welcome ^^

[TW: explicit discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation]

It's been some years since i decided not to transition. I'm non-binary, AMAB, genderfluid if you will, but I've always felt most aligned with feminine forms of presentation and perception. My teenage years were a constant storm of gender disphoria; Dreams and daydreams of waking up one day and being a full-blown girl, of going out to buy new clothes, make-up, the first haircut I'd ever actually enjoy. In my dreams I saw myself as small, smooth, delicate, the perfect stereotype of what I girl my age should be. All my references of what I wanted to be like in the future were women, even though I knew I couldn't be like them. I was growing taller, hairier, rougher; I was becoming a man, and that made me want to die. I remember hearing a friend say he couldn't recognize himself in the mirror, and forcing myself to not understand what he meant, even though I felt the same. I've known my suicide method of choice since I was 14. I still think of it sometimes; That 8th floor window inside my grandparents' apartment. Her sister, much taller, 12th floor, also much closer, in my bedroom; It serves as a reminder. An invitation even. I would die if I fell from here, I'm sure of it. It would be over and I wouldn't be tired anymore, I wouldn't long for this life I can't have ever again.

I won't kill myself, though. For many reasons of course, but the main one remains the most unexpected to me. I don't mind being a man anymore. I fantasize about it even. The body hair I inherited from my father is rather cool, sexy dare I say. My height, a point of pride, an opportunity to help others. The low pitch of my voice, soothing, versatile, definitely good for singing. I've even been trying to grow bigger; It's been a year since I started going to the gym and I like my reflection in the mirror much more now. It looks like me, and it looks like a man.

Part of the reason for this change is that I found references for the kind of man I'd like to be. Yoiko Yokochou comes to mind immediately. All my friends know how much I connect those pin-up illustrations. They are my profile pictures in so many of my social media accounts (including here on Dreamwidth), I post them again and again, left and right, non-stop since 2020, when I was 16, and haven't stopped loving them since. I wonder if I ever will. A lot about them gave form to perceptions of myself that I've always had but couldn't connect to a male image. Seeing a man be strange, submissive, slutty, weak, scared and oh so fucking tired made me connect with him. The way all of this is contrasted with the traditionally masculine image of a man in suit and tie, it made me question a lot of my self image. It made me slowly, but surely, understand that I could play the role of a 21st century man but still feel like myself.

With time, other men joined the party. TOOBOE, Harrier Du Bois, Laios Touden, Edgar0119, Kikuo, biz, Phosphophyllite; Men who, even if in small ways and even if fictional, seem to get it. Men who seem to have an experience of gender similar to my own. It feels silly to admit that I thought they didn't exist, when I simply hadn't found them, but is it all that surprising. The definition of what a man can be is still quite limited, especially inside the conservative household I was raised in. Even when aesthetically defiant, feminine even, those same aspects I couldn't relate to remained. The dominance, the violence, the misogyny. I don't think I need to describe the ways in which even the most effeminate of fags feel justified to look down on women and each other. It bothers me. Morally, yes, but also I just can't identify with it, and it seemed to underpin everything about masculinity, in a sense it very much does. But still, men who aren't like that can exist, and I can be like them.

It's no coincidence all the fictional characters I mentioned above are created by women, well, almost all, Harrier is an outlier both in the fact he is partially written by men, but also in that he can be misogynistic in ways the others haven't been. Still, female-written portrayals of manhood seem to be the ones I connect to the most. Which definitely indicates the reason why I don't consider myself to be a man, not fully at least. My relationship to femininity still exists. It still saddens me a bit, the fact I won't be the feminine woman I dreamed of being when I was younger. Maybe it is just a case of me watching the TV glow and then turning it off, as the kids say. Maybe I will decide that I do want to transition, that being perceived as a man, however emasculated, wasn't good enough. But still, for now, this acceptance of my masculinity comforts me. I don't need to be feminine, not even androgynous. Even when I look like a man, I'm still me. If I become a husband, or a father, I'll still be me. With my wide chin, thick fingers, hairy feet, protruding throat and rough skin; I am and have always been me.

i haven't updated this blog in such a while so I'll try to type out whatever comes on my mind.

I have been listening to Magdalena Bay a lot recently. I decided to check them out after a hot guy I follow on instagram posted a song of theirs on his stories. They are really fun, I'm really excited for their new album to come out. Maybe I should have shot the guy a dm about it, but oh well I've missed the chance at this point.

I'm also going out with this cute boy. We have lots in common, like, LOTS, so talking to him is lots of fun. He's also got a slightly more reserved demeanor than me, though he seems to have crazier stories, regardless, it makes me feel excited to possibly play a more dominant role in a friendship for a change.

I'll be meeting up with a couple of my friends later today, which is so exciting. I miss them so much. Something makes me fear everything might go wrong and I make fuck up everything, but they love me almost as much as I love them, so I doubt I should really worry. I'm actually finally getting things organized to move out with one of those friends in the end of the year. The motive is kind of shitty: I had a fight with my dad since he's been getting weirdly more agressive for the past few months. It got me really stressed for a couple of days, but by now I've calmed down. With that said I'm excited for the move.

I'm scared I'll end up being a bad roommate, but I guess that's a good sign. Like, it shows that I do care, at least. I'm also scared this friend of mine isn't as eager to live with me as he once was, but I think I don't have to worry. He's been really busy, tho. We don't talk as much as we used to since he started on his first job. While part of me understands there's nothing to worry about, other part of me is afraid he's really growing above me this time. Which would make me into a nuisance to deal with, instead of someone he has fun with. But that's stupid. He's always been "above me" and it never was a problem, so we'll be fine.

I've been managing to make good progress on my artistic projects. I've been pulling away from people that hurt me. I've been interacting more with people I love. I've been going to the gym. I've been drinking water. I've been caring for my skin. I've been masturbating a lot, for some reason. I haven't been eating well, but at least I've been eating tasty things. There's this place in the shopping mall nearby that sells this amazing coffee milkshake. It's expensive, but oh my god is that shit worth it. Anyways, I haven't been as responsible with my money as I probably should, but not by that much, so I'll be fine. I haven't been sleeping well, tho. No "but"s this time. Guess I should get that sorted.

All and all, life's been nice.

"childhood" is a personal project I've been working on in some capacity for around two years now. Originally meant to be a concept album, it ended up becoming an EP when I discarded the needless junk. Its purpose is intact, though. Pessimistic, whiny, resentful, egotistical, it serves as a representation of all the parts I hate most of myself, the ones I've come to deem as childish. Rarely do these songs offer a healthy conclusion to their own problems. My own special form of self-flagellation, I guess.

The asterisks in the title are a somewhat cheesy, but easy way to indicate how this project isn't directly about childhood, but about childhood as a much looser concept: "The characteristic of what is childish", instead of "The developmental period between 3 and 13, in which a person is considered a child". This is important, considering many of the themes addressed by it can stay relevant until adulthood, as they have for me.

It is composed of six tracks:

1-) Codename: prayer | not started
This one is only real in concept. An honest expression of devotion to God. No sarcasm or twist, simply the christian anthem I dreamed of creating ever since I learned what music is. I find this the necessary start to this EP because it expresses the concept I devoted my entire childhood to, and also the one that robbed me of it.

2-) Parasite (No Matter What) | revision pending
A song about accepting abuse in exchange for life, about loving one's abuser and feeling like one owes them one's whole being. Although the song itself applies the concept onto a romantic relationship (as to initially mask itself as a normal love song to only later reveal its true themes. Cheesy, but fun), in the end the feeling described is one I developed at an early age towards my parents.

3-) Indulge | revision pending
Probably the most directly childish song in the project. It is about indulging in toxic behavior out of spite. Its a song that doesn't attempt to be creative or artsy in any aspect, instead trying to be fun and full of rage. It's what this indulgence is about at the end of the day.

4-) Vessel | incomplete
A song about wanting to give up on one's dreams out of envy for someone who has already reached them and, instead, wanting to be consumed by that one-sided rival. Probably one of the most painful ones for me, envy is one of my biggest deadly sins.

5-) Midnight Sun | incomplete
The first track meant to transition into "adulthood". It is about falling out of faith. Although its theme is not directly childish, in fact leaving religious delusion behind is an act that I'd usually describe as mature, but this song's pessimistic perspective doesn't characterize the ending that I want for this subject. Its written from the perspective of someone who is still traumatized and resentful.

6-) Childhood | not started
The second transitional track, and the first one meant to take a mature perspective. Its about ending one's "childhood" and becoming an "adult", about picking up the loose threads and sewing them into a mantle that is actually beautiful.

I hate thinking about childhood, because I hate being childish. I hate making "childhood", because its an exercise in torturing myself with what has become the biggest theme of my life. I'm tired of being a child, but I need to start with it before I become an adult.

And as a child, I want to be an adult so so bad.

A couple months ago my father told me about a dream he had. He had taken it as a metaphorical warning.

In it I sat atop the railing of a high balcony. He screamed as loud as he could for me not to jump, praying that his order would reach me and make me come back. His dream understood one thing about me, though. I hate his orders. Egotistical, meaningless. They are like the pleas of a bratty child, desperate for attention and convinced I owe it to him.

So, disobeying him, I jumped.

As he ran to the balcony, looked down and searched for my remains scattered across the ground, he instead found me standing atop an air-conditioner. I bounced up and down, each second letting more of my weight fall onto the flimsy metal box. Violent stomps and jumps covered the sound of his crying voice and at the moment he reached down, trying to offer me a helping hand, the small piece of ground i was granted gave in. My emotionless eyes stared at him while Bruno fell to his death.

At the time, when I heard this, I took it as an annoyance. Just his mind affirming his own fears. After all, that's exactly what nightmares do. But now I feel willing into indulge him. Maybe it was a warning. Maybe God, looking down at our situation, sent him a prophecy so he could change our futures for the better.

Then, I ask this. Why was the warning sent to HIM, if the mistake is MINE? If my deadly sin was disobedience, why would God try to speak to me through him once again? It should know better.

Funnily enough, the death in my father's dream mimics the way I once planned to kill myself. The same balcony he saw me falling from, in the 8th floor of our apartment building, is the one I imagined myself jumping from countless times. It's the one I still imagine myself pushing his son from.

So it wasn't a metaphor after all.

Is it not fair to conclude God wasn't telling me to obey, but instead telling him to stop giving orders; To stop pushing me towards the suicide he claims to fear? Or maybe he's showing the man that his son is already dead and he should accept the child standing before him.

It feels childish to care, really. God doesn't exist, my father's nightmare is, for all I know, just that: a nightmare. But I can't help but bring myself back to the imagery. Jumping onto an air-conditioner. Killing the annoying prick my father created in his mind, who he seems to love more than the actual me. I can't help but wish to take it for myself, to violently reclaim it with the years I've lost trusting that man's delusional judgement. I'm not sure I hate him enough to do so, but I for sure love him enough.

------------

Update 11/08/2024: I feel like I've stopped loving him enough to possibly hate him. It's kind of sad.

In a few weeks I am going to have my first psychiatrist appointment, my first appointment with a mental health professional in my whole life. It's surprising, but not really, that it didn't happen sooner.

Yes, I was a weird little kid, even in my "extroverted" phase I had little to no friends and still now struggle a lot in social contexts. But I never dealt with any big behavioural issues, I never complained cause I thought having one single friend at a time was simply the norm, so neither me nor my parents ever considered the possibility of there being something different/wrong about me.

Yes, I always dealt with problems staying focused or motivated. God knows how many times I did my homework at midnight right before the due date, how many tests I did without studying because I couldn't bring myself to sit down and read, how many personal projects I have started and never finished simply because I lost interest on it. But my grades were always at least decent, and never finishing things is normal for a child, right? I just had to wait till I grew up, then I would have the responsibility to finish the book I wanted to write or the song I wanted to produce.

Well, now I've grown up. Some things have changed. I still struggle with social contexts, but at least I do have mutiple friends. I can also talk to the cashiers at the grocery store without almost crying (my first time doing it left me exausted for the whole rest of the day lmao). I've also produced not just one song, but a nice handful of them (after a couple of mounths of procrastination on each of them). But I haven't finished any of my books, nor any of the comics I wanted to make, not the games, not any of the software i wish i had access to, not the clothes I tried designing, not the conlang I tried creating, not youtube channels I tried starting, nor any of the videos I wanted to create for those, not even the many series of illustrations I tried making around the same theme.

All of these are projects I held as closely as one could to their heart. I spent days, from morning to midnight, thinking about each of them and working on each piece that made up their whole. Until I stopped.

Every time, one day came in which I didn't feel like doing what I had to do for the project, and then production haulted, forever. What was yesterday the biggest source of joy I had, was now a dreadful mountain I had to climb if I wanted to get the reward of a finished product, one which only grew taller every new day. A mountain which always decided not to climb. After all, there was always a fresh new project for me to start working on.

This hasn't stopped happening yet.

While I struggled, I also watched as my artist friends worked on (and finished) their own projects. From the start I was amazed by them, and with each new finished work they got better at it. For years now I've felt left behind. That of course, begged the question: "Why am I not doing the same?" Even though I love my friends and the amazing things they create, a side of me has always envied each and very one of them.

At the same time I started becoming more interested in philosophy, history and politics. I also started hanging out with people who held these same interests. I was always aware that I don't know much of anything about these subjects, but these people put into perspective how little I actually knew. What in their conversations was treated as common knowledge, for me felt like gibberish. This hurt my ego, but also amazed me, it made me understand the importance and beauty of these subjects better and also made me desperately want to learn more them.

So I vowed to study. I got book recommendations and began to read them. My first serious attempt was The State and The Revolution by Vladmir Lenin. It isn't a daunting read at all, in fact, it was recommended to me as an introdutory text about marxism-leninism and indeed reads as such. It was a very interesting read that has since changed my out-look on societal issues and the fight against them. Despite this, I never finished reading it. After a couple of days, despite really enjoying what I had seen so far, I started procrastinating on it, and haven't stopped yet,

Since then, the same process repeated with a couple more reads. Kant's Critiques Of Judgement and Of Pure Reason, Hegel's Science of Logic, Aristotle's The Categories, and John Dewey's Art as Experience are a couple of books I tried getting through in an attempt to better understand Aesthetics (the branch of philosophy, not the internet thing). All of them left me excited from the very first read. The kind of excitement that keeps me awake at night, pacing around my apartment and thinking endlesly about what i just read. All of them were books I dropped after a small couple of pages.

I can't blame me, honestly. Despite the process of reading these books being interesting. It was also deeply irritating, as I would take my sweet time getting through each paragraph, many times finishing a 2 hour reading session having only gotten through 5 pages. I simply couldn't help it. Distraction after distraction would take my concentration away from the text and into my own mind. When I caught myself I had gotten through multiple paragraphs without registering a single word, so I would go back. This process would repeat itself at least a couple of times before I actually understood the text.

Even with assistance things wouldn't pan out much better. My longest running strategy was to put a pdf of the book I was reading through a TTS program which I would listen to while reading to minimize distractions. This was... more than a bit finicky, and not too effective. I would still need to re-read most paragraphs. I also tried summarizing the books as I read them, which proved itself much more effective at letting me understand and assimilate the text, but was essencially useless in speeding things up. In the end, I would still get tired of the whole process and start endlesly procrastinating, until I fully gave up. Even when I found a book easy to get through, before long I would give up on finishing the little guy.

When confessing this to my friends, a lot of them seemed to express the belief that I simply lacked interest. A common response I've heard was "you don't need to read them", which always angered me a bit. I WANT to read them. They are full of interesting knowledge which I deeply want to have. The process of getting thorugh them is difficult but so so rewarding. Sugesting that I should simply give up felt like an offense, as if I was either not invested enough to do it or simply too broken to ever get through it. Maybe I am.

It's not like I haven't read through entire books before. But they were always simple young adult/children's fiction. They were never as complex or as big as the ones I'm trying to get through now. So, technically speaking, I've never sucessfully done what I'm trying to do, despite trying multiple times.

For a long while I wondered what was wrong. Why couldn't I get through these books, despite so desperately wanting to? At the same time I failed to get through my personal projects, despite so desperately wanting to. I finally noticed the connection. I actually remember the morning it clicked. It was because of a different related incident at my graphic design job.

Generally I'm not the hardest worker, if I'm being honest. I put as much effort as needed to get a result I'm happy with at a pace my boss is willing to accept. The bad part is that, when this indicent happened, my usual pace had been getting slower each new day. At first, when I joined the agency I work for, I could get a project done in 20 minutes, then after a week I delivered each new project in 30 minutes, when my boss decided to start asking me to upload my work onto Google Drive, that slowed down to 45 minutes. Before long, one project every hour became my norm. This worried me, since I to this day depend on this job to pay my rent, but I couldn't identify what had been slowing me down until it started screaming at my face.

This brings me to the faithful morning in which i noticed my problem. That day, I started with a simple project, a flyer design for some american small business which I could get done in 15 minutes if I wanted to. I opened a new project on canva and started thinking about how cool it would be if I created my own singing vocal synthesizer. The thought excited me too much so I started energetically pacing around the house, planning what its UI could look like. Before I noticed what I was doing 30 minutes had passed. I went back to my desk, set down, and grabbed my phone planning to check the time. Instead I opened twitter and scrolled for a couple of minutes. When I noticed what I was doing I left my phone on top of my desk and got back to work. As I typed the company's slogan into the flyer my mind went back to the vocal synth idea, prompting some random technical question to pop into my head. Googling it real quick wouldn't hurt, right? So I openend a new tab on my browser, on the time it took for me to do that I forgot about the question and instead instinctively typed "twitter.com" into the search bar. I again scrolled for a couple of minutes before remembering the question I had and I actually googling it this time. Once I had read through some web pages, I went back to work, deciding to include a background shape to decorate the slogan and make it stand out. As I adjusted the shape, I also considered that it would probably be a good idea if I tried figuring out how I would actually program the vocal synth I wanted to make. I opened youtube so I could search for some tutorials, instead I stared at the homescreen, since I had forgotten what I was there to do. After some minutes of thought I looked into the clock, 1 additional hour had passed. I got back to work and added a cute image into to flyer, before quickly getting up and pacing around the house again. 15 more minutes went by before I set back down, switched to the tab I had opened youtube on, and actually opened a youtube tutorial on audio programming. after the first minute I had to pause the tutorial so I could get back to pacing around the house out of excitement.

I think you get the idea by now. After some more minutes of doing anything but what I should actually be doing, 2 hours of my work day had gone by and I had delivered nothing. Upon trying to search for any advice on the matter, all I could find were articles on ADHD.

This wasn't the first time I had been brought to the question of whether I might have ADHD, but it WAS the first time I took the possibility seriously. You see, I had discarded the possibility long before, ever since I heard kids with ADHD tend to struggle with school. As already stablished, school had never been an actual issue for me, so I concluded it couldn't be the case.

Of course, this was a dumb mindset from a time I didn't understand at all how mental disorders worked, but it shaped my perspective on the matter even years I started learning. This incident helped me notice my mistake.

So I started trying to actually learn about ADHD. Coincidentally at this time most of my social media algorithms decided to bombard me with content about autism, this lead me to start learning more about the experiences of people with both ADHD and ASD and it was... eye opening to say the least.

Before this my experiences learning about neurodivergency had been shaped by a subtle feeling of "i can kind of relate to that", especially towards autism and ADHD as individual disorders. But when brought together, they seemed to explain my entire life. Now the feeling wasn't subtle and uncertain anymore, it was a strong "oh my god, that's literally the exact thing I went through". When I decided to read the DSM-5 sections about each of them I wasn't at all surprised to be simply reading a list of what I had grown to believe were simply my quirks.

My weird little repetitive movements and inability to seat still had a name, stimming. My deep years long love for vocaloid music and learning about art also did, special interests. My difficulty with finishing what I started wasn't just childishness, it was (clearly) related to my difficulty with sorting out priorities and procrastination. They were all symptons of a developmental disorder, affected by it's interaction with a second one.

Well, at least it seemed to be the case.

As said on the start. I haven't seen a psychiatrist about this yet. I have been meaning to for years at this point, first because of my struggles with gender, and then, ever since that day (more than a year ago at this point), because of my struggles with motivation. I forgot to make the appointment countless times and procrastinated on it for years on end because I was afraid of having to talk to a stranger.

That's why I decided to title this entry with the words "motivation disorder" instead of "ADHD". It would be disonest for me to say that I for sure have ADHD or autism, but it would also be disonest for me to pretend what I've been experiencing seems like anything other than a disorder/disability.

I know how far I could have gone already if I could simply sit still and do what I need to do, I know how many problems I would have avoided and how much I could have learned about the things I love the most. Even writing this is just me procrastinating on a mountain of responsabilities I know I have but can't be bothered to sort out.

I don't honestly know how to finish this text. There's much more I could write about it. Example after example of how this has impacted my life in many different ways, how it made me resent myself and others. But I think it would be best to leave it at this. I just hope I can sort this out soon enough, maybe get some medication, who knows. I want to be hopeful.