Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

10:20 p.m. - 01/26/03
i'm me not him.
Read Beth. Really do. I especially like this entry. Though actually the best thing she's written is an e-mail in response to my hackneyed cry for love. And you'll need a couple keys, which I'll supply. username: perdiendome & password: 080880 And she's ok with me giving this information to you. Actually she asked. So go read. But read me, too, because we're *all* special, and we all need reminding right about now.

*

Parents who act like kids annoy me. In particular, my parents, when acting like kids, annoy me. My mom makes requests that aren't requests; they're orders. And when I decide to (what-the-hey) be honest with her about not having the energy to do something right that moment, she seems completely caught off-guard and hurt. Pouty. She's been absolutely pouty this weekend. She's also the only person I know who has a singular expression to embody a guilt trip. That, my friends, is impressive. I'm writhing in psychiatrist-withdrawal and desperately attempting to reassemble enough of my identity to access the strength of it, but she still feels compelled to play the victim. There's more than enough pain to go around, and I don't minimize the realness of her situation. I also don't minimize the fact that she's had nearly fifty years to establish a different one and has far more freedom to change her reality than I do (in the short-term.) So boo. Boo on mother. Boo on father. Boo on parents who decide just a little too late that they don't want to be married, with children, and living a life they didn't plan even as the people they used to be, let alone as who they are now. Boo on people who aren't happy and choose to do nothing to work out of that. Ok, I'm exaggerating; they do some things. But you have to work consistently, and you have to manage your relationships with some respect for the other persons. For goodness' sake. You can't flake on your child just because you're having a bad day. And you certainly can't do that the majority of days for some seventeen years. Rargh. She and I watched "Anywhere But Here" last night, and (damn that was some good acting but seriously) I felt like I was watching Hollywood's version of our relationship. No, it's not that dramatic. No, she's not that irresponsible, that insensitive, that childish. But good God, the "subtle" parallels were still strong enough to slap me across the face...Weird.

So how am I, post-rant? A little better but not significantly so. I think the real issue here is that I have very little idea who I am at the moment (I know, I'm Mary Brave) and that makes it hard to draw on the strength inside me. My identity is such a huge source of energy for me; the wisdom of my past and the hope of my future do such an amazing job of fueling me, but right now I can't understand myself. I don't seem to understand myself right now. I mean, today I am absolutely Mary on the outside. I'm wearing a dark orange sweater, striped cords (reds, oranges, greens, khakis), a metal butterfly chain at my waist, my one necklace, a photographic sticker of Dorothy asleep in the poppies, the frames of subtle mystery, and temporarily-sparkly-blue hair. I am all me, and I still can't seem to gather myself. It's really frustrating, and I don't know exactly where it's coming from. I think I'm struggling in several areas right now with the idea that my own awareness, my own perception, my own needs or opinions, do not hold any weight against those of another. For instance, I've been a little freaked about the minimal amount of schoolwork I've been doing (despite speeding along like a scholastic trolley for weeks before), and I keep thinking- You *know* that you're in a really difficult place right now, and that it's more important to keep yourself sane inside of that then to continue humming along. You know that this time will roughness into something less difficult or more familiar and you will take on school again with the same vigor of before. You know what the doctor would say were he here. He'd say, "And worksheets matter more than whether or not you feel like exploding?" And you would say yes, and he would say no, and you'd move along confident in his answer. Somewhat. Well, that's true. The doctor would say that; he would side with my identity versus my achievement, knowing the latter would catch up in a calmer moment. In fact, he'd side with my identity and my experience even if achievement weren't going to catch up. (I'd bet.) Yet, trying to believe this without him here to tell me doesn't seem to work veyr well. I don't seem confident that I am the one who gets to make this call, even though I'm miles away from the place that taught me to believe that. Even though I would rather not believe anything I learned in old N*land. Also, tonight while I was waiting for Sara to call (and she didn't- sob- but Britt is going to call on Tuesday, and that makes me all excited-like) I did a little bit of handwritten journaling, which I don't feel like posting, on the whole relationality/ sexuality issue. And I realized part of the problem I have with considering a potentially sexual part of myself is I feel like the second I admit to it, I no longer have the right *not* to be sexual. To say no, in certain situations, to certain people, or even completely without exception. I feel like, if I discover this, I will be shipped off and forced to have sex again and again because after all "I want it." I can't imagine that my needs, my realities, my boundaries matter more than anyone else's. And that sucks.

Because the truth is that no matter who I am now or who I discern myself to be in the future, no matter who anyone is, they don't deserve to be attacked. They don't deserve to be berated, harrassed, or raped. We just don't. I just don't. The past can fuck off; I will learn better than what I've known.

But yes, I don't seem to put much faith in what I believe these days. I'm checking my answers to literary analysis questions on-line before I write them down. I can't make myself believe that I know as well as any other reader what this particular Poe story had to say. I don't like this. I need a way to change it.

I'm Mary. Mary Brave. I grew up (or rather, down) in a really awful town that I call Neverland- despite the fact that it was honestly more stifling than adventuresome. I lived in a log cabin with four older siblings that I tended to get along well with, and two parents that I adored for many many years. I established myself as "the writer" (to others' "musician" "artist" "actress" and so forth) and I struggled to survive suburban shittiness (Brave's Law of Relative Acceptance: the size of a town is directly proportional to the average mind-size of its inhabitants). I also struggled to survive painfully low self-esteem, shame, shyness, anxiety, trauma, depression, self-injury, an eating disorder, et cetera. When I was fifteen-going-on-three-or-possibly-thirty, I broke down completely but still had enough sense to run screaming out of my school and to give my consenst that we move. (Though at the time, I didn't know that the seven circles of hell were not all contained to Neverland.) The following year I moved to Wisconsin (without my parents) and was born into my new self (who was also the oldest, but that gets confusing and I already wrote a play about it. Oh, yeah, I write plays, too and one of them will go up in March-or-maybe-April, so come see.) This process was made bearable, and actually quite lovely, by the presence of some really amazing people who help make up my family, who I consider saving graces, and who (in general) I miss really, really badly. The cost of attachment, my friends. So after completely revamping my entire world-view (or at least getting one hell of a head start) I moved to D!@#$%^ where my parents had settled, and set up residence in a house formerly-known-as-a-barn that they find "cosy" and I find "suffocating." I survive the days by way of a keyboard, a modem, and a CD collection, and by talking to the (better) voices in my head. I try my best to stay connected to those that help me feel alive, despite the actual distance between us, and the distance my social anxiety tries to create. The best thing in the world to me is to help someone feel loved when I am feeling it myself. I long for the time when I can sit socks-to-socks with someone and cuddle and huggle them. I genuinely crave society despite the fact that I'm terrified of it. I believe in several causes but have a hard time speaking up about them. I doubt myself a great deal more than is healthy, and I depend on external affirmation more than I like. But sometimes things click inside me, and I just soar-soar-soar-coast, and things are really grand. Sometimes, I have this amazing strength that makes me believe I'll come out of it all alive and better than I am. I believe that the love I've experience, however it has come, stays with me, feeds me, gives me strength. And I feed myself, too, for the record because I am in recovery, and part of that means eating. Other parts of it mean talking and growing and fighting and changing thoughts and dismantling phobias. Oh, and feeling. Though I've grown to love feeling. You should see how frustrated I get when I can't find my feelings through the numbness and the sick. I'm no fun, then, and generally I can be really fun because I have this silly freaky dorky side that's way cool, but also kind of insecure. But if you're sweet to me, you'll see it come out, and I'll be Dopey to your Doc, don't worry. When I feel safe, I tend to be a really amazing person. So what I'm working on now is to feel more and more safe. Because I have several things left to figure out, but I'm more and more excited to do so. I just wish my fucking therapist would get back from his vacation so I didn't have to fight my parents and the evils of D!@#$%^ off alone. In the meantime I have this band of allies that rocks my little heart to the right tempo. I get by.

Who I am is made up of where I've been, how I've been there, what I've done, why I've done it, where I am, what I feel here, what I see, what I know, where I'm going, what I'm dreaming, what I'm thinking, what I'll be, what I want and what I'm scared of, and that someday I'll be free.

woot.
chord

p.s. when people respond to the cries it means so much. so thank you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and everyone. thanks to everyone.

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!