Traumaversary

I went to my wardrobe and opened the door. I feel uncomfortable in the room that used to be my bedroom, and still houses a bed, but is home only to Misty. I've slept on the couch for years.

I know exactly where it sits - the tattered old manilla folder, inconspicuous, underneath the box of pieces of paper I've acquired during hospital stays. 

For the last two years, I've not peeked inside it. I've avoided it like the plague, even though it jumps out and hits me in the face whenever I open the wardrobe. But this year I was anticipating it. Not looking forward to it, by any means, but it had pulled me in long before the day.

Inside it houses what little evidence I could recover. I don't know why it's so hard to not look at.

Two books full of depressing teenage poetry, a lot of it about Him. There are 57 journal entries about Him, printed off from my old, mostly private Live Journal - that's probably the most important thing. A chat log from an online helpline. The statement sits half-written in an old lime green notebook. It stops mid-sentence, and I still can't bear to say or write the next line. It's been five years since I last wrote in it.

Now the folder sits next to the couch, under the table, between my laptop and Stable Table, staring at me. 

I don't want to write too much more about it, but it goes a little something like this: during the four months it lasted, each year I go back and re-read everything I wrote about it. Sometimes it's all in one go, resulting in one colossal breakdown. Other times, like this year, I drag the process out day by day. February through June, 2008. I was 14, coming on 15.

"On this day seven years ago..."

The Sick and Twisted Ritual has begun.

I've never talked to anyone about it. They know it happened, but I've never talked to anyone about it. When I first told someone - I think it was the following year - I was supposed to see a specialist counsellor but never did.

He came up in my second-last appointment with the MHN, when she tried to convince me there's nothing to be afraid of when I go outside. I was just sitting there thinking "don't do this to me, don't make me feel able to open up when you'll be gone in 30 minutes or less".

To add insult to injury, it was the 12th anniversary of my father's death, the first time it happened. And he knew it. February 29. A leap year. The most painful date in my world. Next year, it will be 20 years since I lost my dad, and 8 years since I lost my self. A leap year.

I don't get to the New Year or my birthday and look back at the year. I look back during the Traumaversary.

The dates are burned into my head.

The memories burned even deeper.

There is no escape.

There is no relief.

As for the dietician drama... If we were a couple, I suppose you'd say we're "still fighting". 

I don't feel like I can talk to her or trust her like I used to. I've lost all zest for her appointments. Once something I looked forward to, a much-welcomed break in my week, now an obligation, something I have to drag myself to do.

"My heart jumped with joy when I saw your little blue car in the parking lot."

She says it every week lately

I feel like we've hit a wall. I think she knows it too. It took such a long time for me to be able to make eye contact with her, to be able to hold a conversation, and now it's all coming unravelled.

I didn't even ask 'why' this week. It's obvious she's not going to give me an explanation, and it hurts less to not ask. 

I mumbled my answers and didn't tell her about the horror weekend.

"So, what are we doing today? Where do we go from here?"

"I don't know."

"Was it hard to get here today?"

"Yeah."

Brick wall.

It's like I'm back to square one with her, in terms of trust and being able to talk to her, and it sucks. I miss how things were a month or two ago. Eye contact is fading again. She has to pull answers out of me. I still haven't gotten on her scale again - obviously it isn't important. It's not so much her weighing me that I have issues with (although it seems pointless), but more her not-a-big-deal response to consistent losses are triggering as fuck. 

I think I should cut my appointments back to once a fortnight. It doesn't seem worth going every week any more. She's starting 6 weeks leave at the end of the month, so after that we'll see what happens. 

It's times like these I'm inexpressibly thankful for this community. You guys just really get it. Like no one else. 

I still haven't heard from the MHN. She said she'd call last week to organize an off-the-books catch up (for which my lovely GP has offered a room at the clinic to avoid having to go out of my safe zone). 

It feels like my support system's been torn down in the space of a month. The MHN is gone. I can't talk to the dietician any more. My GP is also taking leave while the dietician's away for 6 weeks. The new MHN... I'm still not sure what's happening there. I see the GP next week, and we'll see what happens.

And I know this is long enough, but I thought I'd quickly mention, I started reading Wintergirls this week. I'm about a third through, but I don't see what all the hype's about. It's an easy read, but it doesn't hit me in the face as being an ED book the way others have. Maybe I'm missing something?

Anyway, it's a free .pdf copy I've been reading. It took me so long to find one, so I thought I'd share the link in case you guys want a copy.

Wintergirls - Laurie Halse Anderson (.pdf)

The dietician did give me some freebies though. She had all these extra Ensure TwoCal's sitting in her cupboard. Best Before: April 2015. So she gave me seven, and told me to grab more next week. I've had little bits of two so far, and will try another tonight, maybe watered down a little. They taste so foul - I'm used to buying big tins of powder and weighing it up myself to the perfect strength for me to stomach. 

xxBella