An Open Letter

T got robbed last night, and they stole his PS5 and two TVs. I also found out I did not get a job offer for a TA, and so today has been a pretty stressful day. I know you shouldn’t compare things, but he is very much having a way worse day. We stayed up to play some games just to talk and distract ourselves. I laughed really fucking hard. It was a good night.

I started off the session by talking about how I knew about things I can do to help my depression, but I just didn’t want to do them. She asked me to visualize it however it felt, and for me I said it was like I was in a river and it was just pulling me down the current. I could grab a branch or lodge something to stop myself from going down the river, but neither of them mattered to me. It didn’t matter if I was going down the river or staying still, and so there was no point of me doing anything to stop it. I think that summarized apathy and anhedonia pretty well for me, and I guess I still don’t really have an answer for that. But I think that was a very nice way of describing how I feel. Nothing really matters, if I get even more depressed or if I do CBT it doesn’t matter to me.

I’m a little bit scared about my relationship with caffeine and my prescription Adderall. I am under the average dosage and I am taking it daily as prescribed, but I feel a little bit worried about how much it helps me. I know that it helping me is the point of having it as a medication, but I’m a bit afraid of the reality of who I am without any stimulant. I feel tired, and I feel hazy on everything. I think I need to value sleep more, as I know that helps me – but I still am a bit afraid of how I am there. My mind is one of my greatest assets and it scares me when I lose that, like when I somewhat struggle to make sentences or anything like that. I wish sleep was more instantly gratifying.

Last night I thought that I was feeling this way because it was late at night and that I was searching for some issue, but this morning I woke up and I spent the entire day more or less alone since no one was online. I went and watched a movie, read in a library, even took a nap there. Got good food, and still felt like shit. I’m scared, I don’t want to be depressed.

I thought the title of this post is a little bit clever, because the thing stuck on my mind is my feelings of just who I am as a person. As I made my protein shake and took my supplements, I was thinking about what I wanted to write down for my daily journaling. Originally I wanted to talk about my envy of artists. I still want to write about that eventually, but that thought then jumped around until it somehow got transformed about thinking of E and that burn down. I thought about how I’ve been mentally struggling with S, and how I’ve been feeling just overall somewhat alone I guess. I thought about this blog. I feel like this is a weird thing, specifically because this does feel like something I wouldn’t want to show other people. But I still do it, and I know that this is linked to my discord. The thought eventually just packaged itself back into the same familiar mold – I just feel like I’m too much.

I feel like I’m too much as a person. I want to romanticize that notion, but I don’t think this is a pretty thing. I think ugly thoughts, and I don’t see the world in a good way I think. I have a lot of scars and shortcomings that constantly paint over my experiences, and that feels like it’s either pushed me farther down that path or hasn’t gotten better as I’ve gotten older. I just feel strange, like an eccentric person except not in a charming way but more of a “wow that person isn’t fit to be in society” in a soft sense. I think about N, and how she would probably shame me for the things I want to do, and the things I do. I don’t really blame her for it, and I just look back at my actions and consistently cringe. Yet I still do them! I don’t get where this mental disconnect happens, it’s like I don’t learn from my experiences. I worry that who I am as a person is just too much. I hate sharing music, but I love it so fucking badly, there are such random parts of songs that evoke such wonder and just raw emotion to me and I want to share that so badly. But I’m also afraid of doing that! I don’t know anyone who feels the same way I do, and so I end up just feeling like a fucking creep, like a weirdo (had to make a joke, I am who I am). I recently wrote down the belief I’ve held for a while about people being like vectors, but I just feel like I’m just too much in too many things. And those things have came from other, safer things. God that makes no sense, even to me and I’m the one who was supposed to have known what the fuck I’m talking about, huh.

I’ve been thinking the same unhealthy thought when I blast my liked songs from top to bottom in order on my blissful drives. I think about how no one knows me, just like the 14 year old edgelord stereotypes. God how cringe it is to actually say that. With that out of the way, I always think about how no one knows me in this fundamentally intimate way. No one knows the way I knock my head side to side like a metronome during addicted to the night. Or how I throw up fake gang signs while listening to king hendricks because I am from a suburb in San Diego, have never been in a fight, and don’t know how to act hard. No one knows the way I almost cried in a costco food court after finally finding the piano piece written by that depressed guy dedicated to his psychiatrist for lifting the fog. Or how I played hey asshole on loop while playing mineplex dragon escape for at LEAST an hour, because I was depressed before I even knew what that word meant. Or how I listened to Pride on repeat on the floor of the bathroom on loop for hours. Or how I’m listening to a remix of Rushing Back I can only find on youtube on loop right now, because it was the same song that made me almost cry while journaling almost a year ago, while I was pacing the living room past midnight. Or how I took a video of me screaming along to Great Lakes not once, but TWICE just because I wanted to have some proof or some validation to show that I was feeling that way. I think I just want to be seen in some way. I feel like I haven’t been seen for a while. That’s actually a terrifying thought I’ve never considered.

I do all of these weird little bids out into the universe like little breadcrumbs pleading for me not to be lost. I guess that’s just another way of saying alone. It’s such a gutteral feeling for me to want to be seen, it feels like all my body knows it wants. I have had a discord bot running since 9/16/2022 (I just checked) which has been logging my statuses. God, I didn’t think it was almost 2 years. I think I set it because I didn’t want those things to be lost. I set it more than enough and I’ve I think violently displayed my cringy behaviors enough that no one gives a shit anymore. And at least as far as I know, that is what I want. I don’t really want people to acknowledge them, as that would be mortifyingly embarassing. But I still fucking do it! I set that status as something for me, THAT I DON’T EVEN READ BACK. I just do all of this weird shit, including this for no good fucking reason. I don’t know why I am like this, but at least right now I feel bad about it. I think about other people I know and how they are more or less normal, and it seems like they fit into society way better. I envy that feeling so fucking badly. But instead I find myself feeling like fuckin Louis from suits. That’s not exactly the character I’d want to be self-inserting as. But I just feel like I don’t fit in and I don’t fucking know why. And it’s just because of who I am.

Truth be told, I’m kinda scared. I don’t know what I am going to do about this and I don’t know what my future will look like. Most people have some rough mold of what life will look like, but I’m afraid that I won’t have that security. Like what if I don’t get picked up by someone more extroverted in office and I stagnate myself into just self-isolating. I just want to sit down and think about this all, like some sort of self-reflection will solve this fear. And it will I do think, something like CBT would help – but I don’t want to do that. I just want to sit here and bash my brain into the wall until my head stops hurting (surprise surprise, it’s probably because I’m hitting my head against the wall). This much self-analysis cannot be good. Like how a doctor can always find 10 things wrong with a patient, I feel like I routinely scan myself for some shortcoming or another. And because of that I end up trapped in this cycle of every day thinking about how something or other is wrong with me. The worst thing is these problems aren’t even consistent, but I instead just bombard my unconcious brain with the feedback of “you’re fucking ill!”, and then just feel like a fuck up 24/7. That actually is a lie, I don’t feel bad until everything else stops and it’s 2:51am at night and it’s my daily self-flogging time (introspection). But right now, this moment is my entire world and it feels bleak. I’ll feel better in the morning probably. Go to sleep you idiot. Love you.

I was pretty emotional earlier today, I don’t even think it was for a necessarily valid reason. I just was upset at S for putting in effort to reach out and connect with others, but not me. It kinda reminded me of E I guess, and so I’ve been somewhat pulling back. I think I should properly talk with my therapist about this and do stuff like CBT, but internally my gut reaction is just that I shouldn’t invest in someone who doesn’t invest in me. I know that I’ll be able to definitely make other friends so I’m not worried about that, but I am just sad and in turmoil about it right now. I shouldn’t think that things are like over or anything like that, this is just so far a self vs self battle. I just wish they put in some effort, otherwise it kinda just feels like all the things they said in the past were things of convenience. Things get pretty grim mentally I guess.

Today was a solid day, I have made a decent amount of friends at this internship. I kinda got adopted by V, which I’m pretty thankful for because I’m very content just staying introverted. I saw A when I went to get lunch, and so we sat together and talked which was actually really nice! When coming back after getting a drink I saw some random mobile game on her phone, and so I asked her what she was playing and she got super embarrassed and refused to say. I also admit that I’ve been playing phone games at work, and we both were talking about just nonstop being blocked and having to look busy at work. I honestly enjoyed that a lot more than just sitting on my phone watching tiktok and responding to existing friends. Even if today wasn’t super stimulating or anything like that, I felt refreshed and enjoyed that lunch. But on top of it, I got closer with her and so that early phase of surface level friends is getting slowly transitioned out of here. And I’d much rather have lunch with someone like A or S because they’re my boys and I just love talking about stupid shit with them. If I want that, I think it’s only logical that I need to get out of my default behavior and grow those friendships.

Today I felt like a burden was lifted off of me for the first time in a while. I actually enjoyed things fairly well today, and was pretty carefree and happy. I think it was because of the journaling I did last night where I got a lot of things off my chest. I think I need to get into the habit of doing that more often. Regardless, it’s a bit late so I wanted to go to bed now, so that’ll have to be another day. I did however make a small little stupid video because I was able to and I had the energy, and I’m pretty happy I did – it only took a minute.

Hey, long time no talk me. I guess I’ve been super busy, both to have time to do this but also partially because I haven’t felt the need to. I’ve been so busy with things that I don’t even have time to feel bad or think about other problems, kinda like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in my crude uneducated understanding of it. I’m back to trying to figure out how to get time, that I don’t even have time to feel bad about some things. But as things have settled down a bit, I do have that time again for better or for worse.

Tomorrow marks one month into my internship, and so that also marks in a way one month into summer – away from friends. I do have to clarify I am close with my online friends thank god, and so I do get to interact with them daily. But I have been feeling bad because I’ve definitely grown more distant from S. As much as I don’t want to admit this, I feel like this has been happening for a while, and I guess I feel too tired to try to fight against it. Part of me has been convinced that fighting against it is counterintuitive, and so I’ve somewhat just resigned to this fate. I kinda knew this was going to happen, as we aren’t the greatest with keeping up remotely. She calls C and keeps up that way, but I guess we haven’t established that or set a precedent for that so I can’t blame her for it. But I guess I also shouldn’t blame myself either if I don’t blame her, as this is a two-way street.

I think a lot of this fear is probably pent up or hidden away from the whole fiasco with E. I guess that was a year ago since it was last summer, how time flies. But last summer E and I had made a plan to stay in contact, and regardless of who’s fault it was it did explode in a burning mess. This does feel like the opposite end of the spectrum however – the tide has slowly pulled apart the flesh from this friendship one moon at a time. But beaches never stay desolate forever, and I do expect that once we are in person again the life will return. But maybe it doesn’t, the beaches of santa barbara have slowly turned to porous rock with every year since. Hell sometimes I don’t even see any sand. I’m a little bit afraid to go back to that beach in a way. It’s nice whenever I go, but it does always run risk of reminding me of what I no longer have there. My happy place is laying in the sand in the sun, but when I tried the wind was harsh and the sand buffeted my body; all that’s left is a residual fear born from that experience. It isn’t a strong enough fear to steer me away if I’m already going there, but it is enough to deter me from having that as a peaceful happy place. Isn’t that poetically cruel in a way? Like something out of a tragedy or some other piece of literary art that I never consumed enough of to speak on properly. Having access to what I wanted destroyed my want for it, out of a few bad experiences.

The above part wasn’t really about the beach.

I think one thing I’ve felt afraid about was my churning of friends. I feel like I’ve gone through friends or friend groups fairly consistently, and so I feel like something is fundamentally wrong with me. But at the same time I do need to remember that I have held the same friends I interact with several times daily for over 6 years now. That matters to me. But also by virtue of my own path as an individual I think I will have changed friend groups automatically. My view on people is that they are multifaceted, and have different aspects of themselves that they display to other people. (It’s like everyone was their own vector embedding of some traits or compatibilities, and they accentuate the dimensions that maximize the dot product similarity when interacting with people.) I don’t this makes anyone any less genuine for accentuating the most appropriate aspects in their situation, after all I wouldn’t want my boss to tell me a stupid joke while we’re in a meeting with high ranking members.

Since starting medication, no since birth I think I’ve changed dramatically. I am not really happy with my childhood, but when I think of it that’s mostly because of what I percieve about myself. I was horribly depressed, and I think that gray cloud has covered everything in that familiar dreary light. Gray paint is an invaluable tool for drawing out depth in other, more vibrant colors; but when all of those colors are left with blanks the only thing left in my childhood is dark pathetic splotches surrounded by things I don’t remember. When I think about other people’s paintings, I see a childhood filled with vibrant colors or memories, but for me all I see is that disgusting dead decaying decrepit canvas. There’s a mental distinction I have between what I think others had and what I have. Some others have strong tragic red pieces, some have soft pastel tranquil fields. I see some warm brown chaotic houses bustling with excitement and life, but in my own all I see is ash pushed together into small clumps without any form or reason. The ash in a pile could have at least said left some message to be gathered together, like maybe some commentary on the finality of things – but instead I get dirty blobs of soot without any recognizable pattern. Sometimes I will see something that will remind me of what was originally in my painting, recently it was the memory of how playing Pokemon for the first time made me feel. For the next few days I try to hold onto that picture so that I can put the colors into that gray painting in my own mind, to almost try to rewrite the memory itself. But instead that memory is fading, and the new picture goes away with it too. I guess in some way this entire blog is meant to grasp for some of those straws before they’re lost also.

I thought earlier today about what I was actually afraid of. And I don’t mean this on a superficial level, because I know that I’m afraid of things like spiders, or jumpscares. But on a more existential level, what was I afraid of. I don’t think I am afraid of death, unfortunately a nice little quirk of having suicide be a safety net for most of my life is the fact that it isn’t really something I am afraid of too much. I guess it’s almost become more of an inconvenience, as in I would prefer not to die but at the end of the day it isn’t the end of the world (haha). The thing I realized I was more afraid of was being on my deathbead, and thinking “oh my god this was it? This was all my life was?”

I guess it wouldn’t matter anymore at that point, but just death’s final triumph of saying “you lost! you got nothing!” scares me. To me this is the only real thing anyone is ever given – a chance at life. Whatever the circumstances, this is the prerequisite for everything I will ever experience. What happens if it ends and I never get a chance to do anything again. What if I had some button to just beat a game, and only after pressing it I realized how I lost every beautiful piece of world building or joy there was tucked away in the journey. What if I just skipped it all or min-maxxed my way into my grave. I’m less afraid of dying early, as that would mean I chose to do it and so there would be some semblance of reason in it for at least until the last minute or so. But if I die after some time, I run the risk of realizing I made horrible mistakes I’ll never be able to correct. I already run that regret deep in my mind – I regret my childhood, my highschool, and I guess even my college. College is close enough to me that I don’t know what I would have done differently in a meaningful way, and so I just tell myself that this was necessary to grow and learn the things I know now. But I fear that in 20 years from now I’ll have those lessons without the fresh memory of where they came from, and I’ll regret my college the same way I regret my childhood. I’m 22 now, and I don’t think that’s a horribly young age. But at the same time it is depending on who you ask. I’m afraid for once I get to the point where I am no longer young, what will I have to show for it. I never got to make shoegaze music in the basement of a house in Utah, or go on roadtrips with friends on the east coast. I never lived in other countries, and never crashed at a friends place after going too wild. Hell, I know this is naive but I never got to see the messy divorce between my parents as I try to navigate that new reality within everything else a child has to get used to. What I regret the most is I felt like I had nothing. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I grew up online, and that though gives me an answer to my question of what is my community. I didn’t grow up with a church, family, or family-friends. But I did grow up with a discord server of people from all around the world. I found out yesterday that T is 30, he’s definitely told me before but I just never remembered. I was asking him about his experiences with the military and why he wanted to do it. After that I proceeded to accidentally kill us both right as we started winning the game. We both laughed about it pretty hard.

My canvas may have faded, but I’m slowly repainting it with color, and I try to use the mounds of dried gray to give it an unique depth. After all, I love art with a meaning and what else could have greater meaning than all of my experiences and memories packed into one mental object, bursting at the seams. Thanks me for writing this down.

I didn’t end up recording or doing anything for the outer wilds review, but I did make the super quick video that I wanted to do for a bit. It took less than 5 minutes, and that was it – plus I’m no longer shadowbanned! I’m also sleeping early tonight to see how that goes, so I hopefully feel better tomorrow. I might need to check my list of how to not be depressed.