el tercer ojo

Living in shadows

Over on his excellent blog, Rad in a fit of musing yesterday, brought on by having to fill out a vanilla Facebook page, commented about the kink world and "reality" --

I don’t like an overabundance of artifice although I put up my own fronts when needed (i.e. the Radagast persona that writes this blog). However, even though I do use a nom de plume, the thoughts I spew onto this space are mine and often quite unfiltered even if somewhat edited for content. This person is me and probably the closest to the real me that people would be able to see. My life in the outside world is now fake to me — it is the alternate reality that is somewhat out of step with who I am. Especially at work and in my professional networks, the fakeness of it all is hip-deep.

It's a wonderful blog entry and I found myself nodding along in agreement.  I mean, apart from my family and work as a graduate student (both of which are obviously important to me), I have no vanilla life anymore.  No vanilla social life at all. 

Like Rad, I nearly freaked out filling out Facebook and never have completed it. Yes, I still do vanilla work and have have a few vanilla friends. But all the close ones are ones I made before I got involved in the scene in 1997. I haven’t made a close non-scene friend in over 13 years. 

This is kind of depressing. 

And yet, last summer when the second of my two close vanilla friends moved away (they both left within 18 months), part of what I felt was relief that I didn’t need to worry about her dropping by when I was wearing a school uniform.  (Another part of me was very sad, of course.)

The downside, and there is a downside, is that despite being introverted, I’m sometimes quite lonely now for human contact. My closest girl friend in the scene lives 6000 miles away and neither of us is great about writing, maybe partly because what I want isn’t writing. I miss having a friend I can go out for coffee with and sit and chat a couple times a month. And no, we probably wouldn’t talk about kinky stuff. But we could. I wouldn’t have to guard my tongue, worry about saying too much, always be the listener.

I can't see any way around this (and I don't especially want to be "out" at work -- I value privacy in all directions there).  But I hate worrying about maintaining the walls, especially when in my heart I don't feel what I do in private should matter to anyone else.  But it would.  It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would matter.

As a friend once said, "the Titanic had compartments too."

Childishly heartbroken

The question "what's really bothering you?" springs to mind.

Last night I had dinner with my closest graduate school (though she's Dr. Friend now having already completed her PhD) and her small son. She and her family are headed to Chicago for her first professional position. I'm thrilled for her -- it's a great job.


Anyway, last night they came over to our apartment after we'd eaten. I was doing my best to amuse her small son (our apartment isn't the most kid-friendly place) by pulling out whatever (vanilla) toys I could find. When they left, I gave him all sorts of cheap plastic toys I'd collected via McD's Happy Meals. He was beyond excited by them and I was pleased to see them go.

And then he asked if he could have Theo. Theo is my plastic bite-y T-Rex dinosaur. He's from the Natural History Museum in London and I tend to use him (at least in my imagination) to attack those who thwart me. I've had him for 5 years. On the other hand, the child asking is four years old, has a father who's been unexpectedly away for two weeks due to a family emergency and had just this past week had to see all his things including toys, packed up and shipped away in a truck to some place he's never been. So of course I said he could have it. I was glad to give it.

Except I woke up this morning feeling deeply sad about the loss of Theo.

Huh?

My only hope is that I'm really mourning the loss of my dear friend who's moving away. I think that's the case. I couldn't really care this much about a plastic dinosaur head on a stick.

Could I?

Tired of Talking About Me

I should qualify that title statement a bit -- don't get me wrong.  I find myself utterly fascinating.  After all, I spend a lot of time with me.  I write about me (what else is blogging after all?).  I sometimes meet friends for coffee and talk about myself at least some of the time (at least during the time we're not talking about their children).

So what do I mean?

Basically I'm complaining about having to go to the doctor.  Or rather, about going to doctors for the first time.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been seeing a psychiatrist.  He's great -- I like him a lot.  But he's not a long term therapist.  Rather, he's the one who's diagnosed me (bipolar I with anxiety disorder in case you're keeping track) and keeps track of my lithium dosage and blood readings.*  Anyway, he's been great and wants me to find a therapist.  Ever the obedient patient, I determined to do as told.

However, rather than just taking a referral, I decided it would be far easier to use the student counseling services on campus.  This would mean, thought I, that I could just go to therapy once a week on my lunch hour.  So I made an appointment (explaining the situation on the phone to the intake person), filled out yet another pile o' forms with statements about my feelings, past treatments, family history and the like.  When I got to the office yesterday, I was met with yet another pile of forms.  This is a university and I work here so I knew better than to argue.  I just filled the damn things out out and turned them in.

My next step was a meeting with Rebecca, a graduate psych student doing clinical practice (like, she'd be practicing on me).  That's cool, she seemed nice enough.  We went through 45 minutes of discussion about why I was there, questions about my history, my goals and then my feelings.  I had no thoughts for her on my feelings -- I felt fine (other than being a little hungry due to the lack of lunch). 

Then she started talking in that very gentle, I-hope-you're-not-going-to-be-angry-or-melt-down way.  Rebecca told me she wanted to refer me off campus to a counseling psychiatrist or psychologist.  That the center now had a policy of only doing 12 sessions with any student in a given year and she felt I'd be better off with someone who I could see in an on-going fashion without needing to worry about running into the that limit.   Plus, since I have a medical diagnosis of a specific disorder, there would be no problem with insurance coverage even off campus.  As I listened, I wasn't in danger of melting down, but my first thought was "damn, I so don't want to introduce myself again."

There's nothing for it of course.  She's right -- a private therapist is definitely the way to go.  Before anyone says it, I know I'm really fortunate.  I live in Santa Monica where there's no shortage of mental health professionals and I'll be able to take my pick.  My insurance coverage as a student is good.  Pablo's coverage as a university employee is even better.  But even when I'm feeling good, this sort of intake is agony.  I hate talking to strangers**, especially about myself.  Especially about what's going on in my head, which is my own private domain.  I keep myself feeling safe a lot of times by making sure to let people talk about themselves and not talking about the things that I feel are private and important to me.  I'm not just introverted -- most of the time I'm shy too. 

This blog entry is just a little whine, there's nothing for it and the appointments will have to be made.  I'm just glad that I won't get the referrals until Thursday.  With the Friday holiday that means the earliest I can even start making appointments is July 7.   

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*this is apparently very important as there's a rather fine line between the therapeutic and toxic blood level of lithium.  Knowing this does not help with my anxiety issues, but the lithium does seem to be a helpful mood stabilizing drug.

**writing to strangers in a blog is apparently a completely different matter.