6:30 a.m. - 02/26/02
even when I am overwhelmed.
It's bad to skip two days of writing. I end up skimming over the positive events that have taken place and dwelling in the negative feelings that are, simultaneously, dwelling in me. I'm really not sure how you can believe something, realize it isn't true, and end up believing it again. One doesn't incorrectly solve a math problem, find and fix a mistake in the answer, then retreat back to the initial (incorrect, damnit!) solution. So why does my head do this with all its stupid shamed beliefs?
If it were just, "I know I'm not really awful because I felt I wasn't when at RED, but I feel awful right now" I could probably handle it. At least, I have handled it - to some extent - since coming home. But it's not; it's fully-formed. It's telling me that I am truly bad, that I am separate from whatever felt good about me at red, that I need to be mutilated and scrubbed and burned. I spent last night avoiding SI by fantasizing about it. I came up with the most elaborate forms of self-destruction in order to sidestep the simple ones. The few times I did fall asleep I dreampt about television characters covered in feces who in turn became me, covered and choking on the same, me in the bathroom of dream, gagging and spitting and scrubbing, unable to clean myself of the mess that somewhere along the line I forgot I had only witnessed.
This is the strength of trauma: it tells you not that what you witnessed is bad, but that you are bad for witnessing it. In the dream, I didn't want people to see how dirty I was because then they'd know that I had been watching the thing that made me dirty and they'd see how bad I am.
I woke up and had to clamp my teeth down on each other to avoid feeling like there was something (worse than feces) in my mouth, something thick and semi-cylindrical. A few times I gagged before I could convince myself it was just a daymare, without even the backing of memory to intensify it. I tried to remember that last night, when I came home from Harriet's (the awful, awful, *awful* session with Harriet) I caught myself in the mirror and realized that yes, I was ugly and offputting and somewhat disturbed but maybe "fashioned out of some malignant poison" was a stretch. I tried to remember that at RED I came out of the flat world (gradually) and discovered that not only did I prefer the round world, but that I had a right to be there, and a purpose to perform. (Perform in an alliterative sense, not an "act and entertain so they won't know you're not just sick but sickening" one.)
I tried to remember something that Shannon said to me once, a spin on my "things can go from good to awful in a matter of seconds" experience which said "things can go back to good just as quickly." That is, if one works toward good, believes in good, there's the possibility that something powerfully *positive* can happen as speedily as any trauma did. As simply as the phone can ring and be Sara saying Tracy's dead, so can the phone ring and be Sara saying let's talk, ok?
I tried to remember, but I can't remember. It's like raking leaves in 40-mph winds. Just as I get a few thoughts collected they scatter off again in all directions, meanwhile new ones are flying at my face, leaving me (temporarily?) blinded, with cuts in my face from the cold.
The fantasy went something like: cut out your nails, scrub your skin with bleach (chemicals counter each other), run a razor over every pore until not a single hair dares rise- then, thick blistered burns, one for every lie you've ever told and every truth about yourself you've tried to hide. A new skin of circled-blisters from a juice glass, a tongue with the front half cut out, teeth pulled that were not loose. You won't be Disney-ugly, no adorable hunchbacks for this bell tower. You will be horrific, hideous; "dear god what is that thing."
WHY? Why is this happening again? I used to know, didn't I? I used to be able to say, "oh, yes I'm supplementing my shame right now because I'm not getting positive attention and so I feel negative will suffice" ... I used to have a list of answers such as those, memorized and called upon in times like these. Where has it gone? What happened to the days when I could say, "That is a flat world thought" and have it translate to "So, move along"...?
A bunch of my RED work on shame is sitting here on the desk next to me. I can't find my shaming-beliefs assignment (the main one) which is fitting considering I could *never* find it at RED either; they must have given me six copies. I do have a list I made before doing that assignment though, a list of "payoffs I've gotten from believing I'm lesser"...it looks a lot like this:
-control through self blame (if a situation is my fault I can, theoretically, keep it from happening again)
-protection from my feelings of self-hatred and the events/messages that created them (if this is just a "reality" I can accept it without quesitoning, keeping me safe from reliving those experiences)
-less self-confidence balanced my predisposition toward over-achievement ("I should do well, but that's impossible" was perhaps easier than "I should do well")
-distance from others (not having to let them in because if they see my true self they would hate me, thus not getting hurt or left)
-the victim attention (I felt rotten being attended to, but what that less rotten that being ignored?)
-an object for my anger (it can't go outward because others are better than me - if it doesn't go toward me, will it just go unbridled?)
-explanation of why others hurt me ("they did this because I'm bad" feels better than "they did this for no reason")
-fear of greater pain (if I am covering up who I am because I think I am lesser, then theoretically by entertaining the possibility that I'm equal, I take down that shield without changing what's behind it - if people hurt me because the "bad me" surfaces, then not hiding her at all will result in constant pain)
-fear of change
*
The last two should be acknowledged and dismissed- the former because in order to make real change one must believe in it, (if I think I'm letting people see a good thing, I will be one; if I think I'm uncovering my badness, I will be bad, etc) and the latter because it's no longer changing a system of beliefs I've had my whole life, it's going back to a system of beliefs I *did have* at RED, which I know I preferred. Yes, I feel now like I was kidding myself believing I could be good the way they were, but I'm pretty sure if I call and say, "I think I was lying to myself when I said I was good" whoever answers will be like "I think you were lying to yourself when you said you weren't. We certainly weren't lying when we said you were. Do you really want to go through this battle again?"
And of course, with them, I can't use so much of the old "if I've convinced them I'm bad, I've lied to/ brainwashed them, which makes me even worse" excuse because they dismantled it completely (at one time) and whether or not I remember how it felt to hear them do so, I remember that they did.
As for the other beliefs, they seem to be a lot about protection- protection from anger, from self-hatred, from more pain, from blame, neglect and confusion...the question then becomes what I am protecting myself *from?* What awful event has occurred or surfaced lately that has me calling on *this* in order to not feel pain? (This is, after all, itself painful - so what is substantial enough that I would *avoid it* HERE?)
It seems like there was a pretty major shift on the 22nd; I went from babbling about skating and (good) self-image to saying I felt like I'd been run over. The only thing that changed between the two was school; I started doing school, and I felt awful. In retrospect, that was a pretty hard blow- I didn't restrict from my meal plan, but I'd planned to do one of Tammy's desserts that night, and I could not make myself eat that. (It was if I was already made of poison, and here was a "treat" also poisonous to complicate the problem.) I remember once at RED, I got really nervous and shamed and I told Stacy that I felt "like I'm in school" (meaning, the way I felt when in school) but I couldn't determine why. Stephanie and I talked a lot about the parallels between my relationship with school and my relationship with ED (there's another list of *those* sitting next to me as well) so I guess the shame could be a pretty strong bridge between them. Shame of being in school could develop into the shame that feeds the eating disorder. I just don't understand why I'm so upset about something so silly as school...?
I've nearly made up all my algebra assingments, I'm doing fine, and I only have one English assignment *here* to do, which I could finish in about twenty minutes. I'm extremely concerned about trying to take a quiz again, not having taken a quiz/ test in literally one year, but is that really enough to bring up all this shame?
I'm afraid to take the quiz because I might not know the material and fail it.
I'm afraid to take the quiz because I might panic even if I know the material and fail it.
I'm afraid to take the quiz because I've already taken this class, should already know the material, and if I fail the quiz now, that's really pathetic.
I'm afraid to turn in anything that shows I'm less than perfect. I'm afraid of what the teacher who comes with my work and the teachers at school who grade it, will think of me if they see how stupid I really am.
I'm afraid that I really am stupid, and no one can love a girl who is stupid and still stays on the honors track.
I'm afraid that I'll go to take it and break down, not be able to, and the teacher will see that I'm weak and crazy and decide she doesn't like me.
I'm afraid because when I got the work, I think I went back into my old "at least I can be a perfect student" place, and not doing at all well on a quiz could break that, leaving me with nothing because when I'm trying to be a perfect student I feel like that's all I am.
So if it is school (at least partly - school doesn't explain the rather graphic images, though I guess those could just be manifesting from the intensity of relative shame I've felt at other times) the question becomes how do I convince myself that I'm not nothing without school, that I would be above-decent even if I *failed* this class, and I think the answer is in doing things today other than school (that makes my head ache: "but she's coming tomorrow, and she wants you to take that quiz, and you have a lot to do before then if you're going to appear superior!") things that show me I'm good even if school were to slip through the cracks. Acknowleding that when I babble about wanting to go to that college my mom has been saying to me - "but I guess they'll be needing a high school diploma, won't they?" and other messages that somehow translate through her tone and my perception to mean "it's time you stop being lazy and stupid and prove whether or not *you* can finish high school or are another disappointment like your brother."
Urgle. This is all so difficult, and I'm worried that I'm being overly-analytical and figuring it all out "wrong"...but then, if I feel better, which I might start to after a little while, could it really be all wrong?
*
Imaginary phone conversation with Stacy.
"[Second] floor this is Stacy."
"Hey, Stacy, it's Mary."
"Hi, Mary! How are you doing?"
"I'm ok. How are you?"
"Good...so how's it going?"
"It's ok. The flat world is trying to- organize...to usurp the current government with its overly-militant band of old-time-thoughts...but I'm trying to fight it. I figure, if you can restrict once and not relapse completely, you can hate yourself for a couple days and pull out of it, right?"
"Definitely. I'm glad you're fighting it."
"Yeah. Me, too. Thanks. Stacy?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
"I know. I love you, too, Mary."
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