Adulting is Hard etc

Spoiler

I know being publicly self-deprecating is manipulative but sometimes I'm not sure if it's better to keep it in? Would saying it here be worse than bottling it up?? I don't know

I did something stupid and told three people it was someone else's fault because I didn't remember how I could be responsible for it but it turns out I WAS and I'd been blaming that person for no reason and that was wrong. It was wrong and spiteful to jump to conclusions. Also I could have killed someone from negligence. This isn't the first time my spaciness has been literally dangerous and now I'm terrified.

also coming off a convo with my mom where she said my little sister lost her job and they found out bc her boss called my dad after she just didn't show for two days. So she's struggling still and 3 states away and I'm worried abt her but she won't talk to people easily and my mom after telling me this went off all

"She has that problem that SOME PEOPLE in our family has (hint: she means me) where she doesn't tell anyone she's made a mistake because she's too ashamed. You shouldn't be ashamed. Everyone makes mistakes. Even your parents. But we have to own up to them."

First of all fuck you mom you have never once apologized or owned up to making a mistake in your fucking life. Second my sis may also have untreated adhd and she was going to get tested but she missed the test by accident because her phone alarm didn't work for whatever reason and my mom can't stop talking about how ungrateful she is for not getting there and "wasting" the money she was sent

The deja vu is intense

Like yes it sucks that she missed the appointment but I've missed so many appointments and IT TURNS OUT ITS FUCKING SYMPTOMATIC where do you think your children learned to be ashamed of mistakes, you fucking asshole, it's because YOU SHAMED THEM AND TOLD THEM THEY WERE UNGRATEFUL for ~everything you did for them~ when they were struggling


So yes I'm angry at my mom on my sis's behalf but I'm also trying not to spiral into panic and self-loathing right now

I really really want to just scream at myself.

I shouldn't

 

Spoiler

I hate being so emotionally fragile, I hate not knowing why I'm so upset about stupid small things, I hate knowing most of the time I DO get upset it's because my hormones are out of whack because of my stupid reproductive system that I never asked for and want to get rid of, if this stupid fucking breakdown is because of pms I'm just.

Why do my emotions always explode about the DUMBEST SHIT, why can't I control them

Why is this body so fucking useless, being hysterical every month is setting feminism back 500 years

The only way I can stop feeling constantly ashamed is to be angry and I hate being angry, it only ends up hurting people. I'd rather just be ashamed all the time and keep it to myself.

 

Spoiler

there's something else I want to vent about but I'm (surprise) too ashamed. Especially because it's so small compared to other bullshit. But it's been bugging me. But I'd just be asking for pity by saying it and I hate the idea of people playing along just so they won't upset me anyway.

I just.

/yells into the void

 

Spoiler: yelling

WHY IS THE PRIMARY EMOTION IN MY LIFE SHAME AND EMBARRASSMENT

HOW DO I FUCKING MAKE IT STOP

AT THE SAME TIME I DON'T WANT IT TO STOP BECAUSE I WORRY ITS THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME FROM BEING A CALLOUS JERK

 

Now I'm just exhausted.

Here's hoping sleep will help in general.

 

Yesterday I just moped around and played my video game all day. I guess it helped.

Today is better. Woke up kind of groggy but took meds. Showered. Put in laundry. Made real food. Did my dishes backlog. Got a decent paycheck to make up for working 6 days last week. (probably why I was so burnt out.)

I texted my sister to let her know I'm always willing to talk and I won't judge her. I hope she's ok.


things still on the list:

-2nd load of laundry.

-email professor about several things
-finishing touches on final project since it's going on display next month (that just kinda hit me, holy shit)

-leave for work early so i can pick up box of old cosplay costumes and bring them to my coworker (she's donating them to her larp group. I've been too unorganized to try to sell them so I'm glad they'll be getting use.)


less time sensitive:

-possibly approach roommates about doing a full clean of the apartment and then agreeing to not wear shoes inside anymore. (long story short, I grew up taking my shoes off indoors but the floors here are so dirty that i had to buy a pair of indoor shoes and take them off in my room. Roommate 1 always complains about having to clean the kitchen floor and how fast it gets dirty. There IS A SOLUTION TO THIS but the 3 of us have to agree to stick to it. I would love to not have to wear shoes inside.)

-finally vacuum my rug

-do cleaning cycles of my poor pan to see if i can salvage it. (still mortified)

-the dreaded taxes

-maybe figure out a way to track my period. I used to try to mark a calendar but always forgot. I suspect I can look thru this thread and get a fairly accurate picture of the last few months, though, because I always complain about it...I heard there are apps but my phone is basically full on memory so I'd have to purge it a bit and that's another task.

-bring up to therapist my concern about my inattentiveness being dangerous. Discussed the mess from a couple days ago w partner and they said when I visited that I left the stove on more often than I realized but they usually turned it off without saying anything to me. that coupled with some incidents in the past where I spaced out while driving...I don't know if this is something meds will help with. My pan got ruined when I was in a hurry to leave for a trip so I was already distracted. But I kind of want to be sure I won't accidentally burn down the entire apartment building because...that's serious.

 

I have come to realise that the adult thing to do is to realise that you need days like this too, and not guilttrip yourself for them :) Sometimes when my coworkers ask me if I have any weekend plans, I'll just say: 'I do, I'm doing nothing this weekend! Isn't it glorious?'

 

Yeahhh, basically. Coupled w the fact that I'm not really into the social scene (don't like crowds or drinking) hanging out w people in an mmo is plenty of socializing for me.

Today may have to be another of those days. Not feeling well. Also I keep staying up late forgetting I have therapy in the morning. I think I should set an alarm for the night before because this is the third time that it's happened. (Brain goes "YAY, FRIDAY OFF! TIME TO PARTY!" And then my alarm wakes me up after only 5 hours sleep and I'm full of regret)

 

It's been a really strange week.

Thurs night I had a fight with my parents. Predictable. I didn't post about it right away because I wanted to think about it for a while and run things by therapist.

Basically, they took a really long roundabout route to say that they wanted to slowly withdraw financial support from me. First my mom phrased it as "wanting to be less involved in [your] financial situation." So I asked if I should get my own bank account. (My current one is a sub account of theirs. I've been thinking about getting my own for a while anyway, I just worry about fees.) My mom said no, "we'd still need to send you money." That was weird by itself.

She went on to say "how far" I'd come after, well, flunking out of school and getting fired from my last job. Ok. Great. I got a 2 year degree in 3.5 years. I have a part time job. While I was in school they used my college fund to pay my rent as per the agreement that I get good grades. A few months ago I was told there's enough left in the account to last me a year's rent. I figured that was enough time to sort out my life. Started getting proper medical/mental health care.

Apparently that's not good enough, because they want to start giving me less and less from the account and therefore I need to get a better job. This was stated in the vaguest and most condescending way possible, with a lot of "we want you to do something you love"s and "just in case you want to go back to school someday". For what?? If I go back to school it sure as hell won't be anytime soon, and a years worth of rent money covers shit all with the current state of the US education system. There's a good reason I did a two year program and that reason is half my friends are drowning in student loan debt.

I feel weird talking about this because I keep flipping back to "I should be grateful they give me money to live on at all" but then I keep remembering that they snoop on my spending and then comment snidely on it (another reason I need my own bank account)

My mom views takeout food as a "luxury" and loves going on about how if they didn't support me I couldn't "go out with my friends so much" nvm that it's usually me buying lunch at work so I don't fucking faint because my executive dysfunction prevents me from preparing food ahead of time most days.

Also I'm stuck in this apartment for another year because I moved in...april?? Because of that roommate bullshit and I was dealing with finishing school and med fuckery when my landlord started pestering me for an answer on whether I was staying or not, so I said yes because I couldn't fathom moving twice in the same 6 months, let alone going thru the process of finding another place and having a stream of people coming to see my room. (And then finding people to actually help move my stuff because my parents said they'd only help me move twice and then I was on my own. Nvm that I literally got kicked out of my last place BECAUSE I WANTED TO STAY and my roommate found that inconvenient. Also that only my dad helped that time so technically my mom owes me but I'm sure as hell not going to cash in on that or argue it because I want to be around her as little as possible.)

All of that means I'm still paying a years worth of astronomically high city rent for a tiny-ass room for the sake of stability. Which is fine, except there's no fucking way I could afford it on my own unless I suddenly started making like $20 an hour.

My current job has no full time positions and anyway just working part time mentally and spiritually exhausts me because of customer interaction and corporate bullshit. My coworkers are great and that's about it. I did talk to therapist about working towards a job search because I would LOVE to be financially independent.

I pay for my own food, my mmo sub (which is like $40 every three months, less than my internet bill and way less than my original "entertainment budget" when I first moved out) household stuff, meds. Parents send me enough each month to cover rent, utilities and bus pass. Ironically, playing an mmo means I don't buy as many new video games so I'm not spending nearly as much as I used to. (Also parents promised to pay for school supplies but then just stopped halfway through so I was paying for those out of pocket for the last year.)

I am getting to the rambly stage, so tl:dr they started pushing the job thing and I knew from previous experience with their "talks" that if I explained that I finally kicked my exec dys in the ass enough to email my prof about the reference she promised me, they wouldn't be proud but rather ask why it took so long and why I haven't taken the "next step" yet.

Like, a lot of their requests of me sound reasonable without the decades-long history of being told I can do anything and then being scolded when I fail, being scolded when I'm ashamed of failing and don't ask for help, and being scolded when I ask for help because I "should just be able to do things." So whenever my mom is like "you should be proud of this thing you did!" I just feel empty. Because she uses my accomplishments as a sign that I'm suddenly All Better and should be a perfectly functional and independent adult. It's always "Oh you did a good job doing X and Y so how some you haven't done Z yet?" Every. Single. Time. I can't feel good about accomplishing things because praise is always a stepping stone for her next expectation of me.

The last straw was when they asked if I'd done my taxes yet. I could have explained that they were on my to do list and have been for a while but I was very tired and hungry and so I ended up saying angrily that they needed to stop bringing it up. And they pushed like they would have either way. I said I didn't want to talk about it. "Why? Why? Why?" I said if I can't set boundaries then I'm leaving. Asked my dad why he needs to know. He said if they're giving me money then he deserves to know why I haven't gotten the taxes done (implied that I could be using that money to live on instead of them paying me).

I left and walked to the train to go home. I decided I'm no longer going to accept favors from them including being invited to dinner because it's always going to be used as leverage to pry into my life. I'm done. I don't know if they're going to cut me off. But I'm going to minimize contact with them as much as possible because every time I talk to them I backslide. If I know I won't be able to set boundaries around them then I need to not be around them.

Maybe they mean well but after 27 years of me existing they still haven't figured out that the reason I have trouble doing things is not because I need "motivation", it's because I need support, and their idea of "support" left me with crippling self esteem issues and anxiety.

 

A few other things.

My mom texted me the next day with this:

Spoiler: warning for...something all right.

"Call me. It's not good to be angry. I'm really confused about what happened last night and why you were so upset.

Also, [little sis] doesn't need clothes right now. She could use a big sis to talk to though [wink face emoji]"

Let's analyze this, shall we.

ZOOM, ENHANCE

"It's not good to be angry."

Hmm, it's almost like I have issues healthily displaying and processing anger for some reason. I wonder why I possibly could have developed them. I suddenly recall being told that I shouldn't talk about upsetting things in therapy because I might get in a car accident on the way home if I'm crying. PRIORITIES. No ideas or solutions offered, just "stop being upset because being upset is bad". "I don't like doing family therapy because I see you cry and it makes me feel bad." A.k.a. "whatever you're upset about doesn't matter, what matters is that you being upset makes ME upset. me me me me me."

I just read an article about that sort of thing that I will link when I'm not on mobile. But it covered similar patterns seen in both abusers and privileged people who refuse to face their own bigotry.

Victim says "you hurt me. (You said/did a racist thing. Etc.) Please own up to it and apologize."

Perpetrator says "why would you say I hurt you, (why would you call me a racist, etc) that's hurtful to me, you should apologize."

Sigh.

"I'm really confused about what happened last night and why you were so upset."

I don't doubt that she's sincerely confused, but multiple explanations about why she's not entitled to know everything that happens in my life ("but I'm your mother!") including confidential therapy sessions ("you can tell me anything, I'm your mother!") have not worked.

(Remember when you confided in her about your friends' problems because you were worried about them and she told you to get new friends that were "normal"?)

I explained to my dad that when he used borrowing their car as incentive to finish my taxes, when he'd previously said I could use it as long as he didn't need it that day, was infantilizing on top of being absolutely unhelpful because that's not how executive dysfunction works, he made that face at me that he makes at my mom when he thinks she's being childish and that her anger is funny. Somehow I doubt he understood or passed this onto my mom as anything but "our child is just being childishly stubborn again, lol"

[The stuff about my sister]

This is in response to me saying that I hadn't heard from my sis after texting her about some funny t-shirts I thought she would like and if I could get her one for her upcoming birthday. I had already sent sis another text saying she could talk to me anytime with no judgment before I got this.

Mostly I'm annoyed that mom is being flippant about this when I realize more and more my sis has similar issues to me and she did the same damn thing to her.

I talked to both my therapist and partner abt the whole thing because I was debating between responding to firmly reassert boundaries, or not responding at all. Decided to ignore. I have tried to explain and be firm enough. I usually end up caving and getting upset because the minute I start talking to them they push me too much.

Mom called me again today omw to work and I just let it ring. Putting off listening to her message. Maybe I should just delete it but I also want to know what it says just so I can be prepared.

 

Slightly more positive note: My therapist is really great.

Also he makes a combo of these faces



whenever I tell him about stuff my previous therapists did. So uh. Apparently they weren't just unhelpful, they were pretty actively bad.

 

To do list for tomorrow:

-take meds

-eat breakfast

-change bedsheets (doing this tonight bf sleep would be even better but we'll see)

-put away rest of clean laundry pile

-wash new pans and put old ruined ones in a bag, will decide what to do with them later.

-possibly cook a larger meal that i can portion out over a few days (made enough for lunch at least)

-vacuum floor (i took the vacuum out of the closet. it's a start.)


-go thru box of books i want to get rid of and make list of titles for friend so she can decide if she wants any
(alternately just take a photo of their spines and text it to her.)


Edit: been up for about 2 hours so that's not bad.

 

Ughhhhh shark week.

Last date was Aug 25. meaning that was 27 days. Gotta start tracking this. I probably can pinpoint more dates from my past whinings but no energy to look thru this and AFAB bodies thread rn.

Spoiler: yelling

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

can the painkillers kick in yet holy shit

I never understood how other afab people could be like "oh it's not such a big deal, cramps aren't that bad" until i found out that the majority of people actually DON'T get that much pain

like mine are only occasionally "lie in bed or on floor crying" but they're bad enough that i can barely focus until meds start working and I'm p miserable.

 

Important breaking news: I vacuumed my floor finally


Less good: I'm working only 2 days next week. idk what the hell is going on at work.

I guess that stretch of time off would be a good time to get other stuff done. Need to make a new list now.


Edit to reduce posting spam:

I read back thru my thread yesterday, and last week or so i cleared out my watched threads to see if it would help with notif loss from stuff I actually wanted to see. Ended up reading other old threads of mine.

Its weird thinking about what's changed and what hasn't since I joined this forum. And how many cycles I've gone through or how many times I've said the same thing. My memory is like...notoriously bad for certain things. I have a lot of useless facts about videos games memorized but I can't remember who I've told what or if I've talked about a certain thing before.

I did notice that things are changing. They go slowly because my brain hates change I guess, but they do change. Six months ago I wouldn't have dreamed of seriously giving my parents the cold shoulder because I was too scared of losing financial support. I wouldn't have been able to set boundaries. I'm still pretty messed up but I've got meds that actually work and a good therapist for once and things are changing.

I'm still low key freaked out about the future and also tired and grumpy because of shark week but I'm trying to focus on the fact that while it looks difficult, change no longer seems impossible.

 

Spoiler: not a great day

went to bed early ish for therapy, had bad insomnia and indigestion and barely slept, woke up to my roommate flipping out at me thru text about the utilities payment (she told me how much like 5 days ago and I was going to write her the check today anyway, I've just been a bit distracted)

She never previously said it was a time sensitive thing and now all of a sudden she's like "I'd appreciate if you gave it to me the day I tell you so I don't have to keep reminding you, this is becoming a trend"

Holy shit condescending much

she always sends me these long paragraphs in text about this or that and just. Talks SO MUCH about inane things in person as well, and a lot of it is complaining about how other roommate never cleans and how tired she is of cleaning

But then she doesn't tell either of us up front what she wants so she does that thing where she bottles up her annoyance and then lets it out all at once later and I'm like IF YOU TOLD ME THIS WAS A PROBLEM AGES AGO WE COULD HAVE AVOIDED IT

jesus fucking christ

She has control issues and it's wiggling me out. I don't even know how to respond to this after the shit w my parents so I'm ignoring her tests rn. I gave her the check.

also I missed therapy this week bc I forgot that we had to reschedule around a meeting of his. So my appointment was actually Wednesday and I forgot. So I got up early for nothing today.

ugh.

debating on napping before work or just pushing thru and going to bed early again.

 

Talked some stuff out w roommate and it seems like most of her "jumping to conclusions" reactions are because she's had crappy roommates in the past apparently...it's still kinda unfair that she assumes the worst of me, but knowing why makes it...somewhat manageable because I can try not to take it personally. Sigh.

I was promised extra work hours this week and got none until today. But of course I'm already working and have my weekly appointment so I couldn't come in much earlier than I already was going to, so I only got an extra 1.5 hours.

Looked at next week and it's only two days again. I can't manage on 10 hours a week. This is ridiculous.

I wish I could say I've gotten productive things done on my days off but all I managed was a grocery run.

 

peopled too much in last 2 days and brain is fried.

 

Spoiler: really stupid, body image stuff, please do not read if you have problems w that stuff the last thing I want to do is set someone else off

Having bad boobs dysphoria day, was trying to imagine what I would look like without them in hopes it would help. Bathroom has huge mirrors on walls so hard not to look in them.

Realized I'd lost weight (or rather gotten skinnier, the actual number is p irrelevant) and it made me feel worse

Even if boobs are gone I'll still have this hourglass figure. Society says I should be grateful for it. It just makes me feel gross and dirty to fit conventional female beauty standards. It's not a knock on people who do or want to but the idea of being seen as attractive and sexually desirable is a big fucking NOPE esp because that attraction would hung on being perceived as a woman

it's messed up bc if I were looking at someone who looked like me I'd think they were pretty

How selfish is that

So many people I know struggle with their weight and self-hatred and I don't even go to the gym, all I do is walk a mile to work a few days a week, why can't I give this body to someone else who needs it more

I'm too ace for this

at least when I was carrying some weight there was less of a curve from my ribs/underarms to my hips. I don't care about having wide hips, as much as the difference in width there. At least I wear loose shirts so it masks that

Also my boobs are still fucking DDS because fuck you I guess

I keep thinking about all the people who told me I needed to lose weight throughout my life or complimented me when I did and how much I hate very one of them

I don't actually hate them. I hate that society thinks that's an acceptable thing to say to someone, that it should be considered a compliment

I hate that even my new gp was like "well yeah...bmi is kind of bullshit but...you should exercise more because you're 20 lbs above it..."

I'm 5'10", bmi says I should be 170, I've been 190-200 range for the last 5 years at least and I was FINE W THAT

Never mind that if I exercise I'll build muscle and probably not change in weight much. ITS A NUMBER. are you gonna tell a beefed up Olympic althlete that they weigh too much because they're ripped ?!


You know what would make me actually lose weight

If I cut off my useless giant boobs



if I get ab muscles will that fill out my sides a little maybe

this is so stupid, I used to hate myself for being overweight and depressed and now I hate myself for being too skinny

I put on my binder but it doesn't fit right and I don't know why

I'll maybe post photos on binder thread later when less overwhelmed and see if anyone has any advice. Idk if it's stretched out or if I need a diff size now or what

Spoiler: edit: dysphoria 2: revenge of the boobs

I used to think it wasn't that bad

I was too scared of any kind of surgery anyway

Now that I've witnessed my partner go thru it and it was scary and gross but it worked it's no longer an unknown so I can conceptualize it

But I'm never going to be able to afford it and there's no way I can ask my parents for help because like fuck I'm going to let myself be more indebted to them now that I've decided I need to actually distance myself from them

Even if insurance covered the surgery itself I sure as hell can't take 4 months off work to recover. I have maybe 1 months rent in savings and that's it.

why did I have to get hung up on this thing that I can't actually have. Why did I put on my binder. I should know better. At least in a soft bra+layered shirts I can pretend they don't exist but in the binder I can FEEL the constant pressure, hello hi we're here. The useless lumps of flesh you hate so much

Now I'm crying on the train omw to see people in public why do I ever do things this is humiliating.

 

...feeling better now. Stuff I went out to do was an adequate distraction. Binder became more comfortable over time but I still can't wait to get home and take it off. Meh. This is the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

It's great to wear for cosplay but I think w cosplay I expect to be a little uncomfortable so I barely notice.

I really don't like these mood swings/spirals but now that I'm more aware of them idk how to break out of them while they're happening. I guess it's stress? People have suggested bpd, rapid-cycling bipolar, and now there's that Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria thing which I asked my therapist about but he didn't seem to have heard of it. But the article I read really described what I experience. I know it's not good to rely on Internet articles for medical stuff and doctors find that annoying but.

It tends to happen pretty fast, if something unexpected happens or if I realize I've made some kind of mistake. The thing is I don't freak out at EVERY unexpected thing, I'm actually spontaneous and p flexible if I had no plan ahead of time, but if there was a concrete plan and something messes it up, freakout. Esp if that thing may not be under my control but still makes me look bad. (Like being late bc of some public transportation mishap.)

I can be aware that my emotions are disproportionate to the actual severity of the situation but my body still reacts like I'm having...I guess an anxiety attack? I can be thinking "this is really not a big deal" but I can't physically calm myself. I have to just sort of wait it out. Crying or sleeping can help but idk if it's those things specifically or just time in general.

The way my therapist talks about these incidents he seems to think they are...I guess emotional flashbacks? He didn't use that phrase exactly but he said when I make a mistake or am being criticized I am going back to all the times my mom criticized or invalidated me. And that the way to get better us to work thru the emotional fallout of all her bs. Which. Ok. I can accept that, but I still don't know what to do about them in the moment. Especially because if someone is upset/angry in my general vicinity I get scared and automatically assume it's my fault. And its really hard to shake that feeling.


Good things because I need to keep track of those and not fixate in the bad things all the time:

-I successfully called in my meds refill. Will pick up on Friday after therapy.

-my hair has finally grown out past the awkward stage and looks nice. I think I'll keep it this length. It's still nice and short but just long enough that it will lie flat after I shower. Gotta get around to dyeing it again.

 

Ball of frustration

Therapy is good but it's really hard to like. Accept that I'm moving slowly and that's ok when my parents are staring at me disapprovingly (metaphorically speaking but they do that when I see them so whatever)

It's so frustrating that daily tasks like feeding myself or cleaning my apartment or getting my meds use up all my spoons and I have to keep pushing the longterm stuff off.

I talked abt getting a job that doesn't involve customer service so I have less emotional exhaustion to deal with, and therapist suggested checking out a local career center. I managed to pull up a website but getting myself to go there in person will be...

I need money to be able to get away from my parents once and for all. My mom called me twice and now my brother tells me she mentioned to him that she might come try to see me at work. I'm glad he's in my corner at least. I'm going to use the "sorry I have a lot of work to do, weekend rush" excuse if I must

I haven't listened to her voice mail yet because i didn't want to risk it ruining my mood.

I can't recover properly until I distance myself from them, but I can't do that until I get a better job, and I can't handle a better job until I recover more? I don't think. Ugh.

At home I'm stuck between Controlling Neat Freak Roommate and Sweet Roommate Who is a Total Slob

It could be worse I guess, it's just added stress, because messes upset me and I know she's overworked. But she doesn't throw away spoiled food in a timely manner. I'm going to just start doing it myself. Other roommate ultimately annoys me more bc controlling people just sets off my "just like mom" brain alarms. Plus she "helps" by washing my dishes when they've only been in the sink a few hours, except I always have to re-wash them because she does a terrible job and leaves bits of food on them. I'm really tired of having to hoard my dishes in my room until the exact moment I'm ready to wash them, but I don't want her to blow up at me down the road because she always "has" to wash my dishes. I get them done within a day. Her hangups about having to look at a few bowls in the sink are not my problem.

I really don't want to stay here until next August. It's too much money for a tiny-ass room and common space I can't relax in. But I'm stuck unless I can talk them all into letting someone take my room...sigh.