JOURNAL

Friday, 8/15/25

i still don't think i'm dying, i mean, i'm trying to convince myself i'm not, 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. but goddammit. i think i like going outside again. i think i need it.

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