2:57 p.m. - 10/09/03
dyuhlogging.
I don't get it. I have more than enough of my own life to deal with. Why am I so obsessed with fixing this NOW?
A guess? Because you have more than enough of your own life to deal with. Because you want an out.
An out? I don't want an out. Do I?
What do you want?
I don't want to be in all this pain, but obsessing over what I can't control and trying to caretake just brings me into more pain. Why would I do it if I'm already in pain, and I know it brings more pain; what the hell is the point?
Some of it's genuine. You actually do care.
I do care. I want everyone to be safe. Everyone to be ok.
Some of it's memory, I think. You can't change how it went for you, in the time before treatment, in the time before the turnaround. You can't change that, but you remember, and maybe there's something about reaching out to other people who are struggling that makes you feel like you can reach back to that girl you were and help her to.
But she's ok. I'm ok now.
Well...
I mean... Godd, what do I mean?
That you aren't who you were then. That you have more skills to help you cope, although you also have more to cope with, and your illness is still present.
Yeah. I mean I'm better than I was, even though things are harder sometimes. So if things turned out ok for that girl, why do I keep trying to fix it?
Because they didn't. Things turned out ok for you, for Mary at 18; I believe they'll turn out splendidly for you at 30, 50, so forth...if you dare imagine such a thing. But that girl, even ingrained inside you, even feeding off your healing, will never get another chance. She's not going to be ten or twelve or fourteen ever again, and she's not going to feel what it's like to be alive. There's grief because she didn't get what you have; it came too late for her.
But it came. It came. Isn't that enough?
Why are you resisting talking about her pain?
Because I did everything I can. Because I've been given so much. Because I don't want to admit to something I can't change. I don't want to look at myself as never getting to live the way I was meant to, in that time, because I can't change it. I don't have any control here. It's not something I can fix.
It's something you can grieve.
I have plenty to grieve, thanks. No offense, but I'm full on grief at the moment.
Understandably. But this grief is there whether you're working through it or not. It's still there, and it'll hurt you more, if you don't let it hurt.
What does it want? What does it say?
It says that you deserved better. Sooner. You should not have been sixteen and hospitalized before you found home. You should not have restrained yourself from the time you were in pre-school, you should not have been overlooked for your brother's sake, and you should not have learned to think you were poison. It should never have happened. To you. You didn't deserve to get sick.
But I got well. And that was the greatest gift. I wouldn't trade that. ...But how can I know. If I could see how it would have been without this, if I could see all the other people I'd know, the way life would have gone, who knows? Maybe I would want to trade.
It's not the reality that you got sick we're trying to change. It's the reality that you didn't deserve this.
I don't want to have to fight that.
What?
I don't want to have to fight with the knowing that...I just have enough pain as it is.
You have this pain, too. It wouldn't be coming up if it weren't here.
Well, what about NOW? Don't I deserve a break NOW, too? Don't I?
Yes. And the only way to take a break from emotions is to -
Feel them. Damn you.
I'm sorry. I know it hurts.
It isn't fair!
It isn't. It's isn't one bit fair.
And it isn't just the little-girl-me; it's the right-now-me, too. Do you know how hard I've worked? Do you know how hard I must work everyday? And then there's yesterday and today and a week with the doctor gone. Then things are bad just like I haven't worked at all.
No. Your effort has effect.
I didn't sign up for this to be in pain.
No one told you it would be painless.
I assumed there'd be less pain than being sick.
You're alive now. You're bound to feel more. Would you really rather be dying than to feel?
No. But having had this, having it...It changes everything. It makes me aware. I didn't know shit about eating disorders when I got sick, you know? This would not be a part of my life; I would not care about this issue at all if it weren't for the fact that *I* got sick, and I made friends with others who were sick, and I lost Tracy to this stupid horrible awful fucked up illness that no one can save anyone from.
You'd really like to be a superheroine, wouldn't you?
I'd really like to swoop in and save the day. Yes. I really, really would.
Why isn't it enough, what you do in your own life?
Because I care about people. And caring about people who are sick brings me pain; I don't know how to deal with that pain other than to somehow mend the source of it. And I can't do that here. Also, I'm angry. I'm angry that it was ever allowed to start. The pro- culture. I'm angry that enough people were allowed to continue along without getting help that something that malignant formed. Where was everyone? What were we all doing, while this was growing underneath? And who's going to stop it? Who's going to put a stop to it? It's gotten so big, and there's nothing I can do.
You hate the powerlessness.
I do. I want to change it. I want to hear from someone that they're in that culture, but they don't want to be. That they just don't know how to get better, that being in the culture is a part of their illness, because damnit, it IS an illness. I want to strangle all the rapists and fashion lords and whatever-elses that lead to this. I want to be done with it. Personally and vicariously. I want there to be a definitive end.
And there's not.
I can't stop caring. I won't. And what will it do to put my life's energy into a cause that will never be fully healed? I can't fight battles where there isn't some sense of success.
What about the one starfish?
That's about doing good for others. This is about me. About my needs. I need the whole world to be ok.
Why?
Because I want to be ok!
And you come last? You depend on everyone else?
I shouldn't, should I?
You don't deserve to, no. You deserve to come first in your own life.
Why don't I do that? Why don't I put myself first? Why can't I be ok when other people aren't?
What's the difference between now and the times when you've been ok? Because it's not that other people were ok, then. People were always struggling.
I don't know. Maybe I've taken on too much. Like caged. Maybe it's more than I can do.
You've been ok with caged. You've taken care of yourself with it.
I don't know what's different.
Can you remember a time when you were feeling better?
The night I called Chas. ...So connection. With people who aren't sick. A reminder that not everyone in the world is dying. A reminder that some people get through their struggles, some people are happy. A reminder that I've come a long way. ...What does that mean, though? That I'd better not make friends with people who are in pain or illness? That's stupid. I don't want to do that. Is that what I have to do to not feel this way?
To not feel this way, you have to feel this way. Find the wisdom of the feeling, the real reason behind it, and then try and come up with a solution.
It's not about never loving people who aren't well.
No. You're not expected to stop loving, and you take care of yourself in relationships where the other person isn't healthy. And you have relationships where illness isn't an issue.
So what? Admitting my own struggles? Letting them be more than enough? Owning up to the fact that it's more than enough just to get through my own day? But I hate that. That disconnects me.
There are other ways to interact with people. You can interact with people and not have to save them.
But then it's painful. I'm no good at staying with other people's pain.
You're very good at comforting people, provided that your own pain isn't overwhelming you.
Do you think I'm overwhelmed?
I think the best thing you can do is lie down, think about what's going on in your life, and cry really really hard. Hit the mattress a few times. Remember. It isn't fair. You didn't do anything. And it shouldn't be like this. Let that little girl scream, and mimic her. She knows what she's talking about.
....................
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