Gender Jumper

I don't bother thinking very hard about the tension between free will and determinism unless I'm depressed and my usual self-regulation efforts aren't working. But it's rare that I start thinking about them without already noticing the depression and self-regulation stall.

This was not the week I thought I was going to have.

• I got turned down for a job I really, really wanted. I trust that it's going to lead me to better things (or potentially I reapply later), but a lot of my cognitive load had been going to daydreaming about relocating and now it's not really sure where to go.
• A trans woman died in my community. I had only met her once or twice: long enough to get a massive crush, not long enough to learn her last name. But I went to the grief circle tonight and offered what support I could to her grieving parents and others.
• The friend I trust to be untrustworthy may be about to lose one parent to illness and another to the grief. I really wish people would call on a care coach or family diplomat during such difficult times. This particular friend just stormed off and probably got high.
• Speaking of mental illness, when I started gray-rocking my fam-o about three years ago, I never would have imagined they would just stop participating. I have literally no idea what's happening over there right now, because they each started dealing with heavy shit and they simply do not know how to communicate out of anything other than idleness or overwhelm.
• My ostensible dating partner and friend of 30+ years abruptly reconnected with an ex last week and derailed our plans to share physical space (which is a big deal because their family doesn't mask consistently so I have to build a lot of faith and request 5 days of relative isolation). I can't help worrying that some of this was sparked by their recent realization that I was going to move away sooner or later, but they are not strong at self-advocacy nor even certain kinds of self-awareness and I horrible at navigating the unspoken.
• My planned road trip to visit hyper-cautious loved ones in central Texas did not happen because 2/3 of us got nasty spring colds (I allow for the fact it could have been COVID, but I have zero evidence and a lifetime of experience with allergies turning into sinus infections and it felt like the latter; that said, these things just plain heal more slowly than they did before my two cases of COVID).
• Signs currently point to a new hypomania as I come out of sick-space: the excitement of the big change being redirected into staying calm combined with having been rather idle the past two weeks, so that's why I'm still up at 7am (I did have a 3-hour nap earlier, which is usually navigable for me) documenting some of the goings on instead of sleeping.
• Have had a strong urge to write the past few days thanks to a writing group I'm co-leading, but I'm wavering between too much and too little to say.
• My therapist wants to terminate after over ten years together because she has nothing left to teach me, I'm figuring it all out on my own. I agree it's time, but that doesn't mean I'm enthusiastic about it.

I should probably read the Tao or something contemplative, then try again to sleep.

None 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.