I've wanted so very much to write the past few nights, but it seems like I always feel too sick, too tired, too weak. I put it off until tomorrow, and then somehow, tomorrow becomes a day in which I'm actually doing something (which throws me, of course) and I don't end up writing a word. I've been walking, taking my strolls along the sidewalks of the city I want to claim, trying to conquer the anxiety. I smile at everyone I pass, sometimes shyly, sometimes with a mouthful of enthusiasm, and sometimes they smile back. I live in a city of commuters, and when the cars cruise by, I catch a verse of an unfamiliar song... But the sidewalk is familiar and that starts to make the music the same. I'm winding my way down new routes now. I'm turning corners and overlapping smaller maps to make my own course. The weather (the February weather that no one gives its due) has pushed me to sing "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood" two days in a row. I've been slacking on my correspondence, so there's no mail to send. The walks just mean I'm taking the walks, and they're hardly a good time, but out in the sunshine (which today, for the first time in months, soaked my skin, saturated eyes and all, until the lights of the house went dim) it occurs to me that even the mediocrity, sometimes made worse by anxiety, is at least as good as sitting alone in this apartment. So I'm going on the walks. I'm going early in the day. I'm bored with my computer, and I want to see who will smile at me today. I want to come back and shower and put on clothes that don't blend in anywhere, especially Neverland or Brigadoon. I want to have something to talk about that these walls didn't witness. I want to have something to say to this 'home' when I enter it.
And, no, I haven't been feeling my best, physically speaking, but I realized talking with my dad last night that I really don't feel like letting that stop me anymore. So I have a plague on my tongue, so what? It's not like it's any less sore if I mope around here. The truth of my avoidance has been phobia, and I know that; I knew that before. But something, maybe the weather, has riled up an energy in me; I suppose it's the nature of a spring to propell. And it's going to be one fine spring.
Tongue plague. It turns out the doctors don't have a more accurate term to hand me, not really. Which is to say that I did travel to Timbuktu and back to stick out my tongue and attempt to say "Eeee" in a high falsetto voice that I swear on my choir folder is not possible with a tongue depressor in your mouth. It wasn't a very merry adventure; my anxiety level was up and we were slightly lost, which I can handle somewhat, but our confusion around where we needed to go led to some scary situations on the road. i.e. It's not a good thing to slow to a near stop on the highway because you don't know whether you want this exit. Et cetera. I saved my skin by having a handful of cds with me. The plague having temporarily moved out of my throat again, I was able to sing and stay steady. Nothing balances my breath like a duet with the discplayer...
I didn't like that it was a hospital, or that it was in Timbuktu. I very much prefer my physician's office, which is small and private and not attached to a massive building with a thousand floors and a hundred thousand beds. It's odd because normally I almost like hospitals (obviously, Rogers goes beyond any of this); I'm comfortable in them, at least. Everything seems tidy and taken care of, whether it actually is or not, and I've spent enough time in waiting rooms, and beside sickbeds to feel comfortable in it. But I don't like doctors' visits in the hospital. I don't know if it's the reminder of the eight million days I spent in those waiting room as a child, or the buzz of medical visits in the months between diagnosis and Rogers; maybe it's a combination of the two. Understand, I hate it. I missed the superdoc's waiting room, and that's impressive. He has the most mismatched waiting room, with the world's worst piped in music... but I know every inch of it, and the people there know me in a way that feels good. By the time they called my name at this place, I felt severely powerless. I've done an incredible job despite this, but lately my head's full of random ed outbursts. For some reason, it decided to be very, very afraid that I was going to be weighed. I don't know why I thought this. I mean, I was seeing a specialist; it wasn't a check-up or anything. But the forms I filled out had spaces for blood pressure, temperature (which they did take), as well as weight, height, et cetera. And although my chart at the idoc's office says not to weigh me if it isn't necessary, I didn't think that information would have transferred to this other place. I was very worried that they would not understand when I asked them to weigh me "blind" - that afterward, they would slip and say the number, or I'd see it written on a chart the nurse left for the doctor. I was worried that they'd know a number, and that it would be falsely high because I hadn't done all the things that Tammy always has me do to make sure she gets the most accurate possible weight. That's how I know it was eating-disordered worry; in my illness, I don't worry that the number will be too low (that I'll be "found out" and force-fed)...I worry about how high it already is and what people will think of me when they know. And then I step outside of that long enough to worry what people would think of me if they knew I worried over such ridiculous things.
Say there was an illness, and it made you hate every joint in your body, or every part that wasn't blue. Say you had to seem ridiculous because you caught a sickness... I did a really good job for most of my life of not even acknowledging the sexism and the lookism and the evil demands of media. And I think it's important to know that the evil of society is separate from, if related to, the evil of eating disorders. But sometimes thoughts that people come to for very different reasons look so similar, it's hard to remember the necessity for a backstory; it's hard to remember to ask.
I'm getting distracted; I'm tired, and I'm only so sure I want to be writing. I know very little of what I'm going to say before I've said it these days, and afterward I usually can't remember. It's good to not be rehearsing and planning every word, but I do wonder sometimes if I'm making any sense at all. The eating disorder worries proved groundless (surprise); I didn't even have to face the challenge because they didn't weigh me. (Funny thing about mouth doctors; they're mostly concerned with your mouth.) I went in, and I had my temp and blood pressure taken, which were basically normal, and then sometime between the cows coming home and hell freezing over, the doctor came in to take a look. He did not say that beloved morsel of medical diagnosis, "We don't know what it is" but he did substitute two of my favorite runners-up, "We don't know what causes it" and "We don't know what makes it go away." And for this I drove past twelve other hospitals and came to you? To hear, "it usually goes away"? To hear that it's called (now, sarcasm aside, this part is actually worth having gone) of all things, "geographic tongue" because there's something wrong, and it's geographically located, where else but, on my tongue?! I have geographic tongue. That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard since the tantrum my eating disorder threw at Dairy Queen. They don't know what causes it; possibly, stress is a factor. Physical or mental stress. (The doc amused me afterward by dismissing the stress possibility. "Oh, well. It's not like you've had any of that lately." Hee. There's a reason I see this doc.) So. Usually, it goes away. (Thanks, but it's been over a month, and when it's bad, my entrees are applesauce and pudding. Do you think you can help me out a little more?) He did write me a prescription for another potion (again 1/3 Benedryl; hooray, naptime) which I'm to "swish and swallow" for ten days, and ten days after that, evaluate to see if I need to "swish and swallow" again. Squee. Then the pharmacy decided to bug out and tell me that only the midnight pharmacist is allowed to do mixes. (How hard is it? I've been doing it for the past couple of weeks. But no, this time the professionals are mixing it for me. I tried to look enthusiastic when the mouth-doc told me this. And he did laugh when I said, with a wry smile, "I'm moving up in the world.") Then today they decided to bug out again and tell us that the meds don't come in the measurements the doc prescribed. The pharmacist and the doctor had to talk; they needed to use I-statements and work on communication, blah, blah, blah. I haven't gotten to taste the new cocktail yet; I'm not especially sorry. Apparently, it's not expected to heal anything (though one can always hope) but should relive some of my suffering while my body works things out for itself. Oy. I'd better be damn glad to have this body on my side because seriously, if I had to depend on the medical system to heal me? Ha!
No, no, I like the medical system. I just prefer working with the handful of people whom I know and trust (and have good reason for trusting.) And I'm grateful to have someone tell me there's nothing remotely like a tumor (and so forth) about this. Nothing to worry about, just "geographic tongue." I did submit to the occasional bit of hypochondria, less often than one might think - because, as I told Dr. R, I have so many concrete things to feel anxiety about - and was glad to be told not to worry by someone who had seen similar tongues. I was also worried that it was somehow "my fault" (which I forgot to share with the doc-doc, but which is rather common for me)... I was freaked that it was going to be a response to something I wasn't doing, like a sign of poor hygiene. Still terrified to be found out as a dirty girl, it seems. But I'm not a dirty girl. So once again, no one discovered that.
(I'll try and remember; really, I will.)
After the appointment with the ENT, I had my Friday session. Mom and I had a little time to kill in between, not so much as to be worth coming 'home' and not so little as to easily dismiss. I was frightfully worn out, and very, very, very grateful that a day like that one is no longer typical of my routine. Those days of driving from the middle of nowhere - Neverland or D!@#$%^ - to one appointment after another (because if you're going to drive that far, you might as well do them all at once) and then back again, exhausted, three or four days a week... Oh, I could have fallen over just from the memory! It was a really nice thing to catch up with Tammy, even though her people sort of called my people (did I mention this? I called her to find out about the residential facility Sara was then considering and has now been admitted to?), and I did feel really comfortable and happy-in-a-way just hearing her voice on the answering machine, but Godd Almighty, I do not miss those appointments. I am happy to touch base and keep her updated - it's a good thing, although I sometimes pervert it, to be someone's good news - but forget the sessions. Forget a therapist and a nutritionist and a psychiatrist and an outpatient program; to me, that's more insane than the 24/7 nature of residential. At least in residential, it all sort of moves around you. You stay still and do the work with people who appear around you. You're not constantly chasing after treatment, trying to squeeze it into a schedule, commuting back and forth. I'm rather glad to have found the one psychiatrist on the planet who's really a therapist armed with a prescription pad, to be at a point where I don't need those weigh-ins and in-depth discussions of food, to survive without the outpatient program, even if technically, I started doing so because they kicked me out. It's amazing how many doctors will push you away after you tell them you have abandonment and insecure attachment issues. But then, I've been down this track before.
So, of course, when I saw the doctor and started to talk about things like the walks I've been taking, and the motivation to get out and do something, not to mention the fear that we've started to deal with certain things - like the agoraphobia and the sexuality issues - several times and then somehow, they always end up retreating to a back burner, which makes me worry that I'll never move out of this place, that I'm stuck here, static, and altogether unhappy - we ended up discussing if I need to see someone else. Ahh! No. I need to type that differently for my own sanity. Actually, I need to say that to him and have him phrase it differently for my own sanity. Not someone else instead of my superdoc, who I really, really like seeing. Someone in addition to my superdoc. Someone who could focus on the behavioral goals and work that are usually so successful with agoraphobia, someone who could take that part on and leave my sessions with the superdoc free for the things that keep pushing behavioral progress out of priority. That's only one possibility; he mentioned two others, and I think one - setting aside a short portion of each appointment to give to this issue and then, still having our normal talks - is viable. (The other is that we use one session a week for what's happening and one for beating the agoraphobia with a stick. But we've tried that, and it doesn't work. And I think it will fail especially hard now, when the time between a Monday and a Friday session already feels like three weeks.)
I have concerns. I'm not supposed to worry or hurry to make a decision, and he told me to remember that anything we decide, we do not set in stone; I'm not going to be trapped in any scenario. If we try partitioning our time and I hate it, if I try seeing someone else for this and it doesn't work, we can come up with another decision, launch it, and take it back, too, if need be. And there's no urgency; I don't need to decide tonight or tomorrow. I don't need to know by Monday. Which is good, of course. I told him I hate making decisions, but we talked more, and it's not really that. I don't mind making this decision. What I don't like is that I have reason to make it. I don't like that this is an issue at all, that I have to deal with this, that it can't just go away, or never have existed. I don't like that I didn't start working at this three years ago, or better yet when I was bitsy. But three years ago I struggled with the load I was facing, and when I was young, Paxil commercials did not interrupt every segment of a television shows, so no one knew. Besides, if I'd gotten help when I was little, I'd have had an entirely different life, and enticing as that sometimes is, am I really going to pretend I'd give up all I have, have had, and love for a life I know nothing about? The could-have-been life? Um, no. I'll stick with what's been good to me. I'll be here, in the life I'm living. Trying to live, more and more everyday.
A new person could be good. The anger and the fear and the upsettedness that I'm bound to feel when we start shaking things up wouldn't affect my best outlet and safe space, wouldn't affect the other work I'm doing. I'd be going to Dr. R with the pain of it, instead of taking a double hit because the pain kept me from talking to him. Our sessions would stay safe, stay sacred, and that matters a lot to me right now. I don't have Rogers to lean on, and to be honest, as many things as I wish, that's what I wish for most right now. If I could, I'd wish to have them to lean on - even just in phone calls, even so much as I did after discharging (which seemed so little then)... The doc said he wished so, too, which was sweet. I sometimes feel bad and wonder if he knows he's as important as they are. I did tell him in a recent rambling message that he's the current Rogers. Maybe he does know. He does a lot to protect our relationship and our time together. Sort of similar to all he's done to protect Rogers and my perception of it. Maybe he does understand.
Of course, seeing someone new would mean having to see someone new. It would mean more visits, more time in waiting rooms, having to tell stories that Dr. R already knows, stories I'd rather not go through yet again. And maybe this hypothetical person wouldn't need to know all that; she/he wouldn't be a new therapist after all, just someone who needed background information for one specific task. On the other hand, I think it would set a really good precedent for the work we have to do to start it off by seeing someone new. I don't meet new people; I don't form new relationships. That's one of the main reasons I need to do this work. To start it off with someone new, to say this time is different, this time there's a person who's only job is watching this part, and this time we're starting out with just a hint of what we want in barrels, someday ... might be nice. I'd like to meet someone new, if it could be good. And it could be good. Then again, I have this fear about whether or not it's possible - because it is so comparable to the behavioral part of the ed, and that really didn't improve those eight months that I spent working at it before going to Rogers. If this hypothetical person is going to be for the agoraphobia what Tammy was for the eating disorder, I'm scared that my work with Tammy didn't really work. Still. I'm three years stronger than I was then, and I'm seeing Dr. R, a therapist who (rather quietly) insists on change - or so it would seem since I'm always progressing, though I sometimes can't see so through my own eyes... I'm used to working, I have more of the tools, I'm familiar with the process, and I'm driven to change.
When Sara gets her life back, she's going to set out in search of work that feels true and a home real as the one we had. And when that time comes, I'm not going to be sitting in an apartment, wishing I could go. This time, Cinderella has no fairy godmother, but she's been given reason to suspect the ball will come someday. So, she's set herself to planning, preparation. And even midnight won't make that magic disappear.
~me