My therapist hasn’t been doing so well lately health wise. She just took two weeks off trying to get a handle on it but this much time hasn’t been enough. So she is going on hiatus for a bit until she can get things to a better place. She told me that she had totally expected me to be as supportive as I was, which made me smile. She told me that I could see a replacement person for a while if I needed to but I said that I would just wait until she was better again cause I’m real fussy about who I talk to. Her response:

“Yeah, and you have just about the best support network I’ve ever seen. I don’t actually worry about you.”

I like that even my therapist knows how much my friends rock.

My therapist is so laid back that she practically lays down during our sessions. This is really good for me cause I need mellow people desperately. But this week she got all aggressive like and gave me *gasp* homework. Alright.

I’m supposed to go through the messages I have gotten around money. I’ve been having some issues around class stuff really bothering me and she thinks this might be a good starting place for working through it. (I’m not saying I have fully embraced all of these, but they exist for me.)

*”You should advertise here so you can get more money.” – The strong implication was the only career I should head for is prostitution. I was about 12. This came from my brother and my cousin.
*My mom was destitute but my father was actually middle class. He controlled all of the purse strings and therefore basically all of the safety and security and happiness in my family.
*If my mom wanted child support she had to go fuck my dad.
*I was often the only white kid who was poor. I knew other kids who were equally in bad shape, but they seemed to have cultural support in dealing with it. It was somehow extra shameful that I was so poor and white.
*Poor people should be grateful for anything well off people decide to give them/do for them. Even if it nothing like what you need or want.
*My mother often spent money selfishly/foolishly and it meant that I did without some basic necessities at times. I grew to believe that spending money on yourself meant hurting the people around you because my mother spent money on herself and it sometimes hurt me. I don’t want to be like that.
*I have the obligation to work hard for money and then give it to my family when they need it. Even if that means fucking up my own life.
*It’s ok to spend money on something that costs less than $10 basically anytime you want to. Even though all of those small purchases add up and cause a problem later. It was cheap and therefore ok to buy.
*It’s always ok to buy clothes, movies, and books. Even if you don’t have enough food.
*Supporting children is an obligation that should be shoved off on someone else as often and for as long as possible.
*It’s ok to lie about how much money you have when someone asks you if they can have money, but it isn’t ok to say “no.”
*Car maintanence is an extravagance that should be put off as long as possible.
*Food should be cheap and plentiful because spending more money on a small amount is stupid and wasteful.
*Wanting more than someone can provide makes you selfish and bad. You should stop wanting.
*Wanting nicer things (like matched dishes) is snobby and vain and selfish.
*Using paper napkins/plates/etc at Thanksigiving/Christmas is low class and disgusting.

I can’t think of anything else right now. I may edit this later.

Noah and I have been seeing a therapist for a few weeks and I honestly have some mixed feelings about how it is going. I think that what we are looking for is some new tricks in how to handle things and I’m not sure we are getting our money’s worth. Last night turned into a big argument in fact. It’s awesome when someone says something and then says, “I didn’t say that” in a patronizing voice. That’s a good way to have me be instantly furious. I was fairly seething. Noah could tell how angry I was. I’m pretty sure that anyone with half a brain could tell. Her reaction was… interesting. She is big on somatic work so she tried to abruptly change the tone and way things were going by breaking the flow and telling me to make physical motions so that I could “establish boundaries.” Well, I told her no, that I was going to establish my boundaries by not doing what she told me to do. That seemed to throw her. She gave the plattitudes about how conflict is good, but I don’t think she really believes it…

But what really rocked for me was that Noah totally defended me. That rocked.

Yesterday was a very productive therapy session. Lots of looking at shit and why things work out the way they do for me. I really want to talk about it and it is all very disorganized in my head. I want to curl up in bed and talk to someone about all the ways in which I am crazy and there is no one to do that with.

Today isn’t so fun.

Today I am going to be looking at an apartment complex that I am interested in. First I am looking at the studio, then the one bedroom. If I like either I may just sign the lease today.

Therapy yesterday was good and very hard. I spent a while crying. Puppy thought that was a reflection of the therapist picking on me. She asked me to think about ways I can let Puppy console me and it led to me crying a lot because I don’t know if I can let him console me. I realized how much my trust in him is damaged. That was so hard. And it isn’t because of things that have happened often or things that he realized were such a big deal. He won’t defend or protect me, ever. Those things matter to me. I am starting to realize that those things might just be the most important thing and he didn’t do it. We have opened a dialogue about it. It’s very scary. After the session I felt wrung out and seriously depressed. I tried calling a couple of friends to see if they wanted to have dinner but they weren’t available. 🙁 After a couple of hours I rallied and was in a better mood than I have been in a while. This is some seriously hard stuff and if we can figure it out we have a much higher chance of making it period. People are still telling me to DTMFA (dump the mother fucker already for those of you who do not read Savage Love) and asking me why I want to stay with him. I still don’t have a coherent answer. I want him because I love him so much I ache and feel empty when he is away from me. I want him because he makes me smile and laugh and he is happy to play with me. It is kind of weird. I am always playful with people I date, but I normally do it from the cover of being “little.” He is pretty freaked out by me being little, so I have to play as an adult. It’s a different kind of mindset.

Still scared. Still insecure. Maybe feeling a little better though.

So I’m still not sure what I think about my therapist. Though she talked more this time than she did last time.

Something that is driving me crazy is feeling like I don’t know where I belong. I come from white trash, there is no nicer way of putting that. I come from people who consider a high school diploma to be a nearly unreachable lifetime goal. People who are still living in large houses with too many people per bedroom because they can’t afford to live independently. Though more are independent now than ever before. I’m not like them. I’m just not. Through whatever accident of fate, I managed to change my destiny.

But now what?

I don’t know where I fit. I don’t know where I belong in life. I am about to financially qualify as middle class, but let me tell you–I will never really be. My life expectations are colored by the pessimism of my class. Even saying that makes me feel bad, but it is bloody true. If you have not grown up truly poor (and few on my friends-list have) then you just don’t know what I am talking about. If you did grow up poor, dude–you know. If you are poor you assume that things will always suck no matter what so you don’t bother trying to change your life. And when you do try to change your life you deal with the attitude from the people who won’t try. IT SUCKS.

So I don’t know where I fit. Or even where I want to fit.

And then there is this boy whom I love to distraction. I don’t know why I love him so much, I just do. It would make my life easier if I could just stop.

I didn’t get around to navel gazing on what I thought I wanted to bring up. That is probably good, it meant I was more ok with the topic wandering around a lot.

Some things looked at:
Relationships within my family
How I handle verbal boundaries with friends
My birthday
The touching thing that has been happening lately and the resultant near agoraphobia
Follow up on the moving thing with Puppy

That was a lot to cover in 55 minutes and I feel a little overwhelmed by it. I still feel like she and I are getting up to speed with one another and that means we are doing a lot of very surface-level discussion of things.

In mulling over the touching thing after therapy by myself a couple of things occured to me. At this point in time I am no longer comfortable with allowing anyone to treat my body as if it is something they have a right to touch. This is manifesting in a few ways. The vast majority of my friends are people whom I have given explicit permission to and I am not upset with my friends. However, the fact that my friends touch me so casually and so constantly means that people who do not have permission to touch me feel that it is simply an ok thing to do. I have been trying and trying and trying to figure out how to deal with this. My reaction of just not going out where there might be people who don’t have permission isn’t really working out. It means I am missing chances to see my friends and that is hurting me.

For a while I think I need to revoke all standing permission. In no way is this a criticism of anyone who has standing permission or an implication that you do/have done anything wrong. For whatever reason, at this point in time I need to have a lot more control over access to my body than I have had for a while. I really need to have everyone try to be conscious enough to ask me specifically and verbally if it is ok to touch me right now. I’m going to do my level best to be gentle in reminding people if they forget, because it isn’t a normal part of most peoples’ interactions with me. I don’t know how long this will last. I just can’t deal with constantly feeling out of control anymore. I can’t handle the fact that my feeling at this point in time is that I am better off not going to anyones’ event because I will have to be defensive of my body and potentially hostile. And by defensive of my body, I do mean my shoulder, my head, my arm… I’m not just talking about the sexual parts of my body.

I explained to her that at this point when someone touches me without permission (someone I don’t really know, I’m not referencing friends) my response is to get rather hostile. I told her how very upset it makes me that I get hostile because it is surely over the top. She said it is perfectly ok and she is really happy that I am defending the boundary for myself, however I need to do it. This was my first almost-crying moment with her. I have been feeling so very bad lately that I get so upset about something that other people seem to shrug off. Having so many people tell me to just get over it has made it even worse. I talked to Puppy about it last night too and he said he agrees with her. I am going to make a hugely judgmental statement now and say: Thank god that for once it isn’t me that is broken in an exchange. The people who are telling me that I am wrong for having boundaries are not perfectly ok. It’s stupid and awful that I need other people to tell me this. It isn’t that I think that it is wrong for other people to not have boundaries for themselves, but they are wrong in telling me to get over what I need for myself. [attempt to be funny]I had suspected this.[/attempt to be funny]

I really like this therapist. I think this is going to work out.

For some reason I feel comfortable enough with you to put you into the filter where I talk about my shit. This is not an opt-in filter. However, please feel free to opt-out if whatever I’m talking about makes you uncomfortable. I won’t be upset at all.

Some of the main points I want to bring up as the biggest stuff that is on my plate at this point in time:

Anxiety in general. When I get upset about things I shut down and don’t seem to be able to make any progress on my own. How can I better recognize anxiety and not get locked into bad patterns?
Anger management. If something/anything at all sets me off I am completely unreasonable and I can’t calm down. I get violent very easily and I lash out constantly. This isn’t ok. I want to figure out how to stop lashing out and feeling inappropriate anger. It isn’t that I want to stop getting/feeling angry. I just want to do it in a way that isn’t psycho and out-of-line.
Hearing negative when none is intended. This is a major problem in any/all relationships for me. I constantly feel criticized and looked down on even when people are not being anything but positive. A subset of this is my major abandonment fears. I always think that people are formulating an “out” plan for getting out of having to deal with me. How do I stop hearing negative tapes attached to any/every thing that people say?
Inferiority complex. I think that pretty much everyone in my life is better than me intellectually/social class wise/spirituality/whatever. If someone has/does anything better than me I think they are a “better person” than me and then I translate that into feeling totally worthless generally. This is totally the suck because I consciously surround myself with highly talented and brilliant people because those are who I admire and relate to. So I set myself up for feeling bad a lot of the time just in who I like. It’s pretty stupid. Especially considering that these same people almost constantly tell me how much they in turn admire me. It’s part of only hearing negative.

I think these are the basics….

Edit for reframing of goals.
I want to feel secure that people are telling me the truth when they say they love me and are going to stay. (In the sense that they are being honest in their intentions. Life happens.)
I want to feel confident that I am equal to my friends.
I want to hear and believe the positives that people say to me. I want to be able to internalize the affection that people are giving to me.
Others to come….

Yes. I actually want advice on this one.

So I have an appointment with a therapist. If she isn’t queer, kinky, and poly… at least most of her friends are. She is actually part of “the community” (which means that part of the first session will be seeing if I can actually see her or if there is too close of a contact somewhere).

I haven’t gone to see a new therapist in a long time and the last time I did it was with a specific thing going on. I don’t feel like I know where to begin. I feel overwhelmed by the mess in my head. I need to have some way of presenting things/me to her and I am totally lost. For some reason I just don’t feel like I should begin with the standard dump about my childhood. That is part of my shit, but it isn’t really the part that is the most important right now and it totally gives the impression that I am broken nearly beyond repair. Instead I am just kind of broken. …. I feel really uncertain as to how to approach this.

Any tips, advice, or recommendations?