I'm back...

After not one, but two other blogs that I've started using my real name, I've cracked under the anxiety of people knowing what I'm thinking and doing, and I'm back here, safe under my little pseudonym.

I'm going to copy those posts from those other blogs and add them here, keeping their post dates. So...here goes...

"No Labels...just Life" blog: Turning It Over

I guess I just needed to vent with my last post and rehash everything. None of it really matters. Today I should be doing laundry - I've had laundry finished in the washing machine for hours while I go back and edit and re-edit that last post obsessively...and I've realized I got myself stuck.

I need to finish the laundry. I need to do the dishes. I need to get on my knees and pray to God and trust Him to work everything out, one day at a time. I need to work towards my future goals but not expect everything to change over night.

I texted my son's dad yesterday letting him know I had the day off and that I wanted to come down and see Louie for the afternoon. But hours later he finally replied that he had plans with Louie that he didn't want to cancel.

Legally, I still have majority custody. I'm supposed to have Louie during the week, and his dad is supposed to have weekends.

In reality, I see my son on Sundays. Then on my other night off during the week, I've been wanting to spend the afternoon with Louie, but his dad won't "let" me.

Instead of letting all this get me down, I have to just turn it over to God and do the next indicated thing. Laundry, dishes, clean the apartment, get ready for work. Be grateful for my job. Be grateful my son is healthy, happy and alive. He wants to see me more - all three of us this past Sunday talked about how great it would be for me to come see him during the week...but then that day came, and his dad had "plans".

Honestly, I'm suspicious that his dad was drinking or on drugs. I'm supposed to be making him get random drug tests once a month, and I'm supposed to make him get breathalyzed every time I pick Louie up and drop Louie off. I haven't been holding him accountable.

I've still just been in survival mode myself.

I feel like a horrible mother.

But...okay....again....this is where I turn to God.

God, help me. My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and your fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do Your bidding. Amen.

Most people wouldn't put this stuff online, and I know I'm risking judgment. But I'm okay with that. It helps me more than it hurts me. People used to write letters, keep journals. Me, I just don't want to be alone with it all, even if I don't know who's reading it.

"No Labels...just Life" blog: Moving Forward as a Multipotentialite (Finally, a Label I Like)

Sure, being in bed is great, but it's not really where I want to be (I have today off from my close-to-minimum wage job where, thank God, I am employed over 40 hours, although that's still barely surviving in California). The thing that's been on my mind constantly lately is, "I should be making more money...but how?"

After a childhood of abuse and poverty, a ten-year marriage (and baby) with a guy who had lots of Indian tribal gaming income but who was an abusive alcoholic/addict, and three years of post-separation "trying to find myself" (I did find myself in the rooms of a recovery program that gave me new wings), I was still "failing" at life last year. I was a full-time single mom trying to make a living at multiple jobs in various disciplines while still trying to get a degree...and also trying to land another guy...but...after a string of failed relationships and one-night stands, jobs where I was being paid below my worth, an inability to make a decision regarding my academics, all while trying to co-parent with the first love of my life who just couldn't "get his shit together" (either) - the shit, for me, hit the fan, and I fell into a suicidal depression.

My best friend had killed herself a year prior after she and I had made a "no-more-men" pact together (we were on day 42 when she left). First, of course, I had been angry with her and grieved her something fierce. If you have any morbid curiosity, like me, I recorded myself grieving. Warning: Graphic content.

 


A year later, I found myself envying her. The only thing that kept me from actually taking myself out was remembering how much it hurt - and sometimes still does - and I couldn't do that to my then-five-year-old son. He would have to deal with losing his mother entirely for the rest of his life, and, maybe he'd be raised by people who "had their shit together," but, they'd never be able to take the place of his real mom or dad. 

The abusive childhood in poverty, the abusive marriage, the divorce, the low-paying jobs, the custody battle and single motherhood, the failings with the opposite sex, the taking-way-too-long-to-finish-my-degree-because-I-couldn't-pick-a-career, the recovering from my own bout of alcoholism, my best friend committing suicide...none of that even held a candle to what came next. 

The depression really began to take hold when I took out a restraining order against the guy I had met at church (where I had been hired to sing in the summer of 2013 for $15/hr, 6 hrs/week; music is one of my majors) and to whom I had gotten engaged after becoming a baptized Christian in January 2014 (I chose to be saved by Jesus shortly after the video above, because I needed Him). At 25, though, the guy I decided to marry, as a Christian, had gotten too old to be on his parents' health insurance, had lost his job, stopped seeing his psychiatrist, went off his bipolar/anxiety/OCD/sleep meds, starting smoking weed all day, and physically attacked me. God bless his heart and soul...but I couldn't marry him after all. 

My next relationship was with a guy who had a piercing fetish. 

Ugh.

Being with a guy whose sole purpose was to see me in pain really deepened my depression. I had met this one at my other, 18-hour/week, $12/hour job doing online and print publicity and creating programs for the performing arts department at a community college (English was my other major). 

Two pretty nifty part-time jobs doings things I loved, but two crazy dudes (when Margo died, I gave up the no-more-men thing). So, when my junk car broke down, I went ahead and just left all of it behind.

I had already left school to try and better single-mom my Kindergartener (it's crazy how much homework they have in Kindergarten these days; he really needed my help, and I didn't have much time to do mine). So now I had nothing but my tax return, struggling to parent a five-year-old with a life that felt like it was in shambles; I dropped out of eveyone's life, got off social media, changed my email addresses and phone number, and begged God to just let me just die. 

But He didn't, of course.

The tax return ran out, God blessed me with a roommate to help with rent, and I started applying for jobs again. I got turned down to be the cow mascot at Chick-fil-A, and that was a huge blow to my self-esteem. I wasn't a specialist at anything - despite how "smart" I was - and had had a very eclectic part-time career while trying to get my degrees (double-majoring and going to school only part-time wasn't helping, either), from assistant-managing restaurants; to tutoring Geometry, English and Physics at the high school and college levels; to singing at a church and for memorial services; to being a sheet music librarian; to grading English essays for high school teachers; to photographing weddings and events; to publicizing and marketing for a performing arts organization as well as for individual performers; to building websites; to delivering pizzas and newspapers...but...I hadn't stuck with just one thing for long (two years at a time, max).

Whatever job I had, I threw myself into it, completely and whole-heartedly, giving it my all. But then I couldn't even be hired to be a cow mascot making minimum wage? Don't they realize what an amazing cow mascot I would be? I got to the point where I was so desperate for money that I was looking on Craigslist and chose to try some modeling; it seemed like a good way to make $200 in an hour. That, and I got paid ten bucks to write a fake Yelp review for Mossy Nissan. That was a dirty experience; never trust Yelp.

I was going down, fast. I got to this guy's house in Carlsbad for the "avant-garde, tastefully costumed" photo shoot for his "professional photography portfolio," and long story short, I was blindfolded, gagged, tied up, and raped.

The police wouldn't do anything to help me because I didn't fight the guy off of me or scream for help (he was a former Air Force pilot and way bigger than me, muscular, and I wasn't going to risk actually dying - finally, ironically, I really wanted to live). Plus, I didn't stop him from sticking the money in my purse when it was over while I was getting dressed. (And also, the police officer who interviewed me was a young rookie idiot and even flirted with me - but we all know plenty of cops shoot people for no reason, so...I got off easy). 

It was April 17, 2015, on a Friday while my son was in school; the rapist understood that I had to leave to go pick up my son, and that's why he finally let me go - after he showed me photos of his own kids on his iPad, nevermind the 15 or so other tied up women that popped up, one of them covered in blood. Actually, I might have been too traumatized to even go to the police had it not been for those other women and their sad, sad eyes. I knew that not all of them had to have consented to what this mother-fucker did. I couldn't be the only victim.

He also had bragged about his orgies with "20 chicks and 6 dudes," so now I was dealing with the prospect of possibly dying slowly of AIDS. When I told my friends, no amount of, "Oh, don't worry, they have great medicine for that now" helped.

In the days following, I found myself paralyzed. I could hardly move except to grieve on the floor. Finally I enrolled myself in some mixed martial arts to empower myself. Then, my grandma died, and while sitting there next to her body, suddenly I remembered who I was. I was Rachel Fawn Jones. I play music. I sing opera and classical arias. I write. I edit. I tutor. I photograph. I love science, and art, and history, and philosophy, and God, and spirituality, and helping people in need. And I'm a single mother superhero.

People are assholes - I have way too much experience with assholes that one person should have, probably - but I found a job helping non-assholes, because I knew it would help me, in turn. People with autism have such innocent souls; it was such an amazing opportunity to be a support specialist for adults with disabilities. God put me right where He wanted me, that's for sure. Problematically, though, it was only $11/hour (minimum wage is $9), 30 hours/week, and my car was about to break down again (I had gotten it fixed, but at 238,000 miles, it was still on its way out). I didn't want to end up broken down on the side of the road with these three awesome 22 year-olds who were now in my care from 8 am to 2 pm every weekday, so I needed a newer car. I got the newer car, but it was a $450/month car payment because of my horrible credit (from my marriage ending and being broke with many credit cards in my name after having that five-grand-plus monthly income for nearly a decade...but nothing but debt to show for it). 

There was no way I could afford the car payment and bills, gas, groceries etc. unless I got another job on top of the one I had, so...I figured I'd get a weekend job delivering pizza (which I tend to fall back on in times of desperation, IF there's something available - the tips are good).

My son's dad had put some sobriety together, and Louie wanted to spend more time with him, so over the summer we decided to let him stay with his dad while I worked. I didn't find a pizza delivery job, but I did find one making pizza at an amazing new restaurant in town. But, suddenly I found myself working 70 hours, 7 days a week. The weekend job turned into a full-time gig (I'm really, really good at making pizza - I told you, I throw myself whole-heartedly into everything I do). Now I could pay for the car and everything else just fine, but I had no time to see my son at all, whom I was used to seeing every single day.

I had to do something. The pizza job was earning me more money than the other job, and even though the guys with autism and all my coworkers raved about how amazing I was as a support specialist, I was so tired that I was getting cranky with those innocent, beautiful guys, and I no longer had the energy I needed to perform the job functions required. Working 8 am to between 10 pm and midnight was taking its toll...so I quit my day job, hoping that if I kicked ass at the restaurant, maybe I could earn the schedule I wanted.

But, see, in the restaurant business, sales occur mostly at nights and on weekends, so I'm still hardly seeing my son at all (he's still living 60 miles away in Chula Vista with his dad after these five months, attending first grade down there). So, as I'm writing this from bed on a Tuesday morning, I get the feeling that this just isn't where I'm supposed to be.

But what I've learned in recovery is the relationship between acceptance and change - that that's where serenity comes from. I've turned my life over to God, but what does that mean? It means I accept what I can't change, because it's probably part of His will for me, but, I pray for the courage to change what I can, while praying for the knowledge of His will for me, and the power to carry that out.

Blogging about it is a way to help spur me and hold me accountable; I'm not very good at being direct with people, or honest in "real life" - so much of my self-worth is wrapped up in others' opinions of me that I dare not speak the truth in person - but here, I feel safe. I guess it doesn't quite matter what your opinion is over there on the other side of the screen, because I'm not having to deal with you face-to-face, desperately trying to please you so I can feel like I'm worth something. Although, with God as my Director, my fear of people is starting to leave me, and I feel like I can begin to accomplish great things.

The other day, I re-applied to Cal State University, San Marcos, and as long as I get back in, I'll be going back there to finish by Bachelor's degree over Fall 2016. I only need four more classes, and two of them are Spanish, so on November 20 I'm enrolling in the first Spanish class to take at a community college over Spring 2016, and I'll take the other over Summer 2016.

I still don't know what I want to do for my "career" yet, though. I was searching TED.com for videos regarding "Truth" while I was on a becoming-a-polygraph-expert kick (I hate the act of lying - it's how I ended up being raped - so the idea of polygraph tests fascinates me). And as always with TED talks, I found something amazing that blew my mind. It was kind of how I felt when I discovered Robert Wright and his writings and talks on evolutionary psychology (I'm a Christian evolutionist, which people don't get...but anthropological evolution and natural selection have really helped me understand myself and others).

Despite my aversion to labels, hence the name of this blog (I've been labeled and diagnosed with so many things at this point, it fucks with my identity a little, and I just want to be "me"), I actually appreciate the monicker that Emilie Wapnick has given people like me, people who are interested in a ton of different things - and good at whatever they try - but aren't specialists of any one thing: multipotentialites (I've called myself a philomath: lover of learning). I've always felt - and been told - that it meant that something was wrong with me.

I still don't really know what I want to "be" when I "grow up." At 32, it eats at me that I still have so much growing up to do, and I feel anxiety from not having picked and followed a clear career path. I need to make money to provide for my son, but, I do get bored once I've mastered something, if there's no upward mobility or more challenges at the job - that, and, I need to not work so late into the night and on weekends (or at least find a balance that allows me to make money but still spend time with my son). 

I've begun taking pictures in addition to making pizzas and letting the restauranteur use them for publicity, and it's earned me a raise. I've also offered to update the restaurant's outdated website (I do websites, too). I still get to make a special pizza each week, so that's exciting and challenging still.

I miss my son like crazy, but I'm glad I at least have a job while I finish my degree - more doors will open to me once I have my bachelor's, I'm hoping, and I may even pursue further education after that. But what will I "be"?

I subscribed to Emilie's newsletter after watching her TED talk, and I'm excited to join her community to see where I can go with this.

Hi [Adora]! So you're one of us-- a multipotentialite. Welcome home. I think you'll find that, while your drive to pursue many things may have seemed like a foreign concept (or even a failing) to those around you, in this community, we're all right there with you. We all know what it feels like to think we've found our "calling," get totally immersed, and then become bored a few months or years in.  We know the crushing feeling, the sense of loss of an identity, the worry of judgment from others who tell us to "stick with it" and "commit," not taking us seriously when we try to express just how excited we are about the next passion that has piqued our curiosity. We know what it feels like to struggle, balancing all of our projects and we know the challenges of describing "what we do" to people or selling ourselves in interviews. We get how hard/impossible it is to "choose a niche" for our businesses and wish coaches would stop beating this idea into our heads.  Not only do we understand all this, but we share the belief that your multipotentiality doesn't have to be a curse at all. Once you learn how to use it, you'll find that it can become your biggest asset and help you stand out and shine. The Way this Works Here's the plan for the upcoming weeks: Once a week, usually on a Wednesday or Thursday, you'll receive a fresh, written-that-morning email from me. When it comes to "newsletters," we do things a little differently from what you might be used to. For one thing, I rarely re-post blog content. If you want to keep up to date with what's happening at Puttylike (and you should because it's always really fun), you're going to want to check out the links to the blog posts at the end of each email. The emails I write to you are often about the personal stuff. They usually consist of whatever imperfect, unpolished thoughts I happen to be having the morning I write the email. Sometimes it's hard for me to share what I'm going through, but I always try to be brave and open up.      Resources for Newly Self-Identified Multipotentialites The "Start Here" Page - A collection of the most popular and important articles on Puttylike. The Puttylike Terminology Page - What is a Multipotentialite? Feel free to send this page to friends and family members who don't understand. However, keep in mind that the "specialist" mentality is so ingrained in our culture, that it still may not do the trick... in which case, check out the next link. How to Deal with the Jerks and Naysayers Who Think You're Just "Indecisive" - How to control the impact that other people's opinions have on you How To Make Money as a Multipotentialite - 4 approaches to making a living as a multipotentialite I'm a Multipotentialite!...Now what? - How to start embracing your multipotentiality and integrating it into your life Why Some of Us Don't Have One True Calling (and Why We're Better Off that Way) - A good intro to the misinformation out there surrounding multipotentiality. Is "Multipotentialite" a Real Thing? Is it Really Okay to Be this Way? - My response to a reader who wasn't convinced that being a multipotentialite is okay. Why It's Good To Be A Multipotentialite - Just in case you're not convinced, this post outlines some of the benefits of multipotentiality! Finally, welcome to the Puttylike Community! I'm so thrilled that you've decided to join up with your peep, and I can't wait to get to know you better. Look out for the first email in the "IdeaSmoosh" series coming to you in the next couple days. And if this is your first exposure to the idea of multipotentiality and you're going through the "HOLY SHIT, MAYBE THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME AFTER ALL" phase, congratulations!!! That's huge. Also, feel free to hit reply to any of these emails if you have any thoughts or questions you'd like to share with me. I always love hearing from other multipods. Your pal and fellow multipotentialite, Emilie

4110 SE Hawthorne Blvd. #105
Portland OR 97214
USA
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"No Labels...just Life" blog: Orange Sky, Blue - Choosing Recovery

Here's what "mental illness" is like: Even though the sky looks orange to you, every one around you is telling you, "No, that's not orange, that's blue." But you think every one ELSE is crazy, and you keep insisting that it's orange, no matter what they say.

Here's what recovering from "mental illness" is like: You surrender. You stop insisting that the sky is orange. You acknowledge that you're wrong, and you apologize to every one for all those times you yelled at them, telling them that the sky is orange, not blue, and that they were crazy for thinking otherwise. Every day when you see that orange sky, you remind yourself, no, that's not orange, that's blue. Sometimes you still want to scream at people to tell them that the sky is CLEARLY orange, and sometimes you even do...but then you hurt people again, and it's not until you're in more pain yourself that you're willing to concede, once again, that, FINE, okay, the sky is blue. You acknowledge that you're wrong again and make more amends and try to clean up the wreckage you left this time when you started believing what your "mental illness" made you believe, again. 

Most people don't understand. They have their own lives to worry about, and eventually, you're such a pain in the ass that they just don't want anything to do with you. People who aren't close to you don't really know what you're like, so, you have plenty of acquaintances: fair-weather friends that you can hop around between, latch onto, maybe, for a little while, until you wear out your welcome. But you pretty much always do.

Ultimately, it's a lonely existence. BUT... you may be blessed enough to find a few select people who will love you forever, despite the fact that you see an orange sky when every one else sees blue. These are special people who see deep into your soul, past the "mental illness;" they know there's a human being in there, and they can't imagine life without you, even though, again, you can be a TOTAL pain in the ass.Try to love those people back as best you can, and appreciate them, and let them KNOW you appreciate them. It's hard, because you're "mentally ill." You don't know how to love yourself, much less, love others. Try to remember that it's hard for them, too. 

But EVERY one has it hard, in one way or another. And in the end, it doesn't really matter whether the sky is blue, or orange, or pink, or purple. What matters is that there's someone there to look at it with you.

(But it IS blue, damnit - so stop being such a pain in the ass.)