A Difficult Monday

Going nearly three weeks between therapy appointments was a stretch for me. With C on another continent, the miles between us seeemed like a rift in me, personally. I couldn't look at it for long, for fear of falling into it.
Regardless, I did okay while she was gone. I made it through, as it seems I always can, and I did it with less upset and dramatics than I would have been able to manage in the past. It’s been an opportunity for growth, obviously, and it’s opened up more opportunity, on her return.

This past weekend, I didn’t think much about the appointment coming up on Monday. I noticed this, but didn’t understand why, or even suspect that my lack of interest in the upcoming session was important. In retrospect, I can see that I didn’t notice or understand because I was blocking myself from looking at the situation. I have such a knack for concealing things from myself, for compartmentalizing the thoughts and feelings I’m not ready to deal with, that I was oblivious to the storm brewing inside me. So, it was with great surprise that I found myself losing time, on Monday morning.

First, it was just a matter of dissociating enough – ignoring myself long enough – to find a distracting activity in which I could hide for a few minutes or hours. Gradually, it became harder – and finally impossible – to find a distraction with enough power to keep me from facing what was going on in my head.

I wondered if I was losing time when I noticed my coffee cup was empty and had no memory of drinking the beverage. I persuaded myself that anyone could do that. I was just not paying attention.

Then, I heard the dogs barking outside, but had no memory of letting them out.

Meanwhile, the hours were ticking away and I was not dressed, had not eaten, and had not followed through in making a phone call I needed and intended to make. A dark cloud of anxiety was building inside me and I was not even attempting to understand why. I franticly avoided looking into the eye of that storm, even as lightening was striking all around me.

When I couldn't put it off any longer, I pulled myself out of this chair, away from the unlimited distractions of the internet, and got dressed. I had a half an hour… still enough time to get dressed and out. Of course it was too late to shower and eat and all the other things a person might want to do when they have hours to kill before an appointment, but I could at least still get out on time.

I picked up the phone and put in a call to the psychiatrist, with whom I’d missed an appointment more than a month earlier. My prescriptions are going to run out in a few days, so it was finally to the point where I couldn’t wait any longer. I will have to look at why I've postponed that for so long, another time.

My intention was to leave as soon as I hung up the phone. Then I would head to my appointment with C, and easily arrive about ten minutes early.

I usually arrive early, not just for this, but for pretty much everything. I don’t like to be late. That may be one of the biggest understatements I’ve made, on this blog. I phobic-ly avoid being late, and when I am running late, I fall into a kind of self-loathing and berating behavior that no one should have to experience.

I hung up the phone, made a mental note of the (very inconvenient) appointment I’d manage to cajole out of the psychiatrist’s secretary, who hadat first told me he was completely booked this week, and then—

I don’t know.

Twenty minutes passed and I was not here for them. What was I doing? I will probably never know.
The next thing I knew, I was in the garage heading for my car. I looked at the car's clock when I turned on the engine, and my mouth went dry.

How can it possibly be this late?

At least twenty minutes had just disappeared from my life and it is SO frustrating. Now instead of arriving ten minutes early, I would have to race through the eighteen miles to C’s office and still would have no hope of arriving any less than ten minutes late.

My heart pounded.
I tried not to panic.
It was futile.

A wash of “natural” chemicals poured through my veins, bringing on a cold sweat and making my chest ache with each shallow breath. Another ten minutes passed before I forced myself to call C to let her know I’d be late. I was glad to get her voicemail. Talking to her directly seemed impossible.
I didn’t give any explanation. How could I? I had none.

My appointment was at 2:15, but it was almost 2:30 when I arrived. I walked in to find her in the outer
office, printing something. Her back was to me, and she didn’t turn around when I came in.

I just stood there, unsure what to do. A flight impulse was very strong, which only fed the fire of self-directed anger. As this built up, I started to feel that "angry at the whole world" feeling, and a fury rose up in me towards C. I knew she had to have heard me come in, and I waited another moment, unable to look at her directly, unable to say anything, while the anger grew and grew.

Finally I said, “Hi.”

She asked what happened. “Bad traffic? Or were you just running late?”

“I wish I knew. I – I just – I don’t know what happened. I was going to leave and then it was just twenty minutes later and I don’t know what happened.”

She finally looked at me. I averted my gaze.

"Did you lose time?"

I nodded, and then I followed her into her office.

She clarified the situation, by asking me, "Did you just get distracted by something and not realize how long it had been? Because that can happen to anyone."

With my eyes on the floor, I said, "I have no idea what I was doing. Suddenly, it was just twenty minutes later."

I felt naked. I don’t tell people when I lose time. I learned at a very young age that this is a shameful thing to be covered up at all costs. Often, I don't even allow myself to look at it, and here I'd said it, out loud. In my head, what 'd just said felt like, I have no explanation because I’m just fucking crazy, and can't be counted on.

Along with the feeling of worthlessness, so much anger poured to the surface that I felt I was about to physically explode with the power of it. I drifted into a cloudy half-present state which kept me from doing much of anything except listen. She said a lot of really helpful things, but I was unable to respond or react.  Like a tsunami set off by a distant earthquake, anger in the moment was really an echo from the past. None-the-less, it flooded my consciousness, mercilessly.

She did what she does when I can't seem to produce any forward motion. She said all the right things, and said them with my best interests at heart. It still felt like salt in ancient, open wounds.

While I said very little of what was in my head, during the appoinntment, it all poured out in an email to C, a couple of hours later:

Well, that is not at all how I expected this day to go. I feel really miserable, much more anxious and angry and foggy than I did at any time while you were gone. Everything is swirling in my head and it seems impossible to make it come out in any way that makes sense, and even if I could I feel like I am sending too much stuff, saying too much, and you said I send you all my stuff, but I don't. I hold back a lot. I try to keep it together myself
and
I mean, you said I send you all my journals, but in reality I've never sent you all of them and it seemed like you were accusing me, like I send too much stuff, like I can’t function without sending you everything, and what's funny is I feel guilty about the stuff I don't tell you, even if it isn't like I'm omitting things on purpose, it seems like the things I leave out end up being important and sometimes you've asked why I didn't mention something and really, I don't know what I'm supposed to mention. I send you what seems important, and it's a lot less than it used to be, and while you were gone it was a whole lot less. I have reams of stuff here that it seems like will never get out of my head, at this point. Maybe that's okay. Maybe it's all right if it's just here in my head forever. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. How can I know what is important?

There’s so much anger. Little things are setting me off, like crazy...
like, last night I was not feeling very capable of being there for myself. I was postponing going to bed and meditation, because I knew if I got still that long, I was going to have to look at all the crap in my head. There are things going on that make no sense and I didn't want to see them, I didn’t want to pause long enough to let it all come to the surface and have to look at it, and all I kept thinking was I would do it when I heard from you, when i got that email that i missed while you were gone and now your back so I wanted you to read the blog because it felt like, even though it was triggered by the concept of self-forgiveness - it felt like it was about more than that and somehow I thought you would see that, but you didn't have time to read it and
well
with how I've been feeling and all that's been coming up lately with you being gone for so long, and then your email came so late – much later than usual – and then you didn't answer about the stuff i asked about my day or have time to read the blog and you just said you were working on your pictures, and I felt hurt and blown off and like I’m not important and is that fair? No. Probably that is not fair, but that's still how I felt, like those pictures were more important than I was, and you knew I was waiting for a reply and I probably shouldn’t do that, but you knew and
well
like when you said today, that after not seeing each other for almost three weeks, you thought I'd be early - I mean in a way that's an expectation, except it is not as strong as that, and i would have been except i lost twenty minutes
and
but
anyway, I guess I felt like since you were gone for so long that you would be there now and last night it felt like you weren't – you were not there when I thought you would be and it’s bad enough when I know you won’t but then I thought you would and you were not there, and so I couldn't sleep and I dreamed about you,
two nights in a row now,
about you not being there when I showed up for my appointment
and I feel like I can’t count on you and it’s the dream but its also not the dream. I dreamt that you were not there, that I drove there and you were not there. No car in the parking lot, and no note or call or anything, just a locked door.
and really, did I send so much while you were gone? Really? it seemed like
I mean
I really tried not to. I really tried to keep it to a minimum and maybe that was a mistake, maybe I should have just sent what I wanted to and then I wouldn't feel like I do now. I don't know. But, I mean it felt like
well
it was that burden feeling again, like I was too much. Like I took away from your vacation to the point that you should be compensated in some way and I’m too much to deal with. It’s how I feel and how can I stop that? And isn't this the kind of thing I'm supposed to say? and yet, if I do, is it hurtful? I dont know. It's not what I want at all... I feel so awful. I feel like I let you down by being late because you thought I would be early and I let myself down because obviously for all I've been trying and working and pushing for the last few weeks, it has not been enough because there are things I've not heard or known how to deal with, and I'm supposed to know how to do that, I'm supposed to be the adult here and take care of things and how is it I can do so well with my kids and so fail myself, over and over and over?
I feel sick.
I didn't want to be alone, and [my husband] is working late and the girls both have games so they'll be late and i thought about just taking some xanax and maybe some wine but i have to pick the girls up eventually so I texted [a friend] to meet me for dinner, but honestly, I'm not sure I can eat and I'm even less sure I'll be able to talk and if I do pull it together, it will be fake and not really who I am at all.
because i am not together at all. I needed to connect today, to feel like I was really there with you and I was shutting you and me both out, just hiding inside that place I go when I can't deal with the world and I am so tired of that place.
I am so so sick of that place.
I am lost, today.
and I need to leave. Now I'm going to be late meeting [my friend], too. I'm sorry. I'm such a mess and I don't even have time to read over this and clean it up. sorry.

I met my friend for dinner, which was the wisest thing I’d done all day. My natural inclination is to hide, isolate, distract. Calling my friend and asking if she was free for dinner was a huge step towards pulling myself out of those self-defeating behaviors.

At dinner, I did move into that fake-it attitude, at first. It took a while, but gradually I began to feel comfortable enough to tell her I’d had a bad day, that I was struggling, and as I talked I began to get a much better grasp on the situation. I've been there for this particular friend, on more than one occasion, but I am not one to ask for help. It is a step towards intimacy to tell someone you need help, and that is something I've avoided. That simple dinner, pizza in a crowded restaurant with peanut shells on the floor and birthday celebrations going on around us, was a very important step in my personal growth.

At one point, I realized, quite suddenly, that the reason I’d fallen apart on the day of my appointment when I’d done so well while C was gone was because I finally felt safe enough to face all the feelings I was having. Feeling excited about this revelation, I sent C a quick email from the restaurant parking lot. At home, feeling guilty that I was sending so much stuff, once again, I emailed her a third time.

I'm sorry about today. I feel bad, as if I've done one thing after another wrong. I was late, and I was not really present, and I was in a bad mood and I was short on my co-pay- totally unprepared. I kept thinking of my father saying, "A day late and a dollar short" and I felt so worthless. I came home angry and had no sense of how to communicate that in a helpful way. Obviously it isn't anything you did or really about you, and I can know that but it doesn’t stop me from feeling all those difficult emotions and reactions. It's just so frustrating when I've been doing so well. So, I'm sorry. What else can I say?

I'm glad I went out for dinner tonight. It helped give me some perspective about everything. Sitting here alone would have been more of me torturing myself and probably you.

I heard you today, all the things you said. and I know, I'm supposed to be able to do this for myself. Sometimes I can. It's hard to keep pushing through it all, so much of the time, but it was harder to hold back for the last few weeks and try to just hold my course and stay where I am. I'm not ready to do that. I wish I was, but I'm not. I feel like such a child, right now, and it's very hard to stay in the person I've been recently, and I can, if that's what I have to do, but it doesn't really feel like my natural state. It feels like something I've invented to make it all work. Somewhere in there, the real adult has to be there, and when I can be that person, then I can feel so much more in control of these little kids who seem to be running the show right now.

Thanks for reading and everything. Please, dont be upset with me. I guess I'm doing enough of that for both of us. I feel bombarded. I was trying not to let it come through and then this morning I just, apparently, couldn't do it anymore.

Email from C, late Monday night:

I really did not have an issue with you being late today.  I understand, even more with the emotional release in the previous email, that a lot of fear had been building and it was hard for you to come.  I thought you might be early but was not going to be disappointed if you weren't.  Your being late brought to the surface what really needed attention (and more came in the emails), so it was exactly what needed to happen.

It makes sense that the child-run state of being feels more natural since that has been what you've had to do so many years when upsets hit.....you didn't have a choice, just as you didn't as a child.  What you did different today by reaching out to a friend to go to dinner is a great sign of your continued growth.  It happens in stages, and it is continuing to happen.  It gave you a chance to get perspective.  That is the Resource energy at work.  You don't always have to consciously call it up.  It's there, always.

It's good you can see that this release of feelings happened because it feels safe now that I'm back.  And, you did do well while I was gone.  And...it stretched you.  You don't have to like it, but you can take credit for knowing you can do it when you have to.