is getting better all the time! If I could crack the code on, like, not completely shutting down in groups, I’d be unstoppable

Tbh, I’m not very good at having hobbies. Part of me wants to start running stairs again, but I have no motivation and dont actually want to do it. I have videogames and coding and the like, but isolation thru those things is pretty bad for me. I’m still trying to get my life in order and learning how to be interested in anything other than my specific interest at a given moment is pretty hard. Right now its a programming project.

I’m excited to not be dropping money every week, be able to breathe better, just feel healthier, its really nice. The joy things for me are mostly social experiences, and I try to have those every week or hopefully more often. Im not terribly competent, socially, but I still enjoy it.

thankies, this shit sucks, but its not here rn and I know will come and go for about 2 weeks until it becomes more manageable. I’ve quit before, but this time I’m using far more nicotine and its harder lol. I’m looking forward to being able to breath again tho.

Congrats on being 12 years free! That’s wonderful!

This shit sucks. I hate this. I was using so much, now trying to limit myself to 4 hits from a vape per day, down from constantly hitting it all day every day. I hate this. I was going cold turkey starting yesterday (with a cessation aid, to be fair) and today was so miserable I needed to switch to stepping down instead of just stopping outright cause I could feel I was gonna break and just start using as per usual again. Any progress is good progress. I keep telling myself that. But I’m anxious and angsty and uppity and pissy and amped and it sucks. I’m exhausted and full of energy all at once. I need something to fully absorb my attention and time and give me dopamine. Maybe I’ll play some videogames. Idk. I hate my brain rn, I hate this so much. I’m trying to resist as much as I can, even with the four hit allotment. The less I use the better. Maybe tomorrow I can go without entirely. Idk. This shit just fucking sucks.

You can also make your own one-use stuff with water, corn or potato starch, and any other additives you’d like. You mix it slow over low heat (dont let it boil) and can customize ratios to get the right consistency for yourself. I’ve only used it when I’m desperate and out of lube, but its worked alright for me.

I put my notes/questions in parens, I dont feel like asking them about stuff rn. And tried to edit it with brackets to make it make more sense.

• Portland sucks, its just really close to tons of cool stuff (I’m assuming they’re referring to the mountain nearby, the coast, the high desert in eastern Oregon, etc., cause they’re pretty outdoorsy)
• Portland isn’t a city, its an association of neighborhoods masquerading as a city
• Portland is super fucking white, whiter than anywhere [they’ve] lived. It comes from a history where black people were not allowed to live [there], and there’s still tons of casual liberal racism and gentrification and driving out poor people and people of color
• Oregon in general has a fascism problem
• tons of people [there] who are like “I’m a white liberal queer so I know what oppression is and can’t oppress others”, with some people being chillers and accepting they can oppress others, and even fewer actually doing the work to unlearn and address it
• drivers [there] fucking suck. There’s the Portland drivers, who stop at an intersection to let another car go when they have the right of way, and dont know how to zipper, and can’t make a decisive move to save their life, and endanger tons of people. Then there’s the out of towners who learned how to drive somewhere that people actually drive normally and are competent. Then there’s the calidrivers who cut you off run stop signs break suddenly tailgate and fucking suck and endanger people. Also no one knows how to drive on slick roads after rain, and if [they] get ice then good fucking luck and drive super defensively, people [there] treat ice like it doesn’t exist and speed 10+mph over the limit with summer tires, or slow to a 5mph crawl regardless of whether there’s even ice on the road
• there’s no gayborhood, just dispersed [f-slur used here in a reclamatory sense]
• big homelessness problem and the city refuses to deal with it. Right now there’s a program to “relocate people to their families outside portland” instead of actually give people care and social services to get them off the street
• PPB sucks. They’re incompetent until it’s time to beat on helpless people
• lefties [there] are either liberals with a coat of paint, anarchists who want to burn everything and dont care about building, or batshit wackos trying to start a sex cult
• there’s tons of old hippies (they listed this here so I’m assuming that’s a negative?)
• the job market is shit right now
• its in the valley of sickness. There’s mold everywhere
• trimet (their public transit in Portland) sucks. The fact that its some of the best in the nation is a disgrace
• the city builds bike infrastructure that makes [them] feel unsafe when biking, and neglects bike boulevards (idk what a bike boulevard is, but I’m assuming its a dedicated bike path separate from the road (Portland locals care to chime in?))
• I fucking hate the [cishets] [there]. They think they’re queer cause they dress like [queers] and then speak like they know [queer] problems, all while perpetuating casual liberal homophobia and transphobia
• the city shuts down after 9pm. Its gotten better about it over the years, but its still not great
• good luck affording your $900/mo room plus utilities while making $20/hr and can’t get more than 15-20 hours/week. At least [they] qualify for fucking OHP (looked it up, its the states health plan? Looks decent at a glance)
• you’ll need heating in the winter and ac in the summer. Hello giant utilities bill
• everything is fucking expensive
• the cities gonna be broke in 5 years (no idea why, they didn’t elaborate)

Dont stop on [interstate 5] north of Vancouver at night if your black or visibly trans, and be careful in hood river if your not white, people get disappeared.

When I was last in an ideation place, one of the things that made me feel heard, that felt unselfish and like the person actually respected me, was my friend saying to me that she understood, that suicide is an option, not a good one but one that is there, and that she wouldn’t judge or hate me if I took that route. She helped pull me out of that place, and her realness and understanding was a big part of it. I dont know if a stranger would have had the same effect with those words, it was more meaningful because she was my friend, but actually listening and acknowledging what’s happening is important. If someone is going to kill themselves, they’re gonna kill themselves. For me the people who have acknowledged that have had a far greater and more positive effect on the ideation not becoming intention than those who deny, ignore reality, or try to handwave away problems.