Periodic System Journal

Arsenic - 16. August, 2022

So... I think an update is more than necessary right now.

It only took a few more days for my obsession over Trick to start impacting me severely, and in turn the rest of the system. How so? With this grand old thing called sleep. Any of you ever read the yandere story Infatuation by MaskCover? If so, consider me a Ren kinnie at this point. If not, ignore that part and allow me to explain.

In the story, Ren finds himself unable to get a good night's rest unless he's physically nearby MC. Otherwise, he wakes up almost immediately after having been reminded of his trauma in the form of, essentially, night terrors. I used to think this was so fucking stupid and made absolutely no sense, but for the sake of a yandere plot it was whatever.

...Guess what happened to me?

First, I think I should explain what my sleeping situation looked like a little bit before this ordeal. I'm VERY used to waking up a few times a night- in fact, I trained my body to wake up maybe 3 or 4 times in a night in order to remember as many dreams as possible. I'd therefore sleep in uneven "segments" of about 1-5 hours apiece.

Recently, my body has decided it wants to wake up several times an hour. And every time I wake up, I'm so tired that the only thing I have the energy to do is go back to sleep only to wake up exhausted again. Of course, given me being me, every single time I woke up I was thinking of Trick. But then, I had an idea...

I fall asleep listening to music a lot. It's always been accidental thus far, but I decided I'd purposefully fall asleep with it this time. Oh, and it wasn't actually music this time, either. This time, it was a compilation of voice clips I'd put together of Trick speaking.

Just like magic, I started sleeping perfectly fine. Sometimes I don't even have segmented sleep {or it's less segmented}, and I'd genuinely forgotten what that feels like. My nearly constant depression? Practically oblitered by the power of getting a good night's rest. My anxiety issues? Severely reduced by the power of getting a good night's rest. My chronic tiredness? Completely absent by the power of getting a good night's rest. Wow, did I underestimate what sleep can do for me.

The one drawback to this all? If I fall asleep while NOT listening to Trick's voice clips, I revert back to waking up constantly and usually I'm too tired to start playing it when I wake up, so round and round I'll go for several hours... Actually, that happened last night. I fell asleep just before 2 AM and couldn't manage to be awake enough to play Trick's voice clips until around 4:30 AM. {I would 100% regret this except for the fact it resulted in Trick giving me another voice clip, so at least something positive happened out of it.}

What does all this mean for the system?

Them having a much happier day is basically dependent on me playing Trick's voice clips to sleep. If I don't, I'll be tired and super depressed for pretty much the whole day. But if I do, I'll be a perfectly functional member of society. It'll also impact any of them who are aware I didn't sleep well, which is all of them who are aware of what I'm doing and what's going on lately. So... pretty much any 'main' alter of the system minus the littles because I vow to keep them protected over my dead body.

Is falling asleep to that specific audio file easy to do? Yes. Embarrassing as fuck? Definitely. Imagine being so fucking obsessed with someone that you can't even sleep properly without listening to a recording of their voice. That's just a whole new level of sad.

I proceeded to write several paragraphs about how I both hated and accepted myself at the same time for being a stalker, but since it mostly only impacts me and not the entire system I've omitted that long rant. Instead, I think I'll only include this portion since it does impact the entire system pretty directly.

And with that, I think I'll leave this little update on this note. Let's hope I remember to update again in a timely fashion.