I slept well. Another morning of Aaron cuddles. We spoke to Mary Ellen, my sister Janice and my grandmother Frances for Mother’s Day. And I went for a walk. 8th Day outside in a row! I walked to the grocery store for salad dressing and picked up a few other items, all healthier than I sometimes do, and I wasn’t even tempted for sweets or chips. That’s not always the case. Aaron cleaned up a bunch of stuff that only he could do and we just seem to be having a nice day.
My haul from the grocery store. 05-10-26.
On my walk, I listened to a mix of Tori Amos songs, and I put on the Tori shirt that Sean gave me 25 years ago. It was just 10 minutes or so of giving him a moment. It was nice. Respectful. Healing. Sometimes I need to do that with people I’ve lost along the way.
I got to bed before 2am last night. I had no trouble getting to sleep, but in part that was likely due to this being an Ambien night. I’ve been really good about not taking them every night, but the nights I do it works really well, so I do look forward to those nights. I woke up with a headache but it was raining and this is likely why.
I got up and had a smoothie. I’ve been having smoothies almost every day for at least a month and probably more. I replaced ice cream in my diet with these concoctions and I’m sure it’s been beneficial. I had some garlic bread last night but most of the day I snacked on blueberries, olives, nuts and seeds, with water and a smoothie. I think I might have had a yogurt as well. I still get potato chips now and again; I love the taste but I’ve noticed that I don’t enjoy how they make me feel, physically, which is new. I used to eat them every day. Now I get them maybe twice a month. All of which is to say that I think I’m probably healthier than I’ve been in a long while. That mixed with the therapeutic nature of this website (which I’ve been working on for about 20 days) + getting out a bit more than in the past, will surely have benefits to my life moving forward.
I uploaded some old LGBTQ movie reviews to the blog. Moving everything here is a lot of work and may well take me years, but there’s a great deal of satisfaction sharing things here that were either on a drive somewhere or only displayed on the increasingly toxic Facebook, which certainly gives me peace of mind.
It’s 11 am. I have TV to watch but I’m not really in the mood. I might work on the website some more, but I expect I’ll need a break soon. The rain stopped hours ago and the sun seems to be out. I just checked and it’s a lot cooler out than yesterday with a high of 64, but perhaps I’ll go for a walk. I haven’t been outside since Monday.
I slept about 6 hours last night. I felt rested. When I got up I started working on a Marvel multiverse viewing order for my website but it’s slow going as I’m having to do the art and fill in information that I didn’t have before. I made a lot of progress though. But I’m struggling with something that has been bothering me for awhile, trying to figure out how to highlight essential elements vs. items included strictly for completionism. I’m also including (or want to include) supplemental materials for a more enriched experience, but I don’t know how to list those things in a cohesive manner. So, unlike other lists and entries I don’t have the pay off of publishing it because I’m not even close to being finished, so it’s just a saved draft for now.
And that sucked up hours of my day, which I hadn’t planned for. It seems beautiful out but I’m struggling with a migraine now, and the energy I had yesterday seems completely depleted. My own weaknesses are cropping up and I hate it. I’m not sure what’s going on with me today exactly, except that one of my new medications tends to stay in my system longer than I think it should. But it’s also helping me to not take Ambien every night and I only have 4 more doses so this problem will pass in time.
In the last 24 hours I’ve also tried to make notes about a possible third entry in my Sex Essays. I have tons of material to write about but I haven’t yet found a framework for the next entry; there’s no contextual outline or structure that might eventually entrap the next tale into a consistently harmonious telling. Once I find something, I’ll know, and it will likely flow relatively quickly. That’s how the first two entries worked, even if I did write them almost 10 years apart. I definitely want to get more written in the coming weeks and months.
Also, my conversations with Michael yesterday left me feeling a bit confused. There are elements of that relationship that have stayed with me ever since. Some of that is PTSD, which I have failed to conquer, although I have identified most of that and explained it to Aaron and my friends and family, so they can understand my reactions to things that seem like red flags, and they are, but they are warning signs for something that actually happened about 15 years ago, rather than anything that’s happening now. Part of me is stuck back there and despite my best efforts I just can’t free myself from that mess. The other part is a complicated sexual component that predates my 2 year relationship with Michael, but was greatly amplified by my experiences with him and then continued on long after we parted. It’s something that I’ve tried very hard to explore and understand, and sometimes I feel that I do. I feel like the work of understanding these things is important and that had I not tried I would have suffered more. I wish I had the foresight to have explored these elements of my personality years before, but I can only try my best. I will continue to explore this topic. Just talking about it here, it’s clear that there is much to write about, and perhaps that could help as well. I’m just not sure if I have any concrete conclusions to highlight in such a piece. But maybe that could be the whole point?
I miss Aaron. I’ve not had any meaningful conversations with him since Monday. I know that he’s very busy so I’m not too distressed about it, but when we spoke on the phone yesterday he seemed odd? I don’t know what that’s about and I’m not sure I will until we can talk about it a bit more.
Glenn sent me a message awhile ago. He said that he really likes Christian a lot, and that they had some fun conversations about me. But he didn’t explain. And I’m not sure what a conversation about me would entail. Glenn did say that my history would make a great play, and he also thought I should do standup, and I do genuinely love Christian, so I’m sure it was all innocent fun, but I’m left wondering what it all means.
I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, which is mostly tied into food; how I think about food and how I react to food is far from normal. I find this humiliating and embarrassing. The trauma occurred when I was very young. I know most of what happened but some of that isn’t really my story to tell, which has left me in a conundrum. I talk about my history. I talk about my experiences. It’s one of the reasons I have such a high success rate with therapists. I’m introspective by nature and I have very few boundaries which I won’t cross in any given conversation if others are open to such things. And yet this piece of me that most people never actually see is something I can’t often discuss openly. I had to tell the judge who ruled on my case who almost immediately granted me disability, and I had to tell the eating disorder specialist who had to evaluate me to confirm that I wasn’t suffering from an eating disorder as part of a surgical prep. These interviews were very thorough and very painful. Yet I know that talking about these things often robs them of their power, even if they can make me feel worse in the short term. But I’m limited in what I can say here. I can’t tell you why I am this way, because, again, this isn’t only my story and the other half of this equation must never be rushed or confronted; that person was a victim too and it would be wrong for them to be treated poorly because I wanted or needed to share. So I’ll skip all of that. It’s enough that my partner and my care team knows.
Today there was a meal on the calendar; a meeting of friends at a local pub. I was invited but told I didn’t have to attend; they could meet me afterwards. I was grateful for the care of the invitation, and I tried to not let any of its implications trigger me.
Triggers. I’ve hated the concept of “trigger warnings” in media ever since I first encountered the term, yet I’m grateful for the trigger warnings that those in my life send to me. For those who don’t follow such things, triggers are simply situations which are likely to cause an episode of intense stress, which can cause negative outcomes for those that are triggered – the results and circumstances vary from person to person. In the last month or so my triggers have been far more intense, because I’m actively seeking to treat my PTSD, which means revisiting all sorts of things which happened in the past. I understand why people avoid such things, and I’ve done so myself, but I’ve never truly escaped my past; clearly it’s very near, if not dear to me. The last time I was this close to tapping into these issues I had a nervous breakdown. I stopped eating. I called my mom and I texted Aaron, telling them I couldn’t do it anymore. There were emergency therapy sessions; suicide prevention measures. I didn’t eat any solid food for over a month. I was removed from my job. That was in September 2014. Just over 4 years ago. But that time I was unprepared for this madness; I went in expecting something completely different and I hit a wall. The wall is still there but I hope to bring that wall down. I’m not picking at a scab; I’m fighting to heal myself from wounds that have been slowly killing me.
For the last 4 years I’ve struggled to learn skills which might help prevent this situation from happening again – the breakdown part I mean. These skills, these tools to help are clearly in effect, though they continue to evolve. Again, last time I was here, in this kind of internalized warzone, I couldn’t eat and often cut myself open, though usually to help ground me to reality rather than out of any attempt to kill or severely wound myself; my wounds were internal and decades old; I was just admitting that they were there. This time there’s been almost none of that. Eating is tricky; everything about food right now is a landmine. I can barely eat when others are near me. I freak out at the slightest smells, hints of food. But I’ve not done any cutting. I’ve been tempted a couple of times but I’ve found healthier alternatives so far. I write. I breathe. I ground. I fuck; sex can often ground me better than anything else. And I communicate with Aaron and with Anna (my therapist). Aaron and I light scented candles when there’s food around. There are foods or places with food that don’t trigger me at all and I keep a map of these places in my head at all times.
This complex reaction to food is something that’s been with me most of my life. I survived on snack foods through most of my upbringing. When my mother bought our groceries it was the norm for me to get only potato chips and sodapop. I remember avoiding any situation where this behavior would be recognized. I went to camp once and the nurse flagged me as having an eating disorder very quickly; she discovered that I liked apples and provided them to me every day that I was there and I never returned to that camp. Occasionally I’d have a babysitter; an older cousin or a family friend – and both fought to get me to eat. One got me to take a bite of a sandwich with the promise of candy. I didn’t have another sandwich until 1994, after a one night stand took me to Zingerman’s. The other sitter found out I liked peanut butter and would make sure there was a jar handy. In High School eating in the cafeteria was optional and so I never went there. I entered the cafeteria twice on a single day, in June 1996, before and after my graduation ceremony – and this was 4 years after the majority of my peers had graduated.
My PTSD has been complicated by a physical condition, which may or may not have been caused by my PTSD. It’s physical; it’s been proven scientifically, demonstrably, with various tests but there’s a school of thought that suggests that my PTSD might have caused this condition and I’m open to that – I’ve come at this problem from every angle – physical therapy, cognitive therapy, psychology, psychiatry, surgery, prayer, good vibes, meditation, oils…they don’t know what’s caused this. My stomach is partially paralyzed; it’s called gastroparesis. I’m physically ill almost every time that I eat. When I eat, my stomach doesn’t contract so the food that I consume doesn’t leave my stomach as quickly as it should. In fact, most of it comes back up – which is gross and off putting and humiliating. This often leaves me exhausted and / or dehydrated. Foods that are often recommended to people as healthy are foods that can harm or possibly kill me. This complicates everything. It also calls attention to something that I’d much rather not have to talk about. My condition is idiopathic, which just means they don’t know why I have it. Most people that have my condition are diabetic, but I’m not; I’ve been tested repeatedly. However, a working theory is that I’m genetically predisposed to the condition because diabetes does run in my family, and on some level, at some point my PTSD likely triggered that genetic switch…and here I am. Basically, I believe that I’m here because I didn’t face this stuff before. Not facing it now could lead to still more negative side effects. Which is why ignoring it isn’t really an option for me.
