ChILdHoOd BeSt fRiEnD: The Early Years

I know that I'm not the only one feels like this...in a lot of ways it feels like life stopped & in some ways (although not all) life ended March 2020. I can close my eyes & still see myself going to lunch with my friend Karyn & getting my haircut.

And it seemed like I blinked & it was life stopped. Thank goodness I got my hair cut tho, eh. 

Initially it was okay, I'd lucked out & had landed a remote job that has made a huge impact in my career today. But it was hard too. My grandmother & the youngest of her daughters leaned on me heavily. My grandmother is 98% blind due to macular degeneration & her only source of entertainment was audiobooks. With libraries closed & my aunt incapable of thinking of things like this...? I was burning 5-7 audio books to CD daily. Yes. I was going ollllld school here. I hadn't burned at CD since 2005. Thankfully my grandmother had this e-reader from the local Council Blind & it had USB capability. 

However this was quite the endeavor. I don't know if anyone has ever downloaded from audible like this. But it took 2 or 3 programs to get the books in a format that would work with the CDs/USB. One book took easily 45 minutes. I was exposing myself to my grandmother & my aunt on a weekly basis which worried me. This was incredibly frustrating as my aunt has audible purchased books but would not learn the process to get my grandmother entertainment. 

One of my saving graces at this time was my cHiLdHoOd bEsT fRiEnD hEaThEr. I hated that that was how we always introduced each other. Because while true on a technicality. It wasn't true in actuality. See when I hear someone in their early/mid 30s say "childhood best friend" my first thought are people who have been friends their entire lives. They've maintained consistent contact from when they were children/adolescence through young adulthood into adulthood. 

I don't think of a pair of people who were friends as middle school & high schoolers. Then one of them...honestly it's been 17 fucking years & I still can't wrap my head around it. One second her stepdad is taking pics of me as I graduate & we're celebrating graduation night. Then suddenly she was too good for me. I was really sick the summer of 2005. I kept getting strep & tonsillitis. As soon as I would get over one, I would get another. That was the summer my dad found out that Typhoid Mary wasn't just an expression but that you actually could have an illness, show no symptoms, & pass it on to someone who gets really sick. 

I have one clear memory of texting Heather on my shitty cricket & she's always been a really shitty liar....she pretended to be 3rd party claiming to have just purchased the phone & it's number from Heather a day or two before. It really broke my heart. It was really confusing I had no idea what I'd done & to this day, she never told me why she'd stopped speaking to me. 

When I think of childhood best friends...I don't think of one having participating in stalking & harassment behavior of the other. Heather & I used to have mutual friend K. This was probably one of the most toxic friendships I've had because there was always some sort of petty drama somewhere. One would get pissed over some minuscule perceived slight, team up with the one who didn't cause the slight & isolate the one who "errored". Things would be very cruel too. I'm talking spreading vicious rumors, intentionally being around the one being isolated to show just how good of time the other two having without the 3rd, intentionally making plans in front of the isolated one so they knew they'd be excluded & then make sure to only talk about how much fun was had in front of the isolated one so they still knew they were excluded. 

This was in middle school & high school. It's something that clearly has shaped my life as I'm writing this fucking blog. 

So. 2006. K (I'm not outing her - we haven't spoken in over a decade) & I had been friends minus Heather for about a year. Heather had been out of state for a bit & back in. But she was hanging out with people that neither K nor I were associated with. K was having a hard summer with a breakup & her ex getting with someone new. Without going into too much detail but enough that can be inferred...she made an exclamation that worried me. I wasn't able to get ahold of her. Being 18 a month out from 19, I did the stupidest thing I probably have ever done. I made a fucking MySpace bulletin (aka fb status). 

Yeah. I could see how she'd be fucking pissed. Even when your heart is in the right place, sometimes you do things that really hurt people. Far more than your good intentions could have ever been. I completely acknowledge that. To this day that has been an action that has haunted me. 

That said...K did like she always had always done when upset with me. She called Heather. Heather at that time was with a man named Ozzy Jay Bock, jr. I fully believe that if K had never called Heather, I never would have dealt with the next 4.5 months of hell. 

So after that MySpace bulletin...I started receiving calls at all hours of the day & night, I started receiving voicemails from Jay telling me how he wanted rape & sodomize me. How he would get me when I least expected it. He would leave voicemails pretending to be a cop - which his father was. In addition to this, I blocked over 150 xanga accounts, accounts that were just random letters, accounts that were my name calling me derogatory names. In addition to that when Heather worked at the EZ Mart on 6th St & Razorback Rd, she let K write my phone number in the bathroom of her own employer in one of those for a good time call ads. I still have those in a photobucket account. It's really sad that men actually call those ads. In addition to all that Heather, Jay, & K egged my mom's house & threw condoms filled with mayo filled with condoms on her yard. 

This only stopped because Jay turned out to be the type of monster who hurts children. Just google him. And for anyone who wants to deny this...I have no issue contacting the police agency that I filed these reports with to see if I can get copies of the those reports. 

After that, I didn't see her again on friendly terms until 2020 after Covid hit. 

Those 4.5 months defined my life. 

They introduced me to my abuser - he lived across from Heather, Jay, & K. Jay stole his identity. We met by commiserating by being screwed over by both of them. One of Jay's voicemails was threatening to have my Ex hack my computer and out CP on it. Makes ya wonder how Jay would have access to CP. 
They gave me a substantial amount of PTSD
They gave me agoraphobia that I've somehow managed to get down to only extreme social anxiety. I still have difficulty in crowded places, especially if they're unexpectedly crowded. I feel like I'm  suffocating. Like I'm drowning. I guess that's what happens when a monster calls you multiple times a month telling you that you never know when he'll find you, rape & sodomize you. 

Tune in later this week for ChILdHoOd BeSt fRiEnD: The Covid years

Another week without social media...mostly

I did make a couple of posts on Instagram...but I'm still going to keep them few and far between. I am, however, approaching 3 weeks without Facebook and I've made the decision to only be logged in on my phone when I'm out of town. I don't know yet when I'll reactivate, but when I do it'll will 99.999% be only on the computer. I want it to be something I am making myself actively do. Not having the constant negativity of news - in particular covid - overwhelm a large portion of my day has just had an overhaul on my state of mind. 

I really don't think friends and certain family members realize just how much covid has impacted my life and why I freak out so much when rates go up. It all goes back to my dad. One of his last Facebook posts was about how lonely he was and how he wished he could have visitors. Because we had no idea what was going on, we never thought to video chat him. So when a new variant emerges, when rates are 8-12k new, active cases a day in my state...I'm back to the CDC investigating our area for outbreaks in the plants here. I'm back to only being allowed to be with my dad after his passing, hearing machines in other rooms whirring so my brain is tricking me into thinking he's still alive. I panic because I worry about every single person that I love that HAS to go out in this...not to mention the ones that choose to. 

I can't really discuss this without discussing being back on an antidepressant. I really wish I had the words to explain what limited social media and proper meds really has done for my life. I've never been in denial of medications and what they can do for a person. There has just been a lot of changes as far as diagnosis and what meds I can take together recently. The new med has me feeling a little bit like the person I was before my dad died. I will never fully go back to that person. My life is fully defined now by pre Aug 2020 and post Aug 2020. But I am hoping that as I continue to get used to this medicine and as I continue to work through everything that has happened the last year and half...I'll continue to get more glimpses of my old self back.

Right now though, what I'm most excited for is that my home is almost internet picture ready. Even my office/guest room. If you've ever been in my house - you know that it's not nasty or hoarded, but it's cluttered. I'm depressed & I'm in the midst of grief/ptsd. It was always clean enough for my landlord to unexpectedly drop by...by all those annoying little things that we always let pile up. The ones that we were told growing up that if we do them every day really quick, we wouldn't have to spend hours doing them later? Yeah...I've almost completed all of those. SO many clothes sorted into donation bags. SO many damned hair ties FINALLY put away. It's like my brain isn't overwhelmed by mess anymore. I can suddenly see how to break it down and organize it easily...I haven't been able to clean and organize like this in YEARS. 

It feels good. 

The Peak Millennial

 I've tried to stay off social media for the better part of the last two weeks. I won't lie, I feel much like an addict going through withdrawal. Mostly because I am. I've had had my Facebook account since 2005 or 2006. Back when you had to have a .edu/college email to sign up. Somehow, despite the recent and continuous sanctions Zucc keeps retroactively enforcing, I still have my original account 16-17 years later.

Right now this is the longest I've ever deactivated in this decade in a half. As, the name suggests, I am the Peak Millennial. I'm 34 years old. I've got two bachelors degrees. I'm currently unemployed due to the pandemic and have been since October of 2021. August of 2020 saw me lose my father and since then I've lost the bulk of my BoomXer maternal family for setting healthy boundaries. Boundaries such as, please consult me before making decisions on my behalf, especially when I'm working 50 hours a week. I will admit here that in situation was under an enormous amounts of stress and when that happens things, that otherwise wouldn't, sometimes happen. That said, when confronted, the adult thing to do is to not double down, but to admit fault and apologize. This is something my maternal family struggles with. Hell, this is something I still struggle with, but I try to be aware of of it. I try to apologize when I've hurt someone like that.  

Social media didn't help during the pandemic. Social media just isolated someone who was already lonely, depressed, and suffering from a whole host of mental & chronic health issues. The first thing most of us do when we wake up is turn off the alarm and check our preferred social media of choice. Being in my mid 30s, mine is Facebook. And well I think webcomic_name says it better than I ever could...

credit: www.webcomic.com

It really doesn't matter what social media you're on, it's all one massive doom scroll after another. Honestly, that's kind of what it feels like being an Elder Millennial. Just one massive doom scroll after another. Does anyone else feel like that? I don't even know if anyone will read this blog. Who knows? 

It does feel good being off social media, but for the occasional odd snapchat here and there. My house is the cleanest it's been in ages. I don't know if it's the new antidepressant I've started or the being off social media or both maybe?...but it's like the clutter I've been avoiding just doesn't seem that overwhelming anymore. All the sudden my brain can see it and it knows how to organize it. I've been able to do more since Tuesday than I have in probably years. I know some of this is also due in part to finally being properly re-diagnosed as ADHD. But it's more than that, that re-diagnosis (a story for another day) was 5 months ago. This, this is I think my depression finally lifting a bit. It does leave me a bit guilty. But I know my dad wouldn't want me to grieve forever. 

I do miss a bit of the anonymous social interaction of the Facebook groups, but I think instead of reading that kind of drama, I'm going to try to start reading-reading again. It's been a long time since I've been able to just read for enjoyment and I used to read 4-8 books a month depending on how long/how much free time I had.

It just feels like my brain is clearing. I hope.