Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

10:15 p.m. - 05/24/03
:[:maybe I should tell him mine:]:
another day, another entry. I've been thinking about skipping this part of my day more and more often, something that doesn't feel like a good sign. I guess I've been looking at the hours lately wondering what they're worth, what I've done that really warrants writing, and it's hard to come up with anything. small victories seem even smaller on a screen. several times today, I caught myself trying to "solve" the lives of people I know, and backed off, without caretaking. but they were so small, these tiny moments ... and it will be long before I know if they're doing me good. I did feel the best I have in awhile being on-line today, though. my mom has a dear friend (and goddess who kept me in treatment, despite our lack of funds) who flies, and so the two of them flew to see my brother Joe today. my dad (for reasons that I don't really understand - I've been told that "he's trying to build up his business" and that he "doesn't think Mom wants him in D!@#$%^") is still staying with his mother, so I had the house to myself. it left me in the same sort of depressive funk it usually does, but connecting - even just signing someone's guestbook or sending the quickest of e-mails - felt better than it has. too early to tell, though, I guess. my vision's still obstructed. oh, how I wish progress were obvious...and that I didn't feel like recovery had to be some huge hollywood production in order to be worthwhile. my days are small. there's not a lot else they can be - for the moment. I read, I ate meals, I fought things that haven't helped me, I watched a funny movie, I posted at nourish. that needs to feel like enough.

I said I felt better online today than I have, (i.e. I haven't been feeling great about it recently) and that I've been falling into depression some. I don't like either of those realities, and I'm not completely sure what to do with them. behind the depression, I know, is the lack of connection, and I'm going to start fighting phobias as soon as I graduate. Deo willing, we're moving to the city this summer. I'm working on my own strength so that I'll be better able to enter any relationships and so that I'll handle those I am in without some of my oh-so-familiar issues. The on-line thing is just stupid. I don't consider the Internet evil anymore, but I have such a hard time being on it. And it's been worse lately because someone I know flipped a Billy switch the other day. I told the doc about it, and he suggested I look at the relationship (with the person who tripped the switch) and see if there's any validity in the comparison, which there wasn't. so basically, all it did was throw the despicable reality of how little it takes to put me back there in my face again. it scared me.

that's one of the big things from the session before this last one that seemed so small this week. the doc said something interesting, about how I would want him to respond - probably in a matter that was neither dismissing of the information nor catastrophizing it. I guess what has me minimizing the whole thing is the fear of the latter: from a relative perspective, this is not a bad thing that happened to me. I was very sick; I was in a relationship that felt really good most of the time, and very rarely, very painful. I used words like "love" and I fully believed them; I found out something I felt had been purposefully kept from me. I freaked out and distanced myself, which meant going back to what I really needed to be doing - taking care of myself, but also meant losing Billy, losing that certainty about what our relationship was, feeling afraid to love anyone I meet via a modem, and a thousand other things. one of which is kind of complicated. actually, one of which is hugely complicated.

the doc knows that one of the things I was having trouble talking to him about was a relationship that I'd been flashing back into as a result of something in my current life. he also knows (we'll assume; he does have eyes and ears and training, right?) that we avoid the topic of romantic and/or physical relationships or I start squirming and fidgeting and forgetting how to speak. because we've been talking about those topics we haven't been able to broach (talking about them, not actually broaching them) I've been thinking about them. one of these topics is relationships, so I've been thinking about relationships. and for the most part, I'm ok with how clueless I am right now. it's annoying; I doubt if it'll ever change, but it's not the end of the world to me that I'm still this questioning asexual bug. but when I knew Billy, and we connected like we did (no matter what sickness or struggle or pain was involved- we did connect), I remember thinking, "ok! so...there we go. I can love a boy." it was a relief to me, I think - because I didn't have to question anymore. I was usually so paralyzed by all my male-phobic tendencies that I struggled to be friends, let alone whatever Billy and I were.

so the first thing is, I'm afraid the doctor is going to have the same response. this is basically my "the first relationship I'm ever in, if I'm ever in one, is going to determine what orientation everyone *thinks* I am" (and by everyone I mean my family and small-town friends and people who don't understand what murky waters these are) applied to the past. I feel like if I say, "I had this weirdass relationship with this guy" - he'll make a mental note, and stop questioning about whether or not I'm questioning. and I don't want him to do that. because as much as I don't want to talk about it, I also don't want to have to stay quiet about it... I make such sense sometimes; I swear.

the second thing is, if you really look at what I had with Billy, especially in association with what I've had with other not-exactly-platonic boys, there's that pattern of safety. I never wanted a relationship, but the closest I went to one was always with people that I (really think I) knew would not come physically near me. guys who blew me off or had poor self-esteem or were shy or lived a few hundred miles away and never even showed me their picture. so on the other hand, that whole "thing" with Billy could be evidence against my ability to relate to boys, or at least evidence that when I do, I take huge precautions, more than a girl should need.

so I don't know what to tell the doc. he knows about Billy, but he doesn't know he knows. he doesn't know that the tripped switch connected to Billy, and if I remember correctly, he doesn't even know the name. he just knows, thanks to Judie, that I had this relationship, that I found out the guy was around my parents' age, and that I ran. I think I told him some of why. so he does know a bit about; it's just...it's so much easier to tell the end - because I'm still ashamed of what happened. I'm still ashamed of what I "let happen" or that I didn't "know better" - despite the fact that nothing all that horrible happened, and the relationship seemed to sustain me during a really difficult time. Billy was very much like my eating disorder; he felt really, really good for short amounts of time, and then he started to hurt. the part I don't know how to explain is how he felt good. I'm scared, too, because the line between enmeshment and relation is still so blurred. when I say, "well, he'd do something like this" I realize, I have friends who do the same things, and I'm scared that I'm setting myself up to experience it again. (and I'm more scared of how that will look than the pain I'll go through because of it.) it's similar to the not-being-codependent work of today: I know that I'm not responding exactly the way I would if I were caretaking, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm responding in a way that's actually *good.* it's so hard to recognize what seem like such subtle differences.

mostly, I'm just scared. there are certain topics that are only a sentence long, but I know they lead into the whole huge - massive - can of worms. and I don't even know all of what's in there, and I'm not sure how to trust someone - even the superdoc - with realities I don't even know ahead of time. I guess I'm scared that he'll see some part of me before I'm ready to have shown it. he catches on so quickly; I'm afraid.

but then, it is a step up from Harriet, who never really figured me out, those she wasn't *quite as far off* as we thought. I do have attachment issues...especially with psycho therapists who start treating me like a nasty virus instead of a human being.

a human being. well, I guess I am still that, no matter how little I do with my day. I'm still here, breathing, falling asleep (God willing) to the sound of the rain. and someday it's going to make sense. I think it's scheduled to make sense sometime after leap year...

chord

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!