Princess Diaries ੈ♡₊˚•.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ Currently... ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Mood: Tranquil

Weather: Clear

Listening to: Anxiety by Doechii

Reading: Heartstrings Webcomic

Watching: Severance Season 2

Playing: Lost Records: Bloom and Rage

Drinking: Sparkling Ice Black Cherry

Perfume: Covered in Roses by Bath and Body Works

One Thing I'm Grateful For: The warmth I feel when the sun touches my face

My first and personal site Sanguine Royal turned two years old on December 26th (officially the day I started building it), and I decided to take down most of it's content with the exception of a couple of pages. I've wanted to redo my code on most pages for a long time, but every time I looked at it I'd get overwhelmed and shut my laptop lid. At some point I realized it would be easier to start from scratch rather than attempting to decipher incorrect code written years ago. Some might see it as an unecessary decision— why not just leave the old code online so that others can enjoy the site while it's getting a much needed facelift, especially if it's still relatively functional and I'm continuing to pay for the domain?

Honestly, they're right. I could've easily just left a note somewhere on the entry page that the site is going inactive/is on semi-hiatus while I work on the new code. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I just didn't feel good leaving parts of myself I didn't identify with anymore online for anyone to see. It's a bit silly to conflate bits of my being with html tags, but I started working on my personal site during a period of my life where I didn't know where I was going, or what I was going to do in regards to both my career and continuing a lawful presence in the United States with the rest of my immediate family. Despite my big age, I was foolishly hopeful that the American government would pass some kind of fix (temporary or not) on a legislative level in 2022 that would alleviate the persistant agony immigration insecurity caused my family. During the summer of 2022, I testified to members of the House and Congress about my family and I's immigration story, how we had waited almost 15 years for a chance at permanent residency, and how it has greatly impacted the trajectory of our lives. I really had hope that something was going to change. It was the first time in my life that I felt like I didn't need to feel ashamed about my immigration status, and that my words had power. Unfourtunately, amendments that would've helped the cases of me and many others didn't pass for one reason or another. Once again, the lives of immigrants were used as pawns for politics. For someone who was learning how to hope for the first time in years, it was gut wrenching. I wouldn't say that this was the sole reason why I fell into a paralyzing hikikomori-esque depression, but it certainly didn't help.

The only word that truly describes the way I felt at the time was "hollow". Where my organs were supposed to be, there was instead a large, dark cavity. I avoided speaking to most of my friends. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't have the energy to smile and lie through my teeth that everything was okay. It's not like I could've talked to them truthfully about how I was doing either. When people become my friend, they are not asking to learn about the American immigration system as intimately as I am forced to. I was so tired all the time both physically (from an unresolved thyroid issue) and emotionally (from unresolved adverse childhood experiences) that basic hygeine like showering and brushing my teeth just didn't get done routinely. If it weren't for the fact that I live with my parents, I wouldn't have ever gone outside or eaten regularly. I spent most hours of the day numbing out on the internet mindlessly rewatching let's plays of the same comfort games over, and over, and over again hoping that one day my brain would just shut down forever. Then I'd never have to think about any of this bureaucratic bullshit ever again. My legal status was a ticking time bomb too— after my initial student visa, my next jump was a visitor's visa that lasted 6 months. I needed to figure out what to do next. But there were so many moving pieces and parts that I had no idea what to do next. I wasn't the person that I felt like I should've been by that age, and it felt like battery acid slowly corroding me from the inside out.

One of the few more "active" things I did at the time was working on my personal site. I wouldn't have been able to verbalize this then, but tinkering with web page creation gave me a sense of control that I was unable to get anywhere else at the time. I am a hostage of my legal status and the American immigration system. In my day to day life, despite having graduated elementary, middle, high school, AND undergrad from American institutions, I am still considered a mere guest by the United States. I never made the choice to move to this country, my parents did and I was brought along for the journey. My life had never felt like "my own"; I had always been performing for others whether it was for individuals or institutions. But when I was working on my personal site, I was free. Although I had initially intended on just having a site with a basic about page and a couple of art galleries, I was drawn to the random bits and pieces other people shared about themselves on their sites, and felt inspired to make more pages I hadn't initially planned for myself. I started to see personal sites as a form of self-portraiture done in markup language rather than pencil. On my personal site, the only person's expectations I had to meet was my own. My only job was to exist. And this helped heal me. I thought that I was an anti-internet person back then, but it turns out that I'm really not. I had just gotten frustrated with the passive way that I had gotten accustomed with using it: turning off my brain and allowing the algorithm to feed me whatever it wants. Having a personal site where I was my only boss started a snowball of positive momentum for me. I started to reframe a lot of my life in the context of me having choices. It wasn’t something I chose to do consciously, but it started the process of rewiring my brain for the better.

I don't identify with the version of myself that had to peel themself from their bedsheets everyday anymore, and I'm grateful for that. I am the healthiest and happiest version of myself I've been since I was a child. That being said, seeing the personal site and code I had written during what I easily consider one of the worst times of my life online and live for anyone to visit didn't sit right within my spirit. On the outside it probably seems silly, especially since I don't plan on making the site redesign look super different! But that's the beauty of having a personal site, isn't it? Complete control and sovereignty over your online presence, even if it means being down temporarily. To be honest, I don't know how soon or quickly I'll be able to get a site redesign up. There are other areas of my life that I am prioritizing right now, especially my physical health and reconnecting with friends. But I think that's okay. It's not like the internet is going anywhere soon, right?

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ Currently... ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Mood: Hopeful

Weather: Cloudy

Current Song on Repeat: Choose Your Fighter by Emeline

Reading: Wanted by Sara Shepard

Watching: The OC Season 1

Playing: A Date With Death

Drinking: Kung Fu Tea x Strawberry Shortcake: Strawberry Dreams Milk Tea

Perfume: Perfect in Pink by Bath and Body Works

One Thing I'm Grateful For: Public Libraries

Hello 2025, and happy belated New Year! We're a little over a month in, and things have been relatively peaceful in my immediate life so far. This isn't something that should make me feel uneasy, but I can't help it. For as long as I can remember, I've always put myself in situations and circumstances that made me feel tense and panicked about life in general— partially on purpose, partially not on purpose.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was dealing with chronic fatigue for almost 10+ years of my life as a symptom of something bigger physically wrong with me. Because these issues started primarily when I was a teenager, I spent my formative years seeing myself as a lazy person. I didn't have the brain capacity to do much, nevermind be passionate about anything. I used to compensate for it by overloading my days with classes and extracirruculars in hopes of proving myself wrong, to put on the airs of being hardworking and successful, in hopes of finding the one thing that would hold my interest deeply enough that it'd get me out of bed. But in the end, the problem was not my willpower, it was something larger than that. I feel like part of the reason why I was able to emerge out of schedules insane for my physical health at the time decently successful was because of the amount of flexibility Covid-19 protocols forced upon institutions back in the day. I was an undergraduate student from Autumn 2019 to December 2022, so I really only had one "normal" schedule under my belt, which coincidentally also happened to be the only semester in which I failed a class in. At the time, I brushed it off as having difficulty adjusted to the rigor of college classes, which I'm sure also played a role! But honestly, looking back, the real issue was my inability to get out of bed or even sit at a desk for more than an hour to get any work done or even study. After that semester, things for the most part shifted online, so I was able to work on things more at my own pace. Things like classes and meetings were online, and I used to be able to lay down in between and take naps as necessary. My parents took care of household chores and planning meals, but doing basic hygiene like brushing my teeth or taking showers were some of the hardest things for me to do at the time. I grew up with mental health issues so it was incredibly easy for me to chalk these things up to just being unwell due to living through a global pandemic. It wasn't until I saw my mental health symptoms go into remission, my passive suicidality disappear, and the world generally go back to "normal" that I realized something seriously was wrong if I still felt the need to sleep 12 hours a day.

2024 was a really transformative year in the sense that I feel like I've finally managed to regain control in my life. I finally feel like I control my days rather than my days controlling me due to the urge to lay in bed all day. Admitting that I needed medical intervention was really fucking hard. I don't know why but it felt like admitting defeat, like admitting that I was born defective. The first time that I reached out for help was for my mental illness, and it was not taken well by my parents. From that experience I kind of learned to associate reaching out for help as a shameful thing. I really hate this particular part of my temperament. Growing up, I wasn't really modeled a stable personality or lifestyle. Instead, I feel like I was repeatedly told that I was special and free to do or ask for help with anything, but there was always an imbalance between my parents' words and their actions. There was always a desire and expectation for extraverted excellence from me as their first and oldest child, and I've always been hyperaware of this. for example, in elementary school, I was always told that I had a lovely voice and the fact that I sang was great! But being in my school's choir wasn't enough for them. I was forced to perform solo in front of an audience for the school's talent show for many years after. Me acheiving external praise and success became the antidote to the familial shame my parents probably felt from leaving my extended family back in India behind. I never felt that the average normal child inside of me was worthy of love and affirmation.

I've always felt pressure to be "successful". The issue I faced is that the definition of success was constantly changing. Being a third culture kid growing up was difficult. My parents defined success for me a certain way based on their cultural upbringing. My childhood in Canada defined success a certain way. My upringing in the United States defined success a completely different way. There were so many different ways to be considered successful, and that's all I ever wanted to be because I didn't know what I wanted for myself. I just wanted to somehow be considered unique and successful— but culture, community, and life in general makes it impossible to retain that level of "prestige". I pride myself on being an ambitious person, and I generally have the social ability to blend into any system and look like I belong there. It's always been both a gift and a curse. You can only blend into so many different environments before you start to lose track of who you really are and what you want at your core. I craved societal affirmation so badly, because deep down, I struggled with a sense of shame and disconnection from my true wants for my own life. I was driven by a deep desire to be seen as unique or special, while at the same time plagued by envy of how easy it looked for everyone one else to simply live. I believed that everyone else inherently had something I didn't have, and it fed my natural competitiveness. I shifted my attention to a special area of life to succeed at rather than going after what everyone else already had to hopefully be both unique and successful. I locked into tasks to win awards and accolades that made me feel accomplished in order to avoid having to feel any of my true feelings. My core sin is that I (used to) lie a lot, and I mostly lied to myself. I lied to myself and others about the state of my health and what I was mentally and physically capable of. My deceit was never malicious, I just couldn't bear the thought of losing other people's admiration or approval, because somewhere along the way I internalized those things as the things I should value the most. I often swang from total ego inflation to crippling self doubt all in the span of one afternoon due to the grandiose expectations that I had for myself that nobody could ever possibly actually acheive.

On the other hand, my younger brother will finish his first year of undergrad this May. I am jealous of how much more of a well adjusted of a person he appears to be at 18 than I was. We both grew up in the same household, under similar circumstances, but it feels like he's just a healthier and happier person than I am overall. I am 23 years old and still don't have my driver's license, meanwhile he got his at 17 and regularly drives himself to and from university, the very same university that I attended. At least on the outside, he doesn't appear to be upset that due to finances he is forced to live with our parents and commute the way I did. On the other hand, I cried and threw tantrums many, many times. It makes me feel pathetic that I behaved that way. I was upset that I was going to have to continue being reliant on my parents for everything, and I wouldn't be able to start blossoming into an adult the way I thought everyone else my age was. I thought that being as extrodinary as possible would make my immigrant parents' sacrifices worth it, but ironically the same reason why I was incredibly limited by what I could do was because of our statuses as immigrants. Furthermore, I was upset because I was a lesbian that had to continue living with their homophobic parents and their rules. I wanted to have the space to learn about myself and grow outside of my parents' influence, but I wasn't able to have that. Remembering that there is a past version of myself out there that wasn't able to fully understand the gifts I had in front of me despite their flaws kills me sometimes. There are thousands of people out there that would do anything to have my life and it's privileges. I know that now.

I try really hard to be empathetic with my past self, but it's really hard for me to because I see my past self as a selfish person who did not understand the value of things in life while they had them sometimes. I am afraid of the fact that I am changing for the better now, because it means that I was always capable of change. I feel like if I had taken the right steps to work towards becoming healthier sooner, I could've avoided a lot of pain and heartache in different areas of my life. It is a mix of guilt, grief, and bittersweet realization that feels heavy to hold at times. I keep forgetting to take into account that I was literally sick. I wouldn't have been able to describe myself as sick at the time because I didn't know life could feel any different, but now that I'm on the other side of it, I can say with certainity I wasn't healthy. But I don't need to stay loyal to my suffering like it's a badge of honor. Getting on medication that finally made my body and brain work the way that it's supposed to has truly been lifechanging. Sometimes I still feel the ache of hindight— I'm finally able to see how much power and motivation I've always had, but I'm also mourning the time I was not able to fully use it. I know that earlier me wasn't necessarily weak, lazy, or incapable; they were surviving, learning, and maybe even just coping with life in ways they understood at the time. Growth isn't a "should-have-been" kind of situation. It is messy, unpredictable, and honestly only happens when we are ready for it. But I am angry. I am jealous of other people that managed to get good grades and move on career wise while dealing with issues like or worse than mine. I am angry that I crashed and burned after graduating, and wasn't able to apply to medical school immediately after like I wanted to. I am angry that change requires capability and the right conditions, not just the desire for it. I am angry that a past version of myself couldn't have just taken the right steps sooner so that I could still be extraordinary for my age, instead of just being ordinary, or even below ordinary.

It stings to think of the "what-ifs" too much, but the me that lived through those experiences gave me the wisdom and grit to be greatful for everything that I have now. I'm trying my best to reframe my past struggles as the reason why I'm here now, moving forward, rather than just proof of things I could've easily avoided. My past self was not someone who failed to change for the better, they were someone who endured until I could get to the point I was ready for change. Instead of being late or behind, I am exactly where I'm meant to be, even if I am technically "behind" based on other people's timelines. I now have a deep sense of appreciation and acceptance for who I am and what I have that I wouldn't have otherwise. I feel so much more self-confident, fuller instead of emptier, and lighter instead of heavier. Even if I was sick, I was never truly a "missing" a piece of being human, therefore there is nothing I need to look for in other people to complete myself. I am currently 23 years old and I feel like this is the first time I’ve actually have been living, my teenage years or my early 20s weren’t the start of my life, this is.

My resolutions for 2025 really just boil down to hopefully continuing the positive momentum that I have going on in my life right now. I want to become a more disciplined person that doesn't allow their emotions to get in the way of getting stuff done, and I've been working on this by making my bed every morning. At face value, it doesn't mean much, but I'm hoping that it'll lead me into making bigger and bolder decisions for my life. Making my bed is an easy enough task to get done regardless of my mood, and it usually sets me up to conquer the other things that I know I need to get done that day. I also want to learn to acknowledge my feelings but not identify with them. I know that this resolution will be more of a lifelong journey rather than something that can just be "completed" in a year, so more tangible sub-resolutions I have are to journal more and incorporate radical acceptance into my life. I think that having a space and time to feel my feelings and then move on rather than letting how I feel drown me will allow me to self regulate better and form more genuine connections with other people. Finally, I want to read more and become disgustingly overeducated. There was a time in my life when I took my access to an education for granted and even saw it as a chore, and I never want to undervalue it again. I always feel better when I'm able to engage with reality through meaningful actions, and in order to do that, I have to be educated enough to do it.

Life is no longer a burden, something to be endured. I am happy to get to live it.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ Currently... ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Mood: Thoughtful

Weather: Sunny

Current Song on Repeat: "That's So True" by Gracie Abrams

Reading: Mozart : the reign of love by Jan Swafford

Watching: Gilmore Girls Season 3

Playing: Life is Strange: Double Exposure

Drinking: Alani Nu Juicy Peach Energy Drink

Perfume: Yara (Pink Bottle) by Lattafa

One Thing I'm Grateful For: Vitamin D Fruit Gummies

It's been a minute since I've written a "life update" style post for my blog, but it has been for good reason. As I previously mentioned in the introduction of my last media roundup, finals for the spring semester came around quite quickly, and then I immediately started travelling internationally. I visited Dubai and Abu Dahbi in the UAE, various cities in India, and then Singapore. I don't really plan to expand upon my experiences abroad right now in this post itself, because I'd like to dedicate seperate blog posts about each of the places I've visited where I can talk about them in detail, so please look forward to that sometime in December!

The other reason why writing blog posts, doing website updates, or really doing anything that isn't just lying in bed and sleeping has been difficult is my relatively recent thyroid disease revelation. I'm completely okay, and it's nothing actualy life threatening, but the relief I felt when I received the blood test results that confirmed it cannot be understated. From my memory, I've been chronically fatigued since I was 12 years old, which also happens to be the age that my mental health issues started. For a very long time, I've always assumed that my fatigue was just a symptom of my depression, and to be fair, it probably partially was! I wrote about it a bit in a post back in January, but I feel as though my depression and major mental health issues started going into remission after almost an entire decade in 2024, but I was still just always...tired. Although I wasn't living with an overwhelming sense of dread and fear anymore, I still wasn't able to get out of bed a lot of the time to do the things I wanted to do. I used to get scolded by my parents for how much time I spent laying down, and for YEARS I've been making jokes about how my useless secret power is my ability to fall asleep whenever and wherever regardless of how much caffeine I had to drink. Back in early 2023, I used drink the 30-ounce Panera charged lemonades and then proceed to fall asleep soon after! I always knew that this wasn't necessarily something normal, but I honestly just assumed that I was being lazy. In college, I feel like it's really normal to hear people talk about how little sleep they received or about how tired they were, so I just never gave the underlying reason for my exhaustion a second thought. It wasn't really until I started spending an extended amount of time around my parents while travelling that they realized that something was seriously wrong. I think watching me sleep for almost 15 hours straight without waking naturally was the final straw for them. I ended up getting my blood drawn and perscribed the appropriate medication. It's been almost three months since then, and I've....actually been starting to feel better! Things are not perfect of course, and to be honest I've still been adjusting to my new normal. My biggest health related goal right now is to learn how to discern between the need to actually take a power nap to make up for a lower quality of sleep I might've gotten the night before, or just a naturally dip in energy in the middle of the day that a nap will actually make worse.

The biggest thing that I've gained from treatment is my brain functioning again. Since the age of 12, I've felt my ability to think and process information slowly and steadily decline, but again, I just thought it was a matter of me being lazy and depressed rather than something with a physical cause. I just remember life feeling really foggy all the time, and I used to have a lot of trouble retaining and processing things. Now that this isn't really as big of a problem anymore, I've really felt my spark to start learning again come back, and it's been great! I've found myself actually being able to concentrate on things like reading and taking notes now, something that I haven't really been able to do in a long time. I think that the main reason why this didn't really cause me too many problems during undergrad is because so much of that experience for me was online during the peak of the pandemic. With classes being mostly online, a lot of things were open note with flexible deadlines so although I struggled at times, I was still able to get things done and graduate with minimal academic issues. With my capacity to read and focus on other things coming back, I've found myself less inclined to want to watch things anymore. I feel like part of the reason why my Youtube watching obsession started was because it took minimal effort to do. With a few clicks, I was able to have on a 2 hour long essay about something I vaguely interested in while I closed my eyes and laid in bed. However, because I actually have the energy to do more now, I don't really feel satisfied receiving information in this way anymore. Everytime I try to watch something I'm not happy just sitting down to watch it. I start to feel the urge to multitask which results in me doing neither task truly well: I've neither absorbed what the video was talking about, or I was unable to complete the physical task in front of me meaningfully because of the interference from what I was watching. Again, I'm still adjusting to this new normal, but I'm trying to embrace it. A lot of the time, I still feel the need to put on something in the background so that I'm not sitting in complete silence all of the time while focusing on other things, so unfourtunately I've managed to become my own worst enemy: a fan of classical music (LOL). Teenage me would be horrified (I found classical and slow music to be borderline unlistenable, I mostly listened to music that could keep me awake such as hyperpop and glitchcore), but I'm doing my best to embrace my changes in taste as they come. Another thing that I wrote about in the past was how I found it hard to accept changes both externally and internally, but I think that because I'm able to think more clearly it's not as hard to work through as it once was.

Overall, I've just been doing a lot of self work beyond the web to try to understand who I am as a person beyond my illnesses, both mental and physical. I honestly don't see myself creating or updating my main site in a visible way for the time being. I've been working on a slightly new main site structure (more of a Sanguine Royal v2.5 with better site organization rather than a v3 honestly) and rather than rush it, I want to take my time and plan it out properly before coding and launching it. I still plan on interacting with other sites and small communities I'm a part of as well as hopefully come back to blog a bit more regularly though! I've already been chipping away at my Q3 Media Roundup bit by bit. All in all, life feels really good right now. I feel like I'm returning back to myself.

♡

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ Currently... ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Mood: Accepting

Weather: Mostly Cloudy

Listening to: "So American" by Olivia Rodrigo

Reading: The Premed Playbook Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement: Everything You Need to Successfully Apply by Ryan Gray

Watching: The Legend of Korra: Book Two: Spirits

Playing: Nothing (...Pokemon Go? Neopets?)

Drinking: Iced Caramel Latte

Perfume: Sweet Tooth by Sabrina Carpenter layered with Midnight Amber Glow by Bath and Body Works

(Title references this poem.)

Feeling yourself grow up and change is so strange. Whenever I notice something different about myself, even if it's just the accumulation of a bunch of small changes finally making a bigger difference in my life, it feels so alien. When I become aware of a "shift" in who I am and what I value in life, my immediate feeling is discomfort. It really sucks that this is my gut reaction because more often than not, the changes that I notice are positive and serve to enrich my life. I think I just don't like change. It's not a matter of disliking not being in control, because as I previously mentioned, it usually is a result of me taking control that things change. I actually consider myself to be very "go-with-the-flow" and adaptable when changes occur as a result of other people. Part of it is because I've had to be, but regardless of why I'm like this I've been told that I handle stress very well when things go awry due to external influences. So why is it that when I start to crave exercising everyday, a goal that I've been working towards for ages now, it makes my stomach sink?

I'm not diagnosed with anything that would make me neurodivergent, and will never seek any diagnoses because of the implications it'd have on my life as an already marginalized person. That being said, I find a lot of ADHD and autism tips that get sprinkled across the internet to be extremely helpful. Something that people with autism struggle with is "static thinking" or "black-and-white thinking", and I find that this resonates a lot with how I think about myself. I feel like I hear about "black-and-white thinking" a lot in regards to external situations, but I personally struggle to see myself as a dynamic ever changing organism. The monkey brain in me wants to perceive myself as a static person that will stay consistent like a fictional character. But I'm not a fictional character. I am not plot driven and two dimensional. I am influenced by the world around me. For as long as I can remember, I've hated exercising, but now that I've started to enjoy exercise (or how I feel after I exercise), it fills me with a feeling of malaise because who I am is changing. Now that I have some semblance of why I feel this way, I'm trying to become okay with feeling the initial discomfort, sitting with it, allowing my perception of self to change, and proceeding on in my life healthier and happier.

When I started to spend more time by myself, I realized that I didn't really know who I was and was dependent on other people to define who I am for me. Honestly, I perceive that a lot of the world pities me and looks down on me. Once all that noise disappeared I was forced to discover who I was, find parts of myself that I was not fully aware of before, as well as find places that I was lacking in that I'd like to develop more.

Something that I used to be really insecure about in the past was being "out of the loop" of popular culture. Between being a child with niche interests and having immigrant parents that I couldn't learn cultural references from via osmosis, I often had no clue what my classmates or friends were referencing or talking about. It seems like a really miniscule thing in hindsight, but at the time I was already dealing with feelings of detachment from others, so my inability to connect with others in this way made me feel awful. At the time, there were many popular television shows that I hadn't watched because my mother wouldn't allow me to, and many popular musicians I hadn't heard of because I felt like I couldn't relate to liking their sound or lyrics. At that age, I better related to anime characters in extremely exagerated fictionalized environments and vocaloids that told elaborate stories through their songs rather than listening to another pop song about heartbreak on the radio or watching serious movies about social norms that I couldn't understand. At one point, I became determined to no longer be an "outsider" in this regard, and I became addicted to watching countless television shows and listening to music from musicians that I didn't care about just to fit in. As a combination of my addictive personality and desire to catch up socially, there was a time in my life where I'd spend hours of my day wasting it on the internet just to make sure that I knew everything about anything that I could, just so that on the off chance that I was in a social interaction with someone, I wouldn't be ostracized for not knowing about something. It was awful. I hated myself for it. Especially because I know that if I was not living with my parents, I wouldn't have been able to take care of myself sufficiently. I have a lot of interests, and a lot of my interests have communities behind them: the personal/independent web, jfashion (girly kei and lolita), vocaloid, youtubers, game dev, podcasters. Even in my more niche interests, I didn't want to be "behind". I never wanted to be behind. At some point, it got to the point where I wasn't completing the basic things I needed to survive or get done. Luckily, because I lived with my parents, I was always well taken care of, but there was always a gremlin in my soul tugging away at me for not being a normal "functioning" person. In my head, everyone was born into this world with a little handbook teaching them how to be a functional and social human and mine never got delivered. So I've always been behind, always been forced to try to catch up.

I was always afraid to even indulge in some of my interests online because I was afraid of being seen as a "fake fan" of something if I didn't go "all the way" for some of the things I loved like constantly attending livestreams, or running and being an active fan account and being a good "mutual". I was perpetually keeping myself in a state of misery because of my own toxic standards and need to be everything to everyone. But it's impossible to be everything to everyone. I thought that the only things being worth into is whatever's "popular", not the things that I personally enjoyed. But the reality is, I work in seasons. I have a lot of interests, and they ebb and flow, and modern social media and the relationships that they cultivate do not allow space for that. People are expected to "niche down" and I don't want that for myself. Although I don't believe that modern social media is all bad, it's undeniable the effect it had on my perception of people, relationships, and myself.

I sadly don't recall which Youtuber said this, but they talked about how sometimes Youtubers who decide to quit the platform and pursue a "normal" job sometimes feeling like they are "losing the game". But are they really losing the game if they are quitting Youtube to pursue a career that is better for them? Having social credit and being popular isn't everything, especially being popular on the internet. It made me think about my mindset about having to feel like I was caught up on everything. I realized that I really don't want to be caught up on everything all the time. I used to believe that it was social media feeds that were the problem— the ads, the lack of privacy, the algorithm, the shortform content. In truth that was only part of the problem for me. I discovered RSS, and subscribed to the RSS feeds of everything that I could, but that only raised new problems for me. The longer I'd avoid my RSS feed, the more unread feed items would appear. At some point, I was spending more time than I was comfortable with just clearing my RSS feed reader. I wasn't even meaningfully interacting with the content that was appearing on my RSS feed anymore. It made me realize that I needed to let go of the feeling I've felt since a young age to "catch up", even if it filled me with an initial feeling of discomfort. I will never catch up. It is not possible to catch up because there will always be an endless feed of content to consume. I have to redirect my addictive tendencies elsewhere. I needed to let myself finally "lose the game": achieving the unttainable goal that I had set up for myself when I was younger. What I thought would make me happy (always being up to date on everything) was not bringing me happiness and fufillment. So I finally let myself lose the game. I want to use my completionist and perfectionism tendencies towards building a better and more fufilling life for myself.

I have been redirecting my addictive tendencies to other places now. Rather than allowing myself to become addicted to long form content like 2 hour long YouTube video essays or the endless tiktok or twitter scroll, my hits of dopamine come from completing tasks on my to-do list and doing small things to take care of myself, including but not limited to my exercise goals. I've been channeling my addictive tendencies into becoming invested in musicians and their discographies. I have only been allowing myself to be sucked into the things that serve me. Music is shorter than television shows or movies, and if I choose to take a break from my work to listen to a song, it will only set me back in my schedule a couple of minutes rather than setting me back 2 hours or giving me task switching hangover. Music also is a way for me to connect with other people, so I am still giving myself a way to be able to form connections with others whether it's through bonding over enjoying the same musicians or being able to introduce them to something new. I am able to listen to music while doing other things (i.e. my eyes don't have to glued to the screen to understand what's happening). I love being able to decipher the stories that musicians tell through their music. It is also capable of putting me in the mood to do more of the things I like: writing and art! In the past community wise, I was spending so much time consuming other people's work for "inspiration" that I wasn't even creating my own art anymore. It'd end up turning into doom scrolling, because I'd start to make myself feel worse about not creating while also obsessing over other's work. Ever since I started sourcing my validation from myself, I'm less inclined to feel pressure to be active in communities of my interests in order to make sure that people will interact with my content. I feel lighter and free. It's a lot more fun for me to channel that obsessive energy into things that I'll personally never be a part of like the music or movie industry. It hits a little less close to home consuming these things, so I'm able to consume that content without guilt. I don't feel lazy for scrolling instead of creating. Instead, I bookmark the pages of artists and websites that I like, so that I can choose to go visit on my own terms.

Maybe there are people out there who are able to be socially aware with the happenings of the world, take care of themselves, while also being able to do heavy brain things like keeping up with their school work. But I am not naturally one of those people. I've learned what's important to me and what to prioritize, and these things might not be the same for everyone. Accepting myself where I am as who I am has greatly improved my quality of life. I don't want to be the same person that I was when I was 16 years old. I want to grow and change and blossom into the person I want to be, even if it brings me discomfort due to change and letting go of things that were once important to me. I want to accept that although I was not the best person in the past, I simply did not have the resources and the experience to be the person that I am today. I don't want to hate the past version of myself for having different priorities than I do now; I want to accept myself growing and evolving, just as humans are meant to do. I want to accept that as I gain more life experience, I will change and I will have to get used to it. I want to accept that a "future me" may contradict a "current me" and that's normal. I was not put on this Earth to be popular or understood by people. I was put on this Earth to simply live.

Went through my old Tumblr blog from 2017-2018 and found this image that I had tagged "mecore". I need to remind myself of this sometimes!

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ꒰ঌ Currently... ໒꒱ ⊹ ࣪ ˖

Mood: Anxious, but Determined

Weather: Partly Cloudy

Listening to: Can’t Catch Me Now by Olivia Rodrigo (+ her album GUTS)

Reading: My Figure Zine by Ophazines (You should read it too here) (๑>؂•̀๑)

Watching: The Anti-Trans Propaganda Film Made by a Cult Video Essay by Jessi Gender

Playing: That's Not My Neighbor

Drinking: Iced Lavender Matcha Latte

Perfume: Fireside Flurries by Bath and Body Works

I generally look forward to writing blog posts as a form of mindfulness, but for whatever reason I've really been struggling with articulating my feelings this time around.

I will be attempting to apply to medical schools again within the next few months, and if I'm being completely honest, thinking about it makes my insides turn inside out. I was supposed to apply last year and only take one gap year, but midway through the process and application cycle, in lack of better words, I fell apart. I try not to be too hard on myself about it, I was in a really dark place this time last year after everything I was forced to shoulder immigration wise on my own with little presedence or guidance. I want to be a doctor, and I want to work in the healthcare field. This much I know. Being completely candid, if I'm not doing something in healthcare, I'm not sure what else I like enough that I'd be willing to do as a job.

I'm in a better place now, but everytime I start to work on my application, I feel myself become paralyzed. It's weird. I should be excited to be making tangible steps towards what I want for my future, but instead I become full of dread. I mentioned this a couple of blog posts ago, but I don't let the world define who I am anymore. It's not a mindset that I adopted overnight. It took a lot of hard work, discipline, and a year of girlrotting to change my unhealthy thought patterns. Ever since I was a young child, I depended on the opinions of other people for my sense of self. For example, I used to think I didn't suit the color pink or soft aesthetics because I was a midsized brown person, not a pale ghostly thin white girl. I saw myself as a brutish and uncouth individual. Whenever I was in a same sex relationship, I was always seen as the "masculine" one. Whenever I saw brown femmes unabashedly embrace their feminity I felt myself become green with envy, because why were they able to ignore what "society" deemed appropriate for darker skinned femmes? I always thought that I'd be making a fool of myself if I reached for the things that appealed to me rather than what the world thought suited me best.

Since unintentionally isolating myself after graduating undergrad, I learned to listen to my own inner voice a lot more without letting other people sway my thoughts and emotions. For the first time in my life, I was free from the expectations and pressure of "keeping up" in my life. I've since come to understand that I both look and feel my best when I'm being true to myself, and trusting my gut. I feel like ive reached the point where i dont feel like i need to overexplain my circumstances and life story to validate my emotions to other people, yet im gonna have to essentially do that in my application again, and this subconciously keeps me from prepping. It feels like returning to a mindset that I've outgrown. By recounting my memories of undergrad via writing for my application and reaching out to old mentors for letters of reccomendation, I feel like I'm taking steps back in my mental health recovery even though that's not necessarily true. I don't want to have to verbalize and recount how I felt during 2020, trying to learn acid-base chemistry during the peak of the pandemic while simultaneously being worried sick about USCIS processing delays and the possibilities of Trump being elected again for another 4 year term, and not even having a voice in what happens in the country I live in because my family cannot legally vote. I am afraid of how dehumanizing and re-traumatizing it is going to make me feel trying to verbally articulate why I am American through and through despite not having the legal papers to prove it. I am afraid that I am going to set myself back mentally, only for it to end up meaning nothing if I don't get accepted to any medical schools this cycle. I am not looking forward to "traumadumping" on my applications while simulataneously having to play it off as it having not affected me for a sliver of empathy from an admissions comittee. I know that there's no way for me to truly "go back"— I was who I was back then, and between me aging, becoming wiser, and having life circumstances change there's really nothing that will bring me "back" to being my "old self" that I worked so hard to grow past. But sometimes feelings are illogical and irrational.

I am not going to be a perfect medical school applicant. I've failed classes, I've retaken classes. My grades are good, but not perfect. I don't have a 99th percentile MCAT score. During my undergraduate days, I used to live in constant anxiety that nothing I do will ever be good enough and that I'll never get into med school no matter what I do. I've lived in the United States since I was eight, but got stuck in the greencard backlog and aged out of my parents' application, so when I apply to medical school, I'll have to apply as an international student. Medical school acceptance rates for American citizens are about 40%, which is already pretty low. But that’s nothing compared to rates for “international students”, which are about 8%. Because of this, even though most of my life has been in the States, I don’t know if I have a future in this country, and living in this constant state of limbo is extremely mentally exhausting. Before I finally had time to refine my coping skills during the past year, there were many days where I could barely hold it together. It was a horrible feedback loop of knowing that I had to keep studying and working hard because I'd be stressed about my future, my mental health would become worse because I was overworking and overextending myself, the quality of my work would decrease, rinse and repeat. I had to continuously reassure my parents that they hadn't ruined my life by moving to America, and I was always afraid to voice how I was really feeling because I didn't want them to feel like their sacrifices were nothing. I felt like I was being divinely punished by god that I had to work harder than the people I grew up with just to live the "same" lives as them, just because my dad was born in the "wrong" country. I didn't understand why I wasn't allowed to do the basic things my friends around me could do: get their driver's licenses, get their first jobs, take out student loans to move away far for college. I didn't understand why I had to work 10 times harder than everyone else to be considered for an entry level job, hope and pray that said entry level job would be willing to extend a work visa for me, and then maybe, just maybe sponser a greencard for me. And then, maybe after five years of having a greencard, I can study for and maybe pass an American citizenship test. Just for a piece of paper that will give me the rights that my 14 years (and counting) of having lived and grown up in the United States isn't enough to afford me. There were many times during undergrad that I had to advocate for myself just to be given opportunities. It became so exhausting to act strong all the time. I was always so tired. I am still very tired. That's why I became a hikikomori for a year unintentionally after graduating. I wasn't able to keep the strong person persona, and I was afraid of it costing me my already limited opportunities. So I dissappeared without saying anything to my IRL friends and mentors. It was easier than dealing with the consequences of potentially letting my mask slip.

I am stronger now. I listen to my inner voice and gut a lot more. I have a better understanding of who I am these days. I give myself the space to feel sad and other negative emotions now instead of feeling like I need to act like a strong and inspirational person all of the time. I've changed my mindset to make sure that the only person's opinion that I value the most is my own. I can't change how the world sees me. I can't change how the world thinks of me. But that's okay. At the end of the day, everyone else can walk away from me, but I have to live with myself forever. I might as well be someone that I like. Hopefully along the way of being authentically myself, I reach my dreams of working in the medical field, I hope as a doctor, but I'll be okay no matter where I land. I hope that I make and keep friends who see me as I am and love me for me. I've mastered loving myself and spending time with myself while self-isolating, but my next step is mastering loving myself while dealing with day to day stressors, both from career and interpersonal relationships. I need to learn how to keep loving myself and who I am while being face-to-face with a person who pities me or doesn't think I'm worth my oats. Something that I didn't understand when I was young, is that everyone is born into this world with their baggage of sludge. Some people are born into poverty and live paycheck to paycheck. Some people deal with being born with an absent father, emotionally or physically. Some people live with particular health conditions that make living difficult. My immigration story is my baggage of sludge. I'm still me despite everything. I'm me because of everything I've been through. My history simulataneously makes me who I am and does not define me at all. It's wonderful.

When I was beginning my healing journey in 2022, a book that really helped me was Supernormal: The Untold Story of Adversity and Resilience by Meg Jay, PhD. In this book, Jay recounts the histories of ordinary people who came out of their adversities extraordinary. Something that stood out to me was her acknowledging that there are adversities out there that do not have a label associated with it. At the time, I didn't know that there was a word to describe what I was experiencing (immigration insecurity), but it made me finally acknowledge that I was experiencing hardships in my life, and that I as a person, am not inherently stupid for struggling through it. On the contrary, I am very strong. I am extraordinary and resilient for surviving it all and continuing to do so. It is a wonderful book and reassures it's reader that they are not predestined to any particular behavior. The book does contain research, statistics and the history of psychology but were integrated in the story, in my opinion, well. I reccomend this book to anyone needs reassurance that they are not alone, and that they are resilient.

♡