god will forgive me, but i, i whip myself with scorn.

[erika]

My therapist tries to be kind to me. She gives me lists of things to write about and then says if you want, that is—like getting better is something I can afford to not want.

I daydream about cold guns up against my temple. I don't tell him because a) it's a fucking cliché, and b) he'd have to get all concerned, and I don't want his concern. I have no idea what I want, but his concern is not what I need him for.

I could be held all day long and it wouldn't be enough. I wish I were small enough so I could be rocked to sleep, and have a kiss pressed on my forehead. Wish I didn't start crying late nights, like clockwork.

I am making mix CDs of music we could listen to when we make love. Mostly the songs I chose are sad, and they all speak of love with pain. Even the memory I have of pure love is mixed with bitterness: pure love is a warm blanket put around me when I cried. I remember plain heartache better. Despair, malaise, it's what beats in my veins, not blood.

This slow merger of desire with friendship feels bizarre and I wonder aloud if it's unromantic. I mean, it's okay to slowly get to know someone as more than a friend, right. Much more stable than some fucked-up whirlwind. Just as romantic. I can't tell whether I'm talking myself into this because I'm scared or because I have justifiable reservations. I know I'm going against my better judgement. If I had any to begin with.

I wait for irritation. Inevitable. Ring a peal over my head, tell me I've disappointed you and you can't stand the sight of me. Eventually, it will happen. I am patient.

I used to have a ring on my finger, a ring my mother gave me, gold with blue topaz sparkle. I tell everyone that topaz is my birthstone, and it is, but blue topaz was under the sign for December. I don't care, I told myself, I like blue better. It's not a lie.

The ring isn't on my finger anymore. I keep it in a jewelry box that my cousin gave me because I stole some of her rings. The moral of that story is that she's a better person than I am.

I don't think it's very hard to be a better person than I am. I don't think I should find it so hard.

---

My therapist tries to convey something she seems to think is so simple. It seems simple. She tells me that I should be angry, and I stare at her. I don't know what you mean by that, I say. The idea feels so damn foreign to me. What do you mean by anger? What? Angry? About what?

She tells me that anger is a healthy emotion. Anger. Who knew. Apparently, when I've been—

—emotionally abused by an asshole who liked to engage in ——well, anything I can say here would be repetitious, but here we go: constant disparagement, argument, withholding of sex and jealousy so virulent he begrudged every minute I spent out of the apartment, and liked to convince me of my flaws so eloquently he could've sold Stars of David to the Nazis—

—physically beaten by my own flesh and blood, my older brother (you worshipped him when you were a little girl) holding me against the wall; once he tripped me onto concrete, knocked the breath out of me and started laughing, deep voice moderated tone but so up in your face you can't breathe, screaming and running out into December without a jacket just to be left alone—no apology, ever—

—when I checked into a hotel, vodka and klonopin at the ready, drunker than drunk and the ativan melting in my mouth like snow made of chalk—somehow I remember anal violation; I know I was thisclose to unconscious and can't remember whether I said yes or not, leaning towards not, didn't want that and was in fact trying to kill myself; I go back to my apartment with my angry boyfriend and tell him nothing, I say nothing, do nothing because what would I be defending, really——

I'm supposed to be, at least, a little angry.

I am nowhere near angry. I don't even know how to begin.

I am just scared.

(I'm scared no one will say anything to this, and I am telling my story to an empty room, or a room full of people who aren't listening. I'm not sure which is worse.)

Comments

[spr0cket.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey.

It's okay to be scared.

I wish I knew what to say. How to make things better. How to help you be angry because you have every right to be. But, that doesn't mean you have to be. Trust me, I'm angry enough for you.

But yeah. You know I'm here. Always.

[erika]

You know I adore you for it. I hope to god I never lose your friendship, and that in five years this isn't one of those comments I look back and wonder where the person who seemed to really care went.

Thank you so fucking much for supporting me through writing this entry. It means a lot.

Let's have a depressed person to depressed person comment, those are always so constructive

[anja.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what to say to someone who's not me, you know?

But I know anger has never worked for me, and I've been plenty angry. All my therapeutic anger has accomplished shit. I'm still very afraid I won't ever kill myself.

It's difficult, this life stuff. I think it's worth it, but I don't know.

I read it all, for what it's worth.

mental masturbation--some of the fun, none of the awkward cleanup

[erika]

I'm still very afraid I won't ever kill myself.

So, so, so so so so SO fucking true. Thank you for having the courage to say that.

[soshesays.livejournal.com]

"Malaise" was dictionary.com's word of the day. Or maybe that was yesterday. I don't remember.

Do you feel like therapy is helping? I don't want to be the therapy cynic over here, but it irks me, this talk about how you "should" feel instead of just being like, hello, this is how she DOES feel, this is what are ARE dealing with. Of course you have every right to be angry, and maybe that would be easier to approach than some deep and unrelenting depression. But if it was that easy, I could just tell you that you "should" be happy and it'd be like BAM, ERIKA THE RAY OF SUNSHINE.

Sorry. Okay.

I just wanted to tell you about malaise, really. And say that I read.

By your powers combined, I am ERIKA, RAY OF SUNSHINE.

[erika]

I do think that therapy is helping, but that could just be because I enjoy dropping "my therapist says" into every other fucking sentence. It feels so modern.

Aside from that, I enjoy the fact that she is willing to walk me through the tangled emotional skein with fairly infinite patience.

And of course I paraphrase everything she says, so she's a much better therapist than it probably appears—she doesn't bluntly say "WHY AREN'T YOU ANGRY, DUMBASS", she is way more tactful and calm than that. So I don't think she is arguing with how I do feel, she's saying she thinks that anger would be a more appropriate emotion based on the events of my life and that by not allowing myself to express anger appropriately, I turn that anger inward and make it self-hatred.

I am always so chuffed you read. Like I told spr0cket, there are some people whose grocery lists I would avidly peruse, and you, dearling, are one of them. So never stop commenting or I will kill myself. No pressure!

(I sometimes feel that my morbid sense of humor is inexplicable, and, in fact, borderline sacreligious to anyone who has not dealt with an unrelenting black cloud of life-sucking energy on a daily basis. Then I think sacreLICIOUS.)

Re: By your powers combined, I am ERIKA, RAY OF SUNSHINE.

[antastra.livejournal.com]

by not allowing myself to express anger appropriately, I turn that anger inward and make it self-hatred

That's right, and anger is transformed into depression too.

[antastra.livejournal.com]

I'm listening.

It is necessary to feel anger when you are angry, but it's also possible you never repressed it, you were simply conditioned against it. Perhaps. Revisiting traumas may not bring a different emotional response, at least until you reinterpret the experiences. In any case anger is something to learn how to handle in a healthy way, so I'm glad you're working on it.

[erika]

I feel anger on the behalf of others, just never for myself. Like I tried to convey above, the idea of feeling anger on my behalf is so alien to me it actually confused me when she asked me about it.

So I'm still trying to figure out, like you said, whether it's repression or conditioning; underlying it all, I'm just glad to discover more things about myself, actually. More reasons why I act the way I do, reasons I can actually understand instead of throwing my hands up in the air and shrugging.

[forioscribe.livejournal.com]

In the middle of a nasty divorce that involved my children I was as low as I've ever been. I didn't know if I could keep going. A shrink wasn't doing anything for me, except to say that "You haven't yet resolved the death of your abusive father," a comment I thought was peculair inasmuch as the bastard wasn't dead and had about twenty years left in his life.

Anyway, my boss at work called me into his office and asked what was wrong. He was a graduate of West Point, but essentially he was an idiot and a total failure as a manager. A real honest-to-god doofus. But nevertheless he said something that actually helped me.

"You've gotta roll with the punches," he said.

Somehow accurately describing what was actually happening to me, even metaphorially, suddenly turned everything around. Yes, I was being beaten within an inch of my life. And I could see myself absorbing the relentless blows.

I couldn't see myself winning that fight because I was so far behind, but by God I wasn't going to quit either. I wouldn't give that miserable bastard the satisfication.

I don't know if this is too gender specific to be of any use, but as a life-long writer I am convinced that accurately framing things, giving things their proper name, is somehow liberating. Telling the truth about what IS amounts to a blow against those perpertrators who coverup, deny, and lie.

It's the LIES that are toxic. Time to start speaking the truth.

That's what I thought then, and still think now.

Hang in there.

[erika]

I wanted to say thank you for this, but I never knew how.

The meaning of life is to do the next thing.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I read.

I don't ever know what to say, but I read.

[nightingayle.livejournal.com]

Me too.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

I'm listening, too.

Look, here's my take on it, and I've gone through a lot of what you're going through by the sound of it: if those things happened to a friend of yours, or to anyone you loved, you'd be angry with the person who did them, right? You'd want to go round with a baseball bat and beat them to a stain. You'd be furious. Right?

What's missing here is that you haven't yet realised/remembered that you're worthy of exactly that same amount of love that you would feel for your friend, exactly that same level of anger and defence from harm. You're worthy of people sticking up for you and getting emotional about it. You're worthy of people's time and respect. You're worthy of a decent apology. And you're worthy of vast, vast amounts of love. You don't believe that yet. When you do start to believe it, you'll get angry.

We waste a lot of time imagining that love has to come at us from the outside, that somehow it will filter in and make us feel like a different person. But one of the tricks I learnt which helped me kick depression out of my life was to always treat myself as well as I would treat my best friend. Always be that respectful; that solititous for my welfare and safety; always be gentle and loving. At first it feels as if you're going through the motions. It feels stupid. But eventually the habit sticks, and one day you wake up and realise you're brilliant and the world's jolly lucky to have you in it. And life's a lot better after that day.

I hope this helps a little. You can and will get through this, you know. And life on the other side of it is so worth it. xx

[the-xtina.livejournal.com]

Dude, what chiller said.

[nightingayle.livejournal.com]

OH! Thirded!

[erika]

Thank you so much for this. I like to re-read it every day, like an affirmation.

[underwhelm.livejournal.com]

I'm reading...

[tink.livejournal.com]

Baby, I am always always listening.

It's okay to be scared.

I wish I Had more to offer you. But know you're being heard.

[erika]

Thank you.

[silent-lorelei.livejournal.com]

Always listening. I think almost that entire list has happened to me (sans the drunk part) as well... not that that helps you any, but I understand, at least.

[erika]

I'm sorry that's all happened to you.

And you're one of the strongest people I know; hopefully that bodes good things for me.

[frankcross.livejournal.com]

I have the opposite problem: I'm angry all of the time, but I'm angry at people who have refused to admit fault or apologize, so I do not know how to unburden myself of this.

[inne.livejournal.com]

I don't have a lot of advice about therapy and I don't even think you're looking for advice, but I appreciate this so much and I'm scared too.


xoxo

[erika]

Thank you.

(I hate replying to comments so long after they're made, but I couldn't even stand to look at this entry for awhile.)

[terka.livejournal.com]

i read.
xox

[erika]

Thank you.

(I hate replying to comments so long after they're made, but I couldn't even stand to look at this entry for awhile.)