emotional tmi

Having a bipolar spouse, I've learned that I need to stay on an even emotional keel to counterbalance her highs and lows. The last year or two, I've started to feel that keeping my own highs and lows artificially tamped down is taking its toll on me. I feel brittle.

hey NO hard feelings at all abbles -- i didn't take it personally then, so i will not take it personally now :)

mostly i just want to work on being a warmer more emotionally available person. not because i am female and this is expected of me, but because i am genuinely like that inside and i think it should be represented by the way i am outside. it's tiring being so guarded all the time.

sorry to be all ~feelingz~ but this seems to be getting the better of me these days
i've been giving lots of stuff away too, so it feels like there's this final ROAD ahead of me when really i am just trying to get rid of some unnecessary clutter.

still, that was hard-won clutter, and it meant something to me. now it will have a new home, and i feel ok about that.

but

who will i be without these things? without my flower hats? my many books? my beautiful old shoes?

why are you giving away your things

it's tiring being so guarded all the time.

otm

why are you giving away your things

and can you give some of them to me?

because i have too many things and not enough room to store them all. i've already sworn off of yard/tag sales and thrifting until i can weed the collection. really i am taking things that i saw a purpose for, but never used (1950s prom dress, fred and ginger dance dress) and giving them to worthy recipients (and only fully worthy). but it's SO HARD. i feel like part of me is dying, tbh.

who will know that i collected these swesome things once i get them out of my house? no one, that's who.

what are you looking for?

think about it -- i gotta get up early. will check back and let you know if i have something that might be just what you need.

who knows?!

you will know that you collected them! if you like, you can take photographs-- you could do something like a photoshoot of yourself and/or some of your friends with the stuff as props - wearing the dresses, using the stuff that you're giving away. After all, they are things you are rightly proud of having found and bought and curated into a collection, so maybe if you used them as a curated collection, something separate from the stuff you're keeping, they would be easier to part with? I think about this sometimes because my grandfather was a book collector and was ruthless about selling things and weeding his collection out and I find it really hard to imagine going to the great effort of sourcing a rare book, wanting it desperately during that search, and then being able to turn around and sell it when the price looked good or you needed more shelf space. And I think maybe some of that lies in how one understands being a collector, having a collection - that it's not just about desire to acquire versus desire to own, but something else (possibly to do with my difficult relationship with imaginary-future-me).

i don't know that this would work tbh! I'm not much of a photos person, and while i find it super hard to declutter i don't tend to actually miss things once they're gone. But i think maybe some of why I get worried about giving/throwing things away is that I feel I haven't got as much enjoyment/use out of them as I feel I should have and so i feel a strange guilt. So if you can get one marvellous use out of the lot of them at once, maybe then it would be easier to part?

that is the most excellent answer imaginable.

Yeah, I agree with the one marvelous use/photograph them strategy -- mostly I've done that. It's just that as the stuff I don't care about gets easier to give away, the stuff that reminds me of where I've been is still staring at me and I know it's not useful anymore, but they all have stories, but it's all so self-indulgent and narcissistic. Still, I still feel like these pieces are part of my history, and I can never get that back if I lose them. Like I will be floating away.

In fact, my wedding dress was just a dress I had sitting around that I had never worn because where would I have had the opportunity to wear this dress? And it meant a lot to me to be able to wear something I already had.

Anyway, I can't really dress up my friends because I don't know anyone else who would fit into these dresses. I've worn a lot of them on Halloween and to shows, occasionally, but the purses and shoes mostly just sit there.

* the square black patent leather handbag with a working silver clasp that I found at a Goodwill in 2000 that, when I opened it up and smelled it, revealed itself to be my best friend's purse from high school. Her mom had given it away when she cleaned her room. It still smells like her! This was a magical moment for me.

* the black crocheted dress I found on a trash heap in front of an old woman's dilapidated old house in NC when she was being forced to move out -- after I cleaned it up, I have worn this to so many things, to work, on vacation

* these beautiful shoes
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5021/5682211186_6cce2d75be.jpg

oh, the bff's purse? she originally got that in like 1991 when we went to a different thrift store together, and i got one similar -- the only difference was that hers smelled a little, so she sprayed it with perfume. so it is like double extra significant.

I don't know anyone else who would fit into these dresses

Kenan?

When give away clothes, I love imagining some cab driving from Somalia finding some sweater I never wear and having it make his day. With records, same scenario but with some kids who've just moved here.

No, see, that's kind of horrifying to me on both counts

And I think maybe some of that lies in how one understands being a collector, having a collection - that it's not just about desire to acquire versus desire to own, but something else (possibly to do with my difficult relationship with imaginary-future-me).

First of all, this whole post was brilliant.

But second, when c# used the word "curate", it got me thinking. What if you could stand as a STEWARD of those precious things that needed rescuing, and facilitate them going to more appreciative places than they were in when u found them? You can use them to build relationships instead -- reach out to people who are the right size, have certain tastes, maybe people you barely know, and instead of having to have the saved item be part of YOUR story, maybe you become part of the other person's story because you gave them a thing? You are weaving yourself into the tapestry of lyfe, man. Does that sort of thinking find any traction w you?

I already do that, for the most part. I am giving the above-posted shoes to someone who I know will (1) love them and (2) wear them right. There's just a core bunch of things that I feel unable to give away, not to mention that I don't meet a lot of people who want to be given emotionally laden gifts of old things, like double-old. I like the idea, but doing it is REALLY HARD for me.

That's actually what prompted me to revive this thread. I have been giving some things away. And it has been not feeling good.

la lechera do you have an etsy account?

Nope

Well, maybe? I think I have bought things before. Never sold anything.

i'm friends w/ a couple of girls who are really into vintage clothes & they make p ok money selling the stuff they find & it allows them to 'curate' their collections a little more ruthlessly than they might otherwise? also they wld probably be p interested in buying some of yr stuff so

maybe the idea of taking money off these sentimental items seems tawdry or w/e but ime theres a kind of pride to be taken in making a profit its an affirmation of yr taste & yr ability to recognize value

Also presumably the buyer is more likely to value something they spent cash money on, you have raised the bar for acquisition somewhat.

I feel like I'm sort offering crutches that will separate you from the items but allow you to maintain a feeling of connection/responsibility toward them, when really the "right" answer is probably SEVER THE BOND SEVER THE BOND.

Sometimes a dress is just a dress -- the problem of course is that I don't rly believe that either.

theres a kind of pride to be taken in making a profit its an affirmation of yr taste & yr ability to recognize value

feelin this

I've thought about that. I've had a lot of different suggestions and ideas floating around out there, and I know that there are a lot of logical, reasonable ways to handle this. The whole idea of getting rid of things is the problem. As for the $$ issue, I don't like to reward people who simply have the $$; it pleases me to give things to people who would enjoy them and maybe do not have the money to get them otherwise or are not expecting to be given a gift. It's almost only ok if it's a gift. Then I get to be part of it too.

I realize that this is extremely selfish. I don't really want anyone to affirm my taste. I want them to remember me, and that feels kind of pathetic.

I guess that was serious emotional tmi :)

I feel better about this now. It just sort of comes and goes. I guess it's something I will live with.

There is no such thing as emotional TMI as far as i'm concerned. All of favorite people are those who will share anything. The more you share, the more others can know and appreciate you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjbie1O1jxc

I think I'm getting better at this!

I like that! What have you been doing that felt partic. triumphant?

Hmmm, it's kinda hard to say. I think part of it is being a little less stressed out than I have been over the last year? It's like, everyone has their breaking point, and I had mine. Now I have been through it, know what it feels like, and know how to identify/survive it. Also trying to just be as me as I can without annoying/scaring people.

meta: ^^writing this toooootally felt like emotional tmi, but i am going to post it anyway

Annoy me annoy me!! I'm glad for you, tho sorry about the circs of the last year that made it so stressful. But yeah, getting your boundaries re-set by hardship can be really powerful and make you feel really powerful in the longer view.

Hold onto that perspective power-up -- my problem is that it lasts for a while and then I lose it and get back to normal life/emotional upheaval/caring about dumb shit again.

this is way too much work

?

sorry
i've been experiencing rather extreme mood swings lately and it's exhausting
really i can't even blame work anymore -- it's just me

could be worse, i suppose

<3 to you, LL. I veer between being massively over-emotional in public and bottling everything up for periods of time, so adding mood swings into the mix is totally not fun for my brain.

Yeah that's it p much. Going up down up down just makes me feel tired and I just want to turn the feelings machine off.

This is why I drink!

I wish I had any emotions these days

laurel otm

That was lengua-in-cheek but still...feeling things is hard and that's what vices and vacations are for?

If it were only that easy. It is not that easy.

I'm sorry. Don't know what to tell ya. My daily life and the boredome of a desk job have p much numbed a lot of that, I think? But as yesterday reminded me, I do not deal well with emotional disruptions to that humdrum existence.

It's ok -- I don't expect you to be Fix-it Laurel :)

The other day I was talking with one of my coworkers and she described me as "approachable" and I realized two things:

1) wow, what a nice thing to say. it made me feel like i have a personal quality that goes beyond professional expertise to make me effective at what i do. that is to say that i felt like maybe i am not 100% broken in this regard.

2) still, this problem is not solved because i clearly still do not feel comfortable expressing my own emotions; i can comfortably and easily carry a lot of other people's emotional weight, but when coupled with my own WOW who ever thought I would grow up to be a carriage horse?!?

btw every time i post something to this thread that is more than one sentence long, i am rather deeply embarrassed. why am i even talking about this at all? shouldn't i have irl friends or a therapist or a blog or a fucking notebook or something inanimate to talk to about my stupid ridiculous worthless pointless feelings? <-- meta question: is this type of reaction typical under these circumstances?

btw every time i post something to this thread that is more than one sentence long, i am rather deeply embarrassed. why am i even talking about this at all? shouldn't i have irl friends or a therapist or a blog or a fucking notebook or something inanimate to talk to about my stupid ridiculous worthless pointless feelings? <-- meta question: is this type of reaction typical under these circumstances?

no I feel like this all the time which is why I rarely post on the what's happening thread or post too much about my personal life. I don't know if that's healthy or not.

are you embarrassed about posting that post

I don't feel that way at all, myself. I'd rather talk to you guys than anyone in RL. (You are the only people a know who offer sympathy, rather than coldly telling me how badly I fucked up.)

It strikes me that the embarrassment and anxiety you have about having/showing the feelings might be making them a lot more work?

xp to LL