I need to vent

today i dont know where to put everything that has been piling up inside me. i have so many things to write and say, but it feels like they are all waiting in line, and i only want to pour out what exists right now. for the past few months, maybe even longer, i have been in a period where i convinced myself that everything was fine. or maybe a period where i wanted to believe i was fine. i kept telling myself this: i have survived harder things, i can survive this too. i endured, i pushed myself, i pushed a little more. and now i realize that the place i have arrived at is a broken one.

i didnt want to accept that i was fragile. that i had been breakable from the beginning. i didnt want to see that. in work, in relationships, in thinking about what i am doing with my life or whether i know what i am doing at all, i honestly dont know. right now i just feel broken. i can clearly see that i cannot take on any more weight at work. i have been working beyond my capacity for a long time, constantly exceeding myself. now even the smallest request, the slightest criticism, the simplest conversation brings me to a place i cannot carry.

i have always been afraid of looking fragile, of thinking of myself as fragile. i tried to deny it every time it appeared. i believed that it made me look weak, that it made me look incapable. i felt like i always had to be strong, like strength was something i had to perform without interruption. but now i can no longer find the strength to fight this, or even to convince myself of a different version of it. i am too tired to keep negotiating with myself about why i should not be this way.

what hurts me the most is this: even when someone wants to talk to me, even when they are trying to understand me, i start crying. i cant defend myself. it feels like everything i have been feeling suddenly collapses on top of me. maybe i was always feeling these things, but i was trying to silence them. now even the smallest thing makes me feel crushed. today my manager wanted to talk to me. not to warn me, but to understand me. to ask why i couldnt keep up with some tasks. but again, i couldnt hold it in and i cried. i couldnt calm myself enough to even say that i am open to criticism, even though i wanted to.

every year when winter comes, it feels like i fall into the same cycle. in summer, life distracts me and keeps me busy with other things. in winter, the things i avoid seem to stand right in front of me. it feels like there is something i am supposed to see, but i havent seen it until now. i feel incapable of expressing myself. there are so many things inside me that i want to say, but i cant seem to empty them out.

there is also my relationship with my body. i had recently started dieting. i go to the gym twice a week, though i know it is not enough. i lost five kilos with the diet and i want to lose more. because as long as i can remember, i have always felt some kind of dissatisfaction with my body. i dont even know how i look. my body image has always been unstable. when i was dieting, i felt a little better because it felt like i was in control. being able to control myself made me feel calmer.

but then i stopped. because the only way i have left to cope with stress is food. especially chocolate. i think about the chocolate i will eat at three oclock all day. i wait for it. because otherwise i cant release what is building up inside me. when i get home, i eat a little more. then my body image gets worse and i feel even worse about myself.

i cant even make myself accept that i dont feel good. i realize that i have been brushing myself off by constantly saying there is nothing wrong. maybe this is one of the worst things i have been doing to myself for a long time. but i dont know how to let it out. it feels like there is nothing i can do. like i am stuck in the same place. time is passing and the feeling that i am falling behind keeps gnawing at me.

there is also the issue of age. i am 25 years old and it feels like i only have one or two years left to figure my life out. this thought suffocates me. on one hand, i see people in their thirties and forties who are still searching, still trying to understand their lives, and i think i should feel relieved. but on the other hand, there is a voice inside me saying you should have figured everything out while you were young. big money, big success, a big sense of ease. as if all of it should happen immediately.

and there is another fear. what if one day i truly find comfort and lose the creativity that feeds me? as if pain and searching are my fuel. this thought sits somewhere very deep inside me.

the only thing i know right now is this: i dont feel good. and maybe for the first time, i am trying to say this without hiding it.