Today, i had my therapy appointment. With a therapist who isn't my study therapist as he is on vacation but the study I am in requires that i go every 14 days or less...and today was day 13. And i needed more medication anyways, plus the hospital (did i mention i go to therapy at the neuropsyciatry unit at a toronto hospital. Me - who is afraid of being hospitalized and never relased for my mental problems, goes into a hospital psych ward at a major toronto hospital for therapy. And speaks honestly about my anxiety and depression. If this isnt a huge change for me, i dont know what it. And every 2 weeks they let me go again. They let me go home. Because they believe me when i say i am not a harm to myself, and because it is true. And because me, the drs, and the people in my life both near and far can all see that slowly, day by day, i am changing and things are for once getting better. We are going to come back to this later as this is the longest aside ever!)
The therapy always involves going through a depression scale questionaire - to check that the meds are working, for study purposes, and because a side effect of SSRI's is while they are kicking in they can make you extremely suicidial. Luckily i have not had this side effect, in fact the only side effect i have had (which is a minor headache) has been mitigated by the sheer doses of medication i am on (tis hard to have a headache from vascular constriction when on a total of 10 doses of medication designed to cause vascular dilation among other things.
One of the questions in the questionaire has to do with eating sugar and carbs. I LOVE sugar and carbs - anything wheat based i like. bread, pasta, pastry, cakes, you name it i love it. And my usual dr asks me if i eat too much of them stuff, to which, every time i have to answer yes. Yes, i eat too much because this is the majority of my diet, and some days, this is all i eat. I skip eating meat (which i dont really like, because of the texture) and fruits/veg (lack of availability in a cash strapped, living below the poverty line household) and eat just carbs and sugar.
But this new therapist asked the question differently. Not did i eat it but did i crave of need it? And i had to think hard. I remember sitting on the couch at times, even semi-recently, with chipos and cake/ice cream/chocolate. Stuffing my face, alternately sweet and salty. And needing it. I remember spending years thinking something was wrong with me because not only was i incapable of feeling "full" or "hungry" but i could eat an endless amount, and still not feel as if i had eaten anything until i had had a piece of chocolate or cake or something with sugar.
But recently? No - i mean my appetite is decreased, yes, which isnt a bad thing, as i am maintaining my weight loss. But I also dont have nearly the cravings i used to have. I dont "need" the sugar. But i eat it every day, twice a day, anyways. And i realized i was doing this out of habit - i was so used to needing a sweet at certain times of the day that i got into the habit of eating it. And, until today i never noticed that that "need" was gone. And i wonder, if that need is gone, than why dont i jsut skip it. But, out of habit, at certain times, i automatically reach for the cookies, for the candies, for the junk because the habit is so ingrained in me. It makes me wonder what other habits i have gotten into that i could give up, and just havent recognized it.
How many things do i do as a habit and how many of those are negative. Could i give those up, why did i develop them?
I remember starting into disordered eating. I remember flirting with anorexia at times - living off an apple and a diet coke a day. Living off 1/2 of rice cereal at times. Wondering how many meals i can skip and what it would do to me. I remember going through these things - where the only reason i ate the apple was because my girlfriend at the time gave it to me and the gesture behind that meant more to me than not eating. I remember, that for as long as i have known, food was love for me. I remember hiding junk food in my room, in all kinds of places, because it made me feel safe to have that under my bed, in my "secret" drawer, and in my desk. It made me feel ok to know that, when food was abuse for me (for a while, my access to food was strictly controlled, and when one of my abusers - my mother - was in a bad mood, meals could be "cancelled" for days. Not only was she not cooking, but also we were not allowed to eat either. I remember when, because she was upset that i was getting a life outside the house, all i was allowed to eat was one microwave tv dinner a day. I remember being handed $20 a week and knowing that had to covere everything i needed for the week - food, personal supplies, field trips, school things, everything. It never covered everything, even if i only needed food for the week. The average person eats about $50 worth of food in a week. I had $20 so i learned not to eat. I remember after, when her medications were "better" adjusted, and the restrictions became bizarre - not ebing allowed to eat anyhting more "green" than iceburg lettuce, being force fed butter when she thought i would die without it, being made to eat wheat right after i was told it could possibly kill me. I remember these things.)
For the longest time, without out going into the the kitchen, i could tell you at any given moment how much of any particular "treat" - ice cream, cookies, chips, etc - we had in the house, and where it was. I kept track of these things because it made me feel safe - when access to food was controlled, access to junk and other crap food was not only free, but encouraged. So i knew what i needed to, in order to survive.
But right now, I dont know and i am a happier for not caring. Sometimes i even forget that there is cake in the freezer or chocolate in the cupboard because right now, i feel safe enough to forget. To know that if i need something, i can get access to it and that is a good feeling for me.
When i saw the therapist today, she asked how i thought i was doing, depression wise, and i would like to think things are getting better for me. I feel hopeful and i am making plans for the future. Plans to go out and get what i want and even if i feel as is i might not be good enough, I am going to try anyways because, maybe, jsut maybe, i can succeed. But it is never going to happen if i dont try and i am finding that i am willing to try.
I look back at the things i have been through, am going through and the mental spaces i have experienced and where i stand not. I look back at what i think of as being depression and i look back and what i think of as being "remission" from a depression that stretches so far back i clearly remember my first suicide attempt. I was in first grade. I was not yet 7 years old and i was already trying to kill myself over the things i had been through and the experiences i would still rather forget.
I look back at the times when i was less depressed, for truely, there isnt many times that i remember a happiness that was at least tainted by depression in one way or another or a freedon that wasnt shadowed by anxiety. I look at those times and, specifially i look back to the last remission i had (the one that has lasted the longest and was a time of change for me, until, that too failed and i found myself back in the pit that is depression and the rut that is the way that i have always lived my life). And i see an unfortunate influance in it that i wonder why i didnt recognize at the time. I look back at time when i was so happy, i remember at one point crying, just a bit, from how wonderful things were. I look back at a time when i remember sitting, in a room that because familiar to me, and talking about the future and hope and how things were good. I had these conversations and now i look back at them and i wonder because shortly after that i made decisions that, in the end, i think influenced my fall back into depression, and anxiety. I look at when these feelings started to go away and the decisions i made that came right before then and i dont wonder. I am not saying anyone or anything is responsible for me other than myself but i am saying, while hindsight in 20/20, some of the influences in my life that i thought were good at the time were not.
I wanted to say something - to someone that i have hurt. I am sorry for the way i treated you. To the person who was there with me the LAST time in my life that i thought about suicide, to the person who was there with me while i climbed out of that pit and made the decision not only to live, but to stop self injuring and to start on the long journey that has led to me being alive today, I wanted to say, I am sorry, and even more so - thank you. Thank you for being there to talk to me on the nights when i "wanted to do something stupid". Thank you for understand the dark and sometimes difficult world that i was living in. Thank you for being strong enough to kick my ass when i needed it, even when i made it hard for you. Thank you for believe in me, when we we both teens, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for starting me on the path that has led to today. In some ways, the day you went with me to buy Kali, and new things for my room, you saved my life and helped me to recommit to the idea that i was going to live and that i was, finally, going to give up trying to die. Thank you. Thank you. and, with the biggest hug i can offer, thank you.
Now, onto orgasms, as if this blog hasn`t suddenly, without reason, gotten graphic and intimate enough for one evening.
Oragasms.
Things that can make us cum.
I had a weird dream last night - about someone i had previously been sexually involved with, among other things. In the dream, all i wanted from this person was an orgasm. I didn`t want to have to look at them, talk to them, or even admit we were in teh same room. It stand to reason, given where i am right now in terms of things but it was an odd way of looking back for me - a way of being honest about my past. A way of being honest with what i stuck around for and why.
I enjoy masturbation, and those who know me well enough, know that it is a regular part of my life, and that i think it is healthy and good for you. When i was afraid for people to see me naked - when i insisted on having sex with my partner of the time while i remained half clothed (thank you for putting up with that, i wasnt capable of anything else at the time, and thank you, for putting up with me while i got to a point where i could show you). When i was in this place, in some way, being with myself helped me - it helped me to be naked, to touch what parts of my body i could, because it helped me to connect to the fact that, yes, i had a body and as damaged and as horribly scarred as it was and still is, that was ok. That i could still be interesting, sexually, and worth someones time, despite not being whole.
In all of this, i have learned about myself, and what i enjoy. And what i dont. And sometimes, i am afraid of what i enjoy and i am afraid to admit that i enjoy it or afraid of admitting that i enjoy it. And, because of a history of sexual abuse in my past, being afraid of me and my sexuality is hard for me. Sometimes, i struggle to have a sexuality, i fight so hard to have one and own one and keep one, and so to have that conflicting emotion is a struggle for me.
I had an orgasm today - i am relearning, in a way, some of the parts of masturbation i had forgotten about when i allowed it to become `rote`or routine, like fantasy. I had an orgasm today, and it was intense and amazing and that was good. But, because of what happened in it, i was also ashamed and i was also afraid. I am worried about going back to my bed now, becuase that is where it happened and i am afraid there might be evidence of it and i am afraid someone will see it and either freak out or judge me.
I had an orgasm today and part of me is absolutely thrilled with the experience, and part of me is ashamed of it and that is weird for me.
In sex, we are all interested in different things and while i am ok with that, alot of people aren`t. And that is where i have problems talking about things because, i am afraid of the people who might not be ok with me.
I have interested in some things, sexually, since i remember my first erotic dream while i was still in kindergarden. I have had some experiences in teh area, some good, some bad, and all with some level of anxiety because there is possibly always going to be that fear for me.
How to do it, to be ok with having interests, to not be afraid, to forget the bad? How to get past this hang up that lives in my head to be ok with me.
Part of my journey is in being ok with me, as a whole, not just sexually.
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