I had a really bad dream last night about the guy who tazored me and said he would apologize and hasn’t. This morning I woke up to a message from him saying he hasn’t forgotten he just hasn’t done it. This is kind of weird because I haven’t dreamed almost at all since I started smoking pot. I think my consumption is way down–I know that I am way less high than I used to be. If that means I can start having nightmares again I may want to find a way to up how much I am using again. I don’t know how I will find the time in the day to do that.

I haven’t slept much at all this week. I’m really not doing well. I need to send my therapist an email. I need therapy to make me feel better about myself not make me suicidal and non-functioning because I am hysterically crying for days. This isn’t working. This is making my life really bad. I have always gotten some therapy-hangover but not like this. And it’s getting worse over time not better.

Doing EMDR on isolated traumas (Francesca’s death, my miscarriage, Traci’s overdose) seemed very effective. They were fresh, easy to access trauma. There was a specific start and finish and reason and it just worked. Obviously I was having disordered thinking with regard to these specific events.

Having a therapist who wants me to sit there thinking about how bad my birthdays are week after week when the only way I know to make them better is run away from home isn’t doing anything to improve my mental health. The idea of still needing to do this in order to not kill myself in twenty-five years is terrifying. I feel this draining of hope and will to live. No, I can’t lie to my brain and say it will get better. It was supposed to get better when I found a partner. It didn’t. It isn’t going to. Sometimes life is just like that. You have to accept the life you have. You can’t make everything perfect.

I don’t want to sit there thinking about how worthless and unloveable I must be forever.

It isn’t that no one can love me. But people can handle giving me about a teaspoon of love. Then I freak out and they run away. And at this point in my life it feels like all my fault. I am bad. I drive people away with my intensity and anger and frustration. It makes a lot of sense that people don’t want to put up with shit like I dish out. It is a completely logical way for them to care about themselves.

The last therapist I saw (who had to stop seeing clients for personal reasons) would talk to me about my life. We would strategize how to handle frustrating situations. We talked about how different personalities interact so that I can pre-plan what is acceptable from me. I don’t do that at all with my current therapist. She doesn’t have time. She wants us to hurry up and get to the EMDR.

I cut back to twice a month partially because I can’t handle feeling this suicidal every week. I do not have an unlimited amount of self control. The fantasies are changing. They are becoming more realistic. More like things I would actually do. More like things that would end my life without causing a huge amount of collateral trauma to innocent bystanders. In other words: more plausible. That’s not good. Yes, my kids and Noah would still have to deal with the results. But I wouldn’t be ruining the life of some poor truck driver.

I don’t feel like therapy is support right now. It feels like yet more burden of awful. It feels like just reminding myself that I am never going to be like other people. I will always have this caverning evil and disgusting and bad inside me that other people just don’t have. There is no way to change who I am or what has happened to me.

I need to talk to my shrink about this and I don’t know how. I want to just run away. I want to say, “You know how you told me that you were going to charge me $150/hour because that is your extended session EMDR rate and you assume we will have a lot of long sessions and we’ve never had a long session you just shove the EMDR into being most of our session and we barely talk and I don’t know you and you don’t much of anything about me beyond the book. If you only know my life up to 18 you don’t know me.”

I feel more defensive and frustrated by the visit. And I pay a lot of money for the visits. I don’t feel good about this.

K shouldn’t have to be the one talking me through reasonable discipline of my kids. That is a lot of what I pay a therapist for. But we don’t talk about my kids. We don’t have time because she wants us to hurry up and get to the EMDR. Which is making it so I am non-functional and can’t really take care of my kids. I don’t feel like she cares about the holistic picture of my life.

As someone with “extreme mental illness” firing a shrink is a loaded process. I’ve obviously done it (21 shrinks and counting) but when you don’t have a therapist and you are mentally ill all of a sudden every time anything goes wrong in your life, “Well what did you expect–you should be in therapy.”

Therapy is a really weird process. I was not taught how to be a functional adult as a child. That is the plain and simple truth. Therapy is supposed to be helping me become a more functional adult. It is a mixed bag at doing this. I didn’t do well with the chick who really wanted me to have DID (multiple personalities) and I’m not doing well with the chick who wants me to do all of my processing in my head with beeping and she’s just the one who presses play.

I did very well with my last shrink. She was supportive and encouraging. She listened far more than she talked and I never felt condescended towards. She was respectful and encouraging. She seemed to be very impressed with my life in general–I am making a lot more conscious choices than most people. It’s not that I am “that great” but I really consciously decide who and what I will be. Most people just kind of drift through life.

I want someone who can give me advice in specific ways at specific times and help me when I am struggling but mostly be a witness to the fact that I have done a lot of fixing myself. I don’t have that right now.

I’m not fixing myself lately because I’m reeling from the EMDR all the time and she gives me no respect for doing so ever in the past. I feel invalidated and helpless and like I can’t do anything to change myself when I leave her office. That’s not real useful.

So given them I’m all fussed about the above stuff I’m not having charitable thoughts about someone in the home schooling group complaining that I am hosting a running event in Fremont. She lives in Oakland and she wants me to move the event further north. How about San Leandro or the Oakland Hills? Uhm, how about if YOU host an event that is convenient for you and I will come or not and not bitch at you because you aren’t convenient enough for me. I drive a lot for this group. When I rarely host an event don’t fucking tell me that I should be doing it in a way that will make my life shitty and your life better. I feel disrespected. I don’t even know the woman who complained. If it was one of my “buddies” I might feel more open to negotiating because I would be blunt and say, “Ok what’s the trade because you are offering me a shitty deal.” You can’t say that to a stranger.

I leave for a trip in eight days. It was pointed out to me that I might want to pack. Feck. I care much more about the fact that the house is almost ready for the Easter party. Ha.

Yesterday I was an idiot and I didn’t write down that someone was coming over. Luckily she reads my blog and noticed that I didn’t mention her so she emailed me. Excellent. So I didn’t get through my to-do list but I got to see someone I’ve been trying to see for over a month. As a surprise. That was quite pleasant. Then my next door neighbor washed my van. I was rather surprised he did that.

Yesterday my friend said, “When my husband met you he said, ‘She fakes being happy really well but you can see by how she holds her face that she isn’t.'” Many cookies to him. Very few people notice. Very few people care.

I imagine happiness to be akin to the absence of pain. It is a rare and fleeting feeling in my life. I do love holding my babies. That makes me feel happy. Feeling how much they love me is the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life.

Harm reduction says to look at what you are doing in life and evaluate the harm it is doing. Right now my biggest harm is coming from therapy. That seems kind of backwards. It may be time to go therapist shopping again.