6:25 p.m. - 08/29/02
lack of brainage.
I don't have a head left. I really don't. It spun around so fast that it managed to completely reverse its growth process, and boom!smack!pow! it disappeared. I was thinking yesterday how nice it is to work on a class that I started last year during my short school-in-the-hospital stint (something I was dreading before I started working) because it allows me to see how much *better* my physical brain and mental cognition have gotten. I have very strong memories of enjoying the subject last year, but I also remember rereading the same sentences several times trying to make them stick in my head, which was basically impossible being a) overwhelmed by eating disorder thoughts, b) overwhelmed by recovery stretching, and c) still terribly malnourished. It's nice that my brain finds the work easy now, and it's nice to consider it possible that the up-trend is not finished yet, that I am going to regain my ability to remember even the silliest minutiae, and thereby pass classes more easily.
Despite this observation and the general enthusiasm regarding it, I have no head now. No brain. All the matter that was in my head has slipped into my shoulders and compacted there- petrified. My bones are mushy in comparison, and the only thing left behind my eyes is the headache born of my glasses-less-ness. I have completely gone crazy.
Not completely, but enough to feel as I have. I keep telling myself that I *have* a schedule from the summer, and I *can still* follow it and have time for school. I *can still* feel, and read Dickens, and take bike rides, and generally do something other than this worksheet and that lesson and this exercise and that project. I keep telling myself I will not open the binder again tonight; I will not do even *one more* fluff assignment. I will not even do the interesting psych assignments or the stimulating physics homework. I. will. not. My brain is slipping around, short-circuiting, and my feelings are going on strike because I'm neglecting them so. At least, I think they're going on strike. I wouldn't know because I have no idea what, where, or how my feelings are at the moment.
Addiction. I mean, oh so very much addiction. I know that I'm using the schoolwork to avoid feeling, just like I've used cutting and bulimia and restriction. Just like I always do- and did last year, succeeding in having to surrender it for first semester and most of second. I know that if I keep this up I will not be able to talk to the doctor tomorrow, and that will be very bad because I would not have braved asking for an extra session if I didn't absolutely need to talk to him. If I didn't know that my feelings weren't sticking to passive resistence. If I weren't absolutely terrified. But I'm terrified of feeling, too, and more than that, I'm numb. I'm shut down except for the spinning of my empty head. So I can't even tell that I'm terrified or that I'm avoiding feeling through schoolwork. Emotionally, I have no concept of the fact that I'm not feeling. I just know this pattern, and I recognize the absolute craziness that's raging through me.
I. hate. this. I don't know what I don't want to feel, and I don't know why it's such a big deal. I would be so much happier, if I would just risk not being happy for a moment. It's not like I'm happy now. It's not like this "school abuse" is pleasing to me, or that I've enjoyed the insane amount of work I've done the past day. It's not like I won't completely relapse into everything if I keep this up, even though I don't believe in relapse. I'm seriously getting to the point where I would throw myself out a window just to *feel* the bruising.
I did get some crying done last night. It was slow and little compared to my usual crying. But it came. Wrapped up in my bedcovers, talking quietly to myself and the Other People who I keep inside my head, I managed to find tears for it all. I want to be able to tell my doctor what is going on. I want to be able to voice it to myself, to find ways to feel it even if I can't feel better about it. I want school to be a low priority even though my first-week letters say to push it to #1. I want the freedom to feel and get better and know that not only is nothing more important than me and my recovery (I have the right to be self-absorbed) but school is always there and even more relevantly, I will be safe if I feel.
I will be safe if I feel. I will be safe if I feel. It's the same old abandonment/ grief shit. It's the same old new mountain to climb/ new cliff to fall from. I'm going to try and draw for awhile now, and see if I can get better in touch with all that it is.
I hate what I'm doing right now, and that's dangerously close to hating myself. Must. Counter. Shame.
chord da cukoo
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