Detaching From My Brain

I had taiji today.  Wait, let me back up a second.  In my last therapy session, I talked with my therapist about not wanting to let the flashbacks distract me.   I have no desire to have any kind of real relationship with my father, so there is no reason to dwell on the flashbacks.  I am not saying I shouldn’t let them out; I just don’t want to lose focus on what I really need to do.

My therapist has repeatedly reminded me that I am not my thoughts, that I am more than just my intellect.  I have a hard time grasping that because for so long, I have based much of my persona on my brain.  It’s the one thing I know:  I am smart.   No matter what I hate about myself at any given time (I’m fat, lazy, neurotic, cynical, paranoid, OCD, enmeshed, thin-skinned, grumpy, negative, pessimistic, etc.), I have always been proud of my intelligence.

However, I am not my intelligence.  It is not me.  I can’t think my way out of my problems, though I can certainly put thought into how I am going to change my attitude and behaviors.   This is really difficult for me because I want to be able to batter my way through my shit with the force of my brain power.

It doesn’t fucking work that way.  In addition, I tend to get caught up in thinking about things so much, that becomes a distraction in and of itself.

Another thing.  My sleep has been off-the-charts horrible this week–which doesn’t help in the thinking department.  My brain is slow, thick, and sluggish because of my fucked-up sleep.  Earlier in the week, I almost got into an accident, and it was completely my fault.  Then, today, as I was pulling out of my driveway, I did not see a car that was driving down the street–though I looked both ways before I pulled out.  Fortunately, the driver of the other car saw me.

Back to taiji.  I have not being doing meditation for awhile because of the flashbacks.  However, I would intermittently have them during the time we did meditation, and I finally decided that I couldn’t avoid the flashbacks any longer.

Have you ever been in a place where you simply cannot do the same old thing you’ve always done?  Even though you have no idea how you’re going to go forward, there is no option of going back.  That’s how I feel right now.  And, because I have difficulty with change, it’s scaring the shit out of me.

Back to taiji.  So, I decided I had to do the meditation.  I trust Julie, and I would feel better experiencing the flashbacks under her watchful eye than if I just had them at home.  She taught me a new kind of meditation–one that distances oneself from one thoughts.  When the thought (or in my case, image) comes into my mind, I have to look at it straight in the, er, face, and say, “You are not me.”  Then, I let it go.

So.  We reach meditation.  I took a few breaths before we started.  Later, Julie told me that she had surrounded me with a white light during meditation–she’s got my back.   We started.  The images immediately flooded my mind.  To be more precise, the image.  The image of me as a little girl, pressed against the wall by my father, his hand on my neck.  He is saying, “You don’t ever say no to me.”  Over and over again, this image.

In my mind, the adult me (in my late twenties), all dressed in black (of course), is standing in the middle of the screen (and yes, my mind is often a screen) and moving the image out of my mind with her hands as I think, “You are not me” or “You are not a part of me”.

After a few minutes, a new image emerges.  It is of me on my bed with my father kneeling on top of me, his knees on either side of mine.  He is looking down at me.  During this image, the seven-year old me sits up in the bed and shouts at my father, “You are not a part of me!”

Then, meditation is over.  I have forgotten to breathe.  I have tears in my eyes, and I am shattered.   No matter how hard I tried to let the images go, they stayed with me.

See, my demons are especially insidious this week as well.   They are telling me that no one will ever be able to tolerate me in a relationship, let alone love me–see above negative qualities as reasons why.  I mean, I hate being with me all the fucking time, so why would anyone else?  My two most serious relationships ended because the other person found me tiring.  And, I can’t really blame them as I find me fucking tiring.   As I have said, I would never be in a relationship with me, so why should anyone else?

I find my training runs deep.  A rather unfortunately-stubborn part of me clings to the belief that I am nothing but what I was made to be–a sex doll and a whore.  And, admittedly, I’m damn good at it.  It’s another reason I’ve often thought of working  in the sex industry.

Because of my history, it’s not always easy to tell when I’m being sex-positive and when I’m just doing what my training tells me to do.  Again, there are extremes on each side that are easy for me to distinguish from the other.  However, there is a whole gray area in between that I am not quite so sure I can tell apart.

Forgive me.  My brain is scrambled, and my thoughts are not completely coherent.  I know that I am not making the best of sense in this entry, but I needed to get it down on (virtual) paper, anyway.

I feel burdened by all the things I need to do.  I am overwhelmed by all the things I need to change about myself.  I am panicked that I will be stuck in this damn rut forever.  I can’t go back, but I am so fucking terrified of moving forward.

I know some of the things I need to do, but I can’t kick my ass enough in order to do them.  I spend way too much of my time trying to force myself to do something, anything, rather than actually doing anything.

I got an email from my mother today.  I thought it was from Kel, so I opened it without thinking.  My mom had included pictures from a trip she and my father took, so there were pics of my father.  This was before taiji class.  A flood of emotions crashed through me as I saw the attachments.  I didn’t even open the pics, but immediately closed the email.

They don’t even feel like my family right now.  That’s awful for me to say, but it’s what I feel.  I read her words, and I wonder, “Who is this woman?”  I see the thumbnails of my father, and a surge of anger courses through me before I can tamp it down.  This is not my family, is it?  I talked to my brother yesterday, and he seems like the only one in my family who is actually related to me.   We have a shared history that is unique to the two of us.  One day, I need to sit down and ask him what he remembers from our childhood–but not yet.  Quite frankly, I don’t want to deal with it right now.

I am grieving.  The loss of the illusions of my family is hitting me hard.  I don’t know why, exactly.  My therapist probed this matter because it’s not as if I haven’t known this for a long time.  I’ve known that I can never live up to my mother’s expectations of me.  I know that I am a freak in my family and that they will never ever understand me–nor really want to understand me.  So why is it especially hard now?  Because the knowing has transmuted into a bodily feeling.  It’s no longer a head thing–it’s a heart thing, too.  I can no longer try to talk my way into believing that my mother and I will have the ideal relationship that I always wanted us to have.

I am not dealing well with this transition.  I have been self-harming in the last week.  I am trying to wean myself off of it, but I have to admit that I have given in more often than not.  Then, I feel soothed for a minute or two before the guilt sets in.

My defenses are all out of whack.  In the long run, this is a good thing.  In the short run, it sucks.

I am so fucking weary.  Emotionally, as well as physically.  And, yes, I know that I should be on a regular schedule and go do a sleep study and other stuff.  I really do.  I will try my damnedest to do so.