UA's Sanctuary

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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FLIGHT RISK

- 07-11-2025, poem

ghost passing through the icy veil
inhabiting bodies she is disgusted by
eons lost in the suasion of false angels
convinced her suffering is virtuous

the traitor smiles in the mud
rending away the gossamer strings
a putrid trail of wilted flowers
forsaking her world for her own sake

she should be ashamed.

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The Moon is Upside Down

- 07-10-2025, essay

The following work is the essay I published in Vol 4 of the STAMPED zine project. It's a zine dedicated to sharing the voices and experiences of minority immigrants in the Australian system. This issue's theme was DEPARTURE. All issues of STAMPED can be read for free on their website. And to the Neocities community that was there for me during my lowest, a special thank you.

✧˖°.⊹⋆˙⟡₊⊹

I remember first stepping out of the airport on a dark 5am morning in mid-June. 23 hours of flying and now everything was the complete opposite, day was night, summer was winter, and the waxing gibbous was waning? Talk about feeling like an alien. The moon is very important to me. For a long time, she was all I had.

My life I left behind in the United States was hardly a life at all. My early childhood was characterized by violence, being hurt at home and hurting my peers in turn. I was sent to the police at 6 years old for sociopathy, and walked out with an “autism” diagnosis instead. My f*mily knew I was a sick child, yet they were too beholden to their image of a perfect suburban American family to listen. Instead of supporting me, they stuffed me in the attic, only retrieving me to pose for plastic dinners and idyllic holiday photos. They refused to teach me basic life skills so I would remain dependent. I gradually relented as I matured, preferring total isolation over the brutal cyclone of my f*mily life and the murky waters of socializing.

I hadn’t quite realized how bad things were, although I was glad to go away to college. I could maybe spread my wings a little, step out of my cage for a bit. Of course, the pandemic had other plans. Back to the box I went. I put up with it, it was what I was used to. It was all I knew. Solitary confinement was uneventful and taxing. My anxieties multiplied year after year. I never learned how to take care of myself, always afraid of failing fundamental tasks, expecting neglect and malice from everyone, crushed under pressures I couldn’t understand.

After college, my f*mily woke up to the fact that I was going nowhere fast. They chose to grow hostile rather than helpful. Naturally, I got tired of being berated every time I showed my face, so I stopped showing my face. I no longer participated in the rituals of dinners or holidays. I became nocturnal so I could sneak around my own house at night for food. My f*mily, ever spiteful, eventually started throwing out leftovers. They knew I couldn’t cook, they purposefully never taught me, and they knew I couldn’t order food, I was so paralytically agoraphobic. The message was clear, I was being flushed out with starvation. I rebelled, surviving on forgotten cans and expired morsels in the back of the pantry for nearly a year.

During this affair, she came to greet me. The moon. Her radiance gave me the strength to carry on. Her gentle glow drew me to finally venture outside, to take walks around the neighborhood in the middle of the night, if only for a brief change of scenery. A quick breath of air. A small taste of freedom.

In the slow agonizing process of coming to terms with the trauma and grief, under the moon’s motherly guidance, I discovered I was transgender. She offered her embrace when nobody else would. We both knew this was the last straw. Truly there was nothing left for me here. Soon after, I desperately pleaded to all the people I knew on the internet: please get me out of here. One of my longest friends said she had space for me, could provide for me for a little while, and could teach me the life skills I yearned for. The promise, the hope, and the moon granted me the willpower to overcome my crippling anxiety. I went to get medical clearance, I went to the bank to open an account without my f*mily on it. And on that fateful, sunny, stifling June morning, I walked out of my house for the last time without a word to anyone.

Landing in Melbourne, dazed and scared, nothing was familiar. Not even my most reliable tether was safe. As I stared up at her through my own misty breath, I understood her message. “Things will go differently now,” she whispered, “and I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s been about a year since then, yet the pain of my old life feels centuries away. I go out and about on day trips, I meet up with friends, I create art, I shop, and sometimes I make dinner for the very same friend who rescued me. For three of these recent months I travelled the Victorian countryside fulfilling my visa duties, enjoying more and more hospitality along the way. In those gorgeous unpolluted mountains, I basked in the moon’s unbelievable brilliance, and thanked her for everything. The kindness afforded to me has taught me the proper meanings of family, love, and safety. It isn’t lost on me that my security is always in jeopardy as a migrant, however my newfound sense of belonging melts away my fears. Australia is undoubtedly my home, and my future is built here. Even if the moon is upside down.

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