Sunday, September 16, 2012

Becoming

Robert Heinlen wrote in Stranger in a Strange Land, that in learning something new you drink it. You take it into yourself, absorb it, allow it to become a part of you, and in doing so, let it change you. He also suggested that you should try to cherish the new information in order to truly understand it.

Therapy has taken a turn for the strange and painful. I'm being forced to try and make changes. I need the change, desperately need it, but I don't cherish it. These last few years have worn a rut into my being. I'm trying to climb out, but it's frustrating and I am strangely resentful of the effort it takes. It would be so much easier to allow that rut to wear itself deeper and deeper into me, until change becomes impossible.

I wake up angry in the morning, and I remain angry until sheer weariness calms me down. Or I take a pill to calm myself down. When all of this began, when I had my breakdown from denying all the trauma for years, I was fiercely determined that I would get better quickly. I had my life planned out, and damned if anything was going to keep me from it. After years of this purgatory of therapy, I no longer have any idea what my life is going to be. I have no plan. I've been distracting myself from the fear, depression, anger, and despair maniacally for these past years. Anything to keep from being overwhelmed by the vastness of my troubles. I feel curiously blank. All my wants are pro forma. I have learned not to hope, not to expect, and to only deal with the most immediate events. Most discussions of the future are a pretense on my part, because I cannot relate to any sense of the future. It's as though the future doesn't apply to me. This behavior is all a defense mechanism of course. Survival is my singular concern.

Making changes is tough. I have to try to care, instead of merely pretending. I feel like I need some sort of spiritual quest or task or some such nonsense, to kick start my motivation. A vision quest maybe? A glimpse of the future to assure myself that such a thing exists. I am skeptical. If I had some secret true name, it would be something like "cynic" or "skeptic".

I'm tired.

1 comment:

  1. I've been worried about you but I figured we all need a 'time out' now and then. Just want you to know someone does care.

    You say, "I no longer have any idea what my life is going to be". None of us do, really, but it's comforting to delude ourselves. Basically, we want to know; want a plan; want no surprises because we lack confidence in our ability to 'go with the flow', to be able to handle whatever comes down the pike.
    Example: my kids go camping and bring everything but the TV, worried they will need this, that or the other thing. Sleeping bags, stoves, huge supply of food and water; medical kit just short of surgical, etc.
    I go with a .22, a large knife & a blanket and some fishing tackle, knowing I can survive quite well with just that. (I take matches only because I'm lazy).

    Realize that the future can't be as bad as the past which you survived. Take it a day at a time and let Life reveal itself instead of trying to force life into a preconceived pattern, particularly when you're not sure what you want that pattern to be.
    It took me 60+ years to learn that and I am often amazed at the unintended places and things Life has provided. Hope you learn faster than I did - LOL.

    I prescribe a supply of virtual hugs. Take as many as needed as often as needed. Bless you.



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