Middle of the night haunted thoughts about this post, which I cannot link to directly because the original poster is deactivated since 2018, but which, as of the time of this writing, has over 400k notes and counting


post from 2017 by an account deactivated in 2018. reads: umm i need reassurance that my presence is wanted but i can’t ask for reassurance because that’s really Embarrassing and it wouldn’t feel genuine if i asked for itALT

…

there are so many layers to this

- the poster saying they need reassurance

- and yet following that up with the reasons they can’t ask for it

- doesn’t posting it on Tumblr count as asking for it?

- did the need simply become so great that it outweighed the reasons not to?

- did the reasons – embarrassment, and the problem that reassurance never feels genuine when it is asked for instead of freely offered– still prove true?

- was it too much to bear, the embarrassment of so many people knowing of their need?

- was it too much to bear, all this dubiously genuine, prompted reassurance? Did the person feel inundated in thousands of notes of false pity coerced by the post, instead of genuine reassurance that they were wanted?

-is this why the person’s account was deactivated within a year after posting?

- was there any other possible option, any means by which this person could instead have received appreciation that felt both genuine and non-humiliating?

- if there is such an option, how could we seek it for ourselves and for the others whose presence we do appreciate?

- the fact that the most commonly reblogged reply is one that says “reblog to let prev know their presence is wanted”

- suggests to me that no one in those four hundred thousand notes actually understood the original post

- do I even understand it? Do I understand anything?

- the account name, “Estelles-remade,” suggests this person may have been deactivated before and this is part of a repeating cycle

- the fact that the name Estelle, like my own Aster, means “Star,” and the associated feeling that seeing this post is like seeing light from a star that died many years ago

-(…. is becoming nocturnal for my job actually as good for me as I thought it was, if I’m gonna end up thinking like this during my waking hours even on my days off?)