5/17/12 dream

I dreamed I crashed a party thrown by the cast of Harry Potter.  They were celebrating their last movie with an advanced showing of the movie (in 3D) at this huge scary-looking house out in the middle of nowhere.  It was their last night living in this place, since they were finally done with all the films. Hermione was kind of hostessing the event, but she was obviously not interested in the movie.  Most of the guests, though, were really excited about it.  There was a really big screen at one end of the room, and then in the back, there were couches and large TV’s.  We had the old-fashioned kind of 3D glasses (white cardboard with red and blue lenses).  I was really sleepy, and I was afraid if I got comfortable, I’d fall asleep.

I was flirting with Harry and Ron, and Mikey-D, who was also in the cast for some reason.  I ended up making out in a bed with Ron, but someone weighed the bed somehow with us in it, and determined that I weighed 400 lbs. Ron was instantly turned off, as was Harry, and both of them ditched me.

I wanted to commit suicide, but I wanted to make sure Ron knew it was because of him. I was afraid I would be successful, so I tried to get Hermione to help—I would take pills, and she would monitor me and call 911 if it was obvious the pills weren’t going to work.  She wouldn’t help, and everyone knew I was 400 lbs, and they were all ignoring me.

I grabbed my bag and decided to walk home, which was going to be miles.  When I started walking, there was suddenly snow on the ground (it had been fall weather before).  I was barefoot, but the snow didn’t bother me.  I was on a mission, very determined.  I didn’t realize this til after I’d left, and I discovered that I had not packed my shoes in my bag—they were still in Ron’s room.  I tried to think of how I would get them back while I walked.  I didn’t have Ron’s phone #, and I didn’t trust him to send them to me, anyway.  I finally decided that I would drive back out to the house after I got home and try to just sneak in and get them without having to see anyone.

When I finally arrived at my family’s home (a huge mansion near the water—I think in Baltimore), I entered and started making my way toward where everyone would be.  I got lost and ended up at a back entrance that led directly into the water; in fact, the steps were submerged.  I went back up to a landing and ran across some maids and asked for help.  One of them, an older woman with grey hair pulled back into a bun, directed me to a corridor.  When she began giving directions, though, I realized I knew the way.

I started down the corridor, which led into a huge food court, almost like a mall but the stations were very small.  Many of them were preparing breakfast foods, and it looked and smelled very good, but I didn’t want to eat.  It occurred to me that if I didn’t eat, with all this walking, I would lose weight.  I was certain that if I went back to the Harry Potter house having lost weight, that I would be accepted; maybe Ron and Harry would be attracted to me again.  Mikey D had always liked me the way I was, but I just wasn’t into him.

I don’t recall ever reaching my destination, and I think I only imagined my drive back to the HP house.

 

Will and Woefulness

Yesterday, I was so excited to download an MP3 book that I’ve always wanted to read: “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen.  I say always, because the first time I had interest in it was when I was in 6th grade, but I was unfairly denied the right to read it at that time…

Library day was always a weird day for me in grade school.  I really never developed a love of reading, although I did a lot of writing.  I now know that I am afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder, which was not a common diagnosis back then.  I often felt inferior to my classmates who excelled in the annual “Read-a-Thon” that measured how many books you read.  I truly regret that I was unable to develop a similar voracity, as it has hindered and frustrated me throughout my life.  I could literally list to you all the books I’ve read in my life, and even of those, I can’t say that I read every page.  It is actually a source of great shame for me.

So, it was our weekly library day, and my classmates and I filed into the small library of the elementary school (K-6).  The other children move in and out of the shelves of books, heaping their choices into their arms.  There was prestige in the number of books one selected, made even greater by the thickness of those books.

I scanned the shelves earnestly, despite the sickening feeling of unworthiness that weighed on my mind like the brick in my stomach.  I’m just as smart as any of them! I told myself.  I was determined to prove it, too.

“Pride and Prejudice” was a very thick book with a green fabric cover.  I pulled it from the shelf and flipped through it.  I read a few lines on a random page, feeling not the least bit intimidated by the fancy prose.

Book-toting children were forming into two lines.  The first line was in front of our teacher, who was seated at a table near the windows.  She had to approve our selections before we could check them out.  I hugged my book against my chest as I joined behind the other children who awaited her endorsement.

The line moved quickly, and I soon stood before the teacher and proudly presented my book.  It was difficult to interpret her expression as she took the book, but I assumed it was amazement and awe.  She turned the book to read the cover, then she turned her smiling face to me.  My heart was pounding as I waited for her to tell me how impressed she was with my choice.

“I think this might be a little too mature for you,” she said.

I stared blankly back at her.

“Why don’t you put this one back and look for something else,” she went on.  “I really don’t think you’d like this book.”  With that, she handed the book back to me, and I turned out of the line.  I didn’t know what she meant by “too mature.”  After all, my standardized tests had me reading at a college level–even if those tests only required one to read a few paragraphs at a time…

Obediently, I returned the book to the shelf.  The class period was nearly over, so I hurriedly selected a few “less mature” books, which the teacher dismissively approved.  I wrote my name on the check-out cards and the librarian stamped the return date.  I can still vividly recall the disappointment of that incident.  I can not, though, recall which books I was pressed to take out that day…but I’m pretty sure I didn’t read them.

I did not forgot about “Pride and Prejudice,” nor did I forget the outrage of being denied my right to read it.  A few months later, I managed to check it out from the library on my own.  I took it home and delved into it, but, alas, my ADD got the better of me, and I don’t think I even finished a chapter before I had to return it.  My lack of tenacity aside, I found that I was quite mature enough to read the book, and I vowed to do just that one day when I had more time.

Almost 40 years later, the magic of audio books led me to purchase the once-forbidden novel.  And with no small amount of self-satisfaction, I might add.  If there’s one way to make sure I’ll do something, it’s to tell me that I can’t.  Well, nobody could stop me now!

Once it was loaded onto the MP3 player, I could hardly wait to start listening.  Well, the language was fancy, just as I remembered it.  And there was not a great deal of action in the beginning; I sort of remembered that, too–probably why I hadn’t gotten very far in my first reading effort.  By the 12th chapter, however, I realized there was absolutely nothing about the story that could hold my attention for one minute longer.

The moral of this story?  It sure is a good thing that I’m mature enough to recognize terrible literature…

Night Terror

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and noticed my dog, Athena, was on top of the covers instead of under them. I touched the top of her back leg, and it felt cool, which immediately put me into a small panic.  I put my hand on her rib cage and waited a moment, but I did not feel her chest rise.  More panicked, I lifted her head and said her name, but she didn’t respond.  When I let go of her head, it dropped limply onto the bed.  I repeated this, saying her name with more urgency, but same result.  Convinced that my sweet little companion had died in her sleep, I gathered her into my arms and laid down with her.  In a moment, I felt her warm breath on my cheek, and then she lifted her head enough to give me a tiny lick on my nose.

I layed there holding her, thanking God for her, while she fidgeted into a position where I wasn’t breathing on her, all the while trying to get comfortable with her head on my pillow and her bony stiletto toes digging into my chest.  We cuddled like that for quite a while, with me feeling her breathe…and praying.

After a while, she stood up and waited for me to hold the covers up so she could crawl under and lay at my feet.

This morning, I am struggling to determine if this whole event actually happened or if it was an INCREDIBLY vivid dream.  I have sense memories of the coolness of her leg, the stillness of her chest, the weight of her seemingly lifeless head in my hand, and then the warmth–and even the smell–of her breath.

Athena has been with me just shy of twelve years.  Her gentle, intuitive presence has made the literal difference between life and death for me.  During the first few years, she gave me a reason to get out of bed every day and an accountability that gave me a reason to live.  In the years when I wasn’t “alone”, she remained a loving friend and a source of joy.  In the last few years when I’ve been alone again, she has been my constant and faithful companion.  I am grateful and indebted to her.

As I sit here now, Athena is curled up in her bed near my feet, with one front leg hooked over her nose. Before she settled down, she took great pains to bundle her soft, blue blanket into a ball upon which her head now rests.  It is comforting just to watch her breathe.

Therapy costs money…blogging is free

A psychiatrist once told me that if he could get me to talk, eventually I would not only tell him what was wrong with me, but I’d tell him how to cure it.  I paid him $85 for bi-weekly sessions lasting 20 minutes each for about two years.  Apparently, in all those moments we spent in his small office, with him leaning back in a large leather chair on the other side of his desk and me in an uncomfortable metal-framed chair, I never told him what was wrong with me , nor did I tell him how to cure me.

Dr M. was a large-framed, round-bellied black man with bushy sideburns and a bushy mustache that may have been intended to draw attention away from the broad, shiny dome of his head, but the contrast made it even more conspicuous.  I found him intimidating, but I supposed that his authoritative character was necessary to deal with someone with a “strong personality” such as mine.  It took him a long time to figure out that I was not capable of turning off my “happy face” when I entered his office.  Sharing of emotions or true thoughts was not encouraged in my family, so I was used to showing the world what I believed they wanted to see.  I wasn’t trying to be deceitful; I just didn’t know how to be “real”.

Month after month, I dutifully shuffled into his office and sat in the chair next to the door.  I wonder now why I never bolted out of it…and why I kept coming back through it.  Actually, I know why: because I was afraid that if I didn’t, I was going to continue my life as it was…or not continue at all.

During the time I was seeing Dr M., I was also seeing a psychotherapist.  Dr W. was nearly the exact opposite of Dr M.  He was quiet-natured, even-tempered and easy to talk to.  He eventually cracked my shell, and my insides spilled out all over his spacious, comfortable office and upholstered chairs.  His desk was on one side of the room, but he never sat at it during our sessions; instead, he always chose a chair at four o’clock or eight o’clock to my twelve o’clock.  I used to try to wait for him to sit down so I could mess up the conversational angle, but he could always wait me out, so that I’d sit down first.  He was a tall, thin, carefully groomed man, who I found attractive and, yes, I developed quite a crush on him.

Dr W never asked me to tell him what was wrong with me or how to treat me; instead, he did a lot of standardized testing.  He once commented that my test results were so polarized that he considered the results a “false positive”.  That set me into a crying fit of defensiveness, since what I had heard him say is that I had intentionally skewed my answers.  Took him quite a while to calm me down after that, but I think he also began to realize just how “polarized” my head was.

During those first years of my acknowledgement, diagnosis and treatment of my long history of eating disorders, bipolar personality disorder and ADHD, I had a very difficult time accepting all of the aspects of myself that I had always managed to hide–from myself and everyone else.  It was about 1998, and personal computers were becoming popular.  I rented a PC and began seeking out support online via AOL.

I quickly became a “regular” in the chat rooms for mental health and addiction/recovery.  I joined several email groups, and eventually helped create a small group called “The Pretenders”.  There were about ten of us in the group, all with histories of eating disorders.  We named ourselves The Pretenders because we all admitted that we had managed to elude detection by family and friends for many years by pretending to be happy.  It was a point of pride in some ways, because it meant we had managed to control how others saw us, and we had kept our illness in check well enough that we didn’t appear “ill” to others.  This group provided much more therapy for me than all of the mental health professionals I have seen in the last 14  years.  Most of our contacts were through emails to the group.  We all shared–some of us in greater volumes–about our thoughts, feelings, treatment, progress, set-backs, break-downs and victories.  The anonymity of the internet allowed us to become a very intimate group, sharing our deepest secrets with women who became our best friends.  (I met several of these women F2F [face to face] and have kept in contact over the years since our group dissolved.)

One thing I learned through all the written conversations with The Pretenders was that writing was incredibly cathartic and therapeutic for me.  I was able to organize my thoughts and stay on track (or, at least, more easily relocate the track when I rambled off of it), and I was able to more fully express myself.  I often employed “spoilers” in the email subject line when my submissions were novel-esque, but the kind women of the group still read every word and provided feedback and advice.

In years since the dissolution of The Pretenders (around 2003), I found it difficult to find therapists with whom I was compatible.  I’ve moved several times, and starting from scratch with new therapists is exhausting and disheartening–not to mention EXPENSIVE!  So, I have decided to self-treat by using a blog as my mute and completely non-judgemental therapist.  I should save TONS of money in this way, and eventually, I should reveal to myself exactly what is wrong with me and how to cure myself.