Socks

Talked to Cowboy today. You’re having a hard time – have for a long time – but I’m glad you feel like you can write to me now. Know that it is possible for things to be different. And that, as an expert in helping people by leaving, I’m pretty sure it won’t offer the protection you hope for. That plan can “work” but it’s very expensive and it only solves a certain class of problems.

Talked with E about lucid dreaming. I’m still at “have no conscious knowledge of any dreams in decades”. Which perhaps means the whole thing is moot, since even if I make it work I would not be able to tell. But you seem to be doing better. I wonder if I taught myself to do something similar long ago and used it to help deal with all the work my survival required even while sleeping; lucid dreamers are fairly capable of social and verbal activities even while asleep (but less good at math). Or maybe my endocrine system is just so screwed up that I can’t dream anymore. I did make it from like 10 to 30 sleeping only 4-5 hours a night, on top of my other problems. Who knows.

Chatted with M a bit, about my fears and your schedule. Not much but enough to help me believe that things aren’t exploding, at least not today. I don’t want to project my fear into you, but I know things have been tough, comms are low and strained, and I’m all out of calendar or household events to prompt you with, so it’s easy to worry. And none of that is new so I’ve already got worries and backlogged comms bouncing around in my brain. I’ll try not to let it leak on you, and to be patient. Please forgive me if I’m not perfect in that goal.

I had a thought about socks. I didn’t have any socks before I went to Kindergarten, where the school made Mother get me some. Then I had 6 pairs of grey tube socks with primary color stripes (think 1986) around the top. Those were adult sized so they were large enough to wear for a long time. When I was small they were large enough to wear doubled over for warmth – my shoes were too small to use them this way (too small even without socks) but they fit in my boots. Between then and like 6th grade I a) still had 9 of those 12 socks b) acquired a pair of loose-knit wool mittens I used as winter socks and c) picked up 1 bag (3 pair) of white ankle socks ¹Also one brown and one blue dress sock (not pairs, just one of each), though I wasn’t allowed to wear those most days.. These new socks were vastly superior to the old ones in that they weren’t old and even when the elastic went they wouldn’t bunch up at my ankles. They were still a bit too large in adult sizes but that was way less important with the short socks. So I decided that was the sort of sock for me and endeavored to obtain more.

It’s important to choose exactly one kind of sock. It has to be nationally marketed and available locally. It has to be cheap. It has to have some branding so it can be distinguished but not so much as to be noticeable I regular use. It has to degrade well. It has to be invisible as fashion. It has to pair with any similar sock. It needs to be sufficient for any situation in which I need a sock that isn’t part of a costume. And it has to be available and unchanging for several years at least.

If a sock does all of those things I can, by failing to show any interest in any commercial good at all except the selected sock, eventually convince Mother to tell grandmother that I want those specific socks for a December gift. It has to be very specific so that I get something that works, but also to ensure Mother can remember, and grandmother will feel like she had enough guidance to obtain it and enough engagement to make it a suitable gift. And it has to be cheap to have a chance of anyone buying enough. And after a year or two I got some more socks. It made Mother angry but it worked.

Do this for a few years and I finally have enough socks. But then something interesting happens – Mother starts getting these socks as a December gift. She remembers its all I want and she wants in on this easy gift action. She still complains that it’s “all that I want” and has a hissy fit – she doesn’t want socks so she thinks the gift is trash – but she gets it anyway. And now that she thinks they’re trash I can have an unregulated amount of socks. Of course once this starts it takes years to change, but it’s good to know that I can, eventually, get socks. And to have socks.

Obviously that’s a lot of work and a long timeline to get socks. So you can imagine why there was only one kind. And the same sort of rules applied to all sorts of things – it was frequently useful to only need one kind of a piece of clothing or food or whatever, because it was easier to manage getting for all sorts of reasons. It helped avoid negligent errors on her part and made it easier to build into a habit. Habits aren’t quite reliable enough to replace actual care but are much more reliable than any version where she has to make any choice. But those are all acceptable trades in many cases. Or you can convince yourself they are. So I kind of shirt, one kind of notebook, one kind of shoe, one kind of tuna. And learning to arrange my life to fit that restriction, and to be content with it.

Which is one of the reasons I can’t imagine having socks that change with the weather, or changing pants based on my activity, or owning pajamas ²There are often multiple reasons, like the sexual harassment I noted about pajamas, or the amount of laundry that would be generated, or the danger of expressing a need or desire. But this was a big reason for many things..

There are lots of connections to this story. About what happened in later years, about simulating love, about costumes, about being dangerously skinny. But still tomorrow because it’s late again and I want to get back to a life where I can get these done at a more reasonable hour.

I started reading this today: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/index.html It’s a study of forums that are essentially to opposite of https://reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists and it’s sort of amazing. If you’re not familiar with abusive parents of adult children you should poke at it to get some insight into why it’s so harmful for people to promote family and reconciliation ³The law forces these at young people even when we have checked and know it will be bad – family reconciliation is the legally-required goal of all dependency cases – but in theory the law recognizes children over the age of majority as having the right to avoid family if they so choose. Society is less accommodating though, and often … Continue reading. If you are familiar it’s worth reading to see a high-level view of this shit and get some reassurance about the broader concept; RBN is great for individual support for it intentionally stays out of analysis and societal issues.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.