Whistlepig Studios

Hello all! I’m back again with another mental health related topic: COMMUNICATION!! I know that we’ve all been told that “The key to a successful relationship is communication”. Maybe that’s why all my relationships seem to be falling apart. Let’s dig in!
(PS this is probably not going to be as cleanly written as my usual; writing through tears makes it hard to see and hard to think concisely. Sorry.)

So, I mentioned that all my relationships seem to be falling apart. No, that wasn’t clickbait. I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately with communication. For example: my dad. Papa bear.
I tend to be very easily upset by the people I care about. It’s not their fault, I’m just wayyyyyy over-sensitive. I’ve always struggled to believe that people care about me, so my brain is quick to see opportunities to sabotage my good mood. If papa says something like, “stop crying,” he usually means no harm and is just trying to comfort me. But for some reason, my brain reads this as “you should feel bad for being weak”. I know this is not what he is saying or what he means. But my brain flips it around until I don’t know what was him and what was me tormenting myself. It is ruining our relationship. He now feels like he is walking on eggshells around me. I don’t know how to make my brain stop twisting his words, and he doesn’t know that it’s happening. He seems to think that everything he says either upsets me or makes things worse. But it’s not him. It’s me. I don’t know how to turn my brain off in these situations. And now he barely talks to me.

This hurts really bad because I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. It kills me that I’m hurting him. But I don’t know how to make it stop. I hugged him yesterday and he just kept doing what he was doing. I know he wasn’t ignoring me to hurt my feelings; I was hurting his. Now my head is throbbing. I’m so tired of hurting the people that I love. My heart wants to bleed in retribution for what I continuously make them feel. I keep making people sad and that’s the last thing I would ever want to do. But I don’t know how to communicate. I’ve always spoken through art and writing. Poetry. Music. I’m not good at using my actual voice. I can never seem to find the right words. I just make things worse.

How do I overcome this? No idea. Is this resolved? No. Am I stuck in a cone of depression and misery? Yes. Do I miss my dad? Yes. Are my emotions self deprecating? Yes. Am I okay? No. Will it get better? Maybe.

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Dear papa if you are reading this:
I’m sorry that I suck at talking. You don’t offend me it’s just that my brain plays tricks on itself and I don’t know how to control it. I have very big feelings and I don’t always know what to do with them. But because I suck at talking, I don’t want to say anything either. I’m so tired of making you sad. It hurts so bad when I know I’ve hurt you. Because I try so hard all the time to be good and nice and kind to everyone and it leaves me tired and drained. And so sometimes I don’t have the energy to defend your words from my brain. I hate when that comes out on you. I’m so. So sorry.

I’ll try to post an update if I figure out how to stop screwing everything up. Until then, thanks for reading and I hope I haven’t messed up your day too.

Ciao, my friends.
💔, Shortie