#nb problems

People have told me before that it's okay for me to vent here because nobody is being forced to read this crap or follow me, but I still feel like a douche canoe any time I complain here about anything that has to do with my "real life," because I'm so incredibly fortunate and privileged. At least outwardly, my (closest) family has accepted my nb-ness / questioning and I'm overwhelmingly grateful for that. I haven't been disowned, or kicked out of the house, or laughed at... like I said, enormous unearned privilege/good fortune. And ironically, having a few people "in the know" who are still talking to/about me the way they did for 31 years, while frustrating, has genuinely been helping me better understand that I definitely don't identify with my birth-assigned gender or its pronouns anymore, if I ever really did at all. 🤔 It seems to be a matter now of "how long can I continue to pretend the misgendering doesn't bother me when it's coming from my parents," because, lest we forget, I'm still intensely nonconfrontational, afraid of being an inconvenience or a burden to others, terrified of taking up space or standing up for myself, and thoroughly convinced of my own utter worthlessness. 😬

As for the ao3 comment that I have no doubt blown way out of proportion 🤦😣 I'm... I don't know. It has finally taken a backseat in my mind to other concerns, so that's an improvement. But it's going to take a long time to dust myself off from all of this; the comment in question was really just the straw that broke my back after spending the last 2 years having an extremely prolonged existential crisis in regards to my "place" (or lack thereof) in the fandom. I've been feeling really bad/lousy/insecure about my work and my ability to "fit in" or contribute (without also annoying people to death) ever since an incident in the 2020 big bang discord server got under my skin and has just kept on burrowing into my mind and soul like a poisoned splinter ever since.

I don't write fics that are appropriate / desirable / worthy of inclusion in zines or rec lists or what-have-you. I don't know anything about any of the new Trek series or characters or timelines or whatever the hell else because I went and got my ptsd triggered while watching season 1 of Discovery and had to promise myself not to watch anything else produced by the current franchise-runners in the interest of self-preservation. And original series K/S is my only ship, my only fandom interest, the only [hyper-]fixation I've had for at least 6 years now. The harsh fact that I'm simply out of touch and irrelevant has been making me question why I'm even still trying to maintain any kind of online presence at all... and yet my fics and my online friends here have been essentially the only things that have motivated me to keep Living in the last 4+ years. 🤔 So... I'm a mess all over, and not just because of that comment (it clearly didn't help matters any, though). 🤦🤷 (And yet and yet... being a mess is my Thing, like, it's the one thing I'm consistently good at. So although it sucks, I'm also accustomed to it, in a lot of ways. 🙁😬👍)