Labor Pains

It’s the end of leave; I’m back to the day job tomorrow. Thus far I’m only planning two 30 minute meetings as the entirety of my labor tomorrow, but it’s not so much the daily schedule that weighs on me as next quarter century between now and my death when I’ll have to repeat it frequently. But Shanda no longer collapses when I talk about not having a boss, so maybe I’ll get out of it before I die.

To be honest the part that scares me is that I still don’t know what I’m going to do instead of being Person with Job. I more or less gave up being that person last year and I don’t really want to go back – probably couldn’t if I wanted to – but I never built anyone new either. In practice I ended up being PIC to protect myself socially, or to fake a little bit of work to protect my employment.

I did try not being a different person but it didn’t go – even when I’m careful to not say the spicy parts, even when I’m sure that I’m only talking about “safe” topics, people are still afraid when I share. When I’m lucky I get “thank you for your service” type dismissals, but sometimes I just get people looking nervous and leaving. I can fake being someone safer – I don’t lack the necessity charisma or social skill, just the necessary life to fit in – but it’s been a long while since I’ve had an identity to fall back on for this, and it can be a lot of work to wing it.

People at the day job super don’t like it when I notice the things they say and do. They don’t deal with their own shit, they walk around emoting at 11, shouting their feels, and then have the audacity to demand I pretend not to notice. I know they don’t notice – not themselves, not each other – but their ignorance shouldn’t have to be my problem. If you don’t want me to treat you like you’re having a hard time, stop acting like you’re having a hard time. If you don’t want me to know your spouse is leaving you, maybe take 3 minutes to get your feels in line before you leak them all over the meeting. Or maybe just deal with other people knowing, if you don’t want to hide. It’s not the emotions I mind, it’s the fact that I have to pretend not to see them.

I want someone other than PIC to protect me, because I want to spend less time as them. Also they’re terrible at day job – they have lots of trouble working in any way that isn’t reactive, they don’t have great domain skills, and they absolutely can’t care about long-term day job goals. They’re also easily frustrated because PIC doesn’t do well with working “for” anyone and doesn’t do well being quiet when they’re abused, two things that happen regularly at most day jobs.

My actual plan is just to start doing it tomorrow. I always do. This is a reactive process that I will navigate in real time, that I will build and adapt with use, that doesn’t depend on flawless execution. With some luck and the right sort of work I can presumably build someone suitable to do work without relying on PIC. I built PWJ before and hopefully now I can build someone better – someone who isn’t a seperate person. But the idea that I’m just going to start doesn’t do much to satisfy my anxiety, and the fact that I did it before with dissociation isn’t encouraging either.

I think I can avoid the burnout that got me to where I was when I stopped working. I am less sure that I can build – that I can keep up – a new work me without burning all my energy on that performance.

But I’ll see what I can cook up. I am thinking a bigger dose of talking about disability would help. It would help people frame my different life in a way they feel safer about, or at least in a way where they’ve been trained to disengage rather than persue. It has the advantage of being natively true, which means it doesn’t take a lot to fake, and in the right circumstances it’s enough reason for people to excuse my non-compliance even with work tasks.

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I think one of the things I do with the time after I’m ready for sleep – the time I often eat in, when I’m no longer myself – is give my brain space from runaway cognition. The toddler in charge of that process doesn’t care much about cognition and doesn’t worry about it at all. They can rest even while my mind is racing, and they can help me get to a state where it’s not, so I can get useful sleep.

It is a disruption to my schedule, and somewhat difficult to manage because I can’t always adjust for the delay in sleep. But I should also recognize that the time I spend free from the obsessive thinking my brain does by default is rest and does help me, even if it makes wakeup times unpredictable. Eventually I would like to exercise that skill at a more useful time, but to start with I can decide its better to eat and to rest, even in an uncoordinated way, than to be stuck without those things.

There’s something in this space about Person who Writes too. They are difficult to coax out except after I’m ready for sleep, just like the Eater. They don’t feel very different when I’m them, but the fact that they are so inaccessible suggests that there is some genuine difference. I had thoughts about these topics today. I had time to write them. But the ability to focus on writing wouldn’t come until I was ready to pass out.

This whole integration of identity thing would be a lot easier to manage if I could get everyone to show up while we’re awake and tell me about what they do.

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The screen is now liftable, retracting about 8′ overhead when it’s tied up. I have pulleys and rope and boat cleats in my living room, but it’s really handy to be able to put the screen away (or set it up) in a few seconds. Step next is to build something to hold the projector, so it doesn’t require Shanda’s desk and manual re-alignment and focus every time it gets used.
I think that will wait for a minute so other projects can progress. For example, I should really get someplace setup to work, a task I never accomplished after moving here. I do lots of work laying on my belly and am happy to use the floor or couch or whatever, but people expect you to have a certain posture when they can see you, so I also need a desk. It wouldn’t hurt to have someplace to leave my official laptop and other supplies either, so they are easy to use and don’t consume my regular living space ¹I’m a million percent for working from home, but I do think I should get (at least some of) the $15k/year it costs to give me a cubicle in AAA office space downtown. I still need furniture and equipment and space and my employer should still be providing it..

I also want to move the needle on a couple of old art projects. Now that some of the household stuff has finally unstuck there’s space (physical and mental) for some of the bits I want to practice and train on. There’s a half-done ePaper lips mask, I want to practice some molding and casting, and it’s been a while since I’ve worked on my lighting PCB. I’m not sure how that will work out with the day job, but I am glad to have these bits back on the short list.

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A piece of safety I had for a long time was an item stash outside my home. Out in the woods or in a culvert or maybe even at school. Eventually I had a car and then a cube ²I still have access to the office tower but I no longer have a cube. We’re still all work-from-home but they have permanently removed my whole team from the floor plan, even after the office opens again. at the office. Even after I gave up the car for a while I carried a safe deposit box key with all the time me, so I could retrieve things from there without going to my house. They aren’t all the same – it feels safest when it’s someplace I can access 24/7, where I can keep a jacket and some food and the things I’d need to start fleeing. It’s best when it’s private enough for me to rest near or sleep in.

I don’t want to own a car just to feel safe about being homeless or fleeing. But I should perhaps allow myself a stash, so I can imagine still having resources even if I can’t imagine being safe at my house. I’m not sure what that looks like in my urban life, but I could at least own a bank box or something for my passport, so I can imagine fleeing. Or maybe I could build a little storage box outside that has a blanket and an MRE in it. Or maybe I can find someplace in Seattle I could be safe enough and homeless for a few days, a task I have refused to research.

It’s easy for me to believe that giving up these old (mostly imaginary) bits of safety helps me recover and help keep me from ruminating on flight or other drastic actions, and that can be true. It’s easy for me to believe that giving things up makes me safer, because needing things clearly makes me less safe than needing nothing. But I should also accept that the things that make me feel safe don’t map into societal norms – that my housing can’t fulfill my need for material safety – and accommodate myself a bit rather than making due without feeling safe.

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It’s almost time for a dog. There’s still some crying from Shanda about the way dog whines and behavioral training can be triggers, but we’re getting closer.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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