More anxiety attacks.  My heart is racing.  I'm trying to function 'as normal' but it's a struggle.  What the hell is going on?  I'm so lost and I don't know what to do with myself.  I wish I could just go crawl under the covers and wait it out, but I can't.  I have responsibilities, I have a child. 

I'm not trying to be dramatic, I just needed to put this somewhere.

Saw L yesterday morning and I think I feel better.  Actually, I know I feel better, but it's not enough to completely lift me from the funk.

Thinking back on the session now I was surprised at how supportive and understanding she was.  We talked a lot about her not being around and how that affected me.  She reiterated that it's ok for me to be dependent on her right now, I need it, and there's nothing wrong with it.  She reiterated that although this relationship is a bit different than most it's still very real, and it's not one way.

We talked about the various text exchanges we had while she was gone.  I told her that so many times what I wrote was not exactly what I was feeling or thinking.  More passive-aggressive than anything.  It was also good to get her take on the texts too.  I certainly read too much into her responses.  Or should I say that I read too much negative-crap into her responses, crap that doesn't exist at all. 

So other than me melting down internally, life goes on. 

We took our 5 year old daughter to kindergarten orientation today.  She loved it, and is looking forward to starting school next week.  My partner is excited for her too.  On the other hand I'm a nervous wreck!  I'm sure everything will be fine, but as we get closer I get more worried. 

We did talk to her teacher today about S (our daughter) having two moms, and what's the school and the teachers stance on families headed up by gay/lesbian parents.  The teacher responded well, but not as supportive as I liked.  I think I wanted her reassurance, but she downplayed it a bit. 

Still moving forward on the new business venture.  So much is still up in the air though, and it's not even close to being a done deal.  It's just gonna take some time patience, and lots of deep breaths!

I've had a few anxiety attacks lately.  My head feels light, almost unattached, my stomach churns with butterflies, and my mind can't focus.

I can't get back on track.  I'm tired, I've stopped exercising, and I've shutdown from talking with people.

I'm getting sick of myself too.  I know I should be thankful for all my blessings, and there are many, but somehow it's not enough. 

I stare at my sleeping 5 year old and thank God for her.  Many would give their right arm for a child, and I know that I would jump in front of a bus to save her, but the gratefulness does not lessen the weight for me.

My partner M has been very supportive too.  We've had some good connections lately, and although we'll go to couples counseling, I feel a little less frantic about it.  We definitely need help with communication, amongst other things, but still have a lot of love for each other.

Once again, appreciative, but not enough at the moment to lift me.

I really don't have time for this.  I don't want life to pass by and me wasting time feeling like crap.

I've been feeling a little weird/off lately, both physically and mentally.  Ever since coming back from vacation, which was over 2 weeks ago, I've been exhausted, just tired all the time.  I wake up tired.  Yesterday I got up late, like 9:00am, went for a 4 mile run, and went back to bed until 3:00 in the afternoon.  Got up, had a quick bite to eat and then laid down again until 6:30pm.  Hung out with the family, had some dinner, put my daughter to bed and I was back in bed by 9:00pm.

I honestly don't think it's depression.  I've been a bit more motivated lately, finishing some projects around the house, starting to do  research and write a business plan for a small business my partner and I might buy.  Yes, I miss L right now, but I'm 99% sure that's not what caused me to stay in bed yesterday.  And like I said, this has been coming on for a couple of weeks.  M wants me to see the doctor, but I feel a little silly about.  I mean, who isn't tired all the time??

L and I exchanged some emails the past few days:

     Thursday Night
Me: Are you back yet? No pressure.
L:     No pressure, are you ok, do you want to say more
Me: I'm ok, mostly.  It's just the first day withdrawals, it will get better, and before too long I'll hate you and won't care if you never come back....mostly
L:    Say that's not true.  Let's be positive to start, if only just for me.
Me: I couldn't hate you even if I wanted to, which I don't....so how about 'watch out for runaway cable cars and no swimming out to alcatraz'  I need you to come home safe and sound.
L:    That's a deal
Me:  :)

My  text originally just started out with me making sure she was still around.  I had seen her on Wednesday night, it went well, I was feeling pretty ok.  So when I sent the text on Thursday I was sort of half kidding.  Of course she wouldn't be back yet, she just left.  And then my response about hating her, once again although there was some truth in it, I was mostly being sarcastic.  Or really being passive aggressive.  Of course I don't hate her, I just hate the attachment pain.  And then I felt horrible for making her feel bad. 
I also wondered about her 'just for me' statement.  I felt like I should have been more sensitive.  She left to go help an ailing aunt, and it was going to be very tough on her.  I felt like a jerk


      Saturday Morning
Me: Doing ok, how about you?
L:    I am good, glad you're ok.  hope it is a good day for swimming
Me: It is, and we are?

My text was my way of saying I'm sorry, and don't worry about me, I'm fine.  I felt so bad about our exchange Thursday night  She has enough on her plate without hearing my shit, especially from a distance.  Can't I just her a break, for once?

      Sunday Night
Me:  Do you think we'll still know each other in 20 years?
L:     Don't know why not

I don't even know how to explain Sunday's question.  In my head I keep hoping I get to a place where I won't go off the deep end when she's not around.  I have a very close friend whom I've known over 20 years.  He knows me so well, but we don't get to see each other very often.  In fact I don't think I've talked to him in over a year.  But we have that kind of relationship, and as soon as we do connect it's like we haven't missed a beat.  I think that's how I want it to be with L. 

And you would think that I would be OK with her response, but it just wasn't enough.  Funny, I sent the text Sunday night and she just responded this morning, and the whole time I kept imagining what her response would be.  And I kept trying to come up with one that would be exactly what I wanted.  I came up with:
'Of course'
'That's the plan'
'I hope so'

And I guess 'Don't know why not' is pretty comparable.  So why am I left with wanting more?  Why can't it ever be enough?

Feeling sad, just sad and I can't shake it.  So I'm gonna stop trying.  L is gone, she's still available to me, but we won't officially meet for about another week and a half. 

I realize that this isn't life threatening, and I should be thankful cause it could be way worse.  But I also know that this type of thinking isn't helpful.

She's gone and I miss her.

She'll be back.

I'm not even sure if this will make any sense but I'm gonna give it a whirl anyway.....

Is one of the things that a good t is supposed to do is to 'hold' our feelings for us?  If I said this to L she'd say 'Say more'...so.....
Well, these attachment-like feelings that I have for L are so strong, and she encourages me to talk about the depths of them to her.  Clearly she's not going to act inappropriately towards me, but what does she do with them?  Does she keep them, and me, safe?  Just holding on to them until I'm ready to look at them again in the hopes of reworking my beliefs and understanding?

I sent her this text yesterday after my session:

Me:  So I'm sitting in a meeting and my mind is going in circles..today you asked is my feeling better due to M and I connecting a bit more?  maybe or maybe it's because you're back? or maybe both? neither? Do I use one to avoid the other? Or is this all bs on my part? And you having to go away, I hate the crap that it brings up....sorry for the ramble, throwing it out there to hopefully feel better and to make myself talk about it on wednesday(can you say drama?)

L: Glad you texted and yes maybe a little of both, and yes me going away again does throw a monkey wrench into it

M: You know I couldn't have asked for a better counselor....and no, you can't remind me of this when I get ticked at you for some stupid reason.

L:  Yes I can.

M: :)

In writing '....I couldn't have asked for a better counselor....' I struggled with the word 'counselor'.  My initial thought was to really write '....I couldn't have asked for a better friend....', but I didn't want to freak her out or suggest that we were 'friends'.  It's just that using the term 'therapist' seemed to cold and non-personal, and definitely not a good depiction of how I feel about her.  Friends is more accurate, but I didn't want to think that I'm getting confused or boundaries being blurred for me.  Using 'counselor' was better than 'therapist', but still not quite it.  Clear as mud.


Not sure any of this made sense.

It's a rainy Monday.  So although I have to be at work, they can't actually make me be productive!  It's only August, but it has the feel of a cool stormy October day.  And I should be home, in my jammies, on the couch, watching movies. 

But I'm at work instead.

I saw L this morning.  It was cool and raining then, and I wished I could have worn my jammies and curled up on her couch.  But I didn't.

I don't normally see her on a Monday morning, but she has to leave town again at the end of the week to help care for an ailing aunt.  So I'm going Monday and Wednesday this week, and then she's gone for ten days starting on Thursday.  Sigh.

It was one of those sessions where we covered lots of stuff.  From family-of-origin events that happened over the weekend, which was all pretty good.  Or at least tolerable.  One of my nieces turned 7 over the weekend and my sister asked to have her daughter's birthday party at our house.  We have a new pool and are happy to share. 

We also talked a lot about my relationship with M, and how things have been going.  The weekend for us was pretty good.  Since our HUGE fight last week (over pretty stupid stuff) things have been better.  It was like this release for the two of us, and we've been able to circle back on a couple things that were sort-of left hanging, cause all we did was yell and stamp our feet.  Very adult-like.

M and I have been trying and we're both very conscious of our own shit and what we bring to the table.  We still have work to do, but at the moment, for the past few days, it's been feeling better between us.

I did share with L a dream that I had.  I dreamt that M and I were on vacation at some sort of huge hotel-resort place and I saw that M was spending lots of time with James Brolin (you know the guy married to Barbra Steisand).  Eventually M came and told me that she liked him and she wanted to have sex with him.  I told her no way could I stay married to her and threw our wedding rings at her.  Then she said that she wouldn't go with him, but then I said to her that No, she should go with him, and I want her to be happy.  So don't stay with me, because I'll be thinking other things in the back of my head.  And then I would flash back to throwing my rings at her and being mad.  And then once again I'd flip back to telling that she should do what makes her happy.

The next day I told M about it and she quickly told me that James Brolin wasn't her type.

Now I'm a 46 year old gay women, and I've NEVER been attracted to a man, but I could certainly see where James Brolin would be a good choice.  Mature, intellegent, silver-haired kind of guy, seems very attentive to Barbra!  But what do I know??!!

Unfortuntely, I sort of joked it away with M, but what I really needed, and wanted was for her to say, that I was the only person for her.  I needed her support and reassurance.  She didn't know that, but I did.

You see, although I've been gay my whole life, M, who's 5 years my senior, has been married.  Twice.  To men.  So maybe my fears have some basis.

 Although we've known each other for about 13 years, we've been a couple for 10, married for 7, and have a 5 year old girl, I still worry.  And sometimes I worry a lot.


And so it goes.....

Sometimes I feel a bit whiny, and wonder if the awesome folks who read my ramblings ever think 'I wish she'd just quit with all this needy-therapy-attachment-crap.  Can't she write about something a bit more interesting??'

But, then I think, well this blog was meant for me to use as a replacement for my own personal therapy journal.  One I've kept for years, and never shared with anyone.  And keeping a journal only for myself is somewhat reflective of how I live my life.  I keep most of my thoughts and feelings to myself.

So, I want to thank the folks who do read this.  I'm not quite sure why, but putting it 'out to the universe' in this fashion has helped me.  And if you find it a bit whiny and annoying, I'm sorry, but it is, what it is.


Now to get down to business....

I met with L today, and I have to admit it was good to see her. 

It's strange, I did/do have a lot to talk to her about.  It's been over two weeks and lots of stuff happened.   But when I got there I didn't feel like talking.  As much as I wanted to talk about things, simultaneously, there was nothing that I wanted to talk to her about.  A lot of the initial conversation went like:

L:  How have you been?
M:  ok
L:  How was vacation?
M:  ok
L:  How has it been going back to work?
M:  ok
L:  How was it with me being away?
M: ok
L:  How are you and M(partner) doing?
M:  ok

The whole time I just stared at my keys in my hand.  It was a long time before I even looked at her.  But lucky for me we have 90 minute sessions, which normally is enough time for me to get comfortable and open up.

So after another minute or two she asked 'So, what is it that you want to talk about that you're not telling me?'  Once again, simultaneously I knew how to answer that question, and I also didn't know how to answer that question.  This was gonna be a slow process today. 

Of course I wanted to scream out
      'I'm crappy, I've been crappy, the depression keeps getting worse, I haven't run in almost a week, M and I had a huge, huge fight on Sunday and we can't keep operating that way, work is just not a good place for me to be anymore, and that was made pretty clear to me yesterday, and as for you not being around, I hated it, please don't ever do that again!!'

But of course I didn't.

So L, patiently pulled it out of me, or was it push?  It's like she's an artist in some way.  Patiently pulling things out of me until I'm at a place where I can freely (sort-of) share things on my own.  I even needed tissues towards the end, which is something that rarely happens to me. 

Basically we really talked a lot about the HUGE fight that my partner (M) and I had.  My partner and I are opposites in many ways, and one is the way we communicate, or not communicate.  She is more of a talker, analyzer, and yeller, and I'm not (surprise, surprise).  But this time, I yelled!  I rambled, I said things almost unfiltered.  And it sort of felt good, at least afterwards. 

Of course L could only see the 'good' in this fight.  I sarcastically asked L that just once, could she just look at the glass as half empty, stop looking on the bright side.  But of course she didn't.  She said it was good that we talked, that I expressed myself.  And that at the end of it all, somehow things felt better between M and I.  We didn't resolve much, but we both felt better.  Weird.

We also had time today to talk about work.  There's too much going on to describe, and I'm even looking at buying my own business (which sort of spurned the above fight), and it was good to get L's view and input.  Of course it was all positive.

So, all-in-all it went well.  It was one of those sessions where I really felt drained and just wanted to take a long nap afterwards, but that damn work-thing gets in the way.

We never really talked about how it was for me with her gone, but I'll see her again on Monday, so maybe then I will, or maybe I won't need to by then. 

I didn't ask her about our text exchange the other day, but she did happen to mention that when she answered my somewhat desperate text with 'Yup, still on vacation', she meant to put a question mark at the end.  So without that, the text is completely different.

 Instead of a statement of fact, or her telling me she's still on vacation (and me spiraling thinking she wants me to not bother her), she was asking me a question, am I still on vacation?  She wanted a response, to know how I was doing.  Very different.  Funny, cause when she first sent it to me my first thought was 'was she asking me'?  But of course I quickly went down the other path.

After my session, although I was tired, work has been ok, and I've been ok.  I have really had this nagging feeling, this want of a hug from her, to have her hold me (this is the sounding whiny/needy part that I referred to earlier).  I just want her to tell me it will be ok.

I did send her this text a few minutes ago:
  Thanks for your support today, I did miss that, and thanks for being patient.  I hate to admit it, but it helped to talk, and maybe I'll talk more on monday (that's only a maybe of course)

To quote George Jetson 'Jane, stop this crazy thing'.

This morning I'm feeling sad, not angry anymore.  At least not as angry as yesterday.

I'm not sure what the sadness is about.  Maybe because I'm feeling a bit lost and alone?  Not sure where to go and what to do?  What to do with myself?

Since coming back from vacation I've only run once.  I know running helps me tremendously, but I don't feel the drive right now, the drive to feel better.  Weird.  Another chasing-my-tail thing. 

Maybe it's not sad so much as it is hopeless?

And still the lingering 'How will I be tomorrow with L?'.

I know it helps to talk.  I'm pretty sure she cares, although honestly, I feel like she's shifting and pulling away from me.  Like she's getting sick of me or too frustrated with me.  And if I asked her if that were true I'm not sure I'd get an answer that I would believe.  Or, I would get the only answer that I would believe, which would be 'Yes, I'm frustrated with you and don't want to work with you anyore'.

I wish I didn't have to deal with the world today.  I wish I could just crawl back into bed and not have to deal with anyone or anything today.  Just sort of sit and wait for tomorrow.  But alas, that will not happen.

Do you want another crazy thought??  OK.......L is flying home today.  I've thought of finding all the incoming flights from that state and continuously monitor them to make sure they all land safely.

More crazy thoughts to come......

How will I 'be' this Thursday?  I haven't seen L in over two weeks, between my vacation and hers, and our next appointment is this Thursday morning, and I don't know how I feel about it.

Should I be happy?  Thankful?  If so, then why do I feel angry?

Of course I get 'logically' that she can, and needs to go on vacation. And I don't think I begrudge her that, but that seems to be the most obvious reason for me being angry. So maybe that's not it.

I know I hate the pangs of attachment.  Maybe I blame her for it?

There's also something to be said for not being in therapy.  The angst and the transference can really suck the life out of me.  So then I toy with the idea of not going on Thursday at all.  I wonder could I hold out another week? 

But I also know myself too well.  As soon as I sent her a text cancelling this week's appointment I'd regret it.  Like when I go to a session and refuse to talk (yes, just like a 2 year old), as soon as I step out the door I hate myself and regret my actions.

I think it basically boils down to that I'm fucked. 

The 'want' is not as great right now, but I also know I'm fooling myself.

I hate that you're away and I'm not in your thoughts.

I know if I sent you a message, or god-forbid called you it may do more harm than good.

None of this is real, not even you, and probably not even me.

Vacations are the reminder(at least one of the reminders).

What I want is inappropriate.  I want more.  I want to matter, to be thought of, to be cared about, without limitations.  And I know I have not right seeking that from you.

It will always be too much.  I will always be too much.

Spoke too soon.  Yesterday was another day lost in thought, lost in depression.  I can seem to muster-up any feelings of joy.

We took our daughter to a large, kids-based, amusement park yesterday and I really had to force myself to stay present.  Normally that's the type of day I would totally enjoy, but instead I just wanted to crawl back into bed.

This is gonna be a long ride.

I'm doing 'ok', not great, but certainly better than I thought I would be.  Still on vacation at a rented-friends cottage up in New Hampshire.  We've had a lot of company over the past few days and that helped me keep my mind occupied.  I was still a bit distant from people, but doing some physical activity has helped. 

I've been able to keep up with my running everyday, which really helps my mood alot.  We've gone out on the boat a few times, and we even rented sea-doos over the weekend.  That was fun, except when I flipped/dumped the one I was driving with my wife and our 5 year old.  I was so proud of our daughter, she remained calm and was even willing to go for another ride after we right-sided the sea-doo. 

I really have no right to complain.  I'm lucky enough to not only take vacation, but to take two weeks back-to-back is awesome.  We've been doing two weeks in a row for the past 5 years, and it really does make a huge difference.  I'm so much more relaxed this second week than I was during the first.

My therapist L is now gone for vacation and I won't see her until next Thursday morning.  We had a bit of a text-misunderstanding a few days ago, and although we cleared it up I'm still feeling a little crappy about it, and I haven't texted her since, and I hope I don't either.

A funny thing about the not texting though, when I flipped the sea-doo the other day I had my wallet and phone with me.  They were in the storage compartment, which normally would have been protection enough, but not when you flip it.  So my phone was ruined, and I have been without a phone, and the ability to text for 5 days now.  My work  has shipped me a new one, but it won't get here tomorrow. 

I wonder if my dumping the sea-doo was some sort of Freudian-slip??!!!  If I can't use my phone, then I certainly can't call or text her.  Although I secretly hope that she's tried to text or call me and she's now, because I haven't responded, she's overcome with worry!  I'm totally crazy.

I do miss her though, and I hate that she's away, even if I am too.  I wish I felt more settled, but I am thankful that I haven't had extreme thoughts for a few days, those were a bit scary. 

I am a little concerned about where my head will be at when vacation is over.  A part of me feels like I'm just keeping the inevitable at bay.