This uncertainty with C is doing my head in. I spent this afternoon looking online and through Yellow Pages for private clinical psychologists in my area and found the sum total of two such half-decent practitioners, one of whom I’ve already seen (!). I then tried to work out if I could even afford weekly private therapy whilst unemployed – it can be done, in the most literal of senses, but it’ll take about half my monthly earnings to finance it.

Maybe I am overreacting and maybe C has no intention of ending this herapy in January, unless there is some miracle (and if there is some miracle then it is obviously fine to finish in January – but of course there will not be). But the mixed messages from him are sublimely frustrating – “don’t worry, we will never just suddenly end things” and “we will get there” versus “you know this is a finite process on the NHS,” yadda yadda yadda.

Partly the annoyance is with him and partly it is with this stupid bloody system. Sometimes I think we’d be better off with private healthcare after all.

On the one hand, C is the person that makes the immediate decisions on how long he sees his clients (as far as I can tell, anyway), so he could just say to me, “let’s keep on meeting for the next six months,” or whatever. He refuses to lay down any long term plans, ostensibly as he feels it is important to work to short-term-ish goals. I disagree, but at least he has a rationale, and in any event I am no psychologist. However, if therapy is coming to an end in about five weeks then what is the rationale for that when I am clearly still a nutjob?

On the other hand, C is constrained by all the financial bullshit of the NHS, not to mention the ludicrousness of the service’s inherent bureaucracy. No doubt he has targets and timeframes, must palm off the stupid mental within a few months cos the trust can’t (won’t) pay for the stupid mental any further than that and if he hasn’t cured the stupid mental in that time then he is an evident failure, don’t you know. Targets, man, targets!

The problem with this is that it will end up costing the health service much more in the long-run, and perhaps in more ways than one.

Let me break it down.

1. I am 26. I have been utilising mental health services on the NHS since I was 13. Had I seen a proper therapist for a proper length of time then, how much money could they potentially have saved themselves? Instead, as this post attests, six different public sector salaries were funded, some of the resources of which were devoted to me. Epic fail. (Of course my own money was spent on three other therapists because of the NHS inadequacies. Epic fail again). The point is, one way or another, I will end up back at the GP’s or psychiatrist’s office begging for help yet again, and we’ll be back to square one. Why not just agree a sensible timeframe with someone I know and trust – and clear things up to whatever extent that is achievable – now?!
2. I am so mentally and – yes – emotionally fragile as things stand that if therapy ends in the near future I am convinced I will end up in the bin. One hour of C’s time per week versus 24 hour care by several RMNs, psychiatrists and auxiliaries. Which one sounds cheaper to you?
3. A third possibility, and this may be seen as a threat which it is not intended to be, is that I finally can’t cope and do myself in. When my mother and A instigate litigation against the NHS, as they inevitably would were this possibility realised, even if the NHS won hands down, they would be forking out a fortune to fund their fuckhead solicitors. I used to work for litigation solicitors specialising in the public sector. I know what they charge; even for minor cases that are easily contested and won, it is a bloody fortune. That’s not even including barristers’ fees if it came to court, or out-of-court settlements.

Other points to consider are the following:

1. Dr C is constantly reminding me that psychotherapy is the “mainstay” of my treatment (rather than medicine), yet it seems to be her intention to see me long-term, albeit hopefully only for monitoring purposes once a suitable cocktail of drugs is found. How can therapy be the mainstay of my treatment if I am only seeing her, who only deals with the medicinal and organic sides of things?
2. I know I’ve ranted about this before, but it so utterly and completely fills me with disgust and contempt that I have worked in both full- and part-time capacities since I was 14, and given 11% of my salary to the health service since I was 16. I had two major breakdowns, including this one, during that time – but it still amounts to, I think, eight years of work. When you think about it, is it really that different from US health insurance? Maybe the percentage figure is lower, but then my employers had to pay a percentage of my salary for my insurance also. So why would I get medium- long-term therapy in America, but I can’t here?
3. I am familiar with people in other NHS trusts that have been guaranteed therapy of at least a year and a half on the health service. Now, one person I can think of has a lot more issues than I do, and so that’s fair enough – however, that individual is one of five people I can think of off the top of my head. I would hasten an educated guess that I have much more psychological baggage than each of those other four, but if not, certainly two or three of them anyway. Why, then, is it OK to fuck me about? (Incidentally, I noticed none of them had any trouble seeing psychiatrists either, so maybe my trust is just shit. Now it sounds like I’m playing a teenage game of “but they’re allowed it, so why am I not” – but I hope I’m not. I’m just genuinely mystified as to why my case is different).
4. As stated yesterday, I have been mental for many years. I received my first diagnosis (clinical depression) 13 years ago or so, but as I have discussed here at other junctures, I was mental well before that. Normal children don’t try to amputate their limbs. Normal children don’t hallucinate. Normal children aren’t obsessively paranoid. Normal children don’t deliberately coop themselves up in the house, listen to Bach, read Grey’s Anatomy and seek out the company of the elderly for intellectual discourse. They go outside and play with their friends. So when I said ‘13 years’ yesterday, I probably really meant 23, to be honest. Point being, how can two decades of madness be alleviated in less than a year?It’s fucking preposterous.
5. If I had a physical ailment, the NHS would treat me until it was cured, or, were it chronic, then indefinitely. I am not asking for indefinite treatment for my psychological difficulties, make no mistake. But the striking inequalities between the health service for physical health and the health service for mental health disgust me.

In any case, I cannot see why C has to keep reminding me that the psychotherapeutic process is finite. Of course it is fucking finite, I am not stupid – and I certainly don’t want to be in need of it indefinitely as I want to be able to manage my conditions by myself. However, for the NHS’ sake as well as my own, surely that finity (if that’s a word) ought to be directly correlated with the progress of the patient? Surely it is the height of irresponsibility to discharge someone that is clearly still fucked up and only going to, at best, waste more resources?

Fuck it all to hell. I feel like emigrating.

Je ne suis pas né de marbre. Et je n’ai pas été changé en statue de sel. Certains mouvements sont juste plus difficiles que d’autres, comme orienter le corps afin qu’il garde une trajectoire sans virages forcés, ni fausses routes. Comme aiguiller l’esprit vers ce musée des souvenirs, tout en esquivant dans chaque pièce les “pourquoi ?” trop envahissants. Je suis né les yeux grands ouverts. Avec une mémoire déjà à vif.

Pour se souvenir, donc. Et pour la beauté du geste…  Car cette marionnette refuse d’obéir à ses fils. L’automate reste blessé, mais encore sans haine. Alors il agite des offrandes, souvent pathétiques, sur l’autel du pardon et de la transcendance. Un brin d’élégance de soie autour de cette chair d’amertume, l’hommage d’un romantique malgré-lui à ce vécu, si intensément partagé. Tandis qu’une main encourage l’auto-flagellation, l’autre a vite fait de commettre son imprudence, cacheté l’enveloppe, posté le message. Maintes fois on l’y a déjà repris, à venir tendre un présent, ou esquisser une caresse, même s’attarder sur une chevelure interdite. Quand elle ne trépigne pas à chercher les mots justes, pour le petit billet qui accompagnera ces quelques tiges de splendeur éphémère…

Cette main-là s’est brûlée au delà du raisonnable. Mais elle ne veut ni cicatriser, ni manier le fer, ni former de signe d’adieu. Elle doit rester libre d’encourir une arabesque supplémentaire, de se tendre vers une fontaine changée en barrière d’orties ; plonger dans la boue, jusqu’à retrouver ce joyau de rédemption. Pour la beauté de l’acte, et par respect de ses propres valeurs d’âme, en ces temps où l’efficience du geste prime avant tout, où chaque mouvement doit être couronné de réussite. Toujours plus de mains qui s’enfouissent dans leurs poches de renoncement, viennent pendre quand il faut porter, prendre au lieu de poser. Couvrir les arrières plutôt que riposter.

Oser savoir perdre, pour mieux demeurer fidèle à soi-même. Oser même parfois être vain et inconséquent, le temps d’une simple bataille, puisqu’elle n’est pas la guerre entière. Oser ne pas chercher la justification, lorsque tout devient si violemment contradictoire, sali par les faits. Oser la grâce, le panache, le pied de nez du désespoir.

Tous ces gestes ne m’ont pas rendu le sens, ils n’ont pas suffit à guérir l’injustice. Mais souvent, ils m’auront protégé de l’absurde dévorant, en évacuant brièvement la laideur des circonstances, en lavant presque l’affront de cette fatalité sur un miraculeux chapitre de vie.

Pour la beauté du geste… de trop. Comme au fond chacun était en trop depuis le début, du premier regard d’amitié, au dernier message orphelin d’une réponse. Puisque seul les statues ne commettent jamais de faux-mouvement…  Sombre muse, je ne me laisserai pas encore figer cette fois.

My son and I were discussing what he wants for Christmas tonight. He’s been asking for this Orange Box PC game since forever. He says he can’t wait to get it. I told him to enjoy the wait because once he got it, the thrill of the wait would be over. He assured me that that wouldn’t be the case where he was concerned. He would just be happy to finally be able to play it. I’m sure that’s true for him.

It got me thinking about my wait and how I had said toward the end there, that I wasn’t sure it would prove worthwhile. Since, generally speaking, it’s the build up to getting what I want that’s so exciting for me. Not necessarily the accomplishment. But I’m not one to be kept waiting for too long. I start to lose steam. I tried to make that clear to him, knowing myself.

The difficulty in that case, for me anyway, was that so much of my energy went into anticipating, speculating, planning and visualizing, that after a while I began to wonder if the real thing would ever live up to all that we had talked about. All that I had imagined. My expectations were high, and toward the end of last year, I began to realize, the likelihood of this thing reaching some sort of goal, in a timeframe that was reasonable, was too much to expect. So the visualizing ceased, along with the anticipation. The planning discourse seemed foolish after a while and I started backing out of those conversations altogether. I even asked him to stop talking about a future together. The once clear picture of being with him–living together like a normal happy couple, became obscured. It took so much effort to bring it into focus, until I finally stopped trying. I lost interest in attaining the goal even though my love for him held on.

It’s similar to working toward a career goal or working on a performance piece. When I was doing a lot of theater, I would get so antsy and impatient with the rehearsal process. I just wanted to be in front of the audience; onstage, where the air was pulsing with a dynamically charged energy. That feeling of vitality that only a live performance can bring. I put everything I had into every performance. Each night, had its own energy. Its own feel. The culmination of hard work coupled with a wonderful camaraderie of fellow artisans. Esprit de corps. And you’re counting on them to have your back, just as much as they are counting on you.

So much can go wrong, yet so much can go right, too. You harness all that wonderful nervous energy, and wielding it, reach out and captivate 200, 300, 400 or more friends, family members and complete strangers. Wow! That is pure excitement. A peak experience. There is nothing quite like it. Nothing had ever come close to that for me with the exception of the birth of my children. And maybe this one other thing.

But then this feeling begins to set in that everything will be coming to an end soon, as you move closer toward closing night. And then, you take your bows, and the curtain comes down. The excitement begins to wane and you’re still a little shaky from it. You feel that accomplishment, yes, but that high you were riding on; building up to and during the performance, is dissipating. You’re coming down from a very powerful drug until finally, it’s over. And now disappointment begins to replace the excitement.

Maybe that’s what it was like for us, for me. Maybe the build up was too great and only a natural, unimpeded flow would have allowed it to work. Smooth sailing is the phrase that comes to mind. If only we had experienced some of that.

It’s difficult to say and even more difficult to think about at times; what might have made the difference. I know it’s pointless to think about these things now but that’s just the way my mind works. It’s still processing everything.

I don’t know what to say anymore.

I need every bit of patience left of me.

And I need every breath to help me survive.

I didn’t want to post anything but I know I’m going to burst if I don’t let it out anywhere.

Shaytan, I just wish I could strangle you. You’ve made my life hell. May Allah grant you the deepest pits of hell-fire where you scream and no-one comes to help you. I know Allah will do justice. I wish I could kick you as well. Not that that’d make a difference. You’re cursed by Allah, can your life get any worse? Nopes.

HasbeeyAllahu Na’ymal Waqeel.

Allah’s Sufficient for me, the most Excellent Provider.

:’(

Thursday was fucking traumatic, a state of affairs of which you are probably aware given my citation of the disturbing imagery of Metallica’s Until It Sleeps that evening. You’ll have seen on that post that my iPod was reading my mind again in playing it – and other songs on similarly dark themes – but what is most interesting about this is that this strange form of electronic ESP took place as I was driving home from an utterly pointless dissociative trip to a coastal town about 20 miles from home.

My first proper awareness of going to said town was when I realised I was in the centre of it. I do have a very vague recollection of noticing my normal turn off and thinking that the traffic was heavy, but at no time did I think, “why the fuck are you not in that heavy traffic?” I don’t remember deciding to drive on, and I don’t remember the journey. Another small-scale fugue-like episode. Sweet.

I had been quite good on the self-harm front of late, but the good spell has been broken. ‘Bitch’ and ‘grief’ are the latest, though I don’t remember doing the former (it must have bled like fuck though as I had seemingly used a towel to stem the bloodflow). Grief. Am I grieving for myself, or for what I should have been? If so, is that good? Presumably one is meant to say, “well, the self-harm bit isn’t good,” but you know me folks – not really one to listen to that sort of argument. A is raging with C; in A’s eyes, it is C’s fault that I have taken to cutting myself again. But it isn’t. It really isn’t. All C has done is facilitate triggering discussions, and been someone to whom I am hopelessly attached, which is hardly his fault. We can’t avoid matters of this importance simply because there is a risk it may act as a trigger; the entire psychotherapeutic process would then be pointless, and I’d be left as mental as I ever was.

I’m unsure as to what exactly this entry will amount to, as I remember surprisingly little of the session – perhaps unsurprisingly. But let’s start at the very beginning and see what happens.

C pointed out that he’d been looking through his diary and saw that our current contract was due to end shortly (he thought there were two sessions remaining after Thursday; I thought one, but as it turns out it will not matter). This was something of which I was horribly well aware. Having only begun to open up to C properly in the last few weeks, I was convinced that he’d see me as a manipulative bitch – it looked, to my cynical mind, like I was trying to wrangle more time out of him by leaving the avalanche of confessions until this point. Given that my primary diagnosis is borderline personality disorder, it reasonably follows (in my eyes) that he could believe me to be manipulative, as the psychiatric establishment still seems to think that about those who have BPD more than any other psychiatric problem.

Of course, he didn’t like either the idea that he would find me manipulative, nor in particular that he would think this because I have BPD – that fixates on labels, don’t you know. Actually, it doesn’t, because it’s what I think he should think anyway – the fact that BPD is the only psychiatric diagnosis to still be treated with open contempt by mental health professionals just reinforces that point – though to be fair, I have not experienced that disdain personally, thank God.

I honestly don’t think I was being manipulative – not consciously, anyhow – but it did look like it, and that had been my worry all week. Of course, C refused to concede that this was the case in his eyes. Did he point blank deny it? I think he may well have done, but I don’t remember clearly enough to say for certain. What he was willing to admit to was that I may, consciously or otherwise, fear the end of the relationship, and act accordingly to preserve it. Which is apparently not manipulative. Hmm.

The issue of the end of therapy raised its ugly head a couple of times during the meeting. What he said at this juncture was that we should “…continue seeing each other until Christmas, at which point [he'll] be off for a fortnight, and then we’ll review the situation in January.”

Review the situation in January. You can take a wild guess as to what I think about that. He is going to throw me out with the dirty water in cunting January. Just over a month away, after the most stressful time of the year for me (ah yes, I’m sure you’ll be treated to a delicious rant about fucking Christmas in the near future, dearest readers). A tells me that this is not what C meant; apparently, he literally meant that we shall review the situation, and if further therapy is required (as if it won’t be), then that is what the case shall be. Well, Ms Rationality of course says, “yeah, right” to that. He is going to abandon me.

I honesty don’t remember how I reacted in session to the comment about ‘reviewing things in January’. I think I simply agreed and didn’t voice the aforementioned rejection worries, but I wouldn’t swear to it. As I said, it did indeed come up again, but I don’t remember under what circumstances. I can and do appreciate that the relationship can’t be permanent – in the most rational of ways, I don’t want it to be. I want to live an independent life, free of a need for a surrogate daddy. But can C realistically expect to change 13+ years of misery and being fucked about by the NHS in seven-ish months, particularly when I have such a strong neurotic attachment to him? Trying to be objective about it, I cannot honestly fathom that as reasonable, except in especially productive scenarios (which are about as applicable to me as…um…er…something that is very un-applicable to me). This is a personality disorder. It is ingrained into every metaphorical fibre of my self, the conscious, the unconscious, whatever – and it is causing me to self-destruct. Can something of such enormity and longevity honestly be treated adequately in just over half a year?

In any case, eventually the discussion – predictably enough – returned to the eminently delightful subject matter of the preceeding week. Eugh. It was me that raised it, though not exactly through choice; we were talking about something else (no idea what now) which triggered some sort of memory – it’s a shame I’ve forgotten what that subject was, as it would be useful to know these triggers, especially in cases where there is no obvious correlation, as I think the case was in this instance.

I became rather agitated and told C that I wasn’t “going there”. I hid.

Despite my telling him to leave it, he continued to probe me – but gently and quite subtly, to be fair. I eventually admitted that I was thinking about the Pandora’s Box.

My memory is even more fragmented from here on in, though some things do stick out in my mind very clearly. I was very, very careful not to verbally articulate much at all; at one point I desperately begged, “look, don’t you see where I’m going with this?” But it appears that he believes that I need to say the words. I still have not used the word ‘rape’, and strictly speaking he could still be under the impression that it was something other than rape – but he’s not that stupid.

He must have asked what was so troubling about verbalising this material, because I remember then telling him that I am fairly tolerant of articulating the gruesome information on this blog.

“Which is odd,” I mused, “given that it is all the more real when it is written down, even more so than if I verbally discuss it. It’s there, on the blog, in black and white.” (See here, for example).

I went on to postulate the idea that perhaps it is easier to deal with in writing because I can rationalise everything; life events become something that is seen in the third person, by a narrator, an observer with at least a modicum of theoretical knowledge of that about which she writes. If I have to talk about it, I have to feel it. I am there, in the midst of it, with the rawness, the vileness, the trauma of it all.

He agreed. He didn’t say so, but a sense that he wants me to feel that repressed pain was very palpable. Maybe that is why he was such a cock when I put this, and other shit, in writing for him – in fact, I’m certain it is. What kind of profession capitalises on other people’s grief? If I asked him why he became a clinical psychologist, I’m sure he’d respond along the lines of that old cliché, “I want to help people.” What, by making them relive their darkest memories, by making them suffer through them all again? Does that not take a special kind of sadism?

I am, of course, being a little facetious; I don’t believe C to be a sadist in the least, and I do believe he is in his job for the right reasons. But the human mind, and the sciences that arise therefrom, are odd things indeed. It strikes me as strange that it is an apparent psychological necessity to directly face that which you most revile in your past, before you can heal from the wounds it inflicted.

But this is not a post about the curious concept of psychology as an academic discipline, nor is it a post about the mindsets of those practising this form of figurative alchemy; it is a post about a session I had with my therapist. So…was it at this point that I lost it? I’m not sure, but anyway, in my next clear memory, all I could see in my head was the INCIDENT, or more specifically, the moments during which I was pushed to the floor of the outhouse in which it took place and served up as tasty piece of young meat for the delectation of my uncle. I recall very strongly that (in C’s office, not in my mind) I had my head in my lap and was pelting my skull with both fists with as much strength as I could muster. I have never done anything of this ilk in C’s company before.

And so he too did something that he has never done before; he raised his voice to me. He didn’t shout, but he did raise his voice just enough to try and penetrate through the mentalism that had tenaciously gripped my mind.

“SI!” he called. Well, he didn’t of course – perhaps it will surprise some of you to learn that I have a name, a normal, very ordinary name, and he used that instead – but you know what I mean. One thing I’ll not forget about this session was that he actually used my name three times, and at one point I used his too – these things are unheard of in the whole time we’ve known each other. Does it mean something? Why do I attach such importance to something so apparently normal and trivial? Is it because using names is personal, and that I want to see him as a person, not a canvas? Who knows. I certainly don’t, but I do know that that memory sticks with me.

I think he must have somehow brought me back from this mental place, but I don’t remember the specifics. The next part of the conversation that I recall was when he asked me how I felt about myself and that I told him that I felt like a “dirty, fetid little slut.” I then rationalised things for a bit, proclaiming that I am in actuality not a slut. Unfortunately, I still felt (feel) like one.

Then I lost it again. “I’m a filthy whore,” I spat, hiding from him again with my hands.

I think he actually went as far as to tell me that I am not a whore, but that could be a phantom memory. I mean, how the fuck would he know? I could have sold sex in 28 European capitals for all he knows. One thing he definitely did do was try and help me regain my composure. I sat up and pretended to be fine, sticking out my hand to measure how much it was shaking. I have used an incident when I was about 15 as a yardstick to measure anxiety; the day after I found out about an incredibly twisted lie from my first real boyfriend (a long story that I will have to detail some day), I went into school and, in English, happened to notice how much my hand was shaking. That denotes severe anxiety and/or anger. If the shaking is less than that, things could be worse.

I told C about this. However, a brief reference to the lying cunt of an ex must have touched on the self-disgust I was already feeling over my own lying to C about the INCIDENT (when we first met I told him it was ‘mere’ touching, but that was only part of it, obviously. More on this shortly). I told him this – still without using that word – and went into a major self-invective of utter disgust and abhorrence. It was filled with ranting about how much of a shameful, lying, grotesque, hateful slag I am, lying to the one person that might be able to bring me back a little hope in this sorry mental battle, and about how guilty and sorry I am, blah blah de blah.

When I took a second to draw breath, he jumped in to try and (a) reassure me that I had nothing to feel guilty about and (b) establish exactly what it was that I felt I’d lied about.

I answered (b) first, at least to the best of my recollection. He’d specifically asked in our initial assessment sessions what form the sexual abuse took. As is my wont, I had avoided articulating myself properly, and instead managed to answer the question merely by his probing. I think, though I am not certain, that he asked if I was raped, and that I said ‘no’. I am sure that when he asked if it was inappropriate touching that I said ‘yes’, and that I led him to believe that that was all. In my defence – and I told him this in the session to which this post refers – I have dissociated a lot of the INCIDENT. I remember ghastly, loathsome pieces of it in fleeting glimpses, like looking at still pictures in an album or, sometimes, short video clips. I remember the sensations of pain and terror in these moments too. I am grateful that the memories are so brief, but also resentful of it too, as it feels like it removes my power to understand the INCIDENT and my reactions to it. Furthermore, obviously part of me does remember it, and that part is mentally fucked – perhaps it would be easier to address were it all consciously there at the front of my mind.

Anyhow, I then proceeded to respond C’s (a) point. “I lied to you,” I said simply. “Aren’t you angry with me?”

“No, of course I’m not angry with you.”

“Why not? You should be.”

He sort of laughed (he mustn’t have realised I was serious), but seeing the look on my face, he desisted from doing so abruptly.

“SI,” he said again, firmly, looking straight at me. “Do you seriously think that I should be angry with you?” His tone was a more compassionate version of ‘incredulous’.

“Yes,” I began, “fucking dirty, lying, grotesque little bitch, fucking…”

“One,” he interrupted, rather dramatically, leaning forward and counting on his fingers as he did. “We had only just met and you can’t honestly have expected yourself to deeply discuss such sensitive matters with someone you didn’t know. Two, you didn’t lie, you omitted some information…”

“But then that’s a lie of omission…” I began.

“Three!” he went on, raising his eyebrow in a surprisingly authoritative fashion, signaling that I was to let him finish, “three, this is hard for you to talk about, so it is not surprising you withheld it. What is there to be angry with?! I am not angry with you, and neither should I be.”

Well, that was me told, then. I was quite taken aback by the forcefulness of his tone. Actually, ‘forcefulness’ is a horrid word to use as it has negative connotations – let’s say ‘emphatic’ instead. He was incredibly emphatic. I gaped at him in a sort of stupefied disorientation for a minute or two.

He sat back in his chair, recovered his blank canvas and either asked me how I felt, or signalled for me to speak.

“Um…” I muddled. “That’s reassuring. I do feel reassured. But it also confuses me; you have a completely different attitude to it from me.”

He seemed to understand that in fairness, which not an awful lot of people would. He was able to see the black-and-white chain of logic that I was following in believing that he ought to be angry, but luckily for C things in his world do not seem to be as black and white as they are in mine.

I don’t remember how things ended. I know that I was battered and bruised psychologically (and physically to boot what with punching my head). At no point had I been tearful, but one does not need to weep to mentally suffer. I went and sat in the car and phoned A for catharsis and reorientation purposes. Although the trauma of reliving the INCIDENT had been the most awful aspect of the session, the fact that I fixatedly whined to A that C ‘wants to abandon me’ before I even touched on the rest of things is very telling.

In later discussions A urged me to tell C about this abject fear. What’s the point? C already knows I’m terrified of him abandoning me. Perhaps the real question is ‘is my attachment to him healthy?’ There have been mixed views on this from the readership of this blog. cbtish, for example, thinks it puts me in an intolerable position (cbtish is a therapist). Vanessa from eTransference, a clinical psychologist in training who has a particular interest in the phenomenon of transference, thinks it ought to be encouraged in many ways. Others undergoing therapy – bourach and thesamesky (who’s also a counsellor) for example – have their own struggles with the therapeutic dyad (bourach in particular will understand why I thought C should be angry with me, given this post of her’s).

I don’t know what the answer is; just that the attachment is very real. Just that I feel guilty for withholding information and for lying (though he wants me to stop that – and I’ve just remembered that the session ended with him asking me, again, to try and not post-mortem things in therapy. Oops. He was also worried, after what happened with VCB’s SHO in September, that his actions or words could have a…er…detrimental effect on me. Double oops. All I can say is that I think our current dialogue is progress, regardless of any self-harm that follows). And at least I am far from alone in withholding, and even lying.

But it’s still all a bit of a quagmire, yes?

I’m looking forward to beginning a new year. Not with any real excitement, I just want to get this year over with.

I’m struggling with an overwhelming heaviness that I can’t seem to shake. I’m PMSing, too, so that doesn’t help. I have this terrible fear that I won’t ever feel that exuberance again. That excitement for living. I look around and see people doing things; living and planning, but I have forgotten how to do that of late. A friend keeps asking me when I plan on making the move back down to the city, and I make excuses. I did look at some apartments online tonight. I did do that, at least.

It reminds of the two years I spent locking myself away, wasting away to a slim 98 pounds, as my sole purpose then was feeding a voracious addiction. An eating disordered life. For two years I lived in near darkness. Venturing out to work my 5 shifts a week just to make money to binge and purge. Like a junkie. And somehow, I still manage to pay rent and utility bills. I don’t know how I survived that time. I had a lot of close friends who wouldn’t allow me to slip too far down. There was always a loving hand to grab me; save me from myself and possibly worse. Folks I lied to many times just to get back to it. They saved me from a probable death. I wanted that then. Not to kill myself so much, but to go to sleep and never wake up. I walked along the Golden Gate Bridge every Sunday morning, stopping midway to ponder; did I have it in me to jump over that first rail? Because after that, there’d be no turning back. Jumping the rail would have been a full commitment. People might see me, so there was no changing my mind once I jumped that first rail. I convinced myself of that. And I believe I would have held myself to it had I reached that point.

Whether at my own hands or from all the damage I was doing to my then withering frame, I was working toward a speedy end. I’m not sure what saved me. My friends, maybe. Definitely not my family, I couldn’t have been farther from them if I tried. Maybe it was like it is now; in observing life. People living and loving. Witnessing the possibility that life goes on even when you resist it completely. My kids need me around, not as a shadow, but as a life force. Someone capable of making that much needed human connection. Someone dying for it.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to give anyone that impression. And this really isn’t about the end of that relationship either, it’s about how far I dug into it. How all important it became and how I put everything I had into it, and let it take over even when it was over back in February. Even now, it’s the thing that defines my life. And why is that? Because this is the biggest obstacle for me at the moment; understanding the why’s. Living with, and gaining a better understanding of why I made it far too important for what it was–while knowing exactly what it was, and still holding on.

I don’t want to just move through life anymore, I want to participate fully. In fact, I’m desperate to live. Not just exist but really live and make plans and feel excited and have hope and all those things that we mostly take for granted. Maybe that’s it; I’ve taken life for granted. I need to appreciate it more. I need to see it for the greatness that it is and remind myself that it could end at any time, and that I need to get as much out of it as I can before that happens.

How do I view life in that light again? What is the key to not only jumping back into it, but really being excited about it?

Maybe I can simply act as if for a while. See what happens.

I continue to have conversations with a man who isn’t here. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve lost my mind.

Then I recalled that I have had many conversations with him, over these many months, to myself. Conversations where I’m practicing what I’ll say while breaking things off. Reasons for why it just isn’t working and why we should not allow ourselves to become more involved. I’m always strong and resolved when I’m practicing. Always standing my ground.

I ended things at the beginning but I didn’t stay the course. I’ve done it countless times, to be honest. But I always caved.

Imagine if I had, though; stayed away for good.

I wonder how he would read this blog. Same way he read the old blogs, I expect. Like I’m degrading him or running him down.

Would he agree with any of it or blow it all off?  Maybe a little of both.

Would he be hurt? His ego would be. But just because he knows others are reading it.

Would it make a difference? Has it ever?

I’ve not seen you lately
on the street by the beach
or places we used to go
I’ve a picture of you
on our favorite day
by the seaside

(Bird Stealing Bread by Iron & Wine)

photo by Andrea Dingeldein

Потресаващ филм и прекрасна музика.

***

She stands next to the lake in the comforting darkness of the last part of the night.

The comforting darkness always seemed to embrace her and make her feel secure.

This was her hide-out, her refuge.

But tonight she had come with a mission. A mission intense and yet to be carried out slowly, just not to let the lake know…

She had finally decided to see her reflection in the lake tonight. It always became turbulent and always got anxious in her presence, ripples forming and destroying her true reflection. This was the lake’s subtle way to deny her request but tonight she had made sure when the lake was fast asleep, she would cease the opportunity to look at something she had been so eager to see.

Reflections mattered to her because at least they didn’t lie like the rest of the world. She had been living a lie all this time but a wise old man who lived on top of the highest hill, had once told her that there was still a little truth left in this world. And he added that this truth was hidden in her reflection.

Excited and nervous,she clenched her heart, closed her eyes as she made a silent prayer and inched towards the asleep lake.

In the darkness of the night, with the Great Bear as the only guide, she squinted hard but couldn’t make out her reflection. She wanted to touch her reflection and feel it’s reality…she stooped a little further…

And then suddenly, something strange happened.

The wind startled and awake from a slumber, pushed her into the lake out of irritation!

With nothing but fear, she drowned in her own reflection. The lake woke up but the wind, with it’s mighty hand, caused the lake to swallow her. Swallow her deep into the forbidden reflection.

The lake obedient and helpless grieved over the incident. She was its only visitor…but she had been lured by the desire to touch and unite with her reflection…

The Great Bear, the only spectator of the whole tragedy, said bitterly to the lake,

“We all have to pay a price to get to the truth. I wanted to reach the moon in the bewitchingly magnificient Sky and have been stuck there ever since. I wanted to know the truth too, the truth about the moon’s relationship with the sky…You know…Truth may sometimes cost one’s life.”

The lake sighed and promised itself that it’d from now on hide between the mountains, in a land far away, where no one could easily reach the luring truth of reflection, either during night or day.

***

Messy write-up of a midnight reverie. Could add more but I’ll try to be merciful to myself.

-Z.

My daughter is looking at the Jill Greenberg book of Monkey Portraits Peter gave us and commented; “How come Peter spent so much time with us but we never got to meet his kids?”

…………..

Колкото и далеч да си -

моята любов ще те намери…

That was the total number of days we spent together–physically. 19 days out of a year and a half. Not even 3 weeks. Not even an entire month. And 7 or 8 months of that year and a half were spent ‘broken up.’

19 days.

He once read from a journal entry he wrote after our first weekend together. From the moment he got to the hotel, to the flight back. Funny thing; he completely left out the portion of one evening where we spent time with my friends at my old club. When I mentioned it, he thought it was funny, too. That he left out my little contribution to our first weekend together.

I don’t know if that means anything. I guess it didn’t mean much to him. Not enough to recollect and preserve.

That’s how it was with him. Everything had to be orchestrated by him. If it didn’t fall in line with what he’d planned, it was dismissed or simply overlooked.

He has always fancied himself an ‘observer’ of life. Someone who is captivated by everything–big and small. Who takes notice.

I guess I was the blind spot in his life. I was always on the peripheral, after all.

Some days, I feel an overwhelming hatred for him. I think such bad thoughts. I sometimes wish he were dead.

Then I realize, it’s not really him I hate, but that I still miss him at times, in spite of everything.

I don’t wish he’d die, I just wish my love for him would.

I hate that I see him as a horrible person.

I hate that I logged onto Myspace just to look at his private profile, see that he logged in today, and probably has every day since he’s been private. I hate thinking that he’s changed his status back to ’single’ so he can deceive others.

I hate that I shared so much of myself with him. That I exposed myself to someone who would not care enough to protect me.

So many private, secret stories that only he would hear. I hate that I told him that my love for him was big. And how I felt I loved him too much considering the circumstances. He never understood what I meant by that.

I hate that no matter how much I loved him, it would make no difference. That no matter what I did, it would never matter, because everything was set in his mind. The plan would never change and neither would the relationship.

I hate that he lied about everything. Including his love for me.

I hate that I’m crying on a Sunday morning while he sleeps peacefully, now free from all his promises.

Free to hurt someone else.

I was talking to a friend of mine who keeps insisting I get back up on the horse, so to speak, and get out there and start dating again.

First of all, I’m really not a ‘dater’ to begin with. In fact, I loathe dating. And, truth be told, I have never had a serious relationship with someone I dated first. How’s that, you ask? Most serious relationships were with guys I worked with. Men I already knew pretty well, where an attraction had gradually developed over the course of many weeks or months even. In my children’s fathers case, years.

I’m not a ‘relationship’ person. I don’t need to be with someone to feel complete, in fact, I have been single much longer than in a solid union. I can, however, enjoy casual relationships or ‘fuck buddy’ arrangements, and have done that often. Generally speaking, those relationships involve men I am only physically attracted to; many are far too young to be taken seriously. Or we have absolutely nothing in common except for a healthy sexual attraction.

I know many folks who need to always be in a relationship. They go from one to the other with very little time in between to reflect on the mistakes of the previous. They just can’t be alone. I have always felt that one should take at least a year off before considering a serious relationship. Why bring all that baggage along if you don’t have to?

There are also those who stay in bad relationships because they fear being alone. They will put up with all kinds of abuse and boundary crossing because they think they either can’t do any better, or they are simply too comfortable to start over again with someone else.

It’s also important to remember that folks who come with a list of rules—especially the ones who bring that list on a first date, should be avoided at all costs. I’m talking about the ‘here’s what I’m looking for’ and ‘here’s what I’m not looking for’ lists. Why? Because they are full of shit, and generally speaking, control freaks. They never play by the rules they set up. Never.

I’m sure you’re thinking; “Yeah but, shouldn’t we be honest about our intentions at the beginning of a potential relationship?” Sure thing. But why do we need to have so many rules? Can’t we just see what develops and proceed from there?

The last thing I want to hear, and this was a major problem with my last boyfriend, is how terrible a guys ex was. If you’re still hurting from that relationship, then what in the fuck are you doing starting up another? You aren’t ready.

I also hate to be compared to an ex. I remember many times having to remind my ex BF that I wasn’t his ex. That was a constant thorn in the paw of that relationship. He’d say things like; “Do you really like kissing me? She (the ex) always had commentary about that.” Once, I even said to him; “I’m not Her, sweetie.”

The one thing I have experienced time and time again, is the annoying bullshittery of a guy saying he’s not looking for anything serious and just wants to have some fun, because what ends up always happening is, somewhere along the line, they decide to change the rules. Which becomes an unfortunate blunder on their part. Still, they think that by setting up the terms at the beginning they are giving themselves an easy way out, should that become necessary. It’s a set up maneuver, and I hate being set up.

The problem is, if a guy tells me he’s not looking for anything serious, then I tend to not take them seriously by viewing the relationship as casual. And if I begin a relationship casually, that’s where it stays. It’s very hard for me to switch tracks once I have it in my head. Mostly because, when entering a casual relationship, I avoid making an emotional investment. I simply don’t do it as it wouldn’t make sense. I have had problems where I have become attached to a person, but feeling there is no chance for a long term partnership, I have no problem breaking away mentally, within a few weeks.

The best way for me to approach a relationship is with a sense of curiosity. I want to be surprised. I want to explore and have fun. I also don’t want to be told that I shouldn’t fall in love with someone, by that someone, because that takes all the fun out of it. I’m not saying that every person I make a connection with I hope to fall in love with. Quite the contrary. I just don’t like to be told what I can and cannot do.

Anyway, I’ll start dating when it feels right. I’m not going to push myself because I’m still hurting and working it all out, and that wouldn’t be fair to anyone. Or much fun.

A book I really like is called that.  But it’s also the state of a little part of me that got seriously freaked out earlier this week and can’t be consoled.  I was all managing as best I could and all, but then my therapist canceled our last appointment on Friday before being away a week.  She has her reasons for these things, always, but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

I was in her office wanting to die and feeling unheldtogether and unheld, and so I dearly wanted/needed to see her soon after to get my self righted.  But I think it’s really that attachment stuff, with her being my attachment figure, a base to run to and yet I feel rejected (rightly or wrongly, whatever), and in fact I also was feeling terrified (and that’s not about her, it’s about a previous attachment figure–this one does sometimes pull away when I need her desperately but sometimes she has been really there for me and in any case I don’t think she’s cause for that kind of fear, except in the sense that she can reject me, and that’s not nothing, but it’s not sadism I guess).  Fright without solution is the attachment phrase they use, I believe, when we can’t run to the figure we most need when we most need her.

No wonder I feel how I feel this week, when I think of it like that.  And it is like that, to a part of me that isn’t real connected to the rest, and that I don’t know how to reach.

They tell me there’s hope.  And by they, I don’t mean people who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.  I mean people who do, who know this territory because it’s been theirs too.

I watched Wings of Desire with the kids tonight. Well, my daughter seemed attentive, but my son was on and off.

The film always leaves me feeling a tiny bit sad and a tiny bit hopeful. This greatest of all Wenders films (in my opinion) was said to have been partially inspired by Rilke’s poetry, who happens to be one of my favorite poets.

As the angel Damiel begins listening to the thoughts of a lovely french trapeze artist named Marion, he can’t help but fall in love with her. One of the lines she thinks: “Longing. Longing for a wave of love that would stir in me. That’s what makes me clumsy. The absence of pleasure. Desire for love. Desire to love.”

Those words always echo in my head upon hearing them. Something about the idea of that; that desire for love, and a desire to love. I think many of us try to tell ourselves we don’t really want that. Because, as many of us have learned, love doesn’t always last, and it’s damned painful when it ends. But I think we all do want that to some degree or another.

At work, I am forced to listen to the same French love songs playlist everyday. I now understand most of what the artists are singing about, as I have many interpreters at my disposal. A few of these songs used to trigger an immediate emotional response of longing and sadness. I’d start thinking; “Oh, I’ll never have that with him again.’ Or something like that. Or I’d start to think about all that was lost.

Lately however, I tend to hear those same songs differently, and instead of thinking about what I have lost or how much I miss him, I think about all that we never had. Meaning, the songs don’t really speak for me or us, and never really did because most of what they are singing about, are two people happily together and in love. Kissing and touching and whatnot. We had a very small amount of that. Most of the time we just talked about kissing, touching and whatnot. We spent a lot of time talking about things that would never happen. Things we planned to do but would never get around to.

And I realized today that most of the time, my sadness comes from not living up to all that planning and talk. The love songs I hear everyday, speak to lovers who are living together. Their experiences are shared in the physical sense. They are already together and sharing this love. They are not living for the plans they’ve made together, they are living for the love they have.

Strange realization and it probably makes no sense but I’m tired and it’s too early to go to bed.

I just realized I wasn’t holding onto something I had, I was holding onto something I wanted. Something that should have been or would have been if it hadn’t gotten all fucked up. So really, it wasn’t real at all. It was mostly thought and talk, that relationship. Mostly longing, planning and waiting.

Kev has been in the most foul of moods all week. I don’t know why, he doesn’t know why, no one knows why, but the week with him has flown by like 5 years in the gulag.
Yesterday after I finished work at 11.30 I had a plan to go out and buy a bookshelf, but then, ‘best laid plans..’ etc, I got a parcel from a friend with Season 5 of Grey’s Anatomy in and all bets were off.
I was going to phone her then and there to thank her, but we’d have chatted for an hour, and an hour is an entire episode, plus I had a bit of a niggling earache, so figured it was best to take things easy. Jim and Happy Kev would be home at 4. At 4.50 I needed to pick Doris up from school and take her to discuss her brace with the gnarly dentist, then at 7 Jim and Kev had Tae Kwon dou and Jim had a belt test.
So that leaves me with a few hours, a pot of veggie soup and an entirely new season of great TV. Excellent!
About an hour in my ear started really hurting, in fact all the left side of my face and head hurt, so I decided at 3.30 I’d phone the ENT and if I could get in before 4 I’d still have time to pick up Doris.
They said they could fit me in at 4.15, ooh cutting it fine, but I thought I should take a chance because I have a lot of classes on Saturday and doing them with earache won’t be fun.
I was just leaving the house when my friend called to say her husband had another brain bleed, which if you remember we all know now is a subdural hematoma, and he had to have his head drilled again, could I pick up her daughter at 6.50.
Indeed I could, must try to remember.
So off I went, the great thing about going to the ENT, is they put some kind of drops in my ear, which means I have to lie down for five minutes on either side, it’s bliss, I took my Nick Danziger with me and enjoyed 10 minutes of his observations on abject poverty in Britain. gripping stuff.
I have an ear infection. Done this before, not worried, I have been putting things smaller than my elbow in my ear, it never ends well and I never learn.
I’m in, I’m out, I have to go back tomorrow. Pick up Doris, do gnarly dentist. Get home, Begin evening battle with Kev. Make nutricious vittals for chicklets,( except Kev who doesn’t want any dinner), pick up child of head drill man, go home, battle with Kev, take boys to Tae Kwon Dou, come back, wash dishes, go back to TKD to watch the belt test. It’s over, results next Friday, battle with Kev back to car and beyond, deliver child home, battle Kev to bed, smoke copious cigarettes , yahooo, tomorrow is the weekend, no Jeff Buckley moments!