Today at the conference I chatted for a long time with people I don’t know very well. We were working the booth for our employer, but we never see each other so we’re not familiar with each other. And the whole time I wasn’t sure if I was being socially appropriate. I felt like I was putting on a veneer of normality…pretending I was social when I’d really have been fine on my own. I often assume that the other person is laughing at me in their head, that I must look silly and be making a fool of myself. But I don’t know, because I think they thought I was fine. It’s very strange, and I think I do it a lot in social situations.

Sometimes I wonder what the 9/11 terrorists were hoping to do. Disrupt peace, cause terror and pandemonium, all that is easy. But were they expecting the towers to fall, or was that an unexpected surprise? Did they mean to choose the newly-renovated area of the Pentagon, or was that coincidence? Where was the fourth plane going? Those are the kind of things I wonder about sometimes…but not very often. I’m just pondering.

I hate how my ADHD affects my emotions. If something bad happens, I get over it fairly quickly because I forget about it. So if I have a fight with someone, I am ready to make up fairly quickly, and they usually are not. Fights that go on for a day or more just destroy me, because I am so far past it by then and I just want everything to be okay again. Sometimes the ease with which I get over things is beneficial, but mostly it’s not because other people don’t work that way. Combined with my low self esteem and tendency to catastrophize, the longer something goes on the worse I assume everything is. I hate it.

I said this on a mailing list on Lambda:

I actually like it when cashiers and other strangers wish me a Merry Xmas. I am always happy to reply with “actually I’m Jewish, but Happy Hanukkah!” I would probably do this even if I weren’t Jewish, just because it’s fun.

And msmellow responded:

I like Etoile’s attitude. She appreciates when people are trying to be nice, even when their approach is misguided. Some of you could learn a lesson here.

Somebody else didn’t get it, but Mellow really has summed up my holiday-season worldview. I know these people mean well in wishing me Merry Xmas. (I wonder if they say it to people who are obviously from cultures that don’t celebrate Xmas?) I just like pointing out that not everybody is Christian, and not everybody celebrates Xmas, but that I appreciate their well wishes. I’ve never had a bad response to this. And yes, I do happen to celebrate Xmas, but Judaism is part of my cultural heritage and that’s important to me.

Today we are going to the wedding of one of :MK:’s friends from high school. She’s a very nice girl and I’m happy she’s getting married, but I can’t shake that deep-down bitterness from seeing straight people getting married. Every time I hear about someone my age getting married, they haven’t been together as long as I’ve been with A. And yet, to some extent, I agree with A - having a ceremony feels like it would be somewhat false without any legal backing. We were talking earlier today about wills, and how I have to be explicitly written into her will. We’re lucky that none of our parents would raise a fuss about that, but we still don’t have the automatic transfer of property that straight people do. Weddings just remind me of the inequality I’m living with every day. I am glad for the chance to dress up a little, and I don’t mind going to Richmond, and whatever they’re serving at the reception will be nice…but I’m still just a bit resentful.

At the moment I am attempting to juggle social plans for Monday. I have the day off work but A does not, so I am planning to get together with a couple of friends. One is for brunch in Rockville and the other is for lunch at Gallaudet; the problem is that they both want to meet at very similar times! So I am trying to move one up a little and the other down a little and hopefully I can do both, because I really like both people and I would hate to have to change plans altogether because of how rarely I socialize.

I really don’t get out much; any of my local friends can tell you that. I am perfectly happy hiding out at home most of the time; I can go for weeks without doing any real-life socialization. (As opposed to online socialization, of which I do plenty.) I have become a shy person - I wasn’t as a child, but nowadays I don’t know what to say to people half the time and I get embarrassed in social situations. I suppose it might be related to the lack of socialization when I was a kid; for much of elementary and middle school I was primarily a scapegoat because I was two years younger than all my classmates and I think my social development got a bit delayed. (A would certainly agree with this.) When I run into situations where I have two things planned at the same time, I get scared and I want to throw up my hands and cancel everything because it’s just too difficult. That’s certainly a combination of social nervousness and my general anxiety disorder.

Eh, I don’t know. This is mostly just personal musing, I guess, that I’m comfortable sharing with readers.

• Sometimes I don’t realize I’m having an “off day” until later in the afternoon. If I only have minimal interpreting to do all morning, I think everything is fine until I start actually working and I realize something is amiss in my brain.
• I get really philosophical once in a while. Things like “is this really life?” I also would never say “I don’t care what other people think” because I do, I absolutely do.
• I have secrets. Secrets from my family and friends, secrets I have told a very few people about, secrets that hurt to keep. I’ve kept these secrets for many years and I will be keeping them for more.
• My self-esteem, on an emotional basis anyway, is really poor. On some level I know I am worth something, but many of my social interactions, inner thoughts, and personal fears are influenced by a painfully poor self-image.
• I have intellectual (mostly!) crushes on so many people, including people who will be reading this, but also people who won’t. I aspire to be like them, I have loads of respect for them, and I want to get to know them better. But I don’t know how.
• My organizational skills suck a lot. I need to reorganize just about everything in my life, physically and in the digital realm.

Added, but not to LiveJournal:

• This is a bit depressing. In my last 15 posts, I have gotten no comments. I got one comment 18 posts ago, another 20 posts ago, and two comments 38 posts ago, but one of those two was my own. Apparently I am not writing anything worth commenting on, or nobody is actually reading this journal.

There was a thread in the CourtTV.com Karla Homolka section called Question for D.V survivors. The vitriol in that thread really shocked me. This topic might be kind of sensitive for some people, so I’m going to hide part of this post.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’m tired of feigning normality and happiness. I’m very good at it - in fact so good that I often convince myself that everything is fine (a blessing of ADHD?). But everything is not fine. I have to fake that normality just to keep myself alive and functioning. Sometimes I feel guilty for needing to pretend - my life really isn’t that bad, despite the stress various elements are putting me through. Unfortunately, because of that stress, I’ve been having more hives than usual, including some minor hand swelling. Last night I said out loud, “I wonder why I’m more hivey than usual lately.” A said, “It’s stress, baby.” And she’s right. Just as one is more susceptible to contagious ailments when one is stress, my body is dealing with it by not suppressing its natural urge to attack itself. So for me, stress monitoring is as easy as keeping track of the hives.

I can’t do anything but pretend, though. I have friends and loved ones who are in much more dire circumstances than mine. It wouldn’t be fair to them for me to only worry about myself. If I pretend that I’m okay, then I can focus on helping others around me. That is how I have to live, on a day-to-day basis. When someone asks me “are you okay” I usually answer with some version of “I’m mostly okay” or “almost okay.” What this really means is “most of the time I have convinced myself that I am fine.”

I don’t think there’s anything to be done about this, really. I’m already on antidepressant and antianxiety medication, and I know they work because without them I am much worse than this. I could certainly benefit from seeing a therapist, but the task of finding a suitable person and getting insurance to pay that person is so herculean that I usually postpone starting it at all. I’ve been living like this for a long time now and it’ll work for a while longer.

I laugh so that I forget to cry.
(Note: these are just thoughts in my head. I’m not looking for pity or sympathy, but I’ll take advice if you have any.)

I had a rough day yesterday, part of which was my own fault. I wore Birkenstocks I bought at least six years ago for the first time in a long time, and it made my feet hurt a whole lot by the end of the day.

I’ve been thinking about a few things. I’m thinking about quitting kayaking because I’m not strong enough. We tried to bring the boat to my mom’s house yesterday, but the winds were really strong and I couldn’t secure it down tight enough. We had gotten as far as River Road on the Beltway and I had to pull over and readjust everything. After that I turned around and brought the boat home. I will give it one more try - I’ll try to take it to Lake Anna this coming weekend. If I can’t do that, I may well give up.

I’m thinking about quitting Literotica, too. I have made some friends there but people like Stuponfucious and Marquis hurt me too much for me to keep it up. I can’t put them on an ignore list either, because I’m a moderator and because it’s against my personal principles. So I am thinking about leaving, even if that means they won. I’ll have to talk about it with my co-mod and see what he thinks.

I’m just tired. And I do not have any nice relaxing weekends at home in the near future. I am on my way to the conference, which should be interesting. But anymore I feel like interpreting is the only thing I am remotely good at anyway.