The war in and around you

I was invited out for a date today. 6’3 tattoo artist WNBA prospect type, gorgeous eyes on top of it all. I didnt go. Partly because my loyalties and attachments lie elsewhere, partly because Im afraid of setting myself up for another session of grief and heartbreak that will last longer than the relationship itself, but also (and quite significantly) I am…embarrassed. I’m ashamed of myself, my financial situation, and especially, my physicality.

I’m very slowly learning things about myself that may be obvious to everyone else but apparently, guys…. It seems like I have no real confidence whatsoever! I’m scared! All the time! I don’t want anyone to see me! I know its a meme but don’t perceive me! delete all videos again

A few months ago back in Chicago and during a therapy session, I explained to the psych that, if I could get surgery and pass really well, it would make it easier for my family to finally accept me, then I could be a part of their lives, I really desperately want them to accept me and be kind to me. The psych frowned and shook her head. I know my thinking is flawed, I know it shouldn’t be on me to make myself palatable for my family of all people to love me, I mean its family, their love shouldn’t be conditional, but it is. In my case, with the family I was born to, it is. And I don’t fit those conditions. So my shame intensifies. It’s a rather nasty death spiral.

When I was still in high school, I worked at a Best Buy, and spent nearly half of my paychecks (if not more) on Ubers to and from work every day. In fact, I do that with every job still to this day. One day as I was leaving work, a coworker who lived in the exact same apartment complex was walking to his car and (playfully, just a light bit of ribbing) yelled out the lyrics to some song that was popular at the time I think ? “Uber everywhere” something like that. I’m sure he didnt mean anything negative by it but it really bothered me, I was upset that I had to spend so much of the money I made from work, just getting to work. His parents bought him his car, mine had the means to, but wouldn’t even pay for my phone bill. They wouldn’t even put me on the family plan. WHY? Im getting mad thinking about it. ITS NOT FAIR, I DIDNT DESERVE TO BE LEFT TO FEND FOR MYSELF AT EVERY TURN! Phones or cars or AirPods or shopping trips or new shoes, I was just always left out. It’s not that I cared so much about those sorts of things, I just wanted to be part of it all.

I think about these things, about my family and everything wrong with me, and all the bad luck I seem to be having and then a voice in my head reminds me that oh, it could be so so much worse. There could be missiles raining down upon me, I could be finding the dismembered remains of my loved ones, I could be starving to death. Then I feel ashamed. Its hard not to feel foolish about lamenting my own plight in this way. I expressed this sentiment to a different therapist at a different time in a different place, and their response was that, in their years of practice, its almost always the people that have it the worst that are constantly discounting themselves and talking about how much worse others have it. Some sort of fucked up cope apparently.

I suppose it’s all relative, and I’d be lying if I said keeping perspective of how much worse things could be makes me feel any better. Quite the opposite actually, but it is what it is. Something something “the work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. …. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.”

There are some moments where I am grateful for how shit it’s all been sometimes, grateful for how it could be worse but isn’t. Every time Im talking to someone else who knows the experience of being molested there’s a comment from either me or them, about how at least we can relate to each other in this very special very fucked up way. We find something to be grateful for even with something so horrible, that least we can have an experiential understanding and bring more compassion forth for others who know this hell.

There are also (often more) moments where Im staring at the braided rope on my dresser, and the rod in my closet. I’ve done pull ups on it. It can hold my weight.