HIghlights from the antonym of heaven

Highlights from my hell:

• Anxious as hell. Possible reasons: I’ve become fearful of going to sleep again. OR I’m regreting eating dinner. I hate these feelings and it’s so late I don’t want to call anyone tonight.

• Saw new dietician. She was as good as any dietician can be for telling you to eat and keep it down. She was very generous with the amount of soda she is letting me drink, which I’m grateful for.

• Been having disturbing dreams again. The dreams don’t contain people, jus the house in which we grew up. The rooms have been preserved and left exactly as before. It’s as if I never left. (shudder)

• I had an epidural on my back today. The back pain has gotten so much worse I couldn’t cope with it anymore.

• I’ve an MRI scheduled on my left knee next week. They tried physical therapy but it only made the pain worse.

• I’m feeling quite alone. I don’t know how many people I have to allow into my life to get rid of feeling alone.

• I’ve been off work for two days. Good timing. I was exhausted and started becoming impatient with customers. I should feel better if I follow my meal plan.

• It’s my goal to jog a 5k. There is one New Years Day that Elle and I talked of running but I might be working.

• So I’m afraid to fall asleep again. I don’t like lying there in a dark room where my thoughts can be mean to me. I will probably fall asleep on the couch. When I was little, I refused to sleep in a bed. I always slept on the floor. So tonight I’ll sleep on the couch.

• I see Therapist tomorrow. He’s going to want to talk about the brother, but I will have to come up with something more urgent to discuss. The brother is a dead issue.

• The nighttime scares me. I feel small.

• I regret that I ate. I would have so much more power and be larger than life if I just stayed hungry.

• Boo me.

My own private detour

I wanted to begin by addressing some things Ivory wrote in her comment:

You are stuck, obviously. I don't want to sound harsh, but here is some reality that I want to share, hoping it will help get you jump-started and moving forward. . . . So, my advise to you is to close your eyes on the dream brother - he will never exist. Look, instead at the brother you have or you are part of the problem. You feel you don't have a relationship with your bro, but you DO have a relationship with him, just not the one you want.

I want to thank Ivory, for her comments, but I feel a bit misunderstood. It is true that I have a relationship with the brother, but I’m not sure that I don’t want that kind of relationship. I’m not mourning the fact that I’m not close with him. I don’t grieve that he’s not my “dream” brother. It would have been nice to have an ally in the house in which we grew up, but it is what it is and it can’t be changed. I don’t want any type of relationship with him. He is not the type of person with which I would see myself as friends. He doesn’t, nor do any members of his family, possess any qualities that are endearing or would breed friendship. So, thank you, Ivory, for the reality check. But I’m not stuck. I’m just empty.

On to other news, I got my grades back for the semester. Everyone would tell me that they are grades worth being proud of , but I got a B and I can’t be proud of that. I canceled my end-of-semester celebratory dinner because I didn’t think there was anything to be proud of or celebrate.

My seasonal job is going well. Just leaving me exhausted. I’m not used to working long shifts and so many days. I didn’t even have time to recoup from the all nighters I pulled working on my papers and finals. But there’s only a couple weeks left for the holiday season and then it will slow down. Either I’ll be let go, which is fine with me, or they’ll hire me on, which is fine with me.

I switched psychiatrists and he put me on Abilify to augment the Cymbalta and gave me tranquilizers, which have been very therapeutic. Some times the switches won’t simmer down and I will have trouble functioning, so the tranquilizers do a good job of calming down the switches and I feel human again.

I’ve also switched dieticians. Not officially, but I see a new one on Thursday. I felt old Dietician was simply monitoring my weight (and not doing a good job of that) and there was nothing else to the sessions. It just seemed dead space. So I’m seeing someone else Thursday with whom I saw a few times last year but left because I wanted to lose weight and she wouldn’t let me. I am at a point where I need someone to be strict with me regarding food and not let me get away with my usual shenanigans.

Life has been tough lately. Although there have been bright moments. Elle spent the night again on Friday after we had spent the afternoon together at the physical therapist and then walking a 5.5 mile trail. We ate out at our usual restaurant and came home to watch a movie. I must feel comfortable with her because I fell asleep on the couch during the movie. She was tired too so we called it an early night. We’re busy making plans for our next rendezvous, so if I were conscious that would be exciting. If my hours didn’t disintegrate into a life not lived.

Lastly, I e-mailed someone recently and I’m ashamed to admit it. Why can’t I just let it go? But I never heard back. I love the sound of his silence. May he rot in hell.

So much to write, so little to say. Angel asked for an update on what happened with the meeting with the brother, so I'll give it a stab. I must say that I haven’t processed it all yet, and my head still hasn’t organized it or wrapped it’s mind around what happened, or what didn’t happen shall we say, so I don't know how much I can say.

Just broaching this topic pulls a shift inside me. An altercation in mood. Not very pleasant. I feel the tears threatening their birth. And I need saving but I don’t know how to do it. I know I have to save myself, I just don’t know how to do it.

I don’t know what to say about the meeting with the brother. I don’t even know what the purpose of the meeting was or what I was hoping to get out of it. (I’m trying to think of what to write but my head just won’t go there.) Therapist claims I’ve said I want to have a relationship with the brother, but being in the same room with him makes me realize exactly why I don’t want it. The brother was physically abusive but never sexually abusive with me. But I still hate him. He denies there is animosity between us, but I disagree. He calls it ambivalence. Basically he doesn’t give a shit about me. Doesn’t care if I live or die. I can’t say I feel the same way. I almost wish he wasn’t around, that way there wouldn’t feel like such an open, gaping wound in my heart.

He claims he doesn’t remember much about our growing up. He says we played together. WTF? He was mean to me. And we played together, he says? Whatever. Says we had similar friends, although he felt some of his friends were using him to date me. There was one. But that’s it.

If I forced myself to think really hard about it I couldn’t tell you when my hatred for him grew. I just always remember hating him. I do remember an occasion when he surprised me for a nicety he did. It was my first hospital stay when I was eighteen. I had just tried to kill myself. In the hospital, he brought me and action toy of Catwoman, because he knew I loved Catwoman (still do! I am catwoman! Hear me roar!) I remember wondering why he was being so nice to me.

All this makes me want to starve the fuck out of myself.

The bottom line of the meeting was that he was open to a relationship developing between us, but, for me, I don’t’ share those sentiments. I have an idea in my head of a fictional brother I would like, one that I could love and one in which I could be close, but he doesn’t match it. I would want a brother that is warm, giving, friendly, and very protective. One that is reciprocating and interested in me, and that places an emphasis on the importance of family (ironically). I would love to have an older brother that looks out for the little sister. The brother just doesn’t fit that bill. The brother is a very closed off person, doesn’t reveal much, and it is clear to me that we don’t have that much in common. My life revolves recovery, feelings, getting better, introspection, making friends, and school. His life seems to be about privacy, movies, and himself. He’s very selfish, and I don’t need people in my life that don’t contribute to my happiness. There have been plenty of people who helped make me miserable; now I’m trying to find people that will compliment my pursuit of happiness. My philosophy right now is that if you bring me down, I don’t need you in my life.

That’s the best I can say about the meeting with the brother. For some reason I was more nervous talking to him than talking with abuser X. Speaking of whom I’ve been torturing myself with thinking of e-mailing him again. It seems like I just can’t let it go.

Please someone tell me how to breathe the rest of the day. I have to go to work, and I’m all out of happy faces.