sard's thoughts

[floral quarry]

__ ** about me & my story ** __

this is just a big dump about me, what's going on in my head, things I wanna work on, my trauma story, etc etc. tw for self-harm, csa (childhood sexual abuse)

__ general information __

name: sarah (call me sard!)
age: 22
major: classics

star sign: libra
enneagram: 4
mbti: istp
hogwarts house: slytherin

general diagnoses: anxiety, depression, phobia (emetophobia)
suspected things I'm talking about with my therapist but not currently diagnosed: asd, bpd or bipolar

__ things I want to work on __

loving myself
defining my values & morals/philosophy and sticking to them
finding myself
stop people pleasing, say how I feel
get over my fear of abandonment
become more self-disciplined
managing my emotions, self-soothing
spending more time with myself
heal from my trauma

__ my trauma story __

tw: pedophilia, childhood abuse, self harm, suicide

when I was 13, I was a very lonely child. I had just started middle school, I had very little friends, I developed acne, and I started quickly seeing myself as ugly/undesirable and weird. I felt like an outcast, and my parents didn't help with the situation. they were very apathetic at the time and didn't really listen to my problems because they seemed trivial. not to mention all of this was covered in a layer of the angst that all 13 year olds have. this was the perfect storm for me to be taken advantage of, and I was.

at the time, me and my friends were super into the ninja turtles. we watched the show together, we (a four-person friend group) even coincidentally all had different favorite turtles, so it was a fun time. my favorite was raphael (the only right answer btw) and from my time on tumblr I found a few accounts where people would essentially roleplay as him and allow people to ask questions, and they would post their answer in character. it looked super fun, so I thought I would give it a try.

within a day of making my account I got my first ask. it started as simple questions and answers from an anonymous person, asking about what "I" do in my freetime, etc. completely innocent. the questions turned into a conversation between my character and the person, which carried on for a couple of days until it slowly progressed to illiterate roleplay with romantic undertones. I obliged, because it was fun to see my character react to these things, but it also made me feel nice as well. everything was wholesome, as well. with this the anonymous person started submitting messages to me from their account (back when tumblr didn't have dms lol. I'm so old) and I would reply privately.

looking back on how I wrote my responses, it was 100% obvious that I had no idea how sex worked, or how to word sexual writing. I barely understood any of it, and it showed through my responses. my age was definitely obvious at this point, even if I had never spoken to this person out of character nor did they know anything about me.

anyways, this sexual arrangement continued on for a while. it went from making me uncomfortable to me being okay with it/enjoying it. (I think still in a wholesome way and not a sexual way, it just felt good to make someone else happy) roleplaying with this person was something I looked forward to every day, and sometimes one of the only things I looked forward to.

I don't remember how it happened, but eventually we spoke out of character. during this day, we talked back and forth about our interests and other related things, and through this I discovered that a lot of the interests I had (such as anime) that I felt weird for liking and felt like an outcast for liking were shared by this person. I also opened up to them about my loneliness with school, my self esteem issues, and the problems I'd been having with my parents, and they were very supportive and understanding. it felt like they described how I felt better than I could myself, and they comforted me and told me about what idiots my parents were being and how horrible they were, and it made me feel so comforted and safe.

during the conversation we exchanged some information about ourselves, and we both learned that we were both girls. she also told me she was from the UK, and asked me where I was from. I lied and told her I was from a state I didn't actually live in, just as a safety measure. here is the kicker, ladies and gentlemen. she asked me my age, and I told her I was 13. she told me her age next, and she told me she was in her thirties (she told me her exact age, but I don't remember what it was other than that she was in her thirties. for some reason, I felt no red flags or bad feelings at all from this revelation. this person felt like such a safe space for me already. she was seemingly the only person on the planet who understood and cared about me, so I felt no negative feelings. upon learning my age, she said something about our friendship being unconventional, but that it was no big deal because as long as we enjoyed each other's company then that's all that mattered, and I agreed. they even mentioned something about how I could be like their little sister, and for whatever reason that idea felt so nice to me. in spite of the knowledge of my age, the roleplay continued just as before, and I thought nothing of the age difference, and apparently neither did she. I also never self-inserted if that makes sense. every roleplay interaction felt like my character interacting with her, not me. we also continued to talk out of character every once in a while, and our friendship steadily grew.

with this, however, came the first bad times with knowing her. she would occasionally post vaguely suicidal things on her account, and then disappear for hours. I would panic badly and try to get ahold of her, and when I would finally do so, I had to essentially talk her down on multiple occasions. these moments were one of the first times I felt the fear I would feel all too often: the fear of losing her. the fear of losing what felt like the one person who understood and cared about me.

another occasion is the time where I decided I wanted to come clean about where I actually lived, because I felt like I could trust her and I felt guilty for lying about it. I told her and explained that I was only doing it to protect myself, and she lost her mind on me. she called me so many awful things, threatened suicide again, told me that I had absolutely destroyed her trust, etc. and I absolutely lost my mind. I felt so terrified of losing her, and even though I thought my reasoning was valid, I felt so guilty. I felt so much self-hatred, I felt like my fuck up was going to destroy the only good thing in my life. this also happened while I was in school, so I was breaking down in the middle of class trying to secretly type replies on my phone. it eventually ended up okay, but honestly I wish it hadn't.

at this point we began to roleplay less and less, and talked out of character more and more. I considered her my best friend. I talked to her all day every day and would never get bored. she was always there for me when I was sad and comforted me like no one else. the more I talked to her, the more I learned about her issues as well. she told me she was suffering from depression. she told me about her symptoms, and she even told me about how self-harm urges came about as well as how it made her feel before and after doing it. I also experienced her symptoms first hand just from being there for her during her highs and lows.

eventually, I started feeling like I could identify myself with those symptoms. I don't know if it was something I always felt, or if being around her and being exposed to 2013 tumblr did something to me that dragged me down into that headspace, but it definitely happened. it all essentially exacerbated my teen angst and the shitty situation I was already in with my self esteem and such, and I was left to navigate that, and of course she pledged to support and help me through everything, no matter what.

with this came a lot of low days for me. I was in this hole of seeing #843317159379075083 posts all over my tumblr feed, my low self-esteem, my parents who didn't understand me, and my lack of true friends. my feelings only intensified, grew more frequent, and got worse. I was constantly messaging her and nothing else. I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything, and if I was out somewhere and my phone died it was literally the end of the world. when I was down, she would never fail to comfort me, and eventually she would start showing me comfort with things such as virtual hugs that eventually turned into virtual cuddles that eventually turned into virtual pulling me into her lap that eventually turned into her virtually kissing my cheek. you know what I mean, the whole * nuzzles you * situation. it was that very often and it was so confusing for me because I had always felt like I was strictly straight. I grew up in a strict, conservative family that was borderline homophobic (the whole "people can do what they want and I don't mind but if my child is gay I'll disown them" type of thing), and before this I had never even thought for a second I would be gay, but all of this affection made my chest feel fluttery and made me feel good, and it terrified me. it deepened my self-hatred, because at the time I still very much believed that all gay people went to hell (per my upbringing) so I was so torn and confused and upset about the whole thing.

however, eventually, I can't remember why, the feelings I felt became so strong I had to go for it. I wanted to be with her. I mean, she made me so happy, she understood me, she was so good at comforting me, so what's the problem right? and of course, she, a 30+ year old woman, allowed herself to to enter into an online romantic "relationship" with a 14 year old girl. and that was the deal. for a while. and of course, it got sexual, against my wishes. I tried so hard to take things slow, I was so uneducated about my physical desires, I knew how to write about sex now, so I was learned, but this was different. it wasn't a character I was playing, it was me. and at the time I still felt innocent, and I knew that it was wrong to advance things so soon. however, I was pushed and pushed and pushed until I gave in, and it went about the same as the sexual roleplay went. I was uncomfortable with it, and then I eventually became okay with it and enjoyed it, except this time I enjoyed it in every way, if you know what I mean.

so there I was, in this "relationship," and I felt so happy. even now, I don't remember feeling that happy at any other point. it was like the sun was constantly shining on my chest. it was always so warm, and felt so full. it was like all of my problems melted away and I was walking on air. I felt like I could do anything, like nothing could bring me down, so long as I had her. my obsession grew. I was neglecting my family around the clock to be able to message her. me and my dad used to take little drives in the woods every sunday, and I stopped agreeing to go with him because being away from her terrified me. she was literally my everything.

I don't remember how it happened, but she ended things with me. I don't even remember the excuse, but it wasn't the correct one: this relationship is wrong and inappropriate and illegal. but rather something completely unrelated. I have never felt my world fall apart like it did back then. I have never mourned something as heavily as I did then. if I wasn't asleep or pretending to be okay around my parents, I was crying. I lived in one pair of pajamas and never changed. I barely got out of bed. I felt so abandoned. I felt like the only good person I had in my life was leaving me. my worst fear had been realized. I constantly pondered about if it was my fault, what I could have done differently, what I did to deserve this, etc. it was at this point that I self-harmed for the first time, and I still struggle with it today. she still kept in touch with me, but she never allowed anything romantic or sexual to happen again. after this, we remained friends. I never truly got over her, but I stayed friends with her because I didn't care how painful it was to be around her as a friend, I didn't want to lose her. I was willing to do anything to stay in her life.

however, as time passed, I slowly, very slowly got over her, and we also just got to a point where I didn't answer her much. talking all day turned into a reply every once in awhile, and I think that it was because I finally started to find friends that I actually cared about and who understood me in a way I felt like no one other than her could. my school life got busier as well, so the friendship eventually naturally fizzled it out over a long period of time, and I ended up okay afterwards.

for so may years I saw this as some sort of odd phase I was in. "what a weirdo a was back then" was pretty much the extent of my thoughts, and then one day in 2020 while I was in the shower it suddenly hit me like a truck that what I had experienced was abuse, and sexual abuse at that.

I remember it catching me so off-guard. I almost fell over from the weight of it. even after losing her "relationship" I never saw her as a bad person. it just felt like a weird phase I had and nothing else, and now I had this whole new context to the situation. I had to tell my therapist about it, I had to share it with my closest friends, I had to get out the secret that I had sworn to myself that I would never allow to surface, even if it killed me.

I told my therapist, a few of my friends know. I'm a lot more comfortable talking about it now (as you can see lol) but I still have so much healing to do. I constantly feel like my innocence got taken away from out from under my feet before I was ready, and I resent her so much for it. the effects of this have seeped into every aspect of my mental health and personal/social/romantic situations. I have such a bad fear of abandonment. sometimes, even now, I still miss her. I feel like I have to learn how to hate her, just to turn around and learn how to forgive her.

but, it's okay. I have made the conscious decision to really start my healing journey and learn how to finally break free from her control, and that's all that matters right now, breaking free of her and becoming who I want to be. by god I'm gonna do it.

[floral quarry]

https://tenor.com/view/aesthetic-gif-24456420

[floral quarry]

thought dump

time: 6:11 pm
current mood: anxious

today is so weird, life is so weird. I feel like I'm being crushed under my responsibilities and I'm just letting them continue to pile on. I have been so lazy and haven't done anything for weeks, and I feel so guilty. that being said, I also feel incapable of doing anything about it and it just leaves me with this icky feeling in my chest that won't go away. me taking the steps to really start writing in this journal is helping some, but not much. hopefully it'll start to help more but I don't know. I just feel like my life is falling apart sometimes, even though I have so many people around me who love and care about me. They just don't notice me struggling because I hide it well. I'm too embarrassed to admit that I'm struggling so much with daily tasks these days, so I just pretend that I'm fine. I just really hope I manage to graduate somehow. if that happens I'll literally cry tears of joy.

[floral quarry]

thought dump

time: 1:56 am
current mood: relieved

did a lot of healing tonight. I finally feel like my relationship with one of my friends is finally on the track to becoming a healthy one and not one full of pain. it's an insane relief. I'm also getting back into my hobbies! and I also am very grateful for my boyfriend. I love him so much

[floral quarry]

thought dump

time: 4:19 pm
current mood: anxious/upset

why do I have no understanding of emotional permanence? in my head it is perfectly normal and feasible that my boyfriend woke up today and decided he doesn't like me anymore. emotions don't change so harshly that fast, but I still go into a spiral and panic over it. I just don't want him to leave me, and a part of me is constantly telling myself that he's going to anytime now, even though he has given me no reason to believe that. if anything, he's given me plenty of reasons to feel the opposite way, but I can't get it out of my head. if he has a day where he doesn't feel like talking much it is literally all I can do not to absolutely have a breakdown right then and there because my mind instantly goes "here we go. it's happening"

and I'm still not even convinced that I'm wrong??? I'm still in a panicked state about it. I just want to be good enough you know? it fucking sucks and I feel so fucking awful

[floral quarry]

and now im sprialling

great

fuck this shit

I'm gonna be all fucking alone

he's gonna fucking leave me like everyone else

I hate that bitch that ruined me all those years ago. maybe I wouldn't be like this if she never came into my life and ruined my innocence

he's so precious to me but I'm going to push him away. it isn't even a what if at this point it's going to fucking happen