I’m Just…

When we’re told that a certain emotion is bad – by our history or by the world – it’s easy to want to deny that it happens. It’s easy to look back at your day and say “I wasn’t busy because I got done with my list” or “I’m not stressed because all I did was a day job and chores”. It’s easy to see a hint of “bad” emotion and decide that it’s “just” some transient, external thing and not really the feel you’re afriad it might be. It’s easy to wait for our mood or the world to change while believing that will make all the difference. It’s easy to imagine that your cat is anxious because of A or B and ignore the fact that they’re anxious to varying degrees all the time.

We all are. Anxious and angry and sad and all the rest ¹The more joyful feels too, but it’s much less common for people to feel accused if you notice that they’re happy. I am, but most people aren’t.. As humans we’re all of those things all the time. Which is not a problem. But it is a thing we’re often asked to ignore. A thing we often teach ourselves to deny.

You do a disservice to yourself whenever you imagine that you are “just” X. It’s a denial of yourself and your state, because of course you are X. Maybe less X than you were yesterday, or less X than you might be later, but you’re still X. Often you’re ashamed to be anxious or stressed or burnt out or angry or tired or whatever – people told you that you were bad for having those feelings, or even that you shouldn’t believe those feelings when you have them. Having that feel would somehow be bad and so you’re not having it. Your “just a little cranky and would be fine if you left me alone”.

We do the same sort of thing when we imagine that our emotion has only one aspect. I can’t be anxious because there’s a good reason for me to be stressed so it’s not anxiety. I can’t be anxious because I’m not also twitchy. I can’t be anxious because I’m able to focus on cleaning. I’m not anxious I’m just tense and twitchy and distracted and if my body was calm I would be too. My feelings are fine because, even though one part of them is clearly sticking out and seems pretty solid, it’s definitely not an iceburg situation. Stop accusing me of having the wrong feelings. I’m fine. Or I would be if you’d stop noticing me. It’s just X and it will unquestionably stop the moment X is done, so there’s no reason to ever think about it, even after the fact.

I just need a day or a week or a month and I’ll finally be back to “normal”. It’s too much this week, to think about the hard thing. The feels are too big and it’s not really a big deal and I will handle it later if I still need to. You’ve just met me at a time in my life when I’ve decided it’s not important. It’s just not a priority right now because I have to keep going with my routine. Just wait until this crisis is done, then I’ll definitely tackle the last one.

I’m certainly not immune to this myself. I’m not admonishing you for having feels. I’m not even saying it’s always a bad choice to put off your feel for an hour or a day, because sometimes life /is/ too much and you do need to sleep or whatever before you pick up your burden again.

I’m just trying to point out that there’s pressure, internal and external, to ignore many of the parts of our lives that are hard. To deny the information we get from our feelings and to minimize any bit of it that does bleed through into our consciousness. And when we give in to that pressure it makes us feel trapped and helpless and even less capable of ever dealing with it. Even less capable of ever looking at that feel we’re so afraid might exist, or past it at the things that triggered it.

So when you can, try to do something different. When you catch yourself being “just” X instead of having a feeling. When you are overwhelmed and turn away instead of waiting to feel the thing you know is coming. When you’re in week 4 of waiting for a calm enough week to finally do the thing you’ve been waiting to do. Try something different.

Imagine there’s sometimes a thing you’d like to try other than merely waiting for conditions to improve. Take a moment to have the feel and see what your dealing with – you don’t have to get stuck in that fearful place forever, ruminating on the meaning of hopelessness, just stay there for 90 seconds and see what is happening. Feel the feel and be okay with it existing. Learn what one part of it is. And then take the time and space you need to feel safe and centered and calm again. You might be amazed what can come out of a couple of minutes of being okay with a feeling you are used to denying. It can seem impossible to do, but if you can start it even for a moment you can begin moving past it, and toward the relief you’re waiting for.

I talked about medical care in therapy last week. Did LI about it. The prep work had mixed results. My therapist wanted me to imagine a good outcome, to help my brain think about it in a way that’s less terrible. That part is fine, but not new to me. But then they told me, even after my specific objection, that what I thought of as a good outcome was easy to obtain. I know from significant experience that it is not. Maybe it is for other people, or would be if I did something different, but it’s not readily available to me. Not directly, not when I assist other people with their medical care, not even as an observer of third parties who agreed to let me see their treatment. I haven’t ever seen it work in a way that I think would help me. Not at any cost I can tolerate at least.

I don’t imagine that it’s impossible for me to get something that approximates the care I hope for. But I do know it’s expensive. Not as expensive as when I couldn’t have any at all, or when I was forced to deal with several bad kinds, or when I didn’t the money for it, but still expensive. I know many physicians will not be able to help me in general, because they simply can’t pay attention in a way that feels like help to me. I know that more will be unable to help with the psychosomatic nature of many aspects my poor health, and in particular unable to deal with the historic damage. And I know that many of them will give up if I don’t agree with their proposed priorities and treatments, regardless of my reasoning ²Imagine any disease that is caused in 85% of cases by X and in 7% of cases by some complicated systematic reason that treatment for X won’t address. Imagine being asked by each new physician you encounter to try X, yet again. Or to give up doing anything because X didn’t work. Imagine being told you should do things that clearly won’t impact … Continue reading. In fact I’ll be lucky to find someone who doesn’t ignore me to the point of gaslighting me, at least on certain topics. It has happened to me more than once, and I hardly ever interact with physicans.

I’ve been letting myself not do these the past few days. I haven’t even been super busy or sick. But I have been a fan of distraction, particularly in the evenings, which makes it hard to get one out. And there have been plenty of worthy distractions, in addition to the ones I’m using to detach after a long day. Shanda is still yelling about being 12.

Missed my call today, and half missed another on Sunday. I’m hoping they’ll both happen sometime later this week, and I’m going to do some work chasing the one I’m most worried won’t happen. Made J tell me a story today, or at least as much as I can ever squeeze out of them, in nearly real time. Poked at C and chatted for a second. Took the bus to robots and actually did code work when I was there. Got to the office and had a meeting with my boss for the first time in weeks. I’ve one more week off the queue as we get rebalanced; if I could be not sick and not on the queue for one week that could be a nice time. Got home before 8 and avoided distraction better than any recent night. Ate some lunch and real supper. Felt like crap this morning but was mostly fine by the time I got to robots.

Didn’t get to do my flying cat costume plans on Saturday, but hopefully those will pick back up in the near future. Did take Shanda on a city do, which went quite well. Made someone feel better about how they wanted to dress just by being out in public. And we watched a lot of Veronica Mars this weekend – the new season that finally pays off the “a long time ago” lyrics from the theme. It’s very on-topic for me, mostly by happenstance but in part by being Veronica Mars. I remember now imagining that VM was the coolest, saddest version of the Arizona Trash Person we both are; I’ll definitely write about it later this week.

ZiB

—
Sent from a phone.

• 

•