9:55 p.m. - 03/09/03
you ask how my day was...*
A night or so ago, I managed to make my xolox program work again, and downloaded the oh-so-controversial "All the Things She Said." (For the record, it really pisses me off that they might just be a marketing scam.) Tonight, the sound cut out halfway through the mp3, and now my computer refuses to offer even the smallest mew my way. I have Sleater-Kinney on a boombox at my feet, rather than in the d: drive. I assume this is some metaphoric act of the universe on the topic of whether or not I have and have had voice the past few years. It's easier for me than attempting to determine the cause of this sudden soundlessness (with my impossibly low level of computer-geekdom.)
Despite an evening nap which (as always) left me more disoriented than rested (but definitely more rested than I'd been) I'm still rather fatigued. Dr. R refers to the past three weeks of "the marathon of marathons"- the crazy-difficult part of an already crazy-difficult process. Still, I want to write tonight because the voice issue interests me. I had a tough day with it today; the fatigue pushed me back into an emotional spot similar to the type I lived in in middle/early high school. It's hard to be that tired because I associate it with illness - sleep- and food-deprivation. By the time we made it to the doctor's office, I felt a little sick in that "things are off" sort of way (I'm too tired or nervous or too *something.* Or maybe not enough...) and was more interested in a nap than a session. I also had a mouth full of wool (not literally, of course.) My mouth and lips were so dry I could hardly push words past. And it was more than dryness. My lips were tightly sealed and my tongue was pushed outward to fill the space between my upper teeth, forcing any words back into my throat, and reducing my breathing ability to a shallow stream through my nostrils. This is how I lived once. Breathing so barely no one could see it. Speaking inaudibly, even when I wanted to be heard, because I could no longer physically make the words. Rusty-mouthed...
The doc seemed to understand the connection to fatigue and we talked very lightly for most of the session, mostly discussing why I couldn't have called him and said, "What I really need today is sleep; thanks, bye." (The reason being: in a world of limited resources- i.e. a perception raised in scarcity- you never skip out an opportunity you do have. I have two times a week that I can speak and cry and feel about whatever I want and have someone there to touch me at the end of it. I couldn't cancel that, not without hating myself when, the next day I really need to talk.) We also scheduled twice-a-week appointments for the next few weeks, so I no longer have to worry about asking them, and he no longer has to worry about offering. The theory is (or as he put it, "the sales pitch") that whether I'm entering an emotional growth spurt or this has been one, I need reinforcement right now that I can have attentive resources without being in physical crisis. He seemed glad that I "bought it"- and I told him he would very rarely have a hard time convincing me to see him. (Maybe this approaching appointment, when I have to sit in a waiting room while my mom and he chat. But even that won't make me skip it*.)
The conversation took a surprising tone when I suddenly caught my brother John's voice wavering around the waiting room. (The soundproofing, even with the crappy muzak, sucks.) I asked him if my brother was here, he said yes- and he was early, and I told him that (hearing my brother and mom talking) made it even harder for me to talk with him. He asked how I'd feel about him interrupting them for just a moment and asking them to move to the room next door (which is far more lavish and comfortable anyway) - and I told him that'd be alright. So they moved, and I held my head in my hands, and finally forced out, "I'm just not doing so well with brothers right now." And I proceeded to tell him why.
Joe had bad eye problems this past week. From nowhere, his eye just started hurting really badly, and he had to get an antibiotic and go into the hospital daily to have it checked, and when my parents found out, they freaked. I was freaked a little also, but I still didn't feel quite right with the fact that, as soon as they received the first phone call, I disappeared. As soon, as I was not the pertinent crisis, I may as well have been wallpaper. (That is a very slight exaggeration, and the small amount of attention they did pay me was only in terms of my illness. So yeah. *I* did stop existing to them.) They talked about whether or not someone needed to drive out to visit him, and who could, and how it would work, and Mom called the doctor to try and work something out (feeling torn between her parental and personal responsibilities, and probably also feeling bad about leaving me along because she feels bad about that even when I try to tell her, without hurting her too badly, that most of the time, I prefer the solitude.) In the end, she stayed, my dad went for about a day, and my brother's eye began a full and fine recovery from whatever randomness occurred. Because my mom had called him, the doc knew all of this story, and was able to jump to understanding how it affected me. The added acknowledgement of how John is the brother that I've generally had this problem with (it took five years to diagnose my depression and fifteen to diagnose my anxiety, largely because John was in a more visible crisis- something I would never hold against *him*; I hold it against the parents) and the fact that I really feel I owe Joe something, so any pang of "hey! remember me?" spawned guilt pretty much brought him up to date. Except that he didn't understand why my guilt is particularly high around Joe.
I told him I feel I owe Joe. I have some sort of debt that I try to pay every time he visits by conceding to what he wants to do and giving him as much as possible. I don't always do to well with it, but I feel so badly about all his visits during college (when my ed was raging), and all the times "I" ruined that I keep trying to pay it back. The doc pointed out how much pain there was in that - all the pain of being sick and needing help and on top of it the guilt for how this sickness is affecting others. He also asked what it would take to pay back this theoretical debt, and I told him I guessed it would be impossible. It would take going back in time and making things different than they were. I didn't exactly keep tabs on what I owe him, so I can't exactly pay him back.
But it's the same limited-resources (scarcity) mentality causing problems. I feel like I got "my turn" these past few years, as the focus turned to my struggle, and now it's someone else's turn, and I don't like that emotionally, I resist that. I don't want it to happen; I don't want to quit having feelings and needs and rights, and that's really difficult. The doctor told me that I was basically reciting the textbook lines of a child traumatized by limited resources. As usual, I felt better hearing that. There are certain things I feel all of society should do differently; one of them is teaching children that if your parents don't call you really bad names or break your arms, there's nothing wrong with them. As usual, I felt better hearing that there's reason behind my pain.
He said that Harriet's approach - to blame them, call them toxic, keep her distance- would obviously bring me mixed feelings, but it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing, forgiveness or blame. Allowing myself to feel the child's anger could actually free me to have a human relationship with them. I have a right, as their child, to the anger, but I understand as a person that they didn't fail me in any of these ways out of malice or lack of effort or anything like that. They had their own issues, and they made mistakes, and that makes sense to me, when it isn't used as pacifier to shut up my pain.
Here's the part where I start bawling and wanting to hug him and have a teddy bear and make him repeat the words several million times: He told me that even though it seemed like I had gotten more than my share, and that I deserved to take the backseat now, the truth was that what I'd gotten these past few years was still less than what any child needs, and what, in a different situation, I would have gotten without ever having to be sick. He said, "No wonder Rogers was perfect," at the exact moment I was thinking, I want to go back, I want to go back, I want to go home - which made me cry even harder, and I told him that I just wanted to go back. (If it weren't a fucking hospital, I swear I'd pack a bag.) And he said to me, this most beautiful thing, that I know I'll misquote, but he really did say something to the gist of, "And for every good reason...and with every fiber in your being...if it were aligned, I would never stand in the way of that."
I would never stand in the way of that. I nearly jumped over the ottoman to sob all over him. That's beyond saying, "I understand that RED was important to you." It's beyond, "I understand your continued attachment to them." It's even beyond, "I understand that you want to go back." It's, "If it were something possible" (i.e. if it weren't a hospital, etc) "I would help you go back." It's like when Bette told me to see Judie times about a billion. It's someone saying, "I understand how home is defined, and I support what you know." He told me I didn't sign up to be born or to be in the family I am, and I deserve to have my needs met, and he told me if it mattered, he wouldn't stand in the way. And I was like, "Have I told you lately that I love you in a completely non-issue-to-be-discussed sort of way?"
By the end I was grateful that my brother had come early and will never in his life be directed to "project more." I was grateful that we talked about what we did, and I was able to tell him about my sketching lately, and how sometimes it makes me feel better and sometimes it makes me sad, and he was there to listen, and that just makes everything good. Talk and be heard, talk and be heard, talk and be heard...will that ever stop being new to me?
I'm floored, partly because I usually write companies and partly because I'm used to abuse, by the response to my e-mails about the diaryring. There were ten people in this ring, including the woman who originated it. One of them has not updated his journal since October of last year. Another one doesn't have an actual journal. (Don't ask me how that works; zie must have figured out how you delete your journal, something I've never understood. Or maybe zie never posted to begin with...just joined rings.) This, my dear mathematicians, brings us to eight. Of these eight people, I've heard from four. All of them have been really considerate, really kind, really understanding. Two have said they are leaving the ring. One has offered me an ear to be used at anytime. The owner herself understood my position and helped me realize the difference in our two positions is actually very slight. I'm more amazed every time I open another e-mail. It's totally balanced the pain of discovering that diaryring. Everyone's kindness. This is the first time, in all my scathing letters, (this one wasn't *scathing, persay, but you know what I mean) that anyone has ever said, "I hear you" and the first time that anything has ever changed, and it just feels good. My story earlier this week, "Just out of EDAW and already I find something like this," into, "EDAW just finished and I'm still speaking up about my story and being heard." Such absolute rockingness, that. I am going to do some writing about the ed, specifically; I've been working on it in my head for a few days. Of course, I also need to do some sleeping and some schoolwork (though we have conferences this week, and my tests are gothic and twentieth century- i.e. it's an easy-as-pie week) but when has that ever mattered? Oh, wait, it does need to matter a little. It doesn't have to keep me from having a voice.
And guess what, even when my mouth is dry and my tongue tries to take over, I still have a voice. No one gets to take that away again. Not even what looks like me. Another lovely tangent of the conversation: he said that I had a good understanding of the grayscale between the black and white extremes, after hearing me say that I didn't. He said anxiety pushes me - pushes everyone - to see in extremes, so I perceive myself as not doing well with the middle ground, but I actually do. I told him it's hard sometimes to tell what's me and what's the illness, especially when the latter is the one that's around more often, and he said, "That's when you need witnesses to remind you" and I was like, "Dude, checked again! Do you have a book of responses or something?"
In conclusion, I have a rocking therapist and am very sleepy. Things are...so-so. Steadier. I have orders to let myself rest and rejuvenate. I'm not too worried about school, even though I've done almost no work all weekend. My new colored pencils rock like a skin horse. Life is...well, life is worth it. For the moment.
chord
*Skip-it! I loved skip-it! I want to go skip-it right now! Oh wait, I no longer have one, it's completely dark out, and I'm exhausted. Mmmm, skip-it.
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