17th Birthday Blues
content warnings: brief mentions of suicidal ideation & grooming
I haven't written one of these since like 2 months after I first started my website, which was back in November 2024. So it's been pretty much almost a year since I've taken the time to really sit down and turn the incoherent nonsense in my mind into proper, coherent words on a webpage. I really should've tried doing one at an earlier point this year since I've had a lot of thoughts about a lot of things that I needed to get out. I feel like I've just been neglecting doing any significant work on my website in general. Too many other things have been occupying my time. Ironic since I don't really have much going on in the first place.
Tomorrow's my 17th birthday. I made this website a couple days after my birthday last year, which was probably the most miserable one I've had yet. At that time I had been mourning a past relationship where I was groomed and manipulated, so you can probably imagine my mental state back then being nothing short of absolute fuckin dogshit. I couldn't bring myself to feel happy at all the day I turned 16. All I could feel was pure, unfiltered self-hatred and grief for both a relationship I thought I was at fault for ruining, and my entire life up until that point which I felt as if it had completely passed me by and gone to waste. All my life has been spent seeking validation from people on the internet and all I've been left with is scars that will never fully disappear. I have people in my life that I'll cherish forever because of being online, and I hope to meet all of them in person one day, but that doesn't change the fact that there's so much shit I wish never happened. So many things I wish I had done differently. So many people I wish I had never allowed into my life at all. So many people I wish I had never allowed to trick me into believing that they gave even the slightest goddamn shit about me. I was genuinely so fucking close to killing myself.
2024 really was a horrible year for me. I genuinely wish I could get that time in my life back and right a lot of my wrongs. Maybe if I never got into a relationship with a particular person, I would be in a better place today. I let myself be toyed with, used for my body and then thrown away like fucking garbage. Despite being filled with hatred towards that person for doing those things to me, I still couldn't stop being completely obsessed with them. I couldn't stop tryng to go back and salvage what didn't exist from the beginning. I couldn't stop brainwashing myself into believing the lie that was the love I thought we genuinely shared. I can't deny that I've definitely matured emotionally because of that experience, but it genuinely destroyed me as a person. It turned me miserable and I made the people around me that I love miserable as a result. One of my closest friends is permanently scarred because I let that traumatic experience take control of me and define who I was. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for that. I don't think she'll ever be able to truly forgive me either. But that's okay, because she still means the world to me no matter what.
I have a girlfriend that I've been with since late March this year that I genuinely really love. She's first person I've been able to actually envision a future with in a long time. It's been a little tough though because I'm terminally online and she's the exact opposite of that. I cherish every time we get to spend time together extra hard since she's always busy. I wish I could just spend every day with her but I need to be able to be okay with being on my own sometimes. I need to learn to be okay with my own company and not rely so much on another person. A relationship should be a positive addition to my life after all, not something I use as a crutch to get by. I've made that mistake too many times already. I hope I can spend time with her on the day of my actual birthday, if not now then some other year from now. That'd make me really happy.
I think a lot about how much I've changed since I was finally able to let go of my obsession with my ex that groomed me. I honestly find it hilarious how the thing that finally kicked off my self-healing era was getting hyperfixated on Inanimate Insanity. I'm not fucking joking when I say that. Getting into that show was probably the best thing I could've ever done. It's been my main source of comfort for pretty much this entire year and it's the reason a lot of my passion for certain things were restored and my mind was cleared of a lot of awful things that were weighing me down consistently. I've been able to actually enjoy doing art again and I've felt way more comfortable with drawing more self-indulgent things. I have a much easier time coming up with ideas because of how much this show has inspired me. So many of those ideas have yet to become reality still, but I feel a lot more motivated to at least try and make shit even if other people don't really give a fuck about it. In simple terms, a decent bit of my creativity has been restored thanks to this show about sentient objects competing on a reality show. It's also the first time in genuinely fucking FOREVER that I have actually enjoyed being apart of a fandom, even if I mostly just observe from the sidelines and occasionally share things of my own in relation to it. It's also thanks to Inanimate Fucking Insanity that I am no longer actively suicidal. I've learned to value my own life in spite of the fact that I've wasted so much of it. The past may have sucked, but the future is mine to claim. I just need to take charge of my own life, and starting today, I'll try. I know this all sounds corny as fuck but I don't care. Fuck you.
I've also genuinely have never felt so fucking seen by any particular show until getting into Inanimate Insanity. The character Paintbrush is specific is LITERALLY ME in every possible way it's not even fucking funny. I wanna talk about how but I have so many thoughts about it that I could not even begin to put into words here. Everything about them is so me. I am them and they are me. Without them there is no me and without me there is no them. I'm literally a Paintbrush. I need fucking help dawg I should probably make a page on my site for making articles dedicated to talking about ultra-specific things that nobody else cares about. I could ramble about specific interests of mine and maybe I'll go in depth of why this character means so much to me and why I see so much of myself in them. I am an extreme fictionkin and also a fictive of them by the way I just felt the need to mention that. You could not rip The Sexy Paintbrush From Inanimate Insanity from my cold dead fucking hands even if you tried they are the reason I hate myself so much less now.
I'm not that excited to turn 17. In a year from now I'll be a legal adult and I'll have to start trying to figure all of my shit out so I can get the fuck out of my parents' house and have a way of supporting myself and potentially my partner and found family. I need to finish highschool in order for that to happen. I need to get off my ass and actually be willing to take care of myself and do important things and be a responsible adult. That way I'll hopefully be able to actually live my life and be happy. Unfortunately I still feel I'm nothing more than a pathetic child that doesn't know anything sometimes. A majority of the time actually. I wanna be able to medically transition. I need to be the one in control for that to happen. My parents need to be out of the picture someday, since they don't support me in that way and they never will. They'll never see me as Gabriel, they'll only ever see me as an innocent little girl they need to help achieve salvation from Christ or whatever. But I'm not that little girl. I never have been, and I never will be. I'm gonna be a grown man soon. That little girl is dead.
