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