8:35 p.m. - 01/16/03
me versus my head. (round two thousand six hundred and four.)
There's so much to say.
I feel the way one does after eating a dinner of Cheetos, scrambled eggs, ketchup, ice cream, and Dr. Pepper. The problem is, I haven't done this. I've been sleeping and eating as best I can, and I don't understand what the matter is. Maybe it's a very low-grade Migraine, in which case it should be kicked out of my life fairly soon. The problem with paiging the doctor to ask if I can take Excedrin is that then he asks how often I feel sick this way. And when I tell him he says anxiety feeds migraines and migraines feed anxiety, and if I'm suffering this often, why don't we medicate? Another set of pills.
I told him at least. How much it hurts me to take them. I don't understand it, really; I get frustrated with myself because I don't believe there's anything wrong with needing to take this. If it were insulin, I'd totally understand it. But there's this feeling, this constancy, that feels more sick when medicated. I told him that I'm tired of being sick. I was thinking of my small self and the pink pills she had to chew, the ones that numbed her throat and were taken off the market. I was thinking of how many doctors I saw before I quit seeing them, and now I'm sick and seeing them again. He said it's a grief process and he told me that these meds aren't addictive, and there's a chance I won't have to live on meds. (I believe that about some, but all?- not so much. I very much think I'll always be medicated for depression. But what do I know.) I feel ashamed, I guess, of my own biochemistry. I feel like it's one more thing I don't have down, can't perform competantly, can't control. I'm tired.
I wrote (all but the first stanza of) a poem while listening to Sleater-Kinney today. I forgot while writing it that the process of writing doesn't generally make me feel better. Yesterday, I was sick over all the fucked-upped-ness of the world, and I ended up going to bed early after sitting in my sink-nook for maybe 1/2 hour. I don't feel right about being angry still/again. I try to gather Paulie in my head, hear, "Rage more" in that rough and quiet whisper she so owns. I told the doctor yesterday that I'm going to pick the guidance counselor up by the ankles and use her to beat the geometry teacher. He didn't seem to hate me afterward.
Though actually, I've been thinking mostly of Mrs. Mulvihill, the social worker stationed at the middle school my eighth grade year. I'm not sure why I've been thinking of her, but that whole period- the how-this-began (to be visible) of it all- has started to fill my mind again. I remember her telling me in subtle terms that she thought I had an eating disorder, feeling the way I did when Dr. R thought I was abused. I remember going to Pale Reflections, in its old days before it looked like a legitimate, too-good-for-me site, seeing the Trees of Life, and wanting to plant one, but I wasn't really sick, and I wasn't in recovery, so what was the point? I thought about writing into the newsletter saying, "I have the weirdest relationship with 'eating disorders.' Everyone at my school thinks I have one but I don't."
And sometimes I wonder if I would have gotten sick if they hadn't suggested it, but I guess there's little point in wondering. I'm recovering, so there's no point in feeling shitty about having gotten sick, besides which, it was how I voiced several other problems that were already there. If I'd gotten help without the ed, I might have a few more years of health under my belt, but I'd never have gone to Rogers. And it's weird, I know, but that changes everything. Not having gone to Rogers is like the thought of not having been born- at a time when I want to be alive, when I don't feel that would have been a good thing.
They should have the letters now, or possibly a day or two more. Sometimes mail is trapped in the hospital and takes awhile to find its way to the right building. I kind of feel like curling up and sleeping, crying, shutting off my brain. I kind of feel like being nursed. I hate circumstancial depression. There's something awful about knowing now that I can't blame how I feel on the function of my neurotransmitters.
Is it funny that I know about it? Will I always be too naive, too inarticulate to be precocious? I'm in a bad mood. I've been in a bad mood for two days with the exception of a) part of my session, b) some time with Mistrandy and c) an IM talk with Julian and Sarah-delancey. I feel stifled of course. I'm taking too many social studies courses, and I'm infuriated by what has taken and is taking place. I need some mindless fun. I need some revolution.
I feel like I'll never fit in anywhere. I've been thinking about relationality again, understanding more and more about what's great about relationships with girls and what scares me about guys, and just as I start to feel comfortable in my girl-with-girl daydreams, I feel like a poser. A complete fraud. They close in on me, point their fingers. I'm faking all over again. When will I believe that my needs are real and deserve to be met? When will I not feel like people can take away what I am with one word?
I miss Jenna.
I told the doc about the letter from Katia, and he was all excited on my behalf, and then he asked if this was "that girl" that I'd tried to track down, and I said no, that girl was still m.i.a. I told him how Smith is ten minutes from Hampshire and who knows if she's even there, but sometimes when I condense my longing and my loneliness they turn into just how much I want her arms. What can I say? I sent letters to Rogers less than a few days ago. My come-be-with-me energy runs high.
The letters. He moved into a whole new position; his face lit up. He said "congratulations" when I told him. I finally kicked the approach-avoidance conflict a step or two away. I'm "finally" doing many things- dismantling what investment I still have in relationships I need to release*, fighting the few remaining rituals with which I eat, coming on-line despite my fears. We talked about the phobias again. He said that he really believes there's sense in them, and we talked about how we'd work on them, how we could start right in the office, where it's safe. I'm terrified, of course. Fucking Roosevelt with his "the only thing to fear is fear."
He told me a story about Sesame Street- Ernie keeping a banana in his ear to ward off alligators. I want to kick my bananas away. But I want to keep them, too. Some of them are starting to make sense to me. I've been trapped on the phone more than once in my life. I've felt like I couldn't escape (because I couldn't say I needed to.) Some of them are still without logic, but part of that is how old they are. I remember phobic responses to not being home at night from the time I was six, three years before I was actually abused at a sleepover. I don't know. Maybe that shit with Stewert happened at night. Maybe there were real monsters in my dark.
Stupid depression! I'm going to fling cds at you at high speeds and they'll cut through your core. I'm tired of feeling so hopeless, when I've found so much reason to be otherwise. Just one of those days I have to get through rather than enjoy. What I'd really like to do is go live in his office for a week. I'd like to sleep on the couch I sit on to speak with him, and I'd like to have him come and talk to me in increments short enough to stand. I want him to sit on the ottoman instead of in his chair and use his quiet voice. I want to not be here, with myself, and only me.
But I'll get through it this way, too. I'll call him if I need to. After all, he gave me back Tori, and he smiled at her photo when he set it down. He said he took the liberty of copying it to his computer. When he said he liked it, really liked it, I believed. It was happy for me.
I guess I'm grateful for all the nice boundaries he keeps strong, but I also hope in my head that his life is really pretty behind all those curtains we maintain. I hope that there's a loving but eyeroll-causing mommy who calls and a sweet boy to kiss him goodnight. And I don't know if it's a boy, but I hope it's a boy...just because I know how I felt learning he had a sister. I get weirdly competitive. Like: this isn't even something I want but I need to know that I can get it. His affection/approval. Another issue, yes. A theme.
We'll get to that one someday. When I'm slightly less scatterbrained.
chord
*well, some of them anyway
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