sometimes it's like the world is moving much, much faster than i am, and i'm just tortoise-slow in keeping up.
tomorrow morning i see helene, my tdoc, again. i'll be glad to see her but i'm having some real issues with my meds since they got changed. the wellbutrin should be pepping me up but for some reason it makes me dizzy for a while after taking it. i keep reading that i need to give it time to work properly so i'm trying to be patient, but it's made my mornings very slow. and it's probably why i'm having issues with standing next to the rollercoaster, unable to track it as it whirls along the tracks.
i can feel the apathy leaking out of me like fine sand, pooling around my feet and bogging me down.
there just doesn't seem to be a cattle prod large enough to get me going, currently.
it's not that i don't care about what's going on in my life. because i do. i want to call nathan, i want to check up on blogs. i would like to have some goal in my life other than "make it through tomorrow", and so on and so forth.
dan and i were talking about it this morning while i got ready for work. there's a lot of things i'm still trying to work through, since last year, since starting therapy, since being born...okay, i'm overreacting. (; but it has taken quite some time to get to where i am, and it's difficult to break it down and pick it apart.
my therapist told me at one point after some extensive testing that i was naive--and i have to agree. i have always had a slightly rosy view of how i feel about other people, and how i expect to be treated by them. (mainly i expect to be forgotten by others, and don't feel that i matter.)
anyway, after everything was finally laid out on the table last year, i had the opportunity to work on things with dan. which is going as well as can be expected, what with circumstances and such. if i look at things as a chart i can see improvement, leaps and bounds of it.
late this last fall, while my grandmother was busy getting to heaven, serena emailed me. i thought we were starting up a dialogue. i fell back into the hopes i used to have, the hope that dan had fostered in me while we were reworking our relationship.
human memory is slogged down with emotions. i don't know exactly what i hoped, at that time.
and she's never emailed back.
part of me wonders why.
i can understand keeping yourself closed off; i did it for a long, long time. but the value of cracking open your shell and walking around emotionally naked and honest far outweighs the safety and security of staying within.
i know that lately i've been burying myself under layers of fear, because i have niggling feelings all the time that people i hold dear mean me harm, or mean to do me wrong. dan's allayed much of this, by talking and going to therapy and being honest with me. at this point i'm not looking for any communique from serena. i've dropped that hope. it's starting to wither on the vine.
as my wise teresa says, you can only keep the door open for so long. you close it. you hope that something good happens on the other side, and you open it when the person knocks. but you don't expend energy waiting at the door.
yeah, i feel like serena's actions helped undermine my ability to trust people. but it was going to happen anyway, anyhow, at some point in time. the hard work of unearthing my fears, along with my dreams, had to begin, so that i could begin...i don't know, being?
the constant questioning of my anxiety has been helpful to me. why am i getting anxious? do i have any control over the situation about which i'm starting to hyperventilate, or am i only in control of my own reaction?
while questioning my self, i see the answer, buried deep--i'm afraid to lose people. i'm afraid to move away, i'm afraid they'll die, and now, i'm afraid they'll ditch me. i fear that i'll be some cast -off or forgotten relationship artifact, for some reader to dig up years from now in my words and deeds.
i don't want to be forgotten. and in the same vein, part of me doesn't want to forget.
luckily, i'm in therapy. i'm aware. i can learn. the adage about old dogs and their inability to learn new tricks is the part that i need to ditch. it's not a quick thing, this being. it's slow. like me.
6 comments:
You're dearly loved Kim. You matter to me.
An article from this blog has been featured on the first Carnival of the Bipolars which will appear at Midnight, 3 February 2006 at http://paxnortona.notfrisco2.com.
I've been in a hole too, I avoid change, and I still haven't responded to Dan's email!!
I have been wondering where you've been & was becoming worried about you. I was on Wellbutrin also, didn't have the same side effects, but finally got off since it wasn't working. You may want to ask your Dr. about trying Lexapro. That's worked great for me. Only thing, be careful about going cold turkey from Wellbutrin. Drs. will say it's no problem, but they're not the ones doing it!
I wish you the best & hope your therapy session went well.
Kim, I am really worried about you and Dan. Please send up a flare and let me know you guys are ok!
I've been working on this comment for a while, picking at it here and there, adding stuff and deleting stuff and pruning it until it's just right. It occurs to me that if I don't post it now, I'm going to lose my window of opportunity. :P
You and I have a lot in common, I think, and reading your posts reminds me of how alike we really are. In fact, I, too have been mulling lately the feeling that I am not important enough to be remembered, and that the friendships I do have are just transient, because I am not important enough for people to stick around long enough to keep them.
Recently, I got into an argument with a friend because I told her that I didn't want to live past 40. She became very angry with me because of this, and I couldn't understand why--I still have a problem comprehending why she was so mad. Her reason was that it hurt her to feel like I considered her friendship so unimportant that I would be able to let go at age 40 or whatever, and that I was putting a "time limit" on how much time she had left to be friends with me. At one point, however, I realized that, in the back of my mind, I was thinking, "Why is she so angry? We probably won't even be friends by the time I'm 40. It's not like I'll be around for her to miss." And that's the way it's become, with me. I assume the worst, that nothing good will last, and in doing so, inevitably ruin those friendships I hold most dear.
I look at the way the two of us compare, and I have to be suspicious of our Catholic upbringing. You know how much they like their guilt trips. I know I've caught myself in the act of short-changing myself by allowing guilt to erode my self-confidence. And that probably has a lot to do with why I didn't understand why my friend was so upset. My inner guilt-tripper told me it was selfish, and I believed it.
With regard to the Serena issue, I think we punish ourselves because sometimes, we can't accept that something was not of our own doing. Something bad happens, it has nothing to do with anything we did, but we blame ourselves anyway, because we're less likely to fight back and argue the point than if we blame someone else. So we slowly become convinced that it really was our fault, and we keep pushing the issue so we can remember that it still hurts. But sometimes, we just have to let go and accept that even if we accept blame, that doesn't make it our fault.
As for you, I do want you to know that you are one of the people in my life whom I hold most dear, and I would miss you terribly if you were not a part of my life. One of the main check-marks in the 'pro' column for moving south was that it meant I would be closer in proximity to where you were living. I was going through old correspondence from our college days recently, and found a lot of the cards you gave me--I kept all of them, and seeing them again made me remember just how glad I am to have had you as a friend. And if it makes you feel any better, I'm tenacious. I'm not letting go, no matter what. *hugs* I say this because it is one thing to trust implicitly, but trust thrives when there is occasional reassurance. :)
And I hope you are feeling better, physically. This year's bug is a nasty one, from the sound of things.
--Sara
Post a Comment