Chronicles of a Long Lost Lisa

[Wulfi]

Just went through my previous journal, officially entered "cringe city." How did you guys even stand me, I was such a white-privilege weeaboo? Ah, those were simpler times...

Hey, everyone! Long time no write! For the newer faces, my name is Lisa, commonly known on here as Lullaby and Wulfi. (I was eleven, we all were, once. Wolves were a big thing for me.)

I've done a lot of growing up since I left high school, and sadly, became absent from this forum for a few years. Life hasn't been easy. If my annoying younger self could see what I've experienced since then, she'd probably shut up about "I get all this Christmas money, no big deal! XD" and "I'm so mad at my always-bitchy nana!"

So here's a summary, I guess. I'll expand on it more later, you know, since I'm back.

• June 2011 - Went to Spain, got lost in Seville, things went better than expected.
• August 2011 - Started college. Started Homestuck as well. (Those were the good ol' days, before things started getting very... critical and obnoxious, to say the least. Now it's like my biggest fandom makes me a second class citizen to a lot of people.)
• October 2011 - Saw Skrillex live, was awesome. Almost died in the mosh pit. Not awesome. Discovered how bad my anxiety and failure issues actually were, ended up too sick and suicidal to attend one of my classes consistently. Cue panic.
• November 2011 - Got hit by a car, died for a bit, ended up breaking six ribs, puncturing my right lung, bruising my esophagus, broke two teeth, chipped one, and received multiple facial lacerations so now I've got glass in my face and scars make me ten times cooler. Happy 19th birthday, Lisa!
• December 2011 - Learned to walk on my own again! Still using a respirator to re-inflate my lung, at that time. Discovered I was going through a lot of mental stress, visited my doctor, learned a lot about myself: apparently I'd had symptoms of certain mental disorders for most of my high school career, but had never thought to look into them. The trauma from the accident triggered something in my brain and caused them to get worse. To this day, I'm still struggling daily, but it's gotten a lot easier with a great support network from the internet and my friends. (Bonus because my family is finally starting to come around and try to understand and help me. Big step for my stubborn grandma, who for the past few years has refused to believe anything was wrong with me, and swore that I was just "lazy" and "wanted to be a spoiled good-for-nothing" for the rest of my life.)
• January 2012 - Tried to go back to college but was too physically weak to climb up and down to the third floor of my dorm every single day, even with Jasmine's help. (Remember Jasmine/Foxxi? Yeah, my best friend in the entire world. Thirteen years going strong, baby! She came to college with me, how awesome is that?) Ended up having to drop out. I went from being near the top of my graduating class with a 4.0 GPA, and a high-functioning busybody member of society, to a 0.0 GPA and a failure to my family. Nothing stings like having you grandmother verbally rescind her love and respect from you.
• February 2012 - We don't talk about February 2012. Very dark time for me, learning how to cope with my mental illnesses, my bipolar and depression especially. Tried cosplaying Homestuck for the first time. We do not talk about February 2012. There is a lot of regret in that month. Pictures have been deleted. Also, fuck online schooling. Recently being diagnosed with ADHD and five other things really didn't help.
• Spring 2012 - Very hard time for me, being away from Jasmine (who, if you're Homestuck-savvy, would fit into the literal definition of "moirail," which is, "platonic soul-mate"). This was, at the time, the longest we've ever been separated. Before that, 10 days was our record. Four months away from her influence threw me so out of whack. I didn't know who the person I became was, and I never want to be them again.
• August 2012 - I ended up in an apartment with Jas (couldn't get on-campus because I wasn't considered a freshman and I didn't stay in my dorm all last semester, so I didn't get priority; my mom and Jasmine both didn't want me to be left alone or with a stranger as a roommate, so she gave up her on-campus housing to live with me, $575 a month, per head). Our roommate was pretty chill but I think we accidentally scared her off because after Spring Break she never came back, lol. We hosted our college's first (iirc) Homestuck meetup, twenty-some people came, it was really fun. This was likely the point where I fell for my current boyfriend, Lucas. (An accurate picture of our relationship, before it even happened, taken on location.)
• September 2012 - Tried college again. My mom allowed it so long as I pursued therapy. Turned out my therapist wasn't willing to work with my time constraints, so no surprise, school was equally as hard as harder than last time. Received my 5-week late report from the neuropsychologist I had gone to last month to get an idea for how bad my brain damage was. It said I should take a maximum of two classes a semester as to not strain my brain. I was at the time taking five. After a panic attack in a bio lab, which lead to a crippling migraine, I sat myself down and decided that I needed to put my health first before I could pursue college education, no matter how much it would destroy me (in an academic sense). I quit college for the second time and haven't attended classes there since.
• October 2012 - Flirt city. By flirt I mean talk to for hours on end and hold hands whenever possible. Turns out Lucas and I had more in common than I could have ever imagined, especially in regard to mental illness, chronic pain, likes, dislikes, media genres, views, cosplay opinions, humor, and weeaboo pasts, lol.
• November 2nd - My mom's birthday, as well as Nekocon in Hampton, which I tragically missed last year due to hospitalization.
• November 3rd - The one year anniversary of the near-fatal car accident that threw my entire life off track.
• November 4th - Somehow Lucas and I started dating. I don't remember who asked who out, but I remember there was embarrassed face touching and the admittance of "secret crushes" on each other.
• Winter 2012 - The "honeymoon" period. Life was wonderful, and there were countless meetups in the area. If you oldies recall, I lived in a tiny town for most of my life, with barely 12,000 people. At this time, I was living in a city of over 249,000. Bigger city, bigger pool of friends to encounter. Thus, my cosplay career started a bit of an upward climb, in terms of both quality and popularity. 2013 was likely my best year so far for cosplay. Plus, my settlement from my wreck came in. Dollah dollah billz, y'all.
• February 2013 - Katsucon 2013, a.k.a., one of the worst conventions of my life; my OCD (diagnosed summer 2012) went haywire because I couldn't find a certain undershirt for a costume ("if I can't find it, I can't wear it!") and I had the longest panic attack in my history so far which sadly made us all (my mom, one of my best friends, and Lucas) about two-hours late for the con (five hour drive). I spent about half of Saturday in the hotel room, partially finishing cosplay, partially because the headband my Karkat horns were on (bless snaps, they make seamless horns a miracle) gave me such a migraine that I popped a strong pain pill and knocked out for around 12 hours. One of the best sleeps of my life, admittedly. In total, over the course of three days, I spent maybe six hours at the convention center. Everyone else had fun, though, so I guess it wasn't a total bust.
• Spring 2013 - I miss this time a lot. When I'm sad, this is the place I go to in my head. At this point Lucas pretty much lived with us because he was over at our apartment about 80% of the time. This period consisted of a lot of Xbox 360, making out, making food with friends, cosplay meetups, goofing off, our roommate moving out, more sex happening because lol what is volume restriction, new roommate moving into the vacant room because her parents are abusive in nearly every sense of the word and no one needs that kind of living environment poisoning them and their personal growth (see: reasons why I moved five hours away for college), new roommate surprisingly enough automatically clicks with my clique and the five of us have been the most incredible group of same-wavelength, hilarious, empathetic best friends I could have ever asked for.
• May 2013 - Convention season strikes once more. Really stressful, but I made a lot of new friends and finished my favorite cosplay as of yet, so yeah. Also it's really flattering when you find out one of your friends has had a dream about a threesome with you and your bf, and then another one, within the same half-hour, admits to wanting a threesome with you and your bf. Shocking but it feels good to be wanted, yeah? Definite confidence boost.
• June-July 2013 - June was really crazy and a lot of bad luck happened. This is also the time where the drama in our extended friend circles started getting really awful. Gossip is not your friend. Also, sudden ant infestation? Great, not like I slept there or anything. You really learn a lot, living on your own. The internet is your friend!
• August 2013 - Mom gives Lucas and I the old house?! Seemed like a great idea!
• September 2013 - It was a horrible idea. The house has been abandoned for a year and a half and was utterly infested with a certain legitimate phobia of mine: spider crickets. Huge, terrifying spider crickets the size of my palm and bigger. Then the stinkbugs came along. We were putting more money into the house than it was even worth, so by middle of the month, we'd officially moved into my grandmother's attic. Currently rent is $100 a month, so that's a great deal for a young couple trying to get their bearings in an adult world! This house is also not in the boonies AWAY FROM CIVILIZATION. It was a cute house, the one I grew and matured in, the one I met you guys in, but it's not the same, and it's never going to be the same, so I'll keep it in my heart and let it exist there and only there. I can't even set foot in there anymore without sobbing. September also marks the month where I started getting random severe stomach pains. The first time the waves hit me, I passed out and had to have a pelvic exam done in the ER, followed by a sonogram to check for ovarian cysts. Everything came back clean. Mystery pain continues.
• October 2013 - Kill all the stinkbugs. All of them. Also, cosplay stress.
• November 2013 - Had a huge breakdown at Nekocon, which lead to a life epiphany. In short: I need to stop over-burdening myself, I need to eat better and exercise, and I need to focus more on getting better, even if that means putting cosplay on hold.
• Winter 2013-2014 - The first Christmas I was able to spend with Lucas. Very quaint. New Year's came with a kiss, so a bunch of firsts! New Year's marked my first hardcore detox. It helped my pain lessen but it was still present. I eliminated every potential irritant for ten days. :/
• February 2014 - Lots of wardrobe building, since the job I had been waiting for since last fall was finally almost ready to hire! I also accidentally spent five weeks in Norfolk. Oops.
• March 2014 - I finally started work!!! I'm the director of digital and social media, and receptionist/secretary, for a non-profit organization that aims to help teenagers stay in school. We host concerts, so I get to meet celebrities, it's really cool! Also, I saw a gastrointestinal specialist who thinks instead of diverticulitis, it might likely be IBS. I start my new medication tomorrow.
• April 2014 - I just got home from spending the week with Lucas's family. It was incredible, I've never met such a huge, loving family. Since I'm an introvert, it was exhausting at first, but by the time I got used to it, I was already going home, haha. I think I can safely call them my future in-laws at this point. Also, my mom apparently had a long series of talks with my grandma, and she's finally starting to see that my mental disorders are anything but fake. I told her I loved her today and she actually said it back, for the first time in years. Yes, there were tears. Many of them.

I've been typing for way too long, but hopefully that's enough to catch everyone up! If you're curious about anything, please ask.

Feels good to be back. I look forward to talking with all of you!

Lisa

[Hayley Elizabeth]

tl;dr

[Wulfi]

Apr 20, 2014 19:12:33 GMT -5 Hayley Elizabeth said:

tl;dr

I got hit by a car, got really fucked up, and now I'm putting college on hold and pursuing my career in event organization, which is doubly good because charity.

[Hayley Elizabeth]

Fascinating stuff. Here's what you missed at ToM: Almost everyone quit and the forum is now pretty much dead. A few people post occasionally. I'm still here all the time.

[ProMetaAnaTelo]

Hey.

[Hayley Elizabeth]

And all of a sudden, this guy shows up after a three-year absence. Interestingly enough, he left at about the same time as Lisa. Maybe they're the same person!

[Wulfi]

An update.

Not long after this post, Lucas and I were kicked out of the attic, well, the entire house, actually. For about nine days we were dealing with a serious wasp problem. They would just pop up out of nowhere and no one quite knew why. Turns out they were coming in through the rafters and escaping through a gap between the smoke detector and attic ceiling. My grandmother got fed up of us being distressed by bugs that she kicked us out.

The next three weeks consisted of apartment applications and hotel hopping. I must have spent about $1,000 on lodging but my mother helped some, and my grandmother had a change of heart and paid part of one of our weeks, as a sort of apology, yet still said she didn't want us back. On the day we left for our new life in Norfolk, my grandmother hugged me and told me she just wanted what was best for me and for me to be out on my own. I cried a lot. I knew that was her way of telling me she loved me.

It's the middle of May 2014, Lucas and I have successfully moved into our own apartment in the same complex as Jasmine's! Our lives were going to be great, living next door to our best friends! One week later, our hopes and dreams come crashing down. We're having friends over and working on costume pieces for an upcoming convention at the end of the month, and someone screams. Turns out our apartment has roaches.

The whole ordeal stretched about three months. I asked our neighbors about the roaches one night. The woman who lived directly across from me told me she has them too, and all the other ladies spoke similarly. The entire middle column of the building is infested. In fact the only safe place was, and still is (knock on wood), the far end of the building where Jasmine lives. Turns out people have been in and out of my apartment for at least seven years. The exterminators have tried everything, from spraying to bombing to gel traps to powder. In fact I couldn't even stay in my own apartment most of the time because there was so much chemical residue that it was making me sick to inhale it. So Lucas and I ended up staying with Jasmine and one of our (at the time) best friends, X. This is when things got messy.

If you don't care about this friend drama, skip this portion and pick back up after the linebreak.

X was the person who in my last update was seeking asylum from her abusive parents. I've met her mom, and everyone tells me she is indeed a harsh and unforgiving woman, so I do not doubt her account at all. I do not regret the time we'd spent together because we both got along really well and became very tight. I even considered her to be part of our best friend circle of five. Nowadays, the number is a firm and steady four.

X was quite the reserved person, but once you were tight with her, she was hilarious and cool, relatable, and great fun. June 2014 was a lot of fun because we ended up playing a lot of RPG Maker games together and I got introduced to some of her fandoms, like Metal Gear, and earlier that year Kingdom Hearts. Come July, she ends up moving back home on account of her financial situation. Middle of July, Lucas, Jasmine and myself are out at dinner with his family for his birthday. He receives a harsh anonymous message and checks it on his phone. We get home, he tries to bait this anon into coming forward. Turns out it was X. Three hours of betrayed trust ensue and many tears are shed. We discover that X has some serious trust issues and cannot tolerate people with issues that conflict with her own agenda. She admitted a big reason she left was because she didn't want to be around Lucas anymore.

After X showed her true colors, no one in our group felt 100% comfortable around her. Communications dwindled, and eventually it was obvious she was out of our close social circle. At present things are a lot more mellow, and everyone is talking again, although it's not nearly as open and often. Lucas is willing to be her friend, though he doesn't know when or if he'll be able to reach the level of friendship they had before. We're all still friends, but we're mindful of how X operates, because her empathy level is pretty much zero. A few months after the falling out between them occurred, she had come to me in confidence and talked to me about how awful and insecure she felt about all of this, and I found out more about her past and why she acts the way she does. Learning more about her helped me understand how she works as a person, and I am much more forgiving of her now because I can empathize with her, even when she cannot empathize with others.

---

Late August/early September, I move back home, and Lucas moves back in with his parents. The other best friend in our circle, Z, moved in with Jasmine in X's absence once the fall semester started. It's a struggle because he's not used to successful long distance relationships, but it's working out well for us, much to both his pleasure and surprise.

I start work full-time at the office! Working for the foundation is rough because we're a small city and don't have a lot of support. Our events are often very under-attended, despite all our advertising. It's hard to help the schools in our area when no one wants to work with us. Helping people has always been something I'm passionate about, and it's a struggle sometimes when you put so much effort and money into an event/fundraiser and almost no one shows up. Since my last entry I've been promoted to Director of Fundraising as well, so my full title is Director of Media and Fundraising. From September until now, I've been working diligently with my two bosses. We are grossly understaffed, but we can't afford to hire anyone who isn't an after-school tutor. We are in desperate need of algebra tutors/mentors right now. We're in danger of being shut down. If we can't get anyone to cooperate, all of this will be for nothing.

Helping with charity and fundraising is something I love, but I've always found it hard to focus on just one passion. Last summer I started heavily looking into holistic health and healing. While controversial, I've seen enough to be confident that there is indeed benefit to energy healing, and so since October I've been studying reiki. I've always wanted to help people in any way I could, and not I can tackle the root of people's stress.

I hope to go back to school some time soon and major in nutrition/dietetics, in order to be a nutritionist...!

January 2015, I am spending the month in Norfolk with friends, working from my computer and starting to make chemical-free bath and beauty products and small crafts for my online shop. My pains are still happening but the doctors say I'll likely have them for the rest of my life. They are made worse by stress, so I try to surround myself with people who are good to me and good for me. I'm hoping to have an upper and lower GI exam done in the next month, once I return home.

-----

And here is a shorthand for people who don't care to read all of that:

2014 was pretty rough but ended well. I got kicked out of my house and hotel hopped for three weeks, had to deal with and leave a roach infested apartment, spent way too much money moving and I'm regretting it, and the last few months at my job have paid well be we're not getting good enough results to sustain our organization so I might be out of a job soon. I'm trying to focus on my education in little doses, as to not be overwhelmed.


As always, thanks for reading,

Lisa

[Hayley Elizabeth]

Now, here's your ToM update: No one posts here anymore.

[Admin]

You just did you silly.

[Hayley Elizabeth]

[Golden Emblem]

Holy shit Lisa, you've had a hell of a time. Glad things are settling down though.

[Wulfi]

I'm thankful, haha... I still sleep in the living room but a couch is better than nothing, right? Hopefully my health will improve too.

Thanks for reading, everyone, it means a lot to me!

[Wulfi]

Hey all, life is really picking up speed for me so I'll summarize.

I had a crush on a guy named Sam for two years, Lucas knew and teased me about it a lot but finally told him and he immediately suggested polyamory (something Lucas and I had actually been considering in private) and we accepted, and then he suggested us all moving in together. (Sounds way too fast, right? Well we had been close friends for over two years so we didn't think it'd be a bad idea.)

EDIT: I forgot to mention, the reason we agreed to it is because the job market in Durham is excellent and Lucas's city was shit, he'd been applying for seven years with only two interviews. I agreed to it because I had so much furniture from my last move tucked away in a storage shed, costing me $70 /mo.

So we found a townhouse to rent in Durham, NC, where I am residing at present. It has been almost a month since we moved in together and the first few weeks were awkward. Living with someone really shows you their true colors, but we're adjusting. A few days ago Sam admitted that his feelings and changed to platonic ones and there was a collective sigh of relief, since we all felt the same. Do I still adore him? Of course. Am I crushing on him? Not romantically, no. So everyone is getting along better now aside from little hiccups (like putting plates in the dishwasher and conserving energy).

The next installment is a long one and tediously complicated so I'll save it for another time, but I can assure you, I still have two boyfriends. Someone has been vying for my affections for years and finally took Sam's place.

Oh, I forgot to mention I accepted the fact that I'm polyamorous this year. That happened.

Also I began running a cosplay-centric non-profit in May! I've attained a table for Nekocon in Hampton. Check out more about us here:
CosCare.org/about


Take care,
Lisa

[Hayley Elizabeth]

Cute!