8:00 p.m. - 05/14/02
this entry would not be checked in the express lane.
I was going to come here and whine about how my Wellbutrin dose was raised, and now I feel all jittery again, with my thoughts flying at speeds to fast to comprehend, but then I realized that I'm drinking a caffienated soda, which is plainly silly of me, and therefore I have no right whatsoever to blame my current state of mind/body/spirit/and so forth on the pretty little blue pill.
Blue. It is my first non peach/orange/white/off-white colored med. And the letters look like a smiley-face. It's a fucking joke of a med, (in appearance not function), but if it weren't one of so many I wouldn't mind taking it much.
It'll be nice when I'm off the Buspar. It didn't help for very long, and I rarely remember the second dose; plus it reminds me of Rogers, and everything reminds me of Rogers so do I really need two white rectangles a day to further motivate that obsession?
When I talked to the doctor on Saturday, I went to compare my situation currently to my situation there (yet again), and I said, "I know I talk about it like it was Utopia, and it wasn't, but still..." And he said, "A place where you were allowed to feel openly without having to negotiate other people's responses and restrict yourself accordingly? Of course it was Utopia for you." Because he knows. I'd never seen anything remotely like it in my entire life, and to be given the chance to live there for one moment, was like...being invited within a star minus the burning...
I think if I were Make-A-Wish-Foundation material I would wish that I could live there with the people I loved for "the end." Because seriously, I think everyone would like it. I'd let you come and go as you pleased, but I would stay, and no one would care that I was agoraphobic because I would be like the little puppy who's always there to greet you at the door. That's what I want to be: self-sufficient as a cat and loyal as a puppy. Mr. Doctor Man said that I'll be able to create Utopia in my own life, that I can put those characteristics in my life, as I gain "more control" (he didn't use those words- it's actually a non-quotation) over that life. Once I can move out, and meet people, and talk freely with them, I'll be able to mold relationships wherein we can hear the strains of certain Alanis Morisettte ballads...but...I don't fully want to believe that. Part of me wants to believe that RED was the absolute only place where life could be that beautiful...so I am.
Still, there's another part that's afraid, afraid to have it taken away as so many things have been. I'm afraid to go back and realize it isn't paradise, no matter how close it comes. So I'm making a promise right here, and you all are my witnesses:
I will not go back to RED until I am somewhat certain that I will be able to experience it in the moment, without letting that impact my memory of life there. If that means I start working there 5 yrs from now, fine. If it means, visiting in thirty, that *will* be ok. Because as much as I want that in my life (and I will welcome any RED-people during the interim- this is simply about the place) I would rather wait to reenter it, then rush and lose what I have now. The memory sweet enough to sting is too precious to risk...
That's the greatest pain, I think: beauty out of reach. Peace, acceptance, love, joy, home, life, or whatever else out of reach. It sneaks into your mind, and it's harder to shield against than any open pain. I remember the joy of the moment; I forget the tightness distance brings. It's more than longing and it's more than loss - because you long for something you once had and you've lost something that still exists. Oddly enough, it's pleasure. It's pleasure that excruciates.
Me...anyway.
I'm writing (almost) completely separately from the thoughts I've had today of what to say. I think that's why I'm actually able to construct sentences for the first time in what feels a little while. As I was writing this, my mom came home, and the screen door is broken so she had to sort of kick her way inside- on top of which I didn't quit drinking the malicious orange soda when I spoke of its role in my not feeling well, so now I'm having trouble again. I was calm, now my head is in pieces.
I wonder if jigsaw puzzles struggle with their moments in the box.
I had a long monologue today (well, it was a dialogue, but the recipient was not around, so far as "reality" goes- which in my book, isn't much) about what it's like to have lost my mind. Whoa. Didn't mean to use the cliche. I mean to have lost my intelligence, my intellect, my ability to access my brain. Which isn't to say that I have the i.q. of a prehistoric gnat or anything, (actually, I have no idea about such beings- they could have been brilliant, or non-existant, or...yeah) I do have decent-ly complex ideas sometimes, and I occasionally understand new concepts without a whole lot of continued explanation, but I don't have the consistency I used to, and that scares me, especially with college in the longer-short-term forecast. My intellect is the source of my bravado; it's the place where I can seem 17. The rest of me is in pieces, disjoined ages, traumas, and experiential types. Being younger, I'm largely sensate in the rest of myself- and that's the place where the (true) poems, the plays, and the friendships come from. That's the place where my earliest language, before it's distorted by normalcy and English and structure, comes from. And I love that language, that place of images without explanation and colors never seen. But I need the intellect in order to feel safe, in order to keep myself moving, and though there is a "cute, silly" side of the sensate girl who amuses, most of what my mom's Irish friends call my "wit" comes from the intellectual self and her quickness. I use words as a defense, but it's a defense against myself, a "sandbag against my insecurity" to borrow from Ani. It's not a defense against the people I'm with, but rather, it's how I engage with those people. Without it, I really would become the purple-clad version of Emily Dickinson, and even if I *am* pursuing college in her hometown, and a school which honors her name, I really don't want to live in a room...even if I can write brilliantly concise poems and lower treats to the neighborhood children through a window.
Though that mysterious Boo Radley aspect would be interesting for about a week...I've felt disjointed enough in my life. I'm ready to integrate though not conform.
Speaking of...my teacher- who enjoys talking politics even though she constantly says she she stop- said something today like, "It's not that I don't like liberals or democrats. I just don't like- Clinton." Which amused me, mostly because she was speaking of a friend of hers who was on the opposite end of the political spectrum (i.e. liberal) and I wanted to say, "Well, that's good. It's good that you don't dislike liberals because it'd be sad to have you hate me when we get along so well."
Mostly I keep my mouth shut. I don't think she'd judge me by any means (my political beliefs are the least of my worries)...it's just that I'm afraid she'd feel less comfortable talking about her thoughts on the subject, and I really am interested on her perception of the issues. Even if I disagree with the conclusions she's come to, it's not that I disagree with her coming to them, it's that I don't hold them for myself...and just the fact that she *has* questioned appeals to me. I like what I learn about people and the questions I must ask myself when someone stops to say, "This is what I believe, Mary, and this is why."
Other recent events:
1.) My parents' friend, Barbara, who took sabbatical at the retreat center my mom helps direct and lives in Ireland, visited last night. It was the second time I'd met her (the first being at the Madrigal dinner sophomore year, when I was crazy with stage energy, illness-anxiety, and post-traumatic-charlie stress) but it was the first we really talked. She's a wonderful woman- that same Irish wit as my grandma, and the same love of telling stories. I love people who will stop to take long breaths and smile at their memories. I guess it's the mark of a storyteller at ease. She spoke about her work as a nurse doing respite care for so-called "low-functioning" special needs kids. Her face absolutely lit up when she talked about what a transforming, fulfilling experience it is, and I knew I'd found a kindred girl. The whole time she was speaking, I kept thinking "I will connect that strongly; I will impact lives. I will work in such a setting; I will feel this." It wasn't so much jealousy as the emotional knowledge that she had a close call of what I want, and it nearly brought tears to my eyes. It exists...and there are other people, people who understand the need/ the desire/ the strength/ the joy...they exist also, and that was well-received within my reclusive little heart.
2.) Dr. R, who in an atypically typical manner absolutely does not pass judgment on any thought/action etc, did so. And I was really affirmed by it, actually, though I suppose that had to do in part with the action he 'judged' not being mine. I told him a little bit of what happened Sunday, and I talked about feeling like it was a "you are your mother's daughter" moment (negative)...and how that's something he's said in anger in the past, and when the doc started to speak I thought he was going to say what people *always* say which is how I know the good qualities of my mom, and if I embody them, who cares what tone it was spoken with...which crumbled me a bit. Instead he said in an unusually stacatto tone, "No parent should compare the child to the other parent. Ever. It isn't a good move." And after I wiped off the dust of witnessing a therapist make a direct statement (not that he doesn't do so- but he *does* play those little "tell me what *you* think" and "do you think I felt that about what you said?" games) I was really grateful for that. Because in a world of so much grey, it's really nice to have someone say, "This is unflinching. This is static, and this is how it is."
I was grateful...
3.) I compared my brain to a lightbulb. Sometimes it's on and bright. But when it's blown, there's this flash of light almost too bright, and then a slow fade into nothing. The almost-painful flash is like the breaking nerve pain that I feel as it starts to shut off, then things start to blur, and the connections simply do not function anymore. Mom said something yesterday about whether the part of my brain that is known to struggle (i.e. medicated) is the part that does things like geometry, and it set me wondering. I know I don't have some awful neurological disease, but it would be interesting to know about what areas are affected and how else that plays in my life. Maybe I'll ask Dr. R...if he's for the idea, he'll probably talk about it or mention a book or something. Once I thoroughly explain my reasons for wondering.
4.) And then I compared it (my brain) to vision problems. Only it's the world behind my eyes that blurs. Behind my eyes, things grow fuzzy, and then, even though I can look at the words or the math problems, they don't register. I can read them a million times, and if they make sense in the beginning, they won't make sense by the end. The best I seem to get is the idea of, "Oh, I just do this," but when my focus shifts to doing it, I don't remember what "it" is that I'm supposed to do.
5.) It's probably just anxiety. My brain shuts down so I stop working obsessively or thinking obsessively or something. And now I have to teach it not to do that. But it's still scary. With Mistrandy, I can joke through it, make faces or laugh until my mind comes back and I can finish the problem, but there's still this reality of it that scares me.
6.) I don't want to work in eating disorders. I mean, I hate them, and I will fight to prevent them, I will fight against the continued escalation of pro-ed culture, and I will fight the stigma and misconceptions, *but* I do not want to go into schools and say, "hi, I have an eating disorder, let's talk" because honestly that does far more damage than good. Look at programs like D.A.R.E. I want to talk to people of all ages about emotions and coping mechanisms and most importantly, language. Communication. These diseases communicate on that visceral, sensate level we give up post-infancy; that have metaphoric value and impact and more often than not, they are (eventually) listened to. If we can get in there and create a viable alternative for people, a language that will be received and will give them all of the good of destructive coping mechanisms, I think that will be the truest prevention. At least, I think it was for me. I think ultimately, I came out of my eating disorder because it was attacking that core sensate girl. I lost the ability to feel, and since all my creativity and most intense communication comes from that place, I felt self-less. Dave said once that he worried I would return to depression and illness for the writing material, but I've never belived that. I can't write in depression. Furthermore, I can't *like* what I write in depression. Ultimately, my ed-language cut me off from the feelings it was supposed to express, and I think that was my final straw. Although I couldn't have acted on that straw without being surrounded by my Utopian supporters. :)
So, yes...they are winged, whether it's naive or not. They are lifesavers in that (im)perfectly human, winged way. And since-
7.) when I called to talk to Brea at 10:30 she was out fixing her car and the sweet newbie I spoke with (Michelle?) said to try later, but I tried until eleven and no one answered again, I will probably call tomorrow and if Spongebob doesn't engage her too thoroughly (Wednesday is Spongebob night, if I know Brea) we will finally defeat the evil telephone gods.
I've had fears that I'm supposed to take this three-call streak of not being able to talk to her as a sign I'm not supposed to call or that I need to not be so dependent on the friendship, but I've decided that's bullshit. I love her, I need Rogers, and right now, (since that's the only place I can call her), they go together. And you know what? If she weren't supposed to be in my life, we wouldn't have met.
So, meh.
chord
�
�
