11:05 p.m. - 12/29/02
to get my soul free.-------->
the lateness in the year upsets me. I'm not sure why. I don't like typing the date, knowing it's about to roll over. maybe it's the way my friends used to carve '03 into desks and shelves with their pens. maybe it's the oddness of our new year: smack-dab in the middle of a season that stays the same. the new year should be the beginning of something; it shouldn't take place in the middle of what will stretch on for months. it creates something false, or something unintentional. we create something, I guess, to sustain ourselves.
forgive the analysis: I'm tired and I've been reading to escape my thoughts; thus my thoughts adapt the tone of my reading. that last flogging was intense, more intense than I remember occurring in some time, though the archives suggest otherwise. I imagined, in the throes of it, that I had not felt this way in nearly a year- since the time I was thrown out of IOP for questioning recovery's place inside my grief. since I swinging between need and knowledge regarding Harriet, since I knew with every fiber of my shame that I caused Tracy's death. No, the entries say. No, you've felt this way fare more recently- perhaps November, October, something far more near. You've craved the bleach you never had to use. You've felt with loathing the hair that pokes up on your face, the tiny hairs that cannot grow long enough to be pulled. You've felt the dirt and contamination in more recent months.
But there's something about it that's terribly older. I've been feeling invincible, powerful in a way that secures safety, a way not oppressive. I've been feeling not like I control the world but like I am capable of surviving within it. I survived; thus I will survive. I know how to claw my way through storms; therefore, I'm safe, no matter the forecast. There are some things I didn't take in fully, didn't let myself know I know. Like that I could become shamed again. Not simply depressed, not self-conscious, not uncertain, shamed. That I could fall deeply into something so similar to a year or three years ago it looks like my future. Three years ago the shame was never-ending; the depression stretched on infinitely. I had no hope. To fall back into this means not simply to be ashamed now- it means to be ashamed in my future. And I'd forgotten. Forgotten that the smell of the anti-bacterial soap I scrub myself with in hopes of forgetting the bleach or simply the smell of the ancient heater as it clicks behind my bookcase, could throw me back in time. I told him I wanted a time machine- a time machine so I could go back, do no wrong, forgive myself. I forgot that the past is not something I care to relive.
In the present, I know a simple and seemingly impossible trisk: reinforce what I want to believe. Take care of myself whether I feel I deserve it or not. Eat, reach out, be gentle, treat myself with all the kindness I would were my head not caving in on itself. Simple, in that it's not complex. Impossible, in that, inside shame, to act against it creates friction, burns.
I had to turn the fourth lamp on to keep the room lit while I called. It sat so close to me and the heat kept riding up into my cheek bones, flushing my flesh. I turned it off when he called, when I didn't have to wait any longer. I was glad that his voice didn't mimic the attendee who had paiged him. If I didn't need to call, I wouldn't; just connect me. How dare you ask what it's regarding, when my life is my business, and I tell it only when I'm safe?
But yes, I did call. I took the cordless from my father and went upstairs to my bedroom. I sat with a pink bear keychain in my hain, clenching it off and on like a stress ball, aware that Sara gave it to me in the early days at Red. I called the line, listened to the muzak, stated my name and phone number for the record, threw enough importance into my voice that the attendent stopped interrogating me and I could hang up, wait, answer the phone. My dad answered simultaneously, and I had to wait to speak until he'd hung up the line. But then the doctor was there, and it mattered less that I shouldn't bother him, that I'm nasty and young, that I had just seen him yesterday. It all mattered less because I affirmed the need and not the shame. I called before I let myself think to do otherwise.
He asked what was up; I told him I wasn't doing well. I told him I felt very badly about myself, the worst I had in some time. I told him it was scaring me. He asked if it had to do with our talk yesterday, if it had gotten worse after I left, both of which I guess are true. I haven't felt this sort of shame in months (at least, even the archives say) so why would it happen if not from the final collection of secrets not yet told? I told him, yes, it escalated after seeing him, dulled down this morning, and escalated again in the afternoon. I told him now it was awful, and he asked if anything had happened this afternoon, or if it was just rising the way waves tend to do.
I told him this afternoon we returned to D!##$%^. I told him, it might just be the nature of the wave, but I know the scenery here does not help. I know that seeing the same melting snow in the same hopeless trees, smelling the heater and the soap on my hands, push me back into a time when shame was permanent. I know that they intensify what is already strong enough to threaten terribly.
We talked some more about the subjects of yesterday; he was more thoughtful in his answers, not so quick. Maybe I listened more carefully; maybe I knew now how much I needed not to run from him on technicalities: we are both soft-spoken and sometimes he's quick to speak. He told me he'd been particularly struck by the blame I took upon myself about what happened. I waited, wondering what the question was in that statement. I took blame. He knew that. He knew I didn't deny it. Why mention it again? What did he want to open up?
We talked about blame and shame and guilt. He told me that yesterday, I had started to show actual anger. Violent anger. He said that I had looked up near the end of the session asking why and how and just before it was able to come into the office, I snapped back into shame. He said that for one reason or another, it hadn't been safe to feel anger. It hadn't been safe, and I switched to shame. Shame which comes easily after the crime of feeling. Shame which comes easily when I nearly commit the awful crime of less than perfect feelings.
He said also that it came after my questions. That how and why were not able to be answered, and rather than face the idea of such random cruelty, I made myself the reason. If I deserve this, it isn't random. If I deserve this, I can't be angry. If I deserve this, I don't have to be surprised when it happens again and again and again and again and again.
I knew all this to be the nature of my shame. Inside, I couldn't see it. He came to remind me of what I already know. There is a saving grace in someone who, rather than comforting you passively, remembers your own strength. I can see the truth when pointed in the right direction. I learn, relearn, remember. I survive.
We talked about how anger with my parents is never safe. It's defensive. It's explosive. It's dangerous. It hurts others and it gets you hurt. I told him I was afraid of being hurt, not only by the object of my anger, but by all those who witnessed it. I chose ultimate honesty and called out he himself. I said, "If I tell you, you will know." I don't want that exposure. I know those are the words of a girl who thinks herself unbearable. I know I don't have to think of myself that way. But I can't bear to be left. I can't bear to be left. I'm scared because I don't know how to do this on my own.
He told me he doesn't believe I have to, or should have to, do it on my own. He told me that when he said he wasn't going anywhere, he meant it. He told me that Judie refused to see me temporarily, Harriet tried to send me residential for a disorder I don't have, I was kicked out of IOP, Tammy's gone on leave twice, and with Rogers came discharge. He told me that my feelings were real, my feelings made sense, but my feelings were all *I* had to worry about. He told me for the thousandth time that he will manage the boundary, his boundary. He will make sure he does everything he needs to so that he can remain a part of this, so that our interaction stays safe, and doesn't have to be broken. He told me that is his "responsibility, privilege...honor." I lit the words bright in my memory, wanting them to stay. Grateful for how many times he's told me that he will.
Grateful for the fact that keep the relationship (at times awkwardly) professional are what allow us a relationships at all. Grateful that he's willing to do all this for me. Willing to listen on a Sunday afternoon, willing to watch me cry every other second, willing to promise me again and again and again that I don't have to worry about him staying. It's his responsibility to manage that. Grateful that when I say, "I'm afraid I'll hit a limit- a limit of how many times I'm allowed to break down, allowed to be overcome, allowed to call or need help" he said that it takes courage to face one's greatest fears, and in the midst of that, I might freak out more than a few times more. I told him I have too many greatest fears, and I'm tired of constantly disintegrating, only to rebuild. He said that every time I face something, I come one inch closer to moving out of the forest. I know the truth in that.
I know also that no observer of a phoenix would blame it for the time inside the ashes. I must be kind to myself during disintegration, aware that I will flourish that much more quickly. I must be kind to myself and aware.
I cried and told him I wanted Rogers so I could be angry. I cried and told him even there, I hadn't spoken up about any of this. He said it had been new then, fresh, and I had needed time. He said something other than, "See, even your precious Rogers wasn't safe for everything." He always says something other than the voices of my past. That's why he's better than talking to myself, even though when I dare look up, he's real. Maybe because of this.
He has a different defintion of victimization than anyone I've ever met before. "Victim" has long been a dirty word in my vocabulary, a weak, self-piteous creature who lets her power be taken away. He uses it gently, making victimization not the choice of the attacked to feel weakened, but the act of brutalizing someone so they are faced with that choice. The act of a predator who attacks most fiercely in the weakest moment. He manages, somehow, to ease the guilt that rubs off on prey when the predator stalks off, unharmed. He manages, somehow, to make it something I didn't command.
I told him I'm scared of the fork I see before me in this road. I'm scared of my only choices being to be shamed (and feel badly about myself always) or to be angry (and therefore deserving of such shame.) To punish myself prematurely and avoid the crime or commit the crime and deserve the punishment. I'd forgotten that thoughts change based on choices. That I can say to myself the idea of "I made a mistake" or even "I'm evil if I make mistakes" must change. And slowly over time, my active, useful temper will temper my shame down.
I want to be someone with enough self-respect to feel deserving of outrage when I'm violated. And I want to be practiced enough that my anger fuels something other than malice, than violence, and relational deterioriation. There are formulas that open doors to the most elusive kinds of safety. Nothing is fixed, but there are fixed methods. Walk a direction long enough, I will carve a path into the ground. I will learn, relearn, remember, and be safe.
free.
chord
�
�
