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 |   A journey of self-improvement - or not. |
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Sup? I'm Char. You may know me from timeless classics such as
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I blog for things like
[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya They say jump and ya say "how high?" Ya braindead, ya got a fuckin' bullet in ya head |
  "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  Prompt: It's said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Describe something that you think is beautiful or attractive that someone else might consider unattractive or ugly.This prompt was made for me because, for better or for worse, I’m into some fairly unattractive human characteristics. Don’t worry, it’s just the trauma that bleeds over into my personal tastes so that I can’t properly tell the two apart. How much shall I overshare today? I’m into... well-earned arrogance. I love when someone knows a topic extremely well and they keep stepping over the line into arrogance when they talk about the topic. Person to me: Wow, he’s just full of himself today, isn’t he? Me, watching intently: Yeah, it’s super hot, isn’t it? Person to me: ?????? a mean streak. I hate when people are mean to each other. Like, I can't watch someone get bullied. But when it comes to myself, I like a touch of cruelty. Nothing absurd. Just an unexpected comment here, a condescending tone there. You know, normal shit. instability. I have mental illnesses and almost everyone I’ve been into is also less than perfectly stable. I know it sounds like I’m into drama by saying this, but I’m not. I’m into intensity. And there’s nothing more intense than two moderately emotionally unstable people who simultaneously love and hate each other. I like not knowing if someone is about to hit me or kiss me. It’s passionate. self-centered nostalgia. To end this on a lighter note, I love nothing more than just sitting and listening to someone’s stories. Others think it’s a bit narcissistic when someone talks forever about their life without asking about the other person. I’ll listen to someone monologue all night, and I have many times. Stories from their high school days, childhood stories, old jobs and people they knew. Good stories, bad memories. I don’t care either way. The more detailed and long-winded the better. It’s a nice reminder that other people exist and have lived lives before you that were just as full as yours. That’s enough for today, I think. Although looking back through my list, I can see why my relationships are usually toxic af.  Oh to escape abuse and seek it elsewhere. I’m totally fine, I swear.  Stoic Thought of the Day: "The obstacle in the path becomes the path." -Ryan Holiday |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Would you ever take a trip to a place "off the grid?" Where would you go? After the week I've had, I would gladly go off the grid for a while. I've been so stressed out/anxious this week that every possible chronic pain issue I have is at maximum flare up. I know people are like, "Oh, just forget about it. Just ignore it." But, like, it's highkey kind of difficult to ignore the president of your country trying to de-legitimize your voting process only in places where he's losing. Stop counting where I'm winning. Keep counting where I'm losing. It goes beyond a "sides" thing. I would never, regardless of party affiliation, defend a candidate screaming voter fraud only in places where they're losing with absolutely no evidence to support the claim whatsoever. It is disturbing. If our country had any soul left, we would all agree that mail in and absentee ballots are not "illegal" votes. We would all agree that every person's vote matters. What happened to the country that adults told me to be patriotic about as a child? The country that was presented to me then would never stand by a presidential candidate calling on his supporters to reject our democracy. Trump supporters can feel free to take their U.S. flags down any time now because they're just about as anti-American as I can imagine. I know this isn’t what I’m supposed to be writing about. It’s hard because I’m not sleeping (even before the election), my pain level is like a 7 on the pain scale most of the time, and I’m desperately trying to reconcile between what I was told this country was and what it has actually turned out to be. I just want to be able to make sense of things. But I swear, as soon as the election results are finalized and the loser and his supporters take the L and move on, I’ll at least try to mentally get off the grid. I’ll try to check out from the news and everything related to it for a while. It’s tough with the pandemic. It’s funny because I had people tell me that covid would magically disappear after November 3rd. Woke up bright and early this morning to the news: “Over 100K new covid cases in the U.S. for the first time ever yesterday.” Along with a map of pretty much the entire country in dark orange and red territory. New record cases in my state too. I’m not trying to control things that are out of my control. I’m just in the process of learning to accept them for what they are. There’s a difference, I think. And also, some things no matter how out of your control shouldn’t simply be accepted. There’s a thin line there too. It will be nice, hopefully in the near future, when the news is boring again and you’re like, “How is that news? Must not be much going on today.” I’m looking forward to not having to hear, “Did you see what the president said on Twitter?” sixteen times a week. Just being able to check out mentally from all of that is about as off the grid as I can imagine for the time being. Though as I’ve mentioned before in my blog, I’d love to visit the countryside of Italy after the pandemic. My in-laws go every summer and actually intended to take me along this summer as a graduation gift until the virus ravaged everything. But I hope there will be future opportunities to go off the grid there with a good book and a glass of water because that’s all I really want right now.  I just want peace of mind and I think we all desperately need that after this year. Stoic Thought of the Day: "The soul does violence to itself when it is overpowered by pleasure or by pain." -Marcus Aurelius |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Imagine the year is 2030. Write about what has happened in your life over the last decade in the past tense. Oh yikes. I'm not super great at creativity right now. I'm trying to live from one minute to the next. I have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone what's going to happen in the whole decade before 2030. It doesn't help that I haven't slept literally at all. After I post this I'll try to get some rest. Stressful week for a lot of us. I was actually stress eating earlier which I never do. I had a salad and cold pasta for dinner. Then I had a smoothie. Then I had some pretzels, some berries, a piece of toast, a cup of tea...  Hopefully I'll curb that or my 2030 reflection will be like, "Well, I used to do be pretty thin but then 2020 broke me." Why do I have a feeling that everyone's reflection of the past decade will read like a traumatic war story? "It all started in the year 2020..." Thousand yard stares all around. Now I'm just picturing myself all decrepit on a rickety old porch, rocking back and forth in a chair that doesn't rock, clutching a roll of toilet paper. That sounds about right given the pace of things. I will be nearing 40 by that point. Here's what I hope I can say I've accomplished in 2030: - I found the perfect career path for myself that was both personally and financially satisfying. - I got back into creative writing and wrote regularly- maybe even a novel? - I figured out where I wanted to live and bought the cutest house ever. - My doctors were able to find the perfect treatment plan for my mental health + physical health issues - no more pain! - We found discovered an effective vaccine for COVID and we've been able to not worry about it for many years because everyone agreed to take it and still practice some basic hygiene efforts. - Our democracy didn't totally fall apart and we got much more united as a country after the 2020 election. These are all reasonable things to hope for in 2030, right? Not totally unrealistic either. I mean, we'll see, but I'll be chill if 4 out of 6 of these things can happen. Fingers crossed!  Stoic Thought of the Day: “Man conquers the world by conquering himself.”-Zeno of Citium |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Details, details, details... Pick something in your view and describe it in as precise detail as possible without naming what the object is. See if you can get your readers to guess what object you're describing. Well, let’s see... I’m looking at something that is rectangular and shape. It has thin matte black edges and the center has every color you could imagine. It’s sitting on top of a flat surface about 8-10 feet away from me. It makes a lot of sounds sometimes, but other times it’s completely silent for hours or days at a time. It’s actually quite large, say, 50 inches diagonally? Sometimes it delights and excites, other times... it stresses and depresses. Have you guessed yet what I’m looking at? You probably did from the first sentence. Let’s take it a step further! Can you guess what feelings it’s eliciting tonight? I can’t even put into words how disappointed I am in my country right now. The fact that the election results are even this close is baffling. I feel like I’m being gaslighted. What am I not seeing that makes Trump a good president? Can literally anyone tell me?? In 4 years, I have not had one reasonable explanation from a Trump supporter. I don’t want to rant about this. Trying to stay positive and be patient as all the votes are counted. I will absolutely never forgive Trump supporters if he wins this election though. I gave people a pass in 2016 because I’m an empathetic and understanding person. I thought, well, maybe they didn’t realize that it would be this bad. The fact that we’ve had 4 years of bad after bad after bad only to see Trump getting this many votes is absolutely baffling. So, I actually did write a whole rant here and then I deleted it. To be clear, I didn’t delete it for fear of hurting Trump supporters’ feelings. I deleted it because it’s a waste of words and feelings. No one’s mind was ever getting changed in my blog in the first place. The votes have already been cast and there’s nothing that will change that. Instead I’ll say that, regardless of how this vote turns out, I hope you’re comfortable for the next four years with your voting choice. Our country is more divided than any other time in modern history. If you voted to re-elect the candidate who has made every effort to drive a further wedge between our country’s citizens, I hope you enjoy the divisiveness. For my part, I’ll just assume that you’re comfortable with anything Trump says and does since you’ve had 4 years to work out what you’re okay with and what you’re not okay with. If I get sick because someone with a MAGA hat and no mask coughed on me in the grocery store, I’ll assume that’s what you wanted to happen. When Trump once again refuses to even make a small attempt to unite the country rather than “troll the liberals”, I’ll assume that you specifically want that. When Trump says something racist or sexist, I’ll assume that’s what you want. When Trump threatens democracy, I’ll assume that’s the kind of thing you’re into. Expect your communication with me to reflect that. Just to be clear, I’m not even really angry that the race is this close. I’m mostly just done with the entire thing. I’m done extending the proverbial olive branch to people in an attempt to narrow the gap in the divisiveness. If you don’t care about our country, why should I care about reaching out or maintaining communication with you? Oh, and by the way, the thing I’m looking at is the TV. Stoic Thought of the Day: “How satisfying it is to dismiss and block out any upsetting or foreign impression, and immediately to have peace in all things.”-Marcus Aurelius |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Write about a time when you were "thrown in the deep end." This can be taken literally or figuratively. I got my CT scan results back, for those keeping up with that. I apparently have a TMJ dysfunction. The jaw joint is messed up from clenching my jaw all the time. Wonder why I do subconsciously do that? Could it be all the anxiety and stress? No way. So anyway, I'm going to see a TMJ specialist to get a second opinion on treatment, but I'm probably going to have to wait until January because it's extremely expensive and with health insurance deductibles, it's better to do these things at the beginning of the year than at the very end of the year. In the meantime, I'm going to get back on my anxiety meds to try to control that a little bit and get a nightguard to wear while I'm sleeping to stop some of the grinding/clenching hopefully. Kind of annoying because I was convinced they wouldn't find anything wrong in the test results based on what the pain specialist said when I met with him.  Alright, enough about that. Just wanted to update. In other news... ugh, my anxiety is HORRIBLE. I'm holding so much tension in my shoulders. I don't want to watch the election results at all, but Kira is like, "We have to!" I'm sure I lack the self-control to stay away anyway. Being thrown into the deep end. Well, in a pool this was never an issue for me. I'm not going the strongest swimmer but I managed to stay afloat. I can think of 3 specific times where I was thrown into the metaphorical deep end: 1. Leaving my parents' house I got kicked out at 16 and that was a pretty big 'sink or swim' situation. I also grew up in the middle of nowhere, so I didn't even have much in the way of street smarts to navigate life in the city. I fared okay at the end of the day. In those kinds of situations, I've found that you learn really quickly. You're kind of like living in a pinball machine though. You're simultaneously the ball bouncing off of everything and the person operating the plunger so that you don't die or whatever. You just end up being very quick with things because you don't have any other choice. Also, I think almost everyone has the strength to do these things. When you have no other options, you really learn how capable and strong you can be. 2. Starting college After dropping out of high school and taking a (7 year) gap year, I had no idea what to expect going into university. I had no idea if I even had the capacity to be a strong student, to study hard and not quit when it got difficult. I wasn't sure the entire first year. I was navigating all sorts of new situations with new people. I didn't really understand how to take notes or how to communicate in that type of environment. I managed this situation by staying quiet and observing others. When someone told me what they'd done to study or let me look at their notes, I filed it away in my brain for future exams. My learning and studying style ended up being a mishmash of other people's styles. Then with time, I developed my own notetaking and studying skills that worked specifically for me. 3. Post-grad job Most recently, I've been dumped in ice water with my first post-grad job. It's so much different than being given lectures and retaining that information in an organized way for exams. Every day is different. There are always one-off scenarios that you've never experienced before. Even after 10 months, I'm still rarely fully confident in what I'm doing. I still make mistakes. I encounter new problems that I need to figure out how to solve and there is nothing you can google or look up in a textbook that will help. I'm handling this by owning up to my mistakes, leaning on my coworkers' historical company knowledge, and challenging myself to take on the things that scare me. If there are a handful of tasks that need to be completed by my team, I'll volunteer myself for whichever task that I'm least experienced in. Sometimes you get thrown in the deep end; sometimes you throw yourself in the deep end. "Be afraid and do it anyway" as they say. Stoic Thought of the Day: “A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.”-Seneca |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Write about something you collect. If you don't collect anything, write about the collection of a friend or family member. I’m feeling very on edge today. It’s times like these that I wish I was more easily distracted by random lighthearted conversation or prompts. But I’m not. It feels too near to avoidance for my brain to accept. Between the election tomorrow and the pandemic raging, I can’t get past the dark cloud, this vague “bad feeling” that is consuming me. I keep telling myself, “It’s out of your control; let go.” It’s much more difficult in practice. The energy in the country right now reminds me of my childhood home. Just this oppressive, insidious energy that snakes its way around your body and constricts, constricts, constricts. I’m on this crazy sleep pattern where I’m sleeping 2 or 3 hours at night and then another 1 or 2 hours in the late afternoon. If I’m asleep long enough to hit REM sleep, I’m having nightmares, which is pretty usual for me. I just usually sleep more so I’m less tired in general. I’ve been watching businesses around the city board up their windows in preparation for election results and potential civil unrest. I’ve been seeing the Trump caravans shutting down interstates ahead of the election. I wish the best for everyone, regardless of the outcome. When you wish negative things on others, those negative things might come back to you twofold. Hopefully everyone else has enough sanity left in their tank to do the right things and attempt to stop the divisiveness. I’ve been the bigger person more times than I can count. It wears on you, but it’s not like you can rely on anyone but yourself to take the high road. As far as collecting things goes, I could lie and say I collect stamps or coins or something. The truth is that clutter around me clutters my mind. If I don’t need it, there’s no point in collecting it. One non-physical thing I kind of collect is lines that I like. Quotes, lyrics, movie lines, etc. Things that might spark my creativity if I want to write. Mantras that help me get through times like these. I’m featuring my favorite stoic quotes at the end of my blog entries this month because they’re helping me to cope this year. I thought this quote was apt for today’s entry. I’ve used this quote to examine myself and others during the pandemic and election process. I’ve caught myself absorbing other people’s anger that I don’t want or deserve. I’ve witnessed people enraged about things that have no basis in reality simply because they’ve listened to a politician or they’ve listened to opinions within an echo chamber. I can’t control what other people choose to do. All I can control is my reaction to those people and my own sources of positivity/negativity. I’m careful about how I absorb information and where I look for it. One person’s word means nothing to me. One site, one media station, one friend... it goes in one ear and out the other. If others adopted the practice of objectively taking in and analyzing information from multiple sources with different perspectives before drawing conclusions, we would all be much less divided. I choose to keep myself fully informed, even if others don’t. When I find myself feeling angry, I ask myself why I’m angry. What information am I working with? Where did I find that information? Who did I talk to? What do I know about the people I talked to? What other research have I done on the topic? What other analyses have I relied on? Here is the conclusion I’ve drawn: If you always, without fail, find yourself agreeing with one “side” on every single issue, every news story, every conversation, and every event, you might need to look a bit more introspectively at what you’re doing to form your own thoughts instead of absorbing other people’s thoughts. If you cannot find fault within your “side” in any way, ever, you’ve almost certainly sabotaged yourself by adopting the negative energy of others and raising it as your own. This is why I think collecting quotes is a good thing. It allows me to calmly reflect on things and draw conclusions that are really common sense. It’s underrated, especially this year. I’ve found myself concluding things with hatred in my heart because I don’t want to allow myself to be open to something that I consider wholly bad. But if we can’t learn to pick and choose our battles and form our own thoughts, we aren’t ever going to be able to make the peace that we desperately need. It feels wrong to “give in” to certain types of people, but at the end of the day, it’s about letting go of the negative things we can’t control so that we can build on the positive things we can control. Of course, there are things that aren’t up for debate. Science isn’t up to your personal opinion. You don't have rights to get others sick during a pandemic by refusing to cooperate with basic hygiene and mitigation efforts in public spaces. You can't hate other humans based on their skin color, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, etc. These things simply aren't up for debate because my personal convictions don't allow me to fraternize with people who are evil for the sake of being evil. There are those very easy situations where someone just lets you know straight up like, "I don't think women should be treated with human decency because they're women and I also don't think gay people should have basic human rights." Then you can just be like, "Oh cool, you're dismissed from my life forever." But outside of those situations, I think almost everyone can find common ground if they just listen to their heart and their conscience. If you're religious, you likely have an actual guide to help you. Otherwise, you can just not be a hateful person. Either works. I'm often surprised to hear religious people say extremely hateful things. I know they didn't read those things in their scriptures. A lot of hate has come from religion, but it's typically not from the scripture itself. I think a lot of religious people haven't gone in raw on their own beliefs by reading their religious texts. Instead they were preached to through some kind of negative interpretation of the religious text and the followers just shrugged like, "Sure, why not." Which also fits this quote like a glove. Examine yourself. Rethink your beliefs, more than once, do it continuously. Develop basic empathy and compassion for other humans. Listen more than you talk. It's not going to happen over night or even in the next several weeks or months, but we're ready to go through a time of healing. We need to find peace amongst ourselves. Think about who benefits from us hating each other. Stop believing everything that you hear any one person say. Don't bother thinking or talking about a news headline unless you've read the accompanying article and crosschecked the story with at least 5 different sources from a variety of news outlets. It's a lot like when you were 12 years old and you were taught to never draw conclusions in a paper without having multiple valid sources cited to back up your claims. Just pretend like every single thing you say is going to get meticulously fact checked by your middle school English teacher. Stoic Thought of the Day: “Other people's views and troubles can be contagious. Don't sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.”-Epictetus |
| "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Write about something you want. Pick something that you don’t necessarily need, but would make you happy simply to have. Hey there. Happy Halloween night.   We spent the evening watching horror movies and having a few drinks, which I've heard is the adult version of trick-or-treating and eating candy. Kira maybe had one too many because she fell asleep halfway through the last movie. There are so few things we actually need that almost everything qualifies for this prompt. I think of things we need as things we will certainly die without... water, sleep, food. I want the pandemic to be over. I want the election to be over. Those are two things most people could agree on right now. They’re not quite needs yet, but they’re very strong wants. This time period is very stressful, and no matter how much you try to just focus on what you can control, there is still worry there. I know people who aren’t even from the US who will be watching our election with bated breath because no one knows what will happen. As far as material wishes though, I don’t have many. I have shelter and all the basic creature comforts I need. I’m not one for shopping much so I don’t think a lot about the things I could potentially buy. Often when I do want something, I talk myself out of buying it because it’s not really necessary to have. But when I do buy things, I go pretty big. We all have our vices; mine is electronics. Every few years I refresh my tech lineup with a new computer, tablet, and smart watch. Usually not in the same year, but all of them are $500+ and it’s my little moment of splurging, I guess. This year was a new tablet that I got last week. I use my tablet for writing, drawing, bullet journaling, and some gaming. I’m using my old tablet for work now which is nice to have for notes because I lose any paper notes almost instantly. I guess because I just got that, I don’t have my eyes set on anything new at the moment. Next year I’ll be ready for a new smart watch though.  Stoic Thought of the Day: "Contentment comes not so much from great wealth as from few wants.” -Epictetus |
| Hey everyone. Hope you’re all well. But if you're anything like me, everything seems pretty awful right now. But oh boy, do I have a rant for you. So, I had pretty much routine surgery done over 5 months ago. I was supposed to feel better within a few weeks... but I didn't. Instead, I've been in pain since then. We tried everything to figure out what was going on. Eventually, they did a second surgery to explore the area and found that there was some damaged tissue preventing it from fully healing, so they took care of that. Great, right? Well, no. Because I spent the next 7 weeks in horrible pain. I was almost feral with pain. I went back to the surgeon and I was like, "Okay, this is super fucked. Like, this is really bad." The surgeon did a 3D x-ray immediately to see what was going on. I thought I certainly had some bad infection or something. Instead, he came back and told me that the surgery site was fully healed.  I said there's no way and again described all the pain that I’m in. The surgeon just looked very confused and said he doesn't understand why I'm still in pain.So he decided to refer me to a pain specialist. I set up an appointment for early last week with the specialist. In the week between seeing the surgeon and pain specialist, I had a migraine every day. On top of that, almost all of my muscles in my arms and legs were shot. It felt like I had done the most epic workout, although I can assure you, I had not. Long story short, I went to the pain specialist and he said he had examined my x-rays and saw no reason that I should be in pain at this point. He said we would do a full CT scan of my head/neck area just to double check. But he said what he really thinks is going on is a central nervous system issue that causes the communication between your brain and your spine to not function correctly. It causes your brain to send strong pain signals when it shouldn't and apparently has a correlation with chronic pain conditions like chronic migraines, fibromyalgia, idiopathic back pain, etc. He said that the surgery not going well and leaving me in pain for months could have essentially shocked my central nervous system into creating "repeat" pain signals, and the fact that I’m already predisposed to chronic pain disorders (i.e. migraines) lends credence to this diagnosis. I have never heard of this before. Ever. But I’m also not a doctor who has specialized in pain for 30 years, so I said, "Okay, Cool. How do we get my central nervous system to do what it's supposed to do?" Well, this guy starts laughing. Like, LMAO level laughing. And I'm just sitting there staring at him. He's like, "If only it were that simple! No, no, this unfortunately isn't something that can be cured. But we can manage it well with the right treatment plan." I was totally shocked. I'm in my twenties. I was like WTF. He was like, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's meet again in 2 weeks and go over your CT scan results and then we can go from there." So I’ll go back early next week for that. But I've just been floating through the past couple weeks totally confused. Scientifically, I don't understand how that all works. Like how pain signals work or why they wouldn't be working correctly. Is it a mental illness? Like, am I making up being in pain? And also, why would I do that? And how do I stop? Like, I'm just... confused? On top of that, the world is a complete and utter shitshow right now. The COVID numbers in my state (and a lot of states/countries) are the worst they’ve ever been right now and it hasn’t even gotten really cold outside yet. It’s impossible to avoid the news because I know several people who are actively sick right now. I have employees at work who are sick and I feel guilty because I’m working at home while they’re having to be in the field risking their health. Every time one of them gets sick, the employees who were around them have to be quarantined until they can get tested. I’ve had one employee quarantined 3 times since March- and I’ve had to actively advocate for her to be able to stay home until her test results get back every single time. One time early on it took 14 days to get her results back and the executive team was on my case for it every day saying that if she has no symptoms she’s fine and should be back working. I’m incredibly nervous about the election next week. I keep telling myself that I’ve done everything that I can do. Everyone I know has already voted too. There’s nothing left that can really be done. We just have to wait and see. I want to have faith in my country and believe that they’re going to do the right thing, but I have no hope left. After spending the past 4 years attempting to understand Trump supporters, there’s just no way to hold any faith at this point. I’ve gone out of my way to try to have those discussions, for my own sanity, to understand why and how someone can possibly still defend and vote for Trump. For the longest time I believed that I was just missing something. That if I had the right discussions with the right people, I would be able to at least see where they’re coming from in a logical way. But it simply is not going to happen because they are not logical thinkers. Every single conversation I’ve had with one of them has ended with them talking loudly over me or calling me names. Every time I’ve brought up something indefensible, they’ve pivoted to talking about someone else. The conversations take the same form of: Wife: I can’t believe you cheated on me! Husband: I can’t believe you FORGOT to turn on the DISHWASHER 3 years ago. I wanted to use my SESAME STREET cup but you left it dirty over night. You can guess which hypothetical person is the Trump supporter. And I’m talking every.single.conversation. I’ve engaged in with them. The exact same fucking talking points. Do they have a secret underground manual that I don’t have access to?  What about Hillary Clinton’s emails? (Even though Trump’s own family has used personal phones and computers for confidential emails.) I just think he’s funny. He doesn’t care to speak his mind! He’s just being a troll/joking. (As though having a troll in the most powerful position in our country is a good thing.) COVID is a liberal hoax, but it was also manmade in a Chinese lab then deliberately spread, but also it doesn’t exist and will go away on November 4th. (I have heard this several times.) I don’t care if it’s hypocrisy to push through a new Supreme Court justice in 2 weeks after refusing to even hear it for 9 months when the shoe was on the other foot. (Which is what it boils down to: “I don’t care about things or people who don’t align with my views.”) “Well, I’ve decided I don’t want to talk about politics even though I brought it up first.” (Best case scenario response from a Trump supporter usually said after they’ve made themselves known as a Trump supporter but realize they’re not going to ‘win’ an argument defending him. They’re non-confrontational, but will still vote for Trump. Also, talking about leadership response to a global pandemic isn’t really ‘political’ as much as it’s just natural when a thousand people are dying a day.)And if you dare to bring up any of the things in parentheses, they start talking over you loudly, calling you a socialist/communist, etc. Basically just covering their ears and going “LA LA LA LA LA.” Absolutely pointless to try to have a mature, genuine conversation with them. I think deep down, they know that they’re wrong. They know that the president is heartless and completely lacks empathy. They’re happy because he lacks empathy toward the same people who they also lack empathy toward. The interests are perfectly aligned. When pushed, they’ll laugh or resort to name calling because they know there are no words they can formulate to actually defend Trump or his administration. If they were able to, they 100% would. But because they know there isn’t anything they can say, they revert to laughing and saying they don’t care, talking about someone else who has either done the same bad thing or less bad things than Trump, or telling you that you’re a Marxist which indicates that they know nothing about Marxism, economics, sociology, or politics. On top of that, they refuse to admit when they’re wrong. Instead of looking at our country’s COVID numbers and the deaths of their fellow citizens and saying, “Ah, fuck, I should probably just wear a mask properly when I’m around other humans” they choose to either not wear a mask, wear a ‘fake’ mask that has holes in it to make a political statement, or wear their mask around their neck or chin. They’re literally getting us sick and killing us by being so incredibly anti-science. This isn’t ever going to end because they’re also going to refuse a mask + refuse a vaccine. Their mission is to get as many people sick as possible because of reasons I haven’t quite figured out. They’re probably doing it as a joke. My employees have told me that they regularly deal with people who put masks on to enter our locations and then take them off and put them in their pocket as soon as they get in the building. They’ve told me that almost invariably that the people are either wearing Trump/MAGA apparel, apparel that calls COVID a liberal hoax, or start screaming about Trump and their constitutional freedom when confronted and asked to put a mask on. We’ve been dealing with this issue since March. I have personally had people literally quit their jobs because they were either threatened with physical harm, coughed on, spit on, or shoved when they’ve told these people that they have to put a mask on in order to be in the building because there is a fucking pandemic. They’re sincerely bad people who want to cause physical harm and illness to others. Their behavior and lack of interest in protecting the citizens of our country is about as unAmerican as I can imagine. I get sick of sitting in meetings talking about how we can possibly keep people safe and meet government mandates on masks while also protecting our customers and employees from our country’s own citizens. Like, wtf world are we living in. It’s an absolute fucking nightmare every single day. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few weeks. It’s scary. Our country is so divided and so incredibly angry. Despite everything, I have no interest in harm befalling anyone. I don’t want anything bad to happen. I don’t want either side fighting. I just don’t see any way that’s going to actually happen. With the temperature so heated between people, the lack of confidence Trump has instilled in the voting process, and the fact that they’ve basically already said they won’t accept the election results if Trump loses, we really have no way of knowing what’s going to happen. We don’t know what the reaction is going to be no matter which way the vote falls. Even if it isn’t close, even if Biden wins in a landslide for example, I don’t think that’s going to be an accepted result. I hope that I’m wrong and that Trump will slink away silently. I hope that our country will begin to take the pandemic seriously and begin to repair itself. I don’t see how it’s possible, but I hope. I know this isn’t the most popular opinion on this site. I don’t care at this point because I have very little to lose. Best luck to all of us in the coming weeks/months. Wear a proper mask and wear it properly if you’re not both homicidal and suicidal. Examine your belief system. Research “both sides” thoroughly using reputable resources (hint: Facebook and your drunk neighbor shouting over the fence are not reputable resources). Think about the world you want to see for future generations and your future descendants who will be straight/gay/black/white/brown. Imagine them reading your 2020 blog or journal. Would they be disappointed by your belief system? Embarrassed? Are you sad or pleased when you read belief systems from the 1800s? Or would they be proud? Are your beliefs admirable? Logical? Rational? Empathetic? Kind-hearted? Thoughtful? Write a list of your beliefs in Column A. Write a list of how you came to believe each thing in Column B. What research did you do? What are your sources for that research? What are the alternative beliefs? What words would you associate with your beliefs vs. the alternative beliefs? How did you reach those conclusions? What other perspectives could you try on? Who could you talk to who might have different experiences? Have you made the effort to calmly reach out to them and have a discussion? How are you biased? How are others biased? What can you do today to rid yourself of biases and negative preconceived notions? Examine yourself with an open and honest heart. Step outside of yourself. Stop settling for comfort in what you’ve always believed or what you were taught to believe. Think for yourself. And above all for my US friends... Vote your conscience.  |
| I thought I'd update because it has been a few weeks. As I mentioned several weeks ago, I’m no longer doing things with my free time that I don’t feel doing. I’m doing relatively okay-ish, primarily because I’m aggressively pursuing the things I do want to do. I’m trusting myself to make my own decisions. I’m allowing myself to acknowledge emotions without being overtaken by them. I’m eliminating myself from spaces where I don’t feel appreciated. I’m making myself unavailable to people who expect me to serve their purpose rather than my own. In short, I’m not carrying favor with a lot of people right now. I have several friends who aren’t really communicating with me; I’m not really communicating with them. It’s difficult when you know people care about you, but your ideal path for yourself differs from their ideal path for you. I try to listen and take advice where I can, but, ya know... I’m admittedly being hedonistic. But I think I’m doing it for the right reasons. Which has been making me think lately, can you do the wrong thing for the right reasons? As long as I don’t harm anyone else in the process, I’m failing to see why I shouldn’t freely choose what I do even if it turns out to be a mistake in the end. It actually surprises me a little bit how surprised the people around me are when I firmly make a decision and don’t sway on it. I’ve had multiple conversations over the past month that are basically like, “I don’t want you to do X thing.” And my response is, “I’ve already chosen to do X thing.” And they’re appalled, like, “But I don’t want you to do X thing.” I guess I didn’t realize how many people were hanging around me with conditions. As in, you’re going to do/not do what I say or we’re not really talking anymore. I haven’t talked to a couple of my friends in weeks because they quickly dipped out when I didn’t back down from my decisions. And I’m being a little unfair here. Obviously, they do care about me or they wouldn’t be trying to control what I do. They want me to make good decisions and they don’t trust me to make those decisions for myself. I had the opposite conversation today where someone wanted me to do something rather than wanting me to not do something. For story’s sake, I’ll clarify that he wanted me to come hook up with him. When I told him that wasn’t something that was going to happen, he was furious. “This year has been really hard for me. You know I’m depressed and it would cost you nothing to come hang out for an hour. How can you be so selfish!?” Oh, the humanity. Have I really been such a people pleaser that I can’t simply tell someone “no” without it turning into a thing? That’s what I’ve had an interesting time doing this year. Just being more honest and more clear with what I want and need. I’m being more direct about how I feel. People don’t enjoy it. I’ve been able to do this through self-care though. I eat healthy food, drink a lot of water, write in my journal, read a ton, and probably most importantly- meditate. I meditate on things before I talk about them. I meditate before I make a decision. When I’m upset, I meditate so that I can explore the emotion. I try to break it down almost analytically. My starting off point is like, “I can’t believe this. Fuck that dude. I’m so pissed off.” Hands shaking, heart racing, all that meltdown kind of stuff. But then I go off by myself, do some deep breathing exercises, and meditate. Then I’m calm enough to explore it, like: Okay, what does pissed off actually mean? Well, it means I’m angry. Okay, why are you angry? Because he’s not listening to me. Why does it matter to you if he listens or not? Because I always listen to him and I trusted him to do the same. Then it’s more bite-sized so I can digest the fact that I’m not “pissed off” so much as I’m feeling hurt/rejected/betrayed/disrespected/scared or whatever else. Next, I explore why I’m feeling those things and then finally does it even matter that I feel those things. That’s how I get to, “I’m feeling disappointed with that conversation because I’m scared that he will reject me if he doesn’t see my perspective and I don’t feel like I was heard. But I understand that I don’t require his approval as long as I approve of myself. I’m choosing to let go of this situation for the time being because I’m not in control of how he reacted. His feelings are just as valid as mine and I’m sorry for both of us that we can’t resolve this issue for the time being.” And then I end the conversation with myself with an affirmation like, “I’m learning from my past self and evolving into someone better.” It might sound lame. It’s okay if it does. As someone who has borderline personality disorder, my emotions are incredibly intense and difficult for me to truly understand. Those initially shaky-handed ‘I’m so pissed off’ moments have gotten me into so much trouble. Every time I can sit with those negative emotions and accept that I’m going to feel them without resorting to negative impulsive actions it's a huge personal win for me. It’s provides me with proof that I can trust myself. So that’s what I’ve been doing the past few weeks. Making my own decisions which may or may not be mistakes, acknowledging my emotions without acting on them, and figuring out some of my relationships. I hope you’re all well? “It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.” ~ Marcus Aurelius |
Artist: Kid Cudi Song: Just What I Am [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: If you could live the next 24 hours and then erase it and start over just once, what would you do?Sorry if I made anyone uncomfortable with yesterday's entry. I know there are some things you're not supposed to talk about, especially in a community blogging challenge, but I've never been great at finding those boundaries, so here we are. I'm mostly just working through things in my own head, but writing them out helps. I understand what I need to do.In the hellhole of 2020, there are so many simple things I would do with a "free" day. I would go visit all the friends and family I haven't seen for months because of the virus. If we got infected, no harm no foul because I could just rewind out of it. I mean, really, the whole day is a do-over so what I'd do is just take all my money and plan a day trip for my family and friends. Although mixing my family and friends would be... weird. Okay, new plan. Visit family in the morning then fly out of town with friends in the afternoon and spend the night with them. Actually, that sounds really tiring and the logistics are messy. Revised plan. Visit family in the morning, come back home and do a club crawl with my friends at night. Plus, I don't even have to deal with the hangover because I'm erasing the whole day anyway. Oh man, the things I would do if I could just erase them are vile.  But really, this year it would just be normal stuff that I've not gotten to do for pretty much the whole year. I guess we're back to the basics at this point. When it rains it pours, whiskey bottles on the sinks and floors |
Artist: The Menzingers Song: Good Things [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: One thing outside of my control that I need to stop worrying about is... Just one thing? My answer can't be everything?  Honestly, I have such an issue with control and I think a lot of other issues stem from that. I just want to control the way people react to me, which is obviously impossible and stupid. I didn't have a great weekend because I met up with the dude from over here "Invalid Entry" . For those who are keeping up with that saga, he decided it has been long enough since my surgery to talk about things and hang out. But in the meantime while recovering, I decided I don't want to do a contract which would commit me to that relationship for a certain length of time.So I told him that and he was like, "Yeah, great, we can still do our thing occasionally, but I'm not comfortable doing some things without a contract in place." Then he proceeded to do the most mild almost vanilla scene with me that didn't put me in the right headspace at all... just not what I'm looking for whatsoever. I know I'm skirting the lines on my GC-rating right now so I'll stop, but it's so frustrating because I just want to make him do what I want. And at the same time, I only said no to a contract because my friends told me to and I couldn't control their reaction to it. Life would be so much easier if I could just force people to react how I want them to react.  Now I'm just going into the work week with a bad mental space because getting 40% of what you need is somehow worse than getting nothing. Like, I need that system shock to feel grounded and normal. I've felt totally off since then. But in addition to letting go of my desire to make people do what I want them to do... I could also do with not worrying about: - My surgery recovery, which is either going to happen or not happen regardless of how much I stress over it. Actually, stressing out over it probably makes recovery worse. - Work things. I'm doing fine in my role, but there are some incoming changes looming over my team and we don't really know how things are going to shake out so it's a bit worrying. But again, something I have zero control over so it's pointless to worry about. - The pandemic. Like, totally reasonable to do everything you can to protect yourself, but I had to step away from the news completely. I couldn't take the 24/7 news cycle about it. Even still, I hear about it a lot just from everyone and everything. - Politics. I know ranting about politics like I did in my last entry is bad form. I'm probably going to do it again though, to be fair. The reason I should stop worrying about it is because I'm never going to change anyone's mind, so all I can do is vote. I'm sincerely so worried about this election and the aftermath of it though. - Winter. As silly as it is, I'm legit concerned about winter coming because it's kind of a depressing time of year for me on a good year. But then on top of that, we didn't get to enjoy any of the good weather this year because of the virus. I've mostly been stuck in my house since March minus a couple visits to the aforementioned dude and going on short walks. But I can't control the seasons, sadly. Usually when I'm feeling out of control with my own things, I focus myself on other people's things. Not super in-depth because I'm not great at solving my own problems, let alone anyone else's, but just basic things like leaving comments on people's blogs or whatever. I just know that people need to feel "seen" and I try to validate that whenever I can. It makes me feel at least semi-productive to do that. I've been having a horrible time Pulling myself together I've been closing my eyes to find The old, familiar failures |
Artist: Face to Face Song: Blind [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Respond to this quote: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” -Ruth Bader Ginsburg Man, 2020 really is just all gas no brakes, huh? This entry is going to be hard to right because I honestly feel sick over R.B.G.'s passing. The news is simply devastating for our country in a time of extreme tension and animosity. First of all, Rest in Power to The Notorious R.B.G. She's absolute powerhouse feminist icon who was never afraid to lay down the hammer for equality and human rights. Special shoutout for being a major ally to the LGBT+ community. What's not to like?  It's difficult because it feels disrespectful to get political immediately after someone's passing, but her life's work was political in nature so it's a bit difficult to not acknowledge that angle. I know she held on as long as she could fighting cancer because she knew that the Trump Administration would immediately work to push through a controversial conservative replacement before the election despite McConnel refusing to confirm a replacement for Justice Scalia in 2016, even though he passed much earlier in the election year. Instead, they waited until Trump got elected and he nominated his own conservative replacement. I don't know how much people know about or understand... but this is a huge deal. They expressly refused to vote on Obama's nomination which was made in March of 2016 because they said it should wait until after the election. Now they're going to try to push through a nomination AND vote in less than 2 months. There are no "two sides" to this. It is infuriating and it is disgusting behavior. Anyone who agrees with this needs some immediate and serious self reflection. And likely some education, which they'll invariably refuse to do because they might learn something they don't like. I didn't want to get into this rant, but... fuck, man. This is just about the worst timing I could fathom in likely the worst year I've witnessed. As for the quote, of course R.B.G. hit the nail on the head with this one. It's one thing to fight for what is right; it's another to inspire others to also fight for what is right. There is power in numbers. Everything we've gotten from desegregation to same-sex marriage has come about because the number of people willing to fight for it outweighed the number of people willing to fight against it. There will always be dissenters, but we as a society have decided that we're going to stop being shitty people in some regards and we accept these things as human rights now. I can't believe in the futuristic-sounding year of 2020, there are still so many people who would like to revert back to discriminatory ideologies. It totally baffles me. But either way, you are not going to win. Because of great leaders like R.B.G. who devote their lives to equality and inspire others to be forward-thinkers, you are always going to find yourself on the wrong side of history. And you should, because society deserves better. What if I'm right and you are wrong? What if you knew it all along? |
Artist: Fall Out Boy Song: Suger We're Goin Down [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: What life lessons have you had to learn the hard way?I'm saving everyone's responses to my last entry for future reference when I feel invisible at work because I'm sure that's bound to happen at some point. Not so much right now because we've all been working from home for almost my entire time with the company. But, in the not so distant future (maybe)... Before I answer the prompt, if you're planning on doing NaNoWriMo or OctoPrep this fall, you can add me on the official NaNoWriMo site. I decided to do OctoPrep next month, but I'm planning on handwriting all of it on my tablet and then I'll convert it to text and organize it ahead of November. I haven't tried NaNo since I completed it in 2015. Which brings me to my first lesson of this entry... You should do most things how you want and when you want.I'm focusing right now on participating in things how I want to participate in them. I have a long track record of trying to appease the leaders of any given group of people (work group, family group, WDC community) and it actually tends to diminish my personal experiences. Instead of growing as a person/worker/writer, I try to meet the expectations that have been placed onto all of us and it doesn't really seem to pay off that frequently. At the end of the day, I'm often like, "I could've used that time to do X, Y, Z and gotten the same result." That sounds more negative and bitter than it's intended. It's more like I'm reminding myself now that I have every right to experience things at my pace or in my own way whether or not that aligns with what someone else wants me to do. And even doing so, I'll likely still be received the same way. You don't have to be friends with everyone.Oh, hey, this is a recent revelation. I'm so friendly and used to getting along with people that really only in the past couple years have I realized that, not only do you not need to be friends with everyone, you also can't be friends with everyone. See, what I used to do is I'd let people push me around and talk down to me as much as they wanted. While I'd be thinking, man, this person's kinda a dick, what I'd say would not align with my thoughts. What I'd say is, "Well, different strokes." Or, "I respect your opinion even though it's different than mine." But something changed, and I can remember the exact second it changed. I was talking to someone who was claiming to be persecuted for their opinion. Of course, I thought damn, that sucks. Everyone has a right to their opinion even if I might not agree with it. So I had them elaborate and it turns out their "opinion" was something egregiously hateful against an entire group of people. That's when I realized that we can still be friends if you eat meat and I don't, or you like Microsoft and I like Apple, or you prefer structured poetry and I prefer free verse. We cannot be friends if you're homophobic and I'm not, or you're sexist and I'm not, or you're racist and I'm not. These are not things that can be compromised, nor should they be. These "opinions" have no place in 2020 society. It's like earlier in the year when I think Robert Waltz  had a great entry about how anti-science opinions are not comparable to scientifically proven facts and shouldn't be given the same weight. There are no "two sides" about it, and I won't try to get along with someone who subsists on hatred and anti-intellectualism.Am I more than you bargained for yet? |
Artist: flora cash Song: You're Somebody Else [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "JAFBG" Prompt: Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week."30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Have you picked up any new hobbies or interests since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March?I'm back, sort of. I've been off trying to reconcile feelings™. I have this thing in life that's difficult for me to understand. I feel like whenever I do something bad, like whenever I have a negative behavior, I always have to pay the price for it. I always have to deal with the bad consequences of my bad actions. And that makes sense. But... I feel like it doesn't work the other way around. When I do something good or feel like I'm a net positive to a situation, it doesn't seem like it's acknowledged, like, at all. I think this is related to growing up in a reward/punishment-based system where it's like "Do what I want and I'll reward you. Don't do what I want and I'll punish you." But in actuality, the former is really, "Do what I want and I'll be neutral toward you." It's frustrating to me because I want to be "good" but I've grown to understand the concept of being good or doing good things through acknowledgements. I think people, by nature, want to be recognized when they put a lot of time and effort into something. Not that they need people to bow down before their greatness, but just the slightest thumbs up to be like, "Hey, you're not invisible and you're doing a good job." I see microcosms of this scenario everywhere and it's super demotivating to me. I'm not the type of person who does well with blasé responses because my brain is like, Hey, if they're indifferent to you anyway, why not just do whatever you want? Because often when presented with numerous options, I base my decision on expectations or desires of the other party. Sometimes it's like, why not just do whatever I feel like doing in the moment since it clearly doesn't affect the outcome regardless? So, that's what I've been wrestling with a little bit. I'm in tune with my mental health issues, as unraveled as they've been lately, so I can recognize my BPD being triggered. The question is do I want to involve myself in something that triggers my BPD? Not sure this flip-floppy brain thing is a new COVID hobby for me. It might’ve been around just a tad longer than that. But there is so much time to think now, and that’s why it’s so important to be thoughtful and deliberate with your actions. I mean, even unrelated to this tiny meltdown I’m having, the smallest things can brighten someone’s day or week or even month during COVID times. Almost everyone I know has been sitting at home for months now, not seeing their primary social group, not doing their typical summer activities, looking ahead to the holidays where they might be celebrating without friends or family for the first time ever. It’s crucial to do what you can to make people feel appreciated during any time, but especially during these times. I don’t know that I’ve picked up any new hobbies, but I have been doing a lot more of my pre-existing hobbies. Without commuting for work, I’ve had a lot more time during the work week to read, for example. I have so many books on my holds shelf at the library because I’ve had more time to read book summaries and get a super long to-read list going. I’ve also been writing some off-site, which is cool. I’ve been trying pen and paper a little bit to avoid distractions and it seems to be working well. Depending on how long I’m essentially stuck at home, I’m sure I’ll pick up some new interests and hobbies, but really I have so many half-hobbies that I’m more likely to just focus on making them a little more consistent hobbies. Also, I haven’t checked my emails from the last week but I will soon I’m sure. Having my mind engulfed and being in pain all the time has proven to take up a lot of space in my life, so there’s that part too. Well you look like yourself But you're somebody else Only it ain't on the surface |
Artist: Soul Coughing Song: Circles [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Write a letter to your future self. Write the date you would want to read the letter again at the top of your entry (you can choose how far in the future this date is; One year, five years, twenty years, etc.) What would you want to tell your future self? What would you want to know from them? This one will be short because I have a really bad migraine.  I just wanted to update though and say that I went to see my surgeon. He removed the stitches and said there's still quite a bit of bruising. He said it will take at least a couple more weeks before we'd expect noticeable healing and I'll likely be in pain for a while yet.So I'm going to go back at the end of the month to check on how it's healing. If I've not seen a significant improvement after that point, I'll get a second opinion. Just feeling kind of down because I thought it was weird that I was still in pain 2 weeks after surgery and he was kind of like, "What are you talking about?? You have several more weeks to start noticing that you're healing and a few months until it's fully healed." So I don't know...  This prompt is fun though so... Dear 9 September 2025 Me, I have nothing to tell you that you don't already know. I do have a million questions though like... When does my jaw stop hurting and what can I do to make it heal faster? Also, who should I trust at work? Who should I get in with to get a sick promotion? What are the winning lottery numbers? How's Tesla stock looking? Where should I move? Should I buy a house? When do we get a covid-19 vaccine? Is it effective? How much longer until I can leave my house and safely be around people? Are 2021-2025 any better than 2020? Yeah, this whole pandemic shit is pretty big in 2020. Please tell me you're not reading this letter from quarantine. Signed, 9 September 2020 Me I mean, at least that would show my 2020 mindset, I guess. When you were languishing in rooms I built to file you in And when the wind set down in funnel form and pulled you in |
Artist: The Cardboard Swords Song: Flannel [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: What does confidence mean to you? Describe the traits of a confident person. Looking at the traits you listed, would you consider yourself a confident person? My first instinct on this was to look up the standard definition of "confidence" but I realized that wouldn't be very confident of me, so I didn't. I've thought about it on my own and I've come to the conclusion that: Confidence = I know I can... I know I can explain that topic because I know that topic. I know I can succeed at this job because I have the skills. I know I can overcome challenges because I'm strong. I know I can survive without you because I don't need you. I think confidence is just about having faith in yourself and knowing that no matter what shit goes down, you’re gonna adapt and roll with it. I’ve got a few super confident people around me who are unflappable. Like, straight up, I’ve never seen any self-doubt in them. You can say whatever you want to them. They’ll brush it off like you’re a gnat, like you’re completely insignificant. In case my blog isn’t clear, my confidence mileage varies. I have no idea how people handle criticism or negative comments without feeling like shit about it. I’m like, “Aren’t you even slightly upset that someone said that to you?” And they respond with, “Who said what?” That’s a legit superpower. Like, you haven’t been ruminating over this shitty thing that person said to you? Not at all? Oh, you instantly forgot about it because you don’t give a fuck about that person or their opinion? Cool. I have a very unstable sense of self. My level of confidence varies wildly depending on my mood. I’ve been called both cocky and insecure in the same day. Multiple times... When talking about the same topic. I’m never stable in that regard. I’m either so confident that people are like, “Ok, dick, calm your ass down.” Or I’m so in the throes of self-doubt that people are like, “Hey, come on, you’re not that bad.” I haven’t developed a consistent sense that’s required to have that stable view of yourself and your abilities. I am getting better though because I'm starting to understand what confident people are talking about. For example, Logan has always said to me, "I want you to be with me because you want to be with me, not because you need to be with me." You have no idea how badly this hurt my feelings when I first heard it. I was like what, you don't need me? If you don't need me then why are you wasting my fucking time? I mean, I really lost it at this statement. Even after he explained, like, "I don't want you to be dependent on me. I don't want you to feel like you need me because I deliver something physical or financial or emotional to you that you feel reliant on." I was like how dare you... But coming back together now and hearing him say, "I want you to stand on your own two feet and tell me that you know you're okay without me." Something clicked. I get it now. And I've been applying this to all of my relationships with friends, family, coworkers, and everyone else I know. Because I realize how many times I've allowed myself to be hurt because I thought I required someone in my life. And almost in a dignified way too, like, "Look at how much I can withstand from you because I need you in my life that badly." As though it's proof of how much I care for them. It's not. All it has proved is that I lack the confidence to simply say: I know that I can find someone better than you because I know I deserve it. As with most roads in life, I don't think the path to confidence is linear. Even after that little epiphany, I've still fallen backwards and been that same speck of a person, pathetically begging him while having a total meltdown like, "Please, I need you. I can't be without you." To which he promptly pulls back again and says, "Try again. Show me that you know you're self-sufficient. Show me that you know you have the strength to be independent. Show me that you don't need me." So that's what I'm trying to work on in my interpersonal relationships now. I know several of you gave good comments on my entry a couple days ago when I was beating myself up because I was worried that I'd offended or upset various people. I know that those feelings of guilt are actually coming from fear. Fear that if I mess up or upset someone, they're going to instantly abandon me and stop being my friend over it. What I want for myself is to develop the confidence to say, "I want and I value our relationship/friendship, but I do not require it to continue living my life. We'll meet each other halfway, and if not, I'll move on and be fine." I'll keep doing the things that I do And I'll find someone who wants me like I wanted you |
Artist: Relient K Song: Be My Escape [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: I completely rearranged my desk space yesterday! It was a much-needed change and has helped with my motivation. What does your desk space / writing space look like? What sorts of things do you need (or not need) in your work space to be productive and happy? I realized today that I'm getting super depressed. Maybe I've been depressed the whole time. I don't know. Feels like I'm oscillating back and forth between panic and depression. For the first time in probably 8 months, I thought about killing myself today. Not like an active planning kind of thing, but just that passing intrusive thought. Like, hey, you have this option too. I just realized how depressing that opener is with this prompt. Amazing.I'm gonna interlace some things. It'll be #fun. I don't have a desk, which is kinda messed up because I've been working from home for like 7 months now. I actually did have one, but I tossed it when I moved in June cuz I literally never used it. I pretty much do work on my laptop either on the couch, or in bed, or outside, or on the floor... I really don't need that much. If I'm going to have a productive day, I can have it anywhere. I can work wherever, sleep wherever. I'm pretty much flexible. There are certainly conditions under which I cannot be motivated or productive and I'm under those conditions now. I've just barely been getting by doing enough work to seem productive, which I can only do because there's a pandemic so the whole fetal position parts of my day are flying under my radar. I don't get what's going on, really. I usually handle physical pain way better than this. I'm used to have migraines fairly regularly and I also have some extracurricular activities that are pretty much painful. I've come to the conclusion that I can handle physical pain a lot more if I know what's causing it. With my current situation, I don't get what the issue is and the doctor doesn't seem to fully get it either outside of "it was a complex surgery that didn't heal correctly." But that doesn't tell me much in terms of what to expect now. The fact that the second surgery was almost two weeks ago now and I feel worse than before isn't very promising. It's likely fucking with my head because there are the unknown aspects of what's causing it to not heal and how long it's actually going to hurt for. I mean 4 months straight of pain seems excessive, but even so, I'm a little surprised that I'm mentally coping so poorly. My guess would be that there are other things misfiring in my brain that I can't adequately identify because the physical pain is clouding my usual processing, um, process. Honestly, if I could go without pain, I'd work in a fucking cave and be productive. I'd work inside an airplane and then parachute out of it at the end of the day. I'd be more motivated to work inside of an actual trash bin if it meant I could be pain-free. That's where I'm at with things right now. I’ve given up on giving up slowly I’m blending in so you won’t even know me |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Reflect on the last week. Write about something you did really well last week and something you could have done better."JAFBG" Prompt: Tell us about something/someone that fucked you off this week.This is going to turn into a rant, so you've been forewarned. In the last week, I've participated in a couple different birthday activities. I've done 30 reviews so far, and I think they've all been pretty good reviews. I think I did 30-ish reviews in all of last year so I'm killing it this year, by comparison. I'm planning to do 10 newbie reviews today and then that'll probably be it for me for birthday celebration. I guess that's what I did well in the last week. Now for what I've done poorly... My anxiety has completely reignited in the last few days. I think people who don't deal with anxiety, or don't deal with it frequently, maybe don't know how all-encompassing it actually is. There's so much more than just the straightforward feeling of being anxious. There are the physical symptoms, for one thing. The headaches, nausea, racing heart, chest pains, body aches, muscle tension... all of which make you feel more anxious. There are the interpersonal symptoms, which are some of my worst mental health symptoms, probably because I have a personality disorder layered on top of the anxiety. I just get very... prickly(?) when I'm dealing with a lot of anxiety. I'm very quick to get upset or get angry. I'll give you two examples from this week. So, this guy I know who I'm friends with and also not friends with messaged me and was like, "Oh, I have something to tell you, it's not a big deal at all, but don't get angry ok?" And just already being anxious and prickly, I instantly got angry. I was like why the fuck are you bringing up something that's 'not a big deal at all' if you know it's going to piss me off? If it's not a big fucking deal, then don't bring it up to me. Of course, that little meltdown pissed him off and he was like, "Well, I just won't talk to you then!" So we haven't talked in a few days, which I'm not all that broken up about, but it's just an example of how prickly you can get when you're dealing with anxiety and other issues. The smallest thing can quickly spiral. Then, example number two. Here's the setup for this one. My grandfather's birthday is in mid-September and mine is in mid-December. When I was a kid, I hated my birthday being super close to Christmas, I wished it was in October because that was my favorite month and then I'd actually get a birthday that was separate from Christmas. Well, I complained to my grandparents about this and my grandfather was like, "You should celebrate your birthday with me in September!" Everyone else in our immediate family (literally everyone) was born from January-June. So I was like, hey, that's the closest other birthday to my birthday, we should do it. I think my parents were all for this arrangement because it meant not having to dish out gifts for my birthday as they were trying to get gifts for everyone else too. So as a family, we've celebrate mine and my grandfather's birthday together pretty much always and then I've always celebrated with my friends in mid-December for my actual birthday. With that setup out of the way, my grandfather called me yesterday and was like, "Hey, so, I don't want to celebrate my birthday with you anymore." I was like, that's cool, but we've celebrated together for over 20 years, minus years I was away from the family. Seems a little weird that he would want to stop now that he's like eighty. But I couldn't really get him to tell me why he wanted to stop celebrating together. I was making light of it like, "You want your special day to yourself?" and he was laughing about it. But then he's like, "I actually don't want to go to Thanksgiving or Christmas either. I don't want to be around your dad." That set off this whole-ass conversation that I didn't want to have, so I cut it super short and I was just like, "Do what you wanna do, but don't worry about the birthday thing." It's really not a big deal, just one of those weird family traditions that neither of us probably have cared about for years and were doing for the other person. These two incidents are just microcosms of my entire week where I've felt like I've done something wrong or pissed someone off. I just feel super prickly- emotionally and physically sensitive to everything. I try really hard to anticipate what other people want from me, but it's like, extremely fucking difficult to do. Even on WDC, it can be hard. Like, I get a review response and I'm like, shit, I pissed someone off. Or I have a conversation with someone and I see them say something related elsewhere on the site and I'm like, shit, I pissed them off. Those little "conflicts" which aren't really conflicts, more just like shit that happens, really suck when you're going through a heightened anxiety cycle. Kira will be like, "Are you paying attention to what I'm saying?" And I'm like, well, fuck, my hands are shaking, my heart is racing, my thoughts are racing... I'm doing the best I fucking can to pay attention to what you're saying with every part of my body feeling like an electrical current is running through it. When I get like this, I get this attitude going like I'm just not gonna respond to anyone. Like, I'm just not going to answer my phone, not gonna answer my messages, just gonna go total no contact with the world. Even if it's a nice message or something, can't offended or annoy someone if you don't respond, right? But of course... wrong. Because if you don't respond then it's like, "Why are you ignoring me? I saw you read my message. You had to have checked your phone in the past 3 days. I see that you're online." So, I dunno. I guess to loop back around to the prompt, the thing I did poorly in the last week was maintaining my composure with people. Or, well, that's not true. I maintained my composure with people and then I went and privately beat myself up because I'm prickly over everything. I also never got my anxiety med situation sorted out because I've been dealing with a lot between pain/surgery and work. Feels super overwhelming to me. So, this week I'll hopefully either be able to calm myself down through various therapy and self-care techniques I've learned over the years, or I'll unplug completely from everyone/everything and give that a spin. |
"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Write about a weird, cool, unbelievable, or interesting fact you know, but don’t think many other people do.Ugh, I can't wait for the 3-day weekend. I'm really feeling myself backsliding into how I felt last month and it just sucks. I dunno how much longer I'll last blogging this month, so I better make this a good one just in case. To make matters worse, the person I wrote about in this entry: "Invalid Entry" decided that we should 'cool off' while I recover from surgery, so we aren't seeing each other for a few weeks, or longer, depending on whether or not this recovery actually, ya know... happens. So here we go, let's entertain ourselves. I remember this video from a couple years ago and thought of it right away when I saw the prompt: [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] It's a little less than 6 minutes long, so you can just watch the vid if you want, but if not, I'll summarize quickly. 1. No one was burned in the Salem Witch Trials. This is a weird one because I feel like we hear 'burned at the stake' in reference to this situation, but in reality, 15 died in prison, 19 were hanged, 1 was squished to death. Doesn't make it any less shitty, but there ya go. 2. Buddha wasn't overweight as we often see represented. The overweight statues and imagery that are often associated with Buddha are actually of a Chinese zen monk named Budai. 3. Also, Buddha wasn't a God, he was just a guy named Siddhartha Gautama. Also, he was thin. 4. Vomitoriums were not a place where Romans vomited so they could feast more. They're the entrances/exits of the amphitheatres. 5. Washington never chopped down a cherry tree. The story is used to prove that he's honest because he admits to his father that he chopped down the tree. Also, his teeth weren't wooden. 6. The Egyptian pyramids weren't built by slaves. There's evidence that they were built by paid laborers from all different classes. 7. You can't see the Great Wall of China from space. I don't know where this idea came from. 8. Hitler didn't create the Autobahn. It was already there, he just helped expand it. 9. Iron maidens weren't torture devices used in medieval times. They just weren't. The myth basically got built around the ideology that the Middle Ages were super violent and brutal. The first evidence of an iron maiden doesn't exist until the 19th century, and it wasn't used. 10. Einstein never failed math. They don't go into this in the video, but it was a confusion based on the grading system. In some countries 1 is the best grade and 6 is the worst. In other countries it's the opposite. So when he got the best grade in math, it got confused with the worst. You can delve way deeper into all of these, so if any of them interest you, look them up to get the full story. I really like learning about myths and where they originated. I feel like sometimes when I say, "Oh hey, that's not actually true. What happened was..." people get annoyed with me. But I personally welcome the opportunity to learn something new and I'd rather someone tell me if I'm perpetuating a misconception.This video hits on quite a few of the popular ones, but here's one of my personal favorites not in the video: There aren't different parts of your tongue that taste sour/salty/sweet/bitter/savory. I feel like I straight up heard this in a biology class in middle school. I remember my teacher talking about different 'zones' on your tongue that were responsible for tasting different types of taste. The original basis for the myth came from a paper in 1901 where a scientist was trying to determine how much stimulus it took to taste things on different areas of the tongue (i.e. the very edges of your tongue vs. the center vs. the tip), but the way the results were presented made it look like he was sectioning the tongue off by type of taste rather than taste at all. I know there's a bunch more. Anyone have any myths/misconceptions they'd like to clarify?  |
Artist: The Shins Song: Simple Song [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" Prompt: Describe a time when your work was criticized. How did you react?Ughhhh what happened?!? I was feeling so much more positive yesterday than today. Just feeling down because of trying to recover from a second surgery and just don't feel like I'm improving even though it was only last week that I had it done. I go for my post-op checkup next week. I really wanted to stay in high spirits today and review or do some birthday stuff but it didn't end up happening.I'll try again tomorrow though. Now, on this prompt I'm going to be completely honest and admit that I don't have the highest emotional intelligence. Criticism is especially difficult for me to emotionally handle without getting defensive or angry. I can handle constructive criticism when it comes in the form of something like a review here on WDC. I wrote that item. If that item sucks and I open it up for reviews, I appreciate anyone's attempt at helping me improve because I know that it's coming from a place of goodwill. But there are several situations where I do not react well to criticism, and I will gladly rant list those for you now: When I genuinely didn't do anything wrong. For example, in one of my previous jobs, I had asked my boss regularly to train me on a system that was integral to my position. He kept telling me "later, later, later." Then my 6-month performance review came up and guess what he had the audacity to say to me? "You still don't know how to use X system, which is disappointing." WTF...  I still get angry just thinking about it because I put a lot into my work and I had done everything short of outright demanding that he train me on the system. I definitely lost my temper during that review and called him out immediately, to which he backtracked and sheepishly said, "Oh yeah, I've been pretty busy..." When I actually didn't ask for your opinion. I get ultra irritated when someone expects me to be grateful for criticism that I never even asked for or wanted. The reason this irritates me is because the other person is often presumptuous in their criticism and I think it's rude. For example, when I was in college I missed a week of classes (which I was able to do because I had documented ADA paperwork on file with the school). Despite knowing that my absences were excused, one of my professors made a comment to me about how if I wanted to do well in her class, I'd better focus more time on actually coming to lectures rather than partying. First of all, I wasn't partying, I was in and out of my neurologist's office getting treatment for an intractable migraine. Second of all, I didn't ask for your critique. Your assumptions on my priorities are just shitty and unhelpful. When the other party doesn't understand the circumstances. Partially related to above, but it deserves its own spotlight because it just happens a lot. I actually see this more frequently as a third party where someone makes a critical statement about someone else without knowing that person’s situation, but it’s happened directly to me a fair amount of times as well. Like in the above example, my professor didn’t know I had a migraine and chose to assume that I was partying rather than just asking me if everything was okay. Similarly, I heard one coworker say that another coworker had been staying out too long on lunch. Not a crazy amount of time, but often she was coming back a little more than an hour after her lunch started. Which, side note, if you have time to keep close track of coworkers at work, you need a heavier workload or you need to lose some hours and pay. But anyway, turns out the woman was transitioning her parent with dementia into a senior living community and she was going to check in on her parent at lunch that week. So, you just criticized someone behind their back for taking an hour and ten minutes on lunch instead of one hour while they were going through a major, difficult life decision and still getting all their work done. I would feel horrible if I did that to someone. When I'm emotional about the subject or just in general. Sometimes there are things that make sense to criticize, but the timing of that criticism is still important. You know when you're just having a bad day or week and you totally meltdown over something seemingly insignificant? Criticism is something that can easily spiral my mood if I'm already stressed and emotional about other things. It's like oh great, you want to throw something on top of everything else? There are also topics that are triggers for me too, regardless of my emotional state. My family is one of those topics. If Kira criticizes the way I handle a family situation, I get really upset. Because I'm like you just don't even know or understand all the layers of complexity in those relationships. It's a topic that quickly makes me emotional when criticized. When their goals for me don’t align with my goals for myself. Last one, I swear. This is a little different than all the above though. I really dislike when someone criticizes me based on what they want or expect from me. Your criticism of me is worthless to me if it doesn’t align with what I want or need for myself.I’m sure some of you have experience with this somewhere in your history. I had friends in school who wanted to go for English or history, but their parents would only help them with school if they went for a science or math major. So they did it, hating their field the entire way, before even getting an actual job in it.  There’s a difference between showing concern for someone, like, “Here are the pros and cons of X, Y, Z decision, are you sure this is what you want to do?” and being like, “How stupid could you possibly be to think that decision is at all sensible?” Or, “What you’re doing worries/concerns me because A, B, C reasons.” vs. “You’re going to hell for doing that because I personally disagree with it.” I’ll shut someone off instantly if the reality of the situation is that I want something for myself that they don’t want for me and they’re going about criticizing me in a judgmental, close-minded way. No thanks. You wore a charm in a chain that I stole especially for you Love’s such a delicate thing that we do, with nothing to prove |
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