Still thinking of a title..

This is an entry I've been trying to work on for a while now. 

This is just something I need to get out there so anyone reading this knows where I stand with the way in which people treat other people online.

Now, understand, I'm a firm believer in “there's always going to be haters”, it took me a while to wrap my head around but I totally get it now. Face it, if you don't have haters, you're doing nothing and compromising yourself and your life's work. 

But this is just something I need to get out and if I don't, it's going to continue to eat at me until I actually do.

“'You,' he said, 'are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world, and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.'” -Lewis Carroll

I think it's pretty consensual to say 2014 was a screwy year for all of us, well, as far as from what I've seen, anyways. It was bittersweet for me to say in the least.

On the sunny side, I've seen major promise for my career as an artist, I've done a bit of traveling, and I've acquainted with many a number of amazing and wonderful people.

On the shady side, I started out the year on edge with an intense and insidious bout of anxiety compounded onto depression, something I wouldn't wish on anyone ever, not even my worst enemy (it's a pitfall with intelligence, I'll admit it if no one else does; if you're walking around with an IQ in the 140 range, you're susceptible to demons like that. I won't go into the neural science behind the scenes, but the fact remains). 

In fact, it got so bad, I had to take the spring and summer off from school and go to therapy—and on top of that, I had no idea I needed more credits in order to get my two-year until the spring term actually started—when my only therapy was music, Ben Shepherd's music specifically.

When things began to grow dark for me in early 2011, I played Superunknown every day until I left for the Northwest in the fall of that year. It was the only thing that kept me at ease. Indeed there's a quote from Ben himself about 1993-ish from Live Through This: "[Superunknown] might have spoken of dark things or a dark feeling but there was something in it, even lyrically, that suggested 'Hey, you've hit the bottom, now there's only up.' It offered people a chance to get dark without having to be there."

Head Down and Half made me cry and also helped dry my tears when I was crying already. Hell, I remember sitting in my room with those two songs going and wanting to be recycled back into the universe, but something kept me going, mind you. Superunknown, without sugar-coating anything, became my best friend that summer.

Ben's work in Hater helped me through a horrible bout of depression over the winter of 2012, when I began enveloping suicidal thoughts—I even attempted a few times. His music, primarily anyways—that was the same winter I found love in black metal—helped me continue, though. 

Thus I saw Soundgarden for the first time in February 2013 in Portland, and I returned home inspired and wanting to draw, wanting to draw him and give said drawing to him, sort of my way of telling him “thank you, thank you so much for being amazing, for being beautiful, for helping me when nothing else could, for being Ben and I really couldn't ask for anything or anyone else”. I swapped my place in engineering school for being an artist within three weeks.

And then In Deep Owl, his solo album was released. *little hearts float off of nirvhannah's head*

And that album, plain and simple, kept me from pulling a Miss Plath and sticking my head in the oven. As a result, I created a second drawing for him.

So it's rather easy for me to say that Ben is my hero. He'll be playing in my ears whenever I'm feeling like a million dollars and whenever I feeling Minnesota.

But then I watched the world turn into the dark side yet again, and that dark side manifested in the form of the majority of 2014.

"Alive in the Superunknown. First it steals your mind, and then it steals your soul."

I started receiving strange messages from people about the beginning of May. These people kept telling me to get help—mind you, I finally broke down and sought out help in the middle of April, so these people were a day late and a dollar short telling me this. They accused me of being selfish and distant, too.

Not to mention, I was in hypnotherapy, which is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G if you haven't tried it out, and not surprisingly, music therapy; on a side-note, I befriended my therapist, who encouraged me to return to Ben's library at whatever chance I had and all the while expanding my music horizons.

I began noticing things, especially now that I glance back: one example that immediately comes to mind is two friends whom I befriended in the spring of 2013 were behaving rather strangely around me. It was as if whenever I brought up something sweet and loving, whether it be towards Ben, Soundgarden, or anything or anyone else, they seemed a little tense, I would say, like I could feel there was something they wanted to tell me, but there was indeed a moment of awkward hesitation, as if... I made them uncomfortable. This was only the beginning.

Next thing I knew these messages began to ridicule, mocking me, my behavior, and my artwork, too. Next thing I knew, these messages grew abusive. I recall an anonymous one a couple of weeks prior to my second Soundgarden experience in Vegas with Nine Inch Nails. I don't know what the hell I did to this person, but they were so irate with me, irate and condescending, as if this person was trying to belittle me for being as devout as I am. This person also had the nerve to say Ben doesn't even know I exist.

I'm long over the rage that soon followed suit with this bullshit (I kept my cool responding but it left me reeling all day afterwards) but I'm going to go out on a limb to say how fucking venomous do you have to be in order to verbally attack someone in such a tone that you may as well be abusing them, and remaining faceless, too, I should add? And are you so omniscient to say that you know for a solid hard fact that Ben doesn't know I exist? Not saying that I know either, but at least I don't go about on anonymous breaking other people's backs over it. 

I couldn't, and I still can't, believe an actual person typed that out and hit send.

“The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing in their life.” -Vasudev

And then Chris Cornell happened! Oh, what a way to rub it into that person's face.

But then things took a turn for the worst when two friends stated above got alone with me about a week before I saw Soundgarden with Nine Inch Nails a second time, this time up in Seattle. These two cornered me in a group chat and basically called me delusional and ordered me to get help—still in therapy, so it's pretty futile to tell someone to get help when they're well in the midst of getting help. 

Apparently one of them had received two messages from two people expressing the same concern, so I think that was the final nail in the coffin with them and me. My philosophy is if you have a problem with me, just tell me. If there's one thing in this world that puts my panties in a bundle, aside from politics and any kind of abuse, it's gossip. I'll read it but whether or not I'll respond is solely my decision. 

On top of that, they also accused me of stalking Ben.

Why? 

I'm all over his page. Shit, I'll admit to that. The only difference is I'm not sending him death threats like that woman who stalked Chris at the beginning of last year. No way in hell on Earth, that man is too beautiful, why would I do such a thing? 

And on top of that, I had to actually look him up in order to send my first letter to him. But that was the reason why I had to do that, though. Soundgarden doesn't have a portal like Ten Club where you can send off fan mail willy-nilly, and their management kept dragging their feet when I emailed them, asking them how on Earth could I get a hold of him, and on top of that, everyone I talked to about it came up short on how I could mail him, so I literally had no choice but to look him up.

Akin to the abusive person, they were very patronizing towards me, talking to me like I exhibited low intellect. They were expressing “concern” solely because I've had suicidal thoughts in the past. I have my certificate in mechanical engineering, I'm well-read, and I grew up with the arts and sciences, so don't talk to me like I'm an idiot. And I value all life, including my own. Again, why would I do such a thing?

Their behavior basically destroyed me, though. These were two friends, people whom I believed I could be myself in front of no matter what, who were thoroughly against judging another human being, judged me and made me feel worthless. I couldn't believe I actually liked them. In fact, after that incident, those old, dusty suicidal thoughts returned, but only briefly.

"You use this abuse to keep me conquered/You're so absurdly common/Vacant faces, brainless strangers/Sputtering, stuttering insect language/I'm the creature you created." -Otep

I'm still getting hate mail, for Ben, for Chris, for my artwork—I want to know how you treat your kids if you slander someone's brainchildren for your own benefit—for the way I look, which is why pictures of me are very few and far between anymore, and also why I suffered from poor self-image the past few months (right, anyone else my age who posts a picture of themselves in a crop top gets a boatload of likes and countless remarks of “oh, you're so cute/sexy/etc.!” whereas I take a picture of myself in clothing that slightly flatters my body results in dozens of hate messages).

I love this picture of me, but ya'll need to relax on the "you're fat" comments. 

I am a little chubby but for Christ's sake.

I've grown accustomed to the messages, but it's still difficult for me to open up my inbox anymore and talk to people over.. whatever.

It's not that I don't care, it's just I'm wary of talking to people online anymore, and that's where the contradiction comes in because I'm writing something like this.

I learned my lesson after last year, knowing that to get by in life, you need to know who your real friends are, the ones who'll love you for everything that you are and put up with your likes and shenanigans no matter how many times you go overboard with it but still keeps it at the least PG-rated, the ones who won't accuse you of stalking your hero because you've left sweet nothings all over his page and you've left them with next to nothing. I duly believe that was the reason they did that, not so much to point fingers at me but because they were feeling unloved from me, like I was giving Ben a good portion of the pie and leaving them with very little, if that. So yes, I will admit, I should've treated them better. 

However their argument is complete nonsense within itself because I love everyone... literally. I may not always come right out and say it, but it's always there whether you like it or not.

The point of this post is simple: if you don't like something, don't get involved. If it bothers you so much, why bother say anything negative about it and make a complete fool of yourself?