10:09 p.m. - 07/09/03
in which I rehash what I've already said today, the way one rereads a valentine.
I don't like triggers, especially the unexpected ones. And by triggers I don't necessarily mean just those things that make me want to act self-destructively, I mean anything that brings up a significant amount of pain (i.e. anything that would have made me act self-destructively not so long ago.) I don't like the way triggers can sneak into your life, the way a preview for a show you never watch or a handful of words from an idiot dj can bring memories streaming back. And sometimes it isn't even memories. It's knowing. It's deep knowing that doesn't go away no matter how many times you try and insist to yourself that you're safe. It's knowing that others aren't, knowing how often you haven't been, knowing there are some things you can never ensure your safety from. It's bits of audio and microfilm stored in my cells, playing at variant volumes when ever something (how else can I put it?) strikes a chord... I don't like that something so small as a preview can have that power. It's good to have set down some defenses. It's good not to be guarded or withdrawn at all times. I'm just sorry in those moments when my heart is paying for it. I suppose now would be a good time to note that it's the same decision to relax my guard that allowed me to experience my home today. See. It's amazing how that helps.
Not that there hasn't been some heaviness on my back today - inside, almost, like water in my lungs. I'm fragile feeling. It's a marvelous thing to experience love like that, and it's a difficult task to believe I can continue to experience it, especially considering how rarely I've called them up until this point. I need to listen to what I'm being told. I'm being told not to go away, not to lose touch. I doubt they hear many of the success stories; I doubt most people keep up with them if said people are able to keep their disorders at bay. They told me to call again, so I will, and as I continue calling, I will be able to tell more and more of my truth. Some calls will be harder, hurt more; some calls will feel positively life-giving. I will keep trying either way. And at some point it will start to sink in that they aren't going anywhere. I'm the one who has to come back and check in. Maybe I'm the one who has to make the calls. I'll do that. So long as they'll answer, I'll call. (And when they don't answer, I'll keep calling until they do.)
This will not be easy, but it will be worth it.
So, I had the worst dreams last night. I was waking up at approximately ten minute intervals, between which some weird pre-migraine-type dream took place. I remember realizing that "today" meant something I was not prepared for; I was at school, at least some version of it. I tried to escape this thing, but I ended up with some sort of disciplinary action for trying to avoid it. I remember seeing my eighth grade choir director/ angel-with-invisible-wings and telling her I missed her, and hearing her say she missed me, too, and (unbelievable miracle) she loved me. Not long afterward, she was trying to send me to this detentionish-punishment I'd earned, and I was screaming about how I couldn't go because the people running it were two of my aunts, and they wouldn't understand. I simply could not explain this to them. So somehow, I ended up being guided around by other people. I think I was defying gravity again, floating five or so inches off the floor, and they were walking behind me, holding me to them with the force of human straitjackets. Occasionally, I would push out their arms in order to breathe a bit more deeply, and they'd upset it. Once or twice, people from Rogers were nearby - the one I remember was Stephanie...and she said she was on her way out, she had to go, and I was trying to make her understand that it was ok; all I wanted was to touch her as she left. All I wanted was to press my hand against her shoulder as she walked away. I kept trying to get to someone who would understand what I was feeling, someone who would listen to me, kindly, lovingly, and I kept going back to sleep waiting for it to happen, but the dream decided to descend in a steadily worse direction. Eventually, I threw myself out of bed, tried (successfully) to attack the migraine (with chocolate) before it could attack me. I felt horribly cranky, wrote the first entry, and cried. I decided, after a moment of doubt, to go through with my first instinct and actually call. Clutching Sara's bear, I dialed the number, asked for the right extension, heard Leah answer the phone. I didn't know at first which Leah she was, but I said who I was anyway, and in the way she greeted me, I knew she knew me, and I knew her, too. We talked and she told me she was glad I was doing well, glad I was working to get out more, socially. There were a couple difficult moments - like when she misheard "I'm not intimidating" as "I'm not into dating" - which, true or not, led to a weird strain of conversation. She also said a few times that some people aren't meant to be together, a reference to my parents' impending divorce, and I had to shake it off internally, despite the fact that I couldn't yet disagree with her verbally. I don't believe my parents are making the right decision, and it was hard to stick to that, hearing them say otherwise. She and Stacy both asked me if I thought perhaps it was for the best. It was one of those questions that has the answer pre-inserted, and I had a hard time telling them no. I don't think it's for the best. I told Stacy how my parents' wedding picture is still up in my mom's bedroom, and my dad has pictures of my mom up in his apartment, and she instantly caught on. "And they're still getting divorced?" she said. If anyone knows how crazy they are and how much fighting they do, it's Stacy. But when I explained to her how weirdly similar things are at this point, and how they obviously still love each other, and show *no* obvious signs of any other change (significant or not) she was right on the page with me. I was really glad I got to talk to her, not just because her voice was balm and bandages, familiar - but also because she understands me so well. She keeps up with me amazingly. She asks the questions I mean to answer before I've finished telling the story, and she speaks her mind, even if it isn't particularly what I wish to hear. But then, she's still willing to listen to what I have to say in response, and she so often understands that the moments of back-and-forth explaining rarely seem pained. When her computer is fixed, she will e-mail me. She was glad I had called; she remembers that sometimes it's hard for me. She said she was glad, and the joy was in her voice to support the words. She said I'd "taken up residency in the round world" and I liked the phrasing. I liked the form of resident, of residential, that stayed with me, a reminder of their presence, of my time in their care. She said she was proud of me. I told her that I missed them terribly, am living in D!@#$%^, am not going to school in the fall, and she still said she was proud of me. I told her how good Dr. R is, and how I wanted to make sure I was really solid in myself before I went away to school. She said, "wow" and told me she was proud, said she thought I was making the right decision.
Take school away once; it's amazing the way a girl will learn to postpone it. I was never suspended, but I've learned to suspend school. It will, as Brea says, always be there. The remaining question (of importance) is how I will be. ...Sara says she's going to get better this time. I know how insidious this disease is, how there's no such thing as certainty, and I believe her anyway. She says she's going to a halfway house after she discharges, and after that she's going somewhere that isn't her parents home. I said we should be roommates; she said she'd been thinking the same thing and would honestly love it. We'll build our mini-Rogers. Leah said she was glad to hear Sara and I are still friends; I didn't explain how much deeper than that it is. Some things are harder to explain verbally. If you're me, most things are harder to explain verbally. This time Sara is taking her life into her own hands - the way she wanted to before, and couldn't. She's putting herself ahead of school, ahead of her family, ahead of her disease. I'm doing/ I have done the same. And if we both make it, we will each provide a good portion of beauty for the other. We may even provide a good portion of beauty for ourselves.
Stacy said she was proud of me. When I was not quite satiated but trying to breathe through it, Leah had the sense to share the phone with Stacy. Stacy joked with me the way she does with ...me... and said, "Did you ever think the day would come when I'd take over for Dave?" and I laughed because it is a hilarious switch. And she said that she just hoped he didn't come back and take away everything she'd said because he has to be right all the time. And then I realized - there's truth in that. To some extent, he needs to be right. There are some parts of Dave I don't think Stacy knows (and I'm not sure I'd recognize them if I had to put up with the man on a daily basis) ... I'm not sure she realizes how much he suffers when people don't get better, how kind-hearted he is when it comes down to people he can be genuine with - like his family. I wonder sometimes if she doesn't think the way I used to: that his act is his reality. The cocky, all-knowing act is what he really thinks. I don't believe it is. I believe he lives and works in a world where a lot of confusing, non-sensical, painful things happen, and he needs the illusion of control. He also needs to win the trust of the residents, so he plays this part - which, granted, is not particularly endearing to people like Stacy and me. However, there is truth in her claim as well. Act or not, he does pretend to know everything; he does occasionally undermine the words of people around him, even particularly moving or life-changing words. I wouldn't want to spend my days filling in for him only to have everything I said dismantled upon his return ... simply because the best thing he knows to do for us is act as if he knows everything. (Unless he's acting as if everything he does is impromptu; it's a weird balance he manages.) He does sometimes hold annoyingly to his certainty - like what he said to Sara about her discharge being on time. I remember her goodbye group; he asked her if she was sure she didn't want to stay, and Katia said to me she didn't think he'd felt confident about releasing Sara. She said that she'd never heard him give someone the option of staying even on their last day. I'd thought he was just trying to make her say out loud that she was confident, but there's no real way to know. ...I know this: I prefer people who affirm my reality as I see it to people who challenge everything I say or experience. I prefer people who can see my point. And annoying, apparently arrogant, unyielding Dave helped me a lot. I know that, too. By the end of my stay there, I even understood his motives occasionally. I respected his motives even when I did not respect his means. And I think it's good for every resident to have their Stacy and their Dave. It's different now; Stacy doesn't usually work on that floor...but...I guess the balances remain the same. In that environment, staff members can go to extremes that would be unsafe outside residential because there are other staff members to hold onto us in the meantime. That luxury isn't so available outside. Though having a doctor who answers his paiger at eleven p.m. as if he'd had the appointment scheduled helps. Having a doctor, in general, like the one I have helps...
I think calling made the difference I'm always trying to make in terms of Tracy: it made them real. Sometimes, Rogers becomes so huge, so all-encompassing, so downright massive (which it is, it's very powerful) that I lose track of the fact that it's people...everyday people no more or less magical than the rest of the world. I forget that, just the way I sometimes forget the humanity of Tracy - how she looked when she was angry, that she was a cheerleader, that we had few common interests, that she grinned a smile she'd obviously held onto from childhood - in the scope of everything her loss means. The gigantic nature of the loss is real the way that Rogers' hugeness is real, but the little, realer parts are easily as important. They're harder to hang onto, which in some ways, makes them seem to matter more.
...That doctor I have who's so helpful - I see him tomorrow. I see my dad also. And what will I say? The past two weeks have been absolutely bizarre. I went through hell so bad I couldn't decipher it (but I think now it was triggered by religious fundamentalism...the kind held by extended family is very different than that of the N*land folk, but all the same if I felt like I was ten again, that could definitely have been the time machine...), I decided to just keep myself alive until the waves calmed down. They did. I talked to my dad and broke down entirely afterward. I talked with Sara and asked to go before we'd had our usual hours-long chat. I think I needed to regain my footing as a Rogers-girl, so that her talk of what they're doing at Rogers now could feel as close to only-good as possible. I think after talking with the staff today, I feel more in place, more ready to hear what she has to say. I needed to remember that these girls and these times are not replacing my girls (or myself) or my times. There are other women there now, and I still exist. I'm still remembered. I'm still important.
What struck me today is that I don't often enough realize and take credit for how many things I truly have done right.
chord
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