every time someone expresses explicit romantic (or quasiromantic) feelings toward me, regardless of whether or not i had similar feelings, even if i was actively trying to pursue them, i immediately lose all interest and distance myself as fast as i can. it makes me uncomfortable when people show me that kind of affection.

when i was an older teenager my best friend of over a year, someone who i had had 100+ hour skype calls with on the regular, started dating someone shitty. i wanted nothing to do with that shitty person, so i said i wasn't going to stick around if he kept dating her. he did. so i left, and i thought i would feel sad about losing my closest friend, but i didn't really feel that strongly about it one way or the other.

i feel that way about essentially all of the close friends i've lost, frankly. no skin off my nose.

i never want my different friend groups to interact with each other. it terrifies me. i get defensive. it's not that i'm ashamed of the people i spend time with, it's that i'm afraid that they'll talk to each other about me and they won't like what they hear. it's not that i'm particularly two-faced. i'm comfortable owning the things i say and do, for the most part. but something tells me that if my different friend groups mingle, they'll come away from it hating me.

oftentimes, i forget that i exist to people when i'm not around them. it boggles my mind that people can think about me when i'm not directly relevant.

one of my earlier memories is of lying in bed as a kid and my grandma kathy came in and stroked my hair. i wasn't afraid of my grandmother, i wasn't particularly touch averse in other ways, but i hated it. i hated being shown affection like that. it made my skin crawl.

i'm always uncomfortable when my dad says he's proud of me, when he talks about what a good kid i am. he's never held any other opinion. he's always been like this, always been the first to hype me up. you'd think i would appreciate it.

i hate talking about my feelings. i'm getting better about this, but it's very very hard. sometimes it's because i don't want to burden others with my problems, which i think are trivial in comparison. other times, it's because i think they'll look down on me for speaking up. even when i know that's irrational, i still think it.

i always resent people who overshare. i don't understand how people can just be open about the things they feel or experience, even in an unhealthy way. i don't bring this up around them, of course. it's not them, it's me.

sometimes i suspect that my emotional responses aren't as strong as other people's. i'll think, "i'm really upset right now. i'm so upset that i could just start to rot right here! i'm suffering! i'm in agony!" but my face will be completely flat. not a tear in my eye, not a frown, just... nothing.

my roommate has said she never knows whether or not i'm enjoying it when i watch standup comedy with her because i never really laugh at it. it's not that i don't laugh often, i think i do. but not everything that's funny makes me laugh.

ever since i was a kid, i've always been the type to take any opportunity to leave a family gathering, even a casual one like having a movie playing while sitting on the couch, and go back to my room. it's not that my family is particularly tense or anything. they're all perfetly pleasant people. i'd say i enjoy their company just fine. one time, my little brother asked why i was leaving the table at dinner, and my uncle said "sometimes he just hides for a while." i couldn't have described it better. it felt really nice to hear it recognized, actually.

i haven't cried in front of another person in over five years. it was in front of a crowd of people who were all also crying, and they were tears of (mostly) joy. before then, it had been another five years since i had cried in front of someone. i've never had to sneak away to go cry, either. nothing like that.

as a kid, i was constantly actively paranoid that my mom was going to look through my laptop. i wasn't even hiding something all that atypical of a kid my age, and it wasn't like she'd ever severely punished me or shown signs of rummaging through my things before. but i was still having daily anxiety attacks about it. i still hate it when people sit in a position where they can see my computer screen.

i'm simultaneously certain that there are people who will spread lies about me and backstab me the second they get the chance, and certain that i don't cross anyone's mind unless i am directly around them or relevant to whatever else they're doing. i don't know how these things can coexist, but they do.

am i paranoid? does it count as paranoia if it's true? if i've been shown that it's true over and over? even if i can look at my situation and say that it's not happening right now in front of me, it's happened before. it's probably still happening. i've been right before. i've usually been right. can that really be called paranoia?