morning / mourning
by nuu, maenoi, and noe
Monday January 29, 2024 14:01
(i took this picture and made this painting!)
TW abuse, family death
(i'll mark the specific sections)
i feel like an idiot.
part of it is starting a public diary lmao. only one person knows who i am though, so i feel relatively safe, but i feel like there's a chance someone i know could find this and put the pieces together by the stories i tell.
no one knows the names of my parts, or for the ones they might, like my host, we use different names. but also that's partly why i haven't specified all our ethnicities lol. i only know of one person with all 4, and that's my sibling lol. i've listed only the relevant ones because most of the system's names are lao, and we've been trying to learn vietnamese and lao for years. i chose this font because it supports vietnamese characters, and i hope i can eventually practice writing here.
today is the first day in a couple months i had a full sleep cycle that allowed me to wake up during the day. i've been sleeping through the day and waking up after sunset for a while. part of that is i've been having a ptsd episode triggered by living with roommates.
// TW ABUSE BEGINS HERE //
the last time i lived with a roommate who wasn't my friend first (i roomed with my friend mouse last year, who i knew online for 2 years), my roommate was abusive and kept my attention and focus all day, so i only had time to do homework at night. but eventually that didn't work anymore, and they would sleep for few hours, then wake up around 2am, when i usually went to sleep, and then keep me up until like 6am having serious conversations or arguments with me. it was physically and emotionally exhausting and i stopped being able to do my assignments and attending classes, and lost my scholarship that covered half my tuition, so i left school.
// TW ENDS HERE //
it's fucked up when i look back at it now, especially putting it that plainly. i was doubting whether to stay in school or not around that time and i was hesitant to call it abuse and defended them a lot (i have a pattern), so i never really blamed them. but if we didn't live together, i would have likely stayed in school and graduated by now. the scholarship was a big reason why i remained in school and that semester there was no chance i would maintain the gpa necessary to keep the scholarship. so i gave up.
i didn't really have a chance to think too much about it though. i spent a month keeping constantly busy with friends, which i know was a subconscious attempt to regain safety around people (amazing job, subconscious), but then as soon as my lease ended and i had to move out, life year got really stressful for 2 years.
// TW FAMILY DEATH BEGINS HERE //
i had to pack up my apartment and then pack up to go to a different state to visit my sick grandma ແມ່ຕູ້. i think we were meant to stay a weekend, but then she was transfered to hospice. we stayed to look after her. four of us were mostly in charge of looking after her: her only sister, her youngest son, my mom who was her only daughter, and me, my mom's oldest child. since my sleep was already weird, i took on the night shift 12am to 6am, between when my uncle usually fell asleep and my aunt woke up. she passed after maybe a week and a half after being visited by all her children and grandchildren. literally right after the last grandchildren came to visit, she called me and my mom into the room and we held her as she passed. my mom and i planned the funeral, and i made the brochure and wrote the obituary. we had the funeral, and then everyone left soon after. my mom stayed to handle her affairs and my dad and sibling returned home, but i didn't want to leave my mom alone so i stayed there with my mom and helped her a little bit, but mostly was emotional support.
// TW ENDS HERE //
i'm frustrated because now i can't even remember the proper terms to refer to my uncle and aunt even though i was immersed in lao the whole time i was there and learned a lot. i'm also frustrated remembering that general time again. i had to take a break writing, but i'm bitter about the imbalance of labor. i'm bitter i took on a lot, but i'm glad i did. and also i don't know everyone's circumstances and their emotional bandwidths so i'm not judging, but i guess that just means i went past my own bandwidth.
after that, i kind of flitted around to different like... care related jobs. i worked at a mental health and suicide intervention organization and did crisis support on the night shift AND staff training and supervision AND case management AND most of the administrative tasks. i unsurprisingly burned out after a few months. then i was a personal assistant for a disabled life coach. we did not have the same values though lol so i stopped working a couple months in. i then worked in the kitchen at a cafe, but that environment really reminded me of my family dysfunction so i quit when i got another job a month later instead of doing them both. the other job was childcare, and i stayed for over a year, and even had a team that reported to me near the end but i was getting really frustrated with management. they didn't work directly with the kids and had priorities that did not seem to be aligned with actually caring for them. i was trying to protect my team from the frustration i was dealing with, but that led to a massive burnout, and may not have been necessary at all. maybe i was just experiencing autism specific workplace issues. i also was the only person still masking at work. some of the kids still masked, but none of my coworkers. and i was watching the kids get sick over and over, some with severe infections, one even having to be in the emergency room for a week. he was ok, but there was a real possibility he wouldn't be. he was just 5 at the time.
and now here i am lol. i've been unemployed for almost a year both recovering from burnout and trying to figure out where to go next. i think the only thing i can do is art, not in an "i'm not good at anything else" way but instead "i can't bear to do anything else." and maybe this sounds crazy but i think i have to go to the lao buddhist temple i took a picture of/painted. i think i have to do a much larger art project on it.
and so haha. this blog has become morning pages (from the artist's way). i feel silly that it's public but i feel more inspired to maintain this than a physical journal so. i guess we'll lean into it.