About a month ago I was reading one of my textbooks for school and it mentioned the !Kung people of Botswana, which piqued my interest so I took a break from classwork to google them. This brought me to an article that mentioned the recent bestseller “Hunt, Gather, Parent” by Michaeleen Doucleff. I can’t find the article again because there are now about a million of them, but it mentioned how parents in hunter-gatherer cultures can raise five kids that seem to be magically perfectly-behaved. This honestly was my observation when I was on study abroad. In the article, the author of the book mentioned storytelling and said that when she tried to tell her daughter to close the fridge door because it was a waste of electricity the daughter did not comply, but when she told her there was a monster in there that would get out if it warmed up enough, she slammed the fridge door shut and asked for more information. Anyway, long story short, I finally shelled out the money for the book and I’m hoping it will be of some use when my job starts in January. A problem that has long plagued me is that books are only useful if you read them, and I am the slowest reader on the planet. However, this time I have a deadline and I am extremely determined!
In other news, the community college situation has gotten a bit weird. I was in class on Tuesday and I mentioned that I was in the certificate program and the professor said to see her after because she thought I should be in the associate degree program because I was such a strong student. So I saw her after class and she said how if I took just a few extra classes I could easily complete an associate degree within a year while working full-time. I wasn’t really on board but I’m trying this new thing Dr. X suggested where I listen to other people’s advice and input so I switched over to the associate program. Then I got a letter from the registrar that I needed another 44 credits, which to those who don’t know, 44 credits while working full-time converts to exactly infinity semesters. And most of those credits wouldn’t even transfer toward a second bachelor’s, which I’m hoping to pursue after taking about a year off to work and make sure I’m in the right profession. So I’m trying to switch back to the certificate program but it’s tricky because the professor who thinks I’m the Messiah come to save early childhood education is also the chair of the department and change of program requests have to be signed by her before they can go to the registrar. So while on the one hand I’m deeply flattered that she told me “We need more teachers like you,” on the other hand there’s now this pressure not to let her down. After all, there’s a lot she doesn’t know about me. Like how I’ve still be out of the psych hospital for less time than I was in, and I had to leave my last teaching job after having a mental breakdown that started in the fall and continued until I resigned and left before the end of the school year in the spring.
I’m a bit nervous about next year when I start working. My options will be to walk a mile and a half to the bus stop, take the bus, walk another mile and a half to work, and then repeat the same route in reverse on the way home, adding up to a grand total of four and a half hours of commuting per day; or pay my friend $75/week to drive me there and back. The latter option would definitely be vastly cheaper than a rideshare service like Lyft or Uber but I need money to move out of this group home and get a RealCare doll and live my life.
So basically my stressors right now are good stressors. My professor adores me and I have a job waiting for me. I just feel filled to the brim with happiness most of the time, which has not been typical for me for most of my life. While I was in the hospital I actually had to learn what happiness felt like and that it was okay to feel that way. Now it is my usual state of being. When something bad happens, for an instant I think “Oh I should kill myself” and then my next thought is “That’s dumb and I don’t want to do that” and then I solve the problem. It’s like I have this safety margin where previously I was living life a millimeter away from wanting to die and now I can actually feel crappier than usual without it pushing me over the line into needing to be sectioned. This has been great. I miss Dr. X and my social worker from when I was inpatient and I think of both of them all the time and hope that they read this blog. And I also think of the staff that worked in the hospital I was at for all that time. But I’m making it independently which was all of their ultimate goal.
Also, Christmas is typically my least favorite part of the year. I’ve been alone in my house on Christmas more times than I can count, and one time I was home alone and knew that I was going to be homeless after December 31. Also sometimes I’ve gone home for Christmas and weirdly nobody in my family seemed at all happy to see me except the cat, who later died due to irresponsible husbandry. One year I was home alone when I had been planning to go see my grandparents but my dad called at the last minute and said I’d be a burden on them so I didn’t go and they didn’t know why. Then they died. I could go on but basically I usually hate Christmas and consider suicide every year which is why I’ve spent the past two Christmases inpatient. (The year before last year I went inpatient but then found out that the place where I was living refused to let any of my friends in to take care of my turtle due to COVID, and they were planning to either let him die of neglect or take him to the SPCA, so I was absolutely losing my 🤬 and trying to convince the hospital that my turtle’s life was of more value than mine because he wanted to live and I didn’t. I told you I could go on.)
HOWEVER, this year I am weirdly enjoying the Christmas propaganda that has already started springing up. My sister has started talking to me again out of the blue after months and months of concerted effort on my part to produce this behavior in her, and it has been amazing. Honestly it is probably the most helpful thing out of everything that is going well right now. My brother is deeply traumatized and deeply in denial about it and his coping skill is to lash out at me for claiming to have a trauma disorder because on some level it threatens his sense of not having a trauma disorder himself. But my sister and her husband and her four (!) children are back in my life so I bought them a bunch of presents. I even bought a present for my brother with his adult-onset d🤬baggery. If I do say so myself, I am remarkably good at picking presents. I don’t do wishlists; I buy people the exact thing that I know will make them feel seen and loved. Now that I have family in my life, Christmas is actually a positive. Also this group home expects very little of us so I don’t have to shovel snow, and I don’t have a car to clear off, and suddenly snow seems like this incredibly positive and exciting thing. It’s a dramatic change of perspective.
I think walking has also helped. I’ve been walking a mile and a half a day this month in preparation for walking three miles a day next month in preparation for commuting in January. Being vegan has helped me to feel more in sync with my values. My friends, both from day treatment and otherwise, have been extremely supportive. The child development classes I’m taking, while sometimes triggering, have also been very validating. When I read the textbooks, I keep a separate tab open on my laptop with a Google doc entitled “Sad Childhood 🤬.” When I remember something insane my parents did to me as a kid, I jot down a sentence or two in my Google doc and get back to work.
My turtle remains a constant source of joy. I hate that he has to live in such a small tank, but he’s healthy and eating so I guess he’s okay.
Whenever things go well, I feel on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is something other trauma survivors have described experiencing as well. I am fully aware that my job could end quickly in humiliating failure (which is what happened with every other teaching job I’ve ever gotten), and I only have four trial work months left from social security, so if my job ends in humiliating failure after my being there for five months, I will be left with absolutely no income in addition to feeling like a loser. So that would be bad. I don’t dwell on it because nothing good comes without risk, and also I feel like this time I’m coming from a place of having worked really hard on myself literally for years to build up to this point. Leaving the house at 6am and getting home at 7:30pm Monday-Friday will not be easy. I only get five vacation days for the year, so I won’t be able to go to doctor’s appointments and it will be tricky to make the move out of the group home. My right knee has been really painful lately so it might be hard or impossible for me to chase after kids and possibly even commute by foot. So I have a lot going against me. However, I seem to inexplicably feel positive anyway so I am holding on to that. My problems mostly seem like things that might not happen and could be solved if they did happen. And literally everyone in the world has some things going against them, like bad knees in middle age. For the first time, my problems seem both surmountable and normal. I’m not fighting for phone time from an inpatient psych ward. A long commute, money problems, too few vacation days… these are normal problems. And maybe, finally, I’m normal, too.
