Still hurt but doing better. These emotion thingies are a PTA that I wish I didn’t have to deal with. There is a reason I avoided them most of my life. But it appears to be my next step of growth.

I am still feeling somewhat fragile but opening up a little. I am out of the house and in public. I had a therapy appt this morning, stopped by the East Bay Depot to browse and pick up leather scraps for a project, called a friend at 2 like he asked, drove around to find out that Montclair and Oakland libraries are closed this week due to budget cuts and the Berkeley Library is open (I am at West right now).

At the Depot, I ran into someone from years ago and he asked me how things were going and really wanted to know the real scoop. I tried to sum it up and be honest about it and I ended up shaking when I was done. He gave me a coin of woo and it felt really good to receive that and the hug. This part of my life is currently missing and I don’t know how to make it work right now. It seems that I need to go out and get it over and over and over. I am not secure in myself enough to do that more than a few times. I don’t have a large reserve for the woo side of things and I run out of ooph if I don’t get stuff coming back to me. I know I am welcome but I have to create it every time. That isn’t me.

In some ways I am doing well. In other ways I am not doing well at all. One of the listed fixations of the type 7 is to use rationalization to fool themselves into thinking they are ok. Rationalization and reframing are powerful tools in my hands. I totally use them. I don’t know if I over use them. I don’t know if I am fooling myself or if I have an accurate assessment of how I really am doing. I do know I still have more room to fall. I haven’t even got to the point where I have to give up how far I have gotten yet (i.e. I could sacrifice where I live but I will never get a deal like what I have again. When I get back on my feet, I will be much worse off if I let go of my place now).