I’m putting this all under a cut, because it’s supposed to be a nice holiday today for people.
This is not a nice post.
This, in fact, is something of a recollection of very misguided patriotism.
I get this impression from people not in my industry that they think we get paid well automatically.
It’s… kind of not true.
So I decided to share my experiences (some of them fortunately vicarious, others less so) about the tech industry in relation to this whole “assuming you’re getting paid” business, in the hopes that if it’s apparent that in one of the most well-paying industries in the world, assumptions are unwise, that it’ll be easier to see how it applies to writing, which is nowhere near as well-paying.
That’s all. I think I’m done for the day.
Woke up early for just about no reason at all. Perhaps not that strange, since I spent a lot of nightmare recovery time over the weekend sleeping. Maybe it’s because the sun is out too early in the Pacific Northwest these days. But waking early has not been my modus operendi for weeks.
I still have the inopportune thoughts of course—my memories of my father screaming at me that he wished I had never been born, one of the rather numerous times at that, are about as common as, perhaps, more normal people remembering some encouraging moment or saying, maybe funny, from their dad.
It’s just that the memories don’t stop me like they did the week before and some days after Father’s Day. I really must start scheduling vacation time during this time in the future, since I’m not effective at work at times like these. To say the least. Usually I can just move past them. Usually.
Part of my brain wants to seriously snark at the other parts, “Oh, so you thought that something like Father’s Day wasn’t going to mess you up at all.”
The truth is… I really didn’t think it would. Even after years of this. I may well forget again next year; maybe I ought to set up a recurring reminder in my iPhone calendar….
Oh well.
It’s another week (or, rather, another half-month, if I count the days I’m going to have to redo work from). And… now I need to prepare for a big meeting. Joy. I like my job much better when I just code. At least you don’t get humiliated after a week like this.
At least it’s tomorrow. So it’ll probably be a good day.
I hope you have a good day, too.
Some warnings you probably shouldn’t ignore.
Unless, I guess, you’re a zombie.
One of my favorite blogs is Ed Yong’s Not Exactly Rocket Science, and it had a thoughtful post in February, discussing a study that showed that the genes of abused children change permanently:
By studying the brains of suicide victims, Patrick McGowan from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, found that child abuse modifies a gene called NR3C1 that affects a person’s ability to deal with stress. The changes it wrought were “epigenetic”, meaning that the gene’s DNA sequence wasn’t altered but its structure was modified to make it less active. These types of changes are very long-lasting, which strongly suggests that the trauma of child abuse could be permanently inscribed onto a person’s genes.
And more:
With the gene not working properly in many cells, the body can’t produce enough glucocorticoid receptor.
As a result, the HPA trinity can’t turn itself down properly and is constantly on high-alert. The body behaves as if it were stressed, even when nothing stressful is happening. The result is a higher risk of anxiety, depression and suicide. McGowan admits that this the whole picture is still speculative, but the individual steps make sense in the light of his results.
If true (and the results are rather suggestive), the study’s results do rather explain a lot.
Like why child abuse victims are so “contrary” to attempts to heal them. It’s hard, if not impossible, to go up against a lack of hormones, due to your own genes having their active regions changed, that control stress receptors.
This could be as important (in terms of permanancy of impact of one’s life, not the severity of life-threatening1 ) as the type of gene changes that bring about obesity and cancer.
Of course, a lot of people believe that depression is just a chosen state of mind, that being fat is just a failure of willpower, and/or that cancer results from not enough prayer.
To those people I say, even without this study, even without the other studies (or, you know, science), knowing what I do from personal experience and the experiences of others2 … fuck you.
I didn’t choose this any more than others have.
Obviously positive life experiences can be supported by family (um, except not your abusers or their enablers), friends, and the mere act of social contact with human beings, through a screen or not… but y’know. Brain chemistry still fucks with your head in serious, non-ignorable ways. You can mitigate, but not remove the effects. It’s horrible, but it’s life.3
The full article is interesting and deserves the rest of it to be read. Although I warn you that there is an obsessive “devil’s advocate”4 at the end of the comments taking this chance to tell people they’re wasting their time thinking about the possible results of this study on their lives.
Veering off on another subject here…
This is why I don’t like the act of playing devil’s advocate on a subject that is actually traumatic to the people involved. When emotional stakes are that high, unless you enjoy inflicting pain on others—there are already disclaimers in the article on “if this is true” and admissions by the researchers that this is “still speculative”—you really probably shouldn’t. I don’t say that you want to inflict pain, just that your actions, whether you mean to or not, do have that impact.
Also, if your comment in any discussion is along the lines of “you shouldn’t feel that way”, the chances of your comments being trollerific go up considerably. I’d say 100%. And indeed, it was the cause of much of the hurt that Racefail induced. Just because you can treat something clinically doesn’t mean that other people, who have suffered considerably from what you blithely discuss, won’t get emotionally worked up. And if you think that’s simply a personal failing in them, I just have this to say: look at the damn study and tell me you don’t ponder whether what you think can be “reasoned out” might actually be possible to ignore.
I try to remember the motto these days: do no harm.
… to admit that you are owned by your demons.
There is a monster in the room. The room is my head.
The monster’s would-be corpse is hideous enough, a near abomination to be locked up with. Its name is probably something like Abuse, but it’s morphed to meanings beyond that shell. I don’t know if it’s still alive; the thought of actually examining it to make sure is so repugnant and frightful that it’s hard to imagine the situation being worse if the beast were actually alive and moving.
Like the horror movies: it looks dead, until you poke it….
It’s hard, in fact, to remember the situation being worse when it was alive and moving, because for years its whole point behind being alive was to promise horror and sometimes fulfill it.
I can’t wish it away, or push it out: by now it’s grown enormous, fat; embedded itself into the walls, rooted itself into the floor, unspeakable masses of skin and flesh plastered to the ceiling; ungodly hideous, even if it’s dead. And to tell the truth, it’s probably not completely dead. Every once in a while I see what looks like a twitch of supposedly dead limbs.
Usually I try to forget it. Wait until it’s finally, completely, thoroughly dead; so far it’s been the only strategy that seems to work. But there are days—which I also try to forget about, as if my subconscious would take no note of them—when memory comes back to life, when I am reminded of the thing in the room, and I wake up in the morning alongside cloying nightmares that do not blissfully tear you screaming from sleep, but hug until the mind suffocates. Reality becomes a difficult option to grasp.
I like to think that I’ve had moments of clarity, but in reality my reaction is to retreat as quickly as possible, as much as possible, for as long as possible. Deeper modes of thinking and processing carry me closer to the parts of the room that border the monster’s remains. This makes it difficult to do my work, which requires a creative mode as much as that of writing or art, for all that it’s a technical job.
I can just about manage to not burn cookies. I can manage the mechanics of making an ebook. I can easily surf waves of information and surface-process it.
But I think it’s safe (unlike this room) to say that interpretation of any kind brings pain, and makes the monster twitch, or seem to twitch, or whatever.
At this time the monster’s corpse seems to be shriveling again (it does that in cycles; shriveling and bloating, never quite dessicated, at times close to life) so there’s more free room to think and interpret. My dreams have been unmemorable since yesterday, which is a relief, because the staying awake strategy to alleviate nightmares tends to result in waking nightmares.
Of course, the monster is still here. Too large to shift as a whole; to get it out, one would need to cut it to pieces. To slice into tissues either dead or only mostly dead, an intimate act that you only see attempted to carry out in horror movies by the most survival-averse characters. It sounds like a good idea—or maybe get a little creative with a flamethrower—but the execution is one that will take years and years of work. Like I said, it’s just that big, that gross, and that dense. So many years that it might actually be the same amount of time in the end to simply wait it out, and less frustrating on a continual basis.
Also, have you fucking seen bills from psychologists/psychiatrists when your insurance doesn’t cover it?
So I wait it out.
There, I’ve said it: I have not yet and will not for a very long time come to terms with over 20 years of abuse. And sometimes the act of remembering is as potent—and unavoidable—as the original act being remembered.
I don’t know what to do the next time. Possibly there isn’t anything else that can be done. It’s only been a few years since it died, and apparently its memory is a long time decaying. Perhaps the only thing I can do is to budget enough vacation and personal time such that I have a continuous buffer, not to be spent on actual vacations, but to spend time battling this.
The sad part is that the worst month of the year hasn’t yet arrived.
If you’re wondering why I haven’t been writing as much as I usually do (work enjoyment has also collapsed by the wayside), this is an approximation of what I think about constantly when Father’s Day begins its approach on my little ice-cold horizon of memory:
It starts a bit over a week before the holiday, and lasts for one week after, because memory fucks with your head like this, and none of my medication is currently making a difference, which is normal for this time of year.
You should see what goes through my head when Mother’s Day comes around. Christmas is probably the worst, followed by Thanksgiving. The Fourth of July is going to be one nice week-long nightmare. I don’t even want to talk about my birthday, which I try to forget ever exists (although obviously it helps that I’m past 21, because it’s hard to buy a good white wine for cooking otherwise).
Sons and daughters should celebrate their fathers… but their fathers have to be good ones. I don’t think that’s said enough, but for once a president has said it.
… it’s stupid, but I can’t even bear to tag this fucking post “father’s day” despite the title being what it is. That’s how stupid my brain is right now.
Yes. Nap now. Maybe see you when the weekend is over.
Every once in a while I see people complaining that many other people twitter about nothing (irony, thy twitter lacks depth). Granted, this has lessened ever since the Iranian Revolution got its organizing and broadcasting power through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, but it’s a common enough tweet still.
And yes. It’s a true observation: apart from the times when you have something like #iranelection around, much of Twitter is banal.
That’s kind of the point. A lot of Twitter is people-watching. It’s like an open park. I don’t wonder why people lounging, talking, walking in the park aren’t more entertaining (although I’m sure may wonder, and be bored). Twitter is mercifully short enough such that big walls of text aren’t possible, and you can get on with the act of observing.
Twitter is incidental spikes of relevance in the stream. I find it kind of poetic and instructional. What’s important to people? What do they think about? And hey, are they gonna share that recipe about brownies made from black beans?
A tinge of shared grief about pets dying. A brush of shared cheer when someone gets a promotion at the local Pizzatat. Look at pretty or funny pictures. Discover weirdly heart-moving blogs like Alice and Kev.
“So why not go watch people at a real park?”1
Because sometimes people at parks are boring dude. At least I can filter Twitter a little. *g*
