Hey, all.

This is Lazarus again.

In 2021, I was talking with my friend Delta about all of the shit I was going through at the time while deep in survival mode and about being an Enneagram Eight largely geared toward self preservation, and I predicted that once I got out of survival mode and was safe, I would sort of… collapse. I would have no idea what the fuck to do with myself and kinda deflate and go more or less catatonic. That prediction has turned out to be more or less accurate most days.

As my life has stabilized, I find myself with less and less to solve and fewer fires to put out, with many of the remaining problems largely outside of my control and completely outside of my power to fix or help with. In short, most days, despite having the stability I worked so hard for, I feel more lost and adrift than ever. I have been sleeping a lot. I just don’t have much desire to do much, and I do the rare activity when the mood or inspiration strikes. My general state reminds me a lot of when I lost my dad, Xavier, back in 2016.

I wonder a lot if I’m subconsciously or somatically grieving all of the bullshit of the last three or four years or perhaps even longer because of how badly the wind has been knocked out of me. I barely even have energy to reply to a fraction of the dozens of messages on the various messaging apps I get daily, and I am trying to move away from feeling so bad about that because realistically I just can’t right now. That’s the plain and simple fact of the matter. I only really respond to people and reach out or have my phone nearby at all if I feel up to it, which is rare, and I have been trying to strike a balance between isolation and social time so that I don’t fall off the face of the Earth completely. I don’t want to fully withdraw or even withdraw at all, but my brain and body have been demanding that to some degree, and I’m going with that rather than fighting it so as to not make whatever this is longer and worse.

On the subject of recovery, I did a bit more research on what the underlying cause of my symptoms might be that have been making my body and mind feel so damn out of whack, and came up with a decent theory that my thyroid might have gotten ever so slightly cooked due to Hera’s batshit DIY MKULTRA scheme she put me through, and the HRT I’m on combined with the years of stress has been making it go, ah, ever so slightly haywire.

So I found some scholarly research that said that thyroid patients suffering from both hypothyroidism AND hyperthyroidism benefit from taking various forms of vitamin B and thiamine for their chronic fatigue especially. Luckily for me, a former friend of mine had send me a bunch of supplements she wasn’t gonna use late last year and among them was a B100 complex supplement. So I decided to test my theory and give this shit a try and see if it did anything for my fatigue and other symptoms.

Well, it appears to be doing a fair bit. I’m about five days into the test and my brain fog and pain is leagues better. It appears to be helping my lack of object permanence and executive function, as well, giving me some semblance of both. I have also noticed that I’m not super overstimulated by huge amounts of sound, nor does silence understimulate me as badly. I can sit in silence for far longer without my mind itching for music or internally screaming. It may also be helping with the flashbacks, as well, but that’s to be determined. I will need to continue the test for longer to see if it has any significant effect there. So perhaps my fried thyroid theory holds water. I will need to address this with my doctors next time I can spare a brain cell, haha.

I’m also far less angry and my headaches are gradually getting better as I work through my anxiety, as they appear to be triggered by anxiety and moments of emotional distress, which the B100 appears to be lessening as a baseline. Yay for House MD-ing myself at home! I just love being an AuDHDer with a special interest in weird ass branches of medicine who was practically raised by doctors, hahahaaaaa. (This is partly sarcastic, partly genuine. Specialized knowledge and deep somatic intuition saves lives, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, it’s just annoying that my body is so weird and there are so many things that the medical field as we know it doesn’t explore without months of waiting or you have the charisma of a fucking god).

Seeing as there are a lot of positive effects even through the semi-catatonia and the semi-catatonia predates the B100 test, I don’t think the B100 complex is the culprit here. If anything, the supplement appears to be helping. I’m just probably processing years of grief somatically that I’m not entirely consciously aware of.

So that leaves a large amount of time to fill as I heal that would ordinarily be spent in agonizing mental or physical pain, parsing my way through interpersonal trashfires, or recovering from the aforementioned problems. That huge amount of time to fill raises some incredibly simple, yet profound questions that I’m currently exploring the answers to: what the fuck do I do now? What actually makes me happy now that I’m living more out of love than out of spite and my brain and my body aren’t fucking screaming 24/7?

I know I love writing on here and writing in general. I am deeply proud of myself for having a space that is mine that I’ve maintained for months now even if I can’t post daily, and that does a lot for my quality of life. I like having spaces that are mine where I can express myself with the people that I love that would be very difficult to take from me or from them. I know research and engaging in my myriad special interests lights me the fuck up. Emerson raids the local Little Free Libraries like the adorable gremlin he is and often spoils me by bringing books back about topics that he either knows I’m fascinated with or that he thinks would catch my eye, and I do indeed feel very spoiled and lucky when he does that. That man is a catch and a half.

I’ve seen the concept of “dopamine menus” floating around on the Internet for some time, as well, and I’ve started merging that concept with a sort of free form to do list before I go to bed if I’m not completely beat to fuck by the time I pass out and can spare a brain cell to dump all the things that might possibly bring me joy the next day even if things go to shit on paper. I often struggle in the moment to think of anything that would bring me a shred of happiness in the moment if I’m sad or bored or anxious and looking for a pick me up, and having all of that on hand and prepped the night before helps a LOT in those moments.

I think all of those taken in tandem are a decent place to start. I’m trying to move away from the notion that I have to have a Grand Plan ™️ or a goal to accomplish at all times and I really think that teenage me had it right when they said that happiness was having good talks, good music, and good food with good people. That was really their goal in life, and I think they’d be proud of me for getting here. I do a LOT of all of the above.

So stay tuned for more magic, horseshoes and weedwhackers (you decide what y’all are in the comments). See you fuckers next time.

-Lazarus

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Hey, everyone! My name is Eight. I’m one of the super-admins here, and I’m here to talk to y’all today about one of my all-time favorite topics ever, the Enneagram of Personality. I’ve loved this personality typology system since my good friend Delta introduced me to it many years ago. There are nine basic types in this system, and my type, where I get the “Eight” nickname from, is the Enneagram Type 8.

The Enneagram Institute has a great overview of my type, as do several other websites, teachers, and coaches. However, I’ve noticed during my years of study that not much of the literature about the Enneagram Type 8 is written by 8s themselves. As a result, we get a very bad reputation among the Enneagram community as ruthless bullies, master manipulators, self absorbed egotists, and just all around assholes. I suspect that many of these authors once ran afoul of a Type 8 or two, or possibly even betrayed one of them, hence the terrible reputation we get. Spoiler: you betray us or one of our people and it will not end well for you.

And yes, some Type 8s can be awful. But that applies to any group of people. So I’ve come here today to hopefully clear up some of the mystery surrounding the Enneagram Type 8 and talk about what it’s like to be one.

The Enneagram Type 8: Hard Shell, Soft Underbelly

There’s a lot of debate in the community as to whether Type 8s are simply born like this, or if there’s some kind of inciting incident early in life that makes them that way. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I can say definitively that I practically came out of the womb the way that I am. Since I was very little, I have always been a fighter, and have been stubborn as hell for as long as anyone can remember.

I value my autonomy higher than anything else on this accursed rock, and will go to great lengths to preserve it, and will go out of my way to undermine people who try and control me when I didn’t consent to take orders from them. I am, and have always been, the boss of me. My biggest fear is of being hurt or blindsided when I’m vulnerable and in need (like, it’s my deepest, yet most unconscious fear), and betrayal will make me incredibly cold and angry. I will completely stop caring about what happens to a person who has betrayed me after they do so, and it’s even worse if they hurt or betray one of my people.

I struggle to open up to people about anything that I consider important to me, and it’s pretty common knowledge that nobody knows me completely, as much as I would like them to.

The Boss of Me

I’ll push harder and longer than most people anyone have ever met if there’s something that I want or if there’s an obstacle in my way, and I’ve been like that for as long as my headmates can remember. My colleagues have written at length about us surviving a massive stroke and then clawing our way out of Texas kicking and screaming.

Yeah, the success on our side was mostly my doing. And there’s no way I could have done that without enough iron-willed determination to fight Death himself multiple times. And lemme tell you – in a crisis, that’s a major advantage. I don’t care what happens to me or my body, I WILL get to safety and I WILL give anyone who stands in my way a VERY bad day in the process. My path out of Texas was so batshit insane on purpose because I knew the people in league with my abusers would never want to follow me.

What Happens in Peacetime?

In more peaceful times, however, this often works to my detriment. I struggle a lot when there is nothing challenging me. Think of me like the human version of an Alaskan Husky dog. I, like a Husky, don’t know what to do with myself if my life isn’t on fire or I am bored, and will often cause some bullshit and push the people I love away without meaning to when I’m stressed or out of my element, such as in close relationships where being emotionally vulnerable can make or break your relationship.

My relationship with my beloved husband Emerson actually suffered greatly for the first year and a half we were together because he is far more emotionally expressive and emotionally based than I am, and I struggle a lot with emotional vulnerability.

Inner Work, More Emotional Vulnerability, And No-Bullshit Therapy For You, Mountain of Madness!

I, as is typical for the Enneagram Type 8, prefer to do things, not talk or feel. As a result, I wouldn’t tell him how I was feeling or where my head was at, and he couldn’t give me what I wanted in the relationship. It was a very please, for the love of the gods, help me help you type of situation, and I wasn’t being very helpful at all. I’m in therapy to and have an amazing, no-bullshit, straight-talking therapist who will call me out if I’m in the wrong, but will also celebrate my wins with me. I need both of those things in a therapist, honestly.

Because of all the work I did both internally and in tandem with Emerson, I am far more open and transparent with him than I’ve ever been with anyone. It was absolutely and utterly terrifying. I cried more during that healing journey while struggling to open up and reconciling my terror of being seen with my desire for love and a healthy relationship with him than I probably ever have before. But I wanted it more than anything, so I fucking did the work.

The Current State of Things

Now, I feel safe enough to fully drop my guard around him. I’m working on doing the same for others who have proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have my back. I’m also working on mitigating how bad things get when I become stressed or overwhelmed, because both Emerson and I have noticed that I try and take projects over even if they aren’t my responsibility to ensure that they are complete and done right. There, I still need to do a lot of work on letting shit go, lest I steamroll everything, burn bridges, and exhaust myself in the process. I am impatient and often frustrated, so I’ve been working on breathing deep and slowing down. Not my circus, not my monkeys. That’s what I have to tell myself, anyway.

A Word of Advice to Partners of Enneagram Type 8s

In the same vein, if your partner is an Enneagram Type 8, you will not get them to change by attempting to force, coerce, beg, or cajole them into doing so. If they truly, genuinely love you, call them out and ask them to change. If they want a relationship with you and value you highly, they’ll do the work. We’re very self motivated people and we pursue what we want relentlessly. We are also allergic to bullshit, can usually read people very well, and can catch people in lies like we’re in the fucking CIA, so if you know what’s good for you, just tell your Type 8 partner the truth with no sugarcoating, short, straight, actionable, and to the point. Trust me, it’ll go a lot better for you.

Closing Remarks

Don’t tell anyone, but in my experience, Type 8s are actually very sweet and some of the kindest, coolest people you’ll ever meet once you get to know them and actually earn their respect. Me? If you think I’m cool, awesome. If you don’t? Your loss. I think I’m cool, haha. In any case, I hope you enjoyed your stay on my batshit website, and as always, stay tuned for more magic!

-Eight, Super-Admin, Enneagram Eight, Dipshit

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