Tag: Life

I was minding my business, checking a former college classmate’s Facebook when I saw a name that I recognized and that I actively try not to think of whenever I can. Of course I gave in to my worst instincts and clicked. And what did I find? A post that made me roll my eyes.

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It’s interesting she cares so much about the mental health of young people or people having a hard time or people with issues with professors now. She didn’t care about them when she was my professor and she marked off on tests where my handwriting was shaky due to lithium. She didn’t care when she refused throughout Fall 2006 to find a placement for my internship until the last moment (because I couldn’t drive at the time due to my disability) and she had no problem ending that internship prematurely either.

She didn’t care when she mocked me publicly as she taught Art of Interviewing and when she mocked me in front of my internship class. She didn’t care as she mocked me privately to my classmates, who would later tell me about it. She didn’t care when she mocked my family being too poor to afford Caller ID or when she knew I couldn’t afford nicer shoes or better clothes because of my being poor. She didn’t care that her decision (along with another professor) to coerce me into allowing them to attend a therapy/psychiatrist appointment with me caused me emotional distress & was traumatizing; nor did she care when it nearly caused me to be hospitalized. She didn’t care when she told me to my face that my diagnosis of bipolar disorder meant that I wouldn’t be allowed to graduate from the program when I had 11 hours to go in the program, that should get a degree in business instead (which I’ve never understood where that came from), and that I really shouldn’t be around people at all. She didn’t actually care when she said I could complete my internship Fall 2007 in January 2007, for me to call her about it in February or early March; nor did she care when she ghosted me on that until the fateful meeting in Fall 2007.

She didn’t care about healthy interactions between professors and students. She didn’t care that her actions and her words caused my mental health to worsen for a variety of reasons and that she made it harder for me to trust authority figures. She didn’t care that she violated my rights or that her actions caused me to be unable to not only get my degree but to get a job, thus making it almost impossible for me to escape poverty.

Maybe she’s not the woman she once was. Maybe she actually gives a shit about mentally ill people like she claims on her Facebook profile. I sincerely hope she’s changed but I doubt it with every fiber of my being because I don’t know that she’s capable of ever having that kind of empathy. I used to question why someone like her would become a social worker, but I’ve learned over the years that social work isn’t free of ableism. In fact, it may be more prevalent in this field than in others; and part of that is probably because people who lack empathy or basic compassion toward disabled people know that they can get away with taking advantage of them very easily in it.

So you know how my Facebook was hacked over the weekend? I might have mentioned it in the last blog post about my shitty week. Basically, someone hacked into my account while I was sleeping on Saturday night/Sunday morning, changed the password, took one of my emails off the account, added some of their accounts to the Huntsville Art League business/ad account, and did enough to get my account disabled & put on a thirty day countdown for permanent deletion. I’m having it reviewed by Facebook but there’s little to no hope of recovering it.

Well, today it got worse.

When I realized what went down Sunday, I messaged two HAL members to let them know that the organization’s Facebook was compromised. The guy in charge of the page kept telling me that he didn’t see any of what Facebook had emailed to tell me happened. I couldn’t check because my account is disabled, so I had to take his word for it.

Today, I got notifications for Facebook ads that were being paid for via HAL’s PayPal. The treasurer got notifications from PayPal. The same two guys I’d told focused on changing passwords, but I told them they had to cancel/pull the merchant agreement to cut off the money. They told me again that they’d changed the passwords so it should be fine, but the treasurer listened and pulled the agreement. Now, HAL should be safe, but it looks like they’ve started charging a former President of HAL. I’ve contacted her on Instagram and I hope she can pull hers too.

I don’t think they can access my bank/credit cards because I had terminated my agreements a long time ago. But if they do, I’ll file a dispute at the bank and update the FTC and IC3 complaints.

I still don’t know how any of this could have happened.

Taylor waves hello.

O’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago, Chris’s birthday was Monday, my birthday is in just over two weeks, and mom’s is five days after that. This time of year is always pretty hectic for me in terms of birthdays & other family things.

Taylor throws cake she grabbed with her fingers at the wall behind her before making a sheepish face. Her face is covered in frosting and red velvet cake crumbs.

We used to also have the days and weeks Nana would mourn the losses on the anniversaries of deaths, including Granddaddy’s, which happened 26 years ago this past Monday. I sometimes wonder how she would react to knowing Chris’s birthday was Granddaddy’s death day.

Taylor shakes her head and says “awkward”

This last weekend was also Chris’s weekend with O. I drove him to pick up O on Friday and I drove them to drop O off on Sunday. It was the first time I was in the vicinity of O’s mom, a woman I have felt intimidated by for a while. But now I don’t, which I’m counting as an achievement.

Taylor runs her hand under her chin like this emoji: 💁🏻‍♀️

After dropping O off, we went on a quest to find dinner for his family. We were going to go to Popeyes but there were technical issues and a lack of sides that prevented that, so instead we got food at KFC. Then we watched Charlotte Dobre and Evan & Katelyn videos on YouTube. Eventually mom texted to passive aggressively remind me to come home because she wouldn’t get to see me for the next two nights so she needed to spend time with me.

Taylor head tilts

I spent Monday with Chris. He had to get his hair cut and his beard trimmed. I have previously attempted to trim his mustache before and accidentally gave him half of a Hitler-stache, so I defer to professionals on that. We then hung out at his house for a while until his mom was ready for dinner, which we ate at his favorite Japanese restaurant. We ate, and I tried sushi for the second time and found out I do like it. I also found out that my first sushi was probably bad, as in rotten or on its way to being rotten; this rice was vinegary and the fish was super fishy to the point that I barely finished a couple of rolls. Chris told me that it’s probably a good thing I didn’t finish the sushi that time because it was bad. The food Monday night was good; so good that I overate & ended up vomiting part of it when we got back to his house.

Taylor shrugs and nods her head

Then we watched The Legend of Vox Machina before going back to YouTube videos while we regretted our life choices. (Mostly, the overeating, but also any movement we made after overeating.) Mom texted at around ten, which caused the night to come to an abrupt end.

Taylor pumps her fists and the words “I’m taking a nap” appear at the bottom

Chris was still feeling bad after the food choices today, so, to give him a chance to recover, we didn’t get to go to Writers’ Club together tonight. I’ll admit I cried a bit when I found that out because I’m on my period and I do that a lot on my period, as I mentioned a few posts ago. Apparently it had to do with the extra progesterone that gets released around the time of your period causing borderline personality disorder to go into overdrive.

Taylor dramatically fakes tears on a talk show as a joke.

I found out about the change of plans prior to getting my labs done for my primary care doctor. And I’m sure my lipids and sugar levels will be great after the mukbang that was this weekend.

Taylor tries to look innocent.
The first Tiktok I got to post about my labs this morning.
The first I started recording this morning about my labs.
Taylor smiles and gives two thumbs up.

Oh, and I found out before the labs that Adore Me decided to claim I sent back another empty box with their Elite subscription, so I was fucking pissed about that. Later in the day, they’d claim they actually received it, but everything was unsanitary so they had to give me an almost $200 penalty for items they actually received. I’ve contacted the BBB and plan to make YouTube & TikTok videos about their scamming tendencies. (Last month, they claimed I sent back an empty box because they say they never received anything from me. The month before, they claimed I sent something back dirty. I’m not sure how I could dirty up something I never touched.)

Taylor grabs her head

Oh, and I started figuring out how extensive my disordered eating really is. I’ve been exhibiting signs not just of binge eating disorder but also bulimia, and that’s freaked me out a little. But otherwise things in my life are awesome.

Taylor eats a cookie.

Basically, I had a lot going on and didn’t really have a lot of time for drama llamas on social media, so when I got home and found out a person I considered a friend blocked me on Twitter, I was about ready to laugh. No really. Apparently I may have been blocked for failing to block another friend of mine sometime over the weekend because some of their friends got into it with some of hers.

Taylor dances and snaps her fingers in front of her face while singing “haters gonna hate” from Shake It Off.

I don’t know all of what happened nor do I care to, especially since the blocker is being hypocritical as fuck over all of it. A few months ago another person said that if you didn’t like two people they both happen to like, then you are a bad/questionable person. I made a TikTok about how this kind of behavior hurt my feelings. The blocker sent me half a dozen comments invalidating my feelings & gaslighting the fuck out of me. Then she deleted them so as to not look bad. We never spoke of it again, but she’s seemed sus to me since then.

Taylor shrugs and scrunches her nose as she smiles.

It used to make me uncomfortable how close she was with people who had been even more hurtful toward me. There was one in particular who compared a breakdown in borderline personality disorder to being a little depressed or anxious. That person claimed I was ableist because I disagreed with them and had pointed out that they had excused their friend’s ableist rhetoric. They claimed I hated autistic people and some other bullshit. I have a lot of mutuals with this person, but most don’t make me uncomfortable. The blocker did.

Taylor Swift recording “My Tears Ricochet” with the words “you’re cursing my name, wishing I stayed look at how my tears ricochet” at the bottom.

Today I realized her block didn’t matter all that much to me. I had an amazing weekend. I’m hormonal and cry over anything, but being dumped by a person I used to think of as a friend didn’t matter to me. There are other people who I know it would hurt coming from, but not her.

Taylor stands before a crowd at an award show. She waved her hand nonchalantly and says, “just shake it off.”

And I know this coming weekend will be amazing too, and I know that not being able to share it with this person doesn’t bother me at all. So I guess I should thank her for the learning experience?

Taylor plays music with the words “like a boss” at the bottom of the gif.

Or not.

Taylor clumsily curtsies and falls to the floor.

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I spent Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon with Chris at his house. We spent most of the time asleep. When I would wake up, sometimes I would play Pokémon Go or I would read things on Twitter.

Other times I would turn over and act like Edward Cullen. No, I’m not saying I wanted to eat him because he smells so awesome. (Generally speaking I always want to do other things because he smells so awesome.) I would just look at him and think how pretty he is, which I ended up telling him when he woke up while I was less inhibited due to my nighttime medication. (That may also be part of why I’m okay writing this.)

But he is so pretty.

And if you’re thinking that’s emasculating, fuck you. Pretty isn’t feminine or masculine. It’s just pretty. That’s what it is, and that’s what he is.

He is also handsome and sexy and gorgeous and adorable and I just want to look at him forever. And watch him change clothes. And smell his pillow when he’s in the bathroom. And listen to him say just about anything ever.

He’s pretty and perfect and his eyes are magical and I love him so much. This weekend was far from the first time I’ve thought these things. Another time was when we were on the flight to California and he was holding my hand across the aisle because I am fucking terrified of flying and I knew that I was safe because I was with him. I knew that I never wanted to not hold his hand because I am home when I hold it. I know that I am touching my other half. (Not in a The Divinyls or Britney sort of way.)

And, on the way back, when he was helping me not die from exposure to peanuts—thanks, Spirit—I felt secure. Also, I liked having a chance to rest my head on his shoulder for four hours. Just being able to touch some part of him—I know some of y’all went to Perv City on that—anchors me. Though my “love language” for expressing love may be gifts, I think receiving involves physical touch. Or it is with him, since my haphephobia is still there with most people.

I miss him right now, but I know I’ll see him again in a day and a half, and I’ll be there overnight. So I guess I just get to dream and daydream about his prettiness until then.

For years—nay decades, I have had this strange issue of my mental health imploding on a 3 year cycle. Little things become big. Everything becomes too much. I feel like I’m losing it.

2001: Suicidal depression, regular self injury

2004: Same, plus Adderall induced psychosis

2007: Same, plus trauma of being kicked out of my major

2010: Same, without the Adderall but with the joy of having an autoimmune disease that I associated with my grandmother’s death

2013: Actually didn’t have anything happen this year besides Shingles

2016: Genuinely considered self-destructive behaviors over the election results

2019: Dad’s dementia led to a physical assault that resulted in a call to the police. I cut myself repeatedly after that.

2022: Cycling between self-injurious impulses, severe depression, hypersexual impulses, severe body image issues, and normalcy.

I just have to make it a few more months and things will probably be better. But I fucking hate this cycle.

I have to get back into the hang of blogging and I know eventually I will. I know I used to disappear for days and weeks and months on end, but I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to be more reliable.

Christmas was pretty good, though it was a bit scary at one point when we found out that Chris’s son had COVID-19. He was in California at the time, so we were helpless and heartbroken. I may have also been extra bitchy towards people during that time because I was upset. O is fine now, which ended up being the only thing I really wanted this Christmas. (Though if you want to get something for my birthday, I wouldn’t be opposed to that.)

The dessert table at my aunt’s house on Christmas Day.
Our dessert table on Christmas

I spent Christmas Day with my mom’s side of the family, and Chris spent it with his mom’s side. We waited until the day before New Years Eve to wrap presents for O, which were unwrapped within an hour of O getting to Chris’s house on New Years Eve. He seemed to enjoy his presents, which I’m so glad. You watch enough Charlotte Dobre videos and you start to worry about how kids will react to presents; though I never really have to worry about with O because he’s a good kid.

Chris and I went to a “party” before Christmas at our friend Elenya’s house. (It’s also Colin’s house, but he wasn’t there that night.) It was really just a Writers’ Club meeting with Christmas themed prompts (by Rhiana) and desserts & hot chocolate. I wrote this, which is only available on my Patreon.

So that’s what happened over my holiday break. And now I’m sitting in my living room listening to rain and sleet as part of the winter storm that’s going on right now. Fun times.

A redheaded woman in a shirt that reads “Not a Lot Going On at the Moment”
My T. Swift shirt on New Years Eve. Please ignore the toilet in the background.

On the way to celebrate Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house on Thursday, my mom told me that she and my dad had had a conversation recently about me. She told me that she told him that I would be happier and easier to get along with if I was on mood stabilizers. I was horrified.

My first response was, “what?” That was followed by my pointing out that I had tried every mood stabilizer and that I had adverse reactions to a large chunk of them (lithium, antipsychotics, and several anticonvulsants) and a zombie on most of them. My mom told me that I hadn’t. (I have taken all but two FDA-approved and off-label mood stabilizers.)

I’m actually much happier and feel relatively stable off of them. Being happier is why I’m not at home as much. In fact, the goal of my mental health care over the last decade or so has been to increase my ability to leave the house with the hope that one day I could actually live separately from my parents. And my treatment plans have had to accommodate my inability to use mood stabilizers.

When I told him what she’d said, Chris said it sounded like she wanted me to be compliant and stay home all the time. Unfortunately that was what I thought too. I haven’t told him all of the times she has said she wants to be my representative payee or have me placed in a program through Social Security that would eliminate my access to a bank account & remove my ability to run my shop. It would keep me without true resources.

It makes all of her talk through the years about my lack of control & my inability to live without continued assistance of my parents seem all the more sinister. Not to mention how it colors my view on her wanting access to my accident settlement (she wants it in her bank account) and how she wants to raid my cash box for the festivals I’ve sold art & jewelry at. I’m fairly certain she’s been repaid most of the change she thinks I owe her on that. Then again, this is a woman who has threatened to sell or throw out my belongings before, so who knows what she thinks about that money?

It makes me want to make sure I definitely get a studio out of this house so that I can definitely gain independence. It also makes me want to stay out of my house all the time. I don’t feel like she views me as a person.

Some of the gifts for O arrived today, which has me kind of worried because I don’t remember how to properly wrap presents. Also, I have no wrapping paper, bows, tape, or tags for O’s gifts.

I bought special paper for Chris’s presents that I could use on O’s, but I don’t know if I should. I may just get O his own paper too. I know blue is his favorite color, so I may run with that.

Or I could do gift bags.

Again.

I don’t get why wrapping gifts has to be so difficult for me, besides my clumsiness amplifying my issues with cutting and folding in straight lines. Also, tape hates me. Oh, wait. I’m starting to figure out why it’s difficult.

So it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I haven’t added my old posts back yet, but I do plan to do that. I guess I should mention what’s been going on in my life.

I am an exhibiting artist at Huntsville Art League, and have been since last year. For a while I was the Education VP there, but now I’m the President. I was also teaching there and at Michael’s, but then a little thing called COVID interrupted that.

I have published two books of poetry—The Dark Lady and Ambition. I have sold precisely two copies of those books, which was honestly more than I expected to sell. Publishing them also led to my creation of my Goodreads Author page.

I finally had to get another iron infusion last week. My hematologist had told me last year that this would definitely be the year for it, and he was right. My ferritin had been steadily dropping since 2013—when I had my last infusion. This year it actually slowed down on that descent and only got to 21, but my iron saturation went from 35% to 16.7% and my platelets had already started going up. With my risk of clots, that last part was a bit more concerning. So I got an INFeD infusion to help get that under control.

Oh, and I have the most amazing boyfriend ever. His name is Chris. He’s my age and has a 13-year-old son. Chris is funny, sweet, smart, and I am so in love with him. We have been together since May 17, 2020. We didn’t meet in person until September 2020 though because of COVID. I met his son in May 2021.

Photo of a couple with the words “Date Idea: COVID-19 Boosters”
Chris and I took this selfie when we got our third COVID shot last month.

He and I are actually going on our first trip together this weekend. We’ll be going to California for his best friend’s wedding. I haven’t been on a plane since 1999 and I’m a tad nervous, but I’m sure he’ll find a way to calm me or get my mind off of the anxiety.