Joy Division- She's lost control
Today has been a symphony in normality. Luch with an ex-boyfriend; afternoon listening to music and vaguely searching for a trench coat which doesn't make me look lumpen (consider this search: abortive). Dinner with friends. Tube home. Lechy comment from the bloke in the hairdressers, on his own way home. Now, sitting on the sofa in my pajamas, bottle of scotch, laptop balanced on my knees. A week ago I had planned to kill myself tonight. Lying awake in a friend's spare room last sunday I had determined that this whole life malarky really just wasn't worth the effort, frankly; an advertising con on the scale of Sunny Delight. I've been stock-piling pills all week, but I have no desire to take them, now. I don't just feel okay, I feel fucking brilliant. Happy.
It's this sort of dichotomy that builds the life of the borderline. I do nothing by halves. My world is built on opposites- I love you or I hate you; I am exstatic or I am desolate; I am impervious to criticism or I am paranoid. There is no middle way and the swing from one to the other can happen in seconds. No wonder people find me hard going.
Sometimes, though, I realise that it's possible to feel something which has nothing to do with my illness; is, in point of fact, just a person with a feeling. Case in point- my "magic powers" story. It is my secong appointment with a psychiatrist. My first, I was a gibbering pile of mad. This was the appointment I'd fought for desperately for so long. After years of trying to second guess myself, work out if I was "ill" or just attention seeking, I'd finally found someone who would take me seriously, and was willing to see my self harm and depression as unmediated by my intelligence and achievements (the mentally ill cannot be academically successful: bullshit). It didn't help that my psychiatrist had a beard. I have a bit of a thing about beards. I prefer to ignore Freud and regard it as an aesthetic quibble. Beards are unpleasant looking, they smack of laziness disguised as a style choice, and they give a girl stubble-rash, a condition so reminiscent of adolescent eczema that it will bring anyone out in flashbacks. None of this made for a happy first consultation. I was scared, triggered to flash-back, paranoid, determined to present myself well, and absolutely unable to second guess. My brain took the obvious route out and dissociated. I spent most of my first psyche appointment watching from the other side of the room as I giggled, made inappropriate jokes, waved my arms around, and eventually ran out of the room and hid in a small corner of the corridor whimpering. I had to be coaxed out with tea. Humiliating? Oh yes.
My second appointemt was better. It was a good week. The beard wasn't going to take me unawares; I was prepared for the beard. I was, strange to say it, happy. Fucking happy. I'm a borderline; like I say, I don't do things by halves. I sit in the waiting room trying not to hum out loud. It's an okay habbit usually but you really don't want to exercise it in the waiting room of a psychiatric unit. They tend to lock the doors on you. I get called into Dr F's office.
Tatty: Hi.
Dr F.: How are you feeling?
Tatty: Good! I'm really good. I'm feeling really happy.
Dr F. Oh? really?
Tatty: yes, it's great. I'm really cheerful.
Dr. F: Do you feel like you are glowing?
Tatty: Well, you know... yeah, a bit... I'm, you know, happy. Glowing. Yeah.
Dr. F. (face serious, concerned): Do you feel like you have magic powers?
I laughed. How could I not? Dude, this isn't psychosis, this is good cheer. But that's what you get for joining this gang. I can't be happy anymore. I have to be having a manic episode. Give over. This is just a fucking good day. I'm not insane. I'm just liking the fact that it's spring again.
Sometimes I forget that you can feel something spontaneously. That it isn't a side effect of a drug or your childhood, a coming to terms, an uncovering, an "inevitable response". That people do get happy because someone said a nice thing or smiled, because it's the first day of spring or their friend just passed their driving test.
I need to remember that. Perhaps I should get a sign.
It's this sort of dichotomy that builds the life of the borderline. I do nothing by halves. My world is built on opposites- I love you or I hate you; I am exstatic or I am desolate; I am impervious to criticism or I am paranoid. There is no middle way and the swing from one to the other can happen in seconds. No wonder people find me hard going.
Sometimes, though, I realise that it's possible to feel something which has nothing to do with my illness; is, in point of fact, just a person with a feeling. Case in point- my "magic powers" story. It is my secong appointment with a psychiatrist. My first, I was a gibbering pile of mad. This was the appointment I'd fought for desperately for so long. After years of trying to second guess myself, work out if I was "ill" or just attention seeking, I'd finally found someone who would take me seriously, and was willing to see my self harm and depression as unmediated by my intelligence and achievements (the mentally ill cannot be academically successful: bullshit). It didn't help that my psychiatrist had a beard. I have a bit of a thing about beards. I prefer to ignore Freud and regard it as an aesthetic quibble. Beards are unpleasant looking, they smack of laziness disguised as a style choice, and they give a girl stubble-rash, a condition so reminiscent of adolescent eczema that it will bring anyone out in flashbacks. None of this made for a happy first consultation. I was scared, triggered to flash-back, paranoid, determined to present myself well, and absolutely unable to second guess. My brain took the obvious route out and dissociated. I spent most of my first psyche appointment watching from the other side of the room as I giggled, made inappropriate jokes, waved my arms around, and eventually ran out of the room and hid in a small corner of the corridor whimpering. I had to be coaxed out with tea. Humiliating? Oh yes.
My second appointemt was better. It was a good week. The beard wasn't going to take me unawares; I was prepared for the beard. I was, strange to say it, happy. Fucking happy. I'm a borderline; like I say, I don't do things by halves. I sit in the waiting room trying not to hum out loud. It's an okay habbit usually but you really don't want to exercise it in the waiting room of a psychiatric unit. They tend to lock the doors on you. I get called into Dr F's office.
Tatty: Hi.
Dr F.: How are you feeling?
Tatty: Good! I'm really good. I'm feeling really happy.
Dr F. Oh? really?
Tatty: yes, it's great. I'm really cheerful.
Dr. F: Do you feel like you are glowing?
Tatty: Well, you know... yeah, a bit... I'm, you know, happy. Glowing. Yeah.
Dr. F. (face serious, concerned): Do you feel like you have magic powers?
I laughed. How could I not? Dude, this isn't psychosis, this is good cheer. But that's what you get for joining this gang. I can't be happy anymore. I have to be having a manic episode. Give over. This is just a fucking good day. I'm not insane. I'm just liking the fact that it's spring again.
Sometimes I forget that you can feel something spontaneously. That it isn't a side effect of a drug or your childhood, a coming to terms, an uncovering, an "inevitable response". That people do get happy because someone said a nice thing or smiled, because it's the first day of spring or their friend just passed their driving test.
I need to remember that. Perhaps I should get a sign.
posted by tattybluetrees at 3:19 PM
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