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

7:10 a.m. - 01/20/03
obsession does not equal intuition. obsession does not equal intuition.
I'm really nervous right now, i.e. scared. And I'm afraid to delve too deeply into it, lest I find the reasons are more than I can handle. Of course, the alternative seems to be letting my anxiety climb higher and higher until I end up shutting down into depression and really being screwed for a few days. So I'm going to try and look at the mess behind it, whatever mess that is. I'm going to try and be safe and know I can stop when I need to, but not to start- when the alternative will be so cruel- doesn't seem to make sense. Oh, someone hold my hand right now...

*

I'm scared.

I know.

Do you know why?

I know you're scared to know why.

What's supposed to happen here?

Nothing that makes you unsafe. This isn't about you suddenly breaking down. It's just another tiny piece of information that you need to learn. It's just another hurdle you'll jump to find yourself further along. You can do this.

Ok.

What do you know?

I know that I woke up this morning at a time that suggests I'm anxious. I know that I feel nervous, kind of hollow, and that I was having strong memories of I'm not sure what. I heard my dad downstairs, and I started to think that his dry cough was going to become purging, and then I started thinking about how I'm so thin right now. I'm too thin. I mean, I really don't think logically that I've lost any weight, but I feel like I have, and I'm scared about seeing Tammy, and I'm scared that I'm not seeing her, say, right now. I feel like it's been too long, and like now I'm somehow really relapsing and I don't realize it. Even though I'm not doing anything. I ate kind of shittily yesterday, but it was because of the migraine. I'm not trying to sabotage myself. Why am I so scared that it's going to fall apart when I'm working so hard to keep it together?

Lots of thinking about the ed, it sounds like.

Yes. And I'm thinking how I haven't called Sara in weeks, and she's probably really sick, and I feel really awful, and I'm scared for her, and I'm scared for me. Tomorrow's the twenty-first again, you know. One year, one month. And I don't feel like we're all safe this time. I don't feel like Tracy's right with me, and Sara and I are ok. I even got a letter from Dixie yesterday that sounded like she's really working hard, but I'm still scared. I still feel like I'm falling apart, like everything is falling apart, and it's overwhelming to me. I feel helpless.

You think this has anything to do with the letters you sent to Rogers earlier this week?

Maybe. I don't know. I've been thinking about them this morning, too. It's so early, and when I wake up early, I always think of them. I was thinking how the time I woke up was about the time we would have been woken up for vitals, and pretty soon now, they'll be heading down to breakfast. I just feel shitty thinking about it.

Missing them?

Yeah, I guess. I miss them so much. But scared of them also. Scared of what it means to have been somewhere like that, to have loved people so deeply, so many of whom we're sick. To be that vulnerable.

You think you're going to lose something.

I think something is going to fall apart. And I feel worse knowing I think that. I mean, I know intuition and obsessive worrying are not the same thing, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

What is it helping to worry?

None. I know that, logically. I know that it's not a good thing. But somehow it must be helping me, right? Well, I think if I fly into anxiousness than I won't have to *just be scared.* I won't have to just acknowledge that it's a really shitty place to be in: this world where so many of the people you love could fall off the planet at any time. This world where the phone ringing could mean a part of you is gone.

But it didn't mean that. When Tracy died. You only thought it did. You know more now.

But I also know the way it felt, what I thought it meant. I know how much pain I went through, and I'm scared. I don't have enough contact now. I can't lose anyone.

Why would you all of a sudden lose? Because you wrote Rogers? Because you told them that the connection means something to you, which you haven't said in over a year?

Yes. Now that they know I want it, it'll leave.

Why on earth would that make sense?

I don't know. But if you say something out loud, it's more likely to happen. And if you admit you need something, it's more likely to go.

So then, if you don't have needs, you'll luck out and be allowed; you'll have a few fulfilled. If you don't say you need anything, you actually can need.

It scares me to hear it that way.

But that's crazy! That's such bullshit thinking. No one is going to take something away from you just because you say you need it. Why would they?

To hurt me.

They don't want to hurt you. They love you.

To teach me.

There are other ways to learn. Less painful ways.

To show me.

You don't deserve to be punished.

To keep me safe.

To keep you safe?

Because if I start doing this often, if I start saying I need this, I need that, I need you, then eventually I'm going to need too much. So if they stop me now, it'll be before I get hurt. It'll keep me from needing or from saying I have needs.

But you're already hurt. You're terrified. And you're the one stopping yourself.

I don't know what to do.

Love.

I can't! I'm too scared! I'm too scared of what will happen. I put myself out there, and now maybe, they're all going to die or leave or something. And Tammy is going to yell at me for having lost weight that I maybe didn't even lose and I certainly didn't mean to, but she's not going to understand that. Because if she did-

If she did, it would mean that she was connected to you. That she trusted you the way you can't trust yourself or your world. That she cared about you enough to listen when you say you've been working really hard.

I don't want to lose anyone again. That wasn't the point. The point was to say that I loved them because it hurt so much not to be saying it. And to have hope that they can actively care about me.

So, maybe that's still all it was.

I don't want to hurt this badly. I don't want to be this scared. They were so amazing, but they were just people, you know? They were just people who loved me, who cared about me, and for me, in a way that actually worked- and I'm terrified of them because that's so huge in my life. Because I never had it before, not consistently, not in a way that could do so much. And I don't know what to do. I'm terrified of caring about anyone, and I'm terrified of being alone. The way I see it now- if I don't connect to anyone, I'll be alone, and if I do, they'll leave, and I'll be alone.

Why do you assume they don't connect *back?*

I...

Does that give you something? Some sort of "safety"?

I don't know. Maybe. Maybe the right not to love myself.

Not to love yourself?

Yeah. Because if no one else can love me, then I don't have to love me either. I don't have to try and be ok with the fact that I was sick, and I still am, and I didn't do anything the way that I was supposed to.

Oh, Mary. You didn't do this. You did the recovery. You fought tooth and nail for it. You didn't choose to get sick.

But they can't know that. They can't know. I don't even know that. All I know is that I quit eating and I quit feeling and I quit doing well in school...

Because you were terrified, and alone, and ashamed, and desperate and...

I wasn't wrong. I feel like I was wrong. I feel like I was so desperately to blame and at fault. I'm so scared. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to get sick. I didn't mean to make anyone else worry the way I've had to worry. I didn't mean to spend money or to spend time or to ...need.

So if they don't connect, it means that you don't have to let yourself know that you need them? Or that you need in general...? Why is that still so terrifying?

Because it hurts more to need if it's not going to be met. It hurts more to need than it would to not need.

You can't not need.

Then, it hurts more than it would to numb the need.

Right. That felt wonderful before. It felt wonderful this morning. It's wonderful to feel awful and not even know why.

It's awful. I know.

Isn't it better now? Just to know that it's your own pain talking? Not some sixth sense knowledge of your friends? You're scared they fell off the earth because of what it means if they did- that you'll hurt, that you needed them- and what it means if they didn't- that you're connected to something you might lose. You're not scared because they actually did, though they might have. You're scared because it's harder to be scared of yourself, and you let it shapeshift. Not consciously. Not in a way for which you can blame yourself.

I'm tired.

I know. But you're also stalling.

I just don't want to stay safe/unsafe forever. I don't want to always feel like I need people because I haven't consistently had people. I know that I feel my best when I'm connected, so I want that; it feels "safe." But then to always want that, always *need* that...I feel like it would destroy me.

Because connection takes two. Because it's a need you need help meeting.

What if they don't love me anymore?

What did *they* tell you about what if thoughts? What's more- what did they tell you about love?

No matter what you do or say or feel...

Or need?

Maybe. Maybe that's how it works in this world. That's what Stacy said, you know, that things work differently here. I thought I saw her the other day, at a store. There was this woman who looked so much like her. And it was nice because I can't remember them quite that well from my memory. But when I saw that woman, I could see Stacy standing there. I get by even when it doesn't get met, don't I? I got by for months without having them, bad as it was, hard as it hurt.

You did. You knew what the pain was. You held it.

Thanks.

*

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!