The you you are

Date 4th April 2025

It's odd how much this website has helped me over the last 3 years. Nobody really sees it but me and a select group of trusted friends but it's nice to have a space where I can process, think and be free to explore my thoughts in an area that I carved out and created for myself. It's just nice to feel free from the constraints I often feel are imposed to being online. My parents always say to stay professional and polite online and not be too honest. Which I get. But also, professional and polite got me hurt and is exhausting and leads to the whole "you have to pretend to be happy and perfect on socials and nothing else" vibe which I don't like.

Anyhoooo... I'll stop digging my own grave and start actually talking about things.

Since starting this site, I've learned so much about myself and how I navigate the world and the complexities that come with said journey. After some reflection on the whole Britt Lower thing, I'm gradually leaning more towards being asexual (still) but gay (or some such label) but I'm not 100% ready to embrace that yet. I need to process what this might mean for me. I need to understand why I shut off for years and why this is happening now. Like what's changed now that wasn't here a year ago or wouldn't have been here in a year if you get me? How did a random TV show and actor with brilliant olive green eyes, flame red hair and a smile that could kill, cut me wide open in a way nobody else has. I need to understand this experience of actively wanting to kiss someone and thinking they are the cutest, sexiest (but in an 'I don't want to sleep with you but I'd hug/spoon you way') being in the world and that I would willingly drown in someones eyes. I need to process what this means in terms of me potentially dating etc. I want to make sure this isn't a suppressed trauma reaction or something else that could harm me and is a real, genuine response to seeing someone I like on screen for the first time. But when I find out, you can bet I'll be writing on here again. This just seems to be the next step in my healing journey, to work out my more unknown raw feelings. And I'm glad I'm in a place where I can do that safely now. No more self harm, no more risk taking for the sake of it, no more self inflicted pain and isolation or fear. I get to rewrite the narrative my brain has given me about romance, (romantic) relationships and the vulnerabilities/traumas I associate with said romantic related things. I get to reclaim my body, my experiences and shape them into something I want, not something someone else thinks I want, or says I want or forced me to want. Just me. My voice, my thoughts. Me. Solo. Alone. And that, is fucking powerful.

It's nice in a way that I can still learn more about myself and that in essence, all it took for this next step of my healing to be unlocked, was Britt Lower to strut in blocky heels and a pencil skirt across a screen into my life. Is it slightly ridiculous that my first ever experience having my breath stolen due to someone being so god damn perfect is with a woman 15 years older than myself, who I have never met, know nothing about and who is so unattainably unreachable it's laughable!? Yeah. It's stupid but also makes me feel warm and safe in some way because this is finally something that feels safe. My brain short circuits whenever I see her and that's no longer triggering or upsetting. Now, do I think I would sleep with her? No, probably not. Would I kiss her, yes! where do I sign?! Would I date her? Yeah, though I know nothing about her, so that would depend if we got on. But sadly, Britt Lower is taken (I think) and more importantly, doesn't know I exist, lives in America and I would never in a million MILLION years even be able to meet her, so it's a pipe dream. But a cute one. I could picture myself being happy with someone, having a cute easy relationship where we're just happy together and sex isn't needed but romance can exist and bloom in some way. And that's both so sweet and also terrifying. How can ONE person, one show, literally change everything in a heartbeat? And make me question who I am?

I walled myself off from so many feelings because of experiences that were not my choice. The abuse at college walled me off from feeling happy, excited, proud, confident, stable, secure and trusting people. I've reclaimed that now. I'm all the things I thought I couldn't be when I was at college. Not free from Sara, not by a long shot but she no longer stops me from feeling joy and that's a win!

The abuse at RCSSD made me believe I wasn't good enough to be a facilitator, made me dislike academia and academics and believe I wasn't creative, couldn't be. It made me not trust myself, not trust tutors and made me feel small. Now I've worked as an academic, I know I can do all the things Nicola tried to prevent me from doing. I spread my own damn wings and flew for a short time. And I've excitedly gotten offered a PhD scholarship with Cardiff University to continue my masters research, so I get to shape dementia research in a way Nicola could never. Will never. And tried to actively stop me from doing. And failed. I've reclaimed that version of me.

The issues with the toxic friendships and the borderline abusive relationships (both romantic and not) made me not trust myself. Prevented me from opening up to people. Stopped me sitting with anger, frustration. Stopped me speaking out. They stole my voice. But I'm reclaiming these things now.

And Britt Lower has unlocked my ability to reclaim my body. My sexuality. My self confidence and ability to feel sexy (even if that's just internally and not to someone else). She's helped unlock a very deeply stuck section of me that revolves around genuinely loving who I am and how I look. And realising that actually, I can find other people cute, sexy, kissable without it being unsafe or leading to abuse/trauma shortly afterwards. I've got a lot of issues with my body and the things other people have done to it without my consent. The things people have said about it. The way they treated it and by extension me. And I'm sadly attuned to the notion that feeling sexy leads to me being pressured into sex, hurting myself, hurting other people or generally being very deeply unhappy. Realising I can feel attraction towards someone has made me want to reclaim every inch of my body for myself. To wash away the trauma and dress how I want. To be playful. Vulnerable. Quirky. Sexy. Cute. Confident and many, many other things. And while that terrifies me beyond words, I'm cautiously optimistic in a year or two, we will look back at this moment and see it was the start of a journey to a change in me that I can't even imagine right now.

If you'd asked me at the start of this year what my future looks like, I'd have said I'd be single, live alone with a cat and dog, have a wild veg patch, successful academic career and group of friends. I'd never have dreamed of having a romantic partner there and I still don't really know if I will want that or not. But knowing that I can in fact, find people oh so very attractive and stupidly kissable, has made me ponder just how much of me being 'aro/ace' is down to trauma vs me just being me and genuinely not wanting that. I don't have an answer for that question but suspect the clues for when/how this happened if it is trauma related, tie all the way back to college and the issues I had with Sara... It's not going to be an easy journey to learn more but I'm going to do my best to be kind and curious without judgement. And I hope you will permit me the space to do that here as well.

I'll update soon but if you haven't watched Severance, DO IT! It's amazing (and not just because it has Britt Lower in it ;) )