 |
| grief |
Her: I
wouldn’t say this to just anybody, but your brain is ramming into itself above
your head right now.
Me:
I’m sorry.
Her: Do you
always apologize for being upset? I AM a
shrink, after all..
Me: I don’t
know (sobbing). I have no fucking idea what I always do or don’t do or
anything. I don’t know if I ought to be
upset or not or anything.
Her: Is there
an OUGHT to being upset? I missed that
memo. You clearly ARE upset.
Me: I don’t know if it’s reasonable though, or
when it is or not, or anything. I don’t
know what is happening to my mind. I’m
afraid of EVERYTHING. All the time. When I’m not fucking the actual life out of
him, then I calm down. Which, is that crazy??, I can’t
tell that either, like maybe that is wrong with me too, because from where I’m
standing I can understand how a person might want their skin fucked off to let
whatever pain it is out or whatever…
Her: Short
of permanent damage, no, fucking is fine as a coping mechanism in strained
relationships, I wish my partner had more of that impulse (hahahahahaha), Aaron
is a lucky man.
Me: (hahahhhaahhaa/sob),
I really don’t understand what is wrong with me.
Her: I’m not
sure I understand what you even mean, there is nothing WRONG with you that I’m
aware of, you’re hurt, that’s not a flaw.
Me:
Her:
Me: Have you
ever been cheating on?
Her: My husband is an alcoholic, and he cheated on
me with the bottle…I’m not sure if he actually cheated on me during that time,
nobody has ever asked me that before. I
think if he cheated on me, I wouldn’t take it personally, I’d think of that as
a breakdown of his.
Me: That’s exactly what I used to say.
Her: Is that
true?
Me: Yes, I
actually have never even been jealous before, I never really understood that emotion. And now that I have it, I still don’t get
it. In fact, I’m not even sure that is
what I feel. All I know is, I’m in a
panic all the time, every minute of every day I am trying to quell it, and I’m
wearing out. I don’t sleep for days, I
often can’t breathe, I try to sleep sitting up when I wake up in the middle of the night because it feels like I’m going
to drown in feeling and I don’t know what the feelings are. I’m LOSING IT.
Her: You need to get back to yourself. Your authentic self.
Me: WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? If you think I’m going to do yoga or read
some shit about my soul some more, you can forget it, I tried that, and it only
makes me more frantic as it fails.
Her: I
really think it doesn’t matter, that you need to concentrate on getting back to
your own sense of grounded in yourself, but just for argument’s sake, what is
it that he’s doing that upsets you?
Me: (insert
100 item list diatribe of worry here)
(sob)
Her: Okay, two of those things were completely
reasonable to be upset about. The rest…
Me: I
KNOW. I mean, I have had relationship
failures before, but I saw them coming, there was addiction issues or I wasn’t
a lesbian or he was a relentless asshole or something kind of whatever, ya know, a visible
thing coming in it, I could brace myself a little. My brain
just does not know what the hell to do now, from one minute to the next. Like yesterday
his phone died, and I thought he’d left again, and I just happened
to be standing in front of over 100 people as that went down in my mind, and I
just watched my mind stop working. I was
very actually beside myself, and frightened of the level of frightened I was,
and I really thought I might lose it right there. Even though I know I would never do
that. But maybe I would.
Her: That list you just slid by me of all the
other failures, first of all you realize they were not failures, they were
losses – right?
Me:
Her:
Her: What do
you like about yourself? What’s your
favorite quality in yourself?
Me: Wtf?
Her: You’re
going to have to spend a little time with yourself in your own mind somehow, so
let’s find something you want to be with there.
Me: I will
ask you something and you answer me honestly, promise?
Her: Okay.
Me: If you
were in trouble, and my number was the only one in your pocket, as little time
as we’ve known each other, would you bet on me?
Her: Wow.
Yes, I would. Absolutely.
Me: (sob)
Her: That’s
a good quality, you are loyal and dependable…
Me: That’s
what I might have said once, but now I look at those same qualities and think:
gullible or deluded or even arrogant.
Her: I see.
Me: I hope
so, because I don’t.
Her: Your
sense of your own worth has been deeply shaken and you have a couple good
reasons to be insecure right now…
Me: I don’t
even know that much. I look at myself, and I do not know what I’m looking
at. How can I judge it if I don’t know
what I am seeing?
Her: Well
stop judging it for one thing, but here’s what you’re going to do…you ready?
Me: Hit me.
Her: The
couple reasonable things to worry about, give them to Aaron to worry about, and
you stop. Stop reading about
relationships. Let him
worry about that.
Me:
(sob) I don’t know…
Her: You
trust me?
Me: Yeah, I do.
Her: Then
trust that Aaron will worry about what you give him to worry about. You, you read about grief. Deal with grieving. That’s all. There are stages in grief, there are things
your mind does with grief – you need to ACCEPT GRIEF.
Me: I don’t know
how.
Her:
Clearly.
