Manitoba Minnesota Monday

Three robot meetings in four days is too many; its hard to care about going today. Friday went okay – got the external camera working in code other than capturing to disk, and dealt with all the new null config errors. Saturday we got some maintenance done in terms of hardware changes and the like, but not much else. Today maybe I can get them to actually start the auto routines* instead of continuing to wait for some future configuration of the bot. I still need to get the targets aligned in the field model but it’s not a thing we should wait on – fine alignment is step 27 not step 2.

The Last Argument of Kings (Joe Abercrombie) has taken the series on a distinct Mr. Robot turn. Which is amazing. There are lots of parts I like about the series but W as the personification of the patriarchy despite not being king is one of the best. It makes me feel like the next landscape description should say USA Networks (or maybe Telltale Games, though their recent corporate nastiness has made that comparison less positive).

I’ve decided that, in the general case, the fact that a punishment version of an activity exists in my past is insufficient cause to avoid that sort of activity in the present. It would be nice to not be retraumatized by terrible shit every time doing X makes me accidentally remember the time I was intentionally hurt with X, but in practice that set of things is almost everything, so I’m gonna just have to deal with it. I decided to deal with it for a ton of individual things already, or invented so sort of (often maladaptive but) non-avoidance coping, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do anything. But it think it will be less work to stop considering that decision, assume the avoidance itself is harmful, and to stop pretending that I can control how much pain I live by avoiding normal human activities§.

That’s one of the reasons I am not convinced I can access any sort of therapy** that would be broadly useful – I feel like their goal is to make me strong enough to walk without a cane and my goal is to use a cane to help minimize the amount of damage and recovery time after someone kneecaps me. It seems unlikely to me that remembering new trauma is something I can or want to do without some pain, and it’s something that happens and will continue to me regularly, probably for my whole life.

Things are still complicated with Shanda. She’s trying hard, and there’s hope, but it’s still avoidance to anger to crying to unloading to sleep most of the time. It’s still feeling busy and coping by doing more things on tighter schedules. It’s still me sitting alone waiting because my concerns – even her concerns – can wait. Must wait. Wait until she can get them back behind the avoidance screen tomorrow morning, so we can do it again.

I don’t want her to try harder. I don’t need perfection. I don’t expect rapid improvement. But I do need a day where I can not be the bad guy for 4 hours in a row. Where the wait that’s requested of me has a definite end. Where real life isn’t a distraction from the all-consuming avoidance activities, and things that matter can happen more than 10 minutes before she sleeps. It’s coming, I hope, but it’s lonely here waiting.

Feeling alone and having be recently chastised for keeping her up with these dumb feelings, not moving or making sound so as not to wake her, not sleeping but merely waiting for something to render me unconscious or for morning to come. It’s the sort of time I think about the 6:30 AM train to Canada. About how I should really wait until she’s feeling better so it isn’t as hard on her. About how I can endure until things are a bit more settled, and until she feels more confident taking care of Dog alone, or maybe with B. That’s when I’ll go. Once I’ve had a chance to reduce my demands on her like I should have long ago, so my absence doesn’t feel like much of a change. I can only support her for a few years on my retirement funds but I should be able to work something out by then. And the chances of me living long enough to retire never seemed that great in the first place.

I’m not leaving. It’s not even very tempting when I consider it. But this sort of thing sure feels like it would be better if I moved out to the porch, tried not to bother her, and did better at my assigned role outside the home. And since that feels implausible the plan that 5 year old me suggests instead is creating a life where no one expects you around or notices what you do and then running away. Which I guess is what actual 5 year old me did, eventually.

Work. Maybe tomorrow I can get some work done. Or at least get The Screed out for the second time in four days. But I should probably start with more achievable goals like eating two meals or keeping Dog alive.

Dictated but not read,
ZiB

*Definitely not because no one showed up to work on programming today. Or much in general. So I did admin bullshit instead. Which is almost a break from real robots but would have been a much better one at home.

**Other reasons include but are not limited to the fact that nothing I’ve tried previously – and I have tried various kinds of therapy both recently and years ago – made me feel even as well understood as the one-way messaging I undertake here does. That I have historically been satisfied with not being understood because I felt like it was all I could hope for; at time it _was_ the best thing available to me and it might still be. That I’ll have to put up with someone one not taking me seriously (“let’s call Mother and sort this out”) and when/if they finally do understand the situation and my existing skills them not being willing or not being able to help. That with each new terrible recollection I’ll have to wait for them to cope with knowing about my life before they can address me again. And of course my general inability to imagine how I could direct outside help in my life or in what ways it would be better than doing the same things alone.

§I’m going to continue with the zero maintenance hair plan though, at least for now. I know many male victims of long-term childhood trauma have no hair, and that female victims often have all the hair they’ve ever grown. I know it was a survival decision I made in the 1900s. But I’m too attached to the zero maintenance part, even given the possibility of blue hair. I thought maybe getting used to nails would change my mind, but I think it actually convinced me that installable baubles could be preferable to permanent baubles, at least in non-survival situations. More work on days when you use it, but also something you can skip when you don’t care.

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Sent from a phone.