It’s so strange to be someone who can be extremely motivated at times. And then at other times not be able to get myself out of bed to save my life (literally).
And I don’t even know when it’s going to hit but.. I think I just need to start being more mindful of my internal state. I know I kinda freaked out and tried to run from my parts but… I can’t do that.. I can’t have someone just ask a simple question and then fucking break down over it. That’s ridiculous and not only that it feels awful.
Anyway, sometimes I get the itch – it’s go time. I think I just needed the space… and the freedom from things that were upsetting me to move forward. I think the stuff with deviant is where a lot of my depression and self/hatred stems from and dipping into that world really threw me for a loop. It was awful…. I don’t know how to address that again I guess… I guess I need to reach out to her on my own and see what she has to say… running won’t help.
Maybe I need to take more control of the situation. My ANPs are always on board with that. I wrote an email to Casey so that we can all go sign the final paperwork for the kid’s conservatorship together next week. I sent a termination letter to my therapist… maybe it was the wrong move maybe it wasn’t. To be honest, I think I need to do some things differently with Ben too. I can’t just break down at the end of sessions – it leaves me wildly out of it.. I have to sit in my car for 15-30 minutes just trying to find my way back before I drive home… it’s kind of embarrassing really. I know I have to figure out how to stay grounded… sometimes I wish he could just take my hand to bring me back…. so that I knew he was real. But as nice as that would be, I guess it’s not a good idea… need to learn to do it by myself I suppose.
But, I want to make sure I’m also not re-traumatizing myself. I’m starting to get a little scared of the therapy room all together… so I’m thinking maybe… maybe a medium like art or games might help distract me enough. Maybe. We’ll see, I can try.
Here’s the big news of the weekend. I got out of bed on Saturday! I stopped futzing around.. and I cleaned my damn closet and the bathroom. Here’s the thing… I have always had this issue with throwing clothes on the floor in my closet and never putting it back up. I absolutely loathe doing laundry… and I never knew why until recently. I just thought I was lazy all these years. But I put two and two together… it’s not cause I’m lazy. It’s because that’s where my first memory of CSA occurred… in the laundry room…. I remember the piles of clothes around me. The smell of a laundry room was faint.. like an artifial floral scent.. dryer sheets, concrete floor.. a small window letting very little light in.. basement level so.. a little dank. Those pieces have made their way into some of my dreams as fragments of their own. The clothes on the floor.. crumpled and stacked… Somewhat like the makeshift bed he made for me…
But Saturday I said enough was enough. My closet (which is a rather large walk-in) has literally been covered in clothes probably since my brother passed away… I think I tried to clean it once lol… failed. I put together two big bags of stuff for goodwill and cleaned out the bathroom drawers (bathroom is connected to my closet) and re-organized everything. It felt…… really fucking good. Rich was really happy to see me up and about and actually doing something useful for once. : )
I also got some time to talk to Shanon. I just messaged her and tried to be honest and gentle. We’re talking again… I had already made peace with that friendship ending… and was “moving on” – that was somewhat the inspiration for taking control that day with my insane cleaning spree. But it turns out she was just as terrified of losing me… What I did learn… was that I need to stop relying on others so much for making myself feel better. Being forced into being alone again.. sometimes it’s good for me. It sucks feeling that alone and withdrawn but it also triggers something in me if I can hold on long enough. Being too depressed for too long, or just extreme depression, will sometimes trigger the emergency systems. Like someone pulled the fire alarm.. and AC or other ANP’s take control and do not give a fuck what I’m feeling. Most of the time I’m paralyzed by anxiety or indecision or just crippling depression. But they slash and hack through all of that. They don’t put off difficult decisions or conversations, and they essentially look at me like I’m a child incapable of accomplishing anything simple – they’re right. They make difficult decions based on fact alone and without hesitation. Hard conversation suddenly have no weight because they don’t even care about the outcome, just that we can move on from them – unaffected. They put shit in order until we reach a level of stability that’s acceptable for them.. and that just makes it easier for me to come back and not feel so overwhelmed by everything. While I feel juvenile for my inability to do so on my own.. I gotta say.. I really appreciate it at times. I admire.. and love them for that.
And so even though Shannon and I are talking. I don’t feel.. as connected or dependent on her friendship as I did. I learned my lesson so to speak. Not to say I don’t still care for her.. but the space she imposed helped me see that I don’t need her.. reminded me that I don’t need anyone really. Don’t get me wrong.. I did lean into my friends here. I have a broader social network than she does – and that was actually nice. I realized I’ve been neglecting my life a little escaping into the digital realm a little too often.
I wish I could make some art again… to be honest I’m demotivated… That instructor from my perspective class was a pretty harsh critic lol. I don’t usually care, I have to defend my work constantly as a designer, used to it lol. But it was demotivating for a class that was supposed to be fun (like seriously how critical should you really be about some hand drawn circles haha.). Honestly he reminds me of this computer science professer I had in college – dude pretended like he wasn’t a chauvinistic ass hole.. He really was – as evidenced by how he treated the two women in the class (a story I won’t get into). It turned me off of programming forever. You know I sat next to a guy at work who was a database programmer and the guy literally believed women were genetically born to be worse at math? He, in all earnest, wanted his daughter to talk to me because my job in tech was “easier” and obviously she couldn’t be a programmer…. he also happened to be conservative as fuck.. no surprise there… But, yeap, that’s the world we live in folks!
It’s not just that.. I just haven’t felt motivated. I haven’t cared enough about anyone or anything.. and the one thing that is emotionally charged is .. the work with deviant… And I’m too scared to go near that… so a part of me feels frozen. Unable to tap into the emotional parts of me for fear of what I might shake up. When things feel so delicate.. a little disturbance threatens to bring the whole building down. :< I do have one idea.. just.. some doodling… maybe a good way to ease in this week… Heh.
And .. I’m finally going to try to go back to the gym. I’ve been afraid there too… Last time I went I hadn’t eaten anything all day and.. I started to feel like I was going to pass our during the workout. Not in the omg I’m so gassed kinda pass out.. the .. edges of my vision are going blurry and black kind of pass out.. which is freaky. And I’m still not eating a ton so.. I just am kinda scared of going back till I have enough strength I guess. We’ll see.. gotta try sometime… I guess. Maybe soccer in the fall… Maybe.
I’m trying… see.. I am trying.. :/
***
One more thing… about race.
There was a comment in the therapy room last time “white people can’t stop being white…” lol. It made me chuckle cause… that’s not really what I have a problem with… like at all. I don’t give a shit what color/ethnicity someone is… it’s more that I’ve come into contact with a lot of people, who happen to be white, who have a problem with how I look. It’s their preconceptions about me that bothers me. No they cant stop being white, but they can stop being ignorant. And it’s the whole micro-aggressions thing… I let a lot slide… but over the years it builds up.. and you can’t help but start to see a pattern…. and that’s what starts to actually hurt. The whole death by a thousand cuts scenario.
Granted, I think that’s just the nature of growing up somewhere like.. the suburbs of Kansas…haha. Many people I’ve met here as a kid knew so little about cultures outside their own, and they have no desire to learn. I mean I grew up hearing sooo many mexican (and occasionally black) jokes because I was practically invisible…. I mean.. sometimes I would laugh to myself cause they are funny lol – and some of it is based on stereo types with some roots in truth so that’s always kinda funny lol. But I also recognize there’s just a lot of ignorance and a lot of times it’s really innocent, but it doesn’t mean it’s not annoying.
Really that kind of stuff only bothers me when someone makes a truly ignorant comment. Something I can’t believe they don’t know at this point in their adult lives. And its’ like, you have access to the internet, you can literally learn anything you want… take some time to understand people/cultures outside your own. Or fucking travel to remote parts of the world and see how people live, the US borders isn’t where the world just ends… it just… it bugs me. I don’t even know why it bugs me. Maybe its’ the privileged point of view that I very, very, often grew up around. It’s fine, I completely understand that not everyone is raised to think about these kinds of things – I was forced to confront culture being a child of two worlds and growing up simultaneously disadvantaged in some ways and privileged in others.
Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that I’m not some racist piece of shit haha. I know that’s probably not what Ben actually thinks. But still. lol And in any case race is pretty interesting to think about. Especially because I ignored the fact that I was Mexican for… decades lol. And my guy-friends and I have always had a good humor about race, so that helps a lot. : )
And you know what’s weird? That invitation to that management program at work? It’s specifically aimed at latinx and AA minorities…. and….. that bothered the shit out of me. And I’m still trying to wrap my head around why. I guess it’s because I don’t want to be acknowledged for my accomplishments on the basis that I happen to be brown. I get the intention… but.. I don’t need the leg-up. I never have. And I don’t want to be anyone’s poster child or token minority because it looks good on diversity quotas. lol. I know that’s harsh.. it’s not an easy problem to solve, increasing equity in tech/leadership and other industries. I can tell you at my last job, we had a big corporate meeting and in a room full of 40 directors and managers and C-suite executives… I was the only minority with a management title. hahaha! There was one black lady but she wasn’t a people manager (she is a bad ass though). And this is technically in the education industry… so how well can we serve our diverse population if we don’t even reflect it ourselves? But like I said.. tough problem to solve.
But as far as my career goes, one might ask, would I be further along if I wasn’t Hispanic? Who fucking knows… I don’t really spend any time thinking about it. And as far as the mgmt program, free training is free training, so whatever. I’ve been nominated for several leadership programs throughout my career (literally every place I’ve worked) – it’s all the same bullshit, but it makes C-level folks feel warm and fuzzy to offer it so whatever. lol
So that’s it.. trying to find my way back to neutral .. before the next big emotional wave hits. I don’t look forward to it.. but it does give me hope that I keep finding my way back.. eventually.