#i dont even know why i just feel this sense of constant dread and anxiety

[thoughts-stuck-somewhere]

I feel like I'm rotting, and I can't stop reading poetry. I feel like a fragment of myself, and I keep losing more and more pieces as I'm journaling my decaying corpse away.

It may be the summer heat, I need the winter to keep the rot at bay.

[stoneworldsimp]

what’s mine is not yours —a request

platonic senku x reader

warnings: swearing, anxiety, talk of insecurities and worries, gender dysphoria

your name!

your name!

YOUR NAME!

your hands slapped to your ears, eyes shut tight. i can’t take this so early in the morning.

the voices from your dream had lingered longer than you would have liked. it reminded you it was time to face another day, to endure another long long day and night of hearing the wrong things.

maybe if i went and lived on my own again…i wouldn’t have to deal with it—no. senku needs me. he needs me…what does he need me for again? you rolled onto your stomach; your pillow rustled as you flopped it on top of your head. he doesn’t need me. i’d rather be lonely than hear everyone say some bullshit about me.

everyone in the village knew you as a miss. yuzuriha made you more neutral clothes upon request, but everyone assumed you were tomboyish. luckily, no one read more into it; it was nice to dress comfortably, but it was like no one else understood. why were they still calling you a girl? and the older folks, you knew they meant well! but you couldn’t help but feel like their constant “sweet girl”s were making fun of you at this point.

i can’t do it, i can’t do it, they’re making fun of me right now, as i think. as i exist!

you felt a tear trickle down the side of your nose.

oh, you’re kidding. crying? again? is this—

a knock on your door halted your thoughts; you quickly flipped back and sat up in your bed on the ground of your hut, and wiped your face quickly. you lightly slapped your cheeks to stop yourself from continuing crying.

“yeah.”

“it’s me. can i come in?”

senku’s voice brought some sort of relief; personally you felt it was better for him to come in at such a time than anyone else.

you took a deep breath. “sure, but i just woke up. i’m staying under my blanket.”

senku laughed behind the door. a small shove was made and it opened, revealing a quite chipper senku. he liked to come early in the morning when the rest of the village was quiet.

his smirk faltered once he saw your face. you believed you hid your crying well; you didn’t think to check your red eyes or stinging cheeks.

“what’s wrong?” he asked, his words much gentler than when he asked to come in.

damn. how could i not realize i was so obvious?

with a deep breath, you whispered, “senku.. we’re pretty good friends, right?”

he snickered. “of course we are, way more than that asshole gen.”

his voice was closer. you laughed as well, and wiped your eyes clear. he slowly walked over and sat down on the floor next to you. senku was looking at you, really looking at you; it was intense, almost if he was making sure his closeness or anything about his presence wasn’t bothering you.

“okay…i’m about to say a lot of stuff. let me know if you need me to explain more, or if i’m talking too much. or—“

your words halted as senku put a hand on your shoulder, a smile light on his face. “all ears.”

you smiled back softly. “okay. so—back in..our time,”you gestured between the two of you with your hands, “i told my family and friends i was, uhm… nonbinary. like i don’t feel male or female, i use they/them pronouns; all that good stuff. still feel that way now. and, for quite some time, they didn’t believe me. not in a direct ‘you’re lying’ way, but more of ‘i don’t understand it therefore you shouldn’t understand it’ type of thing. i got a lot of shit from people who weren’t my friends, too. but with my friends’ support and getting more confidence after coming out, my parents were able to kinda see it. but yeah, it took quite some time. probably like.. eight months? even then, i had to remind them constantly, ‘not a daughter. please don’t call me she or he. please don’t call me a woman.’ but we were getting there. and right when we got petrified, right when it happened, i saw the look on my mom’s face.

“we were talking about me and my identity and it was like something had clicked in her brain. like, she knew exactly what i meant and how i felt when i said what it meant to be nonbinary. i don’t even remember what i said specifically, but i remember her expression as if she were standing in front of me right now. i was so hopeful i’d see her again, her expression got me through my petrification and even helped me break out of it. but of COURSE, i didn’t ever see her again after i woke up. and then i almost lost my own sense of self after being by myself for probably a year.. i was under the assumption i’d never meet another person again, so when i did run into your village—i had this gross feeling of dread. and i realized it was the same feeling that basically lived inside of me before i came out.”

you sat up straighter and looked away from senku. “it’s like, i have to rebuild my identity all over again. people always say you shouldn’t care about what other people say, but i can’t help it. i’m a sensitive person. i get hurt easily, no matter how hard i try to thicken my skin. they all, they all just use ‘she’ and ‘her’ and ‘that girl’ so often, it feels like they’re making fun of me, like they’re constantly telling me i’m not who i say i am. and i can’t tell them senku, being nonbinary was confusing for so many people in our time, i hardly believe they’ll understand it now. sure, my parents were fine, but it took a while before they got it. i can only imagine how long it’ll take for everyone here.”

senku was quiet. have you over explained yourself? was it too overbearing? in all honesty you’d only been good friends with senku a short while; you should have waited at least a little bit longer before letting him in on something so personal—

“it all, it all kind of makes sense now.”

huh?! “what?”

“what you told me, i think i get it now.”

you gave him a look up and down. it was possible, but you didn’t think there was much of a chance that senku would be so..cool with it. not right away. you expected some form of silent treatment for at least a day or two, so he could collect his own thoughts.

“i’m gonna say something, and i need you to listen. yeah?”

you stared at him like your brain short-circuited. what the fuck is he gonna say to me.. oh god, he doesn’t wanna be friends anymore. but he’ll be too nice to kick me out of the village. but it is his village—

“hey, hey…are you with me?” you both sat facing each other now, and his hands rested on your shoulders.

just hear him out. “yeah. all ears.”

he smoothed your shoulders with his thumb. “you’re just as valid as everyone out there. i know you’re scared, but believe me when i say they will not be mocking you in any way. sure, it might take a while for them to understand, but theyre not going to give up just because they dont get something right away. it took me a few months to fully convince this village i could help them, and even then, there were still a few who didn’t fully understand the experiments and contraptions i made until a while later. i know that isn’t the same as your situation… but what i’m trying to say is that they will try their best to know you, the real you. they aren’t going to mock you; if anything, they’ll have lots of questions to ask you.

“also, you have me, you have gen to help out in case you don’t have the capacity to answer everything yourself. i’ve a few things about gender before the stone world, and gen definitely knows a lot of things that are relevant to it as well.

“everyone here… they’re all so eager to learn, i highly doubt they’ll be unaccepting. they’ll be curious. and they’ll be happy you’re letting them in on something that is so important.”

tears had made their way down your face and on your clothes halfway through his mini-monologue; you didn’t notice him continuously wiping them away until he was finished. “it’s going to be okay. trust me.”

with a quiet sob, you pushed yourself into his arms for a hug.

“thank you.”

you knew he wasn’t particularly one for any type of physical contact, but he gladly accepted. for the occasion, he thought. his arms slowly wrapped around your slightly shaking body as you tried to calm down. neither of you spoke for a few minutes; only your soft sniffles were heard in the hut.

“senku, i think that was the most i’ve heard you talk about something that wasn’t directly related to science,” you laughed into his neck.

he laughed back. “i had a lot saved, since there were moments i could tell you were kind of uncomfortable. i didn’t want to force you into talking about it either, so i just waited. tried to figure out what i was going to say. it had to be good.. you are one of my closest friends, after all.”

both of you embraced each other a little tighter. “i hope all of this helped, i want you to live here with none of those worries. especially after so many months of having it bottled inside.”

you nodded in response.

today.. today will be the day i tell everyone not to use what they used to call me; that won’t do at all anymore.

today, i’ll tell everyone my name.

[jakesanxietydiary]

12/20/21

I feel weird and vacant and its just unfair. I went through so much to get to the point where I am now and it just feels really unfair that things aren't more normal at this point. Its like a nightmare that never ends, and the world keeps feeling like its falling apart. I wanna pull it together so bad but in my effort to come out of the pure torture that I was going through 2 months ago, I just kind of lost the last bits of myself that are left. I feel like a messed up crying husk of myself doing all the things I remember making me feel better and still feeling the same weird uncomfortable feeling no matter what I do or who I talk to. I dont know what to do, I dont know how to get my sense of self and normalcy back. Im waiting for a feeling thats like "I want to do ___" or even "I should do ___" and really feel like I should do it in an effort to help myself. I just dont know anymore, I dont know anything at all. I always told myself before that the me I know is just buried under all the anxiety and existential dread and depression, and whatever else you might call whatever clusterfuck of terror I've been living with, but no. Spending months fighting off horrible sensations and completely irrational emotions and anxiety just kind of deleted the Jake from my brain. I have all my memories left but thats about it. I try to talk to my mom about it and shes like, no I can tell you've been doing better lately, please don't let yourself fall back down. And I want to say, I never got back up. I resolved some things that started to allow me to hollowly and weirdly try to "fake it till I make it" like, do all my normal things and pretend its going fine and eventually it will be fine. But no. At the end of the day I'm always back at the same place, I can only keep up the optimism so long before the bullshit starts to make me feel like Im losing it again. I went to a drag show today with my cousins and John. I was able to put on the show of joy and charisma but it didn't have any positive effects on this terrible feeling thats always around. One of the queens in the show was Ophilia Bottoms, the one who was supposed to be my drag mom back when I was trying to get into the business. She remembered me immediately and said "So when are you getting back into it?" and also "If you ever want to get serious about it, message me. I'll help you get started"

After John finally went home I started crying because that life was my dream. Those were the people I wanted to be among and I always wanted to be a performer.. when I found drag it all seemed so perfect. It was everything I wanted to do. Now here it is, a genuine opportunity, and I cant even trust myself to go for it. I cant take this anymore. I dont wanna be here. I cant follow my dreams.. I dont even know if they are my dreams anymore. Im a stressor to my mom who already deals with constant work committments and my grandpa with his deteriorating cognition. My sister is moving out soon and I'll be all my mom has left and I can't carry that. Mark is gone. I dont understand why all of this is happening. It makes me mad to think of an omnicient omnipotent God who could help me through this with the metaphorical snap of his/her/their fingers... and to just let it keep going on? Hurting me, hurting my mom, ruining my life and my relationships.. I dont know how I'm supposed to believe a God who loves me would let this happen. I just want to sleep forever. For now I'll just have to settle for 8 hours.