This has been very ...tiring. I have been crying since Friday. I figured something out though. I am embarrassed because I am crying. Like I have no right be be disturbing every one with my emotional displays. Which doesn't help when I can't actually stop. So I don't know what to do with that.

I cried all through therapy. I cried all through the meeting. I was still crying when I went to sleep. I hoped Saturday would be different. But no. I can't talk to anyone. As soon as I start talking I start crying. And I get so weary of the question, What's wrong? It's so hard. It's hard to keep saying what's wrong. Not everyone needs to know what's wrong. And I'm embarrassed so I don't do things I need to do like get groceries.

Someone last night did suggest that I get the book Courage to Heal instead of the workbook. So I did. She said it was more helpful. We'll see. I even feel like my therapist isn't helpful. She just waited for me to stop crying which never happened. She asked me to tell an imaginary friend what I needed. But what I need is more than anyone can provide. At least anyone that I know. Plus, I wouldn't know how to allow that without giving up all my power anyway. So I'm just going to have to be here. Here hurts. and I think I'm not allowed to have this much hurt. But I do. And it just is. And I wish I wasn't so all in pieces but I am.

My computer is back home. All my favourites are lost cause he had to wipe it. All the blogs I followed. Crap.

All my links to pay my bills. Just when I don't have the energy to look them all up and they are due. Again. Crap.

OMG I thought I had lost my blog yet again! But I found it. Whew.

That's a relief cause it's been a difficult few days. It just plain hurts to be in here. And I got no place else to go. Apparently, the Universe only issues one body at a time.

Sunday was a really emotional day for me. It was hard. It started early too and just followed me through the day. It started in meditation. Yup. Something about how different the love of the Goddess is from any other love I know and how I just didn't feel like I could possibly live up to that and (runon probably) I had no idea how to relate to that. I have no experience to go on here. Flying blind comes to mind. And sort of awestruck and terrified all at the same time.
And damn! But once it started it just would not stop. I went to my regular Sunday morning meeting and everytime I opened my mouth I started crying and when some other people talked I started crying. And then I couldn't stop.
After the meeting I had a bad asthma attack or a panic attack cured by proventil. It started to come on during the meeting but I thought I could ride it out. Nope. Standing in the parking lot I was in fullblown NO AIR and PANIC. Couldn't even think what I should do. Kitty suggested I sit down. Someone mentioned an inhaler and I remebered I HAVE one of those. With me. I actually thought I was going to stop breathing. It was VERY scary. Doesn't happen often but fuck that was scary.
Now I keep checking to see if I have my inhaler. I do.
Like I need something else to add to my anxiety.
And my thinking about the Goddess and love wasn't all positive. No. It was really quite scary, really. See, I don't understand love without strings. I keep thinking there must be a catch. When does the catch show up? And if there isn't a catch, somehow that is even scarier. I'm not sure exactly how. But perhaps just in it's unknown quality.
I had a day today like every day was last summer. Breathing on purpose feels like suffocating (yeah, add asthma attack and the anxiety ratchets up) my heart hurts, I"m not very comfortable being me. I'm not even sure who that is.
But maybe, maybe I can sit with the uncertainty and discomfort until it eases.

Although, in the car on the way home from the meeting tonight I played with the thought, *what if it's just always like this from now on? what if this is who I am now?*
I hope not. Cause if this is who I am forever, medicate me, screw my liver.
That's me, Little Marjie Sunshine.

insights (family herstory)

I had some stuff gel for me yesterday. I took my mother to get the first cataract surgery done yesterday. One of the nurses made a comment about how much my mother complains. Apparently, it is a lot. One of my friends said she is just old. Well, she was on the cataract surgery floor. EVERYONE was old. And yet HER complaining stood out. She complained from the moment she went back to get ready until she was in the car. And when I told her about it she said she had every right to complain and sited her complaints as justification for complaining.
The nurse asked what was wrong with her. I answered that she was not happy. But the question got me thinking.

Okay.
She doesn't just complain, no. She acts out if her complaints are not validated.
Narcissistic with traits of borderline personality disorder.
No, my degree is not in psych. It's in Elementary Ed. But let me just say that we do a lot of dealing with psych. Bruno Bettelheim thinks we should be even more trained in psychoanalysis. But then, he would.

But here's the story. Distorted as it might be by my own lens.

When my mother was married to my father and things were going the way she thought they should things were mostly cool. She did all the things she thought she should be doing and my dad did all the things she thought HE should be doing .
Then he stopped doing many of the things she thought he should be doing and things got much less cool. And mum got sicker. Physically and mentally. She had many ailments and injuries that required my dad to pay attention to her and take care of her.
Then my dad stopped doing ANY of the things she thought he should be doing and left to live with his girlfriend. Things got awful for a while.
mum locked herself in her room for a week. My brother was 9, I was 11. We took care of ourselves because she told us to go away. Then she stopped talking to us and we decided she was dead and called her best friend. She was not dead. She was drunk. She slowly pulled out of that and figured out what to do with her life.
Go back to school, get a job, find another man to pay her the kind of attention she wanted.
There were lots of men.
Now, my brother and I were getting older. We were finding our won ways to take care of ourselves. Not skillful ways but they worked then. And we did not want attention from mum and she did not want to give it. She left us to our own devices and turned a blind eye when she stumbled onto our drugs. She even went so far as to take orders for the state store and buy us liquor since we were too young to do that ourselves and she thought it was better if we drank at home with our friends. Not to mention that she would not have to fetch us from the police station or the park should drinking *out* go wrong. She thought this was a good solution.
But when we moved out she directed much wrath at whichever child got married or moved out. When we were both gone she settled down for a while with a long time boyfriend.
Now all the men are gone and we are the targets of her behaviour.
Now she drinks into a blackout when we displease her.

I don't play along as much as I can (sometimes I've played along before I notice it). She thinks I'm just mean or that I don't love her. ah well, I try to be kind and patient and when I can't I leave. Which she takes as my abandoning her. I totally understand. I just can't stay with her to the exclusion of my ow life.

So what was new to me was that this situation, this mental illness, has been playing out for a long time. Did it play out in her childhood? I have no idea.
What I found so interesting was the timeline and how this behaviour has been going on and building for years. Of course she is not happy. no one is doing what she wants anymore.

And then there is my Aunt Louise. But she would take up another whole post all of her own and I just don't care to go into it. Let's just say older than my mother with a marriage that lasted until my uncle died but VERY similar personalities. And she is a great complainer and judge.

This gives me pause to question my own mental health. But then I've got help with sorting that out. And I have been assured that I do NOT have Borderline Personality Disorder. Good! But then neither does my mother. At least not ALL the traits. But then the fact that she has taken up drinking so much more in recent years makes the whole *what is wrong with her* messier.

No wonder I never felt connected to her. I was not doing what she wanted from the very first day I arrived. separate a sick baby from an emotionally/mentally unstable mother for months? Hmm. that just sets up all sorts of issues. I was never really sure that she liked me. and it is probably true. This may also be why I do not find is as necessary as my brother to meet her needs. I've never been very good at it so why practice getting better at it now?

I don't have any idea how this may read. But it was jolly interesting to me to get it into a timeline and have everything laid out like this.

things that make me go hmm.

I have heard from a few people recently that I intimidate them. Really? I find that amazing and at odds with how I view myself.

Little me intimidates you?

I must look at this.

thoughts

so, I had my second session with my new therapist yesterday. It went better than the first. That is a big YAY! I NEED to be reminded, often, that I am the one in charge of me. I get to say what freaks me out and ask to have it clarified. I get to say when things make me uncomfortable. Not that comfort is the goal. No. But when things make me uncomfortable it might be important information. I need to know that and my therapist needs to know that.


I also needed to know that no one is *making me choose* to *give up* one therapist over another. No, I am choosing to go to a different therapist for a time to work on a different, and highly emotional issue. It is charged with a lot of fear and overwhelming emotion. And it is old and long repressed which I think makes the work all that much harder. But not undoable.



And, did I mention that my other therapist said he thought I was stable enough in the depression (without meds) to do this work? OMG that helped SO much!

So now I have embarked on a new phase. We'll see how this goes.

insight

Why don't I call the crisis line when I am REALLY in a crisis? HA! Because when one is in distress or crisis common sense goes out the window!

What a novel notion!

edges

There are some people I think of as edge walkers. I am not one of them. No, I'm more of a clinger I think. Be that as it may, I am walking an edge right now. It is profoundly uncomfortable. I think I have words now for what some of my discomfort is Firstly, setting aside a theraputic relationship in which I have built trust for one in which I not only have no trust yet but fear is scary. What if this new therapist is all wrong for me? what if we don't build any trust? What if the only thing that happens is sustained fear? Well, then I advocate for myself and ask for a different therapist. And my current therapist claims that I advocate for myself quite well. Okay. I'll take his word for it for now.
And he reminded me that I need to tell my new therapist what is going on for me. Like that her seeming nervousness makes me nrevous too. And that the tossing around of big issues like *separated self* scared the hell out of me. Cause my longest known underlying fear is that I am foundationally broken. (Spellcheck hates the word foundationally but I think it best expresses what I mean.)
and he assured me that there will be a place for me at Persad after this work is done.
That I can still call the crisis line and I can talk to him if I need to. Cause my list wasn't working very well this past weekend while I had my emotional breakdown.
He thinks I am stable enough with the depresswion to safely do this work and that if might prove to be foundational in getting to the cause of the depression. And if it should prove to be something that I find I can't do or it gets to be more than I can handle then I can stop and come back to Persad at any time. it's my choice.
And he assured me that I will know if this is the case or not. Cause one of the things I am worried about is just that. Getting to the place where I can't help myself and not being able to stop what I have set in motion. Like The Sorcer's Apprentice.
Next session at PAAR...Friday.

not fun

I am feeling pretty much out here alone. And like I am a giant pain in everyone's ass. This may or may not be true. I'm just sayin how it feels to be me today. And basically, it sucks.
I went to my first couseling session at paar yesterday. Many things feel wrong.

• It could be that I am just scared. It could be.


• It could be that I was told I needed to give up a longterm theraputic relationship if I am to work with a counselor from paar. Which scares the shit out of me.


• It could be that the woman I saw told me that the gaps in my memory mean I have already begun to split my *self*. (This would be the reason I can't have two therapists (even though paar would be a short term situation) Cause having two different therapies would further the split.


• And prevent me from *integrating the trauma*.


• Plus, somehow I feel violated that a stranger told me this stuff at a first session.

And now I am living on Planet No One Cares again. My list of people to call, which I have not used except to call and say hi to people is not working and most people are not calling or texting me back. Yep, I'm texting people to ask if they can talk. Because if I call them and they say they can't talk I start crying. If I text them and they can't talk or they don't text me back, at least they don't know I'm crying.

I am not very comfortable being so emotional. I don't know what to do with me when I get like this. Some things help for short periods of time. Like, I cast a circle and had some time with my Goddesses and I was okay for a while. And then it all comes crashing back. Like I can't keep it at bay long enough to be okay for any real length of time.

What the hell is going on with me? Having been here before is only marginally helpful. I still feel so hopless and despairing. And unable, except perhaps in sacred space, to advocate for myself. Or something like that.

Did I mention that I felt violated in some way by this woman's statements? I did. I didn't have words for it at the time. Only tears. And a feeling a despair and disappointment. How can I learn to figure out who to trust when *helping* people can do such apparent damage and still mean to help?