~7:00pm Apr 30, 2024
Mood: sufferance
Listening to: fridvy ft. bedhead & Rit - nevr again ⧉

and so begins the time of year where it's 33C with high humidity and no ventilation. i've been dying for the last 2 days. the bugs are having a field day though, my kitchen and bedroom are fucking crawling with stinkbugs, ants, and silverfish. i had to fight a few that i found on me or in my hair. i'm so physically dissociated, which makes the heat somewhat tolerable, at the expense of being able to feel anything else, like pain, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. it's times like this i wish i wasn't attached to my life or future so i could just end it in one fell swoop. is there really any point in suffering this every year? i don't have an answer to that, but at least this is the last half-summer i have to deal with it. if there was no end in sight, i don't really know what i would do. yknow, for as much as people talk about december and winter being the most depressing times of the year, winter has the lowest suicide rates, while summer has the highest. it's even seasonally consistent for the southern hemisphere. in my opinion, i think vitamin d for mental health claims are ridiculously overblown and outdated, stemming only from the old false nature-driven argument that social isolation is the cause of depression.

i tried painting my nails yesterday, emphasis on tried. it's so hot that it made the lacquer less viscous and ran everywhere. i also lost a good portion of acetone just to evaporation out of the bottle. i managed to make it look fine though. i'm using the new burgundy color my therapist gifted a little while ago, i never got around to it. i don't like it that much. it's ok, it just doesn't fit me or my monochromatic wardrobe. if i could clothes shop i'm sure i could complement it. i think i'm just going to stick with my black and purple.

i also tried to apply for a visa yesterday, emphasis on tried. turns out all the information i got earlier was slightly outdated, they indeed ask for bank statements upfront instead of later on. that means i have to fight my grandmother for my money a lot sooner than i hoped. i was really planning on having my application already processing by the time i started burning bridges, if things were already moving then f*mily wouldn't be able to try to stop them. unfortunately i apparently can't initiate the visa without truly confronting my f*mily. hopefully i can take care of it this weekend. the timeframe has moved back a couple weeks, but departure still looks like july.

i should be writing my bookbug thing for notes, idk i don't want to do anything. i was going to reread the book to make a better review, i got caught up in moving out though. then i was going to write a review anyway, but now instead i haven't properly slept in days and i feel like dying.

~10:00pm Apr 26, 2024
Mood: ghost
Listening to: bedhead - nightscape ⧉

still waiting for my background check to show up in my email, it's overdue by a day now. the next business day is fucking monday. i really hope i don't have to contact customer service.

i'm perpetually on the verge of a panic attack today. there's a hollow burning where my lungs should be. tense and can't relax. my aunt is in and out of the hospital for critical blood pressure because she's a fucking idiot who literally refuses to take her prescriptions. guess she would rather have a stroke than be a little nauseous from side effects. i don't care about her in the slightest, in fact i wish she would just stroke out and die, but i can feel the palpable shift in my house without even being present or talking to anyone. everyone else is extremely anxious and it thickens the air. my cousin is understandably quite upset that her mother gets admitted to the hospital every other day, and it's triggering me how fucking abysmally my grandmother is handling it. my grandmother gets mean and angry when she's stressed, so all i hear through the walls are constant attacks and put downs. "you're so stupid i can't", "you're just like your father" (untreated bipolar and deadbeat for context), "you're cruel and pretend you aren't", "i know what you really are", etc. it's the same abusive phrases i got when i was an anxious child. i also hear my mother being really sweet to my cousin, trying to comfort and calm her, in a way that she never did for me. i feel like a forgotten spectator, a ghost in my own house. a secret inhabitant living in the attic that nobody brings up out of shame. i listen to the evils concealed in these walls everyday, burdened both by the knowledge itself and that the truth won't ever escape the prison.

most of this anxiety is compounded by the fact that there's no food in the house. related to my aunt's blood pressure thing, last month she had a week-long emergency while she was vacationing in jamaica, which demanded almost $10,000 from my grandmother out of pocket. apparently, according to her, we were already living off of pennies before that, so we haven't had groceries for a couple weeks. i'm really hungry right now but i have to wait for everyone to go to bed before i get something, and i'm pretty sure there isn't anything to eat anyway.

last night though i did something big, for me at least. i saw too late that the temperature was subzero (celsius), and i figured this might be the very last time a night is freezing. i always go out at 3, i'm very afraid of being seen by the people who drive around at 2 and 4am. well, i reasoned that if this is the last freezing night of my life potentially, i better go fucking get it. i went out at 5am, not even 4am, and i pushed myself to walk my longest route, spending the most time outside at an off hour. it was really busy in the neighborhood already, lots of cars and lots of people in windows. idk i just wanted it really bad. i'm not a person who usually gets fomo, but i know i would've regretted it hard if i didn't seize the opportunity. i argued with myself too that who cares if the people in this neighborhood see me if i'm going to be gone forever in 2-3 months. and that if i can't take a casual walk outside in the dark, then how can i expect myself to walk around in broad daylight and interact with cashiers n shit in girlmode. all the while during the walk, the full moon was next to antares, my favorite star, in scorpio, where my moon is placed natally. i kind of took it to be poetic in a way, especially since it's the first time in 7 months that leo wasn't in the sky anymore. i associate my scorpio moon with evolution and the journey of healing from trauma. it was twilight by the time i was done. this whole thing is probably mundane by normal standards, but idk this felt like a real transformative event in the moment.

~11:00pm Apr 23, 2024
Mood: unbothered
Listening to: yungmaple - I AINT TRIED ENOUGH ⧉

today i went out to get my fingerprints. i set up the appointment so i could go right before my therapy appointment, to do both in the same trip. for as much as i hyped it up in my head and got myself all worried, it was really simple and easy, like literally 8 minutes in and out. i pre-paid online too so i just walked right out, that helped me a lot i think. something i found myself thinking in the moment was that i was blending in more because i was boymoding, which is ridiculous and funny since i haven't done fucking anything for transition yet lol. whatever my brain comes up with as a cope, i guess. in 1-3 days i'll have my rap sheet and i can just straight up apply for my visa right then. big things coming up, it's going to be a busy 2 months, and then i'll be starting a totally new life. that's fuckin nuts.

the car ride with my grandmother was awkward. silent tension. i don't know if she's in denial or if she's already accepted it's my decision and my happiness. as far as i know she's the only one who knows, i don't think she's told anyone else. in the car i didn't know whether to expect a level conversation, a blow up from a crack in denial, contemptuous silence, or neutral silence. i got silence, thankfully, but i still can't tell if it was neutral or contemptuous. because things are moving though, everything is just kind of washing off me. i can't be bothered; i'm unstoppable.

speaking of, you remember that one friend i had who i was going to move in with previously? and then there was kind of a huge blow up in that situation due to, idk, just a bunch of personal stuff in their life? after a month and half of silence from them i received a really long dm full of hateful shit, completely attacking my character and my other friends. they burnt the bridge pretty spectacularly. i can't help but feel like i dodged a huge bullet with the way things played out. my future roommate said she's sorry that so many people are letting me down so close together, which made me stop and think like yeah she's totally right, i didn't register it until she mentioned it. this is one of those things that i feel like i'm not processing and it's going to creep up on me later when the progress slows.

well, those are the events of the last 2 days. my mind lately has been on the bigger picture instead, which helps for the full moon tonight. the last month has been... hectic. everything is changing really fast, in contrast to the last 4 months where everything crawled and i felt perpetually stuck, trapped, held hostage. i feel ok though, confident. i'm still lacking in motivation, not sure what to do about that, or what exactly is causing it. i chalked it up to depressive episodes earlier in the month, now i'm not in one but it hasn't returned. i might just be spending a lot of my energy planning and fantasizing, as i tend to. maybe i don't feel like committing to things because everything feels temporary?

either way, i hate it when astrology is right. i usually only check stuff toward the end of the month, the final week or so, because i think the gift of hindsight is more valuable than the gift of foresight. i don't often give a lot of credence to it because, well, my life is quite stagnant. interestingly, for the last 2-ish years it generally suggested that it should be. this month though is very different, april should apparently be the beginning of drastic practical change starting around the eclipse, explicitly some process that will take a couple months. that's so fucking stupid and it actually happened that way LMAO. idk it makes me laugh as a scientist and makes me feel validated as a weirdo spiritualist. anyway, i didn't get to see the lyrids meteor shower because of the full moon's glare. i remember those meteors being faint last year in a completely dark sky, so not much chance in the moon's radiance. nothing like the leonids from november, i saw them through cloud cover they were so bright. pretty soon it'll be so warm and humid that it'll impact the visibility of the sky entirely, the water vapor diffuses so much surface light and makes the night look so muddy brown. gross.

~3:00pm Apr 19, 2024
Mood: incredulous
Listening to: fauna - good luck ⧉

i cannot believe what i heard earlier today. this morning news was dropped on me that my cunt aunt already bought a fucking dog and expects me to take care of it because i'm always at the house. what fucking bullshit is that? there's no way i'm taking any responsibility for that, not even for 1 month. i never agreed to this and they're not going to rope me into it. it's not my problem and they will not get me to stay out of guilt. my f*mily infamously detests animals, my aunt is only getting one because she loves to spoil her golden child daughter. from what i hear, my f*mily has killed 3 pets before i was born, 2 dogs and 1 bird. they never got any pets while i've been alive. there is only misery and neglect in this poor dog's future. how dare they even attempt to care for yet another living being? i know firsthand they can't pull it off with a human let alone a defenseless innocent creature.

i am so glad my depature was essentially pushed up by 3 months. i actually cannot wait to be out of here. i'm not gonna lie i am so sick of america too. just saw yet another self-immolation on the news while in the middle of writing this entry, this time apparently it was just some fucking guy with a schizo conspiracy manifesto about crypto, harvard organized crime, and the simpsons???? what the fuck ever dude. i am so over this shit. i'm convinced nothing will ever get better here during my lifetime. i might write an extremely angsty and potentially controversial essay.

my future roommate was right, it really is like the universe is giving me all the signs that i picked the perfect time to leave.

~8:00am Apr 18, 2024
Mood: mercurial
Listening to: JoshuaSageArt ft. quinsea - Surgery ⧉

it's insane that april is nearing its end already, i feel like i've been absent for all of it. i sorta like it that way, i hope that the next few months are similarly nonexistent so i can perceptually speed up my departure. i found out that the apostille process takes an extra 6-10 fucking weeks so i'll be stuck here all damn summer. no idea why american bureaucracy is so dogshit but it literally always is. out of curiosity i checked how long it takes for australia to apostille their documents and it's less than 2 weeks. also i'm pretty sure notary services are trying to scam me saying i need more things apostilled than i actually do, like my passport, just to get another 200USD out of me. i tried googling if passports need an apostille and all i got was ai generated slop and the very same notary services. i'm fairly certain passports stand on their own because they're specifically for int'l use. apostilles are for internal documents that you want to use in other countries. i can't get a straight answer because nobody is saying you explicitly need to apostille passports, just that you need to apostille all documents, but passports are never listed as typically processed documents. i guess i'll ask the fucking embassy because search engines are too busy moving backwards to give any real information. ridiculous.

a lot of my fear has subsided to make way for just genuine excitement, which is awesome. many huge obstacles left can't hide the finish line from me. still, i'm catching myself fantasizing about the future, and that's always dangerous for me. my future roommate has already started looking for apartments and she already found a suspiciously perfect one for cheap. we don't really know how to proceed with it, since i'm not even going to be arriving for another 4 or 5 months, there's no way it'll be available by then and we highly doubt the landlord is going to hold it that long for us. so it's basically a crapshoot, but putting a location in my head at all has overstimulated my imagination. i already obsessively mapped out the whole fucking neighborhood on maps and streetview and everything. i already had a dream about it the last i slept, and that worries me. i'm so prone to involuntary disappointment it's crazy. i never feel like i have a realistic view of things even when i'm actively trying my hardest.

my emotions have been all over the place honestly. excitement, fear, anger, happiness, dread, anxiety, sadness. still no motivation yet. i haven't been able to cry in like 2 or 3 months but yesterday i sobbed for like an hour watching the latest critical role episode. it just felt really good to finally let it out. not spoiling the ep tho.

btw i found out it's way hotter here in northeast us than it is in south au, that's fucking bullshit this place really has fucking nothing going for it lmao

9:20pm EDIT: haha yo let's go ALL apostilles are a fuckin scam, i'm outta here in early july and i get to keep all my money!!!! ya girl stays winning

~11:30am Apr 14, 2024
Mood: derealized
Listening to: cillacybn - iam so badd!! (wstdyth remix) ⧉

the world around me feels so much different since taking on a temporary quality. suddenly i care so much less about my surroundings, i don't even get the same joy out of being outside stargazing. every time i look up, i'm reminded that this is probably the last time i'll be seeing my stars, the ones that were there for me all this time, the ones who were there to console me during my lowest points. this wouldn't be a problem if i was going somewhere else on the northern hemisphere. sometimes i think i have something like prison nostalgia, except for my bedroom. i've grown quite attached to this piece of shit room, but only because it's been my solitary safe space for 10 years (not even that safe, just relatively). i don't know if i could list 1 positive thing about this place that i actually like, yet the thought of looking back into it one last time fills me with a bittersweet grief and loss. lately i've been tearing up a lot, very often, but never crying.

yesterday i had to make a deposit into my bank account so i could afford these paperwork fees and shit. i've never made a deposit before, and although it had to be in public with my grandmom, i was looking forward to learning how to. when i pitched the question to her, she said yeah no problem. i said "give me a time to get ready by" and she obliviously said she'll just swing by on the way home and do it without me. this is an example of a main thing that gets under my skin. i very much want to go out and learn things, i want my independence, and she just completely takes it upon herself to exclude me from it, keeping me stuck. still, she will find any opportunity to say some shit like "why don't you go outside and do anything? you're an adult. i don't get it. your therapist must be a failure." she will never understand, she will never know how to support me and doesn't show any willingness to listen either, and that's the primary reason why i'm leaving at all. i don't even think it's possible for me to explain it to her, it'll always go over her head, and she would probably stop listening halfway to victimize herself. tenfold in my mother's case, she's just an uncontrollable fucking mess.

every night i'm getting my abandonment wounds triggered. i think they're unfounded, i'm just really paranoid that the friend i'm going to room with is going to drop me at any inconvenience. it's ridiculous because she's probably the most dependable caring person i know, and she already promised she would help me with whatever i need. i just think my anxiety is elevated. maybe i should raise my concern anyway for my peace of mind, get an explicit statement of commitment. it's probably better to be transparent with my triggers up front if she's going to be basically responsible for me for a little while. practice good communication or something.

~5:30pm Apr 10, 2024
Mood: determined
Listening to: wstdyth - TT ⧉

things are never simple. i talked to my grandmother and it didn't go well, but she's cooperative as i expected. she truly has no idea what she could've possibly done that would make me unhappy enough to leave forever. she drew the ungrateful card on me because she bought me a bunch of material things and gave me the bare minimum food and shelter. mind you, i didn't even accuse her of anything, i just said i dislike the f*mily dynamic and the environment, but she couldn't help taking it personally and victimizing herself. she also calls me rude and cruel for not considering how they feel about me leaving. she can't understand how i could consider it and still come to this conclusion. in all their eyes, f*mily is a nonnegotiable obligation, yet they are also incapable of considering the feelings of others. it's pretty ironic.

immediately after i initiated the permanent dissolution of my f*mily unit, i got bad news from my roommate-to-be. our agreed arrangement from last week was an accommodated year-long stay at her parent's place. turns out they got cold feet in a week and cut the timeframe to only 2 months. it's not like i can blame them, i don't even know them, but now things are very complicated and it looks like we'll both be kicked out together. i have to say though, i guess i should have trusted my gut in the first place. i thought i was overreacting to a past trigger by thinking travel plans always fall through within a week, apparently it is more common in people than just my one previous abuser.

anyway, i thought about it for a long time. of course i haven't actually taken any of the necessary steps to go there yet, i could just forget it now that the promise is broken and the arrangement is much worse. my two priorities are safety and security. this one had both, but no longer has security anymore. however, none of the other options have better security either. if i stay here, i have security but no safety, and now that i ALREADY spilled the beans, i threw my security out the window too, maybe jeopardized my safety even further. the way i see it, out of every decision, continuing to go through with australia is the safest. out of everyone i know, i think she's the safest person for me, so i'm going to put my trust in her and we're going to face whatever happens together. for that reason i'm going to go through with it. i would rather be safe than secure. security is easier to obtain later than safety. we still have some community support available, and if everything goes well, then things will only be hardest for the first year. i'm trying not to think that i'm ruining her life by injecting myself at the worst possible time.

speaking of, the weather turned hot right at the worst time. not because i dislike heat and it makes me anxious, it does. it's the worst time for heat because it's giving me flashbacks to 2 summers ago with my ex. this time every year my mindset automatically shifts to seek drastic changes. it's really hard to tell if i'm dissociated or not as well. i don't know if i can trust my own judgement right now, but i also don't really have much of a choice. i committed to this decision before i started feeling this way, so hopefully i was trustworthy then.

~4:30am Apr 9, 2024
Mood: anxious
Listening to: lovesickxo - agoraphobic ⧉

it's been a really long time since i've been this anxious, i wasn't even this anxious during all of uni. my panic disorder is in full force and there's a decent chance any of these micro panic attacks turn into real ones. just the other day i felt my cardiovascular system, for lack of a better term, flush out. my panic attack was so bad that all my blood pooled in my legs and then quickly surged back up. it was indescribable, the feeling of hot liquid sloshing in and out of vital organs, feeling them deflate, whole body weakness and numbness, narrowed vision, going cold and grey for a moment then feverish heat crawling up my clamy skin. ceaseless latent nausea. the human body wasn't built to endure this.

i'm suffering because i can't bring myself to confront my f*mily about moving away. but i need them in order for me to apply for a visa at all. i know there's a mandatory 2 month wait after application, and every second spent postponing application is just wasted in the void. i go back and forth between anger and fear every few minutes. i try to remind myself that it's only been 3 days since the greenlight, that i can afford to wait half a week until therapy, but i am too hyperaware of the passage of time to relax. every wasted day is potentially another week between now and an important appointment. i'm also agonizing over what i think the reactions will be. the triggered part of me thinks i'm being unfair to my f*mily and irl friends, i should give up so i don't hurt them. it's obviously bullshit but it comes from an irrational unhealed part of me deep down. the way i'm currently feeling is enough to convince me i'm not in the wrong. nothing should ever make anybody feel this awful.

technically i missed the eclipse. i planned to see it for a minute at least, except apparently schools here were dismissed early for the occassion and my f*mily were all at the house. there was absolutely no way i could handle seeing them. i reasoned that it's not even a total eclipse where i'm located so i'm not missing much, i resigned to watching everything else dim from my window. i'm not really a person who experiences fomo, and i didn't regret deciding to miss it, however it still fills me with resentment that i'm essentially forced to miss out because of my f*mily's mere existence. and yes, if you were wondering, the eclipse on my photos page wasn't taken by me, it was taken by a friend of mine who gave me permission to post it. secret's out, although probably not significant and nobody cares.

it's likely that the confrontation will happen later today after i've spoken to my therapist. phone appointment btw. i don't really know what i expect her to say, i guess i just hope she has some type of suggestion. this is fucking insufferable though, i can't continue like this.

~1:30pm Apr 6, 2024
Mood: excitement and fear
Listening to: Yabujin - GARDEN ⧉

this week i spent a long time obsessively researching everything about immigration while my friend figured out the logistics of the living situation and asked her parents. i don't even know how to describe it except perfect. like, the environment and coincidental circumstances sound pretty close to ideal. this morning i got the greenlight to go ahead with the visa process, everyone involved knows to expect me and they've given me permission. suddenly i have a mission to undertake now. visa processing will be about 2 months, but there are some bureaucracy things, related and unrelated, that i need to do before, during, and after. it's a shame that there's one required step that i'll need someone to drive me to before i can even start though. i might have to break the news to my f*mily much earlier than i would've hoped, presenting more opportunities for them to get in the way.

i avoided my diary this week because this was all i could think about, i've been so on edge with anticipation. nothing actionable was guaranteed at all until i had the greenlight, and i was so afraid of solidifying my hopes in writing prematurely. it would've hurt me so much more if it was shot down. not even the embarrassment of it in this technically public space, just the act of needing to go back on my words or deleting lists/planners would've totally destroyed my resolve. magical thinking plagues me and it never feels safe to place faith in others. but it's ok now, it is real so it's safe to acknowledge the hope.

i'm getting the itch to do some more stuff on the website but my motivation is extremely sporadic and short lived. at least i've started or completed minor backend things already.

also, it dawns on me that the night sky in australia is going to be entirely different. the moon will be upside down.

oh right, the new jersey earthquake was neat too. most people i know here didn't feel it. the aftershock woke me up from a nap.

~3:30pm Apr 1, 2024
Mood: deliberating
Listening to: Sybyr - Waste ⧉

i skipped out on easter entirely. in fact, the past few days i isolated even more than i have been. i was way too in my own head literally fucking constantly so i decided to bury my nose in a book as a distraction. it was the bookbug book, so i finished on time and it worked out really well actually. good book, very few books maintain my attention for long reading sessions.

my grandmother bought a loaf of raisin bread and told me she got it for me. i asked her, "do you think i like raisins?" she responded, "how am i supposed to know anything about you?" raisins have been my absolute most hated food ever since i was in preschool. she really doesn't know anything about me, evidently nor does she remember. i assume it's her age that makes her forget, but i think it's irrelevant when it's her disdain/fear that keeps her from simply asking me. i suspect it's a win-win situation for her whether she guesses right or wrong, either she did the right thing and i owe her my gratitude or she did wrong and gets to play victim like she's unappreciated for at least trying.

i grew sick and tired of being sick and tired, i ripped the bandaid off and i asked everyone i've been meaning to ask about shelter. i figured i had a thick book to retreat to, i might as well use it while i still had it. i didn't expect much, it's asking quite a lot from people with limited resources. i'm not surprised that not really anybody has a situation with room for me. the 3 options i have are a couch for a few months in texas, getting my own place in montana within proximity of otherwise very helpful friends for 2 years, or going all the way out to australia for 3-4 years (or permanently) with the help of a whole community. ngl gang, australia is the most appealing. the main drawback is the money for travel and visa. as chance would have it, i have a lot in my savings because i've never learned how to fucking make purchases up to this point. the way i see it, it literally doesn't matter at all where i go as long as it's safe and secure. i could go 20 miles or 10,000, wherever i end up i'm starting a new life from scratch. and i have enough money for a one way ticket to anywhere. even if i'm a little short, the aus crowd already said crowdfunding is a real option. my mindset is "anywhere but here". upon researching, the visa process isn't insane either, the system is designed to be easy for americans. this is a very realistic possibility, and that both terrifies and excites me.

part of me is like i should wait to see how things develop, see what happens in light of this new information. honestly though, what the fuck am i waiting for? what am i expecting to change? i've been asking myself this so often lately. i can feel a very specific trigger happening, it has happened so many times in the past where someone gets my hopes up and then a week later just rug pulls me. it was a recurring thing with my ex, it was part of her hot and cold cycle, including forcing me to buy and cancel flights more than once. with this whole aus thing it feels too good to be true, i'm defensively cynical and feel undeserving of kindness, let alone communal. i'm actively fighting a shutdown. regardless, i think i should at least take it easy for the next couple days. try to get back into things i enjoy, without obligations. i have been so unbelievably anxious for weeks and i finally feel it letting up.

i'm glad the whole week is going to be cold rain.