thoughts and things written into the void
previous: issue 8.
moving
i'm moving next month! same city, different area and first time since moving that i won't be living in a dormitory. instead, i'm joining three friends who already share an apartment and have a free room! (or, it's about to be free.)
obviously i'm excited. i really like the people and i think living with them will be great :)
but i'm also nervous. mostly of all the logistics and orga stuff that comes with moving. i hate paperwork... and i'm not super sure how i'll get all my stuff from a to b. i don't have a car or a driver's license (same goes for most of my friends) and i don't think i'm physically able to transport most via public transport like last time.
it's gonna work out somehow. just currently i'm stuck thinking about all the things i still have to do and organize and it's paralyzing.
standing test appointment thingy got pushed to three weeks later. which is fine. i just don't like changes in plans.
old notebooks
in my current persuit to sort out and declutter before moving, i went through my notebooks.
firstly, i have way too many empty ones that just sit around and "might be useful someday", which is a lie. i will forget they exist as soon as they are out of sight, which is probably why i have so many! i'm trying to give most of them away to people who want or have uses for them.
secondly, and that's the bigger concern, i have a lot of started but unfinished notebooks. i think i will try to transcribe or unify a few of them because i don't want the contents to be lost, but there are also some where i desperately want them to disappear forever. i think.
reading anything i wrote between ca. 2018 and 2022 is unsettling or even upsetting (might be "triggering" but i'm never sure when to use that word). so i didn't read much of the entries, which is probably good, but it also feels weird to not read them. i want to forget and remember at the same time if that makes sense? like, i don't want to have a false opinion and dramatize or downplay anything. but it's not far enough removed that i could just analyze it without having reactions that i really don't want to have.
having them around makes me queasy, so i'll probably get rid of them. i could just put them somewhere and forget about them like i always do, but then i would be in the same situation once i find them again. it's like having small time bombs in my room that might one day lose their potential to blow up and would then be neat historical artifacts. (i'm exaggerating, but the sentiment is true enough.)
sometimes i really dislike having the impusle to record and keep everything.
anyways. it's quite cool (minus the feeling bad) to see my "progress" tho. i still struggle with some of the same and new things / topics, but overall it's a big improvement.
[further reflection and rambling]
[sorry if the following sounds weird, self-aggrandizing or boastful, that is not my intent. i'm not used to saying / thinking / writing positive things about myself, so this feels very uncomfortable and like i'm just a self-centered asshole. i should probably examine that at some point. content notes for eating disorders, dysphoria, self-harm and suicide.]
again, i haven't read a lot of the old notebooks and i don't want to go into too much detail, but it was wild to see what and the way i wrote about myself and how different it's nowadays.
- i found years of logs about food, weight and calories and just so much about body dysmorphia. like, i know i had an eating disorder and that it's a lot better now (even tho i still consider myself to have one and have a questionable body-image), but the difference is even bigger than i thought. which one the one hand is sad (because it's been this much worse) but it's also good to know much better it is now! especially considering how little hope and motivation for change i apparently had back then.
- but it wasn't just dysmorphia, there was a shitton of dysphoria as well. which makes sense since most of the bad time frame ™ was before i was able to transition (i came out in 2020 and started hrt in 2021). i only vaguely remember how i felt back then, in a very abstract sense, so reading some of my rants was eye-opening. like, no wonder i had to start antidepressants before i could get testo! (still questionable because of the power-hierarchy and non-autonomy obviously. all that's bullshit. i can however understand why my therapist insited on it, without excusing / supporting the whole system behind it.) i was not in a good place to say the least and i'm so glad that i haven't experienced dysphoria that intense for years now. (what a surprise, gender affirming care helped a trans individual with life-destroying dysphoria to no longer be depressed and suicidal! who would've thought? /s). i still get dysphoric but holy fuck, it's not the same. at all.
- also, i haven't self-harmed in years and it's kinda comforting that even while reading about it in my old diary, it feels distant and not at all inviting. it still affects me (which i think is understandable), but there is little to no temptation or relatability. which is great! i'm slowly working on covering the scars with tattoos and it's been kinda "healing" (i don't like the term but can't think of a different one at the moment). now there a pretty pictures that make me happy when i look at them!
it didn't feel good to be reminded of these times, but i'm content about where i am now. especially in comparison, but also in general. hrt and top surgery did wonders for me, but so did therapy. i'm admitting the latter one somewhat reluctantly because i also had some quite bad experiences with my therapist and i'm abstractly pissed about that and at him, but i can't deny the overall effects and improvements. a lot of that is probably due to my therapy group and the amazing people in it. they helped me so much.
getting the right meds was also huge: the antidepressants i mentioned somewhere, but also the sleeping meds. i love being able to sleep. sleeping is kinda important. connected to that: getting the right diagnosis. this is something i'm still working on and have a long way to go, but having words and explanations for things changed my self-image. i'm not stupid for struggling with social stuff, i'm not overly sensitive or dramatic for having sensory issues, i'm not lazy for not being able to do certain things. i'm autistic and disabled. i have adhd and me/cfs.
so basically, i still struggle with a lot of the same things i did years ago (and some new ones), but the frequency and intensity is a lot lower. that's the most i can ask for i think - i don't expect anything to completely go away anytime soon - and i'm fine with that.
speed-friending
i went to a "speed-friending" event the people from my university institute put on. it was better than i expected and i'm kinda proud that i participated. to say it's out of my comfort zone is an understatement. i don't know if i made any friends, but it was nice to get a general vibe of some of the studens and hopefully lectures won't feel like a room of complete strangers anymore.
rest
resting is difficult. i keep trying to schedule days of rest because i know i need them, but i've been so scatterbrained lately that i never stick to it. there is always something that distracts me or feels urgent and there is so much to plan (and procrastinate on).
for example today i wanted to actively rest, which for me means: staying at home, preferably in bed, not doing anything that takes too much energy. but i got stuck on the idea of glueing trinkets in frames or shadow boxes as a way of displaying and using them. so i did that today. went to a flea market to get some nice frames, then realized i ran out of sturdy black paper, so i "had" to get that as well. and so on.
ended up being out and about for a few hours, even though 1) that wasn't the plan and 2) i really wasn't up for it. i started feeling it maybe 45min after i left home (dizzyness, pain, nausea - all that fun stuff /s), but for some reason i never listen to those very clear signs. at that point it feels like i already committed and have to "finish what i started".
now i have three trinket frames and i had fun making them. i like how they turned out and i think they'll look good in the wall gallery i want to have in my new room. but it still wasn't a good idea because next week will be a lot and i would've needed the energy that i not just not recharged (because i didn't rest) but also expended more than normal (because i was outside, walked a bunch and focused on making the frames).
i still have to learn to prioritize rest even if it's boring (or rather, learn to stick to it because i cognitively know that very well). fun and interesting things cost energy too and i tend to lose sight of that when i'm swept up in an idea or activity.
[sidenote: i often struggle explaining that to people (mainly family members). for me, resting isn't fun - it's boring and i hate being bored. so i would prefer doing something else and the fact that i'm still resting should say something about how necessary it is! i know i just complained about struggling to stick to it, but that's not a good thing. contrary to the mainstream sentiment, for me it would be better to spend more time in bed. behavioral activation therapy doesn't work for this!]