So in case my elaborate post on nightmare babies made it unclear, I've been just a tad erratic lately...
So erratic that I forget most things that cross my mind almost instantly... until something I apparently said-but-don't-
recall-feeling hurts someone else...Then I realize how it came across and prepare my hair shirt and self- flagellation supplies for the guilt trip...
I'm noticing that I have this very unflattering tendency of mistaking my own feelings about my worth and character for the opinions of others... with consequences that are not so pleasant...
Try explaining to someone who's feelings you've hurt, that all of the dirty looks, frustration, and irritation in your words and actions is really you speaking with the disdain you feel for yourself... Not them...
They just happened to be in the vicinity of your entire life...
They may ask you to explain the Easter Bunny next...
Provided you are fortunate enough to insult someone who cares about you (or at least has a sense of humor about your bullshit...), maybe they'll laugh, but they are probably far from amused.
The psychological community has sought to understand the loosely defined concept of "transference" (and it's close pal "projection") for decades... Originally, transference was a very specific therapeutic event in psychoanalysis. It occurred when a patient began responding to the analyst as they would a significant authority figure/parent)...
Then the patient, eventually realizes that he is undeniably incorrect in attributing his childhood trauma (and subsequent adult neurosis) to a fucking stranger he paid to listen.
In an ideal world, this would illuminate which of his sexual organs was really to blame for his troubles... Catharsis happens...
And he'll ride a winged unicorn into the sunset...
It was thought that allowing the patient to express undesirable or shameful emotions to the therapist would cause him to process them differently than he had at an earlier stage of development. Bring the subconscious (and perhaps some of the of the unconscious) into consciousness and it won't sneak up on you and make you act crazy...
Or it will anyway, but at least you'll know why.. Transference in therapy and projection as a defense mechanism, have since become common explanations for any instance of misplaced emotion. Once Sigmund Freud had expounded upon his theories, and they gained global momentum, it became apparent that assumptions such as these permeated social situations that do not always necessarily involve a cigar, a couch, or your mother. In fact, had Freud steered clear of referring to anuses and penis envy, his enumeration of the ways we defend ourselves was pretty accurate and still holds...
The feelings each of us have (that we really wish we didn't) are easier to understand and ignore if we don't have to assume direct responsibility for having them...
This causes most of us to repress them, rationalize them, and project them all over creation rather than be stuck with the discomfort... Recently, my own desperation to ignore the state of total relapse I've been in for months, has been making me furious with myself for being so weak... Unfortunately, since the restricting and purging was failing to ease the discomfort, I had to get rid of it some other way. I don't know why, but making it everyone else's fault was how I excused it this time...
That's not to say I was always accurate in my attribution of blame before, but most of the time it's pretty consistently self-directed... I'm neither usually so bold or self-pitying as to feel like it's the cold, cruel world's fault that I'm fucked up, nor is it typical for me to assume that the problem lies with those around me for not caring...
But, alas, this has been going on all fucking week...
I know that I am the one responsible for the relapse, I know that I am the one who pissed away the professional help and shrugged off the loving support that I've been offered... Now it feels like I'm back in it too deep and I almost don't want to be stopped...
The long and tedious climb up the scale is fully in reverse and my brakes are fucking out...
I find it strange how quickly things have escalated... it took months of slow and tedious work to gain the weight and trust of those around me... It only took weeks to undo about half of the weight gain and all of the trust. I keep telling myself that if I just stop right now, stay put, BE CAREFUL, that I could walk in both worlds. Recovered, but not quite so OBVIOUSLY recovered... I like to think I could teeter on the verge of "normal" indefinitely... without stepping over the edge and careening towards certain death below... I like to think that every time I've supposedly done so in the past is grossly exaggerated... was it really a cliff? or did I just fall a few feet?
I suppose that if I were to analyze how many blatant defense mechanisms just shot out of me in the last paragraph or two, I could deduce that I am definitely in denial... Unfortunately, merely dissecting all of the tricks my mind plays just leaves me with a big mess splayed all over the autopsy table... I'd like to clean it up and put everything back where it belongs, but I have no idea where anything goes...
