Dear Diary,

Three people have told me that notes they left for me have disappeared. I have no idea why that is, so I apologize. I can only seem to open my notes every other day or so, because the page gets stuck.

In other news, I've been breathing in and out fairly regularly for the last 24 hours....

I went to meet LilyB and some of her friends last night. It seems she was having a belated birthday dinner with some of her favorite girlfriends, so I met them at a restaurant. While I was there, I felt a little strange. I realized that I don't really trust women right away, and I often feel awkward around them when I don't know anybody. Granted, they were nice to me, but... you know me, I have a thing.

I was actually waiting for the evening to be over. It turns out the place we went to was primarily a lesbian bar- a really nice one. There were some men there but not many. There was a beautiful girl sitting at the bar- someone I know M would be attracted to. Incidentally, I found her very attractive as well. But I don't know if she was a lesbian. Also, I'm not sure I know how to pick up a girl, really. And, I kept having back and forth feelings like a) being very attracted to her and wondering if I could actually work up the courage to talk to her and find out if she likes women, and b) feeling alternately really angry at her and at M because I know he would find her attractive.

I know this makes no sense, but I have a theory about it. I tend to compare myself, and feel very insecure, but only when I have a boyfriend. I think I feel really threatened in intimate relationships and that it relates to sexual abuse when I was younger. It just made me feel like I had this ickiness implanted in me, and I guess when I get close to someone, I fear they will see it- and I doubt my own beauty because there's still this element of yuckiness inside. Something to work on.

I guess no use trying to pick up pretty women until that's solved...

Finally the night ended and I went home with LilyB. I had a very mediocre night as I had to share a room with her son, who was snoring up a storm. Also she woke him up at 6am, and 6:15am, and 6:30am, because he had to get up for school. And then even though I was sleeping, I could never go back into deep sleep because I kept thinking LilyB was going to come in and wake me up.

Ah!

She did get me up at 10:30am, and we talked and had breakfast. Then I went to therapy. I haven't been feeling so hot about therapy, and have been wondering if I should quit. Also I started to get worried about money. I approached my therapist with all this and she once again suggested I get another job. Even though I am doing these trainings, she insists I should be able to find something part-time, and also that's it's not good for me to be home so much. Of course the immediate feeling that comes up is resistance. I don't want another job, I don't want to have a set schedule with somebody else, or have a boss. I don't want to answer to anyone, and I don't want to set foot in another lame-ass office again. I'm sick of the drama in offices.

Then I said I just wasn't sure if it was worth it for me to stay with her, because I felt like something was missing. That, apparently, was the wrong thing to say, because then she went into a whole dialogue about how that was the problem with my life, that I always felt something was missing and expecting someone else to fill it. So I had to explain that it wasn't that kind of missing I was talking about- I meant that I wasn't sure if therapy with her was giving me what I need. And now that I thought about it, I was just using the money as an excuse. If I really want to do something- I mean really- I will act first and trust the money will figure itself out later.

I mean, look at the fact that I bought that audio program- didn't think about it, just trusted. Kate is even more expensive than my therapist, but I still want to go to her. I didn't tell my therapist these things, because I thought she would make judgments about how I'm spending my money.

So I kept talking and it just came down to the fact that I anticipate a battle of wills with my therapist- if I say I can't, she'll try to make me. If I say no money, she'll argue with me how there could be money. If I say I'm not getting what I need, she'll counter with how my expectations are not realistic. And I said, "I'm aware I have resistance, because I can easily feel controlled. And right now I just don't know if I'm resisting you because I don't want you, or just resisiting for the sake of resisting."

This spawned a whole dialogue, of course, about my mother. The interesting thing is, I realized that if my therapist had just said, ok, you should go, I would have doubted myself and maybe even decided I DID want to stay in therapy. Which only shines the light even brighter on my tendency to resist.

She said she doesn't want to control me, but she does care about me, and pointed out that I can easily feel like someone is trying to control me when they are trying to help me. This is absolutely true, so I'm aware of it. She also reminded me that it's her job to stand in for a new model of "mothering", and that she can take my love as well as my rage.

One of the advantages of this therapist is, in a way, I really don't like her. Meaning, for whatever reason, I'm not really concerned about hurting her feelings- it's basically like, there's something about her that turns me off, so I just tell her the truth when things she says makes me angry, or I don't like this or that, or I feel like she is trying to control me. I guess that's a good thing, because it's certainly different for me. Normally I am so OVER concerned about taking care of other people that I think of myself last. If anything, this therapist is good practice for speaking my mind and actually "having" my anger with someone, instead of swallowing it down.

So, after this rather lengthy discussion, I did say I would continue with therapy and I can see this issue of control with women. It's true I don't trust women nearly as much as I trust men. I feel uncomfortable and threatened by them often. Although I have lots of women friends, I've never had a woman friend that I felt I could share my whole self with- there always seems to be too much judgment, meddling and drama. Even though I'm attracted to them, there is a way I don't like the way a lot of women operate, emotionally. I guess it would be a breakthrough for me to heal this too.

After all that, I went to dance class. It was a good class, and we had to do an experimental piece and teach another student a series of steps. I found that I was much more confident than I expected.

Maybe life is turning around for me. I think I am starting to believe in myself more and more.

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