Meursault's Journal

[sanmagic7]

dear meursault, i wish i could just embrace you with my voluminous earth mother skirts and let you know that you'll be all right, say the right words to help you calm yourself.  yes, you definitely do deserve love.  but, you're right, we never know about it, do we.  it's out of our control, like so much that's in the world.

from what you've written about your therapist, i'd guess that she will accept that you're in an angry place, and that it's something to explore during your next session. 

do you have any soothing techniques that you can help yourself with?  someone wrote about repetitive tapping or stroking on her lip or hand or toes on the floor kind of thing that helps her calm down.  maybe you can find something that works for you.  does writing help you? 

i can't magically conjure up a girlfriend for you, but if i could i would.  in the meantime, take care of yourself as best you can.  hang tough, meursault - i'm hangin' right beside you.

[meursault]

I'm in a slightly better place...  What jumped out at me was my thinking saying "I don't want a girlfriend to magically appear!  I want a REAL woman to want the REAL me!"

Sure enough.  My therapist got back to me, reassuring me of her acceptance etc.  I think I was basically "acting out" and trying to provoke her with what I wrote to her, hoping to make her respond angrily so I could feel justified actually articulating how angry I am.  I re-read what I sent, though, and I was pretty reasonable.  I was actually apologizing for how unreasonably frustrated I am, and letting her know how bad I felt for making her uncomfortable hearing about how upset I am.  And I thought I was being completely unreasonably spiteful.  I must look kind of ridiculous to her.

Meursault

[sanmagic7]

good.  i'm glad you don't want a magical girlfriend.  i think that shows that you're grounded in reality. 

i doubt you look ridiculous to her, meursault.  therapists know that outbursts of all kinds are part of the process.  they look at the big picture, and don't just react to a moment's blast of anger, provocation, neg. feelings of any kind.  you're in the midst of your process, and you're going to go to different places in its midst.  i think it's how we discover who and where we want to be, what we truly want in our lives.  when we're in the midst of it, tho, we can't see the big picture.  we're in the moment, only, and that can seem overwhelming.

you may still be in the aftermath of all you went thru with the whole legal system.  it hasn't been that long ago.  keep being gentle with yourself as much as possible.  wishing you only the best. 

[meursault]

My life is interesting,. that's for sure.  A friend of mine texted and invited me to the bar tonight for her 40th birthday.  She is a very wild woman.  Very Amy Winehouse, very much a party girl.  She called me and cried the day I got found not guilty, and she cried tonight.  I went for a while and talked with a few people I used to drink with, but I didn't drink, although they kept offering to buy me drinks.  One guy came (call him bartender guy), and he was the boyfriend of my first girlfriend.  She cheated on him to start dating me, and he smashed up my truck over it.  He and I get along well enough, though.  I can tell he is still a bit miffed, even though that was 20 years ago.  Didn't know he knew my Amy-Winehouse friend.  Lots of cute waitresses at the bar know him, because he is a bartender at one of the more popular and long standing bars in my city and has been for many years.  He was telling them about how I was the guy who slept with his girlfriend years ago.  Think he was trying to make me look bad, but the waitresses all stated that he better be over it by now, and that he and I seem like good friends.  I really like the guy, actually.  He's a nice guy, but bitter.

Anyhow, the birthday girl wanted the prime bar table, and there was a cute woman just reading at the big table by herself, so birthday girl went over and hit on her for a while until she offered for us to join her.  I went from completely socially comfortable and capable of conversing like a normal person, to this clunky, disjointed loser in her presence.  My mind literally cannot formulate sentences... I went outside at one point to smoke, where a bunch of our party were out having a joint, and the cute girl ended up saying she was leaving to go walk her dogs.  She took me aside and said: 'You have some really good friends.  They're good people."  It was weird, she was really very much offering some personal support or something.  I'm not sure what happened before I got outside, but I'm pretty sure birthday girl (who is VERY opinionated) must have been talking about my Dad's death, and bartender guy had clearly been talking about how his ex cheated with me on him, since that was the conversation I walked into when I went outside.  It was just weird how she took me aside and made a point of saying that and then saying bye.

A group of clubbing girls dressed very sexily were coming in and birthday girl was making comments to them and offered them a joint.  They were smoking it and a couple of them knew bartender guy, since they used to be waitresses at his bar.   Birthday girl was being very graphically sexual with them, and kept saying "Amirite?" to me.  I was feeling like a pervert by association.  Nobody seemed to mind, though, but I was kind of insecure.

Anyhow, when I left, birthday girl gave me a really long and sensual kiss.  I know for a fact she would not be good for me, she would just steamroll over me and dominate me emotionally and sexually.  But it was kind of okay.  Bartender guy gave me a hug and told me my not guilty verdict was the best news he'd heard in a long time. 

I don't know why I'm writing this.  I just sense there is something that I have to see the world in a completely different way... or rather see myself completely different... out of this, but I don't know how.  And I don't know.  My life just has all these major twists and turns.  Looking how messed up I was a couple of days ago to this.  I have to try to keep in mind how temporary it is when I am overwhelmed.

Anyhow, tonight was quite weird.  Glad I didn't just say screw it and get drunk because the cute girl scared the bejeezus out of me.  I really think my life is really weird.  I wish it wasn't, but I must do things to cause it... (I suppose going to a birthday at a bar with a woman who reminds me of Amy Winehouse should be a pretty clear sign.)  Well, I got home by 10:00 anyhow, I wasn't there long.

Meursault

[Three Roses]

Our journeys aren't linear; instead, healing is a twisting, winding path that doubles back on itself before straightening out - and then twists again.

We get caught up in absolutes ("I'm always - I'll never...") when life just isn't like that. We do good and bad with the same hands. We're just humans, bound to be imperfect.

[radical]

Meursault,

Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I recognise something of myself in a different part of my life from your description of this night.   I don't know if I'm projecting here, but I do want to say, if only to the person I was back then "keep your wits about you - practice situational awareness, watch very closely, watch the responses inside yourself very closely, there is something important to learn".

I hope you don't mind.  Reading your description brought up an eerie feeling in me, and then, when you wrote about having an intuition about seeing the world and yourself completely differently.....all I can say is that sometimes parts of our minds are five steps ahead of us in our lives, (maybe they always are, actually).

Whatever, take care, be really kind to yourself.

[meursault]

Radical,

I'm not sure if this is it, but I'm glad I just left before 10.  Trying to heal from all this stuff is so hard, it's hard to not just jump into what we know.  And at least for a while it would feel better.  The natural instinct would be to have just stayed there and immersed myself in that way of living.  It's like pulling your hand from the fire.  It's completely natural to what causes less pain, which would have been to have that superficial connection etc.  But I guess I have to keep holding my hand over the fire and feel the pain to get out the "infection" I have from the abuse as a kid.

And there's a huge draw to the delusion that I can just "go back" to the way things were before my Dad died.  But it's not possible.  This whole thing broke me into pieces and the automatic feeling is that "just go back to what you were doing before you fell to pieces!".  I'm feeling pretty bad about the last few days, but I think I got out of the end of a (short!) relationship with as little damage as I could do.  Even a couple of years ago, that would have likely sent me to either the psych ward or into a really suicidal state.  I could have really used an extra session of therapy this week.

I appreciate what you're saying, and I think something like that was going on.  One thing I learned:  I now have no external pressure to not drink.  I tried it again, and prefer a sober life.  Drinking's just not for me.

Meursault

[radical]

I think it's great you worked out what that situation meant for you.

That wasn't what it brought up for me.  It was much more about how I felt about myself and how that affected how I saw other people, how I interpreted things, what it meant that I didn't pick up on at the time  ( and in my case, at times, the danger it put me in).

The vicious circles and self-fulfilling prophesies of low self esteem, especially as it affected inappropriate gratitude and other misunderstandings.  If I could have taken a step back and watched more, and journalled to see the patterns across time, if I could have observed my own feelings about other people and about myself and done likewise......

[sanmagic7]

hey, meursault, it sounds like you just turned a corner, had a realization of immense proportions.  when we're in transition, not where we were but not where we want to be, it can be very confusing.  working thru that confusion, making those connections and realizations, deciding what is and is not part of what you want for you is all part of the process.  i think you did really good!  yeah, you gave some old behaviors a shot, decided you don't like them anymore, and are putting them on the shelf.  good for you.

and, radical, finally getting to all those truths about yourself is, to my mind, also like turning a corner, just a different one.  still, it sounds like some learning went on and you now know things that you weren't aware of before.  i think learning plays a big part in recovery.  learning and realizations.  good for you.  i do believe these kinds of things are 'better late than never'.  at least now you have them, and i don't think that's a bad thing at all.  you're doing it differently now, and that counts.   

hugs to you both.

[meursault]

I'm an idiot.  Just feeling so ashamed of myself.  I went and drank again yesterday.  Just felt like there's no point and I give up.  Not the bad part, really.  I AM NOT doing that again.  Unfortunately, I emailed my therapist with a somewhat suicidal and frantic message and said I'm not coming back to therapy.  Then I REALLY foolishly posted on Facebook asking for women I know to tell me why I'm just garbage to women.  I deleted the post after several hours, but do I ever feel stupid and exposed right now.

This morning I emailed therapist apologizing and saying I'll try to come back.  I feel like I was just a maniac doing that stuff last night. 

Anyhow, I'm having a really bad day due to all the shame and embarrassment of my broken-ness....

Ugh.  The combination of that woman telling me I'm not marriage material, and then the end with things with the woman I've been dating have really hit me hard.  It's like all the work and struggles I've gone through don't amount to anything.  I keep it together for a while and then all that self-hatred and desperate need to understand why women don't want me kicks in and I have no defense against it....

Meursault

[sanmagic7]

i think it's horrible to be so fixated (is that the right term?) on one thing that everything else good in our lives is basically pushed aside.  i've done that with my daughter.  (i know it's not the same thing, but i'm sensing a similar dynamic).   it was as if nothing else mattered if i didn't get her respect and/or acceptance for just who i was.   if i was with her and we were having a good time, the world and my life was bright and rosy.  if that went away, i did all kinds of neg. things, had all kinds of neg. thoughts about myself.  as i look back on it, it was just the most horrific cycle.  my brain simply jumped from one to the other and there was nothing in between.  all good or all bad.   

i have no advice here - just wanted to let you know that you're not alone in doing this.  it's the pits, to be sure.  big hug, dear meursault.

[Wife#2]

Meursault - you are not an idiot. Even if you did some idiotic things, that just makes you human! Really! Ok, so you really tipped the scale this time, but let's be real - haven't we all? You really can just say that you were having an alcohol-fueled moment. Very few in this world have not done things we regret with a little (or a lot of) alcohol in our systems. I could tell some stories - but this is your thread. Most will understand, the rest - and this may be the hard part to believe or accept - don't matter.

Truth be told, most of my 'amazing feats of stupidity' didn't even have alcohol at their source!

So, I watch 'America's Funniest Videos' and other shows like it to remind myself that the world is full of idiotic, stupid behavior. I (and YOU) don't have the market cornered on this. You didn't do permanent harm. That's the blessing in all this. 

[meursault]

I'm haven't been very good listening to other people here for a couple of weeks.  Just thought I'd post something anyhow. 

So, years of that legal stuff over my head.  Literally thinking of it several times a minute for over half a decade.  I feel completely lost.  I figured I'd be even worse for a bit after this ended, but it's all hitting me rather unexpectedly.  I didn't expect it to manifest like this at all.  I'm really having a hard time going outside.  Fear and panic. 

I had gotten drunk a couple of times, but I'm good now about that.  But, I guess a few people have mentioned it, so I've had all sorts of these bad influence type people pop out of the wood work.

I got back to yoga, which was awesome and I've been feeling really good about that.  Going almost every day.  Now I think I have to find another place.  That little gym I was going to and finding really positive, there was a guard from the local jail who went there, and he heard about my stuff from either the owner or one of the old ladies I told.  Anyhow, in the fall, I overheard him loudly putting me down and vilifying me to the other people in the gym, trying to paint me out like I was some horrible criminal or something.  Just a cowardly bully and a sadist, as far as I'm concerned.  I stopped going to the gym after that, it just felt negative and hostile and unwelcome.  I want a place that I can do some healing of trauma, not be put down and talked about etc.  Anyhow, I went back after the trial, but Istopped again.  I just can't relax there now.  Anyhow, today at yoga, who is there in my class?  The jail guard guy.  I totally love that yoga Sangha.  It just feels ruined to me now.  Just with that negativity and hostility there.  I guess I have to try to find anotehr yoga place.

I've reconnected, just as a friend, with the woman I went to high school with and was infatuated with for several years.  All the abusiveness from when I was a kid just "popped" from her not wanting me, and I have never really recovered any sense of worth around women since.  She was also the mentor for MY therapist during her training and is apparently a pretty good therapist.  We went out for lunch and she was telling me her husband is concerned.  I really  think she is not good for me to be around.  I just feel SO GOOD around her, still, even justas a friend.  I don't like the connection with my tehrapist though (I completely trust my therapist with boundaries in this regard) and worry about how being frineds with her might actually be bad for my mental health, especially if she decides to not hang out with me any more.  I think that would fire off all that rejection agony that had me messed up for years, and sent me into complete recluse, social phobia and agoraphobia.  She has been telling me she thinks I should go no contact with my family.  There's so much stuff going on with me regarding this woman, I could write a book, and I don't really know where to begin.  She STILL amazes me, after thirty years, and although I don't want to date her, if that became a possibility I know I would be ecstatic.

Anyhow, my uncle called this week, pressuring me to farm with him now that the legal stuff is done.  He's my Dad's older brother, and the three of us and my grandpa farmed for a lots of years.  I always got along good with him.  I couldn't go back to that, though.  I have major breakdowns just being at the farm for much more than a few hours now.  And I don't think I'll ever drive again.  Talked to my Mom tonight, and I guess he talked to her to try to get her to convince me. 

I told my Mom how I can barely even be in a car, and I often spend whole therapy sessions just dealing with the aftermath of being in a vehicle with her.  How sometimes I'm weeks recovering from her driving.  She laughed and said "I drive good, don't I?"  I said "No, you drive like a maniac."  She said "probably everyone does to you."  I mentioned how my last two girlfriends were really good about that and drove cautiously and I was all right with them, and she said "It's safer to drive fast"  and then changed the subject.  She does drive like a maniac, though.  Really aggressive and fast.  My one sister won't sit in the front seat with her.  My Dad once ripped off the armrest of his door in terror.  HEr frinds won't drive with her.  On an hour drive on the highway, she ios guaranteed to hit 140km/h at least half a dozen times.  Tailgates badly, fast braking, fast acceleration etc...

She just fell down a week ago and split her lip and broke her wrist.  She is also going into surgery on Thursday for a growth.  I'm reall kind of unhappy about all this.  Is that normal for someone, especially a mother to react that way about what I said about her driving?  I've complained many times and even freaked out so badly in terror I tried to open the door and jump out at highway speeds.  I often get to the point where I'm crying out in trauma flashback stuff, shaking like a leaf, with her driving and she just laughs.  Is this as messed up as it feels to me, or am I just over-sensitive?  I also think that she is purposely getting injured (she busted an ankle two years ago) to keep me guilt ridden and connected to her.  Does that seem paranoid?  She told me a few years ago she has MS, but told me not to tell anyone.  I see no symptoms of it, and actually think she's lying.

Anyhow, that woman who told me I wasn't marriage material (which was sort of a catalyst for me losing it this time) texted a few times and we chatted a bit.  I think I believe her that she said she was just joking around because she thought it was so ridiculous because she sees me as very attractive and if she wasn't married, she would chase after me.

On a local FB mental health page, a woman was all frantic looking for help with a friend who was suicidal.  I felt pretty good offering what help I could to her, and info etc.

The woman I was dating has still not called, so screw that.  I went out for coffee with a woman I know who has a 1 year old.  She is very wholesome, hippy, earth mother type.  Very emotionally open and huggy and that sort of thing.  It was nice, but I mostly felt like some broken monster around her.  Her baby was initially a bit weird with me, but then got along well.  I dressed the baby in winter clothes before we left the coffee shop, and I felt awesome with her doing that.  How great it would be to be with some woman who loved me and have a kid with her!

Don't remember if I mentioned this, but a few weeks ago I cmplained to my tehrapist how people keep telling me that I have to love myself first and I said "Okay.   So how do I do that?  Magic?"  (Or something like that.)  She told me it doesn't work that way with the early attachment stuff, and how I would find healing in relationships, specifically ones with women.  I'm still a bit confused about that.  I think I understand, but I'm not sure, I'm going to have to talk more about that with her. 

Last week she told me she sees how I'm just desperate for her approval and for her to let me know she likes me and that sort of thing.  She said she has indicated that, but she mostly CAN'T give me that, or I'd be getting my sense of worth from her, how I have to learn I have worth NEXT to her, not because of her.  This stuff is really kind of baffling and I don't understand it, but I trust her.  I guess she knows I have to find a sense of worth with a woman, not in a vacuum, but not have that worth because a woman deems I have it.  God, this gets chaotic in my head quickly.  I can't even make sense of what I just wrote.

Anyhow, I suppose my women related stuff is still the major thing going on, but not nearly as acutely or desperately, or obsessively as it was a couple of weeks ago.  Lots of other stuff has happened since I last posted, but that's all I want to get into.  I've hardly left my house, it seems, except for yoga and a handful of coffee dates, but it feels like tons has happened.  I have contacted a few people who saw my humiliating FB post, and they all seem to see it as just a "bad day" type thing.  That's a relief.

A friend called and I'm working for him tomorrow for $25/hr.  I'm kinda torn about that.

Sorry I'm not being supportive to other people here right now,  Hopefully these post-trial extremes calm down soon.  God, do I dread Valentine's Day.

Meursault

[Wife#2]

Meursault - it's allowed to be all about you sometimes. This may just have to be your season. After all that you've been through, with all the attendant emotions and real consequences, you deserve a break. We take no offense!

You've helped us in the past, let us help you now. For as long as it takes. Because you're our friend and we value you. Besides, this is YOUR journal - it's the guilt-free-all-about-me zone!

[Three Roses]