9:18 p.m. - 06/11/03
- just more of the usual stuff. -
The easy things: I have my new computer all set up in my room (even if it is on the floor, as my phone jack and my desk are very, very far apart), I have new fuzzy blue-white yarn that's stuffed-animal soft and entirely infatuating, and I am immersed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire almost as thoroughly as the first time I read it. I'm having a hard time focusing on anything because I want to be doing at least these three things (computer, crochet, book) at all times. And then there is all the correspondence to catch up on and all the unhappy circumstances on which my mind can dwell...the latter of which would lead us into the
Not so easy things: I posted an entry this morning (that I wrote last night, but the computer-I-no-longer-have-to-use was being snarky and wouldn't let me into diaryland), considered making it private, decided to leave it public, came back a few hours later, and privitized it after all. I have no idea why I did this. I've done the opposite before (post it privately, and then, when the intensity has worn down, make it public), but I didn't feel right having that entry up, even though I was fine knowing that the few people who read it (and responded so I knew they had read it) had done so. I think I'm just in a jumpy, paranoid phase where I don't want to say or do anything to make myself too vulnerable, and that entry definitely made me feel vulnerable. Subject: Rogers. Why so suddenly unsafe? It's not as if I haven't poured my heart out here over that particular subject several hundred trillion times.
As I was saying, though, I'm just generally paranoid at the moment. Defensive. I realized through some other not-accessible-to-the-public scribblings that what I thought was raging codependency earlier this week was actually defensiveness. I didn't want to grab the people I was obsessing over and fix everything for them and keep them safe. I wanted to tell them how wrong they were about everything and then spout my views with the same I-know-best rigidity that upset me in the first place. I'm scared about the stability of my world, but I don't think it's been so much in the sense of "everything is out to get us! I must keep everyone safe!" as it is "they've all got it wrong! I must make them understand!" Make them understand. Make them understand? Understand that, for instance, recovery rules (even when it sucks) and eds commit atrocities for which we'd execute a human? Yeah, I think I have that sort of power. And I think that's the sort of position I want. The one where I sit with someone and listen to all of the eating-disorder talk in their head and tell them why it's bullshit, even though they can't hear a word I'm saying, and will know everything I'm saying better than I can explain it, if they start their own recovery, in which case they wouldn't need me to force them forward. So far as I can tell, it's basically coming back to my fear that other people can undermine (or destroy entirely) the world as I perceive it. I'm afraid of losing my own reality because they're so convincing in expressing opposite beliefs. I don't know why I've suddenly lost my own ability to stay rooted in my perception; it's not as if that's a skill I've never learned. For Pedro's sake, if there's one thing the doc has tried to instill in me over all our sessions...
There hasn't really been a lot of my reality that's stayed grounded recently, which I think is contributing to this sense of impending erosion of the world on which I'm standing. For instance, the parental units. They have seriously gone out of control, and now I have the privilege of hearing my siblings' takes on what is happening. My dad is talking quite a bit - Mom won't let him come home, won't talk to him, won't let him touch her, etc (that last one makes me feel a twinge of guilt, as if I taught it to her) - while my mom pretends everything is normal and throws herself into her work. Not that she doesn't enjoy her work. But after a few months, you'd think someone would *notice* their husband of over two decades is no longer living with them. The way she acts, you'd never suspect she realizes it. ...I do wonder how they communicate at all when they see the doc.
To add stress to this situation, my session with the doctor is tomorrow, and I managed to completely forget that meant my dad would be here to pick me up and take me. I have no idea what I'm feeling toward my dad right now (post-second-shafting), and I'm not entirely convinced that I don't just want to go to the doctor, return to D!@#$%^, and huddle up in my room. I'm not at all convinced. I can't decide for the life of me what I'm going to tell him tomorrow, or what I'm going to want, but whatever it is, I guess I'll just pretend he's responsible enough to handle it. It's certainly not *my* responsibility.
And while my parents soar to new heights of separating themselves, and school dissolves from my schedule, I find myself in uneasy (though not unfamiliar) depression. I'm fighting it hard, and it's not as bad as it has been in the past, but it's a beast nonetheless. I'm trying to make goals for every day (things I enjoy doing and would do over the summer anyway, that give me a sense of productivity) - one of which is to eat three good meals, the added bonus of which is I can't possibly sleep all day if I have to eat three meals. At worst, I can only sleep most of the day. That depression...well...I don't think it's chemical. I'm hella tired, certainly, but I attribute it more to the continued boxing match between insomnia and flurazepam than the fatigue of depression. I'm frightfully apathetic, which is how I end up sleeping all day. There's nothing worth doing, and too many things hurt (or hold the possibility of hurting), so I decide to sleep instead. Never mind the fact that I'm so overloaded with things I want to do (below the misery) that I feel like making a list of them (another thing I could do instead of sleep.) Despite my isolation, it's not for lack of activity that I'm so sluggish right now. There's plenty I'd enjoy doing. I just can't seem to force the notion of pleasure up against the massive lack-of-Rogers misery. I could do a thousand things, but why do any of them matter? Depression annoys me because it's so different from what I normally believe. Everything matters. And today I woke up (in the rather late morning, after a night of no sleep in which I gulped down more Harry Potter) to a message from Sara on my machine, and the world brightened up again. I've still had a sticky day, but her message and subsequent e-mail were proof enough that I do still have a link to Rogers. A woman I can talk to, joke and agonize with, who will entirely understand. I'm so grateful for that, and despite her kind orders when she called me from the hospital, I did freak out a bit. I need to calm down again now, and remember that even if I freak out and do everything in my power to hold the world in place, it'll still keep spinning, unimpressed by my efforts. So I'd best grab a breath or two and remember where my place is.
My place, for the moment, is somewhere between the homes I've found in people and in buildings, and the reality of D!@#$%^ which annoys. It's being Mary Brave, which I find is something I want to explain again. Who knew it'd stick for so many months, with more and more people adapting it - more and more postmasters confused? I want to explore my meaning, and that's what I tried to embody when I claimed for myself this name. So soon I want to talk about that, and maybe about the fact that certain diseases I've acquired are so nebulous, I'm only starting to understand now how fully I've been misunderstood and mistreated. That's skimming to the surface as I face the possibility of systematic desensitization. Why didn't it occur to the staff at Rogers that, when doing very well with my meals, I suddenly couldn't eat after a meal outing? Why didn't they pay attention to the fact that I went on so few belongings runs and even fewer outings? Why didn't I point out that I started wanting to avoid the cafeteria before I started wanting to avoid lunch? Why didn't Bronwen give me understanding when I told her that I was back on track with my food at home, but couldn't bring it back up to par outside? To everyone's credit, we simply didn't see it. And Bronwen, did, after all send me packing with information on an anxiety clinic. I guess I'm just always wishing that we'd understood better, sooner, though I'm not sure why I have the need to hurry. I don't think I'll ever live quite at the New York City pace. I may as well let myself stroll and linger in the intangible world as well.
I have no idea what to tell the doctor tomorrow (or what to tell my father regarding the appointment.) Aigh. Rogers-stuff, I guess; he'll ask about that because of the phone call and because I'm fairly certain my mom will have mentioned the numerous times she's found me crying at night, after I think she's gone to bed. Oh, and I had a major "shame attack" the other day after a ridiculously small amount of spending. I might mention that, too, as it's a good starting point for the phobia-fighting. I do wish I could find some better armor before we start that, though.
Maybe a fire-breathing guard-dragon and a guilt-proof vest? Oh, yes. Oh, dear. I can see now all the geeky metaphors that will ensue. Prepare, world; the lovable dork and her ever-so-revered doctor are about to embark on a quest destined to bring about screwy analogies and jokes that are only funny because they're not. And I intend to share it all, mwa ha ha. Beware the girl with a computer *faster* than a dead snail right beside her bed. Oh, do beware.
chord
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