~2:30pm Feb 28, 2024
Mood: indifferent
Listening to: hawkie - know me ⧉

still eepy, but what else is new? some good news is that my therapist gifted me some new nail polish! it was extremely generous of her. she did it to help alleviate some of my dysphoria, even though she admitted she doesn't know much about nail polish. a dark bluish violet and a burgundy. i suspect the burgundy isn't going to be much of my style, but that's ok, i'm just excited to experiment in the first place. i'm so ready to make mistakes because it means the journey is actually underway. it's happening and it's real. the purple one looks dope though, and i think i have the perfect shirt to match. we will see when i get around to applying it. the colors remind me of amethyst and garnet, two of my all time favorite gemstones (and both are birthstones for aquarius). it hasn't really ever come up before, but i'm a huge geology nerd. a big hyperfixation of mine starting when i was a kid. my research specialty in university was inorganic chemistry, electrochemistry, and crystallography. i lost my fucking mind in the smithsonian museum crystal exhibit when i went to a convention with some online friends right before covid lol. shit i just realized i don't even have it listed under my interests on my about page. i think i was afraid of being mistaken for a spiritual crystal girl? kinda dumb in hindsight considering i openly talk about astrology lmao, i probably give that impression regardless.

beyond that little bout of excitement, i've been almost too tired to feel anything. i have zero energy to stand in the same room as my f*mily members, i can't even muster basic greetings. that, and i think it's been easier to go nonverbal anyway. but i'm not bothered by it. instead i'm relieved that my body decided i'm not speaking today so i don't have to think about the words to choose. speaking of words, i managed to finish giovanni's room, so i'll be writing up the review tomorrow probably.

i have some extra time to myself for the foreseeable future. i was already gradually phasing out socially, coincidentally my most active friend got new work hours and has to sleep earlier, so i basically get 4 nights per week with 1 hour max of contact. it's essentially perfect for my current circumstance. once our project is over i'll probably forgo that too, just have 4 quiet nights to myself. when i feel ready for contact again i can simply alter my sleep schedule to wake up maybe 3 hours earlier.

~2:30pm Feb 25, 2024
Mood: ambivalent
Listening to: TOKYOPILL - E t h e r e a l ⧉

i think i'm doing ok, i can't really tell. i don't yet know if i have more to process about the situation with my friend. i feel pretty decent, but then i remember what happened and i suddenly feel guilty for feeling ok when i know they're probably near rock bottom right now. i mean i guess it's a good sign that i'm able to feel good at all. whether it is or isn't dissociation. yknow, speaking of which, it's very early and new for me, but i think i'm beginning to notice that my dysphoria and dissociation are mutually exclusive, which makes sense to me. since i've starting feeling dysphoric again in the past couple days, it makes me think i'm not dissociated anymore. i'll have to keep an eye on this relationship to make sure.

in fact, it's a full moon again. i do love to take the time on full moons to reflect over the month, except this time i don't feel the need to. there's not much to think about. not that things didn't happen, they did. it's more like the inability to reflect this month. between completely missing the last moon and spending... ~3/4s of the time actually dissociated, i have very little grasp on the reality of mid january to mid february. no concrete temporal landmarks, plus large gaps in memory. all i can take away from this month is that i'm getting much better at self-care, coping, self-nurturing, advocating for myself, setting boundaries, and handling toxicity. i learned that there are still new things to process in old traumas. i'm improving at reading my emotions mid-dissociation. oh right! i forgot to mention i started laying out my pills before i sleep so i can take them right when i wake up. it's so simple but such a kindness to myself, removing steps from the hardest part of the day. positive things i think.

very clear sky last night, i bathed in the radiance of the moonlight for a while. right in the middle of leo too, quite comforting. i love it when it's so cold out that my condensed breath freezes to my eyelashes. surprisingly, i saw another fuckin person walking around at my time in this weather. that's the first time that's ever happened and i was so caught off guard. nothing came of it, they were exiting the adjacent neighborhood as i was entering, and i didn't see them again. i wonder if they'll be a regular. god i hope they aren't going to the playground, that would be really awkward bumping into them there.

also, i've been watching the r6 esports invitational the past 2 weeks! :3 i love this game!! it's the finals today and i'm excited for whoever wins. the devs revealed so much fucking STUFF coming to the game this year. they must've hired gordon ramsay cuz they are cooking fucking gourmet. it makes me want to pick up the game again after a 4-ish month break, but i guess i'll wait for the new season in 2 weeks.

~2:30pm Feb 23, 2024
Mood: relieved
Listening to: lil kuudere - *:･ﾟ･UNLUCKY *:･ﾟ ⧉

that confrontation did not go well. granted, i think it went about as well as it could have, as in i think i did the best i could. i don't think i quite grasped how bad the situation was until i saw my friend's reaction to boundaries. we approached them with our concerns, said we care and would like to help, but we can't provide what they need, so there needed to be realistic mutual expectations or else the relationship is too draining to continue. their only response was to get defensive and passive aggressive, defaulting to victimization instead of holding any accountability. they quickly resorted to manipulative self-pity for validation and eventually threats of suicide. that's when we decided it's time to cut them off. as much as it cuts me up inside, this isn't my fault, and it's out of my control. it would be worse to enable the self-pity by expressing my sorrow and compassion, plus it wouldn't be safe for me to get sucked into a codependent cycle again. it was really hard to employ selfish safe distancing during the emotional flashback it triggered.

all things considered, i'm just relieved that it's over. i don't regret it and i don't think i did anything wrong. i am worried about their safety, but it's not my responsibility. in fact, i'm proud of myself. i've come so far when dealing with toxicity. both confronting it and firmly upholding my own boundaries. especially being able to keep it together mid-trigger, mid-flashback even. god, i even stood up for myself and said, "i understand this is very upsetting and you're angry, but i don't deserve to be treated with this hostility." what a novel concept, that i, myself, deserve better treatment and happiness. i mean, i feel like an asshole. more or less i'm reassuring myself that i'm only conditioned to feel like an asshole for having boundaries. i recognize that there's a great well of strength within me and i tapped into it today. honestly i hope they stay safe, get better, and can come back at some time in the future, but i know better than to hold my breath.

as you could imagine this was even more exhausting than everything that was already happening. i think i'm at the end of the rope, frayed and worn. i no longer think i can finish all my stuff before resting. i'm pondering some kind of rolling withdrawal, opting out of groups one at a time, maybe limiting myself to a decreasing number of hours per day. that sounds smart, i think.

i know i gotta fix my photos page by the way. i knew discord was phasing out their file hosting ages ago, i just didn't care and figured i'd deal with it later. now it's later and i'll figure something out soon. i didn't lose any pictures, i still have them all saved. i'll take a pic of tonight's full moon and upload that whenever i get everything else sorted. wiped off my nails finally because they definitely wouldn't survive another shower, so i'm a little disappointed i can't see the moon's reflection in my nail polish this time, but it isn't the end of the world.

~12:00pm Feb 22, 2024
Mood: so drained
Listening to: M.A.G - 2322332323233333333 ⧉

my energy is simply gone. i'm exhausted every day. i wake up more exhausted than when i fell asleep. if you saw me walk around you'd think i was baked. i lost the ability to read my own needs, i can't tell when i'm hungry or thirsty so i go quite a while with neither. struggling to take care of my simplest chores. near constant headache. idk it's like my body is shutting down. i postponed taking a break for a few days so now my body is shutting down in protest.

really things have only gotten harder, or at least more complicated. the one friend of mine who's been in the mental clinic recently is doing a lot worse again, and another friend asked if i would help confront them so we can establish boundaries. it's getting disruptive and making everyone uncomfortable, so we're thinking some action has to be taken. yknow, the same one who i was planning to move in with but their own living situation got weird. i'm a little too passive to be assertive, and my instigating friend is little too abrasive to be delicate, so that's why we're coordinating it together. hasn't happened yet, probably happening tonight. but obviously this certainly doesn't help reassure me of the whole moving in thing. it's just not good timing, even if this whole confrontation goes fine. best case scenario it'll still be a while before they get back to a stable point. i still have time though, it might blow over in a month or two, or it might not. regardless i think i should start investigating my other options.

i also just got promoted to moderator of a medium sized community server. probably not a good idea to take on more responsibilities on top of everything else, but honestly i don't really care. i can't be bothered to actually take it seriously at all, not right now at least. if something happens while i'm on half or full hiatus and i'm unsatisfactory then i'll just get demoted. like nothing happened.

i'm still going to try to get everything sorted before taking a break. i need my conscience to be clear or else i'll eat myself alive instead of resting.

~5:30pm Feb 20, 2024
Mood: dread
Listening to: 5v ft. lil soda boi - hate what i've become ⧉

immediately fell in love with this song this morning.



this is literally me rn. for the last few days. i think i need an extended break. i'm in the middle of a couple projects, so i'd rather finish them beforehand. it would fucking suck taking a break only to resume right where i left off. i don't mean the site btw. i don't think i'll ever have a good reason to stop journaling, nor am i currently working on a site project. more like a social break. i have social obligations and i'm working on something else with a friend. once everything's over i'm gonna socially hibernate. pick up an old minecraft version or something. i need some real fucking sleep.

i talked to my therapist today about my fear of confronting friends over moving in. we worked out that i'm afraid of uncertainty, which like, duh, but in essence i'm uncertain of uncertainty. what i'm worried about is that when i ask, they won't know. the original non-finalized plan was that me, my friend, and my other friend would find a new place between all 3 of us. since then, one friend decided to not pursue his career, and the other has had a lot of things come up and doesn't really have the money to maintain their current place. their parents have also expressed that they might be taking over that house soon. i know that with them i would feel safe, but i wouldn't feel secure, everything would feel temporary and on the verge of collapsing, and i cannot fucking live like that. but at the end of the day, i don't actually know what everyone's full situation is, and i definitely don't know how they feel about relocation. of course there's a lot of uncertainty which is inherently scary. however, upon asking them and if they say they don't know what their plans are either, then i'm interpreting it as rejection. my uncertainty over their uncertainty is manifesting as a rejection sensitive dysphoria trigger. what a fucking mess. i mean, now that i know, i don't feel as ruled by the fear. triggers are something that i'm determined to face head on, then take all the time i need for nurturing in the aftermath. my therapist helped me by saying it might be best if i got the ball rolling. if they truly don't know, and they're all uncomfortable, then my initiation might organize everyone to work together towards a common goal. here's to hoping.

at least i'll always have the night sky. this time of year is probably my favorite for the star... configuration? idk i just love leo/regulus, spica, scorpius/antares (i have a tricky relationship with scorpio), arcturus, vega, altair, the dippers, auriga/capella, draco/eltanin, the milky way, etc. it's like nearly all my favorite constellations and stars all at once. the moon is back and will be full soon. through the trees she looked deep scarlet so close to the horizon the other night. good timing for the upcoming end of winter. i fucking hate spring and i dread it more every single day it approaches. most people have seasonal depression from autumn and winter, i have really fucking bad seasonal depression from spring and summer. it's been that way for my entire life. plus i have a ton of triggers come up from the time of year. a lot of horrible shit happened to me over the various springs and summers. whatever. i'm glad that i at least get to have my favorite sky to accompany me through this abysmal annual transition.

~2:00pm Feb 17, 2024
Mood: stagnant
Listening to: anvii - in your moment of ecstasy ⧉

i feel like my insides are rotting. flesh decaying around the large red pearl at my core. every day is playing out the same way and i'm getting uncomfortable deja vu every few hours. i want to do things, but i have low energy, so i get hung up on what i can do until it's too late to do anything. after so many cycles i'm no longer motivated to do anything in the first place anymore. the thought of sleeping repulses me, and i'm sick and tired of having to force myself to sleep at the same time everyday to maintain this schedule where i avoid everyone in my house.

i'm once again desperate for a new routine. there's a tight knot at the base of my throat whenever i think about how robbed i am of a life. like heartburn without any acid. and yet, i'm so fucking afraid to the point of literal paralysis, again. i have my opportunity to talk to my friend about tangible plans to move in, and i'm not taking the chance. i fear the uncertainty of safety. it never feels like the right time to have this conversation, and seemingly every minute i have new doubts whether i'll be safe and secure there.

i'm festering in envy of others who have more freedom than me, which is almost everyone. unhealthy and insincere. yesterday i had my first passive suicidal thought in 7 years, an indicator that my fear is getting the best of me. my anger has taken a weary quality to it. i visualize lashing out, hurting someone, breaking something, my chest heaves in frustration and anticipation, although i'm too exhausted to act except to cry.

it snowed this morning. the snow is beautiful up until midday, when the world is too bright and overstimulating. why have i never had sunglasses? that started out rhetorical, then i realized it's quite literally because i don't have any freedom or agency and my f*mily has never listened to me or my needs.

~9:00am Feb 15, 2024
Mood: well
Listening to: nothing

i'm taking things very slowly and it's been ok. i have low energy and i'm trying to listen to my body.

i'm glad that i spent yesterday writing an essay. on and off i've had an urge to write something longform. i struggle to organize my thoughts enough to formulate essays though. for so many topics i have so much to say that i don't know how to narrow the scope. i'm much more comfortable writing a 6 page argument than i am a 20 page one, which i've done a few times in the past. besides, writing momentum is much easier to maintain for the day than spread over multiple days. 6 pages is reasonable to write in a day. the other thing i've felt bad about is my self doubt. every single time i publish an essay, within hours i overwhelmingly feel like all my work is useless and, worse, obnoxious. i've been avoiding that bad feeling for a few months now and i'm tired of it. i'll never get over it if i run from it. i still operate as if everybody hates them, and maybe that's the root of my problem, but at least i'm at the stage where i can say "so what?" if someone hates it. if people dislike me, then at least they dislike the authentic version of me, they don't have expectations or standards that i'm something else. i fear unreachable expectations more than disapproval. i used to fear disapproval more than unreachable expectations, i would get triggered bad by it, so overall i think i'm making progress.

the last 2 nights i spent a long time outside. i'm discouraged by my voice so i decided to take a break from it, i'd rather not let it sour my walks. even though the only place i can practice is outside, i don't have to rush myself. i never have to rush for anything. it's hard to fight that impulse. anyway, i combined all my routes into one mega route, so the walks can take up to 75 minutes if i want them to. the weather's been great. clear skies, windy, cold, dry. pretty much perfect. the other night the stars were quiet, muted. capella is an exception, she violently shimmers every color of the rainbow the closer she gets to the horizon. during the hour walk, i watched dense clouds roll in from the west, bringing increased winds. that's my favorite part of every storm, when the wind swells before any precipitation. interestingly there was no precipitation this time, just wind and fast moving clouds. the quiet stars were tucked in for the rest of the night by them. last night i saw 2 meteors in 30 minutes near bootes! that's fucking crazy! there aren't supposed to be any active meteor showers at all, february and march are dead months for meteors. seeing 1 would've been remarkable, but seeing 2 so close together is insane. i looked it up later, and it's apparently a rare occurrence of the anthelions meteor shower. the sky blessed me for living this long. oh, i also had the opportunity to learn more cute star names in libra, hercules, and corona borealis :3

~8:00am Feb 13, 2024
Mood: overwhelmed
Listening to: 6missedcalls - My Hands Are Tied ⧉

yesterday was pretty rough. i did end up going to the playground that night, but it sucked. i was running late. like i said before i only feel safe outside during the witching hour, 3am. i prefer to spend the full hour at the playground when i get the chance, otherwise it isn't that satisfying. it was 3:30 and i debated going at all. in the end i caved because i knew i wouldn't have a good chance for another week at least and honestly i felt really suffocated. i left at 3:40 and i resolved to spend the hour anyway. fuck it. it's not the summer so it's not like i have to race the sunrise at 5am. it started out nice, it was extra quiet and the local wild fox was chilling across the street. one day i'll get a good picture of her, she's eluded me for months. the playground is the only place where it feels safe to practice with my voice, so i tried really hard applying things i've been learning for a while. fruitless. i feel even farther back than i used to. it's worse than what it was and i don't even know where i'm failing to correct for it. people began to wake up and start their commutes, way more cars passed the later it got. the longer i tried the more self-conscious i became. my anxiety exponentially rose the whole time, i felt more and more insecure, and less and less that i should exist. before i wrapped up, i wanted to swing at least a little bit to see if i could calm myself down. it used to be my favorite somatic cope after all. instead, 6 minutes in i death gripped the chains so hard i pulled all the muscles in both my wrists and palms.

on the walk back to the house i was on the verge of tears, but i couldn't cry because i didn't want all the cars on the road to see me in pain. it was bad enough that i was perceived and out of place, i could not give them a reason to remember me. when i got back, i spiraled. i don't remember it very well, since i dissociated and then passed out from emotional exhaustion. what i do know is that it triggered a lot of feelings about my f*mily, how they failed and how i wish things were better. something that stuck with me was that a lot of the trigger was about my father, but i don't exactly know why. i processed pretty much everything surrounding him more than once already, and it's not like anything new has happened since i last saw him 13 years ago. no -- actually, upon examination, it's dysphoria. this already happened with memories of my ex. i'm subtly re-analyzing all my abusive relationships and traumas in a new context. suddenly remembering my ex was a terf and the things she said about trans people. now i've remembered my father's misogyny and his disdain towards my mother and grandmother for raising me "like a girl". or how he mocked the way i walked and crossed my legs when i was 4. these are things i wrote off long ago because they weren't exactly relevant, but obviously i internalized and repressed them for a reason. a pattern is emerging where i come out of dissociation, get triggered by some unprocessed gendered aspects of the trauma i glossed over, and go back into dissociation. if there's any one thing i'm good at, it's pattern recognition.

either way, my distance has made things a little weird in my interpersonal relationships. things have been tense with my main friend group for a while. one of them took a hiatus after an argument, one of them took a week in a mental clinic, two stopped being as active because of work, and another silently slipped away without saying anything. well, as it happens, today they all came back around the same time, regardless if they were gone days or months. in my current state it would be overwhelming and awkward for me if it was just one of them, but all of them? idk. i'm sure it's not a big deal and doesn't impact anything significantly, i'm just hyperaware of my own coldness. maybe my trauma is bubbling up to make me feel like i must be amiable in case things blow up again, that it would be all my fault if i'm not.

while i was writing this my therapist shifted my appointment to telehealth due to the snow. i didn't even know it was snowing. i opened my curtain and sure enough an inch fell in an hour.

all the nail polish on one of my fingers peeled off in the shower, now it looks stupid. the rest of my nails are unchipped enough to dissuade me from wiping them all off.

~11:30am Feb 11, 2024
Mood: distant
Listening to: thornskin - Im Your Dog ⧉

so glad the js coding adventure is over. i survived java's crypt. it was causing a lot of anxiety, more than i would've expected. now that the project is done i can get around to reading.

honestly though i don't really know what to do with myself. none of my friends have been around for the last few days and i've spent them sleeping and coding. autistic inertia is kicking my ass lately. any time i'm awake i desperately want to stay awake and any time i'm in bed i desperately don't want to wake up. i'm also getting way too hyperfocused on whatever it is i'm doing and i'm skipping a lot of basic needs accidentally.

i haven't gone to the playground like i said i would. i've been sleeping longer and waking up too close to when i would be going. ironically i'm still tired more often than not. it takes too many hours for my blood pressure to reregulate upon waking, so spending an extended period of time outside at night in winter with actively fucked up circulation would be too dangerous. it was warm last night and i had nothing going on, although in the middle of getting dressed i remembered it was saturday night and decided against it. idk, the prospect of being spotted last night really bothered me extra bad, and there are always cars driving that road on weekend nights. tonight will probably be my last chance for a while, so we'll see.

god i hate weekends so much. i hate it when people are in my house. we never have enough food to last a full week either, so by friday i have to scavenge junk food, expired scraps, and tap into my non-perishable stockpile. i hate the way my grandmother talks at me whenever she sees me and says nothing of substance. about an hour ago i went downstairs to find something to eat, but my grandmother in some anxious fit made sure there was never any dead air. she was basically repeating what the tv was saying back at me as if i couldn't hear it. it's dr. phil by the way. my f*mily only watches horseshit. some episode shaming a deliquent dropout kid for not having a job yet, so i'm sure my grandmom saw a passive aggressive golden opportunity to talk to me about jobs without talking about jobs. she tried to get me to agree the kid was foolish and delusional, that they'll never accomplish their dream of becoming a scientist. i didn't answer. every time i leave my room and have to interact with these people it automatically dissociates me. there might as well be 20 miles of distance between me and them, yet i can still feel their crushing gaze drilling holes in the back of my skull. i wish i was invisible.

i hate my voice too. i don't have an ear for discerning sounds, so all my voice manipulations are completely aimless and they hurt, which means i'm doing something wrong. i just have no idea what it is. i looked up so many resources and i just can't understand them. i try something new and i think it's working and then it hurts. i feel so stupid. it makes me think i'm going to need a coach to guide me, but that's not happening anytime soon.

i think i'm regressing again. hopefully i don't suffer a depressive episode or burnout this time.

~3:00pm Feb 7, 2024
Mood: back to normal (negative)
Listening to: smoking stogies ft. keifer moon - ratchet hoe ⧉

i feel so much better with the pink light theme than i did with the blue one. it probably looked fine, but i didn't like it, it wasn't me at all. i'm still on the fence about cookies on the site cuz idk if it's a safety thing or if it makes people paranoid or something. i'm bothered by it because without it i'm not meeting my own quality standards. maybe i should just chill out instead.

being that i sleep in the afternoon and wake up around midnight, i get woken up a lot by f*mily doing their shit after school/work. pretty much every single day i'm woken up by my aunt shouting at her daughter over some menial task or whatever. she is so controlling and loud. and it's right outside my door. other times, on the days my mother stops by after work, i'm woken up by her screaming downstairs. my mom is the loudest person on earth. she's almost always in a bad mood too. whenever she's screaming it's either about some petty workplace drama, conservative politics, or talking shit about me. last night it was about me and how i'm clearly avoiding her and only her, that my isolation had nothing to do with covid at all. she's so egotistical. yes i am avoiding her, i'm avoiding them all. she thinks she's a special victim or something. but what she won't take 2 seconds to think about is why would i associate with someone who talks shit about me to my f*mily behind my back. i hate having my sleep interrupted like this all the time.

my prolonged dissociative episode is continuing to wear off over time. quicker now that i have a little more free roam to eat, shower, and pee like normal. i was right that simultaneously i would "remember" all the things that made me angry. the numbness is wearing off and i can feel the pain again. dysphoria is coming back in full force, and i'm fucking mad that i'm still in this house again. the former i definitely expected, the latter crept up on me but makes total sense. why wouldn't it come back? fortunately i'm not beating myself up with the feeling that i wasted time. i have enough compassion for myself to understand the last month or 2 were really hard and i was in survival mode, not present enough to organize life-changing conversations or plans. coincidentally, the friend who's my first choice for moving in with checked themself into a mental clinic today. i could tell they weren't doing great and i was worried about approaching them with any important questions for a while now. this kills 2 birds with 1 stone, they get a week to recover and stabilize on their meds, and i get a week to ground myself. by then i'll feel confident in starting the process of making plans. if it doesn't work out with them, i'm not out of options. potentially i have 3 other offers from friends. fingers crossed while i keep focusing on self-care for now.

for once there are no vc or video game plans tonight so i think i'm going to sleep in. i hope to spend a long time at the playground practicing with my voice. i haven't been on the swings since christmas day.

~4:00pm Feb 5, 2024
Mood: resilient
Listening to: barren - figuring it out ⧉

omg we're so back. it's a monday so i basically had the whole day to myself, everyone leaves for school and work and doesn't come back 'til, well, 4. that gave me free rein to take an 80 minute shower in a newly disinfected bathroom, wash all my clothes and sheets, eat something, and wipe down all the surfaces in my room. i spent the free time in between basically completing the whole fucking theme changer script. learning the whole damn coding language and debugging for 3 days was the easy part, now i actually have to pick the colors lmao. i haven't checked yet, though i'm pretty sure the theme doesn't carry over between pages and i would probably need a cookie. i just don't know how people feel about random fucking cookies from small web corners, y'know?

i am extremely exhausted but i'm still energized. i've been active on my feet from 10am to 4pm and that's enough to put my body out of commission for the next day and a half. on top of that my sleep the last 2 days has been abysmal. my schedule during my quarantine was a very convenient sleep at 3pm and wake at 11pm. since it was saturday, and there was a lot of shit up in the air for multiple people, i both forgot and assumed dnd wasn't happening until the group texted at 3pm that the session was on at normal time. i managed to sleep 3 hours, then woke up and immediately played dnd for 5 hours. then another friend hit me up halfway through dnd to ask about baldur's gate, so i played bg3 for 5 hours right after dnd lmao. as you could imagine i collapsed at 9am sunday morning, but couldn't stay asleep. i only got 4 hours and was sooo fatigued for the rest of the day. i finally came to the point where i could nap or something again at 10pm, suffered some fucked nightmares, and woke up at 11pm. i've been up since then and idk what to do about it. the good news is that writing typically helps wind down so i might pass out after this. it should be close enough to maintaining my previous schedule that i'll naturally be awake for therapy tomorrow morning.

dreams are fickle. i almost never remember any of mine, even at the very moment of waking, but i always know when i had one because i wake up in an emotional state. this is tremendously common for me btw, so much so that i can kinda tell what the dream was probably about purely based on the effect i'm feeling. when last i woke, i had a deep sense of betrayal, confusion, and dysphoria, my inference is that it was an ex dream mixed with a trans dream. she didn't like trans people so i can only guess what was said to me. it's her birthday today, which makes me even more confident in my hypothesis. in the wise words of contemporary philosopher, lil uzi vert, happy birthday to that bitch.

i don't really know where it came from either, but i had a pretty sudden and intense thought spiral this morning. i'm sure it was a combination of leftover nightmare feelings and beginning to come back to my body out of a weeks-long dissociative episode. something hit me out of nowhere where i believed i had dozens of past lives and they were all women. therefore, it was a mistake that my feminine soul was born a boy this time, the same kind of mistake everything else about my birth was. the circumstances, the nature of my near-stillbirth, the rare hereditary conditions that all my f*mily were merely carriers for, the other defects. i instantly came to understand somehow that my sex was the same kind of unfortunate accident. now, ultimately my namesake was not chosen for these reasons, but yeah the connection is obvious. linking existing gender struggles, former beliefs of being born wrong, and existing identity in a matter of seconds was really disorienting. i describe these moments as mental flashbangs, just total brain hijack. process some shit really quickly, too quick, and reel for up to a day. i can say that i'm really proud of myself for not letting it ruin my day. i recovered pretty fast all things considered and continued to do the rest of my productivity queue. generally i feel proud for being able to bounce back so rapidly and triumphantly after such a fucked up... 3 weeks? no, 2 months? god damn.

i'm enjoying quaint lil walks again now that the sky is clear. over the course of the cloudy weeks i basically missed orion set and virgo rise. the stars, while familiar from older memories, are new and strange. it's lacking the continuity i've come to expect and admire.

~8:30am Feb 2, 2024
Mood: velvet
Listening to: tomppabeats - harbor (album) ⧉

i finally finished disco elysium earlier. i took a 3 week break because... idk i didn't have the mental energy to keep up with it despite really loving it and not forgetting a single detail during the hiatus. i feel like i have a lot to say about the game, except i don't know what it is yet. the game is greater than the sum of its parts, and i have a deep stirring that urges me to write a full length essay about it, i just need time to find out why. for now, i want to say that the game is less of a game and more of a fantastic book that happens to be interactive. exploring, choosing dialogue, and making decisions feels like turning a page more than playing. i've played a lot of puzzle games too, not many give such a huge sense of being a fucking genius.

i knew it was only a matter of time until not bathing would get to me. i am surprised however how long i held out before it started to bother me. i'm super hypersensitive to touch and smell, and obsessive about contaminated surfaces, so grease and sweat absolutely obliterate me. at least this time i was able to prepare myself days ahead of time that i was in it for the long haul, so it didn't irritate me for longer. only 4 more days until monday when it's probably safe enough to get in and get out of the shower without catching covid. definitely need to wash my bedsheets for my own sanity too.

last night the sky was finally clear for once. completely clear, no clouds at all, nothing between the cosmos and i. i've never said it outright before but i actually enjoy my mild astigmatism. my eyesight is good enough where i don't need glasses, but i still witness extreme diffraction spikes, halos, and chromatic abberations. that might sound annoying for most, i think it's awesome. optics and light are kind of a hyperfixation of mine. it makes stargazing so much livelier for me. atmospheric conditions and moon phases change the intensity of different lens effects too. lately the most prominent feature on the moon is a blue-orange chromatic abberation shift on the termination line. i know it's an illusion, i still like to think i'm watching the sunset on the moon from a distance. it rained tonight though which is like idk whatever. if the forecast is correct then it should continue to be clear for a whole week. scorpius is beginning to rise, so i'm excited to see antares again. i think antares is my favorite star straight up.

i've been back and forth writing a lot of different things for the past 2 hours, on and off. different reflections about different meditations on different topics. thoughts are swimming around but i'm realizing none of them are ready yet. neuron misfires. i don't yet know what i'm trying to say. i resolved with myself long ago that i wouldn't delete any of my writing, that my thoughts deserve to be out there in any form, but i think i'm making an exception today. i think there's more for me to discover. i'm missing conclusions and i refuse to leave things incomplete. same with my thoughts on disco elysium essentially. i guess i just have to give myself more time. it's weird, i feel like i'm on the verge of a breakthrough but my skull is filled with honey. maybe that shower will clear my head.