Driving the Point Home

A question was posed in my Psychopharmacology class that I felt merited some consideration on my part.  

We were talking about why someone might fail to take their medication, or continue to say they're having significant problems when they aren’t.  
The question was “What is the gain from remaining sick?”  
This can obviously be answered in many ways, depending on the circumstance.

I began to think about this in terms of my own life and my own struggles with my fears and with a failure to drive. 

 If I don't try, I can't fail, right? 

This logic never worked in any other area of my life, so I'm not sure why I thought it would with driving, other than the fact that I did mostly have other ways around. 

Let's face it. 

I don't leave my home very often, and would generally prefer to be some kind of happy recluse, but I understand that this isn't a reasonable possibility. 

I also feel guilty now that I don't live by a bus line and occasionally need to carpool or outright ask people for rides, as I can't currently afford to take cabs everywhere while in the unpaid internship... 

Externship... 

Whateverthefuckship. 

In any case, I've been attempting and mostly failing to prioritize my health, and instead I've been obsessing over something that is generally not seen as a big deal. 

More than that, it is generally seen as a wonderful thing. 

For me personally, passing the test means that I now don't have to retake the permit test, which would have been embarrassing. 

I don't have to have the strange looks when I have a non-driver ID instead. 

I don't have to have anyone questioning how I function in life, just because they are too unimaginative to think of living without a car in my situation. 

I wanted to be proud of myself too, but I'm having trouble with that. 

I think the issue is that I really had no desire to do it at all, so rather than feeling accomplished, I just feel like I gave in. 

I did this thing that I had no desire to do, just because someone else told me to do it. 

Christ. 

How much of my life has been like that? 

 

Still, having passed is great, if only for the wait for the next one to now be gone forever. 

The pressure each time was slowly killing me. 

It became everything. 

It took over every aspect of my life with the sheer power of not-want. 

I just don't want to think about it anymore. 

Passing means I don't have to worry about the test, but now I have the car I can't afford, the insurance, the upkeep, the responsibility, and the assumption that I will drive. 

Now, it has become an issue if I do have the audacity to ask for help. 

After all, I can drive. 

Everyone involved seems to think passing the test has immediately cured me of my not-want. 

It did not, just as doing any other terrible thing forever doesn't automatically make people Stockholm-syndrome themselves into loving the thing. 

Now, I just have more questions, more pressure, and I fear that I'll wind up on the side of the road sobbing and hysterical, missing my appointments that were otherwise never an issue to get to on time. 

I guess any lingering depression winds up more apparent when it's on me, rather than being able to say, "Well, better get going so my ride doesn't get upset."  

 

I feel like I'm constantly letting everyone down either way, or that there is something significant wrong with me, beyond all the things that have actually made my life harder. 

It's frustrating to note that the things I actually want to work on and struggle with are somehow not good enough to those around me. 

I fully realize that I am not those people, but some solidarity would be nice. 

I have found myself falling from pushing on and through and up, to just wanting to be left alone to rot. 

Of course, my Knight in Pinstripes and my very good friends ARE supportive and would never let me do that to myself, as much as I may try. 

Still, this is upsetting because I understand that it has all been hinged on this idea of having a car and driving and freedom in this lonely, expensive, wasteful death machine. 

Again, Rob is all for carpooling and is steady in his belief that I should not have to drive if I do not want to. 

He generally believes I shouldn't do ANYTHING that I don't want to do, but again, that means I would do... pretty much nothing. 

Ever.  

Sometimes, I pretend that I want to drive. 

Sometimes, I pretend that I am already someone who drives. 

It is a fun fantasy, but ultimately leaves me feeling empty, realizing I am lying to myself because I feel like I am worth less than I would be as a driver. 

I feel like while I've been told I am not, I must certainly be a burden, and something to be ashamed of. 

Otherwise, why would any of this have come up at all? I wind up wallowing in everything else I've been trying to fix, just to have this barrier of, “No, look. I'm too sick. I can't drive because I'm too sick.” 

I've been self sabotaging and ruining so much of my health, both physical and mental, in an effort to convince those around me that I am sick enough to not do this one thing that I have never done before anyway. 

 

All that having been said, I did face my fears. 

And now, I have it, whether I ever use it or not. 

These are things I CAN be proud of, because they were important to my growth as a person. 

That is the most important part.

And... I actually do like the car.  Well, when it starts up, anyway.  

I call it The Grey Ghost, and I understand that my aversion to driving is not the car's fault. 

...My tendency to personify objects a bit probably doesn't help the guilt though. 

Just sayin'.

Lovey Dovey, Except That I'm A Loon

Now, it's true that in past "relationships" I've been known to blame things on myself that were not my fault (See: Every single post about a year ago and that whole year prior) and I often forgave people who probably should have just been cut right out of my life.  

And then I came back home. 

These days, I'm fully aware that I deserve better, and I've watched myself move past a fairly fucked up set of trauma symptoms.  

Don't get me wrong here, I still have some and I will always have some things to work through, with and around.  
That does not mean that I cannot live my life the way I want to live it.

I've also become a little paranoid, assuming that I must always be wrong about people and no longer trusting myself.  I'm working with that.  
The fact that I'm actually pretty content (besides not seeing most of my friends NEARLY enough) means that I'm somehow more afraid.  

Having stuff to lose is scary for me. 

And then there is Rob.  

My other housemate is also endlessly sweet (and single, ladies!) but for some reason his sweetness doesn't freak me out besides making me feel like I should be baking him cakes or something.  I don't know.

But Rob...  He freaks me out.  
He thinks I'm pretty in the morning: 

And he makes sure that I actually eat: 

He is TOO nice to me and kind and open and I have trouble believing that I deserve that.  

I spent so much time getting settled in the idea that I was being treated poorly for a reason, that it is now hard to feel anything else.  

When I'm crying for no reason or having a panic attack or whatever comes with being me these days, he is calm and comforting and supportive.  

Sometimes, I wonder if he really understands what is happening: 

He actually, openly wants to spend time with me.  
He doesn't want to hide me away as some embarrassment like so many other people have in my life.  
He doesn't call me crazy, and does not let me call myself crazy, even when I'm doing incredibly crazy things.  

That being said, he is also really excited to see me, all the time, beyond what might be normal.  
This works, because he and I are both pretty clingy with each other, and we both know to give each other space when needed.  

On days where, with anyone else, I would have just hidden away and hope I survived, he texts me when he can't be there...

 ...and holds my hand when he can.  

I am not yet used to that. 

I'm sure it makes everyone around us ill, but I'm too thankful to hold it back. 

It's only four months in, and we've seen each other every day.  I'm sure this will wear off eventually.   

Right?  

...Or, we'll be like my parents, and that would be nice too. 

Going Domestic

To start this off, I should mention that my housemate FATE and I have a strange kind of friendship.  He refers to me as Mom and I refer to him as my son.  Normally, this means whoever I happen to be dating is by proxy his "dad" and generally that person just kind of shrugs, accepts it, and never brings it up.  

Rob took this Dad thing to heart.

I'm not kidding. 

We quickly became a bunch of grown ass adults playing house.  

...

My therapist says it's okay so shut up.


Rob and I have already domesticated each other anyway.

He cooks for me:

I do his laundry:

Domestic!





In any case, now that I'm finally settled in, moving is happening again.  

Technically, I'm not the one moving, so there is that.  ...  Rob is moving in, Xena is moving out, FATE and I talked about moving more rooms around, and we decided to have my room be a studio/office space for whoever is in the apartment, since Rob and I might need a little more space, but we'd be sharing a bedroom.   

*Cue Rob's grandmother asking what my clergy father must think of Rob moving in with me* 

Hypothetically speaking, this seems simple enough.

...

It's been chaos. 

The problem is that Rob needed to start moving his stuff in, but there isn't space yet.  As a result, we have boxes of stuff and some of my stuff crammed into weird places and everything is just teetering on a I-don't-know-where-this-goes string. 

After a bit of this, I had started to go a little utterly-too-intense over trying and failing to find things.  I stopped really communicating when I got too frustrated and instead opted for hand gestures and strange noises.  

For example:

Meant that I had lost this thing: 

And I wanted it. 

We've already invested in more shelving in an attempt to avoid our clutter invading the clutter of the other:

This shelf did not stay in that spot very long and it will be moving again, I'm sure. 

And in the meantime, we've each started organizing the few things we actually can have some control over until we are all settled on space again.  

Rob and FATE organized the entertainment area: 

And I have started doing little projects in an effort to eventually become this super-pseudo-mom.  
Between Rob and my own fuckery, we have a lot of magnetic, wipeable, and cork boards.  
Like this one:

I decided that these would become a giant area of wall.  I wanted one slightly bigger wipeable board, so I made one out of a frame that wasn't useable for it's intended purpose and some old color swatches:

 In the meantime, I've been stressing over where everything will go and what I could possibly fit now that I couldn't before.  

Can my vanity now fit in our bedroom?  I could use it as a side table... Maybe? 

What about my drawing desk?  Surely that'll go in the office/studio for everyone to use!  ...Right?

Lastly, we had cockroaches seep in from downstairs, but now that Rob sprayed the Hell out of every corner in this apartment, they seem to be leaving us alone. FATE saw two, "half-dead" recently, but that's it.  Next, we'll have to patch the giant holes where they were getting in.

On the way, we should probably re-caulk the asshole tile:

Every time someone steps on this thing, he or she assumes he or she was the one to magically break it.  I don't know if everyone I know collectively has no idea how tiles work, or if they all just think they weigh a lot more than is possible or what, but no.  No guys.  No.  The tile was already busted long before.  

I'm sure fixing it will be another post.  

...As well as rearranging, organizing these rooms, possibly painting things...  

Stay tuned!

Almost New Apartment

 It's been a month or so since a couple friends and I moved into our apartment and I never updated this thing about that move.  Sooo...  Let's start over.

 And I often see the world in very interesting and horrifying ways.

So far, I've learned that when my Knight isn't in my room with me, the world is a horrible, freezing cold place.

 In our kitchen, we have one tile that isn't quite glued down.  This hasn't been a problem, except when we forget about it and it catches one of us by surprise.  This would be easily fixable... but we just haven't.

 The other problem is the heat.  Now that Spring is upon us, it shouldn't be an issue anymore.  However...  It was.  The radiator was a pretty interesting issue, in fact.

 These things have a mind of their own when you have no key.

I'd melt from the heat and then FREEZE due to my fan that wouldn't stop.  You read that right.  It wouldn't stop.  I could control the light by the cord, but not the fan itself.  There was no switch.  

I had my buddy rip the damn thing apart.  

Beyond that though, the apartment is really nice.  We will be able to see the fireworks from our living room on the Fourth of July.  It's cozy and I have a little hallway that curves into my room.  It's all very nice.  

My art supplies have been slowly taking over the world, and in trying to push it all back, sometimes my other crap gets in the way.  This leads to some moments that are less than good. 

...

Here's hoping. 

...

...

...

And that is about the state of things.  

I've been eating pretty well, between bouts of stress.  My Knight has been cooking for me.  I'm very pleased by this and I'm thankful to have him by my side.  

This Post Brought to You By: Collaboration!

My Knight and I went to a tiny con this past weekend.  BadCon at UAlbany.  It was not a "bad con" but there was hardly anyone there.  I'm hoping to help out with spreading the word next year.  Still, we sold some things and met some people and saw some friends.  Mostly, we sat around doodling together.  This was like a dream date for me, as it turns out.

My Knight, Rob, draws people as potatoes.  They show up in his webcomic on occasion here:   http://www.unmedicatedcomic.com/
and he'll draw people at cons as potatoes.  I was highly entertained by this, so I decided to draw him as a potato.  ...But it didn't wind up as cute as his do.

Also, everything scanned for this had gotten a little wet because A. it was raining afterwards and B. we had a spill.  The spill was entertaining in it's own right because while our drawings got a little wet, everything else on the table was saved by the tablecloth itself. 

Since part of that looked like a face, my Knight drew the spill:

...I need a better editing program for my scanner so you kids can see these better. 

To give you an idea of the kinds of stuff sold at these events, we sell art prints, sometimes T-shirts, key chains and assorted body parts:

"Give someone the finger!"  Get it??

At one point, we took two words, put them together and then saw what we each came up with.  First was fish-apple:

His:

Mine (Which I think wound up more frog-like than fish-like.  ...Or maybe just sick):

Then came centipede and barrel.
His:

Mine:

and another try:

I also attempted to show the difference between antennae and penises.  ...I don't remember why.  But here they are:

Now, to conclude, I'm going to express how head over heels I am for this guy.

I don't do outside.

I just don't.

I think of the outside world and I think of the "tweezers" my mom has handed me when I wanted to pluck my eyebrows, knowing those things are for plucking off bugs and out splinters and other horrible outside things.

Seriously.  The fuck are these things?


I'm allergic to outside.  Literally.  Grass makes me itchy and red.

YET I went out by his family's house so he could show me where he spent his childhood days, by rusty pieces of metal and now overgrown thorns... And even with a busted hip from before then and even while stressed out of my mind and ridden with silent panic attacks, I still managed to have a good time.

Why?

Because he was with me.

...Also some of the plants did neat things like this:

Twisty and there's that curl thing at the bottom. 

Because I really never go outside, knowing that I do have some pretty amazingly bad allergies, when I do go outside, I feel a little like a kid in a bubble.  I'm stupefied by the beauty of it all, and TERRIFIED by any little prick of anything at all. 
I used to run into the woods as a kid and climb trees.  I'd walk over rocks and not complain when I got wet in a creek. 
Then 12 years old happened and the learned-the-hard-way-knowledge of what an allergen can do kind of ruined my life and ended what bit of a childhood I had. 

I'd like to go back to being that kid.  I'm not as brave as I used to be, but maybe with the help of my Knight, I'll get there. 

...that being said, I really DO have allergies, so it can't be all the time anyway. 
Still, worth a shot once in a while, yeah?