i find it easier to not think

seriously.

i call it "self preservation" and act as if this "not thinking" is a compassionate form of self love but this form of self love is so harmful to my growth that i didn't even realize i had been doing it since i was a child.

i don't really know if i want to stop the cycle because it is what is safe and familiar but to explain how i feel, i'll have these moments of self refection with intentions that it will bring me to a new place in life but honestly i shame myself for making mistakes more than any community, more than any ex lover and more than any ex friend can make me feel. so instead i don't want to think. the self reflection causes pain and fear so i chose to flight instead of fight.

my heart and mind yearn for knowledge and education and i remind myself how deeply and critically i used to think about important issues but for the last 4 years when i write about things that i have a lot of knowledge of i think about how others could easily dismiss any work i create by saying they don't like me. and that's dumb way to think, but its how i think. i can look at several authors whose work were important but dismissed by critical thinkers so easily so the thought of my work not being good enough to be accepted by a community completely hinders me. and it sucks because i like to share things i've been studying, and share things i care about. but instead of being able to carry the burden of criticism from my work or my thought i just don't think about it. and i've been doing this for a very very long time.

so long that i can remember the first form of when i started to do it. i remember i did something that caused me to get detention for a week in elementary school. we were allowed to have pencils and paper and books (i think) but i remember staring at Mr. Meihack's green detention cubby walls for hours and hours instead. i just preferred to stare at a wall. sometimes i would lay my head down over my crossed arms and secretly suck my thumb. but mostly not thinking about anything. just staring at wall. i've been doing that a lot lately, just staring, zoned out, not even feeling like anything is real or isn't real, just not thinking.

i asked my therapist for worksheets almost a month ago, and a couple of them were about "shame based thinking". it was giving examples about always feeling guilty and always feeling ashamed. because i've been practicing this weird coping skill of not thinking i have found myself to be confused about identifying my emotions. reading over the examples of what shame based thinking was i did not realize that i was always shaming and guilting myself.

i am not good enough to write a worthy piece of work because i am not thoroughly a "good person". a bad feminist. so when i wanted to write these big pieces about why these little gingham shorts that were really important to my identity as someone with bpd dealing with dissociation, i couldn't. i didn't want to feel something passionately, write about it, and then feel stress so deeply about who would rip it apart if they could. so i didn't. i didn't write anything. i didn't allow myself to even finish the thought. i shamed myself for worrying about being good enough to write, shamed myself for being afraid and then shamed myself that these stupid little shorts were so important to me. it was easier to not think than to deal with what could be.

with that being said, there was so much more i wanted to say in my first zine. i had so much to say. but i was so afraid, afraid of hurting myself and allowing others to have ammunition to hurt me with my own work and then afraid i wasnt going to articulate it well enough. i'm sad and ~*ashamed*~ that i didn't say what was important to me. who knows if i'll ever be able to write about the topics i think about. like when i was 17 and wrote essays on tumblr about why veganism is a feminist issue. but in some ways not thinking is a compassionate response to how deeply i feel about shame. at least i wrote about this. the topic of how i actually stare at walls to cope with stress. that's something, i guess.