#plus i've been on and off sick since before thanksgiving

[theseancekid]

i am once again apologizing for not being here

[creek-cryptid-deluxe]

Welp it's 430 am on a Friday & I've not yet slept due to pain so... let's do a life update with Dr.M!

Where to begin... I guess with how things are with L & The House Gremlins.

Things between me & L are still really great. Honestly the last month has been crazy stressful starting the week before Thanksgiving. He got a chest infection & was down Friday thru the Monday of the week prior to Thanksgiving. The kids started their 2 week holiday visit that Friday so I handled EVERYTHING. Then Sunday night I felt sinus junk & the next morning woke up with 102°f fever & full on pneumonia. I apparently ran myself down & then a cold front happened. He tried to handle stuff on Monday but kept falling asleep in the kids' rooms & since they couldn't wake him they came to me. I was down til Thursday. Really should have been longer but Ari got his chest infection, so I had to take care of her while he worked. Kids left for the weekend (Ari with very explicit instructions on what she needed to kick the infection) & when they all came back Monday, Ari was still sick & so was Zel. So Monday & Tuesday I took care of them because they asked for me specifically every time. Wednesday I realized how burned out L was, so I handled everything til Saturday when the kids were gone again. Wednesday was baking & prep, Thursday was Thanksgiving proper, which I cooked for (because L was legit just going to order a pizza), Friday was clean up & general kid nonsense. L got 3 days of video games. The following Monday, I was down due to an upcoming cold front & he learned at the beginning of work that a coworker he was close with took their life the night before. I was down until Thursday because on Tuesday the front was serious enough that the temp dropped 20 degrees in an hour. He basically did the bare minimum to get by, going to work then coming home & making sure we both ate. Since then I've been ok, and have been able to help him through his grief & keep him going til Christmas break (which starts the end of next week).

Despite ALL of that (plus me suspecting I am having a hormone issue due to the fact that my body/emotional state has resembled my severe PMS for 2.5 months now without any period action; so I'm overly sensitive, overly emotional, & hornier than I've ever been in my life) we've still not had any fights or anything like that. We both just make sure that we openly communicate with each other about how we are feeling & what we need or have the capacity to handle, then act accordingly to ensure we are supporting each other & both our needs are met to the best of our ability while treating each other with kindness & understanding.

This is like an actual healthy relationship and it's fucking dope. But also neither of us is accustomed to such a thing so it's been an adjustment & a learning experience.

The House Gremlins... so you might remember that at the start of their 2 week stay, Vin was still basically attempting to bully me. He legit asked L if he was getting rid of L's old couches & when L confirmed it, this child looked me in my face & asked L what he is gonna do when we break up because Ex1 or Ex2 scares me off with threats. (I acted like I didn't hear him & L basically laughed & said that due to my life experiences, people don't frighten me. The subtext was that the exes specifically don't frighten me... because I grew up with people so much worse than them tbh.) Well, since that first Sunday afternoon when he turned it around, he's been great. Hasn't given me any trouble when I ask him to do stuff, has volunteered to help with things, & has been talking to me about Pokemon Go since he got his smartphone back. He even called me a few nights ago to ask if his dad had dress shoes he could borrow for an event.

Zel is happy as a clam with my existence. Out of the 3, she's been the least resistant to my presence. She took to manners & such really quickly. Plus, if I lay out clear rules about using certain stuff I have (like [Dr. M's] Special Markers) she follows the rules to the letter so she can keep using them.

Ari... has been a butt when she doesn't like what I say or gently call her out for doing something she shouldn't but beyond that seems all good.

So I'm fully integrated into the house. Still the first choice when there's a problem. Still the one who gets asked about baking, dinner, or doing ridiculous jazz.

All in all, super dope.

The Spawn situation is... not dope. She's basically started peddling her pity party "it's so hard to be broke at 18, trying to learn to be an adult without parents" to all my friends now in addition to family... while living for free at my Dad's, basically acting like it's her fucking house, while he pays the bills and her dog has become his dog in that she now sleeps with him & he is the one who walks her, plays with her, buys her toys, treats, and food. She's supposedly moving to Oklahoma with her 'bestie' (a guy she's known since freshman year) & The Bf (yep he came back & they scream at each other DAILY) for a lab tech job in an ER. However I doubt that will work out since she's already ranting to The Bf about not being able to work in a hospital because of 'classism'.

"Dr. M, why the quotes around the word classism?"

Oh because she's misusing the term and is deeply misinformed but ignores or screams at anyone who attempts to correct her. She is referring to her hearing second hand from a person who hasn't ever worked in healthcare that doctors & nurses look down on techs and treat them like trash. Multiple people who have actually worked in healthcare have told her that is not commonplace anymore, as most know that lab techs/phlebotomists are an indispensable part of the healthcare system in that they are diagnostically necessary.

But she isn't ever mistaken so... she ain't trying to hear that.

I've not spoken to her but have heard things from friends & Dad. Oof. I really hope she grows out of this.

Oh! Also I've regained all but 5 lbs of the weight I lost the month before I came here despite my multiple illnesses & bouts of pain puking in the last 2 months. That and my energy levels remind me that I made the right choice. I love her dearly but I warned her repeatedly that once she hit 18 I wasn't going to put up with the abusive disrespectful bull anymore. She didn't believe me. Her bf warned her. She didn't believe him. Dad warned her. She didn't believe him. Hell, the oldest of my younger cousins warned her. Kid still decided to fuck around over and over and over & is continually shocked and 'doesn't understand' why she's finding out.

Also you know stuff with her is bad when my Dad (who has the patience of a saint & endless kindness for people he loves) is going on at length about being stoked to have them move tf out. In contrast, he was sad I was leaving but also happy that I was finally putting myself first & not letting her just straight up kill me.

Plus he really likes L. They text CONSTANTLY about hockey & the nerdass shit they both are super into that I only have knowledge about by being in proximity of my father most of my life. Like 2 days ago, L went on for like 20 mins about... idk some hockey shit. He suddenly looked at me (because I will listen to him talk about anything forever, but get a sorta glazed over look if I have no clue what he's on about) and said "This is a conversation for your dad, huh?" I confirmed. Then yesterday I told my dad about it because I gave them each other's numbers for emergencies (plus I have his mom's number so...). He immediately asked what hockey nonsense he was talking about. I explained the bits I could remember super vaguely & he started laughing & knew EXACTLY what L was talking about. (I mean, I guess he did because he said a name & I threw up my hands and said "I don't fucking know! I guess?") I obviously relayed this interaction to L... who immediately said "Oh yeah! I have his digits!", picked up his phone & started texting my dad about Lord of the fucking Rings.

Goddamned nerds.

[seacreek]

I don't want to write anything where irl friends would see (no one is gonna see this here anyway) but I need to get this out of me.

Liiiikeeeee

I was (am?) literally the most suicidal I've ever been in my life today (is today over if it's 2 am?) and not only can I tell that to NO ONE, but it's like God was fucking rubbing it my face all day. I actually laughed at one point bc I was driving behind someone thinking of whether I should try to do it at home or somewhere else when I noticed their license plate said KYS and then a mashup of my birthday numbers.

But like I've already been feeling this building bc I'm behind on bills and have no heat and it's gonna snow soon and it's the holidays which remind me that my family is all spread out and I don't really talk to my parents anymore and somedays I talk to no one at all but my cat and my life is going NOWHERE with no way to change that but to work myself even harder when I don't even feel like I have anything at all to give anymore.

And I already felt like calling out bc even though I chose to work Thanksgiving yesterday knowing I'd be the only one there, it was still depressing to know that normal people are with friends and family and I'm not. But I also didn't want to take up my neighbors/friends on their offers to join them bc I did that last year and got all the questions about what I was doing with my life and at the time I actually believed I'd be going back to school the next year but now I realize how I can't possibly afford that without accepting help from someone which would BE my neighbors bc my parents would not help and I can't pay for it alone. And I can't accept help from them bc I feel like I would just get overwhelmed and depressed and flunk out and waste their money anyway. And the other reason I couldn't go over there/can't is bc I already feel like such a burden to them. They do all this nice stuff for me all the time and I catch myself even EXPECTING it at times which is fucking disgusting. Even if I'm grateful and say thank you, it's not like they owe me anything just bc I have no one else to give it to me. So I need to stop accepting their help and gifts, but then I know they are judging me for that bc even though their really nice, they are also super judgmental and they really like me bc they think I have "potential", but if they knew that I'm actually just a natural born idiot and failure, they'd never want to talk to me in the first place. And also it's unhealthy probably how much I rely on their validation bc since I've known them since I was little, I'm almost using them as surrogate parents which is also fucked up bc they are not my parents, they have their own kids who actually have their lives together unlike me who is just like a pet project of theirs.

Soooo anyway I already had all this on my mind and more going into work today and when I get there, I look at the schedule and realize everyone called out but me!!!!

And so I had to make a frankenstein schedule out of all of theirs to prioritize what needed to get done and was still trying to do little favors for people in between that I didn't want to disappoint bc it wasn't their fault that their staff wasn't there to do it with them and it was getting super overwhelming. And then I'm super sensitive so when I'd have to tell someone that I COULDN'T do something extra for them that they really were looking forward to, it was already punching me in the gut to see their disappointment. But then the worst part is that they don't fully get that I'm not just choosing to do that out of spite, but I legitimately had negative amounts of time to get everything done so they would blame me for what I couldn't do for them. EVEN THOUGH I WAS WORKING LIKE 4 SCHEDULES IN 1. Like they don't have the capacity to think past what's in front of them sometimes which I understand it's not their fault, but it SUCKS bc then they are pissed at me even though I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to do everything for everyone and keep them all happy and they should really be annoyed with my coworkers who didn't come in but I didn't even throw them under the bus bc it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I'm the person in front of them who is "refusing to do what they ask" so it's my fault.

So that's how my day is going everywhere I go as I rush from person to person and place to place, answering calls, improvising on the spot, and constantly having to tell someone that whatever they had planned on today isn't possible and dealing with the result of that. And the WHOLE TIME I am DAYDREAMING about how I'm gonna kill myself when I get home. Maybe slit my wrists, wait no my leg because I know I'll chicken out on the wrists, wait no, I'll drive out to the ocean and just swim out until I'm drowning too far out to save myself, wait no, what bridges could I jump from let me google that, wait no, I could take all of the pills at home together but then I might throw them up so wait no, maybe I'll drag this out and just not eat or drink til I just die nah that takes too long etc etc etc. And I'm really thinking this is gonna happen tonight bc I already wrote a letter monday or tuesday and I'm sure they'll find that pretty fast when they look in my journals so I don't even have to worry about that part, just the doing. So I'm contemplating my end of life and getting more anxious and sad with every hour passing bc I'm really thinking this is it, this is the day I'm out. But really I keep getting caught up bc my CAT who is sadly the one being on earth that I love who could never understand, is at home. And I'm thinking about how if I kill myself while she's there and it takes time for people to realize I'm missing/find me, she will be sad/hungry/thirsty in the meantime. Which is so unecessary and all of my suicide plans get scrapped if they involve direct trauma of another being and she's the one that means the most, so how could I be so selfish as to not make a plan for her?

So I'm thinking of how I have to sneak her to my sister's place while she's still at work and that's stressful enough but more so bc then I'll have a time limit on getting this done bc as soon as she comes home and sees kaiya there without me and no explanation, she'll start blowing up my phone and when I don't answer, she'll call someone. And I don't want to do that in a pressured state, I need time to process everything and think about life and what I'm doing. Plus, what if I decide not to??? (Which is what ended up happening for tonight anyway) I would've done all that for nothing and then had to confess when she found kaiya anyway and have to go to a psych ward or something which would just ruin my life faster but make it harder to get out.

So I'm thinking ALL this ALL day while working my ass off yet still disappointing everyone and swallowing tears that would turn into sobs every hour until it's time to go home.

Then I drive home and even though I pray to God to send me some sign that he cares, he doesn't.

At this point, I've already lost the fire under me so I know this is another night where I just get through it, cuddle kaiya, and wake up the next day to do it all over and I've accepted that in a way.

Then 1 am rolls around and my sister calls me to say she stopped by a party where she ran into my old best friend and friends from high school. None of whom cared enough about me to even ask what I was up to these days, even though they were talking to my SISTER. And that whole growing apart thing took such a toll on me mentally and I do feel like I'm over it now these days, but it still brought up these gross sad feelings of when I was first realizing that they didn't really care about me anymore and then fully understanding that I didn't matter to them. Which hurt SO MUCH bc they were a ride or die for me, like I would have done anything for them and I never even DOUBTED they didn't feel the same until it was so obvious I had to stop pretending around it. And that fucked with ALL of my relationships with people. Every single friend I had, I started pulling away from bc I was so insecure in myself that I felt like I had to get away from them before they had the chance to drop me which I now felt was inevitable. To this day, I feel like I have a body count of of people that I desperately want to talk to, but don't let myself bc I feel like they don't deserve to have to put up with a person as shitty and worthless as me. And I do that in every possible relationship I have, platonic, romantic, and even familial. And I can't blame them for that bc they were just a normal person growing apart from someone I guess, but I think it triggered something laying dormant in me so badly that it was actually the catalyst for my inability to connect with other people in meaningful ways. I never meet a new person anymore with the belief that they will be in my life for more than a few years at most. Most people I expect to be gone within a week or two. My walls are up so high that it's actually selfish that I even talk to people at all bc I only end up hurting them when I pull away for seemingly no reason at all. And I'm too much of a coward to tell them that there's nothing wrong with them, I just can't get that close to people anymore. Like it actually makes me physically sick to think of carrying on normal relationships with people which is SO fucked. But then I turn into the villain bc I'm worried that they'll develop the same fear of people and I'll be the cause of it. Like I'm a vampire. But I isolate myself and then get to a certain point where I think "I'll try again!! And this time will be different!! I'll really have someone new in my life!" And then I am super friendly and doing my best to be good and making plans and whatever. But then I start getting that sick feeling again, like what if what if they just haven't realized how much I suck and how disappointing I am yet, they'll definitely realize it soon and I come up with some random specific reason why they'd actually hate me if they knew "THIS" about me and I start detaching myself and then flake on plans and then disappear. And then spend weeks worrying myself sick that I permanently damaged their trust in people!!! But then I get lonely again and the pattern starts again!! All traced back to this moment in time where it actually hit me that people's affection for you can disappear in the blink of an eye no matter how much you thought they cared about you. So clearly love is conditional and just that thought alone is enough to make me want to end it all!!

So yea, just a shit day with shit cherries and cream on top.

And now it's 3am and I have to wake up in 5 hrs to do this again.

And all of this is still something no one will know if or until it comes spilling out and then my life will either be changed forever or over.

But yea, drew that lion the other day.