11:40 a.m. - 02/28/03
your heart has a home in mine.))))
Yesterday: cut hair instead of arms, threw snowballs instead of up, cried with doctor instead of uncle. Today: have a slight headache, am rather tired, feel less like a worthless twit, don't have the sense that I'm dying (so much.) Thank Whomever for that shift.
Onto business, you really do have to read this book. If you're grieving the Land of Make Believe, know that I (feel honored to have) made this ring. And the change in design is not so much a sign that I don't relate to the crab who has outgrown her home; I just really need to remember the old skin horse right now. Remember what the skin horse told the rabbit? Once you are loved, you are forever real. That's what I need to know, so that's what my diary reminds me. For the next hour at least...
So, yesterday. I felt crazy for most of the morning, which- generally speaking- is a sign that I feel angry. I still have no idea how to feel angry (as much as I hate sadness, loneliness, abandonment, I have them down; I know how to cry my eyes out) which always leaves me a bit on the edge. Unable to take it anymore, I "strapped up my boots" and went outside to throw snowballs at the house. The house that incarcerates me, the house I could think of as a symbol for everything D!@#$%^ and my "home" is not. I left the paneling looking feathered, rashed out with some mysterious pox. I sat down in the one place I could find that was not snow-covered and whittled snowballs into squares with my knuckles. I tried to let the air and the chill heal me, and when it had done as much as I could expect, I went inside, turned One Beat up a few notches, and took a scissors into the bathroom. That was the most difficult part, considering what it could still mean. But no, I promised myself to only cut my hair.
And it's so damn cute, I have to give myself credit. A bit more radical than anything I've tried before- the sides go to my ears, the back to my jaw, and I'm not sure if I look like a boy or a girl or some mix of the two, but I know that I look more like myself than I did. Cutting your own hair is so underrated.
After this, I continued to crochet/ de-crochet the security blanket. (I have to de-crochet the misshapen work I did a year or so ago to have yarn to use now.) I should mention that before going out into the snow I cried my eyes out for awhile. That's one of the reasons my still being angry was particularly vexing. Generally, if I feel crazy, it's because I'm shut off from my feelings (which is why it usually means anger, the feeling I don't know what to do with and therefore would shut myself off from), and when I get far enough into the feeling that I can break down, I tend to be ok afterward. Not the case yesterday. I talked to myself for a little while about Billy-and-crew, and then I began talking about Red and how upset I am that they don't understand, and then I cried, and still wasn't ok. So snowballs, and hair, and Sleater-Kinney, and I'm still not right in the head. Cartoons and crocheting and a call from the teacher that says "see you Monday; it's fine; hope you're ok" and makes me feel like a shit and a fraud, still not ok. Replying to letters from Katia and Dixie and Silje and still not ok. Checking e-mail, not having any, checking something-fishy, seeing a message about red, and so much more than so not ok.
The message was from a girl I don't know who was discharged about a month ago and is struggling. She had called Dave and talked with him, and I was very not ok with any of this. I went upstairs with the intention of calling Sara, but in my frenzy, couldn't find my phone book. I started to have trouble breathing and feeling lightheaded/ queasy, which was scary as it's been so long. Finally, I grabbed the number I could find (Dr. R's) and asked my mom to call the people who paige him. (I normally do this myself, but I was in far too much of a state to answer their, "What is this regarding? Are you sure it's an emergency?" questions.) I didn't need to defend the fact that I was calling an entire day after my last appointment, and I didn't need to argue when I could hardly speak. So I let Mom call, and I took the panic meds, and I sat at the top of my steps, waited, and cried.
It didn't take him long to call back. Mom handed me the phone; I crept into my bathroom so that I could close a door between her and the conversation. He asked what was up; I told him I couldn't breathe. He said that we needed to fix that before we tried to talk about anything, asked if I'd taken the meds, how long ago, promised me they'd kick in as we talked, and asked if I knew what had caused it. For once, I did; I knew the trigger if not why it was triggering. I told him about the sf post, and he talked about what it meant to see someone connect to them when I, for reasons of risk, can't seem to do so. He said that sometimes anxiety is a tool used to avoid anger, and asked if that seemed relevant to me. I told him that I hadn't felt angry when I started panicking, but I had very much felt it earlier in the day. I'd felt (sigh) angry that I couldn't make them understand, that they don't understand, that they don't just love me and let me know that it's ok. So it would make sense if that had been intensified with the post.
We talked about our discussion Wednesday, and he said that we had talked about what went on with them in the past, never quite making it to the present. We talked about the letters, how I felt I'd broached the impossible subject (that I love them so much) in those letters, and to do it again almost didn't feel possible. I explained to him what it's like to call, how I very rarely get someone who even knows me, how I can't make myself leave messages for people who would. We talked about how high the stakes are, and the dehabilitating quandary of they're what I need more than anything right now, and largely because of that) I can't make myself call them. We talked about the fear that if I call on them, I'm taking time away from people who need them more. We talked about the fear of telling them I'm struggling and the belief that if it's not struggling with food, it's not valid. He asked the million-dollar question, "Do I have to relapse in order for people to support me?" I told him how much I know the answer to that, how much I don't want the affirmative to be true, and at the same time- how I remember that when I could eat, I was discharged. He understood, as usual. As usual, he understands.
He wants me to believe that without the (ever-so dangerous) coping mechanisms I had pre-Rogers, I am facing an even tougher battle. My struggle is more difficult. I am in more need of support, even though I am far stronger than I was. He wants to discard the graph in my head that negatively correlates progress with strugglings and need of support. He wants me to quit equating difficult struggle with eating disorders. He wants me to know it's ok to love them, need them, be completely lost without them. He wants me to know that we'll get through this. We'll get through the questioning, the action, and whatever the answer is. It's not that I don't want to believe all of these things, either, but I don't know how to make them real. I'd like to think the way he thinks. I'd also like to go home. Right now they seem equally impossible.
(For the record, I hate it when my mom says, "Whatcha working on?" and I say, "Journal" and she says, "Oh. I thought you were working on something for school" which makes me feel as if I should be, and should is a shaming word, and I'm shamed.")
So eventually, I told him I need spies. I need spies to infiltrate the area, determine how my Redlings would respond, and report back. He agreed the idea was brilliant. We talked awhile longer; I was having a hard time speaking through the need to blow my nose. Through the tears. He suggested that right now the stakes are far too high to do anything, that I can't assess the situation accurately when I feel this anxious over it. He said it would probably not be a good idea to make a decision that night, and that the issue wouldn't go away, so why push it? He suggested that my resources were rather low, that I would not forget this, and neither would he, and maybe I could just wait, refuel, sleep. That idea sounded rather good to me, once he promised that they wouldn't disappear if I waited a night. We talked about what I could do to keep from thinking about it all for the rest of the night (I ended up crocheting and watching Daria) and how I could go to sleep afterward. Then he told me he'd like to talk to my mom but not tell her anything, and when I agreed to those terms, he said he was glad I felt safe calling. I told him, a bit meekly, that I was glad, too, and he laughed. Thank you is still the hardest sentence in my world.
He and Mom talked; from her state afterward, I would say he followed our agreement, I crocheted, I slept, I didn't dream about Red. (For the first time in a couple of days.) I dreamed about a woman who would fit the demographic I'm constantly tumbling into love with treating me like I always wanted to be treated, and telling her little sister that I was in love with her (a few minutes after we had met.) I said, "What? No!" and she said, "Why wait to say it? You know you're going to be," and I wanted to hit her, but at the same time I didn't want to leave her side. Weirdness.
If I have to play the same CD one more time, I think the d: drive might protest. Which in my language means it's time to go.
Until the next fiasco...
chord
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