Sprains and Strains; July 3 2023

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, mostly because June was a wicked busy month. I had my kid’s birthday party to plan out and execute – it was a success, for the most part! – and our first family Pride parade, which she enjoyed thoroughly. I also finished the first draft of Trickle Down and did some revisions, got it hooked up with some fantastic beta readers, and…

I’ll be honest, everything else has been really rough. There’s a lot of stuff going on in my life that’s resulted in panic attacks whenever I try to leave my bedroom, my (already high) blood pressure spiking to worrisome levels. I have a wrist injury (confirmed to be a sprain) due to some negligent behaviour on a friend’s part and I can’t remember the last time I felt safe.

Life never stops. Good or bad. It sucks that the ‘bad’ tends to always get as bad as it does, though.

I’m just tired of trauma.

My roommates and I have been talking recently about the concept of ‘calming down’ and coping mechanisms. Namely, I realised a while back that I fluctuate between extremes; if I’m ‘too calm’, I’m dissociating. If I’m not calm, I’m stressed. The only thing that helps me find any sort of middle ground is writing my feelings somewhere, but really, what that does is bring me back from an edge.

Coping looks so different on everyone. Just kind of wild to think about.

Anyway.

Money is tighter than ever. I applied for a grant with my top surgery, but the timing is iffy and there’s a chance it won’t be approved in time, if it is at all. I really appreciate everyone who’s donated so far – it’s meant so much, helped me in multiple ways. The best news there was that I overestimated my goal, and that it’s probably more around $2500 instead of $4000. That’s about $1000 left, because we’re sitting at $1450 raised.

Please continue – or start! Never too late to start – sharing my GoFundMe, and every donation helps insurmountably.

But also, while you’re here, is there anything y’all would like to see from me? I let my newsletter fall to the wayside mostly because I wasn’t sure what to say there that I don’t already say here. Leave a comment if you have ideas!