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04/16/2001 Entry: "Still More Katie Dharma"

I'm not sure she's interested in getting the credit (or blame) for my insights and writings, but I had another epiphanous moment that was at least partly inspired by my friend Katie.

I stumbled into therapy this morning not quite sure what to talk about, but pretty certain that I could benefit from exploring my downward spiraling orientation of the last few days. I'm not sure how I wrote about it, but my experience for a good portion of the weekend was of just trying to stay alive. At times, I feel like there's this tremendous force that is constantly pushing me towards isolation, alienation and depression. I think about the energy I expend to just feel okay - how much I have to focus myself on making "right" choices for myself in each moment of each day in order to not feel shitty, and I wonder why. Why work that hard? Why am I so different than most other people in my life? (Okay, I don't know anybody else in my personal life that acknowledges dealing with the constant and persistent looming specter of depression the way that I do.)

Sometime during the session I decided to talk about the difficulty I have asking for things. I don't mean big things like world peace or a house. I mean like asking for very simple little things. As an example, I've lost some weight recently and my favorite two belts are too loose even using the very last holes in them. Both are leather (purchased in my less concerned days) and would look fine with a new hole or two punched in each of them. I realized there's a vendor or two almost always set up on Telegraph Avenue. I pass through that area at least twice a week. In the last couple of weeks, I've walked past folks set up who do leather work maybe 15 times with the thought that I could ask them to punch a couple of holes in the belt that I'm wearing. I've even noticed the needed punch next to the person working. Somehow I haven't been able to ask. I'm not expecting it to be free. I plan to pay. I know that this is what they do for a living and a big part of why they are sitting there. Yet, somehow I can't make the request and I walk around with my hand in my pockets way too much hold my pants up. There are a couple of other recent examples and uncountable examples from my life of this type of (non)behavior manifesting itself in me.

So, why? I was struggling with this today in therapy. Trying to place this in the context of my life history. I know that I was physically and emotionally abused by my drunken father during my early childhood. Was this some ongoing burden of non-worthiness or what? I grappled with it as I have a zillion times before. In reflecting on my weekend and the feelings I had something my therapist said prompted me to remember the wonderful feeling I had when Katie called me last night just to talk, say "Hi," see how my weekend had been, tell me about hers and figure out where I'd disappeared to on Friday. In my acknowledgment of the power of her unsolicited caring, I could somehow begin to glimpse the intense pathology underlying it all for me. I remembered the intense anger and desire for distance I felt when my mother would come to comfort me after a conflict had occurred. There's an angry, abused little kid in me that wasn't "taken care of" and who won't, sometimes, do it for himself. I was struck today with the amount of resentment embedded in this not caring for myself "process."

Okay, I'm stopping for now.