6:15 a.m. - 08/10/02
.obscured vision & so forth.
So Lindsey told me to sleep safely, and I guess I did, assuming that I slept at all. I know I must have, but I don't remember it. I remember tossing and turning and trying to slow down the spinning of my head. I even turned music on which is something I don't think I've done in at least a year. A mix tape from Silje that really is gorgeous (not just for the obvious reasons) which actually did help settle me a bit. But then, I still remember hearing every song, so not *too* much, I guess...
And then I "woke up" from this lack of sleep with half an eye. I'm not sure how but at some point during the night, my left eye broke. It hurt a little last night, but nothing major, nothing I worried about; then when I woke up, it had swollen (swelled?) to cover nearly half the eye. I need to put ice on it, but as that would require losing one hand and all my vision (assuming ice doesn't work so well through the glasses) I'll finish this -scintillating - entry first...
I know very well why I didn't sleep. Why I tossed and turned and felt the 'crazy' spin of no nameable emotion in my head. I acted last night as if paranoia and obsessiveness were harmless and I could just walk inside them, analyze them, be ok. I underestimate my own insanity; I really do. After I journaled about the need to caretake last night, I watched Daria, and went upstairs. I sat on my floor and thought/talked to myself for what I'd guess was half an hour or so, about what it felt like to not have control, to not be able to keep people safe and protected and alive. Maybe Judie was right to say that people being "dead" in my world after they left was giving myself more power than I had. She told me once it wasn't my job to keep her alive, a statement that made no sense to me, as I wasn't trying to keep her alive. I was pointing out that this outside force, this part of me that was not me, killed people off when they were gone. Told me they were never coming back and so forth. And she told me I did not have that kind of responsibility.
Which is why I realized somewhere during the Daria-viewing that caretaking is all about control. I manage to forget that nearly every time the need comes around to do so. I can never remember *why* I feel so compelled to do this, and then I remember that I need to control, I have to control, everything around me. Otherwise...well, otherwise I will go crazy, everyone will break, and the world will die. Put mildly, that is.
I feel insane. I really do. More so than when I shake relentlessly because I answered the door. More so than when I can barely lift my head against the crashing of a depressive-wave. The eating disorder is the closest likeness- that point in the binge/purge cycle where for just a moment you feel like you don't want to be doing this, and then you still are, and you feel like you've lost all control. That's how this codependency shit feels all the time. It's the most bizarre of battles: I'm losing control of myself in an (unsuccessful, obviously) attempt to control the rest of the world.
As long as I can remember, the serenity prayer has sounded like a threat to me. I've never found it comforting. I don't like the idea that there are things I cannot change, I don't like the idea that I might not know the difference between what I can and cannot fix. The serenity prayer is like the ultimate torture for me, and I was glad they'd ditched the ritual at Rogers, even though parts of it (like standing in a circle hugging, holding hands) sounded nice...
I honestly believe in the consequences I listed for not controlling the world. (I'd never think of it as "controlling" normally; that sounds so negative, and I don't mean to be so interfering with people, but I realize there is that side to it, so I say 'controlling' to remember...) There are probably others as well, but when I said to myself last night, kind of sleepily, "If I'm not in control..." the words, "I'll go crazy," "no one will be ok," and "the world will die" came in that sequence to my head. It's interesting that they're in that order, as I always consider my craziness to be a consequence of losing other people, not the cause of it. I'm worried about what I'll feel if I lose other people, not that what I'll feel will lead to losing them. (Well, not so much. These days. I have a right to my feelings I wasn't always aware of, but these days, I mostly remember that right.)
I don't know that them being in the order listed is a sign that I consider the second two consequences of the first, or just a sign that what I'm really scared of is my own feeling. It makes sense that way, after all- would I really be so scared of something if it weren't going to affect me at all emotionally? If losing people didn't hurt like hell, would I worry at all? That's a terrible thought, too, actually- the idea that someone could be gone and we could not feel anything, but at the same time that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to keep from ever having to feel that again, and maybe - to keep from feeling it this time around.
Sometimes I think the only way I've gotten so far in recovery is because it doesn't make sense to relapse over anything else when I didn't relapse over losing Tracy. So then I wonder how on earth I didn't relapse then, and I remember the first weeks, when I had no appetite, when I quit eating, quit caring, quit generally every part of my own life, and eventually quit crying for her, and I wonder if that was it. I went into my eating disorder then because I couldn't feel the pain of losing her, but the idea of not grieving properly tortured me. I know it's normal in grief to feel like you're not doing it right (you're crying too much or not enough, et cetera) but the only thing I could imagine being proportional to *losing* someone this way, was everyone stopping what they were doing and not being ok ever again. I couldn't imagine continuing on, and I couldn't imagine that being enough; I needed everyone in the world to just stop and cry and scream and grieve. Because maybe that would equal what it meant to lose her.
Feeling that way, the comparative little I was letting myself feel seemed nowhere near enough, and I started eating again, in large part to get my feelings back. I don't think I really cared at that point whether or not I was protected. If the emotions were going to destroy me, they had that power, and I wasn't going to fight against it. If losing Tracy was enough to kill me, I should die. I should not, however, continue to not feel.
I'm not that brave now. I'm not that willing to be overwhelmed by this, and by "this" I mean Tracy *and* RED and whom-/whatever else is down the line. Ultimately, whatever I'm doing now, whatever is so difficult to stop doing, I'm caught in because I'm scared. I'm terrified. Maybe part of me wanted the pain of grieving to destroy me. I certainly don't know how to live with it...
Damn. I'll get more upbeat soon; promise...
chord
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