Monday night I did the newest 'homework' for the new therapist. I was supposed to write down all the things that I know for sure that I'm doing right in my life. It was only seven items, but it took more than a page because I didn't just make a list, I wrote why I know I'm doing right in each instance and why those things are important to me. Then I was attacked by the Peanut Gallery (Inner Critic) all throughout my sleep for having done it. They berated me and made fun of me and told me to shut up and stop writing because nobody wants to hear it. They said no one wants me. Maybe I need to write it over and just make it a list and limit each item to a single line. I don't want to do that, but I'm tired of being picked on. I don't want to be worthless.
I'm supposed to talk to Old Guy Wednesday evening, but I'm angry with him because I know he fed the Peanut Gallery that day when he said all those terrible things to that raped teenage girl who was so distraught and so very deperate for acceptance and comfort. He didn't just feed them that day, he gave them steroids. They got fed again with our last misunderstanding (caused by me emailing him from a rabbit hole in an effort to stay alive - maybe I'm not supposed to be alive). Plus, I have pretty much made sure that New Guy can't help me the way that I need to be helped because I went in pushing him away because I don't want to be hurt anymore. And I didn't just do it with the fake name and the way that I have lied to make myself impossible to physically locate should he decide that I need to be forcibly drugged - no, this is about the 'Keep Out' sign that I wear over my real self these days. I can't risk letting anyone in because things are too fragile in here. I can't take on anymore damage because it would kill me and a tiny part of me still wants to live. I don't know what to do. I want to just ignore things and pretend, but I have done that before and it all comes crashing down around me. I'm losing all hope. I'm getting to that place where I need a reason to keep living that is not born of a duty to my children. I'm having a really hard time finding it because... I can't remember why. I just know that I am in so much pain. I'm at the end of my rope. I don't know what to do anymore. It all feels so useless. I hope the Peanut Gallery doesn't come after me again for writing this... I told my husband that if my useless fuckwit of a mother calls here on Thanksgiving that he is not to answer. I swear I will hang up the phone with no explanation if that worthless cunt calls here and someone brings me the phone. And I think if my father were still alive I would gleefully kill him in cold blood just to make him pay. I would spill his guts and dance joyfully in the carnage. Instead I will soon pass out so I can be raped, sodomized, ridiculed, minimized, and generally encouraged to kill myself. And all with no comfort. No one. No safety. No ally. I go with nothing. And that fills me, alternately, with the bottomless hopelessness of despair and a seething hatred. Because I am garbage. I am garbage because I am in pain because of what other people have done to me. I'm garbage because I can't pretend anymore and no one wants me because of it.
I swear to god, this sorry fucking world and its idiot inhabitants need to get down on their knees and thank their lucky stars that I have just the right combination of whatever to keep me from taking my revenge out to the streets. And I'm really fucking serious about that. Who knows... it might only be a few IQ points that separate me from folks who blow up shopping malls. Too bad alcohol kills brain cells, eh? NOT. MY. PROBLEM. Pass the beer. It's the only comfort I have. I have nothing...
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
All hope DO NOT abandon ye who enter here. Sometimes hope is all there is.
I met with New Guy last night. This was the 'homework' that I handed him to read between now and next Monday. I hope he can still help me.
THE PIECES
Part One - Triggers
1. Yellow light on the bedroom ceiling. (This one is big and it has caused flashbacks that end in the closet.)
2. The closet - when I wake up in there from a flashback, for some reason I have to convince myself that those are my clothes in there in order to feel okay. I worry that when I look they will be fat people clothes (my mother’s clothes - which would mean I am hiding in my parents’ closet and am not really grown up and safe now).
3. The smell of the grandparents’ kitchen.
4. The soap film and towel smell of the bathroom sink. Bathroom things are a problem.
5. Dark colored, mean looking pickup trucks. I don’t know why.
6. Bare tree limbs against a cold sky and other weather related stuff.
7. Feeling certain things in my abdomen like digestive sensations or any little muscle aches/ tension/ twinges of any sort. Physical discomfort there is intolerable.
8. Hearing the sound of a dog barking outside from indoors.
9. Sometimes the sound of old cartoons on the TV (only if other triggers are present or if I am already not doing well). Movies from the 60s and 70s.
10. Sometimes the way my bedroom looks. The curtains, the window, the paint color on the walls, the bookcases and books.
11. Sometimes the garage (because it turns into the grandparents’ cellar).
12. Foghorns. They are really just the sound of trucks or something in the distance, but to me they are foghorns. The grandparents’ house is on a major waterway for transport by barge.
13. The sound of my husband making smacking noises with his mouth when he eats.
14. The sound of the neighbor’s electric saw outdoors.
15. Halloween. Dark colored capes, gowns, etc…
16. Thanksgiving and Christmas and all special occasions to some extent.
17. Picnic stuff, swimming stuff and summer holiday stuff. Camping stuff.
18. Religious crap. I’m no bigot, though. I hate all religions equally.
19. Too many triggers to list, and maybe a few that have not yet been identified.
Part Two - Phobias
1. Doctors, dentists, hospitals, illness, all things medical and physical.
2. Driving far by myself. I can’t leave West Backwoods County by myself if I want to avoid a panic induced breakdown.
3. Travel.
4. Claustrophobia.
5. Though I don’t hesitate to call them if I need them, I am very afraid of cops. Yes, I see the irony, but that doesn’t make it go away. I have my reasons.
6. People - when I’m not up to dealing with them. Though I get along reasonably well with most individuals, I don’t like people much and I don’t want them to see me. Sometimes I wish I could be invisible.
7. Therapists. I’m afraid of therapists.
Part Three - The Talking in My Head
NOTE - Yes, sometimes I hear voices. And no, I am not interested in drugs. The voices do not tell me to kill people or anything crazy like that. And if they ever did, I am not exactly known for doing what I’m told and I‘d probably get off on telling them to go get fucked. I have a mind of my own. And I am not one of those people who thinks I am being followed by the CIA, or that I was once kidnapped by aliens, either. I am well aware that the voices are coming from inside my own head and I have never thought I was hearing God or extra-terrestrials or anything like that. My television does not send me secret messages. The voices are ME. They’re just ME. Nothing more and nothing less. But I’m still a little afraid of them. I’m afraid of the information they seem to have because I’m just plain terrified. I hope you can see the difference between this and psychosis. I am not psychotic. I am quite rational and it would take nothing short of a nuclear bombardment to dislodge me from reality. (Even then, I’d probably come out alright. From what I understand, it would be down to just me and the cockroaches then.) That said --
1. I overheard people in my head talking about me while I was sleeping. It was not a dream (sometimes parts of my mind stay awake while the rest of me sleeps). I was woken up by their noise and the terror I felt because of what they were saying. A man and a woman continued arguing about me and the woman said, “But what’s going to happen to Lynn when she finds out what happened to her?” A few weeks later I had a devastating flashback. I guess the man won the argument?
2. Once when I was riding in the car with my husband, he looked like my father from the corner of my eye and someone said, “The driver is bad.”
3. Sometimes a little girl says things to me at night when I’m trying to go to sleep. “They left me in the car, and then…” (And then I cut her off with an all out panic attack.) Once she complained of someone touching her. She said, “He touched me.” An older girl answered her, in a mean voice, “You touched yourself!”
4. Once when I was a mess of dissociation for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t even get it together well enough to answer my email. My best friend kept mailing, but I was not capable of answering. Finally, she let me know that her feelings were very hurt. I heard the voice of a teenage girl and she yelled at me. She said, “How could you!” She was upset that my friend’s feelings had been hurt. I think she is as fond of her as I am.
5. The same teenage girl did not like the last therapist. She did like him once, and she trusted him and took a chance. Then he hurt her in a way that is not so easily fixed. He was mean to her, so then she later called him a mean name in my head once. Right there in his office. It scared me a lot. For nearly a half hour I felt like I was going to die or be sucked out into space or something. The ground under my feet was gone. I was very alone and scared.
Part Four - The Intrusive Images
1. One set of images is much too nasty to describe, but it is very obviously only symbolic and not fragments of any actual memories. I think this could be symbolic of an implicit memory or group of memories, though. This set of images has bothered me since I was a kid. The only thing I am willing to share about it is that these images are all sexual.
2. There are many other upsetting sexual images that are entirely plausible. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are all memories, but they are not physically impossible like the images from item #1.
3. I imagine a lot of catastrophes involving my husband and kids. During the day they do not quite amount to ‘images’, but at night when I’m trying to sleep, I sometimes get images of my daughters being hurt.
4. Stackable drawers made of orange plastic. I’m pretty sure they were from my childhood bedroom around three or four years of age. This image usually comes when I’m in my own current bedroom.
5. A pattern. It is cream colored and etched with gold and silver leaves and flowers. I’m not sure what it is, but it is either sheets, a bedspread, drapery, or furniture upholstery. I’m nearly sure this is a memory from my childhood surroundings. It reminds me of the grandparents’ living room furniture.
6. The McDonalds golden arches. I am sure this is a memory. I am looking up at it through the window of the backseat of a car and it seems impossibly high up. I know I was with my father and he was driving the car. I hate McDonalds. Eating food from there makes me feel poisoned. I’m not sure if it’s because I know how artery clogging that crap is, or if it is because of something else. Maybe it’s a combination.
7. There are more images, but I don’t know them right now. Right now I exist in the space where this group of images live, but the others don’t live here, so I don’t know what they are right now. That’s the way it is with images. It’s like that for memories, too.
Part Five - The Nightmares
1. My worst nightmares are the ones where I suffer rape and sodomy and wake up with the pain in my body like it is happening right then.
2. I have nightmares of my daughters being raped, molested, poisoned, killed - these are also the worst. I usually wake up crying with a panic attack and need to wake up my husband so he can check the children while I go around and check all the windows and doors.
3. I have LOTS of nightmares about my grandparents’ house. I also have nightmares about their cellar.
4. I have nightmares about my parents. My mother is usually cold and mean and rejects me. At her most benign, she is dismissive or falls asleep when I need her. That is when my father comes into the dream. Usually I wake up or have a night terror as soon as he appears.
5. I have one very disturbing recurring nightmare theme. It is the morph between food and gross sexual stuff. Sometimes it is represented by a restaurant and a motel or really skuzzy bar under the same roof. More recently I dreamed of being with my father for Thanksgiving in some condo building. My husband and I were there and I was very uncomfortable and didn’t feel like eating. My grandparents (represented by my in-laws) also lived in the building and I went to visit them to get away from my father for a while. I only pretended to eat their food, but they knew and were angry. My plate fell on the floor and then something very bad was happening to my body, so I had to leave it until the pain went away. The bad thing that was happening to me was the most disgusting combination of food and sex that I can possibly imagine. When I woke up, I thought of the cellar. But first, I had to deal with the physical pain. I ended up drunk that morning. I shouldn’t have tried to go to sleep before the sunrise. It’s a recipe for disaster.
6. I have lots of nightmares. I could write on forever with this, but I’m sure you’ll be bombarded by this crap in real time as I get more comfortable with you.
Part Five - Nightmares Continued - I Think I Dissociate in My Sleep
1. Sometimes I have more than one dream at a time going. It’s a little bit like watching several different movies at once. This ruins my sleep when it happens.
2. Sometimes I leave my body, even in my dreams. I can recall tiny snatches of dreams where bad things were happening and I was waiting until it was safe so I could get back in my body when there wouldn’t be so much pain.
3. I’ve had many dreams where I leave my body and run (even though I have no body). Gravity is weak when I’m running and I ‘bounce’ each time my ’feet’ impact the ground. It’s a little like how it was for the astronauts on the moonwalk.
4. About the night terrors - I try to snatch myself out of nightmares and am somewhat successful, yet am still in REM sleep. Then the dream either morphs, or more typically, I end up lying there paralyzed and thinking I have had a stroke while sleeping and that I must find a way to make a noise to alert someone so I can get help before I incur permanent brain damage.
5. My family says I scream in my sleep. My husband said I was sleepwalking last week. I used to wake up with fingernail marks on my face, breasts and thighs, but it’s been about a year since that happened. I also used to wake up to vomit for no reason - I wasn’t suffering from any sickness and my doctor assured me there was nothing wrong with me. And sometimes I would wake up rocking back and forth in a puddle of sweat on the bathroom floor. Once I even woke up with no memory. I didn’t even know my name, where I lived or worked - nothing. Everything personal was just gone. I looked in the mirror to try to figure out who I was, but it didn’t help. Sleep is a hell for me. Sometimes the simple act of falling asleep seems very, very dangerous and unwise.
THE PIECES
Part One - Triggers
1. Yellow light on the bedroom ceiling. (This one is big and it has caused flashbacks that end in the closet.)
2. The closet - when I wake up in there from a flashback, for some reason I have to convince myself that those are my clothes in there in order to feel okay. I worry that when I look they will be fat people clothes (my mother’s clothes - which would mean I am hiding in my parents’ closet and am not really grown up and safe now).
3. The smell of the grandparents’ kitchen.
4. The soap film and towel smell of the bathroom sink. Bathroom things are a problem.
5. Dark colored, mean looking pickup trucks. I don’t know why.
6. Bare tree limbs against a cold sky and other weather related stuff.
7. Feeling certain things in my abdomen like digestive sensations or any little muscle aches/ tension/ twinges of any sort. Physical discomfort there is intolerable.
8. Hearing the sound of a dog barking outside from indoors.
9. Sometimes the sound of old cartoons on the TV (only if other triggers are present or if I am already not doing well). Movies from the 60s and 70s.
10. Sometimes the way my bedroom looks. The curtains, the window, the paint color on the walls, the bookcases and books.
11. Sometimes the garage (because it turns into the grandparents’ cellar).
12. Foghorns. They are really just the sound of trucks or something in the distance, but to me they are foghorns. The grandparents’ house is on a major waterway for transport by barge.
13. The sound of my husband making smacking noises with his mouth when he eats.
14. The sound of the neighbor’s electric saw outdoors.
15. Halloween. Dark colored capes, gowns, etc…
16. Thanksgiving and Christmas and all special occasions to some extent.
17. Picnic stuff, swimming stuff and summer holiday stuff. Camping stuff.
18. Religious crap. I’m no bigot, though. I hate all religions equally.
19. Too many triggers to list, and maybe a few that have not yet been identified.
Part Two - Phobias
1. Doctors, dentists, hospitals, illness, all things medical and physical.
2. Driving far by myself. I can’t leave West Backwoods County by myself if I want to avoid a panic induced breakdown.
3. Travel.
4. Claustrophobia.
5. Though I don’t hesitate to call them if I need them, I am very afraid of cops. Yes, I see the irony, but that doesn’t make it go away. I have my reasons.
6. People - when I’m not up to dealing with them. Though I get along reasonably well with most individuals, I don’t like people much and I don’t want them to see me. Sometimes I wish I could be invisible.
7. Therapists. I’m afraid of therapists.
Part Three - The Talking in My Head
NOTE - Yes, sometimes I hear voices. And no, I am not interested in drugs. The voices do not tell me to kill people or anything crazy like that. And if they ever did, I am not exactly known for doing what I’m told and I‘d probably get off on telling them to go get fucked. I have a mind of my own. And I am not one of those people who thinks I am being followed by the CIA, or that I was once kidnapped by aliens, either. I am well aware that the voices are coming from inside my own head and I have never thought I was hearing God or extra-terrestrials or anything like that. My television does not send me secret messages. The voices are ME. They’re just ME. Nothing more and nothing less. But I’m still a little afraid of them. I’m afraid of the information they seem to have because I’m just plain terrified. I hope you can see the difference between this and psychosis. I am not psychotic. I am quite rational and it would take nothing short of a nuclear bombardment to dislodge me from reality. (Even then, I’d probably come out alright. From what I understand, it would be down to just me and the cockroaches then.) That said --
1. I overheard people in my head talking about me while I was sleeping. It was not a dream (sometimes parts of my mind stay awake while the rest of me sleeps). I was woken up by their noise and the terror I felt because of what they were saying. A man and a woman continued arguing about me and the woman said, “But what’s going to happen to Lynn when she finds out what happened to her?” A few weeks later I had a devastating flashback. I guess the man won the argument?
2. Once when I was riding in the car with my husband, he looked like my father from the corner of my eye and someone said, “The driver is bad.”
3. Sometimes a little girl says things to me at night when I’m trying to go to sleep. “They left me in the car, and then…” (And then I cut her off with an all out panic attack.) Once she complained of someone touching her. She said, “He touched me.” An older girl answered her, in a mean voice, “You touched yourself!”
4. Once when I was a mess of dissociation for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t even get it together well enough to answer my email. My best friend kept mailing, but I was not capable of answering. Finally, she let me know that her feelings were very hurt. I heard the voice of a teenage girl and she yelled at me. She said, “How could you!” She was upset that my friend’s feelings had been hurt. I think she is as fond of her as I am.
5. The same teenage girl did not like the last therapist. She did like him once, and she trusted him and took a chance. Then he hurt her in a way that is not so easily fixed. He was mean to her, so then she later called him a mean name in my head once. Right there in his office. It scared me a lot. For nearly a half hour I felt like I was going to die or be sucked out into space or something. The ground under my feet was gone. I was very alone and scared.
Part Four - The Intrusive Images
1. One set of images is much too nasty to describe, but it is very obviously only symbolic and not fragments of any actual memories. I think this could be symbolic of an implicit memory or group of memories, though. This set of images has bothered me since I was a kid. The only thing I am willing to share about it is that these images are all sexual.
2. There are many other upsetting sexual images that are entirely plausible. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are all memories, but they are not physically impossible like the images from item #1.
3. I imagine a lot of catastrophes involving my husband and kids. During the day they do not quite amount to ‘images’, but at night when I’m trying to sleep, I sometimes get images of my daughters being hurt.
4. Stackable drawers made of orange plastic. I’m pretty sure they were from my childhood bedroom around three or four years of age. This image usually comes when I’m in my own current bedroom.
5. A pattern. It is cream colored and etched with gold and silver leaves and flowers. I’m not sure what it is, but it is either sheets, a bedspread, drapery, or furniture upholstery. I’m nearly sure this is a memory from my childhood surroundings. It reminds me of the grandparents’ living room furniture.
6. The McDonalds golden arches. I am sure this is a memory. I am looking up at it through the window of the backseat of a car and it seems impossibly high up. I know I was with my father and he was driving the car. I hate McDonalds. Eating food from there makes me feel poisoned. I’m not sure if it’s because I know how artery clogging that crap is, or if it is because of something else. Maybe it’s a combination.
7. There are more images, but I don’t know them right now. Right now I exist in the space where this group of images live, but the others don’t live here, so I don’t know what they are right now. That’s the way it is with images. It’s like that for memories, too.
Part Five - The Nightmares
1. My worst nightmares are the ones where I suffer rape and sodomy and wake up with the pain in my body like it is happening right then.
2. I have nightmares of my daughters being raped, molested, poisoned, killed - these are also the worst. I usually wake up crying with a panic attack and need to wake up my husband so he can check the children while I go around and check all the windows and doors.
3. I have LOTS of nightmares about my grandparents’ house. I also have nightmares about their cellar.
4. I have nightmares about my parents. My mother is usually cold and mean and rejects me. At her most benign, she is dismissive or falls asleep when I need her. That is when my father comes into the dream. Usually I wake up or have a night terror as soon as he appears.
5. I have one very disturbing recurring nightmare theme. It is the morph between food and gross sexual stuff. Sometimes it is represented by a restaurant and a motel or really skuzzy bar under the same roof. More recently I dreamed of being with my father for Thanksgiving in some condo building. My husband and I were there and I was very uncomfortable and didn’t feel like eating. My grandparents (represented by my in-laws) also lived in the building and I went to visit them to get away from my father for a while. I only pretended to eat their food, but they knew and were angry. My plate fell on the floor and then something very bad was happening to my body, so I had to leave it until the pain went away. The bad thing that was happening to me was the most disgusting combination of food and sex that I can possibly imagine. When I woke up, I thought of the cellar. But first, I had to deal with the physical pain. I ended up drunk that morning. I shouldn’t have tried to go to sleep before the sunrise. It’s a recipe for disaster.
6. I have lots of nightmares. I could write on forever with this, but I’m sure you’ll be bombarded by this crap in real time as I get more comfortable with you.
Part Five - Nightmares Continued - I Think I Dissociate in My Sleep
1. Sometimes I have more than one dream at a time going. It’s a little bit like watching several different movies at once. This ruins my sleep when it happens.
2. Sometimes I leave my body, even in my dreams. I can recall tiny snatches of dreams where bad things were happening and I was waiting until it was safe so I could get back in my body when there wouldn’t be so much pain.
3. I’ve had many dreams where I leave my body and run (even though I have no body). Gravity is weak when I’m running and I ‘bounce’ each time my ’feet’ impact the ground. It’s a little like how it was for the astronauts on the moonwalk.
4. About the night terrors - I try to snatch myself out of nightmares and am somewhat successful, yet am still in REM sleep. Then the dream either morphs, or more typically, I end up lying there paralyzed and thinking I have had a stroke while sleeping and that I must find a way to make a noise to alert someone so I can get help before I incur permanent brain damage.
5. My family says I scream in my sleep. My husband said I was sleepwalking last week. I used to wake up with fingernail marks on my face, breasts and thighs, but it’s been about a year since that happened. I also used to wake up to vomit for no reason - I wasn’t suffering from any sickness and my doctor assured me there was nothing wrong with me. And sometimes I would wake up rocking back and forth in a puddle of sweat on the bathroom floor. Once I even woke up with no memory. I didn’t even know my name, where I lived or worked - nothing. Everything personal was just gone. I looked in the mirror to try to figure out who I was, but it didn’t help. Sleep is a hell for me. Sometimes the simple act of falling asleep seems very, very dangerous and unwise.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Hidden Sanity in Attachment Busting
ALTERNATE TITLE - DO UNTO OTHERS BEFORE THEY CAN DO UNTO YOU
Something has changed and I don't think it's going to go back to the way it was. Fine by me. It's safer here. Better. Saner. I think the last misunderstanding I had with Old Guy was truly the last one. It was the last because I don't want to put myself out there anymore. While it is a nice ideal that a person can truly work through their emotional stuff with a therapist, I think it is only an ideal. I don't know how long I will keep talking to Old Guy. And though New Guy is a completely different egg altogether, I don't know how long I will talk to him, either. He is nice enough, but I mostly like him because he appeals to my intellect and only my intellect. He is safe and cannot hurt me. And just to be sure, I took steps to establish my own boundaries right away. At the end of the first appointment, he offered me additional ways to get in touch with him should I need to. I declined this information. Then he said I can email him whenever I like. I told him I would not be doing that.
The thing here is - I just want to get at the mechanics of my problem and use New Guy's experience and knowledge to help me understand and tweak things out a little better. I guess I will be doing the rest on my own. If there even is a rest. I don't even feel as comfortable blogging certain things anymore. I guess my brain has run the risk to reward ratios of certain things and life is adjusting accordingly. As it should be.
I had an interesting conversation with Old Guy. Before he left for his last vacation, I asked him if he would send me something of his. I wanted something of his, as long as it was something soft so I might fall asleep with it (I needed it for the little girl). He wanted to discuss the meaning of such a thing. I respect that intellectually. I wrote some things down about the meaning, but they rambled on and felt pointless, so I didn't send it to him or try to bring it up. Then I linked him to this post so he would know the meaning. And yes, I did tell him that the meaning was there. No real discussion ensued. Jenny told me exactly what to do to convey the meaning in a way that mere words cannot, but I just didn't have the energy for such a feat. Now I have decided that I won't be doing what Jenny said at all. I just don't want to. Why on earth would I open myself up like that to someone who might cause harm? I'm just not doing it and I think that's best. I'm just not going to be putting myself out there anymore. It's not worth it. The risk is great and the potential rewards are quite small. The risk of harm is not small, though. No, it most certainly is not.
Whether he knows it or not, New Guy is already helping me. It is, and shall remain, a more aloof sort of relationship. I like those best. I really do. And now whenever I find myself wanting to share TMI with Old Guy, I ask myself, "Would you email that same thing to New Guy? Would you be so personal with him? Would you bother him, take up his time, ask him for anything?" And when my answer is, "Of course not!" then I say to myself, "Then don't do it with Old Guy, either."
The truth is, I don't want anything of his anymore. If by some miracle he did decide to send me something, which he will not because I'm just not that important, then you know what I would do with it at this point, don't you? Yes, that's right - I'd put it in a bucket. Or a locker at the Y.
I guess I have just accepted that it is yucky and nasty to let anyone in here anymore. Acceptance is key, right? (And that is a totally rhetorical question.)
Something has changed and I don't think it's going to go back to the way it was. Fine by me. It's safer here. Better. Saner. I think the last misunderstanding I had with Old Guy was truly the last one. It was the last because I don't want to put myself out there anymore. While it is a nice ideal that a person can truly work through their emotional stuff with a therapist, I think it is only an ideal. I don't know how long I will keep talking to Old Guy. And though New Guy is a completely different egg altogether, I don't know how long I will talk to him, either. He is nice enough, but I mostly like him because he appeals to my intellect and only my intellect. He is safe and cannot hurt me. And just to be sure, I took steps to establish my own boundaries right away. At the end of the first appointment, he offered me additional ways to get in touch with him should I need to. I declined this information. Then he said I can email him whenever I like. I told him I would not be doing that.
The thing here is - I just want to get at the mechanics of my problem and use New Guy's experience and knowledge to help me understand and tweak things out a little better. I guess I will be doing the rest on my own. If there even is a rest. I don't even feel as comfortable blogging certain things anymore. I guess my brain has run the risk to reward ratios of certain things and life is adjusting accordingly. As it should be.
I had an interesting conversation with Old Guy. Before he left for his last vacation, I asked him if he would send me something of his. I wanted something of his, as long as it was something soft so I might fall asleep with it (I needed it for the little girl). He wanted to discuss the meaning of such a thing. I respect that intellectually. I wrote some things down about the meaning, but they rambled on and felt pointless, so I didn't send it to him or try to bring it up. Then I linked him to this post so he would know the meaning. And yes, I did tell him that the meaning was there. No real discussion ensued. Jenny told me exactly what to do to convey the meaning in a way that mere words cannot, but I just didn't have the energy for such a feat. Now I have decided that I won't be doing what Jenny said at all. I just don't want to. Why on earth would I open myself up like that to someone who might cause harm? I'm just not doing it and I think that's best. I'm just not going to be putting myself out there anymore. It's not worth it. The risk is great and the potential rewards are quite small. The risk of harm is not small, though. No, it most certainly is not.
Whether he knows it or not, New Guy is already helping me. It is, and shall remain, a more aloof sort of relationship. I like those best. I really do. And now whenever I find myself wanting to share TMI with Old Guy, I ask myself, "Would you email that same thing to New Guy? Would you be so personal with him? Would you bother him, take up his time, ask him for anything?" And when my answer is, "Of course not!" then I say to myself, "Then don't do it with Old Guy, either."
The truth is, I don't want anything of his anymore. If by some miracle he did decide to send me something, which he will not because I'm just not that important, then you know what I would do with it at this point, don't you? Yes, that's right - I'd put it in a bucket. Or a locker at the Y.
I guess I have just accepted that it is yucky and nasty to let anyone in here anymore. Acceptance is key, right? (And that is a totally rhetorical question.)
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Better(ish)
I spoke with the Dream Mother on Wednesday evening. Wednesdays are with him (sometimes fondly referred to as 'Old Guy') and Mondays are with New Guy, the PTSD specialist. I told Old Guy about New Guy and he is fine with it and doesn't seem to need to bail out or anything. He seems supportive and doesn't seem to feel the urge to leave me because I am consulting with a specialist. On the contrary, he wants to help me with anything I get from this. He really does care and he wants me to be able to get well. I have hope for New Guy (and the support of Old Guy). I need to get at the mechanics of this thing, and so far he has been able to deduce that I have been dissociating flashbacks. Yes, I am that skilled. No wonder the shit keeps coming back. New Guy thinks he can help me learn how to stop doing that. We'll see. At any rate, I still need Old Guy. And I felt so much better being able to be honest with him. Needless to say, I won't be able to have that same kind of thing with New Guy seeing as I am using a fake name and fake personal information so I don't have to live with the fear of being misunderstood and having some freaked out therapist trying to have me locked up when things get hairy. Whatever. I won't have the life I have managed to build destroyed by that kind of ignorance. I know the scoop and I'm in this for me. I've survived this shit for 43 years, and luck withstanding (and maybe a facelift around age 55 or so), I'll probably be here for another 43. Any panicking therapists are just going to have to fend for themselves and just get a fucking grip already. I can't help them, I've got all I can handle with my own crap. I won't be paying the price for theirs. I'm all out. To each his own crap. They want me to soothe their crap, they're gonna have to pay me. :-)
I went out and got my hair cut on Thursday evening. It looks pretty good. I've been putting it off for a long time because I feel so anxious in the salon. I hate having someone who may or may not be careful (or a closet maniac) standing behind me with a pair of scissors. I miss my old hairdresser, though. He is not just simply skilled, the man has inborn talent and a true flair for a good look. He's got real style. The problem is that I have to have someplace that takes walk-ins. I can't make an appointment with my dear Joseph and then have to cancel because my anxiety is acting up too badly when appointment time rolls around. I can't predict how I will feel next Tuesday at 4:00, so appointments are out. Besides, he is a longer drive and my husband cannot always drive me. I drove myself on Thursday. It's just that hair appointments are not the same as therapy appointments. I can only get my hair cut when I feel good, so I must be a walk-in. Poor Joseph wouldn't know what to do if I started bawling when I got there. I suppose he would have to call my husband (friend and old high school buddy) to come get me. I miss the fabulousness that is Joseph and I sure hope life is treating him well. He deserves to be treated well. Maybe someday I will be able to make appointments like that again and drive myself far. Maybe someday... Yes, I guess some dreams are small ones. In any case, I need fabulous hair. I can't keep fabulousness if I can't get a haircut, right? Fabulous hair makes me feel a little more hopeful, so I'm doing what I have to do in order to have it. This is one of those instances where an ordinary, everyday thing really does help me, so I'm taking advantage of whatever I can get.
Thanks for reading, and I wish you good hair (or whatever it is that helps you).
:-)
I went out and got my hair cut on Thursday evening. It looks pretty good. I've been putting it off for a long time because I feel so anxious in the salon. I hate having someone who may or may not be careful (or a closet maniac) standing behind me with a pair of scissors. I miss my old hairdresser, though. He is not just simply skilled, the man has inborn talent and a true flair for a good look. He's got real style. The problem is that I have to have someplace that takes walk-ins. I can't make an appointment with my dear Joseph and then have to cancel because my anxiety is acting up too badly when appointment time rolls around. I can't predict how I will feel next Tuesday at 4:00, so appointments are out. Besides, he is a longer drive and my husband cannot always drive me. I drove myself on Thursday. It's just that hair appointments are not the same as therapy appointments. I can only get my hair cut when I feel good, so I must be a walk-in. Poor Joseph wouldn't know what to do if I started bawling when I got there. I suppose he would have to call my husband (friend and old high school buddy) to come get me. I miss the fabulousness that is Joseph and I sure hope life is treating him well. He deserves to be treated well. Maybe someday I will be able to make appointments like that again and drive myself far. Maybe someday... Yes, I guess some dreams are small ones. In any case, I need fabulous hair. I can't keep fabulousness if I can't get a haircut, right? Fabulous hair makes me feel a little more hopeful, so I'm doing what I have to do in order to have it. This is one of those instances where an ordinary, everyday thing really does help me, so I'm taking advantage of whatever I can get.
Thanks for reading, and I wish you good hair (or whatever it is that helps you).
:-)
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