4:10 p.m. - 03/29/02
yes, I know what you think of me :: you never shut up.
It is a significantly good thing that I've never been put in the same room with Tori Amos. Simply because I cannot promise that under those circumstances I would be able to control myself. I might very well run onstage, grab her by her goddess shoulders, and weep embarrassingly for hours on end. That said, and a significantly obsessive amount of Tori mp3s gathered (on top of every scrap of her music I've been able to afford), I can continue with this rather uninteresting energy.
*drool*
What happened to me exactly? And was it this week or sometime 17 yrs ago that I cannot remember? Why am I once again contemplating what the view from the roof would be and whether it is high enough to destroy my soul on impact...? Would I stop spiraling if I stopped thinking - and how do I do this (if so)?
The preceding was a more coherent version of the questions I'm choosing to ask. Today sucks. This week sucks. This life - I'll say the jury's out still.
[I cannot stand this entry. Let's start over.]
I may not have much longer to dwell on the to-be-with-Harriet or not-to-be-with-Harriet issue, which I'm sure is of significant relief to any readers. That theme has been beaten into the ground more than the main love story of an NBC sitcom, and I'm *tired* of it...honestly, I am. Too. So I don't know if that makes anyone feel better (knowing that I have to suffer through living it and listening to it as well), but it's certainly true. Anyway, it might be almost over, if my speculations and her implications prove accurate. She seems to be leaning toward putting me up for therapeutic adoption. Plunking me down on the auction block so to speak.
Can't you just imagine how the therapists would wave their yellow legal pads high into the air and beg to work with me? Such people love a challenge...don't they? God it is my only hope at this point.
It's officially (somewhat) a new diagnosis now. Attachment disorder. As if that means anything. It's about as helpful as telling someone they have Generalized Anxiety Disorder- it's a copout diagnosis, one that says...well, you have issues, but you don't exactly fit here and you don't exactly fit there, so...well, let's just say you're Here. It's multiple choice e.) some of the above, and no one can really explain which of the above and how they fit together and why they're friggin there in the first place and no one is offering to open up my head and flip the switches in my brain, the ones that regulate sense, back on.
But at least I have another diagnosis to add to my long list of woes. At least I'm supposedly on the Right Track.
I feel kind of cheated by my relationship with Harriet, though I don't really know what great wrong the woman has done me. She's done her best (I believe) to work with me, and now that she's no longer sure she's able to help me, she's trying to find me someone or somewhere else that can. Which in some ways is a really nice thing - I appreciate that for once in my life when I feel it's time to move on, the other person has a feel of, "Yeah; well let me help you scope the market a bit." She's become my real estate agent, checking up my options. Only, she's into basements and I dig lofts. I'm not sure we have the same version of "my best interest" to follow.
And somewhere in the bottom of my brain, below all the noise and the doubt and the shame, there's a voice whispering, maybe (just *maybe*) a fraction of the fault is hers. Maybe our downfall isn't all about me.
It's not that she says it is. She doesn't say, "I can't work with you because you suck and don't try" by any means, but the things that she says just *feel* that way, and I can't tell if it's my interpretation of them or her actual vibe. I think the most dangerous person in my life is the one who is intelligent, articulate, and wrong. Because I will beat myself over the head to believe someone if I can't come up with a decent argument to justify feeling their words are frictional. And maybe she isn't infallible, and maybe I know some things. And though if I stated these words aloud she would agree with me, I'm learning that doesn't always mean I'm heard.
For instance. "You're right. And I understand you. However..."
A person has power if they can claim to see your side and still believe their own, and I've wasted a lot of tears realizing that not everyone really does. Not everyone has that sense of empathy teaching them about the other fellow's moccasins. Some people just litter "understanding" like punctuation. It capitalizes their sentence but has little to do with what they're saying.
I should make a new poll. Is anyone following this entry? _ yes _ no
I talked to her about the research I did (which she seriously hurt my feelings about, but I'm pretty sure *that* one is my issue, at least the first four times it happened) and how significant parts of the profile don't seem to fit me, and she agreed- which is definitely good. She said I certainly don't fit the aggressive delinquent aspects of the disorder, and whatever anger I have surrounding my past seems to fuel inward instead. I began to think about that after I got home (after I saw that, so far, 75% of the poll-takers don't consider me distant) and I wondered if my attachment disorder is more about me and how I see my relationships than about others and the actual relationship. Meaning, maybe it doesn't matter that I'm close to people, that I've found ways around it. Maybe I have one anyway because there is pain demanding those detours.
And wouldn't it be nice not to shake when the phone rings, not to nearly pass out should I answer it?
Still, I am not going back into residential. I honestly refuse (tonight). I don't want to seem militant because I know that will just escalate whatever feelings she has against me (she's slow to say they don't exist), but it seriously can't happen. I mean: last resort. She makes it sound as if I have two options: go back into residential for attachment disorder or continue "living" as I am now (i.e. rot.) Which really isn't a fair list of alternatives. And I don't trust her to tell me I need residential. Honestly. She says herself that although she knows some things about attachment issues, she doesn't specialize in them (fucking specialties again) and so she doesn't feel she can be of help to me in getting through one. And I wonder if she doesn't know anything about them, and if she can't even navigate cyberspace as well as *I* can, (or doesn't have the desperate initiative for information on this, more likely), how is she equipped to tell me what level of help I need? She says that from what she understands people with these "attachment disorders" do not fare well in individual therapy; the group and team environments of residential are much more helpful. And I suppose that makes sense, but I'd rather hear that from someone who specializes than someone who is just guessing because they know squat about what I have.
And just as a random addition to that - what gives her the authority to say I have this illness if she doesn't know enough about it to treat it? I know that's illogical: I can tell with many people that they have eating disorders but I couldn't treat them...however, I don't like her telling me there's something wrong me, trying to ship me off, and then making me feel guilty if I don't go (because it must mean I'm giving up on myself).
I finally said to her, "It's not that I'm not going to do this...it's just" and she backed off a little and said, "you're feeling the feelings of doing it" and I was like *thank you, yes.* I mean, God, aren't I allowed to say I don't want to do this for a moment before jumping in? Aren't I allowed to say, you know what, this shouldn't happen, I shouldn't have to deal with this, I'm really fucking pissed that I have another mountain to climb, I hate feeling this desperate, is suicide an option?, well I guess not really, ok then maybe let's talk, but I'm going to be angry...? Why isn't that allowed, and if it is why is she making it so difficult?
I think this is the most honestly (if incoherently) I've ever talked about Harriet. Fury always fuels my integrity.
I think it's bullshit. Seriously. That for four months now I've been saying to her, "I'm not connecting to you. The longer we visit, the harder it is to speak. I don't know what's going on, but we've been 'together' for months and we're not getting any more at ease with each other." Do you realize *you're* more distant than you used to be (also)? Do you realize every time I can't talk you say things like, "Don't make me beg. I don't want to be the question police. I can't do my job if you won't talk." And it's only later that you explain you don't blame me for not being able to talk, and that it's this "disorder" I supposedly have and blah blah blah.
I hate the way she says she doesn't dislike me. I feel like she's lying, and this isn't flat-out paranoia (because let's face it, I rarely believe anyone when they say they like me, and generally I understand that this is my issue.) But I'm tired of listening to her lines: over and over again, these carefully chosen words spoken slowly and delicately as if she's constantly thinking about how best to express and represent herself instead of just talking. As if she's constantly focused on what is the most appropriate "therapeutic" thing to say instead of just being honest.
Just *once* I would really like to meet a therapist (and I'm so dead serious right now) who could say to their client, "I think you should see someone else. Because. Because I don't really like you that much. Because you challenge me in ways I don't like. Because you're bringing some shit up for me, too, and damnit I'm human, and I don't want to be defending myself when I should be helping you."
I mean, Jesus, the respect I would feel for that person...
And that, my dears, is why I never want to be a therapist. Because I never want to have to sugarcoat my own beliefs (to myself) until I believe my own lies. I've *done* that; I *do* that; I don't need to make a profession out of it. I don't want to play God because I don't want to risk believing I am God, and I don't want to have a relationship with anyone (even professionally) that isn't an equal partnership. Therapists are on that level with old-school, tenured teachers- where they feel they have a marvelous gift to bestow upon the plebeian population, and after awhile it just strikes me as shit. Don't tell me that we have equal jobs to do in this, if you don't see me as an equal. The student and the teacher must put in equal effort, yes, but which one will be willing to do so if they feel condescended to?
It isn't *fair* - to tell me I have all the say in this, that I'm the powerful one, I'm the miracle worker, so on and so forth, and then treat me like I'm a childish disordered sloth. It isn't fair that everything she ever says and every inflection in her voice is so carefully practiced and placed. She isn't a fucking actress, ok? I understand that therapists create selves or play up parts of their personalities to best serve their clientele (Dave did this also) but the least she could have done me was to say, "You know what? I do my job in the way that works for me, and I don't think the way I do my job is going to work for you, so why don't we both look each other in the eye and admit that there are probably a good 50 therapists in this building alone, and you might as well take an extra roll this turn...?"
To all of the people I know who are looking into counseling fields...a plea: When you're shaping your professional self, and you're trying to determine what will most help your patients, don't coddle them. And also - don't coddle yourself. You *aren't* the shit, you aren't infallible, and sometimes the problem is you and your client. Not just your client. Not just your training. Not just your specialty. Sometimes the problem is *your* issues and *your* lifestyle and *your* preferences in people. So when that occurrs (and I hope it is rarely) do everyone involved a favor and ask them, before four months of anger build up, to try their hand knocking next door.
I'm off to my punching bag, I think. (In better news: I heard from Dixie- who I really doubted would write back. She sounds surprisingly ok; she's living on her own, which must be terribly hard, but in her case shows definite committment to herself. So yeay for my firstever roommate minus summer camp. She's kicking the necessary ass.)
the unusually profane version of
your chord
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