I hate my disabilities. For one, they're invisible and people around me frequently forget that I have them and get irritable when I can't be neurotypical. (Beloved and the kids don't, but we're all not neurotypical in this household. We have to give each other a lot of understanding and try really hard to work with each other to make things function on a halfway normalish level.) I hate the fact that my traumatic past is rearing it's head and making everything hard. I hate the fact that I am sliding into depression and I'm not sure if it is because of my bipolar II or if it is because of my seasonal affective disorder. (It's a great thing, a double whammy of suck that lasts for months. -5/7 stars)
I have been tired because I'm not sleeping well. I think my doctor's got the medication angle pinned down. I am not happy with the medication because I have a lot of bad emotions attached to it. But, despite those feels, I am actually sleeping better. I still wake up on occasion in the night disoriented and not sure where I am. As I am falling alseep, I've taken to running my fingers across the wall next to the head of the bed to make sure that the wall is smooth and lacks the rough board that was at the same place in my parents' house in my room to cover up an enormous hole. I know it's anxiety and the fact that I'm fighting derealization. I spend just about all day fighting derealization.
Complex posttraumatic stress disorder is bullshit. It fucked up my brain so hard that I have times where I can't tell what's fully real or not. It's terrifying to be sitting in my living room wondering if this is a hallucination and that I'm actually in my parents' house, hiding from them so they don't beat me for some random reason. Reality testing, like running my fingers across the wall, is a thing I do every day, multiple times a day. Getting this major haircut change was one of the best decisions I have made this year.
One, it's a look I have wanted for years. Faux-hawks just look cool. I'd have gone for a full mohawk but I know that would have not worked for me because it requires more care than I can do. It's awful that the first thought I had upon getting home and some of the excitement about my new haircut was wearing off was that my father would have said I looked like a 'bull dyke' with a tone dripping with scorn. My father's a real winner. He's got issues.
The second reason that going from shoulder length hair to this faux-hawk was a good decision is it completely eliminates my passing resemblance to my mother. I look enough like her that when my hair was longer, catching a glimpse unexpectedly in the mirror set off a minor panic because I feared that I was looking at her. Like my father, my mother's just got issues that I don't think a ton of therapy is going to resolve. When I wear my faux-septum ring, I have momentary pang of panic that someone's going to rip it out.
Why? Well, when I was in my late teens and I was expressing interest in getting more piercings, she said that she was going to rip a septum piercing out of my face because they're for leading bulls around by the nose. She had similar comments about getting additional ear piercings. It has taken me approximately thirty years to experiment with faux jewelry to see if I like how it looks with the way my face is shaped and such. It's taken me an equal length of time to truly embrace the fashion style that I have always wanted to wear.
So, I'm kicking around in all black in a pretty generic goth style. I don't have my parents bitching at me that I'm dressed for a funeral or that I look like a freak. It's liberating to finally dress authentically. I was working towards that goal since I hit college a little over a decade back and I started therapy. People bitch about the masks and the inconveniences of them because of the pandemic. I love the fact that I can wear a mask as I am out and about doing my thing.
Between the haircut, style change, and the mask, my parents (who live near by) wouldn't recognize me if I passed them by on the street. It makes me safe from their harassment and emotional abuse. It lets me be authentic and wear things that help me stay grounded in the present. And, I have the added benefit that my teenage sons think I look cool now. Beloved has said if I suddenly started dressing like one of the normals, he'd be concerned that something was wrong because of how comfortable and happy I am with the style changes I have made.
I wish that my brain was as easy to fix. But, somehow in the process of making that break from what I was taught was 'normal,' I have been dealing with a lot of repressed stuff coming up to the surface. I don't know how to handle it. It's been sucking up at least 4 hours of my day as I do my journal work and I try to sort out what's going on in my head. I want to blog more. I want to get back into my fantasy writing. I want to finally finish book seven of the Umbrel Chronicles because I finally know how I'm going to do it. But, therapy comes first because it helps me function better.
I'm not ignoring you all. I'm just going through a really hard time right now. I am trying to move forward, but I have this baggage holding me back and lots more brain weasels than usual gnawing on my psyche.
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