#and also them as adults is just depressing..how could they ever have a realtionship with that kind of baggage

[hohohomelander]

so sirius and james trusted each other more than anyone else, was described as inseparable and 'never saw one without the other'. they were the closest in their little group, they had the mirrors to stay in contact at any time, just for themselves. sirius ran away to james. godfather, best man, loved james more than anyone else and was dedicated to him for the rest of his life. and you fools prefer to ship him with ..*checks notes* that other guy?? the one he suspected was a spy?? the one that thought the same of him and let him rot in prison?? the fuck?

explain pls, cause i dont get it

[unravelling-the-world]

random thoughts related to kagepro (tw for depression?? death?? suicide ?? implied ?? im not sure and idk what else read at ur own risk)

well idk lately ive been thinking a lot and ik ive uh always (? since i can remember?) have been depressed (i mean...it started around age 12...i dont really remember much before that. most of what i remember are bad moments anyways. or very specific scenes. but they dont feel mine. if that makes sense. its like remembering the scene from a movie.  back on track i guess idk well lately ive realized i actually kin some characters and lately ive...been relating a lot to shintaro kisaragi fromkagepro. i mean its ok. there´s always been that specific similarity in us (after all, how many characters in anime are as related to coca cola as shintaro //and me,,im literally a coca cola addict lmao// well anyways. after some days, this lead me to thinking...to a hidden memory within my brain, i guess. I remember introducing my then best friends, to kagepro. one told me haha he´s like u bc the coca cola!! and i think i just laughed and smiled? i truly didn´t see it? i was sad sure, but i couldnt really relate to him. after all, i was the leader of my own little group of 12 year old weebs,right? (i was also 12 btw) i didnt personally dislike shintaro but i didnt rly see myself in him yknow? also i have loved ayano from ever since i have memory so idk like she´s one of my biggest comfort characters and its weird bc if she was ´´real´´ idk if i could date her or anything but im just glad she exists bc it somehow comforts me a lot yeah anyways ayano essay for another time lol. anyways at this age my favorite characters in kagepro were ayano and konoha ( i still love them a lot) thing is, at this point in my life i didnt know/wasnt aware i was transgender but i already kinda liked he/him pronouns so i roleplayed a lot. online. i roleplayed as konoha obviously lmao and actually one of my irl friends related to shintaro ?? and i think we may have roleplayed lmao and stuff.... she even had a facebook account named shin hikkikomori or smth like that. anyways fast forward bc after being 12 a lot of stuff happened obviously. and none of that relates to kagepro until quite some time. i will mention some items that dont really relate to kagepro but marked moments in my friend group that may be relevant later on. Around 2016)? Some of my closest friends changed schools (but we kept contact) yet i still had a big group at school. But it got fragmented along the way. 2017 i went to Japan and formed a new, different friend group with people that even today, are dear to me. When i came back, my friend group fragmented more. I kept contact with other members of the old group but one on one, not as a group anymore. 2018 we graduated, and i broke up my realtionship with one of my former best friends (2016-2018) 2019 was a year of change, and even though i was afraid and shit got weird, i was not doing too bad. i will skip that. Well. Im sure we all know 2020 was a trainwreck, shit happened. i had a villain arc. I lost my shit,definetely. Ups, downs, whatever. 2021 has not been too different. However, even through everything, in early 2020, i kept close relationships with my friend group. as the year moved forward and the restrictions started lifting ( thank you government very cool <3 //ironically obviously, this is the reason this shit wont go away//) some of my friends saw each other irl and stuff, or talked about stuff i didn´t understand/didn´t want to hear while on discord. I felt alienated. I felt empty. I got mad at a friend for the first time, for something he said. I ended up isolating myself. A friend celebrated her birthday. She invited me and never excluded me, asked me a lot of things and asked to virtually include me. But that would just make me feel more alienated, wouldn´t it? I told her it was ok, i didn´t go. Honestly, I felt like a bother. I didn´t want to bother. I wasn´t okay, but i didn´t want to bother anyone, so i isolated myself. I had a very bad breakdown. lasted weeks. When I recovered, it wasn´t the same. It felt like everyone else was closer, while i drifted away. I kind of recconected with some of my friends from Japan after this. In the vacations, i felt like i reconnected with some friends just to drift away again later. However, i never could reconnect with one of my best friends. She never really got mad at me or anything ( i think) but we don´t really talk much anymore. We used to talk daily, be it actual talking, memes, anything. I don´t think we´ve actually talked in weeks. There´s nothing I can do. This year, another friend had a birthday, but I was so disconnected from everyone I didn´t even care. I mean. It´s all broken now, isn´t it? The other day I just started wondering. When did I start relating to Shintaro so much? I had always been like this, hadn´t I? Who am I, actually? Why do I relate so much now? It´s not just about the soda. I had lost friends before, but I never really felt like that. Sometimes I feel like I´ve lost everyone. In a one year span I became a hikkikomori. About a month ago, when I entered classes, I was recognized as Shintaro pfp and I admitted to kinning him to people i´d never talked to before (on chat) // I decided to go apeshit idc anymore about what anyone thinks of me// I had fun. I think I must´ve posted on my stories, because two different people told me they were the ene to my shintaro. I appreciated it. i mean it´s kinda true bc now that i´m only on the pc they do bother me online and try to get me to open up or get better but sometimes the just annoy me lmao but also not bc they all have their own particular lives and they all seem to be doing better than me. Still, my classmates are very nice and inclusive. But it´s not like im close to any of them I guess. I´m just alone now. I´m fucked up man....I don´t feel real anymore. I don´t really know who I am. I guess that´s why I find comfort in seeing a part of myself in Shintaro? But when did i turn out like this? Why didn´t I relate when I was younger? Well, I hadn´t really lost any friends back then. I now know how painful that is. How lonely it is to be alone even when there is people around. idk. and i´ve always been quiet. introverted. shy. a loser. yet now whenever i meet anyone i try to idk connect? but i cant. i wish i could be more evil. maybe it´d just be easier if everyone really, truly hated me. maybe i´d get the strength to actually kill myself then. it´s weird. i really see myself in route xx shintaro. I know that´s fucked up because I know how it ends. but truly, i was trying. I was healing, i think i was going somewhere. and i was trying to keep my newly formed renovated friend group together. I really was trying to. I didn´t mind if we had sub groups on the big group, but we were all there for each other. I tried my best. I felt like i belonged. but now im alone again. and this time there´s nothing i can do. if something, i´ve made it worse. and i keep making it worse. it´s weird. when i first got into kagepro, both shintaro and ayano felt like adults. i thought they were really, really big. im older than them now. now i know theyre not really adults. i get it. i still feel 18. after all, these last two years have been taken away from me. i didnt waste them myself this time.  i feel like a rotten 18 year old...when i listen to lost time memory, i just...get it. i always liked the song. i thought the story was so cool. when it first came out.. i still remember. iwas there. i waited for it. i loved it. i still do, but back then, i just saw it all as some really great and cool song. now i feel like i really, really get it. i love it even more. im hiding away in all my memories. but what is my true heart? what do i really want? i don´t know, i don´t know... If I'm 'wise' then, I can't face forward; I have no reason to so, I'll rot away instead It would be nice if time could be turned back. Years may pass but I'll never die I repeat hopeful words to myself, even though I know I still won't be able to reach you. "It doesn't matter, just die already!" I said as I clutched my wrist, simply cursing it. Unable to do anything, I merely indulged myself in life. "If summer can show me dreams, then let's go to before you were taken away" The days where I hid my embarrassment are illuminating upon the atmosphere and burning my mind. If I'm wishing for a dream that can't come true, then I'll embrace this blurry past and have a dream which I don't wake up from and naturally seclude myself from the outside world. "But that means you can't even see tomorrow?" I don't really care 'bout that, so it's ok I stained my hands in order to kill these boring days I'm choosing "solitude" after all A rotten boy at 18 today too, prayed again while clinging on to your colored smile Underneath the blazing sun Asking "Somehow, please take me away instead of leaving like this!" and my murmuring breath was quietly stopped

I guess i just wish someone could actually help me. take me out of this hole. Maybe some kind of closure would be nice. It´s not the same, though. I don´t have enough bravery in myself to actually kill myself. Mostly because of guilt. I can´t take the guilt of dissapointing everyone. I don´t want my parents to get hurt. I don´t want my bunny to miss me. Yet i wish everyday for it to be over. Lately, half of my dreams have been in Japan, with many friends, some who i met there, some who have never been there. Yet my brain shows me the dreams before it was all taken away. I think one of my favorite parts of the day is dreaming. I like to sleep simply because I dream. And i sleep very few. mayb bc i hate myself? I still barely indulge in life. I do anything to stay distracted. If i think, it all goes to shit. it all does. like now. Heh. it´s funny. I guess no one is truly my ene, because no one actually knows how mentally fucked up i got these past months. No one knows how badly i´ve been treating myself and how badly i´ve been doing. Still, i can´t tell anyone but scream it into the tumblr void. No one has to keep up with my shit. No one has to take care of me. After all, it was I who chose solitude. It was me who kept them away. But I don´t get a second choice. I don´t get a change of routes if things go sour. And i guess I don´t get to get a mentally fucked up friend group where I belong for a second time. Once was good enough, wasn´t it? I.. Even when I wasnt as deep as i am now (again) into kagepro, ive always wanted to die on August 15. It holds meaning to me now as well. Every year I used to ask people to go out with me that day. I know im not brave enough to kill myself. I always hoped for a lil miracle i guess. Last year was the first year...I didn´t do anything. I just... I just hope this year i can make it. I hope the miracle happens this year....I can only hope......its too late for me to be saved, isn´t it? I never thought it´d be like this. I don´t get closure. I don´t get goodbyes. I am left behind on a world that keeps moving. I am nothing.

[chasing-rabbits]

I think something people find hard to deal with when it comes to borderline personality disorder is it literally affects ALL emotional states. Not just mania and severe depression but trust love paranoia anger anguish etc etc it affects everything and unlike most people who can stay in charge of their emotions most of the time or at least damage control most of us with BPD can't the difference is physiogically we actually feel emotions more intensely and we feel these emotions for longer so it's really hard to explain to someone why the smallest thing sets us into suciidal idealisation but to us it's a really big deal because our emotions are unstable and unregulated and it takes a lot of therapy and work that often times isn't even offered to us because alot of people are skeptical of the disorder and even then it's not something that will ever go away like an addict we will always have to be on guard of our emotions we can't even. Let ourselves just be happy because so often a normal event like for me Xmas time can trigger manic episodes and this then causes me to drink and spend excessively and to not sleep and to be super unstable and you think well hey just learn to control it but the issue is it's not a slow burner for me one minute I'm depressed and suicidal an hour later I'm triggered into severe mania and it will last the whole weekend leading up to Xmas sometimes a whole week before Xmas you know ? And it just happens like the flick of a switch and that's really hard to prepare for because in other conditions for example I have bipolar it's usually a slow burner and I can pre-empt and even figure out my cycles for example I used to be mixed affective in the new year and manic over Easter and this happened every year for 3 years before I was officially diagnosed so I kinda knew also it was never as intense I felt depressed and sad and cried I felt manic and happy and drank but BPD is on a whole other level what I felt with BPD was even more intense and more unstable because of its unpredictability than the bipolar ever was .

That's the problem . People hear bipolar and think damn that's awful people hear borderline personality disorder and think eh it's nothing she's just melodramatic because it can appear that we are divas because we get triggered by the littlest of things but that's how it is and I've been told multiple times by professionals I will just grow out of it . But honestly that idea is so toxic that it just simply goes away forever and I've been told medication won't help and the only therapy they offer includes the first half focusing on mindfulness which actually can make someone with BPD more suicidal and this group therapy isn't even specific to those with BPD it's one therapy fits all and that's toxic logic . So my mum might end up paying for therapy for me because I can't afford it.

But so many therapists and doctors aren't even educated well enough on borderline personality disorder or are critics of it so even in the professionals eyes their is stigma attached to having this diagnosis .

And there in lies the problem.

This disorder has made me attempt suicide 3 time and self harm more times than I can count.

I did everything from cutting to burning to hitting myself with heavy objects to scratching my legs to pieces .

And yet it's still not seen as serious or taken seriously or even diagnosed correctly by professionals.

And this stigma NEEDS to stop.

BPD is a dangerous disorder and often gets the person suffering it engaging in self destructive behaviours from self harm to full blown eating disorders to suicide attempts to drug and substance abuse this illness comes with deadly consequences because it leads to wreckless impulsive behaviours.

And just remember this next time we are intensely scared of abandonment and because of this we may lash out at loved ones and friends but it comes out of a place of fear and instead of dismissing us you should try to talk to us get us to communicate these fears as to better understand what may seem as histrionic diva behaviours. And then we can work on our behaviours to further better our trust issues and fears of abandonment !

For example I now express these fears with my partner and tell him directly I need you to cuddle me reassure me even if you've done it a million times today I just need to hear you say it again. And yes sometimes he gets frustrated with me because there's only so many times someone can reassure you in a day. But also this has helped me grow. Even without therapy anymore I tried the therapy offered and the mindfulness made me feel awful also I wasn't actually allowed to talk about any of my issues because it would or could trigger others in the group so it was a pile of shit.

But I've grown over time too from reading and listening to others with BPD and their experiences with partners and how they handle it . And the biggest thing was on YouTube video I found one day where she said communication was everything and how you've gotta explain the thought process behind your beliefs and actions because to an outsider even a loved one our thoughts are hard to decode even to ourselves sometimes it's hard to understand the underlying issue causing the meltdown. And also she is the one that said sometimes you have to be direct and say exactly what you need down to every last detail because yes you have to learn to handle things on your own sometimes but this idea that we cannot ever be dependent on a good support system is bullshit people with disorders and especially BPD NEED an excellent support system in which they can express their feelings and feel validated and understood and have a place they can be themselves because one of the root causes of BPD is when in childhood said child is not allowed to express emotions and if they do they are invalidated or ignored or told off for showing them.

As well as other abuses causing BPD .

So when we get older we have all these maladaptive coping mechanisms like self harm because we've been told our emotions our pain isn't real or isn't valid and causing visible pain on the form of cuts and scars and bruises or even in the form of an eating disorder almost validates to ourselves that this pain was and is real and it does matter .

And that's why self harm is a criteria for BPD.

And it's so hard because so often because of our past we now over react to little situations minor arguments with tears and fears of abandonment and this leads people to think we are a drama queen and over reacting for attention or faking it for attention but in our minds our fears and thoughts of Self harm and suicide are very very real. Because we have little handle on our emotions . Or our impulsive dangerous thoughts . So as a child we are invalidated and then when we develop BPD we are once again invalidated and this time viewed as inauthentic or over reacting drama queens for attention which then leads us to fall deeper into our pit of despair because no one understands our maladaptive coping mechanisms.

They see our bpd behaviours but don't understand the reasons why and instead of saying oh it's because she's mentally ill and has a personality disorder it's criticised as even being a disorder and is instead a young adult playing up for attention or spoilt brat syndrome and that it's something we will simply grow out of as if it's a phase rather than something that has been built out of years of invalidation and abuse and was our only way of coping and now we've lost all control of our emotional state and the issue with personality disorders is people are like don't let your mental illness define you but with a personality disorder especially one like borderline personality disorder which affects everything you think or do or feel it's very very hard because from a young teen or pre teen where we develop personality traits we have developed this disorder that literally molds and shapes our personality and what it means to be us and whilst you can change to an extent and try to overcome this it's very very hard to entirely leave it behind and yes whilst I have my own unique traits and styles of dressing and jokes and humour that you could argue make up my personality it doesn't take long to put two people with BPD in a room and see the striking similar personality traits that make us these maladaptive beings due to our past.

Whether people want to agree or not our emotions in this case are not always in our control and we aren't acting out on purpose or for attention it's usually out of fear or intense emotional pain and quite often it feels as though someone else is controlling our emotional responses quite often people with BPD have identity crises because when they are diagnosed and educated on BPD it becomes very aware that our emotions and traits are not always ours but the disorders and you find yourself questioning who am I without my disorder like I know who I would be without my bipolar but I honestly can't say I'm at the point yet where I'd say I know who I would be without bpd because for so long it's all I've known from my childhood to young adulthood I've never known anything different about myself and where does my real personality start and my disorder end because my disorder whether I like it or not does affect me fundamentally as who I am how I behave what I do and where I go and the jobs I hold etc etc and my realtionships with those around me more so than most other disorders because as it says in the name it's a personality disorder and that is why it's so hard to diagnose because the symptoms and criteria in the diagnostic manual psychiatrists use just lists mostly a list of personality traits BUT these traits are all normal traits healthy people could have as my psychology professor taught me but it's up to the professional to judge if you experience them to a higher degree than others and certain traits together then it's a personality disorder this is also why self diagnosis is extremely dangerous because you could look at the criteria for BPD and say that fits my personality but you don't know if you experience these personality traits so severely that you'd be considered as having BPD I got my bipolar diagnosis super quick but it took at least 6months maybe a year even before I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder!

This disorder has one of the higher sucide rates and this is for good reason because having BPD often brings its friends in the form of addictions and dangerous impulsive risky behaviours .

And yet no one takes it seriously we don't have documentaries about it compared to bipolar or schizophrenia or anorexia no one talks about the deadly killer that is borderline personality disorder and that needs to change !

[jmichaelfortenberry]

A Personal Post: My New World

Recent events have forced me to look at the world in a different light. So here is a rundown of some of my recent revelations, preceded by their respective impetus.

1) My Job has been wearing away at my soul, and every day has become harder and harder to face. Even with my new medication, I sometimes find it hard to get out of bed.

—This has brought with it the revelation that I cannot ever be an average person. I will either be a failure of an attempt at something great, or I will be something great. I choose to aim for the latter.

2) In January I got health insurance for the first time in my adult life. (I previously didn’t make enough money to qualify for assistance–such is life in a red State.) I immediately sought help for my depression, which has been a constant weight, and a growing weight, since my late teens (I turned 32 a few months ago).

—This has shown me so much about my world. Rationally, I knew before that there was more to life than the muted color of some external light, dimmed by my crutains, making the same, well known shadows on my wall. I cannot explain how hard it was to break my eyes, and my mind, from that wall. Depression set itself about me like a quagmire and a theater all at once. I could not bring myself to move, but as I lay there I could imagine so many better  (and worse) situations for me to inhabit. Inevitably they would cycle back to the same idea—It is all futile, and death is preferable to THIS. It wasn’t that I thought it would be better for me, or for the world. For me, the idea of ending my life always rested on the idea that, in the long run, the lives of those who care for me would benefit from my absence. 

I felt (and still sometimes worry) I was a burden on them, and they either wouldn’t admit it, or couldn’t see that I was such a burden. Long story a little bit shorter, as my Doctor and I worked to find the right medicine, I began to feel much different. Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I go places just to go there, and I have made some new friends that would have just remained aquaintances. I even flirted with a person once without even stopping to think about the inevitable rejection (a point of view I’ve held for a long time, but I’ve recently come to reevaluate). I just view the world as something I might be a part of, which was, for over a decade, a missing feeling.

3) Speaking of new feelings I’ve had a years-long relationship with someone, and it is a deep and powerful relationship. I’ve been growing as a philosopher for the past six years or so, and for four of them, I’ve been in this relationship. I’ve been espousing, for these six years, a relationship philosophy. My relationship philosophy is based on the concept that each person is completely autonomous, and has a right to agency. From the moment I started this realtionship, I made it clear that my partner’s participation is never supposed to be a given, they choose how much they want to give to the relationship, and how often, and they choose when they want to end it or change it in any way. In short, I was always aware that my partner had the right to end the relationship, or alter it to their liking. She did just that earlier this year, when she expressed her wish to  return to a friendship-relationship and end the lover-relationship we had been enjoying. 

—My resolve to adhere to my own philosophy had never been so completely and thoroughly tested, but I stood for my Reason, and did what many have told me is impossible. We continued our relationship as close friends, and to this day I have not regreted remaining her friend. I feel a sense of vindication, but also of honor, or moral being, like I’ve finally proven that I am mature, that I am a real Person, a rational person. I treasure our relationship, and I am honored to be a part of her world, and proud that I was a man of my word, and stayed true to my Philosophy.

4) I have cause to think that someone else thinks I am attractive.

—Considereing the content of number 3, this may seem odd. I have never understood how anyone could find me attractive. I know that at least part of this stems from elementary and high school. In elementary school, the more we grew to understand that we were in a social web of sorts, where interaction with others was as complicated as it was necessary, the more my life changed for the worse. None of us, myself included, could have worded our situation in the manner I just did, but I believe that it nonetheless describes our experience, which at the time would have been more ineffable if we were even asked to explain it. In Kindergarten, we were all more or less equals. Some days some of us were picked on, and of course there was some bullying, but the players changed almost by day. We were social neophytes, and the idea of assuming a role in the class was beyond us. 

But as time went on, it became clearer and clearer, year by year, that I was at the bottom of the list, the least desireable of all. To this day I can recall people being outwardly disgusted to discover that I was even so much as standing near them. Some of them were people to whom I was attracted, and to watch them recoil-literally recoil-in disgust just at the sight of me being beside them, that was gut-wrenching. If I was no better that walking trash in the eyes of almost everyone, how could I ever make any meaningful connections? So to this day, even if it seems as though someone is flirting with me, my immediate assumption is that they are simply being nice to the ugly-unfortunate-trashlike person. After all, society demands politeness these days, right? 

So it always comes as somewhat of a surprise when someone plainly announces their attraction (or even more innocently, my general attractiveness). I’ve had several lovers, but the fear of them eventually admitting that they were “slumming” it and that I’m too ugly for them (in more ways than the physical, but primarily outward ugliness), haunts me. But my new, less depressed worldview is not as self-critical. So, when recently I met someone new, I began to approach things in a similar fashion, but not altogether so. (Well, I’ve known them for a while, but we’ve recently dove headlong into the most wonderfully unique and serendipitous getting-to-know-you journey I’ve personally ever experienced.) After a long experience, complete with a walk in the park, we took turns baring some of our most guarded parts to one another. 

While this sort of exchange is not the sole province of the “deeper” attraction, the speed at which we reached this level is almost unprecedented. The only person who connected with me this deeply, and this quickly, is my best friend and former lover (the subject of the 3rd revelation above). While our discussions recently have bridged many deep and personal rivers of thought, we have yet to announce that either of us is sexually attracted to the other. That river has been hinted at, but never drawn on the map. Which leads me to my next revelation.

5) I may be changing a long time, core defining attribute of “me”. I may be looking at myself differently, and reacting to the world in an equally different manner.

—As mentioned above, I think that a mutual attraction has been hinted at. He has described that which he finds attractive, and so have I. I have intentionally described attributes that I feel apply to him (because I find him insanely attractive). However, I have noticed that many of the attributes he’s described may very well apply to me. After much discussion, I feel that if he were attracted to me, then the idea of a lover-relationship is by no means beyond the pale. I almost went so far as to plainly state my attraction, which would be a huge step for me. 

I almost never take the first step in these situations. My default mode has been to assume that any percieved attraction is a mistake of perception on my part. But for the past several weeks I’ve been thinking that I may, in fact, be attractive to him. This, alone, is a novel feeling for me, but it doesn’t end there. I have decided, that possible rebuffing be damned, I am going to clearly state my feelings. I plan to say, “[BLANK], I find you attractive. To me you are incredibly so. You are like a mental and sexual singularity, all my thoughts are pulled to you. I am prepared to be simply your friend, which is a wonderous thing to be, in and of itself, but I must make it clear: It would be an honor, and a pleasure, and a daydream-made-manifest if we were to be partners, lovers, as well as friends.” (Okay, I may not wax so poetic, but those, for the record, are my feelings.)

****

So there you have it. My new world has allowed me to write much more in the past months, be more social, start my own D&D campaign, and more or less just be more “me”. By the end of this year I should be in Master’s Studies, have a clearer plan as to where I might be next year, and be far closer to my goal of leaving this soul sucking State (Alabama) for good. By the end of this week I should not only know if I am more capable of making the first romantic gesture in a relationship, but I will also know if I will be entering a deep lover-relationship for the first time in a while. I’d ask you to wish me luck, but luck doesn’t exist. (Unless it does and my understanding of the universe is more illusion than reality, but this post is not about Metaphysics, so I’ll leave that one for later.) So, I’ll just ask you to tune in (or click in?) later to see where this all goes. 

Thank you for reading.

-J. Michael Fortenberry