Spark In Darkness

Because of a weird quirk of Sparkiness, sleep deprivation is also accompanied by the hyperactive libido. This is not a good combination

The UK has had our first "Black Friday" thanks to shops copying online retailers who are, in turn, copying the Americans. We are all reminded that copying the Americans is never a good thing.

Despite these.... distractions there have been lots of preparations for the 3 stages of the Holidays:

Stage 1: The Family, where I realise that a terrible apocalypse wiping out all humanity does actually have it's good points.

Stage 2: Good Friends: where I realise that some people surviving this apocalypse is not necessarily a bad thing, though we're all very inept at killing zombies (but we will have immense fun doing it

Stage 3: Beloved and I: where I realise that reducing the entire world to our silent house would be a wonderful wonderful thing

All stages require immense amounts of baking and freezing. In years past I used to cook a ridiculous amount and then spend all January trying to find more and more creative ways to use up the leftovers and resolving not to cook/bake/construct so much for the next year. But the last few years I've found more and more people eating my food in vast amounts so even greater preparations are needed

F have kindly volunteered to test all food in case it's poisonous. She's a generous, self-sacrificing soul like that.

At the moment this has meant everything that can freeze and cakes and puddings that will nicely preserve and age and get even better (full of boooooze) as well as vast and vats of soup to freeze because Beloved has become enamoured of soup. I don't know why he is enamoured of soup. I'm not even sure I understand enamouring of soup. I'm pretty sure being enamoured of soup is illegal or should be. I also have a creeping fear that he will suddenly decide he doens't care for soup any more (as is his wont) and I will have oceans of soup and nothing to do with it.

Also the enormous ham (which Beloved got as part of his much-to-be-regretted meat haul) was too big for my biggest pot. Yet Beloved insisted I not cut it up because it was so impressive (I think this is Silly as a bigger ham rather than 2 small hams simply means less yummy yummy glaze, but I humour him constantly because I a) love him and b) enjoy telling him he's being humoured). Cooking a ham in a pot that is too small for it proved to be an... interesting experience.

Beloved wants to try layering a boozy fruit cake with boozy cream. I told him no. I fear he may try it on his own.

Beloved wants a BBQ next weekend. In December. Yes he does. F agrees. We may need the booze ocean we have acquired

Honestly, this was the stealthiest disease ever. Here I was, healthy and fine, ready to actually go out and be social. Yes, I was not only strong enough to go outside without worry but I was *gasp* almost eager to do something vaguely social.

Yay!

And then the DISEASE HIT. And it was like being hit with a sledge hammer. My nose became the evil volcano of erupting snot of doom, gushing like the Niagara Falls of mucus. That was unpleasant.

My energy crashing like I’d just run 3 marathons while juggling elephants while singing opera and wearing cement shoes. It was not good. It was very not good.

But the worst element was the sledgehammer to the gut. No, really – it isn’t a sharp pain, it isn’t a twisty pain or a burny pain. It just felt my whole abdomen was one huge nasty bruise (it wasn't, but it felt that way) with the joyous side effect of EVERY position hurting and not having the energy to move but having to move anyway and then moving not actually making anything better.

This all came along in the period of 2 hours much to Beloved’s shock and F’s incredulity

In fact while I was convinced the end was nigh, cowering in bed making a positive art form out of self-pity, F arrived at the door and loudly declared (F does everything loudly. Low volumes are for people whose voice and ideas are not wonderful blessings to everyone within a 5 mile radius of them) that I was definitely faking to try and avoid the evils of socialism

One of the terrors of illness no doctor will tell you about is a bellowing F bursting into your bedroom while you’re naked, cowering in bed and feeling like death. It’s a terrible terrible thing to face.

Of course afterwards she had to be stopped from running down the street ringing a bell and yelling “UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!”. Also no painting red crosses on our doors. I heard Beloved and her have a spirited discussion on the subject

Of course, Beloved, seeing me suffering so badly, naturally hid as far away as he could. Loving and supportive through the worst of my mental illness moments, but the minute anything germ related rises its head he will hide in the basement (we don’t have a basement, but he would dig one so he could hide in it).

It’s annoying. And many of them are annoying for the usual reasons of fetishism/privilege/dehumanisation and general annoyance that comes with straight privilege and causes me headaches.

 But there are a couple who surprised me because I though, to a degree, they had more sense (and, to be fair, they generally behave better albeit still annoyingly). I, for a long time, put it down to the fact that it’s amazing how good people can be at hiding their prejudices and it can shock you at the worst times making no-one truly safe (case in point, friend I complained about lately in long complainy post I mean to go into more detail on when I’m not drunk and typing drunkenly on a tablet while laid on a drunk Beloved who is, indeed, drunk).

 But there is another element (not to friend-I-complained-about-and-is-no-longer-friend, but to others) to these generally clueful people. It comes to not understanding what being “out” means to everyone.

Because, of course, being gay is a big big big, super big massive secret, right? So if she’s in on the BIG SECRET then that must mean she’s one of my closest of close friends, right? Because it’s not like I would ever tell a near stranger that I’m gay!

But I view being gay as basic biographical information for me – it’s not a secret, just about anyone who knows me knows I’m gay. A casual acquaintance will know I’m gay.

So she thinks she’s my bestest friend ever because I trusted her with my biggest secret. I think she’s a person I met once or twice who has a poor sense of boundaries.

 It’s not an excuse for the overwhelming majority (displayed by general behaviour) but for this odd blip of behaviour from an otherwise apparently decent person it may be the key

 Of course, there follows the “I’m sorry, we’re not actually friends, sorry you got the wrong impression” conversation which is AWKWARD. Hallmark should really make a card “You think we’re friends! I don’t really like you – sorry!”

 Or maybe a cake? Chocolate with “I don’t like you very much! Take a slice and go away!” written on the top?

 (It could go with my “You’re my husband’s friend, not mine. I have better taste.” Victoria Sandwich).

 There are some people who see an introvert and decide it’s time to make me be all social which will then make me HAPPY and JOYFUL and SUNSHINEY WONDERFUL

 This combines annoyingly with my mental illnesses to have lots of really helpful people pushing me to get out more because this will magically cure me. More sunlight! More company! More loud, noisy crowds doing loud, noisy crowd things! If I’d just get out more and have fun why I wouldn’t need therapy or my pills or to swing great big axes at people’s heads.

 Of course, my social phobias and general dislike of people, anxiety and fear of people especially in large numbers combines to make this the very opposite of help. I think I actually prefer the “have you tried eating X” crowd who think all my problems will go away if I just eat enough vitamin c or goji berries or whatever miracle cure du jour they’ve scanned off the arse end of the internet to the “just socialise and have fun” crowd.

Of course, the badgering at me to get out more wears down my dealing-with-crap reserves until I agree to shut them up – and then go, deplete reserves further and find myself less up to a long fight about why I don’t want to go out YET AGAIN

 “But you have fun when you go out!”

 Yeah, often I do. Sometimes I do. Usually. But that doesn’t change the amount of effort and energy involved, nor does it mean that, at various points during the event, I’m going to have unfortunate brain melt downs (more on that later) or freaky mood swings or anxiety attacks or generally just be afraid ALL THE DAMN TIME and yes I can do that EVEN WHILE apparently having fun. And it’s DRAINING. Really tiring.

 Which means my social life, especially public social life, has a cool down (yes I use computer game references for mental illness). If I’ve revved up to going out last night, I am now out of social manna for tonight. I am /oom! And forcing it is going to create some freaky kind of mana-debt that most computer games don’t let you have because it’s a BAD IDEA, especially since I need to reserve some social mana for work (my sustained spells. Yes I can maintain this metaphor forever).

And then this weekend, with annoying birthdayness, my parents go to Wales to spend time with him for his birthday (our birthdays are close in date, albeit not in year) and he wants me and Beloved to come as well – so we can celebrate both birthdays AND my parent’s wedding anniversary at the same time.

 I can’t really say no to that. Even if Wales ALWAYS rains on me. Always. The whole country rains constantly. The second I cross the River Dee? RAIN! Full on, you-better-build-an-ark, rain.

 And it was fun – but even more draining and I’d have enjoyed it all a lot more if I weren’t running on empty before travelling to the vowel-deprived hills of Wales.

 So I am not Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaained and tired and all kinds of grumpy and completely intolerant of just about any social interaction. And people don’t understand because I’ve had so much wonderful social FUN lately that Is should be buzzing and happy!

Also I caught a vile Welsh disease, I am now flu ridden and even MOAR grumpy

As alluded to in my post about the Great British Food Festival, I had a mental hiccough. Sadly, I’m bad around crowds. There are very few occasions I feel safe in a crowd of people unless I know most of them are GBLT (i.e. most gay bars and Pride – which is about it). I manage at work when I am forced among a crowd because that is in a formal and very familiar setting and my brain can easily recognise that beating down the gay guy in the middle of a court room is Not Done and may be construed as contempt and, at very least, the judge will be a bit huffy that you didn’t wait until you’re away from the court room to engage in such unseemliness.

Crowds get me on edge, even at an event I’m enjoying (including watching Beloved turn bright, burning red in the sun), I can’t relax, I do the full hyper vigilance thing and I’m prone to panic attacks. It’s exhausting, it’s migraine causing, it drains me for days afterwards, as the hypervigilance/nervous wreck elements last several days after the event. It’s also one of the things I have made zero progress on with therapy or pills. Crowds still destroy me.

I’m going to cling to the good in that, while I did after continued blllaaargle from crowd meltdown, I only had relatively minor(ish) blaaargle of self-hatred and anger and “ZOMG HOW CAN YOU NOT HANDLE THIS!? WHEN WILL YOU BECOME A FUNCTIONING ADULT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A LEGAL PROFESSIONAL DAMN IT?!” Ok, maybe not that minor but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Technically. Or so I’m telling myself and I’m clinging to that otherwise I will have to have another Blaargle over the blllargle I’m having because I’m not functional enough to handle the first blaaargle. And that way leads to an infinite loop of blaargles which is just a nasty spiral down into a very very bad place.

Then there was a lot of work consuming my time, part of that is due to work always being hectic and partly due to my insecure need to prove I am actually an adult who can leave the house without someone holding his hand and will show everyone this fact by becoming stressed and snappy and even more huddled and hermitting, focusing on work and ignoring my brain slowly becoming mush. My coping skills are lacking still

 Beloved has been fielding – mainly with lots of lurking, occasionally reassurance without hovering, occasional interventions, locking up the booze (did I mention that I didn’t have the best coping mechanisms?) and pushing fun stuff and then pushing fun stuff that is ZOMG SOCIAL (starting with ZOMG SOCIAL but only with gay people relax damn it and moving on from there – unfortunately we may or may not have some huffy folks who don’t understand why they’re not in stage 1 of the ZOMG social stuff) including BBQs. He says it’s for mental health. I say he just wants to play with his RIDICULOUSLY OVERPRICED SHINY.

There is also ongoing issue with Fangs for the Fantasy and my determination (obsession? Possibly) in making sure there is no alteration of our schedule. This is keeping my hands full. Remember to click on the link and send Renee Get Well Moose. It is necessary for Canadians to heal, it is known.

So I’m a little absent, a lot busy, a little hermiting and also being very very very carefully managed.  I am fighting conflicting urges on the management: 1) ZOMG HOW DARE YOU I AM NOT A CHILD?! 2) ZOMG I NEED MANAGING I FAIL AS A FUNCTIONING HUMAN BEING JUST LOCK ME UP NOW (these 2 can exist at the same time, the mentally ill brain doesn’t have to make sense) and 3) JUST LEAVE ME ALONE TO CRAWL IN A HOLE WITH NO PEOPLE EVER!

My head is an annoying thing to live with at times.

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I am tired and worn from the fallout of sheer bullshit that happened last week.

 We had a case, it was long, it was complex and it was clearly going to be something that wasn’t going to get resolved for many many months. Fair enough and the customers were moderately decent people all things considered and only making it a little harder than it had to be. But they moved, to Birmingham, and since we’d only started what promised to be a long haul process all parties decided it would be better for them to find a firm in Brummie land.

 Case leaves my hands and is passed on to Arsehole the paralegal to work with said Brummie firm, to transfer various things that need transferring, get any local documents or resources or information, ensure copies are certified et al.

 And it’s out of my hands. Completely.

 In fact more than completely because we need a little history for Paralegal Arsehole here

 I’ve mentioned him in passing in the past, he’s the nephew of Senior Partner #2. We hired him because he had this very important qualification of being a relative of the boss; we certainly didn’t need another paralegal.

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I’ve had a couple of days of pure bad-brain based emotional roller coaster. Incredible highs of glee for no damn good reason, followed by epic crashes of the darkest, bleakest depression imaginable – again, for no damn good reason. Random laughter, random tears, random rages – it’s exhausting and ridiculous and so damn embarrassing.  I need to poke my doc because this is unliveable, I’m not fit for public. Or private.

 The worse thing is that even while the emotional brain is swopping around like a humming bird on crack, my logic brain is sat there screaming at me that none of it makes sense, the emotions don’t make sense, just ignore them, ignore them – WHY CAN’T YOU IGNORE THEM YOU SILLY CRAZY PERSON!?!

And it’s beyond humiliating not being able to because I feel like someone sent down to central casting for a crazed Malkavian and I showed up as a perfect match. That’s just embarrassing. Beloved has been in full mad person management mode which must be exhausting.

 I used to be much better at handling the epic mood swings, I’m pretty sure (actually, Beloved tells me I really really wasn’t – but self-delusion is all). I think a combination of the truly irritated logic brain and sheer embarrassment is helping ride the waves a little more.

 At least one advantage is that Beloved knows his way around my bad brain chemistry and isn’t trying to calm down the hypers or cheer up the sads and we have our old pattern of “oh look you appear to be having a bugnuts moment, let’s pretend it isn’t happening until it passes, or ruefully acknowledge it in a vaguely embarrassed way” kind of like if someone’s flies were undone or they had spinach in their teeth.

 I’m quite sure therapy blokey won’t endorse that as a coping mechanism.

 Put this down as reason #90796 that I need my pills, I guess. It is pretty cheap entertainment though - after all, how can you be bored like this?

I’ve been absent over Easter, that’s pretty much been intentional on my part. Not just because I like to do my own ceremonies in private, but also because this is not a holiday I enjoy and certainly not a holiday I feel comfortable sticking my head over the trenches for.

 Like many religious holidays, this is one where you can guarantee that the media is going to stick some microphones in front of a priest/vicar/bishop/other holy bloke and then repeat/reprint his words for the entire nation

 The holy words of holy blokes are generally pretty hateful. The organised churches of this country (and the vast majority of the world) have made no secret of the fact they’d rather I drop dead tomorrow and never miss a chance to launch another attack against us whenever more publicity comes their way. Whatever messages apply to whatever holidays, the one that is repeated on all of them is that their god loathes GBLT people.

 After years of hateful holy rhetoric that has only intensified as we fight for legal equality, I’m running on empty. Faced with a holiday of trying to play dodge-the-Christian on TV, the internet and more I decided to opt out of all of them as much as I am able and had a few days of silence, not answering the phone and not speaking to people. I particularly clung to Saturday where I went all day seeing and speaking to only GBLT people – I had knots untense in my muscles I never even knew I had.

 The problem I’ve found is, especially in the people around me and in my family, that Easter is one of those holidays where nominal Christians suddenly remember Christianity and put on 8 new layers of temporary religious gestures – and end up saying, supporting and doing shit that offends, angers, worries or scares me.

And, the sad thing is, overt displays of Abrahamic religions already worry and frighten me; I often regard them the same way I would bright colourful markings on a snake or hornet – be warned, here lies something that wants to fuck you up most royally. It’s become a reflexive flinch and doesn’t make for a quiet or easy time of life when there are religious holidays about and someone’s dug Lord Carey from the pit, AGAIN. C’mon isn’t there a limit to how many times you can raise the same zombie? Someone check the Monster Manual.

 So, I stayed in, I battened down the hatches and I relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxed. It reminds me how many months it’s been since I last had peace, I may have to do this more often.

Yes, I’m actually going to make some this year. I normally don’t bother because, well, why make promises you know you won’t keep so you can break them later and feel bad about it? What is this, emergency guilt reserves? “Hey, I don’t think I’m going to feel guilty enough in, about, mid-February, so I’m going make some promises I’ll break and ensure a bumper crop of guilty and feeling like a failure!”

 Besides, when I make ritual decisions to set my life on a new path, I do that at Imbolc.

 But this year I’m making some resolutions to CONTINUE. This fits my definition of Yule, celebrating life and self as it is in a defiant fire against the dark. That sounds like a cop-out, but these are things I need to continue that I know I will stumble on – because I already am doing.

So, I Resolve:
 

 To keep healing. I’ve made immense progress in putting my shattered mind back together this year, I want to keep going, no stopping, hiding or running.

 To keep the upper lip wobbly. No stiff-upper-lip enduring situations that are hurting my healing. No enduring what I can’t endure, no tolerating what I shouldn’t tolerate. I will ask for help when needed, not hope someone notices I’m drowning and throws a life line. I will remove myself from situations and places

 To not use booze as a not!coping mechanism.

 To wear my hair more as I want it in non professional settings. And stop playing they “should I cut it?” game.

 To remind Beloved of his many many flaws. At length. It’s good for him.

 To not feel ashamed for withholding trust, friendship or my company. I have no problem being suspicious, but I view it as a character flaw, which I need to work on

 To stop doing things and going places I know are going to annoy me, it’s like a scab I can’t stop picking, it’s silly and ridiculous.

 To not use my hermit tendencies and lack of trust as an excuse to avoid people I do trust and to hunker down and hide. In fact, I resolve to go out more. No, really.

 To remind Beloved of his many many flaws. At length. It’s good for him.

To remember that the family tree has thorns as well as flowers - and it needs to be less spikey before I climb it

 To not argue with someone who isn’t listening, to not repeat what I’ve already said (they ignored me the first time, what makes me think they’ll listen the second time?)

 To have fun and not feel guilty for it – nor feel I need to be “productive.”

 To scream at my damn ISP on a regular basis. In fact, let’s widen that so it sounds wiser: to stop ignoring things and hoping they will improve. Including the ISP. Which is still shit.

 To stop trying to multitask.

 To remind Beloved of his many many flaws. At length. It’s good for him.

 To avoid ALL online games, all gaming Apps, all MMOs, all browser games until I show I can handle them reasonably without becoming ludicrously hooked on them to the point when I’m playing without even enjoying them.

 To not have huge long absences on the blogs, twitter, or elsewhere.

To answer the damn emails, damn it. And no-one believes the whole “oh I didn’t get that email, that’s why I didn’t respond” excuse!

 Did I mention reminding Beloved of his flaws? Because I really need to do that.

Friday evening I had to pick Beloved up (his car is dead, again. I honestly have no idea what he does to his car – beats the engine with hammers I think) where he had decamped to a pub (Beloved doesn’t do waiting – which inevitably means if he’s ever waiting for you he will go do something or go to a pub and then you end up waiting for him). If there’s one thing I dislike more than straight pubs, it’s being in a straight pub when I’m driving so can’t drink. And if there’s one thing I hate more than that it’s being in a crowded straight pub when I’m driving so can’t drink.

 So I was sat there, drinking something caffeinated and dropping not-so-subtle hints that Beloved and his friend J need to finish their drinks so we can leave when one of the loud and not entirely sober group of older men next to us makes a comment about a paedophile who has been in the news lately – his comment including several anti-gay slurs, accompanied with general nodding. The group of not-entirely-sober younger men not far away agreed rather loudly and made many disparaging comments – about gay men not paedophiles (thank you homophobic media for constantly conflating the two).

Then group number three made jokes and more jokes and jokes tinged with violence and then…. Jokes which weren’t even jokes at all but were rather menacing.

 It’s at this point Beloved and I decide we did not want to be there. It was also at this point that J decided she wanted to speak up.

 There followed a brief whispered argument in which we said if we wanted to commit suicide we’d make the choice ourselves, thanks; and we didn’t appreciate her nominating us for Gay Martyr to Hate Crime #7889675764746 and #7889675764747. Counter of needing to speak, to reject this crap while we pointed out we also would like to remain in once piece and I already have enough scars and a trick knee, I don’t really need to add to the collection – and if a pub full of violent homophobes realised we were gay, we were the ones spending the nights in the hospital. And we left, refusing to argue any more, leaving her the choice of speaking up without us in the room, following us, or arguing with our rapidly retreating backs. She followed.

But the car journey that followed was less than pleasant and contained an awful lot of me counting to 10.  But she was in full on lecture mode about the need for visibility, how these opinions need challenging, how gay people should be able to go anywhere and feel safe yadda yadda yadda “I totally need to yell 101 stuff at gay guys who won’t play grand heroic martyr for me” with a side order of how brave X Y Z gay person was who stood up loud and proud at the Westboro Baptist church flamethrower and bible verse convention. And a firm belief that everyone was just talking shit and would totally have backed down if they’d been called on it., they were egging each other on and a reality check would have probably embarrassed them.

 Uh-huh.

I dumped her on the pavement outside her house in ringing silence after Beloved (for once – and thankfully because I don’t like telling his friends when they’re being arseholes) was the one to snap and adamantly refuse to listen to another damn word and turn the radio up high when she tried to continue.

 Needless to say this lead to a rather shitty feeling Saturday. Between logic and guilt – and always that sense that, yes there are some fantastically brave, heroic people out there past and present who have rose above far worse than this; but it’s not failure not to be a damn superhero. There’s no shame in trying to be safe and you don’t make a safe space by spilling lots of blood somewhere until it mystically becomes safe and, even if it does feel shaming or like failure or cowardice, sometimes you have to run. The first rule of any overwhelmed force is picking your battles. I’ve been beaten before, and burned and had bones broken – it doesn’t solve anything. There’s not a mystical amount of pain we can suffer that will suddenly make things better, a number of hospital hours you can clock up to gain an achievement.

 And the police? I can see it now – I’ve seen it before - “your mouthy friend was giving them attitude and they retaliated let’s file it in the big section entitled ‘no-one gives a fuck’”. It’s not like they particularly give a fuck about anti-GBLT violence anyway – especially not when someone gives them a gold plated “they were asking for it” excuse (an excuse that applies to anything from “brushed past him in a crowd” to “held eye contact too long” to “look at what he was wearing!”)

 Shouldn’t be that way? Yeah – “shoulds” are all very well and good, but “is” is what we live with.

 The weekend has been brought to you by lots of booze, lots of cake and lots of angry baking and curtains that haven’t been opened for several days, because sometimes the world needs to stay out there.