Wrote 2k today; various thoughts including: the good and bad of validating my own problems.

[juushika]

My hand is sore from writing. More precisely, my thumb is. I wrote about 2,200 words today, which is part of it; the rest is that my BPAL bit me the other day (Casanova, to be exact, the scent with a bite). I was trying to open it, and the little imp cap was being very difficult. When I finally got it open and then went to reach for the Antique Lace, I found that I was bleeding quite freely from a lovely cut in my thumb. The cut is curved to fit the imp cap and gently serrated as the cap is as well, and by the way did you know that fingers bleed pretty copiously? And of course it was my right hand, so that's made it difficult to write by hand. Plus, I'm in a new blank book and with a new pen, having killed both of the previous (yay!), which is harder on my fingers.

Nonetheless, and despite driving around and writing in parking lots under low light and rainshadows, I was on a roll tonight. I have a slight gap (from the old woman's bargain to the bargain completed; note to self: research bears), but I figured out how to bring back an old aspect with pretty perfect timing, and I love the new character came with it. Plus, he's male, and I'm in dire need of those (of the main and supporting characters, four of five up to this point had been female), and plus he's lovely and fun to write. So despite inconveniences, I got through about three scenes and am quite happy with my progress.

I sat down to write because, writing for the day done and even though I'm tired, I don't want quite to sleep. But at the same time, I'm not quite sure what I want to say. I saw the boy and his brother today and left the house and answered the phone and all of that was nice; more surprisingly, I haven't crashed yet, and almost wish that they had stayed longer. I also played Second Life for the first time in about a week, and made a lovely outfit that I now have to got through the work of photographing and documenting, but I'll do that later. I read the story of one woman's rape just a few minutes ago and I wish that I had something intelligent to say about it but mostly I am just left blank—I read shadesong's journal on occasion and am amazed by how much from history to health she has gone through—and how strong she is despite and because and regardless of it all. While I fold under the pressure of trying to go to college like everyone else, she thrives despite so much worse. But I'm not jealous or resentful. I am quietly in awe, and half numb with it. Should we all be so strong, and would that none of us had to be.

What follows are some thoughts that I have been debating about posting publicly. I turned this back to a public journal for very specific reasons, yet honesty still remains important to me. Furthermore, I find it useful and healthy and information to read similar thoughts from others, so why would I censor my own? Yet I still cannot find the balance between personal privacy and public honesty. As such, I post this with reservations.

Which is it—do we try to put our suffering in context, or do we acknowledge it for what it is? I read about women that have been raped, that have debilitating and painful and chronic and invisible diseases, that have gone through crises and changes. Some are at loose ends still, some thrive. Some have healed, and some are continually brought to ruins again by the facts of their own personal history. I have chronic lower back problems resulting from minor scoliosis and major lordosis, as well as a few other body quirks. The back problems cause constant dull pain and general discomfort, muscle tension, and bouts of severe pain. I have what is probably a combination of Dysthmia and Major Clinical Depression (you learn something every day! "People who are diagnosed with major depressive episodes and dysthymic disorder are diagnosed with double depression" says Wikipedia) as well as anxiety (somewhere between Social Anxiety Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and Agoraphobia. As a result, I transferred schools, moved three times, took a leave of absence, and semi-officially dropped out. I am largely housebound. As time goes on, I become increasingly uncertain about whether I will ever return to school.

And what of it? I have a roof over my head because my parents care for—nay, spoil!—me, and I eat and go out sometimes because I have a boyfriend that is understanding (perhaps too much so). I stay where I feel safe and I write all day, and the rest of the time I read. There are many lives, oh so many lives, that are worse than mine, problems that are worse than mine. There are lives that are more valid, more vibrant, more meaningful. And I'm not sure if I aid and abet my own weaknesses by acknowledging them, or if they really are as bad as they feel, when panic seizes me, when I crash and spend the evening crying after I go out, when I go through periods when I am overemotional and fatigued and even more reclusive than normal—even when my back starts to spasm.

The self-doubt makes me ashamed of what I have not achieved. But I believe so much in acknowledging and appreciating that what others go through is real and valid—even diseases that others cannot see, even disorders that others cannot feel—and I do not want to deny my own. So many other people are so strong—either for what they have achieved, or for what they survive. I admire them endlessly, and I am afraid that I pale in comparison.

I hope that this book succeeds, one day. Or that my writing does, in general. And I hope, deep down, that my problems are as valid as they feel, and that others recognize them as such, because—I am, usually, more often than I have been in a long time... I am happy, right now. I am happy writing and reading. I don't want to be pushed out of it, and I know that if my comforts were taken away, I would be. I would be as miserable as I have been for years prior, and that scares me witless. I know I'm spoiled. And I want to be. I like to wake without wishing that morning hadn't come. And I hate that I feel guilty about it, and am afraid to say so much.

Disjointed thoughts at best, but hopefully they are worth the saying and either way, there they are. I'm to bed, now, and to read.