starting downstairs means you can only go up

a look at a difficult week (tw self harm)

today i learned i am disliked at my job.

it all started last week, when i had a terrible, terrible, terrible time. i can’t explain through words how bad i felt. i haven’t felt this way since my twenty first birthday, when i last cut myself. it was a combination: not talking to my family enough, end my college semester and SENAI, money problems, not being able to feed myself properly, no communication in my relationship, no enjoyable things at all. all work and no play makes jack a dull boy.

so i snapped one afternoon after work. i had been sick since the weekend and my boss had shot at me a couple hundred data lines i had to input into the system in three days - with a bonus of 4 more days of data being shot at me merely THREE HOURS before my shift ended (and thus my deadline). i had an incessant headache, my voice had given out and now you could only hear me form a couple of sentences before another fit of coughing came up. i also had barely eaten, mostly because i kept getting sick and having stomach aches every time i had lunch, but also because we didn’t have food at home and no money to buy more. i had fucked it all up, my schedule, my finances, my own body was lashing out at me with sickness - nausea and headaches and even dizzyness. i couldn’t take it.

it started with texting my mom and bee, frantically typing out rude words and accusations. it ended with blood running down my thighs in the bathroom. bee arrived home and saw me. she saw the blood and asked if it was what she thought it was. i asked her, plainly “what do you think?”

truth is, i can be mean. i can be mean and vengeful and spiteful and i can forget anyone ever loved me if i feel sad enough, if i feel forgotten enough. and that’s how i felt, drowned in responsabilities i could never seem to get the hang of. everyone around me has a grasp of how to spend their money, or how to buy groceries, how to talk to their parents, don’t they? why do i struggle so much with this? why can’t i just control myself? this is so embarassing, i can never tell anyone about this. suddenly i understood all those businessmen who jumped off their office windows when they saw their company sinking under. it feels almost childish to admit you don’t have money to eat, not because you don’t get enough or any other reasonable explanation, but because you spent it all giving yourself the serotonin you don’t have. that’s it. that’s why i have such a big credit card bill. because eating takeout and buying silly little things is all i enjoy doing. i can’t deny myself those pleasures when i’m only still going because i feel i have to.

so i was mean, to me, to others, to my loved ones. i told them they didn’t care, i told them i would kill myself. i felt like punishing myself physically was the only way i could truly show them what i feel like being inside my head. because everyday is a battle i almost always loose or give up on. my head is filled with this booming voice that speaks frantically all hours of the day, and she hates me. i am constantly overthinking and overanalyzing every single interaction, every inch of my body, my personality, what i’m eating, how i look to other people, if my interests are boring, how different and alien i feel from most other people i meet. it’s hell, mostly.

so yeah, maybe i walk in looking a bit unwell everyday at work. maybe i take too long to take my earphones out because i enjoy the feeling music gives me of being transported somewhere else. maybe i got used to minding my own damn business because i’ve been the one forced to the sidelines for too long.

this made me realize i built myself a little nest over the years. being a young girl with undiagnosed bpd and a rampant sex drive lead me to have more than questionable boyfriends. my first one hated every single one of my friends because he was jealous of how much i connected with them, how tied to my own self descovery journey they all were and how much i said i loved them all the time - that ended with me being away from them for years and missing out on a lot. i missed out on growing up together, i wasn’t there for deciding what we were doing for college, i wasn’t there to support them, i wasn’t there when my best friend went to the hospital witha burst appendix and rushed into emergency surgery. i left and i never apologized. years later i realized i should put my head down and, like a stray dog, at least lick at their ankles asking for the forgiveness i never deserved in the first place, asking for understanding of my poor judgement, for defending a man for years while he abused me.

the horrible relationships to men didn’t end there but at least this time i wasn’t going to give them up. no, i made them even more essential to me. i couldn’t exist without them anymore. i went to college and i realized i was a lesbian and i kept them close all the way. i learned how to speak out my feelings, i talked about them in therapy and declared my love as something more than this commonly narrow connection friendship is described by. we weren’t just platonic. they were all my soulmates, my other halves. we were so deeply one another’s i couldn’t imagine being myself to anybody else. i wasn’t scared anymore. i didn’t have to explain myself to them, they understood, they loved me.

that’s when i finally understood what chosen family meant. i remember talking about this with jupiter at her university on a cold night. she and i agreed our parents would never understand the way we would take our friendship into adulthood, it was deeply sincere and important that we cultivated this relationship because it was the only one we had. we didn’t have sibilings, weren’t close to any cousins, didn’t really plan on having kids. i wasn’t going to get married and suddenly close off every other relationship that wasn’t romantic. that’s the thing about being queer, you create space and community and value those things in a way heteronormative spaces generally don’t even comprehend.

so i created my community. i accepted being unnacepted, different, not like other girls (not a girl tbh). i carved out with my own fucking bloody fingernails a space where i felt accepted, where i didn’t need to compare, where i would never be the “ugly friend” because we didn’t need to compete to know who adheres to the beauty standard the most. i fought my family, forced them to accept and respect my friends as they were, to always use their chosen names and pronouns, to not question their non monogamous relationships, to not be homophobic and rude. and little by little i took steps out of the closet, showed my family other amazing queer people, showed my mother i could be beautiful even though i dressed a little different, cut my hair a little different. moved in with my girlfriend. told my mother i was a lesbian on pride weekend. everyone who mattered knew my most authentic self.

so that’s when i think, okay, i can be quietly me now. i don’t owe anyone anything anymore. oof. HAHA NOT.

mental health is a funny thing. especially when you (probably) have a disorder that makes emotions a constant rollercoaster track. i don’t really realize i’m being so emotionally disruptive to other because, fun fact, i am actually stuck inside my head listening to my own haunting thoughts most of the time. i did say hi to these people in the beginning, but a lot of them (mostly the women) stopped answering at some point. now that i’ve had time to process i can see many reasons for that: the fact i have my own desk, my own computer (both literally essential for my job, i would do absolutely nothing all day if i didn’t have them), my “out there” style (even though i follow all the dress code rules for a factory), my hair, my makeup, my personality, my (even though they probably don’t really realize it) queerness.

the fact they don’t like me because i not only stand out but also make sure to keep to myself (and others who make me comfortable) and made it a point to tell the entire fucking factory made me actually almost throw myself into a warp roller. people will always dislike other people, that’s fine, BUT WHY WAS I BEING PUT SO DAMN FRONT AND CENTER? i did not ask for this.

why did these people, who were just like the ones that singled me out my entire life, suddenly get offended that i didn’t want to be around them as well? were they that entitled? why would i want to have lunch with people that talk about things that make me anxious? or point out what i eat? people who dislike what i like? who make mysoginistic comments? i’m not stupid.as i said all this to my friend in the train back from work after my boss told me in conversation about the comments he had heard, she only sighed and said “yes mars, but remember you are still the minority”. that hit me like a pan to the face. i had no say in wether or not i wanted to conform. i had to. this was their land, not mine.

on monday i dressed especially “different”. did bright green makeup, wore dark lipstick and had freshly dyed dark red hair. they would take me as i was, or not at all. i said hi and shook hands with every last one of them. of course the same ones didn’t say hi back. i’m not crazy, i know when people refuse to look me in the eye.

this is, even though i hate to admit it, the tip of the iceberg. today i realized that if i want to keep going, to be a boss one day, i’m gonna have to either tone myself down or listen to them talking. and holy fuck do they talk. i got confirmation from at least two other people that my clothes are talked about all over the factory (one of them even described it as “they talked about you A LOT) and not always in the best way. i can be competent, smart and a goddamned hard worker but i will never be looked at the same as someone who dresses “normal”. people grow up and still act like fucking high schoolers.

my boss always talks about how hard it was when he became a boss at a very young age, but he wasn’t a woman. it will be hell.

i know i’m determined. i want to achieve. but i also want to stay in my safe space and not deal with anyone. i want to be allowed to stay quiet when i’m anxious, to be understood when my head becomes too loud and not questioned when i can’t eat. i want to explain to people that i’m sick and they have to respect me, to shut the fuck up about my weirdness because i have a reason. would they question an autistic boy? would they question any boy the same way they do me? do i have to tell everyone, to expose myself in order to get any relief.

will they understand when i wear noise cancelling headphones, or play with my fidget toys in order to not hurt my face? or when i need to pause and breathe because my heart is racing too much? will it get any better, will i be able to laugh with them when they say gay people shouldn’t have rights when a gay man my age was just killed in a public park after scheduling a date online? or when they call someone a “tranny” and say they deserve to get hit when it could just as easily be one of my friends just trying to take the bus after work? is this what it takes? will i have to rip out my own heart and kneel, blood splattering on the ground while i promise to always be just invisible enough?