9:34 p.m. - 10/08/03
the way down deep inside you.
It has been a long day, hasn't it...
Yes. It's been a very long day. I feel stupid doing this. I usually do this when I don't know what's going on and things are really spinning out of control and right now I'm just doing it because I feel like shit, and this usually makes me cry, and crying usually makes me feel better.
That's ok.
What am I, an infant?
No - last time I checked you were a few months up on two years old. That and eighteen, of course. Why are we relating age to pain, to the right to express it, and go through it?
It's a good way to beat myself up.
Yes. I commend you on the many fantastic tactics you have for beating yourself up. Can we move onto self-care now?
Maybe. But don't call it that. That's a wishy-washy therapy term.
You like wishy-washy therapy terms.
Not tonight.
Ok. Ok. Tell me about your day. Your long day. Remember it with me.
Ok. Well, I started out really anxious...really anxious, like panicky, and not with any real reason.
Except that you just started talking about something hugely secret in your life and yesterday you had an emotive memory of strong pain from your childhood.
Well, yeah that. But in the moment, in today, there didn't seem to be anything worth being anxious over. And since I wasn't letting myself think about yesterday or the day before, it just felt really wrong to be so entirely not ok. I took some alprazolam, which I guess helped eventually, but when lunch came, I was still so shaky that I couldn't even finish it. I was absolutely terrified. It wasn't borderline, urge-to-relapse eating disorder; it was full-fledged, I've-been-sick-for-months, too nervous, too terrified, and too stressed out to eat.
So you...
I ate the first half of it. And then I put the second half in the fridge because I thought it was stupid to let it get gross sitting out; I could get it out of the fridge after I calmed down and eat it then. It worried me because I felt like I should persevere and just finish, but I was so nervous I could barely sit in the same place, and I figured - I don't often do this...I don't stretch meals out or say I'll come back and finish them and not do it. (I don't say I'll come back and finish them at all; I finish them first off, so it's a non-issue.) Anyway, I turned on some music, and I stretched out, and I sang until my breathing was back under control. At which point I was able to go get lunch-part-deux and eat it, though I did clean as I ate.
Still cleaning, hey?
Yeah. I'm almost entirely moved in. I've been here over a month without unpacking certain things, and in two days I've made more progress than I did in weeks.
What happened after lunch?
After lunch, I took a shower, put on pajamas, wanted to lounge around. I felt like curling up with a book but couldn't imagine finding the stamina to actually read, and for some reason, it didn't seem ok to just sit on the couch and do nothing. I turned the television on and was terribly bored by it. Oh, and I called Sara and left her a message. The anxiety was shutting down into significant depression and just as that started to culminate, Mom got home. I was eating a pancake left over from breakfast, and I knew something was wrong because when I heard the door, my impulse was to run, quick, and throw this out, or hide it, or manage in some other way to keep her from knowing I was eating. And that's not something I let myself do these days because that's not something I want to do. That's the illness.
Right.
So, I finished it, and I sat down at the table with her, and she started talking about dinner, and telling stories, and my mind was wandering, which she could tell. She made herself a plate from last night's leftovers and asked me if I wanted any; I shook my head no. I watched her prepare the meal, and I became so upset just looking at it, looking at it and thinking how hard it was going to be. How much I wanted to just eat, like I usually can. How today was so awful, and I'm so sick, and I couldn't just eat.
Were you afraid again?
Yes. I knew the food was ok, but I was scared of what would happen in my head if I ate. The day was already so hard. On the other hand, I knew the depression and anxiety would feed on malnutrition and my meds wouldn't be able to work as well. I started crying, and Mom asked if there was anything she could do, and I said no, and went to lie down. She came over a few minutes later (I was on the couch, so it was pretty clear I wasn't trying to get away from her; I really did just want to lie down) and sat with me, held my hand for awhile. I cried, and she said she gets in trouble when she tries to guess, so she wasn't going to. She actually *didn't* try and figure out what was wrong, which was so good because Godd knows what she would have thrown at me. Certainly something I did not need to hear. As I said: the day was hard enough already.
So?
I fell asleep on the couch and woke up feeling better. Before I fell asleep, I was seriously contemplating just letting dinner slide and going to bed early. Or at least, waiting, until my appetite kicked up enough that I would have a more compelling reason to eat than not letting the illness win. I mean, that's a very compelling reason, it really is...just...
Not in the moment.
Right. ...After I slept and woke up, I felt more capable of doing what I needed. I made myself some chili, had bread, even had ice cream. Like I said, it wasn't the food I was scared of; it was just having the eating disorder so fully active already. It was just the level of crazy in my brain. Anyway, I ate, and I finished it, and my anxiety's been down. The depression is still here, but it's not as strong; I'm feeling the tips of something now, and that means the numbness of depression is starting to disipate. I came here to feel more than the tips because I don't want any more days like this one.
Are you scared? To feel more?
I'm terrified. I wouldn't be avoiding it if I didn't think it was too much. I'm scared and I feel stupid because it doesn't seem like there's anything to feel scared about.
What happened Monday?
Should be fine with me. I'm open-minded. I'm accepting. The rules should be the same for me. Of course I have a sexuality and what difference does it make what it is? I'll be fine with it.
Mary, sexual orientation and sexuality may be an issue of acceptance when it comes to other people; it's a facet of personality that certain individuals are prejudiced about. But when it comes to your own, it's a very personal thing. And you personally have had it in your head for at least eight years that to have any sexual self makes you less than a good person. And I would think, that someone with such a history for feeling like a bad person, so newly acquainted with feeling like a worthwhile human being, would be quite a bit frightened of uncovering a part of herself she thought could lead her back into self-hatred and illness like you went through today.
I'm scared because I think I'm going to relapse over this?
Not just relapse, in terms of illness. Lose what it's meant to like yourself. To take care of yourself. To trust that you're a good person. It's just a guess on my part. But say you pull this topic out, and the voices all start screaming about how you aren't good. Say, the shame returns, the symptons heighten; you have to fight harder for lesser results. I think that's scary.
It is. I don't want to go back to that. Why don't I have a choice?
A choice?
I asked the doctor why I couldn't just not grow, and the way he responded, I felt like it was such an awful thing to say. He talked about the binding of Asian women's feet, and I knew it was horrible, but I don't want to have to do this. I don't want to have to face this one.
You have a choice in whether or not you face it; you're just convinced that your own growth and self-acceptance is the most important thing - not something I fault you for, obviously - and so you've already made the decision, even though you're probably wishing for a third option. You'll have a choice in how you handle the feeling as they come up, even though you won't be able to choose what and how and when. And to use a really inappropriate cliche, the doctor will not let you bite off more than you can chew. He knows he's going out of town and will miss your Monday appointment. He's thinking about it, too. Maybe he's not obsessing over it...but he's thinking about it. And he'll be thinking about it on Friday when he makes very sure that you're in a place where you can stay safe for a week following.
I hope so.
He will. You can even ask him when you go in, tell him how missing an appointment and him being out of town escalate your already intense anxiety. Hear him say that he's going to be careful with you, with this issue. He's not going to light a fire and let it burn you in his absence.
The time when this last came up - it was right before he went away. I had two hell weeks.
This isn't then. And if you want you can use all of Friday to talk about why you're afraid of what happened Monday and what's going to happen, something you didn't get to do before he left the other time. That situation was much less clear than this one; he didn't know what he had brought up, you weren't actually talking about it, and you didn't understand what had been triggered until after he was gone. This time, the topic has actually been broached, you have an entire session to talk about what's come up over the past few days along with any fears you've had for years, and he's only going to be gone one week, not two. It isn't last time.
Right. I know.
And you know, also, if you let yourself take it in, that if the session goes horribly, and he leaves for a week, and you go through hell, you'll still be there next Friday. You know that you'll sustain yourself even if the worst case scenario becomes the reality.
What if something else happens while he's gone?
You'll probably be back here talking to me. And talking with friends. And sobbing at him and hating him for leaving, while counting the minutes until he gets back. It's only a week. I know that seems like a long time right now, but you really will be ok. The Monday appointment always seems like a perk, anyway, right? It tends to feel like it's so soon. You probably won't hit withdrawal until Wednesday or Thursday, at which point, you'll already be in the home stretch.
The home stretch?
Again, probably not the best choice of terms. You thinking about home again? Feeling about home again?
Am I ever not?
Point taken. On a scale of one to ten.
Scales are for fishies. I hate scales. I miss it. I miss it a lot. I want to be able to curl up and have someone pet me. I want to feel safe. I want someone around who will say no matter what I do, feel, say, or am they will not leave me. I won't someone to tell me they don't hate me for being so closed-minded about this that I could end up passing judgment against myself.
Why is this an issue of closed-mindedness?
It's prejudiced.
No. It's not. It's about you. You're scared of judging yourself, and you're scared that the possibility you will judge yourself harshly over this will look to others like you aren't accepting. What does that sound like?
The ed. When I used to say what a monster I was and people would call back about how if I thought I was fat, I must think they were seriously obese. They didn't understand that it had nothing to do with them. That I couldn't even see them, really. Everyone else was far too good to be clear in my vision. I was busy hating myself; I didn't have anything left for them.
So judging yourself was not the same as judging other people. Your illness made you concerned, as a symptom, about your looks and your weight - something that had never bothered you before. It wasn't a part of your character, it was a part of your sickness, and so it only played out in regards to you.
Is this a part of my sickness?
We need to be really careful with terming that, I think. Because you need to understand that even if the way you react to it, or the way that you've felt ashamed about it, is connected to your illness, the issue at hand is not. Meaning, that the negative feelings you had toward yourself regarding your appearance and weight were part of your illness; the act of judging yourself was part of your illness. What you were judging was not. Your weight and your looks were not bad, not sick, not awful. Which means that...
It means that my feelings about this issue...this sexuality issue...the fear, the shame, the judgment - can all be linked to my struggle and my illness, but it's the response to it, not the actual reality of sexuality, that's sick. The feelings aren't valid indicators, the way my feelings were not valid indicators of my actual weight and appearance. Just because I think having a sexuality makes me subhuman does not mean that I think that way of other people and it does not mean that it's actually true.
Exactly. And just because you can type that doesn't mean you don't still strongly believe that having a sexuality is bad for you, and that you really would be better off letting this one issue stay buried.
Why not? Why not keep it down there? I've done fine without this so far. I don't want it. So why not?
How do you propose to keep it buried, when it keeps pushing itself up? Do you really believe you've been fine without it, considering that trying to bury it is part of what made you so very sick? And how can you know whether or not you want it, when you don't even understand what it is.
I do understand. People keep trying to make it something it's not.
Even if they are, your shame is making it out to be something it isn't necessarily either. Honoring your feelings and everything, sweetheart, you know what you equate this with. You remember the fear that if you had a sexuality you were asking to be raped. You remember all the distorted thoughts supporting that fear. And you know that, many times now, the things that were only true for you were never really true at all. ...So what if they're right? What if it's about your ability to connect with people? Won't that be important? Won't that be good? What if it's about knowing how to move out of situational small talk so that you don't have to live off the three words said to you by the girl at the bookstore, fighting for a tampon? So that you can have more.
But I don't want that.
Sex.
Right.
If you let this come up, if you look at this part of yourself, and understand that it is not grounds to separate yourself from the rest of the human race, and you still feel like you don't want to have sex, you don't have to. You will never have to. That's part of your fear about it. But think about other things you've learned to do. You know how to jump rope, but you haven't done so in about ten years. You know how to purge, but you consistently choose not to do it. You have the opportunity to jump out your window or to drive without a license - you have the opportunity to take steps toward *getting* your license - and you continue to choose not to. No one is going to force you into a car and make you drive it. This is a part of yourself about which you will learn, maybe like the way you learned how to feel, safely. No one can make you feel or stop feeling. If you don't want to feel, you can numb yourself out, and suffer the consequences. You can choose to do so or not to do so. In fact, you have more choices because you understand that part of yourself better.
I can't imagine ever wanting to choose anything other than "hell no" with this.
Can you imagine wanting to hold hands with someone? To cuddle with them? To have them kiss you and make your insides warm and light?
...Yes. Almost. Of course I want that. I want to connect, don't I?
There's the possibility that you have been negatively affected by the culture that surrounds you. Laugh all you want. Now listen to me. All around you, the age where a person develops their sexuality is getting younger and younger. You already feel like you've screwed up, simply because you don't understand this part of yourself already. But think about it. Think about how quickly relationships become about sex. How far do you want to go with this person? How far have you gone with anyone? How far are you willing to go, and so forth... you've been asked those questions since, what, sixth grade? Never once have you had the opportunity to just hold someone's hand. See how that feels. See if that works. Then maybe you want to hold all of them, not just their hand. Maybe you want them to sit on your lap, or cuddle next to you. Maybe if you're allowed to have the first steps of a relationship, the ones that got edited out somewhere, you'll feel safe, and you'll be able to tell better if you want more. Of course you don't want to have sex with anyone. First of all, you've never been in the first stages of a relationship, let alone far enough in to consider that. Secondly, you equate having sex with being raped. And finally, you think you'll be "bad again" (note the shame insisting that you were bad before, which we know is a lie) if you go into this. Of course, you don't want any of that.
So what do I want? I mean, why am I doing this if I don't want anything to do with it?
I don't know. How does it feel that your reasons for not wanting anything to do with it might be based on inaccurate information? That you might be limiting your potential relationships based on fears that were not healed?
Like there's ever going to be a person who wants to be in a relationship with someone who's as terrified of this as I am.
Right. Because you're the only person in the entire world who squashed this part of themselves down, the only person who's afraid of it. No one else in the entire world finds this the least bit frightening. No one can relate to you.
I've never known anyone who was scared like this.
You've never had anyone come up and say so. And, tell me, how many times have you gone up to someone and let them know it about you?
I get it. It's like the city being full of introverted observers with whom I'd get along famously; unfortunately, we're all too busy thinking everyone else is settled here and couldn't possibly want a new friend. Of course I'm not aware of these people. But they have to exist. They're just all going to get healed, and I'm going to be behind, and no one will be in a relationship with me and understand.
Remember that fear. It'll be a good one to mention. And remember the fear behind it. The implication of "everyone else is going to be healed."
I don't think I'll ever be ok with it. I think I'll work at it, and I'll pretend to accept it, but really it'll still be violence and not something I want. I can't imagine wanting it because I can't imagine it as something that isn't violent. And I can't believe that perspective will change. It seems so impossible.
Yes. My dear...how many impossible things have you done? Honestly? How certain were you that you were going to go to Rogers, try to eat, succeed a little because you wanted them to like you, then fail miserably, be completely unable to recover, and have everyone hate you and not understand?
Certain. With only the slightest, faintest hope that might not be the case.
What was the case?
I learned who I was, learned skills to manage my life without using the illness, learned how to fight the illness, learned how to best use who I am to help me stay safe in my life, and to have more of the life I wanted. I changed so much that the staff who knew me from beginning to end couldn't believe it, commented on it more than once, and I connected with people so truly and deeply that I was heartbroken to leave.
I'm guessing some of those people understood you, just a little.
Shut up. You know how it went.
I do. So, it's ok. Don't believe a word of it, if you want. You don't have to fight with yourself to have faith in something entirely foreign to you. But you can know that in the past, things that seemed impossible turned into entirely possible realities that were *more grand* than any you could envision.
This won't be that way.
Ok. Advocate for the devil; fight this miracle every way you can. But try, just for now, to think of it as knowing one more part of who you are. It has nothing to do with a change in lifestyle, a loss of control, a vulnerability that will expose you to violence. It's just about understanding yourself, which has never been anything but good.
It doesn't always *feel* that way.
No. It doesn't.
It can feel really, really awful.
It can.
And he's going away for a week.
Which you're going to talk to him about. A week which you will survive, as you have survived longer absences during more difficult times. Not to minimize how difficult this is.
I don't think I realize how difficult this is. I keep waiting to be ok with it.
That's the same thing you said about last night, about the shame and injury you felt in response to your mom.
You think that's relevant?
Well... Mostly I think anything you can analyze obsessively to keep you from what-iffing yourself out of your own head has some merit.
I didn't cry.
Do you still want to?
Not so much. But the tears must still be in here. There's a lot to be crying over, lately. I guess they went away for the moment.
Can I tell you something, before you go?
Yeah...
Mary, you ate dinner. And lunch and breakfast. You called Sara. You took a shower. You rested. You let your mom comfort you. You journaled, fully prepared to cry your eyes out. You did really, really well, with this long day.
...Thanks... Why do you suppose I miss them so badly just now?
I don't know. Why don't you read it as a connection: say, I'm taking care of myself in the way they taught me, too, and it makes me miss them. The way that certain clothes and smells and foods remind me, push the feelings to the surface. Why don't you say you miss them because you're doing as they taught you, that you are the strongest reminder of all, of everything in your life?
I might do that.
You going to call again soon?
Yeah. Maybe in a week or two.
Do that. You're their girl. And Mary?
Yeah?
That means every single part of you.
*
chord
�
�
