So I Wrote

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.

Constant Vigilance!

Tonight I am stricken with fear. My stomach is eh... uh... well, not at its best and I've found myself in the errrr bathroom once or twice.

I don't feel sick and my stomach doesn't hurt. Just cold from sitting in the unheated bathroom. But I am feeling something else. Something so familiar. When I sat down on the bed after the ummm second round, so to speak, I tapped my husband on the shoulder and said my stomach isn't well. Then my face disappeared behind creases. I wrinkled my forehead, I tensed my lips and I scrunched up my nose. Tension. Tension, anxiety and fear. All of them wanting to lose control and go into panic because I may be sick!  I wanted to start crying but I was to tense to cry. Instead I shook. My body shook from fear and my brain started begging. Begging for the fear to go away. Please don't let this be happening, please let me be somebody else!

But I am me, and that scared version of me isn't who I want to be anymore. So I forced my face to unclench itself, I took a deep breath and I told the emetophobia NO! No you can't have anymore of me. You've had enough. You've owned enough of my years and I won't let you have anymore. I worked too hard and for too long for you to come back and destroy it. NO.

And to help me wind down from the anxiety I decided to write a blog post. And here I am. Not anxious. I remember the days when it would take 5-6 hours to recover from anxiety like I just had. I just needed 15 minutes today.

I am on the watch though. I view this as a chronic disorder. I can keep it at bay but it's always lurking and ready to come back. So I have to keep it away every single day. Every single day I have to put one foot forward so it doesn't end up taking one step back. Sometimes it makes me feel sad and hopeless that I will battle this for a long, long time... but I quickly remind myself when I felt incapable of battling it at all. Of ever going out and challenging it. Of ever eating food and not counting the hours to make sure I didn't have food poisoning. Of ever falling asleep because I was simply tired and not completely exhausted from staying awake in terror all night.

I am capable now, and I don't do those things. There's not turning back to that life. There's nothing in that former life of anxiety, panic and constant- CONSTANT - fear that is worth not fighting this.

I really hope I can keep remember this. It's that time of year when I will constantly be challenged and I have to face it. I can't fail this. I can't let it win.

Suck it, emetophobia.

Sometimes it's really hard to LOL

I'm having the worst money problems right now. I am pretty much penniless. I don't know where money for this, that and the other thing is going to come from. If my family wasn't helping me out right now I would be fucked. Very fucked indeed.

Unbelievably, however, I am not in bed with the covers pulled over my head, shutting my feelings off or eating them all up omnomnom. I would have been a year ago. Instead I spent the day crying, raging and loudly proclaiming my intents of suicide because fuck this shit! YOU'LL BE SORRY WHEN I'M DEAD, LIFE, YOU'LL REGRET THIS! But look at me all expressing emotion and communicating how I am feeling. Hot damn! Even after I slipped while chopping onion for dinner (I even made dinner! wtf.) and nearly beheaded my middle finger (let's enjoy that imagery and symbolism for a second shall we? ......) well I started sobbing again because LIFE, YOU'LL REGRET THIS! Y U NO LOVE ME? but then even though this money stuff feels like the end of the world, and I don't see a solution in my near future but I am feeling kind of okay.

I am tripping myself out. I am so mature and shit.

It could be worse. It could certainly be better. But this is where I am right now and this is my reality. One foot infront of the other, one day is a day closer to the solution and MONEY.

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?

 

 

Rich man's world (I'm not in it)

Instead of being studious I am once again procrastinating with the help of this blawg. I have a headache which is not going away with the help of a moderate intake of pharmaceuticals. Yesterday my stomach decided to spend a few hours in cramping, searing and lava-esque pain amounting to nothing but grunts from me and a nap later in the afternoon. I suspect this is all due stress.

I do love to whinge on and on in this blog don't I? I flatter myself that I've had good reason to and fuck you if you come barging in to destroy the pity party that someone should have let me have ten years ago instead of letting it build to this point.

My personal flavour of angst, worry and much grinding of teeth lately has been money. Oh where is it coming from? When will I be able to pay rent? How will I pay my bills? How will I pay for bus tickets to school? Food is sorted because my mother is kind. But unfortunately, too  much stress takes away my motivation to cook and eat.

I will not go into the details of my current moneyless existence because they are, frankly, embarassing and inconsequential. Point is I HAVE NO MONEY. Did you know you can't buy things without money? Or pay bills? Or have any peace of mind because there's a pile of unopened bills in reach of your physical eye and constantly in your mind's eye. The white envelope's of bills unpaid are luminous in the nights.

But! Oh! So! Exciting! I chopped my hair right off. It was down to my, ahem, bottom. It had been annoying me for many, many months, but I am a person who takes forever (and tears) to come to terms with any change so it took those many, many months to muster myself into action. So, Saturday I finally had it and I had my husband chop it off with the most blunt kitchen scissors you can imagine.  It took a couple minutes for it to penetrate the shield my hair had put up to protect itself from the wild notions of the person it was growing from. But yes, now it is shoulder length instead of emergency-toilet-paper length.

Now that I have filled you in on the minutiae of my highly ordinary life (where the most exciting thing to happen is a bloody haircut) I will man up and gather some information that will in the end constitute an education.

 

Day 9 of the bandwagon

Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.

There are several friends that sort of... went away and left me just scratching my head or alternatively! getting drunk aaaaand then drunk dialing them to ask why they didn't like me anymore.

Yeah, let's take a moment and suck on that particular taste of humiliation for a moment. Mmm. Delicious.

There's a reason that I bought a t-shirt that says "Don't Drink and Dial". Why do I never learn? Oh God, I hope I've learned.

The first friend I'm still kind of scratching my head over I met when I was just beginning my teenage years. We shared the same music tastes and would chat for hours every day. Any internetty thing you could do together we did - we were trolling before the word trolling existed. Then, quite suddenly, it wasn't there anymore. I got the very cold shoulder. And I've no idea why.

The other friend... I'm less scratching my head and more bursting out into a "DUDE WTF HUH?!". It's more fresh. And with fresh I mean almost two years old. This girl was my sister. I trusted her when I had been so abused in relationships and in trust that I had promised myself not to be in that situation again. I trusted her against every terrified instinct in my body. I labeled her My Last Chance. I was really sick for a while when I was around 19, I almost died - when I was getting better I became very depressed and just getting out of bed hurt like a little bitch and she would come to my door every damn day and ring it until I got up and let her in. Sometimes it took half an hour. Then she would sit with me as I gave her the Evil Eye. I credit a portion of me getting better to her. We were always together doing crazy young people stuff and having a blast. Watching the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, eating tacos and squealing "Mr. Daaaarcyyyy!" And then something changed in our friendship and I don't know quite what or when or how or why... and now she is gone. (Well I do have some ideas.... but they are just that, ideas. Not answers.)  

After her, I haven't been able to trust my own role in a friendship and, equally, I can't trust anyone to be my friend. Trust is a big thing for me. The people who I was supposed to trust as a kid failed me pretty hard. The people I've chosen to put my trust in have failed me pretty hard. Of course, I am sure I have failed other people's trust in me. But if I ever do I explain why I did or why I acted that way. I always have reasons and to me they are legitimate. I guess I wish I could get the same explanation - why did he just disappear? Why did she stab me in the back so friggin violently I still go "whoa." when I think about (and it's not just me! I'm not being overly sensitive! My therapist was like "...that was harsh.")

WHAT DID I DO? I have no answer to this so my brain is making up its own answers. I never doubted myself as a friend until the happenings with the girl who I considered my sister. I always knew I was loyal, helpful, fun and would go the extra mile. Now I feel like I am missing something vital to make people repel from me like the wrong side of a magnet.  

Fucking magnets. How do they work?

My therapist is all "get more friends, hurrah!" but seriously. No. I went against that instinct once and I don't want to again. I don't want to get all heartbroken and pathetic again (the drunk dialing my former sister was a low point I wish to never be close to again OH MY GAWD) because I am 100% sure that people will leave me.  

Victim boohoo blahblahitycakes you are probably thinking but... GAH! I just don't want to be a victim anymore. I don't want to be hurt and abandoned and left to figure out what the fuck went wrong on my own again.

It's better to be Forever Alone willingly from the start than pushed there by someone you considered a BFF.

Day 3 of the bandwagon

Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for

I don't really believe in regrets, so there isn't much that I feel bad about in my past. A couple things bring a sting to my heart though.

When my father was sick he had to get chemo. He didn't want anyone to go with him, much rather bringing his favourite books with him. I had borrowed a book from him - The Hitchhiker's Guide - and he had forgotten about it. He asked me if I knew where it was and I knew very well I had it but I said I didn't know. I'm pretty sure that would have been the last book he would have read in life. And I kept that from him. I've never even read it. It's on my bookshelf now, and everyday I see it and I think about what a compete jackass I was. What the hell was I thinking? I can't bring myself to read it, even though I want to very much. It feels like a jinxed book now. I've tried a couple times but it's only ended in tears and only a page or two read.

It's strange what I feel guilty about. When he was sick I barely went to visit him because I was scared. Scared of his mortality, scared of him vomitting infront of me from the chemo, scared of how I feel seeing him sick. I have no problem forgiving myself for that, it's never been an issue to me. I was scared. I get that. But I can't forgive myself for this book. I feel like I don't deserve that forgiveness. Who does that to someone with cancer? Or maybe I do actually feel guilty for more things concerning his illness and I'm projecting all those feelings on to this rather silly thing. I don't know.

The second thing that I feel guilty and stingy about I've already covered in this blawwwwg. My difficulties with sex. I'm so ashamed thinking of how sexual I could be a few years ago compared to now when I even have to turn away from a movie if there is a sex scene being shown. I'm so ashamed to think about how it's affected my marriage. I'm so ashamed to think about how it affects my husband, how unhappy it makes him. I'm ashamed how it makes me less of a wife, a woman, a person. I'm so ashamed that my trauma concerning sex is so fucked up that not one therapist has even tried to help me with it. I don't know how to forgive myself for this. I know it's not my fault. I didn't ask for this. But, as usual, I hold myself to an impossible standard.

To my husband; I am so, so, so sorry. If I could snap my fingers and be amazing at spreading my legs I would for you. You are the only reason I even try to face this. I'm sorry.

I tried to be a good wife, and karma decided to smite me.

I just had the most traumatic afternoon of anyone, ever. I've yet to recover from the HORROR and FEAR and STEPHEN KINGNESS of it. I'm still nauseas from the adrenaline.

I decided to be a good wife and do some deep, hardcore cleaning before my husband comes home on Friday. I decided to start with the entryway downstairs as it would be the first thing he sees. I rue my decision. I regret it. I weep at the cruel twists of fate.

There's a little cubby area under the stairs where we've just thrown our crap in since we moved in last year, and it gives a really bad impression when you enter. I started pulling all the stuff out - suitcases, cat carriers, rollerskates, a really huge plastic thing that I can only assume came with the bed which we unpacked in September etcetc. I was happily sweeping away when I nudged a little box that use to hold a Bubba Gump glass.

That's when it happened.

(shudder.)

The spider. The GIANT spider. I've never, ever seen a spider that big before. The legs!

(shudder)

Its legs would rival a eastern european weightlifting woman on steroids.

I am not a girl who is afraid of bugs. I don't find nature disturbing. But I'm fairly sure that I have arachnophobia now, from that one hideous spider.

So in the middle of a sweeping movement a monsterous spider, whom I will henceforth call Shelob, falls out of a little box and starts scuttling towards the nearest wall. I scream. I scream like a little girl and in fear I drop my only weapon and defence - my broom. I start to babble to myself about how that fucking thing cannot be fucking real how can it possibly be that fucking big. To fully appreciate my situation you must know I was pretty much trapped where I was. I had junk scattered all around me that I had just carelessly and without spider-awareness touched. Were there more? Were they going to come to the other guy's defence? Had I wandered into a Stephen King novel? Was I going to die?

I stared wildly around. Should I freeze and hope the spiders wouldn't see me? Should I climb over all the crap, that no longer were prized possessions but death traps, and hope spiders didn't cling on to my legs in spidery rage? I ran upstairs. Hyperventilating, still swearing, stumbling over my own feet. I started writing people on skype and MSN in all caps to make sure they understood the gravity of the situation. Clearly, I was going to die. And soon. Very soon. The hoards of spiders were probably emerging from their little hidey-holes and becoming organized.  

*shudder*

How do I kill them? I asked my friends. Poison? FIRE? I armed myself with my biggest biology book and shouted to nobody in particular: "Spiders are going to suck irony"

Except by now my arachophobia was running deep in my veins. I would make it half way down the stairs and then bolt up again.

*shudder*

I got my iPhone and skype-called my sister and I told her my brother had already refused to come over to kill KILL KILL IT DEAD for me, so she must stay on the phone with me incase I got bitten and needed emergent medical attention. The conversation ended up being two hours long as I slowly picked things up with the end of my recovered broom while yelling "I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU". Obviously, along with being an awful wife I am a terrible liar. But apparently it was hillarious.

I ended up not killing Shelob. I thought about how fat it was. I thought about the insects it must have eaten

*shudder*

to make it that fat. I decided one giant spider is better than a thousand small ones.

*shudder*

And that is the story of how I was straight up PUNISHED for trying to be a good wife.

I am not sure I will be attempting it again.

I carry the devil's taint.

I'm so siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.

Achooophleegmmmmmmsnot.

Inconveniently, I was just coming down with it on the day (of my daughters wedding) of my first therapy appointment. Oh, yes. I succeeded in getting an appointment after waiting a year and three months. Apparently the secret to getting face time with mental professionals is to call them hysterically crying and throwing not-so veiled threats of suicide out there. One could say that the teenytiny piece of mental floor I was standing on suddenly gave away and I went hurtling through Childhood Memory Lane, Oh My God, My Daddy Is Dead Street and Why Am I Such A Shitty Person Avenue with such great speed that I could read none of the neon signs which were announcing just what I was upset about in that very moment, let alone take polaroids of these lovely tourist attractions. You know, to put in the scrapbook to hand out to in-laws and prospective friends.

Anyhow. The therapist lady who seems very nice and intelligent asked me to tell her about my father. To my great defence I can tell you that I tried. I don't know how well she understood me though as even in my ears I sounded something like this: "(dainty sniffle and large inhale)AOOWWWWisjussosaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. He dieeeed annowimiiiisshiiimanidunnohaowdofeelbeddahh"

At this point she hands me a tissue which I dab lightly at my eyes (not nearly containing the stream of tears), creating a damsel in distress air about me which I ruin in the following second when I snort snot back in my nose so loudly it startles us both.

Another hour of talking (and no more outbursts of crying on my end because there are some memories that are so bad you cannot even cry) and she says she would like to focus our coming talks on my father. In other words, I have Daddy Issues. I am thinking about changing my name to Crystal Chandelier and joining the mighty workforce of strippers.

Which probably means I need to go stretch now. Also drop about 20 pounds.