In the end, however, I know I am already equipped with the tools to help myself. This afternoon I took a nap and slept fitfully. I dreamt that I was at home and becoming angry with my mother for no reason. I snapped at her while trying to explain that exercise, for me, was not mere fun but a necessity to keep my mental health in check.
Not fun, NOT fun, NOT, FUN, I repeated angrily.
My sister was in the room and asked, "Is it really not fun, or is this part of how you never want to be happy for the rest of your life?"
You can see how her question is simultaneously a non-sequitur but also an instant provocation for me to consider how I really want to conduct my own life.
I woke up, confused, head aching, wondering where Brandon had gone and why he had just left me alone. I started to become angry and think about my dream, falling into a despair upon the realization that my angry feelings were once again inappropriate and disproportionate reactions. I went to downstairs to get a drink and take a naproxen for my headache. I intended to come home and write in my blog to calm down. When I finally sat down on the bed again, half full of fumes and half full of self-loathing, I saw that he had written me a note explaining his absence. My anger dissipated like the crashing of water against a concrete sidewalk, a violent and grand emotion reduced, in the end, to a drab wet sidewalk.
In psychotherapeutic terms, I did the following (not totally effectively, of course):
1) Mindfulness: an attempt to describe my own emotions to myself in a non-judgmental and fair manner, taking a step back from the feelings themselves. I became judgmental quite quickly when I felt full of self-loathing, but that is a reaction I have a hard time quenching. I'm working on it.
2) In DBT terms, "taking a vacation." I took a short walk downstairs to do something else rather than focusing and intensifying my anger.
3) Writing therapy. My next step, which I am conducting now.
4) Cognitive restructuring. While I walked to the bathroom, I tried to re-word my anger, even if it was provoked by a mere dream. Of course exercise is fun sometimes. Why else would anyone do it voluntarily? It's not therapy for everyone.
And now I am significantly calmer, if not still disturbed by the ability of anger to seep through the cracks of my subconscious into my dreams. Yet I need to accept myself as a human who makes mistakes and has legitimate feelings. This has always been hard for me, but it is not impossible. I am who I am.
For that matter, who is that? Is she nice? I'm still not sure, I don't know how nice I want her to be. I never want her to be walked all over like a doormat. But when was the last time this really happened because she was too nice? Surely my sexual assault had nothing to do with my niceness--it was, partly, an accident of timing and the blame lies more with K than with me. Entirely with K, I'd probably have to say, though I feel reluctant to say it.
The assault has stirred up an extreme defensiveness in me that I have never known. I feel the need to be more assertive than I have never been--and why? Because I partly feel that when people are intimidated by me, I become more protected from another assault. But I know that can't be true either, that all sorts of women are assaulted. Although, as I learned a couple entries ago, some prior experiences (such as sexual harrassment or verbal abuse, in my case) may predispose others to a more intense traumatization than others. That those who experience a great deal of stress in early life are more prone to reactions that align with mental illness, than with milder forms of cognitive and psychological disturbance. (Early stress is not extreme, but certainly present, in my case). But how do I reiterate this complex truth to myself every time I feel the need to defend the content and character of my very person?
I can't. I just need to make it seem as silly as it is. Who cares if some man thinks I cannot lift a 35 pound rock by myself. Who cares if a passing stranger calls me a cutie and a sweetheart if the compliment I really want to receive is about my competence and strength. Who cares if a relative scorns me because I am not girlish enough. (Do I interpret this as a compliment or an insult?) The real truth comes through when I look at it. I am clearly a woman, but not a traditional one on every account. I simply want people to accept me for who I am, and not to harm me because of it.) This degree of anxiety about my own demeanor is silly. I am...who I am.
And in this weird transitional period of my life, I have no idea who I am. But I need to hang on and remember that it will come to me, if in fits and spurts and unexpected ways. I will get there.
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