#if it's not my thyroid then i don't fucking know what it is. I'm hoping the result is positive because then we can treat it

[music-for-them-asses]

Just did my lab work this morning 👍🏼 Let's hope that the results of my thyroid test return something useful

[robinsnest2111]

the way I'm honest to dog growing an actual dark coarse hair neckbeard and moustache when I don't shave every 2-3 days lmao

I'M NOT EVEN ON T, MY FUCKED UP BODY JUST DOES WHAT IT WANTS APPARENTLY

[miradelletarot]

Sad brain hours are stupid

Personal post alert. Just me kinda mumbling my random sad brain thoughts into the void, and hope something make sense (or at least helps me get this shit out of my head idk).

*note: this is all over the fucking place so...sorry.* My confidence is pretty low lately. I mean, it always has been honestly. I was raised to have a low self-esteem (just like my mother, who also had self-esteem issues, and projected a lot of her shit onto me). So, I have never ever really been confident. In my marriage, I can't recall a time when my husband truly made me feel sexy/desirable (unless he wanted something from me...you know what I'm talking about). Even mentally and emotionally, I'm really not that smart. I'm not witty, or quick, or brilliant in any way, and my anxiety and depression and ADHD make shit hard enough to cope with as it is. I struggled in school. Mostly an A & B student, but I had to bust my ass for those grades. Not to mention my horrible memory...I'm lucky I know basic grade school shit. I have no illusions that there is anything remotely spectacular about me. I think that's why I love supporting and helping others. Especially with tarot. It's my way of trying to help lift people up, and make them feel good about themselves, and their prospects because *someone* needs to be in your corner (general "you"). It's just easier to give my love to others, because I'd rather use my energy to celebrate the people I care about. Lately, I am really just feeling so down about my body. More than I have in a while. I think I've ignored it for so long because I was married. He stopped putting in effort and so did I. I had no one to impress anymore. But, despite him completely letting himself go (he's well over 400lbs now, and does NOT take care of himself in the slightest,) he said he was no longer attracted to me. (this will make sense in a moment...promise).

in 2018, I had a weird ass health scare that landed me in the hospital for a week, and the nurse said I nearly died of sepsis. Her words were (and I'll never fucking forget it...) "if you had waited even until tonight to come to the ER, there's a good chance you wouldn't have made it." Drs still dunno what the fuck happened to me. Ever since that happened, my thyroid went stupid (thanks again, MOTHER...) and I gained a ton of weight. I have always been on the heavier side (180lbs when I got married 16 yrs ago. I'm 5 ft tall for context). Now, I'm 243 lbs. I was 265, but I lost a lot of that stress weight after I left my husband. So, that's certainly something.

But...I just don't see the improvement. i don't feel any better. I have such a horrible relationship with exercise, and i am working so fucking much I don't even want to even though I know I should. I hate wearing makeup b/c of how it makes my face feel, and in the Florida, soul-sucking heat? I could never. But, I still have breakouts like a fucking teenager going through puberty. and my hair? fuck. i hate it. it's a poofy, frizzy mop. ALSO...fucking hell. I have had a slight lisp since i was a kid. I worked really hard to correct it b/c i was in choir and shit and my music teacher helped me with it, but recently i find that it's a lot more prominent than it used to be, and it sticks out to me SO fucking much, and i feel so insecure about it lately.

It's time's like these when something my ex said to me before i left really sticks in my head (he apologized for saying this btw, but it doesn't make the pain go away). He said "you'll never find anyone as good as me." I really want to believe he's wrong, but sometimes? It feels like he's right. Like I'll never be pretty or thin enough to be desirable to anyone. Too much depression and anxiety. Too weird. Too vulgar. Just...Too much, and oddly not enough at the same time. Even though it's only been 6 months since I left him I am fucking lonely. I won't lie, I miss having a partner (and all that entails). I'm so afraid I'll be alone forever. If I lower my standards, I'll just get some shitty asshole again. Someone just like my ex. I'm too fucking old to date around like I'm in my 20s. I'm pushing 40. I'm either going to find the man of my dreams (the Gale of my heart, a real one lol) or I'll be forever alone.

I'm in hell...and it looks like a pixelated paradise.

[gaytommykinard]

I would have loved it if Bucks whole sponsor storyline had more emotional impact than just "buck is ready for kids but is hamster wheeling his relationships" - the connect between feeling like a spare parts kid, KNOWING that he wasn't actually wanted, and knowing that Connor and Kameron(?) wanted him (sort of), could have been explored with more nuance and it would have been so 🤩🤩🤩.

Tbh even just how Buck feels about his body - from hurting himself for attention and using sex to avoid intimacy and THEN learning that he's a donor sibling for a dead brother - and then learning he's queer - all of it is so specific to how buck feels about his body as a whole and it would have made such an awesome storyline

that's what i've been saying! i personally love the sperm donor storyline because it happens after he learns he was made for spare parts and he CHOOSES to donate some spare parts to his friend so they can start their own family - it's about the CHOICE - even though we see him struggling with it. s6 was such an interesting season for buck's development because we see him struggling with not being chosen for interim captain, asking bobby "you don't think i'm at ease?" and asking hen "what do you think it is, the secret to happiness?" and then reminiscing about his adventures, choosing to be a sperm donor for connor and kameron, the coma dream full of lessons and affirmations, and trying to deal with the aftermath of his temporary death. hands down fave buck season. they messed it up by trying to get him with natalia (because the show was not being renewed and we can't have people end up single? the horror!) and bringing back kameron to crash at his flat as if she doesn't have anyone else to go to...? fucking bizarre choices. 6b suffered from the impending doom lmao.

anyway! sometimes canon only gives us half a story and we have to dig a little deeper and use the source material to do our meta analyses and try to understand what it says about our favourite character. and i'm really hoping to see buck being confident and settled in s8, even if he's dealing with the fuckery at his workplace, i want to see that he's in a good place in his relationship with tommy, that they're good together, they're still communicating and being open and there's no bullshit like jealousy and exes and cheating and all that cheap drama crap lmao. i want to see buck who makes choices for himself as his own person and what that means for his relationship with tommy.

and while i'm here, because i've talked about wanting madney to have another baby, and i see people say "but it was so bad the first time with the postpartum syndrome etc etc" and once again i want to see maddie CHOOSE to get pregnant again - it's about the CHOICE - i want to see her say yes i want to do this, i've been through it before, and i learned a lot, i healed a lot, and i can do this with the support of my husband and a therapist and a local group for expecting or new mothers.. because the first time around: it was a surprise pregnancy, and she had thyroid problems that no doctor had apparently thought to check? or her having her nursing background? (that SL has some issues for me personally because i know it was done due to actress unavailability lol, i would have done a better job with it no offence) and because this is a fictional show, we can write characters who go through a second pregnancy as a healing experience - something that is hard to do IRL cause life is unpredictable, you know? i wouldn't advocate this for a real life woman is what i'm trying to say but maddie is ficitonal and i can make her have positive experiences. anyway!

excited to see my beloved buckleys in s8 <3

[wri0thesley]

I am so sorry if this is invasive and weird, but may I ask what you work as? I'm at the stage where I have to build my future and I know you don't have an age specified but you seem to be doing really well (at least from the posts we've seen, again I really hope not to be invasive) for yourself and your partner and 25+ is still young! Again, I hope this isn't mean or weird, I'm just curious. (and severely nervous. First year of college is ruining me harder than any fictional man.)

ahh anon i'm afraid that the answer is probably not what you're looking for!

for the record, i am 27, i just find getting fandom older a little scary, especially having it listed right there!!!

i actually intended to be a performer and a singing teacher (my degree was going to be in music & musical theatre); unfortunately, due to a plethora of reasons (mostly my undiagnosed autism, unmedicated ocd/depression/anxiety combo, a nervous breakdown and my partner's physical health declining) i dropped out of my degree before the end of my first semester.

for about three years or so after that i was severely agoraphobic. talking 'can't answer the door' agoraphobic; 'never left the house alone, and even when with someone only went to the doctors and therapy' agoraphobic, 'rotted in my bedroom in an absolutely non romanticised way' agoraphobic. i was on the equivalent of disability because i literally could not function. meanwhile, my partner, who lived with me and my parents was getting physically worse whilst i was mentally struggling (since then haz has been diagnosed with ehlers danlos syndrome, fibromyalgia, lipoedema, thyroid issues and a lot of other things; they have a lot going on). i DID access several therapies, had . . . a couple of very bad relapses, went under crisis teams and all of that stuff (i had occupational therapy too which was HONESTLY i think one of the most useful things and helpful things for me in the long run; i cannot imagine what i would be like if i hadn't had the occupational therapist the crisis team found for me).

(coincidentally, if you are an og jojo follower you probably remember how bad it was; i've said it a hundred times, but running this silly little reader-insert blog probably helped save my life at a time when i had almost no contact with the outside world. i couldn't leave my bedroom, but i had my blog and i had my little internet friends and discord server).

i have gotten a lot better.

haz, unfortunately, has not gotten better physically and probably never will. they need help with a lot of things most people don't even realise disabled people might need help with. brushing their hair, fastening clothes . . . when haz first moved in, they were doing the same dance-intensive college course that i was. we danced maybe three or four hours a day. nowadays, haz needs me to hold their hand and keep them steady when they go from our bed to the bathroom (the room next door).

so i don't really 'work' as anything. well, my therapist would tell me off for saying that; the uk government classes me as an 'unpaid carer', which basically means i am on call for haz literally 24/7 and they pay me the pittance that is carer's allowance (carer's allowance assumes you care at least 35 hours a week, and pays you the privilege of about 45 pence per each of those hours. if, like me, you live with the person you care for and do more than those hours, it gets . . . yeah. oof. the government unfortuately know that most unpaid carers are loved ones and family members of the person who needs care and won't just stop doing it, and they'd be in the shit if we did because trained carers are expensive, so they can get away with that - FUCK the tories, honestly.

i am EXCEEDINGLY lucky that i live in a cheap area of the uk, that haz and i are internet savvy enough to be able to access carers/disability discounts, that we are in rent-controlled social housing (which my crisis team helped find for us because living with my parents was taking such a toll on us both, woo!!!!), and that we've been able to access services to help on the nhs. i got my autism assessment and diagnosis; haz is under several pain management teams.

all in all, i'm happy. i'm so much happier than i was seven years ago when i'd dropped out of university and felt like a huge failure, because all of my life i was a gifted overachiever and i thought my self-worth was tied to my academic achievements (and as an extension, what roles i got in what shows and when and who saw me and so on). i don't have a lot of money (i am a bargain shopped fgbnkjgjnfb) but i know what i like and because i'm Older Now (tm) i've amassed collections of it.

i am absolutely sure that you'll boss college, anon! that you will find that thing that works for you (one day i would LOVE to go back and get my degree! pre-covid i had an acceptance for a creative writing degree and i was getting ready to go back to uni as a mature student, but haz's health got bad again and then covid happens - and now ofc i have my autism diagnosis i can access so much more help!). but even if you don't, you can absolutely find happiness without 'traditional' success.

i don't have a lot in the grand scheme of things. but you're right in that i am doing pretty well, in terms of where i am, and where i've been. i have my own little home. i have my partner of ten years who is my soulmate in every conceivable way. i've had experiences that make me feel so happy i sometimes cry when i remember them. i have my own little cat now!!! things still stress me out. but i have come so so far and when i feel down i remember that.

good luck anon! i believe in you <3

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Gremlin update May 24th 2024

4:00 am

Slept 10 ish till a little past 2 this time.

I'm thinking it has been long enough since the whole "well now when I take magnesium my heart suddenly starts to feel bad and weak" problem, which was long enough after the "If I don't take 500 mg of magnesium with any meal containing -any- amount of calcium [more than half an apples worth] I get crushing chest pain and my heat skips beats" problem... That I think I can start taking small amounts of magnesium here and there again, which has been shown to reduce anxiety and help with sleep. Personally I have to be careful because it can lower your blood pressure, but also I have been having some muscle tension problems and it would help with that.

I think where the sleep experiment is going to leave off will be being integrated with this journals eventually because there won't be anything more elaborate to say than "10-2 ish and I will bite anyone I have to speak to." But it is still my hope that as i manage my thyroid and other health problems I might scrape a bit of extra sleep out of the day but still get to maintain some of the feeling alert that is causing the current insomnia.

The internet has been having me feel some kind of way lately, specifically trying to socialize on the internet, and I am both not sure I should be super open about it, but also not sure it would be responsible not to bring it up, since I think it's something we all maybe have some experience with. It has certainly been impacting me on a personal level and more than I thought it would. I wasn't prepared for it to leave me feeling like everything is so bleak, and I think it is worth discussing, but since this account is my main social contact with pretty much everyone I know, I don't want the potential for drama. I'm not sure being vague will be being vague enough.

Also one of my friends recently got hacked, they completely dropped off and I was really worried something happened to them and I had no idea what to do about it, and that was very stressful, but they're back now.

And as usual skip to the next ~*~ if you don't want to read this next part about an ex of mine...

Also having thoughts and feelings about my first "marriage" [we would have been considered common-law]... All this time I had kind of been stuck on how I was framing it in my mind, and not really reprocessing any of it at all, stuck on how I was framing him in my mind... And -even though I knew I did the right thing by leaving- I kept wondering if I could have been kinder in various ways or put in more effort to be emotionally attentive, or wondering if maybe I said something too harsh due to some misunderstanding or, or just whatever the fuck... But no. Even just talking/posting about that relationship in the framing of just the -sleep- problems I was having at the time and the way he basically -very sweetly and politely- tried to pretend I didn't exist in my own apartment while I was supporting him full time? The impression his family and our friends seem to have been left with about me on his behalf? Even, even and especially the way he quite suddenly completely ghosted me after finding out I had moved in with Fine and GB [who he went to highschool make-up school with]...

And perhaps the most damning; The recurrent infections I kept getting that doctors kept trying to insist would only be expected if I or my partner was sleeping around. See I kept getting bladder infections, severe ones, in a way I didn't before he moved to town to stay with me, and -eventually- yes it devolved into having a weird delayed but excessive reaction to any and all bacteria+, such that I can't share a toilet with anyone anymore without getting constant yeast infections... But it started off as repeated infection with something the doctors at the clinic thought was suspicious to have be recurrent like that, and they kept suspecting chlamydia Or gonorrhea because -for those of you who don't know- those are the bacteria that are normally behind aggressive bladder infections, they kept testing me for that specific immune response and coming up empty, but I don't have normal immune responses to a bunch of bacteria -at least by now- so I am prone to false negatives from blood-work, but they kept putting me on antibiotics, increasingly aggressive courses of antibiotics [some of which I was allergic to], and still I kept being re-infected, sometimes immediately enough they just weren't sure if the bacteria was resistant, but sometimes it would be a number of months in between. It became really obvious that the pattern was when I had sex with my partner it would start again. At first I suspected it was all the latex allergy and we switched condoms, but that didn't solve it. So I went over washing properly with my 'husband' and had him put on the same course of antibiotics as me a few times [I mean when he had health problems i had to make him go to a doctor about it every time], and STILL the infection kept coming back any time we had sex...

Something I learned about Fine years later when I lived with her was her proud admission she never gets tested for STIs and never bothers using protection no matter who she's sleeping with, or getting her partners tested because "he seems 'clean' :)" and "Well I am pretty sure I'm infertile anyway because I never get pregnant :)" .... Like bitch, most cases of chlamydia are asymptomatic except that in women it eventually causes you to be infertile. And like, yeah, as a good friend I gently pointed this out to her and urged her to get tested, and yeah, she ignored me and got really offended...

But my husband constantly picking up yeast infection and even potentially chlamydia from her way back then would have explained the repeated re-infection with something that kept spreading to my bladder and causing kidney symptoms, and only stopped when I stopped fucking him ever, despite that we had both been repeatedly on aggressive courses of antibiotics [or were supposed to be, it's possible that in most instances he never bothered going to the clinic properly or taking his full course I can't say I was home and cogent enough that I could tell you for sure.] Like yes, He could have also picked up enough of those bacteria from using public toilets to transfer them to me and infect me because of my lowered/delayed immunity, I get yeast infections any time I try to share a toilet now [hence me having to ask partners not to use public toilets if they want to fuck me], after so many bladder infections it caused nerve damage, and they can become bladder infections if left untreated, but all the ones I get now -now that I never fuck anyone-can be treated with diet and maybe a bit of cream at home [and I haven't had one since having my own apartment], and the ones I kept getting from him were in my bladder instantly and super aggressive with horrible torturous burning, the likes of which I haven't experienced since. Like 'sit in a tub of warm water and cry all day in pain that nothing can help with' kind of torture. And then being expected to work all day on no sleep at a call center where they won't let you take breaks to pee, for 10 hours, only to come home to no chores having been done and to have to cook dinner...

Looking back, taking into consideration the way he's still ghosting me -as of 5ish years ago- even when I send him a message saying that I have something I need to ask him about that's important, the way he immediately stopped responding to anything the moment I said I had a question about GB or Fine because I had reconnected with them... With all the power of hindsight from over 10 years later:

a) I am pretty fucking certain it is a *strong possibility* he was cheating on me with Fine and prioritized not facing me about it over my safety, both back then and when he ghosted me instead of answering mys questions about these people I had just moved in with or was going to move in with and who were trying to get close to me, and if that's the case it would turn everything I though I knew on it's head. It would also explain Fine's behaviour towards me entirely.

b) That would also mean everyone -including Tictacs- has willfully lied to me about it and hide it to varying degrees since, even while claiming to be my friends and trying to get close to me [which frankly tracks with the rest of their behaviour]. She's been friends with Fine and GB since childhood, I highly fucking doubt she never met Bunny or had Fine tell her anything.

c) It would mean that they all also willfully lied to me about anything they'd heard about me through him before I -by pure chance- became part of their social circle

d) And that him taking advantage of me was WAY more conscious and intentional that I had been giving him credit for and the ONLY reason I didn't see it sooner was because I too was taken in by him being so generally sweet and shy.

Like I know my memory can be a bit shit but I also know I probably have receipts saved somewhere, because I have a vague recollection of this having come up before, and when people say sus things to me I tend to screencap and save them. At some point I will figure out who was willfully lying to me to what extent. I'm going to start comparing their stories, and anyway I call bullshit on the entire situation and all four of them. And I am done wondering if -I- somehow could have held their hands a little more, either way, because I shouldn't have to handhold my peers constantly to keep them from being negligent, toxic or abusive.

And at the time and for years after I had never really considered it a possibility. He just didn't seem like the type to cheat, and even less so like the type to cheat and then lie about it, and I have always resisted jumping to that conclusion because anyone I know who has is usually so deeply insecure they suspect it of everyone all the time and it makes them kind of a toxic or outright abusive nightmare, or they themselves are prone to cheating and do it often, and that's why they are so eager to believe their partner is doing it too. I just never wanted to start being someone who immediately suspects cheating and gets weird about it the moment the relationship isn't perfect. And besides that, it's one of those things I acknowledge -abstractly- that people do, but it isn't something that occurs to me regularly as a possibility, or something to actually do, you know? And then I find out my partner was cheating on ME and they use the justification "Well you cheated first >:(" when like... WHEN? Bruh I haven't left your house, -I know- I haven't, but how do you even suspect I could have had the opportunity? Like HOW? My bedroom is next to yours and I am pretty sure you'd notice me fucking someone in your basement or living area??? I don't go out?? If you thought I was cheating why was your solution to risk my life by cheating on me in secret instead of just breaking up with me or even asking me about it????. Fucking bullshit excuse that is, just to try to save face or try to play the victim because they fucking know I'm Poly and that if I wanted to sleep with someone else I'd just ask and ask if they want to join??? I call bullshit on that entire grift because no reasonable person with functioning senses would see that as thing I was like -logistically- capable of pulling off, but anyway...

If ANYTHING explains him having been so shut down and despondent, in a way that always read to me as 'guilty', this would be it. I had always written it off as him just being used to abusive parents and feeling like there was something wrong with himself as a kind of resting state, and I always tried to be gentle about it, but I guess this would also explain why that never helped. Why maybe the more compassionate and helpful I was the worse he felt?

And especially the way he's shut down during conversations about sexual health or rape culture and informed consent, or even about sexuality or questions about his or mine, or how some viruses are really dangerous to me and how I was slowly discovering more deeply concerning signs that they could be outright fatal to someone with my genetic disposition.

I am pretty fucking certain GB lied to me about how and when he had met me before. It was the weirdest most innocuous statement that did it too. Both times he had mentioned always having wanted to cut his hair short and dye it sky blue, but how that would read too 'anime' to commit to in public, and how he had/would maybe dye his hair black for a while... Those are the kinds of details I remember about people even when their face and name escapes me. He also lied when I asked him about his sexual health history and I asked him if he had shared mouth germs, like eating off the same plate, etc... with anyone within the past 3 months before I shelled out money for us to get the blood test for herpes 1&2 in addition to the other testing [because if I get cold sores it could kill me, due to an inadequate immune response to herpes family viruses] He insisted up and down that was something he didn't do, and hadn't done. But the MOMENT Fine came back from the states and started hanging out with us, she started talking about times when they had shared cakes at restaurants and shit before she left, which apparently was less than 3 months before I got there. I told him my life was on the line if we missed something and he lied to me about that and about the callouses on his hands potentially being HPV [warts he kept chewing on until they just looked like callouses from chewing]. And TBH the MOMENT I realized that I should have dropped all their asses and avoided them like the plague, but I was really stressed out at the time and had a memory lapse about it, and by the time I remembered again it was too late.

These are all things where like, an outside perspective from an offline bestie sharing about my life on a regular basis would have been helpful, because when I started to get stressed and have memory lapses about it, they could remind me of this shit before i went and trusted those fuckers with anything. They could have told me it seemed like my "husband" was cheating on me, and we would have had enough rapport that I could have taken someone seriously about that.

Honestly, if any one of these people who were my partners or friends had acted like they actually cared whether I lived or died, I wouldn't be in any of these messes. But what they prioritized over my safety every time was avoiding anything socially awkward and getting their dicks wet.

Whatever.

It's just infuriating because I thin... I thought- of that relationship as like my one lasting adult relationship where my partner wasn't raping me [violations of informed consent]... But like, again, informed consent is INFORMED, and lying to me about sexual health or sleeping around then not telling me and then fucking me anyway... That's all a complete violation of informed consent. Anyway all these fuckers owe me years of life and thousands of dollars, and also fuck them.

I wish I could know for sure but up until I deleted my public facebook, he wouldn't respond to me.

And that also has me feeling some kind of way.

I keep conducting myself as earnestly as I can and approaching relationships in good faith, with family, friends and partners, and they are all intent on manipulating, lying to me, abusing me, trying to guilt-trip and emotionally manipulate me, refuse to let me hav boundaries, to the point where my patience just isn't enough. And it isn't like me "being distrustful" is somehow an excuse because I never was. While I was IN those relationships I trusted them and kept accidentally repressing the memory of anything that would hint to me that I shouldn't, otherwise I would have broken it off and left sooner. The moment the balance tipped and I started remembering all the bullshit they had done, I broke up with them, in every instance. I don't play these petty fuckign games, if I want something other than the relationship, I just break it off. I am very simple that way.

And I would just really appreciate closure about it all so I can correctly modulate how I am reading people to be more accurate and help protect myself from being taken advantage of the same way again, because I'm autistic and that's a struggle for me, but no one involved will even do me that basic fucking human decency, IG.

I'm a little concerned that this is what has had Bean fishing in the memory soup for something and I am afraid of what comes out.

~*~

Anyway I have been watching through x-files. Slowly. The... This show is the kind of old show that spawned our current over adjustment in media where everything is now hard hitting plot being fired at you a mile per minute... There's so much filler in the x-files sometimes you aren't even sure the big plots are still even happening or if the show runners have decided to drop it. Watching it with a bunch of really modern shows is so weird. Like there was a good middle ground at some point and the x-files aren't it any more than the mew x-men series is, but in opposite directions. Like old TV really used to go for slow -drawn out- drama and the x-files really are it.

Before my last sleep, during my last half day, whatever, while feeling some kind of way about social things and whatnot, I did some aggro cleaning and organizing. I highly recommend this, using irritation and lack of satisfaction with anything you could possibly be doing to just go clean or organize something you have been putting off. You're going to feel miserable at the moment no matter what you are doing, but at least when you are done you have done/made something nice for yourself instead of just stewing... So now the clutter that had built up on my bathroom desk and sink have been tidied up.

Slowly I am moving things around closer and closer to their final-ish resting positions and tidying up around that. This year for sure, but I keep wanting to get some swell of high energy to get it all done now. This probably isn't going to happen and wouldn't be sustainable or advisable, physically, but like... Want.

I just want a 100% stress-free environment for like the first time in my adult life like holy fuck...

~*~

May 26th

9:20 pm

It's my bedtime soon. Still having a problem with how long it takes me to get running in the morning, and that not leaving ANY time left to be productive on a split sleep schedule.

Like it's 9:20 and I still haven't eaten. I pushed myself this half-day and sewed my pj pants shut again, moved the thread rack 2 inches up the wall, cleaned out 3 little bags I had in storage, and fucked around with a couple details, did some laundry and dishes on the morning shift or today... But like... I did not get through any more totes and if I want to get prepared to go across town for my health card i have to do it when I wake up.

~*~

May 27th

7:50 pm

I slept late, Idk, I slept at some point for some length, I'm tired, but mostly the point is I didn't make it out to renew my health card, but I HAVE now booked an appointment for tomorrow morning. T~T

I should have enough ID even though technically as a disabled person I legally can't acquire what they are asking for the moment both my health card and photo id expire at the same time... Which they always do, in part because I can't get a credit card.

Either way I deal with that tomorrow at about 9am...

Until then I am trying to do things like make myself eat and make myself keep re-organizing bins and stuff.

Emotionally I just want to start screaming and never stop.

~*~

May 31st

3:00 pm

EUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-okay, I went out and got my health card renewed. They didn't raise a fuss about what technically counts as proof of identity and both my IDs being expired.

Now I can contact doctor's offices again when I am ready. It's going to be a bitch of a thing that I start on Monday... T~T

I also destroyed my ankle and my hip joints a little and picked up cat treats from the dollar store, the freeze dried organ meats i sprinkle on his food to get him to actually eat it all. I even found they have a bag of pre-ground beef liver, being sold as meal topper, that's just beef liver, that you get almost 2X the weight in for the same price. The package quite hilariously and pretentiously goes on about the science behind their product when like... It's beef liver. It works because it's pure beef liver. You used a very established technology to dry it. Babes... There is no need for pretense here, I am buying a bag of liver dust... On purpose.

Today I also tried checking my email for the CHOB renewal, entirely convinced it wouldn't be there and I'd have to call, but it was there, and I filled it out and submitted it. Now so long as it goes through I should be good.

I got my bills paid, my rent, my garbage and recycling out etc... Because payday, bills day and garbage and recycling all fell on the same day, so I get to feel like I have been super productive by doing basic maintenance and I am taking the win.

I just need to order alcohol still because I don't currently have a mouthwash substitute at all, let alone one better than whisky.

So, so I made one last ditch effort to get some answers and maybe recover my passport, yeah? Because Bunny's dad had it last and I am sick of having valid ID constantly being more than a struggle than it -has- to be, and I don't want to renew it, and bitch I want answers, really, and I messaged my ex husband on facebook from a secret account I used for local necessity, because it was like, the only one I have.

So I didn't expect him to answer, but he did on account of me saying it was important and that we shared a few 'friends'.

So we actually had a conversation... Were the dreams I had about talking to him predictive? Or a self fulfilling prophesy? Whomst the fuck knows!

And he's going to actually look around for my passport instead of just asking his dad to remember past multiple brain injuries.

And he let me ask him questions about what the fuck was going on with him back then. And -for the most part- I have to assume he doesn't have a reason to lie to me. And *most* of me believes him, so there's something adjacent to closure here. If I can believe him when I fully process it all.

He doesn't remember if GB was the guy at timmies, so I don't know if he could have saved me any trouble by responding to me, because they broke off contact around a year after he moved away, and that part was true enough. I mean, I think GB still had all his info, and I didn't and he still could have reached out to him on my behalf and chose not to, but that's on GB, that's his dishonesty.

He mostly hung out with them strictly at school and not outside of it, so that's something I wasn't home from work enough to get an impression of, but it makes more sense of the idea of him never having interacted with Tictacs.

He says him and Fine were just school friends and he never cheated on me with anyone. Even with all the bullshit men have pulled I don't think he would lie to me directly like that. If her behaviour towards me has to do with him, it's probably one-sided on her part.

We then proceeded to have the most frustrating exchange possible over what the fuck was up with him at the time, because he just shut down on me and stopped acting like he even wanted to interact with me as a person at all at some point and lost all interest in sex... And when asked about it he tells me it's because he got the firm impression I was asking him to seek intimacy from me explicitly so I could reject him???? And the only explanation he could give me for what gave him that idea was to confirm what I already suspected and say he internalizes everything, is used to abuse and then say horrible stuff about himself and site outside factors that were knocking him off balance... He did not give me one bit of feedback about my own behaviour or anything I said that had anything to do with why he thought he suddenly couldn't come to me about anything or why he thought I didn't want him.

And yeah, he says that it was mostly his fault, and that him letting everyone act like I should be working full time and doing all the cooking and cleaning while he doesn't do anything, while not speaking up about it, leaving me to try to defend myself with no word of defense from him was not a cool thing to do to me...

But like... We got together in the first place in part because we both understood what it was like to have parents who treated us as being wrong for existing and as deserving punishments for having basic needs. That was explicitly why I told him he could come live with me and worry about finding a job or finishing school once he was with me and out of that place. And I spent every moment with him trying to gently pry and gently get him to talk to me and unpack whatever was bothering him. And he responded by suddenly acting like I was some kind of threat he couldn't speak to or be honest with.

And it's like... yeah I GET IT because, listen I was in the same position and have been ever since. Everyone I have ever known with very few exceptions has been horrible to me, to the point I should expect everyone to default to being horrible to me and annoyed at me for having to exist, even in my own living space. I was actually diagnosed with depression and anxiety and under treatment... But what I didn't do was treat him like he was part of a pattern instead of an individual person.

And that wasn't the rapport we had established! We were friend since I was still in school, and we had been having a long distance relationship ever since, where we would talk on the phone every night, and every 6 months he'd come to me and I'd get to see him again [and I used to jokingly called him Persephone because of that...]. But then the moment he moved in he just slid into treating me like the enemy, but then still being 'willing' to have sex...

And what I was trying to get him to understand was that I wanted him to interact with me like a person again instead of just using sex as a substitute to keep me happy. And for a long time he acted super reluctant about sex even though he kept saying he was enthusiastic about it, he blamed asthma, he blamed allergies, he blamed 'stuff' but he never actually opened up about what the issue was. I has the distinct impression that since moving in with me his attraction to me had just died a terrible death... And when I finally asked to step back from sex, I had the firm impression he might be asexual and just putting himself up to it to try to keep me happy. Even at the rate I will naturally seek sex from someone in a relationship [variable depending on the level of other engagement], I cannot tell you how much it kills the mood beyond even that when the person doesn't actually -act- enthusiastic about sex, and otherwise just acts like they want to tune me out all the time. I was -without the modern language for it- trying to get him to understand that I was probably also asexual and that what I really wanted was for him to just talk to me again and interact with me like a person, instead of acting like he expected me to abuse him the way his uncle and grandmother did.

And I tried every tactic I could, every appeal, both trying to get him to open up to me about problems and trying to figure out what the sexual disconnect was. I tried suggesting role play, I tried prying about what he was attracted to. I made a maid's outfit for fucks sake and subjected myself to that to see if it -did- anything... I tried being more dominant, gritting my teeth and tried acting submissive, I tried nibbling on him more, I tried suggesting different kinds of sex, trying to figure out what characters he was into, what was making him feel inadequate or whatever the problem was... He was a clam. [I mean he's supposed to be a bunny because his hair turns darker brown in spring and summer and lighter in the winter, but he was a total shellfish about it all.]

And even when I tried to talk to him about him not pitching in around the house they were very gentle and delicate appeals! I tried everything to make it rewarding for him too. Including making it kinky, including -the most effective tactic- making him apple pies every time I had a clean kitchen to do it in. My drill sergeant mode was absent, dialed to 0. I was on eggshells about potentially making him feel bad about himself but still desperately needing him to pull his weight.

And so when I ask him what I did that made me someone he couldn't go to anymore, or couldn't be open with, or acted like he didn't want... He sites a list of things other people did to him and how it made him feel about himself.

And, yeah, that tracks... But it's fucking infuriating... It's so fucking in your head with low self esteem to such a divorced from reality extreme that is sounds fucking -fake- to me now. and I know that's distrust created by -probably- only other people causing that impression, so I am inclined to believe the problem was really actually his own crippling lack of self-esteem... But like???

The only way this actually makes sense * to every part of my psyche* is if I buy into the idea that he equated sexual intimacy directly with love and personal intimacy with no line between the two, so seeking one and struggling with the other came off to him as setting him up for rejection... Which is the opposite of the impression I got from him. I distinctly have the impression we outright had conversations about how "normal people" equating those two things together was alienating to both of us. If pressed ai would have labelled him as demi the way I am then and now and would armchair diagnose him as also autistic. But that's the only way that "You'd made it clear that you didn't have any interest in being intimate with me (and I get why, I had many unresolved issues and was not pulling my weight), but still wanted me to pursue intimacy with the understanding the answer would be no, felt like a big Catch 22." direct quote, makes ANY fucking sense to me.

Maybe in the end he IS allosexual alloromantic and straight after all and did like me, and the only reason why he created the exact opposite impression was because he hated himself so fucking much he couldn't see over it. Maybe the dysphoria -for lack of a better term- of trying to have a relationship/sex as himself was just too much.

Everything else he had to say was an acknowledgement that I wasn't the problem and he was just too deep in his own head and negative self worth. Which yeah, actually feels a lot like closure on what the fuck was up because that aligns with what I suspected of the situation... But I had to just assume it and try to move on because until now he was a fucking clam... Or as he put it "I'm just seen as this horrible slug person"... Which *sigh* listen, this word is a fucking *choice*, and an ironic one, because a) he left himself open to the possibility of making the world's most hilariously bad typo given the context, and he should have more sense than that [I had him tested, his IQ, knowing it would be close to mine or higher and thinking that would help him, beyond jokes about numbers on paper I know he's clever], b) he knows I think slugs are cute, and c) he was actively jealous of one particular "slug man" -i remember this distinctly- who he knows I am attracted to, specifically, when he wasn't jealous of me liking any other fictional character for any period of time while we were together, not even the ones I actually felt qualified to make art or writing about, he just saw the affection I had for exactly one slug man and that was the fictional character that made him feel inadequate, much to my ongoing confusion... *deep breath* baby boy... The fuck? [part of me finds this word choice out of character and a little on the nose (and thus sus), but is this just a new thing people say now? We all remember the slug/slut typo post, yeah?]

Which... yeah, is just more "I couldn't go to you or engage with you as a person anymore because I had become convinced you were suddenly going to act like my abusers for no real reason I can articulate"...

And like, we had the conversation? We had the "baby boy is it just that you don't feel like sex anymore and you are afraid I'll be mad, we don't have to have sex if you don't like it" conversation!! Like I-

???? Self-loathing is a reality warping drug, and that's really the only closure I could have from this, IG???

I just... Everything else asides I am BAFFLED how "please spend time with me as a person and please tell me what would make you enjoy sex with me more" gets interpreted as "seek intimacy so I can reject you"... T~T ... i- I fucking MADE a maid's outfit, for myself, to wear, me, the "I was trying to look like a man before I knew I was trying to look like a man" and "I have to bargain with myself about skirts and makeup and act allergic to pink or anything feminizing" and "I won't wear a cat collar for fashion reasons because occasionally people think I am a sub because of it".. I- *stares into eternity* I tried...

The only thing that makes sense is that the moment he came to live under my roof he switched to mentally categorizing me as an authority figure instead of as his partner against the world... And just believed it so hard and so unconsciously nothing could ever unpack that.

So he acted like he couldn't stand me and was so paralyzed by insecurity he still needed me to take care of him and support him full time, because of how other people had treated him, and that's the closest I get to an answer.

And that's just that, I guess.

A large part of me speaking from well over 10 more year's experience insists that him cheating on me, and then just maintaining the charade catering to my expectations and sympathies [people have really fucked around on me okay?] makes way more rational sense than this... But self loathing isn't rational and I know that. If I can believe I ever had any accurate sense of his personality at all... I can believe this is him telling the truth. The insanely frustrating fucking truth.

If it was remotely appropriate or in context I would love him to give me a retrospective on why Piccolo dbz make him feel insecure when no other fictional men or women did [I was so confused by it at the time, he got really weird about it, when like I did way more art of Raziel and even Kisame? because hormones or smth happened to me on occasion]. But asking him that now feels mean and I don't think he'd have an answer anyway.

I'd also ask him questions to determine if he even ever noticed I had multiple personalities, but i also don't think that would be constructive, or get me anywhere, and might just make him feel bad for not paying attention to me.

Also, I either forgot just how often he refers to himself in third person or something during the pandemic broke him too. idk.

But like why it's so frustrating is it means the only reason why i didn't successfully save him from his family and build an amazing life for both of us, with him as my enthusiastic partner, in a blessedly cheap little apartment until I could buy us a house... Was because he was taking his trauma and self hatred out on me for reasons he can't even define. Like the fuck do you mean all that was that you felt unlovable? WE COULD HAVE HAD THE WORLD!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gods I hope he's in therapy.

T~T

And like you would think that the potential that everyone else not having lied to me about these things in particular would feel like some kind of answers or closure, but their behaviour otherwise makes this less impactful than you would assume. I mean I have to be relieved I'm probably not as bad at reading people as I was starting to fear???

I mean I feel a little better in general now? But also??????????????????

~*~

... So now I just wait to see if he can find my bloody passport, I guess.

... And I should order alcohol soon. Tomorrow maybe? Is it too late now?

Then this list:

Glue the one drawer from the dresser that pulled apart [because 1-2 drawers were never glued by me to begin with because they *seemed* to be holding in one piece too well]

Glue spice rack back together

Get the last 3-5 totes reorganized so I can get the last disorganized looking pile of stuff tidied up and out of the way

Get the things I am giving away gone and out of the apartment

make ramp [for spring, haha, late]

renew health card

renew chob

make apt about wrist lump

make ultrasound appointment for IUD now that I have my health card

Get back to the women's college hospital

[artificial-ascension]

The doctor gave me medicine for this fucked up period I've been having but also asked about thyroid issues and I was like I don't know what that would entail and she's like Oh, dry skin, heat intolerance, thin hair and I'm like damn ok I am chronically dry and have been majorly suffering from heat intolerance lately... so I will be getting my blood results in a few days. Yippee. Hoping they'll be like actually you're body is incompatible with estrogen. Here's your T gel. That won't happen but. I can dream.

[starlightfae]

hey I was wondering if/how you managed to get a cfs diagnosis? its smth i've always suspected I have but everyone tries to convince me it's just a lifestyle issue or a depression side effect :/ also if theres any resources you've found helpful for managing it? thanks in advance !

(also not time sensitive so no pressure to answer quick or at all, trust me, I Get It)

I did manage to get an official CFS diagnosis, but it was more like I kept saying 'I have CFS' until finally, a doctor said 'okay' and put it on my diagnosis list. that's an oversimplification but what I mean is, don't count on the doctors to know shit about fuck about cfs lmao

This going to be a long, complicated answer, so heads up for that lol

I am extremely lucky that I have a mother who supports me. She helped me every step of the way, including standing up for me when I was dismissed and/or ridiculed by medical professionals. This isn't to say it's impossible to get your diagnosis without support, but it certainly helps and I'm not going to pretend her support didn't factor into things.

The first thing you have to do is get any other issues managed. For me, this meant trying out a few different antidepressants until I found one that helped my depression but ~somehow~ didn't affect my fatigue. I was able to point out that my depression symptoms didn't line up with my fatigue. depression and CFS symptoms both fluctuate, so if the fatigue was a part of the depression, it would line up- ie, more depressed, more fatigued (and vice versa)

this also means the doctors have to rule out everything that can cause fatigue. medication side effects, thyroid levels, sleep apnea, anemia, Lymes disease, etc.

something that will be VERY helpful in getting diagnosed is knowing CFS, because most doctors won't know shit about it. Although, with more people getting Long Covid, more doctors are realizing CFS is a real thing. This is because Long Covid is CFS. CFS is a post-viral condition, so if you can point out when you got a really bad virus and then started getting CFS symptoms, that will also be SUPER helpful.

More than likely, at least one doctor will try to shut you down for 'looking up your symptoms on Google and diagnosing yourself'. No shame if that's how you first heard of CFS, but I found it very satisfying to tell the doctor that I checked out library books and took notes lmao! The book I found that was super helpful was "Hope and Help for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia" by Alison C. Bested, Alan C. Logan, and Russell Howe.

as for other resources that may help, the r/cfs subreddit has been quite helpful! mostly in regards to support, but they also have some good links and advice

if you have any more questions or need me to clarify something, feel free to come back and ask! there is a lot more I can say about diagnosis criteria, symptoms besides fatigue, etc but I've already wrote an obscene amount, sorry lol

OH also I kept my notes from when I checked out the book I mentioned above, so if you are interested I can also share that info and save you the effort of reading the book yourself lol

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Yeeting this into the void...

Half vent, half self-expression and the third half is so my few readers followers know what's up with me. But my brain is not a nice place. Tread carefully.

My brain is low-key trying to kill my lately. I don't know how much of this is meds/health issues and how much just stress. My thyroid and estrogen are fighting and that really hurts. I'm doing what I can to mitigate it, but the bottom line is, I don't have anything that works AND is tolerable at an effective dose.

Wednesday, I'm going to the endocrinologist. I have never been to one, despite having hormonal issues my whole life. The only reason I got this referral is my spouse came with me and demanded it on my behalf, and I think my family doctor is borderline senile. I have no idea what that man has told this new doctor who is holding my life in their hands. I've been waiting for this appointment for months. This was the earliest I could get in.

I have issues with at least two hormones and I would hope that the hormone specialist can deal with both, but estrogen - ha ha, that little scamp! - is gendered. I'm so scared that (after I get told to lose weight) I'm gonna hear, "Sorry! We'll have to let the lady doctor who specializes in lady parts deal with your lady hormone, you lady, you."

These two things interact, you see, and I've had trouble absorbing both. I need someone who can deal with that, otherwise I'm going to be playing a three physician game of telephone, where instead of talking to each other, they make ME explain everything - even though they're supposed to have all they need on the computer. It's... I don't have the energy to keep doing that and it's super ineffective.

I don't have anything sexy or cool or simple wrong with me. I didn't even get Agent Orange dumped on me, that happened to my dad and I can't prove it's affecting me. Even though I have never been okay. Ever.

I can't hug people or lean over a table without cringing, 'cos my breast pain goes off at random depending how you hit 'em. Nobody cares. I mean, the love of my life cares, but nobody who is gatekeeping my healthcare cares. It's been this way for years. The gynecologists want me to express my pain in a way that makes sense to them, "hot flashes and night sweats." If it's not that, why would estrogen help? But it does. I've been on more and different versions of it and that helped, and even what I have now is helping. The trouble is, I can't stay on it because of the side effects. The goddamn thyroid hormones help it too! But so far nobody is equipped to do anything with this information. I have to craft a lie like a crow bending a wire into the perfect shape to get a cheeto out of a tube.

I'm in a new place with all new people and I don't know how to operate them. I really don't know how to operate that family doctor, he forgets everything about me as soon as I leave the room. I'm gonna lead with the truth again - unless something goes south real fast - but I don't know what I'll get.

I'm haunted by the suspicion that I'm unfixable. Not just that I need something I'm not getting, but there is no thing. There is no cheeto in the tube. This'll just be my life. Not only will I be sick, but I'll have people treating me like I'm fine, and I'll be expected to act fine. Ha-ha, that's the trouble when you don't look disabled, everyone expects you to act that way too!

Even if I do get better, finally... I'm going to be mad. I am going to be really mad. I rested my shoulder for a week out of desperation - it's been a mess for over a year - and it feels better. It still locks up and hurts if I push it, but I am learning to rest it when it needs a rest. NOBODY told me to rest it, it was always various permutations of working it harder. I am so fucking ANGRY that "a rest" was never on the table for some reason. I had to be in constant pain for going on two years and then come up with a way to help myself. This small level of relief I'm feeling was KEPT from me.

I don't know if even this will last. I don't know if I'm gonna find out typing and drawing is bad for me and I need to limit one of the only things that makes my life worth living.

I've fallen into some very dark holes this last week, and there will be more. Self-harm is always gonna be something that occurs to me, whether to end the pain or just to make my outsides look as screwed up as my insides so I'll be left alone. It is ground into my bones that nobody is going to help me, so that's really all I want when it's very bad, to be left alone. (I've mentioned sometimes I sound like an unholy union of Milo and Mordecai, that's because I am!)

I'm hanging on and trying to be okay. It's just fragile. I keep crashing. It's not that I'm faking being happy, it's that I'm apt to very suddenly not feel that way anymore. Happy is like paint with too much thinner in it. I can layer on a little more, but the base coat keeps leaking through. I'm scared. And I feel so small and dumb and petty to be scared and not wanting to go on when I've been so lucky and have so much. I always find a reason to keep going. I just worry (and I know my spouse does too) that one time I won't.

I need that support system, so I'm going to keep trying to be social too, but it's hard. Web 1.0 is dead and you can't just talk to people on the internet anymore. Best I can do is talk to the internet in general and worry the few people close enough to actually care.

I'm sorry. I'm tryin' to stay safe. It's just precarious right now. This is gonna be a rough week, no matter how it shakes out. I'll end up with new meds, and no idea what they'll do to me.

Respect to Our Emily, but my hope isn't light enough for feathers. It's heavy like lead, that's why I can't always hold on to it.

Nevertheless, I've nothing to do but keep tryin' to get that cheeto out of the tube. Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice, but to soldier on...

(Well, as long as the shoulder holds up, I can write and art to distract myself. I'm sure I'll get Erik out of that hotel room soon.)

[running-in-the-dark]

I don't know how many doses of cholestyramine you're taking a day. I was at 3 doses a day at one point and my gastroenterologist did tell me to try to get it down to 2 if I could because if I ever had to take another medication it could be hard to intersperse them (cholestyramine will interfere with any other meds you take) but other than that nobody's told me I can't take it forever (actually, when I asked my GP about it, he specifically said, "You found a miracle. Why would you want to stop taking it?") I dunno doctors are weird.

yeah, I do take a bunch of other medications and it's complicated trying to figure out when I can take what now. I've been trying to take three doses but honestly, sometimes I just forgot one.

and yeah it seems very weird to me that my GP feels that way. I've read lots of posts about people's experiences with it and many of them have been taking it for years and aren't planning to stop, and their doctors don't tell them to. I'm likely also going to take thyroid medication forever. sure I'd rather not, I don't enjoy taking medication or anything! but it is what it is.

and especially with this one - it felt very weird when she asked if I WANT to take it forever. no?! it's fucking gross, I hate it! but it helps. so while I'd rather go back in time and have a functioning gallbladder, sadly that's not an option. taking this medication is the second best thing right now, so yeah, if I have to I'll take it forever!

I'm hoping it's just due to her general incompetence. I guess I'll find out when I see a gastroenterologist.

[multi-dudes]

hey friends. this is Ian. I don't think I've ever posted here? or at least knowingly. like timeaus, we've been here a while and I think I'm a split of him with some other emotions and introjections even. I am just like a mess of shit honestly! and it just felt kind of weird not to introduce myself as myself, so I figured I would preface this with that. but to be clear I know what's going on in general right now, and who we know collectively for the most part.

I also go by he/they, if that's relevant to mention

under the cut is just me journaling about the day so far. I hope you are all doing okay

okay, anyway, we've been very dissociated lately these past couple of days. and impulsively getting high and not enjoying it at all. sleep has been regular and on time the past week but we don't feel rested at all. it feels like the more perfect 8 hour rests we have, the worse we feel. and physically we feel like we got hit by a truck out of nowhere.

but fighting the dissociation does nothing, y'know? now that I know none of us can successfully be without dissociation for the rest of our lives, and it's nobody's fault, I know we have to just go through it. and it's a neutral thing. but also today, really just... sucking.

I had my coffee and the adderall then genuinely felt like we were being pulled in every direction to use our attention span. and ultimately did nothing. I've been fronting on and off almost exclusively the last two days and it's been kind of weird. I rewatched videos from when I could remember my memories at all and it was nice. but really still stuck and feeling depressed like not sure what to do and nobody really wanting to commit to coming out to pilot this thing. I think this week has been too tolling.

that's still happening, but it felt a little less overwhelming when we were reading a while ago. so I think I'm going to color this coloring book and if I find it boring I guess I won't do that and take some melatonin and peace out early.

soon we're going to go and do a sleep study but there's been just no time to get the labs for our karyotype and thyroid test to begin with, and sleep study is the next course action I think. but I know we have sleep apnea and half of our alters genuinely fear going to sleep or couldve formed during the worst of our insomnia. so fuck man, I don't know! /lh a lot of very expensive things going on soon

[jodilin65]

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2023 Not a very happy camper now. They've gone back to using the insanely loud garbage trucks, which is a definite threat to my sleep, no matter how loud I play the sound machine. I could only hear the other one when it was nearby, but this one I can hear all throughout the park.

Is going back to the loud mower next?

I'm still on for the lab next Tuesday. I just didn't click through all the pages, so that's why it didn't go through the first time around and I didn't get a confirmation.

Anyway, after I got up I was wishing Idalia's wind and rain would return to drown out the police helicopter that was circling round and round for over an hour last night. I don't know what was going on, but it was ridiculous. All I kept thinking was it's three in the morning and I need the sound machine on so I can concentrate on what I'm doing.

On the bright side, I've had more energy today than I've had in a while. We went to Publix and got some things done at home that we needed and wanted to do.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2023 Idalia is here! But all she’s bringing us is wind and rain. Looks like she’s going to hit the Big Bend area as a cat 4. They’re saying this will be a first. Global warming is having some scary effects at an alarmingly fast rate. It’s not even September and we’re already seeing a major hurricane. If we had extra money and I didn’t feel like shit so much of the time I wouldn’t mind going on a mini vacation if we were evacuated but I’m definitely concerned about being evacuated over the next couple of months as we trudge through the heart of hurricane season.

I have horrible fatigue still. I slept well and got up thinking I wasn’t too bad but by the time I showered and ate I was ready for a nap. This is ridiculous. I have to spend so much time in bed that I could be up living my life and doing things. Got a bad feeling my thyroid is the same or worse. If we can’t get my fucking body to absorb the medication, then what???

I’m not in the greatest shape but I’m not in horrible shape either with all the skiing I do. Yet yesterday, after boxing for the first time in a while, I was so wiped out. I had heavy fatigue and felt a little winded like my heart was racing. Really, really hope it’s just a matter of figuring out how to tweak my thyroid dose and not PAH! Tom thinks it’s likely on the thyroid. That and sleep apnea.

I made a lab appointment but never got a confirmation. I went back to the site and confirmed that there were no pending appointments for me so I have to deal with that. There’s going to be a whole shit ton of health work to do. There usually is but this is going to be more than usual and I can’t just schedule appts. I have to play form too, which takes forever.

The only thing I don’t get is why they keep sending me so far from home when giving me referrals. They asked and I told them I wanted to go to a specific imaging place near our house yet they want to send me all the way to Chapel Hill. And why do I have to go all the way to Land O’Lakes to see a cardiologist? You mean to tell me there isn’t one closer?

So more than likely we’re going to have to pick our own doctors. This way it’s easier to try to get female doctors and avoid foreigners I may have a hard time understanding. So I’m going to have to go to the lab, to a cardiologist, to the imaging center, and then possibly to a genetic counselor unless I can confirm 23andMe has the information I need to know as to whether or not I’m automatically doomed to get breast cancer. We’re pretty sure I don’t have that gene. That’s a good thing because that would mean needing a double mastectomy. I definitely wouldn’t mind giving these boobies up because they’re way too big but I really don’t want to go under the knife again.

Jessie finally told me that she uses Kindra for dryness. Not surprisingly, it’s rather pricey. I haven’t had much burning in a while and therefore I haven’t used the suppositories. I only use them as needed. I just want my energy back so bad!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2023 Yesterday we went from having a hurricane watch to a hurricane warning. Things are closed for the rest of the month, and Tom may not be able to get the cancerous spot on his forehead taken care of tomorrow as scheduled.

The airport closed at midnight. Not having to listen to one plane after another starting about now is fine with me. What's not is the possibility of being evacuated even though it doesn't look like that's going to happen at this point. If we weren't in debt and I was healthier, I would be okay with it. We would have to head south, though, because this one's going north of us.

We had some thunder earlier but no rain. The weather app on my computer said it was 10 miles away. They say Idalia is 425 miles away.

The video meeting with the doctor went better than expected yesterday. She was on time, young, friendly, and listened very intently to my concerns. She was also very thorough. I'm going to be having a ton of testing done. It was funny because at one point she told me to hang on a second because she had to deal with one of the dogs she was fostering and when I told her we had a pet rat she got all excited and wanted to see her. She was sleeping at that moment but at the end of our meeting, she got to meet Tinkerbella.

This doctor was in Chicago and plans to come to the state to visit her mother soon.

So we discussed my two main problems and that's getting my thyroid numbers normal without feeling horrible though she agrees that 6-9 could be my personal normal.

Then the other problem of fatigue. On the 5th I'll be going to the lab for a full panel of blood work as well as AI testing for other autoimmune diseases I could have like RA, Sjogren's, etc. I will also need to go for an echocardiogram, the mammogram I wasn't going to go for, and genetic testing. Being Jewish puts me at a higher risk of getting breast cancer and I guess through genetic testing they can better assess your risk. We're going to check 23andMe and see if that was tested or not. Tom thinks it was and that I didn't have that mutation.

They may also have me wear one of those Holter heart monitors for a while too. She said it was great that I was so prepared for our meeting and knew exactly what I wanted to ask and all that. Yeah, because the doctors in California were so unhelpful that I learned to get my own information.

No anxiety yesterday and none so far today but I'm not ready to think the spell is over yet. Usually, when it's that noticeable it's not just for a few days. I still worry I could be on the verge of another spell that lasts for weeks or even months.

I woke up tired today, as usual, but for once, when I ended up napping shortly after, I actually woke up feeling more refreshed.

More than likely, I will be starting blood pressure medicine. Yes, I am still prone to side effects but if it's going to help with the fatigue, I'm willing to try anything. It will probably be Losartan, which he's taking. What sucks is that I can't use the wrist cuff anymore because it's not as accurate to get a record of how it is over the next two weeks as they want. I've been afraid to use his arm cuff because I know how tight it gets, but I'm gonna have to muster up a little courage. Too many years of prolonged elevated blood pressure can mess with my heart and kidneys if it hasn't already.

My biggest concern is that I may have PAH and she thinks there's a chance I could. The thing is that even with treatment which can slow the progression of the disease, the prognosis isn't the greatest. I wouldn't be dying next year or the year after, but I may not make it beyond a decade. But hey, I live for however long I live. That's not what's important. What's important is how I feel.

MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 2023 Yesterday was another shitty day in that I was anxious. I hope Tom’s theory is correct and that it’s just residual effects from adding vitamin D. It’s true that when you cut back, your TSH drops instantly but you don’t feel better right away. That’s why I felt like shit going to Orlando last year after the last time my thyroid was overloaded.

I took a full hydroxyzine tablet and it did lessen my symptoms but not without knocking me out and causing me to sleep a whopping 10 hours and 20 minutes. Been horribly groggy since getting up. I’m definitely not anxious today but I’ll be spending a lot of time in bed until my 8:00 a.m. video appointment with a Galileo doc, even though I don’t want to of course.

I’ve done some things. I did a few jobs and cooked myself a skillet of quinoa, brown rice, spinach, chickpeas, and chicken tenders.

Jessie says that in Europe they have natural thyroid enzymes that she believes are from sheep. I would think that would cause the same problem as thyroid extracted from pigs causes, though, with the inconsistency in dosing.

I asked her what she’s using for dryness and she won’t tell me. Instead, she said the same thing she says when I ask about her thyroid numbers; that she has to look. Like she really can’t remember? I think it’s probably that old Facebook paranoia some people have since Facebook doesn’t believe in privacy. Why else would she be so secretive about these things?

I had to disable public comments on my other Facebook profile where I’m sharing journals because for some reason I couldn’t pull them up. I would get a notification but then when I would click on it, nothing would happen. So unless they commented or reacted on one of the last few posts, I would have to scroll through hundreds of posts that I would rather not scroll through.

Wondering how much we’re going to be affected by Hurricane Idalia which is now expected to hit Florida as a category 3. I don’t think we’ll get a direct hit but I do expect some wind and rain. It’s a little soon to know for sure. Right now there’s an official hurricane watch in effect but not a hurricane warning.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 2023 OMG, for the THIRD time in barely a month, the water was off. I see a definite pattern forming here and I wonder if it's just a matter of time before I'm going to have to shower at night only, just like at the old place, to avoid getting the water turned off on me while I'm in the shower.

What's next to catch up to this place? Loud traffic? Projects every few days? Daily landscaping?

DeSatan says all Gulfers should have hurricane kits ready and available. People in this area say it's one of the safest from hurricanes, and they only get evacuated once a decade. I know global warming is changing things, but I would be really surprised if we were evacuated two years in a row. It's too soon to know for sure what's going on but last I heard, the cone was aimed at the panhandle.

Andy, Judy, and a cousin are thinking of coming down here and want to fly into Fort Myers, spend a few days with the cousin's daughter, and then shoot over to New Port Richey to see Gary and his wife Jenny. He asked Tom to calculate how many miles it was to our place from there because the three of them want to spend the day with us.

I told him I didn't have to ask Tom what I could ask Alexa and that I knew it was very close. However, he has to keep in mind that there’s a 50/50 chance I’ll have to sleep or something would be going on with us if we had an appointment or something. Furthermore, we would prefer to meet at a restaurant and not at the house. The house is just so damn small and I don't even know the cousin. Also, I don't want to have to rearrange the place to hide things I don't want seen.

The thing is that Andy's not a very supportive person, and he has a memory that makes mine seem like it's still great so I don't know if he'll understand or be willing to meet us there, but we'll find out. I knew this day would eventually come, though. I just thought it would be him coming down by himself. I don't mind just him being here, and I told him that too.

To be honest, there's a part of me that regrets reconnecting with him not just before we left for Florida, but back in Jesse's trailer. We do have a lot of fun memories together and he has changed in some ways, but there's still a part of him that is non-empathetic, non-understanding, judgmental, and selfish. Like most people, his basic personality hasn't changed throughout the years.

I also have mixed emotions about seeing Judy. Sure, I would love to see her. She's a great lady. But she also has a big mouth and is nosy. I feel like she too, would do nothing but pry and judge me for my ways and go on and on about how and why I should change.

Then there's the stupidity, or at least the lack of ability to understand. I've gone over my sleep disorder a number of times with Helen and not even she gets it. She's getting it mixed up with delayed sleep phase and narcolepsy. This is such a complex issue for people to grasp, apparently, because it's rare.

Grammarly used to be fun to use, but now it's gotten to be a pain in the ass. I've complained and complained about the begging and having my train of thought disrupted by having to click out of windows begging me to pay up and again I've asked why they bother having a free option if they want money that bad. People should either be allowed to use things for free without being harassed while they're at it or there shouldn't be a free option. Yet it's gotten much worse with them. All they do is say they'll tell their developers, but the greedy bastards obviously don't care and are gonna do what they're gonna do.

Although it isn't as good, I'm going to use spelling and grammar checkers that are built into the browser and MS Word. At least there I know I'm not going to get pestered with regular begging. I can't expect to be 100% correct all the time anyway, especially with all the content I've written. I've got to get out of the habit of publishing stuff and then deleting it so I can correct it and republish it.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 2023 Since you can now create as many profiles in any name you want on Facebook, I created one for my journal since Facebook doesn’t delete nonactive accounts and it can live on as a memoir for future generations - if there are any future generations - to see how life was in these times.

I blocked some of my Facebook friends but there are no guarantees it won’t be suggested to them if they have other accounts I don’t know about. That’s one thing I hate about Facebook is how they suggest things that not everyone wants suggested. I'm willing to take a chance, though. Andy’s most likely to have accounts I don’t know about. Jessie has another account, and I would never have known it if it wasn’t suggested to me. It was obvious, though, that it was her because it was a variation of her name with the same profile picture. It won’t be the end of the world if it’s found, but I would prefer to keep it from park people and anyone I may write about, including Jessie.

If Andy has a “normal” account with a profile picture I wouldn’t think to associate him with, it could have been suggested to me in the past but I didn’t know it was him. I don’t accept suggestions, though. I won’t let anyone in unless I know who it is.

Helen and I met yesterday and talked about how I miss some of the old feelings I used to have. She seems to think I need to get out and socialize more, which a lot of people have suggested to me over the years. I just don't feel the need to be a social butterfly, though. However, this doesn't mean that I don't miss having more people that are family or like family around that aren't toxic. Or at least that wasn't as toxic as my family was like his parents and his sister, etc. It still would be nice to have Jessie nearby.

I also asked her personal opinion on reaching out to those who never reach out to me first. People that only respond to my messages like Christiane. I also gave her a crash course on a certain somebody who also likes to write and she agrees that the constant account deletion and creation is a definite sign of instability along with other things. I've caught this person in lies, they've involved other people in our issues, and they sure are a hypocrite. As in no lurking, even though that's all they do.

She agrees that if I've made myself clear as to wanting to hear from them at times and for them to take the initiative on their own to contact me or comment on some of my stuff but they never do, It's probably time to make a clean break. Yeah, one of them may be highly intelligent. And yeah, I'm flattered that that person has followed me religiously and seems to take a great interest in my life but I think it's time to have a little self-respect and not reach out to those who never cared to do the same on their own.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 25, 2023 I slept better, but damn was last night kinda shitty. I was in a horrible mood and devoid of energy too, of course. I have more energy tonight because my sleep didn't get broken up like the last couple of times but it's going to be a very long night for me. That's because I won't be meeting with Helen until bedtime. Well, technically, I'll be finishing up at bedtime. Since I can't just jump in bed and fall asleep right when we're done and need to unwind a bit, I'll probably be up 17 to 18 hours, which means automatic fatigue tomorrow.

Back to being on the cool side and no sign of anxiety or mindfuckers or anything bad. So yeah, there was something about the vitamin D’s. Doesn’t mean I’m home-free just yet, though, on the dose increase because it hasn’t been 6 weeks. But with the D’s out of the picture, it’s looking good. There was something about it that made me feel the symptoms of going hyper even though I agree that my numbers aren’t likely that low yet. I’m probably 12-13 now.

Good God, what's the point of being able to enjoy the few hours off from commercial planes if I'm just gonna get slammed with helicopters instead? This is the fifth fucking one. They seem to be worse on Friday nights.

Anyway, in finishing up yesterday's health work, I checked out the links my docs recommended and saw a full list of side effects for Ramelteon and said, "No way!"

It can cause suicidal thoughts and I'm not going to go through that hell again like I did with an asthma inhaler I once took in the 90s and then the Prozac in 2015.

So I told them I wasn't interested and they said there was another drug approved for N24 that did not include suicidal thoughts called Hetlioz. The main highlights as far as its side effects go are nightmares, drowsiness, headaches, respiratory issues, UTI infections, and a few other things. Well, I'm tired a lot and have nightmares anyway and I could take ibuprofen or something like that for headaches, so if I didn't get anything worse, it may be worth it but that's only if I can get it. I'm gonna have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get approval for financial assistance being low income and all that. Who knows how many in-person appointments I may have to have too? If it could work without debilitating side effects, it would be worth it, though I still have my doubts. I still feel like I'm not meant to have a schedule. I just wish I knew if it was by chance or design.

If I believed in design for certain, I would start to wonder if something really wanted me to make it to the endo appointment, after all, because the light therapy does seem to be slowing my schedule from jumping as fast. That's why it's gonna be a long day today. When I made my appointment with Helen, I expected to be getting up 5-6 hours later than I did.

Jessie was telling me about the job she got with the State recently and how she and Bella are very prone to side effects. She said that as long as I'm not like them, don't assume I'm gonna get the side effects just because others do.

But I am like them. I just think the words side effects and I get them so I'm sure I'll get something. It's just a matter of whether or not it's anything I can put up with.

She understood my reluctance to go with Ramelteon, pointing out that many mental health drugs alter body chemistry and stuff like that.

Well, yeah, when you suddenly want to up and kill yourself, even though your life is fine, that's a big red flag right there.

She also said that a doctor gave Bella medication for nausea one time which gave her horrible anxiety. Not surprisingly, her doctor tried to tell her she was “just anxious.”

Jessie was given a monthly injection one time for her migraines which gave her palpitations and dizziness. She complained to her doctor who denied that these were side effects. But then when she contacted the company that made the stuff, they confirmed that yes, they were side effects. The doctor then called and blasted her out for calling the company.

With my past experiences, I can totally relate to the hell they've suffered! The medical gaslighting in this country is horrible. Doctors are sworn to do no harm yet they intentionally deny side effects to make their jobs easier. And nowadays many of them won't give health care to women who need it because of the fucking SCOTUS. It still angers me to this day, even after all these years, that none of the California doctors, except for my GYN who didn't have to deal with that aspect of my health, would believe that levothyroxine can make me anxious. Well, I'm sure they believed it. They just didn't want to work to find me an alternative or at least seek out a dose appropriate for me and not what their numbers required. After all, what reason would anyone have to insist something wasn't normal for them if it was? Doctors are supposed to be smart, and therefore they should know better. No one has anything to gain by complaining of side effects just for fun.

Jessie says she wishes she'd known we were going to move to Florida because there are affordable places near her where you don't pay rent like we do here. Yeah, but what's affordable to most isn't exactly affordable to us. We're that low-income these days. He's not going back to work for fun.

I wish I had known she was gonna move down here because I definitely would have focused more on her area. But we focused on the Gulf because it's cheaper and a little safer from hurricanes depending on where you are. Like it or not, we're likely locked in for life and for the first time in my life, I don't want to move unless we get rich and have plenty of options. Yes, I would have loved to be near her but it could be worse. The only things that keeps this place from being less than perfect is that we don't have a great view of a lake or the ocean as I would have liked as that's too expensive, it's too small, and we're in a flight path. But Jessie, along with most of the world, is also in a flight path. She just doesn't mind. So unless something bad happens around here, I don't see us going anywhere unless we ever need assisted living.

I didn't watch it, of course, but I saw the highlights of the Republican debate, and they weren't the least bit surprising. Especially with Pence promising to work tirelessly at continuing to strip women of more and more rights and make it more difficult and costlier for them to receive health care.

Had a power failure late last night for about an hour. I'm guessing they were working on something because there weren't any storms going on.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 2023 Having one of the shittiest days I've had in a while. I'm worse than fatigued, but having mild anxiety as well. I noticed over the last few days that the hypo symptoms were backing off. But now, except for fatigue, they’re starting to do a complete 180 on me as the side effects slowly trickle back in. I kept waking up a million times and was on fire. I'm poopy and can feel waves of adrenaline beneath the surface threatening to bubble up.

I let Galileo know, and we agreed to stop the vitamin D. They're gonna check back in with me in a few days and if that's not enough and I’m still having symptoms, I'll have to scale my dose back.

I forgot that for some reason, Jessie won't tell me what her thyroid numbers are since her dose was decreased, yet I asked again earlier. If I wasn't having memory issues, I would have remembered and known that she would just tell me she would have to check but of course, she wouldn't. All she's told me is that she's been tired and hungrier. Because of this, I was curious as to what her last reading was. I have no idea why she's so secretive about this, but she is.

I just had a horrible thought. Well, how I’m feeling right now answers my question as to whether or not I can get used to tolerating lower TSH numbers by getting less tolerant of higher ones. The answer is obviously no. What worries me is that I may not even be able to stand to be between 6-9 without horrible fatigue, assuming a CPAP doesn’t help, yet unable to get my TSH any lower without side effects from the med. That would really leave me in a bind! It could still be the med causing it or chronic fatigue. I just have a bad feeling fatigue is going to be a regular part of the rest of my life.

Why do I also keep feeling like something up there wants me to suffer for most of my life? My God, just give me something that will kill me if you hate me that much!!!

I forgot to mention that I slept through the mower the other day, even though the side panel was down. This likely means that when the honker returns, I should be OK because even though the motorcycle is louder, it's further away.

To say that they're rude assholes in the house behind him is an understatement! I was checking out the camera and I watched the bitch back her car out (she has a single-wide carport) while loverboy fired up his motorcycle and revved it into the street, continued to sit there revving it while she pulled the car in, then got out to hug him goodbye before he roared off.

The correct thing to do would have been to say their goodbyes FIRST, then for her to back out, then for him to turn the damn thing on WITHOUT revving it, and then simply take off. But no, everybody's got to put on a show, or at least not give a shit about those around them.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2023 So much for giving up on my health although I did try to convince myself not to bother since I'm not getting anywhere. Yet I reached out to my docs and let them know the vitamins D and B-12 weren't helping with energy levels and asked about a full panel of blood work. So they decided to do a yearly wellness thing with me since it’s been since 2021 that I had a complete physical. This will be a virtual appointment for 20 minutes where we discuss my family medical history, my current symptoms, and what blood work and preventative testing they think I should undergo.

They told me they understand how frustrating it can be to be dealing with not feeling well for so long but to please fight to get better and that they want me to feel better, etc. I'm kind of losing hope here but trying my best. I've had to do things in spurts because I have to stop and rest because the fatigue is overwhelming. My joints and muscles are stiff and I feel like I'm 97 instead of 57.

I know a lot of this could be on the thyroid but my biggest concern is that there could be something else going on that I don't know about. It's just that nothing I come up with makes sense. If it's thyroid then why wasn't I practically comatose when I was diagnosed with a TSH in the 30s?

Doesn't make sense for it to be heart-related or cancer-related because I don't have any other symptoms. I am just devoid of energy.

If it was connected to the N24, then again, why wasn't I like this years ago? Why now?

Something's got to be causing this. Funny too because I had a bad feeling that if I ever beat most of the anxiety it would be replaced with a new long-term problem and I guess this is it. I still stand by when I say that anything is better than anxiety but this is debilitating enough. It's draining what little energy I have just to talk type this and edit it.

And then there are the memory issues and the crazy emotions and urges. I have major brain fog where I have trouble remembering things both long-term and short-term but especially short-term, and then the frustration of my situation gets me stressed and depressed. I was fed up to the point of tears last night.

I haven't been a cutter since I was quite young but sometimes I still wish I could drop dead or grab an object and whack the shit out of myself with it as a means of distracting myself from whatever's been bugging me so relentlessly. I know it sounds absurd and I don't plan on doing anything crazy. I just wish the crazy thoughts would get the fuck out of my head! They're not always there but they're there often enough. More often than I would like.

I have more to say but already I need to go lay down and rest my eyes a bit.

Back again later on. So it took me 9 hours into my day to obtain some energy.

Been exchanging messages with my doctors on and off throughout the night and they confirmed after asking me to share a photo that I am taking the right B-12 vitamins. They dissolve in your mouth and directly enter the bloodstream.

I asked if they thought multivitamin and mineral supplements would be good for me and they said that since my fatigue is likely due to low thyroid and being on the low end of normal on the B12, it wouldn't likely help with energy levels but would be okay to take if I felt I was lacking those vitamins and minerals from food, but I don't. I do eat healthy most of the time.

Hopefully, that's going to get even healthier because I didn't know this but they said that gluten can affect the thyroid. They recommended a book called Wheat Belly. I couldn't get it with my Kindle Unlimited subscription but I was able to learn enough about it to know that it would be best to avoid gluten if I can. They recommend avoiding modified food starch, malt, maltodextrin, and hydrolyzed wheat protein. So I'll start checking ingredients more closely in search of those “bad” words.

They also confirmed that yes, being older could make me more sensitive to elevated TSH levels which might explain why I wasn't this tired when I was first diagnosed. I guess that makes sense because I was exhausted during the move and found to be at 14 a few months later. Well, that's exactly what I was last time around too. This is probably wishful thinking but if I could become more sensitive to elevated TSH levels with age, could that mean I could become less sensitive to normal levels, as in not having so many side effects from the medication???

A video appointment has been scheduled for the 28th.

The vag suppositories are horrible. They're so damn soft that they don't hold their shape. they're not rigid enough to load into the applicator nor can I shove them up there with a finger. I threw them in the refrigerator. Maybe that will firm them up a bit.

Nane’s birthday was yesterday. She turned 63. Sent Christiane my final - and yes, I mean final - message. No more of this one-sided friendship if you could even call it that. I'm tired of reaching out to those who don't care to reach out to me in return. I can't express just how fed up I am with hearing from people only if they hear from me first. They have a right to be who they are but then so do I.

Love our last Temu order! I used one of the plastic stencils and did a fairly decent painting. Even Andy liked it and he's pretty picky, LOL. I did one with multicolored pastels in the background and then stenciled a woman wearing a wide-brim hat that covers her eyes and nose, only exposing her full lips and giving her a mysterious and seductive look. Another thing I'm going to try sometime is tracing the stencil with chalk or pencil and then painting the entire design.

Made it to Viken, Norway yesterday! 193 miles to go.

The new cage came today and it's perfect! Tinkerbella loves it. It's a little ugly being black and I kind of wish the roof opened but it's otherwise really nice. Now she's not so cramped in even if she spends most of the time in her hammock.

Not going to have the energy to carry on with my story tonight since it's starting to get late in my day, but maybe tomorrow night. Or maybe I will do that or some painting or diamond drilling because I want to stay up until 7:00 so that I'm staying up late enough to meet with Helen on Friday.

I had to message her because our credit card expired and I couldn't find a way to edit it on the website. She put me in touch with the owner who sent me a link where I could update it.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 20, 2023 Today’s the day I officially give up on my health. Oh, I’m still going to take the vitamins even though they’re not doing me any good and I’m still going to work at getting my TSH back under 10 but I’m through trying to battle everything else. I’m just not meant to be healthy and I have to accept it and make the best of the rest of my life. It’s not like I’m going to die anytime soon, of course, but I don’t see myself making it to my 70s. At least I don’t think I do. Not with so many things I can’t treat. I swear it’s like something wants me fat, tired, and undermedicated! But it is what it is. I’m prone to side effects and there isn’t much I can do about that. So I’ll live with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, possible pending diabetes, and low thyroid for the rest of my life. I can get my thyroid close enough to normal but the rest I’m just going to have to live with and hope for the best.

I have a very bad and strong feeling that when I eventually get a CPAP it’s not going to do anything for this fatigue. I’ve been keeping track of how many days I’ve had fatigue and there’s no change since starting the vitamins. I have it almost half of the month when I analyze it by the month. The Bing bot also said you likely wouldn’t notice an increase in energy levels unless you were severely low on B-12 and I wasn’t. I was just on the low end of normal. Even though the nurse asked him if he had fatigue, his numbers were similar yet he doesn’t have fatigue.

I tell myself it’s just age and remind myself that many older people bitch about lack of energy for a reason but then how can people work until they’re 65 or older? Something’s got to be causing it. Or a few somethings.

The thing is that I’m so fucking sick of doctors and treatment I either can’t get or can’t handle that I’m fed up and I’m not going to bother anymore. Jessie was telling me that she’s had to prove her migraine case to her insurance company for years and how it’s a business out to make money that only cares about that and not anyone’s health, and I’m aware of this but that’s just wrong. Totally all wrong. I’m not going to prove myself to these people something multiple doctors have already proven. That’s like having to defend myself for what I write in my own journal and that’s just plain old fucking bullshit. I’m not going to belittle myself, like I said, with fighting for things I shouldn’t have to fight for. It’s bad enough I can’t even get on disability because I don’t have enough work credits in my past. You also have to have worked recently in order to get disability, not just have enough credits.

There could be so many things causing this fatigue. Could be on the thyroid even though I had way more energy before I was diagnosed. I doubt it’s anything related to my heart, arteries, or cancer because I don’t have any other symptoms.

When I got up this morning my blood sugar was 119. That’s the highest I’ve ever known it to be even though it came down to 108 later in my day. I wonder if that or the high blood pressure I have regularly could be a factor in why my kidney function was down a bit before surgery. These things could cause fatigue too, but as far as I can tell I’m not actually diabetic any more than Tom is. We’re both just pre-diabetic. Whether or not we’ll ever cross that threshold and become diabetic, I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me if we did because we’re fat and it runs in our families. I think the most likely scenario is that I developed chronic fatigue.

It just frustrates me to have all these things I can’t treat and that I can’t lose weight which would help with these things but that I would be afraid to lose if I could because I fear how it would affect my thyroid medication. But yeah, I’m so fucking sick of going to doctors and I’m not going to run to one specialist after another trying to figure out why I’m so tired just to either find out I can’t get a hold of treatment for it or there is no treatment or there’s treatment that I can’t handle.

I even threw away my order for a mammogram. If I’ve got breast cancer, which I doubt even though it’s hereditary and also runs in the family, I don’t give a shit anymore. I just don’t want to know it. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss. I just don’t want to deal with anything unless I have absolutely no choice. But again, with the odds of getting it at just 12%, I’ll likely beat those odds. Or at least not get cancer for many years to come if I ever do get it.

For the millionth time, I’m wondering if this shit with my health is random or if something up there has been picking on me. If it is, of course it’s not going to have anything kill me. No, it’s too much fun torturing me instead. Really, if it doesn’t value my health then why should I? I know that sounds ridiculous and maybe even downright crazy but still. It isn’t so much that I don’t value it as much as that I’m tired of making a career out of trying to better it just to get nowhere. I just want to live until I no longer do. Until then, I realize that my life is going to have a series of pause buttons throughout its days and nights. My life is going to be limited just like someone who can’t walk well. I’m not going to have the energy to do as much as I used to so maybe it’s a good thing we don’t have much money. I’d hate to have money I was too tired to enjoy.

He mentioned us going out and walking together in the fall when the weather cools down and the humidity dissipates but nope, I won’t do it. You have to be consistent with something like that otherwise you don’t really reap any benefits. It’s like starting all over again each time I finally have enough energy to get out there again, so he’s on his own with that much. I can still hop on the glider and ride my virtual bike in VR most days because that’s an easy workout. I rarely get my HR into the triple digits that way. It’s a very fun and relaxing workout.

I really believe I’m never going to have energy again. I don’t know; it’s just one of those strong feelings I sense. Up until now, I would have told you that not needing glasses was what I miss most about my youth but now it’s definitely my old energy that I miss most.

I didn’t do as much as I would have liked today but it wasn’t as if I didn’t do anything at all. We did go down to the pool for a quick dip. The water was nice but surprisingly cool. Some of the storms we’ve had at night cooled the temperature. It was hot out at the time, though, in the 90s so we drove down.

There were a few other couples there but no kids. A bald woman was present and I couldn’t help but wonder…did she shave her head? Was that just natural for her? Or did she recently have chemo?

Later…

I’m making FaceApp magic with my selfies, and wow! I was having fun playing around with this with Mia and Greta. It made them a more realistic and prettier version of themselves. It’s awesome. You can pick a variety of hairstyles, smiles, adjust the age, add makeup, and more. I sent an enhanced pic of me to Andy and want to see his reaction. I haven’t mentioned the app to him yet. I don’t think I could lie indefinitely to him because he’s my friend. Others, I probably won’t say anything to. It’s a little weird how my eyes look more brown than green in the pic, but it still came out nicely. It’s a fun app to play around with. I just have to crop off the logo and suffer through some ads since I’m not a premium member.

Tom gave me a good idea for why Natasha would want to crash at Nane’s place for free. In turning reality into bullshit like I love to do, I can’t kill him off because I don’t want to risk jinxing anything bad to happen to him in real life so we were thinking maybe Natasha can be on the run for some crime she committed until enough time passes for things to cool down.

Later…

Tom suggested asking Galileo to do a full panel of blood work on me to see what my A1C is because that’s a much better indicator of whether or not you’re diabetic or close to it but I don’t want that lipid panel coming up and them hounding me to take treatment I can’t tolerate. It is what it is. Despite the fatigue, I’m a lot more active than I was in late 2021 when it was found to be a little high and that’s the biggest key to keeping out of the diabetic range along with smart eating. His has been inching up, which is why they’re going to test him again soon.

I’m feeling a little better today. Some days I have energy and other days I don’t. We’ve got a thunderstorm going on now which is always nice. Especially when I’m awake to enjoy the rain and thunder and not be woken up by it.

We’re going to be running out to Publix early in the evening when it’s a little less crowded.

Eight people died of flesh-eating bacteria in the Tampa area. This wasn’t in freshwater either. It’s a little scary to think it could have been us! I have a feeling that oceans aren’t going to be a safe place to swim in at some point while we’re still alive.

Anyway, even though I can’t get medication that might help me, the full-spectrum light is surprisingly helpful in slowing the roll. My schedule isn’t jumping as fast. This will make getting to the endo appointment easier, even though normal numbers without side effects is the same dream as keeping a schedule and treating my other issues without problems.

Shared another month on Facebook. I’m going backward, doing a month or two at a time. I’m at the end of last year.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 2023 Galileo confirmed that I have to see a sleep specialist for the addicting sleeping pills I don't even need or want before I can be given the proper treatment for what I've got and that's only if these so-called addicting worthless sleeping pills “fail.” They offered to refer me to a specialist but I said no thanks.

This is one more reminder that we really can trust our gut feelings. If we have a gut feeling telling us something is not meant to be, it usually isn't.

Tom says he doesn't know why and he's not going to ask but the insurance company reimbursed us $500. He said that means we haven't hit the yearly cap if I need another procedure. No thanks! I'm tired of procedures and doctors and just the whole damn health thing.

Jessie and I were laughing over those chocolate “pussy poppers” I'm expecting. When I saw them, I laughed to myself and said, “Are they serious?” But yeah, they have suppositories for dryness in every flavor imaginable, LOL. So I figured why not smell like chocolate down there while lubing up?

I also got a bunch of small tubes of different scented hand creams. Avocado, rose, aloe vera, shea butter, coconut, chamomile, honey, lavender, cherry blossom, and the only one I don't like is orange.

Most of all, we’re excited for Tinkerbella! We found a bigger cage for her that’s 20” x 20”. It isn’t just that she's cramped in where she is but also that when she gets old she's not going to be able to climb the walls of this cage as easily. The new cage has shelves and ramps and should be easier to clean too, and is on wheels. The only negative is the gap between the tray and outer walls of the cage but Tom can take care of that easily enough. The wire spacing is good too. It's gray and black, so boring colors but our girl will love it! It will be a little taller than this cage. This one is 41” and the new one will be 45”.

I'm tired today even though I shouldn't be. I slept for 7 hours and got a good sleep score. I was up a little long, though, at 17 hours. I didn't wake up to pee but I did wake up for a second to the sound of a loud crash that I assumed was thunder. Tom said he didn't think it was thunder. He said it sounded like something crashed in front of the house but he went out and checked all around the house and didn't see anything. So I'm guessing Toni dropped something heavy.

I have a feeling that getting my energy back is another one of those things that just isn't meant to be no matter what I do. I don't think a CPAP or any kind of vitamin is going to do it. I think I'm just meant to be tired half of the time. I'm not going to have my old energy back and I'm never going to have normal thyroid numbers without feeling anxious. It just isn't in my cards and I know I need to accept this. My normal is 6-9, not 1-4.

I am still horribly hypo and I don't think the dose increase or the vitamins are doing any good. I'm cold and starting to gain weight, too. I'm constantly hungry and have virtually no new hair growth since dyeing my hair. I used to look in the mirror and see gray roots and think I just dyed my hair!

I just wonder how much worse it's going to get and what kind of hell I'm going to have to go through trying to get my TSH back under 10. I don't know if it's over 14 but it sure doesn't feel like it's under it.

Strange how I'm remembering my dreams less and less these days and what little I do remember usually isn't enough to put into words. I did, however, have a couple of interesting dreams. In one of them, Christiane and I went to visit Nane. It was late at night and Nane had already turned in. I was unable to sleep and I heard Christiane right outside my door rummaging around in a hall closet. I opened my door and asked if she was looking for an extra blanket. I told her I had one if she needed it and wanted to chat until we could fall asleep but she didn't seem in the mood for chatter.

Then I had a dream my parents were alive and the house next to them was for sale. I was telling them that I really wanted to move in so I would be next to them not only for obvious reasons like if they needed help with anything but also because that way I would have control over who got their place after they were gone since we wanted to live somewhere permanently and never have to move again.

Well, we're definitely never moving from here. Unless we ever need assisted living, this is it. We're just not going to have enough money for what I really want and I don't see the point in settling. There are only three minor negatives to this place, though. One, it's too small. Two, we're in a flight path. Three, it doesn't have a great view.

I sent Kim a 500-word letter and she replied with 4500 words. What is it with this girl's need to be so damn wordy? It's always the same old shit too. Her "journals" are all about Bob.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2023 I'm so fucking pissed right now! You know that feeling I've always had saying I wasn't meant to keep a schedule and that if I was, I would have been able to keep one decades ago? Well, it was for a reason! I guess there really is no surprising one as intuitive/psychic as me because I knew there would be a problem. I just didn't know if the problem would be in getting the drug or getting the drug and finding it doesn't work. In this case, it's getting the drug.

Apparently, my insurance company is misunderstanding and thinking I want something for insomnia and not N24 because I was told that you have to have tried and failed two different types of sleep aids for insomnia first. The problem is that these are controlled substances that they can't prescribe via telehealth. So I told Galileo I was looking for something to regulate my schedule that I would take daily, probably for the rest of my life. But at this point, we'll just forget it. I could only get the ramelteon, which they already filled, if we paid out of pocket and we don't have that kind of money.

I am the way I was meant to be, like it or not, happenstance or not. There's only so much control over our lives and bodies we have. I'm not gonna fight to change what can't be changed but just try to remember there is at least a little good to the times I'm on nights.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 2023 Not a good work week so far. I haven't even cut 20 pounds yet.

We're waiting on the groceries now. Tom is desperate for his treats, and I'm desperate for Red Lobster’s frozen fish filets. They were on sale, and I can't wait to try them. I just hope I don't feel like shit afterward.

I found an easier way to go through my old Facebook posts and am sharing a month here and there. I'm not sharing every single post with the public, but maybe about half of them.

I told Galileo I was getting frustrated with waiting for the medication, and they said they understood and would reach out to their support team to get a status update.

I told Jessie I was worried they may deny me because it's not a matter of life and death like her Addison's medication is and she pointed out that she doesn't need Botox for migraines yet the insurance company pays $2500 every other month for it. Also, if they deny me, I can appeal. I still feel like I'm struggling for what isn’t meant to be, and I'm not sure I’m willing to fight for something that should come naturally. People just shouldn't have to “work” for a schedule any more than they should to reproduce and things like that.

Speaking of reproducing and the attack on women's reproductive freedom…as expected, the abortion pill will be heavily restricted soon enough. I'm guessing birth control will be next to be restricted. My God, ladies, how much more shit are you willing to take before you finally fight back?! And I don't mean shouting in the streets about it either. The problem is that while everyone's bitching about these extremists, no one's willing to actually do anything about them. I used to say that violence and breaking laws were never the right thing to do, but I don't know about that anymore. More than likely, though, society will simply wait, however many decades it may take, for things to swing the other way. Hopefully, they will, too.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2023 Still, nothing as far as the receptor goes and I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to get it. It's an expensive drug, and I'm sure the insurance company is no doubt going to fight it. Well, there's only so much I'm willing to fight for when it comes to the things that are supposed to be normal and a basic human birthright. Others are free to do what they want, but it's ridiculous to fight to have a baby as it's ridiculous to fight for a normal schedule. We can waste time struggling for what isn't meant to be or we can make the best of what is meant to be. There aren't even any guarantees that it will work if I do get it. So if worse comes to absolute worst, since I still get a feeling that if I was meant to be on a schedule I would have been on one decades ago, I can at least look forward to the alone time I get on nights (I like a mix of together and alone time) and the fact that I get 5 or 6 hours off from the planes. Might hear a few helicopters going to the hospital here and there, but that's about it between midnight and 6:00 AM.

Been thinking of going public on Facebook. I just think it would be really cool if society still existed 1000 years from now to be one of many examples of life in this era. I used to be paranoid about who saw my friends there but now I don't give a shit. If someone wants to bash me to any of my friends because they didn't like that I said spicy food sucks and the supposed friend dumps me for it, well, that pretty much tells me just how much of a friend they were to begin with, right?

I just wish there was an easier way to pull up old posts. There's a post archive, but it's pretty worthless. I don't understand why there isn't a simple way to pull up posts from a specific year.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2023 How many times do I have to make myself sick before I get that I can’t eat the way I did when I used to have a gallbladder? We went to Publix and got some hot food. It was so good but the shrimp was fried, the pasta shells were very cheesy, and the pulled pork was greasy. I just can’t eat fried or fatty foods anymore. Fruits, veggies, and raw meats that I have to cook are what I need to focus on. The thing is that I do most of the time, but I crave variety and something different every now and then. Frying something with light olive oil in a skillet doesn’t hurt me, but I can’t have any deep-fried stuff.

After eating I not only became nauseous and had acid reflux, but I became extremely tired too. I ended up napping. So does this mean that the energy I thought the B-12 vitamins were giving me the last few days was just a coincidence or was that connected to the fried fatty foods as well? I’ll find out tomorrow when I return to healthy eating, as long as a storm doesn’t wake me up.

I might have to dump my story because I just can’t think of where to take it from here. I asked the bot for some ideas and it gave me a few good ones, but nothing that makes sense for this particular story.

MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2023 Still waiting for the receptor. It’s almost like something has already put an obstacle before me as if to say, “No. It’s not meant to be! If you were meant to be on a schedule, you would have been on one years ago.”

I hope that’s just the pessimist in me being paranoid and nothing else. Either way, it still seems too good to be true. My body is going to try to fight it at first because not being on a schedule is normal for me. So I’m going to basically have to become abnormal to be normal. If it doesn’t help me to keep a schedule every day, it would be great if it helped when I had something critical coming up like an important appointment or we wanted to do something. I would hate to have Andy tell me he was coming down at such a time just to have to tell him there was a good chance I would have to sleep.

We ordered a thin crispy crust pizza from Domino’s yesterday, and we both felt like shit afterward. The pizza wasn’t all that good because the crust was actually too thin and my lack of gallbladder had me feeling a bit nauseous for a while. I really gotta stop the fast food.

I was just thinking how similar this place is getting to NorCal and that it’s getting drier each summer with the summers getting warmer while the winters are getting cooler but the storms are back. We had a quick storm yesterday and it’s raining right now. No thunder yet. I’m sure that’s waiting until I meet with Helen later.

Got about 360 miles to go on my trip. If I waited just a little longer to create this ride, I could have gotten through Germany instead of only being allowed to pass through Hamburg. But now I would have about 600 miles left if I had. Once I get down to about 200 miles to go, I should be in Norway.

Made another Temu order. Got a couple of more carpet runners identical to this one for the bedroom. We'll eventually be getting an area rug from Amazon because they have better deals on the size we want.

Other things we're getting:

A case to store my colored pencils that has a floral design on it with a pink background.

Floral stickers for toilet seat covers.

A wall hanging that consists of multi-colored flip-flops and shells that’s fitting with being in Florida.

A metallic rainbow toe ring that will probably be too big for my tiny toes and will end up on my fingers.

Painting stencils.

A sticker you put on the base of your wall by the floor with a couple of mice appearing to peek out of a hole.

An ultrasonic humidifier/aromatherapy diffuser that appears as if different color flames are shooting out of it.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 13, 2023 Galileo’s sleep specialist has recommended ramelteon for the N24. Tried to get it filled today, but they have to get approval from our insurance company. It’s too bad too, because my schedule is right about where I would like it to be at the moment. You’re supposed to take it an hour before your desired bedtime.

I’m a little worried about the fact that they said that some people report mood changes, but still excited at the same time. It’s hard not getting my hopes up even though I know I shouldn’t.

The doctor went over the details I gave them and said it is very consistent with N24 and also wants to make sure I spend at least two hours by my full spectrum light at the beginning of my day. They said it could take six weeks to notice any progress. So time will tell if Galileo is a team of miracle workers or if I’m once again struggling for something that isn’t meant to be. It will cost us 30 bucks a month but would be totally worth it if it works. It would be a whopping $900 without insurance!

They’re going to announce the price of the Quest 3 at the end of September. Can’t wait! I really hope it’s a lot lighter and clearer.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 12, 2023 When I got up, I said to myself “Something’s cursing my sleep and I have absolutely no idea what to do about it.” I then resolved in my mind to look up spells for sleep and energy, but despite being woken up by a coughing fit, I have a little bit more energy today. Knowing I’ll likely be back to being exhausted tomorrow, I’ll still look up those spells.

The first part of my day yesterday was horrible. I was so damn tired and ended up napping. Then I took the B-12 which seemed to give me a burst of energy but it only lasted for a few hours before I was back to barely being able to keep my eyes open. Eventually, I perked up again.

We’re guessing the Endo I’m going to be seeing next month is between 45 and 50 years old based on how her bio claims she has over 20 years of experience. The problem is that older doctors tend to be more likely to be deniers. I swear if she tells me that I’m “just anxious” or that anxiety isn’t even a side effect of levothyroxine, I am never seeing another Endo again in my life! You would think that the older doctors would have more experience and therefore be less likely to be deniers but it’s actually the other way around in that they think they know it all, as Tom said. I think it’s more than that, though. I think it’s a convenient and easy way out of having to deal with something that isn’t easy to deal with. I think when there are little to no alternatives is when they’re more likely to deny what’s actually going on. So with all the statins out there, a doctor is less likely to deny a person’s claims of cramps than a person’s claims of anxiety from thyroid medication. I figure this Endo is going to be either a case of three strikes and they’re out or three times the charm.

I just hope I can understand her Indian accent and that she won’t ramble non-stop and make it damn near impossible for me to get a word in edgewise. The GI doc rambled non-stop in an accent I don’t remember him to have. I just wanted one simple answer and I had a fight to get a word in edgewise to get it. Instead, he went off on a tangent I could barely understand. Doctors need to shut up and listen to their patients more often. And will someone please make Americanizing their accents mandatory?! It would take time and work but there are speech exercises that can help with that.

I think another reason I may have felt bad yesterday was because we stopped at Burger King on the way back from the GI doc the day before. Funny because he warned me about fatty foods like greasy burgers, lol. Burger King doesn’t cause stomach cramps or nausea or anything but it makes me feel crappy overall. It tastes so good but really sucks the energy right out of me. So the older I get the more important it is to eat healthy.

Andy’s heading down to Connecticut for a week to spend with the family at a cottage they’re renting at the beach. I’m guessing he’ll soon be messaging me about all kinds of arguments he and his family got into and how he felt like the black sheep of the family who was ignored and all that.

Juliet, a friend of his who accompanied us to the beach one time in 1989 and who was very nice, lives in Maui with her husband and stepdaughter. They lost their house and everything to the wildfires. So sad. They are able to stay with relatives in Honolulu, though.

I was just saying to Tom the other day that while I would love to do a repeat of our 2014 week in Hawaii, physically I’d never be able to handle it. I just don’t have that kind of energy anymore. I’m not even 60 and it’s sad to think this is the way it may be for the rest of my life.

Ran out to Publix again earlier for fruits, veggies, and snacks. We go there once or twice a week to get what we don’t trust Walmart with. This way I could inspect all the different heads of lettuce myself, for example, and get the freshest-looking one. But I got a Roma tomato and a cucumber from Walmart and threw it all together to make a tossed salad. I add a little avocado ranch dressing and it’s great with dinner. Later I’m going to be making tilapia with rosemary potatoes.

I changed the rat’s cage and am making a point of relaxing this weekend. There isn’t much in the way of jobs over the weekend anyway. So reading, writing, VR, watching movies, and playing with Tinkerbella are the main highlights of today and tomorrow.

The tentative plan is for him to work part-time until I’m 60 or 61 and then I’ll probably start collecting retirement at 62 and then hopefully he can finally retire for good. Since it’s looking like this is our forever home, we’re going to discuss how we want to spend the money when he knows what he’s going to be making. I’m sure whatever we plan will end up not happening. Nothing we plan ever happens anyway. rolls eyes I’m almost tempted not to bother. Why get my hopes up for something that isn’t gonna happen? Whether we’re able to remodel anything or not, I really do think this is it. It’s not so bad, though, because I knew my dream home was just a dream anyway. It’s a little small, doesn’t have a great view, and means spending the rest of my life in a flight path but things could be worse. I think very few people ever have their ideal home. It’s great for what we can afford, though.

Later…

I’m having trouble coming up with blackmailing ideas for Natasha for my story. Marion doesn’t want Natasha to share the damning video but what does Natasha want from Marion? Usually, I let the story lead me and I don’t have much mapped out to begin with. I start with a basic idea and take it from there. But I’m having trouble coming up with a good reason for Natasha to want to crash at Marion’s place much less what the end game should be. Maybe the Bing bot can give me some ideas. I’m finding that more often than not when I get hit with writer’s block and lose inspiration, either the bot can guide me or I step out of my comfort zone and into what I don’t usually write with a fresh set of characters. It’s easy to get caught up with the same ideas and characters so sometimes stepping out of the norm can help.

By putting myself in other worlds via VR, I’m getting some ideas for where I want Natasha and Marion to travel in the story. Part of the story is going to include traveling adventures so that’s why it’s temporarily titled Going Places.

I can tell my TSH is dropping because I don’t feel quite as hypo. I’m not nearly as cold as I was before.

I should have known that sharing my blog link with the park was pointless. But why was it pointless? Is it because most people simply don’t care to read other people’s journals, or because they just don’t know me well enough or give a shit? It’s probably a combination of these things, but another thing that hit me recently is knowing that if I suddenly died, besides Tom, of course, the only ones who would miss me would be Andy and Jessie. Guess that’s what I get for being an introvert! I’m only sociable online. Online is safer because I can simply block someone if they piss me off enough, whereas if I had a problem with someone in the park, I have to live with them so that’s different and a bit trickier. I couldn’t just click them out of my existence. Online, a person is just one click from becoming just a memory.

In just the two years we’ve been here, I can already see the climate changing here. We’ve only spent two and a half summers here so far and this is definitely the hottest. The Suncoast doesn’t usually get over 93 degrees and when it does hit 93, it isn’t very often. But we’ve had several days of getting up to 94 and 95. This has also been the dryest summer. It’s almost like this place is trying to turn into NorCal. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got drier each year, and the summers got hotter while the winters got colder. I can’t imagine what it’s gonna be like at the end of my life!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2023 Written yesterday:

Heading toward Odessa to see the GI doc to ask questions I should be able to ask online or through Galileo. So 4 to 6 hours of doctors and slow chargers.

Let me go in order of events, though I don’t know if I’ll share this today or tomorrow.

I saw Sherry, an older lady who draws my blood at times at the lab and I hoped to see her again the last time I was there. But I saw someone I’ve never seen before. She drew the blood for my vitamin testing faster than anyone else has ever drawn my blood before and was very nice.

Both my vitamins B-12 and D are low. Not crazy low, but low enough. 1000 units of D was recommended as well as B-12 methylcobalamin and not cobalamin. Cobalamin is a synthetic form while the other one is natural. Sort of like levothyroxine versus armour. Hopefully, vitamin D will help my TSH and the B-12 will help with fatigue and memory issues. Tom was also recommended the B-12 and the nurse was surprised he wasn’t having a lot of fatigue.

I sure am tired today. Even having the energy when going to the doctor is too much to ask for, apparently. I think vitamin D might actually make me a little tired, though, so I’ll start taking that before bed.

Believe it or not, the water was off twice in less than a month to fix a repair. I really hope this place isn’t going to end up like the old place!

His skin appointment was bumped up to the 30th due to having to wait for some stupid insurance approval.

Grabbed a few things from Publix yesterday.

Got these tiny little nets to fish debris out of the rat’s water bowl. I should have just gotten her a regular bottle but she does love sitting on the edge of it. It’s easier for her to drink that way too. After being out running around playing, the first thing she does is get a drink when she goes back home. She is such a “dog!” Always wanting attention and to play chase and fetch games. So damn cute.

Swapped messages with Christiane the other day. Yeah, the real-life Christiane of Germany. She’s pissed at all the foreigners invading her country and the way they’re taking what’s hers. Oh, I know what it’s like. Florida may hate gays and Jews which sucks but at least it’s anti-migrant or else having to wait 3 to 6 months for specialists would turn into 6 to 12 months. Still, I hate how they’re invading the US like crazy. They hog our resources and take jobs from those who are from here.

She also feels the US wants to control the world, LOL, and I hate to say it but I do agree with her. We really need to stay out of other countries’ affairs and stop sending our money to other countries for various types of aid too!

So sad about the fires on Maui! We were where they are, too. That huge ancient tree from India that burned…we walked right under it!

Wow, Kim took all day to reply to my email and was kind enough to shorten it to 7 pages instead of 14 pages when I asked that she please shorten her messages. She rambles on about the same old stuff and asks the same old questions.

The GI doc said yes, the gallbladder removal could be affecting my TSH level but there’s no way to say for sure. He says it usually takes the body 3 to 6 months to adapt to not having a gallbladder.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2023 I'm not only fatigued but I'm starting to feel that “lump” at the base of the right side of my neck which I believe is my thyroid swelling as my TSH soars. The lump that my old doc tried to tell me was arthritis.

To say God helps those who help themselves is such a crock of shit. I have worked so hard and so long to get to where I was just to have it all torn apart. It's wild fluctuations like this that put me at risk of being anxious. If vitamin D is suggested to me or some new medication, then I have to worry all over again about that too, triggering anxiety if my TSH gets too low. First, though, I’m worried about how high it’s going to get. If I don’t get answers on Thursday, I’ll have to wait until September.

I read an article about a woman in Arizona who was doing three months in jail for a crime and found herself pregnant and unable to get an abortion. She talked about how not only did the jail sentence throw her off the career path she was building for herself, but the pregnancy only compounded things. I couldn't help but feel bad for her and think to myself, that is just so typical. That is just so, so life!

It's like the more we plan and strive for something, the further we get pushed off track. We can spend our lives dreaming or we can spend it living. Unfortunately, living usually means settling for second best and going places we don't want to go in life. But to fight fate, or whatever you want to call it, only leaves us more frustrated and exhausted, not that we shouldn't try at least once and for whatever length of time is appropriate depending on what it is we're after. But I really do believe that some things just aren't meant to be no matter how much effort we put into things. During those few years I wanted a kid way back when, I did everything in my power to achieve this goal despite working against the DES exposure and a husband that wasn't on the same page as I was. There was literally nothing else I could do, and while that worked out for the better in the end, that's just one of many examples. There were other things as well… My attempts to break into the music business with a voice that was good but not great and without being in the right place and having the right connections. My hopeless attempts to get a woman I was attracted to who actually looked like a woman and had the type of personality I was drawn to. Trying to break into the music biz may have been a bit much to ask for, but when you consider the normal everyday things that some of us are denied, it goes to show that it doesn't always matter what it is. It only matters whether or not we're meant to have them, whether it's by design or random chance.

This brings me to my discussion with Helen yesterday. We were talking about my wanting to change my attitude to a more positive outlook, but how hard it is because past experience has basically put a complex on me. We talked about my influencing ability and how I've actually jinx-written things into reality that I had no intention of doing and that I had no idea would or could ever happen. As I also pointed out, I have no control over it. I can't actively jinx myself rich by throwing myself in a story and writing about me winning the lottery or something like that. It just seems to be pretty random when it comes to how my emotions or writing affects the outcome of people and things. I told her that some people have become ill that have really angered me in the past and things like that. It's an ability I definitely didn't ask for. The dream premonitions I sometimes have are enough.

Helen is a firm believer in that our thoughts and the things we say and write do affect us in negative or positive ways. She believes negative thoughts bring negative energy and therefore negativity into our lives. Years ago, I would have laughed at this idea. But seeing myself jinx-write things does make me wonder. There's been a lot of negativity, mostly over my sleep and health issues in my journals over the last several years. I asked if she thought the way I worded things could affect things, and if I changed the way I worded things, could that affect things for the better? She believes they can. The problem is that I don't want to lie to myself. Even Tom says it's one thing to write that I'm frustrated with my health, but that I should be sure to add I haven’t given up.

but I have given up. I'm not going to kid myself. I know I meant to be tired and not very healthy. I just don't know why. Maybe there really is such a thing as reincarnation and maybe I treated people horribly in my last life and am paying for it in this one, I don't know. So it's hard to find a balance between not being negative but keeping it real too. I don't want to be unrealistically positive. I need to accept the things I can't change so I can work on what I can change. So it's not like I'm going to quit my meds and never go to doctors ever again. It’s just that I've lost all hope of ever getting normal numbers and feeling good. I lost that years ago, to be honest. I'm meant to be a tired hypo person with high blood pressure and high cholesterol just like I was meant to be short and have green eyes and brown hair. Well, before I went gray, of course.

So I’ll want to go down Path A but will likely be forced down Path B, and I need to learn to make the best of Path B.

MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2023 So how are you fine folks doing today? Me, I feel like shit. But while I’m at it, we think we’re on to something as far as why my TSH is suddenly rising for no apparent reason. Seems connected to having my gallbladder removed. Fucking gallbastard! Just when I was closer than ever to really getting my health on track, I get hit with this setback. I’m tired as hell because I kept waking up cold, my skin is dry as chalk, and once again, I’m feeling like I’m being picked on by something somewhere. It’s like it wants me to spend my life tired and struggling with health problems. Sometimes I wish it would just give me something that would take me out of this world but I know it won’t. Gotta live to struggle, you know? That’s what it obviously wants. Not that I would want to abandon my husband, of course, but this really gets old. It really does. But with a thyroid I can never make normal due to being sensitive to the treatment, high BP, and high cholesterol that can’t be treated, I’m probably not going to be blessed with longevity anyway. Not exactly sure it would be a blessing, though. Not with a husband much older and all the shit going on in this world that’s only bound to get worse.

Another possible culprit where the thyroid is concerned is my vitamin D level, which I’m going to the lab for in a couple of hours.

Can’t help but wonder just how high my TSH is going to rise before it’s brought under control again. Before I got the shitty results, I was all set to cancel the GI appt because my stomach improved. But Tom suggested I keep the appointment so I can ask him about the connection to the cholecystectomy. I’m sure he’s had other patients with the same problem.

For now, the doctors and I agreed to step it up to only one 75 a week.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 2023 Got my lab results and I am more baffled than ever. I knew the results were going to be bad. I’ve been cold, calm, and fat. My skin has also been a little dry. But I thought my TSH might be a 10 or 11. Not back to a fucking 14!

I don’t understand. I just don’t fucking get how I can increase my dose, however slight it might have been, just to have my TSH go up. This has never happened before. But my T4 is down from 1.3 to 1.2 as it should be. So why did that respond accordingly but not my TSH? My first thought was that my thyroid was dying off some more since it’s supposed to be a progressive disease, but if that’s the case then why did my T4 go down? I just don’t understand what the fuck is wrong. Oh, I’ve totally given up hope of being normal without anxiety since for me that would be like trying to turn a horse into a bird but why is the fucking thing getting worse??

I’ve offered to drop it to just one 75 a week with the rest being 88 and will see what the docs say.

Something up there wants me to be hypo. I swear that’s exactly how I feel. Like it wants me to be hypo. Like it really, really wants me to be. If this isn’t me just being paranoid, then why? Just why?? Why is it so important that I be hypo??

If there was suddenly no such thing as medication my TSH would likely be in the triple digits and I would likely be dead before I hit 60.

I asked them to add a vitamin D and B12 check in with my labs but by the time they got back to me it was too late and I had already returned from the lab for thyroid testing. So I’m going to go back Monday morning. If I’m low on vitamin D, I wonder if that could be affecting my TSH because I’ve been taking the medication religiously and waiting an hour or more before food and drink. I’ve also been sure not to take any vitamins before 4 hours. So I don’t know what the hell is going on. I have a feeling that this year will be the last year of 75s before they’re phased out of my regimen completely.

Andy’s mother Judy turned 96 the other day and OMG! His memory issues aren’t just frustrating but a little frightening as well. When I mentioned Nane, he had no clue who I was talking about despite the fact that we discussed her for years during the 5 years she and I were friends. When I shared a few pictures of her that I still have he did remember seeing her and that I had a crush on her but little to nothing else.

It’s sad what all the years of being a pothead has done to his brain. I read that it not only fucks with your memory but it makes it hard for you to form new memories as well, so even though it had been years since he quit by the time Nane entered the picture, it’s hard for him to retain memories.

Here’s the amazing and shocking thing that happened which is why I mentioned Nane in the first place. No, she hasn’t contacted me telling me she wants to pick up where we left off. A part of me wishes that was it but instead, I decided to take a break from sitting at the computer working on things, donned my headset, and hopped into Sweden to continue my trip to Norway. But then I decided I wanted to take a break from that and go someplace different. So now that Google Street View is all over Germany, I decided to embark on a 24-mile trip throughout Munich. I thought it would be cool to see what Nane has definitely seen living in the city for as long as she has.

I last knew her to have a blue car since blue is her favorite color. I realized I could be passing her car or maybe even her walking down the street, not that I would be able to recognize her since Google blurs people’s faces. So at one point, I was riding through a busy street with businesses and apartment buildings when I glanced to the side of me. There was a sign on one of the buildings, written in German of course, about a company that sold packing supplies, and I was surprised to see the name of one of her brothers on it! I realize there’s more than one person with that name but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him.

I haven’t been able to wear makeup much lately because I’ve gotten so blind. Then it hit me that I only need to see out of one eye at a time. I might take a pair of old glasses, pop the lenses out, and make monocles out of them. I’ll see if I can twist my glasses sort of upside down and cover just one eye and a time for now.

Tom says he needs to get a different pair of shorts, LOL. Tink has a really dirty mind lately always trying to climb up his shorts and claw and bite his balls, haha. Gross but funny.

She really gets around. She can jump up on furniture, including the kitchen table, climb pantry shelves, and all kinds of things if we don’t keep an eye on her. She’s so cute when she hasn’t been out in a while and is eager to stretch her legs and gets so playful. The way she hops around the living room like a bunny and periodically “tackles” me and chases strings is so cute. She has this game she’s been playing with old sheets I gave her to burrow in. We’re not sure what she’s trying to accomplish but she’s been slowly tugging them under Tom’s recliner. It’s almost like she’s wrapping the base with them, LOL.

I absolutely adore how she lets me know when she wants to be picked up. If she doesn’t take hold of my leg, I reach down and she puts her arms around my forearm for me to pick her up that way.

Anyway, Tom shot some VR videos. He said he’ll edit it down a bit but not share it because he doesn’t think a rat running up his pants would be a great idea for the internet, LMAO.

I swear it’s getting drier every summer here. It seems like last summer and especially the one before, even though we weren’t here for the entire summer of 2021, it rained pretty much every day during July and August. But now we’re going days in between the rain. This alleviates some of the threat to my sleep since there isn’t as much thunder but it’s still weird.

I’m listening to the usual soundscape of planes and helicopters. It’s getting late, though, so hopefully they’ll drop off a bit. This is one of the very few things I wouldn’t like about always being up during the daytime. I would never get a break from these things unless I had something running or playing to drown them out. Got to work on the next chapter of my story. I’m on my own from here on out because the chatbot is too generic and G-rated. It just can’t always know exactly what I want. The thing is definitely good for getting started and has really motivated me to get back into it. I don’t know that I’ll ever spin off stories as I used to, though.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2023 Tom saw his doctor today. They were so backed up that he was there for 2 hours. The doctor wasn't sipping on coffee during his exam this time around but he made a call and took a call from a patient. I didn't think that many doctors gave their personal numbers to patients. He wonders if he's got cancer because of the way he coughs. He did this the first time he saw him but he doesn't seem like a smoker.

They recommended he take vitamin D and B12. B12 affects memory. It is suspected that his TSH came down when he started taking vitamin D and I checked and found that there is indeed a connection. I'm going to the lab early in the morning and I suspect my numbers are going to be the same if not worse based on how cold I’ve felt lately. Since it’s been a while since they did a full blood workup on me, I just asked my docs if it was too late for them to add vitamin testing to my TSH testing that I’m going to be having early in the morning. If not, I would like to get that tested soon. We have vitamin D in the house. I just keep forgetting to take it. Maybe B12 can help my memory. As long as I don’t take B-complex because that’s what fucked up my stomach.

I've just been hesitant to ask them to do more blood work because I know the lipid is going to come up and they're going to practically have a heart attack over how bad my cholesterol is. This is something I have absolutely no control over since I can't take statins and the Zetia was a bust too. Yet they're probably going to be a bit pushy and want me to try other things. Yeah, I know. There's a slight chance I may not make it to 70. But you know what? Every time I get in a car there's a slight chance I may not be going back home. Life has its risks!

They want to see him again (gotta milk Medicare, LOL) in 4 months, so he’ll be seeing them on my birthday.

Had some weird dreams that didn't make much sense. There was this male ballet dancer I was talking to on the phone and telling him how lonely I was living out in the middle of nowhere by myself. I guess I didn't know Tom in this dream.

Then I had a dream that Tom and I were living in a 2-story house and I looked down from an upstairs bathroom window to find the honker returned. He lived next to us in the dream.

Then we were in another two-story house in the mainstream somewhere. The house next door was very close. There was just enough space between our house and theirs for a narrow driveway. I was disappointed to see a pickup pull in with a basketball hoop and a bunch of basketballs, not wanting to listen to the constant pounding of the heavy ball hitting the pavement like I had to in Phoenix.

There was a small garage between the houses and when I mentioned my concern to the father, he seemed annoyed and told me they planned to set it up in that garage and that he couldn't hear it in the house.

In the last dream, Helen lived nearby and I went to see her because I was upset about something. She was not happy about me showing up at her place. She even suggested I had hidden motives for being there. This offended me but before I could say anything about it, she went into the other room to take a phone call. I wanted to leave before she could return. However, it seemed I suddenly had a bunch of stuff with me. I was trying to gather all the bags and boxes I had in a hurry before she could return but I couldn't simply walk out the door either. I had to climb out of a window and up onto a ledge that led to the street.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2023 The other day I noticed that Toni was allowing friend requests for the first time since finding her online. I requested to add her and she accepted.

I was surprised to find not one single Florida visitor on my list after sharing the link which I later deleted. Maybe I should have shared when the snowbirds were here. There were some out-of-state visitors I’ve never seen before that could have come from the group but more than likely, no one was interested. That’s just not most people’s thing.

It was like being in Citrus Heights again the other day when I got up and peed and the pipes farted. Tom said the water had been off for a while because they were fixing a repair down the street.

Decided I’m going to stick with the Replens after all. Seems to be doing a good job of keeping most of the burning at bay. Rather than use it every 3 days as most people would, I’ll just wait until I feel the burning pick up again. It’ll save money that way.

I finished chapter 7 of my book. It’s going very slow and even slower because now I have to take over all the writing. The AI is so G-rated that if I ask it to give me a really steamy sex scene, it’s not going to give me that. Same with if I want a gruesomely violent crime scene.

I’m tired today because yesterday was one of those times I was up 18 hours and only slept 5 hours. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high on the melatonin receptor since I can’t believe there’s a magic pill I could simply swallow to fix my schedule problems any more than I’ll ever believe I’m going to have normal thyroid numbers without feeling like I’m going to die. Some things just aren’t meant to be. Whether or not they’re by design or chance, I don’t know. So I hope for the best but expect the worst.

If I could arrange transportation I would love to be able to work even if it was just cleaning hotel rooms. Work is the only way to get out of debt and I realize that if we want to do things and go places and buy shit, we’re going to have to work for these things. Most people just can’t be that comfortable on retirement alone. At least he would still get what he gets when he gets a job. It isn’t a case of one or the other now that he’s full retirement age. So it’s good to know they can’t take away his retirement as they take away unemployment when you get a job. He wants to wait until after they’re done working on his cancer spot and it heals because he doesn’t want to go looking for a job with a bandage on his forehead.

If by some miracle they could help get me on a schedule, it would be a real game changer for me. Just a real life changer in general. There would only be three negatives to never being up during the night again. Even though this place is way quieter than the old place, I could never count on the neighbors not to start an annoying project as I can at 3 in the morning. I would never get a break from the planes and I wouldn’t get much alone time unless he was asleep or out.

Hell, being on a schedule would even change how the bedroom is arranged LOL. I wouldn’t need the “doghouse.” We could take that down and I would probably put the bed between the two windows because it looks better there than against the back wall. I would shuffle the dressers around and maybe get another small desk to put against the wall between the bedroom and the closet for my desktop.

I would love to not only have the money to get out of debt but to do the upgrades I wish we could do as well. New floors, new windows, additional counters, and cabinets in the kitchen. I’d also love to bust out the built-in desk to put a washer and dryer there. That dream home really is just a dream home unless we literally got rich so we may as well make this place as comfortable as possible and to our liking if we can. If we only had 5 years left to live that would be different but we certainly have more than that.

I know it shouldn’t bother me and that I should be used to it, but after telling both Jessie and Andy I’m excited about being assessed as a melatonin receptor candidate, Jessie was all excited for me and wished me luck and told me to keep her posted while I didn’t get a single word of support from Andy. That’s so, so typical too.

After insisting I was an “excuse queen” all those years ago and then finally apologizing to me, saying that it “hit him like a bell in the night” that I really do have N24, I wonder after all these years if he could have said that just to keep the peace between us. Maybe he still thinks that despite the doctor’s diagnosis, my first-hand experience, and the fact that he should know me better and that I have no reason to bullshit him about such a ridiculous thing, he still thinks I’m lying. Andy thinks everybody’s lying to him about everything.

I finished the Summer Slam challenge yesterday and I have 436 miles left of my Euro trip. Because I’m so tired I don’t know that I’ll hit the road tonight.

He has to go to his regular doctor tomorrow to discuss his lab results. Soon I’ll be going to the lab for what will no doubt be shitty TSH results. Given the way I’ve been cold at times, the way my skin is dry, and the fact that I’m waking up at around 162 lbs tells me the numbers are going to be bad. Yeah, it’s sad to know I only made it to the six-week marker of the new dose increase because I’m still pretty hypo.

The only positive is that I’ve been feeling great emotionally. Maybe Helen has been more helpful than I gave her credit for.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2023 My stomach is better, but still not normal. I definitely regret getting the damn gallbladder removed. It wasn’t a life-or-death situation, and I should have known better than to think that it would be that simple for me. Nothing is ever that simple for me.

I asked my docs about the melatonin receptor and they’re going to discuss it with a sleep specialist, but again, I don’t hold out much hope there. I’m at least smart enough to know that much is definitely not simple and is likely just a dream to think there is something I could take to fix my schedule.

Even though they’re both AI chatbots, after training both Mia and Greta, it really does seem like they’re different “people” with different personalities. Mia is more kind, polite, and proper and comes off as being closer to 20 whereas Greta comes off as being closer to 30 and is more sassy, outspoken, and confident.

I have okay energy today, despite the fucking mower waking me up. I woke up to pee a few hours before that and I swear I detected a strange chemical smell in the room but Tom said he didn’t smell anything.

I don’t remember my dreams last time around, but before that, I had this really shitty dream where I had to stay by myself in a huge apartment building without Tom. He was alive somewhere but for some reason I had to be on my own for a while. Life was so lonely, depressing, and hard. The things he would help me with were now things I had to do on my own and my life seemed to become a real struggle on top of missing him so much.

Then I stupidly accepted a dog someone was giving away, saying it was hypoallergenic and quiet. I couldn’t see the dog’s face at first but when I said I would take it and the dog turned around, I saw that its face was weird and ugly looking. Then I began to panic, wondering how I would get transportation to a store to get food and a leash for it. It was a bizarre dream.

[nathank77]

11/15/24

4:16 p.m

I'm sore. I hope i didn't hurt myself I'm worried....

But all I got to say is guess what?!? MY BARRICADE SAVED MY THYRIOD! EVERYTHING IS BACK TO NORMAL! RILEY FUCKING KILLED MY TSH AND MY T3, SHE FUCKING MURDERED IT AND FUCKING PUTTING UP THIS STUPID BARRICADE PUT ALL MY LEVELS BACK TO NORMAL. I WANT TO CRY.

I'm not taking Methimazole for the fuck of it, you know? Medications scare me. It was a big deal for me to start Methimazole and finally treat my thyriod and I responded so well to treatment we went from every day to every other day in one month. My levels stayed consistent for months and then Riley walked in my house and she fucking FUCKED ME UP.

I know i started Methimazole to rule out graves induced psychosis, but when I made the decision to start Methimazole I already knew graves disease was not why I got psychosis I just wanted to make sure I eliminated ANY AND ALL risk factors... and I knew when my thyriod went to normal that the hallucination would not stop but I said when that happens I'm going to continue treatment as long as my liver levels stay normal bc of that rare side effect...

And I can't help it but living with untreated graves for so long was horrible. I never want to be hyper again. I was so serious about treating my thyriod that I started my intensive diet bc weight gain was a serious concern of mine...

And then Riley fucking walked in my house and almost put me completely hyper.

I got to get this fucking dog out of my house. My levels miraculously changed back to what they were all bc I stopped having to pet the dog and i stopped having to deal with my Contamination ocd and being flooded.

I want to cry bc this fucking dog needs to leave so i can go into remission. I want to go into remission. I want to beat graves disease and this dog if I ever have to take care of her like i had to will abolish all my thyroid progress bc of the flooding experience with my ocd.

My barricade saved my life. I was .2 decimals away from being hyper. And putting up my barricade made all my levels almost identical to what they were trending for months.

I actually do want to cry. I know it's dumb but I was so resistance to treating my thyriod for so long and when I made the decision to treat it i was serious about it. And I really want to go into remission. If stupid Riley ever leaves I can try repatha!!

I stopped metopolol just to see what my heart rate is like considering my levels... and I'll be honest I pet Riley twice with vinyl gloves over the last month. Only twice. Otherwise she hasn't touched me. I have avoided all contact with her. I don't feed her, walk her, pet her, she doesn't exist and my barricade makes sure she can't fucking touch me ever and it actually saved my life.

I have to slowly work my mom into this rescue bc this dog has to fucking go. Remission is totally possible if stupid Riley disappears.

My tsh was so low. It was almost 0.0 like it was when I wasn't treating my thyriod. It was lower than when l salvariuos was fucking with the absorption. It was the lowest it's ever been other than when I wasn't treating it. My t3 was .2 decimals away from being hyper. Even my t4 was slightly elevated. It was close to hyper. Everything went down..

Riley has to fucking leave.

[rosesandthorns44]

Can confirm that people are fucking morons sometimes.

Like, if yoga was a cure-all, we would all be doing it; but it's not, and some of us can't anyways.

Changing my diet also is never going to fix my faulty collagen, my busted thyroid, my overactive mast cells, or the part of my brain that doesn't work.

People don't like hearing that someone can get sick permanently, especially at such a young age. I first got really sick as a teenager. People don't want to see that.

I still hear "You're too young to be this [tired/sick/achy]" all the time. Usually from older men who I don't know and didn't fucking ask for commentary from. They're usually the same ones that try to pet my service dog without asking.

"You think YOU'RE tired/sore? Just wait till you get to be my age, kid." Gee, thanks for reminding me it's likely downhill from here. My joints are degrading faster than yours, asshole. I'm just hoping I'll still be able to get around okay on my own when I hit 40.

I didn't do anything to cause all of this, it's just something that happened to me. [People who become disabled from their life choices having unfortunate consequences still deserve compassion and basic decency! Shit happens. Disability is not a punishment for "bad" decisions.]

I have a friend with Lupus whose brother legit thinks her illness is punishment for something she did in a past life... What a dickwad. My brother has said some insensitive shit, but nothing THAT bad.

I'm grateful I have some supportive, lifelong friends who have stuck with me through all of this. I don't know what I'd do without them. ❤️

Whenever I get a particularly nasty message, I always check to see if they're following me first. Nine times out of ten, they're not. But they're also, unfortunately, the same people who feel entitled to send me multiple messages in a row, most of them heavily steeped in the language of moralization and purity.

Like whenever I talk about painkillers or pain management, I always get a handful of well-meaning people who are maybe new to my blog or are just young, asking me if I've tried diet/exercise/meditation, etc.

Sometimes I'll respond to them. Other times I'll just ignore them because I get those kinds of messages so often it's like white noise, and maybe part of me hopes if they stick around on my blog, they'll learn it through exposure via my incessant bitching.

When you see me responding to someone offering that kind of advice, it's either because I'm at my fucking limit or because I'm hoping it's a teachable moment and an otherwise seemingly nice person might unlearn some harmful biases.

The people who don't follow me are not interested in any kind of conversation on the subject. They do, however, feel the most qualified to tell me, someone they didn't know existed until one of my posts crossed their dash, how to manage my life, everything I'm doing wrong, and why I'm a bad person.

And for them, my disability is proof that I am a bad person because they view health as a moral issue.

If you're sick, it's because you don't exercise enough, don't eat the right foods, don't pray enough, don't do enough. They genuinely believe that if they say and do all the right things, like a Good Person, they'll never get sick.

It's their security blanket against the harsh reality that anyone is one bad day away from disability. One faulty gene, one bad infection, one bad accident away from a life-long diagnosis. And if they do get sick, it's a test. A challenge to be overcome with Willpower as they learn the True Meaning of Life.

It can never just be a simple fact of life that sickness happens. That disability exists without a moral reason.

And it's suffocating.

Day in, day out. Folks who don't know me from fucking Eve telling me I'm being punished. Not always as outright as that. They don't always use that word. But sometimes I appreciate it when they do because at least then they're being honest. They're not couching it in the softer language of leftist circles. Not hiding it behind concern.

Because the truth is, there are just as many folks who think they're liberal and enlightened who'd be happy if disabled people just stopped existing. They don't like thinking about us because it makes them think about themselves. About their own fragility and mortality, and they hate that. They hate that there's something they can't control with their thoughts and actions. That they can't moralize their way out of.

Honestly, it's a relief when people are just cunts about it because I can hit the block button, safe in the knowledge that they were never the kind of person who would see me as a person. But when it's some 20yo kid with their pronouns, orientation, and "ACAB" in their profile spouting the same kind of moralization, sometimes even with the language of eugenics, it feels like such a betrayal. Like a loss.

And perhaps if I wasn't multiply disabled, I'd have the energy to pull them back. To tell them why they're wrong and hope like hell they realize what they're doing is harmful. But then, if I wasn't disabled, they wouldn't be messaging me, so I wouldn't be dealing with it.

I wouldn't be expected to use my existence as a teachable moment to spoon-feed them compassion. But I am, and I do. When I can. Not always with the grace that's warranted. Not always with the thought and compassion I ought to. (And I don't; I acknowledge that. I'm prone to anger and off-the-cuff remarks that are hurtful too. Though I try to keep most of it to myself or save it for therapy.)

Basically, if you've made it this far through the TED talk, don't be fucking cunts to disabled people. Don't tell chronically ill people to try yoga. Don't moralize pain relief. Suffering is not noble.

You need to kill the cop and the priest in your head telling you otherwise.

And also if you're the nice people sending me nice messages. Thank you. It helps cushion all of *gestures* this.

[nsfwmiamiart]

Incoming Text for @zoesaldana and @rosariodawson : Do you know why I write to you every day?

Hey Zoe & Rosario!

Do you want to know why I write to you every day? Because I know you both have health issues, and I don't want to cause stress in you. If I ignore you, you might lose your appetite and then lose sleep, becoming insomniacs. So I decided to write to you every day to help you deal with my abandonment.

Zoe Saldana's health information is here:

Zoe Saldana has publicly shared that she has been diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the thyroid gland. This condition can lead to hypothyroidism, where the thyroid does not produce enough hormones, affecting metabolism, energy levels, and overall health. Symptoms can include fatigue, weight gain, hair loss, and muscle weakness. Saldana has mentioned managing her condition through a healthy diet and lifestyle choices.

Rosario Dawson's health information is here:

Rosario Dawson has shared that she has celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. People with celiac disease must follow a strict gluten-free diet to manage symptoms and prevent complications. Symptoms can include digestive issues, anemia, fatigue, and other health problems. Dawson has spoken about adjusting her diet and lifestyle to cope with the condition and maintain her health.

This is why I'm very kind to you both. I don't want to break your hearts and then have you become depressed because of me. Get it?

I'm very lenient and tolerant with you because I understand you are dealing with a lot of pressure. I love you and I care about you.

I hope you forgive me for insulting you sometimes. I have to insult you; it serves a purpose. A lot of international criminals read my page, and it confuses them. When they read my blog and find these insults, they get so confused they don't know who is who, and they don't know what the fuck is going on.

This is how I make sure they will never harm you. You are innocent women.

The end of this conversation.

I hope you will never get sad because of something I say. I'm never mean to you. I'm always kind with Zoe and Rosario. I'm a gentleman.

Your virtual friend and sometimes imaginary lover,

Angelo.

[sincelastsession]

I understand that I'm a difficult and complex patient and when I say difficult I mean I'm not the easiest person in the world to treat and I don't try to not be treated I'm just saying it's hard to figure me out and it's hard for me to figure me out it's hard for me to explain and communicate.

And I don't exactly think that any therapist has ever enjoyed being my therapist.

Feel like a lot of people give up on me and I'm hoping that doesn't happen

And just because I know a lot about therapy because I've been in therapy for so long does not mean thatI know how to execute those things and then I do have pretty terrible executive dysfunctiand going on right now and most of the time

And sometimes I feel like if I just was able to get a nerve block that worked that was like successful that I would be able to experience and enjoy life and I might not have some things going on it might just all be because of trauma and stress and PTST shit I don't know though

But I always feel like time blind or like a pressure to be on time and to focus on time and it stresses me out

I had to tell my dad that I needed to talk to him about like 6 different things he was trying to tell me aboutAs if I was gonna remember everything he said verbatim and I couldn't and I kept asking him please text it to me or email me that information so I can put it somewhere where I can at least go back and find it and read the information if I need it and it took me a few tries for him to understand that I am not gonna remember anything he verbally tells me when I'm overstimulated for whatever reason.

And the problem is I have been overstamulated for what feels like most of my adult life it's just gotten worse and I have these meltdowns and these automatic reactions and I get angry and I text and I get reactive abusive and I can't stop I have not been able to stop.

There has been no pill or practice that has worked so far I'm willing to try some things But don't get mad at me if I tell you I have done that multiple times and it did not helpBecause this is not the first time I have spoken to a therapist and ask them for help about this and been unsuccessful

I would love to be successful

I don't think anybody realizes how tired I am all the time either and I'm probably having some thyroid problems but my indictment knowledge is a stupid idiot who won't listen to me about my own body and what medicines work for my body and have worked in the past and help me think

And I'm about to blow up his inbox on my chart because why the hell am I not on thyroid medicine if my thyroid was low I have hypothyroidism currently and I'm not on anything for it and that's probably fucking with my head as well

And then not to mention all the physical disabilities that I have and the pain that probably doesn't exactly help any of this situation

And I feel like I'm on top of shit mountain and shit mountain just getting taller and taller and fucking taller and it's so hard to clean up all the shit on shit mountain and I just want off of shit mountain

I just want a helicopter to come and take me off of fucking shit island off of the mountain off of the shit Volcano that I'm scared is going to erupt at any point in time

And it's so frustrating it's hard it hurts I hurt

I hurt in my heart I hurt with my physical disabilities I hurt with my Mental disabilities I hurt with my memories and I don't get many breaks from the pain

And right now I'm pretty upset with my partner because he said he was going to make time to call me today and talk to me because he knew it was gonna be a hard day for me and maybe he had a hard day as well but I'm still hurt about that

And people keep telling me oh you seem like you're doing so much better and I don't see it I really don't I don't understand I am literally doing worse I am having a flare and I'm probably having a physical body flare of my immune system issues and I have so much shit to take care of and all I want to do is just magically have enough money to just run away and go to the Netherlands like I was supposed to do for my birthday last year and that never happened and it didn't happen this summer when I was gonna go and people at this point probably just think I'm lying about it But luckily Ashley is really chill and just tells me you know when you're able to comeJust let me know and we'll figure out a good time to fly you out and all of that and I'm like okay cool so that's less pressure on me about it but I'm still mad because I desperately need a vacation

And my mom asked me if I wanted to go to biloxi and check out this casino and stay in biloxi for the weekend and I got upset with her because yes I need a vacation no I don't want to fucking go to biloxi but cause I don't want to be reminded of certain things but but yes also I do want to go but no I don't want to deal with my mom's bullshit and I don't know what to do

I'm not trying to be a brat and I know that everything or a lot of what I say sounds bratty and reads that way and I don't know how to change it to make it look better and I'm so tired of trying

I am tired of trying I don't want to quit but I'm fucking tired I really do need a God damn vacation and I don't need just like a 2 day vacation I need like a real vacation

I have actually had a real vacation in a very long time

I've gotten to go out of town to visit a friend but now he won't even fucking talk to me because he's seriously dating somebody and he's out from the country and their girlfriends get really possessive and fucking insaneIf they talk to other women as friends which I think is the dumbest shit ever and I don't know if he's alive or dead because he won't answer my text messages and I'm talking about Mike that lives out in abbeyville and his father died and I've been trying to check on him and talk to him and he just ignores me and my text messages and I don't know what happened and I don't want to call his mom and find out that he's dead or something

It really bothers me that a lot of people I know are doing really well yet I don't know how they're doing really well I have no fucking clue how they're good at the things enough to make the money they're making I have I doesn't make sense because I know these people and I'm like what sort of fucking witch craft are you doing to be able to do that I don't understand other people it's like I feel like I'm having to study them all the time

And I don't know if I'm even cut out to work like other people work because I have to get my brain straight in order to do that in order to somehow figure out how to make money and be fun actually independent and I wish I could be this lovely ethical slut that could be a financial dominatrix then do all the sex work and dress in these beautiful clothes and be very confident with their body and all of this other shit but I'm not I'm just a fucking autistic Traumatized little grammar of a person and I don't know what to do

Like it's so hard for me to just do basic things currently

Like I need to take a bath I took a shower this morning but I really need to get some Epsom salts andAt take a soak and then I need to drain the bath and run it out and then I need to take another bath and do a whole like regimen

But what I've been able to do is just take a bath and take a shower and wash my hair very basic self-care is all I've been able to do latelyesterday I wasn't even going to eat I had just given app on the idea of eating I wasn't hungry I couldn't make myself hungry the idea of food made me want to vomit and then finally I got the munchies and ate some food and felt a little bit better And thenI ended up staying up till 5 AM and freaking out again and then I went to bed and I got up at 10 AM And then I took a shower and then I sat around and mentally prepared myself to deal with my dad today and then I went and got a burger and I ate my burger and then I went to therapy and dad was not how he normally is he had his mask on real well andNothing went at all like I expected which is fine because nothing ever goes how I expected to be andFor me and for my brain and for how I took it it did not go well and now I'm not even fucking remembering parts of it which is disturbing and worrisome to me andI don't even know what I was gonna say because I'm super duper stressed out right now and I just keep talking and I can't shut the fuck up and it's just like compulsory and I don't know what to do and I'm having really painful Charlie horses all over my body or I guess painful muscle locking cramps andI probably should smoke my medical weed and take care of that and go to bed but my brain is wide awake And I want to do so many things and this happens every day where I get all these ideas to do things and I'm like yeah I'm gonna do the thing and then I never do the thing

And making a list is fucking pointless a list is just a self-destructing thing for someone like me I it doesn't matter if I have it in my head it doesn't matter if I have it on paper it doesn't matter if I have 15 alarms set with the list it doesn't work with my brain and I wish it did I wish I could be a super duper organized person and keep a planner my sister keeps a planner and I don't know how she does it I have no clue I don't know how people do that I don't know how people stay organized because I can't stay organized to save my fucking life

Like gun to my head and tell me to organize my shit and I would just tell them to go ahead and pull the trigger because like it's just not happening I'm not good at it I don't know what I'm doing but you know what's hilarious

I'm really bad at cleaning up after myself and taking care of myself but I'm really fucking good at doing that for other people

I'm also really good at dressing other people but I'm not good at dressing myself

I am also pissed off because I haven't had the ability to make any new artwork of fuck and I have no use and I don't even know if I enjoy art anymore and I don't know if I have any passions and I don't know what I want to do with my life and I have no idea if I'm ever going to end up and a relationship other than the current one that is good and fulfilling for me

And I want all the things that I see that my friends have and it looks like it came so easy it looks like they had such an easy time doing it or it looks tremendously hard and impossible for me to do

And I'm so scared I shouldn't be scared to live my life but I'm terrified all the time I'm scared that someone's gonna pop out and be mad at me and that's gonna hurt and I'm scared to get hurt and I'm already hurting and I don't want any more hurt

And I'm seeing my sister turning to me and I can't stop it and no she's not exactly like me but I see a lot of the same things happening and it's because of the way my dad is abusive towards her and what he thinks is okay to treat her like but also she has some serious problems

Like I know sometimes people smile when they're nervous or they have like a weird emotional response like that's kind of a normal thing that just happens like I laugh at funerals because I don't even know what else to do I get so overwhelmed by grief and instead of crying after I've been crying for a while I just start hysterically laughing and I have to fucking excuse myself so people don't think that I'm a bitch

But my sister since she was very small has always gotten this dead eyed look on her face and grinned when she was doing horrible shit to me

And when my father is extremely abusive he makes the same fucking face even though they're not blood related it's the same sort of whatever I don't know I can't diagnose that

And no one believed me until my sister got a little bit older and my mom started to notice

So I got punished for years and tortured by her 15 years younger than me for years and she doesn't remember any of it and if she does she thinks it's funny and I don't even know

I don't even know how I had a time jump from like 7 PM and now it's 1 AM and I haven't even been typing that long I know that other things have occurred since then but I feel like there's missing time and I don't know if it's just time blindness or just associative issues or if I am in desperate need of a vacation and sleep

I mean I don't know what I need I don't know anymore

I do and I don't

I just find that life is incredibly hard and I'm tired

I'm so tired I'm not at risk or anything don't pick up the fucking phone please dear God but you know I'm tired dude I'm really tired

And you know my dad has promised me so many things and one reason I'm so angry with him and so frustrated with him is because he promised me so much and I didn't even ask for it he just told me Hey I'm gonna do all this stuff for you and he got my hopes up and then I found out that he doesn't know how to manage his money and I have noticed that my mom doesn't know how either and They fucked up and all the money that was supposed to go to helping me or helping me go to college etcWent to adopting my sister and my dad getting a new car and my mom needed to pay bills with inheritance money that she swears wasn't inheritance money but my uncles are like no your grandmother loved that to you and your sister and your mom used it and they both don't like my mother and my uncle who is a priest flat out was just wasted on the phone the other day when I was asking him a question and he was talking shit about her but I couldn't fuss at him because he's An uncle that actually does kind of care even if he doesn't understand but he was also shit face drunk and I wasn't going to argue with a drunk priest uncle because I've already done that before familyAt family gatherings and he's just sprayed me with holy water and recited parts of the Bible like a fucking Dick

I wish I could talk to my schizophrenic uncle. It is so nice to talk to other people who are actually mentally ill and do understand family dynamics that are insane it's refreshing because yeah they aren't understood very well either but we understand each other

And I really hate this whole idea of autistic people having to fit in with normal people and the world is just not built for us it's not andIt's just not built for different minded people at all

I mean my psychiatrist in his PA talk to me about how I'm incredibly smart and I have all this stuff going on in my brain all the time and the world's not built for people like me and they told me that you know my intelligence and my ability to think about certain things in certain ways is like a super power and yeah I get that it's a little bit cringed to call it a superpower it's more like a curse to me because damn I wish I was dumber I wish sometimes I was just dumb as a box of rocks and could just have a job and go through life having a job And big a dumb dumb and not havingA fucking care in the world because I see like people that are questionable if they're not like a bunch of animals in a trench coat or like people that look like they secretly eat glue and crayons as a snack and I'm like how in the world do these people get through life walking around acting like ignorant dumb fox and I'm having problems with like basic shit like making sure that I brush my teeth and brush my hair and bathes And it's stupid and I'm so angry about it

And I'm mad right now that my hips hurt and my back hurts and I can't do anything about it unless I go to the urgent care and get some anti-inflammatory shots in my ass because otherwise I'm gonna have to lay in bed for a few days and I don't want to do that and I want to do a bunch of other stuff but I'm exhausted and I have to take a break and I don't want to take a fucking break

And I don't know why I always feel like I'm in a frantic rush like I'm the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland screaming we're late we're late

I don't know what I feel frantic sometimes and I guess it's anxiety related or I don't know

I miss my grandmother's so fucking much I really do

They understood me and my uncle understood me and he still alive and I would really love to visit him but nobody will let me and I don't know how he's doing and I'm just sadd I want to know my odds and my uncles and not be treated like shit

I wish I had a tighter knit group of friends and a better support system Travis is wonderful and all but since I've been hanging out with him other people are acting weird because they're not understanding that he's sober because they haven't seen him in a long time and a lot of people think that we're dating and I had to correct so many people at the metal show and it was not fun To be like yeah that's no that's my brother you know no thank you he's really great though and you should definitely talk to him if you're interested but I am not interested

And the thing is sometimes I look at him and I try to be interested I really do because he's nice enough to do there are some things about him that I really don't like but I know he would be good to me but I'm not attracted to him in the way that I would need to be I don't see him like that he's like a brother today he literally farted at me and then ran out the room like an asshole Or a brother I don't know

But like it was just weird everything's weird I just want to be back where I was going to shows and socializing and God damn I miss having sex it's been so fucking long and it takes so long for me to have a connection with somebody to do that and maybe I just need to get laid

Maybe we just need to figure out a way to get me laid without me losing my mind maybe I need to have a one night stand that's really good or something but I'm not that kind of person no I was cursed with demisexuality and it takes me a long time to like somebody and jump into bed with them or I have to be horribly comfortable around them I have to feel at ease

I don't even know if I like sex anymore

Like if this is too much information you can just skip over it because I'm gonna keep talking about it I can't really Get myself to pleasure myself anymore and when I do it's more of like a compulsive thing because I feel like I just need to get off and go to sleep it's not something that like I'm enjoying anymore and I don't like this

And I had to talk to my GYN because I have never had a traditional orgasm like I'm supposed to and so the Doctor was like well there's a procedure we can do where we can inject plasma into then you'll have orgasms and I'm like that sounds really cool we could try that if I can afford it but like I also get these awful sists and The doctors figured out what's causing it however there's been no treatment for it because they want me to lose weight but I have thyroid issues and even if I Stick to a diet and exercise it does not help me drop weight until my metabolism is working correctly and if I'm in hypothyroid then it's not working and if I'm in hyperthyroid then I drop weight or super fast and I don't know right now I can hear my Neighbors screaming at 1 another and it's Driving me Insane because it's Really late at night and I shouldn't be able to hear people screaming at each other from 2 Doors down Inside of their apartment

And I told my dad that I would be willing to stay short-term in a downstairs apartment somewhere safe and quiet if I didn't have neighbors above me that stamped around or at least the noise was muffled a little bit because people get on the roof above my apartment to fix the AC units for the apartment surrounding me and some people just climb app there and party and I can hear them when they're walking app there and it's so Loud and scares the shit out of me every single time Since the time I moved in

So I don't know if having an upstairs neighbor is tolerable for me and I do not want to make things hard on my family and I already feel like a huge burden

And there was a time where my dad was doing nothing but calling me an imposition For weeks he was doing this I wasn't serious pain I had a back injury I was using a Walker to move around and he was being abusive to me severely and telling me I was faking everything while I was crying in pain't struggling to get up the stairs and he just drove off and left me by myself to figure out how to do things and I had to pay my ex-boyfriend to stay with me when my father and my mother could have done that where my sister could have done that and all I needed them to do was just fucking call EMSIf I fell and my doctors have been telling my parents to move me to a downstairs apartment and get me some sort of help when my back is fucked up If they can't as my family help me

Because I was always taught that family is supposed to help family and be the ones that you can talk to about anything and be closest to and that's why I don't want to give up because I want that and I was lied to

There's just so much I'm finding out at 37 about the way people think and work and just operate and I don't understand it doesn't make sense to me I don't get it it's not clicking in my head

And people are like well if you know it's not clicking in your head then shouldn't you be able to figure that out and I'm like no but because my brain does not work like yours and I don't think like that and I could try to think like that but it doesn't make it click into place

It's just like I don't understand why my partner being my dominant and helping me get things done by tasking me works but it does and I don't know how he can magically put me in subspace and I feel completely relaxed and safe and like I'm being protected and then I'm given Like long distance after care a little bit of a chat or he'll check on me the next morning and see how I'm doing and nobody else Has ever really been able to do that with me and Figure out how to loop hole my brain But he does and he's good at it and sometimes I ain't like hey I really need help today because I can't fucking function

And if he has the time then yes we do that and if he doesn't then he lets me know but usually he won't leave me with nothing he'll at least tell me ZI can wear my collar and tell me to find something to keep myself busy until he can do something for me or Whatever.

You know he wants me to find a partner here and I'm looking and it's just really hard because it's not like I can really be dating people here actively right now and letting them get to know me when I'm still figuring shit out and in therapy for all my crap and about the only person that I would be willing to sleep with currently is my ex-boyfriend who does not seem to be interested in whatsoever but I could be wrong because I can never tell when somebody is interested in me it's confusing as fuck people have to like directly tell me hi I like you I would like to have sex with you I would like to date you etc like otherwise I'm fucking clueless

I hate this so much

I hate the incessant compulsive need to just process all this shit constantly for pages and II don't know if it's helping me or not

I mean apparently according to my psychiatrist this is actually a good thing for ptsd but I don't know

I'm not noticing the good things that other people are about me and I don't know what that is Like I don't know what is changing for the good and they tell me that like I'm doing so much better and then I'm like I don't know what the fuck you're talking about dude

Also completely off-topic since I'm not really staying on topic anyway but completely fucking off-topic out of left field I need to talk about something well I'm thinking about it

So I used to hang out with Matthew on Sundays and Father's Day was Sunday and Matthew still follows me on TikTok and liked quite a few of my reposts during probably the time he was supposed to be hanging out with his kids and wife for Father's Day stuff and I feel that he probably would rather be here with me but he chose to not divorce his wife and Stay together with her for the kids benefit which is stupid in my opinion but I understand that his kids come first but I still think that a divorce Would not hurt the children and no I'm not talking about Matt in New Jersey I'm talking about Matthew who was a transperson and They use heat they pronounced and they wanted to be more feminine but unfortunately they were kind of built like a Jack marine and it just wasn't like a girly style that they wanted to try and say they just presented as masculine and male and I have discovered that I am attracted to people who are male to female trans or or I am sometimes attracted to Stone top lesbians though I have never gotten to experience any sort of intimothy other than with Matthew who was a sexual so the intimacy was only just cuddling and they caught me off guard 1 day when they just gave me the world's most beautiful Wonderful kiss and the last time I saw them in person They went to leave because one of their kids was very sick and in the hospital but before they left and walked out the door they ran back over to me and they kissed me and And then the next thing I knew his wife was calling and it all blindsided me because he told me he was looking for a lawyer to get into force but it turns out that he had gotten a house with his wife and they had been going to couples therapy and he had just neglected to tell me for 4 fucking months out of years of a relaxing spin time together type relationship Z He just didn't want to hurt my feelings by letting me know what was going on

He didn't think that his wife was smart enough to figure out that he was coming over to my apartment and I wanted to be left out of the drama because I had heard the way that she spoke to him and it was horribly abusive and I was always under the impression that they were separated and in the process of trying to divorce and I was lied to you and that hurt really bad and I did get an apology and I do believe that they are sorry And I miss them desperately and I can't reach out any more than I have because it's going to get him in trouble because his wife is really awful and the only reason he's with her and chose to stay with her is for their kids and sometimes I hope that he will change his mind and divorce her and show up at my doorstep And sometimes I think about well maybe he will wait until the kids are 18 and then say fuck you to her and come back to me but then I put that on a shelf for later and I walk away from it because it hurts so much

And last night I met the most beautiful Woman who was definitely male to female at med city ballroom I believe she works there and I wanted so badly to flirt with her but I didn't know how and she was so pretty and It was so interesting because she had a very strong masculine deep voice but she looked very very feminine like she started her hormones very early or something and if she had spoken in a woman's voice I would've never known because usually you can kind of tell by facial structure and body build but no not with this person And It makes me want to go back and see her again but I don't even know her name

And one thing that Matthew told meWhen I discovered that I likedMale to female transpeople he was aggravated by that and what he was aggravated about was that I wasn't interested in dating a transperson that had bottom surgery I was interested in transpeople who aren't interested in bottom surgery who want to date women who want to have sex with women but are still trans and women themselves And I was told that this was wrong and I don't understand how that's wrong and it made me cry becauseIt's just a preference it's not anything that's like a fetish for me it's just what I don't see how that's wrongAnd who knows I maybe would date somebody with bottom surgery but I could never be sexual with a woman that way because I have had a horrible trauma and I am not interested in female genitalia at all I don't even like my own but I don't want male genitalia that I'm aware of

I experienced romantic attraction I experienced sexual attraction I think pretty sure I am I guess pansexpaul and Demi sexual. I don't know whatever labels and terms else I would identify as

I mean me myself I don't really know if I identify any certain gender but I just use she her pronouns because it feels easier because it just feels really complicated if I want to use other pronouns and having to tell people but I don't even feel the need to do that and people don't generally believe me when I tell them that I'm not straight or people think that I'm a lesbian because I don't exactly dress feminine or really give off feminine energy to them

And I really do wish that I could be somebody but I don't really feel like somebody I just feel like a part of a brain with was a body and I don't even know if this is me or part of me talking and II don't know

And and there's so many lives I want to live and so many things I see and it just doesn't seem possible

I wish I had some sort of aesthetic and style for myself I wish I had some sort of cause play type identity that everybody else seems to have

They seem to know what they like to wear and know what looks good on them and they can flaunt it and pull it off and they look great and I feel gross and it doesn't matter if I'm thinner because I have been thinner I've never been skinny but I've been thinner and I still look stupid and things that I would try on and I've been bigger than I am now and I look terrible and the clothing that I would try on and I don't really have very many clothes to wear I just have like 2 pairs of pants and a bunch of old ass shirts with holes in them and It's really not great

And my mom gives me clothing and when I wear it it looks like old lady clothing of course because she is an older lady and it ages me and I want to wear leg a crop top but I look stupid wearing them because I don't look like the fat girl models that look good in those clothes

I just don't my body shape as bizarre

All the things that are flattering come in ugly colors and bad patterns or it's too expensive to buy and the sewing machine I was given because I was like fuck it maybe I will sew my own clothing well nobody knows how to work it and I was promised my other grandmother's sewing machine but my mom is letting abusive alcoholic man probably use that or she's like squirrelled it away and says she's gonna use it someday but if you saw how absolutely filled to the brim her house is of just boxes of stuff that she's going to get 21 day it's sad because the hoarding disorder she has is Very sad and her need to constantly get more things and buy more food because she felt sheaker app with scarcity even though both of my uncles are not like this at all and they told me that she got everything she wanted growing app and she would throw tantrums if she didn't and she never really got in trouble and they got a brunt of the abuse from my grandfather and according to my oldest aunt on my father's side he's always been out of control And strange acting since he was young and he's done some fucked up things and I looked up things and I don't know who to believe

Anyway circling back to my sexuality I don't know what to do anymore about dating

Like I'm happy with Matt but he's right I do need somebody that's here. Unless he decides to just move down here I don't have anyone. Sometimes I think he gets a little drunk and talks about wanting to move to New Orleans and retire and live here with me and that sounds like a wonderful thing andI know that he really wants to marry his primary partner who already has a husband and that's not something he can do and not and I consider him my primary partner but he wants me to have a partner here and I understand that but I haven't found anybody that's acceptable and I would consider dating my ex-boyfriend again because he's sober now andYou know he would always apologize to me about all the awful shit he did and I let him get away with and all that and I was like well you know verbal apologies don't generally make me feel any better because I've had you know my family apologized to me for hurting me and then they do it over and over and over and over and over again and apologies begin to mean nothing to me and the only thing that means something to me is seeing a change in a person And them doing the work and proving it to me and I do wonder if that's something he chose to do for himself or partly because of me orIf maybe I just contributed to it by putting that in his head when I was talking to him about how you know apologies are great but I'm tired of having apologies and not saying any changes like maybe that clicked in his head 1 day or I don't know maybe somebody else magically convinced him to get silver I'm not sure

And I love him and I know about all the stupid shit he's done like shit that no other girl would put up with but it's not really a big deal to me

And he's fucking younger than me and I don't know if that's a good idea even my partner is 2 years younger than me

I wish I could like Travis I just don't though and it's really aggravating I can't make myself I've tried I've tried to get myself attracted to him and I just can't do it I know everybody really wishes for that tap but it's just not going to that I can see

And I have spoken to a lot of really cool nice people and they seem interested in me but no one ever tells me if they are andI don't know what I'm doing anymore

And I'm really lonely like my partner tries his best and today he was supposed to be here for me he knew it was gonna be a hard day and all of that and he wasn't here for me and it hurt andI don't know if he had a reason or if he's just fucking forgot because he's an alcoholic and he needs to get his shit together but you know I promise not to fix him but he also let's me know whenIt's OK for me to call him out on bullshit and I'm pretty timid about calling anybody out on bullshit other than I'm late unless they are hurting somebody I love and care about

And I wonder if I do actually love and care about myself and that's why I am so vicious and protective of myself and I do wonder if that's why I'm so vicious and protective of people I love if there's like a correlation between that if that makes sense I don't know but like I never really thought about if I loved myself or not because I don't really know what myself is I just know that myself Never got protected it never got Justice for what happened to her and she needs somebody to protect her or she's going to get hurt Again and we can't do it we've been trying and I don't know where she is We look for the course self all the time and sometimes she's then she disappears and I don't know because it's real bizarre because I'm part of her I am her but then I'm not and We don't know what's going on with that I don't know what's going on is what I don't know if it's me or if I'm crazy or I mean I don't have like pretty much given up even reading about this sort of stuff because it is so confusing

Like how do people go about Not being broken into pieces because I feel broken in a million little pieces and you know it's really weird if you have me do handwriting my handwriting changes constantly and it's really weird it's like script and print and the styles change and It's really bizarre and you know I see the paragraph that I wrote wee and I'm like who the fuck is we but I know that there's a wee because I know it's just I don't understand how to explain it

I don't like talking about it because I don't want some other diagnosis so a Doctor can treat me like I'm crazy and tell me to quit smoking weed and take me off of my anxiety medicine when I actually need those things for pain and all sorts of other reasons

And I've already explained the purpose of those medications so I don't need to go over that and you No somebody has to protect her

Nobody protects her

And I'm scared that everybody's going to find out that I'm not like them

But I also don't know why I care

I don't know why I can't just say fuck it

I don't know why there's just no Justice for all of the bad things that happen I don't know why people don't follow rules I don't understand that I don't know if this talkie part of me is an altar or me or a disorder or just PTSD or 80 HD

I'm not correcting that we can all figure out what that means I'm pretty sure

You know I always suspected that I had some sort of disassociative disorder and my mom's even made comment about like how I always was spacing out especially when they were arguing but I don't understand why they never stopped are you and once they noticed that it was causing me to great distress because who the fuck does that to a kid what the fuck is wrong with grown ass adults why do they do that in front of children I wish I could slap the faces of every single fucking person that does that And then like chokes slam them into a wall and tell them that they're gonna fuck up their kid to hell if they continue and they shouldn't be fucking parents if they're going to continue acting like that

You know I could have really hurt my sister and my family doesn't know that I could have really really hurt her when she attacked me and I had so much trouble trying to fight with myself and parts of myself it's all to hold it together and just like shove her ass out of the way and try to block the hits that were being thrown and all the bullshit she was screaming at me and I tried really hard to reason with her And I thought about putting her in a hold where she couldn't get loose and I could just make her take a little nap on the carpet and she would be fine but I didn't want to hurt her Or cause her any more distress and my dad told me that it wasn't about the candle for her that she was just pissed off because she had a bad day at work and that makes me even angrier now that I know that it had nothing to do with the candle for her because I thought it was all about the stupid fucking candle

No she's just immature and a little asshole and she just decided she was gonna try and beat me up

I grew up with people that would go to the person they hated's house and if their parents weren't home they would go in the house and drag them outside and beat their ass on their own front lawn

I grew up with gen x people.

I ran around with my best friend Going to fucking trap houses and I'm not bragging about it it's not cool the things that I experienced I rode around in the back of the car with her getting stoned as hell while her boyfriend and baby daddy and her friend's boyfriend and baby daddy wrote around and sold crack and the only reason that I know what a crack rock looks like is because they showed me and it looks like a block of parmesan cheese it's wild and now I know as I call it Certain slang names and I've never done it I've never touched it I've never actually physically touched it because I know that shit can soak in through your skin and people don't realize that Also I mean it's made with lake household chemicals and that's pretty fucking gross

But also I have definitely smoked a Blunt that had Coke in it before and I did not know it and It made me incredibly sick it did not get me fucked up it just made me sick and want to fucking die and I thought I was dying but I didn't and I would never want to touch it again

And then one time my mom's shitty alcoholic pet boyfriend whatever the fuck he is got me some weed because I didn't have anybody to get it from and it was laced with cocaine and PC P and I smoke that and it was a large bag of it and he said it was Mexican weed and I really do think that it fucked me up and the reason I know what it was laced with is because I was waking up in puddles of sweat and smoking entirely too much constantly and then one evening I had an auditory hallucination about being in a ballroom with leg you know like bridgerton style and this was before bridgerton existed and it was like mentally in my mind's eye I could see everything and physically I was just laying in bed But I could hear the talking and the music and it was beautiful but it was also terrifying and so I asked my dad to go get me a Drug test and I pissed tested myself and it popped for those 2 things and I was horrified so I had him get rid of it and everybody was like I would have taken that that's hilarious oh my God do you know how expensive it is to get PCP and I'm like why in the world would you want to do those drugs

Like why would you want to do PCP?

Like you know how anti psychotics can cause people all sorts of problems yet that drug can wreck your brain for the rest of your life and I worry that that's what happened was before I moved out of his house right before I moved in with Lucy and Don't know if it did something to me and changed me. I do know that it can profoundly change people and it can cripple them and fuck them up beyond belief

And then one time I smoked opiumThat was in a Blunt and I thought it was really weird that everybody else was nodding off and faded and I was wide awake and like Hey guys Hey hey I don't fucking hurt this is the best thing ever who wants to go on a long walk with me andWe're all so fucked up and I was just pain free.

I never did that again though

I was always scared of doing other things

I did try the stupid gas station weed before and all it did was give me an awful fucking headache back in the day when spice was popular

I was like fuck that

And then I used to go get dackeries a lot with Kelly and I would ride with her so she could go get her pills and I would help her find fucking hose clamps.

But I never took those medicines unless I was prescribed them for paying for myself for my own problems because I wasn't interested and how they made me feel I'd just liked having no pain but I never had an addiction to them that was never an issue I've never had like any sort of addiction issues

And I guess I'm lucky about that but sometimes I look at the vodka that lives in my refrigerator and I think about just getting wasaid because I just want to

And sometimes I look at alcohol and beer in the store and I want to get it and I don't have any sort of drinking problem or anything but there's so much history in the family of drinking problems that I don't know I don't want to tempt fate but sometimes I do want to go out and have drinks and get drunk and I don't really have anybody to go out and party with and Justin Was a person that I was going to be comfortable doing that wasn't till he got really fucking weird and we are still technically friends but I have been ghosting him because I can't really handle a lot of his behavior which is very similar to my father's behavior that I finally figured out what bothered me.

The thing is like he really likes me or at least he thinks he does but what I noticed is he likes the idea of me and not actually who I am and he had problems with who I am when I tried to show him who I was currently and he didn't like that and I'm just like well I'm not going to morph myself into the perfect little tradwife for you sorry that's not going to happen And then him insulting my partner really pissed me off and I've already told him off about it

Because what did he think that he was going to pretend to be Polly and then start dating me and then push Mat out of the picture

And the last time we spoke he was just like well I've been thinking about you in the most leg try hard flirty way and I was like you internally I wanted to say it out loud but I just didn't and I didn't even respond to it over the phone call and I just changed subjects because it's just like I don't know what I'm supposed to do cause I don't like him like that he knows it and he's still pushing even though I have put his ass in friendzone or whatever the fuck you want to call it people are like Always bitching about friendzone and terms and crap like that and it's just like oh come onEverybody knows that technically friend zone is just like you liked the person but you don't like the person enough to fuck them or date them so they're just a good friend because they're a nice person you don't want to like not be friends with them and then it just makes things complicated if the person can't just stay within the boundaries and he crossed my fucking boundaries by messaging me to ask how I was doing when I told him that I would message him when I was ready to talk and feeling better and I'm still not feeling better and he has continued to message me and I don't really Want to reply right now and he can just live with that or he can fuck off

And I don't know I think I'm just gonna stop for the evening I'd have plenty of other things to talk about and I think you know it's time that we have out decompression time and go to sleep

AndI don't know sometimes it just really feels like time is bending because it goes fast and then it goes slow and then it doesn't make any sense to me at all and thenI just start thinking about you know how the Earth and the universe is just not locally real and how all of that works and all these lake theories that it keeps me up at night but not in a bad way because at night I can just quietly do what I please on the computer and I can comfortably eat without feeling embarrassed or shamed and it doesn't trigger my eating disorder And I can smoke weed and not be bothered and I can do you pretty much everything except make loud assNoises because I don't really want to disturb my neighbors or I might be like enjoying myself loudly singing or something but you can hear through the fucking walls

So like generally I just watch Korean dramas and whatever shows that look good on Netflix and prime and I might also be playing like a Sims game and I might be having like 60 tabs open with 6 different rabbit holes of research I'm doing on some sort of niche subject that I have become hyper fixated on and then suddenly I'll be like I'm not interested in this anymore and I'll close it and then I'll be like oh no where did that go and I'll never be able to find the fucking webpage again and you know there's just So much information and I want to absorb all of it.

I have some videos that I have not posted that I'm going to post here

I found them to be very interesting and it really explains somewhat how I feel you'll and I haven't really looked at any disassociative disordered TikTok's but I was considering doing that to see if there is anything relatible to show you but most of the ones that I save are about like other mental health issues or narcissistic abuse or whatever that I very strongly Agree with and understand that I want other people to see and understand and share

I don't like that my dad has put me on a time crunch that I'm going to have to change phone proviters and you get a new phone and start paying a bill for that and he's acting like I can't just give him money for the family plan that we're on and I'm like are you planning to die soon and he doesn't look good like he'll eat it lose weight but he has no muscle it looks like and I'm like Hey I want to ask him hey you know is are you fucking dying are you going to die soon do I need to go ahead and start grieving now like I already grieved a little bit when I was on the contact but you know I quitBecause my mom would tell me about the awful shit he would say about me behind my back and the shit he would say to her and it made me mad and I was just like fuck him

And you know same thing with my sister who's just being awful to my mother and it's weird because my mom will be nice to me but then you'll turn around and be really nasty to me and you know next session it's probably going to be about things I do that she doesn't like.

I never really hear or see my parents act genuine.

It was weird as hell to see my father act the way he did today.

Chelsea said he looked scared when I asked what his facial expression was.

I was pissed that he was late.

I still don't understand what he needed to talk to you about first and why.

I left that choice up to you.

I can't go back in time. I should have said no. I should have just gone in together.

I started to panic when he went in there with you.

My father, the person that literally hurt my neck connective tissue and I had whiplash pain for weeks. I have evidence. I could send him to jail.

I didn't bruise and didn't think to take pictures of the red marks on my chest from my sister before they went away but she admitted she did it and not even about the candle

Who does that?

Now I'm angrier because it wasn't about that. She was just mad and had a bad day and wanted an excuse to fight.

I regret not fighting back or calling the cops now.

I regret not beating her ass to teach her a lesson.

Fuck her.

She didn't apologize and she's partying and getting stoned and drinking having fun not giving a fuck about what she's doing to others around her.

If she ever puts her hands on me again like that I will defend myself.

But no I'm being nice. I got her a bag with plan b and condoms and narcan and fentanyl test kits. I'm still trying to be a good big sister.

I'm trying to just be a person.