To some people who might want to know what all has happened in my life, I'll do my best to make some notes of it here. As I know some of this may be a bit unsettling, please be assured that this is all in the past and my current living situation is in a much better state. I figure by putting things here, in case some people ask, I can at least point you all to this journal so that I don't have to spend a few minutes per individual to write it up each time.

Please note, I'm actually starting from when I started at college to now, to put things in perspective, as I know a lot of you did not know me for most of that time. This will make it easier for anyone to identify with the circumstances, those that have known me for very long will know some of this, but even new friends can look at this to understand some things about me and my past.

Disclaimer: To some who may hold deep feelings for the past, please know that it is exactly that: the past. I am not telling any of this stuff to bring up the past or hurt feelings or whatnot. Additionally, this is not an excuse for any of my behavior or for those around me either. I will not note any names in any of this for any reason, as this is in the past and I am not here to start anything. This is simply the logic behind what I have done so that others may hopefully understand. This is more of a documentation of what happened in the past to get me to this point in my life. After this journal, I will no longer make mention of my past outside of it. Though I may have some of the emotions from my past on occasion, even I have to admit that it is just past experiences and should not have any bearing on the present. Things change, people change, and my emotions must change with it all. I don't expect everyone to understand everything I put here, but I do hope this can at least explain the reasons why I have done things. If you have any questions, you may ask publicly or privately, and I will answer to the best of my ability.

June 2008: Joined the fandom.

August 2008: Started college

August 31st, 2008: Identified myself as Otherkin, while talking to a few people and meditating a lot. This was after a lot of self-introspection and asking a lot of questions, both to supporters and skeptics.

September-October 2008: Studying, drawing, writing, talking to a lot of people. I kept getting a lot of new friends, and I started taking more time to just talk to them while in college.

November 2008-January 2009: I started getting burnt out. Meditation helped, but I started getting involved (and involving myself) in drama. It didn't help that my mate at the time was involving me in a lot of it as well. We eventually broke up over something stupid, and more stress kept hitting me. I started being more silent but still kept talking a bit to a few people. I tried concentrating on classes more. This was also the point that "Raiok," an alternate personality, popped up. (Raiok wasn't completely detrimental, and was still technically part of me, but he was still identified as separate).

February 2009-May 2009: My first "hiatus." I tried taking some time away from the stress to involve myself in classes. It wasn't easy, but I did some things right. Some people were still talking to me through deviantArt, I still created some things here and there.

June 2009-October 2009: I started talking to a lot of people. A lot more than before. Raiok also started shining behind the scenes, most people actually perfectly fine with that side of me. My biggest thing was that I didn't want anyone to suffer through pain, so I'd do my best to support them, even to the point of offering advice when it wasn't completely requested. I wanted to help a lot of people, and I didn't know my limits. This would be my biggest issue for the next few years.

November 2009-May 2010: Lots of things happened. Classes started getting tougher, circumstances changed, and while I wanted to devote my entire attention to my friends, it was severely impacting my classes, and I was failing some of them. It was dangerous, because I was failing and I didn't even care. I had a couple real life friends around me as well, was even dating one of them during this time, but things didn't work out. There was a lot on my mind and no amount of talking would really help. So I tried resolving them myself, but because I was pulling my attention away from my friends, a lot were not happy about it. I can't say that I blame them, since I tended to disappear for long periods of time, but it was my reasoning. Besides, during the summer I could talk to them.

June-August 2010: This is where things crash. I can't remember much from this time because I repressed so much of it, but I do remember a lot of drama going on. I was actually visiting the doctor because I was getting an ulcer from the stress, and even after I left there, I was getting back on my laptop because I cared about my friends more. I would go to a couple of real life friends' places and just sit on my laptop to talk to them. I'd sit outside of my house, where I could get free internet that took a LOT of just trying to get signal in the right spot to pick up, and just chat outside, laptop plugged into an extension cord. The connection was so bad that if I could join a Skype call, I was lucky...but I did it. And this is where the stress was so much I went dark entirely. I disappeared from everyone. I couldn't handle it anymore and my physical body was also telling me to stop, so...I did.

September 2010-May 2011: I was trying to recover from a lot of things. I was shattering mentally, so I was trying to find any stimulation I could. I found some people to talk to in person. Some would play Magic: The Gathering with me, others would just play Minecraft. I even binge-watched all of Naruto and Naruto: Shippuden, for what was released. When I completed that, I read the manga for it. I had a lot of self-reflection during this time. I was healing, but it was more repressing things than anything. My grades were still slipping. My college issued an ultimatum: Pass all the classes I was put in, or be suspended for a semester. I passed three classes. I had one class I withdrew from. As a result, with my future uncertain, I went with a friend to a different college, with a GPA barely over 1.0.

June 2011-May 2012: That summer, I can't even remember anything from. I remember working for my grandmother, but nothing else. College really sucked at a new school. My student loans didn't even pay for everything, so my grandmother gave me money for my textbooks. I didn't know what I was doing or why I even went. I made a few friends, but I spent a lot of time through Spirit Science and its community, and took a lot of things to heart. I'd do more juggling of friends and Spirit Science than I did of actual classes. It became so bad that I only remember attending one class just so I wouldn't get kicked out entirely. I still failed that class (Japanese, by the way) but overall I just felt college was the biggest waste of my time and money, and it didn't help that my family pushed me to go in the first place.

June 2012-October 2012: I was mainly helping my family at this time. Working with the family business, not sure exactly what I was doing but still trying to make sure everything was working. Also cutting the grass. After all, I had a phone to pay for (Sprint) and a huge bill from them. I even got a chance to go to IFC 2012, though I think I kinda got in as a fluke. A friend I recently got at that time took me there and I spent all of Saturday and Sunday there. It was the most fun I'd ever had in my life! Then things really started going for the worst. We weren't getting much business, and the kind we did wasn't paying for much. My aunt was also really injured from things. Then she got robbed and in that moment, I knew something was wrong with her. I didn't know what it was, but it deeply frightened me. We went to a Home Depot to replace part of a window on her house, and as we are waiting for assistance, I looked at her and she seemed like she was lost in the world. I mean, lost. Gone. Uncomprehending of anything. I was so terrified I told my mother what I thought.

November 2012: People at the hospital my aunt worked for started noticing something was wrong with her. Deeply wrong. She had an MRI done and they found a tumor in her brain. They conducted surgery and found out she had grade 4 brain cancer. She had to undergo chemotherapy and other stuff for it. It hurt bad. She also needed therapy after the surgery.

December 2012-March 2013: During this time, I would go with my mother to see my aunt. Sometimes it was to the rehab center, other times it was a nursing home. One time I went to a doctor's appointment with them. I lost my phone too, since I couldn't keep paying for it. After November, my grandmother closed the business because she couldn't think about that and my aunt's cancer. The worst part is, I didn't really have much of a way to cope except someone who tried to distract me from it all with hanging out and stuff like that. That, and I would go back to texting a few people and talk on Google+. Then I left here and things went really dark between myself and others.

April-May 2013: I got in contact with a very old friend of mine, who was soon to be my mate. I didn't know at the time, but he had been regretting losing contact with me and even went so far as to say he wanted to be in a relationship with me but he thought his chance was already gone. So, we got back in contact again and from there, things started coming together. He's been amazing, but we also had something else to bond over: his grandmother also had cancer. So, while I would try to support my aunt during her time of need, I'd also visit with my mate and go with him and his dad to see his grandmother. While this wasn't an easy time, we both grew so much closer together than ever before.

June 1st, 2013: My aunt died from a combination of mistreatment from the nursing home we had her stay at before we moved her back to the one we knew was good, and from an ingredient in the chemo drugs (shellfish, which nobody ever disclosed to us). It was a huge blow to my family, and I was the only one strong enough to help out at that time. My mate helped comfort me during this time, of course soon I'd be comforting him.

July 1st, 2013: My mate's grandmother died from dementia and a lack of nutrition. I attended my aunt's funeral, and then I attended his grandmother's with him.

August 2013-June 2014: A lot of things happened during this time. Firstly, I started helping out cleaning my aunt's old house. She had a lot of things, especially because there was a lot of stuff from my great-grandmother there as well (my great-grandmother owned the house before my aunt did). This took a very long time. During this time, I'd also go to my mate's place and stay on occasion. One time, I stayed almost two full months because my mother really annoyed me, but his father kept getting drunk a lot and eventually pissed me off until I finally had my mother come and get me. This was really not an easy time, and I don't remember many of the details. I do remember visiting my mate a lot though, even supporting him when he lost his job at Walmart because he didn't have any transportation (and his dad was too lazy to get out of bed in the morning to drive him to work). He got a job at a restaurant, and has been content over there since. I tried working on things for extremely little money (Mechanical Turk) and while I was making a little money, it was really not worth it. I did that while my family went away to Florida, and I got stuck with the cat at home. So I'd let my mate come over. That was fun.

July 2014: Things at my house starting getting tight. We were running out of money and my grandmother wasn't able to do much to help either. We renegotiated some things and my mom got a new phone plan and we got internet access as well. I just had to find a job, which I worked on for awhile. Finally got an interview for a gas station, and they accepted me right on.

August 2014-September 2015: Things went fine for about a year or so. I was making money, able to pay for a lot of things, and I even started learning about how to manage my money. If anyone is curious about that, just look up Mr. Money Mustache or You Need a Budget. Both have been wonderful resources! That aside, I still had a huge income problem. I wasn't making crap for money ($7.85 starting per hour, eventually getting to $8.60 per hour due to payscale adjustment). It wasn't very fun. Plus our house payment went up to over $1k per month! I wasn't making that kind of money at all, so I just decided it would probably be best if I moved in with my mate. But then, I got an offer in September to stay at the store and get full time with benefits. So, I did what anyone in my position would do. I stayed.

October 2015-June 2016: I was making $8.95 an hour, working around 38 hours a week, doing something that I really liked doing. The customers sucked a bit, but that didn't matter because my boss actually valued me. I was her favorite employee, always dependable, reliable, did my work no matter what was asked, even if I'd ask quite a few questions on some things sometimes. And sometimes I was so quiet when I went to talk to her that she'd get startled when I said anything (a few times she was even like "Stop that!" because I did it so often without trying). But, like all good things, I knew it was about to end. My mom couldn't afford the place, my credit wasn't good enough to help her refinance the mortgage, and in the end we had to file paperwork to temporarily reduce how much we paid on the house. Which worked, because we were now paying less than $300 for the house each month. However we finally agreed we had to sell it. So, in lieu of the impending move out, I moved out prematurely, and into my mate's place with his dad (and his dad's girlfriend, though she has a house of her own).

July 2016-October 2016: I transferred my job from the store I loved to a store that had a higher turnover rate than a typical gas station. I was miserable, the boss there sucked because he was only putting on a show for higher management, and I put in my application for the same restaurant my mate worked at. The manager at this store just really didn't seem to care, and even he moved to a different store. I don't know why I put up with that place for so long. Probably out of loyalty for my old store manager. Also, they screwed me out of a lot of my hours, which took away my benefits.

November 2016-now: I slowly started situating myself into just working at the restaurant. I started at a healthy $10 per hour and while I don't have insurance or anything, I've been working on getting that through the state. i actually see about the same amount of money that I would've from working both jobs, since my payscale has caught up with the amount of hours worked. I'm so much happier at this place than I have been anywhere else, though I would like to find a way to use the knowledge I have of computers to actually get into that career area. I even hope to open my own business, but I'm not sure how easily I can do that when I don't have the transportation or anyone that can help me with the legalese. I'm starting to create a decent nest egg as well, now that my mate and I are able to pool our money together. His dad gets disability (permanently, since he can't really walk much), though I'm afraid eventually his dad won't be able to live for too much longer. His dad has been having issues with his liver and his hernias, though one was removed and he is recovering from surgery pretty successfully. So in reality, I'm trying to save a nest egg for the possibility where he is no longer living. But I'm able to build that up enough that I can get a few things in the meantime.


So, there we are. My current situation. I'm starting to get back out of my shell, and I'm actually feeling a lot better for it. I know it's a lot to read, so if you've made it this far, thank you for that! ^.=.^ I will probably not bring up anything about my past again explicitly, unless it applies to a situation now. But yeah...just thought I'd share this with you all.

Now I'm looking forward to the future with all my friends, both old and new! ^.=.^ and if you're an old friend, or were at some point, maybe we can start fresh? I may hold a lot of emotions from that time, but I plan on letting go of the pain from it all and actually get back to what is important: being around when I am able. So, there ya go :3