UA's Sanctuary

toxicity

- 06-19-2025, diary

last few days have been hard. something that really triggered me, i knew it would, was an egregiously invasive health exam sanctioned by the government for my visa extension. i already did one a year ago, for some reason the govt wanted an identical record of my medical history, and they forced me to pay nearly $1000 for it in total. when i arrived at this evil building i was put in the patient processing assembly line with about 60 other migrants, cycled in and out of changing rooms and nurses' stations. most of it was a blur, i was blind with anxiety and the resulting dissociation. i barely felt anything, but i could tell i felt vaguely awful, so i treated myself to some kfc on the way home. i didn't start returning to my body until i was at my desk again. very gradually that awful feeling came to the forefront, and i recognized it for what it was: violation. i felt violated and humiliated. i remembered some of the questions the doctor asked me, and it turns out that doctors who choose to work in a private insurance company office who also get to decide the fates of immigrants don't have great bedside manners. questions about my history of self-harm and wanting to see my thighs, about how much time i really need to recover from getting blood drawn, about the effects of hormones on my genitals. it's been a really long time since i felt violated, i almost didn't register it, truthfully though it is deeply implanted and utterly unmistakable.

if that was all i had to go through though this post probably wouldn't exist. the same morning, my online best friend of 7 years made a rash decision to kick another long time friend from the server. this marks the 4th person that left the place somehow in the last year. for any long time readers (lol) you might've heard about this problematic married couple. well the problematic husband is my best friend of 7 years, and his wife during this drama left discord altogether. everything about this situation was a red flag, and i spent a long while thinking it over. since moving to australia i've made quite a bit of distance from this group, what with my life getting so constantly busy and the 15-hour timezone difference, despite that group previously being one of my only safe spaces ever in my life. because of this distance, when my friends kept leaving one by one, i felt like i didn't have the context or anything to say anything about it one way or the other. when asked for my opinion on drama i would just kind of deflect, try to play both sides, or stay silent. this instance though was different. the friend kicked this time was a really long time friend whos been involved in everything since the beginning along with the husband and i.

now we've had conflicting political opinions for a grip, maybe since forever, but that didn't used to get in the way of us enjoying each other's company and having good times as people. things have clearly changed. some kind of disagreement happened, and what came out of it was this friend admitted he doesn't trust the husband anymore. the husband took this as an attack, some kind of media brainwashing, and he believed this friend was a fake all along.

i do not need to know the context or the conversation to know what the fuck is happening here. it made me upset for days knowing that my best friend was becoming radicalized, starting to alienate everyone and isolate himself (and his wife removing herself from everyone outright) out of paranoia. i cried for so long coming to terms with having to cut him off even temporarily. this morning i mustered up the words to tell him the truth, that the vibes are really off when all of our friends keep saying they don't feel safe around him, that i'm tired of playing both sides and waiting for people to get better, and that the problem is the way he treats people instead of any petty political differences. i told him how grateful i am for his company and his safe space when i had nothing, how much he means to me. i said i do not want to lose him, but i'm at the point where i'm uncomfortable too and i want some time and space to myself, then i left.

within 20 minutes he dm'd me. some shit about how stupid i'm being and how fake i am. telling me that actually i'm a hypocrite and all that clearly means nothing to me. i fucking snapped. i full on blew up right back at him. how fucking dare he? he immediately showed his true colors and disrespected everything about me the moment i showed the first fault in my loyalty. the part that fucks me up the most is that i was afraid that was going to happen, part of myself knew this would happen. i hate being right, i'm so pissed off. he said some disgusting shit about me making stupid decisions because the media made me scared or whatever. no, you dumb cunt, i am scared and i'm scared of YOU. that's why all your friends are gone now. the close friend you kicked, and me, your best friend who you blatantly lashed out at just to cause pain. i blocked him before he even finished typing.

i'm just so angry and sad, and completely exhausted. i decompressed by walking laps in the nearby cemetery, taking in the cold wind and grey skies. it's hard to believe it all ended like that. to help with the grief i've already started analyzing the good things to takeaway. i think i communicated exactly how i wanted to, compassionately yet selfishly. as much i hate feeling anger, i'm so extremely proud of myself for getting outraged and using that sheer rage and power to defend myself. it was warranted and i am justified. i didn't say anything i didn't mean, yet none of it was intended to wound. it feels great to be able to rely on myself to stand up for myself. all throughout the process i've been telling myself it's ok to cry, it's very appropriate and normal to let it out. after such an intense and harsh loss, i am so glad that i have such control over my emotions, i can express them so naturally and shamelessly. it has made these stages feel so manageable, not horrible, not eternal. something like this in the past would've been impossible to deal with for weeks. i also remind myself that most of my life exists right here, all around me, within my very hands, not stuck online. my housemates made themselves fully available for me today as soon as i told them. i already have been moving on this whole time. my journey forward continues unimpeded, perhaps with even less weighing me down.

06-19-2025

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The Moon is Upside Down

- 06-05-2025, essay

The following work is the essay I submitted to 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 seemingly 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. I mellowed out as I aged into a teen, preferring total isolation over the brutal cyclone of my f*mily life and the murky waters of socializing. 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. Refusing to teach me basic life skills so I would remain helplessly dependent.

I hadn’t quite realized how bad things really 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, never learning 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 relented, surviving on forgotten cans and expired morsels in the back of the pantry for nearly a year.

During this affair was when she came to greet me. The moon. Her radiance gave me the strength to carry on. Her gentle glow drew me to finally step 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 all 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 was sheltered from. The promise, the hope, and the moon granted me the willpower to overcome my crippling anxiety. I went to get the medical clearance, I went to the bank to open a new 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, I was welcomed into the rich queer culture with open arms. I’ve learned so much, I’ve met so many wonderful people, I’ve adopted the idiosyncrasies of the city, I’ve (mostly) figured out the slang. I’ve built my entire future here. Finally I know what home, family, love, and safety actually mean. The pain of my old life feels centuries away, but it’s only been about a year. I am reminded everyday my security is in jeopardy as a migrant, though my newfound sense of belonging melts away my fears. Even as I write, as I travel from stranger’s house to stranger’s house in the rural countryside for 88 days, Australia is overwhelmingly my home. Despite the moon being upside down.

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understanding

- 05-25-2025, diary

hihi long time no see. at the moment i'm still working and travelling rurally to fulfill my visa extension requirements. long story. either way, i'm 81 days into my 88 day labor, literally only a week left of the 3 months. i could talk at length about everything i've experienced and learned in the last 3 months of couch surfing between strangers' homes in the australian countryside, moreover i could talk about everything that's happened in the last year, my first real year of being alive.

i need to keep my scope narrow, however. i'm always self-analyzing and pulling weeds minimum 4 hours a day gives me plenty of time to reflect. i've had an epiphany pertaining to my self-expression, art, and this website by extension. i write a lot, it's something i enjoy doing. for a long while i haven't felt much need to, nor do i have much time to, but it's something i come back to either for fun or for coping. along those lines though i've always wanted to get into poetry, but never felt like i could. finally noticing this was ANOTHER weird always-been-there self-imposed dissociated barrier probably from creativity trauma, i sat on it for a while.

what i found was something deep yet cathartic. writing abstractly has always been hard for me because i was never understood. every time i write, i feel like what i'm saying NEEDS to be understood. i agonize constantly over how my communication is coming across, if i'm understandable. writing in metaphor is so difficult, not because i can't think or write in the abstract, but because i am dreading the possibility of being misinterpreted, misconstrued, misunderstood, misheard. anything of the sort that i do write ends up feeling constricted or amateurish, since i'm focusing on ways to say them that are easy to grasp. and honestly now that i know that i think it's fucking stupid. i'm glad i figured that out so i can hold myself more accountable when writing. i want to do it so i just should, fear or not. do it scared, as people seem to say now. i've proven to be courageous a thousand different times by now, there's no reason i can't for this one.

i hope that this is another big step towards my ultimate goal of rekindling my creativity. my sense of creativity was completely suppressed and deadened for most of my life, and i know how much i crave to get it back. it's a journey i've been undertaking by myself, extremely slowly and gradually chipping away at fractional aspects of it over time. this site was created initially for that purpose, even if i wasn't nearly as self-aware then, and i return to it now with the same goal in mind. i'm putting poetry on my site, again, to hold myself accountable that i should make it and post it and it doesn't matter how illegible it turns out. that's what poetry is. that's what writing is. that's what art is. that's what expression is. that's who i want to be.

05-25-2025

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