It’s here

Next year, we REALLY need to remember to ask for our birthday off.

Not for any grand plans or anything.

Just so that we don’t have to be having a shit-ton of flashbacks while working.

We’re already having a bunch…and the day is still really early. We don’t even work for about 7 hours from now. Blah. We have a closing shift.

That’s not typically bad. Especially on Wednesdays. We’ve been working with one particular MOD for Wednesday closes, and we have gotten into a pretty okay groove with that.

But this week is different. We were scheduled for a closing shift with three people. Us, the MOD, and another. Honestly, I was pretty excited. If we had to work our birthday, I was sitting thinking “Okay, cool. It’s the MOD we’ve closed with the most, and this one other coworker who we’ve worked with a bit. It’ll be a nice close, with three people there to work on it.”

And then yesterday came, and both of those people messaged the group chat, needing their shifts covered. And like, that happens. It’s whatever.

But it sucks.

The MOD who is now going to be working is one we’ve at least worked with, but never a closing with. So we have NO CLUE which tasks she’s going to want us to work on/prioritize, and which she’s going to want to do herself. And then the second person…she’s alright. Like, as a person, we don’t have any problems. She’s just…very full of energy. Which is typically fine.

But in a period of flashback hell such as we’ve been in for the last week, that’s going to get annoying REALLY fast.

Idk if we should message the group chat and see if someone can cover us…I kinda want to. To just be perfectly honest and be like “Sorry for the later notice, but my mental health is complete crap…can anyone take part/all of my shift tonight?”

But I think I’m too worried about too many things to actually do that. 

1…what if they all think I just want to party today? It’s our birthday, and I feel like since we didn’t ask it off, we’ll be looked at/scrutinized more for doing a last minute thing like this.

2…we told some of our friends/acquaintances that we worked, and what shift, and they said that they might try to make it in to say hi. I know I could message them and be like “so, I called in today” and they’d be fine, but someone in here is scared that we would be ‘disappointing’ them somehow?

3…it’s our wife/partner-system’s weekly therapy day PLUS a day that they have known we would be at work for several weeks. So I don’t really want to mess up any/all of the plans they might have for an evening alone at home.

4…we literally don’t have to work until Sunday morning after tonight’s shift. So, kinda going back to the first point, it makes us feel like we’re going to be seen as someone who just doesn’t want to do their job.

Blah.

I hate this.

We’ve also haven’t messaged or otherwise talked to either of our parental-units in about a week. And then it was only because our Mom-unit messaged first, and it was something that we felt did actually need to be sorted out.

But it’s actually a bit scary to wake up, even at 6am today, and not already have a birthday message from our Mom-unit. This is the person who, most–if not every–year, would WAKE US UP at the time it lists on our birth certificate to wish us a happy birthday. MAYBE she’s being nice and trying to wait for a time when we might be awake, since she actually doesn’t know our work schedule??

She probably assumes that we don’t have to work, since we typically always requested our birthday off. But I guess I don’t know what all goes on in her head (thank god), so maybe not.

I just know that we’re scared.

We have actually not had to deal with much of the parental-units’ BS lately.

We’ve actually been…safe…for a few months, even

We’re just…waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It feels like it HAS to happen.

We can’t go on this long without being hurt.

We can’t go this long and start to be happy.

Something has to break.

That’s what all the rest of my life has taught me, and I don’t know how to unlearn it.

This is the first birthday where we’re actually safe.

What the actual FUCK are we supposed to do?

How are we supposed to function?

Our entire self is based around trauma.

I…genuinely don’t know how to even START re-wiring our brain away from expecting trauma to happen right around the next corner.

We keep waiting for our parental-units to corner us, alone.

We keep waiting for the same assaults that happened at our other job.

Hell, with everything else getting safer, our brain has even been stretching itself and trying to be anxious about our wife/partner-system getting angry at us. Which, weird as it is to admit, we know isn’t a thing. Yes, they’ve been upset/angry towards us before…but never for no reason, and never completely out of the blue.

But our brain is just…spinning. Everyone is so anxious about something bad happening that it’s like we’re frozen.

We’re stuck…waiting for something bad to happen.

What would even go down if something bad DID happen at this point?

We’re all so scattered.

Even if it was the same person and type of situation as what had consistently been happening before, would we even be able to get the alters who could handle it to front? Would they lose all their healing progress? Would others get hurt in the process?

Our brain is hardwired to expect ALL the negatives.

How the hell are we supposed to start hoping for…let alone EXPECTING…good, or even neutral things? Is it really just a matter of a lot of time and a lot of situations of nothing bad happening will eventually get through? Because, if that’s the case, it’s going to be a LONG time yet.

If that’s the case, we still should’ve asked for today off. Blah. I would rather be able to handle a high-flashback day at home. I don’t want to be at work. Especially not if bad/gross people come in as customers. (I can definitely see our parental-units coming in if/when they find out that we work).

If it’s going to take a long time, I want the really bad days to be able to be in an environment where we feel the SAFEST…not somewhere we’re still figuring out. Not with a MOD we don’t know as well. Not with a co-worker that, through no fault of her own, grates on our nerves when we’re high-anxiety and in an intense-flashback state.

Blah.

I guess we’ll see how this all goes.

I’m not looking forward to it.

We’ll survive. But we’re not going to be happy between now and whenever in the distant future we actually feel like we have energy again.