⛥February Q&A⛥ (Patreon)

Happy leap day! February 29th only comes around every 4 years and I keep forgetting it's a thing because the Roman calendar is a fucking garbage fire to begin with. Can we go back to the tried and true 10 solid months? That way maybe it won't snow in Bavaria at the end of April. How nice would it be to not bundle up in a coat on my birthday? Lol. It's still several weeks away, but that won't stop me from getting cake at the next opportunity. Do you know that feeling when you haven't had junk food or dessert in a while and your craving for it builds up but you ignore it because you're eating lots of healthy food and then you get triggered when you see yummy looking cakes on Instagram and suddenly remember you want some but then when you get the opportunity nothing really speaks to you and/or doesn't taste as good as you'd hoped? Those cakes are leading me on. Especially the ones with the smooth white gooey stuff that looks like thick melted white chocolate but it probably isn't. I mean, the Brazilians are just playing with my feelings at this point. This looks like the most badass Kinder Joy egg ever known to man. I googled it and it's a cream made from milk powder which means it will kill my insides (*is mildly lactose intolerant*) but damn if it doesn't look like the most delicious food thing ever invented. German bakeries could never! I fell down the rabbit hole of browsing Brazilian desserts and by next week I will probably be fluent in Portuguese. Now that I've teased you with food porn neither of us can have, let's get back to the slightly less exciting topic of me talking about myself for an hour straight. You've submitted some curious questions, oddly enough, more than one about marriage! Let's get right to it:

How have you been this month? I've been pretty good! Making the Nightmare Banisher wasn't too taxing now that I've learned to split up my work into bite size chunks. And I've only had two meltdowns since Mercury went retrograde. I did learn that my experience in Detroit trying to visit Jack was more traumatic than I assumed, given how I'm triggered everytime someone talks about re-electing Trump. It instantly throws me back into that powerless moment, sick with anxiety, holding on by a thread just for the chance to speak to him again, not being given any information for 3 hours straight, praying to anything in existence that they will kindly allow me to go see him after already being at my wit's end from a 20 hour trip, no sleep, hardly any food, almost having collapsed in the line, then being treated like a criminal for simply wanting to see my love. "Have I done something wrong?" - "No not at all but please wait here indefinitely while we ask you a million questions, search your phone and your luggage". I kinda just wanna tell people "if you love me you will vote democrat" but people are kinda batshit about their political views and I don't wanna get attacked ... again. Because I'm sure there are people who voted republican, who watch my videos and really enjoy them, who don't know that I'm trying to move to the US, making me an immigrant. I wonder if they'd support Trump's views the same knowing how his policies have affected me. How my visa has been stalled indefinitely without giving any reason for three years straight, how we were then lied to about its status. Like don't you want me in your country? We don't have the kind of money to just both go to Canada. Most of our savings went to paying for a lawyer to help us file a new visa. This likely wouldn't have happened if the president didn't hate immigrants so much, ordering embassies to stall and prevent visas. So I guess while I'm physically fine and able to distract myself most of the time, I can't help but be anxious about the future. All I want is to live with my husband. Being apart from him hurts me so much. But that's the extent of my woes lately. Also sick with a violent cough at the minute but I think I'm through the worst and shouldn't be feeling it anymore tomorrow.  Wow this was very cathartic to write. Maybe I should have stuck with 'I'm fine'? XD

So far how have you found life as a married woman, does your love for each other feel different now that it's legally recognized by a nation-state? Oddly enough, no. Our love doesn't feel any different. Same old. The only thing that changed is how legitimate other people think our relationship is. Before you tie the knot, a lot of people wanna project their insecurities on you and it kinda feels like they're trying to talk you out of it. But once you've gone through with it, everyone just congratulates you like "oh, she was serious." Being legally married is apparently a much bigger deal than calling someone your twin flame and saying you want to be with them forever. Who would have thought? As a married woman, for the first time I feel like the majority of people respect my devotion to him. Even after we'd been dating for years, it still felt like random people were trying to be the snake in the tree, poking me left and right to see if I had any doubts at all. And when I told them I'm certain he's the one I want, they made me feel crazy for it, saying long distance doesn't tend to last, asking how often we've seen each other in person to judge how valid our love was, just generally treating me like I'm three and I don't know what I'm doing. But then it only took a piece of paper stating we're husband and wife to shut them up like they respect that flimsy sheet more than anything I could ever say or do. It gives me this "you're not in a relationship unless someone more believable says you are" vibe, kinda like how you have to bring in a doctor's note before people acknowledge you're ill. Remember, you're not sick until the doc says you are! The shit it takes these days to get people off your back about your personal decisions is ridiculous. I am just as much his life partner as I was last year, but only now do many people take it seriously. However, it is quite satisfying to see them finally back off and realize how wrong they were. Still waiting for my opportunity to get hit on and flaunt my marital status. 

I get sensory overload from trying to live a normal life as well. What do you do when you can't find sensory deprivation or escape reality? Dissociate. What? You asked what I'd do. Sensitive jokes aside, I try my hardest to keep that from happening, though I'm not always successful. I have three things for you:
Take baths in candle light, with some calming music if it's noisy in the house. Daily baths make such a big difference for me, even though my shallow ass shower barely holds enough water to cover my sides. Being submerged in warm water relaxes both your muscles from being near-weightless and your nerves by absorbing static electricity. I notice how on edge I am if I skip my hour long bath in favor of a much less satisfying shower. If you can't turn off the noise from other people, drown it out with your own noise. Listening to something you enjoy is infinitely better than having to listen to uncontrollable chaos. Try any of these things: Heavy metal, binaural beats, all the solfeggio frequencies, subliminals, ASMR, coffee jazz, guided meditations, sleep music with delta waves, magical/fantasy music - I'm sure even your favorite band would work. It's about having something pleasant to focus on over other people's bullshit.
Get out of the house and into the forest. To have a quiet moment to yourself in this day and age, you are basically tied to the places other people tend to avoid. Going for walks by yourself in places you're unlikely to run into humans will provide the privacy and peace you need to stay sane. You can tell people you're jogging, going to the gym, meeting someone or whatever, then find a quiet place and just exist. Being surrounded by trees and nature is extremely grounding and calming.
Escape through another medium. Lots of people use video games as a temporary escape, even going so far as having virtual lives they find more satisfying and fulfilling than physical life. Neurotypical people would say that's 'unhealthy' - I say you should get to do whatever makes you not want to kill yourself. Whether that's micromanaging an entire town of Sims or fine-tuning a virtual character and live in a virtual world where you can express yourself - you should get to meet your needs in whichever form is available to you. Preferably not shooting up a school in the process but if all you're doing is taking yourself out of the box people tell you to live in, what's the harm? You can get into witchcraft and/or astral projection to have an alternate world to escape to. If that's the route you want to go, I strongly encourage first learning to protect your energy. There are entities out there - none of them as craptastic as humans, but a fair few with questionable intentions. And in the spiritual you will attract entities with similar traits to the people around you simply because that's what you're used to and therefore what you vibe with. So proceed with caution and learn how to protect yourself. Basic witchcraft has the perk of bringing you closer to yourself and your personal power, making you more stable against other people's manipulations. But any medium you choose will provide the comfort of having something to turn to that no one can fuck with. Something you can focus on that distracts you enough from the outside chaos that it no longer feels like that's all there is. There's a distinction to be made between proactive escapism and novocaine escapism. Proactive escapism is finding ways to meet your needs outside of the limitations of social norms. Novocaine escapism is using mediums to temporarily numb yourself - most commonly, drugs. Don't do drugs, kids. It'll drive away the only person who ever truly loved you because you spend more time with drug dealers than with them and they can't take the constant panic of you potentially ODing every minute they're not around to watch you. /PSA over. Though even something as benign as video games can be used as novocaine. Relief is a different sensation from numbness, though numbness is often confused for relief. Example: When I throw myself into work to distract myself from the pain of missing Jack, that's numbness. When I take a train to the airport to see Jack again for the first time in 6 months, that's relief. The escapism needs to be about Jack, not about the work. I hope that makes sense, maybe it's Ally logic. I hope it helps.

What's your favourite song(s) at the moment and why? I have reviewed all the songs I've been listening to the most lately and come up with this favorite: <0 by Type O Negative. Even though I've mostly been listening to tracks from the origin of the feces, this one from life is killing me is more relevant at the minute. Now, I hadn't looked up the lyrics prior to this question, but now that I can't unread what I read it makes sense. My loudmouth got me in a little bit of trouble yesterday and I took a blow to my self-worth as a result of it. I haven't been able to be very kind to myself since then and this song vibes with me even though it seems harsh. Thank you, though. Maybe listening to it understanding the words will help me integrate the shame I'm resisting. 

You mentioned already having a lot of ideas for future videos. How do you decide what video to do next? Believe it or not, there's somewhat of a method to my madness! The first place goes to inspiration: Whatever I'm really into at the minute, I will work on. This takes the cake above any other decision making process. The second place goes to attainability. If I'm not extraordinarily inspired to do something, I work on whichever project I feel like I can make happen the easiest or those I can already picture in my mind and feel prepared for. The third place goes to non-commitment. If I don't have inspiration or any idea how to put a video together, I will just do whatever I am able for any random idea and see where I end up. Maybe I don't know how I want the video to look yet, but I know about what I want to say - I will try writing a script. Even though I rarely end up using the thing, it'll help me get an idea of what all I want to say and maybe think of things I want to add. Or maybe I know for sure I want to open with some incense triggers, then I do those first and leave the rest for another time. I kinda puzzle them together like that. 

Did you guys exchange rings? If yes, what do they look like? We don't have rings. I am so fortunate that Jack and I agree on so many values, including the fact that engagement and wedding rings are a worthless scam and the money is better spent on more useful things like flights, furniture, lawyers and what have you. If I had to choose between, say, a diamond and a 3dio - well, you already know which one I picked ;)

That's it for this month's questions - I hope you enjoyed reading my answers. It was a lot more satisfying than I had assumed (because I didn't think I'd have that much to say to only six rather simple questions but then again I wouldn't be me if I could shut my gob would I) and I really enjoyed it. If you have follow up questions there will be next month's post here in just a second. May March treat you all better than February has :)