The previous month of my life
Foreward! Spoilers for my fave character from the Southern Reach trilogy are located within this blog post. Read at your own peril!
September 2023 was a month in my life. A month that, honestly, I did pretty poorly in. On the 10th of September, I said some really insistent stuff to a friend I care immensely about, and that went poorly. And, uh, from there, it got worse. I broke up with a different friend of 2.5 years, I had to handle some moderation stuff in RFCK that I was not in the right mental state to handle, I burnt my hand and set off my apartment's fire alarm, my bike's back wheel got stolen, and some other miscellaneous stuff I can't remember quite well. My mental health suffered extremely severely, and recounting all this stuff won't do much good. So, uh, I'm gonna talk about the good things.
I've done a lot of reading this past month! I read the entirety of Annihilation, and then read Authority, and then read Acceptance. In, like, sequential order! The entire Southern Reach trilogy is really, really good, though I think Acceptance was definitely the weakest in the trilogy. I love John "Control" Rodriguez (or, as all my friends hear me call him, "John Control"), he's the best guy ever. I love him so much 😭. He turned into bearjak and then jumped into the Area X source and. Damn. I love him so much, and his fate is wholly uncertain because he loses any perspective 😭. But, y'know, it's very fitting for his character. I just. Damn. I love John Control so much.
Da books! From Stillwater Public Library! 📗📙
I've also been reading Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, after light encouragement by M@. I just started on book 4, and, uh, Stephen Stills is my favorite guy. By a very wide margin. He's the Guy ever. Him and John Control should team up sometime.
More books! From Stillwater Public Library! 📚📚
Lotta reading; it's a fun thing to do! But, uh, other than reading, I've mostly been gaming, talking with friends, and schooling. And a shitton of despairing and sleeping, 'cuz, uh, bad month to be Zug. I tend to try to downplay it to friends sometimes, but, uh. I'm recognizing that that's kinda impossible. I've put far too much on my plate to handle things alone. Or, uh, attempt to, at the very least.
Usually, when I'm riding out the end of a hypomanic episode, I feel like I can hide my Bipolar 2 pretty well. This is a glaring, repeated misjudgment. I can't "hide" my disorder; it is me, in all the ways that I exist. But I was seriously struggling, like, extremely hard this past month. But, uh. Friends have been there for me. A few of 'em have said really touching things. "It’s only because you actually express what’s going on that the people around you can express their own care and concern for you", "you've been stronger than you think you have", and "it’s my job to worry about you" are three, uh, really touching examples from three different friends that I, uh.
It's really hard to express emotion through text. But these people really make me feel like I'm earthen. Like I'm a grounded human being, who's capable of crying and smiling and sleeping and sinking and existing in an earthen way. They, along with many of my other close friends, make me feel like I'm a person who exists. They've kept me feeling like myself.
To try and hide Bipolar 2 from my friends, and to keep going when I clearly need to stop. To reject help, when it could've saved me in the past. It's a mistake. My friends bear witness to who I am in ways I'll never see. And I think that's so human. And it's amazing to feel human.
Anyways, I made some vegetarian breakfast sausage this morning and DIDN'T set off the fire alarm. I had my front door open the entire time. And boy howdy, was smoke wafting away. I'm gonna finish up this blog post real fast; the maintenance guy to fix the leak behind my vanity just showed up. And holy shit. It smells like ROTTEN EGGS 🤮
The beautiful morning sun streaming through the front door; my Gundam letting in the light 🌞