Fear and Loathing

It's been Anxiety Central in here. I just want it to go away. I've tried everything, but nothing helps much for very long and I found myself chasing my tail again CBT/ DBT style. That goes something like this: "There is nothing wrong with anxiety and you have to accept it. And yet you must soothe yourself so the anxiety will go away. You must work very hard at this because coping (not HEALING, but COPING) is a full time job and minutes after you stop actively working to superimpose comfort over the top of your real feelings (the supposedly 'acceptable' ones that you are supposed to drown in herbal tea and bullshit), then they will come right back up to the surface."

Neat, huh? Frankly, I'm too tired to think any more happy thoughts. I'm too tired to challenge bad thoughts or feelings and if someone suggested a cup of tea right now I would brew one and then throw it at them. And if someone suggested a bath, I would promptly fill the tub and then gleefully drown them in it. Because I've been down this road too many times before. Actually, my last therapist nearly KILLED me on this very same road. He of the heinous double-bind (there is nothing wrong with your feelings but you must pretend to feel something different than what you really do). And my last therapist is exactly what the last few days and nights in hell have been all about. While I have been 'coping', the fucking dishes and laundry have piled up, my desk and checkbook have begun to get messy and I could use a shower. Sorry, Old Guy, but I can't walk and chew gum at the same time and I can't bullshit myself and be productive at the same time, either. I don't like you right now. And no, I'm not going to pour any herbal tea on that -- I simply don't like you. Anyone wanna know why I don't like him? Keep reading.

I finally got fed up with 'coping' tonight and decided to take action instead, even while I heard Old Guy's voice saying fucked up shit like "Don't try to fix it." And "You don't need to know why the feelings are here." Well, the mofo is full of shit. I DO need to know why (as best I can) and I DO need to 'fix' it (as best I can as long as it is a genuine 'repair' and not a load of bullshit). And so... I thought about what started this nasty little slide. Things really got bad when I woke up on Wednesday with thoughts of the rape that happened when I was fifteen (the one Old Guy pressured me to get rid of by bombing out my memory with drugs, by yelling at me for refusing them, by yelling at me for crying, by hanging up on me in a huff because I wish to have the final say over what goes into my body and I wouldn't let him control it, by cancelling our appointment because I wouldn't 'behave' by drugging myself and because I was still crying after he went off on me). I went marching through my recent emails tonight and found one to my current therapist sent by a part of me who understands what is happening but didn't want the rest of me to know lest we attack her for telling. Here is an excerpt from that email: "... (a certain part) has been haunted by thoughts of what (Old Guy) did to her and that has been going on for many days, too. It started on the first day of the month when it rained and stormed all day right on schedule. Because that was what was happening when he did what he did." (June 1 is the beginning of rainy season here.) All of this may not make much sense to anyone who has not been reading here for a very long time, but it makes perfect sense to me because I have gone through this annually since 2006. That's right -- The way Old Guy treated me and my distress about rape was so horrible, that it created an actual traumatic anniversary. Nice, eh? A girl can never have too many of those. What a fucking asshole. I'm glad I got away from him and I'm glad I found out where this is coming from. Now maybe I can finally find a way to get some healing around this instead of wasting time and energy 'coping' with it.

Now I just have to figure out how to heal this. For one, I have decided that it is fine, even normal and healthy, to feel anger about what the last therapist did to me. And that it is normal and healthy to feel anger and sadness and all of that about having been raped in the first place. Here is the piece that haunts -- I trusted someone and he kicked me when I was down. I still don't know what to do with that. I know intellectually that it was not my fault that he couldn't help me (it was his own issues), but the thoughts that *I* have about that do not match the thoughts and feelings of the girl who was raped and then attacked by her therapist for being upset and wanting help. She is very scared because she worries that she will be attacked again if she shows herself. She thinks the old therapist treated her that way because she is garbage and no one can ever care about her. She feels like he beat her and abused her after she came home and disclosed that she had been raped when all she wanted was care and someone to help her. Do not tell. Do not tell. Hide because you are filthy and no one can bear to look at you. You are a worthless piece of trash. These are her thoughts and feelings. Telling her different does not work. A wound like that cannot be fixed by positive affirmations. It cannot be fixed by baths and cups of tea. Not by puppies and butterflies. A wound like that makes a girl want to set butterflies on fire and feed them to puppies and then drown betraying therapists in the bathtub after scalding them with tea. A wound like that makes a girl's most positive affirmation be something like, "I scalded you and drowned you because you are too stupid to live and I hate you. Yay, me!" And even all of that does not take away this: Why did he hate me first? Why am I not good enough? He is nice to other people, but he couldn't be nice to me. I loved him and I trusted him and he hated me because I am too dirty and contaminated and he wanted me to go away because I don't deserve to have any help.