Today I’m feeling grateful for…

Going fucking ham on these buttery pretzels at work. I shit you not, I must have eaten half the bag in furtive trips to the kitchen. The kitchen is nowhere near where I need to be to work, I SOUGHT OUT the pretzels and simply could not stop. At one point I even filled a napkin with them and put that in my pocket so I could eat as I worked. I simply could not stop, I felt so helpless and out of control. Against a pretzel. A pretzel was able to completely take over my morning. If I’m reframing this, it was obviously my icky feelings about J that I hadn’t processed from the day before. 

Feeling a sense of dread and hopeful anticipation at going into another depressive cycle. I know this is how it works, and if it feels bad, it means I’m getting better. I worry when I’m feeling good, even wish for the pain sometimes, because I think if I’m feeling okay, I must not be healing. It’s such a change from the black hole of depression that I used to exist in. Now a depression is a call for growth. I’m excited that I seem to have turned that around but dreading the upcoming pain is still very much there. It feels less painful in theory than when living it. 

Feeling very self conscious about my project. I won’t tell anyone in my real life about it, and it will become another anonymous thing that exists out in the world. I wonder if this isn’t the brave way to be doing it. I was thinking I was brave for making it exist, but I can feel myself pushing, pushing, to do the next daring thing like tell people. When will I be brave *enough*? I never seem to be satisfied with myself and my efforts. I tell myself that it’s because I “know I can do better,” the way my favorite kind of professor would say it in school when they gave me a shitty grade, which is better than the vicious inner voice I used to have. And maybe I can do better. But I haven’t figured out how to be satisfied with whatever I’ve created if I know I could’ve done better. Lol fuck. Realizing I just spelled out p-e-r-f-e-c-t-i-o-n-i-s-m. 

missing going grocery shopping alone. With the alternating SIA work and glasswork, I really haven’t had time to shop during the hours that Cubu works. Which means we go together.  With another person it feels fun sometimes, like an adventure, but most of the time it feels draining like a chore. I become just another overstimulated, decision-fatigued body trying to navigate the masses and avoid making poor purchasing decisions. I can feel my eating disorder acutely as I struggle with every food choice. However, when I’m alone I put on noise canceling headphones, music, and get to engage in the wonders of choosing what will nourish my household for the next couple weeks. Every “no” to the Oreos is empowering, and I can celebrate it with myself. I feel free of my binging disorder for one precious hour. I also miss upkeeping my house, that used to be a daytime job that has fallen to the wayside. 

Leaning into the good:

• an easy, social shift at the library that reminded me of the perks of my job
• a great meeting with brave survivors today. One person had a revelation after the reading and it was powerful to be there for it. To see it happen in real time, this thing that’s happened to us all, but also to be able to witness and be a part of the consoling community. 
• these entries. They’re a specific form of journaling that you get to share with someone, and there’s power in both sides of the practice. It makes me feel so perfectly human, and comfortable in my flawedness. Every time I flesh out a feeling, I know where to categorize it, which gives me a direction to focus my habit-changing/healing inner parent energies. However, the more I do this practice the more *codependency* is staring me in the face. It’s almost exciting. I’d rather have a concrete call to action than a nameless enemy any day.
• getting to swim in the river and getting to test out a new tool for nervous system regulation
• hotpot AGAIN 🥹