Hello, anyone who might read this journal.

It's been about four months since the last time I was online, and a lot has happened in the time that's passed, most of it not good. I'm not going to go into detail; I don't want that in a somewhat public document.

Just wanted to let anyone that might care that I'm still alive, if for the time being.

Codex

I was a bit hesitant to talk about it at first, but here goes.

About two months ago, I started a blog about my depression, my experience with the antidepressant I'm on, and my daily life.

It's called Treatment Records, and if you're interested, you can read it here.

I'm not looking for pity or anything like that. I just know that depression is a very common illness, and reading what I'm going through, as I'm going through it, might be helpful for someone out there.

Hey, you! Yeah, you!

You like snacks??? Of course you like snacks!

Well, in case you haven't heard about it, there's this company called SnackCrate that'll send you a box of snacks from around the world each month, AND you get $10 off your first crate!

I'm not being paid to advertise for them, but if you sign up using this link, they'll know that you found out from me, and I get $10 of credit!

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Just a list of artists I eventually want to commission, in no particular order, so that everything's in one place.

 Agentmoose

 TheTiedTigress

 RainHues

 JambalayaThePit

 SillyWerWolf

 naexus

 demicoeur

 Honovy

I'm not normally one to speak publicly about my mental health struggles, but I need to get some stuff off my chest, and here's the best place I can think of to do it.

I hate it so, so much when depression is romanticized. There's nothing pretty or artsy or romantic about depression. Nothing.


It's being in physical pain, but not caring enough to do anything about it.

It's flinching every time you accidentally glimpse yourself on something reflective, because you hate how tired you always look.

It's needing to fight a powerful urge to push away every person that's important to you.

It's being at war with yourself every day.

It's thinking "I'm tired of this life and want to die" to yourself and realizing that the thought is completely true.

It's scaring yourself with just how close to committing suicide you can get.

It's being profoundly empty in a way that neither food nor friends nor music nor sex can ever fill.

It's the complete inability to obtain even a shred of pleasure from the things you normally enjoy.

It's needing to be reminded that you aren't your disease because you struggle to differentiate the two.

It's sudden, intense crying spells that you can't predict and can't stop.

It's a hyper-awareness of your own thoughts, because any one could be the thought that starts a downturn.

It's being afraid that someone will find you sprawled out on the floor next to several empty pill bottles someday.

It's the deep exhaustion that expending energy to maintain an outward appearance of being fine causes.

It's having to force down food because you don't have an appetite and nothing tastes good anyway.

It's spending far too much time sleeping because sleep is an escape.

It's wanting to do something, but not having the energy to do anything.

It's standing in the shower and not having the motivation to properly wash yourself.

It's a pervasive sense of helplessness and of hopelessness that you'll ever improve.

It's not being able to remember who you actually are.


If you make jokes about depression, stop. If you joke about suicide, stop. If you think that people who say they're depressed are making it up to get attention, we're not. If you say that it can't be that serious, you don't know what you're talking about.

Fair warning - this journal is just going to be a stream of thought with little to no decent ordering.


A part of me wishes that I'd never been thrust into awareness of multitudes upon multitudes of different genders, because it feels like I'm searching for a specific needle in a very large stack of similar but not identical needles. With so many labels floating around out there, I've been putting a lot of energy into trying to find the right one, and it's...sort of distressing. Like, I like it when things can be placed and sorted into neat, discrete categories - there's a reason that I plan on pursuing systematics, taxonomy, and phylogeny as a career - but gender in general and my own gender in particular refuses to fit into a box.

Right now, I think that my gender is best described by "neutrois", since because I have never felt like a man and have never liked the pressures and expectations society puts on women, my internal experience of gender is kind of neutral. At the same time, though, I have a hard time reconciling my oscillation between more feminine behavior (the times when I feel most comfortable in skirts and dresses, when I walk with an extra sashay) and more masculine behavior (when I feel most comfortable in dress pants and button-downs and abhor "women's" things) with the label of "neutrois". Genderfluid as an identity doesn't quite feel right to me, though, and genderqueer is so broad as to be dissatisfying. Just saying "nonbinary" feels wrong, too, largely due to the fact that my interactions offline with people who identify as such has been almost 100% negative, and I associate the term with them and those memories of them.

Another sort of internal conundrum that I've been wrestling with is whether or not the fact that I don't quite fit into the category of "cisgender" makes me any kind of transgender. I mean, I feel fine using she/her, the pronouns associated with my sex. I don't feel any sort of discomfort with my female body, though I kind of want to give chest binding a try for the aesthetics. There was - is - no intense feeling that the gender I was thrust into by virtue of my being female is somehow the "wrong" one. I don't want to change my name (though the fact that my birth name is gender neutral probably plays a big role in that). I don't want to "transition" because I don't have anything to transition to. Basically, my experiences don't line up with what I feel it means to be any kind of trans.

Questioning my gender is also making me question my sexuality as well, because I don't feel that it makes sense to say that my gender identity is neutrois or whatever and then say that my sexual orientation is bisexual; it doesn't feel like the two dovetail very well.

I don't know. My gender has been occupying my thoughts a lot lately, and it's been bothering me a lot, not least because I don't really have a lot of people to talk through it with - my mom believes firmly that there are only two genders, and I feel as though I'm pestering my friends whenever I bring it up.

Any input from y'all would be very, very much welcome.

I'll likely update this as my characters change and/or I gain more.

Codex
Species: Wolf
Age: 20
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 230 lbs
Sex: Female
Gender: Woman/neutrois; she/her or they/them
Orientation: Bisexual biromantic

Years active: 2013 - present

Codex is my "me" character, who currently represents me in any furry space. She's your typical INTJ - largely logical and rational, with a penchant for easily acquiring (and synthesizing) new information. There isn't much that she enjoys more purely than learning more about things that interest her. Codex is an introvert, and finds extended social interaction taxing. She struggles with depression. Though she often comes across as being politely distant to strangers and acquaintances, those that get close to her find that she is a warm, protective, and fiercely loyal friend. Emotion isn't her strong suit, and she finds it very difficult to talk about how/what she feels, and even harder to reach out for help if she needs it. She loves hugs and cuddling, and needs physical contact to help maintain her mental health, but struggles to initiate contact.

Myax
Species: Oriental/European dragon hybrid
Age: ???
Height: ???
Weight: ???
Sex: Female
Gender: Agender; she/her
Orientation: Asexual aromantic

Years active: 2007 - 2010

Myax was my first character, my fursona before I knew what fursonas or even furries were. She was created during a rough patch in my childhood, as a sort of friend/pet that I could bring with me anywhere. She originally was a feral dragon, wild and bestial. Any emotion she felt was felt intensely, and openly. Rules, regulations, and laws did not bind her - she acted in accordance to her own will and desires, and nothing else. She did not have any friends, and didn't care about anyone besides herself, as she believed that other people were nothing more than sources of pain and frustration. Icy mountain caves were her sanctuary.

Over time, as I matured, Myax spent more time in an anthro form, and less as a reactive wild feral. She grew less emotional, more civilized, pushed other people away less. This change happened from perhaps 2009 to perhaps 2011; Myax was eventually restructured as Codex.

This is the image I used to represent Myax (not my work, obviously) and I do not intend to get any custom art of her.


Horchata
Species: Dog (Malamute)
Age: 18
Height: 5'
Weight 180 lbs
Sex: Female
Gender: Woman; she/her
Orientation: Heterosexual heteroromantic

Years active: 2015 - present

Bubbly, joyful, sweet, and naive, Horchata is the embodiment of my happiness. She's a people-loving extrovert that loves to make those around her smile.

LOL, did you really think that I was going to abandon ship and leave FA? No, I'm here to stay.

This is just a follow-up to my last journal.

Yes, there were protests today - but they were largely peaceful, led by anti-discrimination activists. There were small clumps of Trump supporters here and there, but that was okay. The overwhelming majority of the people who turned out were people who were - are - fed up with how SIU's administration has handled the mounting racial tensions on campus, among other things. The local newspaper reported on the protests.

All in all, things turned out much better than I was afraid they would. I didn't need to pack my mace.

Over the past two weeks, a large number of pro-Trump messages have been appearing on the walkways, concrete benches, and decorative stones on my campus, and being a young black woman, seeing them made me extraordinarily uncomfortable. I know the kind of person that flocks to Trump, and it's the same kind of person that usually isn't very friendly towards people like me. However, I reminded myself that freedom of speech is a thing, swallowed my fears and tried to not let the ubiquitous messages of "Trump 2016", Make America Great Again", and "Build That Wall" interfere with me going about my business.

Then, last Monday, my roommate told me about how someone graffiti'd "Riot Proof? We'll See" on one of the main buildings on campus, one that had been built to be riot-proof following a series of student-led riots in the 70s. I didn't want to think that it was in any way connected to the Trump messages, but I'm neither stupid nor naive.

Well, turns out my suspicions weren't unfounded. Not more than four hours ago, my roommate told me that an individual affiliated with the ATO fraternity uploaded a video to YouTube called "SIUC White is Right". (She followed that tidbit of information with the declaration that, if anyone connected to the video laid a hand on me, she'd break their nose.) In it, they edited a scene from A Bug's Life, the one where the grasshoppers are talking about how if they let one ant stand up to them, all the ants will, to say how if they let one n***** stand up to them, they all will. The video finished with a masked individual saying and I quote:

"This is SIU ATO, and we send out this broadcast in hopes of reaching out to all the hardworking, white Americans out there. We will not stand for these n*****s any longer. I want us all, on May 2nd, to band together and beat us up some n***** stew. I want you all to join me and my group in stopping this event on May 2nd. But most importantly, I want you all to remember to leave your wallets at home and don't forget your baseball bats. I want to see the trees riddled with as much black fruit as they can hold. Hitler did nothing wrong and neither will we. White power."

As you can probably imagine, the fact that this video exists and was created by someone going to my school makes me extremely nervous, uncomfortable, and afraid for my personal safety, as well as the safety of my sister, the safety of fellow alumni of my high school, and the safety every person of color on campus. The chancellor sent out a mass email denouncing the video and stating that there will be an increased police presence on May 2nd, but that does little to soothe my fears - the past couple of years haven't led me to believe that the police are serving and protecting people that look like me. I want nothing more right this second than to skip all of my classes that day and stay in my room, where I know that I will be safe, but doing so would be giving them their satisfaction. It would be letting them intimidate me out of my $27,000 a year education. It would be letting them win, and I can't have that.

I know that I'm going to be a lot more on the edge as we get closer to May 2nd, but I'll try to not let that get the best of me. I'll keep you all abreast of any new developments, more for my own peace of mind than anything else.

Well, I caved and made a Tumblr.

My username's quiet-codes (ooooh, real creative amirite), feel free to follow me or whatever.

Well, I feel like my plans for the 6-10 years of my life after I'm done with undergrad just got snatched out from underneath me.

My desire is to go into systematic entomology (that's, in simplest terms, the study of how different groups of insects are related to one another), and my plan was to go to Iowa State University for a doctorate as soon as I got my B.S. in zoology at the university I'm at now. Turns out, though, that there is exactly one faculty member in ISU's department of entomology that's doing work in systematics, and he's working with insects I'm not particularly interested in - true flies. So, I've been looking for other universities with entomology PhD programs, and I'm finding fuck all. There are hardly any schools offering entomology graduate degrees, and the ones that DO are mostly focused on pest management, which (while there's a lot of employment opportunity in that area) is not attractive to me at all.

I understand that I have two years to get grad school sorted out, but this has been my plan since I realized that I couldn't go to Iowa State for undergrad (they wanted like $11,000 out of pocket, not including student loans....), and having it just fall through like this is extremely distressing.

I wish that I could just live in the present like a normal eighteen year old.



EDIT

So, over the past week, I spent some time looking for other universities offering entomology PhD programs. Lo and behold, not only does Cornell, a very prestigious institution, have a program, but there's also a faculty member in the department that's doing EXACTLY the kind of research I plan on doing. On top of that, Cornell is VERY generous with its financial assistance - most graduate students are awarded assistantships, which have a full tuition fellowship, a stipend (this year it was a bit under $25,200), and university student health care.

My original plans going up in smoke was a good thing - I would have never found Cornell's program otherwise.

Does anyone know of any good digitigrade fursuit leg tutorials? I think that my next fursuiting project will be to make digi fur pants, but I'd like to know exactly what I'm getting myself into, ya know?

And inb4 "look for tutorials yourself" - I am looking, but I figure that it can't hurt to pick your collective brains.

I'm bored and feeling bold, so yeah. Ask away.

 inkdragon13 is open for a few traditional requests! She's good, so I highly recommend snagging one!

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I wish anyone who took today to come out as whatever they are the best of luck.

As for me, I'm out as bisexual to my closest of friends. My family is pretty accepting, but I don't want to deal with any potential prying questions from them. I think that I'm polyamorous as well, but since I'm terribly unlucky in the whole relationship department (read: I've never been romantically involved with anyone), I've never had any opportunity to really see.

Going off on a little bit of a tangent, asexuality and aromanticism are extremely difficult for me to wrap my head around. It's partly due to the fact that I'm a pretty damn sexual creature and I crave intimate relationships, but mostly due to the fact that, from a scientific standpoint (and that's my default mode of thinking), it doesn't make sense. I'm not going to give any asexuals or aromantics trouble because of a facet of themselves that they can't control, but I'm completely unable to understand it, either.

Given my neurotic tendencies, it's probably unwise for me to be up late and think. However, these are my thoughts, and it's better for them to be typed out and thrown onto the internet for anyone to read than for them to echo and whisper within my mind.

First and foremost, a statement that is as much a declaration to anyone who reads this as it is a state that I've denied for far too long that I am in:

I am lonely, and have been so for as long as I can remember.

At this point in my life, I don't know what the ultimate source of it is, as I'm not wanting for friends or social interaction. It's become my shadow, in a way- the loneliness is always there, regardless of the situation, regardless of how happy I am at a given moment, regardless of what I do to ignore it.

I suppose that part of the problem is the great difficulty I have with discussing how I feel, even to the people I consider closest to me, the people that I trust. My automatic response to any inquiries about my emotional state is a hasty "I'm fine", even if everything that I feel in that instant screams otherwise. Any talk of my own emotions triggers an unexplainably visceral and intense revulsion; I don't like it and never have.

At times I wonder if I'm alone in the degree of aloneness I feel all the time, or if everyone feels that way, with some people being better able to conceal it and cope with it that others. I'm not sure which scenario would be better.

As unpleasant and at times psychologically painful as it is, I don't know what I'd do if I weren't lonely in some measure. Like a case of Stockholm syndrome, it's managed to worm its way into my perception of myself and the complex fabric of my identity after all these years. Who would I be if it was gone? Would I recognize myself?

.....It's past 1 am. It would be wise if I tried to sleep.

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