Battle Kitten: Ascension

[fleaball]

^ skimmed this. Pretty sure I agree. Can't actually read and reply though because roommate's friend turned on the water to do laundry and it seems like a pipe burst? Water came out from under something somewhere in dickface's kitchen but we can't figure out where. So if there wasn't mold in the house before there's gonna be now. >____>. Roommate was at her boyfriend's, I called and woke her up, she's on her way over and going to be pissed because she's supposed to be driving to North Carolina at ass o'clock in the morning. But she's the only one with the number of the friend landlord designated as in charge of making repair calls and shit so hey. Whatever. I give zero fucks. 

 

And ha, this is where I would call my mother for advice but a) she's going to bed in the next five minutes and needs all the sleep she can get and b.) why worry her needlessly when there's nothing she can do about it anyway?

[Countess D'If]

Look, sometimes you just need your mommy. Call her. I'm sure she'd rather still be your mom than be a precious thing you're afraid to break.

[fleaball]

8 minutes ago, Countess D'If said:

Look, sometimes you just need your mommy. Call her. I'm sure she'd rather still be your mom than be a precious thing you're afraid to break.

I mean, my roommate's got it handled. There's nothing we can do until the morning since we can't get a hold of friend dude and honestly I doubt a plumber would come out at 11:30 at night. I'll call her tomorrow to unload about it. 

[fleaball]

FUCK I don't have time for this though. I have to spend the weekend doing research because of the stupid proposal I have due on Tuesday. Because surprise, not only does my advisor want the draft of it but the agency does too, which is not a thing they told me on Wednesday. I thought I'd have more time bc yes my prof wants the draft Tuesday but it's not actually due to the school til the 27th so there was wiggle room but ugh. 

 

And I just made plans for lunch with a friend on Sunday that I might now have to cancel to get this resolved. Because it's going to need an electrician and a plumber and a guy who rips the wall out. 

[Dagger]

What a shit ton of crap. I'm sorry for that. As if the rest that was happening wasn't enough. Ugh.

 

11 hours ago, fleaball said:

reading (because it occurred to me that I haven't read any fanfic since Sunday and for whatever reason that calms me down; I've noticed in the past that I get more riled up if I go a few days without it too. maybe it's just the escape from reality?)

This is true for me too when it comes to reading fiction. I've started to call it a stress reliever for me. It seems to help to be able to live through other character's emotions to relieve mine.

[Owlet]

Oh maaan. There is so much going on for you right now. Ugh. I second what @Countess D'Ifsaid. It's very reasonable to feel anxious right now. Heck, even if you didn't have anxiety I'd almost expect you to feel anxious at the moment. All I can say is, I have faith that you can do all the things. Obviously it's not ideal that you have to do all the things, but you've proven before that you can. Fingers crossed that the pipe thing is easily sorted and you can focus on research. Hugs!

[Jarric]

Ouch, sorry to hear about the pipe burst and the paper clusterfuck thing.

 

17 hours ago, fleaball said:

Like I was thinking this morning that if I want to start doing yoga before work or make sure I have time to meditate, I'll have to start getting up earlier. Which means going to bed earlier. Which is technically doable but 3 nights in a row each week I won't be getting home til about 9. I can't really just come home and go to bed within half an hour after being gone for 14 hours because I'll have stuff that needs doing?

 

I think you're over-thinking this. Yes there are some barriers in the way of you getting up in time to yoga/meditate, and yes you will sometimes miss your bed time due to circumstances outside of your control, but if you want to do this just give it a go and see how it pans out in reality. It might not work, and if not that's fine, but if you keep thinking of all the potential problems that may come up you prohibit yourself from even trying.

 

Sorry if that comes across as a bit preachy, but I've been really guilty in the past of not trying hard enough/at all to make stuff work because I've over-thought it and already decided a thousand ways in which I will fail.

[fleaball]

6 hours ago, Dagger said:

What a shit ton of crap. I'm sorry for that. As if the rest that was happening wasn't enough. Ugh.

 

This is true for me too when it comes to reading fiction. I've started to call it a stress reliever for me. It seems to help to be able to live through other character's emotions to relieve mine.

Yeah definitely. I'm going to try to make sure I read a bit every other day or something. The sad part is I'm very picky (I like to call it having high standards but lbr) and sometimes spend more time looking for something to read than I do reading it.

 

5 hours ago, Owlet said:

Oh maaan. There is so much going on for you right now. Ugh. I second what @Countess D'Ifsaid. It's very reasonable to feel anxious right now. Heck, even if you didn't have anxiety I'd almost expect you to feel anxious at the moment. All I can say is, I have faith that you can do all the things. Obviously it's not ideal that you have to do all the things, but you've proven before that you can. Fingers crossed that the pipe thing is easily sorted and you can focus on research. Hugs!

<3 

 

11 minutes ago, Jarric said:

Ouch, sorry to hear about the pipe burst and the paper clusterfuck thing.

 

I think you're over-thinking this. Yes there are some barriers in the way of you getting up in time to yoga/meditate, and yes you will sometimes miss your bed time due to circumstances outside of your control, but if you want to do this just give it a go and see how it pans out in reality. It might not work, and if not that's fine, but if you keep thinking of all the potential problems that may come up you prohibit yourself from even trying.

 

Sorry if that comes across as a bit preachy, but I've been really guilty in the past of not trying hard enough/at all to make stuff work because I've over-thought it and already decided a thousand ways in which I will fail.

No you're totally right. That occured to me while I was writing it but I guess I didn't mention it. I do this all the time. With a lot of different things. Come up with all the obstacles and then just never even try it because why bother. So thanks for calling me out.  

[Sylvaa]

12 hours ago, fleaball said:

FUCK I don't have time for this though. I have to spend the weekend doing research because of the stupid proposal I have due on Tuesday. Because surprise, not only does my advisor want the draft of it but the agency does too, which is not a thing they told me on Wednesday. I thought I'd have more time bc yes my prof wants the draft Tuesday but it's not actually due to the school til the 27th so there was wiggle room but ugh. 

 

And I just made plans for lunch with a friend on Sunday that I might now have to cancel to get this resolved. Because it's going to need an electrician and a plumber and a guy who rips the wall out. 

 

The good thing is that if you have to be home to let people in to do work, then at least you might get some things done for your paper (who am I kidding, you work better under pressure)?

 

12 hours ago, fleaball said:

And ha, this is where I would call my mother for advice but a) she's going to bed in the next five minutes and needs all the sleep she can get and b.) why worry her needlessly when there's nothing she can do about it anyway?

 

Not your mom, but I'm pretty good at acting like one. So you can always text me and be like, "I need an adult!". 

[fleaball]

2 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

The good thing is that if you have to be home to let people in to do work, then at least you might get some things done for your paper (who am I kidding, you work better under pressure)?

That was what I was thinking too, but yeah no, it'll probably get done Monday evening. Luckily I only need two or three relevant articles because it's just a page or so of "so here's why this research is worth doing." The problem is there's basically zero research on this aspect of the Peace Corps so it might take me a while to find a way to pull it all together. I mean I have the argument, and the other half of it is stuff in my field that I can bullshit reasonably well if I find appropriate citations. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't stress about the easy assignments too. 

 

11 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

Not your mom, but I'm pretty good at acting like one. So you can always text me and be like, "I need an adult!". 

Haha thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

[fleaball]

13 hours ago, Countess D'If said:

I agree with your therapist because that's exactly what happened to me last summer: I was doing great in therapy, I was applying all the tricks and techniques we were discussing.

 And then, boom! Life through a bag of flaming dog poop at me. And I reacted... like a normal human being. Nobody knows what to do in these situations. It's totally okay to have emotions. I got down on myself for reacting the way I did. And it took my therapist to help me walk through everything that was going on. And she was all like, nobody knows how to react to these things! It's okay to have emotions, big emotions, any emotions! It's a big scary thing that happened.

 And then I was always all like well we're working on this and I should be able to use the tricks that I'm learning. I shouldn't have these big scary reactions.

And then she would tell me that that was being super judgy of my reactions, and that it's okay to have the big reaction, but then just take a step back and kind of analyze it.

When you're in therapy to learn how to deal with study related anxiety, those deal with techniques are not always going to translate into my husband just got mugged anxiety. Nor is your brain going to remember to apply study anxiety techniques to husband got mugged anxiety. So you just can't really be judging yourself about, oh no I freaked out because The Marine almost died but I'm not supposed to freak out because I'm supposed to be learning how to deal with anxiety! 

The everyday anxiety is turns out to be pretty petty in the face of the my mom has cancer anxiety and you while you can be angry* about the former and want to fix it with therapy, you can't be angry* about the latter because THAT'S the kind of stuff that you're supposed to bigly worry about.

 

 

*I know angry is totally not the right word here. I just don't know what I really mean, so angry works.

Ugh shit. What black magic is this? I hadn't really considered the differences in the sources of my anxiety. Just that it's all anxiety and I should be managing it better. Obviously I know being worried about a paper will be more easily resolved than my mother's issue, but still. How did you wind up dealing with it? Did she give you any advice for dealing with the big shit and the normal shit at the same time?

[fleaball]

4th post in a row, hey! Pipe update: Landlord called me at 5:45am (here time) from Slovenia. Said he'd get someone on it and let me know. A few hours later I hadn't heard anything so I FB messaged him (roommate set up a group last night with the 3 of us bc he and I weren't friends) and was like "hey if it's easier you can give me your guy's number and I'll set it up. I'm home all weekend and it would be great to get it done now since all 3 of us work full-time and don't want to miss work to stay home and let people in." He sends back later that it's his friend's uncle who's very trustworthy so we won't have to be home while he's here, they've been in contact, and it's probably not going to get done this weekend no matter who we call because every plumber in the city is probably out fixing broken pipes.  He also suggested asking downstairs guy if we can use his machine in the meantime, which, tbh, I was planning on doing anyway. But saying landlord suggested it will hopefully lend a sort of "you can't really say no" to it. Even though he can. But shh. He hasn't responded so we'll see what happens. Roommate apparently thinks I'm more freaked out about it than I am because she's sending her boyfriend over at some point to look at it and reassure me. I said I'm fine about it but I was definitely standing in dickhead's kitchen last night crying because I was just so overwhelmed by everything so whatever. Boyfriend works in some kind of construction/architecture/whatever, so I suppose it's valid. 

 

I'm not mad that this happened because whatever. Shit goes wrong eventually. I guess I'm sort of mad that whatever dumbass built the extension on the back of the house decided that it didn't need to be insulated but nothing we can do about that. I am mad that I'm the one getting the lecture from both the landlord and roommate's friend (and also now my obnoxious friend in Richmond too?) that it must have burst because there was still water in the pipe and we should have run it after turning the water off to let it out. Yes. Great. I'm aware. Not to point fingers, but my roommate was the last one to do laundry and turn it off. If it had been me, fine, I'll take the chastizing. But this is not my fault.

[Dagger]

2 hours ago, fleaball said:

Not to point fingers, but my roommate was the last one to do laundry and turn it off. If it had been me, fine, I'll take the chastizing. But this is not my fault.

You don't want to know how many times I got blamed for what my siblings didn't do as a teenager. Seriously you don't. So when I say I feel you. I FEEL YOU.

[fleaball]

Roommate's bf is coming over tomorrow now, not today. I told her I'm meeting someone for lunch and don't know when I'll be back. Her exact response was "U got a date???" When I said no it's a friend from school she said "¯\_(ツ)_/¯ thought at this point maybe you said f it and decided to throw caution to the wind." Thanks for your optimism? I guess? I'm 100% amused and not offended but I had to share. 

 

In other news, it's been 10 hours since I texted captain dickhead and I've gotten no response. At this point I'm half tempted to go out and buy 3 new outfits for work this week rather than attempt laundry somewhere. #anxietyproblems

 

ETA: relay the text story to obnoxious friend who currently texting me and she says "who ARE you going to lunch with?" Is my life sad enough that people assume I have no one to hang out with?

[Countess D'If]

13 hours ago, fleaball said:

Ugh shit. What black magic is this? I hadn't really considered the differences in the sources of my anxiety. Just that it's all anxiety and I should be managing it better. Obviously I know being worried about a paper will be more easily resolved than my mother's issue, but still. How did you wind up dealing with it? Did she give you any advice for dealing with the big shit and the normal shit at the same time?

From what I remember (I've brain dumped a lot of 2016 because HOLY SHIT) it was basically breathe through it it will pass and you're not dead and it's OK to feel teh feels.

I think the big lesson was we're not "supposed" to have panic attacks over contracts homework but we're TOTALLY "allowed" to have a screaming me me diaper baby meltdowns over our husbands almost being murdered, so chill the fuck out and be kind to yourself.

 

If that makes sense?

[Countess D'If]

Stated slightly differently, it's OK to be scared?

[fleaball]

18 hours ago, Countess D'If said:

From what I remember (I've brain dumped a lot of 2016 because HOLY SHIT) it was basically breathe through it it will pass and you're not dead and it's OK to feel teh feels.

I think the big lesson was we're not "supposed" to have panic attacks over contracts homework but we're TOTALLY "allowed" to have a screaming me me diaper baby meltdowns over our husbands almost being murdered, so chill the fuck out and be kind to yourself.

 

If that makes sense?

 

18 hours ago, Countess D'If said:

Stated slightly differently, it's OK to be scared?

 

Ugh. Good advice but not actionable. D: Appreciate the sharing though. 

[Severine]

UGH plumbing. Fuck everyone involved. Fuck the Romans for devising aqueducts, IMO. This whole thing is a pile of crap you do not need. Also, WTF is it with pipes exploding when everything is already shitty??? Do you remember in the summer when everything already sucked and then my stupid contractor broke the water line coming in to our house with his stupid backhoe? Maybe we have the same kind of weird curse. I would like to make the following observations/suggestions:

• As much as possible, let this be the landlord/your roommate/dickhead downstairs/literally anyone else's problem to solve
• You can often re-wear clothing without washing it, as long as you weren't working out in it or anything, and nobody will notice at all
• If you really need to do laundry, driving to a laundromat might be a good way to force yourself to read/work for a little while, or at the very least you can chill out and read fanfic and still feel like you're being productive because you're doing laundry
• It is not your fault and you can say "I wasn't the last one to do laundry, but I'll pass on your advice" or something if it's bothering you (it'd totally bother me)

As for the more-anxiety-when-things-are-worse thing. I mean, obviously yeah, that makes sense and your therapist is right that it's to be expected. But that doesn't make me feel better either when the thing I want is to not feel anxious and crappy and panicked about everything. All I can suggest is that if you can't change the higher anxiety levels, at least try to modify your response to your own anxiety with compassion and perspective.

 

Like, I do a lot of meta-analysis of my own anxiety and berating myself for feeling anxious. Which is about as helpful as it sounds, generally. But I try to use it as a force for good, too - like I try to understand where the anxiety is coming from, and monitor/analyze it in a way that I hope will help me understand and address it. Anyway, when I'm doing this analysis I have a tendency to give myself a slightly easier time for anxiety that I see as being 'justified' like stuff from dealing with a major life stress like you have right now. And basically that just involves talking myself down a little. Like, "Okay, you feel super anxious right now. This is why it's happening. That's a pretty major thing, and anyone would feel stressed by that. You're more stressed by it than normal because you have anxiety issues. But that's okay - you're working on them, and in the meantime the important thing is to just get through this." It doesn't make the anxiety go away, but like...it's still valuable to manage my meta-feelings about the anxiety, to stop myself whenever I catch myself being disappointed in myself for freaking out.

 

Apologies if none of that was helpful. Ramble ramble.

 

Also, we would all totally have lunch with you. Your mean friend is mean.

 

P.S. "Absentee Slovenian Landlord" is a great band name.

[fleaball]

2 minutes ago, Severine said:

UGH plumbing. Fuck everyone involved. Fuck the Romans for devising aqueducts, IMO. This whole thing is a pile of crap you do not need. Also, WTF is it with pipes exploding when everything is already shitty??? Do you remember in the summer when everything already sucked and then my stupid contractor broke the water line coming in to our house with his stupid backhoe? Maybe we have the same kind of weird curse. I would like to make the following observations/suggestions:

• As much as possible, let this be the landlord/your roommate/dickhead downstairs/literally anyone else's problem to solve
• You can often re-wear clothing without washing it, as long as you weren't working out in it or anything, and nobody will notice at all
• If you really need to do laundry, driving to a laundromat might be a good way to force yourself to read/work for a little while, or at the very least you can chill out and read fanfic and still feel like you're being productive because you're doing laundry
• It is not your fault and you can say "I wasn't the last one to of laundry, but I'll pass on your advice" or something if it's bothering you (it'd totally bother me)

As for the more-anxiety-when-things-are-worse thing. I mean, obviously yeah, that makes sense and your therapist is right that it's to be expected. But that doesn't make me feel better either when the thing I want is to not feel anxious and crappy and panicked about everything. All I can suggest is that if you can't change the higher anxiety levels, at least try to modify your response to your own anxiety with compassion and perspective.

 

Like, I do a lot of meta-analysis of my own anxiety and berating myself for feeling anxious. Which is about as helpful as it sounds, generally. But I try to use it as a force for good, too - like I try to understand where the anxiety is coming from, and monitor/analyze it in a way that I hope will help me understand and address it. Anyway, when I'm doing this analysis I have a tendency to give myself a slightly easier time for anxiety that I see as being 'justified' like stuff from dealing with a major life stress like you have right now. And basically that just involves talking myself down a little. Like, "Okay, you feel super anxious right now. This is why it's happening. That's a pretty major thing, and anyone would feel stressed by that. You're more stressed by it than normal because you have anxiety issues. But that's okay - you're working on them, and in the meantime the important thing is to just get through this." It doesn't make the anxiety go away, but like...it's still valuable to manage my meta-feelings about the anxiety, to stop myself whenever I catch myself being disappointed in myself for freaking out.

 

Apologies if none of that was helpful. Ramble ramble.

 

Also, we would all totally have lunch with you. Your mean friend is mean.

 

P.S. "Absentee Slovenian Landlord" is a great band name.

Blahhhh I've got like 75% of another long ranty post typed up and you come in and comment. The nerve.

 

Seriously. There's some water-based curse we've run into. We should stop that. In fact, you and I should stop any and all negative things we have in common. I would love for this to be anyone else's problem but landlord is in Europe, roommate is in NC, dickhead is somewhere that is not here and is also a fucking moron. (Literally, March of last year the pilot light on the water heater went out. I texted him that morning and was like "sooo did you have a problem with the hot water this morning?" and he's like "yeah so I just took a really quick shower. Did you call the landlord yet?") So that leaves me. Plumber guy called and when I was describing what happened he said maybe it's the pump in the washing machine and not a burst pipe. I don't think he was understanding that the shutoff is in the basement, the washer is on the first floor, and there was no water on the first floor but definitely coming through the wall or something in the basement. I would much rather it be the washing machine (although god knows how long it would take the landlord to replace it) but what the fuck ever.

 

I do plan on hitting up a laundromat tomorrow. And either pulling up articles or just reading fic on my phone. I'm not opposed to rewearing clothes but everything's been sitting in the dirty pile for a long time and also I have like 14-hour days this week (from the time I leave the house to the time I get home, becase class two nights after work and therapy the other) and in my current state of mind I would probably decide halfway to work on Tuesday that I smelled horrible and everyone would know and then spend the entire day hating myself. 

 

What you're saying about anxiety makes sense. I was sort of doing that when I was nervous about various medical things? I think part of what got to me on Friday (beyond being decidedly stressed after my embassy field trip and looking like an idiot) was that I had to leave near the end of the day for the CT scan, but not near enough to the end that I could just leave for the day, so I spent the day watching the clock to make sure I'd get there on time and then stressing the whole time about how long it would take because I had to get back to work (to do what? literally nothing, but that's not the point as far as my brain was concerned) and all of this random shit. 

 

My friend is an idiot and I increasingly find myself wishing there were a way to just stop talking to her altogether without probably losing the mutual friends we have; then again, I barely talk to any of them as it is. I've talked to my therapist about why I suddenly was getting upset with her for things she'd been doing all along and apparently while the patterns haven't changed, I have. So before I was doing all the therapy stuff and also had full days' worth of stuff to do, I was fine with stupid one-off texts and random complaints and whatnot. And now I get pissed off about that and annoyed that we don't have actual conversations and even if I try to start a conversation or look for support about a thing it turns into "that's nice, here's my unrelated complaint that trumps yours and I'm going to keep talking about it." Last night when I asked if people assumed I didn't have other friends she said "I assume you have other friends unless you've informed me your lack of communication exists for a reason." She was drinking and people around her was smoking weed so maybe English wasn't her strength last night but I don't even know what that means? I feel like she was calling me out for not talking to her as much but hello, I went from doing basically nothing my first year of school plus the summer, to having a nearly full-time internship plus school, to the rug being pulled out from under my feet with my mother, to all of those things at once now. If she brings it up again I'll say something but ugh. 

 

Love the band name. Not so much the inspirtation for it. =P

[fleaball]

So I was avoiding the forum for most of the day because I didn't want to people. And then I realized I sort of need to people. At least internet people since I don't have to look at all of you. 

 

Wound up cancelling my lunch plans because I woke up to an email from my landlord saying plumber dude would be coming by today. He has my number but I still don't have his so all I could do was sit around wait. Welp. He finally called at 7:30pm. So I wasted my entire damn day sitting around and getting increasingly pissed off. He's coming tomorrow at some point after his doctor appointment in the morning and asked if anyone would be home. I asked what time, he said he didn't know. Jesus H Christ. Even though tomorrow's a holiday I won't be sleeping in even though I need it; I'll be getting up early to go to a laundromat because I kinda need clothes to wear to work this week. And then sitting around flailing over the research thing that I haven't started yet because of course I haven't. I meant to do a little for it today but I was too busy cursing this plumber, stressing in advance that this work might take several days and we don't have a spare key since roommate's friend didn't replace the one she broke in the lock last month, and just crying over everything/nothing because apparently that's who I am now. 

 

Caught myself wondering yesterday if I should move back to the Boston area after graduation. For the sole reason that my father will need his hand held after my mother dies. Not even in the emotional sense, although that's more than true, but he's literally never lived alone before. (Even assuming my brother doesn't kill himself, he'll be just as useless dealing with the house.) He lived at home until he got married at 30, and since then my mother has taken care of everything. He earns the paycheck, but my mother's the one that paid all the bills, did all the grocery shopping (now he's at the point where he'll go shopping for specific things he wants at various stores but will constantly call my mother and ask "is this a good price for this?"), did all the cooking, laundry, everything. This is not a thought I'm even happy about having. But again, it comes down to me somehow feeling like I need to erase myself from the equation and just do anything that anyone else needs. But rent is just as bad there as it is here, and I'm not moving home at 29. I could probably find a job related to my degree but I wouldn't have the potential connections there that I do here. (One of my professors from last semester had done post-doc work at Harvard with immigrant communities so I could probably tap her, but I don't know how long ago it was and also she's spending the spring and summer in Spain doing research so it's not even that convenient to hit her up.) If I were to find my dream job there, whatever that may be, I wouldn't be opposed to moving back. But I don't want to go back just because it's "home." 

 

oh good. Here comes a realization I wasn't looking to have right at this moment. But home never felt like home. I really do like Boston and some of the surrounding area but never saw much of it because we never did things in the city with my parents. Going into the city with friends when I was older (hell, even the handful of times I just went in to go shopping by myself or something) felt like such an experience because even if it wasn't knew it was a thing my family couldn't ruin. So outside of the theater district and a few of the touristy things, I'm really not that familiar with it at all. So yeah if I were to move back I could probably enjoy it. But not if my nuclear family were still there. When I was living with them I felt trapped. Anxiety issues aside, in the years between undergrad and grad school I never went out and made friends, and a large part of it was that my house was always such a pit that I would never be able to let anyone come in. I didn't really go out in general because for as much as my mother told me "you're an adult, you don't need to tell me every time you go somewhere," if I didn't tell her I was going out I'd get the third degree when I came home (well before midnight). I felt like I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. And if I were to move back after graduation and get an apartment somewhere, regardless of how many of them are left at that point, I will still feel trapped because I will feel obligated to be involved. I'll be the woman in Love Actually who drops everything whenever her brother calls. And if five days of being home for Christmas was enough to drive me up the fucking wall, I can't do that. 

 

I don't think I did a good job articulating that at all but I'm okay with that. It's a thing to explore later. And hard to put words to, but it's a start. Because when people ask me if I'll move back when I finish here I hesitate and have to think about it and I can see it confuses people. Now I sort of understand that it's not the city itself, but what it would mean if I went back. And this was true even before my mother was diagnosed. Because if I go back anywhere near them, I won't be allowed to keep my distance and even if I managed it some part of me would feel like I was a terrible person and would have to go see them often just out of sheer obligation. Bleh. 

 

This is not the direction this post was supposed to take but I've forgotten what I wanted to be doing. 

[Owlet]

[Owlet]

Ok I can reply properly now I'm not at work. Though to be honest, most of my reaction was along the lines of 'Aaaaaarghhh so much shit to deal with HUGS'. 

 

First of all:

6 hours ago, fleaball said:

stressing in advance that this work might take several days and we don't have a spare key since roommate's friend didn't replace the one she broke in the lock last month

Oh, COME ON girl. Jesus. If I broke someone's key I would rush out and get a replacement ASAP. Because that's what you do when you break things. Especially functional things. Grrrr.

 

6 hours ago, fleaball said:

just crying over everything/nothing because apparently that's who I am now. 

Know that feeling. Totally justified under the circumstances, not that that makes it better. 

 

Boston... Wow you're good at having really interesting yet painful realisations at times when you probably didn't need any extra mental turmoil. Maybe it's good to know though? In the long run? Actually yeah, definitely. You already recognise how unhealthy it would be for you to move back. Good. I had the same thought recently, of maybe moving back to be with Mum for a little bit (while I work my shit out) and then realised, I don't want to be 29 and living back home. It would make me feel even less in control of my life and I'd probably backslide  because I'd be so busy judging myself. Even though I have plenty of friends who've moved back home and I have zero issues with that lol. Not actually the same as your situation, I'm just rambling now. Umm yes. All the hugs. I really really hope things get easier soon (I'm looking at you water pipes and Mr Plumber) 

[Dagger]

While the timing for the Boston revelation might not be ideal (when are such things ideal?), I think it is great that you realized it before you made any plans or before you moved back. In that way, this is the right time to figure it out.

 

And your room mate's friend is rude. I don't care if she has a policy of anyone can bunk at my place so I can bunk at anyone else's because... well the world doesn't work like that and I agree with @Owlet, if you break something you fix it asap or at least give money to a person who can fix it. This should not be all on your head. So I'm sorry it is.

 

I really feel you on the anxiety around it too. I have an electrician to call...

[Sylvaa]

15 hours ago, fleaball said:

oh good. Here comes a realization I wasn't looking to have right at this moment. But home never felt like home. I really do like Boston and some of the surrounding area but never saw much of it because we never did things in the city with my parents. Going into the city with friends when I was older (hell, even the handful of times I just went in to go shopping by myself or something) felt like such an experience because even if it wasn't knew it was a thing my family couldn't ruin. So outside of the theater district and a few of the touristy things, I'm really not that familiar with it at all. So yeah if I were to move back I could probably enjoy it. But not if my nuclear family were still there. When I was living with them I felt trapped. Anxiety issues aside, in the years between undergrad and grad school I never went out and made friends, and a large part of it was that my house was always such a pit that I would never be able to let anyone come in. I didn't really go out in general because for as much as my mother told me "you're an adult, you don't need to tell me every time you go somewhere," if I didn't tell her I was going out I'd get the third degree when I came home (well before midnight). I felt like I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. And if I were to move back after graduation and get an apartment somewhere, regardless of how many of them are left at that point, I will still feel trapped because I will feel obligated to be involved. I'll be the woman in Love Actually who drops everything whenever her brother calls. And if five days of being home for Christmas was enough to drive me up the fucking wall, I can't do that. 

 

I get this. I so get this. Like, DC is my city. It is no further than Baltimore and only slightly closer than Philly or Pittsburgh, but I know it. I can enjoy it because there isn't the crazy anxiety of not knowing where I am going or anything like that.

 

Also, I moved back home twice as an adult and both times I lasted less than a year. But I also just said screw it when I moved out and stopped feeling an obligation towards my parents. It wasn't easy for me and I don't have the anxiety you do, so it'll be a super fun process.

 

So, solidarity! 

[fleaball]

It's 1:30 pm and this asshole still hasn't called me. Roommate asked if I wanted to go shopping and while I shouldn't because paper, I'm probably going to. I legitimately need new work shoes because the ones I've been wearing don't fit properly and have caused bunions and I've been too afraid to drive my car to this outlet mall that's got comfy shoes and salespeople that know what they're talking about. Roommate rented a car to drive down to NC and back so this is my chance. And will knock out a thing that's been causing anxiety for weeks. I know it's going to throw me off with this paper thing but we all know I work better the closer it gets to zero hour (and honestly if I can get it like 80% done today I can finish it tomorrow because ASAP is best but I don't have a hard time deadline). And if this motherfucker decides he's finally ready (my landlord emailed him earlier and bcc'd me, "can you give me an update on this? the tenant is without access to a washer/dryer. when can you get to this?") either captain dickhead can deal with it when he's home or the guy can figure it out himself because we're leaving a key in the mailbox. I did tell him I had errands to run at some point so what the fuck ever. At least I have clean laundry for the next two days. We're 99% sure we're getting Thursday off as well because we're literally across the street from the White House and the Secret Service will probably be camping on the roof, not to mention they're closing the surrounding streets at 3am Thursday so getting in would be a bitch, but we don't have the official announcement yet. If it has to wait til Thursday at this point I'll be pissed but whatever. 

 

We're probably going to take graduation photos today too. My therapist has suggested taking some on campus but that's going to be too much at this point and it's kind of grey and shitty out anyway. 

 

tl;dr hooray knocking out anxiety-causing things but boo that in order to do that another anxiety-causing thing has to be put off for a bit. Anyway. Off to research.