erika | Recent Entries

Much to my amazement, in two hours I turn forty.

Forty. Four zero. 40. 4. 0. I've been telling almost everyone I meet, repeating the facts to strangers and friends and acquaintances, my psychiatrist and my sister and my surrogate aunts. I didn't expect to get here and I find the fact of forty, frankly, jarring. My teeth grit against the absolute insanity of time marching on to this extent—how did I get here?

Some of the people who are reading this potentially have known me since I was 12 and just like me, probably didn't expect me to get here. Mind-boggling as well.

What has changed recently? Not much! To misquote Tolstoy, perhaps happy days are all alike, but each unhappy day is unhappy in its own way. Or maybe it's the opposite, and it's my newfound ability to revel in choice of enjoyable activities with a reliably upbeat mood climate that's truly unlocked this newfound persistence of pleasant presence.

Current psychiatrist has narrowed down my meds and diagnoses to a fine degree, now that she actually believes I'm ill. (Long story but basically she didn't take me seriously until my last attempt. Wait, not a long story.) Who would have guessed that the magic wand would be ~lithium~ and the magic words, bipolar disorder? Doc's not 100% on it yet but I'm pretty convinced.

My intention is to update again tomorrow, but I'll post this now just in case.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime

So if you use Google's NotebookL!M and add your journal as its source, you can create a podcast with two AI voices talking about your life.

skynet can analyze you on a podcast now???

I'm using a throwaway password via blogbooker to export everything as a PDF so right now I've only played with it using the website import feature which is inherently limited to public entries—— but OH MY GOD I'M SO FASCINATED BY THIS. I HAD to share.

Also I really should start journaling regularly again, because my life is about 1000% better now that I've randomly been basically cured of fibromyalgia thanks to a GLP1 medication. Apparently, fibromyalgia or possibly central sensitization was the root cause of almost all of my anxiety (about 90% ~vanished~ ~handwave~ when I started low dose naltrexone a couple years ago), and turns out that chronic pain was likely the culprit behind the intractable, 'refractory' nature of my severe depression. ( my recent learnings regarding my personal brand of insanity )

Yeah. Took me until I was 35 to put all the pieces together as to why I've been so completely unable to move past all my trauma, why my immediate family was so much more screwed up than my extended family, etc etc etc.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: Lekota - I Used To

I grew up in a college town surrounded by cornfields, in the typical Midwestern casserole of humanity: blond, blue eyed giants who were all fattened on tailgating and frozen food. With my curly brown afro and permanent tan, I couldn't have stuck out more if I'd dribbled a soccer ball everywhere I went. I experienced a lot of negativity towards my differences growing up in my hometown of Iowa City, Iowa: where all their creativity went into the name.

The most amazing thing about the social justice movement has been the community search for articulation, the language of our experience growing with our conviction.

me: so I haven't overdone it in a while

sith me: it was always a lie

me: huh, my body doesn't feel good

sith me: that's how we get better! we push when we don't feel good!

me: eh, it's probably not that bad

sith me: exactly! you don't need to take care of yourself

me, feeling and looking like total shit: nope you wrong

In my last session with my therapist, he told me he's not going to bother getting IFS credentials, and I said, why?
and he said, well, I don't expect to have more than ten years to use them in,
and I said, what?! well, I mean, how old are you, wait, you don't have to answer that if you don't want to, which is the way I usually ask impertinent questions

so then my therapist, who is a genial older man that I get along with quite well but whose advice I have been assuming is coming from someone my parents' age or so, says, amused: "eighty-five"!

Wow. Okay so yes, I live in the land of long-lived hippies who are 80 and look like they're 60 (my landlords) and or are 55 and look like they're 40 (my swim-'biddy')——but genuinely dude is in way better shape than my parents or Trav's. Wow.

Anyway he's been encouraging me to bring in other media to getting out my memorikes besides typing them out and he thinks my lack of artistic practice is perfect fodder for comics and before I was like "nahhhh"——

BUT NOW I TAKE HIM WAY MORE SERIOUSLY YOU GUYS. Because he is hella old! Like, I realized I was trying harder to follow his advice and of course every observation I make has to be followed by analysis

——BECAUSE I'M FUCKING AUTISTIC (always have been) (hello echolalia)——

and LITERALLY my train of thought went like this: I think I value his opinion more because he's like, that old, and is still doing so well when he's actually seen some shit.

Then my train of thought kept going.

I know too many idiots my parents age who *think* they've seen shit but actually just made it go to shit, but yeah, maybe I just like grandparents better, who knows——omg do i trust him more because he's closer to death

so then I texted

panda and long story short my comic will be the adventures of Grim Reaper and Plague Doc and here's the inspo which I already owned, they are squishables, you are welcome:

plague doc and reaps, the squishables

Current Music: The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
Crossposts: https://saveyoursanity.livejournal.com/643665.html

therapy Yesterday. We walk there. Teyla and I both leave the house/neighborhood on Wednesdays, and then I don't have to leave again until next Wednesday if I don't want to. Usually I don't.

Quarantine and being sick has reactivated my agoraphobia big time. I sense so deeply that I need to be left alone?? It's probably not healthy I admit. Right now I'm so thin-skinned giving an awkward compliment makes me feel like—my default is to say god, you screw-up—hey, so just stop existing, stage right!

My therapist called me special, said I don't say this to everyone. I really believe you've got so many gifts. I told him I want to believe it, I just—don't. I stay adrift in a sea of "perpetual uncertainty, discontent and torture."

He said of course it's not logical, you were conditioned to insecurity your whole life.

... what the fuck I'd never thought about it like that. I mean yes, learned helplessness, but I'd never thought of it as insecurity on demand.

I know like—zooming out, the reason I got treated like that was all about control, and the inability of my emotionally immature system of care to treat difference with respect and sensitivity instead of criticism, alienation and harassment. I know they had to shut me up and I've known it all along, but that doesn't change the "conditioned uncertainty" of every layer I revealed.

Doc says the keys to recovery are "Repetition. Determination." Yesterday, listening to me rant, he thoughtfully added "Patience."

Current Mood: impatient
Current Music: Garbage - No Gods, No masters
Crossposts: https://saveyoursanity.livejournal.com/643383.html

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save your sanity for later.

My medication goes to 11.

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November 2025

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