Boyfriend flew in to visit on Thursday night. I had planned on staying up until he got here, but fell asleep around midnight, so he let himself in (he has keys). I slept through that, and through him coming into the bedroom, right up until he put his knee on the bed. At which point I grabbed his wrist, knocked him down, and got my other hand around his throat. From what I can remember, my thought process was in fact, "bad scary intruder, KILL THEM." Luckily, knocking him down knocked him into the nightstand, which woke me the rest of the way up before I could do any serious damage. That said, uh. PTSD, can we not try to kill people who startle us? Please?
Good news everyone! I fixed the poison slime pipes! Started reading about a creepy fandom person who started a cult, stayed up way too late because I couldn't stop, triggered myself to hell thinking about cult things, haven't slept, couldn't go to school today, everything is awful, still trying to get myself to stop reading. It's fucking hard to manage because I hate talking about cult stuff with just about everyone. Therapist who I loved, who I saw regularly for probably around a year? Just barely touched on it and then had to back off. Best friends who I can talk to about just about anything else? Feel sick considering going to them. Parents are, obviously, right out, fuck them forever. Boyfriend is about the only person I feel safe enough around to talk, and he's asleep.
Do you know how hard it is to appropriately and healthily process and move on from trauma around a cult based on (inappropriately, unhealthily) processing trauma? It fucking sucks.
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/09/white-kids-race/569185/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_term=2018-09-04T11:00:19&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social hello bizarre and impossible to talk about triggers I feel like the person who was doing this research never actually... considered what it would be like for a kid to have their parents behave in the ways she's suggesting. Because guess what? I wasn't pulled out of public school when all the other white middle class kids were because the school was awful. My parents didn't move out of the neighborhood with drug dealers and shootings when they could afford to. My parents sure as hell didn't support me going into the AP track. They were much more interested in providing support to every other child in the community than in advocating for my wellbeing. Really. My dad still tutors math in the elementary schools, and the shit I hear him say about being patient and trying to reach kids where they are, if I got a THIRD of that when he was helping me with my math homework, my life could have gone a different direction. If your parents don't advocate for you, provide support for you, prioritize you, then you are left relying on people who don't have any reason to consider you their responsibility. Especially when your parents have social and economic privilege and make a point of using it to help other people, no one is going to go, "Huh, that kid is struggling. She [came to school with cuts on her arms/keeps getting in fights with the other kids/spends all her recesses in a corner talking to herself at age 10]. Maybe I should step in." It fucking sucks. Oh, also, I was a really fucking racist kid anyway. Had to unlearn a lot of shit in my teens. So, not really so helpful. In conclusion, fuck you, Ms Sociologist. Think through the implications of your suggestions.
As if my vent thread didn't have enough trigger warnings, TW self harm Current status: been avoiding things because anxiety again, which makes the anxiety worse, which makes me want to avoid. Right now my life feels like a house of cards built on things I should have already done, but that no one has called me on not doing. My therapist in my head is telling me that I have reasons for things to be hard, and to not beat myself up, but I am having trouble listening. Walking home just now involved wanting to be vivisected, complete with graphic imagery, or to throw myself in front of a bus. Having so much trouble with the seemingly basic idea of "don't hit your head on things, you need your brain," too. I don't think I'm doing very well, somehow
My patients were much less continent than usual today and it was ... sure a thing I had to deal with.
Some Awful Coworker paraphrases from today, because I Just Can't, and I got way too close to snapping at her. -Nothing in life is really free. Like in Scandinavian countries where there are all those social services, people have to pay for them from their taxes. So it's really that you're paying for everyone, but everyone is paying for you too, so, is that fair? [Me: I guess it depends how much money you're making] Everyone there makes the same amount and is taxed the same amount, it doesn't matter if you're a garbage man or a doctor. If you don't believe me, just go there and see for yourself. -That guy who shot up the church should be glad he doesn't have me for a judge because I'd sentence him to be castrated without anesthetic before he faced the death penalty. FFS awful coworker, I know you're awful, you don't have to try so hard to prove it. Please, please. Just. Don't.
Reminder to me: pelvic exams == trigger. Does not matter how much trauma processing I do. Am stuck with this bullshit afaict. So please do not schedule a routine pap and then expect to be able to stop hiding at any point during that day, because that is just not something you get to have.
Oh. Orr. My brain could tell me something useful but awful. When I let myself get pregnant, when I dissociated during sex and did not take precautions, I was FINDING A WAY TO RELIVE MY CHILDHOOD TRAUMA. The feeling of being powerless and outside of my body that I associated with sex, and even specifically sought out, at that age was how I was coping with the persistent violation of my bodily autonomy that I experienced as a young child. This is going to be one of those things that I tell Boyfriend and he's like, "well, yeah, I thought you knew..." isn't it
Realization of the day: RC (the antipsychiatry cult I was raised in) specifically and deliberately sensitizes people to their triggers to foster dependence on the cult.
Minor vent time. "There was only half a cup of flour and I thought it wouldn't be enough for your baking plans, so I used it" 1/2c was all I needed. For the brownies I told you I was making for our housemate's birthday. Also like, literally you had exactly the same knowledge of how much flour there was as I did. Don't tell me it would have been nice to know we were nearly out sooner. I literally said to you three days ago "We're basically out of flour."
Not being angry that they changed things about my hollowed out mountain. Putting aside my feelings of hurt and resentment. Looking at what they did with an open mind. Relax, me. Relax.
Not feeling brave, but I think the thing I expressed was good. In response to an article about a teacher assigning high school students to exchange valentines: Forced praise isn't kindness. Have you ever read a message from someone you knew hated you, praising the things about you they think they're supposed to praise? Every elementary school valentines day I got dozens of those from kids whose parents made them give a valentine to everyone in class. Even in grad school, we did a Thanksgiving appreciations thing and it was a way to virtue signal. I got messages from girls who, if I sat down at a table with them, would start texting each other under the table. "Riva, I admire how smart and outspoken you are" -- I can read between the lines to know you mean "Riva, shut up, stop being arrogant" when that's how you treat me every other day. Don't do this, it just opens a door to a different kind of cruelty.
Welp. Guess I was right to be worried about the friend who I hadn't heard from in a couple days. Just got a message back from his partner saying "He's not great, but he's safe. I don't feel comfortable sharing more than that." Meep.
Update and clarification: he realized that interacting with me was triggering for him in ways that are only somewhat my fault, decided he wants to keep interacting with me but needs to figure out how, and is taking some space to do that. Gotta say, still terrified of the world in which he ends up unable to safely interact with me, but so excited for the world where we get to be, like, actual friends rather than complicated codependence buddies. Growing as a person is Hard and I Don't Like It
What having your Trust Bracket downgraded does mean: -I have assessed the risk of you hurting me as higher than I had previously thought -Information that has a high likelihood of being able to hurt me will be withheld What having your Trust Bracket downgraded does NOT mean: -I consider you less of a friend -I am less likely overall to confide in you or ask for help* *even in highest trust brackets, chance of asking for help is near-zero. It's not you, it's me. How to raise your trust bracket: -Behave in predictable ways -Respect boundaries (including boundaries such as "your trust bracket will be adjusted when I feel safe enough to do that, this process cannot be rushed")
realizing that I have conditioned/am conditioning myself to have terrible conflicts over the course of years of ingrained behavior cycle: have problem but afraid to raise it because conflict scary get to a bad emotional place, blow up, conflict caused conflict is very bad because I blew up more fear of future conflict avoid problems harder Now, how the fuck do I break this conditioning?
Vierran's Body Patch Notes: -replaced the previous physical sensation of hunger with a wave of combined nausea, anxiety and sadness. This sensation will grow more intense until appropriate nutrition is provided. Severe hunger will be experienced as the urge to curl into a ball and cry. Time from initial wave to curling into a ball has been set to twenty minutes.
My friend let her cat catch fire. It was an accident. No pets or humans were harmed. Presumably she knows better now. But I am still furious and having severe anxiety twelve hours later. Went from zero to eleven emotional response in under 10 seconds. Scared boyfriend with how angry I suddenly was. Don't know why this intensity. Don't like it. The story: friend and her partner had shabbat candles burning on a table the cat is theoretically not allowed on. They were both in the room. The cat jumped onto the table and rubbed up against the candles before either of them noticed or could react. Rationally, I know this is not terrible. I understand how it could happen, that mistakes happen sometimes and you learn from them and do better. Emotionally, I want that cat, along with their dog, out of their house immediately. I do not feel okay with them having pets. And then friend made it worse by blaming/being upset with the cat and I am so angry I can't think straight and I can't even calm down enough to find words to explain how it is not the cat's fault that she didn't provide adequate supervision in a high-risk situation. Cats don't really understand things like "I am not allowed on this table" or "candles are dangerous." They don't really have the ability to handle the abstraction layers there. As a pet owner, it is your job to keep them safe from doing dangerous things because they don't know better. There is a party at fault here. It's not the cat. Yeah. Okay, back to mental redirecting and breathing exercises. It is okay. Nothing terrible has actually happened. I can self-regulate. Maybe even enough to get some more sleep without anxiety following me into my dreams...
