When I first started this blog, years ago, I was an angry person. Angry is an understatement, honestly. It seemed the whole world was against me. Everyone seemed to constantly try to push every last one of my buttons. I was convinced that people were misunderstanding and combative with me on purpose. My parents, siblings, friends, and partner. Everyone. Teachers, bosses, co-workers, peers, everyone. I felt like I was on an alien planet, that I didn’t belong anywhere. It was like there was an invisible barrier between me and the entire world. I never felt that there was anything different or wrong with me, in fact, I was sure that there was something wrong with everyone else.

My anger stemmed from difficulties in childhood. While being raised in a toxic family dynamic is probably the most significant, much of my difficulties were in interacting with other people. I found myself, often, in conflict with my peers and no idea how it started. So in my anger, while unable to find the words verbally, I would write them down in letters. Those letters put me in the school counsellors office sometimes. When asked by said counsellor why I wrote it all I could say was “to get the words out,” or “I was angry”. Because writing seemed to be the only way to really get my thoughts in order and let out any negative emotions I was feeling at the time. Ironically, as soon as I did write it and hand it over Id completely forget about it. So the visits to the office always caught me off guard. After a while I started just writing and keeping it at home, first in a notebook and eventually on a computer when I finally got one.

When I started this blog, it was for that purpose, to let that anger out. Mostly I vented and wrote long winded posts about whatever I was dealing with at the time. I learned throughout my life that I couldn’t talk to anyone, because whenever I did people would react poorly. If I ever tried to speak to someone, who often spoke to me about their problems, they would say that I was being selfish or negative. It was hypocritical af, really, because I was often the person that people vented to but whenever I had a problem they didn’t like it. I think most of that was because of my tone. They took it as an attack even when the topic wasn’t about them. Whenever I tried to relate to them by bringing up something I had been through that was similar I was called conceited or narcissistic. I couldn’t win, no matter what I did or said. So even though I wasn’t technically alone, I surely felt alone. Never lonely, just alone. My own company was all I ever really needed.

In my early twenties I started this blog. I vented, I went on tangents, very colourful ones. I was careful not to name any names, just venting about things I was going through. There were a lot of toxic individuals in my life and they had a tendency to try to find things to fight about. When they found my blog that became a topic of discussion of course, and I eventually lost interest in even writing. It was like no matter what I did, no matter the things I was having to endure from them, I was the problem. How dare I write the truth! I’m not even sure anyone read my blogs, it was a place to vent. I didn’t have any safe space in real life. I had no privacy. Nothing that belonged to me. Anytime I tried to get my own thing, someone would always invade it.

The first quarter of my life wasn’t my own. Every time I would try to do my own thing it would be trampled on. I was a doormat, a punching bag for everyone else. And I was such a bother, too, because I did speak up about it regularly, which never helped matters much. I think after years of being ridiculed or belittled or dismissed I eventually just lost interest in everyone and everything. I recall one particular instance of being unable to get up and go do a thing that I said I would do, and that person who was expecting me to do said thing for them kept calling me and telling me how I was making them feel bad because I wasn’t moving fast enough for their liking. It was a small moment, nothing really, compared to all the others. But it was a moment when I realized that I didn’t want to exist in that moment, in that life, anymore. It was that moment I had decided to leave. I hadn’t decided if I wanted to actually check out for good or if I wanted to make a change. So I walked that line for a long time…

It took me years after that to actually physically leave the place I was in, but building up to that I was making small changes, hardly even knowingly, but not always good ones. Relationships ended and new ones began and also ended… I went a little wild, on a destructive path. And then finally came to terms with the fact that the only way to fix anything was to get the eff out. So I moved away. I left all toxicity behind. All the people that literally made my life hell.

It wasn’t over though. I had a lot of trauma and my own toxicity to work through. So nine years and several diagnoses later, things are looking up. Its been a long and difficult road. Knowing now that I’m Autistic and looking back is an odd feeling. A lot of the things people gave me shit for were autistic traits. Its both a relief but also kinda shitty. I have wondered if I had known, would things be different. But the past is passed and there’s nothing to do about it now. All I can do is move forward. Letting things go is not one of my strong suits but I am working on it.