#so I think I could just resign myself to doing the crochet version and it would all be fine. but I’m still stuck trying to figure out if I | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pisati · 5 years

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I talked to my mom yesterday, just about all kinds of things. I thought I decided a while ago to keep her out of the loop on my health situation, but I guess things are okay if I just keep her up to date but keep her at a distance. not like it’s ever not been like that, though. once I hit 18 and could make decisions for myself without parental permission I was already used to having to advocate for myself. I get that my mom was busy and stressed when I was younger. but thinking back... it kind of hurts that she didn’t fight harder for me. she DID take me to doctors and she does still cover my costs. but I think she gave up on trying a long time ago. it’s hard to tell if she thinks I’m faking too. I don’t think she does, but sometimes it does feel like she thinks I’m thinking too hard about it. I should just sit down and take the hand I was dealt, despite not having any answers.

I told her about the FM/a test, and she thinks it’s a good idea to go for it. if it’s just a quick blood draw and insurance will probably cover it, what’s the harm? either I come up negative (a good thing, in some ways), or I come up positive and finally have my answer. yeah it would suck to definitively know that I have something for the rest of my life and there is a very real possibility it will get worse, but when I know what it is I can better learn how to manage it. that’s all I want at this point.

I also mentioned that when I was volunteering last, my volunteer coordinator showed a group of us a slightly old version of the plans for the new shelter the county is building. it’s going to be a much bigger facility, which is nice, and it’ll be a good bit closer to home. there are a lot of cool features. but I also mentioned to mom how I’d been volunteering for almost two years now, and it’s finally at the point where I’m meeting new volunteers for the first time and they already know who I am. my VC calls me the queen of smalls, and defers to me for pretty much everything small-animal related. staff all know me by name too, and I’ve done a lot in the way of training. the new shelter is on-schedule as of right now, to be finished in september. by that point, I will have been volunteering for just short of 3 years, and I will have a year’s worth of experience at the clinic as both a receptionist and a vet assistant. I told my mom that with the building of the new shelter, there’s going to be more care staff positions opening up, and I honestly think I’ll have a good shot at one of them. there’s more I need to learn by that point, but I think if I do want to pursue this seriously, I can definitely do it.

and I was actually surprised that she sounded relieved to hear that. “oh, Hannah, that would be so good”. I’d have county government benefits. I’d be paid a good bit more. still not enough to live on my own here, but more for sure. I just... I know how hard she’s been pushing me to stay in linguistics. I know she’d love to see me doing some boring government job, getting a security clearance, being this person I know I’m not, doing all the shit that makes me feel nauseous now. but I also know she wants me to be secure and be happy. county government jobs provide government benefits, meaning it would be stable. not to mention this county is the wealthiest in the country. it’s making me tear up a little bit just to know she supports me, still. things aren’t going the way I thought they would, but I know that right now, animal care is what’s working for me. maybe one day when I can fix my sleep and my mental health I can push myself to go into something else, but right now I just can’t bring myself to care. I can’t see myself being a serious career academic. I can’t see myself in a stiff, boring government job. I would probably fall very quickly back into borderline suicidality if I ever ended up at another desk job.

I wish I could have seen this in myself sooner. I wish I would have taken one good hard look at myself and thought about my own personality, and I wish someone else with more experience would have too, and given me some guidance. I really am a person that cares too goddamn much. even thinking about other options I might have; the thing that’s most appealing to me right now is applied behavior analysis. the goal for me being to help autistic children and families with autistic children communicate better and understand each other’s needs. am I a peacemaker at heart? do I just want really badly to see happy endings? I’ve always been a bleeding heart. always, always, always. I remember being in middle or early high school; grandpa had taken us fishing at one of his favorite spots on a bridge in florida, and I’d caught a fish that he liked so much he wanted to keep it for food. but he wanted to just leave it on the ground to suffocate until it died, and I cried until he grumpily threw it back. I saw it belly-up anyway, as it floated downstream, and I still think about it. I hated knowing I was the reason that fish died. that’s just one anecdote, but looking back, it was clear as day that that’s just the kind of person I am. and still I got pushed into things that weren’t ever right for me, because money is a huge worry, and because I grew up under the impression that I needed to pay less attention to myself and just focus on “being successful”. I figured I’d have to be like my mom; do a job because it paid and it was a job. I resigned myself to being miserable because “that’s just what people do”. I learned too late that it’s not, actually. I just wish that doing a job at all would pay enough to live. why some jobs are valued so much more than others is baffling to me. people in social, care-oriented fields work so hard and are so undervalued. powerful positions pay a ton more, and attract power-hungry people. that’s how we end up with this huge imbalance. it does still hurt me sometimes, though, feeling like my mom’s disappointed in me for changing my mind. for deciding that I don’t have to be miserable at a job, and I shouldn’t put up with something just because it pays enough. that’s why it was such a relief to actually have her support on this shelter thing.

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A set up a new facebook event page for festivus. he’d made one a few weeks ago, but then deleted it. I was afraid he’d deleted me from it specifically, because just before he deleted the page I’d mentioned to him that it might not be worth it for me this year. he’d told me it might be in pittsburgh, and that would be a long trip for me for just a weekend. and I told him that if it was going to end up like farm jam, with me showing up and being ignored the whole time, it wasn’t worth a trip at all. suddenly the page wasn’t visible to me anymore. but another friend confirmed that the event was deleted.

so now there’s a new one. it’s going to be in johnstown, which is doable, since it’s only a ~2.5 hour drive, vs 4.5 to pittsburgh. unfortunately it’s on the exact day that my office manager decided to put our clinic holiday party; we had a paper hanging up in treatment asking people to put their names on one of two dates they preferred, either, or neither, and I put “either” because I didn’t have other plans at the time. I don’t even know yet if I’m working that day, but if we’re supposed to alternate weekends I should have that day off. I suppose I could tell people at work that I only see my PA friends twice a year now, if that, and they planned it pretty last-minute, but I just. I don’t know. it wasn’t really worth the effort last year. this year I feel even more disconnected than I did before, and it was pretty bad before.

I’d be willing to give it another go, I think. god I miss having friends so much. I know there’s people I can still talk to, if they’d be willing to talk to me. I can’t let the past get me too down. trying not to recall A ignoring me in person while he tried to get into another girl’s pants after T’s wedding, and literally pitched her tent 5 feet from mine and ended up spending the night in it with her. trying to scrap all the memories from this past farm jam, when I ended up crying a good few times because despite trying to interact and not look like I was in a bad mood over the course of 4 days, I just got ignored and left behind. when I went to go for a walk by myself and got caught in a torrential downpour, only to come back to the campsite to find everyone that was still at the campsite huddled under the big tarp we’d strung up, having rescued every camp chair but mine. including T’s piece of crap chair that seemed a few more uses away from falling apart even when I first saw it 6 years ago. I don’t know what that says to me, but it feels like it says something.

I don’t know. I could let my shit memory do what it does. I could try again. I don’t know why I feel like I need to prove to my friends that I’m trying to not be so depressed. they’re the ones who back off because they don’t want to deal with me when I’m sad. I’m not trying to bring anyone down, I’m just.. really not well. I haven’t been for a long time. I wonder where I’d be if I felt like I had one person who I wasn’t terrified of scaring off; who could just see my depression as something that has me in a vice grip and isn’t a reflection of who I am. I know sometimes it puts me in scary places, but I’m not scary. I’m not hopeless. it helps me immensely just to feel cared about. I have a page on my notes app that I add to every so often with thoughts and snippets of things I could potentially turn into song lyrics, and I was just reminded of one I spit out at least a few months ago: isn’t it cruel how much I blossom when I’m loved? another I’m still trying to find the right words for so I haven’t actually written it down yet: don’t make the mistake of caring for me, because I’ll make the mistake of feeling cared about

my friend Mere is the one I asked about A potentially having removed me from the first festivus page, actually. she’d messaged me after I posted a picture of my crochet on facebook, and just wanted to ask how I was doing. she’s so sweet. we talked briefly, eventually about how everything just felt different. it was weird hearing her talk about Alec and that other girl he’s seeing now, knowing they were all friends even before Alec and Mere got married. I don’t feel it’s my place to ask how she feels about it. she seems to be doing well now though, and I’m glad to hear that. the last thing she said (which I responded to, but didn’t get another response) was interesting: but, I’m sorry that I never got along too well with you in the beginning. I don’t know what it was, but I’m super happy to call you a friend now.

we’d actually talked about this twice before. the first time I think was festivus 2015. we follow festivus tradition, and within that falls the airing of grievances. she’d pulled me aside and told me straight-up that she didn’t like me much when she first met me. which I wasn’t even aware of, because I never talked to her much and always thought she was pretty cool. but she told me that after actually talking to me and having me around for a bit (since I was staying with A while I visited, and he had a room in Alec & Mere’s house), she realized her feelings were misplaced. I was glad she was honest with me. the second time was after T’s wedding. I had hauled ass back up to the campfire after realizing that A had zipped himself into that girl’s tiny one-person tent with her and she knew immediately what happened. it was obvious the whole night what he was trying to do, and she knew him longer than I did, so of course she knew without even having to see it. I was so on-edge. so upset. I was shaking. I remember she and our friend Brad had come up to me and asked what happened, if I wanted to sleep in my car, if I wanted them go get my stuff out of my tent for me. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I just remember sitting in front of the fire, shaking and starting to cry and picking my cuticles to bits; I don’t even remember what they were talking about. I remember at one point Brad asked if I was okay, and I told him I felt like I just wanted to hit something; he went into the trees at the edge of T’s property and brought me a big branch so I could take a swing at something if I wanted. I just gave him a big hug. Mere and I had debated going to sleep, because everyone else already had by the time it was just us left. but we ended up talking more. she told me about how she had a crush on A too and had for years, and it hurt to see him screw around so much. it hurt to see him with me and have me around, and after she realized I wasn’t so bad it hurt to know he hurt me too. I felt bad, because I had no idea. I told her a lot of the shit he put me through, and she agreed it wasn’t okay. she told me how he was really upset the year before when he realized it was my birthday and he forgot again. he’d gotten drunk and told her he knew he hurt me really bad and just didn’t know what to do; he felt terrible. she told me about her relationship with Alec and how things were just falling apart. they were trying to make it work, but it was never going to. I told her how I kind of wanted to pack up my tent and leave, like how in the movies when people break up they just take all their stuff and disappear, but A’s stuff was still in my tent; he was supposed to have shared with me. I was too tired to drive home, but I still wanted to just pack it up anyway. she helped me fold up all of his things and leave them in a neat little pile where the tent was. she helped me fold up the tarp and showed me how to fold the tent so I could fit it all back into the carrying bag and zip it shut (a skill I had yet to acquire). we got all my things back into my car so I could just get in and go if I wanted. by the time we’d started packing up the tent the sun was already coming back up; we were sat around the fire again when A’s phone alarm went off. the two of them came up to the fire pit and sat down with us; I couldn’t even look at him. Mere offered to let me stay at her place in johnstown before I drove home; I think Alec had work later in the morning so I followed them home and tried to sleep. I was amazed I made it there in one piece since I’d been awake for somewhere around 26-27 hours at that point and was struggling to keep my eyes open. I was so grateful to have her company that day. she promised to keep me company at farm jam that year too, so I wouldn’t have to see A with that girl (she ended up not going, but I was worried the whole time that she’d show up). Mere hung out with me and took me mushroom foraging in the woods, and I learned a lot even though I don’t remember any of it. she’s a really sweet gal, and I’m glad to know her.

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well that ended up taking a turn I didn’t intend. I guess that’s alright. just felt like I needed to write.

I don’t know. I’m not ready for this 3-day weekend to be over. I finally caught a break and I crashed pretty hard. I’m really missing my gap year and all the free time I had; feels like it hardly lasted any time at all. I don’t know how I’m ever going to have the energy to work full-time for the rest of my life; I’m not even “full-time” now and I’m struggling. I don’t know. maybe if I finally get a diagnosis people will take me seriously and help me come up with a plan to get the most out of what energy I do have without burning myself out.

#blah blah #rambles

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