12:10 p.m. - 01/12/02
in which i babble on about uninteresting medical shit.
Remember back a little over a year ago, when I used to diagnose myself all the time because over-analyzation is a *good* way to avoid the pain of stressful situations? Wasn't that fun? Aren't you just on the edge of your seat wanting to do it again? I thought as much...
The real background: I went to see Dr. R today, but I spent most of the appt in the waiting room while he talked to my crazy parents. At the end, when he finally called me back in, he sat closer to me than he ever has before (namely, on the footrest, which is where the coffee table is in most offices- between patient's couch and doctor's chair) ... he sat there and he talked to me about how the more he spoke with my parents the more convinced he was of my perception, and the more he understood that my home-reality is extremely toxic in a way that is very difficult to articulate. Meaning, we can't just throw out words like "physical abuse" or "sexual abuse" (he actually said that) because it's much less distinct and harder to explain.
Then he leaned forward, and he said, "I know this is going to be very difficult for you," he said and I was all ready to nod my I'll-try-anyway-nod, thinking he was going to tell me to hang in there with the 'rents, to communicate with them, or simply to keep trusting the Team, but no he said, "I know this is going to be very difficult for you...but I want you to go to school."
I instantly started shaking my head and crying. Then my whole body is following my head, I'm trembling, and I think I would be bawling except that would require some sound, and I'm not breathing enough to draw forth sobs. I'm hyperventilating. No, really, no, no, you don't understand, you can't do this. At one point I get out, "Please don't make me go." He can't quite hear it; my hands are in front of my face, I'm swallowing tears, and my tongue is like a knife; my tonsils, walls. I just say, "Please" again. Please. Please don't make me go.
He calls me sweetie. In a year, (yes, it is almost a year now) he has never called me anything but Mary, never sweetie, and he calls me sweetie nearly five times in five minutes. He hands me Kleenex; I think he touches me, and I am so grateful for this, I am so tired of the right people asking permission to touch me and the wrong ones assuming it's their right. He asks me what about school scares me this much, and when I only respond by crying harder (because I don't know, I don't know, I don't know - everything?) he asks if two hours would be less scary. Well, yes two hours would be less scary, if one hour = a certain level of terror, than ten hours would be 10x that certain level of terror, and 2 hours would be twice the terror of one but only a fifth the terror of ten (and so she falls into mathematics because even if her arithmetic skills are a bit shady, they don't call for feelings, only variables.)
He says, "Let's do two hours then. Only two hours at the beginning of the day." And I'm curling into a ball again, and I feel like the skyisfalling but there isn't any way to tell them because they all know chicken little and the boy who cried wolf are accomplices. He picks a card up off the table, his business card - surely I have been given 10 of these by now, but the likelihood I could locate it parallels the likelihood I could locate Bin Laden. He picks up a business card, and he curls it so we can both see, like he's going to read me a very safe picture book, and he's making sure I see the illustration. He points to the exchange number, tells me to call him every day, *every day* and let him know how school went. He wants to know about my classes, about what's scary and what's not, he wants to know every detail, and he wants me to tell them to him every day. I'm crying. No, no, you don't understand, you can't make me go back there.
He says he's going to bring my parents in, and I feel like the one thing I knew after Tracy died, the *one thing* I've understood since then is true: the only direction left is down; passivity is best - now is the time when I've fallen so low I can only make things worse. Hasn't that been accurate? In the one-week-and-two-days less-than-a-month since Tracy died? Oh, hey, you're starting to breathe, let's have two guys you thought you were done with call you hellspawn? Oh, hey, you're remembering red and how beautiful it was, let's move Stacy to a different floor? Curiouser and curiouser. Worser and worser. My grammar among other things...
The diagnoses that have kept me from hanging myself, found after a series of google searches that went from "When School Attacks" to things far less reminiscent of a Fox special:
Children Who Won't Go To School (Separation Anxiety): [mary's highlights]
"Refusal to go to school often begins following a period at home in which the child has become closer to the parent" [period at home, yes; closer to the parent, no] "such as a summer vacation, a holiday break, or a brief illness." [in the past I've had major panic attacks just before the first day back from summer vacation, holiday break, spring break, etc...I suppose my four-year battle with depression and Ed could be considered a "brief" illness in some manners] "It also may follow a stressful occurence such as the death of a pet or relative" [or a really close friend/roommate] "a change in schools or a move to a new neighborhood." [check and checkmate.]
The child may complain of a ... stomachache shortly before it is time to leave for school. The "illness" subsides after the child is allowed to stay home, only to reappear the next morning before school. [My entire childhood was filled with such stomachaches.] "In some cases the child may simply refuse to leave the house." [that would be junior high]
"Children with an unreasonable fear of school may:
-feel unsafe staying in a room by themselves (combine that with an extreme fear of people - *social* anxiety- and you end up with a whopper of a catch22
-display clinging behavior (seem to remember hugs where a locksmith couldn't have broken my arms)
-display excessive worry and fear about their parents or about harm to themselves (felt it, I don't know if I displayed it; every time anyone left I thought they were dead)
-shadow mother or father (don't remember that)
-have difficulty going to sleep (how about 3 weeks of practically un-interrupted insomnia?)
-have nightmares (last night hitler attacked me with a cane in darling vaudeville rhythms)
-have exaggerated, unrealistic fears of animals, monsters, or *burglars* (I used to run up and down the stairs, practicing "escaping" so that when the burglar/ kidnapper came to get me, I could outrun him)
-fear being alone in the dark (since Tracy's death, I rarely sleep without the light on...then again, if you see point.5 I rarely sleep period)
-have severe tantrums when forced to go to school (screamed and cried and pleaded)
"Such fears are common among children with separation anxiety disorder."
What I noticed most regarding all this literature is that every piece discusses *children* and every piece sounds just like me as a kid, so if this is so "common" in kids with sep. anxiety disorder, why didn't that ever come up? It's so pathetic to me that people can chant "fag" in a cafeteria but if you say "mental illness" out loud, all voices abruptly deaden. God forbid we diagnose kids quickly enough to let them live...
"The potential long-term effects (anxiety and panic disorder as an adult) are serious for a child who has persistent fears and does not receive professional assistance. The child may develop serious educational or social problems if away from school and friends for an extended period of time."
[such as social anxiety disorder perhaps? such as being nearly seventeen years old and terrified of one's peers?]
I'll admit that this d/x doesn't quite fit my current fear of school because after all, I want to rip my parents apart by the eyelashes most days. But I have very specific memories of separation anxiety (and fear of abandonment) all throughout my pre-k and grade-school life, and it occurs to me that although the people I'm most connected to might have changed, the anxiety I feel about those people really hasn't.
This page does a better job of explaining sep. anxiety in my current (or at least recent) life:
SEPARATION ANXIETY DISORDER
Developmentally inappropriate and excessive anxiety concerning separation from home or from those to whom the individual is attached, as evidenced by three (or more) of the following:
-recurrent excessive distress when separation from home or major attachment figures occurs or is anticipated (say, crying non-stop for days at the mention of leaving red?)
-persistent and excessive worry about losing, or about possible harm befalling, major attachment figures (every time I see a car accident, I envision the funeral of my friend who has just been killed by that semi- this started long before I lost Tracy; every time I'm sitting in a gas station parking lot, I'm sure it will be held up and my loved one will be killed by the crazed gunman; every time someone I care about gets on a plane, I wait to hear about the crash, and so on and so forth et cetera...)
-persistent and excessive worry that an untoward event will lead to separation from a major attachment figure [e.g., getting lost or being kidnapped] (oh, you mean how like while they're being held up in the gas station, I'm going to be kidnapped from the parking lot? or am I still running up the stairs, timing my escape from the invisible predators?)
-persistent reluctance or refusal to go to school or elsewhere because of fear of separation (hmm...)
-persistently and excessively fearful or reluctant to be alone or without major attachment figures at home or without significant adults in other settings (like how I wouldn't go in the day room at red, I always had to stay in the office, or at least in a corner of the hallway where I could see staff?)
-persistent reluctance or refusal to go to sleep without being near a major attachment figure or to sleep away from home (my first few days at red as well as my last few days, I wouldn't sleep in my room)
-repeated nightmares involving the theme of separation (repeated nightmares in general)
-repeated complaints of physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomachaches, nausea, or vomiting) when separation from major attachment figures occurs or is anticipated
The duration of the disturbance is at least 4 weeks. (we went over this, didn't we?)
The onset is before age 18 years. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, academic (occupational), or other important areas of functioning. The disturbance does not occur exclusively during the course of a Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Schizophrenia, or other Psychotic Disorder and, in adolescents and adults, is not better accounted for by Panic Disorder With Agoraphobia."
It's not. I checked. More like a combinaiton of social anxiety, general anxiety, separation anxiety, and a tiny bit of panic disorder...and that's without going into the depression, the eating disorder(s), and the miscellaneous shit. Dear God...
I am the America of mental illness.
nonfreechord
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