Score: +4

This was for Friday. I have completed my first week as a part of the management team, and life is very good. I’ve never been given the sort of creative freedom I have now, nor the responsibility. This is all quite uncharted territory. However, I feel immersed in my new role, and very capable of executing the tasks involved. I was in a big meeting on Friday with the chairperson of the whole customer support department, spanning 4 different call centers across the US and Europe. So we had a good chat. I felt “in the know” on some things. All in all, it was a fantastic experience that I’m glad as fuck will be my regular routine.

My scores have been off the charts this week. +3.5 almost every day, and a 4 on Friday. I’m feeling a HUGE resurgence of enthusiasm for my job and the new direction I’m going. This is all very exciting. Amanda has been missing work, and a lot of it is her pain, but some of it is her fighting with Jesse still. In the end, she would like to build a friendship with her ex, you know, since they have a kid together. But he outright told her that he would never be her friend, and she took that kinda hard. She hasn’t been able to fully detach from him because of Tristan, and now that relationship is relegated to an awkward exchange of responsibility every now and then, I can’t imagine she will have an easy time coping. Also, that’s not a great role model relationship dynamic for Tristan to grow up with. I hope he looks at Amanda and I as an example, since we have a healthy, functional partnership. We never fight, we talk and laugh together, we don’t discipline with violence… compared to Jesse who does the exact opposite of what we do. Negative reinforcement. It is the way it is, and Tristan will be able to make up his own mind soon enough about how he likes to be treated. He will also be getting a break from Pentecostalism while he is with us.

It’s heading into the summer season and temperatures are on the rise. Out poor little apartment is about to become a permanent hot-box of excess heat from the air and from the sun beating down on our roof all day long. The fucking walls are hot, ok? The bed is hot to the touch. It’s a fucking nightmare. But we have big powerful fans that can keep air moving over us at all times, so that’s a relief at least. But my sister and I were discussing the woes of living in the upstairs apartment when we were having dinner Thursday night. It’s miserable no matter the precautions you take.

Things are going splendidly blog. I hope all is well with you. I hope to provide an example of a mentally ill person who fought really fucking hard and got stable and built a life for himself. If I can do it, YOU might be able to do it too. Maybe things I have done might help you in your own mental health journey? That’s all this blog is about, an example, a case study. 500+ days of scoring, data collection, trend observation and analysis. It’s not a fucking joke, your mental health. If you don’t own it, it will utterly own you. I would prefer not to be owned, as I’m fucking prideful. I fight. So should you. Rawr.