\^ Some juicy strawberries 🍓

For context: When I was in second grade, one of my only friends suddenly moved away, and the other started to whisper that I was mean and ugly to all the kids in our class in front of my face. I only found out that she was saying through another kid, who turned to me and said, “I don’t think you’re mean.” Thanks girl, but the damage had already started - soon enough, none of the girls wanted to play with me anymore, and I spent countless hours on the elementary school playground listening to kids laughing as they chased each other around, and the sound of my lonely footsteps on the concrete loop around the playground echoing. Things did’t get better socially in middle school. Or high school. Again and again, people would suddenly shift from being my fried to being my bully or flat out ignoring me.

In middle school, the anxiety started. I could be completely fine, and then suddenly my head was filled with fear. Did the email I just send sound like I didn’t care about that person? Is my teacher looking at me with contempt? If I don’t get good grades, why would anyone want to love me? It felt consuming, so I started to a therapist. And one therapist turned into multiple when I couldn’t tell if they cared about me or was inconvenienced by the way I could never stop asking questions about whether their suggestions would work or how they worked. I would start with one, full of hope, and end several months later questioning why they got on my nerves so much and why I couldn’t use their advice to sit down and trust the process.

I avoid people at all costs, I never know when I‘ll suddenly switch from adoring someone to hating their guts, so I try to stay as far away as possible.

But if I don’t establish a safe bond with someone at some point in my life, I’m scared that I’ll never heal. I hate the idea of hurting things. I can’t kill the insects in my apartment, and although I’m not a vegetarian, the idea of the pain animals go through just to be eaten is like a punch to the gut, and I choose impossible food over regular as much as possible. So why can’t I stop looking in the mirror and questioning if I really am a villain?

No matter how much I try to sleep and balance nutrition and get the appropriate amount of exercise and drag myself to therapy, I can’t seem to get over the exhaustion of constantly being on edge and the fragile shift of my moods. One minute everything is fine, and the next everything feels like it’s imploding as I’m a bad friend and everyone hates me. I‘m lonely, but I’m terrified of meeting new people, and I don’t know what to do.

Feeling swung by mood swings