Zoomer Vent/Reflection on Pandemic (Kinda trauma-dumping too)

Ello,

I guess this can be seen as a journal or diary entry I kinda went off on a few tangents about my childhood and family members.

I'm gonna vent a little about how I've been thinking and feeling this past week coming back to school after spring break. I've noticed since the beginning of the pandemic that I've slowly become more and more addicted to the internet. Covid lock-downs began 3/4 of the way through my senior year and I rarely used social media at that time, hell, I didn't really take pictures of myself then. In some ways I've grown for the better and in other ways regressed. I have really come into my own with my style, personality, and what I do and don't stand for. But I feel that I haven't gotten much closer to healing any long term struggles and have started to see some bad behaviors developing.

Pre-covid I wore tight pigtail braids, a PG t-shirt and jeans or jean shorts to school everyday. I hardly ever dressed up or let my hair down. It was so rare it seemed like a biblical event to my social circles if I came to school with my hair down. To be fair, in my emo middle school years I took poor care of my hair which is naturally wavy and can easily become frizzy. So, when high school rolled around I used simple products for my hair type and kept it in braids to stay out of the way. Part of me did this because I hated my hair and always wanted straight, thin hair because it was so much easier to manage and I thought I'd be prettier. Now I absolutely love the type of hair I have and want to give it the love I took from it as a tween. In middle and high school I was also what you'd call a pick me girl. I was a tomboy who liked video games, memes, anime, and science. I also had very little girl friends and mostly guy friends. Part of it is from internalized misogyny that I don't have anymore and another part was that I felt like a freak to other girls. I felt embarrassed and nervous around girls my age especially really feminine, small, or confident girls. I think part of me envied their character because I wanted to be that way and not so insecure and unhappy with myself. Aside from this I also felt the need to be as productive and intelligent as I could be for my mom who was raising us on her own after the divorce. I did a lot of honors classes in high school mostly because that's where all my friends were and wanted to see them more in the day and so I could cling on to a nerdy personality since I didn't know who I was yet. I always thought if I try my best now I'll leave a lot of doors open for myself later to choose from. I feared having life make my choices for me so I always wanted a good SAT score and GPA. I did so many activities and sports to sprinkle into my transcript and resume so I would look good. Now I see that my mental illnesses and disabilities are what I was trying to hide. I didn't have the healthiest childhood, was poor for most of my life, and have cognitive conditions that weren't recognized or evaluated that made me feel like I was a problem.

At the end of my junior year I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed a stimulant to help focus. I had such self hatred from as early on as elementary school where I feel slower than everyone else because I would get side-tracked from another thing and later in high school I would seem intelligent for being able to delve into a niche subject with it having my full attention. Along with not being diagnosed for most of my childhood, I also grew up in an unhealthy environment for my mental health. Stepping back now I can see that parents became broken people for different reasons in their life. My grandfather was physically abusive towards my dad his whole life and grew up very poor and has little understanding of mental health and what it can look like. That created in my dad a low self esteem and violent tendencies that me and my siblings would see and be the victims of. My mother got stuck in her home town and hasn't completely recovered from losing her mother at a young age which led to my father's opinion mattering more to her once her mom was gone. My mother because weak and frozen while my dad exploded in rage and their marriage failed. Just so we're clear, my father's actions and lack there of were and always will be the most traumatic things to happen to me and I struggle everyday to be a healthy person lacking a healthy loving father figure and unlearning the taught self-hatred. So, pairing their personal issues before, during, and after their marriage is why I never had an accurate view of mental health or disorders. I think if they had overcame their struggles before having children my issues would've been recognized and avoided. This is by far the hardest thing I need to overcome if I want to avoid walking in my parents footsteps.

Anyway Segways are cool I installed tiktok in March of 2020 right at the beginning of the pandemic and have found my self nostalgic for that time. I was a very different person then and wish I could go back for certain things. I miss my patience and grace from that time. I feel so much more irritable now and idk if that's from my childhood trauma starting to unfold that way it unfolded for my dad as a young adult or if it's multiple things. I throw and smack object of mine when they aren't working. I'm almost always by myself because I am incredibly ashamed that I do this and every time I do I think of my father and how the actions I just did used to terrify me as a child when he'd do it. I've also seen this kind of explosion happening with my brother with video games. He's been angrier than I have over things but he's also told me that he feels ashamed after he breaks a controller or puts a hole in his wall because he knows who he's being just like in that moment and it's a person who's hurt us. I feel that my addiction to the internet hasn't help me manage my emotions that way I used to. I need to journal more either in a notebook or on here because it does help and I tend to hold on to so much until I burnout and go numb.

I need to start actively using social media in a healthy way for myself. I need to stop absorbing information about drama especially people who I'll never see in my life like popular youtubers, tiktok creators, etc. because it's soaking up my bandwidth and I need that for way more important things. Before covid I wanted to get into painting and learning guitar and languages and watch more impactful movies. Now I seem to rot in bed all day and have no drive. I heard recently that I don't have to try to be the best possible version of myself, but rather my favorite version of myself. My best version of myself is probably the super productive, smart, and active in the world's issues. But I think my favorite version would do that but also have time to do things that make me happy and be okay with failing or messing up and making mistakes. My favorite me would want to still be on the internet but still be mobile and active in the real world. I can't tell you the last time I read a book for fun and I used to all the time and it was peaceful and I learned something or felt something from it.

I feel like a lot of people my age are starting to feel the way I do about social media and how we're all starting to feel so tired from it. But it's also really hard to close the app or put the phone down when so much is happening in the world or in your personal life that it makes one hell of a distraction. That still needs overcome and dealt with even without the distraction and I'm starting to really see that.

Anyway another cool Segway I want to start using the internet to my benefit health-wise so I'm going to unfollow accounts that aren't helping me mentally. If they're just doing trends I'm going to unfollow unless they're my friend. If they're doing things I like like makeup or fashion I'll stay but other than that I really need to put myself back on track to be happy. I also want to only watch good, kind people on the internet for entertainment. People like Markiplier, Jerma985, Kennie J.D, Eddy Burback, Bailey Serian, and more. I also want to start streaming cozy, fun games on Twitch and just see how that goes. I want to just do things without pressure or needing to feel like I'm doing my possible best. I just want to relax and enjoy without making myself unhappy. It's weird that I need to virtually de-clutter my life but it's really overdue.

I'm so sorry if none of this makes any damn sense and if you read to the end you get an ice cream cone. 🍦

This is a good way of seeing where my train of thought goes because I started wanting to talk about the internet and how the pandemic affected me and then went on a tangent about my personal changes through school. Again more ice cream you deserve it.🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦