So… I didn’t have the greatest night. It really feels at times like my body is starting to give up on me in really weird ways.
You might remember that weird paresthesia thing, where I’ll wake up in the morning with one of my limbs (could be arms or legs but usually legs) completely asleep, like a dead weight. I cannot feel it at all. No tingling. Nothing. Eventually it does tingle and feeling comes back but it’s always scary. And as soon as I lay down I feel like something in my extremities isn’t flowing right –there’s a numbness and a tingle that it very mild but is there.
While this is a new symptom, very close to when it started I had so many tests done. Nothing seemed to be seriously wrong.
Yesterday there was a new twist. I was very tired and fell asleep immediately, but from midnight to maybe 4:30am, I woke up with a start and a pounding heart every five to ten minutes. That gets utterly exhausting very, very fast. I was so sleepy, every time I went right back to sleep. It was like someone torturing me with sleep deprivation. I checked my heart rate many times during the night, and it was never at a dangerous level, but it would certainly jump, and this would wake me up. I can’t begin to tell you how tired and sleepy I am, yet afraid of trying to sleep again. I am legitimately worried that something is wrong but afraid of saddling us with bills only to be told “you have anxiety”. I don’t want to make myself a bigger burden.
And it could be anxiety, too. I stressed out a fair bit the last few days spent with family. I am very, very stressed about the rest of the year: two commercial commissions, a lot of due commissions I was hoping to get done before December ends, but having to take more to pay a TON of bills ($400 total) because this is just when a lot of the yearly things are due. Plus having to worry about the one next big charge in January (adding to that, I have so many birthdays and things the first few months of the year… it’s super stressful. Most years I forget about the stress of the first part of the year, but this time I remember.) Plus Tomoyo has been so sick. Even if she is okay now.
Just in case… no coffee today… I had some decaf tea, and I’ll probably try to sleep a little longer.
Saint-Germain’s route may not be the best route, depending on your tastes, but you WILL shit bricks.
There’s a double warning for this post. In addition to the usual spoiler warning, PLEASE be aware that Saint-Germain’s route may be very triggering for some people. He’s a pretty yandere bachelor, so if you’re not super into reading about a chick who continues to eagerly pursue a guy who is actively (though incredibly politely) trying to slit her freaking throat, I’d… skip this one. Lol.
Honestly, I’m so used to the padded room that American media has become, with all of its content warnings and such (which even I included here) that the sudden twist taken by this route had me whisper-screaming “He can’t do that can he?!” at my Switch screen.
No matter how justified Saint-Germain’s motivations are, you probably cannot write a route like this in an American game and not get canceled on some level by it, since, after all, you end up romantically involved with the guy (and a trigger warning on such a route would massively affect the shock value it has, which is something I personally enjoy, and surely am not the only one.) Thank God for Japan, I can still get raw unfiltered fiction from there.
This post contains spoilers for Code: Realize ~Guardian Of Rebirth~ so… don’t read it if you plan to play it!!
I really did not expect Impey’s route to be such a strong contender for my favorite. Honestly, it’s hard to pick a favorite so far –I loved Van Helsing’s, since I’m fond of that character archetype, he’s very easy to look at, and it was my first route. I didn’t like how Saint-Germain’s route began, but, if you’ve played it (I have yet to blog about it) it blows your freaking mind as it progresses.
This post contains spoilers for Code: Realize ~Guardian Of Rebirth~ so… don’t read it if you plan to play it!!
I’m catching up on blogging about Code: Realize ~Guardian Of Rebirth~ routes that I’ve done so far. I worked on commissions a fair bit while I was gone. While my iPad charged in between sessions, I gamed. ^_^
My route of choice after getting Van Helsing’s good end was Impey Barbicane’s.
This post contains spoilers for Code: Realize ~Guardian Of Rebirth~ so… don’t read it if you plan to play it!!
Now that my mom in law and her very nice roommate have Animal Crossing too (in addition to my husband and sister in law) I may make an effort to get my town back in shape… it really needs it. And pay off my last loan.
This is the outfit I prepared for our first hangout, it is really nice to play with a bunch of people who are all with you in the same room:
I got a monarch butterfly. I thought the joke for this one was pretty funny.
At times I tried to take cute photos with Christopher but my sister in law inevitable came to play the axe murderer.
When she wasn’t photobombing anything I tried to do:
But hey, that’s what sisters are for, right? I did get some cute photos of us together, though:
As well as some silly ones with the entire family:
I don’t think I’ll be able to jump back into AC properly until I beat Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ but I’m getting there. So far I’ve done Impey, Van Helsing and Saint-Germain’s good endings, as well as one bad ending for Lupin and two for Saint-Germain. Saint-Germain has LOTS of bad ends… =_= Four total, I think? It’s one messed up route.
I’m sure I’ll be blogging more about Animal Crossing through the month of December.
We got home past midnight. Got so much to do today, but by the afternoon life should be back to normal.
Even though the point of yesterday’s post was to shout it all out into the void, in the end we had a conversation about it in the car. I don’t even know how it came up –I’m sure I brought it up unconsciously.
Christopher showed real concern, but at the end of the day it seems there is but one solution: the way I dress and act justifies my bullying or at the very least explains it. If I want to not be dismissed, ignored, and mocked, I need to wear less colorful clothes, bags that don’t look stupid, and not bring toys with me.
That kind of breaks my heart.
A possible alternative is to be quiet a lot of the time. Either thing is very hard for me to do. The idea of buying different, “normal” clothes simply to be treated with kindness or like an adult is so bizarre to me. But I can be myself the rest of the time when I’m not around family, so maybe it’s doable. I guess if I have to change my appearance and demeanor so much, a part of me is going to be so depressed that I’m going to be quieter as a result anyway so it may be hitting two birds with one stone? ^_^;
It’s particularly sad because while I’ve always known that I’m an obnoxious personification of cringe, I thought my family loved me because of it rather than in spite of it. I’ve always kept this side of me hidden until I met my husband and his family. I thought it was okay but perhaps it’s been wearing on everyone else and that is selfish of me.
I’ve been myself far more than I ever thought possible for several years, so if the truest version of me has worn out its welcome, perhaps I just need to be grateful for those years and go back to being more “normal”. I just have this bad feeling that it will change very little in how I’m treated by family at this point, while making me very miserable in other ways.
But it’s entirely possible I’m making this a way bigger deal than it is. Like Christopher said, sometimes you have to present yourself differently, such as at work. I just can’t present myself in the way that makes me happiest around family. And just because that is a bummer it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Maybe I’ll try to not be myself at least for a while, and see what happens even if it’s hard. Maybe it won’t be so hard since I’ll feel more self-conscious about it now anyway.
Several more posts are coming over the next few days. I need to catch up on housework and commissions first.
As I write this, I’m alone for the first time in a while. I stayed behind while everyone else went to Walmart. We left on Thursday morning to come to Sebastian for Thanksgiving. It’s been a really nice time for the most part! Always is.
Once I was all settled in, I started playing more Code: Realize, and my mom in law’s huge, fluffy Maine coon mix came to cuddle with me. That was a first, and made me super happy. 💕💕💕 Long ago, he didn’t trust me enough to do that.
My mom in law’s roommate’s Pomeranian, Pan (full name Pandemonium) was there too, of course. Even she came to cuddle with me. She’s a pretty aloof dog, so that made me happy, too.
Thanksgiving dinner was delicious! That night, I played some more on my Switch before going to bed with Ricky Parky, whom I brought along on this trip. 🐯🎄
The next day we went to Incredible Pets, were I bought some stuff for the snails: some dishes and logs. I also said hi to the lemur:
He has a fairly large enclosure but I always wonder why he is there and what his history is… This is a large, but not chain pet store, that cares deeply about the animals they sell. Twice I have seen people there bringing animals they found somewhere to see if the store can help. So I don’t feel the lemur is there for a bad reason, possibly not even most of the time, but I also don’t know why it isn’t in a sanctuary. Maybe next time I will ask. 🤔
They had very friendly bunnies. I was able to feed one of them and pet a couple, too:
He do a sniff.The dark gray bunny was my favorite. I think in a couple of years I’ll look into having bunnies. I didn’t realize they could be so sweet.
All the animals are very well socialized, and for a pet store with so many critters, you can hardly smell a thing. Everything is so clean and all the animals look so healthy.
That night we went to Makoto’s for dinner. That was a huge treat as it always is. I also did a little more shopping, but photos of that will be on separate post, since I’m about to get all whiny and self-pitying on the rest of this post.
Overall, it was lots of fun, got to do some shopping and have great food. And Christopher was really sweet to me during the visit, which really helps, and isn’t always the case (but recently he’s been making a big effort to be.)
To be honest, during family visits there seems to be this undercurrent thing of… jokingly bullying me. It’s not at all new, and I pretend to be okay with it most of the time, even though that is rarely the case.
I think, maybe it’s me —it has to be. Maybe I don’t fight it more, because I think I deserve it? Even though I think it’s good natured, a part of me always feels that it’s at least partly prompted by some deep-seated dislike of me.
Because I am obnoxious and always have been, for most of my life people around me have generally either been inclined to, at best, openly mock me, or be a little mean —more than a little, at worst.
Sometimes, that voice in my head that maybe I don’t fit in too well with my family and maybe I’m tolerated rather than wanted, is hard not to listen to. I know I am loved, so I’m not sure how to balance those things out…
I know my husband loves me deeply, and my sister in law understands me better than anyone. But I always feel like I’m not on the same level as them —I’m seen as immature and nowhere near as intelligent by comparison, and not ever taken seriously as a result. It’s been said multiple times that I am “tuned out” by others, because I talk too much, and that I write too much, I’m too loud, I’m “special” (and not the good kind of special).
Sometimes I am a little jealous of my husband and my sis in law… I wish I too would be taken seriously, like them, and not be the permanent butt of jokes, a source of amusement at best, or a tolerated nuisance at worst. I know my mom in law is really proud of them and she’s got so much reason to be, completely aside from the fact that they are her children. I wonder if she’s proud at all of me too, but what is there to be proud of me about? If she talks about me with anyone, what redeeming qualities do I possibly have? I think that has to be rough for her. I’m going to be with her son forever after all.
I don’t know. It’s happening more and more often that these visits end up with me feeling like this. I feel like I can’t win. For example, if I try being quiet in order to be less annoying, I’ll be told I’m being grumpy because it’s not normal for me to be quiet. But if I talk too much or if I am my loud normal happy self, then everyone ignores me for the most part. So I feel like I’m bothering everyone just by existing. I used to feel like I could really be myself with my family, but lately, more and more, I try to be myself as little as possible. How do you even do that? It’s very hard, you know…
I haven’t always felt this way during the visits, so I think maybe as time goes by everyone is getting a little more tired of me and it gets harder for everyone to hide it. Or maybe at this point I worry so much about it that I see signs of this where there aren’t any.
I will say I’m not the only one who is judged or treated differently… last night there was a joke at the expense of someone else present, who didn’t even know they were being the butt of a joke and not part of it. That wasn’t the only thing, but it made me realize that maybe I have both a level and an expectation of empathy from others that doesn’t match the rest of the group so in that way I am an outsider and always will be.
I know it’s a thing to just tell people to grow a thicker skin. I think there’s validity to that advice. But I had to grow much thicker skin over the last few years. At some point, it doesn’t get any thicker.
CW: Talk of s*icide ideation past the cut. Just random thoughts, I AM OKAY, for the love of God don’t worry or think the worst ok? I just didn’t want to spring these thoughts on whoever is reading the post and might be triggered by them.
