[Private journal entry written on July 20, 2009]
I have been feeling much better this summer. I’m sure a large part of it is because my work schedule drops to half-time during the summer, so I have had a lot more “free” time. Well, it’s not really free time because summer is when I work on my big projects – projects that are easier to do when I have big blocks of uninterrupted time in which to do them.
The looser schedule has meant I have been able to better cater to my mood swings. I can stop and climb under the covers when I’m triggered. I can get up and write when I have an “ah hah” moment in the middle of the night because I know I can sleep in, in the morning. The more relaxed schedule is an awesome luxury.
I wonder if part of my feeling more stable comes from not having to deal with the drama of being in therapy – as in therapy with a therapist – I am still very much in “therapy”, just not with a therapist. It seems my relationships with therapists are a source of unnecessary drama for me. So, no therapist equals no extraneous drama.
I believe another part of my feeling more positive comes from the fact I am progressing in my emotional healing. I can feel a shift in how I relate to my history and to the world in general. I am healing. I am feeling more confident. I am experiencing a certain consistent level of hope.
True to the trend of feeling better, I went for a hike yesterday morning. It was absolutely glorious.
After arriving home, I changed into sweatpants and t-shirt and sat down at my computer. As I was sitting there, I noticed the ball of my right foot was still a bit tender from the hike – I tend to get “hot feet”, but the burning usually subsides by the time I finish the 45-minute drive back to the house.
So, I checked it out – and my right foot had a quarter-size blister that had formed in between the layer of calluses and the very new skin – and the blister had ruptured. No wonder it was tender! I had been walking on baby skin!
I sat on my bed, cleaned up the wound and put a band-aid on it. Then, I didn’t get up from the bed. Instead, I sank backwards into the pillows and flipped on the TV.
I was starting to feel the tail-tale signs of the arrival of an acute emotional nose-dive.
In the subsequent six hours, I ate two pints of B&J ice cream and drank two classic Cokes. Then, for supper, I ate a big stack of blueberry pancakes – I only had enough syrup for the first pancake, so I sweetened the remaining ones with straight granulated sugar soaked in the last dribbles of the syrup.
In between taking hits of sugar, I spent a good thirty minutes picking at my face – and I masturbated twice to hardcore Internet porn. Now I’m left asking the question . . .
Where the hell did all that come from?
How could I go from feeling so incredibly joyous and free-spirited on my hike in the morning to a raging lunatic in the afternoon? Nothing happened – no troubling news arrived, no sickening shows played on the TV, no one broke my heart, no flashbacks hit me – nothing happened. What triggered me? Surely not discovering a blister on my foot.
The good news is that I did do one productive activity – I washed and dried three loads of laundry in between all the insane activity. But, I didn’t have enough gumption to actually put away the laundry. I was too busy contaminating my body, mind and soul.
I went to bed still craving more sugar, more numbness – with my heart doing summersaults in my chest from carb overload. My head was buzzing with a band of tightness. I made a weak attempt at swearing off sugar . . .
I was having trouble falling asleep because anxiety (and sugar) was keeping every muscle taunt – every noise, every movement in the house kept snapping me awake. So, remembering a post from Faith Allen’s blog about weighted blankets being an effective soothing tool, I laid all of my pillows, including the heavy floor pillows, on top of me, the entire length of my body and on top of my arms.
Much to my surprise, the weight of pillows did the trick. Almost immediately, I felt the anxiety dispel significantly. My body started relaxing. Even the ever-present need to “be held by a some nameless, faceless, kind and gentle man” faded. I felt calm and safe, and sleep finally came. What a precious gift . . . .







