9:16 p.m. - 07/10/03
the mortal who these matters can do...
Ok, some quick discussion of my recent response to other people's problems, and then into the events of the day (mainly the appointment with the doc.) I have things to say, and I want to go ahead and get them out already. Stupid inability to type at the speed of thought. I wish my days came with transcripts. I could go through them with a highlighter and embellish the details in accordance with emotion. Alas, no one has volunteered to follow me around writing everything I say, think, and have said to me as of yet, so I'll have to stick to the "old-fashioned" means of online journaling.
I mentioned yesterday that I very much don't like bad things that remind me of other bad things. I don't even like dramatized, fictional discussions of bad things that lead me to remember all I know - through personal experience and through the connections I've had with people at different times. In fact, I especially don't like dramatized versions because they don't have to exist. If someone I know is struggling with their own demons or those of a friend, at least that's reality. At least there's nothing we can do about it, and it's real, and I can be there for this person ... It doesn't have to be on television. And I'm not saying that the arts (if you can call television an art form at this point) shouldn't have free license to discuss everything, but sometimes I want to be warned. It isn't enough to give me a preview or a viewer discretion advisory. Because by the time you finish the preview, I might already be reeling. I don't think I can be ok with things that simply aren't ok...and it isn't my inability to distinguish between reality and fiction; it's my inability to block fiction from tapping on my reality. I didn't start crying or feeling hollow at unexpected deaths of television characters because I didn't know they're characters or even because I was attached to them. I started crying because I learned the December before last that I can't keep everyone I love safe, that everyone I love is mortal, and that I don't get to choose when that becomes apparent. Some people can watch graphic videos about sexual abuse; they can even be "interested" in the issue. I can't see it as an issue. I can't see it as a puzzle to be solved. I watch previews, commercials, stumble across lines in books, and crumble. For my own reality. For my reality as a friend to so many people who have suffered. For the place I'm in right now, where I can't shut off, shrug off, be ok...
I talked to my brother tonight about why he shouldn't (can't) follow our oldest brother's advice to quit feeling. I realized, once again, that I'm glad I can't quit. I'm glad that I choose not to quit. I know the price and I refuse to pay it. I can't quit feeling the horrible things I feel as someone so deeply connected to others. And I wouldn't choose to. That's what connection is. I feel their pain, too; I do my best to take care of myself and not be consumed by it. I keep myself separate, work against the codependency, but I know that just as they can fill me to the brim with love, their pain can make sharp my breath. If it matters, (by which I mean, if it needs to be said), I still pick recovery. Still pick feeling the worst over feeling nothing. Still pick love with all its pain over isolation (pain) without the love.
I'd rather be a wire in a circuit and feel a shock now and again than lie disconnected and unused. I'd rather be communal, always.
That was supposed to be the short part. Not too bad for me, really. Anyone who expects me to be concise is new to this journal...is new to knowing me, period. ...Anyway, the session. I felt fairly good while I was waiting for him to finish with the client before me - a little bit of the wishy-washiness between feelings but otherwise ok. When he came out to bring me in, I felt comfortable in an entirely non-dull way. He was gone for the holiday and I was sick last week with whatever I was sick with, and it just felt good to be back in a familiar good space talking with a familiar good perrson. It's not a friendship, but it's worth a lot just the same.
When we sat down, I pondered for a second - then told him that two weeks was a long time, and I really didn't know where to start. He told me he had a seed to plant in the back of my brain - a sort of question that we didn't necessarily need to answer this week or next week, just something to plant and let grow. (I swear the amount of cultivating, digging, weeding, and pruning we've done in my mind is unreal.) The seed was this: Everyone was hoping that the house in D!@#$%^ would sell remarkably fast and we would be in the Mortal City by about a week ago. Unfortunately, it's taking more of a normal time period (months) for the house to sell, and I do not yet have access to the resources we had hoped I'd have access to at this point. Considering that, do we need to put anything else in place to help me survive the unanticipated time in D!@#$%^. It's a good question (seed), which I immediately started attacking with my brain, in search of answers - a reality he caught in my expression and gently brushed aside with a cute, "And now back to our regularly scheduled program." I smiled and managed to push it aside as well to tell him of my other adventures/ misadventures.
We talked about my continuing inability to stay asleep, and what plays into needing sleep, being unable to sleep, not feeling allowed to sleep, et cetera. I told him some of the reasons I haven't been able to sleep over the years - anxiety about the day to come, certainty that I was not allowed to have needs, et cetera - and he said he was pretty certain my body is trying to tell us something. He simply has no idea what that something is. I, meanwhile, am too tired to care much what the something is. I'd rather sleep now and figure it out later, something that doesn't work well, considering the problem is I can't sleep. Then again, when I was sick last week, I was able to sleep a lot. Because of said sickness, we are re-trying the latest sleeping med combo which I shifted off of last week when I didn't see him. (I ran out of pills, and he was out of town, so I just went back to the previous plan. I didn't know what else to do...)
Eventually, we broached some more emotionally intense topics - like the scheduled visits with my dad that keeping not happening and how relieved I was last week that I didn't have to go. I told him about the lack of visible change in my parents' relationship and how that makes it seem like they're doing this for no reason; I told him I don't know any of the reasons because I haven't asked, and I refuse to believe any of the rumors because I know they're (at best) half-truths. I even told him about the yogurt pretzels, which led pretty gently into how homesick I had been, how desperately painfully homesick. I told him how I feel it should be a medical condition, it's so bad sometimes, and he said, "Separation anxiety ... that's pretty intense" in a serious, agreeing voice. I talked about being so sick with missing Rogers, and the mixed feelings about Sara being there. (It's great to hear from her, to know she's doing better, to hear from her about Rogers people, to have that link to them...it hurts like hell to know I can't be there and to hear what's going on while I'm away.) I told him about the phone call I ended earlier than I wanted to - because I was having too hard a time without being able to understand why and protect myself. (I think I'm starting to understand it now.) I even told him about the dream, and how desperate I was upon waking. How I felt like I was violently spinning and the world was blurred. I told him about the phone call, and of course, I lit up as I detailed it, and we talked about the relationships and why they're so great and how they aren't perfect...we talked about the way small, incredible realities like individual people can get lost in big, incredible realities like The Home That Saved My Life and how good it feels to have the small realities safe because they're so much harder to keep track of. He asked what I would tell myself in the future - regarding this - if I had the chance, and I repeated some of the same things I've voiced in recent entries. Don't wait. They've said they want to hear from you; believe them. They won't have forgotten you. That's a definite gift of Sara's visit; I've heard from her so much about when she's mentioned me to this person or that person that I know I'm fresh in their minds. I don't feel like I'm calling two years later so much because of that. There are so, so many reasons to be grateful to her... I told him that I tend to get to these desperate points where I feel like I have to write people, to try and contact them again, and what I realized yesterday was - I need to call instead of write. I assume because writing is the most comfortable form of communication for me (not my favorite, mind you, but the easiest) that if people don't respond to writing, they want nothing to do with me. And that simply isn't true. When I call and get a hold of someone I know who isn't in a rush, they're thrilled to talk with me. I have conversations as simple and spirit-lifting as the two yesterday. And that's worth it. It's worth reaching out over and over, even if they never understand that I'm not just a former patient, I can be a person, too...if they're going to reach back. It's worth reaching out if their hands will be there to grip. It's a weird relationship; it's hard to know what's right from their end, and I really am going to try and respect that and love them in a way that allows them to feel comfortable. And ensures me some contact.
He asked if I could make some sort of schedule to talk with them, and I said that oddly enough, I'd done that at one point, and had already been thinking I needed to do it again. I told him about this time last year when I called them after having waited too long to call, and said to myself (oddly enough, I remember the date), "if I haven't called by Cinco de Mayo, I will call then. no matter how I feel on the fifth of May, if I haven't called by then, I will call." He said that was even better than his thought, a step above, and I told him I hadn't realized it was any different. He said it was less clinical. I wasn't making an appointment to call them; I was giving myself a space in which I could call them at anytime if I felt compelled to, but I would certainly have called them by a given point. I told him it felt more comfortable that way; it would feel odd to schedule phone calls with them or anyone else who isn't my treatment team. It feels odd enough telling them how my eating is going, remembering that I know them because of my eating disorder. In some fashion, I know them as a patient knows a therapist, which is hard for me to realize. I spent so much more time with them, felt so much more comfortable with them, wanted to be around them so constantly, that I forgot they weren't exactly my peers. I still forget that. Maybe I don't really believe it...
There's a letter in my inbox from Ruth. I haven't talked to her in ages, but I e-mailed her this morning, and whoo! a reply. I miss these women of mine. I saw a woman in a blue car with the top down today - just the back of her head, cropped blond hair fluttering in the wind, and I thought of Jenna. Or rather, I felt about Jenna. My body perked up and made me wonder again about that other question-seed that never seems quite answerable. (I find it odd sometimes that I hate the idea of my family defining my sexuality by my first relationship, and yet, I don't feel able to say, this is my sexuality, until I've had a relationship. But then, I guess that's not entirely weird. We're talking about their observation and conclusions versus my ability to understand a part of myself never having tried it out. If I've never been in a [capital R] Relationship, it's hard to know how I would be. They know when I tell them, whether it's before or after any relationships I do or do not have...) Oh, I'm sure they'll love that.
Other things I am too tired to talk about: What I think happened with the Sara call and how I can work on keeping safe (because argh! I want to talk to her!) ... More weirdness about my parents acting like they're not getting a divorce ... and some mini-triumphs that point to progress on my part. Whee.
Laura complimented me today on my dedication to my "program." (A term I never use because I associate it with AA, and my feelings about AA aside, it simply has not been a part of my recovery.) I had a hard time responding, even though it made me feel good. Recovery is life to me. I know what it's like to be dead and still breathing. I lost myself once and I don't plan to do it again. And so it's weird, but, I have to be obsessed with it. I have to think constantly about myself and how I'm changing and who I am and what I want and where I'll be and blah blah blah or life isn't the same. There are very few people in the world that I can make certain are taken care of; in fact there's only one. And I intend to do my best at taking care of her from now on. Or rather, from more than a year and less than two years ago on...
Go me.
chord
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