That is how I do things. Correspondence with a friend is a place for lots of feelings, and this is a place for ideas, and maybe how I feel is contributing to the ideas, but it has been my choice to do things that way.
I do have a message to my younger self though, but that person might not like it.
Your best bet is to get into therapy as quickly as you can and sort out that tangled ball of stuff called your life. Taking some sort of hormone suppressant might be a really good way of giving you a chance to do the sorting. Stop beating yourself up because you can't think yourself out of this.
My feelings and impulses driving me before this past month were like a really tangled up pile of electrical cords, all the same colour and size lying on the floor of an airplane hanger. They were wrapped around and around and interlaced and pulled tight.
Like the job of untangling those cords, it was hard to know where to start the process of understanding, because there are co-related issues; lots of them. Feelings about one bleeding over into another has confused me into believing one was the cause of the other, or visa-versa. Some of these issues, on their own were hard enough to deal with, but when they were tangled so badly, feelings of guilt and shame mixed in, they seemed impossible to deal with.
The anti-androgen has calmed some things way down and individual issues can be seen in relief. Sort of like those electrical cords suddenly being a different colour, or thickness that allows you to figure out how to deal with one at a time.
Petra said once my search was like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube. This analogy of untangling cords seems more useful right now. One cord at a time.
Quite a few of them are lying on that hanger floor right now, neatly coiled and not likely to get tangled again.
So, I am getting better thank you. It is never going to be perfect. I will accept better.
Trying to live as true to myself as possible in a complicated world, just like all of you are I am sure.
Take care.
"Trying to live as true to myself as possible in a complicated world."
ReplyDeleteThat about sums up the process, aiming for the fewest crossed and tangled wires...
In the UK we have a long running radio programme, there are about 1500 archived on line, called Desert Island Discs. The interviewee gets to talk about their life and choses 8 discs to keep them company on the island and at the end they are asked how they would survive.
Would Halle still have issues alone on a desert island where there was nobody seeing the wrong you? Would you be happy to get on building a shelter and looking for food or would you still sit on a rock cursing your present form?
I reached several points along the way where I felt better and paused only to eventually feel the urge to move further on...
Getting better, great. One day perfect, you never know.
Caroline, thank you for the podcast idea. Just started listening to the Goldie Hawn episode. What a great concept for a radio show.
DeleteMore important, thank you for the desert island question. This is the sort of nudge that has sometimes been really important in moving me along. I will let you know the answer in an email my dear! :)
I like, dear Halle, the tangled cables, a much tighter analogy. Rubik's Cube does not allow for methodological, repeatable tests. Cables, with a little forethought and discipline though, you can run every combination and permutation, eliminate false positives and get to a real and telling result.
ReplyDeleteIf you are the likes of we that is, the dogged and determined.
I think of you often Halle, and do not return here near often enough. Thanks for a great read today.
Warmly, expatriately yours,
Petra
I too think of you Petra, as you can tell. :)
DeleteDoggedly, determinedly and affectionately yours,
Halle
You seem to have taken the right decision when you opted for ignoring the 'Do not touch' sign.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that an amusing photo? It reminds me of when I first started working with computers (that is what that is by the way, a very ancient computer) and we would have a box of cards with each card an instruction to the computer. If those somehow got out of order, or even one card went missing, nothing would work. A bit like those wires if one got removed, or it was plugged into the wrong place.
DeleteIn my case, yes, important to clear them all away so we can let who I am shine through!