My last attempt at formal therapy was with a LSW because I couldn’t afford a psychologist, let alone the psychiatrist I know I actually need. She was younger than me, which is no longer difficult in the domain/industry and not an issue here. What did become an issue was that her life experiences were so happily neurotypical that she genuinely could not understand me or how I talk about my life and the current shape of my memory in relation to a cohesive narrative.
So I began trying to educate myself and, at the time, I was active on Twitter. Mind you, I shift online identities (until roughly end of 2022, I’d say, when I decided to just stick with the current and now, ‘final form’).
“yeshe b’zhang’mo” is a lineage given name, indicating certain things in certain systems, but usually and more profoundly, a mock name given to indicate one’s current state as the unspoken opposite; so even if you know the meaning, you immediately get that the bearer is on a path of learning and it’s pretty much on a ‘whether they like it or not basis’.
“yeshes” is a modified name, a derivative, a reference, if you prefer; mostly to try and honor the aspiration of that fucking name and always knowing that because I, too, am a human, probabilities are low that I will write loudly enough to break through the many walls between any given ‘thee’ to this ‘me’.
“yeshes.online” is my online presence, such as it is in any moment. It’s how to find me on Bluesky, it’s how to find my personal domain (in which this disclosure practice is constantly emergent), and when possible, it is my preferred avatar name.
I guess you can just say I’m living as much online as I’m not out here in meat-space, and regardless either, I spend a lot of time in my own head.
Sometimes, it’s helpful. Most times, it’s just a masochistic thorn of lust for reclaiming my memories in which I pipe the PFC onto a page and then, try to fucking understand it as more than Roget ralph, some fucking technicolor yawn that… becomes art on the page? Mainlining consciousness as a demonstration of humanity rather than as a fucking commodity? I can hear that concept grating on an inertial dissonance… can you hear that, through the concept? All attempts at emergence must be controlled as a commodity for shared revenue profit yes, but also to leash creativity to consumerism so it cannot escape as it did last time.
Pesky internet. By the time they figured out and responded to loss of economy and related taxation mandates online, there was both dark web and net neutrality and to some extent, blockchain to keep the landscape from collapsing as it did when a certain search engine company decimated public commons (Usenet) by repeatedly selling them and fragmenting their propagation that they’re mostly puddles of stubborn BOFH keeping it going at all in any form (you folks rock, by the way!).
The hyper-connectivity is real here, though I am well aware some might be arching a brow clinically (I see you over there. Stop that. I know what I’m about here.).
My point? I wanted to create a sense of tension about this concept of ‘being me’ and its compound form, ‘being me online’. Because that is also me, insisting on being this me, in this moment, having this experience, and knowing that I cannot be alone in it, am kind of documenting it as it unfolds because, well, I don’t have anything else to do at the moment and playing with how to deliver the concept ‘What is it like being me?’ as an outlet for some anxiety over the latest news seemed a productive thing to do.
The OTHER point? The one you thought I left in the dust because you’re smart as hell and you notice these things? Yeah, look at this from start to this semi-colon, right here; the preceding is actually how I think, talk, and play with both processes to try and make some manner of understandable presentation that makes life make sense to me. If it seems disjointed, it’s really not at all.
May as well talk to the whole of Universal Reality while I wait for someone to be interested in my resume. Oh, plus to have a willingness to formally and respectfully accommodate me for sensitivities and work to understand rather then stigmatize my traits and their corresponding needs. When and where so supported, I consistently outperform my peers, though these days, would happily spend that time mentoring around theory and reality applications of Scrum, Agile, and KanBan. I am certified only as “Certified Scrum Product Owner”, but I am also a veteran of technology who front-lined analysis as a developing practice, eventually ran a consulting company as a W2 contractor who could pull together teams that got things done.
All as an eight-grade drop-out who got her GED in 1985 at the age of 20. I rarely talk about my education until I have a chance to either talk about a hard problem they have or to show them what I can do. I no longer carry shame over it, I managed a lot. I also know how much I will never manage because, well, I’m unable to do it. Full stop. The details are my own to know.
But the POINT? I have been unable to find a psychiatric professional who is both neurodivergent-affirming, trauma-informed, at least moderately and positively aligned with Internal Family Systems as a viably modality, understands at least the concepts of downstream effects of allostatic load, genetic fragility, chronic illness, autoimmunity compromised, and can take a hyper-verbal and hyper-connected human brain, well, like this, for long enough to get my story on your note pad before we start engaging touchy topics like loss of my agency, autonomy, and lived experience authority?
Reads like one of those back page ads, only is kind of precisely the map; it’s terrain and contours, all writ up purdy fer ya. I need to unclutter because I still haven’t found my delight and time is, actually, running out in ways that all these professionals say ‘shouldn’t be happening’ until I’m well into my 70’s. I’ve only just gotten to professionals at least willing to HEAR me out, especially now that I bring my own genome reports and relevant literature poly-scored over 75% match to my variants and alleles.
It’s how I ‘justified’ my formal autism assessment to our insurance company and of course they denied us reimbursement because they are only required to pay for certain cases and frankly, the rest of us out here, be damned; which is hardly the first time this concept has come to mind and definitely long before my lily-white ass would have but for being the ash child combo of parental abandonment and state wardship and just plain poverty.
Anyone willing to accept history will clearly see this life experience has affected so many humans before I ever became an itch in my daddy’s pants. I’m not trying to over-speak. Go learn about our “proud, American colorization”. I can only talk about myself. And I was born and raised as ignorant and stupid about the many ‘thems’ to which I got introduced long before I ever met them and certainly was never praised for it; had my own family members set me up to break up a friendship with a young, black girl I used to sing and dance and talk and just enjoy being around. Yeah, it was the late 60s and early 70s and believe me, this shit never left this country. Instead, it went deep underground and poisoned both the belief and the spirit of the country, fed the economic ragefest that was the 80’s, at the very least. But that might be a different post. Not this one. Back to it.
I was raised a poor white child, a lesser valued female but maybe puberty would bless me and then I could become an object. I think I might have fallen for it had they allowed me to be a rhombus. Or maybe a trapazoid. But no, not unless you’re cosplaying and I think it’s all copyright owned, the shapes now, right? If not, soon, I’m sure. /s
Let’s see… my dream machine is an RV to live in and a piece of land to park it at night so we can slowly make organic farming a cottage/homesteading trade and wean ourselves off of cities entirely. So, may as well describe granny’s caravan!
Best represented as an old walnut-sided caravan with a plastic wrap indicating the walnut house with the shutters and door it may turn directions when you’re not looking and that’s ok. The chicken-feet on the wrap are posed in extended stride, huge and thus, one at back of front wheels and one at front of back wheels. Channeling Baba Yaga. Rest assured, it IS a wrap, and there are no episodes of them carrying humans and their owner’s transport; it is, in fact, a metaphor and yes, now, I shall put the hammer down. I am being snooty because this is not a fugue nor a stroke nor any of those clinical terms more than a few of you are trained to alert over.
I like the idea of living in an off-grid, solar powered, EV fueled, composting RV. This idea/dream here is suitably naive, but sure, have it: The caravan is an EV custom build on a 20ft truck or industrial van base and is totally off grid; using solar, composting, and solar storage solutions and water management systems and providing a full cook top and oven, convectional microwave, filtration (I’m officially #autoimmune-compromised) and regular maintenance for safe operation.
Doesn’t that just sound SO ENTITLED to you?
Perhaps some will say that. Maybe for them, it seems so. What that tells me is they’re really going to have a hard time when comes time to turn to community only to rely upon faltering kinships or nothing at all, because we allowed corporations and government to compromise on all the wrong things for over four decades? Class War is not Civil War, nor should it have to be. We have so much economic power in our hands (until they sell it overseas at last, or outright to LLM/AI). We should use it while we still can (Keywords: General Strike 2025).
I am, to many, ‘entitled af’ and to many more, ‘a fucking unicorn’ and somehow, I make that work. Until roughly 2017. I know I am far from alone in this. I know the number is increasing and I know that is not a good thing. Even this autistic humans recognizes that the meeting of many perspectives is called ‘the commons’ and in them many voices speak and thus, only a profoundly loud few (however amplified) can hope to get through.
Not sure I want to be amplified ever, by anyone. But if something I handed over somewhere along the timeline was genuinely helpful to someone, even for a moment, how fucking cool would that be, right? Manufacturing expectations of stability that reality cannot yet support is… a thing. I’m still in recovery and in treatment and need to be in therapy, too.
So yeah, I’m looking for therapy to specification, I suppose. How rude of me, I’m sure. But this brain tells me that I am paying for professional servicing of my mind, so while I’m on this merry jaunt of recasting my being at 60 and beyond, I’d like to work with someone to get a better handle on my own memories. I’m bringing my formal assessment from 2023 and this general outline of thoughts contemplating trying to get more assertive on getting this done with myself while I still have the insurance to afford it at all.
All points now tallied and summed, I lift the proverbial needled from the recorder, broadcasting, letting the smoke settle as I imagine an animation of the words ‘hot off the PFC’ as the hands on keyboard still, as the feckless data, some transient effort, finger at moon, quietly lowers…. the ambient rush of wind softens, winding down like a tryst’s ending; exhausted of continued fuel/attention/perception.
If you’re going to have to be performant, be in context, am I right? <g>
Thanks for reading. I’mma go game a bit before bed, I think.