Nonsensical rambling from a nonsensical girl. I apologize, this entry is poorly strung together. I just had to get it out.
Post-therapy thoughts are so difficult so please excuse me as I unload all over the place now that I have done all the things I'm supposed to do. It used to be just Wednesdays that were so bad, we're going to change it to Wednesdays and Fridays now. Oh, joy.
I've been trying to let it go but it won't let go of me. How much power did I claim for my own? Absolutely none if it wasn't sexual. I had no control, the submissive wife. How do I take power back that wasn't mine to begin with? How do I assert myself when I've been a puppet my whole life? A Barbie. Dress her up and watch her smile and she'll do anything you want but then expect her to make a decision from a choice of more than one and she freezes, numb in thoughts she isn't capable of processing.
My head doesn't seem to work in the right way anymore.
And now with Jacob, who has infinite patience to my face but none behind my back, who's heavy-handed approach to counseling and dry delivery of his comments and responses make it seem like I'll never make him happy. He's a tough nut to crack, easy to please but no nonsense too. Bridget is mostly all nonsense. He's my very own Brubaker and I'm the prison in need of reform.
Oops, ignore that, one more nickname will only confuse you, unless you've seen that movie and there you have Jacob in a nutshell. The warden of Bridget, and a dead ringer for the Robert Redford of the mid-seventies, but with a beard. And a much better wardrobe.
Oops, digression.
Jacob is all-encouragement but he wants it yesterday and then he refuses to let you turn the tables when you point out the...enabling. And god forbid he admit anymore how hard he struggles between trying to help me and wanting me to be the fun and unpredictably reckless girl that he knows so well.
We've been instructed to keep playing, keep expanding minds and boundaries, to find Bridget some more time by herself each day (I don't recall wanting that) and to structure said days rigidly, into blocks of time that won't get overwhelming, with routines. No more varying bedtimes, no sleeping in, meals at the same time each day which are to be eaten and not ignored and to talk as much as we can. Hobbies, chores, errands, my running, talk.
That's all we do.
Oh yes, and to have patience, because I may act in ways that aren't characteristic. I may stretch Jacob's understanding of me to the point of no return, I am getting a free pass on my behavior because that's what crazy people get. Bridget can't help herself, she's so messed up.
Oh and the whole wanting a baby thing?
He doesn't trust me. It's a desperate attempt to hold on to me because I'm less likely to leap off the gingerbread if someone needs me and also if I do make the leap, why, he'd have a piece of me left here on earth after I'm long cold.
Nice. Sweet even. Way to go, Jake, on the trust issues. If I say I'm not going to do anything drastic then I won't. Even if I said I might. Of course it makes no sense. I wouldn't trust me either.
But on the other hand, the wild girl stopped and stared at Jake for a few minutes, completely and utterly dumbstruck because that was the most touching and totally fucked up thing he has ever come out with.
I'm still....wow.
Oh, and then they turned the screws and changed everything and maybe made it worse. I was dismissed like a broken toy. Right in front of me, they didn't have the decency to let me leave the room while they discussed me and I am forever branded in his eyes.
God, which one would you like first? The mentally ill one, or perhaps the one that hurt more, the depersonalization designation, that when Jacob heard that one he stopped talking and did a double take at my psychiatrist and it took him way too long to finish his thought. All along he had been just fine with my atrocious disregard for my chemical imbalances, my freaky depression that would come and go out of the blue. For the first time he saw what he's going to have to live with forever and I don't even know what his reaction is. I got stuck on the mentally ill part, too.
And to think all this time I thought I might be okay.
So just add delusional to the list, please.
I have a way of pretending I'm normal without really doing it at all. Which I knew..I'm not that fucked up that I don't see it.
We were both rather stunned. Apparently we've been speeding along at a rate that isn't productive, it's counterproductive, and Jacob's new duties mean that right off the bat we'll be fighting a chaotic schedule that isn't very routine. He gets calls at strange hours, but I am to forge ahead, eat when I'm supposed to, sleep when I should and keep going. I knew damn well I was sabotaging myself all along, which is part of the whole illness. That pesky mental one.
Oh and Jacob pulled another fast one on me that I've been waiting for for years and was almost bound to the conclusion that maybe he really didn't want to know. He does, he wants to know everything. Not to be content with knowing what Cole didn't do, he wants everything out there and there are few ways I can do that short of storytelling here. If I just say it all out loud I might disintegrate into little pieces that never fit back together ever again. If I have to tell him looking into his eyes I'll take so much away from him, things I don't want to ever lose.
Of course the team agrees. So either they're all perverts or they're all better than I thought they were and I will get away with nothing. I'm going to be drawn and quartered psychologically and they're going to dump me upside down and pound on my feet until I'm completely empty.
And I looked at Jacob and ignored them all and I whispered to him that I didn't think I would survive that. He smiled gently at me and told me I already did.
He only thinks I did.
I asked them if I was normal at all. If I would ever be less flinchy, less startling, less messed up, less depraved and less able to turn on and off different areas of my personality because Jake doesn't really know what the hell he's going to wake up with each morning.
Mentally ill.
They assured us once again in their soothing tones that time and hard work will fix me.
I asked if time alone will do it and they said no. Because I think I would rather die now than tell him things that Cole did. Or Caleb for that matter.
Dammit.
I didn't want to be humiliated or ashamed anymore. I don't want him to have that information in his head, I don't want him to picture those things. If I quit now I look like I'm not trying to get better. My hands are tied.
Bridget gets backed into a corner and then scooped into a box for safekeeping. Until she's retrained to be released into the wild. I'm my own monkey on my back now, look at that.
The only way out is through and that's not an option because I went through all of it for one single reason and then I got caught up and couldn't do it and then I couldn't do anything and now..well...now I don't even know what to do.
I believe I've been just about finished off here. I'm not really sure what the fuck end is up or how I went from trying to hold on to a destructive marriage with a violent man that I was completely in love with and possibly brainwashed to ending that life and beginning a new one that was supposed to be full of happiness and love and romance to winding up dismissed as mentally ill while they sat there and talked about my options to learn how to live with this and not wind up worse, further incapacitated. I was sitting there saying, I'm not incapacitated! Fuck, just help me deal with all this shit, and then help me deal with the shit that comes from nowhere!
It's really fucking unbelievable. It explains a lot and it ruins more.
I've been assured I most definitely can come home and continue to write my sweet little stories and continue to spin wool and read to my kids and make lunch and dust the musical instruments and do bookkeeping for the church and drive my friends up the wall because hey, life has to go on.
Just take the pills and continue the therapy forever.
Incredible.
I said very little after that, and mostly tried to pretend I didn't exist.
At the end of the afternoon yesterday when it started to get dark I went into the den to draw the curtains and Jacob was sitting at the desk, no lights on. Just sitting in his chair staring out the window into the snow.
Why are you in the dark, Jake?
I'm thinking, princess.
About how quickly you'd like to run away?
No, about vacations and revelations and second opinions and a lot more sleep.
Heavy stuff.
Oh, it's very serious stuff.
Do you regret marrying me?
Please don't tell me you think I'm that kind of guy.
Hey, at this point I would say you've had more than your fair share of this bullshit and no one would blame you if you bailed.
Then you don't know me very well, princess.
Boy, am I happy to hear that.
I aim to please.
Ah. Charity for the mentally ill.
You're really stuck on that, aren't you? It only means you're depressed. Christ, Bridge, I see twenty people a week who fall into that category too. They're teachers and representatives and cops and some of your friends, even.
I know. I was just hoping we could build a rubber room.
So you can thrash around and go apeshit in one?
No, so we can play naked twister and not get hurt. Silly man.
Why did I know you'd find a way to pervert that?
Because I have to laugh about it or I'll lose what's left of myself.
Then naked twister it is.
For the record, we've never played naked twister. Somewhere along the way it became a running joke that never stops. There are lots of those. Happy memories.
So there you have it. Pretty, loves to write, loves to tell you stories about Jacob and how romantic he is, but mentally ill. Way to go, Fragile Miss B.
