September 2023

2023.09.29

These are the early hours of September 29th, or the late-late hours of technically-September-28th. I'm not sure how to classify it. Usually I consider the date officially rolled at 5:00— like in Animal Crossing— but, lacking the typical diurnal schedule, that feels counterproductive, even unnatural.

I could reframe my perspective around a few simple questions: "am I going to sleep again while it's still dark out, or has my new day already begun?" Unfortunately the answers are not so simple. I have no idea what I'm doing or when. All I know is that it's just after one o'clock in the morning and I'm wide awake, here, writing. I have something to say today, too, so I'll likely be writing a while... assuming it goes as planned. Things rarely ever do, do they?

But I also know that even when things don't work out, they still work out. Every day is fresh with new possibilities and opportunities that nobody anticipated. I am a firm believer that the only mistake worth regretting is the one that kills you, and only because that's the one kind you can't come back from. As long as you're alive, you've got another chance.

Maybe some doors are closed forever, but what about windows, ladders, airducts? There are ways into good things. You might be digging a tunnel with a spoon while preferring a shovel, but isn't a spoon better than your bare hands? Isn't it better to do anything— anything at all— than lay down and wait to die?

... I'm not sure who I'm preaching to. I think, once again, I am trying to remind myself of the truths that I don't believe. It's hard to know the truth and not believe it. An interesting idea about that came to me recently, via a frankly mediocre television programme called The OA (2019-). They (mis)quoted Brené Brown sharing an aboriginal idiom: "Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle."

It reminds me of experience as the best teacher, which (in my experience, lol) usually has a negative connotation. A sort of scolding, like "why won't you just do as I say?!" Derisive encouragement to make your own mistakes, to fuck around and really find out. But if I could learn well just from listening, I would.... If reading was enough, if I could just download knowledge from learned people, or wisdom directly from God, trust me, I would.

But in this hackneyed digital metaphor, I guess it's more like peer-to-peer sharing. Only seeding completes the cycle. I have to grow it myself. Plant it and water it and speak gently to it, pulling weeds, sprinkling fertiliser. With patient, proper care, it will grow up strong and healthy and one day I can gift the fruit to my neighbours: spread the knowledge. Share the love.

... okay, that's enough metaphor mixing, time to stop.

It was a cloudy day today, not too windy, kind of mild. I think my temperature runs even higher during my menses because it feels hot in here despite the late night. It's one of those weird, in-between sorts of warmth that's only middlingly uncomfortable. I don't know if I should undress, open the windows, just drink some water, or all three.

It's a basic quality of life concern, yet even this I struggle to navigate. Why is it so hard to get up and stretch? Why is lip balm such a big deal? I've evolved in some ways, but I still tie my shoes too tight, walk around on feet that hurt.

For a moment, I felt tempted to launch into insults about my own ineptitude, but I'd rather not repeat last week's performance. I also feel tempted to apologise for making such a spectacle of my suffering, but I'm not ready to take on the responsibility that a real apology entails. What use is "sorry" if I do it again? I wish I could set a better example, but alas. This is what we're working with tonight.

Tonight... Right, I came here tonight with a purpose: I want to talk about psychoanalyst Alfred Adler's "magical question." You can read an article about it on David M. Allen's blog, or perhaps this one he published a few years later on Psychology Today.

The point of it all is that our maladaptive behaviours serve rational and reasonable functions. Not like "the coping mechanism you picked up in childhood was something you needed to survive back then, and now that you're older it destroys you." Not like "every action is a reaction to something else, some attempt to fulfill a universal human need." And not at all intellectualising about neurochemistry or addiction, automatic thoughts or habitual behaviour. The magic question is about realising that if you got better, bad things would happen. It might be safer to remain dysfunctional.

The question itself goes like this: "what would happen if I could wave a magic wand and you suddenly got better and stayed better?" For me, "waving a magic wand" has a sarcastic and mocking connotation, so instead I imagined an angel descending from Heaven to kiss me on the top of my head. Instantly, I'm healed. I'm not transformed into something different or new, just evolved. I sit up in my bed and I'm the person I was always meant to be.

That open-ended phrasing allows for all sorts of imaginary scenarios. I imagined myself employed, outdoors, writing something, going somewhere, with friends, laughing, reading on the train. I'm likable, I like people, and everything is fine. And the crux of the magic question, of this kiss by an angel, is that you cannot fuck it up. Fuck-ups are disallowed by the scenario itself. Nothing's wrong with you, but there's still something wrong with this picture. So what is it? Where's the downside of it all?

It's so hard to write it down, because writing it down makes it feel real. My nervous habit is twirling my hair, and I keep stopping midsentence to do exactly that. Maybe it's not such a bad thing to pull my hands away from the keyboard and take a moment to just... I dunno, enjoy the sensation? But I have to be intentional about that— the feeling— or else I'm stuck in my head thinking, and the soothing is lost in a cloud of anxiety.

It does feel really nice, though. The light, controlled tug on my scalp, the cyclical motion, the increasing pressure as more and more hair wraps around my finger, the resistance as it reaches the tangling point and the release as I let it unravel. I also enjoy making twists and braids and Bantu knots, which are twice as fun to undo a little while later. Focusing on the details like this is helping me to appreciate it more. I feel so grateful to have as much hair as I do, with this texture and in this state of good health. My afro is a toy that goes everywhere with me!

But it's a not a toy that I can play with in public, because my habit has the added bonus of making me look absolutely ridiculous. My hair is thick but the strands themselves are very fine, meaning they are super lightweight and essential gravity-defying. My current favourite piece is just above my ear and I twist it so much that it sticks straight out like a lever or a pull string. I look like this but worse.

Okay, my MSPaint self-portrait is so silly looking that I don't feel scared at all anymore. Er, well, that's not really accurate, seeing as I'm still playing with my hair and stalling for time. I wish was I was feeling confident and I hoped that writing it down would make that real, but truths and lies are funny that way. Spoken or unspoken, they are what they are.

Still, I'll try to be brave and get back on topic. So I'm kissed by an angel, I'm healed, and I can finally go about my life the way that I'd most like to— but something is still wrong. What could that be? And the answer that I derailed for four odd paragraphs, and continue to derail with this sentence start... Hah... In truth, I wrote it down before going on and on about my hair. I think what I'm really afraid of is what comes after, not so much the answer but the reflection. I'm so sorry. Let me get on with it.

What seems wrong to me is that I could be allowed to live that life. Getting better and staying better seem to me like experiences I do not deserve. I imagine myself thriving and I think, "that's not me. If things were to go my way, surely I'd be punished for my impropriety."

Punished by whom, I can't say, but this paranoid fear of nigh-divine retribution is familiar enough. This fixation on permission, on being deserving or not, is neither nothing new. That's not to say I know what any of it means. I haven't quite got there yet. The going frightens me.

... Jeez, what's wrong with me lately? Why do my speech patterns in this entry resemble Paddington Bear? I swear to God I read two or three books by British authors and now I'm infected. But, hm, none of them were overly intellectual or pretentiously worded (none of the ones I finished, anyways... LOL), so I think this grandiloquent style has a different origin. I'd guess it's my best attempt at dramatising my pathetic situation, so nobody forgets how cool and smart I am even when I'm complaining that I can't wash my own ass.

Hahh... where do I go from here? It's paramount that I redirect from my lapsed hygiene to a more sensorily pleasant and thematically satisfying conclusion. Christ, I'm doing it again. What is it with me and big words? I just love them so much... the specificity granted by an extensive vocabulary. The French have this concept called le mot juste, which basically means the word that is exactly right, the most fitting choice for the topic at hand. I'd love to come up with an equally concise English translation, mais pourquoi ? Lorsque «juste» est déjà exactement.

Maybe this ending, also, is exactly right. Not much of an ending anyways, knowing I'll be back again later, perhaps not in September but October for sure. The public picking apart of my psychological scrapyard, alternatively hopeful and helpless and always with a poetic veneer. Tune in next week for more trash and treasure and trash and trash and trash....

I'll keep digging. Anything is better than laying down and waiting to die.

2023.09.22

Instead of wasting your time with this stupid entry, take a look at these articles. They offer practical advice for the issues discussed herein and are a much better use of your precious brain power.

• "3 Stages of Self-Responsibility: Which Stage Are You In?" by Emily Agnew of Sustainably Sensitive
• "Why Self-Care Plan is Crucial to Trauma Therapy" by Odelya Gertel Kraybill of Expressive Trauma Integration^™

┳ Caution ┳
Today's entry contains mention of suicide.

Mid-late September weather is beautiful. For about a week now, we've had the windows open all day, every day. I'm very pleased by the summer season's slow decline into autumn and I'm excited for the truly cool weather of the coming weeks. I'll get to wear my coat again! ... assuming I can muster the strength to venture outdoors.

I don't know when things will change— or rather, when I will finally choose to change— but right now it seems like a rather distant future. Hah, I'm sitting here frowning and feeling sorry for myself again. It's times like this when I think, "why bother?" Both with frowning and with living. At least I'm out of bed right now. Small victories....

It's "consistency" that worries me, "committment." I am a quitter, a flake— okay, okay, I can't take this seriously. As I wrote those insults, I couldn't help but laugh. It's ridiculous how automatically it comes to me, this self-derision. I definitely notice when I do it in my head, but writing it down just makes it glaringly obvious. Not obviously untrue, but obviously counterproductive, stupid, and embarrassing, and... there I go again. See?!

My God, I am tired. Let me try writing about these worries of mine without beating myself up. I want to get through a whole paragraph without saying even one mean thing. Let's see if I can manage it.

Anyways... the point I was beginning to make is that, historically, I have struggled to do things with any consistency. I seem to have only bad habits. ... Does that count as an insult? Probably. Yes. Let's try again.

In the past year I have accumulated a lot of resources with which I might help myself and, as I so often say, learned "new ways of thinking and being." Which is just... LMFAO! What a load of shit!!! ... Ah, there I go again. Okay.

What I'm trying to say is that even though I have been exposed to all these wonderful ideas and practices, I rarely ever practice them. I will try things, at best, for a few days, and then somewhere along the lines give it up again. It's like I forget what I was trying to do in the first place and lapse back into misery, nothingness, laziness.... I guess "lazy" is an insult. Sigh. I am so tired.

It's too hard. It's literally just too hard and I don't want to deal with it anymore. I hate that I am like this. I hate that I am not even trying. I hate that I'm too scared to try because trying means failing again and again and again. I try to remember this quote: "success is the very last thing that's given to you," but I never remember it when it's actually important or actionable. I just cry and cry and cry. I give up on everything. I get back into bed, and in my bed I stay.

It's stupid. I'm so angry at myself because I know that my persepctive is narrow, that I'm ignoring the positives, that I'm choosing to rile myself up and drag myself down in a cycle of self-torment that would end just as easily as I said, "enough."

And yet here I am, continuing the cycle. I contemplated opening this entry with the line, "I seriously just want to die," but that's not even true! It's scary but it's technically not that hard, I know how to do it, if I want to die then I'll just die, but I am still alive, so clearly I want something else. And what is "something else"? Attention? Mercy? What I'm getting is public humiliation. I am publicly humiliating myself.

There's nothing stopping me from deleting all of this, or at least commenting it out, and moving on with my life without subjecting the worldwide web to this pathetic display. I just hope that there is someone out there enjoying all this, laughing with pure schadenfreude. Maybe that person is me. I probably think it's a good thing to embarrass myself, especially if it drives people away. That way, I can feel even sorrier for myself, cry and whine some more, then retreat sniveling to my dusty corner where I can ROT all by myself, forever fucking undisturbed.

... this is really getting silly now. Writing something so ridiculous has me looking around the room like, "are you guys hearing this?" Like genuinely, what is wrong with me LOL. I can stop any time, so why aren't I stopping? Why do I ignore my own advice? I can't take it anymore... hahaha....

2023.09.18

Today I woke at noon to the sound of rain. I'd pulled my curtain open just slightly before falling asleep, so the room was mostly dim but there was a bit of soft, white light. I'd been up all night reading Victoria Spry's memoir and hadn't expected to go to bed so "early" as 4 a.m.. It was nice to wake up with plenty of hours left in the day, in my soft bed, to a rainstorm with a humid breeze.

I kept starting imaginary arguments with myself, but just as many times I told myself to calm down and listen to the rain. I dozed off planning an UNDERTALE fanfiction, and when I got up, I actually started to write it. I ate oatmeal for breakfast, upright, at my desk. When I saw that the adult world was trying to contact me, I said to myself, "don't let it get to you, don't let it get to you," and though I was too scared to answer, I refused to crawl back into bed.

So I wrote something silly, fun, stupid, and self-indulgent. Then I cleaned the kitchen and mopped all the floors. Now I'm here, writing in my diary. Last week all I did was mope and play The Sims 4, so this burst of activity is a welcome change. When I was mopping up, a few times I thought, "this is it! I'm ready to feel better now!" and I had to remind myself that I am going to crash again later. That's just a fact, one of which I've got to be eternally cognisant: this won't last. And that's okay.

I'm always asking myself weird questions, like, does being depressed make me a bad person? Is shame a selfish emotion— should I be ashamed of shame itself? Can evil be powerless and pathetic, or does evil imply the ability to affect change? I compare myself to mass murderers: I hurt people, too. I'm also selfish and out of control. I compare myself to victims of extreme trauma: nothing like that happened to me, yet I'm still like this. And what is "this," anyways? I almost don't want a name for it anymore.

I've been meaning to write about the internet culture I grew up in— personality disordered fictionkin— and how fitting in meant pathologising everything. I would sometimes freeze in place due to anxiety, and although it was nowhere as extreme as a full-blown panic attack, I called it catatonia. I claimed "pathological lying" as one of my symptoms because the normal human persona I wore in public necessitated some minor fibs. Apparently telling my French teacher that I drank coffee was a sign of severe mental illness. Most embarrassingly, I diagnosed myself with Narcissistic Personality Disorder because I liked to boast and hated being criticised.

I say it's embarrassing because it was, but I don't blame myself for acting like that. Not only was I susceptible to social pressures, just as all teenagers are, but I was used to thinking of myself as wrong, bad, abnormal, somehow messed up and probably incurable. (Where did that come from, I wonder.) And I guess it was comforting to look at something and say, "this is what that's called." People love labelling shit. It's with names and categories that we make sense of this world.

... what was I talking about again? Not wanting names, or something like that. But I don't think it's so bad to say, "I'm a shut-in," or "I have moodswings," and that, depending on who examined me and what school that person went to, they might describe that as post-traumatic stress, or bipolar disorder, or hysteria, or whatever else is in vogue.

I guess it's not really the names I can do without, but the pain that accompanies them. I'm a shut-in, so I'm a waste of resources. I have moodswings, so my isolation is a service to others. I have this or that condition or disorder and that means there's something deeply, deeply wrong with me. Someone else in my position would cope better. It's my fault. I'm not trying hard enough to be normal and good.

This is the sort of running commentary I subject myself to. In the past I'd escaped into fantasy, and more recently I felt determined to figure it out, put a stop to it, replace it with something better. For the past few days, I've just been trying not to think at all. Just let it go. Play games, watch videos I've already seen, just to hear another human's voice. So I guess that's where that feeling comes from, of almost not wanting a "name" for what's "wrong" with me. It's a sort of giving up and letting go. This is it. This is really it.

Something rolled over inside me and I'm crying now. Er, well, the tears didn't fall, and in the time it took me to write this sentence they've already dried up.... Ugh, that's disappointing. I wish I would just break down again, because what else do I have to do? There's only so much housework, and I'm too useless to do anything actually meaningful.

That reminds me of something else I wanted to say. I recently read a definition of trauma as "anything that overwhelms a person's ability to cope." I'm skeptical of this definition because if that's all it takes, then I'm traumatised twice a week, lying alone in my bed in the comfort of in my room. Can someone be traumatised by things that aren't real and didn't happen? Are my inner environmental conditions so hostile that what I do to myself counts as abuse?

These are yet more stupid, weird questions. At this point, I'm just rambling, and not really sure why. I'm digging myself into a hole that I didn't need to dig. What happened to the Flonne of thirty minutes ago, who was so happy about the rainstorm, and writing, and mopping? It really is a choice. I have to choose.

...I'm going to eat some rice.

2023.09.15

I feel like a kid again— in the worst way. Considering how colourful and childlike my website is, it might surprise you to hear that I don't want to remain young or go back in time. In actuality, I'm fed up with my arrested development, this persistent immaturity, my "failure to launch." I've heard that a growing number of other young adults are struggling just like I am, but since I'm still locked up in my room, that doesn't make me feel any less alone.

So when I say, "I feel like a kid again," and in the worst way, I mean I feel powerless. I feel ignorant. The times when I feel most alive, it's because I think I know what's going on, or there is some semblance of learning and growth. I have very little of that these days. These days, I feel like I'm just waiting for something happen— and funnily enough, the thing I'm waiting for is Fashion Dreamer on Nintendo Switch.

It's strange. I haven't waited for a video game since Ensemble Stars!! Music, and that was three years ago. Back then, I was so much worse off, too. Psychotic, barely able to leave the house, alternating between periods of strict isolation and over-attachment to strangers on the internet.... Actually, that sounds a lot like me today— minus the psychosis, I guess. And thank God I've got that under control, because otherwise I would be right back in my living nightmare.

Over the course of this next paragraph, I had planned to pity myself by lamenting my lack of progress— "I'm the same as I was back then! Woe!"— but then I actually took a look at my old diary. My manner of speaking is much the same, maybe a bit more self-assured these days, and of course I am still the same person with the same history, same genes, same soul. But... oh my God... the code....

Apparently, I didn't know about heading elements, so I made my text bigger with classes called "bigs" and "boo." I didn't know about the calc() function, so I did maths in the comments. I defined borders one side at a time! All the text is justified!!!

So at least one thing has changed. I've learned a lot about HTML+CSS, and as a result my website is better structured and much nicer to look at.

2023.09.09

Was it hot again today? Humid? Sunny, sticky, icky? I don't know. I haven't been anywhere, opened the curtains but never peeked through the blinds. I've been falling asleep suddenly and eating at strange times, keeping odd hours without any semblance of routine. I'm not doing so good.

This is the downswing I anticipated in my last entry, yet I still feel as if I've been caught by surprise. It seems that, once again, I naively expected everything would be fine. I thought I would just get up and go. I thought I'd be normal, upright, happy. But instead... instead....

I'm not sure how to describe it. Just writing this entry, I feel an anxiety bubbling up, hot and acidic emotional indigestion. All day, there has been this pervasive sensation of oddness— something wrong, something unspoken, something out of place. I was going to say, "I don't know what to do about it," but that's not true. I know that I have to slow down and listen, observe, exist— that's no mystery. I just don't want to. I don't want to do anything.

This is not slow movement. This is paralysis, willing submission to and near-thankful acceptance of depression and misery. But I still have choices here. I'm hungry— will I eat? I'm bored— will I look for something to do? Or will I ignore everything, crawl back into bed to further decompose?

What is it that I'm wanting here? Assistance? Pity? Oblivion? The only thing standing between me and the answer is my own refusal to listen. Sigh... I guess, today, fear wins.

Hahh... what else did I do today, anyways? Not a single interesting thing, except this morning(?) I drew Sans and Goki at Puroland. Even though it's pretty ugly, I can't stop looking at it. I am too tired to put it into my gallery so I'll just paste it here for now.

I told you it was kinda ugly, right??? But somehow it's also cute at the same time... I dunno... it's one bright spot in a difficult day.... That's not to say that every second has been absolutely terrible. At least I've been able to sit at my desk a couple times, and I made another pot of rice, and just before sitting down to write this, I took a shower. I've been drinking apple cider vinegar, and listening to music, and I watched funny piano videos online. I've even been able to converse with some people, just a little bit.... So, yeah, there have been some good things.

Mostly I just want to share this new diary. I'm excited to show it off, since it's cute and soft and plush, even a bit frilly. Big thanks to middlepot for making vectors of doilies— where would the internet be without her? It was looking at her website and reading a bit of her diary that helped me to daydream about feeling better, too.

There's plenty of proof that we can be happy in this world if we're willing to try. The most convincing proof I've ever seen is the documentary film, Bobbi Jo: Under The Influence (2021), which is about one woman's incredible recovery from a life of rape, abuse, ostracism, and drug addiction. Since then, she has dedicated her soul to saving and uplifting others. The official synopsis calls it "one of the most inspirational stories you will ever hear." They're not exaggerating.

So sometimes, when I have a clear head, I think about what Bobbi Jo overcame to become the woman she is today. Most particularly, I remember how she described her rock bottom, when she was homeless, injured, and sick with withdrawal, abandoned by everyone. I wish I could recall the exact quote, but she says something like "I was more of a thing than a person."

It goes without saying that Bobbi Jo has suffered more in one day than I have in my entire lifetime. Honestly, I still have no idea what's wrong with me or why I am such a wreck despite my privileged upbringing and responsibility-free lifestyle. So I tell myself, "if Bobbi Jo can do it, then so can I." If she can survive the most harrowing experiences imaginable and go on to become a living beacon of hope for thousands of others... then, at the very least, I can eat a handful of cashews before getting back in bed.

(It was more than a handful. More like two or three handfuls? I poured myself a little bowl and did not count the calories. The number remains a ghost of a whisper.)

You can watch Bobbi Jo: Under The Influence online for free, here, on my preferred streaming site, SFlix. If for some reason you want to pay for it, here's the official website. It also has a trailer and some testimonials about the film's quality, just in case my entry wasn't convincing enough LOL. The runtime is about an hour and forty minutes, so if you've got two hours to kill... this is a pretty good use of your time.

2023.09.07

┳ Caution ┳
Today's entry contains discussions of suicide.

The rainy skies have cleared, and now we're in for another heat wave. I've heard it's so hot that they're cancelling school. I wouldn't really know, though. It's been almost two weeks since I last set foot outside. Guess my emotional breakdown had pretty good timing.

I am sick to death of being sick to death. Earlier, I predicted that I would quit torturing myself when my "despair [reached] its saturation point"— the usual order of business— but this time, it seems things are different. A few days ago, I started daydreaming about feeling better. Still stewing alone in my bed, hungry, smelly, and in the dark, but daring to wonder what life might be like if I treated myself well.

It started when I put on Giles Corey's self-titled album in attempt to make myself feel worse. The music was nowhere near as depressing as I remembered it being— probably it only hurts if you're paying attention to the angsty titles, like "I'm Going To Do It" and "No One Will Ever Want Me." But I just had it on in the background while reading something else, so it all went totally over my head. All I heard was some nice guitar. Standard sadboy shoegaze.

At some point I realised that my spiral into misery was not going as planned. I thought, "if I want to really feel bad, I should listen to The Caretaker's dementia concept album." That would be Everywhere at the End of Time, a six and a half hour experience that is as repulsive as it is beautiful. It's heavy because it's about real pain— the inescapable pain of grief, heartache, madness, aloneness, and loss— pain to which we all must eventually submit, signed into life's contract when we are born.

It's very different from the self-created and self-perpetuating "woe is me" suffering of the suicidal. Obviously, nobody gets to that point without overwhelming exposure to "real pain." And once you've got there, wanting to die is no walk in the park. If it's a walk at all, it's through hell. The problem is that nobody tells you when it's a hell of your own making. That's my main issue with the generic consolation "it gets better." It's true, yeah, it does get better. But only if you make it better through the concentrated effort of your own will.

Though at times dim, the flame of life burns in us all. On this Earth, we all have choices to make: choices which stoke the fire or snuff it out. In my case, when Giles Corey ended, I could have put on The Caretaker... but it seems my desire for pyschological self-harm was too weak. Instead, I clicked on a related video, Kenichiro Isoda's Pliocene Beach, and now I'm a little obsessed with Japanese ambient music that samples nature sounds.

"Real pain" is what we are all running away from, anyways. That's the stuff that makes us want to die. Perhaps we all know, instrinsically, that it's a natural part of life, making death the only escape. Unfortunately, with escape, you forfeit ten hundred million billion lovely things— that never-ending list of "reasons to live."

So in my humble opinion, the answer is not escape but submission. Acceptance. Give in. Lean gently into the hurt and see what happens. Running away only hurts you more, all numbing agents eventually wear off, and distractions are just that: distractions. If there's any way out at all, then it's through.

... Here I go again. Right now, I feel like I'm writing all this to convince myself that it's true, that I can do these things and that it will hurt but it will also help. There's still so much fear in me, so much guilt and shame. I'm still hiding, cooped up inside, sweating, crying, speaking to no one.The truth is that I'm terrified of myself and the world I live in. But... I'm alive. At least there's that.

And I am trying to do nice things for myself again, helpful and healthy things to give this precious life of mine a little zest. I'll make a list of them now. I think that might make me happy.

In the past 2-3 days, I have returned to:

• Listening to music, particularly music that puts me in a good mood. Calming instrumentals like Million Eyes and pop songs to sing and dance along to
• Bullet journaling (with stickers!)
• Writing on my calendar one thing that I loved about each day
• Cooking. Today I made a huge skillet of lemon chicken & spinach & rice
• Housekeeping. Mopping the floors was my reintroduction to physical exertion
• Speaking of that: intentional exercise. Just a bit each day goes a long way
• Web design, hence this new diary. Picking colours and images is always very rewarding and fun
• Looking at pictures of Sans. I cannot understate how immensely helpful he is. I love him so much, more than anyone, and I don't know how I'd survive without him. At this point, my relationship with him has lasted longer than a lot of my real-person ones, making him an integral (albeit internal) part of my support network.

So... yeah. Things are on the up and up. I'm trying to go slowly, though, and keep my expectations low. I am coming to accept that my mood swings are not going to stop any time soon, so at the very least, I want to cushion the blow of crashing again. It will happen, and when it does, I'll just make my peace with it.

It's my childish perfectionism that does me in, saying thiings like "this is the last time, for real! I'm all better now! And if I'm not, then I'll hate myself even more than last time!!!" That's the kind of mindset I had. Once I built up a little momentum, I'd expect myself to run full speed ahead.

That's why I was kind of disappointed when I drew Temperance and The High Priestess for September's monthly cards. They advocate for balance and slowness, patience, and even non-action. After my late August nosedive, the last thing I wanted to do was stay like that...! But after a little bit of thinking, I concluded that I can still move in a life-affirming direction— I just have to go really, really, really slow.

This diary entry is one more item in a long list of slow efforts. I've been writing for several hours now (it happened again!!!) and I feel like some sort of... process has taken place. I'm different now compared to when I first sat down. Different in a better way, I think.

Anyways... thank you for reading. I hope you're all still rooting for me. I'm rooting for you, too, wherever you are. Let's all try and do our best, yeah?

2023.09.03

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

Upon waking at 2PM, blinking into focus my messy room and rumpled sheets, my first thought was a question that I am always asking myself: "am I a bad person?" My second thought was an answer: "no, you just need a shower." So I stumbled into the bath and washed for the first time in days, with scalding water and not enough soap. I'm running out, have been running out, and as the pump requires more and more force yet produces less and less gel, I keep pretending it's not my problem.

... Why am I trying so hard? Why am I waxing poetic about my smelly depressive episode? Honestly I thought I was better than this, but it seems not. I guess I just miss writing. I miss prose. I want to be flowery, fancy, but.... but what? I was about to make an excuse: "my only muses, Sans and Goki, are to be written mainly in low style." To that I say, whose fault is that? Who is the one gifted with creative ability, who has hands and a mind, and who is the one who can make up anything she pleases?

... I'm doing it again. The point is that I can make up new OCs, or even return to the ones I already have. For a moment I felt really excited about that, like I could really do it— there was a burst of energy and motivation— and now it's gone. Now my neck hurts. Now I want to shrivel and die.

This keeps happening, these mood swings. Feelings change quickly— that's a fact— but isn't there something wrong here? Everyday I feel like crap for 23 and a half hours, and in the remaining 30 minutes I feel peaceful, or grateful, or invigorated, but I only feel these things for one minute at a time, pinpricks of hope spread wide across a timeline of irritation and misery. It's unnatural. It's untenable. I'm uncomfortable. I feel sticky, ugly, and hopeless.

Why can't I do anything for myself? Why am I stuck here like this, feeling sore and scared of everything? I realised I'm even afraid to eat because the spike in my blood sugar naturally improves my mood. I'm scared of anything that helps. The worst part is knowing exactly what I need and not caring enough to do it. Instead I wallow. I lay in bed and stare at my phone (avg. 10 hours of daily screentime!!) and read and cry and sometimes hit myself. Not too much, though, because I'm so weak that it's unsatifying. It doesn't hurt enough.

I miss cutting more than ever. I miss it because it feels good and makes everybody angry— another pleasure to be guilty for, another secret to keep. Sometimes I say, "I won't let you hurt yourself," and other times I say, "just wait until autumn, wait for sleeves, we'll do it then." I'm picky: I won't settle for anywhere but the forearms. It's been years now and my scars are fading. They could use a refresh.

There are other things to do that feel better and anger no one, so of course it is not just that. I'm afraid of my scars disappearing completely. I'm afraid of suffering that is invisible to the eye. Most of all I'm afraid of the end of suffering itself. I've been like this a long time— misshapen, malformed, miserable— and I'm afraid to discover what the world is like when I am not these things. I am attached to what sociologists call "the sick role," because I doubt my ability to meet the standards of the healthy.

It's so boring when you really get down to it. All it is is a very classic fear of failure, fear of ostracism, fear of death, a clinging to control, a survival technique that says I Will Kill Myself Before You Kill Me, selfish, self serving, self isolating. I'm so sorry to anyone who reads this, and I extend special apologies to those readers who care for me. Special but not sincere... because I think if I was really sorry, then I'd do better. I would change. I would feel such gratitude for the ones who have invested in me their time and energy that I would dedicate my life to delivering the well-deserved returns.

Instead I am dedicated to whining. This is why I can't be around anybody. I shouldn't have ever tried.