You remember those journals I posted on my older account, ranting about various things in regards to dragons and kinks and stuff?

I kinda wanna try explaining why I did that (not justifying it)

There are many things I'm ill-equipped to handle because I never learned how to do that in a way that actually works for someone who is autistic and has ADHD. People like me experience emotions very, very, VERY loudly. But everything is usually aimed at people who experience emotions in the normal volume. Their negative emotions dissipate within a reasonable amount of time.

Mine don't. I feel them very strongly and things get blown up way out of proportion. That's not to say my feelings are invalid, but my reactions are disproportionate to the cause. Other people tend to react to this negatively, for obvious reasons, and so I get scolded.

And since I have nothing else I can do with these emotions, I bury them. Try to force myself to not feel them. And if I start feeling them again, that's a failing on my part, why am I still holding onto this, what's wrong with me, etc.

It also doesn't help that, like many other autistic people, I have a strong sense of "justice", for lack of a better word. Perceived wrongs MUST be redressed, in the proper way, and with the proper gravity, etc. Failure to do this is just unconscionable, yada yada. So I will get *very angry* over people who, for example, challenge things that are proven to be correct by providing wrong information. Whether it's misinformation about COVID, or the draconic status of wyverns, stuff like that gets me boiling over.

Because of course I'm boiling over. My cauldron is filled to the brim with all of the emotions I've buried. I never learned how to handle them, and no one around me knew to teach me. What else was I supposed to do? Get help? (Which I am now, by the way, but even then it's a struggle to remember that I *do* have to rely on other people, and that I shouldn't be tackling everything myself)

This attitude and this denial of my own emotions is why things that *shouldn't* have traumatized me did. And that lead to me lashing out at people, which I would've done even if someone someone hadn't goaded me on 'cause he hated a certain group of fetishists. (I still blame him for making it worse though.)

Venting in journals was somewhat of a healthier step than lashing out directly at people, but not by much. Even now I'm still struggling not to keep doing this.

I wish I could say that this is the part where I say I've figured it out and I'm beginning to heal, but all I've done is cease the toxic *behavior*. The cause is still there, and still present. Even now, when I opened up this journal, it was initially to vent about a certain triggering trope in the hypnosis/dronification kink sphere (not permanence this time, thank goodness, I've at least made progress on that).

I decided to just kind of verbalize my thought process about this, instead, and explain a bit of how I got here and the things I struggle with. Maybe this will resound with some of you, too. I don't know.

I have the responsibility to be a better person than I was. And I am trying my best to do that. And part of that is learning to forgive myself for not knowing how to handle any of my very loud, very persistent emotions. And sometimes I have to keep doing this.

I guess, in a way, I've decided to be my own Valentine's since the person I need to give the most love to right now is myself. (Don't worry, Rusty and I are still doing great, it's just that I love him every day of the year anyways - and focusing on loving myself will make my love for him more meaningful anyways <3)