Head shrinkery

As you are all aware I have been talking to a shrink to manage some of the crap that has been going on in my head. The contents of my brain is dark and twisted at the best of times, but when it gets stuck in a loop there is no other option than to get that external assessment. Your friends can sympathise, but aren’t always qualified to help you plan your next move (though they may be more than willing to assist you in the disposal of a body).

In this respect having these appointments has been very helpful. Sometimes it’s not what's in front of you that is really the issue, or at least not completely. Sometimes it’s just the trigger. The trigger in this case was Ms L, and the implosion of our friendship. While the feelings of hurt (and my ongoing trust issues) are in no way insignificant, it is not the central issue. It boils down to two things: loss and grief. In part for Ms L, but mostly for my Pop.

My Pop died two years ago last January. He had been an alcoholic for much of his life, but had been sober for nearly 5 years. It was when he had stopped drinking that they found the cancer in his liver. I won’t go into his final stages in great detail, just the two important points: he died in my arms, and my family were at each other’s throats by the end of the funeral.

With everything going pear-shaped I didn’t really get an opportunity to grieve. It is one of my many (many) in-built flaws: when things go to shit I put my feelings aside and get on with what needs doing. Part of my problem is that I have been doing that for a very long time. As a short term solution it has its benefits. As a long term solution it’s about as helpful as serving bacon sandwiches at Middle East peace talks. Mmmmmmmmm bacon.

So while I was left feeling hurt and grieving the loss of my friendship with Ms L (who was the first person I really connected with since my Pop died), I was hit with the original grief that I hadn’t processed. The severity of my funk now makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Ms L is the only person who will ever know why she reacted the way she did (and as much as not knowing bugs me, it is something I will have to live with). I still miss my friend, but now I can at least understand my own reaction. Not bad for three sessions.

I may be sane by easter ;)

 

life get in the way

I’ve been neglecting my blog the last few days (bad Hawm) so I’m making a proper effort tonight/this morning. There is all sorts of stuff going on, of varying levels of importance. So this is, in no particular order, what’s been going on:

• Caught up with my library girls last Wednesday. Always fun, even if the crowd wasn’t quite what we expected. Will go again next month and see if more people front. We made the most of it, and had our own little catch up.

• Work, which is the one constant in most of our lives. The introduction of VOIP by council has been one long fuck up, though my boss was on fire Monday morning. The council IT guys were all hiding under their desks. Some branches still don't have any phones, which means the extra traffic is being forwards through to the branches with working phones. 30 phone calls in an hour. It's like being back in a call centre. Oh to win Powerball and shake of the financial chains. I could really do without the job hunting. It really is depressing.

• Uni. I should spend this Friday on homework and stuffs, especially as I skipped the lecture to catch a movie at the film festival.

• MQFF. All the film you can watch in a 10 day period, provided you have the time and the cash. Miss R and I have been to three sessions so far, and have two more to go. I really enjoy the diversity of films they show, both fiction and non-fiction.

• Old book play-date. Miss A joined Miss R and myself on Saturday for some book loving. It was a close thing, with Miss R coming away not with the pirate book (which had been the original goal) but instead a signed first edition of Texts & Pretexts by Aldous Huxley. I was talked out of the very old leather bound dictionary by Miss R (mostly because it was $250). I may yet go back for it, though apparently I need to invest in a special display case for my growing collection of old books (mostly dictionaries and some poetry).

• I had an interesting chat with a patron about the new series of Dr Who. He was telling me about a guy he follows on twitter, and how some “feminist nazi” was ranting about the series being sexist (it was supposed to be for Red Nose day or something). * So I watched the clip on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51JtuEa_OPc and followed the link the patron gave me to http://twitter.com/#!/TheUrbaneMan to see what all the fuss was about. You can imagine my surprise when I scrolled down and found that Ms L was involved. Truly my world is too small sometimes.

• I had a call from Wendy (little old lady who likes to call and ask about obscure 1960s Australian models). It was a short phone call, under 20mins, but I still couldn’t get her to come into the library. She said she was going off to the state library as they had better resources. I’d be amazed if she’s actually gone into the city. Some of the other librarians and I have a theory that she doesn’t even belong to our library, she just calls each branch asking the same question until she get an answer she likes. She’s harmless, unless you are flat out and she refuses to take no for an answer.

• My little sister wants the whole family home for her 16^th birthday. She seems to have completely missed the fact that my Dad and stepmother don’t want anything to do with my brother and I. Not going to happen. Not a chance in hell. Ah, to be 15 and still think the world revolves around you. Hopefully reality will set in before July.

That’s pretty much it. Not really a terribly exciting update, but it is an update. And now bedtime. At least I can sleep in tomorrow. Love the afternoon shift.

*Now I have known some very nice feminists (and some rather freaky ones, but that’s another story). I have never understood what prevents a man as identifying as a feminist, though I suspect it comes from the (inaccurate) perception that all feminist hate men. If you ever want to chat about feminist theory I’m up for it. The three and a half years I spent studying gender/queer theory at uni have to be good for something  :)

electric dreams

There are times that I’m glad I don’t talk in my sleep, and that most days I wake up alone. This morning was one of those times. My memory is not brilliant, but I can’t remember a single night in the last 95 days that I haven’t that dreamt of Ms L. Sometimes she yells at me. Sometimes we talk. The most upsetting are the ones where we have managed to move past everything, where we are just hanging out like the friends we used to be. Those are the dreams that leave me crushed, and make it hard to get out of bed.

Stupid brain.

You can't unring a bell

Once something is said it can’t be unsaid. This is something we are all aware of. Sometimes it is truer than others, or rather it applies to larger portions of some people’s lives. We all have secrets. Little things, like forgetting to check the pockets of the clothes going into the washing machine (unless there’s a tissue in there, then it’s a big deal). Medium ones, like putting a scratch in your brother’s brand new car (which was completely deliberate, but you can’t remember now why you were that angry at the time). And the big ones, like being abused as a child, or being a recovering drug addict. There are some even bigger than that (which I won’t go in to), but you get the general idea.

How you feel about people dictates how much you tell them. It is worth pointing out that just because you feel like you can tell someone something doesn’t actually mean you would or should tell them. Once it is out there then there is no going back. Sometimes it is just too much of a risk. Sometimes the other people involved don’t want to hear it. Sometimes, no matter how hard we might try, things go totally pear shaped.

An ex of mine was big on the idea of save points. Think a conversation is going to end badly? Really not happy with your day? Opened yourself up, only to be stabbed in the chest? Go back to your save point and do things differently this time. There are a few times I’d really love a save point:

• The day I signed up for the army (seemed like a good idea at the time, but my body has never really recovered)

• Selling all my stuff to move to London (wouldn’t have been so bad if the girl I was moving for hadn’t known she was going to break up with me weeks before I got on the plane)

•  Falling in love with someone who couldn’t/wouldn’t love me for who I am (which I am embarrassed to admit has happened more than once)

• Trusting people with information that could have a seriously negative impact on my life (something else I have done more than once. I’m beginning to think I’m a lousy judge of character)

Everyone has something that they regret, and while these are examples of times when I would have very much liked to have had a save point, I don’t actually regret them. There are always things that we wish we could do differently, or change the outcome of. But  (for me) to actually regret something, is to not have learnt anything from the situation.

What I have learnt most recently is that I have awesome friends. We are all as fucked up as each other, but that’s ok. In fact, it is a blessing. In a world where we have to spend so much time being “normal” it is a relief to have people who don’t need the act. People who accept you for who you are. They could just be keeping me around for my baking and book finding skills, but I don’t think it’s very likely. Though for a minute there I thought Miss A was going to cry when I gave her that copy of the Iliad ...

small dilemma

Most of you know that I have a very good relationship with the girls at the blood bank. We swap dvds/books/comics, and recommend authors or series to each other. I should point out that they also have a similar relationship with other donors (don’t want anyone to think I’m getting preferential treatment).

Yesterday, one of the girls handed me a disc. Not unusual, except that this had 632 eBooks on it. I am in book geek heaven. True, I did have to download Adobe Digital Editions before I could open any of them, but still awesome. Some of the titles I do already have, so thankfully my collection hasn’t just passed 1400 (if I ever get all my books back from my ex in-laws then it will certainly be close). There are some I will not be putting on my hard drive (I’m looking at you Stephenie Meyer/Jodie Picoult/Nicholas Sparks). I should also mention that if I find a book that I really enjoy, there is every chance I will buy a hard copy (just as I would if I fell in love with a library book). 

The only problem is that most of these books come without an ISBN. No publishing details, nothing except title and author. So, I’m not really sure how I’m going to get them all into library thing. I will probably have to search for each title separately, not something I am in a hurry to do. Perhaps in the uni break. So many books, so little time. 

It really is a hard life sometimes ;)

Shrink wrap part 3

Well, I survived. In fact I feel fairly good. Was a little touch and go for a moment, but mostly I’m good. My Doc’s do look after me, though I’m apparently getting a little too cuddly. Of course the first thing I did when I got home was to look up a recipe for rosewater ice cream. Not that we have an ice cream maker, but I’ll probably give it a go anyway.

Other than that I’m making sure I spend time on my uni stuff, and looking forward to next week. Play date with the library girls on Wednesday, and off to MQFF with Miss R on Sun/Mon/Sat/Sun. Busy busy busy. But still, lots of fun.

One more thing: http://smurfhappens.com/

shrink wrap part 2

Right, 11/3 is the day. Doc called with appointment time, and to organise for me to see my GP first. He wants to make sure I've got a mental health plan, so the government will pay for everything. So Tek first, then Ashley. Going to be rather busy next Friday.

Stupid brain, your days are numbered.

shrink wrap

Ok, so the last post was about not sharing. More specifically, about not discussing Ms L with Miss R. Of course, given how much Miss R and I do actually talk about stuff, I explained my reason behind this. Not a short discussion. Not as traumatic as it could have been, but still no walk in the park.

By the end Miss R was strongly advocating that I go and talk to someone about this stuff. Someone professional. Now as anyone who has had to prove their sanity (and I have the little pieces of paper that say so) will tell you, I’m not keen on this. But the truth is, this Ms L thing isn’t getting better.

It is better now than say December, when things first went to shit. And it is better than January, when I was angry. But it’s now the end of February, and it’s still eating at me. Now I know that you don’t have all the information, so this isn’t going to make a lot of sense. For the sake of clarity, without going into detail, it breaks down like this:

 

• I told Ms L something very sensitive about my past. (It’s not something I normally discuss, as I have huge trust issues on this topic, but I told her because I did trust her. My mistake, obviously).
• Hours after this sank in I got “the email” from her about liking me, and how what I told her was too much in a boyfriend, but that it was ok for a friend. (Apparently I was only attractive until I had baggage).
• I sent the email clarifying that I already have a girlfriend, and was as gentle as humanly possible. I was also more than forgiving about the rejection part, (though I’m certainly not in a hurry to trust anyone with that information again).
• Then came the complete cutting of ties, the unfriending, and the refusal to talk to me in any/every way, shape, or form. (Was like being in high school all over again).

The fact that this is still bothering me, nearly three months after the event, would suggest that it’s not going to go away on its own. I’m not going to get any closure from Ms L, so I haven’t really got much in the way of options. You guys are all great, and patient (with only the occasional slap), but I think Miss R is right. It’s time to call in the big guns. Not really something I wanted to be considering now that uni has gone back, with the study, the home work, and the stair-rage (walk to the fucking left people, it’s not hard).

So, tomorrow I’ll make the call. I figure it can’t make me feel any worse.