8:45 p.m. - 10/14/02
regaining my balance.
I said in the last entry that I might upset people with what I said, and then I didn't say it. I felt like the last entry needed to be separated, so it's in its own window, waiting to be posted, and this is in its own window, waiting to be written. I do have things to mull on that aren't my favorite sort, and I do have something worth apologizing for, though to who exactly, I'm still not sure. I'm feeling a bit insecure, so I'm going to add that the movie discussed, vaguely, isn't something I'm even sure I like. Except I loved it. There's a lot of it that isn't good at all, but then, I can't help it. I don't know. So I either hate it or love it or both. I'm either neutral or uncontrollably passionate, and I don't mind feeling that way. For once. But onto other things.
Last night, I felt very much like I used to feel, largely based on my inability to be certain what that was. I felt alone, even though I could look and see I wasn't alone. I felt hopeless, even though I have come through that before to find hope. I felt desperate and sick, with a fire in my stomach that would not go away. I was cold with depression and hot with anxiety. Panic kept my eyes open, but depression glazed them over. I stayed in a dark room and watched a movie about a girl who went into treatment and came out well. I wanted the therapist to be Dave and the girl to be me; I wanted the treatment center to be Rogers. I didn't care that it was impossible, or that I was supposed to love something else, or that feeling my way through that earlier - perched on the armrest of the couch - hadn't helped me. I just watched the movie and felt more desperate, more sick, more numb.
I had been thinking all week about purging. Hell, I've been thinking all year about purging. And the fire in my stomach was growing, and I felt so desperate to do something, and at the same time, the urge to touch finger to throat simply wouldn't come. Instead, my arms cried out for scratches, and I had to do something, had to do something, couldn't do something all day.
I tried to tell myself the other things I could do. I knew there were other options I was overlooking. That I could call someone, draw something, write something, stretch. I could move around my muscles, take my meds; I could make it through. I knew that in the long term, it wasn't a decision I could make, that I wouldn't want to have that on my conscience, wouldn't have to say, "I did this; I'm so sorry", wouldn't want to have to admit it, wouldn't want to have to wake up tomorrow with the signs of my failure in my skin. I knew all these things. I knew that it hasn't helped any of the times I've fallen back on it, I knew that it would keep me from working for the true solution, I knew that if I just told myself my pain was real enough already, understood already, I could white-knuckle, deep-breath my way through.
I knew that I had a choice; I absolutely had a choice, and if I did this, I might not the next time. I knew that I only wanted to do it today, but if I did it today, I would probably end up doing it again and again and again, and soon it would take over, and before this week had turned into next, I would be in last year again. Last year prior to the good parts, and I don't know, maybe that's what I wanted.
I give in long before I actually do something. My insides shift. I kept waiting for it to pass, but did nothing to make it do so. I kept telling myself I couldn't do it, and then wondering what it would be like if I did. I kept telling myself I would regret it, I always regret it, but I didn't believe my own words. I heard Dr. R tell me that raising the Effexor would help in the long-term, but I was the one who had to deal with the short-term and knowing I had to deal with it, had to deal with it, couldn't deal with it. I knew I could call someone, and I didn't call anyone. I told myself it was too late, and I didn't have anything to say, even though I've called too late on nights I don't have words. I lied to myself because I believed my feelings more than I believed my perspective. Logic loses easily to emotion-waged wars. I didn't want it last night. I didn't want to wake up today feeling successful. I wanted, right then in that moment, to make the fire in my stomach go away. I wanted to take more pills than I could take. I wanted the anxiety gone and gone for good. I wanted someone to tell me that anxiety, even when its so skewed by depression I can't even recognize it, is a disorder- is not me. I didn't know I wanted this. I wanted things to stop; I wanted to do something, and by god I would do something. When Mom told me how much of today she would be gone, I was already planning, planning, planning- thinking, if she isn't here, I will be able to...just like I always did. Every moment with them gone was a moment I could eat, binge, purge, cut, burn. I quit leaving the house and started counting the minutes until their departure. I didn't have to do anything to shift back into that. I only had to consider it. I only had to decide, in my head, that I wasn't sure I wanted to be well. Decide I wasn't sure I cared more about the long-term than the short-. The same way I became uncertain about eating but did not start to restrict. It tapered out slowly; suddenly, my food is oh-so difficult. Suddenly, I look out from inside my head, and the clock says I should have already eaten two forgotten meals. I will work on, I am working on it. I didn't choose this; I just didn't *not* choose this, and that is dangerous enough. Having a blade in your bedroom that you keep meaning to return but never do is dangerous enough. One of these days, Christmas will come, and Mom will notice it's missing from the set, and all chaos will occur. If only inside me.
Inside me, there was chaos. And I didn't take the phone into my bathroom and make a call. I took a knife into my bathroom and scratched around awhile. I call this cutting because when it goes on long enough it turns into cutting. Because cutting encompasses everything for me, encompasses burning and scratching and bruising all at once. I scratched at my arms, thinking I could bring about the relief I used to feel, for seconds at a time, in the practice rooms back in Neverland. Thinking I could make myself safe again, in the short-term safe.
For five-seconds-maybe-a-minute, I thought perhaps it worked. I didn't regret it during that time, I felt relief, and the pain on my arms quieted the other pain. I thought, I did it- it worked- it's done. I touched the welts on my skin, and the texture comforted me. Comfort for a minute, maybe- relief.
Then, the pain, the smaller fires set on my arms, started to rage. I started to feel the pain of it, and I didn't like that pain either. My pain had shut up and now I had to feel the pain of the scratching amplified to the pain of my heart, and it hurt so badly, I could barely breathe. I didn't bring back the relief, simply the relief, of when I was in Neverland cutting in the practice rooms. I brought back the shame and the fear and the loneliness, too. I brought back the devastation and the hopelessness and the girl I've spent a year working to safely-be/not-be. Maybe it was already here, but yesterday I had her arms again. I had her arms again, and I had to look down at them, and know that tomorrow some of those scratches would still stand plainly on my skin. I would be wearing sweaters; I would be hiding. I would have to tell people what I'd done, people I care about and who care about me. I would have to write it in this journal in order to maintain honesty and doing so might hurt people that I love.
I made the mistake I've wanted for so long to make, the mistake I was certain I couldn't recover without. I made the mistake I glorified into something necessary, something worth pursuing, the mistake I wish now I had not made but cannot change. I don't want to undo it because it was a mistake; that's beside the point. The point is: I cut, and it was horrible and I wish I hadn't done it, but I only cut. I didn't magically rid myself of pain and longer than I could have by sticking my head in a sink of cold water or making a phone call. I didn't save myself from new or old pain. I didn't make a mistake that freed me from my perfectionism; I made a mistake that once again reinforced how scary my perfectionism is. I didn't separate myself from pain; I threw myself back into that world. I chose to use a way of coping that undermines my other ways, and all I've gained is the added obstacles that come with self-harm and compulsivity. On top of dealing with the issues behind it now, I must deal with the behaviors themselves. By cutting, I have once again made cutting an option. I have once again given my affirmation to guilt, regret, self-hatred, and fear. I treated myself in a way that says the closest I can be to safe is quickly, dangerously protected. Fleeting endorphins are my only cure, I said. I didn't know when I chose it that was what I was accepting, but it is. I have no desire to purge now to make a mistake because I know now that all it would be is purging. All it would be is vomiting, and I have so much more to get up than fluid, than blood, than adrenaline and tears. I have so much more that has to find its way out, and I'm scared- I'm terrified- because I don't know how to deal with all this, and I don't know how to need it so badly. I don't know how to feel as sick as I did a year ago and not believe I'm somehow bad. I don't know how to believe that having these feelings isn't some sort of failure, a lacking progress, or that my not behaving in the manner I did then proves the pain is not as bad. I want to go home, and I don't know how to not need that. I don't know how to not imagine home in the exact vaccinity I do, with the exact people in the places I imagine them. I miss what I'm not sure I'll ever have.
I feel crazy with it. Absolutely crazy. I don't trust what I know of the; I know they weren't perfect, but I defend them as perfect because I'm so afraid (justfiably) that someone will talk of them as less than what they were. I know that my perfect life could not be lived at Rogers, that no life could be lived there, now, with all the pain surrounding what happened and what's still happening, but I can't let go of it. I can't. Rogers is the closest thing I've ever had to home, to love, to family, and I don't know if I'll ever find that anywhere else. I don't know if I'll deserve that ever, and I'm scared to feel as if I do in case I don't. I'm scared not to hate myself and find that others do. I miss Rogers because I'm scared it is all I'll ever have of love-like that, because it's the closest I've ever come, and because the people there were absolutely brilliant. I miss it because I'm still unfinished. I braid the memories a thousand different ways, but they never tie up in a way that fits. I have questions still unanswered, blanks I need them to fill in with words and touch. I need to know the truth from them, but more importantly I need to have healing. I'm scared that the words I need, the truly healing words, are not ones they could say. I'm scared to have needs they are not willing to meet. To be something else to them than what I tell myself I am.
I get through the day by being their girl. I get through the night by dreaming of them. The pain I have, the pain I have to get through, comes from them. They are my struggle and the reason I survive it. I feel like they might be everything, always; as it is, they're not enough, and I'm not willing, now, to risk my way toward more. I want to believe I'm not ready, but what if I'm never ready?
I need to be loved.
I need to be told I am good.
I need to believe I am good.
I need someone to tell me that no matter what they will always be in my life. I need them to mean this. I need to believe this.
I need to understand what happened to Tracy, what happened to all of us, what happened to everyone who no longer sends me letters or calls me on the phone. I need to understand why, when we all need each other so much, we give in and go away.
I need to hear from the people who can't lie that I'm doing well, that I'm making them proud, that they'll be family in whatever way they can, and I need there to be enough of them that I feel safe letting Rogers-then crawl closer to a Rogers-now.
I need to hear from someone else that I transformed, for real, from someone very sick into someone who believed there was more. I need to hear that I was sick and now am fighting sickness. I need to know that it was/ I am real. My pain is valid, and I don't ever have to prove; I can just need.
I need to know that they see more of me than my achievement. I need to be valued as a person, as a relational creature, someone who can hold people with words and arms, who does not simply write playscripts to win awards. I want my writing to not be my best talent.
I need to know that I'm safe now and will continue to be. I need to understand how that is true, how I can gauge it, for myself and for others. I need to know how to believe that I am safe and trust that other people are as well. Including her.
I need to know that they don't think I'm crazy or silly, stupid or young for wanting this. I need to know that finding love for the first time in a hospital is not outlandish or untrue. I need them to tell me that they're sorry it took me so long to find it, but they're glad they could be the ones. That it was real love, and of what sort, and that I will always have it in some form. I need those different forms to be described, so I am not scared, anticipating them.
I need to know that having them as home is absolutely ok, to the point that I could not change it if I tried. I need to know that even if I go out and build a castle filled with friends, even if I make myself a new-and-perfect home, I will still be able to call them mine.
I need to know they call me theirs, and gladly. I need to be enough for them, over and over again, until I believe it.
I want them desperately; I need answers to questions. I need them to be absolutely true, and I need them to be of the nature here described. I can't bear to be patronized or lied to, but I can't bear to be told a painful truth. So I don't call, I don't write, I don't share these thoughts with them. Last night, I wanted to know the pain was real, and big enough. I wanted to know the fears and needs were really as huge as they felt in my stomach, really *weren't* something I could deal with alone. I wanted to know that it would be ok to ask for help, and I wanted to prove to myself that I didn't feel safe.
Cutting didn't do any of that for me. All it did was leave me cut. All it did was give me old challenges to fight along with new ones. The problems I thought a mistake might trigger were already coming up. The tears that came following the scratches always fall more heavily on their own. Now, on top of reaching out, I have to do it regretting what I tried, I have to do it with the lingering feelings of my guilt. I'm sorry for what I did. I have to find a way to be sorry to myself, for cheating her one extra moment of her peacefullness. I postponed it. I'm doing everything I can not to do more.
I'll even call him and tell him I need help, if I do in a moment. I'll go in Wednesday and ask him what is happening, ask him to please help me with it. I'll say to him, on Friday it came time for curtain and you weren't there. I didn't realize how upset I would be until it happened, and then I was scared by how much your presence meant. I don't think now that it was *your* presence so much as the idea that everyone I need is eventually not there, and even though you say that won't happen with you, we both now I'm not able to believe it yet. When you weren't there, it was like a confirmation, it was like a vision of the future and the past, and I don't know what I'll do when it comes. If you're gone, I'll be completely alone, and I really don't think I can do it again. I'm not saying any of this to make you sorry; it's just that I hadn't realized how strong those feelings still are. I couldn't call anyone after they took over. I felt too alone to make it so I wasn't. What's going to happen if this falls apart? What's going to happen if I go to college far away? What's going to happen if I go crazy again? I don't want to go crazy again. Can you keep that from happening?
I'll say all that, and he'll listen and respond. It's one of those weeks where I talk with him inside my head and he says very little. I keep talking because there's so very much to say. But his words on Wednesday will not be ones I guessed. I have no concept of what a person might reply...
Silje called today. She knows me like her own intuition. She came, and it was hard, but I loved as wholly as I could. I tried to let it be as purely good as possible. Less guilt, more smiles as my analyst ball says.
I'll work on that...
chord
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