Invisible Punk Unicorns

Therapy this week was mostly a rapid fire series of LI exercises ¹We also talked for a minute about about the concept of feeling safe. Which I continue to not understand. They kept saying something about how safety was internal, but that makes no sense to me. I know for a fact that I will die without external help. And I feel pretty safe about my ability to manage the bits of myself that I can do alone. Even a … Continue reading. Just going through from birth to present trying to line up all the feels from the different events in my prompts. Skipping the bit about explicitly tying a past self to a present one and just running through the list. The language my therapist used for this was “activation”, but it would be accurate to understand the intent as “provoking” – it’s supposed to make you upset as you move among the feels.

Then I chewed on it for like 4 days before I came up with anything to the pieces together. I had real good chats with M early last week. We talked about mixed feels and the labor of being helped and the way that relentless childhood abandonment makes it complicated to believe that there’s ever a better option than doing a hard thing alone. And eventually that’s what I put into being upset about therapy.

One of the ways flipping through the feels, the situations I remember and the ones I must infer happened, is that I can’t quite imagine a time when I was a typical infant human. Can’t imagine a time before I deserved my mistreatment. Presumably I was a fairly normal baby, but my brain is pretty sure that my inhumanity was obvious from the beginning. How else would I have ended up where I did?

A better question might be how I survived before I was old enough to feed myself. I have to infer that before I started differentiating my self from Mother she liked me more than she does now. I have to assume that I did do normal infant things while I was an infant, and that even though I now know Mother wouldn’t respond well to such demands I couldn’t possibly have been denying them to myself at the time. I was pretty hard on my siblings, demanding they not infant quite so loudly. I was 4 and I knew she’d be more likely to get fed if she didn’t cry right now, but and I hated that her crying also meant I couldn’t eat ²I know that’s too much emotional and logistical management for a toddler. That I can’t be expected to empathize with an infant when I get punished for their existence and needs. It’s why collective punishment is a war crime (unless you’re a child or immigrant). But I still feel bad for trying to make them stop being babies faster. For … Continue reading.

So at some point between birth and 4 I must have learned that having attention was bad. That if I wanted things to run smoothly I needed to be more invisible, needed my desires and needs to be undetectable, needed everyone to be quiet, to stay unseen. I learned that my demands were so much more extreme, my existence so much more painful to others, that I couldn’t even be in the same building as children. My attention hurt others, and I couldn’t be permitted to direct it at anyone ³It is still super hard for me to not believe this. When you tell me you feel very supported what I hear is that you could tell I was helping – that you noticed me. And so I know that, even though you might appreciate the help, it could have been better. I could have done it in a way that didn’t make you think about me. It’s not really … Continue reading. And if I made anyone give me attention I was harming them – making them notice me against their will – and should expect to be punished.

It translates right up my whole life. I have a real hard time believing that me calling ⁴Remember that I’m from the past and got my first (voice-only) cell phone in undergrad, for my business. So in my childhood “calling” also meant “locating a phone and obtaining 25¢ in silver coins”, or asking to borrow someone’s land-line. someone ⁵Yes, you. I’m sorry. I like you and like talking but it’s hard for me to imagine that I’m not trading a minute of safety today for six weeks of pain. That I’m not using up my last relationship credit by making your phone ring, trading a minute of good feels for a lifetime alone. So I worry about calling even when it’s the plan. Even when … Continue reading isn’t a sign that I’m in an emergency. I would never have risked calling Mother unless I genuinely couldn’t think of any other way to get what I needed to survive. She was rarely any help, when she responded at all, and whether or not she responded I’d definitely have to make a sacrifice just to get her attention. So calls are a thing that only happens if I’m already in an emergency so bad that calling Mother might be worth the cost. Might be worth demanding her attention.

It’s hard to feel lovable when the only people available for that task weren’t up for it. When everyone who ever promised to help eventually decided that they wouldn’t. That you weren’t worth it, or that you were so broken they couldn’t help, or that your problems weren’t real and you were wrong to want things to change. When you know that even as an infant you couldn’t be quite cute or good or whatever enough to earn their care in the way a real human would. I know how to trick people now – how it make them think they like me, at least for a while – but I don’t know how to stop seeing it as a trick. I don’t know how to stop imagining that eventually you’ll all see through my farce and remember that I disgust you.

And I disgust myself sometimes when I pay attention to you. I know it’s going to make me care. Make me want to do things to compliment your life. I’m going to get used to it any get sloppy and suddenly you’ll see my staring at you and be terrified. You’ll see the way I notice things you want to be secret, or at least don’t want to share with me, and you’ll feel harassed. I got a lot of that feedback when I was young, but I still get it today. You ask for my attention and then feel attacked when I give it. I notice your emotion and you feel attacked when I talk about it. I can see you having a hard time and are ashamed for me to notice your stress.

Another thing I pulled out of being aggrivated in therapy was the idea that people don’t believe. And they don’t. That’s not like some fear I have, it’s an ongoing thing in my life. I have never been able to convince anyone that I needed help. Not when I was 4 or 14 or 34. I shout crazy things all the time and no one ever helps me with them. Mostly no one even notices, other than maybe to blindly acknowledge that I spoke. And so I sort of don’t believe myself. I’m still not sure any of these things I think are a problem are actually a problem, as opposed to a thing I made up because I am too demanding and too narcissistic and too sensitive. I couldn’t ever get anyone to help, even if they knew what was happening. So either I’m to broken to be helped, or I’m just wrong for wanting things to be different and my pain is all self-imposed.

I couldn’t get help going to the grocery store because thinking about not having food made Mother nervous. I couldn’t get help with public violence because I was a big boy and could take care of myself ⁶Although under many circumstances Pete would tell me to accept some violence, practice a certain method of retaliation, and then plan to run away after the retaliation opened an opportunity for escape. He was ashamed to tell me this, because he though himself a coward for running away, but his role in the patriarchy demanded that he share advise … Continue reading. I couldn’t get help with my parents because they “loved” me and were trying their best. Because they were actually good people and that even if I didn’t understand they were definitely doing the “right thing”. Last month I told everyone I spoke to that I only owned 6 socks and no one would even agree with me that it was crazy. I don’t know how to communicate to people that I’m having a problem – if I can even determine that it’s a problem in the first place – because I’m so invisible that they don’t believe me. And eventually I believe them, that I’m not having a problem. Not a real one. Not one a worthwhile human would need help with.

Of course I became invisible because the people assigned to pay me attention didn’t like the job. Sometimes Mother was too anxious to pay attention to our needs. Sometimes Pete was too afraid to do anything other than push me away while he panicked. I know lots of you have stories about how you needed help from someone and couldn’t get it, sometimes to great detriment. And some of you have a story like this one, where even when you went out of your way ⁷You have a story about the time you saw a physician and desperately asked for enough attention to reduce the pain in your life. I’ve seen first hand the part of that story where the people involved tease you for shouting to get attention, as if you had lost control and were doing something irrational. But your life was terrible and you were … Continue reading to ask other people they refused to get involved. Or worse still, promised to get involved and then backed out after you had come to depend on them.

So I can understand why it’s hard for you. Why it feels like my attention isn’t safe, why the idea of having attention reminds you of an emergency, why you feel like it’s impossible to have real help. I see how no amount of rational agreement will make the feels change – will make your reaction be comfort and reassurance instead of fear and defensiveness. But I think it’s a thing we could practice. We could prepare for the fact that this will be hard when things are hard by practicing in less dire circumstances. I’m pretty good at emergency preparedness and procedure, and I bet we could find a way to build some confidence. To get ready for the old emotions it will dredge up and able to build better associations. We can do it together, and maybe learn from each other.

One of the goals of this week’s LI exercises – of most LI exercises – is to imagine that my whole life fits together. That I have always been the same person. That’s not a comfortable thought for me. There are so many parts that are so bad. So many pieces that are still broken. So much abandonment. And I don’t remember them, not without a lot of work. It can seem easier to imagine those are someone else – someone I don’t have to be anymore. But I’m told it makes things better if I do. Not just in a processing trauma way but better systematic way (which is good, because processing individual traumas will never be enough for me) related to the construction of compensating experiences ⁸This is the bit where my therapist always wants to reassure me that it’s okay to imagine a story about having found safety in the past. They’re worried that I won’t believe that it’s “real”. I am not worried about this because imagining stories is what I do all the time to make my life go. But I did ask them this week for some … Continue reading.

I’m still spending lots of time taking care of Shanda. Which I’m happy to do. It does eat the hours though. Raises household stress levels, pushes away chores and other management tasks, makes all the other bits of life feel a little more pressing. It’s good stuff to work through. Feels about clothes hoarding and Dog and cooking. Feels about how I can help when you are stressed. Feels about how you can pay attention to me. Or about how you don’t need to panic just because I’m paying attention to you. And you’re sad about B and worried about your eye and morning the fact that you don’t have a camping family. But I want to be able to take care of Dog with you instead of working around the parts we can’t discuss. I want you to be able to pay attention to me when you’re stressed, so that we don’t always have to be seperate when you’re having a hard time. I want you to be able to use me to reduce your stress or feel your feels or otherwise meet your goals, so you can spend more time being comfortably in control and less time worrying that you don’t know how to be in charge.

I talked at @BPS. Did a minute of HA4H love last Thursday but mostly just did more writing to them. I think one of the reasons I’m drawn to them is the way they have no past. Maybe a past someone else remembers that happened to a body they inherited, but not an actual past that they remember as having happened to them. Their AD project is a response to that. Mine might be too. It’s a thing we should talk about.

I worked on care packages for a bunch of people this week. I’ve got a couple already put together, sans one piece from a slow Etsy shipment, and a couple more cooking. Shanda is doing one too – one and a half even – and I think might finally take my help instead if sitting on it for another 4 months.

I talked to DecBot, after ignoring them for a week after they reached out. They shared a bunch of things with me, which I really appreciate. They helped me have feels about not being able to get help. About not believing that I ought to have it, or believing that I wouldn’t be in a situation that required help unless I had done something to create that situation in the first place.

Had real good talks with M last week but missed our real time comms this weekend. We only had a smidge last weekend too. I shouldn’t whine because I already had far more good parts than I expected this week. But I always want more. Your talks are very valuable to me, whether or not your brain agrees. You help me feel safe when you share.

Went to Pride on Sunday. We had intended to see the parade but Shanda wasn’t well in the morning so we skipped it and just when to the Center. Took Dog, who did really well [fig 3 (from last weekend but still representative)], and we just hung out. I got all painted [fig 1,2]. I’m still lacking on a good set of all the primary colors for both water-based paints and eyeshadow (also I could only do one eye because new piercing). I want to see if Dog will tolerate the spray on color, so he can get painted when we go out too. And after people watching at Pride (so much gay hotness) I determined that I need both sequins and face bedazzling supplies. They were both popular and would have been real good with my outfit but I don’t own any. Shanda did pretty good too, mostly staying with me while we were out, and eventually coming back each time you left.

Talked just a little with V. And you took a minute to find me at Pride, which was great. I was worried you wouldn’t feel comfortable going and would miss out but it seems like you had a pretty good time.

J went to Pride but we didn’t meet up. Chatted afterward though. I showed you my new purple soft burnt leather earrings [fig 5] and we imagined some ways that detailed leather might be used in LARP and other applications. And we talked about being invisible.

I’ve decided I want to be less invisible and also more intimidating. Ideally without being more masc to make it happen. I got my hair cut last week and have been trying to imagine that hair is for me. I like how the extra short buzz cut goes with my eyebrow piercing, and communicates a bit more menace than when my hair and beard are fuzzy. I’m still cooking the details but I realize one of the barriers to being more visible is that I need to deter idiots from hassling me about it. I read a bunch of r/IDontWorkHereLady posts about Karens hitting people with PTSD from behind. And how they are lucky to avoid being arrested after they, you know, defend themselves from a crazy, loud, middle-aged, entitled, white woman.

I need Karens to see that she wants to bother someone else – for people in general to guess that I will not be pushed around without me having to prove it. And I want smarter people to imagine that they either want to be nice to me or don’t want to interact. I see this change as actually being pro-social despite my description of intimidation – I am aggressively anti-social right now by being so invisible that people don’t notice me coming, don’t make space for me, don’t think I will hold to my course.

I’ve been on a new project at work – a set of Sev1 SRs for critical vulnerability responses. It’s the top priority for engineering and it’s the sort of thing I’m actually good and like doing. It’s the corporate version of emergency response, and I get to do actual coding and design during it, and people notice me in a way I’m fairly comfortable with. But it is eating all my time. It’s probably 20 extra hours this week, in addition to my queue time, and perhaps again next week too. The queue was mostly fine – I only cared one through to this week – but I had to dispatch 11 cases over the week, which was plenty of work by itself. And together those two things have really killed progress on my BZ project, though I did manage to advance it enough last Monday to sort of squeek by.

I cleaned Shanda’s desktop last week, both materially and virtually. Got through the piles of unopened checks and bills, HIPAA violations, and other debris. Dropped old files and web shortcuts dating back to like 2012. It all looks so clean now. And it feels like we got to drop some anxiety as part of the process, instead of you only hating it while I begged you to help me.

Talked with DerbyK about how to be sick. It’s a good start, though I’ll need a lot of practice. I’m feeling better about my ability to explain how I need questions answered like I’m a toddler who doesn’t know how the world works. Because I super don’t, when it comes to the things you’re supposed to learn when you’re very young. TV and books and lots of listening taught me about many things. I even learned a lot of things about care for other people. But I cannot apply that human knowledge to myself. I missed the day in toddler school were you learned how to feel and respond to being sick, but I went to 24,753 consecutive detentions where I learned that I am not like other people and shouldn’t pretend to be one.

Went out on Saturday with Shanda. Took the bus north and chatted as we commuted to Greenlake. Got 3 pairs of shoes for you and 2 pairs of glasses for me (not yet pictured – in a week or two when I get them), both things we’ve been putting off for too long. Glasses aren’t hard for me but I didn’t want to pick alone and I couldn’t get your attention about it. I could have gone for slightly more aggressive eyebrows in my glasses but I like the ones we got, and I like that you like the green ones. Shoes are hard for you, but I think we’re finally getting close to a place where you can feel safe about them. I’m exited to do city dos with you. It’s part of the thing we miss when you can’t go out with me. And we could bring Dog. He does great on the bus now (and has his own bus pass, which is adorbs but not pictured) and he would 100% be up for watching us eat on a patio and hanging out outside shops for short periods. He even could have come to buy glasses with us. You like it when Steve and @BPS do city dos. You could probably like it with me if you could stay present enough to practice getting past the nerves.

I’ve totally ignored C this week, even though they contacted me. But I’ll probably see them for their birthday this week. I didn’t see E last week and I’m canceling on you this week. I’ll have to be sure there’s not too much of that before you leave. Not on the queue this week but I’ve still got the BZ project and the critical vulns and it’s end of quarter and I still have an SR, so there’s plenty to get done at the day job. Going to see someone else about Shanda’s eye tomorrow. And I promised myself I’d learn about paint pours this month – I had planned to have B show me but that’s not a great plan anymore.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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