should i even write stream of consciousness as naturally as i have been?

should i try to write more... coherently? cohesively?

Today's thought is:

I see a lot of pretty skinny people take phone mirror selfies holding their phone in a certain way. it personally hurts my hands to try to take a selfie like that with one hand, and it also feels unnecessary, but i guess...

everybody i see who takes these phone mirror selfies have really skinny fingers, and you can see the bones in their arms.

i wonder: do they think about this? do they realize that they might be perpetuating anything? do i overthink the meaning of everything else? maybe.

[ edit, 2022 april 24, 23:07 ] i think my point in mentioning this (and the idea of someone choosing to perpetuate something) is, it's not an arbitrary pattern. it appears to be a trend. [/ edit ]

i'm trying to learn how to be more Grey. i have been naturally becoming more gREY since last april, 2021. but i think i am forcing myself, often, to think things i don't think. yes, be more grey. but, much like in the old days, perhaps... always? — i have a way i think i should be “thinking”, and try to bend my brain that way, instead of asking myself how i really feel, or what i really think.

because i feel like how i really feel, or what i really think, is wrong.

so here's the rub of writing again, for the internet, on the internet. i meant to write, on the internet.

everything i write feels like it is imperfect, it is “not perfect yet (brain typo) enough”.

that's part of why i stopped working on ANTIHEROINE.co for so long. and i still struggle with it. “How can I make this paragraph... better? It feels like it's missing something,” I ask myself, frustrated, even though there's nothing more, even, to say.

i used to stare at each article and reread it over and over, trying to figure out if there was a single comma that was missing.

so when i see selfies like that, i feel:

• insecure, like they understand how to perform “coolness” (and... femininity? “Coolness”? “Femininity”? “Youth”?) in a way that i can't
• insecure
• i stare at their bony wrists. perhaps it's my fault for even having feelings about another person's body. these are not shallow people, they are activists, artists.

it's 2022, and i've never talked about my eating disorder of 11+ years with a therapist.

I feel insecure, so I hate things. I hate things, I'm jealous, I'm envious.

i constantly feel like i'm failing at something

maybe that's why i feel this way.

I'm so much more honest with myself and my feelings and it all seems so much darker

i don't know does it feel innocent? even when i was depressed in early university, i did not write like this.

i tried to imbue some sort of hope, embody hope.

was i lying to myself? that's how i felt, after i started having mental breakdowns (again) after i graduated university.

but i was happier then, and i'm not as happy now.

i was happier when i had some hope, but i also want to be grounded in reality.

i am more grounded in reality than i was when i was younger, and that is why i am more depressed.

or... something.

it's not good enough. it's not good enough. it's not good enough. your pure thoughts are not good enough. you are worth nothing.

it's all envy and insecurity, probably. i just imagine every other beautiful person is better than me. it's fucked up, honestly. i know i need to talk about that in therapy.

#StreamOfConsciousness #TrueFeelings #BodyImage

being a trilingual in a family where you are abused for speaking your first two languages and THEN speaking your third language and also being the only child of your family generation to live in the U.S. and also being the first child of your family to grow up in the U.S. and also having abusive parents and also your best friend is your grandmother who actually does not share any of your three languages (she speaks something similar to your first language) honestly actually government-forced 北京 beijinger dialect is actually my third language... probably? maybe? but anyway i sometimes wonder if i am “autistic” or “autistic” PLUS all of the above. how much is “comorbidity” “trauma” “complex trauma” complex trauma, etc.? i don't know enough. i don't actually believe in any psychiatric or medical or psychomedical(-industrial complex) model of “mental illness” or “neurodivergence” or brain different stuff, however i call myself “mentally ill” because i don't think of myself as Mad (in the Mad activist sense). i would call myself “cr*zy” but i don't think most people would understand the subversive way i'm trying to use that, unless they have a LOT of context already for who i am, and my work. for my work, and who i am...? anyway, i am writing this without paragraph breaks on purpose. i'm sorry. lately i have been thinking about how some of my art is very “inaccessible”, because i play with text and how it's formatted... i don't know what to do about that. what i mean by “inaccessible” means, i think it probably sometimes doesn't render well with Screen Readers. HOWEVER! now that i think about that, i think the fact that i provide descriptions for everything, i think, is fine...? makes up for it...? bc isn't that what Image descriptions are for...? can i please line-break now? no? i would rather end the post than line-break...?

jk.

i'm thinking

oh. i already forgot. i went to take a restroom break and i already forgot.

i'm tired and i don't think my writing is “perfect” or “good” or “good enough” anymore.

i hate that i projected my self-hatred onto you

i hate everything

i only learned today that you can actually still type html into Markdown. if someone had told me that years ago, i wouldn't have hated markdown so much. i felt trapped bc i couldn't insert html blocks anymore, because everybody knows everybody who markdowns knows (except for me, actually, i guess?!) that markdown does NOT cover everything... well, i knew that... but that markdown also is not MEANT to cover everything.

i felt so limited by Markdown...

anyway. i should reread The Mark on the Wall by Virginia Woolf. i haven't read Virginia Woolf in... 12 years, 11 months.

12 years sounds like a long time until you think 30 years until you think 8 years is, well, also a long time.

“8 years is a long time to be suicidal,” i said/realized recently.

why is “Said” such a boring word? i always try to avoid it. i almost definitely, i definitely read that at one point as a Writer™ that you should never use the word “said”.

anyway i have been thinking for the last x years but especially the last few days nervous nervous i DON'T know how to act like everybody else in social situations. i was not only socialized badly not socialized by my abusive and immigrant parents (who WERE fluent in english fyi, but didn't have well-paying jobs, but it's still a privilege, i know), family, not socialized by ... being in school and being bullied for being chinese... not socialized by having no friends... not socialized ... plus, i was already crazy, wasn't i?

i'm so tired... i need to eat, shower, and go to sleep.

#StreamOfConsciousness # i camel case tags now bc i can't tag with spaces rn on this platform and it's easier for screen readers to parse

i’ve been thinking about this thought for a while now… probably longer than six months, probably longer than i’ve lived in california again (which has been less than six months as of today, never mind anyway). but there’s not much more i have to say about that right now, honestly.

as i cut open a montréal bagel with probably the wrong knife and think of how i talked about bagels with three different people yesterday, i remember that was the year i actually made bagels, for you, for your birthday.

funny how those things go.

when i try to write, i cannot write what i want. when i think of one thought or memory, suddenly, the words come. i inhale.

you told me recently in our first real talk i’d say since we broke up that you didn’t want that to be your place in my story, where that is just another guy who fucked me over and left me for dead. at one point, it seemed like you could have been. but, no. last night i thought of writing, i’m not an ex you should be friends with, but then i realised that you and i were— are?, i don’t know— friends.

i am unsure of where i fit in the universe. a year and a half ago i knew so sure yet i hated where i was and didn’t want to move. a year and a half ago i was terrified of making bots. terrified of coding, and terrified of men. i’m still terrified of men and i’m still terrified of coding, but i’m a little less terrified of making bots. or so i’d like to think.

#2015xPublishedIn2022

“102715.txt” — 27 october 2015, 3:10am (which time zone? i was in montréal when i wrote this, i think — but that doesn't tell me which time zone this timestamp is in)

in may for a weekend i didn't sleep. it was a holiday weekend. i remember snapchatting myself buying groceries— nothing but sorbet, i think. and sparkling clementine juice. and the fact that i ran out of gas and my ex watched that snapchat before i realised snapchat tells you who watched your snapchat. and now we're friends again so i don't really want to just call him “my ex” anymore because it places him in the category of so many shitty people, and in comparison, he was never that bad.

i probably almost died that night.

it's been hard for me to want to live this year (last year) (the year before) (and the...)

but especially this year.

i told someone recently if i could have been not-suicidal, i would have been.

who chooses to feel like shit? no one. absolutely no one.

telling someone depression is in their control is like blaming terminally ill patients for their more physical illness

tonight i feel like being self-destructive. at one point i stopped hurting myself with my own hands or body and started hurting myself using other people, which is arguably better and worse. better because you can blame someone else for it; worse because you harm not just one, but two humans in the process.

but i won't.

*i now disagree that people can “use other people” to hurt themselves. this was a way for me to blame myself for others abusing me, and to blame myself for me “choosing” them. — 2022 april 22, 3:18am

#2015xPublishedIn2022

it’s april 4th, 2022, & i gave myself a few days ago — or more days ago, i already don’t remember — a deadline of starting a new online journal on my teenage online journal’s 18th birthday.

i was 13 in 2004, and i’m 31 now. and i wanted to publish this at exactly 20:20:24, the same time i published my first post on that journal 18(!) years ago. but i… i wouldn’t call it “writer’s block”, no. more like, “should i really write so honestly about …?” yet?

or perhaps the question isn’t if i should write about it yet, because i already have, and i am, and i will. and i’ve even written about it before, and published said writing before.

it was more of a question of, “should i publish this poem where i say being dead is less painful than being alive and in pain?“

i stated

“being alive is more painful than being dead

— to some people, anyway” i added as a disclaimer, but i already knew my friend agreed.

“i absolutely 100% agree” they replied, predictably

i cried today, during the normative work day. that was the title of the poem i wrote today, while crying during the normative work day: “i am crying during the normative work day.”

and this first post is not pretty, or very poetic. it’s not even, imo, as poetic as the first post i wrote when i was 13. i hastily put this website (back) together, last night, this afternoon right before i was supposed to leave, i woke up 10 minutes before my therapy appointment and felt dazed the entire day.

this first post is not pretty, or poetic. i don’t have “writer’s block” anymore — and i honestly don’t think i ever did. i have publisher’s block.

what is the price of honesty? i can’t not be myself.

i can only hit publish on this because i’m literally sitting outside a bar right now where my new friend is djing.

it hurts to dance.

#HalloWelt #IWas31WhenIWroteThis #2022x

“edward, I finally remember where I belong. you have someone waiting for you too. there’s somewhere that you belong, edward. you should go and find out where.

it’s the best. belonging is the very best thing there is.”

♥ Faye Valentine

what else is there to say?

she smarts with just a few words.

I don’t hate endings, but they leave smudges. nostalgia is that stupid, powerful feeling that so many people waste their time over. even if we live in the present, we remember, and memories are the stains on the tiles.

I don’t mean to be melancholy, I just don’t know anything else right now.

so, salutations, sweetheart.

the truth is I’ve forgotten how to write.

#HalloWelt #IWas19WhenIWroteThis #2009x

Originally there was going to be somewhat of an introduction entry, but I forgot all I was going to say in it, and it seems useless now anyway. *sigh* Okay. Now on to the entry~

[ redacted ]

*sigh* In other news: I’m too obsessed.

You know, sometimes I don’t blame the people who think 13-year-olds are all immature brats. Seeing all the people on FF.net my age who haven’t heard of a thing called spell check, those who whine about reviews, and 13-year-olds online in general. I can see why people would think we’re idiots. But, I’m turning 14 soon, so then I’ll be judged with 14-year-olds, who are taken slightly more seriously than 13-year-olds. Slightly.

You know, I read a LIP [Life In Perspective] article a long time ago where the teen columnists were asked to give their views on allowing a younger age to vote, or count as half/quarter of a vote. Most said no, that the adult opinion of teenagers were correct; we are apathetic, non-caring, oblivious idiots. I guess 50% of us are… but we’re never taken seriously. We’re in love? Oh great, it’s “high school infatuation”. We have an opinion on something? Oh great, we’re “radical, typical teenagers whose opinions will change once we grow up”. One of the teen columnists had the nerve to say, “Try talking about a serious topic with a fourteen-year-old. It’s not possible.”

#HalloWelt #IWas13WhenIWroteThis #2004x