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genderjumperNone of my research into hypomanias has reported highs without commensurate lows, but this is the first year I've been paying close enough attention to witness it.
Coincidentally or not, I am experiencing some intense challenges at the moment; my partner and I have both recognized that unlike my hypomanias, my hypo-depressions likely have a chicken-and-egg relationship with difficult changes.
No more than a couple of weeks ago, the atmospheric "vibe" around me shifted. I paid close attention, as if the universe was trying to tell me something. Since then, though, I notice my daily mood tracker has shifted: tense and worried, even a little anxious. It came to a head Sunday, one of the hardest days I can remember (though my memory is way more faulty when I'm depressed).
My mom told me both that she had COVID and that she had no one around to help her out (my brother and his on-again-off-again girlfriend and some number of her progeny all just moved back in, but they are out of state and no one told me). I spent most of the day gathering up-to-date info, making sure she got on Paxlovid, and fetching her prescription and vitamins. My debit card doesn't always get along with Walgreens on nights and weekends, so I had to make two trips and spend all of my cash.
Simultaneously, I was being called in by an online community I've been connecting with. I don't want to comment on the specifics just yet -- I believe there is a valid concern and am trusting the process while simultaneously finding the process opaque, slow, and discordant to my neurodivergent traits. I feel like my ego is being tested, but so far I have not wavered in putting the community's needs ahead of my own discomforts. The greater struggle, I think, is that without clarity from that community I have to look outside it for emotional support, processing, and clarification, and no one whom I've entrusted so far sees it the way I do. My partner and most of the white people I know simply aren't as far along in their anti-racist reflections as I am, and so there's a lot of people who want to stand up for me or ask me why I bother. These statements are unhelpful at best and further isolating at worst. (That isn't to say my partner hasn't been tremendously supportive in other ways -- she's really shown up for me the past 24 hours in particular -- just that I have to be careful about bogging her Aries mind down with specific that she, in her infinite runner-ness, wouldn't fuck with.) I need spaces like this because I frequently practice alone and it's been a great platform to build something socially, but there's not been an opportunity for me to unpack what I've signed up for vs. what is being foist upon me (and I allow for the possibility that it is all the former in ways I have yet to comprehend). But I need spaces like this to exist and feel safe for those thriving there far more than I need to be a member of it, and I will walk away if it is best for the space itself. It wouldn't be the first time I've been a lightning rod for someone(s) and their grief and I do not internalize any more than my own mistakes.
The inciting incident happened while planning this damn speed-dating thing with an overlapping group -- I honestly should have shut it down or walked away from weeks ago because it lacked cohesion. I definitely suffered from the sunken cost fallacy, but I also recognized over the past week that the space would not safe enough to open. Sunday, in a Tao kind of leadership, I prompted the planners to cancel the event and let me draft a note explaining why. In the time of processing all that, though, the other planners -- all white women -- got wind of some of what was going on. Ironically, the person who was nearest to the controversy has been the most forthcoming and accepting, recognizing that she had failed to contain her feelings in a moment of vulnerability and ended up creating a hostile space. She says she's in a better place and seems very mindful of the space she takes up (and how to not do so, at least most of the time). Meanwhile the woman who started the dating project but has otherwise been least involved (and was very much not present at the inciting incident) has been just BESIDE HERSELF with internalized blame so I've had to facilitate that a bit.
And my kettle broke and the replacement won't get here until tomorrow. :(
I'm having trouble staying asleep, so I may be gaming and reading all day, just waiting for any reactions to my apology and next steps.
Coincidentally or not, I am experiencing some intense challenges at the moment; my partner and I have both recognized that unlike my hypomanias, my hypo-depressions likely have a chicken-and-egg relationship with difficult changes.
No more than a couple of weeks ago, the atmospheric "vibe" around me shifted. I paid close attention, as if the universe was trying to tell me something. Since then, though, I notice my daily mood tracker has shifted: tense and worried, even a little anxious. It came to a head Sunday, one of the hardest days I can remember (though my memory is way more faulty when I'm depressed).
My mom told me both that she had COVID and that she had no one around to help her out (my brother and his on-again-off-again girlfriend and some number of her progeny all just moved back in, but they are out of state and no one told me). I spent most of the day gathering up-to-date info, making sure she got on Paxlovid, and fetching her prescription and vitamins. My debit card doesn't always get along with Walgreens on nights and weekends, so I had to make two trips and spend all of my cash.
Simultaneously, I was being called in by an online community I've been connecting with. I don't want to comment on the specifics just yet -- I believe there is a valid concern and am trusting the process while simultaneously finding the process opaque, slow, and discordant to my neurodivergent traits. I feel like my ego is being tested, but so far I have not wavered in putting the community's needs ahead of my own discomforts. The greater struggle, I think, is that without clarity from that community I have to look outside it for emotional support, processing, and clarification, and no one whom I've entrusted so far sees it the way I do. My partner and most of the white people I know simply aren't as far along in their anti-racist reflections as I am, and so there's a lot of people who want to stand up for me or ask me why I bother. These statements are unhelpful at best and further isolating at worst. (That isn't to say my partner hasn't been tremendously supportive in other ways -- she's really shown up for me the past 24 hours in particular -- just that I have to be careful about bogging her Aries mind down with specific that she, in her infinite runner-ness, wouldn't fuck with.) I need spaces like this because I frequently practice alone and it's been a great platform to build something socially, but there's not been an opportunity for me to unpack what I've signed up for vs. what is being foist upon me (and I allow for the possibility that it is all the former in ways I have yet to comprehend). But I need spaces like this to exist and feel safe for those thriving there far more than I need to be a member of it, and I will walk away if it is best for the space itself. It wouldn't be the first time I've been a lightning rod for someone(s) and their grief and I do not internalize any more than my own mistakes.
The inciting incident happened while planning this damn speed-dating thing with an overlapping group -- I honestly should have shut it down or walked away from weeks ago because it lacked cohesion. I definitely suffered from the sunken cost fallacy, but I also recognized over the past week that the space would not safe enough to open. Sunday, in a Tao kind of leadership, I prompted the planners to cancel the event and let me draft a note explaining why. In the time of processing all that, though, the other planners -- all white women -- got wind of some of what was going on. Ironically, the person who was nearest to the controversy has been the most forthcoming and accepting, recognizing that she had failed to contain her feelings in a moment of vulnerability and ended up creating a hostile space. She says she's in a better place and seems very mindful of the space she takes up (and how to not do so, at least most of the time). Meanwhile the woman who started the dating project but has otherwise been least involved (and was very much not present at the inciting incident) has been just BESIDE HERSELF with internalized blame so I've had to facilitate that a bit.
And my kettle broke and the replacement won't get here until tomorrow. :(
I'm having trouble staying asleep, so I may be gaming and reading all day, just waiting for any reactions to my apology and next steps.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-19 04:14 pm (UTC)I get that you want to do all the good by everyone all the time, as I am much the same way. You and other friends tell me when I’m being unrealistic in how much pressure I put on myself to maintain high standards all the time / how much I take on with the expectation of my own ability to Do All The Things, so I thought it would be in balance to hand you back some of that realism. But I do see how that could feel isolating or invalidating, even if I did not feel that way when told similar things. I will try to bear that in mind in future.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-19 10:31 pm (UTC)My first two months at NYU, I tried to join every club imaginable. I was just exhilarated by the possibilities, even when I didn't understand the spaces I tried to join. I humiliated myself several times over.
The most egregious incident was at the Womyn's Center, far leftist feminists whose leadership were proud to brandish rap sheets from effective protests. They had been crammed into a tiny office that couldn't comfortably host ten people, yet over 50 crammed in for their first meeting. It was 1999, we weren't seeing a lot of trans folks come out yet, and I was only one of two "guys" (definitely the tallest) in the room.
Every single person was given a chance to introduce themself and their stake, and I basked in the spirit of ownership and resistance present. Many had strong activist backgrounds or were coming from conservative states and ready to raise hell. I was one of the last people to go, and without a strong background to pull from I just tried to parrot my favorite sentiments so far: "I don't give a fuck what anybody thinks! I'm going to do what I want!" Something like that.
After the meeting adjourned, one of the officers came up to me and introduced herself as the Webmistress. She wanted to know how I felt about the space and whether I thought I'd be welcome. The president and vice president, she indicated, had a reputation for being hostile. I actually defended them: "They're just trying to look out for the space, and I don't blame them for that. I'm not worried."
The next meeting, I arrived late (because another meeting had pizza and I was a broke college student in my first season in NYC) and the president and vice president pulled me into a side office. "We don't know if you noticed, but when you spoke last week, the whole room bristled. We noticed a lot of people feeling uncomfortable. We wanted to know what you have to say about that."
I was horrified, but my mind went blank. I think I stuttered an apology, but I couldn't remember what I'd said let alone why it would have been a problem. Out of all the groups I was trying to dabble with, I felt I needed it most, yet I couldn't articulate why. I couldn't ask for examples. All I could think was that I had misread the space and that made me unsafe. They asked me to step out so they could talk it over, and I just stood on the fringe of the meeting in progress.
What took me a decade to figure out -- what they needed to hear and I needed to say -- was that my comments weren't directed to the people in that room but to the people in my life. I had over six weeks accumulated exactly two people in NYC I spoke to with any regularity, my girlfriend and my roommate, and they had both called the Womyn's Center "feminazis" and asked why I wanted to be involved. There was another feminist organization on campus that was considered less militant! And I couldn't put into words just how much I felt like this was the right fit, just as I couldn't put into words what I'd done wrong or how to fix it.
They quickly called me back in and said they felt they had no choice but to ask me to leave. In my 19-year-old mix of dejection and revenge, to say nothing of my undiagnosed ND traits -- which were quite strong that year, looking back -- I couldn't bring myself to walk out. I just stood in the corner, silently crying against a shelf, until every single person in attendance had walked past me. And then I left.
And that was one of two key moments in my life that significantly delayed my radicalization. And I still nearly cry when I think about it. And as badly as I want to go back and explain myself and my error to the people who kicked me out, or to check in with the Webmistress for a third perspective, what I really wanted was for the only two humans who ever paid me any attention in NYC to feel bad for me not for being mistreated but for a moment of poor communication and a significant emotional loss. I wanted them to commiserate, not be relieved or shrug their shoulders like "What did you expect?" and try to change the subject.
Things are far from that dire this time, but it's a mood.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-19 11:10 pm (UTC)I was focusing on the “people are trying to hold
I’m sorry that your college Womyn’s Group did not take into account that you were young and might lack language for complex social things and might need extra processing time as a ND person. It’s sad that they assumed you had bad intentions instead of investing time in your confused allyship. Like, I get why people do that, though I disagree with the premise that “people should just know not to do X cultural thing without anyone explaining why” thing that tumblr and a lot of leftist spaces have. If nobody in a group has the resources to invest at that time, that’s when you say, “hey, can you go read some bell hooks books and get back to us next month/semester/year?”
no subject
Date: 2023-12-20 08:24 am (UTC)1. My leadership triggers were definitely a factor that I haven't been able to speak about. There were two separate spaces where I and one person of color were the only known overlap; my understanding right now is that they expected me to take a stronger stand for them than I did (or in a more timely way, since I later moved to cancel the event for related reasons). I had a much harder time navigating their process of calling in than I did with what I was called in about. It was like going to court with no attorney, having no idea when I'm allowed to speak, or how much brief to keep it. J helped me make a better guess, but it felt weird because it seemed way too easy to manipulate and not at all the collaborative, real-time Restorative Justice model I would have expected.
2. The irony of the comparison I myself have made is that the current space is explicitly ND-inclusive. I just think it has prioritized the aggrieved in such a way that my own ND traits could not also be accommodated.
2a. Is this a good time to remind you (and myself) that because communication is one of my hyperfixations, I often have as difficult or worse a time communicating with ND folks as NT? I need to add it to my self-awareness slides that I seem to slide up and down the ND-apparentness spectrum based on my mood. Like the Hulk is stronger the more angry he is? I'm more NT-passing in my communication the more relaxed I am but more ND-like in my anxieties and needs the less relaxed I am.
3. I have never read bell hooks, just a shit ton of memes and articles that cite her.
3a. During my peak caregiving burnout, I had this one annoying friend-of-a-friend (a younger white queer -- cis woman, I think? As far as they knew at the time?) who would swoop into dense FB thinkies and say, "You need to read bell hooks!" and I would enthusiastically ask for context or a specific place to start and they would never reply. This happened multiple times -- at least three, probably more -- literally never saying anything else on my wall; I de-friended them before the GiraffeJester era ever began.
3b. I will acknowledge that the anti-racist resources they shared in the community around the time of my calling in slap, way more direct and succinct than anything I've read. They didn't really teach me anything new or help with this situation, but I saved them all for sharing later.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-21 03:03 am (UTC)Come to think, I should probably finish All About Love while it’s still up on yt. I will make a note to finish that while knitting these socks.
no subject
Date: 2023-12-21 06:16 pm (UTC)BTW, "Collateral Thinking" would be a great name for a Flamingsword bio...