So I Wrote

These are 3 am thoughts.

The truth is that I'm BORED. Bored of myself, bored of life, bored of the day to day certainties I have built. Built around the things I've given up as dead, as impossible, as compromised away.

It is so boring and dull and tedious to have the little brain ticks I have. So tedious to always know they aren't supposed to be there, but being absolutely fucking throw-my-hands-up, no-fucking-clue helplessly watching myself fail at removing them. You think it's frustrating to watch? Try living it. Try walking a day knowing  you're fucking it up while other's are also knowing. That knowing turns to resent. Resent turns into bitter anger flung here, there, everywhere and it stains what it comes in contact with. Unresolved as it is, as it all is, the bitter anger flinging has stained everything and I cannot see clearly anymore because everything is covered. It's noxious. It expands, seeping into things so far untouched and clean and now it's everywhere.

My life isn't what I thought it would be by now. No ticks in the boxes I so carefully laid out. I don't even remember all the boxes anymore. But I remember one. I want to tick it. Firmly. With ink, not pencil. Breathe the new dirty air again with a mind not consumed by resent and guilt.

I feel disconnected, world-weary and jaded.

The horrors.

Remind me never to drink again. Oh God. Someone, get me some chamomile.

Dude. Crafts.

Right. Obviously very bad at keeping promises to myself about actually writing. Strange thing is, I harbor this secret idea of myself as a writer, as a creative person who does crafts and inspires people with beautiful things. But, err. I never really get around to being that person. I tend to write a lot of things in my head, but they somehow never seem to get typed out.

Amazingly, however, today I am writing AND crafting. I hate that word - crafting. It sounds slightly haughty. But craft I did. I came across a very simple looking project (another haughty word) that seemed like it wouldn't suck up  money or too much time, and yet have the end result be unique (oh god, I hate all these craft related words) and pleasing. I made a tiered serving platter. All I needed was some super glue, and a trip to the second hand store for some lovely plates.

I realize this isn't exactly a masterpiece but it was incredibly pleasing to make. One plate, one bowl, a little schnapps glass (I think) and some glue. And, of course one mustn't forget, one can of tuna, two cans of corn and my Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Armory book that my ex-boyfriend gave me. The weight of his disappointment in me was a perfect weight to help the different parts of my Creative Unique Crafts Project stick together.

I'm terribly excited to make more of these in different designs. I will be the douche who gives these away for Christmas. Sorry, guys.

In other news:  You won't believe it, because I surely do not, I have an appointment with my very own psychologist tomorrow. After six months of waiting, two slightly desperate and despairing phone calls - I'm in! But having been extremely disappointed in the past, I will save my real enthusiasm and belief for when I hear the person actually say "yes, I can and will help you", instead of "No, sorry, I don't have the knowledge to help you". Something that I have heard all too many times.

I suspect once I have things to think about from therapy, I will be doing a lot more typing here on typepad.

One can hope, at least.

What's wrong with me today?

Lately, I've been struggling with a sudden and acute drop in self-esteem. My husband can be rather harsh when angry and uses colourful words to describe the negative sides of me, and it tends to stick with me if it is repeated in more than one instance. Factor in that I always feel like an outsider and my fitting-in-ness is non-existent in all places, and we arrive at my current state of mind. Perhaps a pity party for myself, but I genuinely cringe at myself. There's a running list in my head that reads itself aloud to me.

"Sexually broken"
"Communication non-existent"
"Selfish"
"Lazy"
"Judgemental"
"Surface level"
"Coward"
"Fat"
"Oh my god you fucking loser"
"Will never grow"
"Will never be okay"
"Unbearable to live with"
"Whiney"
"Self-pitying"
"Doesn't care about others"
"Uncreative"
"Stiff"
"Buys affection from others"
"Manipulative"

Note that my husband did not say all those things to me, some are from myself.

It's become a terrible tic in my brain. I'm becoming timid. Apologetic for my existence. I sneak away and cry. I sneak away and get furious. I feel like nothing on this list resolves itself, it just keeps getting added to. I feel like I've kidded myself all these years, thinking I'm an alright person that's growing and capable of enriching other people's lives.

It's turned me into a jealous person. I've never been jealous for no reason in a relationship. If I got cheated on, I was jealous of that person. I compared myself (and, of course, lost)(why else would someone choose to cheat? The person must be better than me). I've had no problems with my husband being close to other women. I trusted in his love for me, and if something were to happen there's nothing I could do about it anyway. I don't know why that last bit is a comforting thought to me.

But I am now jealous. Last week I had a melt down - I was absolutely furious from jealousy. I compared myself, and lost.This woman that I compared myself to is much more beautiful than I am. She is thin. She knows how to use make up. She dances in fields in front of people. She shares her internal thoughts freely. She talks a lot with my husband. For hours. And hours. When he was in the US this summer they would go to one of my favourite places in the world, where I had romantic times with my husband. Where I would take long walks with our cat. A place so green and lush, perfect to sneak away in. I wasn't jealous then, it was really fine.

But I am now jealous. She seems to be all that I am and all that I am not and all that I should be. Sometimes my husband seems so unhappy with me, so unhappy to be in this country, so unhappy to be in this country with me. I wouldn't blame him if it had run through his mind - the what if I was in the US with her?

I feel like a person who manipulates others to be around me, and then they want to run away but from misplaced loyalty (or a contract of the matrimonial kind) they stay. They stay and I make them unhappier by the day. And there's a beautiful, extroverted woman waiting. Who will fuck all day long I don't doubt. A woman who will go out to bonfires and dance and laugh and drink. A woman who doesn't have memories of rape and alcohol and mistreatment. A woman who is more whole than the one sitting here and typing this self-pitying shit that will deepen the aversion others already feel for me.

I am caught in a bind. I am encouraged to talk about how I feel, but it seems that all I feel is not worth hearing because it's a, self pitying b, shallow c, stupid. But if that is true, then I am a b and c because these are my feelings. So I don't speak, and that itself is a sin. Speak up! Speak up! No, those feelings are stupid and you shouldn't feel them or assault my dignity with them! Shut up! Shut up! Speak up! Speak up!

Things make me feel bad, and then my feelings are bad and inappropriate for human life... making me feel worse.

My favourite adjective to describe myself these days?

Scum.

 

Down, down, down the rabbit hole.

Over the past few days I've written several very eloquent blog posts in my head... which have inconveniently slipped out of conciousness before I had a chance to actually write them down.

Nothing much is happening here... besides almost constant nausea. If I didn't know for sure I wasn't pregnant, I would suspect I was pregnant. Good lord. Am I going to hork again? Why do I feel the need to hork all the time? I want to go to the gym damnit.

Instead of going to the gym I have spent a lot of time in bed staring at my laptop, internetting. I've interneted so much that there's nothing left to internet. I've watched Long Way Round through twice. I've re-read the entirety of my favourite blog. I watched a documentary about prostitutes. Napped. Lots of napping. No fapping. Lolololol.

This has left me oodles of time for thinking. Thinking is a dangerous rabbit hole I try to avoid going down when I know I have no therapist to help me out with what I find there. I think I've dealt with everything I know how to deal with and what's left I just throw my hands up at. Desperate for that letter with a date and time to come so I can feel like I'm on my way. Maddening how there's always something to fix with me. I can never just be.

Maybe the lack of husband is just depressing me. It's really brought home the fact that besides my husband there is no one here for me to hang out with. Really, nobody. Not one. I tried to get my brother to go canoeing with me. What is wrong with me?! I cringe at the thought of myself trying to speak to anyone at this point, online or off. It feels so obvious to me that I am not wanted and yet I act like... that kid in school who is oblivious to the fact that they are, in fact, just not liked and manage to butt in everywhere.

Or maybe people are so used to me not being a friend that when I try they are stupified into silence.

I am lonely. That's what it boils down to. I went to a cafe with my former best friend the other week. We had not seen or spoken to eachother in over three years. We somehow have ended up with plans to go see a concert together. Good lord it was nice to see someone. To chat, to laugh, just to be around. Hi person! Let us converse! I texted her after, saying we should do it again. She said yes. I texted her again a few days later to make more specific plans. No reply. Do I smell? Do I have something on my face? What? WHAT? I feel like leper from society.

I don't know. I am pretty down.

Well, damn.

I am a terrible blogger etc etc yawn etc.

There's not much to say in a blog that I guess I've sort of geared toward my mental issues when there's nothing really going on in my life on that front. Good lord that was a long sentence.

Yesterday, I threw up. I got a bit of a concussion from hitting my head and a few hours later I had to cure myself, apparently, by throwing up. Then calling my mother in absolute panic and fear, going to the emergency room and getting checked out, and theeen getting drugged up.

Today I spent the day napping, pretty much. And having other people bring me things. My mother brought me groceries and cooked me food. My brother brought me a Jeeves and Wooster DVD. There's a lot to be said about my family dynamics and the woe it has brought me in the past... but I know that if I have to be taken care of, I am.

The vomitting wasn't bad, my friends. That's the second time in three weeks I've thrown up (my stomach does not agree with coffee). I'm not fearful of it now. When I realized that my God, I will be seeing my dinner again, I didn't get so much as an increased heartrate. Just acceptance, and waiting. It's so fascinating to me. So odd.


In other areas of my life... well. I've been working nights this whole summer. Making the moolah, serving the elderly etc. It's been great. I really loved working there - even though it's involved a lot of butts. Excrement comes out of butts. I feel kind of purposeless now that I don't have any scheduled work left. Considering calling them and just begging to come hang out so I at least get to know how all my elderly peeps are doing.

My husband is away in America. Again. The first three weeks it was like a bit of a holiday for me too. A time to cleanse myself with silence kind of thing. Well, I feel fully cleansed and lonely now. Daunting that it's only half the time has gone now. Hmm.

Well, last time I went to the evaluatory therapy meeting they said I should get a letter with a time in August. So theoretically, within thirteen days I should have it in my hands.

 

One unfortunate event's consequences

My back is... eh... I'll give you the TL;DR version:

My back has an awesome knack for getting crooked and very inflamed in one spot. It halts everything because it's so painful. I end up sitting or laying down a lot. A lot meaning all the time. Movement is painful. Only thing that works to fix it is a chiropractor visit and lots of pills.

I couldn't afford either for 6 weeks. No gym. So I didn't have a reason to go outside. Well, I couldn't go outside because I could barely walk. So, I couldn't challenge my emetophobia every day. I need to do that to keep it at bay. The thoughts have been creeping in. Sloooowly but surely.

I'm not afraid like I used to be. I'm not obsessive in hand washing or checking my food. The only consistent fear has been going back to the gym now that my back is starting to improve. I guess it's a fairly easy target - I'm ashamed I got thrown off track AGAIN, I'm scared to see where my fitness level is at now (I suspect tear-status), and I'm so anxious that lifting weights or doing whatever cardio will aggravate the inflammation. It's like the anxiety is a cell with receptors for only other anxieties.  "You're so out of shape now!" becomes "the gym will make you vomit because you're so out of shape now."

The gym and my eating habits are very much linked in my head too. Barely a week after my back gave out I stopped eating well. I ate stuff that made me feel sick, bloated and anxious. So much sugar. I was nauseas for weeks. My stomach hurt for weeks. I was disgusted with myself for weeks. What the hell is that kind of behaviour about? Punishment? For what? Having a weak back that no amount of core exercises seems to improve?

I really do not like getting somewhere and then something happening (see: getting very ill and bed-bound for months, father dying, getting foot run over, becoming severely depressed because of foot, and repetitive painful flare ups of my back) and losing all that progress.

If I can't go to the gym everything about me starts going downhill. I need it to feel good, to make progress in other parts of my life. And to make me less whiney and to give me some hope at maybe developing some self-esteem. I need that self esteem. I motivate myself through guilt and shame. Effective as it is... Maybe there's a gentler way.

I'm scared and limited. Not as scared and limited as I was, but still scared and limited. If I don't stop myself I'll become increasingly scared and limited. I'm jealous of the motivation and will I had this time last year. It was harder then, but easier to get on with.

Damn, writing that really made me feel a lot better. Maybe I shall actually give this bloggy thing a really good go. Maybe I'll start taking pictures of everything I eat to post on here as an extra little bit of motivation. Though, it will probably be rather boring as I am very repetitive in what I eat.

But fuck it, it's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

I am a tea kettle.

The pressure I build on myself is really ridiculous. "Oh you can't write anything for your blog today because you feel all shitty and it's not going to be funny, and when did you even try to write anything funny last? You're lame."

Nobody reads this blog so, in theory, I can write whatever I like because nobody is going to read it anyway. Sometimes I pretend I am just writing to a friend and I don't even know if this friend even reads my blog.

Today I cleaned my kitchen. I cleaned my kitchen after I had dinner. I had dinner after I went to the store to get cream and coke light. And brie cheese and slim jims. Before I went to the store I was asleep. I slept all day because I couldn't see the point of getting up.

During cleaning my kitchen I watched Grey's Anatomy and pretended it was as good as actually studying medicine. Which I am supposed to be doing. For two days I've not studied at all and it's the only two days in the past two weeks that I haven't had a headache.  

Now, instead of studying I am waiting for megavideo to let me back in. Usually I use megavideo's time-outs to study. Then I use Grey's Anatomy to surpress the panic that I am not smart enough to study. And surpress the panic about the exam that's in a couple weeks.

I am also surpressing panic about how I have no money and so many bills. So many bills. I am surpressing panic about how I messed up on my diet and I am terrified, completely illogically terrified, that two days of less than stellar eating will cause me to gain 20 pounds. I am also failing at surpressing panic about how my nerve damaged foot will not stop hurting again, two years after the accident. It does not want to bend and it is swollen. I am worried about this. Without my foot I can't go on walks or to the gym and without those two my back hurts all the time. I am scared about all this. I am scared about how I may get emetophobic again as we go deeper into winter and deeper into the pitch black darkness that covers this country during winter. I am scared what going on anti-anxiety medication could do to me. I am scared what not going on anti-anxiety medication  would do to me.

As usual, I am doubting and scared and fumbling about. I wish I had the eye-on-the-prize motivation I had when I was in therapy for my emetophobia. Without that therapy I don't know where to go. So I'm stuck. Stuck in PTSD land, stuck in daddy-issues land, stuck in sex-is-so-difficult land, stuck in not-good-enough land. I don't know where to go and the pressure that I'm building inside myself is scary.

Fucking father's day.

It was father's day here last Sunday. I had blissfully forgotten it until I went to yoga in the evening, and the instructor told us to "reflect on our fathers" during the class. Yeah, thanks a lot.

On the way home I started getting flashes of good memories: Watching Lord of the Ring together, how we always used to laugh at the part where Merry and Pippin throw stones at the cave troll in Moria when arrows, swords or axes are making a dent in him.

When I got home I got flashes of things I feel guilty about: How I borrowed his English version of Hitchhiker's Guide and he had to read the Swedish version while at hospital getting chemo. I never ended up reading the book at all. To this day it sits on my bookshelf, unread, because everytime I look at it I get a surge of guilty guilt. Then one guilt ridden memory brought me to tears when I was in the shower. One of those surprise sob fests that you don't expect. You're fine one moment, lathering up your hair or whatever, and the next your face is screwed up and hot tears are spilling out at an alarming rate and you're not quite sure how it could happen so quickly and with no build up. I was thinking about how when my father was sick he had a hard time keeping any food down. One day I went to him and I made him this mexican style soup that had a lot of corn in it. He ate three bowls of it, and kept it down. He was smiling ear to ear saying it was so delicious and felt good in his stomach. I only made him the soup that one time. I was so scared to go see him. I was scared to realize how sick he was. I never even googled "lung cancer" until he had died because I was so afraid to really know what I already knew - he was going to die. He was dying. I couldn't watch it. I couldn't pretend cooking soup for him would save him. I couldn't go there and pretend that I was okay, that he was okay, that the whole situation didn't get me down at all. Many times after I had gone to see him I went home and and got absolutely plastered in my room.

But, as the duality of my psyche strives to be the most irritating and confusing it can, these guilty memories are always followed by memories of how I was treated by him sometimes. How his anger with life led me down dark paths and how hard it has been for me to survive that.

It is still so hard for me to reconcile these images I have of my dad. The dad he was the last few years he was a live, and the dad who destroyed everyone close to him. I wish I could take the blame for what he did because the guilt of even typing that he hurt us brings tears to my eyes and makes my stomach do a flip.

But I wonder if anyone in my family ever get tears in their eyes and a surge of nausea if they think of what they didn't protect me from.

God, I am so confused. I feel guilty for my family being unhappy. I feel guilty that it makes me angry at them that they  couldn't see past their own unhappiness long enough to see that the youngest member of the family was trying to kill herself every few months because nobody was even attempting to protect her, and yet she was bending over backwards to protect them. Taking the blame for things my mother did or my brother did just so dad would yell at me instead of them.

Fucking yoga teacher can go fuck herself with her fucking "reflect on your dad" nonsense.

Yoga is supposed to relax and center! Not send people into emotional turmoil. Fuck.

Harden! - It's Super Effective!

I am likely to consider it a side effect of my CBT therapy. I had to be hard on myself and demand things from myself that were very difficult and even downright sadistic at times. It worked for me - I have started doing it in all areas of my life now. I am much less likely to find excuses to avoid cleaning or studying now than I was before  CBT. I cheat less on my diet. Actually I don't cheat at all on my diet.

The problem is that I expect the same of other people. If someone, like my husband, has a hard day I am more likely now to take the "suck it up and deal with it" stance than the "aww, poor little baby" one. I am less emotionally oriented and more solution focused. This is not entirely a good thing. While it takes away a lot of my Hysterical Woman moments, it adds to other people's bad times because I am not neccessarily making them feel better with my "pfft, that's nothing. Pick yourself up and go." attitude.

But, then again, I've always had a problem receiving other people's emotions as well as my own. My brain overloads very quickly and shuts down the empathy/sympathy/any-feeling-at-allthy. My family never expressed any emotion except angry ones. So any expressed feelings = trouble, oh shit I have to get out. Those times never turned out good in my family. When my dad got mad I sometimes had to protect myself by shoving heavy things infront of my door so he couldn't get in. Not that he would hurt me physically. He would just make me really afraid that he would. Sometimes he raised his fist and stopped himself just in time. Most of the time he would just yell in my face with those furious eyes and I would stand and glare right back, terrified of showing that I was scared at all. I think if I had shown myself weak he would have tried harder to dominate me just so I would be crushed and under his control... and then what would have happened? My poor daddy, he was so conflicted.

I had to shut off my feelings so I wasn't overwhelmed with fear in those moments. Maybe all that fear that I pushed down were channeled into the emetophobia. Or maybe they are still there. I know when someone very dear to me prodded those feelings a little and suggested I listened to music that I listened to back then that I have avoided because it reminds me... well. I had a very "pure" PTSD moment. I was back in my room, my father was drunk and angry and I wanted to die. My husband later said that the energy around me was so intense after that hour with my friend (who is a therapist) that he literally couldn't be near me because it was giving him bad anxiety. I couldn't believe the intensity of the emotion myself. It was like I was in a bubble and all the things I could suddenly remember were stuck in there with me and there was not a breath to be had and I didn't quite know if I was in my kitchen or my dad's apartment and if my husband was my father and was he drunk? Or just angry?
I never told my husband this (I don't want him to inherit my daddy-issues) but as I watched him sitting across from me his face kept morphing from his own to my dad's. Every time it did I felt like I was going to vomit. Or start screaming. Or have a heart attack from the fear.

My dear friend later told me it was all normal.

After that I have never gone back to exploring those feelings. That was a year and a half ago. It scared me. I know I have to go there sometimes and face it. But I guess I'm not hardened enough yet. And I don't have a therapist. And I'm scared.

Well this blog post took a turn that I wasn't expecting.

To get back to my original topic: I shut down easily when it comes to emotions because they overwhelm me so easily. If my family ever showed anything but anger you knew disaster was just around the corner. I can only remember a hand full of times that every happening. And each time it set off emetophobic reactions in me. It's a protective shell I have. I guess the strength I used for my CBT has translated into abrasiveness and hardness toward others.

And it's really not my place to tell other's how to deal with things.

Man. Everytime I write one of these I really make myself look worse and worse in my own and probably everyone else's eyes.

What am I so far? A fat, cold-hearted, terrified-of-everything, socially inept stripper in the making.