Yesterday Facebook threw up a post in my face that came from my past. March 2013. It was about eating chocolate chip cookies from the Publix bakery.
Thanks Facebook. As if I needed a reminder of a time when I only had two diagnosed anxiety disorders and not five. The time before Pippin died. A time when I could eat four chocolate chip cookies on the way home from the bakery without worrying about how many calories was in them.
It's bad enough that I suspect half my friends want the old me back. I want the old me back, too. I've waited a long time for her to come back.
But I don't think she ever will. This is my reality now, and I have to accept it. Pippin is never coming back. I have CAT now: Colby Apricot and Thimble. I do have an eating disorder which I have to manage carefully.
And I am different. My personality has changed, and I'm just going to have to get used to that. I have different routines now.
Maybe part of it is just growing up, too. I have better emotional regulation now. That sounds better than saying I only have surface emotions anymore, and that inside I just feel numb all the time. Right?
In some ways, though, I like myself better now. I never really liked being a drama queen. Even when I was in the throes of emotions there was a part of me that would have really preferred not to be. I like the new calmer me. Even if I feel mostly just numb.
I do wish my sensory processing disorder hadn't gotten worse, though. It's hard enough to be around people, without having everything be too-loud-too-bright-too-smelly. I mean, it was before, but now it's worse. I mean really. Perfume serves absolutely no purpose, and it just makes you stinky. It baffles me why people wear it.
I had previously learned how to cope with a certain level of sensory assault. Now that it's worse, some of my coping mechanisms aren't sufficient anymore. And it's taking me a while to learn new ones. It's exhausting.
