lavendertowerarchives

[lavendertowerarchives]

I fucking hate being colorblind.

I don't even know how bad it is anymore. I literally cannot tell. There is zero feedback I can use that doesn't come from another person.

My name's lavender, right? I tag, right? My little stickers that I put up around town have my name on them and some color, right?

I've been using the wrong fucking color. I've been using something much closer to purple/pink than to blue. I literally couldn't tell when I made them and printed them and slapped them all around my neighborhood. I only noticed this when I worked on my fourth iteration.

I printed out my stickers. They're bright pink. This is a difference I can comprehend. Pink is decidedly not blue. My issue was with how the color got so warped on its way to my printer (which had so many prior issues besides color that I was already pissed). I troubleshooted (troubleshot?) it.

The CMYK capabilities of the printer's color space did not have perfect analogs to the RGBA color space that my computer did. It shortcut the hex codes conversion for the colors and (i guess) truncated the amount of blue it could not "add" to the paper.

This discovery was fueled by me googling "lavender" and being met with a nice shade of, well, lavender. I apparently didn't notice how my brain equated the correct shade of blueish purple to the more magenta-ish color I'd been using. When faced with a side-by-side comparison, I was rather disappointed.

Regardless, here's the final product:

It already looks better than the third iteration, but I'm still not fully happy with it. I just needed something to print so I could have something to do while outside, as well as get a reason to go outside in the first place. I can trick myself into thinking I'm accomplishing some task while going on a normally "useless" walk. As self-aware as I am, that gives me no benefit when trying to control my mindset at any given time.

It makes sense that the color space my eyes are capable of detecting (and the color space my brain can comprehend as a result) is incomplete relative to the whole spectrum of colors, just like the subtractive color space the printer's inkjets are capable of producing has to improvise some colors. Strangely, they both miss out on different ends of the red portion of the spectrum. Oh well. Maybe now I'll be able to recognize lavender when picking out colors with no reference.

[lavendertowerarchives]

JH simply abandoned her invitation to spend halloween at her house. I should have expected as much. I don't understand how I can continue to have hope for her. She literally did not contact me whatsoever, despite her in-person enthusiasm for having me over. I haven't heard from her nor seen her since.

Her presence in my mind has slowly deteriorated. Her face is fading. I'm sad about it, sure, but the magnitude of the sorrow is negligible compared to how glad I am to no longer obsess over her. It's been two fucking years since I've met this girl. I have had no interruption in my avarice for her. Maybe now I'll have a break. This is our last year at our college anyways.

I still want her. Badly. I'm unfortunately still attracted to her, but even more devastating, she's friendly enough to make me think we're friends. She's certainly still *my* friend, but she's made it clear she has no need for me, my friendship, or anything I have to offer. I am not her friend.

It just keeps getting worse, the more I think about it: there is no world in which I do not forgive her. Contrary to my frustration, I know myself (well, I recognize patterns at least), and I know that I will drop to my fucking knees to get her to talk to me again. I've just exhausted all options over and over again.

Maybe this is permanent. Either way, I'll be happy. Either way, I'll be fucking devastated.

[lavendertowerarchives]

As much as I hate routines, I can't seem to shake the patterns so large I can't see their next repitition.

There's absolutely nothing new to report. Nothing different. There are no new struggles I haven't accidentally overcome before, no new people to meet, no new projects, and even the new games are just a reskin of old ones.

I got addicted to Skyrim. Makes sense, it's just Fallout 4 with slightly different mechanics and a different map. Everything else was shoved aside in favor of just going through the normal RPG motions of grind->fight->get quest->grind->fight ad nauseam. It's not like it's an extremely fun game, everything else in my life was just so unenjoyable that even a sliver of entertainment was worth grabbing on to. Of course, that means straight up not turning in my assignments. It means not reaching out to literally anyone, even my partner. It means barely eating, not like that's happening in the first place.

I tried streaming on twitch. Yeah, yeah, it's cliche as fuck. I was desperate for a way to meet people where I didn't have to go out and find them myself. I've already gotten ignored when I tried to reach out to new people on tumblr, though they may have just ignored me because they saw my posts and thought "hmm. not touchin that." The actual outcome of the two times I streamed were my partner popping in to support me and troubleshoot twitch and OBS. AH came the second time and told me personal stories and shit just cuz she had someone to talk to. I was glad to listen, but I had many inputs that I could not mentally straighten out: Skyrim on screen, twitch chat on my other screen, AH's voice in my ears, Skyrim in my ears, reading skyrim's dialogue... I couldn't pay attention. I'll have to work that out, but most of those have easy fixes. I might advertise my channel somewhere. Who knows how much effort I'll want to put into this shit.

I just feel like shit. All the time. I find myself incapable of "doing what I'm supposed to." Part of it's due to me routinely goofing off just to search for some semblance of happiness. Part of it is due to me fixating on the mountain of things I'm not doing, no matter what I'm currently working on. I can't work on more than one thing at a time, so there will always be something looming over my progress.

This is a recognizable cycle. First, I lose a source of happiness, then I search for something to fill it, find something to unhealthily fixate on, neglect the rest of my life, snap, reject that something for a while, and actually have energy for projects. I've tried to work on stuff to very little success, but not enough to feel proud. The cycle described has only one way in and out: people. There's been a noticeable but very small uptick in my social interactions lately. I'm working to increase it. Hopefully streaming will allow me to hang out with people and not feel guilty about taking their time from them.

The cycle will continue. I just need to prolong my current state.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I've realized why I failed my Software Architecture class last quarter, and am in danger of failing my AI and Software Ethics classes this quarter. I don't have anyone to impress.

Yeah, who could've seen it coming? I'm surprised I didn't find the answer sooner, seeing as I'm always whining about my friends being my reason to live but they don't really talk to me, so on and so forth. I certainly knew I was crashing and burning quite hard because I was more isolated now than ever before, but it never occurred to me that the problem was a specific lack of people I know in class.

I don't have anyone to learn from. I don't have anyone to teach. I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off. The social aspect of learning has been entirely erased. I don't see much of a reason to go to either of my classes, despite AI being only twice a week and Ethics being only once. Even my homework is being shoved aside, favoring literally anything else.

It's like I can't even convince my stupid fucking brain that it is worth it. I barely get any satisfaction from completing that shit any more. I know I need to do it, I know it needs to be done soon, I know it needs to be done well. I can't make my mind comply. My instincts tell me I don't need to complete it to stay alive, and that itself has never been a goal to begin with.

I'm constantly searching for dopamine. I am at a severe deficit. I am unhappy and am constantly facing problems that give no sense of accomplishment when completed. Every day starts and ends with damage control. My sheets are still on the floor, my fridge hasn't been opened in days, my trash overflows, and there are remnants of my various projects scattered around the room. The board game that's practically prototyped by now? I haven't cleaned the pieces off the floor. My MTG Cube experiment? Barely contained in its box. My partner's cosplay materials which I intend to work on for/with them? Hasn't left the bag in days. I keep telling myself "I just need a break. Just one week of break to fix this." Unfortunately, a week of fixing things is definitely not a "break." What I need is someone to help me. I can't ask for help. I barely know anyone anymore. No one besides my partner has sought me out. My partner's reason to seek me out is love, I don't doubt that, but their main reason in this past month has been because their body is failing them. They can barely stand without passing out. It's taking all of my willpower to not say "I told you so. You kept pushing yourself. You could have lessened this or even stopped it if you took breaks. Any break at all, from any of your tasks."

Meanwhile, all I do is take breaks. All I do is nothing. I can't seem to finish anything I start.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I forget a lot of things, and I forget them frequently. Even when I manage to remember, there is no guarantee the idea will be around when it's relevant.

I do not forget how I feel about people. People I like, people I love, and people I hate are constants in my life. The severity of my memory which allows them to stay fresh constantly also allows them to torment me. I can hear a name or see a face of someone I've known and my feelings will be reset to the last time I'd done so.

I am able to pick up wherever the fuck I left off with someone. The amount of time that has passed is irrelevant. Having not heard from G in six years, I would be ecstatic if she finally picked up our chat again. I haven't heard from AK or AH in a bit, but I know they're my friends and will gladly talk (or so I keep trying to remind myself). E hasn't hit me up in a long while but I know she's friendly and I know the sort of conversations she has with me.

I do not understand how someone's opinion of a person can change during an absence (outside of trivial cases such as uncovered evidence). I know it does happen, and I know there are reasons for it, I just never have been exposed to these reasons. The moment a friend leaves my presence, a snapshot of them is automatically preserved in my mind for the next time their presence is refreshed and their attention is once more.

This is not to say that my opinion is not analyzed in their absence. I routinely, unfortunately, and uncontrollably revisit my past interactions with them and imagine future ones (it's a major pain, if I'm gonna write fiction, I don't fucking want to "write" about real people but I can't get my mind to ignore it). Whatever the verdict of my musings becomes, I automatically feel the same about the person. Even in drastic cases such as concluding that they do not like me(which happens over and over again), I am steadfast in my admiration of their presence and craving of their attention.

I miss everyone. That's not gonna change.

[lavendertowerarchives]

This is a concept I've explored before, both with myself and friends. I don't know if I've talked about it here or not. It pains me to look at my old posts.

I need to not trust myself, ever. This much is obvious, and is proven to me every day. To the point of this post, I need to not trust myself when I believe that I will be boring when I hang out with a friend. I panic when thinking of what to say to people, believing that I just don't know what to say. This has not happened in over seven years, maybe eight.

The problem is that my end goal is that of "being with someone." I never really plan for anything beyond "talking." I think to myself, "do I take them somewhere? Are they expecting me to eat with them? What video games do they like? Do they like video games? What do we talk about?" Fuck all of that. I care about them, and will likely be genuinely interested in whatever the fuck they say in response to "how's it goin." I haven't had to feign interest for anyone. I am interested. That's just how I am. I like my friends, and will gladly listen to their stories, even if they've told them before.

Of course, I remember none of this when panicking and hyperfixating on what they want from me. I will give them whatever they want just to keep them near me. I will jump through any hoop they throw at me just to keep them talking to me. I will do whatever the fuck they ask or demand of me. The "problem" is, they ask for nothing, tell me nothing, and need nothing. I'm just their friend, and they're my entire reason to live for as long as my ears hear their words or my eyes read their texts. There's a reason I never reveal exactly how much someone means to me: I don't want to scare them with how much of a responsibility they might have. It will be no one's fault when I Leave. I don't want anyone thinking that the seconds they spend not responding to me are seconds I spend sharpening my razors and tying my nooses. I'm doing that all the time, regardless, and they're a brief respite. They're not my babysitter. I know that that's how I feel towards my partner, who has confided in me that they also want to Leave, and I know how I react. I can never let them know how fucking close I am, every day.

This becomes harder to clarify when I know people through these accounts (who may read this). I am no one's charity case. I am no one's helpless child. I can totally spin my narrative any way I want, whether it's "Please help me, please respond, I'm so close" or "Your response, and your time, are yours. Do not give them unwillingly or rashly. I will have the same problems regardless."

[lavendertowerarchives]

Please, allow me to complain. I want to complain about the same shit I always complain about, concerning the same person I always complain about, in the same state I always find myself in.

I saw JH like a week ago, right? Had fun for like an hour talking to her about the game I'm making (95% done, prototype is built), and she seemed interested. She invited me and my partner to her place for halloween. I don't have confirmation on whether the plan has come through or not.

I need this shit, man. I need someone to talk to at length. I need someone to keep me from being with myself, and I need validation from JH specifically because I'm a fucking parasite with a borderline parasocial relationship with her. Yes, I'm fucking sick of it. If I had any control over it, this obsession would be one of the first things I yeet out of my overrun brain.

It's wednesday now, man. It's thursday tomorrow. I need her to respond. I'm hanging by a thread. This is not an exaggeration. I have no one to exaggerate to. This is just a marker in time for the fact that I tried for an hour today to physically research ways to stop my own damned heart. I need out.

[lavendertowerarchives]

"Today" has been a shitshow, starting with the reason I put "today" in quotes.

On monday, I got home after celebrating my 5 year anniversary with my partner (wahoo) (I love them), sprinted to class, and proceeded to not pay attention for enough time. It's not entirely relevant but I still hate AI class. It's boring AF. After the class, I played skyrim for about eight hours straight. I got it to play alongside my partner a couple days ago (we take turns on separate save files, we're both bad in different ways) and have become rather enthralled, despite my dislike of it.

I got out of class at six. I played for eight hours. I did not sleep that night, nor did I ever intend to. I was going to put more effort into the programming assignment that was expected of me. I have not touched the damn thing, and it's due in fifteen minutes. I gave up trying to start it. I just couldn't get myself to start. It's the same paralysis I try to explain every time I get depressed. It was ruining my day, night, and day again, knowing that I just... didn't know how to go about it. I genuinely want out of both of my classes. Going back for my Master's was a fucken mistake, and I only chose to in order to avoid getting a job.

Back to the night. I don't really remember what I did after I stopped playing skyrim at like three in the morning, but I do know I finally reclaimed a friendship (yippee). Life ain't hopeless, I just ran out of places to look. Thankfully, someone else came bearing gifts from out of my FOV. I tried reaching out twice to others in the past month, but I can't blame them for not responding. Maybe they don't like randos, maybe they don't like my vibe, maybe they see that I wear my self-destructive tendencies on my sleeve and deem a friendship with me unsustainable. Idfk, they never told me why they never responded. Oh well.

As I progressed my extended day, doing random shit and letting my increasingly dangerous memory loss run my life, I could not stop stressing about whatever shit I had to do. That prevented me from actually completing any other tasks, including feeding myself for most of the day, though I got around to that eventually. I just want out of my responsibilities. They don't stop. I'm pissed at my inability to handle them. I have so many miniscule tasks to complete and my pleasure-oriented brain consistently convinces me that they just aren't worth doing. I can barely think straight as I am now. I can't help but ramble in this post because I can't string more than two thoughts together at the same time.

The sun rose. I started seein shit a little more often than normal (just small stuff out of the corner of my eye. Nothing serious, nothing out of the ordinary). I became noticeably tired in a short time frame. As I napped at ten, I began to hyperventilate without noticing it, with it coming to my attention after I felt two breaths in one second and thinking "wait hold on, that shit ain't right." Turns out, my panic was more pronounced than I admitted. I overcorrected in my effort to calm my breath: I found myself unable to breathe for extended periods. Not to the point of asphyxiation, but it increased my heart rate nonetheless. The control I exerted was completely miscalculated. Unfortunately, I ended up sleeping, erasing the issue.

After I woke, nothing happened. I just couldn't start anything, finish anything, or want anything besides taking my Leave. This was the most concentrated my urge has been since the end of spring quarter. Shit was bad, man. I'll leave out details, but I had experimented for about an hour and had come up unsuccessful. My attempts were halfhearted, crippled only by the fear of getting caught due to failure. I needed to commit, but my options are still severely limited.

I'm cold, but I have a heater and sheets. I'm lonely, but I have friends and their numbers (even if most of them don't respond quickly or ever). I'm hungry, but I have a fridge of food.

I just don't have the energy to get more energy. I just want out. I want to be fucking gone. Until then, I guess I'll just keep accidentally and uncaringly fucking my future.

[lavendertowerarchives]

i want out

[lavendertowerarchives]

The most powerful social tool I have is the ability to "Do a bit." I am consistently surprised by other people's inability or unwillingness to do the same.

By "do a bit" I mean take a story and run with it. Maybe improvise another path to take it. The fake reality we've constructed with maybe a couple sentences had started with only an offhand sarcastic comment. It'll end that way, too, and we'll both get what we wanted eventually.

It's hard to actually pin down what I mean. I can't think of any concrete examples. I just know it's the feeling of sarcasm vs sarcasm, cancelling eachother out, forcing the conversation into a parallel reality where nothing you've said can actually be disproven quite yet. It's still clearly false.

Perhaps a friend will note how far above ground we are. Perhaps they will nonchalantly voice a concern: "Yo, we're pretty high. One slip equals one falling human." I, in turn, will instinctually invite them along for the ride: "And you'll land upside down with your head in the ground." And so, the Bit has been established. A (subjectively) funny mental image, with a clear cause and an unreasonable outcome.

There can be many responses to this, but I will include those most unique in their effect:

"No... you'd... break your legs." It's an understandable response, bringing the conversation back to reality, where the joke is no longer funny. The downside of this is that the conversation is over. I can not converse any further without completely switching tracks. I don't want to argue that it is funny, since it clearly isn't to the other person.

"Hah!" Okay, cool. My "joke" landed. What else? I don't know, I don't have anything to work off of. The conversation ends here, too. I'm not going back for round two if my victory wasn't worth a rematch.

"..." Silence is unhelpful. This just spikes my adrenaline. What did I do wrong? How do you react? Should I never do this again? Have I offended/disgusted/pushed you away? My massive dose of rejection sensitivity is to blame, but so is the other person. Like cmon, give me something to work with here.

"Well, then, are you up for a game of darts?" Perfection. This is what I'm after. Any sort of subversion of the narrative I've presented, while still staying within the narrative. It could be any response. It could be any perversion of the fucked-up scenario I just gave. I'll probably find it funny. If I don't? Well, I'll just fire right back anyways.

None of this is to prescribe a response to anything I try to spark. If someone didn't find my stupid joke funny, then oh well. I'll aim better next time for both of our sakes. If you didn't recognize it as a joke, then oh well. I'll be more tame in my attempts at humor. All I want is a laugh, and if I don't get it, the blame falls solely on me.

All I'm doing is airing frustrations at my inability to connect with people outside of my frigid and stilted attempts. Usually, once I've gotten past the hurdle of actually talking to them, connection on further levels is a side goal, but it's still a goal. That shit can't be forced or planned.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I'm tired of eating. It's getting really fucking annoying. It wasn't fun in the first place.

I mean it. I've never particularly enjoyed the feeling of just... setting aside time to take care of my body. It's always felt unwelcome. Eating is just a more tangible aspect of it. Every time I feel hungry, I have to fix it. Every time I have to piss, I fix it. Every time I feel sad, cold, warm, tired, stressed, I have to fix it. It's just going to bother me until either it or I go away. Usually, the solutions are simple: put on more/less clothes, piss/drink, distract myself. For hunger, however, it's tedious as fuck.

I have to get food. Making food is fine if I'm not stressed, but if I am, that plan cannot be executed. There's just too many steps. Assuming that case is covered, I could get food from a restaurant (usually from my college dining hall). That's an expedition in itself. No matter the severity, I have to stop everything I'm doing and just go. I hate it. I was either in the zone or stressing about how I'm not in the zone. I just want to sit in one place.

I don't know if it's a genuine eating disorder I've found in myself or not. I honestly don't give a shit. I'm not getting diagnosed any time soon since that risks revealing other shit about me, most of which will get me locked up in some hospital with paper spoons and no bathroom doors. There's too much at stake to try to fix something like this. I wish I could just reinstall my NG tube I had forever ago. That made things simple.

[lavendertowerarchives]

TW SH

Dude. I fucking relapsed again. It's getting tiresome.

My head gets loud every morning and does not shut up until I am fully unconscious the next night. Sometimes I can influence the thoughts. Usually the thoughts influence me. There's always some point of pain or some grievance I have or stressful deadline to meet, and that doesn't leave my head. I can't get rid of either the source or the symptom. Distractions only go so far.

SH works, though. If that point of pain is external, I have something to concentrate on that is explicitly not internal. Every five seconds, instead of thinking "___ hasn't responded" or "this assignment is due tonight" or "do I shower or eat or walk or go to class first," my attention is directed to the needle in my arm. My attention stays outside of my body and is forced to remain on what I look at.

If the object of my surveillance is internal, there's so much to get distracted by. Sure, there's a lot of shit on my computer or desk in front of me, but there are several orders of magnitude more painful things inside my brain. I'm sick of having no control over how often I pine away for JH or stress about my next assignment or malign my nonexistent social skills.

I'm too paranoid to actually damage my skin. The urge to look inside is large, but not larger than my fear of being found out by my partner, who is almost two years clean. I will not reveal this to them. I am a selfish hypocrite and the fact that I know this helps nothing. I finally understand the benefits of harming oneself. I will deprive them of that because I do not trust them to use it for anything beneficial. I don't leave scars. I don't leave bruises. I don't leave any mark. I've checked consistently, and each time, I can hardly tell where I've done it. It works wonders.

I'm fully level-headed in my decision to puncture myself. Despite me spiraling almost every day now, the fits of feeling lost in my own imagination never have led to any actual harm. It's a technique used for progress, not escape. I'm surprised at my willpower when I'm crashing, but I do fully expect some sort of paralysis. I'm always in a state of analysis paralysis.

When my mind is louder than normal, it is cumbersome. That's not the dangerous state. The state which pushes me over the edge is that of an empty mind. A mind so full of brainrot and pleasure-seeking and ADHD inaction and executive dysfunction that it can't even bootload a single .exe to start a train of thought. All the context switching from initiating different ideas takes up the actual processing power. I'm stuck "thinking" of two assignments, six MTG decks, three friends, one partner, three plans, two posts, one horniness, four games, and two unread messages. Nothing gets done. I'm considering doing it again tonight to get me to write the script for this damned presentation but I don't think I want to keep my sleep schedule as fucked as it is. I need progress but I also need sleep but I also need food.

None of this is counting the dubious levels of self-harm I engage in every day without consideration. I've never cared for my body, and eating only two meals a day, not looking when crossing the street, staying awake for hours, etc., is just normal to me. Yes, ideally, I'd get a handle on this. First, though, I'd have to get a handle on the rest of this fucked up life. I want out.

[lavendertowerarchives]

i think its hilarious how much of a hold FORTRAN still has on coding today. like yeah some legacy systems are never updated cuz IT support is "unaffordable" or some shit but thats not what i mean.

a lot of interfaces and standardizations are based off having backwards compatibility, and were created when FORTRAN was aging out, so C and C++ were polite as fuck and said "yknow what we'll play by your rules for a lil"

so now C style languages are the standard for lower-level languages and FORTRAN and Pascal and BASIC and shit are dead but MPI still fucks everything up by pretending people still use it on old systems. like i know its just an interface but hell let me not pass by reference for once. c std lib? pass by reference. MPI? pass by reference. pthread library? pass by my middle finger on the way to your reference. FORTRAN is dead and buried but we still play by its rules because it couldnt fucking return a value. eat my entire ass please

[lavendertowerarchives]

JH finally didn't cancel today. I talked with her for like an hour on the couch downstairs. Yes, she was cute as always, but that's not what mattered. For the day, she was just my friend. I want to keep that. I want to preserve the lack of a feeling of hunger. I wasn't trying to find a way to get anything more; I had what I intended to get.

I need this feeling to stay. I need my mind to not look for "what could have happened if I played my cards right." I already won.

[lavendertowerarchives]

Went to a job fair with A today. It was, uh, useless. She had to go because of an assignment, I went because she asked me to. Nervousness and all that.

It was marketed as an "Engineering" gig. It was not software engineering, as we were led to believe. It was almost exclusively civil engineering. Even if I wanted to work at any of these 40-ish companies crammed into a single ballroom, I would not be anywhere near qualified. Nevertheless, we tried to find anywhere that would need IT specialists at the very least. We found two.

Speaking (mostly listening) to the recruiters made me realize just how abysmally underprepared I was. Their first questions were always "have you checked the job listings on our site?" No. No the fuck I have not. I came here on a whim. One woman we talked to didn't even know what positions were available, citing her own position of HR for her lack of knowledge. IDK why she's here. Maybe she was dragged along too.

I need a job. I need some source of income. I need some experience in the field. It's gonna take quite a lot of willpower to get myself there, though. My lack of planning for my future is constantly kicking me in the ass, making me want to plan even less.

I don't even know how to tell the recruiters "I want to do the grunt work" or "Don't make me manage people" or "I got c++, python, java, c#, f#, etc... put me to work, please." I wish I could just do commission work like an artist would. One piece, one payment, one deadline. One set of specs, one deliverable, zero crashes. Oh well.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I feel like I need to fully explain my involuntary separation from my physical body. Parts of this will have been explained in other posts. Parts of this will be new even to me. I realized I just never really clarified how I barely even feel like a brain piloting a bone mech in meat armor and flesh decals.

It's basically just that. I don't feel connected to my body. The nuances and use/misuse of this are still being explored by me.

As I've said previously, I become quickly and robustly familiar with different characters in different games. I easily slot into their moveset, their stats, their appearance, telegraphs, and framedata, as easy as a cab driver slots into first gear. When I play games, there is no decision making on "how should I hit high, or low" or "hmmm I need to get from point A to point B, which moves will get me there fastest" because I already know. I don't have to think "I'll hit b for a heavy punch, angle the stick 30 degrees up for a tilt, and pull back for a confirm." That process is just like cracking my knuckles. It's just what I do when my opponent is barely above me and telegraphing an aerial attack. It's just what I do when I have discomfort in my fingers and two free hands.

Part of this is because I don't learn as a player, I learn as a character. Someone who is decidedly not me, since I already am not myself. I don't have to make a transition into the character because I was never transitioned into myself. This consciousness is eager to be given a set of controls, and the one I have for my body is chunky, ill-calibrated, and not very fun. I'd rather play Medicham in PKMNCC or Lil Mac in SSBU. I can actually move around quick as those guys. It takes barely 10 minutes in any given game to familiarize myself with a character's kit. I know that's not an uncommon feat, but the kicker is that the knowledge never leaves me. I still know how to play Brawl Olimar despite my playtime in hours being below three.

The second integral piece of technology I have for just... not being me is muscle memory. It is the only memory I can rely on. It's the reason I can type (it's just another controller, just another character), the reason I can remember passwords (I don't really remember how they're spelled, only how they feel) and the reason I still feel confident in my ability to play viola and violin. The internal keybinds I've associated with a mental dictionary with O(1) lookup time are permanent. I do not forget muscle memory. It's my fascination with this which has allowed me to be nimble and agile despite my utter alienation from my limbs. If I want to do the Charleston, I just... do the Charleston. It's always there. I can't dance. I can regurgitate physical steps, though. It took like thirty minutes, but that's a skill I've had for about seven years now.

There's often a static between my conscious efforts and my physical reactions. Logically, I know what my arms are full of: muscle and bone and blood and stuff. Mentally, it just feels like a load of mush until I touch it.

None of this is helped by the fact that I will often find my body in positions I don't remember putting it in. I'll realize my wrists hurt in bed because my sleeping position is fucked, I'll remember my legs are moving rapidly (bouncing, swaying, kicking) and then remember I didn't do that on purpose. I must always be in motion or else be very very uncomfortable. I lack the eloquence to describe further. Just know, I cannot be comfortable unless part of me is moving. As a brief aside, this makes insomnia soooo much worse.

Physical sensations are one thing. Stimuli of varying natures are a completely different problem. I've said before I can't trust my mind to accurately report what it thinks or remembers; the same is true of my eyes, skin, ears, hell, even my tongue and nose aren't reliable.

My eyes will often ignore things. I don't mean as in they skip over items, I mean I will be actively searching for something that I know the exact image and location of, and will frequently just not see it. If there are too many things in my vision, the internal object culling script in my head will activate. I can be told to "scan the QR code" in front of me and straight up not see it until someone points it out to me. One would think a QR code is obvious. One would also think JH still likes me, but One can be a gigantic biased lovesick desperate dumbass more often than not.

My ears are very sensitive. They can pick out singular instruments in songs with more than seven different players, take that segment, and compare it to the melody two octaves and six measures away... and that's the problem. They're too good at isolating things. If I'm listening for something intermittent, it takes a noticeable amount of time to be able to pick up on it. If the sound is continuous, I've already heard it. If it hasn't happened yet, I can't attune my brain to detect it. I don't trust my eardrums to report accurately what they hear when they hear it. Coupled with the fact that my brain literally never shuts up and always has music playing and constantly sparks new disturbing discoveries if left unchecked for two seconds... I hallucinate audio rather frequently. It's incessant. The music never quiets. The songs never end. I can hardly switch tracks without blasting actual music through my earbuds.

My skin is not nice. It just feels too much. The same issue I have with visual object culling during rendering applies for physical touch, too. If something isn't moving along my skin, it will be forgotten. I will forget I'm in the warm embrace of my partner simply because they're asleep and not actively moving their hands/arms/head/abdomen/etc. At the same time, the culling ensures that I can only realistically feel one thing at once. Two sources of pain are almost impossible to recreate. (Un)Fortunately, I am literally incapable of remembering pain. I simply do not. I do not have any understanding of severity, location, type, or mental trauma regarding it. This might be because of my Wilm's Tumor treatment when I was 8, but I don't know. It only fuels my slight addiction and serious inclination to damage my own body for pleasure. It's not fun.

My tongue and nose mostly function with the help of my eyes. I tend not to taste things unless I know what they are. It just takes a while for my smell/taste to come to their own conclusions so my mind fills in the blanks most of the time.

That's pretty much it. I just don't feel a connection to my body. I feel trapped. It's not like I'd enjoy any other body much more, but I certainly don't fuckin like this one. I can't trust it. It does shit all the time and I don't know how to keep it in check. It keeps getting hungry, needing to piss, needing sex (or to be fooled into thinking it has it), not sleeping, needing sleep, vibrating... I'm sick of it. It's just a fucking burden. I don't want to have to eat or sleep or fuck or kiss or move or piss or any of that. Oh well. It's not like I can fix it without getting rid of it (hehehe).

[lavendertowerarchives]

Am I plural? Am I poly? How many is enough, how many is too many? How may I ignore my biases and social constraints so that I may gain any amount of insight into either?

Hell if I know, man. To begin, I want to clarify, I am highly doubtful that I am plural. I am highly confident that I am polyamorous. I've just been kicking both ideas around in my head for a nonzero amount of days and they've been getting on my fucking nerves with how repetitive the thought strains are.

As for plurality, it's one of the more persistent nagging doubts in the realm of "do I have this certain mental wackness." Seeing as I own a computer with internet access, it makes sense that I would come into contact with the concept of DID and multiple personalities in general, sometimes reading stories of those who have been diagnosed with/found out about/suspect they have something of the sort.

In my first engagement with the idea (because I almost always run through the checklist of "do I have this" for every condition I see), my response was no. Of course not. I think I'd know if I had two+ personalities. Later, in my second consideration, I noticed that yeah, my memory loss problem is really... a problem. More than a character trait. Now, many conditions involve memory loss (especially ADHD, which is a major pain in my ass every day), but upon closer inspection, more of the (admittedly common) symptoms lined up.

Given my intimate relationship with depression, anxiety, (frequent risk of) substance abuse, memory loss, and su1c1d@l tendencies, I'm sure there's something amiss. This is just the main package for anyone neurodivergent these days. This served as validation for my theoretical exploration of self-diagnosis (I want to reiterate, I really don't think I have it, but detailing my search and process will help me stop fucking thinking about it).

I've known for a while how I change when I'm around people vs alone. I won't describe every single emotional switch, but I will note how I'm generically happier, more optimistic, less foggy in the brain, more inclined to create, mostly not rejection sensitive, and less stressed by conventionally unstressful things when not alone. As for the other half... It's just that shit in reverse. I sit. I do nothing. I barely eat. I don't talk. I hate myself and work out ways to reliably end myself. That shit sucks, man.

The black and white nature of the switch made me reluctant in previous years to analyze exactly what made the change. In my mind, it was clear: I'm just not depressed when I have people with me (bar some exceptions). Now that I'm coming at it from another angle, I can see the polarizations which occur outside the "good/bad" binary.

I routinely get mad at myself. This, alone, isn't much cause for concern. However, knowing me, it is insanely difficult for me to get mad at another... thing. It takes a lot of "clearly" "unfair" punishment done explicitly to me to make me hate something, and it has to be done in such a way as to not become perverse sadism instead (to be dissected later). Anger is just not something I understand as an emotion, partially because it's just never... out. I hate myself a lot, yes, but it comes out more as disappointment in my inability to do normal tasks.

I can't feed myself today? Oh well. I'll just starve.

I forgot JH's birthday? Damn, my memory is awful.

I missed the third clutch button press in Celeste for the thirtieth time in a row? Well, resets take four seconds. I'm making progress.

When the switch is hit, and the personality shifts, the above reactions are replaced with "you fucken asshole. You dipshit. Fuck you, Lavender, you can't do shit without breaking down." This is a complete switch. I seem to be the only thing I can get truly mad at. Everything else is just learning. Again, this is only when that specific trigger is hit, when I'm alone for too long, and I have no contact with people.

Lastly, I just can't see myself as part of myself. I know that sounds silly, but I don't have the correct terminology to describe a permanent feeling of disassociation without actually disassociating. My limbs don't feel like my own. There is a continuous static between "Lavender, move your arms" and the arms moving. My muscle memory is my single greatest and most reliable trait I have, and it's my fascination with encoding movements to a single reflex that has kept me in decent shape for so long. Yeah, I know my mind is connected to the flesh I see in front of me and vice versa. It just never feels like it.

The only time I can distract myself from this piloting sensation is when that switch isn't hit. It's part of the reason I'm so good (read: decent) at video games. I can play any given character in SSBU for ten minutes and memorize their whole kit. I never transition "into" the character because I never transitioned out of myself. So what if another bitch hitched a ride in my head? I wouldn't know, I say I would know how to switch if I really did have two people living in my head, but I never really tried now, did I? When playing games, the transition is physical, discrete, and automatic. I just pick up the controller or put my hands on the keyboard. I wouldn't know if there was such a trigger for changing personalities.

All of this is evidence for me being plural, having more than one fucker in this skull, having two personalities, etc. It doesn't convince me. I don't think it's plausible. I'm sure I'd feel much different than I currently do if it was the case. Then again, how would "I" know? I already can't easily remember things which aren't right the fuck in front of me.

As for the polyamorous conviction, I've taken much more time to deliberate. I believe I am. I believe I can love multiple people at once with no interference between them. It took me a while to realize that I'd been doing it my whole life. Society's focus on monogamy and singular, permanent relationships has screwed over my discovery's pace and consequences.

I crush on so many people. It used to be horrid in high school. Any cute chick who gave me more than five minutes of her time was instantly in my head every hour of the day. To be clear, I thought most girls were cute/pretty/hot/sexy/whatever in high school; it didn't take much looking at a female form for me to find something I liked. I haven't really changed much. I don't like being attracted to so many people against my will, but oh well. Can't really stop that.

Regardless, the linchpin in this conundrum was that each new addition to my roster of infatuations did not impact the rest of the list (outside very few complications). I didn't have a ranking system. I didn't have a system outside of "I like this one most. Wait, but I also really like this one." I felt awful at the time (still do) about making contingency plans for each romantic endeavor, telling myself "Oh, well if girl A doesn't work out, I've got girl J on my radar still."

Fast forwarding to today, I have since admitted to myself that I had generated (without my consent) numerous genuine crushes on people during the time I've been with my partner, each one never causing my love for them to waver. I'm not saying it didn't, but I am saying it was never because of another person's hold on me. It will happen again. It's happening right the fuck now. I cannot get JH out of my head. Idk if I really "love" her or not but I guarantee she is much more than just a friend to me, even if she hasn't responded to me in days. I fucking hate it. Why can't I just leave her behind? Why do I obsess over her?

Self-loathing aside, I simply just... do love multiple people, and am more than capable of it. I will never get enough love, and I will never run dry of my own supply for others. I've ran out of patience for others' company. I've never stopped loving someone for any reason other than them literally forcefully abandoning me, and even then, that's got a shoddy hit rate.

So, why have I combined these two opposite conundrums of outward love and inward hatred? I can't be sure of either of them. My own internal biases keep me from confirming either. No one wants to get close to me, so I can't pursue anyone romantically. I want to regale you, the poor reader I'm probably keeping hostage, with tales of the literal hours a night I pine away for a chance to get closer to someone. I need it. I need it more than anything. I can't even start to think of it or else risk ruining my night simply because it's such an overwhelming hunger I have. I can't try to explore the depths because once I realize how hungry I am, I can't live with the fact that there's so much food for everyone else and I'm just... starving. No one wants to love me except my partner. It's not nothing. It's amazing. It's delicious food. I'm just still hungrier than every single friend I have, combined. That, I will stake my life on.

Contrasting this to the persona I desperately want to separate from my own, I can't say that it's a real separation I can make. I hate him. I keep referring to myself in the third person simply because I don't want to be associated with him. I don't want to be associated with me. I want out. Out of life, out of my body, out of my mind, out of this fucking house. This fucking life I'm "living" is garbage and I instinctually blame myself. I want to drag the fucked up mess of parts out from my own self and make it into a strawman scapegoat for me to slit the wrists of and choke with my own bare hands. I can't do it to myself, after all. Not because of a lack of willpower; I am fully committed. I just need a guarantee I won't get caught alive.

It's pure emotion. Both problems, both diagnoses, are only theoretical and not real because I do not have the mental capacity and emotional strength to withstand my own needs.