Camp Idonwanna Beheir
Spent all day in the office today, busy the whole time. I had expected to do my morning meeting, make a couple of personal calls, and the go to the gym. Maybe get my haits cut this this afternoon. Or organize the new studio space. But the morning meeting was canceled, I skipped one call and had another at an unexpected time, and spent almost my whole day chasing release notes. It wasn’t a bad day but it wasn’t what I expected. And it made me tired – I got up early to go into to that non-meeting and stayed until after 5.
Had a real good call today. I still don’t know much about how things are going in the near future or the current feels – and I didn’t want to push on it because life has been hard and calls uncertain – but I’m told the trajectory is pulling up, which is a welcome reassurance. It’s easy for us to get stuck only hearing about moments if peak panic; I know that isn’t a representative sample but it’s the reality of my experience from afar, and it’s nice to have some insight into the other bits of your life.
I got lots of good updates about recent events. Talked about fashion and housing and food. Heard about the monotony reading lists and landscapes, and about progress on longer-term plans to turn that monotony into something more interesting.
You shared frustration and relief mixed into decisions about how to feel better, as is often the case, but it’s great to hear the decisions are happening in spite of the struggle. I think it’s really good to imagine what better might look like even if it means forgoing something familiar or comforting, and better still to make it happen. I have faith that you’ll build a working combination of pieces and I’m glad you have faith enough to not need them all at the same time.
I got to talk about a thing I’ve been holding on to for a year – to hear that maybe it has gotten a step easier for you – and in doing so finally was able to start a new process I’m really excited about. I had meant to tell you more about L’s exploits, but there was a lot to catch up on and we only got to the edge of it. I think L discussions might be a good way to have more routine and less stress in our talks, and hopefully there will be a bunch to discuss in the future.
I saw continuing concern about the unkind treatment dumped on you by privileged assumptions (sort of a reccuring theme from parts of your day job) but also saw hope that more individual attention might make a difference. Saw confidence that you’d be able to make other changes or get external support if that didn’t work. I read a little disappointment about the service of organizations – I have that feeling about most organizations where I’ve tried to serve – but I also heard a great plan to realign with something that might better match your goals. That might improve the organization.
I read more of “The Only Girl…” today – had lots of time on the bus because in traveled in both rush hours. Nazi Daddy has lots of advise about how to be prepared to survive in the worst social circumstances, and lots of relevant training. It’s often a lot like what my survival brain tells me about how I need to be able to unflinchingly undertake any task, endure any trial, keep moving through any barrier, and never be afraid to give up anything to make it happen. Nazi Daddy isn’t wrong about the way to survive. He’s just wrong to imagine that those survival strategies are compatible with real human life, or that being “prepared” for such a life is worth the costs.
I also want to acknowledge that, while Daddy claims to be doing this all in preparation for some Plan, he actually doesn’t have a plan. Not one he can execute in any case. This is obvious from the outside but invisible to the people trapped in it, and obsure even to people on the periphery. He’s terrified and impulsive and not terribly smart and just as trapped as everyone he is torturing.
My camp didn’t have the technical organization to claim there was a Big Plan, or the resources or discipline to produce such strict isolation. But it made the same insistence that the suffering was for my own good, that the punishments only seemed capricious to me because I was too lazy to understand the Rules, and that any outside contact would only make things worse. Both Nazi Daddy and my Mother were crazy enough for people to see as crazy, but too rich – and too carefully ensconced within the rules – for anyone to challenge the patriarchy and change things, even for the sake of other human lives. Neither of them could have been so consistently cruel without a lot of external support; the alternatives might not be good, but they’d at least have the hope of change. #EatTheRich
Tomorrow is one more day of release note prep, and a couple of SRs. I’m planning to take it light even if the day pushes for more. I’m sleeping in, doing my deadline work, and then I’m going to let it fizzle out. Therapy tomorrow afternoon. Probably more work on fleeing. And some discussion about the way I am not well served by some of their presumptions. That’s definitely one of the reasons I have trouble with the parts that aren’t LI – none of it matches the things I know about myself. I’m not trapped by broad repression, unable to engage with sadness or anger, unable to keep my attention on feels I need to process, building tension about things I’m afraid to think about. I learned a way out of that long ago. I just need help convincing my brain that I usually want to prioritize actions to improve my feelings instead of having them and then learning to not want them to be different.
ZiB
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Sent from a phone.
