Lee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
randomling) wrote2013-04-24 12:10 am
randomling) wrote2013-04-24 12:10 am
(no subject)
It's funny. I had a wonderful talk with my mum over dinner tonight, and got home feeling really positive and hopeful about things for the first time in ages, and now I'm heading back into a slump again.
Writing about these things seems to help. So I am going to try and write about them.
I watched John Corvino videos again tonight and I think that's part of what set me off; partly because the video playlist finishes with his version of "it gets better" and my question is the same as always.
I'm 33 in six weeks. When?!
I'm exhausted with my situation. I'm exhausted at even the idea of appealing the DWP decision, though at times I feel positive and galvanised to do it. And sometimes I feel intensely guilty for even wanting money from the government, because I could push myself to get a job now if I really tried. I'd probably fall over again within six months; I still can't figure out how to do a job sustainably. Which for me means without it slowly leading to deep spoon issues.
And the same stuff around being unpartnered and feeling unlovable and lonely and isolated is also still swirling around my head.
The problem is I have so much headmess, and I'm finding it unbelievably hard to see past that and imagine the kind of life I actually want. To even imagine it, never mind figure out how to achieve it. Fighting depression is such hard and painful work sometimes.
And then there's the part where there is John Corvino in the world. And because I have a crush, I want to find a way to connect with him and talk to him and have some kind of relationship with him (I don't necessarily mean a sexual one, just any kind of relationship). Which is the same thing I was craving from Joseph Gordon-Levitt a few years ago. The actual relationship is equally unattainable. And I'm feeling embarrassed and ashamed for even having this unattainable want, which sort of compounds the problem.
Of course I'm whining about this on Dreamwidth, instead of trying to figure out a way if I can strike up a conversation on Twitter. But there is such a weight of what's-the-point - because I doubt if I'd be able to strike up a conversation (he doesn't seem to use Twitter very much anyway), and because I doubt my own motives. I don't want to be the overinvested fangirl/stalker. So I stay far away.
(The fangirl/stalker thing is such a sort of conundrum to me. Because on the one hand I wouldn't have this impulse if the person in question wasn't someone I liked and respected; that's sort of the bare minimum qualification. But I also feel that I like and respect the guy in question so much that I don't want to do the fangirl/stalker thing, because it's in some ways treating him as an object, which he is obviously not.)
Ugh.
It's annoying sometimes to do all this processing and find that it's not easy to draw a specific learning from all your rambling. I've covered so much here (from "when does it get better?" to whether I'm worth loving to fangirling over philosophy teachers) and it feels like it's all intimately connected somehow, but I don't see quite where.
...I'm not done with the "it gets better" thing, am I? No.
Here's the thing.
I know I don't get away with just sitting around and waiting for things to get better. I have to work through things. I have to work. I'm working, and I feel like I've made so little progress in the past decade, though - looked at objectively - that's probably untrue. Is it untrue?
Since I was 23 I've: completed a university degree, held a number of jobs and volunteer positions, discovered some passions, written hundreds of thousands of words (in stories and blog posts), had many conversations and hundreds of hours of therapy and counselling, made and lost friends, had my first (so far only) romantic relationship. I've learned a lot. I've taken classes (completed some, dropped out of others), had crushes, built databases, staffed charity events, catalogued books, written code, learned new games, made hats and scarves with just sticks and string, seen TV shows and movies (and written about some, and thought deep thoughts about many more), been the favourite temp, been the least favourite temp, made fun of bad art, decorated my room with good art. I have mended broken things. I have broken other things. I have been seriously ill, I have got into debt, I've been to the US six times. I have worked fucking hard, and not just at my jobs.
And yet I still suffer from crippling depression and low self-esteem.
I don't think I can fix all of this in one blog post, in one day. Hell probably not in one decade. But on the other hand, I do in fact have a lifetime to figure it out. I don't have to do it all now.
Don't get me wrong - the depression sucks, and some days I still can't see past it; hell, some months I can't see past it. But though I beat myself up with the idea on a regular basis, the truth is that I've come a long way, baby (hat tip to Fatboy Slim). Writing that paragraph felt good. Acknowledging all I've done, seen, experienced and accomplished in the past ten years felt good. Maybe I should remind myself more often that there is a lot of that. Maybe I should remind myself that just because I'm in difficult circumstances now, it doesn't make all the achievements of my life worthless.
It's hard to remember that sometimes.
But other times, it's... better.
Writing about these things seems to help. So I am going to try and write about them.
I watched John Corvino videos again tonight and I think that's part of what set me off; partly because the video playlist finishes with his version of "it gets better" and my question is the same as always.
I'm 33 in six weeks. When?!
I'm exhausted with my situation. I'm exhausted at even the idea of appealing the DWP decision, though at times I feel positive and galvanised to do it. And sometimes I feel intensely guilty for even wanting money from the government, because I could push myself to get a job now if I really tried. I'd probably fall over again within six months; I still can't figure out how to do a job sustainably. Which for me means without it slowly leading to deep spoon issues.
And the same stuff around being unpartnered and feeling unlovable and lonely and isolated is also still swirling around my head.
The problem is I have so much headmess, and I'm finding it unbelievably hard to see past that and imagine the kind of life I actually want. To even imagine it, never mind figure out how to achieve it. Fighting depression is such hard and painful work sometimes.
And then there's the part where there is John Corvino in the world. And because I have a crush, I want to find a way to connect with him and talk to him and have some kind of relationship with him (I don't necessarily mean a sexual one, just any kind of relationship). Which is the same thing I was craving from Joseph Gordon-Levitt a few years ago. The actual relationship is equally unattainable. And I'm feeling embarrassed and ashamed for even having this unattainable want, which sort of compounds the problem.
Of course I'm whining about this on Dreamwidth, instead of trying to figure out a way if I can strike up a conversation on Twitter. But there is such a weight of what's-the-point - because I doubt if I'd be able to strike up a conversation (he doesn't seem to use Twitter very much anyway), and because I doubt my own motives. I don't want to be the overinvested fangirl/stalker. So I stay far away.
(The fangirl/stalker thing is such a sort of conundrum to me. Because on the one hand I wouldn't have this impulse if the person in question wasn't someone I liked and respected; that's sort of the bare minimum qualification. But I also feel that I like and respect the guy in question so much that I don't want to do the fangirl/stalker thing, because it's in some ways treating him as an object, which he is obviously not.)
Ugh.
It's annoying sometimes to do all this processing and find that it's not easy to draw a specific learning from all your rambling. I've covered so much here (from "when does it get better?" to whether I'm worth loving to fangirling over philosophy teachers) and it feels like it's all intimately connected somehow, but I don't see quite where.
...I'm not done with the "it gets better" thing, am I? No.
Here's the thing.
I know I don't get away with just sitting around and waiting for things to get better. I have to work through things. I have to work. I'm working, and I feel like I've made so little progress in the past decade, though - looked at objectively - that's probably untrue. Is it untrue?
Since I was 23 I've: completed a university degree, held a number of jobs and volunteer positions, discovered some passions, written hundreds of thousands of words (in stories and blog posts), had many conversations and hundreds of hours of therapy and counselling, made and lost friends, had my first (so far only) romantic relationship. I've learned a lot. I've taken classes (completed some, dropped out of others), had crushes, built databases, staffed charity events, catalogued books, written code, learned new games, made hats and scarves with just sticks and string, seen TV shows and movies (and written about some, and thought deep thoughts about many more), been the favourite temp, been the least favourite temp, made fun of bad art, decorated my room with good art. I have mended broken things. I have broken other things. I have been seriously ill, I have got into debt, I've been to the US six times. I have worked fucking hard, and not just at my jobs.
And yet I still suffer from crippling depression and low self-esteem.
I don't think I can fix all of this in one blog post, in one day. Hell probably not in one decade. But on the other hand, I do in fact have a lifetime to figure it out. I don't have to do it all now.
Don't get me wrong - the depression sucks, and some days I still can't see past it; hell, some months I can't see past it. But though I beat myself up with the idea on a regular basis, the truth is that I've come a long way, baby (hat tip to Fatboy Slim). Writing that paragraph felt good. Acknowledging all I've done, seen, experienced and accomplished in the past ten years felt good. Maybe I should remind myself more often that there is a lot of that. Maybe I should remind myself that just because I'm in difficult circumstances now, it doesn't make all the achievements of my life worthless.
It's hard to remember that sometimes.
But other times, it's... better.
no subject
no subject
QFT
also *hugs*
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no subject
My secondary problem with the campaign is that its founder, Dan Savage, has a record of mocking the Disabled Community, and of their concerns about bullying, at the same time the speaking up against the bullying of gay and lesbian youth.
Here's a link to an open letter to him about this very issue, from this last July:
Http://www.thebacklot.com/real-voices-an-open-letter-to-dan-savage/07/2012/