Hastings & Main
Well-known member
It's been two years, three?
Honestly, I don't have much recollection of being on this site, the first time. I do recall, while being here, noting some others declaring their freedom and quitting, and my envy of them - although with afterthoughts of, “Is it going to be a temporary thing? Will they come back to the site if they relapse?”.
I think I added some notes of positivity, hopefully helped someone else, at least, with a bit of advice or a supportive word back then. I came to recognize some of the regulars while here, I just wonder if any of them got better?
As for me, I left when I thought - when I was convinced - I was fixed.
I am a natural skeptic – a very wary person, a mindset brought on by having a childhood wrought with maybe not the best choices in friends – so I waited a few months through my new-found freedom of lack of anxieties, decided I was good, and headed out, with well-wishes from some here.
The reason for leaving was that I fell in love.
Falling in love can erase a lot of mental debt. Not for everyone, as I know a few people on this site have partners or are even married, but I'll tell you that it helps a percentage of sufferers.
It's the confidence-boost. Someone loved me. I was rewarded for being who I was. No judgment. In fact, it showed me that all the imaginary judgments that I was getting from ordinary people out in the streets or wherever were just that: completely imagined. Fake. Never existed. All of my faults were self-perpetuated, ghosts of things said to me as a very young child, ghosts which grew into invisible monsters over the years as I let them. They only disappear when someone flips the light on and points out the now-obvious: ghosts don't exist.
It was this outside confirmation, this external validation, that set my soul free. She loved me as I was, knew me, let me know it was okay to exist as my individual, one-in-seven-billion self, and it was beautiful and liberating. And I was finally given wings and said goodbye to this site.
Until I gradually and painfully realized that a miscommunication had happened between us. No bothersome details, as it's really mundane.
When you meet someone who makes you feel like all questions have been answered and there's no need for terror in your world ever again, you don't care anymore. What he thinks. What she thinks. What they think. All those people out there. All those previously-judging eyes are now just eyes, doing what yours are doing.
In fact, everyone thinks you're great; you've stepped up, become human, realized your own worth. Finally.
There's no doubt of love for you because you are now loved.
Until I slowly realized I'd mis-read an intention.
It happens. We see it on TV and in movies all the time, sometimes for laughs as part of the human comedy, sometimes serious for all of it's damage.
I thought it was something, and something it wasn't.
Happy, happy, happy, until reason or truth peeks around the corner and trips you up and you're grasping the weeds on the side of the slope.
Sliding down slowly, madly scrambling at the mud above trying to regain ground, and the more I made sense of the situation, the faster I slid.
And with that, comes back the anxiety.
Suddenly everyone else is an enemy again, all smiles have a sneer behind them, and I'm back outside the bubble of society, and, although with insights that make the battle a bit easier, still searching.
The ghost comes back very slowly, and a little apologetically. “Yeah, I know. Come on. Let's go.”.
And pats you on the shoulder as it turns you back around. It's a slow walk.
But it got me here.
Again.
Hello.
Honestly, I don't have much recollection of being on this site, the first time. I do recall, while being here, noting some others declaring their freedom and quitting, and my envy of them - although with afterthoughts of, “Is it going to be a temporary thing? Will they come back to the site if they relapse?”.
I think I added some notes of positivity, hopefully helped someone else, at least, with a bit of advice or a supportive word back then. I came to recognize some of the regulars while here, I just wonder if any of them got better?
As for me, I left when I thought - when I was convinced - I was fixed.
I am a natural skeptic – a very wary person, a mindset brought on by having a childhood wrought with maybe not the best choices in friends – so I waited a few months through my new-found freedom of lack of anxieties, decided I was good, and headed out, with well-wishes from some here.
The reason for leaving was that I fell in love.
Falling in love can erase a lot of mental debt. Not for everyone, as I know a few people on this site have partners or are even married, but I'll tell you that it helps a percentage of sufferers.
It's the confidence-boost. Someone loved me. I was rewarded for being who I was. No judgment. In fact, it showed me that all the imaginary judgments that I was getting from ordinary people out in the streets or wherever were just that: completely imagined. Fake. Never existed. All of my faults were self-perpetuated, ghosts of things said to me as a very young child, ghosts which grew into invisible monsters over the years as I let them. They only disappear when someone flips the light on and points out the now-obvious: ghosts don't exist.
It was this outside confirmation, this external validation, that set my soul free. She loved me as I was, knew me, let me know it was okay to exist as my individual, one-in-seven-billion self, and it was beautiful and liberating. And I was finally given wings and said goodbye to this site.
Until I gradually and painfully realized that a miscommunication had happened between us. No bothersome details, as it's really mundane.
When you meet someone who makes you feel like all questions have been answered and there's no need for terror in your world ever again, you don't care anymore. What he thinks. What she thinks. What they think. All those people out there. All those previously-judging eyes are now just eyes, doing what yours are doing.
In fact, everyone thinks you're great; you've stepped up, become human, realized your own worth. Finally.
There's no doubt of love for you because you are now loved.
Until I slowly realized I'd mis-read an intention.
It happens. We see it on TV and in movies all the time, sometimes for laughs as part of the human comedy, sometimes serious for all of it's damage.
I thought it was something, and something it wasn't.
Happy, happy, happy, until reason or truth peeks around the corner and trips you up and you're grasping the weeds on the side of the slope.
Sliding down slowly, madly scrambling at the mud above trying to regain ground, and the more I made sense of the situation, the faster I slid.
And with that, comes back the anxiety.
Suddenly everyone else is an enemy again, all smiles have a sneer behind them, and I'm back outside the bubble of society, and, although with insights that make the battle a bit easier, still searching.
The ghost comes back very slowly, and a little apologetically. “Yeah, I know. Come on. Let's go.”.
And pats you on the shoulder as it turns you back around. It's a slow walk.
But it got me here.
Again.
Hello.
