The Mind is a Funny Thing.

I fell asleep with my socks on and woke up heat-sick. I didn't take my temperature because I also woke up really nauseous and didn't want to risk getting sick all over my bed because I used an oral thermometer. What I did do was drink a bottle and a half of water and retrieve my ice packs from the freezer, one for just under my shoulders and one that is a face mask worn on the forehead or over the eyes.

I had been dreaming that I had a migraine coming on with really nasty nausea, and woke up feeling ill. I was hesitant to take my zophran when I wasn't sure I would keep down water, so I've not done that yet. If my stomach settles down more I'll do so.

I have had a migraine for a few days, mostly low key but it was ramping up last night as Mom and I came home from running to a few different Gamestops getting codes for Volcanion. I did the math with Logan we determined between his household, me, and Faythe's household we needed a minimum of 20 codes for one per eligible game cartridge. Mom and I grabbed a couple of codes last Tuesday, and Logan had gotten a few sometime this week, and I think Mom and I grabbed the last of what we needed and if there are leftovers I will will over them up on Ravelry and to any LJ friends that play but can't easily get to Gamestop.

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While I was laying down with my icepacks my brain decided I wasn't uncomfortable enough and started delving into the past. I don't talk much about my failed marriage or what happened exactly but I'm going to for a moment. There are a lot of subtle nuanced things that happened but it ended as approximately this scenario.

Person A is closeted gay, and feels threatened by Person C being Trans. They refuse to allow any kind of personal expression that might not be perceived as female. Gaslighting abounds.

Person B has common interests and is met at a doll meet. They profess to want nothing but to have more friends with common interests, and after a series of short one sided discussions Person A moves them in while Person C is asleep. Gaslighting continues by both parties.

Person C has a series of miscarriages that result in a complete mental breakdown, not their first, and end up on anti-depressants contrary to their established history as someone with bi-polar disorder. The result is that Person C becomes malleable, easily influenced, and is less likely to respond negatively even to obvious abuse.

Any outside parties are cut off without prejudice by persons A and B when possible, with gaslighting when necessary to explain that other people wouldn't understand the unique situation that Persons A and B have cultivated allowing them to have an affair publicly with little room for Person C to argue or express any kind of opinion on the matter.

Person A goes on deployment as a military person tends to. Person B freaks out because gaslighting all by oneself is harder, and Person C has a support group that are desperately trying to help, despite all efforts to cut them off from Person C.

Person B resorts to new and unusual abuse tactics including re-triggering PTSD in Person C by keeping them constantly on edge and nervous about reactions with gaslighting and panicked responses designed to plea to Person C's sense of decency. Person A also out of no one knows why reasons decides the best way to do this is to apologize with an small personal inexpensive gift when they step really out of line even by gaslighting standards, and excuse their behavior as not handling Person A being gone very well.

Person C runs out of their anti-depressants and realizes the kind of situation they find themselves in, and is FURIOUS. They reach out to any friend they think they may have, who are confused but sympathetic, as up until this moment Person C has been incredibly private about what has been going on, due to gaslighting and intentional isolation by Persons A and B.

Person A returns from Deployment and continues completely unacceptable and inappropriate behaviors with Person B, assuming that Person C is still compliant and appropriately submissive by their standards. Person C demands that Person A make a choice, and is gutted when person A chooses Person B.

YEARS later, Person C still struggles with the seemingly random acts of kindness by Person B, feeling guilty about wanting to keep the gifts given, small as they may be, because they earned them by living through the abuse, but also wanting to get rid of any reminder of what happened during that span of time. Person C is deeply conflicted and it keeps them up at night. Person C decides celibacy is the best course of action to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.


I don't talk about all of that because I tend to feel guilty because gaslighting works. I feel like I could/should have done more. I feel like I should have stood up for myself more. I feel like I should have reached out to my friends more. I am furious that I let myself be abused like that. I am furious that I didn't recognize it as abuse at the time. I am furious that my youngest sibling came out for a visit when I was cycling off of the anti-depressants and took the Mistress's side in all things, assisting in gaslighting me. I don't know if our relationship can ever come past that.

I feel guilty about the less than a handful of things I kept that were gifts from his mistress, but at the time I truly thought she was my friend. The memories are tainted but the gifts were small and meaningful and that hurts.

This is not a topic of discussion I bring up often and I am not okay with questions about it, but I needed to voice what happened as clearly as I can remember.

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I am so physically tired. My chronic migraines are acting up again. I have a standard health checkup tomorrow morning and I don't even know what to say to my doctor. Obviously the first thing will be that I've passed the kidney stone, and healing is a beast. I've been having fevers off and on since before the stone was diagnosed and I was assuming they had to do with the stone so I'm nervous that I'm still getting fevers.

I don't thing Mom or Faythe are bringing home germs but I can't be sure about that. They are both really great about being aware and avoiding illness and sharing because they know that I am immuno-compromised. Faythe was over all weekend and while we enjoyed each others' company for the most part we didn't spend much time together in contrast to most visits. It was still pleasant but not the same as our usual visits.

I get a bit frustrated because I lose track of time and I don't realize that I've fallen off the map and am not checking in online or elsewhere. Time passes and I have no concept of whether we last spoke a week ago or two months ago.

This is the ramping up point of my hard time of year. There is no particular trauma or memory that I am aware of that makes this so. I just know from experience these are my danger months. October to sometimes January I need to check in and make sure that people know I am physically okay.

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I know I need to catch up on a bunch of your journal entries and respond to a few comments. I will do my best to do so.

In gaming things I am nearly complete on my 2nd living Dex. I plan to have that finished by end of today if possible, minus Genesect and Meleotta, which I only have one of each, and they are in my first living dex. I will get more as they come out for the last of the special drops this year. I'm missing about 5 pokemon out of 721 to have full dex completion (1 of every single evolution) not counting alternate forms. I have all the alternate forms in my first living dex but I've not been focusing on that for this one. If I finish the basics of it today I will go back and trade on the GTS for alternate forms. I would love to just have the whole thing ready to port over to Moon with alternate versions and all.

I'm still collecting all the forms of Vivillion, but that takes a back burner to completing the living dex.

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In school, I need to get up to campus before the month is through with all of my documentation and confirm that all of my transcripts are in, meet with and advisor and plot out my academic course for Spring semester.

I have had intermittent contact with the school since I missed the Fall deadline for enrollment but nothing helpful, so I'm going to just go up to campus one day with all my papers and get it sorted.