it's been a while

hey all! it's been a little while since I updated. the last update I made was just us getting used to the new house. I guess a lot of weird stuff has happened since then.

first off, a friend of mine visited our house for christmas. it was the first time we had ever hosted anyone, and she has limited English because she is from Japan. i think it went well, but afterwards, she pretty much ghosted us. :/ i did send her a message through LINE, but i haven't checked LINE since then. nothing especially dramatic happened while she was here besides her letting our indoor cat out, and that was her fault, not ours lol. we were in pretty consistent contact before the trip, so i'm not really sure what happened. it's sad to lose my friend, though.

elias proposed to me on our anniversary this year! (jan 2) so i'm super happy about that...!

um... well, february is already hard because it's a trauma time for me and elias, but also it's even more hard now because of elias' attempt last year. it's been exactly one year since his attempt, and we are still both trying to come to terms with everything that happened. we are of course both in therapy (we already were for PTSD/other mental health stuff, we have been for years) and that helps. his therapist suggested that we both write letters to each other and then burn them just as a ceremonial way of showing that we are still alive & that's not going to happen again. we plan on doing that this weekend.

i started talking to my mom again. i don't really know why. i haven't talked to her in over a decade. she was super abusive to me throughout childhood. maybe i just wanted some closure...? i don't know. it seems she's "gotten better" in at least that she's not in any abusive relationship and hasn't been for a long time, and she got clean. but she's still a narcissist, just a non-drugged up abusive/abused one. i've mostly just been avoiding my phone, not necessarily just for her but in general.

work sucks as usual. i've been putting my all into it, working 50-60 hour weeks and essentially not getting appreciated. stood up for myself, put down boundaries, was assertive, and was told if i didn't stop being assertive that i'd be fired. so i am just keeping my head down and keeping quiet until i can find another job maybe. for some reason i always end up quitting jobs around the 2 year mark in february, so it's probably more of a me problem than anything, but still. i think it's just because after 2 years you start to see how the company is really mistreating you. they're also super underpaying me and hiring people in at my wage when i'm far up in the company. as for now i'm just regular disengaged though rather than actively disengaged.

anyway, sorry i haven't really been around/updating/commenting. my therapist wants me to get better at journaling, so i'll probably be around more frequently now. she's really helping me with a lot of stuff. her primary focus is polyvagal theory, and she did something that was pretty similar to EDMR in last session. i am going to see her again today. last session she tasked me with writing about my mom, and i just ended up contacting her instead... so i don't know how my therapist is going to feel about that lmao. she's probably going to be fine with it but slightly concerned.

i'll try to reply to the comments i've received and comment on other people's journals a little bit. if i ever disappear, if you see that i haven't been around for a little bit, you can always feel free to comment! and it might prompt me to remember that this exists lol.