Find a life of your own.

I was at my theatre rehearsal Friday afternoon and we did this sort of game but then again not. Now, I don't wanna dive head-deep into theatre theories and all that stuff but it's basically how generally there are four types of people: water, earth, fire and air people. And just as the elements, they have certain characteristics e.g. fire is constantly moving and loud etc. and when you play a role, it might help to kind of think about where you would place the character you're playing. Anyways, since we just started rehearsing our new play each one of us had to firstly place themselves where they think their personality fits (I placed myself more in the direction of water but a bit of air too as I'm air type af when it comes to things I'm passionate about). After that, we had to look at another person in our group and say if we think they placed themselves correctly or not. Funnily enough, people said I should move more in the direction of the earth type which tbh and if you really know me is nearly not me at all because a) I cannot keep still at all and b) am never cool or calm but rather just obsessively worrying about everything 24/7. And that kinda got me thinking about our perception of ourselves (as well as other people's perception of US but that's something I don't want to talk about that much in this post).

Today, as you might have seen on my tumblr, I spent some hours listening to old songs I absolutely ADORED during my childhood. Of course there were then also many memories arising and I began, again, to reassess how I view my "old" me (meaning who I was as a child continuing a bit until you-know-what happened in 2014).

And even though I already came to the realization that my childhood wasn't as perfect as I sometimes thought it was in hindsight, there were some new thoughts appearing.

Now I was already a bit the odd one out, I was kinda doing my thing, loving the things I loved and there were countless times (as I now remember) when people gave me shit about it, laughed about me, made fun of me etc. But somehow it never really stopped me from doing what I loved; I did it again and again and again. I didn't CARE what others thought of me because I was having the most fun of my life. And by doing so, I made tons of friends or acquaintances or whatever you want to call it. I guess the appeal was that no matter what happened, I nearly always remained optimistic and kind-hearted and welcoming.

Nowadays it's not as easy for me to just shake criticism or mean words off; they stick in my mind for weeks even MONTHS at times. And I'm wondering how that new me that is currently still evolving can newly learn that vulnerability and being yourself is okay and look at herself with full love again.

I'm still learning. And maybe it's good to reevaluate situations and moments and memories from time to time just to learn more about yourself and widen that limited perception about the person you are. And maybe if you are getting so sure about who you are as a person, other people's different perception won't bother you as much anymore as you know who you REALLY are.

Wishing you good luck on finding a way to perceive yourself correctly and hoping then you'll find a life of your own,

xxx Sarah

I woke up this morning with the words "less is broken" resounding in my mind. And I know this sounds crazy (especially since the phrase sounds grammatically wrong at first), but it felt strangely like a calling, as if I have to get these words and my thoughts out somehow and to do this on my blog just felt right. So here I am.

You probably already heard the phrase "less is more". I think this phrase exists in a lot of languages,at least it also does in German.

Wear less make-up. Laugh less. Talk less. Be less excitable. Show less interest. Basically be less like yourself.

And then whatever people you might want to appeal to will notice you, will like you.

What a flawed logic.

We pretend like "less" is a part of our well-meant advice, that it would help others out. We pretend it's an expression of our kindness towards others. Our empathy, maybe even. Maybe we once discovered if we handled things a certain way, others would like us more. Or maybe it is a trait that was already our own, that made our life more easier. And now we want to pass this so-called "knowledge" along to others.

Fuck that.

What we're essentially telling others when we give them the advise to be "less" is to be someone else then themselves. To change their passions, their likes and dislikes to please others. The term "less" is broken. We have used in all the wrong ways.

Why don't we tell people to express themselves however they want to? Why don't we say "be more of yourself, so much that you overflow with beauty and light"? Perhaps it's our wish that others are not as good as others.

We live in such a take-down culture. And I'm sick of it.

Be whoever you are. Don't try to please other people by changing your very being. If you feel like you have to, they aren't the right people after all. Love whatever you want to love, be passionate about whatever you are passionate about and don't ever try to dull any of it.

The right people will see your personality, and they will love you still. Maybe it's something I still have to ingrain into my mind and my heart and my body but I'll keep trying. Because I know it's worth getting there.

What's better than being able to let yourself be free?

Find a life of your own.

xxx Sarah

ps: If you get told you have to change for the appeal of the opposite or the same gender, fuck that. You will never find happiness in a relationship this way. Be you, and you will find someone who's so excruciatingly themselves too, and you will be yourselves and be HAPPY together. I pinky promise.

A couple of days ago, I finished reading "Being Miss Nobody" by Tamsin Winter which is basically about an eleven-year-old girl who suffers from Selected Muteness, meaning in most situations she just cannot speak. Because of her illness, she faces a lot of difficulties especially at school and you kind of follow her journey through all of it. When I finished the book, one quote really stuck with me: "There's a time for being quiet, and there's a time for speaking up.". And I thought about it a lot, how I'm often afraid to voice my opinion and I thought "But why though? It's not as if I'm afraid people will judge me for who I am, at least mostly not anymore."

Then a situation of last week came into my mind. In our German lesson, we had to work in groups and the ones who are already quite good at essay writing (to which I somehow belong too) should team up with people who got more difficulties. So I got together with some friends of mine and we worked on interpreting a scene of a drama when one of them said "Sarah, I wish we could swap brains, I would never find that interpretation in the text!". And in my head I immediately went like "ohh you don't wanna live in my brain, it's a terrible, terrible place" but instead I wanted to express that I totally would in order to help her if I could but when I opened my mouth it sounded completely wrong, as if I'm arrogant and thinking I'm smarter than everyone anyways (which wasn't what I meant to say at all!). After that, I thought "wow, why do I even speak to others, it would be best to just Keep Quiet forever.

You see, the problem is always this (enjoy my crappy paintings I did on my laptop):



The thing is, when I'm thinking about what to say, I immediately connect it with feelings at the same time. Like I'll get a grasp of a thought and right away I'm like "okay this is supposed to express my sympathy (for example)" and then when the sounds come out of my mouth, I either stumble over words or misplace the order in such a way that my intended meaning is lost. Yes, always thinking in English and having to translate everything to German is also contributing to this problem, but I think it's rather a personality-wise problem.

How can I let people know what I actually mean? I don't know. Maybe by trying to show them through actions who I am. "Actions speak louder than words", most people say. But will they still be around to see my actions if they are already deterred by my words?

If I ever find an answer to that question, I will let you know. Until then, I hope you'll still be able to find a life of your own somehow.

xxx Sarah

As you might now, I was having some hard days scattered through the past few weeks. And as I mentioned in my last post on here, I kinda got into thinking about pain and wounds (also like I'm constantly trying to solve the mystery that is oneself and why I react to certain things the way I react).

And I was also thinking about how people like to judge other problems. If you ever told someone about your bad day you might've heard "Oh but others have it worse!" or "Chin up, there are worse things than that." and it just frustrates you since you feel like your problem is really important to you and it takes so much space up in your life but there they are, dismissing your sadness by comparing it to other people's. And I think whenever we do this, we do an injustice to others. As Charlie in The Perks of Being a Wallflower put it:

“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.”

So only yesterday my best friend was at my house and we played some cards and suddenly got into talking about pain (due to a personal issue of my best friend) and the fact that she's currently avoiding the pain and putting it in a really far away corner of her brain with the result that she nearly forgot telling me about it. I said that I tend to do that a lot with everything I face, pain and problems likewise, but that it always turns out that my feelings will hit me even harder if I don't face them head on, so I'm currently trying to change that.

And it got me into thinking about pain and healing and what the best way to deal with it is.

As I said avoiding it is a bad option; it just makes sure that you carry it with you for much longer, that it tucks on your sleeve daily, just like a ghost. And then it haunts you and haunts you for years to come and while time passes, it's even harder to let go of it (at least in my experience).

I think part of why we don't want to deal with wounds head-on is because of course we're afraid of the pain but I also think that it brings a sense of vulnerability with it as you still have to go outside and do stuff and others will probably notice and then think you're weak or overly sensitive.

Nevertheless, as much as we are afraid of opening up to others and letting them see our hurt and our weakness, I think it  is important to talk about it. Yes, this may sound cliche and it also bringsa lot of fears and risks with it but here's what I've found: Part of the reason why I'm clean today (besides Taylor) is that I opened up about my genuine feelings about this whole situation in 2014 to a friend. I let her in on this not so nice side about myself that would surely repel a whole lot of other people but it helped. It made the hurt feel less significant, as if it was bearable and also it was a huge relief to be able to just message someone whenever I had a bad day and they would understand me, they would understand a bit how my mind works and maybe help me find ways to calm it down again.

Apart from that, and maybe most importantly, healing takes time. Don't beat yourself up 'cause you had a few bad days when you just decided it would get better.

Think of it like a really wound. Imagine you have cut your finger badly and it is bleeding. You're putting a band-aid on it to let it heal but maybe from time to time the injury breaks up and there's blood all over your hand and it looks really ugly but you know you can still continue mending it with another band-aid. And just as time passes, the cut will heal, eventually. But you have to be patient with it.

It's the same with pain. You may have some days or weeks when everything is feeling terrible again but you're moving and I will promise you, you will heal. It's an unavoidable consequence.

And maybe at the end of it all, you'll find a life of your own.

xxx Sarah

I've got a problem. A problem with boys. It's not what you'd think though. It's not about me constantly meeting douchebags (though still... why @ life? A bit of an alternation would be nice for once), no it's a generally problem about my perception of guys.

So, you see, after everything that went down yesterday (you probably read it on my tumblr), I started thinking - and trust me, it's not as if I think this whole situation is my fault, it was rather a general reflection of every situation I've ever met with boys - that I somehow got trust issues opening up to any male person, to be honest.

Why?, I thought. I mean technically the only difference is the gender and maybe a bit the upbringing and the standards that are put upon them by society but still, why do I feel like every male person on this whole planet will eventually betray me and leave me in pieces?

I started reflecting upon my past. And then it hit me (and trust me, I am as sick as you are of always coming back to that point): It's because of everything that went down in 2014. See, the girls of my then-class were also included in the whole drama of it and quite frankly also played a major part in it, but it was rather a silent one which included whispering and rumors. In addition to that, I still had very good female friends so why should I question my own whole gender because of it?

But then there were those two boys in my class. Oh, how I hated them (and still do, though thankfully one of them has left our school like two years ago). Maybe it's in the nature of boys to just generally tend to voice their dislike of a person more loudly than girls do, but that's just what they did. They were the main reason for my self-loathing and my sadness because they did not shy away from making low-key nasty remarks about me in class that no teacher would ever understand nor recognize.

And maybe that's why today, every time I meet a new guy, I'm like "Don't tell him too much about you. He's gonna betray you, he'll end up destroying your life and making fun of you. He'll leave you heartbroken anyways." (upon that note, I also thought about the whole "you get what you give" phenomenon like maybe it is a little bit my fault that I'm always meeting fuckboys, I don't know). See, I don't even give most boys the CHANCE to get to know me properly because I'm so afraid of disappointment.

I think deep down I always realized that. But I have no idea how to change my behavior, to be honest as I have yet to meet a guy who is genuinely and sincerely interested in me. It's as if if I haven't got proof someone like that exists, I won't believe it. Dangerous, I know, but as I said, still hard to change so fast.

I hope someday I'll come across someone who accompanies me on my way to finding a life of my own.

xxx Sarah

If you know me, you'd know that I'm trying really hard to positive and optimistic as often as possible. I want to be so full of light that others feel happy, too. That's my aspiration.

But it does not always work out.

Today is such a day. Yesterday I was so happy, we finally got our huge project done which included a lot of stress and worrying and sleepless nights for me at least and I just felt happy because I dared to talk to teachers normally and be like overall more me than before. Yes, I also got some criticism for being such a control freak but I was okay with that as it's just a part of my persona, this wanting to do everything as perfect as possible.

I went home. And then I went to sleep. And then my mind started racing.

"Oh my god", it said, "Why did you ever even open your mouth today? You're so embarrassing. Everyone probably thinks you're annoying and does not want to hang out with you anymore."

Of course I know that these insecurities are probably only in my head. My mind sure does know that. But my thoughts still started spiraling. I tried to make them stop by falling asleep and it felt like I escaped them for a few hours, I was doing remotely fine at school but then I noticed that one of my teachers was in a bad mood and as I'm so hyper-sensitive it immediately projected onto my own mood, up to the point when I felt like crying or as if I had to do something, make something, touch something, anything literally, just to easy this feeling that was spreading deep in my bones.

The thing is, no one ever notices when I'm not feeling well. Maybe it's my fault, because I'm always just smiling and laughing even when I'm actually not feeling well. Don't ask me why; it just simply happens. And so it went unnoticed and now I'm at home and I can literally sense the bad days coming and I just wish someone would tell me how to stop this thought spiral, how to escape those inevitably dark days. I don't WANT to live through them. I am so sick of them.

And now I'm writing this out into the off. It helps; it eases the pain and the numbness a little bit. I just wish I could talk to someone in real life about it or that someone would care enough to want to actually know (I already talked about how I for whatever reason always expect people to notice). But I also know the burden that comes with it, how it makes or could make others feel to hear about my pain and problems and I don't want to be a cause for their unhappiness either.

So now I'm trapped. There are a hundred thoughts in my head right now. I wish I could let them free, open the gates of the cage and they would just fly out of my being and disappear into the nothingness.

They never do though.

I just wish someone would do anything. I have no idea what.

Maybe having problems with finding a life of your own is ok.

xxx Sarah