#no rebogs please

[clatterbane]

I've spent all day--and most of yesterday--stressed enough for it to set off some seriously paralyzing inertia. Basically stuck in some weirdass shutdown mode, AFAICT.

Right as we're in the final stages of trying to get cleared out of Temporary Apartment, and into the new place. 🙃 Because of course it would be.

Mr. C is wanting to aim for everybody sleeping at the new place starting tomorrow/technically today, even though we'll have to come back here to get the last of the stuff.

Hasn't helped that I managed to temporarily mess up my back the other day, too--on top of the "existing stress + disrupted sleep -> worse barely medicated nerve pain -> more of the freaking same" escalation cycle.

So yeah, that's been... interesting.

I know very well that stressing out even more over the whole situation is only going to overload my autistic ass worse, but jfc. This bullshit may be not be entirely unexpected, but that only leaves me more frustrated.

I've already been feeling pretty terrible about his needing to take up a bunch of slack with physically hauling stuff around, and setting things up at the new place. With nobody in possession of a driver's license now.

(And me feeling like that's barely my place at all and I have basically no control over ANYTHING, at this point. Still only ever been there the one time, for that rushed overloaded showing. Seriously.)

So, now this to make everything better. 🙄

[Note: Just venting more or less into the void while I can wrap some words around it. Not really looking for sympathy or suggestions.]

[clatterbane]

Progress!

Now, only that tote bag to go. Plus, the temporary charging station to (most likely) shift over to the extra counter space table once that's set up.

...And a few collapsed boxes/other packaging recyclables to haul out of the kitchen.

I am now totally exhausted, and just about to stick this phone on charge while I go to flop down and stretch my back out for a while.

Posting the running updates partly to remind myself that, although the amount of stuff that still needs done is overwhelming as hell? And it feels like I'm just buzzing around as usual while not getting much of a dent made in it? This has actually been a pretty productive day so far.

And, as reminded again by a recent reblog? I also can't help but feel extra excited at the opportunity to finally set up more of my living environment the way I want to, so that it hopefully fits my needs better! 😃

And not just with wheelchair (and sensory) accessibility in mind--though I have been pleased at everybody here treating that aspect as high priority. (And it is mutual, wrt the sensory stuff and general ease of use.)

This is actually the first time I've lived in a place that felt more like my own in some important ways, tbqh. Or at least the only time since my too-brief stint of living on campus with a roommate I actually got along with, before completely crashing and burning out of college. And I'm in my 40s now.

I moved straight from a pretty well constantly chaotic and emotionally abusive household with my parents (one of whom hoards)--to moving into a house Mr. C had already been living in for a couple of years. Which was already mostly set up, and it was too easy to basically feel in some ways uncomfortably like (a much more respectful/less open conflict-filled version of!) living with my family again.

Then, of course, that living situation got complicated in some other ways which I vented about here more than enough at the time, as I kept barreling toward that rather spectacular health crash.

Glad to get what feels like a reset now, in a number of ways.

[clatterbane]

With some of my automatic learned reactions disturbing me in some other ways?

This is another area where I really don't like feeling like I am turning into my mama. 😰

She lived for too many years with poorly managed, undertreated, frequently dismissed chronic pain from causes that were largely treatable if anybody had been motivated to properly investigate.

Including some well documented herniated discs (but she refused surgery that she suspected might do more harm than good! 🙄)--and eventually the metastatic bone cancer that killed her at 60.

While uninsured at that point, because longterm disabled, not helping with the levels and quality of medical care she was even able to access.

(And repeatedly rejected for any Social Security or medical benefits, including after the terminal cancer dx with hospital social workers helping get it through.)

A couple of massive clusterfucks which I am not even going to get started into now.

But, also? All of this happened before the bullshit War on Pain Patients moral panic really took off in the US. But, she was an often poor, disabled visibly non-white woman with multiple conditions causing chronic pain.

Anyway, she learned the hard way over the years that she really needed to hoard back any supply of pain meds she was prescribed for anything--knowing that she WOULD be needing it more at some point. And could never be sure of access to much-needed treatment whenever she was in levels of pain that even she just could not tolerate anymore.

(And yeah, we would share it all around within the household, as required to get by. My very white--if also disabled--engineer stepdad unsurprisingly had the most luck with getting appropriate treatment. Call the fucking feds, if you really must. 😒)

That pattern was ingrained to the point that the hospice nurses got exasperated dealing with her. Because even when (thankfully) receiving hospice care, with a steadier supply of medication? She would avoid taking it, in case she Really Needed It Later.

When she was in horrible baseline pain, there was not much Later to worry about (!)--and allowing the pain to build up made it so much harder to manage even when she would eventually relent and take the damned meds.

And I don't know that the professionals ever really got why. Or would let themselves understand.

Watching and trying to deal with that whole situation was another thing that broke my heart--and stacked up onto my own trauma. There was so much there, but that was definitely part.

I mean, I suspect that the Family OCD really didn't help there. She also developed a bit of a food hoarding problem, out of some other very real insecurity. Her mind really seemed to run in that direction, to the point of creating additional problems. Both for herself, and for people close to her. 😬

But, those reactions were totally triggered in the first place by VERY REAL CONCERNS around experiences of systemically created scarcity. Much like the Family OCD getting channeled into EDs for way too many of us? There were VERY REAL external factors helping direct her own Personal Crazy into those specific directions.

I really do not want to run off down more of those same roads, especially after seeing how some of them impacted her life and wellbeing. And eventual premature death.

And I cannot help but get concerned about that possibility sometimes. Being aware that my own Personal Crazy might have some tendencies that way that I really need to watch out for, is probably better than not. 😑

So many things like that, honestly, and not only with my mom as an example. But, this particular pattern has been too relevant again.

[clatterbane]

Hallelujah, I just drank a cup of water! 💧

And then a cup of vanilla protein milk. Next up: an Ensure-type drink, and we'll see from there! 😅

Yeah, my throat managed to block itself totally up for over 48 hours this time. In the summer.

I ended up resorting to some unpleasant means of staying less-dehydrated and get at least some regular meds in--to buy some time and hopefully stay out of the ER in a new country where I barely speak the language yet. Was feeling weak enough that I was about to cave if things hadn't improved by tomorrow evening, but it seems the gamble paid off this time. *fingers crossed*

Today Mr. C did get in touch with the nearest health clinic, to find out about trying to get me into the system with a temporary number. We'll probably need to go there and do that either tomorrow or the next day.

(I just couldn't this afternoon, and suspect I may need at least most of tomorrow for recuperation--even with how important that is. 😬 Shit got pretty scary, tbh.)

Anyway, I'm relieved. And currently giving what I already drank a little while to settle! Feeling a little overloaded right now, but I couldn't not guzzle as much fluids/nutrition as I thought I could get away with ASAP. 😑

[clatterbane]

Tbf, I have run into very similar issues with pretty much every part of the NHS that I've dealt with over the years. Very much including their fucking around with and/or just not notifying you of appointments, then using it as an excuse to kick you off that service and any connected waiting lists.

(Then of course there's all the official harping about no-shows and assorted "time wasters" stealing all their precious resources away from The Deserving. 😑)

I have absolutely no doubt that ALL the rationing by obstacle course is amplified, when it comes to mucky services that disturbingly large portions of the fuckers in charge don't even want to be providing at all, such as trans healthcare.

But, it's a huge baseline problem, across the board--which unsurprisingly hits various marginalized people particularly hard. And I agree that only part of this is down to underfunding/understaffing and longer term deliberate political sabotage involved there.

How to even try to start addressing this huge mass of garbage is another question. And at this point I am pretty short on ideas, without some total systemic reset.

ETA: Which might well create more problems than it solves. And people are suffering and dying more than enough already.

[clatterbane]

Reminded with all those tempting prizes from this particular autoimmune lottery?

It's been even more obvious since this got rediagnosed, that my problems with needles were evidently always very different from a lot of other people's.

Healthcare professionals have kept wanting to make sure that I don't have any continuing trouble with sticking myself, which is certainly understandable dealing with someone relatively new to insulin treatment. Where I keep just going wtf, though, is the usual followup question: "So, you can do your own glucose testing and give yourself insulin, then? You don't need someone else to do it for you?"

I mean, I don't exactly enjoy needing to repeatedly poke myself with sharp objects. But, at least I know what's coming? What I DO continue to have problems with is other people treating me like a pincushion.

Nobody is reasonably going to show a toddler how to self-administer a shot properly, and hand them the syringe. But, I likely wouldn't ever have developed the same fear of needles in medical settings if anyone had taken closer to that approach when I was a lkid--rather than just keeping wrestling my little autistic ass down! (Which is highly unlikely to lead to fewer future meltdowns in similar situations. 😑)

In short, in my specific case? I don't know that it was ever about the needles themselves.

I did get pretty traumatically burned out on the overt panic responses to people coming at me wielding medical sharps after a major surgery when I was still in high school. Hell at the time, but it's served me unfortunately well since then.

But yeah, I still find myself amazed at the idea that apparently a lot of other people do actually panic less when somebody else is controlling said sharps.

I know we're (usually) talking about actual phobias here, and everyone is different. It's still hard for me to imagine that making the experience less alarming.

Extra glad my pancreas didn't crap out until after I was a grown-ass adult, in some ways. 😰

[clatterbane]

The (excellent as usual!) most recent video from Esoterica rather forcefully reminded me of one old special interest.

Which I've mostly been remembering as another case of "yep, I really was one weird kid"--but now, as an adult more than old enough to have been Elementary School Me's parent? That really struck me as a "yikes!" in some very different ways.

You see, I first encountered and read through the Malleus Maleficarum (in translation) when I was 9 or 10. That was...one pretty wild ride for a kid. Even a hyperlexic one with some unusual interests and ready access to the local university library. I grew up reading a lot of variously "unsuitable" stuff, and that one made an impression.

Still? At that point in my life, I was desperate enough for any semblance of control over So Many Things about it, that I found myself totally willing to entertain the idea of making literal deals with any devil(s) that might exist, if that might help my day to day life look better. Even over the shorter term, with plenty of potential for consequences to follow--those risks looked worth chancing, if I absolutely had to.

I mean, maybe especially having been raised in a very secular household, without much more than ambient exposure to organized religion period? I was inclined to be pretty skeptical that any of this was A Thing at all. But, I still felt compelled to seriously explore and pursue the possibility. As a 9-10 year old kid.

In retrospect? Not much of the cringe factor in that entire situation was on me. And it's honestly kind of overwhelming to think about now.

[clatterbane]

Actually, my mom's own Actual Boomer, VERY Second Wave take on polyamory:

"Nobody could ever truly be OK with an open relationship! If you say you are, you're lying. Most likely, including to yourself--but inevitably to please your partner, at your own steep expense!

There is ALWAYS lying and cheating involved, by definition. Even if everyone thinks they are being open and communicating clearly about their needs, wants, and expectations. See above!!!

It is Deeply Unhealthy. Always. By Definition. And all these poor women going around telling themselves they're cool with the daily betrayal and abuse! ☹ It's just SICK."

Yeah, more than a few resemblances to the agency robbing, concern trolling rhetoric around being anything but L or G. Or thinking you are, because Profound Mental Illness. Probably on the personal level, but ultimately implanted by Society.

This shit was particularly fun to keep hearing about, growing up as a queer genderweird poly-inclined (and Diagnosed Mentally Ill once I hit my teens!) person whose friends and associates tended toward similar.

I just eventually gave up trying to counter any of the shit she kept talking about anybody perceived as being...like me in some ways she obviously considered very important. And REALLY did not want to look at or acknowledge.

A lot of this crap tends to get presented now as strictly characteristic of the more aggressively toxic versions of radfem ideology. But, I think that's mainly because that's the most loudly visible face of Zombie Bad '60s-'70s Politics that people are still running with these days.

AFAICT? That's actually one of the more common damaging places that Second Wave ideology can take people. Just in general.

ETA: And no wonder some of the folks raised by people taking this sort of line have run off into some of the failure modes that they have, over the years. Not always exempting myself here, no.