Fear of intimacy

It's weird. My blogs tend to start with a bunch of disjointed bits and pieces of thoughts and words scattered on the page, and then occasionally form into something more coherent.

Having recently been sucked down into my own miserable black gunk with no intention of getting over myself, I was hoping to ride it out, thinking that things would eventually get better, and assumed I'd eventually get to the surface again. It's not happening. I've decided that as well as I'm doing with the food and exercise, I generally suck at what should be obvious life skills. Communication is a big one at the moment, and I've noticed that I'm lashing out in strange ways. I suppose I live in some constant fear that things are going to fall apart. There's some sense of denial mixed with some sense of awareness, but it all gets clouded so that only the bullshit rings in my ears. In the end, I push things to fall apart, so I don't have to wait for it. 

I think most people have a fear of intimacy. There's a common dance where a push away is followed by a pull closer. This is natural, only I shove people over the edge far enough to wreck things. When I was little, my mom always said I ruined everything. I could never have anything nice, because I would destroy it. My Barbie dolls were given horrid hair cuts, and their legs were pulled off after having dragged them in the mud. My stuffed animals were without stuffing, falling apart and had whiskers unevenly trimmed ridiculously short. My sister, on the other hand, kept everything pristine and neat. These days I wreck relationships more than actual things, and when I take a look around at the mess I created, I sometimes long for  the ability to be less destructive. A recent spat makes all my past issues with people look like casual conversations about last night's dinner, so I know something deeper is going on for me. My sister has a nice marriage with two beautiful kids, BTW. Go figure. 

I'm often the queen of cutting off my nose to spite my face too. Lately I've done this insanely heroically, by wrecking the things I least want to ruin. In other words, I need to work on not going over the edge, even though my body seems to be falling apart and contributing to my general state of "I don't give a fuck...only I really do." There's my left foot; watery eye; a blister on my ass from biking; my lumpy breast, which is probably nothing; a cut finger; my sore knee, back and hip from limping; and add to that now my head and heart. I guess I'm longing for things to be different, but wallowing a bit too much, no a lot too much, and not taking enough action. lately it has reached an unhealthy level, and has gotten progressively worse. Somewhere along the way, I stopped living and focused on just getting through the day. I wasn't careful to take the Sam-e which usually helps me, the pain meds and I let other things slide too. There's a definite chemical thing going on right now. I sometimes forget that I'm bipolar, and should watch these downs more carefully. This brings up something that both Dave and Diane addressed, that depression and anxiety can contribute to eating disorders. I'll add that the ocd thing is a factor too. 

I'm using this blog post as a little therapy session. When I was little, I was criticized so much, that I now tend to hear constructive criticism as an attack, even if the comment coming from the other person is couched in the most kind and thoughtful words. I'm sure it goes deeper than that and becomes about how I feel about myself. I will blame myself for everything, whether there are others at fault or not. I have a whole chapter in my book on regret. It frustrates me to no end that I act rashly, and then can't take it back, fix it or somehow change it. I've learned with food to not go there. I am careful in these areas to not slide, choose wisely and move on if mistakes are made. This isn't the case yet in my regular life. I need to pay attention more to playing things out to the end; If I do this, what are the consequences? Often I just act without thinking it thorough. 

This regret thing can go back into missed opportunities and end up being a big game of "what if". What if I hadn't been so sick and messed up? Would I have gone to the Olympics like so many of the girls I was running against in high school? Who knows. I try not to dwell, but sometimes it comes to the surface. 

I know this sounds like I'm failing miserably here, but at least the foot is coming along, despite some unwanted crunching and popping. I'm hoping for the best, even though there's the worry with things still feeling really funky and sore, especially the nerve damage on the top of the foot. Yikes that feels weird. 


Sigh..so here I am again among the rubble, wondering how I managed to create such a fucking mess.  Sometimes it's impossible to fix a broken Barbie. I suppose my best option is to take her out to play in the mud... and hope to not do it again. I'm hoping some good music will ease my mind too. 


In cases like this, the good thing is knowing it can't get much worse, tomorrow is another day and whatever other cliche fits in here.  That and knowing the things I need to work on are helpful, despite having to do the actual work!