9:50 p.m. - 09/18/02
oh-i'm-too-tired-to-think-of-titles.
I'm not too proud of myself for last night, or on another matter, for today. I know I haven't done anything, really, but I'm just irked by how low I've been lately. I feel like I'm letting it happen, which is something I've never really believed. It's so frustrating to want to feel, to want to talk, to want to understand and change the way things are, and not have access to it. I feel out of touch with myself and that's leaving me so distant of others. And I feel ashamed, too, which leaves me scared of them. I've started thinking, "Don't hurt me!" when I open e-mail; it's been so long since that. I've had to believe in what I used to know, what I once felt, rather than what I feel.
I was disappointed with myself at today's appointment, too. I know when I'm shut down, and it's never something I enjoy, but I didn't feel like I'd shut down to protect myself. I just felt stubborn and defensive and far away. I've been trying to determine where I am in situations, where I *physically am*...which is something I've lost track of to give my memories more power. Sometimes I just stare at the chair I'm sitting, trying to understand it's real. I found myself doing that today with him. I found myself looking at the office, saying in my head, "this place is real. This conversation isn't just another one you're having with the mirror or the dark. There's a room to go with that scrap of carpet at your feet."
It didn't solve the problem. I need to know where *I* am, not where I *am.* I need to know what's going on inside of me. My whole life is based on determining what's going on internally for me and making decisions about action from that point. If I have no access to what's going on, I feel a great deal less alive. Helpless, vulnerable, uncertain, and indifferent. It's hard to care about someone less real than fiction, and today I am.
I feel that way.
We talked about school. He said that I have overgeneralized the traumatic stimuli of Neverland, which is why physics scares me even though I find it interesting and am doing well. I'm still afraid that the situation will somehow turn into what I felt in Neverland because I've kept a list in my head of all sorts of things I must watch out for, in order to protect myself, and some of them were the exceptions to a rule. Some of them were not the way the world is.
I told him about what happened with the Psych and Physics test, and how for no reason I could devine, I hadn't gotten down on myself about the psych grade. I felt like it was unjust, and I stuck with that feeling, even though I *did* attack myself a little for doubting the system. (In Neverland, my doubt would be an excuse for how incapable I was, an attempt to blame them for my poor performance...) He was glad that I was able to feel differently, though I told him that if I did poorly on the next test as well, I'd probably freak. I know that physics as a subject brings up what happened to me freshman year (and all throughout school, but freshman geometry was just the kicker), but my teacher is like my new hero. Despite my never having met him. Anyone who has the decency to write me a personalized, affirming note in the middle of a hectic schoolday gets my vote for teacher of the year. It means so much to a homebound kid; it really does. Anyway, I guess Psych has the potential to be triggering also, though not so violently. The unbending structure is a lot like what I faced: the idea that the system will not serve you until you serve the system. You are not an individual; you will conform to our expectations of you. And it reminds me of AP Euro, in which my teacher was a really great person who vested a lot of concern and humanity my way, but did not manage to get much about the once-great monarchs through my head. Dr. R said that the idea here is to give me a corrective experience, one that is therapeutic because is shows me that things don't have to be like they were in N*land. (It reminded me of what Rogers has done for my formative years, my ideas about love. Or what it has done generally, though occasionally the knowledge that I-am-and-will-be-loved falters. Like now.) He said it can't be corrective if we don't make sure it's different. He asked if he could step in and advocate for me in terms of the psych class, make sure it tested my knowledge of the subject and not my ability to read the minds of teachers I don't have and standardized exams I will not take. It was a really uncomfortable thing for me because it brought up all the shame of wanting that, of having asked for it myself (and risking "insubordination"), of daring to have needs outside the norm. I feel really guilty about it even now, which is why he asked to do it on my behalf. He said maybe if it went on outside me, I wouldn't have to feel guilty about it. But he understood when I said, "Except...just because I don't have to doesn't mean I won't."
I have an amazing capacity for guilt. I could place in the Shame Olympics, dearie-dears, but I have other medals in my sights. I think I really do.
So it was hard. We talked of school and of what happened to Dixie, about Sara's electrolytes, and how scary it all is. He talked about resentment, and I went off into my head a ways because why on earth would I feel any anger toward my friends? This is not a concept I understand, and I said as much. I told him, "It's like people telling me to be angry at Tracy. I don't understand. Why would I be angry at them, at her? It doesn't make any sense." He told me it was a feeling, maybe- *maybe* a feeling I don't have, but still a feeling and it wouldn't have to make sense.
"But wouldn't I have to feel it?" I said finally. "Wouldn't I have to feel it if it's a *feeling?*" I was starting to go crazy. I worked so hard to let myself be angry, but I know I still shut down sometimes before I realize I'm angry and, as was my habit, trying to hide it. I hate having people tell me I should be angry about things, that it's normal to be angry, when I'm not. Angry they happened/ are happening? of course. Angry at the person they happened to? I can't imagine *why.*
Why would I feel anger at people I know are struggling so much? Why would I resent what they have when I know how painful it is? And even moreso, and this was a huge risk just to ask, "How can I move forward if I still want it?"
He answered with a question. "How were we able to celebrate your one-year anniversary and still, at the same time, grieve?"
I shrugged. "Because I felt like I'd lost something," I said. "Because I felt like time was passing, and it was getting further away. But this isn't the same. It's not like..." I stopped dead. "..." Silent. "..." Tripping over what I hadn't said. "Oh," I managed finally. "I see."
"You feel it?" he said. "Even if it isn't logical."
I felt something. Not anger, but a little envy of my friends. Sara might end up in the hospital, and that's terrifying, and that's horrible, and it's so so sad, and...Sara might be lucky enough to go back. And that made me feel something. Toward her. Like it wasn't fair and if I was still sick, I might have the same thing, and I want it so so badly; bring them back! I'm scared. I don't ever want to seem like I don't want recovery because I really always do, but I want it, in large part, to achieve what I had at Rogers, and since I haven't had that in my life since Rogers, I do, to some extent, equate it with illness. And I'm scared because I think that Dr. R is going to leave. Even if it's irrational and post-traumatic phobic flufnstuf. I fear it all the same.
I'm scared that I'm so distant with him. I barely talked today, and when I did it was so...weird. I felt like I used to feel with Harriet, like I was getting further away instead of closer together, and that scared me so when I came home, I went through all the possible reasons, and all the things I really MUST tell him next week if we're going to survive. (I can't switch again. I can't, I can't, I can't...)
1.) he mentioned Harriet, and he never does that, so it scared me.
2.) after he mentioned her, he acted similarly - though with a different feel and in a different context. like drawing attention to my breathing, trying to coax deep breaths. she started that way and then got more and more irritated with me about it.
3.) he told my mom that my test said I didn't have absentee parents and that made me feel like my experience was less important than he says it is. I need to know that what I say to him is safe and what he says to me is true. I need to hear that he won't tell my mom the slightest thing without permission ever again, and I need him to be distinct and say that the promise does not just mean, "next time I'll condition it with, 'this can not get back to Mary.'"
4.) It was only a couple sessions back that we first talked about what is really my big secret, the one thing I really kept from people in my life for a serious amount of time. The one thing that, prior to Rogers, I had told no one. And I guess somehow I'm scared to have him know. I need definite reassurance that he's here and he's not telling and he's safe, having told him that. And I can't take it back, and I don't really want to, I just want to *go back* to when it felt safe enough to share.
5.) I think him talking about Harriet: mentioning her, doing the breathing, discussing my attachment issues, made me feel like she really wasn't as wrong as I felt she was. (And he confirmed she was.) Even though he said, "You don't have an attachment disorder; you don't have an attachment disorder" right after mentioning her and attachment in the same sentence, it really made me doubt myself. I'm afraid that what happened really was about me and my issues, even the slightest bit, and that means I won't be able to keep it from happening again.
I need to tell him all of this, and I know that, but I still have to wait a week. It's so hard. I know I'm scared and sad and angry and ashamed, and I know what's going on in my life, but none of it feels connected. I can't draw any lines from this to that. There's no causation, no *correlation*...nothing. And that makes me start to lose my mind because I can't change random emotions I don't even recognize. I can't feel what stays below my radar. I lose it when I can't feel; it's too weird.
He did end up writing a letter to my principal about the whole AP class thing, and I do have very strong (contrasting) feelings about it. My principal was absolutely fabulous, told me to speak up anytime, told me he thinks I'm a brilliant student. (I heard this through my mom, who delivered the note.) He said that it was supposed to be about me, and I need to know I have a voice. I swear this school would drop the jaws of every person I know. I've never in my life been treated like this.
I currently give the appearance of an honors student, even if I never *make* said appearance in the building. I just got an 85/83 on my gov't test, I know I did well on my american history test, my fashion strategies work is coming back with happy ink despite its progressive stance, I'm about to start Farenheit 451 for sci-fi (my first Ray Bradbury! censorship and book burnings! oh yeay!), and this physics chapter rocks even if I'm scared about the test. Psych is supposed to be solved, and though I doubt I'm out of the shame-on-me woods just yet, it will be nice if that can just be the (challenging) elective I meant it for. If I can study it because it's interesting and be allowed to show I understand it. There's something screwed up about the highest class placement being to a course that doesn't allow the slightest bit of creative thought or individualized learning.
At least, that's what I believe had I never gone to Neverland. That's what I still want to believe now.
I spent the day sleeping and did almost nothing. I don't feel like any of this has been remotely break-through-ish, but I was surprised by how much I had to write. I mean, if there was conversation worth recapping, the appointment must have had some worth. I just keep trying to remember the day before New York, when he promised me he wouldn't leave. He's promised it since then, actually. Please God, let him be true.
My notes regarding the play are absolutely fabulous. I still have strong kill-the-pain urges when I read them, but that doesn't take away how great they are. So far, everyone is planning to come, and everyone is some form of excited. One person even told me that their inclusion on the list was the most flattering experience of their year. I kid not.
I'm going to work to make sure my self-esteem's in the same league with their opinions of me. Some day, buddy, some day*...
chord
*my brother thought this was the lyric for "sunday, bloody sunday"...it's part of my head's soundtrack; my brother rocks.
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