Make coffee, hate myself a little less
"I laid awake the next morning, alone in bed, marinating in anger and hating myself for what I'd done, or didn't do. And then, in the quiet, a small voice in the back of my head said, 'You can hate yourself, but you can hate yourself and also make coffee.' "
My therapist waited for me to finish my thought, then snorted and said, "Well, the self-loathing isn't great, but the dialectic? Very good. We can work with that." A pause, then, "So, did you get up and make coffee?"
For the record, I did. And I hated myself a little bit less.
As I told my doc that day, it's hard for me to like myself completely when my brain and body seem to be held together by spite and duct tape after being put through the wringer by twelve years of military service. It's also hard for me to like myself when the ghosts of my first stroke make themselves known in the form of nerve misfires that feel like ants trying to chew their way out of my skull and torso.
But, as I realized one Fourth of July several years back while lighting off totally legal fireworks, I am the adult supervision. I make do with what I've got. It's not inspiring. It's usually pretty gross and would make excellent fodder if I ever decided to get into body horror fiction. I've also been in therapy since 2018 with a few months' break here and there. As my first shrink said, my life reminded her of the viral video of the possums in the barbecue grill drawer: there's a lot to unpack.
The fact is that when you carry around a lot of stuff, you need to talk about it with someone who's been trained to help you process it. While my friends are lovely, they aren't clinically trained or licensed, and they've also got their own metaphorical possum nests to deal with. I've been fortunate to have doctors who understand my bleak humor and who don't try to get me to positively think my way out of it.
It is what it is. I make do.
I might need to ask my primary care doc to up the Gabapentin, though, because the ants are almost out of my ear canal.
