Fears

Had another therapy session. It was better than last week, I think, but I’m still sort of unsure how I feel about it. It still feels really undirected and with a level of misunderstanding that makes me worry that it will be like every other attempt I’ve ever made at therapy. But there hasn’t been anything overt. Yjst could be good, I guess, to be slightly differen. But I don’t really have any perspective to know if that’s better than what I’m expecting or not.

I didn’t talk about it in session but I had sort of a strong reaction to being labeled a survivor (with respect to past trauma). As I’ve noted here before I have a lot of trouble with identities other people want it assign me. It’s close to recognition, and easy for me to conflate with the cynical assignment of identities by fascists and other narcissists, regardless of the context. It’s also one of those words that other people use with much stronger connotations than I do. To me “survivor” literally just means someone who isn’t dead yet. But it’s used to describe people after all sorts of trauma regardless of the risk of death. Even allowing for that, like a lot of trauma handling it often assumes one event or a short period of trauma, which is not my life.

A word we did talk about is demand. I use it – and it technically means – an interaction where I require that someone else take an action. I’m aware the connotation is more about the way that requirement is structured than the existence of it, but I am sort of incapable of evaluating things on that axis. I have been conditioned to minimize all my needs all the time and was consistently told – still am sometimes told – that it’s too demanding even let the existence of that need be known, let alone to take action to have it met. And so my scale runs from “completely invisible and independent” to “the unjust burden to others when they are aware of my needs” with no points in between.

Which lead to another discussion, about another axis where I have no (reasonable) perspective – fair treatment. There are certain contexts in which I have no trouble demanding justice. Some of them even involve me personally – I can usually do it at work without much issue. But in my relationships it’s just not a thing. It’s easy for me to be codependent. To give knowing it’s unsustainable. To expect nothing of the people I support. To treat the smallest piece of support as evidence that I’m getting what I need.

It’s easy for me to feel like equity is a thing that occurs when I give my all – maybe even when I sublimate my need – and others give anything more than zero. I’m lucky enough that many of the people in my life offer to do more, because it’s sort of impossible for me to demand. Or whatever word I’m supposed to use instead of demand. I can’t even notice when it’s not happening, and often don’t feel bad about it when it’s pointed out. It’s a form of low self-concept that I know is a problem but I don’t know much about how to fix. That I will get some resistance from trying to fix if I ever do point it out, because enforcing boundaries is always hard and I’ve let patterns of inequality develop for decades. I know this an issue, in some context or another, for several of you. I’m going to try to point it out when I see it. I hope you can do the same for me.

New Family Values. I finished the series. I like it better after I heard the postscript where he explained his goals. They are similar to the ones I derived – to document popular but non-radioactive child rearing structures in the US and to try to make them perhaps more tolerable to people who otherwise wouldn’t tolerate them at all. And those are reasonable goals. I’m still disappointed that it doesn’t actually consider young people in its discussion of child rearing. And about how it stares at the deficiencies of the patriarchy and just throws its hands up, claiming there are no improvements to be had, or that we should be happy with minor changes taking 4 generations.

M is finally home. Far too tired and already feeling alone before you even got here. Which is a sentiment I can understand. There’s still some waiting to be done on my part, before I get to do the bits that let me feel like you’re back, but your presence does relieve a portion of my anxieties.

Dog is coming today. Should be on the ground in Cleveland within the hour. Who doesn’t want to go the airport twice in a day? I’m real excited to have him here for a while. And a little nervous that he will make M (and Penelope) nervous and allergic. But I could sure use someone to snuggle with. And to cry with me a little tonight – it’s been a real hard week and I’m still pretty low on real-time sharing. Dog doesn’t really like crying and he never has any ideas for improving my mood (nor does he respect the no touching rule), but he does make me feel less alone.

That’s all assuming I can figure out how to pick him up. The instructions provided by the airline booking department are clearly wrong – they tell me to show up in the middle of the period the cargo facility is closed – and the procedures appear to vary significantly from facility to facility. He’s got working GPS today though, so I should at least be able to figure out where he is, and from there how to fetch him.

Two big fears I had to deal with last night. One is lack of access to comms. That one is a survival-level fear for me. I have a radio license about it. And a backup Internet connection. And I’ve seriously considered getting a satellite SMS/emergency beacon device, particularly as I’ve traveled more recently. It’s why run my own phone and email and web (and soon chat and MMS) services. It’s why I have a secret Canadian mailing address – even if I ghost my life I still need comms. It’s hard for me to point to a single event or class of events that caused this but it’s probably just the thing I found that helped bring me out of my childhood isolation. I’m any case, last night this trauma was triggered and it was not good. Techncial backups are fine and dandy but I would love to not panic when they aren’t available. And I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.

The other is my fear that I won’t be able to help with the main thing I came to Cleveland to do. That I don’t know how, or am otherwise incapable, and that by pretending I know what I’m doing I risk making things worse. When my heart isn’t attached I sometime feel like the master of social control, but when the outcome is important to me it’s nothing but panic at the disco sometimes. I /know/ that I’m decent at sharing and good at reading people but I fear that I’m doing it all wrong and risking harm to the very people I hope to help. Or that I’m being selfishly manipulative* as I project myself onto the people I’m “helping”. Or any of 20 other versions of how I should just give up before I ruin everything.

ZiB

*This was another word I’m told – I know – that I’m using wrong in a social context. Where my scale only includes “none” and “self-sacrifice” even though there’s a whole scale of useful, positive interactions related to asking people to think certain things. This message is me putting thoughts into your head with pixels on a screen, and if I’m not careful that feels like unfair manipulative demand. My feelings are not super useful in this topic but they’re happening, and it sometimes feels impossible to even imagine how it might be different. Maybe future therapy sessions can give me some hope on that topic.

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Sent from a phone.