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Confessions
Confess your deepest secrets here, anonymously, if you'd prefer
I won't judge
submitted by Anonymous, age x, x
(October 15, 2020 - 1:43 pm)
(October 15, 2020 - 1:43 pm)
hello, iris. I'm so sorry you've had to go through so much fear and worry about yourself. I hope I can offer you some reassurance.
(August 27, 2022 - 3:52 pm)
This means the world to me Peri
Thank you so much for everything I don't know how to explain but like-- thank you so much
(August 27, 2022 - 6:27 pm)
Dear iris,
I'm very sorry you feel this way, especially since I can relate to some degree. I've had similar feelings, both about tickling and other peoples reaction to it, especially when I was very young, but even some now. I also have felt similarly in terms of religion, and I think you're on the right trail. I don't think I could give any better advice than what Peri has already said, but what I personally think has helped me the most with these thoughts and emotions is trusting in the sovereignty of my God over everything and His ability to forgive and help me. I believe we're all fallen and have things we're ashamed of, and the best we can do (as you have done) is to recognize when our thoughts may cause pain and choose not to act on them. Reiterating Peri a little, I think living your life worrying about it can be needlessly anxiety- and guilt-inducing. It may be good to talk to a therapist about, but you don't have to tell anyone else if it's not a part of you you want to be. I know how scary it is having a dark secret--I've never told anyone either. My hope and intention with my comment is that you know you aren't alone in this, as I found for myself when I read yours.
Sincerely, Bunting <3
(September 2, 2022 - 9:50 am)
Hi Bunting!
Oh, thank you so much for this. You guy's support and everything, like I said to Peri it means the world to me. I can't believe i'm not alone and i'm so glad you reached out... i have a plan set in place actually, i'm getting a new therapist (eventually, i'm taking my time choosing one) to meet virtually, and since it's too hard right now to say i'm going to take a few pieces of the comment i posted here and send it to them; and perhaps awhile from now i'll tell my family... bunting, i'm so glad you are here (world and CB)
Really though, this made my entire day (or week or month or even more than that)
I love you
iris
(September 2, 2022 - 8:44 pm)
iris. I have the same thing. Not with tickling, but other things, and I imagine these bad things happening to me and other people, and I feel like this monster inside and I can't stop. It's worse at night and idk I can't stop. It's like an addiction inside my head and like it feels good but I know it's not. I feel so bad and embarrased and I've never told anyone either. I want to stop but I can't leave it behind. Sometimes its worse or better, but it's always there waiting to come out. I'm so scared and I get where I can't fall asleep, but sometime s it helps so then I feel like it can't be all bad but it is, and I know deep down that it's so wrong. I know I need to stop and I don't know how, and I'm so far in that I don't know. I'm around good people and my family but they don't know anything about this, they think I'm this nice person too and I could never tell them. I had this one time for a few months when I mastered it and I stopped thinking about bad things and I actually felt happy but then I got into it again and now I'm like how I am. It's part of me, and I can't get it away.
just to know I'm not alone I can't explain with words it's just relief, but an awful relief that you're going through this too. I'm so sorry.
I'm jealous of people who look like they have it all together and don't have issues like this. I'm jealous of my friends and my sister and my classmates and I can't get rid of that either. I'm worried that they'll be better than me because I'm so flawed and then I feel mean and sometimes do or say things that are mean because I'm jealous of them. I put down my sister because I feel like she's a threat and then I feel bad because of that and I try to make up, but that doesn't make the guilt go away. Then I do it again but the scariest thing to me is how good it feels. I don't want it to feel good, but it does. I don't want to take pleasure in bad things, it makes me feel terrible. With my friends I don't act mean, but sometimes in my head I think bad things about them. I also get so worried about how I look and if I look better than anyone
Without you, I never would have had courage to post this. I thought I was the only one. I might not know how you feel entirely, but we're in this together. Someone needs to help us, someone needs to know. I guess God knows, but I;m struggling w that right now too
Writing this is like taking an icecream scoop and digging out my deepest secrets from inside but I have to let it out. Please understand
"Promise me you'll always remember: you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." - A.A. Milne
I'm sorry that you have to read all this, admins and anyone else.
I love that quote from A.A. Milne. It's so inspiring in trying times.
Admin
(September 6, 2022 - 8:20 pm)
I know exactly what you mean.
I'm in a rare optimistic mood and i wanted to share it: Like you said, we're in this together, even if we don't know who the other is. Im going to get a new therapist and tell them (it's going to be the scariest thing i've ever done, but i feel confident that it's the right decision.) I'm probably just going to write it down and send it to the therapist, because i can't even really say it out loud. Id encourage you to do something similar, get it off your chest ig because i know keeping it inside just totally eats away at you. And hey, it's going to be okay.
Everyone on the Chatterbox is amazing, and you are too. Writing this it seems like such a u-turn from my rather depressing comment earlier, and i doubt this mood is going to last forever, but: The other parts of you, the ones you share under your "real" fake name, are real too. You may pick and choose what part of you you want us to see, but that doesn't mean the parts you do share aren't real. They are and they're amazing.
Sending good thoughts your way.
(September 8, 2022 - 10:47 am)
Thank you so much, iris. This means a lot to me too and I guess I don't have the right words to express what I want to say. You are an amazing person just to have shared this and I want to encourage you in finding help. Hopefully we can both work this out eventually. I'm not sure how for me, but your support helps. Let's check in with each other, okay? Moral support and all that. I hope your happy mood lasts! Thank you for all your help.
(September 13, 2022 - 8:22 pm)
Both physically and mentally
i am in Spain without the S
(September 7, 2022 - 3:47 pm)
RAMBOO QUOTE?!?!?!
(September 19, 2022 - 11:29 pm)
So. I have this friend, let's call him L. We've been friends since preschool, and we were pretty close. We kinda drifted apart in 1st, 2nd, + 3rd grade, became close again in 4th until mid-5th grade when I went back to school in-person and his parents made him stay virtual for school. Then, the summer before 6th grade we were SUPER close, me, him and another longtime friend S. We all got put in the same homeroom, whih we were really happy about, and it was great until... around october, maybe?
context: now, previously to this, they had occasionally, like, idk... ganged up on me? like they would say stuff that hurt a lot and if i acted the tiniest bit sad/distant as a result they would be like "it's just a joke dont take it personally."
then... in october that got worse. sometimes it would just be one of them against two of us, sometimes it'd be them against me. often, it was L bullying/being toxic/being rude/"joking" to us.
more context. these friends are not toxic. the three of us are all very self-consious, and show it in different ways. anyway~
around that time, S' friend, E, became a part of our group. she didnt have classes with us, but we would hang out during recess. often it'd be just me, S, and E, because L often hung out with the "popular kids" (his other main friend group) during recess.
context pt. three, L wanted to hang out with the popular kids all the time, be one of them, y'know, and i honestly thought he was close with them. it was convincing. more on that later~
so me, S, and E, became closer too, i had one other close-ish friend, who's name also starts with L but we'll call her A. so we weren't really friends anymore, because A had become one of the "popular kids" and hung out them, but we still said hi to each other and stuff. so, i invited L, S, E, and A to my 12th birthday party, which was really fun. after that I had brief crush on E -which i regret greatly, which faded after about three weeks. mainly due to L. L and i had become closer, because at the beginning of this year, (2022) our winter break was continued by a week due to covid, and then we did a week of virtual school. during that time, me and L would be on the phone for literal hours talking and playing Minecraft. when school went back to in-person, me and L were literally best friends. we didn't hang out with S or E anymore if we could avoid it because honestly? this might sound bratty, idk, but it was like we grew up and... they didn't. and then.. L was trying to get me to hang out with the popular kids.
anyway.
so half of the time, me and L would walk around talking, and the other half, he would ditch me and hang out with the "popular kids". i would either wander around lonely, or i'd distantly watch my other friends play 4-square, until L "took pity on me" and rescued me. if it sounds like i was clingy, it's because i was clingy. ;D
context pt.4: i realized i haven't told you that this entire time i thought L was I.. a girl.. he recently came out to me as trans/bigender, he isn't sure yet, but he uses he/him pronouns now. so a lot of the stuff you've read/will read was me being completely unaware that he was a boy, not understanding that the meanness was him coping with what i guess you could call gender identity suppression (??)
so it got worse. because i depended on him. completely. but the insults were still happening. an example is "french-fry hair" just as a passing comment. because i have annoyingly frizzy, wavy, blonde hair. and he says that to this day, unaware of my increasing hatred for my hair. anyway, it got to be march, and i realized i was completely smitten with L, if you didn't already guess. so i tried ignoring the insults, and fighting back with occasional insults, which he didnt seem to mind i guess? so then it was june. we graduated 6th grade. it was summer. mid-june, he left for a trip to costa rica. anyway, he came back. we had a bunch of sleepovers, double sleepovers, triple sleepovers, and a new record, quadruple sleepovers, which was when i went with L and his family to sleep in a treehouse overnight, which was really fun. anyway, when we were on the car ride back to (the city i live in), i said something thoughtless like "haha ever since you came back from CR you're acting like the boys at school" and he just looked at me with this face i can't quite describe. disappointment maybe? and pointed to a book sticking out of his backpack that was called something like "Trans: something something", I don't remember exactly what, and said. "they broke me. didnt you wonder why i got this?" and then my thoughts went something like *oh what have i done* and then the rest of that car ride i was thinking *is she -no, he??- trans?* then that night we talked about it and i felt so bad.. and so the next morning i kept saying "she" around his parents because he isnt out to them, and i felt so bad every time. i couldnt ever use the right pronouns because nobody else knew. it was terrible. he slowly and casually came out to more people, changed his pronouns on social media profiles, and recently got a haircut that looks like leonardo dicaprio in titanic. and oh my gosh its so cute. anyway, hes STILL not out to his parents and i cant imagine what it's like being misgendered every single time your parents talk to/about you. and i recently started 7th grade and im talking to my other friends again, but goodness gracious the summer was a rollercoaster. it's still crazy now tbh but things are relaxing... the problem is i have no friends in my classes. except S in 2 of them, but i honestly don't really like S anymore. but she's honestly the only friend besides E that doesn't insult me 24/7. i've been feeling really down lately and i kid you not, i had an anxiety attack in a target parking lot.
please send help.
-fire
p.s. admins.... i'm SO SO sorry for the long, hard to read paragraphs. if you like, you can cut it off and i'll paste the rest into another comment <3
We shortenend your comment somewhat. It still is very long.
Admin
(September 7, 2022 - 6:55 pm)
Hi fire!
Um, I know you posted this a while ago but I just thought I'd let you know that I'm going through a similar situation as you and L. One of my friends is out to me and two other close friends as nonbinary but not to anybody else... and I feel really bad that I can't ever use their correct pronouns because they don't want anybody to find out. I don't know what to suggest except to perhaps avoid using any pronouns at all, like carefully structure sentences to work around them.
An example:
"Jerry lost his pencil" can become
"Jerry's pencil is missing" and so on. It kind of sucks but I think it's better than nothing until the person in question is out.
and, as to friends...*exhales* wow, that sounds like a lot. I'm sorry for all the drama, firelily. I have absolutely no advice to offer because I have been lucky enough to avoid most of that drama in my 13 years, but I really hope you find somebody who's the right friend for you <3
*attempts to type PhoenixTears@firelily into Name box*: NOOOO!!! I'm just ONE LETTER SHORT!! Oh well. I guess you're firelil now... hah that makes me think of that old poem: Backward Bill's got a backward pup/they eat their dinner when the sun comes up/And he's got a wife named Backward Lil/ "She's my own true hate," says Backward Bill.
aNyWaY... best of luck firelily, I hope this helped but if it didn't...maybe Peri knows what to say. Peri always knows what to say.
(September 12, 2022 - 7:43 pm)
Sorry I'm late!
Mostly, I think that you shouldn't feel bad about the thing you said in the car. If you talked about it with L, are using his pronouns except around his parents, and are generally making yourself someone who he can talk to, then honestly, that's the best you can do. I've had a situation quite similar to you and L's, and discovered that as much as I want to help, sometimes I just... Can't. You can't make him come out to his parents, or make his parents use his pronouns. So it's not your fault. All you can do is be there for him and support him if he ever does end up coming out to his family.
Phoenix Tears actually had great advice with the avoiding pronouns thing. That's what I'd do, if you can.
As for the drama, I'll say that I've noticed that insulting people, especially close friends, is a thing the more "popular" kids at my school do as well. I think it's just what's cool now (which I don't get. How is it ever cool to be mean to the people you care about?), but will likely pass. L probably picked it up from the popular kids, or was using it to hide his insecurities and fears while questioning his gender/when he should come out. This also could add to why you've been finding your other friends, who don't insult you, immature and less likeable than before--they're just different than L. Which is fine, is okay to be different. But sometimes it's just impossible to feel like anyone's keeping up with you. Some people seem to be far ahead, meaner, popular, cool. And others are behind. At least, that's how it is for me.
My best advice would be to talk to L if you're really feeling insulted. If you're feeling too dependent on L, remember that your life and friendships are in your hands. You can try making friends with the popular kids, if that's what you want, so you get to be with L but also have a biggger group to lean on.
(September 19, 2022 - 5:18 pm)
What's the point of life, anyway? Is it better to be happy and believe a lie or sad and know the truth? Will I ever find my best friend? What am I doing with my life?
Existential crises, man. -_- I hate being a teenager.
(September 13, 2022 - 4:35 pm)
HAHAHAHAH WOW MY LIFE EVERY DAY
i have never resonated with anything more than this comment
(September 14, 2022 - 7:46 am)
Haha, write something that exemplifies this!
It might help you to get it out of your system, plus provide us with some cool thought-provoking brain-food~
(September 19, 2022 - 11:28 pm)