Tuesday: Today I’m grateful for feeling…

Nervous about Cubu’s brain scare. He has not followed up on anything and I don’t know how to approach asking him to schedule some appointments. He confessed the other day that he’s not feeling good about work, his family, his birthday party, his projects, the house, and that he’s tired from supporting me (but holds no grudge). That’s a lot for anyone and I’m grateful that he found me safe enough to tell, especially since I could feel something was up and I was battling with taking it personally. It does make me feel like I can’t bring up the medical stuff though, not right now. But when is the right time? And what if we are losing time the longer we wait?

Tired and fatigued after maybe two weeks of poor sleep. My bet is from the plumbing stress and being in a different bed. I feel like I wake up 8-12 times each night, thinking about something trauma related and how it affects something else. It feels manic and disjointed, waking up over and over again to find I’m doing that “red string between clues on a cork board” thing. I never remember my revelations but I remember the exhaustion of waking up and thinking to myself “fuck, this again, I’m so TIRED, let me fucking sleep!” I can’t even take time off in my dreams. I’ve been taking half a Trazodone to sleep for a while now so I think I’ll increase it to the full pill until we’re back in our room. 

Ashamed because I moved my shower schedule to accommodate Cubu being in the house and masturbation potentiality. In the master bedroom, I can see the bed from the shower. I didn’t realize I relied on that until moving to the guest room and feeling scared to shower because it will leave him unobserved for a “long enough” time. This is the second time I’ve put aside my personal need to be clean in deference to this fear. It feels compulsive, like the choice is made before I have a say and then I’m going to work unshowered, steeped in self-loathing. I want to tell Cubu because it’s an icky feeling but because it involves him, I don’t want him to feel bad, change to accommodate me, or know how fucked I am. I’ll bring this up in therapy to shame-bust it.

Panic, denial, and a familiar sense of extreme distress after beginning to read Untamed by Glennon Doyle. She talks about the wants and desires people have and how we’re trained to stuff them down, becoming smaller to fit into a socially prescribed ideal. I don’t even have to ask my heart of hearts if I’m actually satisfied because it’s been screaming at me the whole time I read this book. I work so hard to be grateful for the life I have because it should be enough, I should feel fantastic every day. I’m no longer in poverty, I’m no longer abused. I have a wonderful home, wonderful friends, wonderful job, wonderful partner. The problem is that it doesn’t feel like my life, and I twist my brain and heart into gratitude for something that feels like it’s lacking critical things. I call myself ungrateful, damaged. “Oh, that’s just your trauma speaking. When you’re healed you’ll want this.” At night I think to myself “This is how it happens. This is how people let their life slide right past them. It feels okay, and they settle because they don’t believe they can make dream happen, or even what their dreams are.” So here’s my inner secret: this life is not for me. Living in a suburb with a fantastic but emotionally unequipped partner is not for me. I’m not sure what is for me but I can feel this isn’t. But it’s a good life? When I die, will I regret this? I feel tortured, frozen, terrified, and unequipped to look at this truth any further.

Feelin’ good…

• I told this all to my therapist and feel much better now. She sees where I’m coming from, how a lot of it has to do with feeling like I’m in the wrong partnership. She says emotional intelligence can be taught and if he’s willing, that he or we should go to therapy. A person can only meet you as far as they’ve met themselves, but apparently that can be trained. You’d think I’d know that since I had to be trained but I guess I had forgotten. I also told her my frustrations with my progress with the masturbation issue, and about the showering. She helped me see how far I’ve come, reminded me I can’t rush the process, and made a plan with me to do some EMDR for our next session. I feel seen and like I have a path forward. Hopeful again.
• Taking the time to catch up on our chat conversations felt like having coffee with a friend, which is something I think you said a couple months back. I feel more fulfilled and connected than I did before. 
• My library coworker that I fill in for during vacations has left for a two week trip. I love doing her job, and I’m the only other person who knows how to do it so there’s no scarcity of work. It does feel kind of bad, pay-wise. When she’s gone, I assume the duties of someone well above my paygrade with no compensation for that. And the library would be kinda fucked if I didn’t step up. I’ve asked for a wage increase just during those two weeks but was told the city doesn’t have the budget for that. It’s true, they don’t. So while I love doing this job and being helpful, there’s a modern worker’s voice in my head talking about valuing my time and not working without proper compensation yada yada. Again, in general, I love it and feel super useful/fulfilled when performing her duties.
• Went to see Deadpool & Wolverine and not once did I get triggered! This movie is RIFE with masturbation/ejaculate references. Every other time I’ve seen a Deadpool movie, I enjoyed the movie but would get so dysregulated. I’d spend literal minutes after each reference trying to regulate myself, just to get hit with another one right when I could breathe again. This time? Mild discomfort only!!! Bit frozen in my seat, a couple skipped breaths, nothing major at all! I moved on almost right after the reference was gone!!! I feel so fucking free! 20 years of not being able to handle this kind of content and, while I wish movies didn’t have it, I can exist with it now!! What if someday it doesn’t affect me at all? It’s working. My hard work is fucking working. This is the affirmation I needed today.