incoherent ramblings because i’m restless

Written on September 3, 2008 by jo/e and renee. 0 Comments

one of the things we talked about a bunch on sunday, with indigo and ej, was the privilege that functional people have. we talked about our own lives and came up with so many many examples. it was really eye-opening. it’s privilege that they even get to define as functional - because society is structured in a way that allows them to hold down a job. there is so much we non-functionals could do if we didn’t have to waste all our time and energy fighting with a system that won’t bend for us. (for example, in my view, agoraphobic people should be able to telecommute… so many things. have you ever noticed that telecommuting is granted only to those who have already proved themselves somehow?)

i’m all over the place. and i know this isn’t a new movement and we are all three extremely inspired by (and would maybe identify as a part of) the disability rights movement. but i think it is especially hard to create change when the thing that’s going on with you makes it so that you cannot ever follow a set schedule, makes it so some things (like organizing events) are just closed, not possible. blogging is good, but even here i don’t make my points clearly like some of the blogs i read. i can’t necessarily struggle out of my fog enough to refine my writing and be perfectly cogent. so i feel like my words are stupid and don’t matter.

anyway. this isn’t my real post on this. i’d like to write better. i do have moments when i’m able to write. but god, it felt so good to talk about these things and recognize a million little stigmas we buy into about ourselves. to consciously remember that we are not lazy, we are not choosing this path. we are not just going through what the normal people are going through - i swear, people seem to think that if they get anxious sometimes, they understand what it’s like to live with an anxiety disorder, day in and day out.

even therapists - they all wax so friggin enthusiastic about how we can heal fully, we can integrate or whatever, we can be fully functional. my therapist in santa cruz signed the disability stuff for me but she had to give me a little talk about how it wasn’t permanent. and i do hope to be able to work part-time someday. (otherwise this degree i’m trying for is kind of silly.) but i doubt i’ll ever be able to work full-time. i’ve come to the realization that some of the ways i’m limited are forever. i’ll never feel easy and natural with acquaintances. i’ll never be able to relax in public all the way. even if i achieve moments, i suspect that they’ll only ever be moments.

but i have a lot to learn from the social model of disability. and i think being labeled nonfunctional is like saying it is my fault, my problem, i am disordered. but i’m thinking about the society in this alien shore by cs friedman, where people could participate as their abilities allowed. and were able to use their strengths. there is so much i could do if i could spend my time doing it, instead of all this fighting. i’d need flexibility and more breaks, yes. but why does that prevent me from working? it’s so completely fucking society that’s not allowing me to work. then stigmatizing me for not working, and keeping me in the poverty it thinks i deserve.

i’m not together at all. i’m having a hard night. i’m so panicked about the move. the place was supposed to try calling today and then call me - i think i need to go prod them again, even though i did yesterday. another fucking wonderful “coincidence”… things like renting a place require so much more of me than they would a person who was able to afford to pay rent themselves, at a place of their choosing. so because i am not functional, i am expected to have to function so much more in order to get this place rented. and it wears on me so fucking much, every day. i love aeron but i can’t stand him, the closer i get to away the more i need it. 

i have never been safe in my home.

nowhere to go (self-absorbed pity redux)

Written on September 3, 2008 by matt. 0 Comments

so much is on hold until i know more about my new apartment. i hate that i still don’t know what’s going on. i hate that there’s no way to figure it out, nothing i can even do. i hate myself, because i can’t get myself to do anything here where my home still is. no packing, no cleaning, no being a contributing member of the community (apartment). oh, that’s not mom talking. not at all. but still, it is not fair to aeron. i need to do my share. not that he usually does his share… except lately, it’s been all him. i just taste dust when i try, my stomach knots. i think there’s a kind of cheerfulness and hope without which cleaning is almost impossible. cleaning is about making a nice space to live in. but i don’t want to live here. and i’m so afraid i will be doomed to stay here.

i’m confused and tired, and can’t seem to do anything with myself. i don’t know how to make it better.

hey brother, i need love to grow

Written on September 1, 2008 by matt. 4 Comments

yesterday was my birthday, and it was an amazing and wonderful day. indigo came over and i got to copy the new amy ray album, which is of course stunning. they also installed a whole bunch of their games, for the kids, and we get to choose a game from the place they get them! it was so perfect as presents, because the bigs and kids got things that were so perfectly for them.

then ej was feeling up to it so we both went over to their place. we were going to maybe go to the gender odyssey barbeque, but it turned out to be too overwhelming, so we just hung out. sitting around talking about politics and activism and listening to amy ray (definitely a recommended combination), talking about being, playing apples to apples (always, of course, with noun-noun pairing). i didn’t even drink, but i felt a little drunk. i felt incredibly loved and supported, spending time with two of the three people who are closest in my heart.

i got triggered when indigo mentioned energy work; i think there’s definitely some trauma there with our mom. but it was an incredible experience because i didn’t hide or shove it away, and they were both so incredibly supportive. the fear was just completely swamping me, but they rooted me to the present and just… wow, that’s powerful medicine. i do not generally show extreme emotions around people, and it was so rewarding and healing to do so in that safe space. i have a new understanding of some of the things we always hope group can be for people. i don’t know if i’ll ever feel safe enough with everyone in group, but who knows? i won’t rule anything out.

i took my shirt off at one point and spent hours feeling beautiful and sexy. indigo even hauled out their camera - i can’t wait to see the pictures they got. i totally hammed it up, and that’s another awesome new experience. to be welcoming of the camera and not be a bad person, vain and worthless, because of it.

then at night indigo and us rode our scooters to their place, and i continued on home. it was a really fun ride actually, because we mostly stayed side by side, and there was just something that felt really alive and companionable about the night air in our faces, both of us fluent and comfortable on our bikes, conversation at the stoplights.  indigo is going to have their bike for a few weeks and we are gonna totally go for rides.

they are both wonderful supports for me with me coming to realize the trauma that has resulted from my relationship with aeron. i realized lately that you can get traumatized without the other person being wholly and incontrovertibly an abuser. that it’s okay to suffer and need my space from him. that i don’t have to be fair; that maybe even, i can’t heal if i’m spending every moment being fair. and that it’s okay to acknowledge that i need to heal from this relationship. even if there was a lot of good, there was a whole hell of a lot of poison. and it’s really hard for me to take aeron even when he’s being perfectly sweet and nice, these days. and maybe that’s okay too.

the apartment place is just waiting on the section 8 people and i am so frustrated. i want my place now! i don’t know if and what i can do to help speed it along.

privilege and being a survivor

Written on August 19, 2008 by jo/e. 3 Comments

i want to try to write a post that is focused on a single topic. i feel nervous and shy, shaky (even though the types of blogs i’m modeling this after will probably never see it.) there really is a huge difference between journal entries and blogs-as-informal-journalism. is there room for both, here? i’d like to think so.

i have a great deal of privilege. as i start to pass for male (which still doesn’t happen all the time, despite what my friends might kindly think), i have yet another thing to add to the list, which already includes: white, educated, dominant culture, able-bodied, non-stigmatized weight/appearance, and probably more (please let me know if you think of something i should add!) clearly, if i want to be a part of social change, my role is going to be frequently, maybe primarily, that of an ally. i’m really interested in being a good ally, and i think one of the most important behaviors is to be able to admit when i make mistakes, run into blind spots, act on prejudice, ignore the experience of others.

i also belong to some oppressed groups: poor (though for me it is a privilege to live in the city, and being poor is part of the cost), disabled, queer, trans, survivor.

what i want to write about is the intersection between that last (which of course interacts a lot with being disabled), and the privilege i do have. i don’t have a thesis or everything figured out. i’ve just noticed something that really bears thinking about. before the other day, it didn’t even occur to me to include being a survivor as being part of an oppressed group. but via questioning transphobia, i found this: non-survivor privilege and silence. wow, that was an amazing thing to read. i was having a hard time already, but there were some definite tears of recognition in my eyes from reading that. really, go read it.

as a survivor, i’m pretty experienced at doubting myself, at deferring. if i disagree with someone, i’m liable to defer to them before i think (or even suppress the disagreement before i’m aware of it.) i tend to think i don’t have the right to take up space. i spend a lot of time trying to be invisible. i’m not saying that these things negate my privilege. hell, i am able to be invisible in large part because of my privilege. but i do think they interact.

part of being a good ally is not being silent and therefore complicit. if i keep my mouth shut when people are fucked-up about groups i don’t belong to, then i am participating in the atmosphere that allows oppression.

the other week, i had a really eye-opening experience. i was with ej at a social gathering (that makes me sound like i have so much more of a life than i do), and a person came into the group who made a lot of people uncomfortable. he made a racist comment, saying that at a bar the person he was with abandoned him for “some mexican boy.” prosody is part of meaning and the emphasis (on top of mentioning race when it did not seem to be relevant) was clearly racist. in hindsight, this is really clear. and at the time, when he said it, i remember feeling surprised/uncomfortable at the comment, but quickly assuming i did not understand the full context of the story. i was concentrating on being social and likable, which is a huge strain for me anyway. i accepted what he was saying without much of a blip in my consciousness at all, because these processes are so automatic for me.

later in the afternoon, he had gone away, and the people that were still there spoke of relief about him being gone. they congratulated one person for going out of her way to mention racism rather pointedly while talking about her classes (she is a sociology professor… i know i sound even more like i have a real life, but this was the only time i’ve been in that cool of a crowd, i swear.) i didn’t notice the pointedness, though i did really appreciate what she was talking about and was frankly fascinated by everything she had to say. when people congratulated her, i realized which comment had been racist, and remembered my discomfort. i felt really bad, really backwards, that i hadn’t been more critical of the guy in my thoughts earlier. but that’s the thing. i never feel i have a right to be critical.

i could give so many other examples from my life with aeron. (he thought it was a huge joke to nickname our anorexic part “fattie”. he practically defines hipster bigotry.) and as i was saying yesterday, i think not criticizing aeron has/had been a part of my survival for years.

i also really worry about my social anxiety making me seem like or become an asshole. i am quiet, tense, deferential around strangers. i give them a lot of space, especially when i’m having a hard time. for example, on the bus, i generally prefer standing to sitting right beside a stranger. if aeron is there though, i’ll try to find him a seat even if i can’t have one, since he has hip problems. i was doing this on the muni in san francisco and a large black woman noticed and patted the seat next to her. normally i would just try as politely as i could to say no, but i worried so much she would think it was because i didn’t want to be next to her. so when aeron wouldn’t sit, i did.

also in san francisco, on a crowded bart car, a person in a wheelchair was having a lot of trouble getting in… the door didn’t line up very neatly to the platform. they had to try like four times. i really wanted to help, but there was no way i could handle that level of interacting with someone. i was really pissed at the rest of the car for just ignoring this person, but how could i be when i didn’t get up and help? (they finally made it in on their own.)

i want to find my way through this thicket without making excuses for myself. when does my valid experience end and the making excuses start?

on the plus side, healing from my abuse will make it easier to be assertive. but in some ways my personality has been permanently shaped by what i went through. how can i be an ally if i am not able or willing to speak up, help, challenge privilege? is there a solution, or can i only notice the problem?

even noticing the problem is a part of this whole interaction, because at times we really beat ourselves up over it. we beat ourselves up over everything. when is the beating-up valid shame at my privileged place in society, and when is it just an excuse to be down on myself?

as i said at the beginning, i don’t really have answers.

i’m not part of you

Written on August 18, 2008 by jo/e. 1 Comment

so we were playing civilization today and it is a glorious escape. we were very wrapped up in it, not wanting to lose the thread of distraction that saves us from ourselves. okay, it wasn’t so concrete. we were playing civilization and were terribly terribly thirsty but not getting up and getting some water, for whatever reason.

good lord i’m practically crying. i’m seriously unbalanced.

anyway aeron was up and we asked him for water and he said, “that’s awfully lazy of you.” it triggered us instantly and we told him angrily to never mind. but he did it anyway. we said it wasn’t nice of him to call us lazy and he said he didn’t say we were lazy, just that it was awfully lazy of us.

i HATE when people insist on doing something for you when they are clearly upset about it. oh GOD i hate that. definite mom issues there.

i’m sorry but he didn’t say that it was lazy not to get up, he said it was lazy of me. doesn’t that seem like he was calling me lazy? either get me the damn water or don’t, but don’t fucking cast aspersions on my character, ones you KNOW are triggers for me.

we said that only much nicer and all he said was, “well, if you’re going to decide to be offended by that, there’s nothing i can do about it.” like i was completely craaaaazy. i got so damn mad. i am so sick of him. is it just me or is that a completely fucked up thing to say?

i’ve been reading a lot of blogs this summer and just generally thinking a lot LOT more about activisty stuff - privilege, injustice, power. and it occurred to me the other day that maybe i had to take such a long hiatus from that because i needed to survive with aeron. i had nobody else. i absolutely had to approve of him.

it’s like he thinks that having asperger’s or social anxiety trumps everything, like you can’t possibly be an oppressor if you have those. i know that it’s really complicated. but excuse me, that is still a fucking cop-out.

i have criticized along with aeron. i have abandoned my spirituality because it doesn’t hold up to logic. (slowly trying to reforge one, we do find a very deep well in the tao te ching, but i don’t know if we’ll ever have the sense of connection that our pagan beliefs gave us. i don’t know if we’ll ever be able to believe again.) he never directly picked at my spirituality, but he is so critical always. i’m good at getting the message, at learning where not to tread.

i have stopped listening to blues and older music and started listening to electronica. i have stopped liking a lot of tv and movies and i learned to tolerate stuff-blows-up so much more. i have lost so much, i have steered myself so much. i have done everything i could to win his respect, even if it was already won. it’s just how i operate i guess.

but maybe that’s what i had to do for survival. maybe i could not afford to question the way aeron sees the world. and it’s not like he ever pushed it on me. he would say that this is all my own creation, me deciding of my own accord to go along with him. i still give in all the damn time. i can’t even ignore the door when he knocks. even just now, peeved as i am.

i think maybe there’s a lot of life for me to return to. that it’s about damn time. that i should allow myself the blessed relief of not criticizing. that i should allow myself to not tolerate his fucking “ironic” bigotry.

i know this thought is stupid and not constructive, but i wonder what sort of young adult i might have been without him. but he did help me - he accepted my nonfunctionality. which, at the time, meant more than anything else. i’m not saying i regret anything or i want to go back… i just wonder.

there are just some weights you can’t see until they start to be lifted.

oops

Written on August 16, 2008 by littles. 0 Comments

oh no i didn’t mean it i know i’m not real i’ll try and be silent now

i know i am lucky

i’m always just behind it

Written on August 16, 2008 by we don't know who. 4 Comments

doom! doom! the sky is falling. o my god, i can’t breathe, i can’t breathe through any of this. there are no words to use. there is no angle to come from. nothing is wrong, everything. it’s the same thing. i feel panic, coming up behind me, my back to a dark room.

i read so much lately that everything is inseparable from its own analysis. i do think i need that thought telling me it’s ok to be fucked up. it’s not my fault. but i interact so weirdly with that thought. do you think i’m getting migraines because i’ve been thinking so much about disability?

thinking about indigo’s life, about mine, and everyone’s, i’m struck by how many walls are caused by ableism. how maybe the social model of disability does serve us, even as people trying to heal. i mean, god, it’s not like we all don’t do what we can. i think maybe people on disability tend to be the least lazy, because we have society’s voice in our heads judging us for the smallest infraction. judging us for sitting down when our legs are broken, for not firewalking out to the world every damn day. i am nobody, but i am not separate from myself. i keep reading and i want to write oh i want to. but all these words run away from me, sand in a sieve. i can’t catch anything.

i can’t sleep and i’m trying to outrun the doom. i can’t get at anything in my head anymore. writing doesn’t help, often, because it is straightforward and prosaic and does not hide. i need a way to outrun my censor. writing is my only hope but writing is no hope either. especially here, where i am so accountable.

i want to be right. i want to be liked. i want to do no harm. i want to be loved. i want to understand myself and why this panic never ever goes away and is it that i really want not to get better? is that the problem?

i’m so mad at privileged people lashing out, offensively defensive. i’m mad that we all have to go without such basic things, and feel guilty about what we do have. i’m lonely and sore and confused. how can i be lonely when i can’t tolerate company? indigo was over and they were wonderful, we were both having a hard time but we weren’t getting on each other’s nerves or trying to do difficult things or anything. but i still almost did not have the energy. maybe it’s about the guilt in my head when i am around someone, needing to entertain them, oh guilt guilt. even though i don’t do that with indigo much at all. i mean i’ve played civilization when indigo was here, which to some of us seems like the height of rudeness to a guest. (i guess that is the point, they are not really a guest here, they are part of our family.)

it just terrified me when i couldn’t think of anything to do with indigos that wasn’t incredibly draining to even think about. i was relieved when they left and it had nothing to do with them at all. i know it’s not a big deal, everyone has times when they can’t handle people, but i’m fucking lonely too. and if i have someone but can’t find a way to hang with them, then it feels like the sky is falling. if i throw away even one opportunity, i will never get another. and even if i do, what’s to say i’ll be able to handle it then? it’s just so terrifying to think of being trapped by my own brain into isolation like that, because everything is too much. (i know, i hear myself talking, i hear sentiments ej has tried and tried to tell me when i have stubbornly envied them. sigh. it’s really not the same, but i do see their perspective maybe.)

(it is so important that someone hold me in contempt and distaste when they won’t/can’t be around me. is that because there is no hope if there is nothing i’m doing wrong? nothing to fix and then win their love back? god, i have issues about EVERYthing. fuck.)

i think this entry is about as close as i can come these days to a stream of consciousness. and that’s pathetic because i’m not really giving myself much leash. FUCK there are gnats here i hate them so bad. i blame them on aeron and his stupid cantaloupes. i know i blame too much on him. i have just had it up to here. <makes throat-slitting gesture>

stubborn songs stuck in my head, what are they hiding? i love rock band but it has really fed this damn earworm thing. fuck.

i am no one, i read so much and think so much and want so much but i never do anything with any of it. i’ll never be safe. i’ll never be okay. i’ll never be worthwhile. i’ll never be able to type faster than my ability to hate myself for what i’m saying, my ability to abort, to censor. i wish i could. maybe there is something that needs out. i don’t go into the bottom of the crisis anymore, just down into the basement six steps or so, and so i think sometimes things don’t get shaken out of me the same way they used to. the nice thing about breaking down and not being able to not is that you’re forced to see the shape of the chasm.

i want to be isolated from everyone forever. i am so lonely. i am hot and irritable and i want so much but i am terrified to reach out especially when i don’t know what would help. i honestly don’t. god so much burns to think about. maybe k– hates me because i truly am a horrible person.  i truly do treat others horribly. who knows? how do you ever get any damn perspective when you’re trapped in your own head always?

this move is like two weeks away, three at most, and i haven’t packed, i haven’t even cleaned. i can’t i need help everyone says they’ll help but promises seem so flimsy. plus i’m one of the only able-bodied people i know. i need to be able to do this move myself. sometimes i think it is beyond me and so that proves aeron is right about EVERYTHING.

every time i get to be doing pretty well, i learn restraint. like i’m just waiting to slip the halter on my throat. i always put myself in others shoes, and i try to always think twice or three times before speaking. i try to be responsible about what feelings my words and actions might cause in others; i try to be direct and nonblaming at every juncture. and this is the privilege of the upswing - yes privilege. it is not a matter of making the choice; sometimes that choice simply doesn’t exist. and when you use that choice like i do, is it any fucking wonder it disappears again? i abuse all the rope my craziness gives me, and so i reel myself back in hand over fist. and then i sit tightly bound unable to move and i wonder why i am so lazy and stupid.

i make everything up. be real, morgan. my mom thought she was doing good parenting, to tell me this. o hGOD i am so sick of my SHIT! i know how tiresome i sound! i have to live with it! and i want to be less restrained with this entry, to really just let go, but there is a terrible tension and i can’t let go even though i want to. i am afraid to make others think poorly of me. always in my writing i try to be honest while coming across as (1) compassionate and (2) intelligent. i want to be above everyone else, even in trying not to be above everyone else. i want to be really worthwhile, and i want to express myself with no risk. it’s all so fucking insane. i guess times like these i should write privately, but dammit that burns me up inside. i can’t do that anymore. especially after my last bout of silence, when i was dating k–. i cannot go back there.

i want to seem good because i always feel on the brink of losing my friends, of losing any respect anybody has for me. there is so much at stake. why can’t i fucking let go and trust? why can’t i reach what anything is really about? why do i have to be aware of how others see me, ever at all? why can’t i just BE?

i do believe that at rest, unmolested, we do what is best for us. naturally, without correction, without needing the reins. that’s a lot of what the tao is to me. i believe that for everybody, really, though i can’t speak to the experience of others. but letting myself be at rest, letting myself really drift, is so terribly difficult. it is almost impossible to even leave physical scabs alone, without picking them. how on earth could i leave anything unpicked inside my brain? but oh GOD i get tired.

i have such a weird relationship with the physical troubles i’ve been having lately (headaches and nausea… i guess i can just say migraine and it covers both, but i keep thinking i must be faking. like today i had terrible nausea without a headache. nothing is simple or straightforward.) i hate it because it hurts and it gets in the way and i can’t do ANYthing. i love it because it hurts and gets in the way and i can’t do anything. i love having the sympathy, the excuse to rest, the excuse for a little extra considering. but the moment i feel thankful for that stuff, then i think that’s proof positive that i’ve faked the whole thing, and/or greatly greatly exaggerated it. or maybe i’m not trying hard enough to cure it. maybe i owe trying harder, keeping track of my diet and god i don’t know what all, to those in my life that i expect/hope to help me when i am unable to get through the day. it’s so fucking messy.

i absolutely did not make up the headaches i had in california. but sometimes i worry that i’ve made up all those that i’ve had since i got back. i don’t know how or why i can think this. i would never in a million years suspect a friend of malingering. i get BORED i HATE this. but i also like it, i like how physical problems are real and irrefutable in a way that mental anguish never is. it is outside myself. i can other the pain. even as much as i dissociate, i still have trouble making my mental pain foreign, other. it is myself. that is all i am. there is dissociating from a lot of things, but not the guilt, often. not the self-judgment.

i’m tired and scared, i’m doing fine really i’m doing great. my nipples are healing still, bits of scab falling off every day, and underneath the scabs they look fanTAStic. i am forging new alliances with my body on a daily basis. today i changed my shirt in the parking lot. i’m really overwhelmed. i’m scared and some inside are just sure this move won’t happen. it is too much to hope for.

things i do to run:

  • pick my scalp
  • listen to the songs stuck in my head over and over
  • invalidate myself
  • pick my pimples
  • pick my face
  • pick my nose and ears (to hell with being acceptable here, it’s my fucking journal)
  • masturbate and masturbate and masturbate again
  • restrain myself
  • focus on how others are doing and how they will see me - in altruistic and thus suspect ways, rather than healthy ways that are about self-realization
  • stare at my nipples with rising joy
  • play civilization
  • panic and not see past the fact of the panic
  • panic and push it away
  • think about self-injury (and then masturbating to the point of pain, instead)
  • think about dying

we are somewhere near the edge

Written on August 12, 2008 by jo/e. 1 Comment

i’m feeling grateful and slightly in wonder, today. it was such a relief to be able to see ej. we hugged a lot and provided mutual support and i even cried a little, though i had to turn my face away and be silent and as still as possible. even so, allowing tears while being physically close to them was a pretty powerful experience. i think we got through this round of upset remarkably.

i’m still loving my body so much. it feels incredible to run. (when my head isn’t hurting too much, which luckily it wasn’t this morning. i was worried about my migraine carrying over because i woke up with severe nausea, but it turned out just to be nausea. even though nausea sucks, i’m glad my head doesn’t hurt. and it is mostly gone by now.) i am so lucky to have been able to have this surgery. it’s been incredible for my mental health.

there’s that word again, lucky. i hate that word so much. i feel obligated to apply it to myself - it’s an especially good word because it doesn’t imply merit. i have always felt obligated to apply it to myself and i have always hated doing so. and anyway, privilege is more complicated than that. i am well below the poverty line, but i tried to be very very careful and saved up  enough money over years. even saving as best as i could, i wouldn’t have been able to if it weren’t for financial aid.

am i middle class or lower class? is it about poverty or is it about education? i guess class is pretty damn complex. as with having a mental disability but not a physical one, i think i got some “class” advantages but not others. we were very poor; the doctor was a luxury so out of the question that i spent two or three years growing up with a varyingly severe bladder infection or uti. i saw a dentist twice before i lived on my own. then again, my mom had a college education, my grandmother was a schoolteacher. when i learned to speak it was more or less standard english (that is, a dialect privileged to be considered “proper grammar” and not stigmatized). i was expected to go to college, although i never received any financial help from any family in doing so. i got enough to eat, but i didn’t generally get to choose. (lots and lots of brown rice. which i guess is why we can’t stand it now.)

anyway. i’ve been confused and slightly disturbed about that whole issue since i found out that parent’s education level is a demographic question designed to get at class. am i really middle class because my mom has a ba? i have no idea. i guess i don’t know that much about class.

i think i’m going to wait until next month or later to change my name and everything. i just have so much going on this summer. i’m moving instead of doing the paperwork, this month. i guess. i don’t know. if i get the energy, maybe. but it is so annoyingly crucial that i take things slow. that i do one thing at a time and not bite off all that i can chew. every time i try to function like a normal person, i eventually break down into an even worse nonfuctionality. so even though it doesn’t seem like i have that much going on in my days, i still have to be careful. (i’ve still been way too damn overwhelmed and fragile from surgery to even think about packing. my being physically and emotionally fragile adds up to way more than the sum of the parts. i hate that.)

even if we have nothing to do, sometimes it’s all we can do to get through the day.

we have therapy today, and are scared. we’re partly dreading it because nymph should probably talk about something that happened with aeron yesterday (is it rape if you say no but then it only lasts for twenty seconds?) we feel so stupid and ashamed. but it’s relevant to the work we’re trying to do, and blah, and blah. so we really should talk about it.

even if i get bogged down in what is hard on a daily basis, i’m really doing well.

it occurs to me that we have this old leftover belief that if we are not completely functional, then we’d better be miserable and practically suicidal. otherwise there is no hall pass, we have no excuse. i guess that is really fucked up. we can be okay and hopeful and occasionally happy without being super functional. maybe that is one of the benefits i’m getting from really thinking about disability rights stuff all the time. like just the fact of having a disability and not being up to normal functionality levels doesn’t mean my life has to suck every second. i totally always thought it does. i think a lot of people have that attitude.

touching on a few ideas

Written on August 12, 2008 by matt. 0 Comments

there’s so much to say that i can’t say it.

if all goes as it should, i’m moving at the end of the month. to ej’s building, which is a great location and nice and impersonal and it’s really a very good thing. aeron isn’t even really guilt-tripping me about it, but talking about it like an accepted fact. i always forget that it takes him so much time to get used to ideas. it makes sense, with his asperger’s. i think i tend to adapt quickly and so it’s harder for me to see slow change. though i’m not saying i haven’t seen it; he has come a long ways with regards to respecting me. it still could be better, but i guess with time it might be. i think living in a separate place from him will help a lot.

i am worn and sad from a bundle of triggers. at least for many of them i can guess at the causes. i am fragile with others, but some inside are constantly telling us quite firmly that we will gather so much contempt by appearing weak. those ones, like chris, tend to be so angry with us. hm, i guess i can relate to some things better than i thought. it’s just in our system, people like chris do not have control and they are in the minority. they speak forcefully, but it’s still hard for them to get their voices heard. (other similar ones are black widow and bitch… all i can think of off the top of my head. the Ones interact with us differently even if they have similar goals.)

i went to the doctor (thank you thank you for making that possible indigos!) and he said i’ve been having migraines. he prescribed me something and i friggin lost the scrip, which is pretty annoying. i have weird issues around this. on the one hand, many many people get migraines, including pretty much all my friends who also have other crap going on with their bodies. so it is not a big deal and i should not feel validated or like i have an excuse to whine. (i know i shouldn’t be comparing. knowing is about all i can do - holding the idea of not comparing alongside the comparisons.) on the other hand, migraines can be a seriously disabling condition. i at least view them as a “real” thing to have wrong with you, something that can really really screw with your life. but not mine, necessarily. if they stay like they have been, then maybe (though i’ve only had about two this past week, so that’s not so bad.) but i suspect they will stop. they were probably triggered by the painkillers for surgery (apparently narcotics can cause them) and the stress of surgery and everything else that’s going on. as my life settles down, they probably will as well.

sometime i would really love to write an entry unpacking my bundle of issues about illness and disability. frankly, one of my main emotions tends to be envy, which is know is so completely fucked up and just really really insensitive. i think a lot about how i am able-bodied and most of my friends are not and how many things i get to take for granted. but as a survivor, i think i have a higher-than-average amount of physical fucked-up-ness.  so part of my reaction might be to do with old automatic thoughts, like the paucity of sympathy/pity in my childhood and how i absolutely craved it, constantly. how i don’t get to let myself claim anything because i am just whining.

i hesitantly call myself a person with disabilities, but feel bound to make it clear that i am able-bodied and acutely aware of it. i don’t want to take up space with my privilege that others need. i’ve been realizing lately that issues of privilege interact in very complex ways with childhood beliefs in probably most if not all survivors. i go back and forth between being critical of myself because i want to own my privilege and not stomp on others’ needed space, and thinking maybe i should be gentler because i do have a habit of not allowing myself any space at all. funny how many years i’ve been dealing with issues of both privilege and abuse, and this is more or less the first time i’ve noticed how directly they interact/mess each other up (or do i mean help each other along?)

anyway, the migraines suck and kind of keep me thinking about these things. in a way it’s a satisfying train of thought, one with opportunities for growth and change and healing but doesn’t involve the acid spots of trauma in my head (so directly anyway). i really love thinking about social issues. sometimes i mistrust myself for that, like i am somehow appropriating or tokenizing Real people. i have so much privilege and i am so oppressed. i try to hold both, but it is a very hard balance to strike.

on another front, i’m loving my chest SO much. i don’t think i ever realized quite to this degree how much a body can be a source of strength and peace. how my body itself can be a solace and an ally. i’ve been having a difficult weekend, so people inside were having a lot of self-harm impulses. but often/usually, as quickly as they come, i realize that i don’t want to do that to my body, because it is maybe a friend. the skin that has been through so damn much, along with me. and for it to reflect me to the increased degree that it does is just somehow magical. it isn’t the only factor but it seems to tip the scales. god, it feels so good to leave the house without a bra or binder and not feel half-guilty and indecent, slovenly. i could cry maybe just from joy and love (but i don’t). it sucksisgood, the way thawing from kindness feels. how you can’t afford to realize how bad something is until you do not have to put up with it anymore.

jeez, that’s the story of our friggin’ life.

to go is to return

Written on August 1, 2008 by matt. 0 Comments

being home is sensual. being in my body feels better than i can remember, sore nipples and all. (at least my nipples are sore because of something i wanted, not because of something with aeron.) i love taking a shower because i get to stare at my bare chest… only five more days of wearing the binder, though! i am playing music in my own room, a private space where i can clutter the sound waves with whatever i want. sleeping in my own bed, being allowed to fall asleep in the dark. (aeron stays up later than me, and even if he’s playing a game with a backlit screen, he absolutely needs a light to be on in the room.) it’s all wrapped up in being myself.

i feel content right now. all the stress from before i left, the urgent desperate need to see ej when i couldn’t, the desperate anything, feels far away. i felt warm and glad to see them yesterday (not to mention how happy i was to see indigo and crew and everyone in group), but it felt slow and magnanimous. slow like there is time for everything. like waiting is okay now that there is time, now that there is space. i have myself, and i am enough.

i have a lot to do this month. i need to get my computer fixed, i need to make sure i am ready for school to start again in september. i need to see if i can move - if i can help aeron enough so i can feel okay about leaving. but mainly, i need to dive into the morass that is changing all my paperwork, name and gender. i want to be done by the time school starts. i am sad that k– still isn’t talking to me, because i had hoped to have his help at least telling me what order to do things and roughly how to go about it. but again, i am okay, i am wide and open and there is room in my life for missed connections. i can still find my way. a lot of people have written about the process online. i’m not even alone and my friends care about me and will help me if they can.

getting a break and coming back i think always feels like a new beginning for me. how much more, when my body is so newly mine! everything seems germinated with opportunity. my life is more mine each month that goes by.

i hope i can hang on to this feeling.