Content warning: rambling, depression, suicidal ideation.

Hey, for the few of you that are still curious how I'm doing, or are worried because I haven't been as active in terms of posting stuff or talking or anything, I apologize. It's been a rough few years. Real world events, especially the more recent ones, have not exactly helped matters, but that's a whole other can of worms. Possibly multiple bunkers full of fridges full of cans full of worms, for that matter. Honestly, I think ever since around 2021, maybe even prior to that, I've just been struggling with keeping myself emotionally stable. That's not to say I've been sad or depressed for a lot of the time (though I have been that to some degree); more that I've just had a rough time trying to figure out where I am in terms of getting in touch with my emotions. I think part of the reason that I haven't been posting any of the commissioned artwork I've gotten lately could just be...I suppose one could call it personal guilt or shame, like I'd be trying to use other people's work and riding their coattails to try and get popularity or success for myself. My recent concerns that I might have some form of ADHD or PTSD or something that's seriously interfering with my ability to focus on things hasn't been helping matters either. Other folks have also mentioned that I tend to overthink everything, and I think part of it has to do with me being autistic on top of those things as well. Honestly, I feel kind of bad regarding bringing this stuff up because I worry that I'll come across like I'm using these things as a justification for any poor behavior or activity on my part. I think, as a result of all these things, and a whole bunch of IRL things, I spent large chunks of 2024 in a bit of a struggle with my sleep schedule, shutting myself off from people, including my local friends...and wanting to fall asleep and not wake up.

I realize that this probably comes across like a cry for attention on my part, and on some level maybe it is, but more than that I just want to try and exercise more transparency with folks. If there's anything I've come to learn regarding myself, it's that I don't like it when people around me hamper the process of communication. Life's too short for me to waste it on people that refuse to be open with me or, for whatever reason, choose to ignore me despite me expressing wanting to be friends with them (or possibly even because of that). I've wasted too much of my life giving pieces of myself out to other people and being told I should feel lucky if I ever get those pieces back despite them being mistreated or taken advantage of. More than anything, however, I suppose what I feel is just...tired, physically and emotionally. I wish I could say that things are or will be looking up, though I honestly can't even say for sure if things are looking at all.

...I'm sorry that this is such a downer note for me to be putting out there. I hope that y'all are doing better than I've been.

...Gonna be honest, I mainly made this journal as a means to bump out my last journal, which is several months old now, so it's pretty out of date.

Happy 8-4 to all y'all that actually celebrate it, I guess.

While I won't say the entire experience was an amazing time (for me, it was kinda mixed), I feel like my con experience was, ultimately, more good than bad. I met a whole bunch of awesome folks (including some I'd only ever interacted with online previously), tried some delicious food, did some volunteer work, tried out VR gaming for the first time, and took a few pictures to commemorate the experience! I even visited a wildlife conservation room and got to watch a young red kangaroo get fed! Another major highlight for me was attending a game of 'One Night Werewolf' with a bunch of folks and kind of throwing folks off by being very direct, blunt and honest during the rounds I played, and then gave as many people in the group as I could hugs afterwards!

Ultimately, I think this experience got me curious to be able to go out and visit more of my online friends in other states, either at conventions or otherwise!

No. I'm not doing it. If you want a journal where someone proudly proclaims that they're leaving the fandom or whatever, go to someone else's journal post for today. It's not funny. It was never funny. It stopped having any semblance of humor after the umpteen billionth time I saw someone say it. It's like working in retail, trying to scan something, have it come up as an error, and then the customer responding, "Oh, that means it's free." I don't care how many times you say it, or how many people copy it; I'm not going to laugh at it.

I say this as someone who loves terrible puns: I shouldn't need to make the excuse to limit my punning to a single day. If you want to do that, fine. Go nuts. Just at the very least come up with something original.

I just heard the news about the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsing due to a cargo ship hitting one of its supports. To anyone who was in the city at that time, or in that area, I hope that y'all are safe, and my thoughts go out to anyone who was injured or seriously affected by this catastrophic event. To anyone who plans on going into the city anytime soon, please take care, be safe, and exercise your best judgement.

Just hit my 33rd birthday today! Woot~!

Not sure if anyone else I know is planning on attending next May, but I will be attending Furry Weekend Atlanta this upcoming May! If anyone else plans on going, feel free to hit me up! Maybe we can meet up there and hang out! Looking forward to it!

...Yeah, I've got like...four of them and no idea what to do with them since almost all of my friends are already on the site. If folks are interested, feel free to shoot me a note or comment below this or something.

"Could you look me in the eye and tell me that you're happy now? UwU" -Michelle Branch, 'Are You Happy Now?'

"You can touch! You can play! You can say I'm always yours! UwU" -Aqua, 'Barbie Girl'

"Mamaaaaaaaaaa! UwU" -Queen, 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

Not sure anyone here would be all that interested to hear about this, but I got accepted into the chorus for an opera performance of 'The Gondoliers' in July! I'm super jazzed about this since it's probably the first time I've actually gotten to do any kind of performance type stuff outside of karaoke since 2018! Definitely looking forward to this!

So, my birthday's coming up in like...less than a week now! That kind of has me excited! I've got a bunch of plans for stuff that I'm going to do, and I'm already pretty excited about it! I've got plans to meet up with two different groups of friends, one on Saturday for Mongolian grill, one on Sunday for Thai food, and then I'll be going out with my parents on the day of for ramen! So lots of good food and good company all around! Here's hoping that the upcoming weekend is a good time for everyone else too! ^u^

...I admit, that title might be a bit inaccurate since it's not post-Christmas itself that has me depressed so much as just a bunch of negative stuff stacking up on me throughout the day, one right after the other, starting fairly small and insubstantial before just snowballing gradually into me feeling like crap.

That's not to say there weren't any positive things to happen yesterday; I ended up getting a whole lot of sweets and stuff for the holiday, I visited some local family, we had delicious Indian food for lunch, and I got to sing a song for my cousin's kids, which even my mom liked despite it being a song from the '90s and her being allergic to basically any music released after 1969.

Unfortunately, those positive moments were fairly fleeting and didn't really stick with me because, like I said, the sheer weight of all the negative things just piling up on top of me one right after the other. It started out small, with me just being frustrated with just tech and game stuff like Twitch being uncooperative and the fact that I was just struggling with some tera raids in 'Pokemon Scarlet'. After that though, I tried to schedule a meet up with some local bear friends but then they ended up being unresponsive for most of the evening, and I didn't end up feeling up for going out for karaoke because I didn't want to go out only to not see my friends until literally the closing hours of the night at the bar we usually hang out at.

However, the 300-pounds of straw that ended up breaking my back was that, later in the evening, I ended up chatting with a friend about music, and they ended up mentioning something that I was iffy about and when I implied my iffiness about said thing, they kind of overreacted in a way that seriously came across as guilt-tripping, then quickly back-pedaled and tried to get me to just forget the whole thing so we could still be friends. The thing is, even though they deleted all of the offending messages, they still happened. It's like trying to retcon away a segment everyone hates from a comic or TV series people used to love and just expecting them to just ignore those bad bits like they never happened. It felt extremely invalidating and like he was trying to rush me into processing my feelings and force a smile and pretend everything was fine when that wasn't the case. I want to believe that wasn't his intent and he genuinely did want to apologize and keep being friends, but he was going about things in the wrong way. Rather than try to just Thanos-snap the problem away, this is something that needs to be resolved slowly and gradually; the trust we used to have needs to be built back up gradually, and trying to just be like, "I'm sorry I still want to be friends please just ignore all the problematic stuff I just said not even an hour ago" isn't the way to do that.

...I realize that little of this actually had to do with yesterday being Christmas, but I feel like it being that time of year, basically the time of year exemplified by people wearing a fake smile and trying to force everyone to feel happy and positive, only exacerbated the issues. I sincerely do hope that everyone had a much less depressing holiday experience this year than all this, and even if you didn't, don't let anyone, be it willfully or unintentionally, try to tell you that your experience is any less valid just because it was negative. So let me close this journal by saying, with the utmost respect to everyone, regardless of your feelings for this time of year:

...Bah humbug.

Well, my mom tested positive for COVID, which means I might run the risk of catching it from her. Honestly, considering my relationship with my mom lately, it kind of figures I would get it from her.

...I hope everyone else is having a better week...

Edit: Good news: I just took an at-home test and it came back negative. So I should be okay (for now).

So, earlier this month, I drove out to visit relatives in Missouri and a friend in Kansas, the former by swapping driving duties with my dad and uncle, the latter I did pretty much entirely by myself. It was great, and it gave me a lot more confidence in my ability to travel outside of my home state! I'm actually kind of starting to enjoy the idea that I could visit family or friends that live far away at some point in the future, or maybe travel to a convention that's out of state, or maybe even travel to more locations in state that I haven't been to before! Hell, maybe some day I could even drive out to the west coast and visit some of my family or friends who live out there, or even visit friends who live out of the country or out of the continent! Maybe it's just because I'm still kind of new to the idea, but the possibilities seem endless! Let me know what y'all think in the comments below, whether you have your own traveling experiences you'd like to share or maybe have your own suggestions of places you think I should consider visiting at some point in the future!

Hey, so a friend of mine is trying to work on putting together a cosplay for Otakon, and I was wondering if I could ask someone to help with styling a wig for him. If there's anyone living in or around central Maryland who could help with this, the assistance would be greatly appreciated. If needed, I can offer monetary compensation for the task. All I ask is for examples from your portfolio of your wig-styling experience.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and stay awesome everyone.

...Does anyone else think that Miror B.'s battle theme in 'Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness' sounds kind of similar to the theme from the Pussycat Dolls' 2005 hit song 'Don't Cha'? Not sure why that thought crossed my mind.

(Yes, I know that the song was originally recorded by former OutKast backing vocalist Tori Alamaze. She gave up the rights to the song after her version didn't take off.)

...HAPPY BUTT DAY 2022 EVERYONE! X D

I just wanted to take a moment and say that your problems matter and your feelings are valid. Also, you're all awesome people. Never forget that.

That's all.

The last year has been pretty rough on me. That's probably not particularly new for people to hear; this year and last year were hard on everyone. For me, however, most of the stress I experienced this year can be traced back to one specific event and the fallout from that. So this journal will be my attempt to try and sort out everything and get an understanding of how I got to where I am.

DISCLAIMER:

I'll try to avoid naming specific people in this journal, partially to respect the privacy of everyone involved and partially to avoid drama. For this same reason, I'll also be disabling comments in this journal. Another thing to keep in mind: there will probably be things mentioned here that won't reflect well on me either; I'm a human being, we all make mistakes, but what matters is that we learn from them and use that experience to better ourselves.

So, with all that said, let's start with some background:

1. BACKGROUND

As I've stated before, I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when I was a child, as well as severe anxiety and depression when I was in college. However, interacting with my new therapist, as well as some self-reflection I've done, might have brought up some more stuff I wasn't entirely aware of either. See, when I was a child, my father was often away from home, meaning that the parent I often interacted with throughout my life was my mother, who I love very dearly but also tended to be very volatile when upset. This essentially meant that I went for most of my life without a prominent male role model. This led to me being drawn towards my older sibling, who would usually spend more time hanging out with their friends, with me either being left behind or feeling like a third wheel whenever I did get to come. Also, said older sibling was just as volatile as my mother when upset, so that didn't help matters either. This, coupled with my distant relationship with my father, may have led to me developing abandonment issues. These were further compounded when my older sibling came out as transgender and my coming out as gay while we were both in college, since now, not only was I once again without someone to associate with as a male role model, but now anyone I developed any kind of romantic attachment to would be someone my mind would try to convince itself needed to take on that role, whether there was potential for a healthy relationship with that person or not. This, along with the near-constant bullying I received in school growing up, from other students and even from my own immediate family (though in the latter case it was probably not intentional), not to mention the gaslighting I would experience from my classmates in my first semester of college, a few of my past jobs, and one other person I'll be discussing later, all culminated in me developing an inferiority complex, trust issues, and a psychological need to be a people pleaser and perfectionist, which might be the source of my anxiety, while my failure to meet the standards of perfection I would set for myself may have been one of the primary sources of my depression and self-loathing. According to my therapist, the overall cumulative weight of all of these things might have also led to me developing some form of PTSD. Now that we have all that out of the way...

2. THE PANDEMIC

Prior to the COVID pandemic of 2020, I had been working on being more courageous and putting myself out there more, attending more conventions, meeting new people and, in general, trying to be more social in the real world. With the lockdown that occurred at the start of the pandemic, that shut all of that down. For roughly the last two years, the only time I would leave the house would be to go to work, which only got more and more stressful with the new mandates put in place and the fear that someone would walk right through the mask requirements people needed to practice and get everyone in the store sick. On two different occasions in 2020 I, and several of my coworkers, were asked to not come into work because the volume of the workload had decreased that much due to the drop in customer traffic. On top of this, I wasn't sure how I would be able to interact with the services and practices I would normally have left the house to go to. Fortunately, my therapist and psychiatrist would start practicing Telemedicine, and my voice coach would start having lessons with all her students over Zoom, so the anxiety over those, while intense, was fairly short-lived. What was much more intense and long-lasting, however, were...

3. LOSS AND REJECTION

Over the course of 2020, several of my family members died from illnesses that were aggravated by either the pandemic, the lockdown, or both. Most of these I ended up growing numb to; I didn't interact with most of them anyway, so even though I won't ever see them again, I barely saw them at all to begin with, so this didn't really affect things that much. What did affect me much more was the death of a friend of mine whose art streams I used to watch. My feelings on his death are very complicated, most of which stemming from a sense of guilt I had which may tie back into that desire for a male role model in my life and my lack of understanding of said feelings, as well as a sense of jealousy I was developing towards this friend, as well as several other friends I had that had managed to find someone in their life that they could be happy with while I am still single and living with my parents. Unfortunately, me being me, I felt like I needed to vent my very limited understanding of my feelings towards this friend to people, which I realize now is not okay, but didn't realize before expositing an abridged version of said poor understanding of said feelings to a close friend of the friend who died in a fit of depression, frustration, and recklessly poor judgement. He...didn't take it well, telling me that I was being "heinous" and dealing in "psychodrama", and stating that he never wanted to speak to me or do business with me ever again. I don't feel comfortable talking about my feelings towards this particular person, or some of the other things they've done to me and some of my friends who used to be in my artist friend's circle. All I'll say is that I really feel like an idiot for letting myself lose control of my emotions and venting my feelings to someone who doesn't seem to be particularly empathetic. That said, the death of my friend and his friend's rejection have essentially been haunting me for roughly the last seven months now, in much the same way that this one particular statement a former boss made to me in a previous job about how my problems don't matter, my feelings aren't valid, and the negative consequences of my poor mental health was, in her eyes, "a joke". So...

4. THE FALLOUT

I think it was largely everything I just listed that was the main motivation behind me deciding that I'd like to return to college and, hopefully, become a therapist one day. I feel like, if I'd had better understanding of my mental health and better understanding of who to trust with what information I shared about myself, maybe the emotional impact of that particular event wouldn't have hit as painful as it was. It might have eventually led to the same conclusion, but at the very least the blow might have been softer. People have told me that I tend to apologize way too much, to the point that the word "sorry" has become essentially meaningless when coming out of my mouth. I think the reason I do this is an attempt to shed myself of responsibility for my actions and try to stop people from being upset at me by making the case that I didn't know better, which is honestly counter-productive since it shows that I didn't actually learn anything from my actions. So, instead, I've started doing two things instead: thanking the person I would have apologized to for their understanding that I had made a mistake and stating that I plan to do better from now on so as to not repeat that mistake anymore. That's why I want to gain a better understanding of mental health: so that I can better my understanding of myself and help other people better understand themselves.

5. IN CONCLUSION...

To those out there whom I have clashed with emotionally in the past, I can't say I'm in an emotionally stable enough place to forgive you for disagreeing with me, or even to forgive myself for upsetting, frustrating, or angering you to the point that you would take issue with me. All I can offer is the promise that I intend to do better next time. I can't say it means much, but that’s all I can offer.

So, after giving it some thought, I'm considering returning to college. However, rather than studying theatre, which is what I got my Bachelor's degree in during my undergraduate studies, I think I'll try to focus more on psychology, sociology, behavioral sciences, and possibly some form of psychiatry depending on the field I decide to go with. My goal with this will be to eventually get a doctorate or Ph. D. and get a job as a therapist. I came to this decision since I've been focusing a lot on mental health, and it has me kind of curious to learn more about it and, hopefully, be able to help others understand the importance of their own mental health. Plus, while I love theater and music, I feel like it's not exactly something I can pursue for a secure, long-term career. Maybe I could continue doing both as kind of a hobby, but I'm worried that I'd just stress myself out more if I were to try and make them my full-time job.

I'm still kind of trying to figure out which college I'd like to go to regarding pursuing a doctorate or Ph. D., though the one that's standing out to me right now is likely the same one I went to for my undergraduate degree: University of Maryland, College Park. I'll likely also need to consider finding a place to live while I'm taking classes and covering the cost of my tuition, but I'll cross those bridges when I get to them. I'm working with a job agency and my own therapist to try and help get my life in order in preparation for all this, so I'm hoping I'm able to make this work out. Wish me luck everyone!

So  charlestonrat, a good friend of mine, is conducting a survey that focuses on fursuits and fursuiting. Anyone who completes it can choose to participate in a prize draw to win $250. Completing said survey doesn't take long either; just around 10-20 minutes of your time should be enough. You don't even need to have a fursuit or be a fursuiter to participate in the survey; you just need to identify as a member of the furry community, be over 18+, have access to PayPal, and be able to finish it by November 26th.

For those curious, the link to his submission can be reached via the link below:

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44017267/

Have fun!

So, my mom works as an accountant, and found out that, through a connection she has through one of her clients, she could potentially purchase tickets to see a performance by Nile Rogers in Milan in June of next year. I'm pretty sure that the booster shots will be more widely available by then, so, assuming I'm able to get one and wait enough time for it to take effect, and assuming that this actually happens, I could potentially be able to go to Italy for like a week some time next year! This is kind of an exciting prospect for me since I've never left North America ever in my life! At the same time, however, as my mom put it, this is basically "unreality setting in". It is entirely possible that reality will catch up to us at some point before this happens. However, I'm hoping that it ends up actually happening because I want to be able to visit another country at some point in my life that isn't just the most American part of Canada. That last thing was something I did in like middle school or high school, and I don't count that as actually visiting another country since visiting the part of a country that is basically just a tourist spot for stupid Americans like myself, that's essentially the equivalent to visiting the area of Epcot in Disney World that corresponds to that country, which is not the same thing as actually visiting that country.

While I know it's unlikely to happen, I certainly wouldn't mind running into any Italian furs while I'm there, even if I'll likely be spending most of my time just hanging around my mom and doing what she wants to do. Still, a man can dream.

Admittedly, it's only been about two hours since I've received the vaccine, but I've yet to experience any major side effects or reactions. I should probably also mention that I received the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, meaning that I don't need to go in for a second dose, at least for the main strain of COVID. However, much like the other vaccines, this one will take three to four weeks for my body to develop full immunity to the virus. I wasn't really planning on going anywhere or changing my routine up in any major way over the next few weeks anyway, so it's not like I need to worry about planning around this time frame. Regardless, I will continue to wear my masks, maintain at least six feet of distance from people, wash my hands regularly, and in general just make sure I practice the various safety regulations to minimize the risk of spreading or catching the virus until such a time comes when enough people have gotten the vaccine that it's safe to actually go outside and spend time with people, and even then I plan to continue exercising at least some precautions from now on. I humbly encourage everyone else to maintain their own wellness and safety, as well as the wellness and safety of those around them by taking actions to minimize the potential spread of the virus as well.

With all that said, please, wear your damn masks, maintain six fucking feet of distance, and wash your damn hands.

Okay, to understand this, I need to start by talking about an episode of 'Rugrats' I saw as a kid. At the beginning of this episode, it shows the characters eating heart-shaped cookies, then one of them asks, "Why are we eating cookies shaped like our butts?" This, coupled with people pushing for the over commercialization and shopping associated with Valentine's Day and how it isolates people who aren't in relationships, as well as people trying to be inclusive by making "Singles Awareness Day" a thing (myself included), just makes me feel like people aren't actually trying to be inclusive and are just pushing for being exclusive to opposite ends of the relationship spectrum. So, I decided to be inclusive for everyone! After all, everybody has a butt! X 3

So let today be about celebrating the beauty of the booty~! Happy Butt Day, everyone!

Yes folks; today was my birthday! I just turned 30 years old!

...I admit, this doesn't feel much different from when I was in my 20s, save that I'm not in college anymore and I'm actually at a job that has people who aren't trying to emotionally manipulate me into being just another soulless cog in the machine. Regardless, here's hoping that my fourth decade of life proves to be better than the last!

More importantly though, I hope that all of you are having a good day and that you are taking care of yourselves, both physically and mentally, because while it's important to show empathy and support for others, that shouldn't come at the cost of your own wellbeing.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope you all have a nice day!