Realizing just how much these three can make havoc, along with autism, has made me realized just how much I overthink things. I thought I had some seriously messed up stuff going on in my head, and talking to a couple of people made me realize that I do! It’s just, rather than what I feared it could be, it was mostly this cocktail of anxiety, depression, dysphoria, and autism. Literally overthinking myself into such mental distress, and yeah it’s all still there and tangible, but also anxiety is making me think that I’m being logical when I’m simply not. It did not take long for the people I was talking with to contradict my own thoughts, things I could not see at the moment, things I had convinced myself were intrinsic to me and natural. It’s trauma, of course it is, but I was failing to account for how it was impacting me, and I saw trauma and ran with what made the most sense, although it was under extremely heavy anxiety, so there was literally no reason to be had there. I’m… working on myself, and I’ll get to where I want to be. For now though, I need to focus on centering myself, and that just means dropping trying to be someone else and trying to be in places that might trigger me. Hence, a break I am taking. I’ve found I’m very easily triggered as of late, and it made me feel incompetent, and I have been beating myself up over it. Things bubbled over talking to people, though, and now it’s all just sitting on the surface, issues and traumas I thought I had overcome, emotions I am feeling when I told myself I was already feeling emotions again. I wasn’t. The past year proves this, compared to now.

I am in a better place now. I’m getting better every day. It might hurt, or be uncomfortable, I might burst into tears on the regular, I might have to rely on people, but that’s not a bad thing as I work through this. And until that point where I do work through most of this, I’m not making grand statements about myself, not putting myself in labels like I’ve tried to do for so long, tried to fit in. I’m simply me, and that’s perfectly alright, it’s in fact great. No more hiding, no more bottling things up, no more trying to be more than one person at once. I am just me, the me that I want to be, my favorite me, and the me that I will take with myself into the future.

I don’t know when I’ll be back from my break TBH, this foxwolf is tired, very tired. I’m kind of set with people too, but that doesn’t mean the people on here or on tracha aren’t nice people. I just think I need time to myself, I need to set new patterns, put in an effort to become the person I want to be. And I think that means letting go, shutting myself out from all the aspects of social life that stress me out, and just let myself incubate. I’ll still chat with people 1:1, but I’ve found that group spaces lead to more stress, a need to fit in, and I really really do not need that. I’m me, quirks, inconsistencies, and all, and I’ve spent way too long comparing myself to other people, trying to be people I’m not. It’s time to take my first steps into a life of my own making, my own design, my own liking.

More thoughts came out here than I originally intended, this was just going to be a post on my hair while making a joke about posting on Luna while listening to Cult of Luna, but I’ve realized what I need. A farewell, either for now or indefinitely. I’m due for a megathread post at the start of June, so I think I’ll make that my last week with you all, both here and on tracha. From there, I’ll probably delete my accounts. Keep my posts, keep my history, but finally say my farewells. It feels weird, pulling myself away when I put so much effort into putting myself out, but I need to figure out who I am on my own, without group influence, without perceived standards and insecurities and jealousies and everything else.

So update from a few months ago (probably more than a few at this point) but I’m still in name purgatory. I have a name that I use now, and a name that I used before that one, both outside of the original deadname. However, I don’t really like either of them, and any names I come up with myself can’t seem to stick, don’t feel like they fit 1/2 the time, or both. So, a solution: have other people come up with names for me! However, this doesn’t always work, and more serves as a brainstorming process. My mom already did it, and a lot of the names, if not all of them after reading the books she got them from, didn’t fit. My sister has now come up with a list and given it to me. It’s a lot smaller, but she’s also not at all afraid of showing her bias. There’s one name in particular that she really likes for me, and she made that quite obvious. I think I’m going to sit down with her tomorrow and pick one of them to use, at least for a few months (and I’ll probably pick another one as well, as a “middle” name but actually more of a second name). If it doesn’t stick, rinse and repeat, but I hope something manages to stick eventually. I don’t know why I really struggle to identify with names, and it’s not exactly something new to transition either. Don’t ask me to come up with usernames for myself, I really struggle to and it ends up being something basic (like Luna), or something basic (like AshenWolf), and I could not for the life of me pick something more fitting. It’s either just a name that happens to be moon in spanish that ended up being a funny Fire Emblem reference, or AshenWolf, another Fire Emblem reference.

I ended up going on a bit of a tangent, and I’m going to keep going, but I think I have a lot of issues with a static identity. I feel like I’m always changing based on the situation, putting on different masks (not necessarily positive or negative) and becoming different people depending on who might handle the situation best. It’s why I’m always changing my pronouns, profile picture, etc. I’m trying something new with using two accounts on here, one with she/her pronouns and one with she/they pronouns and switching based on how I feel or what persona I feel like posting with. I’m going to be honest, things like username, profile picture, even previous history, affect how I post. Luna is a certain persona, and AshenWolf is another, and it’s quite weird how sending one thing from one account just feels wrong on the other. I guess that’s another reason for changing profile pictures so much, maybe.

Regardless, and because I’m just going to ramble and repeat my points, I’m sure I’ll find a name, or even a couple, that will stick. For now though, it feels like the usernames (Luna, AshenWolf + variations like Ash) stick better than names for me, but I also don’t know if I could see myself using them as IRL names, and not just for opsec reasons. Okay I’m done now, hopefully you all don’t think the accounts talking to you have been frauds, despite a lack of concrete identity and the persona talk I assure you that they’re not and they’re both genuine parts of me.

If you somehow made it to the end, thanks for reading this wacky vent of a wall of text.