December 2023

2023.12.31

It's New Year's Eve, but but for me, today is just another cloudy day. I made it out of bed at lunch time and I've got a pot of oatmeal on the stove. Eating will help me to feel better, I think.

Still, 2024 is pretty exciting, huh? Even when I feel sad, I can look forward to new things. I bet I'll have a lot of fun next year, and I will meet many new people and learn lots of different things. I'm excited to see how Vivarism grows.... Today I am going to make a brand new diary template, which I will surely enjoy. I love web design.

Before that, though... I want to write about some other things, just to get the thoughts out of my head and onto the page in a digestible way. I've realised that, apart from keeping records, these diaries are a helpful midpoint between my totally private journal, in which I am wont to scream and rage without limit or logic, and my real-life conversations, wherein concision and coherence are my top priorities.

Like this, I can bridge the gap between my feelings and the beautiful struggle of articulating those feelings... because it is beautiful. What could be more precious than making real and known that which, until recently, existed only inside of me? These are articulations are pure expressions of my soul— as pure as I can get them. Like anything else, it's a skill to be learned.

Anyways, to start: remember the weird David and Goliath thing I wrote about in November? I couldn't keep up that kind of self-talk with any consistency, but the idea never left me. It was a profound experience, the sort that you don't really forget. And then, by pure happenstance, I stumbled upon this thing they call Internal Family Systems (IFS) a few days ago. And to explain what that is, it's just... like, it's literally the process that DIS-SOS was describing, LOL. She just didn't call it by its proper name!

Maybe it would have saved me some trouble if she had. Maybe I would have started reading the SFHelp.org website a month ago, and felt just as intrigued and inspired as I do now. If that was the case, then I would have better understood the obstacles in my path, the true source of my pain, and the actual rememdies that will bring me closer to contentment and serenity.

Maybe then I would not have been in such a hurry to get a job, which I have deluded myself into believing is the be-all and end-all of "healthy adult behaviour." If that had happened, perhaps I would have been spared the stress, the shame, the disgust, and the confusion of yet another failure. Instead, I would have used my heightened energy to kickstart a more sustainable, wholistic healing process.

But none of that happened. I can't go back and change it now, and it seems like it would be inappropriate to ask DIS-SOS to edit her own article. I'll just let it be... I don't want to blame her or anyone else for how things are right now— not even myself. This moment, Right Now, is all I have to work with. These are my confines. What do I have?

... well, oatmeal, for one. It's almost ready, and jeez, I am hungry! I'll write more after I've eaten. It's kinda hard to think like this.

... Okay, fyuu, I'm nourished now, and I took all my vitamins and put on some music. I feel more normal, now, more centered and at peace. While I was eating— and even while I was lamenting that alternate reality up above— I thought about how an earlier awareness of IFS may not have changed anything. The rush of energy and hope I felt in November is the complete opposite of "hitting bottom," which I ostensibly will need to do before I can commit to real change.

I wouldn't call this most recent failure my "true bottom," just because my despair is not nearly as deep as it has been in the very recent past. At the same time, I can very clearly see that something's got to give, and I am very much tired of living the way I do.

Either way, I'm not going to make anything worse on purpose. I'll keep striving for the bare minimum of health and functionality. I'll make sure to eat and drink enough, to have a shower sometimes, to speak to other human beings when I can muster the courage, and get plenty of sleep. Right now, that's all I want to do... and I'll keep reading about IFS. To me, it seems really promising.

I think the circumstances during which I discovered it— belated or not— contribute to my overall interest. It was Thursday night. I'd just read Ben Tolkin's review of Homestuck, which is a great read even for those who (somehow) have never heard of it. He talks about the way those of us who grew up on the internet process information, and how nerds love depth, and... Honestly, the essay is really very good. Let me just reprint what he said here:

People who grew up online don't think of the Internet as a series of hyperlinks. Clicking a link has become such a natural motion it doesn't register as traveling from one place to the next. The Internet is just the air we live in, and acquiring information is as easy as breathing.

If you want to freak out Millennials, don't show us old records or rotary telephones; we know enough hipsters that those objects are familiar. Tell them how hard it was to get an answer to something before the Internet. You needed to go to the library to learn facts. Read the paper all the way through to know what was going on. Most unimaginably of all, how sometimes, before the Internet, you wouldn't know something and you just couldn't find anyone who did; you just had to live with unanswered curiosity. That feeling of not knowing is completely alien to the current generation.

Now the ability to know is so present you can feel it behind your eyelids. When we're curious about a restaurant, it's an instinctive motion to pull out our phones and find the opinions of hundreds of strangers. Before, after, and during an episode of TV we're reading reviews, commentary, live reactions and summaries. Slightly curious? About anything at all? The information you need is there, and the hyperlinking to a webpage is unconscious; it's there immediately. It's a fundamental part of the way we perceive the world, and even if you aren't constantly gathering data on everything you encounter, the knowledge that you could changes the way you approach life. How have we changed?

First off, the idea that the Internet makes us only appreciate bite-sized, 140 character media is ridiculous. Millions of viewers are tuning in to Game of Thrones, the hyper-complex fantasy series that, in book form, was only stuffed into the backpacks of the highest echelon of geeks. Marvel is dominating mainstream movie-making not with standalone characters but a complicated shared universe that everyone's trying to emulate. Most who rushed to see Captain America: Civil War didn't see at least some of the preceding Avengers, Captain America, or Iron Man films that set up the plot, but it didn't matter; they could just quickly check summaries of the relevant world-building before they hit the theater.

We're all nerds, or at least we can all act like them. The rise of nerd culture isn't an accident, it's a structural inevitability of the way we get information. To be a nerd is to love things thoroughly, not just reading a work but diving into its fictional world, learning its history, theorizing about its rules, speculating alternate plotlines or romantic pairings. (You don't have to love science fiction and fantasy to be a nerd, but this is why those genres are so popular with us. A novel set in the real world offers only a story. Fantasy and science fiction, despite their differences, have united nerds by promising depth, if only for those willing to ignore the real world for the time it takes to dive.)

With modern technology, everything you see has a halo of context around it, as accessible as a memory. You don't need to remember all the characters to watch an episode of Game of Thrones, as every episode will be summarized, each important plot point highlighted, even the easter eggs pointed out online before and after. Millennials don't cultivate our knowledge like crops; we live in a jungle of abundance, and pluck information from the Web as we need.

The final emphasis is mine because that "jungle of abundance" mentality will be important later. For now though, just know that these were the concepts I had in mind that Thursday evening— stuff I would not have been thinking about otherwise. I felt a real appreciation for my technological upbringing, or at least more interested in the way it's shaped my worldview, and validated in my nerdy love for all things complicated— things that beget close reading and deep analysis.

And then of course I felt bad and got into bed, and wanted to read some more about shame, and— just like with DIS-SOS— I waded deep into Ecosia's search results and ended up on SFHelp.org. If you haven't clicked the link yet, definitely give it a try. You'll be greeted by an ancient website decorated with embarrassing clip-art, sharing parapraphs, lists, videos, and every section of text inundanted with hyperlinks.

As a child of the internet, I didn't give it another thought before I just started clicking those links. They led me deeper and deeper into this unconventional but surprisingly unobjectionable world of IFS. I felt like I was solving a puzzle more than I was reading self-help materials, thanks to my nonlinear movement between pages. Most all of them begin with a disclaimer like, "the article assumes you're familiar with..." and lists four or five things to read first. Some of those things were captivating from title alone— like what the hell do you mean, "grown wounded child?" Tell me more!

Needless to say, I ate it all up— or at least as much as I could chew when it was already late at night. Over the past couple days, I've been reading more, and in a more linear fashion, too, though I still greatly enjoy the pop-up links, as well as the occasional diversion into different topics as they pique my interest. I'm just in awe of it all. SFHelp.org is a treasure trove of information, talking about stuff I've sort of heard of before, but never elaborated upon in such detail.

Inner Bonding, for example, borrows from the Internal Family System methodology— just as all "self-reparenting" approaches agree at certain points— but Drs. Margaret Paul and Erika Chopich go to great lengths to simplify the theories. They make things almost... binary? Intentions are boiled down to "open" and "closed," subselves down to "adult," "child," and "spirit," and that's all you need to know about before getting started.

Of course, there are very good reasons for doing this. One, it's more accessible: just about anybody can understand and apply the concepts. Two, fewer points to argue make it's easier to convince a skeptic. And three... people love quick, simple fixes! That's what sells books, retreats, therapies, support groups and audio tapes, after all.

But everything on SFHelp.org is free from start to finish. As far as I can tell, the late webmaster, Peter K. Gerlach, never tried to sell anybody anything (except his book, LOL) and there have never been any advertisements or paywalls. Hundreds of pages of lessons, worksheets, and articles, and apparently a whole series of YouTube videos, too— all freely available online. This is the "jungle of abundance" that Tolkin was talking about.

And because I'm a nerd who loves complicated things, quick fixes aren't deep enough to sink my teeth into. To be honest, I think I just got bored of Inner Bonding, and that's why I've never done it with any regularity. Sure, Paul and Chopich's writing makes me cry and feel real pity/compassion for myself, and I love the worldview they're sharing with all of us, but... it's just not quite right for me.

Focusing is pretty simple, too, at least as far as the instructions go. The depth comes from actually doing it, and I've loved plundering those depths when I had the opportunity, but aren't any ancient webpages catalogueing the inner-workings of my body consciousness... yet. I'd have to make those myself and, as it stands, I'm simply too depressed to make it happen.

The limitations of my mental illness have also kept me locked out of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). It's got the depth I'm looking for, what with its myriad concepts and global implications, and there is certainly a lot available for study and practice. But... in order to really practice, you have to be around other people, having conversations, listening actively, feeling centered enough to both read between the lines of what they're saying and stay focused your own internal dialogue. That's a lot to ask of someone who can't even hear herself most of the time.

I'm isolated— that's a fact. And part of my mental illness is about remaining isolated and distrustful of others, trapped in an approach/avoid pattern where my only chance at consistent contact is codependency and obsession. So. LOL. Obviously, I'll prefer IFS in this case!

Since it focuses first on internal dialogues, I can do it all by myself. Of course I know I need to talk to other people. All human beings need to share love with others, and a big part of healing is learning how to communicate effectively and maintain mutually supportive relationships. But I also have to start where I am, and where I am is all alone in my bedroom.

So... this is where I'm starting. This is what I'm going to do, and I'm honestly very excited about it. On Thursday night, when I ended up on the page where Gerlach lists typical subselves, each with two or three name variations and pop-up windows containing in-depth explanations, I immediately felt as though I'd hit the jackpot. This course is information rich. It's complex, and with the abundance of hyperlinks, it's clear that each strand is carefully interwoven....

I can see myself spending ages exploring these concepts, learning how they apply to me and the world around me, and even making creative projects based off of them. Like, if you think I'm not going to give all my subselves funny names and character designs, you are in for a rude awakening.

I've already done stuff like that a few times, though I never got too deep into it or thought of it therapeutically. Over the years, I've had fun personifying my past selves, and as recently as 2022 I made little OCs as illustrations of various "life lessons" I've learnt. Those projects never went anywhere because, really, I was only doing it for fun. But now, with all this information at my disposal, I'm approaching IFS as (currently) my most viable strategy for living a healthy life.

Well... there ya have it. I always feel halfway crazy when I write long posts like this, especially since I've said at least three of four times now, "this is it! I found out how to save myself!!!" and been just as sure of the solution every single time. I guess that's life, right? It's a combination of my idealism and my stubornness that brings us entries like these. I'm just trying to stay hopeful in my own way.

So maybe this still isn't it, but at least it's something to do. It's something I can learn, and there's nothing wrong with learning. Information is always a good thing, and I am blessed to live in an age where knowledge lives all around me.

Whoever's reading... I hope that you'll keep an open mind— not just to the next crazy thing Flonne's getting up to, no. Please practice healthy skepticism when you read my ranting! I mean, like, in general.

I have eyes and hands and a working memory. I have internet access and appreciable navigational skills. I have a little bit of hope. I have a little bit of tenacity. This is what I've got right now, and I'm grateful for all of it. If you have these things, too, then now is the best time to appreciate them, 'cause right now is all you've got.

2023.12.26

┳ Caution ┳
Today's entry contains references to self-injury and suicide.

The sun came out on Christmas Day, but now we're back to grey skies. It's been a warm winter with no snow and not too much rain. ... I wonder how someone decides when rain is too much? "Flooding" is the obvious answer, and we did have that storm.... But I dunno. I didn't go out in it, or in any weather for that matter. This December was another month spent entirely indoors.

I feel as though my worst fears are coming true: I am not getting any better. For the past three weeks, I've seen yet another decline, and it appears that each time I go down, I get worse and worse. I am ashamed of my conduct. I cannot seem to help myself.

"At least I'm still eating, at least I'm not cutting myself." My resistance of these daily temptations is the only condolensce I can offer. Without resuming these self-destructive habits, I am unlikely to actually kill myself, no matter how regularly I pray for death. I guess that's a good thing.

Basically, I don't know what to do anymore. I have been e-mailing people in my area, trying to find someone who can help me, but no one replies. I rescheduled work stuff so I won't have to start until January because— who knows! Maybe next week, I'll suddenly feel better again!!! As much as I would love that, I'm also terrified at the prospect because, surely, I'll just go down again.

It would be easier to endure this pain if there weren't any reprieves. Then, I would just sigh and accept it as my lot in life. The worst part of being so fundamentally broken has been the expectation that one day I will be better, "good enough," at the very least capable, and the repeated failures to realise that dream, each one leaving me more broken than the last.

I think it's the unpredictability of my moods and energy levels— or at least my inability to accurately predict them— that is so demoralising. It's not even like I'm "doing everything right" and I still fail. No, I'm doing at least 300,000 things wrong and sometimes I'm not even sure if I'm actually trying to get better. I know I need to go outside. I know I need exercise and sunshine. I know I need to stay in touch with my friends and family. I know I need to challenge myself in small ways, record those victories, and revisit my notes to bolster my confidence. I know I need to be kinder to and more forgiving of myself as I try to claw my way out of this dark, depressing pit, because I am ILL. I HAVE A DISEASE. And I bet it's genetic, so it's not even my fault!!!

I know all these things... but instead I isolate myself from everyone who cares about me. I hide in my room and don't even look out the window. I stay in bed all day, and when I have the energy maybe I'll spend a few hours sitting at my desk or reclining on the couch. At the first sign of hardship, I crumble, I give in to my tears and despair. I berate myself endlessly. I call myself the vilest of names— in my head, out loud, in writing. Of course I want to die when that seems the only escape from this hell of my own making.

Where do I go from here? Despite it all, I don't want to give up. I'm certain that, somewhere deep inside, there is a version of me who can live a normal life. I've seen glimpses of her— she must be real.

What about those times that I really enjoyed being social, when I treasured the opportunity to connect with others? Those times I went outside just to enjoy the flowers and the trees? Times when I saw how hard I've been working and other people saw it, too? At times I have been able to create beautiful things, meaningful things, or at least things that made me smile. I've had energy. I've had hope.

Where has it all gone?

2023.12.24

Christmas Eve...! It's a cloudy day, comparatively warm for winter, but I still feel cold in my room. I have on my "ugly" Christmas sweater and I'm listening to holiday parodies of MEGALOVANIA. Even when I am so deeply, deeply sad, I want to feel the holiday cheer.

Apparently I was so deeply sad that I got right back into bed and slept through the whole afternoon. It was a warm, dreamless sleep. I woke up anxious about something, but somehow I was able to soothe myself. I wish I remembered what I said to myself then, because by the time I was fully awake I'd forgotten all of it. I remember only that it was systematic and logical, and that it worked. Perhaps I do possess some innate capacity to take care of myself, something that came out when my subconscious mind was totally relaxed....

Anyways, it's late at night now— usually the hour at which I'd be retiring to bed, but instead I've hopped onto my computer to write and play around. I feel strangely energetic and okay, and I guess that's just life. Sometimes I will be sad, other times I will be happy. If there's anything I should do, it's just enjoy this while it lasts.

Somehow, I feel as though I need permission to be okay because it's disingenuous to feel better. This is the result of the intense judgement to which I subject all of my emotions, and I know that because I often think that it's just as "wrong" of me to feel bad. It's a classic double bind. I punish myself for feeling depressed and punish myself some more when the depression lifts.

... Writing all this makes me anxious, but I keep pretending that it doesn't. Unable to focus, I busy myself with collecting new music. Instead of writing, I hunch in my seat and twirl my hair, then tab away from the text editor. It's tough. It hurts. I don't like it. And I couldn't even tell you what's so bad, anyways....

For some reason my S*undCloud account is in French— maybe I made it when I was learning it in school?— so scrounging music from there requires a little extra effort. I'm surprised by how much I remember, though. I'm sure having little icons and lots of pictures is helping me navigate. Still, my French is much better than my Japanese, and for obvious reasons. Compared to the 3 or 4 kanji I recognise on sight, and the hundreds of others that are absolutely meaningless to me, it's no wonder I prefer the language that uses an alphabet I already know.

Reminds me of the night I tried to read Le génie lesbien and gave up after the prologue, though I found it surprisingly comprehensible. I was proud that I didn't need a dictionary, but I knew that it would take me twice as long to read as any book in English.... Hm. Maybe one day I will study French again, but not tonight. No, tonight I will finally organise my MEGALOVANIA albums.

You know, I came here expecting to write something deep and profound, but then I derailed into random things for my own comfort. What's that all about? I'm so tired of this, I might get back in bed to wallow in sorrow again. Damn. I wanted to share something hopeful, something interesting.... Well, I have totally failed on that front. Whatever.

Of course, there is still time to recoup this loss. I haven't published anything yet. I'm literally still writing the entry. I don't have to publish this at all, or I can just try to add something better tomorrow, or... I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

Good afternoon; it is now Christmas day. I went to bed after all. It sucks to be so sad on a holiday. I don't even want to open the gifts I was so graciously given, and I'm so tired that I can't bring myself to give others the things I worked hard to make, either.

It feels like the end of the world... every damn time... I feel a little bit sad and tired and I just want to kill myself immediately. Sigh.

Over the weekend, I started to write a long "year in review" diary entry. It will have its own special page design and everything. I wonder if I will finish it before New Year's Day? Maybe not. I guess that's fine.

2023.12.18

Overnight and well into the morning, the rain came pouring down. I loved waking up to the sound of it splattering on the roof, trickling down the gutters.... The world felt very peaceful then, as I drifted in and out of consciousness, and my mind flitted from thought to thought. When I was ready to get out of bed, I felt energetic and okay.

I note this because lately I have not being feeling energetic, nor anywhere near "okay," and I have been avoiding this diary as a result. Which is... weird. Because I know that this is my website, I can write whatever I want and I don't owe anybody anything, much less proof of my relative well-being. But at the same time, I feel anxious about letting everyone down again— myself included.

I am agonised by this cycle. Every time I think I've got it figured out, moments later I'm completely upended by— what? Usually: literally nothing! And then it takes me two full days to recover. I spent the whole weekend in bed, barely able to speak, on the edge of despair. In the past it's been worse (much, much worse), but I still think I was right to be alarmed by the sudden shutdown.

It sucks, but this is just how it is. This is the hand I've been dealt. Am I gonna cry myself to sleep over all the other cards in the deck, or am I gonna make the best play that I can? Yes, I'm fucked up and weird. I'm sensitive, I'm obsessive, I'm easily exhausted, and I will have to work twice as hard to acclimate to a world that doesn't make room for delicate people. Such is life.

So yeah, I "worked" for twenty minutes, and then got in bed to cry for two hours. That's just how it is. Other people can work for several hours at a time, or at least thirty minutes straight, but I'm not other people. If I can only manage five minutes, then that's just how it is. If I have to take it all sentence by sentence, word by word, then that's just how it is.

If it turns out that I'm useless after all, that I can't manage any of it... well, nobody will die. Not even me. I will grieve that I cannot be a "normal person," but even the profoundly disabled are able to lead happy lives. There is always recourse; that's my point.

... I see that I am bumping up against the "win/lose" mentality of The Chariot— the oppositional force from my December spread. In recent months, I've tried to stop labeling my struggles with mental illness as a "battle," because it's not really accurate, and frankly it sounds a little stupid. When I think of myself as engaged in never-ending, near-silent, nigh-invisible warfare, I'm dramatising the situation: firstly to make it seem cooler and more interesting than it really is, and secondly because I am clinging to the hope of a decisive victory.

I'll know I've won when I am "all better." When I don't have to brace myself for a sudden spiral into despair. When I'm not fighting off the urge to kill myself every other day. When I can go outside, be part of a community, be a human being. It's hope for a life of peace and joy, a life of meaningful contributions, of ease. Dear God, I just want it to get easier.

I think that is the most accurate prayer I can make. I am never, ever going to be "all better." Whatever disease this is, it lives in me— maybe it even is me!— and there is nothing I can do to make it go away. These are my cards. This is my turn. Am I going to play or not?

It won't kill me unless I let it. I'm crying again, but these feel like tears of bitter determination, perhaps even spite. This, too, is a certain kind of hope, one that holds on even when it is unwise. I'll cling to the spurs of this life, pierced but unspurned, serrated, bruised, burned, but alive. If it crawls, it's not a corpse. Go ahead and bury me; I still breathe.

2023.12.10

Outside there is a bitter wind, a biting rain, and a dark, grey sky. It's a beautiful day to be employed.

That's right— I nailed my interview! On Monday, I'll sign my paperwork and get started with training right away. Mind you, this is one of those independent contracting, work-from-home jobs that anybody with a pulse can do, so it's not really anything to brag about... but I'm still so grateful for the opportunity to make some cold, hard CASH!

Funnily enough, I'm not worried at all about working. Instead, I'm feeling stressed out about my creative endeavours. For about a month now, I've been working on a massive, massive project to consolidate all of my Undertale canon x OC timelines onto one comprehensive, interactive page. I made major breakthroughs on the actual layout and page design— aside for some minor tweaks here and there, that's all taken care of!

But now I'm butting up against the usual bottleneck in sharing my stories... I have to illustrate fucking all of them. Just the thought of it exhausts me. I open up Clip Studio Paint, draw three lines, and then sit there anxious, staring. I suspect that it's my own expectations that I'm struggling to surmount, as absurdly high as they are. I guess I am telling myself that I need to get it done fast, and do everything right the first time. With a mindset like that, there's no leeway for mistakes, growth, or even fun.

I am also intimidated by the sheer volume of artwork to be created. I just counted and I have twenty-five illustrations to create, and at least 5 new character designs to come up with. And because my publishing target is only the vague, high-pressure "ASAP!!!!!!!!" it's no wonder that I'm feeling stressed out, nervous, and like I can't make it work.

So... ah... just writing this out is helping me to make sense of my feelings. I will be more patient with myself, take it one drawing at a time, and focus firstly on the things that excite me. For example, right now I'm on an Outspare kick— it's a relatively obscure UT Fangame and not even my favourite one, but Sans's design is so edgy and cool that I fell instantly in love. The other day I came up with a cute new Goki design to match, and I really, really want to draw them together!!!! Unfortunately, all three times that I tried, I ended up ragequitting LOL...

Again, I think my expectations were simply too high. Instead of imagining some super cool epic awesome final finished piece, I'll just start doodling.... I have the most fun when I doodle, and that approach gives my work the most energy and character. Yes... that sounds right to me. Imagining characters in a scenario, and drawing as many cute/fun permutations as I feel like... Yes, that's what I will do.

Other news...? Hm. Last night, I started to play The Sims 4 again, and I picked up ACNH recently, too. I have all these grand plans for ~vivarism~ inspired designs, none of which have been realised, much less begun. Once more, I've got high expectations and an even higher volume of work to be done. I guess part of growing up is realising that things just take time. None of this is going to happen instantly, and it definitely won't happen without an appreciable amount of effort.

We get out of life what we put in... so I will keep putting in my honest energies, one little bit at a time.

... I just drew my daily card for this entry and got the Ten of Wands, reversed. That is the quintessential card to say "you bit off more than you can chew," "you're overwhelmed by your high expectations," etc.. I am amazed at how on the nose tarot can be, hahaha. Anyways, the advice given by this card is to set priorities. Today, all I want to do is rest, so I'm going to go back to The Sims and just have as much fun as I can.

Keep your eyes peeled for the Vivarism themed house. Eventually I will have something to share with everyone.

2023.12.06

So, tomorrow has arrived. The sun has already gone down and I swear that twenty minutes ago it was snowing. I am feeling better, maybe not "miraculously," but definitely better. Of course my day began with the usual "woe is me," bed-bound sobbing/starving/catastrophising, but sometime around noon I'd gathered up the strength to sit on the couch. Small victories.

I cooked a pot of pasta (the beans are still too labour intensive right now, maybe next week) and read some dense psychoanalytic literature called Treating Severe Depressive and Persecutory Anxiety States: To Transform the Unbearable by Robert Waska. It was written for an audience of professional psychoanalysts, so I went in without understanding most of the terms Waska uses, but still found it pretty interesting.

As I was reading, I was looking for information that would be useful in my own life, particularly ways in which I related to the people described in his case studies. I had some things in common with all of them so far. That's just the human condition, I suppose. I wondered what this weird doctor guy would say about me if I let him pick my brain— and how he would interpret those times that I didn't.

But while psychoanalysis fascinates me, and I know that someone as self-obsessed introspective as I am would have a blast working with someone truly skilled, I noticed that none of those people seemed to be getting any better. Of course, these are purportedly Waska's "most difficult" patients, so that's to be expected, right? But... I dunno. It just seems like a bit of a waste.

Not my problem, though! I've got my own fish to fry!!! And thank God I feel like I've got enough gas to pull it off. Chores to do, appointments to make, interviews to nail.... I can do it. I can do hard things. Surely I will have more days where I am feeling too sorry for myself to get out of bed, but I will also have days where I manage to get up again later, and even more where going out into the world is no trouble at all.

This relapse came sooner than expected— especially since I was hoping it would not come at all— but with the energy I have now, maybe I can make some plans to help myself when it (inevitably) happens again. Not sure what that would be, what I'd want or need, but I guess I have time to think about it.... As long as I'm alive, I've got a chance to try again.

What else can I write about...? What else is there? I guess I've been fixated on my health for a while, so I almost don't care to write about anything else. I have noticed that I get into little "obsessions" wherein I'm preoccupied by one particular "problem," which suddenly seems to be at the root of everything else, the biggest and baddest and most pervasive issue of them all. Then a week or two passes and I've moved on to something else. Funny how that works.

Anyways, I guess I might as well write about Vivarism itself. I have soooo many pages in progress that I've been neglecting for one reason or another. The bulk of the work is to be done in the UNDERTALE section, but I have also been try to update my profile page for many months now.

It's at times like this when I wonder if I should upload my unfinished crap and just call it a day. I guess leaving my Sans shrine mostly empty didn't hurt anyone.... Ahhh, I'll look over all my WIPs again soon, slap on some "God's not finished with me yet" disclaimers, and be not-done with it.

Lol, I couldn't resist the urge to draw some tormented-looking Goki-chans.

Poor thing is a perpetual work in progress.

2023.12.05

I'm in bed again and I hate it. This morning, the first time I tried to write this entry, it was sunny outside, I was at my desk, I'd been brave enough to step out onto the back porch. 15 minutes later, I got back in bed and I've been here ever since. Typing this on my phone feels wrong, but what else can I do? This is what I can manage today...

I am crying a bit because I had big plans for today— comparatively big, big only for me, a person who does practically nothing. I was going to make some bean stew and fold my laundry. Those are the important tasks I'd outlined for today, neither of which I managed to glance at or even start.... Instead I got stuck here in my bed.

I feel... frustrated. I am overcome by the idea that this isn't fair. I want to be okay. I want to be normal and healthy. I understand that my thoughts and actions have a direct impact on how okay, normal, and healthy I feel, but what about energy? Momentum? Is it my fault that I'm so exhausted? What am I doing wrong, and how the hell can I fix it if I can't get out of bed???

Maybe the vitamin's not working. Maybe it was all a sham and I'm doomed. Or maybe all this is just whatever and miraculously I will feel better tomorrow. I won't know until I find out.

2023.12.01

Misty, grey, cold, wet... yeah, it's winter all right. It gets dark so early, too— sundown is something like half 16! Crazy! Normally I wait until it snows to change the season on my magnetic calendar, but if this isn't winter, then I dunno what is.

This morning I rolled out of bed and straight into my text editor, that's how excited I am about December's design. It's a sort of reprisal of last year's, to showcase how far I've come. I really love retrospectives like this, comparisons between new and old. It reminds me that things are always changing, slowly but surely. I grow and improve even without really intending to.

Like, wow! It's been only a year, and yet Vivarism looks totally different! And so much better!!!! It surprises me because I have never consciously thought, "I want to get better at web design." I just kind of picked up skills as I went along, learning from my mistakes and others' successes. Maybe that's another reason why it's my favourite hobby. I put effort into each page, yes, but not so much into "being better"— or worse, "good enough!"

What does that even mean, "good enough?" For a phrase that obviously requires further definition, I find that it rarely ever gets any. And when you hold yourself to undefined standards, how can you ever expect to meet them?

Just something to think about...! Later, though, because I'm having a nice, relaxing day, and I'll gladly set aside my philosophising to enjoy it.

It's so funny how it's only December 1st and yet I'm already looking forward to the New Year. There is something about date rollovers that gets me excited— I think that's pretty normal. The start of something new... yeah, it smells like new possibilities. Every day is a chance to try again, every second, really, but I think our innate capacity for change becomes most apparent at this time of year.

... I said I was going to set aside my philosophising, and here I am, already doing it again!!! Argh, I guess I just can't help it. I'm a thinker. I look like this:

[it's a parody of The Thinker statue where, instead of a man, it's a little black cat]

I guess I might as well think about it some more, then. I had a bit of trouble starting this journal entry because I was thinking about change in general, how overwhelming it can be, and how overwhelmed I have gotten in the past— especially the very recent past.

I remember how much everything sucked... and I get scared. I don't want to go back there! I know I'd much rather move forward! But then I turn towards the future and realise I'm facing brand new sorrows and frustrations... and I get scared again...!!!!

Less than the fear of change, it's more the fear that I won't be able to keep up. My tarot card this month is The Wheel of Fortune, which essentially promises that things are going to change, and it's going to happen fast. Life is going to speed up and push me in unexpected directions.

The pessimistic interpretation is that tons of crap will fall on me all at once, and I will be woefully unequipped to deal with it. I think that's the version I unconsciously chose. "Assume the worst → feel fear" is a very logical order of events, LOL.

But what if the sudden change is in my favour, or something I've been wishing for all along? Like what if the speed increase relates to my creative hobbies? I would really like to write more, write faster, finish something...! I've got a whole year's worth of UNDERTALE ideas to work with, and so many webpages in development...

Haha, just acknowledging my surplus of ideas is invigorating me. I imagined myself spending more time writing and CSSing, now that I have the strength to sit at my desk. Of course, going forward, my time will be taken up by Grown Up Things that I didn't have to deal with before... but won't that make my creativity all the more valuable?