just make it stop.

writer. public relations + social media. feminist killjoy. adoption. dogs. yarn. fiction. you get the idea.

[justmakeitstop]

The Dark Days, Then, A Bit of Light

I’ve been struggling for a while with depression, anxiety and intrusive thoughts. It got bad enough in the last few months that I’m seeing a therapist multiple times a week, I’m on a delightful cocktail of SSRI’s, sedatives and beta blockers. (My heart is fine, the beta blockers help make it so my body literally cannot have the physical panic attacks. I mean, it still can, but it’s a lot harder to get there now.) 

I also quit my job. It was too much pressure, too much accountability with not enough authority to fix anything. So Tuesday was my last day. I start a new job, one at a much lower level than I’ve been at for the last three years (but better pay/benefits) next Tuesday. 

I legitimately loved everyone I worked with at my old job. They were almost my entire social group in Ohio. I’m sure that’s not actually healthy, but it is what it is. Now my anxiety is around fucking them over by leaving, or worse, that they’ll realize I wasn’t that great anyway and no one will ever speak to me again. 

Part of the reason I got back on Tumblr this week is that I’ve been kind of simmering in a weird hole of my own shitty thoughts for a while now and the great thing about this ol black hole of a website is a) I can scream into the void and b) I know some of you, so the void screams back sometimes. It’s nice. 

I’m not better yet, but I feel like I’m slowly making moves towards getting there. Today was an okay day. 

[justmakeitstop]

A collection of thoughts:

1. Bodies are weird. I got a massage today and I thought the whole time, a full 60 minutes, about how intimate it was to be naked and face down with a stranger who was digging their thumb into my butt cheek essentially and I was paying very good money to do those thing. 

2. That said, it’s not so intimate that I wasn’t very aware this was a stranger and I was thinking about how I wish I could convince my partner to go to massage school because I would have liked to be able to say “I need you to literally dig your elbow into the space between my shoulder blade and spine and even if I say bad words, ignore them, I need this.” But that felt... aggressive for a stranger. 

3. This made me think about other touches. And I wonder if anyone else has the thing where if someone is gently touching your skin and at first it feels really nice and soft and then all of a sudden, like 12 seconds later it feels like paint thinner on an open wound and you want to bat their hand away. What is that? Why is skin like that? 

4. Why are some parts of my body so tender to slight touch and other parts need to be manhandled? My lower back hurts all the time and I’m sure if someone could really get in there, it would feel better but even slight pressure feels like me walking myself into the lake. Two inches up on my mid back you could whack me with a curtain rod and it would be fine. (Probably?) 

5. WHY DOES IT FEEL GOOD TO HAVE MY KNEE MASSAGED? 

6. Final thought: bodies are fucking weird, man. I would like to be a sentient brain in a jar. 

[justmakeitstop]

hi.

I’m back. More coming soon. 

Missed you.  What fandoms are we into now?

[justmakeitstop]

oh yeah

This year so far has already been so fucked up I completely forgot that my grandma died in February, my ex husband got remarried (last November) and Ava was diagnosed with glaucoma in December and wears glasses now and is progressively losing her eyesight. I’ve also taken two semesters off school again and am not sure if I’m going to be able to go back in the fall because right now I’m working from home full time with Ava attached to me because she’s not able to go back to school because COVID and increased risk of illness. Which means i don’t know if she’ll be able to go to school this fall. 

Literally we’re baaaarely six months into 2020 and its already been such a shit show I can’t even fit it all into one blog post. 

[justmakeitstop]

oh hey.

It’s been a minute. But the world has become so fucking oppressive that I feel compelled to blog again. Me and my mental health had a good run, but guess we’re back at it again, Tumblr. 

A list of shit that is weighing heavily on me today:

- Black Lives Matter. Black lives are precious. Black lives are important. Black lives are valued and valuable. LIKE OBVIOUSLY JESUS FUCK WHY IS THIS EVEN CONTROVERSIAL???

- The global pandemic is not over just because it’s sunny. Just because your boss doesn’t want to keep letting you work from home even though the last three months have absolutely proved that it’s entirely possible to do your whole entire job from home. Well, maybe even better than being in an office.  - There is an alarming number of my friends, family and neighbors who do not give a shit about my life or my daughters life. Not if it means even a slight inconvenience to them. That, um, that has been unnerving to find out.  Things that are not weighing heavily on me but are general updates for anyone who still follows me here even though I haven’t posted anything in like... years?

- Honestly, being in quarantine for three months has not been that difficult for me or that much of a departure from my regular life. The only thing that has really been impacted is that I can’t go walk around Target or a thrift shop whenever I feel like it. Actual improvements to my life include no longer feeling guilty for having my groceries delivered, my laundry sent out or avoiding crowded places. My socially anxious ass was already doing all of those things, but now it’s considered “hero” status to be people avoidant. My day has come.  - I’ve met a very nice man named Gary and we’ve been dating for about 10 months and it’s going very well and I’m quite fond of him. He has a son a little older than Ava and they get on well too.  - I’ve now lived completely alone for almost two years and despite the above addition to my love life, I have no plans to not live alone because it turns out I really enjoy having my own space and time to myself. And having a partner who feels the same is great because we spend lots of time together and have intertwined our lives nicely, without them becoming problematically melded in way that makes either of us feel co dependent. Shout out to the last three years worth of therapy and self work to get to a point where I can be in love and feel love without it being toxic. Still have a long way to go, but pleased with progress as it stands. 

- After nearly 20 years in on again off again pain from my right hip, I discovered that the joint is misshapen and has been slowly wearing away at the tendon in there and now it’s torn. I’m supposed to have surgery at the end of the month to repair the tear. I have no idea if I’ll be able to go through with it on the scheduled date because I live on the second floor and I won’t be able to walk up stairs for... an unknown amount of time? So, we’ll see what happens with that, I guess. 

- Ava just spent a week in the hospital with an unknown infection that made her seizures get completely uncontrolled and terrifying. They suspected COVID so we spent three days in a locked pediatric COVID unit where I wasn’t able to eat, shower or sleep on a bed. It was horrifying and I probably need to get a meeting with my therapist on the books to start working through it now that Ava is more stable because I’m definitely having some intense anxiety/PTSD symptoms around it. On top of my just general level of anxiety/PTSD. So that’s fun.  ANYWAY! Hi. How have ya’ll been? What’d I miss?

[wishem]

A concept with @inkwillstain about how The Void is a cat that eats people’s worries and poops them out into stars.

[jane-ray]

This makes me so happy. I like screaming into the void. I also like the idea that “The Void” is actually a cat.

[wishem]

The original idea was that The Void is made up of a bunch of black cats.

[kazoracht]

Can I pet the void?

[wishem]

Absolutely.

[impracticallyq]

But not on the tummy

[neil-gaiman]

Hey Neil! I was reading Coraline a few days ago. Why Coraline's father asked her to list blue things? Like, doors and windows I understand, but why blue things?

You've never had to find something to occupy a small child, have you?

[justmakeitstop]

It didn’t make sense the first time I read the book, pre-motherhood but so much about the adult interactions (as working, creative parents) makes sense since motherhood.

[curt-n-curly]

QE

The farmer’s constant mention of The Gay Guys 🙄🙄🙄

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

ppl are so annoying “you can’t paint ur bedroom pink you’re an adult” i did not spend my entire life waiting to grow up and control my life to paint my bedroom beige

[hojolove]

I had a sales woman in furniture store try and tell me not to buy a hot bubblegum pink loveseat because she wanted me to “think about the future”

Bitch, I am thinking about the future. I already got a hot bubblegum pink couch at home and now I need a loveseat to go with it.

[madgastronomer]

when I first bought my house, I announced my decision to paint my bedroom purple. I had wanted a purple bedroom for thirty damn years, you fucking bet I was gonna have one now. My friends decided, for some reason, that I meant what one of them referred to as “14 year old girl purple” (through what’s wrong with the colors a 14 year old girl chooses, I don’t know, even if they’re not what I want as an adult). They didn’t believe me until they saw the color on the actual wall, even thought they helped me pick out paints. My mother, meanwhile, decided to get worried that if I painted my bedroom a “dark purple”, it would be “depressing”. As if, with an entire house to live in, I would spend all my time in the bedroom, which I wanted to be dark because I would be sleeping in there. In the damn dark.

I had like one, maybe two friends who were all like FUCK YEAH YOU PAINT IT WHATEVER COLOR YOU WANT, PURPLE BEDROOMS ARE AWESOME.

But when they actualy saw the finished bedroom, every single one of them was like, “Oh yeah, that’s really pretty.” (Well, the ones who supported me from the beginning were more like WOOHOO.)

And the moral of the story is: Fuck ‘em, please yourself. Either they’ll come around, or you can safely ignore every question of taste they opine about for the rest of time.

[themintycupcake]

This applies to other adulting activities, too. When I was a kid, I decided that I wanted to have a wedding cake made of doughnuts. When I got older, I figured that I would be “mature” about it and get a traditional cake, which the older adults approved of. Now that I’m 25 and facing the possibility of actual marriage in the near future, I’m just like “marriage is a social construct but it comes with tax & insurance benefits, so just give me that goddamn doughnut cake.” If they don’t like it then they don’t have to come to my wedding.

[aridotdash]

https://xkcd.com/150/

[undanewneon]

I would like you all to view my office. I’m thirty and my rainbow room is awesome, people can fight me

[justmakeitstop]

I have a purple velvet couch, stupid art and cotton candy pick duvet. Nothing matches. It’s cluttered with all my favorite things and I have never felt more home.

[queereyegifs]

[justmakeitstop]

Same

[cherrypitgoddess]

men will PURPOSELY ask you things in a condescending tone and then act surprised when you get an attitude like “i wasn’t trying to start an argument” yes you were travis shut the fuck up

[justmakeitstop]

I only wear rompers now.

[paisleysprince]

“It’s only mountains and the sea. There’s nothing greater, u and me,” Prince, Mountains (1986)

[justmakeitstop]

Love a man in a midriff bearing top.

[robertwire]

today at work a little kid came in to order their birthday cake and their mom was like “(deep sigh) tell them what you want on your cake” and the kid was like “ELSA” and the mom was like “(deeper sigh) and?” and the kid was like “SHARKS” that kid literally ordered a princess elsa and sharks birthday cake and i have literally never in my whole life been more excited to see the end result of an order ive taken.

[getweirder]

little kid cake orders are the BEST! one time there was like this 5 yr old girl and all she wanted was a komodo dragon themed cake…

she got it

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

That cake is more impressive than anything I’ve seen on any of those Fantabulosity Cakes shows, oh my god.

[theatricaldynamite]

My cousins’ asked for Star Wars and Ballet. The person who made it really ran with the idea.

[justmakeitstop]

Ava’s doing some kind of hybrid Scary Bears + Elsa, plus stars and rainbows for her birthday. I haven’t figured out how we’re going to get it all on a cake but we’re gonna.

[justmakeitstop]

[justmakeitstop]

I just want to be left alone.

I just want to be loved.

It’s a constant fight with myself about which I want more.

[porkiez]

Lizzo