deal with my paranoia

Actually, apologies first. I should not have had a tantrum, espcially online where everyone can see. Bad move. And while I’ve tossed this over and over in my head and I genuinely did not intend anything “manipulative” by it, at least not consciously, I guess I can see why it might be interpreted that way. And while I still believe these things at my core, it was a childish thing to do, to post them on here like that. And I’m sorry I acted that way.

Anyway. That said, it got to a point earlier this week where I just couldn’t take it any more (again) and that I needed to do something. I’m in a therapy group with an amazing therapist-I mean, she’s the real deal. She doesn’t coddle, but she’s immensely responsive to you and where you’re at emotionally, and she makes a huge effort to work with that. And she’s wicked smart. So I met with her individually yesterday-I had been seeing another individual therapist for four years, but I recently stopped seeing her because all we did was fight, and I had not trusted her perspective for a long time, but I thought that was my fault and as such, had no business leaving her—and we decided that while leaving Shrink #1 was a good decision, I still need a lot more support than just going to this group once a week. So I’m going to be seeing the wicked smart shrink once a week from now until whenever we both feel I’m ready to taper off. And thank scrod for that, because I am just not doing at all well.

I am very scared, though. Scared of what I’m going to find out about myself, of what I’m going to find out about other people, of how other people view me, and so on. Scared of what it’s going to mean for me to do this—ways in which I’m going to have to change my life, things I may have to give up, things I may have to do instead.

But Wicked Smart Shrink is so helpful. I don’t think I’ve ever had a session with her-except perhaps at the very beginning, when I was a complete and utter train wreck-in which she hasn’t been of some real, lasting help, no matter how seemingly small. And one of the things she said to me yesterday, which she has said before, is that I swing between two contradictory positions: I’m not fucked up—it’s everyone else who’s fucked up, and I’m so fucked up, I’m so horrible, I can’t do shit, kill me now. And there’s just no middle ground there. Oh, there is, certainly, I just can’t have it, or see it, or see what that means.

I’m not totally helpless. I can pull it together in brief spurts; I’m intelligent and lucid. But I’m really incompetent in a lot of key areas. And I’m still a train wreck…it’s more like two Amtrak trains smashing together now than the Orient Express flailing itself all over the Silk Road, killing thousands, but it’s still nowhere near where I want to be. But I’m going to be 31 in exactly one month, and I’m sick of floundering so much; I’m sick of filling in the considerable silence with all sorts of self-destructive shit.

And so. I’m having my next individual session with WSS on Wednesday. I will report back.

This is a response to el_dano’s comment on my first entry. Just thought I’d post it here. The title is “paranoia” in Danish.

Well, these definitions may or may not be helpful—in fact, I’ve heard I shouldn’t go to Dictionary.com at all, that Oxford English’s online dictionary is much more extensive, but “perceived hostility” and “delusions of persecution” kept coming up, and those would fit the bill.

Then again, maybe it’s not about bill fitting, either. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. Maybe there’s another way of looking at this of which I’m unaware.

But yeah, at the end of the day, I suppose what I meant by paranoia is the “systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission,” if not in that precise verbiage. Except I’m not sure if it’s perceived or if I’m picking up on something real and translating it into Wagnerian proportions, which I’m so adept at doing.

Any thoughts?

Is it live, or is it Memorex? Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. And who are “they” anyway? (Besides the government, and that ain’t paranoia—that’s real.)

Seriously, I don’t know what I need to work on—if my paranoia is still keeping me safe, or if it’s preventing me from growing. I know it’s preventing me from growing, but it may also be preventing me from very real, very certain humiliation and emotional devastation. Dunno.

Ooh. I’m freaked out just putting this up here.