8:36 p.m. - 06/28/03
saturday night specials.
So I officially suck at relapsing. I mean that as a good thing...of course. I just have a lot of anger inside me today, and for awhile it turned inward and tried to mutate into bad body image, prompting me to counter-attack by attempting to exhaust it through a stomping, kicking walk through the greenery. Unfortunately, no matter how many steps I took or tears I squeezed through my squinted eyelids, I didn't feel a great deal better. So I started to think that perhaps the inability to think and feel that comes with restriction might suit me for a night. But fortunately, I've worked too hard too long to relapse without a bit of effort, and I didn't have the energy to throw away what will soon be two rather important years. So I ate soup with lots of protein, bread, juice, et cetera. I especially deserve the "Good Eater Award" pinned to my wall today...
Still, I keep coming back to something Dr. R said not to long ago about whether or not I really expected him to be happy if I was (only) at a decent weight and eating. So I guess that's where I'm at right now, too. Yes, I managed to suck it up and eat my dinner, but I'm still angry, and I'm still stewing, and I still have no way to fix any of what is making me angry. I hate anger...not to mention how much I hate helplessness. I suppose I'll try for the rundown of events before my headache progresses much further. Or is it the constant run-downning that is causing the headache? Blah.
My parents' divorce (whatever the hell that means; I still haven't felt up to asking them what they intend to change with this legal step...seeing as so far, nothing about their relationship seems to have changed) has locked onto my graduation and the newly-mutated-offspring has managed to make me feel even more incompetant and uncertain about my future than I did before. I'm attempting to counter this attack as well, but nevertheless, it sucks.
Also, the inability of the house to sell combined with the prime locations of each parental unit (a - utter isolation, or b - throwback-to-the-fifties-small-town-ism) have left me entirely without options. For the moment. I am the one member of my family who has no way to escape the shit that's flying around the family. My dad has his inaction, his desperate self-pity, his crumbling world to distract him; Mom has her thick tough-girl act and her independent occupational hazards. My siblings all advise me to (do as they are and) let it go, ignore it. Not only do I consider that shitty advice (excuse me for trusting my own way of handling things over advice to either not feel or contend that I'm not feeling), I can't help pointing out that this simply isn't possible in my position. It's not possible. I have no way of getting out of where I am (geographically, physically) without the presence of one of my parents. I can't escape their world. Wait; perhaps I'm being too picky. They're both more than willing to drop me off in N*land for a day. (I'm about as willing to go as I would be to cut off my leg.) The lack of social interaction means that I can't even work on the things (other than the serious isolation, the disease things) that are keeping me from having a life...despite the fact that I've taken on a new "run full speed into that brick wall" tactic, in which I force myself to do the things I hate to do, and granted I've only managed it once or twice, and I haven't managed my biggest fears, but I'm still positively desperate. I'm so desperate to get out of here, and I hate that fact even more because it's been true for at least the past five years. I hate that there's something inside of me that has as great a hand in holding me back as living in D!@#$%^. I hate that my parents, knowing I have an anxiety disorder cleverly disguised as crippling shyness, decided to move to a place so far out, they're considering taping the next Survivor here. I hate that they then chose to divorce, at a point when I not only can't get away from them permanently, I can't escape even temporarily. I hate that my siblings- who obviously know less about living with my parents as they've become over the past few years (their stability has been degenerative for about a lifetime) - are attempting to advise me. And not exactly out of caring. Out of pure know-it-all bullshit. "Here's what you gotta do, Mary." How the hell do you know what I need to do? Last time I checked, I was the best one at deciphering my needs. Last time I checked you weren't even near the top of the list.
For instance, I heard through my mother that my sister is still trashing therapy (and, because it's today and everything makes me angry) and apparently still angry at the doc. What the hell is that? How can someone contend to accept me at all if they don't see that the main reason I've survived the past year and a half (myself accepted) is my therapy with Dr. R? To make matters worse, it brings back everyone's negative opinions of Rogers. Sarah hated Dave, too (though granted, I disliked him for a long while, myself), John called them the assembly line - they put me on the conveyer belt to go from one therapy to the next, and my parents openly treated them shittily and hated them for being who I liked best. How is anyone supposed to understand me, let alone advise me, if they couldn't even understand why I wanted to stay at Rogers, why it was home to me? Forget understanding; they don't even *accept* it. I want to ask my oh-so-wonderful parents if it makes sense to them now. Having come to a glaring conclusion about the state of your relationship, do you have any more understanding for my desire to live with people who aren't you? Who are indeed healthier than you? Who were indeed a better home than you? (Not that you didn't try, or didn't want to be, or didn't love me... I know all that.) I just wish someone could know what I mean. I know the truth, though. If the message I got from Rogers was an understanding one, what my blood-family thinks wouldn't touch on so much pain. Unfortunately, I've stopped being able to make phone calls. I've stopped taking risks.
And I start to think - I have to fix that, I have to start calling...but do I, really? Is that really what's best? Another string of painful promises that go unfulfilled? Another reminder of how far away from them I am? Another conversation where they confuse me for a former patient instead of a girl who lived in their home...? Is any of that not set in stone? Is any of that going to not happen? It seems so impossible, given all that's gone on over the past year-and-a-half. If they were going to re-connect, wouldn't they have done so by now?
So, yes, that's still the real problem, though I went on an angry tangent about my sister's fury with the doctor. She's apparently pissed at him for being late to my play. He missed about half of it, which is easy, considering it's about 40 minutes long. Less some nights. I haven't been upset about it since, oh, the week it happened. Sarah still holds it against him. And my mom was laughing as she told me this. "I just think it's cute that she's more angry about it than you are. She's such a big sister, championing your cause."
"But she's not championing my cause," I retorted. "Anyone who was vested in my cause would understand how good seeing him has been for me." I don't understand her inability to accept therapy. It's like I'm in some cult that she doesn't condemn, but doesn't miss the chance to roll her eyes at. Well, fuck it. I'm alive because of therapy, inpatient and out. I have an identity because of therapy. I can take care of myself because of therapy. I want to take care of myself because of therapy. I suck at relapsing, and recognize that as a good thing, because of therapy. I know what a home looks like because of therapy. I know enough to resist their beliefs when they're competing with my own. Unfortunately, I can't make my way toward anything remotely complementary to my own set of beliefs, despite being eighteen and so so ready to go. Oh, there's another thing Sarah said today. She said that at least the insanity of our parents could give me that necessary kick in the ass so I don't just shrug and live with them until I'm 30. What the fuck is that? Does she really think I need an extra kick? I know my disease makes me seem ambivalent; it keeps me from running away as quickly as I want to, but without that disease, I am not torn here. I know what I want. And as I remember it, I told her I wanted to live somewhere else before I had even left Rogers. As I remember it, she gave me all this crap about how I needed to stay and couldn't leave and blah blah blah. So looking back at it from my memory, I don't think I've ever stayed with my parents out of lack of desire or motivation to go elsewhere. Seems like there was this screwy little mental illness thing. (You know I said something about being mentally ill when I was at my brother's, and my Mom was like, "Oh, God; that's terrible" to which I had to respond, "What? It's true.") Seems like there have been other factors, some extinuating circumstances. Seems like, and this could just be the (incredibly justified) rage talking, a healthy person could not stand a crazy circumstance. And from that perspective, I've been healthy the longest. Because these crazy circumstances made me nuts a long, long time ago.
Aigh. Dinner, rant...dessert, right? That's what I thought. Dessert and migraine meds.
I'm here all week. Unfortunately.
chord
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