So This Is Why We Dissociate

So I am zoned to the universe on DXM in a beautiful angry orange sunlight place.  And I'm Like lets do this. This is wh we sissocdiate.  we let it go . or soething . idosn know ifi can type fast enough to get this all down.  I am in the moment of NO.  NO orange beautiful blasting out.   i want it to be  world where there3 is no fuckin g need for NO, but that is not the world we live in.  Orange is the New Black F*cksgiving  That is it.  They captured it perfectly.  its amazimg.  piper says you CANT HAVE ME, YOU COULD NEVER HAVE ME. or something like that.  she screams it out in a total seemingly dissociative state and then confirms it by having sex with Vause when she gets out of SHU.  And then the audience gets all excited about a  love triangle, lesbian sex, blah , blah.  BUT THAT IS NOT THE FUCKING POINT

THE POINT IS, THAT YOU DON'T OWN ME.  YOU WILL NEVER OWN ME, AND YOU WILL NEVER WIN.  I AM ME.  I LOVE ME.  I CLAIM ME.  I CLAIM ME AND ALL ME NEEDS TO BE HAPPY., not too much stuff.  But enough to be FUCKING HAPPY.  So BASICALLLY, FUCK OFF, WORLD,  I AM GOING TO BE A GREEN VEGETARIAN POET WITH A DRUM AND A GUITAR AND A TRUCKLOAD OF MATH AND  BASIC CHEMISTRY KNOWLEDGE AND i AM GOING TO LIVE HOW I WANT TO LIVE.  WITH BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE GETTING OVER THEIR PAIN BY PAINTING AND DANCING AND SINGING AND RUNNING...... and yoga :)  and I want to live a healthy life creating stuff? (dont know what yet) helping people figure systems out, because I am incredibly good at that.  I can figure a system like nobody's business.  SO.  LET'S GET FIGURING!!!!

i love you jeanette.

I'm doing therapy when I do DXM

That's pretty much it.  I am toooooooooooooooooooooooooooo scared of this shit in regular chemical land, so I go to DXM land to do it.  But it is becoming absurd.  Because I know what I'm doing, the curtain is pulled back, the wizard is revealed.   You use drugs to think about things you don't want to think about when your brain is normal.  You are afraid you will die, I guess?  Or that you won't get it right?  We have to

 I N T E G R A T E

Trauma world with the fucking real world.  Integrate Trauma world with real world. integrate trauma world with the real world.  then we would not need DXM, but we are being a little bit of a chickenshit and will not do this without the fucking drug.  you need to be fuckind dead fucking sober and call your mother out.  Not to her face.  But to yourself.  And mayber your therapist, and a friend.  Because DXM land is possible in the real world.  its called facing the truth.  Serioulsy, I think thats what we've been doing this whole time.  We've been fucking frankenstein manhattan projecting this shit, trying to chemically get our brain in the right frame, the right ecology to understand and believe these truths.  Because we are a scientist first, (slowly changing to scientist/poet, but whatever) we fucking experimented with ourselves to cushion the blow?  It's not that simple.  We were not capable of hearing it any other way, or else we would have done it that way.  This is the way we found.  It's  not perfect.  By a long fucking shot, thank you Gina,Brian, Michele, Jeanette, Chris, etc.  But it is a workable solution right now, and I guess thats why I'm not stopping.


WHOAH

Fuck. I am not stopping.   BECAUSE IT FUCKING WORKS. i can access things very much more easily than when i'm regular.  When I'm sober, to get in the same state I have to feel safe and free.  Hah.  So... That means that I have to be alone in the woods but knowing support is available, with sunlight and privacy, and no shame.  I have to be able to do or say or dance or speak or type or fart or whatever I need to do with no shame... 

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiitttttt.  I just called myself out.  I don't need a big 3 fucking ring circus.  I need time, privacy, support, aloneness, nature, basic needs (ie food, shelter, in a nice way, etc), sunshine, growing things, water, and time.   And then more time to record what I just went through.  Record the thoughts.  Write them., sing them, dance them? :), whatever.  So. again. Support. Green beautiful nature. Aloneness. Privacy, no shame. Time. Share with someone, that's it!  Even if it's sharing with yourself.  Share it.  Shout it. Dance it Scream it.  It is the truth and it loves when it's spoken.  The evil is washed out when you say its name.   ......           ......           .....            ....     


That's fucking it.  That's all I need. How did it take this damn long to get here?  I'm joking but not? I had to take every step I took, but it's funny that in the end, it's so simple. 

OK, so I'm peaking on Dxm, and I want to go enjoy it and it's not good for writing anyway.  or maybe itis?  I want Brian to read all of this, if he could continue to be my therapist.  Otherwise I guess, theres not enough time.  It's all coming down tomorrow Yay.  Tellin him everything.

Long Talk with my Bro

My brother and I have been talking for the past coupla months.  Which is a big deal.  Because of the way our mother manipulated us, we have stayed pretty seperate as adults.  So Jem (my bro) has had a helluva month.  He basically has had a trauma breakdown.  And we talk/have talked a lot lately about our childhood and our mother and her behavior.  There is so much I want to say about Jem, but right now, I just need to get down some points that came up in this convo.

1. Mom sat with Jem at a table and said "You have to become a lawyer, it is like a license to steal."  This may not seem like a big deal, who cares.  But it is huge.  Because the mother I know would never say something like that.  So our mother talks to us in different ways.  Meaning she is manipulating us, and is fully aware of doing so.  The Allison/Mother connection would never think "a license to steal" is a good career choice.  We are all about nobility and truth and working hard and making money that way.  And doing good, and being ethical and trustworthy.  So basically, MY MOTHER IS A LIAR, AND QUITE PROBABLY A SOCIOPATH. A PSYCHOPATH, SINCE I NOW KNOW THEY ARE THE SAME THING.  Not just a narcissist, a psychopath.

2.  I found out about yet another time when my mother did not tell me that Jem was sick and had had a suicide attempt.  She has never told me that Jem's problems were that serious, and thus I was never able to support him.  I had NO IDEA how bad it was for him.  NONE.  And I think my Mom deliberately kept the information from me.  She never visited Jem in the hospital, never comforted him.  Nothing.  Angry, anger starting.

3.  Jem just found out that 15 or so years ago, when he was in a relationship with a girl I'll call Mary that Mom did some fucked up stuff.  Mary sent a letter to Jem that she was pregnant, and Mom got her hands on it and Jem never saw it.  Mom then proceeded to attack this young woman (maybe 19) and call her white trash and a gold digger and that she was making it up to get money from Jem.  Mom then paid Mary some amount of money to go away and never talk to Jem again.  16 year old Jem had no idea any of this happened, all he knew was his girlfriend went away and never talked to him again.  He was heartbroken and depressed and started smoking weed.  Which I now understand, probably made mom very happy in her fucked up head.  So fast forward to now (a few months ago), and Mary and Jem connect via Facebook.  Mary asks Jem, what was that all about with your mother? Jem has no idea what she's talking about.  Mary thinks Jem is bsing her, pretending not to know to not take responsiblity, and it takes four or five conversations before the truth becomes clear- the Jem had no idea, and that mom is a monster.

I am very specifically writing these things down so I can take them to my therapist tomorrow.  I am so disgusted and angry that I think I am in intellectualization mode and am numb.  But actually, it may be just acceptance.  My mother is a monster.  I am lucky to have survived.  I hope Jem survives this breakdown part of the trauma fucking path.  I can only suggest to him what I did, which is to cocoon yourself and GO TO THERAPY. He is a different person, so his path will differ.  duh.  I just want him to know that he is lucky to be alive, and that he should pat himself on the back for surviving not only our childhood, but also the past month of shenanigans he has self-harmed hisself through. (I am fully aware of my atrocious grammar).

OK, now I am going to fucking be dark and angry and usefully vengeful and watch "Men Who Hate Women" Swedish version, with the amazing kick ass Noomi Rapace.  GRRRRRRRRRRRR

Bryan's Poem.

OK, we are high, that is a consideration.  We just fucking cyber stalked our therapist, but we didn't mean to.  We were trying to find his email to email him this stuff, and then well, internet addiction type of click, click, click, oh, he's been quoted on ABC!  Fuck. He's a good guy. I think. I don't want to get a crush on him. But I have a therapist crush on him, because fuck, how else does this shit work. Fuck I wish I had more time with him.  Maybe he'll take me on as a private client when the summers over.  But, wow, he's a keeper.  He knows what he's doing and he cares and he is intuitive and honest.

And I am soooooooooooo afraid of falling in love or whatever that state is with him, because when you are that open and honest with someone it's like its a sticky tentacle grasp that just happens.  You just fall for them.  And I know that it is not the right course and that it is not useful and that it is part of the therapy and all of that, and IT STILL FUCKING HAPPENS. aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhh.  And I think if I had more time with him, I could work on it.   But we don't.  Because I know he could handle me having a love feeling for him.

when you are that open and honest with someone it's a sticky tentacle grasp that just happens.  you just fall for them.  but it is OK.  this is part of the healing.  having him take my red wet bleeding heart and hold it and hold it and hold it and hold it.  and hold.  and hold.  so i can look at it, i can see it is OK, it is not gangrenous, it is not communicable, it is not green with pus, it is not going to infect anyone.  it is not going to infect him.  it is not going to infect me.  it is going to heal me.  and it is strong, but it will not kill me.  it will not kill him.  he will not blow up.  he can take my strong wet heart and hold it so i can look at it.  so i can study it.  so i can learn to love it.  and he is strong so he holds it.  and it drips blood down his hands.  but he has studied, he has friends, he has a therapist, he has a supervisor, he knows the boundary.  he knows it is not his blood.  he knows he can wash it off.  he knows he is helping to heal, not having a love affair, so he holds my heart.  and i look at it.  i study it.  and i see its strength.  and i am so scared of it. soo sooo sooooo scared of it.  ......................................................

.......................... so i keep trying to give it to him.  to put in his chest.  but he explains that he won't take it because he can't take it.  it is not his to take.  it is mine.  it is in his hands right now but it is mine to take back.

so i think.  and i watch the bleed on his skin.  and i watch him.  i watch him, i watch him.  i watch him.  i wait for his grimace.  his disgust.  the briefest flutter of an eyelid, the smallest unconscious curl of a lip.  and it doesn't come.  he is calm.  he has studied, he has friends, he has a supervisor, he knows the boundary, he has the strength.  he holds my bleeding heart.  it drips my blood down his hands.  he is calm.  he is kind.  he even smiles once, with my blood pooling on the floor, he still sees the point of living.  he shows me i can feel.  because he is feeling.  so i watch him.  i watch him.  i watch him.

and one day, i take my heart in my hands.  i watch him.  how do i do this?  i watched him, so i know.  i am calm.  i let it bleed on my hands.  i feel.  i let the blood pool on the floor.  the pain will not kill me.  it did not kill me the first time,  i lived then.  i made it then.  i can make it now.  oh, the pain.  pain.  pain.  but i am calm.  i feel it.  i cry.  i cry.  i cry.  i cry.  i cry.  then i am quiet.  then i laugh.  then i smile at him.  he smiles at me.  i made it.  i still want to give my heart to him but i keep it.  it is mine to keep. 

And I take it in.  I take me in.  I take my strong red wet beating heart back and put it in my chest.  And I smile.  I say "We made it."  He says, "I think we did."  And I shake his bloody hand with my bloody hand.  And we stand and we look at each other and we smile with our hearts in our chest. 

Do the Work

Fucking fuck.  I don't wanna do the work, but i do wanna do the work, but fuck.  OK, we gotta do the work.  we gotta write the poems.  we've gotta go for the walks.  we gotta fucking do the fucking yoga.  we gotta fucking meditate. fucking meditate. fuck.  we don't wanna.  we wanna do drugs and get high in the sky and teach beautiful theoretical math and fuck the world.  and eat what sugar crap.  but we gotta fucking drag ourselves outta this.   we gotta. we gotta.

We have to do the work.  It's on now, I guess.  It's on.  We are high right now, but I guess it has to stop.  Eventually? (With a Chesire grin?)  Fuck.  Drug Problem.

Drug Problem.

We love the way we feel so much on DXM that we do not want to give it up.  It almost feels like a "gimme" quick cut pull away to me kind of thing.  My precious.  It's MINE, AND I LOVE IT AND FUCK OFF.  fuck. 

And we gotta focus on what the problem is, and actually the problem is not DXM.  The problem is that you are healing from a childhood of SEVERE abuse and mind-fucking and sex abuse and hurt.  And your mother is a very sick person who is not going to be able to go on this journey with you.  And your brother may not be able to go on this journey with you.   He has come a fucking long way, and he may find a way to be happy, but you can't do it for him  I ABSOLUTELY will help him any way that I can, but I can't control  his path.  It would be grotesque to do so.  You are alone.  You are going to make it.  You have to stop doing drugs.  You have to stop doing drugs.  You have to stop numbing reality.  You have to feel the freakiness in real time, not drug time.  You have to feel weird while you are sober.  You have to feel dissociative and wonky while you are sober.  While you are not chemically affected.  It is OK.  It is safe to be dissociative and wonky and sober.  You will not let go and become fully crazy all the time.  You can control it.  It is actually beautiful.  And you can do it.  But although the drug is beautiful and it helps, it hurts you, it is a chemical not meant for your body, it is probably hurting your liver, it is probably hurting your heart muscle, it definitely hurts you ability to have mental perspective and clarity.  Yes, it helps you feel and get to the truth.  It does. I absolutely will not dispute that.  It does fucking WORK.  But it can't be a lifestyle.  And you want it to be a lifestyle.  I do. I want it to be a lifestyle of wonkiness and gut intuition and truth and weirdness and calm and beauty and truth.  I am so scared to do it.

You have to fucking live out loud.  Yeah, that movie.  Cheesy, fuck yeah, but correct.  Live Fucking Out Loud.  You have to.  You can't keep going doing this drug thing.  I mean, you can.  You seem to be handling work, money, therapy and drugs sorta well right now.  You can do it.  You just have to decide is that the life you want?

I've been watching Weeds. Probably a bad idea.  but someone on it said he did all this terrible stuff, just to see if he could get away with it.  And that is sort of how I feel about the DXM.  Like, holy shit, I am dissociated to the fucking moon, high on chemicals and totally living my life.   And it's working just fine.  The only chinks are literally my own truthfulness.  If I didn't go to therapy, if I didn't have a true relationship with my friends, I would be fine!  It's sort of gross.   I could live like this forever.  I'm the one who keeps telling my fucking therapist I'm using drugs.  If I didn't go to therapy there would be no problem.  But I keep fucking going to therapy.  I feel like I need it.

BECAUSE I DO FUCKING NEED IT.  I need to tell my truth and be heard and loved and that is fucking therapy.  OK, I feel like I gotta stop because now I want to defend DXM forever.  OK.  Stop.

"Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair...

Am I Dr. Watson?

So, I am totally in a spiral of self-hatred, dissociation and shame.  I have been stuck in my house for about 2 months (?) basically eating and watching Netflix and whatever I torrent off the internet.  I am not in a good place.  And no matter how I say it here, I will sound better than I actually am.  I am not good.  3 weeks ago, if I had a gun, I probably would have killed myself.  Ironically, only my depression stopped my suicide.  It was too much work to plan the whole fucking thing, so I slept instead.

I have been watching and "fangirl" ing this TV show I like- Sherlock on BBC.  It is about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the present.  Dr. Watson is a ptsd guy from the Afghanistan war, and he shacks up with Sherlock to solve crimes.  What I love about the show is that Dr. Watson is just like me.  He has nothing, no love, no passion, nothing to live for and as he says in episode 1 to his therapist (!) "nothing ever happens to me."  And then he randomly becomes flatmates with Sherlock and his life begins.  GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDd.  Please let that happen to me.  I have nothing, no life, nothing.  I feel I am unworthy of even a tumblr account.  I want a Sherlock to come save me.  And I will be the practical human being to his sociopathic/neutral good/asperger's bx.  I just need to be saved.

The beauty of the show Sherlock is basically that they fall in love with each other, without either one knowing what the fuck to do about it.  So they stay platonic work partners that spend every fucking waking moment with each other.  I would be happy with even this fucked up codependent relationship.

I just need help.  Help..  I need love.  And companionship.  But I need to save myself, because no one else can save me.  The idea of a Sherlock is beautiful, but misguided.  I have to be my own Sherlock.  I have to save myself.

PS. After at least a year and a half of abstaining, I got drunk tonight at a lesbian bar and talked to some women.  I even sort of have plans for later in the week.  And let me tell you, I would trade (and did) all the sobriety in the world to have a life. and friendship.  So there.

I am exhausted

Well, I am officially a badass.  I had one hell, whopper of a migraine last night after I got off the phone, so my sleep was very shallow and troubled.  But I got up and went to group anyway.  And that is when I was awesome.

Trigger Alert:

I told about the memory I had 3 weeks ago.  The memory of being orally raped by a male when I was an infant.  Yes.  Part of me still has a somewhat hard time believing we can remember something that happened when we were an infant.  But most of me believes it.  I have read enough research about traumatic memory that I know it's possible.  And it happened to me.  This is not the first memory I have had about sexual abuse, but it is the most complete and concrete.  It was all senses at once.  Other times I have had body memories, but no visuals, or visuals when I was high that I discounted because I was high.  This happened dead sober, when I was least expecting it, meaning I wasn't trolling for a memory.  It just came. 

I don't understand someone who would do that to a baby.  It is so foreign that it seems almost impossible.  But my body memory was real.  So I believe myself.  I just am devastated.  Devastated that I was hurt before I could even walk, made to dissociate before I could even communicate.  It is a wonder I'm still alive.  I think some seriously terrible things happened to me in that house, and I know seriously terrible things happened to me in the other house.  I know my mother beat me, emotionally abused me and terrorized me my entire childhood until I was 21.  I told her she couldn't hit me anymore at 21.  Twenty fucking one, and she was still in such utter control of me.  37 and the control is just finally waning, after three years of intensive, intensive, intensive therapy.  Almost 4 years now.  Wow.  I don't like to think about it.  It feels like it shouldn't be taking me this long.

But fuck that.  I was one of the most defended people ever.  I was in total unreality about my childhood, because it was never safe before to truly understand how bad it was.  It took me 2 years to truly trust the therapeutic process.

I am so sad, but it is a good sad, an authentic devastation about my childhood.  I had no one safe, ever.  Ever.  So, I am a badass for making it through.  Yes, I am.  We all are. 

On what looks like to me, my mother's hand

How do I both love and hate Ani Difranco.  She is a genius, but cold.  I am jealous of her talent, her drive, her ability to succeed.  I don't think I could have ever been an Ani, but I could have been great.  Is it too late now?  Probably.

I relapsed just now.  Watching porn.  Ugh.  I hate it, but I do it.  I also relapsed on alcohol.  But for some reason that doesn't seem like a big deal.  Because I don't really think alcohol is a problem.  DXM is definitely a problem.

"look with all of you, not with just your eyes."  Albacore, Ani Difranco.

My hands are aging.  My face is not I guess.  I got carded tonight to buy my uggy six pack of Mikes Pink Hard Lemonade.  The guy thought I was in my 20's. Yay.  Or not.  Whatever.

I am so sad.  And so, so, so, so, so alone.  I want to be in love, to have someone love me, but I have no ability to do so.  I want a circle of friends that I can love and love me.  And I don't.  I have 3 good friends.  That is good.  But somehow that doesn't seem like enough somehow.  J says I'm feeling the abandonment.  This feeling of aloneness and emptiness is the emptiness from childhood.  Maybe so, but how do I fix it?  How does that knowledge somehow help?

I think I am close to suicidal again. Death by ennui.

My mother's hands were always on me.  Except when I wouldn't touch her.  But she always had the god-fucking-given right to put her hands on me at any time she wanted.  The right of her being the adult, the right because I was a child, the right because she was my mother and she owned me.  The right of the strong over the weak, over the young, over the helpless.  I loved her and she used that against me.  I put up with so much, because I had no other choice.  I should have left.  Like Suzanne said, at 5 I should have packed a bag, grabbed my 3 year old bother and fucking flown to Paris.  Gotten away from the werewolves.  Werewolf mother, werewolf father.  Werewolf daughter?  No.

Can't Sleep

Hey all non-existent blog readers.  I can't sleep, so I got up and decided to write.  Dr. S is leaving program to work where she can use her talents.  Right now the HP is not giving her enough to do since our group disintegrated.  This makes me very sad.  Unless I go to see her next week to say goodbye, I will never see her again.  This really, really, really, really sucks.  I am going to miss her so much.  She helped me so much and I want to be able to keep in touch with someone who had such a strong impact on me, but alas, I fear boundaries are going to make that an impossibility.  I am really going to miss her.

I slept all day today.  I mean all day.  I didn't get up until 4:30, so I obviously missed my regular 3:30 meeting, which sucks too.  But I did make it to a meeting at 5:30, so that's good.  I've spent the rest of the night hanging out with Carol, practicing music, talking and watching stand-up comedy. 

I keep trying to figure out if anyone is reading this at all, but blogger keeps counting my visits to the blog, even though I set it up so I thought it wouldn't.  Oh well.  This is a blind shout going out to a deaf audience.  Which is fine.  I just want to get my thoughts out.  And out they are.

I'm thinking of giving my Maria Bamford CD/DVD to Dr. S as a going away present.  I had wanted to show it to her when I went back, but well, that's not gonna work now because she's going to be gone before I go back.  UGGGGGHHHHH! 

Oddly I keep thinking about other posts I have made.  What I have previously written keeps popping into my head as I'm trying to fall asleep.  Stuff I think is witty, or particularly meaningful I guess.  I'm not sure why.  The cute boy and mental health post is one that is making the rounds in my head.  Maybe because it was one of my last normal nights before I turned into a full time mental patient.   I used to have a real life where I went to art openings, then out for drinks afterwords with new and old exciting, vivacious, successful people.  And I was one of them.  Ugh, I hate what I am now.  I shouldn't say that.  But I want my old life back!  And I don't know how to get it.  I guess by starting to volunteer.   Then maybe go back to school.  Be around smart, interesting, passionate people again.  I am bored now.  Bored, bored, bored, bored, scared and bored.  Yep, scared snuck in there too.  I am scared of trying again for a real life and finding out that I am not capable.  That it will all crumble fantastically away from me like it did before.  I don't trust myself or the world.  I feel like maybe I am just incapable of being a full human being.  I'm afraid any attempts I take for a real life will fail miserably and I will be worse off than I am now.  I hate Michelle for thinking and assuming I have to do better.  Fuck her.  Why do I have to be successful to be OK? 

Am I ever allowed to just be, and have that be OK?  I've been producing and proving myself my whole life.  Nothing was ever enough, just as nothing was ever supposed to be to hard for me to do.  I was expected to excel at everything I did.  Which I did for all of my life.  Why do I still have to do it now?  I just want everyone to leave me alone.  I want to be a beautiful failure and still have people love me.  Fuck everyone else, and especially you, Michelle. 

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 :) 

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.

There is something wrong with me

Yes, I think there is something really wrong with me.  I watch this extreme porn that is degrading and humiliating to women.  It's the only kind I like.  I want to see the women hurt, extremely.  That is not good.  I don't think it's good.

I would like to be touched.  Hugged, cuddled, loved.  I would even love to have sex.  But I can't.  For a few reasons.  The main one right now is that I am terrified of men.  Strike that.  I am terrified of people.   And you sort of have to hang out with people before they will touch you.  People scare the shit out of me.

Except of course for my infatuation flavor of whatever day it is.  I mean, it's still sort of F, but since I no longer see him or live in his town, then I'm not gonna be doing much with him, am I?  Even if it's mooning over him.

I saw this amazing video that deconstructs what is going on with the characters Laura and Paul from "In Treatment".  I've seen this video before on youtube, but was watching it mainly because I love that storyline.  Come on, it's about a chick who is in love with her shrink.  What else am I going to be interested in, right? 

Here're the links, there are actually two awesome ones:    In Treatment: Laura testing Paul  and   In Treatment: Understanding Laura

Anyway, this therapist takes apart what Laura is doing, and it is exactly the same shit I pull all the time.  But it doesn't say she is bad or gross or that it's "her fault".  In fact, it sort of lambasts Paul and his crappy therapy.  Paul doesn't handle her testing well at all.  And he lets her down.

One thing this therapist states is that Laura was most probably sexually abused, probably by her father.  That doesn't turn out to be true later in the show, but we do learn she had an affair when she was 16 with a much older man.  I guess I should not call it an affair.  I guess I should say she was taken advantage of.  I should say she was abused.  Anyway, I sort of did that.  Or at least I tried. 

See the difference between Laura and me is that I never follow through with my guys.  Or they never follow through with me.  I needed someone to take a little more overt action because I was scared to death and didn't know what to do.  But if I had known what to do, I would have done it.  I was waiting for them to touch me first, and they never did.

I guess I am writing about Uncle Kevin.  And yes, he's my uncle by marriage to my mom's sister.  Not actually blood related to me.  But I had a huge crush on him when I was a teenager that blossomed into an even huger crush when I visited them when I was 20, just turning 21.

All this stuff with F, it falls right in line with what went on with Kevin.  It's the same damn pattern over and over, and it never gets satisfied.  I never actually have an affair with these men, I just pine and pine and pine and hurt over them and never do anything.  And feel guilty for even liking them in the first place because they are so inappropriate for me. 

What a long strange trip it's been (and is continuing to be)

So, it's been 3 months.  90 freaking days.  Of sobriety.  Wow.

And I am dying inside right now, not doing well mentally.  Or spiritually, for whatever that means.

Update:
I went into detox on November 2.  I spent 12 or so days there, then went to inpatient substance abuse treatment for a month in  a town so small they don't even have a Starbucks.  I met the most amazing counselor there, and he probably saved my life.  I need to call him, I've forgotten to do it lately.  I said that I was going to call him once a week.  Bad me .

So, after rehab I came home.  Alone in my apartment I was going crazy.  I needed more help.  So I wound up going to an inpatient PTSD treatment hospital for 3 weeks.  I just got out of there and am staying in a half-way house to do the outpatient portion of  the PTSD program, as it's not in my town, where I am still paying rent.  Double rent, gotta love it.

This program I'm in helps women with trauma get over themselves.  I guess it helped me.  But maybe not.  I don't know.  All I know is that I feel like cutting the shit out of myself right now.  I skipped the IOP today.

I haven't been on this blog since November, and realize I never really updated the F story.  I'll do that later.  There's been an even more interesting twist that I created.  I am a drama queen.  Not really.  But I do like to make things interesting when I'm in the mood.

More later.

I DID IT!!

So I saw him today.  We went for our 30 minutes.  He gave me a diagnosis of PTSD with Borderline traits.  Not Borderline.  Yay! Then I asked if I could talk to him for another 10 minutes. But, on to what happened next.

OK, actually first let's go over what happened during the first part.  I walked in, he did his frown again, and I asked him what that was.  He sort of wiffle-waffled, so I said "You did it last time too."  He said it was due to the fact that he was trying to remember what went on in last session.  I said "So, it doesn't mean you're trying to tell me something without telling me something?"  "No" he said. (He also said  later that doctors were human too, which I think he was relating to the whole frowning thing.)

So we got on with it.  He asked me a ton about my drug use.  I told him everything.  LSD, my one time with Crystal Meth, GHB, K (done with that chick with needles), Ecstasy, the little coke I did; fuck what else?  Hash, pot, DXM (of course), whippets, Xanax, alcohol (obviously), no heroin though.  I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but this is getting tedious.

Good gosh, I hope my family never reads this and figures out it's me.  Right now I'm the good kid who is not an addict and has her shit together.  Ha.

So next, he asked me a bit about my father.  When he died, how often I saw him. I told him about him hitting me when I was 13, and Uncle Sam's fuckery.  Then going to Uncle Sam's house the next night for dinner.  He asked about mom's shit and I told him about the walking home.  F asked about verbal abuse. I told him mom told me I was unlikable and mean.  Not stupid.  But fat, in a veiled way.  And gross.  And mean and unlovable.

F then told me he was abandoned, ignored, and not taken care of.  He said this on his own, I didn't ask.  But I love hearing it.  I mean I didn't love hearing that he was hurt.  But, I just want to relate to him.  I just wanted to take care of him. Pathological, I know.  But he is so attractive and fragile.  Fuuuck I like him.  Or at least what he has let me know about himself in session.

He tells me he thinks I have PTSD, not borderline.  Yay, again.  I don't know how to fix it though.  And he's just my meds check guy.  He basically told me that later.  Yeah, so later.

We get done about 10:45. Someone calls him on the phone to check to see if he's heading out to a meeting at 11 am.  He tells them to go on without him.  He then talks about how there's a merger going on and they are having many tedious meetings about it.  He doesn't want to go.  I think I volunteer that he can say I'm in crisis and not go.  He may have brought it up, I'm not sure.  But I say, if you have 10 minutes, I have something I'd like to talk about.  He assents.

So I say, "I don't think I can see you anymore because I like you".  He gets an "oh, I don't know what to do" look on his face. And he doesn't know what to do because he says NOTHING.  I blunder on saying I looked it up online and know it's transference, but online they say you should tell your doctor.

More later.