1:24 p.m. - 08/19/03
let the roots get warm. |:| let the roots get warm.
I had the most wonderous day yesterday, in the terms most befitting wonder: pure simplicity. None of the pain or the circumstances causing the pain disappeared, but all of a sudden, there was so much soft-blankety-type-love to snuggle in that everything felt livable. Livable. As if I could not only survive my experiences but learn from them and be in them as I want to be. I'll stretch here and be who I want to be, and maybe with enough stretching, eventually, I'll have grown. Into me, fully.
I woke up yesterday to all of these beautiful words like strong and important and funny. I woke up yesterday, able to walk into nurturing relationships, and perceptions of me that agree with who I want to be, that confirm what I'm starting to know about myself. I still remember what it was like to live off of other people's kind words, to - starving - grab at them and grow sick from the inconsistency and the sweetness. I needed an underlayer of balanced nutrition, of deep self-understanding, -love, -forgiveness, -peace, in order for that icing to be what it was intended as: a treat. Not a meal plan. (And why exactly does everything make more sense in food metaphors? I dinna know, but it does. Still.)
These few days are the last I have in which to wear my "one" necklace. I turn two on Thursday. It's odd, how last year that anniversary crept closer over months, and this year it's speeding toward me with such velocity that I barely believe it'll last long enough for celebration. In which case, I'll extend celebration to include the greater part of my next year. I'm still not sure what I want to do with the day, though. I'm more inclined to tell everyone I know and shout it from the rooftops this year. I did tell both my parents - because I was so desperate to tell people - but, especially after telling my dad, and hearing basically the same thing I did last year, I felt a bit sick. It doesn't stop me from wanting to celebrate, though. I just have to do it a bit more independently, a bit more "in spirit", aligned with the dearlings who scatter across my globe, making all those far-off states and countries important, marking them on my map.
I think I'm more confident this year that the people I love understand that my having made it this far doesn't change how difficult the struggle is. I do as well. And I feel more grounded in the reality around missing Rogers, as though I could call any one of the people I'm "celebrating" with and say, "but you know, today [Thursday] is also a day of grief because it's the day I was admitted...and an overwhelming number of months since Tracy died..." and they could understand that as well. I trust that my friends could hold both realities simultaneously because I'm more able to do so and because my friends are the wonderful people they are. Even my parents are somewhat changed from who they were last year, and there's hope in that. Last year, my mom had just gotten to the point where she was grateful to Rogers when the 21st came around; now, in her own struggle, I think she has even more respect for my own. (Which might sound crazy to those of you who remember three days ago I was raving about her ability to walk away from pain and challenges when I've had to stay and fight...but I have some other things to say. And it's ok to feel one way one day and another the next. It's even ok to feel two opposite things at the exact same time, even though I'd personally prefer it if that particular scheme happened a bit less often...)
My dad took me to the doctor yesterday because we hadn't seen each other in just over a week, and the first time we were able to meet was Monday, and on Mondays I see the doctor. In part because she generally takes me to the doctor, my mom is also home on Mondays. So we had about an hour of the two parents in the same room, the beginning of which they had to deal with without me to buffer - as I was in the shower. It was a seriously long hour. My dad began to wander the house, looking lost, looking half-here. I played the piano and waited for it to be time to leave. When it was, my mom hugged me, and then she and my dad just stood and stared at each other. Finally, she said, "Drive safe," which I decided was the coldest thing she could possibly have chosen, and Dad and I left.
In the car with him, I brought the prospect of returning to therapy up a few times. I even told him my desire for him to go back had nothing to do with thinking he was crazy or doing a poor job taking care of me. I'd planned on hoodwinking him into sitting in the waiting room with me (which he never does; he avoids the doctor entirely), but as the office grew closer, I realized I actually really needed him to go with me...or strongly preferred that he would. My anxiety was up in arms over the prospect of continuing with the agoraphobia work, and I didn't like to think of what it would mean to sit in the waiting room alone. So he agreed, and he sat, and stayed until the doctor came out. When the doctor came out, someone came out with him that made the whole caretake-with-my-dad-thing temporarily irrelevent.
The someone was approximately older than me, just barely. She had long(ish) brown hair pulled into a nonchalant ponytail, and was wearing a brown tanktop, pajama pants, and brown sandals. She sat down very comfortably in the chair by the receptionst's window while the doctor went in to write a prescription for her father, who was sitting near me. She smiled at me in the same moment I smiled at her, and kept the smile after the exchange. She talked audibly to her father - soft, fluid, strong words - and her tank top curled up while she was sitting to show her stomach (and the beautiful girl actually had a stomach, yeay) to which she paid no attention. I spent a moment wondering why on earth someone so perfect (in a wholly human sense) would need to see a doctor, but mostly just watched her and drank in her loveliness. When the doctor returned with the prescription for her dad, she thanked him again, and they said a goodbye that sounded like she was going away to school for awhile, like she would be spending more than a week away from him. Then she hugged him. She hugged him! Just like I said I wanted to...someday. And he smiled and hugged her back, and I decided that this girl is me, given some time. I mean, I want to be me, not her, but I want to be *very much* like her. That casual, that comfortable, that filled with light and life and love. I must remember her...
It was only when she left that I could shift my attention back to my own situation, and it was only because I was about to have a session of my own that I didn't feel deprived when she disappeared. I took a breath and held it, waiting for the doctor to sit down in the waiting room - the way he sometimes does - and talk a little to my dad, who he hasn't seen in months. Still disbelieving I'd even gotten Dad into the waiting room, I waited for the doctor to pick up his cue, knowing he'd understand...and so...when he stood in front of the door to his office and simply greeted my dad and me, opened the door, and invited me in, I was more than a little confused.
I let it go, for awhile.
He asked how I was doing, and I told him ok. I told him about the time warps back to being admitted and to being discharged, the parallels between this move and the last one, the need to have a Rogers put into the equation where it's been removed. I told him about the house selling and the trip to see the new apartment, how poorly it went, despite my liking the apartment. How much the talk and paper-signing felt like the talk and paper-signing around Rogers admission. How I came "home" feeling very much compelled to throw it all away for a few more months with them. He asked how I managed not to, how things got better...I told him I'd called him and left a message (which I assumed he didn't know because he didn't seem to know the house sold, and I'd mentioned that when I called him), and slept, and the next morning when I woke up, it had seemed ridiculous. The way it almost always does eventually. Yes, I'd been in huge pain, yes, things were horrible, yes, I wanted nothing to do with this situation, but how on earth was obsessing over calories and throwing up and restricting and all of that horrible sickness going to make any of it better? Very simply, it wasn't. And the next morning I knew that. How I ate my dinner that night, I have no idea, but I'll settle for being glad I did.
He said something like, wasn't it funny how something could change so completely, could seem so different, in just a few hours, and I told him yes...It's been very weird. My eating disorder is still more present than usual and still being vicious, and I told him that was going on before and has continued since - but the desire to resist it kicked up again in under a day. The desire to resist it makes things a great deal less depressing, at least in terms of the ed.
And somehow I ended up telling him that it was a good thing I don't drive because had I been the one driving to the appointment, I probably would have turned around and gone back home. He asked if I was "scared we were going to dive right in again" and I told him yes. "Don't you think we bit off enough last week?" he asked, and I just raised my eyebrows, disbelieving.
"I'm just still used to thinking I've bitten off enough and being told it isn't," I said, thinking again in the ed metaphor.
He reminded me that last week I had been hardly breathing and cowering behind a pillow, i.e. we'd done some pretty intense work, whether I was able to see it or not. I told him I don't feel like I'm working because I'm not *doing* anything; I feel like a slacker, and he looked at me as if I'd told him I thought I was blue and had three heads. We talked about all of the stress and all of the work and all of the everything that is making up this time, and how I'm continuing to handle it in spite of everything...the same way I have for well over a year. I told him I didn't understand any of that progress - I don't have any idea how I've managed to do this - and so I just keep waiting for it to disappear. I keep waiting to screw up, and have that one mistake trip the line of dominoes, sending me back to my life at fifteen. He told me I was cursed to be working with a developmental psychologist, and asked me if I remembered how exactly I learned to talk. I said no. He asked me if I worried that I would suddenly lose the ability to talk, to communicate, even though I don't know how I learned it...? I told him I really did understand his point, and it's a good one, but I *did* lose my ability to speak in junior high, and I *do* worry that a time will come when that will be the case again. He asked if I stopped communicating in junior high, and I had to say I did. He asked if it was entirely, if I wasn't communicating in any way - through writing, through e-mail, through anything - and I said I must have been. I said I understood the idea; I just felt like I learned to talk at Rogers. "But," I added, smiling, "I still don't know how it happened - even there."
I told him that when I'm not busy telling myself my progress will disappear, I decide that my progress isn't real because it hasn't been as hard for me as it has been for my friends, and therefore I must not have been sick to begin with... He seemed astounded that I was this intent on discrediting any progress I've made and every challenge I've overcome. I told him I know I'm really good at beating myself up and not giving myself credit, but I really don't understand how I could be hospitalized one time, and from the day I was admitted, never purge. I didn't understand how I could do that when so many people I love who work so hard have been hospitalized multiple times, have had to pick themselves up again and again... I really do have to stop comparing myself to everyone else. I have to stop minimizing what I'm going through by looking at someone else's pain, and I have to trust myself and my doctor first. Not my friends. It's good that I have friends who push me and challenge me and want me to work at getting better, but if the doctor thinks that we bit off more than enough last week, and I don't need to start working this week (which makes me uncomfortable because then what the hell am I doing?) I have to trust him. I have to trust that I am getting better, and I will be the me-version of the girl who could float around his office and hug him so comfortably...
I just hate having to trust, erm, anything. ...More later, when I don't feel like I'm going to spend twelve hours at this keyboard and never say anything I mean. I'm having trouble remembering the appointment, and it was good and helpful, so that upsets me. I'm sure whatever seeds he planted are still there, but I *would* like to remember what shape and size and color they were, if not intended for what purpose. I would like to be able to remember what his words were that I found so comforting.
(It's just after six, and I feel a little bit more ready to say what happened next.)
Somehow, we ended up talking about my parents' divorce. I was telling him (again) the way I see it happening in my head: that my mom was the one actively making it happen and my dad was the one sitting by, not stopping it. I consider them both responsible. This time, something changed, though; this time, he told me what he knows of what happened from working with them. I know he believes I need to face the facts, and I guess that, without feeling ready to ask my parents for details, my version became more and more skewed, until he felt justified to tell me otherwise. He asked me how I would feel if I found out the decision was unilaterally made by my dad, and I told him - (thinking, he's asking this why? my dad never makes decisions) that it would make sense. I've been so angry at my mom for making the decision to walk away from a struggle when I can't walk away, and the truth is, when has my mom ever walked away from a challenge? My mom will take on far too much; she won't walk away. The one who walks out, the one who disappears when things are hard, the one who chooses to leave...is my dad.
The doctor told me that my dad made the decision to move to Brigadoon without discussing it. He didn't tell the doctor, and he didn't tell my mom; he just packed his things and left. I never knew that. At first, I assumed they'd had a fight and he was staying with my grandma for awhile; after that, I assumed my mom had kicked him out. My mom has never kicked him out, so I don't know why I believed this, other than the fact that I was being told - by my dad - that he wanted to come home and she wouldn't let him. I've heard that over and over. He wants to come back, and she won't allow it. He can't believe she's going through with the divorce...
I had started to cry a little, and felt I had to ask for the truth. "Did there ever," I started, "did there ever come a time when he asked to come home and she said no?"
I could feel how seriously he was taking this in his stillness. "Did he ever say, I want to come back and do what it takes to make this work?" the doctor said. "...No. Never."
I started to cry. "I knew that they wouldn't tell the truth the way you'd see it if you had, like, a video recording or something. I knew that their versions of what happened were bound to be subjective and colored by their feelings about it all. But I never thought either of them would just - lie. I can't deal with that. I can't believe he's been lying to us. All this time..."
I cried a little, we talked a little, I stated again that I couldn't accept the lie. (Never, never breach integrity. Never ever misuse my trust.) The doctor said, "I don't really think he's been lying...more like - "
"He can't deal with the truth, so he's made up a new version of what happened, and that's the one he's telling us. He's convinced himself of it, too..."
"Exactly." Of course. That's my dad, lock, stock, and barrel. Can't handle the concept of ever hurting anyone, so when he does, he makes sure he hasn't really. Can't handle being angry, so when conflict arises he runs. Can't handle having been angry, so after conflict he runs. Can't handle his own desire to say "forget it" to 28 years of marriage...so instead, he moves out, and he doesn't come back, and he doesn't agree to do the work, and eventually my mom hires a divorce lawyer. The doctor said, "It's possible...that in his passive way...he was making it clear what he actually wanted." Of course. I've been so wrong all this time. His obliviousness isn't the denial of a victim; it's the denial that comes when you can't take what you've done. His desire to do anything for me isn't about still being a part of my life even though I'm living with my mom...it's guilt. Not that he doesn't want to see me out of love, too; I know he does. But in this mess of being angry, I haven't seen his hand clearly. I've let myself slip into blaming my mom. And I don't want to blame either of them, but maybe that means indicting my dad for awhile the way I did my mom. Being so angry at him so that eventually I don't have to be. The hard thing is...my dad can't take it.
And Godd, how I hate the fact that I've been blowing up at her over and over again and saying things like, "So are you going to get back together now" and all that shit, thinking she was the one who made the decision, having no idea that she was the one who called it what it was. "I have sat in this office with your father," the doctor said, "and watched him call white black and black white. And he wasn't lying. But still..."
"But still," I said.
He believes this pattern with my parents contributed a great deal, though he's not sure exactly how much, to my eating disorder. It's been powerful, he said. I told him that, this week, just hearing that there was a reason for my eating disorder was powerful.
"You know how differently things can look even an hour later?" I said, remembering the beginning of the session. "I can't believe...I came in here wanting to wrap him in bubble-wrap. Now...I don't even want to see him."
"You'll need to build a relationship with your father," he said, "that isn't being between him and your mother. When you're ready." We talked about that, too. About the desire to caretake, to keep him in bubblewrap, to protect him from everything, from my anger at him. Wanting to put him back in therapy, not knowing he was avoiding it in order to avoid the truth. No wonder the doctor said nothing to him in the waiting room. No wonder he didn't sit down and gently guide him back. There's no helping someone who isn't willing to see the truth for what it is.
"Now and again," the doctor said, "maybe you could use some of that bubblewrap on yourself."
I wanted to hold him, but I just nodded. "I'll try to go easier on myself," I said, wiping the tears away. Then: "The stupid water made me cry again." He laughed. "I think you put something in it. Yours never makes you cry."
"Well, not while you're here."
I smiled. "Right. After I leave, you'll be clutching the pillow and crying," I said, laughing through the tears. He laughed, too. The pillow was sitting next to the couch, far away from my grief and my jokes and my gratitude for the person who not only tells me the truth but helps me survive it.
Afterward, I walked into the waiting room and there was my dad, still frail, still weathered, so unchanged. No horns, no despicable nasty expression, no malice. Just my dad. And I looked at him and knew this wasn't going to be a simple anger...
We went to see "Uptown Girls" - which has been entirely misrepresented in its advertising. I didn't like it for at least the first forty minutes, as it does not so much fit the "fluff comedy" previews that had built my expectations. Or maybe the first forty minutes just suck. Either way, when I got over the fact that it wasn't funny and just started watching it, it made me cry. And granted, I cry easily now, and I need to cry, and a dark theater where people think you're only a sappy movie patron is a pretty safe place to cry. But I'd actually want to go back, by myself, and just watch it and just cry. When it was over, my dad had tears in his eyes, too, and I just stood up and hugged him close. Because I have him here and he loves me, and things suck, honestly, and I may hate what he did, but it doesn't change who he is. Or how much he means to me. I may want him to pay fiercely, but it's not going to change how much I love him. And just now that almost makes me angry in itself - the idea that he can get away with this without me even hating him a little. But in the theater then, it felt good. It felt like being who I want to be, people staggering to leave around us, as I held onto him. Public affection. Loving people even when they hurt you. Loving myself enough to accept that I need him and love him so deeply and also, I'll probably have to scream at him in the near future.
Loving myself enough to come "home" and curl up and think about the bubblewrap. Use it on myself now and then, the doctor said. Give myself a break, some protection. Maybe I don't have it so easy. Maybe my ability to handle pain is not (at all) the best way to gauge its intensity. Maybe my ability is just a good gauge of who I am and the help I have.
He's a hero, honestly. That doctor. He's one of my best heroes...
chord
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