ants, but it's been feeling like Satan's breath for a while now. But of all the days for ants to be all over the toilet, it had to be that day! The one day when I was going to practically take residence there.....My friend who lives right next to me found the source where ants were entering - the garage!

I went to bed that night feeling sick. I found myself slapping my face paranoid that ants were crawling all over me but just around my face. I guess that should've been a sign that it was more than just paranoid and actuality. I just brushed it off as a negative reaction to the bathroom experience. I wake up the next morning to find that the perimeter of my bed was surrounded with a swirl of ants like a freaking marching band! Why would they be all over the place and selectively around the perimeter of my bed??? What, did I smear honey all over my fingers and rub the corners of my bed thoroughly? It makes no sense!

It led me to chuck everything! I gave my bed to a friend who loves the generic tempur pedic mattress my ex gifted me after we had broken up. Two years after we broke up and practically playing Cupid for me and the next guy who also had a bromance with my ex, he bought me a mattress because he had a bad feeling that I would hurt myself on my breaking air mattress. It was such a sweet and generous gesture. It's like the ex gave it to me to encourage fucking the next guy. It didn't work out with him and then there was another guy. So this mattress has a lot of odd associations and unique history of my past.

I wasn't repulsed by it. But at that point, it made me realize how used up it's been and I was gravitating towards change, birth, reinvention, starting over, freshness. My mattress didn't represent any of that. It's a story of my past and it carries memories between the pores of the mattress. And now it was laced with filthy ants.

My bed platform is also a unique story and representation of my past, my friends, my persistence, the support my friends provide me with and the effort they put in for me, their dedication, their selflessness, their contribution, an undying strength, an accumulation of experiences that can be referenced. It's symbolic of so much. It's a crappy, aging IKEA piece. Some of the parts have fallen off, broken apart, and it's been replaced and repaired with real wooden pieces and even handmade metal parts substituted in place of wood. One corner piece I snatched from a UCLA dorm when a guy was chucking his bed which was the same model as mine.

I held onto it for so long for so many reasons. I'm cheap. I became attached to it. It was more convenient to keep it than replace it. My friends put so much effort in supporting my irrational decision. They put time and blood into it that they didn't have to for me.

But at that moment everything changed. All of these sentiments and attachments existed, but I was no longer clinging to them. I was ready to let go of the the material possessions that represent my past so that I can move forward. I tore apart my bed and attacked it as a coping mechanism to my roommate returning after an unforgivable and defining betrayal which was also an attack against my past.

I didn't know it at the time I was removing a pivotal furniture piece from a miscellaneous living room area that I carved into a comfortable spot that it would aid in my transition towards a new change, a new path, the direction I need to pursue for a better future. By seeing the vacancy in my space giving a sparse, uncomfortable, less homey look, it gave this non-permanent feeling like I'm between spaces and I have to fulfill the void and complete the unfinished task of going forward in my life. All of this happened by getting rid of my comfortable, affordable bed.

I had to be driven to the edge of desperation and insanity to reach the motivation I need to not be stagnant.

The Significance of An Experience is Defined by the Value We Give It,

The significance of an experience is defined by the value we give it. Something happened to me, and I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around it. How do I put into words what happened? Where do I begin? How do I do this?

I've always been a spiritual person, but I've only recently started to really explore it when that side of me surfaced in an undeniable sort of way. Not everyone has the beliefs I have and I respect that, but I believe what I know. My experiences define reality for me, as it does yours. I get premonitions.

Since then I've attracted a lot of spiritually-connected people, and I'm grateful to have met them. But it's inevitable to meet someone dark lurking in the shadows waiting to exploit others for whatever reason. And I was victim to one of them. God, I hate admitting that because I feel like I'm trying to absolve responsibility and I'm not. But no matter how much something irritates me to admit, it doesn't take away from reality.

That's why I decided to blog about this. It's such a personal, private, invasive, disgusting experience, and part of me wants to just forget about it. I'm so skilled at pushing thoughts, feelings, and experiences in the back of my mind. But it stays with me and builds on me. I created this blog to learn to be more open. I worry that if I ignore this and the next time something like this happens in a completely different setting that I'd snap and I don't want that. If I've learned anything in the past couple of years, it's that you can't ignore your feelings. No matter how much you hate the experience, what happened, what you did and didn't do, what happened happened.

I went to the beach with a friend and her friend wanted to come along. The first time I've ever heard her talk about him, I got a weird feeling. But I brushed it off since I didn't sense any danger and it was totally judgmental of me. When he wanted to join us, I had a WTF sort of feeling. But I ignored it that, too.

My friend and I began talking about the emotional and spiritual impact that the beach has on a person's soul and how different places possess different spiritual properties that restores, rejuvenates, and invigorates us in a way as uniquely as the elements that represent them. When my friend's friend, the dark "spiritualist" returned (because he went back to his apartment twice - first to get us a blanket and second time to park my friend's car in a different spot), he joined the existing conversation. It felt natural to talk about meditation, spiritual powers, premonitions, the energies that exist in all of us, etc. He asked if he could read my energy by taking my hand.

I let him. His hands sandwiched mine. I tried to be as open as possible, but I warned him that I've become detached lately. Within seconds, I felt a transference of energy leave me. It was slight, mild, brief, but I imagined seeing it. It felt more pulled away from me than I released it, but I also know that I gave it to him. Shortly after he said that my powers come from my past, and he offered to open up my chakra and explore the energies within me.

I've always been fairly open to that stuff, but I did question his level of power at one point because he wanted my friend's participation. He asked her to close her eyes, put her hand on my head, and think of the most highest power and direct it towards me. It seemed fine at the time. I was cold, so I covered myself in the blanket. I also put on my sunglasses to protect my eyes from the sand. He began to place his hands over my body. It began with his hand around my belly button area and he started pressing around it, which reminded me of a pap smear.

I thought it was odd but I'm new to this. Now I feel incredibly stupid because this creeper probably exploits the unawareness of girls to further his agenda. And I fell for it! I never thought I'd become one of those girls who just takes it out of uncertainty. I always thought to myelf, "How do you not know?" I guess ignorance is an easier practice than awareness.

He continued to do this under my clothing. I had a top on and a bathing suit underneath. I distinctly remember him traveling his hand to my left boob through the inner top of my bikini instead of from slipping his hand from the bottom of the bikini. I opened my eyes for a second because I questioned that action only to see his eyes open and focused, rather than sexually pleased. His hands were cupping my boob so closely that I felt his hand resting on my nipple. There was no fonding, no squeezing, just physical contact. When I asked myself if this is okay, a spiritualist I met at a crystal house responded, "No, it's not."

Out of everyone there, I could sense and feel her powers. I was drawn to her. It was concentrated. When she sits there and observes, it's just such an infusion of controlled strength. When she talks to people, the energy subdues. It isn't this captivating sense but turns into this open and receptive energy surrounded by a sense of tangibility like you can reach her or at least see her. She isn't a million miles away like she seems when she's sitting there silently or at least that's the way it was for me.

So it was incredible that I could feel her presence there with me when she wasn't but she was. Before I could make sense of any of it, the dark spiritualist had already slipped his hand to my other boob. It all happened so quickly that I'm not even sure what part of my bikini area he slipped his hand through. It's like when I returned, his hand was already placed there.

I'm beginning to realize both the burden and dangers of over-thinking because I'm not focused, not focused on how I feel. My head's too busy spinning. My first thought was, "What the fuck?" That should've been enough to make him stop, but I proceeded into my analytical nature by asking is this okay, how do you know if it is, remembering that I've never had this done before, so I'm not aware of the etiquettes, etc. All these questions overwhelmed me and distracted me from what should've been done. My mind may have been confused but my spirit wasn't because I kept telling myself to not freak out. I still don't know how to control my power, so keep myself in check. You don't want to release something you can't control; you don't want to release something you can't control. Then it ended there.

He seemed collected enough but also disturbed by what he "saw." I question his honesty and integrity, but intuitively I believe that he was genuinely freaked out. As well he should! Was it something he could've faked? Absolutely. It's a perfect profile move to make and I don't doubt that a person like that would do such a thing, but I truly believe that he was frightened spiritually.

It was damp on the bridge of his nose on the right side. Where did that miscellaneous liquid come from? He was characteristically disturbed and said that I was murdered in my past life. I had no reaction. No fear, no intrigue, no shock, no curiosity, an absence of anything. How unlike me and this wasn't because I was still shocked. That was my reaction to his claim.

He began elaborating that I was a man in my past life, that I was interested in Buddhism, I wasn't a practicing monk but many of my friends were and that I was drawn to it, the source of my dark powers come from others, that the dark karma in me isn't my own but was put there, I resisted for a long time but eventually it became a part of me, and I was spiritually murdered by those who were jealous of my powers. He said that I was a good person in my past life.

There may be elements of truths to that because con artists twist the truth. They manipulate it to their advantage. They turn truths into their allies. I do believe that I have some dark karma carried over from my past life because unbelievable things keep happening to me in unimaginable ways. I believe I have a strong source of power, and I fear that it comes from a dark place. Others have sensed this from me, as well. But I'm skeptical about what he told me in particular. For one thing, I wasn't very open.

He was shivering and shaking from that experience. He claimed it's because he's really cold, but he broke through something and that we can continue it at his apartment. Now, I'm a lot more level-headed. My friend has intuitive powers, too, whether she's aware of it or not. Or maybe she was channeling me. I don't know, but it was her that was advocating on my behalf when I was still in a speechless state of shock.

What a bastard! First he says the ocean has good energy, which it does. He lives across the fucking street from the ocean and claims that he doesn't need a jacket. Then after exploring my chakras he's shaking because he's cold and suggests continuing in his apartment. Are you shitting me? Like you can't measure the temperature and plan accordingly, you jack ass! But I felt that it was more than the cold. He felt my power.

By then I knew I was more powerful than he is. He probably got terrified by it. And good! I'm glad he got freaked out. Karma, bitch! You do something bad. And you feel bad. He left to get his jacket, while my friend and I stayed behind. As he walked away, I came close to my friend and asked her if he ever did that to her. He kept looking back nervously. Now why would someone do such a thing? I wonder...

My friend agreed that it wasn't appropriate, that it's totally invasive and if he were going to do that that I should've been warned. I totally agree. I was demonstrating what he was doing to me by grabbing at her boobs. For a while we were having that conversation and she wasn't aware that he went under my clothing and bikini! She was shocked. She already knew it was unacceptable before I explained it clearly enough. And of course it fucking is! How could I have been so stupid????

What the Hell is honestly wrong with me? The fact that I kept telling myself to stay grounded, to not release the dark energy in me, that wasn't enough to tip me off? Really, really? When did I become so fucking special ed? When did I become a participating victim offering implied consent?

Don't get me wrong. This guy's a jerk. I'm by no means trying to transfer blame on myself to minimize his. But I do believe that we train how others treat us. They'll do whatever they want, but to deny that we don't have an influence is naive. I didn't say or do anything that expressed disapproval or address how completely unacceptable that is. He deserved to know, and I kept it from him.

It's crazy to think that, in reality, I was sexually harassed and it qualifies as being molested. But it wasn't an extreme form. I wasn't traumatized by it. I know it happened, though, because I was there. And yet I didn't react in a way I would've suspected someone to react, so I wouldn't blame someone for doubting me. Something fucked up happened to me and I end up feeling guilty because of my own actions or lack of. I'm left feeling inadequate more than invaded. This isn't something I should even be burdened to feel.

The old me would've ripped him to shreds. I'm small, but don't think for a second that I can't do any damage. I made a guy piss blood for a week after he crossed the line with me and I saw him telling a girl to sit on his lap right in front of me (boyfriend at the time). Oh and I dislocated his nose. And I've done way worse. If I let the old me out, this guy would've had a distinct deep scar on his cheek that people can't ignore left as a reminder of what he did to me. I would've easily injured him in the knees.

If a person has a scar on their face and walks awkwardly, people easily become suspicious. Now I keep thinking to myself, how many other girls will he continue to do this to because I haven't done my part to discourage him? I doubt this was his first time and considering how he got away with it, it won't be his last. But if I were to give him the benefit of the doubt and say this was his first time, what's to stop him from doing it again? He developed no social conditioning against it. If I had fucked him up, he'd think twice before doing it again. He'd wake up to that experience every morning when he looked at himself. That's what should've been done.

I don't have a problem with violence. I believe it serves a purpose in society. It's misused, abused, and resorted to too recklessly, but I'm not against the existence or selective practice of it. This would've been a good example of that.

You could judge me all you want and think until you turn blue that I was stupid for not reacting. I feel that I deserve that reaction. But it makes me so livid that people like him exist and puts people in those types of situations. The truth is that if he was going to do something like that, you should warn someone AND get permission. If you didn't ask permission because you felt uncomfortable, you shouldn't do it! He's a creep, but he's by no means stupid. He's socially aware that it's taboo.

I was invaded and question the seriousness and degree of that experience because my reaction wasn't the classic victimized one. I feel inadequate over my ability to process experiences. I felt guilty for indulging in who I am because it left me vulnerable. I feel like crap for being so ignorant and lacking in common sense. Then I feel bad because I've invested more energy in making myself feel worse, as if he hasn't already done that only to realize that I've neglected to channel hatred towards him. It's exhausting!

My friend believed me, but she was still shocked by what happened. She was both surprised and impressed that I intuitively disliked him from the beginning. She kept asking over and over and over why he would do something like that, while simultaneously mourning for the death of their friendship because she enjoys the spiritual conversations she had with me. And she wonders why he didn't do that to her because he had plenty of opportunities. Can you make it more about you? I don't want to be burdened with her excess thoughts, too, but it just came out of her like word vomit. The most intolerable thing for me was how she kept expressing guilt for introducing me to him because she felt like she shared the blame. That really aggravated me because I don't blame her for this, but the more she said it, the more hostility I felt toward her because by repeating it, it's like she's ignoring me. Doing that to someone can be a form of disrespect and I already experienced enough of that that day.

Don't get me wrong. I know she didn't mean to. But I was already feeling the pressure. That's how I felt and what was going through my mind. I'm not even sure how I was supposed to feel. How can I possibly give her some or any sense of closure? I don't have the resources, knowledge, or energy to. And at the time, I didn't have the desire to, either.

Since I can be a dark and perverse person, I can understand why someone would do something like that. There's thrill in getting away with something. And while it was happening, I realized the genius behind his plan. Yes, I honestly thought this and I still didn't do anything. I guess I thought if it wasn't sexual, then it's not invasive. But it's also unnecessary and a form of respect to not do stuff like that! How did that thought not click in my mind?

It makes perfect sense to do exactly that. Maybe a sexually stimulating opportunity like that hadn't presented itself around my friend. Maybe she's not his type. Who knows? Who cares? I didn't want to over analyze anymore because it was that that made me miss such an obvious truth, that what he did was unacceptable.

We parted ways and hung out with another friend. Him, I love and I was so happy to see him because it was his presence that made that day a good day. If it wasn't for him, the entire day would've been terrible. We were just at his place hanging out and having a good time.

It's kind of nuts how something like that can happen and then I can turn around and enjoy the rest of my day, as though nothing happened. There's danger in that. I have so many psychological pockets of escape where dark thoughts hide until it breeds and mutates into something else. By then, it's hard to tell where it came from, what it was born out of it, or that it's even there. But you know what? I realized instead of tripping about how I feel about something, how I don't feel about something, this is what came to me. This is my quote: "The significance of an experience is defined by the value we give it."

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AN EXPERIENCE IS DEFINED BY THE VALUE WE GIVE IT.

I'm glad and proud of myself for not allowing the earlier day's experience to tarnish the evening. I FINALLY have a phone! It was brought to my attention a while back that all of my ringtones are suggestive. Background story: This guy I was going out with made me come to this realization. At first, I was in denial and resisted it until I embraced it. We were lying in bed snuggling, talking, and maybe there was a kiss or two involved. It was definitely romantic and intimate, but it wasn't sexually heating up yet when all of a sudden I get a call with a ringtone "I'm a prisoner of love, prisoner of love!!!" I jumped out of bed with a sigh of "finally!" He asked me who the fuck is that? My other friend's ringtone is Savage Garden's Crash 'n Burn. He grins at me and says, "you know all of your ringtones are suggestive, right?" Well to this day, I carry that theme. Continuation and return to original point: I told my friends that I need suggestive ringtones.

One of them is a foreigner, so she didn't understand the connotation of "suggestive." We spent a better duration of the evening making suggestive jokes. It was pretty hilarious, but is it weird that I can be so lighthearted after such an experience? Am I in that much of a denial phase? Did I just suppress it? Am I that desensitized? Does it really bother me? If it does, then how come I was able to function as though nothing happened? Am I that broken? Did it not bother me because it meant nothing to me? That's just as twisted. I can go on forever about why I reacted the way I did, but it is what it is.

I talked to a friend about it, and he opened up to me about his own experiences, things I wouldn't dare elaborate on. But there's one thing he said that gave me comfort. He didn't know it was wrong. It didn't feel wrong to him. It felt weird but not wrong. Sometimes you just don't know. And there are people in this world who take advantage of that.

It's a tragic reality. They take something away from us when that happens. I left feeling confused, conflicted, inadequate, stupid, and I consciously carried it over with me. I told a co-worker about my experience at the beach, but I distorted the truth. What was I supposed to say to someone I've known for like a fucking week? That some jerk felt me up and I laid there like an idiot?

I don't want to title myself the moron, and it's not something he'd want to hear. But it bothers me that I felt the need to lie. I lied because I have a problem with the truth, with reality. And if that's the case, I shoud've said something. I should've done something. I can't control the actions others, but I could control my own. That's something I have to remember.

He's not the only person I lied to, either. I guess this blog is like my form of confession. I'm releasing it because I'm hoping it'll heal me. But in all honestly, it doesn't hurt knowing that one friend doesn't read my blog. He complains about how long it is. Yet he reads like 400-500 page novels! Maybe he does read my blog. It's a beautiful lie I sometimes like to indulge in.

I feel so stupid. A couple days before all of this happened, he was showing me some jiu jitsu moves. The truth is that I could've really damaged this guy, but I didn't let myself realize what was really happening or I'm just that dense. I'm still not really sure. I'm not ready to tell him the truth. Maybe I never will be, but I certainly feel bad about lying, not enough to confess directly, though. So this is all I have to offer. If by any chance you're reading this, thank you for providing me with the knowledge I could've used. It's crazy how I learned those moves at a point in my life before I could've used them. I do believe that everything happens for a reason, but I also believe that we don't always take advantage of it.

As for my co-worker, he doesn't even know about the existence of this blog unless he read my facebook profile and observed the link to this blog but few people do. It's interesting how many people are unaware of my blog. After mutual friends and acquaintances complimented me on my blog around a closer friend of mine, I realized how many people don't read it and how much I'd like them to. So I sent out what seems like an impersonal mass email, but it's 100% genuine. It shares some insights and depths into why I blog and why I chose a select group of people to share it with for reasons that aren't as tangible but an intuitive desire.

I appreciated the outcome of that decision, so I decided to every so often send that email out whenever I meet people I'd like to share my thoughts with. I met some amazing people at work that I plan to send that mass email out to. If you do take the time to read my blog, please know that I chose you because you have made a bigger impact in my life than you realize. Writing to me is an intimate practice, and it means the world to me.

2 4 6 8 Fuck my OCD 2 4 6 8 Fuck my OCD!!!! Day 152

I don't even know where to begin, how to start, or even exactly what to say. I'm recovering/experiencing an OCD neuroses bordering on a breakdown, and my first reaction was to share it with my cousin, the one person in my family who I can relate to and recognize myself in. But that's what I always do. It's in my instinct to express to others, look to others, involve others as a way to explore how I feel first. How come I can never do it on my own? And I'm supposed to be independent, but I'd like a guide and a flashlight before investigating my own thoughts. And I can't quite get rid of that scurrying away feeling that gnaws at me.

So I decided to blog about it first, but I find myself lost without a compass. If I were to express these concerns to my cousin, though, they'd come out naturally. Thoughts would just rush out of me like a waterfall so strong that it'll shake the ground. But right now I'm a dizzying array of excess and scattered thoughts, concepts I can't quite make out.

My title portrays exactly the state of mind I'm in. "2 4 6 8 Fuck my OCD 2 4 6 8 Fuck my OCD!!!" But that doesn't make much sense unless you're in my head, and even then it's a little hazy. I'm not sure if it was that single incident that triggered my OCD or if it's a series of recent events accumulating that made me intolerable.

Yesterday was an odd and rather unnatural experience. I hung out with a friend and things happened the way we planned it to, an unusual and rare experience, the one and only. I even went shopping at a department, tried on clothes of my own freewill without the annoying persistence of others, and bought two pairs of pants - one shorts and one I don't even know what they're called. They're tightly fitted jeans that come up to my knee and they're folded in place.

I really like the second pair of jeans, but they aren't folded evenly because there was a censor the store attached to the jeans. I really wanted them evened out, but my roommate said the slight unevenness wasn't much of a concern. She apologized to my OCD. Lately I've been testing the limits of my OCD and with success. I didn't realize how much of a breakdown this final straw could cause or that it even was a final straw.

It really wasn't that noticeable. I was wearing a really cute outfit and was in such a positive mood. When I walked out, I became increasingly and at an alarming rate highly uncomfortable. To the outside world, I was just another body moving in a single direction. But I could feel this uneasiness crawling into me, digging me out, and scratching away at me. It took everything I had to contain myself. It's frightening how convincing I can be as I struggle because it makes treatment an obscurity.

The sound of buzzing cars, swishing footsteps, whispering trees, the movement of air, the changing streetlights, the smell of the outside air, the world around me became this distant echo that I could hear but was somehow detached to as though I was no longer able to listen to it like I lost that ability and my attention and focus fell on me and my movement. Left, right, left right, my right foot landing harder than my left and being pinched from the sandal, the tightness that forged around my lower right back as I stiffened with every step my right foot took, the swaying that I felt practically lashing to the far left like a tic I couldn't control, getting louder and more exaggerated as I continued to move forward. The right side of my pants were folded lower, it felt looser, touched more skin surface than my left, unstructured, uneven, and dangerously uncomfortable.

The left side felt clean, even, secure, tight, flush, snug, orderly. Then my right side, the side I already dislike greatly is causing this huge unbearable strain on me with its sluggishness and even more troubling, its unevenness and inconsistency to the left side. This slight imbalance induced stress, a headache, paranoid, agitation, and I was desperate to be free from it. I started fantasizing about what a relief it would be to just strip myself of these jeans.

I didn't pass two blocks before I started imagining what a relief it would be. As I passed the school right across the street from where I live, an impressively sized institution but a walkable distance, my neuroses found itself competing for attention in my already overwhelmed mind. The guilt and inadequacy set in as I realized how incredibly ridiculous it is for me to want to take my pants off in public just because one side of my jeans is folded a little higher than the other. The two opposing forces just further burdened me and no amount of logic and rational thought eliminated or suspended my desire to just strip down over something ridiculously trivial.

In my mind, all of this is undeniably flawed, exposed, and humiliating. But in reality the outside world had no idea what my mind was plagued with. My movements weren't in reality exaggerated and awkward the way I perceived it to be. Even I knew that. But it burned into me no more real than typing these words out, even more real and frightening.

I thought I could convince myself, to trick myself into ease as I crossed the street only to find myself clenching my fists so tightly that I practically cut off my circulation. I realized that it's too great of a risk, too dangerous to continue on with my errands if I've managed to border such a breakdown in a brief amount of time. The scary part is that I can't say in full confidence that I wouldn't have taken my pants off. I doubt I would've, but I most definitely would've found myself hunched in a corner crying out of despair and humiliation for my thoughts.

And what if it gets worse? What if it progresses to a panic attack? What do I do then? It sounds unbelievable for something so small to be so consuming, but you have no idea how overwhelming OCD can be. People glorify it like the modern disorder to have, but no one really understands its burdens and how debilitating it can be. It comes out of nowhere and lingers indefinitely.

That experience has damaged me so much that if I threw those pants away, I wouldn't live to regret it. They're figure flattering, perfect fitting, stylish, and an excellent addition to my wardrobe. But it made embarrassing myself and doing something illegal and dangerous into an inviting alternative that I began to see as my only escape. It made me feel helpless and weak.

Do you have any idea how awful it is for a material object to take you over like this? And it interrupted my plans for the day. Now I have to make re-arrangements in my schedule tomorrow to accommodate the errands I've neglected today. I had to make a decision. The safest one was for me to allow this bullshit to beat me and return home. I'm that weak. I'm that stupid. I'm not easily influenced and fluctuating in my insanity. My state of mind was in total jeopardy.

I had to exploit my other unhealthy tendency, a drug addict mentality, to keep me stabilized and distracted until I got home. My attention had to be focused elsewhere before the temptation became too unbearable to resist. So it became a chant in my head, "2 4 6 8 fuck my OCD 2 4 6 8 fuck my OCD!!!" My right foot landing harder than my left made my strides uneven, but I rationalized it because I was walking on the right side of the street. I promised myself that I'd walk heavier on my left foot when I walk on the left side of the street.

When I get uncomfortable like this, my mind rushes back to moments when I felt just as helpless, exposed, vulnerable, weak, inadequate, and overwhelmed. It's this uncontrollable reflex. Why did my mind have to return to that, to him? I was crying and upset because I was emotionally scattered. I was a hostage to a force greater than myself, powerful and unmanageable.

I'm walking home and crying. But my eyes are covered by my sunglasses. The water swelling up my eyes is a secret hidden from everyone inches beside me. As the clear liquid trickles down my face, warm and wet, it makes everything more real. The pain makes it more tangible. But to everyone else I'm just a body moving in a single direction...