10:00 p.m. - 06/10/02
my head is narrating this with an irish accent.
i really shouldn't be checking my e-mail right now. my nerves are completely wrecked, and i don't need anything else to think about. so far, so good, hotmail houses nothing for me. e-mail checking is just a ritual; i won't feel right if i don't see what's there. but i don't feel right putting myself through all the stress of it either. we were out with mom's friend barbara tonight, and she asked me at the end if i was "wrecked." i told her no, tired perhaps- knowing that "wrecked" is kind of an irish equivalent of exhausted, and i wasn't ready to admit my exhaustion. the truth is i am. i am exhausted. i felt 'done' at several points in our day, without wanting to actually *be* done, and i knew that if i followed up on my urges to curl into a ball and cry, i *would completely* exhaust myself. as much as the tears were (yes, they happened) a relief, I knew that I would drain myself managing that relief.
so even though I sat in the same food court of the same mall eating the same bowl of miso soup that I "ate" whenever I was out past coping in my ed, it wasn't quite so similar as it felt. there was a night when my grandma was in the hospital last year that i went out with my parents and aunt jean and sobbed into my soup. it was the night my mom told me she was sorry, she thought this was a safe food, and i had told her that there was no safe food. this is the first time i've eaten miso soup as a healthy girl, and it's damn good when it comes with bread and juice and you eat the tofu. when you actually ingest enough of it to relieve the cottony feeling of your head.
anyway...what i was trying to say (yes, barbara, 'wrecked' is a very good word) was that although this felt like a very similar experience while it was happening, there is one major difference that i should count sincerely: i didn't cry in the middle of the food court because i'd passed my ability to withhold emotion and i needed to completely dissolve in what happened to be a public arena. i came home, and when my mom said "are you ok?" i shook my head, and i gave the tears permission to fall, not even sure they would...so of course they came rushing - and it isn't so much that i cried in private this year that's successful, it's that i had control over when i felt my feelings. that's something they promised at rogers that i don't think i truly believed. ed gave me power over my feelings through restricting them, so that when they did break through it was in such catastrophic waves, i could never believe that they could be simply tempered by everyday life. i didn't feel like i was walking around with my mom and barbara refusing to let myself cry; it just occurred to me that i needed to and then it occurred to me that i wasn't going to.
and when i got home, and the timing was better, and the emotion was more high-strung, i let it out. and things felt good.
it was just a lot. see, we went out around 10:30 this morning, dropped off materials at my school (I went inside- for the first time), ate lunch at a wait-service restuarant (which is much harder for me than a food court or a fast-food-ish/ order-at-the-counter type place...but which did have a *really* fabulous waitress who i could probably develop a substantial crush on), walked around the small shops in that area, saw a movie (my first in-theater movie since harry potter; i kid you not), played air hockey and skiball in the arcade at the theatre, went to a bookstore, went to the food court, wandered the mall, and came home. considering I wasn't even sure I wanted to go out in the beginning (I hadn't slept well, and was thinking I might be too tired emotionally as well) this was quite a bit. i forgot to take my stressful situation meds, too, which was *really really* bad and which was basically why i wanted to cry in the food court. because at the same time that i was so ravaged with anxiety, i was so hurt and angry by its presence. what gave my nerves the right to ruin my day for no good reason? to nearly drown me in sweat just because I wasn't curled up in the same spot of my small house in my small town in my small world? it's so frustrating. and it's such an awful symptom/disorder. i'm sure i say this same thing when the depression is rampant, but the anxiety is really the most exhausting awful illness. because even as you have absolutely no more energy, when it has taken every last drop out of you, you're still shaking and moving and dancing and talking and desperately trying to keep up with your own inner caffeine. it's this motor that keeps on running and there's not only nothing left to run on, there's damage control to be done. when i'm in need of rest, i'm still out there sprinting. no wonder i shut off into depression. my god.
then to come home, and not be able to sleep because i have to get up tomorrow to go to the (medical) doctor...was just too much. i asked mom if we could reschedule it and she said i should really just go, which broke my fucking heart. that really was a flashback-to-school moment. then she played the answering machine messages, and there was one from this woman at MPC, and I fell apart. I rushed her to turn it off, popped my ss meds in hopes of sleeping better and began to cry. she promised me that we could wait on the medical doctor, that i could just go to bed and not have to "do it all" the way i was so overwhelmed.
after being in the school building today, it was just all too similar. they don't understand that's how school was every night, every day. taking one class would be the same as taking seven. the same sleepless nights, the same constant terror, the same inadequacy turned violent.
so anyway, my head is too scattered to be writing, even in the shaky way i am. i need sleep. but, it wasn't a waste, despite the pain of it. there was lovely conversation and we saw "divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood" which meant that i got to see sandra bullock and maggie smith in the same scene. sandra bullock as a playwright, no less.
and there were good therapy/ family dynamic jokes. still, the eternal sisterhood movie is fried green tomatoes. you just don't beat that, even with wendy/ mcgonogall to cure your ails.
love
chord
p.s. my only mail at angelfire was happy happy joy.
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