phantalgia

[phantalgia]

[phantalgia]

Health Updates

So...I don’t have dysautonomia? It's still fucking confusing. Nothing feels really clear. And maybe I feel unseen? I wanted to just write about this. Because I've been jumping through hoops, doing "gymnastics" with all of this and never getting a clear answer. Or the answer continues to change.

So what's the deal now?

Well again, hyperventilating. That seems to be pressed into me. Yet again. There isn't to say there is no autonomic stuff going on. But to say it's an "issue" would be wrong apparently.

And in a lot of ways it's true. I don’t 1:1 meet exact criteria for POTS at least. But autonomic instability for sure. What isnt clear is what causes it. Yes there is post-COVID but it also seems to be long standing as well despite COVID. So it begs the question. What the hell is this?

It just doesnt quite explain my life long orthostatic intolerance to sitting or standing. It has varied in degrees of severity but definetly has gotten worse. The hyperventilating doesnt actually have a precise origin we know of. It is just assumed to be as such. It's kind of thrown that I’m a habitual sigher and have probably adopted it from stress.

This also could be true. Long term stress and how I neglected how I've developed could probably play in a role in my breathing pattern. But I’m still left scratching my head. Because I do genuinely notice differences and when these happen can be seemingly random or happen under specific conditions.

Eating does it, being upright does it, getting ready for the day does it, mental exertion does it, physical. I’m someone who works in a singular mode. I’m not too modular and if I try I’m stressed and succumb to a malaise for a few days.

My body can adjust to upright positions thats the thing, but it does so at a cost. Throat gets tight, neck gets strained, I’m uncertain about this but it can feel like there's not enough. I don’t know, blood, o2, co2 going to my head? I mean is this normal? It can make me want to puke pretty quick and it's hard on my breathing. I genuinely need to catch my breath sometimes while being upright. I need to lean forward and breathe. That's why I wonder if being in upright positions causes a misunderstanding in my body and I’m trying to catch my breathe.

It doesnt seem like dysautonomia? It has features similar. My heart doesnt necessarily race, but it can sometimes have harder beats. And this has been life long. I don’t know what else to say. So what else could it be? Well I haven't even mentioned my heart condition. In fact it has barely even been discussed in Doctor's appointments and seems almost secondary.

I couldnt really tell you if my heart condition is what motivates the hyperventilating and subsequent orthostatic intolerance and dysregulations. It's not clear. And I don’t know if it is and can't comment on it because it's something not even well understood because it's so rare.

Plus, many of my arrythmias don’t have an origin with the condition itself. It's something functional not really in the anatomy of the heart itself. Not to say it cant effect, but nobody seemed certain and still doesnt seem certain that's the case.

So Where Next?

I don’t know, my guess now is probably it has something to do with neurodivergency. Having developed differently and under different condtions have created a body that needs to find new adaptions that are easier for others. It's dysautonomia-like but maybe not 100%?

It doesnt explain the nerve pain, the near fainting, the ever evolving conditions I feel in my body. Nothing. It's left unseen, unknown, no curiosity, no investigation, no scowering every corner. Do I want a label? Is that what I’m looking for? I guess?

Maybe it's comfort in knowing hey yeah I’m different. I have reasons I cant be like other people. And cant be like other neurodivergent people who have been able to adapt. Maybe it's to find comfort in giving myself a break and not to be judged? Does it speak louder to my own insecurities? Does it make me more or less valid? It's also like I have spent so much time within dysautonomia communities that I have felt like I got my answer, maybe it wasnt 1:1 but what they were saying sounded so familiar to my experience. Having things blamed on anxiety, lack of nuance from others, the symptoms, they were close but maybe not 1:1?

I may not know...I may never know. Perhaps it really is just meet myself where I am and see where I go. I know there is something different about me that has made it difficult to do basic adult things. I know now that I cant be like other people and instead must follow my own path. And perhaps instead of finding and being labeled. Focus on the experiences themselves and lead myself to the best of my ability with what I am and have. Maybe I can't be seen yet because I haven't actually tried the adult things. Perhaps that's why the story feels unfinished because I haven't gone far enough at meeting others where theyre at to be seen.

I Think The Lesson Here

Is that disability is not black and white. And it's not linear. Sometimes layers of bullshit make a blurry picture rather than a clear one. That the answers themselves only show themselves with time and active participation. And even if the answers don’t change, they don’t devalue my experience either.

Perhaps this is the byproduct of a culture that sees ability as black and white. That it creates a section of society dedicated to that and I’m just attuned to it because I simply don’t know where to belong in a world and a body with so much chaos trying to organize itself on the means of purity tests, and in groups and out groups.

And because I never experienced a settled state Ive been trying to find meaning. Maybe this is my tribe? No. How about this? No. And nothing remains clear. Instead I’m boiling up inside. Desperate for radical authenticity in a world that hides it or drowns it in sex, addiction, property, capital, and heirarchy.

Is that the diagnosis here? Is that my true diagnosis for this moment in my body? I cant be certain. But I feel yet again like I need to pack my things, hold my head down in shame and find a new place...all metaphorical of course...kinda.

Fuck this world...but God damn it do I love it at the same time.

The only thing that has helped me make sense of this confusion and layers of bullshit has been ambient noise music and hauntology. The noise reminds me of my body. It's complex, garbled, confusing, filled with a melancholy. It swallowed up the projections of the world.

I've also been looking at a lot of art and photography too on here. Perhaps I can find meaning within my own participations in that. Then again, my perfectionistic ass is still making art complicated and I end up procrastinating more rather than experiencing. Like I’m still looking for the "right way" even amidst my reconciliations I keep coming up with. It's an internal war.

I thought about just using my own photography, self portaraits, and fashion and stuff and just tracing over myself. Taking what I've learned in books and such. And maybe make some weird hybrid photography, line art. I don’t know what I'll do.

It's very strange how fascinated I am and disgusted by my own body. A mix of curiosity and body dysmorphia. It's so...strange. Some days you want to stare. Others you don’t want to look. It's mostly been I don’t want to look.

But when I saw myself in the mirror the other day in that outfit and the other OTHER day in makeup. I just saw something different. And I COULDNT stop looking. It's a strange confidence I have. And honestly. I've had more freedom from constraints with my body than any other medium of expression.

I feel like photography, fashion, and makeup have literally been the last bastions of freedom from constraints I have. My body is literally the last outpost for all that psychological perfectionistic bullshit to go away. I can be whatever identity I want. And I always put on music to go along with it.

What I Want To See

Now this post has kind of morphed. I’m talking about my own art plans now. I have been thinking about actually going to bars and cons and big people gatherings. But I don’t like those places. I don’t.

Well, I do actually. And it's not what you think. I had this thought and I’m not sure I wrote this down in my last post. But I want to go to bars. Not to get drinks and mingle and pick up guys. No no, I want to see it like an anthropologist. Or to document the "ghosts" of those places. The places where people go to for brief moments. Or where people used to be.

The parking lots, the continued cries of a bad night at the bar. Those things. Or just record the sounds of a bar and experience that. Not what cheap pickup line to use. Write about this world I entered into. My own thoughts and feelings. Yeah, that's what I'd want. Be it a bar or a con. A con would be great for liminal space exploration. Imagine all the places people don’t go to...or go to for "other" things.

I know eventually I'll need a car. I’m not at that point yet. I think I can make do to some extent without one...for now. The focus is on needing to regulate myself to be in the world. I don’t want to have an episode while taking a driving test...that would NOT look good. Besides. I have a lot of other plans first.

Well, I've sidetracked enough already from the original post...I’m calling it here for this post. I do have other things on my mind I’m thinking about. But I'll leave it for now.

[phantalgia]

A Mistake I Made and Going Through My Feelings About It

It's not something I'll talk about directly. But I will talk around it. It's complex yet horrifying and has been something that has shuttered my sense of self. It's left only a tiny bit, a fine thin hair stran worth of any semblence I have for a future for me. It's hanging by a thread when it already had felt before.

It's such a deep and personal matter and I'd hate to leave out other parties. But it's just something that I can only brush on. You don’t know what other people go through, especially in the moment. You don’t know who people are especially in the moment. When you’re a party that's completely oblivious to this all hell can break loose.

I’m already in such a negative high arousal state. My body is in fight or flight every day. I paid the price for it in the ER on Friday. Good news is that I’m technically healthy, no infections. I’m in constant pain and discomfort in my stomach and lower abdomen though. I’m still struggling with nerve pain, malaise, fatigue, and pre-syncope spells.

My attempts at throwing connection out into the void feel null. I’m trying my best to connect. In local chats, using VRChat. There isnt much space left for me. The friends I do want to connect with or make often just leave me or don’t follow through. I’m too much. My chronic illness is a burden, my agoraphobia, social anxiety. All burdens

So...you can imagine it's not a pretty place I’m in. I’m scared, alone, vulnerable, clueless, no escape, no outlet, nothing. I’m working so hard to achieve things but it feels like I’m knocked back and I needed to take a break so I do.

But my own self interest has come at the cost of neglecting there are others with needs out there. An illusory cage welded together by my own dispair. And I broke a boundary and my own values. Frankly, I can't even begin to explain my disappointment with myself. And I have to avoid getting in trouble for taboo subjects such as doing certain things to oneself, especially because we created rules that do more harm to these groups of people than good, I cant even express that. I will say I don’t fully have desires for that. But just that it can feel nice to imagine at least.

I feel ever lonelier and no matter who tries or for how long it just doesnt end it. It doesnt meet my need for a sense of security, a sense of belonging, contribution, and strength. Even if I do it can be one-sided. I either get nothing in return or I get things I don’t know what to do with.

My own physical pain, illness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, tinnitus (oh i have it bad in my left ear), struggles for connection. They all feel like theyre fighting for a validation and sense of being seen that cant be given.

I remember the other day having had finally broken through to one of my friends that come and go or can feel surface level and just temporal. I broken into something deeper and raw and richer that I was looking for that I was hoping to be worthy enough to see. And I saw. But again...it's temporal. It only lasts so long. Part of it is by design and the way things are yes. But it gives clues to what I want and what I’m willing to accept. Content maybe is the word?

This friend isnt the subject of what I’m talking about. Instead it's a different party. I've essentially failed on my part to hold values I cherish. And I screwed myself over further as well as harmed this other party. I was completely oblivious only because I was blinded by other things going on in my life, I couldnt take things seriously, and it didn't seem like I'd even be there long.

It's myopic, but turned what felt like meaningless sets of seconds into a connecting puzzle piece of clarity within moments. It hits you like a bullet train. And once the moment passes, it feels like a thousand years have passed. Thousands of years of solitude.

You cant look at yourself in the mirror, you can't do basic self care, you cant even be anymore. I really really have nowhere to go now. You cant even escape the moments themselves because theyre burned into your head playing on repeat over and over again.

And when you try to think of the other party. They become distorted and twisted. The pieces fit but are you even looking at it the correct way? Perhaps I’m not looking for an escape but for a way to make sense of this to transform for next time. But I’m just reminded of how even monsters can come out of ignorance.

I wonder about what I could have done more. How they feel. If it could even be repaired. I know and am haunted by the idea that this interaction will stain them. And that this will spill over into other areas. It's like I saw what they were trying to tell me when I was just oblivious and it just hits you. Slaps you back to reality. And there they are in the flesh. How could you be blind to it?

I cant look at the friends I barely interact with the same. My body has been feeling "better" lately but how long until that doesnt last? I mean it didn't I've been stuck in bed all day. Trying to make sense of the garbled noises in my Spotify playlists. Trying to use that to explain away my loneliness, my pain, my aching heart, my values, what I want, and how my struggles have made my panicked.

Because I think that's the crux here. I’m panicked and rushed. I’m realizing what went wrong in my life, what I want and know that I’m not like other adults. I used a crawling and walking analogy before. I’m uncertain if that's appropriate and ableist. But my intent is to share that it feels like I’m still an infant trying to crawl at my adult age. And all the adults walking are just confused and want nothing to do with me.

But anyway, it's just I have so many goals. Things I want and theyre simple. Theyre so simple. But they seem so complicated. I don’t desire much. It's not much material. I just want to be seen and reflect what others see in themselves. It's all through many mediums. Art, music, community. But these things...I cant get there so easily.

I wrote something here about how my mind operates in single modes and how draining it is. I forgot what I said. Tumblr's horrible UI got me to delete it by accident.

I try to reconcile, find a way to get around it, work with it, adopt new protocols. But this takes time. It will. Ive been working hard at it in my 20s but I also have these OTHER things going on. And yet at the end of the day. I’m sick, in pain, yearning for connection, touch, the basics. It's not there.

I keep thinking about our realtor for my current house. She said something "I have all my goals met but I’m still depressed". And I cant forget it. We're chasing too much when everything should be at our feet. Happiness is a tool, not a place to be or to be filled up by in material goods or a special someone.

We're artificially deprived of this tool through difficulties in getting our basic material needs met, our emotional needs, and the things that just make life more wonderful. Instead it's replaced as a thing with a price tag on it. It looks shiny and we all want it. So we chase after it. We push and shove to be first.

But it's there. It could be there. And it could be seen as a tool. I often wondered what would be the point of life without achievement. But what could be possible if we were given happiness as that tool. Perhaps movies lie to us that we need a happy ending. Not an ambiguos one.

I try to find some fucked up happiness in my misery. Not that the misery is the happiness, but the little things that tell me where to go. It's lead me to good music, art styles, types of people I want to be around. It's a guide, and a reminder to look at your feet where the tool of happiness lies and where it can take you.

I’m getting side tracked, point is. I have a lot going on in my mind. Not everything can be tended to. And often times its easier to just be inert. It comes at the cost of being tuned into the world and its inhabitants especially when you combine it with physical issues. And a parent who is aging up faster than you can keep up with the rest of the world.

I’m stressed! But I want connection and safety. But I repress it behind a silly everything is unserious attitude. And it has cost me. It's a juxtaposition to when I can sit alone and cry and be real. That it doesnt have to all be the same silly attitude. That real connectiveness comes from when we're able to be aware of that fluidity and experience it in our own ways.

And I couldnt tune in. Instead I was in one of my facets. A part of me that wanted to keep that away. I've made a fool of myself.

And here I am. I’m begging to be seen, forgiven? Confess my sins? Drown in woe was me? I’m not entirely sure if the situation can be remedied exactly. Some things you gotta let go? And this is my only place to do this. It becomes all about me. And not us...is this ok? I don’t even know. I don’t think nows the time for us. Especially when I havent even gone through my own emotions about this. I need to understand them in order to integrate.

I guess thats it for now, I’m ending the post here. I’m getting so tired. And my stomach is just cramping.

[phantalgia]

I like it when you tell me how you really feel, what you truely believe. What feels authentic to you. You’re not wrong...

[phantalgia]

A Rant, A Vent, A Whatever

I was feeling faint in my sleep. I could tell my heart skipped a beat because of what followed next. Funny thing is how dreams can adapt to what's happening in real life seamlessly. It kept getting worse until I couldn't take it anymore and forced myself awake. How any of this is possible? I don’t know that's not what I care about right now.

I really think the loneliness is getting to me. I’m struggling and in pain emotionally and physically. Yet despite it all I can list my accomplishments this year:

Doing in person therapy

Exploring identity freely without much judgement

Learned about emotions, communication, nervous system, breathing

Doing exposure therapy at the airport

In the process of preparing for traveling around locally, in the broader area, and around the country. I came up with some creative plans and divided up the types of bags I would need for each scenerio.

But it's lonely and painful. I’m not happy. I tried VRChat again and it's just even worse now. It's not the social platform I remember despite struggling then but more so now.

Again, part of why I’m not happy is because my health is so fucked up. Not that I’m dying or anything. I get it. I fucking get it. I won’t die. It's just that they make me suffer. It makes it more difficult to interact. But I’m carrying forward despite it all. I’m making plans doing exposure. I’m trying to talk to people locally but they don’t understand my situation. It's impossible for anyone to empathize and I feel like I’m the only one with this problem and no matter how many times I try to do something about it I still can't figure it out. But I make moves regardless.

I talk about agoraphobia, social anxiety, sensory issues, processing issues, chronic illness, nerve pain, digestion issues, fatigue, heart irregularities, pre-syncope, whiplash, obsessive thoughts. Nobody can empathize and they stop talking to me. They don’t understand that I cant keep up. Everyone is walking like its second nature and acting confused or like I’m attention seeking when I’m trying to crawl.

I live in a world that sees me as a burden. For every success that's big to me, is met with a whisper in celebration. Because people don’t care. They have their own fast paced high octane lives to live and I’m just in the way. Their impatience has lost me friends.

I know I can't live in this world. I’m in a rush to find my survival strategy as fascism takes over. The concentration camps are being erected, things are going to get more expensive, ICE will expand, silicon valley will monitor us, and we'll lose every ounce of property and control left. What do we have left? Each other. And I’m surrounded by these fucking people who don’t get it.

Instead it's petty arguments over the fact I don’t like a certain fast food chain. I’m not kidding. Like what world are we trying to build where we don’t critique our own way of living. People want to have their escapism and avoid politics while our masters go into full swing with the takeover. Greater Israel is the blueprint for this to be generalized.

The writing is on the fucking wall. The tech elites know AI will create a useless class of people with nothing to do. So they need to be held in captivity of some kind. They need to make sure we don’t get access to parts of the pie and that property and resources are maintained by them and maybe rented out to us.

Don’t think for a second that this stops after Trump. Social democrats don’t even have a solution either. They just want capitalism but gooder. One that exploits the global south nicely instead of abolishing the present state of things. The abundance agenda is just Green MAGA.

I digress. Despite the cries to hold onto something warmer we still act like nothing is wrong. I’m all out of "it is what it is" cards. I won’t accept it. I spent a lot of my time focused on myself but that's only because I’m in a rush to survive a coming harsh world. To form a foundation to let my wings spread and listen to my body.

I don���t know what the US socialist revolution will look like. I don’t think anyone knows. It seems like every strategy has drawbacks and we have a culture that by default doesnt believe in socialism or believes it to be a welfare state. Perhaps not drawbacks but more so the conditions and ideologies of US society make it harder to achieve anything.

Americans are weary about authoritarian means, so they value freedom even if it might mean consessions to the liberal order. I don’t believe it to be impossible for decentralized movement that is weaved together by common ideology to win. But I also believe it to be possible to overthrow our masters with only a small vangaurd party too. But that time still hasn't come yet. The correct stimuli hasnt aligned for a tipping moment. We're still waiting. Despite ICE, despite Trumpstein, despite ww3 threats, despite tariffs, inflation threats, privitization, concentration camps, mass surveillance, cuts to healthcare. People are standing up to ICE which is good, we need that momentum going.

We need to survive, protect each other and find new means of exchanging and relating in the meantime. But dont be idle, the time will come for us to do something. And it wont be walking around for a few hours with cute little signs about how mad you are at the orange man.

I digress...I DIGRESS. Look Im so tired. Im so done. Maybe not generally. But for right now. Im done. People generally do not care. They dont. Which means they dont care about me. "I cant control this" well dont you make a great fascist. Go have fun then, leave the vulnerable behind, and dont come crying when your fun gets taken away from you in direct or indirect ways.

I find it disgusting. It's like much of what Im missing out on and the toxic positivity makes my blood boil. This is the mindset of Americanism. "I want what's good for me, fuck you". It's selfish. And the irony is we do the sane thing through depression "oh im a bother or theyre too busy, I cant". Im guilty of that. But sometimes yeah you do get shitty responses when you reach out. This is American culture. It wants individualism through either sociopathy or depression.

It's fucked. We go to escapism but escapism is a myth when youre surrounded and being pit against the wall by reality. This isnt to say dont have joy. But to recontextualize joy through political action. The times today call for a new joy. Not to be mistaken for escapist joy. But active political joy.

Finding joy in helping your community, speaking out politically through art, being direct and saying no, reminding that our joy is within the realms of politics. There could be real underground movements happening within our communities but they avoid politics in the mainstream. Cant control it, it doesnt pay, and its too uncomfy. So is living with chronic illness bitch.

I want whatever butterfly I become to make that into praxis. I still need A LOT of time in the oven to bake. I got the wind knocked out of me. But I know I will do my best to pull up and empathize with others like me. I'll be there. And to me that's joy. To help those when nobody helped me.

I will keep trying. I will keep finding those who want to survive together and answer the calls when they do. My joy, my art, being me. Liberating myself from the constraints of this culture. That's my weapon. 

[phantalgia]

I’m Trying Hard Despite The Loneliness

Happy Disability Pride Btw!

I probably have gastroparesis and LPR (i am not typing that acronym). I can assume that it came from all the stress that's been going on these past few weeks. Trying to get myself out more exploring my identity and just having these new experiences a new feelings all before even really actually socializing.

What's tough is that I'm kind of doing this all on my own pretty much. And seeing how my dad's health or his age at least is showing that he's not gonna always be around. I'm hoping that for myself I can get myself into a position where I give myself permission to ask others for help create a support network for me that I need.

As usual I'm still uncertain if I'm gonna be stuck like this the rest of my life or if I get better or if I get a little bit better I'm not sure. As of late it's been hard to digest things my throat has been a little bit of a problem hard to talk and it always feels like there's something stuck in it which is why I think I have LPR.

My gut feeling no pun intended is that this is all come from the stress like I said. And I'm trying real hard regardless regardless of all the pain and feeling sick and feeling faint and sensory overload and doubt fear judgment I'm still pushing myself to get out pushing myself to explore myself in new ways and I have no cheerleaders. For the most part I'm alone in all this and that may seem kind of weird because part of my goal here is to actually meet up with friends and other parts of the country.

I'm not too sure what's going on but for my friends online it's been a little bit quiet and with that little bit quiet it's been a little bit lonely. Of course I understand that real life moves on you can't always be online things just keep moving.

My ability to make new friends online as of right now is deeply hampered especially because of my voice and just talking aggravates my throat's nerve. I'm not too sure what's going on there but that seems to be partly what's going on there's a lot of nerve pain happening there and numbness and feels like it's kind of the source of a lot of the digestion issues that are happening or part of it.

I'm kind of left here wondering what am I doing all of this for I know it's for me but what am I really doing this for? If traveling doesn't work out who do I have left out here I don't really have much. Probably can't say that because I'm not even at that point yet where I'm talking to other people in real life but from what I'm experiencing online within my local area it's just not been too well.

Most people don't really wanna check in with you most people don't really want to spend time with you and see how you're doing or get to know you they don't really wanna do that at all. I talk about my struggles and how a lot of them are pretty embarrassing because my agoraphobia and social anxiety but very real to me and many of these people just they leave they don't wanna deal with somebody like me who's never really had a chance to experience the real world and is having a hard time even more so now Especially after Covid and a surgery.

It's hard it really is hard. I can't do any of the things that I used to do or at least I can't schedule things in accordance with whatever. Part of the problem and this may be a neurodivergent thing or part of my chronic illness or they just kinda go together is I just have a hard time collecting activities together into a singular day or a week I'm much more spontaneous but rigid. For example I will wake up one day and maybe I want to draw and that's all I do that's all I can do that's all I can focus on that's all I become my energy is completely invested into this and it could be that way for the day or for a few weeks. It takes a lot of effort for me to shift a lot of effort and it can be draining pretty quickly before you can even start on the next activity.

I can think about how in school you know activities would be scheduled and all of that. I think that overtime that that was to my detriment because that just drained my energy drained my soul made me sick after school. So now as I get older and have these issues I'm much more sensitive than I was and that's saying something because I was pretty sensitive back then I denied it for a long time but now I can't anymore.

And unfortunately the reality is is that there isn't much place for me in the world not even online that much. Kind of feels like that many group chats discord servers and even places like VR chat they move like highways even if they're just slow they just move like highways so quickly even if they're slow it's hard to describe it's just that you know that it's dangerous to step foot on the highway because you could get hit by something. If you get hit by someone or with your own emotions your own energy just being depleted it's a lot to take in it's a lot of energy.

Other times it can be a feeling of being stuck in a fog that comes out of nowhere you know you have a goal but you just can't really figure out where to go next you're just so lost. Maybe before it was like a 9.5 out of 10 but now it's like an 11 out of 10 in terms of how much it just makes me suffer.

I'm doing a lot I am exploring myself I have big plans for myself and I wanna travel and make friends and keep them. I wanna know what it's like to love and touch somebody because I have a heart that's just dying for the world out there the world that I've neglected for so long with so much potential that I look at other people and hear their stories and what they do and I often just get envious.

It's unbelievable how people just don't understand how lucky they are to have what they have to be able to go places and not feel depleted and not feel sick and to feel safe and to have belonging even if it's feeling fake. After all a lot of people tend to just "fake it till you make it". For me it feels like I never could fake it. And that really my only way of survival was to avoid everything. That's a thing I keep mentioning over and over again but it's something that I have neglected about myself. I've just been avoiding from everything and that was my survival strategy. It's hard to believe but it really is.

Now that survival strategy is really have no use to me and it's not helping me. I have to try and get myself into a position where I can expand myself and really be who I want to be. Feeling like you have an incoherent and inconsistent sense of self throughout your entire life it can be really jarring and scary to just do anything.

Part of it has been following scripts and how life was supposed to be growing up that was what what life was supposed be. Until it wasn't and it didn't work anymore and then you realize that none of it actually worked to begin with so you don't even know who you are anymore.

It's so goddamn tough it really is tough because I have to formulate some new identities collection of identities to figure out what the hell I am who the hell I am. and I really am just doing this on my own. 



[phantalgia]

The Most Significant Night For Me

I have a question for trans people who discovered later or other identinauts (identity explorers). What did you feel when you first broke norms...mostly in terms of how you look or dress?

Because last night I managed to do it in a big way. Now I'd have to address that last night was very intense and spiritual for me. Almost like a "trip". So because of that I’m dealing with a lot of Post Exertional Malaise. I’m quite literally sick now. For a number of reasons.

Online Sizing Anxiety

It mostly has to do with sizing issues from my orders. I do NOT plan on returning anything...but I think I will just order new stuff in different sizes. Right now I’m waiting on some black shoes and my God am I nervous on if I got the size right. I compared my shoes, checked size. I’m size 11 M. I even got shoes this year so I know this. Buuuuut. For all I know I could have been measuring the shoe from the INSIDE, not the total shoe...oops. Crossing my fucking fingers.

The other sizing issues have been underwear and shorts. Turns out I’m really fucking skinny? And whatever the measuring tape said was completely bogus. The size of my pants are actually a much more accurate estimation. Which I measured. I’m not a size 32-33. I’m like 30 or even 29 pushing it. But thats hipline. I could be 28-29 there. It's difficult especially when you’re doing this online, holding onto faith. I am NOT going into the women's department irl.

I digress...it's something I'll handle on my own. Theyre hiccups but if I can get a better idea by trial and error of what my size is the better. I know my hipline is 30. My actual waist must be smaller. Oh! Another thing. The shorts I got they label the sizes wrong! X-Large wasnt even a 32 like it said. It was 34. I measured. So I might actually need a Small or Medium. Small is more likely to match my waistline, medium, my hipline. And these shorts are high waisted. It's hard to tell what to get. I won’t get into the TMI of underwear.

Working With What I Got

I was defeated at first. Going ahh fuck I messed up the sizes. They messed up. This is what I get for trusting Bezos or whoever is CEO of that stupid company. And it lead into doubt. It's only those two...so far that were wrong.

The doubt made me go "wow why am I doing this? This is stupid. I’m a 'guy' am I actually gonna wear this stuff?" But I fought back. I decided that fuck it. Shorts and unders are too big. I’m wearing this anyway, the point of this is experimentation anyway. So I did.

I moved myself away from the mirror. Put on the crop top, the underwear, the tights, the shorts with a belt, fishnet arms, and the choker I got. And I got to see what I looked like.

The Mirror Stage

It's like Lacanian psychoanalysis, I’m going through the mirror stage all over again. But it's like turned on its head. The ego is being twisted and shifted. It's disorientating but euphoric? I need to further elucidate what happened.

I remember I had a feeling I hadnt had in a very very very long time. But it was fleeting. Lasting maybe for a moment before I could figure out its relevance. I remember so much sensory stuff happening in my body.

The choker initially made my throat constrict inside. Then settled. The crop top made me notice that pulling my shirt down to cover my navel wasnt gonna happen. The sensation was like the feeling of having one foot under the covers for warmth, the other outside for cold, balance.

The shorts, while big where still usable enough. They really help eccentuate legs. And speaking of eccentuating legs, the tights did the same. They highlight how my legs even take up negative space. I never got to really see the contours of my legs. The fishnet arms made me see my hands as what they were. I couldnt stop manipulating them and noticing my nails.

Each part played a role, pieces to a picture. A window? Ooooh window might be important here. I might come back to that.

The choker made me see my head differently, my hair, even my stubble. The fishnet arms made me see my arms and hands differently. It's like they matched so well that I found greater beauty in my imperfections. Or what society expects me to conform into. Into limiting gendered clothes.

The crop top fed into the picture the choker and fishnets were making. So did the shorts as they were placed same distance to me head. And the tights of course eccentuated shape. But also hid the hair which I slowly realized didnt matter much in that moment.

I spent the night euphoric as hell. Dancing and listening to music. I felt great. It felt like I was tapping into a medium and something I wasn't afraid of constraints. Afraid of judgement and my harsh critiques. I just existed as this. My own body is a canvas, I got to paint over and see something else.

Which is the next part. The euphoria settled. I was honestly shocked I'd have euphoria. But I planned for that and I planned for what I expected next. The euphoria being fleeting.

Euphoria Disappears...

It's not that the euphoria was necessarily gone? Just recceeded. Instead at this point I was just staring at myself. LITERALLY for hours. All night till the sun came up. This is where more things get interesting

I listened to music. Occasionally grooving. But I also just sitting or standing staring. Trying to figure out what I was experiencing. Now that the euphoria was gone. I KNEW THIS WAS GONNA HAPPEN. And it's not a bad thing. It just invited me to go deeper. What was it saying?

Well this thing I was experiencing. I experienced it before. When I drew my fursona to something I felt proud and connected to. I couldnt stop staring at what I made. It was like there was this pulling sensation. To keep looking, experience, be curious, and go "what's next?" I was just with the moment. Maybe it felt like the mirror stage that Lacan talks about for infants happening all over again. Maybe I never got to see my own reflection?

So there's a theme here. And there is something I hadn't really uncovered about myself. However, one of the key things about all of this, gender expression, makeup, NOTHING FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED ABOUT ME. I didn't feel different. Instead, something else.

It's like I was always there this entire time. And all I needed are these perspective shifts. Reflections, look again and again and again and again. Maybe that's why I kept staring. Because I was still there. I was still me. But it just left me curious. What was I really looking at? "Despite everything, it's still you".

I never left, instead it was more like integration, it was like stars creating a constellation. It felt more like an invitation to drop everything and go down deeper. Out of deep curiosity and wonder. Guided by a soft and warm loving hand.

Gender Is The Window

I think for me, gender wasn't the end of itself. It's a means, a portal, a window. It's the act of peering into that makes me feel what I feel. Not the thing I’m peering at.

Perhaps this is to say I’m genderfluid? Hard to say. Best not to put labels, that defeats the point.

I feel as though what was really happening as I settled was I was allowing myself to experience. Not categorize, tap into what was there about me and bring it to the surface. Even long lost feelings apparently too.

Perhaps gender is the exploration. Not an end. Thats nothing really new. But I feel it. And maybe it can be a model elsewhere. Part of it has been about me putting something down, in this case certain clothes and connecting with it deeply and asking "what can I do next?" Maybe I will generalize the lessons of gender expression across how I interact with the world.

I still need to keep experiencing. And correcting mistakes of course. And keep making mistakes. Thats part of the fun. Life is a game we make the rules.

Conclusion

Mistakes were made, but I made do. And I saw the other side. And it's not a coherent named identity. It's just an art which could be the identity. I never really lived with a coherent sense of self. Didnt feel secure either. I didn't find a remedy for that last night, instead I found something better "possibility". The opening up and embracing something that might not feel coherent. It's an internal and external wanderlust that makes me feel affirmed in the way I am. Not that I need to be a man or woman. I’m whatever.

I don’t really know if anyone else has had these sort of spiritual sensations. And deep bodily, nervous system, emotional sensations. It almost feels like something that just doesnt happen? If I talk to some trans people a lot of times it's something they discover or knew early without the deep emotional feelings and sensations that accompany it. Even talking to femboys about it. It can be as simple as "I just like it".

But for me. No no no. It's not something I knew or "like" in a tradtional sense. It's a whole undoing of my being. Breaking my shell. Creating new sensations. And looking into and feeling a dream. I remember just rubbing the tights and feeling the texture. It's something else.

It's all about creation, reintegration, what's possible, story telling, liberation from structure and expectations internally and externally.

It's so fucking intense. And when theyre intense they can be scary. Some have an easier time or will tell you to "just do things" as if it's that simple. No I was correct to say that for me this was a deep spiritual journey I am going on. A guidebook to refer to for how I interact with the world and people going forward. And it all starts with what story I want my body to tell.

[phantalgia]

Theory of Psychotic Order

I had to reframe my terms so this is new terminology on the same ideas. Certain community teached my how insensitive are the original words that i used.

(horizontal–vertical thinking & harmonies)

⸻

Vertical Thinking

= fixation, structure, order

• Desire focuses on a single object, creating loyalty, stability, and continuity.

• Sexual energy is often channeled into structured pursuits such as intellectual work, science, or long-term goals.

• Prefers monogamous or highly defined relationships with clear roles.

• Energetically aligned with discipline, hierarchy, and long-term focus.

• Cognitive style: logical, systematic, and structured.

• Associated with a need for control, clarity, and boundaries.

⸻

Horizontal Thinking

= dispersion, flow, chaos

• Desire moves fluidly between objects, seeking novelty, symbolism, and transformation.

• Sexual energy is expressive, exploratory, and often spiritual or ritualistic.

• Relationships tend to be open, experimental, symbolic, or non-traditional.

• Energetically aligned with creativity, ambiguity, and dissolution of boundaries.

• Cognitive style: associative, poetic, nonlinear.

• Associated with freedom, intensity, and collapse of fixed identity.

⸻

Positive Harmony

= conscious synthesis between vertical and horizontal thought

• The mind can shift fluidly between fixation and openness, between structure and experimentation.

• Both tendencies are used strategically, not suppressed.

• Cognitive style is integrative, paradoxical, highly adaptable.

• Sexuality becomes ultra-expressive – capable of depth, stability, and transformation.

• Ideal for those navigating art, philosophy, mysticism, love, and revolutionary politics.

⸻

Negative Harmony

= neutral balance without depth or engagement

• The mind stays in the center, but out of detachment, not synthesis.

• Both directions are present only weakly, leading to flat, mechanical functioning.

• Desire is neither intense nor focused; symbolic connection is low.

• Relationships and sexuality tend to be pragmatic, habitual, or disengaged.

• Cognitive style: realistic, but uninspired – function over meaning.

• Energetically resembles conformity, routine, and emotional flattening.

[phantalgia]

truer words have never been spoken

[phantalgia]

This shit is the fucking worse. I swear. I’m self concious and insecure as is. And my Doctor is making out my suffering to not be that bad. With this whole hyperventilating thing reductionism. Literally good days, good weeks, good months. But sometimes. Bad hours, sometimes bad days. It makes me doubt I suffer.

I havent been able to stop thinking about all the signs that something wasnt right. That this isnt just anxiety. There's a bigger picture here I’m not being told. And I keep getting that help and ability to form that picture taken from.

It doesnt help that my therapist (although he does his best) is also reductionist in the anxiety realm. Like I wish they all would just say yeah you’re complicated and valid. I feel shut off from everything. It's all up to me now.

And because I have to essentially semi self diagnose. It makes it less real or authentic to others. Or that it's "all in my head". Literally sick of "just anxiety". There is no "just anxiety" even if it was it's still just as physical. That is so much strain on the body it becomes crippling when it's chronic or all you know.

Oh but I guess that just means I’m "weak" and need to take responsibility for myself. Whatever gets their inspiration porn addiction going. When I HAVE been taking responsibility. Trying to reach out and getting slapped in the face and told "you’re just anxious". Fuck man. You cant please these fuckers.

And I love my doctor. He could be worse but even he's not immune to the whole thing. I don’t know what kind of culture the medical field cultivates. I can only make guesses based on "capital and co" and heirarchy as the foundation. But it's a real pain LITERALLY going through this shit.

Every week I complain about physical symptoms "just breathe into a bag". But it's like no no no. This shit is just happening passively. Yes there are triggers. Yes I know I’m anxious and highly sensitive. Which NONE OF YOU ABLE BODIED FUCKERS UNDERSTAND.

"Just anxiety" is just the most painful thing to hear. Even people with chronic anxiety or occasional anxiety just say it to others. Anxiety-realism. Literally. Anxiety has been sterilized and become meaningless as a word to describe a sensation unique to each person yet chronic in a collective so high on "the grind" that when some people fall down. And fall down in complex ways. Theyre seen as weak. They have been afflicted with the "anxiety" psychosomatic bug. It's in their brain and cant possibly be seen as an interwoven complex issues of a culture hellbent on extracting every ounce of your money, time, soul, mental health, physical health. EVEN JUST BEFORE YOURE BORN.

It's painful. The strides I've been making in my reach for authenticity, honesty, and transformation. It's often seen as an exaggeration. That going out of the house while second nature to most had been anxiety and stress inducing to me till the point my body couldnt take it anymore along with covid and surgery. That regardless I’m fighting for a life i want given these curses which have at the same time brought me the gift of seeing life differently in more holistic ways. Outside of binary positive/negative norms that people just don’t understand.

I’m fighting hard and the celebration is quieter than a whisper. I’m grateful to be able to celebrate and mourn my body and strides. And maybe the quiet isnt so bad. I can put on my own music. Move and groove at my own pace.

But it is painful. It's painful having been the one lost to time all your life. The after thought to everything. My celebrations go quiet because it's all just me and my Dad's twilight years. To not be sure where to go next. To find connection with likeminded, similar minded creatures. That one day you just "woke up" but it was a build up to that moment for sure. But you just woke up one day. And now you’re confused. Where do you go next?

I want to do more for my communities. But it can be hard. It can even be hard to find a sense of it. When you need help. When I need help getting through a scary episode...who will be there?

It's not hard to imagine a world where we have that culture. But the culture is too realist or worse chronically pessemistic that it becomes narcissistic.

Invisible disabilities are strange. They can put you in the inbetween world. Where nothing is consistent. And people don’t like inconsistency. It makes them uncomfortable. When it's just a reality. It's liminal. I remember saying how last year every day felt like groundhog day. It was the same day over and over and over again. It still is in a lot of ways.

There's a battle of identity insecurity that goes on. To conform to able bodied standards but to also conform to disabled body standards. You cant win in this world. If you’re better it must mean you’re fine. But if not. You must be sick. But if it keeps oscillating between the two. Then you must be "delusional" or "just anxious".

You scream and bang on the door begging them to please look at this. I said that my symptoms were unprecedented to my doctor. And all I got was a "well no theyre not, anyone can have these symptoms given hyperventilating". The curiosity ends there, hit a brick wall. Nothing moves forward.

It's my own little space of hell for me. I thought that the physical stuff was the hell. It really is the least of it. I know what I need and what to do when they happen. What is really hell is other people.

being chronically ill with fluctuating symptoms is so annoying because when it's at it's worst im like "okay i desperately need some type of mobility aid right now, i haven't been able to leave my house in days" but then i'm able to go for a walk one day and suddenly i feel like im exaggerating my symptoms and that i actually can walk fine and it would just be embarrassing and pointless to ask for a mobility aid assessment

but like ... not struggling as much one day doesn't take away from the days that i struggle the most

our pain is valid even when it's not at it's worst and we deserve the accommodations we need even if we don't always need them at all times

[phantalgia]

Literally...

“Pride is for everyone!1!1!”

*no curb cuts*

*up a hill*

*no sensory safe zones*

*no ASL interpreters*

*no masks provided*

*grassy, uneven terrain*

[phantalgia]

It's My Birthday...

I think I started blogging over a year ago right? In a lot of ways things have felt the same...yet different. Perhaps it's the groundhog day feelings of chronic illness...whatever that means to me. For the first hours, I celebrate after midnight. I streamed, I took pictures in VRChat.

I tend to get pretty down on my birthday. I always do. I've had parties before when I was a kid, only two. But then everyone that came was gone, in fact they were just kids I barely even knew. I remember even getting so overwhelmed by my own parties I'd just hide away. Shutting down.

I don't think I've had a good birthday. Nothing that feels too memorable. Maybe a nice pasta dinner here and there. But nothing much really. My birthdays are just reminders that I'm getting older, the birthday wishes are like airplanes flying overhead.

Last year was different. Instead of celebrating my birthday. I celebrated the friends I screwed over, the people I never got to be around. I celebrated what was lost. And it felt good. I celebrated by saying to the people I had that I'm grateful for them. I was shut down if I remember. Shut down by one friend. It hurt.

So far all the messages have felt meaningless. The friends I was hoping to see didn't show up or say anything. But, maybe I just need to wait. There's still time left.

But I got things to look forward to. Really nice things to look forward to. Because I did something, before streaming, before VRChat. I did something that I can probably be proud of for myself. Something where I can say happy birthday to myself and be actually connected.

Gender Exploration

I bought myself makeup! Online...this is a two phased process. First phase is the makeup phase, the second is the clothes phase. I think it makes sense. If the makeup works out well...which I suspect I would really suck at XD, I think I would get the cue...keep going. But how did I get here? Before I didn't think I'd do it. The judgement, fears, being wrong, being right, being numb, apathetic, neutral. So many things. I discovered that's what I ultimately feared. I fear not liking, being apathetic, or neutral.

Fear of Apathy

I realized I'm afraid of seeing myself in the mirror and going "this isn't right" or going numb. Not sure how to decipher what I'm looking at. Thankfully I will be in a controlled environment. By myself, watching the transformation begin. And that's what I realized. I had my mindset wrong about gender. Transformation, reclaiming something lost or mythic, permission to be imperfect.

How I Changed The Way I Viewed Gender Exploration

Those words prior are important: transformation, reclaiming, permission, imperfection. See I thought that what I'm doing is to feel RIGHT in something. That's the wrong idea. Because one of two things could happen. One I get really euphoric but then a crash happens. Or I get disappointed, uncomfortable, numb and a crash happens or rebound. Either way, a huge shift happens, like turning the shower on to cold.

This is wrong...wrong wrong wrong wrong. The message is not to feel "correct" I have always BEEN correct. That makes the experience static. Instead it's PERMISSION. The experience thus becomes dynamic. This is what my music that I listen to has been telling me. I'm not searching for a correct way of being. I'm searching for permission. Permission to go into the unknown, to explore, to be creative, to transform. This isn't about being right or wrong. It's about the permission to do what I've held back. Hence the reclaiming. Reclaiming the lost, the mythic.

It's permission to be imperfect. It's transformation of my skin, soul, relation, creative expression. It's the permission to transform. To use my body as the vessel for POSSIBILITY. And what I'll see in the mirror. The fear, the feeling of this identity being wrong. I need to remember. It's not about feeling right or wrong, but permission to embrace POSSIBILITY.

I see my body as a canvas. A canvas to drape and express in ways I couldn't before. The mind then follows the body. And I can take things further. Create dialogue in other artistic places that matter to me. Drawing, photography, dance, and more. The body needs to speak. Write its own story, not through word. But through what the visuals say.

I can wear what I want in my room. Next to me is a mirror. Whenever I feel disconnected or I forget. I can turn over and look at myself again. What do I see? Not beauty, not coherence, not ugliness, no sense of ease. I see "what I'm going towards". If I'm jolted back with shock, after hours of reading or watching videos looking at myself. It's only a reminder. That's what it's there for. It's to say "Hey! I see you! We're going somewhere!" Gender thus becomes a means...not an end. The body becomes the art form for the others. The permission for the others.

So it's sacred. It's not just a funny joke to wear a maid outfit. Or to be a femboy for the sake of some gratification. It's more than that. The sensual feelings are real, this is just normal aspects of gender. Yes gender and identity expression is sexual...it doesn't have to be for some. But for the most part it's there. But this applies to cisgenders too. It's ALL sexual. I think I still haven't accepted that. Parts of me still believes the myths that I have some perversion internally. Then I guess every man wanting a big tiddy goth gf also has a perversion.

Anyway, there is this interplay with sensualness, softness, play, possibility, giving life to, permission, invitation, transformation, surrealism. It's all part of the experience. I had it all twisted that I was meant to feel something static. No...it's just dynamic. It's a cycle. Which is probably why I'd need to let myself sit with it. Treat it with care. Close my eyes and open them to the mirror. Play with different songs. See how they interact with what I'm wearing. See what worlds my mind conjures as I stare into the mirror. It's not about the person on being reflected back. It's about the internal experiences that create dynamism. The pulsating sensations. The shifts. The minutes, hours, days passing.

Like I said, sacred. I don't think I've made that clear. Perhaps I'm reaching out for a long lost self? Parts of myself? Or the "myth"? The myths that maybe I could have coherence? Or be able to exist with others in the world without or with less insecurity.

Right now I'm listening to "les" on Spotify. Soft words, musique concrete...background ambience so gut wrenching. But it's almost bitter sweetness. For me...I'm older. I'm older. I can remember the avoidance I've experienced my entire life. The lack of permission. The flatness. Perhaps music like this when I look in the mirror will help me communicate to that.

What I experience is gut wrenching, not just gender, everything. Identity itself. It's also hopeful, it's what I've listed before. I hope I can have space to cry and listen to everything. Listen to the gut wrenching, the resolutive, the vastness, the isolation, the journey, the groove, the celebration, the mourning, and to come together and nurture permission.

VRChat Reminded Me

When I saw my avatar tonight, I'm reminded of what I feel. I look at it, and it feels like someone I know. And I become something else or an extension of myself. I want to keep feeling that. I give it time...I give myself space. I'll allow myself to read not what feels right, wrong. But the permission just TO feel and try. Try it all...for I am trying so hard right now.

I spent the prior week stuck in bed for 4 days at least. Had a huge tachycardia episode that destroyed me. Stuck in bed literally. Could not get out of bed without feeling faint. Couldn't sit upright without losing my breathe. Good news is I learned that eating while laying down is so much easier.

I'm not sure if this is "just anxiety" or if there is so much chronic illness. I'm trying and living.

Gender Is Art

My gender is an art. It's not something that can be just it's own isolated thing. It's my art. My body is art. I always new this. I wanted to express and see what motion, layers of drapery, marks on the face can do to the self. The sense of self, the relation to things. I'm transforming. Permission to transform and to feel myself ever expanding. When I express myself, it's not to be pretty, just transform how I feel myself, see myself, and what I want to do or be.

My Offer Of Advice To Those Who Are Struggling With Identity

If I can give advice to anyone who may need this. Perhaps you need to find where you can get permission. What you're looking for is permission. Permission may be within the act of taking leaps of faith like I have. But I don't believe that's a hard truth. There are steps that are prior. These are the CLUES to permission.

The clues to permission is within the songs you hear, the smells you enjoy, the breathe you take, the taste of your favorite food, the feeling from a game, movie, show you really like. The permission is a smile from a friend. A nod from a stranger. The birds chirping. But it's also hidden away in the shadow of our deepest and darkest parts of ourselves.

That loneliness you feel despite everyone being around? That's the permission scratching at the door. The anxiety you get from attempting anything? That's transformation speaking through the static broadcast. The feeling of releasing yourself from the burdens of life? That's the call from deep comic void telling you to look again, the angle is different this time. Can you see it? It changed. Look at it again.

These shadow parts of ourselves are mysterious, they hold a curse, but they come with great power. The mystery itself is enough to enchant anyone. Do you succumb or find patience with yourself? That's not a binary question to be answered. You're correct as your are. Your fears, your doubts, your unstable self. That's all reality. Listen a little deeper, and cradle it close. Sing it a lullaby. For when you let them rest, you can see their true beauty. How much life they give you in absence of their hostility.

"Despite Everything, It's Still You"

I think one of the most impactful games I've played has been Undertale. (Still gotta play Deltarune Ch3-4!). You know the line "Despite Everything, It's Still You". It's simple. It doesn't really answer much. It's just something you feel. At least for me it was a tugging. It's still...me? What is?

It's all still you. If you look at your feet. That's you. You get to decide how everything makes sense at your feet. The permission is all there. I think beyond this. There is a dreamy component that fills in the gap where Undertale leaves. A dreamy part I haven't really gotten. Something haunted, something terrifying, something dreamy.

Is that permission calling? Possibility? It all follows us. It's waiting...waiting for you to pick up the phone. And when you answer, it'll tell you the clues that were there. And to look at your reflection through the payphone glass illuminated by the streetlight on a night sky.

Permission to play and experience all

[phantalgia]

My Body On The "Occupation Force" In LA

I’m not a position to speak. I’m just recovering from a major health episode. But I probably won’t fully recover if I don’t get my thoughts and feelings out here. Before I address LA. I need to address my body which does incorporate the news. And I think I will conclude this with a return back to my body.

For those who haven't seen my posts. I suffer from Long COVID, and a surgery that has left my body an autonomic mess. I have congenital heart disease, and neurodivergent. Which has lead me to believe that part of my autonomic dysfunction has always been there because of how I navigated the world growing up. I always feel disgusted with my body like a discomfort gross sharp tingling sensation with a foggy malaise. It's made me dysphoric to say the least.

I already have a bunch working against me. Hypersensitivity and an ever moving mind. I don’t think the internet helps. Especially this 2020s era internet. But neither does capitalism, the political climate, and the COVID endemic that we ignore. I've learned through this all that we really have to focus on our bodies. To listen and respond accordingly. I fail in some ways, and I succeed in others. I’m just in process of figuring it out. Developing new habits, dropping bad habits.

Last monday was big for me, I got out for the first time (first time as in to start making real life connections, conquering social anxiety and identity insecurity). But last Monday also took out everything from me. From that point till today I've been stuck with a malaise. And I have to be ready again on Monday to do this all over again. I’m not giving up.

So, to see the news. To see where things are going. I live in SoCal. I grew up in LA. It's my home. To see it under threat by another layered occupation force (which technically has been occupied indigenous land regardless) scares me. I never would have thought that my home would be the start of what I fear (but we can't confirm of course) of a real civil war.

Donald Trump's ICE raids have gotten more intense, more militarized, and this feels intentional on LA. Trump hates Hollywood. He recently decided to withdraw funding to California, with Gavin Newsom floating withholding federal taxes. Domestic escalation.

We've seen on the streets in LA people's families being ripped apart from the ICE raids, they have quotas to meet after all. It's heartbreaking and the citizen response is only correct and while I agree with many on the left that we need a coherent revolutionary agenda, the response is needed too. I think we do stand to lose many centrists and liberals support for these actions. But what else are people supposed to do when a secret police is taking away your community? So maybe it will lead to something coherent down the line. We only respond with the stimuli and I'll explain why soon.

My fears are that what's happening in Gaza is merely an evil test bed for military and AI technology to be deployed on immigrants and then "domestic citizens".

Having sat with all of this. All of this energy, rage and fear. And most of all this sense of powerlessness and grief that I’m not doing more has boiled inside my own body. I paced and paced with rage, fear, and powerlessness. Ruminating and wishing I had people with me by my side. I’m privledged to be where I’m at. That my Dad can be there in these scary moments. Because after dinner, too much dinner, the anxiety, the malaise, the pacing, the rage. I sat at my computer and felt my chest violently skip a few beats. It hit me so damn hard like a god damn train.

Feeling faint, limbs going cold, palms and soles of my feet bursting in sweat. The shaking. The fear I’m gonna die, or fear of having a heart attack. Ive had these before but not one like this in a while. I grabbed my pills, xannax, heart meds, paper bag. Trying to listen to what mode or modes my body was trying to get into. Sympathetic? Or parasympathetic.

Wrong type of breath and I risk my heart doing it again. My adrenaline is surging. I cant decide if I should get up potentially making my blood drop to the floor forcing my heart to work harder and having an even harder time adjusting. So I stay on the floor, my Dad makes me tea to help me digest better.

My body at that point keeps going in and out of states of calm and relaxed and nervous. When I breathe into a bag to recycle CO2, I fight against my sympathetic nervous as my gag reflex goes off. Then I really start seeing stars. My eyelids are twitching. All I can do is keep doing my best to remain calm. Breathe into this bag. Let the pills do their thing. Digest. It's gotten better. But I’m sensative still.

I had a few moments in which my heart went off but more managable. I had one instance where my head felt like I just got knocked around. Or a whiplash.

It's all a god damn fight just within my body to find homeostasis. And I can make analogies to the collective nervous system which is in fight or flight. We're trying hard to respond accordingly. And from what I've learned dealing with my nervous system troubles is to listen and make peace to redirect.

If my body says its time to panic I let it do so in the way it knows how. But I also leave room to invite calm. And we become in dialouge till we can find balance once again.

I have faith in the collective nervous system to do the same. Our anger and rage is right. Our response is correct. We cant fight our nature. But we can also invite for that careful awareness to bring about something more beautiful. And when we channel. From there we can be the builders of that homeiostasis. Of balance to the collective nervous system.

We were never built for the modern world. And already this morning. Before the news, I was lamenting at how much the interney disrupts my sense of self. Short form content, drama, and constant stress. It's killing us. And what comes out are incoherent ideologies much like the Palm Springs bomber.

This isnt to say we cant find any homeostasis. We will. Civilization is a recent human invention compared to the size of human history before that. We're still working out the kinks of it. And we need to give ourselves some credit. Despite the violence and exploitation of today, we are making progress. We just need to remain stubborn and rebellious.

Right now...despite the news...despite my guilt, grief, fears, and health. I must rest. I cant be fired up like this all the time otherwise I’m of no use. With what little energy I do have.

I wish the LA resistance the best against the police state.

[phantalgia]

Saw someone get banned somewhere for saying something about a majority group. Something so stupid off the cuff. And it was at a time where they were stressed. And it was like to a classroom size audience. And they got perma banned :\. Meanwhile you have bigots, genocide apologsts, and outright creeps with big ol podcasts going on Jubilee and shit. They get their platform...THEY GET INVITED EVEN. These liberal platforms are not your friend. You’re expendable. And can be kicked off at any moment.

[phantalgia]

OBBB, Enabling Act-lite?

One big beautiful bill! Trump really wants this thing pushed through. He wanted it with his Tax cuts during his first term. But there was something about this bill that seemed different.

One of the things the bill does is allow the executive branch to designate any non-profit as a terrorist group. Something Vikor Orban in Hungary has been toying with as well.

The other, most shockingly is the following I got from Robert Reich's substack:

No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued

You can see more here:

Essentially, this rules any contempt by courts as mere "opinion". Trump has already been ignoring courts and is piling up a bunch of crimes in real time with no one really stopping him. This is just mirroring The Enabling Act of 1933. I mean it's not 1:1. But you can see where this is going.

For liberal democracies. Courts are the big fucking deal. And because these "democracies" are so fragile they fucking break. So this moment, liberal democracy itself laid its own seeds for this inevitability.

I mean let's face it, wealth and power is being concentrated towards financial industry and tech. The first proto-corporate city states are being propped up in real time. And they're gutting every governement agency from the inside out effectively making it all defunct.

Imagine a Democrat president, Gavin Newsom coming in to clean this shit up. Re-organizing government to favor corporations and to make concessions with the far-right. I mean this is fucking ridiculous. There is no saving this stinkhole of an inherently fascist and genocidal country.

Things are gonna get uglier. And what are you going to do? Look at your fucking life. You know the macro movements are swaying against all of us. What are you doing? Going to pretend it's not happening? No you better be preparing...preparing your community and people you care about for survival.

We dont have much left. I dont see class conciousness or social conciousness happening anytime soon. We may be knee deep in shit and its too late. The least we can do to ensure it happens is to actually organize and prepare for whatever happens next. We'll know what to do when the time comes as long as we're prepared.

The Great Recession was a signal, tea party movement was a signal, Trump 1.0 was a signal, COVID was a signal, the genocide in Gaza is a signal, war in Ukraine is a signal, genocide in congo, sudan, puerto rico's crypto-colonialism, mangione. These are all signals to the collective nervous system. We must listen to it, and prepare to respond accordingly. Stay educated, stay connected, keep transforming.

[phantalgia]

I love seeing how much I've changed in the past year. So far demiboy has been slowly feeling less and less accurate as time has gone on. And I've slowly adopted They/Them as primary pronouns. Even told my dad about it. He's too boomer to understand it but it's not that he isn't open. It could be worse. I decided to cut him some slack and let me do my stuff.

I cant be certain if I’m someone who is "chronically ill" either. Although tonight certainly felt like I still was. Been having a reprieve of all of my major symptoms for a while. But tonight. Omg they came back again. It's annying. Every time they leave. I get cocky and start jumping into exercise, slowly build it up. And then I crash.

But I live on. June is a big month where I really put full throttle the world of self doubt, mystery, relations, social anxiety, insecurity, and identity to the test. Pride month is the month i start making connections. And letting my wings spread. 

[phantalgia]

Barbie (2023): Self-Aware Cynical Liberal Feminism and a 'Dream'

I watched the 2023 Barbie movie. And I can't believe it's been 2 years ago. My god. But I watched it. I couldn't help but be entranced by it. It tugged at a lot of gender feelings I've been having. SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU CARE.

It really covered a lot on what it means to be a "man" and a "woman" in today's climate. But not in the way that's liberating in the slightest. I mean honestly. The movie is a little bit disturbing. Disturbing in the sense that it's self aware. Mattel knows that Barbie turned out to work in favor of patriarchal standards for women. And they're also self aware that liberal feminism has flaws. And the movie provides no solution to it. It's just a self acknolwedgement and let's all hold hands and hope one day men and women can together share equal space in opressing each other under a liberal democracy.

That's what disturbs me and the big elephant in the room is capitalism. I’m reminded of this quote: "HOWEVER RADICAL YOUR MESSAGES AS AN ARTIST YOU ARE DOING IT THROUGH SELF-EXPRESSION THE CENTRAL DOMINANT IDEOLOGY OF MODERN CAPITALISM". But I would like to add it's more so that it's cynical and self aware. It's meta. And hopes you can laugh along.

Quite literally the movie ends just how it began. Phony "every day is perfect" type of attitude until Barbie mentions "death" as a concept. Which disrupts everything. And the movie ends in a similar way, except we don’t revist the concept of "death". But it's not death that is the take-away at the end of the movie in this case. It's patriarchy. THEIR ONLY SOLUTION IS TO JUST DANCE AND HOPE FOR THE BEST.

That's how it ends. I mean the movie is even self-aware at how liberal feminism has failed men. But with no solution. It's kind of a vague "just discover who YOU are" mentality. The movie isn't anti-man like reactionaries say it is. But neither is it pro-women. It's hypernormalization. We know it's bullshit. Barbie dolls are bullshit and Mattel's conditions are horrid and the world is polluted by plastic. And it's not fantastic. AND THE MOVIE KNOWS THIS.

They do the hard work of critiquing and self-awareness for you. And outsource action in a circular fashion. I mean they have to. There quite literally isn't saving Barbie as a concept. In terms of patriarchal standards and what isn't even mentioned the capitalism that fuels it.

Instead the movie retains hierarchies, and the realism of today's world. Of how patriarchy has been recontextualized. But I don’t think it was all bad? Because I got something else. Something at the sides. And that was a dream.

The movie practically edges the audience with the idea of liberation. But can only do enough to pull you back into its trance. And did I feel the trance all right. But within the trance. I felt sort of a tingling at who I was as a person. Who I wanted to be but also didn't want to be.

I think the movie made it clear who I didn't want to be. That was made VERY clear. And in its own right. It's a good watch for that. It made me not want to be someone who accepted a framework. But it also made me value what are SUBJECTIVE ideas of femininity and masculinity within me (again, subjective not fact). And for that I saw the inbetween of myself. I saw someone who wanted the beauty and performance of femininity. While retaining the foundation of masculinity.

It sort of put into perspective of where I can place my own gripes with masculinity in a healthy way. In a way that feels genunie rather than performance. It's hard to fully explain. But the closest thing I came up with and this is by no means 100% accurate. It felt like I wanted to aesthetics, mannerisms, and feelings of femininity. While retaining another sense that had masculine foundation. I said it just earlier.

Do I believe this intellectually? Not at all. But I’m also having an identity crisis that I didnt know I had. And ironically, Barbie gave me clues. That's the second half of the dream. Barbie provides the message laterally, in what isn't said. And I deciphered the code/the dream in my own way that gave me 2 things. 1. What I didn't want to be 2. What was possible for my identity for what feels comfortable to me...FOR NOW.

Barbie didn't provide an answer or an ending. But the key to a new door. A new possibility in what was NOT said. A door to other possibilities. It's an escape room. A never ending escape room of life. And the clues here weren't even in the actual movie.

So I don’t recommend actually watching this movie and giving Mattel money. Find some other way if you do. It's not really a good movie or transformative movie for feminism or gender roles (maybe only slightly). But it's what isnt said...that broke me down. Literally. I cried. So I recommend this only to people who are struggling with gender identity and what patriarchy has put us through. But look carefully. Because you’re not gonna find the answers IN the movie. It's what's left out that you need to look out for.

This is a short post...I feel like I have more to say or could say things better...but maybe I'll leave that for another time...