progress, growth, direction?
*Photo is from this morning. Waning Wolf Moon wasting away outside my window.*
Christmas was rough. As usual. Had a pretty blinding realization of just how much my dad’s depression triggers my own.
But, we’re into 2018. Struggling with a few things. But hoping to find some direction this year. I started working through the book “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. We’ll see how it goes. I’m on day 3 of doing the 3 morning pages. Its been ok so far, but tomorrow I will have to get up a bit earlier to get it done since I have to leave for work a bit earlier. So hopefully I can get to sleep earlier tonight.
My therapist recommended I sign up for this course about boundary setting. Before Christmas, I had sent an email to the organization that does it, and then I’d downloaded the application form and filled it out. And I haven’t done anything about it since. I’m secretly hoping I’ve missed the registration deadline for this session. She (my therapist) has recommended 2-3 group therapy type classes for me to join. I have actively avoided all of them. Fear. So much fear. My social anxiety has skyrocketed. I don’t go out with friends at all anymore. I hang out with my sister, which generally has a toxic impact on my depression and anxiety. I saw my best friend for about 5 minutes in a parking lot right after Christmas. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen her since her wedding in August 2017. Her parents live in my town. She lives about 15 minutes away from my town. Part of it is that she’s very busy, but I’ve also stopped reaching out too. I haven’t asked a friend to hang out since… I dunno. I was supposed to go to a wedding the first weekend of November, and I was going to stay with a good friend overnight. But I ended up not going because of bad weather… That’s probably the last time I’ve asked to hang out with someone.
The past while I’ve started staying in my basement suite by myself more, instead of sitting in the living room upstairs with my mum and sister. My sister, who actually has an apartment in this town, and has slept at it maybe twice since November. She’s ALWAYS here at my parents. Controlling everything.
But, just avoiding and going downstairs when I don’t like something isn’t exactly setting boundaries. It’s just avoiding the people I need to set boundaries with. I really struggle with that. I don’t know how to say “NO” to family members. Or how to say “I don’t like it when you do that, could you please stop” or “I did not ask for your advice, please stop.”
I don’t know. Boundaries are hard. I know in some ways things will be better when I buy my own house and move out, but that’s two years away yet. 2 years is the best case scenario. That will work if I can actually save $700 a month and stop haemorrhaging (fuck this word and its fucking stupid spelling) money on things I don’t need.
It sucks to sit in the basement all the time. I have basically no natural light because the windows are so tiny, and there’s only 1 in my living room. I like being in the dark, as in artificial lights turned off, but I don’t like having no light at all. So sitting in the basement doesn’t help my mood much.
I’m just so tired and fed up with my sisters need to a) give us a running commentary on everything she reads on her phone while she stares at it all day. And b) her need to tell everyone her opinions whether or not you asked. Example: Yesterday I posted a photo of the moon and jokingly asked if anyone wanted to buy me a 600mm lens. My cousin, also a photographer, shared a link to manual focused, fixed f6.3, 500mm lens on Amazon that’s super cheap. I checked it out. I did some research. Made a couple of comments back and forth to my cousin, basically alluding that I may buy it for myself.
My sister comes on and comments “F/6.3 is very slow, but since you generally use a tripod for this sort of stuff anyway, could be interesting.” Which in the written text doesn’t seem that bad. But I can just hear the voice she would say it in it. It would be quite condescending. You know that tone of voice where people obviously think you aren’t aware of, or obviously too dumb to have thought of, the thing they’re talking about? That tone that implies “oh you are so simple, you can’t possibly have thought of the other details, so let me lovingly explain all of this to you since you are so simple.”That’s the tone.
What pisses me off about it, even more, is that I only shoot in full manual mode. Where I have to read the scene and adjust my f-stop/aperture, shutter speed, iso, for every situation. I INTIMATELY understand aperture and how it affects photos. She can’t even shoot in full manual. She shoots in Av or Tv, where you only set 1 thing, aperture (Av) or shutter speed (Tv), and then the camera does the rest of the settings in auto. So someone who can’t even operate their camera in full manual mode is giving me unsolicited advice about shit I understand quite clearly and offering her opinion on whether or not I should buy something I’m considering.
Like… FUCK OFF. If I wanted your opinion, I’d ask for it. But I don’t. So don’t go around assuming “oh little scatterbrained Briana, won’t have thought of these important details because she wouldn’t understand it, so I’ll explain it to her.”
Well… this has certainly turned into a ranty post. I guess that’s what I love about OD being back. That I have a place to do this again. Get it out of my brain and hopefully move past it.