How do I push back against the hopeless darkness of depression and burnout when I’ve been scalded deep by toxic positivity?
How do I embrace the joy, love, and support in each day when emotionally, I’m stuck in a snapshot of time when my last shreds of safety were crushed and betrayed?
I have grown a lot of good in my life since those days, but I struggle to trust any of it. I’m always on some level waiting for it to be a trick, or to be ripped away the second I allow myself to become vulnerable. I fail to notice good omens, and take the bad days as confirmation that I’m lost to the dark.
Acknowledging that my internal and external realities are inconsistent is useful on good days. But most of the time, it rings a perverse harmony with the manipulation and thought-policing of my past.
The depression is familiar. But if I allow myself to feel the things I push away, I’m afraid to find out what chaos it could unleash in my life. I might immediately quit my job without a backup plan, leave my support network in the city and move back in with my parents, give up on every dream I ever had.
But maybe I need that.
Maybe the dismantling of my life would nullify the ways I am genetically resistant to peace.
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A/N: I’m angry today. Wish healing weren’t so complicated.
Odonata 