fighting regression

 obligatory it's been 11 months of this god awful depressive episode. some days are better than others. therapy helps, but the constant bullshit at work doesn't. i'm in a toxic relationship with work and they keep trying to gaslight me. sadly, i know too much. weee

i'm still staying sane with Stray Kids music. Ateez is also there. their music is working better than when this shit first started, so there's something. also throw in AleXa and a Day6 song in there somewhere.

i haven't tried listening to my visual kei bands since i put myself in a shut-down depressive episode when i was explaining the difference between visual kei and kpop to my partner. that was not a fun day. i don't want a repeat. hopefully i'll be able to listen to them again. i miss JapanX and Versailles. but pulling myself out of that shut-down was hard. so i'll just stick with what's keeping me sane.

Monster is also still simping over arms. especially with the new songs from the concert. like seriously....

MW: sir! please! you're killing me

don't worry. the original Gambit of the group wasn't helping much either. seriously, i'm pretty sure i died sunday morning watching the concert.

when i say eyes kill me. this is what i'm talking about:

fuck i need a werewolf.

it was totally fun watching both of those with my partner. i've never been happier that he has no problems with me drooling over other people around him. i still have to fight the urge to hide cuz of previous relationships where i wasn't allowed to look at anyone else. which sucks. a lot. but my current partner has never made me feel like i need to hide my art! appreciation (stupid weasels). i just still feel weird when it happens around him. it's completely a me thing. he tries to learn my hyperfocuses and support them. i've just been trying to not regress into a headspace he can't handle.

so, yeah, i've been fighting regressions into not really little-space nor is it really brat-space. kinda an in between. i'm not quite sure how to explain it. it was a coping mechanism growing up. kinda a safe space that i could go in in my head that no one could reach me. on the outside, i'm hyper? for lack of a better word for it. i guess happy-go-lucky works too. unless you really know me, you'd never know i was regressed. and even if you did really know me, i don't think you'd realize i was regressed. considering i've never told anyone that i do that. and no one's pegged it yet. inside i'm secure in my pile of stuffies. i have to protect myself from everything and that ends up showing in stuffie comfort. so i guess it is a little-space, but not quite. cuz outside i don't show the regression because it's too dangerous.

i was berated for liking things either too much or out of the norm or deemed unacceptable. first by my father. then by the guys i dated. i stopped sharing what made me happy because it always led to me being belittled for it. i locked it all away for when i was alone and no one could harm me. even now, i find myself trying to hide my joys because i don't want to feel less than for liking them. i've explained it to my partner. and he tries to create a space that i don't have to hide from him. he tries to be supportive even tho he doesn't understand. there are still things he says that make me hide. i know he doesn't mean to. he doesn't quite understand there are certain phrases that shut me down. partly because i don't know how to explain it to him. they would be harmless phrases to anyone else. just to me, because i spent 25-ish years of my life protecting my joy from people who should have been curating it, they shut me down. 

my partner tries. and i appreciate that. he apologizes if he notices me shutting down or protecting my joys. he encourages me to enjoy them. he doesn't make me feel bad to having them out. my room in the house if full of stuffies and legos and books and everything that makes me happy. and he doesn't make me feel bad for any of it. he asks me questions about them. lets me geek out about them.

like, he would put on The Winter Soldier or tell me i should watch it when he noticed me having a bad day. he never complained about my Bucky or Loki shrines, including the Bucky Bear stuffie i bought myself when i was sick. he's never complained about me sleeping with a stuffie. he's even stolen Snowie, my stuffed snow leopard i've been sleeping with since i was a baby and using her as a pillow, a few times to sleep with. yes, i know, Snowie the snow leopard. very original. i was a child when she got her name. i'm not changing it now. my legos have homes. the art that i've bought over the years get to be shown on the wall without complaint. even the ones of guys. or the cat with a cat o' nine. my books are out. he's even asked if i need more bookshelves. i don't know where i'd put them. currently i don't need them. but i still have books hiding somewhere in storage that i need to find.

but, with the current SKZ hyperfocus he's gone thru phases. first he was just indifferent. he just let me be. but that's what i needed. i was fighting a complete shutdown and needed to be able to escape whenever it got too much. no matter where i was. then i think he was trying to figure out if he needed to know anything about the hyperfocus or if it was something that would get overtaken by something else. he wasn't ignoring it, but he also wasn't asking about it. it was just a thing. now he's trying to understand it in his own ways. he's asking about the members. he asking about the songs. he's picking up on my favorites. he got up to watch the concert with me. it was at 4am my time. i knew full well i was gonna fuck with my sleep schedule to watch it. prolly force a bout of insomnia (which i did) to watch it. i told him he didn't have to wake up to watch it. i didn't want to mess up his sleep schedule because of my hyperfocus. but he got up and watched with me. he asked about songs. even recognized a few of them. he didn't make me feel bad for cuddling with one of my WolfChan stuffies during the concert. even asked about the SKZ-specific stuffies at the end. i have 6. 3 WolfChans and 3 Leebits. i'm waiting for my Dwaekki and Jiniret to come. they're in the mail. my partner doesn't know about them. we'll see how long before he notices them. my cat, Billy, did get jealous of me cuddling with WolfChan and had to insert himself in the cuddles.

welp, this spiraled into a partner appreciation post. that was unexpected. i just word-vomit these things because that's always helped me process things. i don't think i'll ever be able to talk about my weird headspace regression thing because i still don't know how to word it and i haven't seen anyone else explain a headspace that fits. i haven't been able to point to something and go "yes, that" yet. we'll see if i ever get the words to describe it. however, regardless of the weird headspace and fighting full regression into it, i'm safe. i'm figuring my shit out. i'm not having to protect my joys. i can experience things without worrying about being berated for it. so yeah, that's good. 

i'll leave this with 2 of the other solo songs i love from the concert. because Felix did a song inspired by Beauty and the Beast and my history with that story is something else. one of the dead blogs was Beauty and the Beast coded. it's a comfort story that is misunderstood so much.

and Han's song was just so much fun.