It’s not easy.
I still don’t see a way to overcome that enormous mass of guilt and regret and bad social programming that surround the topic of my life and how it’s turned out.
Again and again, I return to the idea that if I wasn’t so “stable”, I might have fallen apart a long time ago and then actually gotten some proper help way back when I was young and it was not too late for me to get my life moving once I recovered.
But no, I am way too good for my own good at clinging like a barnacle to my dirty little grotto here and making sure absolutely nothing changes.
The games I’m playing change, but the wasting of my time on Earth remains the same.
And of course, I don’t attract nurturing and care because when I am around others, I act as if everything is peachy keen OK.
Even around my GP, for fuck’s sake.
And the truly sick part is that doing that makes me feel like everything is OK too. Kinda.
Dozens of times in my life, someone has asked me how I am or how I am doing and I want to be honest with them and tell them the truth but in that moment, every problem I have suddenly becomes too trivial to mention and I instead tell them I am fine.
That’s what they want to hear, anyhow. Nobody wants me to tell them the truth and dump all my problems and issues and bad bad programming on them.
I have at least finally gotten to the point where when my therapist Doctor Costin asks me how I am at the beginning of a session, I say I am “surviving”.
That’s still technically a positive answer but one that conveys a little taste of my unhappy and difficult life. Makes me at least a little vulnerable.
Mind you, this is my therapist we’re talking about here. In theory, he should be the person I am completely candid and unguarded with.
But the best I can do is not be cheerful with him, and to do my best to tell him about whatever “stuff” is going through my head that day, and try to get some relief that way.
And it does help. Having someone to talk to like that, where I am not worried about the consequences of what I say to them, is very valuable to me.
But I can’t help but wonder if I would do better with a younger, more energetic and ambitious therapist who was determined to get to the heart of my problems and who pushed me and pressed and asked all the right questions to get my emotions flowing.
I mean, clearly, what I am doing now ain’t working. I get relief in the form of emotional release from Doctor Costin but I am not getting any better via him either.
To be honest, I think I have him cowed. I have, unwittingly, convinced him that all he can do is listen to me go on and on because if he tries to get me to actually do stuff, I more or less “bite his head off” with my advanced communication skills.
And I don’t blame him for not being able to handle that kind of thing in me. As patients go, I am beyond hard to deal with, and I doubt many therapists would have the combination of toughness, intellect, and persistence to get through to me and actually make me see things in a new light.
And the man’s in his seventies. He doesn’t stand a chance. Nobody does.
And that, in turn, makes me realize just how alone I am in the world. How alone I have always been. It’s lonely as hell at the top of the intellectual food chain. Knowing that nobody out there can “handle” even a tenth of the real me makes me feel lonely and abandoned and helpless before my problems.
I can’t face my demons alone. But there’s nobody in this world who would be able to survive the radioactive atmosphere inside my mind long enough to help me.
So I will always be fighting alone. I have trouble even imagining what it would be like to have someone in my life who could truly join me in the fight.
I have my friends, and I adore them and treasure them and know that I would be a hell of a lot more crazy without them in my life.
But still, I fight my war all alone.
It’s all I can ever do.
More after the break.
Alone in a crowd
Of course, the main reason I fight alone is because I don’t know how to let people into my inner world. That invisible wall of mine keeps everyone out and I have grave doubts about my ability to change that,
When you have had a mental defense up for your entire life, including some of your formative pre-school years, it arguably becomes an integral part of you that you can no more lower than you can open up your skin.
But that’s just plain unacceptable. I know in my soul that the warmth and acceptance and cherishing and love that I have craved for my entire life is out there beyond my wall and I will only get to have it if I learn to let it in.
That would require negotiating with that ancient part of me that was formed while I was being raped and that is quite sure it’s the only thing keeping me “safe” all these years.
Like I have said before, I don’t know how to convince it that everything is fine now and it can finally rest and relax and let my emotions flow clearly and naturally instead of forcing me to try to force myself into one mould or another.
I cannot make myself into someone I am not by sheer force of will.
It can’t happen. People don’t work like that. All I am doing is harming myself by trying to cram myself into absurdly irrational pre-ordained spaces which were conceived of when I was just a child and which therefore are far, far too small and limiting for me.
You have to know who you are before you can become who you want to be.
Until then, I will try letting it all hang out and thereby get some idea of who I really am when I am not trying to make myself into someone else.
The real me is a pretty amazing guy, all things considered.
I should get to know him better.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.