I don't like the lack of a volume switch in writing. If I could say all that I need to type, I'd do so softly, soft in texture and in decibals. Sometimes, when I write what I need to say, I don't like what the words can't be. I don't like that I'm not actually talking, or that someone's not actually listening, or that I can't say just as much by the nervous tugging on my hair as I can with a paragraph. Writing always was my medium. Does the past tense fit there? I have a home here, at this keyboard, inside these sentences. I have a home, but I no longer live here. I found something I liked better. I found something that liked me better, that took me in, that cared for me in a way writing couldn't do alone. I'm able now, somewhat, to make a phone call when I need to, to distinguish when I need to speak from when I need to be heard, or from when I need to write, or stay silent, or talk only through breath.
Today's one of those days when it's hard to start, mostly because I feel like I have to tell everything. I have to tell about how the session started, and where it ended up going, and how I came home, and the call that came, and how I'm starting to understand everything my parents didn't have - even at the same moment I have no clarity about the separation/ divorce situation. (I suppose I could have details if I wanted to ask for them. I doubt it surprises anyone that I don't feel like having that conversation.) Maybe I could talk (type) if it were just about the session or just about the phone call. And maybe it's ok to only say so much in one night; maybe there's no law (definitely, there's no law) that says I have to tell everything or anything tonight... But then, I don't really want to be alone with it. Not alone. I'm not alone; I know that, and right now I can feel that, which makes a really huge difference. I just don't know; I don't know where I am, and I don't know how much I want to tell. I don't know what I want to write, whether or not I want to have it heard, whether or not I can handle a response, what response I need. I feel like it's simpler than this; keep it in perspective and this is just a journal, just a bunch of words for one portion of one day that really doesn't have to meet any standard or become anything in particular. And I want to feel able to let myself say something without having to say everything because my tendency to do all-or-nothing keeps me from journalling too often, but then at the same time, I have this issue with compartmentalizing...and, oh, God, am I overanalyzing. Overanalyzing is, by the way, the best of all stupid psychological distortions. It's the one you do as you beat yourself up for it. You can't realize you're overanalyzing unless you're analyzing, which is just swell. Really. Quite peachy.
Ok. Forget it. Let's just go here. I saw the doctor Tuesday. The physician-doctor. I've never met with her before; I always end up seeing some nursing assistant or someone, but I like the office pretty well. It's not a branch of a hospital, so it's smaller and more cozy-feeling, more like the therapeutic offices I've been in and less like the huge hospitals that overwhelmed me so often as a kid. Anyway, this time I finally met the doctor at the top of the pyramid, and she was cool - far superior to the evil doctor I had to quit seeing a few years ago. I was cool, also. I was anxious, although I did take my meds and work to keep it from getting out of hand, but I still answered all these questions. I even answered the questions she posed in third person - presumably to my mom, who I gave the option of coming in with me. A significant achievement considering not long ago, I couldn't answer questions directly posed to me. Anyway. She updated my chart with new meds and things, asked for the run-down of what's gone on with my mouth and throat, and took a look at it. Then she swabbed all the peculiarities with one of those dandy giant q-tips and sent it off for a culture. She swabbed my throat, too, which I was really scared about... Afterward, I was freaked out by how easy it was. I've had strep about a zillion times, so I've had about a zillion throat cultures, and no one has ever stuck that thing in my throat without causing me to choke and cough and gag. I'm trying to think she's just that much of an improvement on the doctors I've seen in the past, but the possibility that it might have had something to do with the bulimia freaked me out. I don't like gray areas. Even when I'm about to make 2.5 years (Good Godd) of abstinence; I don't like perks from things that are supposed to be purely evil, and I don't like pain in things that are supposed to be purely good. So. I have this amazing doctor who knows a magic way to do throat cultures, and the surprising ease has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than her incredible talent.
She then prescribed the world's yummiest concoction for me to "swish and swallow" three times a day. Yee-hah. She doesn't know if it will do anything because the cultures won't come back until early next week, but if the weirdness in my mouth happens to be bacterial, this little potion should help. If not, I'm enduring this marvelous "cure" for no reason and will still have the joy of seeing a specialist some time in the next week or two. Squee. The medicine seriously has me banging my head against the wall. I learned to swallow pills for a reason, damnit! Now I have to get sick in my mouth so they can give me a stupid liquid? Eew?! Children's benedryl (grape), Maalox (wild berry), and the nasty wannabe-bubblegum pink goo we all know and love. The Maalox upsets me the most, on the grounds of I'm in recovery, and it pisses me off that there should be acid in my mouth, fucking with my teeth again. I've worked so hard to give the poor dears a second chance, and I guess they'll be ok, but it's still seriously uncool. They've endured enough...
So, I've been brewing, swishing, and swallowing for a few days now, and I can officially say I've noticed no difference. (Other than this weird numbing sensation when I first take it.) In fact, it's gotten worse, but I don't blame the medicine for that; it's on schedule to get worse, should be peaking today or tomorrow, and then I'll get a grace period, few days of fake healing, and be back in the spiral again... The one exciting point: This morning I accidentally added a single hair to the mixture, and after taking it turned into a cat. It's been rather interesting, although I really didn't need the transspecies issue on top of everything else, you know? And when I went to the doctor today, the doorman did not look pleased to see me.
Ok, I'm lying. I couldn't type with paws. But I did ask my mom the first time I poured this evil cocktail where she'd stashed the eye of newt.
Do you know what we're doing right now? We're playing this game where I talk about things that are a little less overwhelming, a little more removed, so that I feel comfortable and eventually, today, tomorrow, at some point in my next lifetime, feel comfortable talking about other things. Session. Phone call. Oy. I can do the session. Why do I have this stupid rule in my head that says if I talk about the session, I have to talk about the phone call? Right away? What's up with that? I am getting a hold of my mental handbook, and I am having a bonfire party; I'm serious.
So, I've been having this not-so-good time lately. I've been feeling down; I'll even be honest and use the oh-so-detested word: depressed. It's really a combination of things, and I don't fully understand it, but I've been beating myself up, and just generally feeling seriously rotten... I've been withdrawn and less optimistic; I've felt cut off from everything and more importantly everyone. Suckish, to say the least. And today, I went into the (regular, psychiatric) doctor's office, feeling this way, and I told him so, but that didn't really kick the feeling away. He said to me pretty early on that I seemed more inside myself than I had in a long time, which surprised me at first; I couldn't imagine that I was so much more far gone than usual... Then, it started to make sense and that scared me even more. I kept trying to talk to him, but I'd only spit out a phrase before I'd start rolling my eyes, or figuartively banging my head against a wall. I couldn't push past the walls into actual communication, and it was driving me kiwis. (Let's vary our fruit a little, shall we?) ...I was pissed off because I'd been feeling bad all week, and here I was with my golden opportunity to exhale some of that pain, and I couldn't even use it. I envisioned myself coming back to the apartment, still pissed off, still upset, still very much needing to cry (is there a Guiness Book of World Record's listing for tears cried? because I think I'm on the verge of setting one...) and no longer having the support that I have for the hour or so in that little room. I wanted so much to tell him, but I kept feeling like it was pointless. I kept breaking off.
I told him that I felt really cut off from everything, and he reminded me that I tend to assume, when I'm feeling shitty about myself, that other people view me the same way and isolate based on that assumption. I realized that could have something to do with it; I have been beating myself up excessively, and my dreams (which he asked about) are still full of people who are always loving and supportive vocally attacking me - which seems to support that theory. I told him that might have been how I felt a few days ago, but now everything just seemed foggy. Everything seemed gone. I could tell from his response that he was really trying to understand, but I didn't know how to be any clearer, and the inability to communicate worsened the feeling of isolation. Finally, he said something that I could latch onto, words I could take and run with, ramble with, words that made sense.
We were talking about the situation with John, the fact that he's no longer living here, but he's coming over quite a bit more, and the relationships between the three of us (John, my mom, and moi) have gone through some changes over the past few weeks. Things have restructured. I don't feel particularly good about my lack of enthusiasm for having John around. I feel like I love him less, or like it will seem that way, and I have this idea of how I'm supposed to act, which is, of course, very different from how I am acting. Loving someone and negotiating how you want them in your space are too very separate things, and I know that - I groaned as much to the doctor - but lately, what I rationally know isn't doing me too many favors. Rational thought can rarely slip a word in edgewise. In my head, I went off on all these tangents, and my eyes filled with tears, and I had this long fight with myself about how I was not going to cry. I didn't blink for a really, really long time, and I watched my vision blur more and more with the tears that would spill over eventually, before finally wiping them quickly away. This happened just as the doctor said something about how my mom told me that the reason she and Dad didn't see how much I needed help earlier was because they were so focused on keeping John alive. And now, John's in this scary place where he needs all this attention, and of course, I'm completely freaked out by it. I'll admit that, even though it's hard.
I'm scared because I've sort of gotten used to people being around to support me, and I know I still need it, and I know I deserve it...and I'm so used to limited resources, I feel like someone will have to get less than they need, and I don't want that to be John, but I also don't want that to be me... Anyway, when the doctor made that reference, I grabbed onto it, and managed to say that, "It's just one more thing that's so similar. Like I can't talk right, and I can't eat right, and John isn't ok. Everything's just too much the same. And Rogers has been, like, the mark. Since Rogers. That's been the one thing that I could look back at and say, ok, no, things aren't the same, because this happened, I went here, and I'm not the same anymore. And now, it's just like, so many things are the same that I start to feel like...I'm fifteen again, and when I look for Rogers, it's just disintegrating. It's just crumbling, and soon it - my Rogers - might not even exist, and then, well it doesn't make any sense, but it's like if I'm back here, and I know I'm not back here, but I feel like I am, if that falls apart, if the reason things started to change falls apart, then I'll be trapped back here again, and I don't want that."
I thought I sounded like a very incoherent nutcase who'd been reading too much science fiction. He said it didn't matter whether it made sense; it only mattered that I felt this way, which I took as confirmation that he had understood me, even if I wasn't saying the world's most sensible thing. I cried the whole time I was rambling, and I felt like the pressure had finally topped out and hit a release. I told him, "I don't want to relapse." I gave such a speech against the idea, that I thought he'd interrupt to ask why on earth I thought I had to; I said, "I don't want to relapse. I won't be able to feel it at all, then; I won't be able to connect at all with anyone. And everything will just suck so much all the time, and I don't want that; I really, really don't... And even if I did, and I went back, it's not there. And I know it's not there. They're not there, and it would just feel so wrong, so different, and I don't want that." But, hey, you know, I want to go home. I want to have relationships where the question, "Can we take this to the next level?" (ew) doesn't mean, "Can we talk on the phone? Can I have your number?" I want to go back to all of them, together again, home again. I can't get well enough to make that happen. I can't get sick enough to make that happen. I can't do anything that will make that happen. And I'm just a small child beating my fists against the table, kicking, crying, no, no, no. I got better to be with you. I got better to live like you live. I did this to have you, and I ended up liking me, too. (What a perk.) I can't go back now because it means too much, this, being yours, me, who I've become, so forth. But you're what I want.
The other night I thought of Brea until I was nearly sick. I thought of how much I missed her, and I started to remember, so clearly, the nights when we would sit in the office, crochet and talk. I remembered a sentence from the early days at chord, some two weeks since my discharge. I said, "Two weeks without talking to Brea is like two weeks in a world that is rationing air" (or something similarly worded.) And I think now, how long it's been, that I don't even know how many months, and I could trace it back, but do I really want to know? The loss of voices is sometimes the worst. Writing and e-mail and just your name here or there gives me strength, but those people I can no longer hear are so painful. I guess the only one's left are Steph and Leah. Out of all my loves. I want it back, all back; I want to be greedy. This move, this Dave-leaving, it's like pulling out a very important beam. And I know they're scrambling to keep it up, and soon the new therapist will move into his spot and find her own way to support that weight, keep the building up around them... But I'm just 2.5; I'm just far away. Bittersweet. The doctor says, if I had relapsed and gone back, I'd know more people. It wouldn't be so unfamiliar. A girl discharging today wouldn't feel this loss. He was trying to share the bitter part of it, the difficult part, and all I could think was someone left today; you know people still leave, and people are still there, and I envy that too much to tell. Except I don't. I don't want to be there, and I don't want to be sick, and I damn well don't want to be around that sickness all the time. But I have to find something closer. I have to find something that's closer than I am now, and closer than being sick and going back because I don't want that at all. (Godd, imagine. All this illness again. No, no, no, that is not what I want.) I have to check with Sarah whether she ever got a hold of Sara, and I need to track down Dave. Need to. If I don't hear from Jenna, I need to write her again, and I need to call. We'll pencil that in at the beginning of March. She got an extension because I know she's alive.
There's one more thing from the session that's also sort of important just for me to clarify. (I worry that a phrase a few lines up about how I "can't eat" might startled a few sweet hearts.) So. The doctor asked me how I'd been, and I said I'd been beating up on myself a lot, and he asked over what, and I said mainly food. I don't like saying that; it feels like such a stupid thing to care about, still, now, even knowing that's the illness. It feels like a cover-up because I know it's not really about the food. Anyway, I told him that with the infection in my mouth and throat, I've had more trouble eating, (i.e. it's painful) and I've been eating differently and probably less. Some days I know I haven't gotten enough, and it hasn't been restriction; it's been torture... But I haven't really trusted myself with that. I feel guilty like I'm restricting and just pretending it's because I'm sick, and then at the same time (because this is how evil eating disorders are) whenever I start to freak out that I'm not eating enough, I end up freaking out that I'm eating too much. Oh, yes. Because if the eating disorder is present in my head, I am eating too much. Anything is too much. That's the best I could do when the doctor asked what I had to base the "too much" accusation on; I told him it's really not valid - I'm just freaked because I'm not eating the things I usually eat, and most days I'm eating a little at a time instead of meals. It's just an issue of not defending myself as well because I can't just throw back, "Shut up! I've done this meal plan for 2.5 years, and I'm swell with it!" because my meal plan, normally a rather loose thing I can cling to in troublesome times, stopped being possible when the virus happened. The doctor suggested that the pain might make me more aware of what I'm eating and when I'm eating, so that it becomes too much of a focus, and the eating disorder starts to kick into gear again. I think that makes a lot of sense. Normally, I eat a piece of candy, it's over, it's done. Now, I eat a piece of candy, and afterward my mouth still hurts. Eating's a struggle, for different reasons than normal, and it's just bringing up shit that goes along with why it was more normally (and still is occasionally) a struggle. I'm still eating! Food is good; I like food. I had a really horrible night (and I told him this) where my mouth had been rotten all day, and I hadn't gotten much of anything down, and I was hungry, but I couldn't fathom eating anything we had because I have trouble eating anything that's not seriously bland and the consistency of, say, pudding. I decided to go to sleep because I just felt awful, and I went into the kitchen to take my meds. Just being in the kitchen, my hunger (which had sort of retreated, the way hunger does when it's not listened to) flared up again, and I just stood in the kitchen, sooo hungry and so unable to eat... It made me cry. I know that doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment, but it hurt so much I was in tears. I don't ever want to feel that hunger again. That, I want to eat and I can't eat, awful hunger. That hollow feeling, that craving as big as the house...
I am going to take this antibiotic, and I am going to get back my test results, and I am going to do what I need to (see the specialist, take a different antibiotic, whatever), and this mouth thing is going to go away. When that happens, I will be eating normally, and I won't feel hungry, and this won't be endless like it was when it was ed. This time, it's going to take a lot less time to reach that. And I'll be ok. Recovery's my habit now; eating's my ritual. I'll get better, and I'll get hungry, and I'll eat. The meantime's just the meantime. I do my best and try not to go crazy over the fact that my best is not as good as usual.
I actually wrote about the phone call, which came from Sara not long after I got back, at a time when I figured I'd just tell her I couldn't talk now and call later, that I chose to stay in because I needed to do so. Afterward, I left crying-rambling-message-number-five (surely the counter restarts at some point? eh? eh?) on the doctor's answering machine because I wanted to talk, but I didn't want to listen to anyone else. I wanted to pour it out, let him know, and move onto vegging. Check.
So for the record and everything, I started this entry at the time listed, went to bed in the middle of it, woke up and wrote the entry following it, and later finished this one. Just in case you care. Or more likely, because I'm weird, and do.
~me