Monthly Archives: January 2022

Journey, Mental Health, Musings, Physical Health

Fearing getting better

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When I lost my memories I also lost a lot of grudges, and I lost a lot of what I considered the negative parts of myself. I lost the ability to be mad for any extended period of time, partially because I just didn’t have enough energy, and partially because my brain just let go consistently.

As I’m slowly healing, over the years I’ve been given little boxes to unpack with memories, at least that’s how it feels. It’s like my brain has packed these memories away, and now that we’re moving house (both figuratively and literally) I’m finding boxes to open up, and realize that a lot of things have changed.

Like, I’m aware that I’m a very different person. I know I’m calmer, and I know that if I’m mad at you today I probably wont even remember it tomorrow. If we’ve had a bout I’m very unlikely to remember it, and if I remember it the details will be fuzzy.

Some people have used this against me, but mostly I’ve not surrounded myself with people who would use it against me under any circumstance, counting my blessings here.

Yet , I find myself fearing the possibility of that more angry me coming back as I recover more brain power and memories. What if I am only this calm because I can’t do anything else, what if I heal those scars and regain the ability to feel different again?

I don’t necessarily like the person I used to be, and I’ve told a lot of the people who’ve gotten to know me after (a year after I had lost the biggest chunk, and was still suffering quite a bit) that I don’t think they would’ve liked me back then.

I see glimpses of her when I’m tired and lose composure, I guess is the best way to describe it.

Composure.

I’m wondering if what started as memory loss, is now more calculated, yet I don’t think it is, because I still suffer a lot. but I do prefer this me to the old me.

It also means I’m afraid someone will “tell on me” and share something that I don’t remember, or have very hazy details on. But that’s not entirely true either. I know how I would handle that now if it happened. Their experience of whatever happened will be true, to them, and I can’t nor should take any of that away from them. I can offer my apologies not expecting forgiveness, and explain in what ways I’ve changed, but it’s rare that that’s anything anyone in that situation would want to hear. But I’m okay with that.

People do change, but that doesn’t mean their old behaviour shouldn’t be called out. It also doesn’t mean they have to be hounded about it, and expecting someone to show you change can be tricky too. It’s complicated and a bit I don’t think I’m able to elaborate on now, so let’s leave that thought unfinished.

I don’t have to be in connection with any of the people who knew me back then, just as they don’t have to be with me. A few I still am, and I think our relationships are better now than they were then, which is a blessing.

I have grown, I’m able to handle my RSD a lot better. And I got my ADHD meds, which help me immensely in that regard, and others. I will still get that initial bout and hit of the rejection sensitivity, but then I can calm down within minutes instead of hours. In the past those hours could lead to me ruining relationships I had with people who knew me.

Back then I didn’t know what I didn’t know and now I still don’t know what I don’t know, but for completely other reasons. I’m actually proud of myself for how much I’ve grown and learnt over the past few years. Not even believing that I will ever be perfect, but I will keep trying to do my best, and keep my mouth shut a lot more than I used to.

So. I guess the fear is unfounded, but today I got to put words onto it. And I got to face the fear. I got to see that maybe I didn’t only change because of the memory loss, but it also gave me a clean slate, so I could get a fresh start and rebuild into someone I wanted to become.

Musings

New Year, New Chaos

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I want to pretend like I usually don’t do it, but I think the problem is I do it all year around: Trying to do all the things.

So new year came around, and I have so many plans, so much I want to get done this year. And this month I’m doing a course that’s taking a lot of my brain power, and yet I still want to try to do ALL THE OTHER things at the same time.

I need to allow myself space to just focus on the course I’m taking. Focus on the reflection that will come after each session. It’s an Anti-racist Classroom, and there’s so much that boils up to the surface after each session, much more than I expected. Yet I want to keep writing, but I am writing the reflections, and I forget. So I try to keep doing the normal writing, like this but I guess this is different because it’s on my mind.

I want to start a newsletter, more news on that some later time, but the response thus far is good. It wont be published more often than every two weeks, but also it may be published more seldom, because I am really bad at doing things on a schedule for extended periods of time.

What would that newsletter be about? Everything probably. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. But a focus on adhd / autism, and disability and queer stuff. Because even though I live with a partner of the opposite sex, I am still queer as fuck.

Anyways, I need to calm myself down and not try to do 50 other things in January than I already am doing. See you in February hopefully.

Musings

When your community closes ranks around you to protect you

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Content Warnings: Fatphobia, body-shaming, trauma, unsolicited advice (not given but referred to)

Something I did not have on my January of 2022 bingo cards was my community to so fiercely protect me as they did today. I want to cry happy tears about it, but I figured that channeling these emotions into writing is a better thing to do with my time and energy today.

I’ve slowly, over the past few months, been opening up more and more about my trauma. Realizing I have trauma, trying to discern what that trauma is, etc. And today I discovered one piece, so I posted about it online, as one does.

I’ve always been an over-sharer, so when the response I got from one person was that I should just lose weight to lose the trauma held in my body fat storages (paraphrasing), I thought I only had myself to blame for opening up to the possibility of such an attack. But, I knew that I was in a good community, a community that would keep me safe if they saw something wrong with the interaction.

I naturally reported it to my own server, but I also knew that the server that account was on, for the most part was a good place, and that they’d listen to my concern, so I forwarded the report. (This is a mastodon/fediverse thing, so similar to twitter, but people run their own servers).

I also sent a DM to one of the mods on my server, with an extra link to the account, where I also saw their reaction to me blocking them. It wasn’t a good reaction. They inferred things that just wasn’t part of the conversation (like I was popping pills to deal with my trauma, I don’t even know where they got that from). And they (my mod) reached out to the admin on the other server, because they had the same feeling as I did, that this is usually a good place.

The response, from both of these moderators astounded me. I was not prepared to have my friends and community close rank around me to protect me the way they did today. I kept telling them I was about to cry from their response, in the best of ways, but that I couldn’t cry. But now, as I’m recounting this I’m crying. Because I feel so loved and protected.

Talking about trauma is hard, and it’s a journey that I will keep having to tread. I will keep having rough times when sharing so publicly about it. And some people will tell me I’m over-reacting, and I’m almost always going to expect that I’m over-reacting, because I’ve been told my entire life that that’s what I’m doing. I even reported this incident with a wary like “I dunno how bad this is, but I feel uncomfortable”. I did not expect anyone to confirm my feelings or even follow up with such a strong response.

Fatphobia is everywhere. And trauma is everywhere. Waltzing into someone’s mentions to give them unsolicited advice about weight-loss is a bad idea at the best of times, but doing it while they are writing about their trauma, behind a content warning, is just…. tasteless.

I think I have a lot of unprocessed trauma around community too, and how often when I noticed something and reported on it in the past, no one saw what I saw. This happened at school, at university, in guilds etc. Or if someone saw it they wouldn’t say a word. No one ever had my back, I always had everyone’s back to my own demise. So, on a day like today, when so many people showed up for me, there’s nothing else I can do but sit here and cry from how touched and happy I am to be here with you all.

Thank you so much for being in a community with me. I love you with all my heart <3