Birthday “Galentine’s” Adventure to WeHo

Soooo it’s my birthday! Or was. Or is? I guess technically it ended 5 hours ago.

I never know when to say my birthday is. I used to say it was the day after Valentine’s Day, the 15th. The 15th is in fact my real birthday. However, on my birth certificate it says my birthday is the 16th. So, all of my official documents and ID and all that say the 16th, but my whole life I’ve celebrated on the 15th. I told Michael we should just start celebrating on the 16th from now on, so that’s what we’re going to do.

I received many kind happy birthday messages from friends.

Me and my two besties went to West Hollywood for a drag show to see my favorite queen, Trixie Mattel!

But we didn’t see her. 🙁

We got there early, waited in line, they let us in at 9 and then we stood there for 3 hours til the show started! And that would be fine, except this place was packed to the gils! You couldn’t go to the bar or to the bathroom, it was really that ass-to-elbow. So we stuck it out like champs and made friends with the people around us. Though the show did eventually start, at about 1:30 I turned to the girls and was like…” y’all, I can’t do this anymore.” And they laughed and let out a huge breath and said, “US TOO! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

So we walked next door and had a margarita on the patio before we all headed home.

Call me old fashioned, but you just can’t make people stand in the exact same spot for 3 hours before the show starts. That’s ludicrous! I’ve been to many shows of all kinds. I worked at a music venue for 10 years. If you’re gonna pack the house so tight that no one can move around and the bar and bathroom are inaccessible, you gotta get the dang show on the road, people! When I worked at the venue, doors opened at whatever time and show usually started an hour after. Doors at 9, show at 10.

Well, it’s a shame we didn’t see Trixie, but I still had a really great time with my friends and I know it’s something we’ll laugh about for years.

The next day Mina came over and helped me with something I’ve been putting off for years–going through all my clothes. I have SO much clothes! I have a ton of really special vintage items, but I also have a lot of clothes from my anorexic-cocaine days when I was an obscene size 4. I’ve been holding on to those for too long. Then the rest of my regular clothes were packed up because I couldn’t wear them while I was pregnant. So I needed to pull those out, sort them, and pack up my maternity clothes. It was a feat! But we got most of it done.

It made me realize how important it is to ask for help, and just how important help really is. I don’t have any help. I don’t mean that in a self-pity way. I mean it quite literally. My father has passed. I’ve gone no-contact with my abusive mother, as a result my siblings are not speaking to me, and because I moved here right before the pandemic, I don’t have any social support. Also, Michael’s parents are not in the picture, really either. His father is unstable and his mother is a basket case if I’m quite honest. The two times she’s come over it’s been pure chaos. She says she wants to come over more but she has anxiety about driving and is “sick” a lot. 🤔 It’s really just the two of us.

When you throw my disability into the mix, it’s really hard. It takes a big toll on us. It’s almost impossible to make plans because it’s hard to know if I’ll be having a pain flair up that day or not. I have to take things one day at a time. When my body feels good, I do stuff. When it doesn’t, I don’t.

It’s hard on me mentally when the chores pile up and the house gets into disarray. The clutter activates my anxiety and I kind of freeze up.

I’ve learned through therapy that the reason this happens is because my brain has been conditioned in a way that makes decision making hard. When I was little, I was always in trouble. My mom projected all her pain and anger onto me, so any decision I made was always the wrong one and I got yelled at. Even when I tried to do something helpful like clean the house, I always ended up getting yelled at because I did it wrong. That’s why today even making the smallest decisions can debilitate me. My brain thinks that no matter what choice I make, there’s going to be dire consequences, so it doesn’t let me make any as a kind of form of protection. I’m working through this and it is getting better, and it was so nice to have Mina there with me because she helped me make those choices and also she understands anxiety. She didn’t push me or make us go too fast, and she respected my weird requests about things to keep it all organized in my mind so I didn’t get overwhelmed.

When I write about my anxiety, my negative thinking kicks in and I tell myself that I’m pathetic. Learning more and more about CPTSD is helping me so much. I understand why I do the things I do, and I understand why I react the way I do to those things. I know that inner voice telling me I’m pathetic is my mother’s voice, not my own, so I can welcome it and let it dissipate instead of internalizing it and really taking it to heart.