~11:30am Dec 31, 2023
Mood: sunken
Listening to: guardin - this year was not kind to me (ep) ⧉

i've been avoiding my diary for nearly a week. i think i hate my writing, but that feels disingenuous. i know it's normal to have phases like this and it'll pass. in a way, i'm proud i've been writing so sincerely for so long that i'm able to finally experience a phase where i don't like my art. yeah, art. my whole life i never thought i could make art, let alone be an artist. honestly, i think i feel stupid and worthless, so that's why i think my writing sounds stupid and worthless right now.

domestic life has settled down, which i knew it would. you'd think i would be relieved the immediate pressure is gone, but instead i'm scared and confused. everybody decided to pretend nothing happened, nobody is willing to talk about it, and i'm just waiting indefinitely for the inevitable explosive reemergence. the only word i can think of to describe myself is jumpy. generally, the last week or 2 it's been hard to breathe. not that my breathing feels interrupted, just that my lungs feel wrong and all my breathing is manual. i feel like my heart is beating harder and straining. i spend more hours trying to fall asleep than i spend sleeping. my nightmares are vivid and full of wet putrescence. my stomach is always upset and cramping. i can never tell if my health is acting up from mental anxiety or physical problems.

strangely, i'm always drained but i'm also always motivated to do things. i spent a lot of time doing things this week. i read the rest of crime and punishment and wrote my 2000 word review. i spent a lot of time replaying solar ash too, an old comfort game. i explored a lot of new music. i recognize i desperately need to take care of myself and i'm trying so hard. i'm trying to constantly occupy myself with things i love and familiar copes. a mental image that i have is mothering my child self. adult me sees kid me is crying, wipes their tears, takes them to the couch, wraps us both in a blanket, and lets them play games and lets them take pauses to cry into her chest for a couple minutes every so often. we are both sad but we are together, she is there for them. i think kid me would've liked that. except in reality it's only me. i used to be skeptical of parts therapy, thought i'm just a little too cynical to get it, but i think i get it now.

hopefully it doesn't come off that i read and write only while dissociated or only as a distraction. i really did genuinely enjoy crime and punishment for itself, and i also really enjoyed the process of writing the review, even if i was unhappy at the outcome. (another artist-like thing i never thought i would ever be capable of.) i think i read and write when i want to be closest to myself, to fully explore my entire range of emotions. dissociation or not.

i can't really tell, but i might be approaching another burnout. i haven't been observing burnouts for very long, though i seem to recall i felt low energy high motivation right before the last burnout i had in november. i think i'm taking all the right steps. i'm still dreading going through all that again, so soon after the last one.

i haven't gone outside very much. it's too warm or storming. on the days that i do, it's overcast. i haven't seen the stars in over a week, i basically missed the full moon. it makes me sad. at one point a brief thought hit me that the sky must be disappointed in me, but i caught it before i internalized it.

i burned the roof of my mouth earlier which i'm kinda happy about. i actually love using pain as a stim. pressing my nails into my skin, picking at hangnails, pushing against bruises, flexing subluxed joints, biting my cheeks, tonguing burns/ulcers, and yes even rarely piercing and draining my own infections. i don't know why it's so euphoric, but any time i get a minor injury like that i get really excited in anticipation.

idk it's the last day of 2023. i never really cared for new years, it doesn't feel any different to me. i self-reflect on the past pretty often, too often probably. i don't make resolutions either because i'm basically always constantly setting and changing goals. i also make it a point to do reflections about recent stuff every full moon, and the mourning moon is supposed to be for the year, which already passed over a month ago. i wouldn't label myself with any lunar traditions per se, and i certainly don't think people are foolish for doing their own solar new years traditions. to me it just doesn't matter much. bleh my thoughts are scattered.

~7:00am Dec 26, 2023
Mood: disheartened
Listening to: shamana - Humans ⧉

been locked in my room for 45 hours, besides at night when i slip out to walk. i just don't feel safe at all. i have some inkling of safety in my room and when i'm outside the house. i'm merely surviving. idk, i noticed i mostly write in my diary when i'm dysregulated and on the beginning of a spiral. rereading almost any entry feels like a different person, my thoughts are scattered and rushed. it's hard for me to get all the way through one. still, i don't want to delete anything because i know my thoughts are valuable somehow to someone, even if i end up not being that someone. i feel like my writing sucks and i'm not productive at all, so i have to keep reminding myself that this month i did maybe the most work since the site was made, including writing the index piece that i'm still proud of. i suppose i'm just in a really bad headspace. my energy is low, so i'm not breaking/shutting/melting down, which might be lowkey worse when the triggers take the form of passive fleeting thoughts. i'm so much more likely to internalize them and believe them. it's so draining to be constantly on alert to catch false thoughts like i'll never amount to anything, i'll never be happy, i'll never be who i want to be, i'll always be trapped, or, the worst, i'm just making everything up and nothing is wrong and my f*mily is right. and then if i miss one of those thoughts i'll beat myself up for not catching it. the situation is really bad and all i can do is metaphorically cradle myself and stroke my hair and tell myself everything will be ok.

i expected christmas day to be worse. i expected some kind of confrontation, or at least someone attempting to knock on my door. nobody did, not once. they didn't even expect me. i don't actually know what it is that i want. i don't really want confrontation, but i want them to make an effort to communicate to me. i want to be invisible, but i'm upset when they forget me. i'm never satisfied, i'm always scared of both attention and neglect simultaneously. is it possible to need attention while hating the attention from certain people? i think that's what i have. imagining myself in a different environment, i think i would be better with being perceived. since, like, i don't have much to do besides thinking, i also weighed the possibility that my f*mily is right and everything's normal. if this trauma shit is all in my head and they're totally supportive people that i haven't given a chance, then i still think i would want to leave. we have nothing in common and i'm not attached to them and i wouldn't want to put in the effort of making friends anyway. if they aren't abusers, then at best they're strangers, and i don't want to live with strangers. that's the logical justification i'm using, even though my inner adult already knows they are in fact abusive and i am in fact being gaslit. sorry, i just completely jumped topics again. scattered thoughts.

at the very least, my walks are my solace. i was able to slip out of the house just for the sake of leaving. it's surreal to me how this is my new normal, that going outside is a fucking relief. christmas morning had super thick fog. it was pretty awesome. it was definitely the foggiest i've ever experienced. on top of that, there were very few cars on the nearby mega highway, so there was no noise pollution for once. just silence. silence and fog, like that one game. oh! and the fog made the deer more active! i saw a few groups of them and i was able to get really close to them and they didn't mind. they're so beautiful and graceful. i walked to the playground in the fog to feel like i was truly alone, that i belonged somewhere. with the full moon's suffocated radiance and the deer. while i was there i spent an hour and a half finding my voice. as you could imagine, i don't talk much. i'm always afraid of being overheard. my voice is underused and underdeveloped. i know, however, that if i'm going to transition, it'll be a years-long process of voice training starting from square one for me. i figured i might as well get started while i have a quiet place that i can be alone at. especially if i'm planning to leave in 6 months. i'm waiting for heat to die down a bit and my friends to get a little more comfortable before i start asking serious practical questions about rooming with them.

i'm only a little upset at the fact that i don't have any christmas gifts. i never came downstairs, so i never opened them, and i also noticed my grandmother took them all back up to her bedroom, probably her closet. i would like to have all the things that i bought for myself fucking months ago that i should have by now, but if i waited this long then what's the rush anyway?

~8:30am Dec 24, 2023
Mood: exhausted
Listening to: Kr0w - (I) Love ⧉

dreading what's coming later today. the way my f*mily celebrates christmas is a big dinner with guests and mingling for hours on christmas eve, then on christmas morning you're expected to sit there for about 4 hours until everyone has opened everything. it wouldn't be good enough for them if one person got the others one present each, nor is it good enough for them to not smile at every single gift. they'll all scream and complain for several months that christmas is too hard and expensive, yet they insist on buying at least 10 things for each relation. you would think i would be held to the same expectation, but i'm not. i'm not expected to buy gifts because they simultaneously see me as a child and a typical cold thoughtless man. the point here i guess is that this holiday is a big fucking deal for their self-image, and they draw it out really really long over both days to milk any satisfaction they can out of the play. therefore, my refusal to participate is going to cause a lot of drama, resentment, and self starvation. in more honest terms, they'll cause these problems, not me.

i had an interesting conversation with my grandmother yesterday. stuff about my mother's loans again. to no one's surprise, i'm basically helming the entire process of my mother's finances and adult responsibilities. i got fucking sucked in again. it just took the course of 2 weeks instead of the normal 20 minutes. as expected, my mother didn't change anything when she last came over. her last text to me was something along the lines of "i won't scream," imagine my shock when i heard her screaming the next time she came over. the conversation we had about it yesterday was interesting because she placed blame, which she tries to avoid doing so it's easier to convince people she's on everyone's side. she didn't outright accuse me of anything, but she clearly stated if my mom commits suicide, then my grandmother will blame me and only me. i asked her if she thinks any of this is my fault now, and she said no, she can't blame me for how my mother is. funny how that works. my grandmother will never blame herself nor acknowledge her roles either. my grandmother has always refused to teach me how to do laundry and always takes it upon herself to do mine along with hers. interesting then how she notably has not done mine in 4 weeks though continues to do her own. i don't have a problem with doing my own, she just refuses to teach me and also expects me to do it on my own when she's resentful. what does she actually want from me? she wants me to be forced into dependence until she decides she hates me, then she wants me to know i'm burdensome, that i need to hurry up and leave. then she'll see it as a personal victory for herself that she was able to corner me into survival mode and teach myself. of course i've never taken pride in my accomplishments in the past when this is the fucking cycle. no wonder i have demand avoidance. i'm reluctant and humiliated to say i did in fact accomplish laundry.

i think what bothers me the most about that conversation we had was when she said "you think we don't support you but that's because you refuse to tell or show us anything". she's just right, i do refuse to tell them anything. my really traumatized inner child brain hears that and melts. my inner child's reaction is to try including them back into my life, telling them my problems, and hoping they'll help and accept and be warm. and it drives me up the wall knowing she intentionally appealed to that part of me, whether she even consciously knows it or not. i'm constantly fighting to stay in reality over it. the reality is that there are reasons why i don't tell them things, why they've proven unworthy of trust. the reality is that they will not accept me or my explanations. she even outright admitted yesterday (and many times before that) she doesn't understand and doesn't want to. i have to keep reminding myself that these things are not my fault and my guilt isn't real. it's not my fault that i have boundaries, it's not my fault that they're untrustworthy, it's not my fault they don't make an effort to support me. need to keep telling myself because i can't believe it yet.

finally finished baldur's gate 3. i pestered my friends enough so we could end our playthrough before the new year. it was bothering me for a long time that we played 100 hours in august and there were only 20 hours left to go for 4 months. the ending we got was good but sad. by the end almost all our companions died or left, i guess because we lost any attachment to them over 4 months, and most likely because none of us romanced anyone. bg3 relationships seem to be pretty basic in that you're either totally indifferent or you're fucking on the reg. i also think in co-op the amount of relationship dialogue checks are severely limited and roughly distributed between all players, so no companion ever leaves neutral with any one player. idk maybe i'm just wrong but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that most npc companions seemingly live and die by how many times you slept with them. you can't just be platonic. asexual disapproved.

~6:00am Dec 22, 2023
Mood: tranquil
Listening to: Novulent - suicide note ⧉

whoops i slept through the entire solstice day. idk what made me so tired that i needed to sleep so long. actually no maybe i do know, i'm just not sure. either way, i woke up and it was already almost 4am. initially i kind of resigned to the idea that it's ok to miss a night walk, it's only the 1st night of winter and there'll be so many more cold nights coming up. i told myself it doesn't matter how i spend my time as long as i'm comfortable, and my bed was very comfortable. the idea bounced around in my head for a couple minutes, but i realized i really really really wanted to feel the greyish blue asphalt illuminated by dim streetlights under my sneakers. it was like a craving, except for tactility instead of taste. i quickly put clothes over my dingy sleepwear and went out. i've never taken a walk immediately after waking up before, and i will still probably avoid it going forward, but i'm glad i got to experience it. i was so unbelieveably hypersensitive, i didn't even know i could get that hypersensitive. all the dim pinpricks of stars felt like they were burning my eyes as if they were the sun, in real time i could feel the warmth being drained away from the fabric of my clothes by entropy, it felt like i could feel the earth straining to push me up as gravity pulled me down into it, every leaf i crunched felt like i was making some colossal butterfly effect on the universe beyond my understanding. i imagined my legs would stop working, i would fall forward, but i would break through the ground on impact like thin ice and be enveloped by the sky and stars above me. i wanted to feel ice cold arms go under my coat and embrace the skin of my torso. i felt radiant. it was worth it.

going back to what i think made me sleep so long, earlier i had an epiphany with dysphoria. honestly i don't really like talking about certain things such as this. there are a few constants that i always have and it feels kinda stupid/inconsequential to talk about them everyday, the brief panic disorder episodes ~10 times a day, my heart skipping beats, and gender dysphoria as some examples. regardless, the past few days i've been going through a lot of doubt if i'm trans or not, basically just analyzing if i think happiness is achievable without transitioning, plus getting some hardcore dread thinking how tf am i going to learn a whole new lifestyle of masking. the epiphany came in 3 parts, the first addressing the masking problem. i realized that was simply a fear of change and nothing else. it doesn't matter what happens, if my main concern is masking then i'll never be happy. my brain literally always defaults to doubt about fitting in when i'm scared of new situations, so i might as well discount it as a pervasive illusory barrier. the second part was about happiness. i kept tripping myself up because i thought it is possible for me to achieve a happy life without transitioning, i could realistically live a successful life and not put any emphasis on my gender, just be a guy and express a little femininity. i was overthinking it again i think. i was too worried about the logistical possibility of achieving all this without really accounting for how i would feel. i could be content with my ideal living situation, but content isn't happy. i think i would always have moments or a baseline of discomfort over this. having these realizations gave me another weird feeling of instantly coming back to my body. i guess i was a tiny bit dissociated over it and it ended right away. but returning back to my body gave me maybe the first experience of dysmorphia i've ever had. at first i was really happy actually, like i figured myself out finally, and now i finally felt valid (i knew logically that i was valid but i didn't feel it). pretty quickly though it hit me like aw shit i have dysmorphia to deal with. either way, this whole epiphany experience gave me warm butterflies in my stomach. it was remarkably similar to the feeling of falling in love, so i can only interpret it like i was finally able to accept myself and allow myself and love myself.

i'm feeling hopeful for the future even though i know the situation will only get worse before it gets better. i'm only going to focus on keeping safe. my will is unbreakable.

~2:00pm Dec 20, 2023
Mood: tired
Listening to: yungmaple ft. blissom, odu, xk1oe3, & ilyvisions - you were right ⧉

i'm still kind of hiding. my sleep schedule is changed so i can sleep until an hour where i have free reign all night. i try my best to sleep through all the screaming every single night. my mom, my aunt, my grandmom all just scream at each other. it's unnerving, but it's a relief that i'm not the one being screamed at. i think it got across that i'm not to be disrespected and the rest of the f*mily is too scared to confront me. it took 10 days of this for my grandmother to finally come to ask me directly for loan plan information. i mean i think it's fucked up that it takes a straight 10 days of abuse for her to swallow her pride just to listen to me for 10 minutes, but whatever. i've been a little smug ngl. i feel so above all this petty shit. i feel so empowered that only i have the answers and i refuse to give them until they treat me with respect, and they have no choice. at this point i've also created a situation where i am not taking care of their problems for them, my mother or her mother is forced to work it out instead. i no longer have to be a part of this dysfunction nor do i owe any responsibility for any of it. although, i still have to keep in mind my mom can fly off at any time and harrass me some more. i think i'm confident enough to straight up tell her i demand respect or else i refuse to speak to her. she can throw tantrums all she wants, she isn't going to get anything from me. hate this fucking dynamic where i have to literally treat my own parent like a toddler.

i'm cancelling christmas btw. all my little festivities like my profile pictures are changed back to normal. i have no intention of coming down christmas eve nor christmas morning. it'll be ugly, but i don't care. i refuse to play pretend in a delusion anymore. i'm not going to sit there for 4 total hours like i didn't just spend 14 days starving myself out of fear. and i plan on telling them directly when they ask. i'm going to tell them the f*mily is broken and christmas is fake, always has been. i'll get whatever useless leverage from under the tree later that night or something.

therapy was nice, i guess. all i really did was vent about all the things i have been. my therapist made the interesting observation how my grandmother apologized to me on behalf of my mom the first night. she said that shows she knew i was in the right, even though she refused to take my side. in other words, she took my mom's side knowing it was wrong. it's possible my grandmother instead was trying to manipulate me into forgiveness, forgiveness in the shape of just doing everything that needed to be done for them. just an insight i thought was worth noting. other than that, i didn't get to come out to her yet, and next week is a phone call because of the stupid holiday. bleh, it's fine, it's not a priority.

on a better note, my walks are so healing lately. the weather has been absolutely perfect. cold, dry, and moderately windy. i love feeling the crisp breeze caress the shallow concavities of my face. it always smells of pine, with soft touches of wood smoke and sweet decayed leaves. i can walk around all my old and new routes, soaking up the gentle lights of christmas decorations under the quiet forest canopy. the low humidity makes it so my face mask doesn't fill with water droplets. i can walk around without any annoyances nor disturbances until my legs get tired (which is like 60 minutes at maximum but still). the stars look the brightest and sparkle the most when the air is dry. arcturus, now visible, dances so spectacularly i wonder if there's a rare cosmic event. i'm sad there aren't any more planets to see though. by 3am jupiter has set and venus rise gets later as the sunrise gets later. it's not all bad, i do love to experience the planet's rotation. even within an hour, everything's position is noticeably shifted. seeing a whole revolution now and all the rising stars being familiar ones is comforting, like visiting old friends. when i imagine the asynchronicity of the earth's rotation, traversal of outer planets across the sky, and the fixed backdrop of stars, i like to think everything cosmic is a long extension of my body. from my stance on the ground, i could make a long westward sweeping motion with my back arching and my arm unfolding, and the celestials would continue the movement along the arc. every night i look to leo at its zenith for inner strength.

~2:30pm Dec 18, 2023
Mood: entombed
Listening to: quannnic - snarky ⧉

i'm not isolating, i'm hiding. i'm hoping to be forgotten. i spend all my time waiting for opportunities to quickly leave my room to take care of my basic needs. i starve and i binge. i need to return before anyone knows i left my room. for several days i even isolated from online contact because it just didn't feel like i could handle it. that, and i didn't want to feel like people could hear me through walls. i haven't gone outside in days because it's warm and rainy. i have neither spoken to nor seen any human in a week, until last night when i told my friends what's happening. i started explaining the situation and how i felt about it and i felt a breakdown slowly set in. i learned all my friends are going through similar f*mily issues with the holiday next week. i'm dissociated beyond my control. i feel basically nothing until some triggered thought shocks me back into myself and i panic and hysterically sob and silently whisper scream for 5 minutes, then i'm blank again.

i'm just passing time trying to cope by reading, writing, and coding. they're all difficult because i can't think straight, but i don't have anything else to do, so i can take my time with them at least. this reminds me a lot of when i was grounded as a kid and i snuck giant 800-page puzzle books into hidden places around my bedroom, because i wasn't allowed to do anything except sleep. and i mean that in the most literal sense. it was abuse. at times i would be mentally incapable of connecting dots, but it didn't matter because there was nothing else and i was passing seemingly infinite time. as for sleeping, as you could imagine i'm struggling. everytime i lay down to rest, my mind can't stop racing the same thoughts of the past and what i want to say to them to make them understand, then getting frustrated when i realize over and over they will never understand no matter what. i've drafted over 2 dozen grievance letters for when i leave. when i finally do fall asleep i just have constant nightmares. i was so emotionally exhausted yesterday i slept 16 hours straight through nightmare after nightmare. the content is always different but the themes are the same: feeling trapped, futilely running from a chase, brutally killing someone and they won't die so i have to keep trying harder and harder to kill them, driving, someone doesn't listen to me and crosses my boundaries, and all the settings are large agoraphobic spaces such as malls or fields.

i told my friends i need to get out of here and my deadline is 6 months. there are no plans yet, but as timing would have it there are 3 nearby friends looking to escape their f*milies soon too. the tentative plan is to room together somewhere in the middle of all our locations. my reservation with this whole thing is that i have nothing to offer, so i have no influence on future plans. i am fairly certain that if i told them i need them to help me help them, they would no problem. i intend to contribute, i need a lot of guidance though. i just need out now and now i have people to wait for. i can't speed up the process for them because they would have to be within their own budget, not mine. i also don't really know how to explain to my f*mily that i need any remaining dependencies handed over to me, like my banking shit. they're going to obviously catch on that i'm peacing out, and they will do EVERYTHING they can to stop me, despite them resenting me. my one friend suggested i contact my therapist and demand a caseworker, which would definitely yield results, but the f*milial damage would be immediate and catastrophic. all week i have been counting down each individual hour until i can see my therapist again tomorrow morning. if she says last minute we need a phone call i think i'm going to fucking throw up.

i have to keep in mind all this trans stuff if i'm moving too. my friends don't know, and while some of them i distrust if they'll be supportive, i have full confidence in the ones i would be moving in with at least.

~5:30am Dec 15, 2023
Mood: i don't know i don't care
Listening to: JoshuaSageArt - Anemoia｡･:*:･ﾟ★,How did I get here?? ⧉

bad news first. i am so full of adrenaline at all times. i've been in and out of emotional flashbacks and some full fledged flashbacks all day. i'm too scared to sleep because i'm afraid of being woken up by screaming and banging. i'm afraid of seeing anyone at all in the house. a core part of these flashbacks is how i sneak around the house. as a kid i was grounded so often, which meant i wasn't allowed to leave the bedroom for anything, including food, drink, or bathroom. sometimes back then i would be forced to sneak out just to use the bathroom (there was no hope of sneaking downstairs for food or water), which required patient hypervigilant scouting of the positions of people, the floorboards, the doors, listening through doors, the positions of everything so i could put them back and cover my tracks. if i was rarely caught, i think my mom was most angry that i'm really good at sneaking instead of the disobedience itself. so yeah, that's the mode that i've been back in for the past couple days, and it is ruining my nervous system. always hungry, hiding, and waiting for the perfect opportunities to use the bathroom. at night i eat really really fast instinctually and my hands shake uncontrollably.

i got a text from my mom yesterday that simply says "i'm sorry i'm just stressed i love you". i gave myself a reality check. is that really what love is? screaming, threats of suicide, blame, and fear? does love make people act like their life is endangered and they have to sneak out like it's a fucking horror movie? no. it doesn't. god, can you believe for years i thought i wasn't traumatized? i believe she wants to love me but has none to give. i offer no love in return. i don't care how good her intentions are, the consequences are terror that's lasted for my entire life, of everyone and everything. i will never be able to forgive that. besides, she can apologize ten thousand times, she'll still do it again because she has no desire for change. i don't forgive people who aren't sorry. words are not good enough.

i cannot fucking live like this. nobody should have to. most importantly, i don't fucking deserve this. as for the good news, i'm coding and writing a lot. i already drafted and revised my very short creative writing thing for the landing page. i'm just fighting with myself if i should publish it. when i first made my website back in july, i wrote something like this and deleted basically all of it instantly. i thought how dare i consider myself worthy of creative writing, since i never did it outside of mid primary school. all those thoughts are back, but i'm going to power through it because why the fuck shouldn't i? i'm even more proud of it this time and i have so much bullshit out there already.

i mentioned yesterday i'm to the point where it's scarier at the house than outside, and it's true. i spent all day and night feeling like i was on the verge of dying from panic attacks. i finally said FUCK IT and i grabbed the fucking keys and i fucking drove away. i fucking did it. it didn't feel good to be out driving and being perceived, but it was so much better than feeling like a hostage. the worst relief ever. i was still able to take a walk after i got back, since it wasn't 4am yet. i decided to take the walk because i felt myself VERY dissociated, and of course i wanted to stay out of the house for as long as possible. i really can't even describe what it felt like to slowly return back to my body while being outside. i felt legitimately physically bigger, as if my body grew. i'm pretty sure it's just the first time i've never felt "small". i never knew exactly what any of that meant until tonight. it's just so uncharacteristic of me to feel my least small, dissociated, and anxious while outside. my agoraphobia didn't exist for a few precious minutes. coming back to the house was like an inverse of my usual feelings. i felt safe outside and dreaded going in.

i think i've resolved with myself that i want to be fucking gone by june. i'm giving myself 6 months to start my new life, or at least have things be mostly lined up for it by then. i absolutely fucking detest summers, and i refuse to suffer through another one in my shit bedroom with no insulation and no ventilation and bug infestations and deal with these horrible people.

~5:00am Dec 14, 2023
Mood: scared
Listening to: øneheart - apathy ⧉

i did my best to enjoy the geminids. last night i went to the playground and laid down on the bridge thing. you know those short little bridge sections on jungle gyms? i tried to use it like a hammock kind of. the whole jungle gym was covered in a thin coating of coarse ice. i stared at the sky just trying to take it all in, ignoring my vertigo. over the course of the hour i watched 5 meteors. when i got up from my position, there was a dark melted wet outline of my whole body, which i thought was funny and neat. tonight was the peak night, so about 2 hours ago i planned on going back to do the same, but as i walked up to the playground, there was a car with its lowest beams on behind the bush in its small parking lot. i turned around and noped out, opting instead to take a long walk down familiar roads with a clear skyview. idk who would've been there at my hour, but i don't trust that for a second. thankfully i wasn't followed either. i know pretty often undercover cops sit in that playground parking lot to catch people speeding, so i assume it was a pig. i guess there's a nonzero chance it was some other nocturnal winter swing enjoyer there for the meteor shower, and as fun as that sounds making a friend with the same insane interest, i'm not taking the chance. tonight i saw 7 geminids, bringing the total to 12 meteors in 2 hours split between 2 days.

domestically, things are only escalating. i woke up to the sound of yelling and banging on my door. my mom was saying she needs money from me right now to pay her loan bill. i gathered from the voices behind her that her identity verification yesterday didn't go through because there was a slight glare on the image of her drivers license. being woken up like that and feeling like i was a bear trapped in a tree, i entered hardcore freeze mode. surprisingly, i didn't dissociate, but i wish i did, since i could feel the pain and tension shoot through my whole body originating from my chest. i felt all my irregular heartbeats. my mom gave up after, idk, less than 10 minutes, but she didn't stop screaming at others. she kept threatening and screaming about how she's going to kill herself. i don't really know what to feel or say or do. i admit i feel no sympathy. it makes me feel heartless. i mean i think it's ridiculous she's ready to die because she has to retake a picture, though i know that's not the whole story. i used to not know what my ex meant when she said she can't see her parents the same way after everything that's happened to her, but now i think i fully understand what she meant by that. i have absolutely no attachment to these people. i'm most afraid of trite shit like sensory overload and my mom's debts carrying over to me as next of kin than i am about her or any of their wellbeings. i supposed it's possible she took her own life in her own apartment earlier tonight. as harsh as it sounds, i don't think i would feel much if my mother died. i'm not going to tell them that.

i'm fairly certain my aunt, grandmother, and grandfather are going to pounce on me to get a job, any job, as soon as they next see me. they just don't get it and they never will, it's futile to try to explain it. they live in a perceived reality where disabilities, or at least societal nonfunctionalities, don't exist. i think the only way i'll get my mother to listen to the best option is to work together with my aunt and have her relay it for me. nobody listens to me but everybody listens to my aunt. the thought of teaming up with my narcissist aunt to manipulate my mother makes me want to vomit, even though it's maybe my only option. if it doesn't work, well, i guess i have no option except to fuck off somewhere. i have 2 or 3 online friends around the country who've said they were willing to take me in in case of emergency, and honestly i'm pretty sure any of them would be way more willing to help me adjust to adulthood. that's certainly a life era that i never would've previously expected to have: disowned, homeless, baby trans phase, likely stoner, couch-surfer. i hate to confess, it sounds actually better than where i'm at now.

i was going to take a drive tonight, i never found the keys though. i think i'm to the point where i no longer care about optimal conditions. i was reserving wednesday and thursday nights for driving if the weather was agreeable. i'm always tired on monday and tuesday nights from going out for therapy and i want to avoid the slightly increased weekend traffic. but yeah at this point i want to say fuck it. whenever i have the keys and it's not icy, i'm just going to take my life into my own fucking hands. i'm now more scared of not changing than i am scared of change. i feel so angry and above all this petty shit that i don't even think i'll burn out by pushing my comfort zone anymore; it's more of a concerted effort to stay idle. i'm so done and i want absolutely nothing to do with this old life.

i'm pretty drunk so i'm going to try to enjoy the rest of this non-sobriety with a comfortable and familiar cope, like pokemon or critical role. i will not be defined by generational trauma. i will prevail. i can't not.

~1:30am Dec 13, 2023
Mood: exhausted
Listening to: Spiritbox - Secret Garden ⧉

perhaps inevitably, i let it all out. perhaps unsurprisingly, i don't feel any better. my default response is freeze and fawn, i've been restricting myself for my whole life, so when i say my angry outbursts are deliberate i mean it. earlier, i tried to do my mom's bureaucracy for about an hour. i succeeded in taking control of the whole operation and successfully filling and sending everything out. she cried and repeated the same doomed phrases the whole time. i can't help but feel no sympathy for it. after the business was done for the day, i tried really hard to gently explain the better repayment option we could be doing instead, the one where she has no loans in her name and i pay basically nothing. every single sentence i started saying she cut me off halfway, to ask a question about something i was just going to answer if she let me finish. well, i think it's fair to say i'm fucking done with everything in my f*mily and how they've treated me. i lost it. more accurately i think, i allowed myself to lose it. i am fully capable of holding back all my anger and dissociate and just take it again. but i wanted to explode, and so i did. of course i knew this wouldn't be persuasive either, but the other approach wasn't doing any better. everything felt futile anyway. i wanted to cut just deep enough, so i said i'm tired of nobody ever listening to me and i said i shouldn't have to baby my own mother. she retaliated by saying everything is my fault, and stormed out of the house to drag down 2 cigarettes in 30 seconds. my grandmother was there the whole time and she told me i only make things worse, but i've heard it hundreds of times and her voice barely registers anymore. i wasn't going to wait standing in an empty room just for everyone to come back and resume the exact same thing, so i went upstairs, texted all the information to my mom, and immediately passed out from exhaustion. unfortunately i wasn't quite asleep yet when i heard her reenter the house and start yelling about how i'm dead to her, i'm never allowed to speak to her again, all men are the same, and it was a waste to think her son could be a good man.

i woke up 5 hours later at exactly midnight with a text from my grandmother asking forgiveness on behalf of my mother. no apology, mind you, just "she thinks she has lost you forever, i hope you can forgive". and my mother was too spineless to address me herself, i don't even think she knows my grandmother texted me that. i hate to bear the bad news, but my mother lost me nearly 20 years ago. furthermore, i am so done forgiving people who aren't sorry. i don't know what they want from me. do they hate me or not? they oscillate back and forth in mere hours.

i don't know where to go from here really. i spoke to my therapist about the whole situation this morning, before the confrontation today. my therapist pretty much agreed with all my assessments from yesterday's diary entry. i told her i have the urge to run away somewhere and just let my mom flounder with the vast majority of my debt because she refuses to listen to me. my therapist said she wouldn't blame me for doing that, and i felt deeply validated, i just have to make sure beforehand that nobody is going to come after me for her payments. ironically, that's what the emails i sent for her today were for. getting the payments down only for her benefit and comfort. inadvertently i'm already primed to run away and be safe from that once the process is done in 3-4 weeks. the other things my therapist added today were that it sounds like my f*mily oscillates between abject abandonment and absolute protection to maintain codependency, and that it sounds like my f*mily has a core hatred of men that paints me as the ultimate antagonist. both proved themselves to be true.

nothing is going to get better any time soon. all i can do is nurse myself and claim independence for myself, independently. even if everything crumbles down around me. i haven't eaten anything in over 24 hours. if i had food in my stomach i think i would purge it. it's far too cold to swing safely but i think i'm going to go the playground and stay there for a long time anyway.

~1:00am Dec 12, 2023
Mood: furious
Listening to: Yakui The Maid - Hati ⧉

i have been stewing all day. i don't know how much i'm going to rant or vent, so be prepared. HEAVY TRIGGER WARNING. all my angst and frustration is hitting at once. on one hand it's good that i'm reclaiming emotions from my past and i'm in tune with my body enough now to know what it is i'm feeling and feel it fully. on the other hand, i fucking hate the way anger feels. i am so overcome with anger at, well, everything. at the same time, i know ranting or venting will not help, and that makes me angrier.

the catalyst for this whole situation is that i woke up to a panicked text from my mom. she finally got word that student loan repayments started again, and unsurprisingly she owes a lot. her text to me was frantic asking me to help her with it and what can i do? it has been my job for my entire life to be my own mother's parent, and i am so tired of it. i should not be in charge of all her finances and accounts, but here we are. by the way, her mother, my grandmother, was the regional manager of a major bank for 40 years, but it's my responsibility to handle my mother's loans, not her or her parents. frankly, i saw all of this coming, which is why i procrastinated it. i knew nobody was going to tell my mom about the repayment period, even though my grandmother definitely knew because she reminded me in september when i already knew. i knew my mother would find out in 2-3 months via a phone call or something, which is exactly what happened. i knew my mom was going to panic and freak out and scream and cry as soon as she found out, whether it was september or december. and i knew that as soon as there would be discussion about it out of necessity, my grandmother would be a condescending bitch. so yeah i procrastinated it because i don't think it should be my responsibility to baby my mother when her mother is still around and just as informed as i am, and confrontations with any of them go nowhere and they refuse to listen to me regardless. judge me how you see fit.

the conversation with my grandmother went even worse than i imagined. i tried to explain to her how we could double consolidate the loans under my name and get the really forgiving income-based repayment plan. that way the monthly fee would be $0 until i find an accommodating job, and my mom would have nothing in her name so she can stop worrying about it. my grandmother waved me off and tried to ignore me as usual. the fucking audacity. she discredited everything i said, according to her i'm "in lala land" and i "have no real life experience". i asked her why she said that, and she deflected to making excuses on behalf of my mother, saying she isn't capable enough to handle the paperwork. first of all, nice expectation of failure. second of all, what a fucking double standard. my mother has problems dealing with life and she has to protect her, but when i have MORE problems dealing with real life, i have to suck it up and do everyone's work including my own. never on my side no matter what. she is only afraid of my mother because her outbursts are outwards and explosive, while mine are hidden and suicidal. my grandmother then dropped a "i wish you never went to college". oh? you mean the college you pushed me towards since forever? the one you used as leverage against me when i was failing high school and attempting suicide? "look at you, you'll never graduate high school, let alone college." that college? moreover, this is all my fault now? i'm the problem? i'm the one responsible for how my mother acts? it's all my fault that nobody researched how loans worked or communicated who should be accountable for what when i was 18? right, of course i'm the fucking burden. my grandmother held her ears and made "uh-huh" noises the whole time. unfuckingbelievable i'm speaking to a 71 year old woman. she left saying they're going to do all the paperwork for a normal appeal to reduce monthly payments for my mother, which does nothing for the loans in my name, when i have no income. she really didn't hear a word i said.

i swear to god. i HATE telling them anything. i HATE needing to tell them something. i still remember when i came out as ace to them a few years ago. they said that doesn't exist, i just have no life experience, and they told me i don't have to make things up to avoid coming out as gay. there is literally no point to trying to communicate to them. i fully expect them to disown me altogether if they find out i'm trans. fuck, they don't even know i was raped when i was 6. i never told them. even back then when i was just a child at my most defenseless i knew it wasn't safe to tell them anything. i already know if i were to ever tell them, the first thing out of my mother's mouth would be "why didn't you tell us?" gee, idk mom, maybe it's because you never believed me when i told you i had no control over my 5 y/o autistic meltdowns, or that my 4 y/o disabled legs hurt from walking 30 minutes. or maybe it's because both my mom and grandmom made it a point to yell about how their life is hard enough when they didn't have to put up with my basic or emotional needs. or maybe it was them and my teachers who kept calling me a natural-born monster and having me screened at a police station for sociopathy at 6 y/o. gee, idk mom, maybe by the time i was raped i already felt like i deserved it for being alive.

i am so full of cold bitterness. i just want to cry and scream and break my hands on something. i feel like i should just delete this whole fucking entry because why would anyone confess such personal things to strangers in public? i'm so torn. i think it's obvious by now i need attention, but that's loathesome. it's a faux pas to hurt too much. i just want to feel heard for once, idk. this whole diary exists for that reason. i could write everything down in a physical journal and nobody would have to read my ugly thoughts, but that's not satisfying. i could confess all of it in private to close friends, but i'm so afraid of attention and intimacy. here it feels enough to say what i mean, have at least 1 person hear it, and i don't care as much about potentially alienating people. maybe there's a lot of people who read this diary and feel uneasy and want nothing to do with me on account of being volatile and victimized. maybe they outnumber the people who stick around. maybe they would like me more if my language was poetic, flowery, and euphemistic. that's hard when i'm barely surviving. instead i'm just blunt and sharp, like a nailed bat. i would say i don't care, although that would be a lie. i care about the interactions i have online because it's all i have. and i subconsciously care about everyone else's comfort more than mine too.

i still don't know how to talk about any of this to my therapist. there just isn't enough time to talk, the backlog only grows. i have the urge to run away again. i didn't realize i bit my lip and it's bleeding.

~1:00am Dec 10, 2023
Mood: anxious
Listening to: Yakui The Maid - Selfdestroyer ⧉

going through it a little bit. i think something i read triggered a very intense emotional flashback. it's been quite a while since that's happened, so even though i feel really bad and scattered, i know it'll pass. i'm using my diary as a cope at the moment. i think i was already dysregulated and primed for a trigger because i tried showing some friends some music, and i got the usual "haha yeah" nothing response, yknow? was already on edge from that because of the (very normal, casual, and harmless) disinterest/neglect, so it's kinda on me for not recognizing that and taking it easy, instead i accidentally amplified it with a different thing.

um, what have i been up to? mostly coding, i guess. i read more than my 20 page daily quota a couple days ago so i would have coding time today and yesterday. i'm super happy with how the navbar and page reorganization came out, it's clean. i'm not happy with the bookbug page. if you haven't noticed, i hardly ever publish anything incomplete, ever ever ever. i work offline in sublime text editor and debug the local files, i don't build any pages in real time on neocities. i would've preferred to have a review written first before making the page so i knew what i wanted to do and how to organize, but for the ease of the club it's better to have the page up first. it's really not that big of a deal, my brain is just blowing it up. i am upset though, since my first idea was to make a cute little bookshelf with images of the book spines, but apparently there are no fucking book spine archives. that's so fucked up. so my first plan isn't going to work and that stresses me tf out. i'll figure something out, i'm already cooking up a different design that might be fine too, if not as cute. my next site goal is to completely redo the homepage and landing. i saved a screenshot for myself and submitted the current homepage to the wayback machine, because why not? things might as well be archived for historical study, aesthetic appreciation, nostalgia, or sonder. i'm also pretty liberal with my code, i don't mind if anyone takes it. now that i'm archived, it doesn't matter if i'm completely 100% plagiarized because everyone can see for themselves that i was the original. in a way, i wouldn't feel slighted, i would feel flattered.

i went back to swing last night. my f*mily doesn't quite know what i do at night. it took 8 months for them to know i go outside. last night my aunt was awake doing some stupid shit with elf on the shelf for my little cousin, but there is not a single person on this earth who i hate more than her, and nobody whose opinion i couldn't care less about. i wordlessly stormed right past her with my double layered coat and facemask at 3am, and she watched me from the front window as i walked down the street. so it took 13 months for them to know i take walks. i just really needed somewhere to go. i've never had a place to go before. i've been stuck in this god forsaken house for my entire life, and any time i took walks it would only be a 25 minute respite until i circled all the way back around to the same god damn fucking house. now that i can go to the playground and sit down or lay down or stim in the pitch black freezing stillness, life seems bearable again. it was moderately foggy last night, the condensation on the swing seat soaked through all my layers, and i got mild frostbite again. idk i would take hypothermia over staying at the house. coming back always feels like climbing onto a metal slab surgical table and strapping myself to it, only to strain against the leather minutes later. i hope i get to see a lot of beautiful geminid meteors in 4 days. i hope the mercury retrograde starting in 3 days isn't too bad. at least the mercury and jupiter retrogrades both end on jan 1, coincidentally. i hope my friends don't leave when i come out. i hope my emotions stabilize soon. i hope everything will be ok.

~5:30am Dec 8, 2023
Mood: restless
Listening to: Ozoi The Maid - Unfortune ⧉

i have too much energy and i need to do something with it, but each individual task in front of me is so formidable, let alone all of them together, so i'm half-paralyzed. i say half because... well, maybe i'm lying. it feels like idling because i'm doing so many things that aren't what i WANT to do. i'm organizing things by priority and taking them all in steps, what i really want to do though is sit down and hyperfocus on a coding project again, but that'll probably have to wait until most, if not all, else is finished. my creative ideas are clawing at the inside walls of my skull hungry to get out, and here i am trying to quiet them and read a book before bed, or wait indefinitely for the circumstances to align to accomplish my driving goals.

i planned thursday night to be the night i drive (a couple hours ago). things didn't go quite according to plan though and i fucking freaked out for hours. the plan was to catch my grandmother in the evening so i could ask her to leave the car keys out for me. for whatever reason, she wasn't at the house at 9pm, and i don't know exactly when she came back and went to bed, so i missed it. i searched her purse for the keys to no avail. the spiral started to happen right about here. the plan, now thrown off, became a frantic panicked type of self bargaining. she has absolutely no sense of danger at all, so i know she always leaves her car unlocked all night, and her ignition is a button that works if the keys are even within proximity of the car. so i knew i could get in, i just didn't know if it would start. like i could bring the purse in case i missed the keys in there, or maybe she just left them in the car anyway. this uncertainty ate me alive for an embarrassingly long time. the thought of pushing the ignition and nothing happening was an unknown chance i was not willing to take outdoors, even in front of nobody. it took a long time for me to reregulate myself, i decided that i would at least sit in the car and familiarize myself with the dashboard and controls, and if i so happened to find the keys in the car then i would drive 15 minutes, and if i didn't then that's still a step accomplished. i did take a seat and i did not find the keys, so i simply got out and took a very deserved routine walk. i'm disappointed i got so close and didn't get to follow all the way through, but i also know that i took a step and eliminated some uncertainty for the real one. i'll take that as a small victory.

oh yeah i came out as trans to one of my friend groups, considering i wasn't able to with my therapist over the phone. this particular friend group i'm not as connected to as i would like to be i think, they're quite nice. a lot of them just aren't very active, or at least not as active as i am or my other couple friend groups. i feel like i can be my most sincere with them compared to all my groups, i just struggle to talk about myself much because they don't talk that much about their problems either, and i still have really old drama internalized i think. this server was created because of an older server schism that i caused by being a shithead and banning and bullying people for literal years. the server was made as a refuge from me. years after that, the owner who still kinda liked me got back into contact and invited me there. i've changed a lot and i get the feeling they're proud of me. this whole saga has spanned about 7 years so far. anyway, that's the reason why i don't feel as willing to be open, despite it feeling the safest, it still doesn't feel like belonging. and yet i chose them to come out to (mostly because it is pretty left and i don't think anyone is cishet there lol) and i'm likely going to give them my neocities url in a few months. one of my previous diary entries even has a link to one of their games. i got a lot of validation and praise from them for coming out, i was told i "would be the most excruciatingly pretty girl," and fr i still don't know what to say about that except omgomg. ugh, even just the other day i got into an exaggerated verbose gothic-romantic christian philosophy roleplay with one of them about some petty twitter beef. that was so fucking fun and cringe lmao. i used to rp when i was like, 11-12? idk why i stopped, i grew up and hated myself i guess. there's no fun in that. still, i cherish those friends a lot, more than they know.

plus i got ice cream sandwiches ( ^ ω ^ ) nom nom

~10:30pm Dec 5, 2023
Mood: idle
Listening to: Chikoi The Maid - Killing-Machine ⧉

think i'm entering a short maidcore kick again.

did go play on the swings last night like i planned. actually, when i got there the gate was locked, so i hopped the fence. it wasn't a particularly tall fence, mind you, about chest high for me, but i can't really stress enough that is some shit i would've NEVER done as of a few months ago. i was feeling a little more adventurous and selfish(? reserved?) than usual. i like to think it was because the moon was cradled between leo's legs. either way, the playground was really soothing and cleansing again.

when i got back, i was very tired from the exertion of walking and hopping fences. i went right to bed, but that was like top 3 worst sleeps i've ever had in my life. i woke up after 2 hours even more tired than when i fell asleep and i laid there for 3 hours and couldn't go back to sleep. then my therapist texted and said she has to move our session to a phone call last minute. pretty annoyed by that. i decided on the swings that i should come out to my therapist, there's just no way i'm going to do that over the phone. so instead i talked about some kinda mundane lame shit i guess. she reminded me that i shouldn't push myself too fast with driving, that if i don't feel up to driving then i'm risking another burnout. she's right, and i'm really trying hard to pay attention to how much self-pressure is too much pressure, though it's difficult because i think i don't spend a lot of time in my body. the lead up to burnouts are marked by dissociation. i can't really tell the differences between my dissociative states, since, well, they're dissociative. plus, as far as i can tell, my pre-burnout dissociations don't have a somatic symptom. would be easier to identify if there was twitching or head buzzing like some of the others.

anyway, i told my mom that i was indeed planning on going shopping today, my garbage sleep got in the way though, and i promptly passed out around 1:30pm. i would prefer if we just waited until after december to avoid shopping rushes. i mean, i'm going to experience the same fucked up gift tradition for my birthday at the end of january, so i said we might as well wait until january for her to get me a birthday gift instead of a christmas gift. she said that's absolutely unacceptable, christmas NEEDS to be special, and i think she's an idiot. why do i even bother saying what i want?

i finished violet evergarden too. i think almost every episode made me cry, it's really good and beautiful. however, it left me wanting. i didn't really expect it to turn into a traveller story halfway through where violet becomes famous. i liked it much more in the beginning when violet was the center of the episodes' plots and it focused on her integration into society. most episodes ended up being plots revolving around one-off clients and their lives and how violet makes a positive impact on people's lives, which is still cool to see and shows how you can atone after a lifetime of cruelty. idk i just wanted to see violet's mundane daily struggles and how she learns to live in a world not meant for her, or rather, a world she wasn't meant for.

whatever, i'm gonna wait a little while before jumping into a new anime. my routine is bit thrown off, and i'm going to throw it off even more soon. i think i'm going to try reading crime and punishment, although i'm coming to terms with the fact that i really struggle with reading books despite liking them. i might be on the dyslexic spectrum and it kills my motivation. i have to try more accessible reading methods, cuz i hate audiobooks. i've also wanted to read dostoyevsky for years now, and the one book i read ended up being one of my favorite books ever. it's something that i want to do, but i don't feel right making hard commitments or promises.

btw, i'm getting really tired of my homepage and landing. i need a layout overhaul and i want it to be accessible too. that's gonna be a huge project i feel like i don't have the time or energy for yet.

~8:30pm Dec 4, 2023
Mood: discontent
Listening to: comfort._ - earth is my tomb and i will never leave ⧉

oh, who am i kidding? justification, really? i try to justify my feelings for everything all the time. i'm trying to justify my existence, and for what? for whom? i'm only kidding myself. i'm only trying to justify it to myself because it doesn't feel like i deserve to exist, let alone need or want in life. i have to use my awareness to analyze my thoughts just to judge if i should be guilty or not. papers, please. if it bothers me that i'm a man then it just fucking bothers me and that's that. ugh how unsatisfying. ironically i think i wouldn't have as much difficulty if people fought me over it. i'm almost upset that modern trans discourse says all reasons are valid, because i don't want to be valid, i want to be spiteful and rip validation up from the earthen roots of myself. my whole life i've succeeded because people tell me i can't. i'm so used to fighting for my life because i didn't have a choice. i want to be spiteful of others for motivation because i can't love myself for motivation. i want the pain because it's familiar and not unknown.

it always feels like i'm the last to find things out about myself, especially now that i'm basically broadcasting. despite my constant introspection, i feel like people can see me trapped in my own rat maze and they can see how close i am to the end from above, but everything to me is labyrinthine. just how i can see it in other people. i don't think i want pity, i want answers. i want change, all throughout my mind and soul. freedom from my illusory cage.

last night and today i'm experiencing discontent, if it wasn't obvious. i suddenly felt an intense wave of boredom and energy lap over me. it's high tide again. i'm angry again. i had the urge to do something and nothing to do and my chest burned for hours. i called it yesterday that my attitude could radically change in a couple days. i have therapy tomorrow morning, i don't even know where to begin. fuck i forgot i'm going clothes shopping tomorrow for the first time.

i woke up a little earlier than usual so i could catch the sunset. i hate sunsets actually, they're still a deeply seated childhood trigger, but i really wanted to see mercury. mercury, because of his close proximity to the sun, can only be seen at sunrise or sunset at certain periods in his revolution. even though he shines pretty bright, he's no match for the sun's glare. today in particular was the day where mercury appears the farthest away from the sun from earth's perspective, so that's why i thought i might be able to see him. alas, he's still obscured by trees and houses. i could've probably walked a block away, but i am not comfortable walking in daylight. mercury is the only planet i have yet to see, with the exception of uranus and neptune because they cannot be seen with the naked eye. oh well, someday i will. i plan to swing later tonight.

~9:30pm Dec 3, 2023
Mood: flux
Listening to: Sewerslvt - Lexapro Delirium ⧉

lately my emotions have been quite the roller coaster. i can blossom into pure bliss and wither into tears several times in an hour, sometimes both simultaneously. honestly, i don't know why. these aren't triggered spiral thoughts or anything, i don't think i'm on the verge of burnout. i don't even think most of it is reaction to external stimuli, just my brain conjuring things within itself. i'm just so sensitive right now and i'm a mess. i'm reevaluating if i'm ready for an adventure this week or if i should put it off for a little while longer. i guess i should stick to the plan for now in case my mindstate is radically different by friday. my head is swimming with all kinds of ephemeral things that i have no idea how to express. words and code fail me, i really wish i knew any other creative outlet right about now. my thoughts are loud and fleeting, it's like being stoned but without the relaxation or euphoria. i'm chasing bubbles trying to grab them but they pop in my fingers.

i remember reading a journal article about how neurodivergent/schizophrenic people have an excess amount of a psychedelic neurotoxin in their urine. this particular neurotoxin, bufotenin, is made in trace amounts in the human body, but its increased concentration in neurodivergent urine suggests an excess is being produced relative to neurotypicals. despite this being known for like 30-60 years, not much is known or conclusive about it or the exact symptoms it causes. it's lived in my head rent free like what if my hypersensitivities or sometimes hallucinations are part of this whole thing, especially if there's an unknown interaction with EDS. everything seems to interact with EDS in an unknown way. around the same time i learned that autistic, schizophrenic, and bipolar patients have a significant amount of genetic overlap on the same alleles. neuroscience is fucked up and we know so little about it. i can only hypothesize that these weird shared genes are partly responsible for overproducing endogenous psychotomimetics, and that would be fucked up too since we don't know shit about their psychoactive properties in the first place. it makes me want to test the concentration of my own piss to see if my weird mindstate correlates at all to elevated levels, but i doubt those test kits even exist tbh. it's always strange hearing frequent psychedelic users tell me my thoughts, theories, and philosophies sound like they come from an avid psychonaut, when in reality i've thought this way most of my life and have never once tried a psych. it could totally be a coincidence, like maybe i'm just smart, but having the knowledge that my brain might be constantly producing its own psych is fucking surreal.

idk that's pretty much all i have to say. i'm feeling really overwhelmed with the beauty of the world and other people so i just want to say i love you. thank you for being here.

~7:00am Dec 2, 2023
Mood: lethargic
Listening to: Willix - breakmyheart. ⧉

hello december, finally. i don't know why i decided to journal today, i don't have anything in mind. i'm sleepy, the kind of sleepy that has momentum to it. like every time i wake up i curl up into a ball and lay there for 2 more hours. maybe it's a hibernation. or a chrysalis. most likely it's just autistic inertia or something. my imagination is the most vivid after waking up before leaving my bed. it's probably the closest i can get to lucid dreaming, or shit idk, astral projection. is lucid daydreaming a thing? my little heavenly dreamland. whatever it is i guess i'm using it as fantasy escapism. imagining how full and beautiful my life can be, exploring my desires. it's so sweet and satisfying, but deep down i know how dangerous fantasies can be. false hope has been my primary trauma coping mechanism for my entire life, and not only has it kept me stuck for a long time, it's led me to further ruin sometimes. it's bittersweet. i love indulging, i'm nursing my own soul, it's euphoric, it's warm and comfy and safe. it's an addiction. when it gets like this i now know it's time for change. i'm looking ahead at the weather to plan the best day to venture out. i want to visit the playground again soon too.

i'm most of the way through violet evergarden by now. i saw the basic premise was a story about a traumatized disabled girl trying to learn emotions/empathy and function in society. instantly sold. the show has taken some turns i wasn't expecting, but it's pretty feel-good for me for the most part. a lot of the themes speak to me. i'm learning that i'm not unlikeable and i can be kind despite my cruel past. even though i know most of these society-reintegration animes are probably japanese government propaganda. i guess i'm not immune to propaganda after all.

idk i hate to feel like i'm bitching and complaining about the same shit multiple times in a short window, but i'm pretty upset i can't draw while my imagination is bursting AND i have the motivation for it. and i know my sketchbook was delivered 2 days ago. i argued with my mom about it, i told her i hate gifts and i would prefer none. she replied with, "it's christmas we have to give gifts," to which i responded with the obvious, "no you literally don't have to". then she was all like it's about f*mily and i scoffed because i don't care. why would i want it to be about f*mily when my f*mily doesn't listen to what i want, including nothing? i hate how privileged and ungrateful this sounds. woe is me i get too many things for free. no, the problem is that i am being ignored over their selfish happy f*mily fantasy, they are useless items that i end up throwing out in 10 years (because i'm afraid of selling) so it's a waste of time and money, money is super tight but my f*mily is so desperate to live beyond their means for the image, and they hold it above me for leverage like i owe them my life or put me down for being an ingrate horrible person. they are so blind to themselves, it's so frustrating, and i'm both inconvenienced and hurt. i can't even get a replacement toothbrush for another 23 days. sigh...

on the topic of bitching about the same shit in a short window, this dysphoria shit is hitting hard. it's part of the imaginative fantasies for sure. moreover, i think i unearthed the loop i got stuck in, like using an archeological brush to get all the rockdust off an embedded gemstone. what do i want? i don't want my current expectations. why do i want it? i'm worried about what other people think of me. why? because i can't and don't want to meet their expectations. see? logically, i should stop caring about what other people think of me. i've already been trying. i would absolutely hate it if i let my trauma-damaged perception of the world force me into a transition just as an escape. and an escape to what? a different set of expectations that i won't be able to fully grasp until i'm there. it's forced me to take a step back and look at which aspect of expectation i hate. i concluded it's mostly about first impressions and assumptions, less about what people expect me to be capable of. my big hot take coming up: with gender roles, conformity as a concept is different. if you were to simplify it, men are expected to be unified but are treated as individuals, whereas women are expected to be individuals but are treated as a unit. all men are supposed to be the same but with no guidance or direction, and all women are allowed to express differently and pursue what they want as long as they conform to the desires of men at the end of the day. both have their obvious downsides, both are victims of male culture, and both have internal self-perpetuating pressure. what i want is the expectation to be an individual, which is something that is NOT afforded to men, at least not on a first impression. subverting the expectation of a man trying to relate to another man is like a stunlock, they lose their entire script and become unpredictable. i want no assumptions that i am masculine, relatable to other men, or subconsciously dangerous/aggressive/entitled. i'm ok with having some masculine traits or mannerisms, i don't relinquish those nor do i have much body dysmorphia. i just want the expectation of individuality and the freedom to embrace my majority feminine traits/mannerisms. ultimately, that's my logic and justification for preferring to be female-presenting. i think it would work best to be female-presenting nonbinary. it feels kinda good to be out of that loop. i hate feeling like i need to search for external answers or validation when literally the only person who can answer them is me. i'll keep that potential goal in mind, but there are more pressing matters to attend to first. gotta take my time with each step. i mean, shit, with the amount of things i've accomplished in this last year, at this rate i might be ready to tackle it by next december.

wow it took almost 2 hours to get all my ideas together.