Living As All of Me

[NarcKiddo]

I know it's a bit silly

No. It's not at all silly. I'm glad you got it fixed for now. If you need it, you need it, and if you have the wherewithal to make sure you have it - so much the better. But I am totally with you on these stressors, especially potentially expensive ones.

You have done so well to deal with all that under bed stuff. That's great. And I'm so happy that you are finding some make up to enjoy. Do you wear glasses? I have some memory that you do, but not sure. Anyway, I have done so all my life and I have found that the right frames, if they are bold enough themselves, generally do the job of eye make up. Even when the glasses magnify any wrinkles the frames draw attention away from them - unless you draw it back by putting make up there.

[HannahOne]

Thank you for reading and commenting, NarcKiddo!

I wore glasses starting as a toddler until I had eye surgery in midlife! But I do miss them on my face, they are definitely a great accessory and I was thinking of getting some dark frames to try just for the reason you described. I can't wear eye makeup at ll, I'm way too flinchy, so glasses could be good!

[HannahOne]

Took the hour earlier train to the city to be sure I arrived on time. I got into a panic because it was hot and I wasn't sure where to go to eat to get a break before the appointment. I wandered around in the heat for half an hour, and finally I ended up in a kratom shop of all things, I was just focused on the nice couches and that it was empty and didn't pay attention. I just needed AC and water. Thankfully I avoided the kratom and managed to order merely a kombucha. Sat down, enjoying my drink, looking into a large mirror. So relaxing! Only to see in the mirror the reflection above my head, I was sitting under a painting of a woman without clothes on. Decided maybe this shop was not quite the right vibe for me. LOL.

I managed to find an establishment more suited to my suburban mom self and got breakfast. The appointment was ok. I was not very present and it was pretty awkward. Getting to the city so early and getting lost, wandering around was probably triggering. Hopefully next time I'll be more used to this new routine.

But I was very proud that I was out of the house all day. And there's been zero backlash from my poor performance in therapy. So All of Me feels good about this still on some level. Although I know deep down I'm a little frustrated at not "making progress" and wonder "what am I doing?!", most of me just don't wanna strive for nothing anymore, as Ani DiFranco said. It's a weird experience for me, as striving is my first, middle and last name. It's an interesting change. I'm not sure what we'll do in therapy if not strive to change, but we'll find out.

I will go back in person this Friday and see if I can do it again.

Tomorrow morning Frank has his dentist visit. He has to be put to sleep to do it so it's always a worry but I have stocked him up with fresh greens tonight, rabbits do not fast before anesthesia. I drop him off in the morning and he'll be there all day. I had to fill out his forms online tonight and checked "do not resuscitate," which is always hard. But they only survive 5% of the time and it's very painful to have CPR. He has made it through many trims before so all should be well. It does feel a little like leaving the baby at the daycare the first day, it feels all kinds of wrong. But if we don't trim his teeth, he'll be unable to eat and in pain. Such is the life of a rabbit!

[HannahOne]

In cleaning out papers I found this massive pile of papers and I'm not sure what to do with it. When I first went to therapy when I was 22, I was aware of everything, but didn't think it mattered or had affected me. At one point the therapist suggested I get my medical records. At that time everything was on paper and it was a bit of an undertaking. But I did manage to get most of them. Sadly the corroborated a lot of what I knew. There it was in black and white, age 4, age 9, age 12... The papers helped me stop wanting to undo, untell, unthink.

Part of me wants to burn it, I no longer need corroboration and would not want anyone to find them. Part of the purpose of this cleanup is just before surgery to have everything I don't want found, gone, LOL. But part of me wants to keep it because it would be very difficult or impossible to get it again. How to decide what to keep, what to let go of. I'm truly torn between holding on to this, and letting it go.

I never forgot my childhood, what happened to me, or thought it didn't happen. Yet I find it helpful to have the papers. It helps me feel more grounded that my memories aren't just noise in my head.

[Blueberry]

Hannah1, I haven't been following your journal attentively enough to notice you have an upcoming surgery. Now I just want to wish you the all the best!

I identify so much with: One part of me wants x, another part wants the opposite.

I imagine that putting papers like your medical records into a box marked "burn unread when I die" wouldn't feel or even be safe enough?

Good luck with your sorting pre-surgery.

[HannahOne]

Thank you Blueberry! I'm not sure. I thought about it more. I could scan them, and use a password protected memory stick to keep them on, then get rid of the papers.

[HannahOne]

Went into the city today in white barrel jeans and rust Mary Janes with a burnt orange top. got an egg sandwich at the same place I went Wednesday, they remembered me.

Therapy was ok. It feels awkward and clunky. We are trying to create a shared vocabulary and understanding. I am pretty confident she knows the territory at least, the general landscape, but there are so many particulars. I dread the telling and detailing. I don't want to go through it again even on a surface level. I hate being the bearer of bad news. I hate watching them put 2 and 2 together and the awareness move across their face that wow, bad things happen, or the look of pity. I feel like I am an instrument of secondary traumatization. I hate it.

So I am not sure how to enter the pool. I'm still sitting on the side with my feet in. Which is fine and probably wise. It's just awkward, it feels uncomfortable. Maybe it feels shameful somehow. Here I am presenting for therapy, but not putting cards on the table.

But, I wore lipstick, so a million points for me.

Lately I'm seeing that I'm avoiding a lot of sad feelings. Now and then I can allow myself to feel them. They pass quickly, I cry hard for ten minutes and then feel peaceful. Avoiding the feelings is actually much more uncomfortable, much worse. I am going to be more aware of when I may be avoiding and try to allow. I would prefer not to be sad, but, we can't all and some of us don't, as Eeyore said.

I feel a bit adrift or at a loss. Disoriented at times. What am I doing? Without a major goal to organize my life around, well, I don't know how to organize myself. degrees, jobs, make a baby, make another, raise the kids... and... ? I never thought past "raise the kids." I've had some of this difficulty since I stopped working, but it's worse now that the kids are so grown. I would like to find a new sense of purpose. And, I still feel very limited by the caregiving I still have to do, including taking care of myself now with health difficulties. The wildlife center was close but no cigar.

I am sad and feel disconnected and unsure where/how to connect.

And I am grieving what I never had, and what I had and lost. I'm so sad about not having had the mothering I needed. And a lot of other things.

So I don't know how to go forward. How do I wear this blush? Should I get a facelift? How do you use self-tanner? How do you feel comfortable in your own skin? How do you be present? How do you find people to be present with? How do you know it's safe to be present with them? Where are the elders who can advise me? These questions are totally absurd and nothing like me, I've always been a plain Jane and a crunchy girl, bare-faced in jeans, unless I was in a suit for work. Yet somehow they press on me. How should I show up? How do I be a woman? What is a woman? Where are the people? Like there's some secret I don't know, wasn't told or some initiation that failed to happen. I've been doing it on my own my whole life and I Feel the need for a society. Or a mother. But I don't know how to step out of isolation and find. I'm always the toddler sitting alone in the dark looking out at the city, into other windows where lights are on, and people, people talking. Where, how?

How to go forward. And part of me doesn't want to go forward at all. Throwing a fit. How could she leave. Leave me. Why didn't she love me. What did I do wrong. Devastated.

I am thinking it may be because I am not so busy that it is all hitting me now.

Sadness. Tomorrow the sun rises, my kid has a desk delivered, laundry and dishes will be done. Sunday I try a new painting class. Then Monday again, the round of chores, therapy. Time will move. Move me forward into the future where I grow up and down at the same time, grow older but don't recognize my face in the mirror, grow wiser, supposedly, while feeling more like a lost child by the day.

I know these feelings will pass, are temporary. This state of mind it not all there is. I have many states of mind. This one hurts. I hope for some pain-free joy tomorrow, but I'm not sure how to find it. Hopefully it will find me.

[NarcKiddo]

I hope you will find yourself in some peace and joy tomorrow.

Well done for turning up to the therapy and getting through the awkward beginning stages. I think it's fine to show up and not put all the cards on the table. It's a new relationship. Nobody with a grain of sense is going to show up to a new relationship and splurge out every facet of themselves on day one. I've occasionally told my T things about my relationship with her that I preface with something along the lines of 'I should have told you this months/years ago when it happened, but...' She's never got angry or impatient with me for not telling her before. She has not even commented that I could have saved myself months of carrying the baggage by telling her earlier.

I hope all goes well for Frank's dental visit.

[HannahOne]

NarcKiddo thank you for encouraging me about therapy. And for the good wishes for today.

I was mostly sad again. And, I think it's probably good. I'm telling myself feeling my feelings and processing grief is the only way to have a new experience of myself and my life.

It's hard with therapy. I miss my old therapist. No one will be her, and no relationship will be like the one with her.

It's interesting to me that each relationship is so unique, both therapeutic relationships and all kinds. There's something unique what happens between two people. It makes me feel again how each individual human is precious, irreplaceable. All the while society, capitalism, systems, politics see people as interchangeable widgets and units of cash, there is still a value that people have dignity, each person has rights, each human deserves the basics and the chance to try to flourish, each human life matters. I try to hold on to these ideals in the face of abusers who objectify, loot and steal, collapse boundaries.

Because each human matters...grief is inevitable. Although part of. me is so afraid ---why am I so SAD?! What is wrong with me? Will I ever snap out of it and become productive again?! Catastrophe!!!   ---another part of me is seeing the sadness as my human right. My invitation to the human party. Who would I be, if I were not sad over the loss of important relationships? I'd be a sociopath or a narcissist!

I am trying to allow my sadness. Holidayay mentioned "complicated grief" a phrase I hadn't heard in a while. I am going to revisit it. How could I long for a person who tried to kill my soul and didn't care about my body? How could I miss love I never had? How will I grieve my old therapist? How will I ever attach to a new one? When will I put cards on the table, which cards, and how will the game unfold? What rules will I become aware I was playing with that are not relevant, will the table suddenly be upended, game over before I understand?

I used to imagine that I could give people packets of information. I guess that's part of intellectualization. I learned how to use language to communicate, how to make sense out of nonsense, how to edit slop into singing prose. But it doesn't work like that, really. Relationships unfold second by second, minute by minute, over weeks and years. Each interaction is a new dance, if it's an alive relationship and not just actin gout scripts. The interactions accumulate, form a weight, become a container to carry meaning and connection. There's rupture and repair, times of disconnect, misunderstanding and boredom and times of meeting, connection and intensity. The two together are more than the sum of the parts, the relationship is not either person but a third thing, something new, unique, irreplaceable. That's the joy of attachment. And it's also the grief of loss when an attachment breaks or is broken, is limited, if by nothing else, by time, death.

So my sadness is multifaceted, has as many parts and contradictions and voices as I do. It's complicated and complex. Complex trauma, complicated grief.