cringerzella

(1.) yes this is mainly about forms of dissociation, or at least based on my line of questioning regarding it from the past week or so. i still think there isnt a wrong way to interpret this piece though because it gives room to address some of my other issues and i wanted to leave it open ended for those (anything you can associate with questioning, doubt, fluidity etc. probably applies to this piece)

(2.) a lot of people elsewhere interpreted this about me having a lack-of-self but i feel like its better characterized as overflowing with so much "self" and a rising demand to uphold the differing "selves" pushing and pulling from all angles that its confusing

ironically, accepting that i am not a consistent person is already helping me find consistency sort of? because being able to categorize it, realize there's not some simple fix that i'm missing, and explain why my entire worldview can change so quickly makes me feel like i have some autonomy in that regard

its not really a cry for help so much as it feels like i was able to make this piece to end the chapter of subtle denial + self-flagellation and start working with myself a little bit more. even the worst part of myself is still someone with differing needs and goals that id have to take the time to understand and work with

(3.) this is also visually based on the arc ive had over the past year or so where i began to draw entity as much as possible to explore what it could be, opposed to who i initially thought it was. a lot of this art is on my alt and most of these heads probably correlate to at least one piece i made over there

i think it was able to start around the time i dropped out of college after becoming so desperate to be my own person and begin living (and also just. realizing i should not be in more debt than the amount of money i will ever make in my life and torture myself by being around more well-off people just because someone told me to lmao).

if youre like me and have the privilege to reject burnout, the thing about letting yourself have some time alone to settle down and think is that youre going to unpack so much prior shit, over a decade of it probably, and theres probably going to be denial or doubt or some intense fear about ever being that "functional/whole person" again and itll be hard to pry yourself away from isolation when it rewards you with comfort. and when you make a mistake youre going to writhe and kick and destroy yourself for failing to ever return to the idea of a "functional person"

and its Supposed to suck. thats literally the only way it can happen. its not even your fault that you have to work from the ground up but the first step is giving yourself leeway before you crawl out of that box, if you ever do. i dont believe in saying in good faith that it "gets better" because it paints an idealized future where everything wrong with you is magically erased, and this becomes an expectation that people get hung up on for never meeting. thats literally what people mean when they tell you to be patient with yourself. thats You

for that reason i cant even promise that im going to radically change after these revelations, but ive pieced together why its impossible to feel like ive ever moved from "learner" to "teacher," why i felt innately inferior to people, why it was hard to register that i had a body/presence and was supposed to remember that i had to participate with other people, and why i didnt want to. like i already go through the effort of not taking up space, so i have to stop internalizing that a person ignoring this and becoming irritated with me effectively doesnt want me to exist. sometimes it is not my problem