Post-crisis.

First of all, I want to thank all of you people who commented with so much compassion on my last post. I was very worried about reading the comments, because I was expecting a truckload of criticism to fall over me, but instead you all made me feel so much better and now I feel assured that my words about my life are in good hands with all of you and that I can find trust and care and not worry about being made feel less because of some of the things I share with you. I really and truly thank all of you with all my heart.

As to today, well...I went to creative therapy, but sat on the smoking deck beforehand and one of my therapy friends came over very cheerfully to ask me how my weekend had been. Now, when your weekend has not been so good, how do you answer that? I said it had not been so good and then he asked me if I had done anything special. Well, I had, hadn't I, but I did not want to share that with him, so I said, "Yes, but I don't think I'll share that with you now." He very cheerfully took that as a hint that he should ask no further questions and changed the conversation to the weather, which was good, because we were freezing our buns off sitting in the cold air, smoking our cigarettes.

That was a good time to move to the smoking lounge which is a big word for a little unventilated room where we all sit on top of each other and inhale each other's smoke, but hey, that's what we choose for, right? For God's sake, don't make it in any way appealing to the smokers, that lepers bunch.

I went into the creative therapy studio early to explain the bandage around my arm to the therapist. I felt I owed her some explanation instead of just showing up and she was real good about it. No looks of horror, no gasps of disgust. Just acceptance, which is all I can ask for. Once everybody started trickling in, they pretended not to see the obvious, but of course they have all seen the scars on my arms and know why they are there, so two and two makes four quickly. It is nice to be around people who make no issue out of it and treat you just the same as they would on any other day. I think that's brave of them.

The Exfactor came over after I came home from creative therapy to take away every hobby knife that's in this apartment. He found 5 of them and he really looked in all the right places, so I won't have to go looking for one anymore. They are my choice of weapon. I explained to him without shame what happened yesterday, why it happened and what role my feelings for him play in it and that I was seriously considering not seeing him again for an indefinite amount of time, until I could be sure that I am no longer dependent on him and that my feelings for him are straightened out. I think he has a hard time with this, but I told him I would discuss it with my SPN. Every time I emphasized this need, he left the door wide open for me to walk back into.

My SPN showed up at 3 PM and I talked and cried for the next hour and a half. I felt like a woman having a nervous breakdown, but she kept appealing to my inner strengths and my sense of independence and self sufficiency. She reminded me of the fact that I have had these moods also when I was still married and that it didn't make any difference in the end if the Exfactor was there or not, because I am the one that takes the first step to the solution. She also reminded me of what I had gained by divorcing him and what I had been proclaiming all the 4 months previously. She said that the Exfactor is being a nice guy now and that makes me forget all the suffering, because I am not with him 24 hours a day. He is being a guardian angel on a part time basis and that makes him look good.

Then and there I made the decision not to see the Exfactor for an indeterminate amount of time and my SPN said that it was an adult decision.

After she left I had an appointment with my GP to look at the wounds in my arm, I knew I should have gotten stitches in them the same night it happened, but I just could not face the emergency room then. There is a time limit during which a doctor will put stitches in a wound and I was past that. Instead, after my GP got the wounds dry, he applied steri-strips and put a big plaster on it and I have to go back on Friday to have it looked at. I am not allowed to get that arm and hand wet, so no showering for me for a few days.

My SPN says that I don't deal well with negative emotions and let them overwhelm me and I said, "But my God, they are so huge." She says that I make them look bigger than they are by loosing track of myself. I always want to feel cheerful and happy and good natured and am very angry when I don't feel that way. I panic and loose my way in my own thoughts. I nearly self destruct. Her best advice to me is, that as soon as the negative mood hits me, to take 20 mg of temazepam and go to sleep, because I will feel better when I wake up.

I have another appointment with her on Friday and hopefully I will be feeling better by then. I think crying for an hour and a half may have helped me a bit. She asked me if I was going to call my psychiatrist back and I said that I didn't think so, because I was under the impression that he didn't give a damn. She said I shouldn't interpret other people's behavior without checking it with them. I said that he was free to call me if he felt like it.

I called the Exfactor and told him about my decision. He tried to make it sound less bad then it really is. He thinks there is a way open yet, but there isn't. I have to cut him off and he needs to come and get the rest of his boxes that are in the spare room. He is as familiar to me as the inside of my own hands and yet I have to let him go. No more rescue missions. I'm on my own, just like any other divorced woman.

Well, that was my story for tonight. It hurts, but it is good to get it all down. I need to eat now. I'd almost forget to do that in all my troubles.

Ciao...