TGtBatU Part Five: The Ugly

Clint Eastwood (left) and Eli Wallach in TGtBatU

The last post showed I am paying attention (kinda) to the outside world.  But now we're back in self-absorbed narcissistic griefland with cinema references.

In the movie TGtBatU, of course, ugly is played by Eli Wallach.  When I saw the movie the first time I hated it (I didn't understand the weirdness of spaghetti westerns) except for Eli Wallach.  I've usually preferred sidekicks to heroes.  

So ugly is now my sidekick.

Ugly crying.  

Apple Photo Booth from this morning

At restaurants, at the dentist, at the chiropractor, while getting a massage.  "No m'am, the food is great,  but I have a dead husband in my soup."

Ugly emotion management.  

The last year of Will's life pushed me beyond my ability to manage my emotions and my grief at his passing has made me crazier still.  I've thrown money at clerks after yelling at them.  I've become terrified of other people's anger.  That's an ancient thing in my brain -- my earliest memories of people being angry with me included physicalized threats of death.  Over many years and helpful feedback from grade school and high school teachers, I learned how to act brave.  (And of course Deborah Kerr's (and Marni Nixon's) song from The King and I was helpful.)

Ugly anxieties

Everyone is pretending to like me so they feel better about themselves.

I'm a terrible person and no one will ever love me if they know who I really am.

No one will ever hold me and tell me that tomorrow will be better.

I have no importance.

I have no meaning.

I don't know if I'm a boy or a girl.  (Should I whack off the boobs so my shirts fit better?)

Does gender even matter if I'm never going to have sex again?

How did I get all these tattoos? (Really, I had a morning when this was driving me nutz).

The world is going to end and I'll be alone to face the Mad Max time.

My friends want to help but they have their own lives and will get angry with me if I ask for help.

Do any of my thoughts have any basis in reality?

 Last week I was in a situation with an old friend toward whom I bore a lot of anger because of an interaction about which I now know we have two different memories, it turns out.  But since he had asked me over, I thought I could manage my anger.  This was a mistake.  I should have said, "We need a mediated discussion about what happened between us."  But I didn't.  Instead I went over and after a very friendly visit and a beer I let slip a passive aggressive comment (passive aggressive because, just as when I was a child, I'm terrified right now of confrontations).  My friend went from 0 to 60 in physicalized rage - yelling, face angry, voice full of "you did this."  I became terrified and ran out of his yard.  I don't know if I will ever feel safe with my friend again.

This is like what happened in November when another friend I relied on dropped me because a hint of my authentic self came out.

So how do I trust the world?  How do I trust my ability to care for people?  How do I know anything is as it seems?  (This, of course, goes back to the family tragedy.)

Here's the deal.  I learned this lesson in childhood:  when my primary caregivers said, "I love you just the way you are" what they meant was, "just as long as how you are fits with what I want you to be."  I've often been told to "be yourself" or "live authentically" by people who then punished me in some way for doing just that.  (This happened a couple of years ago with a friend who was a life coach.  Or a life coach who said she was my friend.)  Of course I am not alone in receiving such messages, and like many clients of therapists, it's taken me much of a lifetime to work my way through the mixed messaging.

So I don't "really" believe in my Twilight Zone image of everybody faking.  Nor do I think I'm a terrible person, mostly.  And I have experienced some powerful healing since September 4, 2020.  In the before times, last Wednesday's experience would have lead to cutting and suicidal ideations.  But I seem to have been "cured" of both urges in the past year and a half, thanks to God and Sarah Peterson.

But still, I'm a mess with no patience, occasional rage surges, and a deep sense that nothing I do will ever matter much to me again. 

"Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality."