Some fine motor detail is still kinda lacking; I need a sharp knife to cut butter pats of appropriate amount for the baking (which I always do in precise amounts), and I’m a little too shaky for that. I haven’t handled a non-butter knife during recovery since a couple months into the Years of Zorn and Tharn, when I didn’t know that what I called waking nightmares were really PTSD episodes. I didn’t hurt anybody, I just sliced the tippy-tip-tip of my finger off. (It grew back, amazingly, but I suspect my fingerprint is no longer the same.) So, no bread. Yet.

Typing is back, though not at full speed, it’s also not disappearing on me much.

I tried making a shake (“Better than Milk” soy milk, although I think I’m sticking to almond milk in the future), but my fingers being what they are, splat.

I can walk for the most part without depending on guidance from the walls.

The acute memory of pain is gone. I don’t even know how the hell to explain that, and am rather afraid of the idea that even if I never have flashbacks again, they will never stop coming back.

I think I’ve stopped getting startled by sunlight and shadows, or at least, as much. Enough to keep control of a car, so I might buy some food later today, if I’m not still resting.

Nightmares have receded. My dreams aren’t exactly fluffy clouds and ice cream sundaes, but neither are they bad: they’re just very boring.

Boring is excellent.

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Anyways, there’s a 50% chance the team we’re in conflict with will, ah, leave the rest of us at the altar, so to speak.

I should rest. After I tell breadmaker to make very simple bread. I feel like throwing up… will try soy or almond milk so as not to collapse.

Will be taking my Xanax in peace. I’ll probably fall asleep. My dreams have surfed back into weird boringness, so it looks like the Overherd have finished eating the enormous backlog of nightmares.

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I can sometimes work on the edge days of the bell curve. But the days framing the triggering day, and obviously the trigger day itself, are bad. Whether the PTSD is escalating or I’m in recovery mode, I’m not… all that operational I guess.

Problem is that the bulk of my work occurs in the middle of the week.

I want to cry because not only could I not help my team during two crisises on Tuesday, I don’t have enough spoons to get to work and eat breakfast and eat lunch and do some necessary, fuck up production if I miss items, and get home, and eat dinner. It’s partly physical, because PTSD episodes drain me via the high demand on fight-or-flight resources. It’s of course emotional, because I’m tired and the all-consuming fear haven’t completely relinquished their hold. And I hate this, it’s intellectual because it’s hard to make good decisions when the above are in effect.

The operation I’m involved in is very delicate. Needs coordination between three different teams in three entirely different departments, one of which we’re constantly in conflict with. In it’s way, it’s also a diplomatic… thingummy. I don’t even have the spoons for that. And it can’t be done on Friday.

The thing is, if this is really required at this time, I will rip myself to shreds in order to do it. Loyalty and duty are buggers sometimes. It’s not a question if I can; it’s a question of if I can do it safely. The answer is sometimes “You’ll probably die in a car crash coming home.” (Or, in Lord Peter Wimsey’s case, “You’ll probably stumble into a marsh and drown.”)

Well, it’s not like a coworker is going to go to jail accused of murder if I don’t make it.

Sigh. This next part is very hard. I have to tell the boss.

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I get a bit breathless if I don’t keep my mind on something else. I’m not sure if passivity (reading a book or a comic) is better than activity (programming and trying to make decisions that will not upend our part of the back end). I don’t feel like I can make very good decisions right now.

And yeah, the startle reflex is pretty bad right now. Imagine if I had that when I was driving. This morning the reflection of sunlight off a car moving in someone else’s garage freaked me out.

Hopefully tomorrow is normal, better, and tonight is not Revenge of the PTSD Episode.

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On the other hand, I remember them. So I didn’t have flashbacks. I think.

I’m sculling about in the waters past the waterfall and rapids of my very prolonged PTSD episode. I’m very tired. I fell asleep at 5am, it’s now 9:20am, I just stayed up until I got too tired and the tiredness took over the nausea. It’s the only way to get through, I think, though I didn’t exactly remember that the last other times. I have to get really tired. Is it possible for tired to cause pain? I think so, but then again, I wasn’t completely sane last night.

But I didn’t overdose on the pepto bismol even in the middle of all that. I counted the pills this morning to make sure. I just remember trying to take more and more and reaching the point in the directions that say “stop doing that” and stopped. *is proud*

As for T. A. Pratt’s Marla Mason series, which I either re-read and read for the first time Monday and Tuesday and hanging over the puke bucket this early morning, I really like it. Why do I do this… well, it’s an interesting thingy. Sometimes if I get really, really into a series, and it has a strong main character, that character will show up briefly in my dreams. It has to be a little on the level of obsession, and I think, it has to be timed correctly in order for it to work for these episodes. I didn’t always remember this fucking stuff climaxed, like a plot does.

The first protector was Warren Ellis’ Spider Jerusalem, some years ago. Before the Years of Zorn and Tharn, and I didn’t make the connection. Spider did it twice. When I eventually made the connection, well, there’s a reason I took my current nom de plume. That was the last time he did it.

The second was Sherlock Holmes. There is a reason he has, basically, a little bloggy shrine I constructed. But he never came back. They didn’t after Spider.

The third was Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden, one year ago? or so. See, I don’t time it right a lot. But sometimes I do. Huh. Not often. There has to be a lot of series to burn through, to feed the obsession. A couple of books won’t work. I don’t get to do this very often, but since the paranormal urban romance stuff started, a lot of material suddenly showed up.

The fourth was T. A. Pratt’s Marla Mason. I didn’t get to see Rondeau, I like him, but it got a bit confusing on what he looked like after Spell Games, maybe that’s why I didn’t see him. Anyways, after she showed up, I don’t remember any nightmares. Possibly the cows cleaned up after her. I do remember that Echo Bazaar and Safeway merged for a bit, and I tried out my high level qualities in Persuasive. Not that I remember what happened when I did, but I think I was happy.

If this was Marla Mason’s world, I’d say this is a very rare magic I don’t get to do often. And it doesn’t last for very long, more’s the pity. Just a single dream, each time. Sometimes it’s the dream I really need, and sometimes I fuck up the timing and that just means Spider sits down with me on girders in an unfinished tower in his city and talks to me about things. It sounds a little crazy but Spider is why I didn’t lose some huge amounts of money to a minor betrayal. His talk made me actually listen to another friend who was warning me. I was young and knew everything, even though thinking one knows everything during that kind of time in one’s life is a recipe for disaster.¹

Don’t ask me why Spider helped. I’m sure I’m talking to myself during these times. I sure as hell wasn’t listening to sense from elsewhere at the time.

I think these guys have to come from cities. Fantasy countries don’t work. I hate cities, so am not sure why this is.

Doesn’t that all sound insane? Yes, I’m sure it’s insane. But hey. I’ve blogged about my other insanity. Why not this one.

There’s almost enough material for Liz Williams’ Detective Inspector Chen to do it next time. Or sooner. The Iron Khan can’t come out fast enough for me, because the next time a big whack comes, it’ll be Christmas.

If my birthday is horrible, Christmas is likely worse. My father was an evil man, in his way. If only he never loved me. Then maybe I wouldn’t have so many issues.

I’m going to go back to sleep. Maybe it’ll work twice. One can hope. Or maybe I’ll figure out what happens in Echo Bazaar/Safeway when I try out Shadowy. Maybe I won’t dream. Or maybe I’ll see my parents again, and it’ll be bad.

On the other hand, I could always just drink a lotta really black tea.

Thank you for the well wishes.

1. And so it turned out. I’m sorry it took the Years of Zorn and Tharn to work through it all.

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At midnight the nausea and retching began. This is par for the course, alongside my sanity starting to slip in spite of myself.

I recall my friend asked me, a year ago. Maybe more. How well I was doing. He knew back then that without his presence I was starting to slip. Literally Dory to his Marlin. But there was nothing he could do about it.

I’m in a lot of emotional pain and I’m so scared. On the other hand, shortly the nausea will edge it out.

I wish I was doing better. SF, fantasy, tea, and sherlock holmes much. Better t o blog about.

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It’s possible I may convince someone to buy me bread. Or I may do it myself when I feel more sane and need to know I can do things.

I forced myself to sleep after nightmares. That wasn’t enough.

Grapes and toast and almond milk.

Going to go lie back down. I don’t want to but the Overherd is there and I can’t walk all tha well.

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In case you haven’t seen The Many Emotions of Sherlock Holmes and The Adventures of John H. Watson, here they are.

I’m fondest of The Adventures of John H. Watson #3, personally.

… I really wish my PTSD would go away so I could blog about tea and Sherlock Holmes and review books properly.

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This is the flashback that sent me into serious therapy.

You’d think I would have gotten there before, but after the betrayal of three separate friends (and various minor betrayals, if you can call $4000 minor. Or was it $6000? I forget), and what I can only think of as my own betrayal of a friend… after that, and with the paranoia feeding on itself, I didn’t make friends anymore.

Except there was this one guy at work. He wasn’t handsome, he was tubby and short, if charismatic and down-to-earth, and a greybeard in the making at that. But he was the only person who seemed to understand what I was going through. Sort of. He knew that I was likely manic-depressive or something like it. He was kind when others wouldn’t have been, when he didn’t know the full extent of my history.

I betrayed him, of course. Like I said in a previous post: there was a time when I equated relationships as being akin to coinage and debts. You pay attention here and there, they are required to do the same. It was the wrong thing to have learned during the Years of Zorn and Tharn, and I almost lost my only friendship over it.

He explained the basics to me, after a very difficult point, when he realized I didn’t know. And after that… well, I made him laugh. I was Dory to his Marlin as much as possible. And I knew now that you don’t expect anything in a real friendship. If there’s any trading or suchlike, it happens naturally, without accounting sums and balances. And if it doesn’t happen, well, it doesn’t.

Expecting things in return is bad. It’s why I don’t expect nor take things in return for donations, not even tax deductions.

But I wasn’t seeing a therapist yet. I should have, but like I said, I learned a lot of wrong things during the Years of Zorn and Tharn.

My friend (and by now you can see the single point of failure in my support network) invited me to Thanksgiving at his family’s place. His wife was also my friend at this point. Their kids were good kids, their dogs were good dogs. I should have felt safe. I should have felt fine. And I did. For the most part.

Thanksgiving is a bit stressful for everyone, really. So when my friends had a little scuffle, as couples do, I lost it.

It was a full flashback. I only remember crying the next morning at home. I called my friends, who sounded reluctant to talk to me, which was understandable, and my friend was quite standoffish. I called up a local bartender and sat in a waiting room at his office. For half a day. It was a holiday, but I sure as hell didn’t want to wait at home.

And over the next days, my friend didn’t talk to me. I didn’t understand, but left it at that. You don’t ask for things in return.

A few days later, when we were riding the ferry home together, he asked me if I remembered what had happened after I left their house on Thanksiving. I said I didn’t, and his sigh sounded a bit relieved, but not entirely.

“You called us repeatedly that night with death threats.”

I was horrified. Horrified at what I’d done. Horrified that I could do that, or even would in the first place. Horrified at how little sense such an action was. Horrified that I could do that and not remember one moment.

We’re still friends. But not so close anymore.

I’m lucky I didn’t hurt anyone, or, gods forbid, kill anybody. I don’t think I would have held back. I don’t remember any of it, so I don’t know what I would have done or wouldn’t.

The insanity plea… maybe it works for others, but I don’t apply it to me. No matter what I was riding out that night, no matter what excuses I had, even without determing the morality of anything that happened, I still hurt people. Emotionally, sure, but that can be pretty bad. And it could have gone farther.

The gods do not approve of attempting to moralize anything. Bad things happen to good people, and supposedly good people can do bad things. That’s just the way of the world.

I do penance, and every once on a while I check delicately to see of the status quo has changed, but I don’t expect it to. Nor can I really judge my friend.

I live my life as well as possible. Even if there’s no reward and no forgiveness that can ever be obtained. That boat sailed when I made my first death threat. Hell. It may not even have been my first.

I’m in therapy to do what I can to repair my sanity for the sake of others, and for myself.

It’s enough to live and try to help others. I can’t ask for any more. It doesn’t make sense for me to. Perhaps it makes sense for others, but it doesn’t to me.

And that’s why I don’t deserve help from friends.

1. Bartender #1 was my high school counselor, who betrayed me; and #2 during the years of Zorn and Tharn unfortunately didn’t study counseling the deeply traumatized.

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With nothing in my stomach, even retching, I wasn’t afraid to tuck the entire Overherd (except for Lulu, drying on her rack and keeping lookout) in next to me. Even Ike. I fell asleep after my kindle began its oddly monotone yet passionate tirade about Star Trek: Insurrection.

Didn’t even get to the point of lights out.

When I woke up, everyone was still mostly in place, save for LRC, who had eclipsed the nightstand lamp light. So I still had the light, but it didn’t give me a headache.

No nightmares that I can recall. I still had one of my drive-around-aimlessly-in-unknown-country during the Years of Zorn and Tharn. But those are among my most survivable dreams.

Lunch is packed. I’m having trouble with touch-typing, executing steps in a plan, peeling oranges, cutting fruit with a knife. Handling utensils. Buttons even. Walking is like being drunk, and there’s a fair chance I’ll need to crawl down the stairs.

I can always drive pretty well, though, even if everything else about my thought processes have gone haywire. Explain that, gods! Explain! No, but I’m thankful regardless.

I would ask a friend to come help with the fruit later, except they don’t want to be near me with during this delicate time. Or have me visit. Or talk to me in any way. Or take me out anywhere. Etc.

Fair enough. Three years since a full-fledged flashback is not enough space. No one wants to help someone like me up close. I don’t deserve it anyways.

But on the other hand, my fruit will rot. Not sure what to do there; any suggestions welcome. Do they sell like fruit choppers without exposed blades? I mean, gods, from what I recall of TV commercials they sell everything. You know those electric can openers everyone says are useless? I’d like to see them try opening a can by hand with my incapacities right now.

It took a while to enter this in. Peckpexkpeck. But I have to put the save point to disk.

Dammit. I may not be useful at work. My boss pulled me as the team contact on all external projects because I asked him to do so… dunno.

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