I have been given two separate assignments by my counselor this week.
The first, though only marginally scary, is done. It involved a number 2 pencil, a scantron, and a test book. It took two hours. It was not difficult, as long as I just answered the question and did not spend too much time inside my head. I mean, how hard is it to answer yes or no to questions like "You would like to be a florist." and "You have headaches often."? They were redundant, sometimes seemingly superficial, and will, in a week's time, tell me just how fucked in the head I am. I don't really mind.
The second is the one that is killing me. I almost decided I was going to fire my counselor. I almost decided I was going to burn down his office building for good measure. I almost decided to stop writing again. Yep, two weeks into my new (re) found online journalling, and I was calling it quits. How dare he give me a writing assignment. How dare he give me a writing assignment that would involve my feelings. How dare he make me want to hide just because I let him inside my head.
The assignment was to write down all the reasons I could think of for why I feel invisible, and have since I was a kid. It was to be first a "head" exercise; just a list of possible reasons why my mother ignored me or kept me at a distance. On the list would be my father's reason for being angry if I cried. I would write down why my brother could get Cs and I needed to get As for the exact same type of notice.
I was then supposed to write down, once again in list form, the other people who made judgments against me that do not seem fair on the surface, and what their reasons might be. I was to list things like why my first ex husband walked off 13 different jobs in 7 years and we never had any money . I would include that my children's father had an affair with my sister when I was pregnant with my son, and how he told me it was my fault because I was too fat. I would list the story about a boyfriend who left in the middle of the night because the police showed up to arrest his daughter's mother. And the girlfriend who broke up with me because she could not biologically father my children.
Writing all that down was the easy part. I did it, just like I was supposed to. It is the part in my head, the part that starts to sound like a laundry list. It is a bibliography of stories that make up the timeline that got me from there to here. I didn't forget any of it. I could probably tell you what I was wearing.
Part two caused me to shake. Part two made me write how each of those events made me feel. Really? Fuck that. I don't want to fucking tell my god-damned counselor how the fuck I feel. I didn't want to remember feeling isolated and scared when I was sent off to softball practice alone. I didn't want to remember feeling jealous and angry when my brother got a dollar per C and I had to explain the A- in handwriting before my mom would sign the report card. I did not want to remember feeling worthless and ugly and abandoned when my husband wrote love letters to other women, often in front of me. I didn't want to remember feeling lonely and overwhelmed with grief when my milk came in after my son died, and being told at least he didn't suffer. Fuck all of that, I was a mess.
So I did not burn down my counselor's office. I wrote with a pen and paper a list, with words and pictures and colored pens. I used a bunch of tissues and toilet paper, and I slept. I hate that I cried to the point of sobbing and having a runny nose and red splotches on my face and neck. I hate that I almost stopped writing at all, because then I would go all invisible again. I hate that my life is still feeling like a tailspin and I have not mastered it yet. I hate that in that laundry list, there are sure to be things I have not even begun to uncover because I just haven't faced them yet. Damn, I feel more assignments in my future.
I wonder if I should be worried about the scantron test. I guess I would be if I had even the slightest bit of energy left. Maybe that was why I got the two assignments at once. Maybe my counselor knew I would have to let one go.
