I am titleless

Sometimes I think titles are the hardest part of blogging......

I am...something...tonight.  I saw Dr. Mind.  We laughed at my medication traveling kit (he has the key to a locked box that any unsafe med lives in.  I am carrying this back and forth as needed with add or retrieve pills.  It is annoying but he says he doesn't care if I'm annoyed.  So we continue, noting my feeling comfortable enough to not be annoyed is positive.

Today was the first day he really has pushed at me much since I got home.  I know that it is good that he feels it's ok to not be extremely gentle but I did not realize until after I left that I am terrified of feeling much of anything.  Because handwriting things was very helpful in the hospital he's been trying to get me to do more of it.  I told him today that I am afraid of that because it brought so much out that doesn't yet feel safe.  So we talked a little about how so much that has happened in the last year feels like a sad ending and we talked about my prediction in 2006 plus the story about being told that 2 years was impressively long to work with my severity/type of bipolar.  So 11 years is more than I should have had, statistically.  And for the first time we talked for a bit about my regrets about some things.  We talked for a minute about my fear of being hospitalized again.  And we went through a few hard, pointed questions, about suicidal thoughts (every time we do this, I am getting more used to it).  This time he pulled out the other question I'm going to grow to HATE:  What am I not telling him?  I truly can't think of anything and he seems ok with that.  But the effect was to make me feel when I let and realized I had be very wrong about something that I might have lied, something I am very aware of right now after the lying that I did.  But what I did was just say what I thought and then realized I was wrong later, which I am allowed to do.  When I told him why I don't want to let myself get upset I initially said that it wasn't that I was scared if I felt sad or upset that I would return to the scary place I was in 3 weeks ago.  But that is exactly it.  I am afraid to face the sadness about the changes in my life because I am afraid of what happens if I do.  This means, of course, that I need to do that with him and that I very much need to feel those things, but I am terrified what could happen.  The last time I took a hard look into what I can and can't do was pretty unpleasant.  I'm terrified to look harder or to try to figure out how I really feel alone, and doing it with him is hard too.  We tried today.  When I cried he moved on shortly after.  Next time I'll tell him I was wrong and I do not feel safe looking at things that hurt.  I need seriously huge amounts of handholding right now.  I know that it is normal enough to be afraid after what I just came through,.  It just is really hard to test my coping skills right now.  I have had some bad times when I needed a lot of help to cope but it's never been quite like this.

I truly hate feeling so fragile.  I see a pale, sad face when I look in the mirror still.  I look like I have been through a lot.  I have been.  I just haven't yet figured out how to process and start living with everything.  I don't know how to trust myself anymore.  I really scared myself because I was one impulsive moment from something really bad happening, as well as one moment of deciding that was it not impulsively.  I keep thinking of what Dr. Mind told me when I had just gotten out of the hospital, that if I choose to hurt myself there is nothing he can do.  He can make it harder but he can't prevent it.  Which just makes me more afraid because it is true and so I do not want to risk feeling like that.  I think I've got a better means to handle it even if being sad is as risky as it feels.  I know that I have made decisions about living versus dying and that it is different now because I have help with that because I got around to asking for it.  Nonetheless, feeling sad or crying or feeling any of the other hard things that go with my new understanding of my situation terrify me.

So we'll be taking a huge step backwards apparently and relearning that being sad doesn't mean being suicidal and that I do have a safe way to manage these things, I just need to use it.

And actually I think the step backwards is already happening.  I am not able to maintain eye contact.  I can't with either doctor.  I haven't shut off feelings for years because I've trusted Dr. Mind to help me handle what felt awkward.  It's been only a few weeks since I went into complete shut-down mode.  It does not help that  it feels like that was a lot longer than a few weeks ago.

Anyway, it is hard.  I am now exhausted because of how hard it was.  And the next one will be hard too because we have to talk about this.