Last night I had a dream about a woman who made cakes, but was also a healer of some sort. We were trying to escape from people who were either from the FDA or some other food authority. Her place was filled with old apothecary jars, I had the impression of flour sack towels and frilly aprons. At one point some guy was either dead or close to it. I'm going to try my friend's dream analysis so if this isn't your thing you can skip the rest of this. First he has people list the objects and people in the dream. I was there, the older woman, some men who were milling around, two younger girls, I really can't remember their ages, they could have been anything from teens to women in their mid-forties. They were younger than the healing woman. The cakes and desserts were there, the dying man, and I remember a brown and white dog, the jars, an old cookbook, and the shelving that stored it. In dream analysis that my friend teaches the dreamer is always each of the characters and the objects seen are props you might find in a theatrical performance. They have a role and only the dreamer can define what that is.
For me the jars are clarity. I'm searching for that in my life just as I want sweets, the intricate cakes, those are there to show me that there is something worth celebrating down the line. I think the dead or dying man is me, the old me that doesn't want to be the way that I am today. The two girls running around are the people pleasing me. They dart here and race off there, never standing still long enough to catch their breath or form their own opinions on things. They're telling me to slow down. The healing woman is also me. She's saying, go ahead, long for beautiful desserts, but eat regular meals too. People come to me for things, but since I'm disguised in this apron and have these old jars and cookbooks people don't take me anymore seriously than they take her. But she keeps on working despite the people who question her and when people like the dream me come to visit she's willing to help me out because I believed in her knowledge and wisdom.
I think this dream was about me going back to work and having better relationships in my life. The dream is telling me that I can be an old woman who seems to have lost touch with time, but when it really counts, I can revive the dead and dying who have given up hope elsewhere. I think the authorities I either saw or sensed represent people in my family and friends who don't understand how messed up I've been when others put me down and told me I couldn't do what I wanted to. I think the dream me knows that there's a job I want to pursue and the dream is telling me that it's okay to be weird and off beat. I shouldn't be worrying about what other people think, and I shouldn't be bossing my daughters around the way that I have been. I can show them that their mother is an amazingly talented woman who specializes in some very simplistic things that a lot of others are dismissing as not that important. I'd love to run this dream by my friend, but I haven't heard from him in a while. The last couple of conversations we had were strange, I'll think about it.
Yesterday I went to the library, the mall, and to another store. I checked out a bag full of books to bring home. I found the book 'When A Woman You Love Was Abused' and grabbed that even though I had it before. I didn't finish reading it, and this time I'm going to commit to that. What's interesting to me was the chapter I flipped open to, that's a favorite approach of mine, stand there and start reading whatever random page I land on to determine if I want to read a book or have it reshelved. The chapter was on control and I had a sick feeling in my stomach when I read about the ways people exert control and the ways that others resist it. When that guy I liked said what we had wasn't healthy, I wonder if that's what he was talking about. I want to control him and I didn't realize that earlier. I can't even figure out why this is so important to me, maybe I just have control issues in general, I can't argue with that, but he brought that side of me out in spades.
Last night I was telling people in the catbox about the guy I dated. I received a text from him asking what I wanted; friendship, a chance to see what could be, or dating. His choices didn't include not talking to him outside of polite conversation so I felt controlled by that although I didn't realize that at the time. I'm doing the very same thing to this other guy that he's doing to me and on top of it I'm still having problems with my ex who is very controlling. I need to get out of this house. He owns it and as long as I'm here I'm under his control. I'm scared, but I feel ready to start looking into leaving. I can't go on like this anymore. I need help, much more help of a different kind than I've had before. I thought getting divorced could have gone worse, and that's true, but I had no idea how much I was repressing or how angry I was until I started talking to that kid. I picked up a book called Breaking Addiction and so far I'm recognizing the vitality and wisdom inside of it.
His theory is that you have to understand what need the addiction is feeding that trumps things like physical safety, financial security, relationships, and other high stakes that people who are not addicted can't understand risking. As someone who has an addiction, I get it. The author uses the story of a man named Ron who has a drinking problem. There was a brief period of time where I used alcohol incorrectly, but I never had a drinking problem. I had a helplessness and lack of self worth problem. Like Ron, I grew up in a home where my parents fought. Ron's parents loved him, I'm not really sure my parents loved me because I don't think that they know how to love in a healthy manner. I'm positive my father doesn't. My mother will buy us presents for our birthday or meet up with us if we drive in to see her. She'll take my kid camping and invite them over, but she doesn't ever do the things that interest me that I would like to be doing.
I remember a fight with her where she asked who was going to come over and help her organize her closets. She doesn't even need that help, but that was her statement. When I told her I was going to have a rummage sale she told me she doesn't do rummage sales before I even asked for her help which I wasn't going to anyways. She hates baseball and wouldn't go to a game, not that she would make my list of people I'd like to invite. She doesn't listen to me. She's still trying to dominate and control me and now she's trying to parent my daughter who was in some trouble at school. That's not her role anymore. My mother is not a bad person, but because she so frequently violates my boundaries and refuses to get help for things she doesn't see as problems, my interactions with her must be very limited. She has deep anger issues although I doubt she'd describe herself as an angry person. She's too busy checking things off of her list of things to do. Duty defines her and duty is neither love, nor loving although it can be when coupled with empathy and compassion.
The guy I went out on a date with sent me a text saying that he thought I was only interested in one thing from him and finally spelled it out in a text when I forced the issue. I like sex. I enjoy it. I look forward to it. I flirt, I've engineered situations so I could get it when I wanted it. I sent some strong messages to that kid I liked and I don't regret doing that since he made me feel very beautiful, desirable, and he understood what I want from a man in that context. I can't say this other guy is last on my list of people I'd screw, but he's nowhere near the top, and probably not in the middle either. I'd really like to know where he got that, unless like some of my friends suggested, he's seeing what he wants to in me. Over a series of texts he told me that he stopped himself from kissing me several times. My skin crawled at that. I don't mind talking to him, but now I'm always going to think about sitting on the couch with him when I wanted him to leave so I could go to bed and get rid of his ogling eyes.
Today I am going to stop controlling other people, specifically that guy I like. I have no idea why he got under my skin the way that he did. But today is the day I put him in the past and stop letting him occupy space in my head. The next time I talk to the guy I went on a date with I'm going to make it crystal clear that I have no intention of ever going out with him again, initially I had said I wouldn't mind getting together for tea, but now even that's off the agenda. He really didn't know how to handle me and his comments about me being a very attractive woman made things worse instead of better. Maybe I should have ignored his texts, but that's just not how I do things. My feelings are very hurt by these recent events. I have to stop acting like this. I can't keep reaching out and trying to hang onto guys who have clearly communicated they are finished with me. I'd really like to get into a knock down drag out fight with that kid and that right there indicates to me exactly how unhealthy I am in that area.
I'm so frustarted right now. I felt like I was on a better track lately. I feel like I have this veneer of reality over a deep chasm of black nothingness where socially dangerous microbes are thriving. I don't know how I can be optimistic and severely depressed. I don't even want to type those words, but today I feel like they're true. I am depressed and I think it's a lot worse than I ever want to admit. But it's okay to admit it because once you know the problem you can start seeking better solutions. The books are helping. I can call my therapist and get in to a see a psychiatrist. That kid told me that his significant other would rage at him and hit him while he stood there like a slave. There's something very wrong with a guy who will stand there and take that. I ran or fought back, but I was smaller than my attackers. My head is such a mess right now. I don't want to be writing this. I want to be thinking about my daughters and getting them some help so they can grow up and have better lives than I do.
The other day I announced I was taking a Twitter break. I really don't like who I was becoming there. I was pushing limits and acting out and I think it goes back to what the author says in that Breaking Addiction book, I didn't feel heard. Nobody was listening to me and what I wanted and needed. My therapist has told me this numerous times and each time I kind of shrugged her off, she was telling me the truth, I wasn't ready to hear it yet. I haven't internalized that, I hate knowing things are true on one level and not being able to get them into my head and heart as unassailable truths. I am loved, but I don't feel loved. Some people listen to me, others don't. I need to deal with this. The other day I told my daughter's therapist that I wasn't sure if there was something deeper going on, or if my daughter was just being a so called normal teen. Now I can layer that over my own life. I am troubled. Deeply so. I can go through the motions and the majority of people wouldn't know I'm as unhinged as I really am. That scares me. Not so much for others, I don't feel violent, but for myself.
When the feelings have no way out they get stuck inside. The hatred and loathing hurts me, I feel powerless, helpless, and hopeless, and those are not good feelings. This isn't as simple as going for a walk or remembering to be grateful for the things that I have although I will take a walk and probably write out a gratitude list. I wish I had never met that kid. I wish he had never sent me that stupid email that made me worry about him and I wish I hadn't ever learned that there are men out there who can make me feel feminine and sultry. I'm so angry in a calm way. I can't call him up and rage at him, or I could, but that wouldn't be smart and I'm not a stupid person. I can't punish other people for how they made me feel. I can't scream at my daughter for being irresponsible, that isn't going to help anything. I took back a lot of my fun clothes yesterday. I thought that would help. It didn't. I was trying to erase some memories that were actually good, maybe sometime I'll write about those clothes and how I denied myself some of those simple pleasures because that's what I tend to do to try and control situations.
I can't write anymore even though I have a lot left to say. I'm back to wearing black and it feels comfortably dark and still. Those clothes are reminding me of things I don't want to remember. I hate it that I associate things with people. Songs, clothes, foods, places, I want to block them out and feel nothing, but feeling nothing is a terrible hole that I'm too familiar with. Last night I sent an email to a friend of mine. He got back to me with something very encouraging. I view myself as a victim instead of someone who is powerful. I am powerful. I am very powerful. Over the space of several days I went out on one date, had some fascinating conversations with someone I was very attracted to that I think liked me back and ran when the flames got too warm for him. I underestimate myself too often. At the library I picked out some fun books. The Perfect Bedroom, a book about Greece that has a lot of the sunny breezy pictures I need to see. I am in control. I said this to that kid and it's still true. I can do anything.
Okay, now I need to go get out of these very depressing clothes. Maybe I should just get rid of them entirely, but they are comfortable loungewear for when I first wake up before I have breakfast and sit outside for a while. I'm listening to some great piano music. I can't listen to my normal music right now. I can leave people who reject me alone. Not everyone sticks around. He taught me things that I wanted and needed to learn. Our paths could cross again. I was in his life for a reason and it wasn't all bad. If I can give him some distance he'll have a chance to see that I was interested in his emotional health. I hate seeing people waste potential and right now I'm hating myself for all of my wasted potential. So it's time to start reframing that. I am an awesome person. I gave too much and I'm too intense. But I can learn to scale back and I can appreciate the many wonderful people in my life who do care about me without hanging onto the people I scared. It's kind of funny to think that I could scare anyone, but I've scared myself enough to know it's a possibility.
Take care kids,
Jess