Mercury-the-Queen

www.wattpad.com/625043336-poet…

This looks an awful lot like my poem   worry is just worry until it achesi.
“what if” is where madmen die
curled up like cordwood-
i curl like
the death of a forest,
clutching a universe of loose ends
in my sweaty fists
and
night by night
i fall into bed just to start tying-
a spinster creating stories to
make myself ache
oh
i cut my losses,
rock myself to sleep
swearing i could love enough
for two-
for you
i'd ease the burden of being mine:
don't worry about loving me, alright?
just
take my heart
and come inside.
(sleeplessness kicks these eyes
black and blue.)
ii.
i have learned that sadness
is unlovable
and by extension
so am I,
this sickly, shaking heart,
the brain that reacts and overreacts
and tears itself apart
iii.
(we write about what hurts us most
and maybe
maybe this is why my poems
are about love)

I don't know what to do but honestly I'm madder than I expected to be. It's hilarious because she writes: "All original, mostly free form. Dreams may contain dark content, please be aware that there could be some very triggering material in both dreams and in the poetry" on the description for the collection this is in. I mean yeah, it's original content. Original to ME. 

Anyone have any idea what to do about this? Has anyone experienced this before? 

Thank you for reading! 

I just now got around to posting it. 

(tw self harm)

One year ago today I was sitting in the basement of my uni residence hall with my best friend, practicing a presentation about self harm that I was supposed to present at a conference. As I went through my powerpoint, talking about the risk factors and ways to prevent this behavior, my eyes filled with tears. "How can I tell everyone not to do these things when I don't see anything wrong with it when it's me?" 

He didn't understand. Kept asking me what I meant. Then he became serious and said, "Cailin, what did you do." 
It was more of a statement than a question. I had self-harmed that day. And the day before. At this time in my life I couldn't remember the last time I hadn't. 
He stood up and came over to me, and held me. I showed him what I'd done and he was upset, and stern, and confused. But the way he reacted told me two things: that he cared deeply about me, and that self harm wasn't as normal for me as I had made it out to be in my head. 

I promised him, and myself, that I wouldn't do it again. I told myself that this would be the time I'd make it to one year free of self harm. And it was so hard. I made it through an abusive relationship and the subsequent breakup without self harming. I made it through many days of deep depression and failures without self harming. Some days, the only thing that kept me from doing it was knowing that I'd have to tell my best friend that I'd hurt myself again, and knowing that that would hurt him. But this 28th of February marks one year since I've self harmed. I made it. One whole year. 


And you know what? The 28th marked my 1 year anniversary of no self harm, and the 29th I started training for a job at an ice cream shop that makes their ice cream out of local ingredients, which is something fun I've wanted to try. This April, I'll find out if I get to go to France to teach English. I'm no longer in an abusive relationship, and I'm starting to figure out who I am as an individual rather than one half of a couple. I'm doing things that make me happy. I'm dyeing my hair with kool-aid and tasting new wines. I'm living instead of just surviving. 
And yes, I have my bad days. I have some horrible days here and there. But things are generally looking up, and I'm just very proud of myself.

Something that I had thought was super fun and that I was excited to share with everyone has now made me uncomfortable. The picture that I posted showing my clothing style got me a wave of notes from dudes asking how old I was, asking me for panty pics, and just generally being pervy. I didn't anticipate a response like this. I wasn't provocatively dressed- I was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, or boyish clothes, in all of the images.

I keep wondering what about the image made these people reach out to me. Naturally I keep blaming myself. I had my tongue out in one picture, maybe that sent the message that I was being flirty? Did just posting my picture at all lump me in with the women who post sexually charged images online to get attention and likes? Did I then "get what I asked for" because I posted my body online?

Honestly the icky men make me want to take the image down, though I put it up because I myself am always excited to see pics of my dA family because it drives home the fact that, wow, these are real live people who are in my life from all over the world and who care about me and I care about them. Sometimes I don't even realize that they're actual people until I see a picture of them. So I was excited to post mine. And then this happened!

I honestly don't know what the point of this journal was except for me to rant here about this. I feel conflicted about how upset I was upon receiving these messages. On one hand, no part of the image or description was sexual or flirty, and I felt surprised and disgusted to see that people had thought of them that way. On the other, I knew that I was posting an image of my body that anyone could see, and maybe I should have thought about this beforehand...

I dunno. Anyway, if you're here because you saw the pic and are thinking of messaging me about getting panty pics, or anything of that nature, don't. I'm in love and I won't fuck with anyone else, plus being that way is just creepy. I've blocked everyone without a response, and I will continue to block the weird pervy people.

For my dA friends who actually are here because they like my art, thank you for being so supportive and wonderful. I'd much rather be liked for my poetry anyway

I want to learn to forgive. Specifically, I want to learn to forgive my most recent ex. (I apologize in advance for this disturbing entry but I am at my wit's end and I need to get this out... )

I want to say I'm healing, but my stomach still ties into angry knots when I think of him. I am overcome with hatred, boundless rage, a desire for revenge. Why? Because he got away with everything he did to me. I hate him for not suffering like I did while we were together. For coming away from everything unscathed while I still bear the scars of all the trauma he put me through. Even now, months after not speaking to him, I'm affected by the things he put me through and I get so emotional and mad about it. He played the victim and people took his side. I was the unstable bitch who told the girl he got with after me that he was sending me nudes while with her. I was the bad guy for that because she left him, and he came up smelling like a rose, a poor boy wronged by a crazy girl. He wronged me in so many ways that I haven't even gotten over them.

He "gently" bullied me into going on birth control to please him, even though I had strong fears about it and objections to it. For so long, he told me every day that I should go on it, telling me our relationship would be better if I was, telling me that it was such a shame that I'd never satisfy him like his ex did... He wore me down so much that I gave in.

He put me down constantly for the opportunities that I earned, like my full-ride scholarship and my trip to Iceland, using these things against me. I had to apologize for any successes that I had, and console him through them instead of celebrate them with him.

He cheated on me. I found out from another friend who sent screenshots of their conversation about a girl he had sex with in Florida on spring break. I confronted him and he said that he had lied to the friend to look cooler, and that the woman had sexually assaulted him and he was embarrassed to admit it. Somehow I made myself believe it, because I was afraid of letting go. He kept her on social media even though I said it made me uncomfortable, but he told me that they never spoke because she made him feel "icky". Come to find out, he and that woman are still speaking, and once I broke up with him she became his "bestie."

He sexually assaulted me once we broke up. Many times. I would get so frustrated I'd want to cry and I would push his hands away and he'd apologize profusely, pause, and then do it again. He even admitted to doing it out of spite because he was so upset that I'd broken up with him and he wanted to get back at me. At a party, he grabbed my crotch "as a joke" and one of his friends messaged me later to ask if I was alright. People saw what was going on but only one seemed to care.

He pushed me into doing sexual things with him, and I was worn down so much by the end of it all that even though I didn't say no anymore, I cried and that should have been enough for any decent person to stop. He'd even say "oh no I pushed you too far I'm so sorry" and then keep pushing me, using his "gentleness" as bait. I felt powerless to stop it at the time because I was afraid of him.

He put me down for my clothing choices, because I dress more masculine and in comfy clothes. It's who I am, I dress up sometimes but not often. He would make snide comments about how little I made myself look nice and it made me incredibly insecure.

This isn't even the half of it, and it isn't even the worst of it, and I am still so angry about everything though I'm trying not to be... I just want to move on, and part of me has, a lot of me has, but I want to just let it all go instead of staying angry.

Does anyone have any advice about letting go? About moving on? About forgiving? Because I desperately need help. This anger has ruined my friendships, it's bothering my family, and I'm suffering because of the angry pit that is my heart.

I love you guys. I promise that the next journal will be less sad.

For those of you who still follow me on here, this is my life update. I feel like I haven't properly been on here since high school, and so much has happened since then.

I started college.
I fell in love with two people, and broke up with two people. Sometimes even love can't fill all the gaps, and sometimes people are not at all what you think they are.
I fulfilled my dream of visiting Iceland. I traveled there alone, which was amazing, and stayed for three weeks. I got to eat SO much licorice, pet tons of cats, and try fermented shark!
I finally got back to my pre-anorexia weight. It took some time and it fluctuates all the time but I can now say that I'm weight-restored.
I am on the longest streak of being self-harm-free that I've ever been on: 10 months. I promised myself a tattoo if I made it to 12. I'm so close.
I adopted many, many fish, who all survived a few years and then slowly died off. They were all betta fish, I loved them all so much, and the last of my fin-babies died just recently.
I adopted a rat named Valentina, and she's blind but she's so cute. I'll post pics later.
I lost almost all of my friends. My last breakup, a separation from a manipulative and controlling individual, cost me many, many of my friends as well. Some of them took his side, and some of them revealed their true colors and proved untrustworthy. But it has made me stronger, and being isolated can feel good.
I met the best friend I have ever had irl. I've known him since the beginning of college, and he and I have gotten so close. I visit him often and he brings me more joy than I have ever experienced.
I worked as a tutor and teaching assistant and loved it.
I had an internship with a publishing company and also loved that.
I graduated early from college, just the other day! It's really so cool to think that I'm done, but now I'm searching for a job so it's less fun. But I'm very proud to have earned all A's except for two B's and one C.
I just applied to the Teaching Assistant Program in France. Like, tonight. I applied a few hours ago. If I get in, I'll be spending 7 months helping teach English in France.
I've grown a ton as an individual, and have become more confident, more optimistic, and better-adjusted all around.

So yeah, these past 3.5 years have been really crazy and exciting, sometimes depressing, sometimes amazingly happy, but always adventurous.

I miss you guys. I've been reminiscing about my time on dA and I miss the people here a lot.