cyberJudas's journal.

[cyberJudas]

TW: Emotional Neglect, Implied Sexual Abuse, Suicide mention, medications, Overdose mention, Benzo mention

When I was sad as a child, my mother usually wasn't there. She seemed too tired to care. Likely, she was quite tired from being a night-shift nurse and single mother. My father was busy doing meth with another woman in Wisconsin, the mother of my other half brother, P.

When I was around 5/6 years old, I can tell you two significant things about me. 1) I knew I felt like a boy inside. I described the discomfort in my body as exactly that. As an autistic person, that is the most explicit and direct way for me to say I am trans without knowing what being trans meant. 2) My mother started dating my stepdad, and married him after a proposal in Vegas. They met at a bar. He promised she'd never have to worry about money again.

We moved into a new house in the suburbs. At first, we lived in the northeast region of our city. They had a kid together, my half brother who I will call J.T.. My stepdad was very harsh and brutal verbally. He was not super physically abusive at first, but as I got older the play wrestling got uncomfortable and weird.

I have schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, but it mostly manifested in my childhood as weird voices and emotional dysregulation. I always felt I had to vie for my mother's attention and affection as a child. I would make her tea every night to try and get some affirmation from her. My grandmother was the more affectionate one, who raised me half the time from birth - kindergarten. I then started living with her right before my 13th birthday to today.

My mother just put me in therapy when I was around 8/9 years old. She didn't have the time or energy to deal with me. I was put on Zoloft, 10mg, at age 11. I would sleep through 1st period math class for a week until my psych told me to start taking them at night. I took Zoloft until I was 20, along with Abilify since age 14/15. Psychosis sucks.

When I was sad as a child, I'd cry, and over the years, I learned to not tell people why I was crying beyond "I'm having a bad day."

When I was visibly upset the other day (I had had a suicidal episode and panic attack after panic attack at work prior to stopping by the studio), another one of the artists (O) asked me if I was okay. I like them. O is nice and they're a lot like me. I admire their intaglio skills. I showed their work to my best friend, T, and T really liked it. T isn't easily impressed, so getting him to say he even likes something is an accomplishment.

I currently take Pristiq, 50 mg XR, Abilify, 2mg, Adderall, 10 mg twice daily, Symbicort, 2 puffs daily, Many supplements, and Hydroxyzine for panic attacks. I am glad my psychiatrist at the time of prescribing started me off with Hydroxyzine. I don't trust myself with benzos. I used melatonin 20mg+ every day after I got home from school in my Jr. year of High School, so I wouldn't have to be awake if I didn't want to be. I only stayed awake for the things I had to do to not arouse concern. Otherwise, I'd just sleep or lay in bed, doing nothing. I really did not want to be alive.

While it's been 4 years since I misused melatonin, (sounds silly, but my two best friends have said it counts because of my reasoning and frequency of use), I still do not trust myself with anything stronger. I fear if I were to start benzos, I would fall back into that state, and as my tolerance builds up, one day I'd OD by accident.

I do not want to die anymore. My emotional brain sometimes wants to, but rationally and in my heart of hearts, I would like to live. I have too many responsibilities to myself and others, and I don't want to leave a hole in my friends hearts. Even if I don't feel any secure attachment to my friends consciously, I know deep down that they are my friends for a reason.

Friendship is complicated, and I wish it made more sense. I wish I had friends growing up.

[sanmagic7]

welcome to our forum, cyber judas.  i'm glad you're here, that you've made it this far.

i hope you find this place helpful - it's been extremely helpful for me for quite a few years.

sounds like you've got quite a few issues to work thru.  one thing we often hear here is to take it slow - every step counts no matter how small.  i think you've taken a big step by writing here.  sending a safe, gentle hug, if that's ok.

[rainydiary]

I appreciate you sharing.

[Armee]

I'm glad you are here. As in here on the forum to receive love and support and here as in still on this earth, fighting for a good life that you deserve to live.

I grew up right outside Vegas, also with an abusive step dad and a drug addict father in another state.

[cyberJudas]

Thank you all for the warm welcome and support. It means a lot to me. Light hugs are always welcome

Today I have work as usual, and this week we're closed to the public to do a deep clean and switch up our operating hours for the summer. Slightly dreading it since sometimes my work is tedious and I have a difficult time focusing without my adderall, and even then my work isn't fulfilling enough for me to want to prioritize it with my focused spoons anyways.

I like to describe my energy with spoons, but focused or unfocused spoons as a way of describing how my ADHD affects my energy levels. It takes 1 focused spoon to turn unfocused spoons into focused spoons, so instead of say using 2 spoons for one task, I have to use 3-4 spoons to properly focus myself. More if I don't have my adderall.

Had a bit of a rough night last night, but overall had a good time. Watched some anime with my best friend, QT. Cried a bit after we finished and were just chatting, but I felt better after I cried a bit. I felt bad that they were worried about me. They seem to think they aren't being a good enough friend to me, but they're my closest friend and they've done as much as they possibly can for me from across the country. I reminded them that they've already done so much for me as a friend (they had housed me with their family for half a year while I was sorting out what I wanted from college and my life.), and that a lot of my problems are personal roadblocks, and not them failing to be a good friend. I appreciate their support more than anything, and I've grown a lot and realized a lot just from my time living with them.

QT is probably the closest thing to secure attachment I have. Aside from T, who is a mutual friend of ours. I met QT through T. T has been my best friend since I was 11. I'm 21 now.

After work I have a meeting at my artist residency, and another resident and I are going to discuss color lithography inks to buy soon. I'm hellbent on a yellow ochre, since it can be mixed more effectively than a bright yellow, and can be tinted to print like a brighter yellow. I really love lithography, it's my favorite form of printmaking. I am excited for the art things I have to do after work today. I am anxious about work today, but mostly that I won't have the energy to do any of the work I should get done this week.

If I am low energy, I'm going to take my meds, drink some water, and try to get some protein in my body. I struggle with diet due to ARFID, so the little protein I get really makes a difference. If I get anxious, I will take my hydroxyzine and make some tea while I am at work. Once I get home, I will reheat my dinner and watch anime with QT like we do every Tuesday. We set aside Tuesdays specifically for watching anime together. It makes me happy that we both have this time set aside for each other. I feel loved, seen, and appreciated.

Overall, hoping today is productive and good, despite any low energy slogs I may hit.

[sanmagic7]

hi, CJ, low energy slogs come my way pretty often.  this is a journey of ups and downs.  enjoy the ups, take care of yourself in the downs - they'll eventually leave.  hope your day goes well.   

[cyberJudas]

Man, the humidity sucks today. I'm a little annoyed with myself today. I spent more money on coffee and food than I should have. Money is a problem for me, because I don't make enough to be spending like I do when I have to also save for returning to university. It's really hard to listen to myself, I feel like I am ruled by my inner child sometimes.

Recently after reading and skimming through this forum more, I've realized that everytime I yell at myself or belittle myself for having bad Borderline/C-PTSD type thoughts, I'm just yelling at my inner child that just wants to be heard. But I also know I can't let my child self rule my emotions and my life. I'm not really sure where to start with listening to my emotions without judging myself or reacting negatively. My rational, wanting to be a functional adult and person brain absolutely hates my highly emotional inner child. To some extent, I know that is still me. But I have such a hard time even conceptualizing what loving myself should feel like. Feeling seen, heard, and loved by others is really important for me because I didn't get that growing up. I don't have anything to model self love off of. I am slowly learning, very beginning of it honestly, but jeez, it sure is hard. It doesn't feel right to love myself most of the time. I hope I can love myself a bit more tomorrow.

To the me that wakes up tomorrow morning, I love you and I hope you have a good day. I hope you can heal a bit more than I have today. Keep getting better day by day. Every past self of us wants to love our future self, so I hope we can collectively be someone we love.

I am going to try and journal privately about some of my other issues tonight. Just about my habit building and self care stuff. Maybe I should scan some important documents that I don't need to keep a stack of paper copies around of. Lots of thoughts as I get home from work today. Not enough time in the night.

[rainydiary]

cyberJudas, I resonate with many things you wrote about today.  I hope that you find what self-love looks like for you even if it is different from how others may express it. 

[NarcKiddo]

Hello cJ. I, too, have a huge gap between what I see as my logical (adult) brain and my emotional (mostly child) brain. When I get a big emotional surge that feels out of place in some way, my therapist encourages me to look at it and use my adult brain to say 'where is this coming from?'. Once I identify it as a trauma reaction from my inner child, which it pretty much always is, my adult brain finds it easier to have some compassion with the child brain. Maybe you could start by cultivating curiosity about the inner child behaviour. Once you can react to the inner child from a place of neutrality it is a shorter step to get to a place of compassion and/or love. My adult brain responds well to analysing what is going on rather than just hating the experience and trying to push the emotion away. I have found it takes much of the sting out. It's not always possible to do this in the moment, of course, and it takes practice. But even journaling about an experience where you have not been able to manage the inner child could give you things to work with later, as you consider ideas you might have tried had you only thought of them in the moment. I wonder whether the inner child demanding treats you can't really afford is the child acting up because the adult is trying to control the child. Next time you want a treat, maybe you could try having a discussion with the inner child to see if something like a walk, or doing some colouring, or reading or whatever activity you tend to enjoy would satisfy the child's need for attention and comfort without you always having to spend money.

I hope you have a good day today.

 

[Armee]

I think you're doing great work cyberJudas. I've found it to be very very hard to have self-compassion or compassion for my inner child or even to get permission to talk to parts. So I know how hard it is and has been for me and wanted to say it sounds to me like you are on the right track and to keep going with love and compassion for what you have been through.

[cyberJudas]

Content/Trigger Warning: Involuntary Hospitalization

Thanks for the kind words, I am relieved and feel reassured that I am not alone in my feelings. Thank you especially for the advice, NarcKiddo. I haven't really thought about activities my inner child would like, and how to meet both sides where we are at. I would like to take better care of my inner child, but I struggle to communicate with him. I think reading a comic or some manga, playing a fun quick game on my phone, or watching anime would be a good start, since these are things both my inner child and my current self enjoy.

I remember I enjoyed Sudoku a lot when I was involuntarily hospitalized at age 13. I got pretty good at it, since all my electronics and knitting needles were taken away from me. We basically got points at the end of every day for pretending to be not depressed or mentally ill in any way. I say pretend because hospitalization does not necessarily incentivize recovery, rather it incentivizes the motions of recovery to return to your freedom and autonomy. It should work in theory, but in my experience, it is incredibly oppressive. I bought a Sudoku book with my "good boy points" after my first week, and it kept me occupied in the slogs between forced meditation classes and meals I couldn't eat due to my ARFID.

I should play sudoku on my phone more, but I also have a game I like called Fate/Grand Order. I've been playing it since high school, and it has a lot of cute and fun anime characters based on historical figures. It's kind of silly and absurd. Our favorite character is Nero, but I think young cJ likes Abigail Williams too, since she is a young girl alienated from the world around her, who has dealt with abuse. Young cJ I always see as a little girl, despite us always identifying as male. At the time I was abused, I only was barely starting to understand my gender, and the rest of the world still saw me as a girl, so my perception of that time is that I was a young girl.

I woke up a bit early again today, and while I was a bit sluggish, I have gotten a better start to my day than when I oversleep. I think today I will try to bounce between doing work for my artist residency that I need to do today, and spending time for myself. I could always read more of Jojo Part 7, Steel Ball Run. QT has read it already, so I want to catch up with them. I am really happy they're enjoying Jojo's Bizarre Adventure so much, especially since I am the one who introduced it to them. It makes me feel happy and confident that they enjoy something I love and wanted to share with them.

Hope you all have a good day and restful weekend, big hugs and cups of warm tea <3

[cyberJudas]

Oh jeez, it's been a minute. Life tends to distract me in many ways, but it is nice that I have a minute today to reflect a little.

Finally got off the waitlist for therapy, but only for the next two months as I will be moving up to another state to continue college after my gap year. My therapist can't provide services if I am out of state. God, I hate the lack of state reciprocity programs for things like medical care. It really chains you down in some ways. College is also just a weird state of being if you go out of state.

I really like my new therapist, she understands a lot and has already told me outright I need to stop trying to explain my feelings or pathologize them, rather just let me feel them as is. That's going to be an undertaking. We agree a lot on what trauma based therapy should be about, so that's a really good sign. I have a new therapist in mind for the state I'm in for college, but I have to call her in August to schedule. I hope she has openings I can work with. I have a lot of things I need to do for preparation, including saving.

On phone games for me and cJ, we've taken a liking to Shin Megami Tensei Dx2. It's already one of our favorite games, so having it on the go and having little daily tasks to do in game is really fun and a good distraction on the bus from our ugly thoughts. Keeps us from throwing a tantrum on the way home when we're tired.

Also thinking about having to go no-contact or at the very least minimal-contact with my family. I'm dreading it because I rely on them a lot financially, and I could theoretically not rely on them entirely, but I'd have to work myself to the bone to do so. I honestly may pick up multiple jobs again because I need to build up enough savings to be able to take on the brunt of going no-contact. God, getting a degree sucks. The only reason I'm really even continuing with it is because I have a massive scholarship at one of the most prestigious schools for my field. I have federal student loans, but no private ones as my grandmother pays the last out of pocket costs for me. I could probably try to save up to be able to pay the rest out of pocket, but I also am going to be getting top surgery (gender affirming mastectomy) next summer and will need to have funds set aside so I can stay with friends or sublet, and still help with groceries and stuff. I'm very lucky my Medicaid in my state covers these things.

Financial woes are one of my biggest stressors, because if I was independently financially stable, my life would be a whole lot less stressful from my abusers. They indirectly hold my support over my head as a way to keep me here and control me.

That's whats on my mind today. Felt good to get that out a bit. I'm getting a bit better with the whole random spending thing, but it's still a process.