I’ve frankly had a lot of low ups and steep downs over the past few months that’s made online activity even more difficult than usual. I love maintaining this site but as I got more into self hosting and email options I got kind of burnt out just on the idea of maintaining it all as a side project. In the past week I’ve settled on what’s made me happiest, condensing my (very short run) writing site into this one! I’ve pointed the domain I bought to this site, I’ve got a new site email up and running, and at this point I’m very satisfied with how I’ve put everything together. My new and improved library page is going up this week (to think the page that’s been up all this time is nearly two years old and hasn’t been updated…….) which will host all of my stories and fictional writing in the future! The plan is to re-renovate the Commentary page to be all about non-fiction writing and poetry (which was always kind of the plan but I have not set it all up properly.)
My previously stated plans for the site are still under way, though will likely not be seen until the end of the year and going into 2025. Hopefully with my library page going up I’ll have more time for other site-related projects, as well as writing and art.
As I’ve been writing essays, I’ve gotten kind of a brainworm about making edutainment style videos and vlogs for yout*be, namely about debunking popular online myths about things like psychology/psychiatry and the more idpol/superstructural side of class politics, and talk about art/culture from my own weird socialist perspective. If I did, I would mostly be focused on making the kinds of videos people could refer to for my citations/recommended reading or to send other people, I wouldn’t want them to be super long is the thing. Short and comprehensive is what I would go for. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about going into this kind of medium before I do anything with it myself.
As for the webmaster’s personal life.
I’ve honestly been absolutely exhausted since I moved during the summer and have had a lot weighing on me over the past few years that seems impossible to escape a lot of the time. To be as candid as I can be, I struggle a lot with mental illness including most prominently major depression and schizoaffective disorder. I self-medicate most of the time (because SSRIs and antipsychotics make my condition much worse), and I compulsively self-isolate for reasons I can’t even fully explain; sometimes when I try to I get probed with questions like “isn’t that kind of a personal failing?” “it seems like you’re just antisocial/hate people” “why don’t you just [insert line from a self-help book for introverts]” “is it so hard to go to therapy?” and other demeaning things.
The fact of the matter is my life has been fucking hard. Like many disabled people, my main social support and source of social interaction is my direct family. Going places I’m not familiar with triggers extreme paranoia toward everyone and everything around me unless I’m on drugs. Some days it’s not so bad, if I’m manic, and I feel like I can do whatever I want, approach whoever I want for whatever reason, and I try to get the most out of those days. But most days I don’t get to be manic.
It’s bad enough for a condition like mine to start in early adulthood, which it does for many people. But my symptoms began in childhood, and it compounded horribly with also being an unrecognized Autistic. My life has kind of been like this for… what feels like forever. It is honestly hard to see it being any other way. It’s effected my life in irrevocable ways, from having to pull out of school to not really having people in my life I trust besides my own direct family. It’s no wonder coming to be recognized as an adult with autonomy actually seems almost threatening to me.
I’m trying to get through it. I’ll go at it alone as long as I have to, it’s what I’m used to. I want to be optimistic about what I’m doing on here and what I’m sharing, even if I myself am pessimistic. Even if I’m a chronic shut-in who only knows how to socialize if I’m masking, even if voices start warning me I’m hated and unwelcome and too rigid and esoteric whenever I get the urge to talk to someone and I should just go back to my hole to rot, I can imagine a world, vividly, where I don’t have to pay attention to it. I can think about my future and see something there, not better or worse per se, just different, just something. As long as I can imagine a future, whatever it entails, I feel like I can keep going, just to see everything through to its conclusion. I know where my struggles begin but I have no idea where they end, and I’m itching to know.
If there’s one thing that’s kept me grounded in reality it’s curiosity. Curiosity about how the world works, how we got here, and I love to think about where we’re going. Not in an optimistic way, not in a pessimistic way, I don’t care how bad things get, as long as I’m curious about life it will never be unlivable.
image for today:
