#rappvent

[calibraptor]

How do I find the motivation to get out of bed and be productive/creative?

I feel like if I didn't have obligations/other people to prod me I'd unironically stay in bed all day long.

I may be having a Depression.

[calibraptor]

It's kind of crazy to realize how stifled my personal growth has been throughout my life.

(This be a vent that gets kinda heavy, fair warning.)

I could write an entire multi-page expose on the innumerable ways my mother has failed me as a parent.

I could write a novel about how I was verbally and physically abused by my step father.

Not even getting into the whole dynamic of my half-sister hating my guts growing up because I was the progeny of the man who abused her in unspeakable ways before she finally found the courage to speak up about it.

Being an obviously neurodivergent kid going into school in the early 2000s was a hell of ride, one that I count myself lucky that I lived through.

My teen years felt like an inescapable hell and I threw myself into whatever form of escapism I could find in order to cope.

My nose always in a book at school, voraciously reading any fiction I could get my hands on because escaping into the world of a book was preferable to reality.

Then came video games, social media, and actually finding people who were willing to accept me for who I was.

At that point in my life I deeply understood the psychology of people who'd commit suicide with the genuine belief that they'd reincarnate into the fantastical worlds they experienced online.

Their lives were probably a hell not all that dissimilar to my own.

If it wasn't for the internet and it's capability to allow me to meet and talk to people over vast distances, I probably would not be here today.

I finally moved away from my toxic family, and have come to the realization that I have an incredible amount of healing to do -- and frankly the amount of trauma that I'm going to have to face, to finally after so many years reconcile with my inner child that's been encased for DECADES in an impregnable shell of apathy and unhealthy coping mechanisms...

...It honestly terrifies me.

I'm nothing but a hollow, crumbling shell of a person who's only taken a few scant, fledgling steps towards becoming whole again, and I know the journey isn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows.

I want to rediscover and reclaim my emotions, my feelings, my ability to express myself in a raw and genuine way -- and I know that to do that I'm going to have to confront and acknowledge how much I've been hurt, and how much I am still hurting.

To relive every terrible thing that defines who I am now and allow myself to cry, to rage, to grieve, to go through all of the emotions I've kept bottled up for years, and years, and years.

It's going to be a long journey, I think.

[calibraptor]

It's really incredible how long some people have held grudges against me for, ahem...

*Shuffles notes, squints in disbelief.*

Advocating for minors to stay safe from child predators.

It is really irritating to encounter someone years after those interactions who STILL has beef with me because I told them to stay out of NSFW spaces when they were a child.

It's almost as stupid and nonsensical as the time an artist went on anon trying to police me for reblogging their "SFW" vore art to my "NSFW" page, and when I told some rando anon (from my POV) to go kick sand, they sicced a bunch of their friends on me.

It was dumb, it was childish, but it also filtered out a LOT of my so-called "friends" who turned on me because some artist wanted to invent a moral crusade to come after me for.

Said moral crusade being "Waa you violated my NSFW DNI and told me to go kick sand about it!"

A) Both of our pages were SFW by their OWN standards, I just labelled vore as NSFW whereas they did not.

B) They confronted me about it anonymously, and gave zero indication they actually were the artist in question.

Then when I finally managed to get into a DM convo to resolve the situation they tried to pressure me into deleting art I'd fucking COMMISSIONED from them.

I still regret not completely unloading on them and telling them what a twat they were being, but I decided to make peace and then quietly block them afterwards.

[calibraptor]

Remind me not to argue with nazis on Reddit.

[calibraptor]

You haven't really had a nightmare until you dream of mutilating your hands into uselessness then wake up and feel a wave of relief wash over you as you check each and every finger.

[calibraptor]

Never thought I'd EVER say this, but I think I'm getting tired of videogames as a whole, and I feel I play them more out of habit than any genuine investment nowadays.

Which is a little crazy to me because I've been a pretty hardcore gamer my entire life -- but it genuinely feels like I'm getting burnt out on them.

I quit Metaphor: Refantazio at the final stretch because I was more invested in the story than I was in grinding for the final confrontation, and ended up just quitting out and watching a video of it.

Been trying to get back into Rimworld and I'm finding that I have restart-itis with it. I'll start a colony, build things up, grow bored and then start all over... and over, and over, and over...

I've found myself setting the game to peaceful difficulty and just... leaving it running on my other monitor to watch my pawns scurry about like ants with minimal interference on my part, and weirdly enough I feel like I enjoy that playstyle more.

Tweaking job priorities, setting up workshops and communal areas, everything the colony needs to run autonomously -- and just watching all the moving parts I've set in place work as my pawns scurry about like ants.

Though it just feels pointless and unproductive to put so much time and effort into something where I'll have nothing to show for it but my own quiet satisfaction.

I still play cooperative games with my friends because there IS a point to that, it strengthens our social bonds, and videogames with friends are still fun to me!

But... man.

I feel like I've wasted most of my life on videogames.

I had a pretty shitty time of things growing up and games were a source of comfort and escapism whilst every other aspect of my life was hell.

Getting picked on in school, teachers being too apathetic to interfere, getting framed repeatedly as a sexual predator by a group of girls and being called to the office and screamed at on a near-daily basis by the school principal who believed every single lie they told.

I wouldn't be surprised if that year of constant false accusations is a part of the reason I identify as asexual today.

The harassment was so extreme that I got a 'turnaround student of the year' award because the following year those girls weren't at school anymore.

All of my family being at best emotionally cold, at worst, outright abusive.

If it wasn't for my online friends and my fun little games I probably wouldn't be here today.

I'm on the cusp of turning 30 and the realization that I squandered my youth on media consumption sucks, but it was also the only thing keeping me away from taking a knife to myself.

So many ideas, concepts, and imagery that I've never put down on paper because I'd rather just spend all day playing a game, or binging youtube, or endlessly scrolling social media.

I'm in a safer place now, with people who are FAR more emotionally available. I can finally start healing, even if it took almost half of my natural life to get here.

Maybe it's time to put the controller down, and pick up a pencil instead.

[calibraptor]

Something I'm gonna have to get used to in the north apparently is getting head-splitting headaches if I'm transitioning back and forth between the indoors and outdoors a lot when it's freezing out.

My head is throbbing ghhhgghhhh..,

[calibraptor]

Continuing the time-honored trend of going to bed WAY too early so I can be well rested for my new job, waking up fully rested at 3 in the morning, and filling the remaining time with idle internet browsing/doodling.

Heck, at least I'll be nice and tired in time for bed tonight.

Note to self to dedicate at least an hour to seriously drawing (as practice) when I get home today.