soitwent @soitwent - Tumblr Blog

Tw suicide

A lot of notes I made because I have a meeting with my principal tomorrow that I scheduled because I almost killed myself on Friday because I got pulled in to the office for the 3rd time already this year and I'm pretty well at a place where I either need to quit my job or be hospitalized if they're not willing to see what I'm doing and work with me instead of against me...... so surprising no one I'm anxiously up late so I thought maybe if I can get it out I can get to sleep? I only made it this far by not looking too far ahead. But I find myself at that intersection again that fast. I've worked too hard for too long and other people and things of my life deserve for me to stay. So I hate every bit of this and I expect the worst from tomorrow but I am putting my bravest heart forward.....

Feel like the meetings come out of nowhere and I freeze and don't have a chance to say anything.

What kind of places I've come from - how principals/schools haven't responded/why I "underrespond"

Where I'm coming from-

character-buulding loving obedience not compliance

Long-term thinking

Looking for new solutions since old ones haven't worked for these students

Where I know I can grow-

Using firmness

Accepting outside help

Where I hope we're growing-

Defining the goals of the program clearly, together as a team

Collaborative efforts for the betterment of the current and future students in the program

Points I'd like to make-

All the attention currently on me and our room is because I've asked for it. I've asked for it knowing huge improvements are needed

Historically the room and kids have been left alone and to the detriment of them all as is evidenced by data. I came in and built successes out of nothing, without much help or support.

I would like my accomplishments and successes weighted as equally as the areas where I can still grow. "teaching" in terms of making and delivering content is not my only area of expertise. I have great skills in building relationships, maintaining a positive example, encouraging growth, staying regulated, calm, and rational in the face of tough circumstances, juggling a large workload, and creating inventive solutions, among many other things, including understanding behavior and ways to work with it instead of against it. There is quantifiable data to show my students are succeeding under my efforts that is well outside of my sphere, ie my grades, my behavior data collection, etc. I am happy to show these if needed.

I think the question "do I feel like the kids respect me" is the wrong question, because you've asked it several times and don't seem to believe me when I say yes. Katie and Evola have said the same thing. I think our definitions of "respect" are different. Do they immediately do what I ask them to every time just because I did? No. Do they to anyone??? This has been increasing with time as they have seen that I have their best interests at heart and continue lovingly guiding them. This progress is enough for me-- also because I know it will continue to grow.

Where I won't go-

Manuel as a full-time permanent (or even longish-term fill-in aide)

Nothing against him or a person like him, but as my former principal, I will struggle not to see it as being "watched" all the time, will be hypervigilant and dysregulated, and will not be able to handle the job or keep up the program as I've built it

Into the expectation that I become a teacher who expects "respect" to be immediate compliance because I said so

Staying with the school if the "program", which I am going to say has never before been meaningfully designed or thought through, is expected to be a replica of the high school just because they're connected.

Staying at a school that doesn't believe I'm capable and knowledgeable and know what I'm doing -- and can also always grow

Staying at a school who won't even hear why I've made choices I've made or allow me to make choices as I see fit- as I am the only one in the classroom with these students 100% of the time- which is many many more cumulative hours than anyone else spends with any other students besides mcconchie and hers

I'm not naive for refusing to refer to my students as "like addicts", "bound for jail", "manipulative", and needing to "be survived " like they have been called by various staff members at this school, including in this office. To become good people and believe they're good, they need to hear good things about them. They sense and know when we believe otherwise and are just paying lip service. I won't participate in that. I won't join in the us vs them mentality. I *will* continue to lovingly guide them and to grow in being better at doing so.

Ultimately --- will we build something together or should I seek a new position?

I'm sorry if this is putting the cart in front of the horse, but the kids arent what are going to burn me out. The kids bring me joy and purpose. They are incredible humans who work very hard every day to show up and to be enough in a world that constantly assumes they're never trying. It's the struggle to get adults to see that that will burn me out. It's the inability to create a neurodivergent affirming program that makes me dread to come into work for the first time. I love this job and would love to grow an incredible program that supports the students who need it the most together. But if you don't believe I am the right fit for this group of kids, then I don't see how we will build on that foundation. If you don't believe I have expertise in this area, then i don't see how we can build on that foundation. If you want the students to return to a disciplinarian/authority figure, you will sacrifice the academic portion and the social growth. And to do that you will need to hire a different person.

I was just reminded of how time can slip so easily through your dissociative fingers. A sentence in a book, describing how one could remain where they had collapsed all day, a sentence in a video, about dissociation being the lack of making memories. Sometimes I attempt to remember the 6 months I spent in bed and sometimes I struggle to remember if it truly happened. How did I pass the time? I didn't. The time passed by me.

These revelations are shocking and hard to face. I have big, aching gaps in my history. When I question those around me, I discover some of the hardest times of my life that have fully passed me by.

It's a life-saving tool, dissociation. But I don't know if I can thank it. How can I heal from the things I don't know happened? How can I allow the feelings to hold for the duration they need when I only ever enter the void?

"I think I need to cry," I sometimes find myself saying. But ever only a few tears come. I know I need to scream! But the fear of my feelings being seen, being heard, dampens my voice even if I do try.

How do I break through this barrier, this shield? I am surrounded, muffled, and dimmed. It's safe here but it's incredibly lonely. I wish I knew how to let things in.

Maybe I seek out the solo travel, dark skies, these isolated places, in the hopes that I can allow myself to feel wholly alone enough to release the caged and aching and painfully bound parts of my soul. Maybe I'll finally be able to scream and to cry and to thrash in the ways I never was allowed.... And haven't allowed myself since.

I practice taking up space, at forcing my existence into a world I never asked to be part of. But have I ever asked for enough? Believed myself worthy of enough? Or am I only an imposter believing it's true for anyone other than myself.

Well all that aside cuz last night went like

Me: what?! What??! It seems like you're wanting to say something but you're not saying anything

Him: I just... I'm afraid to tell you.... I love you.

😍😍😍

I been spending a lot of our time together trying not to say the same. In fact, I did accidentally say it to him a couple weeks ago and played cool cuz he was like what did you say?? But he apparently heard me 😵‍💫

I don't know that I want to be in love with a boy. But I am 🥹

triskeleaficionado

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

the-wanton-housewife

These are so good.

dduane

Absolutely stellar.

omg tumblr hi. i’m back for my semi-annual attempt to be better at journalling with the thought that here is a place I used to keep lots of thoughts and maybe if I come back here I’ll get back around to doing that more/again. I had a whole other set of things I was anticipating writing about from the first half of my day today but wooooof today has been a day where things keep coming up and coming up so let’s just go with it and see what comes through.

lol and now that I’ve said that and I’m here there’s either nothing or it’s all jumbled up and bottle-necked back in the back of my brain.

Mmmmm okay so a thing that I was thinking about today actually is my body and the disconnect I still have from it. Despite generally feeling calmer and more at ease, despite feeling less riled up when things pop up, all that, I remain generally dissociated from the whole trunk of my body. I describe my connection to the body as “Eyeballs and up, elbows to hands, and sometimes feet”. I crash into things often because I’m not aware of my body in its space. I tend to lack the feeling of being hungry until it’s HUGE and DESPERATE but also just might not get hungry at all. I have trouble regulating my temperature and am made SO INCREDIBLY cranky by being either too hot or too cold. Holding cold and hot things are damn near intolerable to me. And somethinggggg that I read somewhere recently (because I’ve been learning more about the additional senses and sensory integration/regulation) stated that many of these fall under interoception sensory issues, which is particularly common among PTSD/trauma sufferers. Interoception is the process where the nervous system senses, interprets, and integrates signals originating from within the body both consciously and unconsciously. It helps your body to maintain homeostasis. So that’s all very interesting. What I also find very interesting is the things that seem to most move me towards more body awareness and integration is yoga (of course) and sex.

Now there’s some caveats to this, of course. With yoga, it depends very greatly on the class/type/effort/amount of people primarily. With some consistency and the right type of yoga, I was able to feel into my chest and all through my hips (and buddy it is TIGHTTTT up in both of those places. So much unreleased tension, especially in my hips). I had a regular weekly practice with a class that was free and teacher that was perfect for what I need in Indy but now that I’ve moved I’ve only tried two new classes and they weren’t it for various reasons.

With sex I have obviously had some experiences where I was pretty *out* of body for one reason or another. Especially when I look back and was younger, I mostly spent sex feeling this way. Now, with my current partner!? I don’t even know how to describe it because I’m so used to not feeling the majority of my body OR to being *hyper*aware of my body because of pain or a cPTSD trigger.

SO the real bit of why this is all interesting to me, besides the fact that I’m really digging sex in my 30s (32 on Thursday this week, wowza) is because I’m also struggling to connect emotionally since..... well apparently, forever. I’ve been realizing over time things like.... I’M the one CHOOSING all these emotionally unavailable partners. Ouch, that bites but like okay, now I KnOw that I don’t have to keep choosing them. ....And that I choose people *MORE* emotionally unavailable than me so that I can choose how emotionally available I want to be at any given point and still it can be “them” that is the “problem” we’re having. So like, double damn, ya know? Because my current partner had this big anxiety issue where he couldn’t invite me over to his house. It has to do with perfectionism/anxiety/the pandemic/etc. But as we’re going along, dating for 8 months now, that seemed like a realllllyyyyyyyy good reason why I could keep myself a lil reserved. Like how poetic?! I finally decide to stop dating people that emotionally shut me out and here I am, dating someone who physically cannot let me in. But NOW, as of just 3 days ago, he pushed himself so hard and got through it and allowed me to come to and in his house. He told me this was for me, because I’m important to him, and he has hurt me enough trying to keep himself from being hurt and he was done doing that.

So fuck, right?! This is the thing that I’ve supposedly been waiting/banking on and now the hurdle is removed and now????!!!? What’s my excuse for holding myself back?

One of the things I’ve been saying to friends through this process of waiting in reserve is that we connect physically, we fit physically, he gives me the physical touch, affection, attention, and sex that I’ve been DYING for my whole dating life. Post-pandemic, post-end of a six year relationship that was majorly lacking that, post-all previous relationships having lacked that.... this connection is delicious and wonderful and satiating and it’s really not just the sex. He is ALWAYS down to hold my hand. He squeezes my cheeks and tells me I’m cute. He leans into a hug and holds it as long as I want to linger. He smacks my butt when I walk by or stick it out at him. I mean he is ALWAYS touching me pretty much and I fucking love that. I NEED that. But with this and with the waiting/keeping reserved thing I’ve found myself saying or thinking.... but that’s not enough by itself. That’s not enough for a long-term, deep connection.

But like.... first of all, that’s not entirely true when I say that because that’s not the only way that we connect. He spends 24 hours+ here a weekend and we’re not just fucking the entire time. I enjoy spending time with him. He’s sweet and kind and funny. He actually, when it’s just us, does most of the talking, which means that instead of driving the conversation I get to relax and just listen. I don’t know if I limit my sharing because I have been trying not to open up or if it just hasn’t felt pressing or if it’s because he’s autistic and generally prefers to share via infodumping rather than a conversation. Maybe it’s all three.

But second of all, what if it is enough? Especially with regards to learning to reconnect to my body? The ease he puts me at and the tension he releases in our physical connection is life-giving. I *feel* almost all the way through my body, I feel more grounded, I feel connected to something. Someone. Not just floating away in a fog, being ever so careful not to take up too much space. Also, are my definitions of “enough” coming from some longer-term measure that I don’t even necessarily subscribe to anyways? I already *know* that it’s enough for right now. I’m not just doing this because I don’t have anything better to do. I’m choosing to spend time with him because I like the way I feel when I do. I’m choosing to spend time with him because I enjoy his company. I’m choosing to spend time with him because I want to.

omg do I sound yet like I’m trying to convince myself it’s okay to love this man or what

BECAUSE HONEY WE HAVEN’T SAID ANYTHING YET

I get so damn tired of my mind going through all these circles but this is legitimately the way that it works and all the luggage it has to bring with regards to this ONE aspect of my life lol

Cuz we haven’t even gotten into how scarred and hurt I feel by being “rejected” by Tyler (I kinda mentioned above the long-term measure I don’t necessarily subscribe to anyways, that meaning the boyfriend > engaged > wedding path) or how unlovable I still deeply believe myself to be. We won’t get into that mess today but I also haven’t mentioned how there’s a WHOLE PART OF MY BRAIN SCREAMING THAT I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DATING WOMENNNNN

why is she screaming that? is that my intuition begging to be heard? is that my emotionally unavailable brain looking for excuses to not connect? is my dating another man an excuse to not find a woman to date because I know I’d be less able to resist being emotionally connected with her?

and on and on and on and on.

SO! for future me and whoever else reads this if I’ve any audience left out there!!!

hi. I hope you’re doing as well as you can be and finding joy where you can.

tw sex talk

I ummmmm both need to say this and need this blog to have some good energy but uhh

Tonight I finally met the dick of death and it WAS truuuuulyyyyyy everything I'd been looking for

Holy shit

Wow

Fucking annihilated and So Goddamn Happy About It

You know that fun moment where your panic attack triggers your asthma and the scream that bursts from your body in it busts blood vessels in your eye and tears something in your throat?

That part

That's the kind of fun Friday night I'm looking for

I have to remind myself incessantly that my lived experience is valid. I have to find both individual isolated events specific only to me and use direct comparisons of my greater experience against others. I often don't believe my own experiences to be true. I often fall into the harshness of my inner critic, telling me the only thing wrong with me is deeply rooted in my own character. If only I'd try harder. Have willpower. Get over it. Stop making things up.

Then suddenly I'd have the abilities and energy to match my peers.

It's just me holding myself back, right?

Days like the past three, while incredibly painful and draining, are also validating and healing for me in some ways. I know it's not normal to need to stop and lay down to cry because your neck and face muscles hurt so badly from squinting at the sun while out on a at-your-own-pace mileish walk. I know it's not normal to be falling asleep in the midst of strangers at a parade.

I know it's not normal to have the muscles of your wrists and fingers cramping and painful for hours, so much so that without realizing it you've bruised your wrists rubbing them in attempts for relief. I know it's not normal for hands, or ankles, or knees, or throat, or bladder muscles to suddenly give way and cause me to drop things, choke, trip and fall or almost fall, and have accidents.

In a lot of ways I have been able to build my world so that it accommodates what I can and cannot do. I surround myself with people who will actually hear me or I try to make sure I stay silent about it. Some days I can forget. Some days my body feels healthy and capable. Most days my baseline is fatigue with always present but how-far-beyond-tolerable-is-it-today pain. It feels extremely distressing in times like now when I again find myself between jobs. I struggle physically to keep them for enough time to rebuild financially. The durations I can work seem to be shorter and shorter and what I can afford to do both physically and financially draws smaller and smaller. I continue to remain too poor to not work and too unwell to stay working.

I hurt. And today I fell trying to work when I knew I needed to rest.

So now I rest.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CdWydMmFYzCvsqKT8pgca7cXh_CXeEQJ1BlO6A0/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

last night I left work and crashed hard into my body and my brain. i went to get taco bell and called tyler and it all started pouring out before I could even ask him if it was okay to unload. i cried, a lot, and discussed how I felt trapped in this struggle that looks so never-ending. I couldn’t eat the taco bell i had just got and i was too upset to drive home, so I was just in Carmel, 45 minutes away from home still, sobbing to my ex-fiance in the Taco Bell parking lot. i saw a movie theatre while in this and looked up showtimes because i thought that would be a good distraction/alternative to going home and being alone for hours when I was feeling this upset and on the edge. I made it to Dune just in time and had a popcorn, sugar-free soda, and my TB quesadilla, which I ate mindlessly. I’ve been really wanting to go to the theatre and to see Dune specifically for weeks now, but I watched the majority of it while running the same thought of killing myself over and over and over instead. I burst into silent tears at some point and then was able to reach numbed status by using my fingernail to scratch a gash into my face. I kind of got to enjoy the last bit of the movie once I’d been able to release enough..... but now I have a fucking gash on my face and my eyelids are swollen puffy as hell.

anyway. self-harm is a coping tool. maybe not the best of them but i guess it did the damn job because i’m still here today. yeehaw

in other news, i’m considering buying my grandma’s pink house in my tiny ass hometown and starting a home daycare/school there. i started the loan application last night. i get wild dreams like this and chase them a little ways but usually don’t follow them through. is this one i can/should follow through? i wish i could talk to my mom about it but she’s the fucking worst so i just don’t want to. i’d rather go talk to my aunt and my uncle about it, seeing as my uncle has been looking after the house and my aunt has a home daycare..................... but i don’t know that i have time before my trip and this feels like it’s hella time sensitive. is it?? probably not. am i trying to rush it so that i give it up and stay trapped and miserable??

so.

I didn’t wake up for work today.

Again.

This is the.... mmm.... fourth or fifth time in the last 2.5 years.

What’s crazy is when you see those two numbers compared to each other it should be like... not a big deal. Right? I made it to work without incident over 200 times each year and didn’t twosih times each year. Why is it a fire-able offense but not one that qualifies someone for assistance? A couple of times a year my body misfires and I sleep through everything, like the dead, until someone calls and wakes me up more than an hour into my being missing. The many problems with this include:

- the no tolerance way with which our workplace culture treats “no call no shows” (even if I still come in that day, this has been treated this way)

- the way that new medicines are given to me by my doctors without any detail of how it might affect my body (at least 3 of the times I have not woken up for work were due to a prescribed muscle relaxer, which does considerably help my pain, but I obviously can’t take because of the above)

- the fact that “oversleeping” 2-4 times a year / having chronic debilitating insomnia / cPTSD / chronic fatigue / literally allllllllllllll of my available energy going to being able to work enough to sustain myself financially, barely, and any extra energy I might need has to be drawn from energy drinks (which further disrupt my sleep) and days in the future (resulting in oversleeping, see: this morning) ....... doesn’t count as being disabled

- I am the only employee in my line of work. If I don’t show up, the family I work for has to scramble to rearrange whole days. I mean, this is generally true for all people with childcare, there’s often an unexpected wrench thrown into the day at the top of the morning, but being as it’s my full-time job to do this and I’m the only commuter, there is moreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee likelihood that all possible errors relating in the morning chaos fall on me. Because I overslept, because I left late, because I ran into traffic, etc. They wake up and work at home. There’s like.... no possibility for error on their end.

- The people that I work for genuinely care for my well-being because I am part of their household and helping to raise their child and are very understandably disturbed/upset/scared/triggered whenever I am missing, which adds to the emotional height of the situation

- I literally cannot afford to live closer to eliminate some of these rooms for error on the amount I am paid and with the cost of my healthcare due to my being overtaxed to work full time to be able to live where I live

- & etc

My shadow self is a deeeeeeply self-sabotaging brutal bitch. Literally today is my employer’s birthday, a person to whom I am very similar and am beginning to grow very close to, her birthday being a day where she has significant trauma from her mother killing herself on said day (which was also her wedding day to her current husband!!! Yes, her mother killed herself On My Employer’s Wedding Day) and my brain said oh you’re getting close to this person? Who might be huge and wonderful to be close to? Watch this.

I spent hourssssss yesterday and last night prepping to bring her things that I hoped would make her day. I brought in cupcakes, party hats, a balloon..... after arriving 2.25 hours late. All my preparations are sad apologies instead of hopefully uplifting celebrations. But honestly that.............. is not the worst of it. My fucking phone (because I have to have a super cheap provider plan to afford my fucking life) often disconnects from the server and is unable to make or receive calls. So when she tried to call me this morning after I hadn’t shown up, it went straight to voicemail. Multiple times. Which I’m sure triggered the FUCK out of her. I can only imagine her making similar calls on her wedding day / birthday trying to find her mom. Like WHAT THE FUCK @me?! I don’t NEED more reasons to hate myself. I have this well and truly covered. But this self-hating BITCH loves to dig in and find the ways that would hurt people I love most and sink in her claws. I realized this morning that this is very much the same thing I did a few weeks ago to my best friend by sleeping with her friend/crush.

And the me that I exist as daily has no fucking clue that this shit is about to happen. When her call finally went through this morning and she asked if she was okay, I didn’t even know where the fuck I was or if I *was* okay. My whole getting ready routine and drive to work my body felt like a limp fucking noodle and I feel like I’m crouching at the very top of my skull, barely looking through my eyes, trying like hell to get OUT. I felt this Monday and last Wednesday deeply when at yoga. It’s like a fucking bird trapped in a window, just bashing into it over and over again. There is no part of me left that wants to be in this body, to be here.

I feel so guilty and so sad and so worthless and ashamed..... but there’s nowhere for me to go that won’t deeply hurt the people I care about, and despite my recent actions, that is the thing that I want least in the whole fucking world.

I’m stuck. I can’t afford therapy while I’m spending so much money on the chiropractor. I can’t maintain my job or try to attend to my body if I can’t go to the chiropractor. I can’t take my muscle relaxers that help significantly because I can’t make it to work if I do. I can’t take a big chunk of time off to try to test and find the right combo of meds that work for me and not have to worry about detrimental side effects because I can’t afford to not work. I can’t get on disability because I have shown that I can work and because I can’t not work while I wait for the paperwork to go through. I can’t have any of the things that make life reasonably worthwhile to me, like social or hobby time outside of work, because I’m only borrowing energy from my future work if I do, which puts my financial security as risk and my general health and well-being at risk. But if I don’t have those things I can’t function because my mental health quickly deteriorates and I can’t get out of the fucking bed to even try to take care of myself.

I can’t win. Actually, I can’t even maintain. I gave up trying to win a long time ago.

anarchopuppy

Solidarity with children is often neglected or even made a joke of, so I wanna take a second and tell y'all what I wish I could go back in time and tell myself:

You're right. School is bullshit, homework is bullshit, waking up early is bullshit, going to bed early is bullshit. Some adults are just pointlessly cruel, even those in positions of authority over you. Sometimes adults are wrong, and, in fact, sometimes you are right

You were born with an innate sense of justice and fairness and adults have spent your entire life trying to beat it out of you so you'll shut up and do what you're told in an unjust and unfair society. Don't let them. Many of us have to take effort to relearn the wisdom you have right now, the ability to tell when something is bullshit even if you can't articulate why yet

You deserve happiness, fulfillment, and liberation just as much as any adult. Those first 18 years are just as important as any other time in your life, and it's time you'll never get back. Don't let anyone take them from you just because you're too young to fight back

Question everything, and never take "that's just the way it is" as an answer. Sometimes when things don't make sense to you it's because they just don't make any goddamn sense

Pick your battles, and be strategic. Don't take this post as permission to go starting fights for no reason. But remember that you have worth, and our society tends to not respect that. And you're right: that is bullshit

(also, read Anarchy Works)

“we are triggered not by their behavior but by our own unresolved emotional issues” The Awakened Family by Shefali Tsabary PhD

What is unresolved here? This is the question I am going to attempt to ask myself when I find myself in emotionally fraught situations as I currently am.

Today I received a message from my friend letting me know that she’s had enough space and isn’t brooding over it but needs to wait til the weekend to talk because she’s busy. She said she knows how she feels and feels confident in her ability to articulate it and work to resolve with me. Honestly this message made me so angry this morning....

What is unresolved here for me?

I’m just gonna start typing and see if my thoughts lead me somewhere towards an answer for this question.

I don’t feel like I did anything wrong. I’m searching constantly through my actions, especially in times like this, of conflict, and am very aware of how different perceptions can lead to different feelings about the same events. I’ve examined this from as many sides as I’m able to and I still can’t find fault.

My perfectionistic parts screammmmmm against any error because so many errors have cost me so deeply (thanks to knowing toxic people who aren’t capable of allowing humans to human in their presence). I have worked so hard through my life to make myself available to being accountable, to be aware that even despite my best efforts and intentions, I still will cause harm to others, and so often the hurt I feel in moments like this are because people withhold from me how I have hurt them and don’t allow me to recover or attempt to find resolution. This withholding of how they feel about me, especially if we have continued to interact, always seems to come up later. I can’t fucking STAND people hiding and harboring evidence against me. It makes me question all of our interactions between then and now. It makes me doubt my reality and/or the trustworthiness of my own thoughts and feelings. It makes me reevaluate all my relationships. Do they all hold secret weapons ready to throw at me in case they want out? Should I be apologizing more and attempting to mend things even if I’m not sure that anything has happened?

It’s the *time* that hurts. It’s the withholding.

This morning I also teared up when talking myself through receiving this message because the abandoned part of me can’t believe that she would let our last interaction be what it was.... a silent car ride followed by a decline of a goodbye hug and a request for space. All which I totally understand and respect, especially separately, especially if it is someone I see often, especially if I know I’ve deeply fucked up. But I just can’t see how this scenario is me deeply fucking up enough that without knowing when we’ll see each other next, without knowing what may happen to one of us in that time, especially knowing how she abruptly lost her brother while she was away....... That this could be a final moment she would allow. For this event. I could never.

The worst thing for me in these scenarios, now that I’m emotionally matured more and can allow them to happen, is that I know as the person who fucked up that I’m also the person who really shouldn’t be doing anything other than apologizing and attempting to reach a resolution with the person. There’s not space for my feelings about the situation, or the time that passes between it and the resolution, or how we move forward after...... I can.... well. I was gonna say I try to absorb all that but usually it sends me into a spiral about how the person doesn’t see me and couldn’t have reached this point of feeling hurt by me without not seeing me because I work so goddamn hard not to hurt anyone and if they know me they know that?

A final point. She has ZERO details of the event that so upset her. She asked me when he left, I said the time and made a face like ooh I got things to tell you. She said “Oh no did you guys kiss?” with a cringing face and was leaving the table as I said “we’ll talk later.” I asked about her expression and she said “we’ll talk later.” The later being the car ride to the airport, which was silent, except for when I brought up the conversation saying “alright, what was that face about?” and she said she didn’t want to talk, asked if we hooked up, and I said yes.

That was it. That was enough to send her into this.

Bleh. I can’t think straight. I’m sure I’ll be crying at yoga tonight!

“accept the inevitability of conflict and use the insights that emerge to awaken [yourself] to the growth that still needs to take place” -- The Awakened Family by Shefali Tsabary, PhD

I just read this in the book I’m reading at work. It feels apt for my situation but I feel too disconnected to currently apply it. I’ll keep it here for later.

tw suicide/suicidal ideation

While last night I was googling the medicines and vitamins I have in my house to find out what “could work” and today on my way to work I was both inviting someone to hit and kill me and going through my list of protective factors and deciding if my people could make it through the loss of me, whether on purpose or by an accident, now this afternoon I read this and feel a little shifted. I can see my growth from previous times I’ve been in similar situations. Before now the idea of having to wait for information about how someone feels about me would [well, is] be extremely distressing. Often in these situations I have spiraled and spun out so hard that I start out begging for them to stay near me and tell me and understand me and end up shutting them down, out, and off for good. I have already grieved the loss of multiple close friendships from times like these, where it was more about how they left me with no information to stew and were not able to understand the hugeness of my reaction to that trigger. I know this about myself. I know that I spiral, that I flip hard from anxious to avoidant attachment, I have seen from deeply depersonalized space myself butcher a friend and friendship to try to escape the trapped feeling I have when someone leaves me hanging without a word.

I told you, abandonment issues.

I’m also struggling because AGAIN this was a sexual scenario that set people to being upset with me and AGAIN this sexual scenario was ass. Like, could the sex at least be worth it? Not filled with weird shit that also has my brain tied up in knots about whether or not I’m a good person, whether or not I’m even attractive to anyone, whether or not I am a fucking person who takes advantage of people for my own gain or do I just feel that way because I’m not mopping the floor with myself first and am asking for and taking what I want when it’s given to me?

But honestly, I’d rather not have sex with anyone ever again if it could guarantee me less friction in my relationships. I’m only here because of them. When I lose one of them I lose a string that attaches me to giving a shit about being alive.

So anyways. I did take a muscle relaxer last night and did get in bed by 8p which is unheard of for me. I read until 11 and then went to sleep. I did end up eating something for dinner even though I didn’t want to. I’ve had stress belly since Sunday and depression failing to eat through the weekend already before that. I’ve lost 7 pounds in a week.

I’m crashing and burning so hard, y’all. This week yawnssssssss on. Not that I want this conversation because I’m sure it will be awful, but at least I’ll have some information on what the fuck I did and whether or not I’ve irrevocably lost my friend....

a ramble

I’m going to try to start posting on here again more now that I have regular access to a computer. It’s always (well, almost always) been a safe place to vent things I need to let out (without necessarily letting them out into my in-person social circle) and a good place for reflection.

I started this tumblr when I was like 20 or 21 years old. I’m almost 31 years old now. I know that I have grown and learned a lot in those ten years but sometimes, like yesterday and today, I’m knocked utterly on my ass by my childishness. I know all adults are underdeveloped in certain areas and I know for sure some of mine--- they’re the ones that send me into a shame spiral or a very reactionary fearful place where I am pure emotion.

Yesterday I found out I unexpectedly [?] a friend. I don’t know what verb to use there because she has been so [?] that she isn’t able to talk to me. Like at all. From the minute she found out, she’s not been willing to look me in the eye. We spent 45 minutes driving to the airport in utter silence. When I dropped her off she said she didn’t want to hug, she did love me, but she needed some space. Now she’s telling me that she will talk to me this weekend, meaning I have a whole week to stew, to spiral, to try my best not to make up my own stories of how she’s feeling and what she thinks of me.

This is my best friend, y’all. My deepest connection, with whom I am able to be vulnerably human. I understand that I have the ability to hurt people and to fuck up and know that at times it will happen. But one of my underlying values is to be *good*, *good* in the way that it crushes me to accept this reality and that I’d rather lay down and die that hurt anyone. I believe she knows this. Which makes it even harder for me to understand how what I did was so hurtful to her that she can’t talk to me about it, that she needs over a week to figure out how she feels about it, that she wouldn’t hug me goodbye when we don’t know when we will see each other next. I want to own up to my part in her [?] but I can’t even begin to understand what my part in it is or if even I have any part in it at all. Is it all her feelings that she has to deal with that don’t actually have anything to do with me? Or is it that I’ve seriously fucked up and crossed a line I didn’t know about and it has deeply wounded her? Is it possible it’s somehow both?

For context if there’s anyone reading, I hooked up with someone we mutually know, who is her friend and my acquaintance. She and I have discussed how we both think he’s attractive. The night of seeing him, we both said how we wouldn’t “cross that line” (her words) because for her he’s a friend, like a brother. For me I said it was because he was too small.

She knows I’m desperately lonely and trying on all fronts to hookup with people. Ending a six year relationship six months before the pandemic started has not been kind to my love life and I’ve finally just gotten tired of waiting for the pandemic to be over. She knows this. We talk almost every week and I have shared all this with her. She left him at my house at 3 am after we all had been out drinking. And somehow it didn’t occur to her until I told her (because I obviously didn’t know I was sharing information that would be [?] to her, I thought I was going to get to dish) that it was even a possibility that we would hookup. And I don’t know if I should be offended by that because I don’t know where she’s coming from or where she’s going or what she’s thinking and I think my plan this week is to be heavily dissociated, high, or asleep so that I can avoid getting myself into a shame spiral when I don’t have any real information with which to start one.

This also doesn’t take into account my deep, deep fears of abandonment and how they’re tied to my perfectionism. I’m so afraid to fuck up at anything because I’m so afraid it will give people a reason to leave and in my self-hating brain, it’s entirely justified if they do and miraculous that I was able to fool them this long into staying. I believe myself to be an utter fuckup, especially when I’m low, which drives me to attempt to never make mistakes or be human for fear they’ll find out the *true* me. If the person I feel most deeply human with is unable to be close to me anymore because of a human thing I did, having sex without thinking of greater consequences, I honestly don’t know how I would be able to recover. I know I’m predicting but I’m predicting a huge spike in perfectionism behaviors or a major withdrawal from my social circles.

so. is it bad if I take my muscle relaxer every night as soon as I get home so that I fall asleep within an hour and am asleep til I need to be back up for work? It’s prescribed for me to take nightly, I just don’t because it knocks me out for 12 hours and I’ve missed work 3 times because I can’t wake up to alarms on it.

I’m definitely going to tonight. I can’t stand being in my own skin right now.

soitwent

Signs:

Cancelling social plans with regularity Getting high and/or drunk often to avoid thoughts & feelings Over-eating / only interested in a few foods / no appetite Feeling exhausted constantly Wanting to listen to sad music Avoiding doing things I enjoy despite having access to them Avoiding going home despite having cancelled plans to be home Being dissociated AF

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Increased compulsive skin picking

Nightmares that wake me up

Signs:

soitwent

I haven't been back for Christmas for three years. That may not seem like a lot, but I used to think my family's Christmas was magical... That is until I went to Tyler's family Christmas and found that not every family has an undercurrent of stress, fear, and discord at their holiday celebrations.

And now that I'm back, I know already this will be my last for some time.

2020 will start what I'm calling Tripmas-- a road trip to wherever I feel like it instead of the exchange of material goods and angry words.

soitwent

2020 did not start Tripmas, but 2021 is in the worksssssss

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