Today, the day I’m writing this (a week before it gets posted), is the first day any of my relatives could have reasonably received the letters I sent out earlier this week. It might take longer than usual, given the government shutdown and everything, but today’s the day were my anxiety goes from “steadily bubbling” to “boiling over” as I begin to flinch every time my phone buzzes or it’s little “you’ve got a notification!” light turns on. I do not want to hear from any of them. I’m not interested in what any of them have to say immediately upon reading my letter and explicitly mentioned not sending me texts or calling me in the letter itself, so I should not be hearing from any of them. I will, almost certainly, be hearing from at least one of them at some point this weekend, though. Not sure what it’ll be about, considering the various relatives getting a letter and their wide range of knee-jerk responses to stuff, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually. After all, it’s not purely unhealthy communication if there’s not also communication when you’ve explicitly said you want none. I expect that the general content of whatever message I get will include some form of apology, some number of excuses or “explanations” for past behavior, and then either a statement that they’ll do what I asked in my letter (despite already contacting me) or some statement about the importance of family connections with a deflecting acknowledgement that our family communicates poorly. Bonus points if it includes both.

I’ve spent my day trying to get work done and turning to anything I can get my hands on as a distraction when I can’t stay focused on my work. Mixed in there, for variety, is some mild dissociation and what might be moderation dissociation but might also be dozing off briefly–I’m not really sure since they kinda feel the same right now and I’m both losing touch with myself AND not sleeping well due to anxiety. It’s a pretty awful way to go through a day, I’m not going to lie, but at least I got to do it from my home instead of absolutely draining my life force to the dregs in order to seem normal in front of my coworkers. Who knew my boss would be receptive to “I’d like to work from home because I’ve got some bad family stuff going on that is making me anxious and stressed, so it would make my life significantly better if I didn’t need to pretend to be okay in front of everyone” as a reason to work from home. It might have only worked because of how uncharacteristically direct I was about my personal business/situation, but I’m not looking this gift horse in the mouth. At least I don’t also have the anxiety of my coworkers noticing something’s up and reporting to my boss that I’m doing nothing or asleep at my desk or whatever bullshit they’d say instead of checking in with me or even asking my boss if he knew what was up.

Normally, I can handle anxiety pretty well. This is its own entire problem, though, since dealing with family stuff has a way of sneaking whatever is being produced past all of my defenses. I spent most of my life being taught to do whatever was asked of me, of giving them all a mile any time they moved an inch, and not holding them accountable for their failures or the wrongs they’ve done to me. I can’t NOT check a text from them. I can’t NOT open a letter from them. I need to check and make sure that everything is okay, that I’m not doing something wrong, or that something isn’t “needed” from me. I NEED to make sure I’m doing right by them. Until I catch myself, anyway. Until I remind myself of the purpose of this exercise, of what made me decide to do this in the first place–the things I learned about myself and the world and our relationships with others that helped me figure out what was wrong in a way I could take action on even if I can’t bring myself to name it most of the time, or even type it out in my blog. I’m not sure I can even bring myself to say it in text or audio to the people who helped me realize it without breaking down. I’m so good at not thinking about things, after all. Easier to just not think about it for years than to confront how awful it makes me feel to think about it and apply it to my life. Not for anything I’ve done, just because it really illustrates the problem and how long I’ve been… enabling it. Living it. Fooled by it.

So, today, rather than put any of that to words, I am doing my best to think nothing but of the immediate. To lose myself in the present and some all-consuming detailed effort. Maybe a strategy game and a podcast if I can’t get what I’m looking for from Final Fantasy 14 tonight. Whatever it takes to get through today and tomorrow and the day after and then the day after that and on and on and on until I’ve gotten a response from everyone or the silence has stretched on long enough to be a response in its own right. You gotta live through the day, first and foremost. Everything else comes after that. And I’m not in danger of dying or anything, but I don’t much care for what I’ve done in the past to escape these kind of moments. I’d like to avoid repeating those last-resorts in favor of something more healthy, if only because it’s not explicitly destructive or unhealthy. It doesn’t feel better, but I’ve long ago made my peace with sacrificing my present for the sake of my future, so it’s an easy decision to make. It’s just going to suck today. Which is why I’m going to end this here, before I start spiraling (yeah, none of this has been spiraling yet), and go lose myself in the lastest Deep Dungeon in Final Fantasy 14 with three relative strangers that I have to pretend to be okay in front of. It’s just easier since it only has to be verbal. I don’t have to look okay, just sound it. Much easier, in my opinion, what with not needing to manage my face at all. Facial expressions are exhausting.