vulnerability comes from the depths

hello, i guess.
[i was once told saying hello is what you're supposed to do when meeting people]
but really, this is treated as my personal space...

you can think of the following as guiding statement of purpose ig. if you're gonna snoop around in my personal bubble of rambles, may as well try to get something from it...

something i ask myself often wrt public-facing mental health talk: are we just normalizing "going through shit"?
collective traumadumping... saying words to elicit sympathy to soothe.
in less friendly and more loaded terms: "attention seeking".

venting is not necessarily bad; indeed, it's a necessary step to fully recognize the issues as they are — cementing them in language.
but the issue comes when the healing stops at this embryonic stage.
the dual edge of venting is that, with language, personal struggles are brought down from the abstract and the messy into the realm of comprehensibility. with this comprehension comes processing, that mentally transformative learning. without being intentionally shaped with care around your core, you risk it all.

waking up one day and not recognizing who you are. the things you've done. the thoughts in your head.

all from a simple, compounding failure to be unswayed and true to yourself through your languange.

that's what i fear, at least.

so here's the rule and the reasons:

don't come at me with anything you read in my journal, unless i specifically bring it up. maybe if i am close to you, asking me about / commenting on something is ok, but only if you've "gotten the pass" (if you aren't sure what exactly this is, you're not it). i need to be able to write in a void. a void that i have some stake in, one that's mildly friendly and may even whisper back on occasion, but a void nonetheless. this is an artistic project to repair and grow myself. shining light into the void evaporates whatever seeks its shelter. leave me alone to create.

in less vague terms, my thoughts get filtered and warped when the audience becomes real. e.g. I start to constantly wonder who could potentially see x, and how should I word x to avoid them thinking xyz, rather than just like, how can I best use words as a tool to effectively represent and identify with jumbles in my head. like u signed up for whatever you get from reading this lol. I explicitly did not.

i reiterate. do not reference to me the contents of my journal. i will not appreciate this boundary being crossed. keep it to yourself. i allow you to intrude on this site, but you're on your own. i hope you find something useful. or are mildly entertained ig. (otherwise why do you keep on reading?)

just remember that i have a real stake in these writings.