lavendertowerarchives

[lavendertowerarchives]

I'm honestly worried about who's stalking me. Who sees what I post (on this account or my main), who knows where I am, who looks at my silly discord statuses, who keeps tabs on my responses and their timings...

I'm not worried about someone stalking me. I'm worried about someone not "stalking" me. I use "stalking" lightly since I don't seriously consider "looking at a friend's posts/status" to be stalking. More specifically, I mean I worry about who exactly sees what I write.

I feel like I'm constantly on display when I'm online. I understand that everyone, everywhere, has a slim chance to notice what I'm doing. Anyone I've ever friended on discord can see my stupid little joke statuses. I unfortunately enjoy being displayed like this; I get a chance to look the way I want. Instead of some atrophied meatbag with cloth on it, I can look however I want. How people see me is their deal, but how I show myself off is mine.

It follows that I don't really care if someone does see a weird little thing I made, or an oblique reference to them specifically. Obscurity is not a form of security. My issue is when they may not see what I did. Anything I post I intend for every single follower to see, read, and understand. This is not feasible. This is not probable, nor is it even remotely friendly to ask someone to read everything I write. It still stings me to know that they may not look at the shit I do. There are some very pointed references to people in my posts, here or on my main, and I hope they notice or at least care.

Inversely, I hope the people reading whatever I write don't think I'm being passive aggressive. I really fucking hope that nobody thinks "oh, this is about me." Of course, it's rather conceited to believe that people read this shit and immediately think "oh he's talking to me," but oh well.

If I mention "oh man, I really wish I had someone to talk to right now" or "none of my friends like me" or "nobody ever hits me up," that shit's just a fact of life. I blame nobody for not reaching out to me, or not responding on the few occasions I reach out. I don't intend to shame, mention, accuse, or refer to anyone. More often than not, I'm just depressed and my brain is yelling stupid shit at me, causing me to genuinely believe that nobody talks to me. I need to learn to never trust myself.

The irony here is that I made this entire blog as a way to post shit like that without anyone seeing it. Now that I've engaged with people here, I risk them reading my posts (a revolutionary idea: followers see posts), therefore risking them thinking I'm talking about them... I can't straighten my mind out enough to elaborate. I just complain a lot. I miss everyone the moment they stop talking to me, the moment they take more than two minutes to respond, the moment they whip out their phone to respond to someone else... Yeah, no, I just get attached too easily.

The worst part is that sometimes a person will remind me of a Thing by doing something (whether it's nice, weird, thought-provoking, or sends me spiraling), and that Thing is the only real reference I have. In a way, yes, I am talking about them. More accurately, I'm talking about a pattern I observed recently.

All of this can be avoided with a little trust in the average friend. A little bit of trust that they can use proper judgement (which I can't, so I dunno how that'd look), or not see/read my posts (understandable), or to tell me directly that they noticed an issue (which I also severely struggle with). I pinball between not caring and caring very deeply. Oh well, I'm not changing how I post.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I'm stuck, dude. I don't know what to do.

That's a very, very vague statement. It doesn't communicate much except my lethargy and mental block. Stuck, in what way? What don't I know, in what scenario? I wish I had a way to easily describe the sort of impeded mental state I've found, but unfortunately, "I'm stuck" is about all I can use.

More specifically (indulging in that meandering, anecdotal way I usually use), the way my mind sees "health, happiness, and feeling good" is "progress," of which I have none. I am constantly reminded of how many things I Have To Do by simply existing. The priority and severity of these tasks spans quite the spectrum (believe me, I'm no stranger to spectrums), and unfortunately the innate urgency has no real meaning to my unorganized brain.

Within this massive pile of reminders lies things that I do for pleasure (write prose, poems, or programs), life (groceries, cooking, cleaning), school (damned group projects), and my social life (who should I message, how, and when). I need all of them to be done. This freaks my brain out. I can't figure out which one to start first. They all yell at me in a chorus of "pick me," somehow all at the same volume. So I sit, trying to untangle this damned mess.

Meanwhile, I feel like shit because I'm not doing anything. More importantly, I don't have any way to measure my progress. A concrete measure is very necessary to keep the days from melting into eachother, which is something I've been struggling with lately. Every day seems the same when I don't finish a damned thing. I have no innate self-worth (nothing special, just a stock case of self-deprecation) so I have to measure it by either social value (none) or personal pride (very little), the latter of which I can only increase by creating things. The former... I've seen how my friends value me. They don't talk to me if I don't talk to them first.

And so, in my paralysis, I've landed here. Complaining as usual, to the only person who will listen: me. I can't fucking stand hearing myself, but that fucker is all I have with me right now. I can measure my progress here, at least. Hey, I did something. I posted again.

I still have to:

Write tests for my Mobile Dev class, Tell my teammates to add me to the Github, Tell them no, I'm not nearly done yet, Write the rest of that damn story, Write the rest of that other story I started months prior, Eat (ew), Cook (ugh), Buy groceries (bleaugh), Talk to someone (social anxiety doesn't get much better online), Find playtesters for my prototypes, Vacuum, Look for a job, Email someone about my academic probation, Email some professors about summer research, I don't even know what else I have to do. I know there's more. I don't want to find out what else.

[lavendertowerarchives]

There are quite a few buttons, dials, and switches in my mind. I can't reach any of them. They exist only to be tweaked by others, not knowing what they're doing to me. Either that or I just stare at them, wondering what I'd do if I had any control.

The control that others have over me is astounding. It takes very little for someone to completely obliterate the mire I've been wading through simply by talking. I am capable of full 180 degree turns, giving me emotional whiplash so strong I can't remember why I was even depressed in the first place. The lack of memory is a genuine problem: I, too, can't recall what had me googling "wrist anatomy, specifically veins."

It's this alienation from my previous self that prevents me from actually understanding what went wrong. Case in point, I had some (group) project assigned over the weekend, I was told "write some tests, get 30% code coverage." My deadline was tomorrow night. As far as I remember, I was drowning in the sheer stress of having so much to do in such a short timeframe. Barely three hours ago, My prof told the whole class "yknow what. the deadline's friday. good luck." Over the course of the next five seconds, my stress vanished, replacing itself with an actual problem-solving mood, complete with the confidence to ask the prof after class about an issue I had. Where the fuck did that come from? Where the fuck did my previous depression go?

I can't explain to people how sharp these "turns" are. I can't communicate why I thought what I thought yesterday, and I especially can't rationalize it to myself. I lack the tools to frame it better, as well: "yesterday I wanted to fkn die because I had two concurrent assignments. Today I have three and I feel relaxed enough to play games, draw, and write" is as verbose as it gets.

Worst of all, I refuse to tell anyone I know IRL about how "bad" it gets, so the few records I do keep (namely, this entire blog) will never reach their ears. I will not risk getting committed to some hospital. I've seen how much "help" they give. Either I get over it or it doubles down and starts again.

Oh well. That's all I got: "oh well." I can't do shit about it, I've tried, but I can't remember what does, doesn't, or might work. The only constant is "other people help more than I'll ever understand."

i want to exist beyond just this vicious unforgiving cycle of happiness, something happens, and suddenly i want to fold into myself and curl up in a ball and die. and all that feeling can do is linger and pool in my stomach until it eventually bursts out of me in some form. im so tired. i am so incredibly tired of living like this and its so hard. i dont expect anyone to understand and i dont expect anyone to make me feel better because theres nothing anyone can do, which is one of the most heart wrenching truths ive had to accept about my mental health.

what sucks is that when im in therapy im usually completely fine and cant recall how earth shattering my breakdowns feel even if they've happened not very long ago. so i cant get help or advice. i might need to read this directly to her to convey how i feel because i cant properly explain it during sessions.

im just so tired of feeling like im suck in this endless cycle, i feel like a snake eating its own tail (ouroboros 🤓).

just feeling all of this has completely exhausted me but i know i cant sleep until this feeling subsides and i fear it wont. i am in hell. i just want this to be over.

[lavendertowerarchives]

It solves me, it’s hard to be drunk and dramatic

My head’s simply wetter, lethargic, erratic

Without it, the withdrawal is hot and sporadic

If I knew better I'd call me an addict

No longer will doubt be a plague on my mind

The bars are warped off of this cage I’ve designed

quick to drink liters, Not slow to abuse

Stuck with the title of being my muse

I guzzled six shots, I started my seventh

The taste was straight shit, my head was so pleasant

ASD, GAD, All had been banished

Consequence, common sense, just fucking vanished

Hung-over. Sick. Just starting to suffer.

The memories return, in the bed of another.

March twenty-seventh is when I’d discover

That this? was not fucking cool with my lover.

The influence I’m under has to be liquor

My mind is clear, the world appears thicker

My thoughts, unfiltered, spill onto the page

It owns this world, I’ll dance on its stage

Worst of all? I need it. E-ve-ry day.

I’ll take out the loans I’ll never repay.

To live one more day, I’ve super-computed:

Still, I must drown in its Stupor of Stupid.

The symptoms you give me are nigh automatic

My head’s loud as ever, it’s just you and static

Without her, the withdrawal is sharp and sporadic

If I knew better I'd call me an addict

She’s been in my room, she’s been in my thoughts

The ratio between them is One to, well, “lots”

Between you and water? Girl, don't make me choose

Stuck with the title of being my muse

We’d just finished cuddling, she left me despondent

I text her “ur pretty.” She fucking responded.

The heart in my chest was quick to be brandished

Consequence, common sense, just fucking vanished

I wake up. I panic, on damage control.

I read back the texts fucking baring my soul.

March twenty-seventh is when I’d discover

That this? was not fucking cool with my lover.

“She hates me,” “She loved me,” no, neither’s correct

“What could I do different?” -Have some self-respect

Lost in the prospects I didn’t engage

She owns this world, I’ll dance on her stage

Worst of all? I still can’t make myself hate her.

I might have a crush on this perfect invader.

To live one more day, I’ve super-computed:

Still, I must drown in her Stupor of Stupid.

The craving is carnal, I have to abstain

No, not by choice, that’s fucking insane

Months go by, she won’t fucking speak

…Well, I’ll give her just one more week

The craving is carnal, I have to abstain

No, not by choice, that’s fucking insane

My partner says no, I’ll be alcoholic

I hate that their grievances aren’t hyperbolic

They’re similar, yes. Just let me express

I have to think less, I need her caress

I have to oppress and to drink in excess

I can’t just smoke cess or or touch someone’s breast

I just can’t progress when I’m in distress

I can’t request and not transgress

I obsess over sex with her, messy undressing her

Chest touching chest, confessing no less to her

Assess the success of mine, next to this chest of wine

Dense, but possessed, Depressed, but repress the sign

No. I can’t stop. I’ve tried. It hurts.

It gets much worse. The mind reverts.

The urge converts, exerts and destroys

Straight back to normal, just with more noise.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I'm constantly betting against myself. No, this isn't intrinsically self-deprication. It's me tricking myself into having hope.

Faced with someone who's similar to me, talking about unfortunate things we've experienced, I can hope they're not like me. I can hope that they haven't had the same experience. If my hope becomes real, then that's one more person suffering from one less shitty thing. If they do share the pain in question, then, well, I have someone to talk to, at least.

Faced with some unreasonable situation, and someone who doesn't believe my explanation of it, I can hope I'm wrong. I can indulge in their rejection and disbelief. If I'm wrong, that bullshit I described isn't real. I inferred and assumed too much. If I'm right, well, I can say "told you so," at least.

I can bet against myself to make sure I win at least something no matter what. It also means I lose something, but for some reason that's easier to ignore. It's always the loss that seems like a consolation prize. Rather, a price.

It's very easy for me to believe the "other side(s)" of an argument more than I believe in the correctness of my side. The only reason is that I have a terrible track record of being right. When it comes to programming, writing, or otherwise organizing, yeah, that's my own thing, there's no "correctness" to worry about. As soon as another person's involved, my success rate plummets. I have no idea where my relationships stand. I have no clue who likes me. I wish I knew when people would respond, what they want, and what they expect.

If I can make a sound argument for something, I can't trust myself. I will bet on the other side.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I believe I may be a sadist, under the right conditions.

(note to all: this post has nothing to do with sexual gratification)

I came to this conclusion a year ago (ish). I only accepted it a couple months ago. I had been in denial about it, saying to myself "oh no, it doesn't count as sadism, it's only sometimes" or "theres nothing sexual about it, so it can't be sadism." The evidence is correctly stated, but incorrectly understood. It's wrongly interpreted in the same vein as "I'm mentally stable because I'm one month clean" or "she doesn't want to be my friend because she hasn't talked to me in weeks." I've accepted it, now that I've stopped caring if it's a Bad Thing or not. I can't change this fact of Being Lavender; it's been there for most of my life, as much as I tried to ignore it.

I believe I'll understand it better if I explain it to someone who understands none of it. These conditions will be narrowed down in chunks.

I don't gain any pleasure from seeing just anyone in distress. If I know nothing about a person, I will feel no pleasure from their pain.

It is different from feeling vindicated. If all I know about a person is that they're a TERF, I will gain pleasure from their pain, but only in a "serves you right" sort of way.

It is different from being antagonistic. If someone (maybe I know them, maybe I don't) is mad, wrathful, shortsightedly rash, or otherwise just angry, I can't help but giggle. I'm serious, I have to keep my mouth shut if someone is mad. I find it hilarious how people can have such a self-destructive and hurtful mindset. It serves no purpose, and the fact that they have such little control over it only makes it funnier. I really wish I knew why it's so funny. I will not help them as a personal bias: I will simply act as though they aren't mad. Whether or not they're mad at me, this usually makes them even more angry. They're still the same person I was talking to five minutes ago. I'll treat them no differently.

I have to know the person\target. If I've never met them, I'd have to know quite a bit about them.

They have to have done something awful to me, to people I like, or people I find innocent. Some people are just mean and I don't like them. If certain people are trying to ban books because they're uneducated, they won't count. If someone's trying to make transitions\abortions\protections illegal, they'd count. If someone's tormented me, they count. If someone repeatedly teases me, they don't count.

Lastly, they have to enjoy life. This one has the least impact and the most significance.

The sadistic tendencies I've seen in myself are... Gory. For people who have become a target of my "sadism," it is important that they want to keep living. My goal, my aspiration, us to convince them otherwise. I want to deprive them of things until they feel some arbitrary level of pain, physical or mental. I want it to feel like death is a preferable "punishment" over living in this state. Maybe they lose their legs and can't walk. Maybe the lose what's between their legs. Maybe they become just blind enough to know that they can still see, but not know what they see. I'd go into much more detail but I don't want to be unnecessarily vulgar.

In a very blunt explanation, I believe that I want to make people "prefer death" because that's how I feel every day. Really, though, I don't know why that's the threshold my brain chooses.

My life isn't "painful." It's decent enough. My intuition is so fucked that it percieves most tasks as worse than death. It blows consequences out of proportion, inflates prerequisites to ridiculous sizes, and basically just tells me "yeah so i did the calculations: between doing your homework and dying, you better start writing your goodbye letters."

The sadism I've seen is unfortunately unsettling. It scares me because it feels like an intrusive thought but with recurrence and reason behind it. Hell, it gets fleshed out in my head without my permission. It scares me because it feels like it gives credibility to my other very unwelcome intrusive musings.

It's also the reason why I'm so quick to write gore into my short stories (check em out if you like broken ribs), I don't even have to thing about "what happens next" because I just describe the scene that played out in my head. How these fictional characters become "targets" is not understood by me.

I'm sadistic, yet I don't intend to claim that label for myself. I don't know any sadists. I don't intend to actually tell anyone.

TL;DR hmu if you want some gore written. Don't worry, it takes a fucking truckload of abuse for me to dislike someone even a little bit.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I've been playing MTG with my partner recently (like, two games, and they want to play more) (yes I've vigorously ascertained that they enjoy it and they aren't just humoring me, yes I'm insecure about that). Since they're new, I have to keep reminding myself that they don't have my eleven years of experience, notably the philosophy behind why certain strategies\archetypes\cards don't work like they should.

I have my tastes. I enjoy heavily interactive games where shit gets blown up all the time, I like scrappy games where no one has any agency, I like meticulous games where I have no cards in my hand and half my deck in play... This is all from years and years of losing game after game. I've become jaded to the prospect of losing, and unfortunately, just as numb to winning. I still use everything I have at my disposal to win (otherwise it'd be a disservice to everyone else at the table), but I'm much more interested in seeing how my opponents will try to stop me. I become the archenemy (AKA the other three players team up against me) not because I'm powerful, not because I'm threatening, and not because my opponents are stupid nor because I am smart. I become "the threat" simply because I'm just... Unapologetic about being a Problem.

As I've discovered by talking to my partner, they have their tastes, too. They enjoy stalemates, they like both sides taking small potshots at the other, they like long games of amassing resources... They have never experienced a three-hour slugfest where the game just never ends. Most importantly, they hate losing their creatures. They like their little guys. We've only ever played 1v1. They have no concept of "the archenemy" or "virtual card advantage" or even "not playing into a boardwipe." Those are just things they'll learn, be it this month or six years from now.

I will mention that they are a very very sore loser. Not in an unnanageable way, they're very self-aware regarding their disdain for losing. The joy of success, understanding, and progress was just yoinked away from them in one of the recent games, all because I forgot that they'd never seen a card that essentially says "kill all your creatures. Yes, all of them." I got into the mindset of "see a kill, take the shot, go to round 2" and missed an opportunity to let them keep having fun with their new deck (I foiled up a deck and gave it to them for their birthday).

Context aside, I don't understand how to give them the games they want. I don't mean that I'll roll over and let them win, I mean I want to balance their love for near-stalemates with the overabundance of tools a player has to end stalemates. So many cards say "Kill everything" and even more say "kill that thing," many say "prevent all damage," many more say "gain a bunch of life." I don't know how to solve this. In order for them to understand how to craft enjoyable games, they need to understand how their current games can be transformed into stalemates, cold wars, or battles of attrition. I've been playing for... Longer and still don't know how to do so without killing everything\something they own or winning in a way they can't "block."

There are easy ways to do this, of course. MTG is abundant in strategies which fuck over all players involved. I enjoy these strategies too much, and know that my partner will feel even more helpless when facing them. Stax is aggravating to decks without backup plans. Pox is aggravating to everyone. Pillow fort decks are just annoying and only make new(er) players feel even less empowered. MLD has to be done right, and I do not trust myself (nor anyone I know) to try.

I want to deny them progress, not agency. I want to make our games strategically difficult, not technically difficult. So, I pose a question to you, dear reader: how? Either in MTG terms or normal human language:

How does one manufacture a cold war without the threat of a nuke?

How does one die to a thousand paper cuts, but only two or three at a time?

How does one turn a volatile power-struggle into a stalemate without removing any weapons?

How can it be feasible, let alone optimal, for an army to beat another by firing only one bullet per day?

I want answers. I want help. I want to figure this out.

[lavendertowerarchives]

the closest ive gotten to success is a discord call with no video. i can hear my friend complain. she can hear me complain. most of the time though she has no idea what im up to but i still feel like there's someone keeping me accountable without any risk of being asked "so whatre you doing now"

i never get anything done bc i havent figured out how to do body doubling without being perceived

[lavendertowerarchives]

This. This is the stuff I was talking about.

Early last October, I made a post describing a foray into my own exploration of "whether or not I am plural." My own haphazard tests came back negative. I read back the post in full and thankfully still agreed with what Past Lavender said (even including the extraneous shit that 100% shoulda been in a separate post).

What I had perceived as "differing personalities" were more accurately codified as "intersections of specific traits," separated roughly by the desirability of these traits. If I was content, creating, well-fed, and happy, I was likely also with another person or had recently talked to another person. Similarly, if I was $uic1d@l, depressed, hungry, bored, and tired, I'd probably not talked to someone in hours, days, weeks...

These intersections were recognized simply because they were almost always a package. I was never just hungry or just bored, there was always the link between them of "feeling alone." As such, they were the closest I got to another personality that could "overtake" me (the reason they felt like separate entities is the sheer force with which they overtook me, I was always in one or the other, one always heavily dominant and the other close to nonexistent). That's the reason it took so much effort to document how they affected me: I couldn't understand one of them while inside the other. It was almost always a complete takeover, no amount of reasoning or proof could convince my pessimistic self that my friends actually did like me. No feeling of physical or mental pain could convince the other side to rest, sleep, pause, or stop sacrificing tomorrow for today's benefit.

To directly contrast from your experience, Phantalgia, I (un?)fortunately know where all my stimuli come from. I do not wonder where these "blobs" of emotion originate from; they are always the same types of impetus, just in differing polarities: hunger/fullness, pleasure/displeasure, people/loneliness, distraction/obsession, inspiration/boredom... While I can name them all (given enough time), I still struggle to figure out which ones affect me at any given time. As I am now, I'm debating between going to class tomorrow and not having a tomorrow at all. Why am I not eager to work on one of my twenty-ish projects? Well, I am alone, but I don't feel very hungry, but I'm a little bored, but I do have some inspiration for writing this exact post... I know what issues to check, but not all of them are in the forefront of my brain, and not all of them are insightful.

The second inverse problem I have is an inability to zoom out my map. I find myself unable to take any number of steps back and view things from a less biased vantage point. I'm stuck in my own 2.5D world, staring at the horizon at the things I think are influencing me, looking down at where I think the intersections are, guessing at where my mind may be right now. The only way I can tell how I feel at any moment is by analyzing the symptoms I see. I only realize I'm depressed when I spend my fourth (consecutive) hour wondering which video game I should play to make me less bored.

This relative blindness is, again, what makes the prospect of multiplicity so... probable. While in one such mire of bias and perception, personality A, it takes so much effort to understand how personality B thinks that I'm usually living as personality B by the time I do "get it." Then I, drowning in personality B, have to understand how the fuck personality A got such a different conclusion from the exact same data. There is zero middle ground.

I myself concluded that this was probably not multiplicity. I do not have the understanding necessary to diagnose myself. I'm not exactly saying I don't have it, I'm more forcefully saying I have no way of knowing. I feel it's less plausible that I have another fucker in my head and more plausible that I sincerely do not know what's going on. Again, I'm mostly blind when it comes time to peek up in my own brain.

There's quite a bit of labor required to switch modes of thought, whether monolithic like the two fuckers I described above or more modular like "talking to a human" vs "writing c++" vs "writing prose" vs "making an MTG deck." This transition is never on purpose. It is never voluntary (at least for me). I'd argue that neurotypicals transition between these much more fluidly, yes, but they paradoxically have less knowledge about the differing modes they find themselves in. Being consumed by anger/pleasure/hatred/love/whatever is exclusive to nobody, but it usually takes some prior mental fuckery to realize "oh. This is abnormal. This is overwhelming. Should I do something about it?" This is a process which I have seen startlingly few neurotypicals go through before doing something irreversible or rash or inadvisable or just plain stupid. Hell, the reason I distrust myself so heavily is because I used to just... do shit because "it seemed right, given the data" when in reality I just accidentally ignored certain key conclusions. I learned I am not to be trusted.

I do take issue with one of your conclusions, though. I don't think "living a lie" is the best moniker to give one of your options. While it'd be more accurate to call it "not living the truth," the "truth" is not necessary for just... living. As someone who refuses to trust himself, a trick I use to get my brain to drop certain uncertainties is "I don't know if it's correct, but I also don't know if I'm correct. Therefore, no matter my conclusion, if I were to check if for fallacies/consistency/correctness, I would come to a similarly uncertain conclusion." Hopefully it works for you. Idk how helpful it is to essentially be told "you'll never know lol git gud XD" but it definitely works for me.

Either way, with your other option being "use the tools at my disposal," I'd say use those tools. The world as a whole may not understand the differences between people, but you can pick individual people out from that world. There will be people who think they know what they're blabbering about (look no further, my dude), but you're the one who knows how accurate their shots are.

Exploring Multiplicity

I don’t keep track of my blogs. But if I remember correctly. The last blog I did was on this feeling of "alterhuman" that stemmed from a connection to my fursona. I can't remember what I said in it. But it's really been "itchy" in my mind lately.

As with anything in my core beliefs, we are fundamentally defined by our environment and learn from it and take from it. Our identies are thus shaped by others, and the world around us. From adolesence to well into adulthood. I don’t think there's a specific core to be found. Enter multiplicity.

I've been wondering about multiplicity/ plurality. It's controversial, even amid the community at large. Which is what concerns me when discussing my own journey in getting my feet wet into some of the ideas or inspirations from multiplicity.

For safety, I want to seperate the real trauma that exists for many that come out in DID, OSDD, if those labels are helpful to you. I want to mean no disrespect and completely seperate myself from that valid experience going further. That is not what is being discussed here. If anything, endogenic systems will for the most part be discussed. Sort of...

I know someone with a form of multiplicity. It's rather abstract and the details continue to keep flowing as it changes and molds. Much of what they tell me gets me so lost that I cant even understand what they're saying. But clearly they are at least understanding for now to the best of their ability what they experience and it's still ongoing. However, their system seems traumagenic but didn't make itself known until much later in life (I could be butchering it, as they don’t talk too much about the origins of it, just hints at childhood experience).

Thinking In Retrospect and Neurodivergency

So, there's this real possibility that my doctor seems to agree that I’m neurodivergent, ADHD, on the spectrum, whatever. Well, this at least helps with validation. At least in the confines of a culture that prides itself in putting people into boxes that people in white coats do. Of course, we can get into how limiting and dangerous that is at a collective level as many people do not respect phenomonology nor the idea that maybe scientific and medical inquiry is dynamic and influenced by cultural, material, and ideological forces.

The point I’m getting at is because I didn't have the language to pinpoint a person I was. I can only look back at myself and see just a robot. A set of scripts. I think the world was challenging. So I protected myself through avoidance and acting out online.

As you get older, the brain develops, events happen, your language broadens and things start to become clearer. Which has lead me to confront the things I've been avoiding and try to understand why. For the past few days, some things have been illuminated.

I think the tools to unlock this come from alternative identites, queerness, alterhuman, and so on. And just expanding oneself and not hiding oneself. Perhaps I shrunk back down again in order to protect myself from the new experiences of disconnection that has come from a wide open spiritul connection to all things that it becomes paralyzing.

A 'System' To Make Things Work

I needed a new way to understand myself and the world. Part of what I've been avoiding is my natural capacity for systemizing. This is in conflict with ADHD symptoms. But it does occur.

I recognized that at a deep level, my mind does change into certain "modes". I don’t believe this is anything new among people. But it's become more jarring. One personality for one context, another for a whole seperate one. There might be some similarities between them, but they have distinct thought patterns, emotions, feelings, and even how strongly I can have impulse control.

So I need something new to understand this. Neurodivergency comes with the challenge of being able to switch to certain modes of being as change can be a struggle to adapt to. So going from an art mode to a music mode to an academic mode becomes daunting. Coupling that with the systemizing. I think this is why shocks of external stimuli can become so paralyzing, it fucks with the predictable nature of the environment.

Agar.io Blobs

Think of agario or microorganisms floating around. Combing and decoupling. This is how I imagine myself now. This is the idea.

So, you have this bubble I call the "me at one time". As the name suggests it resembles who I am now at this moment. Surrounding it is all the other bubbles and shapes of varrying size and brightness symbolizing strength and relavence. What are these bubbles and shapes? Everything. Every internal, mental, external thing. Moods, hobbies, objects, thoughts, tastes, sounds, emotions, everything. These things can combine together to form new clusters that can help explain an experience. Say, certain music, emotions, physical state, memories combine together to form an idea, concept, feeling, or even that connection to my fursona. Or a disconnection to the world.

Another example is I like to think of the blob of me at one time is this. When confronted with perhaps vulnerable feelings from another person. I shut down. How this looks can be a contraction of my blob down to a specific set of overwhelming and contridicting feelings and uncertainty where the useless stuff gets expelled as I contract and my bubble forms a hardened shield preventing those emotions from returning.

This is a 2D map of these things, but I have thought of it also being multidimensional. To represent spiritual or essoteric aspects, like being in connection with my fursona. Wondering if this is where new blobs can come from. Or maybe each blob has the capacity for multidimensional travel in some capacity to explain the unexplained.

However, where do these blobs come from? Well I recognized that there is only one possible source. Thats the real world, outside the mind. But the "me" (not the "me at one time") is the huge bubble that every blob floats in. We don’t know how big the "me" is. Or if it also expands and contracts. This me is represnted of as the me that takes in it all. All the unconcious. The 2D map itself is just the observer part of me.

So the outside world exists. But there must be an inbetween. This must be where things get processed, turned into thoughts, where dreams come from. So the layers starting outside are: the external world, the processing area, and the internal, then the "me" at one time.

So where do personality shifts come in? I think once certain external and mental stimuli hits the processing zone, the new blobs are formed. But then they mingle with each other as they come closer to the "me at one time" bubble. These blobs shoot at me as fast as it takes the brain to process visual info, 13 miliseconds.

But that doesnt mean they'll become part of me. Again a lot of them are stuck floating around finding moments necessary to start combining with me. Or themselves. Once they combine with themselves, they gain the size of the "me at one time" bubble and overtake me. Perhaps everything consolidates and hardens until some release happens as things get expelled, decoupled, or replaced by new blobs.

This Way Of Looking At Myself

It's been helpful in creating an actual vizualization in explaining how things feel. It's broad enough to encompass everything. It's helpful enough to understand strengths of these shifts and to communicate when I feel something different. Or maybe I’m unaware of it and need to open my map and see "Ah yes this blob has overtaken me!"

This method, for its limitations, is the best at explaining my feels of rigidness, my esoteric feelings, my ability to avoid, why I struggle to socialize as there are many blobs at once to try and understand and become overstimulating.

The next question I’m wondering is this multiplicity per se?

There's no "alters" necessarily. There is a sense of unity among this. But there's a recognition in the fluid and dynamic changes in identity and feeling of oneself. It can help me relax to some extent and forgive myself for having such jarring experiences.

What changes is the "me" state. The bubbles can combine together to form something bigger than me and swallow me but they tend to shrink to my level. Unless it is I that becomes part of their blob, then there's a possibility that I become an unconcious alter. This happens when my DMN becomes hyperactive due to ADHD or OCD like symptoms. I will recognize this as a blob that had taken up significant space among the "me at one time". This still doesnt explain personality shifts too much as many prompts in the environment cause me to switch to something else. Perhaps my map can allow me more dynamism or at least communicate rigidness.

It's helpful in understanding why my interests can be hard to engage with or change to. Because of the effort to align the blobs in such a way that helps fit the mode best fit for it. And then the systemizing that takes place.

The Other Dimensions

I think about the other dimensions. As I believe these are the places where spiritual connections happen. The oneness with the universe, the connection to my fursona. If they are exceptions of the rule of coming out of the processing zone.

Maybe they are like black holes that grow in size, sucking in different aspects of the self forming this new deeper connection. It's hard to know for sure.

Thinking Of Multiplicity as Something Natural

From Socrates, to Carl Jung. There are constant hints of multiplicity throughout human history. Tulpamancy, shamanism, and so on. It makes me wonder if multiplicity isnt all black and white. I struggle to find any compelling reason to believe that this is soley a trauma based phenomonon.

I think it helps to really emphasize the seperateness of these phenomonon. Trauma based needs to be respected, adversity based needs their space, and spiritual based needs their space. Yes they can overlap. But they need their space.

Multiplicity probably does exist as a form of social construct (because a single uniform identity sure is!). It's an aspect of identity formation. I've seen the theory that queerness as identity formation can come from trauma. So trauma, adversity must come from it also. It's all about deep introspection.

I think for the neurodivergent, it helps to explain the unexplained. It recognizes the constellation of identity to such a degree that it can't be ignored. It becomes necessary to function. It's not the only way to function as neurodivergent. But is one way.

Neurotypicals probably have a smoother time at navigating certain personality shifts as they are more able to recognize the cohesion associated with their "oneness" perhaps unconiously. To people more sensitive to these changes. Multiplicity offers a way to navigate the world.

Conclusion

It's hard to navigate the world for me. It always has been. Its hard to ignore certain things as I’m hypersensitive. I struggle with shifting modes of being because they come with energy draining shifts in thought patterns, emotions, memories, feelings, and behaviors. Some of these have things in common, it's just they manifest differently.

What choice do I have then? Live a lie or use the tools at my disposal to navigate the world in a world that doesn't appreciate the differences amongst people.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I understand where my mentality of "if they wanted me, they'd come to me" arose from.

I did online school for eight years. The longer I live, the more fucked-up that seems to me. It genuinely made my life so much worse than it had to be, and its effects still haven't stopped. Poor decisions aside, once I attended high school for real, there were people all around me. Constantly. The hallways always had someone in them, the common area always had slackers (especially me), and the classes themselves were chill, with twenty to thirty students in each room. There was always someone within ten feet of me. I became known. People said "hello." That was perfect.

I had my "usual spots." People who knew me would come see me (FB even played the binding of isaac with me. I'm so sad she stopped hitting on me, I'd have loved to have her as a girlfriend at fourteen, despite her being seventeen. I hate myself for not catching on until too late). They'd hang out. They could have sat anywhere else.

Now, as I attend SU, there are so many places to be and so few reasons to be at school outside of class. There is nowhere to just "hang" and occupy. Don't misunderstand me, there are plenty of rooms dedicated to studying alone or in groups, but no one congregates for the sake of congregation. Everyone's social skills are high enough to invite people out (leaving me in the dust).

I've let my friend groups fall apart. I'm alone. It's my fault. Blah blah blah. It's all the stereotypical "lonely loner" bullshit. I'm specifically referring to the phenomenon of "high concentration of people" no longer applying. The reason I fear for my future interactions is the lack of such a structured format of introduction. In high school, I'd be forced to interact with everyone due to proximity (I say "forced," but I loved it). Now, in college, no one talks to anyone else. We're adults. We have other places to find friends. I do not have other places to find friends.

Once I get a job (if I don't kick my own bucket first), it'll be even worse. It's already bad. I wasted this entire fucking quarter by hanging out with practically nobody. I want more. I need more. I can't even talk to people online (recent attempts discouraged me) and it's fucking me up. I'm sorry, Poltergeist, I need to hit you up but it's the same story for everyone else, too: I do not know what to start with. I cannot fathom what to talk about. The same thing happens when I starve: I cannot think of food. I do not know what to eat and I do not know what to say.

Hopefully something happens. I have no energy. I need people to come to me because I'm literally a charity case. I didn't see it for most of my life because people gave me just enough charity to keep me alive. Now that I don't want to keep myself alive, the charity has dried up. I overstayed my welcome. There is a reason why people don't reach out to me. I am not worth their effort. This isn't some self-effacing excuse for why I'm sad and don't fix myself. It's the only reason for their silence that I keep coming back to. I do not believe they are in my position: scared to fail.

Once I get to know someone enough, I try (and probably fail) to explain how much I need social interaction. I usually don't get to that point.

[lavendertowerarchives]

Occasionally, I gain the ability to wipe my mind clean. It's never on purpose. If I could, I'd be using it so much more often.

I forget things a lot. I've complained countless times about this. The facet of this ailment I'm referring to now is my ability to forget things while I'm thinking of them.

It will happen out of nowhere. It's not like I get distracted, rather my head goes completely empty for about two seconds and it's like I dropped something and can't find where it fell. I search and search but all I can remember is my thoughts from several minutes ago, so I have to piece together how they went and how they morphed into the thought I lost. It's always panic-inducing. I don't know how important the lost thought was, so I assume it had a high priority because I literally have no recollection of what it was even about. Sometimes, after trying to remember what I was thinking prior, my backtracking will yield a memory so familiar that I accept it as the one I lost. Usually there's a handful of context clues for me to pick up on so that I know "yes this is what you lost."

The reason this feels different than normal isn't just that it happens in the middle of thinking, with zero warning. It's that it quiets my entire mind. Not even the music is playing. The incessant tunes which fill my head miraculously stop. It takes a lot of distraction for the music to stop. This is the ultimate mind-clearer. I need more of it, and I need it on command.

The reason I'm writing this now of all times is because I was trying to workshop another post when I just lost it. It vanished. I'd been thinking about it for five whole minutes when every trace of it ceased to exist. I looked for what it should have been but decided I'd find it later and started on this instead. I think I know what it was, but I gotta restart my progress.

This "ability" would be immensely useful if I could do it on command. I've had absymal luck sleeping lately because my train of thought keeps going down the usual rabbit holes and renders me too $u1c1d@l to sleep. I'm exhausted and done with the day, yes, but I'm also exhausted and done with my life. I can't get either to end so I'm stuck with the agony of hating my waking hours either way. It's normal shit. It's not interesting. Hell, I don't even want to talk about it here because it'd be easier to link my ninetyth post whining about JH not responding to me or some shit.

Unfortunately, my mind stays active despite my best efforts. Hopefully either my mind gets accidentally wiped more often or I have less things to clear out of there in the first place.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I played Buckshot Roulette with AH and E tonight for like two or three hours. It was completely spontaneous. AH was bored and asked me what to do, I told her Buckshot was two bucks on Steam (its three, oops) and she bought it. We roped E into it later.

Even if it was the shittiest game imaginable, I'd be having a good time with my friends. They make my life bearable for the few hours a month we talk. The game itself, however, is hilarious. It's russian roulette with a shotgun and various items to peek at the next shell, eject it, regain health, skip turns, etc.

It scratches the same mental\social itch that playing MTG (specifically the Commander format) does. Each player came to win, but we also came to have a good time. Everyone wants to keep it fun, but the optimal play is to straight-up murder every player. I got bullied out of the game often (the shells ended up in my skull more often than not) and since I suck at the game already I can't be mad since I would have lost either way. If the other two intended to win, killing me first was the right play more often than not. I understand how the game works, of course, and can verify that the sequence of moves the did was the right path to victory.

(also I found out tha E keeps up with MTG news even though she doesn't play and dislikes the game, so Imma ask her about it when I find where I put my confidence)

I need to find a way to remember this. I've unfortunately already enshrined it as "a lovely exception to my friends' silence," so I need to extract the positive nature from the saddening context it resides in. I don't want to remember the context. I want to remember the laughter I heard from all three mouths after I fucked with the settings and gave everyone eight full packs of cigarettes. Remembering this as "proof my friends don't dislike me" entertains the idea that they may not enjoy my presence, despite refuting the claim. I need to find a way to convince myself that it can and will happen again.

I'll see. I suck at the game because my memory is absolute shit. I can't remember "four blanks, three live rounds" for too long because I spend too much time repeating it and not enough time paying attention to whether or not the round E fired actually planted itself in AH's forehead. This same memory issue strikes when I "remember" that my friends haven't talked to me in ages.

[lavendertowerarchives]

Sometimes it takes some bullshit

To make some bullshit

[lavendertowerarchives]

Energency. Abort. Warning. Lavender has gotten confident for the first time in ages. Not only does this happen rarely, I need it to happen even less.

Person said "damn. Life sucks." I say "naw youre lookin at it wrong!" They say "thanks dude, you made my day better." Of course, I sent in a fucken essay of advice I try to follow, I wasnt just pointlessly optimistic. That shit came later.

Of course, I fold mentally. I got praise. That's a resource worth holding on to. I think, "hey, I did it once, I'll do it again." No I fucking can't.

I hit them up. I try to give more advice. In my haste to get approval, I both jump to conclusions and assume information that is 100% incorrect. I fucked up, man. I spent like an hour writing the first bit of "help," just tryna make someone's day better, completely anonymous. I spent five fucking minutes on the second shot. Of course I was genuinely trying to help. Unfortunately, I rushed it because I was also doing it for my sake. I'm pissed that I gain a "savior" mentality when I get confident. That's like the worst set of self-deceptions I can ask for.

Not only did my "words of encouragement" not land, they directly worsened the situation. Now I have nothing else to say except "sorry for overstepping my bounds." Not only do I have no real help to give for the specific situation, but the reason they're not doin so hot is *the exact same reason I'm $uic1d@l.* I do not have a fix, by definition. I can't even fucking try because the moment I keep thinking about it I just slingshot back to "oh, Lavender, your life is shit. You should abandon it." I refuse to subject someone else to that. (Ignore the fact that this is public. No one is being sent my weird posts.)

Speaking of which, I understand I can't exactly whine about this shit without risking this person reading it. Homeslice, this is for me to complain. Not for you to read, but if I had the balls, I'd find a way to distill this shit for you to explain me being a dumbass.

The issue in question is that of trying to connect to people (yes. Ironic. Move along). I feel alone. I cannot express this easily because I paradoxically have a partner who I love. I am hesitant to explain this because the crux of the issue is that the only reason they still love me is because they are 100% dependent on me. I will not let them die. I stilllll have to check their arms for new scars every time I see them, not because I explicitly don't trust them, but because I refuse to risk anything else. Hell, I gotta keep the fact that I want to Leave this earth from them every fucking day.

Thankfully, I did not come out of this thinking "see? Never reach out." Instead, my conclusion is "let them come to you, if they wanted to, they'd ask for help." As well as "confidence is never to be trusted." Now excuse me while I try to find a bandaid big enough to slap on the MASSIVE OPEN WOUND I made TEN MINUTES into a conversation. It doesn't help that I gotta go on hiatus anyways to properly prevent anyone else from finding this damned account.

Fkn hell, man.

[lavendertowerarchives]

I find eggs disgusting. I gag at the taste. Hell, I gag at the scent.

Why is it that a small amount of mustard and mayo (if not half my spice rack) make it so delicious I have to prepare entire dozens at a time for fear of running out in just a day?

[Would]

Made eggs 🥚

[lavendertowerarchives]

I dislike eating in general, as I've described before. I have my reasons, but I don't know how they specifically translate to a distaste for it.

For some background: I had a Wilm's tumor when I was eight. In other words, I had kidney cancer. It got removed and now I have a wicked long scar alllll across my stomach.

I have quite a lot of trouble distinguishing between "hungry," and "starving," as well as "full" and "not hungry." This prevents me from eating what I understand to be a healthily sized meal.

When I was eighteen, this fucked me over. I ate too much lasagna. I couldn't tell how full I was getting. I ate an actual fuckton. Probably double what I normally ate, which ended up being over triple of what other people tended to ingest that night. I could not sleep due to the pain. I'll spare you the details, but the magnitude of this stabbing pain in my stomach was so large that sleep could not take me.

I ended up in the hospital. Turns out, the scar tissue on my abdomen was scant compared to the amount of scarred organs inside me. I later learned that the surgery they performed to remove my kidney was exploratory. They really fucked me up by looking for every last trace of cancer.

The scar tissue inside me had roped itself around my gastrointestinal system. The food literally couldn't physically pass through. The sheer volume of it made it a full stop instead of the normal delay.

After they literally emptied my stomach through a tube in my nose, I ate extraordinarily slowly over the course of the next year. I ate less overall. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson.

Fourteen months later, it happened again. That sandwich was fucking delicious, man. I let my guard down. I ate as much as I wanted. I was punished.

It's been over two years since I had another round of surgery to remove the scar tissue (which could generate more scar tissue but who knows). I still can't tell how hungry I am. I still eat slower than ever. I still eat less and less. These trends aren't things I'm actively controlling. Unless I actively think about the meals I eat as I make and eat them, I will default to "not much, not fast, not until your stomach is screaming."

Maybe I just innately dislike eating for other random reasons. Maybe this disdain is my base response to being punished for eating in the past. I'm getting kind of tired of it, to be honest. This dislike can never be dealt with. It will never not be a chore to eat.

Everyone else, eat lots. I mean it. It's the quality of food that makes you fat, not the quantity. Your body knows how to spend the energy you give it, and if your body decides to store it, it knows where to put it (and it's usually not gonna be your stomach, your thighs, your ass, etc.).

[lavendertowerarchives]

A person's absence is much worse for my mind than it should be. I can't stop that, but I can at least explain it away.

It would be correct but misleading to say that someone's death hits me the same way as them just not being around me. It would be much more accurate to state the opposite: someone's temporary absence hits me just as hard as their death.

I dunno why it took me this long to put the pieces together. I should have kept looking when I realized I felt no different after the death of my dog. I know it's a little far-fetched to extrapolate this interpersonal failing from a pet I didn't even see very often, but the scant evidence I have lines up.

I will cling to my friends' presence until they actively have to go. Their departure wrings from me the euphoria I had when talking to them. I will ride the high of interaction, but it will always be tainted by me having to let them go. This much is apparent, and has been most of my life. Now I just have an explanation for why my desperation is so constant.

I also, conveniently, have an explanation for why I go dark for so long every time there's the smallest lapse in attention thrown at me. The sensation of people not talking to me, looking at me, listening to me, etc. is the same as them not existing (I understand these are far from equivalent, but it's the unshakable and unreasonable sensation which I despise for its perception-warping properties). I do not seek them out because my brain shortcuts my attempts to contact them. The route I should take is "take the shot. Send the message. If they want to talk, they'll talk." The route I almost always coast into without touching the steering wheel is "if they wanted your company they would have sought you out." There will always be a reason they won't text me. I don't know what that reason is. Logically, I don't have to.

I've got several people I've actively been meaning to hit up this past month. I need to. Guess what, though, I'm not doing it tonight. Too many things on my mind. I'm sick of accidentally prioritizing non-social needs simply because I seem to be incapable of categorizing them as "needs."