God I’m craving lollies, my kingdom for a crunchie bar, no a cherryripe, no crunchie, cherryripe, crunchie, cherryripe, crunchie, cherryripe, crunchie, cherryripe, (and thus a snapshot of my mind for the last 5 minutes).

So moving on from chocolate bars which we don’t have in the house and aren’t about to walk out in the freezing night to get.

I’ve never had a very good sense of time. I can never tell how long something will take, how much time has passed, and the only way I can tell what day of the week it is is by paying attention to events, like Project Runway is on so it must be Thursday. This works well, I’m use to working around my lack of time awareness. And then my supervisor goes and changes our appointment time from the regular Thursday to Monday, and now I’m all confused. I saw her yesterday so I keep thinking in terms of it being the weekend, rather than the beginning of the week. So I’m all out of whack, its a mild annoyance, but more than slightly annoying.

Speaking of annoying… having a pimple inside your nostril certainly qualifies.

I want to write a rant about Macsyna King’s book. I angers me she’s going to profit from the death of her twins, that after covering for the death of those babies, for creating a wall of silence against those wanting to investigate the death of those twins. It fucks me off now she’s trying to get attention, money, sympathy whatever for her part in this. I want to rant but it pisses me off so much all I can manage today is ‘fuck her’.

Off to watch british baking show, yeah that will help me stop craving sugar

I went and saw Sean on Friday. The thing is though, it feels like it made everything worse. I know therapy, isn’t like going to a medical doctor, you don’t have a 15 minute appointment and then get the pills that make it all better. It’s hard work, its not easy. He said some things, nothing cruel, he didn’t set out to hurt, he was, well he was as he always is, insightful, blunt, and, I don’t know ‘cold’ isn’t the right word, but he doesn’t coddle feelings, he isn’t about being nice to just be nice. These were the things I loved about him when I used to see him regularly. This time though, I left just devastated, I left his office feeling like I was running, been a long time since I ran. It’s added to the weight of everything. I tried to push it all down, get on with my study. Foolishly I decided to ring schools about my research, rejection after rejection. I could hear myself, and all I could think was I was showing everyone I wasn’t capable, that I was a big fake. It was such a bad move on my part.

I don’t know now, if I will go back to Sean. We arranged it, so I could afford to see him once a month. It will mean not only some tight budgeting but me giving up smoking too. I know I should, I know cigarettes are bad for me, and all that, but right now they do seem to be my lifeline. And for what purpose, is therapy going to actually help, is it worth the crapfest. I’ve got 4 weeks to decide (well 3 since I want to give him notice if I am not going to continue). I just keep think I might be better off burying it all, being insane when I am alone, when I am not meeting my requirements. It worked for a long time, I can get it back to working again. Or is that just me being chicken shit about owning up to my fuck-ups, the mess I need to sort out. I really don’t know.

Because I am a academic nerd, and have no one in my local life to share with, I’m writing here.

When looking into menstruation for my thesis I came up with four prominent discourses. One of them was what I called menstruation as medical, the construction of menstruation as illness. Menstruation is surrounded by the idea of sickness, and discomfort and problems. We treat menstruation as not a natural occurrence but as a chronic illness that needs intervention. Another discourse is how it constructs women as other, as somehow less than the ideal which is male. Because the female body bleeds it is somehow inferior. So that’s part of my research. This research is about how we teach menstruation in puberty instruction. If I doubted it had any valid tonight’s news proved that these were still discourses that affect the lives of women.

Alasdair Thompson the head of New Zealand’s Employers and Manufacturers association said today that women are paid less because they are less productive due to “monthly sick problems”

TV3 article on Alasdair Thompson, with link to full video interview

One of the few things about journaling here rather than livejournal that annoys me, is I can’t respond directly to people’s comments. Although I’m not sure what I’d say to you all, saying thank you doesn’t seem to even come close to how much they mean to me. It shocks me that people care that much that they will respond with such kindness and wisdom. I want you all to know I don’t just read them but take them on board, think about what you all said, and use them as outside observations, from people that aren’t stuck in my craziness to give me a broader view of things.

I got my literature review sent in. It really isn’t my best work. Part of me knows I think that with everything I do, but this time it felt rushed, felt lazy. I’m not freaking out, well not majorly. Because it isn’t the final draft. I had in these first full drafts and get feedback so I can change and add to it before I submit the final thesis that gets graded. So even if Susan pulls me on its crappy work, it won’t mean I’m going to fail. I can never work out if something I write is good enough, it always feels inferior, feels like failure. I try to remember that my supervisor gives me good feedback, I tell myself she’s not lying, not trying to be generous, that she would have nothing to gain from telling me I’m doing good work. But fuck its hard. And right now there’s this constant screaming to quit, to give up, who do I think I am.. all that crap. It’s what I do, I quit, I run away. But I know I won’t, I promised myself this time I would do this thing. I don’t worry that I’m going to quit, I just worry someone’s going to catch on what a complete fake I am and run me out of town.

I had a little bit of a laugh last night. I was watching episodes of season three of United States of Tara. I know so many people don’t like that show, but for me its just entertainment. I watch it the same as I watched those CSI type shows, its fun but so not a documentary. Anyway there was a scene that just made me remember an experience that happened years ago in my 100 level Human Development lecture. I had a really close friend back then (that ended really badly but nevermind), at the time she was really accepting and helpful with my multiplicity, and tolerant of it, even though it was all over the place. I remembered saying to hear as we walked out of a lecture one day “man I don’t remember a single part of that lecture”. She laughed at me and held up her arm, all over her hand and lower arm were pictures of flowers drawn in different coloured pens. She said about 5 minutes into the 50 minute lecture, someone very young and distressed came out, and because she couldn’t get us out of the lecture she set about distracting and comforting her quietly, and that ended up with her having flowers drawn all over her.

As I said, that friendship didn’t survive the insanity of me, or my lack of experience with taking on and maintaining relationships. But I remember at the time feeling so accepted. I felt I had someone who could see us, truly as people with our own needs and was willing to meet us at that place. It helped a lot, and yes I miss that now. I don’t want to be just my “disorders”, just the crazy person, just the multiple, I know I am more than that. Ok the things I am are odd, but I’m ok with that. I love that I get excited by academic study, I love that I geek out on certain tv shows, I love that I am fascinated and in love with words, and all the other things that generally place me just outside the norm. But one of those things is that I is actually we, and we are actually different from each other, not just versions of the one. I miss that part of the I being acknowledged.

As I’ve said before sometimes I wish my craziness was more acknowledged. This craziness is different from my multiplicity, they are different things, although, of course, my craziness makes my multiplicity unstable at times. Anyway… ha, talk about being heard. I started writing this because I had to go down to the University to get my pg-dip diploma. They have been holding it for about 18 months, and were basically demanding I come and collect it. I can understand their annoyance, but where I would have to go is like high trigger mindfield for my anxiety shit. So I wrote back and politely explained that I have an extreme anxiety disorder so while I will get there I asked if they can wait a while for me to work up a way to collect it. I thought, well ok I thought the worst, I thought they were going to get pissy. Then as I started to write this I got another email from the woman, saying with consideration of my circumstances she is more than willing to courier it to me, to save me having to find a way to collect it. So yes, when people take my issues into consideration, to acknowledge they are obstacles most people don’t have, it makes me feel.. I don’t know, setting aside all the guilt and shame that the crap is currently throwing at me, putting that to the side as read, it makes me feel acknowledged, feel like I’m not fighting in the dark. I remember getting really annoyed once and saying that no one expects my blind cousin to drive a car because everyone else can and it would be easier if she drove herself somewhere. I often feel I’m being made to drive that car, that I need to just get over it and pretend so no one else is disrupted. Then someone does this for me, does a small step more than required because she acknowledged I had an extra obstacle others don’t.

On a totally different note. I’ve just finished watching the season finale of Game of Thrones, and fuck, totally amazing. It makes up for them killing off the character played by one of my favorite actors. it was fucking amazing and now I have to wait for season 2.

Although while I wait there’s season 4 of True Blood so I will have something else to bury myself into

So still trying to wrap my head around all this self hatred crap.

You think you’re so special.
You think you’re more important than anyone else.

There were things that happened in my life I used to be sure were wrong. Well actually it started off as just accepting it, then after a lot of work started to see it was wrong, then I got angry about it, and now, now I don’t know, maybe they were right, maybe there is something about me they were trying to fix.

The hard thing about writing here is this very thing proves to me I’m a self-obsessed narcissist that’s just wanting attention. If I was a better person, a good person, I’d learn to change, or if I couldn’t change fake it and hide away from others. Instead I write, in a public journal. Attention seeking little whore screams in my head.

I think i’m so important that people will go out of their way to hurt me. But really I should know I’m not even worth that. My family, they had to deal with me, they couldn’t get away from me. I was there, being selfish, being bad, being wrong. I couldn’t be invisible enough, good enough. Other people, I should know they don’t want to waste their time on me, so I should stop being so afraid they will come and hurt me, to think that is just self-centred.

I had to ask for a bit of an extension with the next due date of my thesis. It isn’t a big deal really, its not like undergrad work, the deadlines are just to keep me on track, so needing a couple more days isn’t huge. But god, the reason I need it is because I can’t work, I get bogged down by all these thoughts, by the crap being screamed inside my head. I got an email from one of the schools to say they would welcome me doing the research at their school. I need to email her back and set up a time, but I don’t know if I can do it, I don’t know if I can go and be a student without screwing it all up. I don’t want to show how selfish I am, how horrid I am. I don’t want to bring embarrassment to my supervisor. I try to remind myself I’m not that special, that people won’t attack me because I’m bad. I need to get over all this shit

It’s a little ironic really, that I’m doing all this research into menstruation and creating more inclusive positive discourses around it, that when I got my period a couple of days ago I woke up in the morning to find “I” had clawed my vulva so badly that the skin is all torn and the whole area is swollen and tender. It’s been a long time since bleeding caused that strong of a negative reaction that we tried to rip our body apart.

I want to say thank you to the people that responded to my last entry. The words and messages mean a lot to me. I worry a little (ok a lot) that all I am doing is sounding needy and selfish, but I want you all to know how much of an impact the replies had, how much I appreciate them.

I was speaking to someone a couple of days ago about my overblown sense of responsibility, this insane belief that I am somehow responsible for the earthquakes, or floods or… well you name it. They came up with a different view of it. I think they were trying to be helpful, and I’m glad they felt ok with being very blunt with me. They basically said I’m narcissistic, that I have delusions of grandeur, belief that I’m somehow more important, more special. It should give me something to think about, something to challenge myself with. Instead, I’m falling down the rabbit hole over this.

Before I continue on, after reading the above it sounds like the person was being mean. I don’t think that was the case. Sure it was hard to heard but they were giving an honest interpretation of what they saw, and I don’t hate them for that.

The thing is, I know I should do better than this, I shouldn’t be sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Fuck, even that sparks the crazy shit. So let’s get real.

I deserved every blow, every kick, every fucking punishment. When my mother or grandmother laid into me for acting superior, for thinking I was so fucking special, they weren’t nutcases, they were seeing what was really there, saw the faults clearer than anyone else, or were more honest about those faults. Sure, maybe their methods of punishing me were too extreme… fuck maybe they weren’t because even with that extreme response they didn’t manage to punish it out of me, because now 20 years later I still acting like that.

I do feel like I’ve been conning myself these last few years saying it was abuse, and wasn’t right, saying I was the victim. I feel guilty for being angry at them. Maybe the sex shouldn’t have happened, maybe. But the punishments, the anger at me, all I can think now is I deserved it all, that there is something so bad about who I am.

Even writing this I keep thinking, even that is narcissistic, that I shouldn’t be complaining, that I should be better, should find a way to rid myself of that feeling that I have any importance. I’m back to doing some really … I don’t know, inappropriate I suppose, behaviours. I’m back to wanting to .. god I can’t even describe what’s going on in my head right now. I thought I could write it out, make some sense of it. But right now I just feel I’m getting myself twisted and proving how much I deserve to get all I’ve ever gotten.

A guy I’ve been emailing with online put me onto Game of Thorns, the tv series not the books. The books are probably better, I hadn’t heard of them before now though so I can’t say. I’ve heard the tv series is very true to the books. They are a fantasy series, but not magic and wizards and that sort of fantasy. It’s more about intrigue, violence and politics. Someone described it as The Tudors set in a fantasy world. It’s American produced, HBO, but filmed in the UK with a mostly British cast. Sean Bean is one of the main characters, and I’ve always loved his work. There’s only eight episodes in the first series, and I’m dying to watch the next. It’s dark and very adult, and I’m loving it.

I’ve been feeling the Christchurch earthquakes down here in Dunedin. I’m starting to get rattled by them (no pun intended). And if its like this here, I can’t imagine how bad it is in Christchurch. I’ve felt 3 in the last hour and a half.

Our cell phone is dying. It won’t hold its charge. At least I don’t use it to make voice calls, because it wouldn’t last 2 minutes. But of course, I don’t have money for a new one, so I’ll just have to recharge it 2 or 3 times a day.