// (momentary?) truths
| 07/02/2003 - 10:00 p.m. |

D. sent me a brief 'Hello' email:
Hi M.
I just wanted to check-in and say I hope you're doing OK and that you're on my mind. I'll see you Monday.
D.

Which is both a nice gesture and a vaguely annoying one.

Nearly every entry in my old journals right now is about C. And my needs and wants and affection and whether I'm feeling safe and protected and nurtured. Just short of a full year working with her and I was thoroughly obsessed.

I alluded in an early entry from "the scariest day" to something Davis had asked and said prior to all hell breaking loose. She asked if I felt "love" from D. I scoffed, 1/2 laughed, and gave a definite "No." She stated D. "acted" very "lovingly" in regards to me, was very worried and concerned about me. I said while I knew/was sure she felt "concern" for me, I had NO expectation of feeling "love" from her.

Which is true.

But...I don't know.

[[**interestingly, between the 2 chain-smoking sessions in which I scribbled all of this in my paper journal, the 1st/next entry in my old journals I came across was this--

06-15-1998, 11:10pm
The most significant part of the session for me was towards the end when she asked me if I know that she cares about me. I couldn�t honestly say yes. I�m insecure no matter what but I also haven�t gotten the same kind of reassurance from C. that I depended on from J. and Dr. M.. But, to my surprise actually, C. said she was willing to try to prove it to me as long as I really tried to believe it and trust her. That�s one of the most meaningful things C. has ever said to me and it tells me that she does get the essence of what I need, what I�ve been so clumsily trying to tell her.

--and there are tons more like it in a very similar vein, but it seemed particularly coincidental**]]

All of this time, I have maintained that I didn't mind the vast differences in style. I didn't want anything resembling the kind of relationship I had/have with C. So it was FINE with me how distant and formal and nonexpressive and blank D. was. I knew absolutely nothing about her as a person and I didn't care.

I didn't obsess about her, didn't have that damn mother-complex I've had so many countless times and of course most intensely with C.

I've considered all of these things to be plusses.

There was plenty I appreciated about D. And yes, I did care and any contact I had with her did matter. But it was just contact, it felt helpful or it didn't. I didn't spend much time obsessing about it and analyzing every nuance.
Good, right?

But I also haven't gotten the least little bit better, only progressively worse. And there are a zillion reasons to be sure, but I must wonder now if the lack of any real intensity in what attachment I did/do have isn't at least a part of it.

The whole 5150 incident surely pissed me off and felt pretty hurtful. And while I do admit I will vaguely miss her, my intended separation hardly feels heart-wrenching. Granted my capacity to feel any emotion is mostly nonexistent right now, but after a year and a half, isn't it a little bit bizarre that I'm not experiencing it as any more than minorly difficult?

Of course, in the end, recovery from depression or an ED or whatever only really works if its for yourself. But my desperate desire for C.'s love and attention and approval and pride played a huge role in keeping me motivated and working and coming back from lapses when I couldn't at just that moment do it for me.

At times I went through the motions of doing things "for" D., but it never had that same feeling, never got me to any sort of next level, never felt very emotionally significant.

In either direction, happening to "care" is relatively bland and it seems, not nearly sufficient.

It appears that last week was perhaps really just an excuse for me, the opportunity to take action on what I on some level have probably known all along: that this couldn't help, that I can't deal with the distance, et al. just as much as I didn't/don't want to deal with any genuine intimacy.

And so...

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PS--(7/3, 12:23am)--replied to d.'s email with...

D.--
May not seem thoroughly sincere, but seriously, hope your holiday weekend is (maybe was when you read this?) a good one.
--M.

...and copy of above entry...