who only by moving can balance

(details on fb, possibly to be copied here if y'all are interested, in tl;dr trigger warnings suicide, domestic violence, abuse, coercion, enabling of all of the above, plus bonus sexual harrassment.)

-- but I am on a BUS to OXFORD where I will be fed and looked after, and there are half-hourly buses from London to Oxford at this time of night so it's easy to decide I'm showing up very early in the morning as opposed to reasonably early in the morning, and I've got a pair of seats to myself, and I'm making progress on the introductions meme--

-- and what I'm actually pondering, again, is how astonished I am by the concept of intensity, by myself as intense. I've spent so much time depressed, so much time with anhedonia, with everything muted and grey (i am out here studying stones/trying to learn to be less alive/using all of my will/to hold very still/still even on the inside) that I'm startled every time I realise that pretty much every single person who has met me since I started anti-depressants does think of me that way, saturated colours and vibrancy and fierceness without viciousness, or at least without viciousness as a necessary component. Seeing myself through your eyes is a gift; on nights like this knowing that it is a truth of my existence helps me settle, reminds me what I want to be and that I can do it, reminds me that I am capable. Thank you.

Content note: discussion of food, reference to eating disorders.

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klar, dass sind nur Träumen
und dass sind nicht deinen
dass sind meinen
doch die funktionieren dafur
(Virginia Jetzt!)

On good days it's progress. On bad days it's submission. (recessional)

(I was explaining to sebastienne earlier that I don't have much by way of volition at the moment; wanting things is something people get to have, not something I deserve. So, yes, I'm substituting other people's judgment for my own at the moment, but what this means in practice is that the gulf of knowledge-not-belief is one I will cross - or perhaps, merely, not be swallowed by - on the tightrope of other people believing for and about me, for now. I don't think this is a healthy long- or even medium-term strategy; I do think that at the moment it is less bad than my other options. And, importantly, so far as I am ceding judgment and decisions to others, it's people I know will hold them in trust for me, to be returned when they're a load I can bear again without breaking.)

First Charing Cross appointment survived as of Wednesday lunchtime! Barrett did an excellent job of walking the line of the non-actionable; he was determined to tell me lots of incredibly irrelevant anecdotes about his time working with youth offenders, but fundamentally I treated him like an incompetent and irritating supervisor who considered me incompetent and irritating, and this worked well. (Case in point: I successfully rendered him temporarily speechless by telling him very politely that naturally I understood that he had to take a conservative approach...)

Outcomes: I now ~understand~ that ~gender neutrality~ is like ~anarchism~ in that it is inherently unstable and will inevitably collapse into one of democracy or dictatorship (YOU'RE WELCOME); I note that "people find it too difficult to present as gender neutral in ~~~real life~~~" is not in point of fact an argument that gender-neutral identities don't exist, and you position yourself uniquely to believe that in fact they do not; "but what if in a decade's time you don't feel comfortable taking your shirt off on a beach!!!" is not in fact an argument against giving me top surgery now; etc etc. Not dreadful, nothing I couldn't cope with, and next time I possibly get to see Lorimer.


My mental health has improved markedly since starting the vitD, which is extremely pleasant. I am so, so much better; it's a great relief - I'm back down to PHQ-9 score of 8 (from 18 when we tested my bloods). (8 is operating-within-normal-parameters for me -- I am scoring quite highly on the fatigue questions because I've had a long lab stint, and have been in work every day yes-including-weekends since sometime early last week.)


( The rest of the ten good things! )

Depression, daylogging, etc.

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Sickness is not another country.
It's an ocean, with checkpoints on the beaches
and border guards of stone and surf.
And oh, we vessels, we
put in, sometimes, to unanticipated harbour
surprised - delighted - by reprieve.
You, perhaps, may disembark, may embrace land--
but I'm cast off, compelled
to struggle through the storm and pray for calm.

Content notes for mental illness and medical gatekeeping.

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