June 01, 2026: How I’m Gonna Get My Shit Together (For real this time) (NOT CLICKBAIT!!)

I have been NEEDING a plan to get my Shit Fucking Together. I am so tired of living in the hell that is OCD-PMDD-BPD. It is ruining my life and I am allowing it to. Well no more I say!

But because my life has been so shitty, I don’t really know how to get my shit together? I try and I try and well… the thing is I think I’m trying but I’m not actually trying hard enough, because the stress and agony and rumination has become like a second, outer layer of protective skin. Like, when I’m not stressed, I don’t know what the hell I’m even supposed to fucking do. Not being stressed makes me stressed. It is so unfamiliar; I feel like a piano is going to drop on my head if I allow myself to relax for even a fraction of a second. So no, I’m not actually trying and trying and trying; I’m running into the wall face-first, backing up, doing the same thing a few more times, then throwing my hands up in the air and going “oh well, there is simply no way out.”

But man… there is. I am grateful because there is always a way out of it for me, I just don’t always have the clarity required to understand that. Most of the time I don’t have the clarity to understand that. I want, so desperately, to live my life and have a good future full of joy, and it’s finally time I started putting in, like, actual fucking Effort to get it. I can’t keep stressing out my loved ones with problems that exist solely in my head. I can’t keep torturing myself just to torture myself. I just can’t keep doing this.

I WANT TO BE ABLE TO ENJOY THE LIFE THAT I HAVE. THE LIFE THAT I HAVE IS GOOD, AND IT IS FLEETING. I MUST LEARN HOW TO BE A PERSON. THERE ISN’T A GUIDEBOOK OR A MANUAL, SO I’M JUST GONNA HAVE TO PULL MYSELF UP AND OUT OF THE WATER! LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO STAY STAGNANT AND TERRIFIED! I HAVE TO LOOSEN MY BITE!

But how? I made a list and I’m checking it twice thrice every goddamn morning. I’m working on the worksheets my therapist sent me. I’m going to really apply myself to things instead of just blowing them off with no motivation. I’m going to be the best person I can be. Why? Because I don’t have a choice. Because I am either going to get better, or I am going to die. Not of suicide. Just of stress. And! I’m going to fix my sleep schedule. And! I’m going to be more talkative, reach out to people more, be open. I’m so goddamn terrified of interacting with even the closest people to me but that’s just, well, silly! And!! I’m going to do more things IRL. I have a wheelchair now so things are more accessible to me, and I’m gonna make the most of it. I want to go to the local writing club that meets at my favorite bookstore monthly, and do some open mic events too. I need to be a part of this world because I am tired of being left behind by it, and it’s not going to come up and grab me by the balls and drag me out into living. It only works like that if you’re on, like, HBO. I have to make it my damn self, and I’m going to.

So here’s the little plan I’ve drafted. I am gonna try and stick to this, because I have to. As a deeply psych-critical individual, I struggle with DBT–but I find some of its techniques helpful regardless, so I am just. Grinding my teeth and grumbling through them here.

Every day:

Wake up, open bird cage, get coffee/energy drink
Wash face, brush teeth, say affirmations in mirror
Read at least 10 pages
Take at least an hour before getting online if possible
Play cards with family
Do a physical creative project like embroidery or drawing
Journal at least 2 pages every day again

Every 3 days do exfoliant, face hydration mask, cleanser and toner

Plan for issues:

If any ruminating thoughts and insecurities arise, utilize the STOP and check the facts DBT protocol. Stop, literally freeze up, take a step back, and assess the situation. If cannot step back/too heated up, do physical exercise or something physical like rock throwing or punching a pillow until tired out, place ice on neck, then assess the reality of the situation. Reach out for insight to loved ones if needed.

HOW TO CHECK THE FACTS
Ask yourself these 6 questions to Check the Facts

1. What emotion do you want to change?
2. What is the prompting event of my emotion?
   • • Describe what you observed with your senses
   • Challenge judgments and black and white thinking
3. 4. What are my interpretations, thoughts, and assumptions about the event?
   • • What are other interpretations of the event?
   • Look at other points of view.
4. 6. Am I assuming a threat?
   • • Label the threat & assess the possibility of it occurring
   • Think of other outcomes
5. 8. What is the catastrophe?
   • • Imagine it occurring and you coping with it well
6. 10. Does my emotion and/or its intensity fit the facts?
   • • Ask Wise Mind

Other DBT skills, like opposite action to emotion, will likely be helpful. I think focusing on increasing positive emotions and mindfulness will be really important as well.

Other ways to cope:

• Try not to reach out to family unless it is unshakeable; need to learn to self soothe. Imagining something comforting might help, like a f/o scenario, as embarrassing as that is.
• Pet brush feed etc animal or do something in service of someone else. Prepare fruit for my bird or dance with her.
• Go through past messages/posts and realize how far I have come. (Nothing too upsetting and not too often)
• Look back at folder of nice comments people have sent me when I feel sad
• Deep breathing
• Prayer and meditation

March 14, 2026: Fandom Sucks Now: And Other Laments

Content Warnings: child sex trafficking & PTSD mentions.

You know, these days, I am getting sort of tired.

I don’t really know how else to describe it, so we’ll just go with the simplicity of I’m really just kind of tired. And the worst, most unsightly aspect of it all is this: I don’t really know what I’m tired of.

I can give you a list of reasons without hesitation:

1) I spend my entire time in fandom, because fandom is my passion. I run a fanfiction archive with ~360 users and around 500 different fandoms. Fandom is, quite literally, what I have dedicated my life to for the past fifteen years. And fandom, apparently, fucking hates me. Yeah, so it turns out that if you’re different from what is considered Normal and Acceptable in any way, you deserve to die and are subhuman, according to others. This widespread harassment is reminiscent of my days being beaten up and nearly murdered as a child at my Waldorf elementary school—unfathomable, needless cruelty fueled by a hatred of anything they don’t want to understand. So what if I like to cope by writing dark fanfiction? So what if I just fucking like dark fanfiction? What are you going to do about it? Stop me? 

But unfortunately, there are actual repercussions for openly liking dark content. People can and will try to ruin your life, your source of income, your relationships, your safety. And I’m a sensitive alien, okay! I’m a goddamn child trafficking survivor and to be called a pedophile over fictional aliens shatters my soul in ways no one can even begin to comprehend unless they’re in the same situation.

I shouldn’t say that, probably. I shouldn’t let people know about that weakness. It’s like a KICK ME sign taped to my back, a big red arrow pointing right to my Achilles heel. Come and cut me. But I am in a human body in this life, and so I am human. And as a human thing, the comparison still will never leave me. It haunts, vivisects. I know who I am, and I cannot control how others perceive me, and I cannot handle being seen as a being of the same depravity of the people who hurt me. I just can’t.

I think this is a valid reason to be tired. It is still only one facet of the crystal.

I do so much for fandom. What does fandom do for me? It brought me my beloved. My amazing friends. But what else? What lately? 

2) I just do nothing. I have nothing to do all day. Oh, sure, I have tons to do, actually. I have ideas and I have projects and I have embroidery supplies and music software and cute little $5 kits from the store where you knit an ugly ass ladybug. I simply never have the wherewithal to actually do any of them. Is it the fatigue and pain I am constantly in? Am I just depressed and unmotivated because everything seems worthless? Is my psychosis acting up again? Do I need to have my meds adjusted, is what my family will say, if I tell them I’m struggling with motivation, so of course I don’t tell them. 

I can’t ever get the spark going. Like a wind-up toy that just gets tighter and tigher until it snaps, never moving forward. And I have no goddamn idea why.

I’m tired of being so tired. 

3) My family is aging and ill and my mother will not go to the doctor because she is scared. She’s sixty one, her thyroid is dead, she needs to be on medication for it (hypocritical of me perhaps, since my thyroid is also dead and I don’t take my synthroid, but I’m going to start!!!), but she refuses to get a perscription. I’m terrified about what will happen when her body can’t take it anymore.

My nana has anxiety worse than mine. It’s so bad she stays up multiple nights having intrusive thoughts. She refuses to take any sort of medication for this or bring it up to her doctor. I’m terrified about what will happen when she gets too terrified.

I’m tired of being so scared.

4) Oh, yeah, and there’s that whole I-have-dissociative-identity-disorder-and-CPTSD thing. I’ve been having flashbacks almost every day lately. I’m tired of feeling broken. I’m tired of letting it break me, but I just don’t know how to stop thinking about it, writing about it, recreating it in fiction, thinking about it, throwing up about it, obsessing over it, thinking about it. I’m obsessed with it all, the pain that I went through and the siphoning of my innocence and the portioning of my body and so on. It’s all I ever think about. When will it stop? When will I stop feeling it? 

Torturing fictional characters in the same way makes it feel better for a little while. Like a band-aid over an autopsy incison.

I guess maybe I’m just tired of all of it. Of this frozen life I’m living. I keep thinking something needs to change, and I keep trying to make small changes to my daily routine, you know, build new habits, start a schedule, but it’s all futile, I fall out of everything eventually. I really need to start preparing for my future, because I guess I’m going to have one? And preparing for my future is not sitting here writing toxic yuri fanfiction all day, as fun as it is. I don’t know. I keep clawing at the walls of my brain, trying to find a solution.

I see a lot of my friends taking steps back from fandom these days. A lot of them are also creatives, and they’re choosing to focus more on original works instead. I find that option more and more appealing with each cruel post I see pass my Tumblr dashboard. I can’t decide if I really want to step back from fandom, or if I only feel a need to do so because still being so deeply entrenched in fandom when everyone else I know has moved on makes me feel a little self-conscious, and I feel like I have to follow suit or I will be left behind. But I suspect that while my insecurities are probably a factor, it has more to do with the harassment I’ve been facing over being a Nahla/Caleb(/Anisha) shipper, and the terrible things people have said about me because of it.

I don’t want to enjoy things in fear. I have my own personal archive using the AO3 software now; I rarely post to AO3 outside of exchanges. I keep my fics locked down to my friends and people I trust not to judge me. And… I’m someone who loves attention! I kind of need it to survive, clinically. But I just struggle to stay sane when horrible accusation after horrible accusation is thrown at me, and all I’m trying to do is enjoy myself in peace. I don’t want to have to hide or water myself down to be accepted, but unfortunately that is the reality of the world. We’re all paranoid, we’re all pointing fingers and pointing fingers and gnawing off fingers, we’re all cruel. I just can’t take it anymore.

The issue is that I run that aforementioned somewhat-popular fanfiction archive. And I enjoy running this archive! I want to do so much more with it! And the people I have met through it are absolutely wonderful. I don’t want to step back from Sunset and I don’t see myself doing so in the future. At the same time, though, I think Sunset and Dreamwidth and my tiny little Discord server will be the extent of my fandom participation for a while.

I want to focus on my original works and build a real career in writing. I want to make video games and finish my novella I’ve been working on for a year now that is still only at 4,400 words and I want to make music and I want to learn how to hand quilt and I want to have more things in my life than just television and fictional characters, but it’s kind of hard for me to focus on anything besides them. Or – it has been in the past. Maybe I’m finally so disillusioned with fandom that I’ll be able to focus on something else for a change. I don’t know.

I don’t really know how to talk to people outside of fandom, and in all honesty, I don’t know a lot about myself outside of it just in general. I don’t have much of an identity beyond that, at least in my own perception of myself, and that’s… well, obviously unhealthy. I want to go back to school and go to writer’s groups in the city and I want a life worth living. I want to make websites that aren’t AO3-based or shoddy things I threw together based on outdated Rails guides; I want to actually know what I’m doing with web development, because it’s something I find very fun and rewarding.

I just so desperately want things to change, but I don’t know how to change them. The only thing I can think of for now is that I must focus on building a life for myself that isn’t attached to a fictional character. It’s long overdue. 

March 01, 2026: [Nus Braka voice] How’s that for a trauma loop?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my creativity. I don’t do a lot of original work – Ice Dancer was my first poem in… way too long, maybe a YEAR? – I’ve only been focusing on fanworks. I do have ideas for original works! Many, in fact! But every time I sit down to write, there’s a block. I don’t really know why.

Maybe it’s that I feel like my original writing is futile.

I’ve been published before. But because I was suicidal for so long and genuinely didn’t plan on being alive for it to matter, I never really learned how to separate my fandom persona from my professional writing self. And that was a bad idea. When I started to finally heal – around the time I started using dark fiction to cope with past trauma – I realized that the people I surrounded myself with would try to ruin my career and life if they could tie me to that pen name. So I had to rebuild, and none of my previously published works could be tied to my current pen name. I had to remake everything – my author site, my itch.io, etc. Some of my favorite creations can no longer be tied to me because of this, including a piece of interactive art that means… well… just about everything to me. I had about 2k followers on those accounts; now I barely have 200. It all just feels utterly useless.

I also feel like a lot of my original work is just horribly repetitive these days. I use the same metaphors and the same pains and the same words and the same events, over and over and over again.

I’m stuck. And not just creatively.

I’m chained to these things. I’m living a time loop where I’m forced to re-experience them over and over again every day of my pitiful damn existence. I’m being buried alive and when I suffocate I’ll wake up in a television show but for me I really have run out of time!!! Or at least it feels that way. I try not to let fiction write my story for me but it is a little bit easier that way.

Even my fanworks, honestly, to a lesser extent. I find myself hyperfixated on portrayals of childhood sexual abuse in fiction, and finding ways to project my experiences with it onto characters who haven’t explicitly been through it but also have backstories that would realistically involve it. Take Caleb Mir from Star Trek: SFA for example; he’s been on his own, on the run, and in and out of prison since age six. You don’t escape that unmolested.

I find myself projecting onto him deeply. I find myself getting unhealthily attached to him. I think about this stuff way way too much. I see myself in him, even if I shouldn’t, even if my life has been paradise compared to his. Thinking about characters having the same pain I have, and overcoming it, gives me some illusion of hope’s tangibility. Illusion, delusion? I don’t know. It just makes me feel like healing can be in reach for me if I try really hard enough – like maybe if I squint really hard and believe and click my heels together I can imagine up a portal into a world where I’m not in this much agony.

I love SFA because it’s the first time I’ve seen a show with a cast of characters that I feel like would genuinely accept me as a person if they knew me. I relate to SAM so deeply; to see her accepted by everyone – loved by everyone – makes me soar. Caleb comforts fat anxious cadets (even if I have beef with Pickford now.) People are given space to deal with their traumas, given empathy. I’ve never wanted to live in a show more than this (except maybe Doom Patrol, for ficto reasons.)

But as I go deeper and deeper into escapism here, I find myself just ouroborosing my trauma. Like I just keep throwing it up and then eating the vomit and then throwing it back up and eating it again and so on and so forth, like my dog did when my dad died. The projection helps me cope, but it also keeps me trapped there, in a way.

And then I wonder if there is a key to release the trap anywhere when you’re a trafficking survivor, or if it’s sort of like how sometimes when people get shot they have to leave bullet fragments in the body because it’s too dangerous to try and remove them. You know? Like, maybe it’s just something you have to carry inside of you as you try to move forward, because going back through it would just make things worse. Maybe coping with fiction is as far as I’m going to get.

I am in therapy. I see two therapists! I do ketamine therapy twice a week. I literally have appointments 4/5 days a week. Yet here I remain, just barely hanging on, handcuffed to the pole.

Sometimes I find myself getting confused. I forget that Star Trek technology – and Star Trek peace – isn’t real. I forget that it isn’t that easy. I forget that the peace in Star Trek is just as precarious and blood-soaked as it would be in real life. But it’s easier to live somewhere I feel accepted than live in this universe where the only hobby I’m truly capable of having is retraumatizing myself.

I want to write about something else now.