#which is fair i guess i've experienced that loads of times

[buggbuzz]

yo can someone explain to me why ppl get pissed about like-spamming? cause i've been on tumblr for about 8 years now and i still don't get it. im a total slut for attention and i like knowing when people go "ooh, i like this account!" and scroll through everything i have for awhile; its very flattering.

[ina-nis]

I feel very burnt out, both mentally and physically, but the physical issues will have to wait a few months until I can get them check out... either way, the emotional issues remain.

Therapist said that this could take several years - same as what last therapist told me, too - and that she didn't want to sound discouraging but... isn't that discouraging regardless? Any way, I told her I'm aware this is going to be a life-long process.

I already got so angry and cried so much.

This is not fair.

That I have been so hurt, so deeply by other people, over things that were not my fault or under my control and now I'm the one supposed to fix them by myself.

"But you're not alone!" Does it matter? Does it make a difference? Who is there with me, a therapist, really?

The next phase in my treatment is acceptance.

I got tired of fighting a losing battle, you know? I'm never going to win against this if I keep on trying to go face-to-face as I've been doing. I know that much now. It's likely there's no "winning" at all, and that's alright I guess.

If I get to a point where I'm able to actually live my life and enjoy my happinesses without a death wish, that's a victory for me. The pain will never go away, that's alright, I understand.

I've been troubled by my own feelings though: I keep engaged in love and romance in most things I do, in things I draw and read, and things I write and consume in general. That's definitely making matters worse, since I'm not avoiding the main cause of my pain.

Looking back at other things I used to do, ironically, they were very social activities that had nothing to do with romance. I did music-related things for fun, for myself and for the community I built around it.

A lot of that was also there to help me cope with an unsustainable living situation. Music gave me a quick and definitive escape from the hassle in my real life, and I never had to touch in these deep wounds.

Before music, it was my own stories and own universes and fantasies, which I engaged in romance quite a lot, but was escapism as well, of course.

Fast forward to here and today, as I started healing from all other issues, as I got into a safer place physically, naturally my mind gravitated towards love. I briefly experienced reciprocal love with my safe person at the time, too, so it's like I crossed a bridge that I'll never be able to go back to. I'm honestly thankful, I don't want to go back.

I just didn't imagine dealing with that loss would be so detrimental to me. But perhaps that was a loss that was loaded with... losses all around my life, that I probably have never processed. No matter what, it's out in the open and I can't go back. That's a good thing because I can try to do something about it finally.

If I'm trying to practice acceptance now, I wonder if engaging in these feelings will be just counterproductive? But it feels as if I were avoiding or even killing a part of myself if I do not experience them anymore.

Love is essential to me, to my happiness and to my well-being too. It's very hard, maybe impossible, for me to see romantic love as something separate from love because love is love to me.

Engaging in a fantasy of love feels good to me, always have. It's just not helping me cope with a lack of (romantic) love in my real life anymore.

When I see advice geared towards people wanting to avoid falling in love, or maybe being alright in singlehood, or accepting loneliness, or anything else... you're supposed to avoid love, since it is a trigger.

The other piece is disability.

Yes, I absolutely thought about trying to reconnect with music and maybe disengage a little from my romantic obsessions, or have a little bit of everything, instead of focusing so much on one thing but... it will just spread me too thin. I barely have the energy to do what I do, I cannot imagine myself engaging in a number of different things as a way to cope better, etc.

"Why not go back to music then?"

Yeah, why not? I asked myself this several times already and the answers were all similar: engaging in love directly makes me feel very fulfilled, music is something that feels more impersonal somehow. I love music and it's one of my favorite things in the entire world and yet, it's not something I feel deep in my core, as an inherent part of me.

Love does.

I wouldn't be engaging with love again if all there is was pain and triggers. Like I mentioned several times already: my feelings are not a mistake. There's a lot of suffering and there's a lot of joy, too. I want to find a way to make the joy worth living for, because as it is, the pain drives me to death, with how cornered I feel.

So... "several years" is a really long time to go on suffering with this horrifying pain, isn't it? That is when I choose the path to healing. I wonder how that will be now that I've chosen acceptance.

[letterstodreams]

Altering My Crazy Quilt Religion

It's time to add the next alteration to this crazy quilt religion, a new patch to cover the flaws of the old design, to embellish and change up the patterns that don't seem quite right now that I can see what else to add to it and what to change. It's time to set it down in writing so I hope and intend to remember it and apply it into my life in action. I already have realized it and it has taken a load off my shoulders and made my step lighter, my hopes for the future feel brighter and more open, more choices, more hope to see ahead, for myself, my daughter, all those who might depend and rely on me.

Because that is often one of the biggest reasons I keep fighting and keep searching- because others might need me and if I can't give them all they need, it hurts and feels more like a catastrophe and miserable failure than if I myself fail myself. I guess I feel like there's only so much I can do about my own self, because I've done so much and still, look at me.

But with others, there is so much I could hypothetically do and yet so much that could remain undone, that could mess up their whole lives if it's not done correctly enough. So, ironically, somehow, having others who need me can be the biggest thing keeping me going in finding things that can help myself. I can't help them if I'm too lost, and what helps them sometimes helps me too, even when it comes in unexpected forms and I never thought that such things would help me.

Anyway, it's time to alter this crazy quilt of my beliefs, to add the next revision. It's an ongoing, organic thing, and can change dramatically over time. I often settle for understandings and practices that I myself may sense as being very deeply flawed. But it works for me better than anything else, to achiever results, to describe the reality that I am experiencing, and if I was to try to remove the flaws, it would remove the good things too, until I see which things to remove and which to keep, or which to alter and tweak, and how, and how much.

Sometimes I get the feeling that awful seeming things might be true, and work, and be the sad, painful facts of life, because it's what seems to work, when nothing else will. It works to make my life functional, as good as I can find how to be, despite how wrong some of these ideas seem to me, at face value. I still don't push those ideas on anyone else, though, and tend to more so hide them from most people, because I fear the wrongness and harm they seem like they could also inflict.

I think that in the wrong hands such ideas do cause great harm, such as religious dogma, which can be used as a fire to scorch the earth and do tremendous harm , to battle others or harm one's own self and one's own life. Or it can be used as a fire to cook and keep warm and tell stories around, bring life and order and harmony. Not that I adhere to dogma much, or doctrine, rituals and rules. Or is dogma the right word, or something else that I adhere to, in small ways, altered ways? Whatever it is, I still fear it in the wrong hands.

It depends on how you interpret the same ideas, and how you use them, how rigidly you follow them, how adaptable you are, how many fair and correct loopholes you find in the "law of God", so to speak (Which is a little idea borrowed from the book 'Violeta' by Isabel Allende. A few of her books say a few things, just in passing, that free and enlighten me from religious fixation and rigidity. A few fiction authors are like that for me).

So, ok, on to the embellishments of the crazy quilt. I was reading some books which helped me to think of all these ideas, in combination with my own, and so I will borrow some of the ideas that sparked my own, and give them credit for where they came from. First, from the book '7 Lessons from Heaven: How Dying Taught Me to Live a Joy-Filled Life' by Mary Neal, I found something that helped me. She mentions her "Daily Creed":

"I believe God's promises are true. I believe heaven is real. I believe nothing can separate me from God's love. I believe God has work for me to do. I believe God will see me through and carry me when I cannot walk."

She read this many times each day, when she had lost her son, and it helped her to find the truths that were constant and unchanging, and to find her way to healing and reclaiming her life again. When I read her Daily Creed, it made me think of something in my own experience that I have gone through time and time again.

It reminded me of my daily prayers. And how, every time that I get through yet another day, where I feel lost and alone in many ways, often, and when I often feel I have failed in so many ways, and I don't know if I will ever succeed in all the ways that I feel I should or need to, I still turn to God and ask for his guidance. I ask for his forgiveness. And I ask for him to forgive me for sins known and unknown. But before all else, I start my prayers by asking him to help me to worship him in a good way. I ask for him to give me the strength for that.

And I ask for him to give me the strength for everything that I've been praying about over the past few weeks and to help me with those things. I wrap them all up together because there are so many prayers I spontaneously pray over the course of a few weeks, and this covers them all. As vague and simple as that might sound, I feel like this works. Of course, since each week I also pray for all the prayers I've prayed for previously, then I guess it's kind of like a never-ending list that goes back into my history. But I feel like God is capable of that, and I also pray for something else, or something better, if God wills, and everything in his time and way. I also pray for all my loved ones and family and myself to be helped with any health or issues they need help with, and for them to be given strength for that, and the whole world, nature, animals, plants, too.

Anyway, I always feel, every time I ask for all this and for forgiveness, I feel that I am given forgiveness, for sins known and unknown, for my continual failures and inadequacies, and the future still looms unknown, and I don't know where my life will lead. And if I look at my past, I can see so much that could be seen to be failures, why don't i just do what I need to do, and why do I keep failing over and over again, at what seems so simple on paper? Where is the hold up?

Why would God forgive me for all this, if I follow the line of thinking that we can fool ourselves that we deserve forgiveness when we do not, that our asking for forgiveness can be unworthy and our apology or repentance unaccepted by God? I do consider that some repentance might be unworthy and unaccepted, if one isn't trying hard enough, or trying in the right ways. But I feel that my repentance is accepted and worthy, each day I come to God with my prayers. I didn't always feel that way, and sometimes I think it was incorrect dogma or doctrine, or maybe just incorrect understanding, that made me feel this way.

But now I feel forgiven, embraced, accepted by God, each and every day. I feel that way, each time I come to God and am accountable to him for my life and yet another day on the endless string of beads of my life that will go on for who knows for how long. A life that will have who knows how much or little to show for it, in the end, but I still feel forgiven, accepted by God.

So if I can feel that way each day when I pray, then what is to stop me from feeling this same thing, this same forgiveness and acceptance, all throughout the day, during the actual day and not just at the end or the beginning or whenever I have these kinds of prayers? I tend to get wrapped up the feeling of failure, fear, the feeling of maybe not being good enough, maybe failing the test, during the day. I tend to stress and fret and feel like I'm being put to the test with all my daily actions and choices and trying to make sense of it all and see a path forward and figure out what is the good thing to do with my life, with each step, with all my entrenched problems and feeling of weakness.

I think many religious people would try to tell me that my failures are unacceptable, that I must be better, and I have to keep repenting for my lack, and if I don't change my behavior and do better, that means I am not trying hard enough, so my repentance won't be accepted. But every day, at the end of each day, when I pray, that is not how I feel. I feel my repentance is good enough.

In fact, I am not sure what I'm even repenting for because I know I make mistakes, but some of the things that religious people would try to blame me for, I feel like it's out of my control and I can't function the ways they tell me I must. And I think God might see it the same way, which is why I ask for forgiveness for my sins that are known and ones unknown.

I don't know if maybe it is in my control and reach somehow and I just don't realize, but nor do I want to fret and beat myself up for things that are really out of my reach, which seems like self-abuse to the level of despair and depression. It's like punishing yourself and wearing yourself out trying to run a marathon that you aren't fit for, while the rest of your life goes down the drain because you're trying to be perfect for a challenge you can't even attain. Like a marathon, maybe you can train and do more over time, but if your own strength and ability is too low, maybe you'll never in your whole life run a marathon.

Anyway, I guess I've just come to accept finally that many of my apparent failures and weaknesses could be this way and I can feel free and at peace instead of harried and guilt-ridden and fearful all day as I try to grapple with the raw material of the challenges, goals, confusion and failures and crises that fill my day-to-day life and heart and soul.

Somehow, I can trust it all to God, that he will forgive and repair all the frayed ends of my life and actions. Or so I can hope, and the rest of it, I will just rest in his peace in the storm and failure, and in his forgiveness, and the knowledge of my ongoing humility and repentance, spoken or just deep in my bones, all day long, as much as I can. I'm so humble I know I might be unable to do better, and I see that as true, valid, good enough. My crazy quilt religion, my crazy quilt God is the one who accepts and embraces and redeems this.

So that is one excerpt I found in a book that triggered those insights for me, somehow. And there's another book passage that also helped me. I will try to find it too and write about it later on, if the ideas come up for me once more when I reread it. I guess I'll save it for another post, next post maybe, if I have time and focus.

[cipheramnesia]

I'm the one who sent the long vent ask, and I wanna thank you for taking the time to give me such a well thought out response, I wasnt expecting a lot and I really appreciate it. I do want to clarify that I only briefly used circumgender when I was younger because I was not able to recognize the predeterministic and overall transphobic nature of it, but it was admittedly the closest to get to explaining how I felt, seeing the origins of it and how it was used, hurt. And I do want to apologize for the ways in which I generalized, I've never gotten the chance to speak about this outside of my immediate circle, and its helped me work through stuff I wouldnt have otherwise. There is no way a transfem person looks, that was me projecting my own desires for my appearance, which is most often inspired by trans women I see online (but not every one, which is the important part lol), onto an entire group of people, which isnt fair. I did also play into the stereotypical narrative of "born and raised a boy and came out/transitioned later" because that's what I wanted and was rooted in my limited understanding of what transness could be admittedly, but no that is also not applicable to all people. In struggling to process through my own feelings and not really having a soace to do so, I guess it became easier to project onto a group that, like you said, has no set traits. I do wonder if I am more envious of the way I see certain transfem subcultures express gender and femininity than a set gender itself. And splitting hairs or not, that opposing, not as transphobic, more open conceptualization of gender is exactly what I needed to hear. I struggle with incredibly binaristic thinking, which can be, really hard to break down especially when you've spent the last three years of your adolescence terminally online in trans discourse spaces.

But yeah. That was what I needed to shake myself out of the "there is a set ways of experiencing this thing" thinking I didnt realize I had, or at least identify it. Blindly fumbling or not, your perspective has helped soothe something that's hurt for a long time.

Oh and I am genderfluid and I do have to cope with (and joyfully experience) everything that comes with that, imcluding the shifting dysphoria, euphoria, and gender that almost never match up, this is just something I've specifically struggled with. I know what labels I like, I know the box I fit most comfortably in when I describe this feeling, and the words we use to communicate identity are so nuanced and loaded that maybe there is no way to find the word that's gonna match you down to the core, I can settle for close enough, and maybe one day I'll be brave enough to use them in a way that's just for me, and not so rooted in self hatred and ingrained ideas about gender and other people. I hope you have a good day, queen.

Thank you and also I'm very glad to hear your process, and more about how you're growing and learning. We're all just like trying to do our best for each other and stuff, so I'm glad to help a little.

[determined-magi]

Hey red guy, You seem to be pretty Pretty close to Miss Gilrin. I've been meaning to ask... she seems to be pretty damn passive in comparison to you all, have hardly ever seen her really angry. Irritated? Annoyed? Frustrated? Yeah. But not angry. Does she ever get angry at all?

“ I wouldn’t say she doesn’t get angry… We just… don’t get to see it often nowdays… “

“ You see… she’s the daughter of an inn keeper, she was taught to be so, that way there wouldn’t be troubles arasing, from people or from the income they needed to get by. She wasn’t of blue blood like Braigon, Thanneth or me. She wasn’t royalty like Belle either… So she had to do so to get by. For her family… She just couldn’t go out her way, not without some repercutions, or so she often fear… funny thing, She never got a harsh treatment for getting that lesson… as I heard Thannor had… And yet, you could see her being just as submissive, if not more… “

“ Didn’t stop her from being angry though… her parents told me she often went to the forest to relax, kinda like we all often do. And sometimes she could spend a whole day outside trying to calm down… “

“ Then in came the adolescence, and with it came changes. Although she remained submissive at first, then returned to it after a while, she was bad in handling anger. Much like we all are when we do allow ourselves to feel it. And she was even worse hidding it. She… got often on talks with the teachers, and with mentors that didn’t take well to it. Which only worsened things really, even if she was subjecting herself to a bigger authority. And you may ask, how? The answer was simple, her magic: It was a mess. “

“ And it only got worse from there, really… we entered further into adolescences, and… well that dam was open. “

“ You know why our academies are often far away? Why we try to keep it relatively low in terms of figuring out where they are? human magic users can be… a sight.“

“ We don’t get too bad, if we are well taught to… have some self control and obedience, and all those basic manners a civilized human can have. But… yeah, for some it isn’t as easy, particularly strong mages, we… kind of go through something alike that rebelious teen phase… but worse. And more handfull. “

“ She… didn’t get too offhand… usually, she was pretty tame as far as mages in our category go, but she did get pretty rough at times. If she was in a bad mood she WOULD let you know, and she gave you plenty of forgiving stances. But… heh, if you got a punch out of her… there likely was a reason for it. I know I got mine out of my own bullshit… “

“ Hmmm… Never really thought about it, but… her anger is rather quiet, kind of like her magic when outside of place of comfort. In a way it downplays itself alone unless it is really bad. Haven’t really seeng that yet… Probably chances are the moment it does she’ll do the same Braigon does, and tap into that Úlfhéðnar blood of hers. Which is… really worrying, usually by now mage of norse descent often already have experienced it once, by drawing it out themselves or by accident. And go on their ways to learn some control on it… but she hasn’t, and  it is not that it isn’t there, old man told me she has it. “

“ Not that her anger hasn’t gotten the best of her… “

“ Back when… when I got hurt badly, she was damn tense often, I suppose our of the helplessness, since she couldn’t do anything to avoid anything that had happened then. Even if it was a massive load of stress… she was pretty damn adamant to keep watch on me, while I both studied and recoverd from it. Her mentor suggested she leave to rest even, she was… nearly as bad as Thanneth while it lasted, wasn’t as evident in her behavior… but her magic? It was an open book that spoke that this really was upsetting her. Things were… somewhat manageable, usually. Still… they were pretty bad. “

“ I remember one time… there were these bullies. I I would fend them off in my own accord, and ways. but… Since I wasn’t really on shape. They would try to make use of the advantage, when she wasn’t around you, that is. And there was this time where she caught them. They had managed to corner me in my way to check on Rho’s lessons… They went straight for my weak spot, making use of me trying to keep some hold on myself, last I needed was then to snap myself. Since I knew I myself would kill them… I knew that would get me in a lot of trouble then, self defense or not, with or no control over it. “

“ So there am I… with these assholes picking on my temporarily dissabled, weak and pathetic ass. Taking their time to savour the chance. Then walking  into the scenery comes Gil, eyes worried. Likely thinking I’m having some attack or something, and she sees the assholes. Grabbing me by my clothes, by the chest… likely bleeding because I’m pretty sure I smelled blood, so they opened the wounds while at it. I don’t know what look she had, but by the look of the guys tackled off from me… probably she had a signature murderous look on hers. Or that of a very rabid animal. They bluffed about, but it was clear they were getting the flight instinct more than the fight one… “

“ And who wouldn’t really? Rho’s teacher came in rushing. “

“ Remember her magic was a mess, and an open book? If her gaze on them was bad, then her magic was the incarnation of the sentiment behind. You could feel the animosity of it on the air, and hear it. Which… I will not lie, coming from her was worrying just how clear it was. Usually you’d hear it muffled in a way, but then? That meant they were an inch of getting a bad beating, or an inch away of murder… She just… was really pissed off. Enough to not tell the different if she was going to do something or not. “

“ She didn’t move when the teacher came, and tried to get me and her away, as the kids then scurried away before he got sight of them. She just kept trembling before rushing to where I was, Rho then showed up too. He also looked very worried then… wasn’t the worst though… “

“ Thannor got that luck. “

“ He told me about it only once. Said it was worse than me getting my ass handed to me, when she was done with my bullshit. And that he was honestly surprised she didn’t get berserk then and there, she was… pretty much out of it entirely and didn’t really want to stop, they had vent her magic of. and even then she had tried to struggle against their grip on her. Reason? Guy had been actialy trying to worsen the damage on Tei’s hands and arms, and was… actually managing some, by ripping of the pieces of metal burnt and burred on them. He was doing… not so well on the fight, but it didn’t look like he was helpless as I did look… but… eh, I guess after getting a lot of stuff happening to us, it must’ve gotten under her skin then… Enough to leave the guy on some watch, and her isolated for a while… “

“ Then you have the times she was angry at our bullshit, Belle, Thanny’s, Thannor’s and mine truly… We allways end up on physical bickering, They don’t happen often, but they do happen… and If I remember I had one a while ago with her… she… made it hard to take seat for like a month. We rough housed quite hard then, both of us had sprains and cruises everywhere, perhaps a few bones a little cracked. But things got healed and all… and we made peace of it. “

“ To answer the question? She does get angry, she… just deals with it differently, and tries to express it indirectly through other emotions, like frustration… and the like, doesn’t serve much when she does however…  “

“ Which reminds me, She and Rho are in need of a chat about supressing emotions and feelings, they drag me enough on it. I think its about time I switch the roles. “

“ They’ll probably hound me, but hey, if they do it to me, it is fair I do it to them, right? “