Tomorrow morning is my mental exam and I am anxious about it, in a complete state of high alert physically. However, as progress, I am not actually worrying about it. It's a physical response, but since last week when I wrote out all the things I was worried about and then rational responses to those worries, I have felt like I can give up worrying in any specific way. So, despite being intensely unpleasant, I am finding myself able to consciously sit with the anxiety and choose not to think about all the things that might happen (mostly the ways I might react internally to certain scenarios like invalidation). This is opposed to just dissociating all together. I am going fuzzy here and there, but I am still connected to the here and now and my own anxieties about it. I haven't made much progress on why this particular scenario feels like life or death, but I'm OK with not knowing that right now. All these things, despite being really difficult and somewhat painful, make me kind of proud, because they are huge progress. Before, I would have dissociated at least the emotions and then worried constantly, try to plan for every contingency in order to be safe. I've been able to make a choice to put those responses aside and just go through this and see that it doesn't need to be a disaster. Yay!
T is really proud too, which is
very sweet. He has also really come through for me, writing a full page to the interviewer about how my combination of internal crisis, dissociation and external facade of competence might pose some challenges in the interview and included some of my "anxieties" and responses for them to see my "process" of all the things going on inside that might not be reachable in that format/context. He expressed concern for how the interview might trigger me, which is a huge worry of mine, so hopefuly whoever it is will read the letter and just be mindful, since I've been pretty fragile lately. I didn't expect T would write the letter, which we discussed (he really thought we should include my writing in there and said he'd write an introduction), because he was camping until Sunday late afternoon. I didn't remind him, even though I really wanted that sort of outside support there with me (which he declined to do when I saw the pdoc), but he already had the letter for me to read when I was hanging out in the lobby during H's session yesterday afternoon. He was really sensitive about it, made sure I was OK with everything. He is just being really steady and present for me and it's helping me to be centered, emotionally and spiritually, at a time when I'd usually already be in the crisis zone. Gotta love that guy! I have a session tomorrow night, several hours after the exam, and maybe another in person on Friday...we shall see.Housing stuff is...still up in the air, which is incredibly hard, because it's time to start thinking about Kindergarten for Boo next year and we don't even know where we'll be living. The mortgage company and/or the real estate agent seems to be messing us around and I don't know which, so it's another anxiety that I am refusing to dwell on too specifically, because there is no point in worrying about something I have no power to change. My H has a job, so it's not like we'll be homeless ultimately. We'll be together and that's what matters to me. I only wish my treatment didn't have such an effect on my family's security. But, even still, I'm able to sit with that disappointment without loathing myself for now.
There are three family birthdays this week, so I am triggered on seeing family vs. guilt of avoiding it with so much else going on. A weird thing happened yesterday when I was sending one sister a message for her birthday and suddenly, from deep down inside, there was this feeling of, "That's my big sister!" I haven't felt like that...maybe ever. That stuff is quarantined off somewhere from before I became a caretaker within my family. It was this deep sense of connectedness, of belonging to one another, of having a shared history. It's a feeling I don't think I've touched in all the years I can remember well, which granted is only since my late teens. Despite all the stress and drama my family has, it was this moment of being a part of it and not just faking it for their benefit. Unfortunately, rather than feeling really good, connectedness just makes me freak the heck out (happens if I'm around when kids are connecting with T too) if there is any element of my own vulnerability in it. But still, I feel all this shifting inside, getting closer to, touching, even integrating stuff I didn't even know was in here. I can get so disappointed at times that I'm making too little progress or none at all. It was terrifying, but I felt more like a person, more like I had a past and a childhood, than I ever have.
Anyway, there are a few other stressful things going on with people I love dearly, but for the most part, I'm finding myself able to just sit in the midst of the chaos without needing it to get fixed right away or to plan for all the other little things that might go wrong. I'm able to say, "Well, it can't be forever, can it?" and just do what things I can do...even if there are still some days where all I can do is keep myself safe in the midst of overwhelming internal crisis. On the one hand, I'm feeling more, and I still haven't got the level of toleration for emotions that makes it smooth sailing...but on the other hand, I've ridden through it enough at this point to know I can be safe and some practical things I could do there. Hell, I even took the last two weekends off from texting entirely and nobody died or melted down!
Anyway, sorry for such a long update. Lots else going on, but I don't want to write a novel here. Lots of love to you guys and thanks for reading.
