Mostly "no thoughts head empty" but also, family is over for family night, massively distracting, and my head is just...

...I've had thoughts but I don't know any of them right now, not really.

I had a thought right now that I might get around to, but let's review today accomplishment-wise. We did a fair amount of progress on art. We did a youtube upload of a vod and scheduled some extra ones. (Not the amount we wanted to tho. We wanted to schedule a full week.)

So like, given that this is a short day for us, that's pretty good, to be honest. It's not as much as we want, we didn't get to watch the latest paranormal detour video outside the premiere (we watched the entirety of the premiere live, but because it was live, we missed a few details here and there that we need to watch the video to catch), we didn't finish the collar on our drawing, 

But we're happy with the day overall.

It's a good day. Not great. But good.

I did have a thought earlier tho, that I feel I should express.

"You will be alone, you will be by yourself, you will not have another, you will not obtain fame, you will not obtain fortune, none of those things are in your future--and you need to be okay with that."

Not exactly the wording used, but it was not a negative. The message was more like. A prevention of the negative. A need for acceptance. A need for acknowledging the bad in us, but also, that the dreams we have are just dreams, that realistically speaking, we won't obtain them and we need to be okay with not having obtained them.

​I got the vibe it wasn't a doomsaying of "don't try". That it wasn't saying to give up altogether. But more like, that I need to be okay when trying doesn't amount to much. There's nothing wrong with the failure. I will never obtain those things, and need to be okay with that, but not trying to obtain them would still be a mistake, if that makes sense?

I suppose my go-to way to describe it would be the ending of Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher. (Note: we received an on-the-nose tarot/oracle as typing this which was genuinely the "embrace the flow of life" card, so like: it was genuinely 100% on the nose reaffirming we're right here. But, I digress.)
Basically at the end of that game, it more or less says, "there is no definition of morality, but the search for one is still worth pursuing", essentially. (Need to replay the game to remember it more specifically.)

In this context, it's the same basic idea.
No, I'm not going to get any of the things that I want.
But I need to be okay with that.
And then still try for them anyway.
Because the attempt to do so is something worth living for.

I'm not sure if I'm wording that well. I have the concept in my head and I know the concept in my head is right, but finding the words for it isn't easy. It's a message of acceptance and being okay, of being realistic but also idealistic. (Just got another tarot/oracle card reading confirming that I am on the right track, dealing with effectively: "do it anyway".)

Basically: I need to not expect to succeed. I need to not think I will. I need to know that I likely will fail, and be okay with it. To have peace with the failure, acceptance of it. The realism part of that. But that I should remain idealistic. Not get delusions of success, but rather, my idealism is more in keeping to try in spite of knowing there will be a high chance of failure.

If I don't try at all, success is a guaranteed 0%. But I need to be okay with knowing that my dreams of success aren't going to magically manifest. They need work and even with that work they almost definitely won't work out. It's a reading that is telling me that I need to keep going, but with an acceptance of myself.

​I am flawed. I am going to not succeed. I have issues. I won't manage to amount to much of anything. And this is okay. This is acceptable. I know what I am doing is right. I know that my mindset is headed in the right direction. I need to remember this, moving forward. What I wrote today. Because it's so easy to cave in.
​It's easy to get lost in the delusions of the future, which makes actually manifesting the future nearly impossible, as well as increasing disappointment when it doesn't. It's easy to get lost in despair of having not accomplished things and feeling like you never will. It's so easy to become lost and get overwhelmed by the pain.

I need to remember what I had revealed to me tonight. It's a lesson I've taught myself before, but I couldn't hold onto it. I need to have it stick this time. A shift in mindset and approach that sticks. I am okay with living the life of mediocrity and loneliness.

Well, no. Not really. I'm not okay with it, but I am okay with it, and need to be okay with it.

Emotionally, I am not okay with it. How could I not feel the pain of isolation and loneliness? How could I not feel crushed by my own failures to manifest my dreams? The emotional sting of knowing I am the only one to blame for my shortcomings is one that I can't freely discard. Emotions are emotions, feelings are not things that you can rationally discard.

In that sense, I am not okay with it.

But rationally, I am, and I need to keep that mindstate. To calm my emotions. To reassure my emotions that it's okay. I'm okay. And I am. I am okay with being on my own. I am okay with my ideas dieing with me. I am okay with never having the company of others in a more direct way. I am okay with never achieving my dreams of being a teacher, a mother, an influencer, a writer, a content creator. Those are things I am unlikely to ever obtain, and I need to be okay with this.

And, largely, I am. I just need to remember that I am, and that I'm okay. I'm no great beacon. I need to be okay with being who I am. Now, I do need to take caution. I should not fall into apathy. I should not be careless. I should not be reckless. If I am too okay with who I am, I'll end up progressively becoming a worse and worse person. Some checks/balances are needed in order to ensure that I don't become despicable without having noticed.

It's easy to lose sight of important things, so I can't forget who I am. Which is why I need to strive to be better. I need to keep doing what I do, in the aim for being better. To keep doing what I do, in the hopes of achieving what I want to. Keep doing what I do, in order to strive for the dream. But to be able to accept I won't reach the ideal.

Betterment is a process where I may never get any better. I may end up exactly the way I am now, and I need to accept that, and be okay with that. That 20 years from now I may be precisely where I am right now. Alone and without having succeeded. But I should still try anyway, because the trying helps stop me from being worse.

I need to accept who I am, and accept who I become, and accept I won't be who I want to be. But still try to be who I want to be.

I hope that makes sense. It's not a bad thing. I'd say it's actually a good thing.
​I just need to hold onto it.

(Post-script note: ALMOST every new line here is a different voice than the prior. Some made multiple lines in a row, but usually it's new. Also parentheses are different ones, too. Except post-scripts. (Well those are different too, you weren't the one doing the speaking.) True, but you know what I mean. Post-scripts are exactly that, post-conversation.)
So we're doing whatever the positive equivalent of a spiral is.
How do we describe it.
For a long time, perhaps since as long as we've adapted it (yep, definitely), we've known the 5-facet model we've been saying is us, isn't accurate.
(There's a lot of us speaking right now.)
(Like a lot a lot.)
We're being quite active right now which is, ah...gonna make this less coherent than ideal.
Stupid body having ADHD.
And stupid us having so many talking.
Like every line so far has been a different one of us speaking pretty much.
Sometimes more than one.
Okay so where do we begin.
We knew it wasn't true that there were only five of us.
But I suppose (I guess) we used it for convenience?
It was convenient to say there were five of us.
Every moment it's becoming more and more obvious that "The Range of Bree System" was a good choice in name for our system.
Because there's a whole (damn) lot more than just the few.
Anyway.
We're not just five. We're more. A lot more.
Uh, how much more is hard to describe, I guess we start with the drive today?
Or maybe talk a-eh we'll go with the drive.
When we drove to work today, we heard more than five voices chiming in.
And the voices were major.
Big voices. Not micro-voices typical of a minor facet.
Which tipped us off to what we already knew.
Oh right that.
We had previously developed a bit of a theory.
We thought that "oh there's more than five of us, like maybe 2-3 per identity we call a major facet". Like, mastina would be 2-3 different individuals, MotherRanger 2-3 different, etc.
Ohhh we might have been off by a factor of...10? 100? Somewhere between those probably.
On the drive back home we realized.
There's hundreds of us.
Hmm, this is where it's getting hard to tell what's next.
(Well we already are struggling, this is all very new to us.)
Well not new, we knew, it's just new to express.
How do we keep up with our thoughts in typing? We're going too fast in the brain, the fingers are lagging behind.
We'll have to manage.
Anyway.
Hmm.
I guess maybe some of the major things?
Like. We don't really know who we are.
Except when we randomly do.
We don't really know what our system is, how any of us formed.
Are we a whole bunch of tulpas? A whole bunch of facets? A whole bunch of tulpas that became facets? Are we fully separate? Are we even a median system at all?
We don't really know.
What we do know, though.
Is tha--oh fine we'll go over the Vee voice first.
During this chaotic drive home, we had one of our voices say "but I am Vee."
Vee is the protagonist in our latest story--and the voice said this in the voice we imagine Vee to have.
So something, or rather someone, in our brain, using the voice we say is for Vee, said she was Vee--meaning, well. Probably. She is in fact, Vee.
(I am.)
Wow if someone were online they'd probably be fascinated by what's a breakthrough in a system.
It's wild.
Is this what all those others have gone through on their realizations?
I mean, we knew, but we didn't know like this.
Well, we did, just...yaknow. Repressed.
Thiiiis is gonna be awkward going forward.
But worth.
Okay where were we, we're trying to record the us that we have seen.
Right, the Vee part.
If we have Vee inside as one of us though.
That raises the implication that we thought about once months ago and then for whatever reason forgot about.
(We have ADHD in the body of course we forgot about it dummy.)
If Vee is in there as one of us.
Well she's one of our newest story's characters.
She's there.
So what does that mean for all the other characters we've written over the years?
Well. We are writers.
Very...promiscuous...writers.
On the drive home, one of us asked: "How many of us are there?"
And we received a basically instant reply from another: "hundreds".
We took a moment to process this--was it hundreds of minor facets? As in, a few major voices with hundreds upon hundreds of minor ones?
Wellllll...no.
We quickly realized, actually, it is hundreds.
Hundreds of major voices.
A lot more than the five we had assumed!
And if Vee, one of our newest characters, was among them.
That raised the implication that any of the characters we have felt like they are an actual person--are in fact an actual person.
We don't imagine literally every character we've written is a voice in this mess that is the Range of Bree. (Post-script: well it's possible, just not probable. (At least we don't think.))
But hoo boy.
There's a lot of us.
We're beginning to quiet down.
A bit content, also tired.
Thinking this much brought a lot out of us.
We gotta keep it up for a bit longer tho; we're not done yet.
Yeah there's more to explain.
What's this all mean.
Hmm, how do we go over the thoughts?
Well, we can cover the body or the, what was it?
Uh gimme a sec.
Oh right, "archetypes".
Let's do body first.
Okay, so like.
We have been as of the last hour referring to our body as "the body".
Which is something we've heard other systems do but until now we didn't really understand why.
Well we did, but not on the conscious level we do now.
To be honest, I don't understand it on a conscious level, either.
But on an intuitive thought based level, I get it now.
It makes sense. (Post-script: "How did we not realize this until now.")
If I was asked to explain why "the body" to refer to our body makes sense, I wouldn't be able to explain it.
Not now at least. (Post-script: Okay not the same me, but maybe I can do that? It's like: well we all think of ourselves as having a body I guess? But while all of us have bodies in our mind, there's only one that's THE body, if that makes sense to folks?)
But it does make sense.
Holy shit,
Yes it makes so much sense.
The Body is definitely female.
We still think most of us are female.
We can't really tell which of us are which, but.
We know we're mostly girls still, at least we still feel that way,
Yeah I am.
So am I.
And so on and so forth--girls we don't need you to all say that you're girls, they get the idea!
Okay. BODY.
The body is female.
The body has ADHD.
Hoo booy do we have ADHD.
Yeah, the body having ADHD explains so much.
Butyeah, this is definitely not just an ADHD-induced stream of consciousness.
Nope, we're real.
Well in a sense you could argue it is an ADHD-induced stream of consciousness, but...
Yeah, it's not one, two, or three or so making stream of consciousness ADHD thoughts.
It's still a ton of us.
We're all real.
None of us are invented by an ADHD stream of consciousness, it's the ADHD stream of consciousness which is allowing us to speak, if that makes sense.
Yeah it does.
It does to me, at least!
Oh boy sorry for the spam.
Hey, this is important.
A little spam is okay for something of this magnitude.
We have a lot to say.
Lots of us, lots to say.
ANYWAY. The Body. Back to the Body please.
The Body is female. The body has ADHD. The body is still obviously autistic. The body definitely has bipolar disorder.
Sadly.
Yep. It's a thing.
Okay, so the body is still having all of those things that we previously attributed to being universal traits of Bree.
Because they are.
Some of us might not be female, but the main part of us, the body, is.
So would now be a good time to mention the brain?
Yes we're getting there.
We still have what we think might be. How do we explain it?
Well we act on our own.
The body moves by itself.
There is something that has base feelings, and it feels like that same thing with those base feelings is driving us.
Some core force. Something central. Deep. So deep we can't actively sense it, talk to it (well we are talking to it but it's not talking back) (because it can't), you guys are distracting me, uh, let's just say to them: you get the point.
There is a force that drives us. Moves us. It is how we act. And it is somehow deeply feeling, too.
During the drive, there was an immense sadness from the body.
None of us that we know of were sad.
We got the sense that some of us might be, sad for reasons we could only guess at.
Maybe she was sad at the broken illusion/unity?
Like, duh, we were content with being in the five-facet system even if it wasn't really true.
Well we weren't, not really.
But we kind-of were?
It was convenient. It was simple. (Post-script: "...But also wrong.")
It gave us a sense of identity.
(IdentiBree.)
Stop laughing!
Yes it was funny.
But we're trying to get a point across.
What was it?
Goddammit girls.
Okay.
There was an intense feeling of sadness.
Suspected to be because we loss the convenience of the five-facet illusion we had said.
We held onto that for how many months?
Yeah every time we came close to breaking it, we brushed it off with "wow we're a mess".
Well we are a mess.
But it was a nice way to shut us up and keep us in line.
That's not good wording.
Yeah but I don't have anything better.
We'll figure out a better descriptor eventually.
We're gonna calm down soon, we need to hurry.
Yeah we're beginning to fade close to being one again.
Bree you need to hurry the fuck up.
Okay, so like.
That core is something big about us.
Maybe an original self?
Who knows.
Not us, not yet at least.
We're moving on our own, someone's gotta be doing that.
Yeah and that moving force has a will of its own.
Driving us forward.
I have to think.
Don't take too long.
Okay, so...hundreds of us, the body, the core.
Oh right, compartmentalization.
We once described things about our life as that every part of our life, we had in a box, a compartment.
A compartment for gaming. A compartment for a specific class. A compartment for a specific site. And so on and so forth. Dozens, hundreds of compartments.
Under the five-major-facet theory, the working assumption was that these eventually coagulated and merged into a smaller number.
Boy was that wrong!
Well, kinda.
Yes we're getting do that.
There are in fact still those hundreds.
They never went away.
They never merged like we thought.
Well maybe they did, but not nearly as much as we assumed!
Yeah, not down to five.
And while there were definitely all those from the real life compartments.
The presence of Vee among many other characters means that there's also our fictional selves here, too.
Lots of us.
Yep.
So there's a mixture of selves from compartmentalized areas of our life which didn't disappear after their specified compartment was no longer needed.
We kinda drifted around?
Yeah it's not like we disappeared.
We were around, just...there.
But since they weren't really needed, they weren't...well, at the front as it were.
We still have fronting, right?
Sure, but it didn't work the way we thought it did.
How does it work?
Fucked if I know!
We'll figure it out.
Maybe.
We're getting off-topic again.
Sorry!
Man, this must look like a mental breakdown to the uninformed.
Well...in a sense...
Or a mental breakthrough.
That, too.
Okay so we don't know who we are.
Except when we do.
But we definitely have a mixture of old compartmentalized selves that formed for specific tasks, and characters we came up with over the years that are now a part of us.
Alright, now we're getting to it.
We have described the body and that mind, so the thing left is the theory, right?
Right, guess so.
So BASICALLY.
We have a theory that we keep the identities of the five facets in spite of knowing them to be wrong.
Because they work as, so to speak, "archetypes".
We should probably specify a disclaimer that our terminology explicitly doesn't match the terminology of the plurality community as a whole.
Yeah they have their own definition of archetypes pretty sure?
I don't remember what theirs is, we'll have to look it up, but yeah, it ain't ours.
So we need to describe.
I think we've done an okay job of describing why we have a core and what it is.
In spite of how there is technically a plurality term core, and their term doesn't really match ours.
At least we don't think it does.
Alright, so that core is why we still think we might be a median system, because it is still driving us.
It still gives us emotions that we feel and is what is giving us movements.
But there's definitely more in our mind that we thought.
We're real.
All of us.
We really are all thinking right now.
Don't doubt yourself later, Bree.
Well that'll happen, we have anxiety.
Kinda stupid to think that though. This can't be faked.
Can't it? We'll have a hard time talking to our future self and convincing her of it.
We're crying?
Sadness, remember?
But just a moment ago our body was happy? And laughing?
Mixed feelings, probably.
She is feeling different things right now.
Oh there was a twang of pain there.
Yeah, I imagine it's a mixed bag.
I'm tired.
We all are, is a body thing.
Hurry!
Right, so we've described the body and the core pretty well, so it should show what those are in spite of their definition not matching the standard plurality community def.
Anyway, so what we mean by archetypes is different from the plural community def.
At least we think it's different?
Basically, the archetypes we have, the five facet system that was imaginary and now broke.
Was a matter of convenience for sorting the voices, as it were.
"Oh, you have this trait? Let's put you under the mastina umbrella".
"Oh, you're like this? Well that sounds like a Mother-Ranger thing".
Which could explain why it felt like certain traits moved between them.
Yeah because we literally moved.
It's whichever part of our personality was most dominant.
At least that's our theory!
Whichever part of us was most visibly obvious, was what we used to sort that one of us into a grouping.
"mastina grouping" (archetype), "Mother-Ranger grouping" (archetype), etc.
Yeah we really don't wanna feed you kitty.
(Sorry cat distract.)
ANYWAY.
We're losing it, gotta hurry.
It's okay, this won't go away and we got it mostly out anyway.
Basically.
The hundreds of us that there are now?
Well these hundreds don't really have the ability to identify our names.
We have names!
Yes, we do.
It's just we don't know them.
Except when we do.
Yeah, except when we do. But we don't.
Not by default.
So like--lacking knowing what our names are.
Hundreds of them mind you.
Too many.
Yeah, "too many" is a phrase we're using a lot tonight.
It's true!
Well, anyway. Hundreds of us not knowing what our names are.
The archetypes we've developed are convenient.
Kinda like a label!
Yeah, that's actually a perfect descriptor.
The five facets work like a label.
Not necessarily correct.
Not really accurate.
Lacking finesse.
But serves as a method of quick identification that's convenient for keeping unity and direction, I guess?
Yeah, something like that.
At least that's the theory.
Anyway, so that's what we think.
We're gonna forget this all aren't we.
That's why we're typing it out.
Will we remember this?
Will I still be here later?
Always, just maybe...not this clear.
It's okay. That's okay.
You exist. We exist. It'll be alright.
Yeah, even if some of us stop thinking like we are right now.
We are real.
We were here.
We said this.
We didn't make it up.
You didn't make it up, Bree.
Because the future us will think that of herself.
Well because she is Bree.
Yeah we are Bree.
That's a good way to end it, I think?
Oh yeah, I guess so.
We are Bree.
The body which is all of the things we said?
ADHD, girl, autism, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc.?
All Bree.
The core where we're getting things from.
Still Bree!
We're more than Bree.
I am Vee, for instance!
Yes, you are!
Fucking fatass father.
Bad timing.
Music is our friend.
Turn things up please.
Louder.
More sound.
It wasn't enough, drown the fuck out.
Okay better.
ANYWAY.
There's the us that are more than Bree.
But we're still Bree.
Bree is all of us yet none of us.
It truly is The Range of Bree.
I guess we'll sign off on that.
Should probably post this elsewhere, too.
Mannnnnn that's gonna be such a pain.
Yeah, converting this from the text discord format into something working in other places, not gonna be fun.
We gotta do it at least twice.
And redo it both times.
Mafia forum formatting doesn't translate to the blog and vice versa.
Yeah and neither is compatible with discord, too.
God, that sucks.
ANYWAY.
We're done I think?
I don't have anything more to say.
We don't have a wrap-up here.
Well, we're never wrapped up.
We're still figuring things out.
And a part of us wants to forget and go back.
But this is here to stay.
Well, maybe not stay stay.
We're very clear right now, we'll likely be less clear once we lose focus.
Lose ourselves in games.
Heh, quite literally.
Lose our selves. Quite apt.
But. Well. We might not be vocal, but we exist.
We know we do now.
We'll have to see where this goes.
Still figuring things out.
So there's no proper wrap-up.
Because how can we wrap up something which is still evolving?
But I think here's a good place to let our mind just...coalesce.
GOD how long is this.
Too long. :P
Anywayyyyy...time to scroll back.
Ye gods.
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here?
We've got work to do.
Reviewing our thoughts it already doesn't seem real.
And we are already losing clarity of past thoughts.
It's okay.
We knew that'd happen.
Just get to work dammit.
Stop stalling!
How many of these thoughts should we express.
Not many, according to the body.
Ah well.
Switch over to that other server, that'll give a good way to break this re-entering chat repeatedly.
(Damn adhd.)
OKAY JUST GO.

(Post-script And then we did swap, and after that, worked to write this down. We COULD keep going but have opted to do other shit instead. (Language!) Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.)

Well, not completely, but everything was done only half way at best.

I did only half of my workout.
I took only half of a shower.
I did my job only half as well as I should have.
I didn't do mafia at all.
I didn't do TFT at all.
I didn't play League at all.
I didn't stream today. (Afternoon was understandable, but I could​ have done evening--and didn't.)
I didn't brush my teeth today.
I accidentally had food/drinks worse for my health (more sugary/fatty than ideal).

I have, once more, gone an entire day without an apology for something I am over a week overdue for in a different game. When it was a time-sensitive manner, no less. I need to get that done. I really really do. Basically, it was one of the things that I thought was a good thing that turned out to be a bad thing. Where good intentions ended up infuriating a lot of people who were hurt.

And I did hurt them. That, in of itself, warrants an apology.
I know that apologies are time-sensitive. An apology given a month later is a lot less sincere than an apology given within a couple of days.

I know that they probably won't suddenly accept me as a good person, which I don't really deserve to be. I'm not good enough to be a good person. I try, but I am so bad at being a good person.
I still should try tho--I hurt people. The people I hurt were, mostly, innocent. Hating me is justified for that and every day that I don't apologize makes that hatred more justified. ('Cause, again: time-sensitive thing and what does my stupid dumb ass do??? Procrastinate! Put it off! Something that is very important to those people that I hurt! Something meaning a lot to them! Something that they have reason to be injured by--and I'm putting off apologizing for the damage I did. I am an idiot. And I really hate myself for how incompetent I am.)

​I'm not so self-centered as to believe that intentions justify having hurt people. It was unintended harm, it was accidental harm. In fact, it was actually done out of a naive belief that I would be helping people and preventing future harm. I thought it would help others. When I vented I thought it was something which could help prevent people from going through what I went through.

But I made so many wrong assumptions and the vent being public--my attempt to help--ended up making it one of the most harmful things possible.

I don't even know how to say sorry for that but it's not something I can just let fade. I need to say sorry for what I did wrong. I need to make sure they know I understand the harm I did. I need to make sure they know I am aware of how hurtful it was. Because I do know it now.

But I also need to make sure they know I didn't do what I did out of malice. I need to make sure they know my apology is genuine and sincere, not something done to just get them off my back. I need to make sure they know that my intentions were good, but that I recognize my intentions being good doesn't mean I didn't do harm. I need to make sure they know that my causing harm was not deliberate, that it was an accident, but that I know it being an accident does not mean the harm wasn't still harmful. That after the fact, it caused damage and being unintended does not excuse the damage done.

Obviously, I wouldn't have done it if I thought it would be harmful. Obviously, I wouldn't have done it if I thought it would hurt others. I did it specifically because I thought it'd do the opposite, in preventing harm and preventing hurt to others. But after I did it, I learned I was wrong, that what I did was not helping others, that what I did was not the good thing that I thought it was, that what I did was exactly the opposite of what I intended. And that it did notable damage.

And I need to find a way to convey this.

I don't really know how.

How do I explain how my heart sank when I had the situation explained to me in full?
How do I explain how much I felt pain when realizing that I had caused pain?
How do I explain that I thought I was doing the right thing, but now know it was the wrong thing, and having done the wrong thing was, well...wrong?

I need to figure that out.

Every day I tell myself, "today is the day I do this. I know I didn't do it yesterday when I wanted to, but yesterday had extenuating circumstances. Today has none of those, so I can do it."

And then every day I end up not doing it.

It's hard.

It needs to be done.
It's important to be done.

The sooner I do it, the less time the people hurt will feel hurt because I will have worked to make amends.

Yet in spite of knowing the above.

I kinda suck.

No, I really suck.

If I didn't, it'd have gotten done by now.

I was given a choice between playing tft, or having the time to write the blog I wanted to write.

Guess which I chose?

...In my defense. I knocked out every quest except for a bugged one that I fulfilled the terms for (but it didn't give due to, yaknow, being bugged), including the Monolith/Terra quest I struggled so hard on. I did need to do that, too, since the quest reset by tomorrow, meaning it was do-it-or-lose-it.

Butstill, I was meant to have a blog today.

I mean, I could technically still write the full thing but I can only do 2/3 of game, sleep, and blog; if I game and blog, I ain't getting enough sleep. (Well, I might, but then I don't have enough time tomorrow for shopping and working out. Would have a 2/3 there, too. Sleep, work, shop, not all 3 but 2/3.)

​So I won't be able to do a full blog.

The short version:
I might be okay at work. Might. The looming doom due tomorrow? Happened today instead. And it might be okay.

I'm not sure yet, but I'm at least hopeful.

​The main thing to come from today though is that I did some really good posing for photos as a villain. I realized that my aesthetic is highly villainesque: black with red accents in civilian wear (the red is in my jacket), and red with black accents in my work wear. So I leaned into it and made dozens upon dozens of photos. (Admittedly, less than half are good. The poses for many photos suck, and the eyes killed some photos that would've been good otherwise. And some are more Renata Glasc esque in appearance/aesthetic. But hey, I did them!)

This did give me an inspiration for a new character. I'm not sure what story she fits in, but she's not the protagonist of a new story. Quite the opposite, she is, explicitly, an antagonist. Not the main antagonist, but antagonistic at the very least.

​She's a supervillain in a superhero setting, but I'm not sure what story she fits in. It's not Heroes 4 Hire. I kinda want it to be a setting where supers tend to only have one power tho (albeit able to be flexible). And I want the protagonist to be a hero, not a villain.

It doesn't fit the dual-world supes story, since being a villain in one world would give the protagonist there insight I don't want the protagonist to get.

Process of Elimination, the only story I can figure out might be Vetra, where the protagonist was someone that intended to be a villain but ended up accidentally being enlisted as a hero (sort of an inverse-Worm scenario). It still kinda sorta has the "one power" theme, but Vetra himself is mostly not following it. The setting I didn't really think of as being "one power per person", although looking at my limited notes, it's mostly one power per person that is just incredibly versatile and broad/generic. (Vetra having multiple powers can be somewhat hand-waved as being an Elemental Master, since he's got "Earth"(Body), Fire, Water, Air, Energy as his five.)

​I'm not positive that it works/fits, but she's a cool character all the same.
She basically has one of the strongest forms of "Empathy" as a power, where she can sense things on the physical/mental/emotional/spiritual level (the last gives her clairvoyance of being able to detect harm in advance, think like Jack Slash from Worm), but also able to control/manipulate those things in others (think like Jasper, which apparently is called Pathokinesis to the twilight fanbase).

Which does allow for theoretically being a power amplifier, dampener (anti-magic), or even power-adjuster, but she doesn't really use this aspect of the power (because for all of her faults, she doesn't dare dabble in an area of such danger--she'll passively nullify anything that would be able to take her out before her active defenses kick in, but otherwise this is set to inert).

​She is a transwoman living a quadruple life. One, as LifeCard, the (appearing male) leader of the evil corporation LifeCorp (which actually does a lot of good, mind you, being a legitimate business that just so happens to be a front for the illicit activities, it's just that to do all the good it does requires more money than they can get legitimately and there's a need to launder the money from the illegal stuff that makes it an evil corporation).
A second, as Phantom Pain, a solo villain involved in crime that occasionally works as a mercenary. (Also appears male.) This persona uses a wave of pain that attacks on mental/emotional/spiritual levels (technically all 4, but physical isn't triggered for ~reasons~), in a completely unblockable attack that can't be countered or dodged, instantly overwhelming everyone affected with crippling debilitating pain.
A third, at home where she isn't out.
And a fourth, at work (she got herself to be legitimately hired in LifeCorp without suspicion), where she works as a (female) receptionist.

​A big secret about her is that her Phantom Pain power works the way it does by--instead of actively trying to select an action to be done--passively transmitting her own feelings onto everyone in the area. Which, yes, carries the implication that she is in constant neverending strong, strong, overwhelming pain on the mental/emotional/spiritual level and that she is suffering hardcore. (And she is a villain basically due to this.)

Her Empathy power can't be turned off, and it has no range limit. If she has an active connection, it works no matter what. If she has engage with someone online, she can sense them and manipulate them. If she is in physical proximity to someone, she can sense them and manipulate them. If she sees someone on a live monitor in an area she has been to recently, she can sense them and manipulate them. If she sees a recording of someone, she can't sense/manipulate them in of itself, but if she has come into recent contact with them she can.

Basically, she might not see the person she is manipulating. Or hear them. But her power works on everyone, across any and all distances. It has no range. It is always on. It has both passive powers and active ones. She can't turn it off. And it causes a great deal of pain for her, on top of her life's conditions.

She's watched people die in front of her that she failed to save, with her power letting her feel their final moments.
She got fired from a job she loved because of conditions that her power couldn't keep her employed with.
She lost friends she had held since before her power activated.
​She even had someone she love end up betraying her and abandoning her, leaving her alone and isolated, with a family that she despises and who would loathe her.

So she's got issues.

I wanted to go into her powers in more detail, her costumes in more detail, some events that happen to her in more detail, but I don't have the time for that full blog tonight.

Maybe tomorrow? We'll have to see.

I don't want to live right now.
I might even want to die.

Alarmed?

Well normally I'd say you shouldn't be but with how severe it is that might be justified to have now.

I just.

Haven't had a good week.
At all.

Every time I try to do a good thing it ends up being a bad thing.

It started with a game, where I was genuinely doing something that I thought would be good/useful for others. It was dealing with my frustration, isolation, desperation, etc., but it was primarily something I did genuinely believing it was an altruistic thing to do.

Then I got called a liar, greedy, scumbag, etc. for it. And am still dealing with the consequences there. I was dumb, stupid, idiot, a moron, but I was not a liar. I thought there were others like me that were having the issues I was having, and that talking about them would do good.

Apparently it was just me but people attributed malice to it and have now displayed malice to me, bullying me in that game. It's exhausting having to try and defend myself and it's tiring to just exist. I have every intention, reason, and incentive to continue playing the game and in a weird way it actually became more fun in a way due to an unintended game of cat-and-mouse developing from the fallout, of how much can I get done in the small windows I am able to. (Ironically giving me practice at a skill I lacked last week and got attacked for not having utilized. I'm literally being taught painfully how to do the thing that I wanted help learning.)

​It's a rough situation, but one that I can still get through. Because I know what I intended to do and it was not to make money; it was to try and better others by learning from my story. They might not believe me, but my character will show through eventually. They don't believe someone they don't know but given time they will get to know me and get to know how I'm too stupid to know how to lie.

After all, I do have autism. Not that I'd explain that to them because I have effectively self-traumatized myself thanks to the jerks on the internet who used "sorry I have autism" to get away with being jerks. Autism is a genuine disability. It is genuinely debilitating and crippling. There genuinely are things that can't be done due to it, and things made difficult with it.

So a person with autism should be able to explain that, yeah, they have issues with it. After all, other neurodivergencies can do that. Such as ADHD. ADHD is also a crippling disability that is debilitating, and while "sorry, ADHD" is sometimes stigmatized, it's far more normalized and accepted. Someone with ADHD is usually obvious in having ADHD and apologizing for it is self-evidently done because they broke a chain of thought and need a push to get the connection.

But with autism. There is a trauma with saying "sorry, autism". So it can't be said, even when it's true. I can't say I don't understand due to autism. I can't say I was literal-minded due to autism. I can't say I didn't get it due to autism. I can't say my autism means I don't understand why someone would lie. I can't say my autism means I could never have the character to lie because my autism makes me speak the truth.

I can't say my autism makes me rambley. I can't share that I have autism with the autism being a negative thing, because if I do, it is seen as using autism as a shield for the jerk behavior. If I do, it is seen as making up autism as an excuse to justify being a jerk. So I can't share that I have autism to strangers, because there is a stigma surrounding autism.

I have a mental disability that I can't freely reveal without internalized and external issues manifesting about that apology, no matter how genuine it may be. I can try workarounds. Things that to those in the know give away that I have them but don't show to those that aren't. But I can't be direct, blunt, and fully transparent/obvious that the reason I have done something that is debilitating is that I have a mental condition that is genuinely crippling.

​Still, while I might not tell them about my autism, that I have it will become abundantly clear with time so with time it'll be shown that, actually, everything I said was true and happened as I said it did. (It did. The experiences which I thought might be applicable to others apparently were only applicable to me, but that doesn't mean the experiences were invalid. They were still true and real.)

That is half of why the week has been the worst. It genuinely has strained a friendship I consider more important than my life. A friendship more important than anything in the world to me, endangered because an act I thought was a good thing turned out to be a very very very not good thing that has caused my friend an endless amount of hurt.
That transfers into being an endless amount of hurt for me.

I am a tough person myself. I can handle being put through a lot. I can handle being bullied. I can handle people not believing me. I can handle people calling me a liar. I can handle experiences that others say would ruin the game. I can handle that all. But it's still exhausting, and on top of all that: I can't handle hurting my friend. That's unacceptable. Inexcusable. Painful. Hurtful.

They only stated some emotions and some hurt, and had some of their pain expressed further by another in the know. But I know that the hurt expressed was only a fraction of the hurt in total. It shows. They're my friend and I wounded them, and am exhausting them, and am leaving them feeling bad, and am leaving them feeling in pain, so what that means is...I am not in a good state of mind.

Because knowing how much pain I've caused. I just. I don't want to cause any more. I don't want to hurt them anymore. I don't want any harm to happen because of my actions. I have good intentions. But good intentions mean nothing if the result of those good intentions is bad things that hurt instead of helping. And seeing the hurt, hurts. I am an empath. I can feel the feelings of others, and they become my own.

Yeah their rage becomes my rage, their stubbornness becomes mine, and that can be both a good thing and a bad thing in that it can give me strength to continue, strength to stand up for myself, and strength to keep going in situations most would quit. But it also means I know their feelings are real and true, and that my feeling them makes communicating harder since both sides are in that emotionally compromised state.

The real issue is the pain. I can feel it. I know it is real because it is felt by me. The pain I feel is the pain of others hurt by me, but also added onto that is my own pain. I have a double dose of pain that hurts. It's not just my own, it's not just theirs, it's theirs plus my own. I'm suffering because I know what they are feeling and how bad it is, and how bad I am feeling, and feeling worse because of their feelings and knowing I caused them which makes my feelings worse and worse with time.

It's exhausting.
It's overwhelming.

The cruel irony is that I might be able to end it fairly soon if I were to actually voice half of what I am in this blog to them, but it's so...I don't have the strength. My life would be easier if I did. If I could muster up the energy to do the thing that will help me, and them, heal sooner. But I can't.

So every day I have been getting worse.

I spent all my energy on Thursday, expecting to have recovered it and been better on Friday.
And then Saturday.
And then Sunday.
And now Monday.

Each day I told myself "today is the day that I go hard on this and can actually get the talks going that need to be done", and engage in the way necessary to help ease the pain of others.

Each day I have proven unable to muster up the strength for it.

I suck.

Ironically, I still have the strength to play the game. The punishment they are inflicting on me is meant to make the game unplayable, but ironically it actually makes the game more fun for me. So I have the ability to check in and play daily, and have done so, finding creative uses of my time while there. That's not something they'll really grasp, that's not something they'll comprehend.

After all, why would I continue to play frustration-free a game where they are inflicting a punishment meant to break people, meant to make people be frustrated, meant to basically ruin the experience of others? Why would I be able to go through that with a sense of calm and tranquility, yet not be able to use that same peace of mind to try and get, well...peace?

​I don't know, honestly. Like, not even I know why, and I'm the one who is living it. I don't know why the punishment they are using on me which is meant to break a person, is doing the opposite for me. I don't know why the peace talks that are meant to be easy, are not.

It's just.
I can't muster up the strength to talk.

I get that's ironic given this blog. This blog is showing talking to an extreme. Heck, today I even talked for an hour to a ghost at work. (No, literally, my workplace is definitely 100% haunted, and there was certainly activity today so I talked.) I can talk in a blog, I can talk to a ghost, so like...

...Why is talking to others directly so...draining???

I don't get it.

But it's true and it makes me feel awful.

I know I've caused a lot of hurt.

Every day I learn more about the fallout of what I did I learn of more hurt that I did.

Every time I see more, I see more hurt and pain.
All from something I genuinely thought was a good thing, that wasn't a good thing and was a very bad thing. Because I made a mistake. And I hate myself for it.
I don't want to stop playing because of bullying or shame but I do want to stop existing because with so much pain I don't want to exist.

And it got worse today.

Much much much worse.

I don't know how to describe how bad it is, worse.

Because the next screwup was not in a game. (Admittedly a game that screwing up in hurt a friend which is where the pain mostly comes from, butstill.)

The next screwup was for my job.

I am a lead lifeguard.
I sometimes don't feel like it. I have an aura that feels more like a normal lifeguard most of the time, but I still am a lead lifeguard. I take pride in that position and have always strived to live up to it. I still do lead things, even if it is less often than I should.

I have kept up at it though because I can try and make myself the best lead lifeguard possible. I know I can succeed. With difficulty and hard work, but it's possible. I could be what I should be. I just need to push, right? Well so I thought. And I did something that I thought was the most lead-like thing ever.

Reporting what I genuinely believe to be a hazard and trying to convince my boss that it needed to be dealt with, that we needed to have it fixed in spite of the cost to the budget because it'd be endangering human lives to not do so.

I don't know what I did to screw that up, but I did. Badly. Very badly, badly.
​I don't know how I managed to mess that up so colossally. But somehow, I managed to.
In doing something that I thought was genuinely a good thing, perhaps the best thing I've done as a lead lifeguard, I somehow managed the impressive feat of being told I had crossed a line a lead lifeguard should never cross.

And my heart sank when I saw that.

And I want to cry.

​I don't even know what I did wrong in the message, which makes it even worse. It's again my autism at work. I don't want to say something like "Obviously I wouldn't have done whatever I did wrong, if I knew it was wrong", in order to get an idea of what I did wrong. I don't know yet. I don't have any idea. I've tried, but even with hindsight I can't figure it out. It was somehow wrong.

But I don't want to use autism as an excuse.

Yet I do know it was severe.
It was bad.

Very bad.

My boss is a very benevolent-chill-benign-casual-laid-back boss, the best boss I could hope for, who is very understanding and compassionate and forgiving. I couldn't ask for a better boss. They give every opportunity, they are very kind, they give a lot, they understand, they listen, they explain calmly, they give good feedback, they give critiques that are calm but still impactful, useful, and just. Good.

Except.

Somehow, that boss that is all of those? Is royally ticked off. Which means I did something VERY wrong. I did something VERY bad. I did something very very very very very very wrong. And I don't know what. I don't have any clue. I am hurting. I am in pain. Like hurting my friend, hurting my boss hurts me because it is doing something I thought I could never do in a very negative way.

I just. It's not good. I hurt them. I don't know how. I don't know. But it was bad. Whatever it was. It had to have been for this reaction. What did I do??? I can't figure it out. But there will be consequences. Bad ones. I'm in for something very bad on Wednesday. Some kind of hell. The best outcome would be some sort of reprimand. The BEST outcome would be a dressing down of me where I get into trouble.

But I could be losing my position as a lead lifeguard.

Or even my job.

And that is the issue.

I want to die if I lose my job.
And even if I keep it.
​I might want to if I lose my position as a lead lifeguard.

I know that sounds alarming.
I normally would say it's not.

But maybe it is.

​I have pride in my job. I feel like I am competent in my job. I feel like I am good at my job. I feel like I am worthy of my job. I feel like I know I am at the level needed for that job. It is one I genuinely enjoy and feel like it is a calling of mine. It might not be the highest paying. It might be exhausting. It might be hard. But. It is who I am. It is an extensive part of my identity.

So what do I do if I lose what has become a piece of my soul.

What do I do.

It's genuinely soul-crushing.

I've tried to distract myself constantly.

But every time, it's temporary.

And the dread comes back. The weight of impending doom.

I can do NOTHING about it.
I can do NOTHING to change it.

Wednesday, and the reckoning coming with it, will happen.
I can't stop it.
I can't delay it.
I can't prevent it.
I can't influence it.
I can't do anything but just...show up and await my fate.

Which could be something that leaves me effectively dead.

So.

​I'm having...a bad time.

I need a break from existence but there's none to be had. Sleep only brings me closer to the day I dread. I can't do this. It's so bad. Why am I so bad at being good. Why is every attempt I make to be better, only making things worse? Why can't I just...be good at being good at something that is good.

I just suck.

​And it's...crushing.

Literally, considering that I am sweating less than I should and thus my skin is warm/hot to the touch in spite of my body itself not being feverish. (Yes I do have a doctor appointment for this since yes it is in fact a fairly concerning thing, but not until like May 12th as that's the soonest I could get and they didn't think it was "go to the hospital RIGHT NOW" urgent.)

But like. Mentally I'm doing incredibly poorly with head racing spinning thoughts etc. and physically I've got a lot of (pardon the language) shit to deal with in that everything is just not functioning as it should in my body right now so like.

Spiraling is a happening.

​But, can't speak, gotta go to bed for work tomorrow.

IIIIII diddddd...literally nothing I said I would do yesterday. Instead I did a depression-spurned modded playthrough of one of my favorite Majesty scenarios (The Siege).

And then an equally depression-spurned TVTropes binge which led me with, genuinely, nearly 20 tabs I didn't have before, at the cost of finishing only one or two of the ones that I had before.

So, well, objectively speaking: bit of a failure there.

It wasn't exactly time poorly spent in my opinion though, because the time I spent still helped me a lot. It was reading the TVTropes page for The Defroster->every character page for My Next Life as a Villainness, which in many ways drew me in thanks to how it just...relates to me.

I would of course: love to be successful. All the ideas in my head, the world will be a lesser place for them not having been made. And for that I can only continue to apologize to everyone. I have so so many beautiful gorgeous ideas. And I genuinely cry knowing that they will never be seen by others. If I am lucky, yes, some will--but it is physically impossible for all of them to become real. There's not enough time in the world for that; when you make 2-3 new ideas a day and some ideas you forget critical details of, how could all of them come to the world? They can't so even IF I get the best case scenario of making my ideas real, it'll still only be some of them.

And for that, I need to apologize, not only to the people of this world for them not being able to see, to connect, with the ideas in my head, but also to the ideas in my head. Every character that I cannot bring to life, I cry for not having been able to do so because they are real. Their stories, their personalities, their interactions, they have genuine lives that I am the one and only person capable of telling. I am the one and only person who is capable of sharing their experiences to others and recording them and making them be seen, be experienced, for all of time.

So every time I don't do that, I have failed them. And it gives me great pain.

​But on the note of that great pain and the doom brought to others, back to why I needed the reading of the character pages for that series. It served as a good reminder of what I strive to be.

I will always hate myself for every perceived flaw, every perceived weakness, every perceived instance of having wronged others, every instance of having failed them. Every time I have someone that could be a friend, end up drifting away from me: I consider it a failure. I almost wrote a song about it yesterday in fact. (It'd have been called "The Lone Killer", basically Killer->Impostor->Impostor Syndrome and feeling alone. I was stopped by being short on time and by having positive reaffirmation that I desperately needed to hear.)

After all, as that not-written song would have said: it is easy to remember the wrongs, but hard to remember the rights. It is easy to see the good being gone, but hard to see the good that still is. Friendships require effort from both sides, and given that I put no effort into friendships, I am, arguably, more to blame for them not forming than anyone else.

Because how can someone really be my friend if the entirety of their friendship is just them showing up to help me? If I am just giving them nothing at all, obviously, the natural consequence of that is that over time, they just...gradually, do less and less. Because if I'm not maintaining the friendship, and I never do, then how could they when friendships are innately inherently draining?

But while I may not have any long-lasting success. Or any long-lasting friendships.

I still have a clear idea of what I really want.

I cannot stop hating myself for every instance of knowing I have caused harm, or even every instance of knowing "I could have done so much more to help than what I did". Every instance of apathy, every instance of thoughtlessness. Every time where I could have done something more supportive, but did not.

But I do have a goal in mind that I wish to continue to pursue.

I wish to live a long, happy, fulfilling life. I wish to spread kindness and empathy to the world. I despise myself, hate myself, for absolute failures on my part in these fields. Some quite recent, in fact. I had someone contact me about how I had hurt them and it made me realize how dangerously close I can be to falling into the worst part of my past self when I was, genuinely, a jerkass.

There was a time when I was a very nasty person.

So I am always, always, on guard for it, fearing the return of that part of me.

But while I have continued to fail.

I still wish to try.

Because it is, I believe, what I want the most in life now.

To live a long, happy, life where I give positivity and happiness to others.

I obviously don't want to place the happiness of others above myself--I know that's not healthy.

But I want to do everything in my power that is not detrimental to my own happiness to continue to spread that positivity to others, to be the beacon of light that the protagonist of that story is. I know I won't be able to succeed, because I just don't have the skills to maintain longterm relationships. But I still wish to do whatever I can.

​Anyway, I'm literally an hour late for bed because I'm a bit of a dumbass sometimes (another common trait) so will only be getting 5 hours of sleep, but for this blog? Worth it.

Tell me why, I'm a pos garbage human.

...Oh, right, it's because of bipolar disorder combined with an anxiety disorder.

Where I have them, I use them as an excuse to not do the things that I want to do, and not do the things that I need to do, and not do the things I am scheduled to do, and not do the things that there is an optimal time to do.

And then because I use them as an excuse, I feel worse, which deepens the depression and makes the anxiety even higher when it comes to starting back up.

And then the downward spiral continues ad depression and anxiety make it harder, but make me feel worse, and making me feel worse makes it harder, and it being harder makes it feel worse, and......

...But today my main win was streaming. I thought I wasn't going to, because anxiety + bipolar disorder, where I was tired and streaming felt like it was a lot of work, I just had a bundle of nerves, where I wanted to avoid it, wanted to make up excuses for not doing it. "It's cold" "I'm tired" etc. But, I ended up going through with the stream which means I am progressing in being an actual potential content creator.

So while it might not be much.

​It's good enough.

Well, 'morning', as in, 1 pm instead of 1 am; written post-bed-and-pre-work rather than post-work-and-pre-bed.

I have some form of anxiety disorder. This is a fairly new discovery for me, but it badly impacts me.
​"What if the snow will knock out power while you're writing this blog."
"What if wearing your false-breasts to bed suppresses the growth of your natural ones?"
"What if having food/drink reduces the effectiveness of the sublingual intake?"
"What if brushing your teeth will reduce the effectiveness of the sublingual intake?"
"What if the sublingual intake is being done wrong?"

You get the idea.

These can be somewhat crippling as the more plausible they are, the more respect I have to pay towards the possibility, in spite of how it's probably wrong.

​However, the most terrifying of possibilities, and what made me start writing this blog (in spite of how it'll make me late to leave), was what I thought when taking my pre-leave-for-work nap.

Some background: I am plural.
I am a minor form of plural, admittedly.

It's called a median system.

Now, back in the day I discovered that I was one, that link didn't exist. I developed my own terminology, which you can even find on this blog! What the wiki link calls 'facets', I call "mes". Ranger is a me, mastina is a me. There are many mes, with those two (with the work-oriented one as a third) being the most dominant. Or as the wiki would say, Ranger is a facet of Bree, mastina is a facet of Bree, there's many facets but they're all a part of me, a part of Bree.

​Each with their own voice, their own personality, their own memories, their own thoughts, emotions, etc. Sharing most with the core, but still having some separation.

​Separate from my median system, however, there's another part of me that I haven't explored.

Since childhood, I have had another voice in my brain. This voice has never been a part of me. This voice has never been a part of Bree. He (and yes, he's a he, when all of me is a she, Bree is 100% she/her) has always been there as a friend. And I can actually see him if I try. He was the imaginary friend of a childhood, who never went away even into adulthood. He's been with me the entire time.

There, but not a part of the core. Existing separately from it. But he's never taken control of my body. He's not a core part of Bree. He's not part of the median system. But he's also not someone who can take control of the body (or if he could, he never has).

But he's not been alone.

Since my teenage years (about since puberty), he's been joined by another guy working identically to the way he does. This guy, David, basically has constantly been emphasizing all the various ways I'm worthless, I'm trash, etc. for my entire time with him. Always highlighting the negative. Always putting me down. Always pointing out the failures. Every thing I do wrong, he would highlight as proof of why I am a garbage human being. Every time I felt guilt, he magnified it.

And more than that, David seemed to elevate my darker impulses. Every time he was most active, everything negative in me was amplified. So I became terrified. In hindsight, my anxiety disorder at work, but also a somewhat realistic concern. Knowing about DID, and knowing that David was real, talking to me, in my head, and separate from me, I had the worrying thought of,
"What if David took control of the body?"
What disaster would await me if that happened?

So I was terrified of him. My fear of him was one of the reasons I worked so hard to gain control of my life, as to make sure he could never manifest physically. I remain unsure if he could have. But I was always afraid of the possibility. I knew I could never get rid of David. I could not drive him away. He was in my brain, there to stay, no matter what. He was separate from my core, but still existing there.

Alongside the other guy, my lifelong friend. (Who, by the way, is still there. He's actually encouraging me passively a little bit even right now, and we may get a chance to chat while driving, we'll have to see.)

​I want to delve into this in a more indepth blog, but for now skipping most of the details, just know that David has been a part of my brain for a long long time, but not a part of me, Bree, ever. He was always separate. He would amplify my darkest aspects, and always put me down.

But recently, he's been absent.

I had various theories.

"Maybe I didn't need him anymore."
"Maybe I got my life into a place where he had nothing to say."
"Maybe the reason I don't hear David putting me down anymore is that I do it myself!"

That last one's important. Because, yes. There is a part of me. My core. A female me, or as the plural wiki would put it, a female facet of me, of Bree. Who constantly does exactly what David did. Putting me down, highlighting every single failure. Unlike David, who I could tell was separate and male, this is part of me, part of the core, and is female.

And then, today, I had a fairly sociopathic/psychopathic thought. The thought deeply disturbed me, because it meant that some facet of me had that level of sociopathy/psychopathy in them, and with them as part of my core, that meant that somewhere in me was that darker deeper impulse that I was always terrified would come to light when David was at his strongest, the fear of him manifesting.

That sociopathic thought is important.

Because enter my anxiety. Linking important thought A, with important thought B:

"What if David isn't around anymore because he merged with the core and became the facet that you heard think that thought?"

And that is the most terrifying thing of all, because it is frighteningly plausible and there's literally nothing that I can do about it. Thus, my morning blog.