kipple effect

it's time to start over, but not fresh, since the effect of kipple is permanent. over time newer kipple will cover older kipple and a landfill, or a desk, will evolve.

last week I experienced the feeling that my life was going to slip away, after my appendix ruptured. for several days I didn't know that's what happened. I'm used to being in pain, so the degree of pain I felt was not such a degree greater that I knew I was going to die or that anything really bad had happened. I wrote it off to the flu, and subsequently developed an infection that, had I laid down to nap instead of going to the hospital, likely would have killed me.

it happened again... one of those long, long spells where I just couldn't bring myself to write any of the crap down.

so it's been almost a year. that's not a record for me, though, surprisingly enough. but "Hello" anyway, I'm back... today at least... so I'll engage in a little catching up.

I never did finish blogging about my experience with Prolonged Exposure Therapy. there were two sessions left, and I know I promised to catch up, but I decided not to.

here's why: I don't want or need to right now. I felt a little guilty at first, and wanted to "finish the project" by finishing the blog posts, but for the first time in years I found myself looking living in the present instead of feeling stuck in the past. so I just didn't sit down to write. since I didn't want to write those posts, I've avoided blogging in favor of other things.

today feels like a good day to wrap it up.

I have Asperger's Syndrome, and I guess my body doesn't work the same way other people's do. For the most part, I try to ignore my body because it's inconvenient to have to feed and clean it. It doesn't give me good signals when it's hungry or when it needs to vacate. I figure I'm missing some neurological connections that pass along information like "I'm hungry" or "I need to poo". I manage pretty well, in spite of the communication problems, by feeding my body regularly and washing it once a day.

Although I have a somewhat objective relationship with my body, I'm not immune to feelings of inadequacy within the subjective realms of "attractiveness". When I was a teen, I was painfully thin with small breasts. Sometimes I wished I was pretty enough to be a model, because pretty girls were popular and I was not. People talked about models with admiration. No one admired me. I felt inconsequential. Other girls were obsessed with their appearance, so I worried that something was wrong with me and started worrying, too. I didn't feel particularly feminine, so I compensated by dressing in a boyish manner. I was always surprised when other people found me attractive.

although it's been nearly a month since I recorded this session, I want to finish the series of blog posts because I won't feel like I'm done processing the Prolonged Exposure Therapy experience until I've written about it. I'm going to cover session 8 in two sections: the first half during which I finished processing my relationship with Scott, my ex; the second half, which I'll write later, starts the process of dealing with the damage done by my mother. I blogged a little about her in doors without doorknobs.

after listening to session 7 in the days preceding this session, I was left feeling a deep sadness. sadness over lost opportunities for myself and for my children. I also recognized deep feelings of self-doubt, of feeling afraid to start homework projects for the class I enrolled in because I feel sure I'm doing it wrong and that I don't understand what I'm supposed to do.

I was also dragging the ball and chain of feeling discouraged because the legal battle I thought had been resolved in court was still ongoing. six weeks past the hearing date and the judgment hasn't been submitted to the judge for signature and legal fees are mounting. therapy bills have taken a huge bite out of my limited resources, and buying groceries and gas the same day overdrew my bank account. everything added up felt overwhelming and I wondered (for about a minute) if taking the plunge into Prolonged Exposure Therapy had been a bad idea. I chose this time to do the Prolonged Exposure Therapy because my next chance would be this fall. I want to be able to do other things this fall, like take more classes at the local college, work toward a new career, and live my life as a free person. I took the risk of signing up the extra therapy sessions and I'm not sorry I did it. still, finding myself flat broke, with maxed out credit cards and huge legal expenses, is depressing.