1.19.2026 \ 12:53pm

when i was unmedicated, it was like. i am not worth existing in the world (vast, bold, intense, dense). and now it's like. the world isn't worth being in. i'm, so fucking bored. everything is devoid of anything worthwhile. the improvement on my art process is about the only positive i can say about being medicated. this sucks. i hate this. this can't be all there is to life

1.18.2026 \ 9:17am

having a "body needs" hud would be so useful rn hahah. i've discovered an obvious solution to my focus problems while i'm on this med, and it is called coffee. shocker. however. if i'm drinking coffee on this i have to be incredibly on my game wrt drinking water because holy crap the anxiety it causes otherwise is ridiculous. just teetering on the edge of a panic attack "oh my god i'm going to die" dread hanging over me until i chug a bottle lol. i might having too much caffeine. i'll see. anyway if i start drinking about an hour and a half after i take my med, when the full sedative haze kicks in, it knocks the time i'm stuck not being able to do anything down from like 5-ish hours to around 1-2, so huge huge improvement. all this feels like a puzzle game to try and figure out how i can make my neurochemistry perfect.
also i have decided that the way the meds affect my picture making is really, really good actually. it makes me slower, but makes me more concious of what i am doing. i would dissociate away almost everytime i drew before, and basically render everything by vibes but now i'm way more cognisant of light and how it affects what i'm trying to render. also i used to build up things like hands, bodies, etc. from shapes. i still do this for some things, but i find myself able to just see the completed shape in my mind and rawdog it onto the page for stuff like hands. which is ridiculous. i'm pleased.
i still feel an existential worry about the meds, but it's lessening. which kinda makes me have a new existential worry that the medications makes you replace your goals with the goals of what the medication wants. like a rewriting of your self. it makes me :/. anyway.

1.16.2026 \ 9:44am

one week abilify trip report: something i thought about A LOT when i was mulling over and over starting this medication was like, how deep of a difference all of this is compared to my normal brain. which is to say i'm basically rewiring the only existence i've ever known for... what? to feel better? even though i know i could feel pretty miserable before, i also felt so much more alive. this really hit me while i was doing warm ups this morning. i draw different now.i don't dislike the difference, it's just the fact that it is different is bringing up all these thoughts again. my medication is at it's peak right now and it's hard for me to begin to fully explain this emotional challenge, which is telling because before medication i'd be able to articulate this very well.
it's a difference that i'm not entirely sure who it is serving, because i learnt to love the full intensity of the world. everything is so quiet and hazy. i feel somewhat more personable, more willing to reach out to others to talk but i feel dumb as bricks and i'm unable to actually focus when i'm there. and i still don't feel confident enough to sit in group spaces with certain dynamics without feeling like my brain will be set on fire, so, does that count as improvement? i don't know. i haven't tried yet so maybe i shouldn't judge based on that.
i think about how all anti-psychotics are in at least some part a sedative, and it makes me sit and frown.
i guess my point is that, i feel like i'm fundamentally changing myself in a way that i don't know if i like, to better mesh into an agreed upon world that i know i don't particularly like. but i have so much riding on this, in a way. sunk cost fallacy but it's a lot of money, both spent and lost income, that is being put to this and if i stop taking it i don't want to make any of the people who are helping me become disappointed. and i don't want my doctor to send the police to my house again if i stop showing up to the appointments. so i feel like i don't have much of a choice but to keep taking them. it feels like i'm grieving a pet that you took in to get a lethal injection.
and i'm aware this is all probably a big overreaction and just part of getting used to the medication but idk i'm used to taking anti-anxiety or anti-depressants where the growing pains are more oh you'll get dizzy when you stand for a few weeks not existentialism about fundamentally changing what you are as a person. when i was reading about medication on r/schizophrenia (i know. bare with me) someone said that it doesn't change you it just makes you how you were before you "got sick" so i imagine this is all much easier to swallow for someone who has memories of what they were like before they developed schizophrenia, instad of being like this for as long as they can remember.

1.10.2026 \ 6:07pm

i've decided to bring the status page back. for how long: we'll see. yesterday was my birthday. the day before that i had a psyche appointment for the first time in a really long. police came to my house and seemed just as annoyed about having to do this as i did. i didn't get institutionalised though so i take it as a win. i'm temporarily unemployed. at least for a month. the psyche seemed to want longer, but yknow. rent. we'll see how things go. he enlightened me as to why i've historically been so difficult to diagnose. i just almost meet the criteria for schizophrenia, schizotypal, and schizoaffective, but missing 1 or 2 on each of them which makes it not "officially" diagnosable. but he does kinda has a very.. textbook definition of a schizophrenic person... so i'm kind of taking it with a grain of salt. he thinks i'm prooobably schizotypal if there needs to be a diagnosis attatched. i'm just going to say i'm schizophrenic because it's close enough. it's all a foreign existence to anyone who isn't psychotic anyway. and i'm confident i'm not schizoaffective because i don't have mood swings. anyway. i scored really highly on the depression test thing (20/27 for those in the know) so he's thinking of putting me on lithium (@_@). the antipsychotics make me feel very strange. i feel really calm, which i kind of hate. i feel really.. vulnerable. i don't know. it makes me feel really stupid also. like my brain is so quiet. it's hard for me to formulate thoughts and create like, thoughts -> plan -> action diagrams in my mind. it's so weird. to all the people of the world with adhd i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm so fucking sorry. i get it now. it's a lot for me to get used to, and very emotionally challenging. my brain means a lot to me. but right now the meds kind of make me feel like a knife that's gone blunt. it's hard. i've been like this for as long as i can remember, it makes me feel like a domesticated animal. i've been assured i will get used to it though. and i believe that. idk. it's just a lot. i'm glad i don't have to work.