Saturday, December 2nd, 2023, 22:15

Mood: Empty

I'm not really sure what to say right now except I should probably update with a post since I've updated everything else. I wanted a layout that was more minimalist but still true to form. If anyone knows what the significance of the date and time are at the bottom-left of my background, I will be super impressed and bake you delicious vegan cookies.

Mental health wise I'm doing fair-ish. I could be doing a lot better. I spent about the past week in a hypomanic state. Not a lot of sleeping and lots of hyperfixating. I woke up at four in the morning on November 30th to spend two hours reading about all the atrocities Henry Kissinger committed. I think the pendulum might be swinging in the opposite direction now. I slept nearly eleven hours last night. It's that or I'm getting physically sick. But I am in a pretty weird, depressed mood at the moment--but that might just be because today was weird. Last month, we lost one of Siren's cousins to complications from cystic fibrosis. Today, the date of her memorial services was made public. That's been the cap to a very weird, bad vibes kind of day.

This is like so super embarrassing to admit in a public space but I'm going to anyway because I know I can't be the only one in the world like this. Ahem. Here goes. *coughs*

In the words of Kurt Cobain, depressed Gen-Xer--later co-opted by Elizabeth Wurtzel, less-depressed Gen X-er--"I Hate Myself and I Want to Die". Um, at least only sort of. (Please don't report me to the gay baby police.)

I am in Therapy for A Lot of Things. Ya girl's had a rough go of life. The current Thing we're working on is being able to be happy when people praise me instead of just quivering and getting really uncomfortable. The current school of thought is that my individual problem with things like praise and compliments are because I associate them either with being groomed or being tolerated. It's a good thing I am so pretty and smart, because my personality is terrible and I have nothing else going for me and everything else about me is a massive embarrassment to everyone who loves me. Pretty means I can be loved. Smart means I can be employed. The problem is I still believe that.

So here's been the homework I have to do for therapy sometime in the next two weeks: I have to start a new journal with a list of all the compliments I can think of that I have received from safe people, who I absolutely trust to have paid them to me under no pretenses. No "I say this to get in your pants"--or anyway, I also wanted in their pants--and no "this is a backhanded way of me telling you how much you suck". I initially thought this was going to be a fun and easy task. Oh boy! Reminding myself of all the time pretty people have told me that I am also in the Pretty Club! I bought a new vegan leather journal for the occasion. It reminds me of my favorite TikToker.

But now I dread doing it. Actually, no, more accurately, I am not sure if my brain will allow me to do it. I picture myself doing it and I don't picture praise. I picture every embarrassing thing I've ever done in the entire world. I go into a dumpster with nothing but rotting fruit and mold.

Today's just been a fucking weird one, honestly. Anyway. That'll pass. Soon. Moving on.

Uhhh what's some good news? Pat fixed my truck, which is dope. It's got heat again in the cab instead of in the engine bay. The results from my biopsies came back and I officially don't have celiac. (Doesn't explain all the extremely celiac-ish symptoms I've had my whole life, but I don't really give a shit. I just want to be able to stay eating bread.) I also haven't totally shredded my stomach or esophagus from having acid reflux. My physical health has been mostly decent even if my mental health has been pretty shit. Oh, and I got my breast tumor removed and it was confirmed noncancerous. Hurray.

From about October 2022 to October 2023 I feel safe saying that this was the worst year of my life. We had a lot of really bad shit happen to us. I'm so scared to put it in writing, because what if it makes it go back bad the way it was, but I think that period of time is over. Besides this weird recent blip with my mental health, which is honestly to be expected when it switches from fall to winter, November was really fucking great. I got to spend a lot of it with someone I really missed and care about tremendously. And with my amazing partner and daughter. I am always amazingly humbled by how lucky I am that I have so many wonderful people who are inexplicably willing to put up with me.