User blog:Patchworks Inc/where i've been

some may have noticed i haven't been hugely active recently, neither on the wiki or the discord. i suppose i'd just like to explain what's been going on. if i have talked to u recently and i seemed upset i want you to know that no one on this wiki is in no way responsible for the way ive been feeling and none of you have done anything to make it worse. i love u all and coming on the discord this morning to open arms full of people who missed made me especially happy.

CONTENT WARNING: suicidal thoughts and ideation

to make a long story short, my family isn't the most stable. I've experienced parental separation numerous times and was in foster care for a good amount of time when i was younger. some of you i remember telling you in excitement that about 2 years ago i was going to start seeing my mother again and my parents were going to now have split custody of me and my siblings. i was so desperate to get away from the stress of my dad, my stepmom, and my "stepdad" that i thought my mom was the parent who was going to make it all better. i brushed away all the things she did in the past bc i wanted a healthy parental figure so badly, but i suppose that's also how i've coped my whole life.

i have had a tendency to look at the things happening in my household and pretend they weren't happening. i make up any explanation to wipe away the things i didn't wanna see and a lot of the time i didn't even realize i was doing it. it's not rlly an issue of mine anymore but that also means i've gotten to the point of actually dealing with the issues in my family that have traumatized me. i don't say this to shame my younger self for not being frank about the problems happening around me. i was just a child and i still am. i would never expect any child to know how to deal with the things i've been thru. my parents did a lot of things and still do a lot of things that have traumatized me and its where a lot of my issues stem from but we're not going to delve into that in this blog post.

that being said, my mom wasn't the savior i wanted, and from that point about 2 years ago when i started seeing my mom again, my mental state has steadily been getting worse. i tried to balance making all of my parental figures happy with me as well as trying to excel in my already above-level classes. i don't say that in a way to brag but to explain that i had my work cut out for me academically and now had to work that into my week-on-week-off schedule with my mom and dad.

i have had an unhealthy relationship w my grades all my life. school was very easy for me in my first couple of years, but in about 5th and 6th grade school certain subjects started to challenge me. in 6th grade i started having breakdowns in my math class constantly because every time i thought i might not be understanding what the teacher was teaching bc i genuinely feared what my parents would think if they thought i wasn't smart or couldn't handle math. i couldn't listen to my stepmom ridicule me again about all the things i do wrong and i couldn't stand the thought of my dad’s disappointment. i vividly remember sobbing to my teacher during recess about how my parents couldn't know that i was crying in math. i've always latched onto my grades unhealthily and anything less than perfect would make me panic. i would dwell over every red mark on my papers and never showed my parents my work unless it was perfect. the only assignments of mine they ever got to see were the ones with grades of 100% and nothing else. once i started living w my mom she let me stay up later but given that freedom i used it to stay up all night working on assignments until a night without sleep deprivation made me feel like i wasn't doing enough work. i've learned to be more lenient w my grades but i cant say i don't still have extreme anxiety about the work i do.

point is, w the way i viewed my grades and work mixed with 4 parental figures and my terrible fear of making my parents unhappy in any way made my previous year of high school extremely hard, especially considering i had moved to a new school that year and felt extremely lonely in the state i was in. it reached a boiling point in the second semester when my new english teacher started teaching. some of u might recall me ranting about this in the academia channel on discord at about this time last year. i explained how my teacher had openly humiliated me in front of my entire class by reading my work to the class and subsequentially telling everyone i was the worst writer in the class. ive always felt like i wasn't good enough or that nothing i did was of quality or worth but having someone telling me and my entire english class all those things made my mental state go for a deep dive. i had already felt useless, worthless and unwanted my whole life but hearing this eliminated any doubts in my mind that my existence was without value.

it is untrue that my life is without value, and i am not worthless. i still feel this way consistently, but it doesn't make it true. no one’s worth is defined by their grades nor the opinions of others, and especially not the opinions of their parents.

i had already had thoughts of ending my life in the past, but this made the feeling unimaginably intense. every night i went to bed wanting so badly to not wake up in the morning. it was so hard to get up in the morning bc waking up meant realizing i was still alive and that was too much to deal with. i started getting to school later and later and increasingly missed my classes bc getting out of bed to do anything was so difficult. i had a plan, multiple even, and, as hard as this is to hear, i still do. ive been dealing with extreme suicidal thoughts and feelings for about a year now, but at my new school, i have a few close friends who know i am suicidal and i could not thank them more for their help. they are the reason i finally found professional help.

i visited a doctor about 2 weeks ago and had my first counseling appointment 2 weeks ago and my second one this week, and will continue seeing my counselor. i cant say ive been especially busy lately although it seems like thats what ive been telling ppl when i explain why i haven't been active or where ive been. sorry for the misinformation, but i'm sure u can understand why i did it having read this post. my mental state just hasn't been in the place to edit or talk or brainstorm and i'm in no way “cured.” my hardships with suicidal thoughts arent going to go away overnight but i am getting better, even if slowly.

i love you all deeply and my inactivity is in no way anything personal towards any of you. if i didnt respond to u, its not bc i dislike u or anything else to do with u or this community. it is genuinely my mental state and the horrible conditions of my upbringing. i value and care for all of u and this community deeply, and i dont want a single one of u to internalize any of this in any way.

this being said, i dont exactly want to work on my ocs at the moment, but i miss seeing all of you guys’ content so im going to take to day to read pages and maybe even comment. i hope to be more active on discord bc i genuinely miss talking to you all.

i hope all of you are doing well, and if you arent then u will get through this. things get better. if you ever wanna talk i am here for you. i love and value all of u.