I love that you got me to where I am today. 

But I would rather die than have to experience living through that again. 

Sincerely,                                              

                               Yours truly.

 

Although I am not on social media as much as I used to be, I have still been able to come across a recent trend. The popular idea that 2026 is the new 2016. 

I can imagine the reasoning behind it being because we were simply younger back then, and life for our generation was less complicated. We were in our early teen’s, we hadn’t moved out and the main focus of our lives was having friends and waiting for school to end. Even though I have realised how important reflecting on past experiences are, in order for us to create new opportunities to grow. There is a part of me feeling surprised about how often I have been thinking about this certain time in my life. 

It was really hard for me mentally in 2016. It was the year where I started considering the idea of me being depressed. I am unsure what the proper terminology would be. (Honestly it might just be high functioning depression). But at the time I was heavily relating to the term “smile depression.” I wanted to seem happy and fine on the outside, although I felt unsafe and wrong on the inside.

The first person I talked to about it shut me down by saying “you probably don’t”. Looking back I know that they didn’t mean me any harm, and that they also had their own issues going on. But I took what they said to heart, and somewhat convinced myself that I was just being attention seeking. To the point of becoming defensive if the conversation ever came up. I was very much brought up in a household where you don’t need to go to therapy. You wouldn’t even consider it for the fear of being called crazy.  

So instead of trying to heal and properly regulate my emotions, I would instead cling onto other people. I am still unsure why, but every so often I seem to choose people and then obsess over them. It’s happened both platonically and romantically. I would get this rush of infatuation, thinking that if I have them in my life then I would automatically be happier. I believe it comes from a place of “once this happens, I will finally be happy.” It’s a bad mindset that I believe I had created as a coping mechanism to help me feel more in control throughout my childhood.

“Once I move out, I will finally be happier.” 

I find it quite hard to create happiness from within myself, so when I feel that from other people and external situations,  it in turn helps me feel better.

They say trauma blends time together, even though these experiences are a year apart. In my head they happened around the same time. 

The end of 2017 was also quite difficult mentally. As it was the year that same-sex marriage was being debated about becoming legalised within Australia. It was around the same time I started questioning my sexuality and it was also my final year within religious education. 

We would have a prayer group instead of an assembly every Friday morning, and you would go into groups based on gender and year level. I can still remember the feeling of anxiety while listening to classmates praying against same-sex marriage.  I was and very much still am an avoidant when it comes to conflict.

Hearing people talk so negatively about homosexuality made me feel incredibly guilty and that something was wrong with me. Even though I never told these people about my feelings, their words still felt like a personal attack, and I took it all to heart. 

I remember browsing online and trying to research whether it was okay for me to have these feelings whilst also trying to be a devout christian. I got answers from both sides, using bible verses as their facts and reasonings. Regardless of what I saw, I was unable to fully let go of all the guilt I was holding onto.

I actually got quite jealous with some of the articles I saw. As someone who grew up with mainly the Old Testament (KJV), seeing progressive christians who were more accepting of homosexuality, made me feel as though they weren’t authentic christians. At the time, it didn’t feel fair to me. Because I was having to go through all this inner turmoil while others didn’t have too. I’ve had family members argue with school friends about how not all love is love. When I “officially” came out and wanted to talk about it, I was met with 

“Are you still going on about that?”

And 

“I was friends with a gay man once, he decided to not listen to the temptations because he loves God and wants to abide by him.”

One day I would like to do a more specific blog post about my experiences with christianity, sexuality and women’s pleasure.

Not sure when however. 

I am grateful for the 2026 is the new 2016 trend, as it really got me in a headspace to reflect on where I was in life 10 years ago.

I am now in a place that I used to only be able to dream about when yearning for a place to escape.