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10:10 p.m. - 02/11/03
we find magic everywhere.*
So, this morning when my head was doing its crashing (accelerated by the fact that I can't sleep well on the migraine med, and have mini panic-attacks when I try to nap) I attempted to write here, but didn't get very far...The entry has since been lost thanks to the zealous window-closing of my mother. We're all probably better off that way.

The med, well, it does an amazing job of keeping me migraine-free, and I'm grateful for that, but I am a bit tired of feeling like my heart is about to explode. It's very odd. I sleep well for a set amount of time (I still have fears that I sleep "too much" and if I post the number everyone will be like, "Jeez- and she's still tired?...ok, fuck that; no more affirming old thought patterns...I sleep well for seven hours) but then wake and cannot for the life of me fall back asleep, despite being absolutely exhausted. I think it must interrupt the sleep cycle- like I'm pulled out of stage 3 or 4 or something. Anyway, I either lie in bed for hours trying to gain energy through sheer stillness or get up and attempt to exhaust myself, but lately when I try and fall back asleep I can't do it. Why? Because just as I start to fall asleep, I jumpstart. Have you ever fallen asleep on say, a bus- and just as you start to go under, you feel like you're falling, and jerk yourself awake? That's what happens. Over and over again. And my heart jumps through my rib cage and my entire body flails out spastically and I have to convince myself I'm not dead. I think this means I need to talk med-talk with the doc tomorrow, instead of ignoring it as usual. I'd be happy to keep taking it, considering the lovely non-queasiness and non-headaches that come with the new dose...but I'd also like to keep my physical heart in tact while I work on repairing my emotional one.

I broke my rule about unapproved medicating a few mornings ago (in desperation) and took an alprazolam. I fell back asleep with that and didn't have the panicky-heart-attack-seizurey-things. Alprazolam is honestly my magic pill. I know that's a scary thing to have, but so much of what I take works subtly, over time, until it's hard to tell. Alprazolam is what I take when I feel like I'm going to explode, that makes me feel like I'm safe and warm and swimming. Not exactly mood-altering, considering it only works on my physical anxiety, not the nervousness that triggers it. But, hey, if you're used to feeling like you're muscles are knotted and your heart's running a marathon, relaxation is mood-altering.

Other drugs I used to mood-alter today include good music, fishnet, butterfly chains (metal, around my waist) and cords. Oh, pigtails, which transformed into little hair-knotty-ball things at one point. I need to figure out what to do about my hair. We got pictures back a few days ago of when Kateri and Soran (the five- and four-year-old children of my parents' friends) came to visit, and even though the pictures are good, I was struck by how conservative my hair looks. I fall into a quick ponytailish thing by default because I've been doing it since seventh grade, I can't stand to have my hair in my face, and I don't know what else to do. Maybe I need to cut it in a way that isn't just me with a scissors and the appropriate music. (Sob, I love that ritual.) Maybe I need hair that fits the growing trend toward self-expression. Obviously, I don't mean trendy by this. I mean Brave over Lastname; I mean less and less who I used to try and be.

I'll stop talking about superficial things (or rather, stalling through them) as soon as I say that Sunday when I went to the doc I ran into my brother who had an appointment just before me, and he told me that he really liked my outfit. He told me that the last time he came over, too, and when we went out a different night and played with the video cameras at Circuit City (he was shopping; I was playing) he told me I looked good on camera. And understanding that compliments do not occur from brother to sister in my family (or at least, are very, very rare) this has meant a lot. Considering that I can recall one night in my life where people told me I was "pretty" this means something. I think it means relief. It's like...when I stopped waiting to be told I was good enough and just let myself be, people liked her. I was never complimented in my conservatism. And now in my weird-ass combinations of punk and folk and preppy and goodness and bootage...it happens. It means a lot from a brother. It means a lot to someone who never got to hear that growing up.

I think I have the kind of beauty that moves, and I'm learning to be really - proud - of that.

The things I'm not talking about, the things that make it difficult to even come to the computer tonight (though I'm more comfortable now that I'm here) are the same issues of identity, connection, relation, orientation, et cetera. That last one had faded into the background a bit, upstaged by returned abandonment issues and home-cravings toward the end of the doc's vacation. (I started dreaming I entered a program with Dave and feeling sick with infant-ish craving. I even bought yogurt pretzels, which are still really really sweet but fabulous all the same - once I built up my tolerance again.) Some other things came up, too; I suppose the family issues. The weirdness with John that night at the restaurant, and with Sarah over the name. Update on the latter: she called to ask how I wanted to be credited on the postcard (which we'll use to advertise it around the city.) I asked what she meant- because there's also been some confusion about my title (another time I went against her; she wanted it to be "company" playwright- which connects me more to her and to RMM itself...and I chose the other option- "residential"...in part because I need some of my own identity and in part because residential is what Rogers is called, and I wasn't calling myself Brave yet. I wanted some of me in what I was called and that was the way I saw to do it at the time.) Anyway, she was referring to the name, I told her to keep it Lastname so it would be consistent with the site, but was glad she'd asked. I hate that I'm giving in on it, but at the same time, I got to hear my dad read "Mary Brave" off an envelope yesterday, after trouble at the post office, and I just felt a bit sick. The same sort of sick I feel when they attack Winter Machine or Tori Amos. The same sort of sick I feel when my age devalues my opinion. The same sort of sick I feel when they bash people who have sidestepped gender bias or mock me for wearing my "fuck your fascist beauty standards" shirt. (They thought it was inappropriate with my grandmother around. I think it's inappropriate to be someone I'm not, and I would hope my grandma- who has been around the block more than a few times- would understand that. She could have a lot more than a shirt to swallow depending on the turns this quest of mine takes...) I need the right to be myself, even around people who don't fully understand her. I'm not claiming I fully understand her. But it doesn't make sense to me that I can revel in the identity of someone, and they can't show me that same awe. So many people *can*- that's what I'm realizing. So many people look at you with that quiet smile and those refueled eyes, and you learn to believe in people who believe in you. This is a lot of what I talked about with the doctor on Sunday, and his agreement helped me feel strong in my perception of it. He said that I want to find a community whose members celebrate their differences, and I said, "Maybe just...celebrate identity?" I don't think it's even about the distance between you and me so much as it is the idea of who you are. I mean a poem, a force of energy, a candle frantically casting light and shadows against the dull colors of the wall. I want to know people with that sort of respect, the kind that feels like gratitude, and I want people to know me that way. I've been given the gift of experiencing it, and I'm spoiled; I want little else.

He made a very good, and very scary, point. In my family, differentiation and rejection are considered the same thing. If I choose a path that does not look like your path, it's a judgment of who you are. If I choose a style that's not your style, it's a passive-aggressive way of saying that your style is inferior. If I decide to be myself, my real message is that I've decided not to be you. And that's an affront; that's an injury I rarely see forgiven. I want to ask him tomorrow if I'm like that. I know that everyone else in my family is, to whatever extent. I love them. They're beautiful. They simply aren't enough. They've simply been through hell, too, and we became different people dealing with that. But as I think about it in I/they terms, I want to clarify with him. He talks about his responsibility as my psychiatrist to honestly identify problems I face, so I know he won't just throw me the compliment if it isn't valid. I need to know if I'm like that, so I can work on it (too)- if I am...Of course, I can take my own evaluation, and let its conclusions have weight as well. It's possible I'm not like that. I was baffled by Sarah's response to the name-request. And I never had a little sibling model themselves after me; I never went through the pain of watching that end. I don't know. Maybe I'm not like that, and if I'm not, we'll call it the most recently discovered gift of being the youngest child. God bless that spot, that baby #5.

So, since I failed to deliver my traditional post-therapy report, I'll just settle for saying that the family issues were a lot of the topic at hand. How does my actually wanting an identity play into the dynamic of identity=rejection that is *so* prominent in my family? The fact that both my parents drove me and my brother had the session before helped jumpstart the topic. I sat down and said, "So, how many Lastnames can you take at once? Is four a challenge?" He said that actually, we're all different, and I was noticeably relieved, which I tried to disclaim with, "I love them. I really do. It's just...good that we're different." Funny considering that I seem to be the sole bearer of that perspective in the family itself.

(I wonder how it appears to each of them, though. I wonder how the dynamic looks through their eyes. I think right now, I need to put that wondering on hold a little, though, and just search my own perspective. I spend too much time in other people's mocassins, and the majority of it is a gift, but at the same time, I have a lot of catching up to do on the feel of my own footwear, so to speak.)

I have this class that examines diversity through literature (and occasional other artistic means), and every two weeks or so, I have to respond to a song/ movie/ art piece/ poem/ article/ et cetera that deals with an issue like race relations, discrimination, religious issues, the experience of someone within a particular subculture or something similar. And I always have an idea of what I'm going to choose for the next one (I have so much art- mainly music and poetry- centered on those topics) and I always end up picking something else. Ok, always means "twice" at this poin, but still. This week it's turned into "The Christians and the Pagans" by Dar Williams, and I think I know why. I don't need right now to think about the differences between groups too huge for me to control or in relationships too dire for me to hold hope. ...That song, well, it just says that it doesn't have to matter, and whether or not that's true (within my family, within families, on the larger scale) isn't really important right now. I posed some questions about love healing all in my response, anyway, so let it be. Right now I just needed that. I needed that sort of we can all exist in our own right. People don't stay connected because they're similar; they stay connected because they're wired to do so- because to just break off from that would be such a terrible loss. At least, I do. And if I'm a different sort of people, I'm ok with that, somewhat. So long as I can mend myself significantly enough to heighten my proximity to others of this kind. Oh, to be offered a hug I could accept.

Hey, wait; I got one tonight, from the artist friend of my mom's/ mother of my psychology teacher. Rock. She gives marvelous hugs, though I feel bad when my parents witness them. I just don't feel the need to shy away from her as I do them. I don't know where it came from, but I can't pretend it isn't there.

Other Sunday-session topic: the guilt trip I've endured, the need for forgiveness. I was reading some lovely Iyanla Vanzant on forgiveness today - (there are so many books with daily readings; Until Today is the only one I know worth buying) - and torn between how freeing her words were and the fact that none of her specifics fit my story. So here's another baffling dilemma to unravel: How do I balance needing to forgive myself with the possibility that I did nothing wrong? I think I really need to forgive myself, in the sense that saying, "Oops! You really didn't do anything wrong" doesn't quite cut it. At the same time, I need to take in that this is an illness. That (awful) rape metaphor holds. No matter what I did, I didn't choose this.

I need to learn new ways to tell my story, ever more honest ways. Today I found myself saying (to the people who visit me when no one else dares) "I've gotten far more gifts from recovery than I have from writing. No, it's true. Writing is brilliant, it's amazing, it's hugely liberating. But you can just as easily write around yourself and your audience as you can to them. You can write your whole life and never learn a thing. You can't do that in recovery. You can't keep from evolving, from knowing yourself, from working to be that person. It's a relationship with life; everything good that I have, I have because of it." Somewhere in there, I also pointed out that these gifts came from an illness that while active, kept them as far away as possible. That's the difficult thing to explain. I fear I'm encouraging illness by glorifying something that seems to necessitate it, and in the current climate, being who I am...I can't settle myself with that. At the same time, I think the gifts that I've gained through recovery aren't reserved for people who've been sick. Anyone can live consciously, unwrap the layers of themselves. Anyone can play around with thought patterns, examine their emotions, go into therapy. I need to separate the fact that it happened through recovery for me from the idea that recovery is the only way it can happen. (Though I do know it cannot happen in illness. Thank goodness I know something.) I also need to keep in perspective the people I know who are sick. I would never think that people I know who don't struggle with mental illness need to develop and recover from one in order to flourish. And I don't think those who are struggling need to develop particular symptoms (in keeping with what I did) in order to receive the results I did. I need to look at that. I need to look at the responsibility I feel for what happens to others. And I need to lovingly detach and focus on where I have power: in my own life, in my own love.

I did tell him I put myself through one hell of a guilt trip. I even told him (and myself) that I have an eating disorder, and it's still difficult. I told him that I don't always believe I have it, that I feel I faked it, that it was blown out of proportion, that it's nothing compared to what other people struggle to overcome. I told him that this is one way I've ended up relapsing in the past; my desperation to prove the struggle is real pushes me back into it. We talked about what's going on. What happened at the restaurant. (He hadn't read my check-ins yet, so he didn't know.) What's been happening in general. He (and some surprising tears) helped me realize that part of what scares me is that if I get well even just to the point of where I was before I received help, that help will disappear. I told him about the limitations and allowances I feel exist on caring, how I've already had more than my share. We talked about my family's increasing laissez faire attitude toward my ed-struggle, and even my struggles in general, as I become stronger about dealing with them. I explained that I don't want to be accomadated for having an eating disorder because that won't help me. I don't want people tiptoeing around it, the way they did at one point. Squashing all food conversations, keeping only safe foods in the house, and so forth. I don't want them to accomodate the eating disorder because *I* don't want to accomodate the eating disorder. At the same time, I want them to accomadate *me.* And this struggle is part of that. It's part of me. He said they might need a refresher course on some things and he could find a way to nudge them on a few points without incriminating either of us as plotting to do so. I told him that I wasn't looking for rigid rule enforcement here. I didn't want to set up any systems of how to handle something. I just want to be heard. When I say, "I can't talk about this right now" - "I really don't want to hear about this" - "I need to not be here" or whatever else, I need that to matter. I feel like that's courtesy, that's relation, that's what people do for each other. You find a way to work around the problem so that no one feels martyred. The point is to meet everyone's needs, not to set up a structure of who gets what met when. The point is that if I'm saying I have a need, I do. This isn't something I'll exploit; I have far too little practice needing to do that. So that's all I told him. I want to be heard.

And maybe I can add tomorrow that I want my parents to quit talking about each other to me. Negatively or positively. And I won't my dad to quit telling me I'm just like my mom and my mom to quit talking to me like a friend. I want me-time, even when people are home. (But really the listening thing. Honestly, that's the biggest. The rest is stuff I tell them myself, constantly.)

I think I'm still sorting through those old fifth through eighth grade issues. I'm still looking at the people who entered my life and the ways that I personally lost access to it. But I'm starting to feel more comfortable here. I'm starting to feel a little more ok.

Of course, not *quite* so ok that tomorrow he'll have read my e-mail (he apologized for breaking a promise, which was sweet) and he'll know I've been thinking about this. Which scares the crap out of me. I don't know that I'm ready for him to know. I felt ready when I e-mailed him, but I was really thinking about it then, and I'm not now. It came up quite a bit last night, and it's coming up more over the past few days than it was toward the end of last week, but I still don't feel like laying things on the line for him. But it's not a black and white world anymore. Maybe there's a step or two between staying silent and telling him everything I know. Maybe tomorrow, I nod when he says that I wrote this. Maybe a week from tomorrow, I nod and say yes. And slowly, sentences and selfhoods form.

Goals for tomorrow: work at poem for Diversity, survive school, minimize and accomadate any head-crashing, and give myself time to feel peaceful.

I feel peaceful somewhat, now...

chord

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