Credit Card Debt Doldrums

Not a place I ever wanted to find myself again.

I do not leap out of bed on Wednesdays eager to write about grief.

I want to avoid it just like everyone else.

Which is why I have committed to writing about grief every Wednesday. Despite low-level dreading it.

I also low-level dread running.

Until I push through the dread and get hooked on the endorphins.

How and why do we do hard things?

I do hard things because I was raised by parents addicted to doing hard things.

I do hard things because hard things get harder the longer you don't do them.

I do hard things to show others they can do hard things.

I am addicted to doing hard things and perpetually make hard things harder for myself. Each time something hard starts being easy I look for a way to make it harder again.

People have made things harder for me my entire life. Training me. Conditioning me. Grooming me.

People, starting with my parents, constantly made things harder for me each time I mastered something.

Not "wow, you did this!" but "what you can you do next?"

Teachers followed. Then friends, boyfriends, employers.

"Wait, you can do this, too?" What else can you do? How much more can you take on? What else can I offload?"

Opportunity shining in their eyes. Stupid me mistaking it for appreciation.

That is something I definitely have grief about. How much I "let" others take advantage of me.

And how many retarded supposed helpers shamed me for a neurological trauma lock wired in me from birth.

The absence of empathy among therapists and coaches in my past is abhorrent. The amount of money I have spent to have others work their unresolved trauma out on me. OMfG.

G R I E F.

I do not enjoy feeling stupid. Connected to why I haven't been able to read my writing yet. Because anything I write before today feels stupid and immature. My thinking has since evolved.

I dislike feeling stupid and immature.

Like, a lot.

As a kid who skipped the 4th grade, I've been trying since I was nine to not appear stupid and immature. In rooms where I was younger and less experienced than everyone around me. And already stood out more than I wanted to for any number of other reasons.

I didn’t want to stand out for looking stupid or immature.

I didn’t want to stand out period. I wanted to blend in.

So I shut up. I listened a lot more than I talked. Much less risk of looking stupid or immature when silent. Keep others talking and they don’t notice you aren’t talking. Most humans need to talk more than they do.

Turns out this is an asset in journalism. People can't help but talk to me. They spill without meaning to. Because I make people feel safe. And I mirror back the parts of themselves they like.

People who feel safe share things.

People who feel unsafe are less likely to share things. This is scarcity mindset driven by fear. Sometimes because of true scarcity of resources. Sometimes because of fear of potential scarcity.

I look forward to getting out of financial insecurity and being able to share more and more things with more and more people.

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