I was really angry the last time I blogged — I even cried afterwards with my door closed, because I didn’t want to upset my niece or worry anyone — and it did help to express some of the anger I still battle with. But I also looked at it later and realised that while my anger may never leave me, it doesn’t define me, and I wanted to write more positively.

Writing about myself has always been hard for me — am I talking too much? Am I giving too much information? Am I only giving out weird anecdotal facts, rather than anything of substance? Then I found an app — called Gratitude — that used small journal prompts to help with mental health (and gratitude, of course). It gave me the idea to use some journal prompts to answer, rather than providing anything I think to be interesting.

Some of these are from the app itself — which I recommend! There’s no character limit, so making the answers small or big isn’t the actual goal — and some are from around the internet. I’ll credit all sites I’ve used prompts from at the end of the post.

If I fast forwarded to thirty days from now, what would I tell myself?

Be kinder to yourself: you are trying, and that’s all anyone or anything can ask of you.

What music do you listen to, and why?

Jesus, I never should have taken this one, but whatever, I already typed it out: everything besides country? It honestly depends on my mood, and what I’m doing. I like listening to rap, R & B, and pop music when I’m coding or using my computer. If I’m relaxing or just in the mood to listen, I go for all kinds of rock, metal, and folk music. If I’m trying to calm myself down, I’ll pick whole albums, like We Are Not Alone by Breaking Benjamin, or ARTPOP by Lady Gaga. I’ll even throw in an album by Enigma or Moby‘s weird crap.

If you can travel back in time, what do you wish you can tell yourself?

I’ve often thought of this, and I honestly, for a very long time, drew a huge blank. How can I possibly sum up my experiences now for younger me to even grasp? What if I scared younger me into living even less than I did? And I think now I know:

Have fun. Please? Things have happened, and things will happen, but fun isn’t always in demand, and there are times where fun is presented to you temporarily. You will still suffer, and you will mourn, and you will grieve, but have — fucking — FUN. Join your sister at Warp Tour; go fishing with your Dad; paint your nails with your Mom. Tell Matthew you love him and can’t imagine a world that doesn’t have him in it. Tell Alex you love her, too, and that she can confide in you without judgement. Be in the moment when these things happen, and not in your head.

How are you different from others?

My severe lack of confidence or self-esteem mixed in with some pretty killer insight. I’m also a walking lie detector with the hearing range of a hound dog. (Seriously, I can hear really well. It’s incredibly off-putting, and oftentimes overwhelming.) Let me put it this way: while IN A PSYCH UNIT, I was considered “high functioning”, and was consistently complimented on my foresight, intuition, and listening ability. All greats things to hear, but maybe not in a psych unit?

What can you not imagine living without?

Other than my loved ones — duh — I’d say my animals. They’re one of the only species that gives unconditional love and doesn’t care that you’re a hot mess. In my experience, their love can almost be unmatched.

What color would you say best describes you? Why do you think so?

I’m known for loving all colors and being difficult when having to choose even less than five. However, if I did have to choose, I’d say pink. I’m calm most of the time — thanks, medication! — and I know my last post did not exemplify this, but I’m slow to get angry. Once I’m there, though, I run that shit into the ground before I’m ready to move on. I use weed and anti-anxiety medication simultaneously because if I don’t, I’ll get anxiety attacks that leave me showering in the dark and then never using a light again because in my mentally ill mind, if people can’t see me, I’m not technically there, and for reasons I won’t look at, it makes my anxiety better. And I think that that kind of energy — slow to anger; can cut a bitch with my tongue alone; happy, anxious, hyperactive, and/or high otherwise — says pink. Like a soft pink, maybe between a salmon and bubblegum shade?

When do you feel the happiest and most content?

At my happiest, I have a joint in hand that I’m sharing with my sister, while we watch Detroit Rock City for the 159th time, and we’re drinking a light beer, while eating street corn and corn chips. Bonus points if there’s a heating pad or CBD cream involved.

Credits

64 Journaling Prompts

80 Journaling Prompts

110 Journal Prompts

And by “bad” I mean “really fucking awful” but I don’t want to come off as less than hubristic. At least in concerns to my pain, and not the day in general.

I feel like it should be said that I’m on my period, despite not being emotionally affected by them. I have never, in my 33 1/2 years of life, experienced PMS or anything period symptom-related, except for (you guessed it!) the pain. All I get is the pain part: painful cramps, painful pelvic floor, and a painful lower back. I don’t fluctuate my emotions as easily, but I am on a mood stabilizer, as well as an anti-anxiety medication, so I would hope my doctor and I’s medication plan is actually working.

Right now, though, I’m just… angry. Angry at being in pain. Angry that I have to feel it at all, and my period only makes it worse. I’m angry that I’ve picked friends I thought were good friends, and they’re not, and I’m so picky as is. I’m angry that I’m more upset with myself for picking them, than their shitty behavior. I’m angry that I’m angry, because while anger isn’t a bad emotion, it’s still a powerful one, and it’s not one I want to feel all the time, much less when I’m battling for my life through a monthly fucking period that keeps coming. I’m glad for it — it keeps my hormones regulated — but I’m never gonna need my uterus. I don’t need to explain it, because I know with all my heart, mind, and gut instinct I won’t need or want to use it. As much as menopause sounds like a nightmare, it not’s a painful period that makes my chronic pain worse.

I do want to be a better person, and blog about nice, cool things. I want to blog when I’m happy, or excited, or even bored. I don’t necessarily care about visitors, but I want to be able to blog when the pain isn’t bad, but I’m so busy catching up on the shit I couldn’t do because of the pain, that at the end of the day, I’m wiped mentally and physically. I think more than anything, I want to blog about not being in pain, and that’s never going to happen again. I wish I was more sad and hurt by that, but I’m so angry right now, all I can really do is mourn a life I’ll never have again. If I didn’t believe in karma/being a good person, I’d cast a minor spell, like, “how to get people off my dick”, but as witches know, do unto others, et el.

I know the pain will ease, and some of my days will get better. I know today is just one day in a line or many that will knock me on my ass, but it’s so hard to live life like that. It’s hard knowing it’ll come, or that it’s here, or that doing X, Y, or Z will exacerbate it. I used to wish for a lot of things if X happened, but now all I can wish, dream, and try for is being pain free, if only for a minute.

I caught sight of my eyes in the mirror last Saturday. “Wow,” I thought, “you finally look like how you feel” and moved on. It’s only now, on the following Tuesday, that it wasn’t my pain putting dark circles under my eyes. It wasn’t my depression that seems to hit when no one is around, thus the anxiety attacks that my loneliness triggers that turn into panic attacks. It wasn’t the excruciating anxiety I get at night, that leaves me drinking more beers than I really want, and more vaping than I’d prefer. It wasn’t the night terrors or the restless leg syndrome, either.

It was because I can’t sleep.

Years ago, I had no self esteem. It’s not really any person or thing that put me in that mindset; I just simply didn’t think having one was as important as making it day by day. And it was my lack of self esteem that led to my lack of knowledge on why exactly it was that I can’t sleep. So when people told me it was my fault, I believed them. I believed all of their theories, and even tried them out. Your diet, was a big one. Your habits, was another. When I got better at both, it didn’t seem to matter, because still, I can’t sleep. (I was also sick and fighting it, and also going with others’ advice on how to handle my body over my own intuition.)

I went to Melatonin, which helped for a while. I also did anything over the counter that could knock out a horse, and while some worked for some time, my tolerance would make it impossible to stay on a regimen, leaving me to do math with pills and decide when I should sleep. And still, I can’t sleep.

I tried homeopathic medicine. I wasn’t happy to do it, and I had a lot of qualms and questions about it, but I still went into it open minded. I tried to go organic and fair trade with my food and anything I put on/in my body; I chewed on fucking Valerian root; I took organic, all-natural sleep medicine. I tried essential oils, but that didn’t help and apparently most scents are toxic to cats, so I gave away my collection. It smelled nice? That’s honestly the nicest and last thing I’ll say about homeopathic medicine.

Yoga has been a tool of mine for years, but more as an exercise to stay flexible and agile, rather than for healing. For the first time in years, doing something before bed helped. It didn’t mean my nights weren’t still shitty as a concept, but I was able to actually say out loud, “this helps” and it doesn’t hurt anything else, or give me bad side effects, and is not toxic to cats.

I tried mindfulness as a last resort. If I couldn’t get my body to help me, I thought, maybe I could get my brain to help. Meditation was the first tool I learned on my path to better mindfulness, though I admit to very few occurrences of me being relaxed nearly enough to reach it. Once you can meditate, it’s almost disappointing when you’re not immediately better. It takes consistency, something I wasn’t raised around and find irritating in practice, and it takes control. If you’ve read one (1) blog post of mine, even if it’s just this one, I feel like it should be apparent I’m bad at both.

Mindfulness takes a little longer than meditation. It takes recognizing your toxic thought patterns, and what can trigger those thoughts. The best silver lining thus far was being able to handle those triggers; when you suffer from C-PTSD, you’re more than acquainted with triggers — it feels like you made them up yourself.

Affirmations can help mindfulness, too, but I find that too many of them can be daunting; the lesson was learning which affirmations work for me both mentally and physically, rather than what I think should work. Affirmations should be things you can say, think, or write down, no matter the topic, and not just believe it, but know it.

Did those three things work? Yoga, mindfulness, affirmations, some meditating? Sleep hygiene that I tried and loved and may write about one day? Yes, and no. Until I can have the money to pay for a sleep specialist to find out more, I am currently using a prescription sleep aid. I am also doing all the things above in top of my sleep aid, as medicine can stop working, or I can accidentally take a nap, and have a harder time falling asleep later.

I still have bags under my eyes. I still cry sometimes at night when sleep won’t come, because the chronic pain will get worse if I don’t sleep. However, I have learned to use these tools to help me. Mindfulness and meditating can help me when awake, and the pain ointments and medications will help ease the pain. My affirmations will then come in handy when I feel my night anxiety start to rise. It’s a lot to do, even for a normal person, but I do it because I can’t sleep.

Continuing my Just a Minute… series.

Reading… Honestly, not a lot! With how much coding I’m doing, it’s been hard to settle into anything relaxing. Also, considering I’m working on a rec site for fanworks, reading fanfiction (my go-to) has lost it’s shine thus far.

Listening… I have been obsessed with rock music, lately. Probably about 293 entries ago, I mentioned my parents could tip me into sleep with only Rock music (now considered Classic Rock). Still true to do this day, if some of my naps are any indication.

Watching… My sister showed me Letterkenny years ago, but only this year have we really sat down and watched it from the beginning. Recommend it highly if you’re a fan of comedy, and even if you’re not, just watch it.

Relieved by… Medication. The hardest part of being so sick all the time is the medication. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about what does and doesn’t work, and what should and shouldn’t be taken. I just want to focus on being relieved, even if the pain doesn’t go away. Other than medication, I abuse the shit out of my heating pad, and a couple of lotions that help with aches and pain.

Taking a photo of… My new cat, Louise! I got her around April 1st, so she’s been with me nearly two months, and I’m so in love with her.

Writing… If coding was writing… three novels? I have been writing to-do lists a lot, as well as blog posts corresponding to my edits to my sites. Really, this blog post is my most recent “writing”.

I love my mother.

I love my mother’s flaws, I love my mother’s quirks, I love my mother.

I love my mother, but sometimes I wonder if I got my sadness and loneliness from her. I’ve seen her draw attention and befriend anyone in a way that’ll always be foreign for me. My mother probably thinks, “why can’t she just try?”, but you see, that’s not a quirk of my mother’s, not noticing how unalike we are, but a flaw: she’ll never accept the differences. I love my mother, and I love her quirks and her flaws.

I love my mother, but I wonder if my mother gave me my anxiety. If stress and anxiety can be hereditary, there’s a good chance she had a part in those particular genetics. I love my mother’s nitpicking, because she’s unaware of the feelings she hurts, and I love that my mother doesn’t change her behaivour based on age: we’re always her children. I love my mother’s overspending, because it’s hard to say no in the face of happiness, when you see her experience it so little.

I love my mother, but I do wonder if the unconditional love I give is given in return. I know my mother loves me, but does my mother love my quirks and flaws? Does she love that I’m so fucking picky about everything I eat, touch, feel, and look at? Does she love that I went from cleaning a whole house to barely being able to do my laundry? Does she love that I’ll never accomplish anything she thought I could?

I love my mother’s quirks, I love my mother’s flaws, I love my mother.

Back when I did Just a Minute… » blog posts, I had a lot more going on. I was also fresh in my twenties when I started this series; when you’re older, the big things seem small and the small things go away. Add chronic pain and the life challenges that come with that alone, and this list can seem daunting, if not outright feasible: are we really reading a different book every time?

Thus, I curated a “Just a Minute” list that focuses less on materialistic and/or numerous hobbies, I’d make a list for people like me. People who maybe aren’t going to be able to start that recipe because they’re having a really bad flare, or for someone who works and sleeps more than anything else.

Reading… I’m currently reading an astrology book I picked up at a bookstore, but it’s across my room, so we’ll pretend I’ve given you the title. I’ve only recently started reading it, and cannot give you any info/advice on how good it is. I’m also reading Top Gun fanfiction, because skipping through fandoms I don’t care a lot about is fun for me.

Listening… Musically, I’ve been a huge rock kick, and can’t stop playing Deftones‘ Around the Fur album. And anything Chevelle, because Chevelle. While I stick to my normal ambient music for my “stop looking at screens” hour before bed, I’ve also been listening to Just Sleep stories on their Spotify podcast. I recommend Sleepy Hollow, and Alice in Wonderland.

Watching… I’m not a huge binger when it comes to TV because I don’t like it, but I also have a hard time sticking to the same one. (Don’t I just love ADHD?) Right now, I’ve been digging early-series Law and Order: Criminal Intent and the most recent season of Bob’s Burgers.

Relieved by… While I can’t do this on bad pain days, stretching in bed before bed is great. Not all yoga poses need a mat, and stretching along with some light yoga has been good for my insomnia. Also, a warm cup of tea (bonus if it’s Bedtime brand tea) or a warm shower helps calm me down a lot for bed.

Taking a photo of… My sister’s dogs. I love being their aunt so I can give them back after cuddles:

Writing… Along with my astrology book, I’ve picked up the Wicca: Guided Journal by Lisa Chamberlain journal, for wiccans. Not only do I love the prompts — multiple questions! — but I love the space it leaves for other work to go in the book after it’s finished. It also doesn’t have to be started at the start of the year, it can be started whenever, or when a solstice begins.

Before mid-2017, I had no problems putting words to paper, or typing up an essay to a friend. I’d apply every thought, idea, emotion I had when I blogged in the past. Once the chronic pain started, that got harder; it never went away, I kept writing, but I found other mediums that didn’t include hitting the “Add New” button.

And it took — very sadly, so you don’t have to point it out, I know — almost 7 years to realise that what I was blogging about, I had blogged about before. Anything I blogged from 2008-2011 were curated versions of the blog posts I’d done from 2003-2008. I blogged about things that may have seemed unique to some, but for me, was just a recycled version of another idea that failed.

What I realised, 7 years later AUSTIN, was that I had never blogged through pain. Other than a few online friends, I had never even seen a lot of representation in my own blogging community about pain, because we hide it. We were all scared to talk about our darkest thoughts and self-harming, there was no way we’d find a way to the top-level tier pain: the kind that lasts forever and never goes away. No medication, yoga pose, meditation app, aromatherapy, eastern healing will take away from your body what your body gave you. The pain is there, and it’s there to stay, and I do wish I had heard those words 7 years ago. It would’ve stung, but I wouldn’t have kept getting surprised and disappointed by everything I tried not working.

Another thing I never blogged about was dating and then the aftermath of dating. I’m pretty private when it comes to those things, and it always felt so superficial to talk about the hurt after the fact, but none of the good before. And because I let myself believe that, I let a lot of good stories go to waste. I’ve tried writing them, too, but they just don’t have the same ring if I’d done it, like, immediately. I did a lot of voice recording, and whether you’re writer or a talker or both (me), those kind of journal entries can help yourself. I don’t have a lot of friends, and I didn’t always feel comfortable talking to them about my problems, but maybe if I hadn’t been, they’d have given me some burns.

I haven’t regularly blogged in eight years, and while I’ve talked about a lot of the things listed below, you’d have to browse my Tumblr, Twitter, and probably my e-mails with Chris to piece all of these together. AGGRESSIVE DRUM-ROLL: a FBF! I decided to stick to seven things, because I’m long-winded as is, and literally nobody needs to read eight things about me; I’m not that fucking interesting.

SMALL NOTE: I always double check my Spanish, and was writing “siete”, and couldn’t fucking figure out why my dictionary was translating that as “seven” instead of “eight”. Always check your grammar, and always check for reciting numbers in your head in the wrong order.

1.) My Dad died
I’ve blogged about this occurrence several times, but one of the reasons I stopped blogging was my Dad’s cancer treatment. While I was coding the Listing Admin 2.2 script, I found out my Dad has cancer. While I was coding it’s follow-up (2.3), I found out his chemotherapy wasn’t working. We moved down south to Gainesville (in Florida), which was literally THE MOST BORING CITY ON THE PLANET, where he died of complications due to a bone-marrow transplant.

I will probably never go back to Gainesville. Not because it’s where my Dad died — I find that part hilarious, because one of the things he told my Mom before we moved there was, “don’t let me die in fucking Gainesville” — but because I wasn’t exaggerating when I said it was boring. Like claws your eyes out boring; there is no water except in hotel pools, and there’s no curricular activity that doesn’t include basketball or football.

2.) Health problems
I almost listed all of my health problems up there to be dick, but I’m trying to keep this organised. My OCD won out over a being a shithead, you’re welcome.

I was 21 when my Dad was undergoing chemo in 2010, and during that year, I suffered from what I would later found out to be “attacks”. In 2012, I was diagnosed with two stomach disorders (neither of which are related to each other) and a spine disorder/injury. I’ve struggled with mental health my entire life (PTSD, social anxiety disorder, major depressive order, probably other shit) and I thought I was okay with it. Most days I am, actually. But when you add in chronic pain, you begin to question whether you can handle anything at all.

For the most part I’m functional — I work full time, and I’m fairly active — but most people don’t live with me/have to deal with me when I’m in pain or anxious, or both.

3.) I have a niece!
That title is about 90% more excited than I am right now, but I prefer babies over kids any day. My closest sibling, Hannah, had her in 2013, and while I would have preferred she waited, I’m glad she didn’t for this damn little girl. Here’s a picture of her when she was 2, and not prone to talking to herself in my vanity mirror, or telling me about a day I care nothing about.

4.) I was a nanny for a two years; now I’m not
From 2013 to 2015, I was a nanny to a beautiful little girl. I really loved being a nanny, and the free time it afforded me was pretty priceless. It also paid terrible, and towards the end, I was really unhappy. I’m kind of still unhappy — is anyone who works at a restaurant truly happy? — but I make more money, filing taxes isn’t as hard, and I have health insurance. Do I want to learn different cuisines, like I outlined in my In Ten Years post? No the fuck I don’t, but at least I learned that I don’t.

5.) I came out (twice)
I actually came out to my Mom when I was 19, but her and I had this unspoken oath to never really talk about it, because I was also crying in the middle of the kitchen at the time. I simply asked her (while crying) if she was okay with it, and she said, “yes” and “please stop crying” and “is that what this is about”. I never really thought too hard about the gender of any partner, but when you don’t have any desire to have one, you kind of forget to think about what kind of partner would interest you.

I don’t want to be the asshole who ignores how hard it is for other people, or how much people struggle with that part of themselves — it hasn’t exactly been easy for me — but I also don’t talk about whole parts of my life. Being bisexual is just a thing I am, not my entire personality.

6.) I lost my Dad’s cat and my best friend in a 4 month period
I’ve blogged about losing my friend but I also lost an animal in November 2017. My house is full of them, it’s hard to keep up with them. I’m close to all of them, because animals get me in a way humans don’t; all I want is to be left alone unless I’m crying, and my animals get that. Tanque was my Dad’s cat, and losing him hurt so much, because for my family, it felt like losing another piece of my Dad.

7.) “Who am I?”
…was not actually a question I asked myself, but the overall feeling was something I had a hard time dealing with. For so many years, I’ve known myself as Tess. Tess likes a lot of things — I’ve been told too many things — and Tess doesn’t struggle in quite the same way. I spent so long locked up in my own head, that as cliche was this is definitely going to sound, I didn’t know who Austin was.

Turns out Austin is kind of a dick, but when you deal with people on a regular basis, you kind of have to be. I’ve also had my ass handed to me so many times, and I needed that. I needed to know what I can and can’t deal with, what my limits are. I have also learned: how many times you can irritate a co-worker (depends on the co-worker, but usually about a solid hour before a meltdown), how to handle confrontations when you’re unable to walk away, when it’s appropriate to cry in a walk-in (before opening hours), and how many lost hours of sleep you can work efficiently on (4 a night for a week).

I wish I had a big fucking novel for my re-open; I wish I had thought to write this up in the eight months I’ve had it sitting, but if I wasn’t unprepared, I wouldn’t be me. This is a special day for me; not because I did something that’s been on my to-do for six years, or because it’s been six years since something like Lyone — a thing I dumped all my thoughts on — was in my life. Lyone meant a lot to me, and if it wasn’t for a combination of this day and Chris kicking my ass every time I turtle shelled out of life, it’d probably be sitting for another eight months.

I shit you not, this is what my rough draft of this post looked like for all of those eight months:

[INSERT HUGE INTROSPECTIVE HERE]

BEING AN ADULT IS GREAT 2k17.

I haven’t gotten to celebrate this day with my Dad for six years, and man — he was horrible about his birthdays. He hated getting older, he hated regretting the things he didn’t do since his last one, he hated feeling that regret every single year, and he hated that he couldn’t stop feeling that way. Trying to tell him that he helped people, sometimes in big ways (his job in the medical field) and in small ways (giving his special brand of “boy IF YOU DON’T GET YOURSELF TOGETHER” advice), didn’t shake him of those feelings.

Because we’re the Bat family, it became a Family Tradition™ to completely distract him from all of his feelings. This originated from my Dad’s 30th — a year and a half before I was born — of him moping around on a deep sea fishing ship. He was dressed like a pirate, next to his often-declared love of his life who was also dressed like a pirate, moping around because he was 30. He hadn’t done a lot of stuff at 30, G. He was getting old at 30, G. She took one look at this really tall child and his moping — and married him anyway.

On his 40th, my Mom nipped all of That Shit in the bud, and threw a surprise birthday party. THAT HE DIDN’T ATTEND, because he was — YEP! — moping at the bar he was a part-time DJ at. My Mom called him, and covertly asked, “Hey, it’s kind of late, didn’t you get off work two hours ago? It’s not like I threw a party, ahahahha, that’s a strange and weird thing to do on your birthday. Lowkey, the lights are all off, and it’s BECAUSE I AM IN BED AND NOT HIDING, READY TO SHOUT AT YOU.” He came home, was “surprised”, and then got handed a bust-shaped cake. Yes, a cake shaped like boobs. Because my Dad is a future version of me that lived in the past.

His 50th consisted of my Mom Freaking Out because we were so broke, and she didn’t have the money to do anything. “It’s going to be fine,” she said determinedly. It wasn’t fine; after two hours of moping, she called the neighbours over, who brought Jose Cuervo and weed. We all sang him happy birthday, and let him talk for three hours about cars with minimal eye rolling.

This is for you, Dad. I miss you every single day, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish you were here, experiencing every high and low with me. I want to hear your voice again, I want to cry on your shoulder when it gets too hard, I want to laugh with you just one more fucking time. I want your advice, I want you telling me to get the fuck over it, I want you to tell me I’m okay being me. I don’t get any of that, but I do get this.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad — you mean more to me than you’ll ever know (probably because I’ll never say it, but shush). …and before anybody asks, that’s the back of the Mom’s head — the Dad is not some hippy mullet-wearing dude (…OK, he’s a hippy dude, but still no mullet!), but from the reputation he has on my blog, I sense that wouldn’t be such a bad thing!