#*especially* because the experience of playing dnd is entirely about imagination & sincerity

[5ftboy]

How is Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves different from other blockbuster action films?

[cinnamonswamp]

July

When my partner first casually proposed the idea of going hiking this weekend to me, I agreed with genuinely astounding nonchalance. I’d been hungering quietly for pointed and intentional time together, for motion together, to see something other than the inside of my home and the homes of my clients. On the hungover Saturday morning when we drove to a neighboring town to pick up our His & Her CBD products from his favorite clinic (His as a little THC, Hers absolutely does NOT), a single tiny little sidewalk sign with a lovingly air-brushed “Roses $15″ on the front nearly moved me to tears with its absolute and implicit beauty. On the way home we drove past a three table garage sale that perched in front of a house’s rod iron gate, upon the gate loomed a hand-made sign that said “End Police Brutality” and the entire scene twisted itself into a poem, I was so, so grateful to see just the smallest slice of the rest of the world. So when he asked if I wanted to go hiking it was an immediate and unobserved yes. That’s how hungry I was.

I could tell you all about how bad it’s been this month. I could tell you about how going back to work has turned into an enormous cyst in my brain that is pressing down on every functional piece of me that is capable of experiencing joy, creativity and enthusiasm. I can tell you about how angry and sad and sleepless I’ve been, how I had previously believed I knew what despair was but just in this last month I’ve been shown by the cosmos that I truly had no clue before this. I could tell you about the bruise and the best/worst Pap smear I’ve ever had, and everything else. 

I guess I’m not gonna. I’m so much more interested in telling you about me being so, so pitifully brave. Three times this month I had to cancel whole days because I couldn’t sleep the night before, so finally I attempted to get on the phone with my psychiatrist to talk about a possible new medication because with drawing horror I was beginning to feel like the Ativan is not as effective as it used to be because I took so much of it this month. I couldn’t get ahold of her. So I did a thing that really demonstrates how desperate I’d become, I ordered a 50, that’s five-zero, dollar itsy bitsy teeny weeny bottle of CBD oil despite the fact that one of the things I am most afraid of in this whole goddamn universe is putting marijuana anything inside my person. 

(This is largely but not entirely due to a genuinely traumatic and unfortunate evening with an edible that I will not describe today, but I hope you will take my word for it that it was enough for me to get itchy if I even smell that shit in the air at a drum circle these days.)

So we drove to the neighboring city and got the stuff while listening to Taylor Swift’s new album and I saw pretty, sincere and human things and it was nice. 

When we went hiking on Sunday, which is today, my partner parked a little ways down the sloped street from the entrance to the trail and while we were walking up, before we were even able to see the entrance, I already knew I was in trouble. See I don't know what y’all been up to but for the past three months I have barely moved my body more than dragging it from one room to another. And I was not what anyone would consider “in shape” before the pandemic. So I get winded on the fourth step of a flight of stairs now. And what’s more is there were so many people coming in and out of this trail, and I had to wear a mask that makes me feel like I’m suffocating when I’m standing still. 

All of that is ok. But I also have a 16 year old panic disorder that is rooted so deep in my body and put there by so many novel and repeated instances of physical abuse that my trauma is less of a dark spot inside me and more like rings inside an ancient tree. So when I think people can see me weak and in pain, my body instantly sends a signal to my brain that there’s blood in the water and the sharks are coming. The results of this can vary depending on the situation but typically I tend to start a) crying b) hyperventilating and c) being mean to anyone around me. 

“This was a bad idea.” I said

“You're doing fine,” he said

“There’s too many people,” I said

“We’ll be ok.” he said.

One of the things I love about my partner is how keyed in he becomes when he recognizes that I’m going into crisis and how immediately the situation becomes all about me and whatever I need to be ok. So him gently edging me forward when I was clearly descending into fear and rage was this bizarre little light on the edge of the oncoming storm. He never does that, he never pushes me, I should be mad he’s doing it now, but I’m not, because this is a weird and rare thing for him to do. Maybe he knows something I don’t. So we waddle our way in and break off just inside the entrance so I can lose my shit sitting on a stump under a tree, fully locked in my funhouse of my brain now and seeing the faces of all these passing strangers twist into sneers and disgust when really all that was on those faces were masks obscuring literally any sense of emotion. I couldn't have seen disgust on anyone’s face if I tried. Eventually everyone more or less passed and I calmed, apologized. He tried to apologize and I wouldn't let him. This is why I usually do this stuff alone, because I always have to sit down and cry at first, then when I’m done, I get up and keep going. If I have to cry some more, I do it. I find another stump and cry some more, and then get back up again.

See that’s the secret to completing a difficult thing when you’re a soft, soft baby with deep body trauma: unconditional and compassionate permission to be completely pathetic. 

As my breath and heart rate slowed and I finally accepted the water he’d been trying to offer me for 15 minutes, this fact began to come back to me. 

The evening before, around 5pm, I stood there with the little bottle of CBD oil in my hands for a good twenty minutes, bring the stopper in and out of the bottle, like a little kid attempting to eat a vegetable for the first time, getting it to my mouth and stopping, whimpering, and trying again. Eventually I ran into the bedroom to do it in front of the mirror so I could be sure I only put a single drop under my tongue. Then I entirely dissociated from my body like I always do when I’m trying a new chemical and I’m convinced this is going to be the one that puts me back in the funhouse and permanently locks the door. 

We played a two-person round of combat with our DnD characters to keep my mind off it. My cleric absolutely kicked his ranger’s ass. I even gave him a full heal so we could keep fighting. By the end of the fight we’d both gotten a KO on each other and I was feeling... really, like seriously really good. A little scared, because it did sort of remind me of being high and I was on a kind of alert for the nibbling unpleasant sensations of being stoned, but they never came. I was just- chill. Happy to be around. And that night I got the best night’s sleep I’ve had since before the pandemic started. I hadn’t had a single drop of alcohol. 

When I woke up in the morning I felt like a shiny new thing. I was hungry, actually hungry and while I wallowed around in bed I only thought about how badly I wanted to experiment with making fries from scratch and trying to make a new candle. So when it was time to go on our hike I was in good spirits. CBD is a miracle drug and I am all better now. I can’t wait to tell my therapist. 

You can imagine my heart break when a few dozen steps on a slight incline and a handful of strangers pushed me right back into the funhouse. I don’t know how I can still be so naive at my age, really. But eventually I pushed myself off that dumb stump and we kept going. Every five minutes I scampered under another tree and waited for my pulse to calm the fuck down, but I didn’t cry again. I took pictures of trees and flowers and got into a terrifying and nearly fatal battle with a large fly that liked the way I smelled but entirely ignored my partner and by the time we were done it’d been about an hour and we’d gone about 2 miles. He told me if we did this once a week for three weeks he’d buy me one of those fancy hiking water bottles. I know that may sound condescending to you but I work well with reward systems. As it stood today I just occasionally suckled at his little water back pack set up with its little pipe like a baby calf and made a commitment to be good to myself. 

I haven’t even mentioned that I started an especially brutal and painful period this morning at 3am. And finished reading a good book while waiting for the Advil to kick in so I could go back to sleep. 

I could talk about how miserable I’ve been this month, and I have been. Worse than I could have imagined. But I don't want to, I want to talk about how this morning after I’d gotten back into my bed at around 6am I genuinely relished the feeling of being in bed, feeling the duvet’s pressure against my skin and hearing the subtle purring of my cat next to me. I haven’t felt that at all this month. 

I’m gonna try CBD again tonight and believe it or not I’m still scared. But sometimes scared is ok. That’s kind of where I’m at. Sometimes scared is ok. 

I’m going to the beach next week with my mom and sisters. See you at the end of August. By then I’ll be 32 and if I’m especially brave, I may even have a new water bottle.