At 41, I’m starting to feel that mid-life anxiety about death. I’ve been trying to map out the books I want to read and some of the things I want to get done, and I’m already like five years out. Maybe learn Spanish or Mandarin. I started thinking “jfc I’ll be closer to 50 than 40 by the time I get to this”. It has me a bit down but at least it’s motivating me to eat healthier and exercise more so I can still read and do stuff as late in life as possible.

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I left the one group chat I was in and gave up on the concept of having friends. It’s not just that screaming leftist malappropisms at people doesn’t work, that’s more a subset of the problem. When I do not put in 100% of the effort and make myself 100% available all the time and message people first, people stop talking to me. It’s not a two way street, they just don’t even bother. I am putting in all the effort, because I guess I need them way more than they need me.

But there’s also just no friendship or conversation if I do not give all possible ground to people. I understand that my special interests are improbably weird, even the really mundane ones, but it is like if I talk about them at all it’s an instant kill to any conversation. I have facilitated actually having “friends” by pretty much exclusively talking about whatever it is they wanna talk about, all the time every time. These people barely know anything about me as a result. It’s kind of infuriating.

So I had a fuckin meltdown and gave up, wrote a little rambling screed and left that group chat. I am now trying to devote more time to feeding my special interests, like making Sonic Adventure look/sound/play properly, recording cassette tape copies of stuff, multichannel audio and weirdo trans-sapphic books. Fuck trying to gut yourself and hiding your whole being for the sake of having “friends”.

That’s the worst part, though; I fell back into masking again. Like obviously if you wanna make friends, it helps to A) have similar interests, and B) give a little when it comes to interacting with theirs. But I just fell into the trap of totally eschewing stuff I like for the sake of other people. Honestly fuck talking lmao

I’m honestly doing really good. This year’s been rough. Year 2 of family no contact, break up on my birthday earlier this year. But i still have a lot to be thankful for. My new partner is a leftist instead of a lib so we are more compatible. My ex didn’t like to cuddle so i was very touch deprived in my last relationship, that was hard.

It was tough losing all the shared friend group because she literally just changed overnight after some family trauma and moved back home to a conservative state. Being trans and already having been hate crimed, i didn’t feel safe to move there with her, but i got “punished” for it socially :|

My ex family, i miss them a little, but if they’re so shit they’re cutting me off just for being vegan like, good riddance. I always felt like i was the black sheep anyway, the fact that they cut me off so easily was just proof my feelings of alienation were right all along. It’s hard to struggle with missing people who were/are bad for you. My family was critical, judgemental, disrespectful, libs yet they could be kind to me and funny sometimes. I’m still somewhat in contact with my mom and it’s so fucking bananas how much she will do for her other children compared to me. When i got married, she and my sister left right after the ceremony to go shopping in my city rather than stay and hang out with me and my new wife, and my brother in law said he didn’t respect vegans. On my wedding day… because he came up with some gotcha about how vegans are okay with ethical cannibalism or some shit. And this was like 5 years ago, when i was more of a lib and wasn’t even forcing them to eat vegan at the wedding. Like i literally paid for their dead body food without complaint but then got criticized for eating plants in the same room, on my wedding day where i was marrying another vegan. Trash people lol. But still, it’s hard when your culture is like "here are the people who will always love you and have your back :) " and they’re behaving opposite of that. Complete mindfuck that i’m only just starting to heal from.

when the abuse or neglect is subtle, it’s harder to spot and heal from. It just feels like something is slightly wrong with you because everyone is treating you different. Meanwhile it’s easy to say the other more extreme trauma that happened to me was traumatizing and point out why.

Despite that, i’m doing good lol. Just a bit rough with all the holiday memories. Trying to just accept i did the best i could and let it all go and focus on how happy i am now not having to be around those people lol.

I’m doing better. I’ve been giving myself this month to rest and it’s working mostly. I’m not pressuring myself to job hunt or build a resume or whatever.

I’m finding out what I want out of life and it’s pretty doable as I think about it. I want to just live with a partner or by myself without expectations of being social/attending parties in my off time. That’s pretty cool because I’ve had a lot of stigma around being a ‘hermit’ when I just like my space.

Awful, my dog died on Christmas and I’m broke

At least my family is alive and well though, that’s more than a lot of people

Well, got the corona, which paired with my chronic diseases gave me quite a health scare

Doing well, all things considered. I feel hopeful for my future despite certain hardships ahead. In a way, I feel like I have become much better at dealing with pain and stress. I try to enjoy the silent moments as much as I can. I have been a reclusive hermit for a couple of years, but I’m really starting to meet people and hang out with friends, which is a lot of fun, and I want to do more of that in the future.

Been driving myself to madness by contemplating the unreality of existence. Seriously. I feel so detached from myself and others. And in a way I kind of like it. I’m not sure if it’s solely depression, navel-gazing, ego death, or what. Like I know I’m missing things in my life but I don’t even really care. Been reading some good books and playing some fun games and hanging out with people more. But I dunno. I feel like I’m going through the motions whenever I do these things. I’m a body moving through space and nothing more.

Earlier this year after some stuff happened, I thought to myself that I had crossed an event horizon. And that feeling has not dissipated.

Stuck in a weird place trying to figure out my future. Shit’s hard.

With family who I am not out to. I’m just so tired of being misgendered, called handsome, told how much I look like my brother, idk. It’s not their fault, but at the moment it’s easier to just not come out to them because they would be very weird about it. But goddammit it sucks

My kid just crawled today

Both still living grandparents died this year

Overwhelming compulsion to reconcile my stated values with my actions and get involved with shit in my city – hopeful I can make time for it in the new year

Might experiment more intentionally with gender expression soon

Had a job interview that I think went ok today. Of the current roster of potential interview/jobs it’s second in my choices but I think my number one is either ghosting me or drank too much eggnog and is still recovering.

ND: so I’ve spent the last day and a half looking up videos and shit on how to answer interviews for IT positions and did you know that when they ask you to tell you about yourself they are actually wanting you to talk about your last IT job? And when they ask about a difficult customer, they just want you to say you will try to help and then when shit hits the fan, ask your supervisor? They ask a bunch of questions but you aren’t supposed to literally answer them? Like when they ask what you think an IT position is, you are supposed to regurgitate the job description?

Fucking NTs are so complicated.