#not all struggles are the same but they are all valid

[nondelphic]

Where I’ve Been and the Future of nondelphic

TLDR; I’m coming back to this blog.

I’m so nervous to post this I literally had to take a nervous shit after drafting this post just THINKING about posting it but uhhh…

Long time no see!

It’s been well over 3 months since I posted regularly on this account. I never intended to take a break, but I got overwhelmed.

I started this account in the middle of August of 2024 with a very specific niche that, if you have seen my posts before, will recognise. 

Honestly, it started mostly as a distraction from my real-life problems. I’d began writing again last spring after a long time of writing block due to anxiety, depression, and getting used to my anti-depressants. Suddenly, I went from not being able to get out of bed to being able to get out of bed just to write. It became an escape. Just like writing fanfiction used to be when I was a pre-teen.

Through that, I rediscovered how much I actually love writing and creating. And when that happened, I also started craving community. I’ve never really had writing friends (the few I had were short-lived), and I found myself missing that connection.

That’s kind of where this blog came in. It was an experiment, not something I intended to take seriously. Just a low-effort, continuous space online that wasn’t too personal but could resonate with a wide diaspora of writers. Somewhere people could see themselves in my posts.

I’ve always been in fandom or hobby spaces online in some form—grew up in a developing tech society with zero internet safety guidance, so my relationship with social media is honestly decent, all things considered. But in recent years I’d mostly been a consumer rather than a creator. And I missed that. The active partaking. The sense of community. The external validation from like-minded strangers (very Gen Z of me, I know).

And also, it gave me something to do over summer, which is the worst time of year for me. I’ve struggled with seasonal depression for years, and writing got me through the worst days of my summer uni break. But it also stirred up so many thoughts and ideas I wanted to share.

So I committed to not only starting a blog about writing, but updating it continuously, with a fixed set of posts to be posted everyday. 

Part of the experiment was personal, but another part was professional. As someone studying and working in media and social media (amongst other things), I know how algorithms work. I understand how consistency, timing, and frequency affect reach and engagement. So I also wanted to test a theory—that’s not really a theory—that if you just post a lot, at the same time, every day, you’ll see growth.

And it worked. I gained over 4,000 followers in just six months.

Numbers aren’t everything, but I won’t pretend it wasn’t validating. Especially when I’d never had a following before. People were engaging, reblogging, sending kind messages. I felt seen, and I felt like what I was making had value.

It was also fascinating to experience it from both sides, both as the creator and as the media nerd in the background mentally noting what worked, what flopped, and why.

Everything was going great.

So why did I disappear?

Well, first of all, my seasonal depression carried on to constant depression and major social anxiety during autumn and into winter. I slept all day. Didn’t go to school. Could barely leave my apartment to go grocery shopping. All I did was write and update this blog. Make sure I had enough posts queued for the coming week. 

I had some visible breaks on this blog which I always announced. “sorry can’t post rn i’m stressed need time to update my queue”. Which was true, and I felt proud of myself for being transparent about it.

But the more my following grew and the more people interacted with me, the more I started doubting myself. I don’t know if it was my anxiety, depression or probable ADHD being the culprit of this, or just plain old imposter syndrome, but I started dreading opening tumblr.

I love coming up with post ideas for people to go “omg are you inside my brain rn?” or “I love your blog, your posts make me feel seen,” and I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with everyone visiting this blog. Yet, with the growing eyes on this page, I just felt this impending fear that someday it will all be gone.

So I do what I’ve always had a habit of doing! I self-destructed. And left this blog with the excuse (to myself) to work on myself and come back stronger.

And I guess that sorry excuse has kinda come true, although at the time, I was lying to myself. This post is literally me announcing I’m coming back. But back when I abandoned this blog, I, with a heavy heart, was really planning on not coming back. The more the weeks, and then months stretched on without opening tumblr, a growing guilty conscience brewed inside of me.

I’d open the app, stare at the little icon, and immediately close it again. I didn’t know how to explain myself without it sounding dramatic or like I was attention-seeking. And the longer I waited, the harder it got to come back.

Because what do you even say after months of radio silence on a blog that wasn’t supposed to mean this much to you in the first place?

But the thing is it does mean something. And even when I tried to let it go, I kept thinking about it. I’d see something funny and think, “that would make a good nondelphic post.” I’d draft ideas in my nondelphic ideas google docs, fully knowing I wasn’t posting them, but unable to turn off that part of my brain that wanted to connect with other writers, other people who got it.

I ghosted my own blog. And I won’t pretend I had a huge dramatic epiphany or breakthrough that led me back here. Just the quiet realization that I missed it. And I have better routines now. And expectations. That make it impossible for me to turn into the same all-or-nothing approach to this blog I had during my darkest days. Don’t worry, I’m still deeply insecure, anxious and depressed, so my self-deprecating posts will continue as scheduled! But I’ve found other coping mechanisms that don’t rely on…….. Tumblr’s algorithms.

I don’t need to be 100% healed or consistent or perfect to post. And everyone who has sent me a message during the time I’ve been away that I’ve been too scared to reply to has assured me of exactly that. Maybe I can just… come back. A little softer. A little slower. A little more human.

I’m not sure what the future of this blog looks like exactly. I don’t have a new “post 10 times a day” strategy lined up. But I do know I want to write again. I want to talk to you again. I want to rebuild what I tore down with my silence. Not out of pressure or expectation, but because I want to.

So this is me, stepping back into it. One foot in the door. No grand promises, just a little wave from the threshold.

Hi again.

I’m coming back soon. How soon? I think it’s best to not make any promises, but I’ve committed to coming back now, so I’m still gonna promise “soon.”

Also, genuinely thank you. To everyone who reached out in my DMs or sent something to my ask box while I was gone: I read every single message. Even if I didn’t respond, I saw you. My heart felt so big reading your well wishes and worries. Like genuinely, I didn’t know this little corner of the internet could hold so much kindness. So thank you, from the bottom of my stupid overwhelmed heart.

See you soon ♡

xoxo nondelphic

Ps. I’m gonna write another post over on @rebellenotes in the near future for anyone curious about what I’ve been up to in the last few months.

[fangthroat]

hey. it’s important to validate fat therians. otherkin. there are fat angels, demons. there are so many of us and if you aren’t plus sized you’ll never understand the pain we go through and the trauma we faced growing up. never seeing our favorite characters look like us. folks treating us like literal filth, making assumptions and feel lesser than them. the violence we face both physically and emotionally. the fear of public spaces and growing up in a world surrounded by commercials ads tv shows reinforcing the idea that our bodies are something to fear becoming. a marketing tool to demonize our existence. the struggle to find clothes, especially when the trend is to buy everything oversized and the larger sizes get picked before we can even try. the painful body dismorphia and this feeling of “i’m not like them. because they do everything to make me feel like i don’t belong.”

i was compared to animals all the time. parents. family. kids at school. pig. whale. ostracized by society. it was ingrained in me since the beginning that it was wrong to be this way. it’s the same for nearly all of us.

your friends, family that are plus sized that are in communities. frictionkin. otherkin. therian. alterhumans. queer communities. trans communities. cosplay communities. please remember us and include us in your community. we face so much from ignorance and judgement. i think it’s just important. idk. i just want to exist in a space where i don’t feel alone and hated anymore.

[champignonoftheforest]

This is just your daily reminder that your lived experience is valid. No one else gets to speak on if you’ve had it rough or not. No one else gets to tell you that everything you’ve suffered through was for attention. No one gets to tell you that you should’ve just tried harder or been better. No one gets to tell you that someone else having it harder invalidates your own struggle. Your pain is valid. Your struggle is valid. You are valid.

[pocketgalaxies]

the fun thing about crippling imposter syndrome and ridiculously prolonged delayed gratification is that they do this cool combo move where they invent an especially ominous form of anxiety that is insidious and subliminal but reaches into me through to the tips of my fingers like an evil little poison impossible to ignore but also impossible to detect except in the way my jaw aches in the morning and the way i find myself unironically saying "this is the longest week ever" on a forking monday afternoon

[shannonsketches]

he's so important to me

[kingofanemptyworld]

ngl I started crying a little over this

[itspileofgoodthings]

one of my fave things about teaching is that I’m NOT a counselor and I don’t have to get into the weeds with a student but also I’m part of their life every day and i see when they’re struggling and I can ask how them how they’re doing and make sure that they know I see them on a steady, daily basis and it will be healing for both of us

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

do you ever just look back at something an ex said to you and regret that it did not turn into a full blown fight

[dreamersneverlose]

For the first time in a long time, I haven’t the faintest idea what life is going to look like 1, 2, 6 months from now. How terrifyingly beautiful this will be.

[mazojo]

What's yuri's personality then? Being gay?

About Minho, being mean and making mean two liners towards Kitty every in between?

ma'am this is a McDonalds drive thru

[96percentdone]

I do honestly believe that all communication ever would be vastly improved if everyone on earth internalized and understood that the the whole thing is a series of back and forth interpretation of words with a collectively understood haze of potential meanings wildly dependent on context, speaker, and audience, even for even the most basic of sentences.

Like I can say "I like cats" but the degree of intensity to which i like them is just something you're inferring based on prior context (also interpreted) and how my tone is read. I could be sincere, or totally sarcastic, or maybe cat is slang for something else—miscommunication happens because everything is up for grabs, and communication is not an objective science.

It's a fast-paced guessing game played by all.

[navramanan]

still heartbroken but cannot move

[tyrianlynch]

I’ve been watching will and Grace for the first time and I love it I’m on season 5 but I looked up spoilers and like. Their lives go no where! They both get married but then they get divorced and they both had kids in the finale but in the reboot the kids were retconned and they end up living together again and like. What was it all for then??? None of the growth they went through means anything?? Disappointing writing.

[grunge-mermaid]

cbc news is playing ad nauseum a pregnancy test ad about struggling with infertility (which, valid) and it's been driving me up the banana wall because the music is so fucking grating and they play it like 5 times an hour

but they just followed it with a pet food ad that's whole campaign premise is "kittens and puppies are so much better than human babies" so I'm a little less salty

[innielove]

I've been very busy for the past week and a half, but im going to start making the requested sets this week 🫶🏻🫶🏻

[lastoneout]

Like I know we all love making ADHD seem cool but like, don't forget it's actually a disability? My ADHD is bad enough I've nearly been evicted for forgetting to mail the rent check to the property manager, I've forgotten to pay the utility bills and had my water or power get turned off or had to pay fines bcs I missed a credit card payment. Once I was supposed to cat sit for a friend and I lost the house key she gave me but didn't realize until she was already out of town, and she had to call the apartment office to get someone to give me the spare so her cats would have food for the week. When I'm unmedicated I can't even get myself to shower half the time, forget eating or cleaning. Before I started living with my fiance I'd just like, not eat for days because I didn't have anyone to remind me to eat or go buy me food. I've forgotten to turn the stove off so many times and ruined kettles and tbh been DAMN fucking lucky the house didn't burn down. I've done stupid, impulsive shit that's nearly gotten me KILLED. I can't remember to close the shower curtain reliably even through my fiance points out every single time I forget, and he's almost out of soap rn bcs for the last MONTH neither of us have been able to remember to order more once we get out of the shower.

I've had such bad memory my entire life that to this day someone suggesting I forgot something because I simply didn't care enough is a legitimate trigger that, in the worst cases, makes me have a breakdown.

I get that for some of you this is just something that makes studying hard or you forget to take a pee break when you're playing Minecraft or whatever, that's still a valid struggle and you do deserve help and understanding, but like, ADHD is a disability. It's disabling. It's not impossible to improve and learn coping skills, meds help a lot, there are great accommodations out there(LIKE CLEANING SERVICES), but not every case of ADHD is the same, and a lot of them are pretty ugly ngl, and just because you managed to do something doesn't mean someone else is gonna be able to manage it too, or that they're being lazy for struggling. And that obviously doesn't mean ADHD people have a free pass to never work on themselves and make everyone cater to their every need or whatever, but we do deserve some understanding when we explain that our disability is actually disabling in ways that aren't palatable to you. So like, idk, maybe don't immediately recoil in horror when you find out that someone with ADHD can't keep their house clean. And for fucks sake don't ridicule them for it.