I’ve been tracking my steps and the flights of stairs I climb since I started school. My steps are up about 300% but still nothing to brag about. I climb 2 flights of stairs in Tuesdays and 5 flights on Thursdays.
I did a short yoga routine earlier this week.
I did a 3 day event as a vendor this weekend, most of that time being perched on my piano bench.
My core hurts. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.
It’s been about 4 years since I have had a PAP smear test done. And in the meantime I’ve gotten quite a few body mods, including 4 genital piercings.
I was finally scheduled for a PAP but then I started having all the anxieties. I love all my mods but I always feel extra self conscious about my doctors seeing them.
Yesterday I arrived at my appointment, was ushered into the exam room, and got undressed. The nurse came in, plus another lady, who introduced herself as an intern working under the nurse and that she would be doing my exam.
She didn’t even bat an eye at my downstairs decor. All that worry for nothing.
Now I just have to wait for my results, which I fully expect to be in the realm of normal.
Two nights in a row, I’ve woken up from the same dream with a panic attack.
Basically, I was living on the streets, well, on an abandoned barge, and everyone was turning against me. I started plotting to get back at some of the people hurting me, and this sea captain helped me start a chain of catastrophic events, then rescued me. I had the clothes on my back. I was dirty and messy.
Turns out his ship could fucking fly and then we rode it across these roller coaster rails to a fantastic land where other humans didn’t exist. He was king of this land, and the people were a little different. Slightly feline looking, and covered in short fur but basically human in form.
The king adopted me as one of his daughters and sent me to have dresses made and get cleaned up and be made presentable.
I had an immediate attraction to the tailor who would be making my gowns and he stepped in to help me with my transition into their society. We spent all our time together. We fell in love. But elements of my real waking life were there too.
I was still the same weight. And when it came up that while a pregnancy could occur between our two species, it would be detrimental to the female, I said it was okay because I had already been spayed.
We traveled together between their planet and mine, visiting different cities around the world, doing silly things, learning about each other’s culture. We had fun.
But I was worried about really fitting in here. I didn’t fit in on my old life and people abused and hurt me. I wondered if that would just happen here in my new home too.
I’m not sure why this dream, which continued over two nights, was so triggering for me to cause panic attacks. I haven’t had one in a long time. It’s not a fun thing to wake up from. Heat racing, can’t breathe, your body feels out of control.
Thankfully I’ve had enough of them that I go through a mental checklist automatically. Can I breathe normally? Am I actually trying? Am I in physical danger? Am I in a safe place? Is there anything I can realistically do for myself to help this pass quickly?
By the time I get halfway through that I’m usually good. Last night I was barely awake and shaking so hard I almost started crying. But I rolled over, took a klonopin, adjusted my blankets, and breathed slowly and deliberately until I fell back asleep.
Tonight I was awakened too far for that to help so I got up and peed and watched an episode of South Park.
I don’t know if this anxiety is tied in to the date or something else. The 21st is the 9th anniversary of my Daddy’s death.
I’m pretty sure I’m in the middle of a hypomanic thing right now. The last few nights time has really gotten away from me, I’ve stayed up way too late, slept way too late, and have been happily cleaning and cooking.
Thursday I started picking up trash to get rid of, and took I think two bags full out to the barrel. I collected some things for donation, and I selected more dvds to be sold or later donated. I made chicken thighs cooked in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, rice that was cooked in the droppings, and a small salad for my mom and I.
Friday I did more cleaning, and made chef’s salads for us for dinner. I fought the urge to bake bread at midnight. I took the playpen, and other chick brooder accoutrements outside to clean the space back up in my craft room.
Today I’ve swept the craft room, wiped the dust and dirt from my sewing machine and table, wiped the dust off of my bass, guitar & djembe (poor neglected things), and started straightening out the desk. I made potato soup for us for dinner and we both had seconds. Yum! I took some more donations out to my car too.
I still plan to put some jewelry away and put my laundry away tonight and maybe do some other small cleaning tasks.
Yesterday I met with the nice lady at the Department of Rehabilitation and we got things moving. She put in a referral for me with Foster’s, who will put me through the ringer in a few weeks to help find out just what I would be good at. It’s 5 full days of testing, interviews, questions… To check out every aspect of my work ethic, abilities, stamina, and beyond. I’m excited, but I also terrified because Omg what if I curl up and die midway through the testing?
But I’m trying not to dwell on that. In a couple weeks, it’ll happen, and it’s going to hopefully go smoothly.
She also gave me a few leads to follow up on on my own. One is the aerospace program at AVC and I also going to look into what it takes to become a professional piercer.
After that, I went by my therapist’s office to sign some papers, and I agreed to become a member of the advisory committee for the Department of Mental Health. Eek! If it’s too much for me or I hate it, I can always drop out, and it’s only once a month.
Eek!
I’ve tried a few mood tracking apps but never stuck with any of them, or really loved them. A few days ago I found Daylio. I love it. It’s freaking genius and you can record so much information in a few seconds with just a couple taps of your screen.
Here’s a few screen grabs from the app. I did pay for the upgraded version to get all the features so the free version doesn’t do all of this, but it’s a couple bucks well-spent I think.
This is the overview screen. You can see what your day’s mood was and what activities you marked off. You can also see any notes you made on that day.
This is from the settings menu. You can add new moods, activities, and change the time of day the app reminds you to record your day. I have it set for 8pm but you can easily edit entries later if you’d like, or even make multiple entries on one day.
In the upgraded version, you can add new moods. I’ve added a few beyond the basic 5 it comes set up with.
You can also add activities to the app. These could be anything and there are tons of icons to choose from.
In the paid version, there’s also an option to export your moods and activities into a file so you could easily share how you’ve been doing with a health care professional.
Basically, I love this app. It’s easy to use, even easier to change to suit your needs, and so quick to input your day. And it’s a great way to keep track of how you’re actually spending your time each day!
My therapist asked me to write about my own success story as a kind of graduation out of one on one therapy. To start with how I felt when I started with her a year ago, and end with how I feel about myself today. This is what I wrote.
My Success
A year ago I started therapy. I was anxious, even scared, about what it would be like. I wasn’t taking care of myself. I wasn’t bathing, or sleeping well, or putting on clean clothes. I worried about everything. I had just broken up with my now ex-boyfriend and my entire world was upside down. I had to move back in with my mom and I didn’t want to. I was worried about living with her because we didn’t have the best relationship when I was a child.
I learned pretty quickly that my therapist was non-judgemental, and open to discussing whatever I needed to talk about that week. She gave me a safe space to not worry about what might be thought of me, and to reflect on myself with her gentle guidance. At the same time, I started doing things that let me feel in control of my body, since I couldn’t control anything else in my life right then. This took the form of several piercings, some easily visible, some more intimate. I changed my hair. I started wearing make-up more often. I showered. I put on clean clothes.
I got a puppy, and I started cleaning the house. I slowly stopped worrying about the things that had bothered me- if my pup was safe, if I was safe, if I would have a place to live. My piercings became less frequent, though I still got a few new ones, as well as a tattoo. The word WORTHY on my foot. Because I am.
I learned to look at things that had happened to me in a different way. My mom did the best she could for me. Not all the bad things that happened to me as a child were her fault. She loves me and thinks I’m just fine the way I am. Realizing that made a big difference in how I felt living with her and her boyfriend, and things got better.
I realized my ex was even more of a self-centered, bullying, and verbally and emotionally abusive asshole than I had let myself see before we broke up. Good riddance to bad garbage. I stopped talking to him completely and blocked him on social media. There was nothing good he brought into my life. I felt good about that.
All of these changes, and talking about these things while my therapist reframed them for me to consider made me see I am worthy of my own love and affection. I am worthy of others’ love and affection. I am worth working on to become a better, strong, more emotionally secure person. I’m worth taking care of. I am, all of me, worth it. I’m smart. I’m capable. I’m a good craft artist and a great dog mom. I can and do learn new things all the time. I can take care of myself and I can be my own success story. I am not a failure.
I AM WORTHY.
Today I was supposed to have group therapy but I was the only one who showed up. Some group… Lol. But because my regular therapist is a facilitator for the group, she did one on one with me today instead of tomorrow and it went amazingly well today.
A lot of weeks I have a really hard time opening up and talking about anything. It’s not that I feel judged or unsafe with her, I just don’t know how to say what I want to say. But today I had something I wanted to talk about right away. That something that happened on Rav made me take a minute to write down all the things I’ve done here at my mom’s since I moved in 11 months ago. And that I’ve really done a lot, and helped my mom a lot and I don’t give myself credit for all the work that I’ve put in.
And I just kept talking for an hour. At one point she asked me how it feels to be the adult in my household. I said I didn’t really mind, things are working pretty smoothly, and it’s a lot easier to parent my mom and her bf than it was to parent my ex.
And then she asked what my long term goals are. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately.
Then she asked me how I’m going to achieve my first goal. I told her I have an appointment in about 8 weeks with the department of rehab to try to get back into the job force, and I have been selling off or returning things I no longer want or need, as well as selling things in my shop and putting that small income towards my debt. It’s slow, but I’m slowly chipping away at it.
Then she asked me if I’m dating anyone and still seeing my friends. I told her I don’t feel any need to be dating – I’ve never really minded being single, it’s just sex I miss. And I see friends about once a month which is fine because I pretty okay with almost being a hermit. As long as I can reach out and have a conversation across some sort of media, I don’t need to see people often.
That was pretty much the end of our session but I feel really good right now because having a purpose (okay right now my purpose is cleaning and purging my mom’s house) makes me feel complete. It makes me honestly feel happy because I’m doing something positive with my time.
I’m in a good place right now. Dare I say I’m kinda happy?
So next Sunday is my birthday. I’m turning 37. And with it being my birthday soon, just like every year, I’m depressed. It’s not because I’m getting older- I really don’t mind aging and I look forward to one day having beautiful silver hair. But for me, my birthday is a reminder that I’ve failed. I still haven’t managed to be self sufficient, I still have to spend on others to get by, I can’t even afford a shitty little apartment or trailer. And now I have all this stupid debt because I haven’t been careful with my money so I’m at least 3 years out from being able to start saving to actually do something about my living situation. And it makes me want to crawl under a rock and fucking die.
I’m not suicidal. But I’m so fucking low and on top of the birthday depression, I think my current living situation only adds to it as does the knowledge that my debt has dug a hole I can’t immediately get out of. And all of this is so fucking exhausting.
I really hope by this time next month I’ll have bounced back a bit. Tracy and Jami will be wanting to get together in the coming weeks, which will be a good thing. I haven’t seen friends in months, and some of my friendships are feeling neglected.
I saw my therapist Thursday and we talked about some hard stuff. Mainly my childhood, and how my still current need to be submissive and good has been pounded into me since I was a little girl – don’t get emotional, don’t cry (or I’ll give you something to cry about!), don’t get angry, don’t act out, always follow directions… Do whatever it takes to get that “good girl” and a pat on the head. She had me pegged as submissive from the first time we talked about sex and BDSM even though I hadn’t actually said how I identify.
The difference now is I can control who I give that to. I can control who I allow to punish me if I’m naughty. I am in control and I’m not the same scared little girl. But sometimes I am still scared. What if I’m not a good girl? What if I never get that gentle caress and praise?
Logically, I know the world won’t end. I’ll still be okay, I’ll still be me, but I crave those two words so strongly and I have since I was a wee thing, and I wonder if that will ever change.
