me & the ocean (a love story)

why did i stop posting and completely disappeared for a few months?

 HI OMG IM BACKKKKK

actually not so fun topic for me to talk about BUT, i think it might help, so let's get to it

Not sure anyone is actually wondering, and I'm not expecting anyone to read this, but it doesn't matter!

This is very long and personal. I am shameless when it comes to sharing my trauma or the things I've been through, so I don't mind sharing this with the world, but it's LONG. Be ready.

Even if it's just for me, I really need to let it out as much as possible and, hopefully, get my spark back. It's like I've completely disappeared into myself and my creativity left with me. I've been dying inside and trying so hard to be better. I've been struggling to gain back my creativity, and because of it, I've felt worthless for months. There's a very specific kind of sadness that comes with the inability to express yourself, and the thing that stopped me from doing that, or from letting out some of those juices, was myself. I still don't know why I can't write, why I stopped wanting to do anything altogether. I was just neutral, all the time, it was like I didn't feel anything, and those things that pushed me to write--or do anything creative--before just completely vanished. This is the story of how I've been smashed to pieces and I'm still trying to glue everything back together in a way that makes sense for the person I am now, because it's changed me in so many ways. I know this sounds almost poetic but it's as accurate as my vocabulary allows me.

I have to admit this probably started--as in, the little seed was planted at that time in my opinion--when I finished writing Liquid Gold. I put so much pressure on myself and I always have, because it felt like the only way I could do anything. If I don't do something perfectly, am I even worthy enough to try? Everything needs to be impeccable and irreproachable, otherwise, what's even the point? And Liquid Gold was--and is--so important to me. The message I was so desperate to convey, and the representation as well, it was so delicate to handle. I needed to do it right, in a way that also somehow satisfied me and the way I wanted to tell this story.

At the end of the day, I ended up writing a book I was--and, again, still am--proud of, and I'm very thankful for that, but I made myself sick by being so rigid and inflexible. Those are synonyms people have used to describe me a few times, and no matter how hard I try to get offended, I realized this past year that they are completely right (but that's a story for another time).

I started having insomnia every single night while writing Liquid Gold during summer 2024. Me? Insomnia? I had always slept very easily and without even trying, so I had no idea how to deal with it. Falling asleep had never been a quest or a chore, and it was exhausting not being able to rest until I tired myself out one way or another.

Fun fact about me: I tend to write better when I'm tired. So, instead of looking for ways to get rid of the insomnia (or try to handle it better), I decided to quite simply take advantage of it--which was stupid, even if I don't regret it.

By doing that, I exhausted myself to the point of anemia y'all...

This is technically not news to some of you, as I have talked about it a few times, but I messed myself up by being so obsessed with writing the perfect book--perfect to me. Justice is one of, if not the most important thing to me, and I absolutely live by it--even going as far as slowly transitioning into being a vegan! I value justice and fairness more than anything else in this world I would say, so Liquid Gold was so so important to me. It was my way of purging this rage that was slowly driving me insane as well, and because I was so focused on writing it, I stopped eating properly, sleeping properly, wrote first thing in the morning, then doomscrolled for ideas or inspiration until the night, and when I felt myself slowly getting worn out, I would start writing again until I LITERALLY fell asleep on my computer.

Now you know not to question my dedication LOL, but on a serious note, I worsened stomach problems I had been able to ignore in the past (it started hurting so much I couldn't ignore it any longer, and an itch in my throat would make it so hard to breathe and make me cough so much I would literally through up), I also--and this might be TMI--had digestive issues and had diarrhea all the time...

After publishing Liquid Gold, I had a great time posting about it to promote it, it was really fun, but I was taking medication for my anemia and stomach every day for 6 months on the side. During those months, I had an idea I was very excited about for a new book, and I wanted to get right to it so I would have something to publish and feed you for 2025 (and also because I wanted to explore a topic i was really interested in and try new things), but no matter how many times or how hard I tried, I couldn't write.

I told myself I was probably a little burnt out, that it wasn't the first time I had writer's block, that I knew what worked on me to make myself write again. But nothing worked.

Desperate, I chose to force myself to write anything, and so I wrote Our Best Friend is a Fucking Idiot, a novella. Why? Because it was shorter, and I felt like if I didn't write anything, didn't publish any book for too long, I was not worthy of calling myself an author. I thought being impressive was all that mattered, that as long as people were impressed by my "talent" and dedication, I was allowed to think of myself as a writer.

That novella was supposed to be the first of 3, but to this day, I haven't been able to finish writing the second one--nor the original book I had been so excited about--and it's been killing me. I wasn't even all that into it, initially. The novellas didn't mean all that much to me, it was just an excuse not to stop writing so I wouldn't feel like a failure, but it instead became the reason for my torment. I couldn't write. Nothing worked.

I then wrote a short story, trying out a different way of writing (past tense and 3rd person, when I usually write in present tense and 1st person), and pushed myself to publish it during pride month, hoping the challenge would be enough to get me to write--properly--again.

Spoiler: it wasn't.

The Fina Art of Kissing a Girl Friend is nice, and I'm happy I forced myself to write it because I find it adorable, and I now know I can write in 3rd person which I thought would be impossible before, but I haven't been able to write anything since, not really. Also the ending was super rushed, i'm sure you can feel it while reading.

Because I wasn't doing anything anymore, I decided to challenge myself with something else! I went to a concert in London (end of november 2025). It was my first trip ever, on my own, first time taking the train, first time on a plane, first time leaving my country, and first concert ever! It was awful, and amazing, and exhausting, and overwhelming, but I was so proud I did it. Before that though, I had decided to find a job so I could have enough money (just to be safe) for that little trip (I'm paranoid with money).

That job drained me physically and made me feel like an alien. There's no other way to say it, genuinely, I felt like a robot wearing a human suit, doing the same thing for so long I wasn't even there anymore. I was dissociating so much I didn't see time go by, and I felt numb. I couldn't feel anything at all, nothing negative, nothing positive, I was just drained out of my mind.

After working for a week and a half (mid october 2025), my boss asked me if I wanted to stay (I was a trial employee during that time) because he wanted to keep me and was satisfied with me. I was honest and told him I was thankful, but that mentally I just wasn't there anymore, and I needed some time to myself because something wasn't right. And, to be honest, a friend of mine was coming to visit me (she lives 2h away) and I wanted to be free when she came (since I had already gained enough money for the concert, I decided working more would be stupid). He understood and that was that.

(Now into the very personal stuff that is still very painful lol). A few days after that (me turning down the job), I went out with two of my best friends at the time. I was sooooo glad bro you don't even understand. I was so excited!! Let me explain: the two of them were my best friends, but they didn't know each other. I was supposed to hang out with one of them (who drove 2h to see me, you remember that), and my other friend asked if she could join. I was so hesitant, and I didn't like the idea, because I knew mixing my friends was a bad idea, and i was scared out of my mind that they would like each other more than i wanted LOL, but I felt like an awful person for thinking that way, so I said yes.

That decision ruined my life. I know this sound super dramatic, but it's true in a way. We had 2 days during which we wanted to hang out, and the first one went great. I was reassured, and the second day when we were getting ready, I told my friend (whom I allowed to join, it was just the two of us) I had been terrified the day before, that I was happy they got along but not too much, that I felt awful for thinking that but that I was so happy I wasn't excluded like I thought I'd be. She told me she'd been scared of being left out as well. I thought "wow, this is not at all going how I tought it would, I'm so glad. maybe i should do this more often instead of being so scared."

WRONG.

That (second) day, we went to an amusement park.

I've never felt as excluded and unloved as I felt that day. Again, this might sound dramatic, but I'm usually very stoic, but rejection is something I can't deal with so easily. That day, I felt my heart hurt, my body was aching because of how left out I felt. I still cry sometimes, when I talk about it with others, when I remember how the day went, when I recall how they made me feel. How worthless I felt, unloved, rejected, as if they liked each other more than they liked me, as if I wasn't enough. I'm someone who can talk about the most insane things that happened to me with a straight face, because even if I'm still upset, I'm also over it? For example, I was abused and starved as a child. Yes, I am still upset, because that should never happen to anyone, and it's sad and unfair, but I'm not actively sad about it, you know? I don't think about it unless I talk about it or write about it, and when I do, it doesn't hurt, it's just sad. As if it happened to someone else, as if it was in another life. But that? That day? I can't as much as think about how I felt, and the thoughts going through my head, without tearing up. I can't think about that day without a wave of heartache washing over me every single time.

I've talked about feeling this way since I started my page. I've never been chosen, and I've never been anyone's favorite person in my entire life. People never like me better than anyone else, and I always believed something was wrong with me because of it. I tried so hard to be kind, funny, to match people so they'd be as comfortable as possible, to respect their boundaries to the detriment of my own needs, to pretend I didn't need anything from anyone so they would tolerate me better. That day felt like maybe, I had been right all along. That I was unlikeable. That people might like me, sure, but once they got to know me, that fondness disappeared immediately.

Regardless of the way I felt like my heart was being torn apart by my favorite people's hands, I tried to hide it. I tried so hard not to ruin the mood, not to make things awkward, and I knew they were having a blast, so I didn't want to bother. I thought if I said anything the day would be ruined and they would probably be upset with me for it, and I knew I would be told I'm imagining things and that they're not doing anything to make me feel that way. Or, somehow worse, they would tell me they're sorry and that they didn't mean to, and I'd be hyper aware of the awkwardness I'm responsible for until the end of the day, just because I would have said how I felt. I thought, might as well keep it to myself than deal with being called crazy and treated like a child for the way I feel. This is just the way I grew up. Any struggle I showed was met with annoyance or plain disregard. I have never allowed myself to inconvenience people with my feelings unless I trusted them completely not to hate me for it. Only one of those 2 friends was that person for me, and I'd told her that same day that I was terrified of being excluded. Which is what hit me even harder.

I communicated to her that it was my worst nightmare to be left out or rejected in any way, especially by people I love so much (like I said, they were my best friends), and she still behaved the way she did that day. Completely disregarding what I had told her, what I had been vulnerable enough to dare share with her. I obviously won't go into details because I'm already talking about them without them knowing, so it wouldn't be appropriate to share too much.

That night, when my other friend (who drove 2h to see me) dropped me off, I tried to talk to her on the way to my home. The problem was--and is, I suppose: she is allergic to communication. I don't mean this lightly, this girl hates being vulnerable, and even though I'm not a fan of it myself because it's not always easy, and it's uncomfortable, I believe you have to be in order to have an actual real and well-built relationship. You cannot get close to someone without communicating with them about anything that bothers you. You need to talk, and I had no other choice but to try after the day I'd had. But she was cold and distant, which made me feel, again, unloved and uncared for, like I was just bothering her, like my feelings were a burden I was placing on her shoulders (which is insane because I didn't even tell her about how I felt that day, I only talked about minor stuff). She told me something that stuck with me to this day: "your feelings are not my responsibility." Granted, I was not talking about how the day we'd just spent together made me feel when she said that (we were talking about a small thing, in fact), but that somehow made it worse. If even the smallest of conversations make her uncomfortable, then what could I possibly do? What can you talk about with someone who doesn't think your feelings are their business, when you're supposedly very good friends?

When I waved her goodbye, I waited until her car disappeared and completely broke down. It was the first time something like that happened to me, just like in movies. I exploded. But here is another fun fact about me: I never cry. I have various way to externalize my thoughts and feelings, but crying usually isn't one of them. And yet, I don't think I can remember crying this hard, ever. It was dark outside, night time already (I never stay outside during the night because I'm scared and paranoid), but I walked and sat on a bench not far from where I live, and I just cried.

It usually takes me a few days to process my emotions, so I didn't even know for sure why I was crying so hard (the specific reasons, I mean), but I was certain of one thing: 

that day was the worst day of my life, and neither of them even noticed it.

Or maybe, they didn't know me enough to know why, so they simply ignored it. Which I can't possibly hold against them, to be honest. I barely knew myself either, at the time, and I can only admit this now, after months of therapy.

Anyway, I cried outside at 10pm for almost an hour, non-stop, because I didn't want my family to see me like that. Like I said, I rarely cry. If I do, I do so on my own and in private. If I went in, sobbing like that--which I would have never done lol--I don't even know how my family would have reacted, because it never happened ever.

I had what I'd like to call a depressive episode, but I'm not sure if you have to get diagnosed for that or not--and I wasn't. I was miserable for the months that followed, but that first week was especially hard. I completely stopped eating and showering, I was in bed all day, only drank water when I felt a bit hungry, but even that had stopped. I was on my phone constantly, trying to distract myself from how devastated I felt. And just writing about it right now brings tears to my eyes. I might not think I deserve the whole wide world or that I'm the best person--or friend--ever, but I didn't deserve to feel like that.

 

 this was literally me

I spent my time either trying not to think about it or crying my eyes out because I failed to do so. I kept listening to the same song over and over again because music is the only thing that ever helps me genuinely regulate myself, and it wasn't working. Nothing was working, so I decided to write.

I took a notebook, a pen, and I started describing what I felt. That I was sure my friends hated me, because why else would they treat me like that? That no one loved me, that no one liked me, that I was insufferable, that I was replaceable, that I made people sick of me, that I was always either too much or not enough, that I could never be just right for anyone, that I could never have friends, that I wasn't cut for being around people in general because I was unloveable.

I've talked about being aroace a few times too, and I have dealt with these feelings before when it comes to romantic relationships--which was what pushed me to write and publish my first 3 books that shall remain nameless. But I've grieved that version of me, and I've grieved that life. Being in a relatioship, having a partner, being in love...it sounds nice on paper, which is why I write about it, but I don't think it's for me. And that's okay. Even if I sometimes have moments where I feel bad and lonely because of it, I'm overall fine with this part of myself.

The reason I'm saying this is, the way I felt last october was completely unrelated to feeling unwanted in a romantic way--or sexual way--and it was very different, even if it boils down to the same exact thing. I didn't feel like no one could love me romantically, I felt like no one could love me in any way, at all. Because I was too difficult to love, and it was a burden to have to think of me/take me into consideration. I felt like the standard human relationships others had--friendships, acquaintances, even being compatible with others to any degree--were too complicated for me to have, because I just didn't human the right way.

That's it. I just didn't exist the right way. I didn't exist in a way that was tolerable for others, and even my friends got sick of me eventually.

After that very hard week, I reached out to the place my friend (the one I allowed to come with us, funnily enough) went to for therapy, and I started going there as well. I've been going there ever since, and...even though that day ruined my life, it also helped me so much.

I've learned so much about myself, and I'm hopefully getting tested for a few things when I go back home (I'm currently in Malta for an intership)! I was convinced I had a problem, that something was wrong with me, that I was a bad friend (which I sort of am tbh), that I had jealousy issues, that I was possessive, that I was toxic, and I was blaming myself so much when truly, my friends just didn't consider me for a single second that day, and it hurt to realize I needed more from them than they were willing to give--or that they just didn't know me enough to be able to do that.

Turns out, I'm just very probably neurodivergent--which is for another post!

I'm not compatible with people, and I'm very slowly coming to terms with that.

Anyway, this is why I haven't been active in so long. I was trying so hard to survive in a world that I felt was built for everyone else but me.

Now, I'm openly insufferable, without shame (I'm still working on that!), and without apologizing for it!!