Road Trip
I am driving to Boston for the night. I’ll visit my cousin and two former roommates, hopefully take in a museum and a yoga class. I’ll return Sunday night, hopefully with a renewed faith in the fact that I have a life and that I have some people who care about me and enjoy my company. Sam the dog will come with me, which is always a nice antidote to the anxiety of traveling and being out of my comfort zone.
Thursday night group was really good – there were some nice comical moments and I got a good (very brief) cry in. I didn’t intend for it to happen but it did as I described the wound of disappointment that keeps getting re-opened when a member of the group (who was not there – she’s in residential for the next few months) makes plans with me that she bails on at the last minute. I didn’t realize how deeply it stirred up past hurts until the tears and the sobs erupted. Dab dab at the eyes with a tissue, take a few breaths and the flush had faded from my cheeks and the waterworks had dried up. I like this girl and I wanted so badly to connect with her. It felt so fucking good that she seemed interested in the same. And so fucking bad when she couldn’t hold up her end of the bargain. Obviously since she went to residential this week she’s got her own very serious issues that likely prevent her from socializing (whether they be physical, ED, or emotional issues). But B. reminded me that my caretaking part for her shouldn’t shove aside my hurt and disappointed parts. I know that I’m encouraged to bring this up in group when the group member returns because it’s supposedly a really great opportunity for us each to speak for our parts and feel some hurt in a safe and supportive place. Blech. I don’t know about that. I can only imagine what I would hear if someone told me I had disappointed them. B. and C. reassured me that in words in group there was a strong message of “I wanted so badly to connect with her and was so excited at the prospect” that may be positive for her to hear but all I can imagine she’d hear is “you disappointed me” and then….of course….the internalized “you are a bad person” “you are a lame friend” “you will never be better than a disappointment”. I’m projecting, yes. But I don’t want to hurt anyone else, even if doing so expresses my true feelings and protects me. Wow -there’s fodder for about 26 therapy sessions!
Grey Day
Just a grey day here. Lots of intention to do things. Not a lot got done. Took a day off work and feel it was wasted. What did I expect? It’s me. Me who has lost any sense of adventure. Me with the social isolation. Me with the inertia holding her back.
I’m feeling pretty grey after my birthday. I got about a million and one facebook happy birthday wishes, about 6 phone calls and a dinner of leftovers and Grey’s Anatomy DVD alone. It’s that last part that’s really affecting my mood. What a pathetic evening, one that happens at least 5 out of every 7 on any given week. But it hurt on my birthday. A lot. I talked about it in therapy today and how I have a really hard time making close friends. I meet people easily, make a good first impression, am generally likeable but have such a hard time forming closer more meaningful bonds. I totally realize that I have a part to play in that. I avoid opening up and experiencing vulnerability at all costs, which tends to keep friendships superficial and doesn’t welcome intimacy or connection. But also, B. brought up a really valid point that those intense friendships take time – for everyone. After high school, I’ve never lived anywhere long enough for it to happen. Which I think factors into my addiction to intense romantic relationships – it’s an easy way to feel that connection pretty quickly. But this whole friendship thing is going to be really important if I’m going to not fall head first into another relationship that’s not right for me. And it is factoring HUGELY into my decisions about where to relocate. The main city where I’ve investigated jobs and sent my resume is a city where one of my oldest friends lives, where I have a cousin close to my age, where several of my sorority sisters from college live – who I feel closer to than most acquaintances. There’s a bit of a support system there. It’s also within a days’ drive of about 30 other friends and family.
In other news, I had my first chiropractic appointment today. It’s a newer form that isn’t about cracking and popping and forceful manipulation of the spine. It was…exactly the opposite…the guy touched me about as lightly as you would to dial a number on your cell phone….about 10 times. And that was it. He told me a bunch of stuff was wrong with my spine and then told me to come back twice a week. I left with a brief feeling of – “ooohh…did it work? can I feel anything different?” and then…”no. not really. other than the discrete absence of $100 from my checking account.” I do want to pursue some more body work, especially during this time of transition. But I feel like I’d rather put my money towards accupuncture – which I know makes me feel different right after. I highly recommend alternative holistic health treatments – but only one’s that feel effective. I know that’s likely not the same for everyone but I don’t think Network Chiropractic is for me.
Ironic Juxtaposition
It is Eating Disorders Awareness Week all across America. Tomorrow is my birthday.
I attended a presentation given by B. tonight at the local University intended to raise awareness of ED and to promote awareness and understanding of the integrated talk and somatic therapy method based on IFS. I spoke with her a bit before the talk about my job/moving thoughts. She encouraged me to work with my protector parts so that I could get to a Self-led decision – “things will just flow and work out the way they need to if you can get those protectors to relax”. I believe her…it’s just getting those protector parts to relax. Many of them are cart-before-the-horse planners who want to find my dream apartment before I even have a job, know when I’m moving or where I’ll be commuting to. Ridiculous, I tell you – not to mention a huge waste of my time checking craigslist relentlessly. check. check. check.
After some thought, some of my youngest most exiled and delicate parts have quietly begun to ask that they be taken care of in this process. Specifically they have requested that the emphasis in finding a new therapist be on someone who is an advanced IFS practitioner rather than an ED specialist. My parts are fucking terrified that focusing on an ED therapist might lead me down the road to a CBT or DBT based treatment and that does not feel safe for them. Been there. Done that. Those parts don’t want to be overlooked again – don’t want the focus of treatment to be on the firefighter behaviors. Don’t want to over-emphasize the managers. They want to work on the old old old dark and scary shit – as yucky as it may be. They are so grateful that their story is being told and their feelings experienced and don’t want to be exiled again.
In anticipation of all this change, I’m trying to find a way to incorporate yoga into every day. A daily practice. I was thinking that setting aside time to do a 5 minute meditation or pranayama and 3 or 4 postures each day might be an achievable and manageable start. No beating myself up if it doesn’t happen. Just a gentle encouragement to try again. I just need something grounding every day to return to. Something to blunt the edge of anxiety.
reason #421 why being alone sucks
I am sick. Up and down all night to get tea, another throat lozenge, another blanket, my iPod, and on and on. All the while a hedgehog as lodged itself somehow in my throat. Prickly little bastard makes my voice faint and my eyes teary. Slight fever and absolutely no desire to leave the house. But the lack of television makes things around here, well, Bo-RING! It’s times like these that make me miss J. He’d swing into full nurse mode – getting up with me in the night, running to the store to get Nyquil, renting movies. At least for one day, he’d be attentive. Then he’d go back to sleeping and moping. His empathy, it seemed, far outlasted his energy.
Operation find a new job is in full force. And since the great state of Vermont has about 3 positions available (one of which is at my current job – which is going out of business any minute, one of which is at the SNF that made me cry on Friday, and one of which is at the hospital over an hour away which seems quite impractical), I swung into gear looking for a position in NC. My manager parts are efficient little fuckers – I emailed a cover letter and resume to 9 – yes NINE – different places yesterday. Mainly in a similar job to what I do now. It’s not what I want to do for the next ten years but it sure as hell beats the old folks’ home! I already heard from one place that they’ll be needing a new OT for April 1 – that’s a distinct possibility time-wise.
Moving and starting a new job, despite the anxiety of it all, feels pretty exciting. I just really, really, really don’t want to leave my therapist. My group. All the things that are making me feel so much better. The things that I attribute to keeping me safe and healthy right now. Maybe I should give myself a bit more credit for it, but I don’t. Ugh. I do not want to tell B. on Thursday about the latest developments in this whole work saga. Some of my parts feel like it’s a failure on my part – like I’m quitting something by relocating. Other parts feel like leaving B. will feel devastating and grief-filled. Those ones feel young. They had really started to trust me and emerge a bit in the safety of therapy. And now I’m going to bury them once again? Am I ready to let them emerge on my own? Would therapy 2x/week until I leave help?
questions. sore throat and a lot of questions. chills. bedtime.
Pause. Rewind.
I just had a girls’ night. Like an actual fabulous girls’ night in with three amazing women. Champagne. Cheese. Chocolate (apparently the 3 “c’s” of a girls’ night). A projector my friend borrowed from work splashing enormous images from episode 1 of My So Called Life across the barren wall of the most beautiful apartment I’ve seen outside of magazines. Then Sex and and the City the movie with plenty of chit-chatting between.
Almost. As if. I. Had. Friends. It was great. Perfection. Just what I needed on a night when I have a sore throat and am feeling overwhelmed by the turmoil that is my professional life and geographical location at the moment.
Lessons learned this week:
1 – If you “call out sick” from work because you’re an emotional wreck – it’s not truly a lie because physiological sickness is likely soon to follow. Burning sinuses, flushed cheeks, prickly eyes and subtle body aches through my neck and shoulders tell me that this body is fighting off some germs after being beat up mentally at the start of the week.
2- My “Self” (with a big ’s’) doesn’t just have to be an innocent bystander. It can calmly assert itself and ask other parts to tone things down a bit (“I know you’re feeling really hopeless right now but I need you to step back for a moment so that I can think clearly about my next step.”). It can negotiate with parts (“I know that you really feel like dissociating because you’re exhausted from this week, but if you can just step aside so that I can be present for group tonight, I will allow you to totally ‘check out’ all afternoon tomorrow.” – impeccable timing for the Netflix delivery of season 3 finale disk of Grey’s Anatomy for just this purpose). It can ultimately play the role of a compassionate parent – listening to each parts needs but also asserting some of its own for the benefit of the whole system.
3 – I miss lifting weights. I felt so strong and powerful Wednesday night after lifting a bit and then slept like a baby for 8+ hours. This is one gym activity that has never really had to do with my appearance as much as just feeling active and strong. Yes, please.
4 – I have no idea what to do about my job. Maybe that’s okay. The options around here are quite shockingly limited and I interviewed today at a skilled-nursing facility. Blech. I’ve been arguing with myself all day about it. Parts of me wanted to cry and run away just upon entering the building – warm and smelly, lines of wheelchairbound slumping elderly with food on their shirts, mumbling to themselves. I just don’t do well with old people like that – never have. Sure I like the 90 year old in the back pew at church but she’s, well, still functioning pretty well and coherent. She doesn’t make me sad and squirmy and in search for a sink to wash my hands. And most importantly, her bodily fluids are contained. I have parts that want to prove to myself that I can do this job as a sign of achievement and strength. But deep down I know I’d be miserable. I’ve done a 12 week clinical rotation in a comperable setting and hated every day of it. I never relaxed or got over the awkwardness of naked grown-ups who can’t remember how to put a shirt on. At least with kids it feels developmentally close-to-appropriate to poop in your pants or be naked or snot or drool. Maybe I am just a kid person afterall. I inquired about one other position at a hospital but it’s an hour away and probably wouldn’t allow me to get to my therapy appointments – the whole reason I’m not relocating out of VT right now. So maybe I’ll just stick it out where I am. It works for my therapy schedule. Who knows, maybe our financially dysmal little non-profit can hold on for 6 months until I’m ready to move??! Maybe that’s a wishful thinking part? hmmm.
5 – I have finally accepted my mom for who she is and what she can offer me in terms of support. On Tuesday night, I was devastated and panicky, overcome by the yuck bubbling up, overtaking all sense of self-control. I sobbed and heaved and thought my chest would implode. I hyperventilated and paced and clung to my Aunt Julie blanket and hoped I wouldn’t die from the sadness. And the whole time I had the phone nearby, ready to call mom to rescue me. But I waited – for longer than I ever have before. I tested the waters a bit – afterall, all this time, energy and money on therapy is supposed to be allowing those exiled parts and their feelings to unburden and be heard. So I let it go until it was unbearable and then called, knowing full well that my mom’s tone would be directive and cold. That she would attempt to talk sense into me and would quickly shift me into the intellectual and analytical mindest that protects me from the yuck. I didn’t call expecting warm and fuzzy or even empathy. Just a rescue.
6 – There are many, many websites, blogs and support groups for the adult children of parents with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I thought my dad was so crazy and unique and hard to describe or understand. Turns out – he’s in a very special club of crazies who are astonishingly similar.
7 – Mentally rehearsing a plan of what to do if I come home to find my dad on my back porch makes me feel a little bit better.
8 – Sometimes my granddad knows just what to say, “[your mom] told us that your engagement is off. From here I can’t tell if that’s good news or bad news, but whatever its much, much better to break up before getting married. Finding the right mate is a very dicey deal and surviving a few “loves” is good experience!”
9 – Body dysmorphia seems to peak just before my period. My brain is having a field day checking body parts in the mirror, running my hands over them, trying on various pants to see how snug they are, pulling, pinching, squishing, etc. Hormonally exacerbated craziness.
My mental health day
Called out sick from work this morning. Got an appointment to see B. for an extra therapy appointment. Tears kept stinging my eyes all morning and I just watched the clock waiting for that 1:30 appointment.
Cried and cried and chest ached and mascara ran and snotted and blotted with a tissue. And B. validated everything – the emotional abuse, the trauma that is reactivated every time he contacts me. She didn’t tell me that I just shouldn’t open the letters and that I should block the emails. She really seemed to understand how unbearably painful this is. This having a father who is incapable of authentically loving me and yet won’t leave me alone. To be stalked and threatened. To be conflicted between wanting to hurt him and wanting to take care of him so that he doesn’t go off the deep end and kill himself. To live in terror of the contents of the next envelope from him.
I explored the unsettling fear I have of his “6th sense” ability to feel – even states away – when I’m vulnerable, most susceptible to his hooks and lures. The terror that if I “go there” in therapy and dredge up this unfathomable pain and grief over my attachment to an inconsistent, unpredictable and emotionally abusive parent that it will elicit a stronger response from him. He knows. If I dream about him, he’ll contact me within a few days. If I talk in therapy about my late (great) Aunt Julie, Dad uses her as ammo in a letter (“I’m sure Julie’s heart would break over this estrangement”). It is as if we are so entwined that even my thoughts and feelings are not my own after a year and a half of not speaking to the man.
Which brought me to the following -
“It makes me want to hurt myself because it’s the only way to really hurt him.”
There it is. There is the eating disorder, the suicidality, the self-loathing – all in a fucked-up little nutshell. The only power I have is to hurt myself.
i’m drunk and punctuation is complicated
the weekend will have to take a back burner tonight it was fun and all nothing momentous but as i dashed out to catchmy ride to the airport the four-year-old part of me grabbed the mail and stashed a small package with familiar scratchy handwritinginto the outside pocket of my carryon backage. return address from “Gost Von Hooten” – googled it tonight but no literary connection as i hypothesized.no just some name he made up to get me to open what i already knew was a package from him. the address, the handwriting gave it away – or perhaps it was the email 10 days ago announcing with fanfare that he was sending me something.
that something was a mix CD and a long typed letter (3 pages with a chickenscratch signature at the end.
“my dear dearest daughter,” blah blah blah i listened to 2 tracks on the mix CD last night but was confused about whether the songs were included because they had the word ‘father’ or ‘cancer’ or because it’s a lovesong. that’s sick but it’s true and i got feeling all swirly weird inside so i switched back to NPR.
and today a little bird delivered an email to my inbox – a ranting, angry, hissing email announcing defeat and depression and desperation and what does he have to lose by showing up on my doorstep and havinghim yell i hate him. and that made me scared.
and then the panick attack and then the wine and call my mom. and talked rationally and calmly out of it. out of the experience and into dissociation. drunken dissociation. “you can control your feelings and your response to this”.
and now the numbness. before it was the i had a daddy who doesn’t love me because he cannot love another human being and the ow in my chest and the regression to a sobbing toddler wanting to suck my thumb and dig my teddy bear out of the attic. but now just the numbing numbness.
Check, please!
The universe was listening today and gave me a sign. Morning individual therapy was spent exploring my parts’ feelings about making decisions in my life. Central to the conversation were my upcoming plans to relocate. I just don’t feel ready to leave therapy or group – they’re working…something is finally WORKING! But a part of me wishes I didn’t feel so dependent on therapy, that I didn’t feel so scared that I’ll fall apart without it, that I could see myself as more resilient than that. The biggest motivation to stay is therapy. The biggest reason to leave is that I’m tired of my job and relocation feels like the only “valid” excuse to leave my current position. But I generated some ideas of other options – take a different local job short-term until I feel like I’m ready to leave therapy and then relocate. I left my session feeling like it’s at least an option but feeling really sensitive to how that would “look” to my employer, co-workers and the parents of my clients and extreme anticipatory guilt about what it would do to the business for the only full-time therapist to leave.
Another part we worked with today was the one that is terrified of making my own decisions because I’m scared of choosing “wrong” or making uncorrectable mistakes (i.e. choose the wrong job, the wrong place to live, etc.). A firefighter part wants to jump in and make me attached to someone else in a relationship – so that the other person factored into the decision – someone else for my blaming parts to scold if I don’t make the best choice. Something to explain away my bad choice. So when and how did this part form that thinks there’s always a right answer and a wrong one? That there is some predetermined path in my life that if I don’t make the right guesses, I’ll stray from and be doomed to be miserable and stupid forever. I’m working towards realizing what my brother always says – “there is nothing you can do that cannot be undone in 5 years”. You can go from broke to having money, you can go from wealthy to broke, single to married, married to divorced, you can move, change careers, sell a house, make new friends – I guess he may have a point. But this black/white thinking part that thinks that decisions are either right or wrong – it’s just trying to protect me and keep me feeling safe and insulated.
I get to work and the first conversation I have is one in which our director informs us that she will not be taking her salary for the forseeable future because we cannot afford payroll. CHECK, PLEASE!! There’s my valid reason. I’ve said for a long time that the writing was on the wall with the financial situation of our clinic – but not making payroll is the END in my book. Me leaving doesn’t put a nail in the coffin – the coffin is already nailed shut, but nobody seems to want to face that fact. So the universe has sent its sign and I listened – I’m going to get in touch with two local places that I know are hiring. It would be the same type of work and setting as what I’d be doing when I travel – so it’s a good training experience. Not sitting around waiting to be laid off seems like a good enough reason for a decision to be made!
Group therapy was amazing tonight although yoga was shitty. My wrists are sore again – my right in particular. I went through 6 months of really bad right wrist pain beginning this same time last year – was in a cast, a brace, a splint, had an MRI with injected dye into my wrist joint – NOTHING uncovered the source of my pain or made it better. So, needless to say, I’m pretty frustrated that it appears to have returned.
I’ll talk more about group at a later date – pretty exhausted and have to get some rest before my big trip tomorrow. Uncertain as to the availability of private internet time – I’ll try to post if I can but if not, I’ll be back Monday night.
PS – If another job doesn’t materialize, I’ll sell all my wordly possessions except my dog and my banjo and we’ll hitchike around following the Avett Brothers…..mmm.
Everything is moving so fast
It feels like the world sped up. I know I said I was busy but this feels like some sort of cosmic conspiracy. It was four o’clock today and I would have sworn it was only noon.
In therapy tomorrow I’m planning to at least mention the relocation plan to B. I’ve really decided to go for it and am starting to feel a little worried. I’m considering letting work know of my plans in the next few weeks. Despite the fact that I don’t have my “next job” lined up, I feel like committing to taking travelling positions means that there WILL be a next job – even if it’s not exactly in the place I want to be. I’m willing to be flexible in order to make a change happen in my life. And the fact that I am the only full-time therapist in a non-profit whose financials are abysmal with one other part-time therapist going out on maternity leave in July – I feel like I need to give them as much heads up as I can so that I don’t cause the doors to close. Also, I keep getting thrown these new clients or longer-term commitment tasks that I don’t feel it’s fair to take on knowing that I’m about 90% sure I’m leaving in May or June and positive I’ll be gone by September. I think the faster February flies by (wait, did I MISS January?!) the more I realize how soon May and June really are. I have a few once a month clients that I’m realizing I may only see 3 or 4 more times. So there’s a lot to chew over. The only reason I’m not up and out of here now is my therapy. My group. My individual treatment. I don’t even feel like May/June is long enough for it but I’m ready to move on in every other area and I feel like the work ahead could take years.
As an aside, I started feeling yucko about Valentine’s Day. I realized I have NEVER been single for V-day. Like EVER. So rather than wallowing, I sent a bunch of pretty cards with a handwritten message to my 5 closest girlfriends and my mom. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy about V-day now. And I’ll be with a good friend – who happens to be a guy – so it’s almost like I have a date. Except that it is in no way shape or form a date. An almost date is enough for me not to go nosediving off any high bridges.
Anyways, this whole time warp I’m in has made getting to bed at a reasonable hour very difficult so I’m headed that direction now.
