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#is most of my day spent consuming media & trying (failing) to take care of myself? yes.
babybabyaphrodite · 2 years
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i love that in the first book, bella’s free time from school & dealing w moody vampires is just. cooking dinner & reading the same book 5 times in a row.
it may seem like a lack of character development- but i too spend most of my time trying to remember the basic necessities i need to not die & hyperfocusing on a single piece of media for 8 months.
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Moving Forward
Hello everyone. It’s been a long time since I’ve last spoken to you all, and an even longer time since I’ve last updated this story. Over the months and years, my absence has saddened, frustrated, and even angered many of you. Despite my own valid feelings of how—to put it bluntly—I don’t owe any of you anything as this is something I do for free and in my own free time, I still recognize how it must feel for you all to see something you enjoy so much slowly lose momentum and eventually grind to a halt. Furthermore, my habit of making enthusiastic yet empty statements in between didn’t help either. 
As such, a proper and honest explanation is due, as anything less would be unkind. This will be lengthy, but please bear with me. 
For the past four years, it’s been increasingly difficult to find the time, energy, and motivation for me to properly sit down and write. Seemingly gone are the early days of this story’s life when I was able to publish a new chapter every month or so, or even every two weeks when I was at the top of my game in terms of activeness. Even though I had an immense workload due to being a double major in college, leading me to adopt the best work ethic I’ve ever had, I still led a sheltered lifestyle where I didn’t have to worry about the many looming, inevitable adult responsibilities that were ahead of me.
Those tranquil years of course came to an end when I graduated, and I soon felt immense pressure to shift my attention to finding work, living independently, and working on things that would further my career. While I received support as an aspiring writer from the majority of my family, those being my mother and sister, the both of them commented more frequently as time passed by that my “fanfiction” wasn’t something that I should be spending so much time on anymore. After all, it’s not like I could sell the work as my own, and the fact that despite fanfiction absolutely being a valid artform, it wasn’t something that the world of professional employers cared about. 
Nonetheless, when I did eventually find work as a film freelancer, I still tried to persevere and write on the side. My goal back then was to work in film in order to sustain my pursuit in writing. Film was something I went to school for, greatly enjoyed, and even saw a possible future career for myself in, but it was the writing aspect of it that I was truly after, that being primarily screenwriting. 
After two years of living at home, I felt the need to try and live independently as I outgrew my tiny room and my mom started dating a man that I didn’t particularly like. I knew it wasn’t financially smart of me to do so when my mom allowed me to live with her rent-free. But at the time I thought that it would help me to become more mature and productive, as I would have to force myself to work in order to put a roof over my head and food on the table—as opposed to living a sheltered life at home where everything was taken care of for me. Essentially, I was longing for the lifestyle I had in college, thinking that once I returned to it, I would be able to reacquire that once incredible work ethic I had. 
So, I became roommates with a friend from college and together we rented a townhouse together. Rent wasn’t terribly expensive, but it wasn’t cheap either. Regardless, I was able to make ends meet. My greatest challenge however, was to live up to my family’s spoken and unspoken expectations. On one hand, my mother was sweet and understanding, naturally giving me her full support. My father, on the other, always thought that it’d be better for me to pursue something safer and more lucrative, and to not risk being a starving artist. But the one I had to prove myself the most to was my older sister, who was wildly more successful than I was—financially and professionally. My pay compared to hers was like a drop in a bucket, and I felt both indirect and direct pressure from her to be more “professional” like her. Therefore, I threw myself into my work, which is when things slowly began to go downhill. 
As a film freelancer, my work hours usually averaged between 10-12 hours a day, and with my work taking me all over my home state of Maryland and even into neighboring Washington DC and Virginia, my commute time to and from work ranged anywhere from an additional 1-3 hours. It became incredibly common for me to wake up for work anywhere between 3-6 AM and not get home until 8-10 PM. 
Unbeknownst to me at the time, I slowly slipped into a routine where when I did have the “time” to write, I had zero energy or motivation as my work was so taxing. I reached the point where I had to drink two energy drinks with 300mg of caffeine to get myself to and from work. I saw less and less of my roommate and friends. I spent an alarming amount of money and gained weight from ordering take-out so often because I hadn’t the energy to cook for myself when I got home late from work. There would even be days when I fell into what felt like comas, sleeping up to two days straight at one point. My physical, mental, and emotional health was in serious decline. And yet I didn’t see it that way, as I had become obsessed with trying to prove to my family, my sister in particular, that I wasn’t a failure and that my pursuit of writing wasn’t a hopeless one.
During the first month of COVID-19′s outbreak last year, I finally had a much-needed vacation. This was undoubtedly the best time for me to have returned to writing—but I didn’t. At this point, so much time had passed since my last proper writing session that the few times I did try to write, I found myself completely unable to write anything. I was so out of practice and so out of touch with what I had written. This honestly frightened me, and I soon began to doubt if I could ever be able continue the story with the same quality that so many readers fell in love with. Regrettably, I fled from this revelation long enough for a full month to pass by, and I soon found myself busy with yet another distraction: unemployment. 
I was out of work for about 4.5 months, from the middle of March to the beginning of August. During this time, I had to rely on state unemployment, which earned me great scorn from my older sister. Our relationship had always been uneven since we were kids, but it was becoming increasingly toxic as of late since our college years. I felt so ashamed to tell her how much money I made in a year from my job as a film freelancer, and how I barely managed to move to a better position after four years of work. Riddled with guilt and disappointment in myself, when work became readily available again in August, I frantically threw myself back in harder than ever before. In the past where I had turned down the occasional job to give myself some time to relax or in order to make it to a social outing with friends, I now accepted every job thrown my way, only declining those that would make me double-book myself. I earned a lot of money during those months as a result, and I was so happy to finally distance myself from the stigma of being “unemployed.” However, I once again failed to see that I was yet again sliding back into the lifestyle that had been slowly poisoning me for the past two years. 
After essentially working non-stop from August to March, my body, mind, and soul soon returned right back to the brink of collapse. It wasn’t until then at my lowest point when I finally realized how I initially went from working to sustain myself in order to write, to not writing at all and only working to sustain myself to work even more. It was truly scary to see myself fall victim to a brutal cycle of unfulfilling work that could have trapped me for years to come if I hadn’t broken free first. That’s when I realized that my lifestyle was personally unsustainable, and that something had to change. 
Henceforth, I’ve made the difficult decisions to both transition out of film freelancing and to soon return home to live with my father. At the end of April, the homeowner of the townhouse my roommate and I had been living in for close to three years gave us our 30-days-notice to vacate, as they no longer wished to rent but to sell the property. As my roommate had been planning on finding a place of his own with his girlfriend for quite some time, we split amicably at the end of last month in May and I’ve since moved into a temporary apartment with a friend who has traveled back to Maryland for seasonal work. 
Regarding the change in my career, I’ve been looking into applying for writing positions for something that I’ve grown to enjoy over the past few years, which is to write reviews for media such as film, anime, and videogames. This of course is not what I truly want to do in life, but I think that because it actually involves writing, it would be both good practice in terms of practicing my writing and experience in terms of resume-building. Furthermore, a stable “9-5″ job as such would be good for me, I think, as it would introduce some desperately needed structure back into my life. Being a freelancer was definitely fun as I had the power to choose my own schedule, but it unfortunately fostered a lot of laziness and procrastination when I wasn’t completely burnt out. 
I’ve shared with you all this information, a great deal of it being very personal, in the hopes that it helps you better understand who I am as a person and what I’ve been going through these past four years. 
I understand that my word may be difficult to trust due to my history, but I sincerely wish to let you all know from the bottom of my heart that I do plan on continuing writing The White Rose of Vermilion until it’s completed. My fears and insecurities may have alienated me from that promise, but not once did I ever entertain the idea of fully dropping the story. And I promise you, I never will. It most likely will not further my career in any way, bring any revenue in, and will continue to consume a great deal of my precious free time—yet I still choose to pursue continuing it because I can’t see a future where I don’t finish it.
It is after all my most cherished project; the reason that I was able to truly find my calling as an aspiring writer, its success also ultimately being the proof to my mother that I had some skill as a budding writer, who then gave me her full blessings to pursue it as a career. But most important of all is that it’s the reason why I was able to experience first-hand one of the most important and beautiful discoveries in my entire life. That being the incredible phenomenon of how art is like a beacon—its bright light is powerful enough to reach out and inspire others to create art of their own. From Monty Oum to Nancy Phetchareune to myself, I was blessed enough to see readers create wonderful fanart to show me or tell me in a review that reading my story had inspired them to create something of their own.
I am officially leaving behind my prolonged hiatus and returning to working on The White Rose of Vermilion. While I am extremely hesitant to even estimate when the next chapter will be published, please know that I am genuinely trying to leave behind my habits of old and returning to a more consistent schedule. 
The White Rose of Vermilion will return in:
Arc II, Chapter Twenty-Seven: Stranger in the Night
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moondustaeil · 3 years
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𝐫𝐞:𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞.
↳ Ambrosia's not-so-happy life update.
trigger warning, this post includes: weight loss, food, calorie counting, disordered eating habits, suicide, insecurities, fears.
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏: 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭, 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭?
As I contemplate whether I should make an earnest post look as aesthetic as possible, my eyes are tearing up to Lee Chansub's "Gone". Therefore, this chapter gets named after his lyrics.
Since when was it? It's a question that crosses my mind after deciding on the chapter name, even though I'm well aware of the number of days that have passed. Each day I write that significant number in my journal, but there must be more than the pen can write. Beyond my awareness: there must have been a certain amount of time spent on a prologue to pen down the event that ultimately led to this chapter.
Since where was it? There could be multiple meanings behind the question, but I can only formulate a limited answer despite the openness. As far as I'm in charge of this story, there is no why or where. Yes, I quite literally woke up one day and decided to go on a diet, simple as that. Before that day, dieting never crossed my mind: I never saw my body as too much or myself as too little compared to others. Can you understand now why I think a prologue was written for me and not by me?
Anyhow, let's have a look at how I think I experienced my life before the diet. Sometimes I think I don't even remember how I experienced the last moments of it, but that doesn't mean I don't know how it went. My life before the diet was pretty plain: I didn't engage in any social or physical activities and spent most of my time behind my laptop to write or lurk around on YouTube. Eating-habit-wise, I never ate much: three meals a day with occasional snacks, those snacks probably covering more calories than my meals did. Despite eating calorie-covering snacks, I would have given my all for fruit and vegetables, especially frozen fruit. Back then, I already had significant eating habits: I'd eat nuts when I was stressed, drink smoothies while studying for exams, eat sour sweets when I was bored. My body before the diet wasn't that noteworthy: I maintained the same weight for around three years and only ditched my tight jeans because covid had me feeling too lazy to wear them. A youth like this might sound boring to you, but I gladly lived my life like this and, I don't regret the way I spent it.
I can still recall up to two days before it began: I can tell the contents of those days like I was the supporting cast instead of the main character, simply because I can't remember the emotions. The two last days were spent behind my laptop, waiting for the exam results while eating spicy nuts (to keep the stress level low). When the exam results came, and I realised I passed them all, I must have felt relieved. But in my memory, I didn't and don't feel anything at all concerning my exams. And that's where it stops. I don't even know where it starts again.
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐: 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐧𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲
It quite literally feels like I woke up with no memories of the first days of the diet: I can recall what I ate, but not what I did or felt.
On the first day, I drank a strawberry oat smoothie for breakfast. It was my first self-made smoothie which was convincingly delicious compared to the bought smoothies I used to have. That same day, I stopped eating snacks: unknowingly, I restricted them and wouldn't allow them for the months after.
That paragraph is all I remember from the first day, and if I were to write one about every day of that week, it would be less each day. Maybe those days just weren't memory-worthy enough as I don't want to search for a reason behind every single thing.
For approximately twenty-eight days after the first one, I have no recollections. The only way I can reflect on those days is by checking my calorie intake and physical activity. Though, it doesn't feel like I was the one who tracked it.
The first proper recollection I have is of a day I ate 180 calories for the first time: a number I can only wonder about now. Though it was my first time having such a low intake, it wasn't the last or lowest. The number 180 seemed to attract me as in the days that followed, 180 would be the maximum amount of calories I'd consume. Back then, I had no idea what TDEE or BMR (of any of the other terms) were, so I can't tell you what my deficit was. But I would burn around 1200 calories a day by exercising, and that should be enough to raise red flags.
From that point on, even though I was probably slowly killing myself, I felt alive. A growing obsession with food, weight loss and exercise was fueling my mind. While my body was left behind, trying to catch up with the pace. If I didn't lose more than 1 gram overnight, I'd starve myself the next day. If I felt too lazy to exercise, I'd punish myself for being lazy by doing more. My weight dropped a lot, up to the point where the scale sometimes seemed to skip numbers.
Then a parent swap came: I would be staying with my dad for two weeks. In advance, I had already figured out everything I thought I needed to know: how I would skip meals without him finding out, at what times I could exercise without him knowing, where I could throw away the food he thought I would eat. The day I packed my bag and left for his house, my plans turned into action.
The two weeks there went as smooth as I planned them to go. Even with bonuses: he worked up to three days a week and did not question it when I didn't eat. In those two weeks, I would replace kpop videos with programs I used to despise: supersize versus superskinny and mukbangs. The videos would satisfy my hunger in some way, even though they caused me to start nailbiting. I wouldn't eat: I would only watch as others fed themselves.
Since I lost the initial subject I wanted to discuss in this chapter (I'm so sorry), I shall be moving on to the next chapter.
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑: 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨? 𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐚𝐭?
It was at this point that people were starting to notice things that I hadn't. Sometimes those things were appearance-related and, other times it was personality-related or even habit-related.
It started with a compliment from my aunt, and I felt like I was glowing when she mentioned my visible jawline and thin face. Maybe I was slightly disappointed that she noticed the facial changes before my body but, at the same time, she noticed a difference!
After her, people started commenting on my body, and I worked more to achieve those comments. I saw them as comments rather than compliments: I didn't tire myself out starting from 5:20 am every day just to receive a meaningless compliment. I wanted people to take notice.
And, they did. People that directly surrounded me were starting to notice things that I failed to see. Mostly stuff that changed about my personality while my body was changing. My mother told me that I became the opposite of easy-going and friendly when others were around. My sister told me that my facial expressions had gone even further than my usual resting bitch face. My nephew said that all I would do was try to end up in arguments with others and that he didn't like being around me anymore. It hurt to have all of those things said, but at the same time, I was too in denial to care. The only thing I cared about was food, exercise and losing weight.
On rare occasions, I became aware of the person I became. Mostly when others would try to reach me by calling or coming over but I was too busy to talk to them, and if I did, I would talk about food-related things only. So, I shut everyone out.
I no longer talked to my friends daily, wouldn't reply to my parents sending me messages, didn't go on social media unless it was to look at food or triggering images.
The world consisted of me and was ruled by my obsession.
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒: 𝐈 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞
There is an unknown amount of time that settles itself between the previous chapter and this chapter. During this time, I once again feel like I'm just a supporting character: my habits develop and my obsession rules over everything I do.
Many of the things I did (which already wasn't a lot, to begin with), were based on stuff I said already. Though even more refined and obsessive.
When I closed my eyes, sleep would take me to dreams about food and weight loss. Approximately three times a night, I would open my eyes, assume it was morning and get ready for another day of exhaustion and starvation. Those nightly hours are still engraved in my mind and current habits: 12:00 am, 3:20 am, 5:28 am.
It is in this chapter that a slow awareness creeps up on me. The side effects are what wakens me when everything else consumes me: constant thoughts about food, the inability to sleep, not being able to think or focus, drifting from reality, always feeling cold, tingling headaches, not leaving the house for days unless it's for shopping (because I would look at food I couldn't eat).
"I need to stop," I told myself while I wrote in my journal how much better I would be if I lost some more weight because the scale is tempting me.
I didn't want to stop. I just wanted it to stop.
Though in reality, I had no control to stop myself or it. I had lost control long ago, and to this day, I still have no idea at which chapter I left it behind. Some days I thought of how to stop, but the exit sign was more like a full-stop as it led me to think of killing myself: it would make my family stop commenting on my condition and could give me a sense of freedom even though I would be dead.
It surely wasn't the first time I passed that exit sign in life, but it was the first time I felt determined to pass it by. All I wanted was to be able to sleep peacefully without thinking of food. *Snort*, such high standards.
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓: 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬
Unexpectedly, a good dream did cloud over my bedroom. Even though it was simple, it's one of the dreams that I hope to keep in my memory forever. And for laughs, I'll share it.
TO1-member Donggeon was standing near my garage but, my mother's car wasn't in the driveway because she wasn't home. I was standing outside with him while he talked with Wei's Donghan (who was invisible to me). They were having a casual conversation in Korean. Then, he wanted to lean against the car that wasn't in the driveway, causing him to fall on all fours. He laughed at his stupidity and, at the same time, his ears were getting red from embarrassment.
That pretty much sums up the first not-food-related dream I had during my entire journey. And I still remember waking up at 3:20 am, laughing: it was stupid and silly but left such a big impression on me. And that's when I told myself: "I need to recover".
It sounds silly but I still, to this day, think that this dream set me off into recovery mode. Even though I felt like I had no control, I tried to take control: calculated a number of calories that I surely had to eat each day, planned Thursday to be my active rest-day, found less intense workouts to do in the morning, tried to replace the mukbangs in my watch later list by relaxing videos or recovery videos, scheduled to journal every day. Though I told myself I would do those things, it wasn't easy to put my words into action.
Yet, I fucking did it.
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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔: 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧
Not going to lie: I spent all night wondering how I was going to write this and all morning putting it into proper words. Hence, the reason why I'm feeling exhausted: too exhausted to continue writing it even though the blooming period is so close. So instead of giving a lecture on recovery: I will try to give my opinion on recovering and how I'm doing these days.
Each day, I still question whether I'm truly in a recovery of something. I never went to see a professional or verbally admitted to my problems, so I never learned whether I'm recovering from something or just making progress after a downfall. I might be familiar with the use of DSM-4 and DSM-5 but, that doesn't mean I'm qualified to judge on whether I had/have a disorder or not. Yet, I opt to use the terms disordered eating and recovery until I'm sure of what it was that I went through.
Some days it feels like I was faking all of it, but then I realise, how was I faking it while I was going through it and experiencing it? Perhaps some of you reading even think I am faking all of the above, but that's your opinion. I don't need to defend myself for feeling things.
Now, I'll update you on where I'm standing today because I guess I wrote six chapters in order to get to this point. We all know I like to write more than necessary.
⋅ My disordered eating habits and calorie intake: I have made quite some progress (even if I say so myself). Each week, I challenge myself to increase my calorie intake by 100 until I reach my maintenance calories. It isn't as easy as it sounds because by the time I actually dared to increase by ten calories, the week is over, and I have to adjust my goal because I wasn't even able to reach close to where I planned to be. This week my goal is to eat 800 calories a day: a number that unexpectedly is paired with a lot of guilt and fear, so I haven't been able to eat that amount yet. The maximum I've eaten is 641 calories a day. Together with that, I also promised myself to eat one fear food or not-eaten food a week: that way, I hope to stop restricting myself and learn to enjoy them again. Some lasting habits I developed: I fear eating too early and will try to push back eating as late as I can because it gives me the feeling that I can enjoy it for longer but I do have strict hours, I cut everything into mini pieces because it gives me the feeling that I have more to nibble on and more to enjoy, I read every single nutrition label multiple times (in the store and at home) because I fear that it might include too many calories or fat, I don't eat anything that I didn't plan and nothing that I can't track calorie-wise, I eat the same thing for breakfast every day because I feel like it's the only food I can trust. The urge to skip meals or lie about them is getting smaller, but the thought always remains in the back of my mind.
⋅ My weight: I'm at a weight that is still considered healthy according to whoever feels qualified to judge. However, I fear gaining weight every single day, which stops me from eating my weekly allowance. Despite eating more than at the start of this: I still lose weight. The weight loss fuels the bad habits once more, but I try to tell myself that my weight is only to indicate whether I'm close to my maintenance calories or not.
⋅ My body: my body kept most of its side effects inside until I started to recover aside from the ones that I've stated before. Yesterday was the first day that I didn't feel cold despite wearing a shirt only, so that was a win for my body. However, I do have constant headaches, get blackouts often and, I easily feel my energy draining whenever I do a little bit too much (which I didn't always feel when I was actively doing it). That being said, my abilities have definitely decreased: you can read what kind of exercise I do in the next paragraph, but it has decreased a lot because I will feel weak sooner than before.
⋅ Exercise: I am between struggling and not struggling with it. The reason why I started to exercise was to burn more calories than I ate. But back then, I had no knowledge of BMR and whatnot. These days I do a lot less impactful exercise than I did before, but I still exercise each day: I do 96 minutes of stationary cycling a day, go on daily walks and have the obsession to take steps whenever I'm standing still. As you might be able to tell, I feel like I'm on the line of having control here.
⋅ My personality/social life/hobbies: even though I was in denial about my changing personality for a long while, I eventually realised that people were right when they said I changed. The realisation came during recovery, mostly because I noticed how I was in a better mood than when I was at my lowest point. My social life is building up slowly and doesn't always include me having to talk about my weight loss or food, though people always mention it so, I do always end up having to talk about it without wanting to. As for hobbies, I found my interest in kpop and writing again but, it's still at a somewhat moderate level. I still find myself lurking at food-related posts or triggering things, but I can control myself better and watch some positive videos instead. Aside from that, I journal every day: I write down what I ate, my physical activity, what I saw as memorable in my day, and more.
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𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞
That's pretty much all for the life update. I still left out a lot that I failed to remember while writing or felt too tired to write about, and I bet not a lot of you are interested in any of this anyway. I just felt like I owed everyone an explanation of where I've been and why I haven't been reblogging much or writing.
As I've stated a few times before, I don't know yet when I will get back into writing or posting content. And the past months made me realise that it might be good for myself if I take some time away from Tumblr: I won't be able to look for triggering content, won't be able to trigger anyone else on accident and can focus on working towards my goals.
I hate the word hiatus but I think this means that I will be going on semi-hiatus. On good days, I might still come here to talk to my mutuals or reblog some kpop content that I enjoy. But other times, I probably won't respond or interact much as I'm logged out.
For now, my semi-hiatus will continue until mid to end September. This might be shortened or extended depending on my progress and my personal needs.
Have a lovely day, moonflowers! 💌
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artificialqueens · 3 years
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Not Like In The Fairy Tales (But Just As Beautiful) (Crygi/Jankie) - Chaoticnachokitten
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419959
A/N: Heyy:)) I wrote this a few months ago and completely forgot to post it lol. Thanks to @cryshillz for giving me the idea for it and @aqtanawrites for beta-ing<3
Summary: Crystal is just your average high school student, (well, maybe except her makeup and outfit choices), friendly, dreamy and fairly popular. All she wants are her friends, One Direction songs, and maybe a fairy tale esque relationship. Everything would be perfect if it wasn't for that one girl that keeps staring at her with an expression that could kill...
Literally just your typical enemies to lovers high school au:)
It was 6am on a rainy Monday morning. Crystal woke up to the sweet tunes of 'What Makes You Beautiful' by One Direction. She had the habit of using a different One Direction song as her alarm clock every day.
Especially on Mondays she just needed a bit of extra motivation to get up and get ready for school, and that particular song never failed to make her smile, including today.
She slowly got out of bed, and walked up to her closet. It was a beautiful mess of almost offensively bright, colorful clothes. Crystal firmly believed that wearing as many colors as possible was helpful to stay positive all the time. 'Plain' or 'simple' clothing was something she liked to pretend didn't even exist.
Once she was done with picking out her outfit for the day, she went into her bathroom, preparing for her favorite part of her morning routine: her makeup. Firstly, she washed her face, and then applied some products that would hopefully protect her skin from what she was about to do to it. Then, she tried to find all of her needed makeup products. Unfortunately, she had a habit of trying out new looks constantly, and for some reason her products ended up being scattered in the entire bathroom. Her parents had given up on trying to keep the bathroom organized at this point.
After finding everything she needed, which were approximately 50 products, including tons of her beloved glitter, she started with her time consuming but fun painting, blasting her OD playlist to stay in a good mood. Her thoughts drifted around for a bit, eventually settling on the memories of how her high school had tried to get her to dress 'appropriately' and to stop her 'clown like' makeup. At first the teachers had assumed that she would get teased because of her looks, but they had been very wrong. Crystal had such a fun and loveable personality that no one really said anything negative about her, in fact, the only people who teased her about her makeup were her best friends, who obviously didn't mean it. Crystal was friends with just about everyone, except one person.
Crystal quickly tried to think of something else, she didn't want to ruin her morning by thinking about the only person she didn't like.
So, after the teachers had realized that no other student would tell her to stop with her makeup, they tried to threaten her by sending her to the principal's office multiple times. But, since she kept arguing about how she needed to express herself, and because her grades were good, the teachers gave up and her style was tolerated eventually. At least her art teacher loved her creativity.
Crystal checked herself out in the mirror one last time. Her long, curly hair was brushed nicely, it looked all shiny and soft like usual, she was wearing a full face of makeup, around three times the amount of what an average student would wear, and her outfit complemented her makeup nicely. Afterwards she went on her way to her high school, which happened to be just a few minutes away from her home. As always, she had her earphones in so she could continue to listen to her playlist, which she had named 'positive vibes'.
Before entering the big, old, dull building, she removed her earphones as electronic devices were strictly forbidden and had to be stored in the school bags, otherwise a teacher had the right to take them away. It was a stupid and annoying rule, but other than about her personal style, Crystal didn't like getting in trouble, so she just accepted it.
Crystal's morning had been pretty good so far, but of course, the first person she saw in the hallway was the one she didn't like. Her name was Gigi Goode, and, Crystal usually didn't like to swear, the only word that could be used to describe her was a complete bitch. Now, sadly, Gigi was gorgeous, everyone was jealous of her looks. Even after a long P.E lesson she still managed to look perfect, not even a single makeup particle out of place. Gigi exclusively wore expensive makeup and clothes, always looking like she was about to be on the cover of Vogue or something. Not only that, but she was smart too, a straight A student, nothing less ever. She regularly engaged in class, the teachers often used her as a good example. But beyond that, Gigi was also the most conceited person Crystal knew. She seemed to lack any kind of empathy or friendliness. The only thing she seemed to care about was herself and her reputation.
She wasn't really friends with anyone, everyone was intimidated by her. She didn't seem to care for friendships anyway. But Gigi just seemed to hate Crystal for no reason. Everytime Crystal was near Gigi she looked at the ground to avoid the look. Gigi liked to glare at Crystal like she was something unsightly, like a stain on her clothes or a disgusting bug or something along those lines. Nothing out of the ordinary, except today, if anything, Gigi looked at her with an even meaner expression than usual.
"Maybe her favorite brand of lipstick got discontinued,"  Crystal thought to herself as she searched for her friends, all she had to do was follow the sound. And sure enough, just a few meters away she spotted Jan and Jackie, who were talking about something. Jan seemed to be even more enthusiastic than usual, and Jackie looked slightly concerned.
"...it's a genius plan, I promise! And very easy to execute. We have to show them that they just belong together."
Jan was nearly screaming the last sentence, loud enough to hear clearly for Crystal who was just waiting for their conversation to end as she didn't want to interrupt them. But then, Jan saw Crystal and monitored for her to come.
"Genius plan? Jan, look, I love you very much, but the last time you said that, and canceled our movie night for it-"
"You're still mad about that?" Jan asked with a hint of amusement.
"Let me finish. Last time you had one of your 'genius ideas' you broke into the school with Nicky to save the frogs we were meant to dissect in biology."
"Well, obviously my plan worked because the frogs are now free, and we didn't have to dissect anything!"
Jackie sighed, fighting the smile caused by the adorableness of her girlfriend, and shook her head fondly.
"And I'm very happy about that. However, you and Nicky got detention for a whole month and only very narrowly avoided legal consequences. And you were grounded forever!"
Jan looked at Jackie with huge eyes.
"But..the frogs..they were worth all of that."
Jackie looked at Crystal who had just been listening to the fairly weird conversation. Though that kind of stuff wasn't uncommon for Jan and Jackie at all.
"Crystal, I'm dating an idiot."
Crystal just laughed and then shyly looked at Jan. The girl looked back at her with mock anger. Then she turned her attention back to Jackie.
"Oh, so I'm the idiot now? I would like to remind you of the time when I was still grounded, and you decided to do it like they do it in the movies and attempted to climb up my house to get into my room through the window, just because you wanted to see me..it's not like you see me at school literally every day."
"It was Saturday. And we spent some..quality time that day."
"That was after I quite literally had to pull you up myself after you almost fell down."
Jackie was about to respond when the bell rang as annoyingly as ever, announcing that the first class was about to start. Jan, Jackie, Crystal and, unfortunately for Crystal, Gigi were all in the same class. Jan attempted to leave, but she was pulled back by Jackie.
"No girl, no skipping classes anymore. You'll just get into trouble again."
"But..." Jan started.
"No buts. You're coming with us. Do you need a bit of..extra motivation?"
Jan smirked, getting the hint, and then nodding excitedly.
Jackie hugged her, and then placed a kiss on Jan's soft lips. A few seconds later they were full on making out.
Around a minute later the bell rang again, and the two of them broke apart. Jackie looked at Crystal, who was now staring at the ground, blushing, apologetically.
"Crys, oh my God, I'm so sorry you had to witness that."
"You're not sorry," Jan disagreed.
"It's fine, I'm used to it by now, I know how gross you guys are," Crystal smiled.
"Anyway, let's go, otherwise we'll be late for class," Jackie said in a slightly nervous tone. She hated being late.
Jan sighed.
"And I'm dating the teacher's pet."
Before Jan could try to run away again, Jackie grabbed the girl's hand and dragged her along.
On the way to class, Crystal couldn't help but feel jealous of her friends. Jan and Jackie were just such a cute couple. It wasn't like she was attracted to either of them, it was more that she had the desire to experience the same kind of love they had for each other. She wanted that kind of fairytale fantasy cute relationship, with the occasional playful teasing.
The three of them finally reached the classroom, just in time. Crystal sat down in her usual spot, and got out her needed school supplies. Since the teacher surprisingly wasn't there yet, she checked her phone, scrolling through her social media. Since there wasn't anything too interesting, she switched it off soon again and looked around for a bit. To her horror, she noticed that Gigi was looking at her. But something was weird about it. Crystal could have sworn that Gigi had looked at her with an almost friendly expression...probably as friendly as Gigi was able to, before using the look again. A few seconds later Gigi looked away again. Crystal missed that Gigi was blushing.
Crystal suddenly felt like she had invaded Gigi's personal space. It was stupid, but she felt her face heat up. To try and calm down, she ran a hand through her hair to fix it, even though nothing was wrong with it in the first place before opening her notepad, and started doodling tiny flowers and animals in it so she had something to focus on.
Just when she had calmed down enough to feel as comfortable as she could while being at school, the English teacher entered the room, greeting the students. Crystal looked up for a minute, listening to what the teacher was talking about, before going back to doodling. She was almost always more focused in class while drawing. It was accepted by most teachers, and a real blessing in art class.
Today was different. For some reason, she kept thinking about Gigi, and the way she had seen the unusual behavior of her today. It honestly wouldn't have been a big deal at all, but she had never seen Gigi without that I-accidentally-bit-into-a-lemon glance, and instead looked at Crystal like she was an actual person. Thinking about it caused Crystal to feel an odd, but definitely not unpleasant sensation spreading from her heart. Could it be..?
"No. No, definitely not, not her," she told herself before forcefully turning her attention back to the teacher.
"Okay, so today we'll start with a new topic: presentations. They are very important, you will have to do one in pretty regardless of where you want to work in your later life. Now, we'll work on your confidence first, therefore the topic of the presentation will be up to you. And because teamwork is very important as well, you'll work in groups of two."
The teacher noticed that Jan had raised her hand.
"Yes, Jan?"
"How about we get paired up randomly? Later on in our life we don't get to choose either who we'll have to work with, so this might be some good practice."
The teacher nodded, impressed by Jan's level of maturity, and surprised because the girl usually didn't participate that much.
The rest of the class seemed okay with that idea as all of them got along quite well. Jackie looked at Jan with a surprised look, Jan smiled at her before mouthing "all part of my plan, don't worry."
The teacher resumed.
"Great idea, actually, thanks Jan. Okay, everyone, please take out a piece of paper and write down your names. Then fold it and bring it to my desk."
Jan raised her hand again.
"Yes?"
"Can I please read out the teams?"
"Yeah, sure."
The next few minutes were spent by people asking for paper and pens and then writing down all of the names. Jan hastily scribbled the three letters of her own name before turning her attention to Crystal. She was writing down her name on that obnoxious rainbow colored paper she adored, making the next step of Jan's plan easier.
Then she looked at Gigi. She was using some expensive art paper she usually used to draw gorgeous pictures on. It even felt expensive, so spotting it later on shouldn't be too hard either. Jan couldn't quite believe that her plan was going so smoothly.
Jackie was ready to bring her paper to the teacher's desk, but Jan stopped her before she could do so.
"Wait, I want to be paired up with you. Mark it with a smiley or something," Jan whispered.
Jackie smirked before doing so.
"Fine, miss we-should-work-with-different-people-to-gain-new-experience."
"You'll understand later."
After every piece of paper was on the desk, Jan mixed all of them up to keep up the illusion that every pair would be selected in a fair and completely random way..
Crystal felt someone looking at her. When she looked around, it was Gigi once again. This time she was sure she had seen Gigi's initial expression which had looked almost dreamy before she was back to looking mean again. When Crystal didn't look right away again, Gigi even looked insecure for a split second before hissing "what the hell are you looking at?" before looking away herself.
Crystal was shocked. Had she just seen the usually overly confident Gigi Goode looking...insecure?
She didn't even have time to process everything that had just happened as Jan, who had already paired up quite a few people, called her name.
"Okay so Crystal and.."
Jan tried to make it seem like she was just randomly picking out a piece of paper.
"Gigi."
Crystal's jaw dropped. She didn't dare to look at Gigi. That was the worst team she had ever been in. She was shocked to the point of shivering. She felt her blood running both hot and cold at the same time. And just when she had tried to reason that she could just do her part of the assignment alone, and would just have to do the presentation with Gigi, the teacher spoke up again.
"To ensure you'll actually work together, you will get a grade as a team instead of individual ones. Before you can go, please note that you now have one week to prepare. Since I already wrote down the teams, please don't change them up again. Okay, that's it. Goodbye, see you all tomorrow."
Everyone except Crystal packed up and got ready to leave. Gigi, for once, looked unsettled and left as soon as she could in order to keep up her usual act and not show any emotions. Crystal, on the other hand, was too shocked to do anything other than staring off into space. This was officially the worst day in her life. There was no way she would survive working together with someone who looked like she was about to stab Crystal as soon as they were alone.
Jan pulled her out of her almost trance like state by waving her arms in front of Crystal.
"Hey, are you okay? You don't look good, you're so pale out of the sudden."
Crystal looked at Jan desperately.
"Okay?? No, I'm not 'okay' at all. In case you missed it, I have to work with Gigi out of all people and I can't switch partners...what am I going to do?"
Jan decided to act like she was sorry. In her opinion that drastic measure was necessary to make Crystal and Gigi talk for once, and hopefully that would be enough to make them see that they like each other. Jan had seen the way Gigi looked at Crystal when the latter wasn't aware of it, and she knew that Crystal had a hard time noticing and admitting that she liked someone, due to the fact that she once had her heart broken badly before, and it had taken lots of time and support from her friends to get over it. So, complaining about someone more often than usual was Crystal's way to try and suppress her feelings.
"I'm so sorry Crys, but I'm sure it's going to be fine. And if she's mean to you, I'll make her pay for it, I promise. In fact, I still have that weird hair dye that's supposed to dye your hair purple, but it turned mine green and it took an eternity to get it out again, remember that?"
Crystal forced herself to giggle. She did feel a bit better knowing that Jan would help her if things didn't go smoothly.
"Thanks, Janice, I appreciate it. And honestly, the green didn't look that bad. Besides, you obviously care about green frogs enough to risk legal consequences, so dyeing your hair to match them is just the natural next step."
"I probably shouldn't have told anyone that story, but I would have never thought that saving countless innocent lives would ever be used against me, at least not that frequently. But anyway, ready to leave now?"
Crystal sighed. She really didn't want to see Gigi anymore, at least today.
"What are the chances of Jackie killing you for skipping class one more time with me?"
Jan laughed.
"Unfortunately too high to risk it. Besides, you won't be able to avoid her all week, and if you don't want a bad grade you will have to work with her. Once again, I'm very sorry."
"Okay, fine. And don't apologize Jan, it's not your fault."
Jan had to suppress a smirk. If only she knew..
The rest of the school day surprisingly wasn't that terrible. Gigi didn't look at Crystal at all, not even once, instead she was fully concentrated on engaging as much as usual in each class. Crystal on the other hand didn't care about anything else that moment, she was trying and failing to come up with a way that would make working with Gigi okay. And she sure as hell wouldn't be the one to start the conversation. Since Gigi wasn't satisfied with anything less than an A, she probably would be the one to approach Crystal anyway. Hopefully.
When the school bell rang again, this time to indicate that the day was over, Crystal couldn't wait to get home, she carelessly stuffed her school supplies into her rainbow colored bag and nearly stormed out of the school without even saying goodbye to any of her friends. For once she didn't care about being nice and polite, she just wanted to go home, crawl into her bed, cry, listen to music, and ignore the world around her until she would feel better.
But today some higher force seemed to have something against her. Once she was back home, laying in her bed comfortably, surrounded by her plushies, she decided to check her phone before listening to music. It turned out to be a big mistake. She saw that she had received a message by an unknown number. Usually she would have just ignored and blocked it, but she couldn't. The number had a profile picture, and Crystal immediately recognized it. A pretty girl with perfect skin and shiny brunette hair. Gigi.
She decided that she deserved a break from everything that had happened today, so she turned on airplane mode so she wouldn't be disturbed by anyone anymore, put in her earphones once again, and then clicked on her playlist. She proceeded to close her eyes, trying not to think about anything, just listen to the music instead. She wasn't able to calm down though, even after 30 minutes of trying. The message she had refused to read out of fear earlier seemed to be haunting her. She decided to finally read it.
'Hey, it's Gigi.
It seems like we'll have to work together. I'm sure you're just as interested in a good grade as I am, so I think we should talk things out. Hating each other while trying to give a good presentation will probably not work out, plus we haven't even decided on a topic. So come to my place at 6pm, here is the address.'
Crystal checked the time. She had about an hour left. According to Google, getting to the location would take 45 minutes. She didn't want to make Gigi mad now that it seemed like they would maybe be able to finally work their problems out. She hastily jumped out of her bed, and ran into the bathroom to touch up her makeup as soon as possible.
Thankfully it wasn't terribly smudged or anything, so she was able to go on her way just a few minutes later. That way she would even have a bit of extra time in case she didn't find Gigi's house or if she needed some time to prepare herself mentally for actually ringing the doorbell, which was very likely going to be the case. Crystal had a pretty bad sense of orientation.
Meanwhile, Gigi was anxiously pacing around in her room, checking her makeup and outfit every time she passed a mirror. She had a lot of them in her room. Gigi knew that she was a mess on the inside right now, so it was even more important for her not to show it on the inside. She hoped that her facade that she had built up over the years was enough to hide her emotions from Crystal. The truth was, she wasn't as confident as she pretended to be. In fact, Gigi was a very insecure girl, afraid that someone would see right through her, able to tell just how weak she actually was on the inside. She was scared that people would make fun of her, so she just pushed everyone who tried to befriend her away. Being friends with people had never worked out in the past, instead she had been used and then she had been left with low self esteem and trust issues. Eventually she decided she wouldn't get hurt by people ever again, and that was when she started wearing expensive clothes to intimidate people and flawless makeup as it made her feel like a completely different person, beautiful and confident. Her makeup was like a mask for her as well, a constant reminder that she needed to keep up her facade to remain safe.
Gigi's thoughts were interrupted by the piercing sound of the doorbell. She checked her makeup for what seemed like the 100th time that day, and then went to open the door.
"Hey," Crystal greeted her, looking as nervous and anxious as Gigi felt. For some reason it made her feel better.
"Hey. Thanks for coming. Come in." Gigi managed to keep her usual cool tone despite the fact that she was extremely nervous.
Crystal did as she was told. Unexpectedly, Gigi's house was both huge, almost as big as a mansion, and the furniture looked extremely expensive and beautiful. But since Crystal was also a nervous mess, she wasn't able to focus on anything properly.
Gigi led her into her room (a gigantic one, beautiful and organized, girly but not at all kitschy) and monitored for Crystal to sit down on her bed. Crystal, again, did as she was told, it was her only option as she couldn't even think straight. Gigi carefully sat down next to her. She didn't look at Crystal because she felt like she would break if she did, and instead stared at her ceiling.
"Okay so, I guess I'll explain why I behave the way I do around you. The truth is, I don't hate you. I know you think I do, but I don't. In fact, I'm jealous of you."
Crystal couldn't believe her ears. First of all, Gigi talking about her feelings? And most importantly: How could Gigi Perfect Goode be jealous of her? Crystal bit her tongue to remain silent, the question was burning on her tongue, but she felt like talking wasn't a good idea right now.
"You're so lucky. You get to be yourself. You can wear and act however you want because you're so cute and loveable and everyone wants to be your friend."
Did Gigi just call me cute?
"You don't know what it means to constantly act like a bitch to keep people away from me. And all of that because I'm scared. I'm so scared of being judged. Of being used, of being hurt. I can't handle another person lowering my self esteem to the point where I can't leave the house anymore. It took me months to get where I am today. Why do you think I check my hair and makeup every few minutes? Why do you think I keep staring at you?"
Gigi was getting so emotional that she had to stop talking as her eyes were starting to get as glossy as her perfectly applied lip gloss. She tried taking deep breaths to calm down, but that just made everything worse.
"This is so stupid, I'm sorry…"
"Gigi, please don't call your emotions stupid. It's okay to express your feelings,you've been ignoring them for far too long already. I promise I won't tell anyone. And I know what being hurt feels like, believe me, and being able to talk about my feelings helped me a lot."
Perhaps it were Crystal's words, perhaps Gigi's feelings were too much for her to bottle up anymore, but just a minute later she found herself bawling her eyes out while Crystal had her arms wrapped around her in a protective and comforting way that Gigi actually felt like it was okay for her to cry and let out everything. It was weird, they didn't even really know each other, and surely she wouldn't have expected the meeting with Crystal to go like that at all, but strangely enough it felt so right.
After a solid ten minutes of crying, Gigi was finally starting to calm down. She decided that now, since she had told Crystal her secret already and she had also cried in Crystal's arms, which had probably ruined her pretty makeup/ facade, she had nothing to lose anymore. She freed herself from Crystal's grip, cupped the girl's face, and proceeded to kiss her like she had been wanting to for months. She was fast and aggressive, all of her emotions went into it.
Crystal didn't even think, the kiss felt more than right, so she kissed back just a second later with the same intensity to match Gigi's energy.
It wasn't like the start of her dream fairy tale beginning of a relationship, quite the opposite, actually. Gigi was still crying, Crystal's face was getting wet from the tears, but in that moment she could have cared less about the 'perfect' start of a relationship. What she had right here was just as perfect to her, if not more.
After what could have been seconds, minutes, or even days, both of them were blown away by the intensity of the moment that time didn't matter anymore, they slowly broke apart.
"Crystal I'm so sorry. I didn't know what came over me," Gigi started all of the sudden. She was breathing way too fast.
"Shh, calm down. My only question is, did you mean the kiss? Be honest."
Gigi nodded, looking away.
"I meant it too when I kissed you back."
Gigi looked like a weight had been lifted off of her. Then, she seemed to have an idea.
"I know this is incredibly early, but uhm..I'm alone and my parents won't come back until in a few days, do you maybe want to stay with me for the night? I just want to find out more about the girl I've been secretly admiring for the past few months."
Crystal smiled softly.
"Of course. I would love to know more about the girl that has been hiding every emotion for..I don't even know how long. Tell me what you're feeling, every single one, I want to know all about them. And please don't ever be afraid again to show people your vulnerable side. The world may be terrible, but not every single person is, I promise."
"You're the prime example of that," Gigi said quietly.
"You're still treating me like this even though I was such a terrible person to you...thank you so much Crystal."
With that, they intertwined their fingers, slowly getting closer until their lips touched again. This time it felt different, but just as amazing. It was all slow and tender, and neither of them wanted the moment to end. Maybe it was like in the kitschy fairy tales after all.
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trylonandperisphere · 3 years
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Are you suffering from 2020 election burnout? You're not alone.
Covid-19 depleted our bodies’ ability to process stress months ago. Then election season arrived.
Oct. 31, 2020, 5:00 AM EDT
By Anne Helen Petersen
Like so many other people I know, I’ve spent the least eight months figuring out how to spread out my Covid-19 and election-related stress in a way that makes everyday life livable. I metered my anger; I figured out anxiety-diluting strategies; I got through one day of uncertainty and fear, then the next, then the next. I created basic, anchoring routines for each day, and I worked to cultivate spare moments of peace and something that approximates happiness. I figured it out because I had no other choice. My life wasn’t great — but it was bearable.
It’s not just fears of contracting Covid-19 or anxiety about who will win the presidential election — it’s more, “How will my community and my state and my country recover from this physical and economic calamity?”
But this week, my body began to tell me a different story. After all these months, my anxiety dreams began to incorporate Covid-19. In them, I show up in a store or to an event and I’ve somehow forgotten my mask, or everyone else has. My sleep, which had largely steadied, is beginning to disintegrate again. My misophonia — an actual medical condition in which particular sounds, especially chewing, make you feel like you want to bang your head against the wall — is off the charts. My stomach churns, my muscles ache. I feel totally scattered, unable to concentrate, sensitive to everything.
My partner’s migraines rolled in every day for the past week. No one I know was sleeping well. Once-manageable conditions — tinnitus, hot flashes, colitis — have spiraled out of control. All of our already bad digital habits, especially doomscrolling, have gotten worse. As I sit here writing, a devouring headache has traveled up my spine, over my skull and into my jaw bone. “All my coping strategies are failing,” one person told me recently. “I am coming undone.”
It’s not just fears of contracting Covid-19 or anxiety about who will win the presidential election. It’s more, “How will my community and my state and my country recover from this physical and economic calamity?” And, “Will American democracy be dismantled?” It’s constantly wondering: Are you doing enough? Do you have any more hours, more money, more desperate energy to give? What more can you wring out of your already wrung-out self so you can change the direction of this country?
There’s also the knowledge that there will be no catharsis on Election Day, because the president and the GOP have quietly and not-so-quietly been setting up an infrastructure to ensure that any win will be contested. Imagine running a marathon, seeing the finish line and then having someone on the sideline yell that you need to turn around and run all the way home. That’s what this election burnout feels like. The unknowns — about the virus, a potential cure, just how long all of this will last — just continue to cascade. The approach of winter feels like being in a dark tunnel closing in on both sides. Your fatigue accumulates gradually, until one day you realize you’ve been struggling to breathe for weeks.
The foundations of this stress are not new, even if they are new to some people. For years, a lot of white, middle-class people in the U.S. have been insulated from the reality that an election could have dramatic effects on their lives. President Donald Trump pulled that privilege away and introduced bourgeois liberals to what BIPOC, poor people, queer people and disabled people have been feeling for centuries. Feeling unsafe in public spaces, uncertain that law enforcement will protect you, fearful that certain rights could be taken from you without warning — for millions of Americans, the stress and threat was always there. But the thrum of constant worry has started to feel like someone screaming in your ear.
Imagine running a marathon, seeing the finish line, and then having someone on the sideline yell that you need to turn around and run all the way home. That’s what this election burnout feels like.
What’s changed is that our surge capacity — the body’s ability to process stress — was depleted months ago. We have so much grief and nowhere to put it. When you can’t process something, it builds up, like bile. And no matter how creatively or diligently you try to ignore it, it’s still there, slowly festering. At some point your body begins to betray your best compartmentalization strategies. Our dreams have become vivid and terrifying because sleep is one of the places we allow ourselves to confront our sadness and fear.
This sort of chronic instability, and the burnout and exhaustion that accompany it, fundamentally changes us. In some cases, our bodies and minds force us to check out entirely. We turn inward, become apathetic and withdrawn, neglect the effects of our actions on others and indulge our worst, most selfish and desperate selves.
If that’s what you need to do in order to keep going just one more day: Do it. But dropping out of civil life — of caring — is a worst-case scenario. What you can do, at least in the short term, is take the advice of my friend, clinical psychologist Darcy Lockman: Lower the bar. Now, look at that bar, and lower it again.
That philosophy can apply to basically everything in your life that you, personally, control: your appearance, the cleanliness of your house, your to-do list, your parenting, even your relationships. What is actually essential, and where can you give yourself some much-needed, even if temporary, slack? How can you give yourself the smallest — but nonetheless substantive — break from the relentlessness of your life right now?
If, like me, small measures of control make you feel better about a lack of control elsewhere, what’s something that will give you some form of short-term catharsis? You’re not the only person in your life who feels like things are falling apart, even more than they were falling apart before. Ask your friends in the group chat. Actually talk to your partner about it. If you have kids and they are old enough, talk to them, too. Our struggles can feel unique and unknowable to anyone else. But just admitting out loud that you’re feeling broken can produce something like strength.
I’m still oscillating between hope and despair, between believing the polls and rejecting them, between imagining the possibilities of radical, wide-ranging societal change and steeling myself for four more dark years. But the exhaustion we feel at that prospect is, as Dahlia Lithwick pointed out in her recent piece on the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, the point. If Republicans can’t win the popular vote, they’ve decided to win by simply wearing down the opposition: in the courts, in the legislature, through disinformation and on social media.
If Republicans can’t win the popular vote, they’ve decided to win by simply wearing down the opposition: in the courts, in the legislature, through disinformation, and on social media.
This arduousness has not been accidental. The response to this virus didn’t have to be another battle in the culture war. Voting doesn’t have to feel like a mythical hero’s journey. Applying for unemployment, taking a Covid-19 test, feeling confident that people will respect rules about masks — none of it should be this hard. That difficulty was always the point. Make things hard, and infuriating and time-consuming, and eventually people will give up — or at least fall in line.
The rallying cry that emerged in the wake of Trump’s election was resist. Resist normalizing Trump’s behavior. Resist his policies. Resist the spread of Trumpism — and resist his vision for America. Some people have been resisting for as long as they can remember. And others, new to this fatigue and fear, are arriving at new stages of empathy and solidarity. All of this resistance has exacted a steep toll. But if you’re on the brink of falling apart, it’s not a symptom of failure. It’s evidence of bone-deep care and commitment to a different vision of what this country can be: for yourself, for your family and for those who are nothing like you but deserve it nonetheless.
Be gentle on yourself these next few days. And remember that part of what we’re fighting for is to never feel this way again.
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jayne-hecate-writer · 4 years
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Troubling thoughts
So summer has arrived here in the UK and yet we find ourselves sheltering inside, like the Rebel Alliance hiding from the Empire. In this case the Rebellion is all of us and the Empire is a foul little virus that has evolved the ability to kill us all too easily.
On the warmest days of the year so far, I have awoken to find myself feeling like Luke's T47 gunner, Dak Ralter, ready to take on the Empire all by myself. Until the grey overcast days of lingering pain return and all of the other horrible aspects of my disease that comes with them, leaves me feeling like Oola in Jabba's palace, fighting off a Rancor. Long term chronic illness is like some dungeon dwelling beast, able to reach out claws that grab and slice away at us, some days we can dodge it like a Jedi Master and on other days we are caught in the clawed hand, hoping that we too can struggle enough to escape. I hate being ill all of the time. No, really I do. I actually hate what I have become, or rather I hate what has become of me, a thing that I cannot fight against. Waking up each day to a body filled with pain is something no one would ever want and if I could Jedi heal it away, I promise you that I really would. Yet, if I think too hard about it there are so many things which I could wish away from me, that before I know it, I would have wished away so much that the Force alone knows where I would have ended up spending Life Day. Is that what I really want though, a life completely different from this one? Would it really be so wrong to ask for that?
I know that some of this pain and suffering was caused by my absolute need to be active while in my younger years. I had to be moving, living fast, hedonistic for the delights of my sports (and to change franchises somewhat!), and like Roy Batty, I revelled in my time, my candle burning oh so brightly. In some ways, Roy and Pris were the perfect beings, dying before the got old enough to have their bodies fail them. Not that I would want their four year life span spent in miserable servitude and slavery. I have joked many times that I want a complete body transplant, but what does this mean? Could who I am at my core be encased in a new body or would a new body be stuck with an old brain that is still ill and useless? How many times could a brain be transplanted into a new body before it grew so old as to no longer function? Also, does the body really make us who we are or does who we are come from another source that is entrapped in flesh by the body? These are the questions I ask myself while trying to ignore the pain I awake with each day. They may not be the deepest ones, being the selfish questions of who are we, where do we come from? But what they are most importantly is just a simple distraction, they are me trying to hide away from the very real fact that I am essentially, all but useless, without value to our economy driven society.
We live in a society that is obsessed with youth, entire industries exist to develop creams and potions and undeliverable magical charms to halt age at the door, while we desperately try to fool ourselves that the biological imperative does not exist. I have over the years watched the smooth skin of my hands lose its elasticity and become wrinkled and leathery. My eyesight has dimmed meaning that I need glasses to read the small print on the packets of drugs I use to keep me functioning. My body fails me every day as my cells die off and my DNA is damaged, my mortality knocking each day on the door of my soul. Yet as strange as it sounds in this society we have created, life is seen as sacred only for the very first cells of fertilisation and for the decrepit shudderings of the ancient. But, we are forced to ask, why is the emphasis on quality of life never present when we discuss the human right to life? The unwanted baby is only sacred while it lives in the womb of its mother, once it is delivered, it is welcomed  into a world that no longer cares for it. We talk about the dignity of old age, but the frail and the ancient are often life to sit alone and uncared for, in urine filled underwear, as they suffer the debilitating losses of dementia in its many forms. We judder along en-mass, consuming all of the worthless things that industry tells us we need to stay youthful, thinking that we are doing so in freedom, when in fact all we are doing is acting like automata swallowing down whatever we are told to swallow, developing an economy that was never designed to benefit us. Life is to the majority of people an unending struggle from beginning to end and there is no way for the ordinary to fight against that.
If this disease proves anything, it is simply that our society is more fucked than we ever thought. There is ridicule and outrage being spread on social media, making pariahs of those who dare to step outside the confines of their tiny four wall prisons, to escape the madness building up inside them. We are told that we must only go out for only the most essential of trips, meanwhile the advertisers on every piece of media we see, are still screaming at us to consume, consume, consume... The big fear that they have is not that that many people will suffer unbearably and then die, but that they will do so without spending their tiny sums of currency, thus the economy will suffer and it will wither to a dry husk. Money will devalue, great wealth will be lost, orange skinned oligarchs who took grasp at power make senseless statements based on foolishness and utter stupidity, all about their need for some of us to die to satiate their desire for increased wealth and power. We as a species just carry on, pointing, laughing and ridiculing, before employing the doublethink and doing exactly what we condemn others for doing and going out to the shop for that essential bath oil, emollient cream and glossy shampoo. Society has failed and we need a major rethink because the things we value are not the things of worth. This is hardly a new thought though and it is hardly original. If anything, this is the thought of the old as they are replaced by the youthful, who have yet to learn the value of what we know.
In the boring humdrum of my daily life, little has changed for me during this period of social lockdown. Each morning I still struggle to wake up, facing the tyranny of illness and pain and social isolation. Chronic illness does not take days off, I don't have a weekend or a holiday away from pain to look forwards too, but what I did have in mind was the chance to ride my speeder bike through the forests of Endor, being careful not to crash into any Ewoks of course.  My plans have once again come to nothing and I am trapped once more in my four walls, hiding in fear, waiting for the quarantine end to come, hoping that this disease will avoid me because I am not sure that I have the energy to fight it.
Yet, for society to change, we must all take part in it. If I have learned anything from Han Solo and Chewbacca, it is this. “Rrrrrraaaaaaaaaaawawaw.” Wise words indeed.
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ramyajana · 4 years
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My toughest project so far...
...Parenting!
Been in the wonderful software industry for quite some time now. Hence, the beginning of this blog is a very software project-related opening.
My projects and deadlines, be it professional or personal, are a very serious affair to me. I seldom miss the deadline and ensure that the product delivered is quality tested. On my professional front, I think I’ve done due diligence to my projects handled. On my personal front, one of the key projects I’ve ever handled, rather handling is PARENTING!
Imagine, there are no clear-cut requirements and QA seems to take the highest cycle! How do you plan such projects, what are the risk factors, what are the RCAs, is ROI even considered? As a parent, I adorned many caps: that of a PM, Dev (of course), support/sustenance, a little bit of testing.
In this blog, I onerously try to capture my confused, happy, sad, and constantly seeking thoughts.
Call it luck – good or bad, I became mother to a beautiful girl, at the age of 24. In this era, that’s probably considered too young to take on that responsibility. I did get many unsolicited comments from folks about my pregnancy: “isn’t it too early”, “what about your career”, “do you have enough money”. All through, one thing I strongly believed in, is my instinct. And my instinct always pushed me to seek some advice/guidance from mature acquaintances and of course from my very dear Krishna (the Almighty) and thus, Driti was born. She’s now a typical, strong-headed teenager that has various interests: books, biology, music (Carnatic & others), internet, friends, home décor, and many more!
In all these wonderful years of parenting, I’m not sure how much of a learning experience Driti has had, I’ve definitely learned quite a lot, and from Driti in particular. Some of the core values such as tolerance, patience, controlled anger, acceptance, criticism, and unconditional love has just enabled my self-realization in the path of life.
In the recent times, as Driti and I started to discuss about various topics from academics to sex, I started to share with her about some of the parenting ideologies that others had shared (directly with me or on social media). There seem to be a lot of hue and cry about how parenting should not involve controlling your children, parents are just carriers of their children to this world, letting your children fall and fail, respecting the child’s individuality and space, and the list goes on. While I’m in agreement with all of these, what I’m not sure of, is the specifics. This is a typical situation of a product manager (PM) having vague market requirements that makes Engineering lose the plot. Getting into the PM shoes, I first began with market analysis: what’s the expectation of product functioning, who’s setting these expectations, how does one measure the product quality, who are the competitors, influencing parties, and most importantly who are the consumers.
In this epoch of aping the west – both good and bad, it created a perplexed mindset in me with respect to parenting. I kept pondering, what that “gold standard parenting” is. What I realized is that there’s no one standard definition that qualifies for good/successful parenting. Each parent defines their own success statements.
To me however, if I have to set some goals for myself, I’d focus on lead by example. One of my professional mentors always said, “No one likes to be told” and yet we have to get things done. All veteran leaders and philanthropists always empowered people by actually “doing” rather than commanding others to “do”. This is what I started to employ. For instance, I did not want my daughter to fall prey to gadgets and all I started to do was to minimize my time with gadgets. This did have an effect on how positively Driti (my daughter) reacted to the situation. Especially, when her peers succumbed to gadgets’ addiction and the superfluous social media. What this actually meant was, I had to rework on my time spent with Driti. I began to spend more and more time with her. I had to be prepared for a lot more that’d come my way. One of which, like it or not, giving an ear to whatever Driti had to say. The conversations, some interesting, some not so interesting, some very boring, and some enlightening, proved to be very fruitful. I’m delighted about the fact that Driti has always, and continues to, frankly tell me about each and every minute detail of the happenings. I’m sure there’re some that she may not tell me, but easily share with her friends. It doesn’t bother me much, and I try not to delve too much into it, and respect her space. All I pray and work towards, is to continue to sustain in this mode of mother-daughter dialogue exchange, which in the long run would result in a healthy relationship.
Recently, a meager debate on the social media bothered me to a great extent. I kept wondering if I was doing the right job as a parent? Am I being too rigid with my teenager? Was my parenting thought process not the right one? Well, after careful observations, talking to my husband, my mom, and a couple of my friends (similar to me: working and raising teenagers), and then reading a couple of articles from new-age parents to sadhgurus, I did come to a conclusion that I’m in the right path, and my right path could be perceived as not-so-right by many others.
To give a background…it was an argument between the so called very broad-minded, well-educated, and highly dignified folks on the one side and a simpleton with some traditional Indian values on the other. By traditional Indian values, I mean the ones that are rational, powerful, and humble ones.  I belonged to the latter. The topic of discussion was about how one cannot control their children, whatsoever. Even if it’s about letting your child learn life hacks from their mistakes. Mistakes that can be brutal to the child’s emotional and physical well-being. Group-1 argued with strong language about how it’s important to let your children explore the world by themselves. Yes, I do believe in the fact that protecting your child from the realities of life takes away valuable learning opportunities, before they're out on their own.  Although, I’m in agreement with the part about not controlling your children, I definitely wouldn’t vouch to the aspect of parents washing off their hands even when you know that the child is in some kinda danger. To me, danger could be in terms of the child being vulnerable to any kinda abuse, addiction to drug, or anything that’d harm themselves and others in a society. As a parent, I think it’s my responsibility to educate my child about the possible effects of all these abuses. To me, this is like protecting your child against illness like measles. All I want to do is to “immunize” my child. I kept mongering over points discussed on both the ends.
While I was juggling in my head about all of this, two incidents proved to me that I’m on the right track. Incident-1: Driti was selected by her Guru to participate in an esteemed Indian classical music competition. On the day of competition, we got all set and arrived at the Sangeetha Sabha. It was glorious to witness the gathering of a “huge” number of participants to showcase their talent. Each one sang blissfully. As I sat there listening to them all, singing with such involvement to the beautiful art of Carnatic music, I realized that such music really helps one grow beautifully inside out. This is what I told Driti “Until we have the art called Carnatic music with us, our outlook to life will always be positive.” And Driti responded saying, “I agree, but let’s not miss out on other kinds of music out there which gives us the same focus and positivity.” I totally totally agree and respect Driti’s broader attitude. This incident gave me a boost, in terms of trying to show a good path (music) to Driti. PS: Not to brag, but driti did win an award in the competition! 😊
Incident-2: One evening, while returning from work, as I waited for the lift to arrive, I noticed an old woman approaching my tower. She looked fragile and walked very slow. By then, the lift arrived and I got in. I however, held the lift door open for the old woman. She tried to hurry, I signaled at her to come slow and I’d hold the lift. She then joined me and smiled as if to say a thank you. She seemed new in the block; I hadn’t seen her before. I then asked her which floor she was headed to, in gestures, since I didn’t know what language she spoke, and she said “Pannendu” which’s 12th in Tamil. I pressed 12 and 10 since I had to get off at the 10th floor. She did realize that I understood Tamil. She did not feel quite comfortable in the lift, probably wasn’t used to lift that much. She asked, “Idhu tower-1 dhane?” meaning, “is this tower-1” to which I replied “yes, aama mami”. “Mami” is how we address elderly women in Tamil, analogous to aunty in English. She then exclaimed that all towers in the apartment looked similar and she always got lost. I offered to go with her till the 12th floor. She gleefully said, “romba thanks ma”. When I held the lift door for her to come out, she thanked me again and insisted me to come inside her home for “Kumkumam”. Kumkumam (applying vermilion powder on one’s forehead) is a Hindu tradition, that signifies a woman’s married life. I was already tired after my long commute form work. My thoughts swiftly moved around my gymming routine, making dinner, emails, and then a meeting after. However, I couldn’t say no to the lady. I went in and sat on the sofa. She offered coffee, I gently refused, “Kumkumam kudugo mami” I said. She then got busy with setting the thamboolam (a return gift of sorts, a gesture to show one’s appreciation to the guest for visiting their home). As she prepped that thamboolam, she talked about how people were quite helpful to her in the apartment.
She came up to me to give the Kumkumam and the thaamboolam and cited an episode where a young girl helped her out in finding her house. She said that she had just moved in with her daughter who works in a software company, and right after the move, the daughter had to fly out to the US for a week for official purposes. Mami went down one evening to take a stroll in the wonderfully landscaped podium. Later, she did not how to get back home. She neither knew the tower number nor the flat number. All she knew was that she resided on the 12th floor. She stood there looking perplexed, as it started to get a little darker. That’s when a young girl in her shorts and Tee with a wireless headset, listening to music, pushing her cycle came to mami’s rescue. Mami waved saying “Kozhandhe” (meaning “Child”), and the girl fortunately saw the wave and went up to mami. Mami asked “Tamil varuma?” – “Do you know Tamil?” to which the girl nodded (girl with a few words). Mami explained her situation to the girl. The girl immediately put her bike aside and asked mami to be seated on a bench in the podium and said “Naa azhachindu poren” (“I’ll take you home, not to worry”). The girl went up to the main security to try and figure out who recently moved to the 12th floor in the apartment. Apparently, there were two families that moved in recently, both to 12th floor, one in tower-1 and the other in tower-4. The girl then used the intercom to call both the flats. There was no answer from the tower-1, 12th floor flat and from tower-4, a little child spoke in Hindi and said that there’s no grandma living there. The girl then zeroed in on tower-1 and rushed back to mami. Mami seemed worried by then. The girl then held mami by her hand, slowly walked her towards tower-1. She then dropped mami to her flat on the 12th floor. Mami couldn’t thank the girl enough, she invited the girl inside, and insisted on taking a banana as a note of gratitude. She then thanked the girl profusely and asked her name…to which girls said, “I’m Driti”. Mami couldn’t really pronounce the name, she just smiled and said “Riti, unna nanna vaLatthirukka, kozhandhe” which means “your parents have done a good job in bringing you up!”
As I took the thamboolam, I told mami that Driti was my daughter. Mami’s eyes lit up, and she squealed, “Oh ho”. I then took leave from mami’s house and grinned my way back home. Well, if not for a great doing, this indeed was a humane gesture that Driti portrayed. This incident implied to me that somewhere, I must have done something right in parenting. This is probably because, Driti not only lives with her parents but also her grandparents. She definitely knows what it means to have an elderly person around.
These two incidents further gave me strength to pursue my parenting project along the same lines. Not policing my daughter, being there for her, read/write together, sing together, play together, cook together, and just lending an ear to her – these are now my must have’s that I must address. I’m now beginning to work on some of the nice to have’s. Here’s to mommy-daughter times!
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caticornsrreal · 5 years
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Fighting Dragons with You
After twelve years, I'm finally telling the internet why I love Taylor Swift🖤 
Hello, internet using world. I’d like to introduce myself to the few people who followed me. Hi! My name is Christa and I am a Taylor Swift fan with every fiber of my being. Full disclosure, this is a short novel so now is your chance to make an exit, but I hope you stay.
Taylor and my ridiculously furry cat, Lyle
(affectionately nicknamed “rent-free”), are the only two beings made of flesh and bone who have been consistent in my life for the last 12 years. With a close second being my son, Gauge, who just turned 10. I won’t get into the details (in this post) as to why that is, but let’s just say there were a lot of ups and downs growing up.
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The last 12 years have been an evolution for Taylor,
and subsequently, for me. At (dare I say it) 
38 years old, I’ve found that a lot of things happen in a decade. Like, A LOT. Now, I don’t feel 38. I guess I owe that to humor, singing, dancing, sarcasm, and launching a successful career that didn’t exist 15 years ago —something that has made me always push harder to set new goals and stay humble. But one thing I didn’t do over these last 12 years that I deeply regret was starting a fan page for Taylor. I mean, ESPECIALLY since I’m a professional travel blogger who makes her full time living from digital content!
There’s been a lot of momentum over the last 12 years
—demands which left me with little to no free time. But I can’t blame my absence from the Swiftie family entirely on that. In fact, I’d have to say, I blame much of it on fear.
Fear,
of being misunderstood, fear of judgment or writing something lame. I’ve had over 2,000 articles published online and in print as well as countless social posts, but the thought of Taylor seeing something I wrote and thinking it’s totally weird (or cough, too long for the internet), well let’s just say I’d be less afraid of walking into a burning building.
Fear,
of being called a fake because the financial demands as a single mom left me little money to spend on myself or Taylor merchandise, much less tickets to a show. I’ve always placed my son’s needs before mine.
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Fear,
that I was too old to be a Taylor Swift fan. I mean, I was 26 when she hit the music scene and she was what, 16? I’ve been afraid. Afraid I would be rejected by other Swifties who really are the only people who understand this love we have for her  —which is basically like being rejected by your own people. Also, it’s super weird to be following teens/young adults on social, much less engaging with them.
Fear.
Along with my fear, a perfect storm of entrepreneurial demands, single motherhood, failed relationships (one of which was a marriage), and family matters have served as a constant reminder that my dream of ever meeting Taylor takes residence on another planet. An actual trip to Mars seemed more attainable. 
I feel like there is a whole demographic of women, “Swiftie Moms” who echo my story,
having watched Taylor grow into the strong beautiful woman she's become. Women my age who love her from behind the wheel of their SUV, on the way to drop their kids off to school, on the way back from a milk run, in the dark hours of the mornings when they’re dancing in the kitchen with a full on hair bun singing into a coffee spoon. Unnoticed fans who haven’t had the time to dive head first into the Swiftie Universe. But here I am. After all the fear and all the years...
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So, why?
This is a hard one to answer. I guess you can say that after many years of challenges, judgment from others, and doing the complete opposite of what logic and reason said I should  —divorce, single motherhood, a second degree in my late twenties... risking it all to start a blog (which by the way in 2013 wasn’t even considered a side job much less a career), I kind of got to a point where I became
fearless.
I had to be. I had this tiny living, breathing human being who was counting on me at the very least, to give him a life a notch above the shit show I had growing up. Not to mention parenting —which is basically wandless wizardry pulled directly from the asses of parents. It demands that your mini human grows up to be a better human than you.
Yeah, unpack that.
Take all your collective shit, figure it out, and then teach your mini to do it better —to BE better than you at love, kindness, respect for others (especially boys respecting girls), integrity, money, and to be fearless. All while giving them the comfort of knowing that you, mom, have it all figured out... even when that couldn't be farther from the truth.
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Top that with the pressures of working in the public eye
—which, while on a microscopic level compared to a full-on celebrity such as Taylor, is still very much a juggling act with none of the entourage to lighten the workload. Add to it the demands of working with national brands, and the unwavering ability for other bloggers to tear you down at any opportunity, or even worse, try to get close to you so they can raid your success like a Black Friday sale.
I found myself at the peak of my blogging career
but I was consumed by fear, AGAIN! Fear of shady AF bloggers and publicists, and so much to lose. And fear that now, thousands of people would have an opinion of me formed by jealous bloggers, and they didn’t even know who I really was. 
That’s when letting go of toxic people in my life became essential
—when, no matter who they were, or how I was tied to them, I had to realize that surrounding myself with the ones who lifted me took precedence over the ones who dragged me down. 
After all that..... I learned to give zero f***s about what people thought, or what they said behind my back. 
And I had to start caring about what made my heart happy, what made my family and friends smile, and what inspired me to do better. BE BETTER. Be the example of fearless, with the hope that I was lucky enough to stay that way. But I'm a vulnerable human made of heart and soul and sometimes people can still take the best from me.
I had to be fearless.
In August of 2017 when "Look What You Made Me Do” blessed my ears for the first time, I felt it pierce my skin and course through my veins. And to the very bones of this young 38-year-old Swiftie mom, I was shook AF! I sang, I danced and I drowned out the haters in the blogging world. She had a very clear message,
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She had zero f***s to give, Taylor broke the internet.
After watching the seemingly endless myriad of shade thrown at Taylor over the years, my heart erupted with happiness as her flawless first single from Reputation revealed one BADASS BITCH. And with every music video release of her new era, she became a mythical Goddess with bullshit evaporating superpowers. Like, I legit think she’s an actual unicorn. After all, she does ride a caticorn named Olivia.
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She got harder, she got smarter in the nick of time
One single post on my Facebook page praising her new era and new single she brought with it attracted a slew of hate speech, white people bashing, claims of Taylor ripping off Beyonce... I couldn’t believe the things I was reading from fellow bloggers. I even had a GLOBAL BRAND threaten my business relationship in their ambassador program because I stood up for Taylor and spoke out about the hate speech which was placed on my own personal Facebook page. But I stood by my words.
Fearless.
Over the following months into early 2018, and to the tune of, “This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things”, I, along with a slew of about 20 other bloggers, ended up taking down said global brand’s publicist who was using his budget and power to demean and sexually harass female bloggers (which would later reveal that blacklisting me was more about not buying into that bullshit rather than my voice on hate speech).
Zero f***s given to those haters.
Mythical Goddess with bullshit evaporating superpowers level officially achieved for Taylor, and even for me. Although I wouldn’t call myself a Goddess. That's all Tay. 🖤
She found love through the noise
And so did I. In November of 2017, I had approached the year anniversary of the greatest love I'd ever known. My last stop. And as the tracks played on, my heart was full. We both found happiness through a seemingly endless sea of anguish.
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Taylor is truly doing better than she ever was, and so am I.
Her resilience up against the media and the demands of the industry are perfectly fearless. And her decision to keep her beautifully growing relationship with Joe private is wise. I’ve spent the last year at home, which has been incredible. I’ve had a lot of time to think about what’s most important to me, what has shaped me into the mom, partner and entrepreneur that I am, and it all comes back to Taylor. That’s why it’s time for me to be fearless again and officially join the Swiftie universe.
I’ve spent 12 years fighting dragons with Taylor
and growing a canyon of respect and adoration for her charm, wit, business savvy, musical talent, feminism, compassion, tenacity, love for animals, and of course her lovely, lovely, words. I’ve raised my son from birth with her. There isn't a single day that is spent where Taylor doesn't exist in our lives. For 12 years straight.
That’s a long time to love someone who has no idea you exist.
I play her music videos and YouTube uploads just so I can feel like she’s with us. And so my son knows that she’s one of the finest examples of a human being in his lifetime. I use Taylor’s kindness to teach my son how to be considerate and give back to others while sharing her fearless story with him so she can be a positive role model in his life. Taylor has essentially been part of our family all along. 
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My son Gauge has a running joke that Taylor is the only person that can make me cry
(which happens more than I'm willing to admit). And it’s not because I’m weak, or on the verge of a mental breakdown (although I challenge you to try parenting, you might argue that), it’s because I truly love her like a best friend. When I see her happy it makes me happy, when I feel her sadness, it makes me sad. It’s visceral.
I don't believe the human connection is meant to be one-sided.
I feel in my heart, as weird as this may sound, that we will meet Taylor one day, even against all odds. Existing in the same lifetime as Taylor without at least trying to meet her doesn't feel right. I won't look at my son and teach him to let fear and doubt win, or that defying the odds is an impossible task.
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Over the years I’ve been a spectator to her outreach to fans. She’s invited them to sessions in her homes, sent them gifts, invited them backstage, surprised them in their homes, made hospital visits, and Lord knows what else she has up her sleeve. And it’s all been done with pure excitement and love for her Swifties. With each outreach she extends, tears of joy are shed for fellow Swifties, and a ray of hope inspires me.
So, I’m starting a personal blog
which tells a very personal story of all the dragons I’ve fought with Taylor over the years. From living in a car at 15 years old to getting invited to LA premieres for Walt Disney and Marvel films. And I'll have no apologies for the truths that will be told (but will change names for privacy). It will be very personal and some of it won’t be pretty. Because life isn’t always pretty.
Taylor is releasing another album this year... we hope,
and she’ll be on yet another tour in 2020. After 12 years I’m finally ready for it. I’ve given my son everything he could possibly want or need. I’ve bought him a beautiful home in Northern Georgia. He’s been able to travel the world and do things most adults haven’t even done. And I owe much of that to Taylor for giving me the strength to take major risks, the courage to face my demons, the balls to cut people out of my life who were toxic and the self-confidence to defy the odds and do things my way.
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2019 is our year to show @taylorswift how much we love her.
I’ll let the universe do the rest. Till then, I’ll be fighting dragons with her as I always have and writing my journal for her and anyone else who wants to read the memoirs of an OG Swiftie mom who keeps it real AF, full-on hair bun and all.
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natashabarnes · 5 years
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To preface:  Avengers: Endgame shook me to my core and I needed to find a constructive, healthy way to talk about what I am feeling and this seemed as good a way as any. This is an endeavor seeking emotional intelligence. So I’m here to talk about how media can affect us, honest-to-goodness grief, and yeah sure, my opinions and most importantly, Natasha Romanoff. There will be spoilers, obviously. You’ve been warned.
It’s late afternoon on Friday, May 7th, 2010.  I’m a super-soon-to-be-college-graduate, and I’ve just missed my bus home.  There are few places grimmer than where I currently found myself: the Inter-City Bus Terminal in Reading, Pennsylvania. The good news was that buses from Reading to New York ran roughly every two or three hours most of the day, I was going to be fine. I was going to be late, but I was going to be fine.  At the risk of sounding dramatic, I didn’t know it but I had a date with destiny that evening. Since I couldn’t imagine sitting around and waiting in a bleak af bus terminal, I sought refuge a mere block-and-a-half away at the R/C Reading Movies 11 & IMAX. Lucky for me, I was able to schlep my suitcase and (always) large purse over right in time for a showing of Iron Man 2. I remembered Iron Man (2008) to be a whole lot of fun so I sprung for a movie ticket to be able to watch most of Iron Man 2 before I had to catch my bus.  I knew nothing about this film going in and I was having a good time up until the moment Scarlett Johansson came on screen as Natalie Rushman (who even me, a noob S.H.I.E.L.D./espionage sector of Marvel, knew was actually Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow).  Once she made her entrance into Tony Stark’s personal fitness center, I wasn’t having a good time, I was having a great time…and also a weird time.  I was in complete awe of her; I hung on her every word, her every move.  Everything about her radiated a sense of intelligence, purpose, intention, and most alluring to me, confidence.  Looking back I realize I was seeing the kind of woman I wanted to be; not only did she have every trait I wanted as a person, she seemed to be this unattainable personified perfection.  At the time, I wrote off my fascination with her pretty quickly as the voice in my head said “but you’ll never be like that, you know that, right? You’ll never have those things.” I had to leave to catch my bus just as Rhodey showed up to Justin Hammer’s Stark Expo presentation and at the time that was pretty much that.
Let’s skip ahead.  It’s the evening of Wednesday, April 24th, 2019.  Thanks to the kindness of my best friend/basically sister, I was able to see Avengers: Endgame a day early.  I’m a mess.  I’m soaking wet from the collar bone up and my eye makeup is every place on my face with the exception of my eyes.  I’ve been sitting for over three hours and somehow I’m out of breath, my sweat is cold. My status of Full Blown Mess was credited to the fact that I had to watch Natasha Romanoff die violently, fiercely, and courageously.  The shock I felt that night was all-consuming.  I kept saying to my friend through hard sobs, “I just thought she’d be safe. I really thought she’d be safe.”  So many people I know at this event found me after the fact to check in with me.  Am I okay? Do I need anything?  The only answer I came up with on the fly was “I will be, it hurts now. But I’m just…so proud of her.”  More on that later, but basically, people were so kind and if I had to be a mess, at least I was among people who also cared and understood where I was coming from. While my friend engaged in a last bit of work for the day, I sat waiting, attempting to calm down by staring at costume designer Jany Temime’s recent Instagram post where she selfied with Scarlett expressing excitement about working on the upcoming Black Widow film. I reminded myself that this night was not goodbye, just a very jarring “see ya later.”  Of course the present is not necessarily made easier to bear just because more (and potentially the best) is yet to come.
What a difference nine years made.  I’d gone from casual move-going fan who’d only read Spider-Man comics when I had time to being a hardcore, ride-or-die fan of Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. My library had grown exponentially, along with my knowledge of these characters, and let’s not overlook my closet’s growth after falling into the deep pit of cosplay. I can’t exactly put my finger on the “when” of it, but at some point I stopped stifling the portion of my heart that belonged to superheroes and let them take over with complete abandon.  I’d always had a heavy habit of trying to be what other people wanted me to be.  Though I may have lived very independently, in retrospect my choices and interests were so often chosen for the satisfaction of other people (I am not assigning blame to anyone but myself on this one). Superheroes serve as a perfect example of a passion of mine I chose to shut down for so long. Once I leaned into that passion, I felt so much more complete.  It’s no surprise that Natasha Romanoff was the character I ended up being most passionate about.  
Natasha is a strong woman who spent a lot of her life in the service of others across moral and political spectrums.  She followed their orders always and has plenty of regrets about her past.  Maybe I was self-projecting, but throughout my dedicated years as an MCU viewer and Black Widow comic reader, I always saw Natasha’s arc as two parts:
1) a woman coming to terms with what she’s been and what she’s done seeking to move forward in a more universally beneficial direction.
2)  a woman learning who she is, what she wants and choosing to act of her own volition.
Obviously the two are deeply connected. While her past experiences may have made her moral compass more grey than that of her peers, she’s a woman who wants the Right Thing To Do to be the choice she makes of her own agency.  There’s a beautiful deleted scene from Captain America: The Winter Soldier where Nat speaks to Nick Fury for the first time in confidence after discovering he faked his death and did not include in on the secret.  “I needed to keep the circle small.  You would have done the same thing,” he says.  “I know,” she replies, “that’s a problem.”  A scene she has with Steve Rogers discussing trust that made the final cut achieves a similar idea.  In past appearances in the MCU, Natasha had expressed a desire to make amends for her past and seemingly had started to do so through her work with S.H.I.E.L.D. and her participation the Battle of New York.  These moments in Cap2, as the fandom frequently refers to it fondly, are less about her outward actions and more about her inward struggles. What she seems to learn by the end of the film is that letting people in is a key part of her goal of a truer sense of self.  By the time we meet her in Captain America: Civil War, within the first hour of the film she delivers one of my favorite quotes as the family around her begins to split apart, “Staying together is more important than how we stay together.”  Nat’s journey continued to be one of finding self-possession, self worth and using that greater sense of self to give back to others, both the found family around her and the innocent she can protect.  
With all of this in mind, Avengers: Endgame is my favorite MCU film and features my favorite Natasha Romanoff content we’ve seen so far.  From the moment the film begins, she is a woman hell-bent on remedying the greatest tragedy in the history of the world.  Long gone is the woman we met in her first two films who did the bidding of an organization and/or focused mainly on giving back to those she felt she owed. In Endgame, Natasha aims to save the world, to bring back everyone lost, to restore families.  We first see this when she agrees to find Thanos with the team and reverse the snap. When that mission fails, we skip ahead five years and that’s when I personally really lost it. In five years, Natasha has never stopped trying to fix the world. Let’s be clear, every other member of the original six Avengers most definitely has stopped trying to find an antidote to The Thanos Problem.  Sure, Steve is trying to fix things in a different, more practical way, but there’s still an acceptance of the circumstances in his actions.  The sight of her alone broke my heart and filled me with a sense of honor.  This is a woman we have always seen in control and put together and when we find her she is a noble, beautiful wreck. She’s abandoned most self care, wearing only her depression clothes, and surviving off hope and peanut butter sandwiches desperately communicating with allies around the universe. These people make time for her but are clearly losing patience with her and her insistence that not only can this be fixed, but that it is all of their responsibility to do so.  And in case it wasn’t obvious enough how much she’s changed, this scene gives us what I believe will be (for now at least) Nat’s most iconic moment on screen.  “I used to have nothing, and then I got this���this job, this family.  And I was better because of it.  And even though they’re gone…I’m still trying to be better.”  Nat sums up her entire character arc in this one delicate and stunning moment showing just how strong allowing herself to be vulnerable has made her.  Loving has only made her braver, caring has only made her more tenacious, and giving has made her unstoppable.  She is, in this moment, the woman she always wanted to become.
Remembering the aforementioned scene is absolutely necessary when absorbing Natasha’s choice later in the movie to sacrifice her life so that her team can get the soul stone.  Her entire life has lead her to this moment. Yes, killing off the only female from your original team is a bold move with a LOT of weight attached to it, and one that can definitely be seen as shortchanging her, but I just can’t see it that way. Natasha Romanoff made the ultimate heroic choice, one that the rest of the film hinges on.  My brain can’t navigate the concept that fans have been robbed of her unnecessarily without also hearing a diminishing of the selfless choice she made and the course she followed in the time we’ve known her and beyond.  It’s only when I think of the alternate concept of Clint dying for the soul stone that I feel completely, hypothetically swindled (though while we’re talking about him let’s also not forget how excellent it was to see a man and a woman with no blood relation platonically love one another unconditionally).  Please don’t misunderstand, if you are angry, I respect that, we all deal with stuff different ways, this is just my take.  Natasha Romanoff earned that moment.  Is it devastating to watch? One thousand percent yes, but what I felt even more deeply than the devastation was pride.  I am so proud of this character that in no way can I bring myself to see this choice as abuse or mistreatment of her character.  In that moment, she was magnificent.  Natasha Romanoff died valiantly, unafraid, and of her own free will so that everyone else could live.  Natasha is a hero of the highest standard, full stop.
Entertainment Weekly recently featured a half-hour interview with the original six Avengers to promote Endgame. I was more than moved to hear Scarlett speak about Nat’s arc and confirm what I’d been absorbing as an audience member for years.  “She’s come into her own as a woman saying ‘who am I and what do I want and what do I need out of my relationships and also out of my own self’ and she’s someone who is understanding her own self worth.”  Without going into deep detail, watching Scarlett’s performance as Natasha has affected me in a way I can only describe as profound.  Every MCU film she appeared in had at least one moment that hit a nerve inside me in ways equally gentle and harsh, but still every nerve was hit with the reassurance of knowing that if she could change, I could too.  Catalysts for personal growth can come from anywhere and at my most lost somehow I remembered that moment sitting in a theatre watching Iron Man 2.  Something in my brain told me to follow that feeling I had watching her, not in an effort to emulate her completely, but to see an example of someone one who is “my own woman–first, last and always.”  Natasha taught me that self love, self worth and opening yourself to others are traits more powerful than lightning, stronger than a suit of armor and they’d protect me more than a shield.  In the years I’ve watched and read this character, my life has changed for the better in every way.  She’s been a gift to me and the gratitude I feel is overwhelming.  I may have saved myself, but Natasha taught me how.  As fans I think we all love having more media to look forward to, especially when that media features an inspirational figure for us.  Before Endgame I’d frequently have passing thoughts reminding me that someday the time of Scarlett’s particular incarnation of Natasha will be over.  Who would I be without this character? After Endgame, I’m less afraid of that future.  No matter what form of this character I will have in my life, I will always follow her example and I will try to be better.  
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pengosolvent · 6 years
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really frightened that i am lacking something essential and will never be able to be a skilled or creative artist no matter how hard i try. equally frightened that i have sabotaged my own progress in various ways and have wasted years backsliding and will never “get back” any skill i did previously exhibit. do you have any suggestions for how to continue to produce art and improve even when constantly suffocated by fear
anon this is a common but unfortunate occurrencei feel this a lot too this is a very long reply because i think about this kinda stuff often, so there’s a readmore
i’ve got some advice for you, though i’m sure you’ve probably already heard some if not all of this before, so i don’t mean to talk to you like this is new magic info, but just reiterating stuff that i try to keep in mind that might work for you tooalso i want to point out that i’m not a professional remotely, so the things i’m stating are completely from my own personal experiences ….. and also i struggle with perfectionism and other things so while i give this advice i also still have trouble with the problems noted and also i use a lot of examples and comparisons when i talk because its easier for me to understand things that way
anyway:
1- you are the person who sees your art the mostthis is a very obvious thing, to state but it ties directly into a lot of what you’ve statedyou feel you lack something essential, you feel you’ve backslid and lost previous skills, and youre afraidbut think about the other art you seeyou ONLY see the end result of what everyone posts… or even if people do post in-progress pictures or speedpaints, you’re not really seeing the “scope” of it with in-progress pictures, you don’t know how much changed or how much was erased how much time was spent how much etc with speedpaints, you see all the progress but its sped up and it’s easy to feel like all of that was done faster than it really was even if youre aware its sped up
and even if you watched a realtime video of someone drawing… theres thousands of hours outside of that video of this person doodling, and even THINKING about their art that you havent seen it makes other peoples art feel a lot more.. confident? secure?
for your own art however, you are fully aware of the struggle of every line because you’re the one doing it and thinking about itit might make you feel like you’re trying so hard when everyone else has just Got it
2- experiencing art as a consumer vs a creator is a different feelingthis is directly tied to the previous idea but it’s easy to feel like you lack something essential when, instead of consuming the art, you are the one producing it 
here’s an example: i love horror contentnot all of it of course, but i love horror that really makes me think and makes me see a characters motivations and really digs in deep psychologically and sticks with you even after you’re done experiencing the media
however it is very very hard for me to make anything that is strictly horror. for a long time i thought i was just bad at it, but i realized later that i’m not missing something that helps to write/draw horror … i just experience horror different based on if i’m consuming it vs making it part of the horror appeal to me is the MYSTERYif i am writing/drawing horror, there is NO mystery! i know everything there is to know about the situation i am making! i know all the character’s motivations, i know everything there is to know about every tiny detail and even if i am writing something where i don’t know what happens so it’s a purposeful mystery (such as in this comic where i don’t know what happens if you take off the tinier beak) it sometimes feels less Cool Mystery for me and more like “oh no i don’t know this thing, oh god, i’m a bad writer”i’ve gotten over that little by little, but it’s still hard to shake that i’m “missing” something with work that ISN’T mine its easy to put meaning that may not have been totally intended and THINK that the person meant it, and thus feel like that thing is more thought-out than it actually is
you might be experiencing something similar with art… where it feels like when you see OTHER art, you feel happy or like theres a meaning there etc but with your own art, you can’t capture that same feeling… it could literally be because you know what youre going for and what youre doing because youre the one doing it
3a- old art feels better sometimes because it is more removed from youyou know better than i do in this regard if this is true to you, because sometimes people can genuinely get rusty and lose but for the most part older art tends to feel better due to the fact it is becoming more and more removed from your current state and mindsetold art starts to slowly get treated the way you read Other people’s art because you’re not staring at it constantly and you start to forget the process and effort behind the old art
sometimes you can’t see well if your new art is “better” or not because it is too current on your mind and you know how hard it is to make and if it does or doesnt match what you were going for or etc etcmeanwhile your old art starts to be viewed more objectively because you dont remember every difficult line with it, and you can see it as a bit better because you’re not bogged by the negativity
3b- even if you fell off, you can regain the skill
even if you DID get worse over time… you did it once before and you can do it againyou can learn from your old works, but also try to learn from your old mentality a lot of my old stuff was more expressive and emotivei could learn to do that again mechanically, imitating my old stuff, but a big part of why my art was that way was because my mentality was different back then i was louder, more open, etc etcthink about what’s changed within you to see reasons for things changed in your art
4a- fear only works if you’re afraid of being badit is important to be able to see ways you can improve… but it’s also important not to fear that you have areas that CAN improveif you view “making something bad” as a punishment/negative outcome your fear directs itself through all your art
the easiest point fear can attack is starting to draw at allbefore you start drawing its very easy for your mind to go “why do this? why try if it’s just going to be stressful” and all through out the process that ramps up like “see it’s just stressful why do it”
your fear seemingly offers you something to gain if you don’t even try: avoiding the pain of art altogether
but what if you were unphased by that pain? if you don’t care about making something bad, that fear can’t manifest
some artists start their day by drawing the shittiest thing they can to shake off rust and have fun doing it … drawing a cartoon character from memory, drawing and overly rendered shitpost etc now i’m not saying not to care about your quality and take a ton of shortcuts and blablait’s still good to want to learn and improve it’s just that you have to start rearranging your perspective on your steps to achieve that
4b- no-stakes neutral is no problemhow do you get rid of that fear? how do you stop feeling being bad is.. bad?
try to view arts range as neutral to positive (as opposed to negative to postive) because at it’s base that’s exactly what art is what i mean by that is…let’s say you’re trying to draw a cat (and it’s not a commission or anything). your first attempt does not look anything like a cat this is not a “bad” thing though it may feel that way your failed attempt at a cat has not stabbed you or taken money or food from you or in any way truly inconvenienced you
the base idea is that you drew something and it wasn’t what you wanted this is completely neutral.. it’s like going to look for a new shirt. if you see shirts you don’t care for, you move past them until you get to the shirt you want.your “bad art” is just that. a bunch of shirts you don’t want til you find the one you’re looking for… you don’t have to pay anything for those “bad” attemptssure they take a bit of time and if you don’t have a lot of energy you might feel bad to use it on a drawing that you don’t enjoy and it can be frustrating if you keep trying to no avail, but all in all it’s not a stark negative
art isn’t a straight pathit’s winding, it’s really confusing , and it can be tiringbut if you go down a path that’s a dead end, you just try another pathdon’t fear reaching dead ends, there are always more paths
chuck jones (an iconic animator) said he had to draw multiple drafts to get expressions just right failure is in the eye of the beholder… he felt the first drafts for those expressions did not fit what he wanted, but he didn’t fear failure because of that even if the art was not by his standards, he continued until he got the one he felt was appropriate
it takes patience to get to where you wantif you stay patient you will eventually arrive there
5- drawing and thinking go hand in handart is a blend of being able to draw and being able to problem solve through what you already knowwhen i get stressed with art it’s usually because i don’t know what the hell i’m doing with no way to check myself if i’m close to what i want or not with me it tends to happen with backgrounds or animalsthis is why ppl typically suggest learning to draw cubes, cylinders and spheres from any angle because then you can transfer that base knowledge into other objectslike, cubes can be used to draw rooms, boxes, screens, fences, etccylinders can be pipes, water bottles, arms and legs, etc
transfering base knowledge is essential in art and understanding that you can do that, even if only as a base, helps a lotwith learning how to draw a mouse, you have a starting point for learning how to draw a rat (comparing the headshapes, sizes, ears, etc)… then you can use these two as a base point for drawing a squirrel, then a rabbit etc
another example could be maybe you know how to draw claws but not fangs… you can interchange the shape of a curved claw for a curved fang easily
starting with something you know and figuring out how to transfer the knowledge is very important and can help lessen that stress because instead of not even knowing where to start, you can problem solve to figure out what you already know under different termsits just all about knowing what connections you can try and learn, and working “smart”
on that vein… 6- perfecting things doesn’t make perfectit’s very tempting to make every tiny detail as good as you possibly can… but it’s very daunting and time consumingyou should try to work “smart” here too and now what i mean by that is … say i’m making a comic. i can make the comic to the absolute best of my current ability and take forever and become extremely drained Or… i could decide to try but still set a deadline for myself, and not worry TOO much about the smaller details why is the second one better? because i will get it done. if i try very very hard my ABSOLUTE best on a comic, making sure every single line is perfect, in a few months that comic will still be outdated. it will still get old and the amount i learned from it is limitedif i give myself some leeway (still trying of course, still learning and challenging myself) and set a deadline, i learn to be disciplined in my comics, i get a comic finished, AND i learn more because i am finishing more work in general
this is a really helpful video that explains this point more in depth 
this isn’t to say you need to take the easiest routes for art that are availableit’s more like… back to the comic example, let’s say it’s like making a cake i can be a huge perfectionist about my cake, carving everything exact and putting every drop of frosting as exact as i can… but i’m still not a “master” at this i’m still learning the next time i make a cake i’m going to have to do the same situation … take forever to try to make the perfect cake
if i make a cake and still try, but accept when i don’t know how to get the exact result, my first cake is going to be a bit of a mess, but the next cake i make, i’ll be a little closer and in the time it takes Perfectionist Me to make 2 cakes, i might have already made 10 and i’ve sped up the process now and improved because i’ve learned a lot with those 10 cakes
there’s probably more that can be said about art, but i’m hesitant to try to dictate too much about how you experience your art and go about it i hope that this can help you at least a bit though
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What is Self-Care to the Wellesley Community? [Follow-Up]
A few weeks ago, we raised the question about what specifically self-care is in the context of hashtags and Instagram photos of bubble baths and face masks. In response to our call for the W community at large’s thoughts, here are some of the responses we received:
What do you consider self-care?
To me self-care involves making improvements to my life that will benefit me long-term. Allowing myself to stay home (saying no to outings); exercising and having a gym membership; going to therapy and taking the time implement new strategies; working towards taking my experiences seriously - medical, romantic, appetite, mood, etc.
-Jane Park, ‘04
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Doing a face mask at home, getting takeout, working out but not pushing myself too hard, being gentle with myself, meditating, trying to get a decent amount of sleep.
-Ayesha Anwar, ‘16
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I see self-care as the steps we take to become ready to confront and destroy the systems that hurt us, rather than as a way to navigate and further support those systems. Self-care, to me, is recovering from the damage that capitalism and the gamut of structural oppressions wreaks on all of us (and some of us more than others) -- and finding ways to increase our capacity to dismantle those systems. -Anon, ‘12
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Saying NO. Specifically because I am the kind of person who instinctively says "yes" to everything. Sometimes because opportunities seem exciting, often because I feel a sense of obligation to my work, my family, my friends, etc. But I end up exhausted, overstretched, and depressed when I do this, and also I immediately let slide my health, my eating habits, and my sleep (which to me are the fundamentals of "self-care"). So as painful as it is, learning to say no is one of the biggest building blocks of "self-care" I am trying to learn.
-Katie, ‘14
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Self-care means prioritizing my healing and doing things that help me connect to myself, my loved ones, the communities I belong to, my ancestors and nature-most of these don’t require money; sitting at my altar, hiking, dancing, yoga at home, having dinner with my chosen and blood fam, game night, listening to music, going for a walk. Self care also means doing things to counter the harms of the daily capitalist, phobic and ist day. So if most of the day requires isolating myself at the conputer in order to “produce” then laughing with friends helps me counter that.
-Janet, ‘96
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Showers, sleep, doctors appointments, medical massage, books on tape, idle time, connecting with family/friends
-Raji, ‘14
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Some very essential skills I learned in therapy: keeping a schedule, getting out of my damn apartment everyday, doing things I might enjoy even if I don't want to. Going to every single therapy appointment. Asking for help when I need it.
-Anon, ‘04
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Following deadlines, waking up early and getting out of bed -- so I don't feel shitty or stressed later on.
-Anon, ‘13
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To me self care means what a person needs to do in order to have the best possible mental health. For me, I like to practice self care by running and volunteering.
-Anon, ‘09
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Taking time for rest, reflection and appreciation.
-Emma, ‘16
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To me self care is a spiritual practice. It means changing my routines so I'm caring for my spiritual self just as I care for my body and my mind. Taking time to journal and meditate, or to be outdoors is my self care.
-Liz, ‘18
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To me self-care is ensuring that everyday I workout, go for a walk during work hours, spend time with my dogs, eat well and drink lots of water. Self-care is the daily care of my body, mind, and my soul. When I can I call long distance friends and go hiking but those are not everyday tasks that I am able to do so in order to cope with everyday life I need to make sure that I am consciously taking care of myself.
-Sophia, ‘15
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For me, self-care is about carving about spaces/times where I can fully be myself. So much of my life is spent reading the room and figuring out who I need to be and when, withholding or censoring parts of myself or identity depending on who is present. Anytime, I can be 100% me, person who watches Love & Hip Hop and Basketball Wives and also owns every Hanson album 1997 to the present, feels both liberating and like self-care.
-Anon, ‘09
What do you think of the #self-care trend?
The capitalist co-opting of self care is honestly embarrassing. The idea that you can reach wellness just through buying things is harmful to us all, but especially poor folks. Plus, the #selfcare trend was at points a way that I got in the way of dealing with my own mental health. When dealing with depression, I would say that self care meant laying in bed all day and skipping responsibilities. This isn't self care, it's self destruction. Self care on a bad day looks like taking a shower and making sure I eat, not making excuses for my worst impulses.
-Liz, ‘18
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#selfcare on instagram appears a bit misleading, but it helps put self-care into our daily vernacular.
-Jane Park, ‘04
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I think it's good! While there is an element of it that promotes consumerism, I think the idea of self care being spread is a good one, and helps remind people to be mindful of their own wellbeing.
-Anon, 16
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I appreciate that self-care gives me a way to name and confront the ways that capitalism harms me, and (as above) to recognize myself beyond my capacity to produce labor. at the same time, capitalism has already weaponized self-care as complacency. I don't think there's anything wrong with recognizing and meeting your own needs, but there's a pretty sick and tidy irony in the way that capitalism hurts us, then exploits recovering from that hurt as a market, then tells us that participating in that market is enough to fix our problems. Commodified self-care is just coercive, performative femininity by another name, marketing ways for women to feel that they are failing to do and be enough. the solution is, of course, to purchase products and display conspicuous consumption. Just as we're not going to ~save the environment~ through taking shorter showers, we're not going to overturn capitalism or confront systemic issues by buying commodities. self-care has become an aesthetically-packaged set of the master's tools. speaking of Audre Lorde, I also think it's worth underlining that a revolutionary black woman did not come up with the concept of self-care as political warfare, for wealthy white women to co-opt it as a way to excuse ourselves from the fight.
-Anon, ‘12
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As a mental health provider, I’m glad that it is something that has become so much a part of our awareness that it has a hashtag. Like anything in this culture, the tendency is to commodify it, though. I try to encourage folks to think in terms of your 5 senses and choose one thing that will bring pleasure to one of those senses as a simple mindfulness exercise. Self care shouldn’t be cost prohibitive.
-Rebecca Vaurio, ‘95
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Capitalist bullshit, keep people distracted and busy and they won't protest. Like the trope of women who turn to wine instead of fighting the sexist bullshit they deal with.
-Emily, ‘12
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It's more curated lifestyle content, as you typically see on social media. It's more about conspicuous consumption, as opposed to mental health (which, fundamentally, self-care is all about). I think it reinforces stigma rather than breaks it down.
-Anon, ‘04
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I don’t like how commercial it is. Also it promotes the idea that folx are not “winning” if they can’t afford to do pricey self-care. Plus it misses the point that self care is about undoing and healing from the oppresive systems not buying into consumer trends.
-Janet, ‘96
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I like that it encouraged people to look at taking care of oneself, but don't think it's been perceived/understood in the most accurate way by everyone. It doesn't depend on spending money, and it's not about using the hashtag
-Anon, ‘12
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It's good in that it reminds us to prioritize our own needs once in a while.  But bubble baths and chocolate aren't enough to address the systemic exhaustion and overload that I think a lot of us experience in this hectic world; media images of what 'self care' looks like are too shallow, we need to let ourselves go deeper than that.
-Anon, ‘13
___
I haven’t heard of it but in a time of such stress, we cannot do enough to promote personal well being.
-Abby Meltzer, ‘10
___
I think 99% of it is bogus capitalism.  Its aim is to create a new market, commodifying things that people have already been doing, moralizing and monetizing them. Claiming selfishness as an excuse to engage in consumerism is fucked up.  Yes we need to care for ourselves - but vanity and selfishness are actually bad (hot take).   I think that there are many strategies that people can employ to help them deal with a variety of personal struggles, but they do not have to be commodified under the umbrella of #selfcare.  Additionally much of what we deal with in our lives is due to systemic wrongs, things that cannot be fixed by a face-mask or manicure.  Face-masks and manicures are not bad, but they're not good either. Drawing attention to personal changes feels like a neo-liberal cop-out to real systemic change.  It feels like a collective shrug emoji - well, we can't fix the economy so we might as well do this juice cleanse. 
It is very linked to creating an aesthetic and beautiful self and life.  That is bullshit - beauty is not good. Humans don't have blemish-free skin, and we shouldn't have a 7 step routine that burns our flesh to try.  Dieting framed as self-care falls in the same category. Juice cleanses, Whole30 diets, #cleaneating etc are not actually healthful, and are thinly veiled moralized body control tools.
-Anon, ‘14
___
I didn’t know this was a thing. But, seriously, I’m in favor of initiatives to encourage people to do what they need to do in order to live their best lives.
-Anon, 09
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importantthings · 3 years
Text
Learning Things About Myself
This is an incredibly hard “blog post” for me to write, both because it’s personal and hard to explain. Please bear with me, as this is the first time I’m attempting to be somewhat open about this. Also, it’s long and potentially a bit dark depending on your own experience in life. Read if you want, I think it could help some of you understand me, but no hard feelings if you choose not to.
Getting older is weird.
You grow in ways you weren’t expecting, you learn things about yourself you didn’t think possible, and in some cases, you learn some things that *really suck* but help explain a lot about yourself, your past, and the people around you.
My whole life has been a struggle to understand.
A fortunate part of my existence has been that I seem to be “extrovert passing” in the right circumstances. I’ve learned to “fake it” when it comes to being out in public, meeting people, and generally socializing throughout my adult life.
But the truth is...I don't seem to understand even the most basic human interactions most of the time. I’ve just witnessed and absorbed enough small talk and discussion to be able to navigate my way through similar situations when they present themselves in real life.
Going back a ways...
Throughout high school, I had a really hard time making friends (until I didn’t, because I found some really kind souls that just accepted me without question for some reason). I didn’t know how to act at parties//get-togethers, I didn’t know how to talk to other kids about my interests (even when we shared the same ones), I didn’t understand how to take care of myself or my friends when they needed it - I just knew that I loved them unconditionally for accepting me and...whatever it was that I was.
The first time I really noticed something was wrong//weird was around when I turned 25. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I experienced something that made me think “man, that sounds like fun!” - and then had the realization that it was something that a lot of kids were doing and enjoying in high school that at the time I just...couldn’t wrap my head around. This type of thing has become really common to me over the years since, constantly feeling 5-10 years behind the curb of social existence.
I dated a lot of people when I was younger because it seemed like what I was supposed to do, and as such, I felt empty without it. I was just happy to not be “alone”. I spent time with people that were doing things I thought were viewed as “cool” because I wanted to be included, despite having no interest in them.
I never really took the time to learn “who” I was, and some days I’m not sure I know still. I’ve often joked that I’m just a combination of all of my favorite TV- Characters and People - but it’s not really a joke. I learned to socialize and communicate with other humans through popular media.
TV and Movies made sense to me. It was structured and premeditated. The situations at hand always worked out the same way. The twists were stressful and thrilling, but the resolution always happened in the same way (and in 22-44 minutes). Then came the era of YouTube, and media felt *real* now. I got to listen to how groups of other friends spoke to each other and treated each other and it made me feel included in something that I didn’t have to actively be a part of. It took all the hard parts about having friends and removed them, and gave me just the good parts. If I wasn’t already an introvert, this is really where it started to consume me.
Towards the end of our relationship, one of my more problematic partners (I won’t get into details, but there was...a lot of abusive//toxic behavior here in both directions - largely because I didn’t know how to handle...anything that came in being in a long term relationship) used this against me constantly. “Stop acting like TV characters, this is real life”.
...but I honest-to-god don’t think that I even know how.
I’ve never known what to say in times of conflict. I just wanted the episode to end so I could go back to being happy again after the reset. I had countless relationships (both platonic and romantic) that didn’t work because of my lack of ability to connect with real human needs. I’ve been told that I wasn’t who “they” thought I was but...
The only times in life I’ve ever managed to let a bit loose and act like what feels like myself in short moments of comfort and joy, I’m immediately shut down.
Calm down. Be quiet. You’re being annoying. You’re being embarrassing.
Great notes for someone who already doesn’t feel comfortable in their own skin, or worse their own mind.
And the more and more I think about all of this, the more the dots start to connect. I don’t reach out to my friends that I miss because I just don’t think about doing it, and when I do I don’t even know how to tell them I miss them or just check in without any other purpose. I don’t tell anyone my wants, needs, or ideas because I feel like they’re stupid and will get shot down anyway, and I don’t know how to handle that productively. My creative partners scream at me to be loud, take up space, and be over-the-top myself when we’re working on a project - but I can’t make my brain do it. I don’t understand how, and I get so locked up in my fear of looking stupid or being told to turn it down.
I don’t know how to act on stage/in a music video for my band, I don’t know how to be vulnerable during the creation project when other people are around, I don’t know how to post on social media without it being some long, overly-personal blog about my life, I don’t know how to tell a barista that my drink is wrong or even ask for them to make it special to begin with, I don’t know how to ask for help when I need it, I don’t know how to ask my peers for things they’ve told me they’ll do or provide but haven’t, I don’t know how to make new friends without it being attached to work or a creative project I’m tied to and comfortable in. People will often look at me and say “just do it”, but sometimes even in the most basic social situations my brain locks up and ceases to function until the problem has gone away on its own to some capacity. And then I’m left to just...sit and think about it and how I failed again.
I don’t understand what social media has become. TikTok may as well be a foreign language. I scroll and scroll and the videos with the most engagement don’t make any sense to me as to what made them engaging. I don’t know what to post to make people interact with me and make the platform useful. This isn’t an isolated situation, either.
To this day, my friends watch Vine compilations and cackle at them and I don’t understand why. Facebook seems to be an endless feed of spam advertising, political conspiracy theories, hatred, and people making fun of strangers for things they like or support. YouTube became all about the viral recommended page and political//youtuber controversy instead of being about…well, “You”.
I’m drowning socially because the forms of media that taught me how to live and exist are going away and being replaced with something I don’t recognize in the slightest. The worse it gets, the more problematic it’s become both internally and with the people I spend the most time with.
At one point, I would fill the gaps in myself and my time with work - whether it be for my “job” or my creative projects at the time and it was great - but I’m finding it harder and harder to lean on that as I burn out my batteries from just trying to keep up with the world around me. I find myself dwelling on not being included in projects, hangouts, or conversations that the people I care about are having - despite making no effort to make myself available to them or effort to take up more space in their lives. I find myself constantly allowing myself to be the brunt of others' poor mental health behaviors but not allowing my own to exist outside of my own head as an effort to not take up too much space.
Especially in a quarantine world, I’ve lost complete sight of the lens that people view me through. I’ve spent years unintentionally neglecting my relationships, my band, and my own goals because I feel like I’ve lost the understanding of how to function in those spaces, and I spend most of my time “at work” feeling like all the time and work I’ve put into my career just feels...pointless.
And the worst part is that all of this is impossible to explain to anyone, and even when you try - they don’t understand. I get treated like I’m uncaring, lazy, difficult, or offensive when I’m really just running 1000mph in my head at all times trying to understand how people work so I can fit in and keep moving forward with them. I’m trying to understand myself and the world around me and failing at what feels like every step of the way.
I don’t really know how to end this.
I guess I just want to make the point that no one is who you think they are all the time. The version of me, or anyone else, that you’ve built in your head only exists in your head. Some of us pass well enough to make it through the day but spend most of our time struggling internally at every intersection that life brings us.
All I’ve ever wanted was the space and understanding to grow and work my way through life. I guess maybe things have just gotten too fast for me to keep up with anymore.
-
I’m really thankful to have someone like Jade in my life to help keep me balanced, to listen to me when I just need to scream and cry, to lift me up and push me to keep going. I don’t know where I would be without her.
Also, I visited my boys in Cali recently. There’s a new InGhosts single. It deals with some of this feeling of drowning I’ve been experiencing and is a conversation I had with myself that happened in some of my darkest moments. I don’t know when it will come out or how. I don’t know if it’ll even be InGhosts.
I don’t know if I’m the type of person that people want to hear from, or create with, or befriend anymore.
Just know that whatever capacity I know you, the reader, if anyone even makes it this far…
I’m trying my best. I’m always trying my best.
&hearts; Kenway
0 notes
lesbianbruabba · 6 years
Note
all of them!
Anon you are trying to kill me but also like..thank you
1: Full name
I’m not stupid, I’m not putting my full real name out. lol
2: Age
Eighteen
3: 3 Fears
Being rejected, depression consuming my life, going deaf or blind
4: 3 things I love
My brother, my friends, music
5: 4 turns on
Gentle caresses, dirty talk, teasing, kink stuff
6: 4 turns off
Uhhh. Pedophilia, scat, incest, racial degradation? I’m going for the most hardcore bad stuff lol
7: My best friend
I have a lot but for simplicity’s sake my bestest is @lettiehigh
8: Sexual orientation
Bisexual
9: My best first date
Lol
10: How tall am I
5′2. correct question is how short am I
11: What do I miss
Special ham sandwiches
12: What time were I born
I don’t fucking know
13: Favourite color
Pink
14: Do I have a crush
I have multiple. 
15: Favourite quote
“They don’t sell cheese at the jewelry store” - my husband Felony Steve
16: Favourite place
My bedroom
17: Favourite food
Chicken nuggets from a hong kong mcdonald’s. They taste like shit in scotland
18: Do I use sarcasm
Sometimes but I’m not that good at it
19: What am I listening to right now
No More Time - Flor
20: First thing I notice in new person
Eyes
21: Shoe size
6.5
22: Eye color
Dark brown/black
23: Hair color
Dark brown/black. it’s gotten darker over the last few years
24: Favourite style of clothing
Frilly or bondage-y. Sometimes both at once
25: Ever done a prank call?
Nope
27: Meaning behind my URL
RPDR fic pen name
28: Favourite movie
RENT
29: Favourite song
Right now it’s Felony Reunion by Felony Steve
30: Favourite band
Waterparks, flor, All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, you can’t make me pick
31: How I feel right now
Lorny
32: Someone I love
My baby brother
33: My current relationship status
Single
34: My relationship with my parents
Rocky but overall it’s fine. It’s like an ongoing negotiation but I know they love me really.
35: Favourite holiday
I went to England when I was 14 with my school. 
36: Tattoos and piercing i have
None
37: Tattoos and piercing i want
Nipple piercings, I want a hip tattoo on my right hip because I haven’t self-harmed there and it’s a bit of a ‘sacred space’ now. someday I want a lyric tattoo, a flower tattoo (roses pls) and a watercolor one. I follow so many tattoo instagrams and they all look so pretty
38: The reason I joined Tumblr
At the very very beginning to make an aesthetic pastel blog. Got into roleplaying for a couple of years, made some good friends, some sad things happened, moved onto rpdr fic, evolved into the mess it is now
39: Do I and my last ex hate each other?
what ex
40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?
Good morning snaps from my brother and copyright from @samrull
41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?
Nope
42: When did I last hold hands?
Not a thing I’ve done in a long time? 
43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?
Depends on whether I do makeup or not. 10 minutes if I don’t have to, 20-30 if I do.
44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?
Nope. I don’t shave unless there’s a special event.
45: Where am I right now?
My bedroom in Edi
46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?
I don’t drink :)
47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?
reasonable level most of the time. Unless I am feeling particularly apathetic/anhedonic/depressed
48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?
Back in Hong kong yes
49: Am I excited for anything?
Dan and Phil show, possible trip to Copenhagen, possibly seeing flor, doing fashion design or Danish at uni next year, improving my fluency in languages, my brother visiting Edi, going home and seeing all my friends, going home and seeing my teachers I miss them so much oh my god, possibly seeing one of my crushes again!!
Oh and I’m going to a convention on sunday so that’s pretty great too!
50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?
Yeah my brother we’re a bit too open
51: How often do I wear a fake smile?
depends on how often I leave my room/spend time in others’ company that I’m not comfortable with. 
52: When was the last time I hugged someone?
Tuesday at 7:30 pm
53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?
Cool, thumbs up dude. he kisses well
54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?
Yeah probably. lbr I trust people too easily
55: What is something I disliked about today?
I didn’t move from my bed much. but! I got a lot of drawing done and I studied some Polish so that’s a win. fuck you for making me think negatively :)
56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
there’s this girl in denmark i owe a very long apology to. her. and maybe her cat.
57: What do I think about most?
My crushes, analyzing whether I have a pattern/type of crush, random etymologies, whether Russian is harder than Polish or I have a warped bias, whether my friends care about me or am I overestimating my place in their hearts
58: What’s my strangest talent?
I can say thank you in like 15 languages that counts right?
59: Do I have any strange phobias?
The wolf from little red riding hood
60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
In front bc I am shite at taking photos
61: What was the last lie I told?
my meds are making me better
62: Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
Video chatting oh my god
63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?
I sometimes hope ghosts exist. idk about aliens
64: Do I believe in magic?
No 
65: Do I believe in luck?
yes
66: What’s the weather like right now?
Not that bad for scotland tbh but chilly for late April
67: What was the last book I’ve read?
Essentials of Polish verbs and grammar or something. google it
68: Do I like the smell of gasoline?
no???? who tf likes that what the fuck
69: Do I have any nicknames?
This one friend I used to have called me Christababe. Also people at school called me Lily
70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?
Self harm cut from a few weeks ago. Got infected (it’s fine now)
71: Do I spend money or save it?
Depends
72: Can I touch my nose with a tounge?
With a tongue sure but not my own lmao
73: Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me?
Yes a lot of it because my closet is next to my bed :)
74: Favourite animal?
Unicorn
75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?
Eating ice cream and surfing the drag race reddit
76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?
I don’t know???? Johnson?
77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?
The Middle - Jimmy Eat World
78: How can you win my heart?
Don’t manipulate me.
79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?
Married to Felony Steve
80: What is my favorite word?
Felony
81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr
Like my faves? @rippling-waves @samrull @lettiehigh @veronicasanders @lecafenoirx
82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?
Listen to Waterparks they have the best music. -dabs-
83: Do I have any relatives in jail?
Nope
84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?
Fluency in all languages
85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?
“are you in love with me”. if asked by certain people. alternatively “do you like girls” asked by other certain people. 
86: What is my current desktop picture?
DDLC fanart
87: Had sex?
No but close
88: Bought condoms?
No but I have one from the Hive from a fresher’s package
89: Gotten pregnant?
no dear lord 
90: Failed a class?
Nope and I hope not
91: Kissed a boy?
Yes
92: Kissed a girl?
No, I wish
93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?
No
94: Had job?
Yes, barista and factory worker
95: Left the house without my wallet?
Yes
96: Bullied someone on the internet?
Kind of? Not really? It was more of an argument but we’re friends now. I was a stupid thirteen year old 
97: Had sex in public?
No
98: Played on a sports team?
Lol, tell another one
99: Smoked weed?
No
100: Did drugs?
No, will not
101: Smoked cigarettes?
No, I hate smoking
102: Drank alcohol?
I had a few sips of white wine that were absolutely DISGUSTING
103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?
No
104: Been overweight?
Currently am
105: Been underweight?
I wish
106: Been to a wedding?
Yeah of distant relatives and teachers
107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?
Try 14
108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?
I don’t watch TV, There’s no tv in my student hall and back home the TV is only for news
109: Been outside my home country?
Yep too many times tbh
110: Gotten my heart broken?
Unrequited love-wise yes
111: Been to a professional sports game?
Yes and spent the whole time reading (I was a kid and my mum couldn’t/didn’t find someone to babysit)
112: Broken a bone?
No, thank god
113: Cut myself?
Yes, trying to quit it
114: Been to prom?
Yep and I sang on stage too! 
115: Been in airplane?
Yep
116: Fly by helicopter?
No and not interested tbh
117: What concerts have I been to?
Waterparks, Avril Lavigne, All Time Low
118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?
Yes, quite a few times now
119: Learned another language?
Try multiple
120: Wore make up?
Yeah! Trying to do it more
121: Lost my virginity before I was 18?
No, too late for that now
122: Had oral sex?
No but I want to
123: Dyed my hair?
No but I want to
124: Voted in a presidential election?
No, HK doesn’t have presidential elections
125: Rode in an ambulance?
No
126: Had a surgery?
No
127: Met someone famous?
Famous in Hong Kong yes. Worldwide no. I’ve met the UoE principal though
edit: Iza reminded me that I’ve met both Courtney Act and Sasha Velour! 
128: Stalked someone on a social network?
Yes but not like…creepy. for drawing reference I’ve gone through a lot of people’s social media this morning lol
129: Peed outside?
When I was like 4
130: Been fishing?
Not that I can recall
131: Helped with charity?
Yeah
132: Been rejected by a crush?
No because I’m too much of a wimp to confess. Maybe a few years later
133: Broken a mirror?
Yep, the one I use to wear my contacts (when I used to wear contacts)
134: What do I want for birthday?
Sex and liposuction and a corset and maybe someone to love me and a full happy day with no depression or anxiety
135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names?
I don’t want kids. But if I did have kids, here is a list of nice names: Gracie, Ljudmila, Nico, Agneta (this one sounds really fucking familiar but I don’t know why), Anthony, Selene, Kristoff, James
136: Was I named after anyone?
No. My Chinese name means to have manners and to be gentle lmao. My English name is literally just the first thing I blurted out when the teacher asked me for my name. Wednesday was a name I look after Wednesday Addams though.
137: Do I like my handwriting?
I hate my Chinese and English penmanship it looks like shit but my Cyrillic looks GREAT
138: What was my favourite toy as a child?
Barbie, I had Genevieve from the 12 dancing princesses
139: Favourite Tv Show?
Drag race, b99, ASOUE, the good place
140: Where do I want to live when older?
In Edinburgh
141: Play any musical instrument?
The ukulele and I think I still remember a bit of guitar
142: One of my scars, how did I get it?
Cutting. Most of my scars are from cutting. A few from childhood bruises
143: Favourite pizza toping?
Cheese
144: Am I afraid of the dark?
Sometimes
145: Am I afraid of heights?
all the time
146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?
A lot worse than sneaking out buddy
147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end?
Yeah 
148: What I’m really bad at
controlling my fucking feelings and not falling for peple
149: What my greatest achievments are
Sewing my prom dress, making an animation, juggling learning 3 languages (slowly) at once, surviving high school because honestly I didn’t think I’d make it to graduation
150: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me
That bisexuality doesn’t exist
151: What I’d do if I won in a lottery
Depends on how much i win but assuming it’s a big amount of money, split it and donate a third to charity, give a third to my parents, split the rest of it in quarters and give three quarter to my dad for investments and spend the last quarter
152: What do I like about myself
I have pretty hair and nice tits and I can draw (not well but I can draw), and I have a bit of talent in learning languages and fashion design
153: My closest Tumblr friend
@samrull without a doubt
154: Something I fantasise about
My brain giving me a good yummy serotonin
155: Any question you’d like?
….anon you didn’t put a question (this happens every goddamn time i s2g)
Thanks for the ask though this kept me occupied for the good part of an hour :)
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jolie-guerrier · 3 years
Text
Social Media Marketing Is a Joke - It's Time We Admit It
The best desire: allow's move lower back to its roots.
The first-class thing that ever befell to social media advertising and marketing become the hacking of the 2016 US election of Donal Trump by the Russians. Why? Because it laid naked what many  Buy 500 likes Instagram in social media advertising has acknowledged for a long, long time: that social media structures are a funny story, their valuations are based totally on imaginary users, and their integrity lies somewhere among Lucifer and that guy who eats humans's faces inside the movies.
For marketing experts along with myself, recommending existing social systems such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has been more and more tough, because -pretty frankly- many of us don't accept as true with the metrics.
And why have to we? Facebook doesn't.
This is from Facebook's 2017 SEC filing (emphasis mine):
The numbers for our key metrics, which include our each day lively customers (DAUs), monthly energetic users (MAUs), and average sales per user (ARPU), are calculated using inner enterprise records based totally on the interest of person accounts. While those numbers are based totally on what we accept as true with to be reasonable estimates of our user base for the relevant duration of measurement, there are inherent challenges in measuring utilization of our merchandise throughout big on line and cell populations around the world. The largest statistics control organization within the global says it doesn't certainly recognise if its numbers are correct. Estimates? What marketing expert desires predicted outcomes after the fact?
It receives worse. Emphasis mine:
In the fourth sector of 2017, we estimate that reproduction money owed may also have represented approximately 10% of our worldwide MAUs. We agree with the share of replica accounts is meaningfully better in developing markets inclusive of India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, compared to greater advanced markets. In the fourth region of 2017, we estimate that fake bills can also have represented approximately three-four% of our international MAUs. Let that sink in. Facebook is admitting that "approximately" 10% of its monthly energetic users are faux. Interestingly, they do not point out what percentage in their every day energetic users are faux.
And that is the problem with social media. You don't know what's real and what is fake anymore.
Social media hasn't been actual for some time.
As entrepreneurs and advertisers, we pleasure ourselves on accuracy. In the olden instances of marketing and marketing, we obsessed over rating numbers of television indicates, readership for print promotions, and transport fulfillment fees for junk mail.
In all cases, the structures of the day were heavily audited. You knew, with fair certainty, became the audiences were for any unique medium or channel due to the fact there has been normally a factor of evaluate someplace for the numbers.
Traditional media which include radio, TV, and print have been round long sufficient that there had been thousands of case research one could observe the success or screw ups of character campaigns. Because these mediums had been part of the public document, it was smooth to paintings backward to look what mix of media and finances labored and what failed to.
As an industry, we should fast establish benchmarks for success - no longer simply based on our private experiences- however inside the collective reviews of very clean techniques laid bare for all people to dissect.
Well, that each one went out the window with social media.
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram's numbers have been continually a funny story.
In days of yore, employer valuation turned into based on sales, assets, and human capital, and overall performance.
That all modified while someone came up with the concept of "each day lively users."
The race to gain users became the using pressure for social media structures in a way that we have never seen before. Now, the obsession with consumer boom opened the door to advertising and marketing and advertising and marketing fraud on a scale that simply wasn't feasible previously.
Let's get some thing clear: any platform that lets in for people to create heaps of faux profiles so others should buy likes, fans, retweets, or shares is poisonous to advertisers and types alike.
Now, I understand that the word "lets in" is doing a whole lot of work in that sentence, so let me make bigger a bit what I imply.
I do not assume I'll get many arguments after I say that -regardless of what I think of them- the most a success social media structures in the world are also some of the maximum state-of-the-art technological organisations on this planet. They have -arguably- some of the exceptional AI round, as their whole business models revolve round being capable of crunch numbers, records, and difficult to understand pieces of records millions of instances a 2nd.
They are also big agencies, with an army of legal professionals and IP bulldogs ready to protect their logo against any adverse outdoor forces.
So give an explanation for to me, how is it, that even in the end we've seen in the information human beings can still purchase Facebook likes, or Twitter followers, or Instagram enthusiasts?
The motive: it changed into constantly a scam. And we got conned along side every body else.
If your organisation is valued on your quantity of users and the hobby of those customers in your platform, what do you care if they may be faux or now not? If you probably did, you would hire an armada of auditors to make certain the integrity of your userbase. I do not believe they ever did and will never do this.
Social platforms install their honey trap.
Initially, social systems along with Facebook and Twitter lured brands and agencies onto their structures with promises of loose advertising and advertising. The capacity to quick develop a fanbase and follower base, without the want of hiring advertising shmucks like me. Why waste time on hiring a expert whilst you can do it all yourself for not anything?
At first, I become a supporter of this. I believed that advertising and advertising became often some thing that best large groups may want to afford, and that small business marketing turned into being left at the back of. Social media advertising and marketing allowed for even a mother and pa shop to compete online.
So many businesses spent endless hours and thousands of bucks in human sources to develop their followers on-line.
Having lured them into their honey lure, social media businesses then held fans and enthusiasts hostages. You had to pay to have access to the userbase that you built up and cultivated.
Suddenly the numbers did not make any sense. You needed to pay to sell or enhance posts whilst formerly it turned into loose. The result changed into disastrous for lots groups. The ROI's did not upload up, but with so lots of their customers on these platforms, that they had little desire but to continue to try to get anything cost they may for them.
Moreover, the circulate to such promotions unfolded the Pandora's field to in addition abuses. The pressure for sales seemingly prompted social platforms to retain to appearance the other manner on fake profiles and social media bots because they drove ad sales. Personal records become harvested and manipulated in ways that customers could not fathom and did no longer comply with.
Mostly, it did something to marketing that I'm now not certain we will recover. For many virtual advertising corporations and advertising businesses, it pressured us to down the Kool-useful resource with all of us else. People that should have recognised better doubled down on social media marketing for our customers while we knew -for maximum of them- it was unnecessary.
Marketing and marketing groups became accomplices after the reality.
Like I said earlier, advertising and marketing and advertising and marketing organizations and experts are presupposed to obsess with accuracy. We want our customers to have the very excellent ROI to be had.
However, like specialists in any commercial enterprise vertical, we are self-serving.
One of my favored examples of how folks that could recognise higher will say whatever for a dollar is real property sellers.
Have you EVER heard a actual estate agent inform you it is a incorrect time to shop for a house? In all of my days, I have by no means examine a piece of writing by means of a actual property agent saying that human beings should preserve off on a buy. House fees going up? A wonderful time to shop for; you'll make your cash lower back straight away! House prices taking place? It's a shoppers marketplace! Lock for your financial savings now!
Marketing and advertising and marketing specialists did something comparable with social media advertising.
We saw the structures' upward push in recognition and failed to want to get caught in a lurch. The buzz become constructing in the back of them, and clients had been often stressful us to assist them. So -despite the fact that Facebook and Twitter have been in most cases unproven with little to no actual case studies to talk of- many firms told their clients to throw cash into the black hole of social.
What became the end result? The majority of social media campaigns are disasters. I most effective know of a fraction of companies that continue with any seriousness on social media as compared to the quotes agencies did with conventional advertising and marketing or maybe SEO and non-social virtual commercials.
You see it inside the positioning. When virtual entrepreneurs communicate approximately social media, they speak it concerning "attain," "exposure," "presence," "cognizance." That's code word for "throw your money away." Do an online seek of the effectiveness of social media, and you'll find the outcomes filled with search engine optimization and social media marketers praising the systems and the techniques.
Real marketers communicate about ROI. Impact on income, and effect on lead generation. You can't pay the lease on logo cognizance. I'm saying this as a person who builds brands for a dwelling.
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rinnnyxr · 3 years
Text
You're nineteen and a vegetarian.
You've been a vegetarian for over a year.
You don't like John Lennon.
You are studying Mandarin Chinese.
You have blue eyes and white hair.
People often mistaken you for sixteen or under.
You enjoy reading and mathematics.
Your favorite flavour of tea is mint.
You listen to foreign music.
You watch the anime Naruto Shippuden.
You prefer routine to your day.
You've never attended a concert.
You're Chinese.
Your favorite sport is basketball.
Your favorite basketball team is the Lakers.
You basically want to marry Kobe Bryant.
You have a Samsung S4.
You hate English quite a lot.
You like playing card games.
You think people who play League of Legends is stupid.
You are often jealous of anything trying to take something away from you.
Your parents are scientists.
You are really good at physics.
You prefer noodles over rice.
You want to own a BMW when you're older.
You were in choir in high school.
I cannot sing.
You like spicy food.
You're short compared to your friends.
You really like Hello Kitty and try to own a lot of it.
Your father is slowly dying.
Your mother is studying in a university.
You have a crush on someone who is younger than you.
You like to eat apples a lot.
You've had braces and they were recently taken out.
You recently decided to have bangs for your hair.
You eat rice at least every other day.
You live in a huge house.
You have multiple strangers living in your house with you.
You got a large amount of Halloween candy last year.
You are really good at badminton.
You like to watch Asian reality shows.
You have no siblings.
You hate your name.
You are very aggressive.
You overeat a lot and feel very guilty afterwards.
You are used to being left out.
You hate missing the person you care for.
You are a slow learner.
You don't like your teeth.
You have dyed your hair orange before.
Your friends think you have a great taste in music.
You would chose food over love anyday.
You often swear too much.
You have an older sister.
Your mother owns a beautiful car.
My parents own beautiful cars.
You are only nice to people you trust.
You like mood rings.
You obsess over Candy Crush.
You have an iPad or iPad Mini.
You prefer your hair in a ponytail more.
You have very noticable dimples.
You always use a cute voice with people.
You have a blue bicycle.
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Gemini talk talk talk matches other people’s energy documentary fan easily distracted meme bombing friends knows a little about a lot dual personality makes friends easily sarcasm will leave people on read supreme wit ranting about your favorite subjects craves attention exaggerates for drama unhinged energy googles everything argues for fun infinite curiosity joking off the pain reality tv binges blocking people you hate adopts movie character traits always running late interrupting 7/24
Libra people pleaser excessive emoji use can’t take anyone disliking you stands up for what’s right expensive taste sarcastic humor drowning in self pity indecisive af knows everyone’s business unintentionally (and intentionally) being flirty pros and cons lists romanticizes everything personality matching people superb music taste avoids confrontation at all costs has been called fake online shopping addiction always comforts friends loves museums meddling in people’s lives peace keeper makes friends easily can scam your way into anything 13/24
Aquarius internet stalking overthinking everything hides emotions open minded ^but also hard headed will prove people wrong randomly disappears arguing on the internet hates small talk rebellious needs a lot of space fights for social justice tried to cut your own hair before indie music putting a lot of pressure on yourself power naps jumps to conclusions not caring what people think knows a million useless facts self-sufficient wants the best for everyone conspiracy theories attracted to unavailable people a little weird 19/24
Out of the air signs, you’re more of a Aquarius
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Millennial Things | bold what you do
Binging Netflix a lot Always Snapchatting everything
Struggling with Instagram captions Always having to delete stuff because of full storage
Eating out at a place you discovered on Instagram Used iPods/MP3 players to listen to music Wanted a flip phone before iPhones were invented Can’t help but post everything on social media
Have/had/want acrylic nails
Always looking at the phone Use a bunch of hashtags
Have tattoos or piercings
Shop online Eat a lot of avocado/avocado food
Closet is full of unnecessary clothes Get your food delivered
Love drinking coffee
Use public transport a lot Eat a lot of takeout food Buy clothes or things you don’t necessarily need Work out/go to the gym/want to be fit
Focus on self-love
Have at least one entertainment site subscription
Love traveling/traveled overseas recently Spend too much money
Gen Z
Spend most of your time online Procrastinate 24/7 Consume too much tv/media content Know a lot about technology
Aware and accepting of diversity Binge Netflix Enjoy creating things Share a lot on social media
Prefer to do things digitally Grew up in a digital world Talk to friends online more than in person Have met a lot of new people online
Prefer digital books to hard copy
Career-focused Prefer online shopping over physical
Interested in things like fashion, beauty, and health
Watch a lot of YouTubers Aware of world issues and want to help
Eat a lot of fast food People your age are Insta “baddies” and “influencers” Want diversity
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Bold What Applies To You 1. had sex. 2. bought condoms. 3. gotten pregnant. 4. failed a class. 5. kissed a boy. 6. kissed a girl. 7. used a little paper bag for lunch. 8. had a job. 9. slipped on ice. 10. missed the school bus. total so far: 6
11. left the house without my wallet. 12. bullied someone on the internet. 13. sexted. 14. had sex in public. 15. played on a sports team. 16. smoked weed. 17. smoked cigarettes. 18. smoked a cigar. 19. drank alcohol. 20. watched “The Breakfast Club”
total so far: 11
21. been overweight. 22. been underweight. 23. had an eating disorder. 24. been to a wedding. 25. made fun of someone for being fat. 26. been on the computer for 5 hours straight. 27. watched tv for 5 hours straight. 28. been late for work. 29. been late for school. 30. kissed in the rain.
total so far: 20
31. showered with someone else. 32. failed my driver’s test. 33. ran a mile in less than 10 minutes. 34. been outside my home country. 35. been on a road trip longer than 5 hours. 36. had lice. 37. gotten fired. 38. had a credit card. 39. been to a professional sports game. 40. broken a bone. total so far: 26
41. been unhappy about my weight. 42. won a trophy. 43. cut myself. 44. had an STD. 45. got engaged. 46. been on a diet. 47. tried out to be on a tv show. 48. rode in a taxi. 49. been to prom. 50. played a drinking game.
total so far: 32
51. stayed up for 24 hours or more. 52. been to a concert. 53. had a threesome. 54. had a crush on someone of the same sex. 55. been in a car accident. 56. had braces. 57. learned another language 58. killed an animal. 59. been at a yard sale. 60. been to a Japanese steakhouse.
total so far: 36
61. wore makeup. 62. talked to someone via webcam. 63. lost my virginity before I was 16. 64. had my wisdom teeth taken out. 65. kissed someone a different race than myself. 66. snuck out of the house. 67. bought porn. 68. had a virus on my computer. 69. had oral sex. 70. dyed my hair. total so far: 43
71. gone skinny dipping. 72. graduated from college. 73. wore someone else’s clothes. 74. voted in a presidential election. 75. rode in an ambulance. 76. rode in a helicopter. 77. caught the stove on fire. 78. got in a fight. 79. met someone famous. 80. been on vacation. total so far: 48
81. been on an airplane. 82. been on a boat. 83. broken something expensive. 84. had surgery. 85. kissed someone before I was 14. 86. beat a video game. 87. found something valuable on the ground. 88. made a survey. 89. stalked someone on Facebook/myspace. 90. prank-called someone.
total so far: 55
91. been to a library outside of school. 92. spent over $100 shopping in one day. 93. cut my hair and hated it. 94. peed outside. 95. went fishing. 96. helped with charity. 97. taken a pregnancy test. 98. been rejected by a crush. 99. been suspended from school. 100. broken a mirror.
grand total: 61/100
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charlie-minion · 6 years
Text
Day 2/365
January 2: Review of 2017. Include your best memory of the year.
Last year was definitely in the top 3 of “Worst years of my life”. I’ve had very awful years before, but I can say that 2017 probably beat them all. For those who have been following me for a while now, this won’t come as a surprise; I’ve posted about my struggles with depression more than a couple of times and how things were getting worse and worse. Therefore, to write a review of 2017, I have to describe my journey to the pit bottom I touched last year. This will get very long and maybe triggering for some, so I’ll put it under the cut.  
I started to have a hard time to deal with stress at some point in April. I’ve always been an anxious person, but I could find ways to deal on my own. However, this time I don’t know why, but everything began to feel overwhelming. I had a full-time job as a teacher that consumed no less than 9 hours of my day, and I also had classes to take after work (I’m a post-graduate student). At work, most of my students were wonderful and I loved them. The seniors, though, were really hostile (not all of them but more than half the class). It wasn’t the first time I was dealing with that sort of behavior, but for some reason I was on edge more often than not. As a result, I started drinking a little, only on weekends at first, but then during the week too. The thing is that I was still highly functional at work and at school. Nobody noticed anything different about me because I was still extremely good at putting up a front. But the energy necessary to do that was draining me pretty quickly.
In May I started to have panic attacks for stupid things. I had to interview some of the seniors as part of their scholarship process. The day I was told by the principal the minimum number of students I had to interview, I lost my shit. I had to lock myself in the bathroom in my office. I started crying, had trouble breathing, and my chest hurt. I couldn’t hold the tears or the feeling of dread inside me; I had no idea what was wrong with me. I don’t remember how long I spent there, trying to get a grip. That should have been the sign I needed to be certain that something was definitely not okay, but as usual, I tried to deal with it on my own.
In the middle of June, I had an argument with a dear friend of mine who happened to be my coworker. I’d talked to him a couple of times regarding his behavior toward the seniors (one student in particular). When typing this up, I realized that the first time I talked to him about it was around April. I was so afraid when I did it; I thought he’d get angry with me, but he didn’t (or so he led me to believe). I wonder if that talk had anything to do with my difficulties to deal with stress later on. The thing is that in June I talked to him a third time because I knew some people were talking behind my friend’s back and suspected him of having a “special interest” in a 17-year-old boy who was our student. I cared for my friend, but I cared for my students too. My friend had told me he had a kind of crush on the boy, but I knew he would never act on it. However, I also knew that he was making his crush too obvious and if other people noticed, my friend would get fired and his reputation would be damaged. I tried to explain all that to him, but I guess he thought I had my own agenda. He blocked me on all social media and our friendship was over all at once.  
By the end of June not only had I lost the friend I thought I had but I also learned that he had been talking about me behind my back since April. He had tried to damage my reputation so that if I said something about him nobody would believe me. I felt sad and betrayed. I know what ill-intentioned rumors can do to a person professionally and emotionally (I was at the receiving end of such things back in 2011 thanks to someone who called herself my “friend”). All I wanted in this situation was to 1) make sure my students were 100% safe and 2) make sure my friend remembered how serious this line of work is. I never intended to hurt him in any way. I talked directly to him, not to the principal or to anyone else. I was his friend and because of that I wanted to be honest with him without being unethical. What I got in return was a stab in the back. He stopped talking to me, ignored me, left the room when I arrived (and we shared an office for God’s sake!). I already felt overwhelmed, but after all this happened, I definitely started to lose balance. I always worked so hard to have a good relationship with everyone at work and suddenly it was over because even my other coworkers looked at me as if I was the ill-intentioned person looking for conflict.
By the time July started, I had begun to understand I was not okay. I confided in another friend at work who had always been there to support me (the only person I could still trust). She told me to look for professional help. I didn’t. I still thought I could handle it. I’ve been a high-functional depressive for years, so I thought this, too, would pass. I kept on working and continued drinking a little more every time. Reading had always been my way to escape, but I stopped doing it ‘cause I couldn’t concentrate anymore. I couldn’t write any original content for my blog; I could barely keep it together at work, but I was grateful at least I had some time off from school. Then July 20 happened. Chester Bennington died by suicide. The one who helped me through my teenage years. My hero. That blow was enough to push me over the edge. I had spent months trying not to lose it, trying to be okay, and after Chester passed, I couldn’t anymore; I just let myself sink deeper into my depression. I had been having sleeping problems, but after July 20, I was lucky if I got 2 hours of sleep. Grief took over completely.
August was a nightmare! I’m still amazed that no one around me realized I was faking it big time. Each smile was painful, but I still managed to be “happy”, “funny” and “full of life”. My classes were still great and I could still make my students laugh, learn, and have a good time, but the pain in my chest did not disappear. The moment I was home, I would start crying for no reason and I kept drinking even though I knew I shouldn’t. There’s always been a dark part of my mind. A voice that always reminds me of all my failures, of all the times I’ve been wronged, of all my broken dreams. The voice is always there, but I can normally shut it down. I couldn’t do that in August. The voice, my darkest self, took over bit by bit until I completely disassociated. I saw myself doing stuff and had no control whatsoever. I saw myself as if I were not present anymore, as if I were trapped in a part of my head that wouldn’t let me out. That’s how I felt when I tried to overdose on anxiety medication and had the worst hours of my life, followed by disappointment rather than regret.
The last weeks of August and all of September were about getting professional help. My suicide attempts (I tried twice) failed, and somehow I knew I had reached the lowest point of my existence. I just knew I couldn’t deal anymore; I was utterly defeated. I started to see a psychologist twice a week and he sent me to a doctor. I did everything the doctor said and we found out my physical health was excellent. The doctor sent me to a psychiatrist with a note that I had to be seen urgently (they still feared for my life). I was prescribed some other medication and through all the process I just felt numb. After two appointments, the psychiatrist stopped receiving me without letting me know why. One of my closest friends wants me to sue him ‘cause I had to stop taking the medication suddenly as I could obviously not get it anymore. That kind of medication can increase suicidal thoughts; nobody should ever stop taking it just like that. I didn’t want to sue him, though. I wasn’t in the right state of mind to even think about it. I don’t even know how in the world I managed to still work and study at that point.
At the beginning of October, my mood swings were driving me insane, but I was still trying to work through it all with the help of my therapist. Mental health is so important, but people’s ignorance about it is unbelievable. That’s why I decided to take advantage of World Mental Health Day to use the topic “Myths and Facts about Depression” in a class with the seniors (something they had previously requested along with around 30 other topics). I used reliable sources and very interesting activities to encourage group discussion and some sort of reflection about the issue. I’m an English as a foreign language teacher, so making the students speak in English is important in class.
Everything went to hell when my almost 16-year-old dog died in October 9. She got sick and even though I took her to the vet immediately, she needed a surgery. She survived the surgery but died from a heart attack after it. The pain of losing my long-term companion was unexplainable. In addition, my mom chose those days to prove again and again that I can never count on her when I need her. So I lost my shit again. I had never in my life felt so helpless, hopeless and alone. I couldn’t feel anything except pain. Everything felt too heavy, too painful. I couldn’t breathe properly, I couldn’t sleep and faking it for the rest of the world felt like the worst punishment ever. The only thing I could do was talk about it with a couple of friends, but people don’t know what to do or what to say in these cases. I still felt alone and miserable, so I posted something here in my blog in the middle of one my crises.
People reached out and offered kind words that however well-intended did nothing to fill the emptiness inside me. Except there was one person, one extraordinary human being that went well out of her way to reach out to me. She’s become the main reason I’m still trying to keep myself alive. She’s part of my life now, and she’s made ME part of her life as well. Not just that… she’s made me an important part of her life. Somehow, she makes me feel less alone. She makes me think that someone out there cares for me and listens, really listens without judging me, without blaming me, or dismissing my feelings and my pain. She’s a ray of light in the middle of the dark. She’s like water in a desert. She’s the one who gripped me tight and raised me from perdition. She’s my angel. She’s the only good memory I have of 2017.  
Of course, my year still had to suck a little more. In November I lost my job. One of my hateful coworkers started a rumor that I had used “13 Reasons Why” in class with the students (which was total bullshit). People talked behind my back and made it a huge deal. My boss, the principal of the school, gathered all the proof he could to demonstrate that I was innocent. He did prove that it was a lie, but his boss (who had tried to fire me many times in previous years simply because she didn’t like me), said that I should be given a Disciplinary Action for using a depression-related topic in class. I didn’t even know what was happening until my boss talked to me and explained everything, but he thought he could still fix things. All this happened without my knowing. I was informed on a Friday, and then the following Thursday I was told I was going to be fired. November 30 was my last day, but surprisingly that was also the last day of my ex-friend. He got fired because of the rumors I had warned him about. Karma’s a bitch, I guess.  
I spent all December at home, unemployed, defeated and not knowing what to do with my life. Where I live, the school year begins in January and ends in November. There was no way I could find a job in December, so 2018 is a fresh start. My boss gave me a beautiful recommendation letter and cried the day we said goodbye. He did all he could to save my job because he knew I was a very good teacher, but his boss threatened his position and he has 2 daughters to provide for. The woman who decided to fire me had wanted to do so since 2014 and treated me poorly every time she could. I hadn’t quit because she almost never visited us, but I was hoping to quit after I finished my master’s degree. I guess I should’ve done it when she made it clear she wanted me out.  
I had to stop seeing my therapist because I can’t afford it anymore. At least I stopped drinking because I can’t afford it either. I lost control just once in December and bought some cheap booze in the middle of another of my crises. I took 2000mg of Escitalopram, hoping that maybe third time’s the charm, but I’m still here, and the only thing I got out of that attempt was to make my angel worry and feel useless. I don’t want to hurt her again, so I promised I’m going to try to get better. I don’t know if I can manage without professional help, but without a job, there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to keep fighting and remember that I’m not alone. Even if she’s very far from me and I can’t possibly board a plane to hug her when I need to, I know that she’s with me and that she cares.
This was my 2017. I can’t really say I’m grateful to be alive ‘cause that would be a lie, but I guess the only thing that’s left for me to do is hope that 2018 will be better and do my best to care for myself and allow myself to heal. This year will certainly be challenging and scary because I don’t even know where to start. But by writing these journal entries, I’ll try to keep myself busy enough to prevent another crisis. To finish, I just want to say #Fuck2017.  
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