Hey, Miss J!

How many of us hide under a pretty shell?

I suffered from an existential crisis at one point. For some people, they might have a brief period of time not understanding themselves, right? Except my questions lingered for over a decade.

From Fifteen to Twenty-Five – I questioned myself. Why am I here? What am I doing?? I asked myself so much because I didn’t know. During that period of time, I was just on cruise control in my life. The cruising tapered off right as I ticked over to Thirty.

The remnants – the stains from my past continued to stick to me.

Even though I know the answers now, at times those old feelings bubble back up.

I go back to the little girl who only wanted her mother to be proud of her. I never got that wish as a child. Mom was proud, but only because she was praised for what I could do. No one outside of my home knew who was really there to help me practice for performances or my studies.

She wanted nothing to do with me outside that.

Then I go to the teenager who only wanted to be loved by someone –beyond my family. I wanted so badly to be in a relationship that I went with what never counted as it. The internet introduced me to so many terrible people…

As a young adult, I had a very toxic partner. I’m being polite by calling them a partner at all. A liar. A leech… Parasite. Those are all far too kind. That was my first and last ‘serious’ relationship.

I felt so burned by the time I violently cartwheeled into Twenty-Eight that the storm that always lingered in the back of my mind intensified – threatening to pull me under with it.

I was intensely mistrustful of most people. I didn’t want to be hugged or touched at all.

When you’re only touched because someone wants to satisfy some sick desire of their own… it makes anything feel disgusting.

There were only a few who I let near me. My first real friends… Nothing was expected of me – I had a choice as to how I dealt with them. Now they’re permanent parts of my life.

For so long, I’ve hidden under a mask – trying to pretend as if everything is fine, when everything is not.

Many days, nothing at all is fine.

The overwhelming need to protect myself at all times has come at a terrible cost. Daily, I deal with the consequences of things that were done to me in the past and even though I know that I’m continuing to deteriorate both physically and mentally, I want to be more than my mental illness.

I want to be so much more than just a sick, pitiful person.

I also want love. Whether or not that will happen in my lifetime, I’ve no idea.

However, I’m coming to a point where I’ve decided that fighting myself isn’t worth it.

I told a friend of mine that she’d have to learn that when people tell her they care – they mean it. The same goes for me. I’ll have to learn too. I guess we’ll have to learn together.

I’m still trying to understand when people say I’m attractive. I don’t see it.

Maybe one day I can accept the face and body I have – unite it with who I am inside.

The unwanted child who grew into a bitterly angry woman is slowly coming to terms with who and what I am. I am a person who is changing.

Half the time, I actually like what I’m becoming, but as true with all things – I’m a work in progress.

Good thing I have my entire life to work on it, amiright?

~J. Lyst

Oh and PS, no weird dreams last night. Yes!