Demanding Safety, Loosing Uncertainty

Still waiting for Dog. I think today there’s a plan to get a trap going, instead of just waiting for him to walk close enough to grab. But it’s still just waiting. And less and less likely that I’ll see him before I leave again.

Talked with my boss about living in Cleveland. They’re finally starting to get used to it, which makes my life easier (and presumably their life too). Also talked with them about how I can better help with organizational goals, and how I want to structure my non-process time while working. It all went fairly well. I think the thing with Dog has helped them understand the way life is hard for me sometimes, in terms that they can relate to more easily. It would be great if they could just feel that way about my actual choices but I’ll gladly use Dog as a tool to help other people treat me better.

In Cleveland I’m trying a couple of things to reduce my food anxiety and improve the schedule of my eating. One is to participate in the food as reward culture for leaving the house. It’s useful for me to imagine both that I am allowed to use external tools to motivate my behavior, and that I should care about being hungry even when I have other things to do. Both of those have been dangerous for me in the past but I’m not living that life anymore, so I should do something different.

The other is to imagine that I always can have food – actual food and not just condiments and cold scraps – anytime I’m hungry. Even if I don’t so any planning. Particularly if I don’t do any planning. That food planning is a tool for managing my life and my anxiety, not a prerequisite to being properly fed. Living within walking distance of prepared food helps with that, so I’m gonna do my best to practice while I have that tool.

Thought a lot about they way its easy to feel like demanding what you want is the opposite of safe. Or to see waiting as a solution to having a situation (or your feelings) improve. It’s a thing I’m doing actively about Dog. It’s a thing anxiety tells us about timing – that waiting will make situation more safe. It’s a thing society tells us about demands – that having any needs or desires* means you aren’t fulfilling your role as an “independent” person.

But I know that waiting rarely changes our feelings or the world, and so is at best an unreliable way to achieve most goals. That you like doing things that scare you – that fear is not only a precursor to disappointment but also to growth and fulfillment. My feelings don’t always know this; in some situations they cannot be convinced.

Still, I should act. I should demand that I’m treated well. I should be sure the people who care about me know what that looks like – can help me figure it out when I don’t – and I should practice feeling safe and entitled when asking others to accommodate me. My fear is not that I won’t get what I need. I have lots of practice not getting what I need. My fear is that what I need is too much in total – too much need to ever be met – and so I should be satisfied with what I have instead of demanding all the parts at once. Instead of risking what I have.

It’s a pattern that leads to me choosing abuse. Deciding to try for the 400th time to get the thing I’m missing from someone who will not give it. To wait until finally I can feel safe enough without doing anything to change my feelings. To hope that I can endure until things are better and I can finally be actual me.

But that day will never come unless I bring it. Unless I accept that all of my needs are valid and important and that people can and will accommodate me rather than asking me to stop needing. Some people I will have to train to do this. Some people will have to be excluded from parts of my life to keep me safe. And I’ll need more help than I’ve had before.

Demand what you need. Ask for what you want. Expect the people close to you to provide both. Help them support you when you can, but protect yourself when that won’t work. Realize that building that right set of people and expectations and boundaries *is* being yourself, is being content, and is possible. You aren’t stuck being broken or demanding too much, you’re trapped by being willing to accept so little.

It’s sort of motivational poster bullshit, but it’s also a message a lot of us** need this week. One that I usually know but have trouble living when stress is high and avoidance so attractive. When I’m feeling alone and imagining that it’s because I am not right.

On a less self-preaching note, I finally got my first earrings out and put in another set. I’ve got a #2 Philips screw that matches my shirt on the left and a disinterested Rick on the right. Maybe a pic if I remember to take one once I’m off the bus. I’m really excited to be able to match my ears to my mood and my clothes. I’ve asked Shanda to prepare a selection of earrings for me for when I got back to Cleveland. This was what I hoped for when I started weeks ago and I’m really happy to be actually doing it now. I haven’t imagined Mother ripping them out for weeks, nor worried about any of the other survival fears I have about jewelry.

Robots was mostly good today. I think too much stress still, but usually not overwhelming. BMR ran around playing charming but not quite hitting charismatic while desperately trying to take credit for work other people were doing and selling the idea that our #1 goal should be to be seen as unimpeachably compliant and inoffensive and conciliatory so that we could meet our #2 goal of being bigger and more powerful*** and better recognized. It was hard to take, and a bit fun to see V opt out with no work. But I should imagine that BMR only has this terrible politican skill because their life in some way rewards or demands it, likely in a primary relationship. Something where they negotiate and earn their place rather than being granted that sort of security with their humanity. Which is sad but probably more useful as a model – it will at least help me be more kind and less annoyed.

Talked more about J’s new name, and when they would start using it. Got agreement that it would be okay to try immediately. So obviously I’m just going to shout it at them until they feel like it’s normal. Because I think it will be great, or at least that trying is with doing to see if it is great or not. Just waiting for some external trigger feels real hard.

I realize though, how little I’ve shared with the team in recent weeks. No one even knows what I’m doing. Doesn’t know enough to even ask relevant questions. That’s not unexpected, since I haven’t done the sharing, but I was surprised by how much work it feels like – to be reminded that I’ve been seperate, and to end that state. But I will tomorrow because I want it to get better not worse. Because I want people to know how much safety I am willing to offer, in case any of them ever need it. And how happy it makes me to do.

I discovered – remembered through traumatic repression – that I am allergic to pine trees. They cause contact rashes. It’s a thing I was required to endure as part of tree maintenance at Mother’s. A thing she insisted was a result of my carelessness and therefore refused to treat or even allow me to protect myself from. No wonder I never wanted a tree. I suspect there are a number of Christmas traumas I’ll have to work past as I try the bits again. But some of them are less unpleasant. I know a whole new thing about ornaments now just by seeing how they aren’t a punishment fetish in the way Mother enforced. I finally get how they work. And I do like knowing things that I should have learned as a toddler.

Talked to DerbyK about the limits of my power for packaging safety, and how to accept such limits with less guilt. Then pushed them to grant me more influence in their lives while calling it support. I hope that turns out to be true and not just my ego and fear oppressing people. But in any case I got to work on my homework with them, which I liked a lot.

Talked with Shanda about building a social support network as a relief from abandonment. And about managing old and long emotions though grief. Neither went easy but I think the former eventually took. I’m not sure we connected on the later but we will talk again. It’s hard with Dog gone and my time short. But life is long and I only need it to get better not to be perfect. Perfect is for the venerated, mythical dead.

ZiB

*Other than a desire for one of the approved things you can want. Like money. Or if you’re male certain kinds of sex. Or if you’re female certain kinds of family. But certainly not just better treatment in your daily life, or recognition of your actual needs.

**Particularly in our some of our primary relationships, with romantic partners and parents and the like. Be brave and excited by the change you’re controlling, instead of trapped by the fear that it will prove you undeserving of what you already have.

***For certain definitions of power, obviously. They literally defended the concept of hierarchy to me by insisting that when their lessors were doing something at their demand, they needed the ability to control the quality of the help’s work.

— 
Sent from a phone.