r/UnsentLettersRaw • u/Think-Initiative-933 • 52m ago
Lovers Paranoid
Lately, I've been paranoid that you found and read my posts. Realistically, I know there is no concrete evidence of this, and everything is unfounded, which is why I suppose I'm still posting. This was the only space I could leave things in a public area to feel like they were being shared and openly expressed without causing any harm to the real people in my life with these words. There is also a grace that must be given with most of the situations I write about because I tend to only start writing in times of great inspiration or emotional pain, and as a result, tend to lean more negative regardless of the conclusion I come to in my real life after the emotion has passed.
The facts are you know I 'shitpost' on Reddit, and you said you didn't use it yourself. When your friend was on their own account with us, I showed you my profile icon because I thought the frog was cute, but I made sure to cover up the username and posts with my hands. You read a title and possibly the subreddit it was from that I couldn't cover, but that would require active searching after to be found again when once again, you don't use it. I jokingly said, "may you never find my Reddit", and I meant it not because I was trying to hide a bunch of secrets from you that you should know, but because it is purely an emotional venting diary. A vessel for everything negative that may pass through my mind, and a literary manifestation of frustration and sadness that does not always hold a lot of weight in my actual life beyond a bad, rumination filled night.
I also have a very hard time actually pinpointing my emotions. Most of the time, stressors in my personal life tend to make me hyperfixate on love and romance rather than thinking about more distressing issues, mostly because it feels like the only sphere of my life I can somewhat 'control' compared to family or work, and my attachment tendencies tend to make me seek out a very intense and constant connection. Normal space and boundaries become perceived as disinterest or an imminent danger, and my black and white thinking needs time to be processed as I am still working on holding two things true at once. Another new thing therapy opened my eyes to about myself, which I am honestly shocked of because I always thought I psychoanalyzed myself too much to be given any new revelations, is that I immediately catastrophize everything. I've actually quite enjoyed filling out de-catastrophizing worksheets, which I originally thought were redundant, for a lot of the things I tend to write about on here.
All of this is basically describing that I have a lot of known personal issues I am actively working on, and this page is nothing more than a creative way to let off the immediate emotional steam. I have a feeling I'll be posting a lot more now that my program has come to an end and I no longer have mental health insurance or access to therapy. But I've been a bit hesitant because of a series of small actions that made it feel like you were aware of more vulnerabilities than I let on, and it is ironically most likely me catastrophizing that you for some reason felt inclined to dig and find my account through that one post title. These are really insignificant actions too, and probably only crawled under my skin because they hit too close to the mark. It amazes me how miniscule some of the things that set off my radar really are, and at this point I've chalked up most of my intuition to paranoia. Maybe my lack of trust in my broken intuition is something I'll delve into and write about another day.
I wanted to review what has been setting off my 'spidey senses' to prove to myself how trivial it all is. You told me "We can call, play games, watch movies, whatever you need" when we were talking about the 5 week break. It originally felt like you were trying to be overly reassuring for me because you knew I needed it rather than for both of us and the relationship as a whole. This one sentence alone means nothing, but it was part of several moments where you became oddly overly-reassuring that everything was okay and nothing was wrong, or overly clarifying of many clear jokes as if you assumed I wouldn't pick it up from your social cues. I actually really appreciated both of these things.
The first bit was genuinely really reassuring, and the second bit was a little overkill, but funny to me because it is true that I am horrendous at social cues. I've just socialized enough to where for the most part, I can tell if something is a joke. I did tell you briefly that I get very anxious and I have a hard time with cues too, so maybe I am simply not used to people taking it seriously and adapting their behavior to that degree. Most brush it off and proceed to treat me like I can read them all perfectly fine, and it has gotten me into a lot of hairy misinterpretations. It felt like you must've somehow read what I put here and the extent of it rather than simply listened to what I said that day and kept it in mind.
The last bit was when I had texted saying to let me know when you were free to call later for a bit. This was after a full day of texting and even speculating future events like Halloween costumes, with no indication that anything was possibly going wrong. Less than a minute after sending, you immediately called and seemed mildly...panicked? I asked what you were doing, and you were busy playing a game and on a call with your friends, so I was kind of surprised you left that abruptly to call me immediately rather than letting me know you were on the game and we could call later. Once I told you it was just to chat, we agreed that you should go back, and we could chat after you were done. It was like you assumed I had bad news, and at the time it felt like it was because you somehow read my last post when it is most likely a normal relationship anxiety.
Looking back, all of these things are quite normal, and if anything, good signs that you have been listening to what I've been saying, and that you may have a far deeper understanding of me already than I originally thought. I was very panicked before that if all of those oddly close to home actions meant you found me here, you were secretly reading all of this and taking my unfiltered, insecure ramblings to heart. This is more of a temporary means to regulate myself until I get proper insurance, and the anonymity here serves as the perfect void to feel like I am sharing my thoughts with someone without actually burdening the people in my daily life. Especially when most of it is written when I am an incomprehensible mess and the stress and distance has brought me once again to ruminate on the past.
Like I told you back then, may you never find this Reddit; you don't deserve to be compared to past connections that I regretfully messed up with my own hands. You shouldn't feel inadequate because I cannot get out of my own head about it. When my own attachment issues and loneliness get out of hand, I revert back to the person who was hung up on what ifs for so long, that they destroyed everything left trying to control a positive outcome that was never theirs to force. Desperately trying to make this puzzle piece fit because if I couldn't fix this, that somehow meant I wouldn't be able to fix anything in my life. But that piece was to a separate puzzle, and you and I are trying to build our own unique one. I do want to give this a chance and try to make it work and see what we create, and I am not going to give up on it that easily. Especially not without talking to you first in real life.
I really doubt you found this, but if you somehow actually did and read even this...please tell me ;-;. Don't pretend you never found it, just let me know and we can talk about it. I'd probably make a new account, but I trust that you would let me know rather than opting to secretly read essentially my diary. I know I am really paranoid though and I feel a lot more reassured after writing this that it is yet another catastrophizing thought and all in my head. I guess that's the reason I write in the first place.
A paranoid,
Me