Bad Memories: exploring my emotional tolerence

I went to my therapist appointment today. I am a little out of whack from not sleeping well last night for a number of reasons. 

I was definitely apprehensive about coming by myself (my husband came the first few times with me)... This time I drove myself and was on my own and felt a bit more in the spotlight. I had to do my relaxation breathing on the way there, and felt light-headed and short of breath until I had arrived and sat down and relaxed with some water and was talking to the receptionist. 

Another reason is likely because we're sort of done delving into working on what I've been dealing with since I dumped my mother in May...  I've been feeling more accepting of it needing to be done, and I don't feel so bad about it being my fault.  It had to be done.  And now we're testing the waters of whether or not I am ready to talk about some of the sexual abuse I experienced when I was little. So we were going to start of with other disturbing memories that weren't traumatic or tied in with EITHER my mother or my abuser... And we'll see if I can handle THOSE emotions or if I need to stop and regroup. Because if I can't even deal with the smaller things that have been resurfacing lately, then it's unlikely that I can handle the scarier stuff.... 8P

So.... Yeah, it's just a bit of an anxious day for me. I was actually surprised that I felt that affected by just driving by myself to my appointment. I mean sheez, what's the problem... Oh yeah! My anxiety issues...   8P

New assignment: very similar to the previous assignment...   I am trying to see if I can handle, or see how I react to the unpleasant emotional memories...  Am I able to deal with things or should I back off for a little while? 8P  Try to ask myself: how was I feeling at the time, what was in my mind as to the reason of my behaviour?  Dig deep girl.  Did you remember smells, textures, etc...

 I am remembering when I was with a very awful man named Glen.  I remember thinking he was funny and unconventional, misunderstood, somewhat broken, but yet he wanted to spend time with me.  I remember feeling special when he would take me out for a meal, or when he'd call me late at night to talk to me.  He told me sob stories about his childhood and his parents never saying "I love you."  And about how his father was a horrible drunk tyrant.  I remember thinking to myself, "I will show him I will not give up on him."  I was determined to show him that I could love him despite the way he treated me or other people.  I sensed he was troubled and I wanted to help heal him.  Maybe I would be the one to show him that he didn't have to live like this, drinking rye and smoking pot and never thinking anyone loved him.

Somehow, eventually I found I would tolerate his controlling behaviours.  I noticed his annoyance at me seeing friends or family.  In order to make him feel better about himself I stopped calling, I stopped visiting, I was just around him and his friends.  He also disapproved of my eating habits and tried to discourage me from eating.  Some days I would only have one small meal.  I remember always being hungry.  Tired.  He would take me out from Regina about an hour and a half drive out to Moose Jaw and play on his guitar in his friends' ramshackle dump of a house.  The boys would play and us girlfriends would just sit on the couch listening.  I remember it being loud, and the music could have been worse.  Sounded okay to me.  But I would have traded several of those hours with sleep.  He didn't like it when I sang.  He didn't like traditional folk singing.  He had very particular sound that he preferred, and during our practices would harshly criticize my sound.  I would sing songs by Amanda Marshal.  Even in front of the Arts Ed class.  I wasn't allowed to sing any other song other than what he liked.  Or he would have the same set of fellas over to my house and play there.  And then he would also drive me around.  And sometimes he was late for classes.  He didn't care.

We were in the same classes at university. I remember going on a field trip to Moose Jaw to look at all the murals with a busload of high school students and this fellow there was joking around with me.  My boyfriend made me feel awful about what I saw as harmless fun and chatting.  He accused me of giving him the wrong idea.  He said I better just cool it.  First of all, it pissed me off that my boyfriend would interpret this man as a threat to our relationship.  Then I conceded because perhaps I was laughing a little too much with this other man, or perhaps Glen was so insecure that I should be more careful of his feelings. I made a point afterward of avoiding this man, even though he could potentially have been a friend.  He seemed puzzled about my sudden coldness, but I think he figured out that Glen was my boyfriend and left me alone after that.

I remember on several trips to Moose Jaw or elsewhere (sometimes we would just travel for traveling away from the City of Regina)...   He would drink rye and cook in a Slurpee glass or a travel mug.  He would smoke marijuana.  He got stopped in his car once when his daughter was in another car with friends.  His story was that everything was fine, even if the police man had him in the police car and had me come out so he could search my overnight bag and my contact lens case.   When Glen got back he laughed and laughed that the whole time he had a plastic baggie of dope in his right breast pocket and the cop wasn't wise to him.  It was a good 30 minute stop, so I don't think it went as smoothly as Glen claimed it did.  

I remember one time that he became horrified that the world was going to end because the sun was in a different spot than he thought it should be when it was setting.  I tried to explain to him that it was probably just because of the season that the sun was in a lower spot than usual on the horizon, but he was getting unreasonably angry, and scared me a bit.  So I went along with him, simply because it didn't seem like something to argue about to me, and have him get in a tizzy about me believing him or not. He was high and/or drunk so I didn't really want to argue logic and science with him.

At first I was offended that he was drinking or smoking drugs in the car, because it seemed to me that he didn't care enough about himself or me to drive while sober.   But he made it sound like he would chose these over me, and that I should grow up, lighten up, etc, and that he could handle driving while drinking and smoking marijuana.  I am not 100% sure why I went along with this.  I think I was just afraid he would leave me.  But I didn't factor in that it was probably worse to be traveling with him in his condition.   I didn't care about me, and I wanted him to know I cared about him.

Some of the more awful memories:

When my brother Robin invited me to his university graduation for Psych Nurse...  I declined.  I told him what my boyfriend had told me to tell him.  I still feel really really awful about what I said.  I told my own brother that I found him arrogant and shallow and therefore I didn't want to attend his graduation.  My only reasoning at the time, was because of course Glen kept saying that's why he didn't want to go to my brother's graduation.  My brother broke down and started crying over the phone.  I didn't know what to say and I can't remember what was said after that point other than I had to hang up the phone.  I don't think I apologized, I think I just said I had to go.  I still feel rotten.  I can't believe I said those things to him and made him feel so bad.   It makes me want to cry when I think about it.  What a horrible thing to say to someone.  And my brother is (or moreso was) a bit of a "me" person, but I was no angel myself.  How could we be other than what we were when we were living under the influence of our mother?  Other than our quirks, I really liked my brother, and it feels like such betrayal now, but somehow I was numb to my feelings then.  I guess I was always a bit numb, but especially with Glen around.  It was important not to show much emotion or expression on my face because he would watch me all the time.  I definitely didn't want to feel things when Glen was being rude about my weight or telling me I'm "nothing special."  I don't remember feeling anything during that phone call... I just remember feeling like a robot, as though I was on automatic.  Like it wasn't really me talking into the phone saying these things to Robin, and he wasn't really crying and shocked that I was saying these things to him.  It wasn't real.  It was happening but not to me.  Things were coming out of my mouth, but it was like another person was saying these things.  It was a dream, it wasn't real.  It must be like it is for my dad, to be a husk, someone else's puppet.  You don't feel because it isn't you speaking, it's someone else talking through you, possessing you.  Horrible!  Makes me feel violated somehow.  How could I say that to my own brother.  I am actually proud of him and his accomplishments.  He had to struggle for a long time with his Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Barr Epstein Syndrome... He must have felt really really good to be graduating...  And here's his sister telling him he's selfish and doesn't deserve to be graduating.  That's low.  Really really really low.  Oh man.  I feel so awful.

I also remember another time that Glen was scaring me.  He wouldn't leave me alone, so I went down to the basement and told him to stay away from me.  I was so afraid and angry at him, and I can't remember why.  I took a stick or branch of some kind (don't ask me what a stick was doing downstairs, maybe for cooking hotdogs over the firepit) and told him to stay back.  I placed the stick on my leg.  Glen would not back off.  So I pushed the stick as far into my flesh as I could and yanked it up and down.  I left a rather nasty mark.  I told people it was from my bicycle pedal scraping my flesh.  It wasn't a good lie, because it didn't look like that at all.  It was one long jagged line that went from my knee down to the ankle and criss-crossed over itself more than once...  I just remember I wanted him to back off and he wouldn't.  And he was scaring me.

I remember he was pissing me off again with his drinking.  I don't remember if we had an argument first, or what happened...  But I was thinking I would get revenge on him.  He would see what it was like for me to wake up in the morning and be ill in front of him.  He was forever getting up and puking in the bathroom sink or toilet.  Wretching.  Horrid.  He had a large amount to drink before bed and we had school the next day.  I know you aren't supposed to mix wine, hard liquour, and beer.  But I went ahead and grabbed a beer and chugged it down.  Then I took several gulps of wine (I think it was the red wine that I have the worst reactions to).  Then I also took a few more chugs of rye that was in the fridge.  By that time I started feeling not very good at all...  I went to lay down beside him and then had to get up again to go downstairs to get sick to my stomach.  When throw up, it isn't a quiet affair.  It was quite enthusiastic.  And I was quite sick.  He came down and asked if I wanted an ambulance, and I said, "No..."  In a very pathetic voice.  I didn't even get a chance to tell him that I did it to show him how ugly it was to drink like he did.  I rarely drank at all.  I didn't partake in his drugs.  And I drank a lot in a very short period of time.  I couldn't go to class because I was still sick the next day.  I just remember feeling so ill and so stupid and ashamed.  And of course he enjoyed that he could look down on me and make me feel even smaller than I already felt.   He was probably thinking I was pathetic not to be able to hold my alcohol.  It felt so right to do it at the time, with this anger of "I'll show you" attitude.  And then after...  Stupid stupid stupid.  What's the point?  He doesn't care.  I don't care.  I feel to ill to care.

But comparing these last two memories with the one with my brother:  I feel more shame now about what I said to my brother than anything else.   That was heartless.