Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2012-01-08 12:41 am
azurelunatic) wrote2012-01-08 12:41 am
Entry tags:
And then this is how my brain "entertains" itself.
The current project of getting me diurnal again is going vaguely reasonably. We shall see.
While several of my fellows were watching politicians debate and screaming at their screens, I was listening to some back episodes of the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
slashreport podcast. I think that I got the better end of that deal, because I'm getting the highlights of the debates in Twitter, without the head-pounding frustration and urge to stab someone, and I got fanfolks chattering merrily while I chopped onions and mashed kiwifruit.
In the department of cooking: Today was Deal With Fruit From Farmers' Market day, where I got out the four-cup containers and sorted the fruit out for the days remaining until next market. Doing that keeps me from eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas at once, and also reminds me to eat my day's allowance of fruit and not leave me eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas on Wednesday so I'll have used up all my fruit by Thursday.
I looked at mywikis kiwis and realized that some of them weren't going to last, but I wasn't likely to eat quite that much kiwi in one sitting. So I peeled those suckers, and mashed, and cheerfully nibbled on bits, and the upshot was three popsicles' worth of green goo.
Come suppertime, I was planning orange chicken, and had done the fruit and vegetable prep for frozen orange chicken, but looked in the freezer and found no such thing. Since I'd sort of sideswiped a proper lunch by way of fruit, it took a bit of doing to actually get me out and retrieving orange chicken. (Apparently that is what I am eating this month. I'm not going to argue.)
So the link that I linked, the ranty review of the menstrual cup, has been bouncing about, and one of the reactions to it in my circles was a frustrated pushback against the "this is crazy, you're crazy, wtf" reactions to menstrual cups.
Which is, you know, a valid response, especially on account of that sort of reaction happens a lot, but that was not the impression that I took away from that particular rant.
That particular rant sounded to me like a "this is new, this is difficult; this is in fact more difficult (especially for a neophyte) than all of the stuff out there was telling me; it worked, but this was my experience, and my experience of it was difficult and fucking sucked in places."
And oh god, do I get that.
I'm 31 this year, and I no longer have the flexibility that I had when I was 16 or even 25. I tried the disposable cup, it was awkward, I got better at it, I remember overflowing it, I had to wear backup, and eventually the fact that I had to wear backup anyway and it was still awkward and getting more so as I lost flexibility...
Tampons are an iffy proposition for me now. I resent my body so much. I know I am not too bad off because look at the list of things that I can still do, but I'm looking at the list of things that I cannot do anymore and I do not like that list. And things that remind me of it poke me in the sensitive spots, and I get resentful and furious and either triggered or the sort of screaming defensive that happens when I know that something's about to hit one of the danger spots in the minefield of my head. There aren't that many bad spots anymore. Ro and Darkside took care of most of them. There are a few left, which makes the reaction all that much worse to bystanders, because I'm not a seething ball of general hostility anymore, which makes the sudden flip-out that much more unexpected and therefore worse.
I can't use menstrual cups anymore (even though I found them only kind of mediocre when I could), and every time I think about saying that, I anticipate a flood of kindly and helpfully-meant advice attempting to figure out what exactly I mean by "can't", telling me that maybe I'm not trying hard enough/right, and oh here are some helpful tips on getting back lost flexibility ... and I simultaneously want to shut each and every one of the "helpful" people up, cry, and kill myself.
It's that last that's the problem, naturally. Since my actual goal is to die of old age at a vigorous 90-something or further up there (the result of a compromise I made with my brain during a sleepless face-punching session: sure, asshole, I'll make a suicide plan: OLD AGE, FUCK YOU, THAT'S IT, HAPPY NOW?) killing myself (now) would put a fatal crimp in that plan. Thus my exceptionally unfriendly response to even imagined "helpful advice" of the sort that I know would set me off, but would be natural and helpful to someone without the same hidden issues.
My brain helpfully fills in that only a complete douchebag responds to well-meant offers of help from friends with the social equivalent of a flashbang and high-powered rifle, so that means I'm rubbish and hardly fit to exist. And that trips off another fun round. And so it goes.
Fortunately for me and everyone who cares about me, the combination of meds, training, and just plain old tired means that I know this mental state, and I stare it in the face and remember that fear is the mind-killer, et cetera. (Fear, the Ectogenesis universe, K, and Rose, remind me, is the little death that's going to lead to the big death if you slip and fall.) I'm cranky, but functional; I probably wouldn't even be mentioning it if I weren't trying to set the habit of actually talking about what's going on inside my head on a daily basis in the new year. I've taken basically two years off from daily self-analysis, and that's been driving me crazy. Crazier.
... yeaaahh, how's that for the department of things-looking-ok-until-you-actually-think-about-them, huh?
So last night I was thinking about how when I was presented with those items that were bothering me, how I was getting alarms but misinterpreting them.
It would reliably go like:
Party A: *cheerfulness* *statement that ought to be worrying*
Me: "Oh hey, things are going well for my friend!"
My brain: *CLANG CLANG*
Me: "... though that's a weird thing to be cheerful about."
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Yeah, that *is* a weird thing to be cheerful about.
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Something doesn't sit right with me about that cheerfulness.*
My brain: "...duh!" *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "I mean, why they gotta be so cheerful over that totally normal thing?"
My brain: "...dumbass." *CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!*
Me: "Dang, that weird thing is sticking in my head. How annoying."
My brain: "...do you even *listen*?!" *sirens*
Me: "It's so weird. It's like something about that simple statement is stuck in my brain and it keeps circling over and over trying to get my attention."
My brain: "... do I have to re-enact the sinking of the fucking *Titanic* in order to get your attention here? *Something.* *Is.* *Not.* *Right.* *With.* *Your.* *Friend.*"
Me: "Auuuugh, brain, shut up. I know something is weird about that statement, but they're having a perfectly OK and normal day, give it a rest."
And thus my day/night/whatever would proceed with me eyerolling and trying to stuff my brain back in the box so I wouldn't say anything eyerolly with my outside voice, and my brain shouting for attention inside the box.
And of course Passage is about (among other things) the shenanigans and symbols that brains use in order to get attention to a crisis that the characters don't realize on a conscious level. And they're barking up entirely the wrong tree for a good portion of the book, and it's only when they get a second perspective on what was going on do they figure out that it wasn't literally the fucking Titanic, it was just that her brain picked the symbol of the Titanic as its best representation of an "All hope is lost! Alarm! Alert! FML!" full-on panic that required action from the whole damn team of brainbits in order to avert actual disaster.
The real focus of my sudden fascination is not so much on the "damn, some people have had some real shit going down in their lives" as it is "So what *else* has my brain been trying to signal me about that I've been brushing off as something entirely different?" and that's a much harder question for me to answer.
While several of my fellows were watching politicians debate and screaming at their screens, I was listening to some back episodes of the
slashreport podcast. I think that I got the better end of that deal, because I'm getting the highlights of the debates in Twitter, without the head-pounding frustration and urge to stab someone, and I got fanfolks chattering merrily while I chopped onions and mashed kiwifruit. In the department of cooking: Today was Deal With Fruit From Farmers' Market day, where I got out the four-cup containers and sorted the fruit out for the days remaining until next market. Doing that keeps me from eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas at once, and also reminds me to eat my day's allowance of fruit and not leave me eating a whole five-pound bag of satsumas on Wednesday so I'll have used up all my fruit by Thursday.
I looked at my
Come suppertime, I was planning orange chicken, and had done the fruit and vegetable prep for frozen orange chicken, but looked in the freezer and found no such thing. Since I'd sort of sideswiped a proper lunch by way of fruit, it took a bit of doing to actually get me out and retrieving orange chicken. (Apparently that is what I am eating this month. I'm not going to argue.)
So the link that I linked, the ranty review of the menstrual cup, has been bouncing about, and one of the reactions to it in my circles was a frustrated pushback against the "this is crazy, you're crazy, wtf" reactions to menstrual cups.
Which is, you know, a valid response, especially on account of that sort of reaction happens a lot, but that was not the impression that I took away from that particular rant.
That particular rant sounded to me like a "this is new, this is difficult; this is in fact more difficult (especially for a neophyte) than all of the stuff out there was telling me; it worked, but this was my experience, and my experience of it was difficult and fucking sucked in places."
And oh god, do I get that.
I'm 31 this year, and I no longer have the flexibility that I had when I was 16 or even 25. I tried the disposable cup, it was awkward, I got better at it, I remember overflowing it, I had to wear backup, and eventually the fact that I had to wear backup anyway and it was still awkward and getting more so as I lost flexibility...
Tampons are an iffy proposition for me now. I resent my body so much. I know I am not too bad off because look at the list of things that I can still do, but I'm looking at the list of things that I cannot do anymore and I do not like that list. And things that remind me of it poke me in the sensitive spots, and I get resentful and furious and either triggered or the sort of screaming defensive that happens when I know that something's about to hit one of the danger spots in the minefield of my head. There aren't that many bad spots anymore. Ro and Darkside took care of most of them. There are a few left, which makes the reaction all that much worse to bystanders, because I'm not a seething ball of general hostility anymore, which makes the sudden flip-out that much more unexpected and therefore worse.
I can't use menstrual cups anymore (even though I found them only kind of mediocre when I could), and every time I think about saying that, I anticipate a flood of kindly and helpfully-meant advice attempting to figure out what exactly I mean by "can't", telling me that maybe I'm not trying hard enough/right, and oh here are some helpful tips on getting back lost flexibility ... and I simultaneously want to shut each and every one of the "helpful" people up, cry, and kill myself.
It's that last that's the problem, naturally. Since my actual goal is to die of old age at a vigorous 90-something or further up there (the result of a compromise I made with my brain during a sleepless face-punching session: sure, asshole, I'll make a suicide plan: OLD AGE, FUCK YOU, THAT'S IT, HAPPY NOW?) killing myself (now) would put a fatal crimp in that plan. Thus my exceptionally unfriendly response to even imagined "helpful advice" of the sort that I know would set me off, but would be natural and helpful to someone without the same hidden issues.
My brain helpfully fills in that only a complete douchebag responds to well-meant offers of help from friends with the social equivalent of a flashbang and high-powered rifle, so that means I'm rubbish and hardly fit to exist. And that trips off another fun round. And so it goes.
Fortunately for me and everyone who cares about me, the combination of meds, training, and just plain old tired means that I know this mental state, and I stare it in the face and remember that fear is the mind-killer, et cetera. (Fear, the Ectogenesis universe, K, and Rose, remind me, is the little death that's going to lead to the big death if you slip and fall.) I'm cranky, but functional; I probably wouldn't even be mentioning it if I weren't trying to set the habit of actually talking about what's going on inside my head on a daily basis in the new year. I've taken basically two years off from daily self-analysis, and that's been driving me crazy. Crazier.
... yeaaahh, how's that for the department of things-looking-ok-until-you-actually-think-about-them, huh?
So last night I was thinking about how when I was presented with those items that were bothering me, how I was getting alarms but misinterpreting them.
It would reliably go like:
Party A: *cheerfulness* *statement that ought to be worrying*
Me: "Oh hey, things are going well for my friend!"
My brain: *CLANG CLANG*
Me: "... though that's a weird thing to be cheerful about."
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Yeah, that *is* a weird thing to be cheerful about.
My brain: *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "Something doesn't sit right with me about that cheerfulness.*
My brain: "...duh!" *CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG*
Me: "I mean, why they gotta be so cheerful over that totally normal thing?"
My brain: "...dumbass." *CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!*
Me: "Dang, that weird thing is sticking in my head. How annoying."
My brain: "...do you even *listen*?!" *sirens*
Me: "It's so weird. It's like something about that simple statement is stuck in my brain and it keeps circling over and over trying to get my attention."
My brain: "... do I have to re-enact the sinking of the fucking *Titanic* in order to get your attention here? *Something.* *Is.* *Not.* *Right.* *With.* *Your.* *Friend.*"
Me: "Auuuugh, brain, shut up. I know something is weird about that statement, but they're having a perfectly OK and normal day, give it a rest."
And thus my day/night/whatever would proceed with me eyerolling and trying to stuff my brain back in the box so I wouldn't say anything eyerolly with my outside voice, and my brain shouting for attention inside the box.
And of course Passage is about (among other things) the shenanigans and symbols that brains use in order to get attention to a crisis that the characters don't realize on a conscious level. And they're barking up entirely the wrong tree for a good portion of the book, and it's only when they get a second perspective on what was going on do they figure out that it wasn't literally the fucking Titanic, it was just that her brain picked the symbol of the Titanic as its best representation of an "All hope is lost! Alarm! Alert! FML!" full-on panic that required action from the whole damn team of brainbits in order to avert actual disaster.
The real focus of my sudden fascination is not so much on the "damn, some people have had some real shit going down in their lives" as it is "So what *else* has my brain been trying to signal me about that I've been brushing off as something entirely different?" and that's a much harder question for me to answer.
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The lacktivist thing is an especial point of contention because, while my one attempt to carry a pregnancy to term ended amazingly badly and without a baby, I will never forget the frustration that ensued when attempting to explain to some of these people that I can do nothing about uterine exposure to psychotropic drugs since I need them to keep me sane, but there is absolutely no reason a baby needs to continue ingesting these once it's born, given that we do live in a part of the world where the clean water required for infant formula to be safe exists.
Plus that whole "my hormones make me crazier so getting them back to normal levels sooner rather than later is safer for me and the kid" thing. Postpartum psychosis is much more dangerous for a baby than not breastfeeding.