I have been wanting to write a lot lately.. I almost feel it's too much since nothing really changes. I think because I am not at all honest with people in my life, so this is my refuge. Being honest here makes me feel less bad about lying to others. I hate lying. I am good at it. I am not clear how good because I also think some people in my life are good at pretending there's no problem. I think neither of us can entirely tell what the other knows.
Before I get to the assignment, I'll update on today. I had church this morning, which was good. My birthday was last week and I didn't tell my friends about it.. maybe they remembered.. maybe they noticed it on facebook. I really just didn't feel like celebrating. My schedule makes it hard to see them. I used to go over and help cook dinner once a week and spend some time at their house. Now, there's really very few evenings I can go there. I can't be early enough to help cook, and honestly I am so exhausted some weeks to be around them. I love them. I love my friend and her husband and her son, but people require so much energy. Anyway, we went to lunch today because between their schedule and mine I couldn't go to their house last week.
I tend to tell them things are fine and then change the subject to their lives. Lunch was good. I left to go to my parents' house very aware of how my hands were shaking. Plus, now my eyelid/eyebrow twitches a lot.. probably also the alcohol. I ended up stopping to buy something with alcohol. I bought this "hard lemonade" that is lemonade with alcohol.. not my preferred drink, but liquor stores aren't open Sundays. I debated this before buying it. I debated drinking it after buying it. I drank most of it and poured some out. Then I chewed some ginger candy to get rid of the smell on my breath.
Onto the actual assignment, I was supposed to think about what safety means and what a safe environment is. I am not 100% sure I know what my therapist meant, but basically it had to do with me being in an environment where it's ok for me to be 100% honest about how I'm doing, not to hide how things are, and to exist without my coping mechanisms: alcohol, bulimia, and cutting.
I have not always had friends. I have not always had healthy friends. I had friends in high school tell me they didn't want to hear my problems or that I had no reason to feel depressed. I had friends who used me.. to pass notes between them, I had one I gave my lunch to daily, and I have had plenty want me to support them but not support me. They are not bad people, but I let them mistreat me because I was so desperate to have friends. This meant that it was safer for me not to be honest and to tell them I was fine or happy. They liked me better when I was happy. They liked me better when I was funny.
To me though, the depression was unbearable. It was unpredictable. The medication didn't work most of the time. What did work was cutting. It helped me function with the emotional pain enough to manage school. I cut at home. I cut between classes. I searched my parents house for blades. I took apart the safety kind made for shaving.
College started and I was not in a healthy environment. My friends were temperamental and easily angered, and at this point I actively chose to believe I was fine. Then I wasn't.. I was depressed, and my roommate treated me like shit at times. She'd tell me we would cook dinner together and not come home. She'd disappear for a couple of days (with friends of her family) but not tell me where she was. I mean.. it was her right to have her own life, but it was not right to lie to me or really not ok to just disappear without warning. If I expressed anger, she lashed out and told me I was just holding grudges. That year I started purging.. and cutting. She wouldn't listen if I tried to be honest.
Then grad school started, and I had to be happy and normal to teach. I taught and then at home I drank. Any time I stopped drinking, any little thing would make me cry.. and I was devoted to school, so I'd cry in the bathroom or around certain professors. I couldn't let most people know how sick I was.
So now... I have a few friends left from high school, and they don't mistreat me.. but I don't like telling the truth anyway. I don't like being treated like I'm sick. I have a friend or two from graduate school who don't understand depression or alcoholism. So my life is most comfortable if I lie.
Safety would be having friends and family and an environment where I could be open and honest without being judged. This might be being honest and crying. This might be cancelling plans to stay home. I don't do this though.. my mom was not initially understanding about the alcohol (and in the past about the bulimia). They have been understanding since then at points and at others not acknowledged what was going on unless I said anything. They would notice the tremors or that something was wrong, but they didn't say anything. That left me with the responsibility to tell them everything. My friends.. don't understand. I can tell that watching them.
So I feel I have to hide. Being honest might lead to being judged. Being sober may lead to shaking and sadness, and I might be asked to explain.
To me, safety means letting everything show. This mostly seems safe around doctors and strangers. Even then, I worry about being kept too long in hospital or having to miss work/school for help. This just isn't an option. Even in AA there are people who might hear what's going on and expect me to do whatever they think is right.
I can only be hurt and hopeless at home without being judged or questioned. I can't be sick without my ability to teach be questioned. So my environment isn't safe. Being honest could impact my life. Being honest could affect my future.
Safety is facing the unknown without consequence. And really... I don't know what will happen. I don't know if my depression will get worse. I don't know if I'll have seizures and DTs from alcohol withdrawal. I don't know if someone will notice the shaking or the sadness or whatever. I am not safe. I know so many ways for things to go wrong. Even my friends and family might treat me different because I act different... because I cry and am scared and want to be alone.
I almost wish I was all alone. I wouldn't have to be worried about how others see me. I do not feel safe to just let the unknown happen. Now... to figure out how any of this thinking makes a difference.
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