Ok another couple of days, and I’m trying to think of something worth journalling about. I’m sorry we made you worry Campbell, we weren’t dead, just terribly lost in isolation. We fell into it and found it nearly impossible to pull ourselves out. There is something comforting in the normality of hiding away from the world. Of course its not that healthy, but old habits are hard to break.

Ok so we’ve just gotten back from group and emotionally I am tense and angry. The woman I spoke about in the other entry that doesn’t like me spent about an hour blaming me, calling me disrespectful and attacking me. One of the therapists tried to get her to see it wasn’t about me, but about her, but that just was like beating their head against a brick wall. She called me dangerous. See, second group I freaked myself out, and almost got up and left the group. What it looked like from the outside was basically a very abrupt violent movement. I didn’t leave the chair but yeah I can see for people that didn’t know me it might have looked scary. At the time I apologised, said it was about my old habits to run when I was scared and made a promise to the group that I would do everything I could not to do it anymore. Now, 12 groups later this woman is still calling me dangerous and scary because of it. I pointed out to her that yes, I panicked that one group, and shouldn’t have responded like that, but the fact is since then I have faced things, and not reacted that way, so maybe she should get over it. That didn’t go down well. One of the therapists brought up that more people in the group were probably scared of her rather than of me. Another group member spoke up about how the whole thing was effecting her, and well, she became one of the bad people as well. Basically this woman decided we conspire against her all the time and set out to make her feel small. She said I don’t do any work in the group, that I play the victim and am damaging her recovery.

There were things I could have said, probably things I should have said. But I made a rational decision to not confront her. I do believe there are some times when it is easier, when it is simply more healthy to not get into a fight with someone. Especially someone I do not feel will be able to hear anything but her own rage and issues. She didn’t take if from the professionals, raising her voice and getting angry at them, she won’t take it from me when she sees everything as my fault anyway. The fact is, I do feel I have done some major work in that group. I talk more than a lot of people, I work through some majorly big issues. I sometimes can even feel proud. I don’t like the woman, I don’t like the box she’s put me in. I don’t believe in the box she’s put me in. I understand that that box is about her need to have someone in it, it’s a projection of her own stuff. It’s just hard for it to be me that has to be her victim in all this. I’m angry and hurt, and feel very attacked and not sure how I will deal with that. I try to tell myself all these messages about it being about her shit, about me knowing myself better, knowing myself enough not to get caught up in her shit. I never liked her, I feel she’s attacked me from the first group. So I shouldn’t let it get to me now. But fuck it still does, and now I have to go to group next week and face her knowing she believes me to be a small useless victim who is mean and cruel and disrespectful. Two more groups, I remind myself and then I won’t have to deal with her again. I just need to let her shit go. It’s just not as easy as it sounds.