The Third Thing

 Chunks of my adult and child life have been spent in figuring out how to say "the right thing". A trick that I found worked was: the third thing. Don't say the first thing that comes to mind, don't say the second thing. The third thing - that's the right one.

Trial and error led me to that conclusion. Some kind people, and some not-so-kind people participated in that process. But that process caused me to realize that I really needed to curate myself. To survive! Socially. And socially is pretty much it, man, survival-wise. 

Survival is so important. It's always been hard for me to think beyond survival. And that resulted in some pretty strange reactions to people and situations.

I listen to the "Something Was Wrong" podcast and often I find myself comparing past decisions to things the antagonists say or do and not liking how I measure up. Not so much the Faking My Whole Identity And Leading You To Believe We're Going To Get Married And I Have a Child When Nothing I Say Is True (tm) or Just Plain Abusive Asshole (tm) ones, but there are a few that are specifically women telling stories about other women with clear mental health issues that negatively impacted those around them and wow. Those hit different.

I find myself shoegazing a lot when those come on, and feeling extremely uncomfortable. Because, had it not been for the kind people I did find myself surrounded by I could very well have been these women. Okay, well, at times I was. I never did cocaine in my office at a psychology practice for weeks at a time, sure, but I was certainly a shitty roommate many times over. 

And how to set kind, reasonable boundaries was never emphasized to me as important to personhood until 28 at best, so many of my decisions were reactions against, and informed by self-medicating - not really reflective or considerate of others feelings.

Anyway. Happy Thursday. Still waiting to see if we have COVID. Oh, but still need to go into work just in case we don't. 🤨