// letter to the therapist 5/7/02
| 05/08/2002 - 12:26 p.m. |

Hi D.,
So I decided to write you a letter in the hopes that I can let go of all this stuff, at least for the next month or so. It's sure to be a bit jumbled, reflecting the state of my mind, but whatever--here goes...

I guess I'll start with the things that I didn't want to tell you yesterday--

1. The reason I was already in a pissy mood, I think, was because I had thrown up earlier, or tried to anyway. For several nights in a row, I'd been dreaming that I was trying to purge, that I NEEDED to--I don't know why, I just remember I had the sense that it was absolutely CRUCIAL that I be able to vomit, but I COULDN'T. In the dreams I was panicked and stuffing my fist down my throat, and a toothbrush, and anything else I could find and NOTHING would work. So yesterday, late morning, I'm eating what is supposed to be my lunch, 2 whole wheat frozen waffles and fat-free cool whip (I've been obsessed with the stuff lately--sooooo good) when I simultaneously start thinking about those dreams as well as the fact that I really wanted the remaining 2 waffles in my freezer, with more cool whip of course. So I decide I'll have them and then throw up so that I'd see that I could. Except I couldn't. Just like in the dreams, I was stuffing my fist down my throat, a straw, doing the swallow-a-lifesaver-tied-to-dental-floss thing, and got up all of about 1/2 a waffle. And it pissed me off. I didn't really care about the food (and its not like it was all that much anyway), I was just really annoyed again with my body for refusing to cooperate...

2. I've also been cutting in the past week and in fact had sliced my wrist about 10 min before our appt. (Did you not see the bloody tissue I was playing with??) I was particularly agitated one night last week and so I guess actually had the energy to act on the urge when it came. For whatever reason, I wanted to do something a little "creative," some body art you could say. I was thinking of carving out the word "hopeless" on my arm or maybe go really borderline with "help me." But I was actually afraid I'd start and then not feel like finishing and have ended up marking myself a "HO" or "HE" or something. A couple of years ago I had carved an F on my wrist--ya know, for fat, failure, fraud, fuck-up--I had a whole list. But you couldn't even see the scar anymore, and I kind of missed it, so I figured I'd just copycat myself. Then I opened it up again a couple days in row after that, left it alone for a few more, and then let some more blood out of it yesterday...

3. On a pretty much unrelated note, my mom got fired last week. Not really unexpected as I think I'd mentioned, and perhaps better for her in the long run, but still, I just feel bad for her. Plus, if I were to need some financial back-up right now, I'd be screwed...

4. Another reason I was mad and then sad yesterday was because I had had this really strange experience at the end of the session before. I (can't believe I'm saying this) felt sad when I left because--get this--I didn't want to leave! Weird for me, I know. I had also lied when I'd blurted out NO to your question about talking over the weekend. I actually sort of DID want to. But a) well, I obviously wasn't going to admit that! and b)I actually suck even worse over the phone than in person, if you can believe that, and so I was afraid I'd just end up feeling even MORE alone. And then over the weekend, after I had definitely decided to leave early for back east, I even found myself wondering if I might--GULP!--MISS you while I was away!? Yeah, I know, I'm really losing it. Anyways, so then yesterday between my bad mood, which just left me even more uncommunicative, and feeling very clearly your total frustration with me and I would say a good deal of pissiness in your own right (I mean, the condescension, if it were a weapon, could have killed someone)--well it all just felt even shittier than usual...

Well, since I'm in confessional mode, I might as well mention what it was I wanted to talk about/ask a few weeks ago that I never did. After I told you about my necklace from C., I immediately regretted having done so. One, because I felt somehow that I'd given away something too personal, betrayed something sacred or...ugh, I don't really know how to explain this right. But I feel very protective of C. and our relationship. And I'm very aware that certain aspects of it, past and present, could be easily misconstrued and negatively judged--bad boundaries and blah, blah, blah--including the fact that she gave me this necklace. Now there is more to the story than what I told you, but really its irrelevant. The second, and related reason I regretted saying anything about it was the look on your face. Now it was obvious to me that you were trying to suppress some sort of reaction and you did reasonably well--I couldn't tell quite what your expression was--surprise, confusion, horror? I don't know--but there was definitely some kind of wierd look on your face. And I just wanted to know what you REALLY thought about it...

Um, so I think thats everything I wanted/needed to get out. Perhaps I'll think of more later, but right now I'm sitting on the plane with still 1 1/2 hrs till Chicago, jonesin like crazy for a cig, but we took off a 1/2 hr late so I don't even know if I'm going to have time to smoke when we land because I'll probably have to run to catch my connecting flight, so uh yeah, I think thats it...

Later or something,
M.