A thing I do with my cognition is to simulate situations and interactions in my life. One of the ways I do this is by trying to find a story that matches all the emotional and practical beats I need. Because it I can find a story I can believe about this scenario I can build it into a piece of identity, and I can – at least for a time – become the person who lives that story. This is a super valuable thing to do at times. It lets you write stories. It lets you script and practice scams. It lets you interrogate things you think you know…

It was the best of times, it was 8 PM on a Tuesday and already felt like a real long week. Things are all over. Last week I had some intermittent tachycardia. I noticed it because I’m logging pulse and O2 levels at night, and later correlated that with a couple of dizzy moments over the previous couple of days. I emailed my physician asking if it was likely to be related to a drug 1This drug does not list increased heart rate as a common symptom. It is a diuretic but I was not sufficiently dehydrated to cause tachycardia, and I know what that feels like well enough to…

It sometimes takes me hours to come back after becoming a person who is good at my job. Some of that is just a hangover dissociation I use to be them. Some of that is hypoarousal to recover from their overcooked state. But some of that is me deciding to tune out my own cognition because I can’t make it stop. Person with Job is held aloft in tension, always urgent, always productive, never concerned with any other part of life. Burning through steps and goals and tickets. They use that tension and an endless supply of tasks to keep busy and conform with the expectations of capitalism. But if…

I continue to not do very well. Last week I didn’t eat at all one day, didn’t eat until after I fled in another. For even longer I have been unable eat with anyone or to feel safe about any plan for food. I’ve also been having trouble wearing clothes or caring about being cold or comfortable. Also M wants my help on a couple of fronts but balks when I provide actual attention, Ben imagines wanting to know me but rejects my experience both past and present, and L has been for some reason hidden from my view. None of which are likely to be resolved anytime soon. A…

I’m still pretty sad. I’m doing different things than previous weeks. Maybe it will have different outcomes. Or maybe nothing will ever change. Shanda has been injured, which always makes things harder. There are more chores and more care and more accommodation, and less support while it happens. Someday maybe I’ll be human enough to have alternatives, but I haven’t worked that out yet. I presented a project idea to my boss this week. Something to keep me entertained and to claim as my status item, and that I can attach my name to for extra political credit. Something to sooth their anxiety about managing me. They liked the idea…

Stayed up late to work. More precisely I layed in bed and prepared to sleep and became drowsy, then went downstairs. There was a little anxiety about doing work at night – doing work since being back – that kept PIC around for a while, but I got there before too late and did good work in a reasonable amount of time. I don’t want to be stuck with only nighttime work – that time is too precious to waste on labor – but right now it’s a relief from the last version of work and rest. And I’ve got my boss on board with a plan about working nights,…

I’m not great. Pretty sad, even by my standards. The day job definitely doesn’t help. It leaves a lot less space for existing, on top of its own demands. I’ve made changes to my life to stop me from going downstairs after my cognitive survival surrenders control for the day. It worked. I stayed here and slept much earlier. But it’s not the plan. I need that time – without it I have trouble eating 1Before even attempting this I made special provisions to have food upstairs, but it still felt like a pretty big barrier to eating well and trouble staying out of cognitive hopelessness, among other things. I…

I watched The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix). It’s pretty good. Netflix describes it as “cerebral”, which is generally code for “involves smart people doing things they don’t explain”. That’s true here too, but honestly I think it means something more like “sexual tension communicated via stylized posing”. Which is fine – the costumes and photography are both excellent and there are plenty of pretty people to pose. I’m not sure the director knows what this series is about (even less sure after watching the BTS interviews) but it comes out well anyway. It’s a little heavy-handed on the addiction story, a little fuzzy on whether or not it’s about being femme,…

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…

It’s been a rough day. Among other things I’ve been triggered about not having any place to be. It’s a complicated feeling about needing someplace where I can sit quietly until I feel capable of pretending to be human again. An escape for when I don’t have social support available – or when my usual support is one of the things I’m coping with – so that I can left all of my mental illness leak out without bothering anyone. So I can disengage the cognitive filter that lives between me and my expression and silently cry until I’m prepared to not be bothered by having now hope. I used…