i wonder if anyrule would be surprised by me now
(midwest.social)
TotallynotJessica
196Persistence of self is an illusion. A person is a process rather than an entity.
I wasn't a smart person when I was younger but I'm not a smart person now.
I try to not think about it, I have bad takes nowadays but I absolutely loath and feel disgust with the person I used to be.
I do still try to have empathy for my old self. I don't think carrying that self hatred forward is helpful for the healing.
Every version of me kinda sucks tbh, that's part of being human. But it doesn't matter if other people can or can't forgive you for who you used to be, it only matters if you can.
If you're cringing at your past self that just means you're growing [:
I suddenly cut off all my friends because I decided I did enough damage. Past me had cringee periods, but there was always potential and hope before. I learned fast.
Now I feel stuck and rotted.
Make new friends and move on.
saw a friend from my highschool DND club who I haven't seen in a year in a half walk past while cashiering at work. I said hi and waved and she didn't even acknowledge me. Fair enough, I've changed a lot lol
You turned into a cat??
Ah the old...
I’ve been depressed and reclusive since COVID, there are people who probably remember a much better me than the me I am now, sadly
Nah man, it's the opposite. The version of me my old friend probably still have of me is way cooler than who I am now.
I graduated middle school in 2015 and I haven't seen or heard anything from former classmates, I graduated high school in 2019, same shit happened. If they didn't want to hang out with that version of me who was young and sad, they can't hang out with the version of me that rocks. If you find him can you send him my way.
Every single moment, ever person, everything led to exactly where I am now so, while I'm not proud of who I used to be, it was a necessary stepping stone to be where I am now.
Granted, I'm probably worse but, hey, we can't all be winners.
People are irritating like that. They simultaneously think people can’t change, yet expect them to, but don’t treat them accordingly if they have.
Honestly I was just doing my best but the people around me sure as hell weren't. They were much worse and now I'm better without them around
It fucks me up that nobody perceives us the way we see ourselves.
Jesus, it does now! I was an absolute douche when I was younger! Why would you say this to people!? starts hyperventilating
It's okay — the positive of this is that cringing at your past self shows how much you've grown.
And if you think about the people holding those fragmented memories of an older you, well it's pretty likely that they'll have grown too, and would also be cringing had they stumbled across this post as you had.
When I think about the people I used to know who will have grown in the time since I knew them, it makes me sad that I wasn't there to see that growth, but I also feel warm and I wish them well.
The way I see it is that if you weren't at least a bit of a jerk then you wouldn't know what being a jerk even is and why you don't want to be one
Nah some people definitely get it without the lesson, usually by witnessing example or having parents
Could be worse, what if they remember you being awesome but you suck now?
I'm in constant fear of making the same mistakes now that I've made such an effort to be who I am now.
my biggest fear (｡╯︵╰｡)
i liked this post even before i read what it was cause i saw your username ^^
I'm just as sure you don't suck as I am that you're not Jessica, which is to say, ~50%. I'm usually a bit off on these things, so I'll just say I'm Totallyprettysure TotallynotJessica is Totallysuperawesome.
Yeah, this is me. I used to be pretty quick witted and funny, but mostly in a 'bad taste' or random kinda way that only really works around teenages and young 20-somethings. I'd probably lose an eyebrow through cringing if I heard my younger self talking like that, even if the rest of the rook laughed
What, you dont banana mustache anymore?? Well im taking my narwhal and flying into the moon
Everyone seems to remember me being fatter, they always say I look like I've lost weight. I haven't changed much in 20 years. ;__;
There's a guy I used to work with 20 years ago. We got on alright, but then something changed and he really took against me. I've no idea why, or what happened. I guess I said or did something that pissed him off, and he didn't feel like he wanted to tell me what. But it got to the point where he was kinda violent towards me, so I just kept my distance, then left the company (for reasons unrelated to this).
He later went on to work with some of the guys who work at my current place, who I get on really well with. Anyway, we were talking about people in the industry we've known over the years, as you do, and it comes up that they know him.
One of the guys bumped into him at a party a little while later, and mentioned that he was working with me now, to which he was told "Oh. Is DJDarren still a fucking prick?"
And I honestly have no idea what I did wrong.
I later discovered that I'm ADHD as fuck, so I guess it's something to do with that.
now i want to know why he's mad
Same.
I think our shared friend did ask him, but just got some non-committal answer along the lines of "he's just a wanker", which isn't very helpful. I know I'm a wanker.
But yeah, one day he was fine, the next he seemed hostile to me. It's entirely possible that I said something as a joke that he took as sincere. Lord knows, I do have form for that sort of thing, and I used to be a bit edgier back then, as many of us are in our 20s.
I try to think of it this way: if you wince a bit at the thought of past selves, it just means you've grown.
Like yeah and I get that but why am I still being kept awake at night for shit that happened 25 years ago?
next time that happens, be the adult you needed then to show you a better way to navigate.
I wish I could internalize this.
I had a lot of security flaws and vulnerabilities that were patched over time. I can't understand why people are still running such old versions of me - it's grossly negligent.
Not even GrapheneOS can fix that?
I'm not entirely sure if I'm fully compatible, but hey, I've even got some new features now, even though some of the popular old ones have been partially superseded – so maybe there are still some legitimate use cases for "Legacy Me" after all :)
The commit tree diverges :/
how to git rebase to better life branch?
It always fucks me up. In general being remembered does, I wish I could just erase all memories of me and influence I ever had out of existence. The fact that at some point I'll be completely 100% forgotten is soothing.
yeah just ran into this texting an ex recently. we were together for almost 5 years, but i didnt learn i was neurodivergent or trans or kinda aro and very nonmonogamous until years after we broke up. ive been through years of therapy and self discovery at this point and shes still operating on memories of a maladjusted egg doing her best man impression (badly) and being kind of shitty about it.
i made an offhand comment that triggered some of the trauma i left her with, which made her type a long text reminding me of how i was shitty to her. it was kind of surreal because it was based on what i know now to be really shitty and toxic assumptions about my motivations and intentions, and the person who did those things to her is dead at this point.
i thought i would feel bad but i just kind of felt sad that shes still carrying that stuff around with her... not that ive put down all the baggage she left me with but still, it seemed almost fresh to her even after all these years.
Someone once said to me "You shouldn't make everyone your enemy but you will make a few without trying to. You should be friendly with everyone but not appease them in exchange of yourself. And try to finish your life with more friends than enemies."
That was my reaction as well
I served a mission for the LDS Church and had some success -- my mission didn't have a lot of baptisms, but I managed a few. I left the religion about a year after I got back, and I'm not particularly proud of who I was when I was a member. I think a lot about the people who converted because of the things that I said to them, and whether they'd be better or happier people had I chosen not to go.
Nope. Everyone perceives others differently. And I have the curse of knowledge people can change drastically in a few months. They may have their perspective of a situational meeting with an old reference of me, but I am still cursed to knov they have a bias, I have mines. In another few months, we’ll both be different yet again.
Change is the constant.
Well, old me was doing my best.
I used to have chronic pain+fatigue for 17 years. Did not want to participate in anything, because it just meant more pain and less spoons, and the majority of people remember me that way.
I'm still working out how to live life normally, like I'm kind of doing my teenage years now, exploring my surroundings and trying out things.
So, I'm not yet a fully different person, but even just me voluntarily doing things, sports, etc. really does not compute for people who still know me from back then.
Please tell me how you got rid of it, especially the fatigue. I take any advise.
Well, in my case, it's a form of gluten intolerance. Might be coeliac disease.
So, if you were to have the same thing as me, then try not eating wheat, spelt, barley, rye for like three days or so.
Perhaps more generally, make a list of foods you frequently eat, and then go through it one-by-one and don't eat that food for a few days and see if anything happens.
Could of course be various other things, too, but it's something you can control fairly easily. I'm still baffled that I never had a few days where I didn't eat wheat in all those years.
Quite the opposite; I'm terrified of running into someone from my past who remembers the me with "potential" before everything in my life went to shit.
Jokes on them, I remember them the same way too!
If we meet, it will be like two strangers both doing identity theft meet up I guess.
Yeah, and they were right. I was an asshole. I've worked hard to get better, but that doesn't erase the damage that I caused. Part of me would like to reach out to them, but part of me know that still won't make it right, even if I had a way to find them.
I feel shame for what I did. Sometimes overwhelming shame.
Do you ever think about what you'd say if you saw them again?
I avoid contact. I don't have the energy to face these people. I trampled on their trust and friendship and broke a lot of hearts. It's a mess I can't clean up. Too much guilt.
Sorry to hear that. I hope all of you find peace in your own ways.
They were assholes too, generally speaking.
yeah, but then I'd hate that they think positively of me
After I transitioned I lost dozens and dozens of friends because their expectation that I was just the same old guy but with tits just didn’t work for me and their expectations made it difficult to be myself. I found it easier to let him and them go and just start over. So I know he’s still there somewhere in their hearts (my ex-wife, too) but for me better that he’s buried and forgotten 🤷🏼♀️
Spoiler: no versions of you actually suck, you just feel that way because you feel the difference in past you and current yous growth. They are both awesome. They're both just in different stages of growth. Also, nobody thinks as harshly of you as you do yourself. So if they do meet you again and meet the new you, it's just all bonus
Yes but have you met conservatives?
omg lmao i think about this sometimes, most ppl from college haven't seen me after graduation, and i haven't seen any of them in ages, and now i am a pretty cheery queer dude, when i used to be a withdrawn and kind of emo/weird chick 💀
thankfully everyone i actively associate with is aware, but if i think about anyone i haven't kept in touch with... 💀💀💀
and don't even get me started on high school
I don't think anyone from college would bat an eye, but it's the people in high school who really get to me. I don't know if they'd be genuinely shocked, and I kinda fear that they wouldn't be surprised.
I owe some people some apologies. Sorry Dan. I was wrong. I was acting far too immature. That time of my life really brought out the worst of me. It's for the best we lost touch but I'm sorry for how I was.
I don't give a fuck. There's a reason they don't know this version of me. I didn't care to maintain a relationship with them. My longest running friendship is >30 years, so those are choices.
But then it's fun getting back in contact and being proud of who you are now. But yes I also cringe how I used to be, just a shell of a person that's not really alive. I'm grateful I'm not like that anymore.
This bugs me more than it should. At least they won't associate that with me now. I don't look at all like i did ten years ago. I've walked right passed people i partied with ten years ago and they had no idea.
Totally not a factor in why I left my home country.
Yes, this is why I hate reconnecting
Not at all, they had no idea who I actually was back then either
