November 1, 2006

It feels like the inside of us is dizzy.
I dont know how to explain it but things feel different inside, not just... emotions but also physical.
The past week or so has been ...confusing. Trying to look back and figure out what happened is like a big fog. We were really, really sick all week and we have been really out of it and dont know how to explain what's been going on.
I feel like I'm talking from far away down a long tunnel. I just don't know how to explain.
The good thing is though, October is over, for better or worse. And we made it through.

Posted by pilgrim at 4:04 PM | Comments (1)

November 3, 2006

We're so happy that its November. Just surviving October, which is ALWAYS the worst month of the year for me, is reason for celebration. Waking up on November 1st always calls for a "Happy November!" song. However, this year, we handled November SO much better. I think our therapist may have even noticed. No major cutting, no falling 3 feet deep back into the eating disorder, no getting majorly discombobulated, I didn't wake up in a grocery store wandering down the aisle wondering what I was there for. Jo even figured out finally that what happened to her when she was 17 wasn't her fault, and I think she's been talking to T about it. We got pretty sick for a week and have been fairly out of sorts, but we're starting to get better, having changed inside some, and are doing better now.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:19 PM | Comments (3)

One of my favorite tv shows is Law & Order:Special Victims Unit. And Olivia is our favorite character on the show. The person who plays Olivia, Mariska Hargitay, is the president and founder of The Joyful Heart Foundation. Its a foundation for survivors of sexual assault. One of the coolest things they do is take survivors on their program to swim with dolphins. The website has some good information for survivors, teens, supporters, and things you should do if you're ever in a potential situation for abuse. We we'd have the internet when we were teenagers. Or someone, anyone, to tell us these things. We were never talked to, never warned, never told what to do. But now we DO have the internet, and programs-- and The Joyful Heart Foundation is great. Be sure to check it out.

Posted by pilgrim at 9:17 PM | Comments (6)

November 6, 2006

I am so incredibly frustrated and depressed.
It feels like I had a big pile of rocks dropped on my head tonight once again.
A few weeks ago I let people who care about me finally convince me that I needed to go get an MRI for an injury that I've had for about a year. I am fine just ignoring things and toughing it out. But since I'm trying to do this whole "recovery" thing and trying to take care of myself (stupid idea!!) I went ahead to the doctor, had an MRI, then went to a specialist. The specialist turned out to be a total jerk who said he couldn't help me. He said that he didn't see anything wrong and I shouldn't be in pain. I said well, I am in a LOT of pain, so there has got to be something wrong.Then he got an attitude and talked to me like I was an idiot. I didn't go back, and didn't go to a specialist. I've been doing just fine since I decided to go back to ignoring the pain. It works for me, and its FREE.
My insurance was supposed to pay for the MRI.
Guess what? It DIDNT. Today in the mail I got a HUGE BILL. $600 + for the MRI. Big surprise!
The thing is, I cannot, by any means, afford to pay for it. I am beyond frustrated. I feel like cutting my wrists, pounding my fists into a brick wall, and pulling my hair out. :( I just can't take anymore. I'm so depressed and I dont know what to do. Every time a bill comes up, I try to find things of mine that I can sell to get some money. I am OUT of things. My dog had a huge ($,$$$$) vet bill that my husband and I had to deal with just a couple weeks ago. Plus I have a plane ticket home for Christmas that costs $400. Now I have $600+ that I have to pay the doctor in a couple of weeks. I DONT KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO. I am going to try to sell Mae and Tuck's Gamebay and their Lite Brite... there has got to be some more things around here of mine that I can sell that I just haven't thought of yet.
I just feel like I'm 1 breath away from a nervous breakdown. Its been like this since our stipend got taken away this August at school. I just don't know how to deal. Health insurance SUCKS. It pays for NOTHING.
AND I AM NEVER GOING TO THE DOCTOR AGAIN! I am SO freaking SERIOUS. I will have to be bleeding out my eyeballs before I set food in another doctors office.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:34 PM | Comments (5)

November 16, 2006

Just FYI, i am going to join the witness protection program.
YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ME. Got it?

its jo.
Tuesday was a hard session-- not bad, but hard. My therapist said I worked hard.But afterwards in the parking lot Missy took over and was really mean-- she was really pissed off at something I accidently mentioned in session-- and she started screaming "YOURE MINE NOW! I'VE GOT YOU!" and she cut my hand (WHY does she always have to go for the hands where everyone can see?)
Well anyway i emailed our T about what happened (she is less than thrilled ).
Then tonight I went to see our dietician.
We have lost more weight. Several pounds, or maybe she said quite a bit, since last month, "and you are even wearing heavier pants than last time" . And I lost weight last time too...and the time before that...um...and a little the time before that.
Well I am not having a good week, so to me, this is the best news I've had all week. She knows it is of course. But she wants me to eat more . She wants me to GAIN WEIGHT!
I do not want to eat more. I am fat. I am gross. I am being punished and Missy won't let me eat more. I'm afraid to eat more. I am fat and gross and I'm tired of being ugly.
My Nut tries to explain to me (100th time ) that I am already skinny and really pretty... But I couldn't explain to her, that I don't LOOK like this, she is looking at PILGRIM, not at ME... but its hopeless to try to explain to anyone, they don't get it, you know?
She, of course, says she's going to have to tell my T that I have lost more weight.
I can already feel my ears burning. I just want to run away. My T already e mailed me things she wants to talk about next session (having to do with Tuesday night's aftermath, and she even wants to talk to Missy, shit!)
I am so done for.
I am scared half to death.
They are really good friends. They are probably on the phone right now.

I KNOW that Carolineine wants recovery, so does Pilgrim. but i just want to be skinny. i am so afraid to have anything in my mouth. i dont want to eat-- i'm scared to. I'm not like them.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:23 PM | Comments (1)

November 21, 2006

Well, the kids have been watching the Star Wars Marathon on a couple of the cable channels for about a week and a half now, so nearly everything going on in our life has had some sort of Star Wars analogy attached to it... sorry. The kids have been having elaborate Star Wars fantasies going on in their head and when they play inside, and naturally it came up today after therapy today.
In therapy today, T and Jo were talking about Missy. Something about why Missy has decided to be so loud and vocal lately-- punishing us, deciding we don't get to eat if we're "bad" (read: doing ANYTHING under the sun that Missy doesn't agree with). I can remember T saying something about Missy's probably afraid. At that point inside, things shifted and I could feel Missy get stirred up. Until that time, she had just been talking inside to the rest of us, mouthing off, and Jo had been talking for her. But then I remember Missy saying something to T about "I'm NOT scared of ANYTHING." I'm sure T knew it was Missy at that point. Missy is hard to miss.
But the thing is, none of us know what they talked about. Or for how long. Until the end of the session, though. We know Missy talked for a good while because she left us with a huge headache, with our head feeling about 4 sizes too big and like we'd had a rock dropped on our head.
But we want to know what they talked about!!! T wouldn't say if Missy was mean or nice, or what they said-- there wasn't really time because it was all of a sudden time to go, and T didn't want to judge Missy. Dang! Whatever Missy said, it was PROBABLY loud. And probably not friendly.
The thing is, Tuck was listening (when he shouldn't have been), but being stuck in Star Wars mode, he can only explain by saying that Missy is thinking of leaving the Dark Side, and not working for Darth Vader any more. He said that she might become a Jedi Knight.
So, that SOUNDS like good news... like that Missy might decide to be nice to us, maybe?
But who knows! And Missy won't say. On the way home today (when we asked why we had such a huge headache and if she was nice or mean to T) she just said "Go away and leave me ALONE." But she didn't yell it, though, like usual. She wasn't exactly nice, but she wasn't mean either. That was weird. What the heck is going ON?

Posted by pilgrim at 2:21 PM | Comments (2)

November 27, 2006

Thanksgiving was difficult.
We went to see my husband's family. They are really nice people. I like really nice people.
I wanted to sit and talk with them. I wanted to sit and chat and have turkey and just sit there and be normal. They were all doing it-- socializing. Eating. Watching football. Standing in the kitchen and talking. It all LOOKED so EASY.
I could NOT do it. I kept trying to make my mouth open to say something. Inside we were switching-- someone, say SOMETHING.
Nothing.
I went outside to hang out with the dogs a lot.
I was outside staring out at the lake wishing that Carolineine would just come and do this. Sometimes though she just leaves me be when she wants me to figure out how to do something on my own. I was just standing there wondering how people know what to talk about. I want to figure that out. Everyone in there just was just TALKING. And they were laughing. My husband said its just that they are a bunch of family and know each other mostly. But even still, I feel like that in my OWN family too. I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t know how to relate to them. I don’t understand their body language or their expressions on their faces. I don’t know how to tell if someone is being literal or if they’re just teasing. Missy picks up on sarcasm and teasing, but it goes right over my head and I feel so stupid. And some stuff, I don’t know how people are supposed to care about. Hubbt said, get people to talk about themselves, that’s how you start talking to strangers, that is how you start a conversation. He said, ask someone what they do, and they’ll start talking. But what do I really care what a stranger does? So what if they’re painting their living room blue or if their trim is light green or sort of beige? (This is what people were talking about in the house.) so what? And this matters, HOW, exactly? There are kids starving and animals dying and a world that needs changing, what difference does it make if someone’s trying to decide if they should have pink towels or peach towels in their bathroom? Why? I mean, I WANT it to matter... it matters to them. But why does it matter? If i were talking about that stuff, I wouldn't expect anyone else to care. Who cares what color I am painting my bathroom, what color belt I'm going to wear, what great deal I got when I went to Target?How am I supposed to react when people say these things to me? What are the required facial expressions when someone tells you these things? I mean, I DON’T want to be rude, either… but I don’t get it. Who made up the rules of social interaction that says, she talks, I talk, she talks, I talk. When I’d rather be sitting in the corner with the cat in my lap? I felt like an alien. I didn’t understand a word anyone was saying, so I just pretended to listen, and smiled like an idiot.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:21 PM | Comments (6)

November 29, 2006

Usually I don't go out at night. We live in a big city, there is a lot of traffic, and the inside kids are scared of the dark. But tonight I needed to go to the store to buy some fabric, so even though it was dark, I decided to be brave and go. That's kind of a good step.
Well, I made it there. Mae wants to make more Christmas projects. She made our therapist a little Christmas tree to hang in her office and T liked it, so that just encouraged her to make more. So we stopped there. Then there were lots of pretty Christmas baubles and ribbons to look at. I browsed a bit.
Picked out my fabric. Turned out there wasn't enough, once the lady measured it. So I tried another bolt. Turned out there wasn't enough of that one, either. So I decided to get a little bit of both, since they're both pretty colors. At this point I was getting REALLY uncomfortable. I'd been trying to make eye contact, had been smiling, but now I knew I was just taking up too much of the nice scissor lady's time, afraid everyone at the counter was looking at me, wondering what they were thinking, and I wanted to run.
Then the lady, bless her heart, rang the receipt up wrong like 4 times. She kept saying she was sorry, but I didn't have any problem with what she was doing. I was patient with HER. It was me inside that was going crazy. Missy was getting mad at me. I was starting to freak out. The lady was still being nice and I was thinking, she probably wishes she had never waited on me. All I wanted to do was run away.
Finally I got my fabric and my receipt... then, get this. I wandered around the store on my way to the register. Big mistake. Walked past the Christmas ornament again. I spaced out while the kids eyed the Christmas projects, sparkley glitter, and Santa Clauses one more time.

Got to the damn register and didn't have my damn receipt for the fabric.

*i can't stand myself about now as I frantically search the ENTIRE store, even places I didn't go*
I had to go BACK to the nice scissors lady, admit to her that I lost the receipt (after all the work she went through with me the 1st time), they had to call the manager to find out what to do...
AGH.
inside i was just crying and feeling like a total freak and an idiot. why can't i just go to the store and do a NORMAL THING like normal people? Why does it have to be so complicated? It was supposed to be a quick trip to the fabric store to get a few yards of fabric. Instead it took over an hour between getting the fabric, searching for my receipt and retracing my tracks, and trying to keep everyone inside from talking out loud while all the switching went on inside, tried to keep Mae from talking to the scissors lady and saying she was sorry and was she mad and she didn't mean to be bad, and jo from buying a razor blade right then and going out to the car to cut.
AGH.
Simple. I just want SIMPLE.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:50 PM | Comments (6)