Journal A Night-Light In A Dark Room

[ArchieTheFel]

I have a hard time journaling in real life, so here's my own little slice of the internet where I can come to when I feel the need to get things off my chest and feel like I can't share it with anyone. This is my place to speak. If anyone should see this and feel so inclined to reply to any of my threads, I invite you to do so as you please. Otherwise, this is just so I can talk about how I feel about things and just kind of wallow in my own misery for the most part. There may be some lighthearted little quips/observations every once in a while when I feel the inspiration.

Here's a photo of my bird, Frodo, as a little gift before you have to dig into my trash bin (he's yawning).

 

[ArchieTheFel]

My brain is so full of thoughts all the time and it's so exhausting. I wish there was an off switch so I could just relax without some sort of existential crisis making it's way to the forefront of my mind and causing me to feel physically ill. My leg is constantly bouncing and my nails are perpetually short and jagged from years of continuous biting due to anxiety. Sometimes I wish I could just bite my fingers off.

It's such an odd feeling to be constantly afraid of everything. You get these weird jolts that feel like nervous energy surging through your body, and it's not terribly painful but it's still noticeable and irritating. Your stomach feels like it's constantly in knots or like you just swallowed a swarm of butterflies. You're so hyper-aware of yourself that everything outside of your head and your body feels like a dream. I don't have a headache, but I can feel my head throbbing. And I've chewed another flake off of my nail.

You're so hyper-aware of yourself that everything outside of your head and your body feels like a dream.

There was a period of my life where I was totally convinced that I was in a dream, and that the only way out was to die. I remember vividly the night when the idea popped into existence and decided to lodge itself in my brain like a damn parasite. My mom and my sibling were on the couch watching a romance movie, I was drinking hot cocoa and staring blankly into the cup. My vision started to go blurry--as it does when you stare at something too long--and suddenly I had this overwhelming feeling of dread. I had to put down my hot cocoa and run around my house for a bit, trying to shake the thought out of my head. But it didn't leave. I hopped on the family computer to play a game to try and calm myself down. It didn't work.

The following days, weeks, months, and two years were awful. The lights seemed too bright, the world seemed too fuzzy. I couldn't watch that specific romance movie, play that specific game, or drink hot cocoa for a good while. I had purchased a pair of pants earlier the day that it happened, and they were left at the bottom of my drawer. By the time I could wear those pants, I had already outgrown them. It was such an odd experience.

I feel like I never really got past it. I still have moments where I'll sit for too long and think about it as if it were a possibility. Now, I'm able to shake it off and move forward. But it's always there. Sometimes I wonder how different my mental health would be now if that day never happened. I wish I could go back and erase everything.

 

[ArchieTheFel]

Today was another day where I could barely pull myself out of bed. I had to get up super early for work, as usual, so I was out of bed for a while. I spent my time at work and got home early, I fed my bird, and then I went back to my bed and I laid there for a few hours. I thought I would take a nap, but I didn't. I just laid there, and somehow I got up feeling worse than I did when I first laid down.

I usually nap after I come home from work, but today I just didn't. I wasn't tired like usual or, more likely, my tiredness disappeared as soon as I flopped onto my mattress because that's how it always happens. And then I just got up and took my bird out for some exercise. Now that I'm sitting down and writing about it, I realize how little I really remember from today. And I realize that I don't remember most of it because I did nothing. I only moved from chair to chair and forcing myself to try and enjoy being sucked into my screen for hours on end, and my poor bird just clung to my shoulder and watched me intentionally block the world out. My only memorable moments were the short few where he bothered me just enough to snap me out of my trance and get me to play with him.

At one point, I sat down in a chair--in a rather uncomfortable position--and dozed off for a good twenty minutes. I woke up and fought to keep my eyes open just so my bird could have that one extra hour of being out of his cage. I gave him some treats, closed him in, and went back to my bed.

A window was open and the sun was shining onto my bed, making the already warm room that bit more unbearably warm. I didn't have to get under my comforter. Yet again, I couldn't fall asleep, no matter how tired I was. I was still stuck to my stupid electronics. For two hours I was on my back in my unbearably warm room, but I could not motivate myself enough to worry about my body temperature. My brain was stuck--like it always is--running at a million miles per second.

Sometimes it just feels like my brain is so far ahead of my body. My brain wants to keep going but as a result my body feels like it's falling apart at the seams. And then there are the days when my brain finally has to fall over and catch its breath, and my body still manages to fail me.

It felt like I was sinking into my bed. It felt like someone had tied anvils to every one of my limbs and dropped me into the ocean to sink with no chance of me getting back up. I wish it were like that. I wouldn't have any choice but to accept it. But I was not forced to drown, and I didn't have any fate to accept other than the fate of continued life. And I had to get up before anyone started asking about me.

I felt some of the worst physical pain pulling myself out of bed. My whole body felt sore and my head throbbed, and everything was dizzy for a moment. I wish I could just lay down forever.

 

[ArchieTheFel]

Right now, I am irritated. I can't say I'm furious because how can I be when I've never seen this person in real life? But I can feel my body shivering with an anger that's not quite enough to be debilitating, but noticeable enough to where it bothers me.

It's the kind of frustration that comes along with trying to get a point across when the other person decides to be a brick wall. They've made themselves an immovable monolith of ignorance and denial; their walls are so insurmountably thick, but inside they're just a mess of brittle framework built on hatred and spite. And somewhere in that broken center is a brain that lies waiting desperately to be used, barely a wrinkle on its surface. But somehow these monolithic people refuse to open their minds to an ounce of alternative viewpoints and instead like to parade about like they're the ones who know so much.

What amazes me most about these people is their sheer confidence in trying to argue a point or opinion over a topic they know next to nothing about. Tell me how anyone with half a working brain is going to take your argument seriously when you can't even use proper terminology to explain your viewpoint?

And then, when you've already proven yourself to be the idiot I know you to be, you're going to have the gall to dismiss science all because it's new and you don't like it, and on top of that you're going to throw a tantrum about respect when you purposefully call a woman a man to feed into your own uneducated biases?

If--through all of these points--you have proven yourself to be unwilling to be educated or to even attempt to educate yourself, and have gone as far as to demand respect when you don't intend on extending that respect to anyone else, and then decide to discredit modern research and medicine simply because it's new, then I have every right to believe in my mind that I am morally and intellectually superior to you. In fact, I don't even have to believe it. I AM SUPERIOR TO YOU.

I don't need to purposefully ignore science to make my points. I've done the research and I know the proper terminology. I'm not stuck behind a thick, unmovable wall because I refuse to change with the world due to my own belief systems and morals. It's honestly laughable that people like you are allowed to legislate and dictate despite your denial and refusal to acnkowledge marginalized peoples because you don't have the capacity to try and understand.

 

[ArchieTheFel]

Life is genuinely one of the worst sensations I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing. It feels like all the bad things just add up faster than the good things, and by the time a good thing rolls around all you feel is dread that at the moment it ends all the bad stuff will come rushing back again.

I know that I have major depressive disorder and likely generalized anxiety disorder, at least that's the extent of what I've been officially diagnosed with. Part of me wonders if I've got something else yet to be discovered in my cesspool of a brain, but nobody cares to be thorough enough to look for it. I don't really think I like doctors anymore, anyhow. It's not some grand conspiracy, they just don't ever seem to care enough or if I open my mouth too much I'd be whisked away involuntarily and miss out on a few valuable days that I could be using to search for jobs or spend with my animals.

And that's just it. I can't get true help for fear of being placed somewhere. Even if it would only be for a few days, I don't plan on traumatizing myself further simply because nobody wants to deal head-on with the fact that I have "plans." And at this point, maybe I'm beyond sharing it with people that I care about.

It seems more and more that people just don't care. At this point, I don't even want to try anymore. Some days, I wish something would happen to me just so I could feel something, or maybe the difficulty of choice would be taken away from me. Some days, I wish someone could take me away from everything. If I could feasibly run away with absolute certainty that my leaving would be of no negative consequence to anyone, I would absolutely do it.

It's not always that life is monotonous, although that's definitely a part of it. It's the unpredictability of it. I have so little control over everything. Nothing is guaranteed and nothing is for granted. I have nothing that I can truly take control of. No matter how much of a health freak someone is, there's always a chance they might develop a degenerative disease. No matter how clean you try and keep your room, it will always become dirty again. Everything is constantly working towards a definitive end. My only wish is that I get to end things on my terms.

I've lost some people this past year. My grandmother passed over the holidays, and early this year my beloved pet bird passed and took most of my savings with her. My grandfather is sick in the hospital right now, and half of my siblings are spread out across the states--my oldest sibling is halfway across the world. One of my childhood dogs passed away not long ago after I visited her one last time. Being surrounded by death makes it harder not to think about it.

I don't want to watch my loved ones pass away before me. I don't want to have to watch them all leave one by one. I can only imagine how my youngest sibling will feel when they have to face this.

I've always wanted to have kids, ever since I was a kid myself. But now there are so many factors that seem determined to prevent me from ever starting a family of my own. Beyond that, I've always wanted to have a long-term stable relationship, which also hasn't seemed to go in my favor. I hate complaining about being on my own, but it's hard when I'm surrounded by people who seem to make it work, if even for only a few years. My longest established relationship lasted for almost two months, and even then I was only the experiment of someone trying to figure themselves out. Ever since then, it seems like that's all I've been. Just someone's experimental little plaything because there was so few other queer people in such a small town.

I'm in a group with people that I'm not even sure I can really call friends at this point. My one and only true friend lives in this same town, but now I'm scared I'll break the relationship because I've barely got the energy to interact with anyone at this point. I've neglected so much because I can't see the points in maintaining anything anymore. What's the point if it could end up souring anyway, no matter what I do?

And all of it leads back to this terrible sense of self-loathing. There are so few people I dislike more than myself. I used to be proud of my creativity, but even that has been lacking. I'm not an interesting person, point-blank. I'm too scared of getting or staying close to anyone because it'll just get ruined anyhow, whether by me or some other sort of happenstance. I don't see the point in anything anymore. I just want to lie down and drown in my sheets. There's truly nothing here for me.

I can't even cry anymore. Or at least, I don't cry when its useful or meaningful. Everything just stays inside me all the time. It's like I'm a ticking time bomb whose clock has gotten stuck. I feel like I need to explode, but I just can't. I know sooner or later the pressure will get to me, but I don't even have a time-frame for when. And I'm tired of asking for help. I wish someone would listen, but I don't even have the energy to explain myself anymore if they asked. I want help, but I'm afraid of it--I don't even know what kind of help I'd need at this point.

I'm so tired. I don't think anyone understands how absolutely tired I am. I'm just so tired.

 

[ArchieTheFel]

I am terribly, horribly hyperfixated on a Marvel Cinematic Universe episodic series (I don't wanna call it a television series because like...it's really not?) and all I can think about it this series.

My younger sibling decided to take advantage of their college benefits and signed up for a cheap Disney Plus subscription, and was kind enough to allow me to have the login. I didn't bother with it for a short while, and then I suddenly got the urge to just log in and see what was up. So I did. Lo and behold, my downfall; the banner on the top of the Disney Plus app automatically swiped to an announcement that Loki was getting a second season, and on top of that it was coming out within the next couple weeks. I have no idea how I'd managed to not hear about it for months despite having been obsessed with the show during and after the airing of its first season.

Needless to say, the hype returned. Waiting for that first episode felt like torture, and the night of its release I was scheduled to work an overnight shift starting right when the episode was set to air. I'd never worked night shift in my life, and it was excruciating. Despite my exhaustion by the time 4:30 AM rolled around and we all went home, as soon as we were all set to clock out I felt the excitement rush back into me. As soon as I got home to my apartment, I giddily ran inside and withheld my excitement long enough to take a shower. As soon as I got out, I jumped straight into my bed with my iPad and could barely contain my excitement as the episode started. I felt like a little kid on their birthday after opening a gift and finding it to be the exact thing they'd been begging their parents for. It was glorious, and I immediately got excited for the next episode.

I was able to actually watch episode 2 right as it aired, which was an absolute treat. Once again, enjoyed the episode, and the McDonald's tie-in--though it was very much a big advertisement--was extremely entertaining to me and I meme'd the absolute shit out of that. It's still my favorite aspect of the show, despite how far it has come after that. Those first two weeks were the most artistically productive two weeks I'd had in a long time. I was pumping out not only my regular troves of sketches and illustrations, but I even managed to fit in a couple animations. Animation is a medium I haven't touched in years.

By week three, the burnout started to hit and things started to slow. Episode 3 was good, but I was ready to get to the real meat of the story. And then, episode 4 was released only yesterday. And everything exploded. Up until this point, I'd had a semblance of what to expect because of multiple theories I'd seen and plenty of hints from test-screeners who had been lucky to view the first four episodes. But the ending was unimaginably insane, and a major cliffhanger.

I haven't managed to pick up my pencil just yet, but I entirely plan on creating a shit ton more art to put my excited/nervous energy into something. I've got to survive a whole week of customer service work just to see the next episode and I am not prepared. I am absolutely mind-blown by this episode's conclusion, and I'm still holding out hope that two of the characters will receive a happy conclusion to their romantic subplot, or at least leave it up to (positive) interpretation. What makes it harder is that these next two episodes are a complete mystery. Not even test-screeners have seen these last two episodes, and it's torture not knowing what exactly will come next besides one or two shots in the trailers.

TLDR I am hyperfixated beyond belief and I'm about to implode.