#this is okay to reblog if it resonates

[timemachineyeah]

This is going to be a vent post. I’m fine. It’s okay! Sometimes I just need to rage uselessly against things no one can control before once again trying to be my usual pragmatic make-the-best-of-things self.

If you do not wish to read a vent, that’s understandable. Please scroll. Okay. 😘

Jesus Charcuterie Christ I am so fucking sick of chronic illness.

I am tired of the dirty bathroom, which I cannot clean because the energy just doesn’t exist even though I want to clean it. Even though I like cleaning a bathroom! When I was a kid I used to volunteer to be the one assigned to the bathroom!

This morning I woke up and changed the litter and I think a box was heavier than I had anticipated or something but I ended up so exhausted I couldn’t really stand or move my arms. It took me twenty minutes to eat a yogurt cup. My brother came home with groceries and I couldn’t jump up to help him put them away. I wanted to get out of his hair by going back to my room but I needed to sit for another hour before I had rested enough to walk back up the stairs.

It’s not always this bad. But god, when it’s this bad I want to scream. I want to tear out the tongues of every well meaning person or doctor who’s ever told me to just slowly try to build my stamina. Have you tried yoga? You should be doing aerobic exercise to the point of not being able to speak between breaths at least three time a week! My body gives out before I can get winded. My hands shake. I can’t open the cracker box. I can barely swallow. Sometimes I can’t hold a conversation. I hate it. I hate it.

I went to the doctor in March and made a follow up appointment that was supposed to happen today, but I got a call that it was canceled and rescheduled for next month. I should be relieved because I was really going to have to push myself to get there. I was able to go back to bed. Instead I just want the doctor to see me. To hear me. To do something.

“We’re not going to be able to support you forever”, my mom tells me, at least once or twice a month. Not to be shaming. She’s just telling the truth. My parents are aging. Their income is decreasing, their health is declining, they don’t know how Dad’ll ever be able to retire but his job is actively killing him. I never know what to say. I always say, “I know”, because I know. But I also know I literally cannot do any more than I’m doing. I had to take breaks between lifting the yogurt spoon to my mouth. I had to take the stairs one at a time.

I want to do so many things. I have so many ideas, so many dreams, so many causes. I want to scream, “Mom, you more than anyone know how stubborn I am! How determined I can be!!!” I am too tired to even have big feelings. Anger and despair are both exhausting. A good mood gives me more energy, so I have become So. Fucking. Tempered. Kind. Balanced. Rosy. I can and WILL find the bright side if it fucking kills me because if I don’t it will. But even that is tiring. It’s so tiring to not be able to have the bad feelings because you know the bad feelings will cost you even more of your life.

I know this is real. I just want any other person to know it too, as surely as I do. I just wish a doctor could see it, acknowledge its truth, tell me why. Bonus points if they can make it even a little better.

I looked up the date of my first MRI, the one I got when this all started. A few weeks ago while lying on the floor between my bedroom and the bathroom I started to wonder about MS, the disease that killed my mother’s little sister. It was the first thing I suspected when this all started so it was the first thing they looked for. I looked up that MRI, and it was in 2014.

Eight years. This has been going on for eight years.

I might have them do another, on the off chance this IS multiple sclerosis and the first MRI was just too early. I was gonna ask about it today, but the appointment was canceled.

I want to clean the bathroom. Maybe I can just clean the sink. Maybe that won’t be too much.

I miss going on long walks. I used to walk ten miles in a day. Now a block wipes me out.

I am adjusting. I am accommodating myself as much as I can. I am doing my best. If it never gets better I will find a way to make the best of what I’ve got.

But eight years. God fucking dammit. I could’ve done so much. Who would possibly fake this and why. For what??? Attention? Sympathy? Where. I don’t get those things. To get out of work? Even the work I love? Even play? Even free time and friends??? I lose those things as much, if not more. I am not married, I don’t have kids - these are things I wanted! I want to date! Fuck! I’m so mad. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday and I am sitting in my room with the lights off and all the curtains drawn around my bed typing on my phone made as dark as possible so it doesn’t strain my eyes and I would rather be doing so many other things. Instead I’m probably going to go back and forth between a video game and my bed all day. Maybe I’ll wash the sink.

It’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. But this is real. This is so real. I have lost so much. This isn’t fun for me. It’s not a game. And it should be a cry for help, because I need help, but I actually fucking hate asking for help. I just want to be able to do it myself. That’s all I ever wanted.

[laomelettedufromage]

Note to myself so I can articulate some stuff out of my brain this evening:

There is a future waiting for you where you will get to see and make new memories with the loved ones you miss that you’ve had to leave behind for the moment and there’s a future where you’ll make many more new lifelong loved ones. It seems so very and annoyingly far away right now but it’s waiting and you will get there. There’s a future where you’ll get to live with old and new loved ones where movie nights are common place and casual nights out and other hangouts and field trips are as expected as you like. Life will still be hard but it won’t be lonely. There will be people who will let you lay on the floor of their bedroom and complain and will come to yours to do the same and they will be within walking distance, either down the hall or down the street. It won’t happen today or in a month or maybe even in three years but it’s there.

[bisexualmoses]

Eminem as a 2nd century war lord would fix me

[thethingything]

so CBT never worked for us in therapy. basically every instance of it was therapists trying to get us to stop being anxious about very real problems that were very likely to happen. like, situations that were not only likely, but would be very dangerous if they did happen. sometimes even things that had already happened and were likely to happen again.

meanwhile we have an app on our phone that guides you through various CBT exercises and it turns out when we use that for the kind of shit where we already know our brain is being irrational and we just want to get our thoughts together and work through the issue by writing it out, it works really fucking well and oh look suddenly we've been doing CBT for an hour and processed the root cause of several key emotional issues we've been having for years.

funny how that works. it's almost like we can actually figure out for ourselves when something is irrational and when it's an actual real problem that could put us in danger and shouldn't be dismissed. who'd have fucking thought it

[shrimpmandan]

I think it's settling in for me just how fucking alienated I feel even from other autistic people. I don't know where to begin really I just. Don't like the autistic 'community' and most other autists I've met don't like me. I'm consistently alienated from other people to the point of not feeling human and that's simultaneously discomforting (as someone who hates being dehumanized) and relieving (I can just eat fistfuls of grass and pretend like other people don't exist because oh my fucking god I hate humans)

[everliving-everblaze]

I don't have it in me to write the whole "what kotlc means to me" post I had floating in my head for today, but I can tell you straight what I want to say. And that's just thank you, kotlc. <3 Thank you for giving me a home in your pages and in your fandom. Thank you for characters that make me giggle and wrench my heart. Thank you for taking me somewhere new and teaching me something new. And thank you, thank you for being the reason I became a writer, saving me times over from myself. Thank you for getting me through years of alienation from my peers by making me a wiki owner and editor. Thank you for giving me friends that have been there for me on dark days of doctor visits and doctor "I don't know"s.

By leading me on sophie's journey to find her home, you gave me one. I absolutely would not be who i am today without you, not-so-little book series, and I will treasure you always.

happy ten years, kotlc. i love you.

[babyloniastreasure]

the older i get the more tired i am of trying to specify my pronouns. i almost dont care enough to need to specify, but at the same time i do care about how i'm referred to enough that i feel like i should

its not that my pronouns change based on how im feeling exactly. it's more like 90% of any pronoun you could use for me is gonna be fine, i simply dont care. but the other 10% is not fine, and i DO care. so 'any pronouns' is not correct

and ultimately, inevitably, people are going to default to using they/them-- and only they/them. even if i specified an exhaustive list of ok-to-use pronouns, people won't deviate from they/them because it's 'safe'. so what's the point in listing my pronouns to begin with?

its tiring

[gracklinging-electricboogalo]

dyeing my hair again and this gives me caterpillar goop vibes. your hair will be in an egg shape for a bit, and you wont like it, and if your goal is to colour it you wont like it while its blonde. but then you can colour it and everything is fine

[fairfowl]

So you're conflicted. So what?

You're allowed to be!

Everyone is!

Most people will never be 100% satisfied with their lives

There will always be other choices. There will always be what ifs

Don't take it personally

[undefeatednils]

The pessimism I currently feel about the state of the world is just so heavy... So much suffering, so much hate, so much disregard for the planet we inhabit together.

And while there is so much hurt going around, we try our best to still love, but in some cases we barely manage the laundry.

[ehlnofay]

recovering from mental illness is very... odd. (and isn’t that a sentence I’m delighted to be able to say?)

I was first diagnosed with a depressive disorder when I was about ten or eleven, and I don’t know how long it had been lurking before that. I’ve been thinking recently, and I don’t think that it’s something that really affects me anymore, at least not to the extent that it once did - it crops up every now and again, but it isn’t frequent; it doesn’t twist up my whole life like it used to. it doesn’t consume me. and that’s kind of a terrifying thing to realise. I don’t know how to think that I might be okay without waiting for the other shoe to drop, because in the past it always, always has. and maybe it will - I’m not naïve enough to think that it’s for sure over and done with forever. but maybe it won’t. and I think it’s about time I came to terms with that possibility, too.

I’m not sorry to be rid of it, I’ll say that right up top. depression is a nightmare in a way that I don’t think I can really explain to anyone who’s never experienced it. for me it was so rarely that I even felt terrible; it wasn’t a constant onslaught of psychological torment - just this quiet, bone-deep conviction that this was as good as it was ever going to get, that there was nothing in the world that was better, that the only place to go was downhill, so why bother? I don’t miss that shit and I hope with everything in me that I never have to deal with it again.

no. it’s not the feeling that I miss. but I think, at least partly, that I miss... the identity, I guess? this has been a part of me since I was about eleven. my teenage years have been shaped by it. almost all of my life that I can remember was defined by it. I don’t really know how to live without it. I don’t quite know who I am without it. it’s like the circus elephant analogy. I’ve pulled the post out of the ground - but the world is so big, and I don’t even remember where it was I wanted so badly to escape to. where do I go now? in some ways the choice is scarier than being chained down.

I still don’t know. but I’m really, really glad I lived long enough to try and find out.

[bisexualmoses]

How Jews actually welcome a baby: * takes the baby and shakes it like a lulav and etrog *

[mirrorwork]

🌅🎼🎟️🪴💫💗💫🪴🎟️🎼🌅

[queerticulate]

Stranger Things really makes me reflect on my own youth a lot. And with the last season also especially my journey with homosexuality. It’s an interesting one and I am just gonna go blurt this out on here okay?

I lived in a smallish town in Western Europe and went to secondary education (a combo of middle and high school basically) in the late 00s / early 10s. Times were a lot more homophobic than now. Like, it was collectively acknowledged queer people existed and that they shouldnt be hatecrimed, but it was definitely not something kids were encouraged to imagine themselves as. In my school, no one was out as anything LGBT. Not a single person. Homosexuality and certainly transgenderism were not talked about. Kids who were suspected to be gay got bullied a lot. Teen magazines only talked about homosexuality in terms of scandals - rumors this hot dude or that one might be gay, which he who then firmly deny. My parents did always say it was okay for people to be okay, but always theoretically, not expecting me to actually be gay.

I was an alternative kid. Very gothy for most of my teenaged years. Listened to rock/metal/punk stuff. Was into theatre. At some point through those scenes I started meeting lots of alternative people. I remember knowing one guy who was openly gay. Other than that there was a lot of ‘i am into personalities, not body parts’ going on. My personal brand was ‘i am not gay, but if i ever would fall in love with a girl, i’d be okay with that’. Of course, many of these people later came out. Because I didn’t consider homosexuality as a serious option, a lot of my feelings for girls that definitely were there got twisted in awkward ways. I did the crush on your best friend as a teenager. But because I never really could identify and own up to what I was feeling, it tore the friendship apart. Me and my childhood best friend said to each other we would definitely be in love with each other. I was weirdly fixated on and competitive with a smart short-haired girl in class. When I was out with a friend and some kids on the street were pestering us, we joked we were dating and they challenged us to prove it by kissing. I hoped they would push it to the point we would, but we didn’t. I also did compulsory heterosexuality quite intensely, encouraged by my well-intended by very misguided mother. Preferentially I sought out boys with long hair who wore nailpolish and make-up. I told myself it was because they looked like the rockstars I adored. In truth it was most likely because their gender-bending image got me closer to what I actually wanted. I also preferred guys who were queer themselves.

When sex came into the picture, things got bad. I couldn’t do it. I felt so incredibly disgusted and enraged by the whole idea of it. But I was lonely and scared to be abandoned so I tried to go along with it for as much as I could... all the while beating myself up for thinking I must be so broken.

By the time my first serious relationship ended, I was in uni and the idea of maybe being gay was a little less frightening. Through my theatre club I had also befriended someone who at the time was out as a lesbian. At some point I worked up the courage to ask her if she knew where to meet wlw girls. She told me to tell her if I ever found out. I went back into the closet and started another compulsory heterosexual relationship.

At some point during the relationship I heard the word ace, and thought that was probably me. I ignored the gnawing thought that I also didn’t seem to feel romantic feelings for him. Sex continued to be a problem. So much so, that he kept pushing if I didn’t perhaps have a repressed sexual trauma. At some point he had me in a doctor’s office, trying to officially establish there was something wrong with me. Times started changing though, and there were internet communities where you could talk about gay people and there was more and more representation. Somewhere after crying my eyes out over Orange is the New Black ‘because I will never have that [what Piper and Alex had]’ I must have started figuring it out. After about two years the relationship was falling apart for lots of reasons. At this point I had met a gay dude in uni. I remember meeting up with him and really struggling hard to bite back tears as I confessed that I thought I was gay and had no idea what to do about it. Not much later I broke up with my boyfriend. Me and that gay dude became friends. And online we found this little LGBT club loosely affiliated to our uni. It took us months to work up the courage to go there. When we finally did, I can safely say that it was what finally set me on the right path. I ended up volunteering for it and learned a lot. I started to feel safe to accept my homosexual feelings, experiment with girls, and even feel proud of my identity. Still, I clung to the idea of being bi for years even then. I tried to start things with guys so many times still before I finally figured out that no guy ever felt right for me, because the problem was they were a guy. I had a lot of internalized homophobia to unlearn. It was until I spent a lot of time alone, reflecting, during the pandemic that I finally accepted that I am a lesbian. And still, to this day, I struggle with that word. I call myself gay preferably. I am in my late twenties now, and am yet to find myself my first girlfriend. But boy, do I feel overjoyed with the thought that one day I could marry a girl and call her my wife. It feels magical to realize that is a possibility. So yeah, for me, seeing media where it is established that being queer is not easy, and then having queer characters, queer-coded characters, or characters that I can project onto by thinking them ignorant or closeted, and seeing them / imaging them figuring things out... it’s really validating and healing to me.

[knifegremliin]

I think there's something so beautiful about having a friend you've never met in person. I've never physically touched you. I love you. I think about you every day. I love you. I have trusted you with secrets I have never said aloud. I love you. you know more about me than the people around me do. I love you. I have known you for almost 10 years, and nothing has changed the love I have for you, despite all odds. you mean everything to me. I love you.

[godmademewithoutarms]

Sometimes having memory problems is forgetting a word for a solid 5 minutes during a conversation with a friend but it's also looking at a picture of a deceased loved one who lived with you your whole life and only seeing a stranger