10:00 p.m. - 10/30/01
_..i search for ::orion:: in the sky.....
Another exciting day living a high speed life on no energy. I had two tests today, psych and fashion, and I felt like I was back in my ed, completely malnourished and incapable of doing well. It's a hard blow, feeling so tired all the time, so incapable of facing everything, but at least this time its pure exhaustion, brought on by too much life. I'd rather be struggling with life than illness any day. It's like the emotion/disorder issue. Emotions eventually tease into something new. Energy eventually returns. Illness, disorder, they course onward toward destruction. I have to be the one to make the change, even if the current is strong against me.
Relationshit continues. I'm frustrated at how broken I am, how incapable (or just unwilling?) to change my fear and my perception. I'm tired of feeling lonely, and doing nothing to change it. I'm tired of the grief and the fear that I don't dare risk altering. I want to stand up against all of this, but I'm terrified of making it worse. The obligatory metaphor: If a surgery would either heal you completely or take your life instantly, would you sign the form? That seems a bit dichotomous to me. I'm back in my all-or-nothing thinking, and I doubt that's a sign of something good. I just need to know that I'll have a certain amount of good returns, should I step out and take a risk. It's like I told the doc; change is fine, so long as someone can guarantee it will be good.
I started crying there again today. I wiped the tears away and told him I'm so sick of crying. I'm so sick of the sadness and the "weakness" I don't seem able to control. Not there, not with him. I quit blinking because I'm tired of the tears. I just sit there, letting them build on my eyes, blurring my vision of the room. What does it matter? I tell myself. It's not like you look at him anyway. I'm tired of not looking at him. I'm tired of always being sad, and hurting, and afraid. I want to be healed, and I want to be loved, and I want to reach out and physically touch someone. The other day I started to think about my dream life right now and it was so *simple.* No glory, no great adventure, no thrill. Just waking up in the morning with someone safe/loved in the house, just challenges I was capable of facing...just capability and small success and someone close enough to make last-minute plans. I want it so badly. I have so few rules left. So few rules about how it has to manifest. I don't care who they are, sister, brother, friend, aunt, girlfriend, nephew, kitten; it doesn't matter anymore. I just want *it*- I want connection. I don't want to wake up every morning having to talk to myself to keep from losing voice.
People don't live like this. I won't live like this.
On top of which, it is not simply the isolation. It's separation. I'm separated from those people I truly care about, my Family: who went through trauma with me, who "breathed life into me", who taught me how to love and be loved safely. I feel so caught; I really can't know what to do. I can't create any sort of relationship *here* until I've secured them in my life- because I can't handle the idea that I'm "replacing" them. I don't need a substitute. I know that I can't have back what was, and I understand that, but I need *the people* back in order to recreate the rest. I will make myself a new home, but I need my one true family. I *need* them.
Unfortunately, because I don't have a home here (because, they're all I have), I can't make myself reach out to them. I'm so terrified I'll lose them that I keep from risking it. I'd rather not know than have no hope. That wouldn't be true if I knew I could have a majority, if I could have a certain sampling of them say, "We absolutely want to know you for years and years" I could, I think, stand against the wave of others' rejection. But when the possibility exists that I will lose it all, I just can't risk. Dr. R said something today about how "if I could only know they're carring me around in their hearts the way I do them" and I said, "No. It's not enough." It's not enough to have them remembering me. I need them *here*- I need them *now.* I'm seventeen fucking years old, and I'm human. I need a family, a background, heritage, support. I need a place to come back to where I know I'm safe, where I can recognize myself. When I hear them speak, I recognize my language. When I look at them, our features seem common, nearly identical. I don't have to explain this again for any of you, but I have to tell myself. Over and over until no one can take it away. They are my family. Over and over until even they can't steal the knowledge from me.
I love them, and I'm so scared of all the power that entails.
I told him about the phone call, with Sara, how she might return to Rogers, how Jenna nearly died. I tried to describe what Jenna meant during the time we were together, and all I could say was, "We were so connected; I don't even know what to call what we were." He went back to that statement, and I was struck by this idea of, He knows. He started asking questions like, Were we more than sisters? Had I ever felt like that about anyone else? That intensely? And I started to think, He knows which is silly because there's nothing for him *to* know, even if he thinks I'm in love with Jenna in an easily-defined loverish way, he doesn't *know* because it isn't true. It isn't. I would love for that to be possible. I would love for that to be the case. Hell, I'd go through the pain of not letting it pan out, if I could really feel that way for someone. I don't have access to my sexuality, and more disturbingly, I don't want to change that. I could never say that I felt for Jenna what a person is supposed to feel in order to label themselves or label the relationship. I'm numb; I'm wooden, and I don't want to be anything else. But it kills me that it means, maybe, it could mean- never having a relationship the way that people do. The just-me/ just-you sort of way. I couldn't do that to someone. I may never feel it, but it's still a valid need. How could I ask them not to honor that? I couldn't.
I almost wish he would ask. Maybe I do wish. Today, getting to say "Jenna" aloud with someone in the room, was its own little rush. I think it's the first historic thing we've talked about that no one else in my treatment has known. Throw in Billy and we'll have a veritable secret-fest. Oh, wait, I told Judie about Billy; sort of. I told Judie, but telling Dr. R would be new all over again. It might be more difficult because I've said it once.
Still, to say that I knew this girl, and to think maybe he could read me, see I'm goofy over the girl, was nice. And I almost wish he would ask. I don't want those damn therapy questions about this- questions vague as inkblots, purposefully phrased so the way you choose to read the question tells as much about you as the answer. I don't want him to tiptoe around the bush. Not that I could handle brashness either, but when has Superdoc ever been *brash?* He's gentle; that's the point. Anyway, I just think about him going back to it, vaguely, and me being like, "What are you *trying* to ask?" and him doing this unthinkable never-heard-of thing, where he just asks if I love her the way he loves that boy (man) who hangs around his office, and I say, God wouldn't that be nice? and tell him I'm asexual, and yes that's a cop-out, but it may as well be true.
I know it sounds stupid. It sounds like I'm hiding from something. Hi, I have no feeling, and I don't care to find it. The thing is, I can't imagine "finding" sexuality without maintaining the fear. Having the drive without losing the terror. And I'd rather not feel it than deal with how scary that would be. Relationally, I know I'm biased in the direction of girls. I know that men scare the shit out of me, and though I work on that, I'm just starved for girls. It's evident in everything: the books I read, the music I listen to. Everything I grew up around was so strikingly male- the school curriculum, the bands my brothers played- that I just jump for it now. It's stronger than gender; it's like, there are people who react like *me?*
It's connection. Again.
Early on in Billy-and-me, I thought he was a girl. I felt safe, so what else could I expect? I've been thinking about Billy a lot lately. I even reread the entry he posted in January that told of our relationship and his disillusionment. He took it off months ago, but I have it saved; white text so none of my computer illiterate parents will know how to read it, should they ever accidentally open the document. I still have the same response every time I read it. In the beginning, he's so right on, I realize how real we truly were, and by the end I'm devastated. He says such cruel and untrue things. At the same time, I understand them better now. I'm not in my own pain, so I can see why it must have killed him to look at my fear. But it hurts. It hurts to think of All Those Guys who went cold on me so quickly. Even if I can stand up to it, not believe it, I'm still aware. I want someone who doesn't go cold. I want it to be real, no more roaming forevers. No more blame.
It's such a mess. I was confused, ok? I was scared, and I didn't know how much of it was paranoia, and how much of it was real. I was scared, and I didn't realize you were human, too. Other people are ill, other people've been abused, other people are rash and almost careless. I'm sorry that it went the way it did, but I was never so horrible as what you said. Why the fuck did you have to take away who I was, what we were, because of what happened?
That is my big challenge: waking up everyday, away from Billy, away from Rogers, away from everyone I love except my mom, and saying It Was Real. It was real, it was deep, it was not a lie. I do my damndest not to let now affect then. At the moment, then is my own armor against now. It must be safe.
I want to meet Jenna. I want to see who she is, separate from what we once were. I want to meet her, and know her, and love her in whatever way fits. I have to find a way to fight this fear.
chord
�
�
