audhd ranting

I go on and off social media every like, six months. My cyber security friends tell me this was Accidentally Good Opsec. I like that better than it being anxiety.

For however long this one lasts, expect:

- rants. I'm coming out of survival mode, fixing myself up, doing better. allllso I require attention so I must shout these thoughts. I'm AuDHD and support HAES, so expect a kind of "doing better" more about executive functions & basic needs than diets & weight.

- lotr. Permanent special interest. I will be writing a fix it fic for the trilogy. I do anticipate hate mail. I did tell you I require attention.

- proto indo European mythology. Mythology is kind of an under-studied special interest of mine, while rn I'd classify PIE as a recurring hyperfixation.

[note 1: I'm not an expert--not a linguist, not a mythologian. I just think if you wanna worship a sun deity, why not go to the root and cover as many bases as possible?]

[note 2: Much like Norse, PIE has a fascism problem; I have a problem with fascists with unpunched faces. I try to watch out for which voices I listen to and share, but please correct any oversights.]

- other interests: music (writing & enjoying), crafting (especially crochet & amigurumi cats), reading, writing, genealogy, video games (especially JRPGs and sandbox), and others. I'm also a queer leftist, and I'm maybe trying to get into drawing. And I like foxes. These things might all come up.

Capybaras and Porcupines are two of the biggest types of rodents.

I love capybara. My first gay date with a femme-presenting person was to pet a capybara, and I freaked out. There's video. I just kept saying "oh my god" while giggling.

There were porcupines there, too, around the corner--the Old World type, I think--but of course, petting them was not recommended. I'm becoming friends with another femme-presenting person who works in a zoo and keeps porcupine quills in her purse all the time, to make friends with; my cousin stabbed herself in the hand with one. Not very pettable.

Capybaras are chill dudes. They like taking yuzu baths and being friends with every other animal--even pelicans, despite that pelicans frequently try to swallow their heads.

Porcupines... have quills.

I want to be a capybara. I like baths, though I don't get them much these days. I would like to make many different types of unique, good, chill friends.

But I am a porcupine, and I hate my quills.

They stay put most of the time these days--so much more often than they used to. I need you to know and believe that about me. I have come to realize when they've been activated a little after the fact, a little after the harm. I am responsible for my worst moments... but I know they don't define me. Someday soon, I hope I will realize it as it's happening so that I can back down, smooth my quills, soothe my body, tend to my soul. Soon after that, I hope I can realize it before my quills so much as quiver.

I want to be a capybara. I want someone to be able to stroke my hair--to revel in it, even. I want people to be excited to be my friend and chill with me.

And I can keep a few quills around. It's not good to let pelicans swallow your head, or to let the Catholic Church decide you're a fish. I still need to defend myself and others.

Six weeks is not a lot of time to pack your life up. But it's so much time to doubt whether or not you should.

My soon-to-be ex-husband was always my fallback. He saved me from living with my parents. He was soft, warm, and almost always there when I needed him. Sure, he cheated on me all the time and in the long term, that was destroying me... but in the short term, things were easy and good and fun. Why would I leave that?

There was no use arguing with the part of me that craved his false safety. Other parts had tried convincing her for a decade, but she couldn't break that bond.

So instead, my impulsive part doubled down: she told everyone we were moving. She told clients and sub-clients, family and friends, posted about it in Discord servers. When we had a week left, of course the part of me that longed for him wanted to call off the whole thing... but the shame of having given up again would have been unbearable.

I'd let the longing part take a backseat for a bit while the impulsive part did what she had to do to get us out. And she's definitely made some choices that I regret now that I'm on the other side of them.

I owe my cousin everything for taking me in and letting me sleep on their couch for a couple of months. Planning to get out only worked because I had somewhere to go.

I didn't avoid that reality at all. I applied for health insurance in the first week, but there was mail fuckery. I got a job with health insurance in April, but didn't actually get to use that health insurance until June, so didn't get therapy until July, and now I'm in a 3-week purgatory between appointments.

It's so hard to keep the levees from breaking. I have executive dysfunction problems at work combined with interpersonal problems, combined with triggers I really didn't expect. I had one (1) relationship that triggered enough bad shit that I know I can't date again until I work through it. I have close friend problems, household problems... the family problems just sit quietly in the background for now... and it honestly gets more difficult every day. And I still don't even know if this therapist will be a good fit.

I know that I am consistently feeling better and more hopeful about my life than I ever have before. I know my quality of life is so much better than a year ago.

(I know Tumblr doesn't like timestamps because everything is eternally recurring here but whatever)

I fucking hate divorce laws.

In North Carolina, you have to be living apart in order to be considered legally separated. There isn't a form or anything-- just living apart. I couldn't afford to move out for a year and a half after telling him it was over, so we were still legally married. And in NC, you need to maintain legal separation (AKA live apart) for a *year* before you can file for divorce. There are no exceptions for abuse, etc.

In Minnesota, you can get a divorce while still living together, but the process to get a legal separation is a form that is just as involved and expensive as getting a divorce. Also, you need to have been a Minnesota resident for six months to file for a divorce.

What does that mean for me? Per the laws of North Carolina, my husband is legally separated from me--but if I'd stayed in North Carolina, I'd have had to wait a year to divorce him.

Per the laws of Minnesota, I am not legally separated from my husband. I either have to fill out the legal separation form and pay that money now and then do it again in six months, or I have to wait six more months in marriage limbo. (I knew about the six months thing before moving here--not the legal separation thing.)

He is the one who keeps the apartment and the pets. I am the one who moved 1,000 miles away and needs to buy snow tires with a TAX RETURN THAT WON'T GIVE ME UPDATES to escape him. He has health insurance already. I need health insurance, and if I put that I am legally separated on that form, it could be denied, because it is only half true. He keeps his doctors, his bills, his address. All of that has changed for me, and when I get a job and my own place, it may change again.

Over the next six months, every time I fill out a form and say I am separated from my husband, they can question that if they so choose, and they can doubt whether my husband and I are actually separated.

He is the one who ruined my life. How much longer am I going to have to pay for it?

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