Nothing new but still

At some point it will sink in that I am alone.

No amount of hoping or benefit of the doubt will change that.

I have my very smol circle of friends, but the majority of my life is going to be alone.

Dealing with medical issues.

Anything to do with moving.

Finances.

Things to try and get in a better space like cleaning out my storage.

Having a healthy environment.

Even the people in my family that are there for me more and help more than the rest, still don’t really see me, or hear me, or consider me. I always made myself forget or excused it before. But nowadays it’s harder and harder to not notice.

How often people don’t notice that I’m not actually a part of the conversation, or never noticed that I haven’t finished a single sentence and have only said “yeah” or “uh huh” for an hour.

How often people talk over me.

How often what I do get out loud is immediately discounted and refuted.

How often they just outright ignore me when I say I need something.

How often I have to repeat myself.

How often I’m treated like an asshole for having the audacity to no longer let them ignore me and making a firmer boundary.

While the weekend so far has not been terrible. It also has not been what I said I needed and wanted to happen. Which was supposed to be the point.

Saturday was supposed to go as follows: I get coffee for everyone from Dutch Bros as a treat, storage unit for a few hours, break to pick up cheese, see some baby goats for a second, have lunch, and then back to the storage unit. After calling it for the day, showers, dinner, rom com or movie and at home self care (I bought a bunch of face masks and whatnot). Get a decent amount of sleep.

How Saturday actually went:

No one outside my dad and I? Woke up before 10am. Finally get them to decide on an alternative plan after I give 3-4 of them. Takes too long to get out the door.

So even by the time we get me gas and get coffee for everyone, we can no long leave on time for the next stop, because now the storage unit has to wait. Since the cheese can only be picked up between 12-4, I wanted to be there by 12. Got there at 1:30.

Did the wine and cheese pairing with my cousin, but stayed longer than I wanted and I had to pull her away from asking a bunch of questions about the goats to one of the owners. Which would be fine if I hadn’t made it clear earlier that I wanted to have the schedule be different.

Get lunch. Which we sat down for instead of picking up to take back.

Then through out the whole day there’s been more and more conversations that are delaying doing the things needing done and I get treated as though people were waiting on me.

We don’t get to my storage unit until after 4pm.

Grant it, a fair amount of sorting and reorganizing did occur in the 3 hrs there. More instances where I wasn’t being listened to or others were deciding they had a better way of doing things with my stuff. I kept politely course correcting.

Finally head back and the rest of the night is similar. It’s now 12:48 and I have just finally gotten everyone to clear the living room, which I’m sleeping in, because my cousin has a bit of a cough left and I gave her my room out of concern (sleeping on basically the living room floor and for someone who would worry about their cough keeping me up if we shared the bed, so I offered up my whole room).

I have dealt with people telling me they know better than me about my dogs. I have had people tell me they know better than me about my own body. I have had people try to peer pressure me into drinking after I made it clear several times that they waited too long to remind me we were going to do a shot. I have had to deal with being called several names for holding my boundaries while being peer pressured. But you know it’s all “joking”.

I was then ignored when I said I needed them to go somewhere else to continue the conversations because I needed sleep. And if I didn’t get it soon I was not going to be a pleasant person the next day.

They ignored me for 10mins. I again said, hey I love you but I need to sleep. And was then told sure but hang on a minute as they finished that part of the conversation, then they moved to just the hallway to continue to have a loud conversation.

it-it- the f – it -flam – flames. Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breaths… Heathing…

I am now so tired, and my body is so worn out, I want to throw up.

The plan I wanted to have for tomorrow was already altered earlier. I’m tired of fighting.

No one, truly, really, appreciates how often I don’t become what I am constantly accused of being. That I am constantly choosing to rise above how I’m being treated. That I am constantly filtering and picking my words carefully.

How often I choose peace.

I also notice how things that I have said I wish happened, suddenly do when someone knows they’re not doing the things I said I needed that day. It feels like a distraction but I also know that they’re partially genuine.

Of course someone appreciates that I did a thing that focused on what they wanted.

Of course we do things to redirect my upset when things I had asked for were ignored, because look things still got done. Look at what all got done in the 1/4 of amount of time I was told I was going to get help with the thing I really needed help with.

I’m so tired of how much I am not seen, heard, chosen, and appreciated.

I’m so tired of people only caring about me on the surface level.

I’m tired of my mental, emotional, and physical health all being things that no one deeply cares about or even tries to prioritize a mere handful of times.

I feel like when it does, its because in that moment it still benefits them more somehow.

Some days it’s hard to fight that feeling that more than a few people would care if I just disappeared. Like they’d be mildly annoyed that I was no longer around to do things for them or make them feel a certain way. But ultimately I am replaceable.

Though I also know once I’m actually gone, and it sinks in that I’m gone, then they suddenly want me back.

They realize how much I did and how much I cared, and they want the next hit.

But I’m gone.

Like all this bullshit with my family made me sit in how alone I am. That in a family full of people with various issues, I’m still somehow the odd man out that gets to be the target.

This is why found family is important. Because I do know that there’s a few who truly see me. Who would fight for me. Who will actually ask me how I want my grilled cheese cut and actually do it the way I ask. How I have a few that will always check on me if I haven’t checked on them lately.

And I figured out something else that is important to me with a romantic partner. Something Rochester did today without knowing I was figuring this out.

I want to be the person my partner wants to reach for to tell me about their day. Maybe I’m not always the first person to hear about it, but then other times I am the first person they think of and want to tell first.

Going to try and get my body to stop freaking out so I can get a few broken and terribly painful hours of sleep.

Today is for Fairy Gay Mother

In tradition with this day that a few likely rue and many more are grateful for, I have decided to make a more public post.

The ways Fairy Gay Mother has ruined me, lessons, and wisdom:

• I measure most interactions by her standards. I have some growing yet still to do on the amount of chances I give people, but I do at least sit back and think to myself, “if I were to share this interaction with FGM, what would her reaction be?”
• I do what I can and then I stop. Still working on that one too, but I do it way more often now than I did before.
• I have felt unconditional love. It has boundaries and is healthy, but there is never a condition on it. Continuing to have access to me, however, is conditional.
• I am not afraid anymore to let someone know that they are being unkind, even when it’s me. Before I would always stand up for others, but would generally let someone who was being unkind to me, continue to do so.
• I’ve learned that shame is just another stick they use to beat you with.
• Don’t do your enemies work for them.
• Love is having and respecting boundaries.
• I ask myself, “is this worth the cortisol?”, and sometimes I can actually say nah and walk away.

There are many more things. Though my brain is a bit fuzzy with therapy today and whatnot.

I will never forget the day I met FGM, or the fact that in a room full of people, she was the only one who saw through all my masks. I don’t think I would be nearly as far in my healing journey if she hadn’t sat down next to me, and showed me I didn’t have to be anyone but myself. I am grateful for every day and moment since then, and for every moment there still is.

I see her in so many moments now in my life, and it always makes me feel loved. I’ve even found my way to start becoming a purple person.

Thank you for helping me see spite sprite.

Thank you for making me an honorary pirate.

Thank you for being my family.

The Bare Minimum

Things continue to be a lot.

I feel like people are determined to misunderstand me and that I’m not being heard.

My needs and wants are often met with hostility and accusations.

Right now I could count the amount of people who take the time and spend the energy to care about me and take care of me, truly, on one hand.

My feed has been filled with the usual topics, which means I should really, probably, get off the scrolling hamster wheel. Though one of the things that came up was specifically around romantic relationships, and how most straight, cis women will talk about the challenges of dating straight, cis men, and how little they do for them no matter how much the women put in and do. The topic of what the bare minimum actually is has been circulating.

One creator, that I can’t remember now, brought up that the bare minimum is how your best friend would treat you. If your partner is not treating you at least at that level, than you shouldn’t be tolerating it.

Now, I’m not particularly good at pointing to a specific person and ranking them like that. Who is my best friend. I have my circle of trust and I feel those people are all in that ranking I guess. My friendships are varied and there’s valid reasons why some things happen and something’s don’t in each of them. But I could tell you, with absolutely certainty, those friends would go absolutely feral on my behalf. And I for them. Either burning everything down or to show exactly how much love is there.

I realized this weekend that my cousin showed me a good indicator of that bare minimum.

This is going to get long and feel like a tangent but stick with me.

I have been struggling for a few years (more than that but I digress). I have been feeling the burn out even more this year with all the medical issues and other things arising.

One of my biggest stressors has been my storage unit. It’s one of the things I have consistently asked for help on because the facility I’m at right now is terrible. Instead of helping me, my family has made the unit a nightmare for me to think about much less work in.

A few months ago, after realizing that my immediate family was truly never going to help me, I asked if I could bring all my bins of clothes out to my Aunt/Cousin’s and if they’d help me go through everything to sort, purge, and take pictures of. They of course agreed. Whenever I wanted to.

The surgery made that harder, then a few other issues came up.

My cousin, continuing to hear the issue and struggles and my overwhelm, offered to come out to me instead.

Didn’t ask me what I needed. Didn’t put further burden on me. Heard what I needed and where I was at, and just did what she could to help.

Original plans was the clothes. Pull them all out, maybe do a few things in the unit, but take everything back to the house and hide from the heat/AQ.

The morning took longer than expected.

Parents left almost 2hrs later than they had planned. I made breakfast for everyone that was left after they did (5 including me) which required a trip to the store for some items missing. Things were just not going according to schedule.

The whole morning before we were to head over, she kept giving me gentle reminders that she was there for me. Whatever I needed, whenever I needed it.

Eventually after breakfast I sat down. She had been playing a game. As soon as she saw me she reminded me she was ready to go, short of putting on shoes and changing a shirt, just let her know when I was ready.

I needed more time. I needed time to regulate. I needed time to not do anything.

“That’s fine. Just making sure you know I’ll put this down as soon as you say so. I’m here for you”.

Eventually I hit a space that I felt more calm and regulated (we had also stayed up fairly late with both of us venting about our week).

When we got to the storage unit and I opened the door, I was instantly overwhelmed again. It was worse than I remembered and somehow all of my clothes bins had been buried in the back despite that not being where I put them.

We decided the best course of action was to work our way to them. There were a bunch of boxes that technically had my things in them, but not full boxes, things that were mislabeled or crushed, and stuff I was fairly sure wasn’t mine but kept being told that it was mine.

She would work on stack, I’d start sorting through items. She’d find the empty boxes and just get them out of the way, or find a box to use for sorting donation items. She’d ask me some questions, and if I said I was staring to get overwhelmed, she’d find another task until I could answer her question or just left the overwhelm alone and didn’t circle back.

Eventually we cleared out almost to the center of the unit. She pushed me enough to finish what we could, but listened to anything I said was a boundary or hard stop. We spent about 3hrs in the storage unit and got more done than the last 3 years.

We pulled the broken furniture to the front, and took a few small boxes home for me to go through instead of dealing with the clothes. Made sure to drink lots of water.

She offered me the shower first, when I said it was fine I needed more time to transition to being able to take a shower, she just went and took the shower. Apologized when she thought she took too long. Asked if I needed anything done while I was in there.

When I got out she established a few asks for herself, but again with gentle reminders when I was getting distracted. “Hey, before you look for that, could we start heating up the snacks?”. Oh, yeah sure. Got that going, went back to the task. Stopped to eat. Decided I needed more of a break so we started watching movies and she reminded me later we both needed more protein, so we made another snack and watched another movie.

Eventually I was again regulated and started to sort through the boxes I brought back and everyone else did parallel play for me. Before that she validated how much work we did and that it was ok we didn’t get the planned tasks done, because the actual task was to make the unit less overwhelming and we did that. She reminded me that it was ok that I needed a longer break and distractions, because going through all those boxes is a lot. I’m having to process a ton of emotions and traumas when I’m looking and sorting and throwing away all those things.

She saw how much work I was doing, even the invisible work, and she not only acknowledged it but reassured me that she was fine that plans had changed and she was happy that she could be there to help me.

We had planned to head back to the storage the next day. At the very least to put the now clean ren faire clothes back in their box and tape up/correctly mark the boxes we had worked on the day before.

I couldn’t get going though.

I’ve been having this weird thing happen all day that when I stand up or change my elevation at all really, I get this sharp pain on the top of my head on the left side. Like I’m hitting my head or an ice pick is being driven down.

I tell her and she’s like ok, have you tried stretching your neck yet? No, so I lay on my neck stretcher for about 20mins. She lets me know that she’d be happy to massage my neck if I wanted. Thanks, I’ll try this first, go ahead and keep playing your game.

Seems to feel better, until I stand up. Same thing happens.

I sheepishly ask if she could rub a little cbd on the side that seems to be the issue. She responded in a positive way while also letting me know she needed to finish where she was in the game. Few minutes. No problem, I go grab the salve while she does that.

I ask if it’s easier for me to sit on the floor and she stay on the couch, etc. She confirms that’s more comfortable for her. We establish healthy boundaries of if she starts to feel pain, she needs to stop (she also has the same chronic illnesses I do) and I’ll let her know if it’s too much, etc.

When I tell you, that she spent over an hour (maybe 2 even) working on my neck and shoulders, I am not exaggerating. She broke down as many knots as she could. Gently telling me to stop apologizing and she was happy to help me feel better. Eventually we got in a rhythm of helping each other find the next issue or how to turn my head.

It’s the most relief I’ve had in a while with the pain in my shoulders and neck. She even gave me head scritches and a small face massage to help me transition from the deeper body work we were doing, to being done. She worked on my hands and forearms too.

We reestablished what the day should be like after that. Looking at her needs and mine. She needed to head home by 4pm. Awesome. I needed us to just tape things up and mark stuff, no extra push.

The pain in the top of my head is still happening every time I stand, so I don’t want to push whatever that is.

We decided it was way too hot when we get there and tape up the boxes from the house, put up the faire clothes, and decided everything else can wait for a different day. I’m no longer feeling overwhelmed by the space and feel confident I can back by myself as needed.

We picked up food and got her on the road by her needed time. We established she’d message when she got home.

When she did get home, we spent some time providing appreciation to each other and just overall some connection outside of everything else we did or talked about over the weekend.

I give this lengthy story to show myself what the bare minimum is.

Some would say that’s going above and beyond, but is it? I stated needs, she did what she could to meet those needs, and she adapted and helped me as those needs changed. I still respected her needs and kept them in mind and helped her achieve them without either of us sacrificing anything. We had some conversations and made some compromises, but that’s what they were, compromises.

No one was pushed beyond their limit.

No one felt unheard or abandoned.

No one was shut down or gaslit or told they needed to do something different or be something different.

We did what we could, and then we stopped.

But it wasn’t at the expense of either of us or the relationship/connection we have with each other.

We reminded each other that there was love and appreciation, and now we’re doing our own things for the rest of the night. We have future plans that we know we’ll talk about at some point, and we’re secure in knowing that there will be connection and contact even without that.

I have that with others too, even if I don’t see them as often as I would like or we don’t talk everyday. I’ve talked about that before, so I’ll try to not repeat all of it.

It’s important to remind myself that I am capable and have nourished and flourished in secure and safe connections, that are still going. If there’s misunderstandings, we talk it out. It is a team effort, and not an expectation for just one of us to do the majority of the labor. If one of us is unsure, we ask. The other provides reassurance. If we’re thinking about each other, we tell the other. If we haven’t heard from each other in awhile, we reach out.

I can have those things, and there are people that want/will provide them. In instances that they can’t, I never feel abandoned because they will always have a conversation with me about where they are and what they can do, and we figure it out together.

Because we’re important to each other.

Because there’s love there.

Because we know that love and connection is work, but it won’t and shouldn’t always feel like work.

I really needed someone to see me and to take care of me. Even for a little while. It’s not always going to be the person that I hope it will be, but there will always be someone there for me from my little circle.

They see and for the most part understand how much work I’m doing (and if they don’t understand exactly what I’m going through, they say that too, but still acknowledging my effort).

Someone can tell me no, and say nothing else and I will fall down a spiral. All I hear and feel is the rejection. Another person will say no, here’s why, here’s a thing I can do instead, and that spiral never happens. The boundary was clearly defined and they didn’t expect me to come up with alternatives, they told me their limits and we worked from that point.

When someone really understands how hard it is for me to ask for something I need, while they also need to respect their own energy and needs, and they can approach it with that level of kindness…It makes all the difference in the world to someone like me.

Sometimes it’s the smallest reframe or adjustment that can make the biggest impact.

In a lot of ways I am not that complicated of a person, because I will literally hand you a manual.

You just have to be willing and wanting to comprehend it.

Anxiety

I am utterly exhausted and there’s no good reason why I’m awake right now.

I spent multiple days being awake for 24hrs and then getting a 2-4hr nap.

My anxiety is really high right now though. I’m anxious over the possibilities my brain is running in the background. I’m trying to not give them too much focus but one will blip by my consciousness really quick when I accidentally click on one of those tabs.

I’m not sure if I made the right call. I’m not sure if it helped or caused damage. I’m curling in on myself. I wrote up and processed some very vulnerable headspaces and feelings for me that occurred over the weekend. I’m also not sure how that will be received.

One of the hard lessons that I have learned is that when I am silent, that’s when others like to start to say things about me that are untrue. A few years ago it drove me to a breaking point. I wasn’t in a place where I could just “not worry” about whatever someone else was saying about me because “I knew the truth”.

Being misunderstood and being a target has been a lifelong thing. With family, at school, at work, and in other communities. The something different about me that seems to make others feel threatened and I still have no figured out what that thing is.

It also doesn’t help that like more often than not someone will always confirm to me that people are saying unkind things behind my back.

So choosing a place of silence is a very hard thing from me, and I didn’t actually have a plan for the re-entry back to having contact and connection again. I was so panicked on trying to protect myself from revisiting a bad cycle, I didn’t think it all the way through. Now I feel like I’m in a freeze response.

For now I guess I’ll just try to sleep. I can only control my actions and reactions, and when I can’t do that, I can recover and decide a new direction,

I admit right now I am indulging in a pity party and some small wishes over making some different decisions in my past. But it’s done. I can’t change what happened. I can learn and grow from it.

It’s really annoying always trying to be the bigger person. To try and ignore what others think and say about me.

Right now, I can be an anxious little teary mess in bed. And that’s what I’m going to do.

Because I’m tired of being strong.

Self Care vs Self Care(TM)

Late stage capitalism has its fangs and claws in just about everything. It really is no surprise that it found a way to monetize a persons healing journey.

Stressed? Buy a spa package!

Burned out? Go on vacation!

Feeling depressed? Retail therapy is the thing for you!

There’s this common theme for most conversations in the media now that in order to do self care you spend money. You’re still expected to buy your sense of peace and stay a cog in the machine.

It sounds like I’m invalidating those forms of self care. I am not. Sometimes those are very real and necessary forms for self care.

What doesn’t get highlighted as often are the forms of self care that are not necessarily centered around being a consumer. The decisions of trying to do daily hygiene because you haven’t been able to in a few days and now water from a shower hurts or making decisions that don’t feel good to make in general.

Somedays the very thought of water from a shower really does make my skin hurt so bad, I can’t stand the idea of being in there for even 5mins. Sometimes my “shower” is a shower wipe and spending 2hrs convincing myself I can hold my head under the detachable shower head for at least 2mins to wet it and rinse it.

Somedays I have to force myself to eat, and sometimes that self care looks like grabbing a safe food over a healthier food. No one talks about the shame you battle when making that self care decision. Like my options is to eat that frozen semblance of food or eat nothing at all and hurt my body even more.

Somedays I have to bargain with myself to be able to brush my teeth twice. Sometimes that looks like not brushing my teeth through all of the cycles because I’m overstimulated already and the full 2mins will make me more anxious and irritable.

Somedays the trauma is too loud, or the current situation is too close to a past one or not enough has changed from a previous situation that caused issues and talked through it. Sometimes people can’t or won’t meet your needs that would be better for everyone, so you choose the need that is not. Sometimes that need is a hard thing to ask for because you don’t necessarily want to go with that option but you’ve been burned out and exhausted for too long. You don’t have space and capacity for middle ground anymore, and go to the extreme end in order to protect yourself. And you know it hurts them too, not being able to talk to you for awhile in a form that’s more instant.

Self care is hard.

Self care is work.

At times it’s fucking brutal.

Disconnecting from people that I truly care about is the last thing I ever want to do, because I actually really need the connection and to not feel alone. But I will do it to protect myself when that person(s) or connection(s) isn’t able to be there for me and there hasn’t been enough change for me to feel secure again.

In session with Teapot today we talked about how hard it is to know the thing/things I really need to recover from burn out and it’s quite literally not an option. I’m trying to work on smaller steps with getting back to consistent self care but that has also been hard. It’s like my brain is pissed that I’m treating myself just like most people have through my life.

My body and brain stated a need, and I said nope, not possible. Pick something else. So it does, and again I tell it now. Because unfortunately reality, and not just because I don’t want to do it. I keep telling myself to whittle down my needs for trying to recover into smaller and smaller things. And because there’s this anger and resentment that I have to do that, I just don’t do anything. I’m frozen.

I know I need to get past this somehow. But it’s hard. Being kinder to myself sometimes means not forcing myself to do anything, even if I know it’s something I need to do.

I’m tired though. I’m tired of doing it all alone and this last year + I had really been trying to reach out more and ask for help. I needed people to step up more for me. And they can’t. In the case of my parents, won’t. So I resent that I continually have to be strong and enough for myself. That I can’t put things down.

I told Teapot that I saw an idea that I wanted to try of taking “No Growth Days”. Which means no growth. Not being my best self and getting to do the bare minimum all day. But then I realized I have no idea how to be/do the bare minimum. That even when I told Rochester I was stepping back and not covering the energy deficit while he is also burned out and exhausted, I kept finding myself still doing more. I kept trying to find different angles and come up with more possible solutions. I couldn’t manage more than a few days without once again working hard on myself and trying to find a place that felt comfortable to both of us.

I will constantly say in other situations that I can’t do something, and then it’ll be ignored by people like my parents and I find myself doing that thing anyway.

How to I rest and do the bare minimum when I’m the only one that will get things done? I would really like it if the care I give other people was reciprocated more often. But it’s not, and I don’t understand why. And I’m tired of always taking care of myself, and everyone else. I don’t even want to take care of myself anymore which is evident in the last year.

I’m trying to get back on track. I wrote a letter to myself last night. Validating my need for external help and validation, but just because I wasn’t getting it didn’t mean I stopped recognizing and appreciating myself. Which I had been doing.

I was no longer recognizing how much I was doing and working on. I didn’t realized it until Fairy Gay Mother mailed me a note. Telling me that despite the odds, I was still here, and still swinging.

Like fuck.

How many people would still be swinging after everything I’ve been through and it keeps piling on? How am I still doing it? No wonder I’m fucking tired and screaming for help.

I wanted help so bad, I stopped helping myself in a lot of ways.

I allowed people to recondition me into not taking up space, because it’s easier. It’s easier to not push for and stand up for the things I need. And now I’m edging into miserable again. Mainly because of where I am living.

It’s hard to get out of burn out and do self care when you don’t feel safe. When you’re not allowed to be more than whatever it is they want and if you step out of line, you get abused and triggered until you stop again. I told Teapot I’m to the point that I can no longer figure out what’s better for me. To not say anything, and let it happen so it stops faster, or to stand up for myself and risk unpredictable outbursts. I finally admitted to Teapot how unsafe I really feel here. Let’s just say there was a lot of notes typed out. I’m only allowed to exist here when they tell me I can. Though they’d never admit to that. They’d swear one way and another that it’s not true and of course I can xyz or abc.

Somedays self care means having to stay in a place like that, because making any other decisions will harm you even more in the long run.

Somedays self care is knowing what you need to do and have to do and taking another night of just watching a stupid show with your brother and his girlfriend.

Because in two days I going out to help my grandma, because no one else will help her with the things she needs. Because this week I asked Rochester to not text me while he’s on a trip and we haven’t found a balance for those times to not be triggering for me. Because my parents are coming back tomorrow and I’ll have to brace for the weekly big blow ups again.

I’m the one that always saves me. I can’t start letting myself down now. But I need to learn how to save myself with self care, even the hard kind, instead of running myself into the ground and further.

I don’t know how, and I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’ve heard from a very reliable source that the secret is, no one really knows what they are doing.

no clever title

Parents informed me last night, they’d be home today. That’s 5 days earlier than they were supposed to be.

Cue me instantly apologizing for existing because I haven’t finished the dishes yet and all of my laundry and some other items from my room are in a common area because I thought I had another 5days to unfuck my room.

I got the hollow “it’s ok”, “don’t stress”, and the “jokes” of well they’re not going to clean those things up since they’re still on vacation. Even though I never implied they would. Just informing them of the state of the house because I thought I had more time. We’ll see how many days they’re actually “forgiving”.

Session with Teapot today was good, but not what I wanted to focus on. My brain wouldn’t let me and Teapot validated that it was ok to let my brain reroute. We’ll try to start next session focusing on that trauma. I did decompress about the last week, which was also apparently needed.

We did end the session touching on the original topic and even in 5mins of talking about it, I was instantly activated and in tears. Not looking forward to digging deeper, but it needs to be done.

Lil bro came over to start prepping his room for the move back in. He also, without much thought or warning, just started unloading all of his feelings about it on me. I know he needed a place to talk, and I should have been more firm about not being in a space for it today. It messed me up a bit more than I had wanted considering how I have already been feeling since Monday and the added stress of my parents returning home earlier.

I did help him escape before they arrived. So guess I get to be a good sister still.

He said some things, that should not be a surprise to me, but they still hurt. That’s going to be its own post. Maybe tomorrow. When I can think of a clever title.

I started to get a migraine and walk the edges of a panic attack the closer it got to my parents getting home. I’m starting to figure out how many of my things I can sell or get rid of to keep trying to nudge myself out of here quicker. Obviously, nothing on an instinctual level feels safe here. Otherwise I wouldn’t be crying just at the thought of them coming home.

They did respect a boundary. They did pick up dinner when I requested it too. Most of the time they were up, they talked about the trip and were pleasant enough.

Mom actually thanked me for taking care of the cat and plants. It feels hollow given the earlier conversation with my brother. She did technically ask how I was doing, but didn’t circle back to it once we were talking about the plants and the dogs. I left it alone. I don’t even trust her with the basic knowledge about my daily health anymore. Maybe because I know the question isn’t from a place of concern or care.

Managed to get the dishes put away. Will try to get the next batch cleaned tomorrow. Still need to finish folding all my laundry, and trying to figure out how to put my room back together so I can feel more calm at least in one tiny space of this house.

Time to go feel some feelings. Which of course means crying. Then I’ll start the newest smut book Sprinkles has suggested.

Pondering and Processing

A lot happened in the last couple of days.

It will likely take me awhile to work through all of it.

Definitely need to get down Fairy Gay Mothers look. Especially when I’ve had an overwhelming day.

Good news, I am definitely more solid in who I am as a person. Not that I was in doubt of that, but sometimes we need the reminder.

And if anyone ever uses the excuse that it’s ok to treat someone in the hospitality/service industries poorly or with less respect because they are “used to it”….biggest fucking confirmation for my gut/intuition ever.

No one should be treated less than because there’s someone that probably treated them even worse. This is why I over thank and apologize and treat anyone in that field with the utmost kindness.

They are humans.

It costs you literally nothing to be kind, show appreciation, and break the cycle of mistreatment. You are using that as an excuse to pardon yourself from dealing with the fact that you are actively choosing to not be kind to someone who likely very much needs and would ultimately appreciate it.

That kind of thinking and behavior is how you become a s’more.

Today I Felt…

Like a fuck up.

I know it’s not true. I can intellectualize that until I’m blue in all the things and one proclaims “violet! You’re turning violet!”

It does not, however, change how I felt.

Coming to terms with healing and listening to my body, is to slowly move out of the constant state of being wrapped in my trauma responses. Which means coming to terms with how my brain would like to function if left to it’s own devices. Which means coming to terms with the fact that I am going to forget things. And sometimes they will mildly important things.

Like the bumped up vet visit for the senioriest of the dogs. Which I failed to write down, or put 5 reminders in my phone for. Which happened to be on the eve of my mothers bday, and me needing to make sure I have all the things squared away for yet another specialist appointment tomorrow and being packed for an overnight.

Work was really stressful today, and I had been so fucking proud of myself for being almost completely packed for tomorrow. And as I went to sit down to take a break because body said it had enough and very much would like some water, my brain kindly reminded me of the day and the fact that the dogs visit was supposed to have been an hour before.

I immediately called the vet since they were still open, and as has been the issue for the last couple months, was met with attitude, and a passive aggressive, “yeah you were supposed to be here”. Some part of me wished I had answered back in just as clipped and full of attitude response of wondering why I didn’t receive a call, like I was supposed to. Either the day before or to be like “hey it’s weird you’re not here for you appt”.

Fell into a deep hate spiral. Which I kept telling myself I wasn’t allowed to be in today, but squashed that very quickly. Let myself be sad, vented to my cousin, firmly drew the line to my brother that I could not make decisions for him about whether he should show up today for moms bday, gently told her I needed her to take over talking to him because I could not be the go between today, and played my video until my nervous system got semi balanced again.

Today has felt not great for a lot of other reasons. I’m feeling helpless in some departments about not being able to much for several people I love. I’m trying to just be there for them, and I know at least one has reassured me that’s all they need but they also understand if I can’t be. Because “if they wanted to, they would” is not as simple as that when you are under a pile of medical mysteries.

It seems like there’s a lot of stressful and really bad things happening to a lot of people I care about right now. I wish I could make things better for them. Selfishly, I wish I could make things better for myself too. Life has been on hard mode for too many.

Learning to do what I can and then stop on all these different levels will take time.

Putting down the guilt that I can’t do it all is hard.

Sometimes the bad voices still creep in, of if I can’t make them feel better, what good am I in the first place.

The problem with having a few days to unclench, is my brain feels safe to start processing the hard things and be more vulnerable. The harder thing when they come back, is so many emotions being at the surface and my way for so long of protecting myself is to shove it all back down.

I feel at odds with myself.

But luckily for tonight, I am also feeling tired. Maybe I’ll get 5hrs of sleep before the long drive.

Teapot Tuesday

We’ve graduated from the out loud “that’s a lot”, to a very specific look followed by “Oookay” and typing.

I did get more praise and compliments on my progress with implementing the tools they’ve been giving me.

I love how much they’re willing to say how much isn’t known and a lot of researchers/authorities are full of bullshit half the time.

Turns out me having a trauma release when trying the cold shower trick to try and regulate my vagus nerve, was actually a normal and expected response. Because I’m literally shocking my body which is a form of trauma, and therefore will cause a trauma response. I did appreciate the explanation of the two factions about the vagus nerve debate. It helped me feel a little less crazy that things were not working in the same way for me as others said they would.

We covered the TSA incident, of which I started tearing up again, and I’m still feeling fairly disregulated but I’m doing my best. Trying to stay on track at work, and when I start to feel activated, I’m letting myself play video games. Not to dissociate, but to give my brain something that is solvable right now.

We also talked about one of the puppers and how their health seems to be declining. I’m fairly certain it’s cushings disease. We’ll see how the vet visit goes. Scheduled for Valentines Day. Seems about right for me.

Puppers is currently making my legs go numb, but they are asleep at least. Don’t need to feel my limbs anyway.

The trip with Rochester was ebbing in and out of the session. I started talking about how I had really wanted to ask about taking pics together but then for some reason it was causing me so much anxiety to ask for them and I didn’t understand why. At that point Teapot goes “ where are you feeling that in your body right now?” That’s usually the question before we do brain spotting, which means I tripped over a trauma.

We didn’t brain spot this session, but I did explain where I was feeling it. They asked what my body was needing to do in response as I tried to force myself back into some semblance of sitting properly seated (did I need to fidget? Or stretch? Or lie down?) All I wanted to do was continue to curl inward. That felt needed and safe. But as I told them, I didn’t know how much of that was due to the topic we were on and how much of that was the leftovers of being triggered and that trauma pushing in. (A/N : Also me now realizing that that was some tricksee therapist shit to start teaching me to ask my body what it needs when I’m triggered. Fuck. Teapot has definitely learned how to manage me).

I’m going to work on reflecting on it a bit more. Teapot did point out that it is likely interconnected with some of my other concerns around the polycule. I can’t remember exactly what she said at this point, but trauma do be clearing my memory like a drop kicked etch-a-sketch on a regular fucking basis.

Ugh! Omg. My feet are free!

Time to sleep while I still can. Maybe my subconscious can get more of this shit processed. Hopefully the fur baby lets me sleep past 3am tonight.

Your Actual Love Language

There’s this new trend going around, about how your actual love language is whatever your previous relationships lacked. Since most algorithms have figured me out at this point I’m on the side where all those trends point to only one thing:

Basic human decency.

It’s not wrong.

This past weekend was my first ever trip/weekend away with Rochester. It wasn’t something we had been able to do in V1, because we weren’t actually ever allowed to be in a full relationship then. Neither one of us was healed enough at that point, still being steeped in multiple abusive relationships (work, romantic, etc) to have stronger boundaries about that either.

This weekend we went to Portland. A place both of us have always liked, but didn’t get a chance to really have freedom to experience in our previous relationships.

Pretty sure it was the first time a partner took me away for the weekend, where I didn’t have to do any of the big planning, like hotel and flights, and didn’t have to book any of it, or split/pay for the whole thing (I did keep asking if I could pay for some of the things we did, and we started trading off there).

He made sure we were close enough to Powell’s that I could have as much time as I wanted there, and we talked about and picked all the food places we wanted to go to together. We had a really good balance and respect of prioritizing things that were important to each other on this trip.

It was also the first time I have ever flown first class.

It was a really lovely weekend.

It was perfectly imperfect, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

I woke up one morning feeling really off emotionally, and tried to handle it with the tools I’ve been picking up in therapy while he was still asleep. Accidentally, caused a trauma release instead. He woke up to me being a mess, and just jumped into trying to help me before even being fully awake.

I kept finding myself saying thank you, and saying how much I appreciated those type of things. We’d then have discussions on past partners, and how they usually reacted, and he’d remark that the bar was really low.

Yeah, it is or was.

The bar isn’t low anymore, and I don’t know how to express this. That just because I will say, “ I appreciate you for this or that”, doesn’t mean the bar is low, and you should stop at asking how I’m doing or holding me when I’m dealing with a PTSD episode.

It means I know what it’s like to not be appreciated. It means that part of who I am, is recognizing kindness and acknowledging it, because all too often people take it for grant it. Especially partners in my experience and from what I have observed from others in relationships (especially poly/ENM) it will just start to expected and they think they have a right to being treated that way no matter how they treat the other person. Or other people in general.

Sometimes it even gets to the point that those of us outside the monogamous/escalator model will let more and more slide from a partner that is not treating us appropriately because we can be distracted by our other connections, and we guilt ourselves into not comparing. I was so good at excusing being treated poorly in my past, because I could get my happy hit off of smaller moments of when that partner did actually decide to be sweet, or just from seeing a different partner who respected me just a little bit more.

I used to to tell myself if I just kept being kind to them, if I just kept modeling the behavior, one day they would put more effort into our relationship. One day they would be kind to me on a more regular basis. My kindness is no longer used as a way to try and teach others how they should be treating me.

My kindness is a privilege and has an expiration date if/when someone shows me they are not capable of receiving it.

That doesn’t mean I start to treat them poorly, I treat them accordingly.

But more of a tangent before I get back to the happy thoughts and highlights.

One of the things we did this weekend, was that Rochester wanted to watch the movie The Menu with me. He had already seen it but I hadn’t, and I don’t mind and tend to ask to be a too (which I admit, I made an assumption that it was both our first time watching it, and to his credit he noticed the shift in me and asked if it was still ok to watch it together. Expressing that he still wanted to watch it with me). I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it definitely kicked me right in my internal sense of justice. I have a very big problem with entitlement and lack of appreciation.

It’s made me think more on how I use the word “deserve”. I think many people use it, but oft times what they’re actually trying to say is that they are owed or entitled to something. When I say I deserve something, which is a concept I’ve only recently been trying to embrace, it is not saying that I am owed anything. It is, however, saying that I know my worth, and I am no longer willing to accept being treated as if I don’t.

I work hard. I am a kind person, and not just when people are looking. There is not much in life that I could ever claim has been handed to me. I have had difficult learning experiences, and have used them to become healthier, softer hearted, instead of bitter and cold. Part of me feels that if I use the word deserve, as many others do, then I would become bitter and hard hearted if those things don’t appear in my life. Especially on some imaginary timeline we all seem to be following.

Ok, pulling up from the spiral now.

Inadvertently, the theme of this weekend became s’mores, and I kind of love that. I love that we found some phrases and jokes that just belong to us. We had some amazing food experiences. Like, one place hit me so hard in the comfort food, I left pretty much a 100% tip. That is not me looking for any sort of praise or commentary, I just really need the world to know how fucking amazing the food was at Grits N Gravy.

I do wish I had taken some pictures of Rochester and I together. We don’t really have too many of those from V1, and I’m pretty sure we haven’t taken any together in V2. Asking for them feels complicated for me though, and I don’t won’t to ever pressure anyone into anything. I did take some pictures of the foods we had. Mostly to brag to my brother, and I didn’t take them of everything. It was nice to just experience the weekend together instead of spending a bunch of time trying to snap a shutter.

The trip back wound up being fairly traumatic for me thanks to the TSA triggering me. I don’t feel like going into detail at this point, but needless to say it left me fairly non verbal for the rest of the night, trying to keep my brain quiet, and constantly crying off and on the whole way home after we finally got through security.

I’m still struggling really hard today from it. But I am grateful that Rochester didn’t push me to be anything, and let me process how I needed to. He made sure I knew he was there for me, and stayed calm at the times that I got a little more snippy. I did eventually ask to stay with him for a little longer before driving home, so we cuddled on the couch and he read to me.

I already miss the things most nesting partners probably never think too hard on. I miss having our routines before we got into bed. I miss our wind down conversations, and being pulled into being the little spoon because that’s how we tend to fall asleep together. I miss waking up with him, being greeted with a smile, a sleepy good morning, and getting pulled into even more cuddles to start our days. I miss feeling safe and sleeping more soundly, and knowing that if I don’t, he’s there to help me through the nightmares.

I am grateful for the time we have together. I’m excited that we kept talking about “in the future” or “the next time we’re here”. Things that are normal for most other relationships, but that we hadn’t had the chance to ever experience together before.

I’m sure there was more I had wanted to say, but I didn’t sleep much last night and my mind is starting to do last call.

Some pics below of the foods:

Our first breakfast at Grits N Gravy

The LOTR special edition that I really wanted to bring home but could not justify $250

Pretty tree at the Festival of Lights. I really wanted to ask Rochester to take a pic with me under it but then the trauma voices got too loud, so instead I just took this.

Weird Finds

Silly Games

Second Breakfast – so good we had to go twice