Today I had my first appointment with my new psychologist.

Long. Uncapitalized. Swears. You have been warned.


my appointment went... well, like an intake appointment goes, i guess. she asked me a whole bunch of questions and i answered them. she also explained the basics of the procedures and policies of the clinic. apparently she usually does appointments only once every two weeks, like my last therapist (who didn't help me at all). that made me feel a little skeevy, i have to admit. what is it with these government-based therapists who think that once every two weeks is even ENOUGH?? it's just fucking ridiculous. at a rate of once every two weeks i feel like i shouldn't even bother -- like it's just a waste of my fucking time. she was completely nonchalant about doing it once a week instead of once every two weeks, though. with the other one, when i asked for every week instead of every second week, i just felt really fucking awkward. not so awkward with the new one though. which is probably good, since the last one didn't work out and everything.

my "homework" for this week is to think about how i want to plan talking to my parents if/when they come in for a session, what i want to say, etc. see, my mother wants me to pay rent starting when i come back from my vacation, and is also pushing me really really hard to work. j (the therapist), however, does not want me to work right now, because she thinks it will lead to bad things, and possibly quickly. she thinks i need to take at least the entire summer just for myself, to try some new things and get myself straightened away more with the therapy and whatnot. so she wants to talk to my parents, to try and convince them NOT to make me pay $50 a week for rent after i come back from florida, so that i can have money to do stuff that she thinks will help me feel better, etc.

i can't help feeling like she gives the disorder, or whatever, more credit for my states of mind than it is worth. i pretty much feel like the vast majority of this is MY fault. a character flaw, me being immature and lazy and stupid, or something equally caused deliberately, solely, by ME. she said something about how the first goal we would work towards would be acceptance -- ie, acceptance, first of all, of my diagnoses (depression, anxiety, eating disorder), and i can only suppose she also wants me to accept that they are not character flaws. but i just don't see that. i am convinced that i am responsible. i am responsible. me me me. if i tried harder i could do better. of course, that's what she says most of her clients think too. but it seems so logical to me. if i just tried harder, i could do whatever i wanted to. but i don't try harder, so that makes it my fault, because i am pretty sure i could choose to try harder and just don't. i could suppress all the uncomfortable emotions and sensations and just fucking do it. but i DON'T. because i am a lazy fucking FAILURE. at life and at school and at being anybody and at doing anything and at absolutely fucking everything.

perhaps this is why i need to work on acceptance. maybe it is important. but i just don't see how it could be possible that this is NOT my fault. that just doesn't make any sense to me. because i am completely convinced that it IS. MY fault. it IS goddamnit!

of course, it's also true that i've had this idea basically pounded into my head by my parents. they're convinced that if i was just not so lazy, if i just decided i would do things like get a job instead of always sitting around the house like a sedentary log, i would DO it. if i only decided, it would be SO.

i have also always had this feeling, my own self (not implanted by them), that this "illness" or whatever is something outside of me that just happens to be there, and i am separate from it, but near it, and deliberately holding it to myself -- similar to if i was wearing a blanket. when i think what she wants me to accept is that it is PART of me -- more like a skin graft than a blanket -- and i wear the skin graft not out of choice, but out of necessity, because of genetics or things that happened in my environment or whatever else. it's a graft that i suppose it must be possible to somewhat peel off, or at least grow to accept and deal with, painful and itchy as it is; but even if i manage that, the process is still gonna hurt like hell. but i guess it's true that the only therapy that ever worked before did also hurt like hell.

fuck, though. what i really wanted was to get AWAY from the pain and the discomfort. what i really wanted was to push this away from me. say, nope, it's not mine. take it away from me. you can have it. it doesn't belong to me -- this was a mistake -- someone gave it to me as a present and i just need their receipt so i can take it back but i can't find them to get the stupid fucking receipt back can somebody please help me fucking FIND them!?!?. but she wants me not just to know, but to ACCEPT, EMOTIONALLY accept, that this is mine, it does belong to me, and it is inescapable. i can't push it away and i can't make it sever itself from me. i can suppress it, sure; but i've done that for years upon years, and what has it ever gotten me but surface happiness and inner misery? so i have to, first, accept it. but acceptance is a motherfucking tough piece of work. one simple word, but not even remotely CLOSE to a simple realization. if only.

if it was easy, nobody would ever have to be in therapy. including me. i wouldn't have to be a crazy person. i wouldn't have so much stupid shit on my record. yadda yadda yadda. i can't change the past -- i know. but if i could wipe clean every trace of mental illness, i would. even if it meant less soul growth, less intellectual growth, whatever... i'd do it. at least i'd be motherfucking HAPPY.

there was a time when i thought pessimism, cynicism, and dysthymia were the truths of life. when i wouldn't have traded my newfound knowledge for the ignorant happiness of other people. right now, though... i'd trade it all. trade it all for being normal. i would. i'm just sick of never being happy and never being able to do stuff and having slower-than-usual thought processes and all the rest of that garbage. i watched an old video on youtube today and couldn't believe how fast i was talking before. i never even come close to talking that fast now. my brain has fucking slowed DOWN. what happened to the fast-talking quick-thinking academically able secure enough in herself to at least complete COURSES girl? where did she go? buried under a stupid disorder or two or three. disorders which i never felt were mine, but which only exist in my brain, and so they must be mine. they feel like they have tangible, physical presence, and proof in reality, but the truth is that they ONLY exist in MY HEAD, and nobody deliberately injured me or gave me any disorders. it's JUST ME ... ... and that's the rub. the sad, pathetic, fucking stupid idiotic rub. this is my stupid fucked-up problem and i have to deal with it. i have to deal. i have to deal.

but i don't WANT to fucking DEAL.

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!!!!!!