ah yes, with the weather warming up comes the struggle between "wearing tank tops and showing my arms/shoulders gives me gender euphoria + is much more comfortable in this weather" and "my binder being visible stresses me tf out and makes me anxious" i hate it :) can't wait for the day i can get top surgery and not have to deal with this lol

i know what it's like being hopeless / bruises on your mind like it's broken / but there's a better life on the other side / so pick anywhere you like

lifeline, the rose

me a few years ago: unable to even say my own order at subway, too terrified to even be in a different aisle of the grocery store than my parents

me now: if i have the money and ateez announces a tour date anywhere remotely close by, i'm seriously considering traveling out of state and going to a concert by myself. i've never been more than 3 hours away from home, and have never even been home by myself for more than like an hour, and have never been to a concert or anything similar. also considering getting a plane ticket when i have never even been on a plane before

(psst ateez please continue holding off on tour date announcements, it gives me more time to hopefully get a job to save up more <3 don't listen to all the atinys saying to hurry and announce the dates)

still can't figure out what caused this complete 180, but it's one of the best things that's happened to me. the weirdest part is that before it happened, i had been saying for years that it was gonna happen someday. and it did. after so many years of waiting and wishing and wanting things to change, one day something finally clicked and it just did all at once. it's so weird and i still don't understand what happened lol

officially falling down the rabbit hole of ouji fashion (pun not intended but also i did in fact get rabbit themed stuff), just bought some pieces and can't wait for them to get here (gonna be a painful couple months)

been interested in ouji for probably 5+ years but was always too afraid to actually go for it bc of my parents. but i'm finally at the point that i do not care, i'm gonna wear what i like lmfao. i think it also helps that my best friend who i met 2 years ago is very very into lolita and has been wearing it for a really long time. seeing how much she loves it has just made me want to get into ouji even more. really excited to finally start wearing it and slowly building my wardrobe and understanding of the style <3

we really are just the same person in different fonts, it's great. same personality, shocking similar life experiences, and now similar but contrasting fashion (pastel lolita vs black+white ouji).

side note, even before knowing about ouji, i've just always wanted to wear crowns. like that has been a constant, never-wavering desire for literally my entire life, since i was a toddler. no one is surprised tbh, "prince" has been part of my social media handles for yeeaaarrsss, finally living up to the name lol

finally getting my friend to watch bsd and one of the first things she said during/after ranpo's introduction episode in season 1 was that ranpo and i are basically the same person lmfao

i'm so proud of myself, i've changed so much in the last 1-2 years in all the best ways and i'm just so happy about it. right now the biggest thing is that i just realized that change doesn't scare me anymore. i used to be so terrified of change, even good change, change that i wanted.

i spent years hating my hair and wanting to cut it, but i was so scared of the change that i never did it. i would spent countless hours crying over it, would constantly feel insecure because of it, never took care of it because i hated it and it was so much work... but still didn't cut it, because the thought of such a "big" change was way too scary. (i finally cut my hair 1.5 years ago and have been so much happier and better about caring for it since. and as soon as i can leave the house by myself, i plan to get it cut even shorter and also dye it.) (before i cut it 1.5 years ago, it had never been cut before. it was down to my butt, but i finally cut it just above my shoulders and haven't gone back.)

but now? my friend (who lives half way across the country and who i have never met irl) and i have been talking about and figuring out a way for both of us to move out together and away from our parents. and the idea of moving half way across the country to a place i've never been and where i only know one person isn't even scary. i honestly couldn't be more excited by the thought of it. i've always - in theory - wanted to move far away from my parents, but at the same time the thought of living alone or being away from my parents in any way was the single scariest thing i ever could've imagined. 2 years ago, if you had asked about moving half way across the country without any family and just a single friend, i would've thought it was completely insane and terrifying and never would've even considered it. (especially since i've never even been more than 2-3 hours away from home, and haven't been away from my parents for more than 1-2 days at a time). but now i literally cannot think of anything better, it sounds so amazing and exciting and not at all scary. and better still? it's starting to seem like it might be a real possibility in 2024.

my mindset has changed so much, my own fear/anxiety is no longer preventing me from doing things and making the changes to improve my life and live how i want to. i went from stressing and crying over a relatively small change like cutting my hair.. to not being even the slightest bit afraid of a huge change like moving halfway across the country, to somewhere i've never been, and only know one person.

i'm just so proud of and amazed at the way i've gone from being the most insecure, anxious, sheltered, introverted, and scared person imaginable to.. this. i'm so confident and secure in everything, and new things and people excite me rather than scare me, and i'm so much happier for it. now i just need to find a way to get everything sorted out externally so that i can finally be free from of parents. as soon as i can get away from them, i'll be truly free to by myself and finally live again.

my aunt convinced my parents to finally take me to the optometrist!! i've been asking them for months, and constantly bring up how bad my vision has gotten over the last few years (and especially the last few months have been very noticeably worse). they refused or ignored me every time. but i brought it up the other day while my aunt was over and mentioned that they won't take me, and then suddenly today they told me they got me an appointment??

i also brought up how they're refusing to pay for me to get certified copies of my birth certificate and refusing to take me to get my ssn card. and refusing to take me to get my learner's permit, refusing to teach me to drive, refusing to let me get my driver's license, etc. so my aunt said that if we can just get them to help me get my ssn card, then i can go with her son when his friend takes him to get his permit in december or january!

my aunt is by no means a good person (she's awful, actually) but omg i love her so much right now. looks like she's gonna be my best bet for getting all this stuff done so i can finally leave this place. who'd've thought lol

the pain that comes from finally wanting to exist and interact with people and be part of the world again, but not being able to do so because other people (my parents, it's always my parents!!) are doing everything possible to prevent you from growing and becoming independent from them... is infinitely worse than all of the pain that originally caused me to close myself off and shut everyone out and avoid the world in the first place.

after so many years of being completely cut off from the rest of the world and terrified by the thought of having to live and work and interact with people, of wishing to simply curl up in my room all day and disappear, i'm finally ready to actually live again. but now the people who are supposed to love and support me, the people who spent all those years telling me that i need to "grow up" and "suck it up" and "face the real world" are suddenly my biggest obstacles.

it's becoming really obvious that they never actually wanted what was best for me. they just want to control me. they wanted me to work and have friends back then because they knew i was still ultimately going to be dependent on them because i was much too insecure and scared to leave. but that's not how it is anymore, that's not how i am anymore. i'm beyond ready to be free of them, and that terrifies them. they know that if given the chance to leave, i'll be gone. they're scared of losing me, or maybe saying they're scared of losing their control over me would be more accurate.

two of their three other kids have little to no contact with them now. they're scared of losing another. not because they care about me, but because they're scared of losing the love and care that they think they're owed as my parents. they want to have someone to take care of them, free of charge, as they're getting older and their health is declining. they think that their kids owe them that, just because they provided the basic necessities. i don't owe them anything, and i am not going to put my entire life on hold just to sit around here getting disrespected day in and day out. i also think they're scared of the loneliness that will come with no longer having any kids at home.

trying to keep my trapped here is only pushing me further away from them and making me hate them. it makes me even less inclined to want to help them now or in the future, it makes me less likely to visit or keep in contact once i'm out of here. and someday, somehow, i will get out. things will change, something's gotta give sooner or later. this can't go on forever. but god it would be so much better for everyone if they would just help me out a little.

i want out so bad, i hate it here. i feel trapped, i basically am trapped. it's suffocating and infuriating and it's just— so awful. being ready—being excited—for life, living, existing, for the first time and after years of thinking you could never feel like this.. only to have everything halted by the people you thought would support and celebrate it with you.. it's awful.

"When I wanted him to love me, he kicked me out of the house. When I don't need him anymore, he chains me up and won't let me go. The man who hates me that much wouldn't want me to be happy." - Fiat, Don't Say No (ep. 2)

i really did NOT need to hear something so relatable :sob: that is hitting wayyyy too close rn lol

i hate knowing that if we didn't live 900 miles (a 14 hour drive) apart both of our lives would be so much better. we would both be able to help each other to get away from our awful, controlling parents. we're in such similar situations and our circumstances are making it impossible for either of us to change things alone. but literally if we were just close enough to meet irl and help each other, we would both be able to get out of this. we can each do exactly what the other needs and is preventing them from getting out. if we were just able to work together it would be so easy. i hate it.

a few weeks ago my dad sarcastically told me "just run away, go live with one of those people you're always talking to online" and i swear to you that if we just lived closer, we would have done that already. we would both move out and not speak to any of you ever again and it would be the single greatest thing to ever happen in our lives

i miss the me that i have not met / choking in silence on the words left unsaid / i feel a sickness for a home i've never been / and i exist in black and white but now i'm seeing red

holding on to smoke, motionless in white

apparently i'm about to reach out to my biological mom, who was the main source of my childhood trauma and who i have not seen since i was like 12 (when my grandparents finally got full custody after an 8 year custody battle). because my grandparents are not great and i've finally been realizing and accepting that. i cannot deal with living here much longer but they've made it so i'm basically trapped and unable to leave, and i have no one else to turn to because they've spent my entire life convincing all of them that i'm a "problem child" who is "out to get them" and that they're the most perfect, ideal parents ever. (which i bet is the exact same thing they did with my bio mom.. she had her issues, but i think they villainized her instead of helping her. and also never admitted that they also made mistakes and are not as amazing as they believe themselves to be.)

so ironic. bio mom abused and traumatized me, grandparents stepped in to help get me away from her. then my grandparents also abuse and traumatize me.. so now i'm turning back to my bio mom hoping for help and understanding, since she was definitely also a victim of them.

i'm genuinely completely over all the trauma caused by my bio mom, got over it 2-3 years ago (at age 18-19.) and adding onto that the fact that i've come to the realization that my bio mom likely dealt with a lot of the same things i've been through thanks to my grandparents (her parents).. i def feel like i have a bit more understanding of why she was the way she was. and from what little i can see online, it looks like her life is a lot more normal and healthy now.

idk, at this point i just feel like "what's the worst that could happen?" and just.. something, anything needs to change. because as it stands i've been here wasting years of my life because my grandparents are basically keeping me trapped here and making my life hell and i'm sick of it. i want freedom, i want my own life, i want to exist, i want out of this fucking house.

also there's the fact that on the rare occasions that my grandmother would talk to my bio mom, my bio mom would literally always try to ask about me and how i was doing, so it seems like she did/hopefully still does care/have some interest in me.

and uh, vaguely related thought, but i just realized that it made me strangely happy to remember that my bio mom always called me her "kiddo" instead of her "daughter." like i don't recall her ever calling me her "daughter," it was always "kiddo."

and leading off of that, honestly my biggest fear with contacting her is having to come out to her as trans lmfao. i'm like 90% sure she's bisexual so that gives me a bit of hope that she'll be accepting and supportive, but ahhh what if she's not :sob: i guess we'll see lol

edit 2 days later: she blocked me and privated her account without responding. didn't even wait to see what i wanted to talk about :) i understand but also i do not, because my entire childhood and even up until like 2 years ago she would always ask my mom about me, ask how i was doing, ask if she could talk to me. but now that i'm ready to talk to her, she doesn't want to. why is this my life lmfao, i'm so fucking alone

yk, in general i always tend to prefer dark or hard hitting songs

but my all time favorite songs are literally the complete opposite of that: to you, 20, april shower, ‘bout you, dust, heaven’s cloud, ah! love

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating.

Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934 (via metamorphesque)

Freedom isn’t enough. What I desire doesn’t have a name yet.

Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart (via metamorphesque)

Franz Kafka, “A Report to an Academy” (1917)

no but you don’t understand how emotional it makes me whenever i see anything related to nikolai talking about wanting to be truly free, like a bird. the way that has always been the one thing i’ve truly wanted, but no one has ever understood. when i first read that scene in the manga it just resonated with me so deeply. and i just saw fanart of an au where fyodor and nikolai were kids, and talking about a rumor about a book existing where anything you write becomes reality. and nikolai saying that if something like that ever really existed, he would give himself wings. and when fyodor asked why he would wish for something so simple, nikolai said he wants to be free, and fly away from here. and i am actually sobbing. i love him. i love him so much. i don’t usually get this emotional over fictional characters, but i swear nikolai’s intense desire for true freedom just resonates with me in a way that literally nothing else ever has. and that fanart just broke me, with him wishing for something as “simple” as wings. because i’ve always wanted wings, the ability to fly, to not be trapped and grounded by the world, by reality. and it’s just something that no one else has ever understood, they’ve always found it so strange. idk just seeing nikolai feel the same just makes me so emotional lol