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cantskank · 4 years

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AH I AM VERY STRESSED AND SAD AND MAD

STRESSED: I HAVE A PRESENTATION DUE TOMORROW AND LIKE I HAD BEEN THINKING ABOUT IT FOR A BIT BUT I’VE LIKE BARELY STARTED AND NOW I THINK MY IDEA IS DUMB AND WAY TOO BASIC PLUS I AM MOVING IN LIKE TWO WEEKS AND I DON’T HAVE MY SHIT SORTED OUT- NO APT, NO MOVING POD SCHEDULED, NO FLIGHT BOOKED PLUS I AM FAILING AT DOING THE THING I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO FOR ANOTHER PERSON IN MY PROF’S LAB THIS TERM AND THERE’S LIKE. A WEEK LEFT IN THE TERM WHICH IS REALISTICALLY NOT ENOUGH TIME EVEN THOUGH IT’S NOT MY FAULT THE COMPUTER IS BROKEN

SAD: THIS IS DUMB BUT MY HOCKEY TEAM IS LOSING AND MY FRIEND’S WAS WINNING AND WE WERE WATCHING THEIR TEAM AND NOT MINE TOGETHER. WHICH IS NOT A PROBLEM WITH THEM IT’S A PROBLEM WITH ME BECAUSE I DIDN’T MENTION THAT MY TEAM WAS ALSO PLAYING TONIGHT I JUST SAID SURE WHEN THEY SUGGESTED WATCHING IT AS A GROUP. WHICH I THINK HAS TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT THE LAST TIME I SUGGESTED WATCHING MY TEAM NO ONE WANTED TO WATCH WITH ME AND IT ACTUALLY REALLY UPSET ME EVEN THOUGH I BASICALLY DIDN’T LET ON ABOUT IT. LIKE I NEVER SUGGEST THINGS AND I’M LIKE ‘WELL PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO BE BETTER FRIENDS WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU DON’T SUGGEST DOING THINGS BC YOU GET ANXIOUS ABOUT IT’ BUT ACTUALLY IT’S JUST THAT I’M ACTUALLY NO FUN TO HANG OUT WITH (LIKE I’M AFRAID OF) AND THAT’S WHY PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO BE MY FRIEND. LIKE I SUGGESTED THAT AND NO ONE WANTED TO AND I WAS SO EMBARRASSED AND NOW I WILL NOT EVER SUGGEST DOING IT AGAIN BECAUSE I REFUSE TO BE THE SORT OF PERSON WHO CAN’T TAKE A HINT, THAT’S PATHETIC. THE SORT OF PERSON WHO KEEPS GETTING THEIR HOPES UP THAT PEOPLE WANT TO HANG OUT WITH THEM? I WILL NOT. AND LIKE THROUGHOUT I WANTED TO BRING UP THE STUFF THAT WAS GOING ON IN MY GAME (I HAD BOTH UP, MOSTLY JUST WATCHING MY TEAM’S GAME) WHICH IS LIKE AN EXTREMELY PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE MOVE AND I WOULD KNOW IT WAS WHILE I WAS DOING IT, JUST TO GET THE LIKE ‘OH IS IT THE STARS GAME NOW?? OH SORRY, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL US THAT WAS HAPPENING NOW TOO?’ SORT OF RESPONSE WHICH LIKE I FEEL HORRIBLE WHEN PEOPLE DO FAKE APOLOGIES, WHY. I HATE IT WHEN I FEEL OBLIGATED TO MAKE A FAKE APOLOGY, IT FUCKING SUCKS. IT DOESN’T MAKE ME FEEL BETTER TO GET SOME HOLLOW-ASS ‘SORRY’ FROM THEM. SO THERE’S THAT. ALSO THE POSSIBILITY THAT THEY WON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT IT ANYWAYS. WHICH WOULD SUCK TOO. I’M ALSO SAD BC I FELT LIKE THE WHOLE NIGHT I WAS GOING AROUND SAYING ‘YEAH I WAS THINKING THAT TOO’ OR ‘YEAH I WAS GONNA SAY THAT’ OR ‘YEAH THAT HAPPENED IN MY GAME TOO’ LIKE JUST THE COMPULSIVE NEED TO MAKE SURE PEOPLE KNOW I AM COOL TOO. WHICH OBVIOUSLY COMES OUT OF DEEP, DEEP INSECURITY. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW THAT I AM COOL- WHICH CALLING MYSELF COOL SOUNDS LIKE I’M CONFIDENT IN MYSELF BUT IT’S REALLY JUST THAT LIKE....I LIKE MY INTERESTS AND I PLACE A LOT OF EMPHASIS ON BEING UNIQUE AND SPECIAL AND DIFFERENT (FUCKING AQUARIUS HERE) AND IT’S LIKE....EVERYONE’S UNIQUE, THAT’S NOT EVEN A THING YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT, EVERYONE GETS THAT BY VIRTUE OF BEING THEIR OWN HUMAN. BUT I DO CARE ABOUT IT, THERE’S A PART OF ME THAT’S CONSTANTLY JUST UNCONSCIOUSLY THINKING ABOUT HOW THINGS COME OFF/APPEAR SO OF COURSE I HAVE AN AWARENESS ABOUT TRYING TO BE ‘COOL.’ I HAVE FUCKING....DYED HAIR AND A MOHAWK AND FUCKING ANDROGYNOUS BUTTON-UP SHIRTS AND LISTEN TO FAT POSITIVITY PODCASTS AND LIKE SKA MUSIC AND THERE’S ALWAYS A PART OF ME THAT’S THINKING ABOUT HOW THAT COMES OFF TO OTHER PEOPLE. LIKE I LIKE ALL THOSE THINGS ABOUT ME BUT ALSO 5% OF THAT INTEREST IS ME LIKING HOW THEY MAKE ME LOOK. AND SO A LOT OF THE TIME THAT’S ENOUGH FOR ME, LIKE I’M FINE BEING A BIT DISTANT AND ALOOF AND RESERVED AND HAVING FRIENDS BUT FRIENDS THAT I DON’T GIVE ALL OF MYSELF TO. IDK BECAUSE USUALLY THAT GIVES ME A SENSE OF ASSUREDNESS IN MYSELF. LIKE BC I’M ““““““SELF-AWARE”“““““ I AM LIKE....YES THAT LOOKS GOOD, YES I HAVE NEAT HOBBIES, YES I HAVE INTERESTING THOUGHTS ABOUT INTERESTING THINGS AND BY EXISTING I SHARE THAT WITH PEOPLE. WHICH IS LIKE FINE- OTHER PEOPLE BEING OTHER WAYS IS WHAT KEEPS THINGS GOING, I DON’T NECESSARILY SEE IT AS MY ““JOB”“ TO BE ANY OTHER WAY THAN THAT- LIKE IT’S PRETTY SIMPLE, I DO MY OWN THING (WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE COOL TO OTHERS) AND IN DOING SO DON’T NECESSARILY PARTICIPATE IN THE ““EXCHANGE”“ BUT RATHER JUST LIVE MY LIFE. AND LIKE NOT THAT NECESSARILY EVERYTHING I DO OR AM INTERESTED IN IS ACTUALLY COOL BUT RATHER THAT THE ABILITY TO PULL ALL MY HOBBIES AND THOUGHTS INTO MY COMPLEX SELF AND TO KEEP IT LIKE THAT WITHOUT OUTSIDE INFLUENCE IS HOW I FEEL LIKE A FULL PERSON RATHER THAN SOMEONE WHO FOLLOWS ALONG. WHICH LIKE I’M AWARE THAT THIS IS BASICALLY ME BEING AN AQUARIUS AND FEELING MY VERY AQUARIUS SELF. POSSIBLY ASTROLOGY PLAYS TOO BIG A PART IN MY SELF-CONCEPTION. AND I’M NOT SAYING THIS IS THE RIGHT WAY TO BE, THIS RIGHT NOW IS MAKING ME THINK A LOT ABOUT ASSUMPTIONS I HAVE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE. :/ ANYWAY SOMETIMES THERE ARE JUST TIMES WHEN I FEEL LIKE ALL I’M DOING IS JUST SAYING ‘OH I WAS THINKING THAT’ ETC LIKE I WAS TALKING ABOUT ABOVE. AND IT’S FRUSTRATING SINCE LIKE. I CAN FEEL MYSELF TRYING TO LET EVERYONE KNOW HOW ‘GREAT’ I AM (LIKE I SAID, BC I’M INSECURE IN THIS) AND IT’S ALSO LIKE. NO ONE CARES? AND EVERYONE THINKS YOU’RE LYING ABOUT THIS PROBABLY. WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY THING: DOES GETTING CLOSE TO PEOPLE MEAN GIVING UP THAT PART OF YOURSELF AND BASICALLY SUBMITTING YOURSELF TO THE IDEA THAT YOU CAN’T BE ORIGINAL AND UNAFFECTED, YOU HAVE TO SHARE SOME OF YOURSELF AND NO LONGER FEEL UNIQUE AND UNTOUCHED BY THE APPROVAL OF OTHERS?? LIKE I DON’T THINK I’M DOING A GOOD JOB OF EXPLAINING THIS BUT BASICALLY: I DO MY THING. I ALLOW OTHERS TO INFLUENCE ME TO THE EXTENT THAT I ALLOW, AND I DO THINK I PROTECT MYSELF FROM ATTACHMENT TO IDEAS JUST FOR OTHERS’ SAKE (LIKE JUST CAUSE SOMEONE LIKES A BAND DOESN’T MEAN I WILL AUTOMATICALLY LIKE IT). THEN I FEEL LIKE IT’S ALL MY IDEA AND I AM BEING ORIGINAL AND AUTHENTIC. BUT DOES GETTING CLOSE TO PEOPLE MEAN YOU SACRIFICE SOME OF THIS ATTITUDE? LIKE CLOSENESS TO OTHERS CAN MEAN ‘KNOWING’ THEM WHICH REALLY APPEALS TO ME BUT I NEVER CONSIDERED THE IDEA THAT IT WOULD ERODE MY SENSE OF SELF. LIKE ‘MORTIFYING IDEAL OF BEING KNOWN’ AND ALL THAT BULLSHIT I GET THAT THAT’S NOT WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. THAT’S LIKE.....OH PEOPLE KNOW YOUR INSECURITIES, PEOPLE KNOW HOW YOU THINK, ETC. BUT THAT DOESN’T INHERENTLY/NECESSARILY MEAN WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! BC WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT IS THE LOSS OF SEPARATION BETWEEN PEOPLE. YOU CAN STILL BE KNOWN AND BE SEPARATE. THIS IS WHAT I WAS THINKING ABOUT EARLIER, IT HAD NEVER REALLY OCCURRED TO ME AND I’M STILL PROCESSING IT. I DON’T THINK I’M FREAKING OUT ABOUT IT NOW, TYPING IT UP HELPED IMMENSELY.

MAD: THINGS SUCK FOR ALL THE ABOVE REASONS.

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cantskank · 4 years

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LET’S WRITE A FUCKING POST

i’m just feeling just VERY bad about things, mostly about one thing in particular

and maybe i would think about bringing it to spaces where i could vent with the people i have been spending time with online

BUT some people there are doing the things i am complaining about and i don’t think i can get the subtleties of my frustration across and it would come across as complaining about them

and i think the thing with this issue is that people are supposed to be quietly ignoring it if they disagree because to bring up and argue for this point comes across as anti behavior! and like i would like to be able to trust that i could bring this up in a good-faith discussion but i just don’t think that’s possible with the climate of this discussion/topic.

SO. let’s talk about aspec identities and aspec rep.

AS AN ARO ACE, there are just a lot of ways in which the world is not built for me. which is fine! sex and relationships are a big deal for a lot of people so to some degree i can accept that they are just always a thing that are going to be something i have to deal with.

however, my identity is still really important to me. realizing that i was ace (then aro) was a HUGE fucking deal to me. all of a sudden i realized there were these ways in which i was alienated- these things which were just assumed to be so foundational and human were things i didn’t experience. because of that i dove into online community with other aces. i spent just so much time on aven- i wasn’t like a huge poster on there (or at least it didn’t feel like i was) but i was always on. i still think of that as a huge part of my identity and a huge part of my online participation. however, after the 2016 election i was in just a horrible headspace and kinda pulled back anyway. there was kinda just a general leaving of aven around then anyway- a couple of the really super active people left in the winter of 2017. then there were just like a few really active, really vocal conservative members?? who were around?? and i just stopped going on there entirely which was the right move for me!

all this is to say, i basically had this space for me to share and understand my identity and now i do not. i have been back on recently and it’s just not the same- the conservative voices have pretty much left but there are still just some people and ways of thinking i just can’t get behind and i haven’t been on since i tried rejoining in the spring. the other communities online are not really my thing- mostly tumblr, right? and tumblr is NOT a community space, it’s a ‘say whatever the fuck you want and defend your fucking point and call other people out and be generally aggressive and self-righteous’ space, right?? and i don’t want to say this per se (because it’s fucking mean) but i will- tumblr ace activism is WAYYYY more about conforming to the norm than aven ever was.

like aven, when i was on, was a space where you could acknowledge your identity as different and explore what that meant and how that affected you. ace tumblr? is mostly ‘i’m an ace and i want a partner, can i have sex and still be ace?’ (and the response being ‘yes you can be ace and still have sex’) and it’s like!! WHAT THE FUCK!

i think my issue with this comes from a few things.

first, i HAVE to acknowledge that i have some small internal prejudice against aces who want to have sex. i respect and appreciate those who do and would never call them invalid (and the people on aven who do are the reason i didn’t stick around when i came back in the spring) but there is a small part of me which thinks that it is a bit harder to call yourself ace and still have interest in sex. such a big huge factor in my feelings of alienation and the solace i’ve found in identifying as asexual is my disinterest in sex. i personally think about aces who are okay with having sex and i wonder what the big deal is about identifying as asexual in that case because you are conforming to the norm. something which must be a huge focus of asexual activism in my mind is normalizing lack of interest in sex. i personally think that having the message ‘okay respect asexuals who don’t want sex but some of us will have sex with you’ is just a lot and makes it harder to be sex-repulsed. (this will come up later as well i think) anyway i MUST acknowledge that because it DOES inform my feelings about this and it is not a fair way to feel about things, i completely agree. i will not be disingenuous about it.

okay second, i am just NOT a fan of telling someone whether or not they ‘can’ be asexual. i think this comes from aven but! your identity is your own! and telling someone ‘oh you can still be asexual’ is making it seem like the choice to identify hinges on someone else’s approval. when it really, really doesn’t. if you want to have sex and you are asexual, then decide that is the case and just fuckin live your best life! don’t go to some big-name asexuality tumblr blog and make THEM the arbiter of your identity. have some self-insight and self-awareness, if you can’t do that then you.....honestly probably will have a harder time overall identifying as asexual. aspec identities are just the hardest to hear about, the hardest to relate to. it takes effort to find out about and do the work to decide/realize you are asexual. relying on someone else to tell you that you ‘can’ identify as asexual? you’re ignoring the work and imo your self-identification is ultimately built on unstable ground. have some insight!! do your own work!

okay so that’s my feelings on ace communities since. i just ultimately haven’t found a good fit for ace community since and i think my overall feelings and understanding of my identity has suffered for it. i don’t have outlets for thinking about it so i push it to the side. and getting older has made me feel worse about things, i’m on a slow march to progressive loneliness. i absolutely go through periods of feeling like shit about my identity and periods where i feel okay.

and recently (well, during quarantine) i have decided to seek out more representation in media. which brought me to magnus archives and then to rqg. and these are the reason i’m feeling like shit today.

basically, there are people who want to write asexual characters having sex. and that’s fine!! fucking do it!! do whatever you want!!

the problem is that there are people who don’t want to read that, and i am one of them.

and i feel weird about it, right, because the people who are vocally against it more often than not are antis. so while i would never argue that it shouldn’t be written i at least theoretically agree that i don’t like seeing that dynamic.

and like the people who write it who are asexual i get because like, if that’s you and you want some rep, go for it! if that’s not you but you’re still interested in exploring an ace person who has sex as an asexual, then go for it! things are complicated and shit sucks! i still won’t read it but you do you!

i do have a problem with allos writing sex-affirmative ace characters though. and not necessarily when done in a respectful way but like. all i want is for their asexuality to not be handwaved off like it’s not a big deal because it CAN be a big deal. the number of people i’ve seen in ace spaces who are like ‘do i tell my partner i’m ace?’ ‘should i have sex with my boyfriend?’ ‘when should i tell them i’m not interested in having sex except maybe under the right circumstances?’

for some it’s not a big deal, sure!! but for many it IS a big deal and i just can’t deal with people who don’t understand it (by virtue of never having experienced it) acting like it’s a simple 30-second conversation of ‘yes i’ll have sex with you because i love you’ it’s FUCKING BULLSHIT

and like this might be absolutely anti reasoning but i can’t help thinking that this is perpetuating misconceptions about asexuality (i’m referring specifically to asexuality because both characters in question are biro ace). and misrepresenting asexuality to asexuals

and honestly here’s my big gripe with the situation: YOU HAVE LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF CHARACTERS YOU CAN WRITE SEX SCENES WITH. I HAVE BASICALLY NEVER HAD A CHARACTER WHO CAN REPRESENT MY ASEXUALITY AND I HAVE LITERALLY NEVER HAD A CHARACTER IN A FANDOM WHO HAS FULLY REPRESENTED MY IDENTITY

(as an aro ace person. jughead from archie comics is literally the only one i’m aware of and they FUCKING REMOVED THAT from riverdale (which is a steaming pile of shit anyway))

i just am very sensitive about compulsory sexuality and i ABSOLUTELY think that ‘i’ll have sex with you because you’re my partner’ is compulsory sexuality and while people are ultimately able to make that decision i am just worried that not being aware of what compulsory sexuality is and how it works (because i legit NEVER see it discussed in asexual spaces apart from having seen it a lot on aven, like i think it’s a term that has limited recognition outside of that space) means that there are a lot of asexuals out there who think it is expected and reasonable to have sex for their partner and that there is no such thing as a system where you’re effectively brainwashed into thinking that having sex MUST be fucking prioritized over not having sex (and that sex is a signifier of ultimate love, blah blah blah, all that shit).

all of that is to say. if i’m being completely honest with myself, i’m realizing more and more how traumatized i have been by just existing in the world as someone who is not interested in sex or romance, to the point that i’m honestly constantly feeling at a breaking point and references to sex and/or romance can be just too much. and especially shipping, and especially fiction where an asexual person has sex.

and i really really should not have read an argument in the discourse channel of this stupid 18+ fandom discord that i’m technically on but have muted. because they were discussing with an anti basically how they are ‘allowed’ to write whatever pairing and whatever explicit scenes they would like to write. and they’re right!! write whatever. i just wish that there was a way other than on here that i could share my frustrations with ace characters written as having sex without 1) seeming like i’m attacking people who have posted explicit material with that character in that server (:/) and 2) seeming like a fucking anti when i literally disagree with everything else

this was supposed to make me feel better and it really didn’t but i’m done with it and just posting it anyway. FUCK THIS! FUCK THIS! FUCK THIS!

okay done thanks

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cantskank · 4 years

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so i just talked to my mom! and it was a FUCKING mess!

like. i never want to talk about what’s going on with work stuff cause tbh right now i’m fucking miserable and i actually hate what i’m doing but idk if it’s just covid-related stuff blocking me or if i should actually just give up.

anyway i told her i didn’t wanna talk about it today (we talk at least once a week and i always give a brief answer on what’s going on with stuff) and it turned into like a whole thing where to her i’m like withholding and trying to not have a close relationship with her.

which maybe it’s a little correct? but at least part of the reason i keep myself emotionally a bit distant from her is that i don’t trust her to react well to me. like if i were to tell her the truth (like, ‘oh x is not going well for me’) she would pick me apart? which she already started doing once i told her i didn’t want to talk about work

anyway it devolved a bit into talking about how she doesn’t want to talk about the things i care about either which she like totally didn’t understand (lots of ‘oh but that’s just how i am’ I KNOW THAT’S HOW YOU ARE BUT I AM MY OWN PERSON AND REACT IN DIFFERENT WAYS TO THINGS TOO)

then it became ‘oh well i guess you don’t want to have the sort of closeness with me that i have with my mother’ which like. fine. if you want to be that reductionist sure. i was trying to explain how i’ve never felt understood in the family and i’ve learned to accept that sometimes (all the time) i don’t get to talk about what i care about with anyone and it’s not somehow different when it’s you talking about feelings but okay be very accusatory and turn me into the awful person for things

like maybe the reason i don’t share feelings with you is because you do this to me

and it’s like, from my perspective i always play by your rules at least a little bit. like i kinda knew it might not end well but i set a boundary and that was Not Acceptable. (i pointed this out to her but it was totally disregarded and ‘no i’m right because you never talk to me anyways’, i guess having a boundary means less if i’ve previously been reluctant to talk about something before.)

AND the whole thing was also brought about kinda because she asked if i was considering dropping my phd and i basically answered ‘maybe but i’m not looking to make any changes right now’. and despite her past reassurances of ‘oh if it’s not working out it’s fine, we’ll always support you, blah blah blah’ of course that did not go over well, it became ‘well why has it taken so long for you to write, why aren’t you updating me, etc etc’. and when i expressed my discomfort/frustration at that attitude that was when it really blew up

like um. maybe me sharing that is proving the point that you’re not someone i can trust???

like i know that i tend to set very particular expectations for how people treat me in friendships (and i can think of some moments in my childhood that come from her that might have caused that mindset in me) but like. that’s my safety mechanism!! i’m sorry that i’m someone who would rather be alone than have a friend that didn’t treat me the way i wanted and really deeply care about them while being treated like shit

anyway then my dad came to see what was going on and like. i get on naturally with my dad much better than with my mom probably. like we have similar personalities (except he like. works very hard and i am lazy as fuck) and we have similar music tastes (and have gone to shows together) and are both much more chill. and a big difference between him and my mom is that he actually listens and pays attention to what i say (although having him around/getting his attention is much more difficult).

so he comes in and takes the phone and tries to talk to me. he has no clue what’s going on and i don’t want to explain the situation with my mom right there in case i say something she doesn’t like and it re-sparks the argument. also i’m crying (and i never cry in front of anyone if i can help it) so i don’t even really want to try speaking. so he guesses that i’m upset because i’m stressed, and it’s not untrue (though absolutely not the main reason at the moment), since stress is why i didn’t want to talk about stuff at the beginning. so he starts trying to give advice like get out of my apartment more (which i’ve actually been like doing the last few days so i haven’t been doing so badly on that front) which i appreciated! it was just challenging to have my mom right there and not even feel like i could get comforted by my dad? or get comforted about the right thing?

like she’s super sensitive about not being favorite i think- which like i know i’m not either of my parents’ favorite, so it feels kinda hypocritical; i’ve gotten used to it and never complained, so like why does she get to make it a big deal?- and if i’m honest i do prefer talking to my dad. which like she’s winning anyways, bc dad’s around less and so i talk to her more anyways.

anyway, what i’m saying is i can’t get comforted by my dad because i can’t explain the full situation without her saying ‘oh so you’ll talk to dad? you clearly don’t care about me‘ and it’s just like!! i should get to receive comfort without you making it about yourself! literally all i’m doing wrong is disagreeing with you and i’m still trying to care about your feelings

idk that’s basically it. she’s pissed since i don’t care enough to tell her how i feel about work and i just want to like be my own person (

oh yeah and also there was stuff in there about ‘i’m just concerned with how you’re struggling in quarantine, you should maybe See Someone’ meaning therapy and i undoubtedly need therapy but 1 i’ve been waiting until i’m off my parent’s health insurance so she won’t know (like idk how it works anyway but i’m never telling her if i go to therapy so i’m just waiting until then) and 2 everyone’s struggling right now and 3 IT’S A SHITTY FUCKING MOVE TO TELL SOMEONE THEY SHOULD GET THERAPY IN RESPONSE TO THEM TELLING YOU THEY THINK THEY MIGHT BE CONSIDERING QUITTING THEIR JOB. like if you were ~~sooooOOOOoo concerned~~ why haven’t you floated this by months ago? only now you bring it up? when i’m not behaving the way you want/expect? therapy for me to get me back to feeling the ‘right’ emotions?? she’s told me i should maybe go to therapy before although in that case it was sending me to therapy and i was 14 or 15 and struggling with having moved. like she’s only brought it up twice and those were when i wasn’t ‘behaving’ myself as expected. therapy is not something you like threaten/bring in to ‘correct’ when someone is feeling a way you don’t think they should be. like if you’re really thinking i should go to therapy then you should be suggesting it out of support? when you feel like you really understand how i’m feeling/what i’m going through? and not as something to bring me back into line.

anyway then she texted and basically said ‘sorry and i guess i’ll stop trying to be (part of) your support network, i’ll assume you’ve got other people looking out for you’ which like...? what? okay? like even as a teen i was having to be the more mature one and this is another passive-aggressive thing i have to deal with. and in the past i might have apologized? but nowadays my tolerance for that bullshit is extremely low. so i just said ‘not what i was going for but you do you’ essentially and she texted back ‘what were you going for’ and i haven’t responded yet. i will presumably but probably not tonight, i cannot deal. i don’t even know where to start with that, she just really does not get it. and i thought i could almost make her get it today by explaining my perspective but all she wants to think about is herself and her perspective and how she’s right.

so basically i’m very done with things tonight. and i’ve cried a couple times since because i’m just feeling very shitty about everything. here’s hoping tomorrow is better.

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cantskank · 4 years

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pros and cons of having your (by your own unreliable estimation) sliiiiiightly too profuse apology message (that accompanies your shame spiral) being ignored in the discord:

pro: probably/presumably no one else thought it needed to really be acknowledged and everyone has moved on

cons: you’re in a shame spiral and no one is realizing this and you are therefore not getting reassured about it

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cantskank · 4 years

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idk i’m just not in a really good place right now. i’m just like. feeling like i don’t matter.

not sure if i’ve mentioned on here but i’ve been active in one fandom space in particular recently and it’s been very helpful to me to still feel like. connected and important.

but idk i still wonder how much i’m wanted around and stuff. like i’ve literally always struggled with how much to express myself (like all my life) and it’s doubly hard online where i like. can come back and see every stupid and wrong thing that i’ve said. so i’ve felt very welcome in this space and i’m so, so grateful for that. but i can’t tell if it’s welcome as in tolerated or welcome as in enjoyed. i think people like having me around? idk i’ve just been feeling very sensitive about how much people seem to like and appreciate me vs how they appreciate others, and how i appreciate them as well.

maybe it’s just because i’ve gotten so invested in this community recently and the more invested i get the more i start to doubt myself and then resent how much i love everyone there and how much i doubt that is reciprocated

which story of my fucking life honestly. i know i overinvest in things/people. and i’m not exactly good at showing that. and then i start to think that i like them wayyyyy more than they like me, which is a problem. then i start to resent them for it. and i do sort of start to get jealous of the people they do actually like (instead of me who’s imposing myself on them). just a little though.

i wonder if it has to do with my mom. i just think she was/seemed a bit withholding with her emotions. and i think unintentionally she played us (my siblings and i) off each other a bit (along the lines of like if my sister said something she didn’t like she’d like idk pout about it a bit until one of the other two disagreed and then she’d say ‘see xxxxx loves me’). i think i’ve got a lot of unresolved issues around expressing emotion from her actually, even when she blames me for not being open enough to her.

this made me feel better. i still think the emotion i’m feeling is rejection but intellectually i know that’s (probably) not really the case. and i would like. try to let them know that i can chill out/leave if they’re over me being around but. one that’s kinda manipulative (basically forcing them to reassure me that i should stick around. and either they mean it or they don’t, and the second case is something i would feel so guilty for (them telling me to stay but not meaning it but feeling like they had to to be nice.)) and like. it would probably be coming kinda out of left field for them and i don’t want to make them question things. also like it’s kinda shitty to make them feel like they aren’t doing enough, it’s not their job to make me feel okay. and they’re not even doing anything to me, i just am really sensitive right now. again i think it’s just realizing that i’m in way deep to this community and i’m feeling a little self-conscious about how much that energy is directed back at me. which it doesn’t need to be, and it’s my own fault to want things back when i’m Like This. and they would probably say they really like me! i’m just needy. and i always feel like shit when i feel needy because like. i think the assumption is that people who are needy kinda end up fulfilling that with a partner and i don’t want a partner.

we’ll see though, i’ve been thinking a lot about aromanticism and my aromanticism and maybe i should be reevaluating. like on the one hand i can’t really picture having a partner. on the other hand some of the time i’m fucking miserable and i think that maybe i should just think about it a bit more. what i fucking hate is that i have to choose. and probably some would say that they didn’t have to choose (found strong bonds without romance) and to that i would say that even so, that’s not really how society is set up and also good fucking luck to me, i would never expect to find that when i am the way i am. like maybe some really excellent aros/people get to find that but that’s definitely not a thing i could really hope for.

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cantskank · 4 years

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sometimes i wonder if the only way to matter in the world is to be loved romantically

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cantskank · 4 years

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been thinking recently about how i’m able to express myself via writing much differently than in person

i’ve recently joined a couple of communities online that i’m pretty active in, and it’s just such a different experience?

like. irl i don’t know what it is about me- being fat, being queer, being hyper (especially as a kid, i’ve learned to tone that down a lot)- that makes people much more likely to reject me? like there’s something about me that the same set of words coming from me and from someone else is received very differently. and online i can say what i actually would say to someone (basically, be more open) and have it received well whereas irl if i were the one saying it they would probably be weirded out or something. and it’s all innocuous stuff like ‘oh i love your art’ or like ‘you’re hilarious’ and um i guess this is all very much stuff i thought i left behind in high school (/left behind with my family to some extent, who thought i was weird for liking the things i did).

anyway i’m sure i do this to others too (and i would never want to intentionally do this). it’s just been really interesting to feel the difference w/ being accepted immediately into a community vs kinda having to be the outsider to some extent. or, maybe i feel like i have to be the outsider and that’s the main part of my issue

and it also may be down to the communities i’m joining now, since they’re all full of lovely people and maybe in other less welcoming settings i would be received the same way over text

also probably a huge part is not being able to see other people’s reactions, i do a LOT of analyzing of facial expressions/body language when i interact irl and perhaps a lot of that stops me from fully expressing myself (like getting a neutral/slightly negative read from someone makes me draw back a bit and go more reserved)

and maybe a lot of my feelings of alienation irl are me being self-sabotaging and self-effacing, and i should just be better at realizing when people want me around

anyway i think i always do this (meaning post when this happens) but i tried to call my sister today, she didn’t even let it ring through, just let it ring like once before ignoring it. i kinda wondered if she got a new number? but i don’t think so. i might check with my brother if i can end up working it out with him to facetime, since my mom has some weird like antipathy for my sister that means her attitude is like ‘that’s what you get with (my sister)’ (which is fucked up to be clear) idk what’s going on with her but i’m thinking i might need to be more direct with her. like, maybe try to text her about having tried to call, then if she doesn’t answer i would ask my brother if she changed her contact info- okay actually wait. if she got kicked off our parents’ plan, she would have a new phone number. i don’t know if it’s happened but it’s been something that’s been talked about in the past. so i might just try texting my brother and seeing if he knows. cause if she did get a new number and i’ve been trying to call her on someone else’s number instead this whole time...awkward and i don’t want to keep trying and harass some stranger.

kay i just texted him, we’ll see..

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cantskank · 4 years

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okay lots of posting tonight, last one i think:

had a sense-memory flash to me in the shower, remembering how one of my best friends just...randomly started hanging out with another person and completely ignoring me? this was at a random event at the start of middle school. and we went to different schools so it’s not like we could hang out all that much (and i had other friends anyway) but it’s just weird to remember. i remember my parents trying to talk to me about it but me brushing it off and treating it like no big deal? which i think i felt it was at the time. it’s weird to look back on now because i guess it’s not a normal way to treat someone but i didn’t think it was weird i guess. i just think of the little kid following them around and trying to be included and getting brushed off and...not caring? or not being thrown off by it? i was a weird kid, i mostly read books, and i probably had some sense of being a bit too much to deal with because i don’t think i was too thrown off by being excluded.

it’s just weird to think about because i can see it in a bigger pattern: of not assuming that i’m included, of being fine to not be included, of not being too attached to being part of the group (just in case, because they could reject me (...and i probably wouldn’t blame them)), even of not being that attached to each friend, just in case they didn’t want me around anymore. and i don’t know if it fits in because it set the pattern, or if the pattern was already set before that and so i was familiar with it.

idk i just think of the kid who um saw their friend ignore them, accepted it, and didn’t even feel too emotional about it and i wonder why they might have been like that.

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cantskank · 4 years

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rewatched mad max: fury road for the first time in YEARS. and it took me back to a time when i was in a much better place. all the things that have been on my mind and which have taken up space in my life are ultimately pretty unimportant. i want to keep that mentality in mind going forward. things are okay, things can be okay. life can be beautiful and wild and hard. there are bigger questions at stake than the dumb little ones i preoccupy myself with.

(also i should probably get a car, life sucks when i can’t go anywhere)

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cantskank · 4 years

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i think i’m having to accept that tma is just not the fan space for me. i enjoy it now, but the only reason i got into was for the ace rep. i’m not a fan of horror OR scripted podcasts (like i am neutral to actively dislike them pretty much). i was not expecting it to be a romance. not to be the grouchy aro but i thought getting into a horror podcast would be like “safe” for not having romance. and i really like the pairing actually! and like literally everyone else i project so heavily onto martin. my relationship with romance in fiction is usually like- i like the part where they’re falling in love/getting together. then the actual relationship itself is...like dicey at best for me (in terms of enjoyment). it depends how it is portrayed really- sometimes i get it, and a lot of times it just seems so unappealing. and like now is not the best time for either of them so i don’t really...get it. honestly it just feels like they’re getting on each other’s nerves but are still together? idk why that aggravates me- i acknowledge this isn’t a rational way to feel about this fictional relationship.

ANYWAYS. idk i guess i hoped getting into tma that i would really relate to jon’s experience. but we don’t even get his experience! we find out secondhand, and it’s not even clear what we find out- so much so that it took someone asking a question and the creator’s response to clear it up. even then, it was some “HE might not think of it that way but that’s what it is i guess” which is some straight BULLSHIT (pardon the pun). i just wanna state for the record that that is WEAKSAUCE FUCKING REPRESENTATION. at least don’t be so much of a coward that we can barely tell you’re trying to out him as ace (without him knowing) and then skirt the issue

and i don’t think he really got how important ace rep is so i maybe can’t fault him for that but...it sucks. at least like...educate yourself on ways it might be good to portray aces in media. again, though, my expectations are a me problem. i just think that like we don’t have enough extant ace rep to like...casually make a character that misses the mark in those ways. like yeah there’s a vast wealth of ace experiences and there are tons of aces who would probably not be like super ready to accept that they are ace! like i’m basically not out at ALL irl and so i get it! but at least like you could maybe not make that one of the few ace characters we have to represent us? ace rep is not at that point yet! we need characters that are open and unashamed to be ace. todd chavez was a really weird character for me to watch! i was like way thrown off by how comfortable he was with talking about being asexual (even though it did take some time for him to accept it! which is totally reasonable!). but i think it was necessary because it weirdly went such a long way to normalizing it for me? like i’m asexual! i spent a large formative part of my late teens/early twenties interacting with almost all asexuals on the internet (aven). if anyone is accustomed to asexuality it should be me, right?? but actually seeing a character be asexual and even discuss it proudly made me realize how much of a shameful secret i thought of my asexuality as. i’ve definitely framed it as a forbidden or taboo topic and really separated my active, open asexual persona online from my irl persona. anyway the fact that that one character had such an impact on me just goes to show how much we still need that kind of representation and not some bullshit rep.

okay onto fandom shit:

i just find there’s so much fan content (mostly fic! because i don’t really engage in any other way and i don’t really have any desire to! because it’s even worse for this than fic i have a sense!) that doesn’t want to think critically about what an asexual relationship means/looks like. either they are not ace and have heard “oh okay aces ‘can’ have sex, well jon will just have sex!” or they are ace and idk have internalized that message as well? either way i fucking hate people who don’t think about how that relationship might diverge from an allo one. THEY ARE DIFFERENT. ASEXUALITY IS ITS OWN THING. IT IS NOT A THING WHERE YOU JUST DO WHAT YOUR PARTNER WANTS. IT IS NOT A THING WHERE YOU SAY “OKAY SURE” AND NEVER DISCUSS BEYOND THAT OR BOTHER TO SET BOUNDARIES. IT IS NOT JUST ONE CONVERSATION AND THEN DONE. like an asexual relationship can be those things but i don’t think that’s an ideal relationship anyways? (even for allos tbh..) and idk why you’d want to idealize that in fandom anyways? like you can make that relationship look like whatever you want! why would you make it look like that? (not to generalize or like invalidate anyone’s experience but i....feel like there is some internalized shit there. especially when these things are presented without question? like it’s one thing to present things one way and it’s another to do it without questioning. one of my favorite ace fics (notably, not tma) is all about the ace character exploring his sexuality! and having sex with his partner! but it’s presented with such attention to all characters that i have no trouble at all. having sex as an asexual is not inherently negative, but i cannot deal with media that doesn’t consider and address the implications of having sex as an asexual.

and honestly there’s so much discussion around the Issue (that i don’t even get involved in but it swirls around my peripheries of my fandom experience) that that aspect distresses me a lot! because the people who disagree with me make me feel like shit. i’m sure it is really confusing and difficult to be an asexual who is okay with sex, or interested in exploring sex, or whatever people would consider themselves. it just feels antithetical to the asexual activism of ‘sex can be cool but it’s not necessarily for everyone.’ like, if you’re an ace who has sex or whatever, cool! and i hope you can find your corner of the ace community that vibes with that. i cannot, and like. compulsory sexuality does not need propping up. if sex is for you, then congrats! you fit into the norm in that way! you might not fit into the norm re: sexual attraction and i’m sure that’s not easy to reconcile. however, i am not personally in a place where i can be the person who supports that uncritically when i’m still working within myself to understand where compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity have worked within me. because i have been hurt by both of those things, MY primary goal is to work on dismantling those things (at least in myself, ideally in the world around me). and people who do not have that as a goal and who instead want to mirror allo-ness in writing an ace character just don’t get the same consideration from me, unfortunately. i guess this has helped me see that i should just fuck that noise. if you want to make that the big thing you complain about on the internet i won’t stop you. and...it occurs to me that’s what i’m doing! so i’m going to refocus and stop just moping about my aro aceness and how i’m being ignored. i’ve got better things to focus my time on than haters online. i will not be dragged down to their mopey level!

also i feel weird and way too old for the fandom demographic (even though there are certainly fans waaaay older than me in the fandom!) i think i’ve outgrown a lot of the fandom mentality. wait is hockey fandom for old people? (i’m fully not old but i’m probably old-ish for tumblr/fandom. certainly old for tma fandom) it occurs to me it’s sort of a graduation into a societally-acceptable form of fandom and it probably doesn’t appeal as much to younger audiences. AND things can be as sexy/romantic or platonic as you like.

anyway all this is to say that i thought getting into media with aspec rep would be good for me but i think i must conclude that it has NOT. it has actually just upset me way more than it has helped me feel good about being ace (which was the whole goal!). i will be glad when it is over. AND i’m glad i’ve really just been engaging with rqg fandom. it is much more fun and a much better story!

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cantskank · 4 years

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sometimes you just have to let yourself be a fucked-up human being with a fucked-up (in)ability to have friends

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cantskank · 4 years

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having a hard time with my grad stuff right now

it’s weird, today was a wild swing of emotions? i went from having a meeting and feeling good about things to getting an e-mail tonight and feeling like absolute fucking shit

idk, it’s hard right now and i don’t want to be making any decisions especially right now when i’m shut in alone by myself all the time but

being away from the department and other grad students has really made me start to wonder if this is what i want to be doing with my life?

i know i’m just like really not a great grad student. i’m passable at most. and like my one thing/goal i have in mind for my future i’m like almost certainly not going to get, no one gets hired for that job and certainly not someone as dumb as me.

i’m like mostly worried i don’t have the scientific curiosity for the gig or whatever, i know i can be a hard worker (although i’m not really doing that right now). i just..really struggle reading papers (i eventually do want to see if i have adhd or if i’m just like really bad and lazy and can’t stick with things that are difficult), and i’m like not really good at figuring out the things that are wrong and asking questions about the science. i’m also like not sure that i am self-directed enough for it? like, i’m not good at thinking like “oh i should do this next to better understand my data” or whatever.

plus i like really hate my living situation (location basically) and i wanna die whenever i think about basically spending the rest of my 20s in the middle of fucking nowhere, wasting away.

but also like, what would i end up doing? it was pretty much a fluke that i got accepted here. i don’t even know what i would want to do anywhere else! i suck at everything! and the stuff i went to school for is limited job options, it’s like site remediation or mining, neither of which appeals to me. what i want to be doing is like something i really care about and in a city that i like. ideally i would be back in montreal but my french isn’t good enough for that.

anyway today i had a pretty good meeting...i’m getting to the end of writing my paper and so that’s cool but it also means i’m like trying to hammer out the more challenging aspects of the project (like i couldn’t answer some stuff and i felt dumb) but overall i felt fine. then my advisor just wrote and said “we really need to read x” and i felt, like...fuck i should have been on top of this and i’m not doing enough and i’m bad at being on top of the literature and maybe some of the stuff has already been addressed and...idk just that i’m not like on top of things. and things are maybe already a bit tricky with my advisor since like a month ago she was all like “maybe you should switch to a master’s” which was like fucking awful and a little traumatic (sorry not using that word seriously, i do like freak out about letting her down and worry a lot about sending stuff to her right now but i know that’s not trauma, i just like find that this is the only place i can admit how much things like that affect me. i can think it (barely) but it doesn’t feel real until i’ve written/said it).

it doesn’t help that like i’m not having a good time with trying to speak to either of my siblings, they like pretend (or not) that they want to talk to me but then never do. like i get it, i care a lot more about them than they do about me. story of my life, things have always been that way.

and it’s weird to have like my mom be the only one who makes the effort to be in touch with me? like a thing i’m thinking about a lot right now is being less dependent on my mom in particular, she’s always wanted me to like behave in certain ways or tell her certain things because i guess that’s how she feels like assured that we’re close? but like it’s not being close for me to feel like i have to be a certain way to not upset her. i want to have boundaries but i feel bad for trying to express those. i mean, to me i would feel better if the person i wanted to be close to felt they could express or not express whatever they wanted, and that like that closeness wasn’t something generated to appease them.

woah i just had the like weirdest feeling. basically feeling like...acceptance? that she could have treated me poorly and still try to be nice to me most of the rest of the time?

like. i think it’s not normal to: feel like i have to be evasive or obscure things i am strongly interested in to preserve some of my own identity so that i don’t have to show more of myself to her, feel just awful every time i do something wrong especially in front of her, get really just strongly berated by her and like do nothing but get berated worse??? and like this is all things i’ve reflected on before but this time i was also thinking about the last time i was visiting home and i got similarly berated by her? and like whenever i think of her being harsh i just assume i’m either remembering wrong/making it worse than it was, or that i was a lot younger then, i was probably a shithead teenager. but the thing is i wasn’t! like i literally never acted out, i barely had friends, there is nothing i could have done that would have warranted me feeling like shit and feeling “selfish” or “entitled” which are words that literally haunt me to this day. i’m like petrified of overstepping boundaries or asking too much of people, i will literally never complain or anything, and expressing my own needs (especially if i’m not asked) is like literally the last thing i would ever do. and like the whole “i was a teenager, it was probably fine actually” thing kinda falls apart when she’s still behaving the same way to me when i’m 24 and literally the only thing i did was not look up something she had wanted me to look up. and i got a full like “what’s wrong with you” lecture. plus my dad was just sitting there not doing anything? like he wasn’t around a ton when i was growing up (because of work, not for any other reason) and his family was very weird and was very hands-off? so he like is a bit distant. and like idk i just want to believe that he just like doesn’t know the whole deal and if he did he wouldn’t think i deserved to be spoken to like that- idk which is would be harder, the fact that he thinks i deserve it (or doesn’t but doesn’t have the full picture) or the fact that he doesn’t think i do and doesn’t want to speak up about things. idk that all just like struck me, idk where it came from, i really need to see a therapist probably. but like: i don’t have to just assume that she’s probably right about things/about me, she can be nice and still be awful sometimes, i need to rethink my approach. so it’s just really weird to be here and feel really untethered right now and have the only person that’s reaching out to me be my mom, who i’m having a lot of complicated feelings about anyways?????

also today she found an article about my lab with just a seriously unflattering picture of me that i hate. like consciously trying to be loving of my body but i’ll just say it- i look like a fat fuck. and at the time everyone at school was like talking about seeing the article and saying the picture of all of us looked so cute and like- maaaaaaybe i don’t wanna talk about it? maaaaaybe i don’t like the way i look in that photo especially next to everyone else who are all skinny as fuck? anyway there’s a reason i didn’t tell my mom about that (i mean i hate the picture (and it doesn’t help that a lot of my feelings of shame around fatness are centred around her and like feelings of wanting to not be fat come from seeking her approval) and again i’ve learned to not share things, especially things that have the potential to make me feel bad (like i could deal with her criticizing a photo i like, but not a photo i fucking hate). anyway that made me feel like shit already! then i got the e-mail from my advisor and i was freaking out and feeling awful.

anyway this ended up turning into a post about family issues (surprise, surprise) but i just wanted to get stuff off my chest. i’m not making any decisions right now (re: grad stuff) but i was struggling today.

tbh, i think it’s also partly the fact that things are maybe in a weird transition-y period right now? like things are looking like they’re maybe getting back to normal, at least temporarily, which i’m like so on board with (it’s hard to do work from home! for me at least) so i think i’m caught in this weird stage of ‘get ready to go back to normal and back to real life and doing real things’ and ‘you can’t do that yet and even though that would make you way more productive you still have to manage to do things now even though you can practically see the finish line for this fucked-up crisis situation and you’d rather just wait until things are back to normal’

anyway take care <3

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cantskank · 4 years

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having lots of SHITTY GENDER FEELINGS

um, i think i know what set things off. i was starting to answer a survey about nonbinary experience and there was the question “do you experience transmisogyny?” and i looked it up since i had a pretty good idea what transmisogyny was but i didn’t want to be wrong. like, i was pretty sure it was misogyny against (specifically) trans women/transfemme people and i was right. but i did want to look it up because as two essential parts- trans and misogyny- like as an afab person who is not at all “transitioned” and is basically considered a “““““woman”“““““ (eughhhhhhhh) by everyone in my life i experience a lot of misogyny! and as someone who does not conform to standards of femininity i feel very stigmatized for that! and i feel they interact a lot with each other in a very negative way and i wanted to make sure i wasn’t saying no to that.

anyway looking it up i found that my initial instinct was right, and i was reading just the first couple of results about the term. and the premise that transmisogyny is based on is the idea that because of the supremacy of masculinity, turning away from that and “choosing” femininity is seen as extra subversive and deserving of hate. and i agree with that! i really do.

and an example given is that masculine women are seen as more acceptable than feminine men. which is true. but like all i could think is I WISH THERE WERE A WAY FOR ME TO BROADCAST MY NON-FEMALENESS

my rant is going to be selfish and shitty! because that’s where i’m at in this present moment!

but:

an amab person who wears a skirt or makeup or etc gets automatically understood as gender non-conforming.

an afab person does not have their own hallmarks of nonconformity. because masculine is the “default” and to be aspired to, masculine things have been adopted by women out of necessity. which sucks, but more power to whoever wants those!

but it means that i can have short hair, use a small-ass sports bra to bind my chest, wear mostly masculine clothes, etc., and still have everyone call me she.

i do think i present rather gender-ambiguous when i’m out and about but my voice is extremely high and once a stranger hears me speak they get to automatically classify me as a ““““woman”“““ who just doesn’t know how to look like one rather than someone who is trying to be really, really far from feminine.

and it sucks! if there were something i could do, an item of clothing i could wear, that would mark me as nonfeminine i would take it in a second. and i know that it is extremely dangerous to be a trans woman/transfemme! and many people are just trying to pass as a binary gender.

there’s just something so difficult for me personally about: you are ignored and dismissed and invisible, and your gender cannot be recognized, and you are a ““““woman”“““ who is too stupid/ugly/socially unaware to perform femininity right. and yet it is a lesser problem than trans women/transfemme people being scrutinized as feminine amab people.

(possibly it’s hitting home a lot because a lot of the time i don’t feel like a real worthy person who counts and who gets to have problems and feelings.)

(like rest assured i feel awful that my first reaction to this stuff was selfish) (i know trans women/transfemme people have it HARD)

(i have a lot of unresolved gender shit! literally for the past six years i’ve been operating under ‘there’s something weird here and i have some words but i’m figuring things out and do i even really need words and i can’t imagine coming out to my family because they’d probably be politely clueless at best and they’d probably just ignore my needs and whatever pronouns i tell them to use and i'm so fucking tired of trying to express a part of myself whatever it is and having them at best brush it away and at worst make fun of me and laugh at me and whatever. their mo is polite wasp family who will politely pretend to accept/understand something different then do whatever they want about it because they don’t understand. like when i told my mom “(friend) uses they/them pronouns” and she said “well i’m sure (friend) doesn’t really expect someone of my age to...” like that attitude.)

anyway i think i’m feeling a bit better, fingers crossed. i was also stressed as fuck about my assignment that i just turned in so hopefully it was stress-induced negativity (i mean not that that shit’s not there in the background but hopefully feeling this negative was just normal feelings being exacerbated by stress.

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cantskank · 4 years

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on silence and slowness

i tried calling my sister today. she actually picked up, unlike last time (when she also ignored my follow-up text), but she was out and said she’d call back later. i told her to text if i didn’t pick up, since sometimes calls don’t go through. i waited to have my fucking dinner because i thought for sure she’d call back in a bit. well, guess what happened????

(me, waiting around like an idiot, not acknowledging the fact that she definitely wasn’t calling, finally having dinner a couple of hours later.)

and i guess my main question is, does she think i’m that simple, that idiotically content and unaware, that she can “promise” to call me back, then not do it, and i won’t even notice? that telling me she will do that will satisfy me enough until she can hang up and bank on the fact that like a dumb happy dog i’ll get distracted by the next thing and forget that we were supposed to talk?

i don’t think this is what i would be jumping to/fixating on about the situation if it weren’t something i was hyperaware of my whole life? like, i was always very smiley and happy as a kid and i think that is why a lot of the time i was treated just a little bit slow by my family? (never mind the fact that if i was not being smiley and complacent and easy and happy that my mom would get annoyed and act like i was being a huge inconvenience) (plus i was always a little big, which never helps your case if you’re trying to convince someone that you’re intelligent) i just feel like i have a lot of memories of my mom laughing at me a bit when i said something “dumb” and i think she thought it was a bit cute and on her end it was lighthearted? but i could always tell she was making fun of me. and there was never really anything i could say to explain myself, she just wanted to joke about/laugh at me messing things up. and that kind of dynamic catches on, right?? so i feel like my siblings have also always thought i was a bit slow. and my dad was never around and never really got to know me as a kid and he’s definitely the family member i feel the most anxiety over looking dumb in front of (because then he will be able to make the call for himself that i’m slow). the whole vibe was nothing like really bullying or overt (i wasn’t like constantly being belittled or put down at home or anything) but um i don’t think it’s something i’ve really like allowed myself to think about too much? i just made the connection in the shower and almost started crying?

i’ve always been a bit anxious, a bit overly careful to make sure i wasn’t misrepresenting myself. like, if someone mistakes something i said and makes a joke out of it, instead of letting the joke go, most of the time i’ll explain myself so they know i’m not dumb or that like i get what they’re saying (showing that i’m in on the joke is very important to me i think). i have never liked speaking in front of a group of people, i don’t like feeling scrutinized and watched by that many people? like i’m just standing there defenseless and exposed and they’re all able to see exactly what i’m doing (and doing wrong)?

i think it’s connected to me being a bit of a people pleaser as well...like because i always felt a little dumb and inferior i worked extra hard to live up to expectations? not rock the boat and get noticed? like i’ve always tried to get past that idea that i’m just a little bit slower and simpler than everyone else in the family and that they can all just join in on laughing together at me and i won’t even get what’s going on or even understand that there’s something to laugh at. and nowadays socially i do work hard to be funny and i think it’s so that i can be in on the joke (and i never make those sorts of jokes at anyone else’s expense). and one of the most important things to me is to not let my parents down which could possibly come from me trying not to be a bit dumb like they already expect.

and i’m sure if you asked they would call me smart or whatever, they just don’t really understand what it implies to always make me *not* being in on the joke, the butt of the joke.

um idk it’s weird and while i’ve definitely thought about like “ugh i have low self-esteem and my negative self-talk revolves around being big and slow and dumb and i know that probably comes from feeling really negatively misunderstood by my immediate family members” i have not really been willing to admit it’s more important than that? and it may not be. times like these i really want a therapist, because i think they would be really helpful in sorting out whether that is significant for me or whether i’m overestimating/exaggerating its importance in my life. for the rest of the times i’m not sure if what i need is a therapist or just someone who will validate my bad feelings. like, what i really want more than anything in life is someone who will just take the time to listen to my problems, tell me that they sound really difficult, and reassure and help me. so i’ve avoided really pursuing therapy because i’m worried that 1. my problems are not significant enough for therapy (although that is becoming less and less of a problem as i start to acknowledge more of this stuff) or 2. their job is to help me fix any problems i might have and i don’t know if i want to fix them, what i might want first and foremost is just someone who will make me and my problems feel accepted and heard. which is just a little pathetic probably.

anyway it probably hit really hard this time because it’s sort of a problem i’ve been having a lot recently. um, i’m probably the last person that gets to complain about stuff because i’m really bad at this most of the time when the world is normal, but i’ve reached out to a few people recently and not heard a single thing back? i wrote to possibly my two closest friends here individually and didn’t hear anything back from either one. and one of them i’m a bit concerned about? we’ve talked at length about her mental health and she mentioned that she had been in a really bad place prior to us talking? and i’ve tried to contact her a few times recently (once asking if she wanted to chat again, once like asking how she was doing, once more casually so she didn’t feel the pressure of the whole “how are you doing” conversation) and she didn’t respond to any of the messages, didn’t even view them as far as i can tell? she did have a message in a large group chat (that i keep muted most of the time) from a few days ago, which made me feel better in terms of her possibly doing okay at that point. i just realized that there is a call tomorrow she should probably be on, so hopefully i will see her and feel better. plus there is a thing on friday i will probably do that she should be at. anyway, no response from either of my friends, no response (basically) from either of my siblings. from time to time when i’m not doing so well i start to feel very floaty emotionally and i get in a weird funk about not really existing? not in a depersonalization sense (from what i can tell) but in a sort of existential sense (don’t think i’m using that word right...). sort of like “if a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound” but like “if i put something out there and get no response do i even exist and count? am i worthy of being listened to? am i an invisible ghost, not even to be acknowledged?” how can i trust that i’m worthy of any type of consideration if i’m not getting any response to what i’m putting out there? like, in that sense do i exist. because existence is objective, sure, in one sense, but also can’t you build your trust in your own existence on how you are received and responded to? like i exist (sure) but do i if i only listen to myself? when i feel sometimes at one with the universe and swallowed up, and also sometimes reduced down to the tiniest dot? okay so then i can trust other people to help me understand how much i am. but if i put something out there and get nothing back, then i don’t know do i.

(“just put yourself out there” (is the advice i continually get for making friends) not if it’s always me and i am clearly everyone’s last priority, the slow one catching up to the social situations, the one that they roll their eyes for having there and having to include. i KNOW when you’re doing that, when you’re impatient and over me as a person or think i’m too much too loud or not worthy or that i’m someone you can ignore or push around. when you don’t value me)

anyway i might start slipping into that funk i’m not sure. we shall see. things with my studies are getting more intense so hopefully not. also my own stress might be contributing to a lot of negativity right now, and i will hopefully feel better about things in a day or two.

um take care <3 <3 <3 <3

#i'm a fucking dumbass and will give my posts dumb titles because i fucking want to!

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cantskank · 4 years

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fuck this is long...tldr i’ve been lame but getting better

the last post is brought to you by me getting into the magnus archives for some positive ace rep

then having the absolute and overwhelming focus of the fandom be focused on that character’s romantic relationship

then the people who ignore or gloss over the fact that jon is ace or make him have sex anyway to make martin happy???? which just like fucks me up a bit

(esp bc exact quote, “jon...doesn’t” really disputes the idea that he would have sex with martin)

(also much more minor but it bugs me to see people in the fandom refer to jon and martin together as gay. jon is biro ace, i think gay is not particularly accurate. and gayness is excellent! don’t get me wrong. but that’s just not accurate to what jon is. and it would not at all bother me if there were equal amounts of “aww look at them they’re so asexual together!” and that description probably feels weird and wrong. but it’s just as correct as saying “they’re so gay and cute!” or whatever i keep seeing people say about it! it is just as accurate to call their relationship ace as it is to call it gay! and not wanting to acknowledge or even consider that is really telling in what it reveals about how non-aces feel about asexuality. it just builds to a picture of ‘we want our own representation and we will discard or ignore the ‘uglier’ bits of one of the ship character’s identity because asexuality is foreign to me/irrelevant/unnatural/weird/something i don’t fully understand and am afraid to/uninteresting.’ and i very much want to sympathize with the former (again, the whole reason i got into the magnus archives) and very much want to kill the latter with fire. this is also relevant to me in that about a year ago, i started thinking a lot about how as an aro ace, being told i had straight passing privilege, and the fact that i am not out (but would not lie and call myself straight) and just generally allow people to assume whatever they want about me when it comes to my orientation, whether that’s gay, straight, bi, ace, whatever, (and also having had mostly straight friends for the couple of years before that when it had very much been the opposite prior to that (and that does make a difference, to me at least),) had resulted in me very much creating this narrative of being ‘effectively straight.’ not at all in the sense that ‘yes i’m basically straight and i feel mostly straight’ but in that i felt like ace-ness and aro-ness, if i wasn’t going to be out about it (which i’m not but which i may end up changing down the line), was not something i was allowed to consider as separate and distinct and special and important about myself? because society would not like to think about aros/aces. what society wants is to send the message that “not having sex is not important. not having sex is not normal and makes you a loser. not feeling romantic attraction is shameful and unnatural. not feeling romantic attraction is something that makes you a monster. do not talk about your disinterest in these things, it is at once completely unimportant/irrelevant and for our comfort and to allow you to conform socially you should not talk about it AND it is disgusting and freakish and makes you broken.” so. it is somehow unimportant AND deeply disturbing at the same time. anyway, for me this resulted in feeling that my aro ace-ness was unremarkable and i should not consider it something exceptional about me, and i should just settle into viewing myself as close to the default. and maybe you would think i am part of the default, as a first impression, and that’s fine. but i realized i didn’t want to think of myself that way. even if people will insist it is this way, asexual =/= straight. i get to, and i want to, think of asexuality as its own distinct thing, and it does not have to fit into the paradigm of gay vs straight because it cannot fit into that paradigm. i had refused to give myself the space to think of it as special because no one was telling me it was special. and not being out definitely had a huge effect on this. but it is just factually untrue to view myself as unremarkable for being asexual and as ‘effectively straight’ because it’s wrong! it’s just wrong! and if i am firmly of the belief that i am not straight, i must be equally firmly of the belief that i am not gay. there is no judgment involved in either of those statements, but i must respect myself and my identity enough to firmly believe it is its own identity, and worthy of being considered that way, and not merely framed in which ways it relates the false dichotomy of gay and straight. meaning, i cannot frame my asexuality as “not quite gay but not quite straight” but as its own entity: i have my own distinct orientation and it is aromantic asexual and i do not experience attraction. full-stop.” which may seem basic (and may seem like a very minute difference) but it was an important step for me in my identity. i don’t think i’m quite explaining it right. i will say: whether they realize it consciously or not, i think a lot of people think of sexuality by how much you deviate from the norm. the norm is straight. the most extreme not-norm (by, again, the false dichotomy that has been set up) is gay. how different you are from the norm will probably determine how important your sexuality is to you because non-normative sexualities are oppressed and the fight to be allowed to feel you are worthy of respect means your sexuality feels and is highly personal. and, this would be a measure of how gay you are. before my perspective shift, i felt very little about my sexuality (other than mostly dread at dying alone. which i still feel!). therefore, i was not very different from the norm, and my sexuality was not worthy of consideration. it was not allowed to be very important to me, especially if i was not going to be very out. BUT! this is not a good perspective! again, false! dichotomy! there is no reason to view yourself on a sliding scale of gay and straight! i am Neither! and it is for this reason that i feel very strongly that gay is not the right way to describe jon! it can be, and if it feels right to him then that is a fine and excellent way to identify! but his identity is asexual and, by necessity, he is not gay. just as he is not straight. which is okay and allowed. and by many people choosing exclusively to refer to jon and martin as gay, while extremely understandable, feels like a failure to understand the above. allo identities do not hold precedence over aspec identities because aspec identities are worthy of their own consideration, not just as something “missing” and inherently lower priority to allo identities. and calling the relationship gay exclusively, feels like they kind of believe that. and any reluctance to call their relationship ace (which i think MOST people would find very strange and weird and uncomfortable) is a lack of education and understanding on what asexuality looks like, the kinds of relationships asexuals have. asexuals are not some remote, gross thing that cannot be understood and must be ignored, we are people and we are here. if you haven’t noticed, our entire online presence is BUILT around education and visibility. these are things you can find out and understand very quickly. and hopefully people will not view asexuality as something weird and shameful and something that should just be ignored. holy shit that was a long aside.)

and the post was precipitated by seeing fanart of a very romantically intimate moment and not being at all interested in that for myself. i really want to be close to someone (/some people which is too much to hope for) but just so emphatically not in that way. just...a lot of clarity in what i want? because i am sometimes so miserable for being aro specifically that i wonder if my identifying this way is wrong and unhealthy, whether it’s worse to consider myself aro and causing more problems than it’s solving. sometimes i wonder if i was too quick to dismiss romance and all my self-discovery and self-reliance has been for nothing? maybe being miserable about amatonormativity has just been because i’m alloro but just miserable and self-hating and trying to ruin the fun for everyone and the problem is not that romance has been artificially elevated but just that i have deep-seated issues with romance?

anyway it was more of a relief than anything to have my aro-ness confirmed by my gut reaction. um, i still think i need to let go of some of my bitterness about amatonormativity, only because it’s not serving me to be my happiest self (not because it’s not bullshit), but it’s not because i’m unconsciously not aro.

here’s what i think i want for myself:

like i said above, letting go of some of my anger at romance and at amatonormativity in general. there’s definitely a place for that in me, but people talking about romance should not make me miserable like it’s starting to do. in a lot of ways this comes from me being jealous and bitter about not having this supposedly wonderful, normal, natural experience, and not being confident in it being okay- great, even!- to be aro and not experience that. i want to become more neutral about romance, since it is equally okay to not experience that. my existence and validity is not threatened by other people having romantic relationships. it’s okay for that to be an important thing for them, and (/because) it’s equally okay for it NOT to be important to me.

sorta referenced in my point above, but i want to rely less on other people to make me valid. it doesn’t matter how anyone else feels, i am the way i am. i want to be much more confident in that for myself. i can’t progress and build a better relationship with myself if i don’t trust my own experience and emotions over what other people would tell me is true about myself (or how the rest of the world works).

i know this is kinda what got me feeling not great in the first place, but i want to find more ace/aro rep for myself. potentially this could make things worse (in the way i mentioned above; relying on that representation to really speak to my experience and finding that it does not, and that fandom in particular is very caught up the romance- and just generally allo- side of things). but i am hoping/relying on the possibility that increasing ace/aro rep will give me way more options and a higher chance that i will have my own experience reflected. i want to start listening to the penumbra podcast, since i’ve heard there are at least two aspec characters, one of whom is even aro ace! side note, thinking about it a bit: the first ace rep i had was a few months ago, when i watched bojack horseman and saw todd’s story. i think i was a bit spoiled in that rep. todd’s story was really focused on his own self-discovery. he was alloro and wanted a relationship, but in my mind he didn’t care so much about getting that. even when he was in a relationship, he still got to be cool and have his own adventures. having a romantic relationship was secondary to his story and, you got the sense, secondary to him as a person. and, his asexuality was very important to him once he realized he was ace. he was very open about it to people, not ashamed, and he did have a journey with his sexuality that the audience was brought along. that is everything i want in an ace character!!! then i got into the magnus archives, expecting to have a similar experience. instead, we find out jon is ace because we as the audience hear him being outed without his knowledge between his friends, based on information from his ex (again, presumably without his knowledge). and word of god says "although whether that’s how the archivist himself would actively identify, who knows?” also a very different take on ace rep than bojack horseman. and i love jon and martin as a couple, but i have just been really overwhelmed with how much of that is the focus of the fandom (plus my normal/main fandom is hockey and that can be VERY platonic. i can make it as platonic as it gets). those are two different ways of being asexual, and they are both valid! they probably each ring true for many. from my perspective i prefer the bojack approach because i feel more affirmed by todd’s rep than by jon’s, but that doesn’t make todd more accurate representation. i guess the moral of the story is, not all ace rep is the same, and don’t get invested in seeing yourself (or the kind of rep you want) in every ace story. and my solution is to broaden my ace rep rather than only have a few and ultimately not be happy with it. (also i want to be very clear that the importance of ace rep is something that is built up entirely in my mind. jonny said they always considered jon to be asexual from s1, way before he was revealed to be in the show. they were not going for ace rep, they just felt asexuality fit his character best. it is me (and others like me probably) who came to this story knowing this and placing expectations and stakes onto this character as The One Who Represents Us. i relate waaaay more to martin (as we all do i’m sure) but because my other options are so! very! limited! when it comes to asexuality i put all my emotions and expectations and self-worth on how this one character could represent my entire experience. which has nothing to do with the creators of the show, who are just telling the story they want to tell. so they can’t give “bad ace rep” because there are so many ace stories to tell and it’s not their fault or their problem that options are so limited that we end up building up any character that is ace into the one who represents all ace experiences. my fault, not theirs, is what i’m saying.)

probably obvious after my word-vomit but cut back on actively seeking out magnus archives fandom/content!!!! it does not make me feel better about myself. romantic relationships do NOT make you more worthy.

just generally being more positive and affirming about being aro ace (and being aro in particular!) it is excellent and there are so many good things about being this way! i would like to focus on those more for myself :)

holy shit i wrote a lot. i had a lot of feelings that i wanted to get out.

#i almost want to legit tag this #(with like aro/ace tags)#because i wrote a lot in here about being aspec that i'm really proud of and i think should get more consideration!#but this whole post is a mess and that's not why i wrote it #i did not write it to be consumed by other people :P #i think what i will probably do is take the parts that i think are good points and put them together into a post on my main blog.#also this was basically motivated by tma and idk how much i want to call that out.#like i'm not looking to start discourse in a fandom (which i most definitely will not do anyways)#but i think it's important if you're a fan of a certain piece of media that has certain identities represented #that you respect and have a lot of consideration for that? and that you don't generally choose to ignore our of disdain/ignorance for that #identity #idk apparently there are exclus who are fans of tma? and it's just like...how?#you know the main character who you presumably like is exactly the sort of person you would sneer at right?#even an exclu with the mildest feelings on asexuality (of the 'idc just you are only queer if you're otherwise lgbt also get out of my face'#variety) must feel some discomfort in their views given the fact that they appreciate jon as a person #how do you like and respect jon but still look down on aces????? i don't get it #and the people who ignore jon's ace identity give me similar vibes to that #like jon being ace is an unpleasant truth that they can just ignore their way out of #since deep down they don't respect us and don't find asexuality worthy of consideration #what they want out of this character is his ability to be in a gay relationship #which okay #i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how feeling nothing when it comes to romance and sex makes me feel like a non-person a lot of th #e time #which makes me feel like just a tool to use a lot of the time #which i might write about later #'oh you need someone to comfort you? i've got no one else in my life and i crave human contact i will drop everything and comfort you'#'oh you need someone to run an errand for you? i am so desperate to keep people in my life because i know most people will not stay in it fo #r me that i will run the errand for you and tell you i don't mind and it's fine and i will really really try hard because i have not yet int #ernalized the fact that being useful to people will not make them want me around any more'#'oh someone might need to take care of mom and dad when they're older? i won't have a family so it will probably be me'

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