numb3r_5ev3n (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2023-08-06 04:58 pm
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2023-08-06 04:58 pm
Entry tags:
Addendum to my previous post:
It's basically this:
I can't look back fondly on my childhood, the 80s and the first part of the 90s, because trauma.
I don't really have a lot of great memories of my teenage years either, because of trauma.
My early adult years in the latter part of the 90s and the first half of the 2000s were a haze of avoidance and disassociation because of trauma and undiagnosed or mis-diagnosed mental illness. It didn't help that everyone around me then kept telling me I was being a selfish, self-absorbed whiner/crybaby, and the trauma and mental illness were "all in my head" (no shit, Sherlock!) and to just get over the trauma and mental illness! Just like that, just get over it! (Cue the "saying 'I'm depressed' in a mirror five times summons a Karen in yoga pants who will tell you to 'Just Go Outside'" meme,) Until I finally started to get my shit together and try to 'right the ship'" so to speak - a process that is still ongoing in the 2020s.
I thought I had mostly righted the ship in 2010 and was finally Adulting Successfully! Except, no! It was just another layer of The Matrix, like that theory that Neo is still in the Matrix at the end of Matrix Reloaded when he shocks those Sentinels, and its just Matrices all the way down!
I was still largely dissociating and getting stuck in hyperfocus mode, and it was still causing a lot of problems in my life. I did not really realize this was what was happening until a video by May Leitz sometime in 2021 where she says the magic words, "don't use disturbing media to disassociate" (starting at approximately 6:25 in the video, and CW for some disturbing imagery in this video in general.)
And I just ignored the word "disturbing" and realized - I had been using media to disassociate from my life. That I'd been doing it my whole life. That maybe a lot of people were doing this, and had been doing so for a while. That maybe it was a trend that had been trending upwards since things in the world started to get really scary and upsetting at around the start of the 2000s, and just kept getting worse.
But for me in particular, this form of disassociation led to stuff that happened while I was disassociating or because I was disassociating that led to more trauma. In my case, it was actually a vicious cycle - and has been for a longass time.
But even despite all the trauma, there were things about previous periods of my life that I liked, and now I'm kind of in the process of reclaiming those things? But some of those things are now tainted because their creators (Jay Kay Ar, Joss Whedon) have turned out to be monstrous assholes. Heck, if you look at the old fandom trifecta that ruled Livejournal back in the day: LOTR, Harry Potter, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, (the "SuperWhoLock" of the early 2000s) only LOTR is still without stain.
But this end-stage capitalist hellpocalypse (in which I still have to work for some reason) has dragged on for so unbearably long that I'm tired. I'm just so fucking tired all the time. But I feel like there's still reason to keep going, because there will come a time when the stars are no longer right for the bullshit fascist uprising that keeps trying to happen - and when that's the case, I want to still be around to see it.
Current Mood:
https://youtube.com/shorts/tp2go7GB2Dg?feature=share
I can't look back fondly on my childhood, the 80s and the first part of the 90s, because trauma.
I don't really have a lot of great memories of my teenage years either, because of trauma.
My early adult years in the latter part of the 90s and the first half of the 2000s were a haze of avoidance and disassociation because of trauma and undiagnosed or mis-diagnosed mental illness. It didn't help that everyone around me then kept telling me I was being a selfish, self-absorbed whiner/crybaby, and the trauma and mental illness were "all in my head" (no shit, Sherlock!) and to just get over the trauma and mental illness! Just like that, just get over it! (Cue the "saying 'I'm depressed' in a mirror five times summons a Karen in yoga pants who will tell you to 'Just Go Outside'" meme,) Until I finally started to get my shit together and try to 'right the ship'" so to speak - a process that is still ongoing in the 2020s.
I thought I had mostly righted the ship in 2010 and was finally Adulting Successfully! Except, no! It was just another layer of The Matrix, like that theory that Neo is still in the Matrix at the end of Matrix Reloaded when he shocks those Sentinels, and its just Matrices all the way down!
I was still largely dissociating and getting stuck in hyperfocus mode, and it was still causing a lot of problems in my life. I did not really realize this was what was happening until a video by May Leitz sometime in 2021 where she says the magic words, "don't use disturbing media to disassociate" (starting at approximately 6:25 in the video, and CW for some disturbing imagery in this video in general.)
And I just ignored the word "disturbing" and realized - I had been using media to disassociate from my life. That I'd been doing it my whole life. That maybe a lot of people were doing this, and had been doing so for a while. That maybe it was a trend that had been trending upwards since things in the world started to get really scary and upsetting at around the start of the 2000s, and just kept getting worse.
But for me in particular, this form of disassociation led to stuff that happened while I was disassociating or because I was disassociating that led to more trauma. In my case, it was actually a vicious cycle - and has been for a longass time.
But even despite all the trauma, there were things about previous periods of my life that I liked, and now I'm kind of in the process of reclaiming those things? But some of those things are now tainted because their creators (Jay Kay Ar, Joss Whedon) have turned out to be monstrous assholes. Heck, if you look at the old fandom trifecta that ruled Livejournal back in the day: LOTR, Harry Potter, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, (the "SuperWhoLock" of the early 2000s) only LOTR is still without stain.
But this end-stage capitalist hellpocalypse (in which I still have to work for some reason) has dragged on for so unbearably long that I'm tired. I'm just so fucking tired all the time. But I feel like there's still reason to keep going, because there will come a time when the stars are no longer right for the bullshit fascist uprising that keeps trying to happen - and when that's the case, I want to still be around to see it.
Current Mood:
https://youtube.com/shorts/tp2go7GB2Dg?feature=share
no subject
My 20s were pure trauma. I can be somewhat nostalgic for my teens, I guess. But also a lot happened that was interesting and I guess I mine it for stories now, even if it's a lot fucked up.
no subject
J. R. R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, 1939
I don't think you should be relegated all your life to only using one or two coping methods, and even if you have used escapism to your detriment before, that does not necessarily mean that no good can come from it ever again. You live in a world created for the neurotypicals, so you're going to need escapes and safe spaces to do your decompression or you'll get autistic burnout. Balance is good. Diversity of tactics helps with that balance, and you have more coping skills than you used to. You're getting there.
no subject