{"id":1002,"date":"2003-06-17T06:40:57","date_gmt":"2003-06-17T06:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/17\/youre_allowed_t\/"},"modified":"2024-12-01T10:22:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T18:22:47","slug":"youre_allowed_t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/17\/youre_allowed_t\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019re Allowed to Ask"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in a while,<\/strong> the subject<\/a> came up a couple of times this week once while discussing a project, again while chatting with friends during a much-needed caffeine break. I realized how much it\u2019s become my open secret, the thing everyone knows but still never mentions, except with extremely obvious and awkward oversensitivity.<\/p>\n

I, of course, still think about it all the time. I think about it every time I take medicine, when I wonder how I\u2019ll feel when and if that one, easy-on-the-system pill isn\u2019t enough to keep things under control. (I don\u2019t try to hide the medicine when I take it anymore. Have you noticed?) I think about it every time there\u2019s a drop of blood from a bad hangnail or a schaving scrape. (I usually wonder how I\u2019d react if I ever had a more serious scrape that I couldn\u2019t tend to all by myself, where someone else might want to help stop the bleeding or clean the wound.) I think about it when I remember what it was like to have sex, back before the antidepressants and the guilt and the fear and the mixed feelings. (I know I shouldn\u2019t judge, but I do, and no one was more reluctant to admit it than me, especially when I realized I was my own jury.)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mind talking about it, you know. Seriously, it\u2019s alright to be curious, to wonder how things are going. The answer might just be, \u201cFine. A little depressing from time to time, but still fine overall. The numbers are all holding steady, just like I hoped for.\u201d Sometimes, I may not want to get into it then and there, but what topic (except the weather, maybe) isn\u2019t like that now and then? It seems weird that it never comes up, since it was once such a big deal when we had<\/i> to talk about it.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if I expect a certain reaction or not. I don\u2019t think I do, but the topic seems conspicuous by its absence. Maybe I just want to be a little less stoic I don\u2019t want to fall back into those old habits of acting like I can handle it all by myself and smile all the way. That didn’t work out so well, after all.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t rush in and act all concerned all at once, because then I\u2019ll feel totally self-conscious. That would be awkward<\/p>\n

I know, it\u2019s a little unclear what the best approach would be. Sorry about that, but I don\u2019t know what to advise, or if I\u2019m even trying to give advice or just…you know, get it off my chest. That\u2019s life, I guess fuzzy, unclear, something you figure out as you go along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time in a while, the subject came up a couple of times this week once while discussing a project, again while chatting with friends during a much-needed caffeine break. I realized how much it\u2019s become my open secret, the thing everyone knows but still never mentions, except with extremely obvious and awkward … Continue reading “You\u2019re Allowed to Ask”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultrapositive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77252,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/77252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}