Still not crazy after all these years.

For those of you who missed the last (and now deleted) post, it was a weird weekend and it ended in a meltdown Monday night. The good news is - I'm still not 'crazy'. So says the shrink. He says it was a dissociative experience, which caused panic (which caused a 'drinking incident'). I'm fine now. I'm fine and I'm terribly relieved. I'm relieved because the 'old incident', where the shrink hurt me by being cold when I was desperate, came spilling out. Not in writing. Not in an argument. Not in one of my glossed over mentions, it really CAME OUT. Maybe only those of you familiar with dissociation will know what I mean when I say it wasn't a 'discussion' - it just WAS. And he did not get flustered. More than that - he understood me. He finally understands. Really, really understands in a way that I can feel in my body. He understands how the dread from that day and from similar incidents with my family escalated my anxiety when I had problems with sex, how the fear of memory was magnified, how certain kinds of nightmares became a threat. Understands. He finally understands. What's more... so do I. I understand, and he's right. I'm not crazy. I am very relieved, though. I feel like a ton of really insane bricks have been lifted off my brain. You know that feeling of swimming far and then coming ashore? That kind of relieved tiredness? That's how I feel. I feel like I could just crawl out of the surf and fall asleep in the toasty sand while the sun warms my back.