Tuesday, 9/30/25
the day before yesterday, in the morning, i made breakfast for myself, as an act of violence. i stared down the woman my mother hired to be 'our' assistant. she nearly came into my bedroom -- i sleep with no shirt on -- to ask what i wanted for breakfast, and i said, 'nothing yet, i'm not hungry yet. i'll come out when i'm ready.' and then i did just that, and then i sliced my bagel in half, put the two halves of it in the toaster oven, put cream cheese on, and then lox, and then yes, that poor, well-intentioned assistant of 'ours,' i stared her down. she came into the kitchen, behind me, and asked, 'you having a bagel?' and i looked up at her, directly at her, and i said, 'yes, what about it?' i left the kitchen to grab my mp3 player, i inserted the earbuds into my ears, and then i came back in, she said...something, and i told her, 'sorry, i can't hear you, i have music playing.' do i sound like an asshole? yes. i was being an asshole, on purpose. her role in my life is such that she is usually making 'my breakfast' before i'm even awake, she's always in the kitchen before i am, she's always around, and with the attitude of someone who'd work very well with kids. always asking what she can do for me, do i need anything?, do i need help with anything?, she even says 'wheeeee' when i roll by in my wheelchair particularly quickly because i'm...on my way to doing something. is it cute? am i cute? well, not the day before yesterday. the day before yesterday, in the morning, i made it incredibly, obviously, violently clear i did not need or want her there. i even cleaned the plate and put it in the dishwasher, which i don't often do, just to give her nothing to clean up after, no sign i was even there. the thing is, though, is i don't have the energy to do this every day. i don't have the energy to take 'ownership' of daily, mundane processes like that. mostly, i'm just trying to survive, and i mean, i'm not very good at it. last night, i called the second of the two therapists' offices that the community center recommended, and i was able to get on the line this time. i was able to hear as they told me they have a waiting list that's two months long, if you start the registration process virtually, because of course i'm not going to go to fucking downtown, i can't, not yet. this is kind of funny. i said i don't want talk therapy, but i'll try anything once, even if it's only useful as connection to other things, i said i'll try anything once, i'll swallow the bureaucracy and simply smile & nod along to the politics if i have to, if these people can give me an out, because i'm very principled, but i'm also desperate, yes, i am desperate, i will take an out, give me an out, and the person on the phone said, sorry, the possibility of a possibility of an out will possibly come for you at the end of two months, a little faster if you click on this link i just sent you to link your online account to our patient database. and i clicked on the link, and it said, sorry, this link has expired
Saturday, 9/27/25
last night, i guess i remembered one of my worst fears. it’s not something i can articulate by naming a phobia, i don’t think, it’s not like that. it’s more like i’m afraid of death, and life, and time, all at once; i remembered that when i was younger, when i was a kid, and a teen, even, i’d feel as though i was in a little jar, or a room, with a lid on it, or a roof. maybe it was a trapping thing, but it felt safe. i was covered, i was okay. and the jar was inside a jar inside a jar, etc., the room was inside a room inside a room, etc., so it would be a few lids, a few roofs, i had between me and…absolute horror. absolute cosmic-feeling horror, even though it’s just in me, nothing cosmic about it, it’s something wrong with me. i remembered that i’ve always been afraid of getting older, of changing, of having things change around me. existential crises, like clockwork, a few a year, way earlier than most people ever take their first philosophy class in high school or college. i don’t know exactly how old i was when it first hit, when i first had a birthday and got scared instead of happy or even sad. but it was early. i’ve always been afraid of running out of time. maybe it’s what the people call mental illness, but for all the shit my parents give me about being late to things and being blind to time, i was always the one correcting them, ‘no, it’s not 4:00 yet, it’s 3:55, there’s a difference,’ and i’d correct them not out of a desire to be right but out of fear. that fear, that i’ve always been running out of time. time for what?, i dunno. but while some of the lids and slash or roofs over my head were vague, or reliant on passage of time, like how i can’t imagine being 30, that’d be another one, some of them were marked by specific things or occasions. like landmarks. before our old dog died, a couple years ago, i remember thinking, ‘she’s pretty old, but she’s not dead yet. as long as she’s still around, i’m--’ still young? safe? i dunno. something like that. but then she died, and it affected me in a strange way. i was sad, yeah, but there was also fear. because i don’t know what i think will happen once all the lids and slash or roofs come off from over my head, but either i’m going to implode, or leak, or explode, or instead of something getting outta me in any of those ways, maybe something’s gonna get into me, maybe i’m gonna be looking up at the un-hidden sky, shaking and crying because i just can’t take what i’m seeing, how raw and naked it all feels, and there, when our old dog died, one of those lids and slash or roofs got ripped off my little jar and slash or room. i don’t know how many there are left. even now, everything feels too real in a way that makes it all feel unreal. i don’t just dissociate, i’ve had legitimate month-long episodes where i can’t do life because it’s all fake, it’s all a sim or something, i’ve lifted the curtain and there’s nothing behind the curtain but there’s also nothing in front of it when i put it back. and last night, i remembered that when i was…with him, with my ex-best friend, the year that i knew him…that was the only year i didn’t have an existential crisis or an episode like that. in the beginning, it was because i was just so happy, and so grounded, i finally felt real, i felt so alive. the reason for that was odd, too, he actually was obsessed with philosophy and scared of the same things i was to the point where he wouldn’t shut up. he understood me. and towards the end of that year, it was because the grief i felt reassured me shit was real because if it wasn’t i wouldn’t have just lost my best friend. well, so, by now it’s been almost two years since, or exactly two years, i dunno. it’s been a year and a half since our old dog died. i’m not 20, anymore. i’m 24. i’m not 18 anymore. i’m not 14 anymore. i’m not 12 anymore. it’s been more than a decade since the first time i thought about what it would be like to be 20 as if that was some huge, faraway milestone that i would actually feel happy about because it would feel so different and free. and i can’t imagine being 30 to the point where that’s one of the reasons i frequently think about ending things, it feels safer, somehow, more covered, more controlled & controllable, to be the one to end my life, or even to get hit by a bus or murdered or something, to die young, that’d be the point, rather than live on to later give into the inevitability of death as it happens to those who try and live on. but it’s not death i’m afraid of, god no, not in itself, i actually am unlike most people in that i don’t fear death itself. death is like sleep, it’s like the same sort of not being conscious that we practice nightly when we sleep, from the perspective of the dead, and you just go back into the land you came from. it’s kind of beautiful, and honorable. that part is. what i’m scared of is unreality, which i’d have to violently confront if i woke up again in some kind of paradise after i thought i was done, so i’m scared of the afterlife, too, and i’m scared of running out of time. always running out of time. and i’m scared of living. last night, when i was crying my eyes out, it was because it all just sort of hit me, again. i think i’m too stupid, and i made legitimately too altered by brain damage from long-Covid or possibly the disease i already had, to ruminate on things like i used to. so i don’t think i’m in danger of a full episode that lasts for months, not right now. i hope. but yesterday i saw someone i knew from rehab, who i really wanted to be friends with while he performed interest and then abandoned me, his mother died. and if he’s selfish, i’m selfish, too. in the moment, all my anger melted away, i felt nothing but sympathy. but after, hours after, laying there in bed last night, i thought of his mother, and then his sister, because he’d talked about the two always getting into arguments and i wondered about that, and then i thought about my mother, and me, and what it’d mean for me if my own mother died, and how that’d be another lid and slash or roof off, and maybe one day, when my mother inevitably dies, i won’t have anyone else, my current best friend may not be able to reach me, or they’ll have lost interest a long while before, i picture my father dying before my mother, for some reason, and i know the dog that’s with us now will have passed by then, too, and at that point, with nobody left, and i’ll wander out of the house, and look up at the un-hidden sky, shaking and crying, and i’ll start screaming. and then go otherwise catatonic, because i know from experience that grief makes me catatonic, lethargic. i’ll just break, and never come back. i’m just as scared of that, now, as anything else. i’m scared that i’ll die, not in a beautiful, honorable way, but in a cosmically horrifying way, a catatonic, lethargic way. i’ll age into something complacent and feeble and then nothing. i don’t really think people are born to die, life is full of itself, life is beautiful, too, if anyone else talked the way i do about being afraid of life i’d slap them, or hug them, i don’t think all people are safer dying young. just me. just me
Monday, 9/22/25
i don't really know how to feel, or what to feel. something shifted, a few days ago, and i'm finally starting to feel better, i guess...i went swimming at my family's normal pool, instead of our neighbor's, i went out for a walk and made it a few blocks before turning around instead of a few houses, i had a doctor's appointment today and felt mostly okay in the car. these things are kind of...really good, and also not. i was right, when i hypothesized that my only two choices right now were to refuse my parents' help in some effort to retain independence, or to get better; i could do either, but not both. i have nobody else in my life, especially not consistently. i mean, it sort of happened by accident, i didn't actively make this choice; but when i went to the pool, when i went for that walk, when i went to the doctor's, my mother was there. i guess i didn't resist it. again, and again, i keep thinking, maybe this is just how things have to be. i wrote the other day, 'i haven't yet met anyone who's treated me with more care, more respect, only less, she's not just my mother. she's not actually my mother. she's my owner.' and then i said to my friend, as it sunk in, 'i guess i should humble myself; because i need a lot of support, and i mean physical, medical, financial support,' i wasn't even mentioning the effort it takes to care about someone or respect someone, as a human being, maybe it makes sense that my mother doesn't really treat me as a human being, i'm already a burden on her as is. i was talking about the effort it takes to keep someone alive, someone who's 'sick' the way i'm 'sick.' maybe this is how i get better, i mean, maybe this is how i come back to life, and i should just be grateful. but i'm not. i'm confused, and really uncomfortable. even as i'm getting less and less resolute about stuff, even as i get less sure, even as i remain aware she's driving the car i'm starting to feel more & more confident in and she's probably part of the reason why, i can hear certain things -- things i'm not very good at articulating -- in how she talks about me to other people. even while i'm in the room. at the doctor's office today, she called me out for lying, i wasn't, i'd just said something she disagreed with and she didn't want to have that discussion in front of someone else. once we got home, i overheard her talking to a lawyer who's involved with the process of that money that goes to my family -- well, 'me,' but according to the judgment of people smarter than me, i think -- because i'm disabled. my mother was talking about me like...i don't know. but i heard her on the phone again, after that, sounding really excited as she told her latest assistant her rate was getting doubled starting next month. i mean, that's basically who these people are. it used to be that they got hired because i couldn't drive, or because our kitchen is inaccessible, but even before i became a shut-in for the umpteenth time in my life to recover from a medical episode for the umpteenth time in my life, a lot of what they would do would be errands for my mother. or paperwork, also for my mother. some of it relates to me, some of the paperwork relates to me, in the same way that you would think a lawyer involved with money coming to me would relate to me, but i've been locked out of even the things that relate to me. i'm not involved, so i try not to think about it because it hurts to know that i'm either just not allowed to be involved or i'm too stupid to be involved. i was never one for paperwork, anyway. i was always more of an arts 'n' crafts & long walks kind of guy, myself....i hope i continue to not feel like shit. i really do. i'd like more opportunities to do more cool shit, and i'd really, really like to go out by myself, eventually, that's the goal. part of me wonders why, though, in a hopeless sense. the world is a cruel place. i'm about to try and go back out in it. not even to change it, but just to feel it for the first time in a long time. what's the point of that? maybe nothing will change, not in the long-term. maybe i'll try and move out again, but just like last time, i'll crash, and i'll have to go back home, and then i'll be in a situtation a lot like this one, asking myself what the point of it all is....at the appointment, today, my mother told the doctor, in front of me, she's proud of me, because i've been so 'responsible' & 'mindful.' 'i've done such a good job of keeping to a diet, i've even lost weight, i've recovered so well.' i'm no longer fat and ugly, i guess. i no longer 'look' not-fit, not-healthy. i feel like shit about it. i feel like i betrayed myself, but i had to, i was just so scared. but to her, it's a good thing. just like how i mellowed out, and got obedient, when she started this new schedule, when she started taking my shit away from me depending on my behavior, it was a good thing....i'm tired. i'm so tired. i'm still so tired....i just want to go out, and feel good, or okay, i'll settle for okay, so i can take good photos in places that aren't restricted to being a block away from my house. i want to take good photos. that's it. and i don't mean the type that look good, per se, i mean the type that feel good, for me. i don't want to prove anything to anyone, i don't want to have a job, i don't even want to live, conceptually speaking, i just want to take good photos. amen
Sunday, 9/14/25
i'm so done with still feeling tired or nauseous or some other type of sick all the time. i take more pills, trying to avoid the worst of my chronic illness, i mean, what i'm diagnosed with. the thing that's in me all the way down to my cells, the thing that almost killed me, that could kill me if i don't manage it right. and i get a stomachache. the type of stomachache that signals sensitivity to, well, everything; multiple doctors have told me this isn't good for my digestion, the amount of pills i take, it's really, really not good, and if there is any other way to manage my chronic illness i should stop and do that other protocol instead, but multiple doctors have also told me, there is no other way. but no doctor's in charge of my life, i am, so i take less pills, trying to avoid the stomachache, so i can function, so i can do things that matter to me. because i can't do that stuff if i can't eat, or if i'm in pain, or if i'm worried i'm gonna hurl, or even if i'm worried i'm gonna shit. and i get a headache. the type of headache that means my thinking, my memory, are impacted. well, shit. this is so fucking asinine, so fucking cruel, it feels like a game, like a twisted game, like somebody's asking which type of misery would i like to be in, and no, i can't give no for an answer, and i can't skip the question. i'm so done with this stupid game. and it didn't used to be like this. i used to be able to take my pills, and still live, and still eat, and it wouldn't hurt me or make me feel sick, god, i used to love eating, i used to love food, 'shit was sacred & even sensual. it's been half a year since there's been any joy in it. there's not a lot of joy in anything else, either. i feel like apologizing to my pants, my favorite pants, because they no longer fit without a belt. that's how scared i've been, and damaged, i've been. at this point -- i mean, maybe this was true months ago -- i'm living moment by moment, hanging on to the luck of the draw for dear life; if i get a bad day, that's no surprise anymore, if i get a good day, a good hour, that's just okay, that's just okay enough to remind me i'm waiting on a few miracles. speaking of, i actually did call the therapists' offices the community center recommended, just for the hell of it, just to prove to myself i wasn't a useless deadbeat with a victim complex, and i was put on hold. on Thursday, i think. i pressed the button to have them put me on the list of people to call back once a line was available. 'haven't heard a thing
Wednesday, 9/10/25
i got a reply from the community center. they recommended one-on-one therapy, which i don't want, i at the very least don't want talk therapy. and i also don't want to take part in their general community programming, because i've met a lot of these people already -- i used to go some events, before my health declined -- and i kind of don't like them. god, forgive me, but queers where i live are, like, superficial, and liberal, and they define success as having wealth come to them, on an individual basis, beating the oppressors at their own game, and that's not a game i want to play. so no, i don't want to hang out with most of those people. but therapy and community, those are the options i was given, and i'm not sure how helpful it is, but that's not the only reason i got cold feet. i got cold feet because i began to doubt myself. seriously & intensely. i didn't know it at the time, because i felt okay, right up until the moment i was crying, but it was almost a breakdown, even though it felt good, almost revalatory; so what if i don't have any autonomy? maybe i don't deserve it. maybe i don't even need it. so what if my parents treat me like a child? maybe i did really grow up wrong, i have the wrong ideas about everything, my politics are just overcompensation for my inability, and what what if my inability is my own fault? what if i ruined my own life? and i should just concede, and learn to listen, and accept, just like everyone around me has been trying to get me to understand, and then things will be easier. they'll treat me like an adult once i act like one. i really do feel like a parody of an adult, of a person. i realized, i know that a lot of people, online, and offline, talk shit about their disabled roommate who's really just as capable as everyone else but who doesn't do the dishes for one reason or another, and i realized i'm that. i'm basically that. so what if my mother doesn't let me play video games late at night? i'm too tired to, anyway, most nights. i don't really need to play video games. they're not that important. nothing i do is really that important. i mean, sure, there are things i enjoy, but i could enjoy more, if i could be more present, if i could be more accepting. maybe everything will be okay if i let it be okay. maybe my family was right about me, and i'm just disproportionately angry, for no reason. maybe everything is okay, maybe everything is great, my life is normal, this is all normal, i'm abnormal, i need to get help for being abnormal, and it's like my mother says, i need to stop being so negative....it's that kind of doubt. i still feel it, a bit. behind everything. it's the kind of doubt that makes me want to delete my website, and stop writing, for a while, and apologize to the people at the community center, because i'm no longer so sure what my own opinions or experiences even are. maybe i'm wrong. maybe i'm all wrong....i'm not gonna delete my website, or stop writing, because this website is mine, and like i said at the beginning of it, it can be whatever the fuck i want. right now, it's mostly a journal. it's my journal. i'm not gonna burn my whole journal just because it happened again...i mean, of course this has happened before, sort of. i've tried maybe three to six times to move out, before now, depending on if you count posts on craigslist as attempts, but i've also nearly signed a lease, and of course, there was when i went to rehab, and when i met those two who could've been my roommates in between craigslist, the lease, and then rehab, and something every single attempt to move out has in common is the cold feet; the doubt. it hit the hardest when i met the two who could've been my roommates, mostly because it really was my own fault that things fell apart. i just wasn't ready, and ghosted them, and when i say i wasn't ready, i mean, i broke down crying and basically regressed. i walked back all of my anger, and my negativity, and my politics, and my queerness, and i made myself like a child, because i wanted to be, because it was easy, and i craved it, like i'd imagine you'd crave drugs, i really craved the feeling that if i was easier, if i was smaller, younger, if the things i did carried less weight, if i didn't want to stray away, even if i still didn't meet their standards, they would be proud of me, they would love me, they would hold me, and my life wouldn't have to change, because i didn't even want it to. i was stuck there. i was stuck there, for a year, or two. i think i was around 19, or 20, then. and the anger, and the negativity, and the politics, and the queerness, it all came back. like fire, like rage, it came back. and it stuck around. and i was back to craving change, autonomy, freedom. until the next time i tried to leave, and then the cycle repeated. i know that if it happens like that, if it happens in cycles, 'wheel's gonna turn. this, i'm betting, i'm hoping, i'm scared, is impermanent. like one curve on the wheel, and even if i swallow it all, even if i take the breakdown to be a revalation, even if i do regress, again, i know the anger will come back. i'll hold onto anger if i damn well need it, sometimes i wish i were angrier. some people look down on anger, they call it spiritual poison, or else spiritual weakness, no, to me, that's apathy. i don't think i feel apathetic. i think i feel really, really overwhelmed, and confused, and i feel like i need someone to pull me back from the edge. i think the curves on the wheel all melted away, and now i don't even know where i am. i don't really trust myself right now, i trust in the past, what i've felt in the past, what i've known in the past. but the trouble with dissociation is it takes your past away from you, in ways, and no, i don't trust myself right now. i need to know i'm not all wrong, and i don't need to be small
Saturday, 9/6/25
i sent an email to a community center for LGBTQ+ people this morning, because they offer services i need. i asked for help. i think it's stupid, the whole thing. i know that these people are just another part of the whole system of institutional cures to problems the institutions create; i know that there's no way you can't go through life in this shitty system, in this shitty country, in this shitty world, and not need 'services' at some point. i know that everything that feeds the system starves the people, including all these 'services.' i know that there's so much these people at the community center don't understand and will never understand. i know that these people are probably going to let me down even if they decide to try & help me. i know that this world, this reality they are based in, is itself based in competition & capital & class and so if they decide to try & help me, thanks to artificial scarcity, that's resources, time, energy, being taken away from another dirt-poor, queer cripple who needs it just as much, or more. i know that you might try and tell me that's not my responsibility to worry about, but it's all of ours, it's all of our responsibility to worry about -- to care about -- other people, especially when we're all being let down at once & by many of the same things. i know that this here is the belly of the beast, as it's been called, and i'm not going to get free of a world that relies on cruelty in the same instance that i get free of my mother, if i even get free of my mother. if i get free of my mother, if i get help, if they decide to try & help me, i think i'll feel merely lucky, in a twisted way, guilty, way too privileged, just twisted in general, and if i don't get help, if they don't decide to try & help me, i think i'll feel the same way i feel right now, the same way i've felt for the past few months now. i can't just accept all this, any of this. i can't be fine with either future, any future. i'll never just be fine with the way this world is, with how cruel this world is. and i hear myself talking, and i suspect i sound very traumatized, and i am, but i'm also stubborn. i hear myself talking, i almost laugh at how much like a parody of a anarchist i sound like without trying to be funny, and then next, i hear voices, well, no, i don't hear them, i'm not hallucinating again, but i'm sorta-hearing sorta-feeling, echoes, echoes of all that shitlib rhetoric shitlibs give you; like 'it gets better when you move out' or 'people aren't all bad,' 'the world isn't all bad' or 'you're responsible for most of this' or 'you have a victim mindset.' i didn't say the world was all bad, the world is beautiful, fuck you, i didn't say people were all bad, most of the people i've loved have been people, fuck off, i am not trying to generalize or parody shit, i am just trying to be clear, yes, cruelty is not everything but it is the most potent, right now, when this world can allow...so much of it. there's so much of it. and no, nothing quite compares to the worst of it. but even though this whole thing is stupid, and maybe pointless, i have to try. i have to try something. i have to try something to get something moving, anything, if i don't try something, i'm just gonna fade into nothing, into nothingness.
Wednesday, 9/3/25
i just saw someone active on N*ocities, which is the service i'm currently hosting my website on, that i prayed i would never run into again. this is one of the people who called me a demon, demonic, said i had demons in me, semantics honestly aren't the point of that kind of thing. after i left them, i swore i would never reveal their name to anyone if they didn't call me out for something first, out of...some kind of respect, i think. i do hope they're doing alright. but by god/God, i had to leave them. i had to get the hell out of there. it couldn't be me that stayed by them to make sure they were alright, it just couldn't be me. for one thing, they were always doing me favors just by speaking to me, but i was always bringing them burden after burden just by speaking to them. i was supposed to be grateful, and i was. they did teach me a lotta things i wouldn't've otherwise known. but i kept fucking up, failing to care for them or assist them in their work in the ways they wanted, needed, and rather than threaten to let me go, cut me off, they did the opposite, they made it clear how disappointed they were every time, they didn't even personally like me, it was unlikely i would ever really be able to comprehend what they were asking of me, but if i ever stopped trying to understand, if i ever stopped being the one to do the work, it would be the most pathologically selfish & dangerous thing i could do. ever. and i wasn't being paid, that was laughable, i paid them. and it wasn't a job, it was political work. well, so i did exactly the opposite of what they told me to do, one day, by accident, really, i just snapped and couldn't handle it anymore. i had to get out of there. i didn't really care how selfish or dangerous it was. a force of will like that, that i saw in this person, i knew they'd at least be able to live without me, no matter how much they might hate me for leaving. or staying. it was awful. it was magical, and potent, and awful. but i was right, in a way. they're stil alive, they're still alright enough to write, to work, they even remade their own website on N*ocities after a short hiatus from doing their own coding. and i guess i'm shocked, i mean shell-shocked, from seeing them. i recognized them instantly. i wonder if they would be able to recognize me, too, if they saw my site, from the way i talk, etc. oh, where was i?, i had something stewing, speaking of, what was it?,...oh yeah. i remember. people are not your friends, just because you want them to be, or because you think they should be. people are not better than you, just because they are one thing and you are another. i do not idolize Black people just because i am not Black, i do not trust queer people or disabled people just because i am also queer or disabled. there are so many factors that can go into what makes a person, and while one identity might carry a lotta weight, more than almost anything else, while one identity might define a lotta your responsibility in life, it is up to each person to carry that responsibility or not; thank you god/God, fuck you god/God, for giving people autonomy. to me, in my humble ass opinion, there are no guarantees in life. 'cept for humanity, i think, and all the bullshit that comes with
Saturday, 8/30/25
i'm honestly pretty upset about how fucking dismal my life has gotten. i got my computer back yesterday, and i remembered having fun with the Nikki dress-up games a while back, so i looked them up and found the developers made a multiplayer, open-world version of the concept. i downloaded it. it's still fun. i got a little bit excited by the new copium, and then my best friend told me he went on a hike with some other friends. and i just kind of...oh my god, what the hell am i doing? i haven't seen friends in weeks, both because they're mostly busy, and because even when given the choice, i tend to feel safer alone; the chance that i won't feel good is just too high. or, that's what i'm afraid of. i remember, at rehab, my therapist followed me into the bathroom to 'check on me' after i'd been gone from our personal appointment for a while. i think that was traumatizing, somehow, not just being there, but that specific moment. one thing that's always been true of me is that i feel sick, i need to stop existing in the world and just retreat into myself & focus. focus on figuring out how i feel, how to help myself, how i'm not going to hurl, i'm not going to hurl, i'm not going to hurl, i'm not going to--, etc. when people try and speak to me, ask me questions, even about how i'm feeling, or where i want to go, or have i had water, anything, any attempt to have me articulate out loud before i'm ready, it just causes me to lose focus, lose control. it does not help. i actually don't like it when people talk to me when i feel sick, unless they're comfortable just providing reassuring background noise that i don't have to pay attention to while they let me do what i need to do. this might have something to do with my myriad of issues i've had since i was, uh, born, but i really do become nonverbal when i feel sick, and if i text someone, the texts are going to be simple, and blunt; 'don't ask if i'm okay;' 'i will need time.' 'i need water.' 'drive faster.' i will feel so much worse, immediately so, if i owe anyone an explanation. i was often forced to give explanations, at rehab, to say in multiple complete & grammatically correct sentences, wasting precious seconds & sanity, that i didn't feel well, i really didn't feel well, but it's no big deal, but you needed to take me seriously, but please don't worry about me, i didn't need the hospital, but no, i wasn't just anxious, i actually needed to use the bathroom. there were moments where i put that effort in, and they didn't even listen to me. i remember asking one of the group leaders if i could use the bathroom. she said no. i turned and fucking bolting away before she could stop me. i spend the rest of the rehab hours in the bathroom, shaking, scared. when i came out, i practically snuck past the front desk, rode the elevator down, and yanked the door to my mother's car open. sitting down, i explained to my mother, 'i left my backpack up there.' i asked if she could get it for me. she did it, but she was really annoyed with me. i was just so desperate to get out of there without being delayed again or talked at that i didn't care if the group leaders wondered where i went. this is probably a big part of why i don't really go out. nobody cares what the fuck you do in a public bathroom, but i remember being in the bathroom of a restaurant after it closed and that was terrifying. i remember saying aloud to my father, in a moment of exasperation, 'god, i wish there was a magic private bathroom i could carry everywhere with me.' he laughed, at me, and asked, 'do you mean diapers?' hahaha. ha. ha. fuck you. this is why i don't go out. i also think back to those moments every time i think about having a friend over, because i suppose the pressure of having to explain myself is still there, would still be there, albeit in a different context; rather than a friend being able to or even wanting to stop me from using the bathroom, i would instead feel really, really guilty for letting them down by disappearing in the middle of a hang-out. fear of losing control becomes guilt that i can't control myself. i ruin everything....it's not fair to say i haven't had any good days, especially recently. all those horror stories are from months ago, even though i'm still just as vulnerable to a, let's say, bad time, if i eat something that'll trigger it. i've had okay days, recently. i've actually gone swimming every other day, not entirely by choice, but given as i'm basically pathetic otherwise, it does feel good to be active. i've learned that i can hijack my trauma by getting re-used to the places i go. i used to be able to not walk down the block by myself, but the pool we go to is so close, by going there as often as i have, i've also gotten used to going outside again. in one direction, up to a certain distance, at least. so that's pretty good, actually, i can work with that. except i can't ever do anything alone, because i can't drive, and if i get exhausted, overheated, or nauseous, and i'm out for a walk, i might not be able to take myself home -- or at least, into shade and/or towards a place where i can rest, or eat, or shit -- as quickly as i need to. so guess who i have to be dependent on, every single time i want to try and 'get better' enough to leave my abusive mother? that's right, my abusive mother. she is my only option. at rehab, a lot of people called me codependent. yeah, that's what being disabled does to you. i just wish that for once in my goddamned fucking life i had a choice in who to be 'codepedent' on. i wish i had a choice as to who i spend time with, who i trust; who i don't have to explain everything to, who understands me in a basic way. i mean, my mother barely understands me, in most ways, but she gets the job done. she is one of the only people who can. i don't have a choice. my best friend could do it, but he is too far away. my ex-best friend, if i saw him again, he could do it, if he wanted to, and i honestly lack the confidence or eloquence to explain it to him; what i need; what happened to me. how do you tell someone you knew when you were both pretty low that you sunk even lower?
Tuesday, 8/26/25
my PC's been in the shop, it needs to have a fan replaced, so i haven't been up to much other than watching anime on my older, lesser laptop and talking to friends. i mean, i wasn't up to much before, either, not lately, but i wasn't even writing. every idea i had was just stuck in my head. i made myself lunch the other day, and i heard from my mother, in this order, i should have protein, even though i already did, don't i want the vegetables she made for me?, even though i already had greens in my salad, i should brush my teeth, even though i already did. i am currently writing this in the dining room, which is as in the open as i could be, because each time we have a guest over, i have to leave my office so the guest can stay in that room. i'm always looking over my shoulder, or, i have been for the past week or so, even more than i used to. i don't get signal for shit in my...room that i don't use except for when i sleep in there. when my mother told me were having a guest over, a family friend, i must've made a face or something, because she said, that doesn't look like an open heart & mind. i was supposed to have an open heart & mind. 'day before, i was on my older, lesser laptop, thinking about writing but not writing. my mother called me into the kitchen, reminding me i hadn't taken my pills yet. okay, fair. i'll take them, i told her, and then i'll go back in there, and keep going in the direction i was in, maybe get something done. no, she told me, matter-of-factly, no, i'll be taking a break, doing something else, it's not good for me to be on my computer all day. oh, okay. i don't have a choice? i don't have a choice. if i rebel, she's going to take my devices away. she's going to take away my ability to communicate with people outside the house. i pray for the day i am finally healthy enough to take action, not only to free myself, partially, but to work with others to free us all, to be effective. i remember emailing the local food-not-bombs, asking if i could do something for them, anything, to be a part of something, to be a part of the difference between someone having their next meal or not. they said they weren't accessible, and i should email another branch, further away. those people didn't get back to me at all. it makes me so angry when i am barred from participating in something that matters, even if only to a couple dozen people once in a blue moon, and it really makes me something else entirely when people with more ability than i have, more capacity than i have for action, for effectivity, do not take advantage of the gifts they've been given. whenever i see a person who isn't physically disabled acting as helpless as i truly, materially am, where they refuse to do something simply out of fear or lack of imagination or common, human selfishness, i lose a little bit more faith in humanity. regular humanity, that is. i have yet to meet all the irregular humanity
Friday, 8/15/25
i mean, i'm trying to convince myself i'm not dying, but i didn't sleep until late again last night, like two in the morning, so i guess i have normal people insomnia or something, and that sucks, too. and even though i've been able to not think there's literally something behind me, i've still felt that same kind of uncomfortable all day. i've got a headache. i'm trying to...manage. i'm trying to manage things, to handle things. i'm trying so hard
Thursday, 8/14/25
'night before last was hellish. i slept so badly i wasn't sure i even slept at all, i was tossing & turning the whole time. i think i must've, though, because i wasn't as tired i thought i would be the next day, yesterday. whenever i can't sleep i always get super paranoid that i've come down with the fatal kind of insomnia, and so i spend the whole of yesterday scared as shit. but i upped some of my meds yesterday (and today), and so i got calmer about things as the day went on, even though my thoughts didn't exactly change. i went for a short walk, too, took some photos. 'even had a non-alcoholic beer (personally, i can't do alcohol, i'd probably get really sick, as fucked up as i am by default, y'know?). last night wasn't great, but it was okay. my photos turned out not bad, and i was able to sleep, which at the time i thought was a miracle but now i'm starting to realize i'm an asshole because i really fucking appreciate being taken seriously by other people but i never want to take myself too seriously; i don't think i was dying. yet. (sigh. as much as i really want to die, sometimes, i'm also fucking terrified of dying, sometimes. i think that's common.) today has been okay, too. i took the increased dosage of my meds again, and so i've felt pretty mellow, and i've even been able to reassure myself, tell myself that it's just me there, there's nothing behind me, and even if there is, that it's not going to kill me. yet. i bought a new notebook, and a bunch of pencils, the colored ones that have decorations on the outsides but the actual output of the pencil is normal, and i sharpened them. i like things like that. and stickers. i think that if i can't get punk, or rather make punk, i'm gonna get tacky & bright, because that's the stuff i liked as a kid, and it's a bit nostalgic for me. i also left my house to go swimming, and i went at it harder than i did before. i think having a workout routine or something like that would be fun. too bad i don't have any time or space to myself and always feel like i have to hide the good, the bad, everything in between, and i feel like i can't do stuff when i'm being watched. i've done my workout for today, though. i've been thinking. about how shit my life is, how i'm not the only one, i've been thinking about a few projects i want to do when i finally have the money, time, space. i'm gonna call my best friend tonight, and i may go out for another walk after that. i'm gonna see if i can go longer this time. i will get out of here. i will. i will. i will. it will not be easy. i am actually so, so scared of everything, not just life or death but everything in between, i'm so scared of not being with my mother, because she's the one who always takes care of me without actually caring, about me, my autonomy, but i've honestly begun to doubt i deserve autonomy. or can even manage it, carry it. but i have to try. i have to. i have to. i have to. i refuse to accept that this is where i am to be settled. i am so, so unsettled.
Tuesday, 8/12/25
i haven’t been sleeping well. (i’m really not sure how much i want to talk about this, because i guess ‘this’ is my mental health, my health, and -- i mean, i don’t see mental and physical health as separate, it’s bodymind, or even just body, not body / mind, the separation of the two is a really Western thing, but anyway -- people can get twisty -- like judgmental, in a twisted, entitled, unfairly empowered way -- about health. people can think that just because you have certain things about you or your situation or what you perceive that are not a part of everyone’s consensus reality, that means everything is a symptom; which i think is how people who struggle with psychosis or bpd or another one of those evil people-problems end up getting abused and nobody listens to them, because they’re supposed to be crazy and evil. it’s the assumption that just because you aren’t objectively correct about one or two things that must mean you’re objectively incorrect about everything. but that’s a moot point, i’ll share why later. here we go, i want to talk about this because i have to get it out somewhere.) the reason is that it’s been really hard for me to not fucking picture that there’s a demon above or around my bed that’s going to kill me in my sleep. this started like a week ago or so. and if i don’t sound crazy myself yet, wait for it, this started when i was sitting at my desk, writing, and pictured that there was something...thing, some stress of mine coalesced into a humanoid shape, sitting behind me. and i mean i pictured it, like, i saw it but i didn’t see it. and it wasn’t a choice. it was just there. it was freaky. it still is. what’s freakier is i actually have a reason to be nervous that there’s something behind me. and no, i don’t mean a demon. i mean my parents, i don’t have any privacy away from them. i have the room i sleep in that also contains a lot of the stuff that i either don’t want to get rid of or they won’t let me get rid of it, and i have the room i do my work in, but neither room is somewhere i can go where they won’t be coming in if they want to. they don’t knock before they come in. sometimes they knock, while coming in. when i call people, when i call my best friend, or partner, from my computer, they can hear me. they do not try to not hear me. what i am ironically most afraid of is what they are capable of doing, what they’ve done, when they’re apparently concerned about me. they’ve read my journal, a couple times, even way back when i was twelve or so and i called it a diary, and i’m twenty-four now, they’ve gone on my computer, they’ve looked through my social media and made me delete posts about them. writing this all out right now honestly reminds me of the nerve-wracking sensation of my mother finding something i tried hard to keep hidden because it was my only outlet away from everything i was writing about. and i’m not even talking about each time i’ve tried to talk about my parents, but the times i’ve written about what i’ve been struggling with. the times i’ve admitted i’m depressed to my friends, and they’ve found out, it hasn’t been good. they haven’t really been concerned. if they were, they would listen to me when i try to tell them what would really help me. but they don’t. (and that’s real. it’s certainly real to me. well, and all of my friends who witnessed it, but this is the point that i was trying to make earlier; that if something is real to you, it is real to you, and nobody can take that away from you. the point about objectivity is moot because objectivity doesn’t exist, this consensus reality we all share is full of evidence of that.) i mean, to this day, i always look over my shoulder or hide my screen whenever my parents or my sister or anyone they’ve hired walks by, that’s how affected i am. they all laugh at me, tell me i don’t need to do that, because they don’t pay attention, but i know from experience that they fucking do. so more recently, i haven’t been able to tell my mother or my father about why i’ve had trouble sleeping. the funny thing is i’ve had a few people give me the impression this was bound to happen sooner or later. the first time someone said i had something demonic in me was a few years ago. it’s happened multiple times since then. demon, monster. people have called me this when i have been angry, sure, or immature, but in a human way. most of the time, i haven’t even been angry, but afraid. but before those more obviously extreme terms, there it was from my mother, especially. stupid, selfish, hostile, aggressive. (and yes, if you’re tired of my philosophical tirades in which i question reality itself, yes, those are as real as anything, those are words she has used & still does). i don’t know why this is happening now, i don’t know why my stress is coming to a head in this specific way at this specific time, and i’m fucking tired of it, but i don’t think i’m a demon. stupid, maybe. selfish, maybe. the people that have called me stupid & selfish have lived with me, and at least that’s something. look, i’m not even saying that this is anyone else’s fault. it’s most probably mine. i’m just saying i wish i could talk to my parents about what’s going on, but i can’t, i know i can’t, i know that if i could we would all be different people and i wouldn’t always feel like looking over my shoulder no matter what the living hell is or isn’t behind me.
Saturday, 8/9/2025
last night, i was pretty sure i was done. and i mean...done. one of my reasons for wanting to leave my house isn’t to be or seem especially functional according to wider societal standards, no, fuck that, living is enough for life, but no, it’s because i want to be able to go & get help. i’ve thought a lot about how to ask for help, how to phrase things, i mean, who to go to -- not only because most everyone i’ve tried to get help from in the past, like my old therapist, or our family therapist, has been literally paid off by my mother, hand-picked by her, but -- because my situation right now feels hard to explain, hard to wrap my own head around. i can think of very specific feelings, like how my mother is one of the only people i feel safe with in the world, and very specific interactions, like when my mother said, “if you can’t make the right decision, i’ll make it for you,” or when she said, “you’ll never do anything right,” “i can’t imagine how you could ever live on your own,” or even when she said, “you abuse me. you kick me when i’m down.” but i can’t wrap my head around all of it at once. i can recall specific memories, but if you ask me to explain any overarching patterns, i get lost. it is, simply, a lot to take in. to carry with you. many people i’ve met have experienced a decline in their health that they needed the whole of their support network to get through, and many people i’ve met have experienced life with abusive family, but i am the only one i know to have experienced -- to experience -- both at once. last night, i was pretty sure i was done, because i do not have a lot of evidence things are letting up. things are actually stacking. i have a disease that presents itself in chronic illness, chronic pain, all that good chronic shit. and the mainstream reality outside of my smaller, more familiar world, is ableist in a way that is not merely conceptually unethical but practically hostile. living with my mother, who will blame me for when i don’t feel well, who will turn the wifi off at night or demand i hand in my devices every time i oversleep and miss arbitrary deadlines, who sees me as inherently less deserving of autonomy for mistakes everyone makes, is not conceptually preferable but less immediately dangerous for my health than someone who doesn’t think my disease is that big of a deal, who thinks i’m just being anxious, who tells me to just push through everything. i’m pretty sure that my old therapist, who told me it was up to me to take charge of my life, thinks i regressed because i moved back in with my mother after living at the residential i went to. the residential was, to be clear, better for me. i should still be living there, like all the others who got to progress. i’m not living there now because people like me don’t get opportunities like that. people like me get what might as well be called organ damage; yeah, something happened to me, that wasn’t my fault, unless you think trying to self-manage for the first time a failure i deserve to never self-manage again for, that meant my digestive system went to shit (hahaha fuck you) and i’ve had to spend months recovering back at my parent’s house. when my health declined, i also lost all my friends who i guess were expecting better, more consistent attendance from me. in the past, i’ve realized, i’ve never had to deal with both a decline in health at the same time as i’ve had to deal with abusive parents either; i mean, of course, that i’m great at compartmentalizing, and my life has tended to follow a cycle, of stifling care, depression, freeing risk, and, reward, or, if i’m unlucky, a bright burst of misery, followed by recovery, which means leaning into codependence, which means more stifling care. i’d thought this cycle was the source of misery itself, or perhaps that it should be a source of shame. but i was wrong. that cycle, that compartmentalization, was how i survived. feeling the weight of both, both sickness and abuse, like i felt last night, kills you, and that’s why i was done last night. because i was already dead. but i remembered i’ve already died plenty of times. i’ve lived a thousand different lifetimes in this one. i may have never carried the weight of sickness & abuse together before all by myself, but ironically, that most people have left behind has also left me with a sort of reserve battery. how i explained it to another friend last night was that i wanted to end it all until i realized how much sense it would make for me to, and then from there, i got angry. i got angry, and i thought of my best friend. and my ex-best friend. i thought of people i really want/ed to hold onto.
Wednesday, 8/6/2025
alright, i've finished my website for now. except for the shrines that i haven't made yet, i guess. those will get done, but i don't know when. i'll probably update the images on the sides of the frame on certain pages at some point, but yeah, for now, this is it. i finished. and as soon as i finished, i had a really hard time imagining that i won't get disillusioned with all this in, like, two days. i dunno why. i was really excited to work on it, to make it into something cool & unique, and i've done that. now? i guess i could play umamusume, or watch the anime. or i could talk to my friend. sorry, friends. suddenly i'd rather do anything else other than keep working. maybe all this was just harder than i thought it would be, it did take me a day and a half straight with no breaks. i'm kind of disillusioned with life itself, but that's a common thing for me. i've had a really rough couple nights of sleep, so i don't feel well enough to go out & take photos, and i haven't in days. my sister's been visiting the past couple days, but i'm the autistic asshole who likes to just keep living my relatively normal life when guests come. besides, i'm just kind of vaguely uncomfortable around my family anyway. i mean, holy shit, i know i hate my mother, because she isn't a good parent, but even the rest of my immediate, or extended family, i always feel like i'm on the clock or something. like i have to fake things. i think that might relate somewhat to my issues with journaling. and with keeping websites. i've been able to blog, but i've never been able to keep a journal or a website. i'll get a month, a few months in, give up, decide i need a new one because it just isn't happening consistently enough or...maybe i think i have to be cooler, somehow, have more to me, like my handwriting or my writing voice or my doodles or the images i add or my frequent, disorganized topic changes are all just not cool enough, not good enough, not worthy of being shared with an audience, even though my whole fucking gimmick is that i never want to be sharing with an audience, i want to be sharing with my friends. i think having an audience would do me in. this has to be whatever the fuck i want it to be, first & foremost for me, and my friends, but mostly for me, ngl, because if it's not i won't be able to forgive myself for not being good enough; i'll write for a while, i'll maybe name my likes or dislikes, and then i'll distance myself from all of it because it's wrong, somehow. but it's not wrong. it's whatever i fucking want