Today, outside the doctor's building, there were two fire engines and a load of firefighters. The load of firefighters allowed me to walk right past them into the building, which I appreciated as I like to be punctual, but which made me wonder how concerned they truly were for well-being. It all turned out rather well, though. Not long after they allowed me to enter the building, I flooded it with all the stupid tears I always, always cry when the doctor talks to me, and not a spark remained. I kid. Really, the whole ordeal was far less interesting than it deserved to be. I liked the moment the firefighter pounded on the doors of the doctor-offices searching for a smoke alarm, then left, saying he had to find out which one was going off - at which point both my mom and I went, "It's in the restaurant. You can hear it going off when you walk by." (The doctor works in a building that leases office space to different businesses and also has some residents. So, there's a restaurant. Actually, I think it's there solely so the doc can send people to eat dinner when he's running three hours behind. Which he actually does. Send people for food, I mean. Give patients an all-expenses-paid trip to Supperville. He rarely runs three hours late these days.) "Should we tell them?" I asked, and the other doctor - the one I once saw playing with Legos in his office when no patients were around, said, "I guess they'll figure it out eventually," which I wasn't going to take because it's dumb to not inform them if we know, but then he said, "Isn't that, like, the first place you'd check?" and I just started laughing.
"It does seem to have a slightly better chance of catching fire than this place," I said, laughing. The image of the firefighter searching high and low in a pristine office space for a wailing smoke alarm, while down the hall there was a restaurant with a kitchen did amuse me. I did no good Samaritan deeds, as a result. The firefighters figured it out themselves, or so I assume, as they were gone by the end of my session.
Why did I have a session on Wednesday, you ask? Was I nostalgic for old times, you wonder? Did my doctor finally do his math and say, you know, we could split the week more equally in half then this Friday/ Monday schedule? No. I simply had the joyous experience of being stood up by my psychiatrist on Monday. For the record, I've been dumped by therapists before, so this wasn't the most emotionally scarring thing in the world, but still. And he didn't so much stand me up as cancel. But he cancelled! He cancelled my ever-so-necessary Monday appt not 24 hours after I left him a message (between the two Sara calls) talking about the call and saying, "I'm just really glad that this is a Friday-Monday time. I think I can make it two days." He cancelled! Giving me a full week to get through, which "shouldn't" be impossible but right now very much is, and no explanation. Major suckage ensued.
I don't really feel like elaborating with the gory details, but basically I've spent the past few days doped up on Benadryl, (which is part of the treatment which is not healing my mouth, but which does give me some temporary relief - speaking of which, the cultures came back normal, so I'm now seeing a specialist about my unique Tongue Plague on the 27th...whee) trying not to worry too much about how I wasn't so much following the idoc's instructions (I've decided to call my phys. doc the idoc, not so much as to make her sound like a Mac product - though, hey, nothing wrong with that - as because in my head, it's a sensible nickname, confusing only if someone mistakenly assumes she's an optometrist) regarding any Benadryl-induced fatigue. I was supposed to cut the dose in half if I found myself getting sleepy. But I've been depressed (hate.that.word) as fuck and appreciated actually being able to sleep. So, I didn't so much do that, which scared me. I will not self-medicate that way. It scares me how tempted I am to do so sometimes. At least with John's sobriety the alcohol ain't so present in our house; I'm glad. Don't give me the option of destruction, and I won't take it. Anyway. I did a lot of feeling desperate and hopeless and depressed; I couldn't really find anything to soothe me. The more I care about people, the less they care about me; the more I love someone, the more scared I have to be that something will happen to them; Rogers is disintegrating; I lost the doctor; everything's going back to how it was when I was fifteen; and I don't want to be sick, but it would be less painful; and I don't want to be dead, but it would be so much easier - and other happy thoughts. I think there may have been an electrical fire in my brain or something. Unfortunately, all the experts were searching psychiatric offices for hidden smoke alarms.
Blayh. It was bad. Was is not so accurate, but it did get slightly better today with the whole appointment thing. Mom came into my room last night and told me she'd just talked with the doctor, and I'd see him at 2:00 today. I was slightly upset about the whole thing - for a few reasons, i.e. I was already upset about everything, if he'd called, why hadn't he just talked to me?; and I didn't want to take my mom's appointment. (The 2:00 time-slot was hers.) I'd actually thought about it earlier in the week and decided I'd rather hold out for my normal Friday appointment than take hers on Wednesday. Partly because I hate taking what other people have a right to and a need for and partly because, although it meant waiting longer to see the doc, it would be less time until my schedule normalized. If I traded sessions with Mom, I'd see him earlier, but I wouldn't be back into my routine until Monday. (Understand, each day is like a week right now.)
And actually, that wasn't the plan at all. I took my mom's time slot, (and afterward, I thanked her profusely, and she held my hand and said she loved me and that's just all there is to it) she rescheduled for tomorrow, and I have my Friday appointment. Squee. Now, someone tell me why I always get caught up in these silly details that don't matter to anyone but me?
Oh. It's my journal! Mwa ha ha. It's my journal; I'll be dull if I want to, dull if I want to... I'll be a dork if I want to, too! Whee!
Do not be fooled by the presence of "whee." I am not in a good mood. I no longer feel like I'm being run over by monster trucks, which I appreciate. However, I still retain the pain of injuries sustained during those few days where I was, figuratively of course, mowed down and plowed over... But I feel more hopeful. I haven't pulled a blanket over my head once since the appointment. I am so rocking.
Anyway, the appointment. I was a mess, of course, a complete and utter wreck, and feeling like a freak because of this. The doctor started right out with, "I can't tell you how rotten I felt when I told [the people who work for me] to cancel my Monday and Tuesday appointments, only to check my voice mail and hear your message." Apparently, I'd been rather hard to understand; I was probably superquiet and, you know, crying, and basically the only part of the message he heard was how grateful I was that I'd see him Monday. Marvelous. I felt bad for him because I know he really was sorry. And I felt bad for me just because I'd mastered the skill.
He told me that he wanted me to know he heard the message after cancelling the appointment, that he would never, ever cancel an appointment to make a point. I felt some huge relief at that; it wasn't my main concern when I heard the appointment was cancelled - but it did occur to me that cancelling to see what the fallout would be was "something Dave might do." He said he wanted me to know that there was absolutely no game-playing in our relationship; we're a team and he's not manipulating me, even for my own good. I'm really grateful for that. I would have given him the benefit of the doubt, but I liked hearing it from him, so sincerely. I appreciate the fact that he values integrity as much as I do.
So then I told him about the phone call, and about my other responses to the cancellation. He said he couldn't imagine the cancellation coming at a worse time (and I kept saying, this is so stupid! it's only *a week!*) ... but it was way too big a deal. We talked about the similarity to December, how it came with no warning, when usually he gives me lots of notice. I told him how scared I've been that he was sick again, how I kept thinking that I've gone in there twice a week, all this time I've been ill (with the plague, I mean; obviously, I've been ill the whole time I've been seeing him). I kept wondering if he'd really only miss the one appointment, or if he'd cancel Friday, too. If the cancellations would just build into a time where he could no longer say when he'd come back, like they did in December when he was so ill. I was terrified. Imagine me, standing in this territory that looks so much like life at fifteen, watching everything that makes now different, makes now better - my experience at Rogers, my relationships, my work with him - completely disappear. Ok, everything is not disappearing. But huge parts have, recently. I'm nowhere near healed after the blow about Dave "moving his services" and suddenly the Superdoc is gone, too? I couldn't lose both of them at once! I couldn't lose both of them, period. To be blatantly obvious, I need help. And the good news is, I'm getting it. I'm a little tired of living in constant fear that it will vanish at any moment, though.
So, I freaked. I thought I was never going to see him again. I couldn't get my head out of it's "everyone I know will soon be gone" state, which is not one I know how to handle. I remembered that (and I don't even want to say this because right now when I say it, my face changes shape and my arms flail out, and I spit tears from my lips and my eyes) Tracy died, and therefore nothing can ever be ok. No matter what I do, things can't be perfect, ever. Because she's gone, and I can't change that. And oh, it continued to suck. ...Basically, I spent the hour blabbing about all of these thoughts and blubbering through all of them, and he kept telling me that my reaction was normal, not freakish, given the circumstances...and that my pain is evidence of the love. It shows that my relationships at Rogers were so far from meaningless, that our relationship is so far from meaningless, that these connections matter and these people cannot just be replaced. I told him I know that, and even when I say this is more painful than being sick, I'm aware that this pain is attached to love and life, and it's finite, all of which contribute to making it so much better than the ed-pain... but every once in awhile, I would like the strength of a relationship to be evidenced by something positive, as in the continuing relationship. I'm tired of proving the point with my pain. I couldn't be homesick if it weren't really home. Ok. Now, can I have it back, please?
He also told me that if he'd had the foresight to realize how I'd take the cancellation, he would have called me personally, and given me the details. We could have sidestepped the "But what if he's sick or gone or leaving or dead?" bullshit, which would have been nice. Just hearing him say he would have done that helped some. I like to know that people aren't trying to hurt me. Especially the ones who do such a good job at trying to help me. In the end, I still felt a lot like a mess. Kind of like the pressure had built up inside until it exploded and sent goo all over the room, and now the pressure was down, and all the goo was laid out, but there was some major cleaning up we didn't quite have time to do. I know we'll come back to it. The "I'll be alone" / "everyone will leave me" / "everyone will be taken away" / "I'll be taken away" / "everyone will die" fear isn't exactly a minor one in my life. And it's worse right now; I'm not sure why. We have neighbors again, and I'm jumping every time I hear doors close, keys jingle, see a light come on in a window. I keep rubbing the back of my neck, which I do when I'm anxious; there's some sort of pain there... And probably because of that, I keep thinking someone's about to shoot me in the head. It's not a good day to have my back against anything other than a wall.
That's the real reason I like sitting in corners so much. I don't think I ever told the people pushing me to get out into the room that little truth. I like having walls to guard me on either side. I like that people can only approach from the front. ...I live a terrified life, in many ways. I'm glad there's reason to believe it will change. And at the end of the session, when I said, "I still feel like a freak," he said, "Do you think maybe this is one of those times when your feelings are sending you backwards?" and I cried and said, "I hope so" - which I really do; I really hope I'm wrong about all these awful things I think...and he said, "It's true." Like he promised. Like he had sources to back it up, like it was verified. I'm not a freak, and I won't be left alone to die. Somehow, right now, that's enough comfort to last on. (That and knowing I'll see him the day after tomorrow-which-is-almost-today.)
And the fact that, all fucked-upped-ness of politics and marriage aside, these photos have to make you feel like something's right in the world. (Yeay, San Francisco, yeay!)
~me