A grocery store of painful memories

Morning darklings,

Two decades ago, I was engaged to someone who left me a few days after Christmas. I spent a long time wondering if the girl he left me for was better than me or if it was just me being unworthy or if he was the failure. The answer is clear when talking about a cheating teenage hood rat selling drugs (most of those things I did not know about at the time).

Only last year did I learn the term pain shopping. It essentially means that you’re seeking out painful memories to dwell on. It’s not always on purpose. Sometimes it’s a part of the grieving or healing process, sometimes it’s part of a mental illness, but there are times when some reach for that to hurt themselves.

I imagine it like wandering down a grocery store. The aisles are filled—overstocked, even. But instead of cans of black beans or bags of baby carrots, there are memories of forgetting someone’s birthday or tainted moments because of ugly truths. You aren’t reaching for a cereal box, you’re reaching for that time you said I hate you but meant you’re hurting me. You’re walking by fresh memories of being lied to, and with each mist keeping it damp and shiny, it hurts more. Still, you analyze three different varieties of the same type of lie, the same type of tears, the same type of anger. Which is better, you wonder.

It’s so easy to pain shop. I became an overachiever of rumination by the time I was 18. It’s not a habit that’s easy to break.

Especially when one can do it for any situation, moment, experience, relationship.

An event isn’t well attended: I didn’t advertise in the right places. I used the wrong images. The people who claimed they were coming never intended to. 

Someone you love lied you to: It was my fault because I didn’t do X. Did they really do X when they said they did?

A friendship goes wrong: I mucked up that conversation. They didn’t keep their promises. What about that one time we X?

Even getting drugged at a bar can bring up a shopping list: things I could have avoided, things I could have done differently, cautions I forgot to take, slow reaction time.

But… really?

The toxic thoughts can become cyclical, poisoning any chance you have at being happy in your current moment—or in life.

Few people enjoy pain shopping, yet we do it all the time, even when we aren’t aware of it.

This past week, I found out that all of my books were attributed to another author on Google. In the scheme of life, that is nothing. It affects zero percent of things. Not even sales. And yet, I took to pain shopping for why it could be my fault, like I was getting the ingredients for a pie.

It didn’t occur to me that fault need not be a part of the equation at all. That it was a literal ones and zeros error, that of course the higher rated author would get connected to the books, that her website has my author name, so algorithms will do what they will do.

Because I didn’t stop and think about that, I spun out.

To be honest, darklings, I hate being an author. Publishing is tedious, boring, frustrating, bothersome, and overwhelming. It sucks my energy out and leaves no room for me to be creative that week or maybe that whole month.

So my spin out included crying in the shower about how my hard work feels meaningless and the sales and reviews numbers being lower than I think they should be at this stage. It involved me wondering if I was as good as I thought I was, if my creativity was enough. It had me looking into what it would take to change all of my books to be published under Elizabeth Mitchell (more energy and time than I have; so this is a future thing when I have a lot of expendable cash, at best). It involved a lot of dark random thoughts that had nothing to do with Google or Elle or books.

Because all the wrong AI answers were my fault. I chose to switch author names. I didn’t go hard on social media to get a bunch of new reviewers. I didn’t stay on Substack to grow and get paid subscribers. I didn’t do the things this other person did to get a ton of reviews. I published books, mentioned them a few times, then went back to my hole. I admitted I was Disabled and took a sabbatical. I canceled on speaking engagements and conference appearances to take care of myself. I rested. I made miniatures. I slept. I relapsed. I stopped eating solid foods. I fell apart. I changed my mind about this or that thing. I made an anthology instead of publishing more of the series I was building.

Pain shopping is easy. Remembering all that you’ve done “wrong” or could have done “better” is easy.

It’s leaving the store that’s hard. It’s stepping outside and touching grass that’s hard.

So I did leave. I left the shopping cart behind and dyed my hair.

Like a dear friend says, “Hair color is the ultimate dopamine hit.”

a reminder & an update

*Saturday October 18th, 7:30 pm, CoHo Productions / This is a ticketed event for Stage Fright.

….. my reading at TellTale’s event snuck up on me! I realize that I didn’t give you the full deets last week, which, whoops. That’s why this newsletter is just a little out of time.

See what I mean? I’m bad at selling myself and my events.

I am reading a piece that is brand new, and I don’t know when/if I will share it after this. So I hope you can make it.

It’s going to be very fun!

*I have my reading time for the Halloween HWA event on the 25th!

You can catch me at 1:25 on Saturday the 25th at the Beaverton Public Library. The readings start at 1 and go until 3, with 10 readers in total. I’ll be reading two short pieces—one from We Used to Be Different and another thus far newsletter exclusive piece (but depending on how long you’ve been with me, it might be new—it's not on the backlogs; it was on Substack).

a lil board

Until next time, harness the Little darknesses and embrace the Little things.