Worth...Can you see where i 'm not? APD Avoidant Personality Disorder

Can you see where I am not? A few lines in the book "Wasted" reminded me of this picture I made.  Marya wrote of becoming obsessed with the gaps, the space around her. I identified completely with that.

In an old sketchbook of mine I found a page where I had, at about 16 years of age, written a number. My weight at the time. Over and over I wrote that number. And below it scrawled "oh i have worked so hard for every pound that I am NOT."


How did I end up working in the negative? I am operating in the empty space. The Dead Zone. Go Away.

So yeah, I finished the book and then went searching for books on Avoidant Personality Disorder. Ha. These two events, finishing the book and searching Amazon, are a cause and effect. The twisty thought pattern connecting this cause and effect is quite stupid. And simple. and Lame.

I loved the book, it was just as wonderful as all the gushing reviews said. Yes, this Book Could Save a Life. I became preoccupied with her MANIA, though.
I never read an ED book before. ever. I avoided them. I suppose in a selfish, yes-i -am -preoccupied -with -my- self- self -self- self -way, I wanted to read a book about ME.

A book that ended with a chapter on how to Save Your own Life. Yes, that is ridiculous, I know. God, i thought., Why are there NO books by Avoidants? Why are there not even but TWO self help books on Avoidants? (i ordered them both. used.)

oh. I laugh. I imagine there are countless books by and about avoidants stuffed under mattresses and behind couches and in closets with a matching terrified owner refusing to. Just REFUSING to.
Waiting for the Emily Dickinson story to play out.

(and it won't. ever)

or maybe not. Maybe no one cares. You "chose" to avoid (did NOT) and sitting your life out is not nearly as dramatic or interesting or much ANYTHING as a Prozac Nation type smart girl mania complete with screaming fights in public and blood and starvation and suicide attempts. Nothing for the APD but... Just the comfort of ISOLATION. Refusing.

bc really, you painted yourself into this corner. You blacked out the windows. You didn't even try. You refused to fill out the forms, take the tests, change locations, go to the meeting or talk to the person in charge. You refused to eat, or explain, or even show up. Or return a phone call. So there you go. And here you are.

The best book on APD was over 60 bucks so i could not get it but i'm going to try to get it through the libarary. This cinched it
"Avoidants are not simply afraid of criticism and humiliation -- the only reason for avoidance currently identified in the official literature. They are also afraid of being flooded by feelings they cannot tolerate, and of being depleted should they express these feelings. Most importantly, they fear acceptance as much as they fear rejection because they fear losing their identity and personal freedom. 

Yes, all the literature did say fear of criticism. I refused to identify with that. You can tell me I suck all day. I may agree with you, but i most likely also think you are no better than me. You people have pegged me wrong and i wont hear it. i refuse to admit this may be my problem.

Strange Aches. Unfinished Business

Marya is manic.  Im almost done with Wasted, so I look her up to see what else she has written. Her book Madness, which came out in April 2008, is about being diagnosed as Bipolar.  Everything makes much more sense, now. I was expecting a book about a girl with e.d.'s but as I was reading I actually thought, " can't believe no one diagnosed her as manic-depressive" (that is the old term for it, right?. Oh, but they did. Only it was a story for another day.
Her behavior in Wasted is terrifying to me. Mania is terrifying and fascinating to me bc I have most likely never felt a single drop of it....but it always seemed like a necessary something to counterbalance the EXTREME depth of my depression. After I emerged from the worst deep  and dark depression of my life, I told my T that my brain felt wounded...that i was actually waiting for an extreme upswing..something to knock the pendulum too far over into a realm of the OPPOSITE of depression..whatever that is. Mania, I guess. Instead I documented the time between waking up and having the first 'longing for death' thought. Gradually that time increased. Slowy, slowly crawling back to life. Once I had "but i don't want to die," run across my mind, and was so shocked and excited that I immediately told my T. My brain had only offered me misery and rather gruesome thoughts for so long...the first positive idea that floated up was stunning. An Organ offering thoughts was the only way i could describe My Own Thinking...I didn't feel like I owned my thoughts...My brain was just a sick organ rotting in my skull. Radiating outward the putrid god awful thoughts...
And nothing got accomplished. I avoided everything and everyone. I finished school, I painted ferociously, but i kept it mostly to myself and had shaking anxiety fits when I thought about a Plan for The Rest Of My Life. or Promoting Me. So I did nothing. And I become nothing.
So reading about People who had
a debilitating mental illness
and survived and
even achieved.
gives me strange aches.

WASTED

I am reading Wasted…by Marya Hornbacher.(finally) I have sort of avoided it. E.D. related books give me alls ort of weird and conflicted emotions but I was ran across it in the library and couldn’t leave without it.  I was in the library bc I have been reading about the Celts and I picked a few more celt books (one history, one fairy tales) and a movie about archaeology digs of Celtic burials. I love all that..anthropology, material culure…of Others. Not Mine.

My culture is Wasted… And the ADD book self help book I picked up.

{LOSER.} shut up I amtryingtoimprovemyself

So anyway, Wasted, is on one level, something I can related to, and on another level, absolutely maniac terrifying.  The counting, the repetition, and the disassociation, the body image issues I can TOTALLY relate to. The fearless wild child ….I am shocked by and in awe of. It rings true though. All of the bulimics I have known, have been  much more fearless and outgoing…aggressive Risk Takers than the AN.  Surely, that is not true in all cases, but just the few I have know. 

The An part of me is absolutely terrified. Of. Everything. Any Change is upsetting and makes me quite aware that we are all going to die. It took an act of God to move across town… All the strength I had. It was like closing my eyes running off the edge of something. In reality it was. NO. BIG. DEAL.  So I find her experiences of fighting, drugs and sex and trouble to be absolutely mystifying.

I enjoy her writing style, how it flows almost poetry-like and has the rhythm  of a voice.

Gazing at her face on the cover, at her body..i wonder what it be like to talk to her…..to have known her in 1984, 1995, now.

What kind of brain does it take to make long series of cohesive complete sentences (NO FRAGMENTS) and express present tense thoughts about painful past tense.events?

A good one, it seems like.

The book is not a trigger so far, although I secretly hoped it would be. There I go, setting traps inside myself. Another Protective Chain Link, a Wall, a Silent little Cage. So besides just enjoying the artistic merit of her words, Maybe I'll learn something from this book. Somethin’ about getting free from this wasted cage.