Big Feels

I wanna talk about feelings. The overwhelming hit you outta nowhere and knock you sideways kind. The kind that distort your view in the world so suddenly that reality becomes completely subjective and the truth of five minutes ago becomes burned to a crisp.

This is something I’ve been dealing with less. Therapy, learning more about myself and a healthy dose of corrective experiences have made navigating acute overwhelm a little bit easier. I don’t tend to jump straight to suicidal impulses when I feel fear anymore, I notice it and explore it. I’m growing, healing.

However.

Shame is still a problem. Shame fucks me over and sends me into a tail spin with no time to think my way out. Shame isn’t always a warranted emotion for a situation either, but it somehow creeps in, takes over and burns me to a crisp from the inside out.

If I get accused of something I didn’t do it near kills me. The shame of being judged as capable of whatever I’m being accused of is just as bad as if I had actually done it in the first place.

A long time ago a psychiatrist accused me of taking drugs when I hadn’t been. I had never even seen cocaine in real life, let alone developed a habit. I was, at the time however, manic and in the throes of an Anorexia relapse. My world revolved around hours of exercise a day, counting the calories in the litres of diet soda I drank each day, exercising even more and somehow juggle working a 60 hour week and raising four kids.

Maybe in hindsight I can see how she jumped to drugs as probable cause for the extremely skinny pale 27 yr old with heavy dark circles around her eyes that couldn’t sit still for a second twitching before her. But she knew my history and still the blood results she received telling her I was a junkie, later I found out the same reading can indicate a heart attack which would have made sense in the circumstances. She didn’t entertain that possibility. She assumed I was a junkie.

I saw her the other day.

I was in the waiting room at M’s happily minding my own business waiting for someone else having an appointment and then suddenly she was there. She works in the same offices now.

I think my heart nearly stopped (again?). When I saw her face. I felt the familiar pang of bitter shame wash through my soul, immediately I wanted to die. I felt like running straight out of the room and diving into traffic and if it had been possible to leave in that moment, I think I probably would have.

A surge of anger welled up and I heard V. She was ropable, seething. Her anger transformed me for a moment, I hated her, I hated myself. Now I wanted to die badly, recklessly, immediately. I wanted to smash a picture frame off the wall, yell at her for hurting us so badly with her doubts, I wanted to scream at her for falsely accusing us then pick up a shard of broken glass and stab myself through the heart, bleeding to death at her feet. Maybe she would think twice next time she dismissed someone’s words and made assumptions.

Then the carpet started swirling, fuck. No, not this again. Ezzy… the carpet started dancing and I heard them all talking, the receptionist, the old psychiatrist, they were laughing.

They were laughing at me, about me. They could hear my thoughts, they knew what I wanted to do with he picture and they thought I was crazy. She was taunting me, “see you ARE on drugs!” I wanted to run but I was glued in my chair, I wanted to cry but I didn’t want them to know I knew what they really thought about me, I didn’t want to embarrass them.

This was my safe place and now it was gone. Ruined. I could never come back. M was gone forever. My GP, gone. They never wanted to deal with me anyway. Annoying pain in the ass that I am. I stared at the carpet, watching it do a Mexican wave. Was it real? Was anything real?

We left at some point. I don’t know when, I’m not there now so I know we left. I know carpet only dances when Ezzy is close, I know feelings can’t be trusted when Ezzy is close. I still don’t know if I can go back. If I should go back. I want to cry all the time. Shame is bubbling just under the surface all the time. I hate that I exist. That I can’t disappear completely, that I am still fucked up from this 10 years later, still kinda scrawny, jittery 37yr old dark circles around my eyes now I ironically do know what cocaine looks like, tastes like, feels like.

Fast forward….

Heya, Kate here… So just had an appointment with M. I didn’t mention any of the above, mostly because I didn’t know about it. I just read it then, actually only looked here for something else and saw the draft post. The waiting room didn’t trigger me, I knew things had been a bit rough in general but couldn’t really remember specifics. Talked to M about some stuff with my niece (maybe a post for another day) and largely avoided the inevitable discussion about my questionable current eating habits.

It’s frustrating how hard it is to get to the important points in therapy, the first half is usually me trying to remember what I wanted to talk about and the time between sessions is a tumultuous roller coaster of emotions I can only intermittently connect to.

Anyway. Might just publish this 🤷🏼‍♀️ Hope all you blogland folk are well, sorry about the lack of writing and connecting lately! xx