TatteredXTrivial

How do you get over losing one of the most important things you've ever had? You grieve and go through the stages of letting go and accepting things you cannot change, and eventually you move on. But how do you get through losing something and then having it rubbed in your face every time you turn round that you might have loved and lost... or you might have been a naive idiot and were never loved at all? I'm struggling because he won't leave me alone, and I'm struggling because it hurts to admit that I honestly don't know if it was genuine or if I was played for a fool all those years. The hardest part is that I don't know which would be worse.

But I'm going to get over it. I've tried struggling through this on my own for a year. Over a year. And I can't do it because he makes sure I can't, by 'reminding me' past the point of harassment. How do you become a bigger, better person than someone like that... if you're one of those people that's scared to leave the house every morning? Severe anxiety isn't made better by drama and paranoia. But I'm tired of being hurt, of hiding and of being afraid, of cowering and expecting a backlash I can only hope to predict every time I become bold enough to post something online again.

Enough is enough. I'm trying, because I owe it to my friends. My sister has wanted to draw with me for the past year, but I can't even pick up a pencil because of the memories so closely entwined there. I'm and artist and I haven't drawn in over a year. The people I care about - my friends and family - are suffering because of his immaturity, but ultimately it's because of my inability to suck it up and be stronger than this, stronger than his will to watch me continue to crumble.

So I'm going to try. I cannot promise that I'll succeed, but I'm at least going to try. I'll struggle, but I hope that maybe that's what I need. I can't live the rest of my life locked away, afraid to leave the house, afraid to touch a computer, afraid to pick up a pencil, scared of anyone ever getting close again. I don't know if I'll ever be sound enough for another relationship again, but I have to at least try. Try to get outside more, try to spend time with people, try to draw with my sister.

I owe her that much, and I owe it to myself to at least try. If I try and fail, it will be on my terms. If i try and I fail, it will be a step towards accepting my life and myself, and at least I'll have a solid point of where to start improving. But if I try... and succeed... I honestly don't know. I expect to fail nowadays. At everything. It's become a preconceived notion that things will end badly, especially where others are concerned. I need to find a way to get my thinking process straightened out.

... I hope maybe if I do something and get out of the house, I'll at least have some pictures to show you guys. It won't be much of an update, but I'll try to at least show that you guys here mean something to me and that I really am trying to make you proud and confident that your support has helped.

I'm going to spend some time with people this week. And I'm going to draw with my sister. I'm going to get through this for them, because I owe it to them. And somehow I'll get through this for me, because they have faith that I can. I realized that I'm still capable of love... because I don't want to prove them wrong.

- Triv

So I do still check here occasionally, but life has been very busy. My anxiety has gotten worse, so it's hard to come back on DA much after everything that's happened. My art has been on the back burner a lot lately, so there's not much to say there. I've been working a lot and am thinking about going back to school in the next year or so to finish my degree. I love my new ob, but it's hectic, and life's been busy. It seems like I cope best when I'm not sitting around. I feel like I'm still damaged and it's hard to be around this place anymore after everything that's happened. It would be easier if my ex would leave me alone, but he continues to cause problems and regularly checks my page and probably doesn't stop there. I've removed myself from Facebook and other sites I used to use as well, because he can't seem to manage to leave me alone and just drop it, even though he says publicly that he's over it and that I'm the clingy one. I'd like to make it clear that I would like to move on and am trying. Him constantly stalking my every move online and trying to use it to cause problems is what's making it hard. I have to be very careful of every word I type. And recently, I've discovered that even words I do NOT type somehow are still associated with me. I've been accused of things I've never done and of saying words I never use. But that's sadly something I should come to expect now.

They say the only thing stronger than love is hate. I tried to hate him, but I can't manage to waste that much energy on something I desperately want to let go. Unfortunately, I'm not as strong as others and the constant harassment he obsessively sticks to is like a poison reminder. Constantly. I wish he were able to move on and let it go.

For those of you who have been wondering, yes, that is why I haven't been here on DA much. I keep myself busy and don't have time for the internet much because every time I post anything, it sparks new drama from him.

On a brighter note, I do have some things planned and will eventually be starting some new projects. As always, for those of you who know me, feel free to contact NatakuXeden if you need anything from me, etc.

- Triv

So OhayoCon 2013 was an adventure, in the most raw, unwavering sense of the word. it started Friday morning, when we (myself, Panda, our government mandated mandatory minority friend and our poor unfortunate chud friend - that I was sadly dating at the time, because as it's been mentioned before, I have a habit of making poor choices when it comes to relationships) all packed up and headed out for the con. After a four-hour drive (give or take a mandatory stop at a specific Tim Hortons, for tradition's sake) we arrived. Sort of. Somehow, Columbus is more complex than Tokyo and, instead of just not labeling any streets like they do over in Japanland, they give several streets the same name, confusing the GSP to the point that it rage-quite and pretty much said "fuck this, find it yourself. I'm out!") So we drove around looking for the German Village Inn for... gosh, i don't even remember how long. We did find it, though! And... the German Village Inn is run by Indians. Like, off the boat from India, how do I speaka Engoolash? Indians. Check-in was nearly impossible, but I am the cutest of superheroes and somehow managed to get our keys, probably by just making sad "I don't understand you" faces. We had booked two rooms, one for our car group (aka Team U.S.S. Buttfuck, Mach 2 - which is what Panda has named her car -_-;; ) and one room for Chris (aka VixenTimelord) and her posse of humans in her car (R.I.P. Chris's old car, we miss you. He just passed away this winter, due to a tragic accident involving his arch nemesis, Black Ice.) Upon inspection of the rooms, we saw that they were quaint (which is a nice way of saying we're poor, but went to an anime con and got a hotel room anyways because YOLO. Gosh, I hate that word. Sorry guys, "You Only Live Once" is a dumb thing, I will never use that terrible phrase again.)

And then all Hell broke loose. In a good way. The Chris mobile arrived! We greeted our friends - for the first time in person! - and then got things sorted out, cosplayed up and headed off to the con.

That's where things got crappy. First, parking was a bitch, but that was probably to be expected. Second, (and mind you, the convention center seems to have remedied this problem, because 2014 was great in this respect) there was the dreaded Line Patrol Lady who can be summed up nicely as a modern day housewife Nazi. think about if the 3rd Reich were run by a sexually suppressed house wife, somewhat on the chubby side and with an apparent, unhealthy love for those gaudy, obviously fake strands of peals that older women seem to gravitate towards. I almost felt bad, until I realized that her entire wardrobe was probably a limitless explosion of QVC exclusives and that she had the money to afford all of those home shopper deals and still come to a job and scold younger people because god forbid they have fun with anything when she hasn't so much as seen her husband with his pants off in 20 years. I'm assuming he wasn't dead, but then again, i'm also assuming she was married at all. She had so many rings on all of her finger that it was just too hard to tell.

So Line Patrol Lady ordered us to stand in our "boxes" - which were taped off one-foot by one-foot squares on the carpet, that she had probably spent her previous evening and most of that night and early morning measuring out, because let's face it, there was obviously nothing nice waiting at home for a woman with her rank attitude. We were scolded like we faced a drill Sargent, "stay in your boxes!" and I had to focus on breathing because I don't do well with crowds as it is, or loud noises, especially yelling... or angry females. Especially ones that are bigger than me, and she was much bigger than me, both taller and wider. Scary woman.

Unfortunately, Poor Unfortunate ex boyfriend Chud Friend is deaf and also from Australia, so with all of the noise, having never been to an anime con and having the whole deaf thing going on, I'm sure his hearing aids were probably translating sounds into colors or something by that point, similar to the GPS, and about to nope out on us. I felt more like a babysitter than his fiance. Once we got out of the hallway, into a larger, more open area, things eased up. Chudboy was able to hear better and I was finally able to chit chat a bit with Hannah, hoping to calm my nerves down a bit.

And then Mr. Skimpyshorts Cornerwalker joined us. I hadn't know previously, but Chudboy had gone behind my back and arranged to meet this guy he'd been talking to online for months (?) and hadn't mentioned it at all. I didn't think much of it at first, mainly because all I could think at the time was "this new guy is obviously a dude, does he not understand what 'dress to your body type' means?" I'm okay with crossdressing, IF you can do it well. But somehow he thought it was okay to go outside in public with half his man-ass hanging out of his little sister's shorts. Hannah turned into my sanity and helped me be more okay with it by cracking a joke - actually, I think she made the remark about how it was very NOT okay for a grown man to wear a pair little girl booty shorts - and I ended up laughing. I felt terrible, but she just shrugged and was like, "fuck him if he hears me. Maybe nobody's told him that he looks like tranny trash and he needs to see the light or somethin' I dunno  whateva." That girl is definitely not ashamed to speak her mind. It was amazing. here we were, standing right next to him, and the group Chud was there talking with him and she's right behind them like "bitch, fuck the po-lice, I don't give a damn." I was pretty shocked, somewhat embarrassed and really trying very hard not to laugh too loudly at her comments. I could have never said anything like that, never out loud. And there was Hannah, saying it in normal tones, not even bothering to hide it at all. Wonderfully offensive Hannah. ♥

So we got registered (I ended up paying for Chudboy, because, well.. he's a chud.) After registration, we were looking at the schedules and maps and then... where was chudboy? The idiot I was dating had just wandered off with Mr. Skimpyshorts. We found them shortly after, thanks to Minority Friend having seen them walk off going down an escalator. We came down the escalator and there was Chudboy, who was dressed like a morbidly obese person who thinks they're smaller and somehow muuuch sexier than they actually are dumbass already, hanging off of Mr. Skimpyshorts. I should have just left him there and been free of so much trouble right then and there, but as I've said, I make poor choices. James (aka SK-Seoul is helping with this terrible habit.) The poor choice I made there was not walking off and leaving him, it was not getting possessive and upset, it was worse. I acted like something was wrong. He was happy, so I guess I defaulted to being happy, too, because he was happy and I wanted him to be happy. He asked me to take pictures of them together. I did. Now there are several pictures of them together and still only one of he and I from that weekend, and it was a group photo. At least in hindsight, that's a good thing!

She must have caught on that I was down a bit, because Hannah - always attentive to me somehow - came over and just stood beside me. She didn't make small talk or make thing awkward or push any boundaries, she just sort of kept me company, I guess. It was nice. Without words, she somehow understood that I wasn't as happy as I was pretending to be.

As the weekend went on, most of my time was devoted to being a babysitter for Chudboy. For a fat kid, he was surprisingly incapable of purchasing his own food. Unfortunately, I realized too late (over a week later) that he'd had the money and the means to all along and had just acted dumb and broke because he figured I'd pay for him before I let him starve. He knew I always tend to put others above myself and took advantage of that, even going so far as to remind me and explain that he was, indeed, using me... though not until month later. This was partly my fault, since I sacrificed my funds mostly for him. I did get a small bit of pizza Saturday night, which was wonderful. Most of the con was spent being Chudboy's P.A. and helping him with everything (getting dressed in his cosplay stuff, makeup, wig, shoes, etc. getting him to where he wanted to go, taking pictures of him, trying to find him when he wandered off... Everything.) I did get a small fraction of time to spend with Hannah, though, and it was wonderful.

Saturday night, we were talking - away from everyone else, because I desperately needed a break from being Chudboy's keeper - and ended up curling up on the floor in a corridor by a pay phone yes, they still had one of those!) we were sitting there, talking about life, and suddenly ANOTHER horribly dressed individual - wearing short-shorts no less!) came walking up. TO ALL OF YOU MEN OUT THERE: PLEASE SHOT WEARING YOUR LITTLE SISTER'S CLOTHING!!! Anyways, so we were sitting there and Mr. Drunkasfuck Shortyshorts comes up and starts flat out hitting on us. he asked what we were talking about and I think I'd just about had it because I took a que from NatakuXeden, shrugged and said "life." he's like "I have a life. I'll join you!" and started to sit. Xeden is normally a bad influence, but in this case he was a life saver because the next thing out of my mouth was "actually, no. You can't... because we're talking about a SPECIFIC life. Our friend's life. our DEAD FRIEND'S life. our friend was supposed to come with us this weekend but no one heard from her and and and *insert fake hiccup-gasp noise* we just got a call from her boyfriend and... she's deeeaaad!!!" Again, Xeden is a bad influence and generally a not-nice person. I feel like he should probably come with a disclaimer and a liability waiver. But at least in this case he was helpful. I ended up covering my face and laughing softly, but it must have been a convincing enough act (thank you, Xeden, I do owe you for that) because Mr. Drunkasfuck Shortyshorts backed off. I kept crying and Hannah joined in as we wove a tale about the tragic death of our best friend we never had, Caroline. Poor dead Caroline. Mr. Drunkasfuck Shortyshorts was obviously still sober enough to be walking and talking in (simple but still) complete sentences... which meant he was also able to understand what every guy's most basic instinct will scream at him when he's stuck in a situation like this. As Xeden has put it, guys have this voice in their head that rates a prospective interaction with females and, in this case, the voice was responding with the appropriate signals of "NO NO FUCK THIS SHIT THEY HAVE TOO MUCH BAGGAGE! ABORT MISSION!!!" It worked. He tripped over his foot and suddenly had to take an emergency call and go away.

Sunday started with some rough words because by that point, I was so tired of being attached to Chudboy. Or, to more appropriately put it, I was very, very tired of struggling the entire weekend with a 300+ lb parasitic growth that was supposed to still be my boyfriend. By noon or so I wandered outside because the crowds were just getting to me way too much. I hadn't eaten and my body was starting to go into shock with chills and a very fuzzy sense of things. It was like colors were washed out and I couldn't stop shivering, then it got the the surreal point where I didn't really feel myself and started to feel all floaty and even more fuzzy. If I'd been in a better state of mind, that would have set off a lot of alarm bells, but I was so out of it that I somehow drifted outside and didn't even know ow I'd gotten there until I felt the texture of the concrete curb under my hands as I sat on it. I didn't feel it right away, sort of more like slowly became aware of the cold, rough texture. Then it was like all of those tiny grains of rock in the concrete were all that existed in the world and I was so fascinated by the one little black-ish one that was slightly bigger than the rest and really smooth to rub with my thumb, but it would have been too much effort to rub with my other fingers, so I could only wonder if it would have felt the same to all of my fingers. Then I was thinking that it probably tasted salty, like the ocean, because rocks and sand and oceans and... then there was Mike.

I didn't know his name at first, he was just this skinny, lanky guy who needed a haircut and a shave that was standing above me asking me something. i saw his lips move but it took too long to process. i don't know how long, but I know I was supposed to reply somehow, I just didn't compute what he was saying. Then it finally went through, as he sat down next to me, almost close enough to sit on the little black-ish rock I was still rubbing with my thumb. Fuckin' Mike. He was smoking, and I couldn't decide if I liked the smell or not, so eventually I just didn't care. He talked about something, I don't remember what. He was asking me questions and then told me to come with him "back here." I didn't know where "back here" was, but he's TOLD me to come. he hadn't asked, like he was supposed to. When you meet a stranger, you're supposed to ASK them, not tell them. It's rude. And sometimes they're like me and screwed up even more by the terrible Chudboy parasite and can't make solid reasons for things in their head anymore. I couldn't say no, and I HAD to follow him. he was telling me to, and he was bigger than  was and would easily have been able to MAKE me do whatever he wanted. If I upset him by not doing like I was told, he'd probably do worse because I'd upset him. I really didn't want to follow him, but...

Hannah! She really is a superhero, i'm sure of it. Her Trivvy senses must have tingled, because she came outside and immediately knew something was wrong. She asked, "Trivvy, I've been looking all over for you. Did you come out here because you were thinking about Caroline and needed some space?" that was the que I needed. thanks again to Xeden for being a disturbingly good actor, because I was almost crying. I choked and tearlessly sobbed over a dead friend I never knew. Mike, junkie that he was, was still not completely brain-dead because his internal how-to-females voice told him "RUN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, RUUUN!!! EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE WARRING! ABORT ABORT!" and like the other guy, he, too, must have suddenly had an emergency call to take very far away from us.

After Fuckin' Mike left in such a hurry, I had to stop pretend crying. Hannah sat next to me, but she was polite and didn't almost sit on the black-ish rock. I put my hand down and rubbed it again. Thinking about it now, I miss that little black-ish rock. Then Hannah made me forget all about it when she offered me the most amazing thing ever: a smoothie. It was fruity and delicious and I got one of the most epic brain freezes from gulping it, but god, I was started. She dragged me inside and the next thing I knew, I was eating fries. I think I might have had some chicken, too, but I can't remember if it was a chicken sammich, chicken strips or just looking at someone else's food. Chudboy had already managed to feed himself, I'd made sure he was sated for a bit before heading outside earlier. He tried to get close, I thought he was trying to apologize, but now that I think back, maybe he just wanted some of my fries. Hannah shooed him away by being in the way and just ignoring his squeaky protests. She's very good at ignoring people she doesn't like.

After food, it was time to go. That was one of the saddest moments of my life because something inside my head realize - just for a split second, before I could crush it down and call it selfish - that Hannah was the one I should have been going home with. Regardless of relationships, love, sex, gender, etc. she was the one I wanted to be close to. I didn't want with her what a normal couple has, probably not anything like a couple at all. But she felt safe and like family. Like the older sister I never had. Like a protector. It's no wonder she and Xeden get along so well. They're both my heroes.



...And that's how the con was saved - by Hannah, the chick who gives no fucks, Xeden, who really should have a warning label, and Caroline, our best dead friend we never knew.

Yes, yes, i'm alive. Sorry, everyone! I know I've dropped off the face of the planet. A lot happened and I really don't want to drag into it - so let's just say that the person I was previously with (those of you know him as Echelon or Echelon696 on here) turned out to be a totally immature, sadistic douchebag and then couldn't break things off like a healthy, mentally stable person, so he blocked me and started talking to my friends (irl and online) and slandering anything he could about me. He's been making my past year a living hell, but hopefully he's grown up by now.