Taking the Long Way

So a pretty OK day today.  Got up just barely in time for the depression support group and was a few minutes late, but that was fine cause I got there before the facilitator.  The group sort of sucked- some woman (new just like me) came in and hijacked the group, talking about her daughter and how sick with mental illness her daughter was.  She said nothing about herself as a consumer.  It pissed me off, so I said something.  I'm really proud of myself because I said it fairly calmly and coolly.  I told her I thought that this was a group for people with depression, not a parent of someone with bipolar.  I told her that she hadn't said one word about herself, just complaints about a person who is just like me.  (she really did piss me off).  She paused for literally only 5 seconds, then continued on hijacking the meeting.  At one point I interjected again, and the group asked me to share, so I did. I told them about how I feel so lost right now, OMG.  I cannot remember what I said.  Wow, is this a dissociative moment?  I cannot remember, I'm guessing.  I think I talked about how I was unhappy with my life and how non-functional I am, but I can't remember.

Holy Shit!  This is the real deal.  A real proof moment.  I cant remember.  And I was angry at the meeting and I think the angry one was out.  Which is why I can't remember.  This is actually cool.  A real prove it to myself moment.  I am not making this shit up.  This is real.

Which is what Lara has been telling me for a year, but I didn't believe her.  (Well she hasn't really told me I'm dissociative, she just lets me see all the dissociation around me and asks me if it looks familiar.  And she asks me why I'm in group.  And don't I feel at home there?  Why would I feel at home if I didn't fit in, didn't have the same thing everyone else has?)

I'm sitting here trying to remember what happened in the group, but I can't.  Anything else I would write would be a mixture of guessing and fabrication, which I just realized, I think I do a lot.  Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.  The angry one was in group!  She's also the charming funny one.  The one that can kick your (and my) ass.   I don't know her name.  I'm pretty sure she's a teenager.  And she hates everybody.  Everybody except Lara and Dr. S.  But now she's hating them a bit because they won't let her back into group.  She want's to tell them to go fuck themselves.  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I talked to my sponsor today for an hour about.  It was great talking to her.  She helped me a lot.  She understands how hard it is for me right now, and she validated me.  She knows it's hell at first.  Which it was last night.  I couldn't sleep because my inner voice just kept going over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over how bad the program situation is.  How much they all hate me.  How much I hate them right now.  How I am such a horrific, terrible monster because they need to protect groups from me.  At one point I grabbed my head and screamed stop!  IT WAS AWFUL.  I felt like I was going crazy.  That's when I called my sponsor for the second time, still not getting her, only her stupid answering machine.  But she called me back finally tonight.

I love her, love her as a sponsor, but I need someone who is in town more and who picks up their phone when I call (not always me having to leave a message and wait for a call back).  I guess I could have her as a support friend.  I can always call her, but get a sponsor who is in town.  This sucks!  I want R but I she's not perfect!  Ugh!  Oh well.  I guess maybe I'll ask N to be my sponsor.  We'll see.  She keeps not showing up for meetings, and I don't really want that.

I bought diphenhydramine HCL for sleeping (benadryl) tonight.  My body is a little leery of using it, but I don't want the shit going on in my head like last night.  I want to sleep!

OK, tomorrow I'm calling the volunteer place.  Yes I am!  And I will make three calls about Medicare D!  Yay.  I will do it!  I will, because I want to.  But if I don't, that's OK too, because I'm supposed to be being kind to myself and cut myself some slack.  It is OK if I am not super-productive awesomeness all the time :) 

Wow, I finally called my sponsor!

OK, so I finally called my sponsor.  But got voicemail, suck.  I actually wanted to talk to her, which is amazing.  Usually I pray for voicemail so I don't have to talk to people.

I talked to S a bunch today after the 3:30 meeting and she was helpful.  It was enough that she was spending time with me.  Some of the things she said I didn't understand or agree with, but again, her concern was enough.  She told me that I have to take action, and one of the actions I could take was calling my sponsor.  (So I did).  The other action she suggested was dealing with not being able to be in program for 2 more weeks and go back like a lady.  Um, the lady thing is not me, but I understand what she meant.  She meant go back as a centered adult.  Which is what I want to be: a centered, calm, dignified, bad ass adult.

It still hurts every day how I was treated by Lara and program.  It hurts, like physically hurts my heart.  I get a burning, aching in my chest and my stomach clenches up.  My heart rate races and I feel like screaming or crying.  I hate it.  I don't understand why they would want to do that to me.  But they did.  And for right now, I am sick of talking about it!

Because of S I stayed for the 5:30 meeting, and it was good and I shared.  I didn't mean to be, but I was funny and cracking everyone up.  It made me want to do stand up, like my hero Maria Bamford.  But stand-up is a lot of work and I'm tired right now.   Maybe I'll just be funny in my songs.  Or at least witty.

I called C today, which I had promised myself I would do before Weds, so yay for me!  He seems to be doing OK, and it was nice to talk to him.  I am worried about his reaction when his best friend dies (he has brain cancer).  I hope C can pull through.  Losing his mother and his best friend in a year is going to be very, very tough.

I talked to Carol tonight about our relationship (while at Chipotle, of course).  We do love the Chipotle.  Anyway, I brought up that I feel our relationship was not going in a direction I liked.  She depends on me for things, and I give her way too much advice and try to tell her what to do all the time.  Not good.  It's like I'm the one on high and she's down below me somewhere and that is NOT how I want to have a friendship.  So I told her I had to stop giving her advice, and that we had to stop talking about program together.  I fucked it up within 10 minutes and started giving her advice, but she caught me.  Which is awesome.  I don't want to be the one "in charge".  I want an egalitarian relationship where there are two adults both giving and taking.  I need to have radical acceptance of her and where she is right now, not how I wish her to be.  I hope we can pull this off, because if not, then I cannot hang out with her anymore.  I do not want to be the person I am now when I hang out with her.  So I have to be strong and be better.  NO ADVICE!  NO CARETAKING!

I'm going off to bed now, first to read a bit.  I just got the new Stephen King novel.  It makes me feel like a kid (in a good way) to be reading Stephen King again.  He's like a comfy blanket that feels and smells just right.  Love him. When he's good, which is not always, but he's good often enough.

Beauty and Radical Acceptance (and some pain)

So it's 11:16 pm and I've made it through another day.  I am truly impressed with myself.  I didn't think I was going to make it.  I thought I maybe should go to the hospital around 11 am, but was too depressed to get out of bed.  So I just slept through the truly horrible feelings, and was able to get up to go to my 3:30 meeting.  Wow.

If I had told myself this early this morning, I would have told myself to go fuck myself.  I hated talking to Dr S today.  I wanted to love it, I was bursting at the seams when I saw she called and I couldn't wait to call her back.  But she talked to me like a robot, giving me no warmth, nothing.  I hate her for that.  Why is it so hard for anyone at program to be kind to me?  She told Carol later that she had a positive conversation with me.  HAH.  I almost cut over that convo, Dr S, so not so positive.  I just wanted to know that she was still there for me, still rooting for me, was still on my side.  She gave me pablum.  She gave me "I hear you have negative thoughts right now"  She gave me "I believe you want to come back and work".  Ummm, DUH.  Thank you, but I already knew all that.  I wanted to know you still cared about me.  And you wouldn't be warm or kind or anything.  I could have gotten more warmth from a fortune cookie fortune.  And at least then I would have at least gotten to eat a cookie.

I went over to look at Gus's halfway house today.  Carol loved it, but I felt it was very small, very congested, and I'm not sure how I would fit there.  With 6 women in it, it would be close to impossible for me I think.  But it seems like the healthy thing to do.  AAAAAARGH.   This personal space thing is not bullshit.  Why can't I find a place that understands that?  If I could have a room, even a tiny one, to myself, then I think I would be OK.  Sharing with Carol might be as close as I get to that.

I'm getting tired, thank god.  I'm going to a zen meditation conference with S tomorrow, and I'm a little scared about it, but I'm also a little excited.  I am going to walk tomorrow morning.  And maybe get my boxes ready to send back to Amazon.  They have taken over my dining room table :)

I walked down to the water a few minutes ago, and it was beautiful.  The air is cool, almost cold, the moon is full and there are whisps of clouds.  Orion was bright.  The water was much warmer than the cold sand and it felt like coming home.  I love it here.  I love the ocean at night.  I love the trees at night.  The air at night.  I love it all.

I talked about radical acceptance in the AA group today, and N really liked it.  She thought it came from the Big Book, and I was amused.  It's from DBT.  But AA's "higher power" and "faith in something greater than yourself"  feels like DBT's radical acceptance to me.  This insane optimism that they espouse- this idea that you are exactly where you need to be and that the answers will come to you and that the universe is looking out for you- has seemed like bullshit to me for so long.  But as I think about it, I don't need to believe in god, or have faith.  I just need to know that having this optimism works.  It works if I think I am going to come out OK no matter what.  I don't have to believe there is some divine hand at work, which is good, because i don't and never will.  But I can understand that by scientific empirical methods it has been proven that being radically accepting and optimistic makes you feel better.  And that is enough truth for me.  Plus it just feels right.  It feels like the best way to be a human being.  And it feels like coming home.

Another day and I am smiling. And crying. And good.

I went to my 3:30 meeting today.   I love that meeting.  Vaughn called me last night and left me a message saying that he had tracked down my number because he was worried about me.  It was wonderful to be so cared for.  Karen also called.  I am drowning in concern.  Which is probably well-founded concern. As I was a fucking mess on Tuesday when I was there last.  I started crying in the freaking meeting.  Said that I had been thinking about hurting myself.  All because fucking jerk off, daughters of bitches program won't let me back, and were rude, shaming and insulting about it.  It makes me so hurt and angry to think about it, and I don't mind being angry, but I HATE being hurt.  I am invulnerable, tough, and I don't get hurt by the likes of the losers at program.  I don't want to be weak.  I HATE being weak.  I hate asking for something and being told no.  I hate being rejected when I shouldn't even care anyway.  They have all the power and wield it it seems without giving a shit about whom they hurt.  THEY SUCK.  Lara sucks, Malin sucks, the other one sucks, they all fucking suck.

So what else is new...  I'm still walking pretty much every day.  I walked 1.5 hours today.  I love walking in the sunshine and stretching in the sunshine and sweating in the sunshine.  I love the trees, and the sound of the ocean and all the people walking along the boardwalk.  I love humanity, although individual humans bother me most of the time.

I can't seem to get a handle on my time during the day.  It just slips away and I haven't done anything I want to do.  I haven't called yet about Medicare D, I haven't done my laundry, I haven't cleaned up my papers.  And I definitely haven't been writing.  I want to write.  Fiction.  I want to write fiction, but I don't seem to do it.  I have to set aside the time and just do it.  First is to set aside the time.  I think the best time would be in the morning, before my walk?  I think so, I'd like to try it.  I think I am having no time because I am getting up so late.  If I got up early in the morning, I believe I would get more done.  Because I always sort of think of the evening/night time as time to relax.  So I wake up at noon, walk, go to the 3:30 meeting, call Carol and hang out all night, never getting any of my chores done.

Well tomorrow I'll be getting up early because I am going to see Gus about the half-way house.  I'm going to check it out and see if it's something I want to live in.  I really hope that the chairs I saw through the window are not how he's furnishing it.  Because I want a real living room with couches, etc.  Not a cold room full of doctor's office waiting room chairs.  It's a deal breaker.  We need to make a home.  Where we feel safe and comfortable.

I started writing a fairy tale about my childhood and I really like it.  I just have to get back to it.  Or maybe I shouldn't until I'm back in therapy.  What do I want to write about?  Caz told me last night that Asimov said that once you have a situation you like, think of the person who would most be effected by that situation and make the story about them.  Good advice.  Stephen King said to set aside time every day and just write.  He also said to read as much as you possibly can, and I already do that.  So now I just have to set aside time.  I am going to set aside an hour.  Just an hour at first.  I've never done this before and I have to be kind and easy with myself.  Usually I just jump in and burn myself out.  So if an hour turns out to be too much, I'll do a half hour.  Because the point is to do it daily, not kill myself.

Have I mentioned how fucked up I am about program rejecting me?  It comes in waves (of pain and nausea)  I almost wound up in the hospital about it, but instead I asked Carol to spend the night with me.  It worked.  But I still hate them right now.  How dare they be so careless with my feelings! FUCK THEM.  FUCK THEM.  FUCK THEM.  FUCK THEM.  FUCK THEM.  FUCK THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, I'm going to go to bed thinking about something positive, because I won't be able to sleep otherwise.  I am going to think about how excited I am to walk tomorrow.  And to write for an hour.  I am really excited about that.  I am going to think about how I have found a solution in AA, that I have found people who care, and if I reach out, I can have support and friendship.  I really like Vaughn.  And Karen.  And Ray when she's in town.  I am going to think about how I am unstoppable, and incredibly talented and fun.  And that I am better than all the negative shit around me.  I am clean and pure and light, and I rise above the dark, the evil.  I have done it, I am better than it, I have bested the demon at it's own game.   We are wonderful, pure, beautiful and perfect the way we are!

AA? AA!!

So as I've mentioned, I'm on the white knuckle roller-coaster these past few days. Or for the past week. So today I figured if I wanted some company and didn't want to drink, then I should go to a meeting. The only reason I went was so that I could hang out with some people afterwords and get something to eat. So I went to the women's meeting at lambda.

The meeting blew- it was a speaker meeting and I didn't really groove with the speaker. She tried, but I just didn't connect with her. But we all went to a diner after and that was cool. Some woman sort of attached herself to me and kept talking about how important it was to talk to other people; that it doesn't come naturally and that she has to practice. It was very good advice. At first I thought maybe she was either hitting on me or trying to take me under her wing as a daughter figure, but then realized that she was just uncomfortable because she was shy and didn't know anyone either. It went well.

I met with Ethel today, and I didn't want to talk, so I talked about how my drug experiences felt. I'm not sure if it was a very profitable session. We got a bit into how I have no core, and that's why I won't attach to people. I may be able to fake people out for a while, but I don't want to have them be around for long because they will soon find out they are around a ghost. Or worse, a sucking, needy, puling black hole that could destroy them. Or at least make them very unhappy. I stay away from people so I won't hurt them, and so they won't be disappointed in me.

I'm sober right now even though I REALLY wanted to go to a bar tonight. I'm home in my PJ's, so if I don't leave then I'll stay sober until tomorrow. I guess that's good.

I want to ride my bike to IOP, but I'm afraid it's too far. That I'll get too tired. We'll see. I can't make a decision about it, there's some emotionality attached to it that I don't understand. I feel like if I don't ride then I'm a wimp and can't follow through on things. Sort of like my "job" problem of the last few days.

Whatevs. It's time to stop writing and watch Dorian Gray. Yay Colin Firth.