Just Earned My Motherf*cking Master’s

[Kintsugi]

That is fantastic news @Simply SimonSeeing you grow and change as a person and develop into being you has been fantastic! Way to go!

Right the hell back at you, lady. :woot:

 

[Freida]

That is fabulous!!!!

 

[void]

Congratulations @Simply Simon!

You were a warrior to fight through to the end and achieve victory. I spoke with Chancellor Gowron of the Klingon Empire and he sends you this message...

??

 

[ms spock]

Awesome @void! ???

 

[scout86]

Is too a big deal!

Congratulations! I'm really glad all your hard work and perseverance for you through it. (What's you next adventure?)

 

[blackemerald1]

Oh well done Simon. I remember you from eight years ago... You're a fine example of what can be done despite ptsd!

Yeah today a Masters tomorrow??? lol

 

[Kintsugi]

Oh well done Simon. I remember you from eight years ago... You're a fine example of what can be done despite ptsd!

That’s possibly one of the greatest compliments someone here could give me. We are a community of incredible people making it work day by day. Thank you.

And thank you Miss @scout86! You’ve always been a cherished part of my journey, giving me what my boyfriend and I call “the true true” (Cloud Atlas, anyone?).

(What's you next adventure?)

Well... not much... :sneaky:

I quit my job of 4.5 years at the end of January to focus on my last semester, so now I’m finally moving back to the city I can most identify as home after five long years of being ‘stuck’ here (first to support someone who needed people nearby, then so I could do the MA), and moving into a (hopefully this PERFECT, beautiful, secluded tiny) house with my partner (we've been renting two tiny/studio houses side by side for two years, but I’ve basically lived with him since November 2017), to whom I expect to be very imminently engaged, hopefully landing one of the many awesome jobs available in my professional fields, living amongst old and dear friends and mentors, launching and building my dog training business (unless I’m hired by a local training center that has expressed a lot of interest in me before), and hopefully getting married around October. Other than that, I will be applying to MAs, MFAs, and PhD/doctoral programs as well as some very fancy paid internships (for recent graduates only) while my extremely kickass GRE scores are still valid, although I’m not in a rush to ship off to another program unless it’s one of my favorite programs and I’m offered a very nice package/scholarship + assistantship.

Part of me hates to gush, but I guess this is the forum for self back-patting if there ever was one. I have been so, so happy for the past two years, and in the past year it’s been even better.

The first of the two years, everything seemed to be very rapidly changing, and there were definitely some growing pains. Probably my most pronounced, pervasive, disruptive symptom has always been dissociation/derealization/depersonalization, and in August 2017, it was gone. I’ve had a tortured love/hate relationship with dissociation, and when it vanished, only to resurge maybe 2-3 times over the next 4 months or so when I was in really extreme moments of stress and emotion and only for 15-60 minutes or so.

Other things changed, too, that were more subtle shifts, but everyone around me made it very clear that it wasn’t really all that subtle at all; they could see the holistic change in me, while from my perspective it was harder to tell how radically my whole attitude, energy, and outlook had changed until I—I don’t know how to say it—was able to get to know the new me better and recognize how different everything felt.

Over the past year, I finally got a P and after 8 long months found the right combination of meds. So many of my symptoms are nearly nonexistent now, like ghostly cobwebs floating in the far corners of my mind. I made a plan to quit work and finish school, and that was very liberating.

My relationship with my family (except for my bastard brother/abuser, of course) has completely changed and flourished because of huge changes/steps forward/hard work on both sides. It took me a little while to get used to last year, but I can now say with full confidence that things are way different and way better.

I have almost no hate or bitterness left in my heart. This is what I’ve been coming to terms with over the past few months. I used to cultivate these emotions in myself as a kind of armor, and I relied on them to be what drove me—to succeed, overcome, and even just to prove what I could accomplish in spite of the dumpster fire that was my past and family.

Now those feelings have melted away almost entirely, and I find I can no longer try to dredge them up in order to stand on them or push me onward. Instead I’m (I can’t believe I’m saying this, and it really is earnest) motivated by the love I have for myself, life, my partner, our family-like friends, and even to some extent my newfound connection and real love for my parents and family. I really can’t believe all this stuff I’m saying, or, rather, I still feel incredulous and am often in awe over these massive, tectonic shifts in my self.

I have become a far more positive, optimistic, sentimental, emotionally available and even vulnerable, trusting, warm, healthy version of myself. It’s kind of insane, really. I feel like being with my partner (who—and I used to not believe in this at all, but I really do feel this way—is my soulmate) and giving and receiving more love than I thought was ever possible in any relationship (frankly I’ve only met a handful of people who seem to have what we have) as well as becoming along with him this super genuine, communicative, emotionally unobstructed partner has allowed me to do the work of a decade of therapy in a couple of years. It has been f*cking fantastic, and it seriously just keeps getting better and better. I’ve been regularly making leaps and bounds of progress psychically and emotionally in the course of a week that used to take months of therapy sessions. The only disruptive symptom I contend with near daily is nightmares and some disordered sleep. Even my compulsive negative self-talk, which for years has haunted me daily around 20-100X a day, has transformed from “You should kill yourself” to “I don’t want to kill myself: I just want to go home” and “I hate you” to “I love you.”

I don’t know if I sound silly or hyperbolic, but it’s pretty difficult to overstate the depth and breadth of my progress. I very much appreciate your asking about new adventures, because apparently I had an awful lot to share. I’ve mostly kept away from the forum so that I could focus on everything I had going on, but I also haven’t checked in much because I finally have a really strong support network in person, and I’ve also mostly spent my free time reveling in how sweet life is and how much love I have for my partner (and, naturally, spending lots of time walking or hiking/running/playing with and training my puppies).

I’ve always been extremely fond of the snarky quote from Vonnegut’s Slaughter House 5: “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” It’s the title of my trauma diary, and Everything Was Beautiful was the title of my thesis/memoir about family violence. In the original book, it appears as the inscription on a tombstone, and although of course I (and no one else) could ever look back on my lifetime and say “Nothing hurt,” for the past couple of years and as of right now, everything is indeed incredibly beautiful. I didn’t know it was possible for anyone, least of all myself, to feel so damn good almost allllllll the time. Ugh. It’s just amazing.

To anyone who reads the entirety of this lengthy rave, thank you for letting me share about my accomplishments and success. I feel like I’ve already achieved the most important things anyone can hope to have in life. Everything else is just gravy at this point. And this is just the beginning. ?

 

[scout86]

I don’t know if I sound silly or hyperbolic,

Neither. It sounds pretty darn awesome and I'm glad to hear it. Nothing less than what you deserve! Thanks for sharing. :)

 

[void]

Q'apla @ms spock !?

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

Right on! High fives!

 

[Tinyflame]

That is Fabulous @Simply Simon :) :hug:

 

[Muttly]

It is so wonderful to hear of your accomplishments and I loved your rave. You have obviously come a long ways!