TL;DR at the bottom 😔 apologies for the long rant

I’ve gotten used to white-knuckling my way through everything, but for the past year, I’ve been really reflecting and trying to work to the root of my struggles. And after this year of reflection, research and theorizing, I’ve been able to deduce a lot about myself. From my problems, what triggers me, my coping mechanisms, even touching on the possible roots of some issues. I know that I struggle with symptoms (I use the term because I’m undiagnosed as of now) of depression, anxiety, anhedonia. That I struggle with self-loathing and perfectionism. And yet I can’t, for the life of me, get past the feeling that I’m missing something.

Such as why I can’t talk when I’m trying to work on recovering. I was originally going to post on the Next Steps community, but I lost the words when I got there. I don’t know if I could even find the words for this post.

Or why I have such debilitating perfectionism. I love to write, but despite my efforts, I can’t get a single word on the page. People talk like they understand and yet this feels so much more extreme than the normal fear of the blank page. I scrutinize every. Little. Detail. Honestly, I sometimes think of just scrapping everything because…well, I suck? In spite of this, writing remains my only hobby and consistent source of enjoyment, even if it’s rare that I ever actually get anything on the doc.

I grew up with religious abuse, but I’m glad to say my relationship with Allah is so much better now and I’ve even started to turn to Allah for comfort in my hard times :) A few months back, I was blessed with a few online friends. But I keep wondering why they’re even friends with me? To be honest, I hesitated to officially mentally label us “friends” until they named us such. They say sweet things to me; that I’m a good writer, or warmhearted, or well-spoken, or inspirational. Craziest part is that I never vent, so these are completely unprompted, genuine in nature. In the moment, these compliments are the best freaking thing in the world (they usually happen randomly in the server when I’m offline) and I find myself smiling and looking back at them for days. I know they have to be true if only because the alternative is insulting their truthfulness or their intelligence. But they never sit with me; they roll off like water on a leaf

When I interact with my friends, it seems like I’m always behind a mask, though I feel like it’s not quite that, but a more extreme version? I’m like the Pierrot, in a state of perpetual performance. All I want to do is make people smile, so I guess I try my best to make the greatest responses I can. Which in turn makes it take longer to respond. Texts move fast and are unpredictable; there’s no way to prepare for what someone will say and just “know” how to reply to it, so I normally end up avoiding conversations in general. It feels awful, especially because this tendency means I’m likely to suddenly go dark on people mid-conversation, or take days, even weeks to reply to DMs. Sometimes, it feels like I’m almost doing this to “save” the aforementioned standing I attained to not risk jeopardizing the image. But I can’t stop the play, and I can’t for the life of me understand how to get off this stage.

There’s even a part of me saying it’s all pointless. That trying to take steps in my recovery (like asking these questions on Reddit…) is pointless until I find that golden thread that I’m certain will work. That writing is pointless, gaming is pointless, anything that doesn’t just work out immediately and generate tangible results is pointless in nature. Though I wonder if this is a defense mechanism; you can’t ever be upset about something if you remove any value from it and never try.

TL;DR: I feel trapped in a constant performance. I’m unable to write, speak honestly, or accept compliments without scrutinizing myself.

And I know where this has to come from; my trauma, my abusive upbringing, and the aforementioned perfectionism. But when I try to get to the source, I draw a blank. It’s as if I’m being stopped by some invisible force. The best I’ve been able to describe it is that the problem is a scent, and I’ve been tracing it, feeling it get stronger the closer I get to the source, until it’s so putrid and volatile that I want to vomit. I turned the corner, finding my way to a room. Except the door has been sealed shut, and it won’t budge no matter how hard I kick or push it.

So I stare in disbelief and shock. The things I’ve been searching for, the apparent source of my troubles and the next step to solving this unending chase, is right in front of me. Yet, it’s just out of my reach, always just behind that locked door.

I thought of journaling, hoping it would help me learn more about myself and “gear up” so that I can finally get the boss key to unlock the door. But I wrote two paragraphs before realizing how messy and incongruent it’s gonna become, and I’m too nervous it won’t be as helpful as I’m hoping, just end up a ramble rather than a careful, methodical process to understand my psychological framework better. And I couldn’t use headers and topics because I’m worried it’ll overlap too much and we’ll be back to the previous point. Essentially, my perfection won over me again.

Does anyone else feel like this? How do you get past it?

Not sure if this is personal trauma talking or not, but I’m kind of in love with and completely captivated by the concept. The concept of a popular/powerful/morally driven, saving and protecting a hurt, vulnerable, or younger character.
Doesn’t have to be romantic, either. My current fic stars a 25yo child worker, famously a symbol for his talent for seemingly pulling off tasks that would stress a task force all by himself. Some even go as far as to use the supernatural to understand how he does it. Ironically, he does actually have superpowers. He investigates his own suspicions of abuse against two groups (4 members in each) of 17-18 year old idols. But the focus of the story is after he rescues them, when they can’t really return to their homes due to safety concerns (plus some are also attached to him). So, they live with him and his peers for the time being, relearning safety and recovering in a “120% safe” (his words not mine) environment. He’s sort of like a warm big bro to them.

I just really enjoy the contrast between a traumatic past vs a kind caregiver figure. Expecting insults but receiving a kiss to the crown instead. Touch that doesn’t hurt, that gives instead of takes. What do you guys think?

ETA: Well I guess this isn’t technically a Mary Sue but I hope you guys still understand what I mean! ^^

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