My mom can’t stop talking about her new recliner chair. It’s one of those that lifts you all the way up, can lay all the way back, and has several other bells and whistles.
This morning she told me how she got it. She called lazy boy and told them what she wanted and that she needed it delivered and assembled. They said they couldn’t.
So my mom called the main number for Gallery Furniture and asked to speak to The one and only Jim McInvale, otherwise known as “Mattress Mack”. Mattress Mack is very well known in Houston for his philanthropy, and he is the owner of Gallery Furniture Stores.
Well. They put her through! I said, Wait. You spoke to THE Mattress Mack? She said “Yes! THE MattressMack!” She said, “I could totally tell it was him!” And she probably could tell it was really him, because he talks very loud and with a specific accent. She told him the same thing she told Lazy Boy and then added that Lazy Boy couldn’t help her, and she said as soon as Mattress Mack heard that Lazy Boy wouldn’t do it, he was on it. Lol!
My mom is set to have a medical procedure (as soon as the orders get off of some scheduler’s desk). I guarantee that she exaggerated the situation to Mack, and she said he proceeded to tell her how he slept in one of these chairs for three weeks following major surgery. I was laughing so hard. My mom and Mattress Mack had one of those elderly people conversations where they compare aches and pains!
The chair was delivered today, and she wants to give me her old one. Even when I go back, I’m not going to have a vehicle that I can put it in.
I still can’t believe the store staff let her talk to him.
I saw this cat on TikTok and fell in love. It basically lives at the Great Wall of China and is very personable with all of the tourists. My mother in law’s cat Buck was like this. He would just run up to you like you were his long lost friend.
In the comments of that video, most people who’ve been to China have their own pictures of that same cat. I love that he’s so famous! Some people actually commented to rescue him.
No, please never move that cat. That cat was meant to be there. That’s the reincarnation of an ancient guard. There are other cats you can rescue!
My benefits for my job kick in on October first. I’m going to max out my 401K and have health and life insurance through them.
My husband and I had a talk today about how the new insurance is actually a new opportunity to possibly get to see a neurologist. The symptom I’ve had since January of 2014 that I’ve called “anxiety” is probably actually a neurological issue.
It causes anxiety, but it itself isn’t anxiety. It’s a physical symptom that feels like a dull itch or static under my skin in my arms, legs and upper chest. I’ve also called it spaghetti legs. It causes stiff muscles and rigidity. It causes me to have some difficulty walking.
It has caused stiffness, spasms, and a weird gait. I am often “paralyzed” in my bed or in my driver’s seat just before getting out of bed or out of the car. I can walk just fine, but starting the walking process takes me having to kind of tell my limbs to do it. I’ve been considering getting two fold up quad canes- one for the bedside and one for the car- so I can use them to help me tell myself to get moving. I hope this makes sense. Once out of the car or bed, I would just fold it up and keep the car one in the car and the bed one on my nightstand.
It’s feeling better this evening, but it’s hit and miss. I came home from work this morning and tried to sleep but had trouble. Then I turned on a YouTube documentary about Caligula and decided it would be a good idea to fall asleep to that. It wasn’t! I slept six hours and could hear the documentary in my dreams/nightmares. When I woke up, YouTube was showing me prehistoric humans and what kinds of spears they used.
My husband came home and at dinner and instantly fell asleep. They did four stores today- I’m not sure how that’s possible. A usual day is two stores. They must have been really small hole in the wall places. I then went for a walk and got about 5500 steps. Hopefully in about a week or so, 100 degree temps will be a thing of the past- well, at least until the summer of 2027. My 5500 step walk helped tremendously
I had to get my registration sticker for my car by the end of this month. It’s funny how, when you get the new sticker with the date on it one year into the future, it seems so far away. Then, it creeps up on you so fast.
The first steps are to get and inspection and then withdraw $80. I lived in Waller county for two and a half years, and I think they didn’t require it. I know it’s been a while since I had it done, but I passed with flying colors.
Then I went to get $80, and I was ready. I looked up the tax assessors office near me and went. I always get so much anxiety about this, and I have no idea why.
There was a very young girl in the office with me doing the same thing. She looked about my daughter’s age. She was at the teller next to me, and there was no one else in the office. So I could hear everything the teller told her. The teller was basically scolding her, because the car was registered in Florida, so she needed to do extra paperwork and pay extra fees to make it a Texas car. Then the teller rudely told her, “The car isn’t even in your name!”
I realized, ahhhh. That’s why I have so much anxiety over stuff like this. It’s because I was once her. I was once the young adult whose parents basically taught her nothing about adulting. If you’re on TikTok, you know there’s a lady going viral right now for being mad at her 17 year old daughter because she wants to live in a dorm next year and not stay home to attend community college. The girl told her mom, this tiktoker, that she found the waitlist for the dorm she wants and was wondering what to say when she called the number. The mom, all pissed off and bitter told her, I don’t know, you want to be an adult so bad, You figure it out!
She wasn’t trying to teach her anything, she was mad that the girl wasn’t making the choice she wanted her to make. This woman must be around my age if she has a child that’s a graduating senior. A lot of tiktokers are calling her out for her immature brat behavior. I would too if I wanted to show my face. I would have thought that Gen X would be better at launching our kids to leave the nest, but I digress. Just simply tell your kid to call and say, “Hi I would like to get on the waiting list for ___ please.”
Anna also didn’t make the choice I wanted her to make. Through Anna’s life, she’s going to do that. She’s a different person than me. Seeing that young girl in the tax assessors office and remembering having the same issues (when I was that age, it took several days and several tries to get my car completely legal because I had no idea what I was doing- my parents were also mad at me for wanting to be an adult and withheld helpful information from me as a punishment. A lot of people on TikTok say that’s neglect. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s neglect when it happens to others. I’ve found that other people get validation that I just don’t get.
At least I now realize why I have such anxiety over doing these things. I need to recognize it again next September and just do the steps and do it. It really was a simple process and everyone was so nice. I just hope Florida girl is ok.
Kevin is so much happier working on the Austin crew of his job. He said that for the first time in months, he isn’t “dreading” going to work every day. I understand what that’s like, and that is huge. It’s huge to not dread going to work. I actually kind of dreaded working for gift card boss, whom I worked for in Houston between February and June of this year. She was a great person, but she considered me her damage control (because I’m so wonderful 🤣) and sent me to people who were pissed off from a bad experience with another worker. That was rough. I also had one pervert client working for her. Ugh.
Kevin’s mood is awesome. He loves this apartment too. He said he thought living in a large complex would mean hearing loud noises all the time and partying. But, the only thing we really hear regularly is the man upstairs walking around. That’s it!
This guy (upstairs) is a personal trainer. He didn’t tell me that, I can just tell. He’s always doing hardcore stuff outside on the sidewalk of the parking lot in front of our building. I think he wants to show off, because why wouldn’t he do stuff either in his apartment or in the fitness center?
Sunday morning, I saw him carry two cases/ 24 packs of bottled water up the stairs at the same time. Immediately I thought omg what a show off. Not two cases of water at the same time. I would bring a plastic bag and carry half a case or less and make 4-6 trips if I bought two cases of water. I told Kevin. Then later on, we heard him walking around upstairs and Kevin jokingly said, “I think he’s walking around his bedroom with both cases of water.”
Lol I can’t with my husband sometimes.
What were you doing on 9/11?
Well back in May of this year, I saw a therapist who didn’t believe key parts of my story. She would literally ask me if I was sure that happened or something else? She even second guessed me on the year something happened.
Ever since then, I seem to not know what’s true and what’s not. I have all but given up on the book I was writing that was based on my experiences working with kids. This is because I had to change names, characteristics and circumstances of the story. As long as the main point got across, it was all good. You need to do this to protect identities of people. This combined with the therapist not believing me about some stuff has thrown me off. My biggest fear now if the book got published is someone coming forward and saying “I knew her back in the day, and I worked with her, and that’s not how it happened!” But I have a pen name to reduce the instance of that.
What does this have to do with 9/11? Because why even share what I was doing that day if I am not believed? How Do YOU know that is what I was doing that day? I don’t have proof. The camera wasn’t rolling.
I just feel like there’s no point in me telling my story anymore. This is very difficult as a writer. I posted my dilemma in a facebook group for “women writers”. They were all great in their responses. I’ll post some screenshots later.
On a happier note, today is Kevin’s first day working with the Austin crew! He lives here now!!!
I was scrolling TikTok the other day and came across this lovely video of a person who just happened to be at Austin Bergstrom Airport when they saw an honor flight. I didn’t know what that was at first- it’s to fly veterans back and forth to DC to visit things that honor them.
I got it confused with an honor walk and thought they were going to walk by with a casket. However, an honor walk is a bit different. This is when someone is either in their very final moments or has just passed away, and they are an organ donor. The hospital staff lines the halls to honor the person donating and show support for the family. The family walks behind. If the person is still alive during the honor walk, they are extubated when they reach the operating room and allowed to pass naturally. I think most of the time though, they are already gone. I’m not sure.
If the thing in the airport was for a deceased person, the bagpipes would have been playing amazing grace and not that cute upbeat song they were playing. That’s why I got confused and did some googling.
I do have one gripe, though- the three people holding the flags in the front were not stepping in time with the guards and the bagpipers. I did color guard very briefly in high school, as well as a couple other flag holding things, and if it’s a military thing, you should coordinate your steps. Oh well it was very nice and would have been nice to see in person!!
This was my first attempt at denim chenille appliqué. I’m not sure about this. I think in a whole quilt, instead of these prototypes, it would look nicer.
I’ve decided that I’m going to have the lint roller out when I start doing patchwork.
Also a disclaimer- denim chenille quilts are washed 2-3 times to get the chenille effect, so cat hair won’t be an issue !!!
The main project this week is organizing my crafty supplies. I have been trimming the pen marks off of all of my 6 inch squares and organizing them super neatly into that shelving unit in my massive closet. I’m listening to Hannah Alonzo and Derrick Levasseur on YouTube while I do it. I’ll take a picture of the total organization once I’m done. I took all of the warm colored squares to work last night (red, orange, pink, maroon, yellow). The M-F 4-midnight coworker stayed over a little bit and conversed with me while I did them. She didn’t leave until about 12:45. She said, “My aunt used to make beautiful Afghanistans.”
Also on the to do list this week is to fix the tension on my sewing machine.
I’m seeing Anna tomorrow. She also wants to switch cats. She said she didn’t ask for Alex, she asked for Jordan. I was a little concerned about her caring for Alex in his advanced age anyway. I discussed it with Kevin, and Kevin was all for it. Next week on payday, I'm going to pay her pet deposit and maybe bring him there a couple days later. Or the same day who knows. JJ is a very cute boy, but he is an asshole. Plus, my daughter really wanted to bring one of her dad and stepmoms pets-they said no.
Trimming the pen marks off of my squares is the physical activity that I need to channel the ball of anxiety out. Like I said, when I worked with my husband, doing inventory in the stores had the same effect. There’s something about a constant repetitive task involving hands and upper body that does it. Cutting the squares out also does it. And sewing, as long as the machine works and the tension is right.
I love being hyper focused on these quilts. Being hyper focused on an activity like this that requires constant doing really calms my mind. When I worked with my husband on the inventory crew, inventory did the same effect.
I love this shelving unit in our enormous closet. It’s perfect for my quilts and squares. Notice how the ones I trimmed pen marks off of look super neat while the ones I haven’t gotten to yet are a mess.
When I got a comment a couple days ago suggesting that the bad luck I’ve had seeking therapy is probably because they told me “an inconvenient truth” that I didn’t like, I suspected they meant the fact that I married my supervisor. I was correct. They told me yesterday that that was a “concern”.
So basically, if I try to go to therapy to process trauma that I went through as a child and in my 20’s and 30’s, I won’t get anywhere until they persuade me that marrying my old boss in my 40’s was a no-no. And there’s an age gap but I guess at my age, they’re ok now. The problem was where and how we met. That’s a huge juxtaposition, because doing that job at the time and meeting him were all so good for me. There were two bosses above him- and BOTH of their spouses also work there.
It tears me apart, because if processing trauma needs to be done, and I can’t do that unless I sit there and get asked and asked and asked about marrying n my boss until I realize it was “wrong” then what will the end result be? Will I have to leave Kevin? Would that be the goal? There’s no way I can heal from past traumas that happened before I met him if doing so means leaving him. There’s absolutely no way. Going through that would be awful, and I can’t believe this is happening- but at least I know where a bulk of the problem lies between me and “therapists”.
When I was a teenager, they ostracized me for having parents that stayed married. “Yes your dad may punch holes in the walls, but at least he’s in the home.” 🙄 That was something beyond my control, but marrying Kevin actually was in my control.
Kevin and I were married by Judge Kranak on March 19, 2025. The judge asked us how we met, and we told him. The judge just said “oh ok!” And proceeded with the marriage vows. He did not say “oh wait that’s illegal” and send us home. And he’s a judge and that was a courtroom.
The way this commenter said it bothered me too. “They just told you an inconvenient truth, and you didn’t like it” makes me sound like some bitch that doesn’t “do the work” (“not doing the work” is and insult people use against people who do not go to therapy, and it’s so insulting and awful). And yeah, I didn’t like it! Don’t tell me that one of the best things that happened to me in the last couple years was a “concern”. I’m not concerned, he’s not concerned, and neither is anyone in his company. Not their spouses that also work there. There’s no concern.
The thing is, that once you start offensively defending your marriage, it looks like you’re hiding abuse. But I wasn’t aware, or even cared, about therapists’ disdain for marrying bosses until it came up while in a consultation and a brief timeline of events in my life. There was one I couldn’t see because of it. Now because of that, I have to ask other therapists “Do you mind that I married someone who I met while he was my superior at work?” The fact that I have to ask makes it look like I’m hiding a red flag in my own relationship, when in reality it’s because another therapist had way more of a problem with it than she should have. And literally all of the ones I brought it up with in “free 15 minutes sessions” took issue.
It’s hard, and it’s harder when you come across people who insist on therapy being the only way to heal. But I need to accept that I have to work at myself on my own. There are many things that I can do, and therapists can’t really come up with anything n that I can’t think of myself. Am I going to “die” because I’m someone they can’t/won’t help? Am I going to “die” because I did a major life choice they don’t agree with? I doubt it, but if so, then so be it. I have had the most joy I can have at this point at age 48. I have the most wonderful daughter and husband. I’m happy and I do not have any regrets when it comes to Anna and Kevin. I have done well, and naysayers aside, I’m going to do even better. I’ve done so much so unconditionally. I can do it again.
I then spent the night with Kevin in Hempstead and came back to Austin this morning. On the way back, I did a $15 job in Brenham and a $15 job in Elgin, both on the field agent app. Kevin and I really enjoyed our time together. My mother in law was happy to see me as well. I was afraid she was mad at me for the Austin move 😕
My elderly cat Alex is still with Kevin and will move in with my daughter when the move finally happens. Anna asked for one of the cats. I posted a video above of me being reunited with Alex after a month apart. He acted like he didn’t give a shit about me, but I did get some bonks.
At Kevin’s job on the Houston crews there are two new people and two more starting tomorrow and Monday. One has face tattoos and the other one refuses to do certain things until he gets a raise. And he’s been there a week. I know the Houston manager and his wife are bitching up a storm about these two.
I’m back to work at the group home tonight at midnight. Drunk text boss is having surgery today, but the mercury retrograde lady is taking all of her hours. That’s fine with me. I just hope she shows up to relieve me. If she doesn’t, I’ll pile the ladies in the van and go to dollar general.
Yesterday the 12th, I got my first full check. Ugh that was nice. I’ve been working over a month. The last check was the end of July, and it was only half the amount this one was. I paid my phone bill and bought a bunch of things I need at each store I did side jobs at. I also paid $57 into my smallest student loan, which rests now at only $250. I also sent my daughter an allowance on Cash App.
Now I’m back at my apartment in Austin and putting my things away while getting organized. At the last store I did a side job at in Elgin, I bought colder groceries.
I needed olive oil and got this deal- buy that store brand olive oil and get one free store brand spice in a glass jar. I have no spices here, so I got oregano. What a deal!
I got a comment last night regarding my posts about seeking therapy. This comment said that therapy worked for them, and just because I had bad experiences doesn’t mean that all therapy is bad. Oh absolutely! I just want to make it clear that when I am talking about my own experiences in my own space, I’m talking about my life only. I learned a long time ago that different things are good for different people. It would be a pretty boring place if we were all the same. My only intent by sharing my experience is to simply share my experience. I am not lobbying to outlaw therapy by any means. If something helps you personally, and that thing isn’t illegal, then keep doing it!
I thought that was assumed!
This person also said that the therapists probably told me “an inconvenient truth” and I didn’t like it. If that is true, then I would like to know what inconvenient truth? Perhaps they meant that I should not have flirted with my supervisor in 2023 and subsequently married him. Yes I know, in general, that’s looked down on. But it’s not like this was some corporate job, and it’s not like he was some politician. It was an inventory service for Christ sake! The latest person they hired had face tattoos! There are several other people in that company that got their significant others jobs there. And even if it was still wrong to do what I did three years ago? What am I going to do about it now? Leave my husband? Try and make me? You can’t, because the latest narrative that therapists are trying to push is that they don’t make people do things they don’t want to do. This latest narrative is in response to what some are calling “the trend” for adult children to go no contact with parents. Estranged parents are blaming therapists, and therapists all of a sudden are all about not telling people what they should do.
What they actually do instead, is they ask you repeated questions about your bad choice and if you still won’t comply, they “hold you accountable”. Basically, it’s telling you what to do with extra steps. One person called it “motivational interviewing.” The estranged parents who go online and start smear campaigns against their own sons and daughters are telling on themselves and only make people side with their kids more. But do I think they’re right about the therapists telling their kids what to do? Absolutely. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense to try and tell me my marriage is wrong. If you don’t tell people to cut off their parents then you can’t tell anyone to leave their spouse.
I’m not actually sure that’s what she meant though. It’s possible that she was just someone who felt undermined because someone said what worked for her didn’t work for me. That can be sort of threatening when you haven’t fully accepted the fact that people are very diverse. We should all be leaning into the things that work for us and make us healthier and happier. Sometimes, if I hate apples and you say, “I love apples!” I might feel like that is a dig against me. But it isn’t. It’s about apples, not the person. Hope this helps.
After reading this comment, I went to the fitness center and did ten minutes on the elliptical machine. This time, my back didn’t go out! Also it felt great! The elliptical is definitely one way to get the anxiety out.
Well Mary, your post about homeless people asking you for change reminded me of an old memory that was too long for a comment. So here’s a post about it.
This happened more than 20 years ago, because I know it was before my daughter was born. I was about to walk into Einstein bagels on Montrose Blvd in Houston. I had a $10gift card. A homeless woman asked me if I had any change. I said no and then literally said, “I have no money” which for me at the time, meant, I’m not carrying cash and I was also using a gift card. Back then, stuff was a lot cheaper and I didn’t know that you didn’t have to spend the whole gift card in one trip to get the full value. So I got two bagels and a bunch of snacks. This is also how you know this was an extremely long time ago. All that for $10!
As I was walking out with my bag, this same woman started accosting me “yeah right! You have no money but you got all of that!” I kind of felt bad for her so I just gave her one of the two toasted bagels. Then I remembered I had some loose change in my cup holder I offered it to her, and she said no, and she was very happy with the bagel
Several months later I saw her again at the nearby Walgreens. She approached me and asked if I had any change. I said no, but asked her what she needed. I can’t remember what else she said but she wanted rubbing alcohol to clean her skin. We chatted a while and she was cool.
The third time I saw her was even more months later. This time, it was pouring rain and it was outside of Walgreens again. I said, “oh hey! I have not seen you for a while!” I could tell she didn’t recognize me, but still wanted to use the fact that I remembered her to ask for something. She told me, “Well I got my own place now”. I congratulated her and asked where. She told me. It was about 3-4 miles away and due to the rain that was just starting, she asked if she could have a ride back
In the car, she explained that she was able to get the apartment due to an organization in Houston that helped people with HIV/AIDS. When I dropped her off, I didn’t go in, but I did wait in my car until she walked in. She had three or four plants on her balcony.
That was the last time I saw her. When I told my mother about it, my mother went and got her Clorox wipes and made me wipe down the passenger seat of my car. She still had the 1980’s misconceptions about HIV-AIDS
The home I work in has three other coworkers besides me. One is the supervisor, and the other two are older and have been here many years. The supervisor is older too, but hasn’t been here long. I just want to get this off my chest- I was always raised to not ever sleep on the job. That should be common sense, right? Not only that, but I was raised that if I’m on the clock I should “always be doing something”, even if it’s dusting the dust. These coworkers are in their late 60’s and early 70’s and were not raised the same way. That’s weird to me, because I thought older people had more of a work ethic than younger people.
They were getting a lot of overtime before I started, and so far, neither of the non-supervisor ladies have held it against me personally. I’m cognizant that that can change at any time. The supervisor works Monday through Friday 8-4 and the other two ladies alternate the 4- midnight shift and the weekends and my overnights off. I have three overnights off and work two 12 hour shifts and two 8 hour shifts per week.
Between 9:00 pm and 6:00 am, we are required to log hourly bed checks on the desktop computer in the house. The computer records your time stamp, so you can’t cheat. You just click on each resident’s name and specify if they’re awake, asleep, on leave, or hospitalized. Bed checks for people who sleep well and know how to go to the bathroom take no more than a minute or two. You just look in on them lol. It’s not that serious. You have to be awake though! That’s what the two coworkers hate. They literally want to sleep on the clock, even on the overtime clock. No, ma'am. I cannot believe their audacity honestly. I want to say something out loud but don’t, because I feel like the minute I do, they’ll start blaming me personally for cutting their hours. One of them, who the supervisor called “the whiniest person she’s ever met” complains because she has a mortgage to pay. I would say I’m sorry about that, but I’m not. People her age have hammered it into me that if I’m not making enough money, I need to figure it tf out with a second job or move onto something else. Younger me would have felt responsible for her mortgage, even though I may not ever be a homeowner. She also said that looking in on the resident ladies hourly every night “is abuse” and I didn’t appreciate that. It’s not abuse. It may be neglect if you’re sleeping by on the job and god forbid something happens.
This particular coworker wrote a long and scathing email to the boss of the boss of the boss. Like three or four people up. She thought they’d be on her side, but my supervisor said, they aren’t. In fact, it caused her a lot more problems. The higher ups don’t like her now. Oops. I told my supervisor that she said the nightly bed checks were abuse. Supervisor gave me a look and said “Well it’s going to be ‘abuse’ when she loses her job.”
The other coworker refuses to take the resident ladies out in outings in the van. We are supposed to. Like I mentioned, there is a whole federal law now that says institutionalized disabled people need to be integrated into the community. This coworker said, “Once I start doing that, they’re going to expect me to do it all the time.” Really, she’s been expected to do it since 2014. I told drunk text boss. If there’s a free concert they want to go to then just schedule me on the 4-12 shift and I’ll take them. Most of their outings would happen in the morning, but the occasional “free concert” is what DTBoss was worried about them missing. It takes getting used to driving a big ass van, but I did it a couple of times when I stayed after 8:00 am and took some of them on doctor appointments.
I have been through a ton on jobs over the years, and I can’t get over the things they complain about. The one DTboss called whiny complains about the hourly bed checks every time I see her. She says she refuses to do them and goes to bed in the staff room. She said, “What are they going to do, write me up? Fire me?” I didn’t say this out loud but… yeah. They probably will. She then said the only reason all of this was happening was because mercury was in retrograde. 🥴
I think back to this work readiness class I took in high school, taught by my sophomore English teacher. He would have keeled over from a heart attack if he heard their lack of work ethic.
I’m writing this out now, because I’m going in tonight at 8:00 pm and the whiner/ mercury retrograde/ bed checks are abuse lady will be there and I’m scared today will be the day she starts blaming me for all this. I’m REALLY grateful she hasnt! I should just hang on to that
Edited to add- I just realized that the post I linked below did talk about the therapist that didn’t believe me. I have been wanting to write this out in order to make sense of things and start setting my own goals regarding healing from “anxiety” and “C-PTSD”. I’m putting those in quotes because I’m not sure if the actual diagnoses apply. Back in May, I made this post detailing what I’ve gone through while trying to seek therapy. Since then, I have tried again. There was one lady that I saw for one “free 15 minutes session” and one actual hour long session. She didn’t believe my story. At least twice, she asked me if I was sure what I was saying happened and not something else. One of these had to do with what year. She asked if I was sure something that happened in 2013-2014 wasn’t “during the pandemic.” I didn’t appreciate that at all.
The next lady had a free 15 minute session and three hour long sessions with me. She was great until the middle of the third session, when she got this Jekyll and Hyde personality switch and started basically telling me to get over it and stop living in the past. That’s a very dumb thing for a therapist to say, because we can get over it and stop living in the past for free. We don’t need a therapist to help us do that. When I called her out on this personality switch mid-session, she said it never happened. That was even more of a punch in the face. Some people online said “report her”. I can’t if she’s saying it never happened. The session wasn’t being recorded. Whomever you’d report this to would believe her over me.
This last lady, the Jekyll and Hyde lady, also seemed to take away my diagnosis of c-ptsd (“complex” or “chronic” post traumatic stress disorder, depending on who you ask, but it all starts with C so it’s ok). 🙄 Her reasoning was based on the ACES test. ACES is a questionnaire you fill out answering which adverse childhood experiences you’ve had. It helps clinicians diagnose you with c-ptsd, but since it’s become more and more clear that it’s very incomplete and very unfair, a lot of them are backpeddling now saying “it’s just a tool” and all sorts of vague shit about what the ACES really is. They’ll say “it doesn’t matter” which of the adverse childhood experiences you’ve experienced or not, but it does matter enough for that to be the very first thing they give you. I actually spoke with a young man online who claimed to be a survivor of the Stoneman-Douglass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, who was told some BS because he couldn’t check any boxes on the ACES test. Perhaps surviving a school shooting should be on there, I don’t know! Also missing from ACES is bullying and medical trauma. It’s probably because the woman who developed it was a healthy bully.
Some of the ACES questions are asked in such a way that I am not sure if I can answer them with a yes or a no. One of these questions is, “Did you witness your mother being abused by your father?” Yes and no. My mother treated my father horribly, and he often reacted. A therapist wouldn’t recognize that as valid, though. It would specifically have to be the father abusing the mother one way.
Another question I’m not sure I can answer yes or no to is “Did you grow up in a home with a parent with mental illness?” My mother never went to a psychiatrist or a therapist, so she never got a diagnosis. She does, however, claim to have had postpartum depression for 15 years. As I’ve said before, this would only make sense to me if she kept having children but I was an only child. And does postpartum even count in what they’re describing there? As noted in the latest news story these days, postpartum is seen as a very valid excuse/reason for most if not all things. It seems to be used whenever women murder their kids. So am I justified in my trauma, or am I just a big uneducated meanie when it comes to postpartum?
The other questions are a definite no for me. Did your parents get divorced? No. Were they poor? No. Were they drug addicts? No. Were they ever incarcerated? No. Then, abuse questions come up. Were you physically abused? Were you emotionally abused? Were you sexually abused? I was physically assaulted by my aunt and two older cousins in my teen years. My mother often did as well, but a therapist might shrug it off as discipline, especially since she was not a single mother. Emotional abuse is written off by therapists as “You just took stuff wrong”. Especially since I could not answer positively to any of the four first questions about divorce, incarceration etc.
So when it comes to ACES, maybe I scored high and maybe I scored zero. The last therapist I saw said I didn’t have c-ptsd, even though I was diagnosed with it in 2025.
Whether or not I am someone who deserves to say they have something validating like c-ptsd, I still have the symptoms. You might think I’m just a bitch who isn’t grateful she got to grow up with two parents and doesn’t understand postpartum, and that’s fine, but I still suffer from almost all symptoms of c-ptsd. In addition to having what I consider (but you may not) to be a difficult childhood, I then grew up to take on very hard jobs for very low pay, working with children at risk and elderly and disabled adults. I believe this compounded my “c-ptsd”. I was forced to absorb the trauma of multiple children and adults. Again I’m putting my it in quotes because no one can agree on whether I “have” it.
This puts me in a situation where I have to come up with a game plan to get better, and no one is going to help me do it. I have to do it myself. Being in such a healthy environment in Austin now is a great foundation for beginning to do this. I live in a great place, have a great job, enough money, and my physical health. The only downside is that my husband isn’t here full time yet but he will be. Having a supportive partner is also an enormous plus when it comes to healing. It’s better than being single, but being single is better than having a shitty partner.
I have him to lean on, and my mother is 3-4 hours away now. I have minimal contact with her. I have a supportive friend or two, and my daughter is doing great. I really can’t complain. Therefore, I need to start working on goals to feel better. I have the perfect stage to do so.
Continuing to take a weight loss supplement so I’m not always hungry, and exercising every day is a start to physically feeling better. I get muscle symptoms in my arms and legs. It feels like spaghetti muscles when it gets really bad, and exercise helps work this out. Doctors will often ask if this feels like “pins and needles.” I really don’t know about that description. It’s not how I would think “pins and needles” would feel, but I can see how someone else would describe it that way? Something I can do every day is really make myself go out to the fitness center in my complex or the park two blocks away. I also need to keep Mitchell away from my earbuds, because I can’t exercise without them and he loves them! Since Mitchell came into my life, I’ve probably been through 20 pairs!
The next way to channel my anxiety is through my creativity. I have all of my 6 inch squares sorted into this shelving unit inside our massive closet in this apartment. I’m still working on an Etsy shop with quilts and wreaths. I also need to hit up Dollar Tree for more wreath frames. My sewing machine is set up on my desk.
I also have a spiral notebook for each writing project in my head. They are all chartreuse colored and college rule and were $1.47 right now during back to school days. I write a line and then skip about six lines. Then I go back through them and jot things down in the six empty lines that go between the thing above it and the thing below it. When that gets to be full, I start another notebook with five or six more lines between each thing that is now in the old one. The Child Advocate is now on its second spiral and I also have one for another book in my head, and my missing people who may be still alive writing advocacy project.
If I can just propose each day to do something for exercise and creativity, I will likely feel at least 20% better by the first cool front.
Physical things I can do besides take gabapentin (I can take it sometimes but not always)- bathe with bath bombs for athletes. These bombs are expensive, but they do wonders for the spaghetti leg/not really pins and needles feeling. Also if I find myself paralyzed in bed, just simply going out to my car to organize something or throw away a piece of trash will help the paralyzed panic feeling.
Cuddling with my cats also helps. Mitchell isn’t a big cuddler, but Jordan is starting to be. Alex is still with my husband in Hempstead and will go live with my daughter in San Marcos. (She asked for him). He used to be an instant therapy cat when he was younger but is now retired. Jordan can cuddle somewhat before he starts play biting.
If I can think of anything else, I will edit this and put them here. Ironically, this is the kind of list a therapist would help me make. And here I am making it for free. I’m just saying, why go through the hell of trying to convince them to help you when you can help yourself. For free! I have to adopt this mentality or else I will not survive! I hate being a person that cannot get therapy or mental health care, but on the other hand if I was a person who could get it then I might depend on them too much and have no autonomy.
One month ago was Fourth of July weekend when Kevin and I were anxiously awaiting our move Monday the 6th and me starting this job training class on Tuesday the 7th. I must say, we really did a good job. The only problem is that he isn’t here full time yet. They hired one new person on the Houston crew and are training her, but he will move here for good on September 1, whether they are ready or not.
We really did great. It was honestly starting to suck over there. The AC had gone out in the guest house, except for one specific spot to lay in if you wanted AC (it didn’t circulate). Plus, the guest house had an invasion of ants that Kevin took care of with bait. They bit me all over my arms and legs, which are now scarred. It looks like I was shooting up. I wasn’t.
My job working for gift card boss was ok, but very stressful to go to different places and families all the time. She was a nice, understanding boss, but it really did wear on me to enter different peoples homes so regularly and have to learn their routines. I would get this dread, like what if they suck and hate me? Being the “damage control” didn’t help- it sounds like a compliment, but I would go in right after someone had a bad experience with someone else, too.
Working at this group home is nice. It’s a little bit lower pay per hour, but I have guaranteed 40 hours, so my checks are bigger. Working overnight with clients who sleep well is a breeze- especially clients who are self sufficient enough to do their own house chores. This isn’t to say I’m without messy days. One of them has a propensity to throw up while taking morning medications, and this morning, she basically puked everywhere. I heard that she tended to do that, just hadn’t witnessed it, and she was already puking when I thought of the garbage can. Oh well. I cleaned it up. Then another one of the ladies insisted she was having seizures, but the nurse says she isn’t. I’m keeping a very close eye on her. She was ok this morning except for freaking out when she couldn’t get her shoes on. I simply bent over and loosened them and slid them on and tied them. She instantly felt better and thanked me. So it’s not all easy peasy all the time, but it’s much easier than what I was doing in Houston - because I can get used to these people and care for them on a daily basis.
Our apartment is extremely nice. I love it. The only noise issue is that the guy upstairs walks around a lot. That’s nothing. My husband thought we would hear loud music and partying. There is also security at night. We have an Amazon locker so don’t have to worry about package thieves. We have a fitness center. We also have a washer and dryer in our unit. I have only had that when I lived with my parents. Never in my own place.
It does feel like we are the old kids on the block. We are probably the only empty nesters. Everyone else seems like they are single and in their 30’s at the most. There are only about 3-4 kids waiting for a school bus in the morning, in a complex of hundreds of units.
Kevin loves it here, too. He literally can’t wait to start working for the Austin crew of his company. I can’t wait till he does either. I did ask him- please don’t volunteer me. I’m not looking to get back into that persè, but a lot of the people on the Austin crew are kind of old and have a lot of physical problems. I told him, if two or more of them keel over, I could help out on my mornings off/come in late on mornings I work till 8. But don’t say that until/if that happens. If anyone asks what I’m up to, say I’m working in a group home- because that’s the truth!
Some benefits to living in Austin- for me- being close to my daughter Anna. She’s moving into off campus housing 40 miles away from me in San Marcos on August 15th with five other girls including her freshman dorm roommate. I am so glad to be closer to her, especially since she prefers this area over the Houston area. Also, my side jobs, the retail audit apps, are very plentiful here. I made over $1,000 this month with them. There are probably four times the amount of those jobs here than in the Houston area, and it’s always been like that. And for Kevin, it’s going to be working on the Austin crew. The couple that runs the Houston crew has become increasingly toxic. Kevin can’t find another job as easily as I can, because this is all he’s done for 30 years. Turns out, my dad was right when he told me to have three careers, and all the other people in his generation were wrong when they said stick with one thing forever. There are benefits to how he did it, but I have more job security.
Austin is also pretty. Sam Houston called southeast Texas “The Great Thicket” because of all the trees and thick green grass. Austin is the beginning of the “Texas Hill Country”, so the grounds are less thick green and have more white rock under the grass. It reminds me a little of Greece, where my grandparents came from. In fact, Austin kind of reminds me of if a city was “3/4 Houston and 1/4 Greece”. If that makes sense.
Now that I’m not “just moved here” and “just started a job”, I can really start to set goals regarding health and fitness, money, side jobs, sewing and writing. Maybe I can do what some bloggers do and recap at the end of each week and month. In the beginning of 2026, my goal for 2026 was to bring my student loan balance under $10K down to four figures by 1/1/27. Well I don’t think that will happen, but it might if the rest of the second half goes as well as July did. Here’s to a good second half of 2026 🥂
