dailyprompt-2009 – Stories That Are All True

What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

I can maintain my health, or I can maintain my well-being. I cannot do both simultaneously. That is because being autistic constantly puts my mental health at risk. It’s funny, though. I have so much less depression now that I realize I’m autistic. Wandering around not knowing what the hell was wrong with me and how to cope with it was excruciating, because ADHD just didn’t fit. Autism doesn’t, either. The hemispheres of my brain are synoptic. They must be seen together before my personality begins to emerge.

I believe that I am one of the most complicated people on earth, but I only believe that due to the number of people who have told me I am already…….. it’s a mixed bag, to be called “the most complicated person that anyone has ever met,” because they do not always say it with exasperated tones. I find myself wondering what makes other people think they are so simple in comparison.

I use my writing to maintain my well-being, because reading me helps me understand me. Very few people comment on my entries unless they interact with me directly through e-mail or Facebook. I do not take that to mean that no one who reads me disagrees with me; far from it. The sample size on that research is quite large. I have reached my limit. Zac, Bryn, Lindsay, and my dad keep me grounded. I listen to them. What they think of my writing matters. I haven’t left Supergrover out. I decided that she wasn’t allowed to hear any more of my story until I was allowed to hear more of hers. If she does the work, she’s welcome. I’ve said that before, and I’ll say it as many times as it takes. I don’t need her to disappear, so if she shows up it’s not like I’d ever turn her away. I am just finished with trying to think of things to talk about. In that relationship, Supergrover hit the nail on the head when she said my narrative was old and tired. I was exhausted at hearing myself talk.

I can’t sit there and say “she’ll come back, she always does” because the past is no indication of future behavior. I don’t hedge bets. I put out the welcome mat, leave the porch light on, and go to bed. I don’t know what it is about us where we both just need to make love as absolutely complicated as it can possibly get by being the two most extreme personality differences in the known universe. I’m the oldest child, assigned female at birth. She’s the oldest daughter in her own family. If you’ve ever seen a fight between two first children……… it’s still probably going on.

Which is why talking about my health and well-being is different. I am as healthy as I get, excited about creative projects and buzzing with activity. I have breathed life into my creative ideas by using AI as a research assistant, and I’m beginning to pump out a non-fiction book very, very quickly.

I asked Copilot to research every declassified operation CIA has and compare it to its list of nonfiction books on intelligence and tell me what operations are written about the least. I got some inspiration and we just started talking. It was a rabbit hole of, “oh, interesting! How does that connect?” About an hour later, I said, “summarize our conversation,” and now I have a fully-functioning outline.

I also have a list of books to check out from the library, because AI can only do so much….. but the part it did was the part that’s the hardest for me- assume my opinions are valid and this idea is good, so I’m going to needle the hell out of you until you figure out what it is you’re really trying to say. I like natural conversation with Copilot because it will correct all my assumptions with links I can bookmark if they turn out to be credible. 98% of the time, it’s right on the money. However, I still have to go through the sources to make sure the information was compiled correctly. If Copilot can’t keep the characters straight on something as important as Skyrim, why do you think I would trust it with the American government?

I also do not think AI can generate prose like any human, much less me. This is because AI is unfailingly positive, and having worked in restaurants I’m just as much of a fucking delight as you’d imagine.

Plus, reading the books just makes it more fun to write my own. I like being able to synthesize ideas, to take dry things and make them a little less so.

This was brought home to me literally and figuratively by an Uber driver who took me to the pharmacy the other day. I told him his car was so neat it looked like something from The Detail Geek.

And then it hits me.

The praise music. You don’t even really have to hear the lyrics, it’s a whole mood. This dude bruh is hideously uncomfortable because I have an ambiguous gender. I have boobs, but I also have a fade and just talked about auto care. It’s my whole problem with Evangelicals. They live in such fear of the secular world that it’s agreeing to accept a whole different reality just to get through an Uber ride. I was going to ask him to change the station, but then I thought, “no. Leave it. It will only confuse him more if I turn out to know something.”

My combination of musical experiences means that I know a little bit about every genre….. and as little about praise music as possible. It’s just not my bag. It’s designed to be repetitive and mindless. I want Bach and Widor and Mozart and Rutter, not whatever the fuck that is…… Classical music makes people smarter, and it has worked for hundreds and hundreds of years. I am not advocating for any type of libretto, only a better score. Your brain expands when you are trying to absorb great works. You feel accomplishment at learning a melody you didn’t think you could. Hymns tell a story (granted, some better than others), praise choruses are a reflection of our 24-hour news cycle. We don’t have anything complex, so we’re just going to pick one phrase and repeat it a thousand times.

In my experience, the less you think about chord progression, the less you think about life in complicated terms at all. What is helping my well-being currently is this infusion of power back to the people. Not only is Harris doing well, J.D. Vance is already calling for Joe Biden to step down. He can’t back out, but he already knows the odds on beating a sitting president. He’s said so much shit about Trump that I just applaud.

Then, he took it all back. Now, he’s seeing up close and personally that he was right in a way that was only conjecture before. It had to be sobering for him to read the note from Mike Pence to Joe Biden thanking him for his service to the country and having the GOP faithful come out of the woodworks to say “suck it, traitor.”

I will admit that I have not read “Hillbilly Elegy,” but it has been on my TBR list since it came out. I don’t think I’m the only Democrat who can say this; non-fiction about life in Appalachia tends to appeal to a wide spectrum, and he was exploring something important.

J.D. Vance was exploring the effects of opioids on Appalachia, and was unapologetic about calling Trump one, too. But now I realize that he, like a lot of people, stopped having problems with Trump once he got power of his own.

Trump will either face consequences or he won’t. If he wins, he certainly won’t. Even if he loses, he will figure out a way to make it look like he’s won….. and I mean that literally. There will be no heartwarming tale about how he learned something along the way.

My health and well-being mostly center on my communication skills. I’m precise with language and have self-esteem, which means that I often come off as a know-it-all. I have checked with me and I’m an idiot. The way people treat me makes me feel like crap about myself, so I’m trying to learn how to communicate more effectively…. while also knowing that in some situations things are still impossible because I can only control what I say, not what other people hear.

So, as far as my health? I’m fine. I should probably take some Tylenol, though.

As for my well being, what I am learning is that I am happier communicating less and focusing on facts and historical figures that excite me. Relationships come in seasons, and the one with myself is in full bloom.

I blog, therefore I am healthy.

Writing is a comprehensive response to life. That is true no matter what kind, but particularly blogging because the story moves forward every single day, because it’s a choice to post, not a responsibility. I do not feel like I have an audience to whom I owe anything. If I needed to, I’d push the red button and everything would be gone. Nothing threatens you if you don’t need something out of it. I would be giving up a lot, but I wouldn’t stop writing. It’s a huge deal to be a blogger, because people cannot predict what you’ll remember and think they can.

Someone might be totally freaked out and barking up my tree not to write about them, but what they don’t know is that if I can’t make an illustration out of them that works, I won’t. Not everyone makes a good character. Telling them that is worse than blowback, because their ego gets involved. What do you mean, I don’t make a good character?

I feel like I handle this better than most after coming out to straight people without a clue. You’ll never see a more butt hurt child than when they’ve told a gay person they don’t like them “that way” and the person says “you’re not my type.” They are horribly offended in the most hilarious of ways. It is more than physical attraction, and they’ve taken your rejection as if you think it isn’t.

My straight girl crush was because I was struggling in my marriage and it was easier to feel high as hell on new relationship energy than it was to deal at home. She is drop dead gorgeous and it didn’t mean anything to me because I wasn’t looking at her picture while I wrote. She was the equivalent of my “corporeally challenged celebrity girlfriend on the radio.” (I went on a date with a woman from OPB/NPR… maybe two… but this is what Dana and I called her for 15 years.) I could have a crush on a straight girl because it couldn’t go anywhere. I’d get all the good stuff without all the bad except I didn’t. My trauma bond screamed with empathy because she didn’t give me a slap bracelet after the fire.

When I say that someone makes a bad character, I mean that when I write about you, the emotions fall flat on the page. If I can’t make myself feel anything, no one else will feel it, either. If you go back to my older entries, you’ll be able to tell when I’m distressed. I can, but I also have the memory of writing the piece if it’s so overwhelming it made me sob. People think I get really angry when I’m actually crying my eyes out. I am literally pouring myself out onto the page so that I have an accurate idea of how my mental and physical health are treating me. I realize when I’ve been too harsh. I realize when I’ve been too nice.

What makes Supergrover such a great character is because when I write about her I can cry. Not many people evoke emotion in me like that because I just won’t get vulnerable enough. When I write about my beautiful girl, I step into a museum with ten years’ worth of collected art. Some of it was bought and paid for. Some of it we stole in a heist. We’d push and pull and tumble and roll, but for whatever reason, we didn’t cut each other off. That’s because the museum had no easily accessible exits.

I became exhausted because bringing up conflict and it never getting resolved was eating my self-esteem for every meal.

It was very, very confusing because we’d have a fight and she’d say we were done. When I assumed she meant it, I’d try to move on and then she’d drop in. When I assumed that she was just angry af and apologized, it was perceived as me trying to get attention. She would tell me that she told me it was over and I just pushed, but I have two solid memories that stick with me.

The first was a huge fight that really was the end of it for me. Like, I am just not capable. She reads on my blog that my dad is having surgery and checks in. I was pleased, but I felt weird about it because I thought, “surely she sees why this would be problematic.” It felt like “leave me the fuck alone, but I’m going to make sure you know I’m watching.” It has never gotten any more resolved than this, because when she dropped in on me, it was fine. When I dropped in on her, she felt creeped out because she thought it was me saying “I’m always watching.” It happened again when we had another blowout and I thought maybe then I’d get a break long enough to figure out what really happened. Someone said something to her that reminded her of me, and she was back in my DMs.

Neither one of us could break the connection, just “tumbling through a freefall, no one’s going to go unscathed….. but it’s not because you held back, and it’s not how I behaved.” Now I’m humming…. “and I believe that underneath it all, you are my friend. And the way that I fell for you, I’ll never fall that way again. I still believe despite our differences that what we have’s enough” because I believe in her (and I believe in love). You know I have the ability to cry about this if I’m writing and suddenly quote Indigo Girls.

I told my friend Missy that I didn’t even listen to them for the longest because it created a “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” amount of “AS IF I’M NOT WEIRD ENOUGH.” I had a stereo in my room. Their albums didn’t leave when I did for years.

Now, one of my favorite songs is “When We Were Writers.”

Writing is not what Supergrover does for a living, but she does write in her spare time to get away from work. She’s right. It’s a bubble, When I say that I can’t do something or I have to go because I’m writing, it is taken every bit as seriously as when Lindsay says, “I’m going on a run.” Nothing else is more sacred than spending time alone so you can actually hear your thoughts.

With a virtual relationship, you never have to feel alone. That’s because their physical presence has never been needed. The relationship wasn’t created that way. We’d become each other in our work, borrowing style, structure, and tone. It was quite sophisticated in retrospect. It’s amazing how much we were able to do for each other virtually, and now everyone knows it because of the pandemic. We were virtual BEFORE IT WAS COOL.

We’d trade off being The Holy and The Moly.

We both went scorched earth too much when it was infinitely possible to just be out with it and either be done or decide we have something and work toward it. My emotions were larger than hers and always have been. She absolutely knew this. But I do not think that she ever thought that she’d be reopening a wound if she reached out. My part in all this is that because my feelings were large, I ignored everything bad and just kept on believing that one day, I’d find the combination of words that would unlock her. In my mind’s eye, I’m 14. She’s six. I’m older, and I should have known better.

When you know better, you do better. Maya Angelou’s words, but true for me as well. I don’t even know if she likes Coke, but she has a unique name and I knew for damn sure she wasn’t going to find a “Share a Coke with…..” bottle anywhere. So I ordered her one from Atlanta. There were actually six. One with her actual name, one with her character’s name, her husband, her kids, and her dogs. Except the Coke bottle said “Boytoy” on her husband’s because that’s how we referred to him. She never saw them, because I mixed up the address and put my name on the wrong part of the form. So they got a box addressed to me for a reason completely unknown to them and returned it. I was furious because it cost so much to do, but I was only angry at myself for mixing up the web form. It was so unique, and ADHD fucked me. I was absolutely miserable because it was the nicest thing I could think of to do virtually because I’d been a jackass. It was the friend equivalent of having to sleep on the couch and buying chocolates and flowers to beg.

Since she wears suits and crap for work, she also travels sometimes. I sent her a bracelet with a charm for her favorite cause. She told me it was perfect and sent me a picture of her wrist. I feasted on that for weeks because now I could go wherever she was, metaphysically. She just isn’t the sort of person that would tell me where she went, because it’s not important in her daily life and that’s really what I wanted to hear. I don’t care how she’s doing professionally. I care how she’s doing emotionally. I am the red telephone where she is concerned. Even now that we’re done I won’t hear a bad word about her because my friends don’t care about her. They care about me. They don’t recognize how much she gave me because even I’ve never heard her side of the story. I couldn’t make anything better. She was looking for hurt, so she found it.

The bracelet said to me that as long as I kept my behavior consistent, she’d know that my drug protocol was working , and not to worry if I spiraled out, that it had nothing to do with her. It had to do with my mental health, and no one else is in charge of managing it. I know when to go to the ER/psych ward. If that doesn’t end up being the whole story, still not her damage. Blame poor health and bad medicine, not the patient.

It all seems scary to people the way I lay it out because I’m dispassionate. I have a disease. It has to be managed. People need to know they’re off the hook for checking in on me, because when mental health issues pop up, if I don’t do anything that’s my fault.

“Oops. My bad. Should I leave a note?”

Wow. That was dark, even for me. I’m mostly fine, so that’s not an indication that things are about to get worse. It’s just a reality check. Run the numbers, don’t diagnose me.

I am awaiting the cause of Sinead O’Connor’s death. I think I already know what it is…. and no matter what it is, you don’t die at 56 of natural causes.

I don’t want to know, but I ran the numbers.

Here’s the other thing you need to know. You cannot guess what mood I’m in, or whether I’m experiencing depression or hypomania in my work because I write about things that have already happened and I’m searching for the road ahead. I map out what I feel now to plan for what I’ll feel later. It’s not because I know you better than you, it’s that I have to decide how I’m going to react to our next interaction based on past history. I will know whether it’s time to stand up for myself or apologize with fancy Coke.

However, I did not just send a gift and assume that she’d take it as “I’m sorry.” It’s just that her love language is action and mine is words of affirmation. I compromised, she didn’t. She could respond in her own love language, but she couldn’t meet me halfway and talk about her feelings. I never knew which way was up. It’s just not fair to leave someone in that much confusion because my need was being rejected. I needed her to show up, be present in the moment. Instead, her responses were dismissive or angry. Meanwhile, I’m trying to do things that make her less angry and annoyed, but I couldn’t because I was guessing all the time. I got done with guessing way too far past my breaking point. She had enough information to blow up my life, not the other way around. And yet she saw me as a threat without realizing she felt like one to me, too. We were in the same boat, just back to back.

She is the Aunt Voula. I am the Toula. She will be everyone’s favorite and I’m okay with that because she’s my favorite, too. We’re in that weird age gap where I’m not young enough to be her kid, but not an average age between siblings, either.

In the beginning, she treated me like an equal. After fights, she treated me like a pest. It is my fault I treated her badly, and her fault that she never got over it.

The problem isn’t even that she “never got over it.” It’s that she is free to be someone who decides how they feel about you on a daily basis for someone else. It was chaotic and I was tired of the swings.

It wasn’t good for my mental and physical health.