Happy-Sad Sincere Posting (CW Dysphoria, self loathing)
Last week my partner and I had been listening to some Sufjan Stevens, so the algorithm hit me with the song Chicago while I was driving and I unexpectedly started sobbing. It's not really one of his sad songs (Romulus always fucking gets me), but it is a song I listened to a lot as a teen and one of the few things I guess I felt emotional about while I was quietly disassociating through high school. And I felt this profound sudden connection and understanding with my younger self.
And I reflected that for years I had really hated myself, as a teenager, as a young adult etc. I had chalked it up at the time to things like "hey maybe I am a piece of shit", "maybe I had undiagnosed mental illness" and later "maybe I had internalized homophobia from an insane Christian conservative upbringing" (which was partially true too). But like duh, I hated myself because I thought I was a man, really fucking obvious in hindsight! I felt overwhelming forgiveness and compassion to my old self, but especially that sad lost teenage girl.
So like I'm feeling pretty amazing in a raw AF way.