(This was something I wrote that I shared with family and friends last year)

I don't miss my childhood and I am very glad that chapter is over. No one was responsible for whatever was wrong with me. It was my brain that was glitching but school and religion escalated all my mental problems. It wasn't just one thing that was messing with me; it was a whole bunch of things all at once.

I was depressed almost all the time and the only time I probably mostly wasn't was during the holidays when there was no school. I was very anxious about many things. I had both an inferiority and a superiority complex.
Every day, I struggled with intense tormenting thoughts that always made me feel guilty. I couldn't ignore or shake them off. They made me feel very afraid of God, made me think I was going to hell for every little thing or if I didn't do what they wanted me to do.
I was in a near car accident that makes me super anxious around moving cars. Crossing roads is very hard for me to do so I always try to avoid it as much as I can because sometimes I will freeze like a deer in the headlights in the middle of the road.

My emotional state was so chaotic. I grew up having no affection or emotion for one of my parents - no love, no hate, no fear or longing and honestly it did not and still does not bother me. But what really got to me were the complicated emotions for my mother. I had the normal feelings of affection that a kid would have for their mother but deep down I did not want it. So yeah I was a child who grew up with one parent who was a stranger I couldn't care less about and another parent who I did not want to care about.
My relationship with relatives and acquaintances is also complicated. Basically I was a sociopathic person who played the "shy" card because it was easier than telling people “no I don't want to talk to you”.

I kept all these things to myself. I lived the fake life I thought I had to live. I faked the emotions I had to, when I had to and I was very convincing but I realize now, perhaps too late, that I should have just kept it real.

By the time I was a teen, the void of non-existent feelings for one parent had been filled with hatred but contrary to what some people would believe that hatred isn't abnormal, interesting or special at all. This was just another stranger who I couldn't stand and was occasionally pissing me off. This person was no different from all the other people I despised — except I was living in this mf’s house.\
I went through a dark phase where I developed a psychopathic "I wanna kill you in your sleep bitch" personality. Thinking about death. Fantasizing about murder. But I like to think that this isn't who I am, just something I turned into, especially when someone intentionally pisses me off really bad but I don't want it and I'd very much like for it to fuck off.
My feelings about my mother have become clearer. I don’t really feel much for her anymore, and whatever is left in my head keeps blinking in and out like a faulty lightbulb. Maybe one day it will completely disappear.

Aside from all the mental stuff I was dealing with, I was also going through an identity crisis. Growing up, I had no clue who I really was and the person that I appeared to be did not feel like me at all. It was like I was projecting a bogus personality to people that felt so fake and I had no genuine personality at all.

It never occurred to me that I was dealing with psychological issues. I was ignorant about mental health and always thought it was normal stuff that everyone was going through but there was this other thing about myself that bugged me. Something I mistakenly believed wasn’t normal. I tried very hard to get rid of it because we were taught that it was a “sin” and “unnatural”. I spent years praying that it would go away, but it never did. Being gay. I didn’t understand much about it at the time, but one thing was clear: I didn't choose to be this way; I was born like this. I couldn’t bear it and hated myself, all because of the shame and guilt I felt from hearing how sinful and disgusting it was supposed to be. All that self-hate made me so miserable and messed me up more than I should have let it.
So this was the irony of my childhood : I was blind to the real psychological issues I had but stressing over something that was very normal about me. I wasn't quite sure who I was but that one real part of me that I knew was authentically me, I despised. I buried and tried to tune it out.

Thankfully things got better. After my school life, at least most of my mental problems disappeared or were less of a issue. Once I began to actually know who God is and what Grace and Salvation by Jesus's sacrifice meant, the tormenting thoughts slowly faded. Knowledge about his unconditional love was what freed me from feelings of guilty and condemnation.

When I started college at Edmund's, I wasn't depressed anymore. My anxiety was still there but it wasn't as bad as it used to be. For once in my life I was happy. I didn't feel any guilt. I did not care about my grades or class tests, projects or seminars and I was ditching a lot of classes. I was just clowning and wasting my time being happy, enjoying life the way I can, looking forward to everyday unlike during my school days. I did things that I wouldn't have dared to do before because "sin” and “hell". I made new friends who I became very close with and my friendship with them was one of the things that made me feel normal despite my identity crisis and my wacky emotional state. I was beginning to figure out what I was, at least the parts of me that felt genuinely "me", although I was still not completely at peace with myself, with that fruity part of me that I hated but I was slowly starting to accept it.

After three years at Edmund's, I did my masters at Anthony's and life though different was also just as amazing but in a different way and I also met some great people during that time.
One day, Principal Fr Joby pulled me aside. I assumed he had caught me skipping classes for the hundredth time and was about to threaten suspension or failure again. However, I was not prepared for what he said. He told me that my behavior was very odd and asked if I was dealing with personal or mental issues. He also asked if he could pray for me. This threw me and made me uncomfortable. No one had ever asked me if something was wrong with me. No one likes to be told that something is wrong with them. When I got home I reflected on all my life experiences, my childhood and considered seeking professional help, but I didn't.

So here I am now decades later still dealing with some mental problems. I still haven't fully figured out who I am and my personality is a bit fractured, changing drastically based on the environment I'm in, the people I'm with or what my mind decides I have to be. My identity is like a puzzle, a mix of pieces held together by duct tape. Some pieces fit and some don't.
Most of the time I struggle to feel empathy or emotion with certain people but on rare times and with specific people, I feel a lot of it. I am overly suspicious, closed off and very sociopathic with most people I know and strangers I don't know but also I am very open and affectionate to certain people I do know and weirdly also to some stranger I'd just met for a couple of minutes.
I don't know why my mental health was a trainwreck. I'm just glad I'm much better now. I think that it was because I had literally hit my head pretty badly when I was very young. There's no evidence for this of course but it's what I strongly believe and what makes sense to me.

It took way too long but during the covid years I finally fully embraced that part of me that I unsuccessfully tried to pray away and surpress. I accepted that I'm gay and I'm glad I did because it has been gradually healing my mind and made me feel more comfortable with myself.

I have shared a lot of personal things and yet there's some stuff I have left out. If you didn't like any of the things that I've said then that's okay with me. If you think I'm oversharing I really don't care. If you are disgusted, I'm not bothered bitch. If you're thinking about saying something terrible or responding in anger then you might just trigger something and I will end you.

The reason I wrote this long post is not because I need anyone's help, advice, sympathy or rebuke. I don't want it. I'm simply sharing this so you will know what I was dealing with and the things that I'm still dealing with. Maybe it will help someone who is going through the same things.
I have been sharing a little bit about myself over these recent years and realised how liberating it feels everytime I do that, so I thought I'd unload almost every single thing that I have kept to myself.