It's been 6 months since my last journal. Seems my personal goal of trying to at least give voice to my thoughts sorta fizzled in the mist of 2025... Sorry about that!

So, it's 2026 now and there has been a lot of things on my mind. Believe it or not, I've been wanting to write a new journal for awhile but hadn't really figured out what I could write one about. After thinking about it for a few hours, I realized that it was already the best reason to write one. Reason being... it just made sense. You see, it isn't that I didn't know what to say. It was more like I didn't feel like I could say anything... and I think I finally understand what it going on inside my head. Since my mental collapse 2 years ago, I've had to try and rebuild myself. Part of that meant confronting some problems and acknowledging so many others. That alone would be taxing on anyone. Recovering from mental collapse is not easy at the best of times. However, it did made me realize 2 very important things: 1. I'm still caught in a mental cycle even if I'm just more aware of it than I was and 2. So much of my mental and emotional development was entirely skipped over, leaving behind these really big gaps that I have to deal with now. I totally get it if any of you just laugh and go "Yup, that tracks" given what many of you know about me.

I want to focus on that second part for a moment. A lot of mental development for young kids usually involves things like "If X, then Y". If I bite this plastic, it hurts and its hard. If I touch this hot surface, I get burned. If I cry, someone will come and check on me and make sure I'm ok. These are simple associations that most people will make. They're basically programmed into us as babies after all. It's that discovery aspect that helps us to develop more complex ways of thinking. However, there is one major thing most people learn young: How to express yourself. It is entirely in this area that my development was skipped over. From a young age, all I ever knew was how to think and act like an adult. This idea of personal expression never really occurred me. Adults are too busy with life things to think about how to express themselves. They focus on outcomes, putting the result first and the person second, with so many just acting out their roles as cogs in a machine to achieve something greater than themselves. The key difference is that they developed into those sorts of people based on their experiences... and it was the only experience I ever knew. I can point directly to the fact that I struggle socially as a major consequence of this. I'm used to talking to "my betters" and not "my peers" because that is pretty much I have ever known. This idea that there is a "me" to consider in this is such an alien way of thinking. Internally, I still haven't viewed myself as an equal, even in communities I am welcome and with people that I know care about me.

And that leads me to the first point: How I'm still in a cycle and just more keenly aware of it. Being given time and understanding, I am more aware of my mental health than ever and I am far better able to recognize when I am or am not doing well mentally. I can take time for myself to just breathe. Hell, I'm crying a lot more than I used to (even if it makes me grumpy that it feels like it is a near daily thing at times). I am able to better express my needs than ever but I still feel like I'm surrendering to the same terrible logic patterns that put me into the hospital to begin with. Yes, I am trying to now learn stuff I should've learned as a child and build a sense of self now in my late 30s. I am having to overcome the blocks of "You're an adult, you shouldn't care about X" or "You're not allowed to like Y" or whatever. No tools really prepare to confront the traumas you have, especially when the traumas are something you've let yourself believe are logical and that you have to hold onto them because they are all that give you any identity at all. In clinging to them, I'm just repeating the same cycle even if I argue with myself about it.

...and then it kind of hit me. If you had to boil down everything I'm dealing with, it would be a very simple idea: "I'm not good enough". Upset with how I look? "It's because I'm not good enough". Failed to figure out a problem with something at work. "I'm not good enough to do it". For basically any problem, it is the answer I'm so quick to cling onto. Now, I'm asking myself the brutally honest question of why. Why do I feel like I am not good enough? Is it finances? Success? Owning a house? Achieving the so-called "Markers of achievement" I heard relentlessly about as a kid? Is it because I'm not perfect? That I make mistakes? That I don't have all the answers? Is it because I don't feel like I have that right? Is it because I'm so caught up in my own head that I can't see the world around me? Is it because I'm afraid to take an offered hand?

If I had to give an honest answer, the reason "I am not good enough" is because I'm trying to compare myself to something that doesn't exist. Without ever having a sense of my own identity, I kept chasing this idea of what I should be and the more starkly different I became from that idea, the stronger the feeling became. I'm looking at Mount Everest from miles away and cursing myself for not being at the summit. It's high time I just admit that such a way of thinking is real problem. I don't need to care about whatever that idea of me was supposed to be. I just need to focus on how things stand from 2 years ago when this really started.

It's ok that I am not at the summit of the mountain. It's ok that I am not even at the base of the mountain. All that matters is that I can see the mountain. I'm taking steps toward it every day, sometimes big steps and sometimes small steps. Some days, I don't wanna take any steps or trip and fall on my face or tumble down a nearby hill. Even if it is in the wrong direction, movement is still movement. It isn't about when I get to the mountain, only that I am continuing my journey to get there. It's ok to take baby steps. Yes, being an adult severely limits how I can go back and fill in these gaps in my development but the solution to doing all that is frankly simple: Just fill it in as a child would. Explore, make mistakes, learn, and just express yourself. Cry if you need to cry, laugh if you feel the urge, bond over little things that seem unimportant.

...so that's the goal of 2026. To just continue to develop, even if it means having to learn things from scratch. It's ok to be you.