The One About Decreasing Distance

It isn’t like we’re not all hyperaware of the plague that is COVID. We have this mask and that sanitizer – unless you’re one of those idiot anti-maskers. If that’s so, move on. I don’t want your eyes on my words. But we can finally see a glimpse of the future that includes people not in our household. And that’s where we’re going to have to be patient.

Some of us will be touch starved. The hugs, the arm squeezes, the hand holding. They’ll be so ready to feel that human connection. And then there’ll be others that have lived happily all this time without someone invading their space to get a quick hug.

I live in both worlds. I’m lucky enough to have a partner that I can literally reach out and touch whenever I want. And so I do. When I get lonely for the world, I go bother them for a few minutes and get my fix of touch then move on with my day. However, I’m not a receiver. I don’t like being touched unless you’re in the secret inner circle of my Evil Overlord Club. (If you’re not sure if you are, then just ask. I’m happy to tell you.)

My fear is that the givers are going to overwhelm those that do not receive touch well. So.. keep that in mind as we move forward. Givers don’t place your needs above the receivers. Cause if you do, that’d be a rook mistake

The One About COVID

OK, look. I was locked out of my account for months. I don’t know why, but here we go…

It’s real. I don’t care what your weird ass pastor says. I give two shits about your opinion.

Sit your motherfucking ass at home.

Get stupid with your masks. Wear all of them at once. Just fucking WEAR them.

People are DYING. Are you resisting the death rate or contributing to it?

Am I bored? Am I stalking and researching anything and everything online? Am I trying to find the energy and motivation to work out? Am I gaining weight instead?

Damn straight.

You dicks that won’t follow CDC guidelines are keeping me at home. You’re contributing to my boredom and weight gain. This makes me rage. When I rage I bake. Fuckers, you’re going to kill me over here.

DO you want me to have to go to the VA? Fuck you then. If I can come home from the shit, then you assholes cannot kill me at home.

Also – trim your beard.

TLDR; Shut up and wear your mask. Anything else is a fucking stupid bullshit excuse for a selfish piece of shit. That ain’t a Rook Mistake

The One About Opening Up

So, I’m a fake extrovert. According to all the personality tests, I’m equal parts extro and intro. This month is a full on test of those results. I’ve co-paneled HORROR 101 and spoken on an actual stage in front of people I didn’t even know for PTSD: Triggers &Lies. Next weekend is reserved for Sirens packing and the utter meltdown I’ll have when I can’t fit my metaphorical banjo into the literal suitcase.

The PTSD talk gave me the feels. It wasn’t just me typing to an invisible audience who might or may not even exist. I could see them. They listened and asked questions. I felt “normal” while doing it.

After proving to myself that I can do this, I think I’d like to do it again and hit the character developing/writing angle a little harder.

If you have the chance to attend Writers in the Field next year, do it. It was a fantastic experience. If you were there, thanks for attending.

TL;DR: It’s a good day, but now I need endorphins and a nap. Opening up is part of the recovery process for me. Anything less would be a rook mistake.

The One About Finding a Therapist

I have a psychiatrist who recommended I see a therapist. She even gave me some people to call. This means I’ve been making it on meds and the home-spun wisdom I created. Today I went to a therapist.

It took about 45 minutes for a 15 minute consultation to see if she was a good fit. I should have saved myself the time when I saw the rah-rah feel good decor in the lobby. Yeah, I know positive in creates positive output for lots of people. However, when it looks like someone’s grandma got a free shopping spree at Mardel’s – I’m out.

Let me saw that I am not opposed to God or church, but I’d like for that to stay in a religious environment. I am not looking to God to fix my anxiety. I don’t want to kumbaya the pain away. I’m looking for therapy and a therapist that doesn’t ask me to pray with her.

TLDR: Check out the therapist before you go. Anything less is a Rook mistake.

The One About home defense

Fuck all if it isn’t just the most complicated concept. Are you protecting yourself from armed robbers intent on stealing everything you have and murdering you in your sleep? Or are you playing Jigsaw with cameras and multi-phased detainment and elimination setups?

Or are you just afraid of the other. The other that doesn’t look like you – that doesn’t speak your language – that doesn’t worship as you do.

People will tell you to stop being a racist piece of shit, right? Does that suggestion ever work? Does it actually make a person rethink their ideas and do the work to see why what they’ve said/think is racist?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that if you speak to people, they become human to you and not an object to navigate around. Maybe you work with someone who isn’t like you and you’ve never really given them a thought. Try it. Talk. But think about what you say before it comes out of your mouth. Let’s not focus on color or race or religion in that conversation. Let’s just say hello and move on from there.

Try it. And maybe you’ll feel as though you have one less person to defend against. Maybe you’ll realize that no one is trying to steal your way of life.

TLDR: Know what you’re up against in yourself and find the solutions. Anything less would be a rook mistake.

The One About Yesterday

Yeah, it’s been awhile. Again, pretend I’m wearing a hairshirt and have mea culpa tattooed across my forehead. You know, like every other time I religiously skip blogging for long periods of time.

It’s who I am.

So, yesterday.

I missed the Leadership in Teaching meeting because I didn’t know they rescheduled. That meant I didn’t get my hour and a half of prep time before classes and I had a huge embarrassment issue with missing a LEADERSHIP meeting.

I drove home.

I didn’t go to work after staying home all weekend. I am now super attached to HOME.

Had a full on panic attack on my way HOME from the writing class last night. It was brought on by the anxiety of leaving HOME for work.

HOME is good. HOME is safe.

So here I am today.

Home. And I do not want to leave it.

The aftermath is that I know how ridiculous it sounds. That my body aches from being clenched up into a tight ball. That my throat is raw from crying.

Yes, I’m on medication.

Yes, I have support.

Yes, I have a weighted blanket.

Yes, it’s been months and months since this happened.

But it still happened.

And I’m still here.

 

 

TL;DR: You can be prepared for a panic attack, but they will still happen. To expect anything else is a Rook Mistake

 

The One About Antidepressants

My daily antidepressants are fantastic. The two side effects seem to be sleeping and vivid dreaming. It’s like sitting on the front row of a theater, craning my neck up at the screen. Everything is bigger, louder, more in my face. All of that is great when it’s some surreal piece of freudian manifestation. But when it’s a screaming night terror, that’s a little different. Friday I woke in the middle of the night crying and lost. I got up and took a Xanax, my emergency meds, and next thing I know I was waking up at 11 Saturday morning. I lasted about 3 hours before sleeping again til 7 pm. I made it until about 10pm and crashed out again. My Saturday was just GONE.

I’ll be cutting Xanax in half next time. I can’t afford to lose days.

BUT, I’m taking my meds and having mostly good days and working.

Let’s pretend the quotation marks are correctly done.

TL;DR:  Meds are great for me. Don’t see if as weakness. Anything less is a rook mistake

 

The One About Sirens 2017

This could get wordy, y’all, so cup yer butts or my wind’s gonna blow’m out.

First a recap:

2015- Holy shit! What is this place? OMG Look at all the females here! HOLY shit! I just met a trans woman! Everyone is so fucking smart and well-read. OMG am I stupid? I never thought I was stupid before. Wait, I get a tiny dessert too? Fanfuckingtastic. But I want all the things at the auction! Shit, it’s time to go? But my brain… it’s been cracked open. I didn’t know there were groups of people like this. Help! How do I keep this feeling????

2016-Holy shit! People remembered me from last year! Oh fuck’s what’s their name?? I can’t see their badge!! Oh MORE people that are so fucking amazing! Why have I always felt so alone? You liked my story in Queens and Courtesans? OMG, thank you!!!! But my brain… the crack’s bigger and the idea that I’m OK keeps leaking in. What? Wait? You don’t think I belong? YES I fucking do. And so do you. Everyone’s entitled to a bad day. Shit, we gotta go home? OK, but I will always come back.

2017- HOLY shit, quit fucking crying you big baby. You just got here! OMG AGAIN? VE Schwab was NOT talking about you. Quit crying. People want to sit with me at lunch. Ask me to dinner. They want my ideas on things. They’re asking me like I’m equal – like I fucking matter. Seriously, quit fucking crying. It’s annoying. Motherfucking Kate Elliot asking  me (ME!!!) to sign her copy of Queens and Courtesans. Speechless. More of those goddam tears. Canned air. Gallons of water. Oh shit, Artemis! The feeling of being mother fucking home in a place I’ve never been. And now my tears aren’t for me. They’re for this world where people are born, grow old, and die without ever feeling the love and ACCEPTANCE I feel at Sirens. May we never truly leave.

TLDR: Fuck you, go read it.

Another One About Surviving a Broken System

Went to lunch yesterday at a very crowded burger joint with a coworker and took the only open table. That’s right, I sat in the middle of the room with no clear line of sight to either exit. My back was to the walk way.Wasn’t my best dining experience, but I survived without incident. Yesterday was a good day.

Read about the VA again. Maybe I shouldn’t do that. It’s so broken that nothing sort of a total strip and rebuild is going to fix it. All I can do is be glad that neither I nor any of my family has so far ever needed a transplant. Cause the VA is going to make our life hell if we do.

There are restrictions that private hospitals don’t have. They don’t take organs from non vets. What? Yeah. You’re top of the recipient list and ready to get that new heart, but Transplant Joe wasn’t in the club, so fuck you and your years of service.

Does that sound even remotely right?

Took my info from The Military Times article. There isn’t much info on the VA National Transplant page, but that’s not shocking.

*

*injuries

TL;DR: Take the VA apart and reassemble using logic and compassion. If you’re stuck with the VA, do your research and don’t take them at face value. That would be a rook mistake.

 

 

The One About Night Terrors

It’s more than a nightmare.

For me it’s total paralysis with open eyes screaming. Sometimes it bolts me awake. Sometimes I don’t quite reach consciousness.

Sometimes it’s the total certainty that someone is standing over me in the dark.

Sometimes it’s a memory replayed in a thousand different ways that I am helpless to change.

An adrenaline dump in the middle of the night can keep me up for hours, or not let me sleep again. Panicked, angry, and frightened, I’ll roam my house trying to talk myself down. “It was just a dream. I’m fine. Everything is fine. I’m OK.  Nothing is wrong.” It’s a mantra.

It also upsets the household. Thankfully, my son has always slept like he was in his own personal cocoon. My sig-oth isn’t so lucky. I know it’s a helpless situation for him as well. But there is nothing he can do.

Add guilt to the mix of anger, panic, fear because I’m causing sleep depravation for him, too.

Fuck all that.

This kid , Tyler Skuzacek in Saint Paul, MN,  is a freaking genius. He and his team created an app.

It hasn’t made the clinical trials yet, but he’s working with the VA and sleep experts.

It marks the symptoms leading up to the terror and interrupts deep sleep with a vibration to take the sleeper just this side of consciousness without actually waking them.

Sign me up, Tyler.

MyBivy App

It’s never hopeless. Someone’s always out there working on ways to make it better. They don’t give up and neither can you. That would be the worst Rook mistake.

I know the pic is sappy af, but this time it fits.

TL;DR: Tyler’s dad came home with PTSD. After watching his dad suffer, he chose to do something about it. There’s an app in the works. Don’t give up. Help is coming.