maybe i’m not mentally ill, maybe i’m just a little bitch

Some days I leave the house and I’m like, Wow, she’s so brave. So capable. Just out here walking down the street like a normal person. Other days, I walk 200 metres and suddenly I’m clenching my icepack like I’m about to be abducted by the atmosphere.

I do go out. I’m not a recluse. I go to the gym. I went to work when I had a job. I buy protein bars and pretend I’m normal, and swipe my card like I've got it together. But I don’t leave town. I don’t drive far. I don’t take the highway. If the road stretches too long or turns unfamiliar, I can feel my heart race like it knows something I don’t.

They call it agoraphobia. Or anxiety. Or panic disorder. Or whatever DSM-5 special of the day is being served.
And yeah, sometimes it’s valid. Sometimes it feels like my nervous system is trying to warn me about something no one else can see. But other times I’m like… maybe I’m just emotionally high maintenance?

Because honestly, sometimes I think I made it all up.

Not consciously. Not for sympathy. Just accidentally. Like a coping mechanism I downloaded in a moment of crisis then forgot how to uninstall.

And I’ve done this shit before. With food. Four years of eating disorders. Tracking, avoiding, obsessing, making entire meals out of pickles and identity crises. Four years of slow suicide by discipline. And still. part of me wonders if I was just being dramatic. If maybe I didn’t really have anorexia. Maybe I was just disciplined. Maybe I just liked the control and didn’t want to admit it. Maybe I never had a problem, I just made myself one.

People say, “You were unwell.” and I nod. But inside I’m like, Was I though? Or was I just competitive and chronically online?

It’s a weird kind of gaslighting when you're doing it to yourself. Like part of me knows I’ve spent years trying to untangle this, with therapists, doctors, research. But another part still whispers, “You’re faking it. You’re not mentally ill, you’re just really, really weak.”

That voice. The same voice that said, “Do you want this food or the body you've always wanted.” The same one that says, “You’re not anxious, you’re just lazy.” The same one that turns every symptom into a character flaw.

“Am I agoraphobic?”
Or am I just someone who freaks out about timeframes and hates leaving the perimeter of my safe bubble?

The worst part is, I have diagnoses. Therapists. I’ve sat in rooms crying and shaking and paid people to tell me I’m not making it up.
And yet.
That little voice still knocks, “What if you're just a fucking pussy?”

Maybe I am.
Maybe I’m not mentally ill. Maybe I’m just a little bitch.

But, maybe that’s what being mentally ill is.
I'm still showing up. Still trying. Still going outside and saying, “This is terrifying and I’m doing it anyway.”
Even when the voice in your head says, “You’re lying.”
Even when you believe it.

So yeah. I’m not sure what’s real. I can't always trust my brain. But I know I’ve survived it.
And I know I’m still here.
And if that makes me mentally ill, or just a little bitch, so be it.

I still try.

And maybe that’s what matters more than whether it was real in the first place. 

Cheating Lite™ - REM Edition

So, again, I didn’t technically cheat.

But my subconscious did.

I had a dream where I fell in love with a man who lived ten minutes away. That’s it. No sex. Just proximity and chemistry and something I can only describe as cheating emotionally in my dreams. Some subconscious slut behaviour.

It wasn’t some vague, blurry dream either. It was vivid. We had no history. We did have banter. We had deep eye contact. He wasn’t even crazy hot. Just, emotionally available in a way that made me feel seen. We weren’t doing anything wild either, just lying around, playing, talking like we’d known each other forever. That kind of cosy intimacy you only get in dreams or specific indie movies with good lighting.

And the worst part? I woke up in full mourning. With a heavy heart and some disoriented grief. Meanwhile, my actual boyfriend is sleeping peacefully. Oblivious, innocent and breathing.

I spent the morning feeling like I’d lost something real, you know that weird dream grief that clings to you for a moment even though none of it actually happened. Yeah, okay, he exists. But your brain modded him like a Sims character and gave him all the traits you wish real men had. Of course you woke up sad.

No, I didn’t tell my boyfriend. I didn’t feel like starting our day with, “Hey I emotionally cheated on you with a man who lives slightly closer to my parents and smells like safety who gave me the kind of hugs where I get lifted up and spun around like a Disney princess.”

Again, no sex. Just hugs that make you feel small, safe, and entirely claimed. And too much comfort in the wrong arms. And that feeling like my dream self was at home with him.

Which is somehow worse?

So what now? I pretend it meant nothing and secretly hope I see him again around the corner, or in my next dream.

Cheating Lite™

He says it was cheating.
And if the roles were reversed, I’d say so too.

I feel like i'm trying to find a line, an invisible, wobbly line between what’s technically okay and what’s emotionally devastating. Did I cross it? Even with my clothes on?

Well it wasn’t sex. It wasn’t premeditated. He just came over to hangout and grab something. 

We talked. Hugged. Sat down. Got comfortable. Too comfortable. And before I could even think properly, we were in my bed, kissing. Cuddling. His hands on my back, my hand in his hair. And in the moment I had that dull ache saying this is wrong, this is bad. But it wasn't loud enough. Not loud enough to make me stop.

I felt guilty. A little. But not in an overwhelming way. More like the kind of guilt you feel when you go over calories, but not more than 100. You know you shouldn’t, but it still feels kind of good in the moment.

My boyfriend was away that weekend. We said the first “I love you” not long before that. The kind of I love you that lands heavily. Like he felt safe enough to say it and trusted me to hold it. And then I turned around and did the opposite.

I told him what happened. I didn’t have to. I started by saying that I kissed someone. That it wasn’t sex, but it wasn’t nothing, and that I didn’t plan it.

He looked at me with eyes narrowed, questions lined up like bullets.

Sometimes you fuck up not because you want to destroy something, but because part of you is too messy to handle being loved properly. Sometimes you test what you don’t want to lose, just to see if it’ll break.

But then, he got over it. Fast.

Like his instinct to collect the information and grab every detail was stronger than the instinct to be hurt by it. He has a way of needing to know everything, even if it rips him apart. 

I expected more aftermath. More resentment, or days where he couldn’t look at me in the eyes. But instead, it was like once the mystery was solved, the crime was over. No punishment.

Then he said something. It wasn’t something that stuck with me deeply, but it did make me pause for a second.

He doesn’t care as much if someone else gives me pleasure.
What really gets to him is the idea of me giving it to someone else.

Which is funny because that’s not what happened. There wasn’t some big moment of satisfaction. It was just hands, closeness and bad timing. 

It wasn’t about what I could've got, it was about what I was willing to give, even if it wasn’t much.

It’s not about sex. It’s about access.
He doesn’t want someone else on the receiving end of something I give.

We’re still together. I feel like I've passed a test I didn’t even know I was taking. And I don’t know if I passed because he trusts me, or because he needs to believe I’m still someone worth choosing.

“Am I Gay?” A Dive Into My Very Straight Brain

You know those existential thought spirals you can induce at 2AM? The ones where you're lying in bed thinking about life, death, the future, and whether or not that one praise you gave to a woman in 2018 means you're kind of gay?

Yeah well, welcome to my Wednesday night.

Let me start with the facts. I am a woman. I am attracted to men. I’ve dated them, had sex with them, argued with them in Kmart, blocked them, unblocked them, re-followed them on Insta months later. I've done the whole emotional labor, give and receive shit until I gave myself a fucking brain hernia. Men, unfortunately and fortunately, are very much my type.

But, here’s the part that always trips me the fuck up. I can find women attractive. I can look at a woman and think, she is beautiful. I can love her style, the symmetry of her face, the way she exists in the world like some kind of fabricated animal who actually drinks water and washes her face. When I look at some women, I want to cry and punch a wall at the same time. Sometimes, I can say to myself, “Damn she’s pretty,” and not immediately want to climb her like a tree and bite the branches.

That’s confusing me now. I feel like I've hit a point where if I acknowledge another woman’s beauty, I'm supposed to call myself gay and make a slideshow for my family about my coming out journey, and maybe buy a fucking crystal.

But, surely finding women beautiful doesn’t make me gay. It makes me observant? Socialised in a world where women are encouraged to compliment or criticise each other’s eyebrows like it’s fucking currency?

I am a woman, so I know women. The group chats are like CIA operations, screenshots are critical evidence and one wrong emoji could be declaration of war. The passive aggression? Venomly. 

And their smiles? Aren't kindness, its weaponry. They're the kind of smiles that say, “I will compliment your eyebrows while actively bulldozing your reputation in three separate friend groups.” Women don’t argue, they fucking assassinate. Quietly and strategically. And with enough tact to make you doubt your own sanity.

No woman on this planet is actually chill. That’s a myth made by men who have never seen a woman fully lose her shit. We are unstable goddesses with abandonment issues. And I say that with deep respect and lived experience. 

All women are on SSRIs. And if they’re not, they just haven’t been diagnosed yet. That’s why after a breakup, they’ll start a lash business instead of burning your house down

I’ve had women flirt with me and kiss me. I’ve had friends suggest that everyone is “probably bi and just repressed.” I’m not confused I just think women can be ethereal. And fucking crazy. But, are they right? I know it’s easier to be gay on the internet than straight. I feel like there's more gays, furrys and trans than there are straight and cis people now.

But at the end of the day, I know myself. I know what desire and lust feels like. And I’ve never once looked at a woman and thought, “Yes. That’s who I want in my bed, messing up my sheets and ghosting me after.” In fact, having a woman in my bed revolts me.

So no, I’m not gay. I’m just a straight woman who knows when another woman is looking fine and sometimes I'll say so, because I’ve lived long enough to know that confidence isn’t a threat, and neither is praise.