Post-therapy wrap-up
Therapy (on the phone) was really helpful today. I gained some nice new understanding of:
(1) how badly some of my parts want to reach out to others with authenticity, a touch of vulnerability and needs
(2) the protector part that jumps in the way of the above coming to fruition. the people-pleasing impulsive talking part who betrays all the vulnerability, the emotion, the “true” me in an effort to keep the whole system safe
(3)the reinforcement that the protector part receives each time I welcome into my life the types of people who will replicate the patterns of my youth.
What I’m left with is this: I want to do it differently this time. I want to figure out first how to distinguish those people who are NOT like my family of origin and who are safe to be me around and then how to let those people in a bit. The first part is crucial to remember because I definitely have “good therapy” parts who think that experiencing my emotions and being vulnerable is the end goal of therapy. But what’s the point if I finally get to that place with people who mistreat me again? No, I have to figure out before hand if my parts feel safe. B. says it’s just a process of being aware of what parts are most “in the living room” when I spend time with people. Examining what comes up when I’m with them. Awareness is not something I’ve been cultivating a lot of lately. I’ve been busy and distracted and ungrounded. Kayaking and yoga are top priorities for the week. Maybe listen to a guided meditation. Best of intentions…we’ll see how it works out.
And then it occurred to me
**warning: my space bar is reallyfeeling sticky and not cooperating. apologies.
Iwas putteringalong inthis newlife prettywell with a hefty doseof avoidance ofthe whole “relationship” challengesthatI face.Laughingly callingmyself a “trainwreck in relationships” (self-deprecating humor issuch a thin veilfor self-consciousnessorself-loathing). I wasenjoying my “single time” – afirst forme. I hadn’t joined a monestary and enjoyed eye candy as much asthenext girlbut I’djust put the wholethought ofdating onthe back burner.
Untilthis weekend.When Iwent tothe beachtovisit mychilhood bestfriend, her baby and her husband. She informed me that another girlfriend wouldbethere but I hadno idea untilI approachedherhusband atthebeachupon arrivalto give him a bighug that also joining us would be a guy thatIhave known through mutualfriends foreverandwho I hooked up with last December (J wasin the picture butwe hadn’teven kissedyet).So I almost swallowed my tongue whenC. turned aroundnext to my friend’s husband – shirtlessand holding a fishingpole. Gulp. “oh hey, what’s up?” That soundedcasual, right?
Fast forwardthrough aday of group activiteies and anevening of sexual tension and multiple drinksand finally some extendedalone time and conversationsaboutboth ofus having been engaged- and what thehellhappened last December (Imay have un-friended him on Facebook afterour encounter) (andavoided histexts)(andignoredhisphone call)- and where are you sleeping tonight and suddenly the bedroomdoor is closedandsex.sex happened.multipletimes. and itwas reallyquitegood.granted I’mout of practice and there’s always the initial awkwardnessandthe what do youlike andno, what do youlike and the getting usedto someone’s faces and noises.But Iwasbeaming whenIdrove away the next day afterasweetgoodbye kissandre-exchange ofnumbers (funny,I don’tremember deletinghimfrommy phone).
And the beaminglastedapproximately 3/4 of a mile of my 4 hour drive home. The rest was consumed withcrazy brain:
-would he make a good father
-whatifI got pregnant andwe had to get married
-howlong would Ihave to date him beforehe’d propose
-wouldI move to raleigh for thisguy?
-wouldhe move to charlotte?
-whatdoeshe do for christmas?
-whatwould meetinghisfamily be like?
-would my brother likehim?
-whatsortof house wouldwe live in together?
-whowouldgive me away at the wedding
And so on….soembarrassing toactuallytype those things ontothescreenasthey are indeed a reflection of how insanely obsessive and,well,crazy I get whena man enters mylife (even for 24 hours).
Ihad therapy on the phone withB. againtoday (didthatlast Tuesday as wellbecause I’veyetto find a therapisthere that willwork forme) and whilethe partsthatwe worked with are not theprimary players in this “anchoryourselfto a man asfast asyou can-craziness”, afterwordIhada moment ofrevelation. After spending the bulk of thesession working with a very young, very bruised andhurt andskittish childpartwho wants someonetocomfortherbut is terrified of it,I realizedhow fucking terrified I am of love. Loveisn’t something that canbetrusted.I loved my ownparentsandthey hurtthe fuck out of me.I often wonder now if I would bea happier healthier person if I hadn’t had my father in my life because of the boatload of hurt hegave me for years and years.So afterlookingat this partwhodesperately wants love butfeels that love is what hurther I wondered…
What ifallthe obsessive thoughts and the planning far far into the future and pushing things fasterthan they are ready to go…what if it’s a protective mechanism to avoid actually falling inlove. Love = hurt.Lonliness = hurt. Therefore,find a way to not be lonely while also not feeling real (dangerous, terrifying, powerful) love.
Just a thought. But it resonated.
the work ahead
“This is the work to do. Let’s do it,” B replied today in therapy when I outlined all the parts that are overbearing right now. When I wished that my managers could relax for a few days until I need them again. When I pined for an evening not monopolized by my wine-drinking-in-order-to-numb part. When a younger part cried at the mere mention of how upset it makes me to see the boxes and chaos associated with a move.
There is so much to write – a week’s worth of thoughts and then some. Disjointed and lengthy, this post will hopefully feel like a therapeutic release in my writing.
I hate moving. This move will be #18 excluding the moves between each year of college (technically not a relocation as it was still on campus and I didn’t own furniture). The first 11 were during my childhood, the first 6 were before I turned 9. Most were a symptom of my dad’s mania and my parents’ unhappy marriage. I teared up today when I said that the boxes for me symbolize being dragged along with no choice in the matter. Chaos. Uncertainty. Helplessness.
So as my clinic winds down operations, out come the boxes. Down come the pictures on the walls. Away go the books on bookshelves. Welcome in the trashbags cluttering the hallways, the piles of things sorted into “sell” or “donate”. I come home at the end of the day and feel too overwhelmed by it to even begin packing my own belongings. Which for now is fine as I do not officially have a move date other than “sometime before May 1″. But it hit me today how much it impacts me, churns me up, upsets me to see all of it. I’m angry. I’m frustrated. Things are feeling unfair and disorganized at work and no one seems to be leading anymore. I have this hope that THIS time, I’ll allow myself to feel some emotions around transitions and endings, the culmination of all this therapy. I expected to feel sad and sappy but what I feel is pissed off and bitter. “Great. That’s what’s there!” Bree exclaimed. Oh, right, angry is an emotion too.
Last week was too stressful to even express. I had 7 job interviews in 4 days and in between each was busy calling people about apartments, viewing properties and returning missed phone calls related to either jobs or apartments. Yack. My only reward was that I stayed with friends and when the sun went down I had copious amounts of wine in good company. No yoga. No walks. No reading. No mediation. No journaling. No blogging. Just wine wine and more wine. Certain parts (namely managers and winos) wouldn’t step aside and let any Self-nurturing parts come to surface. Oh well. Can’t say I blame my system. I think I overstressed it.
I know I overstressed it. I have consumed my weight in alcohol in the past week and just tonight I fantasized about purging. I didn’t do it. I just had the slightest twinge of an urge. Just my system giving me a little “fuck you” for putting to much on my plate and not exactly taking good care of me over the past week.
So much more to write. The more I write, the more wine I pour. Better slow down. More to come…
Technology restriction
Today I’d like to do a little experiment in technology restriction. I have about 3 things that I absolutely HAVE to get done today, the not-doing of which will bring out some serious self-loathing that will keep me up tonight. So, seeing as how my computer has consumed about 83% of my waking hours lately, I’m going to restrict a bit. After this post, I will actually power down my laptop – that’s right – not just put it to sleep with it’s little head down. I don’t have any new DVD’s from Netflix so that’s out of the question. That leaves me with reading, sewing, playing banjo, walking the dog and actually doing what I need to get done today (oh how I loathe laundry). Wish me luck!
In other news I leave Tuesday at the crack of dawn (4:30 am) for my travels to NC for job interviews and househunting. I’m anxious but also really excited. It will be a high energy week of zooming here to there with my googlemaps directions and my snack bars in the rental car. Lots of cell phone calls and chaos. I’ve looked up the schedule at a reputable yoga studio and added it to the Microsoft Word document containing all the pertinent details of my trip (current document is currently 5 pages long). I’ll download some good podcasts to encourage me to take walks between interviews. And I’ll bring a journal. I’m basically trying to prepare for the stress and anxiety that will wind me up TIGHT all week and the pressure of decision-making on my own with no boyfriend-sounding-board to rely on. I’m going to try not to call my family either. I don’t want to be influenced on these decisions – I want them to be my own. I’m bringing my computer so perhaps I’ll blog about it to keep me a bit grounded. That’s the plan anyway…we’ll see how it goes.
I think I finally did some un-burdening in my IFS work the session before last. I’m not even sure I understand what happened but it seemed to help. The parts we were working with were ones that protected me ferociously from feeling intense emotions because of the ongoing threat from an early age (both spoken and implied) of impending bad things that happen as a result of feeling too much. The most obvious one being that my dad would kill himself if anyone let him see how much he hurt others. But there was a much more subtle insinuation that if you allow yourself to get really sad, your life will permanently fall apart. Even now my mom will say things like, “What does your therapist want you to do..lay in bed crying all day and not go to work and lose your job and have to be institutionalized?!” (okay so maybe the insinuations weren’t so subtle afterall…) The implication being that taking one day off (or even 3) to cry when you call of your engagement will lead your life into a rapid downward spiral to homelessness and straightjackets. There it is…the idea that even the smallest bit of sadness, anger, depression, hopelessness will suck you into a vortex of unending yuck. Others in my family are black-and-white thinkers, too, but mom I think was my greatest pedagogical influence in the ways of emotional restriction and detachment. And on the cusp of my big move and all the changes, I realize that she also has sent the message that if something is change for the better, then there’s no reason to feel sad about it. Relationships ending are a perfect example – I’m not sure she even grieved over her 16 year marriage to my father ending. Granted, it was on some levels a huge relief and I can imagine parts of her wanted to do a touchdown dance of freedom. But certainly some parts were really sad. So I haven’t really grieved my losses of the recent months. I’m leaving a place that holds many complicated and wonderful memories. I’m leaving a really awesome group of co-workers. The clinic that I worked for and invested so much of my heart in, is closing. I’m leaving behind a bunch of kids who I spend hours working with each week – some of whom I’ve grown to adore. I’m leaving the chance of bumping into J at the grocery store and I’m introducing the distinct possibility that I’ll never see him again. So much is there and I think it’s time to let it out. Most recently I’m grieving the few friendships I have here that are still young but could have potentially grown into something great. And certainly I’m grieving the loss of the most influential and amazing therapist I’ve had and my wonderful group. This is hard. This part doesn’t feel like it’s for the better. I am scared to move on.
So much is going on for so many of my parts right now. My managers are working diligently around the clock to coordinate the logistics of my move and all the transitions (enter “Things to Do Before I move” word document including such highlights as “oil change” and “sell used snow tires”). I need to take some time for the grief to swell. So power-down, dear computer. Take the day off, I’ve got some other plans.
Friends
What does a Saturday spent with female friends mean to me? It means that Sunday can be spent sewing, cooking, working out, cleaning all without even for one second feeling lonely. I’m not so needy that I can’t bear to be alone for an hour. In fact, my mom reportedly gets confused because I send mixed messages of enjoying alone-time but hating to be alone. It’s true. I guess this does sound confusing.
I guess I need solid friendships in which I really feel known and valued in order for alone time to feel tolerable – even enjoyable. So rather than feeling like today was a sad pathetic exercise in tolerating excruciating emptiness and solitude – it was more like a treat. I got to spend the day doing whatever I wanted and relax my social muscles after a big day yesterday. Quality time with good women friends is so nourishing to me. I’m still figuring out why friendships are hard for me and romantic relationships jump in the way so frequently.
Well that was just embarrassing.
Well shit. I really let it all hang out in group tonight. I spoke up in “check in” (ugh, I still really hate “check in”) that I had an issue I’d like to talk about tonight. Fast forward to post-check-in. Usually check-in takes pretty much the whole time so we’ve never had the luxury of finding out what comes after. But tonight we agreed to keep check-in quick so we could delve deeper into the therapy. So all eyes are back on me and I brought up my experience with the photograph of me plus some poundage. I expressed my confusion and frustration at the body dysmorphia I was feeling. And Bree opened up the opportunity to do some therapeutic work – some “role play” of my parts, an ‘experiental’ , as she called it. I agreed. But as she described how it would go a part of me started pulling back in fear. Scared I would be too vulnerable or wouldn’t do it right or just would inevitably embarrass myself. But I didn’t speak for that part. I just decided to be strong, be the guinea pig in this new therapeutic element to our group. “I’m an expert at ‘keeping it together’ and not really feeling things so I’ll be fine”, I reassured myself.
About 10 minutes into it we started really getting close to the relavent exiled part of me – the hurt hurt fucked up and hurt part of me (well, at least one of them – the one most related to the dysmorphic experience I had). And the sadness started to overwhelm me. With panic and tears in my eyes I looked pleadingly to Bree, “Make it stop. I don’t wanna do it anymore.” And then, “I can’t BREATHE!” Face in hands, full body trembling and shaking uncontrollably. Panic panic panic fucking panic that I hate. That life-ending feeling that I fear I can’t recover from. But I did. It took ten, fifteen minutes (not sure, really, how long as it felt like a year to me) of Bree coaching me to breathe and feel my feet on the floor and feel my bottom on the chair and just breathe some more. I survived it. But then I was paralyzed. How can you have a flippin’ panic attack in group therapy with six women you’ve only just begun to know and then pull your puffy mascara streaked snotty nosed face out of your hands and face them again? How can you have let that part of you that you are terrified of and ashamed of and hate erupt untamed into a room of people and not run away?
With support from the therapist leaders of our group. I spoke mumbled for the ashamed parts of me. I spoke sarcastically joked for the totally numbed out parts of me. I spoke whispered for the terrified parts of me. And I survived. As we “wrapped up” several people spoke very supportively of me. The complimented me and described me as strong. Are you kidding me??!! I just snottted on myself and nearly hyperventilated and quit mid-role-play out of sheer terror. But somehow I knew that they must at least understand a little bit. No one scoffed. No one left. No one laughed.
I’m a little too emotionally hungover to say much more than that right now or to process it. I’m just glad I have therapy on Wednesday. And that it’s bedtime.
Wishing and hoping pays off…
No, I did not wake up this morning (1) magically cured of my eating disorder, or (2) 10 pounds lighter (I am constantly amused by the polarization of my brain). But I did get a SNOW DAY! It’s all I could think about last night as we watched weather reports forecast a Winter Storm with bad road conditions.
So here I lay, sipping coffee in bed with my pup by my side – lounging and contemplating what to do with my day. No plans. I’m in the quiet before the storm of anxiety about unstructured time. Before my manager parts start making lists and setting goals and feeling wound up tight like a top about the emptiness in the hours ahead of me. Trying to remain in this contented and warm headspace: I think I’d like to read today. I’d like to go to the gym. I’d like to play with my dog in the snow (he goes bezerk with joy!). Take a nap. Take 85 pounds of laundry to the laundromat.
I’ve felt really disconnected from my life, my body, even my brain this week. Like I’m floating about 3 feet above my actual being – hovering in a limbo state. Lots of purging and in a much more frantic and sensation seeking manner than last week (when it was just something I did once a day, part of the routine). It’s led to the inevitable awakening of my sleeping restricting part. I’m tired of the purging and eating regular meals has made me feel gross. I want to cleanse this weekend and feel empty and hungry and clean. Is it weird that I equate restricting to cleaning up the house? It feels too cluttered and chaotic in my body and mind so I’ll take food out of the equation. Another factor I think contributing to the restrict voices is this curiosity I had yesterday – what if I wrote my dad a letter that read:
Dear Dad,
As you know, I have been battling an eating disorder over the past several years. I have also asked you repeatedly to “give me a break” and stop contacting me via email, phone, letter, packages, smoke signals or carrier pigeons. I know that you have found it irresistable to keep contacting me and requests for you not to do so apparently make it more enticing for you. I have decided to treat you like the three-year-olds I work with and enforce consquences for your poor choices. From this point forward, I will be losing 10 pounds for every time you contact me. I will send you photographs of my progress as a reminder of this consequence. If you correspond with me enough, you will need to forward mail to me in a hospital. You can undoubtedly stalk me and get that address when the time comes.
Sincerely,
Your daughter
I know, I know, what you’re thinking. Correction: I don’t know what you’re thinking. I know what I’m thinking and what I suppose you’re probably thinking. That’s crazy. That gives my disorder power. I would never send that letter. It’s just another one of these daydreamy thoughts I’m having a LOT of lately. But the interesting conclusion that I came to at the end of this daydream was that even THAT wouldn’t stop him. He’s incapable of giving me space or respecting boundaries.
I’ve been having so many dad-related thoughts and feelings and memories lately which are both interesting and terrifying. They take me “there” where I never want to go. Down into the yuck. But maybe the yuck isn’t “down” – maybe it’s actually floating 3 feet above my body because I’m confused as to why I’ve felt floaty disconnection this week with co-occuring access to the yuck? Is it a reactionary dissociation? Huh? Freud? Jung? A little analysis, please guys?
So I’m going to take this post back to where it started…snow day joy. Coffee’s a little less hot, back is starting to hurt from typing-in-bed-posture and anxiety has crept in with it’s entourage of manager parts. But regardless, I don’t have to go to work – woo hoo!
Life as a prairie dog
I am a zoo-lover. A trip to the zoo was a key feature in most family trips and my grand total visits to the Toledo, OH zoo – just an hour from my grandparents house – must be in the double digits. Which makes me a zoo expert – if only in my own head. Tonight, I can firmly say “I feel like a prairie dog”.
I always felt bad for the praire dogs. Such a nervous species shouldn’t reside for the duration of their imprisoned lives in such an open enclosure a mere 10 feet from the outstretched, cotton-candied hands of six-year-olds. I’m sure that zoo designers aim for the least restrictive enclosure (from the perspective of zoo-goers, not of the catpives) and the fact that prairie dogs presumably cannot jump, leap or scale concrete walls allows them an open dirt field with only a short wall. They always struck me as terrified - scurrying in and out of their holes always with a few of them tensely teetering on their haunches at attention, scanning the crowds for potential invaders.
I feel like there are millions several parts of me that wish my enclosure was more fortified – perhaps with 4 inch thick plexiglass or at the very least some netting. I was already feeling this way tonight upon reading my dad’s letter (I KNOW, I KNOW – WHY DON’T I BURN IT, THROW IT AWAY, WIPE MY ASS WITH IT AND FLUSH IT, anything but READ IT….maybe I’ll touch on my theories on this topic later). But then J confessed that he had read my blog. Fuuuuuuuuuuck. Not that there is anything I’ve posted (I reread at least the past 20 or so posts) that is radically different from anything I’ve uttered aloud to him or made vague reference to in his presence. I even sort of understand his reasoning for checking it — he wicked panicked when I forgot to call immediately upon arriving in Brooklyn Friday night and my phone battery had died. After several hours of calling and emailing he checked the blog – and found that I had posted that very night and was alive and well (alright – well is subjective but I was definitely alive). The bottom line is – I’m not even mad at him per se. Just really sad about the situation. As the child of a Narcissist Borderline parent, boundaries (or lack of respect of them) is a hugely touchy issue. Overstepping boundaries and privacy is touchy like pouring Tobasco sauce on a paper cut for me. So with my dad somehow locating my home address and J reading the blog…all in the same weekend….I’m feeling like scampering into the nearest hole in the dirt. Anyone willing to stand guard?
As a consolation prize – my dad got the address wrong by 10 house numbers. Lucky for me our mailman is just THAT good that he caught the mistake and made sure I got this very important piece of mail. Thanks for going above and beyond, dude. Don’t expect a holiday fruitcake or anything for that little bit of excellent service. The good news is that if my dad does go bonkers achieve a new level of bonkerdom and decide to show up on my doorstep to (a) kill himself (b) break into my home and cry on my living room floor , or (c) hand-deliver the adorable new puppy he bought me … he’ll find himself at the neighbors 10 houses down the block – PHEW!
Okay – reasons why I read the letters:
-to remind myself of how insane and toxic my father is so that I don’t reconsider my decision to amputate him from my life (it was a very long and meticulous procedure with high risk of infection)
-out of curiousity of how fucked-up this one will be
-to hurt myself, to punish myself, to be mean to me.
-to amuse myself with my own inner monologue of bitingly sarcastic, inappropriate and downright hateful potential responses…of which there are typically dozens.
-because, in this instance, I had WAAAAY to much time to ponder the contents of the envelope before I opened it and in that time my brain had concocted a totally plausible scenario in which my father reports in the letter that his new wife is pregnant with a little girl – so (1) I was going to have a sister and (2) he would have a new replacement daughter. hmm. should probably talk to Bree about this.
In the history of my eating disorder, I’ve had those days that are just downright shocking -even to me- with how far I’m willing to go to purge. Let’s just say that there are several rest station bathrooms between NYC and Albany that I’m quite familiar with now. Jeeze, that’s disGUSTING. So in the aftermath of that…I’m trying to figure out what were the precipitating events or feelings and how I could have done things differently so that I could have felt better this weekend. My brother and sister in law got some sort of stomach bug and last night my brother was hurling in the bathroom. And then proceeded to talk about it all this morning. I’m not sure if this was triggering for me or just felt insensitive or ignorant or what… I just felt really uncomfortable. Especially with a weird combination of guilt, shame and glee that he wasn’t the only one who’d used his toilet for those purposes this weekend. Ugh. Too many toilet references in this post. It’s even grossing ME out.
Way too much has gone on emotionally for me this weekend. Time to turn off the light, close the laptop and give myself a break for not coming up with a way to tie together the praire dog theme here at the end. sleep now.
The body retaliates
Alright, it’s time for a little honesty. I have recently dropped quite precipitously from my “healthy” recovery weight. I’m not at my “sick” weight or even (in my ED mind) anywhere close, but the direction of weight shift is clearly towards it. And apparently my body is deciding to have a little something to say about the sudden loss of weight and lack of nutrition:
-I’m coming down with a cold and feel drippy, stuffy, scratchy (purging does NOT help in the scratchy throat department), achy and generally as if I was run over by the last train to yuckville.
-In the past 15 minutes, I’ve developed a sneaking suspicion that I may be in the first hours of a urinary tract infection (oh god, no! I have only had this twice and it just blows goats – not to mention necessitates a trip to the doctor).
-I’m having some sort of abnormal menstrual bleeding, mid-cycle – and I’m on the pill and have been for years. So, yeah, that should most certainly not be happening.
Too much information? Perhaps. But anonymity, Valium (oh yeah, I’m not straight-edge anymore. I’m sick and desperate for sleep) and physical discomfort decrease my self-restraint.
Had group tonight and left crying and just generally feeling all stirred up inside and uncomfortable. I think it was all the effort not to cry within group. That seems so counter-productive and in a weird way competitive. I’ll be sure to put CRY IN GROUP on the to-do list. Somewhere between DONATE to Heifer International and START SAVING PART OF MY SALARY. I just feel like I’ve fallen so far away from my “recovery” and I’m finally feeling like this “downward slide”, this “slipping” “relapsing” etc. has left me in my current position - sprawled face-down on the floor. I’m in it. I’m up to my neck in “behaviors” (I need to write a dictionary of all the euphamisms I use) and any prior sense of control that I was merely “dabbling” in disordered eating (and disordered thinking, and disordered existing) is difficult to convince myself of when I’m cheek-to-tile watching my chap-stick roll across the floor and sensing the silent stares and gasps of “is she okay?”. How embarrassing.
I didn’t have my individual therapy this week and so seeing Bree at group knowing that I haven’t been able to tell her about my struggles of late made it really hard to keep from crying. She’s the only one in that room that I feel a connection to at this point. I want her to know that I have some how re-boarded the bus to Crazyville but the vulnerability of a group setting didn’t allow for that. Afterward, she offerred me a hug (first time for us and it reminded me HOW un-touchy feely I am…thanks to an emotionally distant and unaffectionate family upbringing). I feel like I bristle under the touch of anyone but J. I found myself analyzing that hug on the drive home….
“I didn’t pat her back, did I?! Oh that’s totally a “mom” thing – slap the back hard to somehow pound out any authentic emotional connection that hug may be leading to. Did I hug long enough? Was it genuine? Was I stiff and awkward?”
Geez. It’s not like I slept with the woman – ease up on the morning after play by play, okay? (okay, self? apparently I’m talking to myself now. agggh – feeling crazier by the moment.)
The other thing that group stirred up is a lot of my “daddy issues” (as my oh-so-compassionate ex-asshole used to call it). I conveniently repress forget a lot of these on a day to day basis but sitting in a room listening to someone describe going to Starbucks with their old man all Norman Rockwell-esque was enough to set my head spinning. If a functional MRI was conducted on me when someone mentioned fathers I am certain that the following areas of my brain would light up like a Christmas tree:
-the purge center
-the hate myself callosum
-the tear production headquarters
-the suicidal cortex
-the right and left self-destruction ventricle
How to handle “dad talk” in group is a topic of high importance in my meeting with Bree on Monday. Also of high importance, full disclosure that I am back to all of my old tricks. Hopefully by Monday it won’t burn when I pee, I’ll be able to fully inhale without hacking and my female cycle will have stopped its little shenanigans.
A glimmer, a gleam or a momentary hallucination of hope
As I was doing the antsy-pants dance of checking and grooming and pacing and gathering winter gear after eating a grossly indulgent and monumental normal dinner and trying to remain sane and make it out the door to group, J made the massive mistake sweetly asked how I was doing/feeling.
Me (fixing bobbypin in hair for eleventh time): I just ate dinner and I feel really uncomfortable about it.
J: Why?
Knee-jerk reaction from me: Becaaaawwwse I have an eating disorder and eating makes me feel really yuuuucky right nowwww.
(pause while I wait for him to walk away from the other side of the slightly opened bathroom door – either satisfied or exasperated by that answer, not really caring which at this point)
J (well-trained by therapists about how to deal with my eating disorder): But what are you feeling underneath that? What’s really going on?
Me (Security level raised to orange – possible intruder; activate the annoyance and dismissive tone): I don’t know, honey. Just anxiety and nerves and stress and I didn’t sleep well last night.
J: I’m worried about you. I’m worried about us.
(door creaks open under my palm to reveal his puppydog adoring eyes and furrowed brow)
Me (ALERT ALERT security breach in zone E for emotions!): (face buried in his chest tears surfacing) I’m so scared to have a wedding! Family, planning details, money, pre-ordering a fancy dress in some size that I have to fit into months later, being on display all day – it’s the perfect storm. I can’t even be healthy when I’m in someone else’s wedding, how can I be healthy when I’m in my own?
Hot damn! What is it with me and the verbal outpourings of vulnerability and honesty lately? It’s almost like therapy is worth the time and money I put into it – almost like…it’s working a bit. Not that I didn’t instantly begin beating myself up for this admission of fear and concern for my well-being. Not that I didn’t pepper the next 5 minute dialogue with repeated apologies and expressions of regret for saying such a thing. To his credit – J didn’t flip out or over-react. He really just listened and then sent me off to group.
Fast forward an hour and a half and…… (drumroll) I actually feel a teensy tiny bit better. Monday night is just our yoga night so I didn’t have to actually talk about what was going on in my life (thank God – I would like to hold my current position as the only one not to cry during their “check in” *). But I found my groove tonight in the old lady slow speed yoga class. I found my breath despite the noticeable absence of sweat on my brow or shaking triceps on my twenty-seventh vinyasa. Ashtanga it is not. But somehow I got this tiny glimpse of space between life and me. The business and words and people and sensation of my body moved about three quarters of an inch away from me and gave me a few good breaths of freedom. Gentle and sweet. A little shift. Like the glacial cap of Kilamanjaro melting from global warming. Of course parts of me were terrified and on the drive home starting whispering to sound the alarm bells. To attempt to undo what had occurred. But louder parts of me hoped for more of these subtle shifts. Hoped for enough of them for time-lapse photography to one day string together in a film narrated by Al Gore. Hoped that this was the start of something**.
I even came home and indulged in a 100 calorie bag of Kettle Corn (I know, I know….how daring and WILD of me!). Is there some sort of message or symbolism in the fact that it was a defective bag that had no flavoring??! not sweet, not salty – just corn and air. Bah humbug!
*I cringe at the term “check in”. I also cringe at most people’s “check ins”. I’m embarrassed for them. It’s like all the judgments that I’m so scared of others having of me I’m having about these poor girls. “Geez, is she gonna take up the whole hour going on and on about her shitty housemates” or “how embarrassing, you’re crying before you even complete your first sentence”. It’s like … It’s like…I’m channeling my mother!!
**in retrospect, probably a poor choice of analogies since global warming and glacial melting is NOT something I hope for more of. But I’m feeling too lazy to think of anything clever at this point.
