Dear Diary,

Well. Another slow-starting day, with lousy weather. I certainly don't feel like going outside, but I do have to work... that's not so bad, I suppose... money coming in!

I didn't go to sleep till probably 7:30am. I tried, but ended up reading and then my mind was really going. I started feeling more and more annoyed with my therapist, because I had been writing checks to pay some bills, and seeing the numbers there rapidly getting smaller and smaller, and feeling threatened and sad. She keeps telling me that I have to come every week, but how am I supposed to do that with such limited funds?

It is a serious situation, and I just felt controlled once again. And in reality, knowing that she is not truly controlling me, but feeling controlled nonetheless. I felt that she was judging me, and saying that if I didn't come to therapy once a week, that I wasn't working hard enough. Then I feel not seen or acknowledged for who I really am- someone who's been working really hard to know myself, and change things- my whole life, but especially since November. I felt that by suggesting I do some data entry or temp work the past couple times, that she doesn't hear that's not the place for me. It takes so long to make any kind of money there, and it's not the kind of work that inspires any kind of passion in me- I know, who does feel passionate about office work? But I spent so many years doing what feels like compromising myself in those suit and tie nuthouses.

So I called her early this morning and canceled my appointment, but I told her I was canceling because I was feeling very pressured, and I just needed some space. That I was willing to talk about it, so could she please call me back, but in this moment I just needed to cancel so I could feel like I can control something.

During my morning journal writing I could just connect all the dots of how this resonates with such old stuff- just being in another situation where it feels like a battle of wills, and I can't win. Just like my relationship with Molly- you may have noticed, I don't talk about her anymore. That's because I just stopped calling her or talking to her. I just felt like she was trying to control me everytime I visited. Either trying to make me decide when I would come and visit next time, or trying to convince me to sleep over, or trying to convince me to work for her for five dollars and hour, or whatever. I just didn't know how to deal with it anymore, so I stopped returning her calls and stopped visiting. The sad part is that I really miss her daughter Erin, who I had a great relationship with.

Also with Simon. I always feel like he is trying to control me- and the truth is he probably is. If he hasn't heard from me in a while, and I call him, the first thing he says is not, "Hey, it's so good to hear your voice!" Instead, it's something like, "You disappeared. I haven't heard from you in such a long time. I was worried about you. You keep doing that, and I don't know what happens to you..." blah blah blah. Never mind that at any time he could have called to check in on me... right away, I am wrong, and in a position where I have to explain myself.

I was just starting to feel like my therapist is another person that I have to justify myself to, and I don't need that.

Of course there are plenty of other areas of my life where I feel this struggle with control: still, with Alphie and Grace, wanting to be "right" and wanting them to act a certain way; in my relationship with M- feeling a loss of control as he pulled away, and having the desire to have some sort of control- even if it's just knowing what he's doing by looking online; with Gail, and having to defend and justify my behavior; and so many other places.

Having such deep insecurity, that I do everything in my power to try to control the situation so I will not be abandoned in relationships. Whether it's carefully monitoring the feelings of my partner and anticipating what needs to be done or said to make him feel good... or doing whatever I need to do to be "good"- and remind him of that- it's all old patterns and it's exhausting, indeed.

I did speak on the phone with my therapist and it was a pretty good conversation.... I can see a lot of this happening so I have an awareness of it, but it's not like I can stop it. My therapist said this is the gift of weekly therapy, that these issues of transference come up, and this was a good and important thing. She assured me that she wasn't trying to get me into weekly therapy at the expense of putting me in the poorhouse. We talked about how in actuality I could do anything I wanted, and it was just the illusion that I was buying into, the on-guard feeling of needing to defend myself, that was creating all these feelings for me. She told me that truthfully she couldn't make me do anything, and she also said that she thought it would be great for me to come in tomorrow because it would be an opportunity to work with all these feelings, but if I didn't want to, I could make an appointment for next week and then we could perhaps make a schedule for every other week.

As soon as she said that, I felt the whole front of my body relax.... and I said I did want to come in tomorrow... because I am going to my training next week... but also because I DO see the value in everything that is happening here, and that this is indeed another thing that permeates so much of my life... it relates to abandonment in that I am trying to control my environment and the people in it to make me safe... I tense up against every perceived threat, and then I'm no longer even breathing or open or strong, I'm just tense and defensive and how can I create anything or be strong or brilliant from that place? So it is worth exploring.

Even though it is tiring, and makes me cry, because it's very sad to have a life where one is constantly on the defensive, and perceiving a threat in just about every situation.

Dammit.

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