Based on Kristen’s entire vibe in the first episode I’m 99% sure she and Tracker are over and yes I am sad but I KNOW Ally is going to deliver to us the most juicy, delicious, messy, toe-curlingly cringe high school lesbian break up drama that has ever existed and I’m so fucking excited

Friendship Dissolutions; A Lesson in Asshole Trauma Reactions

So this is normally my school day, but I’m feeling the need to dig into something else this morning. The past events of this weekend, annnnd the past nearly two years. Because, if you  hadn’t heard, relationships are hard and I like to embarrass myself by telling you about all my fuck ups.

You know, romantic relationships are a disaster for yours truly, but I always thought I was pretty good at the friendship thing. Since high school I’ve almost always had robust friendly relationships - both in depth and breadth. With the exception of a few difficult points in my life since 16, my phone has never been quiet, my weekends have only been isolating when I’ve been isolating myself, and I’ve always felt like I had humans on my side who were closer to kin than my actual family.

The thing is, there have been periods when this hasn’t been the case. I want to say that it’s generally when I’m in my worst mental health downfalls, but I don’t think that’s universally true. There have been variable reasons for separating myself from other people, or vice versa. Sometimes getting too busy, sometimes naturally growing apart, sometimes getting too obsessed with a romantic partner.

But, taking a more analytical view, underlying my lost friendship events, trauma has often been one of the influences that corrupted my friendships and left me lonely, even if it doesn’t seem like it at face value. The thing is, the trail of breadcrumbs might go back 20 years or so. I might not have been in a full-blown trauma state at the time, but those early life non-learnings about relationships have left their mark. So, yes, I do believe that CPTSD is the prerequisite for interpersonal disruptions and we’re not alone in that.

Anyways, in this Fucker’s life, for the past almost 2 years I’ve been in one of those friendship lulls. I’ve had casual friends, roommates, work-associates, distant relationships, some of those hey-how’s-it-going-every-two-months relations. But I haven’t had those deep, rich, all-encompassing friendships that used to define my existence. The ones that used to make me feel safe enough to have an existence, at all.

It’s all because I lost my core group of friends, I didn’t understand and couldn’t fix the problem, and I had no idea how to move forward.

And this last time when I lost everyone I loved, it was definitely due to trauma. Acute, historical, and recovering trauma, to be specific. It was a horrible period of my life, I was a human wrecking ball, and I had no emotional control… because, partially thanks to said friends, I never had to develop those skills.

Basically, I’ve been on my own since a whole series of mental health related isolation events and relationships dissolutions that have persisted since - I want to say 2019 - but to be more holistic, the ship started sailing earlier than that. Like, when I was born.

This has all come to mind more than usual because, this weekend? I had a strange rush of humans back into my life. For the first time in a long time, I saw my best, closest, most important old friends, who were closer to siblings…. In our natural habitat, with our normal friendship routines, with hundreds of memories from the past decade flying around the room.

And today… or, realistically, since I tried to go to sleep after seeing them each day this weekend… I have the relationship reckoning to deal with. The emotional and cognitive processing of everything that’s happened. The lost years. The sense of abandonment. The feeling of being cast out of a family. The inkling that everyone was talking about me. The realization that I was acting a fool, and maybe they should be talking about me. The sense that all parties were partially responsible, but I was the one to blame. The voice in my head that has called me a crazy, miserable, unlovable mess the entire time I debated this at 6am and 6pm and 3am for the past several years.

And now, in the aftermath, I have to work through the dynamic cocktail of feelings, the sense of waiting for the other shoe, and the big decision - are these relationships that I feel secure pursuing again?

And I don’t think I’m alone in this one.

So, today I thought it would be good to talk about this. The history of losing my favorite people on the planet, how I perceived it at the time, how I see my own trauma-actions fucking shit up in hindsight, how I’ve forgiven myself for being such a wild one, and… well… my hesitancy to have close friendships with humans who hurt me in the past. The ways I realized that being separate was beneficial to my mental health and life progress. The self-sabotaging enablement patterns that I now recognize, ran deep, in our old group of friends. The fear that being around them again will let my trauma brain run away with me.

Woo - it’s a whole personal relationship reckoning over here. Let’s just do this, so I can get to my school work at some point soon.

History

So let me set up this situation. You need the background details, of which, there are many dramatic twists and turns.

Be me, Spring of 2019. My romantic relationship with my ex in Atlanta - the musical narcissist that I followed to the city - is going terribly. Since we moved things have been rocky, but now our relationship has been pumped full of disappointment, unfair expectations, emotional codependency, resentment, horrific fighting, and abuse of all colors. Every day is a battle. We’re rarely ever “happy” together. We’re closer to enemies than friends. And we live under the same roof - the one his parents bought for him, outright in cash - to make matters even more fun.

Other than him, I’m alone in this city. I work at the brewery, where no one really likes me. I have one friend from work, but little time to interact thanks to the demanding schedule of my ex with his gigs and out-of-state child visitation.

Financially, my savings have been depleted by floating my significant other’s horrible decisions for the past 2 years. We can never get ahead. He never pays me back for anything. I’m basically in his pocket, as far as needing resources to survive.

As you can imagine, and as I’ve described previously, my mental health is in THE SHITTER. Maybe worse than it’s ever been, although this is hard to judge against some of my earlier years in my 20’s. I’m definitely ramped up in an aggressive and defensive trauma state more than ever before, thanks to living with my aggressor every day. I feel like I’m surviving against the will of my partner, who seems to legitimately be doing his best to drive me into an early grave every single time the sun rises. He’s moved into the territory of intentionally triggering me for hours on end, upsetting me to the point of mental breakdowns, and then gaslighting me for “acting so crazy.” Things have become dangerous, I have no one to turn to, and no cash to get myself into a better situation… not that I know what a better situation even looks like.

But one day, I left. Packed my two bags, went to work, wound up at that single sort-of-friend’s house, never went back home.

And that’s when the real nightmare started. I mean, my ex was a terror over time as we lived together, but a narcissist scorned is a narcissist determined to ruin your fucking life. He harassed me daily via text, phone call, FB messenger, email, stalkings… whatever you can think of. When I blocked him on everything, he started trying to leverage our therapists against me until they refused to interact anymore. He wouldn’t let me into his house to get my stuff. He tried to have me arrested for attempting to do so, after he made arrangements with me to move that weekend. He suddenly refused to even acknowledge that he owed me a dime, and found a way to tally up venmo transactions to show that I actually owed him. He took my only support - our dog, who was really my dog - away and wouldn’t let me see him. Later, he reported my car stolen, so I had to purchase a new one without warning.

The list goes on and on. Just, assume every pathetic, cruel, desperate attempt at getting under someone’s skin and reminding them that they had the audacity to leave you. That’s what was going on in my world.

Meanwhile, with those financial and social pressures I mentioned earlier. No close friends in the area, no spare cash, an unstable job where I was on the chopping block for the reason of “the CEO didn’t like my personality,” nowhere to live, no idea where to go next or how to start a whole new life.

Annnnnd this is right about when my closely knit friend group back in Illinois sort of, well, dipped.

My bestest, best, most treasured friend in my lifetime had always been there for me. But now, she wasn’t. We had exchanged a handful of phone calls over the past month in the aftermath of this relationship ending, but she had been pretty detached from it. I wasn’t offended, because she had certainly heard enough of the drama in real time… of course she was tired of hearing about it...  but I was feeling especially alone and incapable of handling everything on my own, so the distance was difficult, nevertheless. Then, one day she told me that I was being too much for her. I had too high of expectations. It had been bothering her for a while. She needed me to understand and give her some space.

And this was the completely avoidable beginning of the end of my friendships. Let’s talk about why.

How I perceived it

So, I’m pretty sure you can guess how I took this challenging message from my best friend. Uh, poorly. I was so shocked that in my darkest hour, my comrade would feel like my problems were out of her paygrade. It felt like a stab to the heart and straight down through the gut. Here I was, completely alone and isolated, reaching back to my most trusted companions for a lifeline to keep my head above water, and… nothing. She didn’t want to reel me back into the boat.

I responded with some shitty messages about how I really wasn’t asking that much from her and I didn’t appreciate being blindsided by her sudden decision to get rid of me. I had only taken up a few phone calls to talk things through based on her schedule. I had visited her one weekend as I went to a job interview nearby. I had asked her to come visit me soon, so I could feel less alone for a few days. I didn’t think it was fair that she was responding this way. I couldn’t believe she would turn her back on me at this particular moment.

And so, the rift developed. We stopped speaking. I started sobbing. I was absolutely beside myself, as if I hadn’t already been. This wasn’t what I wanted, at all, but I also felt like I had no control in it.

.......

Like it? Well I’m too lazy to post the whole thing here. Check t-mfrs.com for the full blog AND the podcast recorded version. Yawelcome. 

www.t-mfrs.com 

(Traumatized Motherfuckers)

Is Bojack’s Depression keeping me Happily Depressed?

Do you ever look at your life and see you have a codependency to your depression? Like you’re fully attached to this feeling and the consistent presence it promises that you become comfortable in it. I’m currently on the last season (as of now) of the Netflix original series, Bojack Horseman. I just now realized that this is the final season and soon I won’t have this feeding my depression. I won’t have this constant reaffirmation of my constant negative thoughts. Bojack Horseman takes a more realistic approach on how people feel about themselves. How a lot of people feel about themselves. Whether you see yourselves as an unappreciated overachiever, like Princess Carolyn. Or a self-loathing narcissist, like Bojack. Every character is relatable in someway. With a lighter meta vibe the show makes for a fun who’s who of the fictitious, Hollywoo. With interpersonal anecdotes, real life scenarios, and creative/trippy animations Bojack Horseman makes for a low key stoners perfect sad girl binge.

For the past few weeks, give or take months, the depression has been on high. Even getting a job to assuage my boredom hasn’t taken up enough space in my mind. So I had to find something else. Something that wouldn’t take too much effort. Upon perusing the myriad of streaming services, I passed up my usual go-tos. Broad City and Seth Rogen movies for a show I had attempted to start multiple times before.

Bojack Horseman. A series of self described misfortunes is the life that Bojack Horseman would say he lives. A washed up 90s sitcom actor grasping on the remnants of his life. Bojack lives a life where he is the victim. If only people were smarter, funnier, kinder. If people weren’t terrible. If people would just be different than who they are, then and only then would they be acceptable for Bojack. With a line of quirky side characters with equally as appealing and addictive personalities who hold on to their own self destructive tendencies, the Netflix original used my insecurities against me to follow a misfit bunch on a series of wacky adventures for 5 seasons.

While I try not taking life advice from cartoons, Bojack Horseman gives out a lot of helpful anecdotes that have made me realize, I’m not happy and I don’t know when I will be or if I even want to be. Let me explain. For all the ‘what do you mean you don’t wanna be happy?’ commentators getting their fingers ready. Of-fucking-course I want to be happy. I want to walk outside and look at the sky and be glad to be alive. I want to be a person who thanks God for giving me another day to live and then posts about how grateful I am on Facebook. I want to smile at people, not because I’m afraid they’ll see how sad I am if I don’t but because I really want to just...smile.

So, what did i really mean when I said, ‘I don’t know if I wanna be happy.’ I meant more along the lines of I don’t know if I want to give up my comfortability to be happy. I’m going on my 4th (5th?) year with doctor diagnosed depression and anxiety. That’s 1,460 days. That’s 2,102,400 minutes. That’s 126,144,000 seconds. Seconds I have gotten used to. Seconds I have gotten comfortable in. Seconds where I agonized over hating myself, my body image, my ‘daddy’ issues, and my abandonment issues. Seconds where I had set alarms in my brain for mental bashings. My mind would rest up and only really turn on when it was time to make a fool of me. When it was time to call me names and tell me no one loves.

It’s funny before Bojack i didn’t really watch sad shows that called me out on my bullshit. I tried to keep it light. Especially when smoking. When I was ready to turn my brain off I always tried to keep the mindless entertainment to shenanigans and good times. I tried to keep the storylines tight and the chances of having a happy ending with a clean resolution even tighter. But Bojack Horseman isn’t my usual. It made me realize that not only do I have hundreds of self destructive tendencies I don’t have the support system to deal with any of the problems I think I have. I feel like watching B.H, was a one sided therapy. I listened and then used the 5 seconds before the next episode and the 10 seconds of theme song to try and rationalize how I felt about myself. 

I know it’s not so crazy to think that Bojack’s depression is keeping me happily depressed because his depression did the same thing to Diane’s depression when she left Cordovia and didn’t tell Mr. Peanut Butter and decided to crash on Bojack’s couch for six months. Diane was so comfortable in the uncomfort of her depression because Bojack did it every day. And his life wasn’t too bad...was it? She was feeding her anxiety and her depression with Bojack’s feelings of depression and anxiety and maybe even PTSD. And when you keep something fed, it’s bound to grow.

Season 2 episode 12, titles Out To Sea, ends with Bojack Horseman pushing himself to jog up a hill by his house. Once he jogs up he collapses and stares at the sky. A baboon that had been jogging up and down the hill for most of the season comes into view and says, “Every day it gets a little easier… But you gotta do it every day — that's the hard part. But it does get easier.”. This was the first time I felt not alone. Or better understood. And I wasn’t even explaining myself to anyone. The wise baboon simply applied his stupid general knowledge to my life and I ran with it. He definitely meant just running but I had applied that meaning to my intentions on being happy. Being intentional about my happiness was going to be hard. But it was going to get easier. Everyday I did it. The hard part, was the fact that I would have to be intentional every day.

I read a tumblr post years ago, not sure if it was real or fake but I’ll use it as my closing piece because in all honesty who’s going to read this and who’s going to even give a shit? Anyways on the post a woman is talking to her younger girl family member, not sure about the relationship. But the younger girl tells the woman that she wants to be an astronaut. The older woman tells her that in order to do that she’ll have to go to school, go to college, train, and apply herself or something like that. The girl ponders the information for a minute and then responds. She says, “well that doesn’t seem too bad that’s only 4 things.” Now of course because i’m not a fucking child and I know what each indiviual thing holds i know, it’s technically 4 things with a hell of a lot of sub lists. (i.e. 1a...1b...2a...3d...) But when i remember reading the post, I remember thinking wow. The things we really want to accomplish are truly only a short list away. Being intentional everyday about my happiness is literally 1 thing. It’s all I truly need to do. But I’m so hung up on the sub points. About the things that stupid little girl wouldn’t think about. I shouldn’t call her stupid. She’s not stupid she’s hopeful. Or confident. Or whatever positive forward thinking term we have out right now. I don’t know if at the end of Bojack Horseman if I’ll find my one-step intentional happiness program but I do know something will be there.

Back in the 90’s I was in a very famous t.v. show...

Euphoria: Reflections

Just started watching Euphoria this weekend and I’m almost done (two more episodes to go, please no spoilers!!). I was really excited to watch it because from the premise, it seemed like a current day version of Skins, in some ways, and I love my dramatic high school coming-of-age shows, haha. 

Euphoria reminds me of Skins alot, but also has its own quirks for sure. I really like how each episode opens with a vignette about a central character to the show and describes their childhood, family dynamic, how they grew up/how they were raised and how that impacted them into adulthood. It’s so helpful to get a more in-depth perspective into the characters, rather than just seeing them as superficial, vain people. I did have a little trouble getting into Skins at first because the character development was slower and it just seemed like sex/drugs/partying for the sake of it (I’m so glad I stuck around though!). I like that both shows are not afraid to show the hedonism, fast pace of teenage life (where emotions run high and things are constantly up and down like a rollercoaster), the falling in love and heartbreak, and tough topics like mental illness, addiction, death, etc. There are definitely some character parallels I see, like Nate Jacobs share similarities with Tony Stonem, Maddy Perez with Michelle Richardson, Jules Vaughn with Cassie Ainsworth, Rue Bennett with Effy Stonem... Nate scares me to death and it’s a little creepy how he shares character traits with Tony-  the same hypermasculinity, wanting to be the alpha male, always winning/being right no matter what the cost, seeing others (even loved ones, like girlfriends) as pawns in their own game, and being super manipulative. It’s like the world is their playground and they’re kings in their own world, expecting and demanding everyone else to obey to their whims and being tyrants. The white male privilege (especially for Nate, combined with his powerful, rich father who has influence in the town) is so real and it’s really disturbing. But it reflects real life for sure. I mean, how many times have you heard about shootings or rape cases where oh, just because it’s a white guy, that they’re suddenly found to have “mental illness” or some other reason to write off their crime?? 

Even though I didn’t live a super crazy “wild child” life, there were definitely periods of my life that I’ve experienced that make me feel like these characters’ lives on Euphoria are not as extreme as some critics may think. Yes, parts of it may be played up, but the core of these situations are very real and can absolutely happen to anyone. Even though I’m not a recovering drug addict like Rue, I can relate to breaking my parents’ hearts and their trust and having them worry about me because of certain actions I’ve done. I can relate to wanting to meet strangers, smoke, or do drugs to feel out of body or as a route for escape. I can oddly relate to Maddy and the way she feels trapped in her relationship with Nate, yet she feels like he’s the only one who understands and even though he’s abused her, she continues to love him and is willing to defend him to the end. One of my exes had some of the same toxic traits as Nate (thank God I got out of that relationship!!) and although they weren’t as extreme, they were definitely red flags. He’d mess up, do something really immature, broke promises, be super selfish, then come back and say he’ll change and that I’m the only one for him, that he couldn’t live without me, etc. Despite many of my friends and family warning me to stay away from him, I was tempted to believe his lies and sweet nothings for quite some time and thought I was the only one who saw the light in him. I wanted so badly to believe him and to think it was us against the world. Our relationship was a secret one for a long time and we would meet in hotels just like Nate and Maddy did, thinking we were alone in our own little bubble where everything would be okay, shielded from the world. But I realised that it’s totally not healthy to hid your partner and that relationship from others, especially from family and friends and that no relationship can exist in a void. I really hope that Maddy can break out of this toxic cycle she has going on with Nate :/ She deserves so much better!!

This show is amazing at showing the world that we’re all flawed. Life is hard and especially for young people navigating the world today, it’s a really messed up place out there. It’s okay to make mistakes and find yourself along the way. I don’t know if the show would’ve encouraged some of my more indulgent urges when I was younger, but watching it now as a 26 year old, I feel like it’s very relatable and it makes me feel glad that I made the mistakes that I did and was able to move on from them. I’ve messed up, lived out some fantasies, and I’m happy to put those days behind me. I used to idealise this sex/drugs/lovers against the world mentality until I realised it wasn’t realistic and that being in a healthy, fulfilled relationship where it’s not codependent and toxic is actually a really! good! thing!! We hear so many mixed messages from the media, songs, movies, etc etc and it’s hard to decode it all. But I’m thankful for this show’s existence and my heart is pounding in anticipating of watching the final two episodes!!