Closet: Open. Stuff: Everywhere.

My husband thought I let myself off the hook too easily in last week's post.

He thought I got to the heart of the matter and then shifted focus to my daughters and talked about them rather than sticking with it and talking more about what was happening with me in light of this new understanding.

It's true. I totally did that.

Upon rereading the post, I think I sort of glossed over the heart of heart of the matter, too.

The real point in last week's post, I think, was the part where I was repeating to myself, and receiving with extreme prejudice, the mantra "All of your feelings are welcome here."

That isn't true, for me, just yet.

It is true in my environment: my husband, my therapist, my support system. They are all as sound as they come. I trust them completely.

They are not the problem.

Nope, the problem is all within. I don't trust... something. Somewhere. There are parts of my limbic system that have never seen the light of day. The emotional center is still in lockdown.

I said last week that I wasn't "having feelings," I was "just having an emotional reaction."

Does this resonate with anyone else? 

I first experienced this when I was pregnant. I'd go in for an ultrasound, and find myself weeping, but not moved in a specifically happy way, as one might expect. I wasn't allowed access to the whole spectrum of feelings-- way too overwhelming. I just sort of registered the WOW of it, and then got the tears.

And since I wasn't a crier in the first place, and then suddenly found myself crying but not crying happy tears, or tears that I could identify as belonging to any particular emotion at all, I'd get a little freaked out, but I wasn't freaked out by the experience, just sort of irritated and mortified and confused by the tears, which seemed to present as distress to every doctor I saw and subsequently freaked out by my weird crying.

When really, I felt great about the pregnancy; I just couldn't figure out why I was crying.  

Because I wasn't having feelings, I was just having an emotional reaction. 

And it was weird.

It's like... instead of being hit by a wave of emotion, being borne along on top of it. You know it's there, you just sort of glide along on top of it and never dip your toe in.

I'm not often aware of the wave. Only during big, high-emotion times, like the pregnancy.

Or when there are moments, like last week, where maybe I'm dipping my toe in a bit. The moments when the tears come for no reason, like they're trying to take advantage of a weak moment and force their way through. 

Those moments always feel like communication from the other side. Someone is trying to reach me, then. Some other me, in some other place. The me with the healthy limbic system, the me with healthy emotional functions, perhaps.

She's trying to push through, in those moments, and say, Relax, we know how to do this, you can let it happen, you can let it come, and let it come, and let it come... and when it's over, we know how to let it go, too.

And therein lies the problem, I think. That's what I don't trust. That I will be able to let it come, whatever it is, and then that I will be able to let it go.

I've learned through this process that there is so much more to come than I ever imagined.

I've also learned that I am much less willing to let some of it go than I would have thought, even though it is damaging and painful and I've spent years searching for ways to do just that. 

When it comes down to it-- if it comes down to it-- would I? Will I? Can I? Let it flow through me, as it always should have, painfully at first, and then let it ease the pain, and finally, in the end, let it run its course and truly leave me for good?

Who will I be then? What will I do with what's left of all this wasted time?

_____

Went to the doctor this week. Another great doc at this new clinic I've been going to; this one a GP. She renewed my lorazepam prescription and we discussed my current antidepressant, which is doing great work for my migraines but isn't quite cutting it for the depression and not at all for the anxiety.

It's time to add another element. <sigh> Here we go again.

On top of that, I've got monthly hormonal upheavals adding to my mood-- these things are always so much stronger when on meds. Hence today's post, I guess.

Basically, after a relatively good and productive week last week, this week I feel like I'm barely holding it together. Which is a humiliating way to feel.

That closet is definitely open. I need to go back to reminding myself that deep struggles like this are signs of progress. They are, right? They must be.

They'd better be. Because I think I've pulled the knob off the door and there is no way that thing is getting closed again, let alone with all this stuff crammed back inside.

It's just that sometimes I get tired of rearranging all of this junk into new piles, trying to makes sense of it. Some days, it seems like if I configure it just right, I will make a magic staircase that will lead me out of here.

Other days, it just feels like it's all going to cave in and bury me one more time.

Guess which one today is? :/