Distance Education

One of you told me that you don’t know how to share your life with someone you don’t live with. I can understand that. There are definitely parts of distance that make sharing harder, and some things that it makes impossible. But I suspect you don’t really know how to do it in person either.

The experience (many of) you have is mostly forced interactions with people who did not treat you well, did not respect your boundaries or set their own, who were not reliably supportive, who demanded that you conform to be accepted even when it hurt you to do so. Even the people you picked had to fit into that same shape, or they wouldn’t have been compatible with the rest of your life. You’ve learned to take what you can get, to make what you have enough, to accept what’s available. I suspect that it’s difficult for you to feel safe deciding when to be together and when to be separate — that you often don’t decide and instead skip right to accepting what’s offered or demanded — because even people without any traumatic history often struggle with this, and your sort of trauma makes it so much harder.

One of the things I’m offering you is the ability to practice deciding how you want to define yourself in relationship, and where your edges are. To choose what you want to share or keep separate, what you encourage or avoid. You can have opportunities to practice finding and setting your boundaries instead of keeping everything private for fear it will make you vulnerable. You don’t need to guess what will be safe ahead of time — you can check to see what you’re comfortable with and make changes anytime you feel engulfed or otherwise unhappy.

You can take time with the way closeness can feel dangerous or overwhelming (even though it’s also a thing you desperately want) in the context of a relationship where you are in firm control. I’ll give you the space and time you need for that. If you look back I think you’ll be able to see many examples of how that is already true ¹At least for certain yous: I’m literally thousands of miles away, unable to contact you except on your terms and schedule, without even a phone number for another human you know that’s within 100 miles of you. I couldn’t do anything to force your hand even if I wanted to.. So you’re in complete control of all aspects, including timing. You can find and test boundaries and never risk losing that control, or the support I’m offering. It’s normal for you to be afraid or resentful or overwhelmed, to not want to think about it, to lump me in with your parents or your ex. But I’m not those people, and I can be patient while you ask your brain to believe that.

You’ve had lots of experience being forced to take what you can get, to carve out little spaces for yourself where you can, and to mold yourself to what the people around you demand. I’d really love to help you claim and define your own space, so that you can feel safer about it, and can practice finding and holding its shape and being secure in it. I want to help you get some experience in a very controlled, low-risk scenario, where you set all the rules. We’ve got more than a little history together and I think you might be able to use that to build confidence that you can choose which parts are yours alone and which parts are shared, to feel and believe that you can be you without losing the support you need and deserve.

Therapy this week should be actual LI about regaining consciousness. That was the plan for last session but the timing didn’t work out; generally an LI exercise takes most of an hour. I’ve had some thinks about it and I can guess some reasons for my flashbacks: 1. I can’t really even assess myself, let alone compensate for any disability I detect, until I have time alone to see how I’m doing. In the past it was not safe for me to ever display a change in my condition, or even to be seen evaluating it, and that seems a likely factor in my modern reaction. 2. Even if I needed and wanted professionally (medical, for example) help, it was important to end any intervention as soon as possible, to avoid complications. Every moment I spent under the supervision or control of a physician, for example, was a moment I had to buy with pain from Mother. Every additional interaction was one more opportunity for someone who didn’t know me to “help” with a thing that they’re unprepared to actually help with while I paid for their attempt. But I still want to LI at it so I can get the feels lined up with my theories.

I’m told the video attached to Libertarian Landlords was difficult to play. It’s available here: https://vodak.vodka/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/G2.mp4 In general you can find minor corrections and enhanced media in the web versions of these at https://vodak.vodka shortly after the email goes out.

Dog has been doing well this week, obviously in less pain and with more energy. Depending on which of the two trackers he’s wearing you believe ²Like step counters it’s normal for these to not exactly match because the data is messy, but the trend is clear in both them. The difference I’m more concerned about is where one says he was home all night and the other says he took a 0.4 mile trip at 1:30 AM. he has had 45-120 minutes of activity the past few days, which is almost normal. He’s frustrated to be stuck on limited duty, but it’s still good to see him walk normally and be able to navigate the house. It’s his last dose of pills this morning, and I suspect he’ll be headed back toward lethargy in the near future as the pain returns. We’ve got a neurology appointment this week though, which is hopeful news. It’s a little hard to get around with a lame dog and no car during a pandemic, but worth it to see him get better.

Shanda is doing better about the global death. You made it out for prescriptions and whatnot on Friday without major incident. It still seem difficult for you to pay attention to how you’re feeling instead of just powering through to be “done”, but the panic levels are much lower and that makes everything easier to tolerate. So now we’re just back to our own issues, which is still plenty of work, but much less hopeless.

I want to get back to the CASA story. I’m still doing okay staying interested in it and even thinking about writing, but I’ve been doing less good at sleeping at human times or in dealing with my stress about household issues. The first round was motivated by my righteous anger, so it would help to get engaged with that. But it’s a thing I push down when I have other priorities, so I’ll need to find the space for it to bubble back up. It’s not difficult for me to be connected with anger, and I’m not afraid of it, but it does change what I want to do on a given day. Harassing cops and dismantling parental rights and organizing strikes is always good fun, but the world intentionally arranges for that life to be very costly, and I no longer have a life where that cost is baked into my existing suffering. So like drug use I should keep it low-key when I don’t have a specific target in mind, so I can keep it pointed at the places it is most useful to me.

ZiB

• 

• 

•