If you're here, you could be there.

Trouble getting up, but I logged in just fine. Refilling the girl's food and water, I smelled ammonia. I figured it was just that their cage needed cleaning, but I kept getting a hint of it all day. A quick Google informed me that it might be due to that lobe damage, might be epilepsy...I guess just wait for the EEG results? I was also nauseous for most of the day, but avoided actually vomiting, and that was probably just dehydration, because it calmed down when I drank some water.

I got a call at 11, but it was The Center instead of my therapist, letting me know that they wouldn't accept the paperwork I did with the therapist over the phone, I had to go through and redo it myself. I started on that when it arrived, and my therapist called shortly after. I made use of the notes Tim gave me last night and kept coming back to it, both to write down something he said, or to check back in on the road map. It was...okay. He's still trying to get me to go sober, which is understandable, but...I'm not really there yet. Tim had talked last night that my using is like StopLeak. It's a patch, but the underlying issues stay festering. That's an oversimplification, of course. It's not like I use to forget that Mommy didn't get me a pony. As I've mentioned before, my using is related (obviously) to my depression and suicidality. It bassically is just a tiny, short term death. And as long as I'm using instead of physically hurting myself or actually tapping out, surely that's a step in the right direction?

We did latch on to a couple new concepts, at least. I guess we sort of knew that my hyper-criticism (particularly re: me) started with my Papa. He never called me a failure, and was proud of me to the end, but he was also the Emperor of Hindsight, and pretty wildly critical even if you had no way of knowing the right decision. He also had literally impossible standards for what our lives should look like. We should be very successful, but not as part of the rat race. We should just be so smart that it...happens. And we found out (as Tim has mentioned before), that I literally don't give myself credit for achieving absolutely anything...except as it relates to others. I kick the can on all of my stuff, but I'm happy with Pupple, Lady Miss Friday, and my mice. Everything else I've always downplayed as either something anyone could do (because if I could do it...) or sheer luck. I give myself either check marks or failing grades. There are no Gold Stars here.

Allan had posted yesterday about lip syncing, and because I'm me, I really just wanted to know what song he performed to. It was "Silver Linings" by Rilo Kiley. I hadn't heard anything from them since The Frug, but I gave it a listen and fell madly in love. I might actually try to set up my living room so I can perform there. Move the couch or something, set up the cameras, etc. I sat there working and listening and fighting off tears for a couple hours. It did finally kick me to start the Playlist: Shoulda Been Big. Songs like Silver Linings and Break (by Adlt Vdeo), where it feels like a glitch in the Matrix that they weren't hits. Unfortunately, after work I happened to catch the very end of the video, and it alludes to the character of her groom killing himself. I'm clearly sensitive to that, and it fucked with me.

Ryan, far more musically knowledgeable about music, was of course already familiar with the song, and with Jenny Lewis's solo and other band work. I actually found out in researching her that 1) she was in Troop Beverly Hills and 2) she performed with The Postal Service.

Warren had also tagged me in a video from The Voice of Kelly performing her new single. It's stellar, and just makes me love her more. My mom was on a tagging spree last night and today, maybe bored or something. One of them said "Whatever it is, forgive yourself. You did your best. Let it go." It's important, if nearly impossible, so I shared it as well.

Bryan asked me to pick up meds for Chris, so I hopped out on my lunch break for that, and deposited my check while I was out. And of course on the way there, I pulled over there, rolled down my window, and pulled down my mask to compliment someone's dog.

Jay messaged me after work, stoned off his ass, but has decided to check on me every day. I asked his advice on weed as well, but that wasn't much help.

Lastly, Tim came over in the evening, since he was in Little Italy already. Pupple had a metric fuckton of energy, but eventually calmed down. Tim and I talked about sobriety, and then moved on to therapy. He pointed out that a lot of Papa's behavior constituted emotional abuse, and that my mum and I both exhibit symptoms of Battered Woman Syndrome. I veritably worshiped my dad, and the only real criticism I ever noticed or mentioned was the rift from my being gay. That's not normal. He's mentioned before that Papa's PTSD ended up inflicting PTSD on us, and after some research, it's apparently considered a subtype of PTSD. Pinning that nail on the head, he noted that Papa played my brother and I against each other. That...makes sense now. But my knee-jerk reaction was to make excuses for him. "Well, if he did, he probably didn't realize it!" Papa was a smart man, and he knew what he was doing. As "homework," Tim asked me to write a list of Papa's flaws in an effort to create a more rounded, 3 dimensional image of him in my head.

Unfortunately, that same nausea from earlier came back after I drank my Crystal Light too fast, and I threw up pretty...explosively. It was the second time I've been vomiting and found myself unable to breathe. Tim was concerned I might have a peptic ulcer or something, and wants me to get checked out. I'm not so great, or even interested, in maintaining my health, so I'm gonna take care of the stuff that's on my plate first, then maybe move on. And then I threw up again after he left.