Friday, when the doc and I talked, I spent most of the session once again detailing everything that had gone on when Sara needed to get out of the treatment center. The more I talked, the less I felt like talking, the less I felt anything resembling good... I had already told the whole sob-story here, and on the phone, and in my head, so I couldn't figure out why every time I started to tell it - thinking, I'll just go over the basics, just take a minute - I ended up describing every last moment and telling every last word. I tried to pass my annoyance off as boredom; I have been known to find my own problems dull after I've gone over them so many times. But I wasn't just bored, and I knew it. I don't think I managed to tell him this, but really, I felt overlooked. My response to Chris that night really captures it well. So many people in my life were focused on Sara, supposedly on "helping" Sara - although no one but Sara seemed to accomplish that...and ok, I did hear her when she said what I did meant a lot - and I think, despite my own feelings for her, despite being so entrenched in loving her myself, I didn't quite know how to respond when so many people in my life took to asking about her instead of asking about me. It isn't that anyone stopped caring for me, or even overlooked me (really); it's that my love for Sara is so intensely evident that those who care about me care about her almost involuntarily. And when my head and heart are entirely wrapped around her, why shouldn't people who love me go straight to the subject?
...Because I'm never entirely wrapped around her - because in order to be entirely wrapped around her, I'd have to be losing myself, and if I'm losing myself, then I'm not ok and need, especially, not to be erased, even through people wonderful enough to care about someone just because I do and they care about me.
I know it's not a competition, and I have such a hard time with feeling anything like neglect or envy that I have a really difficult time even stating this. I'm just not over my childhood; (shocking.) I still think that the resources are scarce, that if someone else is taken care of, I won't be, can't be, and even if I have moments of martyrdom in me... I truly don't want to be one. I love Sara enough and I'm so scared to lose her that I do occasionally think I would sacrifice myself to save her, if it were possible. And the thing to remember is - it doesn't matter. It's not relevent; it's not possible. So whether I'm willing to exchange my life for hers (or his, or yours) just doesn't matter because I can't do it anyway. The point then (I think) is that, when I take down all my noble defenses and tell the truth that I'm ashamed of (imagine being ashamed of this) ... I want to live. I don't want to be a martyr. I don't want to be neglected, to be given less than my share, to die - even nobly. I don't want to live miserably or quit living; I don't want that...which is still fairly novel to me. Nonetheless true. The fact that I even feel ashamed points back to the scarcity as a kid, and I know that; I understand that I don't deserve a beating for wanting so much - because having my needs met doesn't mean selfishness, doesn't mean I'm keeping someone else from the chance of meeting their own. I've just seen that so many more times than I've seen the rational truth, the therapy truth, the Dr. R and Rogers truth.
So, when I was talking about her - and it wasn't even truly about her; it was about my experience during the whole ordeal - (and I just want to say, I still wouldn't choose to not have been there; I'm imagining Sara hearing all of this, and thinking of her guilt...and no, no, no, the only thing worse would have been not knowing, not being able to do the little that I could) I felt again like the attention was on her and not me. And I don't want to be jealous, I really don't (who does?) ... It's not an emotion I allow myself to feel without fallout, and I need to work on that because I do feel slighted. I do feel especially needy right now and hurt that some of the things which could meet my needs are being given to her.
(And now I'm remembering this time at Rogers, when a single bedroom opened up, and I talked to Dave about wanting it... when he seemed geared to give it to me, and then called one night, talked to another girl, and told her she could have it. She came off the phone all excited; I felt sick. I did have the sense to ask him about it, and he did have a good reason...and of course now, I'm beyond grateful for every second I spent as Tracy's roommate, but I remember that room so much. That night. That feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me; my stomach was in my throat, choking me - I couldn't breathe. It's not the room I care about now, and it probably wasn't then either. It's that feeling again, the wave of memory coinciding with what I feel now. It's keeping my smile from quavering when I've been hit in the stomach. Not flinching no matter how intense the pain, not crying no matter how much is taken from me. I was very, very good at that once, and it's the memory - the sensate memory - of why I came to be so good at it that hurts.)
Triggered, they would call it, but I'm tired of that word. I need a new dialogue for this next phase of recovery. I need a word that doesn't have that negative conotation and that need to be disclaimed. Triggered, but not into doing anything, only into feeling something. Only into feeling, right. But mostly I want to be able to tell someone something came up because of our relationship without hearing that they're sorry. I'm not going to get better if these things don't come up. I can't deal with things buried so deep I don't know they exist. So, I need a new word. A few new words, actually. But I don't feel like fully sidetracking into that now...)
When I told the doctor (Friday) that I was tired of telling that story, of having that conversation, he asked me a rather strange question. He asked if I felt re-traumatized as I told it; he said the experience was traumatic...I don't remember why exactly, other than it hurt a lot. I asked what he meant, and he asked if I felt the way I had throughout everything when I talked about it, if I was re-experiencing it as I spoke. And I realized, I was. With a few exceptions - the time I spent doubting Sara now seems ludicrous; I understand why I doubted her, but I don't feel it again when I tell the story - I do feel it each time, do become exhausted from feeling it each time. The anger at her mom, at my mom, the injury, the powerlessness all come back. That's what was traumatic - the powerlessness. The fact that everyone else in the situation could (and did) make active choices, but I couldn't. He pointed out that even Sara "got to" sign herself out, call a ride, buy a ticket, and board a plane. None of that was easy or fun for her, but she has to feel some power in her life, as a result of it. When he said this, I just remembered the call I made to her the morning of her flight, when she talked about her mom's cold refusal to help - even with luggage - when I wanted so desperately to tell her, to have her understand, that I hadn't chosen anything. I hadn't chosen not to help, like my mom and her mom. If it could have been my choice, I would have been there. I needed her to know that. And that's what the doctor says has hurt me so badly with all of this: I, already low, ended up feeling even less power in my life, which isn't good. It isn't. Maybe that's why I've been so depressed the past few days; I really don't know. But I have been. Languid and homesick and craving love.
We talked about the parallels between my past experience and what Sara's going through now; he brought up a few points that I'd been thinking of and a few that hadn't occurred to me. I'd noticed how similar the relationship between Sara and her mom felt to the relationships between my mom and I and my geometry teacher and I. (me?...I don't know) Feeling that way again, on top of the recently rocky relations with my mom, (nothing like it was then, just...rather distant; I don't feel like I talk to her much at all, and when I want to talk with her, I don't - because I feel so overwhelmed by everything she says...it's like we're both too weak to connect right now) - having that conversation with Sara's mom that felt so familiar, having my mom "turn on me" and not help Sara, being completely helpless, and so subtly attacked was all just too familiar. I knew that much. The doctor suggested that Sara's leaving a treatment situation and going home to a less than supportive environment (even if the treatment situation had been far different) might feel familiar, too. We'd talked about how Sara always has to go from residential to life-at-light-speed, how she didn't have the interim period without school and with lots of therapy and groups and things that I did. He seemed to want me to understand that even with those groups and things, I didn't exactly have a support network, especially long term. He reminded me of that again today, of how pathetically incapable my life now is of measuring up to my life (in terms of support and connection and relation) at Rogers. True or not, I didn't really want to hear it from him; I was already feeling it...I'm not sure I wanted to hear from him that the feeling was justified. It's so much more difficult to keep going when someone confirms that things aren't as good as they were. Not "things" really. Millions of things, most things, are ten-thousand percent improved...but this one matters more. Some of those many things are so tiny, and I love them, but they don't weigh so heavily as this does. Home. And family. What else do I want?
So today we pick it up again - the whole discussion of how things from the past can come up again, how some things just refuse to leave a girl alone. I told him I'm used to that as far as themes go; I expect overarching "issues" - like my struggles with attachment and phobias and sexuality and whatever the hell else - to return...but these experiences that come up again surprise me. I suppose they aren't exactly singular; I probably wouldn't have given a second thought to losing that room if it hadn't been strung together with so many other losses. (And again, it's not that I didn't want her to have it. I felt horribly selfish and jealous for having wanted it myself, even when I hadn't known she did, and for continuing to want it, to have the gall to feel injured when he didn't give it to me. This unhealthy thought - I need to deal with - and in the meantime, I desperately need to state. I need you to know that I did feel awful for believing I deserved something. And I need to work on that because it's awful, in itself, an awful thing for a poor miss to feel.) I was being very down on myself and speaking pretty hopelessly. I felt odd because I was speaking very honestly about what I was thinking and feeling, but I knew my beliefs were distorted (I'm not so far gone, thank goodness, as would keep me from seeing that) - and so I felt I had to keep disclaiming everything. "I know that isn't true. I know that really blah-blah-blah-blah-blah." And before I could get any further, he'd already be saying how so long as I felt it, what I knew rationally wouldn't have a very strong effect. I guess I worry because I know that being down on myself to have someone argue it is one of my not-so-healthy methods for feeling better when I'm down. I mean, it works in a pinch, but it's not a good way to run one's life. It's much better when I can make myself feel better or go to someone honestly. But today was honest. I liked hearing the other side, but I wasn't telling him my side just to hear that. I don't want to be on the side I'm currently stuck at, and I told him my thoughts in hopes of pulling out of it. Eventually. Rome was not dismantled in a day.
I'm starting to have trouble remembering how it went. Something like: I confessed to him something really, really painful, something I really don't like to even know, myself. I told him that at the same time I'm terrified of losing her, at the same time I know how wrong things are for her right now ... I'm - envious - of Sara. Envious of her situation. And it's ridiculous, really; I can imagine telling her that or having had someone tell me that when I was really sick with my eating disorder, and it's just so ludicrous, but I feel it all the same. I croaked the words out, and right away, the doctor said he could see some reasons why. He didn't know if they were the same reasons I saw, but he didn't think it was so insane of me to feel that. He mentioned that we'd talked before about the longings that come up when I realize Sara can do things like go back to Rogers, (and see, I hate having typed that, having typed "can" - as if she wouldn't give everything to be done going there...augh!) and I can't. How it feels that, by doing so well with what they began in me, I assure that I'll never go back. He talked about the oddness of it, the misplaced "reward"...and asked how, in that situation, anyone could want to be the success story. He said something like, "Even if I think ... it's very possible - that you were... the miracle...in your group, who would want to be, given the result?" I know he said "the miracle" - those two words I won't forget. But all the same I looked at him and said, "I do want it. No, I do. I want so badly to be their success story, and I feel like I don't live up to it. I feel like, if they could see me now..." I broke down. The people who used to be at Rogers. If they could see me now. If they could hear what I was saying now. What? he kept asking. What would they see in you now?
What a let-down I would be. What a disappointment. To go so far, to get so much better as this, to be given so much, and to just - shrug at it. I was supposed to go to Rogers and begin getting better; I wasn't supposed to consider it home, to connect so fully to everyone there, to never want to go home. I'm not supposed to keep obsessing over them now, not supposed to feel (at best) indifferent to everything here because nothing can match what I had. And how can anything match that? I had a hospital full of people; there was always someone around to care for me. The way that I connect to people, the way that I attach ... it wears me out. And I just don't see anyone ever attaching to me that way, ever having that much to give. So I'll always be low. I'll always be close to empty. Because of this freakishness in me, this part of me that - for just a little while, there - could be ok. At Rogers, for the first time, I could give everything I had and everything I felt, and get enough back to keep from feeling exhausted, neglected, unloved. Here, there's so much long-distance love and support, but there's so little of anything here. It feels hopeless when I think about it. When I think of how much I need this reciprocated and how I really don't believe it can be, so there's no way and nowhere to go...yet I do want to go on; I do want to live. So, where does that leave me? And just a guess- I'm alone?
I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not.
He understands how incredible Rogers is; he said so and I agreed: he does know that much. He doesn't understand where all the judgment comes in, why I talk about being weird and freakish, even there. He doesn't know that part. That part. I wrote "he doesn't know that..." and wimped out. I don't want to write it. I don't want to face it. I don't want to know, so I don't want to tell him.
He said it's possible that this very real feeling I'm having - about them being disappointed in me - is one of those cover-up-for-the-equal-and-opposite-feeling deals. As in, I do feel like a disappointment, but I feel that way mostly to keep from feeling disappointment in them. In my caregivers. In Rogers' staff, and outpatient people, in Harriet, and Dr. R. He said, "We keep telling you how good things are going to be. There must be some part of you that's disappointed we haven't been able to deliver more on that." And so I told him I don't believe it's there to be delivered. I don't believe there's a person with the energy to love like I love; I don't believe it's normal, and I don't believe they could find it for me, so I don't blame them for not. All the same, I know he's right. I felt so the moment he said it. I felt calm, like when you've been found out, and you're simply relieved you don't have to lie anymore. Not that I was lying and not that I knew I was covering something up... I just felt very calm, and I told him I was pretty sure he was right. I am disappointed. I've worked very hard for very little. For everything - but for an everything I can't quite use. I'm losing what I got better for, and nothing's coming close to replacing that. So I am disappointed. I do wonder why they had to make me leave. I do wonder if they wouldn't look at me now and say, "We did make a mistake discharging her when we did." And if they said that, I wouldn't feel affirmed; I'd feel like such a screw-up. Feel, "I'm so sorry. I wouldn't have been your miracle if I'd known I'd screw it up so much. Honestly. I want so much to do it right."
And that's only the cover-up... only the disguise. Below that is even more fearful possibility. If I tell him why even there I felt weird and like a freak... if I start to think about how they discharged me prematurely, and maybe they'd see that now... if I think about telling them how much it hurts, every day, to be away from them, how nothing else is as good, I have to face the idea of them seeing that. Understanding it. The idea that it's true; they did screw up...as badly as I'm afraid I did. And I don't want that; I don't want that at all. I love them, and I know I'll still love them even if they aren't perfect, that mature love works that way... but I feel disloyal. Even though it seems to me that if I can love something so much it seems perfect, find out it isn't perfect, and still love it that means more. Means they don't have to wear the burden of being someone's miracle. But they were. They were my miracle, and maybe I was theirs. Are, am... I just don't want to grow up. I don't want to be a little girl finding out my parents aren't infallible. I don't want to do that. I just want to believe in this. Believe in them and what they did for me. And I don't know how to trust that if I question it at all, any of it, I won't lose everything. How can I give up "they're perfect" without losing "they're my miracle"? How can I give up "they're infallible" without giving up "I believe in them"? If I were religious, I'd think the problem is I'm making them more than human, I should save my faith for God... but I don't believe that's the problem. The problem is they are more than human, or human means more than we credit it as meaning. The problem is they are miraculous, and who wants to question that?
You don't hand a blind girl vision and then teach her it's all optical illusion. You don't hand a girl light and color and then say, "But really, that grass? - it's everything but green."
And you don't hand me love like theirs and ask me to admit I'm disappointed. Lead me to question them. You can't. I've lost to much already; I won't lose this, too. He better have one hell of a promise prepared. Before I'll tell him what he doesn't know. Before I'll write it down, admit it to myself. Show me some postcards, and I'll tell you if I'm willing to go there. Give me some documentation. In the meantime, I'm staying here, where nothing measures up to the miracle, but at least I know I mattered enough to be given one.
~me