sappho

Video chat is pretty much my entire social life now due to COVID. Met the vast majority of my current friends over Zoom. I know you said earlier you're still masking - if you don't know where to find video chat social events for covid-conscious people I can get you some links.

Green side is also my internal monologue whenever I pirate something

This is mine. I'd have all the kids learn both spoken toki pona and the corresponding sign language. It'd rapidly diverge from the canonical version in real world use, and it's more entertaining than strictly practical, but I just think it'd be neat. And it really wouldn't take much time investment to do.

I just wish I could get a hug and have someone tell me its all gonna be ok. Does that mean I still havent grown up yet, even tho I'm already an adult?

Of course not

I hug myself all the time and I say nice things aloud like "I can see you're trying so hard and it's really difficult. I care about you so much and I want things to get better for you."

It's really nice and you should try it, especially because I haven't figured out how to physically hug people over the internet yet.

I'm sorry you're feeling so alone with everything. I don't have many words of wisdom to offer, but I do know a thing about self-sabotage in general. It happens when there are parts of us, feelings and safety rules we've internalized, that we don't really see until they come out and "ruin" something for us. The path out, for me, was feeling my emotions more in general. Yeah, lots of people do journaling for this, but I don't like it much either. Anything that makes you feel something is a good place to start. Maybe a sad movie. Maybe a song. Maybe hugging yourself and saying nice things that sound silly and fake at first. Maybe (this is what I think) you are already doing it by writing this all out to share with strangers.

That one Grimes TikTok where she says "I have a proposition for the communists!" and "Collective farming is really not a vibe." I don't know why, her inflection/tone is just stuck in my head forever and it's really just the funniest thing in the world to me

I'm sorry your sleep is so awful. That shit will break you down over time, and then everything just gets harder.

Alcohol is really helping you in several material ways, so in your position, I'd prioritize finding replacement strategies over anything else. Here are some suggestions I have from my own experience:

1. Prazosin for nightmares. Got this from a psychiatrist, it's low risk (a repurposed blood pressure drug rather than a typical psych med), maybe helps with effects of alcohol use as well?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7572699/

2. Hemp for sleep. I like to dry herb vape mine. Maybe at minimum this reduces how much alcohol you need.

3. Specifically this herbal tea which has multiple sedating plants in it:

https://www.republicoftea.com/chamomile-lemon-herbal-tea/p/v00675/

4. This one is very much YMMV, but have you tried playing around while in sleep paralysis in order to reduce your fear of it? This is extremely difficult at the beginning because it will physically feel like (and you will literally believe) you are about to die. But when you're in sleep paralysis, allow yourself to feel the complete all-consuming terror without reacting and struggling away from it. If you feel your heart going a million miles a minute, it isn't actually, it's an illusion. (I usually do not have the feeling of breathlessness, crushing, or suffocation, but I'd wager those are illusory as well, because actual inability to breathe would wake you up fully.) Then, as the fear recedes, and it will eventually - stay with me here - peel yourself out of your body. Or roll out of your body, or pop up out of it. Now the sleep paralysis is over and you are having a cool dream, congrats. Because of this method, I actually look forward to sleep paralysis. But again, YMMV, not all sleep paralysis is experienced the same way.

edit: Forgot one thing. When you peel out, you may feel very intense vibrations. These are also okay and cannot hurt you, so simply observe like you do the other fearful sensations (much much easier said than done)

The difference between mids and the high THC stuff you see nowadays is largely the absence of secondary cannabinoids like CBD. It is legal in most states to purchase hemp online, which is literally just weed with only cannabinoids other than THC. If you mix hemp and regular weed, you create a mid experience that you can titrate to your liking. Personally (as someone else prone to nightmares and sleep paralysis) I find a 10:1 hemp:weed ratio to be great for sleep.

Well, first of all, every morning my cat comes and sits on my chest and she's very very soft. And there have been a few times in my life where I've gotten to feel this transcendent, infinite love that is greater than anything else I've ever felt. So I feel inside for the love in my own heart, or I look at my cat, or I look at kind people still trying - and then I can imagine that thing I felt before, the big love under everything, is real and true and still there. I don't really understand yet how it is possible, given the suffering, but I imagine it anyway.

It warms my heart to know my one comment actually helped you. It's odd for me as well to look back on that conversation now. I'm also feeling remarkably numb in comparison. My long covid is substantially worse, but I've given up on convincing the people I care about to avoid infection. Things don't feel as raw, painful, and urgent as they once did. It's like I boxed up some of my pandemic feelings and put them neatly aside, and I can't tell if that's acceptance or suppression. But maybe there isn't a "correct" way to emotionally process something like this.

Ever considered going to a support group? Talking about feelings and vulnerabilities adds depth and meaning to relationships, but often it's something you've gotta learn to do well. Support groups can be great for that, even Zoom ones, and you can often make new friends in the process

Whenever someone says, "It's human nature to be [selfish/greedy/violent]," I hear, "I won't blame myself in the slightest for being [selfish/greedy/violent]"

I really am thinking about not taking part in society at all. I'm high risk so wtf am I meant to do, isolate for the rest of my life? Constantly fending off hostility from people who want me to take the mask off and deepthroat my dose of covid? I've been watching all these videos of people living cheaply off the grid and wondering if that could seriously be the move for me... Just give up and go full hermit because everyone in this country wants me dead anyway. It makes me horribly sad - I always wanted to fall in love with a girl and get married, and now I don't see how that's possible if I have to avoid everyone forever.