hello. ive been thinking about socialization and my identity and productivity. my emotions are weird and i dont feel very good in general. read on! meow meow miao!!
i'm currently reading "my solo exchange diary". it's made by the same person who did "my lesbian experience with loneliness." i think it's funny that sometimes i'll look at real or fictional women in books and manga and anime and go "i am literally just like her, for real", and she's the most mentally unwell person on planet earth. we share lots of similarities. it makes me feel happy that there are other people who are so similar to me despite cultural differences. i feel like i'm not alone with my problems. she talks about how much she's yearning for physical contact with other people, and how alone she feels despite being so close to people who love her, and it's something i feel like i can really relate to as well. there's a post circulating around again of a woman on discord saying "i need a girlfriend so bad" and someone else saying "just because you're a lesbian doesn't make that any less pathetic." well i know its pathetic but also humans were always in physical contact with other humans throughout all of human history so if anything it's weird for me NOT to have a bud i can hug and nestle into the warm embrace of. so im going to keep saying it.
the author of this manga talks about how sex isn't as important as she thought it was, and the act of hugging had much more appeal than an orgasm did. i related to this a lot, i don't really have any desire to have sex so much as i really want someone to brush their fingers through my hair. if someone asked me to have sex with them, i think i would instead request to sleep in the same bed without doing anything sexual at all. although this may be due to me coping, or whatever. this reminds me of my sister who said she was aromantic/asexual when she was in highschool, but then she got a boyfriend and said she was wrong about her initial ideas. my dad suggested to me it could be a way of her brain saying "your loneliness is OK because of this excuse", and that he had a similar experience when he was a teenager (he wanted to be a priest because he was also not getting success with a girlfriend). maybe my lack of sexual attraction is a result of actually not having a boyfriend to pal around with. i'm keeping my options open and not assigning any labels until i can try it out, but for now i'm focusing on the part that IS important for me: getting hugged really hard by another person.
besides that, ive been thinking about identity for a while. what do i want to be? who is the ideal sophie? what does it look like? how does it interact with other people? what does it do all day? i dont know. i dont really like thinking about the future sophie because i dont know visually what it looks like. i dont want to imagine myself being old (this is also the reason i stopped calling myself a trans woman in high school; the thought of looking like an old lady didnt really encourage me to transition).
but when i think about my ideal current self, the outlook is not much better. that sophie probably looks very feminine, with round boobs and a cute face and kind of short with long hair and a button nose and big thighs and hips. but when i look at real-life people with those traits, i dont really want to look like them either. i want to look like a drawing of a real person, which is an idealization and physically unattainable. but furthermore, the effort it would take to look like a real-person equivalency is very high. i would need to socially transition first of all (which is something i am very unlikely to do in my current state) and i would need to invest a lot of time and money doing doctors appointments, visiting pharmacies and clinics for perscriptions, all while facing alienation from some friends, family, and coworkers. and the end result is a 1-3 year awkward period where i dont match the level of femininity that i really want.
i mean, the previous paragraph isn't entirely accurate either. realistically, i can never have the appearance i truly want. if nothing else, i want to be shorter like five feet tall, but my current hight is a lot taller than that. but even further, it's a little hard to visualize a real person that actually implements the qualities i listed above; someone who actually looks like the culmination of the individual body requirements i want to fulfill. even if i could visualize that, i can't attain it. it's honestly more productive to visualize a person that i can actually physically become, but i dont really like that person either. they would be tall, they would wear a lot of makeup to look feminine (even though i dont want to look like a person who wears a lot of makeup), would still have broad shoulders and weird calves, and would still have an adam's apple in their throat. i can wear some makeup, get breast pads, and choose clothing that fits my body and makes it look cute, but i dont even know if thats what i want.
i wish there was a book or a tutorial i could follow that tells me what i want. even if i looked like a total doll i would still have to be perceived by other people, which takes so much energy and requires me be a very resiliant person. ideally, i would have a group of other trans people i could look cute in front of so they could perceive me and i could feel like i "fit in" with, but i dont have that. i wish i did. i dont know how to get that though, so maybe thats something actionable i could do to improve my current state). i have more to say on this topic but my energy is pretty low right now, so i'll say more another time.
i dont wanna write anymore. i feel drained, like im all out of energy. but i still have so many things that i need to do. i guess this isn't surprising, since i only got 4 hours of sleep last night. i had to grade things for a class yesterday, but i spent so much time procrastinating on it (not even having fun, just scrolling on twitter trying my hardest to ignore the task) that i didnt even finish. i went to sleep late and still have so many things to do. and my "read one paper a day" goal is doing horribly, i am basically like 20 papers behind on it. grrr... the internet says you shouldn't be hard on yourself for not doing the best work, but i certainly have a lot of negative things to say about myself. it would probably hurt my energy a lot more to type it all out so i wont.
i can say a few things actually. i hate how im always playing catch-up with my goals. im always falling behind and im never ahead of the game. it just feels like im constantly trying to get back on track, pushing off very simple tasks to the very last minute. a few days ago i had to program an arduino to blink some lights for a homework assignment, which should be very fun and enjoyable to do, but it felt like such a chore to do because i was required to do it. it should have been FUN, i should have completed it so much sooner because its a thing im legitimately interested in, but i feel so bad right now. it took me 30 minutes to do but i spent three and a half hours on twitter because i wanted to think about anything else besides the activity itself. why would my brain do this? how do i resolve this? earlier this week i submitted two incomplete assignments for the same exact reason. my grade is being negatively affected due to my inability to just do work on time. GRAH!!! THIS SUCKS!!!! AAAGH!! and every moment i delay on the tasks i actually need to do is just another moment of catch-up i'll need to play!!
and even worse, the goals are very well-defined. i know exactly the tasks i need to do, i just need to DO them. but motivating myself to do them feels impossible. other people are working so much harder than i am and i just cant get myself to do anything. i'll go scroll on twitter for hours and i dont even like doing it, i know entirely well that im only doing it because i DONT want to do the other required tasks. how does anyone resolve this?
i've been thinking about how other people are able to work 14 hours or more a day. a book on graduate school i was reading (named "a phd is not enough!") described people who are in the lab for 18 hours a day, so why are they able to do that and im not? i think for some people, their motivators are a lot more direct than mine. for example, for me i can successfully say "im not going to work on my research this week because there will be no short-term repercussions", but other people will definitely have short-term repercussions if they dont work. a nurse can work 20 hours in a day because they're constantly being ordered around by other people to do specific tasks, and if the tasks aren't clearly completed within a small timeframe then they get punished. i dont have that. if my tasks aren't completed, im punished with either (1) the disappointment of colleagues or (2) bad grades/progress that must be ammended by more future work. this means my brain can subconsciously go "i can live with disappointment, and i can work even harder in the future to make up for lost time." but i cant just "work harder" in the future, because there literally is not enough time in the day to do it. and even if there was, i literally cannot force myself to put my eyes on the paper and have them move from left to right without having the incredible desire to do something bad.
even worse, the only two solutions to this problem are either (1) set more realistic goals, or (2) work. if i had perfect utilization, i would be able to finish everything i wanted to, but i obviously dont have perfect utilization. and my goals are required for me to succeed in the way i want to, so i obviously just want to fix my brain and have it put in the work without me needing to adjust my goals. so i just need to work harder. i just need to work harder, that's all i need to do. i just need to work harder. i just need to work harder. i just need to work harder. all i need to do is work harder.
ok im done writing i dont wanna anymore. my brain has more thoughts and this ending is sad but i dont want to write any more. if productivity is important i need to reformat my brain to combine "relax" activities with "productive" activities (e.g., make my brain think "cleaning" is downtime, so i go clean whenever i want to relax). but dude this SUCKS. THIS SUCKS. i dont want to. GRAAAH!!! BUT WHAT DO I WANT... i dont know. this is why i go on twitter & spiral, its cuz its the easiest way of turning my brain off when things get hard. i know it would be great to work through these ideas in a productive way, but that means finding solutions to problems. this blog post has been mostly just complaining and ranting and venting and not many tangible, actionable solutions besides "i just need to work harder" even though im working as hard as i physically am capable of, so i dont know. I DONT KNOW. grrrrrrr....... ok im done writing bye ^_^
ohhh one more thing. im entering my social arc where i message people and like receiving attention. you can message me. my discord and twitter are "urlslug". say hi to me. please say hi to me. im still too shy to start messaging other people but if you message me first then its good. heehee.
- Sophie