Maruchan Instant Lunch. With powdered chicken.

Every day I take a bitter pill to help me on my way, For the little aches and pains, the ones I have from day to day… to help me think a little less about the things I miss.. to help me not to wonder how I ended up like this….

I adore this cd (Patty Griffen, Impossible Dream. It’s not a cd that I can just pop in and listen to once, and then change to something else. This one stays in the stereo for days on end. And I’ve heard all of the songs a thousand times. Yet…phrases, bits and clips still take my breath away.

Except I’m livid at my cd player which skips every 5 seconds. *grr*

A week or so ago, I was talking to a friend about meds. We both hate to be on them, fear the possibility of having to be on them forever. She had recently kinda stopped taking hers, and it reminded me how long I’ve managed to stay on mine this time- I’ve never stayed this long on anything before, not even the synthroid, and I’ve been on that since I was 15 or something….

Recently tho, this last weekend, I randomly stopped again. In part it was because I spent the night over at M’s babysitting the kids, and tho I had thrown my pills in my bag, I didn’t remember to take them. I guess the only reason I usually remember to take them is because I keep them on my desk, in front of the computer. So, I take them when I get up and check my email in the morning, and then I remember again when I’m checking my mail before bed.

Anyways. So. I forgot to take them on Friday night and Saturday morning. And Saturday nite…I remembered to take them out of my bag and they were on my desk. But I didn’t take them. I didn’t forget, really…I just…didn’t take them. And somewhere in there I took one dose, but not the other for the day and then I couldn’t remember if I had taken them on Sunday morning or not, so I didn’t want to double up on them (Actually, I kind of did, wondering just what that might do. eheh….once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic?…) I did start taking them again Monday, and took both doses and did so today as well.

I brought up the med issue with J a week or so ago, and we had an exchange that, at the time, I just kind of read and shook my head and couldn’t really internalize….(I’m italics, she’s bold):

Why does it feel like the harder I push myself to get past things….the less chance I have of actually getting past them? Ya know? I just. Feel like I’m doing something -wrong- but can’t figure out what?

I think you are doing a lot of things right — except perhaps being
too hard on yourself.

I stay on these meds and, I guess they are helping because although I am not always doing well, my thoughts don’t stray towards suicide 24/7 as they had been. But. Ya know, maybe that’s just cuz my situation is different?

Or maybe because you are doing more things right? I really believe this.
—-

And. I still can’t altogether internalize it. If I think about it too much, I’ll probably stop the meds again. And I’d like to think that I can do without them. But. I still have enough bad days with bad thoughts that I’m not sure that I can. I am sure that I can’t handle the constant thoughts of jumping in front of trucks or driving off roads or whatnot that had been hanging around for so long. I mean. There are days when I slip so easily back into them. But I don’t end up fighting the urges for weeks on end like I had been.

But still. It’s still too easy to slip back in. This weekend was the perfect example. And, truth be told, I’m not sure how I made it thru without damaging myself. Well, actually, alot of it had to do with the fact that I was taking care of the kids and I actually called J before giving in to the desperate need to cut.

But I was sitting here tonite, typing. And. All of those faint white lines that generally can’t be seen in the daytime…when it’s dark and I’m just sitting in the glow of the computer screen….they all stick out. They’re all there. Reminding me. Of what? Of just how fucked up I can be/am. Reminding me that I have no idea who it is I’ve become.

I sit and look at them and wonder, briefly, if that’s really my arm. If those are really my scars. If they were really put there by my own hands. And it doesn’t seem real. And it makes me angry. And it makes me ugly. And it makes me ashamed. And it made me go and put on a sweatshirt.

Because it looks so much worse than it did last summer.

We talked a little about anger this week during my session. Because I was just…angry. In retrospect, perhaps I was also anxious and scared to death that I’d failed my exam. And J said how anger sometimes covers up other emotions. And I said how usually it’s other emotions that cover my anger.

It immobilizes me, anger does. My own as well as other people’s. M was having a pretty awful time with E for part of this weekend. And I had to go over and watch the kids for a bit, which I didn’t mind of course. I was glad that I was able to be there for them. But. It takes about three seconds for me to feel like I’m a child again. I sat on the couch with RB and DB. RB was watching tv and bouncing around and playing with his legos, but DB was just…she was staring at the tv, absorbed in it. But I don’t think she was watching it. She wouldn’t talk to me about the fighting, although I tried a little bit to get her to. But I didn’t press or prod because I absolutely am NOT a psychologist, letalone a child psychologist. And, if she had opened up and talked I would’ve listened and done as best I could to help her deal. But I wasn’t going to ‘make’ her talk because even if I think it would be healthier for her…I dunno. If there’s a lion loose in the zoo, I’m gonna do my best to deal with the situation. But I’m not gonna open the door and let the lions out. If that makes sense.

Anyways. I sat with them and when I was trying to get DB to talk and she just said she was Fine, I was like “Ya know…my parents fought all the time when I was a kid. And I know how much it sucks…er…stinks…” But she was not interested and kept her eyes focused on the television.

Even tho I was pretty sure the screen was probably blurry for her. There were no tears falling, but I think they were there. And. I thought….”gee. This must be the same view that J gets, week after week with me…” Sitting. Staring at the wall. Being Fine.

DB is a stronger kid than I, I think, tho. Smarter. AND she has a mother who is aware that her daughter is probably not as fine as she says she is, a mother who can be on the lookout for problems, should they arise.

I’m not sure I had that. I’m also not sure that I knew, exactly, that I wasn’t Fine. I remember my parents fighting all of the time. And even tho it seems that I feel like they fought 24/7 as I was growing up, I really only have a few distinct memories of the battles. One is when I was upstairs in my room. Mum was inside and Elmer was outside. I don’t even know what they were fighting about- I mean. I guess it was as ‘normal’ to them as it was to me. And they were screaming and I could hear it coming in my window, not only just thru the house. And I shut my window. And turned up my radio. And I wondered what a “fucking cunt” was. But I didn’t really care.

growing up it was just me and my mom against the world and all my sympathies were with her when I was a little girl…she taught me to wage a cold war with quiet charm…but I just wanna walk through my life unarmed, to accept, and just get by like my father learned to do,
but without all the acceptance and getting by that got my father through…. -ani-

I wonder if she knew, what she was teaching me. I didn’t know, til now, til recently. I wonder how it turned out the way it did….growing up in a very matriarchal-based family, where mum was the boss….and I thought the world of her….why did I end up acting the complete opposite of her? Her rage was loud, forceful. Why did mine turn inside? Don’t we usually try to emulate the people we respect and admire the most?

How did someone who fought so vehemently, so loudly, teach me to be so quiet? Perhaps in this case, nature won over nurture, but I don’t really know.

And maybe it makes sense….I’m not sure that the fighting scared me…maybe when they *really* escalated…but otherwise I don’t remember being terrified or anything…but logically, it must’ve scared me as a child, so I maybe didn’t want to scare people and that’s why I don’t get show anger?

I guess it just took a while for those childhood scars to show. I don’t know.

So the loud anger scares me now, and makes me feel like I’m a child again, even tho I didn’t feel that way when I was a child. (Contradictory, yes. I know.) But yet…I can’t trust the quiet either. I’ve known J for how many years, have had how many hours of therapy…but part of me still waits for her to get angry or yell or something. heh. What’s it called? Transference? Projection? See, I know what lay beneath my quiet exterior. And I know how hard it bruises me, trying to get out.

And. I guess I have come a bit of a way, in that the part of me which doesn’t trust her is a part that I don’t entirely have control of, maybe. Even tho I have a hard time convincing myself that there are parts of me that I don’t control. Yeah, I have a very strong internal locus of control, and it encompasses everything.

Maybe I can’t remember my childhood because of the fighting. I mean, maybe that’s why I’ve….blocked it out or forgotten it. Not because of anything patrick may or may not have done. Pt. is a poor historian. *sigh*

I want to lay it all down. But I find that I can’t, because I don’t want anyone else to inadvertantly pick it up. I want to not feel like a stranger in my own head. I want to raise my voice in anger and not immediately feel every door in my head slamming and locking once it’s realized what I’ve done. I want to not cringe any time anyone raises their voice above a certain level, be it in anger or excitement or whatever.

I want to stop jumping thru the roof when startled. I want to not be startled so easily. I want to stop going from overload of unexpressed emotion straight into numb. I want to stop being wary of being in a room with guys (although, Marc was over while Em and I were baking cookies last nite, and I was mostly ok with that. Tho, he kept mostly to himself and let us do our own thing. And he just seems to be a really gentle person. So.) I want to remember stupid mundane childhood things. I want this stupid ass random anxiety attack-ish things to stop. I mean…what the hell? It’s not like I have to perform in front of people. I could understand having anxiety or panic over that. But. Just sitting alone in a room and all of a sudden not being able to breathe and having my heart beating its way out of my chest and being lightheaded with….the intensity of whatever it is. It’s just…uncalled for. I want to stop disconnecting from people at the first thought of them eventually leaving one day.

I want so much. Too much.

But. Yesterday, sitting on the couch in J’s office, trying to explain to her things while they were actually happening….how incredibly angry I was in my head, yet how calm or numb or disinterested I seemed on the outside. And how I really hated the huge gap between the internal and external. I just wanted to get up and pace around the room or something.

I think I feel like I can’t express any of that anger because it’s so…concentrated, and I won’t be able to let just a little bit out, I won’t be able to dilute it to an acceptable level. And I can’t let it out at the current level because in my head it feels so violent and caged. And writing or distractions…that’s what they are…distractions. They don’t make the anger go away, they just shove it into a corner for a little while.

It’s going to suffocate me soon.

*sigh* I know what I don’t want. I don’t want summer to come and leave me alone. I don’t want to shove away from everyone before they leave. But. It’s…what I do. I’m trying not to. I dunno. I guess we’ll see.

Red lights are flashing on the highway. I wonder if we’re ever gonna get home, I wonder if we’re gonna ever get home tonite. Everywhere the water’s gettin’ rough, your best intentions may not be enough. I wonder if we’re ever gonna get home tonite. But if you break down, I’ll drive out and find you. If you forget my love, I’ll try to remind you, stay by you when it don’t come easy. I don’t know nothing ‘cept change’ll come, year after year what we do is undone, time gets moving from a crawl to a run. I wonder if we’re ever gonna get home. You’re out there walking down a highway and all of the signs are blown away. Sometimes you wonder if you’re walking in the wrong direction. If you break down, I’ll drive out and find you. If you forget my love, I’ll try to remind you. And stay by you when it don’t come easy, when it don’t come easy. So may things that I had before, that don’t matter to me now. Tonite I cry for the love that I’ve lost and the love that I never found. And when the last bird falls, and the last siren sounds, someone will be say what’s said before, some love we were looking for. And if you break down… _Patty Griffen