I found something more articulate to say, Shrinkykitten

Along with all the behaviours in the “why?” post, I’m also getting sick of my habit of avoiding thinking about anything too much by just saying “I don’t know” (or using my latest overused word “I don’t have anything articulate to say about that”). I made myself go back and change that part of what I wrote about the Bone People, but I didn’t bother too much with the other books. Yesterday, Shrinkykitten wrote a post about a woman who was disgusted with her former (larger) self. I left a silly comment and once again avoided thinking about it too deeply, but when I started thinking about the email I’m supposed to send my therapist this week (and the related question in the why? post) I realised I should’ve thought about Shrinky’s post more. I have not-insignificant issues with food and weight, but the same kind of behaviour also applies much more generally.

In some ways I’m sabotaging my therapy process because the end result I should be aiming for is to be free of (or at least not controlled by) the many irrational beliefs and behaviours I have now. That might not sound like such a bad thing, but the problem is that I don’t want to have to look back at current-me and be rational about admitting how messed up I am. My whole problem now is basically that letting anyone know anything about me seems incredibly dangerous, and that fact is the most dangerous one of all to reveal. Presumably, the potential rational-me would have overcome these fears and be able to talk about current-me’s issues, so why would I want to let her come into being and ruin my carefully protected fortress of solitude? In that sense, even the smallest step towards being less neurotic is equivalent to announcing all my secrets to the world.

The only way current-me could allow rational-me to exist would be to deny current-me ever existed, or at least heap scorn and derision on her to demonstrate how completely different rational-me is. Unfortunately, as Shrinkykitten said in her post, that’s not exactly healthy behaviour, either.

I already do this to former-me (who was completely insane by the way, unlike me, who is merely very messed up). There are things former-me did that make me feel almost physically ill to think about (although they’re (probably?) not as bad as the things you’re now imagining…). I started writing a post 2 weeks ago in an attempt to exorcise some of those demons, but then I got distracted by the posts about being bored at school (damn). I don’t know how to reconcile the former-me who did such idiotic things with the me who just wants to shake her and yell “what were you thinking? How could you let that happen? How could you possibly not realise that was a huge mistake??”

I said in a previous post that “if it's achievable, I should already have figured it out by now.” I meant it as a joke, or at least to be perceived that way, but it actually seems true. I was wondering why I don’t want to let my therapist know that I’m not completely incapable of recognising my thoughts and motivations. It’s because it’s somehow more acceptable to be completely ignorant than to have all the information and still not do anything about it (this is exactly the same as my response when I was 5 to not recognising the picture of a pen knife – if it had been something I had seen before I would’ve been much more upset at getting it wrong. I hate to think what effect that would have had on my psyche, given that as it is, I still remember the unfairness of it counting against me 20 frickin’ years later…). I know it’s self-defeating to make it as difficult as possible to change, but I can’t let it be too easy or I’ll have to confront the reasons I didn’t do anything sooner.