BREAKTHROUGH

 October 12th, 2025

Last night (or rather, this morning), I think I had a partial breakthrough. 

It's not one I'm fully ready to accept and act in accordance with, but it's one that has shifted my outlook just enough to consider doing so. 

Life hasn't improved much since my last entry. 

Today I found myself spiraling. It took some effort, but I got dressed and went to the gym, and surprisingly, it did have a noticeable effect on my mental health. 

I'm trying to wean myself off of the sweets and chocolate, because I recognize that it's my way of trying to find quick dopamine hits when the serotonin is low. It doesn't help (clearly). Earlier, my spiral was about the extreme pressure I put on myself to keep "improving" as a means of finding control and security amidst the very confusing and painful events that are occuring in my life right now. These events seem to be coinciding with some deeply embedded wounds and it's gut-wrenching.

I've been on the verge of a few nervous breakdowns the past month and a half. 

In addition to the sweets, I'm weaning myself off of the cosmetic vices I lean into so much. Just for the sake of restoring a bit of peace. The peace of not having to perform beauty in hopes of being able to connect, which is obviously not working either. 

I guess this is one area where I can remove some of the pressure that I am feeling overall. By simply letting go of the illusion that if I just work really hard that a breakthrough will come - which is one of the many ways in which I lie to myself. The breakthroughs don't really come, I don't get the outcomes I am working towards. The things I desire, in fact, are mere substitutes for what I resent that I never was successful at getting. 

I guess the breakthrough is in accepting that powerlessness and not trying to buy back my "dignity" (ego) with stuff. By stuff I mean cosmetics, clothes, food; proxies for actual connection which is where the wound actually lies. 

I guess shattering the illusion would be renouncing the desire to earn it in the first place. Which in and of itself feels like death. It reminds me that time cannot be undone, and that those experiences, the deprivation, albeit excruciating are all gone and I can't ever get that innocence back or seek out retribution because it's all in the past. 

Mostly I feel sad and cheated by that reality. Then, I feel hopeless and wonder if I'm asking of life more than it's willing to give and that's why I'm always looking around wondering why everyone is living and I am merely existing. 

I felt yesterday, that it was pointless to try and pointless to do. I felt this way, because I noticed that it wasn't rewarding at the end of it all. I didn't feel proud of myself, I didn't feel accomplished, or vindicated, or that I was getting the retribution I felt I deserved. Instead, I felt cheated. I felt that I had climbed a mountain only to realize there were a set of stairs that everyone else was using and you never knew about. Realizing that it was all for nothing and that there's nothing mystical at the end of it all. 

I don't know how long it'll take to fully experience the weight of this breakthrough. I know that I prayed about it, I know that the breakthrough will come eventually. I'm certain this isn't it. 

- vetiveroil