Today was a sewing day. There's a doll we've been working on that really
needed better clothes, so we made her some overalls and socks. FINALLY 
made a pair of socks that fit correctly! Have always gotten it wrong in
past attempts. They're surprisingly hard to size correctly.

Huge thanks to all the people that sent an email with pagination advice-
think we have some idea what to do now and can tackle the issue properly.
You all are incredibly kind to help out and suggest ways to go about it, 
and everyone gave essentially the same advice (which means it's likely the
correct way to do it!). Also got warm and fuzzy feelings knowing people 
care even when they'd never talked to us before- thank you for that. Our
mental health has been on a dip again and knowing people care helps. A
little kindness is all it takes some days, you know? Doesn't fix everything
but makes life a lot more tolerable when everything feels horrible.
Honestly think that human interaction and support is one of the best methods
of preventing some mental health problems, especially depression (though
sometimes it's just chemical wonkiness- no shame in taking meds if they work,
folks!).

Mental health talk ahead, no pressure to read. Only if you want to.

It's mostly been anxiety and emotional flashbacks acting up recently. It's
still weird to us that most people don't feel 24/7 like they're either about
to physically explode from tension or feel nothing at all. What do you mean,
people have normal levels of emotion and aren't terrified to death all the
time even when they know they're 100% safe? With emotional flashbacks it's
pretty easy to say "yeah, this isn't normal" but the constant anxiety doesn't
stick out like that. And even then, sometimes it's easy to think other people
get stuck in the past all the time too. To think yeah, everyone randomly feels
like they're 6 and panicking sometimes, or that we're just being dramatic or
looking for attention even though things usually only hit us when we're alone
because it feels too unsafe to be that vulnerable around people, so it gets
stuffed down or hidden under the surface until we're alone and unobserved. It's
shut down the second someone is in the room, one way or another. It's not fun to 
sit there trying to act normal when there's a little kid in your head that's in 
full freakout mode because they're stuck remembering medical trauma or something.
Feelings kind of leak when you share a head and are aware of each other to some
degree, and you can block it out but not always completely, and blocking it out
just makes things worse but you have to do it just to get through some days.
I'm so tired of having to hide it but there's a wall in the way and it's not safe
to be that vulnerable. It makes it worse.

I'm tired in general, honestly. We haven't been able to sleep until the wee hours
of the morning because the anxiety is too bad to relax enough, or because we get
slapped with a wave of strong unpleasant emotions that aren't even remotely 
applicable to lying in bed. We've been drawing and making music to cope and that
makes it bearable, but still not enough to sleep. But pulling out of this needs
us to sleep and take care of ourselves physically, and just... ugh. Catch 22.
Hoping this passes sooner rather than later. It's usually a week at the shortest
and has lasted months in the past, so here's to hoping this is a short one.
It hurts me to think that this is our normal, but to anyone who doesn't have
mental health issues this reads as "wow, you're fucked up in the head" or something.
This shouldn't be normal for us but it is. It shouldn't be normal for anyone. It
makes me really sad that we never got to experience normal. I just want to be able
to relax for once instead of always being on edge and afraid of nothing at all.
I want to feel like I exist, here and now. I want to be able to look at myself in
the mirror and see my face instead of something more akin to a distant cousin-
I want to be able to recognize my face as mine. I want to be able to calm down
and feel safe. I want to feel safe being vulnerable in-person and not paranoid
about what people will think. I want to feel like I actually aged past my teens and
be able to function properly as an adult. I want a lot of things.

It's better than it used to be, at least. Now we can at least say that reality is
real without having to smack things to check if they're solid. We used to be so
out of it and detached that nothing ever looked or felt real, just a constant 
dream. It still feels like that sometimes but we know we're awake and alive. And
hey, we're slowly making progress on defusing some triggers. We can sometimes touch
the insides of our arms now as long as we don't think about it. Still hellish at best
if we think about it or feel any pain in that area, but it's better than having to be
held down in the past to let someone else touch us there. And we didn't throw up or
pass out last time our blood was drawn, which is a massive achievement given that the
local laboratory knows us for passing out and throwing up to the point of being 
prepared ahead of time. Vasocagal syncope from a panic reaction is a bitch sometimes.
It's a small bright side when you're in a mental rut but it's something.

Does anyone else on tilde.town get it, even a little bit? Worrying now that people will
read this and just think we're nuts. There's bound to be someone that gets it, right?
Someone that's been there? I don't want to be alone.

I'm going to go draw now. Starting to feel a bit foggy and that's a bitch when it kicks
in. Better to try to get the feelings out before they get shut down.