So, for starters, this is a lazy-post lol. I went to the States to spend time with Roxxanne and to go to Camp Crucible to get time in with the Family.
I stayed with Roxxanne while I wasn’t staying at Camp, and we did our second year of attending the local job fair – she actually looking, both of us competing for swag snatching.
I won’t approach a table where there is one sales person or where they’ll come up to me, so I have to go when they’re busy talking to others or just as a group… Basically, again this year I won by being a little Swag Ninja. The bottom side of these two sets of stuff is mine. I also got a thermosy thingy.
Roxxanne gets to keep it all except the coupla pens and/or pads I want. Really all that is useful to me.
One great this I got was a quick snatch dive in and dive out from the Veterans Administration table… one of those newfangled rubber wristband bracelets that is a dull yellow and tan with the Emergency Help Line Number on it. Still wearin’ it.
We later attended her getting her Commencement Ceremony to get her certificate for phlebotomy. If you’ll note, she rocked the Delta Crest pin the entire time. The are pics from afterward taken with her family there.
Then there was Camp. I couldn’t take pics this year due to things really upsetting in a background level so I’ve only these.
Our theme had originally been to Frat this Fucker Out, hence the sheets, but by meeting closer to Camp it became “Why not both?”. That explains sheet two there.
Also was made a sheet with Delta and Sigma letters on it that was displayed behind one of the canopies we used during the surprise tailgating of registration we did of hotdogs and bad beer. Folks appreciated it, even if didn’t eat or drink.
The Hammer reference there was mine as a joke from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.
The Boomin’ System was brought but barely used. One of our pledges has a firm belief that I have a masturbation schedule going on at Camp this year just because I coincidentally did so at the time after breakfast almost every day. I kept trying to say, no, it really was a coincidence and most years it’s whatever time a day or a coupla times a day.
Due to timing, Nimmy informed me I was his alarm clock each morning. He is in the cabin next to us.
Camp was really subdued and kinda bleh this year. It was very cold and very rainy a large part of the time. You had to squeeze in what you could with it.
We had a couple of friends of two of our pledges (one of which mentioned above) sleeping on our side of the cabin. The seemed sweeties and I enjoyed being around them.
Saw my recent ex after she’d emailed me before Camp and we both said we’d like to have a close friendship and were glad neither of us thought anything negative of the other. So we’d see how it went when we actually were in person.
Turned out really well. Hugs hello and chatting and hanging out. She did fire play on me. Also saw the signs of getting overwhelmed with upset and having to make a fast leave of the mess hall when Frazier made the Memorial Day military recognition as happens every year… but had a special twist…
There have been a few folks we’ve lost over the past few years he spoke of and then launched into statistics on veteran suicide rates and a big eulogy from what I stayed just a little for (just long enough to see where he was going and to hear him speak the name of the vet who had suicided last year and have my brain catch up to the person’s real name being used and all the feelings that weepy respect giving was starting and going toward).
I couldn’t take it because of how I couldn’t be around that man (vet) due to recognizing years before when I met him and spent a little time at Camp around him that he was one of those types of soldiers. The ones like SFC Not Named Here who effectively tortured a few of us in my Company and made me get it and also do horrible things to try and get it better, to lighten up, and who with that caused PTSD and endless guilt in me that still has a defining grip on my life though I’ve worked hard to deal with it better and gotten skills to do so more… and who caused the medication errors pushed because of it that fried my brain when even measures tried to report things by others it was happening to just made them get it worse.
For a light comparison, after seeing a psych doc for a while and describing and trying to work through what I could, they told me it sounded like the Stanford Prison Experiment. I looked it up and have read about it from odds and ends but mostly by the lead researcher’s book… Yeah, only no one stopped it, they could do more to us than allowed there, and it lasted two years of my life.
So on hearing suicide stats after all my attempts due to those Army people and events and then a beginning emotional eulogy being started for one of those that are/were like those people, someone who just beat me to suicide from effects of people like him because my bad stomach has caused me to vomit up pills the many times I’ve tried and I live thankful in part for my gastric bypass fixing my bad stomach and also making it more likely I’d absorb them faster/be harder to get out the next time and finally making it to the end… run on sentence…
In short, suicide stats of vets talked about, then emotional remembrance started on one of the vets at Camp who suicided made me overwhelmed and need to bolt out because it was over someone who I’d had to avoid at Camps because he was the type who was part of all done to me and had only beaten me to killing themselves because my tries hadn’t worked yet.
I bolted and there was my ex (further known as A) at the end of her table waiting for me and took hold of my arm and we found a place I could sit okay and she helped me deal with the initial outburst of crying and crushing inside it felt like from all sides of feeling, the physical feeling of that, not the metaphorical “crushed” emotion.
She was really supportive and a great friend in that moment of need. Once calmed enough to make it to my cabin I let her know and after a big hug did so.
Then I got there and acted as normal as I could and it didn’t last long. I didn’t realize anyone was there at long first and put a hand on each of my beds and just leaned and breathed and cried a little and gritted my teeth and all of that in trying to process it but not being obvious about it while totally being.
Then I heard the sound of Grant behind me by his bed working on the prank checks he was making for auction. The two new nice folks on our side came in too after a bit while I was still like that but I’d long reached that point of not caring that much about people seeing while reining it in and clamping down and finally got myself together enough to stand up and snuffle and turn down a sweet offer from them to cuddle… ended up going around to the side of my bed and sitting on it and trying to hold things together.
Then needed help or at least just understanding… staring at the wood of the slanted ceiling I asked Grant if he’d been there while the announcements had started as I couldn’t remember just when he left. He’d left before them to do his thing. I gave him a recall of the Frazier action and started cracking in the ways I somewhere knew I was about to when I spoke to him, whereas before was a mix of things that just needed to let a sad and animal side work through inside.
I can’t remember at what point he came over in my cracking on it all and he handled it perfectly – and I sent him a postcard later telling him so and thank you. I just know I found myself looking at the ground partly with him in front of me and hand on my shoulder and as I cracked out specific things and then halted, then cracked with more, over and over for a bit he just stood there saying things like “I know, we’ve talked, man”.
When I was pulled together enough I leaned up but was still not great, but just sad now and hurting, he picked up GrumpyCat who I’d apparently sat down beside where I ended up sitting and did a little holding him with both hands in front of me in my vision-zone.
Ex gave me support in the gentle-soft way I needed at panicky sad first, then when I passed the animal mix of emotions of leaning on the bed and started having myself crack apart in jagged bursts Grant gave me the support I needed in the form of strength and understanding from our past heavy talk. The finished when I could pull up and just sniffle sad and empty-hurt with putting the GC he and Grace gave me to take on my hike and I’d told him in the past how it meant for me in dealing with things and feelings from getting it.
Two great friends helped me get through an initial multi-stage reaction of PTSD and guilt that writing this still is a bit hard to think and feel about. So I’m not gonna. I kept mostly objective during this and not letting the feelings themselves at the time sink into right now. I’m gonna end here on that.
On an upside, Antientropic and I played with electricity again this year. We did it in the upper dungeon and while searching for a good location of a power socket noted that the place we found best had a metal dog cage a few feet away. I don’t know who the idea hit first or who said it outloud first, but we both were like “OMG, this’d be awesome/hilarious”.
So some safety testing done I got in with my clothing laid out to mostly cover the metal bars on bottom. From there I was set up to where if and when and did touch metal anywhere I got zapped and my clothing got more and more in disarray with my jumping and over time he removed two pieces and used a number of attachments on me. Also leaned down and joked at one point that that smell was my flesh burning… which it totally was I had noted and as usual the pics below will show some of the marks left afterward. To make 100% clear, Anti is a safe player, I’m just a high-tolerance player somehow.
The larger marks that look like holes are, in fact, small holes where flesh burned away; Plus anywhere I looked like I have freckles (mainly that one back pic) I do not have freckles. These were taken about 2 days or so afterward after I returned to Roxxanne’s after Camp. Due to lighting and my skin color we couldn’t get a truly accurate and clear pic any try, but hear ya go:
Later, at home, Roxxanne and I did clay and charcoal masks (which made her skin baby smooth, did nothing for mine) and posted the pics on Facebook with inappropriate dark humor comments.
Apparently her cousin (?) and friend did the same and her cousin is very light skinned black.
A shit storm all over FB that spread tentacles into multiple issues and subject matters on race went off.
I feel bad for the cousin, feel dark humor of being the only white person in the group and not the one who started getting shit.
Our end of pics:
Am now back in Bangkok (as of 6-12-17) and am having severe torso pain caused by anxiety but I can’t think of what… got to Roxxanne’s, got to Camp, got to Roxxanne’s, got to here.
I don’t mean the sometimes aches and pains I have from anxiety and my lower-level “body migraines” I get. I mean I woke up in the night and thought it was because the laptop went quiet from playing movies over… then went to roll over and got a level 7 slammed at me over my full torso but primarily the sides.
Next coupla hours involved kneading the muscles enough to be able to carefully move them at a lower level of pain if I did it right, then using my massage balls and some stretching that I could. my hammock a little to try and open my upper back and neck and that became so painful I almost hit 8. In there somewhere I took a Klonopin and it helped very clearly on kicking in. But even after all of that I felt fucked. My muscles weren’t just tight, I couldn’t manipulate them manually at first, I could just press down bit by bit til they could be pressed in sequences and then palm of hand helped to move a bit.
So limited in movement it was one of those times you’re physically trapped and start feeling like you might cry because you may need to call out for help because you can’t move yourself.
Thank god that loosened. Realized I need to start taking the extra bit I’m allowed for the next day or two instead of skipping and only using one or none extra. My thoughts and upper feelings feel on my normal level, but clearly I’m having some other issue deep down.
Also as part of it last night did some light meditation, helped some too.
I’m already starting to lock up again I can feel on my left side. Time for med, meditation, and stretching to try and stop it before it goes further. Oh, this bit is written today 6-15-17.