I'm learning to be wary of intense periods of growth, not because they're bad necessarily as much as I feel no control over them and that scares me. There's pressure to create as much as you can during this time and also pressure to not burn out. Do I say everything I want to say right now or do I hold it in for a future date, so I don't run out of things? I always thought being a good writer means you never run out of things to say but I always feel like I don't have anyhing to say so how can I be one? Maybe I'm not is the easiest answer and will take some time to convince myself out of.

Now that I'm out of school for the quarter I can focus my energies on writing and reading. I know to write better I need to read more and I want to go back to doing that. The more I expose myself to new things, the better my writing and subjects will become. What I've done is locked myself out of Tumblr and now I need to lock myself out of Facebook. The culture of instant gratification will not take me down with it, I am determined. Because I am too sensitive to it, I have to set boundaries.

What does it mean to feel extremely ashamed of being who you are and doing what you do - even if you are morally pure? If that means anything anymore. Shame is useless, as is guilt, and I need to find a way to dispose of them because they aren't helping me at all. Still... I do feel shameful working on myself when there's so much to be done in the world. Like, I don't think I'm deserving of my own time. Or that any creative endeavor of mine is automatically self-serving and undeserving of focus. It's true I need to get my mind off myself, but it's also true that I can benefit from constructively working on myself. Sorting out the difference is the hard part.

I genuinely don't think most people want the best for me and I'm like, always crying about it. Self-worth and abandonment and dissociation are my biggest obstacles at this point in my life. I really do want to get better... And I want to be able to live genuinely or at least close to it.

1/6/15: a message to everyone I have ever met

I know I can be disappointing but please don't lose faith in me.

There was a point when every day was a new trauma but I think, I'd like to think, I've reached beyond that now. I looked in the mirror today and I look old.. I'm still young but overnight I've changed. The only way to describe my latest psychosis is "ecclesiastic" - there's always the epiphanic moment in melodrama when the music swells and the heroine is filmed in a close up soft focus looking up and I think I've reached that point. My whole life is stretched behind me and I see it so clearly and for once it's not in horror. I've reached a state of calm I didn't think I ever could and I don't know how long it will last. Everything feels like I'm at sea.

I don't want fear to define me anymore - of anyone or anything or myself or my feelings. There's still trepidation, but I want to work on what I can and I know that that is so, so much. Maybe the calm is affected, maybe I'm posing as a yogi for the first week of 2016, or maybe this is a real moment I'm experiencing. I've spent the past year doubting my experiences and sorting out reality and now I'm inclined to follow it through to the end. It's not impulsion that drives me, but a knowing probe into my possibilities. I wonder if I'm past my prime? But then, I still haven't accomplished much.

Once I've made up my mind, there is little that can change it. This can be a blessing or a curse - it means I'm very moral but I also risk bordering reactionary. How can I be more malleable but stick to my convictions? Do I need to be more malleable? I'm always second guessing myself as it is... I'm doing it right now. What I have decided is I want to live, and I want to write, and I don't care if its ever acknowledged as significant because most likely it is not. For me it is beneficial and its in these small victories I find hope.

In 2016, I don't run from happiness. In 2016, I am sure of myself and my worth and determined to assert it. In 2016 I transcend not through madness or death but through living and experiencing as much joy as possible. It's not impossible to feel a genuine emotion because this fear is genuine too... and I know I can love and I know it takes work but it's not impossible.

Do you hear it calling you?

I do and I'm not afraid anymore.

I want to live a happy life and I want to be happy but everything is effort and I'm so tired already. What I've promised to myself is I will not let my illness kill me because despite everything I want so badly to live but it's hard when terror clouds your mind every second of your day. Every time I think I've escaped, I'm entrapped again - the eternal face-off between myself and I - How can I heal when the one I want to murder is myself?

There must be a secret I don't know and I'm determined to find out. My best revenge will be a long life lived, and my sweetest victory. I know I can succeed - that much I've got sorted out. And now I will fight to fulfill that potential because to do otherwise would be something more tragic than my current existence, and I won't accept it.