#writing for tumblr on my laptop is NOT anxiety inducing so I will try and sneak back into here efbdbfbfb

[spideyhexx]

very soon, i am gonna be deleting the tumblr app because of reasons so please yell at me to get my laptop out because that way I’ll write a lot more again😭

do apologize again for my absence as of late, sadly everything is a lot right now and I am not doing okay, being on here is just making me anxious and I’ve had to now take more measures to keep my peace so that’s what I’m doing🫶or trying to!

this isn’t a hiatus or that I’m completely leaving, if we get movies or tv news I’ll be around, and I’ll try to post some asks here and there, but wanted to just say it all together and that I still might be a little vacant from here until I can feel a bit better :) also I haven’t lost my interest in any of the characters I write for, I just need a little break and space <3

much love to you all, looking forward to when things are a little calmer :)

[artemidian]

How are you not on your phone all the time I wish I could put it down tbh having my phone causes me anxiety but not having it also causes me anxiety

my anxiety hasn’t been the best recently either, i understand <3 my response is on the longer side, so i’ll put it under the cut:

it's not as if i'm not on electronics quite a lot– it's social media i tend to stay off of. i use my phone for music, my laptop for writing and some research, and a few months ago, for graduation, my family bought me an ipad, which i use for drawing, scheduling and for note-taking, and i do use youtube and pinterest as well. and of course i’m also on tumblr sometimes. but here are some things that i do:

i have lists of hobbies/skills/projects that i’d like to work on, which gives me an easy list of options that i can look at before i reach for my electronics. i get absorbed really quickly in whatever i’m working on, so that’s how a lot of my day is spent! 

(i also have lists of things that are more low-energy, like reading, journaling, or listening to music, because i don’t always have the focus or energy to do the things i’d like to)

at my house, i get given all my chores at the start of the week, and then i add on to that list with personal chores and goals as well. i’ll then sit down and plan out my week from that, and i try to get a few tasks done before i go on my phone each day 

this wasn’t purposeful, but i have times of day where i’m on my phone. i usually check it in the mornings after breakfast, and then again in the evenings for a longer period of time. it’s not a rule or anything of the sort, it’s just how my day ends up working most of the time 

i don’t keep my notifications on because they cause a lot of stress. i just recently was able to turn them back on for a few social apps, but in general i dislike them 

i set alarms for each hour. i didn’t start this because of anything internet-related, but it helps, in a way. i have ADD, which means my perception of the passage of time is non-existent. having a reminder that time is passing helps me to realize how i spend my time 

i also thought i might mention how i make my experiences on social media less anxiety-inducing, because to me that is more important than monitoring the amount of time i spend online– because for me, that changes day to day, and unless it’s impacting the things i need and want to do, i really don’t mind spending more or less time online. however, i don’t want to spend that time making my mental health worse. so: 

i try to make my online “world” as comfortable as possible, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. i only follow people who’s content i enjoy seeing, and i have a very long list of filtered tags and content. if anything bothers me, i just remove it from view. i also give a very low amount of chances. 

i know my priorities on different apps. oftentimes i’ll be scrolling somewhat mindlessly through tumblr, and if i notice that, i switch activities. if there’s no new content i want to see, or if there are no interactions to tend to, then i try to to spend time sitting and waiting. i only use instagram for communication, and the same thing with snapchat. (i don’t have tiktok, and i don’t plan on getting it)

i try not to push myself with content or communication. i only write when i have an time or motivation, and i only write what i want to. sometimes i have the time and energy to give quick responses, and sometimes i don’t, and most of the time it’s somewhere in between so i just keep myself in mind

if your anxiety is a matter of getting anxious you’ll miss something important with a mutual or something along those lines— which i can understand given how fast-paced things can be online— it might be a good idea to talk to those friends about it. however most of the drama that happens on here isn’t important in the long run, or doesn’t have to be dealt with in the moment. it’s okay to save your energy

if you just have anxiety from the amount of content, i get that too. there’s and overwhelming amount of information constantly pushed out, and being able to lessen how much you see really does help, at least for me

it’s really a matter of knowing how much energy you have and how you’d like to spend time, and making the conscious choice to notice if you’re able to match that. and it’s difficult to find what works for you and how to change the way you spend your time. but whatever the outcome is, i hope you find something that eases your anxiety <3

[meta-squash]

i’m having a “not enough time or functioning brain in life to read all the things i want to read and reread” moment and it’s quite paralytic rather than jumpstarting

maybe the jumpstart will come later

wish i had my old shakespeare anthologies with me here in wa but they’re in ca and i think they might actually belong to my parents anyway

there are at least a dozen books i want to order right now and literally like over 600 unread books on my reading list and a lot of unread books on my shelves that i already own

i don’t know i mean the last time i had this existential crisis type thing i read a bunch of books at once but also in 2019 i read 60 books and i wasn’t having a crisis so idk what’s better

i mean i’m unemployed because fuck covid layoffs so technically i should have a ton of time to read stuff but the problem isn’t the time it’s the “time” my stupid depressed adhd unmedicated brain deems clear enough for reading vs all the rest of the time which is muddled and muzzy and full of staring at stupid shit and taking in nothing

really i should just get some fucking adhd meds (also i need my eyes checked because haven’t done that in a long time and i can tell my right one is not 20/20 anymore) but going to a doctor in the middle of the pandemic for something that can wait seems a bit silly even if it’s real shitty in my brain

i could be writing all this in my notebook by hand but i type nearly as fast as i think and if i handwrote this that fast it would be even more illegible than it already is

but back to the crisis i don’t know i mean i just want to read all this stuff but also i want to start writing and working on art again and i took a break from my les mis collage for all of december and i should really get back to it because i’ve only done like 102 pieces i think. but like when you’re adhd you don’t have 24 hours in a day or 18 hours or whatever it is you either have like....4 hours or you have like 72 hours there is no in between you’re either barely able to work on anything or it’s like gogogogogo for a lot a long time in a row

maybe i’ll be back to gogogo when it’s not dark and fucking cold out it’s the one thing i don’t like about the pnw is how goddamn long the winters are although i’ve lived here 7 years now i should be used to it

but idk i was reading the albion forum archive and something in it reminded me of a quote i saw in a different book (atrocity exhibition, which i haven’t read in years) so i went to go find the quote and then i was sitting there on the floor in front of my bookshelf thinking about how i wanted to reread atrocity exhibition but i also want to reread a season in hell and i want to reread nightwood and people of paper and harold’s end and as i lay dying and i want to properly read the entire divine comedy not just inferno and i want to read for the first time maurice and mad like artaud and skagboys and personae and notre dame de paris and ulysses and anxiety of influence and the thief’s journal and in the miso soup and the girl with the louding voice and off the wall and and and and

and at the beginning of last year right before covid hit or maybe in december 2019 i developed an asthma-like thing which i think is maybe stress induced or something idk (another go to the doctor thing ugh) that gets worse on my period idk why but it’s like i can breathe fine when it’s normal breathing but half the time when i go in for a nice deep breath it’s like the back of my throat won’t open wide enough or my chest muscles won’t let my lungs expand to the bottom or something and my brain kind of feels like that asthma like i want it to work properly so badly i want to be able to read books all day i want to be able to do art and write and stuff all day but every time i try to take a deep breath with my brain it won’t go all the way so i end up just shalllow breathing just watching stupid shit on my laptop all day and reading fanfiction (which is not worse than fiction-fiction but it’s different) and scrolling tumblr-twitter-facebook-loop when all i want to do is take some nice deep brain breaths and read like 6 books in a row or write some poems or short stories or do some collage art or take my camera out somewhere or something

[kincringeemporium]

So I promised y’all a high school kinnie storytime. Suffer/enjoy.

First off, for some context, I was generally a dick in high school. Nobody has to be a social butterfly, and if you’re more focused on your education than having lots of friends at that age, hey, good on you. I’m not dragging that. I’m saying that I was -- again -- a pretentious little piece of shit. 

Now, being a pretentious little piece of shit, I sought people who didn’t follow the usual crowds and didn’t agree with the most common points of view in my school. These people were, in my mind, smarter. Better. More worth my time.  

However, being rather bored and lonely and wanting at least one friend, I kind of shrugged off some red flags that showed up among the people who did meet my stupid fucking high standards. I didn’t ignore these red flags, but shrugged and went, “Well, if I don’t hang out with them, I won’t be hanging out with anyone.” 

So, here are the key players in this magical tale of bullshit. 

If, by some fucking miracle, either of them manage to find this (because they are most definitely on tumblr), I don’t want some shitsplosion out of my laptop screen -- so, fake names.  

Marc, who claimed to be an aroace trans boy. (I say “claimed” because... you’ll see.) 

Z, who was apparently nonbinary, also I can’t remember anything about their name other than that it had a Z in it. 

Alright... So I decided to start a writing club. Marc, Z, and some others showed up because I’d been polite to them in classes and such. We also shared some interests. Mainly Steven Universe and Tumblr. (The others aren’t really important, so I won’t mention them beyond that.) 

In the first meeting, we shared our names, pronouns, hobbies, and years of writing experience. Marc and Z didn’t come up with any hobbies aside from “Internet”, “anime”, and the dreaded “social activism”. At this point, the logical bit of my brain was like, yikes. 

But it gets way, way worse. We also shared our Tumblr urls (my high school Tumblr is still out there, btw). I will now list some of the shit that I encountered on their blogs. 

“Soft confused transboy, they/them or he/him” on Marc’s about 

Undertale Sans in front of green/yellow/black flag as Marc’s icon 

Some edgy, fake-deep line in Z’s about (I don’t remember what) 

“They/them, xe/xem” in Z’s about 

A whole fuck ton of SU Peridot posts from Z 

Posts on both blogs @’ing each other, tagged with “qpp”, “pda”, and related shit

“lol Big Gay!” and “ewww straights!” jokes all over both blogs 

Yeah. Yikes. But still, I was pretty desperate for something to do. 

So I kept talking to them. I thought Marc was alright, so tried to find out more about him. Eventually we got round to talking about crushes, orientations, etc. I asked Marc what qpp meant. 

He gave me some long winded explanation that didn’t actually explain much. What I understood from it was that a qpp is a friend who you love, but aren’t in love with. (Which is... just a best friend.) 

Z gave a similar explanation. And I thought... alright. I guess that’s that. Weird, but eh. 

Until one day, a ‘tag something about your crush/s.o.’ post appeared on my dash from Marc tagged “I kissed my qpp today!! I’m so happy!!!” And I was... confused. Didn’t Marc, as an aromantic person, not fall in love? Didn’t kissing someone and getting those warm fuzzy feelings mean you were in love with them?  

I decided to do some digging. An initial scroll through Z’s blog revealed surprisingly little of interest... but then I found, buried somewhere in their links, a “me” button. So I clicked it. Selfies. I was about to click off before I reached the very bottom and, being in public, had to do a double take to ensure no one was behind me. A bikini selfie, yay! And Z was 16. Butt out, tits out, all of it. Tagged with, you guessed it, “body positivity”.  

Now... I’m not insulting overweight people (Z was a little overweight) for liking themselves, feeling confident, etc. I’m not even insulting them in particular wearing bikinis, even if I don’t like bikinis in general. I’m saying that at 16, Z should not have been posting sexy selfies under the guise of a movement that claims to be built on self acceptance and confidence. 

So, I pulled away from Z some. 

That left me more time to talk with Marc. I didn’t say a word about his relationship (bc that’s what it was) with Z. Looking back, I find it odd that throughout our entire friendship, Marc didn’t mention dysphoria. Of course nobody has to tell all their friends all about their dysphoria. There was just no “Ugh, I got misgendered earlier” or anything about “pre-transition, I...”  But anyway. 

I started looking through Marc’s blog again. There were a hell of a lot of Sans posts and it didn’t click with me back then that Marc may have been a fictionkin. I don’t recall if he tagged the Sans posts with anything kinnie-ish, but holy fuck, there were a lot. It was weird. 

Also weird was that as the year went on, Marc stopped showing up to writing club as often. I asked him what was up, and said that if he didn’t want to be in the club anymore, he should just let me know - because that’d be okay. But no, he made some excuse and walked away from the conversation. 

The next day, I got a text from Marc saying (not verbatim, but still): “Hey, my anxiety has been really bad lately, and my doctors are saying not to participate in social clubs like this. I’m too tired. Really sorry!” 

 I said it was fine and didn’t think much of it. He and Z still spent a lot of time together in the halls and such; I didn’t put a ton of thought into that, either. 

Sometime the next week, a writer friend of mine (who was also in the club, and not annoying or shitty or anything), invited me to a GSA meeting. I was bored and decided to try it out. 

When I walked in, guess who the fuck I saw? 

Marc and Z.  

He could not even meet my eyes. I’ve never seen a person look that fucking guilty. My writer friend could tell something was up, smartly wanted no part of it, and excused herself. 

Marc had been attending GSA meetings the entire damn time, while claiming that he was following doctor’s orders by leaving writing club. 

Fucker. 

That’s the last I saw of Marc and Z.  

And all the things that add up to suspiciously kinnie-like behavior... 

Z’s neopronouns 

Marc’s weird mogai-ish version of aromanticism 

Marc’s Sans icon and Sans posts

Z’s fuck ton of Peridot posts 

Both Z and Marc encouraging each other’s behavior 

Marc’s lying and fake anxiety claims 

“soft transboi” 

So... that’s that. 

I’ve got more cringe-inducing stories, too. I can tell y’all about: 

A girl in bio class who was a complete ballsack

she was obnoxiously, overly sweet 

she used her mental disabilities as an excuse to act ignorant 

she thought being gay was a choice 

she clearly had no respect for transgender people (with legitimate gender dysphoria) 

was a complete pain in the ass to my favorite teacher 

I did something passive aggressive to her because I was done with her shit 

Two girls in anime club who were also huge ballsacks 

appeared to hate each other 

one was very small, quiet, and a loner 

other was loud, edgy, and unironically said “we’re here and we’re queer!” 

quiet one 100% lead me on  

loud one was a fucking dick to me

there’s a plot twist 

bonus: loud dickish one tried to be my friend and I was not falling for it

-K 

[dredshirtroberts]

Been a while since I went on and on about my family.

Probably because shit’s been kinda crazy in my life and frankly there’ve been other things to consider.

I have very, very complex feelings about my family.

I love them, dearly, with all my heart. They claim to do the same to me, and sometimes they do things that prove it. Sometimes they say things that make me think if I ever were to open up completely to them I would no longer be loved. They have helped me and protected me during rough times in my life and I will be forever grateful to them. They have also caused me harm and trauma and seeded deep seated anxieties and complexes that will cause me distress for some time yet as I work my way through all of it. They are also, undeniably human, and for that I cannot find it in me to dislike them for their faults. Much.

Because of the trauma and hurt I’ve been through - whether sourced from them or not - it is incredibly easy for manipulative people to latch onto my insecurities and my anger and turn that into something they can use to isolate me from the people I am closest to both genetically and emotionally, thus making it easier to hurt me differently, more.

This has happened at least twice that I’m aware of. Once with a former best friend who I don’t know intended to be as manipulative and abusive as she is/was but intent doesn’t really matter I suppose. The second time was with my ex-partner I left this past April. 

To my eyes it always appeared that my younger sister was the favorite of my parents, and to my sister I appeared the favorite, so we were essentially pitted against one another in a competition we never signed up for - and I believe this was done completely unintentionally. The constant struggle to be “good enough” for our parents’ approval placed us in the unfortunate position of being 2 hormonal teenagers within 3 years of age difference stuck in the same house 24/7. We were constantly fighting - screaming matches designed to hurt. Wild swings meant to intimidate but not connect because if I connected there’d be hell to pay. (I connected a punch at least once, and that’s just the one I remember because it was relatively traumatizing not only to her but to myself because I never actually wanted to hit her). She and I have mostly gotten through the misunderstanding of our motivations from that time period. She struggled because I was the “good kid” who never did anything wrong - even though she knew better. And she was talented and beautiful and got compliments on everything - even though I saw her handheld through some of the things I was forced to do on my own. It was very fraught, and honestly there were things that should have been done better but none of us knew what we were doing.

My parents meant well with everything. They tried not to play favorites but they were both older children determined not to let their oldest child feel like they had - and in doing so had caused their youngest to feel ostracized and like she would never be enough because I had the benefit of the doubt on my side. Confirmation bias - the oldest kid wasn’t in the wrong all the time, which meant I was never in the wrong because they hadn’t been in the wrong all the time (they thought). This was the wrong way to handle it but I don’t think I would have done any better.

They took us out of Public Schooling to homeschool when I was 12 and my sister was 9. They meant to make sure that we were getting the attention we needed in order to succeed. I’d been in the gifted program and was still bored, and my sister was being sidelined because she was placed in That classroom of her peers - the one filled with all the kids who were constantly in trouble, and with the teacher who probably didn’t need to be a teacher anymore. So they thought they would do a better job. My dad worked full time initially so he was gone a lot. My mom tried to teach but she is not a teacher. She is an excellent scholar and does very well with knowing things. If you know things on the same level she does? Great to talk to and debate with. If you’re not there yet? Forget it, you’re going to have to find someone else to teach you. My sister required a lot more attention as she was the squeaky wheel - she wouldn’t read because she finds it incredibly difficult (I’m pretty sure we’ve got some level of dyslexia, and hers is worse than mine). She was very good at math though, which my mother loved because my mother loves math. She picked my mom’s favorite foreign language to learn because it was relevant to her own interests and my mom latched on. 

I could read 5 books in a week, write pages and pages of stories, and would research like no one’s business. But I could not figure out math, I wouldn’t put the research into a paper, my stories were not for parental consumption, and I didn’t want to read the books I was supposed to be reading (they were incredibly boring, I stand by my decisions). But none of this interested my mother except in telling me how I was failing, so I was left to my own devices, sitting alone in my bedroom surrounded by my schoolbooks and doing nothing I was supposed to. It was a very artistically productive time in my life. When I got a laptop later in my teens, forget school work at all, nothing got done. I technically did not graduate high school and I only “passed” the assessment tests because I test incredibly well.

So I was alone for a very long time during the day until “my” parent got home from work. Cause I was Dad’s kid and my sister was my mom’s kid, as described above. But I couldn’t get into computers and programming the way my dad wanted me to - my sister was actually into more of the same interests as him, but they Do Not get along. Yes present tense. They do well in short periods of time but they are not ever going to be close-close. My mom and I are cut from the same nerd cloth and I thought at one point I’d maybe found a way into her heart by starting her going to a local comic convention with me. We did an annual day out just the two of us for a good couple years. I think I learned something the one time she tried to bring my dad and sister with us (neither of whom was in any way shape or form excited about the endeavor, and in fact both hated it immensely). We stopped going as regularly after that and haven’t been back since. That...that one still hurts so I’m going to try not to pick open that scab right now.

I spent a lot of time alone. I was trying to figure myself out. I was about 16 when I realized I was not a Girl. I’m actually still fairly certain my initial assessment is correct and actually I am a guy. I just...can’t do anything about it right now and honestly I’ve gotten used to existing as I am so I’m just going to keep on keeping on. It might change again, it’s been known to do that. I don’t know if it’s a natural thing for me or if it’s something that is induced by outside stressors but I’ll just continue existing and we’ll see how it goes.

My mental illnesses were ignored for the most part. Teenage Angst was what my depression was, I’d grow out of it. Normal was what my anxiety was determined to be (hmm, my Super Anxious mother saying my anxiety is just normal life? sounds fake but okay). ADHD? That’s something that kids with less attentive parents have, and since mine were super attentive - I was being homeschooled after all - I clearly could not have that. Plus it was fake, and if I wasn’t so lazy and unmotivated I wouldn’t have a problem. Also I didn’t know anything about ADHD so that was definitely not something I had. The fact that I definitely wanted to kill myself and frequently wanted to die and didn’t think I’d live past 18? I didn’t talk about that. No one knew because depression wasn’t real and if I said anything I was just “crying out for help” and clearly that was only what whiny brats did when they felt the world wasn’t being handed to them on a silver platter. 

I self-harmed intentionally for the first time at 14. I have done so infrequently since then. When I reached drinking age, I developed a mild problem - but I didn’t think anything of it because it was encouraged and supported by my family who didn’t know I was using it to cope with the fact that I still felt like dying but now was older than I ever thought I’d be and didn’t know where my life was going. I used pot as a way to escape with my first IRL friend in 7 years. She used it against me as a way to make me easier to manipulate and keep complacent. I let her.

I spent 4 years in a weird haze of things I don’t really remember very well or remember extremely clearly. I was constantly anxious and upset, and I still felt like dying but at least I wasn’t alone anymore. She constantly berated my sister (which I hated and promised never to let anyone else do ever again - which I then broke later but, well, I’m going to be better now). My family didn’t like her, which she used to pit me against them saying they only wanted to isolate me from others again. This is the same time I came to Tumblr and started learning about abuse cycles and signs. It took me a while to stop only attributing them to the way my family worked (not always abusive) and start comparing the lists to her behavior towards me (usually abusive). 

I finally realized something was wrong with all of it when I was introduced to a group of people in whom I found several new family members. If you’re reading this, you’re statistically one of those people so you already know what I’m talking about. This ex-friend of mine introduced me to the group and I was shocked at how people could positively support one another and be genuinely interested in my health and wellbeing and also the things I enjoyed all at the same time.

I met a guy through them and with his support and everyone else’s I left the manipulation and abusive behavior of this ex-friend behind. The relationship with the guy lasted 6 months and honestly I’m impressed we got that far now that I think back on it (note to self, if he’s named himself after war machinery it probably won’t work very long). It was the longest I’d ever been out with anyone, my previous record being 2 weeks. 2 months after the end of that relationship and I met my now ex-partner.

I won’t rehash that disaster. It was 4.5 years of slow build up to the shitshow that actually started in December of last year and culminated in April of this year. He used the same tactics against me as my ex-friend did. Slowly pull me away from my support system (who I was already farther away from than I’d been with Her). Remind me that they’d hurt me and that their attempts to hold on to me were to keep me away from others. Hide that he was trying to do the same himself, isolate me from my support system and give me a support system that already backed him up and would side with him no matter what. Use physical intimidation (whether intentional or not he did it, and it was new so I wasn’t prepared) to remind me that I was not in any position of power. Berate my sister, avoid my family, use their attempts to show me that he was in the wrong to prove they were in the wrong.

I swear to god the very next time someone else calls my sister a bitch I am throwing hands and getting the fuck out immediately because I Will Not.

It’s happened twice now and I’ve let it happen both times. It’s not fair to her and honestly it’s not even true. She’s...difficult to deal with, and sometimes she does things in a manner that doesn’t...make much sense to me but she’s not a bitch. She’s a woman who is extremely opinionated and has very strong views on How Things Should Be. She’s not bigoted or hateful which frankly is a surprise considering our upbringing. But she’s not a bitch.

Speaking of our upbringing, I guess I should mention I was raised in a politically conservative, right-wing household. There are certain radio talk-show hosts whose introduction jingles make me think of summertime and relaxation because that’s when I’d be listening to them the most thanks to my mom always having them on the radio during their broadcast times. The Liberals (tm) were Bad and the Republicans were the only hope our country had. The Gays were an evil to be endured but god forbid they get any rights or freedoms, and also women are completely equal to men and racism was abolished before my dad was born so it’s fine now. 

We weren’t super Christian - not until later anyway. We went to church on Sundays, and even then Dad took several years off where he just never went to a service. We listened to Punk music and pretended we were on the right side of things, and sometimes we listened to heavier stuff because Satan was bad but not that bad and also probably not real because Christianity isn’t a big deal it’s just important because Reasons (tm). We only prayed before big holiday meals and even then it was more lip service than anything. A tradition of Things You Do. I had friends who were way more performatively Christian than my family and I didn’t really think anything of it.

Of course now my dad’s part of one of those neo-baptists mini-megachurch cults (my bad, I did introduce him to it after I spent a summer in Louisiana) and he’s become weirdly open to things like Neurodivergence and Mental Illness but has regressed on the trans* and gay issues to, like, all the way back: “He’s just confused why does any guy want to wear a dress” and “she’s got a wife and I guess that’s fine because she’s an alright person but gay people shouldn’t get married or exist”. I vaguely know their stance on reproductive rights because we never actually discussed sex despite my dad and I communicating frequently in bawdy jokes and quotes from movies I shouldn’t have seen as young as I was when I saw them, but I told them at one point I was on birth control and I think my mom had a mini aneurism because she just kind of froze for a minute. It’s definitely not a favorable view but I mean...I can’t convince them to care about people who aren’t them and who experience the world differently from them so I mean

Mm and they’ve recently become gun owners which was a surprise. We never owned a gun, we never really talked about guns or gun ownership except as a political thing. Dad kinda mentioned it a little bit sometimes? that he’d one day like a gun but it was always a distant future sort of thing. And now they both have concealed carry licenses, my mom has a purse with a hidden compartment and a lock, they go out to the shooting range for dates together, and my dad went on his first deer hunt this year for a work retreat thing (?????? don’t ask me, I honestly don’t know or understand why that was a thing). 

I held a gun one time and it was horrible and I hated it. It wasn’t loaded or anything but it was heavy as fuck and I was so uncomfortable I immediately handed it back as soon as its owner was done with whatever he was trying to prove to me (it was first boyfriend war machinery name guy...again, every time i look back at that relationship I still don’t know how we managed to keep our shit together for 6 whole months. it was not my best decision but considering the other decisions i’ve made regarding relationships, I suppose it could have been worse). 

Anyway, I forget where I was supposed to be going with all of this. I think I was just explaining that my feelings about my family are complicated and uncomfortable? And I think the main thing I got out of this (which is a good thing, don’t worry) is that I am not going to let anyone else in my life determine my relationship with my parents and my sister ever again and anyone who tries to manipulate that (even with good intentions, it’s still none of their business) is a bad fit for me and needs to go.

Oh yeah, I guess this is also me coming out to y’all who are reading this: I think I’m a guy. I’ll let you know if my pronouns or anything change but right now I’m pretty much still coming to terms with the gender bit. It’s been a while since I properly explored my gender shit so we’ll see how it goes.