I am just going to ramble a little bit on the last two posts by both Angela and Wendy. So please don't either of you feel left out. And please be aware that I have a headache and good sense would dictate that I should go to bed but I can't because I have to make sure my boy does his homework so I am here typing and every few minutes asking him if he is done with his homework. Sigh.

First of all that Alanis song is awesome. I would listen to it over and over again.

Second, the whole topic of stopping for someone else's sake...uh, I have a major desire to swear here but instead I will say it makes me extremely angry. To have a therapist give that excuse, argh! What about you? To me it feels like it devalues the pain you are going through and puts other people ahead of you...yet again. Maybe that is just me being overly sensitive and responding from my own experience. Sorry about that.

The it being a sin angle seems to work for a lot of things, not just SI. I fear, however the damage of feeling like a sinner may be greater then the sin itself. Sigh.

The whole identity thing brought me back to my earlier visits with me therapist when I would cry out "who am I?" I had no concept of myself as a person. My husband doesn't understand this. When I tried to explain to him how it felt to not be anything inside and just what was on the outside he couldn't wrap his head around it. He kept saying "but that is all anyone is." But he didn't understand that inside me was a dark hole where nothing existed. It just waited to be filled by someone else and when that person left it was empty again waiting to be filled by another person. That empty feeling is like no other feeling in the world. It is like always being hungry and never getting enough of a person to fill it up because no person could possibly fill it up because that hole is filled with other holes and what people tried to give would just leak out. My T helped me plug the holes in the the hole but I had to choose what to fill it with.

I may complain about my parents a lot. They were neglectfull and they totally screwed me up but one thing they did do was they made me believe that I could figure things out on my own. Because of that I was able to have faith that I could fill that hole up with myself if I worked hard enough at it and I also believed that I deserved to be whole in the end. There is a difference between being what we do and just being. Now I can't remember how it is that I learned to just be. I remember crying out over and over again. But who answered? I am the only one who knew what I needed. I am the only one who carried the key within myself. I read a lot. I prayed a lot. I yelled a lot at that which I prayed. Finally I decided that I could be nothing for a little while. I decided that I didn't have to fill the hole. Once I let it go and was nothing and not connected with anybody I found me. I think it was dangerous. I couldn't have done it without my T. He kept me safe though I never told him what I have written here. I don't know why...yeah I do know why, I didn't want to fill up on him either. When I let go and became nothing I just had to had faith that I could come back and would come back. Unfortunately, SI was proof when my faith failed. But I have kept trying and now I have me and not a gaping hole. I still have some leaks but I am working on plugging them up.
Sorry to ramble on so much,
Carrie


<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft