Relief and Reckoning
Nov. 8th, 2020 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebe
Yesterday, Pennsylvania and Nevada were called for Biden, taking him over the 270 electoral votes he needed to be declared President-Elect. Georgia also finished its counting with him in the lead, but below the threshold needed to avoid an automatic recount. There are suits to recount the results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but almost no one expects the result to change based on that. As far as everyone is concerned, the election is over and Biden has won.
Despite that, the Blue Wave we had anticipated didn't quite materialize. Democrats lost seats in the House of Representatives but have maintained control, while control of the Senate depends on two runoff elections in Georgia. If both seats flip blue, it should be a 50-50 tie with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking any deadlocks. That would put Mitch McConnell out of power for at least the next two years, which is motivation enough to flip both seats.
Last week was pretty rough. Monday went as Mondays do, but there was this bubble of anxiety in my chest on Tuesday and Wednesday that just wouldn't go away. I had managed to get a hold of myself on Thursday once it became clearer that Biden would be the likely winner, telling myself that I just had to wait for the count to be finished. When it happened on Saturday, any plans I had for work went right out the window and we spent the day celebrating instead.
R. was a rock for me this week, reminding me not to doomscroll and keeping me centered in the present. To be honest, it felt...good to let myself fall apart a little bit, knowing that I had someone looking out for me. Normally when this happens I'm seized by the need to not make my shit someone else's problem and it's really embarrassing for me when that happens anyway. But now I just feel really grateful that I could not be OK and taken care of. It means a lot.
We had a conversation last week that stuck with me, maybe because it dovetails nicely with the books we're reading while I make dinner. Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice trilogy features a bastard born to the next-in-line for the throne of the Six Duchies as its main character, and he has a pretty rough life. Even though he's taken in by his father's close confidants and given a measure of shelter from the abuses that could be heaped on him due to his position, he also has a...distance from everyone informed by this fundamental self-image. He's internalized the fact that he's a bastard, and his very existence causes pain to everyone who is supposed to love him. He sees himself as a burden, runs under the assumption that no one's looking out for him, or that no one could possibly love him. Meanwhile, his allies try to protect him and guide him through difficult circumstances, aware that...he'll never believe that they love him.
He has a mild affinity for a magical talent called "skilling", which is a form of telepathy that allows you to speak with people over great distances, read their thoughts, and subtly influence them. But an intensely traumatic experience with his teacher caused him to build instinctive walls around himself that make him resistant to being reached through skilling or reaching out to others. The walls can come down sporadically, which is all the more frustrating because he'd really like to be able to use the skill.
So, we were watching an episode of The Flash where one of the secondary characters developed a silly little power that forced her to express the interior emotional life of the people she was in close proximity to. It made us think what it would feel like if that happened to us; for me, I think I would experience this homesickness for something that had never existed and never would -- and that ache would be both a strange comfort and, at times, an incredible burden. I think R. is almost always more comfortable dealing with abstractions than reality -- a lot like Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. He loved the idea and the potential of people, but mostly he hated actually dealing with them. I see an idealist in him, one that has been trampled by the reality of the world again and again, to the point I'm not sure there's a way to reconcile the disappointment that comes with knowing the world will never ever be the way it should.
For me, he said that I had put up walls that were resource-intensive and took so much of my energy to maintain. Mostly because I feel the need to protect myself, or hide myself from people, and it's exhausting. He didn't say this bit, but...I'm afraid of the world and what it does to people like me. I think back on my earliest memories and they're times of chaos and upheaval, of being left alone. Whenever I think of my mother, I think of her leaving me when I got knocked out of a spelling bee; telling me to leave her alone when I was very young; rolling around the floor in a fight with my alcoholic adopted father; leaving me and my sister alone for hours after they separated.
The only person I actually felt close to was my sister, and that relationship came to a sudden end the first time she ran away from home. She was gone for three or four months, and...I had nobody. I had school teachers who were kind to me, but they were gone whenever I finished a year. My friends were few, and in high school there had been falling out with them. I can't think of a time growing up where I knew someone had my back. I could only rely on myself. The people around me were just as likely to hurt me as help.
In so many ways I feel kinship with Fitz. I feel like an orphan who had grown up a burden to everyone around him, a charity case because what else do you do with weird children? But...no one really understood me or tried to, and if I tried to open myself up to them it almost always lead to rejection. I've tried to explain myself my entire life to other people, and it feels like I've never been able to do it. I have no idea how to tear those walls down.
It crystallized a lot of things for me. Namely, how much I have been controlled by fear and an almost crippling desire to protect myself from rejection. I think I've been running under the unspoken assumption that everyone I've ever grown close to or relied on either took advantage of me or left me, and I can only really ever relax if I'm by myself. That's...not the way I want to be, but at this point the damage is so fundamental I'm not sure there's anything to be done for it.
I think I need to look up treatment for people with the Avoidant Attachment Style; it's something I've known about for a while, but...how do I recover from that basic level of formatting? Being more open about it helps, I suppose.
I've decided to try my hand at NaNoWriMo, only a week later. Today's the first day, and my aim is to write 50,000 words by December 5th. So far, the plan is to work on the Jackalope Serial Company serials -- finish up "A Bearable Partner" with a short-story length entry, get started on "Swiftie's Intergalactic" to post through the rest of the month, and then work on "Boundaries" as the first story where I'd really like to "level up" my writing. I know it'll be difficult to juggle competing demands, but the challenge is totally worth it.
It finally feels like things have a chance of improving again. I'm going to do my best with the momentum we've gained.
Despite that, the Blue Wave we had anticipated didn't quite materialize. Democrats lost seats in the House of Representatives but have maintained control, while control of the Senate depends on two runoff elections in Georgia. If both seats flip blue, it should be a 50-50 tie with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking any deadlocks. That would put Mitch McConnell out of power for at least the next two years, which is motivation enough to flip both seats.
Last week was pretty rough. Monday went as Mondays do, but there was this bubble of anxiety in my chest on Tuesday and Wednesday that just wouldn't go away. I had managed to get a hold of myself on Thursday once it became clearer that Biden would be the likely winner, telling myself that I just had to wait for the count to be finished. When it happened on Saturday, any plans I had for work went right out the window and we spent the day celebrating instead.
R. was a rock for me this week, reminding me not to doomscroll and keeping me centered in the present. To be honest, it felt...good to let myself fall apart a little bit, knowing that I had someone looking out for me. Normally when this happens I'm seized by the need to not make my shit someone else's problem and it's really embarrassing for me when that happens anyway. But now I just feel really grateful that I could not be OK and taken care of. It means a lot.
We had a conversation last week that stuck with me, maybe because it dovetails nicely with the books we're reading while I make dinner. Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice trilogy features a bastard born to the next-in-line for the throne of the Six Duchies as its main character, and he has a pretty rough life. Even though he's taken in by his father's close confidants and given a measure of shelter from the abuses that could be heaped on him due to his position, he also has a...distance from everyone informed by this fundamental self-image. He's internalized the fact that he's a bastard, and his very existence causes pain to everyone who is supposed to love him. He sees himself as a burden, runs under the assumption that no one's looking out for him, or that no one could possibly love him. Meanwhile, his allies try to protect him and guide him through difficult circumstances, aware that...he'll never believe that they love him.
He has a mild affinity for a magical talent called "skilling", which is a form of telepathy that allows you to speak with people over great distances, read their thoughts, and subtly influence them. But an intensely traumatic experience with his teacher caused him to build instinctive walls around himself that make him resistant to being reached through skilling or reaching out to others. The walls can come down sporadically, which is all the more frustrating because he'd really like to be able to use the skill.
So, we were watching an episode of The Flash where one of the secondary characters developed a silly little power that forced her to express the interior emotional life of the people she was in close proximity to. It made us think what it would feel like if that happened to us; for me, I think I would experience this homesickness for something that had never existed and never would -- and that ache would be both a strange comfort and, at times, an incredible burden. I think R. is almost always more comfortable dealing with abstractions than reality -- a lot like Christopher Eccleston's Doctor. He loved the idea and the potential of people, but mostly he hated actually dealing with them. I see an idealist in him, one that has been trampled by the reality of the world again and again, to the point I'm not sure there's a way to reconcile the disappointment that comes with knowing the world will never ever be the way it should.
For me, he said that I had put up walls that were resource-intensive and took so much of my energy to maintain. Mostly because I feel the need to protect myself, or hide myself from people, and it's exhausting. He didn't say this bit, but...I'm afraid of the world and what it does to people like me. I think back on my earliest memories and they're times of chaos and upheaval, of being left alone. Whenever I think of my mother, I think of her leaving me when I got knocked out of a spelling bee; telling me to leave her alone when I was very young; rolling around the floor in a fight with my alcoholic adopted father; leaving me and my sister alone for hours after they separated.
The only person I actually felt close to was my sister, and that relationship came to a sudden end the first time she ran away from home. She was gone for three or four months, and...I had nobody. I had school teachers who were kind to me, but they were gone whenever I finished a year. My friends were few, and in high school there had been falling out with them. I can't think of a time growing up where I knew someone had my back. I could only rely on myself. The people around me were just as likely to hurt me as help.
In so many ways I feel kinship with Fitz. I feel like an orphan who had grown up a burden to everyone around him, a charity case because what else do you do with weird children? But...no one really understood me or tried to, and if I tried to open myself up to them it almost always lead to rejection. I've tried to explain myself my entire life to other people, and it feels like I've never been able to do it. I have no idea how to tear those walls down.
It crystallized a lot of things for me. Namely, how much I have been controlled by fear and an almost crippling desire to protect myself from rejection. I think I've been running under the unspoken assumption that everyone I've ever grown close to or relied on either took advantage of me or left me, and I can only really ever relax if I'm by myself. That's...not the way I want to be, but at this point the damage is so fundamental I'm not sure there's anything to be done for it.
I think I need to look up treatment for people with the Avoidant Attachment Style; it's something I've known about for a while, but...how do I recover from that basic level of formatting? Being more open about it helps, I suppose.
I've decided to try my hand at NaNoWriMo, only a week later. Today's the first day, and my aim is to write 50,000 words by December 5th. So far, the plan is to work on the Jackalope Serial Company serials -- finish up "A Bearable Partner" with a short-story length entry, get started on "Swiftie's Intergalactic" to post through the rest of the month, and then work on "Boundaries" as the first story where I'd really like to "level up" my writing. I know it'll be difficult to juggle competing demands, but the challenge is totally worth it.
It finally feels like things have a chance of improving again. I'm going to do my best with the momentum we've gained.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 04:50 am (UTC)Even with the most horrible news apparently passed, I am amazed and impressed by your determination to do NaNoWriMo and wish you the best of luck. That's such a bold and good thing to try.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 05:16 pm (UTC)I'm really glad there are kind people like you out there, ready to engage with a world and hurting people, doing your best to manage your own pain. You're a special breed, and I super-appreciate you. Thank you so much for providing people a safe harbor to be themselves. <3
That being said, I also hope you're taking the time and space YOU need to be OK. What kind of things recharge you, calm you down?