Eeeeep!

 Eeeeep! Look what I just found. After ten years of waiting, I finally found him... 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYVGgpRqr4b/

Life's Hard, But I Am Writing

I am still struggling with missing my ex and hating how he changed into the person that he said he wouldn’t and became mentally abusive. The past few weeks have been an emotional yoyo. I keep going from being okay, to crying hysterically at my desk, to feeling like I can get through the day but being very fragile, to hating everyone and wanting to be on my own, to missing the old/nice him so much that I can’t concentrate.

Today, however, I forced my thoughts to concentrate and spill all of my fragile and yoyoing energy into a teeny, tiny little early Arcturus High #2 paragraph. It isn’t polished or edited and I haven’t even completed all of the dialogue sentence parts, but I needed to try to prove to myself that I can still write…

 

“Caitlyn, may I have a word outside?” Mr Penn announced to the room. Caitlyn’s head shot up. Her eyes widened, as she sniffed a sharp inhale. Looking towards Mr Penn, Caitlyn gave a small nod, as she rose from her seat to follow her teacher toward the back of the classroom. As she shuffled past Lyra, Caitlyn’s line of sight was drawn to Fabian, who plonked himself back down in his seat.

“What did Mr Penn want?” Pete asked him. Sensing Caitlyn’s stare, Fabian looked up. Their eyes met. He gave Caitlyn a soft smile. A warmth prickled in her chest and Caitlyn felt her cheeks begin to burn. She shuddered out of her thoughts just in time to avoid bumping into Carlos, who was waving his arms around.

“I failed my Chemistry test,” she heard Fabian tell his friends. “Mr Penn was just giving me extra homework.”

“You failed?” exclaimed Oscar in disbelief. “But you’re the smart one. What hope have the rest of us got if you failed Mr Penn’s test?”

“I dunno, I guess it was just harder than I thought.” Fabian’s voice faded into the background of the Naeniam Exponentia’s experiment chatter.

            Lowering her head, Caitlyn made her way outside of Mr Wye’s music classroom and into the corridor. A lump formed in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out, looking up at Mr Penn. “I was too harsh on Bentley, wasn’t I? I didn’t mean to; it’s just he wasn’t being careful and-”

“You’re not in trouble, Caitlyn,”

“Sir, I’m really sorry, I-”

“I said, you’re not in trouble, Caitlyn.”

 

- Josie -

Autism Migraine

 I have another light-sensitivity migraine, from concentrating on a sewing project. I got very upset, missing someone earlier, and forced myself to do something instead of crying all afternoon. It wasn’t until getting the migraine that I realised that I always get a migraine whenever I do a creative hobby. Sewing, drawing, painting, diamond painting, using my knitting loom, they all cause a migraine. Well, I have just looked it up and found out that it is likely caused from intense concentration and autism overload. I always take visual breaks - I had YouTube videos on my TV. I always have good lighting - my living room window is the length and height of the wall and it has been a bright day. I keep hydrated - I have drunk over 2 litre of water today. So not only do my senses get overwhelmed constantly, I get very attached to people, I severely struggle if the slightest thing in a plan changes, but now I can’t even enjoy any creative hobbies. I am in the dark, under the bed covers and I want to cry. I just want a normal brain.

My Wish List

 If anyone can find me this custard cream plushie, I will be in debt to you forever. The original post for this photo, on Instagram, says that they found it in Tesco, but I have seen two posts since saying it was in Matalan. Custard Creams are my favourite biscuit and I adore this little character so much.

 

Update 12/05/2026: I have found out that this is a Snuggle Buddie brand. I bought my ex-partner a pizza slice from this brand, but I never got to give it to him. Now I hold a little more hope that I might be able to find it, although I do know, from the comments on various Instagram posts that this is incredibly hard to find. 

 

- Josie - 

Avoiding An Avoidant

 

The only people that I seem to have relationships with act like they are still in their late teens or early teens, yet I have never dated anyone below the age of thirty. Emotionally immature people, or avoidants, as they seem to be called nowadays should never be allowed on dating apps. It should be against the law. They should be forced to pay compensation to the partner that they mentally abuse, and they should spend time in prison, just to learn their lesson.

I will never date another person who blames me for being too anxious and to, “get help,” when they are the one who created the anxiousness. Whenever I do see a doctor and explain how I am feeling, they always tell me that I am only anxious because my partner caused me to feel this way.

 

I have seen a handful of doctors, used the Samaritans (before they removed email as a form of contact a few weeks ago) and there is an “Avoidants” group of Threads. They have all helped me to piece together the following ramble of thoughts:

 

Avoidants make deep connections with you. They show up in the beginning, vibe heavy, and then vanish emotionally, once it is real. They think that they don’t owe you communication. Meanwhile, you’re sitting there wondering what you did wrong. They confuse intimacy with danger, so when you ask questions, wanting consistency or express emotions, they see it as, “too much.” It is not too much to want transparency and care from someone you are connecting with. This causes anxiety, confusion and depression in healthy people, and make anxious people even more anxious, people who suffer from depression feel even more depressed. It isn’t “bad timing” it is emotional unavailability being normalised. This is not healthy and it is not okay. This is a form of mental abuse. Avoidant behaviour is the silent contribute to the biggest emotional damage in dating.

 

Don’t give unlimited chances to someone who offers limited effort. Repetition isn’t growth. Patterns don’t lie. If they wanted to do better, they would.

You can’t fix their lack of effort by putting in more effort. Love only works when it is reciprocated. You can’t fix someone’s inconsistency by trying harder. You fix it by stepping back and watching what they do. If they disappear when you stop working hard and chasing, that’s your answer.

Someone who keeps you “in the loop” but never commits isn’t standing by you. They are keeping you on standby. Delayed clarity is still avoidance.

Someone who cares makes space. Someone who doesn’t makes excuses. It’s not your jobs to convince someone to show up for you. It’s your job to leave, when they don’t.

The right person won’t make you earn their effort and affection. You won’t have to fight for a place in their life. They make space for you without being asked to.

Consistency is the truest form of love. Not grand gestures or empty promises, just showing up, day after day, with honesty and effort.

 

 

They don’t need you consistently, they need you on demand. Warm when they feel empty, gone when closeness activates them. Your care becomes something they access, not something they build with you.

 

You’re not a girlfriend; you’re a nervous system tool. They come close, feel safe, get overwhelmed, pull away.

 

An avoidant makes me think: If I stay calm, ask for less, and don’t push, but keep shrinking and shrinking and shrinking myself, they might communicate with me at someone point. But then you hold onto that tiny breadcrumb so tightly, with all of your desperation and you feel that you should be grateful for that teeny, tiny offering. That isn’t love. That isn’t a relationship.

 

When you bring up concern, they say that you are the problem. They shift focus onto your tone, your timing, your emotions, anything to avoid the issue. They refuse to put themselves in your shoes and see how/why you might be feeling that way.

 

They ignore your needs and act attacked when you express simple human needs. Asking for clarity, connection and basic communication gets twisted into being “too much” or “too emotional.”

 

They do what they want without considering you There is no mutual planning, no collaboration, just important life changing decisions made on their terms, without asking for your opinion, without discussing it with you beforehand. You are an after thought to their plans. They expect you to just follow along with it, because you are there.

 

Real conversations are avoided at all costs. The moment things get vulnerable or uncomfortable, they withdraw.

 

Being left feeling like everything is always your fault. Leaving you to question yourself, your worth and your expectations, even though all you wanted was basic communication and basic emotional safety. That’s not asking too much. You’re not asking for too much, you are just dealing with someone who refuses to take responsibility and expects you to carry the emotional burden alone.

 

The hardest part of a breakup is losing your best friend. Watching them turn on you, like everything we built means nothing. The thin line between love and hate. It hurts so much.

 

If you could come back and say you’re sorry, that you miss me and you want to try, I would take you back in a heartbeat. I would hold your hand and help you; we could work on things together. The most heartbreaking part is that a lot of avoidants never learn, or never change. I had an ex-partner who did. He found someone who was good enough for him to want to change. I am proud of him for learning, evolving and for not treating his, now, wife, the way that he treated me for four years. I hope that you can learn and change your ways too. I love you and I miss you, but I can’t cope with being in a friends-with-benefits situationship with an avoidant.

 

- Josie -

Struggling

My last day’s holiday was the 1^st of January. My next day’s holiday is the 24^th of December. I can’t believe we aren’t halfway there yet. I feel so mentally drained. Yes, I am grateful that I get the weekends and bank holidays off, but it is still 230 days until I get eleven days off, because of how Christmas falls, unless of course, I get another job and I work somewhere that doesn’t close over Christmas, then I will never have another day’s holiday. That is a little scary.

I was supposed to have been off work this week. I was supposed to be in France. Instead, I am single and without a holiday, possibly ever again. I will try dating apps again, but I am so scared that I am just going to keep meeting people that give me severe anxiety, and blame me for not coping when they treat me badly.

To add on top of this, I found out a few days ago, someone who was once my potential father-in-law has passed away. I feel so guilty that I have no been close to him for the past ten years. He helped me a lot growing up. He helped me to study for my A-levels. He helped me to understand British history and revise for my English Civil War exam. He taught me football, so that I could join in with the boys. He and his wife gave me a safe environment to be in, growing up, when my own home was toxic and broken. He was a very caring, loving and welcoming man. It hurts to hear that he has passed. He retired from teaching last summer and apparently passed away in January. Someone casually told me of his passing casually, as if that was just a normal things to say in passing. There are a lot of wobbly thoughts and upset emotions surrounding me at the moment, as I haven’t really had that chance to properly process this.

It has made me really understand that life is too short. I want to be able to treat every day as though it is my last, and never wish that I had said things or done things differently. I can never have another opportunity to have another conversation with him. To thank him for all that he did for me all of those years ago. I regret the distance that there had been for a little over ten years. And now it is too late.

 

- Josie -

I Miss You

I know I’m not allowed to reach out, and I’m not allowed to speak to or message you, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. I know I’m the one who had to say goodbye, but it was because you were being avoidant, which was hurting me, and had been hurting me for a long time. It doesn’t make it hurt any less. I still miss all of the good times, all of the happy memories, all of the cuddles, all of the forever promises. I miss sitting on the settee together, watching a film together. I miss sitting on a park bench with you and watching the world pass us by. I miss cuddling you, and how safe I felt in your arms. I miss who you were before your entire personality changed on the 30^th of November. Occasionally, part of you returned, for small pockets of time, and I held onto that you so tightly that it hurt. I was so desperate for that you to return. I miss you so much. Today has been a cry in bed all day kind of day, because no matter what I try to start or what I try to do, my heart just keeps reminding me of you. I didn’t leave because I didn’t care. I left because I cared and it was hurting me. I still love you and I still miss you. I’m scared that if I told you I miss you, it still wouldn’t fix things. What if you were still avoidant, distant, inconsistent and unable to provide basic human communication? What if you’ve moved on, don’t care anymore or found someone else? All of those things are valid and you’re completely allowed to have those things… and you’re allowed to have not changed and not be able to offer basic communication that I need to feel safe. None of those things mean that this doesn’t hurt still… that I’m not still in love with you… that I don’t still miss you. I will always love you, and I will always miss you. Today has just felt really hard. I just want my Dexter cuddle and for everything to feel okay again. I haven't stopped crying. I haven't stopped caring. I haven't stopped loving you.

- Josie -