4.12.10
Things are different than my last blog. Things are the same. Things will return to how they have been. And then they will be different again. I read an article in the New York Times this morning about modern psychology researches reopening investigation into psychedelic drugs as a form of antidepressant. Study subjects--the depressed cancer patients, the terminally ill and a couple of other populations--experienced a dropping of boundaries between themselves and their environment and a powerful sense of unity with the world and its inhabitants that lifted their spirits for months and changed their mindsets. The article ended with a strikingly Buddhist phrase-something to the effect that the hallucinogens opened the patients experience to the one true constant in life--change. Ugh.
So I sat stunned in the coffee shop, paper felled to my lap, and let the electrical impulses speed down the nest of snakes in my brain that comprise my thought disorder. I can't let myself change. Since a child I have fought change. My parents are going to die soon. I need to learn to change. I have to learn to change. A cloud of self-abasement wafts over me and settles in. I am recalcitrant, bad, a hopeless meditator because I refuse to change. It is my fault. I should just change. I can't have a boyfriend or a true friend, or open myself up to a new experience. I can't love. I've learned nothing from the three years at my halfway house. I haven't changed a bit, I castigate myself. Well, maybe a few little things here and there,like the chips of plaster falling of my parents living room ceiling, if I am lucky.
This is the same. This is my illness, I can see objectively out of the corner of my eye. Will it ever change? And am I separate from it? If so, have I changed? Can I change? No, I fear. I still have the same challenges--loneliness, meaninglessness, fear. I guess everybody has these challenges. How much then, is the success or failure of this human struggle affected by the snakes twisting everything in my head, corrupting the most basic thoughts and interactions? What is fair to expect from myself, and what can I celebrate as success?
I feel successful after last week. I did not go once, not a' once, to my clubhouse. I actually walked by it on the way to the bank, to Dunkin' Donuts, to the sporting goods store to buy socks and a kick ass water bottle, but did not go in. Sitting trapped in the airless room (the windows don't open) that has begun to stink being frustrated with an atmosphere of members waiting to be waited upon by staff, or carrying on nonsense conversations, or whining at the top of their lungs puts me in the worst mood and makes me feel lousy about myself. It is only made worse because I can't leave, knowing I can't return to my halfway house until the afternoon. Stuck. Trapped. Annoyed. Feeling like the detritus of society forced to sit in a milieu of craziness was not good for the soul. On top of it all I had to go home and do it all over again--more people, more staff, more milieu--at my halfway house. Endless treatment.
I finally caught on to this dynamic to my days, hence the no clubhouse week. So much better. Harder, too in ways. Harder to fill in the empty hours in my day as I go from the farm I volunteer at to therapy a couple of hours later. Or what to do in the morning until my art class starts. Or how to spend Mondays. Like today. I was just dying to go sit at my clubhouse and just sit. I really wanted to stay home. I just needed to sit and relax and I was tempted to go to Medication Group and hear my favorite psychiatrist at the clubhouse talk and answer questions. I just like the sound of her voice and her presence but I knew I couldn't handle members screeching about their doctor over and over again or ---jeez, I'm being cruel. How did I get so bitter? So mean? I guess I can have more compassion if I am not there, not forced to be there, able to leave. I hope that is true because when I leave my halfway house for an apartment I will be going back to my clubhouse for support. Is doing just one answer enough? Or does it have to be a particular one? Do I have to stay at my halfway house where the people are more active and capable and responsible and interactive. I would say intelligent, articulate, and talented too but I know this isn't necessary true.
Anyway. This one week experiment has left me feeling much better about myself. I have bought a cool shirt (and new socks!) I have put more energy and commitment into my the people at my house. I have accepted help. I think I've gone on a date with a guy from the clubhouse. We met up for ice cream Saturday night and he paid, which surprised me, so I took a dare and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, my heart thumping. I had set the stage, thought, putting on some good jeans a nice top and my kick ass boots and a little make up too. Of course, who do we cross paths with but my therapist, M, who just smiles and mouths "hello" to me. It made me smile but I felt too uncomfortable to sit with my friend (date?) and watch M. 's son run around the park so I finally had to ask G. if we could move to a different part of the square. So G. walked me home and put his arms around me to show me the gargoyles on one of the university's halls. We hugged good-bye. He said to call him the next day if I wanted to, and I wanted to, but my energies quickly go kidnapped by terror that my roommate had taken off to harm herself and all the anger and feeling used, and thoughts about my mother and so forth that go into that set of snakes. So I never called him, but believe you me, I had trouble falling asleep that night I was so excited. Whether I can really handle a boyfriend or not is a big question, but I think I want one and I'm certainly attracted to him even with his smoking and dirty teeth. The only thing is, he has the upper hand--his illness is under better control, he is happier, more social, works, has hobbies and interests. On other hand I think I should have the upper hand because I am more refined, better looking (debatable), better educated, more complex. I really get irritated too when he turns every conversation into something about himself. I want to be listened to and understood. But is it that important to be understood--to have my illness, my pain, my history, etc, etc, all understood? I'm beginning to think not. Maybe all he needs to know is that I need to switch benches because I'm distracted by my therapist and that I don't like the peanut butter in his smoothie. He is not someone I can control. He could reject me. It is a risk. I felt with D my first real boyfriend, I was in control, but with G. neither of us is in great control. If control is great.
So anyway. I guess all this posturing about whether I'm human or not just boils down to a date.
Hmmm...
3.22.10
I don't know where to begin. I don't know what to write. I don't know what is pertinent fact and what will become a dry wild goose chase for an end to my suffering. I guess I will start with the house; with my immediate experience.
I am flooded in the fetid waters of being a pariah in the halfway house I live in. I am being stung by the nest of bees gone wild with self-hatred.
I am positive no one likes me. I sat in the living room drinking my tea feeling K.'s disdain and repulsion envelop me as she worked at her computer. I don't work at anything. I just sit here and think. I don't try hard. I felt the house director's disdain hit me like a block of concrete because I did not ask her about her week-end. She will not help me, be kind to me, like me, give me extra consideration if I don't ask about her trip. I am angry to be put in such a position. She greets me good morning a second time and I weakly disguise my snarl, "good morning,again." I don't want her to mess with me. I end up asking her about her weekend, my face blank, my eyes bland with disinterest. Am I mad or do people hate me or both?
I was mad last night. I had a lovely morning comprised of a walk that slipped here and there into a meditative silence and a good sitting meditation (which I know is a much discouraged judgment) when I came back. I dressed in some more stylish clothes than I am used to and went to the movies with my friend S. Just as I was walking outside to wait for her my phone rang and it was my friend L. I did not pick up. That was the beginning of the end of my good day.
I worried during the movie. L.'s tone on her message was gruff and disappointed. We've been playing phone tag for a week. Mostly me escaping her as I escaped G. in the kitchen this morning. I walked back into the house after the movie and was assaulted with acute annoyance--I wanted to be alone. I didn't want to call L. I was tired. I was in emotional pain. I tried a cup of tea. B. came jumping up at me to tell me some random piece of data about god knows what. I weakly smiled, threw him a few bones "gee, wow, uh huh," and made my way upstairs. My roommate was there. No where to go! I should call Lauren. "Do you mind if I make a call?' No. I call Lauren, not home; call her cell and leave a message that I will be call again at seven and sit down to meditate. She calls. Fuck. I just want to mediate. I talk to her; I don't want to listen to her. I don't want to support her. I don't want to be there for her. I don't want to be empathetic. I try to tell her about me, but have to raise my voice to do so. It's not worth it. I don't want to be the bucket in which she puts her trust.
I hate being in that position. I told R. a few days ago that I don't want to be the person he says things to that he doesn't want other people to hear. Then he goes and announces he's going to steal some of one of the staff's wheat germ this morning right in front of me. He's doing it to goad me, he knows he's putting me in an awful position, he's testing me. He is a bad man. I am stuck. C. made it clear taking other people's food is equated with stealing. I don't want to be the conscience of the house. I have already been in that position too many times.
I feel like a dark specter in the house Nobody includes me in the fun and games. No, I should put it accurately, I don't include myself in the fun and games. I don't want to be in the fray. That way people won't entrust me with their needs, their secrets, their complaints and confidences. I don't want to be that person and it seems to me that is just who I am. Not even that so much even more. I am taking myself farther and farther from the center of the house. I am jealous of my roommate who explodes her distress all over the place and so people support her, bake her a cake, even me, I end up holding her and rubbing her back while she cries and while my skin crawls.
I am just not used to being in these human relationships. After reading and autobiography of an innocent man on death row who becomes a Buddhist, I recall how institutionalized I am. I have lived twelve of the last twenty one years in supported housing, in addition to the fifty--at least--inpatient hospitalizations I have had when I have literally been locked in. I spend my days now in a halfway house living with people I did not choose to be friends with following rules that make it hard to do all I want to do. I spend a good portion of my days in a clubhouse filled with people with whom it is hard to have a conversation. I sit there and stare out the window because I can't go back to my "home" before two in the afternoon.
But let me not misrepresent myself. I choose this life. I choose this life. Goddamnit, I chose this life and I am so mad at myself. Infuriated. I'm the one who does not play pool with the crowd at my halfway house. I am the one who does not get down the task of really writing my book. I am the one who is isolating myself further and further and further from people everywhere in my life. Housemates, clubhouse members, family, friends. I guess I am just used to the hospital/halfway house model: premade social structures supervised by professionals where you really don't have to become real friends with anyone. I've left a trail of acquaintances who want to get to know me better in my wake, but I just can't handle the responsiblity of being a friend. You know, I don't even really know what that means. I chastise myself for not being willing to do for others, but I do for others out of spite all the time. What if I were to operate out of love?
I don't know why I can't be friends. I don't know why I sulk on the sidelines in the living room or at the dinner table ashamed, angry, and awed by how well others get along and interact and form bonds. I've always had trouble, right from kindergarten, even nursery school. I found a couple of girls I liked but with whom I could not really keep up with. I would circle their bond, their energy but never fully commit myself to all the playground drama and the bullying and the overnights. Soon I fell into a pattern of having one best friend a year, and it would switch like clock work each year. Even as an adult I have abruptly ended two friendships and romantic relationship. Simply severed each with a phone call or a letter. Each was around feeling like I was in the position of therapist, helplessly pinned by their needs with no courage to lay down my own boundaries. It is nothing new in my halfway house or clubhouse or my friendships so now I just refuse to play. I won't have friends. I won't have family. I will die alone.
Dramatic, but those are the thoughts chasing me around on my walk this morning. I wish I had some answers here. Illness. Not illness. Environment. Family dynamics. I don't know. The feeling of being emotionally raped comes through though. As if I am used by everyone, like I'm being fucked against my will by everyone else. And I just have to grin and bear it. Smile and offer sympathy. And then get angry at myself for not being able to protect myself better, or more so, angry at myself for not being able to be like them. People who know how to relate.
I don't know if the any of this is rational. But it makes me very, very sad. I wonder how much I can chalk up to my illness. I know there is great fear at my back pushing me away from relationships and endeavors, not so much because I can't do what it takes but because I am afraid of asserting myself in this world--of being the authority in my life. I worry making friends will take me away from my mother--ugh, such distortions. I know my illness limits how many times I can do something social a week, how adventurous I can be in trying new things, but that is not the same as the distortions. Can I change? Do I want to? I am so very, very, lonely.
Later Today:
I just have to add that the whole thing came together for me as I walked out of the library (or stepped away from the computer, I do not remember.) The not wanting people to trust me with their secrets, their feelings, opinions, complaints, their life stories, and, the intense feeling of hatred and anger when they do--the feeling used and abused, only good for people dumping their shit on me, an interpersonal rape over and over again. And then it hit me. I do not want people's trust, because I don't feel good enough to be anybody's friend. I do not feel like I am worth their trust. I don't feel adequate enough. I hate myself too much to think that anybody would want me for anything else other than to cheer on and/or repair their own lives. I am not adequate for friendship, so I get mad at everyone else for the lacking I feel in myself. It is their fault I am not friends with them--they are too young, too old, too skanky, too self-centered, too invasive, too dangerous to my fragile mind. Ya' I got a bad illness, but I got a bad sense of self, too, and maybe that I can repair.
It will not be repaired in a doctor's office. It will not be repaired by medication, will, or thought. It will only be repaired by making friends with someone.
Dr. M says I do have normal relationships and that all of this here is in my head, one distortion piled up over another. And maybe he is right. All the way home from my clubhouse I kept getting mental wafts of how things really are. Meaning, maybe people are not out to get me, to use me selfishly; that it is not all about me but mostly about them. Most significantly I got fleeting senses that anger is just anger and not the kryptonite to my fragile sense of being, based as it is on fulfilling people's needs in hopes that they will return the favor--a clearly distorted sense of relating. Maybe anger is just anger. How can I express to you how that one thought feels like the first spring breeze of the year floating through the screen of a window just lifted after a long winter.
I guess that's all I have to say for now without getting boring. All I know is maybe it is not just a feeling of being safe or not safe with others, but even more deeply of feeling inadequate and not valuable and how hateful of myself and others I living life in a perceived mental deficit all the time--I am not good enough to be anyone's friend.
I don't know where to begin. I don't know what to write. I don't know what is pertinent fact and what will become a dry wild goose chase for an end to my suffering. I guess I will start with the house; with my immediate experience.
I am flooded in the fetid waters of being a pariah in the halfway house I live in. I am being stung by the nest of bees gone wild with self-hatred.
I am positive no one likes me. I sat in the living room drinking my tea feeling K.'s disdain and repulsion envelop me as she worked at her computer. I don't work at anything. I just sit here and think. I don't try hard. I felt the house director's disdain hit me like a block of concrete because I did not ask her about her week-end. She will not help me, be kind to me, like me, give me extra consideration if I don't ask about her trip. I am angry to be put in such a position. She greets me good morning a second time and I weakly disguise my snarl, "good morning,again." I don't want her to mess with me. I end up asking her about her weekend, my face blank, my eyes bland with disinterest. Am I mad or do people hate me or both?
I was mad last night. I had a lovely morning comprised of a walk that slipped here and there into a meditative silence and a good sitting meditation (which I know is a much discouraged judgment) when I came back. I dressed in some more stylish clothes than I am used to and went to the movies with my friend S. Just as I was walking outside to wait for her my phone rang and it was my friend L. I did not pick up. That was the beginning of the end of my good day.
I worried during the movie. L.'s tone on her message was gruff and disappointed. We've been playing phone tag for a week. Mostly me escaping her as I escaped G. in the kitchen this morning. I walked back into the house after the movie and was assaulted with acute annoyance--I wanted to be alone. I didn't want to call L. I was tired. I was in emotional pain. I tried a cup of tea. B. came jumping up at me to tell me some random piece of data about god knows what. I weakly smiled, threw him a few bones "gee, wow, uh huh," and made my way upstairs. My roommate was there. No where to go! I should call Lauren. "Do you mind if I make a call?' No. I call Lauren, not home; call her cell and leave a message that I will be call again at seven and sit down to meditate. She calls. Fuck. I just want to mediate. I talk to her; I don't want to listen to her. I don't want to support her. I don't want to be there for her. I don't want to be empathetic. I try to tell her about me, but have to raise my voice to do so. It's not worth it. I don't want to be the bucket in which she puts her trust.
I hate being in that position. I told R. a few days ago that I don't want to be the person he says things to that he doesn't want other people to hear. Then he goes and announces he's going to steal some of one of the staff's wheat germ this morning right in front of me. He's doing it to goad me, he knows he's putting me in an awful position, he's testing me. He is a bad man. I am stuck. C. made it clear taking other people's food is equated with stealing. I don't want to be the conscience of the house. I have already been in that position too many times.
I feel like a dark specter in the house Nobody includes me in the fun and games. No, I should put it accurately, I don't include myself in the fun and games. I don't want to be in the fray. That way people won't entrust me with their needs, their secrets, their complaints and confidences. I don't want to be that person and it seems to me that is just who I am. Not even that so much even more. I am taking myself farther and farther from the center of the house. I am jealous of my roommate who explodes her distress all over the place and so people support her, bake her a cake, even me, I end up holding her and rubbing her back while she cries and while my skin crawls.
I am just not used to being in these human relationships. After reading and autobiography of an innocent man on death row who becomes a Buddhist, I recall how institutionalized I am. I have lived twelve of the last twenty one years in supported housing, in addition to the fifty--at least--inpatient hospitalizations I have had when I have literally been locked in. I spend my days now in a halfway house living with people I did not choose to be friends with following rules that make it hard to do all I want to do. I spend a good portion of my days in a clubhouse filled with people with whom it is hard to have a conversation. I sit there and stare out the window because I can't go back to my "home" before two in the afternoon.
But let me not misrepresent myself. I choose this life. I choose this life. Goddamnit, I chose this life and I am so mad at myself. Infuriated. I'm the one who does not play pool with the crowd at my halfway house. I am the one who does not get down the task of really writing my book. I am the one who is isolating myself further and further and further from people everywhere in my life. Housemates, clubhouse members, family, friends. I guess I am just used to the hospital/halfway house model: premade social structures supervised by professionals where you really don't have to become real friends with anyone. I've left a trail of acquaintances who want to get to know me better in my wake, but I just can't handle the responsiblity of being a friend. You know, I don't even really know what that means. I chastise myself for not being willing to do for others, but I do for others out of spite all the time. What if I were to operate out of love?
I don't know why I can't be friends. I don't know why I sulk on the sidelines in the living room or at the dinner table ashamed, angry, and awed by how well others get along and interact and form bonds. I've always had trouble, right from kindergarten, even nursery school. I found a couple of girls I liked but with whom I could not really keep up with. I would circle their bond, their energy but never fully commit myself to all the playground drama and the bullying and the overnights. Soon I fell into a pattern of having one best friend a year, and it would switch like clock work each year. Even as an adult I have abruptly ended two friendships and romantic relationship. Simply severed each with a phone call or a letter. Each was around feeling like I was in the position of therapist, helplessly pinned by their needs with no courage to lay down my own boundaries. It is nothing new in my halfway house or clubhouse or my friendships so now I just refuse to play. I won't have friends. I won't have family. I will die alone.
Dramatic, but those are the thoughts chasing me around on my walk this morning. I wish I had some answers here. Illness. Not illness. Environment. Family dynamics. I don't know. The feeling of being emotionally raped comes through though. As if I am used by everyone, like I'm being fucked against my will by everyone else. And I just have to grin and bear it. Smile and offer sympathy. And then get angry at myself for not being able to protect myself better, or more so, angry at myself for not being able to be like them. People who know how to relate.
I don't know if the any of this is rational. But it makes me very, very sad. I wonder how much I can chalk up to my illness. I know there is great fear at my back pushing me away from relationships and endeavors, not so much because I can't do what it takes but because I am afraid of asserting myself in this world--of being the authority in my life. I worry making friends will take me away from my mother--ugh, such distortions. I know my illness limits how many times I can do something social a week, how adventurous I can be in trying new things, but that is not the same as the distortions. Can I change? Do I want to? I am so very, very, lonely.
Later Today:
I just have to add that the whole thing came together for me as I walked out of the library (or stepped away from the computer, I do not remember.) The not wanting people to trust me with their secrets, their feelings, opinions, complaints, their life stories, and, the intense feeling of hatred and anger when they do--the feeling used and abused, only good for people dumping their shit on me, an interpersonal rape over and over again. And then it hit me. I do not want people's trust, because I don't feel good enough to be anybody's friend. I do not feel like I am worth their trust. I don't feel adequate enough. I hate myself too much to think that anybody would want me for anything else other than to cheer on and/or repair their own lives. I am not adequate for friendship, so I get mad at everyone else for the lacking I feel in myself. It is their fault I am not friends with them--they are too young, too old, too skanky, too self-centered, too invasive, too dangerous to my fragile mind. Ya' I got a bad illness, but I got a bad sense of self, too, and maybe that I can repair.
It will not be repaired in a doctor's office. It will not be repaired by medication, will, or thought. It will only be repaired by making friends with someone.
Dr. M says I do have normal relationships and that all of this here is in my head, one distortion piled up over another. And maybe he is right. All the way home from my clubhouse I kept getting mental wafts of how things really are. Meaning, maybe people are not out to get me, to use me selfishly; that it is not all about me but mostly about them. Most significantly I got fleeting senses that anger is just anger and not the kryptonite to my fragile sense of being, based as it is on fulfilling people's needs in hopes that they will return the favor--a clearly distorted sense of relating. Maybe anger is just anger. How can I express to you how that one thought feels like the first spring breeze of the year floating through the screen of a window just lifted after a long winter.
I guess that's all I have to say for now without getting boring. All I know is maybe it is not just a feeling of being safe or not safe with others, but even more deeply of feeling inadequate and not valuable and how hateful of myself and others I living life in a perceived mental deficit all the time--I am not good enough to be anyone's friend.
interested?
3.20.10
My last two weeks I have been devoting my creative energy to my visual arts--painting, drawing, throwing color on the page, taking photographs and learning how to get them from the camera to the computer and to the printed page. I've made some cards, I've painted an ugly butterfly on a fiery background on a board I gessoed--the biggest piece I've ever done. I've done gruesome abstracts to reflect my mood and thoughts (these I really like the best, as they capture both shape and motion in a passionate palate of color, but they are not fine art.) Some of these things I've done in my art studio group, but I've also tried to uphold a pact I've made with myself to do something creative every afternoon, no matter how little. As I've done this the thirst in me to create has only grown stronger, pushing for an outlet. This clear, pure urge, however, must escape prison to come to fruition. It must clear, or at least not be mortally wounded by, the barbed wire rolled along the top of my exercise yard of thought fence all the while looking not to get shot down by the guards of my mind sporting rifles high above in the tower overlooking the prison of my heart.
It has, a bit, as the couple of weeks have passed. A few times I have really enjoyed making my art and like patches of low level fog settling over a day or two, I have begun to notice a change of heart--my creations are of me and for me instead of "these I really like the best...but they are not fine art." Do I need to make fine art? Is that the goal?
Arise fear. Arise fluttering wings inside my body. Arise tension like pulling on stale bubble gum. Arise urgency to answer the question once and for all. Arise anger and blame which deletes all the other feelings. Arise discomfort with not knowing the answer. At all. I do not know the answer. I could draw you a schematic of all the years and all the dynamics that led to me being so stymied in expressing myself but that would not be the truth, I'm sure, even if I don't know the truth now myself. I don't know. I just don't know. What else is there to write?
All I know is that my best moments, my deepest insights, my best artwork, come from places of not knowing. Not knowing the end result, not being able to answer a posed question, allowing myself to sink into experience without the rope of years of therapeutic understanding dangling beside me. I'm afraid that all the answers just lie in the doing and I've never been a doer, always a thinker, an analyzer.
I also punish myself for not being a doer in that I can't do as much as my roommate, my friends, my family, my fellow clubhouse members, the people I went to high school with. Example. It is the first day of Spring and it is sunny and seventy degrees outside. It seems to me that everyone is talking about it, everyone is outside with friends or family or their dogs. I, on the other hand, am inside. I mean, not having taking a shower, not walked, not gotten out of bed until almost 12pm, lying there picking at the scabs on my scalp (an old habit I have just recently started again.)I made a list last night of all the things I wanted to do today and tomorrow--walking, shopping for art supplies and a yoga mat and a water bottle; raking leaves and writing on my blog; yoga tomorrow, paying bills. Even more so I had fantasies of bring my friend S. to my hometown with her dog so we could run him on the beach for the first time in his life. Yet here I am, all musty and moldy, in the house--in my bedroom--not wanting to talk to anyone or do anything with anyone. I am a failure. It is only my call from my father which brought to light my Catholic guilt and got me to jump out of bed and throw on some jeans and make my bed. Otherwise I might still be there. Ya' I spent the whole morning lying in bed, thinking about writing this blog--"How will I write my story. My writing has to go somewhere. It hast to! I am exploding! But I can't organize it. My brain can't organize the scope of work I have already produced. I don't want to work hard. I am lazy. I am not a good worker. Do I really want M. to read my stuff? What will I ask him to comment on? 'What grabs you? What is interesting? What is informative?' How do I make this mass of work mean something? What do I really want it to mean? I can't do this. I'm doing this just to make a name for myself; just to mean something. It's all for me; I don't really care about it helping anyone else. I am bad. How do I write the truth without hurting anyone? Do I erase the mother blame from the whole book or --wait! can I really write a book? Do I want to? Will I stick with it? I can't do this. I am too small. I don't mean much . I can't create anything big and meaningful like my sister and her book. It will mean this, it will mean that. I keep changing my mind. i just want to do this to make meaning out of my life. Is that so bad? Do i have to feel so altruistic. I am filled with garbage that has to get out. What if it is just a 'tell all?" I don't want to write that. How can i use the details without falling into gruesome, the angry, the blaming? I have no time to write. And do art. I don't have the time in the morning. I have to write in the morning. No, the real block is in the details. How do I write my truth, without harming others. Not just without harming others but without falling off the path of what my family imagines when they tell me to write a book. Here is what I mean. Writing a book seems like a sure-fire arrow fired towards and landing on the mark of finally making something meaningful and acceptable of myself and making my family happy. When I wrote for my high school alumni bulletin about a retiring teacher my mother had exclaimed in joy "...shows them you're not dead yet!" But what if my arrow gets bent and does not reach its mark. Meaning what if I write a book, but it is my book, for my purpose, for my enjoyment and finally from MY VOICE! What if it doesn't affirm that i can still compete with my fellow prep school alumni who now have careers, marriages, children, houses, and belong to the posh clubs they all group up at, and instead what if i write something that just affirms me.
Arise the urge to shed tears. Arise the same boring old theme in my life that I can't seem to shake. Arise the same anger that I can't just fix this conflict between fear and anger. Anger--I want to break free! Fear--I am afraid I will be on my own if I do, abandoned by my family (are those the same?) It is this conflict that as a sixteen year old had me sticking my finger down my throat and vomiting up all my meals in secret. It is this conflict whose only answer seemed to be to finally stop eating altogether and train my mind to hate myself by chanting horrible insults to my reflection in the mirror. There seemed no other solution. Writing a book is not the solution either. But it might be nice to be heard. It might be nice, truly, to help someone else out. This book will not cure me, it will not resolve this conflict, and it will not make me back into the daughter everyone wants. But it maybe nice to write for the sake of putting down my experience--struggling every day with the conflict between fear and anger in revealing myself. And the conflict between wanting to write a masterpiece and wanting to write an honest work. It's that "masterpiece" that will thread my life through the eye of a needle and get me back into the graces of those I grew up with (although I think they think fine of me anyway.)
Notes: Distortions to be noted: I am more of a doer than I think--I just do what I'm allowed by my symptoms, and what I want, which may be different than others and my expectations of myself. I am not about to be abandoned by my family, but I may be more on my own (which is terrifying in and of itself.) My prep school classmates probably don't give two hoots about what has happened to me and would smile upon seeing me. And most importantly, thus needing restatement, writing a book is no endpoint--no solution, no cure, no resolution. Am I still interested?
My last two weeks I have been devoting my creative energy to my visual arts--painting, drawing, throwing color on the page, taking photographs and learning how to get them from the camera to the computer and to the printed page. I've made some cards, I've painted an ugly butterfly on a fiery background on a board I gessoed--the biggest piece I've ever done. I've done gruesome abstracts to reflect my mood and thoughts (these I really like the best, as they capture both shape and motion in a passionate palate of color, but they are not fine art.) Some of these things I've done in my art studio group, but I've also tried to uphold a pact I've made with myself to do something creative every afternoon, no matter how little. As I've done this the thirst in me to create has only grown stronger, pushing for an outlet. This clear, pure urge, however, must escape prison to come to fruition. It must clear, or at least not be mortally wounded by, the barbed wire rolled along the top of my exercise yard of thought fence all the while looking not to get shot down by the guards of my mind sporting rifles high above in the tower overlooking the prison of my heart.
It has, a bit, as the couple of weeks have passed. A few times I have really enjoyed making my art and like patches of low level fog settling over a day or two, I have begun to notice a change of heart--my creations are of me and for me instead of "these I really like the best...but they are not fine art." Do I need to make fine art? Is that the goal?
Arise fear. Arise fluttering wings inside my body. Arise tension like pulling on stale bubble gum. Arise urgency to answer the question once and for all. Arise anger and blame which deletes all the other feelings. Arise discomfort with not knowing the answer. At all. I do not know the answer. I could draw you a schematic of all the years and all the dynamics that led to me being so stymied in expressing myself but that would not be the truth, I'm sure, even if I don't know the truth now myself. I don't know. I just don't know. What else is there to write?
All I know is that my best moments, my deepest insights, my best artwork, come from places of not knowing. Not knowing the end result, not being able to answer a posed question, allowing myself to sink into experience without the rope of years of therapeutic understanding dangling beside me. I'm afraid that all the answers just lie in the doing and I've never been a doer, always a thinker, an analyzer.
I also punish myself for not being a doer in that I can't do as much as my roommate, my friends, my family, my fellow clubhouse members, the people I went to high school with. Example. It is the first day of Spring and it is sunny and seventy degrees outside. It seems to me that everyone is talking about it, everyone is outside with friends or family or their dogs. I, on the other hand, am inside. I mean, not having taking a shower, not walked, not gotten out of bed until almost 12pm, lying there picking at the scabs on my scalp (an old habit I have just recently started again.)I made a list last night of all the things I wanted to do today and tomorrow--walking, shopping for art supplies and a yoga mat and a water bottle; raking leaves and writing on my blog; yoga tomorrow, paying bills. Even more so I had fantasies of bring my friend S. to my hometown with her dog so we could run him on the beach for the first time in his life. Yet here I am, all musty and moldy, in the house--in my bedroom--not wanting to talk to anyone or do anything with anyone. I am a failure. It is only my call from my father which brought to light my Catholic guilt and got me to jump out of bed and throw on some jeans and make my bed. Otherwise I might still be there. Ya' I spent the whole morning lying in bed, thinking about writing this blog--"How will I write my story. My writing has to go somewhere. It hast to! I am exploding! But I can't organize it. My brain can't organize the scope of work I have already produced. I don't want to work hard. I am lazy. I am not a good worker. Do I really want M. to read my stuff? What will I ask him to comment on? 'What grabs you? What is interesting? What is informative?' How do I make this mass of work mean something? What do I really want it to mean? I can't do this. I'm doing this just to make a name for myself; just to mean something. It's all for me; I don't really care about it helping anyone else. I am bad. How do I write the truth without hurting anyone? Do I erase the mother blame from the whole book or --wait! can I really write a book? Do I want to? Will I stick with it? I can't do this. I am too small. I don't mean much . I can't create anything big and meaningful like my sister and her book. It will mean this, it will mean that. I keep changing my mind. i just want to do this to make meaning out of my life. Is that so bad? Do i have to feel so altruistic. I am filled with garbage that has to get out. What if it is just a 'tell all?" I don't want to write that. How can i use the details without falling into gruesome, the angry, the blaming? I have no time to write. And do art. I don't have the time in the morning. I have to write in the morning. No, the real block is in the details. How do I write my truth, without harming others. Not just without harming others but without falling off the path of what my family imagines when they tell me to write a book. Here is what I mean. Writing a book seems like a sure-fire arrow fired towards and landing on the mark of finally making something meaningful and acceptable of myself and making my family happy. When I wrote for my high school alumni bulletin about a retiring teacher my mother had exclaimed in joy "...shows them you're not dead yet!" But what if my arrow gets bent and does not reach its mark. Meaning what if I write a book, but it is my book, for my purpose, for my enjoyment and finally from MY VOICE! What if it doesn't affirm that i can still compete with my fellow prep school alumni who now have careers, marriages, children, houses, and belong to the posh clubs they all group up at, and instead what if i write something that just affirms me.
Arise the urge to shed tears. Arise the same boring old theme in my life that I can't seem to shake. Arise the same anger that I can't just fix this conflict between fear and anger. Anger--I want to break free! Fear--I am afraid I will be on my own if I do, abandoned by my family (are those the same?) It is this conflict that as a sixteen year old had me sticking my finger down my throat and vomiting up all my meals in secret. It is this conflict whose only answer seemed to be to finally stop eating altogether and train my mind to hate myself by chanting horrible insults to my reflection in the mirror. There seemed no other solution. Writing a book is not the solution either. But it might be nice to be heard. It might be nice, truly, to help someone else out. This book will not cure me, it will not resolve this conflict, and it will not make me back into the daughter everyone wants. But it maybe nice to write for the sake of putting down my experience--struggling every day with the conflict between fear and anger in revealing myself. And the conflict between wanting to write a masterpiece and wanting to write an honest work. It's that "masterpiece" that will thread my life through the eye of a needle and get me back into the graces of those I grew up with (although I think they think fine of me anyway.)
Notes: Distortions to be noted: I am more of a doer than I think--I just do what I'm allowed by my symptoms, and what I want, which may be different than others and my expectations of myself. I am not about to be abandoned by my family, but I may be more on my own (which is terrifying in and of itself.) My prep school classmates probably don't give two hoots about what has happened to me and would smile upon seeing me. And most importantly, thus needing restatement, writing a book is no endpoint--no solution, no cure, no resolution. Am I still interested?
sitting pretty
3.9.10
Here I am again, sitting pretty in front of the computer, back straight, legs crossed, chair tucked under the console as far as it will go, make-up applied, ready to write. How different today is than yesterday. Than last night when I sat with my goals person for almost an hour, tears pushing to be released, heart broken over my cross in life--my fear. One might say how dare I call it a cross to bear, how dare I compare myself to Jesus Christ, climbing up a hill, cross on his back, dying for our sins. I guess I do see myself as a martyr, a victim, brave in the face of great adversity. I am an expert sufferer.
I have an old friend, someone I've known now for a good fifteen years. Someone I've lived with, fought with, laughed with and cried with. Someone who has berated me and cheered me on. Someone I have disappointed, frustrated, and angered. Someone who I have loved and hated. Someone I have complained about. Someone who I have grown to be careful around, not to fall into her vision of me, not to fight it either, as she is fixed in this vision. And right now that is of poor, pained, dangerously close to suicide me. And I resent it. But I respond to it, because I feel a maternal gush from her when she says "You are amazing. You fall down, you get hit with such pain, and you always get up, you pull yourself up each and every time." And then there is that gnawing sensation in my mind when I listen to her say this that she is right. That she knows this part of me and speaks it, like I rarely do and that very few people in my life do with such accuracy and volume.
But is that me? Am I this courageous sufferer or am I more complex than that? Am I more complicated? Am I healthier than that? Or, no, it is not a question of health, but do I have more of a capacity for peace, love, and enjoyment in myself?
How do I go on from here? Do I tell of my fear? My constant, terror that grips my chest with it's frozen fist and sends icicles darting through my organs, spewing apocalyptic thoughts out of my neurons into my consciousness in the form of angry scenes and gruesome images and little movies that drip with themes of guilt and shame and all add up to an impossibility to stay alive. So that is my fear. And for a lifetime I have been trying to get rid of it. I have become an expert at describing it. I have, early on, mastered the art of manipulation, learning to make my anxious mother comfortable and happy and full so that then she could and would attend to me,make me feel safe. I have charmed doctors and treaters and have been undergone every type of treatment possible to abolish this fear. I have discovered that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Now, middle-aged, I am no less terrified; I just hate myself more that I can't get rid of it.
It sort of goes like this. I'm trying Buddhist meditation. I'm meditating. I know I should just "be in the moment, watch my thoughts, no, woops I shouldn't say no, I shouldn't say shouldn't," I remember my good meditation a few days ago, "I shouldn't judge my meditation, I am attached, don't be attached to an out come." The teacher's voice repeats in my head-"you like some thoughts, you don't like some other's, watch them pass, become awareness." "I can't do it. Oooh! there was a moment." I race to fill it with thought. I can't tolerate an empty mind. The fear wells up in me. I'm relieved. I now know who I am, familiar territory, but now I want to make it go away, still familiar territory. I try to get rid of it by feeling it without thougth. "I'm suffering. See the suffering." I see it for a few moments, then I start analyzing it, putting words to it. "Maybe if I just see it without thought, THEN it will go away. No, that's wrong. That's the opposite of what I should be doing. I want an outcome. I am here to feel peaceful. I need to feel peaceful. I MUST feel peaceful. I can't do this." My frustration level rises. I see myself in my mind's eye screaming and yelling and waving my arms all over the place and jumping up and down. I force myself to stay sitting. I hate this "Kill me or Kill her" my minds spews forth. "Why do I say that? Maybe if I'm quiet the reason will reveal itself" I picture talking to M. about the answer that hasn't revealed itself yet. One day it is revealed to me that shame lies under my guilt; I am on that like butter on bread, analyzing it throughout the day, remembering every humiliation at my mother's hand, seeing myself talk to M. about it. Not wanting to;wanting to keep the knowledge earned by meditation in the meditation. I will tell M. at some point.
My pain is not my fear. My pain is pretending I am not afraid. My pain is stuffing it back down the rabbit hole from which it came. My pain is the edict that I should not be afraid. My pain is my attachment to a life free of terror. I write terror to pathologize it. to make clear to us that it is an illness-to make clear that it is a truth needing acceptance.
I use the dharma (Buddha's teachings) as a weapon against myself. I twist it until it becomes another tool to be cured. But I know better. I know better. I know, among all the mental weeds and overgrowth, well...what do I know? This is tricky. The Four Noble Truths are that 1)there is suffering, 2)there is a cause of suffering, 3)there is an end to suffering and 4)by following the Eighthfold Noble path. It's not tricky. I know it works. I know when I allow myself the moment, when I even allow myself my fear, my attachments to a cure, my sense of impatience and urgency, when I refrain from speaking just to get attention, I feel better. I know that walking out of Dr. M's office last Tuesday I felt better than I did on Friday, despite the fact that we talked about the same thing on both days. The difference was on Tuesday I let the tears flow and we came to the conclusion that I had done something that had changed a relationship and that there are no rules in relationships--in short the truth, albeit a very scary one, but he did nothing to take away my fear. On Friday, I just talked and talked, looking for an answer from him to my dilema at the house. I left feeling tired and overwrought.
Open my arms to my suffering. Practice right speech. Cultivate nonattachment. All of these are good aspirations. Unfortunately I pervert them all into a twisted call for a cure. I might as well be demanding Ativan for anxiety. But to bring this to an end, I know, somewhere, somehow,and at sometimes I experience a little joy. And this is what I would like to tell my long time friend, I am capable of a little joy here and there. And what I would like to tell me is to...I don't know. I guess just enjoy it.
I don't know what to tell myself. That is the authority I must find in myself. What do I want to tell myself--no doctors,teachers, or goals persons. What do I need to tell myself.
Here I am again, sitting pretty in front of the computer, back straight, legs crossed, chair tucked under the console as far as it will go, make-up applied, ready to write. How different today is than yesterday. Than last night when I sat with my goals person for almost an hour, tears pushing to be released, heart broken over my cross in life--my fear. One might say how dare I call it a cross to bear, how dare I compare myself to Jesus Christ, climbing up a hill, cross on his back, dying for our sins. I guess I do see myself as a martyr, a victim, brave in the face of great adversity. I am an expert sufferer.
I have an old friend, someone I've known now for a good fifteen years. Someone I've lived with, fought with, laughed with and cried with. Someone who has berated me and cheered me on. Someone I have disappointed, frustrated, and angered. Someone who I have loved and hated. Someone I have complained about. Someone who I have grown to be careful around, not to fall into her vision of me, not to fight it either, as she is fixed in this vision. And right now that is of poor, pained, dangerously close to suicide me. And I resent it. But I respond to it, because I feel a maternal gush from her when she says "You are amazing. You fall down, you get hit with such pain, and you always get up, you pull yourself up each and every time." And then there is that gnawing sensation in my mind when I listen to her say this that she is right. That she knows this part of me and speaks it, like I rarely do and that very few people in my life do with such accuracy and volume.
But is that me? Am I this courageous sufferer or am I more complex than that? Am I more complicated? Am I healthier than that? Or, no, it is not a question of health, but do I have more of a capacity for peace, love, and enjoyment in myself?
How do I go on from here? Do I tell of my fear? My constant, terror that grips my chest with it's frozen fist and sends icicles darting through my organs, spewing apocalyptic thoughts out of my neurons into my consciousness in the form of angry scenes and gruesome images and little movies that drip with themes of guilt and shame and all add up to an impossibility to stay alive. So that is my fear. And for a lifetime I have been trying to get rid of it. I have become an expert at describing it. I have, early on, mastered the art of manipulation, learning to make my anxious mother comfortable and happy and full so that then she could and would attend to me,make me feel safe. I have charmed doctors and treaters and have been undergone every type of treatment possible to abolish this fear. I have discovered that sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Now, middle-aged, I am no less terrified; I just hate myself more that I can't get rid of it.
It sort of goes like this. I'm trying Buddhist meditation. I'm meditating. I know I should just "be in the moment, watch my thoughts, no, woops I shouldn't say no, I shouldn't say shouldn't," I remember my good meditation a few days ago, "I shouldn't judge my meditation, I am attached, don't be attached to an out come." The teacher's voice repeats in my head-"you like some thoughts, you don't like some other's, watch them pass, become awareness." "I can't do it. Oooh! there was a moment." I race to fill it with thought. I can't tolerate an empty mind. The fear wells up in me. I'm relieved. I now know who I am, familiar territory, but now I want to make it go away, still familiar territory. I try to get rid of it by feeling it without thougth. "I'm suffering. See the suffering." I see it for a few moments, then I start analyzing it, putting words to it. "Maybe if I just see it without thought, THEN it will go away. No, that's wrong. That's the opposite of what I should be doing. I want an outcome. I am here to feel peaceful. I need to feel peaceful. I MUST feel peaceful. I can't do this." My frustration level rises. I see myself in my mind's eye screaming and yelling and waving my arms all over the place and jumping up and down. I force myself to stay sitting. I hate this "Kill me or Kill her" my minds spews forth. "Why do I say that? Maybe if I'm quiet the reason will reveal itself" I picture talking to M. about the answer that hasn't revealed itself yet. One day it is revealed to me that shame lies under my guilt; I am on that like butter on bread, analyzing it throughout the day, remembering every humiliation at my mother's hand, seeing myself talk to M. about it. Not wanting to;wanting to keep the knowledge earned by meditation in the meditation. I will tell M. at some point.
My pain is not my fear. My pain is pretending I am not afraid. My pain is stuffing it back down the rabbit hole from which it came. My pain is the edict that I should not be afraid. My pain is my attachment to a life free of terror. I write terror to pathologize it. to make clear to us that it is an illness-to make clear that it is a truth needing acceptance.
I use the dharma (Buddha's teachings) as a weapon against myself. I twist it until it becomes another tool to be cured. But I know better. I know better. I know, among all the mental weeds and overgrowth, well...what do I know? This is tricky. The Four Noble Truths are that 1)there is suffering, 2)there is a cause of suffering, 3)there is an end to suffering and 4)by following the Eighthfold Noble path. It's not tricky. I know it works. I know when I allow myself the moment, when I even allow myself my fear, my attachments to a cure, my sense of impatience and urgency, when I refrain from speaking just to get attention, I feel better. I know that walking out of Dr. M's office last Tuesday I felt better than I did on Friday, despite the fact that we talked about the same thing on both days. The difference was on Tuesday I let the tears flow and we came to the conclusion that I had done something that had changed a relationship and that there are no rules in relationships--in short the truth, albeit a very scary one, but he did nothing to take away my fear. On Friday, I just talked and talked, looking for an answer from him to my dilema at the house. I left feeling tired and overwrought.
Open my arms to my suffering. Practice right speech. Cultivate nonattachment. All of these are good aspirations. Unfortunately I pervert them all into a twisted call for a cure. I might as well be demanding Ativan for anxiety. But to bring this to an end, I know, somewhere, somehow,and at sometimes I experience a little joy. And this is what I would like to tell my long time friend, I am capable of a little joy here and there. And what I would like to tell me is to...I don't know. I guess just enjoy it.
I don't know what to tell myself. That is the authority I must find in myself. What do I want to tell myself--no doctors,teachers, or goals persons. What do I need to tell myself.
back to blogging
3.5.2010
I'm back to blogging, at least for the meantime. I am so frightened of being found out. Of being recognized here on line where I've put so many details of my life and trailing from them so many details of my true thoughts and feelings--more than I would say to anyone in my life, excepting my doctors. But I tried, a while back, to write an entry on Word and just print it out with the intention to add it to my folder of printed out blogs. I tried to write as if I were writing to someone, to some crowd, or audience, but it just didn't work. It turned into a long piece that felt like, as my mother would often describe much of my treatment, I was just "examining my belling button." I pulled a lot of lint out but it just felt like incest with my brain--self-indulgent and purposeless. A lot of my writing feels like that. At least here I am not stuck only in my head. There is a flow out to you, my reader, that creates a sense of purpose to the information, thoughts, feelings, experiences, that I keep locked up inside of me. I can only hope that someone out there finds it useful.
So you might be wondering what I have decided about leaving my halfway house. I have decided to stay. In fact I have decided to really stay. Not just for an extra couple of months, but for an entire year, at least. Of course this is an estimate. I still have in my pocket a plan to combine my two storage units into one just in case I decide to leave while my parents are in Florida. With only one unit my father will have to pay less to store my stuff, number one, and number two, I can leave whenever I want, having just the stuff I need so all I will need from my parents is a signed lease, which can be done by fax, I'm pretty sure. Knowing I can leave whenever I need to, knowing where I want to live, knowing I will be living alone, knowing what type of apartment I want gives me a security. But the best security, right now, is to stay.
But it really isn't just security that is driving my decision. I have goals--to make my life easier, to have more freedom, to have a sense of purpose, to approach my loneliness and isolation, learning, hopefully to share my life with others (outside of blogging!) I thought, with the slightest waft of confidence entering my body, with the tiny spots of comapassion eking into the corners of my innards, with the beliefs in local farming and feeding the poor seeming like a potential purpose, that I could only pursue these things if I didn't have to leave the house for four hours a day and had the space and the solitude to produce art.
What a familiar trap I was setting up for myself! I recognized the pattern. Each time I just manage to stand on my wobbling feet with shaking knees and quivering thighs I get excited and suspicious. Move on! Move up! Go to college! Get a job! Get an apartment! Become and artist! Become a writer! Be this! Be that! Do something! Be on your own!
Be own your own. That is what it comes down to--the drive and request for me to be on my own. I think it is no longer a request but it is hard to shake the pressure of it from my shoulder; the pain is like phantom leg syndrome suffered by amputees who still feel great pain in their missing limbs. But honestly, I think it is me who is trying to fill this archaic demand. And it is exactly the opposite I am learning at my halfway house and with my friends and family--it is not about being on one's own.
My first lesson in this was two summers ago. New to my halfway house one evening I was awash in pain and paranoia and was stretched out on the living room couch pretending to read until the book found it's way to my chest and I was staring into space. People were around, but I was lost in spaghetti thoughts and succumbing to a black vortex in my chest and all around my head was a cloud of darkness. I could have lay there all evening. I could have slipped upstairs and curled up in bed, letting myself fall from the precipice of sanity that I had a fingernail's hold on. These were my two choices. Aha! Not so. On impulse I sat up, looked around, and called out to the people around me, "Anyone want to go and get ice cream?" And lo' and behold they did. I think there ended up being about five of use heading off together down the neighborhood street chatting and joking together to the best ice cream shop I've ever known. We were a group, and I was part of it, and I felt better. No PRN, no paging Dr. M, no talking to staff. I had created something with people that help me feel better. I was effective, powerful, and connected. They don't teach you this in the hospital.
So my decision to stay here is loosely based on experiences like that. Making my life easier means only doing two,maybe three, different things during the day. Being free is not about being allowed to go home for lunch or staying home late in the morning, but making room on my desk for art making and actually doing a bit when I come home in the afternoon. Being free is writing this blog. These lend itself to meaning and purposefulness. Volunteering at the farm or at a greenhouse at a local school lends itself to meaning and confidence. And learning to share myself and my life with people opens me up, showing the isolation the door. This is truly being on my own. They are not my mother's values anymore. My values have changed. Being on my own is not about living alone, paying all my bills, fixing all my leaking faucets, creating art alone, writing for no one. All of the things I have listed in this paragraph I am just starting, this week, to really do. To really do. I don't want to leave until I have been doing them. Actually doing them. For at least a year, maybe two. I don't want to run out half-cocked with great plans but not concrete experience to support them or prove them right for me.
The odd thing is, suddenly my halfway house feels like home. I am not thinking every day about when will I leave, where will I go. I have made a commitment to myself.
I'm back to blogging, at least for the meantime. I am so frightened of being found out. Of being recognized here on line where I've put so many details of my life and trailing from them so many details of my true thoughts and feelings--more than I would say to anyone in my life, excepting my doctors. But I tried, a while back, to write an entry on Word and just print it out with the intention to add it to my folder of printed out blogs. I tried to write as if I were writing to someone, to some crowd, or audience, but it just didn't work. It turned into a long piece that felt like, as my mother would often describe much of my treatment, I was just "examining my belling button." I pulled a lot of lint out but it just felt like incest with my brain--self-indulgent and purposeless. A lot of my writing feels like that. At least here I am not stuck only in my head. There is a flow out to you, my reader, that creates a sense of purpose to the information, thoughts, feelings, experiences, that I keep locked up inside of me. I can only hope that someone out there finds it useful.
So you might be wondering what I have decided about leaving my halfway house. I have decided to stay. In fact I have decided to really stay. Not just for an extra couple of months, but for an entire year, at least. Of course this is an estimate. I still have in my pocket a plan to combine my two storage units into one just in case I decide to leave while my parents are in Florida. With only one unit my father will have to pay less to store my stuff, number one, and number two, I can leave whenever I want, having just the stuff I need so all I will need from my parents is a signed lease, which can be done by fax, I'm pretty sure. Knowing I can leave whenever I need to, knowing where I want to live, knowing I will be living alone, knowing what type of apartment I want gives me a security. But the best security, right now, is to stay.
But it really isn't just security that is driving my decision. I have goals--to make my life easier, to have more freedom, to have a sense of purpose, to approach my loneliness and isolation, learning, hopefully to share my life with others (outside of blogging!) I thought, with the slightest waft of confidence entering my body, with the tiny spots of comapassion eking into the corners of my innards, with the beliefs in local farming and feeding the poor seeming like a potential purpose, that I could only pursue these things if I didn't have to leave the house for four hours a day and had the space and the solitude to produce art.
What a familiar trap I was setting up for myself! I recognized the pattern. Each time I just manage to stand on my wobbling feet with shaking knees and quivering thighs I get excited and suspicious. Move on! Move up! Go to college! Get a job! Get an apartment! Become and artist! Become a writer! Be this! Be that! Do something! Be on your own!
Be own your own. That is what it comes down to--the drive and request for me to be on my own. I think it is no longer a request but it is hard to shake the pressure of it from my shoulder; the pain is like phantom leg syndrome suffered by amputees who still feel great pain in their missing limbs. But honestly, I think it is me who is trying to fill this archaic demand. And it is exactly the opposite I am learning at my halfway house and with my friends and family--it is not about being on one's own.
My first lesson in this was two summers ago. New to my halfway house one evening I was awash in pain and paranoia and was stretched out on the living room couch pretending to read until the book found it's way to my chest and I was staring into space. People were around, but I was lost in spaghetti thoughts and succumbing to a black vortex in my chest and all around my head was a cloud of darkness. I could have lay there all evening. I could have slipped upstairs and curled up in bed, letting myself fall from the precipice of sanity that I had a fingernail's hold on. These were my two choices. Aha! Not so. On impulse I sat up, looked around, and called out to the people around me, "Anyone want to go and get ice cream?" And lo' and behold they did. I think there ended up being about five of use heading off together down the neighborhood street chatting and joking together to the best ice cream shop I've ever known. We were a group, and I was part of it, and I felt better. No PRN, no paging Dr. M, no talking to staff. I had created something with people that help me feel better. I was effective, powerful, and connected. They don't teach you this in the hospital.
So my decision to stay here is loosely based on experiences like that. Making my life easier means only doing two,maybe three, different things during the day. Being free is not about being allowed to go home for lunch or staying home late in the morning, but making room on my desk for art making and actually doing a bit when I come home in the afternoon. Being free is writing this blog. These lend itself to meaning and purposefulness. Volunteering at the farm or at a greenhouse at a local school lends itself to meaning and confidence. And learning to share myself and my life with people opens me up, showing the isolation the door. This is truly being on my own. They are not my mother's values anymore. My values have changed. Being on my own is not about living alone, paying all my bills, fixing all my leaking faucets, creating art alone, writing for no one. All of the things I have listed in this paragraph I am just starting, this week, to really do. To really do. I don't want to leave until I have been doing them. Actually doing them. For at least a year, maybe two. I don't want to run out half-cocked with great plans but not concrete experience to support them or prove them right for me.
The odd thing is, suddenly my halfway house feels like home. I am not thinking every day about when will I leave, where will I go. I have made a commitment to myself.
making decisions
2.27.10
I am about to turn out my light and go to bed in the hopes of waking up perky and early tomorrow. "Perky" is one of my mother's words and although not completely accurate as to what I want to convey it does hold the optimism I feel when I wake up without my brain feeling like a shredded tire on hot asphalt under the August sun and my sternum feeling itself being split down the middle and my innards eviscerated. This is how I've been feeling for over a week, deciding and deciding again that I can move out of my halfway house, then deciding I can't then deciding I can, and so forth. I have felt frustrated with my conversations with Dr. M as if he is not listening to me, that our conversations are an exchange of lofty ideas and oft repeated yet unfulfilled plans. Then I realized what I wanted was for him to tell me could move out and to promise it would be ok; a fantasy along the lines of him being able to fulfill my plans for me. As he said in his office over a week ago when I said, "you really mean I can move out?!", "Oh, now we are going to pretend I am the boss?" That has been the frustration with this decision/non decision, I think--I have wanted other people not only to make it for me, but to guarantee its success, whether it is to stay here or go. I've been wrestling it in a million ways, but it always comes back to it being my decision. As I've written before, I've just come to the realization that all that lies between me and ruin is the thin membrane of myself, like the diaphragm muscle causing the lungs to inflate and separating the thoracic and abdominal cavities. My life depends on me.
This knowledge, new to the marrow of my bones at age 41, reminds me of the sessions I spent in my early twenties with my relational therapist, a young but kind and intelligent woman whom I immediately looked up to as someone of authority. We sat in her office for hours as I tried to force her to say that we are all ultimately alone. She would not say it. She hedged and qualified but would not come right out and agree with me. I wish she had, because then we could have started working on things from there--from my utter loneliness and my inability to take care of myself and my sickness or even able to tell the two apart; in fact I've just stumbled across the feeling that there is actually more to me than disease since I've been writing this blog.
I don't think I was asking her to doom me to a life of existential loneliness. I think, in fact, I was asking her to help me find a way out of it by retrieving my power from the jaws of my illness. Instead we endlessly analyzed my mother's and my relationship, with my family as I had grown up. We knocked on the door of a possible PTSD disorder but never found one. We analyzed each overdose I took, each new scar on my arm from a razor I had pulled apart and assaulted myself with, each time I refused my meds or dumped them down the toilet, each self-inflicted cigarette burn. I guess I'm saying we could have helped me so much more if we had just focused on wrestling me, my very self, out from under my symptoms and behavior. But I am honest, so I'll say it; she tried her best. She tried, in the later years, to tell me I had an illness over and over again but it I could not let it sink in, as much as I wanted to. The thoughts go like this--"If I have an illness and accept it then I will feel better then I will get well and fulfill my dreams and fly away from everyone I need and I will be all alone in the world and unable to take care of myself." This is the distortion that keeps me dead in my tracks, empty, dreams unfulfilled, meaningless. I simply can't shake it. So I could not let her help me. As hard as we both tried. My drive to be better is deep and ingrained but my attempts in the face of such backwards delusions were, and often still are, made to look Herculean while all the time I keep checking to see if everyone is looking and that I am doing just what they want me to do and will guarantee me a good outcome. It's like those scars on my arms--they are faint because they were not deep cuts; they were only communications, calls out to Dr. R., Dr. H, Dr.Y, Dr. K (all my early treaters) and my parents ultimately, to hold on to me, to not let me go. I didn't really want to be fixed, if so I would be alone and helpless my mind tells me. I just wanted to be held on to. And I have been. My family has stuck with me and Dr. M has been treating me for at least twenty years, and M. for around thirteen and I'm here at this halfway house for about three. I am being held in kindness and understanding and respect and a funny thing is happening-I am learning to make decisions of my own. I am learning, right now, that I, and only I, can decide whether to live longer here in this supported living house or to go to my own apartment. And even more important it is I, and only I, I repeat, that will live the consequences of either decision, like stains on my clothes--in inescapable.
Rereading this I am recalling a pastel drawing I made of a blue heron my uncle had photographed and published in a book and given to me for Christmas. I was in my art group and I was working on this drawing. It was hard and yet what I remember was letting all the harsh, distorted, paranoid thoughts consciously drift through my brain instead of letting them lodge there. I really started to feel like I owned that drawing. Pure ownership. It felt great.
I've been saying lately that every day is a work of art, given my illness and being in remission from thyroid cancer. Ever day is a work of art. Every day is MY work of art. My blue heron.
I'm drifting a bit here into the department where the elves start wrapping things up in nice little bows. Such completions don't exist,so I will leave you with what i have written. And just to say where i stand tonight; I am in no way ready to leave my halfway house. I am only at the beginning of building a meaningful life for myself. I know part of doing so will require me to shift my values. Instead of killing myself off just to get rid of this illness and achieve some great notoriety or something, I must let who I am change in the face of something as immutable as this illness. I must rethink what is important to me, how I value myself. A degree,a career, a husband may not be the path to freedom for me. Nor might be an apartment with cool furniture an space for an office and an easel to live in alone. I've always been terrified to change but maybe jut maybe it is the way to live an easier life.
I'll leave it at that. My butt is getting sore!
I am about to turn out my light and go to bed in the hopes of waking up perky and early tomorrow. "Perky" is one of my mother's words and although not completely accurate as to what I want to convey it does hold the optimism I feel when I wake up without my brain feeling like a shredded tire on hot asphalt under the August sun and my sternum feeling itself being split down the middle and my innards eviscerated. This is how I've been feeling for over a week, deciding and deciding again that I can move out of my halfway house, then deciding I can't then deciding I can, and so forth. I have felt frustrated with my conversations with Dr. M as if he is not listening to me, that our conversations are an exchange of lofty ideas and oft repeated yet unfulfilled plans. Then I realized what I wanted was for him to tell me could move out and to promise it would be ok; a fantasy along the lines of him being able to fulfill my plans for me. As he said in his office over a week ago when I said, "you really mean I can move out?!", "Oh, now we are going to pretend I am the boss?" That has been the frustration with this decision/non decision, I think--I have wanted other people not only to make it for me, but to guarantee its success, whether it is to stay here or go. I've been wrestling it in a million ways, but it always comes back to it being my decision. As I've written before, I've just come to the realization that all that lies between me and ruin is the thin membrane of myself, like the diaphragm muscle causing the lungs to inflate and separating the thoracic and abdominal cavities. My life depends on me.
This knowledge, new to the marrow of my bones at age 41, reminds me of the sessions I spent in my early twenties with my relational therapist, a young but kind and intelligent woman whom I immediately looked up to as someone of authority. We sat in her office for hours as I tried to force her to say that we are all ultimately alone. She would not say it. She hedged and qualified but would not come right out and agree with me. I wish she had, because then we could have started working on things from there--from my utter loneliness and my inability to take care of myself and my sickness or even able to tell the two apart; in fact I've just stumbled across the feeling that there is actually more to me than disease since I've been writing this blog.
I don't think I was asking her to doom me to a life of existential loneliness. I think, in fact, I was asking her to help me find a way out of it by retrieving my power from the jaws of my illness. Instead we endlessly analyzed my mother's and my relationship, with my family as I had grown up. We knocked on the door of a possible PTSD disorder but never found one. We analyzed each overdose I took, each new scar on my arm from a razor I had pulled apart and assaulted myself with, each time I refused my meds or dumped them down the toilet, each self-inflicted cigarette burn. I guess I'm saying we could have helped me so much more if we had just focused on wrestling me, my very self, out from under my symptoms and behavior. But I am honest, so I'll say it; she tried her best. She tried, in the later years, to tell me I had an illness over and over again but it I could not let it sink in, as much as I wanted to. The thoughts go like this--"If I have an illness and accept it then I will feel better then I will get well and fulfill my dreams and fly away from everyone I need and I will be all alone in the world and unable to take care of myself." This is the distortion that keeps me dead in my tracks, empty, dreams unfulfilled, meaningless. I simply can't shake it. So I could not let her help me. As hard as we both tried. My drive to be better is deep and ingrained but my attempts in the face of such backwards delusions were, and often still are, made to look Herculean while all the time I keep checking to see if everyone is looking and that I am doing just what they want me to do and will guarantee me a good outcome. It's like those scars on my arms--they are faint because they were not deep cuts; they were only communications, calls out to Dr. R., Dr. H, Dr.Y, Dr. K (all my early treaters) and my parents ultimately, to hold on to me, to not let me go. I didn't really want to be fixed, if so I would be alone and helpless my mind tells me. I just wanted to be held on to. And I have been. My family has stuck with me and Dr. M has been treating me for at least twenty years, and M. for around thirteen and I'm here at this halfway house for about three. I am being held in kindness and understanding and respect and a funny thing is happening-I am learning to make decisions of my own. I am learning, right now, that I, and only I, can decide whether to live longer here in this supported living house or to go to my own apartment. And even more important it is I, and only I, I repeat, that will live the consequences of either decision, like stains on my clothes--in inescapable.
Rereading this I am recalling a pastel drawing I made of a blue heron my uncle had photographed and published in a book and given to me for Christmas. I was in my art group and I was working on this drawing. It was hard and yet what I remember was letting all the harsh, distorted, paranoid thoughts consciously drift through my brain instead of letting them lodge there. I really started to feel like I owned that drawing. Pure ownership. It felt great.
I've been saying lately that every day is a work of art, given my illness and being in remission from thyroid cancer. Ever day is a work of art. Every day is MY work of art. My blue heron.
I'm drifting a bit here into the department where the elves start wrapping things up in nice little bows. Such completions don't exist,so I will leave you with what i have written. And just to say where i stand tonight; I am in no way ready to leave my halfway house. I am only at the beginning of building a meaningful life for myself. I know part of doing so will require me to shift my values. Instead of killing myself off just to get rid of this illness and achieve some great notoriety or something, I must let who I am change in the face of something as immutable as this illness. I must rethink what is important to me, how I value myself. A degree,a career, a husband may not be the path to freedom for me. Nor might be an apartment with cool furniture an space for an office and an easel to live in alone. I've always been terrified to change but maybe jut maybe it is the way to live an easier life.
I'll leave it at that. My butt is getting sore!
wow...
2.24.10
...a lot has happened since I last wrote. Well, a whole lot of nothing, really. Then a big decision, made yesterday, which I am already doubting--can I, can I not, can I, can I not, should I, should I not live alone? I know I shouldn't, but I don't know what else to do. I can't live with just one roommate--the dynamics there with all my insistent guilt and anger and fear mucking up my relationships would poison the household almost immediately. I'd always be thinking, "What did that look mean? Is she mad? Do I dare tell her to wash her dishes?" I'd be unable to make eye contact and most days the slightest annoyance would become a huge--unwarranted--rage.
At least I think this is what would happen. It happens where I live now but I can handle it. Could I handle it on my own? Without staff? Without fourteen other people do diffuse my anger, fear, guilt, suicidal feelings, distorted thoughts, etc.
Then I look back at those words, "I know I shouldn't [live alone.]" Why not? I've done it before and most of that time it was successful. It was only that last year or so when I had no structure and lived in those last two dreary apartments and had only one friend that I became so depressed and my life in such danger. Towards the end I also had a three month case of vertigo that kept me in bed. Then I was on Clozaril which had miserable side-effects.
The questions are, am I different now and if so can I maintain that change. Yes,I am much different. I am much more grown up and enjoy moments of confidence. What I mean there is that I know, deep in my heart, that the only thing that stands between me and the ravages of my illness is myself. Not my mother, not Dr. M, not M. Ultimately it is just me. And I am up to the cause. Granted, I get a lot of help form these people--they help sustain me, but they do not live for me.
I'm just blabbing here, writing a sort of groundless poetry of the mind, citing all the worn down points. What I really want to know is how am I going to survive waking up alone, without S. to smile at in the bed across the room from me? How am I going to make the morning transition from poor mood to ready to take on my day without the grunted good mornings from my housemates as we glide about the kitchen fixing breakfast and getting ready for the day. How will I wake up fully without shower negotiations and asking and being asked "What are you up to today?" How am I going to feel real without getting annoyed at the dishes being left in the sink by others? How am I going to feel effective and purposeful without being able to report inappropriate behavior on someone's part, speaking for one of our young residents who can't seem to speak for herself? How am I going to feel special without receiving from and giving notice to others at house meeting for the noteworthy things we have done throughout the week?
And how will I feel living in the somewhat depressed area I have chosen to live in and not have this gorgeous new library and be able to walk about these vibrant city streets for gourmet ice cream or delectable Indian food or at the crack of dawn along the famous river? How will I feel having my clubhouse as my sole community instead of living with a houseful of intelligent (very), functional, talented, active, people?
And how will I prevent myself from quitting? The first serious downturn in mood may bring on a rash of quitting--volunteering at the farm which I will start shortly, going to my art group, perhaps volunteering at a food pantry close to my "to be" neighborhood? I quit things when I live alone, because I wake to my pain alone and I am not forced to leave the house at 10am until 2pm. Maybe S.T at my clubhouse can help.
How about the nights. Will I become glued to Law and Order reruns again? How will I cook each night instead of the one meal a week I am responsible for now, with the rest of the week, being served up to me? How will I food shop when I am steeped in pain, recovering from pain? How will I spend my nights? I can't just sit in the living room and listen to the conversation and watch the traffic go by because there will be none. I will even miss our cat. I cannot have a cat--I tried before (both cats and a dog) and could not take care of them. I keep thinking I will have lots of plants, but it's not he same. Will I really be doing more art and writing or will it be just as hard as it is at my halfway house to get over that hump of sitting there staring, to creating? Will I get so lonely that I sit, holding my phone, going through my contacts and end up calling my mother more times a week than is good for us?
How will I afford it all? Rent is taken care of, but how about food, utilities, possibly some aftercare treatment (someone stopping by a couple nights a week with dinner,)cleaning service maybe once a month, cable, wi-fi? Do I have to get a job? I don't want to take any more money from my parents than I already do. I hate my living room furniture, but I have just realized, it is too expensive to replace right now. I must make do with the cool, dark colors when what I is warm beiges, golds, and whites. My furniture depresses me--brings back bad times, I wish I could trade almost all of it in, but I don't have the money to replace it and I don't want to dive into my investments.
Will the boundaries between me and my friends, once we are closer in miles, become blurred? Will my friends expect more emotional support from me, more of my time, more of my understanding, listening, cooing? Or is it me, that has fantasies of casual drop-ins and teas, seeing them more, getting more help from them (i.e. picking up stuff from my apartment when I am in the hospital?) Will I really be walking S.'s dog? Or will it remain the same. How will I survive the seemingly catastrophic guilt of saying no to my friends despite our proximity? I think the trick is not to hang on to them so they won't hang on to me.
What will I do when something breaks? Or a ceiling bulb needs changing or the toilet backs up? At my house now there is always an element of passing things off to some other mystery resident. I may have the energy to wash the kitchen rags one day, but I may pass by the dishwasher that needs to be empty another day. It evens out, but how will I be when I have to do it all? And I want cleanliness, order, threes squares a day. I know I will not be happy with dishes in the sink, ordering out pizza, calzones, chinese food all week. How will I do all this, plus...
...manage a super complicated medication regime, pay my bills, reminding my mum to pay rent, insurance, etc, deal with all the mail, manage my finances,etc. HOW WILL I DO IT ALL? I am not happy with disorder.
These are the struggles that lie ahead for me. Like Dr. M said, we just have to keep our fingers crossed. I wish I had a better answer. I wish I could talk about confidence and all that shit and really mean it, but these things, what I have just written about are what really matters. Ouch. I'm scared.
...a lot has happened since I last wrote. Well, a whole lot of nothing, really. Then a big decision, made yesterday, which I am already doubting--can I, can I not, can I, can I not, should I, should I not live alone? I know I shouldn't, but I don't know what else to do. I can't live with just one roommate--the dynamics there with all my insistent guilt and anger and fear mucking up my relationships would poison the household almost immediately. I'd always be thinking, "What did that look mean? Is she mad? Do I dare tell her to wash her dishes?" I'd be unable to make eye contact and most days the slightest annoyance would become a huge--unwarranted--rage.
At least I think this is what would happen. It happens where I live now but I can handle it. Could I handle it on my own? Without staff? Without fourteen other people do diffuse my anger, fear, guilt, suicidal feelings, distorted thoughts, etc.
Then I look back at those words, "I know I shouldn't [live alone.]" Why not? I've done it before and most of that time it was successful. It was only that last year or so when I had no structure and lived in those last two dreary apartments and had only one friend that I became so depressed and my life in such danger. Towards the end I also had a three month case of vertigo that kept me in bed. Then I was on Clozaril which had miserable side-effects.
The questions are, am I different now and if so can I maintain that change. Yes,I am much different. I am much more grown up and enjoy moments of confidence. What I mean there is that I know, deep in my heart, that the only thing that stands between me and the ravages of my illness is myself. Not my mother, not Dr. M, not M. Ultimately it is just me. And I am up to the cause. Granted, I get a lot of help form these people--they help sustain me, but they do not live for me.
I'm just blabbing here, writing a sort of groundless poetry of the mind, citing all the worn down points. What I really want to know is how am I going to survive waking up alone, without S. to smile at in the bed across the room from me? How am I going to make the morning transition from poor mood to ready to take on my day without the grunted good mornings from my housemates as we glide about the kitchen fixing breakfast and getting ready for the day. How will I wake up fully without shower negotiations and asking and being asked "What are you up to today?" How am I going to feel real without getting annoyed at the dishes being left in the sink by others? How am I going to feel effective and purposeful without being able to report inappropriate behavior on someone's part, speaking for one of our young residents who can't seem to speak for herself? How am I going to feel special without receiving from and giving notice to others at house meeting for the noteworthy things we have done throughout the week?
And how will I feel living in the somewhat depressed area I have chosen to live in and not have this gorgeous new library and be able to walk about these vibrant city streets for gourmet ice cream or delectable Indian food or at the crack of dawn along the famous river? How will I feel having my clubhouse as my sole community instead of living with a houseful of intelligent (very), functional, talented, active, people?
And how will I prevent myself from quitting? The first serious downturn in mood may bring on a rash of quitting--volunteering at the farm which I will start shortly, going to my art group, perhaps volunteering at a food pantry close to my "to be" neighborhood? I quit things when I live alone, because I wake to my pain alone and I am not forced to leave the house at 10am until 2pm. Maybe S.T at my clubhouse can help.
How about the nights. Will I become glued to Law and Order reruns again? How will I cook each night instead of the one meal a week I am responsible for now, with the rest of the week, being served up to me? How will I food shop when I am steeped in pain, recovering from pain? How will I spend my nights? I can't just sit in the living room and listen to the conversation and watch the traffic go by because there will be none. I will even miss our cat. I cannot have a cat--I tried before (both cats and a dog) and could not take care of them. I keep thinking I will have lots of plants, but it's not he same. Will I really be doing more art and writing or will it be just as hard as it is at my halfway house to get over that hump of sitting there staring, to creating? Will I get so lonely that I sit, holding my phone, going through my contacts and end up calling my mother more times a week than is good for us?
How will I afford it all? Rent is taken care of, but how about food, utilities, possibly some aftercare treatment (someone stopping by a couple nights a week with dinner,)cleaning service maybe once a month, cable, wi-fi? Do I have to get a job? I don't want to take any more money from my parents than I already do. I hate my living room furniture, but I have just realized, it is too expensive to replace right now. I must make do with the cool, dark colors when what I is warm beiges, golds, and whites. My furniture depresses me--brings back bad times, I wish I could trade almost all of it in, but I don't have the money to replace it and I don't want to dive into my investments.
Will the boundaries between me and my friends, once we are closer in miles, become blurred? Will my friends expect more emotional support from me, more of my time, more of my understanding, listening, cooing? Or is it me, that has fantasies of casual drop-ins and teas, seeing them more, getting more help from them (i.e. picking up stuff from my apartment when I am in the hospital?) Will I really be walking S.'s dog? Or will it remain the same. How will I survive the seemingly catastrophic guilt of saying no to my friends despite our proximity? I think the trick is not to hang on to them so they won't hang on to me.
What will I do when something breaks? Or a ceiling bulb needs changing or the toilet backs up? At my house now there is always an element of passing things off to some other mystery resident. I may have the energy to wash the kitchen rags one day, but I may pass by the dishwasher that needs to be empty another day. It evens out, but how will I be when I have to do it all? And I want cleanliness, order, threes squares a day. I know I will not be happy with dishes in the sink, ordering out pizza, calzones, chinese food all week. How will I do all this, plus...
...manage a super complicated medication regime, pay my bills, reminding my mum to pay rent, insurance, etc, deal with all the mail, manage my finances,etc. HOW WILL I DO IT ALL? I am not happy with disorder.
These are the struggles that lie ahead for me. Like Dr. M said, we just have to keep our fingers crossed. I wish I had a better answer. I wish I could talk about confidence and all that shit and really mean it, but these things, what I have just written about are what really matters. Ouch. I'm scared.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)