No wonder I sobbed for three days

Children don’t want to break off their relationship with their parents, whether that child is twenty-five or sixty-five. The Still Face Experiment by Dr Edward Tronick in 1975 showed babies will attempt to fix a bond with their caregiver.

"An infant, after three minutes of 'interaction' with a non-responsive expressionless mother, rapidly sobers and grows wary. He makes repeated attempts to get the interaction into its usual reciprocal pattern. When these attempts fail, the infant withdraws [and] orients his face and body away from his mother with a withdrawn, hopeless facial expression." — Edward Tronick

When the mother goes back to being attentive and expressive, the infant is overjoyed. This experiment shows our need for connection with our parents starts very early in life. Much like the infants in this experiment, as a grown-up child I would feel overjoyed if my parents apologised and proved they had changed.

Maybe these children leave their parents because they are brave, not because they are ungrateful brats. Maybe they gave their parents plenty of chances to repair their bond.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/lifestyle/familyandrelationships/i-have-no-idea-what-ive-done-wrong-why-i-distrust-parents-of-estranged-children/ar-BB17K0ml?ocid=sf

Humans need humane men

https://www.pittwire.pitt.edu/news/study-men-scoring-higher-man-box-scale-are-prone-violence-mental-illness

To help clinicians more efficiently monitor their male patients’ attitudes, the researchers developed a shorter version of the survey including only the five items that had the strongest associations with violence and poor mental health:

1. A man shouldn’t have to do household chores.
2. Men should use violence to get respect if necessary.
3. A real man should have as many sexual partners as he can.
4. A man who talks a lot about his worries, fears, and problems shouldn’t really get respect.
5. A gay guy is not a “real man.”   

Function follows feet.

Fucking knees hurt so badly after a day at work with 14K steps. Feet hurt intermittently. At least I was useful.

My value in life is surely to be of use.

Eat the rich, however bad they taste

"So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists."
- G. K. Chesterton
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

Via Whiskey River

Remarkably comfortable

Started wearing a corset last week. It seems to help my poor back, improved posture. Costume history and research.

And I have a bit of a waist again, which is good for my head.

River of piss

Dreamed I smelled cat urine, and saw that Moby had peed in the dining room, a puddled stream half way across the room, squatted at one end. And I was anguished that we'd let him get that ill that he was so completely incontinent. Dylan was glad to see him alive, but I had to take him aside and say "We are hallucinating. Moby died in my arms right here months ago. This isn't real."

I'm still grieving. I weep. I don't miss the piss, but I will never stop missing the great soul of that cat.

Dealing with the public

I've yet to find a way to get people to talk more quietly to the voices in their head.

-Dylan

And the work goes on and on and on

That last post from Captain Awkward, of course.

Still in foot pain, still exhausted, still marginally self-destructive.

I want to be well and full and energetic. I can work toward that.

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda....

If “should” is somebody’s only argument for spending time together as a family, like “Look this Family Tree is basically a binding contractual Org Chart that means that you have to do what I want and I get to treat you however I want and you still have to love me and show up for me, forever” and they have nothing else to offer, or they insist that anything nice or fun also has to come with a bunch of vitriol and blame and unkindness? Maybe that’s a shitty bargain and you get to opt the hell out and join our union, the union of adults who can’t undo the damage of childhood but who can refuse to accept ongoing harm as a condition of having a family. “The Fuck-Its Local 101.”

Fuck should.

Be.

When sleep isn't enough

Woke up wondering if I'm ever going to be well again. Relived Moby's last minutes, and wept a bit. But then I've been breaking out in sobs a lot recently, not always with a specific reason. Grief/exhaustion/virus crying. Best not to be at work for this.

Chatted with neighbor this morning, too. He's worried about the world, as am I, so we consoled each other. I petted Spike - his silver schnauzer-mix-rescue, which is always a happy for both of us.

Feeling the fatalism, twenty or so more years, which is too much, not enough, how can I go on that much longer, let it not be that long, oh no not that little left...

It's the fatigue talking, I know.

Dropping the baggage

Broken toe, broken wrist, death of Moby, death of mother, death of co-worker, fired scrub, two new bullies, long hours, bad virus.

Falling back, tactical retreat. Eventually everything fails apart.

Yes, I wrote that as I intended.