u/GenerallyTrying

Title says it all. I literally don't know what to do with myself. I am SO much worse than EVERYBODY when it comes to being a functional human being. Everyone else has this baseline knowledge of like society and culture in the specific niches they're interested in, right? People know bands, musicians, celebrities, anime, manga, and they find all this stuff on their own too, and are just generally cultured and knowledgeable. Whereas when I was a kid I just messed around, I was bad at school, I know maybe one or two things culturally, like I just have a couple interests, but I always felt so....overwhelmed and inundated with information all the time that I was just never as educated or plugged in to what everyone else just knew, and its still like that to the point its shameful, like people will tell me things about poetry or literature like everyone on earth should know them and I just don't even though I majored in it, i still only know one or two things there too when everyone else seems to hold the knowledge of like 500 authors and literary works in their brains EASILY WHILE HAVING JOBS whereas im chronically ill and bedbound with nothing else to my life and I still only know like 5 fucking things. I am so lazy. I am so trash and I am so bad at working hard and making something of my stupid fucking ruined life. I am 27 years old and I am NOTHING. I have nothing to talk about because im sick and I lie in bed all day. I am profoundly pathetic. I thought I was good at poetry and it makes me laugh to think I thought I was when I am so profoundly uneducated. "OH its bc I have cptsd" yeah so do ALL IF MY FRIENDS AND THEY ARE ALL SMART AND FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED. I hate myself so much. I wish I could harm myself but that would be even more pathetic. Why can't I just be normal and an actual interesting knowledgeable person????? In conversations I literally only listen to the other person because im not even a person myself. I have never opened up about myself in a conversation because I have never, ever felt like a full person because of how vacuous I am. I am too stupid and I don't know anything or value anything the way others do. There's just nothing to me. But sometimes I crave one day feeling like a full human being with a narrative and passions and interests and a soul that can be heard and understood like a story. I will probably be dead before im that.

I can't really attend any classes because I don't have the money but I can download textbooks from like, Anna's archive. But I don't know what to download!

It's frustrating because everyone knows like, 1000 specific poets and expects you to know them as well, but I don't, and i don't know how to find what everyone just somehow seems to know through osmosis (I'm sure it isn't the case, I just struggle with finding things) I really love Carl Phillips, for example, but how on earth do I find more poets who write like that or even what particular styles are, like another poet I like is Steven Duong, and I also like Li Young Lee, but these are poets I found with a lot of effort and luck and searching whereas other people seem to be really good at finding things they love, whereas sifting through information and finding poets and knowledge about poetry is impossible for me!!

I want to learn SPECIFICS. I want to know everything you actually learn about poetry in high level classes, like yes things like meter and form, but also histories and poetic traditions and all the poems that are in conversation with each other and poetic theory (like Kristeva) and all that theory being applied, like where do I learn THAT? How do people know how to do things in poetry like particular almost nonsensical word associations that still somehow mean something, how can they put punctuation someplace or alter a sentence so that it's meaning can't exactly be deciphered or even defended, and yet it still works, and how do you find meaning from something so obfuscated? How to engineer and reverse engineer poetry, genuinely, and I understand the whole Barthes interpretation as changeable thing, but surely there are embedded conversations and knowledge in poetry, that allow some things to be understood and some plays to be made for particular reasons?

I'm just so tired and exhausted at how much I suck at learning about something I care about so much. I try so hard, I read as much as I can, but I know I fall so short all the time. I think part of it is I depend on extroversion and other people for knowledge but I'm chronically ill and bedbound so not being integrated in society makes learning so much harder. I want to genuinely learn. I want to edit my own poems but it's so lonely if I don't know who I'm in conversation with, or how to be, I don't know who to read or how everyone knows all the queer poets or all the poetic schools or all the new and old and well known authors, I don't know but I'm trying so hard and every day I fail and it's so frustrating. I need help. How do I learn? How do I find poets, where do you guys find poets? I look here and Instagram and at lists online and in articles and interviews with other poets and still end up lost. I just want to learn and it feels like I'm some kind of magnet repelling learning, nothing seems to come to me 😭😭😭😭 i just want to understand the thing i care about. If anyone has any tips

For context he's a really sweet person and none of it is intentional AND I also have my fair share of toxicity. But I'm looking back into the past of this relationship and realizing things that I just didn't realize before bc I was low confidence + I idolized him.

1. early on in the relationship i told him I needed him to ask before he hugged and kissed me bc I have severe trauma from csa, but he never did and then said things like "well I feel like if it's a relationship I shouldn't have to ask, a relationship is generally about just being able to do that"

2. another thing early on was he made me feel bad for my extroversion and made it out like I was making him uncomfortable in group settings on purpose, i was so stressed and apologized and toned myself down a lot as a result, but I wish he had loved me for the hyper energy person I was, you know?

3. again early in our relationship there was a pattern where anytime I brought an issue up, he would use it as "discussion time" to talk about his issue too, actually this was the first four years of the relationship that was like this. I never really felt like the issue was resolved (usually a communication issue)

4. again early in the relationship, but also later, i feel like he..struggled to ever learn things from me? Or see me as someone who could explain things? Sure i don't know much about anything really, but he would always be the only one talking. As time progressed it made me feel like a deeply boring and uninteresting person. It also makes it so that when I speak, I'm always so anxious, because I feel the pressure to get enough interesting words out to hold his attention and usually that doesn't happen, like the most I've ever felt like I could talk is like 2 minutes.

5. he never asks me how my day was or what I'm thinking about naturally. He has told me it's bc he "expects me to just say it" but when i don't say it, why doesn't he have any curiosity, you know? I can't imagine not knowing anything about what he's thinking about...he has no questions about me...it makes me feel like I have nothing worth saying.

6. all my friends are also his friends, he has none of his own friends and the ones he does aren't also my friends 😭 which is why I'm terrified to talk about what goes on in the relationship with any friends.

7. there was one point where i was very ill medically that he body slammed me into the bed and told me later in an apology that "he was sorry for taking his anger out on me" at that point i was attempting to sh so I understand the push, but it also made my medical situation worse for a couple days and it imprinted in my head as deeply traumatic.

8)has done this thing where he'll ask a question and if i don't give him the answer he wants, he'll keep saying stuff like "i just don't understand " or "why aren't you being open with me?" When i AM being open, it's just not the answer he wants, like telling him I can't have sex because of my ptsd right now is a full answer, but he didn't see it that way...and it puts me in situations where I forced myself to have sex when I couldn't or didn't want to.

9. he has started arguments while we were watching my FAVORITE movies

I know it's not really dv, but there was a point at which i was in a severe medical state (couldn't chew or speak or breathe properly) and i was scratching myself out of stress, and he was stressed too so instead of gently pulling my arms away he body slammed me into the bed which made my breathing worse. After he did that he seemed angry for a while (i could barely detect what was happening) and later he apologized for taking his anger out on me. When i brought it up later he said sorry but didn't seem to think it was a huge deal, but I've never forgiven this. I know it isn't a serious case I just had to talk about it

Tbh I know I'm EXTREMELY lucky compared to others. Before I start I want to say I'm extremely sick with a disease that needs a lot of care, like I'm bedbound and my bf cares for me, brings me meals, is kind...but it also means I'm fully dependent on him.

There was a moment our relationship changed from constant fights to peace, and it was the moment he decided to "take his anger out on me" (his words) by basically slamming my body into the bed during the worst medical period of my life. It doesn't sound like much, I know, and he also did it bc I was scratching myself out of stress, so it's not like it was completely wrong. But medically at this time I was not able to even speak or chew food, so my body registered it as a very intense act.

I dont have any parents to depend on for this illness they lowkey are abusive too and abandoned me etc. When I first got kicked out and moved in with my bf bc I had nowhere to go, it was only after I moved in that he said he "wasn't sure about our relationship." This made me panic. I was in a really disconnected space and wasn't able to do things like sex easily, and when he would ask why and I would explain about ptsd and my fears, he would insist I "wasn't being vulnerable " or "wasn't opening up to him" and he was "just confused" because it wasn't the answer he wanted. This resulted in me literally losing it and the fight made me crash even worse, made my medical situation worse, and the sex I forced myself to have because I was made to feel like the "bad one" in the relationship made me worse as well.

I think at a certain point things changed where he became more mature. Our relationship is now really calm and loving except for the fact he never asks me any questions, even how my day was (im bedbound but I am a writer and do stuff online) and makes jokes sometimes insinuating about wanting more sex, which i give. I guess I just feel so exhausted bc that buildup of toxic actions was just a reflection of things which our relationship had begun with (ignoring/contesting boundaries, criticizing personality traits like my extroversion, always trying to teach me things but never thinking to listen or ask.)

I just need to tell someone this. Bc in our relationship all my friends are his friends, but he has no friends of his own and if he does they're not really as integrated in my life as mine are in his bc he doesn't really have that dynamic with them. So I haven't told a soul any of this. And anyway, I'm sure I've been toxic too. It just all hurts. I need someone to tell me my feelings matter even though I know I'm lucky to be cared for like this, extremely lucky, given my being ill.

I dont even know how to word this, but I need to get something which happened off of my chest. Im still in this relationship but it's genuinely completely safe. It's just hard for me to feel anything bc I've kinda forgiven a lot.

I have a really really severe disease, to the point I'm bedbound and need to depend on someone for survival. This is the point where most people tune out because, if you have a boy taking care of you, making food and sweets for you, paying for everything and being kind, why would you be hung up on the time he "took his anger out on you"(his words) physically while you were in the most dangerous medical situation of your life? Why would I be hung up on all the times he got upset at me for not having sex and causing fights by refusing to believe any of my answers about ptsd until my health permanently worsened? I don't have parents i can depend on -- this all happened when I finally moved in with him to get away from my abusive mother, and the moment I settled in, that was when he decided to tell me he was "unsure about the relationship."

As a result of all the anxiety I felt living with him I pushed myself to have more sex than I could physically handle, and that ended up in me permanently worsening to a point I was in this conscious coma state where I couldn't speak, read (even look at my phone) chew, write, tolerate light or sound (it's called extremely severe m.e.) or walk. Basically a chance I would die, but I happened to improve. At that time, he was of course very stressed out about taking care of me. But at one point I was trying to scratch myself bc I was so stressed out, and instead of gently pulling my arms away he grabbed my arms and body slammed me down, and then admitted to me later (while i physically could not talk, so I couldn't respond) that he had taken his anger out on me in that moment. I decided then and there that even if i had to live with my abusive mother, I would break up with him. And it seemed the moment that THOUGHT came in my mind, the entire relationship changed.

He's become aware now. He only slightly jokingly insinuates wanting more sex nowadays. He doesn't seem to register body slamming me as that serious, so maybe my weak body registered it as more severe than it was. There's more silly things, like he never asks me questions, he has this habit of "trying to understand me" and then ignoring my answers or insisting I'm having "difficulty being vulnerable " when it's an answer he doesn't expect or want.

My last family member has left the country. Im obviously fully dependent on him now. I know this is weird, but I'm pretty happy. He's nice to me now. I know he won't hit me. He doesn't do anything wrong. My feelings have just...sort of waned, but I feel guilty bc clearly he has enough love to keep me around and alive. But I don't know, maybe I'm better off dead. It's just, I haven't told a soul. All my friends are his friends, he has hardly any of his own friends and if he does have his own friends, they're not mine or as close to me as I've made my friends be to him. I care about him deeply, but at the same time I think from the beginning of the relationship, there were red flags I ignored. Like him insisting he loved me more than I loved him, like me asking that he please ask permission before kissing or hugging me bc of my severe ptsd (my dad assaulted me) and him never doing it, like him insisting a break up would be initiated by me, not him, like him always trying to impress me and teach me stuff but never treating my own self as interesting, to the point I've had whole spirals about my own self being flat and useless.

I pretend it's all good, because it IS all good, you know? Most people like me get left for dead.

I just need to tell my story.