Jul 12

Soooo.

I think the sleep apnoea has been biting hard this week. And. I think more clearly than ever, that's exactly what that is. Brain fog after sleep. Super punchy eyes. Feels like I lose 20 IQ points. Sunday Monday was bad. I slept 19 hours. Felt exhausted.

And I've been struggling all week with it. Last night I kept waking up gasping for air. Until I finally slept, and woke up groggy. Uh huh.

It has I think been letting me off a bit recently. Like the CFS stuff. This week not so much.

I am resigned to it. I am pretty sure I don't want to even try the machine again. I will... suffer the serious consequences instead. 

Anywho.

This week at the therapist we talked about loss again, because, I felt we had only just scratched the surface before. So we talked about that. Dogs. Authenticity. Life not being worth it. Talking some about my parents.

We talked about loss. And I explained that paradox of me being the fixer, and feeling guilt about not being able to hold time, death at bay for the things I love, and yet intellectually understanding that's not possible.

I said it was probable that my life in training me to always be that superlative fixer, the person that fixes shit when all others flunk, had not done me too many favours in setting me up to deal with the real impossible problems. There is an inner expectation in me that I can always do. Not best helped by the fact that I know these things are possible. Staving off time. Staving off death. Is possible. It's just. I don't know how to do that. No one does. Yet. But in theory. It's very possible. You get a glimpse of what it would be like to go back 300 hundred years and watch someone die of an infection that you know could be cured if only anti biotics were available.

Why. I unreasonably ask myself. Have I not found the cure for death yet. You're so clever. Then fix death.

I can't.

Pathetic.

There were a couple of minor insights that came out this week in therapy.

One that my inner critic sounded angry. And also. There was shame.

Uh. Huh. I hadn't explicitly put that together. But yes. 

The other minor insight was that the shrink thought I was suffering from trauma. Maybe. Interesting I said. Because the same thing had started to occur to me. The shrink explained that trauma can make memories crystalise. Not fade. Not get overwritten. But preserved in sharp horrible detail.

Which I have.

However.

I also have that for mundane things. And good things. The same crystal clear memories.

Trauma perhaps. Or. A memory that functions very like traumatic memories, it can keep hold of things very clearly.

We sketched around some odd things for me. Crystal clear memories there. But I said it wasn't like a machine. Not like a video recording of everything. It was in places. And that in other things I would constantly lose things. I have to be very precise about where I put the things I need, wallet, keys, phone, in a specific place, everytime, otherwise I lose them. Instantly. And I lose many things like that. As soon as I put them down. Gone.

That's a thing I said. It seems to indicate a thing.

The shrink agreed strongly. That's definitely a thing. Definitely indicative of a thing.

So.

Funky memory. Some neurodivergent nonsense. This. We kinda know. Kinda.

Going back to the inner critic, the shrink noted the inner critic sounded very scary. That it could consume everything. I said it was a 500lb gorilla. The shrink understood. At times the gorilla just sits and eats leaves and has its moments. Sure. And at other times... yeah... it takes all the oxygen in the room, everything is flattened, it is the only thing that matters.

The shrink noted the shame bit. I stopped. Oh. Yeah. Sure. I said by my set of values, if I had failed to do something - save my dogs, do the thing - then that was bad. I had done a bad thing. I was a bad person. That wasn't good.

Angry about not doing better. Shame at then being a terrible person for not doing better.

Yikes. 

My friend later pointed out the obvious.

This is your dad.

That was the obvious thing I said, but I don't think so. I think I've done it to myself.

My friend said. Everytime you impersonate your inner critic, it has your dads voice. Accent. Mannerisms.

Uh. Huh. Yes. But. Heh. Maybe that's because I associate that .. styling... with harsh criticism, dog eat dog, no quarter, no love, just fucking do it mate.

But.

You do have to consider. Where did I get that from. And there is an obvious answer. Who else would I get that from ?

And it is a no brainer to see that that's just the ghost of my dad inside me.

Something tells me it's mostly me though. And not him. Me driving myself onwards. Me being disappointed in myself. Perhaps the seed of it is from my dad, certainly. Maybe. Maybe I am under estimating that influence. I don't know.

Regardless.

This is what I have to deal with now.

I did say to the shrink that I was aware of how... unhelpful a strong inner critic like that was. And I did work to lessen it's influence, defang it. That indeed just the other week I had told them I had stopped and had a direct conversation with it to stop it. It wasn't helpful. And that it was sinking the boat we were all in, so, how about shutting the fuck up and helping instead. Treating it like a sulky teenager.

I've done a lot of work on that inner critic.

But still.

At times. It is a monster. It delights in ripping me to pieces. There is I think in the human psyche, always an element of delight in the destruction of things. I have seen it in others often. I can see it at times in myself. I have seen it in my dad. I have seen it in spades in Hazel. That. Manic delight at burning everything to the ground. I think it is part of who we are. What is it they say about wanton destruction. That word. Wanton. Sexually unrestrained. Unrestrained in general. Playful.  There is the delight bit. Delight married with destruction. The delight of the pyromaniac. I think in humanity there is a giddy sense of enjoyment about bringing it all down. Where does that come from I wonder. Perhaps a capability to escape dead ends. A small reward in burning it all down so that.... you can start again in a better way.

It occurs to me that perhaps some elements of this inner critic are also what cause me to struggle with lessening capability under the watchful eye of CFS. The inner critic is enraged we cannot function properly. Refuses to accept it. Demands more. This. Is bullshit. How many times have I said that of my diagnosis. Bullshit.

Hmm.

From an outside perspective, all of that seems suddenly obvious. I am not sure it is correct, internally, but that could well be me not seeing the woods for the trees. Perhaps this is part of the shape of me. That inner critic. Unable to accept the things I can't do. Pushing to always do. 

There is an uneasy realisation there of how much I might just be being manipulated. Manipulated by my own ghosts. That my upbringing has far more control of me than I realised. That I am not as such, my own person, this is me. I am more just a product of an environment. I am not who I thought I was. Or rather. Some essence is not me. It is external. I am just a poor meat recording of echoes that were fed to me. A follows B. I have a lot less agency and individualism about that than I thought. I am a human. I have two arms, two legs, two eyes and a head. And as a human, that's always likely that's what you pop into the world with. A given. But how much of that oh so precious individualism, the headspace, the me, the you, is authentically us, and how much of it is just the inevitable path from A to B instigated by your critical development years. In the same way we are fated to have two arms. How much of your headspace is fated because of your environment. Your parents. Predetermined. Inevitable. This comes back down to how influential nurture is, how much you can change its path work on yourself. For me, maybe I am a lot more closer to not having changed than I thought I was. A lot more mechanical inevitability than the worked on person I thought I was.

Hmm.

I think I need some time to let that all percolate in and see where everything lands. I need to crunch the numbers. But I am uneasy. The rug beneath my feet has disconcertingly moved a bit. 

As if on cue.

Today.

I had a dream. As clear as clear as to what it meant.

A friend of a friend. In distress. I realised I needed to talk to them. Or rather listen to them. Be there for them. Listen. And care. So I did.

And halfway through listening my dad yanked me out of it. To go home. To get in a car.

I was annoyed. At the potential harm that would be done to the person relating their woes. To suddenly find their audience missing, given up, as if bored of what they were saying.

I berated my dad for being so rude. Showing no empathy.

He did not respond. A couple of friends in the car with me remained silent.

Later we had to get out of the car to pick up supplies.

And my dad left without me. Stranded. On purpose. Punishment for berating him.

I see.

Anxiety. How was I to get home. What would I do. But this quickly gave way to knowing where I was. I would walk home. A fair stretch, but doable. And along the way I bumped into friendly people. People I could talk to. Nearing the end of the walk there was a large group of friendly people talking to each other. I related my situation. They all reacted with varying levels of disgust towards my dad. 

As I got back to my hometown I saw a good friend, and not having had anything to eat, evening in chaos because of being stranded we went to eat. And talk. And it was good. I was not stressed. Not out of sorts. Not angry. I had ended up having a nice time. A nice walk.

Hazel had texted me. She was sorry for me. Said they were all back home ( Hazel was living with us apparently ?! ). She said maybe it would be a lesson about berating your dad.

No. NO. It absolutely was not.

I returned home and the dream began to dissipate. But I knew my old man was wrong. Had behaved horrendously. He could not empathise. Would not. Sulked. Lashed out. I would have it out with him. I would bury him if necessary. Fight him. Beat him to a pulp if necessary. He was so very wrong. The antithesis. But I wasn't angry per se. Just very determined. And it seemed. More than a little open to dishing out violence. My old mans language.

I woke up, dream ended.

The incredibly obvious lesson my sub conscious had decided to serve me was not lost on me.

A judgement on the moral compass, capabilities of my father. The standing against them. The fact that I found life to be better, good, outside of that horrible influence. That I wasn't incapable. That I could do. And succeed. Despite my father attempting to sabotage me and punish me back into line. And a sense of justice. Retribution. His wrong doings would not be left to stand. They would be confronted.

Uh huh.

This is probably in a - very over dramatic - nutshell my relationship with my dad. Particularly in light of his abuse of my mom when she was at her most vulnerable, and then his running away from the consequences followed by belligerence trying to rewrite history. All of it so horribly wrong. Underneath it all was... cowardice... Inability to cope.

Hmm.

The dream was pretty brutal in its condemnation.

The awake me is more sanguine about it.

But apparently sub conscious me is very fired up about it. Very clear. Very determined. As it ever has been.

Uh huh. 

I should also say. That the timeline here is not what you might expect. I had not been mulling over the influence over me my parents had before the dream. Rather the other way around. I had the dream. And then I recapped over my shrink visit and then thought about it. So the dream was not influenced by my thoughts. If anything the opposite way around.