soos_mite_ah

Things I want to do when the pandemic is over Go to a restaurant: Doesn't matter where, I just want to take myself to dinner and sit down somewhere that isn't my car or my house in order to eat. Also, I want to go to a coffee shop and just chill. That was one of my favorite things to do before all of this happened. I know I can technically do that now but my parent are at risk and we are hella strict when it comes to these things. Go shopping: I want to get some new clothes because part of me wants a change since I have essentially been wearing the same 5 outfits on repeat in the house since I have nowhere to go. Also, I feel like my tastes and over all vibe has shifted and I want to wear things that honor that change. I know I can shop online but I want to shop in person because I'm built weird (as far as the fashion industry is concerned) and I have to try things on. Go to a big ass party: I have a lot of repressed and bottled up craziness stirring inside of me and I want a release. I don't see myself partying a lot since it really isn't my thing but I feel like I need to go to 1 rave or something to get that out of my system. Start dating again and get into a short term relationship: I have a lot of romantic thirstiness to release and I want to explore my sexuality more since idk what my orientation is anymore. Also, I want to let go of this idea that I have to have my life all the way together and constantly work on myself in order to b loved. Make some friends: I really want a social circle again. I was so ready to start putting myself out there but as soon as I felt that way the pandemic hit. Get some actual hands on experience with my career: A lot of the internships I have been applying to are ones that are remote. I'm tired of just sitting behind a screen in my bedroom. and last but not least....... TRAVEL AND MOVE OUT OF MY PARENT'S HOUSE: I had to cancel my plans and move back home. That has taken a toll on me to say the least. I can't wait to do things by myself again. In short, because I can't do any of these things, I feel rather repressed. On a somewhat related note, I also feel like I haven't aged since March because of the pandemic.

I realized that I was addicted to self help when I realized that most of my interests revolve around it and that I tend to base my self worth on how conscious I am being. Part of me was attracted to self help because I genuinely wanted to be the best I could be but I would be lying if I said that this is the only thing that drew me to it. Another part of me was attracted to self help because I think that there is something inherently wrong with me and that I need to make up for lost time because I have all of this potential that I haven't tapped into yet. While this addiction has helped me grow a lot as a person, I'm starting to see the limitations of it for me personally. I also realize that getting over self help is also a form of self help since I'm working through an addiction I have. It's a paradox lol. But yeah, how do I deal with this?

Title says it all. Would prefer long answers or get video/book recommendations

2/12/2021 Daily Check In I went to sleep and I woke up feeling full and nauseous. I'm not sure whether this is a side effect of the birth control or the zoloft but either way I felt sick for most of today and barely ate. For breakfast I has 3 slices of toast with butter and an egg. I also had a bowl of cereal with some almond milk and blueberries for dinner. I had a couple of cans of Sprite for the nausea and that helped so thats good. And that's all that I had today. It was a pretty off day but at least I didn't feel depressed.

2/11/2021 Daily Check In Still felt rather blue today but I do feel better than yesterday. I ate breakfast and I had blackberries, an egg some toast, and an avocado along with a handful of pumpkin seeds. I was excited this morning because the avocados I bought are finally ripe enough to eat ☺️. I've been waiting for a while lol. I didn't eat a lot today mainly because I accidentally skipped lunch. Wasnt my intention. By the time I noticed that it was 5pm so I was like, eh I'm having dinner in a couple hours anyway so might as well get a snack.

2/9/2021 Daily Check In I had 2 slices of toast with raspberries along with an egg for breakfast. I ate pretty well today and my energy has been good but other than that my day has been relatively unremarkable. The only thing I guess I can note down was that I had trouble sleeping because of the cold. 2/10/2021 Daily Check In I woke up and I felt depressed as hell today. I guess it is a combination of not sleeping well, having nightmares about the things that give me anxiety, and the weather lately since my depression is influenced by the weather. I wouldn't be surprised if the birth control might have a part in it but I doubt it since I didnt have any side effects in the previous days since I started using it. There were some emotional things that also built up tbh that I wasnt proactive about in handling. Anyway, I forced myself to eat breakfast. I had some cereal with almond milk, blueberries, and peanut butter. I was tempted to skip all of my meals today and hide under the covers for the rest of the day since it is so cold outside but I did manage to make sure I ate enough food as well as go to a doctors appointment I had today. This might sound pathetic, but I'm proud of myself for doing the bare minimum which includes eating healthy, taking a shower, and going to the doctor. I really didnt feel like doing any of those things but I'm sure I would have felt worse had I dont none of those things.

This video really resonated with me and is pretty spot on imo

2/7/2021 Daily Check In For breakfast I had a handful of blueberries and some cereal with almond milk. I also had an egg. I had a shit ton of pizza today as well. It's basically the ultimate pizza with all of the vegetables I like that I referenced earlier in my journal. It was really satisfying and I had 4 slices. I was so filled up to where I didnt have dinner. Instead, I just opted for a protein bar. I felt a little sluggish after the pizza but it wasnt so bad. I just felt really full and that's about it. 2/8/2021 Daily Check In Ok so I think the birth control is working. Normally, I would break out pretty badly with a meal like the one I had the day before. But that didnt happen today so that's a good sign. Still not getting any side effects from the birth control. As for breakfast, today I skipped. Even though I'm never hungry in the morning, I caught myself having to make the conscious effort to have breakfast. That's a good sign imo, it means that making and eating breakfast is becoming a habit that I dont have to think about. I also kept my food a little light in general today because that's what my body wanted. I have essentially been feeling full for the last few weeks straight so part of me was like *I need a break.*

Blue moving into orange and then to healthy orange/green

2/6/2021 Daily Check In For the next idk how many days, the format and quality of my posts may be off because my laptop broke and now I'm typing this on my phone ? At least I have more options for emojis lol ? Anyway, today for breakfast I had tofu scrambled eggs and a cauliflower tortilla. I also had my protein bar and I caught myself feeling a little sleepy. Idk if this is just me tbh. For the rest of the day, I felt really full so I ate a little less than usual. I know protein is satiating but god damn. I think if I were to keep eating this, I'll have to eat the protein bar at night so that I can still get my calories in from the rest of the day. As for the birth control, things are going ok. I haven't grown an extra limb or had any side effects.... yet. Let's hope it stays this way and that it helps. This is only my second day on birth control so it's still to early to tell. My period on the other hand is not really my period at the moment. It's more like spotting tbh. There is no pain or cramps involved but my period as a whole is barely there.

@NatureB I think my thing is that finding my life purpose and getting impatient with it is coming from a place of pain. I feel like I have this deadline of being successful. I feel like I'm this blob of wasted potential. I feel like I really need stability and a grounding force for these uncertain times. I feel like I really need to have a clear idea of which way I'm headed next to feel a sense of safety, like I'm doing something with my life. I feel upset about living with my parents at this moment and I'm having trouble connecting to my pure, authentic joy, because of my home environment due to COVID. I think these are the things that are limiting me and that I need to let go of that resistance to attract my life purpose.

I have taken the life purpose course twice now and I noticed that I came up with different careers depending on where I was at in the spiral. My core values and the such has stayed the same but the medium and the way I want to manifest those values and ideals have changed. For example, when I was more so in stage green, I wanted to manifest my life purpose through writing and travelling while now as I move towards yellow, I find myself wanting to manifest my purpose through researching the social sciences. I can see how life purpose can change as we develop as a person which is why it's important to stay flexible. What I'm trying to get at is, how do I ensure that my life purpose is solid enough to where it can withstand how I grow, change, and develop as a person so I won't have to have an existential crisis and fully revaluate my career path every two years or so? Is the reason why my life purpose "changed" is because I haven't actually found it yet?

Thought I add onto this thread upon watching Leo's most recent 2 hour vlog. I find a lot of shades in myself in his video. He mentions pursuing self help for the last 8 years and how he needed a break from it so that he can integrate things more and deepen his understanding because rest helps you create more distinctions (after all learning= making distinctions). He also talked about how he was taking care of his health more and how he was doing things that made him forget about actualized.org for a while and how that is helping rejuvenate him. Now, granted I'm only getting a pea sized version of this experience. After all, I'm not pumping out new high quality content every week or taking psychedelics. But I have really thrown myself into self improvement since I was 15 (so for the last 6 years). That has been my main focus. I see a lot of benefits from taking a break from self help. I take breaks for about a couple months out of the year so that I don't feel like I'm on a hamster wheel. But my problem is that I have trouble unplugging completely. Currently I have been more relaxed with the self help where I'm not meditating super regularly, I calmed down on the shadow work, (and Leo taking a break for the last couple months has also been immensely helpful for me to take a break from actualization work as well so thanks @Leo Gura, even your break and your insights in your recent vlog has helped and resonated with me). But I have still been working on my health, on being more gentle with myself, on building more sustainable habits, and reflecting to find my life purpose. It's like even when I do take a break from self improvement, I still find myself doing other forms of self improvement. Unplugging 100% is a challenge for me and I really want help with that.

2/5/2021 Daily Check In I had breakfast today. It was the same thing I had yesterday except minus the eggs. Just didn't feel like having them today. I ate pretty well today. Dinner was a little earlier and lighter than usual. I also bought these protein bars today. I'm trying to get more protein into my diet and I'm aiming for roughly 70-90g a day. I noticed that when I entered my food to the cronometer that if I add a protein bar that's about 20g of protein I can meet my target easily. Also, I can get in some more carbs and calories without eating a large volume of food since those bars tend to be more calorically dense. I'm eating these Cliff Builder's bars. They taste ok, you know as good as protein bars tend to be and they also scratch my chocolate cravings. The only issue that I have is the amount of added sugar (17 g) and the ingredients, but I feel like the ingredients thing is inevitable since it is a processed food. I try to avoid anything processed but I mean I don't have much of that in my diet so I'm sure adding a protein bar wouldn't be the end of the world. The only things in my diet that are processed are this and the Cheerios, which aren't even that bad since the ingredients are decent. Here are the nutrition facts below: Also, after eating this, I caught myself feeling a little bit more sleepy. Not like tired, sluggish, or unfocused but relaxed. I might be misremembering something or I'm just speaking out of my ass but I think I remember seeing something that was along the lines of getting enough protein in your diet can help you go to sleep. I don't know I guess I'll have to see in the next few days. I'm going to try to get my sleep schedule on track so that I can make myself eat breakfast instead of waking up and not wanting to get out of bed. Speaking on seeing what will happen in the next few days, I started my period today. Which means that I'm going to start birth control today. I'm nervous about what this drug is going to do to my body but I'm hoping to god that it helps me with my PCOS. I heard a lot of horror stories about birth control and I'm hoping that I'm not going to experience any of that.

Desire Part 5 Prior to meeting Sean, I went on a date with this guy a year before (I'm not even giving him a fake name because he is so irrelevant). I barely knew him and I was like *eh, might as well give him a chance and get to know him.* Before our date he asked me how comfortable I was with physical touch. I'm very comfortable with touch so I let him know. I'm glad that he asked before hand, thought that was kind. Well half way through our date, we were cuddling on a couch and he almost grabbed my ass. I wasn't physically or emotionally uncomfortable but in my mind I was like *that's not something you do on a first date.....*I grabbed his hand and held it so it wouldn't travel anywhere lol. Physically, I didn't feel good either. I didn't feel anything tbh. A guy I'm not romantically attracted to can literally grope me and I wouldn't feel a thing (positive or negative) but a guy that I'm romantically attracted to like Sean could look me in the eyes and talk to me about economics and I would be blushing (I blush for all types of reasons mainly out of shyness). I guess my point is that if I want to feel anything sexual in a situation in the future, I need to build up some type of romantic attraction or else I'm not going to be feeling anything. Maybe I'm demisexual? My romantic feelings can exist without sexual attraction but in order to feel attraction I need romantic feelings. A demisexual is basically someone who is on the asexual spectrum but feels sexual attraction after they bonded with someone. But then again, feeling physically turned on because say someone whispered in your ear isn't the same as being attracted to them. You can get physically turned on without being attracted to someone. I can make myself orgasm without a single thought or fantasy in my hand just by touching myself in the right way. It's kind of like a vending machine, push the right buttons and you get a snack or in this case an orgasm. But at the same time when I do think about sex I mainly think about the romantic aspects of it. When I do fantasize, I don't think about penetration or any particular position or scenario. I think about mainly making out, cuddling up against someone, having someone run their fingers through my hair etc. I know I'm also really sensitive from the shoulders up, even in a nonsexual context. If someone comes near my shoulder, I automatically have a reflex. For me, sex isn't from the waist down, it's from the neck up. I can't imagine having sex, or I guess good sex to where I feel anything in my body, with someone I don't have some type of romantic feelings for. For me, sex feels like a romantic expression of one's feelings. You can't passionately express feelings if they aren't there in the first place. I know that I'm not the type of person who can have a one night stand or have a friends with benefits relationship with someone and not get attached to the person. Because to me, sex is very secondary. Romance is the main thing. Like I don't even like the way a dick looks (or even a pussy). To me, dicks look like sad sea creatures and pussy's look like fucked up enchiladas. I'm not disgusted but genitals just are what they are. I don't fantasize about a man's or a woman's body either. I can acknowledge when someone is beautiful (like come on, I might be asexual but I'm not blind) or see why someone might be attracted to someone based on society's standards even if I don't think they are beautiful. That's how I feel about a lot of celebrities like Brad Pitt. I get the appeal but he just doesn't do it for me. I never had any celebrity crushes because I simply don't know them, therefore I can't be romantically attracted to them. But at the same time, there are some kinks that sound appealing to me. I like the idea of dominating and being dominated. I like the idea of being submissive because I'm pretty in control and assertive in every other area in my life and it's like I want to embrace this part of myself in the bedroom. I also like the idea of being dominant because I feel like being submissive all the time would get boring and also because I think one of the main reasons why I'm a sub is because I'm a virgin who doesn't know what to do at the moment. I'm pretty sure that I'm a switch. And to me, these things are more so about the situation rather than any particular individual. At first glance I think, yeah I'm definitely not asexual. But then again, someone's sexuality and someone's sexual orientation aren't the same thing. You can take two straight people and one of them might be kinky and one of them might be vanilla. They are both straight but they have very different sexualities. I guess by that logic, there can be kinky and vanilla asexuals under the sex favorable section. There is also the whole thing with me having PCOS. That can mess with your hormones. As I have been taking care of my health more, I noticed my sex drive really coming up. That is really confusing. I know that being asexual and having a high sex drive is possible. Then again, a kinky asexual with a high sex drive who is also heteroromantic is really pushing it....... Maybe I am straight idk!?!?!??!?!! If I am straight, my theory is that I was a late bloomer and then when I was supposed to bloom at around 17 or so, the PCOS came in and intercepted my sexuality to where I kept thinking I was asexual til I was 21. I also have shame surrounding the possibility of me being straight. I'm 21 now and people have been knowing that I'm asexual since I was 14. That's 7 years. Telling people I'm straight and I guess coming out again (can you even come out as a straight!?!??!) makes me feel like a liar. Asexual people are often seen as liars and people with fucked up hormones. Their identity is often dismissed as such or as some type of phase. Most people don't even think asexuality is a real thing. And I feel like me saying that I'm not asexual is me feeding into the stigma. But at the same time, assuming that I'm straight when I'm actually asexual is asexual erasure. Most asexuals aren't these stereotypical prudes that live in a convent. They can appear as other sexualities because of maybe their romantic orientation and they can still be asexual. But then again if I am some type of kinky, hetereo-romantic asexual/ demisexual with a high sex drive, then like I'm pretty damn close to being straight. Or maybe I'm asexual all of this is happening because I feel peer pressure to have sex since at 21 it's considered weird by some people to still be a virgin??? I've had moments where I have felt insecure about still being a virgin. Maybe I'm straight and I have some repression going on since I tend to be overly logical and the PCOS is messing with my urges???? Idk man I'm really confused and I have shame wrapped around this because I don't know what to make of these experiences.

Desire Part 4 Even though my high school was pretty liberal, the same couldn't be said about the college that I'm attending. I honestly didn't feel comfortable being openly asexual because there were a lot of Trump supporting frat bros surrounding me at all times. I also felt this pressure to go out and have sex, drink a lot, and party. None of those things are really me. I went to a couple parties and tried to drink but I honestly didn't enjoy it much. Call me boring idc. But the sex part gets to me at times. Even if you aren't a partier, college is often seen as a time when people really experiment with their sexuality. As someone who identified as asexual, sex felt like it was everywhere. A lot of asexuals describe it as having everyone around you celebrate the Super Bowl while you're sitting here not understanding or caring about football. That's how I feel about college a lot of the time. Even in LGBTQ inclusive places, I still feel like a very tiny minority. Everyone is talking about it and I do feel left out because I don't have much to contribute to the conversation. It's especially annoying when some douche bro tells me something along the lines of "damn just live a little" as if I'm not living my life to the fullest because I'm choosing to stay a virgin. Like sex isn't the end all and be all to life. I have plenty of other things that make me happy and fulfilled. And I'm betting you haven't even made a girl cum once nor do you know where or what a clitoris is. Occasionally I have to deal with creeps that fetishize my virginity by making me out to be this pure and untouched, innocent thing. Fetishizing virginity gives me a very infantilizing, puritanical, and creepily religious vibe. But luckily those guys and the douche bros are in the minority. Most people with any amount of common sense don't care about what I'm doing with my vagina. I also met a guy in college. He was off limits because he is my professor (I'm going to call him Sean again going along with Ari's exes). I wouldn't dare make a move on him because that's messed up and creepy on my part. I did a post about him previously in my journal (page 6). In this post I mainly talked about Sean's personality and how the way he carried himself made me romantically attracted to him. I could see that he was attractive but I didn't feel physically attracted to him. It was the same as Ricky where I can see he was beautiful but I didn't tie it in with sex, kind of like how you admire a painting. I do have aesthetic preferences but by no means are they a must. The traits I mentioned in this post, his wavy hair, his big nose, his beautiful smile, the way he dressed, those are things that I find beautiful in both men and women tbh. And it's not even like a sexual thing. There was this one instance where I felt actual sexual attraction towards Sean. Up til now, I experienced all of the types of attraction above except sexual attraction. It was during finals week. I had a couple questions from the study guide I wanted to ask about. The door to his office is always a little cracked and normally you can just come in. I opened the door and he was talking to another student. He gave me this threatening look that scared the fuck out of me. It was so unlike him since he always had a sunny disposition. He told me "hey I'm in the middle of something can you give us a minute?" I said sure and I waited outside of his office. I overheard the conversation between him and this student. The student was one of the guys that barely showed up for class and he was begging Sean to bring his grade back up. Sean wasn't having it and was like basically saying hey you had all these opportunities, I can't give you another chance. He is normally a gentle person and I guess some people see his kindness for weakness and see it as an opportunity to push on his sensitivity to get what they want. But clearly he has a backbone lol. He later let me in and was back to his smiley, kindhearted self and he apologized for scaring me judging by my face earlier. Nothing went on after that. I just asked him my questions and left. The first picture of Marina was me because Sean looked like he wanted to kill me. The second picture is how I felt when I began waiting outside lol. And at that moment I found out that I'm a sub. It was also the moment when I began questioning my asexuality.

Body Image Update I haven't had posts about my body image lately so I thought I'd give an update. I feel like I'm doing better in regards to my body image now vs like a month ago. I think I have gotten used to trying to pick up on how I'm feeling rather than what I look like since then when it comes to measuring how I'm doing with this life style change. Before, trying to change my eating habits and monitoring what I was eating used to sometimes turn into something obsessive because of my previous issues with body image. I have alleviated a lot of that and I feel like even though my diet isn't perfect right now, as in there is still room for improvement, I'm not beating myself up for it. But I would be lying if I said that I'm 100% confident in my body. I'm still a little self conscious about my acne. It isn't too bad but I do find relief in picking at my skin (bad habit I know) and I'm glad that I still have to wear a mask everywhere because of COVID because that means that I don't have to put on makeup. But my biggest insecurity as always is my weight, particularly my stomach. I always have a little bit of pudge there no matter how skinny or chubby I am at the moment. I had this since as long as I can remember. I never had a flat stomach. My mom always made fun of me for that growing up and she still points it out and tells me how I would be so much prettier if I had a flatter stomach and if I was skinnier over all. Then there is society in general. I know that beauty standards for women change with the decades but no matter what the standard is whether it is the super skinny and tall standard from the 90s and the early 2000s to the curvy standard from the 2010s, a flat stomach is always there even when it doesn't make sense. Because lets be real, if you naturally have boobs and a butt, odds are your stomach isn't going to be completely flat. And I know that the majority of women don't have a flat stomach unless they are really skinny, but when it comes to flat stomachs, that's the only kind of stomach you ever see in the media, whether it is TV or social media. I think part of it is because it's mainly the people with flat stomachs that are posting pictures while the rest of us try out best to hide our stomachs or appear as we are flat (chubby stomach erasure lol). I've had people assume that I had a flat stomach and to me that sounded really weird because to me my stomach is huge and pretty much ruins every picture. I know the vast majority of people don't give a damn what I look like. I'm not trying to impress them. I just don't like the way I look to myself. But I am aware that this standard for a flat stomach is socially conditioned in me. That still doesn't stop me from disliking the way I look. This one insecurity is really at the root of a lot of my neurosis regarding food and body image. I probably said this in a previous post but I swear to god that I would be a 10 if I had a flat stomach. It feels like the only thing stopping me. I try to focus on how I physically feel as opposed to what I look like in this process but I do get the thought that I gained 2 in on my waist creep back up at me. I know that isn't reasonable. I went from a 25 in waist to a 27 in waist. I'm still relatively tiny. I'm tempted to call myself a bigger woman but I know I can't do that because I'm literally a US size 2/4 and people would get mad at me, but honestly I feel like a bigger woman compared to other girls. There are also some clothes that I don't feel comfortable wearing because of my stomach such as crop tops, swimsuits, and just tight clothes in general. I try to wear clothes that will hide my stomach as much as possible. Sometimes I do have to remind myself that I am feeling better health wise, how I have more energy, how my mood is more stable, and how I have a better relationship with food because I still have that intrusive thought that says "well you didn't lose any weight around your stomach so clearly you're not doing enough." I think it's so ingrained from diet culture that skinny automatically means healthy to where we don't emphasize the other factors of health nearly as much. I'm planning on starting birth control in a couple of weeks and part of me hopes that one of things that the birth control will do in addition to managing my PCOS is that it will help me lose weight. I highly doubt that will happen since if anything I always hear that birth control makes you gain weight but then again I also hear that managing the PCOS hormonally will help you lose weight so I have no idea tbh. I just think it's messed up that I thought about losing weight before I thought about managing my PCOS and taking care of my health.

Desire Part 3 My previous view of love, though cynical and rooted in pain, was important in the way I grew as a person. After the whole experience with Pete, I was like *I need to figure out my standards so that I can avoid guys like this.* And that's what I did. I remember one time when I was 14 I was up at night because I couldn't sleep and naturally I started to reevaluate my whole life. Then I pulled out my laptop and started journaling about my standards. I not only addressed what I looked for but what each of those qualities meant and how they would manifest. I still go back to this document if I feel like I learned something about myself or something from my dating experiences. It keeps me accountable and helps me weed through guys who probably don't have the best intentions in mind. Here is an example of what I wrote back then. I will probably post the entire document as a reference later on in this series. But yeah, that whole reflection did help me a lot in high school. It also helped my friends because I essentially became THE person that can sniff out bad intentions in guys before my friends got into any trouble or drama. I did eventually find one guy in my high school that fulfilled all of my standards. Being the emotionally thirsty person I am and since I went to a small school with not that many guys, I will admit that I got fixated with Ricky. He and I were friends and I'm 100% sure he knew I liked him the whole time because I was/ am an idiot when it comes to these types of things. I could go into all of the funny situations I got myself in but I will try to not get off topic. To be honest, I'm not sure if Ricky liked me back. I think I remember him flirting with me a couple times but then I think I was talking to him about something and I said that I wasn't ready for a relationship in general. Because of that he probably kept shit to himself and/or started talking to other people. The reason why I said that despite liking him was because I was very focused on school at the time. I wanted to have a greater idea of who I was. On top of that, I was in a difficult home environment and I thought that *hey I need to get some therapy to fix my issues and get over my depression/anxiety so that I can have better judgement and so that I don't get myself into a codependent situation.* That was all reasonable and I don't regret in the slightest. In fact I'm glad I did that because I was in a difficult place at the time and I wasn't in the place to date. But I will say that some of it had to do with paranoia and the fear of getting hurt again, fear that that I had bad judgement. I took the chance and I let myself get close to this person. Ricky and I shared a lot of personal things about ourselves and got to know each other even though we never dated. And even though I knew we weren't ever going to be a thing, I was thankful that I had a friend. This whole experience also enabled me to be more emotionally open, see what I'm like around a guy in this type of dynamic, and be comfortable with my feelings. I think the last part with me being comfortable with my feelings was the most important part. I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love. I remember one time we were talking about college and what we wanted to do with our futures. Ricky was nerding out about his ideal future and I paused one time and said "you have the biggest smile on your face right now." I felt myself blush and I remember how open my heart felt in that exact moment. Normally in something like this I would probably hide my face but seeing the way he was lit up in side sparked a lot of joy within me to where any shame I would have had in this situation faded away. I simply nodded and said "I know, I'm just happy that you feel comfortable with me to share all this about yourself." Prior to us becoming closer, I was very on edge around Ricky. I wanted to shove my feelings for him in a box and forget about him. But even I suppressed my emotions, it didn't help me get over him. I was so on edge with the thought of me liking someone because I simply didn't trust myself anymore after the last guy I liked. I was afraid he was going to be an asshole. But turns out he wasn't. He was actually a decent guy. We just didn't match up well as far as compatibility went and it just wasn't the right timing in terms of where I was at with my life. He gave me a lot of faith in my future love life, like I could actually find a decent guy and have a good relationship with him. A lot of my cynicism melted away. During all 4 years of high school, I was so tempted to come clean about my feelings and to start dating him but I made the promise to myself that if I were to date at all, that I was going to date from a place of strength and stability and that I wasn't going to date until I got my life together. This was a test of patience and self control. I began contemplating my views on love yet again at 17. I remember one time my English teacher made us write a paper on what we thought love was. Most of us thought this was dumb because we are all so young and we don't have much life experience yet. I remember when this assignment was given, one of my friends blurted out "sir we are 17, the only experience we have in love is guys screwing us over." I had a similar outlook but I got carried away in the existential crisis and I wrote a whole paper about logical and emotional decision making and how emotions and being emotional wasn't the opposite of being logical. I really went above and beyond for this assignment and I even looked up some papers (that's how I got to that conclusion). Doing that research really helped me breakout of my cold, rationalist world view and in turn complexify my view on love. I'll probably put the paper here in a future post. So that was my out look on love. Now switching over to sexuality. During high school, I was pretty sure that I was asexual. Even though I really liked Ricky and thought he was a beautiful person inside and out, I never had any sexual thoughts about him nor was I physically attracted to him. I thought he was beautiful in the way that one might find a painting beautiful. Just because I think paintings are pretty doesn't mean that I want to fuck the Starry Night. I discovered that I had a physical need for touch though but not in a sexual sense. I had about 4 guys that I considered "cuddle buddies" where basically we were friends and we would cuddle with each other when we felt like it. There weren't any romantic or sexual feelings involved, just the desire to hold someone and fall asleep for a while during free periods. I think that's where a lot of my romantic thirstiness stems from. I don't want to sleep with a person, I want to fall asleep with them and have my body wrapped around theirs. I'm in general a very physically affectionate person who is open with touch. It's the way my family is. We're all huggers and even as an adult I don't mind cuddling next to my dad when we are sitting on the couch together. There isn't anything weird about it tbh. My main view on sex at this time was that if you wanted to, go for it but make sure it is all safe and consensual and you aren't coercing anyone. I knew girls who were pressured by their boyfriends to do things they weren't comfortable with. Also, if you wanted to hook up, that's all right too but just be honest about it. Don't lead a guy or girl on and make them think they are in love with you only to pump and dump them. If you want to be a hoe, make sure you are honest and that it's coming from a healthy place. I still have these views on sex now. Also something that was really common was taking the BDSM test where you take a quiz to see what you're sexually into. It's basically and edgy personality test IMO. Even though I was asexual, I wasn't closed off with sex, more like indifferent. There are asexual people who are sex favorable, sex neutral, and sex repulsed. Sex favorable means that the person has a sex drive but doesn't feel attraction. Sex neutral means that sex is just all right. There is no craving or attraction but they wouldn't mind having sex. Finally, sex repulsed means that the person is completely put off my sex. I considered myself sex neutral. I was open to it but it wasn't this super important thing that other people made it out to be. There are things that I'm open to trying but honestly if I never got laid, it wasn't going to be the end of the world. It's like doing the laundry. I don't mind doing it but it's not like I crave doing the laundry. I was very comfortable with being asexual and I was open about it. My high school was pretty liberal so a lot of people were cool with it. I had some weridos try to ask me intrusive questions regarding what I would do if I wanted kids or what will guys think. I also had some creeps be like "I can change your mind" which was pretty gross. I came out to my parents and unfortunately they didn't react so well. It was mainly met with confusion and "you have to keep this a secret" but while they were giving me that lecture I was standing there and internally thinking *I already told everyone I know except for my extended family at this point.* They still can't wrap their heads around it. They barely understand what it means to be bisexual let alone asexual. Every time being asexual comes up in the conversation, it's like coming out all over again and then I have to get into this whole discussion on what asexuality is, that it's a real thing, etc. and it's just a lot of work. I'm planning on never telling my extended family because it will cause unnecessary confusion/ drama and because I'm probably going to marry a guy anyway tbh. The only reason why my parent's know is because I was going to a party and my mom kept accusing me of being a whore and that I was going to end up pregnant (even though these parties were mainly made of girls I knew from school and their sweet 16s). I got mad and I told her that "I don't have any hormones to control. I'm asexual. I don't like men or women." I got slapped across the face she was like "so you're gay!??!???!" I told her that I wasn't and tried to explain but she was like "just go to the party I don't want to deal with this." I later sat her down and explained what asexuality was. She calmed down a little bit though still confused because she couldn't imagine being asexual. My dad handled it better even though there was still a lot of confusion. After that, he basically let me have boys in the house home alone because he knew my ass wasn't about to do anything. I only had two of my guy friends over at my house for a group project one time and that's it. Nothing went on lol because I don't like men or women. They were surprised that my parents just let me be home alone with them because most parent's wouldn't trust their kid like that but then I was like "guys they know that I don't like men so that's why lmao."

2/2/2021 Daily Check In Today was a bit of a crazy day. I woke up too late and I needed to be somewhere so instead of having my regular breakfast I just grabbed a banana and some toast with some dairy free cheese on it an ran. For lunch I had these tacos since I didn't have anything in the house. I felt sluggish afterwards and wanted to go to sleep probably because of the gluten but luckily, I don't feel super bloated because of it. I wanted to eat some cereal and I poured almond milk on it like usual but I ran out of almond milk so I used regular milk. I'm hoping to god my skin doesn't act up too badly tomorrow because of the milk and the tortillas I had from the tacos. Also, I know I mentioned my sugar cravings the day before. Yeah I have not one but two huge breakouts now. I also forgot to mention that on that day I had a slice of regular French bread and a couple pieces of chocolate so yeah.... I noticed that I can have regular bread on a sandwich and be fine or have some cheese or some regular dairy and be ok in moderation but I think I mainly react badly to things that are sugary and French bread in particular. Just something to keep in mind. 2/3/2021 Daily Check In Luckily my skin didn't act up too badly. I have one small break out but other than that it wasn't too bad. For breakfast I had tofu scramble and some toast. Later on in the day I had a dairy free yogurt. I just saw it at the supermarket while I was shopping and I thought *hey I haven't had yogurt in a while might as well get one* The yogurt was ok. Too sweet in my opinion. I checked the label and I think I remember it saying it had like 12g of added sugar so there is that. 2/4/2021 Daily Check In For breakfast I had a couple slices of toast with some peanut butter, raspberries, and pumpkin seeds along with two eggs. I felt pretty good with this breakfast and over all today went pretty smoothly. I know that I have been slacking in these last couple days so I'm going to try to stay more consistent on this journal.

I think I really need something to ground me in my life. It also feels like the logical next step since I will have to start a career soon anyway. I don't want to waste time in a career that isn't a good fit for me. This might sound egotistical but I want to be successful while I'm still young and to me, that means finding my purpose early on so that I can gain mastery in something. I'm pretty sure I have hang ups regarding success since society tends to glorify people who achieved a lot while they are young because success when you're young= you're ahead of the curve= you didn't make mistakes by being dumb when you are young. I also want a sustainable source of income as well as sustainable source of happiness and fulfillment through my work. Like I said before, I'm want to create some meaning in my life because currently my life seems rather bleak. I have also been feeling like a blob of wasted potential for the last few years for a variety of reasons and to me, stepping into my life purpose is finding that potential. I haven't been living my life to the fullest and I believe that finding my life purpose will help me embody my values more.

I'm currently 21 and my plan is to get an internship to build up some work experience and then apply for jobs hoping to god that I don't hate it and that it can pay the bills so that I won't have to ever live with my parents. I know I probably need some more life experience before finding my calling. IDK I guess I'm impatient. I really want to find that purpose and go full force with it. I want more of a sense of meaning in my life. I want to love what I do. I want to get good at what I do. I want to embody my values more. I want to be financially independent. I know from experience that doing something I genuinely like vs making myself do something out of extrinsic motivation that I have to do something that I like or that I will sink like the Titanic.

Desire Part 2 I wasn't straight by default. I discovered this at 14 when my friends and I were playing two truths and a lie. One of my friends told me that they had an asexual friend. I immediately pointed that as the lie among her three statements. She told me that no that statement was true. I was confused. The only context I knew for being asexual is when it came to plants and amoebas that reproduce by themselves. My friend then explained to me that asexual meant that you don't experience sexual attraction. That's when I first began questioning my sexual orientation. I knew I liked guys in a romantic sense, but I never thought of anything in the sexual sense. I searched up asexual online and lot of the stories there mirrored my own, how a lot of people didn't think that they were asexual because they were romantically attracted to people, how they kept waiting to bloom into their sexuality but it never came, and how they thought there was something wrong with them to be indifferent around sex in a sex crazed society. A lot of it resonated with me and I began to think "hey maybe I am asexual." That summer, I watched a shit ton of porn of all genres to see if I would get turned on. Nothing happened. It was boring as hell. I tried masturbating. Nothing happened. After all that I decided, you know what, I guess I really am asexual. I switched schools around this time and I began being openly asexual for the rest of high school. Ok, so now I'm going to be shifting gears a bit. That is the sexual part of the equation, but what about love in general? In middle school I had a very cynical view of love. I had this idea that authentic love was very rare. The reason why I had a really cynical view of love was because there was this one guy that I liked (I'm calling him Pete in this post because he is a dumpster fire and I'm going to be using the names of Ariana Grande's exes from Thank U, Next). I hung around Pete and his toxic group of friends. They were mainly toxic because they based their worth around how many girls they can date and if you weren't in a relationship you were some undesirable loser who was going to die alone. To be honest, I don't even remember why I liked this guy. I guess it might have been because he stood up for me and was generally nice but my memory is a little hazy because it was like a decade ago now. It most certainly not because of looks, even then I thought he was ugly and that he looked like an alpaca but hey that didn't stop me from liking him. Anyway, these guys also had a bad view on women and they basically reduced them down to their looks. I remember I told this guy I liked him and he politely rejected me. That wasn't the hurtful part though. A couple weeks later I found out that he was talking about me behind my back and was making fun of my weight and how he would never date a brown girl (mind you he is also brown so there is a lot of internalized racism) because brown girls are ugly and prude. That broke me at the time. Something like that happened again in college but by that time I was pretty secure in my identity and I brushed it off as *honestly I don't want to date a guy with that much self hatred anyway, the trash took itself out*. But the first time this happened, I was 12. I remember crying myself to sleep, not because he was an asshole but more so because I had the bad judgement to fall for a guy like that. My sense of trust in myself was shattered. One of the ways that I wanted to build up my sense of trust is by leaning into hyper rationalism since I was going through a stoic/ logical phase at the time. I decided that I wasn't going to listen to my emotions anymore. After all, how credible could they be since I fell for such an asshole? During this time I really made it a point to separate the categories of love and lust. To me, a lot of those guys were blinded by lust, they never cared about any of these girls or girls in general. Because I was an only child with not many people I could go to for my problems (also my parents are South Asian so I technically wasn't supposed to be liking boys and wanting to date anyway because of taboos surrounding the subject), I turned to the internet. I remember coming across an article by psychology today comparing falling in love with doing crack cocaine. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-joint-adventures-well-educated-couples/201208/falling-in-love-is-smoking-crack-cocaine That turned me away from love real quick and closed me up. I was like, *damn, falling in love can cloud your judgement that much?!?!?* I didn't want to take part in such mindlessness ever again. This is pretty much a good summary of how I felt about love at this time (around from the ages of 12-16). Very stage orange lol. I was also going through my emo phase at this time and listened to a lot of Paramore. This song describes my view towards love as it was shaped by my family. I still come back to this song because I resonate with it so much. During this time I kept listening to girls my age think that they were falling in love only to have the guy switch on them and dump them because they didn't want to have sex with their boyfriends or worse, pressure them to do things they didn't want to do or move faster than they are comfortable. Mind you, we were 12-14 years old so most of us weren't really thinking about losing our virginities yet. I also had to deal with a lot of guys who asked me out as a joke which messed up my self esteem for a while. I made peace with the idea that I was going to die alone, not in a self loathing way but in a way that like *I need to make sure the other areas of my life are fulfilling, a relationship isn't the end all be all of life.* I was also surrounded by adults who thought that teenagers are these hormonal creatures that get blinded by sexual attraction thinking they are in love and then they end up pregnant. This further cemented the idea in my head that lust and love were two completely different things. That is true. It's important to be able to distinguish your actual feelings for someone and just liking their dick. But I guess where I went wrong is that I began viewing love as this super rational thing in order to be successful and not fall for assholes and in doing so I sacrificed my sense of emotional vulnerability. Also since I am asexual, I wasn't even looking for sex so that wasn't in my mind when I was looking for a relationship. I was sooooo thankful for my asexuality because to me it meant that I was going to have better decision making and not be blinded by carnal desires. My thoughts shifted yet again once I got to high school and I met Ricky (not his real name, using a fake name from Thank U, Next).