Monday, October 15, 2012

Pushing back against agoraphobia

N says you don't present [yourself] as needy as you say you are, but I believe you.

I say I have good days and bad days. 

Recently I was offered an interview at an intensive (9 hrs / wk) group therapy program. It's on Friday. I'm thinking of making a bulleted list of shit. B/c I get flustered talking to strangers.

For me agoraphobia feels


  • Like people can touch me with their eyes. 
  • Like there's a magnetic field or something that projects from them to me. 
  • When I feel it it's like grating over my skin. 
  • Like pressing down on the nerves of my skin and I can't breathe the same.
  • Like every distance is too far away from safe.


This happened before once but it was so long ago that I [would rather not] have to dig through those years to remember what the solution was. Also I was 17.

I've decided to go back to being vegetarian.

B/c I'm worried about failure, I've decided to be veg + fish, like Mike. And not be too self-judgmental as to whether I "succeed" or not.

When I became veg for the first time it was b/c I was worried about the contribution I was making to factory farming, etc. When I went off it was b/c of curried chicken legs on the grill.

It's not like I never thought about those things after. About animals, the environment.

If you leave me a comment about how animals taste good or how my philosophy should have withstood curried chicken legs or how veg + fish isn't doing enough to blah blah blah I will delete it.

Maybe I decided I want to work towards veg again b/c I feel like it.

This morning is a good morning.

This morning is a good morning b/c Mike helped me by liberating me from C who is triggering lately just leave her a check and tell her to lock up and by driving me through the first leg of my travels.

Sometimes there's a line btwn interdependent and needy and it's blurry. I recognize also needy is a judgment I have put upon myself.

Maybe needy is what I feel when there isn't enough interdependence scenarios to make it work. My life work. Which is complicated right now. And I don't mean my life's work; I mean my life's working, its operation: showering and leaving the house.

My friends have been so good to me.

I have also decided that, for now, I'm using the white cane only for extremely necessitous situations: night, crowds, unfamiliar streets. It is a risk.

N said try to access your personality when you were in Pittsburgh before you used the cane. What were you like?

Smiley and friendly and I looked people in the face. And I felt like I was cute all the time or most of it.

And I didn't feel the eyes pressing pressing pressing on me all the time. I know I have regressed I know I have transgressed the cane is a tool but it is also a marker also a badge and not like (A) badge in The Scarlet Letter or something.

Badge of honor but I prevaricate I also feel in the part of me I don't want to explore I feel like it is (A) badge as well and that's why I need to put it away for now b/c my skin is so raw from everything and the nerves

it feels like iron filings rrrrrrrrub against my arms and neck when people look at me.

Fascia tighten tightens my protection my net my inadequate-

ness.

But here's also some pictures:

Brickface

Lamb Shank

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