9:20 p.m. - 09/29/02
=lead me to the holy water=
It was weird; I hadn't been to see Billy in so long, but today I went and looked at his page. I wasn't even checking this time; I wasn't checking to see if he'd come back, which I know- from what I *did know* of him- that he will never do. I just wanted to see, and it was weird because I didn't feel for him, paging through it, but I could remember, when his white-on-black words meant so much to me. And this was the same template I used when I first came to diaryland, so maybe it was myself I missed. I know I can't have him back, that it would be awkward, and worse than awkward, ill- but...I guess the further away we get, the more grateful I am that it's over, the more I can remember how good it was. When it wasn't horrible, it really was so good.
Maybe it was Bobby's fault. When that boy's on, he's on...Obvious as that may seem.
I'm exhausted. Sky-high anxiety/ stress levels have left me ravaged to the point that I could use Barbados and a week-long backrub. I could seriouly have spent the weekend popping pills and not have avoiding being panicky, stressed, and short-fused. I *have* been taking my pills, though not abusing them the way I've been tempted to, and it makes me crazy that it's still been so hard. The propranolol/alprazolam can *always* calm me down; they're magic in pill form. The past few days? All they do is keep me from having panic attacks. I can't believe what an edge I'm on.
And still when I write e-mail and leave notes, I start to say, "I'm doing ok" but today, I backspace, take it back. Today I say, "I'm struggling" because to me, struggling is an honest but not completely negative description. I told Chelsea once that no one in the hospital would ever be upset with her for struggling, that what irritated us was when people *didn't* struggle...when they allowed the pain and the disorder to overwhelm them and gave up. There's a type of hopelessness and uncertainty that truly is a part of sickness, of struggling, and there's a type that's just an excuse not to get better. I don't want to be inactive; I don't want to not try when I have the strength to try. To say I'm struggling is not just to say that things are difficult right now. It's to say I'm putting my energy against them. I'm going against the pain, and I'm going against my habits of how to deal with it.
I think I'll sleep well tonight. Instead of fighting all day to not seem stressed; I've been fighting the stress. And that leaves me with heavy eyelids and limbs that beg for rest. I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok, but I am struggling, and that is part of why. I'm ok because this is so hard, and I am acting like it's hard. I am putting as much energy as I can against the force of it, trying to stop it from overtaking, and that's exhausting, but it's something, isn't it? Just the fight- my fight- is something, isn't it?
I've been scared lately (scared, which is different than anxious) that if I started to talk here as if I were upset, than I would increase my upsettedness, lose my optimism. But that isn't the case, is it? Not really. I think that thought is just the wishful idea that I'm overdramatizing my pain, that I'm not really upset, and that's why I haven't been writing about it here. If I try to seem upset here, I'll convince myself I am, and that would be bad for me. Except I'm *truly* upset, I'm *truly* struggling against *true* difficulties, so it's ok for me to write about it here. And I do cycle downward when I dramatize my pain...but...I don't cycle when I live my life actively, at least not because I'm doing so. I don't fall into depression or cynicism simply because I'm observing my life and being honest about what I see/ feel/ experience. I think I do better on those days. I feel like I'm in recovery when I'm doing that, which is more than I felt this past week or two. I might still be unsure where I fit in the whole sick/recovering/healthy label-system (can I be all-and-none?) but I think the life I feel safest in is still the recovery life. It's the life that's given me this year; it's the most reminiscent of home.
Pulling up the driveway tonight- around 8:30- I could feel last year. I could feel, it's ten or eleven, and we're pulling up the drive after an eight-hour trek from Oconomowoc. I could feel my whole life falling apart in the face of, "This world is real; look at it. They're really going through with it; they're really pulling me up this driveway, through a front door, into a house with lightswitches and shadows against warmth." It's gotten to the point I have to turn up the music to cover the sound of unsettled leaves settling their itches on the concrete outside. Autumn noise and weather, autumn light and memory all seem a bit too much.
I wore the shirt I was admitted in all day today, though I usually can't keep it on long at all. And I crocheted a thin bandage from the yarn of the blanket I spent most of my time there working on. I crocheted silver alpha-beads into the bandage so it said, "home always"...and when I wrapped it around my wrist, I felt how soft and comforting it was. I look forward to the day I'm out of my parent's eyesight and can wear such things as that always. To the day I'm out of their house and don't have to feel the walls are watching me shrug off the love my parents do have for me. How can people who care so much be so crazy? How can they say or do the absolute right thing one moment, and be so off the next? One minute they treat me wonderfully; the next it's like we've never met. My dad has e-mail from his work, and the first time I sent him a message, he commented on the pair of quotes that make my current signature. He said he liked them, hoped that was how I felt. It stunned me. Isn't it obvious that this is who I am?
I forget how little they know. And a great deal of that is my doing, even though it's been reactionary action on my part. It's still odd that they don't understand the types of conversation I have- how completely liberal I am, how concerned about this, how I observe the world. My mom responds to my every third comment with either "You sound just like Jane" (from Daria) or "That was very Rory Gilmore" and I'm like, What? No. That was very me. That's the way I talk, the way I think, the way I observe the world. I quip, I pick up on nuances, I play with words. I notice sexism, and mental illness, and I don't agree with everything you say.
We saw a man in the airport tonight whose body walked below him at stiff angles. And mom said, "That hurts me just to look at it."
"Really?" I said. "I was noticing how large his smile is." He was grinning, truly. He'd just finished helping a man find his way to somewhere or someone, and the man had tipped him, thanked him genuinely; he'd walked away grinning. And I kept thinking, It's ok for me to see this differently than you. But why do you say things as if I must agree? Why can't you have the slightest idea who I am, even though I let you listen to all my music, and I read books so that you can see the covers, take them in? The quotes in my profile are "and the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more" (Erica Jong) and "I have had something to prove/ as long as I've known there's something that needs improvement/ and you know that every time I move/ I make a woman's movement/ and first you decide what you've gotta do/ and then you go out and you do it/ and maybe the most that we can do/ is just to see each other through it." (Ani.) I mean...this is fairly obvious right? These aren't deeply-hidden qualities of who I am. I tell them what lines I think are brilliant in lyrics; I quote books and describe scenes from shows and movies they have never seen. Don't I introduce myself this way? I want them to know me, safely, smally, and they don't.
Last weekend when my dad was home, he saw my "maybe she's born with it/ maybe it's media" t-shirt and laughed. I felt the hotness of a wound brimming inside me, even though later he apologized, said he'd read it wrong. I don't mind being laughed at when I'm being dorky. Having someone laugh at the "I-heart-therapy" shirt I've not yet made would not accept me, because it's supposed to be silly. But the graphic, and the words of that shirt...I poured myself into them. The words in the body were the words I used to describe myself, the words I still use when the pain overwhelms. To have him laugh at that, even mistakenly, just broke me bone by bone. I need Sara. Sara is an artist whose work speaks highly of her illness, whose pieces are misunderstood. She would understand.
I love you Sara; I'll call you soon, when I'm less freaked.
I told myself the only way to quit being compulsive about school (this time around) was to not work on it at all for one day. Break the cycle, break the compulsivity, beat down the voice that says, "oh, just one project" or "oh, we can do *less* but *none*- do you realize that you have this and this and this to do and last Wednesday she said you were lazy in passing and you're supposed to take tests this week and" soon enough I'm doing twice as much as I intended. Part of what happened- second to me not realizing my feeling crazy and numb was a sign of compulsivity and codependency resurfacing- is that I had my plan for the weekend regarding schoolwork, and then when Mistrandy came, she set up a plan with me, and I'm trying to do both, which really doesn't work. So I took myself away from it, which was absolutely impossible-feeling. I kept busy *all day* and when my parents asked me if I wanted to go out with them, eventually to pick up John from the airport, I actually said yes. Even though I knew they'd be crazy. Because I knew that if I was away from school, I couldn't give in and do it.
It's so hard.
I realized tonight, though, that when I fight my habits/urges/instincts to plan obsessively, to work obsessively, I can plan in a healthy way. I don't have to cancel school tomorrow (though a large part of me still wants to), and I don't have to hide upstairs and let my parents exchange work with her. I think doing so would just heighten my anxiety. But I can have a set plan, a set of needs, and see that she agrees to them. She's never fought me on anything I mentioned needing, so I don't think it'll be a problem. If I say, "sorry if the work is slow in coming this week; I'm really struggling" I think she'll understand. If I say, "I had a hard weekend, and this physics chapter is a little more complicated; can we push the test to Friday, and could you maybe ask for answers to the chapter review?" I think she'll agree. Whenever I apologize, she says she's not worried; she knows I get things done. So maybe I don't have to be worried either. Just because I had a crazy influx of work doesn't mean I have to get it all done in one weekend. I can do it slowly, and not have two weeks of almost no work, like I just did. I can do it slowly, get it done, and be allowed, as a person who puts in quite a bit of effort at all times. And at a person whose recovery, whose *life*, is more important than her schoolwork. I'm allowed to need energy for other things.
Being out with my parents wasn't really wonderful. They went crazy, in my eyes. I had to keep walking away from them, and I felt safer *alone in public* (eep) than I did around them, which is never a good sign. But seeing John was nice, and I had a cinnamon hot chocolate that rocked my tastebuds (after burning them sufficiently, of course...) I survived the weekend from hell, I have plans to stretch the work (which *can* be the lesser of two challenges) out across the week, and get myself to Wednesday somewhat intact. I think I'll be on the couch, outside his office, quite a bit this week. I have to keep telling myself if I don't take time now, I'm going to be forced to later. If I don't slow my pace *now*- I'll stop completely later.
And, hey, I deserve to be safe, at ease, calm in general. I deserve good conversation and restful moments. I deserve letters from friends that make me say, "You're wonderful. You're doing well and you're taking care of yourself, and even though things are hard for you, you're doing well." I have friends who are living life in a way that makes me want to do better in mine, not to prove anything, but to be as proud and peaceful looking at my own life, as I am looking at theirs.
Hey, look, there are stars out; maybe we'll be ok.
chord
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