These and more than these

I'd like to discuss a problem I have. It is about making an attempt to consume non-problematic material. The problem is that all the popular stuff is problematic (that is an exaggeration but not a huge one.) I'm aware that the case may be that, because it's popular, it has more visibility, and that allows a greater number of people to be aware of and criticize its problematic elements.

But the attempt to consume non-problematic material (not even because I'm being "socially aware" or anything - which is a perfectly valid reason for doing something by the way - it's just that consuming material that has glaring problematic flaws bothers me to the point where I cannot enjoy the thing), I have begun to consume material that few people have heard of. And this is a bit of a lonely experience.
It's all well and good that some people on Tumblr have heard of the things I like, but people IRL haven't. I used to bond with people over Doctor Who and Sherlock. Now I have lost the ability to enjoy these things (well. I've totally lost it with Sherlock and the only reason I associate myself with Doctor Who and all is for personal reasons and the fact that it has a longer history than some of the other things that are hailed as problematic, and somehow this...changes things for me, I don't know why).

I'm not going to find myself in a queue see someone wearing a Gravity Falls shirt and talk to them about the show because we immediately know we have that in common. I'm not going to see someone reading The Secret History and start fangeeking over it with them. I'm not going to notice a Caustic Soda button on somebody's bag and launch into a round of "lesser of two evils" with them. (Hell, the last of these things mentioned doesn't even have a Tumblr fandom, it doesn't have a fandom like at all.)
I wish my ethical and personal concerns didn't make it so that I can't meet people who like the same things.

I've lost one of my dice.

The dice that I always kept in my pocket as an anti-anxiety tool. I've lost one of them.

I very well can't have the other two in my pocket without the third, so I guess I'm just going to forgo the others.

I'm not exactly MOURNING the loss of the dice but there's a weird sort of heaviness in my heart that may or may not have any right in being there.

Trigger warning: This post is essentially about suicide (though in the context of me wanting to commit it, not me actually going to commit it). It also makes continual references to Christianity and death in a non-suicidal context.

This Easter is not exactly going off positively so far.

I went to church with my family, which was nice until I realized, at some point, that the preacher was talking about how, because Christ has died for our sins and risen from the dead, we do not have to fear death if we have Christ inside us. This freaked me out because it occurred to me that this means I am not afraid of dying, and while not being afraid of death is a pretty good thing, it does facilitate my being suicidal. And while I'm glad I'm a Christian and while I'm glad I have hope for life after death, it's a little alarming to realize that the thing we're rightfully celebrating today is a thing that negates a popular argument against suicide. That is, the argument that you won't be free from your life if you kill yourself because you'll be dead and you won't enjoy it. If I killed myself, then, assuming suicide does not automatically send you to Hell (which doesn't make sense if you think about it, or at least not according to what I believe), I will not only maintain my consciousness, I will go to a place infinitely better than anything that could happen to me in the world, and certainly better than what I'm experiencing now.

I am not saying that my religion makes me suicidal, but I am saying that it is a reason I don't fear death and it is another reason I don't want to live in this world, and while I personally think these things are okay and even logical, it's a little alarming to realize how they interact with one's pre-existing mental health problems.

I feel like people want to celebrate life on Easter, but the origins of the holiday (to me, the true reason for the holiday) just make me want to die.

Today I realized that the "ideal person" I had imagined the other day could probably technically exist (in that there's nothing about the specifications about them that could not exist in a real-life person) but would probably also be very rare and difficult to find and I would probably never meet them.

I don't know which bothered me most - the realization that I do have a dream person or the realization that said person will probably remain a dream.

I -

Something happened recently and it's been bothering me.

My facets are gone.

I don't know what happened, but there was a certain point at which I realized they weren't in my head anymore. I began to suspect it on the sixth of this month. January 6 is Sherlock Holmes's birthday, and given that he's one of my facets, I tried to summon him to celebrate it with me (since I had already been making plans to celebrate it as the birthday of a beloved fictional character and had totally forgotten that one of the residents of my head shared this character's identity and birthday). But I couldn't wake him up. I supposed that he just didn't want to be out, so I left it at that.

But a few days after that, I realized that my head had been empty for quite some time. There was usually a sort of "background noise" of sorts when my facets were still - occasional appearances made by them, little thoughts that were their own and not mine, comments on what I was doing - and it was entirely quiet. I hadn't noticed it but I noticed it now, and I think they really are gone.

A few people to whom I explained this problem told me that maybe they hadn't "disappeared" but instead became closer to me, or are really quiet. I don't think it's the latter. I think I would still feel the presence of more people than myself in my head. I do think they've become closer to me, but it's in the sense that their personalities and skills have all merged onto my own. They're still not here. They've just become me. Becoming someone doesn't mean they're still there with you.

True, it does mean that all the things they helped me do, I can do on my own now. I can be nice without Timothy. I can be responsible without Martin. I can appreciate my family without Loki. I can speak without Cecil.

But it still isn't the same. They were sort of like friends to me, and some of the things they did actually affected the external world, and it's so weird for these presences that did things that translated into the world outside their own to just not exist anymore.

There are some good things about not having them anymore. I don't have anyone else whose existence has to go unknown to most of the people I know. I can do things on my own, like I said before. And since my brain doesn't have to be taken up with their memories and thoughts, I think there's more room for my own. (Today, I read a very short factual book about a subject that interested me. Before, I probably would have remembered and retained about a third of it. This time, I retained everything except for a few anecdotes that were difficult for me to visualize. (It also taught me an interesting thing about how I learn: whenever I read something, I play it out like a film in my head. This I knew. But apparently I learn better when the film is clearer or easier to visualize. This is likely because, when I have to refer to the information, it's easier for me to do so. This could also be why it's so hard for me to remember science facts, even though science is really interesting to me.)

I still miss them, though. They were like friends, and it's going to be hard for me. I know this would seem so, so stupid to practically anyone else, but it's a bit important to me, and while I know it's probably for the best, it's not going to be very easy. Likely I'll miss all of them dearly, and probably one-by-one. I'll probably be doing things and think, "Arthur would have come out while I was doing this thing, and we'd have enjoyed it together" or "Loki would have been so happy to see my sister so happy". I'm certain I'll find it much harder to do certain things because I don't have someone in my head to call up to help me do it.

Just because it's for the best doesn't mean it feels good.

Hello. It's 2014 now. 2013 was a total sod, so I'm glad that 2014 is happening now. I started 2014 by watching "The Time of the Doctor" (the Doctor Who episode where Eleven regenerates - I hadn't seen it yet, hadn't had the chance) and I think the Doctor's views towards regenerating were pretty good for me to know. He said it was okay to become a new person, because that's how life is, as long as you don't forget who you were in the past. Maybe this year I'll become a new person. I'll become someone who's not a whiny self-pitying sod with a god complex and a co-dependent need to identify with whatever group of person is easiest for me to be part of. That would be nice.

Now, today started out brilliant (I drank three wineglasses full of tea, did a fiction submission, watched Doctor Who with my Aunt Dee-Dee, Uncle Gary, and Becky - my sister and I spent the night at our aunt and uncle's on New Years Eve - I ate a waffle with whipped cream for lunch), and then I...well, I went home to talk to my dad about things (namely how I was going to my grandparents' house today to spend the night - I'd had his permission). I didn't make him angry per se, but I did do something that got an irritated reaction from him and he's not listening to things that my sister and aunt are saying, by which I mean he's misinterpreting them through not properly hearing or comprehending some things they're saying. It's not a big deal (well, not to me, because I'm not at my house right now) but it is business as usual for me, and I don't like that this is business as usual, especially since, for most of the end of December, it wasn't business as usual and I just wish it weren't business as usual.

I'm at my grandparents' house and I'm going to sleep here and I'm just avoiding things now.

I had a conversation with my aunt Suzanne wherein she suggested that I might be a miracle - that is, my very existence might be a miracle, much like, say, in Doctor Who, some of the characters' very existences are time paradoxes - because I'm able to do a lot of things that I simply shouldn't be able to do. (I pick up skills and become good at them in a ridiculously short amount of time, I can do most of my school by getting by on BS skills, I do a number of disordered behaviors that I should have repercussions for but don't). I didn't feel comfortable with that because 1. I don't believe legit God-given miracles are very common and not lengthy enough events to cover the lifetime - no, the existence - of another person, and 2. the only person whose existence I believe was a literal miracle was Jesus Christ, and...well, I do not think it is my place to be put on a comparable level to that of the savior of mankind and all.

It's a real shame I had to refute the idea that my existence is a miracle (as in, a literal one, not a figurative one - not like how Gamzee calls things miracles or anything). I refuted it on basis of the fact that I don't think real miracles work like that. It would be really nice to let someone think I am a literal miracle, but you can't think things based on how nice they seem on a metaphorical level. You can't treat metaphors like they're reality.

No one had ever called me a miracle before and now I'm sad I had to explain to her that I wasn't.

I apologize for how rambly this thing was. Due to anxiety due to the thing with my father, I took one of my anti-anxiety pills, and they calm me down but they make my head go all funny, and yeah.

You know what?

I choose to accept the grade I got in math.

I choose to accept that B.

I choose not to view it as mediocre.

I choose to no longer say that A is for "average" and the B is for "bad". I choose to say that A is for "awesome" and B is for "brilliant".

And you know what? I quite like the word "brilliant".

Today was a difficult day for me, emotionally.

It started in my English class (as so many things in my life do, apparently). My teacher was telling us things about how he wanted us to leave his class as "people of conscience" (his term; I quite like it, actually), people who learned to think critically and accept other perspectives and make good choices. It was really a lovely speech he gave us - he said a lot of nice things I agreed with - but it made me sad because it made me realize, "Oh crud, I'm leaving this class. I'm really leaving it. I loved this class and I have to say goodbye to it. I have to say goodbye to the teacher, and I have to say goodbye to my classmates, and I have to say goodbye to the great discussions we had and the wonderful environment and jlk;dfjgoiaejdgosfg I can't do this oh no oh no". At that point, my brain started having a freakout and I wanted to cry in class, but I wasn't going to do that. I really really wanted an object to squeeze, like a small stuffed animal or something, but I didn't have anything. I took out the dice in my pocket (because I keep three dice in my pocket at all times - it's an anxiety thing) and I rolled them around in my hand, but it only helped a little bit.

I'm not very good at losing people and things. I lose people and things all the time, usually for school reasons, but it's very difficult for me because I want to get attached to things and have them in my life for a long time, but this can't happen for me. (This is what kept my eighteenth birthday and graduation from high school two years ago - my birthday is really close to the end of the school year - from being enjoyable events. I was afraid of losing the people I'd become so close to and the place I had come to love. My relationship with my old school; there's a story, maybe I'll tell it sometime.)

Anyway, after class, I went on to take my obscenely long break. (By "obscenely long break", I mean "my class schedule gives me a full hour between my first and second classes".) One of my acquaintances found me in the place I normally hang out during that break. It was nice, because she was one of the first people I met this semester, and we have genuinely interesting conversations, but it's unlikely we'll take any of the same classes next semester, and we had a conversation I really liked. But as the conversation ended, we talked about my difficulty in making friends - I have trouble getting close to people, and it usually takes me a long time to really become friends with someone. But I can tell if I'm about to become friends with someone, and it's annoying and upsetting when I have to leave them before we can really become friends. We talked about that and the fact that I don't really have friends (not ones I see in real life, anyway).

( Trigger warning for domestic abuse. )

I was expecting my math class to be over really quickly, but it wasn't. I was expecting us to turn in our homework, get our take-home tests, and leave. Because our test was a take-home test, because the teacher was absent so many times (she's having family trouble, as I understand it), and there wasn't enough time for her to prepare us for the test, so she gave us the advantage of having a take-home test. I'm going to review it with a cousin of mine who's very good at math, and I hope I get a good grade, because I'm practically failing math. I have a 73%, and I'm used to getting really good grades on things. Academics, you see, is pretty much the only thing I'm good for that matters. And I'm failing in one of my classes. Granted, I'm terrible at math anyway, and that's not really my academic strong point, but it's making me unhappy enough that my self-esteem has taken a tremendous drop because of my math class.

Anyhow. We didn't just get our test and go on our merry way. Apparently, there was material we still had to learn, and while I understood it pretty well, it made me unhappy and a bit anxious that my math class went on much longer than I thought it would.

( Trigger warning for disordered eating. )

( Trigger warning for self-harm. )

Things got somewhat better after that, though. I guess there's a certain point in the day where, if I've been having a hard enough day, I'm just so emotionally spent that I can't be sad anymore, so I immediately get ridiculously happy. This is what happened today. After eating, I did some drawing while listening to Christmas music. I have decided that one of my favorite things about the holiday season is the fact that I can listen to Christmas music without feeling dorky. Because I rather like Christmas music, at least classic Christmas music. It makes me feel nice much of the time. I also drew some 60-Second Zacharies. The term "60-Second Zacharie" refers to the fact that I recently discovered that I have the special talent of being able to draw Zacharie from OFF in about a minute and have it look kind of good. It kind of turned into an exploration of different facial expressions on Zacharie, though, and I was kind of pleased with the result. It looked like this:



I drew a few more unhappy-looking Zacharies than happy-looking ones, which is interesting, because I was actually really happy when I was drawing these. Also, notice how I don't even try to draw hands so that they look good anymore. Also, notice how I drew cat mask Zacharie once and then did toad mask Zacharies all after that. I've decided I prefer drawing toad mask Zacharie.  Also, yes, that is a little drawing of Zacharie with Sugar and the Batter. I thought it would be nice to see them together where they're happy (or at least two out of three of them are happy. Happy!Batter is a bit of an odd thing to imagine.)

Tomorrow, I'm taking a self-care day. I'm going to stay at home (declining an offer my aunt made for me to help her work at her school - she's a kindergarten teacher, and sometimes I help her). I'm going to knit, I'm going to watch a movie or two, I'm going to do a little homework, I'm going to do some writing, I'm going to send some poems and stories to publishers, and I'm probably going to do some drawing.

I suppose it can only get better from here. I've had a rough week/week and a half (my really bad feelings started like maybe two weeks ago and didn't really get bad until maybe ten days ago or something?) and I need things to get better. I think they're going to get better. I really really hope my saying that won't make it go wrong, because I find that, as soon as I say something or make a prediction, it turns out to be totally false. I hope that's not the case. Well, I can't think of why things wouldn't start getting better. That's something, at least, eh?