• Crash

    I was doing better mood-wise for a couple of weeks. I was in that sweet spot where I seemed to have enough energy and enough motivation to get things done every day. I was making a to-do list and doing most of it. I was being gentle with myself on the things I didn’t accomplish. All of my therapists thought I was doing so well and really on the “road to recovery.” But there was a little niggling thought at the back of my head that reminded me that this was probably a false positive. This probably wouldn’t last. Then, for the past several days, my energy has become more…

  • Gratitude – Moments with Sir

    Sir sometimes gives me an assignment before putting me into a corner, something to think about, which requires an answer when I’m released. Often it is something like, “What success did you have today?” or “What are you grateful for?” and I have to have a satisfactory (to Sir) response when the timer goes off or the entire process starts over (hell no!) The other night after maintenance AND punishment for being late to bed, Sir sent me with a gratitude assignment. When he released me the first thing that came out of my mouth (which I had thought of but hadn’t intended to SAY, thanks so much ADHD) was,…

  • Embarrassed and Ashamed

    There are things I don’t write much about, even here. At lunch today, Sir asked me about one of them. I told him it was because I’m embarrassed and he asked if I’m embarrassed or if I’m ashamed. I’m not sure I completely know the difference… which is embarrassing (I think). So he gave me homework to look up both words and see what I can come up with as definitions, then write about it and the topic he asked me about at lunch (sigh). I think the most useful defining feature I found in my Googling was this – shame is the feeling that you’re doing something wrong or…

  • Being Sir

    While I acknowledge that a triad relationship is innately very difficult (even more than normal relationships, which are hella, stupid hard), I sometimes think Sir has it the hardest.  I’m sure the grass is always… harder…? on the other side, but…

  • Blogging

    I’m still struggling.  Pain has become a part of the fabric of my everyday life – a low background ache that ebbs and flares over the course of all of my waking time. I have clearly failed at my writing every day goal. I don’t even know if I care.

  • Ease

    Today is better.  Sir stepped things up today and it helped. The dishes are done and put away.  The laundry is done and put away.  The kitchen is clean.  The house is swept.  The fridge has food in it for the week.  I finished all of my school work that I needed done for tomorrow.  I’m writing my blog post and it’s not even 8. I still don’t feel totally connected to my submission.  And, even better, I think Sub Brother is struggling with his right now, too.  He didn’t say it, but I heard him sigh when Sir told him to do something today, and… he NEVER does that!…

  • Secrets

    I slept better last night.  A little.  Weird dreams, but I managed to sleep until 10, so… little better. Sir and sub brother have been home (they went away on their own trip) for a couple days now.  But something has been bothering Sir.  He hasn’t said that, I just know. The thing is, he doesn’t talk about it.  He won’t talk about it.  So my best guess is that it is work related because… that’s really the only thing he doesn’t talk about.  Ever. And I…  feel strange about my feelings about that.

  • Schroedinger’s Rain

    I wrote once about a conversation I had with Ryan about having a mental illness.  He and I both have bipolar and PTSD and anxiety.  I was talking to him about reality, about when you have a mental illness, it is like standing in the rain.  You know it is raining.  You can see the rain.  You can feel the rain.  You can smell the rain.  You are soaking wet with rain and rain is dripping into your eyes.  It is raining.  And then someone comes up and tells you that it’s not raining.  Now, you can see that this person is also getting rained on.  It is raining.  The…

  • Recursive First Drafts

    I know S doesn’t like the “Shitty First Drafts” idea, so this is for you, S.  🙂  I recently read an article by an author who is absolutely not on board with the whole “Shitty First Drafts” idea that is so common among authors.  It was first attributed to Hemingway who said, “The first draft of anything is shit.”  Then it was expanded by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird where she said that the first draft is like letting a child play, it is unconstrained, just ideas flowing onto the page. Now, this other author says that this is all fine and good and that most authors agree with this particular…

  • Being Normal

      My life has been a long and strange pursuit of “seeming normal.”  I think I’ve gotten good at it at this point.  But it took a long time to learn to hide it this well. I had a psychotic break when I was 16, but I had (undiagnosed) early onset bipolar…symptoms showing shortly after birth, definitive symptoms by 2-years old…  They documented them, but the “early onset” hadn’t yet become psychological knowledge, nor had “bipolar II.”  And so I was undiagnosed, though my childhood was filled with periodic rounds of testing, experiments, trying to deal with these varied symptoms than left my parents feeling frustrated, impotent, and…at times, like…