Meditation Journal

[Tistepiste]

Keeping this as simple as possible. For now.

I have the tendency to make things way too complex than they should be and start with crazy goals and mind stories about it.

Changing my ways.

The goal is to

- meditate at least 3x a week. 45 min. per session.

- shortly describe what I went through

To

- create consistency

- recognize patterns 

- go inwards instead of outwards

 

[Tistepiste]

First week passed.

Going through a long period of emotional distress that started in December.
Honestly it humbled me. Just shows how deeply rooted my insecurities still are.

After a period of being in monkey mind from the moment I wake up to going to sleep for about a month, things have become more stable again.

Forced my self to watch the breath.

Pain surfaced around my heart area, the usual spot where pain resides in my body. Instead of indulging in that pain, I am trying to observe it.

The meditation sessions went pretty smoothly. 

Edited February 28, 2025 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

I realized, now more than ever.

One of my biggest triggers in life is being told how I feel or who I am.

My other triggers are injustice and misrepresentation of who I am

But let's talk about the first one for now.

This trigger has stolen an insane amount of peace in my life. Almost unbelievable.

It's where I know and feel something is not mine, but is being pushed on me by another person that believes whole heartedly I should feel, think or am something I am not.

It's as if I am fighting with an invisible power. I am trying to make sense of what someone else is pushing on me, and a great resistance is created from within.

The attraction is wanting to take that person seriously, because they speak from the heart.

The counter is knowing that my heart is not on the same level.

It's like two hearts fighting an invisible battle.

And it's all happening in the mind.

I think, feel, it roots from "I'm not okay, you're okay"

Where I question my own sense of reality and experience in favor of someone else's. As if they're speaking "truth" while I know they're not.

But who am I to know? Who is anyone to know?

Why state something as a fact when everything is ambiguous?

Creates a lot of tension and circular thoughts.

I am aware of all of this. Now I need to let go. Recognize the pattern. Feel into it. And let go.

But these are just words..

Edited March 6, 2025 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

Reflection on the meditation

Quote

 

The meditation routine has not been going as I would have liked; which is expected.
I haven't altered my lifestyle in a way that allows for consitent meditation.

I am slowly moving towards it though. The biggest block is my smartphone.
Youtube reels are so, so addictive.

My phone broke recently, which has been a blessing.
Forced to use an other phone on which I haven't synced my accounts. So I can only access google maps and basic internet.

No youtube reels, no whatsapp, no instagram reels, no nothing.
Instead - redirecting this energy inwards.

Reflection on the post of 7 March:

There's been a few moments in my life where I was told to feel and think someting, and I could not-let-it-go.

What is this thing?

The first time:
 

Quote

 

Was when I told my only gay friend that I felt attraction to a boy. I was 18.
It was the first time expressing this feeling, and I wasn't sure what to do with it.

I also liked girls, I knew that. So it shocked me, confused me, and scared me.
The most logical step in my rational mind was to find someone to share this with that has experience in these types of feelings.

When I told that person, they reacted in a way I didn't anticipate

- They took my "feelings for a boy" as a representation of my whole person, and a coming out as being gay
- Told me that my "feelings for girls" were me not accepting who I am, being scared of who I really am.

From that point, I was more confused than ever.

Whenever I felt attraction for a girl - I heard this voice saying that it's not "true", and that my feelings come for a "scared" place. That I was not being "true to myself"
Whenever I saw an attractive guy - I heard a voice saying that I should feel attraction somehow because this is "who I am"

Rationaly, I couldn't make sense of what my friend was saying - there was no logic to be found his words on so many levels.
But I felt he was speaking from the heart - so I couldn't just let his thoughts slide.

For 5 years I was confused, questioning how I felt in every fiber of my body.

It wasn't until I was 23-24 that I confronted him about it.
Then he said something that finally melted away the confusing pattern that was dominating my brain.

He admitted he was jealous, the day I told him, because he had been in love with me, and when I told him about feelings for a boy - he thought it opened a door for him. When I told him I wasn't sure about it and actually also like girls - he saw it as a threat and also as a projection of a denial of ones self that he struggled with himself.

Even though the mind story finaly stopped, the damage had of course been done. Since then I decided not to label myself anymore.
And stay true to my feelings.

Till this day, I refuse to label myself.
I've mostly done things with guys; sexually and romantically.
There's this lingering question if this is due to the moment in my life I just described above, that rewrote my brain in a way that being attracted to guys gave me peace, and being attracted to girls gave me anxiety, due to this confusing pattern that governed it so long.
It's funny, because prior to that, the opposite was true.

 

 

Edited October 6, 2025 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

I have some very distructive patterns in my brain.

90% of my thoughts consist of one of these patterns:

Questioning yourself
Many thoughts start from a question.
The cycle goes like this:
Question → Searching for an answer → Conclusion → Questioning the conclusion → etc.
This keeps you stuck in the cycle.
It doesn’t matter what the thoughts are about - it’s simply how your brain is conditioned to work.

Romanticizing
You create an idealized image of the future in which you come out well.
Many thoughts are rooted in this romantic tendency; don’t believe them - it’s just conditioning again.
Romanticizing → Believing → Daydreaming → Bumping into something that threatens that imagined future → Anger.

Compulsion
Some thoughts carry a strong energy. These stem from fear.
They manifest as compulsive, recurring thoughts.
Fear → Compulsion → Negotiating with thoughts → Conclusion → Questioning the conclusion → Cycle.
Again, this is conditioning. Such thoughts trigger a survival instinct.
They feel overwhelming and impossible to overcome - but recognize the pattern: it’s just conditioning. It’s not truly you; it’s how your brain has learned to operate.

Overconfidence
When meditation goes well, you start thinking you’re the best meditator, the fastest learner.
Then when something gets in the way, you become anxious - because you were doing so well, seeing your potential, and also seeing the sabotage that comes with it.
Overconfidence → Fear → etc.

Challenge
When you become overconfident, you will start challenging the system / the system will start challenging you (chicken and egg?)
Old thoughts resurface to see how you’ll respond.
Overconfidence → Challenge → Fear → etc.

Over-analyzing
You analyze things clearly and insightfully, but you do it too often - turning analysis into a system or escape mechanism under the pretense of “understanding yourself.”
By over-analyzing, you shine too much light on things, making them larger than they need be.

Comparison
You compare previously “resolved” situations (meaning: no longer meeting resistance when a thought about them arises) with current ones that do bring resistance, trying to find out why.
Naturally, this puts you back into the first cycle, which can also lead into the compulsion cycle.

 

Edited October 7, 2025 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

Realizations from Vipassana retreat

Insight

During your previous retreat, you realized (even though you hadn’t fully integrated it at the time) that all particles - all matter - are impermanent. Every trillionth of a second, your entire physical system renews itself.

In the current retreat, you saw that the mind is the same.
In a flash, a thought arises and disappears immediately - but by grasping it, that thought lingers. There are always countless thoughts passing through your head, but you choose to re-illuminate certain ones, causing them to stay longer, which in turn triggers the cycles described earlier.

You also understood the suffering that comes with alternating pleasant and unpleasant sensations.

No-self: Nowhere in mind or matter can an "I" be found.

Insight into No-self

Suddenly it became crystal clear:
There is no "I." There is no "person" who acts. Things simply happen.
Because certain conditions exist, the conditions of the mind respond to them - but you have no control over those conditions, nor over your responses.

It is through experiences that you have become who you are, and that you react as you do - but you have no control over that. It simply happens.

Therefore, everything that has ever happened has unfolded perfectly, because it could not have happened any other way at that moment. The circumstances were as they were, and your mind responded accordingly, with all the resulting consequences.

The fact that I am writing this now is due to the analytical tendency that feels the need to write it down. But I am not writing. There is writing.

There is no doer - there is doing.
There is no experiencer - there is experiencing.

When you feel something - who is it that feels?
If you look closely, there is just feeling. There is experience, but no one experiencing it.

And what about focused mind and monkey mind?

Your focused mind is simply mind + awareness + mindfulness.
There is awareness of the processes, which changes the conditions, and therefore new phenomena arise. The system’s responses change because of awareness.

It seems as though there is a "you" making a "choice," but that’s not what’s happening.

Something happens - a feeling arises.
Because of earlier experiences, that feeling now has a certain color or tone.
You can’t control that. Your system reacts to that feeling based on the present context.
When you become aware of this reaction, new conditions arise, from which a new thought (or none) appears, changing the reaction again.

I can’t write it any more clearly for now.

How to let go

By no longer giving it attention.
Thoughts will arise, but stop feeding them - no matter how painful it feels.
If a thought feels strong, receive it with openness, then gently shift your focus.
Don’t be startled when the thought returns - that’s normal.

Effort, understanding, concentration, and faith

All four must be in balance.

Too much effort: the mind becomes agitated

Too much understanding: you begin to overanalyze

Too much concentration: you become drowsy

Too much faith: you don’t develop wisdom

Edited October 8, 2025 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

You have to stop denying there's still the fundamentals of OCD inside your system.

Pretending it's not there makes your life miserable in difficult moments.

Pretending it's not there makes you less aware of its mechanics

Pretending it's not there makes you indulge in in it trying to figure out what's happening.

Pretending it's not there makes you love yourself less. 

Pretending it's not there makes you harder on yourself than you should be.

Accept that you have dramatic recurring thoughts.

Accept that you can't solve it on your own

Accept that you have to be vulnerable and accept defeat in order to overcome the battle

There's no winning or losing, there's accepting that these destructive mechanics are there, and that you can make yourself accountable for addressing it in a loving / vulnerable way.

 

Next time something happens that keeps the thought train on a loop for days; weeks; months on end? 
Don't meditate it away thinking your are being "present" with it, and are "feeling into it"

All you're doing is looking at the raw unsettling feeling, with the wish that at some point it will go away.
The resistance is still there. You're looking at the resistance, fine. But then what?
It might dissolve in that moment, but next time it comes up there'll be resistance again.
And then you wonder why.

If possible:

- Talk about it with friends

If not possible:

- Radical acceptance. Accept that the thought might never go away. And that it will keep coming back.

- Use it as an instrument to being okay with being not okay. Actually be okay with it.

But please

Your first tendency is to isolate yourself.
Yourself from the world and yourself from your self.
Layers of isolation in order to isolate your energy on that single phenomena.
You're creating a tunnel vision, thinking this piercing vision will pierce through the forces, but it's manifesting the forces.
You haven't found the way yet.
Not yet.
So don't pretend you can overcome it.
 

Be vulnerable. Talk to people.

[Tistepiste]

From my previous post:

Quote

I realized, now more than ever.

One of my biggest triggers in life is being told how I feel or who I am.

Ok so, I found out that this is due to cognitive dissonance, which triggers my sleeping OCD.

This cognitive dissonance is triggered by 

- Words by people (example above)

- Actions vs words by people
 

The first one is the worst. If someone states something from their truth, and states it as my truth.
Whenever this happens, no matter how well-intentioned, my system experiences it as an identity invasion: an attempt to overwrite my inner reality.

I am a scientist by nature - so instead of denying their truth, I explore my own truth and try to reconcile it with their experience.
If it doesn't match, I question my own experience in every fiber of my body.

The outcome: Rumination, unsettling feeling, re-curring thought loops, feeling of powerlesness, feeling stuckness
 

Instructions on how to get out of the loop:

1. Recognize it.

“There’s a clash between my inner experience and someone else’s version of reality.”

2. Name the mechanism, not the story.

“My brain is trying to reconcile two truths that don’t fit.”

3. Feel underneath.

“What emotion is here - sadness, fear, shame?”
Breathe into that spot.

4. End the reconstruction.

“I already know this story. I don’t need to replay it.”

5. Ground in the senses.

Notice a sound, a smell, or the feeling of your body on the chair.
Let the world remind you that you’re here, not in the loop.

 

Realization:

I have to read more books on pyschology

Edited October 13, 2025 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

 

 

[Tistepiste]

 

[Tistepiste]

Things are starting to change.

The effort to be in the moment decreased dramatically

The pain around my heart area is gone

The rock-hard lump on my stomach is gone

 

My heart feels tender and very sensitive.

My body feels alive.

 

No more raging monkey mind at this moment.

I not only recognize the patterns, I can also tune out of them.

 

I have to remain mindful and aware. 
Recognize when I get caught up in survival-mode thinking.

Tap out of it, and focus on my breathing.

[Tistepiste]

The mind got more calm, but the body is in distress.

I have a pain, needle like pain in the stomach area. Like a very small stone sitting there. It is itching around that stone.

My mind alternates in understanding the conditioning of patterns of the mind, following the mind stories and being present.

It is not as much in monkey mind. But there's a lot of pain and sadness.

I don't want this to become my story.

I think this will fade. Will all fade. Eventually.

 

I have the desire to write it all down. The narratives. But at the same time when I start writing it down, I feel a big résistance in actually putting it into words. I'm immediately bored and numb.

Its as if I don't want to write it all down though it is occupying my mind.

There's just one thing left. It's higher level. It's not from deep detailed obsession anymore. It is more that I can see the system of what happened. And regret the decisions that I made while in turmoil. Even though at that moment I couldn't have done it any differently. My mind pattern is romanticizing the outcome of what could have been had I not.

I know this pattern very well

Undesired current outcome -> romanticize desired outcome -> find a reason why the desired outcome is not there -> be sad / angry at the event that caused this -> obsess over how that could have happened -> romanticize over how things could've been done differently -> loop

[Tistepiste]

Your triggers

• Open endings (reason: ?)
• Someone taking authority over your own experience (telling you how to feel, etc.) (reason: body feels control is in danger)

Edited January 5 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

Your coping

• Focussing on the problem instead of the bigger picture
• Thinking in past instead of in future (to solve situations)
• Thinking for other person, not yourself
• Isolating
• Im not okay, you're okay
• Censoring yourself
• Internalizing
• Obsessive Rumination

Edited January 5 by Tistepiste

[Tistepiste]

My OCD keeps looping the situation, trying to solve it.

Even if I am actively trying to not think about it, the triggers keep coming back. Day in, day out.  

I am seeking therapy, although the waiting list is several months.  

I am seeing someone actively and started Haptotherapy. To get in touch with my body again.

 

The truth of the matter is, I am constantly battling with it. Whether it is seeking therapy, focussing on my bodily sensations, being aware that I am not strengthening the thought stories.  

I am writing it out as bluntly as possible. Usually I minimize the effect I has on me, for the fear of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I am done listening to fear.  

Maybe boldness and raw truth will help me.  

Call me weak, underdeveloped, emotionally immature, or whatever. I am tired, and I want to let go. But my mind and heart won't.

 

The Mind Story

 

Will

I was in a polyamorous relationship. We were together for 1.5 years.  

I was in a relationship with two other guys. Let's call them Will and Halt.  

Will and Halt were together for 8 years. They both fell in love with me. We tried to make it work as a throuple.  

There some dynamics between them that didn't work for me, though, so after a lot of trying, eventually I broke up with them.

I was fine. I was a bit sad, but I also felt like I could move on from it.

 

They were not.  

They both had a hard time getting over me, though for one it was easier than the other.

I was still attracted to Will, though not to Halt.

 

I started dating other people. At a houseparty, Will approached me. He said he wanted to break up with Halt and wanted to start a relationship with me.  

This was 1 year post break up. I was surprised, and overwhelmed. Although, knowing Will, he has the tendency to drag people along in his bad mental state.  

The very next day, he'd pretend that nothing really had happened.  

I, however was very touched and confused by this confession, but I also knew that I had already moved on. I wasn’t lingering.

 

We had a short talk, although I told him we'd need to talk about it sober the next day, but only if he stood by his words and he actually wanted to undertake action.  

I still liked him, and saw a future with him, so I was open to exploring that.

 

The next day I texted him if he'd still want to meet to talk about it, hinting again that I'd only be open to a conversation if there was an actual tangible thing to talk about, apart from him dumping his unresolved emotional load on me.  

He told me he had. So we met up.

 

During the dinner, he kept talking around the subject.  

 At one point I asked him "Why are we here?".  

He started crying. I was disappointed.  

"Oh God. He actually doesn't have anything he promised me he had."

 

His "tangible" thing I asked for?  

"He finally has the breathing room to think about his decision. There was a new chapter, a new home, and in this chapter, he'd make a decision"

 

Super vague, no timelines, no promises. Just.. a description of the.. Situation.

This was the start of a two year long push and pull.

Call me stupid, naïve, whatever. But this pattern as described above, repeated itself over a course of two (2\!) years.

 

He'd call, text me, or come to me crying, giving me the anticipation of something coming up (e.g. "I am going to write you a letter" (After 2 months I got a printed piece of paper in the mailbox with some confusing and contradicting statements))  

He'd promise me a decision by X date;  

When X date arrived he'd give me an update on the situation and tell me he was almost there. Just.. A few more days. Or a few more weeks.

The more this situation evolved, the more it seemed to me as a dramatic theatre piece. Once I started viewing it as such, it had no power over me anymore.  

That's why I could handle the situation that long, I think. Or I was never in love to begin with. Perhaps.  

Truth of the matter is, apart from all the push and pull, my thoughts were silent. And happy. The situation wasn’t however. It went from bad to worse.  At one point even, he texted me that he had broken up, only to backtrack on that a few days later.

Each time, for some reason, my hope was filled, only to be disappointed later on.

 

In this period I also continued dating, telling Will that as long as he didn’t make a decision I needed to move on with my life. That I would not wait on him.  

If he is ready, he is ready, but since I can’t control his timelines, I am not going to let him control mine.

 

Arthur

At some point, I met this person "Arthur".  

We had a very easy-going way of communicating and exploring each other.  

I found him very attractive, and he had a big passion for history. He was also very intellectual. He knew a lot and had an interesting way of talking about things.  

I felt myself catching feelings.

Coincidentally, Will texted me during this period, saying he wanted to talk.  He told me that he had broken up with Halt, for real, this time, that he had always loved, and that he is sorry that he couldn't show that to me before.

It reached a point where I was tired. My body couldn't really believe his words anymore. The body keeps the score, they say, and after two years of being given false promises and being disappointed, these words didn't touch me like they used to. They were just.. words. Without meaning.

I told him that I had just started dating someone new and that I really liked that person.

That I first wanted to see where that was going, but that we could keep seeing each other as friends in the meantime just to normalize our relationship, because there was some trust that needed to be rebuilt.

Writing this I now realise how fucked up I am with setting clear boundaries.

I continued dating Arthur and the dates were cozy. I found him very charming, very honest, very spontanuous, very interested.

However, his insecurities also started to show very soon. He was very controlling (asked to read text messages, asked about the amount of people I had sex with, was insecure of my past in polyamory, was triggered when I brought up my exes in a conversation (e.g. when I described my first time falling in love)). Mind you, this was all within only a few weeks of dating.

I started to feel uncomfortable myself, trying to fit in his frame, trying not to trigger him, thinking about the correct words to use. I started to censor myself pretty quickly.

Which is funny, because he told me "Never hold back in saying anything to me".

I guess there's a difference between the person you'd like to be and what you actually are. 
For some reason, this didn't push me away. If anything, it showed me how human he was and how up front he was about his insecurities, holding nothing back, laying it all on the table, without shame or resistance. I admired that.

Now it starts to get a bit more complicated

My friends started to tell me I needed to come clean to Arthur about Will. Since Will could be a roadblock ahead, and Arthur was so insecure. Even though I never thought about Will while dating Arthur, deep down I knew they were right.

The development I had been waiting for two years to arrive had arrived, Will was single and "waiting" for me. He'd just left an 8 years long relationship, and was finally "available".

What situation did I just drag myself into?  

Now that I finally moved on, he finally made his decision. The. fucking. universe. Literally on the day of meeting Arthur.

Anyways.

I am a person who values honesty very highly, so I knew I had to bring it up to Arthur at some point.

So I did. On our 9th date. I told him about Will reaching out to me, but that I had told Will that I am not interested in dating right now, since I met someone new.

The initial reaction was ok.

However, after a week he cancelled all upcoming dates. He called me, and told me he didn't want to continue dating.

I was confused.

He didn't give me a clear reason.

During our 9th date, he told me he'd missed me, and that he wanted to come viist my art exhibition the next month. He told me he'd talked about me at a family event.

I was confused.

It was a short call of about 5 mins.

I was very sad.

I was left with a lot of unanswered questions.

But I now also had the opportunity to focus on Will, and leave Arthur's adventure on the side.

However, I also felt like I really needed a closure conversation with Arthur, to end things on good terms, and also help my mind. Since there were a lot of unanswered questions, my mind really started to grapple. Arthur had started to grow on me. His honesty and vulnerability was something I was missing in Will.

After letting it marinate for 1.5 weeks, I decided to text him, asking if he'd be open to have a closure conversation. He accepted.

A few hours before our date was about to happen, he texted me he only had 45 mins of time since he had another appointment planned.

45 mins.. Ok. Instead of a fun last evening with someone I had really started to like very much, it'd become a meeting where efficiency was key in order for my mind to not hallucinate its own stories.  

 I needed to close as many gaps as possible. Because my mind loves open gaps and loves to dive deep. *

 *Note to self: Meditate on this. Dive into the unknown, without solving it. Rewrite the patterns!

So, the evening went on.

Before the meeting, I had decided to let this conversation be the closure conversation as was planned. Not questioning anything, just accepting.

Seeing him made my stomach curl up. I really liked this guy.

Although it was also confusing. People are confusing. And my mind doesn't like to be confused.

- He told me he was insecure I talked about my exes \- He told me he felt "replaceable" when I opened up about the Will situation

- He told me I was the first person in 3 years that he was motivated to date

- He told me he felt something was off from the get go, that he doubted from the start

- He told me I could've done nothing or said nothing for the situation to have developed any differently

I held on to the last two statements.

Then, and this will become important later on:

He asked about meeting up to walk this beautiful art festival along the waters the week after.

I was surprised. And I wasn’t sure if I could trust my ears. This was so "off-script" of what I expected him to say, I nodded and smiled, but I didn't really say anything. I think what happened was I was protecting myself in that moment. I honestly thought I must have misheard him.

- I didn't want to confuse myself even more

- My mind was set on saying goodbye

Also, he ended our conversation saying How do you say goodbye to someone you'll never see again? So I must have misheard him, I thought.

I left the conversation feeling good. The conversation was nice. And I remember thinking

"This was never meant to be. Even though it feels very easy going on the surface."

The coming days I felt great sadness. My body had really craved for a connection, to be honest was, I really needed that, after such a long period of being confused.

I took some days of seeing friends and seeing my parents to let things settle down and for the pain to settle.

 

Will

A few weeks passed, and I met up with Will.

I told him things had stopped with Arthur.

Silence

I told him I really can't date other people if whatever is going on between us is not resolved. So either we go for it now, or we decide it was never meant to be.

Silence

Something hit me.

Oh God. Something I hadn't foreseen although it was clear as day when following the pattern. He was doubting again. I asked.

“Are you doubting of getting back together with Halt?"

"Yes"

Jesus Christ.

All this confusion, careful wording, decision making, consideration. All this emotional and mental turmoil.
"All for nothing" 
I was blaming myself, and Will.

"Halt read my diary. And now I finally feel that he knows the full truth. With this, Halt and I can start fresh and from a clean slate"

Typical Will. He was never honest to Halt nor myself, because he is a coward. He outsources his decisions. It took a bold action from Halt himself, to get to the actual truth of the matter. Apparently this truth and Halt's understanding of Will's emotional and mental state was the thing Will was seeking for.

Fuck. My. Life.
"All for nothing"

I started replaying the closure conversation with Arthur, and his proposal to meet up again to walk the tour kept popping up. But I honestly wasn't sure if he had proposed that. And, it was already around 3 weeks after our initial conversation, so it felt too late anyways.
Also, he was very set on closing things down, and any follow up text could be my last chance to let him know something, I felt that.
Asking to meet up again, randomly, just felt weird and out of place.

But now I also felt weird and out of place.
I was blindsided by Will again, and I felt that this whole thing had cast a dark shadow on Arthur's and mine connection. I felt I needed to resolve that.

Now, it starts to get even more complicated

Violet

This girl, Violet. On of my best friends. A girl so in touch with her feelings I've rarely seen. She asked to meet, a few weeks after my conversation with Will. We were working on an art project together.

After spending a few hours rehearsing she took me to another room and started crying.

She confessed her love to me.

I didn't know what to do.

Or what to say.

So much had been going on.

I couldn't, my mind couldn't, my body couldn't. I just sat there. Not saying much.

I was mostly baffled. With life.

There she sat crying on the couch, and I sat next to her like a stone.

I was going to this mime performance, and asked her to join. It was a graduation performance from the mime school here and it should be really good.

She accepted and it was one of the most intriguing things I had seen in a while.

I felt myself emerse completely in the moment, and enjoyed every second of it.

We went to a bar afterwards to talk about the play. She asked how I was doing.

I felt myself in a strange position. Obviously the period that had passed was a very confusing one that I was still healing from. But I didn't feel like sharing that with her, because of obvious reasons.

Though she persisted in wanting to know what was on my mind. So I very briefly explained her what had happened with Arthur.

Quickly adding that "I'd be over it in a week." Not to make her insecure.

Then, she raised her voice, very concerned and very stern she said

"You mean a couple months! Or a year!"**

I felt resistance building up.

"What do you mean months? Or a year? I can be over it in a week. I only dated him for a month."

"But you were in love!"

 

**This is where my OCD got triggered

This is related to a trauma I had when I was 18 years old, where someone tried to override my sexual identity. This created very destructive mind patterns and resulted into me developping OCD.

The OCD grappled itself on everything I was experiencing: my feelings, my attraction to other people, my thoughts.  

I didn’t know what was mine anymore and what was not mine.

Any feeling, any attraction I felt or any thought I had about my attraction to someone would raise doubt. “What is mine? What is not mine?”

This mechanism started to set itself onto the situation.

It was already such a fucked up confusing set of events, and this made it so. much. worse.

I started questioning everything.

Everytime I didn't think about the situation, Violet's voice would pop up

A couple months! Or a year!

Which would send me back to the situation.

I started questioning if I was still processing the situation, or if it was due to Violet's comment that forced me into it. I didn't trust my own feelings anymore, I didn't trust my own thoughts anymore.

And the worst part? A key factor of the whole mechanism is shame and isolation I stopped talking to people about it.

How do you explain friends that you don't trust your own thoughts and feelings because of a comment someone makes? And how can they pull you out of that? Without making things worse?

I was in a state of survival. I needed to get out of this state of mind. I didn't know how.

I opened up to one friend. Someone I was close with during our art project. I don't even remember what we spoke about. I just think I needed to get things out of my system and the feeling that it was received by someone. I cannot remember anything. Only that I felt safe when talking to her.

I made a decision. Since the thoughts all diverted itself to Arthur, I needed to text him. A text can't do much harm, right?

Even though I was confused, and I didn't know I was still thinking about Arthur because of my OCD trigger, or because of the whole confusing situation in itself, I decided I needed this to let my thoughts calm down.

I was in the middle of doing an art show where I had spent months preparing, and there were other shows coming up. I needed to have peace of mind.

You'd think, why not talk to Violet?

- Because I was afraid she'd make things worse by doubling down on her statement

- Because she was in love with me. We wouldn’t be able to have a level headed conversation about this, I felt.

Apart from this OCD mechanism, I felt there must be some real sadness.

The art exhibition Arthur had shown interest in attending was coming up. And the idea of him not being there really hurt me. What also hurt me was the fact that the situation had changed now. And that Arthur was not aware of this.

I decided to text Arthur. I needed to do something. To let the train of thoughts subside. And to perhaps recreate a connection.

 

I told him that even though we had our closure conversation, that I want him to know that during our time together I had only focussed on him, that I enjoyed our time together, and that I really liked him. That I don't expect us to reconcile, but that I just want him to know how I experienced the dating.

Then I told him my art exhibition was coming up.

He replied that he was sorry that he projected so much during us dating together, that his insecurities took over, but that he wished no further contact.

 

Good.

My thoughts were balanced again.

He wishes no furthr contact

Ok. Clear.

-I told him my last truth

-He told his

 

Fine.

 

I went to talk to Violet a few months after. How it had triggered something in me.

 

She said she was sorry, and that she only said that because she thought I wasn't giving enough space for my feelings.  

The funny thing is, her comment created the opposite result. I couldn't process my own feelings after that.

 

A few weeks passed.

I started dating again.

 

One really sexy guy.

One artsy guy.

One psychiatrist.

It was all cozy. And I felt like I was grounding again. Or were they?

 

When having sex with these people, my mind shifted to Arthur. When drinking, my mind shifted to Arthur.    

When walking in the park, my mind shifted to Arthur.  

Every time, I felt a great feeling of anxiety and sadness.

Fuck.

I am not over Arthur.

Fuck.

Fuck.

And there's nothing left to be done.

“Why am I not over Arthur?”

 

My OCD came back.

Violet's voice came back.

I started doubting myself again.

I reached out to friends.

Three times.

Three times my feelings were dismissed.

First time "You don't have feelings for Arthur, you're confused"

Second time "It's over already, what do you want to say to him"

Third time "It's time to move on"

 

Fuck.

They were right.

I started spiralling.

I started replaying all scenario's.

There. Was. Something. Left. Unsaid.

OCD Took over.

I. Need. To. Close. The. Gaps.

Doubt took over.

"Arthur doesn't know Will is not in the game anymore".

This was the thought that kept popping up, followed by a feeling of intense anxiety.

You know what the fucked up thing is of dating someone for just a few weeks?

- No one takes your feelings seriously, since it's just a few weeks  

- Your mind creates a fucking romanticised version of this person, filling in what the mind hasnt seen and the body hasnt felt  

- You don't know the person well enough to understand their intentions and view on things

  This makes it so fucking hard to get a clear picture of your own thoughts and feelings and theirs, and it isolates yourself because no one really understands. People understand when you have a hard time getting over your ex.  

  People don’t understand when you have a hard time getting over someone you just dated.  

  And what’s perhaps the worst part, I don’t understand myself. I thought that what I felt was not mine, but OCD’s grip on me.

  A friend of mine was experiencing her own heart break with a guy she dated for a short while. We could relate to each other.

  I told her about my situation.  

  She told me that if I felt that I had something left unsaid, that I should say it. This time without censoring myself.

  So I did.

  Fuck it.

  I told Arthur about Will.

  His reply? Basically "Leave me alone"

  Jesus.

  What a relieve.

  I finally got it off my chest.

  I finally closed that final gap.

  No more gaps.

  OCD Is Happy.

  A few months passed.

  A thought crept up

 

  “You never asked him if you could be friends”

  Fuck.

  “And now it’s too late”

 

  I started to spiral again.  

  I started seeking therapy more actively.

 

  The things I am left with now

 

- I feel guilty of stepping over Arthur's boundaries

- It’s hard to regain trust in my own feelings, thoughts and capability to process things maturely  

- It’s hard to realise how deep my spiraling goes while stuck in an OCD loop  

- It’s hard to accept to see how hard I am on myself and on the past decisions I made

 

The hardest one?

- How would things have developped if OCD didn't take over? 

That's the hardest one I am left with.
Cause I feel like OCD made me into a version where I wasn't myself.
What would I have thought and done if Violet's trigger hadn't happened?

 

 

This whole situation put my body and mind in hyper alert mode.
I haven't really been able to rest properly for months.
All while in super busy periods with work and art.
 

Edited 2 hours ago by Tistepiste