Incoming

I have been reduced to mostly blurking because 'things' have been swirling around my head. I'll be back when I can. The email I sent to the therapist explains it fairly well.

1. You helped me so much by sharing yourself with me and telling me what I needed to know. Now I know I can trust you. Thank you.

2. I am truly very sorry that I said so many mean things to you when I was all tweaked up and self-protective. I was wrong, only I didn't know that. I couldn't see past the pain and the perceived danger.

3. I haven't had a drink since last Wednesday morning. You gave me something and I took it and ran with it. I used it to help myself. Thank you.

4. I still have some catching up to do, but I fixed up my bedroom again. It's very nice.

5. I stayed connected up with myself and my body until I went shopping for the groceries Sunday evening. Then I started getting bugged by aches and any and all body sensations (I had my period and the hypochondria). That stuff threatened to bring it all crashing down. Then, right on cue, another lady in the store took a sudden interest in me and struck up a conversation with me. Only she was no lady in the classic sense. The wig was a very cute one, but I have experience in certain matters, so I knew. And the five o'clock shadow underneath the makeup was beginning to show through under the harsh lighting. Remember I once told you I'm a drag queen magnet? Yeah. Well... some things don't change. Anyway, I liked her immediately and stood there talking and talking and talking... like it was old home week or something. Then, when she was gone, I noticed that my aches and pains were gone, too. Then I wondered if wearing husband's underpants (because I was out of laundry) had sent out some kind of invisible signal. That thought threatened to make me laugh out loud like a loon in the middle of the store. Still - my aches and pains were gone. I knew it had something to do with talking to her and I suddenly wanted to ask her out for coffee. I looked around for her, but I guess she had already left the store.

6. The next night (Monday), I decided to go out for coffee with my husband instead. A terrible thing happened on the way home in the dark. It started with the glow from the dashboard in the dark. It made me feel very strange and I started to zone out. Husband was driving and I saw him in my peripheral vision and he was my father. He was about thirty years old or nearly so, he had on those glasses with the goofy black frames from the sixties/ seventies, and he had the baby-faced look that he used to have when he was young and before he started wearing a mustache. I had a panic attack and I was all weirded out. Husband had to help me sneak off to the bedroom in a way that would go unnoticed by the children.

7. I don't feel so well. I haven't really felt that well since Monday morning after the grocery store encounter Sunday night. I don't know how I will be by Wednesday, and I don't want you to be wondering what in the hell has happened if I am a mess again by then and am unable to tell you why.

I have a tendency to stop talking when I don't feel heard.

I got on the subject of wanting to quit smoking in Wednesday's therapy appointment. My therapist told me about a quit drug called Chantix. I told him how a relative of mine took Chantix, quit smoking, and then went and hung himself out back in the shed. Then the therapist went on to tell me more about Chantix. Then I told him cold turkey has worked the best in the past, but smoking seems to stun my brain and past quits have brought up issues with terrifying and partial recall of dissociated material that I don't know how to handle alone. He told me more about Chantix. I LOVE talking to the wall. I fucking LIVE for it. (Here is where I make the jack-off motion with my hand. You people miss SO MUCH in not being able to see me when I'm on a bitter and sarcastic rant. I swear I must have some Italian blood in me somewhere.) In the end, when it sunk in that I was not interested in the drug, he relented only to tell me that as much as I don't want to hear it, the present moment is the medicine to cure what ails me. I'm begining to think I'm whipping a dead horse. I don't know what else to do to be understood. Words are all I have.

I ran out of smokes Thursday morning and declined to buy more. There was a lot of anxiety. It was there before that, but quitting ramped it up a little bit. I had a couple of panic attacks in my sleep. I took a half of an anxiety pill. Even though I have a VERY impressive stockpile, I don't like taking them and I almost never do. I need them ALL in case I ever become deathly ill since I can't visit doctors anymore because I can't get past the medical trauma stuff. In spite of all of that, I thought I was handling things well during the quit attempt (because I was so dissociated in response to the bullshit). Long story short (it has to be short - the long version was sucked up into the ether as it was happening) - it all seemed to break down Saturday when I caved.

Saturday I sat down to fix my tax issue. This may take a while. Seems the I R Ass doesn't let people change the filing status in the way I need to if the deadline has already passed. They don't want people to be able to stop them from stealing if they are late in discovering the evil intentions toward those who mistakenly decide that the government has a benevolent attitude toward the concept of marital togetherness in the financial arena. I had to actually pull up the amendment form to find that out about changing the status. It was not revealed in the preliminary search for info. I will be calling the tax payer advocacy service Tuesday. This is really very ridiculous. And sad.

Let this be a lesson to me to trust my instincts. I had always filed separately until I started to get guilt tripped from various societal factions about 'what a marriage is about'. You know this feeds my anti-social paranoia, right? That was another topic in therapy. My therapist learned some strange facts about me on Wednesday. Things that he has never known in the three plus years I have been with him.

1. I am still a registered republican and listened to my instincts not to change that.

2. Hypochondriacs should not smoke, but if they do, raises in sin taxes might piss them off enough to make them quit.

3. I used to serve on the local republican executive committee until I resigned after the birth of my youngest daughter.

4. Though I am not a big gun fan in real life, me and my mental shotgun used to donate time and financial support to our local 2nd amendment club. Because I want the freedom to change my mind. You know - right before I move my family to Montana to live in a bunker.

5. I worry about civil war and the collapse of civilization. Only the fittest will survive. I really should quit smoking.



I think I'm going to have a cigarette and go to bed.

And, for old time's sake, let's not comment about the cigs. Let's pretend they are the terror of trauma memories and we're not supposed to mention them because no one can really help us handle it without throwing drugs or the present moment at us when the going gets tough and upsetting. We wouldn't want to upset anyone. That would be so... not the present moment. (And present moment fanatics, please line up to lick my pits - and have I mentioned that I don't wear deodorant because it's unhealthy? Whut. It won't be so bad. My sweat smells like chicken noodle soup. It does - I swear it.) Please excuse me while I go vomit and please leave a comment about the weather. Seriously. The weather. Because everyone knows that even the most distressing of neuroses and addictions are more acceptable than seeing, feeling, and (gawd forbid) sharing the full horror of the truth with another human being when you can't bear it without help.

I have a problem that I'm not sure how to explain. It's about therapy. Something is up and I don't know what it is. Not only do I not know what it is, I don't know how to even try to find out what it is. It started with the absence of email. I, the email pest, suddenly stopped emailing the therapist two weeks ago. I haven't sent a single email since. Not one. He's not away or anything. I could email him half to death if I wanted. At first I thought it was a good thing that I stopped emailing and I mentioned it to him, too. I thought it was progress. In a way it is because I don't need him in the same desperate way as I have before. And also (and this is probably the big piece) because I don't fear abandonment by him anymore because I don't think he will ditch me. I think there is something else here, too. My first clue was when I mentioned this little phenomenon in the last appointment. He asked me what I thought had changed and I told him. What I said is definitely true, but I could feel the presence of something else, too. The inner chatter started, but I squashed it. Then I had a dream that implied to me that I am hiding from him because I dread being 'sick'. I dreamed that I didn't feel well. I had a flu or something, so I went to bed. Strangely (or not) my bed was on the ledge of an uppermost floor in a high rise apartment building. It sloped a bit toward the street below and it was very narrow. I was holding onto a small post that was affixed to the building and I could not fall asleep because I was afraid I would let go and fall to my death if I did. Then I got up and went to a doctor because the illness was bothering my stomach. I did not want to go, but I was afraid not to. The doctor said the trouble was really coming from my mind, but I needed to stay in the hospital for a while anyway. I was relieved that I was basically okay, but I wanted to get the hell out of there in the worst way. I ended up in a shopping mall where I had an appointment to get my hair done. There was another woman waiting there, too. She had a little kid with her and she started talking to me about the woman who was supposed to do my hair. She called her Mrs. So-And-So (same last name as my therapist). She was going on and on about what a nice lady she is and then she started talking about the hairdresser's husband and what a great therapist he is for children and how nice he was to her own kid who just happened to be his client. It was my therapist she was talking about. She called him by first and last name. I hate sleeping. It's too confusing. More beer, please.

Hey, Dream Pestilence! I heard you, now fer chrissakes shut up! Just please SHUT UP and leave me alone before you drive me to do something insane like threaten you with a razor blade or a lighter. I could keep one of them under my pillow and get revenge when you wake me up, you know. Don't push me that far. Ya wanna drive me crazy? I'll show ya crazy. Don't. Push. I fucking heard you and I'll tell the therapist, but you need to back the fuck off now before I lose it on you.

I have no idea why I am compelled to prattle on, but...

I spoke with the therapist Saturday. I guess I really do like him and trust him because I actually told him something that I didn't tell the Internet first. Frankly, I wanted to ignore it, but you know how therapists are. They ask questions. May I just preface this by saying it's been nightmare city over here? Yeah. Only this time it hit below the belt. I hate it when my nightmares get so desperate for the attention of any non-drunk brain cells that they stoop to using my children to represent my child-self in my nightmares. Pass me that beer, eh? Anyway, it was the littlest in my dream. She was afraid to sleep because of someone she called 'the invisible man'. And because of what he would do to her when she was sleeping. Actually, I can't recount it again. I'm sure you get the point, eh? Nightmares suck. Though I haven't felt anything about this one, I know intellectually that if I did have feelings about it, they would be horrible. How's that for detached?

In other news, I did the weekly shopping in the middle of the night at the 24 hour WalMart. (Yes, it was pre-beer. There are some things I would just never do.) I like it when there aren't people all around. Unfortunately, they are moving everything around in there, so I had to talk to people to ask where things are because I would have been quite a long time left to my own devices. At least the employees are very nice in there. Talking to people is less icky that way. It was still icky, but the ick factor was all mine. It's my voice, you see. To be precise - it's my accent. I hate it when it pops up. And it's almost always in public when I am struggling to talk to people when I really don't want to. What the fuck is that about? I think it's about being a fake. Or not. After all, I did speak naturally with that accent until I moved from the South US to the Midwest (where that sort of thing was frowned upon). After that - there was magic. My accent was suddenly gone. Just like that - the moment I knew it made me 'unprofessional', I dumped it. *Poof* All gone. And I never missed a beat. Unless you count the panic attacks. So was I being fake when I was talking in the store or was I being myself? I don't know. I'm not good at figuring out that kind of crap. "Will the real Lynn please stand up?" Uh... I don't know if that's such a good idea because I don't understand the question. I DO understand what I'm afraid of, though (and it's obviously not impaired liver function). I'm afraid the little girl or the teenage girl might take over. That wouldn't be good. I know because it has happened before and it lasted too long. Long enough for mail to stack up in dusty piles around the house. Long enough to tank my credit score. I could go on, but I won't. It sucked, okay? It caused trouble. I don't like trouble. Those two don't do the laundry and the husband ruins clothes when it's left to him. They don't make good lunches for my children and they SUCK at bookkeeping. I can't have that kind of shit going on, you know? I forgot what the point is here, so I'm going to bed.

Sometimes my life sucks.

Actual post date: November 30, 2008

Greetings, Subscribers only. I've decided to hide out in my own archives.

I have not been a happy camper. I only told the therapist and the husband, but the missing battery charger for my camera is not just a quirk. I have a vague little flash of memory. I took it from the place where I always keep it. I remember holding it in my hand. I don't remember what the hell I did with it, but I remember feeling relieved about moving it; like I had spared myself some horrible situation by doing it. I fucking hid it from myself so I couldn't take pictures and then I 'forgot'. I can't remember what I did with it. I have searched and I cannot find it and I can't remember. Why would I hide it? My pictures tell my story, that's why. Last December, I took a series of photos that told the story of an accidental stowaway in a time travel mishap in one of my novels. The stowaway was a child. He 'fell asleep' in a town remarkably like my old hometown. He 'woke up' decades later on the beach in... yes. He woke up right here. And I've got the 'pictures' of his travel. I began to feel very scared after I put that series together. I started to have that awful feeling that I was about to be sucked up into something. I went scrambling for the therapist, but it still happened. I had a terrible flashback. Maybe I'm still not over it. I still don't know what it means, either. I don't know where it goes. I only know that I was terrified, hysterical, and trying to get inside the closet in my bedroom. I collapsed on the floor in front of the closet and I couldn't stop crying. My poor husband didn't know what to do. He left a message for the therapist and he called my sister to come over here. She came. Things have not been the same since because I am 'letting' this ruin my life. She came over once a couple of months ago. I was still sleeping even though it was after noon. I woke up and listened to my sister talking to my husband and kids. I heard her moving around the house, heard her heels on the kitchen floor. I was too embarrassed about my sleeping schedule to drag my disheveled self into the living room and let them know I was awake. I thought of the day of the really bad flashback. "You can't let this ruin your life."

I remember the yellow light on the bedroom ceiling right before the flashback that day. I remember the feeling as it came to get me. I remember the fear and confusion as I sprang up from the bed. I don't remember thinking about the closet, I just went there and I had no clue what I was doing. I think this came from the grandparents' house. I don't know the 'event'. I don't understand, but I still have flashes. This crap just refuses to leave me alone, yet it won't resolve. And I can't remember. I'm stuck here. And it's not because of anything I have done.

By yesterday morning, I was feeling pretty bad about the trap I'm in. I wanted (want?) out, so I wrote to the therapist. It bounced back to me. His mailbox is full (and I swear it isn't because of me). Now I am depressed. I feel very, very lonely knowing that I cannot write to him. I'm starting to lose my hope again. Anyway, here is what I sent when I thought I had the strength to try to find a real way out of here. Maybe there is room in his box for a sentence and a link to this post instead of a letter? Maybe. I might try it later, but everything seems like so much trouble right now and I feel really unsure of myself.

Here's the letter.



...This way that I live is stagnant and is not really healthy for me. I have been doing fairly well in the area of stability. I am stagnant. I don't remember, you know. Stability does not fix me, it only keeps me from acting crazy and letting my life fall apart. It can't ever bring freedom. Can you please think of something? Please. If nothing changes, someday I will be the crazy old lady with seventeen cats who gives toothbrushes to children on Halloween. My trees will be toilet-papered annually. Cleaning it up OCD style will take weeks and be the highlight of my pathetic existence. I will still be staying up all night. I won't have my children to clean up after anymore, so I will have my cats. And I suppose I will probably do a lot of dusting at night. I will need to with all those cats. You know I rarely have time to get that detailed now, so that will be an improvement, right? At least I will be stable and I'll still be moving in the right direction, right? Do you see how this would not really be that different from how I live now? Do you know that I don't especially like cats? And having seventeen of them in the house would probably end in respiratory arrest. I have allergies, you know.

I'm not sure what is missing or what I am doing wrong, but nothing is moving except the dust bunnies. Something is very, very wrong when I hide my own belongings and cannot remember. I need something different and I need you to help me think of something. And NO, it cannot involve any other therapist of any kind. At this point, I will probably try almost anything else, just not that. I can trust only you. Please think of something. I won't just reject all of your ideas and say they are silly or won't help like I used to. I don't need to shove you away anymore. The burning feeling is here and I still haven't written back to my son, but my kitchen is very, very clean. I'm afraid to go to bed. The burning feels very bad.

If you already have an idea and would like to discuss it before Wednesday, please let me know. Maybe you have something open on Monday? If you are busy, or need to think about it a bit, then we can just discuss it Wednesday. Please don't wait for me to ask, though. Please bring it up. I wish I could explain to you what time feels like to me and about all the ways this could get so very lost by then, but I can't. I would need to write fiction in order to do that, and I would hate for my computer to come up missing. Going by the camera problem, it probably wouldn't be the whole computer, though. Probably just the power cord. I have issues around driving, too. Perhaps I should lay in a supply of distributor caps, spark plugs, and battery cables. Do you see why I cannot live this way? Please help me. Did I mention that the camera incident has been scaring the hell out of me? No, I guess maybe I didn't, but it is. It's a stable fear, though. It's stone-cold frozen. It goes well with my combat boots, trench coat, and mirrored shades, but it is not complimenting anything else at all.


Lynn



And while I'm at it, here is the other bounced letter I sent the morning before that one.



Something new has happened, but I did not panic. I need to tell you now because it will get lost if I don't. I was in the twins' room. I was cleaning up a glass of milk I knocked over while making up the beds. I was down on the carpet. It could use vacuuming. There was something about the carpet... and I noticed the bits of lint and... lots and lots of long, dark hairs (the girls shed). I reached out to grab a candy wrapper from under the bed. I had to really reach. I was really on the floor. On the carpet... and it seemed I had been down there before. Like Violet in my novel 'The Diary' when she traveled through time and appeared on her neighbor's kitchen floor, which she examined very closely and with great interest in her state of stupified confusion. I was on the floor in the twins' room, but I was very near some other carpet in some other place. I caught the smell of... something. Smelled like a bathtub/ floor/ mop/ linen/ vacuum cleaner smell. A household smell. There was the carpet and the smell, but I was not somewhere else. I was still here and merely aware of somewhere else. And then again with the long, dark hairs clinging to the carpet. Just like Aunt P's hair has always been. The upstairs bathroom in my grandmother's house. The household smell. A rug. Little bits of lint and long, dark hairs. Somewhere else started to tug at me then, but I could not 'hear' what it wanted. I got up from the floor. My daughters' beds. They are rugged wooden bunks. The cabins. The lake. The hair. And then it was gone. I had to hurry so the beds would have fresh linens on them by the time my husband brought the children home from the movies.

I still cannot find my battery charger for my camera. I think I will just replace it and then have my husband hide it with the bag of pills he keeps from me.

My mother called Thursday. Caller ID said we spoke for 1 minute and 38 seconds. There wasn't much to say and I don't care.

My husband took a call from my broker while I was still sleeping Friday morning . He is dissolving the corporation and moving his office to his house to keep the business viable. I was afraid he wanted me to move my license, but I don't have anyplace to hang it. I called him and he agreed to keep it for me if I get my own errors and omissions insurance if I decide to sell or list again. I will have to meet with him next week to file the proper paperwork to be under the new entity. The prospect of possibly losing this situation with my broker threw me into a state that felt a little desperate. I felt like a piece of my identity was being threatened with extinction, which caused me to zone out so I could take care of the banking. I think the zone out caused the incident in the girls' room. And this right here is why I am not fit to keep my own brokerage right now. What would happen to any clients if something happened to me at a bad time and there was no broker to come in and take over in a calm manner and make things okay for them? He knows there are problems and he doesn't give me shit. I couldn't possibly explain this stuff to another broker. He knows I am not selfish or careless, so he doesn't ask for explanations. It scared me to think my bridge to 'normal' was on fire. It hasn't been the best day here.

Thank you for saving this stuff for me so it doesn't get 'hidden' along with my deleted emails and battery charger.


Lynn



G, if you are reading this, please email me about Monday. I am sorry about the odd means of communication, but I can't call at a weird hour even though it is only to leave a message. I would be forever mortified if it somehow disturbed anyone. And I much prefer this to some crazy, screaming emergency phone call. Remember those? I can't let that happen to me anymore.





*And I think I'm closing comments on this one. See the pretty pictures in the last post, eh? They are a rehash of old stuff, but I really like the little story I made with them.