I haven’t been on this blog as much lately because now that I’m out of the hospital and have my laptop back, I’ve been working on my book. Book-writing turns out to be really hard. It’s not that I don’t have enough to say, but when I’m writing about traumatic events in my life, it’s hard for it to come out in any sort of organized way at all. I can write an essay with no problem, but my recollections of my life aren’t as easy to sort out. It’s just a bunch of random memories. So I’m doing my best. Today I wrote the chapter entitled, “Dad is an idiot.” As one can imagine, it took a lot of emotional energy to write it so I’ve kind of been staring off into space since then. It’s been several hours at this point. I wanted to get other things done today but I guess I’ll have to accept what I actually did. I’m starting classes in September so I doubt I’ll make much progress on my book after that, so I feel under the gun to get as much done now as possible, but pushing myself seems to have negative effects because it’s not like academic writing. The writing itself is not hard; I just didn’t realize how exhausting it would be to write about my own trauma. I’m usually pretty dissociated from it and retelling what happened feels like no problem. Which is exactly what’s happening now. I can’t detect any emotions except self-criticism for staring at the wall all afternoon. Maybe my new therapist will have some ideas. I mean, I’m pretty certain that any therapist is just going to tell me to slow down and go easy on myself, which isn’t what I want to hear. What I want is some magic skill that makes it so I can crank this book out and be done with it. I’m so looking forward to just having as much of my trauma as possible in one place and out there in the world where people can access it if interested. That way I won’t feel like I have to actually tell every therapist every story, as though repeating it again and again will make it more valid.
In other emotional news, I’ve had to go no contact with my siblings. This is a huge deal to me, and I had to delete the Facebook Messenger app and install an app designed for romantic breakups. About a million times a day I think of some little things I’d like to share with them and I have to force myself not to. It has been nine days since I wrote them last, and although it’s been a major life event for me, they seem not to have noticed. They never write me back anyway, so their lives haven’t changed much. I’m expected to reach out to them an unlimited number of times, and absolutely nothing whatsoever is expected of them. So now I stopped reaching out and the narrative is going to be that I cut them off, even though they have all my contact information and choose not to use it. My life is a story of unrequited love.
Anyway, on that depressing note, I’m going to start winding down. Maybe soon I’ll be back and write all about my turtle. He’s home now and it’s been truly wonderful to have him back!
