#people who don't struggle with it really don't understand how exhausting dissociation can be

[vampirecatprince]

Wow- I slept 16 hours solid because of how badly the the fifth and sixth made me disoccociate. I think I can function today, but only time will tell. (Also- I really don't have much of a choice.)

Good news is it was payday and I'm now at $800/$2000 for my Leaving This Shithole Of A Job savings and if I do some work this weekend, maybe I'll cross that $1000 threshold. 🤞

[candiid-caniine]

support needs and sex

having trouble with words recently. during this, I don't post much. have autism, have talked about it here before, but only small things.

but lots of frustration recently about representing. how people with low support needs have louder voices. people with cute, quirky autism get represented more because neurotypicals don't feel as uncomf. still they have their struggles but you know. middle to high support needs are uncomf. have to hide, have to be quiet. people with low support needs, also sometimes think *their* autism is *all* autism. don't want to talk about mid/high supports people, or be associated.

but, speech loss bad enough that I don't want to go into it today. stick to what is doable.

autistic people have sex. autistic people do kink. lot of positivity here about this. i've seen it. you've seen it. you've seen me also do it.

but autism in sex, not just:

cute stimming because sex feels good

sensory overload, in a good way

hard to speak because of good feelings

person getting flustered/shy/nervous

not only cute. not only shy. not only because of good feelings.

autism can be ugly, scary, difficult, bad communicating, hard to know how to support, getting in the way.

for me:

speech loss; not cute speech loss because of good feelings, speech loss because life is exhausting; exhausted, don't want to have sex

handling rejection poorly. have to use a lot of energy to keep from being a bad partner because of overreacting

sensory overload because good, but i dissociate because sensory overload

use sex to escape bad feelings, not in a healthy coping way

can't explain why i react poorly. in most circumstances. but also happens around sex

frustration because i can't think how to explain

meltdown because so frustrated

cycle repeats

have trouble understanding un-firm versions of "no" (have to work hard to communicate with partner, and i do, but hard work af)

have trouble understanding "maybe"

have trouble predicting how i "will/would" feel

thus frustration. meltdown. cycle resumes

or, know what i want; don't know how to explain

AND YET: i am not:

too dysfunctional for sex/relationship

"basically a child"/too immature

unsafe person

too fucked up for marriage

bad person for dating

someone who should avoid sex until burnout ends

...because i am adult. my partner is an adult. we talk about things. we know good expectations. i don't lie about can/can't do things. they don't lie about can/can't do things.

sex is only one slice of this. this blog is about sex, so i post it here. but these issues are big in my life. need support in school, in work; i seem so functional to a stranger, but only because support needs are met.

support needs met = big privilege. i acknowledge this. not so easy for many people, who seem less functional to others, only because support needs not met.

anyway. conclusion:

neurotypicals/non-autistics: don't expect sex + relationships with autistics to be like sexy imagine posts on tumblr. can be sometimes, but often not.

autistics, even: don't expect sex + relationships with other autistics to be like sex + relationships for you.

low support needs autistics: you guys have a problem. (maybe technically i am you guys, don't really know, so maybe *we* have a problem.) some of you don't like when autism represented as mid-high support. don't like to think you're like us. not cool. either way stop speaking like *your* autism is *all* autism. if you have energy + time + emotional resource to do so, tell off other low support needs when they act like this.

high/mid support needs: i see you. you belong. you deserve healthy, good sex if you are adult. support needs =/= being unworthy/not well enough/not functional enough for relationship. possible to have relationships that work for you, allow for the kind of support you need, from other person/medical team/support system. don't mask to get through relationship. hurts you, you should be loved for who you are.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

re: The ASL post

Surely I can't be the only one questioning the premise that if you shut down in one language, you shut down in all of them, equally?

Selective mutism is a whole Thing that exists. There's speech loss where you can somehow take a business call, but can't otherwise converse or ask for help or articulate anything outside of that specific compartmentalized embodiment. There's speech loss where echolalia is still possible. There's dissociation and compartmentalization and codeswitching which allow people to superficially bypass their own brain's shutdowns to produce the results they need.

And then there's the fact that different languages can mean different brainspaces! Thinking in and expressing yourself in language A versus language B can be sooo so so so so different in terms of emotional processing, sensory experience, gender realization, logic formation, etc, and that's even without getting into the root cultural differences. You can be groggy and overstimulated and find solace in a languagespace where you have more resilience, and it does not have to be a regression to a native tongue!

And that's staying within the same language modality! Once you change that, it's extremely possible that triggering conditions like fatigue/exhaustion/overstimulation can be relieved. How many writers have been utter wrecks in crisis while churning out beautifully written works in their non-native language? If a Deaf person has speech loss but can write in legible English during the event, is that marked as physically impossible with the same level of scrutiny?

Meanwhile, my experience with using ASL as someone who was already multilingual (including natively multilingual) before that is that the non-manual markers of the language are so embodied and so different from my natural performance state that of course it requires a different kind of brainspace, it's practically a form of masking except that it relieves the pressure of the other masking (tone, volume, pace, vocabulary, presque vu, cluttering, pitch, and then all those things but with stealth trans gender anxiety).

Also when someone is in crisis, why is it necessary for them to communicate with perfect grammar? What hill even is this?

(In addition, I resent the idea that it's impossible to have intuitive fluency in a language just because you didn't start it as a baby. And the idea that struggling with one parameter of a language will render native users utterly incapable of comprehending you... which is to not even touch the ways in which parameter prescriptivism hurts tactile sign users--*immediately falls through a trap door triggered by the anti-intersectionality police*)

As always, friendo, you speak mine own thoughts to the core, lol

I didn't really feel like getting into every concern I had with the way that post was presenting its conclusions, because I had already written several paragraphs and that felt.....unhelpful at best.

But yeah, I mean. I am not aware of ANY psychological research whatsoever that supports the assumptions they were making about speech/communication loss as an experience, about the way the brain interacts with language, and about the role of learning new languages. It sounded like a LOT of misunderstood moral/ethical arguments being made after hearing someone talk about a small piece of the complexity of Deaf/HoH language/communication sharing with other communities, that they didn't fully know how to apply because they don't actually know anything about the neuroscience of the situation.

Which like. Fine I guess. But that was sort of why I pushed back. I really appreciated the point that sign isn't AAC! I would really like to see that acknowledged more in the way speech/communication disorder folks talk about our interactions with it! And it worried me that the point didn't ACTUALLY seem to be "these things are different so here's the strengths and challenges of each/the outcomes one may hope for with each, so you can better understand how to utilize them" but rather "If you can't be confident that you have fully unlearned your prejudices and assumptions here, you're actually harming Deaf/HoH people by trying to learn our language." That doesn't make sense to me. And when the response was to completely misrepresent my words and ignore my explicitly coming from an intracommunal perspective while literally refusing to actually interact with what was said? That made me feel really uneasy about where that arguement actually was coming from.

One of the things I didn't talk about in the post is that my languages actually get employed in a clear and consistent order as my cognitive functioning decomps. I am "functional" if I can speak and/or write in English. I am "impaired" If I cannot use English, but CAN use Spanish. And I am fully "adrift" if all I can do is sign/use assistive gestures. Literally, what language I am using to communicate is almost always in indicator of my state of mind, to the point that long before I had language for any of this, I warned Wifey ahead of time when we first started dating that I might lapse into Spanish under certain circumstances, and they would need to tell me if they didn't understand because I prolly wouldn't notice. Despite being my "first language" English is genuinely the hardest for me to interact with. This remains true as I learn more languages (German is easier than English too, as is Italian, and even Russian.) English is - by literally every measure - a hot mess of a language. And it is actually really fucking common for even native speakers to find other languages more intuitive.

Why would that suddenly stop being true because your cognition is failing? Yeah, you won't have **the same access** bit you were never going to anyway???? And "more access than zero" is literally invaluable????

I dunno. I know it's poor behavior to get frustrated at people speaking with authority while repeating objective untruths in something I have actual expertise in, but there IS kinda a certain point when I have to wonder why people immediately internalize the stuff they see on tumblr without actually exploring the work of people who pioneered the research someone is attempting to convey? Why are yall happy NEVER interacting with a primary source?

And literally? Don't tell me "well we don't have any intracommunal research!!! Because that hasn't been true in any significant field of study for a decade now. Limited? Sure. Explorations of genuine intracommunal priorities in their infancy? Absolutely. But at this point if we are 30yrs into "nothing for us without us" without being able to recognize that intracommunal knowledge generation has ALWAYS happened, and the problem was not an absence but an obfuscation?

We probably have bigger problems at that point honestly.

[akab0mb]

Every day I feel more and more estranged from people. I have so many emotions, so many things I want to say, and no way to say them to the people I wish to speak to. I am feeling less able to find the energy to talk to people at all or even care. I think I am too far gone at this point. This year has traumatized me more than any other year. I will never forget the emotional shock and dissociation I went through in early November. My brain was fundamentally changed then. And that is in part because I was already deeply, deeply struggling from at least two devastating, life-altering moments that also occurred this year.

Some people on this earth are only meant to live for a few years. Their biology and brain chemistry predisposes them to a short life. Add continued trauma to that and it's a messy and desperate means to an end.

My only wish is that society begins to truly appreciate how people suffering from serious mental health issues deserve the same level of care and patience and empathy that is directed to people who suffer from severe physical health issues. Not just drugs. Not just therapy. But humans holding other humans up, being there, understanding, empathizing, and loving. Even though it's hard.

When I go, I hope someone remembers me. I hope someone remembers the person I really was. Not the thing I've been reduced to this year. "Hateful". "Manipulative". "Dangerous". Each word has placed a dagger in me that I can't remove. I never had the sense of self to advocate for myself. And I never had the communication skills. So I was left unable to question or fight. And this has been my reality my whole life. I could never fight my abusive mother's words, so I shut down. But I have always known I am good. I know this fundamentally. I know I am. I show it every day. These words are simply wrong. They do not represent my actions. They do not represent my words. They are simply unfair and incorrect. They are not me, and if I had a friend who knew me they would do better than I can at making this clear. I am good. But it doesn't matter what I am or what I say I am. What matters is what others think of me.

Why do I write these? They are not directed at anyone. No one is obligated to look or respond. I rarely have the energy to try to articulate my feelings and thoughts, so I do a little when I can muster. And I can muster the strength right now.

I have been invisible my whole life. I was forced to make myself small and quiet and barely exist as a child. I was ignored and not included in so many things in high school. I was never special. I tried so hard to do my best so that one day I would belong. And all it did was exhaust me and fill me with resentment. Why do others get to be seen and heard? Why not me? What criteria am I not meeting? Is it because I am not good at communicating?

3 people left me this year because of my depression. I don't think they know how abandonment is my greatest trigger. So on top of the immense agony I'm still going through from these ended friendships, it is now very hard for me to trust anyone. I don't want to be alone, but I can't trust anyone enough to open up. Because I cannot handle any more pain. So that is where I am. I am amazed at myself for finding the energy to write any of this. I can hardly get out of bed most days. I cannot maintain my job. I can't describe how energetically draining it is to type a reply to someone. I keep going mute - not just my voice but my ability to text anyone. I dissociate to remain alive. I go numb. I don't move. I hardly breathe. I think it's emotional shock and catatonia.

The only thing that is keeping me here is fighting for Palestine. Going to protests. Rallies. Sit-ins. I want to finally feel useful. I want my existence in this horrible life to make some kind of positive difference in the world. That was my goal in life anyway - I wanted to save the planet from environmental disaster. That was an insane and unattainable goal. This one is more manageable.

[orange-orchard-system]

To elaborate on this since I've found a lot of systems don't really understand fragments... Fragments are headmates who don't have the same "depth" or complexity to them that you would expect of an individual (although, just like any other thing about a headmate, what this presents as will change from fragment to fragment). As a result, I often find fragments are a bit odd in comparison to what are typically called "fuller" headmates (though, we prefer to just refer to them as non-fragments).

What I was thinking of when making this post was how one of my headmates (who I didn't know was a fragment at first) was confusing to me when it came to emotions, with their default emotion – so to speak – being absolutely nothing. The absence of any emotion. Just feeling nothing at all. Which was, as I said, confusing to me, as I don't ever feel nothing* unless I'm too exhausted or dissociated to feel emotions – which in itself means what I'm feeling is tired/dissociated. Not nothingness. But our fragments don't often feel much at all, or at least not very strongly, unless under one of two conditions: 1, it's about something specific that holds significant meaning to them (often something that played a part in their formation, e.g. Kirlia has an interest in programming because she formed at a time we were working on a fan game), or 2, someone else prompts them into thinking about it (usually by directly asking for their thoughts on something – though, this doesn't guarantee any emotions, just opinions). Other than that? They tend to just be head empty, no thoughts.

* I mean, I can feel nothing towards certain objects, ideas, and people, and often do before I get to know them, but that's more so an absence of attachment than an absence of emotion. Once an attachment is formed with something/someone, we [more often] feel emotions towards it. We can struggle with forming this attachment, which results in having less things to feel emotions over/about, but that's separate from our fragmentation and has to do with other neurodivergencies.

As I said in the original post, they have full access to all the complex thinking of our brain but none of the complexity themselves. This makes it so while they can absolutely keep up with things like hypotheticals, nuanced discussions, etc., they tend to struggle to organically create + consider such things on their own, because they literally don't have that in themselves. They lead a simple existence (and I absolutely do not mean that as an insult, just a descriptor) that often doesn't involve a whole lot of identity or cognition; they're not really designed for complicated stuff, the same way certain species aren't designed for certain habitats, even if they can survive there in the short-term. Complex thinking (or even just anything beyond surface-level thinking) and the like just isn't something that often occurs to them as something to do, I suppose I could say. I wouldn't say they uncritically absorb everything, but more like they're an "out of sight, out of mind" type of folk with subject depth.

They're not children (unless they're littles or whatever). They can understand adult subject matter and tend to converse like adults, even if they do it in unconventional ways. And it's not like they're silent on all fronts all the time about everything – they have their own conversations, make their own jokes, have their own preferences, etc.. Most of our fragments are just really passive most of the time. And in a way, I like that about them. Not in the sense that this is a trait I look for in people, but in the sense that it's a part of them and I'm not about to demand they change it.

Besides. It's actually quiet most of the time in here. Imagine if we all started having loud opinions and emotions about things?? I'd never get any thinking done.

Okay I know I say this about a lot of things but I genuinely think an experience that isn't really talked about much is going "why are you like this" about a headmate and then finding out they're a fragment

Like oh. Right. My apologies. You literally cannot chillax. You have all the complex thinking of our adult brain and none of the complexity yourself to match. No wonder you're like this. Please, continue your bullshit

[queerautism]

(This is a vent, feel free to delete if you don't want to deal with it. I just don't know anyone else who might understand)

Cw: medical stuff, ableism, and gaslighting

I have chronic pain and I'm so sick of abled people acting like it's impossible to mask pain if it's really bad. Like I've seen people say it's impossible to appear calm if your pain is at a 10 on a scale of 1-10. It makes me so mad because that exact kind of thing has been used to invalidate and dismiss my pain. I've been gaslit by family and doctors into feeling like my pain is actually just me being lazy, and so I constantly push through horrible pain. I've also been abused a lot so I feel like I have to hide anything that might bother other people, I feel like I have to always be easy going and happy. Even when I'm in so much pain that my legs give out the moment I try to stand and I can't form coherent sentences without great difficulty, I can still make myself smile and act like nothing's wrong. If you're at a 10/10 pain wise for days or even months and then eventually you might just start to dissociate. My body and mind has given up on crying or trying to get sympathy or help, it just ends up getting me hurt even more. But now ableds act like that means my pain isn't that bad. There's just no winning. If I act the way ableds expect from someone in a ton of pain then I'm being annoying and overdramatic and probably just faking for attention/to get out of work, but if I don't act the way they expect then my pain must not be that bad and I'm just an idiot who doesn't know what it's like to actually be in pain. I recently had surgery and the recovery wasn't even as bad as some of my bad pain days. I've had tendon scrapings while fully conscious and those aren't as bad as a bad day. I just want ableds to acknowledge that they don't understand what chronic pain is like. They can't even imagine what it's like. I'm literally unable to even imagine what life without pain is like because it's such a constant in my life. When people talk about afterlives, immortality, or reincarnation I find the idea horrible because I can't imagine what it's like to exist without pain. My brain interprets every kind of stimulus as pain. Slight pressure=pain, holding a glass of ice water=pain, having a fan blow air on my skin=pain, eating something with a strong flavor=pain, wearing stiff fabric clothes=pain. It's horrible and exhausting and ableds acting like I'm faking or overstating it just makes it worse. The only time I'm not in pain is when I'm asleep, and even then I sometimes have pain in my dreams.

But ableds will still act like they know what real pain is better than I do because they broke their arm as a kid. (I'm not saying they haven't had real pain or anything, it's just frustrating that they can't understand the difference between needing to deal with a temporary injury/illness and just existing in a constant state of agony)

Sorry to dump all of this on you. I'm just so tired of ableds. I know this might make me sound suicidal, but I'm really not. I know I can still enjoy life despite all my pain, I just want the people around me to understand what I'm dealing with so they might be more sympathetic to my struggles. I want people to understand that after a certain point, expressing how much you're suffering can just be exhausting. If you're in so much pain that you cry then it can be cathartic, but if that pain keeps going then eventually you're going to run out of tears and the energy to cry. And if your main method of coping is dissociation, then crying or even acknowledging the pain can just bring your attention back to it and make it feel even worse.

I want people to understand that some of us are just in horrible pain all the time and it completely changes the way we live. I don't even need sympathy I just want people to understand that so they stop acting like I'm lazy or a liar. But I always just get met with "umm you can't be calm when you're at 10/10 pain bc that's the worst pain u can imagine" if I'm in so much pain that I literally can't imagine being in any more or any less pain because it's so overwhelming it feels literally inescapable and never ending then I think I'm allowed to call that a 10/10, and when that happens my brain basically shuts down and I don't show any emotion.

It doesn't help that I'm autistic and I don't show a lot of natural facial expression. I feel like I have to act out my own emotions to communicate them*, and doing that with pain just does more harm that good.

(*idk if this is common thing. I just tend to feel like I'm an actor in a play. I'm not pretending to feel things I don't feel. But when I'm happy I don't naturally look happy, I feel like I have to tell myself to act happy if I want people to know I'm happy)

Sorry this went on so long. I just needed somewhere to vent and I felt like you would be understanding of this kind of thing.

I absolutely 100% understand. Chronic pain is fucking awful to deal with and so many people are just fucking assholes about it. I'm in so much pain all of the time.

Also I do the acting out emotions thing too, otherwise I'm very flat / seem angry? I call it doing cartoon emotions lol

[demonsforfriends]

Just having a quiet moment to myself to sit and think about everything that's happened in the last week or so, and reflect on what's going on in my life right now.

It's been 3 weeks now since I've been in isolation and it's been a blessing in disguise. I didn't realise how much I needed time to just hermit and be at home and not mixing with the outside world. It's been over 3 weeks since I dissociated last, and that's something of a record for me. Even though we're having money worries, the same as everyone else, anxiety levels have dropped significantly.

Last week, we hit a bit of a bump. Well, a big bump actually. While anxiety has been a lot more manageable, there's been a lot of random depressive spells, and last week out of nowhere, I hit a wall, completely snapped, and made a really irrational, split second decision to end my life, and just went out on autopilot. For a moment, I was completely overwhelmed, felt like I was the source of all that's wrong with everything, felt like everyone's lives would be better without me in it and was just completely exhausted with the state of the world.

I struggle to do and understand a lot of things. Basic things, like working out how I feel, and talking about it, and dealing and acting on a single emotion. Feeding myself when I'm hungry. Showering when I need to. Understanding people's feelings and intentions. It's so difficult and confusing to the point of tears sometimes. But at the same time, I feel so so deeply, I just can't do anything about it a lot of the time, and not for lack of trying either. When I can actually pick up on it, I can feel deeper for others than I can myself. I've speculated in the past that I have autism, and never really thought anything of it, I just brushed it off and carried on. More recently, it's felt more and more like something I need to confront and deal with. Anyway, when I was off on my little suicide mission, I had a moment of clarity and I stopped. I turned my phone back on, and listened to the voicemail that my fiancée had left me and it absolutely broke my heart. She was so scared, and hurt, and confused and could barely speak for crying and it wrote me off. For a moment, I had a flash of confusion, which quickly turned to anger and self loathing. How could she love me? I'm so obsessed with perfection, but I am so imperfect, the exact opposite of the thing I've spent my entire life chasing, and trying to be. But as quickly as the anger came on, it dissolved. All I wanted to do was go home and make her feel better. I've always said that her happiness is my happiness, and I'll probably always stand by that. I went home, had a chat with the police, went with the ambulance crew to the hospital, spoke to the mental health teams, and went home to her. I felt so much remorse. We have regular mental health check ups with each other anyway, but that night we really talked a lot, about what I want, why I can't ever do anything for myself and the general day to day struggled that I have, and ups and downs that I have, and how to deal with my autism better. She also tried to work out how to love me better, which made me kinda sad, because there's no way she could do more for me than she already does, but she vowed to stick to it nonetheless. I've always believed her when she tells me she loves me, but somehow I believe her more now than ever.

I'm so glad I didn't go through with ending my life last week. I've experienced so many beautiful moments in this last 8 days alone. Things that would seem small and insignificant to some, but have been amazing and beautiful and really meaningful to me.

The first day after everything that happened, we spent the day at home together, mostly in bed. Just being in each others company. She held me and kept me calm for most of the day. Just the pure warmth and innocence of naked skin to skin contact was amazing. Jen sleeps on the side of the bed closest to the window, and as the sun was setting, I noticed the way the skin touched her skin and outlined her body, and it was truly an amazing thing to watch, so much so that I had to capture it. Her silhouette looked perfect against the dusk sky. I had a really profound feeling of being grateful to survive the previous afternoon, else I wouldn't have lived to see that moment.

Tuesday was a really, really amazing day, start to finish. One of the best days I've had in a long long time. Once Jen got back from work, we had a parcel arrive from Ithaca, actually genuinely one of my favourite bands. When the Covid-19 lockdown started, we bought a long sleeved t-shirt from them, because A. the shirt is sick as fuck and B. just to show some love and support. To our surprise, they sent us two shirts, the one that we ordered, as well as a bonus shirt from old merch stock, as well as a sticker and a handwritten note on the back of a photo of Djamila's dog, The Ham™.

Afterwards, we got dressed and headed out to go get some food shopping, and decided to talk through the park on the way home, and came across a beautiful bed of daffodils, so of course, I had to take pictures. The one above is my favourite, of course. Jen has the most beautiful smile, especially now that I know that she's happy for real.

After we'd been home, put the shopping away and showered, we headed out again. This time, to go hunt down a good spot to try and take some good photos of the "Pink Moon". We went for a nice long walk through the woods first though. It was so quiet, all we could hear were birds singing, the water running in the stream and the ground beneath our feet.

Once we found a good spot on high ground, we sat on top of two big rocks in front of some trees, one tree in particular was a a blossom tree, and we watched the sun go down, and just sat there quietly, looking at all of the colours meld and mix in the sky.

After the sun had set, we found the best spot we could find to set up the tripod and Jen sat by for a good half an hour to 45 minutes while I tried to get the best shot I could of the moon. I am honestly so so proud of this photo, I personally think it's one of the best photos I've ever taken.

I was starting to feel as though Jen was getting bored of sitting around, while I was indulging myself, as I know I often get carried away and absorbed when I'm doing something creative, and starting to feel like I should wrap things up, but instead, she took a big interest in what I was doing, and took the time and effort to get involved in what I was doing. She came and sat with me, and asked me questions about how my camera worked, and gave it a try for herself. I remember watching her try, and adjust, and try again and I remember feeling so much love, and feeling so proud of her. No one has ever gone out of their way to involve themselves in something that I love doing the way she did, and that memory, and that picture will stick with me forever.

This is just a bonus picture of Jen, because I thought she looked really beautiful under the glow of the streetlights and the moon. 😍

The day after/yesterday, after Jen came home from work, we spend another afternoon in bed together, to have some alone time. While the sex was amazing, as it usually is, that isn't the moment that sticks out for me, it's this one, in the photo. This might be grim, or kinda gross or just too much information for some, but I don't care. Now, ever since we have been together, both of us have become more comfortable body hair, periods, and pretty much everything that our bodies do naturally and we both find it beautiful. Something I've noticed, as well, is that people don't generally tend to talk much about grooming, especially when it comes to helping your partner groom and helping your partner with self care. Well, recently, we both decided to shave together, which is something both of us had to do before to please others, even though I never really liked it. However, this time is was different. Anyway, I have quite sensitive skin, and naturally, I get a lot of ingrown hairs, this time around have had a lot and it's been very uncomfortable and at times quite painful. When we were lay in bed together, I was in a bit of discomfort with it, and without batting an eyelid, Jen picks up the tweezers, heads back down there and starts removing and relieving all of the ingrown hairs. This really sticks out to me as a really beautiful moment. She was so gentle, and I was so comfortable that I felt no pain at all. I've never met anybody who treats my body with such care and respect before as she does, and she protects and looks after it better than I do. I remember being filled with love, and I felt like it was such an intimate moment, but a gentle, innocent kind of intimacy and it was beautiful. Another moment that will stay with me for a long, long time.

Later on in the evening, we went out for another walk, this time to go and meet Jen's mother and collect some food that she had got for us. On the way there, we came across a beautiful cherry blossom tree. Cherry blossoms are both of our favourite flowers, we absolutely adore them, so I wanted to photograph them, but I'm not a tall person and the tree was very high, so I couldn't reach to get a good close up photo of the flowers. Within seconds, she gave me a piggy back and hoisted me up high so I could get close enough to take this photo. We must've looked crazy to onlookers, but it was like we were the only two people in the world.

If I had gone through with ending my life last week, I would've missed out on all of these precious moments. As I said, they may seem small or insignificant to some, but to me, they hold so much weight and meaning. All of that would've been gone, within a split second of being overwhelmed.

Jennifer Stephanie Riddell, I wouldn't be here without you. I love you, so so much, more than words will ever be able to say. I can't wait to become your wife, so that everyday for the rest of our lives, we can carry on making beautiful memories out of the little things. Every day, you give me a reason to feel love and feel grateful for being alive. I hope you realise how special you are to me, and how meaningful it is to spend my life with you, however big or small the moment is.

[piecesoflex]

8/12

This morning Saige gave me $4 because I "won" it from picking the option of her paper fortune teller. I gave it back, laughing, because it was cute and sweet. But she kept insisting on me having it. I asked her why. She said it's because she loves me and wants to help me. I didn't think too much of it until I heard Dawn in the other room telling Dave that she was doing this for validation because "I taught her that love is bought."

....I can't tell you how much that hurt. It brought me right back to the conversation they subjected me to- in front of my daughter- several weeks ago. Toffee, my dog, had drank all his water, and was severely dehydrated one morning, which (understandably) freaked Dawn and Dave out and led them to think I wasn't feeding or watering him. This lead to the ugliest conversation I've ever had with them.

They started off by telling me that they don't think I'm trying. That I'm caught up in my own wants that I don't think about anyone else. That it's all about me, me, me. I had really been struggling with dissociation. I was living in a near constant state of it until that conversation, so at least something productive came out of it. But there was zero consideration of my mental state in this conversation, despite them telling me a few days ago that they noticed my mental health declining. No, the reason they had all these gripes with me was because I'm a selfish, manipulative bully. They told me what a selfish person I was, how I don't do shit around the house, how I'm not there for my daughter because I didn't have the energy to play with her, how instead I try to "buy her love."

Being selfish, to me, is one of the worst things you can be. I know that I can be a space cadet. I've been working really hard on being more present and aware of the people around me. It felt exhausting to do that, because I was really depressed. And when I'm depressed, in order to still function at a minimal level, I go on autopilot. But I never consciously choose my own needs above someone else's. I care more about Saige than anyone else in the world, including myself. I try to make sure that I'm giving her the best life possible, and it's so easy to feel like an absolute failure in that. l beat myself up day after day about every interaction we have, every decision I make, because I wonder how it'll affect her. The *only* benchmark for success in my role as a parent, in my opinion, is if Saige turns out to be a mentally well-adjusted adult. A confident, secure, insightful, functional member of society. I just want her to be generally happy with her life. So to be told that I only think about myself was....beyond hurtful. And the level of contempt in Dawn's voice and in her eyes...the way she laughed whenever I tried to defend myself..I wonder if she only sees me as this awful person. I wasn't allowed to defend myself, because I was told that it was me dodging responsibility and making them out to be the bad guys. "See, this is *what you do,* Alexa. Can you honestly say that you know of anyone that can stand to live with you?" Until that day I really thought we were family. Now I know that they only tolerate me because of Saige.

And then came the onslaught of criticism about my level of cleanliness. Am I a slob? Absolutely not. Do I leave my things in places they don't belong? Totally, but never consciously. Dawn told me that I was bullying her in her own house, because 'it must be intentional, who would forget something as simple as putting away their backpack?" Admittedly, I had not been plugged into the world. I didn't notice the little things that accumulated. But I was doing a good job of maintaining general cleanliness for the state I was in. My backpack would be on the chairs and little things like sunglasses and medication would be on the table or counter, but that's normal. I didn't realize that my living space was relegated to the single room that I have. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of Dawn and Dave's things all over the counters and chairs and table.

I do almost all the dishes in the house- they just sit in the sink until I do them, or Zach or Dave gets sick enough of seeing them in there that he does. The trash *does not get taken out* unless I do it. Straight up. I have seen everyone attempt to shove one more thing in the can so they don't have to be the ones to do it. I take all 3 of the bins up the driveway every Wednesday because they reamed me out for not bringing them out in that conversation. Same with the recycling that piles up by the door- I take all that out. I take care of the farm animals at night, feeding and watering them, getting them in their pens, and since this conversation, I regularly refill their water throughout the day and have cleaned out the stalls. I do all of mine and Saige's laundry. I did that before, but another thing they said was that I take too long (because I keep forgetting that I have a load in). So since then it's only taken me a day (or two if I do the sheets and rugs and other things the dogs all pee on). Meanwhile, they took OVER a week to do theirs. I regularly clean things around the house just to keep tidy. I grocery shop for the household. I take care of their dogs, which includes changing Roan's diaper, because he has spina bifida. Sometimes it feels like I do *everything* around the house, and yet they reamed me out for not doing more. For not being more.

Did I mention that I also work and am in school full time?

Also: I buy my daughter gifts on Christmas and her birthday, and no other time. Anything she gets during the year she uses her own money for. It felt like such projection, considering they buy Saige gifts left and right that she doesn't need or use. Hell, Dawn is KNOWN for her amazon spending. I do not try to buy my daughter's love, and it felt so belittling that they would reduce my relationship with her to that.

The worst part of the entire conversation was when Dawn said something about how sweet and empathetic and compassionate Saige is. followed by "and I don't even know how she got this way with a mother like you. You need to love her for her, not what she can do for you."

I don't even have the words for that one. This is supposed to be a space for me to process my feelings, but there's just...there's just no words for that. I have always loved Saige because she's Saige. There's no other way to love her. Sure, she's very sweet and very generous and funny and talented. She's so many things. But I don't love her because of anything that she does. I love her because she is the amalgamation of all these traits and so much more. She has her own interests and goals that I have never once tried to sway her from. I've been her biggest fan and supporter. Saige deserves to be treated like the unique person she is, and as her mom, it's not my job to turn her into anything. It's not my job to get something out of her. In the grand scheme of her life, my current role is short. I'm here to guide her towards her best self, whatever self that may be. And if she's reached the benchmark I mentioned earlier, I will know that I've been successful. I try so hard to teach her lessons that I hope she'll carry the rest of her life. I don't know how she got to be so amazing, either, Dawn, but it hurts to think that you see this result as being in spite of me.

There's so much more to the conversation, like them telling me how frivolous my spending is.... my spending on basic necessities with a splurge like a dessert or new shirt or book here and there. The back and forth about having moved past the incident that fractured us many years ago, yet it being brought up by Dave in the conversation. How I told them I was hurt by the hateful things they were saying, and them replying that I was turning myself into the victim. The vague threats that accompanied what would happen if I continued to not try hard enough.

I have never felt emotionally abused by family, despite growing up in a dysfunctional household. Emotional abuse to me is the intentional putting down of someone else, gaslighting, etc. Dawn and Dave claim their aim wasn't to hurt me. But I felt so beaten down, over and over and over again in that conversation. I felt gaslit whenever I tried to explain my intentions or feelings. I don't think ill of their character, but it was clear that they do of mine. And I don't know what to do now. I don't know how to fix that. I've been busting my ass around the house and spending extra time with Saige to try and compensate. I've adjusted my medication and am looking for a therapist. I feel much more well, mentally. But the wake up call for that made me think that the world would just be better off without me. And that's unfair.

Whenever I get home from work, I come home to a full trash can, full sink, water bowls for the dogs empty, and Saige on a screen. More days than not, she's been on that screen all day while Dawn and Dave stay in their room. A lot of the time she's still in her pajamas and hasn't brushed her teeth. It feels like a constant double standard. I'm expected to be on my a-game at all times, and the days that I'm not are brought back to judge me.

The most unfair part about this all? Zach. No conversation has been held with Zach (to my knowledge) about his participation in the household, his selfish tendencies, or his relationship with Saige. Just excuse after excuse, which is then pinned to me. *I* made him scared that he was going to lose Saige again, so his solution is to keep her at a distance. I have been living with them for over a year now. We've had blow up fights like this one, and I didn't leave. I've grown and become less impulsive with my decisions and have been continuously trying to show them that I'm not going to take Saige away like I did last time. Yet Zach is still allowed to lean on this as an excuse to treat his daughter like an afterthought. He spends all day in his room, sleeping. Then he goes to work and spends all night gaming and twitch streaming. Dawn and Dave say I don't spend enough time with Saige, but I'm an everyday presence in her life and I do take time out of each day to dedicate to her. Zach only spends time when it's convenient for him. Dawn and Dave make me feel like I'm being unreasonable when I bring up my concerns on behalf of Saige and her felings. He occasionally does the dishes and cleans the bathroom he shares with his parents. That's it. That's all. There are no standards for him to receive unconditional love and support from them. I just feel so alone in this house.