erika | Entries tagged with dreamwidth

The response to my post meant that I had the funding I needed for the emergency shit (that had to be paid within the next 4 days) within the first 4 hours of my plea. I see this as such a manifestation of love that I feel truly overwhelmed.

Even now I'm completely tongue-tied and I can only pray that this doesn't offend anyone, but the only way I can describe how I felt was to tell you what happen when Josh saw my paypal account history and he wanted to know what that was.

I said I'd asked my friends on dreamwidth (and lj) for donations that they could reasonably spare. He looked at the transaction history of more than 20 people and amounts ranging from 3 dollars to more than 50 times that... and said:

"Look, I want you to look at that."

And I couldn't, because my eyes were blurred and my glasses fogged from sudden precipitation, but he knelt down and whispered in my ear.

"Erika, sweetheart, you give until it hurts because you're scared that people will reject you if you need something. But this is what happens when you need something: we love you back.

"Look at how much love there is. Look at how many notes you've received that say nothing but "Pay it forward" or "Best wishes", baby. Look at how many people are so generous with their hard won funds, that they send you the amount they can, even though you know times are so hard right now. Imagine how many other people would have done it if they could have, who are holding you in their thoughts right now."

I love you so much, he said. I just wish you could see how worthy you are of all good things.

And, god help me, for a minute there, I really did connect with how universally we all deserve to be loved, myself just as much. And when I came back to myself, I was clinging to Josh and crying, and he'd taken my glasses off and was kissing my forehead.

If any of the people who made a donation would like to get in touch with me further, I would like to thank you personally, but of course it's not necessary. You can PM me on dreamwidth or livejournal, anonymous commenting is turned on and screened if you prefer to remain anonymous, and you can always email me at erika@dreamwidth.org as well.

Should you prefer to remain anonymous to the extent possible, which is more than okay, I won't contact you further. I just wanted to let you know simply know that all the donations I received I treasure and will pay forward, and both of us (and probably the dogs too) appreciate down to the very soul the concrete manifestations of good wishes from my friends and from strangers.

The dogs thank you because Mommy being less freaked out = more time for snuggling.

( images of me as I was this morning )

Current Mood: giddy
Current Music: Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive
Crossposts: http://saveyoursanity.livejournal.com/609458.html

State of the

erika, March 2013!

Physical body:

Still have guttate psoriasis. Still pronouncing psoriasis wrong. Itchy as fuck.

Want a tattoo. Dunno if I'll actually get one. Money is always an issue.

Mentalness:

Spring and/or summer can't come fast enough. Whichever one is gonna lift my mood, because fuck, I've been trying to ignore the fact that I'm probably moderately clinically depressed and edging very carefully around a severe depression for the last two months, and I'm running out of ignore here.

Leaving the house:
- I don't wanna do it.
- Still, I saw panda a few days ago, which was good and awesome and all that stuff. Even managed to return her slippers.
Seeing a doctor I don't already know is now a trigger for me. (As usual, this only triggers me in person, although no one online has suggested I see a doctor yet, la la, so who knows.)
Reason for realizing this: I had 3 panic attacks in a row and went into flashbacks when Josh casually suggested I see a doctor about the psoriasis still on my arms. Great.

To combat this, I have done the following:
1. called my psychiatrist and gotten a med increase of prazosin and clonazepam
2. called the person who does funding for the county (they fund my social worker, forex, which Medicare doesn't cover) to see if i could get couples' counselling covered (answer: no)
3. talked to my social worker about accompanying me to appointments with new doctors
4. talked to an advocate for SA survivors to see if she
  - would be willing to be with me when I meet the doctor who heads the new 'GLBT' clinic who can possibly become my primary care physician or set me up with a new PCP
  - has any ideas on which suggestions I should implement for furthering my hospital complaint

That was a lot of phone calls. Go me.

Josh!

still wants to do couples' counselling. Thinks it would be good to do soon. I have no idea how to get this done. Well, that's not entirely true.
- Gina (my social worker) suggested contacting Domestic Violence Interventions agency in town, who may be able to refer to low-price or free counsellors who work for them; I'm not worried about DV in this relationship (because I'd be gone like a shot if that were the case) but they are probably used to dealing with people who are traumatized in the past.
He's not allowed in my parents' house (current residence) though because of a long story involving buying my dad's car and then having a very low speed 'wreck' into the ditch because of bad weather before it was transferred off my parents' insurance...

But whatever, fuck it, because I don't give a shit anymore and neither should anyone else, considering my dad owes me a hell of a lot more money than that car is worth and I don't bitch at him about it.

I hate it when I can't see him for longer than the few days we normally have. It tends to make me even less amenable to logic than usual.

Otherwise, relationship is good in general.
- Physicality continues to be amazing.
- Communication slowly getting better, though not easily.
- He understands me so well it constantly amazes me; he really pays attention to what I want and need and respects my boundaries.
- He doesn't expect me to be anyone other than what I am and vehemently rejects the idea that I should change in any way "for" him.
- Conflicts seem to be settled quickly, when I can actually bring myself to talk about them (see communication stuff above).
- His flaws are stuff I can pretty easily live with, and I feel confident that the things which greatly bother me can be planned around and dealt with. He's on board with that stuff too, which is SO important.

Dreamwidth:

I want to be around a lot more. Journalling is really important to me and I feel like I've dropped the ball on that recently.
That having been said, expect more comments from me! I ♥ you all.

I keep trying to think of other things that have happened to update y'all on, but that's the problem with not updating... it tends to become a vicious cycle and I forget the important stuff I meant to mention. LE SIGH.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: The Killers - On Top
Crossposts: http://saveyoursanity.livejournal.com/604980.html

Signs you have spent too much* time on Dreamwidth:

*too much time on DW? is that even a thing that is possible?

Alternate Title: Things Dreamwidth Does Right, both as a company and as a community

Real Title: The Ways Dreamwidth Has Infilitrated My Brain Personally, Even Though This Is In Second Person

Companies that don't explain why stuff is broken or give any explanation for downtime confuse you and make you go elsewhere. Really, how can you trust a fail won't happen again if they don't tell you that they know what's wrong?

Open source just makes sense.* (*In my defense, I've always thought this, but it's definitely gotten 'worse'.)

You're happy to pay for things done right, and you quite possibly spend more money than is really "required" to pay for services because you actually like the company.

Speaking of which, you now consider whether you actually like the company's business ethics before you make large purchases. Or small ones.

You have seriously changed your diet in any of the following ways: vegan, organic, cage-free, free-range meat, gluten/allergen-free. Perhaps you experiment with subscribing to a CSA, starting your own garden, contributing via a community garden, preferentially purchasing cruelty-free cosmetics [or ONLY doing so], and similar. This can be partially attributed to the fact that you didn't really know this stuff existed before you hung out online with people who were more aware in general.

You seriously contemplate whether you should split an email thread to include a trigger warning in the new subject, but eventually decide not to because sometimes the first line of the email is auto-displayed ANYWAY. This makes you sad, because you don't want to upset the people you're communicating with.

You get frustrated and possibly angry when your great suggestion about [Idea|Product|Company] is not carefully & lovingly considered, then discussed and/or voted upon by the people who actually use [noun], and, if software-based, entered into a feature/bug-list on an publicly-accessible codebase for implementation where you can contribute to it yourself should you be able to do so.
Instead, your beautiful suggestion appears to disappear down a black hole and is never heard from again. This may also make you sadfaces.

People who respond to your gentle noting that they are openly supporting problematic opinions, language, or actions with "fuck you, I'm not ______" seem like not only assholes, but also completely out of touch. Seriously, dudeperson, are you back in 2008 or something? Examining oneself for internal prejudice and publicly apologizing when you cross a line? That's like, so in.

The supposedly 'runaway unexpected success' of Kickstarter surprised you not one bit. (I was reading an article about this in Newsweek at my endocrinologist appointment today. It was hilarious because the entire article was written in this tone of OMG PEOPLE ACTUALLY WILL STILL PAY FOR CREATIVE ENDEAVORS THEY WANT TO SUPPORT. Um, yep...?)

You actively try to contribute to the economic betterment of people that you know are in need, and in your opinion, Modest Needs doesn't go far enough as a charity. (And you note that they seem to be pandering to the "boot-strap" theorists out there. >_>)

You have no impairments that would ordinarily make it difficult to use a computer, but you still spend a larger amount of time than "none*" thinking about accessibility (and/or implementing it in ways such as descriptions of graphics you post) regardless, because ... duh, of course people should be able to get what you're saying, no matter how they're using the Internet.
*None appears to be how much time MOST sites think about this. ... yeah, rolling my eyes too.

Wait, women and/or people who are new to programming but demonstrate interest in learning to program aren't typically actively recruited as programmers? Why?! A convert is the best evangelist!

Okay, seriously, why would anyone choose to spend a lot of time online somewhere where they can't directly reach the head honchos or at the VERY LEAST someone who can help you with whatever problem you're having? (See: reddit, 4chan, facebook, etc. <_<)

You can't remember the last time you read your LJ friends page as like, a LJ friends page. You just go to the journals of the people you like there that remain extremely stubborn.

Subscribe and access make so much fucking sense.

You have converted at least one person to the point where they just gave up and deleted their LJ because everyone here is pretty much awesome.

You ran your own friending meme.

You watched a video on MRA/PuA hatetrolls attacking a woman blogger based on her size... because she dared to make video about not liking an oreo cookie. Basically, she was fat online and didn't appear to hate herself. (Sorry, I can't find the link, because I haven't slept like more than 9 hours in the last 48, but it was a big speech that was pretty moving.) And you think "God, I'm so glad I'm not afraid to read my own comments."

You no longer have to feel the need to read site updates obsessively to TRY to figure out how you're going to be screwed over next and then read the comments to see if some kind person has taken the time to explain how bad it really is and what they didn't tell you. (I'm not naming names here... I'm sure no one has any idea what service I might be talking about! Although, to be fair, this applies to... let's see, Facebook, Google, ummmm basically EVERY CORPORATION THAT WANTS TO USE YOU AS A PRODUCT...)

Feel free to add your own!

This entry was not crossposted for obvious reasons.
:P

Current Mood: thankful
Current Location: a magical place full of unicorns and rainbows
Current Music: Tiësto and Sneaky Sound System - I Will Be Here (Tiësto remix)

I'm doing this whole thing where I take off all the LJ accounts cluttering up my access list on dreamwidth.

If I accidentally remove your access, plz let me know here. (If I haven't given you access for some reason [most likely being that I forgot], you can also request it here.)

Comments are screened; thank you for playing.

edited to add: oh my fucking god why do I have 600 lj friends it's 10 minutes after I started this and I've only just reached the Js, please kill me now

edited: 5:02AM: i think my eyes are bleeding