okay, OKAY.

I'm kind of going through one of my please-don't-look-at-me phases.  I'm sorry.  I totally realize I don't owe any explanations.  I am fully aware of the implications of my need to distance myself, once again, from the magically-frustrating blogging realm.  And that I don't have to spell it all out to anyone who might occasionally happen by to note my drivel. 

But, DAMN, if it doesn't feel satisfying to say it anyway.  I mean, I get this deliciously full feeling right at the top of my neck when I'm writing the things that are generally unnecessarily stated.

Why?

(Other than that I'm nuts.  Don't bother with that chestnut - oh!, Lordy, do you see what I did there?  Puns are just the best, aren't they?  Mmmmm.  *wipes eyes, breathes out softly*)

But, really, I have to wonder why?

And, to state for further unnecessary purposes, that I switched therapists.  The first one was turning out to be kind of a douche.  Look.  I know I've kind of self-banned use of terms that imply that the female anatomy, or anything related to it, is good fodder for a swear, and I generally stick to that rule.  But a girl's occasionally entitled to laze out, right?  I like to think of this laziness as being like that of the vegetarian occasionally sneaking out for breakfast at a truck stop in the so-late-it's-early hours, with eggs and bacon and hashbrowns and country gravy slopped heavily across the surface of it all.  (This is a true story.  Not mine.  A girl I knew, lots of years ago.  She'd hushed us to secrecy.  Looks like I blew it.  But I kept it for so long!  I got tired, okay?  Anyway, I always think of that story when veggies get mighty and self-rhapsodic about their steadfast adherence to the religious tenets of the Vegan deity(ies?).  And I snicker.  I'm kind of an asshole.)

So with the douche-y therapist.  After the third session of him sitting blankly on his duff while I tore myself wide open as the ocean in order to aid him in clarifying what medicinal requirements I might have, and at the wrap-up, which was that horrible, grisly, rude interruption during a stream of heavily-bound-up-in-that-gross-series-of-events that I hate, HATE discoursing on, i.e., his saying, "Oh, I'm sorry - our time is up," at which point I burst into tears, despite having held steady throughout the hour-long spiral of words that I hesitate as a general rule to even linger over in my mind, those stories and broken memories that rasp sharply against my spirit like a cheese grater, not one drop of wet left my eyes before he interrupted my forced wanderings in the blackened, burned past, but then I sobbed.  I tried quickly, as I wrote the check with unsteady hand, to explain how much I need him to stop needing more evidence, that this is dire, it's past dire, it's been past dire for weeks, C'MON, see it, dude.  He simply shook his head, as I explained about the fighting in our house, and how much it hurts me to see my kid's face when we go around and around in the grip of our anger, I tried lamely to convince him that -- that he had to DO something, help me, somehow, and his response was the same as before.  That he had to eliminate other potential disorders/disabilities/disses in order to prescribe the correct medication, or risk giving me something that would be incorrect.

I called my HMO on the way home, as I sobbed, my head stuffed full to the brim with phlegm and congestion like a bacterial fiesta, my skull the pinata, it was hard to drive.  I called them and insisted that I needed the mental-health triage number again, because I need a specialist.  Someone who's willing to push up their sleeves and wade into my nasty, phlegm-choked head and diagnose.  And not just keep me spinning my old, dusty 45s replete with scratches so that they can bolster their selfish-ass income.

I felt weird, initially, thinking of him as less than the quintessential therapist, because the whole therapy pyramid rests delicately on one's acceptance of one's therapist as being, well, capable and helpful and willing to aid a crazy person with -- help?  And with the discernment to see when said crazy person needs to, oh, be medicated, or maybe checked in.  Etc.

Now I'm just bummed that I wasted the last month-and-a-half, waiting for the first appointment, then going to them, and wading through all that emotional sewage, but without a resolution.  The sewage that surfaced and now I haven't a clue as to what to do with it all.  And so things actually got worse, not better, and I have to start over with a new therapist, but at least he's an ADHD specialist.  Plus he's actually heard of a blog, and even apparently knows how to refer a girl to literature that might be helpful, and gosh.  I think I may have made the right move.  It's so unlike me, I can't quite tell whether I'm still inhabiting my skin or if the phlegm queen's minions moved me out to make more room for her Squishiness.

So I'm feeling weird and porous and the whole blogging gig has got me over a barrel, again, sigh.  What's new.  I just can't handle the stress of knowing how many visits I owe, and how neglectful that feels, and how few people really give a rat's behind at this point, because I've sung this tune for so long, yet so tunelessly as to really empower people to avoid le Deb.  Bummer.  I like so many people out here, out in this vast space built of a series of tubes.  I miss so many people.  I think of you, so many of you, often throughout my days.  You bolster me whether you're aware or not.  I smile when I think of a story you've told, and I wince when I remember some of the bad stuff you've shared.  I bring my shoulders in real tight when I consider how many bellies are growing full of babies, friends I've made, and their babies, growing beautiful and thunderous and bright, I wish I could do that, maybe.  Maybe again.  Once more.  I don't know.  I can't now, anyway, whether I were ready or not, because of this mess in my head.  I have to straighten it out.

I hope you're all taking care of yourselves and each other while I remain at arm's length, perpetually, in a steady rhythm of perpetual distance, only a little closer sometimes and then even just that much, a hair's breadth, further again, because I want the ocean in my hands and under my toes and in my lungs when it carries me out that final time, I want to love and care but I want more to feel those spaces, those stretches, spans, to know how far I can be, because far is safe, especially in relation to the size and span of my love for you all.  I can see its vastness when I am far, and I like it that way. 

Even if I do miss cheekily commenting around like a cheeky commenting slut that I haven't been for so long.  It's fun to do that.  I bet, once I publish this, I'll even suddenly revolt against my self-distancing, but I'd better shut up if I want it to really happen, lest I jinx it.

Plus I have to watch The Office, or at least 30 Rock, before bed.  Tina Fey is quite possibly the most brilliant person currently in the entertainment industry.  And Jim and Pam.  Ohhh!

G'night.  Sleep tight and all that comforting nonsense.

Comments

[Jenny]

A doctor friend of mine once said that in ever class of graduating docotrs, one had to graduate last in their class. Just because they're a doctor doesn't mean they're any good at it.

I've had to do some switching myself to find the right one but when you do it's like a life raft tossed at you just when you need it most.

I hope your next one is a life raft.

[Nancy]

This is a rough time for you -- although saying that seems banal and condescending. What I mean is, I am sorry you're going through all this.

I really hope that once you find someone to listen and help you work through it all that things will suddenly click into place quickly and painlessly. I know it might take time to completely get through all the baggage and rotten tomatoes, but you're worth the time and effort that you are spending on yourself.

xoxo

[PunditMom]

I know it doesn't really help, but I'm sorry you're going through this with this doctor. I hope you can find someone better for you soon. Hang in there.

[MammaLoves]

Hey I still love you. You take care of yourself. We'll be here when you're ready.

[Major Bedhead]

I hope your new therapist is helpful. That last one sounds like a complete and utter asshole.

Do what you have to do to take care of yourself. Stop worrying about commenting. I certainly don't think less of you (or anyone) who doesn't comment, whatever their reason.

[Andrea]

Therapists are like a good piece of cake (and here I go with more food references, and apparently cake is my favorite one - such a versatile food). Some you like but there's something off about it, be it the frosting is too sugary and rich or the cake part is too dense and feels like a brick in the belly. It tastes okay, but it's not cake like you were hoping, the roll-your-eyes-back-and close-'em, nodding and pointing with your fork at the remainder on your plate as if affirming that you have found the meaning of life. It's cake, and it's good, but there's better cake out there and you know it, cake that will make you realize that those few bites are the reason you got out of bed that morning.

I hope the new therapist is like the best damn cake there is, that he satisfies your craving for help and a hand to hold while you wade through your past, finally purging that which you have held onto for so long.

Thinking of you.

[slouching mom]

xxoo
I'm not going anywhere.

[jaelithe]

I have encountered some bad therapists in my time. Luckily for me I wasn't even a patient of some of them-- I just knew them in other ways. (But there was that court-appointed child psychiatrist I saw when I was sixteen during the dying throes of my parents' twelve-year custody battle, who told me that if I really wanted to be happy and stop worrying about how to pay for college I should just pick one of the rich boys I knew from the fancy private high school I had a scholarship to, and marry him. And yes, this professional medical advice was in fact offered to me during the late twentieth century.)

This guy you have been seeing just sounds mediocre, from what you say, but that's still not good enough. I hope that the next one is.

[Mommy off the Record]

This therapist does sound like a douchebag. Glad you're moving on to someone better. xxoo

[wordgirl]

Even reading Tina Fey's American Express advertisement makes me envious of her. AND I can never get enough Jim and Pam.

[Suebob]

You don't owe nothing but to be your beautiful self.

[katydid]

blogging (and i blog) is about self, i think. it's about you and the therapy of the keyboard. blog away, we'll read. you are bringing light to things that stay in the dark too often.

[Pendullum]

Still here and will be here when you return...

[slackermommy]

Hang in there sweet cookie. I saw several therapists before I found the right one. I also did group therapy during a really black time in my life because it was all I could afford. What a blessing it was. I grew immensely in the company of others who shared my pain in similar and different ways. Maybe you could add a group therapy along with your own?

[Emily]

So, here's the thing. Therapists are like jeans and husbands: you need to find the right one with the right fit for YOU. I am glad you realized this without wasting more time.

[Ruth Dynamite]

Tina Fey is my hero, next to you of course.

[JChevais]

There is so much that should be said of a post as important as this one and yet, all I can think of is "breathtaking". I had goosebumps.

Here's a hug from across the water. I'm not going anywhere so take as much time as you need. However you are going somewhere: forward. It's good.