Hey guys, how's it going?

Me? I'm... I'm not gonna lie, what happened last week really got to me. I've not been able to really put it out of my head, to be perfectly honest. Not only was it scary, but it brought back a lot of bad memories. Memories that I thought I'd long since put to rest.

Back when I was in college, someone tried to take my identity. To this day, I don't know how, or why. All I know is that I was on my own for the first time, away from my folks and my hometown, ready to take the world by the horns and prove that I could handle myself, and then in an instant, the whole world comes crashing down around my ears. My heart felt like it was going to leap out of my throat, there was an overwhelming sense of pressure, and an overall feeling of violation. Someone had tried to strip me of what made me who I was, someone thousands of miles away, not caring if what they did hurt me or got me in trouble, or left me destitute and in danger.

It felt like they'd tried to rip my soul out. And while everything turned out okay in the end, the fact of the matter is, my life changed substantially after that. Now, I looked over my shoulder everywhere I went, I kept an vice-grip on things that had my personal info on it, I shredded personal documents with my bare hands to make certain they were illegible, I closed off my circle of friends that had already shrunk with my move to college. Long story short, that sense of security and privacy I had was stripped from me, and with it also a sense of self.

Again, it was a feeing of violation, one that I thought I'd overcome.

Until the incident last week.

Now, all those same emotions are fresh and raw, they're still raw even five days later. So, I'm trying to find a way to process everything, to figure out how I can get back to "normal" again, like before. It's hard though, looking at my art of Cloud' and having it sit as a reminder of how someone tried to take hir, my safe place and an extension of myself, from me. I know, I should try and accept this as an inevitability of the interconnected world of information that we live in, or should see this as the scumbag who tried to take hir having so little imagination that they had to try and steal someone else' idea, but for someone like me, it's hard.

I've talked with a couple of coworkers who've gone through something similar in the past- people at work that I trust and who I know aren't assholes- and one thing that was suggested that I had already been considering was trying to "be someone else" for a little while, to tinker with a new character/fursona/persona for a bit, then come back to Cloud' when I feel like I'm ready. It wouldn't be permanent, just something to help me sort out my feelings, a coping mechanism, if you will. I'm still mulling over the possibility at the moment, but honestly? It might be a good idea. I've already talked about getting a bipedal variation for Cloudwalker, so it's something that's been on my mind in some fashion as mentioned before. Part of me feels like doing so would be "letting them win," and that's the last thing I want, to give them the satisfaction of knowing they damaged me that badly. But, truth be told... I'm just not sure what to do right now.

Again, just something I wanted to get off my chest is all. Apologies for the heavy subject, but this has been weighing on me for almost the past week, and I gelt like I had to say something, do something about what's been eating at me, even if it's just this little journal. I hope that the next one can be a bit more optimistic, and that you guys are doing well.

Talk with you again soon.