The Kingdom of Thorns

[knightofcups]

It is incredibly stupid, but I feel so invisible and "erased" or whatever, when people talk about how "mentally ill brain" or "ADHD brain" or "autistic brain" means that they start a bunch of stuff they never finish.

I know they're saying that's why /they/ don't etc, but it really feels, at a certain point, like "starts projects they don't finish" is a defining quality for alternate braintypes, and that's /not/ how I work, and it makes me feel like I don't deserve to consider myself part of those groups. Like I don't have those issues, so wtf right do I have to even say it.

[Fetian]

You will no doubt have noticed that I have Opinions about how ADHD &c is talked about online, and yeah, part of the issue is how often things are taken as a black-and-white "ADHD brains are like this", leaving people whose brains aren't like that to feel like they're not really ADHD. It Is a Problem

[knightofcups]

Mostly it’s easy for me to understand they mean their version of the thing, but especially with “starts and then abandons” it feels like it’s treated as so universal.

It’s also that I’m already feeling like an outside, so it’s kind of another stack on top of not being right enough to fit in etc.

[knightofcups]

The dream I just woke up from included the toilet still being broken and rocking, so it was a pleasant surprise to remember that was just a dream.

Also, had that dream-element I do pretty often where I’m taking care of a baby doll that is, in fact, a sentient creature in its own right, but not exactly an infant. (In this case it was a sort of demonic entity, but not evil or anything, just… old and not really human, but enjoying pretending to be a baby, and I was enjoying taking care of him, but only when I was home, and he could put his needs on hold while I was at work. Which is also a fairly common feature of this dream element.)

Now I need to go back to sleep.

Oh, it seems like I’ve been able to shift my melatonin need back down to 1 mg/night which is nice. Don’t know if it will last, but I’m glad to have been able to drop it some.

[knightofcups]

I have all this stuff I want to journal about or talk to myself about in conjuring Summer, but somehow can't push my brain to do it. I hate how I go in journaling phases.

But hey, right now, all I want to do is work on Identity, so.

[knightofcups]

Oh, also. Got referred to a new therapist. Therapist does not, in fact, have any appointments I can attend.

So back to the drawing board.

[knightofcups]

It is remarkable how a good nights sleep helps.

Caught up a bit on sleep yesterday, and got up and got a ton done and am all cheerful.

Fixed the last sprinkler that mek hadn’t been able to when he did the rest, re-did the drip system for the cargo garden, plus the hoses to the shade plants, re-filled, tilled, and planted an attempt at a second-run cargo garden (no idea if it will grow but it was about $5 of seeds and an hours labor so worth the try!), and got all my general weekly yard stuff done.

Now I’m sitting for a bit, then I need to finish up the kitchen, and some general house pickup, then Technomancer and I are going to the movies, and we’re bringing home noodles for supper, and then I can pretty much hyper focus on Identity to my heart’s content.

Next week I need to finish Arcadia 42, and get some serious progress made in BSFF s3, but this weekend is all Identity.

[knightofcups]

Today was a very good day, but for some reason I am feeling really annoyed with myself and… disappointed? Unhappy with? Who and how I am.

I have no idea why. Maybe still PMDD? It’s hanging around a long while if so.

But despite things being really nice today, I am feeling like I’m kind of not very good.

[knightofcups]

Brain is still being weird, and I don't know why. Just sort of low-grade mad at myself about everything, for no discernible reason.

[knightofcups]

I used to think I was a very unoriginal person. Less in what I wrote, I've generally been pretty secure in the fact that I'm an ok writer, with decent ideas. But with my style, and to a point, my visual art, I felt like I just copied things I liked from other people.

All through high school, college, really until pretty damn recently, I thought I was incredibly derivative. The way I dressed, spoke, did my makeup, even what I believed, seemed like this collection of things I admired in other people, or liked when other people did, that I'd just stolen, and pretended to make my own. I thought I was this completely fake person, whose real talent was copying things effectively, not actually innovating them.

People in my life before spent a lot of time telling me I tried too hard, pretended to be things, was a wannabe X and Y and Z. They said I was trying to be this manic pixie dream girl, but that just wasn't me, and it really didn't look good that I faked/attempted it so hard. They told me I was just copying other people's styles, that I just pretended to think/believe things. There are a lot of things I avoided liking or talking about, because people would have seen them as trying to hard.

I /love/ luna moths. I always have. But until the past few years, I pretended I didn't, or just "thought they were pretty" or was "kind of interested" in them. Because, see, they play an important symbolic role in a game I like, and in a book I like. So I must have been stealing that from /those,/ not coming to it on my own, not actually having it resonate with me. People teased me because it was so cliche and predictable and unoriginal.

And I really did internalize that.

It was even more dramatic with appearance. Till the past few years, honestly, really, the past like... 3 years. Since I started to transition... I thought I didn't actually have an aesthetic style. I thought I just kind of wore the clothes that fit, and otherwise tried too hard to look "cool" or "trendy" or "edgy." People told me I didn't have a /style/ I just... wore clothes. Often clothes that were weird, or inappropriate. That I wanted more tattoos because... honestly, I don't really know the "because." I think the Biologist said it was because I didn't understand moderation, and wasn't good at stopping something once I'd started it, but I might be ret-conning that into my memory.

But my personal view of myself, reinforced by outside forces was that I copied people, and wore/styled myself to mimic other people, without bringing anything unique to it.

But I was thinking about this last night. And thing is? That isn't true. It isn't true now, sure, but it also wasn't true back then.

I started thinking about it b/c of this forum actually. The title of it. It made me think about the fact that the Monarch has said that I have inspired some of his styling (and I think some of his thought processes/paradigm organization?) I really have wanted to ask him to expound on this, because I want to know more about what he meant, and what he's gotten from me, but it feels so vain to ask (so I am backhand asking here: ) )

But that got me thinking about what I look like, how I decorate, and what I believe.

And how that was in the past.

And you know... when I'm not judging myself for "copying" someone/thing, I actually have and always have had, a strong personal style?

I mean, sure it's a style that's been influenced by people I admire, and the styles of the time, and what I'm reading and watching, etc. But that's /normal/ for people. That's how humans, especially young ones, work.

And yeah, I stole things I liked. But then I made them /mine./ I wasn't /pretending/ to be this manic pixie dreamgirl. That was, and is, legitimately who and how I am. And how I /wanted/ to dress. That is /real./

I think of myself as such a coward, and so shy, and so... boring. But I'm /not/. And I have all this social anxiety, but I don't dress like it?

That's what's been sort of amazing me.

I've just... worn things. ...really /out there/ things. And it somehow hasn't bothered me? It hasn't triggered my insecurity or my fears.

For fucks sake, I wore fairy wings and elf ears to high school. Just. Without even really worrying about it? It was... just a thing I did. I put feathered angel wings on my /backpack/ for an entire semester. And none of /that/ made me feel stupid or ashamed.

And clothes have always been like that. I've just... been willing to wear what I wanted, dye my hair, do my makeup... I was incredibly insecure about my body and my weight, but that didn't get triggered by style or make up. At this point, I know so much of it was dysphoria, and lacking that, I can really, really just wear things. And I mean, sometimes I feel really visible. I feel more so now that I am very very aggressively queer. I have fear around bad stuff happening to me. But that's a different thing.

Yeah, it's been an attempt to be edgy, but it's never been to fit in. Because it never was stuff that would /make/ me fit in. If I wanted to fit in, I'd have been doing so many other things.

Some of this is autism stuff. It just didn't connect with me exactly /how/ out of the norm all this stuff was. But some of it is that I just don't /care/ in a lot of ways. Like. I cared /deeply/ about fitting in and being liked, and having friends, and not being stupid and embarrassing, and awful, but it didn't occur to me how much what I wore was...

I don't know. I don't really know where I'm going with this. Just that I have a style, and always have, and taking bits and pieces from other people and making them mine is /not/ being derivative or copying, or rather, it is, but I have always made this stuff /mine/. And that's cool.

(And I really, really, would love to hear if I /have/ made people inspired or given ideas, and/or what people see as my style.)