3/12 (I started writing on this day, but kept getting distracted, so this comes at multiple times and days)
It's been eleven days since my last entry, which is normally a good sign. This medium, at least in the way I engage it, lends itself to catharsis and when there's nothing to purge then that's a decent indicator of a positive turn in life.
It's been eleven days since my last entry, which is normally a good sign. This medium, at least in the way I engage it, lends itself to catharsis and when there's nothing to purge then that's a decent indicator of a positive turn in life.
And, truly, I'd say that's apt. School has been going better, in its way. My research is progressing. I'm making progress in my various goals. Life, right now, is a matter of floating, a welcome, if subdued, respite from desperately trying to avoid sinking into the suffocating depths below.
Indeed, yesterday and today have been beautiful. Rainstorms and early, cool sunshine have returned a vibrancy to surroundings that had for so long been dead and grey. It's the pathetic fallacy, I know, but the fact that I appreciate it is, in and of itself, a dramatic shift from apathies past.
Yet I am all too often reminded that I, still, am not who I am. In an almost feverish state brought on by malnutrition (I don't think I ate for ~48 hours), I was, in veritable desperation, pleading with my counselor (or, rather, myself) to believe that my persona in school "is not who I am. That's not who I am."
We talked in circles Thursday, her concern over my apathy, my protestations that this was better than I'd felt in some time. She believes I'm pushing too much and caring too little about myself, and I believe that this is what I have to do to survive and then reevaluate come May. We both have points. I was at school from 8a-8p, 8a-10p, 8a-9p the first three days of this week. I was out until 9p on Thursday and went straight from school to work last night (8a-11:59p) interluded by sleep to get to work again at 8a. I'm exhausted, but I almost, finally, feel like I deserve to be.
***
3/14
But God, I'm worn out. I had some time last night where I wasn't directly focused on "things to do," and in that time things started catching up to me. I've got my future self in a box, saved away, protected from the daily grind and the pain of pushing her away each day into the recesses of my mind. I have a hard time accessing her, now, when everything is hammering upon me, and all I can do is wait. I'm distant. I'm detached. I have to be, as much as it feels unnatural, because I cannot be who I am, I most definitively have to be someone I'm not, and I can't juggle so much at once.
And as I've said, it's tolerable. I'm anxious but not in agony. I'm nervous, I'm impatient, I'm harrowed, I'm fatigued, but what was a school year, was three days to Fall Break, was five weeks to Thanksgiving, was four weeks to Winter Break, was five weeks to Inservice, was five weeks to Spring break is now two to Spring Break and then seven to May. I am getting there.
But tolerable is not, necessarily, healthy. I'm coping. Compartmentalizing. And while she's in her box, I think of her, try to see her, make so many plans for her, dream of her. And dear God, the dreams.
Nightmares, too. The past two nights, I've had terrible, vivid nightmares. In the first, I would unexpectedly be attacked by monsters. The monsters, shaped like angler fish, would jump from bodies and sprout, huge grotesque things with rows of teeth, and I can do nothing but scream and wait, horrified, no control whatsoever.
Last night was even worse. Some horrific monster, ostensibly my father, held me captive, has dark plans, goes places and devours people, girls, leaves them disembodied and rent, bloody. I follow him, am dragged by him, petrified of when I am next, helpless as I watch the horrors he wrecks upon so many others. He is snarky, morose, malicious. And when I struggle, when I connive to escape, when I run through forests, flee through streams, desperate and full of terror, he chases with a speed I know I cannot match, and I am taken back to him, waiting my grizzly turn. I am helpless, I am overmatched, I am captive and desperate and in terror and horror.
And I am her.
That fact, actually, brings me some relief. That I dream as her makes me hopeful. But I think it's also significant. At first, I focused on the loss of control and the utter horror, thinking that the dreams might be a reflection of my waking sense of simply waiting and hoping instead of genuine agency.
But then I thought of her in the box, packed away, and it occurred to me that much in those dreams was about the futility of escape, the inability to get away. I am the captor, I am the violence, I am the thing that rends myself, that devours and horrifies myself, that keeps myself contained and in terror. I am the hope and the horror.
But I can't let her out, let myself out. And it's killing me. So I fill my time with work and distractions and I lay plans and I try to ignore the screaming, the crying from inside. I am the hope and the horror. And I am not what I am.
***
3/14
But God, I'm worn out. I had some time last night where I wasn't directly focused on "things to do," and in that time things started catching up to me. I've got my future self in a box, saved away, protected from the daily grind and the pain of pushing her away each day into the recesses of my mind. I have a hard time accessing her, now, when everything is hammering upon me, and all I can do is wait. I'm distant. I'm detached. I have to be, as much as it feels unnatural, because I cannot be who I am, I most definitively have to be someone I'm not, and I can't juggle so much at once.
And as I've said, it's tolerable. I'm anxious but not in agony. I'm nervous, I'm impatient, I'm harrowed, I'm fatigued, but what was a school year, was three days to Fall Break, was five weeks to Thanksgiving, was four weeks to Winter Break, was five weeks to Inservice, was five weeks to Spring break is now two to Spring Break and then seven to May. I am getting there.
But tolerable is not, necessarily, healthy. I'm coping. Compartmentalizing. And while she's in her box, I think of her, try to see her, make so many plans for her, dream of her. And dear God, the dreams.
Nightmares, too. The past two nights, I've had terrible, vivid nightmares. In the first, I would unexpectedly be attacked by monsters. The monsters, shaped like angler fish, would jump from bodies and sprout, huge grotesque things with rows of teeth, and I can do nothing but scream and wait, horrified, no control whatsoever.
Last night was even worse. Some horrific monster, ostensibly my father, held me captive, has dark plans, goes places and devours people, girls, leaves them disembodied and rent, bloody. I follow him, am dragged by him, petrified of when I am next, helpless as I watch the horrors he wrecks upon so many others. He is snarky, morose, malicious. And when I struggle, when I connive to escape, when I run through forests, flee through streams, desperate and full of terror, he chases with a speed I know I cannot match, and I am taken back to him, waiting my grizzly turn. I am helpless, I am overmatched, I am captive and desperate and in terror and horror.
And I am her.
That fact, actually, brings me some relief. That I dream as her makes me hopeful. But I think it's also significant. At first, I focused on the loss of control and the utter horror, thinking that the dreams might be a reflection of my waking sense of simply waiting and hoping instead of genuine agency.
But then I thought of her in the box, packed away, and it occurred to me that much in those dreams was about the futility of escape, the inability to get away. I am the captor, I am the violence, I am the thing that rends myself, that devours and horrifies myself, that keeps myself contained and in terror. I am the hope and the horror.
But I can't let her out, let myself out. And it's killing me. So I fill my time with work and distractions and I lay plans and I try to ignore the screaming, the crying from inside. I am the hope and the horror. And I am not what I am.
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