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Everything posted by Spiny
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Hi, I am still here. Glad to be here. Headed into the deep woods (literally) without internet for a couple months tho. Looking forward. Honestly I have a hard time living indoors for reasons. So I may be away again for awhile but just wanted to check in.
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So I was feeling better, and then yesterday I felt tired with the fever like I did a week ago. I really hope this is not round two, like when people feel better and then get worse.
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Dealing with the mental effects of my child abuse is like trying to reverse engineer a really hard problem that didn't have to happen in the first place.
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Just made a mistake in Real Physical Life and actually looked for an undo button in the air around said thing. Quarantine has started to get... a little long.
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When people with authority over me say things like, "I don't have the luxury of turning on my phone at 9am"... cool, do you have the luxury of sleep being a good, restful, non-terrifying nightmare-ridden panic attack inducing hellhole for you? How nice for you, and kindly f*ck right off now.
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Eyes crossing from mixing music... that computer / not enough water headache - but, I'm not on a vent, so there's that!
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Just got an email that my school is moving all classes to online next semester. I seem to feel inordinately sad about this. Of all the things to feel sad about right now.
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I'm a vocalist. My classes are in piano and guitar tho, since my one of my goals going to school was to get a band together again and this time have some actual power in the songwriting process. Not that singers can't have power, but combined with gender-based biases and straight up discrimination (rampant in the music business...) I found it difficult to insert myself. So I went to music school and it cost me a bunch of money but I am more empowered and actually composing my own stuff which I always wanted.
I do have to send recordings of my voice for recording and songwriting classes tho - augh the stress - gotta get used to it tho. It's so strange to be simultaneously the kind of exhibitionist that a lot of front people in bands are, while also having a severe, like, severe, social anxiety disorder that almost no one in my meatspace life knows the full extent of. The worst for me is right after a show. People think that because you can be on stage, you're fine talking to people off stage... really I just always want to run out the back door and hide in the dumpsters... ah... not that I've ever done that irl or anything... ah....
What kind of art do you make?
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i have read that the music industry can be quite discriminatory. i'm glad you've found a way to bolster yourself against the prejudices you face in a way that ultimately helps you get closer to your goals.
there's something about being on a stage that somehow bypasses my social anxiety. i can speak to an audience without breaking a sweat, but once i'm done talking i don't want to talk to anyone! a speech, i can rehearse. one on one conversation is a lot easier to mess up.
i do drawings and paintings, mostly portraits. i feel most at home working with inks and watercolours, but i mess with acrylics, coloured pencils, crayons, brush pens, and whatever else i can get my hands on.
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I've read that the music industry is the third most discriminatory industry on the basis of sex and gender in the United States, probably in other places too. I'm sure racist discrimination levels aren't that great, either... I wouldn't necessarily know, but I have observed... things. Thanks for the props. Yeah, it pisses me off sometimes... the years eaten up by this, and even by school, but at least I'm on my way now. Feels like it's almost too late, but not quite.
Totally hear you about being onstage. As a vocalist, one thing that happens after a show is that people want to touch me. It's not in a creepy way (usually), it's that they are trying to touch the Spirit, however one conceptualizes that, and a lot of people don't get that it doesn't come from me, it isn't in my body, it's... elsewhere. But they want to touch sometimes, and if it's not sexualized and weird I usually can allow it. It isn't so much triggering as draining.
Quoteone on one conversation is a lot easier to mess up.
Yeah... this is always a problem for me. Sometimes I wonder if I have some kind of autism. I can't tell if it's autism or trauma or both. Or a PD. Or co-current. Who knows.
That's awesome you draw and paint! I have like 0 talent in that regard, always admire people who do. There is a lot of that where I live... it's strange, I'm basically friends with all visual artists and hardly any musicians, which is new and kinda funny to me.
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Some days it's harder to try than others. Feels like my life got stolen from me. I know genetic vulnerability is a thing, but... some adults really pushed things over the edge. I'm wary of resentment and rumination - bad for me, an alcoholic - but sometimes can't seem to get out of it. I can validate the Angry One - hey, it's valid - but life is still hard. Seems to me it's pretty much a crock the way society claims to care about kids, but once one is an adult child - it can feel like, dang, they don't even pretend to care now. Sigh. K back to work from bed
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No one helped me as a child. I really needed it, and I suppose I could have gotten some help if I asked for it, but I didn’t know how to ask because it never occurred to me that what I experienced was abnormal. It was all I knew and most my friends had shitty home lives too so I didn’t have any healthy examples of family to contrast my situation with.
As an adult I have found people are willing to help you if you seek help out, but now you have to pay for it.
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Thanks for relating. It helps to hear the voices of others.
QuoteIt was all I knew and most my friends had shitty home lives too so I didn’t have any healthy examples of family to contrast my situation with.
I really relate to that. In my case I wonder if I met a person who wasn't an abused child or someone who had been abused before I was 18. I think maybe one person. Honestly I think the most damaging thing was the lack of contrast. If I had had some other family to contrast my family's bullsh*t with, I would have known I wasn't delusional. I'm don't suffer from delusions, but I have trauma from literal decades of thinking I was not seeing reality.
QuoteAs an adult I have found people are willing to help you if you seek help out, but now you have to pay for it.
The propensity of my society to just throw away anyone without healthy-enough family privilege makes me grind my teeth every day.
For me I will say Adult Children of Alcoholics & Family Dysfunction has helped. The primary issue in my home wasn't alcoholism although that was a thing... but the dysfunction was really real. Those groups have been the only place I've received real, deep validation in a setting with more than one other person.
Anyway thank you for replying, and I'm so sorry it was so shitty and that you got neglected.
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It's never a lot of fun to be estranged from my abusive parents and family. The only thing worse is being in contact with them, pretty much. The situation is particularly crappy when I have a health issue, like now. I didn't expect any care when I got sober, or any other time really, but now I'm clear-eyed enough to see people with safe parents who care and don't make them pay for that care later, and... I dunno, it's just hard. That's all.
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I think it’s particularly hard right now because social media and society is putting emphasis on the importance of family and supporting and getting support from loved ones during this pandemic. When you don’t have a family you appreciate, one that is toxic, it makes you feel guilty for not caring because everyone is saying that you should.
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Thank you both for those kind and caring comments! I totally expected to just be posting into a void; it means a lot that people replied, thanks!
echo - the "selves" care is so real, thanks for the reminder!
santalto - I think you're totally right about this. I actually felt so guilty I wrote to my parents a couple weeks ago for the first time in YEARS (mom is a healthcare worker) to see if they were okay. They were - but after 3 days of post-contact dissociation, I wasn't! Lessons: it's OKAY to not be in touch with abusers! And all those people being like, "but they're you're parents!" ? It's like, "But I'm their kid."
This website has helped me a lot with abusive family issues: https://theinvisiblescar.wordpress.com
Heads up that I think the author has some kind of Christian bent, if that is an issue for anyone? But I'm not actually sure, because she seems to keep it pretty much out of her work. Anyway I have derived more self esteem in my decisions looking at it, especially the articles on going no contact and holding on to my truth.
Thanks again, good to meet you both.
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Submitted a piece of writing to a group for critique. Never done that before... hope it goes well. But even if not, at least I tried. Of course that's easy to say standing on this side of time.
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This whole quarantine thing has literally just drawn a huge underline under the fact that I hate where I live and there is literally nothing for me here except cheap rent. Which I guess isn't nothing but damn.