Motivation is a major problem for me. As in, I have 0 personal motivation to do anything. People look at my list of diagnoses (chronic clinical depression, severe anxiety disorder, borderline personality disorder [BPD]), and go, “Well, duh,” but it’s really bothering me.

I’ve basically become a housewife. I don’t really work with/for anyone, anymore.

It’s partly because when I’m going through shit, I start dropping the ball, and instead of explaining myself to the people I work with, I mostly just stop talking to them. I’m sure they see me posting on social media, and think I’m fine, everything’s fine, I’m just blowing them off. But it’s not like that at all. In reality, I’m a mess, everything’s crazy¹, and the only way I know how to cope is to retreat inside myself and shut everyone out but M. I know that’s crazy unprofessional, and I have no excuse besides mental illness. And in truth, I don’t think that should excuse my behavior. It wouldn’t in an actual work setting, so why should it anywhere else?

Of course, there are some exceptions, like the company I told I was going on hiatus right after their system changed. I lost my login info while on hiatus, so I asked them for help, and they told me they “forgot” how to get it, offered to direct me to a blogger, and then I never heard from them again outside of mass affiliate emails. It felt very much like I was being blown off, so I’ve since removed their banner from my sidebar. I haven’t removed their other links because I really liked working with them, and would love to again, but we’re in a serious money crunch, so if I’m going to promote sales again, it’s going to be for companies I can potentially make a commission from, and not one that won’t even help me figure out how to get into my affiliate account. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Read more…

I don’t handle confrontation well. Or communicating my wants/needs/emotions. This is not a secret.

I talk very logically about good communication in BDSM relationships all the time, but when it comes down to applying that in my own life, I often come up wanting.

It’s partly how I was raised. Growing up, my mother would try to get me to talk it out, but when she didn’t have the answers I was looking for, I’d get frustrated and shut down. My father’s response to any negative emotion was “walk it off.”

“Stop wearing your heart on your sleeve, Rayne,” he’d say. “You’re giving everyone all they need to mess with you.”

And I took it to heart and started doing my best to keep everything bottled inside.

I was already a good candidate for borderline personality disorder (BPD). Add in the stilted emotional development, and I was a shoe-in. Read more…