I'm an absolute emotional wreck today. Everything enrages me, and I'm kind of glad I didn't end up self-harming, though damn, I thought about it. However, something's been troubling me for a while

I keep going round and round with thoughts of how I have no right to my feelings. There is nothing bad about my life; I'm just a too-old emo kid: self-harm, no self-esteem, feels like they're in constant pain despite being a privileged, first-world child of wealthy suburban parents (literally true in my sense). I have no right to feel anything but happiness, to be anything but perfect. But I'm not. I really, genuinely feel like my own thoughts and emotions torment me (especially the ones I know, on some level, are irrational), like I just can't cope with existing at times and I don't know what to do about it.

It seems pretentious to view my life as any kind of struggle, any kind of narrative, and kind of effort or journey to overcome something, because I have nothing valid to overcome. What if that's all I am? Fake? Pretentious?* A spoiled, whiny, useless rich kid who "doesn't know what real pain is" but pretends they do to feel worthwhile? Especially because I can't imagine not being this way. It is a part of Me in a way: all this "whiny", "privileged" emotional garbage, it's something to work with, something to motivate me. The identity as someone self-hating who wants to do things to cure that is a part of Me; where would I get my motivation otherwise? The whole mental structure of being tormented and easily "triggered" by things is so normal to me I don't know what to do without it - I've experienced time sans that volatility, and while it was a relief, it was also...boring. At least anxiety gives me something to think about.

I did grow up absurdly privileged. Wealthy-ish, no abuse, no significant loss. Wasn't forced to grow up early (if anything, I've been babied too long. No responsibility was ever expected of me until quite late. I actually envy people who had to grow up fast and feel a lot of guilt about my privilege. Indeed, privilege is such a buzzword today; though I'd probably be considered such even by first-world standards), everything and more provided for me. So I was a bit emotionally neglected, or felt such, big deal. No one cares. It isn't relevant. How whiny, how immature, how selfish, really, to be "broken" because mommy didn't hug me enough. It's pathetic.

I have no right to feel broken or lost or defective, but I do. I look at how I function in the world compared to others and all I see are disgusting flaws. Failure. Insignificance. And I want to overcome those - it sounds so grand doesn't it? So heroic, in a common way. But what right do I have to that kind of thinking or feeling, knowing the objective reality of my situation compared to others'?

This is a bit rambly (and purple...sorry. I do that). I'm not even sure where I was going except how much I see myself in descriptions of whiny emo teens, "wangsting", and needless melodrama. Or the guilt of being reminded of how good I have it compared to others....none of it cancels out my own self-centered pain. It's not valid, is it even real?


*Actually, I am pretentious and I know it. But not in that way. In a more innocently dramatic, pseudointellectual way that has zip to do with mental health.