~7:30pm July 30, 2023
Mood: empty
Listening to: lil soda boi - lavender ⧉

it's too hot outside. summer is so insufferable, i don't know how i manage to struggle through it every single year. it was 43C the other day. (i'm american but i primarily use celsius because of my work, but i think F is better for habitat and fever temps due to its higher precision.) geographically i'm stuck in a fucking swamp, it's almost always 100% relative humidity. i have never once lived in a room with air conditioning. my f*mily never takes me seriously when i say i'm slowly dying in the hottest room of the house, they make the same useless suggestions of what i should do as if it's my fucking fault that i'm overheating, instead of fixing the air conditioning so it reaches my room. i would easily rather die of heat stroke than be forced to be around them 24/7. there are no small ac units that i can use because my windows are constructed wrong. because of my disorder, i can't sweat to prevent overheating. i can't do anything about it. i only start to sweat when i'm already overheated. it saps all my energy, gives me chronic headaches and rashes. not to mention my room has the most bugs in it of all the rooms. i have lived like this for the last 23 summers. summer gives me a constant feeling of dying, powerlessness, invisibility, resentment, like i'm always complaining, and like nobody takes me seriously.

i'm so pathetic and wretched for relapsing back into self-harm. i was 6 months clean. it's not the same method, but i'd be lying to myself if i called it anything else. i make my showers so cold that it puts me into shock and i lay there for a long time wishing for something bad to happen to me. anything. i get disappointed when nothing happens. the last time my grandmother knocked on the door, but instead of being concerned or panicked, she was just angry that i was taking up other people's shower time. i'm so resentful that i want to get hurt and i want them to feel responsible. i want to take out all my frustraton on myself. i want that power back. i want them to know my pain. but i don't want them to know anything about me either. i don't hate myself. i don't know what else to do. nothing is productive. they aren't receptive to anything. i learned a long time ago that cries for help mean nothing to them, so why do i still try? i need to escape but i can't yet. i'm so scared and alone for the adulthood transition process but i don't have a choice. my chest aches and tears refuse to fall.

my favorite cope is to go for night walks. it's been too hot to do that for too long, but it's apparently going to be cool soon, just in time for the full moon. hopefully that will clear my head.

~6:00pm July 27, 2023
Mood: happy
Listening to: SEMATARY - GOD'S LIGHT BURNS UPON MY FLESH ⧉

i'm having a pretty good day! yesterday i got my first nice comment and someone else was the first person to put my button on their site. it was REALLY overwhelming, but in a good way! it made my day yesterday and today. despite it being kind of minor, it made me feel seen and connected and accepted, and i know this is only the beginning. it's scary but i'm excited! i'm a little embarrassed to admit i happy stimmed for like 45 minutes straight lol.

besides that, i ended up having a stimulating political discussion last night with a friend that i don't talk to often. i really like talking with her, she's smart and has interesting viewpoints. it reminded me that i have to work on getting the essay section up and running when i get the chance. i'm not going to be super pretentious and say that the world needs to hear my ultra enlightened takes or anything. i just value the opportunity to publish my complex thoughts on the human condition. i think about it almost constantly. people don't have to agree or even read it in the first place, but it'll be cathartic for me and there's always the chance someone will find a nuanced long-form take to be refreshing in the current internet climate regardless.

that's on the backburner for now, since i have a book to start reading. a few weeks ago on a whim i proposed the idea of reading a new book together to some acquaintances on a public discord. so in a move that's completely unlike me, i SPONTANEOUSLY started a book club. the book is neuromancer btw. i tried to gauge everybody's interest and the preference everybody had in common was philosophical fiction (not necessarily sci-fi). i picked neuromancer because it's philosophical fiction, nobody read it before, it's considered a classic, and it's a novella. i didn't want to stress anyone out with a responsibility, so i thought a novella with a 2 month deadline was both engaging and considerate of peoples' jobs and disabilities (some have dyslexia and adhd). it's been 1 month and i haven't started it because i got into neocities and coding like literally 2 days after i suggested it lmao. i'm going to dedicate a lot of time this week to reading it before baldur's gate 3 comes out on Aug 3. that game is going to be like a 200 hour long campaign at least. maybe i'll write a review of them depending on how much i have to say!

~2:00pm July 26, 2023
Mood: hungover
Listening to: Have A Nice Life - I Don't Love ⧉

wow alcohol sucks really bad. it's been almost a year since i had any weed, and i got pretty bored of being sober. my one friend keeps making empty promises that he's finally going to introduce me to psychedelics, but i should know by now not to trust his word like that. i've known the guy since we were 8, he's THE irl friend, but it sucks that as he becomes an adult his untreated bpd is getting worse. he does dangerous stunts all the time, races cars, quits jobs on a whim, takes whatever drug is handed to him, self-harms in the gym, gets into fistfights, lies about debts, and mistreats women. yknow, a fucking libertarian conspiracy theorist grindset greasehead gymbro type. i don't know how much longer i can keep him as a friend. he treats me better than anyone, aside from the broken promises over shit that isn't really important. he goes back and forth between being good and being bad every 3 months too so timing a cutoff would be awkward. ugh, maybe i'm too codependent with him too, idk. typing it out this way certainly looks like i'm an abused girlfriend.

whatever, either way last night i drank a bunch of rum. i already knew i didn't like alcohol, i've never been drunk before but i still hate the buzz, plus it always tastes awful. i don't know what i expected, being drunk was just a worse version of feeling buzzed. it was so unenjoyable that i decided to sleep early (2am is early for me). i then had the worst fucking sleep i've had in a long while, classic hangover symptoms i guess. not even close to worth it. 12 hour restless sleep with tons of fucked up nightmares, which i googled and apparently alcohol cessation does actually cause more dreams while sleeping. woke up at 2pm lol. at least it was the perfect night to do it. there was no late night vc to join, my grandpop wasn't sleeping on the couch, i don't have any appointments today, and i don't have any appointments tomorrow either that i have to spend today preparing for. still feel like shit though. that's another thing i need an income for, so i can blow a whole fucking paycheck on edibles.

~8:30pm July 24, 2023
Mood: energetic
Listening to: yungmaple - SCARED TO LOSE HER ⧉

adding more shit to the site and getting more site views got me feeling real vulnerable lately. especially the addition of the music page, i've never really explained what that art means to me before. not even to my therapist! and she's literally a music therapist! but it's true that it's very close to my soul, and it felt like a relief to have my own platform to finally express how i feel about it, which is the whole point of making the damn site. i guess i worry about being so negative and focused on trauma so much, i feel like it's annoying to listen to and counterproductive to actual healing. i don't know where the balance should be. am i over-identifying with my survivorship? is it just a symptom of ptsd that i question my own sincerity on everything? i probably shouldn't be concerned if some random finds my rambling annoying, it's my fuckin site. i maintain the notion that this project is good for my identity and expression because it forces me to confront my insecurities at the same time.

the other night i went for a walk. i love taking walks at 3am and stargazing. i started last november as a post-trauma coping skill and for a new way of confronting my agoraphobia. i wanted to start for a decade, so it was a big milestone for me. back in winter and spring i walked every night. i've learned so much about astronomy from simply studying the sky, despite living in one of the highest light polluted areas in america. i hate heat and humidity so much, so i haven't been able to for about 2 months. i make it a point to photograph every full moon though, plus any other really cool cosmic phenomena that i can, even though my phone camera is honestly atrocious. the other night just so happened to be a little on the cooler side, enough for me to be outside. i was actually already using full moons as a way of journaling, i post a pic and write a short summary of how i felt that month to some of my close friends. i don't see a reason to not post cool space pics here too when they happen. at 3am, saturn and jupiter are visible, which is really fucking cool imo. i love how the night sky has evolved since i started 8 months ago.

~6:00pm July 21, 2023
Mood: dissociated
Listening to: quannnic - Life Imitates Life ⧉

i had my last driving lesson a couple hours ago. i don't know how i felt about the lesson. all i know is that i hate driving in general. i'm apparently good at it. i never wanted to drive in the first place, but i live in an american suburban fake f*mily hellscape and i need to escape at all costs. i cannot fucking afford to not drive. i've had the inverse experience, the first time i drove i was the least anxious, where now my anxiety spikes even higher every subsequent lesson.

i had a new instructor, an old white guy instead of the nice old lady special needs teacher i normally get. he was very pushy and impatient with me, which triggered a dissociative episode i think. i wish i could control myself around authoritative people but i fucking can't. i literally lose the ability to think and feel, my nervous system automatically goes into submissive mode, the freeze and fawn adrenaline responses. which, as you could imagine, makes driving hard. i didn't realize how much i was shaking and sweating (i never sweat, it's part of the condition) during the whole 2 hours until 10 minutes after i walked in the house. i avoid the word "home". i can't even fucking tell if i internalized any of the information, i can't fucking consciously remember most of it. i guess i'll have to bank on my cerebellum subconsciously internalizing the muscle memory. all i can think about instead is how i'm going to have to drive every fucking day forever and i get so overwhelmed. i don't even know how i'm going to pay for a car, and all the other cars here are in constant use. i need a car to get a job and i need a job to get a car. i don't even know how i'm going to fucking work in my condition, i can't stand up for 30 minutes without pain. i'm not cut out for any manual labor and i don't have enough energy to work 40 hours per week. in college i could barely handle 8 hours per week in a chem lab, how the fuck am i going to do 8+ PER DAY every day?? EVERYDAY. i need a break, i'm spiraling.

the transition to adulthood is hard for anybody i'm sure, but having a late start, trauma, neurodivergence, and no life help ever from a neglectful f*mily makes it so much harder. i'm so afraid, and even though i know im strong and brave and resilient, i really wish i didn't always have to be.

~3:00am July 20, 2023
Mood: dry
Listening to: Silent Hill 4 OST - Resting Comfortably ⧉

im pretty tired. tired as in a normal amount of physical energy but no mental energy, so kinda restless. my eyes and mouth are so dry, i wish i could just be watered like a plant. have all the water just absorb through my skin. drinking water is a bit sensory overload sometimes in certain conditions, like right now. besides, my electrolytes are prone to getting unbalanced, and at that point no matter how much water i drink, my body won't hydrate. i'll still be dry as fuck and piss out pure crystal clear water within 10 minutes.

i made my own 88x31 button earlier today, which is pretty cool. i used to dabble in pixel art like 7 years ago, but nothing serious or committal at all. it felt a little weird, yet good, to return to an art i tried before. i can't help but feel like my button is just shit compared to all the other cool people around. all i did was rip an official pokemon sprite and write some text, so many other people must have these meticulously curated original artworks that perfectly match their creative visions and general aesthetics, right? probably not, a lot probably steal and/or flip some art or idea too.

i was thinking, i'm a person that's really into both science and art, and i'm a scientist by trade, but i am so fucking disinterested in most other sciency types, so all my preferred circles are full of artists. i'm too sciency to relate to artists and too artistic to relate to scientists. i feel like i'm in a grey area where i don't belong anywhere. in everything actually. not traumatized enough, not autistic enough, not ace enough, not outcast enough, not emo enough, not normal enough. bleh, i guess i am just Me, i just still don't know what that means, and it seems like everyone else so easily finds their little groups and cliques they fit into.

~9:00pm July 18, 2023
Mood: mildly irritated
Listening to: Sybyr - The World ⧉

the cardiologist appointment went different than expected. it still took 4 hours, but i saw a nurse instead of my normal doctor. things going unexpected fucks with my anxiety, so that kinda sucked, but it wasn't horrible. however, the way the new nurse didn't even read my damn chart and kept being super pushy and kept assuming things about me really spiked it. she prescribed 3 new medications, but i'm probably not going to take 2 at all. i have a lot of medical experience, i do tons of research, and i know how my body feels, so i'm confident when it comes to treating my own health. i'm privileged to be an educated patient, even if my family (and some past doctors) think i'm foolish for not trusting doctors 100%. what can i say? i've had over 20 specialists and a lot of them tend to be fucking clueless with my disorder. even my friends come to me first when they have new problems.

been thinking about what to do next on the website. the home page, about, and diary were my main goals. i'm in limbo for essays and reviews, since i want to have an idea of what to write and have an article ready day 1, but at the same time i don't have any motivation to think about writing unless the page is already made, so we'll see. one of the first shrine ideas i have also rides on having the music page completed (spoiler it's gonna be dedicated to sybyr). so maybe i'll start with the music page even though that wasn't my original plan. posting the songs in the diary entries lately has certainly inspired me to, i just gotta figure out the organization i want and how to embed youtube/soundcloud. i think i have to turn down the time and effort i put into working a bit, take longer breaks more often.

semi-related, this whole shrine thing is something i'm totally unfamiliar with, but it seems cool and fun. i guess it comes from tumblr/deviantart? i've never been remotely involved with either of those, so the culture is lost on me. seems like there's a lot of tumblr overlap with neocities, which is a little funny to me considering i used to be an edgy 4chan kid who hated tumblr. i was way too unsupervised and got into 4chan when i was 9 years old. ugh, i was such a piece of shit nazi for my whole childhood. it bothers me looking back on how much of a bully i was, but i was literally just a kid being manipulated by my own racist family and 4channers. maybe that's another privilege of mine: having enough awareness to convert from far right to left.

~7:30pm July 17, 2023
Mood: exhausted
Listening to: Juha - Everything slips ⧉

i hate food so fucking much. i hate eating. i dread dinners at home. i had dogshit sleep last night, only about 3 hours, so i've been awake for 19. had stomach cramps all morning, and when i get stomach cramps, it usually overwhelms my vasovagal nerve and causes pre-fainting symptoms. after that, i'm fatigued the rest of the day. my family knows this, they've watched me pass out several times, and yet they still pay no mind to my dietary restrictions. only up until a few months ago i would just eat whatever was made because i didn't want to offend them, i couldn't make anything for myself, and there was nothing in the house that was safe. i put my foot down and i say over and over again that i can't eat cheese, but my grandmom is so aloof that she doesn't listen, and constantly makes huge bowls of mac and cheese. then she takes it as an attack if i skip dinner to make myself a ramen cup. i hate the sensations of eating, chewing, swallowing, being full, being hungry, and the nausea/cramps that almost always comes with it. i'm even starting to develop a problem where my jaw joints are weakening and my jaw muscles are getting fatigued easier, which makes swallowing very very difficult. every bite i worry that it'll be the one i choke on, which probably increases the chances.

i painted my nails today. black. i only started painting my nails back in december, but apparently i'm good at it according to compliments from other women. it's something i wanted to pick up for a long time, but i was always scared of my family's reaction and i have a huge fear of buying anything for myself. what finally made me do it in december was because i needed new coping mechanisms from dealing with an abusive relationship that ended in october. it made me feel pretty and empowered. it was a strange feeling when my family had little to no reaction to it. i felt defeated because i failed to get attention again. a lot of that feeling has subsided by now, i don't want my family to know the real me, i don't want them in my life, they don't deserve it.

either way, i painted my nails because i'm anxious about my cardiology appointment tomorrow. nothing's wrong really, it's just that those appointments usually take 4-6 hours because the doctor takes his sweet time. that's also not necessarily a bad thing, i specifically sought this doctor out because he's a leading expert on my rare disorder and he's thorough with patients. i simply don't particularly want to wait in a public space for 4-6 hours after my morning therapy appointment. it's going to be an energy demanding day tomorrow and i have absolutely none to spare today. i should let him know about my jaw/swallowing thing. oh also the new thing this week where i can accidentally crack my sternum. today i learned there's a small joint in the middle of the breastbone. whatever, i know the appointment will go fine.

quite a dire tone on this whole diary entry, yeah? sorry about that, 30 minutes ago one of my friends posted a gore video not realizing what it was before she sent it and it dysregulated me.

~6:00pm July 16, 2023
Mood: bittersweet
Listening to: Blank Banshee - Lime Tree ⧉

well, that's it. this is the diary page done. i've really done a lot in the week or so that i've been working on the site. i only found out about neocities like 3 weeks ago, started learning html 2 weeks ago, and started the website 1 week ago. i'm quite proud of myself tbh. still, it's a bit of an odd feeling. when i accomplish things i can't help but feel the weight of my imposter syndrome and absurdly high standards.

when i achieve something the voice in my head is like, "oh well of course you did it, big deal, you're good at everything you try," but when i fail it's fucking devastating. it might seem silly that my inner monologue berates me by saying i'm good at everything, and yeah it probably is. i know it comes from my childhood, since my family has always put the pressure on me to be perfect at everything. by them telling me i'm good at everything, they were reinforcing the high expectations they put on me and let me know that they would be easier to disappoint over time. the other part of it was that they used me for their competitive spirit, so they had to let other kids know i was better than them, which made ME feel guilty and get left out. everything feels like bragging, but also deep down i think everyone is better than me. so like, even though i'm aware of all this now, i can't stop putting the inherited expectations on myself. i can't just let myself get away with doing well, learning fast, or being talented (how criminal).

truthfully, that's also why i haven't pursued any art for most of my life. art is so abstract and the creative process is so unstructured that it raises tons of anxieties and triggers. for those art classes in primary school they forced us to participate in legit contests for a grade, and SOOO many of them i ended up winning school-level, district-level, or state-level without really trying or practicing. as a kid, the only creative outlet i had was flipnote hatena when i was 10-11, and that was the last time i did art for myself. i'm 23 now. it does feel good though to be able to finally tackle something artistic again now that i'm healing. i'm perservering despite the anxieties, doubts, and triggers, plus i'm figuring out my own unstructured workflow for once. i can finally listen to my body and tell when i need breaks now.

the other part of this achievement that's bittersweet is how i only dedicated so much time and effort to this project because i had a minor fallout with one of my best friends and i've been isolating since. it's good for me to take alone time to recharge my energy after getting triggered, and probably even better that i found a solo project to tackle at the same time, which is why i did it in the first place. i just don't know exactly what to expect when i come back. things will probably be awkward even though i don't have any hard feelings and i'm pretty sure he doesn't either. i think the problem here is that the argument we got into just escalated too much and nobody was necessarily correct; i think he's just bad with regulating his own triggers and gets really really aggressive past a certain point. now normally i would establish a boundary when i get triggered, but i wasn't directly triggered by him, it was about something else and came on later. so i wouldn't really have anything specific to make a boundary on, and it would be ridiculous/controlling of me to just tell him "get better at arguing stop getting triggered dumbass." even though heated arguments can be fun, i've decided that the best way forward is to hang out like normal, but cut off arguments when i see he's boiling over, so to speak. maybe one day he'll read this, idk.

this was long and rambly as hell, but honestly i expect all the diary entries to be pretty similar. i have a lot to say lol.