Re-intruduction?

[Emberfrost12]

 

At this point, I've found that I’ve formed some connections and an online identity for myself, and because of that, I’m afraid of being honest again. When you first join a forum, you have nothing to lose if you post something you’re otherwise really secretive about. When you’ve been developing your account for a while, it gets a little harder. And I’ve grown a lot since I first joined, too.  And not all in good ways.

My first post was this:

“Hi! I'm Emberfrost12 and new here. My parents don't respect my gender at all, and with every male/nb day (I'm genderfluid,) my chest dysphoria gets worse. I've been self harming quite a bit recently, too.”

That is a completely different set of struggles from now. I’m still Ember, but I’m no longer new here, my parents, well, they still don’t do a great job, but it isn’t top on my list of priorities. I don’t have ‘nb’ days, and I’m not genderfluid (Gender somehow left in a dissociative way. It’s confusing). I don’t have chest dysphoria worth mentioning, and….I’ve been self harming for almost three years. So I guess there is still overlap. Also, in the original post, I was struggling with impacts of some (relatively very mild) bullying, whereas now I know that the trauma runs so much deeper than that. Also, then, my support system didn’t exist, while now I have people who I have consciously and, I believe, unconsciously, deemed safe to go to. 

 But if I had joined dtl today, I might say something like this. 

“Hey, I’m Emberfrost12 and new here. I’m struggling with ‘milder’ depression and anxious distress. I’m really worried about people leaving me and I’m just having a really hard time. I also have adhd, and I have struggled with worsening dissociation for the last few years, along with self-harm that has become a ‘normal’ thing for me. I also likely have a personality disorder, but my therapist isn’t addressing it because “the symptoms of ADHD overlap with BPD and adhd is commonly misdiagnosed as bpd” etc. I’m not being provided treatment options for depression, even though it is noticeably worsening, and I’d be afraid to follow through on that even if I did have options, because the other option if I’m not destroying myself with depression is to be energetic enough to exhaust myself and other people. Also, (here’s the things I tend to hide) I’m thinking that I might be a dissociative system, and maybe age regress? It’s really confusing though so maybe not, and both things seem popular to fake so I’d be afraid to identify with either if I did relate to them, and I say this with two friends who age regress and are systems”

Admittedly, I wouldn’t give so much away right off the bat, and I’d probably be worse at writing things out (maybe I still am though-? Anyone find my difficult to understand?)

Anyway, that’s enough for me today!

 

-Em

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Emberfrost12