3 January 1997

This entry is very fragmented and may be triggering. Use caution.

2:20 pm

I never did write more later, and now it's been so very long. In the months since that last journal entry, letters to friends have been my journal, so I've never gotten round to writing anything. Actually I was using the back part of this notebook for something else, when I decided maybe I would write in here. Now if only I could get the chaos to shut up long enough to actually write something! Catching up will have to be done later (if ever) -- I need to write about certain things now!!!

Very often thoughts of fleeing back to Houma possess my mind, which disturb and confuse me greatly. I don't think I really want to return to Houma at all, but rather "I want to go home" is my mind's metaphor for "I don't want to deal with this -- if I go back, I won't have to." Which my rational mind knows to be untrue -- if only it could convince the Scared DeeDee of that.

Okay, Scared One, what is it you want to escape from dealing with here? (1) Living from check to check; (2) Having to go to work; (3) feeling like all Mary really wants me for is my body, my cleaning, my paycheck. Let's examine the points one by one, shall we? If you went back to Houma, would you not be (once again) living from Dad's paycheck to Dad's paycheck? YES. Would you not be pressured to go to work? YES. Other than your body, would you not feel all your parents want you for is your housekeeping and your paycheck? YES. So these points, these fears, would not be escaped from if you went back to Houma, would they? No. Perhaps a month or so, but after that. . .

What is your other, paradoxical, fear? That I can't go back to Houma, that I'm trapped here, blah blah blah . . . The fact is that I am not trapped here. Yes, it would be very unpleasant to return to Houma, it would hurt Mary greatly and be very embarassing to me personally. But if I really felt it necessary, to my mental and physical self, I could go. It would be very hard, but it could be done. Mary wouldn't like it, not one bit, but not hurting Mary cannot be a reason for staying.

Neither can some stupid idea of, "Oh, I can't leave, she really needs me, I must be here to help her get along." The idea of helping her is not stupid, I help her and make her life easier in countless ways, but she can exist without me. She has survived for 56 years without me, why should I think she couldn't survive the rest of them? Were I to leave, her universe would not fall apart -- she'd be pissed and disappointed, but she'd find a way to carry on. In a paradoxical way, just working that out makes me feel better about staying -- because I realize I don't have to stay. I am not a useless piece of human debris cluttering up Mary's life, but neither am I her savior. I make her life easier and she does the same for me, but that does not mean we are chained together.

If you haven't guessed yet, I've been a few months out of the benevolent influence of Prozac. It really wasn't a problem until around Thanksgiving time, when I really started feeling the pressure to look for work. And the panic set in. It really got out of hand during Christmas, when she spent so much money on the holidays that we're back to doing the grocery shopping on the Texaco card.

I've done some things towards employment: took the LA civil service exam in November (Clerical -- made an 88); put applications at K-Mart, Kroger, Brookshires; registered at Job Service. Even got a letter of inquiry from LSUMC for a cashier, which I dutifully mailed back a week before my birthday. Nothing yet. Fortunately I had the Christmas holiday as an excuse not to pound the pavement some more; but now the holidays are over and now I'll have to try some more. Yikes! But since I've been writing this I don't feel so threatened. I guess it's because I know I'm going to stay, which means I'll have to have a job as soon as I can. I wish that lady from Jelks Coffee would call!

I guess I'll write a little more before I go do a garbage run. I guess I will also have to try to scrounge up some mental health help around here. Neither Sharyn nor Beth nor Mary will help me out by making the first call for me -- okay, so Beth said she'd call a VR guy up here and get me a referral, but haven't heard from them, either. I might try giving Sharyn a call Tuesday (Monday's out -- payday) to see if I could re-open my case in Houma & get meds, etc. by coming down to Houma when needed. Appeals to my chicken self but seems a roundabout way of doing it. Not that it wouldn't be nice to have a reason to visit the family every now and then, but . . . No, I'll just have to find a way to do it here. Of course it scares me (not much doesn't, these days!), but what scares me even more is the scenario painted by Mary yesterday: 911 picking me up and having to spend 72 hours at the LSUMC looney bin. Not a pleasant thought, to make an understatement. I think it's the Four in me, the Drama Queen, got to make everything it's most depressing.

I just flipped to the beginning of this journal, and came across what I called the Trust Revelation. And I realize that, once again, distrust of myself is at the heart of the matter. That I don't trust myself enough to get or keep a job. That I don't trust myself not to go crackerdee from all the pressure. Yes, a good part of it is biochemical, and being on Prozac could help that, but part also has to do with feelings that I cannot stay sane without pharmaceuticals. Which I begin to suspect is wrong. I think as I learn to have more faith in myself, my need for drugs will diminish. That is a very profound thing to say, isn't it?

One more quick thought: if time distorted the seriousness of the rape memories, might not the job memories be similarly distorted?

On to Afterthoughts -- three years later

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