I recently got my meds in a working combo, gotten accustomed to using healthy coping skills and graduated from therapy.  It has been life-changing.  I’ve been able to not be hung up on my own problems 24/7, and I’ve been genuinely enjoying being productive.  I’ve been able to maintain good habits for weeks, and it’s really refreshing.  I’m feeling able to help other people even, and that brings me joy and confidence.  I’m not just doing these things out of guilt; I’m doing them because I want to.  When my negative thoughts come up, nowadays it’s mostly to gaslight me into thinking I don’t even have BPD.  But then there was yesterday.  Holy shit.

I’ve been taking care of my wife’s parents who are in there 70s now and have mobility issues.  Her Mom fell two weeks ago and dislocated her shoulder, and her other arm can’t lift more than five pounds.  She has always been the type to drive everywhere and do things, and I didn’t want her to feel depressed and incapable, so I offered (more like told her) that I would drive her to do the things she likes like offering her daughter (my wife) a ride to work on Thursdays.  It’s been a challenge, but it’s been great overall.  But yeah.  I’m still working on myself.  I’m not there yet.  I may never be “there” where I want to be with my mental health.

Last week Thursday, we were passing by Descanso Gardens, and she told me (my wife’s mom) how she would love to go there again some day.  Said she hadn’t been there in over a decade, and I said, “Well, let’s fucking go.”  😃  So we did.  It was wonderful.  It was the first time I thoroughly enjoyed an outing somewhere.  My mind was in a good place, my mood stabilizers were working, I was well rested, and I just felt generally good about myself, my family that actually accepts and cares about me (wife’s; I’m trans), and it was bittersweet comparing this outing to memories of every outing from my childhood where I had no say in what we did, where we were going, when we stopped to use the restroom, etc.  I was anxious as fuck as a kid, and my dad’s way of raising me was heavy on tell, very light on listen.  I HATED the thought of going on each and every trip, every bike ride, every hike, every vacation.  And even if I ended up enjoying some or most of my time there, each one was incredibly stressful and often legitimately dangerous.  So Descanso Gardens was eye-opening in showing me how other people experience these things.

Yesterday we tried to do the same at the Arboretum.  Got up, drove my wife to work and went on over.  Neither of us had slept much the night before though, and she forgot to take her Accu-Check thing for her blood sugar.  I wasn’t aware of that at least at the time, but we had eaten prior to coming.  It was relatively hot outside, hovering just above 80°F, and she seemed more wobbly than normal.  She doesn’t have much leg strength as it is, but she is not ready to use a walker if she can at all help it.  She has a cane that I never see her use.  I rested my hand above her shoulder pretty much the whole damn day, and got called a leash.  I’m like, “You can go wherever you want.  I’m not stopping you; I just don’t want you to fall.”  I don’t think she meant anything by it, but that shit hurt.  She frequently says and does things that rub people the wrong way, but unless you tell her in very direct and specific terms, she doesn’t think to care or worry about that (which is EXTREMELY foreign to me).  I made it through the day and enjoyed some parts of our time there, but she was constantly complaining about the heat and feeling lost at every intersection but so distrustful of my ACCURATE directions that it felt like she was gaslighting me every time I tried to help.  She wouldn’t sit down because every bench there and pretty much everywhere in the world was too low for her to get up from using her own strength.  I had already bought a gait transfer belt that I had bought as a means to solve this problem she has everywhere she goes, but she didn’t trust it to be useful and told me to leave it in the car.  I instead packed my water bottle into my smallish purse thinking that we could at least stay hydrated.  But she refused to use that too (only drinks the iciest of icy cold water, which I had forgotten about), even toward the end of our time there, having seen everything she wanted to, when it was becoming increasingly and increasingly apparent that we should have started heading out toward the exit at least 20 minutes earlier, because she was sweating, aggressively heading toward shade, unable to hold a train of thought, losing her balance, stopping frequently, etc.  We stopped by the gift shop, bought a bottle of chilled water and went straight home where I closed myself off in my room and finally let down my pleasant demeanor and vented to my wife via text.  She knows how stubborn her mom is; feels the same way.  We love her, but she is aggravatingly fussy and picky and always has been.

On the drive back to pick up my wife, I relayed the experience to my mother-in-law in kinder, less provocative terms.  I don’t like complaining about people behind their backs when patient, careful, direct, precise communication with them might actually solve something.  It was good.  She understood it, or at least didn’t seem to take offense.  The drive there was a couple hours, which meant we were a couple hours early.  So, we waited in the car, I chatted with a nice person on Reddit, and it seemed like the day was going to be okay from then on.  Then we went to dinner, as was the established custom, and I was made aware that the Thai food restaurant we were dining at was not allowing their customers to use the restroom.  😶

I am seemingly incapable of intentionally offending strangers in order to get my way.  I didn’t need to go that badly; I just knew that I would by the time we would finish eating.  I didn’t want to “make a scene” (in my mind) by requiring us to go to a restaurant that actually obeyed this particular state law of places that fill your bladder and bowels allowing you to relieve said bladder and bowels.  So, upset, I told my wife and her mom that I would go and find a restroom wherever I could.  I stopped in an adjacent liquor store and asked.  Same deal, they said the closest place was across the street.  I went across the street.  The kind person at the counter said theirs was outside and that they would buzz me in.  

Turns out it was occupied and after about fifteen minutes of waiting, I came to the conclusion that they were either dead or jacking it.  I just started heading in an arbitrary direction; maybe someone out there would take my piss.  The negative thoughts were helped along by my reasoning brain saying I just should have caused a fuss in the restaurant so that they would feel bad or annoyed enough to let me use their precious toilet.  It didn’t help.  That wasn’t going to happen.  I am nowhere close confident enough to do that or anything even remotely like that.  So I kept on going.

I later realized I had been heading in the direction we came from, just off the freeway.  There was a mile walk before I could find a crosswalk to go to the Coco’s, but which thought being a large chain of sit-down restaurants would have an open, multi-stall bathroom.  By then, my wife had called because she was worried about me.  I told her what was going on, she told me I should do that thing that neurotypical people do in these situations and come back, they would probably cave and let me use it, but that’s not happening.  I was frantic and pissed and feeling all the familiar shame and helplessness I had felt as a kid when I had lived with my (comparatively fair-to-middling) male parental figure.  But I was taking control.  I had made my decision.  It seemed dumb, but I was relatively confident I would get results and find a bathroom without upsetting a single stranger that I would probably never see again in the rest of my life.  I was doing it.

The crosswalk I eventually came across would put me another mile away from the Coco’s still though, and I opted to try a McDonalds, which was much closer.  On the way there was a Kaiser Permanente, and I thought that would be a slam dunk, and it was.  Healthcare offices at least care about the needs of your non-optional human bodily functions.  Not only that, I’m already a member!  So, I walked in, someone greeted me, and I said, “I’m new here,” (technically true) “could you tell me where your restroom is?”  He kindly pointed and told me, I went right in, I answered another of my wife’s worried calls, this time while on the toilet.  I told her how I was probably going to needlessly explain to the guy out front the whole damn scenario including the reason I’m even explaining all this (my emotional disorder) rather than awkwardly going right back out the door.  Telling her caused me to ugly cry.  I hung up as soon as I could ensure I was doing it without making her feel like I was doing it to upset her.  Convoluted for no apparent reason?  Welcome to my brain.  

I did what I thought I would feel compelled to do and left before he probably was even able to process what I said.  I felt worse because now I didn’t even feel in control of my own actions.  I did my best to talk myself down on the mile and a half back to the restaurant, which amounted to using a positive sing-song voice to talk to myself in second person.  This included talking myself down from being embarrassed about talking outloud to myself in public, even though no one was around, and even if they were, they would just think it’s weird and never see me again.  I held it together enough to say, “Eh.  So-so” to a passing bicyclist politely asking, but culturally not really meaning, “How’s it going?”  He was just saying hi, and I was just complaining to the wind.

I sat down in the restaurant, not intending to say a word, just intending to resume as best I could, still furious and embarrassed.  My wife said she loved me and rubbed my back and said that they’d ordered something for me.  I couldn’t take it.  They’re too nice, and I was too messed up.  I told them I was sorry and that I would be in the car, probably crying.  I already felt it coming on, and I’m sure they could hear it in my voice too.

I opened the car, and got in one of the backseats because I was aware that you could be treated by the police as if you were operating a vehicle if you are seated in the driver’s seat, and I was to messed up to counter my risk aversion with common sense.  The car was off, I had the doors closed, and I cried harder than I’ve ever cried in my life.  I’m 35, and I felt like a child.  I felt like if I told people about my day, they would see me as an effeminate manchild (internalized transphobia) throwing a damn tantrum over nothing.  I cried for at least a solid ten minutes, and it didn’t make me feel better; I just felt like I had to.  Like when you have to puke but there’s nothing left to throw up.  I just kept crying until I exhausted myself.  Then I was just staring at nothing, feeling recked and trying to steer my mind out of it.  Even my mind felt so weak though.  My thoughts were still fighting each other with limp arms.  All I could do was baby steps toward thinking about what’s next.

I figured it was okay at this point to just straight-up hate that fucking restaurant and its people because hate is at least useful, on occasion, in a pinch.  I thought about how asking my wife to just drive home would crush my confidence and further my worries that I had lost progress today, reasoning brain knowing that’s not how progress works.  The only way I could see turning this around was to somehow make it home safely with me driving still.  But every time I thought about this experience though, I would start crying.  My wife even came out to the car and hugged me and tried to relate and I just couldn’t do it.  I told her that I wasn’t willing to talk about it, but that I wasn’t throwing a tantrum.  I needed to feel like I would be respected even if I was not understood.  My wife, of course, obliged.  She went back in, and I stewed for a while longer.

I still wanted to prove to myself that I had control and I could be relied upon to do what I agreed to do for people.  So I reasoned that if they just don’t bring this stuff up, don’t distract me by both people giving directions at the same time and just let me use Siri to navigate home, I could do this.  I when they were done eating, they came out, I told them my plan, I made my request, and they calmly accepted.  I put 100% of my effort into driving as safely as possible, which included trying my best not to over-explain anything.  I wanted to make sure they were okay and that they knew I wasn’t mad at them or anything, but I avoided doing that as best I could because it would just send me into a negative thought spiral and distract me from driving.  I was better the last half of the drive and actually felt comfortable with enough to accept directions from them, turn off Siri and even engage in some small talk toward the end.  We made it home safely with no complaints or worries voiced by them.  I managed it.  Thank god.

I still felt the need to tell them all my bullshit because I like to be honest with the people I care about.  I like to make sure they have some vague understanding of what I was going through and why I did things the way I did.  So I let them pee and asked my wife to come occupy the same general vicinity as her mom was.  I had to stop them from trying to relate again because I just needed to get through my story, and I already couldn’t do it without crying and feeling like I was making a scene.  But I’m surrounded by good people in this house.  These people have empathy and the capacity for personal growth and willingness to support others when they’re having a hard time.  This is my family that I’ve been adopted into and I’m continuously grateful for them and continuously surprised by how well they treat each other and me.  I love these people.  Today was rough, maybe one of the hardest days I’ve worked through, but I did because of them.  Not just for them, but because they were there to support me this whole time.  I’ve lived here for twelve years, and that’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere.  I love the amount of stability they provide, and every time I get better I feel like I become more worthy of the love and trust they have always freely given me.  

And now I’m crying again.  Thank you for reading this.  I absolutely wrote it for me, but I’m hoping it also helps someone out there feel understood.  You’ll get there.  I’m getting there, and I never ever thought I would be able to live and enjoy life.  You can do this.  I don’t know you, but I love you.  No stalksies.  😋