Well, it looks like I’m not getting stents.

My cardiac surgeon, the mild mannered Doctor Bui, said that if I didn’t hear from the team responsible for such things^[1] this week, that meant they had told him they did not think I was a good candidate for stents, and he’d call me to discuss options.

I doubt he’ll call me. I will probably have to call him. Remembering to call a peasant like me is beyond the powers of the Cardiac Department of St. Paul’s Hospital.

In fact they seem to have trouble remembering me at all. That’s why I had to luck into getting the one receptionist at Doctor Ebtia’s office who gives a shit before I even got an appointment with Doctor Bui.

Hey, remember me, the person whom you told they needed immediate cardiac surgery that would be happening Real Soon Now and then ignored for three months?

Of course you don’t. Sigh.

I don’t know how to convince the world that I am important. That I matter. That I am worth consideration and even (gasp) time and effort and energy to keep around.

I know that I am part of the problem. That my easygoing accommodating eager to please nature sends a strong signal that my concerns are very unimportant and you don’t need to worry about them at all.

I make myself very easy ignore, basically. So people do.

And people tend to project their own opinion of themselves into the world, so people treat me as unimportant because I think I’m unimportant.

It’s how I was raised, after all. I was not important to anyone ever as a kid. I wasn’t valued or treasured or wanted.

I was tolerated at best, resented at worst. No, scratch that. Downright persecuted at worst. There was no place where I felt welcome.

Home was just the place where when I went there, they had to let me in.

Further down the rabbit’s hole is the question of how much my own shy nature played a role in all that. Was I always a doormat?

I am not saying I should not have been treated a whole lot matter. I deserved all the love and affection and attention I needed to thrive and it certainly wasn’t my job to make sure I got it, especially when I was younger.

But somewhere along the way, whatever fire I had in me to demands my needs be met and pursue my own self-interest was put out.

So I just made do with whatever I happened to get, without complaint, and that is a great way to make sure nobody takes you into consideration at all.

Unlearning that self-destructive pattern will not be easy. We teach the world how to treat us, whether we know it or not. Learning to send a different kind of message, one that suggests there will be consequences if I am ignored or treated poorly, is going to require me to rethink my entire approach to life.

Just trying to think along those lines fills me with confusion and fear and feels very unnatural, like I am trying to bend a joint the wrong way.

But change is never easy.

It’s just worth it sometimes.

More after the break.

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Minimize to tray?

What I was talking about above the line is often called self-minimizing in pop psych circles. In response to psychological threats, the individual learns to making themselves as metaphorically small as possible in order to minimize exposure.

It is the “hide” adrenaline response as a primary defense mechanism.

In humans, taken to the extreme, it’s called Avoidant Personality Disorder.

Like in myself. I minimize myself so hard that I can barely interact with society at all. I hide from the world in this filthy fucking bedroom and live my life in virtual worlds because I can’t handle reality at all.

Deep down, a big part of me still feels like I don’t even deserve to be alive. That I deserve absolutely nothing, that it is always dangerous to remind people of my existence at all because that will only anger them, and that I should apologize for even taking up space and wasting perfectly good oxygen by breathing it.

My only safety lies in remaining hidden and forgotten.

And what do you know? That’s exactly what I get. I hide so well that people forget me. My intuitive powers of concealment are profound.

And I can’t turn them off. Whether that it because I literally cannot or because I am far too scared to abandon my primary defense mechanism is academic.

However you slice it, it’s not an option for me at this juncture.

So I will continue to be ignored, neglected, pushed aside, stepped on, and otherwise mistreated by the world because that is exactly what I am telling it to do.

No matter how much my conscious mind might intend for me to be noticed, taken seriously, and so on, my unconscious mind is projecting a combined cloaking field and Somebody Else’s Problem field that tells the world, “forget what that foolish conscious mind is saying and ignore me so I can feel safe”.

Hurt, angry, depressed, and worthless. But safe.

That’s the true cruelty of the “safety above all else” mindset of an abuse survivor. Your permanent panic leaves no room for concerns about what will make you happy or help you to thrive or any of that.

It is a fascist regime that views hope, joy, and life-affirming confidence to be dangerously subversive threats to the universal order and attacks and destroys the slightest ember of life’s warm fires before it can kindle dangerous ideas like wanting to feel alive for once.

And like all such regimes, it cannot be reasoned with. It cannot be talked down. brought to reason, taught the value of mercy, or otherwise peacefully reformed.

Those are all the tools of people with the luxury of being reasonable. In order to protect itself the fascist regime has to shut down anything like reason. It knows, deep down, that free thought would destroy it and only relentless numbing fear can preserve it.

So the only way to get rid of it is to rise up and wrest control away from it by any means possible, and bar it from power forever.

But how can you do that when you’ve been taught from birth that this fascist regime is the only thing keeping you safe from a hostile world?

There are things far worse than oppression, or so it would like you to believe.

Revolution can only come when people are hurting so bad that they don’t care whether they unleash chaos and horror any more as long as the bastards pay.

Not sure how that would work on an individual level.

But it’s certainly something to think about, isn’t it?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow,.