I think i need some time off.

Content Warning: This blog entry talks about depression, and briefly about grooming.

I think I need some time off. I tell myself I can’t, my bank account tells me I can’t, the chores tell me I can’t. I want someone else to do this for me, do this for us.

Today, I cried multiple times in Callum’s arms before they left for work. I felt the weight of my responsibilities, and my anger for the world. I want to create, but it was never supposed to be like this. I am not an algorithm, a machine for the purpose of curation. I’m human, with thoughts and feelings, and things I want to share that are relevant and meaningful to me.

This work used to feel meaningful. Lately, it feels empty, like something was promised to me, and that promise wasn’t kept. I want to share my feelings, without being spoken down to, or even encouraged. I don’t want encouragement. I want everyone to be angry too. I want people on my side. I want this disillusionment to go away, for my hope for the world to recover.

Every day, I pray, and the less I see improvement, the more I pray. I don’t know if it helps, but I know I feel worse when I don’t do it.

I would say I don’t mean to complain, but I mean to complain. I have a lot to complain about. My neighborhood smells like shit because people don’t pick up after their dogs, so many people are rude to strangers, men at the gym take up too much space, groceries cost too much, it’s so hard living paycheck to paycheck, please stop looking at me, please stop talking to me, please, I don’t want to be here. Please, if this is how life will be, just release me gently in my sleep.

My depression has been. . . constant. Something helps for a short amount of time, and then, inevitably, I am confronted with it again. Nothing is constant, especially not happiness. At least that’s what my brain tells me.

I journal most days, similar to this style, writing whatever comes up for me, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if it’s the most obnoxious negative bullshit I’ve ever seen in my life. I write because I need to, because I have to, because when I do, this warm tingly feeling comes over me, and the pit in my stomach starts to feel like something I cannot describe.

Lately, my inner teenager has been around more. Probably because I am so angry with the world. They were very angry too. I’ve been letting them take over my art more, and they have a lot to say. She has a lot to say? How do you gender yourself at a time when you didn’t even feel human? Sometimes she, sometimes they.

Lately, I remember a man in my church, a friend of the family, who was grooming me. The thoughts come up rapidly, just like this, at both high and low moments. I couldn’t understand why he looked at me like that, and why the adults around me were so okay with it. Did you really not see? Or were you pretending not to see? My inner teenager is very angry about that. I was always the one controlled even when I wasn’t the one doing anything wrong.

I don’t like feeling controlled. I grew up in a controlling environment, and now as an adult, I hate authority. Don’t tell me what to do, don’t give me unsolicited advice. Don’t patronize me. Don’t try to explain to me how I’m feeling—you’re wrong. Don’t try to therapize me when I give you a limited breakdown of my perception. Get to know me first. Get to hate me first. I don’t want to be hated. Of course, I don’t want to be hated. I want to be loved, but I want to be seen, as who I am now.

My moon is in Aquarius. My inner world feels like I’m floating through time and space without anything to ground me, and I’m just there, floating forever. I think I need some time off.