So I Wrote

Ugh. So adult.

God, doesn't it just fucking suck to be an adult sometimes? I hate having to make terribly difficult decisions and then! THEN! having to voice them  and (!!!) act on them.

Since starting therapy I have become increasingly aware every day how much my "therapy behaviour" hurts my husband. I lock myself away. I become cold, introverted and selfish. It's somewhere I need to go right now. I seem to be wired this way. Once I accepted this as a fact and as something I can't change right now (this very instant!), I also had to accept that I would have to ask my husband to go to the States for a while, while I work this all out. A while being half a year. Or so.

This also works for some of the relationship issues we are, and have been, having. Some things are not, and have not been, sitting right with me, and I have been too idle in taking action. I have been a little sissy pussy, too scared to hurt feelings. Mollycoddling. And also things expressed by my husband have not been quite right either for a while. And, honestly, if I have to have one more conversation about my difficulty with sex I will shave off my own hair, braid it and then hang myself with it. And won't that be sexy?

Out of respect for my husband, I will keep this brief. There was a loooot of back and forth. When I finally found the voice to squeak the words out, I felt like I was carving my leg off. The conversations which have come after have yielded a similar response. Luckily for me, once I have decided on something I am capable of being very strong in my belief. I would make a great religious zealot. Even though I feel like I have been slowly carving my leg off, logically I know this is right for the time being which makes the emotional impact a little easier to bear.

The things which have been bothering me in my marriage might perhaps be a subject matter for another entry. Once I can be more level-headed thinking about them, maybe I will feel it is right to bring them in here. Oh, I do hate the vaguey-vagueness. When other bloggers do it I want to shake them and yell "WHAT WAS THE POINT IN WRITING ANYTHING THEN? WHAT?!" at them. Yell! Go on! Go on, call for help. Squeal. No one's going to save you now.

Oh, dear. Suddenly, The Two Towers quote. Super extra brownie points if someone can tell me who says that, who to, and why!

Seems I am not 100% adult, after all, when I can't even get through one tiny serious blog post about serious things without such nerdy behaviour. Good grief.

As promised, a woe-is-me entry.

Hell

o.

I had that meeting with my therapist and I don't know quite what happened. I didn't get that awesome, yay! feeling this time. I felt misunderstood and like she wasn't understanding what I was saying. At one point after I told her the story of The Big Traumatic Event, she seemed to actually not believe it had happened. Then, at least it seems, she decided that I was telling the truth and not misunderstanding the events. One thing about me that is sensitive to the extreme is when someone tells me that something only happened in my head. This is from when I was in therapy with my dad when I was 16ish and I told him that when he smoked inside it gave me an allergic reaction - my therapist actually told me to stop lying and said it was all in my head. I was traumatized after that. I went home to my mum's and just sat on the bed staring for a loooong while. My mum told me she was talking to me and trying to get a response from me, but I didn't even hear her. It was terrible. My point in telling that story is if my current therapist disbelieves me in this particular story then I don't know if I can trust her. Like, at all.

Another thing that seemed slightly off to me today was the fact that my therapist backtracked from last weeks assessment about me having bad self-esteem. She said that I know a lot about myself and can express my opinon to others and say no too well for me to have bad self esteem. Que? I was so surprised by this that I don't think I explained myself very well at all. I think I should write it down now actually, so I can tell her next week. Honestly, the tapes I play in my head saying I'm crap, worthless, OMGSHUTUP THEYHATEYOU CAN'TYOU TELL? are so loud that I am crippled socially. Even online. Even now when I'm typing there's a wee voice saying "shut up shut up shut up". I can be very assertive, but I've always been like that. It's just something I am. On the outside I look very calm, collected and organized - it surprises a lot of people to hear that I get very anxious and very nervous. It just doesn't show on my outside. I learned to have a very good poker face, very early on. Can't a person be a bit polar like that?

In other news, I got an A on a paper today. Fun times! I read it and honestly think they made a mistake giving me that A. I distinctly remember when I was writing it that I was just typing whatever to get it finished, and in the process of doing that I left out words, I misspelled words and I repeated myself. But maybe the rest of it was ace? I was a bit embarrassed reading it.

 

Dude. Therapist.

I went to my first session with my brand spankin' new therapist yesterday. I am so pleased. I saw her in the hallway before I knew she was my therapist and I thought "hey, I would really like her as my therapist." Why? Because she is so tall. And she looks sturdy. Like I could punch her with my words and Deep Dark Secrets and she would be all "Was that a mosquito bite? BRING IT HARDER."

I was ever so pleased when she came and called my name. I was even more pleased when she introduced herself as being both a psychotherapist AND a physical therapist, and that she likes to combine the two. I was beyond pleased when I realized she was reading me. She TOLD me things about me - and fuck did I appreciate that. I told her that if I know what's wrong with me and how to fix it - I do. I very much appreciate that she didn't beat around the bush, trying to get me to realize everything on my own - I have spent so much goddamn time thinking about these things that if I had the capacity to have epiphanies about them on my own I would have by now. It seems a bit dishonest when therapists do try to steer questions into a realization. A whole bunch of leading questions, and you can see from a mile away what they want you to say or see.

Just tell me what you think, and I'll tell you if I agree.

Anyway, she's a lovey person. She honed in on some surprising things that I wasn't expecting at all. Like my self-esteem. Trust issues (which I said nothing about, and she still understood! What is this devilry?!). The pressure I put on myself to perform, excel, be better all the time. So, because of my tendency to race through to get to the finish line fastest, strongest, winningest she told me we are going to take it all step  by step. The next few sessions will be about building trust between she and I and self esteem for me.

And when she asked at the end how it felt, I told her I was thrilled she hadn't given up at first sight. She made it clear she won't at second either.

*Le weep of relief*

 

Wishing I had something new.

I wish I had something new to write about. But I don't. I am still the same fucking person who can't fuck.

I've been to two meetings with a psychologist to evaluate if their firm could help me, and in that case who and how. Apparently they've decided to help me, but I'm on a waiting list. So sick of waiting lists.

The first time I met the psychologist, I noticed that she was a woman. Then, quite quickly after my first observation, I noticed she was a hugely pregnant woman. I felt like I was going to traumatize her unborn child with the stories I was about to utter in its presence. I still feel a bit guilty about it, really, but I suppose that is just misplaced emotion.

That first meeting (holy crap, I typoed that word to emeting. How philosophical is that shit? Damn.)  was a bit awkward from my end. She was fine. Better than fine. Obviously very good at her job as I started sobbing ten minutes into the appointment. Very embarassing. I couldn't stop crying for hours afterwards. I was very dehydrated.

What got me going was, as per usual, talking about my dad and how much I miss him. She listened very kindly to me explaining that my dad wasn't a bad man, he was a sad man who did bad things because he didn't know how to express himself any better.

I told her all about the alcohol, family dysfunction and blah-de-blarghhh. She listened kindly to that too. Afterwards, and for days, I felt furious with my mother. I still don't understand her role in the whole thing.

When I saw the therapist today she asked some more specific questions about the blah-de-blarghhhs. She commented on how I speak about horrible things and I don't show any emotion about it besides laughing. I told her that I'm aware that I don't. I think I laugh because the things I say sound so absurd. Absurd things make me laugh. My other feelings are walled off that it would take tremendous force, I think, to access them. Or some well asked questions, I suppose.

As proof that I really don't have anything new to say, the last chunk of therapy time was devoted to the massive amount of guilt I feel toward my husband because I am not a bangin' type of girl. I also feel angry, sorry, alone, lonely, misunderstood, mousey, very very very sorry and also sorry about it.

Really. Nothing new. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

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.

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.

Le update

Right. I was going to start this post off with an apology for the more than fair bit of whinging I do here but then I thought that, actually, there is nothing more annoying than people apologizing for things that need not be apologized for. And also this is my blog, my diary, my place on the giant internet so fuck off with your incessant demands!

One could say I fell off many horses after I finally stepped enough out of the denial regarding my therapist situation. Oh jesus fuck me, am I fucked or what? I can't afford the private therapist he recommended. Comfort eating galore. Surprisingly, however, I did not slack off school one bit. I will be studying this occurrence for years to come because WTF.

Speaking of school, I had a presentation due last Tuesday on sexual health and reproduction. At first I was completely shitting myself because seriously? I have to do an assignment with a group of girls I've never met in my life, forcing me to be social and accountable to other people (OH THE BLINDING HORROR!), and at the same time having sex shoved in my face every day for a couple weeks. I foresaw much wringing of hands and flinging of curse words... but in reality it turned out lovely. The girls were lovely. We laughed a lot, we worked really very well together and the subject matter was interesting and didn't make me run away at all.

I didn't forsee my problem to be after the presentation was done. Am I friends with the ladies now? Can I tell text them and harass them on facebook? They all seem keen to talk and are full of plans to hang out again but are they just being polite? I am so socially inept and penguin like about friendship that I really have no clue what is going on. Ah jesus. I would like to have them as friends.

In other news, my cat James turned three yesterday. And yes, he is adorable.

Stiffupperlip. Stiff upper lip. Stiff-upper-lip.

Ah. Well then. I can tell you now, internet, having had a couple days to digest this.

Another therapist in my life has come and gone. He promised so much, delivered so much, promised some more... and then took it back.

How many therapists are going to tell me that they cannot work with my certain brand of PTSD? How many people must I beg? Please, please, please, please, please help me get rid of this. It is corroding me, it is corroding my marriage, it's corroding my relationship with my family. He was the fifth therapist that I have told and good God how far and wide must I spread this certain horrible story until someone deigns to fucking help me out?

I am stuck in a moment in my head and how can I move forward in my life truly if someone doesn't help me and TELL ME how to get rid of it? I work like a donkey once I have the information - did I not prove myself with the emetophobia treatment? Please, please, please I just want to master my own brain without it flicking to flashbacks of things in situations where it most hurts. Why won't anybody try? I just want a chance to get rid of this. Just try. 

He did recommend another therapist to me. One who lives 40 minutes away and who I cannot afford because he has a private practise. I am so disheartened.  I am so disappointed. I feel like I will have to live with this twitch in my brain forever.

When he told me he would't be helping me with this (in a very round about way - talking about how many clients he has and blahblahblah) I had a moment where I just asked "why won't anyone help me with this" and my chin wobbled and my eyes leaked but that stupid stiff upper lip came back and I pulled myself together when I should have let myself fall apart into hysterics. I should have cried, wailed, screamed - I should have done something to make him see how awful this one thing really does feel.

Stupid stiff upper lip. Now I will have to wear it all the time. I will get wrinkles, and won't that be a shame?

 

 

Weather

Isn't it totally lulz how in life you're always weathering something? Whether it's relationship issues with someone, work or school issues, personal, economical, and those pesky "I'm not sure what's wrong but something is and it's sucking" issues.

I'm in a fairly stable place right now. Although, I am scared shitless that something will barrel me over again and I will spend this fall like I did the last: curled up in fetal position on a mattress in a closet for three months shoving cheeze doodles in my face because I needed to be punished. For Lord knows what. That was a dark hour. My husband would get so scared that I was killing myself when he was out that he would come home. And boy was he pissed at me for making him so scared for me.

Anyway. Weathering. Right now I am weathering some economical issues. My attitude about the whole thing is equally fascinating and terrifying to me. I comparatively calm. I've weathered worse things, these things always have a way of working themselves out - so what's the point of being in a state of extremely high strung anxiousness when it's all going to be okay anyway? I am turning into a hippie. Or a grounded, secure adult. Either way, it's a pretty alien state of being for me.

Of course, being Scared as I am (generalized anxiety disorder),  I am still guarded against that tiny little gust of wind that will blow my little house of cards down and leave me tumbling down, down, down. I realize once I start therapy for The Sexual Issues Which Shall Not Be Named I will surely take a few falls. I don't know how bad those falls will be or how long they will last. It's a scary thing, knowing how deep you can go and not wanting to go back there. I just hope my weathering attitude is deeply enough ingrained in me to not let The Worst happen.

Now I must continue my Academic career and responsibly listen to the lectures I have lined up.

 

Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

As my mother in law likes to exclaim.

Well, the summer has officially passed and being back in Sweden and all has put me back in project mode. I gained around 3,8 kg (around 8 pounds) by stuffing my pie hole with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, root beer and wheat-free brownies, cookies, pasta etcetc. I'm also sorry to say that I didn't work out a lot. Some, but not a whole lot. I'm excited to get back to the gym. I'm one of those really annoying people who actually likes going to the gym. I love the feeling my body is strong and improving every day. I also need to stop eating carbs like yesterday, but more like 'after my husband's birthday on Sunday'.

I'm planning on working on two things in therapy this fall: The subject which will hereby be known as 'sex trauma' and my terrible social anxiety.

I spent the entire spring denying and fighting my therapist when he said I have terrible social anxiety. 'Pfft!' I said, 'Social anxiety? I don't have any anxieties about that. I just don't LIKE people. People will just hurt me.' Uhh, yeah. Most of my friends are (awesome! lovely! the best! not putting them down in the least!) online. And with 'most of' I mean 'all'. Well, I guess that really depends on the defintion of 'friend'. To me, a friend is someone who I can text or call without any real reason to and someone who I can say 'duuuuude I feel like shit today' to. My husband hangs out with a guy and he's cool, I like him. But he calls my cellphone and asks to talk to my husband. I'm a secondary friend, friend by association. Which surely is my own fault for being aloof and hard to be friends with. Still a headscratcher though, calling my phone to ask to speak to someone else.

My current plan of attack to curb my social anxieties is to meet people from a forum I frequent. People who may actually read this because the link is (sort of) in my siggy there. So err, hi, how awkward of you to drop by! to them. I figure we at least share one point of interest and if we don't really hit it off it's easy to avoid eachother on a crowded forum.

I really would like a friend. I just don't know how to get them, have them and then keep them my friend. Forgive me for using this phrase, but I am completely socially retarded. I'm like Chandler from Friends, just spewing out one-liners and jokes and I get so incredibly wound up and in my head thinking "OH GOD x DOESN'T LIKE ME STOP TALKING STOP TALKING STOP TALKING EVERYONE CAN SEE x HATES ME NOW. OH JESUS. I AM SO SORRY". I blame (blame!!!) high school and bullying and my best friends deciding not to be my friend anymore and never telling me why. I am convinced nobody likes me. But people do like me, when I let them get to know me behind the awkward spewing that is my tourette-like social anxiety mouth. I think. Mostly I am too scared and busy thinking 'shut up shut up shut up shut up now. Stop your stupid yapping mouth, they don't care!' to really notice. 

Even now I am telling myself to just SHUT UP already. Even though this is my blog. Even though nobody really reads it. Oh, there's a thing called self-esteem? I wouldn't know, because I suck too much to have it.

Phew. Anyway. So errr how are you?