#dbsa

"I'm sure Frieza doesn't mean it. I bet he's real sorry deep down."

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Today with DBSA

I’m feeling pretty drained after group today, especially since I stuck around afterwards to talk to people. Not that anything particularly harrowing came up in discussion or anything: just me being an introvert—being around people is draining and all that.

The actual group went quite a bit overtime today. We had relatively few people show up, so we tried just staying in one big group—it was still about twice the size as the split groups usually end up being. (Not complaining; just recording an observation.)

I mostly managed to talk about what I wanted to. I started off by explaining not much happened in my week: other than writing on this blog, which served as the jumping off point to just talk about it. I put out that I’m open to sharing my blog with anyone from the group, because I feel it might be a useful example, whether for the structure of a journal or the way I use it to deal with my issues. I even wrote down the URL for the group president afterwards.

What I didn’t bring up were my concerns with naming people. While I was waiting for my turn to speak, I began to have doubts about whether it was that big of a deal. Really, the only reason I have for using names is convenience sake; I resort to a bunch of appositives to specify pronouns without them. My convenience probably isn’t a good enough reason to name people in a public space without their consent, even if I’m careful about confidentiality and all.

Something that occurred to me just now is that I could just give people nicknames. I had sort of thought of it weeks ago, but back then I had been thinking of actually coming up with names for people by talking to them—like, in the event they didn’t want me to use their name, we could agree to some other name. Now that I’m thinking of it though, there isn’t really a need for them to consent to a random, alternative name. Basically, it would sort of be like how people often substitute a name if they’re talking about someone on social media. I’m not sure how I’ll do this—maybe just on the fly? Whatever, that’s enough about figuring out how to refer to people in a public space in a way that preserves their anonymity.

Jumping off from someone who streams on Twitch, I also managed to talk about my writing about Night in the Woods, specifically the things that I recently played through about Gregg. Doing so felt good; I was sharing something primarily because some others in the group might appreciate it. It’s also weird to think about how I felt though: as I discussed yesterday, there are plenty of times that I feel things that I mistake for anxiety, and I’m getting some of that. It makes me wonder how often I may have misattributed intense, positive emotions as anxiety, only to then have that make me become anxious for real.

Lastly, I brought up that I’m going to the Pride event this weekend with... uh, my two trans friends from the group. (I’m not up to coming up with names on the fly right now.) This prompted a couple of people to ask about them, since they had talked about having gone through a lot last time and one of them had quite a bit more coming up. I’ve actually been texting them awhile I’ve been writing this post, which is the most I’ve done any texting in a long time.

After Group

I spent quite a lot of time talking to someone new to the group; she ended up sitting next to me when she arrived. During group, when I mentioned that my blog was on Tumblr, I heard her comment that “Tumblr is a good site,” or something to that effect. Since I was attending Pride, she asked what flag(s) I was under, which I answered—with trans, since I’m unsure of any others thus far. She seems generally knowledgeable about the LGBTQ+ umbrella, and later in conversation she even dropped some anti-capitalist sentiment. Basically, I think I’ve found a kindred spirit and I hope she comes back; I neglected to exchange numbers or anything.

As I mentioned earlier, I also stuck around to write this blog’s URL for our group president. I even remembered how I didn’t get a text about the group being cancelled over the hurricane a few weeks ago, so I checked to see if she had my number correct. She also let me know that she had been thinking about me, primarily because of how often trans women show up as victims in the news. I appreciate her concern, but it’s something I can’t afford to think too much about because it would paralyze me—I notably couldn’t promise that I would be safe either, when she asked.

Anyway, she reminded me that she’s always available if I needed to call her—I had told her that I drove over when the group was canceled due to the hurricane, because that was easier than calling. I had the idea of calling her sometime when I didn’t even need anything: just to “get my foot in the door” for when I actually needed to call in the future.

One other thing is that another new person was a service dog trainer, and he brought along a dog that was undergoing training. Even if the dog was restless and whined during group, he was still a very good boy. Before finally leaving, I caught a demonstration of him, the man, training the good boy how to open a bathroom door.

The Rest of my Day

There’s not so much to say about everything else: I successfully met all of my tasks. I wrote that message to Wan, and I ended up getting a bit political—I trust him enough to not be too worried about it though. I also re-linked something that didn’t properly link in my previous message.

I replied to one of the comments of one particularly avid follower; turns out there’s a character limit, so the feature might not be for me. In that reply, I brought up how back when I started [actually] using this blog, some of the things I had thought I might write about would be meta: blogging about blogging. I haven’t really been using the “meta” tag much lately, but the concept of engaging with my “audience” is very much meta.

Wrapping Up

I’m tired, so I’m not going to write much more. I just want to leave a reminder—if only for myself—that I’ll be splitting day 7 of Night in the Woods into two parts. Ideally, I don’t accidentally play through the whole day and actually find a point to save and quit. I’m legitimately concerned about forgetting to stop before the day ends.

Tomorrow’s Tasks

Avoid blog activity tab; 0900-1500

Dance for exercise; 0930

KA: US History; 1100

NitW Day 7, Part 1; 1300

Thank you to all who bought one! We're working with them a lot more now! This is awesome you guys!

Does that remind you of something?

Well, two years ago Jack dyed his hair green for the first time for a CHARITY LIVESTREAM.

Yeah, it was again for the DBSA