~8:00am Mar 27, 2024
Mood: sagging
Listening to: yungmaple - ballin everyday ! ⧉

the other night i got to see a penumbral eclipse. last night i got to see a moonbow. earlier tonight i went to the playground. all 3 nights i got up close to a fox and upwards of 20 deer in total. somewhen i ended up stepping in a pretty huge pile of deer droppings and retired (threw out) my well-worn pair of sneakers. these are all phenomena that stand out to me as significant, and i would consider myself blessed to experience any of them, let alone altogether. instead, i feel very little. all joy has been sucked out of everything, amazement is only possible for a few seconds. i finally think it's appropriate to call this a depressive episode.

i have a lot on my mind, and i don't know any other way of confronting thoughts besides writing them. everything feels pointless. i haven't done a monthly reflection for the full moon mostly because of it, it doesn't feel like anything happened all month. the only thing i do is think about what i started or what i need to finish, then waste hours, days even, deciding what to do. i don't want to do anything nor do i want to do nothing either. it's like i'm thigh high in mud and every single thing takes more energy than i have.

yesterday i brought up my motivation issues with my therapist, particularly with asking for help, since that's what caused this i think. she asked me a really good question. something along the lines of, "was there a time you remember from childhood when you lost all motivation?" i thought about this a long while. i mean i had major depression for like over half of it, but that doesn't resonate with me. depression is an effect, not a cause. what i should be digging up is trauma. what does resonate with me when i think of the question is when i had my largest surgery at 11 years old. what i remember of it is a 2 year long ordeal with doctors, drugs, needles, waiting rooms, 4 months bedridden, another year of complications, the worst pain i've ever felt in my life prolonged for at least a year, and coming to terms with my own mortality. perhaps more importantly, that's when i dropped all art. before that i was into creating drawings and animations with no intention of stopping, then once i became bedridden i just never picked it up ever again. my main cope with physical pain is dissociation too, so it was likely my longest dissociative episode of my life. of course, i never forgot this happened, i never repressed what i felt either. but i also never reprocessed these events from this perspective. my therapist suggested that maybe this is where my brain learned that motivation is pointless when in survival mode, which makes more sense considering i was a preteen facing death at the time. it explains why, now, when my main obstacle is rejection at THE turning point, why my natural reaction is to give up before starting. i've overcome triggers and fears before, even during this process, but this situation feels different somehow, and now i know what it is and why it exists. i guess at an extremely high anxiety threshold my motivation for everything automatically gets killed. it's kind of an epiphany, but not a breakthrough. if it was a breakthrough then i would feel better, or know what to do about it. literally all there is to do is just get on with it already.

i suppose i should just take it easy for a day. mentally sit on it, and physically rest my leg that i'm pretty sure is subluxed at the knee again.

~1:30am Mar 24, 2024
Mood: imprisoned
Listening to: Femtanyl ft. takihasdied - MURDER EVERY 1 U KNOW! ⧉

my own emotions have been out of my grasp for a little while. not in the typically dissociated kind of way where it's impossible to feel anything, more like everything i'm feeling is incomprehensible and overwhelming. none of them are positive though, that's for sure. no motivation to do literally anything. i'm not exaggerating, in the last 2 or 3 days i've spent several hours just staring straight ahead at blank monitors, walls, or the ceiling. otherwise i'm sleeping.

right, sleep. my sleep has been awful. i'll get 8 or 10 hours of sleep, except i'll wake up, idk, 30 fucking times? every time i wake up it's with a constricted burning sensation in my chest. i'm conscious of a lot of my dreams lately and i can't really even call them nightmares. just frustrating bullshit that undoes itself. like trying to kill a video game enemy and everytime i look back it's alive again, or trying to cook something and it's raw again, repeat for literally an hour and a half as i go in and out of sleep. it's all fucking futile and i'm scared of everything.

i haven't had any real food to eat in a week. i can see the remnants of fast food and dinners in the trash, they just chose not to get anything for me. or throw out leftovers so i can't have them. tonight there's 2 whole platters of something but they're both labelled "DO NOT EAT" so fuck me i guess. i subsist off of scavenging whatever expired junk is left in the pantry. i'm so fucking pathetic i can't even get meals for myself, and they fucking know it. i hate them i hate them i hate them i hate them i hate them

one thought that keeps crossing my mind randomly is, "how am i not dead yet?" i feel like i'm at the bottom of a draining sand pit.

~8:00pm Mar 21, 2024
Mood: enmity
Listening to: skypebf ft. KANEDA7 - in the night ⧉

it doesn't matter if i get 3 hours or 9 hours of sleep, i'm still equally tired. regardless, i actually had a dream that i vividly remember, quite rare for me. it was surprisingly coherent and i think it has a significant deeper meaning, so i will record it here.

i don't know exactly what the reason was, but there was some sort of event at my old college and my whole f*mily came. somehow, a ceiling corner of the auditorium caught on fire. most people were understandably like "oh shit" and started evacuating, although about 30% of the people thought it wasn't a big deal and didn't feel like moving. my whole f*mily was included in that group. despite me trying to convince them to leave to get to safety, i left them behind to evacuate by myself. the fire in the main hall was worse than i thought, so i helped a few random strangers get out of the building and helped relocate the people outside to stand farther away from the building. once it felt like i did enough, i was still worried about my f*mily, so i ran all the way around the school to use a different entrance to go get them. walking into the auditorium, there was no fire anymore, just some lingering white smoke as if it went out a little while ago. when i went up to my f*mily, they laughed at me, saying shit like "i told you so". like i thought they were all going to die and i was panicking, they just used the opportunity to call me stupid and tell me i worry too much. i started crying in the dream, a mixture of grief and hurt, and they made fun of me for being emotional. even my 10 y/o cousin, which somehow felt like an extra betrayal. i wondered why i even bothered to come back for them, that i should've just left them for dead, that of course they wouldn't react to any danger or want help. i wondered why don't i just kill them myself, then the dream ended.

pretty representative of how i feel about them, down to the metaphorical symbolism of a burning building. down to the complete diminution of the strangers i helped. none of these themes are new to me, i'm just struck by the concision of the dream's architecture. i get the impression i'm going to remember this dream for a long time.

~9:30am Mar 20, 2024
Mood: debilitated
Listening to: nothing,nowhere. - wooden home ⧉

just... having a weak day. i'm a construction made from toothpicks and glue; some school project approximation of a person-shape meant to bear increasing weight until i snap, buckle, fold, and crumble for sport. i'm a little fucked up on rum rn. my grandfather saw me putting the bottle back and all i could feel was disgust. not shame, per se, and not disgust at myself, just disgust with perception. other people's gazes feel dirty. i'm sure he doesn't really care, and out of everybody in my f*mily he's the one who's easiest to be around, i'm just repulsed by the idea of any of them knowing what i do or who i am.

speaking of my grandfather, his car broke down while i was at therapy yesterday so i had to spend extra time waiting around. waiting. i still don't know exactly how i feel about waiting. in the moment all i can do is instantly and completely dissociate. afterwards, like right now, playing the whole thing back in my mind makes me involuntarily tense up. when i was a preteen and i had several doctor's appointments per month, i would look forward to sitting in waiting rooms so i could dissociate and meditate. i think i both deeply hated myself and also found my own body cumbersome. nowadays, with more awareness of myself, i still automatically fall back into that same dissociation mixed with the briefest interrupted flashbacks to all the times i waited. either those 3-11 hour waiting rooms, waiting at the window for my father to come back, waiting hours after sunset for my mom to pick me up from school, any of the other times i felt out of place or thought i was wasting someone else's time. i think waiting shocks my whole system into remembering i shouldn't exist, that i have no justification why i should be currently existing. it makes me feel less than worthless. all of these horrifying feelings all at once, but only for a moment, then the total numbness temporarily spares me. i don't remember how long i waited yesterday or when/how i got to the house or when i went to sleep. i only remember waking up in bed and it was already midnight.

do i want to kill myself? i don't think so. i don't think i even hate myself. i'm just, idk, i'm constantly fighting my own nervous system and i often lose. i remember talking about it yesterday with my therapist, that trying to do anything is simply difficult, but things will only get easier over time. except i'm understating how i actually feel about it. what i really mean is that everything feels nearly impossible and takes multiple weeks of rumination to be able to initiate, and none of this will ever get any better until i have a new environment. things will only get easier once i have a life built for myself, otherwise my nervous system will never learn that safety is possible. there isn't any safety, that's why nothing is getting easier. i can't learn to thrive while i'm still fucking surviving. and the longer i survive the more it feels futile. burning more and more energy on waking up, always less and less energy available to make change. if i were to kill myself it would be out of frustration and spite.

i almost broke down the other night when i opened up like 1/4th of the way to some friends about how hopeless everything is starting to feel. there's a very very large cry for help building inside me that i'm witnessing grow in real time. isolating and asking around for escape assistance has been a bit of a pressure release, but there's definitely a reason why i'm feeling worse instead of better.

haven't even fucking started left hand of darkness. i have been so out of touch with reality this whole month, time feels so fake.

~10:30pm Mar 17, 2024
Mood: overwhelmed
Listening to: guardin ft. cr1tter - boy on the internet ⧉

dealing with consistent headaches this week. routine's still fucked so i'm struggling with sleep and food, which isn't aided at all by my f*mily being abnormally loud and active. i have no idea when spring break is or if it's already passed either. i didn't know today was st. patrick's day nor do i know when easter is. i don't really care. i could easily type one thing into google and find out but i just don't want to know. i feel so disconnected with the world around me. i suppose that means i'm dissociated, but only derealized, not depersonalized. i much prefer this over depersonalization.

my anxiety is so high. i contacted one of my friend groups about running away. they weren't able to offer much directly, but the indirect support that became available to me through them honestly shocked me. things like donations or crowdfunding, potentially even lodgings. i've already been afraid of everything surrounding asking for help, so getting potentialy even more from strangers caught me very off guard and i spent a whole day crippled by terror. the way things usually go for me is dreading an obstacle for a long while, somehow forcing myself to initiate, and then figuring now there's no point pulling out halfway. this one felt more like dipping my hand in hot water and violently recoiling. i had to force myself again for a second time to actually respond to anything. i kinda set myself up for a worse time too by doing each group separately, i'm going to have to get over myself many more times. i know that i'm in the middle of accomplishing something, and i'm receiving support i sorely need, i just don't feel good about it. there's no pride. not yet. there's still more to be done.

ngl i've been plagued by nightmares of baldur's gate. i've done obsessive research about the hardest difficulty with one save slot and permadeath and it's all i can think about. i don't really have the energy to do such a challenge, if i don't though i'm going to go insane. i tried minecraft instead thinking it'd be more relaxing, but jesus christ the new caves are labyrinthine, constantly stressful, and i hyperfixate on the task to an uncomfortable degree. i can't stop myself once i start even if i want to. idk if i beat bg3 honor mode i might make a team report about it here.

i wish i had an excuse to work on the website actually. i just don't have any ideas for new pages or features. well, besides more accessibility, which is awesome but isn't exactly fun or creative, so it doesn't serve me at the moment. and i'm generally missing the passion required for a new shrine.

~8:00pm Mar 14, 2024
Mood: drowning
Listening to: SUICIDAL-IDOL - ecstacy ⧉

it's too warm and too humid. i was dreading this moment when everything takes on its summer smell. the world suddenly changes its scent when it's warm like people swap wardrobes.

i feel like i have nothing to say even though it feels like i need to say something. i need to scream something. my thoughts are confused and i keep forgetting things. i feel like i'm choking, suffocating, smothered. but not in a violent fighting for life kind of way, more like silently accepting it. sinking to the bottom of the ocean waiting for death to caress me. an infinite peaceful expanse of quiet blue emptiness, a gradient to darkness. no energy left to keep doggy paddling. losing hope.

despite the resignation, i feel like i'm on the verge of snapping. like any minor attack on me will send me into a meltdown. i hate meltdowns and i'm adept at avoiding them. i expect in the coming days it will be difficult to suppress latent anger, but i don't expect to lose it. at the end of whatever episode this is, i'll get my energy back and i'll probably still be fucking furious.

i know i have this problem with hope. hope is a great tool to have, it keeps life worth living even when it's not. though the nature of my childhood trauma and coping mechanisms have made me develop a hope addiction. it's the basis of my past limerence. if i hope hard enough, i can wait in hell indefinitely for things to get magically better on their own. what i've learned the hard way is that it's false, but my nervous system hasn't stopped reacting as if it's true. as a result, hope and drive are mutually exclusive to me. i only have drive and motivation when i am hopeless. i only have hope when i am defeated. stuck in another loop of paralysis and inaction.

using all my 11:11pm wishes to wake up female. magical thinking. poisonous hope. thinly veiled subtle self sabotage. should i branch out into poetry?

~10:30pm Mar 10, 2024
Mood: limbo
Listening to: xobuttoneyes - petals ⧉

very strange day, one of those where you can only watch the spool of reality unwind. i slept a long time, looked at the time, and decided to go back to sleep for even longer. when i awoke, it was civil twilight and my power was out. a strong windstorm must've felled a tree on a power line or something. my phone was already long dead by then, i hardly use it or care to charge it. considering i just slept an unprecedented number of hours, i was stuck in this limbo where i had no electronics or lights, and there was absolutely no possibility of sleeping through it. i've mentioned it before, but i am extremely good at waiting. once i was resigned to my fate of waiting an indefinite amount of time in pitch darkness, i manually phased into my dissociation mode so i could pass the time with my thoughts alone. since it was still twilight, i decided to pull up a chair and watch the light fade from the world. i witnessed the gale force winds whirl rippled waves of snow flurries around the bare trees, but only for maybe 10 minutes before the snow stopped. the winds calmed down within the hour too. there were no streetlights so the darkness was complete in a beautiful way, rudely interrupted by the swarm of high beam headlights of cars, piloted by aimless people looking for random bullshit do to elsewhere. not even the moon was inconsiderate enough to illuminate the gloom, her phase is new for this occasion. i had a pretty good time watching the gradual ascent of the night, watching the earth rotate in real time. as if on cue, electricity returned to the entire neighborhood 15 minutes after the last light left under the horizon. a shame i didn't get to go outside to experience the total blackness under the stars. i guess i'm glad power is back so i have things to do, it just feels like i missed out on something golden, plus i dissociated myself for like no reason and now i'm all out of order.

i'm still afraid of asking my friends for refuge. i'm afraid of both rejection and being a burden, so i'm paralyzed into inaction. i wish i didn't need to rely on others, it's entirely a me problem, but the simple fact is that i do. it's absolutely eating me alive inside, i can neither ignore it nor do i have the energy to do something about it. not yet anyway. i ask myself "when will i have the energy?" to which i have no response.

~5:00pm Mar 8, 2024
Mood: fatigued
Listening to: glissey ft. LILJAN - euphoria ⧉

i'm pretty fucked up ngl. of course i'm still struggling with energy, but yesterday a headache came on and it hasn't let up. it crossed my mind multiple times yesterday that i was fucking dying. obviously i didn't. i'm essentially withdrawn from all my groups by now. with the exception of 1, with slightly cut back involvement. i expected that to help and it kinda hasn't. all it's really done is give me some extra free time, which is nice and all, but i'm not doing anything with it. plus, it's too sporadic and unorganized with my erratic sleep to actually do anything either. i need some semblance of structure to accomplish things, i have such an aversion to spontaneity that i can't force myself to work on something even if i'm at the beginning of a 9 hour stretch of nothing. besides, i don't even fucking know what i would be working on.

what i'm starting to realize, i think, is that i'm burning out on living, not everything else i had on my plate. i had a lot of stuff to do about a month ago when this spell began, and i thought what i needed was some free alone time while i recovered from my bad dissociative episode. the thing is, i didn't want to leave any of my obligations up in the air while on hiatus. however, since they're nearly all fulfilled by now, what i've realized is that i actually did enjoy them. soon after i decided to go through with them, they stopped being a burden and became something to look forward to instead. i think what became the real actual burden is my house and my body. especially this week, i've felt it tenfold from the headache (migraine?) and waiting 4 days for an opportunity to do laundry. i'm out of energy when it comes to searching for and maintaining routines where i avoid everyone in the house. i simply don't feel safe at all. it's more than just not wanting to see them, i find myself panicking and shaking whenever i'm outside my room. i only have a 6 hour window from 11pm-5am where i can freely roam and take care of my basic needs like food and bathroom. it's extremely similar to when my mom had those meltdowns everyday in december or when i was quarantining from covid in january, except i'm under threat of neither and feel the fear of both. this time, though, i'm not dissociated, and i can feel the physical consequences in my body this time. i suppose i can feel it emotionally too, to some extent. i cried on the phone with my therapist on wednesday, but i had to stifle myself because my aunt was just on the other side of the door.

it feels like there's nothing i can do. if my living situation is draining the soul from my body, what is there to do about it? the nature of burnouts, for me at least, are regression. regressing back to a place of hopelessness and powerlessness. a latent attitude that i just have to accept torture. i felt it this morning when i was in the shower and my aunt ran water for 70% of the duration. "i just have to stand in this freezing water and take it as usual." i don't have the drive to do anything about it. i don't have the means to stand up for myself.

i would ask why am i still in this fuckass house, but i know the answer. this powerlessness and fear is intentional. both my 1st and 2nd choices of friends to go move in with are off the table now. i don't know what i'm going to do if my only option becomes getting a job and moving myself out. there's so much more to it than that because of my extraordinarily sheltered life. i truly and honestly don't think i could mentally nor physically handle figuring it all out on my own all at once.

the worst time of the year for me is starting.

~11:30am Mar 5, 2024
Mood: worn
Listening to: Clover! - ARTERIEZ! (nightcore) ⧉

my sleep schedule is beyond fucked. i really shouldn't have given in to that one nap last week. without structure and routine i'm asleep more than i'm awake, i can't find time to eat, and i'm too tired to do anything.

my therapist cancelled my appointment today so i set my alarm for nothing. i also took the time yesterday to try on one of the nail polish colors she gifted me, now she won't be able to see it. i'm assuming it's probably the flu, it's been going around really bad in this area recently. my aunt is currently sick with it too, except she deserves every misfortune that befalls her and more. either way, this nail polish is really cute. it's the purple one, and it turns out it's a little pearlescent. it adopts a warm purple tone in warm light and a cool tone in cool light. it's cool as hell even if it's probably hard to match an outfit lol. the shade reminds me of colored lineart. i hope it sounds insane when i say i feel like i have a scenecore furry oc cel shade irl lmao. overall idk this color is playful and childish, it seems girly, which is kinda gender euphoric ngl. i feel an instinctual shame when i'm around my f*mily, as if i should hide. it might sound backwards but that feeling tells me i'm doing something right. they implanted the fear of sincerity, so if i'm scared then i know i'm being genuine.

i'm trying my best to enjoy the rest of the cold nights. i'm hyperaware that they're finite and i'm dreading another fucking summer. it really sucks though because it's cloudy/rainy and i'm extremely tired and hypotensive, most of these days it's not safe to take long walks. oh well, i'm attempting to focus on the present, which includes listening to my body if i physically can't go outside. i'll see if i can visit the playground this month. at least i have the lunar eclipse to look forward to next full moon.

got a mysterious bruise on my arm at some point this week. i fucking love bruises, they're so fun to press on. i used to be sooooo prone to bruises as a kid and i'm so disappointed i don't get them as much. i still am prone to them, but i rarely get mysterious ones because i'm barely active at all.

~6:30pm Mar 2, 2024
Mood: meditative
Listening to: Rogue VHS ft. Tima - What Else (Kareful Remix) ⧉

feeling self-conscious lately, actually. i've been pretty good with not comparing myself to others for almost a year now, it's just been much harder these past few days. i think it started when i went back and read other bookbug members' reviews. i really enjoy it, i like hearing everybody's thoughts all at once, but i'm prone to feeling inadequate and as if everyone else scoffs or winces at what i wrote. regardless if we agree or disagree even. i've come to expect this reaction from myself, and i'm usually able to catch it before i internalize it. at the same time though i lost a lot of followers on neocities. i don't really have any interest with the legit social media aspects of this platform, i think most people don't. and i know why most of my former followers aren't there anymore, i know it has nothing to do with me or my latest writing, but idk, it's just a very visceral base reaction to see number go down. why did all these people leave? did i say something wrong? do they hate me? are they lying? it activates my rejection sensitive dysphoria in a way that i wasn't hitherto familiar with. i've never used social media so i've never had to experience losing "social currency" before. logically i'm aware that i'm just struggling with a new trigger for an old symptom at a vulnerable time, but that hasn't stopped my thoughts from going down a mini spiral.

the other main thought that's been contributing to feelings of inadequacy is how annoying i think i am. it must seem like literally all i talk about is trauma or something related to it. some kind of psychological thing or systemic factor born from it. not just here, but in every place i occupy, most conversations i have. it makes me feel like an outsider. nobody talks like this, and it must get tiring to hear the same shit from me. although if i'm honest with myself i literally can't think in any other way. the very first thoughts that come into my mind are a kind of judgement about someone's place in the world and how they got there. it's just so obvious to me, which makes me sound like an asshole who thinks she knows better. at least i stopped trying to talk about it i guess, i'm so much better at letting people make mistakes/figure themselves out/be themselves instead of being controlling. i would say i can also tell when people need/want to hear it, but i think that makes it sound a little worse. bleh, i'm not sure, some people are really appreciative when i reach out like that, or sometimes people ask me directly. i think that there probably is a place in people's lives for someone like me, i just feel divisive, if that makes any sense. i'm intense and i intuitively see through people. i tell myself that it's totally ok for me to be me and have a circle that likes me for me, but again it activates that rejection sensation if i'm not appealing to everybody.

i went through this whole thought process before i realized that's exactly how people keep describing scorpio moons, which i have. and the moon is in scorpius right now, actually. i suppose it's appropriate to meditate on it. the intense power to see behind masks and the struggle to use it responsibly. if i apply the idea of scorpio evolution to it too, then it reminds me of how far i've come and how much improvement i've had from just a few years ago, but at the same time it makes me feel like my ego is still fucking huge and distended.

will i ever get over these insecurities and perceieved microrejections? will i ever be truly satisfied with giving up on fitting in? probably. i'm sure everything's fine and i'll be ok. i have my whole life ahead of me to keep gradually healing from trauma. there's so much love in the world to teach me how to truly love myself, and i'm actively trying to be open to it. or, maybe someone hooks me up with a lot of motherfucking schedule 1 drugs and i have an ego death, that might work too.