literal “social distancing” from the ace community
at the time of writing this, the date is March 31st, 2020: just over 2 months since the first case of COVID-19 in America was confirmed...
Mental [Un]health
Posts related to mental health and illness.
-
-
willpower, sweat, and tears
since returning to the US from Japan back in March, i haven't been on social media, YouTube, or this blog as much as i'd have liked. the international move itself aside, i've had my hands full juggling emotional / compassion fatigue...
-
pen. ink. paper: journaling as self-care
occasionally i'll mention that i have a ridiculously poor memory. that i've pretty much always had memory problems and perhaps that's why even as a kid i took to writing in diaries...
-
Burnt Out & Neurotic: The Toll of Blogging While Ace and Mentally Ill
Over the course of the past few years or so, I've had no choice but to come face-to-face with the fact that I'm not exactly the spitting image of mental health. That, in fact, I never have been, having struggled with persistent depression and social anxiety for years, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. As such, debilitating depression/anxiety isn't new to me. Simultaneous burnout and mental breakdown on account of blogging was, however.
-
chronic long-term memory problems…
…is almost like living life like a computer with only a rudimentary, low capacity Hard Disk Drive dedicated to storing what you (might) need in the Here And Now or Imminent Future (short-term memories) and nothing but Random Access Memory for all the rest (long-term memories).
-
landscapes and fissures: navigating ace terminology in Japanese & English
the following post was written for the May 2018 Carnival of Aces on the subject of “Nuance & Complexity“. it may or may not be cleaned up and cross-posted to the YouTube channel Queer As Cat in the future. —— some feel that people in (English-speaking, anglophone) ace communities are “overthinking” things. that the amount of words and identities (also referred to as “microlabels”) which have been coined in such communities is not only “overdoing it,” but even potentially harmful. i’d hope that this would go without saying (but understand that it doesn’t), that i disagree with the former and vehemently reject the latter. regardless of whether i or you or that random person over there petting the stray cat that’s out in the street right now feel such terminology to be useful to us personally, the fact remains that others do and there is immense value in that.
-
Shit-I-Think-Is-Happening-#BecauseTestosterone Log
blaqueer: blaqueer: blaqueer: blaqueer: content warning: TMI regarding bodily functions & genitals week 1 (62.5mg /2 weeks, injection) exacerbated drowsiness like what oncoming-cold-like throat shenanigans voice in my head sounding like it does when i first wake up, except all day long random, awkward voice cracking when trying to talk over obnoxious teenagers random, inexplicable genital feels random, pre-menstruation-like feels from that arrogant thing called a uterus stairs suddenly became a little less formidable after the injection, but not for all that long. my bladder suddenly isn’t what it used to be– why??? week 2 bladder weirdness is still a thing throat shenanigans are no longer a thing voice cracking still is a thing marginally lower-than-normal speaking voice more easily maintainable; however, without conscious effort, speaking voice remains unchanged downstairs growth hardly noticeable but there began wondering early on into week 2 if all of the T had already been…
-
anxiety: haha– fuck you.
me: could you maybe NOT make me think about that thing anymore maybe MAYBE? anxiety: did you know that that thing that you THINK you don’t want to think about but are thinking about anyway is a legit thing that you OUGHT to be thinking about– because WHAT IF?? i mean, just think about it! that thing? IT’S A THING. THAT YOU ARE STILL THINKING ABOUT. that thing. fuck.
-
just the one.
as someone who can count on one hand the number of people they’ve ever had intense feelings for over the course of 32 years of this thing called “Life” and still have fingers to spare, can i just say that this whole intense feelings thing is an adjustment? with a learning curve, apparently, because what little past experience i have feels like nothing in comparison, and yet has still managed to do nothing but hinder me in the present. might as well only count the one finger. yes. that finger. because fuck you, ghosts of relationships past that still haunt me to this day.
-
impostor.
…it’s always disconcerting to be reminded of how people seem to have an impression of me as a person / my personality that doesn’t at all reflect who i am in reality.
