UA's Sanctuary

poison fangs

- 11-06-2025, diary

something's been on my mind for a while now. i've been idly ruminating on it for a few weeks i think, then some shit happened last weekend that's definitely brought it to the forefront of my thoughts, and i cannot shake it. i floated the idea of writing this entry for a couple days, switching back and forth between feeling the desire to write and thinking it's fine and i don't need to. ultimately, meditating and crying under the full moon tonight tells me that it is in fact something i need to confront.

on halloween i hosted a really cool house party with minimal trouble. i looked good and i felt great about it, with a cute dress and sexy scary goth makeup. what's got me all fucked up is that 3 different girls were into me and flirted with me. this probably sounds insane and ridiculous and like more of a brag than anything. truthfully, i've been heavily triggered ever since. nothing bad or weird about it, literally just my body overreacting hardcore. i've been able to identify 3 main reasons for my emotions feeling uncontrollable.

the primary and most obvious one, fucked attachment. the most pervasive trauma that i'll always be struggling with to some degree for my whole life. coming from a f*mily that made me feel purely burdensome and an understanding that love is limerent obligation really sets you up for failure. then my one and only romantic relationship being horribly emotionally abusive, no boundaries, suicidal threats, hot and cold cycles, the works, totally reinforced all those foundationally wrong beliefs. these days, at this point in my life, i know so much better. i'm so painfully aware of myself and how to protect myself even around the trickiest people. yet, just the mere hypothetical possibility that new girls are interested in me, the very suggestion, and that i can allow them in my life like that, has my entire nervous system lurching in terror. i had a dream last night where i felt an intimate touch on my shoulder from some unidentified partner. i woke up with a start, jumping straight upright in a cold sweat.

i can name the sharpest trigger, and it's feeling inadequate. the common theme in my f*mily and with my ex was that nothing i did was ever good enough, or they wanted me to be someone i'm not. i'm innately phobic of doing the wrong things, messing up, making mistakes. i know logically in relationships that there's no such thing as doing something wrong, and even if there was then it would be impossible to avoid mistakes since everyone has difference expectations, goals, approaches, and affections. emotionally though, the only thing that my spinal cord understands is the pressure to be perfect. how i can tell that i'm really fucking cooked is how i don't actually fear punishment or horrific repercussions, i'm much more afraid of the inferiority itself. experience tells me that's symptomatic of feeling like i deserve punishment.

the second thing, the suddenness. in hindsight, in my head i've like completely written off the possibility of having a relationship. this didn't bother me, i'm demi and i just kind of figured i would be single for a super long time until i simply felt like having one some indefinite time later. having 3 girls express interest in one night, really breaks the whole illusion of existing in my own bubble. honestly it hadn't occurred to me that other people could want me before i wanted them. well, that's not entirely true. i have rejected tons of people, i actually quite enjoy being a tease, but the key difference is that they were all either men or otherwise people i dislike. what i truly never expected was that women strangers could approach me. upon reflection i think i assumed i was unapproachable to the kinds of people i'm attracted to, and if i felt something then i would be the one to approach them. as it turns out, the world doesn't work like that. the perspective i believed is shattered.

speaking of shattered perspective, the third thing. this is absolutely the first time i've considered any kind of romantic intimacy or dating in many years. confronting these demons now has me realizing i've repressed all my romantic yearning for quite a while. feeling like i'm wanted is hitting like a truck, since as it turns out i've secretly wanted to feel wanted for a long time. a secret to me, at least. in reality, i think it might go back much farther. one of the feelings that made me realize i was trans in the first place was desiring belonging and acceptance from women. i can feel this particular insecurity worming its way back into my unconsciousness. it poisoned me when i was with my ex as well, i had such an insatiable hunger to absorb feminine traits/skills from her, and losing her felt like losing my only outlet for exploring femininity, the end of the world. as the adage goes, i probably wanted to be her more than i wanted to be with her. anyway, this feeling, trigger maybe, is coming back and is very likely entangled in all my attraction towards women. i'm finding, coinciding with the full moon in taurus, that i am indeed yearning steady romance and sensuality. i'm not even actually attracted to any of the 3 girls from the party that started this whole thing. i'm just scared because my understanding of myself was wrong, i'm also just scared of intimacy and my own unhealthy patterns.

what's really fucked up is that i knew this would come eventually, i just didn't expect it to be now. it feels too soon, which makes no sense. i never had an expectation of how long it would take. now, it makes my ribs bend and my heart sink knowing that the only way to heal these attachment wounds and triggers is to directly refute them by having healthy relationships. i just feel such all-encompassing dread thinking about inviting that evil within back into my life. no doubt, these are my strongest and most debilitating triggers, and i do not want to feel them again. but this fucking dread will never go away if i keep running away from it and pretending it's not there. i'm depriving myself of health and fulfillment. i have to do it scared. funny enough, none of this apprehension comes from communicating these triggers to someone. as it turns out, establishing boundaries with a receptive person is easy, and so is cutting out unreceptive people.

that said, i don't actually have anyone in mind. i'm pretty sure i'm not attracted to anyone in my circles, including the girls from the party. demi attraction is so fickle. i think what i have to do instead is come to terms with how i'm feeling, then find the strength to talk about it with my closest supports, then i guess generally change the way i interact with the world. i mean i've already felt extraordinary confidence in my body and soul, what i think i have to change though is that i still implictly uncritically assume myself unworthy of some normal fucking things, like relationships. unravelling this trauma shit takes so much time and active energy dude it's so exhausting. at least i'm doing it at all, and i've done a ton already.

11-06-2025

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gas

- 09-29-2025, diary

in a bind. not going to lie, up to this point in my life i never seriously thought i would experience financial hardship. primarily because i consume almost nothing, i steal shit constantly, and i have zero inclination to materialism. secondarily because for most of my life i thought i would be dead before i hit independent adulthood. and finally, because i fucking figured 10 whole months of job hunting would actually, y'know, land me a job. even if only for a little while. fucking anything would help.

yeah i guess this is where i'm at now. well, realistically, i've been forgoing things i really want and need for months now. sleeping on an air mattress for a year and a half to avoid mattress and bedframe spending, keeping my pre-transition and worn out clothes to avoid shopping, skipping meals, missing doctor's appointments. but now i'm really there, at the end of the rope. i can no longer afford my share of the rent. my friends and support networks are willing to do so much more for me, even more, it actually baffles me, and no matter how much i grapple with my self-worth it feels like i simply cannot deserve it.

what i actually feel like i need to write about though is the anger and exhaustion. first off, how the fuck does 10 months of job searching yield not even one single callback? i've applied to nearly 150 places, in all kinds of menial min wage service positions, and complete silence. i've taken courses to expand my marketable skills, had resume consultations, i keep white lying about shit. people tell me the market sucks and i have to keep trying, but surely this can't be the average experience. i think the reality is that australia is xenophobic as fuck and nearly every business refuses to hire immigrants. every fuckin place needs to know my work rights, which feels like it's specially created to catch non-citizens in the first pass, even though my actual working rights are literally identical. a friend of a friend here went back to america because he couldn't find a job within 2 years.

hand in hand with the injustice i face is the stagnation. like i said, i've been festering in this state of refusing myself necessities to afford medicine and rent for months. that also means i can't really meet friends at places, for dinner or for concerts or things like that. i just kind of stay home and poke away at more job applications until i pass out in my chair, since my air bed is too uncomfortable to get a night's rest. when my bestie turned and left, she also ousted me from half of our mutual friends, so suddenly all my acquaintaces have cut me off, all from rumors. i feel powerless. i feel unmotivated to do things i like. stagnation feels like regression.

the only things keeping me going are my current close friends and the feeling of breaking through when things finally do pan out. it unfortunately has just taken too much time to, so i don't really know how else to stave off destitution. the only thing i can think of are commissions. of which, my only art that i can sell is my webdev capabilities. i have VERY strong feelings towards the practice of producing someone else's personal hobbyist site or blog. but this is the fucking vise grip of capitalism, isn't it? you have to compromise your principles to make a buck. idk, i'm probably smart enough to find some way of doing it that is productive and doesn't totally sacrifice myself. honestly though the more i think about it and the more it feels like i have to, the less and less i can bring myself to commit. especially when i have no experience doing this sort of thing, i don't know where to start, i'm very limited when it comes to... ADVERTISING (i'm going to throw up), and there are so many extra steps to setting up payment in multiple currencies. fuck.

well, in the process of venting, i guess this also ended up being a bit of a cry for help. if you, the reader, can offer advice with beginning commissions, or any suggestions otherwise, email me.

09-29-2025

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chase

- 08-10-2025, diary

i think i have a lot on my mind right now and it's all catching up to me. today i woke up feeling like shit and couldn't get out of bed, and the lethargy has only gotten worse the longer the day goes on. i'm restless and exhausted, i want to do something and nothing is appealing. maybe i'll feel better soon since the sun is setting, but it's eating at me why i feel this way at all considering i shouldn't have anything to worry about. i've had a great last couple weeks, and a good last few days.

first of all, i had another nightmare where all my teeth fell out again. that only happens when i'm dysregulated for an extended period, days usually, even throughout sleeping. so that's how i know something's wrong. stressful or triggering nightmares are definitely enough to ruin a whole day for me, which is probably the reason why my day feels ruined today, though they never show up randomly, they manifest only when i have compounding dissociation.

i mean, since the last entry, a few things have happened. less than a week had gone by before aforementioned housemate moved out and cut us off overnight. i'm still sad about it because i care about her and she's sick, unrecognizable even, evidently though she thinks i'm dangerous or unsafe. i don't regret it because now my house without them feels safe and cooperative, a feeling i didn't quite know i was feeling until i felt its absence. this very closely mirrors how back in june my one community immediately improved without the one toxic person. in july my home and housemates immediately improved without the one toxic person. i suppose lately i've been thinking about yet another toxic person in my life. this friend is my oldest friend, and i'm pretty sure he's shown up in my diary as a pain point before. we tried catching up over vc the other week, and we chatted for a few hours, but nothing about it felt very genuine. my guard was up the entire time, and he seemed to be a bit manic, maybe that was the whole reason why he reached out in the first place. after about 4 hours i opened up a little bit about how shit i was feeling with the whole housemate situation, and explained most of the long story. toward the end i could tell he was splitting really really hard at me, said he had to go, and abruptly stopped the whole thing. it's been almost 2 weeks and we haven't spoken a word since. i know it's not really his fault he splits like that, but i don't think that i can fucking handle anyone with bpd anymore. period. i think i'm really beating myself up over it too, like i feel like a huge asshole for blanket stating i cannot even be in the same room as people with bpd. the reality of it though is that this is a massive trigger, potentially my most painful. splitting doesn't feel good for anybody at all, i know that, however for me it feels like getting hit by a truck. and i'm so fucking familiar with bpd that i can recognize parts of the entire cycle, even if the person is totally fine at the moment, i'm just so terrified of when the shoe will drop, and because of the nature of bpd it always does, and then my paranoia feels confirmed, and it's just a whole spiral. i hate feeling uncompromising. i'm pretty sure that in and of itself is rooted in always needing to deescalate conflicts, negoatiate, appease, or enable.

the other day while i was out at a function, i merely overheard that someone's partner whom i had never met was having a bpd meltdown episode over text. looking back on it now even just hearing about it then sent me into a panicked dissociative episode for at least 2 entire hours. at what point do i become the bad guy? my triggers are my problem and they're my responsibility to learn how to cope with. i shouldn't automatically reject people for their disorders they have no control over. but here i am, still letting this relationship i have with my friend just slowly fester and decay because i'm literally too indifferent to bother reaching out. i simply don't want to talk to him, and i haven't for several years at this point. should i care? should i be more patient with him? should i rip the band-aid off and tell him straight up we aren't friends? should i prioritize myself and be more selfish? am i really going to cut off a 3rd childhood friend in a 3 month span? is there something wrong with me?

i'm doubting my own judgement so harshly. normally my convictions are so strong, but i really can't get the words of my friend whom i cut off in june said. "flight risk" just echoes around in my mind all the time. i can't fucking believe i'm letting it get to me so much, he tried to hurt me so bad and he fucking succeeded. he dug his fingers right into my oldest wounds; disloyalty. i have to cry and scream at myself that i don't give up on people, that people decide they don't want me, but emotionally i just can't get it. it always feels like my fault when i lose people, even when i'm running away from them. emotionally i still don't understand in what world is it ok to give up on people. fuck man, it's not even like that in reality, there is no "giving up".

ugh, things don't have to be so black and white. clearly i've known this guy for the majority of our lives, and i've been stuck in his cycles one way or another for like 17 fucking years. i think i have every right to decide if i want his company or not. meanwhile, it's understandable why i would be triggered around other bpd strangers, but it's not ok to be prejudiced against their very presence. i'm in control of my own life, and i can choose who i do or don't let into my closer circles. that's so much more humanizing of a rejection. idk, i have to sit on these emotions until they pass. at least logically i think i found the path forward. i need some fuckin ice cream dawg

08-10-2025

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