when to walk away (part 1)

Last month, I had a great week visiting several of my people in the north and finally getting to put my arms around people I haven't been able to see in WAY too long. It gave me a lot to be grateful for but also led to a lot of really deep conversations about what we had learned from being stuck at home for the past year and especially how we now saw what things and people were most important to us. There's a big part two coming about the former but today's post is about the latter.

A common theme that came up was the transactional nature of relationships and reevaluating your priorities, really looking at which relationships you desperately wanted to reconnect with and which ones no longer serve you. It also led to some serious thinking on my part about why so many people struggle to walk away from those relationships and insist on dragging them with them to the detriment of all parties involved. Why would we rather cause the other person more harm by refusing to allow them to move on because we don't want to hurt their feelings? How frequently do we stay with a partner even though our needs are no longer being met? How many times do we hesitate to hit the "unfriend" button even though we have made every attempt to distance ourselves from a friendship that has run its course? Why do we continue to show up to family social events even when our families don't respect our boundaries and make us feel badly about ourselves? And, on the other side, how many relationships have we allowed to sink before they even get started? How often do we self-sabotage because we are so stuck in our past failures? Why do we push away the people we love because we're afraid to grow up, be happy, succeed, or take risks? Why do we keep telling ourselves that we are too flawed and will never find love and happiness?

Toxic relationships aren't only defined by overt abuse and can be intimate partner relationships, friendships, and even family. Some of these won't apply to all types of relationships but here are some of my observations of red flags that may indicate that is time to move on:

• Apathy about spending time together
• Constantly forgetting to include the other person or deliberately leaving them out of plans
• Being disparaging and bossy rather than encouraging and supporting the other person to become their best self
• A lack of consideration for the other person's time, plans, and desires
• Refusal to recognize or respect when the other person is feeling hurt or uncomfortable
• Severe inequity in one or more areas of your shared life (financial, emotional, labor, sexual, planning, etc)
• Conflicting life goals (kids, careers, living expectations)
• Refusing to make compromises
• Completely sacrificing a sense of self for the other person
• Disrespecting boundaries
• Poor communication/intimacy/vulnerability
• Inability to understand each other's love languages

You have to actively choose the people you surround yourself with. If you stay in relationships because it's comfortable and struggle to find more positives than negatives, you are only doing yourself and the other person a huge disservice. Sometimes walking away is the real kindness. 

aloneness

 I've been finding a lot of comfort lately in ASMRtists on YouTube. It's soothing to my anxiety and sometimes helps me sleep. A few of my favorites occasionally do pick your pile tarot readings. Recently, one of them hit me over the head with the pile I picked. She talked about yearning for how things have been in the past and the need to find comfort with aloneness. 

The straight up truth is I have always had conflict with aloneness. 

Don't get me wrong, I love living on my own. I am a very independent person. I like being the only person that determines my schedule. When I eat, when I sleep, when the dogs go out, what I do with my free time, how often I clean. Any time I have lived with anyone in the past, I have never been comfortable and I always felt like the space was never actually mine and that the other people judged my habits, judged my eating, judged my dogs for barking or being too hairy, didn't clean or eat or function in ways that felt compatible with my own, made me feel unwelcome or like a burden. I end up spending a lot of time hiding in my room so I'm not in the way. A lot of that is probably my own asshole brain telling me mean things that aren't true but it's still how I felt.

However, on the other end of the swinging pendulum is a very deep fear that I will die alone. I mean, obviously I know that I will have friends and people that care about me, but I have always wanted a family of my own. A partner that loves me, is involved, supports my dreams, and wants to come along when it's time for fun. Children, I've always desperately wanted to be a mother. But the closer I get to 40, the more I wonder if I will ever get those things or if I will ever have is my career and my dogs. 

This pandemic has been doing a hell of a number on this particular fear of mine. I have spent so much time alone and it feels like it will never end. It's really hard to see friends that have partners they get to see every day, families they get to share their lives with, people who have made an effort to have a quarantine bubble with the people they love. It is hard not to take it personally when it feels like no one wants you to be part of their bubble. And logically, yes, I know that the people I love are probably just being smart, being safe, trying to protect me, trying to protect themselves. But a good friend reminded me lately that logic has nothing to do with emotions. And emotionally I feel so abandoned. The holidays are coming and I'd really rather hibernate and pretend they're not happening because facing them this way is just so very painful and it is really hard to believe there is any hope at the end of this very long, very dark tunnel. 

No, I'm not sure I will ever find comfort in aloneness. 

my quarantine struggles

So, I just wanted to touch on some shit that I have been dealing with during this quarantine. I want to have a record of it but I also find it really hard to reach out and talk to people individually about it. This is easier somehow. A lot of this is going to be my personal struggle bus but I promise there is some positivity at the end if you stick with it.

grief
At the very beginning, when we were just preparing to work from home, I got the news that a longtime friend and mentor had passed away. Bob ran the Creative Dramatics Workshop in Sidney, Illinois and I spent a great deal of my teenage years performing in some truly incredible shows in a tiny little church with other small town teenagers. Bob always wanted to push me past the ingenue rolls that I gravitated toward and into more challenging parts that were more suited to my personal acting style. He taught me how to get out of my own way on stage and be in the moment. It's where I met some amazing friends and where I met my first husband (however terrible that turned out to be). The last time I saw him was January 2019. I was helping to run the kitchen at my aunt's annual madrigal dinner and took a break during a lull to go out and say hello to my old friend. He was so happy to see me and catch up however briefly. It has been difficult to deal with his passing and I know many of us feel a little cheated that we have to delay being able to grieve together outside of facebook.

betrayal
I have briefly mentioned this on the facebooks and it's easy enough to find in the local news if you know where I went to high school. A high school teacher was recently arrested on charges of child pornography and also admitted to sexual encounters with former students. I am not easily shocked, in my line of work, it's a luxury you can't afford. But I could not have seen this coming in a million years. I really liked and respected this man and valued his support in recent years. Our school community has really come together to support each other through this but it's still hard to cope with the dialectic that someone you felt a close bond with could do something so terrible and that you could be so unaware.

dog stress
My dogs have been giving me a fair amount of stress of their own. First Penelope got sick, wouldn't eat, vomiting, diarrhea, but the vet didn't find anything. While the stomach ick resolved itself, she still has been really reticent about eating. I think her teeth are bothering her, there's definitely one that needs pulled, but I don't really think now is the best time to bring her in for that kind of procedure. She's also just been cranky and extra barky lately. Following that, Max had a bout of the stomach ick and, let me tell you, when a 65 pound dog throws up in his crate, it is no joke. Luckily, the vomit was a one-time thing but getting him past the diarrhea took the better part of two weeks. His allergies are also bothering him so I have to keep a close eye on his ears to make sure they're not getting infected. He has also had an uptick in anxiety since we've all been home ALL THE TIME and cannot figure out the routine. Every work day, at 11:45 am and 4:45 pm he loses his shit and starts barking hysterically. It's starting to wear on me and I really don't know what to do about it. On top of all that, mom and David discovered a tick on one of their dogs (not a thing we're used to seeing in our area of town) and so now we're worrying about that.

anxiety
It's topping out right now. It takes me ages to get to sleep and, once I do, I can't sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. I'm having frequent nightmares and a lovely resurgence of panic attacks. And, as it turns out, when I wear a face mask in public, my mirror neurons connect my restricted breathing with: you guessed it, more panic attacks. I cannot settle down to any kind of mindfulness routine and literally sobbed my way through the last time I attempted a loving kindness meditation. Despite the fact that I am a therapist and I know all of the things I "should" be doing, I am not doing the best at functioning.

touch starvation
If you don't know by now that I pretty much live fueled by hugs, then you probably don't know me very well. My family is not super huggy to begin with but because my mom's partner is an essential worker and my sister would be a high risk case if she contracted this, we've all been avoiding any physical contact whatsoever. Add in that the person I usually rely on for hugs and snuggles lives three hours away and I have no idea when I will get to be in the same room as them again, I am really not doing well. Max of course is always up for snuggles but it is not remotely the same.

bodies are the worst
If you're easily squicked by body stuff, you may want to skip this part. Some people may not be in the know but back in 2013 I was diagnosed with uterine fibroid tumors after a two week period that included bleeding through super tampons in an hour. Since that time, they have been mostly okay with the occasional month of grossness. However, since about April of last year I have seen in a major increase in uterine awfulness with extended and extremely heavy periods. Around November/December it seemed to right itself again and I was feeling less stressed about it. WRONG. As of today, I have been bleeding for 33 days, there were 2 or 3 days where it had reduced to mild spotting and I was fooled into thinking it had gone, and then it comes back with a vengeance. I am having a serious increase in migraines and dizziness and, just to add to the fun, I've been having major hot flashes the past few days. I am incredibly concerned about my personal health and do not currently have the insurance to be able to deal with this. If we were not in the middle of a pandemic, I would just give Planned Parenthood a call but, oh hey, they're closed right now. I have a lot of panic surrounding this. Partly because I have some serious medical trauma from a procedure I had when I first got diagnosed but largely because I desperately want to have kids and don't know that I will ever have the financial capability to do it through alternative means. I spend way too much time ruminating on this particular topic.

triggers
One thing that I rarely discuss with others is my abusive ex. It took me several years after the relationship ended to realize how bad it had been. He frequently took my car for work/rehearsal/whatever and left me in our apartment with no way of leaving. I realize now that it was his way of controlling how I spent my time. I remember the breaking point was when I wanted to go to the suburbs for the weekend for a dear friend's birthday party and him throwing a fit and telling me how awful I was for taking MY CAR. Even after I finally ended the relationship, he invited all of our local friends out for his own personal pity party. I bet you'll never guess what he drove to get there... Needless to say, being stuck in the house for weeks on end has really triggered those old feelings of helplessness and I am doing my best to sit with those feelings of discomfort and remind myself that this is temporary.

missing my people
I was supposed to be driving north next weekend for my monthly retreat and a weekend with two of my favorite people, my chosen family. They have been supportive in so many ways and getting to spend even a few days a month with them has often been the only thing getting me through a lot of the past year with all of its difficulties. It's a place where I feel really listened to, heard, understood, and never judged. Not to mention the aforementioned hugs and snuggles. The uncertainty of when I will get to leave my house and see them again is not something I am even remotely okay with. When they finally lift this damn shelter at home order, I am immediately taking a few days off of work and spending a long weekend with the people I wish I got to see every day instead of once a month.

no side hustles
While I've been making the majority of my money from a full-time extra help gig at the university, I have been supplementing income with side hustles: doing some consulting/acting work at the School of Social Work's simulation lab and being a section leader and assistant to the music director of a church choir. Clearly both of these gigs are shutdown at the moment and I really miss the work, the people, and am super bummed about missing out on all of the extra cash I was going to be making during holy week with all of the extra Easter services.

From here, I'm going to add in some of the things that have been good.

reconnecting
When I moved to North Carolina, I fell out of contact with one of my cousins that I had always been super close to. I knew she was going through a lot but couldn't seem to get her to return a text or a phone call and I felt really sad that I had lost someone I cared about so much. A couple of weeks ago, she reached out and called me. We talked for a couple of hours, cleared the air, and I was so happy to just hear her voice.

internet
Let me just make clear how incredibly grateful I am for all of the many ways the internet makes it possible to connect with people these days. Mom and I are able to continue our cocktail nights with a few of the members of faculty of the School of Social Work. The group of friends that I go to Dragon Con with (from Alabama, Texas, Utah, Washington) have been having weekly video calls and even get to play games together. My Saturday evening consisted of several hours on discord with my LARP tribe, drinking, talking shit, and enjoying each other's company like we always do.

work
While my job is ten times harder to do while working from home, I am just so incredibly grateful that they didn't just drop my extra help contract when we got the work from home orders. They set up my personal laptop with VPN and remote desktop and we make it work the best way we can. I'm also in the last stages of the interview process for the permanent position and am optimistic that I will hear a positive result. This would be a big deal for me financially and would help solve the previously referenced insurance problems so I could maybe deal with some of my health issues before they escalate.

big news
I also have some exceedingly huge news that I am not ready to post on the internet yet. It is something that I have been working really hard for and that I had started telling myself was just not going to happen. It's been a bit of a shock and a major readjustment because I had already started working on my plan b. I have gotten to tell a lot of people personally but I don't want to jinx any of the other irons I have in the fire by putting it in a public forum. If you don't know but you want to, just email/DM/call/text me and I'll be happy to fill you in.

For now, I'm going to attempt to get a couple of hours of sleep before I inevitably wake myself up again at 4 am. I am trying my best to maintain a positive attitude and hope for a turnaround soon but just know that no matter how long it takes, I fucking love your face and can't wait until I get to give you an uncomfortably long hug.

vulnerability

It may seem surprising that someone who blogs for the whole world to read to admit that they have difficulty with vulnerability but I do. Blogging often seems like the safest way to talk about my difficulties, typically less than 50 people read one of my posts and they almost never comment so I don't have to read in someone's face that they find my troubles annoying. I spent a great deal of the past year being criticized by my supervisor for "not being vulnerable enough" but then having any problems I did talk about used against me. I often see my vulnerabilities as weaknesses and reasons for the people I care about to leave me even though I have no evidence proving that this is the case.

I think that people will judge my taste in music and my love of rom-coms. I read the same books over and over again because I find comfort in them but I worry that they're too childish for my intellect. I love to sing more than anything in the world but almost none of my friends have heard me do so. When I wear super femme clothing, I worry that my queer community will be disappointed in me. When I wear super butch clothing, I think my family will judge me. I believe that if I tell a partner what I want from them that they will think I'm too needy. I fear that no one will ever take me seriously and respect me in the workplace. I am scared to let people too close because I do not want to be hurt again. I never feel that I am worthy of the good people in my life and I constantly feel like a fraud.

I don't really know what my point is with all of this and I know it's a long road for me to take down all of the walls I've put up for my own protection. I am grateful to have a couple of people that I am able to share those vulnerable and intimate moments with. I am more grateful to the ones that always call me out when they see me hiding. I'm trying to see myself the way they do.

It's okay to not be okay

I am not okay right now. Any kind of large life change or being in a state of uncertainty is any instant recipe for high levels of anxiety and the absolute depths of my depression. I knew going into this that that would be the case and I did my best to prepare for it but, nevertheless, here it is. Anxiety affects every part of how I communicate. It makes phone calls damn near impossible. It's difficult to send an email or a text or an instant message because anxiety tells me that the people I want to talk to aren't really my friends and don't care. When someone doesn't get back to me quickly, my anxiety tells me that that's the proof that they don't really want to talk to me. When they do talk to me, my anxiety tells me it's just because they're being nice, not because they really want to talk to me. When an online conversation naturally trails off, my anxiety tells me that it's because I was being boring. I am incapable of allowing others to help me and see me as weak. I know that, on occasion, this makes me completely insufferable to well-meaning family and friends who just want to help. I'm sullen and moody, I'm angry and irritable, I cry at the drop of a hat over absolutely nothing, I get easily overwhelmed and overstimulated in crowd-type situations, I oscillate between not eating and bingeing obscene amounts of sugar, I sleep in, I nap too much, I stay up until 2 am every night, I isolate, and I very rarely want to talk about it. I'm also trying my hardest to get myself out of it. I process everything very internally and really need my space to grieve, find acceptance, and push forward with what needs to get done. I know that a lot of people find it hard to see someone they care like this but I get so tired of people telling me how I should feel, what I should do, who I should focus my time and energy on. I already have a concerned mother, I'm not exactly looking for additional applicants. I am the expert of me and it's okay to not be okay right now.

It's okay because I'm sad about leaving clients I cared about and a job I really wanted to be doing. It's okay because I am lonely because the relationships I rely on the most and make me feel at ease are now a few hours away. It's okay because this time of year is difficult for me due to losing multiple people I care about to suicide. It's okay because I worry that I'll never be able to catch up financially. It's okay because I have to accept that pursuing further education could alter the other accomplishments I thought I'd be trying to pursue in my late 30s. It's okay because I sometimes fear that I will never be in a stable and loving intimate relationship. It's okay because I'm worried about how much longer it will take to get a new job and be able to live on my own again. It's okay because I'm doing the best I can.

I am trying to take this time to make plans for nurturing the kind of life I want to have rather than the one I keep settling for. I want to have a better work/life balance: to find work that is actually fulfilling, to take my lunch breaks, to utilize my vacation time. I want to improve my physical health: to get my migraines under better control, to get back to a point where I can run for a half hour without stopping, to be more conscientious of the food I'm putting in my body, to not be in as much physical pain. I want to where clothes that make me feel good because they're comfortable or they make me feel pretty or they make me feel like me and to stop worrying so much about what other people think about what I'm wearing. I want to do things that make me happier: listening to music, singing, playing with puppies or baby goats, baking, being in nature, chasing that elusive adrenaline high, dancing until my feet hurt, staying up too late because I was enjoying the company of friends more than surrendering to sleep. I want be better about nurturing relationships with the people who give me a feeling of home: the ones that tell me they're proud of me, the ones that tell me they love me even when I'm at my worst, the ones that always encourage my growth, the ones who give hugs that give me strength, the ones who hold my hand when it's too hard to say how I feel, the ones who make me feel loved and respected and like family.

I'm not okay right now but at some point I know I will be.





A small disclaimer. If you are someone who has tried to hard to make me feel better, I'm not mad at you, I just want you to understand why it might not work the way you hoped. If you're someone that waited a couple of days to get back to me, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty, get back to me when you can, my anxiety brain is my own responsibility and something I have to battle with on my own. If you're someone I have neglected or been short with, I'm not trying to make excuses for my behavior, I totally own that I can be a real dick sometimes when the anxiety monster takes over, I hope I'm able to make it up to you when I find my way to the other side.

changes

I have been back in Chicago for around 9 months now and there are some things that have been slowly sinking in since I got back. It's taken me a bit to really get into words what I've been feeling so this might not be entirely cohesive. I am not the same person that left for grad school three years ago and the lifestyle I want to lead is not aligning with the lifestyle I led when I was here before. My job does not pay me enough to live here and be able to have anything outside of necessities and that financial anxiety coupled with the extremely stressful nature of my job has kept me in a state of nearly crippling anxiety and depression for the better part of the last year. While I have enjoyed getting to know my clients and being a therapist, I have felt increased apathy for my job due to the immense barriers created by our current government social services and due to the bureaucracy and condescension of upper management at my company. I am very interested in exploring the options of pursuing a PhD but am too burned out with compassion fatigue to do the research when I'm home and would never be able to afford to take off the necessary time to visit schools I would be interested in attending. I've had increasingly expensive car repairs that have also been contributing to my financial anxiety and, due to the bills I already have and my previously mentioned low pay, I cannot currently afford a car payment. The traffic of the city has been very stressful to me since I now need to drive for work. I have been getting extremely nauseous on public transit which means I drive more and am therefore stuck in stressful traffic more. I have not had the energy to go the gym and cannot afford anything that would fall under the heading of self-care. I have had a severe upswing in headaches and stomach distress due to stress and my current unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits. I have been increasingly isolative and have difficulty following through on social commitments. I want to travel but do not have the funds and again, cannot afford to take the time off of work. My dogs are not city dogs. Penelope is highly reactive to all noises and shriek barks until I pick her up. Max is in a constant state of sensory overload and has injured me more than once with his overenthusiastic need to discover everything. I miss performing, it has been so long since I sang or acted and every single time I see a performance or hear a beautiful piece of music, my heart physically aches. The longer I stay here, the more clearly I see the holes in my life that I cannot fill here.
I would love to have time and energy to read for fun and pursue my academic research interests. I would love to buy a new car for once. I would love to be able to purchase a home with a yard. I would love to find myself back on stage or in a choir or even be able to own a piano again. I would love to travel to conferences or take a vacation or just visit out-of-state friends. I would love to be able to pursue some of my hobbies again: archery, baking, writing poetry, blogging, dance. I would love to find myself in a position to take better care of myself and my dogs. I would love to see my family more especially since my dad and my grandma have not been in the best of health. I would love to find myself in a healthy enough space to open myself up to the potential for love. I would love to get the one thing that has always seemed so out of reach and become a mother. And I just don't think I can do that here, at least not right now.
So what does that mean?
That is a two-fold plan. Foremost, it means that I plan to start pursuing employment back in the academic sphere where I may finally be able to pay off some debts and save for retirement again. Where I may find a job better suited to my experience and education that will also allow me the ability to really dig in and decide which PhD programs I'm interested in. However, the biggest change component is that I plan to pursue employment back in Champaign-Urbana where the cost of living is cheaper, it is closer to my family, and I believe I have the best potential to help myself recover back into a recognizable version of myself. I put in my four weeks notice at my job on Friday and have let my roommate know that I plan to move out at the end of June.
This has been a very difficult conclusion to reach because Chicago was the first place I ever truly felt like I was home in. It is the place where I met my chosen family and the truest friends I could have ever hoped for. It is the place where I found the strength and support to change my life for the better, to pursue dreams that I once thought were long dead. I have experienced tremendous love and equally immense loss, I have seen the best parts of myself blossom while pruning out the weakest parts. I could not have asked for a better home base over the last ten years. I also have really struggled with feelings of loss, failure, and worries that I am letting people down. But changes need to be made in order to help me achieve my next set of dreams and I truly believe this is the right next step in that journey.

Gratitude

Let me tell you, folks, this summer has been rough. I have not lived in Champaign for more than a few weeks over holidays for the past 9 years and I certainly didn't think I'd be doing it for the entire summer. I've been struggling with a great deal of anxiety over not having a job, over a really terrible fit of a temp gig, and over how I'm going to make ends meet when I do finally get back to Chicago. However, I finally accepted a job offer up in Chicago and it appears that my living situation may end up being pretty ideal. So here is a little bit of gratitude for the good things that happened this summer:

• Lunch with my high school bestie - Kelly moved to Seattle years ago and we are literally never in town at the same time. I think the last time I saw him was right after his oldest daughter was born. Earlier this summer, when he and his family were visiting his parents, I got to meet up with him for a long lunch, catch up on our mutual lives, and get some awesome hugs. It was much needed.
• Time with my doggos - I have had a lot of time at home with my dogs which has been awesome. We also got to take Max to the dog park several times and even took all four dogs over to Shawna's for a puppy play date. There were six dogs running around the yard and one who never left my lap. Oh and did I mention that Martha made me my favorite birthday cake?
• Getting to see my extremely talented friends - I have seen my talented musician friends perform under the stars and see shows at the Station, CUTC, and Wheaton Drama. It has been so good to watch my friends do the things they do so well.
• Running into people I know - This isn't usually something I enjoy, it's one of the reasons I live in a city with so many people that I blend into anonymity. However, it has been enjoyable to run into high school classmates, friends, and family I haven't seen in ages while out and about. 
• Goat watch and chicken cam - My lovely wifey Val has had new chickens and ducks and two pregnant goats. She regularly goes live on Facebook with videos of the animals and is definitely something that has made my summer more enjoyable.
• Not paying rent - There has definitely been a financial benefit when you don't have to pay rent for three months. My temp job means that I'm not letting all of my bills lapse and I've also been able to invest a little in upping my wardrobe game for work.
• Weekends in Chicago - I've had some lovely weekends at Badgerly Hall full of LARPs, wonderful dinners with friends, getting to catch up with the people I love dearly, and even getting my very first birthday picture colored by my wonderful Ivy.
• No research - My brain has been exhausted for months and it has been amazing to have three months without any homework or research that needs to be done.
• Mom time - I've only seen my mom a few times over the past two years so it's been nice to spend some quality time with her over the summer. We have been to see movies at the drive in, drank lots of wine on the porch, binge watched Queer Eye, eaten so much Jarling's, cooked and baked our favorite things, started back to our C25K training in prep for the Hot Chocolate 5K, not to mention that she has helped me shave my head, dye my hair, and kindly sat up with me all night in the ER when my gallbladder was kicking my butt at the beginning of the summer. 

Overall, I have been lucky to have this summer and it's time to head back to real life.