I should be sleeping

I keep thinking about writing, but mostly I am too responsible these days, and succumb to sleep rather than staying up all hours writing nothings and exhausting myself. Consequently I no longer fall asleep like a log in the afternoons after work, unable to wake up at all. I'm still not productive though, don't think that for a second.

Yesterday, though, I did wake early, clear the kitchen and table at 8am and mop the floor as my student was coming over at 10. That was different.

I like how how this blog looks. It reminds me of my mother, a Navajo rug she had, some Medieval looking thing on a board, her minimalist, monk's cell aesthetic. I feel like I should be providing the picture, but this will do for now. Especially as, alarmingly, I have started therapy. I've tried before, but it's never really been right, Counselling, at most, and mostly ineffective. Now I'm trying to do it properly. I don't know if I trust the psychologist to be good, but I suppose it doesn't work if you don't. She has moments of being really helpful, and then moments of being annoyingly overt and um... I don't know how to say it, exactly. Of course I may just be judging her because I want to think about everything and not feel the things, which is the intent of therapy. And I can't deny I'm not so good at that. But it's because I'm embarrassed and ashamed, and I need someone to navigate that with me.

Two sessions ago I had two revelations -  I'm going to write them down so I can remember - one, the day before the session I was thinking about being empathic, and what a pain it is for myself and my son, and god knows the emotional barometer that my AS daughter suffers being. I wondered about the genuineness of lauding empathy as some sort of useful skill, when it mostly brings us exhaustion, stress and unhappiness. Therapist pointed out that this hyper-aware habit of gauging people's reactions and feelings to see if they're ok, see what they're feeling/thinking (which I'd done and worried about regarding my director that morning) can come from a stressful childhood and it totally snapped into place that I spent a childhood walking on eggshells, trying not to trigger the next outburst, and no wonder this self-protective hyper-vigilance is not fun. That was significant.

And the other one ... see now, bollocks, I've forgotten. I waited too long.

It's ok, she mentioned the other one without me having to ask her what my revelation had been. It was less revelatory, but quite central to All My Problems. It's about the Fear and Procrastination and inability to leave my sad little comfort zone - as always, coping strategies and protections become less useful over time, and the Gatekeeper in my head so set on protecting herself has started slamming down the sword each time I want to do something that might not work out. I feel like when she explained this before it was more complex, less obvious, but that's still the gist of it. The Gatekeeper does an incredibly good job, but now I have to find a way to talk to her without capitulating so I can actually do stuff again.

Anyway, the first two weeks were menstrual ones, spent crying and confession all my miserable self-loathing. Then the third week was good and felt positive and helpful, and then last week she decided that my grief for my mothers death (now seventeen years ago) is stuck and unprocessed because of my childhood trauma with her, not my raging, terrifying, unpredictable, mean father, who she's not interested in hearing about.

And it's difficult, because while my mother made many mothering mistakes and my life was fraught and sad, we had a good relationship that felt quite positive (if frustrating to us both at times) and the thought that I'm refusing to 'feel' what upset I experienced as a child and I've repressed it all and I'm doing that thing repressed people do who say, 'no, no, it was fine, I loved my mother, she only locked me in the cupboard because I was bad, it never did me any harm, and anyway, I don't remember it' and so on, while the therapist nods knowingly on - well, it's unpleasant. I don't want to be that person. But I now feel that I'm not entitled to feel grief for her in some weird way now, which makes me feel angry and upset, like something's being taken away from me. Which in turn makes me worry that I'm clutching onto the grief instead of letting it go, because it's all I've got. Which is thinking not feeling again, isn't it? I feel sad. I feel sad that this is what I've got, instead of a home that is always there, and support and unconditional love, I feel sad that I'm 43, and my identity is still made up of clinging on to having been shaped by my parents' horrible relationship, a house of discord and fear, and now grief and loss that is two decades old that I'm clutching like a filthy, snot-stained teddy bear.

But I'm still not identifying the things she wants me to say about my mother that I don't know how to find. She taught me a lot of good things, but she also taught me a sort of hysteria, and inability to cope, a lack of control, a compulsive need to help, to hoard, a need to retire to my bed, safe from daily life that's too terrifying to deal with. And an inability to cope with housework.

So, yeah, I'm not looking forward to going tomorrow. And it's menstrual time again.
No one has seen this yet, so  I can delete the last paragraph and write some more instead.

Today was good, and positive - she's changed tack and no longer needs to Unearth my Mother Trauma, but rather focus on the here and now, and set small goals and set about calming the overactive gate keeper, so I can do things again without feeling the need to run and hide. And never do anything again, ever. I might... do some art... listen to some music... allow myself to get some exercise... feel like I have something to offer a friend... not that one yet, though! Little day trips first, perhaps. I do miss having a life. Sort of.