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11:20 p.m. - 10/04/02
hoping we could be raw together.
My mother, who is always asleep before nightfall, has just now gone to bed. Oddly, I didn't feel right writing until she was out of the room. I think this nighttime writing ritual has become a way of winding down for me, and I can only wind down when I have a wall or two between us. Now, I'm starting to be all sleepy-like myself, so I'll have to stretch to remember everything I wanted to say.

I think I like being on more meds than I was. I like the effect, I mean. With the exception of a really painful moment this afternoon and lingering urges to cut, things really have been better. I don't know if it can happen that quickly; I know when you start meds it's supposed to take two weeks...but...I still feel like it's made a difference. Even though swallowing five pills each morning (not counting my as-needed anxiety meds) is a bit hard on the heart. Meds are not like therapy for me. I enjoy the effect but not the process. I would never make a shirt supporting them. I think they're important, I know they've done me good, I know I need to continue taking them, but I feel dependent when I do. And they're effect is so damn invisible sometimes. Until this change, I'd been on the same dose since sometime at RED. I no longer really remembered if I felt better on them than off. Not being on this exact combination was kind of a blur. Anyway, having taken meds, good. Having to take meds, bad. And so forth.

I've never been so glad not to have cancelled school as I was this afternoon. I only ended up taking one test, as after finishing it, I opted to look at the physics with her before doing the next one. We spent so long on the physics we were both exhausted, and she needed to be on her way, so the sci-fi test was postponed. She never expected me to take the physics one, it seemed, though she did think I had already turned in the work for this chapter. I explained that it was geometry, that I suck at geometry, and that I was completely lost. (She made me retract that last statement, after I skipped a few sections, saying, "Well, I got *those.* They're algebra.") We worked on one problem for literally almost two hours, and even though we did manage to get the right answer, we have no idea why we needed to set it up the way we -finally- did. So she's going to talk with my Oh-So-Cool-Geeky Physics Teacher and have him explain it. Before we started, she said something about him thinking I could do no wrong, and when she said she was going to ask him, I realize I view him the same way. I've never met the man and I'm convinced he's infallible. It's kind of nice. Anyway, it went well; I realized I'm not incapable of learning this, I just couldn't *teach* myself with the oh-so-limited background I have in geometry. I was glad to see that the problems actually were confusing and complicated and that it wasn't just my anxiety about it being geometry, though. I was glad my intelligent, math-teacher tutor spent as much time on it as I did. And I'm glad she didn't even flinch when I said I couldn't see her Monday.

Five days of doing schoolwork without having school. I'm so grateful for it. I really dig Mistrandy, but I stress so much less when the deadlines are far away than when they're on top of me. I actually get more done in a week when no one comes than I do in a week when someone comes every two days. Pressure paralyzes.

But that's enough school talk.

Today I went into the city (the city! yeay! lights and buildings and actual places worth spending time in!) to see an art opening for the friend of my mom's who happens to be my psych teacher's mother. It was extremely low-key, and the venue was really sweet- simple coffee house with fabric in the ceiling tiles and drawings on the walls. A small crowd had gathered outside to listen to a girl sing folk music. (When we came in she was covering Ani's "Both Hands" and I told Mom we'd stumbled into heaven.) It was nice to mingle with people for a little while, even though I was shy as always. Everyone knew about me, though I'd met only a couple before, and everyone asked about college and the play. I convinced two darling middle-aged women that they wanted to go to Hampshire, which is very cool. People were so supportive, I started to feel like maybe I'm not completely out of line wanting to go there. I'm always thinking my achievements are so small. "Oh, come on. Everyone's been writing novels since they were in first grade. Everyone's had plays produced and founded theater companies. Everyone's been to hell and started to come back again. Haven't they?" The haven't they is thanks to the people I got to talk to tonight, three of whom I really dug. (Unfortunately, I only know one of their names. Julie.) And Annie, the one exhibiting, talked to me more than any artist ever has an opening, including my own mom. She's kind of like a sillier, more kid-like version of Laura, which is nice. Real huggy and excited about everything. And not afraid to tell me stories about her experience in therapy after I vaguely mention "what I've been through the past few years." She and her art both get four stars.

I also met her daughter, my semi-infamous psych teacher, who, despite my mom's prediction did not redeem herself in a face-to-face interaction. I watched her later talking with others, and I realized she's probably a really funny, smart person that would be enjoyable to talk to, but she presented *none* of that when she and I were introduced. It's been a long time since I met someone so defensive, and I wasn't sure if I felt better or worse seeing that she isn't this way with everyone. I could tell it was a job life versus social life issue, and that pissed me off a bit. I've very rarely encountered people who didn't treat me like an equal based on age or where age placed me in a certain hierarchy. (For God's sake, two of my dearest, most intimate friends were teachers of mine.) I was really disappointed. It just makes the whole psych class seem murky. I like this subject! I want to go into this subject! Why does she have to be so uninviting?

It doesn't help that someone on a message board just referred to me as "lady" which I feel is a complete insult. What am I, thirty and absolutely unapproachable? (What am I, just what I say I'm irritated by?)

If nothing else I finally met a twenty-something woman that I did not totally crush on within one night of meeting them. (Mary-crush, that is.) I didn't have a Chas, Ruth, Rebecca, Michelle, et cetera experience, which might be reason to feel prideful. But then, I enjoy that little high. I kind of hope it was just her. And the fact that *my* distance is so much out of *wanting* to attach, and my walls are so much out of shyness and fear, that the idea of someone being cold and detached due to similar wounding is really foreign to me. I struggle with people who haven't started doing their work, and I struggle with people whose issues are so different than mine. At the core, we might be similar, but I just can't deal with people who talk to "Student" instead of "Mary." Our school system sucks.

That area of the city at night is the closest thing we have here to culture. And I absolutely fell in love with it. That weird juxtaposition of trees and cement. I said to Mom, "I bet all of Amherst is like this one part of the city," and she mumbled something I don't remember in response. It's not really that I have any reason to believe what I said, except that in imagining the Northeast, one can't help but picture maple trees; rather, I wanted badly to believe I'd feel that at home on our trip. That my anxiety would be gone as soon as we touched ground and I would be running out of my mom's shadow in order to experience it "alone." I want the little-kid courage that thinks a closer look at beauty is more important than any danger. Let me be brave and know it; let me be brave.

I don't think I write well this late at night. I'm not sure if that's a comment on my writing or my self-esteem as midnight nears, but one or both seem to falter. So onto the last point.

I wrote a letter to RED last night, after I signed off here. I started crying a little, and even though I gained a headache, I lost the migraine. I don't know if that makes any sense if you haven't had both. So maybe it wasn't a migraine after all, but rather the physical build-up of some impatient tears. In it, I talked a lot about what Joe's visit was bringing up for me. Even though our in-the-moment interaction was really good (has been for his last few visits) I still remember when we didn't get along, and how he used to say such mean and hurtful things sometimes, when his anger overwhelmed. The only incident like that I remember took place around Christmas sophomore year, *just* before I was diagnosed, and I've just been thinking a lot about that time and my relationship with my different family members during it. I've been feeling really guilty for what I did to them by being sick, and I've also been feeling really hurt by what they "did to me"- all the things we did to each other when it was still so new and strange. I've been thinking about how Joe ripped my heart with words I could cry over even now, and Sarah read my journal without my permission. How my parents didn't take my sister's hint and get me help even then. They aren't easy memories. I never thought the time would come when I would dread remembering where I was at some point in my life. I didn't enjoy experiencing it, but time could only put distance between me and it, so why should I worry about what I'd think about my behavior then a year later? Now, it's painfully clear how much I think about it. And the shame I couldn't feel when the behaviors were so obvious to me (I know I'm *supposed* to be ashamed I cut myself, but come on now, this is what *I* have to do) sometime surfaces now.

It's also about feeling disconnected, even though I didn't really put it that way. I've been hanging out at this message board for people in recovery, and it's been mostly nice. It's helped me practice not caretaking, even though I screw up as much as I progress, and it's helped me feel less alone in some ways. But it's also been really difficult because most of the people there seem to be at that point of "do I want to start getting better or am I too scared?" and let's face it, that was a year ago for me. It's not like my current questions about wanting to recover or not aren't similar, but I have all this backlog behind me, all this experience and information, and it's irritating that a person one year or less into her recover should be the veteran. It makes me question what I'm going through. Do I really have an illness at all if they're still talking about bingeing and purging and I haven't done that in a year? I know I restricted a week or two ago, but I could have not done it just as easily, so I don't know, maybe I'm not really sick. Thinking I had control over this and that I made the whole thing up is a large part of what I experience every day. And I know where it comes from, but I occasionally forget it's here. It hasn't been as triggering this time, by which I mean it hasn't made me want to "prove" I'm sick...but it has been hurtful in that I don't feel like someone in the illness or someone healthy. I can't recover from something I don't have. I know that the eating was in some ways a really small part of my problem, but I also need to have someone confirm that I really did struggle with that. Because even though my other problems- depression, anxiety, shame, and so forth- led me to use my eating disorders and I struggled just as much with the self-injury, I still need to know that I was really sick to the point I couldn't help it. To the point I needed to be hospitilized. I feel like I've had it too easy this past year, and the only explanation is that I wasn't as sick as anyone else. Which is really scary to me when I'm in so much pain.

I said a version of this to the doc a week or two ago. I said, "Please tell me something's wrong, so I don't have to believe life just *is* this way. Please tell me this is my illness so I can hope we'll fix it; things will change." I think he understood. I need to brng it up again.

On the back of my letter, I wrote the questions I would want to ask RED, if I could do so with immunity- both from their response and my own emotional reaction. I want to put that in here for safekeeping.

1.) Did I have an eating disorder? Did I make it up to stay with you?

2.) If I did, do I still have it?

3.) Can I come home now?

4.) Do you want me? Do you miss me at all? Do you think I'm stupid for needing you this much?

5.) How is it so hard if it's so invisible? How can I know I'm not just making it up? (Drama queen. Hypersensitive drama queen...)

6.) Do you love me?

7.) When you talked with me, how much of it did you mean?

8.) Do you think I should be a writer, that anything else would be wasting my talent? Do I have any other talent that you see?

9.) Do you hate me? Is it time that I be quiet?

10.) Why did Tracy die? Is she ok? Can I know she's safe somehow?

11.) What do I have to do to make sure you'll always think the world of me?

12.) Is it ok if I still need you? Can I keep you and be kept?

13.) Do I need to/ will I ever find another home?

*

In a perfect world, they would be able to answer. I would be given a response with Brea's understanding, Sara's gentleness, and Dave's frank honesty. I would be given an answer with Stephanie's enthusiasm, Lainie's caring, and Leah's sense of equity. An answer with Karen's kindness, Lisa's intuition, and Jenifer's strength. With Leann's power, Cindy's maternal sense, and Jen's instinctive empathy. An answer with Dwight's self-transcendence, Stacy's clarity, and Rhonda's emotion. With Beth's ability to anchor and Kat's inviting seriousness. When I write to RED, I wrote to all these qualities in all these people. I write to more than could ever fit into a word, or book of words. God writes with a different dictionary.

In my imperfect world, I stood in a coffee shop tonight, and outside a crowd gathered to watch a young woman play acoustic guitar into the night. They were friends, no more than 17 or 18, a good 10 or 20 of them. Two especially, a girl whose jaw almost shaped a familiar profile and a girl whose curls reflected a spunky impishness inside her eyes dredged up memories of Tracy, and I was struck by it in a way I haven't been for awhile. I saw the world she should be in, simple gatherings with friends on street corners. Talking quietly with people, shyly beautiful. I wanted her to be seventeen again and only seventeen. I wanted her to know what she needed to know of life, instead of what she now knows. I wanted to walk out in the street, invisible, turn toward the window ledge they sat on and see it was her face. Not similar, not close, but *her.*

I wouldn't ask you to come back, but God I miss you; nights like this...

chord

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