Scared to Write Music, Becoming a Hermit & Beating Demon's Souls

I've been scared to write new music, I believe its because I tried to lean in to making music more frequently and while I wish I could release songs and albums more often, it just wasn't coming out of me. I also believe my song "Last" has become a casualty of that, I would like to re-record that track for the album I plan to do but I feel I really rushed that song out and it wasn't ready to go out. I really want to take my time with my music and make it the best I can and if that means I pull a Fiona Apple then oh well then that is that. I don't want to release music that doesn't feel done to me and I feel like I really need to take my time going forward so I am going to slow down and work at my own pace. I think I pushed myself to do this just because most people are pushing out music really fast now so I wanted to do that but I can't. I need to do what is best for me.

I also haven't been in the best place as of late, I am having lots of mini and full blown panic attacks. Its due to all of the stress of everything happening in America right now, I can't handle watching the news or even going outside. I just don't feel safe anymore and people just scare me so I am a hermit now I guess. I only go out to pick up groceries and that's about it. I have looked in to finding a therapist because I need to start going back to therapy, I can't deal with all of this shit and I need someone other than myself to make sense of all of this shit and help guide me through it all so I can process how I'm suppose to deal with it all. I could talk about Trump, I could talk about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I could talk about how rainbow sidewalks are being erased everywhere and people are being arrested, I could talk about Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert having their shows cancelled, I could talk about all of that stuff but I don't want to because its fucking exhausting and it just makes me feel crazy and like the world is going mad and people have just lost their minds and I don't know how I am suppose to live in a world where everyone is psychotic now and just want to hurt each other. It brings me to an extremely dark place I don't want to be in and I know I can't avoid it forever but I need to find a way to deal with it all without just wanting to disappear.

Lets talk about something positive since I've been talking about negatives since I started writing this. I finally managed after years and years of trying, I beat Demon's Souls. I had such a hard time getting my head around that game, its way slower than the other Soulsborne games, World Tendency can completely screw up your game if you don't know how it works and some enemies are only weak to certain weapons so you can't just use one weapon for the whole game. It really baffled me when I first started playing it but I sat down a month ago with the Demon's Souls Remake on PS5 and really pushed myself to try to finish it this time and I noticed the first half of the game is way harder than the latter half and maybe that is because you really need to power level so you have an easier time like I did. I also did a lot of farming for materials so I could upgrade my weapon which made a lot of difference in my playthrough. Now I am tempted to play the original of PS3 and see if I can get through that just like I did with the remake.

Recurring Nightmares and Mental Health

 

I can't sleep, two nights in a row I have had a recurring nightmare of an old woman who curses me and then chases after me always catching up to me eventually. In both dreams at some point I realize as I am running that I am dreaming and able to start flying or use powers I wouldn't otherwise because in a dream I can do whatever I want. I try to fight again her in both dreams and no matter how much I fight her I can't stop her and I wake up feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. I am now scared to fall asleep because as I lay there waiting to fall asleep my thoughts wander and I think about the dream, I can't get comfortable and I just haven't fallen asleep so I wanted to write about it hoping it would help. I have no idea what it could symbolize, I have been feeling overwhelmed but that's to be expected with how fucked up everything is right now. Not sure what I can do about it to try and relax, this may not sound healthy whenever I leave the house now I become ill, being around other people I am on edge and I am just terrified of people now. I just want to stay in my home and stay away from others, I don't mean stay away from friends or family. Just people I don't know, and I think it makes sense considering the cruelty that has become common place among people and the current administration. I fear for my life now every waking moment of everyday because of where our country is at and I feel like the best possible thing for me to do is maybe cut myself off from the outside world for the time being until things get better (if they get better) because I just can't handle anything right now. I hope one day that the world will return to sanity and common sense but until that time I need to just stay away from the human race because right now the human race feels like its actively trying to kill itself and I don't want to be around the chaos of that. People have become so selfish, egotistical, entitled and cruel that I just can't be around that behavior at all. It literally makes me crazy and because of how I think, I try to figure out why people act that way and honestly I don't think theirs an reason for it, I think people just want to behave like shit now because they can and its just gross to me.

Right now I am not seeing a therapist but I really wish I was, I used to go to Meridian but the people there treat mental illness like its a cold that you can get over in a year. I am not joking, literally they only see patients for a year, and then after that they review your case to see if you have the "tools" to handle things on your own after that... I mean if you know anything about mental health you know that is not how it works at all, some people need to see someone for a brief time to get themselves together, others like myself know that I am in this for the long haul. My mental illness will never go away and its just part of my life and I have to work with it, some days are good, some days are pure hell but to act like I'll just suddenly be able to never worry about Depression again, PTSD again or Anxiety is not reality. Not to mention they also wanted to force all of their patients in to "group sessions", I have told them that wouldn't work for me simply because of my social anxiety so putting me in a group would freak me out. They don't want to listen because they have a PhD so they think they know best. I wish I could find a therapist outside of Meridian to see, I think being able to talk to someone to help me process my thoughts would help. I don't see a psychiatrist and haven't for a long time, the reason for this is I believe I can manage my trauma with a therapist and not with medication, I have tried multiple times to treat with medication and the only medication that worked for me made me gain 200 pounds in 2 months. I really don't want to go back to that especially now that I have diabetes. The other reason I don't do medication is because of the side effects like weight gain and more, I also have found that I am unable to work on my art when I am medicated. It completely kills my creativity which if that is gone I have to ask myself, what is my purpose on this planet? If I can't make art and express myself then whats the point of being alive? So I choose to live with some of my pain for the sake of my art, but talking to a therapist would do wonders for my mental health.

I am still nervous to go to bed, I am going to try to put on some rain, sometimes that helps me to sleep better. Fingers crossed that I don't have that nightmare again.

Getting back to work, Resident Evil 4 HD Project & returning to Facebook

I finally streamed today, first time in like maybe 3-4 weeks. Its ridiculous but I was so sick from coming off the Ozempic that I just wasn't able to sit down and even play any video games. I was pretty much bedridden, I hate being able to not do anything. I feel like I need to constantly be doing things or working on projects, but I have taken a break to give myself some room to breathe and I feel like I am able to start getting back in to my creative projects. I already mentioned on here I listened to my tracks for the new updated version of Forest of Memories Vol. 1, I am gonna try to sit down later tonight and try to continue work on some of the tracks and see if I can adjust them and push them so they can be even better than what I have now. I also am hoping I can stream more of Alien Isolation either tonight if I don't work on music or tomorrow.

I picked up Resident Evil 4 on PC via Steam because I found this amazing Mod called HD Project and it basically takes the whole game, updates the textures, lighting, and does some bug fixes, they even went as far as designing new assets. If you would like to learn more please check out this website for more info, also the mod is free. https://re4hd.com/ I just started playing it and I am blown away by the amount of work went in to this.

I made a new Facebook account, not because I miss Facebook. No I did it mainly because I have some people on there who I would like to keep in contact with who I have not been able to stay in touch with since I left. I plan not to use Facebook like I did, I still prefer using Bluesky but also I would rather write how I feel on here because I feel I can actually express myself on here because when I try to do that on sites like Bluesky or Facebook no one understands and I get told "you aren't suppose to share how you feel on here". Who the fuck are you? Do you work for Bluesky/Facebook? No? Then shut the fuck up, if you don't like what I have to say then block me.

Doctor Quack, the Internet sucks now and starting work on Forest of Memories Vol. 1 Redux

I am finally off Ozempic, I literally was getting more and more nauseous and sick with every week that went by, what I didn't expect and what the doctor didn't warn me about was that a week after I went off Ozempic I basically became sick to any and all food. I was having non-stop diarrhea and vomiting that lasted for two weeks, only yesterday and today am I starting to feel a bit more normal. I guess my body had to adjust which I guess makes sense, just wish my doctor could have warned me about that, instead he told me that I would have zero side effects coming off of the Ozempic, bullshit. Also since we took me off Ozempic we put me on Glipizide but I have yet to start it because I found out that two of my medications have a serious interaction with Glipizide. Taking Metformin and Glipizide together will increase a risk of me experiencing hypoglycemia, while Metoprolol and Glipizide together will mask symptoms of hypoglycemia so I won't even know if I am having it... See why maybe I shouldn't go on it, so I need to make an appointment with "Doctor Quack" which is what I will be referring to my doctor as from now on and see what other options there are because I am not comfortable taking that medication.

I will probably be blogging more often from now on, I have found that Bluesky is just like Facebook, lots of people looking for attention and trying to be as loud and obnoxious as possible just to get that attention, also I am seeing just a surge in people getting cancelled. It makes me wonder if the people who are cancelling all these people are perfect because I'm sorry no one is perfect. We all do bad things from time to time and we as human beings need to learn and grow from our mistakes. These Cancel Culture people act like they came out of their mother's womb never have made any mistakes which is so completely delusional, no one is perfect and if we don't let people grow from their mistakes they will continue to make those mistakes. But I feel like I want to share more on here from now on because I can actually share how I feel and if no one reads this that is fine, I just can't do it on Bluesky anymore because its just an echo chamber of misery just like most of the internet has become these days. I remember when the internet was fun and wasn't trying to get you to buy a million things. What happened to that?

I sat down this evening and finally started work on Forest of Memories Vol. 1 Redux, I think I have just been hiding away and taking a break from working on stuff because I felt burned out. I didn't know what I wanted to do and honestly I needed to focus on my recovery which I am not at 10 months sober, the longest I have been sober since April of 2014. Its kind of crazy thinking about it but I feel like I am able to better handle things now, I am still a work in progress but things are better. Trying to decide what songs to actually bring over to the new reworked version. There's a lot of tracks that didn't make it on the first time and I have demos I am even considering putting at the end of the album. Its very fun and exciting to go back to my first album, see where my journey with music started. It feels right going back now since I am working on my recovery and its like I am relearning who Dustin is, seeing what hobbies I enjoy and if they have remained the same or if I have changed over the years. The only track I feel is done and perfect is "How it Feels to be Dead" which is actually the first song I ever wrote for Forest of Memories Vol. 1. Gonna work hard in the coming months to try and get this done for 2026 so I can meet the 15th Anniversary for the album.

Take my Bear Card & too anxious to Twitch Stream

Okay, so I needed some time to think about this, last Monday I had a guy come over to play and everything seemed fine until we started. He had some idea of me made up in his head and was getting mad at me for not being what he envisioned in his head, like he was upset that I was not more butch, controlling and dominate. I am none of those things, nor have I ever expressed to be any of those things, I have always kind of been in a middle when it comes to butch and effeminate which is why I consider myself non-binary. I don't feel like I fit in to either of those and hearing him get mad at me just made me feel like complete and utter garbage. He kept being rude to me and getting mad at me the entire time he was here, I was being apologetic when in fact I should have just ejected his ass from my house, I don't need to explain myself to anyone especially some stupid faggot who is gonna put me in a box. Needless to say, it hurt me and it still is bothering me a week later, its made me uncomfortable with myself and with other men to the point where I don't even want to hook up now because I feel inadequate to be able to do so because I am not what anyone wants. Maybe I just need some time to get past this asshole, also I have my boyfriend but even with him, any man really I am just feeling like I am not good enough. Just take my "Bear Card" because I don't want it anymore.

I want to Twitch stream but every time I go to do so I chicken out, I am not sure what's going on. I think my social anxiety is totally taking over so yea maybe I just need to stream when I want to make content for my YouTube Channel because I don't want to force myself to do anything that is causing me distress. It just sucks because I want to do it more often and but my anxiety is just taking over and making me unable to do it.

Relax Refresh Recharge, returning to Twitch, and Healing from a Broken Heart

I haven't felt like doing anything on my YouTube Channel lately and also I have been at a loss for what to do musically so I have decided to take a break from both. I have always been told that you need to keep going, keep working and never stop because if you stop then you've failed and thats how I have worked for years but I am just burned out right now. I really want to focus on my personal life anyways right now and keeping things together. I have my new song Last coming out this week and maybe I will release a single or two over the next couple of months or year but I don't want to do a full album. I am just not feeling it.

I think the Ozempic has finally leveled off, I am starting to feel normal again and the antinausea medication is working well for me so I am gonna attempt to try to get on Twitch more and stream. Our AC was out for two days and oh my god it was hot as hell in the apartment, couldn't sleep, couldn't relax, it was horrible but it seems to be fixed now after we had a repair man come over. I've been thinking about streaming what I am playing lately which is Minecraft, Division 2 and Final Fantasy XIV. I also want to sit down and play through something like Alien Isolation on stream.

Me and Jacob have been talking with a guy for four months now, we were getting close and planned to come and visit him at the beginning of September, we even booked a rental car for 600 dollars. Well that guy ghosted us for the last 2 days and when we finally reached him he said "oh I thought you didn't want to talk to me anymore" and we haven't been able to get him to respond since then. I am so fucking angry that we wasted time and month on this guy who played with our time, our money and our hearts. This is just gonna make it harder for someone else to come in and join me and Jacob in our relationship because I am become less trusting of guys. I also believe we need to limit the amount of distance we are from someone because if we can't go see them then I don't want to date them, I need to be able to see someone in person for me to even see if the guy is stable enough to date and I'm sorry but the guy we just dealt with needs to seek therapy, a psych ward, something because its not us, its him and also that's why he's single. Self sabotage seems to be normal in guys who want to date but don't want to put in the actual work it takes to date. Like they want someone to date them and marry them that day they meet but that's not realistic. I have no idea, we have tried to reach out to him multiple times since we got that message but we have received nothing yet so again no idea what he feels that way. We are both hurt and need some time without dating anyone else, but we will try again eventually. I honestly feel like I just don't want to look and if someone wants me and Jacob they can put the work in and try to date us because if you really want something then put in the work. Show me you want this. Anyways that is all I have to say.

Shelving Nothing & Nowhere, Last, and Ozempic

I suck at making promises to keep up with this so from now on I will blog when I feel like doing it, I guess I should talk about how next week I will be at 8 months sober. Its pretty exciting but also scary, this will be the longest I have been sober. It honestly feels weird, like I remember how it was before but actually being there now just feels unnatural probably because I haven't been sober for a long time. I've been going to a meeting here in town that I like, have a sponsor as well which is new for me. I've made progress but I still have a long way to go, sobriety is work in progress. I ain't perfect but I am doing the best I can.

I've been having issues writing my next album which was originally suppose to be called "Nothing and Nowhere" and was suppose to be a continuation of my "Remnants" album. I feel like I put way too much pressure on myself to make something that was big and crazy and I just don't want to do any of that shit, I want to just relax and let whatever comes out of me come out of me. I have for the time being shelved the songs that I wrote for N&N so maybe I will return to them down the road but right now doesn't feel like the right time for them. I also feel after I created songs like Perfect and One which are now my biggest songs I have ever released I feel some pressure to make something just as good or mainstream. I started this album trying to create music that I feel would do well and fits with that vibe, but that isn't how I feel right now. I had to sit down and remember why I do music in the first place, and it took me sometime to actually remember. I make music as a way to process things. Its therapy for me and I can express how I am feeling and get things out that I don't want to talk about otherwise because I feel like no one would understand or no one would care. I can take something ugly or traumatic and create something beautiful out of that pain, that is initially why I started to create music and I am happy I was able to create upbeat songs like Perfect and One but right now with where I am and the state of the world its hard to be happy so I need to write from my heart. I will be releasing the first single from my yet untitled seventh album which I am not going to rush but I will try to meet a deadline of at the end of the year.

The first single is called 'Last' which I wrote during my first month of sobriety, I wanted to capture where I was in that moment, feeling lost and confused being pulled back and forth between a part of me that wanted to go back to using and a part of me that wanted to stop. In those early days it felt like I was going crazy, some days it still feels like I am going back and forth but I am much more in control of myself now and I have things in place to help me. 'Last' will also be my directorial debut and the first music video I do for Void of Axis, I tried to do the same with Perfect but it never happened and I still plan to do a music video for Perfect down the road. But the ideas I have for Last involve almost a being in a nightmare, seeing places and things past, present and future within my addiction and I want to showcase that in the video.

God, thats a lot about my past with addiction. Well lets talk about some other stuff, I started taking Ozempic about 10 weeks ago. Its been making me nauseous as hell, no idea why but hope it tapers off. If not then we will have to try something different, I haven't really felt well enough to do any work sadly and I've wanted to keep streaming since that was doing really well but then I was too sick to do it. Gonna try to stream for a little bit today and see how that goes. I've been up all night working on music and creative projects so I will probably crash soon. Guess i'll end this here. Till next time.

Goodbye Facebook, New Single "Left-Right" & Elden Ring Network Test

I've finally exorcised myself of Facebook, after Mark Zuckerberg gave money to Trump's campaign as well as changing the terms of service to hurt minorities and transgendered people I felt it was time to leave. On top of that all I ever see on there now is unending feeds about what Trump is doing, I appreciate people wanting to be aware and let people know whats going on but as I said in my previous post since the election I have been physically ill to the point of having anxiety and panic attacks whenever I think about it. I have distanced myself from a lot of it and its made me feel better so I am not having panic attacks as much anymore but I still do feel a great deal of anxiety. I have been approached by a few people who feel I should stay and just deactivate my account but I don't want to do that because that pulls my morals in to question and it also makes me feel like a hypocrite and I refuse to put my morals aside and be hypocritical. Its wrong, period. To stay there now is like hating Elon Musk and but staying on Twitter/X, its completely hypocritical. This is why I consolidated my online presence to just Bluesky, YouTube and Discord, and right now I am very pissed off with Google over the Gulf of Mexico change. All these companies that are bowing down to Trump and kissing his ass, I hope most people remember this, don't support these companies that are basically telling us to go fuck ourselves because they want to align with Trump mission just so they don't get attacked by him. Yea no fuck that, I hope companies like Coke, Meta, Amazon go under, I don't want to support any of them again because of them choosing to bow down to Trump.

Because of all of this, I have put the 20 songs I have written for Nothing and Nowhere on the backburner for now. I am writing very political tracks right now, one of which is a song I wrote back in 2007 for an album called The Endless Hole that I never released. Too many guys heard the title name and thought I was talking about a super bottom that wants to take every dick he can get. NO!!! It was meant to be my attempt at an Downward Spiral album. That would come later in Remnants, and now Nothing and Nowhere. But anyways the track is called Left-Right, its very antimilitarism and where our country is heading if we continue down the path we are heading right now. It is available now on Bandcamp but will be everywhere else on February 21st, 2025. Its available here: https://voidofaxis.bandcamp.com/track/left-right

I feel like I haven't been in the mood to make videos for my channel, I feel like I should do it when I am feeling like putting something up, despite this I know people want new stuff so yesterday I filmed a few new episodes of Questionable Questions with Jacob and we need to film some new Burning Down the House with Jacob episodes this weekend. I also plan on streaming Elden Ring: Nightreign Network Test (if I can) which should be awesome. I am currently playing Bloodborne with Jacob and Ben, also playing Dark Souls 3 between Minecraft and FFXIV so I've been pretty busy with a lot of different games. I feel I should stream more but my anxiety has always got in the way of that and I only do it when I physically and mentally feel like I can handle it.

Lost and Broken

 I haven't felt like writing anything because my thoughts are everywhere right now. I am just beside myself right now, our country is in the worst state its ever been and people are just acting like its the best time ever. I can't understand and trying to make sense of it makes me physically ill, maybe this is what our country needs, a cleansing, a revolution, lots of blood and deaths on the hands of the idiotic. I have no idea, I don't have the answers.

I have been writing a lot of music, taking breaks in between because as I said before its been making me physically ill. I have been having panic attacks everyday and now I cry at least once a day when I freak out so guess thats gonna be the new normal for the next 4 years. Gonna talk to a friend of mine about seeing if I can see a therapist at the gay center here at least once a month. I can't afford to go more often but I need to see a therapist because I can't function like this for the next four years.

At the very least I got my 120 Day Chip from CMA, I am very happy I have remained sober but its been so hard with everything so broken and destroyed. But I know getting fucked up wouldn't fix anything, it would just make everything worse. Been distancing myself from social media and honestly that has helped so maybe I need to remove social media from my phone because its only making me feel worse.

I am sorry I don't have more to say, I just feel so lost and broken with how things have become. I hope things will get better.

Relapse Dream, 4 Years of Hell & Uploads for Dustin Studios

Just woke up and I had a pretty vivid "using dream" last night, I went to some guys house in the dream, he wasn't really attractive but I went because he had Meth and thats the real reason I went in the dream. I have done that in real life where I would go to have sex with some guys only because they had Meth and I didn't feel any attraction to them once so ever. He said we would have an hour to play and such so he handed me a shard and everytime I went to snort it something fucked up would happen like I wouldn't have the card to crush it up, I didn't have a straw to snort it, it would fall off the table. At some point I got annoyed and yelled at the guy and I grabbed a shard and went to the bathroom to do it, I was able to get that one done and I felt it a little bit but at the same time I was like "I want more" so I left the bathroom and the police were there and so were some people, it was fucking weird. But at that point I also realized it was a dream and that no matter how much I did of it I would never be satiated. It reminded me of the last time I used where I got an 8 ball but I believe he gave me way more than that, I ended up using for a week and half straight and that is very unusual for me because usually after 3 days I am over it and want to come down, not last time. I just wanted to keep going and needed more and was never satisfied. That scared me, thats why recovery is so important to me now. I'm glad that I was able to realize what the dream was, just my brain trying to get me to go back and I can't. I just can't anymore.

Since the election and the holidays I haven't felt like filming new Bears On The Coast material, since its a vlog about our lives I just don't feel like sharing our lives because well why? We are about to enter Hell and who knows how bad its going to be, also if you are different in any way shape or form basically the people who voted for Trump want you dead and it disturbs me that this is where we are in our country. I don't feel safe, I am scared for my life, for the life of my partner and my roommate, my friends and family. I am just scared and everyone else is acting like Question Hound right now, I have a very bad feeling about the next 4 years and I hope we can all make it through it.

Despite how I am feeling I have pushed myself to do a walkthrough of Dark Souls 1 Remastered, the first walkthrough I have ever done on my channel, I have also started to back up any live streams or old videos I have to my channel. I want the Dustin Studios channel to also be an archive for my previous work over the years, I plan to even put up some of my old Dustin Studios Volumes which were video tapes I made when I was a kid. I only have a few of them now and I've lost the rest over the years. For a long time I was embarrassed by them because people would say "oh your movies suck, you need to come back to reality, you'll never make a living doing videos or anything creative" but I realize now those people were wrong, sure the videos aren't professional but its the first time I started to stretch my creative wings and I can see from my old videos some of my humor and ideas that I would refine over the years and make them work in a more professional space. Its a part of my past and part of my journey to where I am now and I am not embarrassed by them. Also I have been told that I need to make separate channels for everything that is different from each other on YouTube and I just feel like thats too much for me to do, if thats how the algorithm works then fuck the algorithm. As I said before I want my channel to be the space where all of my creative work is in one place:

• Void of Axis
• Bears On The Coast
• A Word From Dustin
• Questionable Questions
• Burning Down the House with Jacob
• Chicken Chat
• VOAGamerCub Gaming
• Dustin Studios Classics

I want to make videos because I enjoy making them, not because I want to be rich or famous or anything. Its because it what I love to do and I feel like a lot of people on YouTube just do things just for money and I understand people need to make a living but at the same time I feel you also need to do things just because you love doing them. I have watched over the years as my work becomes more refined and more progress has been made to make my work more professional and I am learning as I am working on my creative projects so that makes me happy. This is my lifes work and this is what I intend to do till the day I die, this is how I want to spend my life.