I feel like i’m going insane. Summer is slipping away and im wasting it. Every day is the same and nothing ever happens. I waste time i waste all my time and soon there won’t be any left. I hate myself for eating i hate myself for not eating. I talk to my dad and he’s not even angry but i still cry because i don’t know how to do anything else when it comes to him. Im crying right now. Ive done nothing compared to everyone around me and i know it’s not fair to make that comparison but i do it anyway. I quit my therapist years ago because it’s fine i’m fine now and i didnt like her anyway. Im scared of the dark im scared of being alone im scared of everything and everyone is sick of it. I hurt myself but not enough for it to really count. I want to scream i want to trash my room i want to let people know that im not okay. But im okay actually im fine. Im fine im fine im fine. Gosh, why am i even writing this im so sorry

First off SILVER *hugs* glad you're back! i actually was about to post something else on here and then i saw you posted again

it doesn't sound like you're fine *hugs* and don't be sorry. if you hurt yourself at all that's really not great, and it definitely counts. also, depending on what it is, you might want to look up first aid for it (if it doesn't need it, that doesn't mean it doesn't count either.) do you think you could get another therapist? you could always try a different one. they'd be able to help more than i could. you say your dad isn't angry but it also sounds like he's not helping, which is also not okay. do you have anyone else you could talk to? i remember you mentioned some friends, do you think you could talk to them? if they're good friends they'll find a way to help - if they aren't, i'm really really sorry and i promise you deserve someone better and i really really hope that you could try talking to someone else, even as much as it would hurt/be hard. you've said your parents are loving and supportive, but if you feel like you can't talk to them or talking to them makes you cry that's still not okay, and certainly something they need to work on. maybe a first step could be asking if you could try getting a therapist, who might also be able to help with communication things from both sides. (I'm assuming you'd probably be able to because you had one before) also maybe researching how to prevent or deal with hurting yourself, if you're in a relatively good day, not if it'll trigger you. also, do you think writing down something could help you explain it better to your dad? or you could just say that you need a therapist. just a few potential options idk.

it's okay to "waste time" or not be productive. you don't have to be productive. it's okay to not worry about that, especially when you've been worrying about it so much for so long. everyone around you might be doing a lot, but everyone has a different amount that they can handle. and if your mental health hasn't been great maybe yours is lower. and maybe doing so much for so long has been wreaking havoc on your mental health too. if you really can't break out of that, also, you'll be more productive when you're struggling less, and besides that it hurts less to hurt less and that's also good. 

also: it doesn't sound like you are okay. so don't try to force yourself to be okay because you think you should be okay. if there's anyone you trust at all irl, please try to talk to them and try to get help </3

idk if any of this helped, if not let me know and i'll try to think of something else. either way *hugs* 

SILVER!!!! I’m so glad you’re back! all of the school stuff sounds miserable.

I honestly still think it might be good to try out a therapist? I know that you’re busy, but they might be able to help things not get to that point again, especially if your friends are dealing with a lot and you don’t want to overwhelm them. And if they can help, it will be a lot easier to be productive and do the things you want to do. If the issue is that you don’t want your parents to get that involved or concerned, maybe you could say that it’s not that serious and you mostly just want help managing all of your workload because it's making you a bit stressed? I know there are a lot of bad mental health professionals out there sadly, or just ones who aren't a good fit, but if you could find a good one that could really help. And you don’t have to stay with it if it doesn’t help, but you could also always see if there is an option to try multiples to see if any are a good fit. Or maybe you could look into self help books? Idk, just thinking mostly. I also saw that you mentioned eating in your post, please eat! I don’t know why it’s hard for you, but even if you think you shouldn’t eat, it’s much better to eat, and please don’t feel bad about eating or not eating (ideally you should eat enough, but it’s not something to feel bad enough if you can’t). Also maybe try to find a simple food you can generally stomach for when you don’t want to eat? Or not necessarily simple, just in case you haven’t eaten for a while simple might be better than like fried rice doused in sriracha or something, and also probably it’s best to eat a little first and then have more later. but that might not be an issue for you, i just tend to eat like a bit of ice cream or a few cups of tea in the morning and then not really eat anything until a lot later and by then my stomach really hurts and i can’t really eat without feeling really sick. Idk if it’s a big problem for you or not, just in case though.

I just got my wisdom teeth out ToT i couldn’t play for a long time because of how you rest your chin on the violin and now i still can barely play because i’m so tired because i’m still sick :( but yeah. The earrings thing is cool! I wish Trinket could find some bones in the forest and give them to me… maybe fae could make them into earrings? Or necklace? I don’t have pierced ears. anyway my excuse to only eat ice cream is going away help. I hate food why do you have to eat *sobs* ice cream is good though. I made fudge sauce for it.

You’re going to a writing camp?! That’s so cool! Let me know what kind of things you do! I have another orchestra camp in a bit, and then another one that i’m especially looking forward to. The violist at that one who you work with is amazing and also really nice.

As for music, tons and tons of ballets. Or, the same ones over and over again it’s great. And i’m weirdly critical of my non-classical music taste, because i don’t know it well enough kind of and mostly know every single song by several specific artists instead of knowing several songs by multiple artists, and often don’t like a lot of them. Also i mostly listen to that when i’m drawing and have the strange urge to watch something other than ballet for a bit (i know, what is this madness?) i actually am still working on your music recs XD there’s a few artists i’ve been meaning to look into like Talking Heads (who i know a bit by but not much), but i’ve mostly been drawing while watching Cinderella so. I don’t know why i’m so deeply afraid of having a taste in non-classical music… I’ll look into what you mentioned at some point though, probably in like 3 months XD also for viola/violin i'm doing Kriesler's Praeludium and Allegro and Rebecca Clarke's Viola Sonata, both of which are really fun and pretty.

I’m kind of worried at some point i’m going to start reusing metaphors and losing all my creativity but there are also so many ways to work in even one theme… metaphors are also hard because they can be interpreted so differently and if you’re not careful you can get “it’s a dark and stormy night. Everything is horrible and serious and terrifying. Lightning flashes like a field of daisies glowing in the warm sunlight” and it can really ruin the mood. Not to mention that i’m not sure if my writing is purple prose at this point… it can be hard to assess the benefit vs risk. But i also want to get across how much Reshinerr lives in his own world and layers it onto the real one. 

Oh also! Since you draw now you might find this funny - it’s hilarious how people write artists so often. Like sketchbooks full of perfect drawings (and not even any perfect studies or “tests” (like a thumbnail of a larger drawing) for those perfect drawings!), drawing professional-looking in one size of ballpoint pen with no pencil sketch… drawing to escape into your own world and then it turns out good and you don’t end up crying because you should be better… sounds nice doesn’t it? XD also the drawing to escape into your own world thing always feels so like… idk the word, kind of romanticized. But i live more in my own world than the “actual” world XD it’s just always funny. Are there any tropes that kind of bother you, probably in a less serious way but it doesn’t have to be? It’s interesting how people can love something and then there’s too much of it and then they hate it :P 

It’s the 4H fair like tomorrow, i’m not prepared at all. They moved the date up a ton. I may or may not have writing done for it, really need to finish a drawing I’m doing for it, have some photos i need to print up, and then i get to bake a ton tomorrow! (i wrote this part yesterday) Also i transplanted some herbs today; hopefully they keep doing well. I have the pots sitting in some water on the plates under them right now (to keep the soil moist). The only thing i do in 4H is a gardening club on occasion and the fair but that’s fun.

also because of the drawing: I hate traditional art *sobs* okay so i don’t, and i don’t think i’d like digital nearly as much, it’s just that you make one mistake and you have to do everything over… at least the tic in my arm mostly goes away when i’m drawing. anyway i've been struggling with some composition details and i think they're mostly figured out now but still

The writing thing sounds so cool :0 the musical thing!! And everyone being queer!! And writing!! It would be really cool to write music, like songwriting vs classical music. (i’ve written some amount of classical music.) i don’t think i could write for three hours though… i switch what i’m doing a lot. Will you be taking a hiatus during that? (i just want to know what to expect) 

Ooh let me know if you do another ski lodge! Have you written any others in the past? A lot of what i write is also weird XD if you can’t tell from my ski lodge. Though idk what you mean by “weird” in your context.

The writers in books thing yes i know what you’re talking about XD the weird thing is, isn’t it writers writing writers?? I guess they’re just like “well you know what’d be great?” because who can write that much in one sitting?!

The 4H fair is basically you make projects and they have judges you talk to about them. 4H has “clubs” like a garden club where there’s a garden at a wildlife place that we take care of, and then the food goes to the animals. There’s more that i don’t know about too probably.

I saw you got published - that’s so cool!!!

i’ve been debating making a writing goal… i tend to write like 10,000 words on a novel length thing and then get obsessed with something else and move on XD the issue is making a time that works, because i practice all day, have no sense of time, and also get very very upset if i miss something. I might just do a check-in at the end of the day. The problem is i am so bad at following through with time-based routines. I have a lot of ways that i have to do things but not as much daily routines because i have no sense of time XD

I’m so bad at short stories though, they always get turned into something longer and i’m not good at it because i don’t get as attached. Or get too attached. I’m also i tend to be imagining one of my worlds (usually the Reshinerr one XD) all day so i’m more likely to be thinking of that. I’m the opposite with art, i usually just do quicker sketches.

The appetite thing definitely could have to do with stress. Hopefully writing camp will help with stress? Also please don’t let yourself get sucked down the body image path, that’s really not a good place to be, and it doesn’t matter what your body looks like, and even if you think it looks “bad” or you’re worried about what other people think, it’s better to not be sick from not eating, right? Also it’s also kind of just genetics and stuff. Like you’re probably going to lose weight if you’re not eating enough but then you’re not eating enough and that's not healthy? Also it’s pretty messed up that people have complimented you on being skinny, and it’s totally okay if you don’t stay that way. Also, not eating enough is really physically not great. Like the “not eating and then feeling super nauseous and then you can’t eat” thing I mentioned. And feeling tired and really shaky. So yeah idk if this helps but there are a ton of resources online for that sort of thing. Tbh i’d suggest taking a look even if it’s not a big issue yet, just to make sure you can keep it from getting there. like body neutrality or positivity or such.   

Ummm the only other thing i can think of is that i’m trying to eat less meat and animal products, beef in particular, and it’s just so hard because the only other option is like… fruits and vegetables… and it’s all just kind of pointless anyway because we need major governmental change now for climate change, not for one more person to stop eating animal products. And like - all the coral reefs are dying, and then there goes another carbon sink, and also what happens when coral is gone?? What happens to the honu, the monk seals, all the other animals?? And there are effects on people too. And it’s just infuriating how little is happening. Anyway. 

That’s a depressing thing to end on, sorry. At some point i made flyers about palm oil to try to organize a letter-writing campaign that would hopefully let people know that people want change but in the end not much happened... maybe i'll try to bring that back. Palm oil in particular is hard because the organization that should help, the RSPO, does basically nothing. So RSPO certified palm oil is like… marginally better, but they allow the people to break the rules and stuff with no consequences?? Like it’s really not much better. palm oil is also in basically everything. There’s also a ton of burning forests (including things that release a ton of carbon) and then the air is messed up for everyone who lives there and a lot of them work on the palm oil fields (in extreme cases the pay can be like 2-3 us dollars a day i think) and they can’t afford medical care and have no option to leave. And yeah the whole thing’s awful. Also, palm oil is actually a better plant than a lot of the other options - it takes less space and pesticides and water. if they could make it sustainable it'd be better. Anyway. Sorry 

Uhh i’ll end here ig 

I listened to a bit of The Ousiders (i’m fairly certain it was the right thing???) and it was really good! I tend to like Broadway stuff.

It’s funny that you mention iron, i had to have iron infusions a bit ago… which is kind of strange because i mostly eat like hamburgers and potatoes and seaweed and stuff that has a lot of iron… *shrugs* i have a ton of strange nutritional deficiencies. Also frankly fish isn’t much better? I mean it’s a bit less carbon intensive i think, but fishing is still killing the ocean, and the ocean is also a huge carbon sink, and overall it’s not great. You can’t control what you catch, and so a lot of endangered fish get caught up in the nets along with the ones they’re fishing, and overfishing, and now there’s deep sea fishing because the top of the ocean is too overfished… *sighs* like i don’t want to eat this much meat, especially with the way animals often are raised for meat, but yeah. 

Performative activism is better than no activism if it gets people thinking about it and raises awareness about “here’s the issue, here’s why it’s bad, here’s how you can help” but ultimately it’s not as important as like… laws and stuff. if there are laws, there are consequences for not doing them. Granted, big companies could just buy their way out of the consequences, which is basically what they do now… *sighs*

I wish i could go to a ROH performance XD Fumi Kaneko is doing Cinderella as Cinderella next year and they might be filming it??? Please??? She’s amazing. I want to see her as Odette/Odile… i’ve also read good things about her as Odette/Odile.

Writing goals are also hard with longer fiction because longer fiction requires a lot of planning (at least the way I do it) so what if you spend all the time working on development and stuff and don’t get anything written?

I hate how strong expectations people have about age. I also feel like there’s often more of a push for kids to be given more responsibilities and such, or a focus on responsibilities or abilities and it makes sense (well as long as it's not overdone), but it’s also kind of isolating. Like driving or stuff. Which i probably couldn't do even if i didn’t have tics and such. Or stuffies being seen as babyish. Idk, i don’t mind being seen as younger (i feel younger) but i wish people didn’t care so much about age? And also i feel like i should be so much better at everything because i’m older… anyway it's just strange that people care so much about it. also i feel like there are such strong stereotypes about being a teenager and it either ends up just being wrong, or it ends up denying feelings? Like "all teens are miserable" but it doesn't seem like it?? or to a lesser degree? also there are such strong expectations around romance but that's kind of different. 

Okay sorry to return to this again but i hate the way people talk about darker YA books so much. Idk. i realize that other people like the books and i’m tired of having to say that 20 times every time i write this, but it just feels like there are so many lines of what’s okay or not. “This isn’t bad enough to take seriously and we have to resolve it very tidily and unrealistically in the end” in particular. Anything that isn’t physical is probably just going to be ignored. And even when it is physical it only ever focuses on it being physical, not on like… the way it feels or anything like that. And i just - there’s never anything that like… is relatable? Like idk. While these books still should exist, it still feels like the only thing that is ever taken seriously is when there’s a mix of physical abuse, drug abuse (often by a parent), and poverty. Idk. and like there are so many parts that just aren’t mentioned, even within those things. Like it only ever focuses on physical scars or bruises or that sort of thing anyway, and at the same time the characters are so sure of themselves and just - i guess it’s because they have to dramatize it to some degree for writing to work, but idk. And then the theme is always that like “things will be okay in the end, and it’s okay” but that feels like far too much of a reach and it’s always like - they get taken in by friends or stuff. And so often the friends are like begging the character to get help and like… idkkkk and also the emotional stuff is often so severe and then the characters are basically fine?? Like not fine but it isn’t somehow directly affecting everything they are and they can trust their perceptions of things and… idk. It also feels like online there’s a level of “oh these poor characters they deserve the world and have been through so much” that only the characters with that mix of physical abuse, drug abuse, and poverty get. (that probably doesn’t help anyone in the real world. even besides the issues with potentially conflating poverty and abuse as always together) and it just feels like everything’s somehow so much more shock value inducing but also not really… as bad as it probably should be. And idk all of it just feels so foreign. Like when i read those books, it’s rarely like completely wrong, but if their whole life is trauma, how are they not reacting to it more? And also how is it only ever certain things? And i’m talking about books that are generally considered good representation. And ig it just solidifies the certainty that i cannot trust myself and am making everything up and idk. I just wish they made books where they took more minor stuff (or not even minor, just not really physical) seriously. Also there’s the times where there are just blatant inaccuracies - like if you hit your head against the wall until your nose actually starts bleeding, you’re head is going to be messed up for the next few days. (probably longer if you do it that much.) You will not be perfectly fine. (i know this because of meltdowns and the fact that my parents only care about me breaking furniture or hitting them at all (but they can do whatever they want any time! and deny it whenever they want!) but me repeatedly hitting my head against the tile floor? Eh no problem. It’s kind of funny actually.

Actually Dead End: Paranormal Park is kind of like this actually. Like Barney is trans and his parents are mostly supportive and just don’t protect him from his grandma and yet he gets to go run away and live in this cool theme park and there’s no sense of “you’re just complaining too much”!! Like what’s wish fulfilment if not that?! I love that show so much. Also Norma is autistic i think and i actually really like her for that. she’s such a good character and really well written. The actual writing in the show is completely a mess but it’s so gooddddd :D my favorite episode is the one where they go to the demon world on a game show (but i also haven’t finished the first season because i just watch the same episodes over and over XD) I think it’s also Christmas in July which is funny. Also I’m fairly sure Barney is Jewish and that’s subtly worked into that episode which is also cool. But idk it’s just the best poorly-written show to ever exist XD i mean it’s not that bad but the plotting is a mess

Oof wisdom teeth not fun. The “coming out to your parents as straight” thing is the most hilarious thing XD follow the directions carefully. It’s not worth risking things going poorly! It’s pretty miserable as long as you can’t eat anything though. Eggdrop soup is really good for when you can’t eat solids though - just eat it cool for a while. 

Also side note back to the characters thing - does that mean people are going to find my books really overdone and inauthentic??? Idkkkkkk. And like i’m not going into quite as much depth as i might otherwise because CB anyway. Also i tend to go more heavy on the way it seeps into everyday life and your internal world vs the actual things, which is also different. i know that there are so many different experiences and you can't just have one book, but the thing is it's just the same thing over and over. the same issues over and over. the same overly optimistic endings, and just making up with parents after they've ignored your feelings and mental health issues for years or whatnot and everything's fine suddenly. idkkk

When i’m struggling with writing, usually i find that it’s something in the thing i’m working on. For instance, maybe i’m not quite sure what’s happening next or there’s a worldbuilding detail or plot issue that i haven’t figured out. That might not be as applicable with shorter stuff though. 

Oh and also my orchestra just started chamber music groups!!! I’m totally going to do that. Chamber music is the best, because in an orchestra nothing you do really matters (well it would if you had more say on stuff but this is a youth orchestra so a principal doesn’t really do much) and also it’s just really fun. Though tbh i might do more than i’m supposed to (like choosing bowings and stuff). I just did the chamber music camp and it was so fun. The bass player there is really nice. We’re actually doing another performance next week. Anyway it’s just fun to play with him because he actually does musicality things and also we’ll like look at each other a lot and make funny faces (or eye contact as he calls it, it’s the same thing either way). The music we play is pretty easy but it’s still one of my favorite camps. Also the teachers are so nice. I actually ended up coming out there and they were just so okay with it??? Like my parents let me come out (though it was *shudders* getting to that point) and are avoiding addressing me now (so they don’t use my old name) but at the camp it wasn’t a big deal at all and one teacher in particular just kept using my new name and she’s amazingggg also she’s just coincidentally Japanese so she actually knows how to say it XD and there really aren’t a ton of Japanese people here (though there’s a far higher concentration of Asian people in orchestra stuff for some reason, but not a ton of Japanese people). it does feel kind of weird though, because idk it just feels like i shouldn't be so lucky... and i'm kind of used to not being out anyway.  

Ahhh i just made a boba tea with homemade boba it’s so good. 

oof this is super long, sorry admins!