I hate this.
The time window for my phone call from Doctor Chao has begun, and now I have a potential two frigging hours in which to fret about when it will happen.
I don’t do this kind of uncertainty well. Give me a set time and I can wait for it patiently. But this time range bullshit is hard on my nerves.
And the fact that it’s medical news I am waiting for doesn’t help either. I might be about to hear terrible news about my brain and my neuroses know this.
They’re bad enough when they are completely unfounded and irrational.
But they’re even worse when they’re based on something plausible.
Oh well, nothing I can do about it, I guess. Not like I can just teleport in on Doc Chao and yell, “NO WE TALK NOW!”
Not without putting on some pants, anyhow.
Then again, it’s not like he doesn’t see naked people all the time.
Usually, though, he has warning.
This dislike of surprises makes me feel silly and weak. I know for a fact that it has kept me from doing things because my high strung nerves insisted they were too “risky”.
Well the Doc called. Nothing weird on the CT scan, thank goodness. He was just calling because he hadn’t heard from me in a while.
Which is nice. A little creepy, but nice.
I told him about my continuing cognitive issues. It still feels like I am thinking uphill. Like part of my mind turned to lead overshoes.
He told me to call the Stroke Clinic to make an appointment with Doctor Teal.
Which I did. But the pricks at the Clinic close shop at 4, so no dice. I’ll have to call them back tomorrow, dammit.
I want to find out what’s wrong with my brain while I still have a brain to find out with!
That’s it for today’s exciting agenda, I guess.
Tomorrow I got therapy with Doc Costin. I’ll tell him about my sad little hospital stay with the usual lack of closure.
After that, the next event in my life is hanging with Le Gang on Zoom on Friday night. Then nothing till Sunday night Denny’s.
Right now I am feeling glum. I think it’s just because I am tired. Sleep’s been a tad elusive lately and I am feeling down as a result.
The problem started in the hospital. I would try to sleep but some force in my mind kept me revved up and wouldn’t let me unwind and let go.
And as we all know, sleep isn’t something you do, it’s something you let happen.
Plus my back’s been acting up lately. Suppose I should have mentioned that to my GP.
Oh well. I never perform well in realtime.
I need to be in a turn based universe where I always have enough time to think through my options and pick the best course of action.
Knowing me, though, I would end up spending longer and longer between turns, until I end up just hovering in stasis forever.
At least it’s quiet.
More after the break.
Dredging the depths
One part of this new heaviness slash solidity slash stupidity in my capacious cranium is that I think it will aid in my constant search for The Bad Stuff lurking in the inky black shadows of my mind,
Gotta find it, haul it to the surface, and reveal it unto the cleansing light of consciousness that it might be healed,
That’s essentially what traditional psychotherapy as practiced by Freud is all about. And it’s what works for me – every time I have a successful trauma hunt, I immediately feel a rush of relief and I feel like I get another little sliver of myself back.
Thus I feel more healthy, whole, and alive. Permanently.
But everybody knows what the big problem with traditional psychotherapy : it takes too fucking long. This hunting trip of mine has been in the field for an awfully long time, and I despair of ever landing my White Whale so we can just go the hell home already.
But every now and then I land major prey and it gives me enough hope to go on.
I can’t help feeling that there has to be a better way, though. Some alpha level change in approach that would turn the whole thing inside out and let me somehow steam directly toward my goal instead of fumbling in the dark toward it.
Something that would truly wake me up inside and let me see the world with eyes and heart and voice wide open and ready to let everybody inside.
Because I’ve been in this sad little tin prison of mine for far too long. Whatever I built it to keep out is long gone and it’s now far more of a liability than an asset. By all rational measures, it’s time for this egg to lose his shell.
It’s just a matter of convincing the little birdie inside that it won’t die without it.
I’ve grown up with grave doubts as to my viability as a specimen. I’ve always felt far to weak to make it on my own. My recent decline in health only underlines this.
And yet, I know I have all the skills and abilities required for survival. It’s not like you have to be particularly rugged to pay bills and rent and taxes.
In fact, it’s never been easier.
So it’s something more structural and fundamental I feel I am missing. A toughness and integrity – a grit – that I feel I utterly lack.
It’s like everyone else is real and I’m made of fancy tissue paper.
And that underwrites my timidity. I am so scared of the loud bright angry world because I feel so puny and faint compared to it.
Deep down, I am terrified of waking the giant that is the Big Cruel World, lest it notice me and what a vile and pathetic thing I am, and crush me like a bug.
And yet, here I am, brain the size of a planet, with godlike powers of the mind.
I tell ya, it just plain don’t make no sense,
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.