Our “day of hell” is a week away

So…

First of all,

The “day of hell” is in regards to our birthday.

It is a week away from today

And, well…

It has always been a terrifying day for our system.

Mother and father always made sure it was, even when others didn’t.

There were generally others involved, though, too.

We never had anything aside from Family birthday celebrations

At least,

Not until we moved out.

But then, it would be filled with false friends and their acquaintances. 

And, to be perfectly honest,

Until last year,

I never thought our birthday could genuinely be a happy thing.

Our wife/partner-system and us both had the day off.

Our finances were actually pretty decent.

We just had a fun day hanging out.

I don’t fully remember everything that happened.

I know our “big sibling”/bestfriend-system came over for lunch.

I know we went out with our wife to get our free birthday drink from a local coffee shop.

I think Wadanohara was fronting for a bit and got to go to a candy shop.

I know for sure that she and Efina got to front for playing a board game with our wife/partner-system.

It was still a bit scary, though.

We had just worked the day before.

And that was our job where we were with abusers nearly all the time.

We knew we would be returning to that job

And to that situation

Within the week, if not sooner.

But, since August,

We have pulled back from that job considerably

We’re only staying as an emergency back-up

And even then,

If our wife/partner-system isn’t off of work and able to hang around while I work,

We’re not going over there

It’s just not safe otherwise.

Man…

It’s so weird.

If you had asked us a year ago if we genuinely thought that in the next year, we’d have our surgery, pull away from the job, apply for a bunch of different jobs, and at the critical “we need a different job before we have to go back to this one” point (a little too closely for my liking, but it doesn’t matter now), get hired, and even pretty much fully trained in…we would have been hopeful, yes, but we would not have been able to truly believe you.

And like…even though we do not have the physical, mental, or emotional energy for the job to be easy, our co-workers and store management are really nice so far. The job itself is something our system has wanted to try for as long as we can remember. (Somehow, we thought that we’d never get the opportunity to do it, though? I think we thought it was a lot fancier than it actually is? lol)

It’s customer service/food industry…so like, it’s not the greatest for our c-PTSD. But our co-workers and store manager actually seem to give a shit? Like, they’ve been really nice when our legs aren’t working quite right (something I hope we can get figured out with this physical therapy referral tomorrow…), and when we came in and were unable to stop crying due to a bunch of flashbacks and other stress, there was enough coverage, so we were allowed to go home.

[I absolutely hated crying in front of the coworkers. But even MY emotional suppression was failing to stop it.]

Even hating being as openly ‘vulnerable’ (for lack of a better word) as we have been at our job, our co-workers have been amazing. And tbh? They’ve each been pretty openly vulnerable in one way or another, too. So maybe this place really is a decent place?

It also helps that several of the crew are fellow members of the 2slgbtqia+ communities.

But we’ve even flat-out told a couple of our coworkers about our amnesia issues.

Hell, we posted a comment in our onboarding about our Dissociative Identity Disorder, so our store manager is at least aware of that, even if she might not know what it is.

Even further, we personally told one of our co-workers (the MOD who let us go home the day of heavy flashbacks) about it, and explained a little about the different alters.

And like…there haven’t been a whole lot of questions or discussion since, but they didn’t seem to take it negatively?

So, like, our job is actually really nice.

[I hate that it’s so nice, though…it makes it SUCK that we’re still having trouble working more than 15-20 hours/per week. stupid trauma and stupid body that’s falling apart]

Speaking of work, and to bring it back around to the initial topic.

Next week is the first time we work on our birthday.

(Is that actually true? I feel like I remember working at our previous food industry job once on our birthday, too…but maybe it was just right around our birthday? I doubt we’ll remember if it was on our actual birthday or not until we process through some of the trauma that happened THAT day…yeesh. Note to self: if we’re ever able to have milkshakes on/around our birthday again, I’ll be shocked)

If nothing else, next week is the first time we’ll be working, but at a job with none of our abusers around (unless of course they come in as customers…which, with a couple of them, I’m not going to be surprised. I just hope that if they do, they don’t make a whole thing about it being our birthday. Idk how our co-workers would act with it…blah)

But the point is…we’re not at a bad/dangerous job anymore.

We’ve been married for over a year to an amazing partner-system.

This is the first birthday in our memory where we are safer than we ever dreamed to be.

It might even be an actually nice one. [I’m not holding my breath on customers, though. They always have a way of timing the worst aspects of dealing with them with the times when we are even tentatively hopeful…]

We have a couple days after our birthday off, too! So, if nothing else, we can hopefully relax then!

(Blah…time is moving forward faster than I like. I just want to actually have energy again. And then the time to actually use the energy how /I/ want to.)

Anyway, here’s to hoping for the best next week, even if other alters still brace for the worst. (It’ll be nice when we feel safe-safe…probably years from now…and aren’t bracing ourselves like that)