lucasaberfox-blog

[lucasaberfox-blog]

Best Self Prompt #3

What do you appreciate most about your life right now? Why?

I think, at this time, I appreciate the relief that death brings.

I had to say goodbye to one of my kids a few days ago. No, not human kids. Don’t know how many people will read this but I know that’s a sore subject, as stupid as that is. But he was my baby. I really loved him more than my own flesh and blood. Dusk was only with us for six months in all, five if you consider that he was barely living this month of January. But fuck, his loss really hurt me.

From very early on in his sickness, about nine days in to be specific, I suspected a disease called DIM, aka Disseminated Idiopathic Myofasciitis. It’s essentially a disease where they just fade away as their bodies cease to function. One of the six vets we saw mentioned the disease in passing, but I latched on to that potential and didn’t let go. I researched and researched and researched and everything pointed to it being DIM. Dusk checked the box for every single symptom that has ever been associated with the disease. And still, none of the vets that I spoke to, minus the one who mentioned DIM in the first place, would take me seriously. DIM is so incredibly rare, increasingly so since a vaccine that was thought to cause it in certain ferrets was discontinued. In all recorded cases, it’s fatal.

It finally got to the point late last week where I couldn’t bear to watch him suffer any longer. I made the appointment with the vet I knew I could trust and she helped me say goodbye to him. I made sure to send his remains for testing to figure out what the hell happened. We got lucky and Dusk ended up on the table of a super nerdy science guy whose specialty is freak stuff like this. And he confirmed in his necropsy that DIM is indeed what killed my baby.

It’s been hard because hubs copes/grieves differently than I do and I’m having a really difficult time, suffering alone. That said, when I received those necropsy results today I was absolutely over the moon. That sounds weird but it’s true. It means that no matter what I did or didn’t do, the outcome would have been the same. I know I did my best for him. No one could have asked more of me.

So yeah. I’m thankful that even it was a short time, I got to experience Dusk in all of his amazing ferret glory. I’m thankful for good vets. And I’m thankful for death.

[lucasaberfox-blog]

I can't believe how much pain I'm in right now. Seriously spent the hours between 6am and 11am evacuating my digestive tract from both ends, then I was actually able to sleep for a handful of hours. Now that I'm up I'm trying to eat some saltines and get liquid in me.

That's all bad enough but holy shit my fucking back. Doesn't matter if I'm sitting, laying down, standing, contorting into weird yoga poses in an effort to stretch. It's just pain. I've never understood the the whole stabbing vs burning vs shooting pain, like. It's just pain. Screaming, constant agony that doesn't go away no matter what I do. It's mind numbing. I can't focus on anything, I don't want to go anywhere or do anything. It hurts so much. It hurts it hurts it hurts.

It fucking hurts.

I can take some Vicodin that we have but I have to take a whole one to get it to even come close to doing anything and I don't think I should be doing that with three saltines in my system. Or I could get high again, like I've been doing every single night for the past month, because nothing else takes the pain away. At least not without substantial consequences.

[lucasaberfox-blog]

Best Self Prompt #2

What’s the best career compliment you’ve ever received? Describe the situation.

Career? Laughable. Required capitalist hell hole, maybe. I donno, this is an odd question for me. It sounds egotistical but I’m fairly good at any job I do. If I’m not good at something, I don’t stick with it. I’ll generally give it three months before I say fuck it.

My experience with working a job for an extended time is that leadership tends to praise workers with longevity. Especially in retail, they’re just happy that you’ve been there for more than a month or two. If you’re like me, you give too much of yourself and suddenly you’re the golden employee. Everyone is held to your standard, and you start to resent those who can’t keep up. And sure, it’s not my job to fix/finish other peoples’ work, but when you’re an anxiety filled perfectionist you can’t help it. People will tell you that you don’t have to do the thing, but you don’t actually have a choice.

I’ve been “number one” at task X, Y, and Z at most of the jobs I’ve ever done. I’ve essentially created a brand for myself. Everyone knows my work. “Artemis must have come through here, everything looks so good!” Super, now give everyone else the incentive to do better so that I’m not playing Atlas in my department. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been told by management that I’m great at what I do, or I’m the best most reliable employee or whatever. Know what that got me recently? Perfect attendance in holiday hell (aka December) got me a twix bar, a chapstick, and a basic blue glitter christmas ornament. Hey thanks for being here every fucking day and working yourself to the point where you want to die. Here’s some shit that I dug out of the trunk of my car. Like really? That’s the best a multi-million dollar corporation can do for its most “loyal” team members? The candy is better than the one before that though. Travel size lotion, tissues, and hand sanitizer. Really? I wish I was joking. Give me a god damned fucking raise you garbage corporation.

I’ve gotten a bit off track but I think you get the gist. There’s no end of the “good job” commentary. But the thought of a corporation actually taking care of its team is a fucking joke.

[lucasaberfox-blog]

Best Self Prompt #1

What are your views on religion?

In short, I think that organized religion is a plague on the world that we’d have been better off without; especially in regards to scientific advancement. On a more individual scale, I think it’s all bullshit and I always have.

I was “raised” lutheran. I say “raised” because we really didn’t start going until a few years into my mom’s relationship with my stepdad. I think I was already 7 or 8 years old, with zero mention of religion ever in my life. All good for my as of yet unborn sister and my three year old brother. They hadn’t started thinking for themselves yet. Easily impressionable is an understatement.

I think I was 11 or 12 when I first told my mom that I wasn’t buying it. “I don’t believe in any of this, I don’t want to come here anymore.” She wrote it off as a phase, forgetting that she was talking to the child that disproved santa, the easter bunny, etc. by the time they’d turned five. Obviously I got the whole spiel about their house, their rules, I can make my own decisions when I’m 18, blah blah blah blah. Stupid. I tried again when I was 16, hoping that enough time had passed and I’d “matured” enough or maybe they’d reward me for sticking to my guns or apologize for saying it was just a phase. Nah, of course not.

So the weekend after I turned 18, I didn’t really expect them to be as surprised as they were when I refused to get up for church. There was yelling, guilting, crying and then a whooooole lot of sleep when everyone finally left me behind and I went back to bed. They came home late and flaunted their to go boxes from the lunch they’d gone to following the service. To guilt me, or make me jealous or something. I donno. It was stupid. Knowing me I’d already had an entire box of cereal to myself, so I really wouldn’t have cared.

Religious people are often just nightmarish. Hell, most of the supporters of the cheeto in chief I guarantee will claim to be some flavor of christian and then turn around and spit on the poor and the foreign. It’s disgusting. I hate hypocrites. I hate selfish, fake people who need the threat of hell to be on their best behavior. And none of the other mega religions are any better. I just happen to know the most about specifically christianity. The gist I get is that most of the religions have the same back story for the main character and everyone fights about whose version is best and whose dick is bigger.

I consider myself an atheist. And perhaps a witch, for what that’s worth. But there are no gods; only concepts, philosophies, and ideals. All we have is the here and now. Tomorrow isn’t promised and there is nothing after. When you die, you just die. The end. Poof. Might as well make the best of our lives while we’re here.

[lucasaberfox-blog]

I've just had an epiphany regarding my discomfort with having to take sleeping pills.

I have to micro manage and medicate literally every fucking part of my life because my brain is a useless lump that can't make fuck-all on its own.

But like everything needs to sleep, and recover. Right? I can do that?

Nope. Gotta medicate that into motion too. Gotta plan out when everything is going to be too much so I can sleep at the appropriate time.

Fucking stupid.

[lucasaberfox-blog]

2020

I have spent the first 13 days of 2020 in a constant state of unease. It’s ridiculous. On the 4th I began what is supposed to be a month long leave of absence from work. Good thing, because my baby boy Dusk, a 7-month-old ferret, came down with a nasty infection/ sickness on the 1st. Ever since it’s been medication twice a day, syringe feeding 2-4 times a day, carefully controlled exercise, and loads of rest. It’s been exhausting, and even though the infection seems to have almost entirely gone away, it absolutely ravaged his body condition. I’m still not sure if he’s even going to pull through. I hope he does. Of course I hope he does.

Aside from being in a constant state of panic over my youngest furchild, break is actually going okay so far. I’m less tired, for sure. I loathe life less. And I’ve been pretty productive. I’ve set new goals (not resolutions, there’s a difference) for myself and have implemented a new schedule for taking care of my reptiles, which has worked brilliantly so far. I’m going to work toward better self care first and foremost this year. I’m not creating “resolutions” because I feel like that’s a great way to set oneself up for failure and disappointment. I’m not resolving to do shit. I’m just going to do my best to make my life better. And myself.

One of my hopes is to start journaling like this every so often. What I wrote in my goals was to write something every day. Doesn’t have to be creative or a journal entry or anything specific. Doesn’t even need to be particularly long. But a writer needs to write. And so I will.

I had a Tumblr what seems like forever ago. I reblogged so much crap but I never made anything for myself. Ever. No original content. No interaction with other people other than reading and hitting that reblog button. That’s not going to fly anymore. This blog won’t contain any reblogs unless it’s like....a writing prompt and it includes my response to it. I anticipate that a lot of it will be ramblings such as this one, but I intend to upload art and writing and pictures of things that make me happy. Particularly my pets. I’ll probably bitch about my misc. problems. But like, if you were newly diagnosed as autistic as an adult and also had chronic back pain related to arthritis, bipolar 2, adhd, ptsd, depression, AND anxiety, wouldn’t you bitch too? I’m not even thirty years old yet! Life is fucking hard sometimes. But hey, I’m still here. Kicking as hard as I can despite all that bullshit.

I’ve been getting high a lot recently. Almost destructively so. I’m pretty much living my dream, save for a few small details. So why is it that all I want to do is escape reality? I feel shitty when I’m unproductive, when I just lay on the couch watching tv. I fucking hate it. But here I am, high literally every fucking night for at least the last month or so. The self-destructive cycle I’m in is so fucking hard to break. I’m still struggling from my parents’ deadbeat bullshit, my garbage childhood. I’m still recovering, still battling bad habits. Still unpacking everything that’s wrong with me. It’s definitely hard but I also know I’ll get there. Call it cliche, but I’m a fucking survivor. I will make it through life, no matter what it throws at me. I’ve got this. I’ll be okay.