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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 16 of 16. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:29:36
*long*
i'm going to get up on the confessional here ... i started talking about this in open but i sorta only got halfway through. if you're feeling impatient, or don't want to talk sex, scroll on past ...
i've been in a car crash once when i lost control of my car on a patch of black ice. i feel like i did when my car was twisting and twisting and spinning and spinning ... i'm turning the wheel, i'm tapping the brake, but i can't bust out of this skid and i'm scared to look because i'm going to crash but this moment of spinning is lasting forever.
that's how i feel.
i'm so confused, i can't get on my feet.
i'm talking about having sex with a married coworker. we have plans to do it in the office. it was going to be today, but unexpected car troubles postponed it. and i'm still thinking about going through with it. we back and forth, back and forth all day long.
and then i leave the office, and don't think about it.
there's another man i have some chemistry with. he is twenty years older than i am. i am good friends with his girlfriend. but i laugh and laugh with this man - he's rubbing my shoulders, touching my leg, grabbing my hand - he's interested. i'm interested. but i don't want to hurt this woman, my friend ... but i know if you leave me and this man alone together you never know what will happen ... but he's much too old ... and i value the relationship we have ...
and then i leave these people and go to the beach.
i'm reading a book, taking my mind off things. this is the incident that sent me to the doctor six weeks ago. i meet a total stranger on the beach and have sex with him. i feel no guilt. i tell the doctor i want a psychiatric evaluation. i take the drugs he hands out. i can be handled by a regular doctor, says the psych. i'm not crazy enough to get their treatment. take the drugs you took before. here's a 3 month supply. i need a new doctor.
but i take his drugs and fly across the country for my grandfathers funeral. somebody tries to steal my car. i get my car repaired, come home. i say to myself that it's stress. i say to myself it'll take time to get the drugs to work. just chill out and wait.
well it's 4 weeks since i started my latest medication regime. i'm torn up between two men i shouldn't have but i want and just might take anyway. i like them because i can play mind games with them. i like mind games. i like to make men feel weak, i want them to feel the power of my sexuality, i want to make them feel like they are at my mercy. but the only way i retain this control is to keep playing games. and i play the games at my peril.
but hey i sleep nights now so the meds are working right?
i just don't know what to do any more. i'm drinking more than i should. i hope i don't destroy myself. why do i feel so restless?
Posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:49:19
In reply to feeling strange and twisted, posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:29:36
i am now acutely aware that i feel very painfully alive.
maybe i am not used to feeling alive.
i feel like i am kicking and thrashing my way through life, like a drowning woman clawing for air.
Posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:56:58
this is kinda fun.
so what i really need to do is to dig up one of my old friends and confess everything. the sordid truths. of course, the old friends don't know the new friends. the old friends don't live here. the old friends know the old me and my old problems, but they don't know the new me and the new problems. there is nobody to sanity check me. i look fine out the outside.
and of course the truth is so sordid, who would i confess to?
so i should get a therapist, great. $500/month out of pocket i don't have. fantastic. spend months and months telling back story. super. and in the interim kick and thrash through life poorer, while doing the emotional drudge work that will turn me into even more of a self-absorbed drone than i am now. and hope for recovery. and hope that the T isn't a loon or a moron or just plain useless.
so instead i do nothing, and confess to myself.
Posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:57:31
In reply to getting sucked into posting, posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:56:58
Posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 0:10:07
In reply to getting sucked into posting, posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:56:58
instead of the paper diary i'm writing here tonight. maybe somebody else will find this interesting too.
so in real life i play big and tough. i lift couches and refill the water cooler and toss around giant drums like the big boys do. i give everybody the impression that i will kick ass. i have a big and loud and booming voice. i have a big smile and an even bigger laugh. i am tall. i am a rare woman in a male-dominated field. and i run with the boys. i'm almost a cartoon, a little larger than life when i describe it like this.
but when i write the other confessional posts, i feel small. that's why i can't confess. it will make me small. and it feeds into an abandonment fear - nobody will like me if i'm not big and strong and brash and funny. but we can't be big and strong all the time, can we?
see usually when i feel small i hide. i call in sick to work. i'm just sick of acting big. i stay home and listen to my cds all day and listen to my heart race and sing songs until i feel like i can go out again another day.
i wish i could learn to be big and small at the same time.
Posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 0:23:33
In reply to yet another diary post, posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 0:10:07
part of me knows better:
part of me knows that i am a smart lady.
that i shouldn't be spraying my personal life all over the internet like a monkey flinging pooh at the wall.
that i shouldn't be chasing married coworkers or otherwise involved 45 year olds.
that if i'm bored at my job i should think up a new career.but for once i'm interested in people again, i don't want to give that up. i was alone for what felt like forever but was really a few months, that the new people are making me feel accepted and part of a group, that i'm crazy to leave them even if they make me crazy. i'm crazy in a happy and weird way. but at least i laugh every day, is that so bad?
part of me is smart enough to know that if i feel out of control, i probably am out of control.
but it's all tied up together - i can't leave my job and my hobby and my whole social network all at once, even if it makes me nuts. but i chose all these things. i didn't realize everything they implied at the time that i chose them. i guess i chose them because i'm crazy, because they do something for me.
but then sometimes the smart part of me things that everybody is either crazy or boring. and i hate being bored.
but then part of me thinks i should just go home ... pack up to mom and dad and leave and go on a long vacation and absolve myself of all responsibility.
but then part of me knows i hate living with mom and dad. i don't want to move back home because the town is awful, boring, crowded, polluted, ugly, cold, hot. and i return to old friends that are wonderful for 5 days but i want to leave again after that for the same reasons i left in the first place.
part of me knows that if i drop everything i have now, i'll go even more nuts.
part of me knows i'm both overanalyzing and underanalyzing.
part of me wonders if i'll ever find a solution.
part of me knows i'll always be a contradiction.
Posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 0:41:05
In reply to part of me knows better, posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 0:23:33
so i do manage to keep it together enough to go to work.
yesterday i did work.
today after i realized that there would be no play after work my balloon deflated. (i'm like dinah, pfffttt!)
so i spent today reading about british motorways
in particular, the magic roundabout and other purely british road constructions:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/35456
http://www.gpsdrawing.com/gallery/land/magic_roundabout.htm
http://www.cbrd.co.uk/mistakes/badjunctions/
http://pathetic.endoftheinternet.org/now all i want to do is go to england, rent a car, drive on the wrong side of the road, and go round and round the magic roundabout.
Posted by JenStar on September 10, 2004, at 1:49:32
In reply to part of me knows better, posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 0:23:33
this is like a poem.
I feel exactly like this sometimes, too! (Well, not all the details, but the sentiment.)DOES it help you to write this stuff down, here, anywhere?
JenStar
PS - it's not monkey poo. Your life is so not monkey poo!
Posted by partlycloudy on September 10, 2004, at 7:15:50
In reply to getting sucked into posting, posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:56:58
I read your posts very carefully. I was certain you had broken into my own brain and were stealing my memories. I went through my pant-chasing time many years ago (I'm an old lady now), and I felt completely amoral about it. No guilt, no problem walking away, no problem picking someone else. There were lots of elements at play here: the knowledge I was doing thing that were considered immoral and wrong; the knowledge that what I was craving was intimacy, not sex; my marriage was such an emotional wasteland that I instinctively sought satisfaction, ahem, outside the household. I actually carried on a relationship for 10 years with someone I had worked with. He moved away and would fly back and see me; I moved overseas and he would write me letters; I moved back, he had been married, divorced, and remarried; then I got divorced and decided (finally) to end the relationship with him.
I didn't mean for this to sound so much like True Confessions, but I know now that I had this enormous emotional maw that I was trying to fill in any way I could, in the only way I could. I don't see that I could behave that way again, but I do not beat myself up over my past, either.
That's my rambling contribution, anyway...
take care
pc
Posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 9:37:21
In reply to Re: part of me knows better » octopusprime, posted by JenStar on September 10, 2004, at 1:49:32
thx jenstar,
i do feel a little bit better. after i finished writing last night i was able to lie down and have a good sleep.
Posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 10:03:57
In reply to Re: getting sucked into posting » octopusprime, posted by partlycloudy on September 10, 2004, at 7:15:50
wow pc
thanks for your thoughts. the line you wrote up top just captures the way i feel so eloquently.
i was going to ask you how you felt like you got control of the steering wheel ... but i went to the substance abuse board ... and if you don't mind me dragging it back to social ... i think you and i are in the same boat in a lot of ways ... i might be drinking to forget ... or just to be more comfortable with myself (i'm smoking a lot too, i'm feeling really jittery in the evenings)
i don't mind the true confessional feeling ... it's reassuring to feel like i'm not alone ... reassuring that i'm not evil for not feeling like i'm having a moral crisis ... i still feel like if things went terrible, i could walk away ...
Posted by partlycloudy on September 10, 2004, at 10:40:30
In reply to enormous emotional maw that I was trying to fill » partlycloudy, posted by octopusprime on September 10, 2004, at 10:03:57
Well, when I was doing that living dangerously thing, I didn't have an epiphany or anything, but realized how lonely I felt even while with someone else. So I swore off sex. Joined AA. Got dry, had withdrawls. Stuck with it for 9 months. Couldn't find a meeting within 25 miles where I wasn't being hit on - and believe me, I am no prize - so I started drinking after meetings. Met my husband (my wonderful one I have now)in a bar. Moved to the other end of the country. I must have packed all my problems with me, because in no time at all I was back to crying all the time and drinking like one of the guys.
So then I started hiding the drinking. Then I started getting help from a p-doc and a therapist. Now I admit to drinking in secret - can't say that's progress, but... the core issue of not being able to stand myself has not changed. It's a very deep rooted self loathing. That is what I'm going to try to tackle in EMDR next week, unless the state gets blown away. Then it won't matter.
Feel free to email me at partlycloudy at gmail dot com.
Posted by Wildflower on September 10, 2004, at 12:56:51
In reply to feeling strange and twisted, posted by octopusprime on September 9, 2004, at 23:29:36
It seems we have a lot in common. I feel strange and twisted too. At lunch today, I walked back from the cafe and the thought of hopelessness, confusion, and my life spinning out of control overwhelmed me. There's a piece of me that's missing but I can't identify it. (All of this happened prior to me reading your post.)
I, too, am suffering from man-troubles. I honestly have no idea what a *normal* relationship consists of. I do have chemistry with certain people and act upon it but I'm becoming increasingly numb. I feel a twinge of guilt and sadness that I cannot find someone that has an emotional interest in me. Perhaps I'm too cold of a person.
Sorry I've written so much about myself whle responding to your post. It's my way of saying that I understand where your coming from and I wish us both happiness and stability.
Posted by just plain jane on September 11, 2004, at 19:26:58
In reply to Re: feeling strange and twisted » octopusprime, posted by Wildflower on September 10, 2004, at 12:56:51
I, too, went through a lot of guys. In my late teens and then again in my mid-twenties I was wild, really wild. For me it wasn't a power or sexuality thing, it was a wild animal running from domesticity, a girl trying to prove to herself she actually wasn't so ugly or so dorky no one would have her, and then a feeling filthy disgusted with myself, how could I do this and yet couldn't stop, maybe sometime I'll accidentally run into the ONE, the guy who would accept me for me and never mention my past, just love me as I am and as I grow, and...
My confession is not of what I was guilty of then, but of the fact that I buried my self, shut down most of my personality,
in a(nother) marriage to
another man I couldn't stand
because I found myself
pregnant, four months after we got married,
and I knew this would be
my only chance to share
the intense love I live inside of
to share my world and the wonders of it
with someone who would care
and learn
and grow
and, maybe
share his love with memy son
made all the rest of the world go away
and for 12 years he was my worldand as he grew into his own self
I grew back into mine
and still we share
love
and learning
and disagreeing
and sunsets
and ice cream
andmy confession is that I hid behind my child
Posted by Susan47 on September 11, 2004, at 20:41:27
In reply to lovely company, posted by just plain jane on September 11, 2004, at 19:26:58
Me too. Everything. :(
Posted by just plain jane on September 11, 2004, at 23:58:12
In reply to Re: lovely company » just plain jane, posted by Susan47 on September 11, 2004, at 20:41:27
Just wondering,
why the frown?
I listen well.
snow4feetdeep@wwnet.net
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