UNIVERSITY (TAKE 2)

this era is in contention for the worst era of my life.

my first semester at university didn't go well. due to my crushing social anxiety, i ended up not going to most of my classes, and i failed all of my first semester. i then had the foul summer which further depleted my soul. but i was excited to start again. it was a second chance. what would i do with it?

fuck all. i did fuck all with it.

i don't think i even attended one class. it's hard for me to explain why. i guess i put a lot of pressure on myself, which made my anxiety reach an all-time high. going to class made me very anxious, and staying at my apartment seemed easier to me. i was really starting to resent that apartment. i had a new roommate, but we very rarely talked. i spent most of my days there just laying in my bed and rotting. my anxiety and paranoia took over my life, like they were chaining me to my bed. every day was the same. i woke up in the afternoon, ordered my meals on uber eats, stayed in my room all fucking day, then probably took an edible or vape and fucked around until i went to sleep. the weed was probably making my anxiety even worse.

i tried to take steps to combat this, but it always fell short. in september, i signed up for some therapy groups, but i only attended a couple sessions. it was just so hard to even drag myself out of my apartment at all. my social anxiety was so extreme.

this write-up won't be very long, because almost nothing interesting happened. it was just extremely depressing. every day was a struggle. i was suicidal. i knew i was wasting a huge opportunity and i could do nothing about it. i went to some really dark places in my mind.

during this low point of my mental state, i decided i wanted make another fursona. i wanted to make a doggirl oc who was anxious and depressed, just like me. it was sort of an outlet for me to channel my toxic thoughts, i guess. initially, all i knew was that she would be a green doggirl, perhaps with purple hair. her name was to be Caroline (which i also adopted as my second name for a while). my initial idea was for her to share the same color scheme as the album cover for car seat headrest's 4.

it didn't quite pan out that way, here's how she ended up looking (art by syvvister):

overall, while she isn't the prettiest or most creative fursona i've made, she holds a special place in my heart, for representing me during this incredibly hard time in my life.

something that was really gnawing on me was how i felt i was being perceived by my friends. for some reason, i felt paranoid that my friends didn't like me, or didn't care about me, or were annoyed by me. the rational part of me knew that this couldn't be true, yet i still felt this way. i constantly thought that nobody, not even my closest friends, could like me. i was overthinking so much to the point that i was no longer rational. there were so many toxic thoughts in my brain, and i couldn't handle it anymore.

i remember getting emails from my professors, concerned that they hadn't seen me all semester. i didn't even know how to tell them what was going through my mind. eventually, a counselor from my university reached out to me, and it was the first real one-on-one therapy i've ever had. it was a bit of a help, but not enough to get me out of the hole i had dug for myself.

i made a playlist named "calm", for the nights that were really tough. i showed this playlist to my therapist. i still go back to it sometimes, when i need to destress.

i think the absolute rock-bottom was on october 24th. i had somehow gotten the resolve to try to go to my university's LGBTQ+ club meeting. it was "furry night". i didn't exactly have a fursuit or anything, just a cute pair of cat ears with a little bell on it. it was already nerve-wracking enough to even go to class, but to go to meetings while presenting as female, which i still hadn't had much experience with... i had terrible anxiety. a friend suggested to me that i take a hit of my vape before i go out, to calm myself down. in hindsight, i know i shouldn't have done it, but i thought that just one hit would be a small dose that could maybe make me feel a bit mellower.

i took a big hit. within 5 minutes of driving on the road, the high hit me. hard. i remember my heart was absolutely racing as i held onto the steering wheel for dear life. i was fucking impaired while driving. i knew that if i got in an accident, i could get in fucking huge trouble. i managed to get to a parking garage, but while parking, i scraped against another car. there wasn't any real damage, but i did leave a paint mark on their car. as far as i know, the owner of the car was nowhere nearby. i had to pretend like it didn't happen. my biggest fear was being arrested for driving while high. i found another parking space, and i just sat in my car for the next hour, just freaking out and waiting for the high to go away. i kept thinking to myself: what have you done? how have you gotten to this point? once the high wore off, i drove home, took a few more hits, and just walked around my neighborhood in the darkness while stoned. i felt a bit better, taking in the nature and the trees and the moon and the stars.

i got into another huge beatles hyperfixation phase during this era. they were definitely the artist i listened to the most, by far. i suspect this had to do with the new single they released, Now and Then. the nearer it got to the release date, the more obsessed i got with the beatles. i didn't know what to expect from the new single. the day before it came out felt like christmas eve to me. here's what i wrote about the song once it came out:

"when i first heard the song, i wasn't really blown away by it. there were some parts of the song that irked me. i thought the mix was a little weird, i thought the way that 40-yr-old john's vocals blended with 80-yr-old paul and ringo's voices in the chorus sounded strange. after it was over, i was like, 'huh. ok. that's the new beatles song, i guess.' but i listened to it another 20 times yesterday, and another 10 times today, and it's really grown on me. i think it's a very beautiful, touching, genuine song. this could have come off as a cash grab, or as a gimmick, but it's clear to me that paul did this because he is the world's biggest beatles fan, and he misses them like so many other people do. this is an expression of love, which is what the beatles have always been about. the lyrics are very sad in this new context, and something about the line "and if i make it through, it's all because of you" really gets me, because paul, giles martin, peter jackson, everyone involved in this project, managed to make john's voice come through."

there were a couple nights where i would vape, get a bit high, then walk around my apartment complex in the cold, while listening to the beatles.

by the way, i can't help but mention that i dressed up as a maid for halloween. i didn't go out anywhere, obviously. but even in just the confines of my room, it felt nice to dress however i wanted.

this era ended when i came home on November 30, and admitted everything to my dad. finally, i had now officially dropped out of university. a colossal waste of time and money. it would end up being one of the biggest disappointments in my life. but, i knew that there would be brighter days ahead. this was a hard pill to swallow, but i had to move on. in my mind, there was nowhere to go but up. and hey, at least i was back home.

my rating for this era is a 1.5/10.