Fool around and have a ball...

[kiya]

I think under many circumstances I might write this for the blog, but I really explicitly firmly am not wanting to treat it as something fucking political right now, because getting political in my personal is part of what fucks me over, and I don't want to do that processing level right now.

I have a defective relationship between money and self-worth. Like pretty much everyone else in our fucking culture.

I'm writing about this because I was talking with teinedreugan about it yesterday? Friday? something because this is one of the issues in our sex life, but it's also, I've got too much crap in my head, so I need to excrete it somewhere and that's what livejournal is for!


Necessary background to set this shit up:

I was seventeen when I went to college, all full of intelligence and promise, all full of ten or so ineffective years of counselling for major depression issues and major burnout from my high school academic program, which I completed based primarily on the strength of having started it, damnit. I had asked about the possibility of taking a year off between high school and college; as I recall it, my mother was ambivalent and my father was opposed. They and my own self-doubt convinced me that it would be hard to get college acceptances with a hiatus year on my academic resume, so off I went.

I crashed and burned the following May, melting down in a manner that alarmed teinedreugan, freaked out keshwyn, and bewildered my RA. I spent the remainder of the semester basically in bed except when keshwyn pried me out of it, at least as my memory has it; I remember very little, to be honest. I went home for the summer an invalid, needing recovery time desperately.

I was treated, in relatively rapid sequence, to finding my home had become a warzone while I was away because my parents' marriage had collapsed, overhearing my mother mocking the consequences of my mental health condition to my fiance, having my first second boyfriend dump me because I was engaged (not only adding to my stress but removing the readily-accessible refuge to escape from the emotional minefield), my fiance having a major car accident (teinedreugan was miraculously unharmed, but the car was DOA), Eric being wishy-washy and stressy and seventeen about whether or not we could fix our relationship in between having flings with other girls in my face, and ...

... I basically blew off the first semester back at school as recovery time because I was even more catastrophically broken than I looked, because the breakdown had not only not been mended, but had been added to with an interesting collection of stress fractures and losses of support and so on.

Which led to me being offered the "You can finish out this semester and be kicked out for violation of your academic probation at the end, or you can take medical leave now" declaration from the college administration in February of 1997. Complete with being browbeaten unto tears by the dean for being such a failure and then her having an earnest conversation with jenett about, you know, let them know if I might be showing signs of, you know, major instability. (Which I cannot help but translate as "Get her off campus and no longer our responsibility before she kills herself, we don't want the bad publicity." Yes, the dean was that hostile and unempathic.)

My father was worried about me and wanted me home. My mother was willing to attempt blackmail and deception to get me there. I told my father I couldn't handle being near my mother, and he anxiously supported my decision to stay in Massachusetts. What I didn't say was that I needed to get into a position where I was supporting myself in order to prove that I was a worthwhile human being, because academics had been pretty much my entire life before that and well, I fucked that up but good, right?


So that's the needful background about my breakdown; skippable for people who either know about the breakdown or might find it upsetting to read a summary of someone else's screaming descent into gibbering failure and the consequences thereof.


Because I was as much in the need to prove that I was capable of supporting myself to demonstrate my worthiness to live, basically, as I was needing to work to afford living, the whole structure of money and self-value was set kind of hard right then. But at the same time, I have a clear memory of my first day walking to the temp job that people had gotten for me through contacts in the SCA, stopping for breakfast and wanting to laugh and being suddenly struck with the realisation that I could not remember when I had last been happy before that moment.

(My music just started playing "You never give me your money." I think I have to giggle now.)

It took a lot of help from other people, but I eventually managed to get myself sorted, able to support myself, and paid off the debts I incurred while I wasn't doing so. And that was good. I proved that even if I had failed at my Primary Projected Role in academia I could handle a Secondary Projected Role as a wage-earner.

Maybe the story would have been different if the job I wound up having had been a better fit for me. On the one hand, I found that I loved working with the law and was a fucking fantastic secretary. On the other hand, being a receptionist made me increasingly stressed and started to sideline me with rapidly increasing in frequency migraines and I wound up having serious morality issues with some of the specific work (the evil parts were not our office's responsibility, fortunately, but I was still ... yeah). Perhaps some other job would not have sent me sliding into twisted forms of major depression and other health issues, and I wouldn't be where I am, but I didn't have some other job, and with only a high school diploma (and, by the time I left that gig, a paralegal certification) I wasn't likely to get something better.

After some negotiation with teinedreugan, who had moved to MA in the interim, I left the job. I would be able to write again, I thought!

I wrote The Devil's Dance in that period, which masked my slow slide into catastrophic depression; he was, he reminded me the other day, working 12+ hour days, which didn't help matters, and meant that he really did not notice. Because the being able to support myself thing had not been a transitory thing where I'd proved it and was done, unbeknownst to me; my entire sense of self-worth was propped up by a couple hundred a week.

And when I wasn't worth a couple hundred a week, what was I worth?

Whatever pocket change I could find in the street, I guess.

Before I could pay for a life, so I deserved a life; that was worthwhile. It was a bit marginal, but I could afford to feed and house myself and buy a CD on the paycheck that wasn't entirely devoted to rent, and that meant that I deserved to live.

The fact that the sorts of jobs I could get because depression had driven me out of college were universally the sorts of jobs that aggravated my depression meant that the life I deserved sucked, but it was a life, right?

So going off pay-for-play was a royal mess. And it was made all the worse by the sense that I was a failure at academia; I was a failure at the sort of work that I was "qualified" for; the depression crippled me emotionally so I couldn't even fuck for my keep, because that's what being a housewife is, right? It's why Good Women have jobs.

I didn't even have kids to make my inability to hold down a normal job without having to cut to manage the trauma of it something that some people might, reluctantly, find justifiable. (teinedreugan caught me at it once and took the knife away and held me while I screamed.) If I had kids I could claim 'stay at home parent' as my job, rather than being the freeloader and the woman whose "choice" is Disapproved by the mainstream because Money Is The Value Of Your Life.

"Choice" makes me want to bark out a laugh and then sob there, because I remember crying and crying, begging teinedreugan to make me feel like it was okay to let him support me, because I had no value, because value is measured in dollars and cents, I wasn't even being a proper housewhore because I was not sane and not able to hold up my end of the classic woman's bargain, a 'bargain' that was only struck in my head because I could not imagine being anything other than a black hole if I was not proving my worth with cash on the table. I see people talking about disapproving of people's "choice" to be stay-at-home mothers (it's always women whose "choice" earns disapproval) or housewives or whatever and I just want to ...

Sidebar:

I commented to erynn999 the other day in a post she made about recent PTSD research that "well enough" is the monster under all of our beds - her original sentence was "If this is really the case, maybe I don't have to feel quite so guilty about not coping "well enough" with my life."

And this is where I wind up with 'well enough': Because depression isn't real. PTSD isn't real. That's all in your head, little girl. Other people can handle the real world, what's wrong with you? You weren't even raped, why are you upset? You don't deserve flashbacks, you didn't have real trauma. Everyone else can handle a job without going crazy. You're just lazy. If you're going to be this lazy, you should at least be putting out to make up for the expense of keeping you as a pet.

End sidebar.

... and I just want to scream and wail and snarl "Try my fucking mental issues on for size before you get so fucking smug about the superiority of your 'choices'" and I don't because maybe those people are Better People Than I and really could hack my life that much better than I can. Maybe I really am that worthless and it is all that I'm lazy and should be even more guilty about not coping "well enough" with my life.

As opposed to the crippling guilt that I bear for being a depressive ("making it up"), a failure (in academia and at work), for having a job that pays in resume credit, books, and royalties rather than a fat check (or even a couple hundred) every two weeks. My depression is just a cop-out, right? To get me out from under my obligation to be a proper moneymaker.

And I hate to say it, but there are times that KJ is a patch on this now.

Because there's no way in hell I could bring in enough money to handle childcare with my qualifications even if I were sane enough for a job. So suddenly, now, it's okay for me to be at home, for some values of okay, because I'm now a patch on a money expense. I'm not worth positive money, but I'm worth lack of negative money, and that's almost like having some value!

I hate this. I hate this so much. And I hate it all the more because being her mother is the work I've been waiting for at least the last ten years, that I've been working for, that I went into therapy to be able to do, and it's tainted by this stupid patch job on this haemhorraging hole in my self-esteem. And parenting an infant is hard work, and I really absolutely need my whole family to be able to do it too, and there are times I wind up feeling guilty about that, like I should be able to do it all, even though I know this is anthropologically idiotic and it's my self-hate talking and maybe me trying to prove I deserve a life again by some nonmonetary means. "I can't make money, but look, I can take care of babies!"

(I'm not actually that good with infants.)


It's not actually as bad as I've written it, the money thing, it's just. I need to write about this problem, so I've cut out the bits that aren't the problem. You know how it goes. But this is always there.

Comments

[ckd]

I read the whole thing.

[tirani.livejournal.com]

*sits down next to you and offers a cup of ginger-lemon tea*

The turning point for me during the couple of years I spent in therapy trying to prevent my depression from becoming crippling, and dealing with the weird terrors and flashbacks and insecurities that come with being raped at the tender age of eight, was this exchange with my therapist (Goddess bless him and keep him):

"Sometimes I feel like that I'm wearing a mask, and that eventually Mark or my boss or someone is going to figure out it's just a mask, that I'm just pretending at being a reasonable, competent adult, and then laugh at me and send me back to my corner."

"Tiff, everyone feels that way at some point in their lives. Anyone who says they don't is lying or has an agenda. Or both."

What does that have to do with money and feeling like you have some self worth outside of how much money you make in a day, a week, a month, a year? I've had to come back to that conversation in my head a number of times over the last three years, after being laid off without being actually released from the law firm I worked for and choosing to use that as the chance to go to school full time. I've had to remember that my worth is not valued in money, but in my time and how I spend it. That Mark made the active choice to be okay with me doing this, and I had to make the active choice to be okay with not being valued by my salary, and take school as a full time job.

My heart bleeds for you, because I see echos in my own struggle of what you are going through. I don't know if my thought helps or harms, but know that you're not the only one out there that's had this demon on her back.

[kiya]

My way of putting this is "The secret of being a 'real grownup' is coming to grips with the fact that everyone else is faking it too."

But yeah.

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

I'm *still* trying to internalize this one. It makes sense in my head, but my gut still doesn't believe.

[brooksmoses]

That feeling went all wierd for me, sometime in the space between 30 and 34, and I just recently noticed it.

At a gut level, I mostly don't feel like "still a kid" any more; I do think of myself as a grownup even in most of my deepest-inside places. This is the new bit.

Thing is, I still don't feel any more responsible, or in control of all the things in my life I want (or feel like I ought) to be in control of. And I don't have the "I'm still a kid, really!" gut-level explanation for it....

[ailbhe]

Ha. Yes. I *see*.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

<Hugs>

I recognisemyself in a lot of what you've written here. My trajectory is different, and not as strong, but yes, I can see the resonances.

I recently realised that my definition of 'I can do this' is set at 'I can do this easily without feeling stressed about it' which is a frequently unhelpful point, because it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anything that makes me anxious becomes 'I can't do that' which of course makes me even more anxious which sometimes stresses me out enough that I get blocked enough that I *cannot* do it.

[beloitst.livejournal.com]

I read the whole thing too.

But this is always there.

Put it in the cup. It's a start, at least?

[kiya]

Yeah, this one takes a lot of water.

Has/will/still will take a lot of water.

[jenett]

Much love from over in the frozen North. (Actually, it's pretty balmy at the moment, and west of you anyway, but I am flip at the moment.)

Much thanks for posting this, though because it just gelled something I've been poking at. My work life has been better than yours (though dear Gods, may I never go back to the couple of recent years where my weekly food budget was $20 a week, and it's only through luck and occasional help from Mom that I kept body and soul together.)

But one of the things I deeply ... ok, it's not envy, it's the "Dear Gods, may I have that sometime" thing - is your relationships. Yes, imperfect. Yes, various of them ended (and some, as we both know, for extremely good reason.) But compared to mine, with the 5 years since I had sex, and 4 years since Jay moved out (thank the Gods), and all of the financial damage that came from that one... I think I'm carrying that kind of damage on my end. (Which I've known, which is why I've been firmly not looking at new relationships), and it's not going to get better until I figure out a way around that.

Still not sure what to do about it (and before anyone suggests, have considered therapy, but tend to agree with the various therapists I know that it wouldn't actually be worthwhile for me because of the specifics and how my brain tends to work: what I really need is someone who knows me very well to ask very specific questions and then to go dig around in my psyche for a bit until it's resolved, and I'm working through that slowly with friends.) But comiserating on all of it.

(And, erm, not very coherent, though still very peeved at said Dean, all these years later.)

[kiya]

I am pretty damn sure I could not have survived and still been myself without teinedreugan. Body might have lived, but ... yeah.

[jenett]

Yep. And I would have missed you a very great deal, y'know. And knew it at the time.

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

That Dean was completely and totally useless. And she got to ruin a number of people's lives...

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I read the whole thing, as well.

I can't really say that I know how you feel about all of it, 'cause I have a lot less of the trauma and trouble that you've had. But I basically fell apart once I got out of college and realized that real-world jobs were not designed for someone who had to be doing something new, interesting, and challenging on a regular basis or she'd go stark raving insane out of sheer boredom.

(Which led to depression, medication, dragging myself out of it by forcing myself back into the workforce into what I *thought* might be challenging enough and I knew I could do, and all that stuff.)

It is a horrible, horrible thing to measure yourself by the money you make, and I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else. *sigh* It's a brutally insidious part of our society -- if you're not making money or babies, you're obviously not making anything *worthwhile*, so the meme goes. Never mind that housework and yardwork, cooking and laundry are just as much work as sitting in an office all day.

meiczyslaw and I often joke that we're the samurai and the samurai's wife -- he does the work of his lord (IE, his job), and I manage his estate to be clean, beautiful, and prosperous. (I also get time to work on my stuff.) It's a joke, but it invokes a slightly different mindset, and I find it helps me stave off the "I'm not worthy" blues much better than just raging against the American profit machine.

[kiya]

The societal crap it just ... this culture is exceedingly unkind to anyone who isn't a capitalist drone (or capable of faking it). The fuckety fucking fuck.

(Sixteen tons, and whaddaya get?)

[keshwyn]

I have also read the whole thing. I was there for parts of it, and I wish I'd been able to be a better friend for parts of it too. There are a couple of moments I wish I'd had a magic wand for. :(

Our culture is *stupid*. Portions of it are good, and portions of it are bad, and portions of it are just plain dumb.

I would like to send the dumb parts to colonize Mars, where a lot of their stupid would be beaten out of them by having to cope with a really hostile environment and see where it gets them.

I think you are a worthwhile person, for what it's worth. I am glad you are still my friend, even when I was an obnoxious shit to you at a couple of points. By grace, so we go. Your daughter is beautiful. You are currently the project manager of three other people who are all talented too, and you are building a marvelous framework around her for her to grow on and through and around. I'm impressed.

(Another day older and deeper in debt.)

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

I totally hear ya. /: It's sad that that particular song has never really been a joke -- and still isn't.

I don't know how to fix the culture. It's not like one person can do it. /: I mean, where do you even start? Talking about it is one thing. But how do you live it in such a way that you can get it into peoples' minds as a real-here-now thing instead of just "people talking on the 'net"?

And I wonder how much of it is buried in our country's roots, and how much has been added as the media -- and thus the advertising -- has increased and infiltrated every corner of life ...

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

fell apart once I got out of college and realized that real-world jobs were not designed for someone who had to be doing something new, interesting, and challenging on a regular basis or she'd go stark raving insane out of sheer boredom.

Yessss.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel any better . . . I'm pretty sure that every single person you know is ALSO broken to some degree or another.

Your brokenness has a very familiar feel.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

A lot of my "everyone must work outside the home" mentality comes from my dad having to stay home due to disability for most of my childhood, and his being obviously really unhappy with that. I don't know how much his depression resembles yours, and I'm going to think hard about that. I may have hurt you on this, and I'm sorry for being so absolutist even if I haven't. Thank you for saying.

[kiya]

I don't believe you have specifically hurt me on this one, unless it was in a tangential way. And I'm ...

... while I'm effectively 'having to stay home due to disability', my unhappiness about that is societal guilt and shame. In an ideal world, I would be able to dedicate myself to my writing, my art, and my daughter without losing respect or perceived humanity.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

yes, thank you for saying, and i am sorry for being absolutist on it too.

half, if not more, of the reason i am absolutist on it is envy-- with my physical disabilities, i can either work a "good" office job with good health insurance, or, uh, die slowly. which means that a lot of me being so inflexible on this issue is a) my own damn problem, and b) something that i oughtn't to inflict on other people.

[kiya]

And the fact that that's the choice you have to made is another stink end of this particular stick. I wish we took better care of everyone as a society rather than forcing all these hob's choices.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

This stick has nothing but stink ends.

[luellon.livejournal.com]

I read the whole post.

I hate that about our society too. I'm having similar problems myself with money and my lack of employment. My parents are helping me and I feel crappy about it. I even feel worthless. So yeah.

*hug*

[kiya]

It's such an awful, awful mess.

We're not supposed to need to accept help, because that means we're Not Good Enough, right?

Gah. Gah, gah, gah.

[rosefox]

I read this whole thing.

I have quite literally been convinced that communism is a really great idea based on all the pain and sorrow and trouble and damage that money has caused my friends and family, and their important relationships. It may not be the root of all evil; it's more like the Monsanto patented seed of evil, forcing everyone to try to do things the same way, valuing production over individuality, and destroying much of what makes the world beautiful in the name of feeding the hungry. The hungry are hungry for art and beauty and individuality too. There is immeasurable value in you, as you. You deserve a life.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I hear you. I have had many of the same issues. I succeeded academically (while self-medicating wildly with food and booze and sex) but was never successful in the work world and have not held a paying job since 1996. I don't even have parenting. So yeah, I hear you.

MKK

[artan]

Because depression isn't real. PTSD isn't real. That's all in your head, little girl.

Well yes, but the people who spout this kind of thing most often don't realize the egocentrically bitter solipsistic position that they're working from when they're saying such things. They aren't inside it and have only passive-observer-familiarity. From their perspective, your head isn't really real either, just a made up of their perceptions and expectations, most of which are founded on their own irrelevant experience. Given that, they're likely discounting offhand without an attempt at compassion, because doing so would require modeling the thing in their heads, and they're either afraid to or so completely wound up in their own experience so as to be unable to expand internal reality to understand someone else's experiences.

(being mostly that "real" isn't a valid word choice in this instance, because their definitions are broken and mostly uninaginative in that "I don't understand, so it can't be that way" pattern. If people not understanding made things not real, the sun would have gone out a long, long time ago...)

Perhaps you can take comfort in them also being all in your head, and thus crushable with your mind.

[dubiousprospects.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Read the whole thing.

I get that, too, though it's a sort of coda to the "people don't like you" axiom for me.

It's impossible to win a fight with an axiom. It's possible to *replace* an axiom, though.

It's pretty much impossible to use "deserves" in English without getting tangled up in some notion of Original Sin. (Much of the insanity around "money is proof of God's love" relates to this; you have money, you're paying off your burdern of sin...) "Deserves" is a very dangerous word that needs to lie fallow for a century or two after the end of Christianity and then it might be recoverable.

So I'd say neither me nor you nor anybody *deserves* to be alive; we *are* alive. You cannot owe for breath because there was no choice you made involved.

It then becomes a question of what one does with life. Given the hand you've been dealt, you've done really well. (When one's metaphorical insides are a bag or two of broken glass, not fleeing from love is both extremely difficult and significantly virtuous conduct, just for example.)

[crystalpyramid]

Modern society is stupid for telling us to value ourselves in terms of our contributions to the GDP. Your contributions to the world don't have to show up on a tax return for you to be a worthwhile person. Stupid stupid modern society.

I'm grateful to you for sharing your story. It resonates with a lot of my friends' stories, except that you had all the bad things happen to you at once. My friend who was waiting to have a baby so she could quit the job she was too depressed to handle. My sister who's struggling through the last semester of college with major anxiety issues and crazy parents. My beloved who dropped out of college because he was completely nocturnal and having hallucinations from Paxil, who I finally reconciled myself to loving even if I might end up supporting him and the hypothetical future family. (He now has a barely-lucrative professional poker career, which I do not recommend to anyone.)

[meranthi.livejournal.com]

I understand about the failure and how it affects you. The main reason I'm going back to school now is the looming failure of leaving school a month before graduation. I'm extremely lucky in getting the job I have (which technically requires that non-existent degree) and it made things much easier for me. I fought my own battle with depression right out of college, and it still looms in the back of my head when I stop doing so much that the demons come out to play.

*HUG* I think T probably knows more where you're coming from than I do. I am the breadwinner right now, and I'm sure it's not easy.

[linenoise.livejournal.com]

You still have an enormous gift for saying things that make my head ring with echoes for long time after. It seems to me I've said a thing like that before, but it bears repeating.

Money is a complicated thing for me for various reasons, but it's never really been tied up in my self-worth. Mostly because, in the inside of my head, money isn't actually a real enough thing to base anything on. Which is a different flavor of complicated.

I want to say something about the entanglements of self-worth and depression and trying to function while broken, but I can't unravel it enough to be coherent.

But I read all of this post. And it made me think. Thank you for writing it.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

I read the whole thing.

[kaifu.livejournal.com]

I really wish we could get away from tying up people's worth and identities in the way that they make (or don't make) money. I find it disconcerting that a frequent question right after finding out someone's name is "so, what do you do?" - as if most of your self must be tied to being a mechanic or an accountant or whatever. Yes, some people really love their jobs and that is a large part of who they are. But if you're just working because you have to, it's a real blow to your self worth to not be one of those people who can proudly answer, "I'm a [insert high-status job here]". I can't help but feel like our health care system wouldn't be so stupidly tied to one's job if we were a little less neurotic about this person = work thing.

*hugs* I think you're an amazing, strong, and wonderful person. This has nothing to do with having money, making money, or letting other people give you money/support you.

[kiya]

It's worse, too. If you answer, like, "I'm a writer," the response is, "No, what's your real job?"

The health care thing is actually tied to job the way it is because there was at one point (due to war?) a salary freeze, so companies offered perks to attract things, which outcompeted independent stuff, and ... yeah.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I read this. I'm listening.

[ivy]

I don't know if this makes it any better, and I'm very much hoping that it doesn't make it worse, but... in hopes.

There is no way that I could do what you're doing. I pay the bills for my whole household, I make a really good salary, and I think that your job is infinitely harder and more valuable than mine. I had *surgery* to ensure that I would never be called upon to do your job. So, I agree that our cultural values don't always appropriately address how hard work is with remuneration, but I think there are things that are hugely important and very valuable that aren't well paid. And people who do those things often get a rasher of bullshit for doing them, which makes it harder. (My live-in partner... I totally support him financially, art, serious depression, and all. We have no children and will not have any. I am fine with this arrangement, and I'd be fine with it if he were female too. But I know it troubles him for many of the same reasons you cite. I have pointed out that I get to be a matron of the arts by supporting him. It slightly helps.)

[kiya]

Coming back to this well and truly later, but the line "I had *surgery* to ensure that I would never be called upon to do your job" was something that was amazingly helpful to me to hear at the time. Thank you.

[ivy]

Glad to hear it! Sometimes truth helps.

[donperros.livejournal.com]

I want things to be okay for you.

I take solace in believing that teinedreugan is able to help.

I also think that KJ is going to be just plain wonderful. Even so, it never occurred to me that she was a justification for anything, or that you had anything that needed justifying. I thought it was great that you were able to build the life you seemed to have, with you at home, and relationships that appeared to be working, and so forth and so on, and still think that it is a valid and even desirable way to live. (I acknowledge that I only had glances at it, through no fault of yours.)

Much love.

[kiya]

You know, it's really, really good having you in particular saying this, brudder mine, 'cause you've known me for a really long time, and have context for things like post-IB burnout and the like ....

And speaking of only glances, you think you and your lovely lady will be able to come visit anytime? ;)

[erin-c-1978.livejournal.com]

I read the whole thing, and I can't express how much I feel for you on the whole money issue. I have a raft of baggage that is strikingly similar to yours in some ways and different in others, but I still have to shower tonight and therefore will not, not, not coredump all over your poor blog. I'll restrain myself to mentioning that I still live with my parents at age 30 (for a variety of reasons I'm literally forcing myself not to expand on right now, because whenever I mention this in public I feel like I have to self-justify to prove myself Not A Loser), and while I pay rent and do housework, whenever my mom does a load of laundry or the like (usually my domain) I have to fight not to collapse into a puddle of self-recrimination because FUCK I FAILED I'M NOT CONTRIBUTING OH GOD OH GOD --)

Um. About that part where I said I wasn't going to core dump on your blog. Sorry. Shower now. And again, I empathize and am really sorry you have to deal with all this toxic shit that is so endemic to our society.