Behaving like an adult

Yesterday in the evening I called Paolo. I wanted to know what he wanted – and make clear that I don’t want him to be so insistent with me. He said that he just wanted to hear my voice. Oh my. And that he had to go to the dentist today in the morning… he begged me to devote half an hour of my time to him to drink a coffee together before his appointment. Well, I spent the half of my life being in love with people who rejected me a priori, either because I was not beautiful enough or because I was not mentally stable enough. I don’t want to reject Paolo as a friend but just set limits. So, I agreed to see him today in the morning. For half an hour. We just drank a coffee together. He kept on calling me "darling" or "love" at the beginning, so that I was forced to mention Marvin insistently. Paolo claimed that "he understands why Marvin fell in love with me". I tell you, having an admirer can be flattering but in this case it is just sad, because never in my life will I be able to reciprocate these feelings. I said to Paolo that even if I am not his girlfriend I can be his friend and help him. I told him to never call me again after 10 pm. Sometimes I ask myself how my life would be if Paolo had free access to his mobile phone all day long. Now, in the therapeutic community he lives in, the responsible social workers take him his mobile phone away at 7 am and give it back to him at 7 pm. As soon as he has the phone, I tell you, I notice it. 

Paolo even told me that on September 23rd there will be a meeting with the social workers, his guardian and his psychiatrist, to decide wether he will remain in the therapeutic community where he is now or move in a flat on his own. At least, so he told me. To be honest, I don’t think Paolo would be able to manage his life on his own. Now I got to know him a little more. First of all, he is a very, very childish person. A good heart, even if he speaks of himself as if he were a rascal or a criminal, but all the medication and drugs he took in the past must have affected his brain in some way and now he is not able to follow "adult" conversation or have "adult" behavior. With "adult" I mean taking responsibilities, managing one’s own life, maybe working. I can see this in Paolo because it was the same for me a couple of years ago. I was not able to follow a conversation between adults speaking of adult things which were not related to my inner world and I was not even able to sort out my mail. Well, Paolo is at this stage. How could he ever have a flat on his own? This means paying bills, cooking, cleaning, washing, going to work. He is 100% on disability (like me) but I hope he would contemplate looking for a job because being jobless, having nothing to do all day long, would mean sinking in darkness after a couple of months. Paolo cannot cook, he learnt how to wash and iron his clothes in the therapeutic community where he is now, and his guardian pays the bills for him. Paolo lives the life of a child. My question is: is he able to be an adult?

Maybe I sympathize with Paolo so much because on many aspects I am not an adult myself. I don’t feel as an adult. My emotions are the ones of a teenager, the one who has crushes on older guys and girls, the one who still has to discover the world, the one who still has to ask mommy the permission to go out in the evening on the rare occasions in which this happens. I thought I had a crush on Doctor Livio, then I opened my eyes and saw that I have just seen a father in him, and that this "love" – well, it is love – is something I never felt in the past, because I never had a father. I discover emotions I never had, and I ask myself what they are and how I could label them. Not that labeling is important, but I would like to give a name to what I feel. At the end of my last therapy session, I looked at Doctor Livio and asked, spontaneously, "Would you give me a fatherly cuddle again one day?". I am making myself so ridiculous maybe, but then he took me in his arms and I could have cried. I know, this sounds pathetic but I never got a cuddle without giving a good performance whatsoever in return. I feel as if I were begging for love, affection, acknowledgement of my existence. 

Moreover, I am still fragile. I have been feeling the urge to cut myself many times lately. My best skill not to do it is to postpone the moment in which I should do it. When I feel ready to act, I say to myself "let’s wait half an hour". Then, half an hour later, if I still feel the urge, I do the same. And so on.

Well, I’m making my way to becoming an adult. It is just such a difficult job sometimes… and I am swimming upstream.