Needlework

Recorded music is a point of some pain to me. It is not regularly a part of my life, except in the context of some mixed media. It has not been terribly clear to me why – certainly part of that is the enforced scarcity of my childhood, and I’m sensitive to loud environments in general – but I saw a new part today.

When I was living in Cleveland recorded music was not infrequently ambient in the household. From a somewhat limited playlist, and so often repeated across the days, or even within. The music was usually tolerable nothing by my tastes, but over time I grew to feel quite sad about it. At the time I imagined it was just provoking general stress feels about moving and adoption and general crisis in my life but I had a different take today.

When I was 5 and moved out to the porch it was a very lonely place to be, and very sparse. When I could finally start school though, I got an alarm clock radio ¹Literally walked to buy it on the way home from my first day at school, so Mother would never have to get up again for school. It had stressed her out and she was not going to repeat it., and I used it as a tool to cope with being alone. If I was very careful, and quiet, I could use the radio for a few minutes to try to cope, and to feel like other humans existed. I wanted to hear a live human talk. Top 40s was a way to hear a local human talk every few minutes many hours of the day. I’d let myself listen for the rest of the song that was playing when I started and if there wasn’t a break one more song, hoping for a break after that. And then back off, so I didn’t risk getting caught. So I didn’t risk falling asleep ²Not that I slept. But the alarm used the same volume control as the radio, and the radio could only be used at absolute minimum volume, so I had to turn it up after turning off the radio to make the alarm loud enough. And I had to wake up on time. Too much was riding on 5-year-old me to sleep through my alarm. with the volume turned too low for the alarm to wake me the next day.

So I imagine recorded music (and in particular pop music) is a tool I used to self-sooth when I was young, to recover from being overwhelmed and abandoned. One I only allowed myself when things were already desperate. One I only used in tiny doses to ensure I wouldn’t lose it. Which is sad, and a million miles from humanity, and anxious about how I will have to make due with less even of this already limited coping. Exactly the way I felt in Cleveland when that playlist repeated for the 40th time.

It makes it hard to like recorded music even now. I’ll have to see if I can peel any of that away. I seem to remember feeling different about MIDI music in the past, so maybe Spotify can show me something retro synth and with enough space for me to be sad without fighting the music. Or sometimes I can get distracted by a blues horn. But it’s going to be work.

I am stopping my SSRI. Next up is an SNRI ³duloxetine, if anyone is keeping track. I’m supposed to keep taking the last one for another week or so, but I’ll be glad to get off it and back to a life where I can be awake and not working for more than a couple hours a day. I don’t have a ton of confidence in this next round either but I’m trying to keep my hopes up. It would be nice if something as simple as a pill helped, and presumably a new class of drugs will have different impacts.

Dog has needed sending to bed recently, when his brain tells him he needs to go to the gym at 2 AM. He sends out one small bark at a time, from next to his food mat in the kitchen. He does it until the motion sensor light turns off, then wanders back to the bedroom, but has trouble getting settled. He does take the hint if I go fetch him, and will stay after being sent once or twice, which is sort of cute if a bit more dependent.

I had my blood drawn by a new phlebotomist last week ⁴and have to go back for another, since they didn’t get all the labs from my first sample. The lack of walking-distance basic care feels like a problem to me, particularly during the pandemic. This is particularly difficult for me to tolerate. You see, I learned this part trick when I was young, where I use tension and physical trauma to pass out so that it’s easier to not respond to being hurt. It’s a great tactic, if you’re a guinea pig hiding your injury from a hawk, or if you’re going to be hurt until you stop responding. It’s less good for someone merely prodding around with a small needle, but I don’t really have another strategy.

There’s some flashback here to be sure – I’m recalled to experiences where I needed to not continue not responding after some initial injury that broke my skin, and to the predicament of choosing between losing consciousness while bleeding and provoking continued attack by displaying any response. I’m not particularly worried that even a poor phlebotomist is going to let me bleed to death, but it’s difficult for me to identify or enact any response other than the one I trained so hard to learn, so I could survive. What do normal people do to find a place between violent self-defense and abject acceptance of bodily harm?

Made a package run up to L, since we had a car for a day, and got to see them through the window again. So I came back a few minutes later with a food bribe. I’m still working on the plan to get them out, but an in-person package should help with several aspects of that, at least by ensuring that comms are distributed and normalized. Sent another package out to M, to celebrate them being half-done with undergrad. And got Shanda started right away on another for LS, themed about their canceled trip to Hawaii. So solid work on care package heists.

No therapy this week. Last week went okay, or at least better than I expected. We didn’t talk about child murder – I didn’t make that association until hours later – but we did talk about me being confined or otherwise placed under someone else’s authority. About how I would like to have an advocate in that situation, but can’t imagine that anyone would be both interested in and capable of helping me. I’d take their professional advocacy, and they’re full of promises and smiles, but I don’t believe that they’re really up for the job. They expressed concern about their own capability to demand change in such a situation, and they aren’t comfortable with the idea of me training them to help me, so I’m not sure it will go. We’ll see what I can work out next round.

Repaired my DMX distribution box today during HA4H. One of the two internal power supplies had failed and I got it out and a new one in. Two new ones in fact, since the first one was faulty. You can buy a 6 pack of little boards on Alibaba or Amazon for the price of one from Digikey, and often they ship faster, but only half of them work. They typically aren’t counterfeit so much as just low-quality or poorly specified, but it’s still a pain. In any case I got a working one in so I’m back to full DC isolation on the DMX bus.

Shanda got some letter pours done while I was soldering, and those are looking good too. We may be ready for step next once everything is dry. @BPS was working on another newspaper painting – they’re collecting them for a theoretical graffiti install on a wall they’ve picked out – but they’re still a little stalled on the installation part. They seemed better able to settle into their art today though, and thankful for a low key place to hang out and do it, which is a hopeful sign both for the project and their general wellbeing. I was also excited to see this [fig 2] because last time I did makeup in HA4H they talked about my direct brow color and now they’re doing it.

Did good with SRs in Monday but less good since then. I’m down to 5 though, which is significantly more manageable. It’s been tough to work with the constant tiredness. For tomorrow I’m just trying to hit my noon meeting and get an update in each case. It’s been plenty of week already, particularly for work.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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