I Am Tukayote, I Am Love

“I was the life of every party, and the death of every relationship.”
My Recovery application repository.
A programming language of love.
Open-Source and free to use.
💾

TuOS

TuOS Change log

TuOS v1.0 – 1/21/26
CODE DEVELOPED FROM PAIN AND LOSS

TuOS v2.0 – 4/26/26
LOVE AND HEALING CODE OVERHAUL

TuOS v2.1 – 5/7/26
ANTI-VIRUS AND ANTI-MALWARE UPDATED
GOVERNANCE AND COMPLIANCE UPDATED
TuOS v2.1 REVISION HIGHLIGHTS UPDATED

Moving forward:

This declaration is my personal Operating System, TuOS.

I am leading my life only from a place of unconditional love and acceptance.

I am living with these boundaries.
I am living with these rules.

I am living with intention.
I am practicing self-love.
I am protecting myself.

I am owning my mistakes.
I am demonstrating accountability.
I am living my amends.

Every.
Single.
Day.

But, first, lets cue up a symbolic soundtrack

1. FIREWALL

I AM ESTABLISHING AND KEEPING BOUNDARIES WITH MYSELF AND OTHERS
Present day – Moving forward and only keeping the things that are in my best interest and safety.

Moving forward:

I am leading my life with love.

I am walking away from addiction.
I am walking away from poisons.
I am walking away from what has destroyed me.

I am staying where I am safe.
I am staying where I am respected.
I am staying where I am valued.

I am choosing healthy employment relationships.
I am choosing healthy relationships.
I am choosing situations that provide me growth.

I am keeping people who are safe with me.
I am keeping ties to what is good for me.
I am keeping the door open to peace and harmony.

I am facing discomfort while being true to myself.
I am facing aloneness while staying safe with my emotions.
I am loving myself and being true to who I am.

I am establishing new healthy patterns by learning from the ones that no longer serve or hurt me and others.
I am learning lessons as quick as possible.
I am making ethical and humane decisions.

I am staying with the things that help me thrive.
I am keeping things that bring me peace.
I am protecting my sanity.

I am keeping those who respect me and the decisions I make from loving myself.
I am growing and evolving even when it is not popular with others.

I am allowing the right people into my life through secure attacment.
I am saying my truth and communicating openly.
I am allowing those in my life who respect my privacy.

2. CLEAN CODE

I AM BEING SOBER
December 31, 2022 – One of about 5000 joints I smoked, while denying my addiction to cannabis—and denying how I used it habitually to avoid underlying difficult feelings.

I have been completely sober since and stopped using cannabis on January 6, 2026 after 15 years of using.

I stopped using kratom on October 12, 2024 after three years of using.

I stopped using hallucinogens on September 5, 2024 after 2.5 years of using.

I stopped smoking cigarettes on January 16, 2024 after 22 years of using.

I stopped using alcohol on January 13, 2024 after 23 years of using.

I used inhalants for the last time on February 8, 2023 after 21 years of intermittent using.

I used ketamine for the first and last time on February 8, 2023.

Moving forward:

Alcohol, kratom, hallucinogens, inhalants, psychoactive plants, and other intoxicants are not a part of my life.

No substance in the future will ever join these.

February 8, 2023 – That night I was loaded on shrooms, booze, cannabis, ketamine, and multiple inhalants (handed to me from strangers).
One of the wildest and most dangerous nights of my pre-sobriety life.
Hard drugs being done in the open.
I don’t remember getting home or taking this picture.

My sobriety is mine. Mine to maintain. Mine to protect.

Nothing can steal it. No event in my life can force a relapse. Ever.

I’m sober because I was finally ready.
And because I’m ready, it’s final.

3. SECURE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE

I AM BEING SLOW AND INTENTIONAL IN MY CONNECTIONS
December 1, 2025 – That’s real love, painted on a rock I found on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Moving forward:

I am pursuing sobriety from anything that hijacks my nervous system, including intense love, affection, intimacy, and attention. I am detoxing from many experiences with these things, and as a result I am becoming emotionally sober.

I am pursing love and romance slowly and intentionally.
I am inviting intimacy when the time is right.
I am allowing romantic touch and affection when I have the capacity.
I am choosing people who are trustworthy.
I am choosing people who are predictable and stable.

I am building my identity around being secure with myself.
I am choosing my self-worth first.
I building intimacy around mutual trust and through healing my traumas.

I am choosing to go slow.
I am choosing earned trust.
I am choosing actions over words.
I am choosing consistency over fireworks.

I am choosing situations and relationships that are emotionally healthy.
I am attaching without changing who I truly am.
I am choosing people who respect my safety and boundaries.

I am separating intensity from intimacy.
I am separating access from love.
I am separating chemistry from compatibility.

I am pursuing slow love and slow intimacy.
I am pursuing low-pressure romance.

I am intentionally being a slow burner with relationships.

I am being aware when I feel pressures like charm, flirts, touch, affection, attention, big promises, commonalities, sex, validation, money, status, drugs, alcohol, lies, or anything else that may escalate the relationship into something I am not ready for.

I am choosing to pace my relationships.
I am choosing to securely attach.
I am choosing awareness of dopamine and oxytocin hits, and I am choosing to slowly escalate relationships when I am emotionally ready to.

4. CODE EXECUTION

I AM BEING SAFE WITH MY BEHAVIORS
November 19, 2025 – Nothing safer than puppy love.

Moving forward:

I am choosing safe behaviors. Always.

I am being safe with my behaviors when I’m anxious or mentally unwell.
I am being safe with my behaviors when I’m triggered or angry.
I am being safe with my behaviors when I’m emotional or having big feelings.
I am being safe with my behaviors when I’m jonesin for dopamine.
I am being safe with my behaviors when my hormones are raging or I’m crushing on someone.
I am being safe with my behaviors when I’m grieving and missing people.
I am being safe with my behaviors when I’m having fun or celebrating.

I am choosing not to react to impulses, compulsions, cravings, and urges.
I am responding intelligently, safely, in integrity and in full control of myself.

I am acting mindfully.
I am being low-risk with my decisions.
I am pausing and delaying my responses.
I am leading myself without self-sabotage in disguise.

I am choosing to not pursue things that cause mental destabilization, nervous system dysregulation, harm, stress, or anxiety.

5. GOVERNANCE AND COMPLIANCE

I AM BEING ACCOUNTABLE AND FOLLOWING THE LAW
June 21, 2025 – A book that I struggled to read before I began confronting my shadows and being accountable for my mistakes.

Moving forward:

I am owning my history and am not repeating my mistakes and patterns.
I am accountable for every decision I have ever made by doing so.

I am acknowledging and owning my wrongdoings without rationalizing them, rewriting the story to protect my ego, or crafting narratives to dismiss them or deflect them.

I am owning my decisions and mistakes completely, even if or when I didn’t know any better.

I am owning the outcomes, the actual choices, without excuses, dancing around them, explaining them away, dismissing or downplaying them.

I am being accountable for the ways my decisions have harmed or hurt others, even in ways I may never know or understand, by making and demonstrating amends by never repeating my mistakes and patterns again. I am owning them entirely.

I am understanding and acknowledging some damage is invisible and that some consequences may never make it back to me. I am understanding and accepting that it doesn’t mean these things didn’t happen.

I am being accountable and owning my mistakes, by choosing a lifestyle of demonstrating different, and positive actions.

I am living in integrity, even when nobody’s watching.

I am continuously demonstrating ownership and accountability the only way that matters:

By never repeating my patterns and mistakes.

I am not knowingly or wilfully repeating my patterns once, again, or ever.

I am choosing safe situations.
I am choosing to withdraw from emotionally escalated situations.
I am asking for and choosing space, mentally and physically.
I am giving space when people ask for it.

I am choosing to intentionally live alone and I am maintaining my sanctuary.
I am choosing calm and peace.
I am choosing boundaries.

I am choosing solutions that are humane and respect peoples lives without harming anyone.

I am living in accordance with the actual law.

I am accepting, acknowledging, owning, and being accountable for my conviction from 2020 that had concrete evidence. I am being accountable for the violation, having completed my house arrest, my probation and domestic violence perpetrator treatment, and paying my fines. I am remaining accountable by following the law completely and entirely since this violation occurred.

I am understanding that was then and this is now.

Now I am living differently.
Now I am choosing accountability.
Now I am choosing restraint.
Now I am choosing integrity.

I am following the law.
I am being ethical.
I am being non-violent.
I am am being safe with my anger and being emotionally safe with others.

I am choosing to fully acknowledge and admit my previous decisions to as a means of demonstrating accountability, without downplaying or dismissing the impacts of the decisions.

I am understading that saying “I was provoked.” or “They were being equally abusive.” or “I was intoxicated.” or “It was only a text.” or “It was a bipolar episode.” or “I wasn’t able to control myself.” is denying my chosen actions, and I am choosing not to use that language anymore.

As of May 6, 2027, I am free from the 5.5 year long no-contact order that was preventing my full and complete freedom from fully living the life I have created today. I am no longer under any threat of future criminal charges related to the ones I have never repeated. I no longer have to follow any court orders, as they have expired due to my 100% compliance with them.

6. ANTI-VIRUS AND ANTI-MALWARE

I AM ELIMINTATING MY FORMER TOXIC PATTERNS
Sometimes it takes a long exposure to see your patterns.

Moving forward:

I’m eliminating patterns and behaviors that have harmed me and others for all of my life:

  • I have completely eliminated and am free of my fear of being alone, which has driven every pattern listed below that I am eliminating:
    • I am eliminating my avoidance.
    • I am eliminating my poor communication.
    • I am eliminating my performative personas.
    • I am eliminating my lack of boundaries.
    • I am eliminating my anxious attachment issues.
    • I am eliminating my insecurities.
    • I am eliminating my fear of abandonment.
    • I am eliminating my fear of rejection.
    • I am eliminating my fear of loss of love.
    • I am eliminating my other relationship fears.
    • I am eliminating my trauma responses.
    • I am eliminating my rebound relationships.
    • I am eliminating my self-hatred.
    • I am eliminating my deep internal shame.
    • I am eliminating my mental poisons.
    • I am eliminating my poor mental health management.
    • I am eliminating my substance and alcohol use.
    • I am eliminating my blame shifting, dodging of accountability, and denying of ownership of harms I have caused others, and making my amends through changed living.
    • I am eliminating my lack of integrity or honesty with myself and others.


I am living free of my patterns, my problems, and running from my struggles, because the fear of being alone that has driven them has destroyed me, people I love and people who loved me, over and over again.

I am eliminating all of these patterns and behaviors for good, forever, and starting immediately.

I am doing whatever it takes to do to change, because it is important to me to stop breaking other’s hearts and breaking my own with these patterns driven by the now-resolved fear of being alone.

7. INCOGNITO MODE DISABLED

I AM BEING MYSELF INSTEAD OF SOMETHING I AM NOT
November 14, 2024 – Every laugh at my jokes, a big dopamine hit and the warm feeling of being loved and noticed, but at that time it was all a performance.

Moving forward:

I am being my true self instead of performing as something I am not.

I am living without performing a persona soley to please people.
I am living without auditioning for love.
I am living without making myself whatever someone wants me to be to avoid abandonment or rejection.

I am living without being someone I am not just to avoid loss of love.
I am living without being someone I am not just to avoid being alone.

I am openly and promptly communicating my wants, needs, emotions, feelings, challenges, and struggles.

8. RESOURCE PRESERVATION AND ALLOCATION

I AM PRESERVING MYSELF AND MY RESOURCES

Moving forward:

I am only allowing people into my life who love me without conditions.
I am only allowing people into my life who accept me as I am in this moment.
I am only allowing people into my life who don’t expect me to be always be perfect.
I am only allowing people into my life who don’t continually demand more from me.
I am only allowing people into my life who treat me like I am enough.
I am only allowing people into my life who do not minimize or interfere with my progress.
I am only allowing people into my life who respect consent and safe behaviors.

I am only allowing people into my life who respect my sobriety or do not willfully abuse* drugs and alcohol around me, because my recovery is important to me.

*Drug and alcohol abuse is a pattern of compulsive use marked by recurrent significant social, occupational, health, legal, or interpersonal adverse consequences. It’s not about partaking in a moderated and safe way.

I am only allowing people into my life who do not willingly and knowingly use romance, affection, love, sex, attention, money, false promises, gaslighting, manipulation, other pressures, guilt, and/or shame as a method of controlling me or using me for their personal gain.

I am only allowing people into my life who are willing to identify, admit to, and change any harmful behaviors they have done with me, others, or themselves.

I am only allowing people into my life who are safe for or with me.
I am only allowing people into my life who respect my property, money, and other resources.
I am only allowing people into my life who respect and demonstrate trust at all levels.
I am only allowing people into my life who respect my empathy and demonstrate it in their behaviors.
I am only allowing people into my life who respect my privacy and demonstrate this respect by only seeking information or knowledge about me with my awareness and consent.
I am only allowing people into my life who respect and honor my needs for space and maintain distance from me when I ask for it.

I am only allowing people into my life who demonstrate trust and care at all times when they are holding my heart.

I am only allowing people into my life who earn it and understand that their right to be in my life is my decision.

9. CODE PROTECTION

I AM BEING MENTALLY SOBER
December 4, 2025 – Hugging a giant, ancient, California Redwood, while being isolated from everything, is the ultimate antidote to mental poisons.

Moving forward:

I am being mentally sober.

I am choosing to be free of following or interacting with anything on social media.
I am choosing to be free of following the news.
I am choosing to be free of involving myself with politics.
I am choosing to be free of performing advocacy and publicity.
I am choosing to be free of running any more micro-charities.
I am choosing to be free of doing performative volunteering.

I am protecting my mental sobriety like my life depends on it, because it does.

10. VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT

I AM MANAGING MY MENTAL HEALTH
December 14, 2025 – Right before I proactively and voluntarily admitted myself into the psychatric unit, ahead of impending crisis, while completely sober, and fully able to advocate for myself. A first.

Moving forward:

I am handling my psychiatric conditions like a grown adult, as I should.

I am accepting my mental health challenges even though I dislike them.

I am accepting that my mental health challenges are my responsibility to manage.

I am committed to positive choices regarding my mental health:

  • I am managing my addictive urges and maintaining sobriety from alcohol and all other mind altering substances.
  • I am taking my maintenance meds and supplements, and adjusting them when necessary, and always with professional guidance.
  • I am asking for help anytime I’m struggling.
  • I am keeping a current safety plan and I use it.
  • I am staying honest with my providers, especially when things began to deteriorate.
  • I am regularly going to therapy and doing the challenging work required.
  • I am continually researching and educating myself about my conditions.
  • I am protecting my sleep because it is sacred.
  • I am listening to, befriending, and reparenting my Internal Family System of parts.
  • I am utilizing psychiatric hospitalization when needed, without ego or delay.
  • I am unburdening my loved ones or friends with managing my mentals or handling any of my crises of/when they occur.
  • I am tracking my patterns so bipolar (or any of my conditions) don’t take over my system.

I am choosing people who respect and portray me correctly, by caring about my mental health conditions and the stigmas I face on a daily basis.

11. TRUSTED DEVICES

I AM KEEPING HEALTHY CONNECTIONS

Moving forward:

I am choosing to keep healthy connections that include behaviors that are in alignment with the life I’m building. I am avoiding these behaviors in others:

• Addictions, impulsiveness, and compulsions
• Dishonesty and untrustworthiness
• Chaos, drama, constant problems, and instability
• Rapidly intensifying and escalating love and intimacy
• Emotionally unsafe and triggering people
• Manipulation and gaslighting
• Conditional love and acceptance
• Rescuing, people pleasing, codependency, and performing
• Avoidance, silence, and poor-communication
• Mentally erosive environments

12. TuOS OVERHAUL

I AM GRIEVING MY FORMER IDENTITY
December 1, 2025 – Nothing like a good California sunset to rip the tears right out of your eyes days after your identity completely collapses.

Moving forward:

I’m rebuilding who I am with intention, standards, boundaries, safe behaviors, and integrity.
I’m rebuilding. I’m evolving and growing.

I’m formatting my identity and reinstalling a brand new, untested operating system.

I’m doing gruesome, exhausting, and difficult internal work.

I am moving my life ahead:

  • With high standards.
  • With complete sobriety from all drugs and alcohol.
  • With appropriate boundaries.
  • With safe behaviors.
  • With absolute accountability.
  • With strict discipline.
  • With total self-respect.
  • With unending gratitude.
  • With beautiful imperfections.
  • With complete grace.
  • With a better future.
  • Without any of my old harmful patterns.

I am improving humanity every day by healing myself, leading with love, and not repeating my destructive patterns because my decisions today ripple out into the world, immediately.

I am loving myself with grace exactly as I am in this present moment, and acknowledging and accepting my flaws and imperfections.

I’m demonstrating trust to myself through self-love, self-respect, and self-protection.

13. CODE COMPATIBILITY

I AM BEING LOVING AND GRATEFUL, WITH BOUNDARIES
December 2, 2025 – A perfect heart stone from the Lost Coast of Northern California.

Moving forward and as always:

I am being grateful for those who have loved me in the past, those who I have loved, and for those who love me as I am in this moment today.

I am being grateful for the real, beautiful moments, and the amazing adventures that I have shared with people throughout in my life, even if these people are no longer journeying with me.

I am taking control of and improving my life every day, feeling gratitude for everything, even in the hardest moments.

I am having never-ending gratitude for the events of the past that are shaping my life today, even the most painful and hurtful ones.

I am loving people unconditionally, even though I may not have them in my life. Some people I am choosing to love close. Some people I am choosing to love from a distance. And some people I am choosing to love best with no-contact.

I am and will always be loving you, just as you are, whoever you are. I am and will always be wanting the best for you and loving you, no matter what has happened between us.

I am feeling joy when you experience joy. I am feeling love when you experience love. I am feeling happiness when you experience happiness. I feeling pain when you feel pain. I am living with compersion, compassion, respect, and empathy for everyone.

14. TuOS v2.1 HIGHLIGHTS

TL:DR

Moving forward:

I am living and loving a life of solitude without the (now-resolved) fear of being alone driving all of the destructive patterns I am actively eliminating.

I am leading with love in everything I do.

I am living according to this manifesto.

I’m ethically advancing my life toward the way I want it and need it to be.

I am being sober from using any drugs or alcohol.

I am owning my mistakes.

I am making amends by demonstrating accountability for the harms I have caused by not repeating my old harmful patterns.

I am protecting myself from harm.

I am treating myself with love and compassion, the same way I treat others.

I’m honoring and preserving who I am at the core.

I am feeling unkillably and tenaciously alive.

I am unstoppably pursuing love, life, freedom, health, and happiness.

In a nutshell—It’s all about balance, simple and healthy living, and skinny jeans these days.

15. REGISTERED TRADEMARK

My Legal And Chosen Name

Moving forward:

I am using my legal name is Tukayote Helianthus that I created and chose with love and in 2023.

I am pronouncing my name as “Two-ky-oh-tee He-lee-ann-thuhs.”

I am allowing you to call me “Tu” for short, if you would like.

Hi, I am Tukayote.

I am sharing that my previous name of Matthew Seann Gustke was changed for a very personal reason.

I am sharing that my chosen name is very personal.

I am asking you to be respectful of this private decision.

I am asking you to avoid using Matt/Matthew/Gustke to address me.

I am choosing to only allow people in my life who respect my chosen name and current identity.

I am being grateful for your understanding and cooperating.

16. END USER AGREEMENT

THE END

Moving Forward:

I am choosing to live my life this way, and I am finally discovering who I am beneath the patterns and behaviors I am forever leaving behind.

I am loving this life I have now.

My most-favorite hand gesture.