Spring time. This is generally when I feel better, physically and emotionally, and start to piece my life back together. I start getting things done again. \”Spring forward, summer steady, fall back, winter abysmal,\” has been the pattern of my life for years. Apparently this is what comes of having Seasonal Affective Disorder. Mine is so sensitive that it takes my other problems for a tail spin ride, like clockwork. You would think that after all these years (I always feel so fucking old and sometimes I have to stop and remind myself that no, I am only twenty-one and I should not expect to have my life together) I would have a better grasp on the situation. I am supposed to know some magical formula of acts and thoughts that will keep my health in line. So far all I have come up with is \”You stupid fucking bitch, you fucked up again. Collect no points and return to start!\” which is not exactly a positive attitude. Every year I resolve to change. Every year I fail. \”Fail\” is a four letter word.
At some point in December or so, \”A\” and I were having a heart to heart. We were reclining in bed, so I suppose I had spent the night. Somehow we got on the topic of faith. Discussing the power of faith and positive thinking, we discussed how it could play a role in your life. I believed it can, he was a naysayer. Out of nowhere, he caught me off guard by asking, \”Do you have faith that you will get better?\” Faced with this, my demeanor immediately changed. I had been happy and enjoying the debate. My reaction was so instantaneous that I was unable to check myself. I immediately burst into tears and replied in the negative. He held me tight in his arms, kissing me and apologizing for bringing it up.
I honestly do not think I am going to get much better. Last summer I would have told you, sure, of course I am. I just have to change some patterns, change some environmental triggers, turn my life around. I was sure it would work and that all would be fine.
Where has the optimist gone? By October, she was dead in the water. I have not been able to resuscitate her.
I have to start seeing a rehabilitation counselor through the county. To start that I have to fill out some papers that say where you are in your health, what your biggest health problems are, where you think you\’ll manage to get, what kind of work you think you can do, and what kind of work you want to do.
Thinking about the future — really thinking about it in a dreadfully honest way — involves deciding on whether or not you have hope. I am relatively sure that by the age of thirty (eight years, three months, ten days) I will be dead. My immune system is so incredibly poor and my chances so incredibly slim, that I will likely have developed some sort of cancer related to HPV by then. Most likely cervical. I can watch my health all I want, and I am putting the wheels in motion now to get a complete hysterectomy by the end of the year — out with the uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, and especially the cervix. If I could get my actual vagina removed (eh…? how?) I would. I have been freaking out lately with the strangest thoughts crossing my mind — thoughts of taking industrial scissors to myself and cutting off my outer and inner labias and my clitoris. I want it all gone. I want to eliminate all risk. I want to stop being sexual, and stop being female. But that is another post that I have been meaning to write.
My head is collapsing in on myself. The one thing I used to be sure of in my life was my identity as a sexual being. That is gone, and it has been replaced with my identity as a sick harborer of disease. I am scared. You are not supposed to live your life in fear — that is how sickness starts and gets worse.
Well, okay, so I will not be scared about cervical cancer. With that out of the way (poof!), I remember those weeks not so long ago where I could not figure out what was going on with my body. The doctors thought I could have multiple sclerosis. Terrifed, I waited in fear for health care so I could get referrals for doctors. I got one for the neurologist, but the one I was referred to did not take my health plan. I did nothing. I have a new referral now, but my body is no longer randomly giving out and causing me excruciating pain, so I have sort of just not done anything. Part of me is telling myself that the illness of the last few months was all in my head, because it had never been like that before and so it must have been some freak, random occurence. I can convince myself of anything. So I have not seen a doctor yet. I am afraid that if I go and tell him everything that went on he will either say I am crazy, or a fraud, or that I have secondary-progressive MS. (Fuck.) So if I do not worry about cervical cancer, then I also have to stop worrying about being in a wheelchair by the time I am thirty.
Then there is my head. I have become so much healthier(!) according to some people, but god… I am still in therapy twice a week and I still feel like I am going nowhere and I still do not like myself or my life. That is a hell of a lot of progress. I am being a pessimist right now, sure, okay, I admit it. But I feel so helpless.
Every week or so I find myself coming up with this wonderful plan, of how I am going to delete my e-mail accounts and my journals, turn off my phones and take out the answering machine, and continue my daily pattern of doctor appointments and physical upkeep without having any contact with anybody. I do not need people, I reason with myself, and it only makes me more unhappy to think that no semi-connection I have with anyone will ever amount to anything because I am such a fuck up…
This hurts so much, I do not want to remember it to write about it, but I know that if I do I will feel marginally better…
A few weeks ago I was with a friend of mine, someone I used to consider to be one of my better friends. I was upset, and after much back and forth my friend finally said to me, \”Cassandra, honestly, the real reason I never make any plans with you is because your illnesses make you unreliable. I never know when you are going to be well enough to do anything, and your status changes week to week, sometimes day to day. It\’s hard to maintain social interactions when I can\’t really count on your health to let you do anything. If you ever get better, of course we can do _________, but until then, I have to keep my distance.\”
Well at least someone finally had the fucking balls to say it to my face.
I replied that just because I was sick, it did not mean I did not want to see my friends. My therapist kept going through this whole issue with me where if I was sick in the hospital, of course my friends would come visit me, so how was being too sick to leave the house any different? Why could they not come visit me then? I answered that everyone had their reasons… well they do. But fuck. FUCK.
What it boils down to is that when I can I bust my ass for everybody I know, whether I like them or not. I overextend myself to make people happy, go out of my fucking way to do things for people. Yesterday I bought a friend\’s groceries for him for the next two weeks because his family problems of the past month have milked all his money and his credit and his next paycheck does not come through until the end of the month. This is the kind of shit I do for people. Everybody knows that they can call me for anything at any time, and I never say no and always listen. I answer my phone at five in the morning to help whoever through whatever, get up out of bed and throw some clothes on and go out in below freezing weather to give them the reassuring fuck they need to get their minds back on straight.
No matter how unreliable I am and how much shit I put people through, I am relatively sure that I am a really amazingly good friend and (have consistently been the same as a) girlfriend. My support is without limits, be it financially, emotionally, mentally, or physically. I give too much and I never save any for myself (I know this is bad). But a while back I went three weeks without seeing anyone other than my doctors because I was unable to sit long enough to drive anywhere, and though people knew this, not a soul offered to come out to bumfuck to see me. I live twenty five minutes from the D.C. line, at most. It ain\’t that bad. But most people never even picked up the phone or dropped me an e-mail to check up on me or talk for a few minutes. With friends like that, it would not be so hard to simply walk away from most people. But I miss my friends, and I want to have more solid friendships with those that I know, not write them off completely.
It seems like I miss people more than I actually talk to people. I suppose this says to me that I need to put more effort into what I have as well as be open to beginning new friendships. But what the hell is the fucking point? I am unreliable and a bad friend that you cannot make plans with. Never mind the fact that I would spend my last fucking dollars on you, stay awake thirty six hours listening to you talk until you felt better, answer my phone when I am whacked out on medication just in case it is something important, wake up in the middle of the night to drive forty minutes to pick you up then another hour to get you home and then another hour on top of that to get back home myself simply because you could not score a ride from anyone there, host your domains for fucking free for years on end… I AM A RESENTFUL FRIEND. I am feeling neglected and I want some reciprocity from time to time. Where is the fucking love? I will tell you where it is at — it is at the club/bar/party/house/theater/gallery that I cannot get to because of financial or physical constraints. I guess I do not have as solid friendships with most people as I had originally thought. I guess it was all rather one sided. I guess I read into them because I wanted them so badly, but really I was never all that important to most people in the first place.
It is kind of amusing because the above rant is something I bottled up for three months, and it stopped being valid a few weeks ago. Only now with the distance am I able to let it out.
I am not good at maintaining anything. I know this. I have a commitment problem, something that goes beyond a simple fear and is now an outright phobia. I avoid commitment in all possible arenas these days, especially anything longer term than a week or two. I think I want solidarity in my life so much, that I fear it. I fear getting there and then losing it, I fear the upkeep entailed, I fear the consequences of having something stable in your life.
I\’m still running away, now sometimes more than ever. I do not have a single commitment right now, not a single obligation. I quit everything and severed all permanent ties. I did a great job at separating myself from life. Every time I walk into therapy, the session goes like this:
My therapist: So, what\’s up?
Me: Absolutely nothing.
Him: It can\’t be nothing. Something must be going on. Your life is in upheaval these days and you have a lot coming up.
Me: Like fucking what? I get up, I get washed, I read my news, I go to a doctor\’s appointment, I send some e-mail, I do my stretches all damn day long, I maybe talk on the phone, I masturbate a hell of a lot, I go to bed. There\’s nothing coming up. There\’s nothing going on. It\’s quiet. It\’s boring. It\’s a flat line.
Him: But what about everything in the future? What are your future plans?
Me: What do you mean?
Him: Do you have plans to go back to school? To get involved with another conference? To visit your friend in Scotland? To do any volunteer work? Any fun things coming up with your friends? Any more thoughts on how you want to integrate sex into a career?
Me: No.
Him: What is your plan for health maintenance? What are you going to try next?
Me: I have no plan. Nothing. I am at a dead end.
Him: What are your plans for moving? How is that coming along?
Me: It\’s not. I\’m at a dead end.
Him: Write anything interesting since last time?
Me: No.
Him: Get any interesting music since last time?
Me: No.
Him: So what do you want to concentrate on this session?
Me: I don\’t know. Nothing. I have nothing to talk about.
Him: What have you been thinking about lately?
Me: That George Bush is insane and I wish I lived on an island in the middle of nowhere with no contact with the outside world.
Him: That\’s saying a lot. I thought you had nothing to talk about.
Me: There is nothing to say when you are not involved in anything.
Him: So what do you want to get involved in?
Me: I don\’t know. Maybe something involving sex, but I have too many issues with that.
Him: So let\’s talk about your issues with sex.
So all we have done for the past five or so sessions is talk about sex, and I am learning more and more that I actually have a serious diversion to the act itself. In fact, I do not even like sex, and if I never had it again, on some levels I would be more than happy. If I picture a future without me performing sexual acts I actually picture a future where I am happy and functioning and at peace. If I try and picture a future where I am meant to be having sex at some point, all I can see is me being miserable and coerced and bored. I lose respect for people as soon as we become sexual. I lose interest in them as soon as they show a certain amount of desire for me. I want companionship, but I do not want to share sex. If I need to get off I will sequester myself somewhere in a closet and take care of it as soon as possible, but I do not want anyone there being a part of it. The last few times people have tried to get me off, I have become so bored and/or disgusted by it, that I have either asked them to stop, have faked it, or have turn the tables and started in on them.
What the fucking hell is happening to me? Oh! Oh yeah! I know what it is! It just occured to me! It is because I have been sleeping consistently with one person and no longer have to seek it out and seduce my way in. It has become easy. It has become expected. It has become routine. All of which cause me aversion. The last time I saw someone with any frequency was a little more than a year ago. After about two months of consistent boinking, I lost all interest in sex. I told him I did not want to have it anymore. He flipped out. I went back to having sex with him, but the desire was gone. Our relationship really imploded at that time, though we did not actually end it until months later. In the interim months I used sex mostly as distraction, escape, and as a way to help myself get to sleep. Not until towards the end of the relationship when we started getting violent in bed with each other did I start to enjoy myself again.
I cannot maintain. What is the point of attempting to establish a connection with someone when I know I am just going to grow weary of it very quickly anyway? What is the point of having sex when I can so rarely enjoy it for what it is and instead use it for all sorts of fucked up psychological ulterior motives? Power. Control. Apeasement. Negotiation. Self-esteem boost. Triggering of endorphin release. Sedative. Punishment.
Oh god, why do I not just take up some sort of athleticism? Why must I be such a slut? A slut that does not even like to have sex. A goddamn addict. With no future.
This is so fucking cheery, I have to go take a few sleeping pills and alleviate all this happiness. Tomorrow promises to be another day just like today, except with added therapy session and bonus amounts of socially acceptable binge drinking in honor of the guy who is famous for fucking Ireland\’s true religion over. All hail the twisting of the past to suit the motives of the present. I feel like I should hire a Catholic priest to exorcise the snakes (= demons = pagans) out of me. Somewhere around here I still have Chuck\’s cross, now I just need to get me some holy water.
When I wake up tomorrow, I will feel better. I might even answer lj comments. I might even go to the pool. Or I might delete my e-mail accounts and journal for a third time, having decided that none of this is worth the effort and I need to just get some electric shock therapy and a partial frontal lobotomy so I can move on in life without all these goddamn internal issues that I can never seem to resolve and which only seem to be spawning new ones.
I wanted to have a daughter. I wanted to name her Michaelangela. I wanted to teach her all the things my mother never taught me, like self-confidence and how to say no. I wanted to teach her how to swim, throw a football, cook, read, debate, tie her shoelaces. I am never going to have a daughter now. I am never going to be able to teach anyone anything. Name one thing I have left. (I can still talk a lot of shit.) Okay, that is one thing. I rely on my bullshit to keep me alive. I am an old kvetching Jewish woman who has yet to develop a grey hair. Jesus H. Christ on a flaming pogo stick up his ass. How the hell do I get out of this? I am so tired of denial and avoidance and running away, but that is all I know, and the more I do it, the farther away from getting somewhere of any substance I get. This is not 1977 and it is so trite and done to say \”I have no future,\” so what the hell do I do next? I tired of safety pins in my clothing a long time ago. Angst is played out. I am no longer a teen. I am no longer anything. I am a borderline with no sense of identity and I am fucking lost, lost, lost, and there is no one to fuck in order to use their map. I need my own map, but I do not even have a stick to draw in the mud. No skills! No future! No hope! Shut up!
